Visitors to www.roderickrussell.com have been noting that the clickable thumbnails and accompanying captions in the “images” portion of the website have not been functional since a recent change to a new web host. I have unfortunately been on the road and unable to address the problem, but I’ve just now found the time to diagnose and fix the problem. Visitors will be happy to know that you can once again click on any of the thumbnails and get larger versions of the photos, oftentimes with accompanying credits and captions.

Note also that my previous image galleries from years past are also available as clickable links from the same page. As they are old galleries, not all of the code is functioning and I have no intentions of making it fully functional, but the images are nevertheless available and able to be viewed. Simply ignore any PHP errors that you may discover. They will not get in the way of viewing images. I keep these galleries around only because you’ve requested it, so please do enjoy.

If you have a moment, sign the guestbook or leave a comment. I always love to hear from you.

-Roderick

[note: post is one week late - originally intended post date was June 30]

This past week has been so unusually bizarre – though that seems to be the trend lately, so perhaps it’s not bizarre after all – that I’ve had no time to blog about a wonderful experience I had last Friday filming a commercial for the Magic Hat Brewing Company.

For those of you who have not had the pleasure of sampling the many unique varieties of Magic Hat, they are a wonderfully hip, fun and exceedingly creative company that has, in my opinion, carved out an amazingly clever, inventive and original space in the market.

For some time now my good friends the Bindlestiff’s have been working with them, performing a summer variety tour all across the eastern seaboard of good, wholesome vaudeville fun. The company has tried to book me in the past for promotional events but, my schedule being what it is, it had yet to work out.

I was pleasantly flattered when I got the call from them asking if I would like to be featured in a television commercial for the company. Better still was the fact that I could rearrange my schedule such that I was available! We were finally finding an opportunity to work together!

Despite the fact that I was dressed in a silly costume (part of the show, after all!), it really was a delight to work with everyone at Magic Hat and the producers of the commercial. I’ve blown fire in some unusual places, but my experience at the brewery engulfing equipment in fireballs definitely ranks up there in the realm of unusual. The theme is “a performance in every bottle” and if the rest of the filming went anything like the filming that I took part in, it should be one heck of an interesting, exciting and eclectic commercial – a perfect representation of the progressive creativity that the company is brimming over with.

The commercial is slated to air in select college markets for a trial run and then move on to Comedy Central and similar networks thereafter.

Do leave comments if you see it!

-Roderick
Magic Hat Brewing Company, Roderick Russell, Sword Swallower, Burlington VT, Television Commercial, Beer, Comedy Central, Spike TV, Fireballs, Fire Breathing