I played young Rob Ford in a comedy music video

When I was dressed as Enviroman at the Monsanto protest recently, I bumped into my friend Judith Klassen dressed as her alterego, flaky reporter Tasha James. Judith interviewed me as part of her funny protest interviews. And then she asked if I would come out to be in her next Rob Ford video. I said yes. The result is the latest in a series of music videos that she has made about Toronto Mayor Rob Ford. She describes it as "a docu-drama-musical based on a Globe and Mail piece about the Ford family." It answers the question: What was the Ford family doing in the 1980's? It also answers the question: Why was Josh Rachlis wearing a blonde mullet wig on Sunday? Judith has been effusive with her praise of my performance, tweeting about how I was making her laugh during editing, describing me as the "amazing Josh" in her Facebook post, commenting "Fork dance!" on my Facebook page, and, as you'll see, giving me special billing in the credits. The video has been getting lots of press. And Jude has already asked if I would reprise my role in a future Ford film. So... Stay tuned!

I was interviewed for a Monsanto protest comedy video

My friend Keely invited me out to the March Against Monsanto, and said I should dress as Enviroman, my eco-superhero character. I was reluctant and nervous, which for me is a sign that I should do something, because we only learn and grow by doing things that scare us. At least, that's what I tell myself, to force myself to leave my apartment. So, I took the streetcar to the park, and, after prompting by Keely and her friends, I took the costume out of my backpack and put it on in the middle of the crowd. And here's what I looked like:

A lot of cute girls wanted their photos taken with me. Which I liked. Though, strangely, none of them asked for my number. But anyway, I spotted my friend Judith Klassen, dressed as her alter-ego, flaky reporter Tasha James. She was doing comedic interviews with people and she wanted to interview me too. So she did. And then I helped her interview other people. This is what we looked like:

There was lots of fun footage. But since this whole thing was about the protesters, only a tiny bit made of me made into the final edit. But hey, even a little Enviroman is better than none. Just like with recycling and eco stuff like that. The vid is below. You'll see me at 1:07 and 2:28.

I was the guest on a relationship advice radio show

Last night I was the sole guest on a brand-new Internet radio show called SUNDAY NIGHT CONFESSIONS WITH TEREASA VENOM. Tereasa is the dominatrix who spanked me on air on Humble & Fred Radio. Apparently she liked my yelps of pain so much that she wanted to talk to me for the entire length of her very first show. I talked about the threesome that Humble And Fred Radio sent me to have last week, and I even helped give advice to a caller who wanted to know how to make her boyfriend interested in sex again. Whether my advice was good or not, I leave that to you. To listen to my approximately 45-minute appearance, click here.

And to jog your memory, here's the spanking that took place on the radio:

Praise on my eco comedy from Down Under

Got this beautiful email this morning from an eco-crusader down in Australia:

Hey Josh,
I have a green message website - converseconserve.com, and think your Enviroman identity and videos are fantastic. We had a Get Eco Creative exhibition earlier this year as part of the Sustainable Living Festival Melbourne, Australia. 
I was just wondering if you are happy for me to add one of your videos in my website? I already posted a link to one of them on my converseconserve blog.
I hope to hear back and all the best with your continuing and highly important role as enviroman.
Keep up the jolly good green work,
Cheers
-- Nicolle Kuna
Author
www.converseconserve.com

I checked out her blog and found the post that you can see by clicking here or in the attached screen grab. Nice to know Enviroman is making a difference globally. Take that, Superman. ;)

I acted in a radio ad for Mitsubishi's 10th Anniversary Sale

Here's me as the husband who forgot his wife's anniversary once, in a radio ad for the Mitsubishi 10th Anniversary Sale, recorded March 20, 2013 at Tattoo Music & Sound in Toronto. It's a bit unrealistic because I'll probably never be married. But it's very realistic in that if I do get married, I will for sure forget my anniversary. And I'll be scared of my wife.

I acted in 2 radio ads for Alberta hockey

Osum is an energy company in Alberta. The Cold Lake Ice are a Junior "B" Ice Hockey team based in Cold Lake, Alberta. Trigger Communications is an ad agency in Calgary. Put them all together, and you have these two radio ads I acted in on March 21. I was in a studio in Toronto. Trigger was in a studio in Calgary. And a couple of the other actors were in a studio in New York City. Thanks to modern technology, distance is no obstacle to comedy gold.

Client: Osum

Title: "I don't like ice"
Here's me as the innocent guy in a restaurant saying he doesn't like ice in his drinks. A nearby hockey fan thinks I'm saying I don't like the Cold Lake Ice hockey team.

Client: Osum
Title: "The ice sucks"
Here's me as a passionate hockey fan who's a friend of an innocent guy saying the ice on the lake sucks for ice fishing. Me and another friend think he's saying he doesn't like the Cold Lake Ice hockey team, who are in the Alberta provincial finals. I'm the one who says, "We still going ice fishing today?... Sorry, what?... Uh, yah. Nypower, Cunnigham, Bourget... Top 3 point scorers in the playoffs. I don't see any suck in that lineup." (I improvised the line "I don't see any suck in that lineup.")

Why my new desk is stressing me the f*ck out

For some people, assembling a desk might stress them out. For me, it's just the beginning.

I found a juice on the ground

I'm so thirsty. But my friends say I shouldn't drink the juice I found on the ground. Can they convince me?

Why was my purse in the fridge this morning?

When I woke up this morning to get something to eat, I found my purse in the fridge. I posted a photo of it on Facebook, soliciting guesses as to why it was there. But then decided it was too important a question to just type the answer to. So I made this video.

I talked about racism, Judaism and lesbianism on Humble & Fred Radio

For my 2nd appearance on Humble & Fred Radio, I sat with them for the entire show. It was recorded on March 14, 2013 and aired on humbleandfredradio.com, Newstalk 1010 CFRB and other radio stations.

My main stories in this episode:

At 00:05 minutes until about 00:14 - Discussion of racism and what kind of comedy is ok
At 00:51 minutes to 01:00 hour - Discussion of comedy about being Jewish and being gay, discussion of JDate.com and my story about being one of the few guys at the P!nk concert
At 01:09 hour to 01:10 - Discussion of how many dating sites I'm on, and about how dating sites are now a common way to meet people

You can view the promo video for the episode and listen to the podcast right on their site by clicking here.

Or just watch the video here:

And listen to the podcast at my own link:

I made a video for the Live Green Toronto Awards

After his physically gruelling performance on Come Date With Me Canada, Enviroman was resting up during the Family Day long weekend. But when the Live Green Toronto Awards asked him to make a little video to solicit entries, he answered the call! Sort of.

I'm hosting a Come Date With Me Canada party

To celebrate the premiere of Come Date With Me Canada, I've partnered with The Pipers Pub & Grill for a screening night when the episode airs for the first time. Now, of course it sounds like a great show. I mean, combine the drama of hosting dinner parties with the thrills of pursuing a woman and you can see why W Network picked up the show. But still, why do I care so much? Because I'm one of the contestants in this premiere episode. You can see the official pub poster below. And you can join the Facebook invite by clicking here. I can't reveal whether I wind up betrothed at the end of the episode. But I can promise you that, either way, I'll give you an autograph. I just might not be allowed to sign any body parts.

I learned how to make a green smoothie

Here's me learning how to make a smoothie that will turn my body even more Daniel Craigish than it already is. (Hard to believe I could get any more James Bond, I know.) I probably should have cut this down to a pithy 5 minutes. But everything Lisa Labute, the founder of The Goods, taught me was so useful that I wanted you to have all the, um, goods.

I made a video spoofing focus groups

Josh Fokas is the #1 focus group moderator in the world. According to his research.

Here's the real story: A client of the ad agency I work at is having a big meeting to train employees on how to do consumer research, and they thought it would be fun to open with a humourous video about what not to do when running focus groups. There wasn't much of a budget. So my ad agency assigned me the project. I wrote a script, took my camcorder to the office and acted in the video along with some innocent co-workers who got pulled into it. The client thinks the video is hilarious. But I'm secretly hoping that some people don't realize it's a joke and hire me to be a focus group moderator. I think I'd be good at it. And I could sure use some egg salad sandwiches.

I'm the 63rd best copywriter in Canada

Each year, Strategy Magazine publishes their Creative Report Card, where they rank the country's advertising creatives based on the number of awards they've won that year. You can see the full list by clicking here. This year, my name was in the credits on enough award-winning pieces to land me at #63 on the Copywriter list. Which is pretty good. But my mom says that on her list, I'm #1. Which is even better. (Ok, she didn't say that. But I like to believe she's thinking it.)

I told Humble & Fred Radio what not to tell a girl in bed

What idiot would screw up guaranteed sex by telling the girl he's in bed with that she reminds him of an unattractive 80's sitcom actress? I would. Here's me telling Humble & Fred Radio the tragic tale today.

Humble & Fred contributor Kelly Cutrara, hiding her morning face. I wish I had hair and/or a woman to hide my face behind, too.

Watching Humble & Fred do their thing, mere moments before I was unexpectedly invited into that empty chair to chat with them on air.

I'm being followed by CBC Radio's As It Happens

CBC Radio's As It Happens just started following @joshrachlis. And I wasn't  even following them. Uh oh. Am I about to be in the news for something? What did I do after my friend Jess made me drink almost an entire glass of wine last night? Must... try... to... remember...

I wrote the Special K cereal box

Last night while shopping for overpriced cereal in a variety store, I started reading the Special K box and thought, "Wow, this writer really understands women." And then I realized I wrote that box. Sigh. If only I could translate my understanding women into, say, getting a woman to like me.

I gave a speech at my friend's memorial

In January 2012, Philip Kates, my friend of ten years, passed away from liver cancer. He was a commercial director I met when I hired him to shoot a Maple Leaf Chicken commercial that I wrote. His funeral was in Alberta, where he was living with his wife. A few weeks later there was a memorial in Toronto. I got some laughs during my improvised speech. And I think Philip would have been very pleased about that. To watch Philip and I talking to the audience about our film at the HollyShorts Film Festival in August 2010, see my old blog post about that by clicking here. And here's the speech I gave at his memorial:

Philip and I meeting fans at the HollyShorts Film Festival in LA in August 2010, for the premiere of 3 Dates, a film that I wrote and he directed.

Feb. 17, 2012 At the Toronto memorial for Philip Kates.

Feb. 17, 2012 At the Toronto memorial for Philip Kates.

From those dates, you can see how old he was. Funny, I always thought he was younger.

I told my trashed apartment story on DNTO

The January 12, 2013 episode of CBC Radio's DNTO (Definitely Not The Opera) was about "How are you managing your debt?" (To see the web page for that episode, click here.) I was on the show telling the story about how I rented out my old condo for a night to help pay for my new condo that was being built. That one-night rental resulted in a huge party in which my apartment got trashed. Which resulted in me being on the American TV show Judge Karen's Court. Yes, my life sucks. But at least it provides entertainment for all of America, and now all of Canada. To hear my story on DNTO, click on the orange arrow:

And here's the Judge Karen's Court episode mentioned in the story:

Here's me telling the story in the CBC studio a few days before the show aired.

Here's a screengrab from http://www.cbc.ca/dnto/episode/2013/01/04/how-are-you-managing-your-debt/ where they mentioned my story and included a link to my blog.

I've been asked to host a Robbie Burns night

A couple of days ago, a woman emailed me asking me to host the Robbie Burns night at her Scottish pub, saying The Toronto Star would be covering the festivities and she wanted a fun host and she thought I could do my angry Scottish Mini Man accent for some of it. She asked if I had a kilt. I told her that I don't and confided that I'm actually Jewish. She didn't seem to mind. But she had only told me the area it was in, not the name of the pub. So I thought I'd head up to the 'hood and see if I could find the place to check it out and have a drink. "The Piper's Pub & Grill" sounded like a Scottish name so I peered in the window and saw... A poster with my name on it. So, I guess that means I'm hosting this thing?

 Aye, Laddie! Go "Like" them on Facebook here and come out to the night. I have a feeling I'll need help finishing my haggis.

Here's the poster in the window, Laddie!

Here's me and my friend having a non-alcoholic drink while scoping out the pub and investigating the atmosphere. We were fans of the passionate musical duo in the background.

As a reminder of the Angry Scotsman the pub owner is talking about, here's wee me acting in commercials I wrote for Kellogg's Nutri-Grain Mini Granola Bites and Mini Cereal Bars a few wee years ago:

When does funny become insulting?

Should a bride pose beside a more attractive friend? And does my "comedic brand" allow me to suggest she shouldn't?

I wrote the IKEA Winter Sale radio ad

To promote the IKEA Winter Sale, I wrote this commercial featuring Jonas (the IKEA voice) interviewing a Snow Woman he built. Snow big deal, that's just how I roll.

How do I get invited to David Steinberg's New Year's party tonight?

How do I get invited to the New Year's Eve party of my new Twitter follower and comedy legend David Steinberg?