New Theme!
Yeah, I really need to stop these long breaks in between updates. It’s not like nothing has happened. On the contrary, I’ve been rather busy and here’s the proof.
May 16: One of the worst days ever. A nasty hail storm passed through while I was at work. My car got beat up rather badly. My front windshield was cracked in pieces, but still together. I tried to call some shops that night, but being Sunday they were all closed. However, I did manage to set an appointment with a national chain for Friday that week in Enid (a two hour drive). I took it. On the next I called around to find something closer, but everyone was already booked up for two to three weeks.
May 21: I took a road trip to Enid with my parents to get my car window replaced as no place in Oklahoma City could fix it earlier. There really wasn’t anything neat in Enid that we saw…
May 23: I went to the Kabaret Falschtanz MAY Show at Maker’s. It was a wonderful mix of sexy burlesque and comedy. I volunteered myself in the game, which I lost. I really don’t care much for bananas. What happens at Makers, stays at Makers. ;)
May 30: I attended the Paseo Arts Festival, taking pictures for Uncovering Oklahoma.
June 3: Filmed some Thursday’s Don’t Suck shows at the 51st Speakeasy for a segment for Uncovering Oklahoma.
June 5: Took some maternity photos of Sasha. Afterwards we ate at 105DEGREES. 105DEGREES is a really nice raw foods restaurant. After taking Sasha home, I went to work.
June 10: Filmed some more Thursday’s Don’t Suck shows and some interviews at the 51st Speakeasy for a segment for Uncovering Oklahoma.
June 12: I saw [Title of Show] at the Ghostlight Theatre Club. It was great. I actually ran into some friends that were there to see it a second time.
June 17: I went to a show and after the show I got a date with one of people there.
June 22: With Sasha out on maternity leave, I’m having my friend Jessica fill in. She did her first interview at Michael Murphy’s Dueling Piano Bar.
June 23: After work, I had a meeting with Lynna of Kabaret Falschtanz to discuss my segment on the Kabaret Falschtanz Maker’s Show for Uncovering Oklahoma.
June 25: After work, Jessica and I went back to Michael Murphy’s and recorded some b-roll footage and some quick interviews.
June 26: After work, I went to OKC Improv and filmed the shows that night.
June 27: At midnight, I get a text message from my boss Jennifer saying that Sandy cannot make it to work that day. I ended up going to work. At work the generator chuck stopped working, so I spent my entire shift fixing it. There was a store meeting that night, but I only stayed for an hour because I had to pick up Jessica and go film our interview on the Kabaret Falschtanz Maker’s Show.
So, for the past three days it was go to my day job and then head out to film. Crazy!
July 1: Went out on a date. That’s all I’m going to tell you.
July 3: Went to OKC Improv and filmed Comedian Brad Porter, Everybody and Their Dog, and Twinprov: Rap-City.
Those are the highlights. In between I’ve been uploading OKC Improv shows, working, and updating Uncovering Oklahoma. The hail dents on my car have faded significantly. I’m going to finish a segment for Uncovering Oklahoma and actually approach a business on the subject of sponsorship!!!
I believe that’s all for now.
Read MoreTwinprov Presents Iron Man 2 Rap
Presenting: The Twinprov Iron Man 2 rap video which I filmed and edited.
Check it out!
Read MoreNew Ventures
It’s time to play catch up again!
The first half of April involved me preparing for the One Year of Uncovering Oklahoma Party. Back on April 15, 2009 was the first day Ali and I filmed for my travel series, Uncovering Oklahoma. On April 15, 2010 we hosted a party at Put A Cork In It (where we did our first interview). Everyone that showed had a great a time. However, I was really disappointed and hurt that more people didn’t show up.
On almost every Saturday evening in April (plus May 1) I recorded the performances at OKC Improv.
April 6: Released the interview with Villain: The Musicial. Included in the interview is a full scene from their show. Watch the video, if you know what’s good for you.
April 7: Release the interview with The Ones Your Mother Warned You About. The Ones is created by and starring Cristela Carrizales, Buck Vrazel, Clint Vrazel, and Raychel Winstead. Included in the interview is a full scene from their April 3 show.
April 15: The One Year of Uncovering Oklahoma Party. Check out the photos on Facebook.
April 16: My 26th Birthday! I watched the movie, Kick-Ass, while eating nachos for breakfast. I grabbed some food from Sonic afterwards for lunch. I had dinner with my parents at an Indian buffet. I took it pretty easy that day after being so busy from the party yesterday.
April 18: I interview Everybody And Their Dog after performing a show at OKC Improv. Included with the interview is a clip from their show on April 3.
April 20: Uncovering Oklahoma’s interview the all female improv troupe, the MiDolls, is released! The MiDolls explain what they’re all about and show a clip from their trailer trash show.
April 21: With my friend, Anthony, and his girlfriend, we went to the Arts Festival in Downtown Oklahoma City. There’s not much to talk about. I painted a small clay pot, which I gave as a gift for a friend. I didn’t take pictures here. I just went to have fun and we did have a good time.
April 25: I went to the Norman Music Festival. I met up with Whitney and Christy there. Ali soon joined us. I was there too long. Anthony showed up too and he took a few pictures of me there. I went home to do some work for Uncovering Oklahoma.
April 26: I release the OKC Improv interview thus the start of Comedy Around OKC episode. This video is special for several reasons. It features the brand new title credit sequence. The video has a slightly different style to it where the producers from OKC Improv introduce Uncovering Oklahoma and then it cuts to the title credits. The whole video itself is great because I went to OKC Improv several nights to record various shows for them and I ended up using footage from every show, so the whole piece is just impressive.
April 28: I published an article on Mother’s Day gift ideas for Uncovering Oklahoma here. I’m rather proud of it.
May 1: The Last OKC Improv Show for the season. Following the show, there was an after party, which I attended. Fun was obtained. I gave everyone there a DVD copy of the MiDoll’s first two shows as a party present.
May 4: My, what a horrible, horrible day. I woke up at about 2 am with a sudden urge to puke, which I did. I went back to bed, trying to rest but about 30 minutes later I threw up again. I tried to rest again, but I starting puking again and it started to come out the other end. At this point I figured I must be sick with food poisoning. I sent a text message to my boss letting her know that I would not be coming into work that day. Throughout that whole day I was throwing up every 30 minutes to an hour until about 4 pm. The only thing I managed to eat was a few crackers that my Dad brought over. I haven’t had food poisoning before. (At least in my adult life. I don’t know as a kid.) This experience left me weak for several days.
May 6: I filmed Twiprov perform their Iron Man 2 rap as party of a pre-show act for the midnight showing of Iron Man 2 at Harkins Theater. On May 11 Clint and Buck came to my place and help edited it. I did some editing on Sunday and Monday before hand. The video should be done and released on May 13, depending on the weather.
May 8: I went to the Carnality Ball’s fourth annual celebration, Pandora’s Box. I’ve never been to a Carnality Ball before. Even though I wondered around by myself, I had a good time. I ran into several friends there. I took a ton of pictures, which you can see some of them here on Facebook. I tend to feel uncomfortable May 8 was also Ali’s birthday. I had dinner with him and his friends up in Norman. We all did go to the Carnality Ball together, but they didn’t say too long as the group he was with didn’t feel comfortable there.
May 10: I hid in Penn Square Mall’s hallway from the storm while at work. Crazy day there though thankful everything turned out okay with no damage.
Well, that’s a rap! Okay, not a rap song per say, but the next post will be!
Read MoreOn the road
Let’s review this month this, shall we? I have lots to talk about, so I’ll will hit the high points.
Thursday, March 4: I saw and video tapped The Doppelgangstas: Live in Concert as part of Thursdays Don’t Suck at the 51st Street Speakeasy in Oklahoma City, which wasn’t too far from where I live. The comedians were great.
Saturday, March 6: Sasha and I travelled to Sand Springs to visit Earth and Soul, the longest distance we’ve travelled to interview a business. Sasha interviewed owner of the shop, Rhonda Selig, and famous dream and tarot reader, Barbara Clark, for the seventh episode of Uncovering Oklahoma, Mystical Journeys.
Friday, March 19: I attended StorySLAM at the Istvan Gallery. Basically, people get up and tell stories shorter than seven minutes. The theme for March was travels on the open road. It was my first StorySLAM and I had preprepared a fictional story for the night. The crowd was much older than I expected, so I felt a bit odd being there, though some younger people did show up. I went by myself. I thought Eric Webb would be joining me there at least, but he had work. I really need to give my friend’s more notice about things I’m doing so they have a better chance of actually coming with me… Anyway, I told a story. I was worried about keeping it under seven minutes that I cut it too much, but I got a few laughs out of people. Only myself and one other person told a fictional story. Everyone else’s story had happened to them. They were all pretty funny and of course the funniest story won. There was about a dozen readers.
Tuesday, March 23: The Mystical Journeys segment on Earth and Soul was released. Read the blog post on that over at Uncovering Oklahoma for details about the place and our video interview.
I also had two business meetings that day as well. The first one was at Put A Cork In It. I met with their event coordinator and discussed plans to host a party for Uncovering Oklahoma’s One Year of Filming. I set the date and time for the event! Currently, we’re working on a press release and I will announce the event soon.
The second meeting was with a friend trying to put together a block of shows to air on TV. Uncovering Oklahoma will be part of that the line-up! We’ve talked about the idea in the past (it was one of the motivating factors to form the LLC), but this meeting we discussed matters face to face. However, us airing on TV won’t come to fruit for about two to three months, so I won’t go into details of the meeting. Sasha, Ali, and I are all excited at the prospect of being able to do this show for a living.
Thursday, March 25: After work, I went to the Oklahoma City Museum Of Art for their Last Thursdays of the month $5 after 5 deal. I saw Jason Peters’s Anti.Gravity.Material.Light. That display was wicked! It was my first time at the museum too. I really enjoyed Dale Chihuly: The Collection up on the third floor. It was a collection of glass art that was by far the most impressive art collection I personally saw at any art gallery. I snapped some pictures with my cellphone and sent them to friends. I was hoping that Ali and Whitney would be able to join me, but they had family matters to deal with. I’m glad I went though. I will try again to get a group to go for the next Thursday event in April.
Friday, March 26: I sent Ali and Sasha the spring itinerary for the series. I had started work on this outline back on 23rd. Some of our plans include a Route 66 road trip, free fitness training spots, organic eating, and awesome things you can learn.
Saturday, March 27: For Uncovering Oklahoma, I went with INsight Paranormal Investigations to Yukon for a ghost hunting session. My group personally didn’t see anything exciting, but the other groups saw odd lights and shadows moving around. If hunting for ghosts sounds like fun, they will be holding future investigations so check out the Stage Fright page for details.
Today: Well, as for today, I cleaned up my apartment (not completely). I had lunch outdoors with a cute and interesting girl and we walked around Bricktown. I bought some food, watched an old Doctor Who movie, watched Chuck and Castle on TV, and did some stuff for Uncovering Oklahoma. I’m wrapping up the night by writing this blog post. As you can see from this list, I’ve had a bunch of adventures to talk about. It feels to good to get them all written out.
The future: This week Uncovering Oklahoma will interview OKC Improv for the upcoming episode, Laughs around the City. (Yes, we will be airing segments from two different episodes at the same time.) We’ll also be doing an interview with the Allied Arts on the City Pass Card. Doctor Who returns Saturday!
Oh! April 16th is my Birthday! I want it to totally Kick-Ass, so here’s my tentative plan for it.
Start out with a kick-ass breakfast
Watch Kick-Ass in theatre
Have a Kick-Ass lunch (hopefully free)
Open some Kick-Ass presents
Have a Kick-Ass dinner (hopefully paid for as well)
Watch some Kick-Ass comedy at OKC Improv
Go to a Kick-Ass club with friends
Get laid
My Norman Business Trip and Collected Thread
On Tuesday I took my first real business trip. I went down to Norman to take pictures of some past places we had covered for Uncovering Oklahoma and researched new ones.
I first visited the Candy Basket (featured in Episode 4). There I took pictures of the store for the site as I plan to update the older episodes to match the style of our sixth episode. I also got two items to feature for an upcoming Something Sundays’ feature.
After the Candy Basket, and after when I get my GPS to turn on, I drove to Cookies and Cards (featured in Episode 4). On the way, I saw a Scrapbooking store, so I dropped inside real quick to see if they had anything cool I could use for the Uncovering Oklahoma scrapbooks I’m working on. I got a few ideas, but I didn’t buy anything. Anyway, at Cookies and Cards, I took pictures. Nancy personally wasn’t there, but I left a message for her. The person there told me that they will be remodeling the place in the summer to add a coffee bar. I didn’t find anything neat there to share for Something Sundays.
After Cookies and Cards, it was off to somewhere new! The episode we’re working on now is dedicated to the mystic and metaphysical. I visited Raven’s Feathers in the downtown area. It was a nice, small shop. I browsed around, glancing through their books, status, oils, and other items, gathered some information, spoke with the owner for a bit (who was nice), and left.
Next on the list: Main Site Gallery as we’re also working on an art gallery episode. They were closed, so I went to the Firehouse Art Center. It featured one room, yes just one room, of art. Although there were pieces for sell in the gift shop and artwork outside, the place wasn’t very large. However, apparently their main feature is the frequent art class they host. I dropped off small donation while I spoke to the lady at the guest desk as she told me about the place. She informed me of another place, Circle of Fire, which features glass blown items. She gave me a Norman guide with their address.
Now, I want to take a moment to bitch about this Norman city guide. The address listed for Circle of Fire didn’t list if it was on EAST Main or WEST Main because there were two places with the same number on Main Street. I also noticed several other places didn’t list directional information either. Okay, enough of that subject. After I finally got to the correct address, it turned out they were closed that day. I later paid a visit to their web site and found out more about them. They do teach classes. I plan to visit with them in the future.
At this point, most businesses in Norman were closing, so I met up with Ali and Whitney for dinner. We went to some place, I can’t remember what it was called, but I had the salmon and it was great. Ali told me he was taking Whitney to this belly dancing class after dinner. I came up with this idea for an episode: Learning something new in Norman without going to OU. I could cover the belly dancing class, the Firehouse Art Center, and the class blowing place.
Finally, after dinner, I went back to my place and edited the segment on Collected Thread, which is now online. I’ve attached it below.
Well, there you go for now. Some new places and new things I’ve tried. Now, it’s time for me to eat dinner. I baked pizza tonight. I used honey this time in the dough. It does make it a bit sweeter.
Read MoreThe LLC Formation
“Today is the day,” I updated my Facebook status with this morning. It was this post in which I collected the following comment from Colin Powers, “Pancakes? It’s always a good day for pancakes.”
No, it wasn’t my day for pancakes. Today was the day I set up Uncovering Oklahoma as a Limited Liability Company. I now legally, officially own my own business. It grants me the power to write off expenses for taxes, get paid to do the show, and have a new pick-up line.
Never having set up an LLC before, I asked Doug (my lab manger) for help. This morning I went to his house at a little after eight in the morning. (It would’ve been there sooner, but I wanted to make a Metric mix CD for my car.) I picked him up and we went to the Oklahoma State capital, which was my first visit there. We went inside to the Secretary of State’s office. Filling out the paper work was pretty simple and the office wasn’t busy. I opted for the same day service, an extra $25, so I got my LLC certificate in like half an hour, instead of three to five business days. I was a bit disappointed that the document didn’t have a fancy appearance. It had more of a photocopied look, but hey, it’s what the certificate does that’s important.
After I received my paperwork, I dropped Doug off at his house and then I ventured to Target where I bought a fancy frame for my LLC and two scrapbooks as I’m going to start scrap booking Uncovering Oklahoma. I had a new friend, Eric Webb, visit me later in the evening and I had him take pictures of me with my new LCC certificate.
Of course, that wasn’t all I did today. After Target, I went to Hobby Lobby so see if I could some some stuff for my scrapbooks; didn’t find anything I liked. I went to Cort where I bought myself a nice, black dinning room table set for about $400 thus finally completing my furniture needs. I have been working a ton of overtime and hours in general at my job, so I had the extra cash. I did a bit of scarpbooking, watched a bit of Human Target, put together my table, and hung out with Eric. Now, I’m posting this update. Then I’m going to bed where I will sleep. I will wake up and do stuff…
Anyway, Uncovering Oklahoma is now an LLC and I officially own my own business. Next phase: profit!
Read More