I play a construction worker in the film Dark Shadows. The film is directed by Tim Burton and stars Johnny Depp among many others.

“I’ll be in my trailer” (little did I know…)

…I’d be in the trailer!

At :05, that’s me in the hard hat — 1 night shoot without an injury! — saying ”What the hell is this?” I also recorded a “What the heck is this?” version, apparently for places where hell doesn’t exist.

And in another version, that’s me, shovel in hand, at :01 saying “We hit something.” Can you dig it?

Onesiphorus Mash? My Brush with Chairness?

The answers to these and other questions are revealed in Matt J. Horn’s interview with me.

Dark Shadows of Meaning: Post-Structuralism in the Films and Wrap Parties of Tim Burton

At the Dark Shadows wrap party, all of the venue’s bathrooms strangely had quotation marks: “Male,” “Female” and “Disabled” — plus a door marked “Private”.

Putting “Private” in quotation marks I get. Sure, we might call that room “Private” but we all know that nothing is truly private anymore.

But the other doors confused me.

Were those of us using the “Male” bathroom having our manhood questioned? Or was the message actually not cynical at all but a gender bending invitation to use the bathroom most closely matching our own fluid senses of identity? Oh “boy”… Down the rabbit hole I go!

But wait, what’s up with “Disabled”?!

Qu’est-ce que c’est le deal? Was the “Disabled” bathroom begrudgingly provided for the so-called “Disabled”? Or, to the contrary, was this sign a statement about how no one should be pigeonholed as “Disabled”? Or maybe…? Or maybe…? Enough!! Tim Burton is messing with my “sanity!” Screw semiotics. There is nothing going on here, nothing except the improper use of quotation marks. Isn’t that right, “Johnny Depp,” if that is your real name? (Oh, it is actually your real name? Oh, right, sorry.)

The Play of Light and Dark Shadows

Alas, I remain haunted no matter where I go.

Whether it’s the dark shadows under my eyes from a blood red night in Dublin…

My fear of that blood-sucking stick figure, Mort, in the Alps…

A shiver up my spine from fresh blood splatter…

Or that one-way street of nightmares…

But enough of that. It’s time for some positive thinking. Indeed I shall unleash my Super Powers of Positive Thinking. The world shall henceforth know me as Stormin’ Norman Vincent Peale!

(Un)related posts:

• The Dark Shadows trailers are also posted as a playlist on my YouTube channel.
• The photos are ones I’ve taken and are not from the film. They are also posted in my Flickr sets for London, Dublin, Chamonix Mont-Blanc, and New York.
• The street of nightmares was my very first post on Tumblr.