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Rocco and I are in Toronto shooting another round of commercials for BrightHouse Networks. We had done the first round in March. Tonight, we walked along College St. and had pizza at Vivoli’s, which was good.

Speaking of pizza, 37 signals has a great post about Domenico DeMarco, who’s made pretty much every pizza in his restaurant by hand for the past 40 years. Ptolemy introduced this place to me. It’s way out in Brooklyn — you have to take the subway to a bus to get there — and once you’re there, you wait an hour at least for this amazingly slow-moving man to make your pizza. But the whole time you’re watching him do it, you wonder [...]

4 Comments | Tags: acting, brian, di fara, kevin, pat burns, pizza, ptolemy, rocco, toronto, useless

I forgot to post this weeks ago. On our last night in Orlando, Andy and I and the director and his wife and some folks stopped by The Red Fox Lounge (in the back of a Mount Vernon Inn) to see Mark and Lorna — a husband-and-wife lounge act that may or may not be the inspiration for the Will Ferrel / Ana Gasteyer sketch. Well, they introduce themselves that way and I believe it.

[youtube Xye0caa1Rb8 Mark and Lorna]

Except the sketch does not come close to capturing how weirdly awesome going to see them live is. I guess it’s campy, but it’s also just plain fun. You amble through a hotel to the back, and they’re singing to a room [...]

0 Comments | Tags: mark and lorna, orlando, rocco

Rocco and I are in Orlando airport. Airports feel like the future, but the future that they imagined sometime around 1975. Above is a screenshot from the 1976 sc-fi movie Logan’s Run. Doesn’t it look like an airport? You see what I’m getting at here.

2 Comments | Tags: airports, future, logan's run, rocco, sci-fi

Lots of my friends shoot commercials. None of them put photos of it on their blogs. Why is that? Isn’t a blog where you’re supposed to put self-indulgent things like pictures of things you did? Here are some quickly-taken pictures of Rocco and I on the set for a commercial shoot we finished today.

We had a really good time. The director Tom Schiller was very fun. The whole crew was a good-natured, well-organized group and we enjoyed it. I should have better stories.

2 Comments | Tags: acting, match-up, orlando, rocco

Rocco and I are in Orlando. Shooting day 1 of 3 is tomorrow. We’re doing a series of spots for a phone/cable/internet company in Florida. Besides the fun of being flown down here for a commercial is that our director for these spots is Tom Schiller, who directed many of the early SNL shorts, including the famous John Belushi one “Don’t Look Back In Anger” (where Belushi is an old man dancing on the graves of the other cast members). That’s fun.  The spots are vaguely inspired by Mythbusters — except instead of a guy in a beret and a guy with a red goatee it’s me and Rocco, both in similar glasses. And we’re testing phone networks.

6 Comments | Tags: commercials, famous, rocco

I booked a commercial along with monkey-friend Andy Rocco, so early Monday morning we will be flying down to Florida for three days of shooting. Famous, right Brian? This is the second time I’ve been flown somewhere. The first time was in 2000 when I was flown on a shuttle to Boston for a workshop in a Java enterprise solution which I never used. Anyway, I feel like a big shot.

In packing, I see that I am too attached to electronics. In my suitcase I have: a laptop, a still camera, digital camera, ipod and battery charger. Also a pair of pants and a single dress shirt.

Other news: I picked UConn’s basketball team to win the entire March Madness [...]

4 Comments | Tags: electronics, famous, monkeydick, rocco