Nick Adams Breaks His Silence

Since I started making movies I've always had a muse. When I was in high school it was my friend Jacob Pratt. And even though I made Jacob a star at Knoxville Center's Chick-Fil-A. After three movies he was done with the spotlight. He stopped making movies and I haven't heard from him since sometime last year.

Then I moved away to college. And in searching for a new muse I found one. His name was Nick Adams.

Nick lived in a house with my best friend Eli. I became a regular guest at their house during the week. When I found out that Nick had a nice camcorder he let me try it out. I started thinking of stranger and stranger things for him to do while I filmed. Eventually these playful video interactions would be the destruction of our friendship.

"It stared off great," Nick said about making movies, "but it just came to a point that I wondered why I was doing it anymore. Zack would pick up the camera and 10 minutes later I'd be standing in my shorts and cowboy boots shouting 'how many retakes are we going to do? I've eaten about 20 marshmallows already'."

Nick's big break came in the form of a mockumentary called "Life in the Slow Lane: Nick The Man Sloth". He took the lead role. A role that would turn out to be his last.

"It started out ok," he said, "I remember talking about the idea at Chick-Fil-A with Eli and Zack. I think I was convinced to do it because of how passionate they were about it. The night we filmed there were about six or seven people at the house. We started at about 7pm and didn't finish until it was 1am and my clothes were drenched with peanut butter and bathwater."

Afterwards, Nick was reluctant to step in front of the camera again. Whenever I'd go over to his house he would say he needed to work or he was about to go to bed. It didn't stop me. The next weekend he went away we got to work on sabotaging his room with love letters. They were made by fans of his movies, but it ended up freaking him out.

The following weekend everything was set to film our next big movie, an action-adventure film called "Bedtime for Cowboys". When Nick arrived home he refused to get into costume. A fight broke out in the living room that caused Nick to be in a headlock for 3 minutes and my elbows to develop large rug-burns.
In the summer of 2008, the life that existed between Nick and I ended. I got a job and moved to China. Nick packed up and moved ten minutes down the road to a new house with new friends.

I didn't see Nick for over a year, then in the summer of 2009 Nick agreed to meet up with me and Eli at a Johnson City Mexican restaurant called Amigos. He came with three other friends, but asked them to wait in the car.
The meeting with Nick was uncomfortable to say the least. He continually looked at his watch and avoided personal questions about his health and his new address. After the meal he reluctantly agreed to take a picture with us.

After the strange Mexican meal we all went our separate ways.

All communication severed. Friendships burnt out. There seemed to be no hope of rekindling the friendship and passion for movie making that Nick and I once shared. (record skips) UNTIL NOW.

In a recent email from Nick (in which the quotations above have been taken from) he stated:

"I wasn't happy with the way things turned out. It seemed like all of the attention became too much for me and I wanted out... [I'm] ready to set the record straight. I'm ready to to step back in front of the camera and tell my story."

So now, in the Summer of 2011, Nick agreed to be filmed in a follow-up documentary about our relationship and how we made special memories together. 

I'll be sure to update everyone with the process.

And thank you Nick. Thanks for your email. Thanks for reconnecting and trying to save our relationship.

Nightmare Over

Out of growing fear for my life I decided to join a gang. I sent in my application to the "Outlaws" of Knoxville. I included a letter of concern that stated:
"Dear Gang,
I'm sorry my letter today is urgent and has no time to dabble in matters of culture and science as most of my letters do. I write about a matter close to my heart. Safety is something that I normally can afford in the states. I simply pay enough money to stay out of the dangerous areas of poverty. I can also afford an expensive car that screams "I come with an alarm!". I don't have to work in minimum wage conditions where petty thieves and families of thieves choose to work. In the evenings I can go to restaurants where I pay to be around people who also want to stay safe.
My current conditions don't allow for such things. I've been given many blessings, but no insurance from them being taken away or taken back. It seems like money should now be replaced with heavy artillery. Sometimes it seems like the only way.  
If I could inlist your help I would sure appreciate it."


A couple of weeks later my application was processed and I'm now a member. They also sent a free 6-pack of orange juice!

Motorpsycho Nightmare

So I bought a motorcycle about a month ago. It's been a lot of fun to have around. All the steps for getting the paperwork done are stressful, but after all of that stuff is done it's nice. The majority of bikes over here are 125cc-150cc, with a limit on anything over 250cc. So they don't go too fast.

But it doesn't really matter over here, because what's hot right now is trick riding. The Chinese people are crazy about it.

I can't even get to school without seeing some Chinese guy standing on top of his seat trying to do a no hands bike surf or another guy sitting on his bike backwards reading the newspaper. It's insane. The thing I recently got into is something called "Sticker Slapping". It's when you drive so close to a car that you can slap a sticker on it. And we do.

It's really starting to catch on, since most of the cars I'm seeing on the road look like a sponsored race cars.

It's not all fun and games though. Most of these trick riders ride in packs, or gangs. And there's one that just moved in down the street. When they're not sticker slapping up the town they play basketball at our school's courts. One day while my friend Brian was playing basketball at school these guys came up to him. They started accusing Brian of talking to "their girls". There was a little scuffle, but our maintenance guy saw them from outside the window and ran out to scare them off. Later when the maintenance guy went to his car, he noticed that he'd been sticker slapped. I just heard this morning that our maintenance guy is trying to move back to his hometown. It looks like no one is going to stand up to these guys.