Rock the Police

Spring, 2011. Erin filmed his brother Matt and his cousin Billy while they made a guitar duel. But it was a somewhat unorthodox duel, as they were reenacting a slow motion medieval sword fight with the guitars as weapons, planning to speed it up in post production. Matt's character was the defendant, protecting his "castle", a two storey house with a large balcony and a long lateral rampart. He was wearing a "suit of armor" composed of a wool jacket and a hat.

One of the most dramatic scenes portraied Matt chasing Billy along the rampart with a sideways climatic duel where one tried to shove the other off to the first floor! An epic scene to watch, but ridiculous to make. The problem was that somebody saw Matt, a guy with a black hat, exiting the house by the second floor window carrying a guitar.

While Matt defended Billy's blows driving him backwards towards the street, a police car discretely stopped on the other side of the road and one policeman started looking at the scene, where two fat guys struck each other with guitars while another fatty filmed them. Billy paused the production and respectfully asked the police officer if there were any problem. "What are you doing there?" Asked him authoritatively. "We're a rock band, we're making a video". With a combination of amusement and frustration, making the funniest face expression possible, he said "Your video got me a call!"

Four more cars arrived,  a swarm of twenty policemen with machine guns and rifles filled the street moving all around, some laughing, some serious, some angry. As it is their procedure, the first policeman got Billy's ID to look for some previous record, but there was nothing to be found as the squeaky clean nerd had never done anything remotely wrong in his entire life.

"You were recording a rock video? You tape stuff on the cemetery, right?"

That somebody called the police because three fat idiots tried to film a funny clip.

Without any police record, the cops just went away, leaving behind an interrupted film, a scared neighborhood and a story to tell.

The final video was completed a week later and it's available on YouTube today. Viewer discretion is advised.

https://youtu.be/dxB1eCSNRyU

The Oyster Incident

Salty water touched the shore as people enjoyed the summer on Tumble Beach, in Brazil. Two brothers played in the water to cool their bodies down, as the sun was particularly hot this day. Wilhelm and Christof jumped and dove through the strong waves always paying attention to not end up too far into the ocean. And so they did, controlling the distance responsibly, not letting the water go past their chest. But as it often is, they forgot to account a simple factor - lateral displacement. Tumble Beach is well known for their underwater holes that act as traps to unaware tourists. More and more to the right, the distracted brothers found themselves deep enough in the water to not be able to step on the beach floor without submerging their heads! And the waves were strong enough to overcome their efforts to swim to safety! Even worse, there wasn't any beach left in that direction, as large rocks filled the shoreline! Wilhelm, whose large body was not prepared to prolonged physical efforts, wasn't able to maintain himself over water for too long, so Christof, who was a lot smaller, pulled him up a few times, as desperation tried to take over. Observing their unusual struggle, a couple of surfers offered help and dragged them both closer to the shore, where they could walk. Phew! Finally this was over and... Whoosh! Tidal waves started to throw them on the rocks! They grabbed and held on, but alas! the rocks were covered in oysters! Sharp inch-long oysters that pierced their skin while the waves threw them around again and again! Now, Christof, stuck in a hole, started to get scared! Wilhelm, climbing over the rock, slicing his flesh on the oysters, tried to save his brother, but it was no use as the waves threw them around as if the sea wanted to claim them back as her own! What would be of the brothers? Here comes the surfers for the rescue again! and Wilhelm let Christof go first, as a lighter body got thrown around more easily by the waves! With their feet on dry sand again, the brothers counted their blessings and ran off to treat their wounds, as their legs were covered by slices and blood, a little reminder of the respect the ocean demanded.