Thong bank robbery

2001. 2PM. A cocktail waitress/actress friend called frantic.

ME: What's wrong? What happened?

CARLY: I was just in a bank robbery at the Bank of America on Fairfax!

ME: Like an armed robbery? With guns and masks?

CARLY: Yes!

ME: Jesus. That must have been harrowing. How long was the ordeal?

CARLY: I'm not sure, but it seemed like forever.

ME: I'm sure. I can't imagine being face down and in fear of getting shot.

CARLY: That wasn't even close to the worst part.

ME: What could've been worse than that?

CARLY: I was wearing a miniskirt and a thong and it got hiked all the way up over my ass when we were all ordered to the ground. I really wanted to pull it down to cover mysel, but was afraid they would kill me.

All I could think about was all of the cops and FBI laughing at my bare ass in a pink thong in the surveillance video and laughing at me. That's still all I'm thinking about.

Morphine Suppositories.

1995. West Hollywood, California.

A rock star friend, invited me over to his house to to hang out, catch up and bang on some guitars.

KEITH: Hey, man. Can I get you anything to drink?

ME: Yeah. Do you have any scotch?

KEITH: Naw mate. I have Rye.

ME: Anything else? Vodka? Tequila?

KEITH: Oh. I just remembered, someone gave me some morphine suppositories. They're pretty good.

ME: I don't know man.  I'm just not a lucky person.

KEITH: What does luck have to do with anything?

ME: As much as I love a  narcotic analgesic, I just don't want my parents to read in the newspaper that I was found dead of an overdose with my pants around my ankles, slumped over a sofa with a musician covered in tattoos.  They deserve better than that.

KEITH: I get it mate. Gin?

The Wedding Shoes

BEDTIME STORIES FOR GROWNUPS

The Wedding Shoes
May 2012
Los Angeles, California

I had just wrapped a meeting where I learned I was awarded the job to shoot some print and outdoor ads for the California Milk Advisory board. It was a new installment for the iconic series "Happy Cows come from California". As always, I was excited to work, but also to spend a few days working with animals and their wranglers at Sony Pictures. 

This was a job where I had to share the day with the crew shooting the commercial. Typically the stills guys are treated like 2nd class citizens, but this wasn't unit or BTS photography. It was for lots of print ads and I needed to get good shots.

As I left the meeting, the producer said "You'll be working with Fred Savage".

ME: Wonder Years Fred Savage?

PRODUCER: Yes.

ME: I didn't know he still acted.

PRODUCER: He's directing it. He's a big commercial director and directs for Modern Family.

ME: Cool.

Shoot went well save for unwelcoming cunt of a D.P.

At wrap, we get the obligatory photo together and posted it on Instagram.

Image may contain: 2 people

The next day, I get a call from actor and friend Jason Biggs.

JB: Looking at your Instagram. Are you with Savage, now?

ME: No. Worked with him yesterday.

JB: If you talk to him, would you please tell him to pick up his wife's wedding shoes?

ME: Why are his wife's wedding shoes at your house?

JB: This used to be his house and they left them behind. We've tried to get other people to let him know, but never heard back.

ME: I doubt I'll see him, but if I do, I'll tell him.

A few days later, I'm having lunch at Soho House West Hollywood.

I look up from my meeting and see Savage sitting at a round 6 top. He was gesticulating and seemingly pitching something.

I text Biggs.

(Jokingly) Hey. I'm at lunch and I see Savage is here. Get your dick hard, put it in his wife's wedding shoe and take a picture. I'll text him that in the middle of his meeting.

1 minute later, Jason sends his red penis in this tiny satin wedding shoe. Either that or Jason has a really big penis. (I'm working off the small shoe theory)

I looked up Fred's cell off the call sheet in my phone and text him the photo. It takes a good 30 seconds until he breaks to pick up the phone, looks confused by the number not in his contacts and opens the message.

TEXT: This is from Jason Biggs asking for you to pick up your wife's wedding shoes.

His was was one of the all time great WTF faces I've ever seen.

His eyes dart around the room until he catches my wave from a few tables away. He isn't smiling. On his way out he comes over with a big grin on his face and leans in.

SAVAGE: Tell him we're never picking up the shoes. This has become my favorite game.

Sports & Psychedelics

BEDTIME STORIES FOR GROWNUPS.

"SPORTS & PSYCHEDELICS"

Summer of '84. 2 of my childhood friends Marc & Eli were looking for something to do on a hot sticky Chicago night. We decided to each take an eighth of liberty caps and go to the batting cages. We were quickly disappointed to learn that it was over an hour wait for every cage... except one.

We bought a plastic pitcher of Old Style with our fake ID's and sat at a picnic table covered in green cracked paint.

The mushrooms kicked in hard. That moment where the pressure in your skull is released, but just before the fulminating laughter. I narrowed my gaze at this one cage with virtually no wait and watched one person after another attempt and fail at the 100 MPH fastball. I looked at the guys and said.

ME: Guys, I can hit the hundred.

ELI: Dude. If you go into that cage, you're going to DIE.

ME: I'm telling you, I can see it in slow motion. I can count all 108 of those red laces on that ball.

ELI: Please don't go in there. I really don't want to be tripping in an emergency room.

I was doubtless. I went to the counter and bought a few 25 ball tokens. I missed the first ball clean. Chipped the 2nd, then proceeded to pound the next 73 clean like I was peak steroid Barry Bonds. That feeling where it doesn't hurt your hands. Where you hit it so pure, it just goes "Click".

I could hear the murmurs behind me as the crowd grew. By the end, roars and applause.

At the end of 75, I had proven my point and was sweating, tired and my hands were chewed up from batting without gloves. I put the bat down and my friends were screaming laughing and bug eyed. A group of people followed us to the parking lot.

BIG CONTRACTOR LOOKING GUY: (Mike Ditka dialect.) Hey! You're awesome! You should join our city softball team.

ME: Hey thanks, but nah.

GUY: C'mon. Gimme your number! You're one of the best hitters I've ever seen.

ME: Thanks dude, but I don't like team sports.





















x

"Russell Crowe" & the Sex Workers in Mexico

NOT RUSSELL CROWE & THE SEX WORKERS IN MEXICO

Winter 2014. A group of us flew down to a friends home in Costa Careyes, Mexico.

"Careyes" as it's known, is a beautiful little town of colorful & architectural vacation homes owned Hollywood stars, wealthy Americans, European expats and it seems... a few fun loving international criminals. I had visited a handful of times over the past couple years and stayed at a couple different homes.

It's a real community. Everyone knows everyone. So much so that I wouldn't want to live there for that reason. There are no hotels or resorts that I know of. Every night there's a dinner party at a different house and it's the same 30 or so people at each of them. One interesting tidbit about Careyes is that almost everyone owns the same car. A white Chevy Suburban. After a few visits, I finally asked someone why.

As it turns out, the Narcos all drive black Chevy Suburbans. The white ones signify "Civilian". The agreement is that drug traffickers can keep their trade routes, but if anyone in a white Suburban gets fucked with, the deal is off.

This visit was over the Christmas/New Years time of year. A couple of pretty millennial influencers/ sex workers had been invited by someone on this trip. Not to "perform", but more as pool & party decor and tart the place up a bit. We met on the plane ride out. They were perfectly nice, despite snapchatting their every move and talking to their phone screens like psych patients.

On the night of New Years Eve, there was a party with 400 or so guests. The finest tequila, molly and uncut cocaine flowed. I stuck with the booze and was chatting with a French couple when the girls come over to me in their tiny bikinis.

GIRLS: Oh my God Scott. Did you see? Russell Crowe is here.

Behind them in the crowd maybe 30 feet away, I see Gerard Butler. I had met him a few times in L.A. via mutual friends and had already said a quick hello.

ME: Where?

They gesture to Gerry talking to a few people. I'm tipsy and feeling a bit naughty.

ME: Oh good. He made it. Yes. I invited Russell.

GIRLS: Will you introduce us?

ME: Of course, but if there's one thing I know about Russell Crowe, it's that he loves when people compliment his work. Here's what you do. Walk up to him and tell him you loved him in "A Beautiful Mind" & "Master & Commander".

GIRLS: Really? Are you sure he won't just think we're creepy fans?

ME: Definitely not. You're hot girls, he's a down to earth Australian & he will LOVE it.

They walk over. Gerry's smiling and turning on the charm. That smile quickly faded to a "What the Fuck?" head shake.

Pleased with myself, I walk away.

Sorry Gerry.

The 21 year old neighbor Pink Floyd and Mushroom Chocolates

The 21 year old neighbor girl knocked on my door after taking mushrooms for the first time and asked if I knew any good shrooming music. I recommended PInk Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon". She called an hour later and squealed...

HER: This music is AMAZING. Do other people know about it?

ME: Yes.

HER: Do they have other albums?

ME: Yes.

HER: Are they good?

ME: They're actual proof of something greater than us. Proof of the divine.

HER: OK, so to be clear Is the band called "PInk Floyd" or "Dark Side of the Moon?"

ME: Pink Floyd. Do you have any idea how jealous I am of you right now?

HER: Why?

ME: Because you get to experience both psychedelics and PInk Floyd at the same time for the first time.