The Perfect Burger

This is a topic I broached by accident, really. After a long motorcycle ride, I stopped at McDonald's, which I usually don't, and, on a whim, ordered a Big Mac, which I almost never do. Instead of the small, somewhat flat burger usually comes out of the cardboard box off the grill, this one looked like something out of an ad. It looked perfect. And that brought up the question, what is the perfect burger? The most outrageous burger I'd ever seen was on a television series called Supernatural. One of it's lead characters, Dean Winchester, is a cheeseburger fanatic. So in one episode he presents his brother Sam with a burger he calls "The Elvis." It has glazed donuts for buns. I thought this had to be a joke. But on Halloween, my friend Rose and I went to a Halloween Party at a place called the Teak Neighborhood Grill. On their menu was "The Glazed Donut Burger." I knew I had to try one. And so this episode began to jell. So take a look. But be warned...the calories might just fly off the screen!

Davy's Christmas Seasoning

Auto Club? Thing of the Past

It's quarter after 3 Friday morning, and I am sitting here livid. That stupid motorcycle of mine, same one that was stolen twice in the same summer and has cost nearly as much to repair as it cost new off the showroom floor broke down on me again. But that's not what I'm so pissed about.

 It's the AAA.

First off, I spent $168 buying their premium service so that I wouldn't end up stranded somewhere because of unreliable transportation.

So I call them and tell them I need a jump. They tell me they no longer jump start motorcycles even if you'd paid extra for motorcycle service (like I did). Okay, fine. Instead, I tell them I need it towed from the Universal Studios parking structure to my house a couple of miles down the road. This was at 12:30 a.m. when I got off work. They tell me they're sending out a driver, but it could take two hours. I'm not happy. But what can you do? So I wait.

Finally at around 2:03 a.m. the driver calls me.

He's Hispanic and can barely speak English.

He keeps asking if I have a flashlight. I say I do and ask him why he needs to know that. He doesn't answer. Finally he asks if I can see him. I say no and ask where he is. He says he's in the structure two sections down from me. I tell him to just follow the arrows. I hear a lot of radio chatter in Spanish, probably from a dispatcher. I ask him where he is, because I should be able to see him. He doesn't answer. I repeat my location. I hear nothing but radio chatter.

Finally, a pair of headlights catch my eye and I turn. There he is...in the other structure. I tell him I think I can see him and ask which section he's in. Sure enough, he left the structure I'm in and somehow went to other structure. I tell him he's in the wrong place and tell him once again where i am.

I see him on the down ramp leaving the structure.

He hangs up.

I try to call him back.

He doesn't answer.

I flag down some Universal security patrolling the parking structure. I tell them what happened. One of them tries to call the driver from the number retrieved from my IPhone.

They get voice mail.

So they dispatch cars trying to find him.

I call AAA and tell some woman what happened. She says she has to look up information.

Meanwhile the security officers come back while she's on the line. She hears what they tell me, that they can't find hide nor hair of him. She's apologetic and totally useless. I lose my temper and say, "look lady, I'm in a parking structure so big that it can be seen with the naked eye from the space station, and you sent me the world's biggest dumb fuck driver who can't find it. Since I bought your most expensive product, instead of apologies it would be swell if you'd find out WHERE THE FUCK HE IS cause I don't want to stay here all night."

I hang up.

The security officers, who had, of course, been listening, apologize. It isn't their fault. I ask them if I can leave my broken bike in the structure overnight. They tell me I can, adding that they are going to try and track the AAA driver down. "But even if we can't find them, we'll be back." They leave.

They don't come back.

Now it's 2:50 a.m. The yacht (I'm a boat captain, in case you didn't know) closing crew is going home. I wave them down. I had been convinced I'd have to walk home. One of my fellow captains, Aly, offers to take me home.

God bless him.

AAA left me stranded despite what I'd paid them. This is the worst service I've gotten anywhere from anyone. it's not just bad. It's stunningly bad. It's unbelievably bad.

This is intolerable.

Oh, Those Whacky Halloween Decorations Part Two

A Card Trick

This is a cool card trick I actually developed for print and then published in a column I was doing at the time for the Manhattan Beach Reporter call "Changing Tides." In the column I displayed 16 playing cards in four rows of four each and then instructed readers (or in the case of this video, viewers) how to "shuffle" the cards and then chose one. After than I would pick out their chosen card. It's a really nifty trick. Check it out!

Davy vs the Zombies

There's lots and lots of different attractions and diversities to be found along the International Drive corridor that winds through the Orlando Attractions all the way down to Kissemmee. There are museums, roller coasters, sling shots dinner theater shows, nightclubs, bars, restaurants, hotels and more gift shops than you can shake a tree-full of sticks at. Among all this is a new attraction out of Wisconsin, of all places, called Zombie Outbreak. It's sort of like a laser tag version of a live POV video game as you run down the corridors of a zombie-ridden former military installation clearing out roaming hordes of the living dead.



I first heard about it from some friends I'd performed with at Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights last October who had been hired to play the live zombies at the new attraction. When I decided on making it an episode of the YouTube version of The Last Wanderer of Mars I wanted to experience the apocalyptic fight wearing a GoPro camera. But the powers that be at the attraction wouldn't allow that, so I settled for a DAVE-O-MATION version that's whimsically representative of the experience along with live footage from a couple of the players.



I think the episode which is called Davy vs the Zombies really fun. Not only is there facilities shots and an interview from the zombie that actually did chase me down, but I also go the chance to use the Ghost Hunt animated ghost-shooting game I got from Cracker Barrel last October. Sadly, though, this is the last video I made featuring a POV ride - compliments of a GoPro camera on a chest mount - on my Icebear Lancer motorcycle before it was stolen, stripped and dumped on a service road next to a retention pond. Orlando is brimming with some of the world's most innovative attractions. It's also overrun with thieves and criminals of all sorts. Sad, but that's what tourist towns attract.



Perhaps I should do an episode on that. 

Adventure in Key Largo

Here's the first video I've produced to include footage shot from my drone. This production is sort of like the romance of the rails meet the excitement of the deep. And the park rangers were even nice enough to allow me to fly my Syma Quadcopter even though drones aren't normally allowed in Florida state parks.