Good Night

I may or may not have appeared on NBC's Late Night with Jimmy Fallon last night.


It was actually a lot of fun, even if I had to go all by myself. The lead guest was Matt Lauer so I hung out with him at the Today Show yesterday morning and then I hung out with him on Late Night. Let's just say we're calling yesterday Jake and Matt's Day O' Fun.

The other guests were Mary McCormack (from the West Wing - my all-time favorite TV show), Dana White (the President of the Ultimate Fighting Championship) and musical guest Iron and Wine. Dana White was on the show promoting his new video game that arrived in stores yesterday and so he gave everyone in the audience a free copy of the game. It's a good thing I own some sort of gaming system and I play it nonstop...oh wait.

The greatest part is that I was put in a section of seats where I got to go down on stage when Iron and Wine played and stand behind the band. It was definitely neato.

Good Morning

I may or may not have appeared on NBC's Today Show this morning.


Just in case you were wondering.

I Got the Sun in the Morning

Taking stock of what I have and what I haven't...

I may not have:

• Much money
• A job
• A clue about what I'm doing in New York

But I do have:

• A light rain
• A nice jog through Central Park

And today, that's all I need.

Don't worry, it didn't snow overnight. I just felt like this post needed a picture and sadly, this is the most recent picture I've taken of Central Park (February 2008). Just imagine it with a lot less white and a lot more green.

Harrelson: I mistook photographer for zombie

Okay, I don't normally venture into the world of commenting on entertainment news (in fact, I usually don't even follow it) but I was on CNN.com yesterday and something in the sidebar caught my eye and I just had to click on it:

Woody Harrelson claims he mistook photographer for zombie


You can read the full article about Harrelson attacking a photographer at a New York airport by clicking on the link above, but the best part of the story is the statement from Harrelson:

"I wrapped a movie called 'Zombieland,' in which I was constantly under assault by zombies, then flew to New York, still very much in character," Harrelson said in a statement issued Friday by his publicist. "With my daughter at the airport I was startled by a paparazzo, who I quite understandably mistook for a zombie," he said.

So many comments could be made at this point.

I'm glad he didn't make up some crazy excuse like "I was protecting my daughter" or "he caught me by surprise and I behaved inappropriately as a result." Instead, he did the best thing he could and he used the universal fear of zombies to get the media and the American public on his side.

Give that publicist a raise Woody!

Of course my roommate Zach had the reaction the majority of people probably will have upon reading this. He asked questions such as: Is Woody Harrelson even making movies anymore? Why would any photographer care what Woody Harrelson was doing anyway? Was it just a really slow news day?

Good point Zach. Good point.

An interesting side note to this whole story is Harrelson is already being sued for attacking another photographer outside of a nightclub in June of 2006. You can read all the details about that incident here. The clash took place soon after A Prairie Home Companion came out in theaters so I wonder if he used the “I was still in character” defense then. Of course he was also in the process of filming No Country for Old Men at the time, so maybe he just mistook the photographer for Tommy Lee Jones.

And that's an argument that would win over any jury.

Anyone Want to Join Me?

Since high school I have wanted to get a group of friends together, choreograph and learn a dance, and go to a public place and perform a seemingly spontaneous dance number.

I have yet to fulfill this dream, so in the meantime I just watch videos of other people doing it and I smile.

Elephants on Parade

Last night I stood in front of the Empire State Building and watched ten circus elephants march down the middle of East 34th Street. I know you're expecting the next line to be "and then I woke up" but this was no dream my friends.

The event is usually referred to as the Midnight Elephant Walk. Every year when the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus comes to NYC, their mile long train can’t get to Manhattan so they park the train off the island and march the elephants and horses through the Queens-Midtown Tunnel. The animals and their handlers parade down 34th Street, across the island to Madison Square Garden where the circus is held. They do this around midnight so they don't disrupt traffic too much when they block of the street.

I actually didn’t even know about the event until 11:00 pm last night when I was at a friend’s house and someone mentioned it. No one else wanted to go because it was late and everyone had to get up early to go to work. Being unemployed I didn’t have any problem staying up late so I headed downtown armed with a scarf and my camera.

My camera isn’t the best for taking pictures at night so this is the best picture I came away with. The elephants lumbered by holding each other’s tails in their trunks like a line of kindergarten kids holding hands on their way to lunch.




The event tends to attract a lot of animal rights activists and others protesting the treatment of the elephants and other circus animals so seeing those crowds out in full force was exciting. I’m not going to wade into the pool of controversy surrounding elephants and the circus and I’ll leave the moral questions involved to those who are more educated on the issue.

I also tried to get a good video of the event but again my camera didn’t do very well so my thanks to “BRADbury creme egg” for posting this video on MySpace.

2009 NYC Barnum & Bailey Elephant Walk

In My Own Backyard

Yesterday while enjoying the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, Zach and I noticed a laminated paper posted to a street sign saying the block would be closed down to parked cars on Wednesday, March 18 for the filming of “Did You Hear About the Morgans?”

After doing a little research, we discovered it is a romantic comedy scheduled to come out later this year starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Hugh Grant and Elisabeth Moss. According to IMDB, the movie is about “an estranged New York City couple who witness a murder and are relocated to small-town Wyoming as part of a witness-protection program.”

With a movie that has blockbuster written all over it like that, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to wander through the set this afternoon.

Five or six times.

Sadly we did not catch a glimpse of any of the big name stars, but we did see all of the extras hanging around on a street corner all dressed up waiting for something to happen. Some people wandering by on the street would stop and take pictures of the set and the extras lined up outside would smile and pose for the pictures. No one had the heart to tell them they were just taking pictures of the set, not the random/unknown extras. Oh well.

Also, on our way to the set, we unknowingly wandered past the Lenox Hill Hospital where actress Natasha Richardson is on life support after a skiing accident earlier this week in Quebec. She’s a British actress, the wife of Liam Neeson and the daughter of Vanessa Redgrave. There were cameras and reporters lined up and down the block.

It’s crazy what you find in this city when you just take a walk down the street.