Freudian Slips

Career Path

2011-12-30T08:01:00.002-05:00

December 30, 2011 is the last official work day of doing the same job that defined me for the last 20 years. During this time, I never considered other employment nor sat for one promotional interview. It was a chosen career path that began and ended faithfully serving the handicapped clients on my caseload. It has been proposed that if you truly love your job, you will never work a day in your life. Not true! While I approach my last workday as if it is the sudden death of a social worker, new responsibilities are alive and well in 2012.

Jonan the Barbarian

2011-10-31T20:20:00.000-04:00

As Jonan the Barbarian, I enjoyed a rousing day of revelry at the Pennsylvania Rennaisance Faire in Manheim, PA.

For the First Time in Public

2011-07-15T20:11:00.003-04:00

It's not everyday the online dating community turns up an attractive woman a couple years my junior who has worked for the same employer longer than a veteran like myself. Lisa is the most compassionate woman I have ever dated in my life. Somebody pinch me because I'm smitten after three weeks.

Poolside

2011-07-15T20:10:00.003-04:00

After this first ever picture of Lisa and I was taken poolside, we actually heard church bells from her place of worship. You just can't make this stuff up.

Divorce Cake

2011-06-22T22:41:00.001-04:00

No, it wasn't my birthday. It's my divorce cake! Hooray! Of the guests in attendance, it didn't leave a bad taste in anyone's mouth.

A Tree Grows in Officeland

2011-06-20T21:27:00.002-04:00

The Weed Tree, Westville, New Jersey in 2011

The first time I met Milroy Lee, a high functioning gregarious developmentally disabled client, we were crossing paths outside my satelite office...Since it was a hot day, we decided to chat underneath the comfort of a shade tree where an arbor used to similarly sun shield a wooden picnic table. Milroy asked me how long I have been working for my particular agency as a social worker. With the arbor gone, I tried to equate tenure with our immediate environment.

I answered, "I've been working here since before this tree was here that we are standing under. It used to be a sapling that Crew Labor clients forgot to mow..I almost hanked it out of the ground one day but thought better of it. Eventually, it got big enough that nobody bothered to mow it down. It stands here wondrous now casting welcome shade, kind of like we are..here by both design and by happenstance....like accidental intention....Do you understand me, Milroy?"

He grasped what I was saying in his own world. "Yeah, like how your co-worker transferred me to you. She had a plan to bring us together. She thought I needed a male case manager."

A friendship grew as a decade passed. I learned of Milroy's death at work on the telephone from another stuttering disabled client whose only clarity included the unbelievable sentence, "Milroy Lee is dead!"

Startled and stung, I hung up the phone and ran out of the building short of breath to the point of hyperventilating. I stopped by that same tree....I thought of that first conversation I had with Milroy here underneath the tree. The ironic madness made me cry...knowing Milroy was killed accidentally as a pedestrian on this same damn street and now only me and the tree were left by accidental intention. Milroy was gone.

Penchant for Pensions

2011-05-30T21:48:00.003-04:00

While lobby waiting with my develomentally disabled client for his outpatient psychiatry appointment, I received a text message on my cell phone. As a single-minded guy back on the meat market, I checked my incoming text. Luigi, who is illitierate but inquisitive, asked me who the text was from.

I replied for the sake of argument. "I suppose you could call her my girlfriend."

Luigi, "No chance getting back with the old lady? Is your marriage definitely over, Joe?"

"For all intents and purposes it's over but I have few regrets."

"Where does this woman work?"

"She works for the Division of Youth and Family Services."

I noticed that Luigi's neck crooked more my way than in previous dialogue but it was his smirk that garnered more of my attention.

He inquired, "Doesn't your ex work for the government too?"

"Outstanding memory. Yes, she sure does."

Luigi draped his arm around me for emotional support....."Trying a little too hard to get back that lost pension, aren't you, buddy?"

A receptionist announced Luigi's name to be seen. Luigi stood proudly. Slump shouldered, I sulked all the way to the psychiatrist looking for a couch.

Saving Face in Warrior

2011-05-10T22:44:00.001-04:00

Nick Nolte not Joseph Tornatore in Warrior.

The official theatrical movie trailer has been released for the upcoming mixed martial arts movie entitled Warrior. Through Ryan Casting out of Atlantic City, I was hired to do some acting both as a background extra and as Nick Nolte's stand in. After trying to act ahead of a Academy Award nominee like Nolte, background acting seemed a more suitable fit. The trailer looks dramatically inviting. Whatever Nick Nolte does naturally in the movie, I didn't do nearly as good after multiple takes. That is why I keep the day job.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwgG6OfW7Yo

Flowers for Alfrednon

2011-04-25T23:10:00.006-04:00

I attended a school meeting of a precocious 17-year-old girl diagnosed with mild intellectual disability and oppositional defiance disorder, the latter of which is more relevant to our story. Doreen is succeeding rather colorfully by parental arrangement in vocational technical school learning the fine art of horticulture. Her social skills are a different subject all together.

During the meeting, Doreen brought it to everyone’s attention that she desried to give her brain-injured teenage boyfriend her latest floral bouquet creation. The mother kept saying men do not accept flowers, do not embarrass him on the short bus, the last of which is a pejorative descriptive term to say the least.

My client felt the need to advocate for herself. She replied that horticulture was her career choice. Doreen proudly wanted and needed to show him what she created. She also wanted him to take the flowers home for him to display as a show of her affection. As her social worker, I felt that she made a good argument from her polarized perspective but she pouted under her mother's dominion.. The mother finally relented that her daughter could do what she wanted but that she was going to be sorry.

Doreen sprouted right up in her chair, much like a morning glory...She barked, "No, I won't be sorry. If Alfred doesn't accept my flowers, I'm going to punch him in the f**cking face."

A Sheen Getaway

2011-04-10T01:17:00.004-04:00

I just returned from a fabulous two-night three-day getaway to Atlantic City, New Jersey. The greatest freedom about becoming single again is the punching of your own time clock. I used my time wisely until I was punch drunk and out of time.

I auditioned at Ryan Casting for a speaking part in a pilot TV show for True Crime network. I participated in Bally’s casino promotional filming for the grand opening of their ICandy burlesque lounge headlined by sultry Baywatch cast member Angelica Bridges. In between acting, my method was to overindulge in life.

On Thursday, I saw a mesmerizing Cirque du Soleil show at Boardwalk Hall. Chock full of unusual acts, the evening’s biggest surprise may have come when the establishment carded my company before serving her wine.

The following day, I got reacquainted with a woman my contemporary who I used to work with twenty years ago.

Like a glutton for more sensory stimulation, I basked in four hours of deep tissue massage, pushed my body through gym workouts and ate like a heavyweight at buffets. On Saturday, I got befriended wearing my bathing suit in an inhalation room then put on some good threads to see Trans-Siberian Orchestra play in Ceasar's Circus Maximus Theatre.

Duh, I heard the Charlie Sheen tour is off to a rough start. Well, I felt like two and a half men for a couple of days anyway.

Throwing Shoes

2011-03-29T23:45:00.003-04:00

Scientists claim that genetically human beings are only three people apart. Genetic code understood, it is the interplay of people that come into our lives whose imprint makes our experiences unique.

In my twenty-five year career in human services, I have been rarely caught unprepared but that is what happened when I let the file of a new case sit unattended on my desk. While I only had time to peruse it for a few minutes, it proved enough time to glean a nightmare. I scheduled an initial home visit to explain my agency services because I recognized the immense needs of a disadvantaged disabled teenage girl.

However, weeks later I showed up at this home without the file and only a haunting sketch memory of the cold read of the newest client on my caseload. Doreen sat quietly at the kitchen table of her impoverished home environment. With her head lowered in deliberate shyness, Doreen’s mother explained the reason for her distrust of men. That is when the sordid details of the case came flooding back to me. Suddenly, I didn’t want to be here. I took a deep breathe of compassion and exhaled preconceived notions.

The mother’s face could best be described in the single word of stress. She appeared as though Father Time had worked twice as fast on her watchtower. She warned, “Consider yourself lucky if Dorie doesn’t throw her shoes at you. She does that to all men to let you know she ain’t going anywhere with you and to keep your distance.”

I lifted the vinyl tablecloth covering the round end kitchen table in a quaint suburban home. I looked underneath the table at Doreen, who immediately squirmed.

“Nah, I think Doreen likes me. See that? She is barefoot and has nothing to throw. She’s not giving me the boot just yet. I think she trusts me as her social worker.”

A smile ruptured on her infantile face. A giddy laugh squeaked out before she caught its contagiousness like too much of a good thing turned bad. After that inroad, Doreen began to warm up to me but her soft voice seemed congruent with her damaged self image and low self esteem. She deferred to her mother in the beginning until I eased her with more simpleton humor. After the first hour, she began to maintain eye contact. She started to intently listen and related her ambitions in concrete terms…first with single word phrases expounded by her mother then actual burgeoning conversation starters. She became my favorite client because of what I perceived to be her sense of survival to endure.

Her biological father languished behind bars for unspeakable felonies. Before his incarceration, Jed led a relatively quite life by repeatedly physically abusing Doreen’s mother’s body to the point of his removal from the house via restraining order. Jed's exodus occurred not before the children witnessed the domestic abuse during their impressionable developmental years. Doreen’s mental retardation made these pivotal years arrested development in more ways than one. Raising two daughters and a son by herself below poverty levels, Doreen’s mother next took in a transient man for financial support and to help parent the children. The man decided to sexually abuse the fledgling daughters behind closed doors of mistrust. For the next eight years, he violated both children. Unbeknownst to the mother, it turned out to be a family secret reinforced by not only threats of harm against the children if they told anyone but eventually Doreen’s older sister ending up the strangled victim in an unsolved murder. God saved Doreen’s brother of harm maybe by only gender design.

Like a breath of fresh air, Doreen fondled a live flower bouquet on the kitchen table for a second time.

As I worried if they were for her sister’s grave, I had to ask anyway. “Doreen, what do you want to tell me about those flowers?”

The mother answered overtop her daughter’s slow to move lips. “She excels at horticulture. That floral arrangement won first prize in a juried exhibition. Dorie wants your approval.”

Doreen reached and raised the flowers to my nose. I smelled its marvelous fragrance then complimented her creativity.

The mother seemed pleased by the bonding. “Your’e doing remarkable with her. Dorie doesn’t open up to adult men. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Doreen put down the flowers and got up and retrieved her purse. She reached into her private stock and pulled out a color brochure of a nearby apartment complex. I learned in conversation that the complex dedicated a few new units for subsidized housing. She showed me the schematic floor plan by pointing emphatically to a 12x10 bedroom. It was already established that she slept on a couch, suffered flashback nightmares and relied on tranquilizers to gain shut eye. Doreen knew my role in her life and I already knew where she was headed. She just needed help getting there. I inferred that Doreen wanted me to fund the move to a new apartment to exorcise the demons of this falling down house of horrors.

I leaned as close as Doreen let me without invading her personal space. I lowered my voice to just above a whisper. “If I could assist, would you bring your shoes with you to your new home or go barefoot?”

She answered, “I’ll keep the shoes on my feet there. I promise.”

Doreen took the life out me like flowers dying in the hard sun. This social worker broke the eye contact that he worked so hard to establish with his client. I turned away to let the salty tear finish running down my stunned cheek. No file review could have prepared me for this heavy moment anyway. If human beings are indeed only three people apart, because of the last two evil men in her life it only took two good people to feel as one. I never felt more compassion to any other child so quickly in my life.

Limited on Limitless

2011-03-23T21:15:00.002-04:00

Entering its second week as the number one movie at the box office nationwide, the movie Limitless is garnering positive acclaim. Starring Robert Dinero and Bradley Cooper, I decided to patronage a motion picture I did menial work on as an actor. Sitting in the dark theatre, the polished coming attractions made me reflect on filming the actual movie Limitless.

On the closed set in downtown Philadelphia, I could not peel my eyes off Robert Dinero and Bradley Cooper for different reasons. Robert Dinero carried charismatic airs as if he had exacted the gristle of experience from every movie that he had ever acted in. Bradley Cooper is indubitably the most ridiculously handsome man I ever saw in person. While staring at his sickening Ken doll physique, he startled me by his approach. Cooper thereby asked me of my favorite South Philly pizzeria. I reacted sheepishly about being a New Jersey resident and that I did not leave my home state to scout for better mozzarella. Stupid is what stupid does. After Bradley Cooper wised up and lost interest in me, I was no more prepared when director Neil Burger(The Illusionist) instructed me to act like Robert Dinero was entering the restaurant on film. “Huh?” I questioned, “But he is Robert Dinero coming through the front door.” “No, act like you are in awe of Robert Dinero.” “I am in complete awe of Robert Dinero, Neil. He's one of the greatest actors of all time.” The director grew impatient with my inability to think abstractly outside the box. I was acting limited on Limitless. ”Bobby D’s character is one of the richest men on the planet. Pretend Dinero is Steve Forbes.”

Before the big hook could come for my neck stage left in favor of an understudy, I managed to convey complete understanding of the establishing tone of the scene to the director. In fact, my learning curve seemed momentarily as great as Bradley Cooper’s character speeding on the experimental drug NZT-48. I could have ordered Cooper a phenomenal takeout pizza to go just by glancing at a closed phonebook.

While the big screen showed the single scene I acted in, it became disappointingly apparent that the roll picked up after I had greeted Robert Dinero entering the upscale restaurant for his sit down meeting with Bradley Cooper. With fish-eye lens views and panoramic 360-degree digital effect spins the norm in this production, I felt pride to still have made the final cut and be seen, however fleetingly, in focus in the same frame as legendary actor Robert Dinero. Not too cheesy for an Italian non-union actor who only eats his pizza in Jersey.

Bathroom Stall Tactics

2011-03-19T22:30:00.003-04:00

I am still trying to extract nostalgic terms about returning to my high school as a middle aged man. After watching a comedy show with my company last night, I left her grace in the auditorium in search of the closest bathroom. Bladder retention isn’t what it used to be as when I bounced around these halls as a testosterone laced lad circa 1980.

As I passed by a dusty sports trophy case of yesteryear, I reminisced about sports that I can only marginally play for exercise now. The wall-mounted video cameras seemed an intrusive addition to a place of learning but the passage of time took its greatest picture on my memory banks. Perhaps it was nothing more than a man now walking commensurate with his age, but I entered the bathroom in what seemed like slow motion. Although it looked and smelled alarmingly the same, I sensed one changed variable. A person who has aged and changed.

I remembered last using this same bathroom urinal after watching our school’s senior play. I recalled the cockiness of my whole life that once laid before me. Now I do not even take pissing straight for granted. It took me all of thirty-one years to return to my high school. As amber urine trickled down a porcelain throne, I realized that my life was more than halfway over and many of those years came with its own wrecking ball. I mused why we are all here. Returning to my stomping grounds produced such a residual effect on me that I pulled out my high school yearbook today…There I was wearing pictorial optimism alongside the haunting caption…To find the meaning of life…a seemingly lifelong journey as it's starkness continues to imprint on me.

Bringing Home the Bacon

2011-03-01T21:18:00.001-05:00

One of my faithful blog readers, sent me this outlandish take on the Kevin Bacon Hollywood movie game. Joseph Tornatore is in the upcoming movie Warrior with actress Jennifer Morrison, who was in the movie called Stir of Echoes starring Kevin Bacon. There is nothing like self-depricating humor to stir echoes of persona non gratis.

Quote of the Day

2011-01-27T10:38:00.004-05:00

Our hearts hold the answer key to all of love's mystery...but it is also the hiding place that we have come to fear.

Ah, its wonderful to start writing again.

Counting Footprints

2011-01-20T23:42:00.006-05:00

SHAKING OFF WRITER'S BLOG BLOCK, THIS WAS MY FIRST ATTEMPT AT WRITING SINCE BECOMING SEPERATED.

Wearing no more attire than is necessary, I am strolling the beach without a care or responsibility in the world. It is midday but time does not matter. There are no clocks or signs of civilization. The sandy terrain shifting around my footsteps form ankle-high casts like memory foam. The ocean waves churn a blend of turquoise water and white caps in mesmerizing randomness. Flying seagulls looking for their next meal complete my soundtrack.

Capturing my line of sight, the sky is a solid blue canvas accented by small cumulous clouds. These clouds float like marshmallow glory. The faithful sun beams glitter upon the blanket of sand before my trek. My body finds ultra comfort in not only the sunshine but the rewarding low humidity. I am walking against a gentle breeze by my own choosing. My exposed skin is cooled by the welcoming feeling of Mother Nature’s invisible powers. As I breathe in her blush, my nostrils flare to catch refreshing doses of moist salt air.

The temperature beckons comfort with a 75 degree holding pattern. Test tube mercury has never been so stable. The forecast calls for only a fifteen degree difference between sunrise and sunset…enough certainty of variance to appreciate the passage of time but relish being alive in the moment.

I am in tune with the simple pleasures of the awe inspiring world around me that appear both fictitious and authentic…as if I am walking on literary sand of a romance novel’s folded page. I happen to look down at the goose bumps on my forearms that conjure my contentment when I am reminded that I am not alone. There is a warm flesh and blood hand lovingly gripping mine. I look over to the person that is half my whole. A burst of fireworks fuel my smile. Neither of us needs to say a word so we defer to companionship’s silence. It’s all been defined in the beauty of landscape and intimacy anyway. Her finger locked grasp represents a blessed union of mutual respect and equality. We leave only our footprints behind. Everything lays ahead.

Souper Man

2010-12-02T17:31:00.002-05:00

This is a still frame of me from the Donovan McNabb Tug of War. I found it displayed prominently on radio host Mike Missenalli's Facebook page. Actors will do anything when the camera is rolling. The pool of minestrone soup tasted full-bodied!

Faces of The Sickness

2010-11-05T21:01:00.008-04:00

Joseph Tornatore reflects off camera after the carnage.

What is to be said for a dreary morning while on your last day of vacation? While the weather was a real downer, looking at myself in the bathroom mirror motivated my return to bed. I just couldn’t stand the ugly pimple rearing its greasy head on my face nor the twin teabags which seemed to hang under my raging bloodshot eyes. For heaven's sakes, my thoughts were that I looked like a hellboy made up for a horror movie.

About two hours of useless beauty sleep later, my cell phone rang. I received an urgent telephone call from the director of The Sickness. Although I had submitted my resume for this independent film about six months prior, I had not even been called in for an audition. The director sounded busy, his words short to the point. He inquired about my immediate availability. Although I was thinking ahead to my weekend plans, I wound up on location a stone’s throw from Delaware in little over an hour.

Let the record show that on the day I looked like I could scare Halloween, I was actually cast in a horror movie. The director greeted me by my car. As he explained the featured role I would be playing, I followed him past a creepy dilapidated barnyard with a silo. I heard human noises coming from the greenhouse where we were headed. Inside the greenhouse, I was introduced to the bloodied cast and crew, many of whom looked ragtag enough to have come from the set of The Crazies.

As stray cats jumped out of nowhere onto the gardening tables, the makeup girl added a white powder puff foundation to my beaten face. She then applied four latex open sores. After discussing cinematic realism, it was mutually agreed upon to leave my pimple alone. A network of blue veins got penciled on my long forehead. Faux membrane and dripping blood made me look like a walking epidemic.

As the last actor to arrive on set, I actually completed my scene before signing an appearance release. I performed a very violent act with minimal rehearsal. My face, body, and clothes were a bloodbath of membranes by the time I finished my carnage on the helpless victim.

This role represented the first time I had killed someone on camera. After the first take was over, I didn't know what to make of myself. I stumbled for feeling. I likened my acting to a seizure, a momentary lapse of reason, temporary insanity. The director complimented me on my burst of caged rage. Sometimes when you wake up looking the part, it is just a matter of following through with bloody action.

Impersonating A Rapist

2010-10-25T20:23:00.005-04:00

The presence of slow rolling police cars cruising up and down the block did not deter me from committing the violent crime. My homie and I had a dirty job to do down a dark alley.

Playing a rapist in an independent short film called Minikin Capital Nights, the scariest part about this role may be that I fell into the seedy character of Paul quite easily. This successful crossover to the dark side bothered my psyche. As the high definition film captured a dimly lit street corner, I blocked a woman's egress along the sidewalk. I began harrassing her. I was surprised by the vulgarity of my words, my crotchety obscene gestures and the hateful tone in my voice. Then there was the prejudice the scene carried against an Asian race that had done me no harm in my lifetime. After a realistic take, I snapped out of character and ushered apology to the beautiful lead actress who I had just wronged on camera.

After four years of acting, this speaking part produced my personal favorite lines that I said in a movie, words that originated from my improvisation. Before my sidekick and I perpetrated a rape down a dark alley, I barked a derogative scenario to my intended victim, “How about two servings of white on rice?”

Cut. The director complimented me on my powerfully explicit ad lib then embraced it enough to write it into the script. I’m getting scared I thought to myself. I wanted to go home now. I became wary of the very character I played. I was Paul and appauled. This was definitely not me but then again that was the point.

Wedding Crashers Movie Making

2010-10-17T18:09:00.002-04:00

I suppose you could call it the cycle of life. A proposition at a funeral turned into my earning business for a wedding. I contracted with a proud father to produce a movie short about his engaged to be married daughter. While the movie would be a priceless wedding gift, it would also be showcased for invited guests at the silver spoon reception.

The truck that pulled up in my driveway this past June speaks to the scale of this project that started from scratch. The father unloaded tote containers, cardboard boxes and shopping bags from his truck. The thought about his trust turning over precious memories overwhelmed my sense of responsibility. My library quickly filled with someone else’s possessions. Dismantled pictures literally taken from mantels, collages lowered from walls, thousands of loose and binded photographs, scrapbooks boasting report cards, newspaper clippings, artwork, writing samples…now all lined up next to my scanner for me to individually scan.

The shoeboxes of videotapes seemed the logical starting point. I had to become intimately familiar with the contents of each home movie on VHS tape. I had to overcome the awkward feeling that I was invading privacy. While our brains register a history stamp with people we know, watching a girl grow up before me who I never met played tricks on my mind. After remote viewing twenty-five years of a stranger's life, the VHS tapes had to be converted to DVD then uploaded to movie making software on my computer…where the real work began.

Other than interviewing the father in depth, the movie was a Rosetta Stone. The daughter did supply a preferred song list for the soundtrack but this project would be done without meeting the bride or the groom. I sat in a dark room taking notes on a clipboard trying to get a game plan of how to cover the life of a bride not at the exclusion of the groom. The challenge, the adventure, laid before me…Could my editing skills stream pictures and video together of lives who I had not met? Could I mold and tell a compelling visual story from this media?

I now know the answer to those questions but it took me four months of production work at my desktop computer to make a short called Big Days. At an upcoming wedding reception at The Mansions in Voorhees, NJ, my thirty-minute movie will premier on a big screen television. In retrospect, it was both a labor of love and a business deal. If I were ever to become a wedding crasher, this would be the event. I would bring plenty of tissues and business cards. I still get emotional when I watch it. The first movie I sold outright is a real tearjerker.

Out of My Gourd...Smashing Pumpkins

2010-10-11T20:48:00.005-04:00

A total of seven handpicked actors and models gathered on hallowed ground along the Delaware/Maryland border at a ground zero site called The Chunk for an unusual photo shoot. Hired by the Discovery Channel to work as a model for a print ad campaign, this was unlike any entertainment gig I had done before.

The models were a crosssection stereotype of rare breeds who gather every year the weekend after Halloween to hurl…pumpkins. Hurlers launch pumpkins from contraptions like slingshots, catapults, and cannons not just for shits and giggles but for notoriety in the form of trophies and charted world records. Last year, seventy five thousand spectators attended these outrageous pumpkin shooting world championships. From the little taste of pumpkin that I got, hurlers seem to be a mixed bag of diehard competitors, nuts and bolts engineers and pseudo athlete.

I entered the scene to promote the benchmark silver anniversary of the celebrated event. Television crews will be filming the live event called Punkin Chunkin then slicing it up to be aired on television. While everyone’s pumpkin pie is trying to digest Thanksgiving night, pumpkin hurling can be seen at 9pm on the Science Channel. For anyone who thinks Smashing Pumpkins is just an alternative rock band or something to do on Mischief Night, think again. Since Punkin Chunkin scored the Science Channel’s highest rated episode in 2009, they have seeded a plan to promote the pumpkin gut out of this year’s event. Thanks to the laws of gravity, it’s guaranteed to be a smashing success.

After surviving this shoot, I have utmost respect for any model showing wares from runway to pumpkin patch. The wardrobe department changed and propped the models out to the fabric maximum with accessories like horned pumpkin helmets, hardhats, sledgehammer, binoculars, rebel flags and those giant foam fingers you hate to sit behind at sporting events. We are wearing fling not bling. We posed for hundreds of individual and group photos…flashbulb popping pictures with your body positioned in awkward poses while holding props and manufactured faces that had to seem as natural as a second skin.

As compressed air from a decorated cannon launches pumpkins across the grey sky behind my frozen pose on hay bales, the deafening wind wooshes serve as an uncanny backdrop to the photo shoot. Invisible to the naked eye, participants follow the pumpkin’s trajectory with field binoculars across a beaten field that appears to be setup more like a medieval battlefield. Not a closed set in the least, the practitioners hooting and hollering sounds genuinely contagious. Crew members strategically throw smoke bombs behind me to create ethereal photos. A famous pumpkin hurler named Fat Jimmy is next to me scratching his ZZ top beard like a caricature of himself. Huge flashbulbs pop again in my ears and eyes. When I blink, my mind’s eye catches a glimpse of the action like an out of body experience. I think to myself that I must be out of my gourd even though I am right where I want to be…in the thicket of things.

The rumors on the set place this campaign ad on roadside billboards and in magazines such as Rolling Stone and ESPN. I temper my premature excitement on the set. To not get a big head, I may have to keep it stuffed inside a pumpkin helmet right through the Thanksgiving holiday.

Donovan McNabb Tug of War

2010-10-04T17:38:00.003-04:00

97.5 The Fanatic Radio station has produced a You Tube video featuring the Donovan McNabb Tug of War event that I participated in.. I am the front man on the losing side wearing the white du-rag. I am indubiously shown as the first person to drink minestrone soup in this public spectacle. Let me tell you, the soup tasted full-bodied.

There is a wild rumor stirring that the Anti-Mcnabb team placed a ringer, a gym rat powerlifter, inside the Swoop mascot suit to ensure victory. No regrets, here because I own a gym membership myself. After the painful loss, checkout my huge bellyflop(second one to flop after the event was decided.

The Beaten Path to a Soup Bowl

2010-10-01T21:10:00.010-04:00

Joseph Tornatore showering following his appearance on the radio.

My life rarely follows the beaten path. Barely towel dried from my freefall into a pool of green paint in the new Philadelphia Eagles 25/8 commercial, today’s path turned bath wrinkled with a number five. Things I would never expect to find on myself while showering formerly include tempura paint but now I have to add vegetables to the mix. Following a dark recess discovery, I never thought I would ask myself in the shower, “I didn’t know minestrone soup contained lima beans?”

Let me explain. Producers from 97.5 FM and 950AM radio contacted me to participate in a publicity stunt to promote this weekend’s anticipated divisional showdown between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Washington Redskins. For my non-sports fan readers, this nationally televised game features the return of former Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb. The Eagles traded McNabb away after a string of hugely successful regular seasons paired with numerous “always the bridesmaid” painful playoff losses.

A polarizing figure in Philadelphia sports, the publicity stunt involved a tug of war matchup between a team of pro Donovan McNabb supporters and a team of his haters. The losers of the tug of war got dragged into an unforgiving pool of Chunky minestrone soup. It was a heated decision ultimately picking sides but I chose to be a McNabb supporter. While a cogent sports argument might have persuaded me into changing sides, a great debater could never stir my interest into liking McNabb’s longtime familiar sponsor, Chunky soup.

The tug of war broadcasted live on the radio for those deaf of ear who did not hear my name announced. ABC TV covered the event for their 11'0'clock news broadcast. Fox TV film crews were also on hand filming the event as a lead in to their telecast of the game itself. The tug of war proved to be a titan stalemate for gulp....only the first thirty seconds. As my team’s front man, the taught rope often lifted my heels off the ground. I quickly lost footing for our team when I pulled a nerdy calf muscle in my left leg. Momentum swung and the rope continued to pull me forward. Analogous to a McNabb season ending post game interview, I was walking a tight rope. A glacier of a man the size of an NFL lineman, our anchorman slipped causing the rope to become real short next to the pool of soup. My muscles burned with pain and my body contorted trying to avoid the pool. It felt like former running back Ricky Williams was a ringer pulling on the other side. Not even Donovan’s protective parents could save me from the drink now. Testing the waters seemed to be my destiny.

I fell headfirst into a three foot deep pool of minestrone soup. As I came up out of the soup, the raucous crowd went stir crazy. I estimated that I had swallowed enough soup to rob a Philadelphia homeless person of their next meal. There was no soup kitchen to send this soup back to and its smelly ingredients clung to my clothes. After the winning team celebrated their feat of strength fueled by turncoat quarterback animosity, I ran down the tarmac of padding and did a picturesque belly flop for the rolling cameras. I came up out of the drink spitting out cold soup. Despite my support for arguably the best quarterback in Eagles franchise history, in the end I came up short. The beaten path felt all too familiar. My dream of winning a Super Bowl as a superfan had become a lousy soup bowl. Donovan McNabb had left a bad taste in my mouth yet again.

Meeting Ray the Rant

2010-09-24T19:15:00.002-04:00

When two producers from the cable television show Fandemonium emailed me, I had never heard of either of them let alone their new show. It seemed like good business sense for me to search the Internet and perform a background check. I researched the name of each producer but came up empty handed for Mr. Ray the Rant. How could Ray the Rant be producing a cable television show without something, anything being on the information super highway?

Nevertheless, via email both producers related that they had viewed footage of me in the 25/8 Philadelphia Eagles commercial then tracked me down through my casting agency. Now they were soliciting my interest in doing a bigger segment of my being a Philadelphia Eagles fan for their new television show Fandemonium, which salutes diehard fans of the bleed green team.

Feeling foolish that I did not know who Ray the Rant was, I responded in kind by emailing both producers back expressing my interest to christen their show. I wound up submitting video and other media for the TV show to cover me as a lifelong fan in a future episode.

Fast forward three weeks. While sitting at a Philadelphia Eagles pre-season game, the giant Fanavision screen played a promotional trailer for this same TV show, Fandemonium. To my complete surprise, the trailer showed an animated scruffy ruffian who introduced himself as Ray the Rant. In humorous fashion, I learned that my email communication had not been with a living person but with an oddball cartoon character. Still viewing one dimensional Ray the Rant on the stadium’s big screen, I heard him exclaim, “Joe from Jersey we got your tape!”

The irony rings my ears and stings my eyes. It was bad enough that I had been regularly talking with a cartoon character through email. Now our relationship had accelerated to the point that he could be talking about me to 60,000 other people. The situation was getting out of hand. Over the next couple of days, I dealt with only the counterpart producer to sign releases to appear on upcoming episodes of this same TV show. I refused to copy Ray the Rant on any further email distribution to avoid becoming a laughing stock within the Philadelphia Eagles organization. Believing I had sent Ray the Rant back to the drawing board, I received another personal email from him. This time his bristled scruffy animated cartoon face was an unmistakable mugshot inside a thumbnail icon. His likeness accompanied a Facebook invitation for me to become his friend.

Social networking is a pervasive labyrinth so who I am to understand the matrix? Ray the Rant remains the only non-living friend I have befriended on Facebook.

UPS and Downs

2010-09-21T19:14:00.005-04:00

Of the conclusion that I had every detail worked out with monolithic UPS, I emailed the Ebay purchaser. I instructed him to put the package slated for return shipment out on his open porch. He must live in an awfully safe Florida neighborhood, because he left the package on his porch for three days and two nights without a truck ever making pickup while I waited for it here in New Jersey. Given Florida's notoorious humidity, thank goodness that the contents was sports memorabilia and not aged cheese.

The Ebayer emailed me back outraged about the lack of service on his porch. At the mercy of the mail, I immediately called the worldwide leader in the shipping business. My loose-lipped temperament outran my patience. I went through two UPS frontline staff until a distinguished sounding manager interceded with an improbable explanation.

“Oops, we forgot to inform the local UPS to pick it up. They were in that area plenty but did not know to pick it up. It is our problem on our level. I apologize.”

On the other end of the phone, my face went beet red thinking what brown has done to me. "You think?"

The manager brainstormed, “Wait a minute, the problem could also be that it may be a non-portable item for mailing.”

I queried, “What do you mean? As the original shipper, may I remind you that I lifted it? This is a return to sender situation. I am 48 years old living with an average life expectancy of 78, how much longer can I expect to wait for this shipment?”

“Okay, it’s coming, guy.”

“Need I mention that you greeted me with an admission of Oops? If you guys are the tightest ship in the shipping business, you are now dealing with the loosest cannon in the Ebay business.”

“This isn’t how we do business, sir.”

I commented, “So far it is. You guys ought to merge with Fed Ex and just be called Fed Up!”

Philadelphia Eagles 25/8 Commercial

2010-09-11T15:28:00.002-04:00

Joseph Tornatore's Incredible Bulk impersonation in 25/8 commercial!

This is the first frame of my stunt scene in the new Philadelphia Eagles 25/8 commercial. It is currently airing on multiple channels to help promote the kickoff of the new National Football League season. I earned approximately five seconds of featured camera time in this thirty second commercial.

I hope this entertaining 25/8 commercial runs 24/7. When you are reduced to a pair of shorts for the world to see, you might as well get as much exposure as you can. This commercial captures the passion of Eagles fans perfectly. You can check it out on the Philadelphia Eagles website too. E-A-G-L-E-S Eagles!

Bigger Than Life for a Moment

2010-09-03T19:50:00.002-04:00

Lincoln Financial Field

Sitting at the 35 yard line of the last preseason game between the Philadelphia Eagles and New York Jets, I crooked my neck at the bigger than life Phanavision screen. During a stoppage in play of the first quarter, the Eagles Television Network ran a teaser trailer to the commercial I did for the team.

I excitedly realized that beside my beady eyes, tens of thousands of fans in the stadium got a glimpse of me on the big screen.

What had just occurred in a flash was surreal moment #248 in my lifetime.

Fly Like an Eagle movie on You Tube

2010-08-31T18:41:00.002-04:00

Here is the You Tube link to Fly Like an Eagle, A Bird's Eye View of Joseph Tornatore. It is the five minute segment I produced for the WPHL-17 television show, Fandemonium. The producers of this show, Chris Barletto and Ray the Rant, contacted me about submitting material to air on an upcoming episode following the commercial I shot for The Eagles Television Network.

It is common knowledge that I have difficulty doing anything small so here is my big production. Although it took me twenty hours to produce with tempermental movie making software in only four days, I believe the end product captures the essence of my eccentric personality. Mindful that no publicity is bad news, please forward to your friends and enemies. Enjoy!

The I in Team Fandemonium

2010-08-28T23:32:00.003-04:00

The strangest thing happened while a friend and I browsed the Eagles Television Network website. Investigating for the presence of an uploaded link or any publicly released information to the commercial I filmed for the Philadelphia Eagles, I simultaneously received an email from the Eagles Television Network producers. Probability odds would place those two situations concurring at about a million to one.

Having viewed footage from the commercial shoot, the producers were one step ahead of my curiosity. While I was looking for me, they had painstakingly tracked me down though my casting agency. Confident the commercial had not aired yet and uncertain whether I made the final cut, I was solicited for my interest in doing a feature for a television show. Tune into the Fandemonium show, which will begin airing on Saturday nights on WPHL-17, to see if an actor can be typecast playing himself. Sometimes when chasing the tail of life, it wags behind you. Smile for the camera, little doggie.

Sounding off at the Canon

2010-08-26T21:02:00.001-04:00

The comparison may never have occurred to me except for parallel intervention. After consuming part of my lunch break hour to run errands, I sat reading the headlines from a newspaper. Although a Canon series 40 inkjet cartridge sat beside me, it was dirty newspaper ink that transferred onto my hands. A newspaper dusting should never take place beside a brand new black ink printer cartridge without risking comparison.

Judging by the amount of ink on me and what remained on the newspaper copy, I reasoned that there must be as much ink printed on any .75 cent newspaper than toner housed in a brand new ink cartridge. The question begs asking, why do consumers pay a measly .75 cents retail for ink and paper only to be extorted $24.99 for an ink product that has paper sold separately? Compounding the cost factor, my printer's ink cartridges are not available in cheaper generic models, the well containers cannot be economically refilled and no competitor cartridge can be substituted due to a lack of standardization.

Exorbitantly paying the manufacturer for continued use of a product is eye-gouging greed. It is revolving systemic obsolesces lining corporate pockets. I detest this ink industry like nobody’s business. Cloaked in the anonymity of a technological revolution, this may be the greatest consumer scam of the century. For me it has moved beyond an Andy Rooney pet peeve rant to a Michael Moore mission for reform.

From their ivory tower, the kind folks at the office supply store where I bought the ink expeditiously emailed me an Internet coupon for an identical purchase. Once printed, the paper coupon could hail eight quarters off my next purchase of ink. I studied the full page advertisement in huge thick text fonts displayed in a rich crimson color surrounded by superfluous decorative margins. I just could not summon the courage to hit print on my computer screen then watch the ink run dry.

The Incredible Bulk

2010-08-15T09:42:00.003-04:00

I recently finished filming a promotional spot for the Eagles Television Network. Arriving at the set location prior to my call time, the cobblestone horseshoe drive of the private residence introduced a mansion. Exiting my car, I stepped in between a procession of crew members, cables and ladders. It struck me as rather curious not seeing another actor arriving to set.

Near the front door, I approached a pony tailed production assistant. I asked, “Where is everyone?”

“You’re the guy who will be diving into the pool of green paint, right?”

She described the feat as if it required the actions of a superhero. “Yeah, ugh, that’s what they told me.”

“Okay. We’re filming a wedding of lifelong Eagles fans now but you’re the only actor in the next scene. You don’t have a problem with that, do you?”

“Nah, the center of attention in a commercial about my favorite sports team, forget I mentioned it.”

About an hour and a half later, the assistant director introduced me to a lineup of people assigned to me. He explained, “You’re up. Tom here will valet your car to designated parking. Wilma handles wardrobe. Milly is in Makeup. Mack will shower you off in between takes. Peter and Debbie will change your clothes. If you need anything else other than what has been mentioned, Manny will get it for you so don’t be afraid to ask.”

I continued shaking hands and nodding agreeably. I don’t remember anyone’s name but my own. All I know is the only thing I have to do is act and everything else will be done for me. The AD instructed, “Head to wardrobe and makeup then you need to meet with Patrick, the stunt guy, before reporting to set.”

Wilma from Wardrobe replies, “This just in. The director wants you to go commando.”

“Humm…Do you mean like wearing Army fatigues instead of a bathing suit?”

She handed me cargo shorts, its price tag revealing its newness. “Neither. Change into these shorts. Commando style means no underwear. You need wardrobe change after every wet take. We only purchased so many matching shorts so might as well leave your underwear behind.”

I replied, “No problem. When casting telephoned me about my measurements, I wasn’t asked about underwear size.”

She continued, “How big is your head?”

“Excuse me?”

Wilma from wardrobe rifled though a dream catcher’s heap of licensed Philadelphia Eagles memorabilia in order to outfit me with the right cap. “You need a cap for this shot.”

“Oh, when asking an actor how big his head is, always assume extra large. That’s certainly the case here.”

She smiled then fittingly slapped a black logo cap on me. Milly from makeup ushered me over to her glitz station, where she powder puffed my nose and cheeks.

I asked, “Do you realize I’m going to be covered in green paint?”

“Then make the first take count, hot shot. Take off your shirt, let me checkout your skin tone.” After removing my shirt, I felt her eyes combing me. Her fingertips glided across my shoulders during inspection. “Nice even tan. Good.”

She summoned the stunt man on her headset, who proceeded to brief me on safety precautions for the stunt. As if one were not enough, two crew members escort me to set. Along the way, a stunning backyard boasted a huge stone patio; double wide outdoor fireplace, grilling station under a sizeable arbor and Jacuzzi to finally arrive on set in front of… an inflatable kiddy pool surrounded by empty gallon jugs of tempura green paint. I go wide-eyed because I was expecting an indoor swimming pool amidst the pomp and circumstance.

Before long, it was time to roll film. The cameraman climbed a circus ladder to the top of a huge A-frame support equipped with a camera mount tilted down. “Let’s get ready to roll. Get Joe up on the blocks. Let’s see what it looks like from up here.”

Crew members assisted me onto a platform made from stacked apple boxes. I sensed tenseness on the set, as if my comfort hinged on giving them a carefree look. I decided to break the ice.

“When I booked this gig, my agent assured me this pool would be heated.”

The entire crew busted out laughing. The cameraman maneuvers the camera to fully frame an aerial shot of me free falling backwards into a pool of green without a care in the world. On the first take, my body drifted beyond frame despite hitting the pool. I realized for the first time in my acting career, staring at the seamless blue sky means scrubbing your mark.

Emerging from the greenish hue, I thought to myself…So much for my powder treatment in makeup.

“Remember gang, the owner forbids him back in the house looking like that.

With my flesh oozing in green, the obvious reference point is the Incredible Hulk. However, when I am shown myself captured on the playback camera, the natural reference is The Incredible Hulk except that I resemble a balding overweight middle aged man covered in pond scum.

“I look like The Incredible Bulk.”

The director added, “It’s the shot we were looking for. You performed great. We just need to follow you fully in frame on the next take.”

Stepping away from the camera, the running garden hose hit my skin. Gasping at its coldness caused me to take in a mouthful of watered down paint. The hose washed green from me until clean. Two people toweled me off until I returned to unassuming David Banner.

Watching Wilma from Wardrobe carrying a clean pair of cargo pants, I realized the dilemma for the crew and myself.

A crew member inquired, “How modest are you?”

“I draw the line at nude modeling so I’m thinking about changing behind that juniper bush if that’s alright.”

And so let it be told that it was behind a prickly juniper bush, that I first stripped naked on a set. A girl held a bath towel up as a cotton barrier but anyone who wanted to see my full monty could.

The girl smirked then filled space in between silence. “Don’t worry about me looking at the little twig in your garden.”

Wrestling the slimy shorts off, I feigned exception. “What do you mean, little? I got shrinkage. I just got out of a cold pool and somebody hit me with a hose. My agent is going to hear about this as soon as I take a temperature reading.”

She knew my offbeat personality by now. Our chuckling reduced the awkwardness. I heard my name being called back on set, something about water displacement and testing the adjustment made to the apple box for the fall guy. With a twig leading the charge, I chugged back to set. My acting career was getting a lot of exposure on this promotional spot. Finally seeing green, I soaked it all in.

Behind the Scene in The Bounty Hunter

2010-08-07T22:57:00.002-04:00

left to right - Gerard Butler, Jennifer Aniston

background- Joseph Tornatore

A dialogue scene from The Bounty Hunter starring Gerald Butler and Jennifer Aniston. Judging how adorable Aniston looked in frame, certainly no viewer pictured me far right in this movie scene. No matter how many takes we shot in the Taj Mahal casino, my tired feet did not fall for Jennifer Aniston once.

Leading Off

2010-07-31T13:32:00.003-04:00

First and foremost, Frankie Davie professed to be a diehard sports fan. He lived his whole life a baseball fan with blinders to his moderate mental retardation. He always played favorites and seemed to prefer teams over individual people. I tried to play more of the field working in developmental disability yet I privately considered Frankie one of my favorite clients.

I last parted company with Frankie when he dwelled in a behaviorally challenging cottage in a government run institution nestled in the Pinelands. Not as I would have hoped, Frankie’s last words to me did not resemble a classic goodbye. Instead, he whined why the box score in the sports section showed his favorite team losing by five runs to an underdog. While some people are not good at goodbyes, what I did not understand back then is that Frankie could not comprehend finality because he perpetually lived in the moment.

Proving that time waits for no one, our quirky sendoff occurred a quarter century ago. Turn the page to 2010. While recently entering a community based day program, an older man wearing a ragged baseball cap tapped me on the shoulder.

“Joe, why did the Milwaukee Brewers lose last night?”

"What?" I turned to address the speaker then screamed surprise. “Frankie Davie!”

His hair needed reseeding and it had turned a battleship gray. I put my arm around him but he returned no affection, no obvious sign of attachment. He had uncannily remembered my name and recalled that baseball was a frequent conversation but the human connection escaped him. The only emotion that he showed was to his bad news boys of summer.

He added, “Why do the Brewers have a bad team?”

The beleaguered Milwaukee Brewers franchise must have lost 2,000 games since I last saw Frankie but he began right where he left off. He remained stuck in the moment. Clinicians keeping score might call that symptomatically retarded. I considered it the top of the first inning again. Leading off with a proper hello...Frankie Davie.

Wristband to Waistband

2010-07-11T09:51:00.004-04:00

Trapper's Smokehouse

Our family just finished vacationing in Williamsburg, Virginia where we enjoyed a weeklong bounce ticket at Busch Gardens, Water Country USA and Colonial Williamsburg. Forget about the sweltering heat, the staple of any vacation is the bread I break. A notorious overeater, I often consume food by bulk using discriminating taste. To my doctor’s chagrin, I do not eat for sustenance as much as for pastime.

With that being said, I highly recommend the food pass at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, VA. A few restrictions to the food plan exist but it basically permits eating entrees and drinking from a bottomless cup during normal park operation. On this particular day, the all-you-can-eat setup offered me more amusement than its rides. My idea of an amusement park ride is boarding the tram car from the parking lot anyway so it was no great sacrifice to donate a day’s vacation to the gusto of overeating.

This particular amusement park features native food from six different countries. The long park hours are convenient for an all-you-can eat setup. It’s like a long buffet lineup that requires walking to your next meal. Staring at the penned sheep in the park somewhere between Ireland and France, this type of eating reminded me of grazing. With a map in hand, my food quest began by circling participating vendors and charting a course. I ate and drank for five straight hours in seven different locations in each of its countries:

A delightful Mediterranean Salad of fresh fruit and chesses from Squire’s Grille in England

A well-tended beef stew in an Irish soda bread bowl from Grogan’s Grill in Ireland

Grilled sausage links covered in sauerkraut from Germany’s Das Festhaus

Two tasty corndogs from Kilts in a Blanket in Scotland

Pepperoni Pizza and French Fries from Das Festhaus in Germany

Eggplant parmagian with a side of gravied spaghetti at Italy’s Ristorante Della Piazza.

A savory ½ rack of barbecue spare ribs with sides from Trappers Smokehouse in France

Trapper's Smokehouse is where the walking buffet came to a screeching halt. Alas, after eating my way acrooss Europe, checkpoint eight turned out to be a wayside bathroom south of France. I had consumed so much rich food that I paid for in the end. Even though my black wristband screamed of priviledge, I couldn’t eat another morsel for the next seven hours.

The BP in Crude Oil

2010-06-28T22:06:00.002-04:00

As oil giants boasted billions of dollars in record profits for decades, I wonder if the BP oil disaster could have been averted or better contained with more profit allocated to the science of developing better emergency management safeguards. Let's break it all down for the kin folk. As far as government regulation goes, I am required by law to wear a seatbelt restraint just to operate my personal vehicle with the gasoline in question.

In an age when we need to lessen our dependency on petroleum and explore greener alternatives, drilling for oil should not occur this close inland or at an ocean depth that we risk destroying one side of the country in a single accident. Watching an underwater smokestack of oil pollute the ocean at a rate of millions of gallons per day exposes corporate greed at the expense of a social responsibility to the planet. Spectating a man-made disaster day after day for months with no end in sight is unmerciful.

The first thing you know old BP is a millionaire but the kin folk say its called crude oil for a reason.

Outlaw Joey Wails About Role

2010-06-11T01:47:00.002-04:00

Jimmy Smits in Outlaw

A TV pilot that I worked on as an extra has been officially green lit to air on NBC this fall. Originally titled Garza, this legal drama will star Jimmy Smits as a former Supreme Court Justice who quits the bench to represent the little guy.

I played a casino gambler and a capital punishment protester in episode 1.1. Regarding the latter role, the cast braved harsh elements to film a dicey outdoor scene at Resorts Casino so it would be justice if the little guys made the final cut.

Meloncholy

2010-06-05T09:23:00.002-04:00

I saw a picture of a watermelon carving in a family magazine. The idea seemed ripe at the time but it took me another five years to get around to carve my first one into a colorful fruit bowl. The furled ribbon on top brings out the abundant green of the melon. I wish I had tackled this project sooner. The meloncholy of life bowls me over while ruminating over the things I aim to accomplish with a sharp knife.

Cheeseburger in Paradox

2010-05-26T19:27:00.001-04:00

One of my developmentally disabled clients stopped by my satellite office for an unscheduled greeting. He muttered frustration under his breath. "Joe, I need to talk to you. My girlfriend is receiving too much services. You know, the same services as me only way more and different."

I smirked, "Don't say support services like it's a bad thing."

"Joe, it's good and bad. Since my gastro bypass surgery, I lost 170 pounds, you know.”

“You lost a whole person. You look fantastic.”

“Thanks. I must finally look trim enough because I attracted a girlfriend. She asked me out. I'm trying to gain a sweetheart after losing a person, you might say." He smiles cheesily. "For our first date, we go to Ruby Tuesday's for a cheeseburger. She has her agency chauffer pick me up at my townhouse. What's that all about? While I tolerated the free ride to the restaurant, she says that this cool program she is in, Real Wife Choices, comes with a driver.”

“That’s not the name of her program but the devil is in the details. Go on.”

“Anyway, we get to Ruby Tuesday’s and her chauffer doesn’t wait in the car. The driver brags about being hungry. The chauffer comes in and sits down at the table with us. It's my frigging first date and she is reading the menu to me. It's bad enough I got to pay for my date when Joe, well you didn't even get my voucher approved. No way was I paying for the lunch of a chauffer. Bottom line. Your workers got to stop coming on dates with me. Joe, you got to do something about this program of hers. I’m telling you she's spoiled rotten and I don't need a chaperone."

My Dinner with De Niro

2010-05-11T23:20:00.007-04:00

Robert De Niro

As a bit actor, I have compiled a list of revered actors I dream of sharing space on a movie set. Call it my bucket list. I have always considered Oscar winner Robert De Niro as one of the greatest actors of all time. His acting superiority in the movies Raging Bull and Taxi Cab alone are ranked #10 and #22 on the One Hundred Greatest Performances of All Time list.

My bucket list got a name shorter after recent invitation to the movie set of The Dark Fields starring iconic Robert De Niro and hunk Bradley Cooper. While De Niro presents more salt than pepper in his hair now, he carried enormous class and trademark confidence on the set of this thriller.

I got handpicked from a contingency of about two hundred largely unused extras holed up underground inside a former bank vault. I became a restaurant patron in a scene that filmed for several hours. As part of a group of five actors waiting to be seated next at the hostess station. Neil Burger, (The Illusionist) tapped me on the shoulder while the crew flipped the camera to a new position. The director instructed our party to greet De Niro with admiration and recognition as he cavorted into the upscale restaurant. It was explained that De Niro’s character commanded our awe. I almost blurted out that my reaction would hardly be acting becauseI had been bowing to De Niro like a demigod all day.

I quickly took inventory of the moment at hand. Albeit an uncredited role, I will be in frame with a living legend in a major motion picture. All I got to do is act like De Niro is one of my favorite actors on my bucket list! As cast and crew setup for the first take of this scene, I thought of everything that could go wrong until something unexpectedly did.

The nagging allergy cough that I suppressed during filming returned with a vengeance. I actually needed to flee the restaurant through the front turnstile doors in an embarrassing coughing stupor. Outside on the streets of Philadelphia, I hacked up dozens of congested coughs. Doubled over and worried another extra in holding would take my coveted place, my uncontrollable coughing began to resemble a panic attack. The large group of adulating fans gathered across the street made catcalls.

Somebody shouted, “Hey, that’s not Bradley Cooper!” Another commented, “It’s certainly not De Niro.” A young girl asked, “Who is it?" “I dunno, probably a nobody.” Some quick thinker wondered, “Wait a minute, I bet this is part of the movie?” Another said, "I don’t know but I’m recording it anyway."

A crew member, assigned to crowd control, called a medic on the walkie-talkie. About the time, my watery eyes could make out cameras and handheld video recorders pointed my way across the street, the medic arrived. I rose up from a doubled over position trying to resume normal breathing. I had no voice but I kept pantomiming whether they were filming yet. De Niro was supposed to start the scene outside the restaurant but as far as I knew he had yet to report outdoors to his first mark. The medic told me to save my breath and tilt my head back. Down went cough medicine. A cough drop was plucked into my mouth. I was handed a towel to dry the cold sweat from my face. Another arm appeared out of nowhere to hand me a water bottle. I drank chilled water in double swallows.

My lungs gradually opened and I could open my mouth without coughing, positive signs that I was on the road to recovery. A couple of smart aleck fans gave me an awkward cheer, something my acting career had never seen. I asked another crew member if they started filming the scene.

“I think they’re waiting on you.” he responded.

I coughed up spittle. “Always leave them wanting more.”

I returned inside the restaurant to my first mark, my eyes still watering from the coughing spell. De Niro passes by to report outside the restaurant. I must have became some hack to him. Be careful what you wish for. Although I resumed my fortunate mark in the film, I had become the actor who choked working with Robert De Niro.

The More Things Change

2010-05-06T17:39:00.007-04:00

I can’t resist sounding like Andy Rooney here. The more things change, the more I can't stand the change.

In 1978, I bought a 19 inch RCA color TV from Sears and Roebuck. I told the prickly pushy salesman that I did not want a higher priced model powered by a easily lost gadget called a remote control. I liked my dial knob just fine and he wasn't suckering me into buying a lifetime of replacement batteries. Besides, a handheld remote seemed like an invitation to a sedentary lifestyle. I should have accepted the technological revolution clickety click but it took me another decade before I did. Who could have predicted that three hundred television channels would broadcast over a cable bandwidth? Now you can find this couch potato grumbling when I have to hit pause on my remote to get up to go to the bathroom.

Call me shortsighted but I never thought oxygen would cost money. I curse this greedy grubby world every time I pump air into a flat bike tire. Only the health care industry should bottle what we breath freely for profit.

When facsimile machines were invented, I wondered what was wrong with waiting for the mail to arrive. Who sped up the rotation of the earth to demand things instantaneously anyway? I blame some upscale impatient business executive who labeled regular mail, snail mail. Now decades after facsimile acceptance, licking stamps is on the endangered list and very few people look forward vistiting their mailbox. Everything needs a paper trail so just the fax please.

When bottled water hit store shelves, I wondered how many impulsive idiots would buy pretty labeled bottled containers whose contents poured freely on tap from faucet and fountain. It seemed ludicrous to think thirsty people would actually drive to the store to purchase a commodity that runs from their home spigots for pennies on the gallon. Now some eateries even refuse to serve tap water in an old fashioned glass with a lemon wedge. I cringe when I hear upsale pitches that their water only comes in a bottle. When I drink bottled water, it tastes no better than tap in most parts of the country. I have also concluded that tap water doesn’t make me feel stupid when I consume it the way a plastic bottle of water does. It’s not like we live in a third world country without indoor plumbing.

Now that I have exposed myself to the scrutiny of being called a blind visionary, I wish to go on record again for the Tornatore Time Capsule. Perhaps, I actually may predict one trend before it becomes a part of mainstream culture. While the next generation of automobile drivers may enjoy no emission electric cars, please be prepared to plug your glorified golf cart into merchant’s public outlets where they will charge you big money for a little electricity.

This is Andy Rooney, and you can take that to the bank.

Life Comes at You in Waves

2010-04-25T08:52:00.001-04:00

Jennifer Aniston

The scene of the embarrassing incident occured on the set of The Bounty Hunter. I reacted like any warm-blooded man would have done placed in the same awkward situation. It meant less to her than it did me. It involved nothing more than a wave back, a long distance greeting with a celebrity you cannot get closer to without risking unemployment as an actor or arrest.

Let me set the scene within a scene. I am standing on my first mark at the bottom of the escalators underneath the Taj Majal’s signature chandeliers. The crew is methodically preparing the environment. It is the first take on the second day of this scene, which involves the two principle actors, Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler, bantering down the escalators.

An unusual thing happened. Jennifer Aniston waved my way after boarding the escalator. A sight to behold, she was looking my way and smiling charismatically. Even more impressively, nobody stood in between us. I had only clear sightlines of a sultry Jennifer Aniston dressed provocatively in a grey skirt and clingy low cut top. She had me.

I felt pints of blood rush through my body. I remained levelheaded while I quickly thought to myself. Aniston must recognize me from working together the day before. Our fleet relationship had spun all the way out of control to acquaintances. Judging social protocol, Aniston and Tornatore were a conversation from being friends. I raised my hand and gave a stiff armed wave back. Ah, therein lies the shame of it all. My wave showed the lack of confidence of a George Costanza, undeserving of the recipients time of day or acknowledgement.

After waving back to Aniston, hundreds of fans held precariously behind yellow caution tape and security guards erupted in enthusiastic applause. I had mentally blocked out this crowd to eliminate any performance anxiety. The screams and catcalls to Aniston flooded my consciousness. On Aniston’s continued ride up the escalator, I could not have appeared much smaller. Aniston cocked her head to the side. She gave me a smirk like… you silly middle-aged overweight man, you thought I was waving at you. Life comes at you in waves. I would do it again in a fast heartbeat.

Burning Sixteen Candles

2010-04-15T18:51:00.004-04:00

For the last couple of months, I have morbidly saved the newspapers clippings about a double suicide in Norwood, Pennsylvania. I find myself occasionally staring at the smiling profile pictures of two pretty teenage girls, Gina Gentile and Vanessa Dorwart. One harrowing detail about this case haunts me. The social ease of an instantaneous text message the girls shared moments prior to committing suicide may offer a human x-ray of their derailed psyche.

It read, “Hurry up! The train is coming.”

To express concern about being late for your own funeral is a suicide note in and of itself. The text message is received right as the southbound train blows its approach whistle. The sixteen candles their parents readied to top their birthday cakes were about to be snuffed out and nobody close to them apparently saw the train coming.

I suppose my zest for a measured life makes the act of suicide inconceivable for me to fathom as anything but an irrational desperate act of surrender. Life should be revered as a miracle, a coveted blessing to be time honored for its natural duration. After squeezing every possible experience out of this world, mark my words that I will fight for my last breath. I bask in this thing called life so much so that I wish that I could live longer than Methuselah. Perhaps, I should count my blessings because I have not experienced dire circumstances that would prompt me to terminate my existence. For this logical reason alone, I keep staring at this newspaper article trying to make sense of it all.

Possibly suffering from untreated clinical depression, these two high school girls mourned the recent accidental death of their mutual close friend, Bill Bradley. Believing that they could not live without their departed friend, who got hit by a car while riding a bicycle, they trumped his death by kissing a speeding train. These distraught girls gained strength in tandem what they may not have been strong enough psychologically to carry out alone. With truth a stranger, they stepped onto the tracks together. They embraced each other through the train steamroll. As far as suicides go, its execution proved flawless.

I wonder whether their souls in the hereafter are accountable for murdering the breath of life that was given to them or is suicide nothing more than exercising freedom of choice? I pause to think that maybe they must make amends for the pain and suffering they caused on their loved ones suddenly left behind.

Life moves faster than a speeding locomotive to begin with. Getting in its way, does not seem an answer on any level. We should follow profound light or seek professional help. Life not death should be kept in front of you…maybe no more so than at sixteen candles.

The Odds of a Pilot Taking Off

2010-04-12T22:00:00.001-04:00

actor Jimmy Smits

The odds of a new television show airing on prime time are approximately four hundred to one. That means there are three hundred ninety nine promoted failures for every new TV Guide listing. If a production garners enough financial banking to actually hire cast and crew then role cameras to film the pilot, the odds of it airing on TV markedly improve to about 80 to 1.

If I could live long enough to work as an actor on eighty pilots, just one of those episodes might land Nielson ratings. Not exactly a body of work. If I stopped to consider the long shot odds of an extra like me making the final cut in real time discernable frame on a TV pilot, I should give up acting if fame is an objective. Lucky for me, I enjoy my experiences on a set however insignificant my role.

Such was the case when filming began locally for a new NBC television pilot called Garza. Bankrolled by Conan O’Brien and starring gifted actor Jimmy Smits, the show is being promoted as a former Supreme Court Justice entering private law.

I filmed three scenes, most noticeably as a protester on a capital punishment case. A murky fog rolls off of the dark Atlantic Ocean as actors complete rehearsals outside Resorts casino in Atlantic City. In between takes of omni audio wild track as they say in the biz, the prayerful nun placed to my right performs raspy impersonations from the movie Exorcist. The principle actress to my immediate left ignores the nun, me and everyone else as she mentally prepares for her upcoming scene after being propped and wardrobe approved.

The director yells background action. Supplanting his stand-in, Jimmy Smits stridently walks by me on cue for the first take. He carries a strong confident presence. The actress next to me separates herself from the throng of protestors. She and Smits engage in passionate dialogue a few feet from my mark. I mouth pantomime shouts at Smits. I think to myself that living in the moment doesn’t get any better than this. Although hired to protest capital punishment, watching the execution of Smits acting constituted a dream come true. I doubt anyone will compliment my heckling of Smits in my role of a nighttime. After all, the odds are against me. It was only my third TV pilot.

Muted Me on The Bounty

2010-03-31T20:04:00.001-04:00

My stepdaughter gave me two free movie tickets. After my wife declined to go with me to a complimentary flick, I dragged an interested party to go see The Bounty Hunter starring Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler. Despite the omissions in the credit roll, I worked as an actor on this film. Scratch that overstatement. I worked as an extra on this film.

I wound up placed like a piece of furniture in three different scenes in the movie. Wearing an American flag shirt, I showed not only patriotism but fleet of foot pedestrian action on the boardwalk. The production crew let me apprise my role walking behind the stars near an escalator. Since I did not fall down once during multiple takes over the course of two days of shoots, I finished a rather dicey scene as a craps table gambler opposite Aniston.

If there is good news to report, I made the final cut in all three scenes but I might need the sleuth of Myth Busters to prove my claim. I am estimating a total of five seconds of camera time in deep undercover background filler. No lines, just muted me on the bounty. I can now brag to anyone who will listen and some who might refuse that while walking erect I was captured in frame with hottie Jennifer Aniston in a film. There are worse situations in life.

The reality is that my mooching friend could not see me in the movie any more than my stay-at-home wife. All of my viewfinder finger pointing and megalomania aspirations of hooray in an otherwise empty theatre seemed for naught. I keep telling myself that I must have done an excellent job as a background actor. Blending into this romantic comedy canvas should do serious wonders for my acting career. Shush, I think I hear my cell phone going off now. It must be my casting agency calling. Considering the cost of admission, this extra thought the moviegoer experience was worth every penny.

House of Hoarder

2010-03-03T19:53:00.013-05:00

A blizzard of snowfall anchors a triple dresser in the modest front yard. It's an oddity the way the unprescedented deep snow surrounds it. It looks more like a wooden casket than a piece of furniture not in its own house. Its woodenness occupies my attention as I trudge through the long winter to make it to the covered porch of a three-story century old house.

As I maneuver around pratfalls of junk, I realize that the integrity of the porch’s subfloor is failing. It is an environmental hazard further compromised by my client’s weekly ritual of picking curbside trash then bringing it home to pile in the way station of her porch. The otherwise benign term “covered porch” carries new meaning with me. The screen door flaps in the wind, a thin wooden barrier separating the big world chock full of customs and socially accepted mores from Rochelle’s hock of a dysfunctional home.

Barging my way through the breakers, I knock on the door. Scheduled by appointment and now let in by invitation, I enter the house of this reclusive hoarder. The transparency surrounding us evaporates privacy. She presents a tight smile but my saucer eyes have social worker written all over them. Her living alone status makes her responsible as head of household.

We begin to talk about the neutral subject of weather when she pressingly says that she knows what I am thinking. Rochelle sheepishly confides that she owns no shovel to have done snow removal and apologizes if my shoes are not waterproof. After a long awkward pause ending with my head nod, she offers me a seat. I wish to accept her honorary hospitality but at first glance I do not see four-legged availability. I pace. She pulls piled clothes from the back of a spindle chair then stacks of newspaper and cardboard from the seated cushion. Short of shouting eureka, I see the bottom of a chair and accept its respite amongst clutter to the infinite degree.

Situated lower to the floor now, a mitigating foul smell hits my nostrils as if Beowulf lurks under the dining room table. Although Rochelle swears she is continent and owns no pets, the smell of stagnate urine overwhelms my senses. In an agitated tone, she admits to once owning a miniature collie named Waterloo. Rochelle insists she has seen through Waterloo’s passing to a pet cemetery in the northwest corner of the backyard. I do not own a compass to begin identifying the right quadrant for excavation but I presume now that she once owned a shovel to carry out grave digging. She conveys “inhibiting factors” that prevented her from walking the animal outside when poor Waterloo was alive, if not well. Posthumously, I cannot indict the creature for using every inch of the downstairs shag carpet for relief because it was a matter of cruel necessity.

Rochelle blurts, “It is why I never wanted children. They're too much work.”

A hardbound book “How to Fix Things in Your House” catches my eye on a bookcase shelf. She grants me permission to pluck it like an oddball from a shelf dedicated to themed outdated gardening books. I open up this vintage book in a house of disrepair. A random page reveals a time-stamped drawing of a refrigerator alongside a glowing narrative spouting the preservative benefits of chilled food and the wondrous invention of pliable copper tubing to supply water to make ice. The world has passed her bookcase by and her carpet smells like an unfixable toilet this book did not reference.

Another literary preference is the largest collection of yellow page phonebooks that I have ever seen assembled in one place. Many volumes are from the same county in which she lives, multiple phonebooks of the same year perhaps stolen from her neighbor’s driveways. I ask the obvious question regarding the need for redundancy. Her answer rings more gongs of mental illness than mental retardation.

“People change their phone numbers all of the time. I can’t keep up. The sheer numbers are overwhelming.”

Her eyes follow mine. With that in mind, I do my best not to pass judgment with my social cues but this proves difficult around this excellent observer. I look away for convenience sake. Beside a rickety piano, a sandwich board professionally advertises the headliner, “Appearing For One Night Only, Rochelle.” It was an extraordinary prop that just needed a tip jar to complete the stage.

When I swing my head around, Rochelle is gone. I hear her feet trampling the staircase then overhear her voice upstairs. She returns to the dining room wearing an uncomplimentary Goodwill cocktail dress. This is not the one night stand scenario a male social worker wants to foster when alone with his female aspiring client. I feel like the talent agent in that signature movie scene from “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” The thought crosses my mind to check the upstairs floors for wire hangars and hostages. I excuse the remote possibility that while Rochelle was upstairs she may not have been talking to me but a bound captive. My distraction and uneasiness continues as she sits down and plays nimble fingers across an out of tune piano with the ivory literally worn from the keys. Some keys stick, she plays one handed and belts out an Elton John song like she is chilling bones. Hearing the drone of a foot pedal, I look down and see her curled toenails working barefoot from a hairy leg.

Oh God Almighty! I need to create space here as much as she does. I politely remove myself from the living room and enter the kitchen. Big mistake. I scoff how surprised I am by its deplorable condition. The chances of catching salmonella and ptomaine poisoning are a distinct possibility. Mice and cockroach might not even eat here. Food spores, greased pans and dirty dishes are everywhere. If I had a dime for every empty sugar packet I saw from his main food group of coffee, I could retire early never to hear Rochelle botch another song. Encased with hardened food, the microwave looks like a fire hazard.

The strangest curosity about the house is that there is no indoor trashcan or wastebasket. Star Trek’s Spock might say, “Factual observation reveal conditions barely sustainable for life in a hardscrabble environment where nothing seems categorically disposable.” Psychiatrist Dr. Benjamin Spock might simply conclude that she is somebody's baby. Entertaining both spoofs, I come to the illogical conclusion that a hoarder does not find need to dispose of things. Captain’s log…diagnosis of a hoarder's cluttered mind, there is no addition by subtraction. Beam down empty dumpsters and an ensigns weilding phasers set to shun.

As if to illustrate how comfortable she is at home in her surroundings, Rochelle pours expired milk into her dirty cold mug of instant coffee. I try to convince her not to drink it. She bends an elbow. I reach my hand out as if I am prepared to intervene but she recoils not unlike a toddler denied her way. I remind her of her recent hospitalization due to eating bad food. She rationalizes that the coffee is older than the spoiled milk. I watch her gullet double swallow. My stomach curls like the milk in question. She silhouettes dysfunction standing before samples of her artwork. Hanging on easels and the wall are architectural drawings of famous buildings she somehow rendered to exact scale. They accompany her oil paintings of shadowy human figures that are as beautiful artistically as they are Rob Zombie horrific in subject matter. She finishes her milk in front of a backdrop of pure genius. I think of Hannibal Lector's decorated cell although I do not conjure any danger of her eating me before my expiration.

The newly activated landline phone rings like a whistle-blowing referee between us. My hopes that it is her treating psychiatrist calling become dashed by familiarity of conversation. I find myself cleaning her kitchen. I tackle expiration dates on food packages and scrub everything in my wake using a dirty washrag that looks like it cleaned up the killing of a dog named Waterloo. While I clean around her stationary perch, Rochelle cogently talks to a dear cousin from Georgia about the systemic obsolesces of down spouts during 100-year storms. In another hour, I will be off duty. Ah, the Sandman slowly shifts time for a social worker trapped in a health inspector’s nightmare.

Vacation Driveway Getaway

2010-02-25T21:31:00.002-05:00

It took me two hours longer than I estimated digging out from the last snowphoon. When walls of snow almost better measured in Buffalo feet than inches blankets everything in its wake, how long it will take to shovel is not an exact science. By the time I dug out and drove to work safely, it was 10:30am. I was physically exhausted. Understandably, the office was a ghost town except for the occasional voice or swish of snow pants rubbing together when someone walked by my desk.

I started to think that the region's unprecedented excess white weather had something to do with only twenty percent of the workforce reporting for duty. My administration ruled that shoveling out too slow is not an excusable lateness. Employees who braved the elements yet arrived late were rewarded for their conscientious efforts with rejected time sheets. While I was never at risk for docked pay, I did have to use my own personal time to cover the two hour snow penalty.

Now I can fondly look back on this picture of me laboring an ice pick on the driveway scoop to break apart dwarf icebergs. I didn't even need a travel agent for this vacation.

Ignoring Groundhog Day in a Snowphoon

2010-02-20T11:31:00.002-05:00

While progress often can be seen in inches, my efforts to push Spring weather via morning coffee on the deck have been largely ignored by Mother Nature.

Star Trek : Out of this World

2010-02-17T23:45:00.001-05:00

About a year after I became a fringe actor, I realized that watching movies would be forever altered. Understandably, my perspective now includes basic knowledge about the intricacies of how a movie is made and how scenes are staged and filmed. I will be the first one to admit that some of the magic has personally disappeared from movie watching. However, my knowledge base of breaking down film far exceeds any FX glitz lost due to my time spent on a set as an actor.

With that being said, this movie critic just got around to watching the 2009 movie Star Trek. I am not your phaser wielding traditional die hard Trekkie per say. My only allegiance goes to the original Star Trek characters because I enjoyed watching the TV show as a kid growing up. From there, my interest in the adulterated spin-off series fell off the earth so to speak.

I recently watched the Star Trek movie with jaw agape over its sublime excellence. The movie was flawless in terms of casting, acting, script writing, sound, musical score and post production editing. There was not one scene or dialogue line written off to exposition. Its sound was dynamic and moving. The transition editing was seamless. Every element of this movie fell into place for me like kismet symmetry.

I shudder thinking about how scripted this movie could have been casting younger versions of the USS Enterprise icons but it was delivered with such creative panache and fine acting that I am at warp drive now trying to conjure just superlatives. It was a visually stunning Roddenberry franchise on stellar parade. Spock it out if you get a chance.

Bazookas: The Movie To Be on Pay-Per-View

2010-02-10T10:19:00.002-05:00

Joseph Tornatore playing a bartender in Bazookas.

Your attention please, BAZOOKAS Nation. Producer/Director Michael G. Leonard has signed an agreement with Gravitas Ventures that will bring "BAZOOKAS: The Movie" to Pay-Per-View TV later this year! The movie will be available for rental in millions of homes. Congratulations to the cast and crew!

A Non-Taxing Acting Role

2010-02-02T19:08:00.001-05:00

I participated as a background extra in a commercial currently being pitched to Turbo Tax. In the last segment of the thirty second spot, I am pictured on the far right hanging onto the edge frame of the commercial. Although it is neither center stage nor foreground, I became familiar with the script as the assigned understudy for a principle actor.

They say certain acting roles can be taxing. This was not one of them for me. You know, I just wanted more accountability in my first Turbo Tax commercial.

Fleshing Out The Lovely Bones

2010-01-21T21:20:00.002-05:00

A scene from The Lovely Bones.

I considered it a long shot at best making the final cut as an extra in the just released movie The Lovely Bones. I just did not know how much of a long shot it was until I saw the scene play out in this superb drama.

Supplying less than meaningful atmospheric filler as a diner patron, my prophetic long shot arrives 6:34 seconds into the film after the screen fades to white with a voice over by Susie Salmon’s murdered character. This pictured establishing scene in a shopping mall lasts four seconds but is inconsequential to the plot and leaves me unrecognizable to everyone but myself. Being in frame with Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz and Stanley Tucci is fine company to keep but I wish there was more of yours truly to flesh out in The Lovely Bones.

Forensic Files and Polished Acting

2010-01-14T18:51:00.008-05:00

I pressed my cell phone to my ear. “Hello.”

“Is this Joseph Tornatore?”

“Yes, at your service. Who is this?”

“My name is Jen. You auditioned for me for Forensic Files. Do you remember?”

“I do. Ugh, that was two years ago.”

“Well, you finally resemble a perpetrator whom we plan to do an upcoming episode on.”

“That is the first time that has been said to me. I’m interested in hearing more.”

The casting agent summarized the perpetrator’s rap sheet as if she were reading flavors from a menu at an ice cream shop. She then candidly asked me if I have a problem with acting out any of the brutality. I said that I would enjoy myself. She continued to explain that there are four other finalists considered for casting in this same principle role. The conversation hung.

“Do you still sport blond hair?”

I chuckled, “Yes, sporting a little less hair than two years ago.”

“That’s okay. Would you consent to our makeup department dying your hair a premature salt and pepper color?”

“Absolutely. Cut it, perm it, shave it, add real salt and pepper if you want. My wife has been telling me I need a makeover. I don’t think she had murderer makeover in mind but I’m a very accommodating actor.”

“Great. That's a plus.”

The next part of the casting process consisted of having until dawn the next morning to recreate a jpeg mug shot in the best likeliness of the guilty party. I got to admit it was the first time I used my wife’s makeup bag. I drew heavy bags of hard living under my eyes then made my eyebrows fuller. Where Lancome failed, drastic measures took over. I applied alternate layers of white then black shoe polish to my hair. I added mousse to my top hair and combed it wildly stiff. I then created a matching mustache and goatee from the shoe polish. A sly silvery fox aging prematurely beyond his years stared back at me in the vanity mirror. An hour of picture taken followed. I finally captured a still shot with what I considered the right facial expression...an unconscionable sociopathic stare into the penal system.

In the end, I received an email that the producers had chosen another actor for the role. An all expenses paid acting gig in sunny Florida to break up a cold winter was offered to someone else. While lamenting this forsaken opportunity, I had an epiphany. The perpetrator had wiggled his way out of jail before. He had killed his mother with a knife. He had murdered execution style two neighbors with little provocation. He was a suspect in two other vicious unsolved murders. So I asked myself. How partial could he be to refraining from icing the actor playing him on Forensic Files? It just might be the role of a long lifetime not getting this part.

The Dresden Dolls Make-up

2010-01-06T18:07:00.002-05:00

As a middle age man, I may be in rare company to be a music fan of the band called the Dresden Dolls. Their brazenly raw speak-easy lyrics might be mistaken for anti-establishment nursery rhymes when delivered beautifully overtop a piano soundtrack by lead singer Amanda Palmer. Although it is difficult to classify their music, their avant garde punk cabaret genre, if you will, often portrays social disturbia. Explicit songwriting finds an unlikely home to first orgasms, sex change operations, pornography, masturbation and mental illness. Not your typical Thanksgiving dinner conversation, the taboo subject matter makes a place setting for carving raw emotions. Their lyrics conjure the flawed humaneness in a troubled society to which its youth can identify.

Amanda Palmer's expressive voice covers powerful topics with unbridled passion. She sings like a cutting edge compliment to Tori Amos with the ranging voicebox of Happy Rhodes. Listening to the music of the Dresden Dolls is both a haunting and hypnotic experience, difficult to explain but with a distorted reality certainty that you are engaged. Amanda Palmer's voice seduces you with a resonating paralytic quality that lulls you into a false sense of security. Like a semstress of song, she then beats you with a pillow before you look up to notice your blood on the casing's underside. You know too little too late how the blood got there but it is a moot point since you strangely enjoyed your time.

In other words, if I were decades younger and addressing a contemporary audience about this band's music, I might say "Omg wtf those Dresden Dolls are f-in banging. I'm listening my a$$ off. They emo kill it, do you feel me?"

2009 Freudian Slips Irony Oscar

2009-12-31T17:16:00.005-05:00

While most blogs have been supplanted by instantaneous applications like Facebook and Twitter, Freudian Slips has faced its share of challenges to survive on the information super highway otherwise known as the internet. Nevertheless, with ink newspapers going out of business by the droves, this mainstay blog closes out its sixth calendar year still pecking occasional copy on the keyboard. While no workforce reductions are in store for 2010, if readerhsip continues to wane, my blog headquarters may be moved to a smaller cupboard closest to an unsecured internet conncection. With so many blogs signing off for good, this writer worries if I may one day be joining the ranks of the blog deceased in favor of another medium.

Be that as it may, as nominated by my remaining dedicated blog readers based ontheir email inquiries and post comments, here are the five most popular blog articles appearing on Freudian Slips in 2009.

9-19-09 The PH Factor in Grass and Lovemaking
8-30-09 Beasts of Burden
6-28-09 Nick at Night
8-25-09 Fire Come and Get It
3-11-09 The Seedy Side of Life

And the winner of the 2009 Freudian Slips Irony Oscar goes to the blog posting, Nick at Night, a whimsical satire on working behind the scenes in a movie as Nick Nolte's stand-in.

Ukranian Sand Art

2009-12-22T20:13:00.005-05:00

This You Tube video is the most inspirational sand art that I have ever seen created. It is a young girl's moving pictorial on the devastating effects of wartime on ordinary Ukranian citizens. It is astonishingly done in real time in front of a live audience in tempo with piped background music and timed soundbites.

If only the world could peacefully unite based on such artistic displays of human spirit alone, the earth in which she so masterfully moves would be a better place. I have not been able to watch this tribute without shedding tears. I have always felt that if people truly listen to the arts, war planes would never fly.

Snowed In

2009-12-20T20:16:00.001-05:00

Twenty two inches of snow fell in my area blanketing the ground in a sea of pristine white. It looks as though a white Christmas can be an easy prediction.

Beam Me Up, Slotty

2009-12-14T23:34:00.001-05:00

Yours truly playing video slots at Caesar's casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Episodic gaming has become so popular it took me two overnight stays to get on this particular type machine but when I did I had to Klingon to my seat.

Biting the Silver Bullet

2009-12-08T18:30:00.003-05:00

Joseph Tornatore in Coors Light commercial.

The first time I saw the markings on Coors Light cold-activated beer cans turn from blue to white in my hand, I got labeled a slow sipper amongst the partygoers. The second time that I was in the company of this same beer can I was frothing at the mouth filming a Coors Light commercial.

On one hand, one could make a case that the color-changing picture of Rocky Mountains on scraps of recycled aluminum is a crafty invention but not when you are shooting a commercial for the product itself. Actors had to keep those shiny cans frosty cold with the label angled towards the rolling camera. The crew had to keep cans cold in a nearby refrigerator then continuously swap them for warm beers that had spent too much time in front of the camera and thereby warmed to room temperature.

If there is a downside for a fun-loving guy shooting a beer commercial, it’s the overlooked rule that alcohol consumption is prohibited on the set. All day long, take after take, I longed to pop a top and drink from a Silver Bullet cam. There is plenty of truth in advertising for this actor. I played a news reporter in this commercial and I would like to report that this beer was made for drinking.

You can view the entire thirty second Coors Light commercial on Poptent for a limited time.

Yes Jiminy There Isn't a Santa Claus

2009-12-05T10:10:00.003-05:00

The fake Santa Claus jostled into place the loose bed pillows underneath his bright red borrowed suit. With his body perspiring in the thick costume, he waddled into a fourth grade elementary school classroom yelping a round of his best ho-ho-ho’s. The elementary school children responded favorably with surprise and adulation. Twenty-four hours earlier, the fun-loving man playing iconic Santa Claus provided custodial care by wielding a wet mop in this same classroom.

In on the ruse, the teacher welcomed Santa Claus with Season’s Greetings.

“Merry Christmas!” shouted Santa Claus to Jewish and Gentile children alike.

The man playing Santa Claus had a pinch too much entertainer in him for perhaps even the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade. He moved around the classroom greeting kids. Santa danced as if he had bells on his feet. He soon waddled to an aisle seat to his left. Santa stopped at a desk of his choosing hoping that his deliberate actions appeared random. Praying that his full white beard would not wardrobe malfunction, Santa hunched his upper body towards a sheepish student.

“Have you been a good boy?”

With all of the yelling, Santa’s voice sounded hoarse by now. This aided not only his disguise but concealed his identity. The male student, however, appeared shy about receiving individual attention. He squirmed in his seat and said nothing.

Good Ole Saint Nick needled him. “Santa thinks you have been naughty this year. I hope it isn’t going to be a lean Christmas for you.”

About this time, the boy’s eyes met Santa Claus’s eyes. Between the two sets of almond pupils bore a trace of familiarity. The boy searched for the gift of right words.

Another classmate broke-up the holiday cheer. “Jim, that’s your brother, stupid! You know, the school custodian.”

Nightmare Before Thanksgiving

2009-11-28T16:01:00.002-05:00

Why do we need to push up the Christmas holiday season before giving Thanksgiving its proper due? It is only after the hustle and bustle of Thanksgiving that I can begin to think about shopping and unwind enough to enjoy Christmas music. It is a pet peeve to hear radio stations playing Christmas music before the arrival of Thanksgiving. Bing Crosby's voice confuses me on what Americans need to be next thankful for on Thanksgiving and Christianity has got nothing to do with my November holiday meal. The last time I checked Rudolph the Rednosed Reindoor flew only one night in late December and there isn’t even venison in a turducken! Yet the gaudy department store displays of Christmas holiday decorations seem to want to trump Thanksgiving. If only Thanksgiving had a commercial upside, retailers would be traditionalizing us into decorating our front lawns with glow-in-the-dark strung turkeys.

Am I missing something here? Do farmers need to lull turkeys into a false sense of security by piping Christmas music into the farm pens? The stupid dodo bird turkeys hear the cheery rump pa pa pum music and think they got a stay of execution then the mercenary farmers sneakily yell off with their heads. Remembering the pilgrims and the birth of Jesus should be separate and not equal. I don’t hear anyone setting off firecrackers on Easter morning so don’t go playing Little Drummer Boy in my ear until Black Friday cometh. Celebrating gifting before fowling seems like a misgiving.

When Drinkability Becomes Marketability

2009-11-20T23:14:00.002-05:00

For weeks, it felt like our refurbished screen house needed a finishing touch of decorum. Call it equal parts inspiration and donation but I ran electric to professionally hang this secondhand Budweiser neon sign behind the bar. Home projects like these often take my wretched hands and the wrong tools way too long to complete. When persistence pays off, I relish sitting back to admire my work.

So I reclined at my new outdoor bar in my new porcelain tiled screen house having what else, a nightcap celebratory beer. As the new Budweiser neon sign casted strange ambient lighting on not only my dark wooded lot but also my Coors Light can, I chuckled about the dueling incongruence…celebrating King of Beers advertising with Silver Bullet liquidity. The Budweiser sign may have to come down on principle. Even stranger but true, I got hired as an actor to be in a Coors Light Crasher commercial. Life has always been a strange brew for me.

Almost Making a Killing

2009-11-14T12:56:00.006-05:00

Before my recent vacation in Atlantic City, New Jersey, I did not know anything about horseracing. Maybe it should have stayed that way. Why people call them ponies I have no idea because through the snowy picture of the casino simulcasts they looked all grown up to me. When I asked a patron why domesticated animals like donkeys or llamas do not competitively race the way humans force horses and dogs, he knew I had never been to a racetrack. He pushed up his Johnny Olson glasses like a crack reporter then returned to some filler newspaper devoted to nothing but assigning numbers to silly horse names. Without him saying a word proved the beginning and end of our relationship.

After placing a first bet, a track announcer on the simulcast reported that the next race is for horses who have never won a single race. My wife and I giggled at the contradiction. I now felt foolish holding my tendered ticket like it was some unclaimed prize pack for dopes. I held onto my foolish thoughts this time though but cannot get past the notion that these loser horses should be fired as racehorses and sent out to pasture. The race saw none of the horses we bet even finish in the middle of the pack.

For an entire afternoon, my wife and I randomly bet horses whimsically called Coy Cat, Red Delicious, Bold Ocean, etc after extrapolating their odd names to some insignificant meaning in our lives. I pickup the jargon of win, place, show and learn about trifecta but my lackluster horses want none of the winner’s circle.

While attempting to simply wager on a horse to show, the casino worker agreed that it was a good bet but he would not allow me to gamble.

I asked, “Why not?”

“Eight horses scratched on the sloppy track….there are only three horses left. Blame it on the hurricane!”

I walked back to my video monitor with disappointment hanging on my face. I explained to my wife that the odds were too much in our favor for the house to accept my bet because of inclement weather. Wouldn’t you know it? Emerging from the rears of the thin field kicking up brown muck, my horse predictably finished dead last. I curse the casino that had refused to turn my bad luck around.

So I gathered my wits and looked for a favorite. I searched the whites of my pockets and found three crumbled dollars and four quarters. I am all in as they say on a number five horse called Libor Lady to win. My horse won first place in a photo finish. From my comfortable perch inside the casino, I had won my first horserace, the next to the last race at the famed Churchill Downs. High fives go around the booth. By our hooting and hollering, the other grumpy betters must have thought we won a 99-1 long shot betting the mortgage.

I pocketed my gross winnings…$6.80 cents, a full $2.40 more than I actually gambled on Lady Libor. Feeling like lady luck was with us, we left horse and buggy for the self-park garage. From this paddock, I jockeyed my car into an ungodly Nor’easter formerly known as Hurricane Ida. The sideways rain and sixty miles per hour winds did not deter me. I had a coupon for a little out of the way Italian restaurant and nothing was going to stop me from saving a few bucks. I grabbed the reigns of my steering wheel as the wind moved my car side to side. Low-lying streets were flooded and visibility was nil but the endless sloppy track was wide open. I shoot to the inside lane never looking behind. After getting into a car accident with another moving vehicle, I realized that I should have scratched myself from this last race. This coming from the horse's mouth, I almost made a costly killing on the track.

Without Bread You're Texas Toast

2009-11-08T19:48:00.004-05:00

While sitting in the doctor’s office going out of my mind in the sprawling waiting room, a developing story came across the TV news desk. The channel interrupted regular programming and went to a live video feed for what I hoped would be a newsworthy story. Since my life was on hold at the time waiting for medical treatment, over the next hour I watched a single camera high in the sky film multiple police officers engaging in a ho-hum high-speed chase of a heavy-footed motorist across Texas. After I started to wonder how much gasoline this person was wasting trying to get away without incident, a reporter mentioned stolen gas from a pumping station actually put the situation into motion.

I don’t like paying for food on a credit card because it is gone by the time the bill comes in. This derelect soul used up exactly the commodity he stole before he was even arrested.

Bazookas on the Big Screen

2009-11-05T23:20:00.003-05:00

BAZOOKAS: The Movie will be playing theatrically in Maplewood, NJ for two consecutive weeks beginning November 8, 2009. Show times and tickets are available online at http://maplewoodtheatre.com/ and moviefone.com.

Do not go see this movie on account of me. Although I have a credited part in the movie as a bartender, the drive to the theatre will be exceedingly longer than my small part. I am inviting patronage because the movie has enough chuckles in it that makes it worth watching on the big screen.

A Parting Gift

2009-11-03T10:02:00.004-05:00

Anthony Gregory "T" Tornatore
1966-2009

Prior to my brother Anthony’s removal from life support to allow him to die naturally, the immediate family gathered at the hospital to pay our final respects. We positioned ourselves in the waiting room and drug our feet to his hospital bed to say our individualized fateful final goodbyes.

The sympathetic doctor in charge entered the waiting room. Using a soft low-key voice, she addressed a huddled family, whose collective emotions seemed already in mourning. "Is everyone here?" Yes, we answered like drones. "Is there anybody else coming to the hospital?" No, we fretted. "Has everyone been afforded sufficient time to say goodbye?" Yes, we muttered with heavy hearts. "Okay, I need a verbal consent from his daughter, to remove the life support." Between his daughter and my mother looking at one another, neither materialized an audible answer but both approximated reluctant head nods. The doctor accepted their mutual decision to proceed then informed the family the inevitability of what was expected to happen next. The doctor promised notification of the exact time of his passing.

Like victims of stolen love, our solemn sobbing and prayer monopolized the waiting room. The first minute of vigil felt like a wrecking ball hitting my heart. Everyone seemed to breathe heavier as if we were projecting our oxygen as a scarce commodity for my brother’s time off the ventilator. When the next few minutes produced no news, a vacuous blanket of silence filled the air. Concluding that my brother must be struggling to breath on his own, I prayed for mercy. I did not want his final moments spent in pain. After about twenty minutes, various family members began to mingle outside the waiting room doing the things people do when they do not know what to do….incoherent muttering, needless bathroom stops, mindless cell phone texts and unproductive pacing in looping circles.

As I personally prayed to a God largely unfamiliar to me, I enlivened my last moments with my brother there by his deathbed….stroking through the warm-blooded flesh of his arm, watching the white linen on his hospital bed my tears over his hospital bed absorb my transparent moisture. I recalled kissing him goodbye. I saw the final reflection of both of us in the hospital glass while I turned away for the final time. I canonized the last time I saw my brother alive.

All of a sudden, my brother’s ex-wife runs into the waiting room and shouts, "There is a woman in bed with T and nobody knows who it is. Help!" I knew then that my loving memorial of my brother’s last moments was about to be disturbed. Finding my brother unhooked to a vent and struggling to breath seemed a footnote subtlety to the shock of seeing a hysterical woman straddling him up on his bed. I witnessed her slapping his face side to side like a Three Stooges act performed with gallows humor. She was trying to resurrect a dying man with the insensibility of denial. The woman screamed now or never instructions. "Don't listen to the doctors! You can do this. Come on. Wake-up!”

After pulling her down from his bed and escorting her out of the area, we all began to breathe a sigh of relief. I was not the only one who found ironic meaning in what had just happened. My dying brother would have found this moment not only comical but a suitable parting gift. Although we had compassionately tried to define our final moments with him, it was typical of his personality to say goodbye to us…with the last laugh.

Lady Emma Blooms

2009-10-31T01:56:00.003-04:00

My cousin from Texas wrote this article for her community newspaper The Rose Online.

Lady Emma Blooms For Anthony Gregory Tornatore by C.G. Spainhouer Wllis, Oct 19, 2009
Life imitates nature in its simplest forms sometimes.

A good old friend from church, Doris Wilkinson, is a certified judge for the American Iris Society. Doris was interested in irises much of her life, and after retiring from decades of working in the field of education, she pursued her flower hobby with avid tenacity.

Last week I drove out to Doris's place in the country to take a look at how she tends her Iris garden in the fall. It was a nice break to get outside in the cool autumn sunshine after weeks of rainy weather and gray skies. As I toured her raised up flower beds, each Iris was labeled and trimmed and ready for the colder months coming.

She said that iris bulbs are really tubers called rhizomes. They are not planted completely in the ground, but about ½ to ¾ way up with some exposed to the light and air. The odd thing about iris rhizomes, or the flower roots, is that they bloom once and then make baby rhizomes attached.

Doris pointed to one Iris that was the “mother with four babies.” Sure enough, there was a cluster of “bulb” looking like roots, one in the center, with four new ones surrounding it.

Then Doris pointed again and said. “Look. I think it’s gonna bloom soon. That’s rare for this time of year. Really rare.”

“What’s this flower’s name?” I asked.

“Lady Emma” Doris said, “It’s a special flower, a hybrid.”

I was speechless as the sun shined down on the bud and green blades of nature’s beauty.

“What is it?” Doris asked.

“I was thinking and saying a prayer for my cousin T, who was struggling for life after a heart attack just days before. He has three brothers,” I said, “and their mom’s name is Emma. The same name as this flower with four babies.”

We both looked down at the Iris plant, with one rhizome in the middle, four attached babies, and one stemming bud.

A few days passed and Doris stopped by with some more Iris pictures to add to our web site on Monday. She said Lady Emma had started blooming Friday October 16. “Look at these blooms! There’s three of them blooming. But there's a fourth bud may not make it, and I’m afraid the freeze will get it.”

Again, piercing irony. “T died on Friday, one day after his forty-third birthday. I thank you for these pictures. The blooms are so beautiful, so bright and yellow. Such precious a gift.”

Doris said, “I didn’t know, and am sorry for your loss. When I took the pictures, that’s the only part of the garden, the only flowers that had sun shining on them were Lady Emma and her blooms.”

Life imitate nature in its simplest forms ... sometimes.

Oh Darling, my niece

2009-10-25T14:24:00.003-04:00

My niece, Jennifer Fritz, won a talent contest in the 8-18 years old range. The contest was featured in South Jersy magazine. She wound up on television appearing on the 10! Show. Here is a link to her singing Oh Darling by The Beatles.

Life Between the Alpha and Omega

2009-10-18T12:14:00.009-04:00

Eulogy for Anthony Gregory “T” Tornatore 1966-2009.

I previewed thousands of pictures and countless home movie clips in order to make the audio/visual tribute shown here tonight. Although that consumed my emotions, it crystallized how to eulogize my brother. T, as he was affectionately known, had reoccurring themes in his life. He had a knack for humor, a regard for animals, a love of good food and passion for sports. If he wanted me to say only three words tonight about these four subjects it would be, “Let’s Go Flyers!”
My fondest earliest memories of T was watching him play superhero or dressing up as his favorite TV characters. Usually with T wearing costumes, he would often spend his free time roughhousing with his brothers.
Along with this irreplaceable male bonding, T developed a competitive nature and displayed a strong interest in sports. He lived to see a good fight whether it was a boxing match, mixed martial arts event or two toothless hockey goons dropping their gloves on ice. He rooted for the home team but would take timeout to cheer drunken spectators fighting in the stands at a ball game.
As a young man, T’s outgoing personality could make you laugh to delirium. An entertainer, he often wore the proverbial lampshade in the room and children gravitated towards his antics. T’s commentary spoofed outtakes that covered every slice of life. He had the overwhelming ability to make you laugh about nothing…or everything. His quick wit came with the complete assurance of a built-in laugh track. I admit just this once that his comedic timing made me envious.
Faced with hearing the familiar sound of crickets after I told a stale joke, T invariably took center stage. After he once whipped what I considered a tough crowd into knee-slapping laughter, he barked “Take that, bro.” T intentionally told better second rate jokes around me to add sadistic amusement to our sibling rivalry.
In his lifetime, T was a brother, son, uncle, cousin, husband and a father but T genuinely loved animals more than anyone I have ever met. After watching me discipline my weak-bladder cocker spaniel, T graded my obedience training. Lacking compassion in his voice, he swore that if he ever saw me do that again he would take me out back and go prehistoric on me. He left my company that day saying goodbye to only my dog. I concluded that T must have loved animals as much as people…at least more than me on that pissy day.
With the exception being his loving daughter Nichole, T rarely found a comfortable forum to talk with people about personal matters. He maintained a private and guarded front that was tough for everyone to penetrate. I remember once confiding to him that I started going steady with a girl. He smirked. Although I was smitten in love, T saw a man ungracefully approaching forty years old. He replied, “Steady? If the girl is still in eighth grade, I’m calling the cops! What did I tell you about watching those Happy Days reruns? Did you tell Fonzie, Ralph Malph or Potsey? Who goes steady these days? Get away from me!”
Regrettably, T’s ongoing medical problems began to affect his spunk and outlook on life. He distanced himself. In October 2008, he survived a heart attack. He came out of induced hypothermia and a coma with a quality of life. His family told him what he did not know and what he needed to hear, that the Philadelphia Phillies had won the World Series! What we didn’t know about his recovery is that we had T on loan for only another year. What a year it was. During this span, I witnessed his personality strangely revert back to his former self, a younger man full of vitality. Other people shared similar experiences with T before his second heart attack. I believe these moments of clarity were present day reminders as to how T defined living in terms of autonomy. In the end, his final prognosis vanquished him further away from his essence, a point of no return from the dignified way he might have wanted to live and probably how he wished to be remembered.
T’s lingering in a coma proved to be the fight of his life. It took me a trail of tears to come to terms with his irreversible condition. It is difficult to presume about another’s will to live but again T was not someone who freely talked about matters of the heart. Incapacitated, he left this legal decision to his family. We the reluctant spectators to his final battle became collaborative advocates on his unspoken wishes. Nobody wanted him to suffer.
As I look around this packed room, I can feel the power of his love. Anecdotally, I am also reminded that his banter often made me giggle inappropriately at funerals. So here I am at his funeral stricken with profound sadness and in no joking mood. Still the little twinkle in my moist eyes suggests that T would desire this occasion to be an upbeat celebration of his life.
In closing, I hold confident that T would not have opted for a comatose existence. If I dare frame my brother’s life, it ended more on the day his laughter stopped then when his heart actually stopped beating. The day of his passing was a day after his birthday, an abbreviated forty-three years between the alpha and the omega. God bless. Rest in peace. Anthony Gregory Tornatore.
-Joseph Tornatore

Going Ballistic for Kurbaan

2009-10-06T08:37:00.001-04:00

Kurbaan is a highly anticipated Bollywood thriller about terrorism that reaches United States soil. The movie stars Saif Ali Khan, Vivek Oberoi and sizzling Karenna Kapor who is rumored to be seen topless. Its cinematic release date is November 27, 2009 so mark your calendars. The film represents the directorial debut for Rensil D’Silva, arguably the top screenplay writer in Hindi cinema.

The movie is advertised to be both visually entertaining and inwardly thought provoking about the notion of personal safety while living in the emotionally charged era of terrorism. In fact, the 2008 Mumbai, India terrorist attacks that left over one hundred people dead occurred while the movie was in the middle of its production.

My fourth Bollywood movie, I was hired to do some featured background work in what looks to be a pivotally violent scene. An overnight shoot, my set location occurred on a moving train that ran all night and only stopped for bathroom breaks. Glimpses of this scene are included in the beginning seconds and ending before the fade to black of this theatrical trailer. Although I do not know if I made the final cut as a running train passenger in or out of focus, I was close enough to the gunman’s actions in the signature scene for the props department to issue me earplugs to buffer the noise. I am still going ballistic for this movie.

Hotties For Sale!

2009-09-22T19:38:00.002-04:00

I still haven't figured out all the facets of Facebook. I don't want to grab a Tommy gun and join a mafia. I don't want to put on hip boots and raise a farm. I don't want to be poked or farukled or tagged unless I'm it. I don't care enough to score high on obscure trivia contests that Cheers' Cliff Claven would wrap his head around.

Now a dear Facebook friend from a continent away has added me to a photo collage implying that I am not only desirable but for sale as a Hottie? I harken back to the time when only social blogs existed because they seem like simpler times right now. Hold on. I'm getting a text message on my cell phone...something about 700 rubles for an hour of my time. Will travel.

The PH Factor in Grass and Lovemaking

2009-09-19T10:03:00.002-04:00

It all started when my lawn care service recommended that I lay a blanket of limestone down to improve the PH balance on my Kentucky bluegrass. On the sun-filled weekend that I earmarked doing the recommended yard work, I still had not bought my first bag of lime. That is when the situation took a strange metaphorical seedy twist of fate for the better.

A white powder coat appeared on my front grass. My initial hair-scratching inspection concluded that it looked just like lime. Alas, I found an overturned open container of Vagisil vagina deodorant in my driveway. I learned that the vagina deodorant had been a checklist item on my teenage stepson’s scavenger hunt the night before. How and why its contents spread across my lawn remains not only a mystery but also a question I refused to spend too much time on as a parent.

Two weeks following the outpouring of vagina deodorant on wilting summer-ending grass and no limestone application, I wish to report that my lawn has never looked more lush and fertile. I half-expected my grass blades to curl symptomatically but they are standing tall. The PH balance also seems to be in a state of self-correction and I have no presiding need to add pounds of backbreaking lime.

I am now scouring pharmacies for the unlikely RX score of vaginal deodorant in ultra concentrate bulk sizes for the freshest smelling lawn in the neighborhood. I may just switch from the professional advice of a lawn doctor to a down-to-earth gynecologist. I am even considering penning an article to Home and Garden magazine about my rare find. For the curious passerbys carrying blankets, I may need to stake a sign in my lawn saying NO LOVEMAKING ALLOWED.

Weighing in On Disabling Diets

2009-09-14T20:25:00.002-04:00

Janine Donohue walks into the kitchen and stands next to her social worker as if she has never heard of awarding personal space. She bows, curtsies then handshakes. Janine flips her long hair then introduces herself with a short unexpected biography.

“Glad to meet you. I’m 37 years old, I can’t have children and I weigh almost 200 pounds.”

In her introduction to me, she disclosed the three things I think a woman would be least likely to share to a man. I tilt my head at the critical information overload trying to make sense of it all. She leaves the room as quickly as she came. I start to think to myself when is the next time this oddity will happen? I did not have long to wait.

Janine returns carrying belongings. “I’ll prove it.” She flashes her laminated identification card. “See, I was born in 1972.” She puts the bathroom scale down in the middle of the kitchen. She rolls up a blouse sleeve to reveal a fresh band-aid. “It’s my Depro Provera shot. Mom doesn’t want me to have children.” Her balance is a little shaky as she steps onto the scale. The dial points exceedingly right before it steadies. “What 225 pounds, wow!”

Janine steps down from the scale looking discouraged. She talks closely once more. “I can’t get any younger and I can’t have children but I would like to lose weight. I thought I lost five pounds on my diet. Darn. I ate only a watermelon and a granola bar for lunch. Well, not the whole watermelon, you know what I mean.”

Janine goes to the refrigerator and pulls out a fruit yogurt. She adds loose raisins from the cupboard. After a couple of spoonfuls, she talks about her diet with yogurt lining her upper lip.

I encourage, “That’s a healthy snack. Why don’t you get back on the scale?”

“Already?”

“Yes, I think the yogurt may have done you some good.”

Janine’s compliance rewards her with a weight of 194 pounds. “Now that’s more like it. I’m loving it but that cannot be. That’s a difference of, that’s a difference of, humm, that’s a big difference.”

I ask, “Do you know what the biggest difference is?”

“No, you tell me.”

“I used my foot to step on the back of the scale the first time you weighed yourself. It made you seem heavier.”

She shifted her weight and gave me a cold stare. “Don’t you male social workers know anything about a woman?"

The Dermatologist's Fleshy Escort for a Barmitzva

2009-09-09T21:06:00.005-04:00

I thought this recent posting on a website for actors sounded a little fishy but the gefilte may not be a joke...I found this doctor actually listed with licensure on the internet.

Hello to all lovely Actresses and Models in the Baltimore area!!! Are you between the ages of 35 and 50? A wonderful gentleman, Dr. #$%$#&^ needs a beautiful companion to his nephew's Barmitzva. This is a simple but fun job! Well paying, too! He is paying $150.00 per hour to accompany him to this grand soiree'.On the evening of October 22nd, all you have to do is dress up, look your best and have a wonderful time experiencing a religious traditional ceremony.No, there will be no flirting, no touching or kissing. Just smile, eat and dance.... enjoy collecting your $600.00 at the end of the evening. Sound simple? Well, it is.Dr. @#^$% will pay you the promised six hundred dollars, even if the evening lasts only an hour or two...You still get your $600.00 dollars. Though the evening should not be more that 4 hours max, it could go over just a bit, but doubtful. The good Doctor will pick you up at your home, office or designated place, then will drop youoff at this same local.This distinguished, well known Doctor of Dermatology is highly respected and trusted...Nothing funny or fishy here. Except the gefilte! I too, am a well-known Actress in the region and I do trust this man...after all, he is my Doctor and I have known him for many years.So, if you want a quick bunch of cash....E-mail Dr. @#$&^* at @#$%#% Please, if interested, put Barmitzva in the subject line,Place your jpeg head shot in the body of the email. NOT as an attachment. If you don't follow the directions, your emails may possibly not be acknowledged. Once agreed to do this, absolutely no cancellations!!!Thank you and have a great time!!!

The Garden State of Mind

2009-09-04T21:38:00.003-04:00

Perhaps the thought came to me because the arrival of the Labor Day weekend officially marks the end of summer and the ushering in of cooler weather. Maybe the thought came to me because I am psychic. Maybe the thought came to me because deadpan irony follows me. Maybe what I was thinking was led by a subconscious linkage to the matrix. Maybe nothing has to do with the other.

What I do know is that I found myself walking and not driving my vehicle to my next work appointment. After slinging my briefcase in between two buildings, I entered an alley way. For whatever reason, I began to think of my limp lackluster crop-less tomato garden back at the homestead. My tomato plants hunkered in fresh tilled black soil, regularly watered and sprayed with Miracle Grow have failed to thrive all summer. As I longed for my own ripe tomatoes to make fresh salsa, spaghetti gravy and lush salads, I spotted something familiar ahead of me. Growing in between harsh curb and hot blacktop and somehow missing lawnmower haircuts lived a healthy tomato plant stalked with two little promises.

I'm just a paint brush and craft paint shy of a green thumb.

Beasts of Burden

2009-08-30T13:10:00.003-04:00

I stood at the copy machine multiplying duplicates of her dysfunctional upbringing on super white paper. This churnng background history would be for the psychiatrist I arranged for her to see.

Her birth was without complication and her parents took her home to their cattle ranch in lonesome Nevada. By the time she was seven years old her biological father was vaginally raping her with atrocious regularity. Her own mother conspired in the silence of denial and cover-up. Nobody lived in earshot to hear her cries. By the time she was a pre-pubescent eleven year old, her body had been sold to many of her father’s so called friends in what she referred to as sleepovers.

She had been sexually abused so many times that when I got her on my caseload as a disturbed adult, this mildly mentally retarded woman still suffering from the sexual shockwaves of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, tried to put her childhood into words that a social worker might understand.

“Growing up, the moo cows were at least slaughtered. I have to live with this pain.”

My moist eyes twittered at the notion. I fought to catch my client’s name off the top of each document that I copied. The name that I read coming off the clanking turnstiles of the copier appeared like a children’s picture book hand-flipped.

What I read literally sickened my stomach because I had never made the absurd connection before. You see, when it was time to give the hospital of her birth an official name, the parents decided on Promise. While everyone hopes his or her child turns out right, these parents gave their daughter promise in name only and they took like beasts almost everything else.

Fire...Come and Get It

2009-08-25T22:01:00.002-04:00

The 9-volt battery that recently died in my smoke detector triggered a repressed social work memory.

A long time ago in a rural area of Salem County, New Jersey lived a hard-of-hearing uneducated elderly caretaker and a mildly retarded deaf mute named Little Jeanie. Upon completing an inspection of this quaint and tidy 1950’s built home, I found the caretaker to be almost as limited as the client. If not for the communication deficits of my client, Little Jeanie might be mistaken for Head of Household.

Long before I purchased smoke detectors with a red strobe visual alarm, I questioned their procedure for conducting mandatory fire drills on a monthly basis.

The elderly caretaker, who would die of cancer two years later, expected my question so much that she admitted to formulating a prepared statement for me ahead of my initial arrival.

“I know what you’re gonna say. Little Jeanie can’t hear no smoke detector signal on account of her deafness. What do you think I do? I do the only natural thing left to do. I turn on the oven.” She pointed. “When I open that oven door, bake or broil, Little Jeanie runs for the hills. We got it all worked out.”

“Humm…well that must create another problem when you cook dinner. I’m going to look into assistive device technology for the hearing impaired but in the meantime Little Jeanie has got to be confused big time.”

She agreed, “You got a point. Sometimes I find her standing out by the country road waiting to come in after I put a pot roast in the oven.”

The Spice of Autumn

2009-08-20T19:23:00.007-04:00

An unempirical definition of mental retardation is the inability to pick up on social clues that form the basis of and thereby bridge learning experiences.

Outside the looking glass of our meeting room one October day in 1999, a gentle breeze carried the first wave of crisp falling autumn leaves across the chilly sky. For some reason, their fall to Earth reminded me of the feather floating down in the opening scene of the movie Forrest Gump. I looked over at my mildly mentally retarded client who was still dressed as if it were rabid summer. She sat anxiously waiting for others to lead the meeting.

I invited her gaze out the window. “Charmine, look at those leaves falling.”

Not knowing where I was headed with the leading conversation, an esteemed co-worker commented with a frown. “The summer is over. It’s definitely autumn.”

In an attempt to better understand Charmine's wardrobe selection, I asked my client her favorite season.

Charmine raised and pointed a finger at me. “That’s an easy one, Mr. Joe. Give me a harder question next time. My favorite season is paprika.”

During the same meeting, I learned that Charmine suffered from Seasonal Affective Disorder. That's when I felt like I needed a spice rack to further discussion.

The Lovely Bones In Deed and Misdeed

2009-08-16T11:06:00.003-04:00

In December 11, 2007, I stood dumbfounded in a drab convenience store in Holmes, Pennsylvania staring at the front page of The Daily News. The innocent headshot of a murdered teenage girl headlined the cover. Its starkness struck me as profoundly odd. Ebony Dorsey’s magnetic smile seemed to jump off the pages at me like a haunting poster child to the violent society in which we live. It also spoke to me in an unexpected way because I was en route to work as an actor on the production of The Lovely Bones.

An elderly black woman grabbed a copy from the newsstand and literally shook its pages trying to make sense out of it all. “You can never be too cautious. You just never know from one minute to the next!”

The stranger’s words rang true. Flipping through my own copy now for somewhat different reasons, I turned to the interior pages to check the victim’s age. Ebony Dorsey was a spry fourteen years old when she was tragically murdered by someone she knew. That meant Ebony was the same age as Susie Salmon, the girl snuffed out by a serial killer who lived as her bone-chilling next-door neighbor in The Lovely Bones.

Like a portable tomb, I took my all too real newspaper hardcopy with me in my travels. Not one mile down the road, I walked on to the make-believe set of The Lovely Bones, a mall refurbished and time date stamped as a 1973 movie backdrop. I heard light-footed heel clicks. The young bubbly starlet actress Saoirse Ronan walked by me in white hose around tall boots below an outdated tight purple skirt.

Indeed, Susie Salmon was alive and well but you just never know from one minute to the next. The Lovely Bones will be released on...December 11, 2009.

Deadliest Catchy TV Show

2009-08-10T18:55:00.002-04:00

I have never owned a boat.

I have never been deep-sea fishing.

I am disinterested in the subject matter.

With those disclaimers being said, the television show Deadliest Catch has such superb camera lines and top shelf post-production work by way of editing and sound mixing...well it caught me too. I now watch this show whenever I can. It is no wonder this show won an Emmy hook, line and sinker.

A Showcase for Sportswomanship

2009-08-06T18:51:00.009-04:00

"Sportsmanship, next to the church,

is the greatest teacher of morals."

-Herbert Hoover

Sportmanship can be defined in many intangible ways but this video may be the purest display of it on film. It won a 2008 ESPY Award for Sportsmanship although I dare say that it seems a misnomer to interject the word "man" in the middle of the word sportsmanship if one of its greatest examples does not involve a single man but two teams compromising females.

This sports moment is about teamwork but not in the known sense of the clanish word. It is about two teams suspending competition against each other to come together at a single pivitol moment on a baseball diamond where exalted compassion conquers to blur the lines between winners and losers. Although the play ended a season and a player's career, the thrill of victory got erased by the agony of injury until the opposition decided that the outcome of the game itself mattered secondary.

Without further adieu, I take you to women's collegiete softball where the losing team eliminated itself from the playoffs by carrying out an uncommon act. After Sara Tucholsky of Western Oregon hits her first career homerun, she tears a ligament in her right leg rounding first base. She is unable to move on her own accord to finish her requisite homerun trot around the bases. If her teammates come to her aid and merely touch her she will be declared out by umpire rules. If a pinchrunner is used, the scorekeeper records the three-run homer as a two-run single. Members of Central Washington, the opposing team, swiftly decide to carry Sara around the bases touching each bag with the non-injured leg thereby completing the homerun.

While this may not be the fastest two minutes in sports, the timeout here from the mechanistic avarice of sports is so refreshing that it celebrates the human spirit with punch-drunk tears and ovation.

Face-Off: El Wingador vs. Brutus Beefcake

2009-07-27T17:58:00.008-04:00

Bill Simmons, aka El Wingador enters the boxing ring.

An estimated one thousand patrons gathered on July 24, 2009, in Aston, Pennsylvania at the Ice Works, which hosted Celebrity Boxing 10, When Worlds Collide. The main event pitted former major league baseball slugger Jose Canseco verses Bill Simmons, the Five Time Wing Bowl Eating Champion called El Wingador. Canseco made it to the pre-fight press conference but he ditched town before his heavyweight fight. So the much-anticipated Juiced verses Sauced titan matchup had to be shelved. Former WWF and WCW wrestler Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake got added as a late substitution to fight 6’5” three hundred pounder El Wingador.

I had the privilege of traveling along with El Wingador’s camp to cover the fight from behind the scenes. Arriving at his house, barefoot El Wingador had just woken up having napped like a baby before the fight. A self-proclaimed street fighter, El Wingador reported that he dropped about a dozen pounds professionally training for weeks inside a boxing ring. He also studied tape of Jose Canseco’s previous fights but there was no way to prepare last minute for his match against Brutus Beefcake. He expressed disappointment about not squaring off against Canseco but accepted his new challenger.

Soon after he confidently shadowboxed in his family room to channel his building adrenaline, Adventure Limousines transported him along with his entourage of family and friends. Riding in the plush limousine, El Wingador conversed freely in the relaxed cabin as a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert played on the big screen TV. The limousine aptly rolled through a tremendous downpour en route to the fight but El Wingador exited the limo all smiles with the skyline beaming a rainbow color burst like a lucky charm backdrop.

Pot of gold for a purse aside, I tried to pump El Wingador up before we parted company. “Tonight you’re eating Beefcakes, hold the chicken.”

He smiled but he needed no pep talk from a wit writ like me. Inside the arena, the converted facilities lacked suitable posh for the circumstance. The paying guests weathered unfriendly sixty-degree indoor building temperatures. Forty-five dollars cold cash got you a ringside seat in the form of a freezing metal folding chair placed on the covered ice. By the end of the night, my toes felt frostbitten. I wondered how the scantily clad ring card girls kept up their manufactured smiles or how the hired help cleaned the spit buckets without wielding an ice pick. The wireless microphone either froze or never recovered from Zaughn Ivins’ powerful rendition of The National Anthem. The sound system caused numerous delays and literally muffled the ring announcer’s every third word on a shuffled line-up card. The boxing matches promoted as an exhibition lost professional starch and gained consideration for a spectacle.

Entering the boxing ring to the tune of the Black Eye Peas performing Boom, Boom, Pow, El Wingador displayed pageantry wearing a gorgeous custom tailored robe that had furly blood red chicken wings on the back. When the ring announcer mistakenly introduced Brutus Beefcake as Hulk Hogan’s real life brother, it proved how this longstanding urban legend manages to survive. Aside from putting anyone named after food in front of El Wingador, Brutus Beefcake recklessly accepted this fight having undergone total facial reconstructive surgery following a freak parasailing accident. I do not care how comfortable padded headgear feels to the touch, a fake wrestler’s reconstructed face held together by screws and steel plates should not change professions to eat El Wingador’s authentic sledgehammer fists.

From the opening bell, Brutus Beefcake ate a steady diet of El Wingador’s powerful body shots. El Wingador controlled the fight and he needed to land only one solid right hand punch. The right on right crumbled Brutus Beefcake's knees before he stumbled backwards into the corner. His marble eyes rolled wildly in his shaken noggin and the referee signaled a TKO towards the end of round number one. Beefcake, fighting a bigger side of beef in an icehouse, got knocked out cold in what could have easily turned into a literal bloody face-off.

While El Wingador may consider fighting again, return to competitive eating or whether his next publicity stunt will be going over Niagara Falls in a big barrel, I know one thing about this gentle giant. Be careful stepping into any competitive event with El Wingador. He has the guts to eat you alive.

Living on the Ledge

2009-07-26T04:08:00.002-04:00

- The Italian suit talked me out of jumping.

The Fool on the Swill

2009-07-22T21:47:00.003-04:00

Judith “Babe” Mitton is a non-verbal severely retarded female. As long as I have known her, she has worn a cute set of signature pigtails that usually hover overtop a stolen cup of hot coffee.

As a disabled child, Judith grew up in a bi-level house before her parents gave up custody of her then moved to parts unknown never to be heard from again. As a result, the social services agency with whom I work found her a licensed home in the community to live and moved her across the county. Over the years, Judith bounced around different homes but managed to avoid institutional commitment. A thousand spilled coffee cups later, low and behold circumstances dictated another uprooting so she moved back into Gloucester County.

The new caregiver thought Judith made a seamless transition into her new home. Judith seemed intimately familiar and at ease with her new surroundings from the onset. She claimed her own bedroom in the house like an incumbent and chased the kitchen coffee pot from her first morning on. A long honeymoon period followed.

A decade later, a reclusive neighbor ventured outside to get some sunlight on his ashen elder face. He recognized outbound Judith from yesteryear like kindled infinite fate. The facts were checked until they proved undeniable. A mentally challenged person defied all odds and incredibly moved back into her own house with only her knowing it while those who thought they knew better called her retarded. From the mouth of babe came no words, but in life like her coffee, the cream did rise to the top. Sometimes home has an old address.

New Jersey's Budget Woes: Reaching A Greener Forest Through the Trees

2009-07-15T19:26:00.009-04:00

These recessionary times have forced me to examine my household budget in order to keep making ends meet. After reviewing my ledger, I arrived at the following conclusion:

One full time job

Three part time jobs

843 FICA Credit Score

A spouse who works full time

No MAC card in the last 18 years.

Pays child support on time without the court garnishing my wages.

No credit card debt

Enrolled in a deferred compensation plan.

Paying down a 15-year mortgage.

Pays bills exceedingly on time. No late fees or cycle service charges.

Proactively uses debit cards.

Clips store coupons and buys generic brand names

Avoids buying retail whenever possible

Owns company stocks

Saves for children’s college

Invests in US savings bonds

Reconciles checkbook.

In order to help fix New Jersey’s irreconcilable budget, the Governor of the thirteenth state of the Union with the highest cost of living in the nation has mandated me to take unpaid leaves of absences from my job… so he can ergo balance his own budget.

Money does not grow on trees but I do not believe it should be deforested from my pocket either. Where does fiscal responsibility begin and end? If a New Jersey budget falls for years in the woods without trimming why wasn't anyone listening?

Bike Riding on Fenwick Island, DE

2009-07-12T22:34:00.001-04:00

On a recent vacation to southern Delaware and Maryland my wife and I were looking at shore houses to buy. This wasn't one of them.

Plane Truth to Bollywood's New York

2009-07-06T23:53:00.007-04:00

Joseph Tornatore(blue shirt) filming an action scene in the movie New York.

Having filmed only one day on a hundred day shoot, it s a minor achievement to make the final cut as a recognizable actor in the Bollywood movie, New York. Playing an FBI agent, the camera captures my harrowing reaction to a terrorist attack in close-up during its signature scene about 1 hour 22 minutes into the film. You can also see glimpses of me pointing, holding my arms on top of my head, and running like a scared kitten out of an FBI building as pictured. I was surprised to find this movie New York already posted to You Tube.

This preamble leads me to an interesting outtake from working on this movie, which epitomizes how art imitates life.

Background actors stood in the middle of the city street aligned with NYPD cruisers blaring flashing lights. As the precision heavy trample of an armed SWAT team moved, a crowd stared up at the Federal Bureau of Investigation high tower building with our necks cocked. We were told to act panicked. Act like your worse nightmare is happening is the directive I kept in my head.

The wide lens camera captured the chaos on our faces. With yellow caution tape weaving through a wooden horse barricade, a police cruiser skidded right in front of our position. A faux news reporter broadcasted the staged event.

While giving the take my best impending doom stare, a low flying passenger plane flew low over the city. The jet flew horizontally between the top floors of buildings. I spocked it heading in the direction of the FBI building under siege in this exact scene. Since I have been in movies where the crew purposely does not let actors know scene elements in the hopes of capturing their raw emotion, I paused.

A few actors gasped at the unlikely notion that the production company has somehow recreated the infamy of the events of September 11th. A chill casts over me and I fall out of character. I leap frogged from pretend panic to real dread and finally back into character. Alas, it turns out to be a coincidental optical illusion. A better actor than myself might have carried the more intense natural look without a Big Apple lump knotted in their throat. Here is the Boeing 767 plane truth of the matter. It is hard to act accordingly in New York during the exact moment the world changed.

A Set to Behold: Aniston in The Bounty

2009-07-02T20:37:00.013-04:00

Jennifer Aniston

The holding area for actors on a closed movie set is comparable to the park bench occupancy next to Forrest Gump. Once people claim their seats in the holding area of this decadent casino, every box of chocolates opens for the movie The Bounty starring Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler(300, PS, I Love You).

Radioman, a Hollywood icon whose life story inspired the lead character in The Fisher King is here on set with his working papers. A former homeless man, Radioman's ubiquitous character is a welcomed background staple for motion pictures. I entertain the faint memory of Radioman attending the posh Oscars alongside the actor who played him on film, Robin Williams. It looks like another culture clash as I observe Radioman’s beard catch scrambled egg morsels while sitting on the floor of the Taj Majal.

Queen Laqueefa, a burlesque dancer whose extraordinary Kegel control can manipulate inserted objects, spouts her vaginal feats to any actor who will listen. After a decisive wardrobe change, Laqueefa is wearing about as much fabric found in a hand towel for her aptly cast part as a streetwalker on the boardwalk. As far as I can gauge, the props department never equipped her.

There is a four foot something actor here from the Bronx who would look undersized as a horse jockey. He could play a child in this movie if they close shaved him. Another actor strikingly resembles Doogie Howser. An actress, whom Harrison Ford actually said reminded him of Carrie Fisher, is here as an extra. As I sit in holding, I actively wonder their degree of dilemma resembling another actor verses my getting chosen for a scene resembling myself.

On the set, we film as fillers for a boardwalk scene for most of the day. Eventually, the returning rain pattern chases us indoors for interior scenes. I’m standing near sultry Jennifer Aniston at the bottom of the escalators underneath the Taj Majal's signature chandeliers. There is extended down time as the crew methodically sets up this scene by the escalators.

Hundreds of fans held precariously behind yellow caution tape implore freestanding extras to autograph casino chips, cocktail napkins and even bare flesh because they think we might become household names. I imagine the lampoon of myself photo shopped out of thousands of pictures after computer upload or my worthless scribbled signature rubbed off under scolding hotel tap water the morning after. Sharpie markers pass amongst the crowd as much as Visine drops does on the set. Actors hear the word “wrap” in the fifteenth hour.

Just when I am ready to leave set, the first AD pulls me aside and tells me that playback footage prominently captured me behind Aniston so I am invited back the next day to finish filming the scene. Alarmingly, I’m so deliriously tired that I do not remember much of the hour ride home in solitude with my Bose speakers blaring to keep me awake.

After a blink of an eye nap in my bed, an abbreviated shift spent at the day job, and a return commute, I’m back the next day on set in Atlantic City. I meet a new regime of actors but I sit for several hours before I am used. About two hundred actors take their turn filming scenes over umpteen hours. Along the way, the acting world loses Farrah Fawcett but the show must go on. I digress to thinking of this sex symbol’s iconic bathing suit poster hanging on my bedroom wall. I inconceivably dismiss Jennifer Aniston as cameras roll with the Fawcett running in my resonating mind. In between takes and production stops, I use my cell phone to access the Internet where I discover rumors swirling that Angelina Jolie is sending Jennifer Aniston nasty text messages to leave Brad Pitt alone. I cast a surreal look over to Jennifer Aniston for evidential proof but nothing is happening on my watch.

Cutting through my tastefully seasoned prime rib during break, actor Jeff Goldblum is reported dead. Sometime later, many actors report difficulty being able to connect to the flooded wireless Internet. A boisterous female crewmember stands on a folding chair and tragically confirms the death of Michael Jackson. Sadly, nobody asks about actor Jeff Goldblum anymore. I don’t remember Goldblum having any serious character issues to demote his sudden death this far south of the Jackson headliner.

Back on the set with live actors, lady luck and the right wardrobe place me next to the hero table to shoot the next scene at a craps table. A spiked haired actor nicknames me mobster Frankie Brown Eyes because of my sparkling gold on black sequin casino garb. I play craps as the camera films Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler's point of view, both of whom are directly across from me. I don’t know how to play craps but my pantomime acting is enough realism with the camera rolling. My thoughts are fleeting, however. I have trouble concentrating due to sleep deprivation. In this game of craps, I could be called the fader right about now. I misread the next roll of the dice in the scene because I am admiring Jennifer Aniston's flawless features….The dealer's voice pierces my eardrum as he claims the casino has the advantage in this game. I beg to disagree. What a set to behold.

Nick at Night

2009-06-28T00:16:00.010-04:00

Joseph Tornatore on the set of The Warrior.

The cruelest truism about acting is that it promotes a safety net of self-confidence until proven otherwise. While nobody reports to a movie set without entertaining the notion of being upgraded to a bigger part, be careful what you dream about.

I was hired to film as a background extra for an establishing scene in the mixed martial arts drama called The Warrior. From a hovering helicopter, an eye in the sky camera films extras along the Atlantic City boardwalk. I imagine looking like a dubious raisin on planks if I make the final cut at all.

While minding my own business, I get plucked from the throng of 250 background actors for reasons I do not understand. Whisked to the director, he looks me up and down before giving his nod of approval. I am taken off the set by a crewmember who escorts me to a parked trailer.

A Mary Poppins of a wardrobe lady swinging a measuring tape greets us. “Well, who do we have here?”

The crewmember replies, “He’s the guy we spied for Nick Nolte’s stand-in.”

From this point forward, it becomes surreal and my personal experiences seem to be somehow placed inexplicably into a vault the moment they happen. The sun has set long ago. I’m wearing another man’s clothes. I’m sitting in a golf cart waiting to be taken to set. Somebody congratulates me on making the A-team. An army of crewmembers work around a yellow cab like it is in a NASCAR pit stop. Eventually, I’m placed inside the backseat of the cab that is raised on a trailer and attached to a process truck that will pull it though city streets behind the swirling cherry topped police car of a pace vehicle. The cab driver, who will do no actual driving in this scene, is an actor from Pittsburgh. He relaxes in the front seat. He and I chat about Atlantic City's schizophrenic divide between the Rich Man, Poor Man while Hollywood's best camera lenses, microphones, wires, lights, and measurements occur both inside and outside the car all around us. I run scripted lines for a sound check of the microphone hard mounted between my legs. A voice over my walkie-talkie instructs me to exit the no meter running cab. The left rear passenger door swings open and I am helped down from my perch. Nick Nolte brushes by me, nods then climbs aboard the raised cab with equal awkwardness. The first thing that really strikes me is that I am identical in physical dimensions to Nick Nolte.

Nick and I constantly switch spots throughout the night like alter egos. It is either he or I sitting on an apple box on the sidewalk. It is my warm water bottle in the cab next to his cool perspiring one. Since piped air conditioning interferes with recorded sound quality, it is Nick’s hand towel for perspiration, my napkin for sweat. After filming multiple point of view angles, the scene concludes halfway through the night. I’m eating shrimp fajita wraps next to Nick Nolte amongst undesirable riff raff just off set. The crew does there best to conceal Nick’s identity by posing as human shields while people pass by but I am left hanging by the wind. Seeing a stationed film crew, drunken vacationers venturing from the boardwalk or leaving the casinos demand me to pose for pictures with them. Nick has the night off from paparazzi.

Wranglers escort background actors to the set to film another scene. I workout the blocking and the timing as the camera and light crews make fine tuned adjustments. We move to rehearsal. If not for being the stand-in actor, it would be an ego boost to have numerous extras following your lead then performing synchronized motions around you. Alas, the director gives me humbling grades as a stand-in. Faster here, slower there, more stoop as you move, hail the cab driver earlier, wait two beats not one at the hotel door before leaving, etc. I try to shelter myself from the recesses of my mind but it is only a matter of time before the inevitable occurs. So I watch with microscopic eyes as Oscar and Emmy nominated actor Nick Nolte absolutely nails down the scene overtop the skeleton one I struggled to create in flawed rehearsal takes.

Shortly after dawn, Nick Nolte’s scenes wrap. A glorious and inglorious twelve-hour Nick at Night ends in a saltwater trail. I realize that I have spent an entire night trying to convince both Nick Nolte and high-heeled hookers exiting the casino that I am working.

Summer Survival Tips for the Northeast

2009-06-22T18:58:00.002-04:00

Summer is officially here although you would not know it by the abundant overcast skies that have cast gloom over our lives over the past month. Here are some survival tips for this summer.

Seasonal Affective Disorder has been extended until further notice.
Stop tracking weather forecasts. Every day is contrastingly dreary.
Cancel scheduled vacation time from work until August.
If you are hosting an outdoor event, rent a tent or canopy to pamper your guests.
If you see the sunshine, drop to both knees and worship it because it won't last long.
In the even of continued overcast benefited by the absence of rain, start mowing your overgrown lawn. Chances are it is almost one foot high.
If you have yet to turn on your underground sprinklers as a homeowner, you might not need to.
Do not replace your solar powered landscape lighting. The gizmos will eventually jump start the first nightfall after the return of the sun.
If you were considering joining a water park this summer, it may be coming to you.
If your tomato plants are not water rotted, register your magic garden in the next Farmer’s Almanac.
If you are a shoobie vacationing at the shore, the word “sucker’ now appears on your purchased beach tags.
Along with a $10..00 non-refundable deposit, reservations are now being taken for new windshield wiper blades at your local autmotive parts store.
Mostly cloudy is now considered an awesome forecast.
Dollar Store umbrellas are not made to work for thirteen straight days.
For you sun worshippers, SBF 3 sun tan lotion may be enough UV ray protection.
If you ever ruled out moving to Seattle because of their wet weather, now is the best time to change your mind.

A Bright Idea

2009-06-21T12:05:00.002-04:00

I received a ritz pair of designer sunglasses for Father’s Day. It might be a long time before I seize the opportunity to use them becaused this spring sure has turned out shady. With the deluge of rain and overcast skies I doubt solar powered landscape lights are working.

Eminem..Melt in Your Mouth, Stick in Your Ear

2009-06-17T20:15:00.005-04:00

My stepson hurriedly hooked up his Ipod to my swank car stereo. He wanted me to hear Eminem’s new album driving out on the road broadcasting thru Bose speakers. After a few minutes of listening to Eminem’s rap songs blurt out catchy hip but vile expressions, my hands uncomfortably gripped the steering wheel. It wasn’t just the sheer number of Eminem’s curse words that made me uneasy, it was the x-rated carnal knowledge that he was singing deep throated about. I was embarrassed for my stepson who accompanied me driving his young girlfriend home. As I drive,I realize that I am the only one who feels this way. His generation does not even blink at the streaming downloaded culture in which we live. It knows no taboo.

My stepson comments about the lyrical screaming overtop the music. “It’s just not rap without the cursing.” I muse about what the moral compass of Bill Cosby might say to all this: Talented Eminem diluted by his cesspool potty mouth.

Just the previous week I heard my stepson school me on the merits of heavy metal music…”It’s not heavy metal music unless they belt it out angry.”

My stepson knows infinitesimally more about music than I do but this seemed to be an issue disregarding of taste and deserving of tolerance. I harkened back to when I was just two years older than him. On a slimy spool of a cassette tape, we listened to Tom Petty with rolled down windows in my first car. The image of Tom Petty’s shoulder length hair locks made him anti-establishment in my vanilla world. We thought we were so coooooooool..

Thirty years passed me by like a petty concern. Somehow, the memories of the angelic soft voice of my best friend’s girlfriend got consumed by a radically changed world that now hung on my stepson’s girlfriend’s voice. “Could you please turn up Refugee?” had been brazenly voiced over by “Crank that shit!”

Mos Definitely Audition

2009-06-14T12:19:00.006-04:00

Actor Mos Def

Yesterday, I went to an audition for a small part in the movie Stringbean and Marcus. The screenplay had the fiber to win a Pew Fellowship at the Sundance Lab. The full length movie is slated to start filming this July staring Mos Def(16 Blocks, Next Day Air) and Sophie Okonedo, who got an Oscar nomination for her role as Tatiana in Hotel Rwanda). Each actor has more than 35 film credits.

Set in 1978, Stringbean and Marcus is a drama about the severed love affair between two Black Panther members as the story is told through the eyes of a adolescent girl.

My videotaped audition for a police officer went well. Although there is little loyalty in the acting business, the casting agency pulled me aside and double-checked my availability. Since I came to the audition fully dressed in a police uniform, I replied that I am ready to shoot now. Ah, it always feels good to leave them laughing, Mos Definitely.

Making Scents in Atlantic City

2009-06-11T16:24:00.006-04:00

I spent the better part of three days in Atlantic City on vacation. It was so relaxing that I did not want to checkout of the stately room inside Bally's casino. I purposely gave the casino only a handful of my money yet I came away with so many cherishable scents during my stay from the boardwalk to the spa.

-The splendid aroma of my 32 ounce morning coffee.

-The penetrating menthol smell of the aromatheraphy inhalation room.

-The charged ionized air before a dark clouded thunderstorm.

-The chlorinated water of the indoor heated hotel pool.

-The smell of fashion trendy women’s perfume carrying across the casino floor.

-The refreshing salt-water smell of the spritzing Atlantic ocean.

-The clean smell from a Noxema facial wrap.

The Greek American Movie Website

2009-06-08T09:17:00.004-04:00

The official website for The Greek American movie is now online. Click the link and you can view the trailer. The full length movie stars Kenneth McGregor, Ryan Tygh, Joey Trantos, Andrea Langhi, and Peter Patrikios.

As for its cast, Kenneth McGregor's acting was top-notch stellar. McGregor has had movie scenes with prolific actors such as Tom Cruise and Denzel Washington. It was an absolute honor for me to exchange dialogue with him in rolling film that made the final cut.

Mcgregor's co-star lead, Alysia Maltepes, also directs the film. The beautiful innocence of Maltapes' character is something worth fighting for even after you thought that love was long lost.

This happens to be the second movie I was in with sultry Andrea Langhi. We both had small roles in The Nail, which is airing on Showtime later this summer. At the premier of the The Greek American movie, I thought I congratulated Andrea on her noteworthy performance in the Oscar nominated film, The Wrestler but, as it topsy-curvy turns out, it was her closely resembling attractive sister.

The comedic character Joey Trantos played fit him like a snug glove or should I say a cast iron skillet.

Actor Peter Patrikios stole some scenes playing an unorthodox Spiro in The Greek American. Far and away, Peter proved to be my favorite actor in the film. Before I landed the part of bartender in this movie, I actually did a cold reading as a stand-in for Peter Patrikios in one scene to get the blocking right for the camera. Peter's unique adaptation of the character Spiro supplied more energy and dynamic interest than my vanilla reading. As it stands on film, surrounded by better actors than myself, I got four lines in five scenes as Gus, the bartender. If I deserve any props, I can make faux ouzo drinks out of milk droppings in water tending bar with the best of them.

Death Wish in the Driveway

2009-06-03T18:55:00.004-04:00

As I put my car in reverse, I hear thump, thump, thump. Curse words erupt from my leather cockpit because this was the definitive sound of a major flat tire. I sling myself out of my God-forsaken car, fully expecting the worse in the indignity of my own driveway. I circle the vehicle. Curiously, the air pressure in each of my tires looks more than adequate.

I get back into my car and try again. The same repetitive thump follows me halfway down the driveway. Exiting the car, I check inside my trunk for something rolling around. Everything seems secure. At my wit's end, I literally stand around my vehicle while scratching my head.

Not knowing what else to do, I get back into my car. This time I reverse faster than normal while dismissing the lunacy of expecting a different outcome at a higher rate of speed. Thump, thump, thump. I put my cursing aside after concluding with a gulp in my throat that I have repeatedly run over a defenseless toddler. Manslaughter charges run rampant through my active imagination, one that comes complete with the soundbite of a Judge's gavel.

I lay down in the driveway where I literally shimmy underneath my car. As I lay on my back staring at the empty undercarriage, an adult possum jumps from my wheel well overtop my prone body. Claws and fur fly in slow motion over my defenseless body before I catch another glimpse of him scampering away through a brush thicket.

The possum had been running atop my moving tire like a personal treadmill. This possum wasn’t playing dead. Nope, this one had a death wish. It is not everyday you wheely come across an endangered species.

The Big Picture

2009-05-29T20:21:00.004-04:00

Joseph Tornatore at the premier of Bazookas, the Movie.

Last night, I went to the premier of Bazookas, the Movie. Sitting in the front row of the sold out theatre to view the high definition film, equisite bare-naked DD cup breasts supplanted the big screen from the opening scene…on a racquetball court. The bevy of buxom actresses going topless in risqué scenes juxtaposed by the campy comedy seemingly mesmerized me. Sterioid injected chicken seemed like it had found a home in tinsel town.

The full-length movie, no pun intended, was so entertaining to view that I literally forgot that I played a fully clothed bartender in this film. I was almost surprised to see myself, however brief my part. Appearing in one scene, fleshy cleavage and comedic laughs were not enough to distract me from serving my single line. As an able bartender my juices were flowing. The breast is history.

I linked local press coverage from the Maplewood Patch on the movie’s release and how to order a DVD.

Taking A Stance

2009-05-25T09:11:00.002-04:00

Too old to do push-ups on the beach, I could only assume the stance - Memorial Day weekend in Atlantic City, NJ 2009.

Backyard Bounty

2009-05-20T20:34:00.002-04:00

More backyard splendor. I can almost hear the trickling water.

A Bird's Eye View

2009-05-14T23:37:00.001-04:00

This is me on a bird watching jaunt right in our backyard. A member of the Audubon Society, my tour guide identified over 25 different bird species on our wooded property. Our acreage is on landlocked protected wetlands so the pristine woods has been virtually untouched and unchanged from the way nature shaped it. What sights I beheld.

A Mountain Called Ozark

2009-05-09T16:48:00.004-04:00

Danny Ozark with Joe Tornatore

Former Philadelphia Phillies manager Danny Ozark’s passing this week at the age of eighty-five was a life that spanned extra innings. His stellar managerial career came within a big inning in a decisive playoff series of ultimately managing a champion. Almost tragically, the Phillies team he built, spoon-fed, and managed from basement dwellers to perennial contenders won the 1980 World Series only a year after his firing. This is how the ball bounces in the fatality of life.

I met Danny Ozark on a gorgeous day for baseball in 1997. By age seventy-three, however, the rawhide of baseball had been woven through his life yet somehow his forty-something inch waist still proudly stuffed into the pinstriped Philadelphia Phillies uniform like a throwback to yesteryear. As I approached the dapper uniformed don in a hideaway restaurant, Danny was hungrily eating his way through a stack of flapjacks perched in his counter seat.

I introduced myself then said, “Danny, I just came from the park. There are no children, no spectators for the charity softball event.”

As he fathomed this scenario, maple syrup seemed to suspend drip from his fork. Showing his genial leadership qualities, Danny Ozark expressed to me in parental tones that the game must be played. Unfulfilled charitable contributions aside, two dozen former major league baseball players did not travel across the country to not pick up their gloves or grab a bat.

During the ballgame, it was an awestruck sight watching the old man bearing red and white pinstripes register putouts from infielders Al Oliver and Bert Campaneris on a lumpy field of weeds and clay. I knew firsthand that Ozark would be taking to the grave his lifelong love for baseball. Like any fallible human being, it would not be without regrets.

With Ozark’s death, I only have my own personal memories of him to hold onto. I can almost hear him smack his floppy first baseman’s mitt on this day, field the sea of criticism he endured for not making a late inning substitute for fielding liability Greg Luzinski after Game 3 of the National League Championship Series, or uttering classic malapropisms during post-game interviews.

If I ever visit his gravesite, I might be tempted to draw chalk lines atop the dirt that buries Danny Ozark because this was a thoroughbred baseball man. Rest(in Peace) assured, Danny Ozark is asking dearly departed Harry Kalas now if half this afterlife is ninety percent transcendental. Life like baseball contains errors, the least of which are syntax.
Danny Ozark 1923-2009