The PetSmart Print Shoot: An iPhone™ Photo Gallery.

Most of the shoot took place in this gorgeous house. Well, it was gorgeous until teamsters had full access to the bathrooms for two days.

The crew played music throughout the shoot, and thought it would be hilarious to crank Barry White while my pseudo-wife and I cozied up with our pet cat. If I’m blushing in the ads, you’ll understand why.

All I want for Christmas is this Snowboy, complete with shoulder straps so I can wear it on my back and walk around spreading year-round cheer at parties (or into friends’ pants when they least expect it.)

A scosche of irony: I have a tradition of taking Christmas photos with Santa and my dog at PetSmart – often humorously – and fate tagged me back hard as I had to dress as a dad in a Santa outfit in what will become an ad promoting… yes… taking your pet to PetSmart to be photographed with Santa. (Also ironic: I’m Jewish.)

And when you’re in a full Santa outfit and beard in front of a roaring, wood-burning fireplace in July, you may be smiling, but on the inside you are not jolly.

Weekend Recap.

Hey hippies: as much as I hate when you shove a petition in my face outside Trader Joe’s, if you create one demanding a customer dress code, hand me a pen… What do you get when you a cross a Zach Galifianakis-type beard with a catchy Outkast tune? A pretty kickass cover… House Café has become such a regular haunt for my friends and I that the chef there sends out complimentary dishes for us. So the least I can do is highly recommend the place, and here goes: House is amazing. You can order breakfast anytime, the daily specials are delicious and uniquely prepared, the ice cream sandwich with chocolate sauce is fancy and perfect, and the specialty is heirloom tomato soup. My specialty, by the way, is doing the least I can do… I can’t get enough of the Olympics, and I love having seven networks featuring programming. I never thought I’d utter this sentence, but Croatian women basketball players are super hot.

I Give Ricky A Summer Project...

...involving 1400 poop bags.

Gonna Make It Snow Up In Here.

Halfway through, and the PetSmart print shoot has been both expensive and high-maintenance. It’s like a print shoot that went to Sarah Lawrence.

It’s also as much fun as you can have in a fancy sweater by a roaring fire on a midsummer afternoon. You see, the shots they’re taking are for their holiday posters and ads, and the crew has been busy trying to make the Pacific Palisades in July look like Nantucket in December. Hence the Real Plastic Snow (no less real than genuine imitation crab) and a bunch of other cool stuff I’ll try to slap together into an iPhone™ Photo Gallery next week.

Have a good weekend. And by that I mean stay off the naughty list.

Truth In Advertising.

Don’t believe everything advertisers claim about their products. Like Skechers Shape-ups. They should come equipped with a lawyer – you’re gonna need one.

On the other hand, I’m firmly brand-loyal to PetSmart, and the two-day print shoot I booked for them begins today.

I love the PetSmart around the corner from me – pictured above – so much I practically live there. It’s where I brought Petey to pick out his birthday gifts or get our photo taken with Santa, and where his vet was located. And a few days after the vet there put him down, the entire staff signed a card and sent it to me. I thought that was first class.

Now it’s Ricky’s place. He just graduated their kindergarten class. So when you see the shots of me smiling my ass off for them, believe it.

Once Again, Out-Of-Context Thank-You Notes I’ve Recently Written To Casting Directors.

• Now, whenever I crank my Sony surround sound and the neighbors call the cops, I can write off the fine.

• Thanks so much for bringing me in for KFC. And for letting me eat twice my weight in Pirate Booty.

• Two simple words to help any jobless dad support his family through a tough time: “bake sale.”

• Negotiating over beef jerky in a gas station is a not only funny, but my breakfast ritual.

• Hope you had a good hiatus. But not so good that your streak of not vomiting ended.

• If wearing a badge makes me a target for violence, I’m totally covering up my Cub Scouts’ “Book Reader Activity” badge.

Wow.

Coming out of the closet to your parents was never this easy or affordable.

An Open Letter To A Pussy.

These are the rent-a-cops hired to beef up security outside of the ArcLight Theatre in Hollywood Saturday night. I hardly envision them taking a bullet for me, let alone the 5000 rounds you brought into the theater in Colorado Thursday night.

Not to worry, which I didn’t.

A couple of years ago, during a discussion in a class taught by casting director Russell Boast, an actress said she felt a little guilty that we don’t really contribute anything to society as actors, and therefore felt the need to do something charitable. She was sweet for saying it, but I raised my hand and told her I disagreed.

I wanted her to realize that people go to movies to escape. After a tough week, they just want to go to a theater and laugh or be moved and we as actors have an amazing opportunity to help them experience emotions. Also, how many occupations are truly charitable? Russell agreed with me and added, “Unless you’re actually digging the well in Africa, no job really impacts the world in any significant way. We serve a purpose by entertaining.”

And the people in Colorado just wanted to be entertained by a fun action film they’d been excited to see. Until you ruined their lives.

All day Saturday, as I mentioned to friends that I was going to see Dark Knight Rises, I got a “be careful, man” in response every now and then, but you know what? That’s all you achieved, asshole. A little worry. Everyone packed theaters everywhere and saw this film. Because we needed to escape.

FYI: you’re not the Joker. Or some med student who had a nervous breakdown and can now plead insanity. You’re just a pussy. A coward. May all your victims rest in peace while you roast in Hell.

Oh, and here in Hollywood, we don’t need rent-a-cops or even real cops to protect us. We just park the Batmobile outside our theater, you piece of shit:

Comma Coma.

Every, morning, when, I’m, on, the, elyptical, at, my, gym, I, like, to, read, articles, written, by, acting, teachers. For, some, reason, however, they, all, have, an, extreme, fondness, for, a, certain, punctuation, mark.

Are, you, all, functionally, illiterate? Is, there, some, sort, of, collective, trauma, to, your, frontal, lobes? Is, beating, an, acting, teacher, with, his, own, shoe, a, felony? Just, curious.

We’re Already Doing Better.

I don’t pretend for a second to be an expert on politics or social science or diplomacy. I learned all of my history from “We Didn’t Start The Fire.”

That said, maybe it’s the economy or the heat but people seem a little extra aggro lately. I watched two dudes at my gym come to blows over whose turn it was to use the pull-down machine. Really, guys?

Weeks before Will McAvoy from “The Newsroom” began proclaiming “I’m on a mission to civilize!”, I came across this very moving collection of photos and passed it along to my friends Bru and Aina, and we decided to start pointing out the true kindness in people.

Label me a hippie or call me a lunatic (I really don’t give a shit), but yesterday in West LA I came upon a homeless man – pictured above – and someone had left him some food from a nearby Starbucks while he was sleeping. Call me crazy all you want, but this might just be crazy enough to work.

Rehearsal Partner.

I found out yesterday I booked a big two-day print shoot. My boner typed this.

It’s for a pet store, and the audition involved being smothered with kisses by two dogs. (Typecasting.) I’ll be able to give more details after the shoot, which is next Thursday and Friday.

I believe I mentioned something about loving my job yesterday. Pardon me while I cut and paste that again.

Get Your Butt To LA, Part 44: I Get Anecdotal On Your Ass.

When you get out here, and you’re making your way as an actor, obstacles are going to be a regular occurrence. And I’m gonna ask you to handle them like Liam Neeson and get bloody each time. And paid – half now, half on completion.

Last Wednesday I had a workshop scheduled with the casting director from “The Bold and the Beautiful.” In the same building, on the same night, a casting director was coming in from the new, untitled Nick Cannon sketch comedy TV show, and I decided to go for it and see if I could handle both.

For Nick Cannon, I was able to choose a comedy scene to perform. But for “The Bold and the Beautiful,” the casting director wanted to try something different, emailing a scene from her show in advance, and I was going to have to compete against five other guys with the same scene. The role was a pawn shop manager – a dirty old man type. I’m pretty filthy, but not as old as was written, and I needed to dress accordingly. I called my friend/stylist Jenn and she told me to go with more of a Jersey Shore thing. Tight black t-shirt.

The workshops were in Burbank during rush hour traffic, so I ate dinner at 3:30 p.m. (3:30? Holy shit I am old) and got on the road. It took me 90 minutes to get there. In New York, you can get to friggin’ Philly in 90 minutes.

Nick Cannon was scheduled for 6:30; Bold and the Beautiful, 7:30. But the casting director for Nick Cannon was delayed getting there an hour, so now the two workshops were going to coincide, and I began to think about how the hell I was going to do both. I took a moment to get my head together. Come on, Shevin – you’ve skied Mt. St. Helens, made eye contact with Michele Bachmann, been trapped under a boulder for 128 hours – you’re not afraid of anything!

I went into the Bold and the Beautiful workshop, and all the guys I was up against (all dressed in tight, black t-shirts, btw) were asked to leave the room, come in one at a time and perform the scene. I put the fact that I was missing the Nick Cannon workshop out of my mind as much as I could, focused on the very tricky pawn shop role, went in and did my thing. Then we all went into the room together, and the casting director critiqued us. She thought I nailed it and was her favorite choice.

She asked the next group to leave the room – all women, but I slyly slipped out with them – and  ran down the hall into the Nick Cannon workshop, shifted gears and did my comedy scene for the casting director. The next morning my manager called to tell me the untitled Nick Cannon comedy sketch show had put me on avail (I was one of their top two choices) for a sketch shooting two days later. No audition necessary.

Two scenes, two genres, two minutes apart. That’s how we do.

And that’s how you’ll bring it every day. Persistent as hell. Eat crazy early, drive forever, perform like you’re capable of performing. Hang in there and keep showing up. The Nick Cannon sketch actually wound up being cut before it was even shot, but the producers loved my reel and want to use me in another sketch soon. And in the meantime, more workshops, more obstacles, more getting bloody. I love my job.

Question For You Companies Out There. (Yes, All Of You.)

While I make sure I thoroughly promote myself to producers and casting directors, I’m an actor all the way, and would prefer to just be in front of the camera. I’m no fan of slick marketing types – in fact, I hope whoever coined the word “webinar” is too busy reaping its benefits to have children.

And recently, I’ve been perplexed by an odd trend: the use of razors in branding. Since when do they make you bust out your wallet? Guys don’t like to shave; chicks can’t stand shaving their legs. So what the hell? Check it out:

 ATVs

 Gaming products

 Industrial cleaning products

 Riflescopes

 View engines

 Synthesizers

 Racing shit

Weekend Recap.

On Saturday, my friends (above is me and my friend Bru) and I shot a little something for a contest we’re entering. And by “little” I mean it involved guns and green screens and motorcycles. Details to come… Ate at Robert DeNiro’s restaurant Taste, and it was excellent. I highly recommend the crispy parmesan chicken paillard and the chocolate parfait devil’s food cake. Also – try to keep the phrase “little bit, little bit” to a minimum during the meal… Waiting for a casting workshop to begin, I heard an actress mention she went to Penn St., and I laughed out loud. She was super pissed at me, then proceeded to tell me Joe Paterno died of a broken heart (or criminal negligence – tomato, tomahto) and that she named her dog JoePa. I laughed in her face. And then, of course, the casting director happened to partner us up to do a scene together. So I apologized and nailed our scene and she forgave me. All good. But change the name of that damn dog, crazy woman… Joe Paterno is the only person ever who died of lung cancer and got off easy.

I Mean, What’s The Deal With The Filthy Rich Guy?

Jerry Seinfeld sold the syndication rights to his show for $225 million, and makes an additional $85 million a year in residuals. So it’s all the more impressive that he still has a passion to work, which he’s doing now a very interesting online TV show that premieres Thursday on Crackle.com called “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.” Click above for a one minute preview. (BTW: Jerry will make $161.71 during that minute.)

This Week In @mattshevin Tweets.

• (ABOVE) Apparently an 80s drug dealer is selling his furniture.

• Just saw actor Fran Kranz on a date at Brick + Mortar, and told him how much I loved him in the movie The TV Set. ‪#GotHimLaid‬ ‪#PayItForward

• Hey, Jerry Sandusky’s defense attorney: the ponytail is NOT helping.

• I’d assume an inordinate amount of shushing goes on in the Joe Paterno Library.

• Taco Bell’s Doritos Tacos Locos Supreme. Only $1.99 + tax & dignity.

• Hey guys – all you gotta do is join Scientology and the wife will leave you and take the kids.

I Would Like To Purchase This Fine Beverage.

It took a while, but networks are finally starting to move away from reality programming and order more scripted shows again. Thank goodness, because I was thisclose to attending my own funeral as a guy named Phil Shifley.

What TV execs finally had to swallow was that reality shows have no back end – you can’t put them on Neflix or Hulu when these bullshit contests have already had their winners decided. One and done.

I find it insulting they even call them “reality,” when it’s obvious everything’s cooked. And I was thrilled to see the ginormous ad for Sierra Mist along the 405 Freeway this week. A little truth in advertising.

Get this: I know an actress who was cast as a single woman on “The Bachelor.” Yes – cast. She was living with her boyfriend at the time, and ABC begged her to be one of the chicks on the show and pretend she was single. She declined, and the network wanted her so badly they paid her three grand an episode. Reality!

In conclusion, I submit to you evidence B: a real casting notice released this week. Enjoy:

AMAZING RACE: Lifeguard Episodic 
 [LIFEGUARD] A Caucasian male 20-30 years old in good health, sport look. Dark hair, interesting and friendly look up to represent LA in the show. Think David Hasselhoff in Baywatch! 

Your witness.

A Brand New Feature I Like To Call “Excerpts From My Text Messages.”

My penchant for sarcasm runs profoundly deep. Next week James Cameron is taking his submarine to see it.

I rely on it in all forms of communication (better to think twice before asking me to deliver a eulogy, including text messages. Here are a few real ones (mine are on the right, in blue):

Raging Donor.

We all have causes worth fighting for. I stopped shopping at Kmart because I found out that Cindy Crawford didn’t design any of her signature socks.

But I still really believe in donating blood, and did so this past Saturday. I’ve mentioned a few times that I do it every eight weeks, and you can, too. If you want to do something charitable but don’t have much time or cash, donating is the quick, easy, free way to do the right thing. Oh, and it saves lives, too. Especially now, because your country’s blood supply is at a dangerously low level.

And since I’m not nearly motivating enough, along with all the free snacks donated by Keebler, here are a few enticing goodies that come with a simple blood donation:

Free fried cheese and ice cream (hell yes), two tickets to a comedy club (not too shabby), and two tickets to a pro soccer game (well... it’s the thought that counts.) Plus they enter you into drawings to win $250 shopping gift cards, etc., etc., etc.

Speaking of soccer, there’s a really cool campaign going on right now by Vitória, a second-division Brazilian soccer team. Their jersey normally features black and red stripes, but their new jersey – shown above – has black and white striping. The missing red stripes will be restored, one by one, as the team’s fan base achieves a series of blood-donation benchmarks set by the team. It’s a great concept, and a great way to promote real, tangible good deeds instead of just “awareness” or fundraising like most sports teams half-ass.

So see you at the local Red Cross, okay? Okay.

Rest In Peace, Sir.

Every now and then I wonder what my obituary will say. Whatever it is, I hope it contains the words “in his sleep.”

It sucked to hear Ernest Borgnine died yesterday, but the man led a pretty incredible life. Here are his final stats:

• He won an Oscar for the movie Marty, but was paid only five grand for the role.

• His first film was released 61 years ago. His last film releases later this year.

• He was married five times, but the last 39 years to wife #5. Wife #3 was Ethel Merman, and it lasted only 32 days. In her autobiography, Ethel devoted a chapter of her autobiography to the marriage. It consisted of one blank page.

• Ernest lived to be 95, and at age 91, he appeared on “Fox & Friends.” While on the air, the hosts asked him how he managed to “look fantastic” at his age. He whispered to co-host Steve Doocy, “I masturbate a lot.”

Real Casting Notices I’ve Seen This Week.

• Character who can slice a can open with their teeth.

• Person who can safely eat a raw, yellow onion in under 45 seconds.

• Person with hard head who can safely headbutt/smash multiple plates over their head.

• Person who can safely snap a mouse trap on their tongue.

• Person who can stick large objects safely up their nose.

• Seeking people who can flatulate on demand. Professional or not, someone who can pass gas on cue.

The Fourth Great Movie Of The Year.

I wish I could get bitten by a radioactive intelligent person.

Until then, I’ll make do with my state-school education, and you’ll just have to trust me when I highly recommend The Amazing Spider-Man.

Whereas you might think this story is past well-worn, the new version is smart and gritty and the action is really cool and not overdone. (There’s a stellar fight scene on a subway as Peter Parker discovers his new powers.) And like the comic books, Spider-Man is a total wiseass while he fights crime.

What I’m trying to say is, if you see one movie this weekend, see The Amazing Spider-Man. And if you see two movies this weekend, see The Amazing Spider-Man twice.

How To Have A Kickass July 4th, In Seven Easy Steps.

1) Walk your puppy on the strand, which for chicks in red, white and blue bikinis is stronger than the earth’s magnetic field.

2) Watch America's pastime, and the Yanks coming from behind with three in the eighth.

3) Order the chocolate fondant with raspberry sorbet at Cecconi’s in West Hollywood – so delicious you won’t mind when the $515 bill comes.

4) Pull over in Hollywood and catch fireworks ironically made in Taiwan.

5) Watch the fourth best movie of the year at America’s best theater.

6) Cross “seeing a minivan flip” off your bucket list.

7) Speed home on the 110 Freeway to a tune from the country whose butt we kicked.

Take That, British.

The best country in the world, featuring the yummiest flag in the world.

America. F yeah.

My Team Violates The Second Commandment.

After pounding the living shit out of our opponent Sunday night, my team visited our friend Mike – the LA Kings front office guy – who happened to have the Stanley Cup at his house. We snapped pics with it, kissed it, drooled all over it and tried not to pop boners while we were still wearing our cups.

The greatest trophy in all of sports can quickly transform grown-ass men into a bunch of ten-year-old boys. But it also inspires like nothing else. Let’s avoid the mistakes of the past, stay positive, try harder. Love lifts us up where we belong.

Missed You Too, Sir.

Best way to reconnect with your 65-lb. Pit Bull puppy: take a hot shower together. That is not a euphemism… It was announced in the middle of my flight that one passenger had a peanut allergy, so all of us had to put away any food with peanut products in it. The terrorists have won… When I say it’s good to be home what I really mean is “it’s good to know the cable channels”… New York, while nice to visit, is a selfish, filthy monster that eventually gets all of us. It’s Ghostbusters 2 all over again.