The Best Six Months are HERE!!

Woo-hoo! Are you ready for some football?? Yeah, buddy. Either you understand it or you don't. I'm not going to try and convince you that you should or shouldn't like football, I'm just saying it can be a passion for us goobers.

Your Baltimore Ravens are now all in camp and training for this years exciting run to the Super Bowl and your favorite Uncoolest dude in Hollywood is watching avidly from afar. This is the one time of year I really miss living back in my Westminster, MD home. I lived walking distance to the Ravens practice field and would go up there quite a bit. Oh, well.

But a new season is upon us and pretty soon I'll have to remind the wife of the 'Sunday Rules':

1. Jeff gets to watch the Ravens each Sunday. This can be live, this can be TiVo, but it will be watched. (oh, those Sunday's in church when you know the game is happening right that minute...)

2. Jeff requires two hours after any Ravens loss to be grouchy without strings attached.

3. Stay out of the living room during games unless you are with the program.

IN EXCHANGE, Jeff agrees...

a) Once the game is over, I may watch other football at the leisure and pleasure of the wife (she would prefer I spent the rest of the Sunday with the family. "Don't YOU want to spend the day with the family?").

b) No throwing of anything (glasses, bottles, tantrums)

c) Go to church (one playoff exemption)

d) Pre-seaon does not count in the standings, pre-season doesn't count for this.

This day is glorious!

Behind the Scenes - Uncoolest Hollywood Report

I have received a lot of requests for a behind-the-scenes look at the Uncool Hollywood report so here goes. Here is a partial list of the things sitting behind me when I shoot those reports:

A large map of Carroll County, MD from the 1800's (reproduction). A caricature of my wife that she gave me for Christmas many years ago. A pile of CD's I never look at and I never will again. An old Sidekick v.1 that doesn't work and has buttons missing. A pile of scripts. An old school crank pencil sharpener and an electric one. A desktop heater. An HO-scale train car with fake wood pallets. A stack of old hotel keys. A picture of William and Jack (my sons) when they were very young. A checkbook from a closed account. A cassette tape with the only copy of my rap album DJ JOHNNY CUTS BUTCHHEAD "2 Tons of Fun". A picture of a spaceship I drew when I was a kid. A pile of Monopoly games. A stack of Ben Franklin 1963 half-dollars in a container. An old disk drive that doesn't work and has nothing on it anyway. A microphone from my tape recorder when I was a kid.

And some other stuff...

The Old Game Boy

While my kids were complaining that their Nintendo DS's did not internet access and the graphics weren't up to their exact specifications, I was able to pull out my old Game Boy. That's right, believe it or not, I still have my old Game Boy from when I was a younger feller. I was trying to impress upon the kids that in the old days, we would play with simpler, more wholesome video games. We'd play honestly and for reasonable amounts of times. We did things in moderation.

I really liked that old Game Boy but I quite frankly only played one game: Tetris.

It being a Russian game, I was always under the impression that the since the old Soviet Union couldn't get us with the nuclear option, they shipped over a bunch of Tetris games and got the population hooked. Then all they had to do was march into the country unopposed and enslave us in a communist regime.

So I put some batteries in to see if the Tetris game still worked and....

(fifteen hours later)

What was I saying?

Uncool Hollywood Report 4 - 7/29/09 - News FLASH!

Uncool Hollywood Report - 3 - 7/26/09

Bottom Drawer

Every writer has a 'bottom drawer' where they keep all the crud they've written. Either fortunately or unfortunately I have an entire shelf. In fact, not everything is printed out so a lot of it is still in the computer (probably should print some of that out). My bottom drawer is getting quite big.

It's good because if I ever develop a good level of juice in this town, I'll be 'prolific' for quite a bit because I'll at least have a ton of ideas thought through. It is said that a good writer has gotten a lot of the 'bad' writing out of their system by writing, writing, writing. Man, I hope so, because I've got a ton of stuff here.

A quick look back through...

The Pickle Man - My first feature script about a guy haunted by a strange ghost (the nefarious Dr. Pinnochole).

I used to write a draw comics quite a bit, most of it when I was a kid 'Blue Blazer' and some to this day 'The Busboy'. I also a write and draw an occasional comic strip for the kids entitled 'Bean Heads'.

Mall Santa - My script I wrote about a Santa Claus booth at a mall that I was shopping around until an agent said, 'You know, they're already making a movie called BAD SANTA'. That was the end of that.

I also wrote a series of short stories called 'Santa Claus: An Abridged History' about how the early life of Santa, space aliens, Kings and tax collectors, and Santa's unheralded role during WWII.

I have script called 'Lucky' and one called 'Millionaires Club' which I did in partnership with another feller.

I have TV show treatment ideas, TV show scripts (New York Undercover [remember that?], Star Trek Voyager & Star Trek Deep Space Nine [they used to accept scripts from regular folks])

The repository is endless. Hopefully, there is a gem or two in there when the need arises!

Twinkies: A Celebration of Gold - Pt. 7 "Twinkie Factory"

Talk about dream job! Trains and conveyor belts full of twinkies. Oh, yeah...

Twinkies: A Celebration of Gold - Pt. 6 - The Twinkie Tree
Twinkies: A Celebration of Gold - Pt. 5 - Patriotic Twinkie Pie
Twinkies: A Celebration of Gold - Pt. 4 - More Recipes
Twinkies: A Celebration of Gold - Pt. 3 - Twinkie Art
Twinkies: A Celebration of Gold - Pt. 2 - Recipes & Cookbook
Twinkies: A Celebration of Gold - Pt. 1 - How to Make from Scratch
Twinkies: The Fingers of the Gods

Volvo Adventure - Coming to the End?

Thinking about putting the old Volvo station wagon up for sale. With the bulk of my work now being conducted out of my palatial Woodland Hills estate, I don't use it nearly as much as I used to. And with the ol' economy being what it is...

Cleaning her up with a tear in my eye as I get ready to make the signs so I can set her up at the corner. The long goodbye begins...

The Firepit of Nothingness

No, I've not decided to write poetry but to comment on my useless backyard... thing.

Being from back east, it is an entirely new concept to have a firepit. This is a place where you sit around a fire. Even though this place I live in is a desert. A fire.

Anyway, maybe we can roast wieners or marshmallows or chestnuts except this firepit does not work. It's not hooked up to the gas line or the valve is broken or something that makes it not work. So in a very limited backyard, with little space and hardly enough room to move I have this big concrete blob that does... nothing. Come visit my firepit of nothingness and write your own poetry.

The Worst Grill Ever

I hate to complain but as a manly man who like to cook meat, my grill is the pits. When I moved to California, I chose to leave my old flat top Aussie grill behind and gave it to my brother. You could control the temperature in different zones, it heated up fast, it had a lot of surface area, it was great.

When I first moved out to Southern California, I lived in a condo so I bought a cheapie table-top gas grill and made do for a few years. When I moved into a house, it was time to once again enter the man club. Ouch.

This grill stinks. It has two temperatures: Fire and off. It does not drain grease. It burns everything to a cinder within seconds. It's like watching Dante's Inferno in the flesh as the grill follows the meat around, burning it where ever it lands. The only workaround is to put all burners on the lowest setting and wait three hours for the burger to stop being red. I'm not sure if it is the heat of the sun or the heat from the grill that is cooking these things.

But now I'm committed and I'm too cheap to get a new grill just yet. But boy, am I pricing them out...

My Records - Van Halen "1984"

Took a spin through the old record collection and pulled out Van Halen's "1984". This in a lot of ways was the height of the old school record ways. Four songs on one side. Four songs on the other side. Lots of fancy pictures in parachute pants. A cool 'bad boy-ish' painting on the front. Done, done and done. Today, it seems like a 'CD' has to have at least a dozen tracks on it before it could be considered a full album. You know Van Halen probably recorded twenty five songs and whittled it down to the best eight. No filler, no crud. Eight good tunes, out to the record store.

Van Halen is always good for the white man overbite. I probably should have gone at least 3 1/2 white man overbites but this is the album that Van Halen went synth so all us old schoolers still have to give a ritualistic swap for the slight. Even though it's great. It's got that rock/synth classic 'Jump', my personal favorite 'Panama' and everybodies' favorite 'Hot For Teacher'

Three white man overbites on the WMO jam scale.

Uncool Hollywood Report - 2

Hot Times in the Valley

104. Not too bad. It was actually reading hotter earlier in the day.

More updates as the temperature soars!

Play-Doh Perfume

I was remarking to my sons teacher how much I loved the smell of Play-Doh. She handed me this bottle of Play-Doh perfume and said, "Here, it's kind of fun but I'm never going to wear it." So she handed me a bottle of Play-Doh perfume. It smells just like Play-Doh. I'm never going to wear it either, but... I can't throw it away either. It smells just like Play-Doh, how can you throw that away?

Exclusive! J-Rho Has Water in Ear

In an ongoing bid to keep you intimately informed about the minutae that is Jeffrey Rhodes, I feel it is important to let you know that I have water in my left ear.

I don't particularly like swimming but I got a burr up my butt and went swimming two days in a row. Now I have water in my ear and I can't hear anything (which isn't necessarily bad with a house full of kids and cars that make funny noises I am choosing to ignore).

With a concoction of drops and alcohols, I now look like a seven year old with an ear ache as I run around the house with cotton in my ear.

More information as it becomes available...

Planet of the Apes Stuff

Growing up in the 70's, Planet of the Apes is in my cultural wheelhouse and I love those movies. There was something so creepy about APES! taking over the world and being the highest on the food chain. This was the first movie for me where 'nuclear war destroys everything and society is rebuilt in some strange way' kind of movie and it was very scary for the young lad from B-more.

I caught a bargain on the APES! DVD set and bought all of them for my kids. They are particularly annoyed when I do my Charlton Heston imitation, "Congratulations, Tiger, you made it. You're the last man alive..." and of course, "You maniacs!" These have brought many hours of joy but they do get cheesier and cheesier as the set progresses. I'm still not convinced how the APES! eventually took over, a little weak.

When I was a kid, I'll never forget that little baby ape looking out of its cage going 'Mama... Mama', and me thinking, "Kill it! Kill it now so the apes won't take over!" I was woefully ignorant of the drama I would be denying the world if they had actually killed the baby talking ape.

I even found the original book by Pierre Boulle. A bit different with a nice twist ending. A different twist ending than the movie but a nice twist none-the-less.

As a grown-up, I'm still trying to figure out how the Statue of Liberty got all the way down to Zuma Beach in Malibu but that is a different post I suppose.

Laundry Detergent Recipe

More than a few people have asked about how I make my own laundry detergent so I decided to break it down for you. First off, I'm cheap. The fact that I'm making laundry detergent is even kind of a line I'm not sure I'm comfortable I've crossed, but crossed it I have. Fortunately, it is not all that hard to do and the results actually work. So for you cheapies out there or just plain curious, here we go...

Ingredients: The bulk of your ingredients are available in grocery stores or box-store type joints. You need to buy BORAX 20 MULE TEAM which I got at WalMart. This is one of those things you did not realize was sold everywhere until you buy it at least once then notice it everywhere. I really like the old school design of the box. Second, you need to buy a box of WASHING SODA, Arm and Hammer seems to be the only brand of this that I've ever seen. Picked up my box at the grocery store. Third, you need to buy a bar of regular soap, I bought IVORY because it was the cheapest. Note about your bar soap: that will ultimately be the smell and color of your detergent, so choose your bar soap with that in mind.

Equipment: You need a clean 5-gallon bucket which I bought at Home Depot, a cheese grater, and something to stir with.

Instructions:
1) Grate the BAR SOAP.

Note: I had to swat a few hands as two of my boys nearly choked on what they thought was "pizza cheese".


2) Combine two cups of the WASHING POWDER (above)...

3) With two cups of the BORAX 20 MULE TEAM (below).


4) Add powders to the bucket and mix together.


5) Bring a quart of water to a boil, reduce the heat to a simmer and start stirring in the grated soap. You need to add the soap a little bit at a time in order to avoid clumping.


6) Add all of the soap and stir until the entire mixture is melted. Be patient and allow it all to melt together.


7) Add this soap mixture to the powder mixture and stir.
8) Top off everything with two more gallons of water and stir again.


9) Cover the bucket with the lid and you'll some gooey, gelatinous laundry detergent in a couple of hours. I usually let it sit overnight to be safe.

Just stir and use. You can add 10-15 drops of your favorite scent (like what you'd use to make candles) for that evergreen or tangerine or lilac smell to your clothing. Welcome to the world of the cheap...

Happy Birthday Victoria

I wanted to wish Happy Birthday to the most beautiful girl in the entire world, Victoria Port Rhodes.

We met on March 13, 1992, were married on September 10, 1994, and have been inseparable ever since. We've had a tremendous adventure together so far and I can't imagine doing it with anybody else. She's the perfect wife, the perfect mother, and the best friend I've ever had. The adventure is only beginning...

I love you!

My Records - Honeydrippers "Volume One"

Dove into the old record collection and pulled out HONEYDRIPPERS "Volume One". This is one of those records that at the time you felt like it was probably cool to buy but didn't really dig it. It was kind of a novelty album and one of the few EP's I ever bought.

Note to the kids: A full blown 'album' or 'record' was also known as an LP (long play). An 'EP' (extended play) meant that it only had a couple of songs on it. Back in the day, you'd get an EP and it would have three or four versions of the same song on it.

This particular EP had five songs: I Get a Thrill, Sea of Love (the big hit off this EP), I Got a Woman, Young Boy Blues, Rockin' at Midnight

The Honeydrippers were even famous because it was half of Led Zeppelin (Robert Plant, Jimmy Page) along with other pretty heavy weight musicians (Jeff Beck notably). The music was all old 50's rock n' roll and was one of the first projects where 'modern' rock n' rollers revisted that old stuff. Again, it was one of those albums you felt like you had to buy though it wasn't all that.

I'm going with zero white man overbites on the WMO jam scale mainly because I'm still bitter that my Rock Band guitar died this week and I'm just not in a rockin' mood.

Uncool Hollywood Report - 1

Twinkies: A Celebration of Gold - Pt. 6 "The Twinkie Tree"

Every small boy's dream come true. The legendary Twinkie Tree. If only life were so easy...

Twinkies: A Celebration of Gold - Pt. 5 - Patriotic Twinkie Pie
Twinkies: A Celebration of Gold - Pt. 4 - More Recipes
Twinkies: A Celebration of Gold - Pt. 3 - Twinkie Art
Twinkies: A Celebration of Gold - Pt. 2 - Recipes & Cookbook
Twinkies: A Celebration of Gold - Pt. 1 - How to Make from Scratch
Twinkies: The Fingers of the Gods

RIP: Jeff's Rock Band Guitar

Note: Before reading this post, please press 'play' on the video below. Light a candle.

With the passing of so many famous celebrities recently, I'm concerned that one passing will go unnoticed. My Rock Band Fender Stratocaster guitar broke irreparably over the weekend. It was two years old.

My guitar appeared innocently enough underneath the Christmas tree in late 2007 and it's been a dream ever since. The kids were forbidden from ever plucking its imaginary strings and it quickly became an extension of my very own body. It wasn't long before that guitar KNEW which note had to be played and we formed a rockin' partnership.

Our most memorable session had to be in August of '08 when I pulled a rockin' allnighter to try and get through Metallica's "Enter Sandman". The guitar wouldn't let me quit. I conquered. The night she finally failed, we were working through Deep Purple's 'Highway Star' and she just couldn't make it through the solo. The constant rockin' destroyed the plucking bar. She was gone.

Through parties, through earthquakes, my guitar survived, thrived, and provided hours of rockin' enjoyment. Adieu, my friend. Adieu.

(Now to start pricing out the replacement!)

Fixing the Sprinkler

(Above) The infamous sprinkler head. Will it hold?

One of the advantages of renting a place is you don't have to fix stuff all the time. Something breaks, you call the landlord. Something is creaky, you call the landlord. Something needs to be replaced, you call the landlord. Some people like to fix things and repair things and tinker in the garage. I am not one of those people. I am unhandy with cars, I repair things out of necessity and survival. I am glad for those who are handy, I am proud to share a planet with the handy, I am just not one of you. One of the joys of moving to California is that I haven't had to cut the grass, I haven't had to shovel any snow, and I haven't had to crawl on a roof to repair a leak.

Despite this small pleasure, I've learned that sometimes it is best to not agitate the landlord. So I find that I still end up fixing stuff for the most part and just leave the ol' landlord be.

The problem is that I when I moved to California five years ago, I didn't bring all of my tools. As a homeowner back in Maryland, I had acquired a manly amount of tools and could fix things pretty well. I wasn't the handiest of men, but my step dad had every tool under the sun and I could generally get things fixed. When I moved, I didn't have enough space on the moving truck for every last piece of metal I had collected over the years, so I brought what I thought I might need. Why is that problem? Example:

A) I run the car over a sprinkler head near the driveway.

B) I'm from back east, so I'm not used to sprinkler heads everywhere.

C) Water starts gushing out.

D) I don't have a shovel to dig out the pipe, so I use a plastic salad spoon.

E) I had to buy the proper piping, special glue, and a new sprinkler head and am a little short 'o cash this month and wasn't too keen on purchasing a bunch of specialized sprinkler repair tools.

F) I'm not a plumber.

Stuff I Keep - Pt. 3 - Sports Tickets

I honestly really, really, really thinned things out before I moved to California five years ago, but still I stumble across more 'Stuff I Keep'. It really is not very cool to keep everything you may run across but then again I stopped worrying about cool many moons ago. Case in point...

I keep the ticket stubs from sporting events. Growing up in Baltimore, all the biggies happened at Memorial Stadium so I found this book full of ticket stubs with arrows pointing to where I sat for each of event. A friend of mine from work had given me this cool picture of old Memorial Stadium so I naturally kept it and put it to good use.

Looking through this book, I realized I had season tickets to the Orioles (with my friend Steve Weinstein, Section 13, row 9, seat 16 - first row on the wall, right on the aisle). I had season tickets to the Baltimore CFL Stallions (Section 12 Low, row 24, seat 19 - About the 40 yard line with Larry & Brian Leonardi, Tony Weis, John Donatelli, and Brian Kemp). Also, the first couple of years of the Baltimore Ravens (U11, row 32, seat 14 - with Larry Leonardi & Brian Kemp - nosebleeds extreme).

Though I complain, I really like the stuff I keep. Don't tell anyone...

Walkman vs. iPod

There really is no comparison of Walkman and the iPod but this article cracked me up!

I had a Walkman I used every night to go to sleep my senior year in high school and into college until it was broken by a jerky-jerk team mate from the football team. The height of technology when it came out. Ah, that hiss...

Kid Swaps iPod For Sony Walkman, Gets A Culture Shock

by Robin Wauters on June 29, 2009

The pictures of the Sony Walkman in this BBC Magazine article made me feel strangely nostalgic - the actual text of the article made me laugh out loud. The Magazine invited 13-year-old Scott Campbell to trade his iPod for a Walkman for a week, and he recounts his experiences with the device, which was launched 30 years ago this week.

Campbell, apart from being amazed at the blandly colored portable music player, correctly points out that the Walkman is much bigger, heavier and generally more clunky than the digital media players he’s accustomed to seeing within his social circle.

On the upside, he writes, the ‘monstrous box’ comes with a ‘handy belt clip screwed on to the back’.

Update: ha, Campbell is one of our interns at CrunchGear!

The funniest part of the story:

It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape. That was not the only naive mistake that I made; I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equaliser, but later I discovered that it was in fact used to switch between two different types of cassette.

Another notable feature that the iPod has and the Walkman doesn’t is “shuffle”, where the player selects random tracks to play. Its a function that, on the face of it, the Walkman lacks. But I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down “rewind” and releasing it randomly - effective, if a little laboured.

Campbell goes on to speak wise words (”portable music is better than no music”) and lists the pros and cons of the portable cassette player compared to its latter-day successor. Go read it here.

Anyone else felt a bit nostalgic about the good old cassette tape after reading?

Twinkies: A Celebration of Gold - Pt. 5 "Patriotic Twinkie Pie"

What better way to celebrate the birth of our fine nation than by making one of my favorite recipes, "Patriotic Twinkie Pie". I've been very vocal about the many varied uses for Twinkies in everything from aerospace to home construction, but why venture too far from food when you don't have to. Thanks to Randy Hollenbeck for the recipe. I think it goes without saying, but enjoy...

Items Needed:

• 6-7 Hostess® Twinkies®, broken or torn into 1" pieces
• 1 pint fresh blueberries
• 1 lb. fresh strawberries, sliced
• 2 packages (5.1 oz.) instant vanilla pudding mix
• 6 cups milk
• 1 container (12 oz.) frozen nondairy whipped topping, thawed

Directions:

Place half the Twinkie pieces in a 6-quart glass trifle bowl or trifle dish. In a separate bowl, combine the pudding mix and milk and stir according to the package instructions. Spoon half of the pudding over the Twinkies. Spread the blueberries over the pudding. Top with the remaining Twinkie pieces. Spoon the remaining pudding over the Twinkies spreading evenly. Spread the sliced strawberries over the pudding. Cover and refrigerate for several hours or overnight, until completely chilled and set. Top with the whipped topping just before serving.

Makes 16 servings.

Note: Frozen blueberries and strawberries may be used instead of fresh.

Twinkies: A Celebration of Gold - Pt. 4 - More Recipes
Twinkies: A Celebration of Gold - Pt. 3 - Twinkie Art
Twinkies: A Celebration of Gold - Pt. 2 - Recipes & Cookbook
Twinkies: A Celebration of Gold - Pt. 1 - How to Make from Scratch
Twinkies: The Fingers of the Gods

Dog Walking - The Long Way

Duke the Dog (above) - "For the love of God, would somebody please

throw a cotton-pickin leash on me and take me for a walk so I can go

to the bathroom?  Am I asking too much here?  Hello?  Kid?  Walk me!"

As a loving father, I try to teach my children the ways of the world. When they asked and they asked and they asked and they asked and they asked and they asked and they asked and they asked and they asked and they asked and they asked and they asked and they asked and they asked and they asked and they asked for a dog, I continually said 'No'.

'Why Dad?' they cried.
'Because I don't want to take care of a dog. I don't want a dog,' I answered.
'You don't understand, Dad. We'll take of the dog,' they cried.
'You don't understand. You'll care for the dog for four days, after which you will no longer care for the dog.'
'Not true, Dad. You'll see.'

I relented.  Got dog.  Oh, well.  Example:

'Son, walk the dog.'

The two older boys do rock/paper/scissors to see who HAS to walk the dog. The 'LOSER' then starts the 90 minute procedure to give the dog a fifteen minute walk:

1. Watch 15 minutes more of television.
2. Wait for Dad to scream exactly three times before moving.
3. Go to the bathroom, read a book for 20 minutes.
4. Get dressed, very slowly.
5. Go through Pokemon cards.
6. Watch brother play video games.
7. Dad screams again ('I'm doing it!' replies the boy)
8. Get a drink first.
9. Pull out a toy that hasn't been touched in three years.
10. Sit down and start watching tv again because dog walking has been forgotten.
11. Dad screams again.
12. Kid gets upset because he is getting yelled at 'for no reason'.

Time Travel 1,000,000 BC - Ep. 5 "Naziland"

 

This time, when the Rhodes boys venture back into prehistoric history, the consequences are horrific. Can they mend their ways and return Earth to its proper history?

Twinkies: A Celebration of Gold - Pt. 4 - More Recipes

I've already identified the next gift I would like to receive at either Christmas/birthday/Father's Day, and that is the Twinkie making kit (above). It comes with the cake molds and the injector tools. This is all actually very doable with standard cooking gear, but the kit would be very nice indeed.

I've located some more interesting Twinkie recipes that I thought would be very vital to share. Twinkies are indeed the food of the Gods.

Nothing quite says 'Howdy-Do' quite like a Twinkie burrito (above). Good for anytime of day or as a late-night snack, the Twinkie burrito is a southwest favorite. Not for the faint of heart, I found another in the popular 'Twinkie-Henge" series, this one using bacon as the mortar (below). Beware, anyone in poor health or with any number of conditions may wish to avoid this particular variation. Not quite sure what kind of stew this is sitting-in but it looks quite foul... and oh, so delicious!


Oh sure, take a fancy picture and put strawberry's next to it, but you can't hide the fact that this our old favorite Twinkie pancakes (above). Not quite sure what this is called (other than yummy), but stick a series of cookies into a Twinkie and you end up with a bouquet of delight.

Twinkies: A Celebration of Gold - Pt. 3 - Twinkie Art
Twinkies: A Celebration of Gold - Pt. 2 - Recipes & Cookbook
Twinkies: A Celebration of Gold - Pt. 1 - How to Make from Scratch
Twinkies: The Fingers of the Gods