Two Totally Unrelated Things that Go Great Together

I'm posting at an exponentially faster rate. Unemployment is good for that. So while I have the time, here are two completely unrelated things that I thought might entertain you, as well as have some sort of significance in the strange and winding career that belongs to Phil Ristaino.

First, we have a video conceived and created by NTUSA members and Flackman Bros associates Ryan Bronze and Matt Kalman (aka Max Flackman). I agreed to participate in the making of this short Christmas video starring Ryan as Spiderman and Matt as Batman, surf buddies, and featuring the cheese-center-filled rock classic "Come Sail Away" by Styx, particularly significant to me because they were my favorite band (other than, say, the Beatles) when I was a youth (pronounced "yout" minus the "h"). I worked the camera for much of the shoot, in between sneezing profoundly, as the fall pollen had descended on Far Rockaway Beach on the outskirts of Queens or Brooklyn or somewhere in between and caused my nasal passages much dismay. Later in the shoot, myself and another actor Greg (last name slipping my mind right now, sorry Greg) posed as 60's style masked baddies, attacking the two heroes on amidst their holiday and being summarily dismissed by the crime fighting professionals.
Cheque eet owt:




It may be significant to note that Matt and Ryan went into cold New York autumn ocean waters fully costumed and both nearly drowned during the shooting of this video. If you look hard, you'll see one or two waves really kicking their asses, which, I admit, was pretty funny to watch in person.

The second part of this post is dedicated to me Ole Da, who hit the big 7-0 this October (happy birthday, DAD!) My older brother Carl opted to get my folks a new dish washer for Dad's b-day, and I was assigned with the task of creating the card for the gift.

Take a look:


Here's the inside:

Editor's note: Brother Carl's and his daughter Izzy's signatures and notes are missing from the card because I put all the other notes together in photoshop and express mailed the card to Carl for him to sign in time for the delivery of the dishwasher.

Just as an explanation, my parents have a house on a lake in Maine, and there is a family of bald eagles on the island, so I figured I'd put dad on the eagle a la Gandalf in the third LOTR film:

Dad's body is more or less a steal from a Jack Kirby silver surfer:


And here's me Dad:

Dad trippin balls

So there you have it. Two great things that have absolutely nothing to do with each other.