"News to Me" – Hot like Hasselhoff!

I’m telling you guys, our show is the next big thing in Germany! Mark my words, we are going to be the David Hasselhoff of “cable news shows dedicated to citizen journalism – user generated content – and Web culture” in Deutschland! Just ask “Uncle Fritz”!

Saturday’s shoot was a hot one! Eric’s personal sweat mopper had his hands full (Eric Lanford’s sweat for sale on e-Bay. Starting bid .01 cent – interesting trades considered).

You can always count on something funny, weird or interesting happening on our shoots… and Saturday was no exception.

Imagine if you will, a band of rogues wandering the lovely Chastain Park in Atlanta with a camera in tow. Eric leads us to a yard sale and we begin to peruse the assortment of used goods, when a nice German lady comes out of the house to greet us. Bagel in hand, the woman asks who we are and what we want. Eric wanted to tell her we were with the “Association to Abolish Yard Sales” but he spared her our long-running joke.

The yard-sale lady saw that Eric was interested in a painting she had for sale, a portrait of a man she called “Uncle Fritz”. Asking price: 20 bucks. What did Eric offer her? NOTHING! He wanted it for free! Which brings us to today’s lesson… ERIC’S CHEAP!

After some haggling, Eric went up to $5 and eventually they both agreed on $10. That would be the end of the story except for two things – Eric had NO MONEY and the money that Mike and I could scrounge added up to a piddly $8! Well wouldn’t you know it, she really wanted to rid herself of that painting and caved.

She claimed that Uncle Fritz isn’t even her uncle and probably not even named Fritz! We’re going to continue to call him Uncle Fritz and he will grace Eric’s mantle-piece (until he takes it to “Antiques Roadshow” and finds out it’s worth $8 million!)

One thing we are sure of is that there’s a German family somewhere, missing a portrait of a man who may or may not be their “Uncle Fritz.” Regardless, our raging popularity in Germany is all but guaranteed – just like “The Hoff”!

P.S.
If you recognize the portrait of “Uncle Fritz” drop us a line and let us know who the heck he is!

Eric tries to prove to us he has swing skills!

Our fearless producer Mike teaches our intern Mandy how hard we work on these shoots!

See ya' next week. Make sure you tune in this weekend to see if "Uncle Fritz" helped us make GREAT TV!