Prime Busta.

After the shit sandwich that is “Undercover Of Darkness,” this leaked demo from the new Strokes record is a relief. Glad to hear Julian still can croon.

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My little Bro.

Photo by Michael RUNION

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When I was about 16 years old, I went to New York Film Academy for a month. Despite it’s reputation, one they shove down your throats in full page ads in the back of Rolling Stone, it wasn’t exactly the best month of film education I ever received. And despite it’s name, NYFA was located in the Hollywood Hills, where I was trapped for four weeks in a resort called The Oakwood; a hotel famous in LA for the sheer amount of aspiring child actors and their creepy, sad sack parents who wander in and out of the place like over medicated zombie Gazelles in a Discovery Channel special.

Needless to say, it was a miserable (expensive) experience. I wasn’t allowed to leave the confines of the resort unless I was going to class and so I sat in an air conditioned hotel room in Burbank all of July, watching The Twilight Zone and relaxing in the hot tob while Jonbenet Ramsey #2-#79, played splishy-splash in the adjacent pool.

Somewhere within the month long sulk at NYFA, I guess I made a short film. I don’t really remember making this and it’s clear I had been watching a liiiiiiitle too much Woody Allen, but I found this DVD in my desk drawer at home and so now I present you with “Blocked,” a 16mm short film, six years late, poorly exposed and more than a little retarded.

Eddie O’KEEFE

Back in the days of pimples and proms I would write feature films. I thought that I, at 15 years old, could easily make a 90 minute film on allowance money, starring my friends and shot on a Sony DVCam. Piece of cake. We’d shoot on the weekends, after homework and sport meets and in between job shifts…duh.

After slaving away at a word document screenplay template (Tab-Tab-Tab-Damnit), I would assemble the cast and crew and the first thing we usually did was shoot a trailer. The trailer was our way of setting the tone for the soon-to-be feature while also teasing and titillating all the rabid fans (i.e. our close friends) out there on AOL Instant Messenger. Usually however, for whatever reason, the trailer was all that ever got made; my once grandeur hopes for the project would wan and I’d wind up just, like, walking to 7-11 to get a Slurpee with Eric HEHR and Sam CLANCY and we’d talk about The Vines or something.

Below are two of those trailers…trailers for films about nothing in particular that never got made (thankfully).

Eddie O’KEEFE

I’m slowly moving out of my apartment in CHICAGO and heading back to the suburbs. This summer I’ll be shooting a new short film and then I’m off to LA come fall. Just-a-chasin’-my-dream-and-I’s-a-gonna-be a-star-a-shucks!

As you may remember, I have a soft spot for places I’ve lived. Below are some photos of my bedroom at 838 w. Newport Ave, Apt #2, Chicago IL, 60657. It was a tiny bedroom and it was cold in the winters; the alcoholic tenet above me would keep me up at night dribbling a basketball and beating bongo drums (and his wife), and the landlord never fixed a gaping hole in the wall in the two years I lived there but, man, I loved that room, and it deserves at least a blog post in its honor.

Eddie O’KEEFE