2 Dollar Productions

After a few shirtless poses inside a downtown Dallas hotel room this past weekend, I am now one step closer to New York City - If I want it bad enough.

The meeting took place on the 5th floor of Hyatt Reunion Hotel, and I was examined like a piece of meat (although I've never felt this was a bad thing as I happen to treat my own meat very well).

This was no mere metaphor as the agent used some of the same terms to describe me as he did his ribeye steak at our dinner following the meeting.

Back - "Looks great. Perfect."

Legs - "Fine. Nobody pays for those anyway."

Chest - "Looks good. But needs to be a little bigger and heartier."




Arms - "Same as chest. Bring out the veins and tendons more. A bit tender."

Abs - "Tight, but need to bring out the obliques."

The verdict was that I was close to earning an all expenses paid trip to New York, but I needed to finish "hardening out" first.

He explained that I had to "perfect" when I hit New York because my week will be spent going to casting calls, taking acting lessons, going to the offices of "Men's Health" and "Men's Fitness" and meeting all sorts of key players in the industry.

Commercials is where the real money lies, and luckily he said I had a very "commercial" look and so that made me happy as you get paid every time an ad airs anywhere in the world.

Easy money, eh?

Well there's no such thing as truly easy money because to get as hard as he wants, I will have to lead the life of a monk for awhile (if said monk were to lift weights everyday & still swear & view the occasional risque video).

The agent is supposed to get in touch my nutritionist this week, and then I should have a concrete plan by Friday of just how hellish this transformation will be.

At that point, I will decide if the reward is worth the work as it will undoubtably strain my relationship with my signficant other, cause my social life to suffer and place strict demands on my schedule.

But there's also the money to consider as the agent told me that he's got a guy who has booked $25K a month for the past 3 months and he said I've got a "prettier face - no offense."

"None taken," I replied. "I'd rather be called a pretty boy than an ugly bastard any day of the week."



So, big decisions will need to be made after this week, but for now, I plan to fill myself up with barbeque and Tex-Mex and drink some Negro Modelos.

And I'm really gonna miss those things if I have to give them up.

-BDS

A court has ruled that R. Kelly's sex tape can be viewed by the public, which most likely means that it will also be splashed across the Internet faster than you can say "what a moron."



Judge Vincent Gaughan said there was no "overarching interest" in banning the videotape - which shows the singer allegedly having sex with an underage girl - from being shown to the media and public in his child pornography court case.

Kelly has pleaded not guilty to 14 counts of child pornography stemming from his alleged encounter with a 13-year-old girl.

Rumors have abounded that Kelly tape includes sex and urination, which led to a pretty funny skit on the now-cancelled "Dave Chappelle Show."



Ignoring the legal and moral issues at stake here (of which there are quite a few and they are just wrong), my main question is this: If you're going to have sex with an underage girl, then why in the world would you tape it?

Everyone knows that sex tapes ALWAYS are discovered and dispersed and anyone stupid enough to record themselves committing illegal activities deserves whatever punishment comes to them.

At least that's my opinion.

-BDS

"I got a cock like a donkey, hard as a rock," Bob Saget, "Rolling With Saget."



If anyone was led to believe Bob Saget was the blandest man alive after his back-to-back hit TV shows, "Full House" and "America's Funniest Home Videos," they could easily be excused.

Those programs were the definition of mediocrity and Saget was the wholesome, lily-white anchor who held held John Stamos' mullet in check and later allowed a mass audience to laugh as parents were hit repeatedly in the crotch by little children as the home video cameras rolled.

But lately, Saget has revealed himself to be foul-mouthed and dirty.

The first sign came when popped up several years ago in "Half-Baked" and proclaimed "I used to suck dick for coke."

That was fairly dirty, but then he went on an even longer and filthier rant in last year's "The Aristocrats."

And now he's really coming full circle in his upcoming rap collaboration with Jamie Kennedy titled "Rolling with Saget," which features lyrics referring to Saget's sizable manhood.

This whole Saget saga actually gives him an edge that I respect more than in his "Full House" glory days, but at the same time, any world that lets Bob Saget get rich from crap television shows AND have a huge dick is one where I don't wish to reside.

I guess life really is unfair.

-BDS

After last week's mini-debate on the merits of two dueling pics, I came across a new pair to face-off while recently cruising the Internet.




This one is no contest for me since I generally loathe Papa Joe Simpson.

I feel sorry for the poor bastard who's building is burning AND who will think twice about sleeping naked again.

Not only will he lose his possesions, but he'll also lose some dignity as a crowd of gawkers will watch him descend the stairs without pants. It's like that "Seinfeld" episode where they discuss "good" and "bad" naked - and this shot easily falls in the latter category.

As for Simpson, the guy is a sleazy pimp who has made far too many remarks about his daughter's chest and her looks for my taste.

The picture was from the recent MTV movie awards, and that outfit is just pathetic as it screams "I'm trying to be good and hip and with it despite my advanced age."

His ensemble might be appropriate for a teenager watching MTV, but on Papa Joe, it just solidifies his soiled sensabilities in my mind and wins him the award for the worst picture in this duel.

-BDS

It's been nearly 5 weeks since I began my horrific diet, but the end is finally in sight.

This Friday I am due at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Dallas to show a NYC modeling agent exactly what changes I've made to my body since our last meeting in the early spring.



He wanted an additional 10 lbs. of muscle (which is impossible in less than 4 months without steroids), and I've only got 5-6 lbs. to give him as my low-fat, no-taste diet has stripped away part of my weight gain along with the fat.

If I had any energy I would jump for joy at the prospect of this ordeal being finished, but I'm also starting to realize that the results aren't worth the process that got me to this point.

My life has essentially been put on hold for the past month as I've turned down party invitations (can't drink alcohol or eat the party snacks), avoided eating out (why pay money for plain chicken breasts with brown rice), plotted my days around my food intake (a meal every 3 hours) and to top things off my sex drive could accurately be compared to a 3-toed sloth on tranquilizers.



Is this any way to live?

I tend to doubt it, but it's too late to change at this point in the cycle, so I'll end this now because I've got some tuna and rice to choke down.

It's a sad commentary on life when you stop dreaming about sex and start dreaming about food.

-BDS

I went to see the “The Break-Up” yesterday, and felt I should offer a few thoughts on the movie as a general public service announcement or simply a mini-review.



1) Romantic comedies live or die with how greatly they can engage the audience into pulling for them to overcome whatever hardships the script thrusts at them. Unfortunately, I was as ambivalent about their relationship as Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston’s characters were in the film.
2) Any movie that allows Vaughn to riff and improvise his dialogue is bound to have funny moments, and there are several laughs amidst the yelling and screaming about breaking up.
3) The Aniston nude scene was a cop-out as she is fuzzed-out onscreen for no good reason as she strolls past Vaughn while trying to make him jealous.
4) If you’re comparing the Vaughn-Aniston chemistry to Brad Pitt and Angela Jolie in “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” the new parents win in a route as they appeared ready to tear each other’s clothes off while Vince and Jen generate only casual chemistry.
5) It made me feel old to see Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn shares scenes (despite their hilarious chemistry) because both actors have added so much weight and mileage since their debut in “Swingers” where they played a couple of lean, hungry guys on the prowl. Now, they are hungry no more.



Final Verdict: A decent date flick that is better than your average romantic comedy, but is still only worth a matinee or a rental.

-BDS

I stumbled across these two pictures while surfing the Internet, and both disturbed me for different reasons.





After my initial laughter subsided, however, I started debating about which one was worse. Or rather which picture felt the most wrong or disturbing in the eyes of myself and of society at large.

The knee-jerk answer would be the kid in the t-shirt because there is something inherently misguided about someone this young offering up this kind of suggestion and punctuating it with the word fuck.

But then again, he’s also young enough to where this wouldn’t scar him for life, and his friends at school would get a good laugh out of the shirt before the principle hustled him out the door and suspended him.

Bruce Willis does not have youth to scapegoat for his ridiculous outfit.

Willis has been walking the Earth for more than 50 years, and at no point during that time would this suit have ever been reasonable outside of a Dr. Seuss book.

He looks like a smirking stop light, although he is rumored to be dating the model standing next to him and she doesn’t seem to mind that she’s draping herself around a human barber pole.

So, I guess in the end, the kid probably wins this face-off for the more disturbing image.

At least that’s my opinion, but I could always be convinced otherwise.

-BDS

In the category of easy targets, a few recent stories made me laugh as Star Jones, Paris Hilton and Ben Affleck formed an unholy trinity this past weekend.

Affleck was rushed to the ER with a migraine on the set of his directorial debut, "Gone, Baby, Gone," which is being shot in Massachusetts.



Although I generally like Affleck as a person thanks to his self-deprecating humor, his movie choices such as "Paycheck" (the title says it all), "Surviving Christmas" (just barely) and "Gigli" (as horrible and unintentionally funny as you could imagine) have undermined his career to such an extent that I'm not sure he'll ever fully recover.

Maybe he should cut an album, which is what Paris Hilton is doing as she plans to launch her music career with the single "Stars Are Blind."



She describes the album as universal in its appeal as she stated "I want to have something for everybody."

Hilton neglected to mention if she meant something for everybody to laugh at, and what boggles my mind is that a blue-eyed, blonde-haired girl from Beverly Hills is releasing an album that I saw described as a mix strongly featuring reggae and hip-hop music.

That's keeping it real in a style you know is authentic.

Finally, one celebrity (and I use that term loosely) who's keeping it real - real nasty - is Star Jones as this picture appears to be a microcosm of her marriage.



Her husband, Al Reynolds, looks severely uncomfortable in this position, although it's hard to tell if his displeasure stems merely from Star's attention or from the fact that she might be crushing his thighbone with her pelvic gyrations.

These stories were the equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel, but they still served to make me laugh which is a good thing when you're buried in work from your long holiday weekend.

-BDS

As if returning to work after a long weekend wasn't depressing enough, I sat down at my desk and discovered that actor Paul Gleason had died.

Gleason was 67, and died at a local hospital Saturday of mesothelioma, a rare form of lung cancer linked to asbestos.

Gleason was a phenomenally hilarious character actor, and I still remember the first time I saw him as a high school principal from hell in "The Breakfast Club."



If he would have known what cinematic horrors the cast of that movie would perpetuate on the public over the next decade, I'm sure Gleason would have kept them in detention for the rest of the 80s.



Gleason continued to appear in roles that played to his strengths of being sarcastic and hilarious and quite often a bit of an asshole.

In addition to "The Breakfast Club," some of my other favorites include "Trading Places," "Die Hard" and "Johnny Be Good."

I often miss character actors more than "stars" because I think there is something about the regular guy roles that makes them less removed from the audience.

Actors like Gleason could be your uncle or your friend or some guy off the street who happens to make movies for a living.

Anytime he was onscreen, Gleason could usually be counted on for a laugh and he was always an interesting character who I will miss now that he's gone.

-BDS

Instead of spending this past week revising our scripts for the upcoming Austin Film Festival, my brother and I spent that time meeting with bankers and lawyers and inspectors because we've decided to purchase a 4-story loft in downtown Austin.

This move towards property ownership is a big one, and we've found it to be filled with a plethora of unexpected expenses and time-consuming tasks.

But our bank has agreed to give us money to fund the project, which is nice but also makes me question their sanity because I'm not sure if I would give us that much money.

The place is very sharp and modern and has a huge rooftop deck with hot tub connections. There's also high ceilings and an industrial look that I totally dig.

Here's some pics:










The first picture is from the rooftop deck, and I can't wait to fill the nearly 600 sq feet with bamboo, lounge chairs and a mini-fridge stocked with Negro Modelos and Heineken.

I have a pretty good feeling that this will turn out to be a good investment for us. I have an even better intuition that it will be an exciting and fun place to live.

I'm undecided, however, on how it will affect our script work, but if we can just ride out the next month then it's entirely possible that creativity will flow freely in the belly of the beast.

At least I hope so.

-BDS

I got these pictures sent to me via email, and although I usually just delete forwards, these drawings made me take notice.





Drawing has never been my strong suit despite my delusions of grandeur in grade school when I could create a pretty mean rendering of stick figures and breasts (sometimes combined).

It wasn't until a few years later that I realized that both of these things looked far different in real life than they did when I put them on paper.

But Julian Beever is a real artist.

Beever is an Englishman who's famous for his art on the pavement of England, France, Germany, USA, Australia and Belgium.

I don't know how he gives his drawings such a 3-D illusion, but I do wish I had the same talent back in 5th grade when drawing boobs seemed vitally important.

I bet I would have been more popular too.

-BDS

It's often a strange feeling when you strongly dislike or even outright loathe something for no discernible reason.

In the Adam Sandler/Jack Nicholson vehicle, "Anger Management," John Turturro's character personifies this unreasonable rage when he talks of his anger against some of Alaska's population because he feels that "Eskimos are smug."

Sometimes people or things are easy to hate, and I would lump red lights, soft-core pornography and Dick Cheney into this category.

But other times, the reasoning is murky if nonexistent and yet the anger still flows as freely as sweat on a hooker at Charlie Sheen's house.

So, with that in mind, here's a few things/people that I tend to loathe with only minor justification:

1) Gwyneth Paltrow

2) Mini-vans

3) Tomatoes

4) Croquet

5) Tofu

6) Kenny Chesney

Actually, disliking Chesney is completely justified due to the horrifying extent of his pukka-shell necklace and sleeveless shirt collection.

That's all I can think of for now, but I'm always open for suggestions as this kind of hate is typically a very individualistic emotion.

-BDS

In a bizarre celebrity smackdown, Axl Rose and Tommy Hilfiger recently mixed it up at party for Rosario Dawson in New York.


Rose was performing an acoustic set of songs at the bash, but trouble erupted and strangely enough it was Tommy who was the instigator.

"There was an issue between the two of them," Plumm owner Noel Ashman told The Associated Press.

The scuffle reportedly started after the Guns N' Roses front man moved the drink of Hilfiger's girlfriend, Dee Ocleppo.

"I moved his girlfriend's drink so it wouldn't spill," Rose told the Los Angeles radio station KROQ on Friday. "It was the most surreal thing, I think, that's ever happened to me in my life."

That seems hard to believe, although from all reports of the incident, Hilfiger was as relentless as some of colorful designs.

"He just kept smacking me," Rose said.

Personally, I had no idea that Hilfiger was straight or that he had such untapped fury inside him, but very little damage was done as Rose claimed he "just saw a huge ball of color coming at him from all directions and so I was able to slide out of the way."

At least that's my interpretation, but I think the brawl bodes well for Rose who seems to be returning to his metal roots.


Now if he would just do something about that hair.

-BDS

It's comforting to know that some things never change, and much like the fact that the sun will always rise in the East, Charlie Sheen will remain a filthy pervert until the day he dies.




Now that Charlie's dating again, Page Six reported some of Sheen's sexual vices as told by a girl he supposedly "romanced" from April to May.

The aspiring actress (aren't they all) labeled Sheen "about as sick as they come."

Oh Charlie.

Here's a few of my other favorites:

"We dated for about a month. He's such a [bleep]ing perv. He would ask me to dress up, like, in pigtails and schoolgirl outfits. I don't think he's like a pedophile, but he's definitely into really young girls. You know like 18, 19. I don't doubt that everything his wife is saying now is true."

"He was a big talker, and once I asked him if he was this open with all his girlfriends. He said that he was. He said, 'I like to get to know everyone, even pros.' He calls prostitutes pros...He would take Viagra every time before sex, which is kind of weird."

As the sun goes down in the West, I will certainly sleep better tonight knowing that Charlie Sheen has paid top dollar for a pyramid of naked, nubile and young cheerleaders.



Some things never change and I like it that way.

-BDS

In a disturbing bit of a news from the scientific front, it appears that the course of evolution wasn't a smooth ride as some of our ancient ancestors supposedly engaged in sexual trysts with chimps before ultimately going their separate ways.

Wonderful.



According to the new theory, chimps and humans shared a common apelike ancestor much more recently than was thought. Furthermore, when the two emerging species split from each other, some members of the two groups seem to have interbred about 1.2 million years after they first parted ways following a dispute involving a devious ape by the name of "Curious George."

If this theory proves correct, it will mean modern people are descended from something akin to chimp-human hybrids. If that turns out to be true, then it would challenge the prevailing view that hybrids rarely survive, however, it would explain this:



This new discovery is enough to send anyone running back to creationism because I would rather say that my ultimate ancestor was God rather than a particularly attractive chimp named Horace.

-BDS

I would be perfectly content to live in a world where snakes, sharks and alligators did not exist.


If a plague wiped them of the planet tomorrow, I wouldn't lose a wink of sleep or shed one single tear, and as far as I'm concerned they can take Freddie Prinze Jr. with them.

After last week in Florida, I'm sure many people feel the same way I do about alligators as three women were killed in separate incidents by the eerily intelligent beasts who should only be kept around in wallet, boot or belt form.

Instead, they compete for Florida's prime real estate with senior citizens and the serial perverts who roam South Beach.

"We live in a wildlife state in and among many different species," said Willie Puz, a spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. "Be alert to your surroundings. Any freshwater body in Florida can be home to alligators."

Mr. Puz attributed the recent attacks to factors like warm waters and recent drought-like conditions in the area, and said the attacks were "unfortunate and tragic, unrelated coincidences in three different geographical regions of the state."

That's troubling news to me because it leads to the assumption that the alligators are communicating with one another to deflect suspicion and are possibly using some kind of intricate, underground swamp system to prey on victims.

I hope that's not actually the case, and if police are still searching for some of these marauding, murdering beasts, then I suggest they start with these three candidates who all appear as scaly as they come.





Beware.

-BDS

This picture doesn't bolster Ryan Seacrest's heterosexuality in my book.



When you combine this with his horribly awkward kiss with Teri Hatcher and some of his interviews (the one where he talks about going home every day after school and eating nachos and watching "Oprah" sticks out in my mind) it just seems like a terrible charade that continues to play by insisting that he likes girls.

But I'm not convinced that he does.

I can't imagine it would hurt his career at this point, and he could sign off every "American Idol" with "Seacrest out of the closet."

Just a thought.

-BDS

The next month of my life is going to be pure hell as I started a brutal diet and exercise program that is designed to peak on June 9th or 10th when I meet with a New York modeling agent.

This whole saga has ongoing for almost a year, and stemmed from a photo shoot that I did for a fitness coffee-table book, which is still being shopped to publishers the last time I checked.

If the book ever does get published, my feeling is that it will appeal to a very specialized buying segment of the population - namely gay bath-house owners scattered throughout the United States.

But one good thing resulted from the shoot as these pictures found their way to a New York agent:




I met with the agent last summer when he came to Dallas to speak at a modeling convention (which is one of the silliest conventions one could attend), and he told me that he saw a money-making opportunity for both of us if I gained 10 pounds. So, I spent the past several months stuffing myself and working out amongst the screenplay writing and actual job-related work.

The agent returns to Dallas on June 9th, and if he likes what he sees, he wants to bring me to New York for a week to live in a house for models and go to photo shoots and open calls and take acting lessons and in my imagination generally behave like some crazy outtake from "Zoolander."



I actually hope there's more to it than that as I see the project as a total grab for easy money as well as connections to the film industry. We'll see.

In the meantime, I'm facing a 4 week program to shed body fat and a diet that must suddenly cease to include alcohol, milk, sugar, Gatorade, most carbs and generally anything that tastes good.

My diet now looks like this:

Meal 1 - Protein Shake
Meal 2 - 6 egg whites, 1 whole egg and 1/2 cup of oatmeal
Meal 3 - Protein Shake, handfull of unsalted almonds
Meal 4 - 6 oz. chicken or turkey, 1/2 cup rice
Meal 5 - Protein Shake, handfull of unsalted almonds
Meal 6 - 6 0z. Chicken or turkey, 1/2 cup rice, green beans
Meal 7 - 6 egg whites, handfull of unsalted almonds

That regime is enough to make nearly anyone weep like a little child who skinned their knee, but I will remain strong in the face of nutritional adversity.

All I do know, however, is that the orgies better be worth the pain if this actually works out.

-BDS