At the end of
2003, Ron Garis, famous publicist, was kind enough to
speak to me for $175 (that friends actually paid for
me - so sweet of them) and said without a clean
version of the show - I was fucked for anything
mainstream. Heh, obviously he didn't exactly say it
like that. I knew that before of course and decided to
go with an idea I had all along to round out the
trilogy. It was a 3 part series I did with The
Boyles on WTVN after a dirty episode that made the
grandmothers complain... and now with Garis's
expensive advice I figured, why the hell not. I'm
not doin' anything else.
Around the same
time, one of Jessica's friends had moved to LA and was
working on the new talent search. I knew that not only
did I need to make a clean show, I needed to come
up with some vignettes that I could do if I were to
ever perform on TV. Now if I actually was on a
specific show I'd probably need to make new ones
"on-the-fly" with wigs, what-not... but for now all
that mattered was that I had something.
That something
changed the entire course of The Journey 2 years
later... but I'm slightly ahead of myself. First up
was T3 and how to do a clean Trinitrons show. I was
not going to change these characters magically
overnight. These are adult characters that would never
say "gosh darn". I knew I would end up
"censoring" them ala The Boyles several years
previous, but couldn't think of how to make it all tie
together. Then, it happened:
Be sure
to click the boob in question for a
close-up.
And the world went
crazy. Every radio show, TV show - censor, censor,
censor. All because of CBS and "the boob". With that
moment, the script fell together and T3 was
born.
However,
it was not a live show. Period. T3 is a
short-film stuck on a stage. I so badly
wanted to make a film here there's almost
no need for Live Adam to be in it. It's
wall-to-wall production all the way down
to having a moving camera for the DVD
release. In my mind, I was just past the
4tvs concept and wanted to do more with
it.
I
was also enamored with the idea of having
other people in the TVs. It was taboo to
even imagine it and what a ball casting
and directing it. And I just have to say -
is this not the most GALACTIC case of
foreshadowing in the world? Gary calls
Cameron "CBS" for his censorship
technology and then the Price is Right
remix is the background music for the
Trinitron audition Ad? Are you FREAKING
kidding? A full two years before... I
mean, really? I try to wrap my head
around that and I simply cannot.
Journey magic lives.
By far
however, the end of this show is my
favorite part of all 3 shows. It is an
absolutely magic moment to me. I hate
to give it up even for those just watching
it now so I'll write it in black.
Highlight it after you watch this box.
The
perfect ending to 3 shows of Live Adam
acting like a dick is most certainly
Cameron coming out and stuffing Adam in
his TV. But pulling it off proved more
than difficult. Back then, Cameron was the
full goatee and Adam was just the goat.
But the crowd reaction was just perfect.
What an awesome surprise.
Oh,
the button is really funny now. Nothing
like poking fun of your marriage count in
2004 freaking 2 months after you announce
the split from Jess (and it's quite the
knee slapper now too). <rolling
eyes> I've always had a sense of humor,
but I know friends and family had a hard
time joining that laugh train.
TOO SOON brother. Fun ending, fun
show... and my cousins could see it. Good
times.
The animated
sit-com open was the next step up from "Lock The
Taskbar" and was really the pre-cursor to attempting
"Let's Bomb Iran" a couple years later. This was by
all means a technical feat that pushed every limit I
had. However, as I stated before - it was clear this
was not a 4tvs show and I was ready to make a
short-film.
Later in 2004 I
made enough money as a loan officer to make me
seriously consider funding my own pilot with all the
skills I had gathered but lack of management and
direction kept that from happening.
I
really thought I had seen the last of 4tvs
and The Egos. In Entry #433 I wrote
"Erasing my Babies" about selling my
Grand Piano and tearing down 4tvs
permanently. However there's one thing
I did on the DVD that changed my
entire life...
...the
2 minute, clean, Trinitrons Demo bit.
The next year when CBS needed
video entries for "Living Room Live" -
guess who already had the video done.
:-) That foresight 2 years before
completely changed the course of my
life. Talk about stars aligining...
I did the "bit" in my living room
- and then in post made it look like it
was on stage for the DVD. All
I had to do for CBS was
upload the original video without the
post-production overlay...
...and the next
thing you know, I'm doing The Trinitrons (which became
the Egos for copyright purposes) every week on CBS'
The Early Show. Crazy, crazy, crazy world.
These three shows
stand alone as some of my proudest achievements in the
first decade of The Journey and I'm so glad to finally
be able to share them. I tend to be the worst salesman
ever (uhm, giving away the product when you have
unsold DVDs) but I just don't care. I will always
be an artist first and it's far more important to me
to be seen than sold...
...but, I do have
some DVDs if anyone's interested.
