Friday, March 1, 2013

Winnebago man season 2 recap

I landed at LAX at 10:30pm smelling of a stench that I assume is not too dissimilar to that of a Vietnamese prostitutes merkin after a train of US sailors ran through her in the late 60's. How's that for a first sentence metaphor? It ended the craziest 2 week work span of my life. 2 cross country journeys in a 35 foot monster of an RV sandwhiched with 16 hour overnight filming days on a movie ranch in Valencia. If it weren't Friday I would sleep for the next 3 days...to make matters worse my power is out.

Winnebago Man season 2 has come to a close, and what an incredible journey it was. Taking interstate 40 this time afforded us the opportunity to explore the northern regions of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. We saw the Grand Canyon, the petrified forest, Texas Tech University among generally awesome picturesque landscaping that an average Indiana kid is not accustomed to seeing every day. Before I get into the conclusion of the trip, and a neverending diatribe about life as I know it, a few thoughts on Texas Tech.

Texas Tech is definitely the Purdue of Texas. Not only is it a technical school such as Purdue, the people there are not attractive. In fact, I'm fairly sure you are not allowed into a bar unless you are 75 pounds overweight, have 2 packs of unfiltered cigarettes and have the ability to drink whiskey and chew long cut kodiak ice concurrently. This place is fucking gross. But at the same time, it's awesome. I thought I gave zero fucks, you should see this place, it's a different world. If you are an unattractive man with disgusting habits, you should move to Lubbock, I literally saw a skinny blonde holding her boyfriend's dip cup while he lined up a shot in pool. It's the kind of place where the amount of cattle your father owns dictates your coolness as opposed to how many sorority dances you have been invited to. But they have 2 dollar whiskey, so it's ok in my book.

Needless to say, coming from the land of 8 dollar beers I recklessly abused the cheap liquor...like to the point where I haven't gotten that fucked up on whiskey since I polished a handle of Old Crow on the dock of Emily Graham's lakehouse at Sweetwater 8 years ago. Thursday was fucking miserable. We were tasked with cleaning the RV that legit looked like it had been taken on Spring Break by a group of IU delts or something. There was shattered glass everywhere, blood stains on the carpet, missing shit, broken shit, pieces of shit smeared all over the bathroom. It smelled like decomposing corpses and was driving like a 1989 Honda Civic DX. Fortunately for me, I had about 24 Nerdist podcasts to take my mind off the fact that we were actually going to be returning this piece of property to someone who would likewise expect a group of 30something filmmakers to treat their precious camper with respect. ERRRRRRNNNNT! Side note: No one on a film crew gives a FUCK, with the exception of maybe the line producer, no one has to deal with the collateral damage ever again. So clearly the blame was primed to fall squarely on me.

If you watched my videos you are aware that the return did not go well. What I am about to post should give you a general idea of the mood of the RV owners. I was hesitant to post this, but then again, I'm not making fun of them, in fact I agree with them on all counts, perhaps their expectations should have been managed better but I suppose this is what happens when you accept money to rent something that belongs to you, you run this risk...


I am very disappointed in the outcome of this experience.  I know the simple answer is "oh that's ok, we'll pay for it".  But it's not that easy.  I really believed that the RV would be returned with minimal visible use.  That was not the case.

     - Corian stove counter top is missing.  Can it be matched with the counter top, I don't know
     - Rubber top step cover, gone
     - Rubber button that operates the slide out, gone
     - The reflector for the passenger side front blinker, gone
     - The curtains, wrong side out... ????
     - Left with a full tank of gas, returned with less than half.   I don't know exactly how many gallons it is low but the agreement says it will come back full or will be 
        refueled at a rate of $6.00 per gallon.
     - Carpet and floor absolutely filthy
     - We were told it would be cleaned, it wasn't.  It was full of trash and very dirty.
     - Not to mention that the rental check and the deposit check both bounced and I had to go to the bank and make a request that they be redeposited (I was charged
        a bank fee).

This is only after a brief walk thru.  We will do a more detailed look tomorrow, in the daylight.

Wait until they find out about the broken windshield wipers and the mirror in the master bedroom...

However the news wasn't all bad...look at THE ONE POSITIVE they took from the experience.

The one positive thing was the drivers.  They were very personable and friendly.  I felt like they were very capable and I trusted them.

BOOM! How you fucking like me now? I am personable, friendly, capable AND trustworthy. I may ask for a letter of recommendation. 

The thing is, both rv journeys were a good time...it was a grind, but I'm glad I did it. I saw now that I would never do it again, but after a shower and a night's sleep in my bed I realize it beats the shit out of going into an office and staring at a computer screen pretending to care about things like "bottom line" and "sales quotas." I guess the real question is what's next for me? It is a liberating existence to write constantly, ride my bike around the beach and then occasionally do something random for a few grand so I can sustain my lifestyle for another 30 days. Some of you may envy aspects of my lifestyle, but then again I'm also a guy that doesn't have power in his apartment right now (if you have a roommate moving out and a utility is in his name, do not wait until the last day of the month to deal with it) and if I got hit by a car or something tonight when I'm drunkenly stumbling across the street my parents will be on the hook to pay my hospital bills in cash (gotta get that WGA card for insurance son) but every day continues to be an adventure. 3 weeks ago I was just getting over a mardi gras hangover and since then I have made a movie and driven an rv 2000 miles across 4 states, twice.

What will tomorrow bring? Well it's possible that I will get hired to write on a tv show or it's  more likely I'll stare at my phone waiting for that call that will never come and I'll instead keep pounding bottles of 2 buck Chuck and writing my take on gen Y one script at a time (actually I know for a fact that tomorrow, being Saturday, I am going on a hard bender, watch out)

That said season 2 of Winnebago Man is likely the last...unless there is another horror movie being shot in LA that I work on that requires one specific RV 2000 miles away, but that's a long shot. But the great thing about this little web series that I do is that I can pretty much adapt it to anything. Someone is making a pogo sticking documentary and needs me to go interview a guy in Sacramento??? I can document that. A quaker actor in Illinois doesn't believe in flying and needs me to drive him to a film location in Louisiana? I can document that. I guess what I'm trying to say...if you find my somewhat aimless random life interesting, I can keep bringing the heat. It's great inspiration for what I'm actually trying to do (write) and it keeps things interesting for me when I'm super stressed or feeling down on my luck. This is the life and the struggle I chose, I could easily move back to Indianapolis and go work at some internet marketing company and probably have a pretty normal life...but where would be the fun in that? Thanks for watching.

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