100 Day!

Well, its been almost two years and I've probably arrived at this point a little later than I would have liked to but, nevertheless, this is officially Mark's Gone Hollywood post # 100!

There's something about the century mark that just gets people excited, going back to "100 Day" at St. Pet's grade school in which we all had to turn in a project of some sort. I suppose the slim academic value in this was learning to count, but it usually just led to 30 kids with 100 of some tiny object glued to a poster, eventually losing a few on the bus making it more like "93 Pennies Day" or "82 M&Ms but I Ate the Rest Day".

In American politics "100" is like the king of numbers (and yes, I'm aware of the governmental non sequitur I've just committed and I don't care!). We've got 100 senators and everyone only cares about what a president can do in 100 days. We put our most beer-loving-est political figure on the $100 bill.

In entertainment 100 can be very important, especially if you're in television: 100 episodes means syndication, or should I say $YNDICATION! because once you're in reruns the money comes pouring in like MTV reality show contestants into a jacuzzi.

Does that mean that now that I've reached 100 I'm going to start rerunning old material? Just the same dated jokes about the failure of the Chicago Cubs in the playoffs or my occasional annoyance at the amount of driving I need to do in LA?

Well.....yeah.


I mean...NOT AT ALL! Of course, I will continue to bemoan my favorite team's postseason failings and California's car-cancer, but this 100th post is a rejuvenating occurrence, beginning with the roll out of a BRAND NEW LOOK FOR THE BLOG!

Long-time readers will notice that the "look" has changed dramatically, most notably the new header (of my own design) which displays the two worlds in which I now live. Each element was carefully selected, and I'll give 100 MGH Points* to anyone who can correctly identifies every element of the picture. *Points NOT redeemable outside of the Federated States of Micronesia.

But, in a rare bit of seriousness, reaching 100 posts has made me look back and discover what a great joy its been to write and made me regret slacking off as much as I have in recent months. I may have, from time to time, insisted upon a wealth of reader comments (some requests have come as recently as last week's post).

For that I should apologize. Just the fact that people have been out there reading what I've been writing and, for the most part, ENJOYING it is an amazing reward. Hell, I can't believe I've even got some readers who don't even know me, but just keep up on the blog to hear about life at USC. How do they stand the constant references to deep dish pizza and Old Style beer? Hell if I know.

BUT all this means that in 2010, or TWENTYTEN as I love to call it, I'm going to have a renewed commitment to this blog. Every writer of value I've talked to says that writing every day is essential to getting better at writing, and how many people are lucky enough to have an audience for their random idiotic musings? (I mean, besides Jay Leno)

One of my good writer/blogger friends (and one of the earliest followers of this blog) taught me that the best writing often comes from the most personal place, and that will be a lesson I hope to employ this year. With 2010 being my third and FINAL year at USC film school, and with the real world precariously hovering over me like one of the spaceships at the start of Independence Day, I'm gonna be pretty honest and say that there is a good part of me that is scared shitless. Sans for seven months in 2007 when I temporarily worked at Second City's box office in between graduating Loyola Chicago and starting at USC I've been enrolled in academia since my folks dropped me off at Montessori School in Glen Ellyn way back in, what, like the 1980's?

So, I'm going to do my best to keep y'all along for the ride as I round out my time at USC and take that off-ramp exit into Adultland...which actually sounds more like a giant porn store than a metaphor for my entrance into the professional sphere....I'll work on that.

But we will travel together, much like we did way back when in Post #2 chronicling my big drive out to Los Angeles. On this road-trip we will share together in the beautiful vistas, in the bumps and tricky turns, and in the disastrously under-maintained roadside restroom stops.

And the first stop in this new journey is an exciting one, because just as I had hoped, my Coca-Cola commercial is on-line in time for the 100th post!

Now, I'm a little upset because, as of now, the powers that be at Coca-Cola (a company I have always, and will always shower with love and affection) have misspelled the title of our film in the title card for the commercial, RENDEZVOUS. Not a big deal, I'm sure they'll fix it or something. Didn't want anyone to get confused. I KNOE HOW TO SPELLE, OKAIY?

Anyway, here's the link: http://ccrfa.com/

Click on "2010 Finalists". Mine is "RENDEZVOUS".

I'm going to try and put up a full post about Coke next, because it was one of the coolest things I've ever been able to do in my life, and it went by so fast that its worth another look.

Thanks for reading, especially those who've been there since post numero uno. Hopefully you'll be there for the next 100 posts, or maybe the next 1,000? I'm game! I wanna keep riding this train as long as I can (wait, I thought we were working with a road trip metaphor?) and I'm forever grateful to any and all passengers on board.


-mk