It's Mistah Pete Fun!

And me without my camera...

2009-11-15T09:12:00.000-08:00

The last of my MySpace blogs. And man, was it a lengthy one. No wonder I haven't blogged since. Sheesh. Monday, March 16, 2009

Worst thing about forgetting your phone when you're out to an event like Luminaria is not the being out of touch, or even not knowing what time it is. (Seriously, does anyone under the age of 50 wear a watch anymore? We've become a generation of old-timey railroad conductors, checking our pocket-watches every so often, "looks like the 3:17 is right on time...")

The worst part is not being able to document any of it.

Luminaria, for those of you not in San Antonio (or who have somehow avoided the billboards and commercials, and if so, good for you!) is a citywide arts event. Downtown is closed off and given over to the artists.

Or so it was supposed to be, anyway -- I can remember at last year's planning meeting, one artist's work was rejected because "we don't want to get all Ren Fest, do we?" I forget who said that, but clearly he was not on the committee this year. There were fire-walkers and jugglers in the streets, along with the radio station pimps and Jesus-freaks and snack-hawkers and I don't doubt for a moment that it was the best night in months for Ripley's and the various restaurants along Alamo Street. Some tourist asked if I knew where the Hard Rock Cafe was. We have a Hard Rock Cafe? Why?

But there wasn't much art present.

Look, I'm old enough that lasers still impress me. I can remember when they were objects of terror, and I'm still a little wary when they are shot willy-nilly into a crowd -- somebody's going to be blinded! But I guess it doesn't work like that anymore, because that's pretty much what the street art consisted of Saturday. Lasers shot at buildings. Which looked great. But didn't have much to do with art. There were faces projected onto the front of the Alamo, along with what seemed very much like advertising copy. Could that be?

There was some street poetry stuff on Houston, which was kind of nice (but let's face it, easily ignored). And a groovy projection installation there, a little girl being shot through a few rows of gauzy sheets, which was a lot more effective than I'd have guessed. But that was probably the only straight "art" piece I saw outside. Maybe the weather forced everyone indoors? If so, I never found where.

(Which isn't to say it wasn't there -- there were so many people out there braving the forecast that I could have missed a train of elephants, all linked trunk to tail, mere feet away from me. Come on, people, this is San Antonio, we don't go outside if it looks like it might sprinkle. What, was there nothing good on TV?)

I did see a little parade from the Southwest School of Art and Craft, children (and their proud, hippie-dippie parents) carrying paper lanterns through the crowds. It was kind of haunting, really, I couldn't help but smile every time I saw it. Beautiful.

Lots of music in the streets. I had pieces showing on opposite ends of downtown, a couple at Dar's show in Gallery 118 (on Broadway at Houston) and one at Instituto Cultural de Mexico (down under the Tower of the Americas). (I also had something showing at Joey's Film Day SA screening, but... I couldn't find it. Sorry, Joey.) So I had a long walk from one end of town to the other. I heard jazz (ah, Bett Butler, may you always bring the swing!) and classical guitar and conjunto and solo violin. A surprising number of your run-of-the-mill cover bands, too -- someone was pumping out the best of Doug Sahm as I passed that ridiculous orange thing out in the intersection, across from the Convention Center.

But as I drew near the Instituto, a pleasant surprise. A little rear-projected screen behind them, my favorite local Girl/Boy Pop Toy (hell, my favorite Girl/Boy Pop Toy worldwide!), Hyperbubble was playing. A little child was dancing on the sidewalk in front of me. My boy loves this stuff, too. Maybe they should make a kid's album. But when I came back through later, they were at it again (still?) and the grownups were boogying down, ages 17-70. These guys need to be playing arenas and stadiums, not sidewalks. But as long as I can here "Roller Boogie Baby Doll" live on the sidewalk, and for free, I will.

Anyway, I finally got to the screening. Saw a lot of people I hadn't seen in a few months. (Most frequently-heard: "your hair is... back.") Mine was the first to show on the outside screen (nice, loud, clear speakers, why can't we get this on a regular basis?). Naturally, no one was there, including me. It was scheduled to show again indoors, the last one on the program. I wasn't there that late, so I presume it did not screen at all, because I'd have been the only one there, I'm sure. People take off after theirs screens, and who can blame them? I would've. Or might've, had I not seen some great work by friends:.

The Parker Creek project "No Soliciting" screened. I was present for the production (and wrap party, and not much else). I congratulated all involved, I hope, and do so now if I missed anyone. It was good work. I told Justin what a good job I thought he'd done as the lead actor, and he said "we couldn't have done it without everyone there. Which includes you. I guess." Justin has an admirable tendency to not tip a joke, one I try to share, and so I don't know for sure how sincere was his insult. I'd like to think entirely. Get him ready for a Hollywood career of stepping on the little people.

Sam Lerma's "Trash Day" showed at Dar's Gallery 118 screening. It was truly impressive. Sam's probably the most artistically committed director in town, and as such, he doesn't work very often. But what he does is always impressive. I got to be on set for a lot of this one, too, and didn't learn a thing. But I study Sam's work anyway, someday I'll crack the Lerma code.

My old pal Alston Cox did a mini-doc about her new neighborhood. I'm not sure if it was supposed to have sound. It didn't outside (and knowing it's going to be outside in San Antonio, one is wise to omit sound, this instance notwithstanding). But it was an admirable piece, a snapshot of a disappearing chunk of our city's cultural identity. It made me want to move there.

I'm a sucker for color, and so Erik Bosse's "Awaiting the Equinox" really revved my outboard. Deborah Keller-Rihn dancing and creating one of her beautiful mandalas, brightly colored circles of chalky dust. It was maybe the only piece I saw that really was what you'd call an "art film" (except for the Mombassa Code performance piece, with live "microscopy," fire dancing, video montages culled from YouTube and various video archives, and the sort of musical noodling one might associate with an eight-piece band that included not one but two -- TWO! -- droning prayer bowls).

Carlos Pina's "Shicken Chit" was a good time, Carlos returning to the comedy he does so well. Episodic, filled with charming, charismatic performances, and he's really developing as a visual storyteller. I loved his use of close-ups for cutaways and transitions. My biggest complaint was that he wasn't in it himself -- Carlos is one of the loosest, goofiest comic actors in San Antonio film, and I always want to see him on screen.

And then came A.J.... "Death Rattle" sounds like the title of a Stephen Seagal direct to video rental involving snake handlers and meth labs, but it's instead the most beautiful film project ever to come out of San Antonio, film or video. (And it was video, suck on that film-lovers.) A.J. Garces is an astonishing talent, and if he'd just buckle down and commit to being a filmmaker (instead of making his very comfortable living with graphic arts, and too often squandering his camera gifts on projects that aren't deserving of them), he'd be living in a beachfront villa in Spain right now. This should be playing in Cannes, in Berlin, in Santa Barbara, in every film festival that matters. "Death Rattle" is an amazing film.

And here's mine. It's no "Death Rattle," but it has a better title.

Some Days You Just Can't Get Rid Of A Bomb...

2009-11-15T09:00:00.000-08:00

I should probably turn this into a short film. Hmm, I've got a 48hr challenge coming up... Posted Monday, March 02, 2009

So, not long ago, I was walking to school to pick up the boy. (Walking because Lisa's got me on a diet, and if I exercise I can afford to drink a beer at night.)

In the street in front of me, some trash. And not just any trash. As I approached, I noticed pictures. Flesh. A lot of flesh. A lot of male flesh. Somebody had tossed gay porn in the street. It was the insert on a DVD. Kids walk to and from school along this street, so I picked it up and figured I'd toss it in the next trashcan. Then ahead, I saw pieces of a DVD case, and finally, the disc itself, artwork on it that was sufficiently graphic.

There's no way this accidentally fell like this, coming apart and rolling hither and thither. Someone tossed out gay porn over the course of a couple of blocks. What the hell was going on in that car? Enough pathology to fill a dozen Jack Chick pamphlets, I'd wager. Good thing a solid citizen like myself found these prurient castoffs and can dispose of them properly.

But as I walked toward the school, a desperate realization began to crawl over me -- it was not trash-day. No one had their trashcans out.

And I was approaching an elementary school with gay porn in my hand.

All right, take it easy. Panic kills. But not as much as showing up at an elementary school with gay porn in your hand. I looked at it again. The title was "Dads Doing Dads." Oh, fuck me! (No, wait, forget I said that.) It's bad enough that it's porn, but specialized porn... for some reason, if it was just "The Curious Taste of Benjamin's Bottom" or whatever your generic gay porn is being titled these days, it seemed like it would be more innocuous. But specifically about dads? Shit, they're going to string me up on the flag pole and beat me with those little stop-sign-poles the crossing guards use.

I began to think about what I could do. I couldn't even just throw it back in the street, now, I was too close to the school. And the churches! Oh my stars and garters, I have to pass two churches on the way to the school! Whose mailbox could I leave it in? There's that guy who put a billboard-sized "No-Bama" sign over his kid's treehouse from October to Inauguration Day, I bet he'd appreciate it...

Literally across the street from the school. Two trashcans. At one, some conscientious home owner was doing yard work and filling his can with leaves. I had to time it just right -- shit, he looked. Okay, okay, stay calm. There, the next can, I can just get there as he bends to pull some leaves out of his rake... got it!

I wiped my sweaty palms on my knees and crossed the street just as the bell rang.

The lesson we learned today? No good deed goes unpunished, my friends. Or always carry a trashbag if you're walking. Or, hell, don't walk. I'm giving up beer for Lent anyway.

People I Know Intimately Who Don’t Know Me At All

2009-11-15T08:41:00.000-08:00

I mention in this that "72" would show at the "music video thing tonight at Casbeers." Well, that music video thing, the TMC Music Video Showcase, it's running again this week. Tuesday the 17th at the Josephine Theater. Almost exactly a year after this was posted, Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Worked a couple weekends ago on a project with the Parker Creek gang. (Which would be a good name for a Western, "The Parker Creek Gang!") Should be entertaining. We shot in Michael O'Neal's house, which is a freaking museum of late 50s/early 60s bachelor culture. It's like an altar to my history that I was too young to have been a part of. There's a part of me that really wants to sell everything and buy one of those houses, live that era like he does. Then there's the part of me that has a wife and child, and that part has its foot on the neck of the other part.

Officially, I was the art director, or something like that. But since Michael's place really didn't need any designing, I was just there to hang out. I'm working a little on a poster and maybe the titles sequence. The project should be really fun to watch. It was a great time to shoot.

I don't do that sort of thing enough, collaborations. The past couple of years, most of what I've done has been me alone at my computer, sometimes making up little voices as I talk to myself, sometimes just editing until my eyes cross. I need to get out with real people now and again.

Editing is a weird life. Kind of like being a stalker, really. I shoot a beauty pageant (as I did last month) and edit it into a commemorative video for the contestants to enjoy. That means I spent all of one day with these women (most of them trying desperately to avoid me -- come on, I can almost understand your average schmoe wanting to avoid being on camera, but you girls are beauty queens! By definition, you want people to look at you!). And then I spend days editing the program, getting to know each of them in ways they really don't want me to know. I see everything. EVERYTHING. When I was doing the Rollergirls inaugural season video, I knew them like you might know the characters of your favorite show. It got a little uncomfortable, even -- I was dealing with these women personally, and knew them very intimately, and yet had to restrain myself in conversation with them, as most had no idea who I was!

Still, I'm damned good at it. And it's nice to make a living at what I'm good at. Or at least trying to make one. Just bought a new dedicated computer for editing, anyone wants something done, come see me. I gotta pay for this thing.

I've been really awful about letting the world know where my films are playing.

"72," an experimental pieces I did in collaboration with Mad Mason for my Chez Bernard show early this year, played last week at Girl Fest Hawaii in Honolulu. (It's the piece with the beauty queens, for those of you in the know. I might've shown it at the music video thing tonight at Casbeers, but I've got a meeting.) I didn't go to the screening. Lisa couldn't take time off work, and I'm sure as hell not going to Hawaii without the love of my life. Shame, I've always wanted to go to the islands. We'll get there eventually.

Likewise, that old workhorse "Mars Needs Bibles" has put on its eyeliner and falsies for a screening at a festival in Sao Paolo, Brazil today and Thursday. Wish I could be there for that, I've wanted to go to Brazil for longer than I've wanted to go to Hawaii. But I can't afford it.

A few more in the offing. Talking to London and Barcelona. The one in Spain's far enough away, I might just have to save up for that trip. Never been to Barcelona.

I am a Superhero

2009-11-15T08:34:00.000-08:00

The latest SAL screening was last month, and I know Dar was a little disappointed in the turnout. Not sure if that was the last time she'll do it or not. It seems to be the way with San Antonio film programs, or perhaps all arts-related things here. People think they are excited about it, but when it comes right down to it, they can't be bothered. Maybe it's the natural order of things, maybe these things can't really last more than two or three years. I know Drew at the film commission doesn't donate until the third year, and I guess now I know why. Posted Thursday, May 15, 2008

Busted my hump on this. I need to learn how to really animate, use the proper programs and such. Did this with editing software, a scanner, and my own meaty hands. Got to be an easier way. Now I know why all the animated programs I see have two-thousand Korean names in the end credits.

By the way, please donate to SAL. Good cause, and they need your help.

Go to the SAL YouTube page (or to mine) to see it in high quality (a little "HQ" button below the frame). It's worth it, nice and clear.

So You’ve Decided to Shave Your Head...

2009-11-14T19:01:00.000-08:00

St. Baldrick's is still going on. If you're of a mind to shave your head, please let me know. I'll not only donate, but I'll also set you up with Christopher so you can do it for the right cause. I posted this first Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Congratulations on taking your most significant hair-related stand since that time when you changed your part. (If you're a dude... women change their hair color like we change socks, they're used to dramatic changes.) But before you act, please consider these helpful tips and pointers.

1) Sunscreen. Not just after (although if your pigmentation is anything like mine, the scalp under your mop is about as fish-belly white as anything pulled from the bottom of the deepest mineshaft), but before, too. Going under the razor after a day in the sun will result in a comical but embarrassing head pattern that resembles a dumpling in raspberry sauce.

2) Be prepared to look funny. This might seem obvious, but you really have no idea how important hair is to your appearance. Your ears aren't right without hair around them, your forehead may seem suddenly huge or small, and there are some surprises under the scalp, too. You might be a secret pinhead, or look like an uncolored Jack Kirby sketch of Mrs. Grimm's ever-lovin' blue-eyed boy. Eyebrows and facial hair that looked just right beneath a follicle thatch may now be shocking or stark. Facial features that were exquisite when framed by your lovely locks might appear insubstantial after the mowing. Prepare in advance by shaving or growing something. I suggest you start with nose hair.

3) Bring a hat. And don't be surprised to discover that it fits differently afterwards. I've always known that I have a head that would cause Charlie Brown to gape, but I had no idea how much of it was hair. Hats that once did not fit now do, and the rare lid I was able to find that fit over my melon now is looser than before. Refreshingly so, if I may add.

4) Have a damned good reason. For decades, I'd sworn I was going to do this every summer, when my thick hair became a coonskin cap in the Texas heat. But mere comfort was never enough -- I knew my wife would kick my ass if I just did it because it felt good. Or worse, would then have carte blanche to do something just as dramatic herself, and I wouldn't be able to say anything. But if you're doing it for a good cause, ah, now no one can complain... they can still laugh at you, but not complain...

St. Baldricks is an organization devoted to research for children's cancer. Were you aware that 70% of cases of cancer in children is cured? Damn, a cause that actually does something, that's worthy, isn't it? Why not visit my page and drop a buck or two into the bucket?

Thanks to Christopher for both doing the job and alerting me to the cause. Go to his profile and check out the picks under "What Lurks in the Shadow?" if you want to see some scary stuff.

If there are no second acts in American lives...

2009-11-14T18:53:00.000-08:00

This Luminaria piece is personal in a way that much of my work has not been. After my first son Dashiell was killed in 2000, we got involved with a support group for grieving parents. It did help, and I'm glad we found it. One of the women there talked about people who told her that she loved her child more than Jesus, and that's why he was taken from her. It was horrible, I was shocked that anyone could say such a thing. But I guess not really surprised. Too many people confuse their fundamentalism and hatred with religious beliefs. This post came nearly eight years after Dash's death, Tuesday, March 18, 2008

...then can someone please explain to me why I’m still seeing Huey Lewis on my various screens?

Fitzgerald was full of crap.

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Just posted my Luminaria short on my profile. And here, for that matter.

You’re No Cary Grant

2009-11-13T12:33:00.000-08:00

It should come as no surprise that Nikki canceled her "Hot Meal/Cold Read" session for that February, rather than allow me to come in and run roughshod over her poor aspiring acting students. She has since stopped the project altogether, but I don't think I can take the blame for that. This was from Saturday, February 09, 2008

I went to Thursday night's mixer at Ruta Maya with the sole intent of talking AJ out of his nutty bid to reboot the Short Ends Project. I left vaguely excited about the prospect, due mainly to his enthusiasm. I still don't think it has a shade of a chance of working, but if AJ's doing it, I'm in.

It's not that I don't think San Antonio needs a film collective. I do. In fact, I think it needs a more challenging one than we had, which is what I was trying to pitch AJ. My complaint about SEP was -- well, my list of grievances about that mess was longer than your inseam, but one of my primary grinds was that it gave filmmakers too much time. Three months, for the quality that was coming out, might as well have been three years, or three days. The average short for SEP was being shot in a weekend, with preproduction that could be kindly described as "lackadaisical," and even less effort spent in post. It could easily have been the work of a week, and more often than not probably was.

My campaign at the time was that we should have a monthly challenge, with a broader set of guidelines -- forget drawing a genre and a few descriptive words from a hat, instead make it a generic that fit the whole group and see what different ways we interpret it. Just say, for instance, music video, and come back in a month with something to screen. Don't worry that you don't own the music, just make it fast and have fun with it and let's all try to impress one another. The management of Short Ends dreamed of selling DVDs and marketing a television series (as pipe dreams go, the pipiest), and so thwarted my goals at every turn -- and hey, it's their game, why should they not thwart? -- but now that AJ holds the reins, I figured I'd give it another try.

No dice. He wants a six-month turnaround, with the expectation that the quality would improve with the added time. I'd predict instead that it'll just result in a five-month lollygag and a few weeks of frenzied shooting and cutting, but again, it's AJ's game. We'll see what happens.

While there, I got to see some of my favorite people. Carlos (who took my camera for his new thing), Chadd, Lee, Dar, Andy (on whose shit-list I believe I still reside). Nikki led us in a rousing chorus of the not-in-public-domain Birthday song (hope the Ruta Maya people weren't being visited by RIAA representatives that night), and much wise was cracked over Erik's birthday. Just a number, baby. You're still hepper than all of us. Then she asked me to do her a favor. Now, like most of you, I owe Nikki more than I can pay. And yet, it is a reflection of my callous bastardry that I asked what she wanted before I said yes. I'm going to do whatever she wants, why bother asking? (See aforementioned cold-hearted bastardry.)

I needn't have fretted. She wants me to lead one of her "Hot Meal/Cold Read" sessions, wherein local actors meet local filmmakers, at which time we give them hints about how to impress us in auditions. She's lining me up for February. Of 2009, that is. She's that sold out in advance, if you can believe it. Wow. Primadonna has it going on, as the young people say.

And so, I've been thinking of what I might say to actors about auditioning, and about their careers in general, on levels local or larger. And I'm brought back to a conversation I had a month earlier, at the last of AJ's mixers, coincidentally. Or maybe not, what do I know?

I was talking with photographer Christopher Viltz about certain local actors. (I should present forewarning here -- Christopher is himself a local actor, and I of course make movies locally, and therefore names will remain unspoken to protect him and me from getting our asses kicked by the fine and talented local actors we were discussing, at least one of whom was present while we were talking and was in fact part of the conversation.) Christopher, you'll note, has a rather unusual last name. I asked him if he, like so many of his fellows, had considered a stage name. No way, he said. His name is distinctive and draws attention. His talent does a lot, of course, to keep him out there. But the name doesn't hurt.

There seems to be a rash of local actors lately who are changing their names. Let me say this to you, local actors -- if you present yourself to me pretending your last name is "Marie," or something else that's clearly a middle name, I'm going to think you're an ass -- or at the very least, tiresome. I have to spend weeks or months or more working with you on a project. I want to know who you are. I want to respect you. If you've changed your name from Archibald Leach or Norma Jean Baker or Marion Morrison, I've got no time for you. The era of Hollywood glamour is gone. The world can accept something a little spicier than the traditional Anglo-Saxony. If Leelee Sobieski can make a very comfortable living with her name, what's your major malfunction, Mabel? Tony Curtis by any other name is… more interesting. Hey, I'm the last person to declare you can't change your name. Just make it more interesting, not less.

There's too much of that in this world, this blandification. Where are the accents, the buck teeth, the small boobs, the unwaxed hoohahs? I live and grew up in Texas, and still I don't know anyone with a Texas accent. I'm not talking about club feet or vestigial tails or even mustaches on women. If this minor change will make you feel better or improve your life, knock yourself out. But there's really no reason to snag yourself a tailbone tattoo. You're guaranteed to be embarrassed about it within two years, and it's not going to make you stand out in a crowd. It's going to make you look just like any other want-wit trendhopper at Polly Esther's. And the same goes for renaming yourself Trent Hudson or Holly Claire.

Jeez, I hope there's no Trent Hudsons or Holly Claires in town… I should check the databases of local talent agencies before I post this…

Break Out the Banjoes!

2009-11-13T12:25:00.000-08:00

This originally was posted with a video taken by Venus Prado's phone, which showed my giant voodoo doll being obscenely attacked by her and Carlos' daughter Rockie with foot-long stick-pins. Sorry that can't be reproduced here. I think Venus has taken it down. Too bad, it was exquisite in its perversity. Also missing is my video for the piece "72," although I left the comments (and for that matter, the dead link). John Mason of Micro-phobic earned my personal humiliation for how his music was mistreated. Posted Monday, January 28, 2008

It's time for the Chez Bernard Breakdown!

Last summer, I was invited to the San Antonio Creative Capital workshop. Creative Capital is a New York City-based nonprofit that (among other things) teaches local artists how to make the next step, how to stop being a local sensation and start becoming a national one. And make money doing it, a necessity only the most snobbish and/or naive would debate.

While the business tips were helpful, the two things I most gained were a dramatic increase in confidence (I'd never really thought of myself as an artist of any seriousness) and contacts. The people there were artists, every one of them. They didn't just call themselves artists, as many people will, or talk about it. They did it. Do it. Here in San Antonio. And a great many of them in all the places you're supposed to do it -- shows in New York or London or Cannes, grants and fellowships worldwide. But I (and I dare presume, you) never heard about most of them, because I had my filmmaker blinders on, and not my artist, uh, whatever the opposite of blinders might be.

And they liked what I do. It never would've occurred to them to suggest that my fight scenes weren't realistic enough, or that my greenscreen skills could be improved by this or that, or any of the other things I hear from film people, all of whom would make Hollywood-level product. The artists got it. And one, during a break in the workshop, sat on a selection committee for the new Chez Bernard endowment from the Artist Foundation, and nominated me as an emerging media artist.

Flash forward a few months (you can take the artist out of the film world, but you can't take the film world out of the artist), I was awarded the endowment to put on an "intimate, single-artist exhibition." First thing I was asked was which theater I wanted to rent out for the screening. I instead decided to make it an actual art show, in a gallery space, with people mulling about sipping white wine and saying "hmm." I've been involved in enough of these things to know I didn't want people sitting in seats and having to pay attention to some narrative I'd unspool before them. I wanted a "real" art show, and I wanted a party.

But before it could start, we had to get everything ready. With the guidance of Emily Morrison of ArtPace (and the Artist Foundation) and the technical wizardry of video artist Jason Jay Stevens, the Cadillac Lofts downtown were procured. I was mostly busy working on some new pieces to debut there, but much of the week before was spent vacuuming and taping over picture windows and teetering on ladders to hang platforms for projectors and a screen from the ceiling of the space. The acoustics in there were horrid, we could scarcely hear one another from across the room, but my primary concern was that the audio from the two main projects would clash and leave all the patrons of the arts with migraine headaches bleeding out their earholes.

I needn't have worried about that at all, as the night of the show would reveal that the audio was all but entirely drowned out by the bodies in the room. The industrial space looked groovy, but was no Sydney Opera Hall, sound-wise.

And then there was the issue of synching the audio for the three-screen environmental piece in the corner (step into the middle and see three screens that all relate to one another). I was there until almost opening trying to get it to work, and never did make it. I left it to ArtPace's sound guru, who managed to be gone by the time I got back. Doubtless aware of my notorious wrath. It was completely out of synch, never any relation between sound and image for the remainder of the night.

But as my father-in-law likes to say, if we had any idea how little people think about us, we'd curl up into fetal balls and eat our stomachs. (Well, perhaps I've exaggerated my father-in-law's axiom...) Truth is, no one really cared about the audio. They enjoyed the images, and the conversation, and now and then would buttonhole me to say "um, I'm sure I'm the only one who doesn't get it, but..." No, I'd assure them, if they could hear the audio (music by Micro-phobic), it'd make perfect sense, and explain it the best I could.

Here, see for yourself. It makes sense. Maybe not perfect sense, but, you know, sense.

And here's the video environment piece. It's no longer in three chunks to be viewed all at once, of course, as that'd be difficult to do on YouTube. But I kind of approximated that. Kinda.

Please subscribe to my YouTube Channel, if you're of a mind. I'm planning to do a lot more art stuff in the future, including a few more of those playground "musical" pieces.

The biggest success of the night was the sculptural piece. Portrait of the Artist as a Voodoo Doll. A life-sized effigy of myself, constructed of burlap and raffia by my pal Michelle LaHomme from my designs. Michelle is a genius. She's done costumes for a few different of my projects, and she manages to be not only a sorceress with a sewing machine, but a creative force on her own. I've never given her a sketch or concept that she hasn't improved upon considerably, and this doll is no exception. We also created some six-inch-long pins so everyone could jab me (with positive intent, naturally). I stepped over to it a few times during the evening to pull pins out, give other folks a chance to have fun. I'd received some very, uh, creative piercings. I think they liked that one.

What I Been Doin’

2009-11-13T12:22:00.001-08:00

Here's one about the art show the Artist Foundation paid for. I expect they're sorry now that they did it. I turned out to be something less than the artist they'd expected. But it was a fun time, and some people got paid. I was not one of them. Originally posted Friday, January 25, 2008

My time of late has been devoted exclusively to my art exhibition. I'm a filmmaker, which as most of you are aware is a discipline that does not usually have much to do with art. But I impressed some people with my images and got a grant from the Artist Foundation, so I've been working at art. I've got a few new pieces, a little of the old stuff, and some surprises. It's going to be great.

They made a nice invitation and sent it to all the big wigs in the arts community. I don't know who all is coming, but I know I'm going to be very excited to be among them. I hope you will be there, too.

Saturday night, tomorrow, Cadillac Lofts at the corner of Dallas and Lexington. It's downtown San Antonio, behind the hospital. Come by at 8 for the afterparty.

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Here's a thing I did recently. Call it a preview, for you, my blog-related friends. I figured my reel needed some toonage. My first attempt at animation. I'm kinda teaching myself. I had fun.

Church and Olives

2009-11-13T12:18:00.000-08:00

I hear there's another Methane Sisters show coming. I'll go see it. Otherwise, I extend my apologies to the San Antonio theater community. Postdated to Monday, January 07, 2008

Why don't I like live theater? I have a dread of it. The parents of the boy's best friend run a prestigious theater company in town, probably the most highly-acclaimed, and I can't attend even one of their shows, because I know it'll be agony for me. It has seriously injured our friendship.

And like previous prejudices against Brussels sprouts and organized sports, I know I might try it and discover that I'd been a fool to stay away so long, it's wonderful! Then again, I still don't like olives or church, and no amount of "c'mon, maybe this time it won't be horrible" is going to change that.

Of course, live theater isn't like those things. It's different each time. But so is film, and I can endure hours and hours of bad movies (and god knows, have). Maybe it's because I feel an obligation to performers when they are there in front of me. I've sat through many a movie I'd just as soon have walked out on because the filmmaker was in attendance.

The Jump-Start Performance Party was Saturday night, with loads of events on one stage, one after the other, and I was sure that there'd have to be at least an average that made me glad I'd come. But the first half of the evening reminded me all too clearly of why I don't hit local theater more often. Lots of "gosh, we should be on Broadway!" showtuney stuff, tepid torch songs and dancing girls, the sort of routines where you're expected to applaud just because they're attempting it. (There wasn't a kick-line, but why are we supposed to applaud kick-lines? I've never seen one screwed up, can't be that complicated...) There'd be a gem here and there to remind you that not everyone is trying to be someone they aren't (Shimi flying over the stage on her silken scarves, an experimental film piece with puppets and hotdogs, a fun little Mexican song played on what I'd have sworn was a six-string ukele, but that couldn't be, could it?), but far too little in between to keep my interest.

But in the middle of Act II, things started to loosen up. A comedy troupe called La Collectiva, which I totally expected to stink (having been conditioned from earlier in the night to cringe for the worst when a woman appears in male drag), but they made me laugh. Big belly laughs, in fact, which hurt my cold-riddled lungs and probably caused concern in those around me. A few musical acts that I found very entertaining. An exerpt from the Vagina Monologues by my pal Mellissa Marlowe that had me giggling and speculating about bringing an all-male version here -- come on, you telling me Roy Thomas couldn't do a rant about tampons and vaginal speculums that'd have you in tears?

And then they wrapped up the second act with Urban-15, the local dance troupe-cum-drum corps that ended with much of the audience invited up to dance and giving me reason to fear for the structural integrity of the stage. It was the first time I'd seen my lovely (and newly engaged) costume-maven Michelle LaHomme perform, and I was fortunately far enough back that she couldn't see me to drag me up there. She did spy Erik and Alston up front and pulled them into the melee. I feared that'd be the last I saw of Alston -- I knew Erik could escape, just tuck his glasses away, lower his big head and charge if it got right down to it, but she's a slight little number, easily trampled. George Cisneros running the band and his wife Catherine leading the dancers, and I can't imagine what an effort that must've been with all that confusion going on, but it was tight. There was an elderly fellow down the row from me (well, from where I stood, it was standing room only in there), and he was whaling away at imaginary drums to the beat. Air-drumming in his seventies. That's how much fun it was.

And then Act III arrived. I'd almost forgotten by then that the main reason I'd come was because the Methane Sisters would be running the third act. And they were everything promised. Outrageous, offensive, decadent. Maybe not who you'd want managing your investment portfolio, but everything I look for in an M.C. They kept it fun even when the acts weren't the best. Although some of them were the best -- Comedia A Go Go did a fantastic sketch which took them so long to set up, I won't bother trying here. Suffice to say, it's the sort of thing you could only experience live, go see their show. I was a little upset that my friend Rodney Garza's "Pazchuco" character came a few minutes before I got in (I stopped to pick up a twelve-pack of Shiner for Annelle, whose Methane Sisters show starting this weekend needs donations of beer for them to sell), so I was pleased to see him in the third act as part of the "Peace Posse." A phone call took me away from the next introduction, and that's a damned shame because I walked back in on a great monologue about backpacking into a revolution that I'd really like to hear more of. Guess I need to start paying attention to the Jump-Start website.

I was about to slip out the backdoor (which is what backdoors are for, aren't they? No one steps boldly through a backdoor) when the fire-eaters started. Seems like tempting fate to be in a crowded theater when open flames are factored into the equation, there's a reason they used to make the curtains out of asbestos. But then I saw the fire-eaters. They were dressed up in their beaded and bow-tied finest, and all of them were middle-aged or older, one old woman had to be in her eighties. You don't see Margaret Dumont picking flaming embers from her dentures everyday. And all of it, for reasons I couldn't fathom, to the tune of "There's Got To Be A Morning After" by Maureen McGovern. Then, as they wrapped the number, a film began to show. The climactic scene in "The Poseidon Adventure," George Kennedy and Leslie Nielsen and Shelley Winters looking concerned as the floor begins to tilt, and soon they're all screaming and flying spectacularly through glass and being crushed by pianos, and the fire-eaters (having by now thankfully extinguished all their snacks) all flew across the stage as if in the movie. (There'd been an "ocean cruise" theme to the night's festivities.) And then I remembered that "There's Got To Be A Morning After" was the Oscar-winning theme to "The Poseidon Adventure." And I laughed.

The Methane Sisters show starts this weekend. Go see it. You need to.

It’s Another Tequila Christmas...

2009-11-13T12:11:00.000-08:00

Last year, we got smart. Bought a bunch of Heifer International vouchers, donated a goat or a bee hive or something in the names of loved ones. It's a much better gift than whatever I might've come up with. I expect we'll be doing it again this year. Not that we can afford much. From Wednesday, December 19, 2007

I used to sing. Not at opera-rank, but not simply for the shower, either. My high school choir went all over (and even out of) the state for performances, and we competed at a pretty lofty level. Madrigals, canons, airs, rounds, you name it, as long as it was archaic and fit only for old ladies to hear, we did it. I even did some choir-for-hire work at churches (my church choir leader rented a few of us out, not sure what he made off of it).

Christmas, of course, was the big season. And carols were the currency, in intricate four-part harmony and the original Latin. I can't hear the music this time of year without hearing my parts in my head. Which, naturally, were never the melody (I was a baritone, ocassional tenor when needed). So I can't sing along, or I'll be singing part of a harmony no one else hears, and it comes across as just out of tune. (Which may not be far off, it's been a number of years since I practiced. And by "a number of years" I mean before many of my friends today were alive.)

But that's not why I've never liked Christmas. Oh, sure, the commercialism and the pageantry and the hypocrisy, all that, same reason you hate Christmas, even those who love it. But it's also a yearly reminder of failure to me. It tells me, every December, what a bastard I am. There's not a commercial goes by that doesn't remind me that my wife will hate me forever if I don't buy her jewelry, or a car. Or, for that matter, remind my wife that if her husband really loved her, he'd buy her these things. (Who the hell buys cars for Christmas? To whom are they advertising, seriously? I'm reminded of that SNL bit about commercials for big red bows...)

Added to which, I'm almost always broke -- outside of Hollywood, there's really not much money in movie-making, and I get fewer jobs than some. My reaction has largely been to ignore not only the ads, but also the whole act of gift-giving, getting by with the most deliberately meager tokens of affection that I can. It's the thought that counts, you say? Well, that doesn't really mean that just thinking of buying a gift counts. I've gone whole years doing nothing but bake; or, one memorable year, create liqueurs. I can still taste that tequila-cinnamon schnapps. Hell, I can still see the stain on the rug...

I've been tempted, in years past, to give "limited edition" printings of my art work to close relatives. But the truth is, they all hate my work, or at best tolerate it, and I really couldn't bear to see that same polite smile (or worse, feined enthusiastic appreciation) applied to a DVD, manuscript, or canvas of my toil, the way it is to a pair of argyle socks with jingle bells sewn on.

And this is the first of the nightmare years for the boy, I fear. In years past, all he cared about was trains, but this year, he's pointing at the TV every break saying "I want, I want!" Still, when we took him to see Santa last night, he was so excited that all he could say when addressing the big man himself was "could you bring me a train?" It's a universal, isn't it? When startled into it, we always revert to the basic needs. Food, shelter, steam-powered locomotives.

Then he leaned back in, even as I was leading him away, Ralphie-and-his-BB-gun-like, to say, "can you make it a Polar Express?" Shit, that thing costs north of $200 at the train store...

But this year, while I'm not rich, I actually made a few bucks. So I'm putting some effort into the gift-giving. Still not spending over-much (sure as hell not buying him that particular train-set, not this late in the game), but I'm putting thought into the gifts, and finding what will I hope delight or pester (when appropriate). Everyone but my sister taken care of. My sister is always tough. She has no quirks, no vices, no sense of humor to speak of, and she's got the sort of mannered, genteel, Martha Stewart tastes that are far out of the range of either my wallet or stomach. May have to fall back again on the bath beads. Or come up with something I want her to take interest in -- a particular performer's music, say, or a coupon for tattoos and kickboxing lessons.

As for me... I could use an HD camera, if you're still looking for something to put in my stocking. Otherwise, world peace will do. And good booze.

float like a social butterfly/sting like a sewing bee

2009-11-13T12:05:00.000-08:00

This was originally filled with links to every named person's MySpace page. And I'm assuming that, by the time you are reading this (I flatter myself that anyone is reading this) MySpace will be dead and gone. So I won't bother connecting them here. From Pearl Harbor Day a few years ago. Not what I will call a Post That Will Live In Infamy. Friday, December 07, 2007

Been June since I posted about something that wasn't bragging about how fascinating and successful is my life. I'll see if I can make it through this without tooting my own horn.

I spend a lot of time whining about the local "film community" and how little support you can find among us. But in truth, I do a lot of that whining on my wide ass at home rather than out where it means something. So I've made an effort of late to get out there and support the very people and events I complain that others do not. I'll run a few down for you, brief-like, and in no particular order.

The Exodus Experience -- the Rialto Theater is in my neighborhood, so I felt I'd be an ass if I missed this screening of Ya'ke Smith's collected shorts. But in truth, I was really dreading it -- Ya'ke is, well, earnest. Great smile, but he tends not to use it. And while that's a fine characteristic in, say, a loan officer, it can really be a hindrance in an artist. Think of your favorite movies, even if you love drama -- there's a sense of humor there. A playfulness, even if there are no "jokes," there's a looseness that tempers the seriousness. Art has to be fun, and I'd found precious little of that in what I'd seen of Ya'ke's work. But what I discovered in seeing a bunch of them together was that the looseness I was looking for was in the execution, not in the script or performances. "Hope's War," in particular, had a narrative style that made me not only envious, but larcenous (I'll be stealing a device he used there). Hung out in the lobby before and spent time with Brant, who is just the best guy in the world, and Drew (who's not bad himself).

24 Hour Comics Day -- My main man Fan Fave Freddy organized this thing, and his super-talented-and-totally-too-good-for him girlfriend Alex was going to be there, so I elbowed my way in. Everybody gathers together on the top floor of the downtown library (La Enchilada Grande) and draws a funnybook in the course of the day. No one was there for 24 hours, of course, and I don't believe anyone finished a complete story, although some did multiple pages. I met some really fun people, videotaped a bit, and even drew. I don't know that I'd call it "art," but it might end up as sort of a storyboard for an animated short. Those of you who've been clamoring for a "Frog Police" movie, your wait may soon be over. (And if you don't know what I'm talking about, watch my rad-bad-and-dangerous-to-know award-winning trailer for the 2007 Austin film Festival.) (Damn, didn't take me long to break my "non-tooting" pledge, did it?)

Exquisite Corpse -- I've made a committment to myself to get more involved in the local arts community. Since I've got that exhibition coming up in a month or two (and oh, man, am I ever not ready), I've met a lot of local artists, and they are just so much fun and so supportive, I can't tell you. Filmmakers have a tendency to spend their time talking about either focal lengths and lighting, or Hollywood movies that are art in the same way that the Vienna sausage relates to filet mignon. So I wasn't going to miss Jason Jay's exhibition of the results of his Dada parlor game. Explaining it would take forever, so just Wiki it and trust that the stuff they had at 118 Gallery was hella kicky. I brought the boy along, and he loved it. But he's more Dada than anyone I know. We went next door after and saw Peter Zubiate's studio. He's the husband of my friend Katie whom you should be so groovy as (but are not).

SA48HR -- Or whatever it was called, the latest 48 hour competition put on by Film San Antonio (which is the local film commission, Drew and Janet). Screening was a couple days ago, shooting was last weekend. I promised myself (and Lisa) that I wouldn't do one. I love this stuff, but the truth is, I already know how to make a crappy short in two days. Not that it's not a challenge, getting it right is always tough, but it's just not novel enough to me to make it worth it, and I refuse to make any more of what Erik calls "deliberately bad" movies. And that's pretty much what you have to do with these -- make a movie in 48 hours that conforms to some abstract constraints put on it by a disinterested third party, and the easiest way out is to point out the flaws. And some this year did so elegantly (the Lone Bannana crew get my "best use of required character award"). A few, as ever, had more style than I'd expected, one or two were downright audacious, but one, by a group I'd never heard of, Parker Creek Productions, did it the smart way -- shoot without a script, then do it all in voiceover after the fact. They got a little lucky (film noir was their category) and they didn't have to work too hard on the VO (most of it was cadged from popular songs). But mostly they worked smarter, not harder, and that's why I expect them to win it all. Although they might've been screwed had judging been live at the screening -- never have I seen a production so skewered by audience reaction. The crowd was slapping knees and roaring at every lyric they recognized, you could barely hear what was going on. Come on, people, you need to get over nostalgia! Recognizing a Bee-Gees lyric isn't funny! These lines were supporting the story, and you only wanted to giggle at some half-remembered AM radio nugget. This is why I needlepoint samplers with my favorite quote on it: "Nostalgia is porn for old people." (Mr. Bartlett, I do believe I coined that myself, please attribute properly.)

Amberjack Manor -- But wait, you say, what of the 48hr short to which you contributed, Mistah Pete? Yes, I know I swore I wouldn't do one, but that doesn't mean I couldn't help out a friend. Dar talked me into acting in "Amberjack Manor," a short Andy signed on to direct. I hesitate to say the part was written for me, but I shudder to think how they'd have filled the part had I not agreed to do it. Erik says I took it because I like to play the fop and/or dandy (I prefer the word "toff," but point made), but the fact is, I was born to be Nigel Amberjack; to the manor born, if you will. (He was written as "Lord Amberjack," but I scrapped the accent in rehearsals, so I think he's just Nigel now.) I got to work with Lanni again, and we do get silly together. Everyone else was fun to work with, too, but I've gotten too link-happy with this already.

Film Commission Animation Panel -- okay, so they can't all be great, right? This was a disaster, but not for the reasons uber-hostess Nikki and the Film Commission feared. There were some technical problems, but they were nothing. Seriously, if that had been what was wrong, no one would've even noticed. No, the problem was that the panel was dominated by people who are not animators. At least, not in any sense that is useful for me, or any other local filmmaker that I know of. These were eggheads who had access to (and knew how to use, perhaps at the expense of any artistic ability) mega-computers and programs that are not available to schmoes like us. Konise from NESA and Russ from Harlandale have very talented students (I've seen animated shorts from each school), and the stop-motion work shown by Angela of the Prime Eights was warm and charming, but they were all trampled by the drone of techno-geeks. I left that panel knowing less about animation than when I arrived.

Filmmaker Mixer at Ruta Maya -- Last night. A.J. has taken the bull by the horns and organized a monthly meeting. Pretty paltry turn out, but it's quality, not quantity, that counts, and this was a good bunch to talk with. Laura was there, I met Jose, and Matthew, who is a party where'er he goeth. Music started toward the end, and we all high-tailed it (seriously, shouldn't an accoustic guitar be quiet? Is that just me?), but a few of us stayed in the parking lot and chatted. I pestered A.J. (as I always do) to let me be a fly on the wall of his next shoot. He gets such incredible footage, and performances, I'd really like to see how he does it.

Tonight's Sam's birthday party, I'm going to try and make it there. And the Urban 15 laser show goes on this weekend, I'll take the boy for a gander at the pretty pictures. And the Film Commission mixer Tuesday. So, yeah. You know where to find me. Hope to see you there.

Updating the resume to include the phrase "Internationally Acclaimed"

2009-11-13T11:57:00.000-08:00

Just checked the link in this blog. The Costa Rica International Film Festival (formerly Montezuma International Film Festival) is going on right now. That makes me feel a little weird. It's happening without me. That's not right. And yet, I can't ask them to stop for me. What I can do is submit something for next year. I have to go back. Damn, it was great there. If I go again, I may not come back. This was from Saturday, November 10, 2007

Back from Costa Rica, and the Montezuma International Film Festival.

Had a great time. We jumped off a waterfall and swam in jungle pools. We hiked barefoot up rivers to more waterfalls. We saw monkeys and exotic birds and plants and a sea turtle with a shell the size of a bathtub. Lots of time on sand spent looking at big waves. And we ate and drank. Plenty.

Here's some pictures.

This is the Uraca. Kind of like a blue jay, but with a rockabilly hairdoo. Can you see it? The tuft stands up a good three inches. These guys were all over our breakfast place, and not shy.

Also at our breakfast joint. He's enjoying a banana, just like in the cartoons.

These little red squirrels rule the coastline.

A wiser man than I might've reconsidered climbing up to this waterfall after reading this sign. If you understand Spanish, please do not tell me what "varias personas han muerto aqui" means.

But that man would've missed this. Lisa's there to the right. She would later dive right in with her clothes on. Or maybe already has, judging from the "wet rat" quality of her hair.

Stream under a different waterfall, when she'd thought to bring along her swimsuit.

Me, too.

This is what the beaches were like. Rocky, but spectacular.

This guy was growing outside our room. Pretty. We live in a semi-tropical locale, why don't we have these? Lisa recognized plenty of plants that we do have at home, only they're extra-super-jumbo in Costa Rica.

Zip-line through the canopy of the rainforest. Kiss my ass, Sting.

But this is what it was really all about.

Oh, yeah, there was a film festival going on, too, wasn't there? This is me and Crystal Liu. We won the short film awards. She got "comedy short," I got "science fiction." Which is pretty damn civil of them, I think, because if we'd both been competing in comedy, she'd have kicked my butt all over the place. Crystal's funny and talented and cute as a speckled puppy. And apparently asleep under the spell of my charm.

Here we are accepting our awards, with festival director Eric Panter. I'm not sure what happened to them shortly after this shot. Er, I mean, photograph.

I could show you plenty more: about our journey there (fraught with peril and death) and our journey home (peril, no death); some of the people we met; the meals we ate (fresh seafood aplenty, and while the beer there wasn't great, we did find this Swiss brew that was made from hemp and had a faint aftertaste of bongwater, but was otherwise excellent -- I need hardly add, it is not sold in the states). But you can come over and catch the slideshow. I can't imagine you've made it this far in the narrative anyway...

My "Tray Table" Is Always In A Locked And Upright Postition, Baby!

2009-11-13T11:46:00.000-08:00

This really was a great time. I wish I'd never stopped. Why did I? I could've cranked out a "Mars Needs Bibles" a year, gone to various locations. Can't afford it now. But that tax-deduction did make it easier. I kick myself. Maybe I'll start getting some of the new stuff out. This was a Halloween post, but not scary. Wednesday, October 31, 2007

This time tomorrow, I'll be on a southbound airplane. Costa Rica. I have to work on rolling that R. Rrrrrica. Damn, I'm sexy when I roll my Rs. Montalban-esque.

I felt a little bad, leaving a couple weeks ago for the Austin Film Festival. Lisa was going to be here with the boy all alone. And to call the boy a handful is only accurate if you have hands like a catcher's mitt. Two catcher's mitts.

But in this case, we're leaving him with Grandma. I should probably feel worse, but I don't. I expect he'll be better for Grandma than he would be for us. He likes her. I remember the great fondness I had (and still have) for my grandmother. I expect she was hard on my mother, I know she was an emotionally distant woman. But she and I had a connection. We were great friends. And the boy loves his grandparents (both sides) a lot.

They're always wondering why we think he's such trouble, such a good boy... I suspect a lot of that is the fact that grandparents don't really give a damn if they're spoiling the kids and letting them eat chocolate after midnight and swing live cats over their heads. They can see the time coming when they'll be able to leave, and they'll chortle all the way home about how cute the little monster was when he finally passed out from a sugar-crash that could be felt in Finland. Me and Lisa, we're stuck with him until college. Maybe longer than that.

I was talking about Costa Rica, wasn't I?

Reading travel books about the place we're going. Montezuma. It's on the Nicoya peninsula. The guide books use phrases like "artist's community" and "bohemian" and even the official website of the tourism board points out that you can find "Rastafarians" and "reggae music" about. Which I presume is code for "you can buy pot here." It's an eco-tourism hotspot, lots of hiking and waterfalls and monkeys. I'm invited to join in morning yoga, and there appear to be a number of fine vegetarian restaurants. Yeeeeah.

Where the official website fails, naturally Wikipedia is there to bat clean up. It tells me that Costa Rica is also a prime "sex tourism" destination, because prostitution is legal there. Although they've apparently been cracking down on the child-sex, so don't call your travel agent just yet. (You know who you are.) They also disbanded their military some years ago. Hell, the child prostitutes should band together and take the place over. They could stage a coup with nail clippers and rubber bands. I'll pack my carry-on with them and commission the troops while I'm there.

My cell phone will be turned off for the week. Which will come as some relief to it, I don't doubt. If you need me, call the home phone. Grandma will be there to take messages. Unless she's tied up on a kitchen chair with a little hellion in an Indian headdress dancing around her waving a rubber tomahawk.

The Hits Just Keep Coming!

2009-11-13T11:43:00.000-08:00

I haven't exactly been editing these old blogs, but I've skipped a few because they weren't really relevant anymore, or because they didn't contribute anything. I'd probably have not bothered with this one, but it sets up one of the coming posts, with pictures from Costa Rica. Plus, it was really great to hear we were playing there, it's a date to remember. And that date was Saturday, September 22, 2007

Well, there's no more denying it. I'm officially leading a charmed life.

Just got word that "Mars Needs Bibles" has been accepted at the Montezuma International Film Festival. My first non-US screening. I am now a true international sensation.

"Wait, Montezuma, you say? Is this a fest devoted to intestinal parasites?"

No. Well, maybe, but that's not what it's all about. It's located in Montezuma, Costa Rica, at the end of the penninsula. The world's primo vacation spot, and these guys have capitalized on it. A comfy little resort town, right on the water. Beach, sun, cocktails, good seafood. Just the sort of place we've been wanting to go for awhile.

You better believe we will be. A tax-deductible scuba trip? Hell yeah!

Problem is, the festival is in early November, the same time that my exhibition for the Chez Bernard endowment is supposed to be. We'll have to push that back. Not sure how far, exactly. Once you're in November there're holidays to work around, and then more holidays, and all of a sudden you're looking at 2008. I don't want to push it that far back. I need a pressing deadline to keep me working. 2008 might as well be Jetsons-future. (Now that I think of it, I think we've probably already passed the years of "Jetson-future," may well be on our way to "Star Trek" territory by now.)

Anyone who worked on "Mars Needs Bibles," consider yourself invited. Hell, if you've seen it, come and watch it with us in a tropical paradise.

By the way, Freddy reminds me that Costa Rica is where Dr. John Hammond performed his unholy experiments involving dinosaur DNA. So bring your T. Rex repellant.

My name must be Oscar Mayer...

2009-11-13T11:40:00.000-08:00

I haven't been back to the Austin Film Festival since that year, 2007. Used to be I'd go every year. I'd find some way for them to invite me, and I'd be there for free. Management has changed since then, however, and they are much tighter with the Producer passes. Shame. I'd like to go, but really can't afford it. It's a great festival/writer's conference, you should go for sure. Posted Wednesday, August 29, 2007

...because I am on a roll, baby!

Video production work is coming faster this year than ever before, at least since I got out of the lawyerin' vid biz. Finished a feature script of my own for the first time in a long time (which felt damned good). My short "Mars Needs Bibles" is going all over the place. Then came the Chez Bernard endowment, which is really helping me with a few other grants.

And now, today, a double-whammy.

Got a call this morning from Jesse at the Austin Film Festival. They've chosen my trailer to run before the movies there this year. Oh, my. My little one-minute short will be one of the most-watched movies there (I get the impression that there may be another trailer or two), because anyone who watches a movie will be seeing this first. They'll be transferring it to 35mm film (I can't even imagine what that'll be like). I desperately hope it'll play at the Paramount, because if I can see it on that screen, in that old-time movie house, my normally colossal head will be blotting out the screen. I pity anyone sitting behind me. I'll be bigger than Orson Welles, if only for the moment. Plus, they're sending me some passes, so I'll be at all the snazziest parties, rubbing shoulders with the movie stars. They do treat the directors well, there...

And then, after I called my pal Dar to tell her the good news, she let slip a little more -- "Mars Needs Bibles" has been selected to play at SAL, the San Antonio Local Film Festival. This is nice not just because it's the debut of the final version of the movie in the town where it was shot, but also because I know some of the competition I was up against. There's some amazing filmmaking talent in this city, and I'm delighted that my little gayer-than-a-Mormon-politician short was chosen to be shown with them. SAL is going to be fantastic. I hope everyone will be there, because some of the names I heard dropped (I've been sworn to secrecy) are enough to make me do a little Snoopy dance. I know of at least two or three that will be there I haven't seen before, and I can't wait.

Mistah Pete is well-endowed!

2009-11-12T13:17:00.000-08:00

Now that it's all over... I'm not so sure I dig the art scene. I made some friends, had a nice big party, got some work done. It put me on a few maps, too. And it sort of opened my eyes as to what film can be. But ultimately, I don't think I want to ride that train. I really appreciate what it did for me, and I'll do it some more. But it won't be what makes me what I am. I first posted this Monday, August 06, 2007

No, I haven't been hacked by spammers shilling penis creams.

I just got word that I've been selected to receive the 2007 Chez Bernard Endowment from the Artist Foundation of San Antonio and Artpace. I'm geeked out of my head.

The money is to be for an exhibition of my work. Normally, with these people, that means dance, or painting, or music, or the spreading of peanut butter on vaginas. You know... art. And artists all have proper venues where they can do their respective things, and in most cases, it allows for the consumption of cheap wine and cheese.

But I make movies, and movies show in theaters. Where people sit and don't talk to each other. I want this to be more of a social thing, where people can not only ooh and aww over my pretty pictures, but also network and buy my DVDs. I'm thinking moving wallpaper, rather than storytelling.

It's time for out-of-the-box thinking. Maybe even a different box entirely.

And, as I so often do, I turn now to your box, my friend -- what would you do with money and a party-planner who expects art?

(PS: I want to have a new piece to debut... I doubt they'll let me use any of the money for it, but I do plan to ask. Oh yes I do...)

Dining with Strangers

2009-11-12T13:12:00.000-08:00

It's nice meeting new folks. I'm a friendly guy, and I've never really had trouble walking up and talking to people, even if I don't know them. But I've kind of gotten out of the habit. There's something tonight, mostly people I already know. But maybe some new in there, too. Wednesday, June 06, 2007

"Oh, we know who you are," the woman said as I approached the table, introducing myself. We were in a Mexican restaurant, mariachis blaring, and I quipped something about them singing songs about me in my absence, and the musicians compliently (if coincidentally) blasted out a fanfare just as I said it. It turned a lame ice-breaker into a gut-buster.

I didn't know who they were, for the most part. Not by name, anyway. That's sort of the logic behind introducing yourself when you get to a group, then everyone says their own names, and some funster will josh "there'll be a quiz later," and we laugh politely. But the truth is, I try to remember the names, and generally can. Not that night. Noisy, and they all had met one another before I got there. I'd spent a good hour after the screening talking with Bob Pollard (a riverboat pilot friend I see too rarely) and Ray Santisteban, four of whose short films we'd just seen, and who has been working on a bullfighting documentary he wanted to tell me all about.

We were meeting after the screening of Alan Govnar's "The Devil's Swing," a doc Erik brought to town as part of NALIP's ominously titled "Meet the Maker" series. It's about life along the border, where nationality is somewhat more fluid than it is even here (probably the most "Mexican" of major US cities). Erik had brought his friend Enrique Madrid up from that area to speak -- he didn't make the movie, but was there for all of it, and served as translator and facilitator and... I won't say "Juan of all trades," because I doubt he actually was recruited into the production itself, running lights or camera or slinging a boom pole, but he clearly was involved. Kind of a loose interpretation of "Meet the Maker," but it was about seeing the movie, really, and it was good. Despite committing the cardinal sin of misspelling one of its titles. But hell, I'm no longer sure "villain" is spelled that way anymore... has "villian" become the accepted spelling in an age of "teh" and other sanctioned Internet typos? If it has, well, that's not a world I want to live in, sir.

Erik took the insiders afterwards to a meeting at Mi Tierra, a sprawling tourist trap restaurant with an hour's wait before even getting to a table, and most of one after that. Food wasn't bad, overpriced of course, but Erik paid (at the behest of NALIP, one hopes), and the conversation was great.

I sat next to Enrique, which was good because he was the one person there whose name I knew. Erik's known him for fifteen years, and I've been hearing about him for almost as long, so it was good to finally meet him. He has a professorial mien, and likewise a tendency to teach. It was loud enough that one could really only hear the person directly next to you, so it was good that we are both people who find it easy to talk.

We got into a lively political discussion (he has that trust in liberal political parties ingrained in his generation, believing the future is safe in Hillary's hands, whereas I've long held that what this country needs is not a third political party, but a second). He sketched out for me on a napkin a scientific formula for creating tortillas, into which he also somehow tied the Big Bang, Einstein's theory of relativity, and some curious misconceptions about the malleability of the minds of children. (Seriously, man, my kid is stubborn as the lid of a pickle jar.) Conversation with Enrique is challenging and ego-fueling, in that it requires effort to keep up with his mind, and allows one to believe one's own mind might be on par. He's obviously smart and well-read, but also clever, with an appreciation for and skill with words, and is even a deft pun-smith, a quality unfairly maligned today. I felt like my brain had worked up a good sweat by the end of the meal, the sort of workout I don't get as much as I'd like these days.

For some years, basically since I've been in San Antonio, I've been one of if not the oldest person in my circle. I'd sort of forgotten how invigorating it can be to spend time with people ten or twenty years older, with minds that make you work. (I'm sure my younger friends feel the same of me... you know, when I'm not picking my nose and flicking boogers at them...)

Wish I'd figured out who most of them are. Might've been fun to hang with them again.

Call me Trash, sure, just as long as you call me Artist

2009-11-12T13:09:00.000-08:00

Those were heady times, the film festival days. I should work on getting into it again. Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Those of you who know my Little Movie That Could "Mars Needs Bibles" (and if you don't, what's your problem?, it's on my profile, check it out) know it to be a loving slice of good-natured neo-con bait and 1950s scifi pastiche, as well as a testament to my trash-chic esthetic.

That's right, I said trash, and proud of it. I've long embraced the concept of turning my limits into a strength, taking cardboard and spraypaint and turning them into a magical medium that will represent anything I wish. If you buy into that, my movies are a tickle. If you don't, they aren't. And I'm well aware that to many, they aren't -- I've heard grumblings that "Those Light-Fingered Kellys" isn't "real" enough, and even director of photography Russ Ansley still doesn't get "Mars Needs Bibles," despite his efforts having turned it into something far more beautiful than I ever could have accomplished on my own. But critics have generally been kind, comparing my work favorably to Ed Wood's "Plan 9 From Outer Space," and praising my "attention to detail in its pursuit of bargain basement, 50's era special effects." At least, I choose to believe that's praise.

But whatever else you can say about it, "Mars Needs Bibles" is now capital-A Art.

The Seattle True Independent Film Festival will be screening it next month. They've not only given it an award (the STIFFY for "Best Title," and to whom else could it be given?), but they are projecting it in... the Seattle Museum of Art. That's right, an art museum, judging by the name, THE art museum of Seattle. (If this is in fact someone's garage, I don't want to know about it, it's still a museum.)

And whatever else your definition might include, it's hard to argue that something displayed in a museum is anything but art.

If you're going to be in Seattle, or near Seattle, or interested in taking a road trip to Seattle, go check it out. Sunday, June 3 2007, 4:00 pm.

At the Seattle Art Museum. It's art. I'm an artist.

The Saddest Bugs in the World

2009-11-12T13:02:00.000-08:00

I love finding movies that remind me of why I liked movies to begin with. It's pretty rare these days. In fact, I almost don't like movies anymore. I've recently rediscovered David Lynch, and I got a Pedro Almodovar collection not too long ago. I should look for more Guy Maddin. I need to love movies again. From Thursday, May 10, 2007

Been sleeping in the guest room all week. No, there's been no Bumsteadian lover's spat to rend the wedded sheets, we're both in there. Lisa's been too traumatized to return to the bedroom. It's her bug-phobia at work.

If you don't live in Texas, you don't know what Spring truly is. Granted, our weather isn't always lovely at this time of year -- lots of rain, the beginnings of the mosquito invasion, sometimes quite muggy (although today is beyond perfect, mid-70s, sunny, windows open). But there is one thing you can always count on come May -- roaches. And not some puny little crawlers you stomp on and they're dead, no, no. Roaches here are the stuff of novelty postcards with saddles and cowboys and "They Grow 'Em Bigger in Texas!" curved across them. Without exaggeration, the roaches can be as big as or bigger than my thumb. And I have big thumbs.

We saw a few around the kitchen and utility room. We have dogs, and so we have dog doors. It seems unlikely that a roach could push its way through, but the bugs make it in somehow, other beasties tend to. On one ocassion, I looked up in the middle of the night, set to turn off my bedside lamp, only to see a cat in the door. It is fortunate that our dogs did not see it, there'd have been carnage.

So we put down some poison traps, and I went out and bought some stuff to spray around doorways. It's pretty effective. But one thing I've discovered over the years is that the poisons almost always seem to make things worse before they are better. Maybe the stuff makes them crazy before they croak? We had one flying around the family room and kitchen, me stalking it with a shoe, finally smashing it over a window.

(Oh, yes, they fly. Big, brawny, beetly wings you can hear from another room, it's creepy. My mother, a genteel woman not given to coarse expression, says that everyone says the same thing in that moment when they discover that these hefty suckers can take flight, more often than not right at your face -- "Holy Shit!" She is not wrong.)

So there were a few of these instances, roaches gone wild, before the poisons kicked in and we were scooping up carcasses all over the house. And in one of those instances... I shudder even to repeat it... the bastard crawled over my foot. In bed. Lisa freaked and ran. (Good to know I can't count on her when the vampires finally come, I'll have to handle them myself.) We never did find it.

So, yeah, we've been in the guest bedroom since. I'm finally going to re-linen the bed tonight (it's been stripped, sheets long burned, since Saturday) and see if I can push her back in tonight. But I have a feeling neither of us will sleep well.

******************

Been reading "Rebels on the Backlot," a fawning report of how the Hollywood "studio system" was taken over by daring young filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson and David Fincher in the 90s. (Never mind that the "studio system" was dismantled in the 1950s.) I was actually finding it kind of inspiring, reading about how Stephen Soderbergh rediscovered his muse by taking a rather pedestrian thriller script and turning it into "Out of Sight," one of my favorite Hollywood movies of the last few decades. David O. Russell doing something similar with "Three Kings." I was beginning to feel better about my own genre sensibilities, maybe I could get back to work on specs that could both sell and stretch my abilities. I just finished a paid gig that was satisfying, but not creative. I want to create again.

And then I watched Guy Maddin's "The Saddest Music in the World." And now all that "daring" material about smart-talking gangsters and loving porn-film families and vacationing in John Malkovich's head feels hollow and dirty.

Maddin's feature is the best thing I've seen in years. A pitch-perfect 1930s period piece about Canadian beer and glass legs and music. You feel real proud of yourself, making an "indie" with Brad Pitt or George Clooney? My, what a risk. Try doing it with a Kid in the Hall (and not one of the cute ones, either) and Isabella Rosselini and a bunch of indigenous musicians and about one-tenth of your budget.

"The Saddest Music in the World" is one of the funniest and smartest movies I've ever seen. Find it.

Teaching My Child the Potty-Mouth

2009-11-12T12:54:00.000-08:00

Adrian is not with us anymore. Carlos says he's in the Valley, but I think he's cut him off. Carlos is a grown up. Not like I've watched him from childhood or anything, but I'm impressed with the man he's become. New daughter (a matching pair now), owns a house, he'll do whatever the hell is necessary to keep it up. In a lot of ways, he's what I wish I was. Posted Monday, April 16, 2007

Just got the flyer on the door for big trash pick-up, and so the weekend was spent outside, chainsaw a-purrin'. Were I not such a big brawny Texan, I'd have to admit that chainsaws make me want to cry and wet my panties, but this one I got is pretty cool. It's on a pole, so I can get the high branches. But wait, there's more! I was using it yesterday and it got stuck inside the wound I was inflicting on the overhead branch. I pulled. Still stuck. I gave it a little juice (electric, not gasoline). Still stuck. I pulled again -- and the rod that holds it up telescoped out another yard or so, nearly dropping me in the grass. Hot damn! Now I can get even higher! I eventually got the saw unstuck, and proceeded to get jiggy with the longer pole. Not a treetop left in my yard. All the trees are cut off at my eyeline.

I finally got to move the old wall-oven out to the curb. Wasn't there more than two hours before a rattletrap pickup cruised our street and snatched it up. I should've put it out a month ago! We got new appliances then, the oven and a refrigerator. The wall-oven came out easier than I'd expected, just heavy, but I managed to stagger it out to a wheelbarrow in the garage, and then to reside on the side-yard of the house until this weekend. The new oven was more of a challenge -- it was bigger, forcing me to cut the wall-opening an inch or so on each side. Tight, but it got in. And then it was just a matter of plugging it in, really simple. I could be one Handy Andy if all the jobs were this simple.

The new fridge is pretty badass, but the old one was still working. So I put out the call to all my usual suspects, and Carlos was the first responder. He came by with his childhood friend Adrian to pick it up. He was shooting a documentary about Adrian at the time, and so ran the camera while Adrian did most of the work. Adrian's a pleasant little guy, with a straight-forward, can-do attitude, a sort of "if it's going to get done, guess I'll be the one to do it" philosophy that I admire wholeheartedly. Indeed, all the men I've met from the Valley fall into that category -- however, I must admit, every man I've met from the Valley has been a friend of Carlos, so maybe this quality is exclusive to his friends and not the men of the Valley in general. Still, if the sampling I've found is any indication, I'd crew a movie in the Valley without hesitation. These are the kind of people you need around a set, and just one reason I'll likely never again make a movie without Carlos Pina being a part of it.

(Incidentally, it's worth noting that all the women I've met from the Valley are badass iconoclasts who wouldn't spit on me if I were on fire. But all the women I've met from the Valley are Rollergirls, which might go farther to explain this attitude than any geographic derivation -- still, if Valley women are all such ass-kickers, it might help explain why Valley men are so quick to be useful...)

That said, Adrian, it must be mentioned, answers to the name "Vile Bastard." Not just answers to it, indeed, but will happily introduce himself as such when meeting new people. "Hi, I'm Vile," he enjoys saying. I've seen no evidence of any vileness, and he speaks of his grandmother with such fondness that he cannot be a bastard by my definition. Times when I've called Carlos and he's been present, he's eagerly asked to get on the phone to say hi, like a child wanting to talk to grandpa, but with the phrase "let's get together and drink some beers" inserted.

Still, Carlos knows things I do not about Adrian, so when Adrian began to tell my five-year-old son a joke, I was amused but not shocked when Carlos cut him off mid-sentence. He was concerned about the language. Only thing I might've been worried about was the dialect he was adopting for the story, especially when he mentioned Africa as setting (Adrian delights in the sort of joke your boozy uncle will tell at the lodge meeting or the bowling alley, but can't finish at the family reunion without his wife elbowing him in the ribs). One applauds Carlos's bulldog spirit in protecting my progeny from profanity, although I happen to know he doesn't exercise the same restraint with his own daughter, who is slightly younger than my boy.

I am not a huge curser. Like smoking, it's something I know how to do, but I don't do it often. Unlike smoking, I probably do let one fly about once a day, but that's an average, more when I've struck my thumb with a hammer, less when I've simply misplaced my keys. And it varies from what the person listening is used to hearing -- my mother thinks I'm as foul-mouthed as a gangsta-rappin' sailor, my wife thinks I channel Yosemite Sam. My exclamations of pain or frustration tend to run to "dadgummits" or "godblastit" or even an only-semi-coherent grumble that, I'll confess, is a lot closer to my wife's description than an Eddie Murphy monologue circa 1987.

Still, he's learning. We were at a party the other night, the kids at a table with cheese pizza and juice bags, and the word "fart" sounded above all the other little voices, and much giggling ensued. Not among the mothers in the room, however, who gasped. Me, I just lowered my head. I recognized too well the voice that spoke the word. (We'd not long before discovered the story "Walter the Farting Dog" at the library, which involves a loveable family pet with gas so noxious as to threaten his happy home, until... but I won't spoil it, go get your own copy, the boy loves it, gives it the Junior Barnstrom Seal of Approval.) And recently, after a particularly challenging day of fatherhood, I told my wife when she came home from work, in essence, "I'm done with him, he's all yours." And she looked at the boy and asked, "did you give your father a hard time today?" And he replied, with that mixture of innocence and defensiveness one can only find in the truly young, "I didn't piss him much."

Oh, to hear your own words bounced back from the little pitcher. Once he works out context and syntax, we'll send him off to spend Christmas with Grandma.

Choke on this, Tag Body Spray!

2009-11-12T12:28:00.000-08:00

Whither Charles Bronson? Used to be a lot of tough-looking actors. Even the wimpy actors were square-jawed straight-arrow studs. Now, Christian Bale is Batman? Robin, okay, but Batman? A step up from Michael Keaton, but still pretty pathetic. However, that pendulum do swing, and "metrosexual" has joined "ebonics" and "political correctness" in the category of once-meaningful terms that now only serve as tired one-liners. (Not sure it was ever anything but, really...) The new James Bond is tough enough to eat Pierce Brosnan on toast (whose name sounds like a dish in a French restaurant, now that I think of it), Benicio Del Toro is the Wolfman, and even Danny Trejo's getting leads. Not exactly Lee Marvin territory, but we'll see. Posted Monday, April 02, 2007

MANDOM FAQs

Q: did you say "Mandom"?
A: that's what I said.

Q: wait, is that the "Death Wish" guy?
A: yuh-huh.

Q: selling cheap cologne?
A: is there any other kind?

Q: did he say "the world loves Little Lou"?
A: keep watching. It gets gayer.

Q: how many pipes does one man need?
A: if that one man is Charles Bronson, the answer is "fuck you."

Q: okay, I'll admit, Charles Bronson is the ultimate man and I could learn a lot from him, but is that really the best way to discard a used shirt?
A: unless you have a ceiling fan.

Q: is it good if my cologne makes me shoot people?
A: that's really between you and your chosen scent. Pussy.

Q: is it me, or is this thing more sexually-charged than a dozen Tag Body Spray commercials where chicks climb all over a geeky-looking guy?
A: it's not you.

Q: that's an awful lot of cologne to be putting on after coming home from a night club, isn't it?
A: are you Charles Bronson? Then shut up.

Q: holy crap, was that Japanese?
A: you didn't think this ran in America, did you?

Q: how much did they pay him for this?
A: whatever he wanted.

Q: could Charles Bronson kick Chuck Norris' ass?
A: in a coma. While connected to a machine that helped him breathe.

Q: does it make me gay if I popped a boner watching this?
A: yes, but it's a good kind of gay. A manly gay. Like a Roman centurion. More Hugh Jackman than Alan Cummings.

Q: where can I get my Mandom?
A: baby, if I knew that, I'd be out fighting off the chicks. Mmm, Mandom!

His Ancient Pagan Ceremony Will Destroy Us All!

2009-11-12T12:24:00.000-08:00

I loved this project. It should've become something I could sell, I could turn into a television pilot, or a comic book, something. But I still love it, and maybe someday it'll pay off. Posted Sunday, February 11, 2007

Went to Jacala the other day, first time in a long time. The first puffy tacos I ever tasted, and still the best. We were there for Erik's birthday. The Millers, Alston, eventually Carlos and Rockie, your humble narrator, and of course Erik. Elsewise, who would we have had to sing to? He got a flan with a candle in it. And Dar gave him a groovy little pad with tiles sewn onto the front.

The Rollergirls DVD wrapped up, in-laws gone, I spent my "week off" authoring the oft-delayed disc for my series of short-shorts, "Those Light-Fingered Kellys."

It's always weird to get back to a project a long time after it's "finished." I stopped shooting these things last year, and not in the second half of 2006, either. Judging from the change in haircuts between the third and fourth entries, it was a long time between those, too, which maybe makes it 2005 when we did the bulk of it? Ugh, if I were better at keeping records, I'd probably be really depressed. We sort of revisited it with a stupid-long "short" that pretended to be a behind-the-scenes expose, but the last shots of the real deal are a distant memory. And usually, these returns to an old project are disturbing -- jeez, was I really that amateurish? Who's running that camera? Did I get that angle on purpose? Damn, was I really that much thinner then? (Viz. "Vaya Con Dios, Asshole," "Lucky Numbers," "Sock Town," anything else I've ever done.)

But the nice thing about TLFK, it was created with such a slap-dash style, enthusiastic but without excessive concern for quality, that it's still pretty fun. I enjoy some of it more than I remembered, in fact. Possibly because I did a lot more post-production after the SEP screenings, making it all look a lot more like what I'd initially intended. But the performances, the dialogue, that stuff is still as goofily brilliant as ever. The line in the subject of this blog is a nugget of Sophie-dialogue that I'd never before realized makes me grin like a chimp. Laura's so great in this.

Samantha Garcia was in town, leaving today, I believe. For her new home and new job in New Hampshire. That's why I was working to get the TLFK DVD done, I'd promised to give one to her. (Aside from the four leads and maybe Carlos, no one appeared in more of this than she, going from hench-hygienist in the first to special guest villain in the last, with a few stops in between.) She got a somewhat unfinished version, without the blooper reel or commentaries (which I may or may not figure out how to add), with an incomplete slideshow, and no cover. She says she likes it, and I have no reason to doubt her (because it is, as she writes, a hoot and a half).

But still, it was with some reluctance that I delivered it to her, in an HEB parking lot, like a furtive drug deal. Because I knew it would be the last time I'd see her. As long as I held onto that footage, she'd still have to contact me now and again, politely cajoling. I wish I'd used her in something else before she left town, so I could have something on her for her next visit.

She's looking great, by the way, with her kicky new haircut. She is, as ever, a badass.

Untethered (like my right elbow)

2009-11-12T12:21:00.000-08:00

Man, that Roller Derby stuff... I think, looking back at it now, it was a good thing. Learning experience? Some of that. Met some interesting people? No question. Resume-filler? It's probably gotten me some jobs and attention I wouldn't normally have. But I don't think I'd do it again. Posted Wednesday, January 24, 2007

I am at last out from under. For the moment, at least. The soccer thing should be kicking in (hah!) any day now, and already I'm working on getting a new gig similar (falls under the sub-heading "dream job – short term," so I won't jinx it with discussion). But, to the point, I wrapped up the Alamo City Rollergirls DVD at the end of last week, just in time for them to sell some at the bout Sunday. No telling how they're moving yet. I hope to know more soon. Including some payment, unlikely as it seems.

But honestly, for right now, just being finished is enough for me. This thing seriously beat my ass down. It took a lot longer than expected, and not just because I didn't get much-needed support. It kept expanding before my eyes. It sort of started out as a slightly extended music video, local bands under a few shots of high-speed women knocking all hell out of each other in sexy outfits, sounded like fun to me. From there, it grew and grew, like one of those pretty weeds that grows a lot until it takes over everything around it. Morning Glory? Too tired to be clever. Shooting, watching and then capturing dozens of hours of video tape, then cutting it together to music from some incredible local bands (that's the fun part), the color-correcting (not the fun part), the graphics, the rendering, the burning. I don't like to think about the hours put into this thing, hours I should've been pursuing more practical income, hours taken off the life of my cameras and computer, hours not spent caring for my family. My wife loves to think about them, though, and to talk about them. She uses terms a gentleman of my chivalrous nature dare not repeat. She's ready to join the ACRG herself, if only to put the Aztec Smackdown on some of them by way of reparations.

Many lessons learned. Some color-correction shortcuts. The importance of more and better cameras. Spend time and effort capturing only the best, not every shot I might possibly need. Trust your camera operators. Artistic doesn't necessarily mean good. (Seriously, I could've just run Russ or Laurie's footage uncut and it would've been beautiful, but it wouldn't have been the job I was supposed to be doing…) Most important lesson: the line between "doing a job right" and "doing it well enough" is one seen only by me about half the time. This isn't a movie, it's sports video. All they really want is to see pretty girls fall on their heads. (Which they get in great numbers.)

My back seized up Sunday, doubtless in delayed reaction to the months spent bent over my keyboard and mouse. Vicodin and a clutch of Shiner's finest took a bit of the edge off, but not so much that I'd call it back to its usual limber stature (which was never that limber to begin with). I've become left-handed, as I lost use of my right elbow weeks ago. I've somehow managed to both lose weight and become even more gelatinous. I got to gets me peepers inside some specs that don't have decades-old lenses (paging Dr. Don!).

So if I've neglected you of late (can't tell you how many phone conversations I've had in the past few days that have begun with "hey, where have you been?"), my apologies. Happy Christmas, Kwaanza, Muharaam, MLK Day, New Years, birthday, anniversary, Pearl Harbor Day... I dunno, whatever else I wasn't around for. End of year through beginning of the next.

But it'll be a day or two before I meet you for lunch. I'm spending the rest of the day on the couch with a heating pad, a mug of cocoa, a couple Pop-Tarts, and the second season DVD of "Veronica Mars." Ooh, girl, don't bother me durin' my stories!

In the meantime, contact a derbygirl or two at www.alamocityrollergirls.com and tell her you want -- nay, need -- nay again, will simply die without a DVD of the 2006 season! It's worth the effort. Believe me.

New Year's Potpourri!

2009-11-12T11:59:00.000-08:00

Again, I wonder if I should be editing this stuff. Some of this is just boring, some of it is too specifically related to the time period to mean anything. It went up Friday, January 05, 2007

Inspired by Erik, I'm doing a digest blog. Pretty much just catching up. I know you've been wondering what's up with me, so... here.

Deadline for the Rollergirls video this month. I'm putting it together. It's going to kick ass. You should all order one. Maybe I'll get them to put a pre-order form on the site, give you a chance.

Just back from Reno, spent the week between Christmas and New Year's with the inlaws, including Lisa's brother and family -- three kids (well, two and a baby), wife, dog. Good folks. But their boy is slightly older than ours, and not an appreciated influence. Lots of fighting, in a fraternal way, meaning that while they like each other a lot, they hate each other, too. He'd go into fits of rage, lots of rudeness we're having to clean up now that we're home. We got in a little later than we'd planned, our flight delayed. Touched down on the runway at midnight, New Year's Eve. We saw fireworks going off from above. Not as cool as you might think. They look so huge from below, but very tiny from above. The boy had finally passed out, after a week of chocolate and cousins. We looked at him, so peaceful, and I remarked that he's a great kid, and I'm so glad we don't have more than one. Lisa said she hoped nothing happened to her brother and sister-in-law. Seemed like a nonsequitor to me, but I said yeah, that'd be horrible, and she gave it a moment for the realization to hit. Oh, crap. Are we signed up to take those kids if their parents were gone? She nodded. I'm going to require those two to take separate cars and planes from this point out.

I skiied in Reno. Or, as the knowledgable say (in Goofy cartoons and probably nowhere else), "shiied." As my expectations were dependent entirely upon James Bond movies, I'll admit they were not met. But it was fun. When it wasn't miserable. I'm still suffering. I entered into the exercise with a dread fear of being rent groin to sternum, and so tended to keep my knees together. That was not the right thing to do. One has to spread one's legs quite a bit to stop (until one learns the right way to do it). Feel the wind on your crotch. And so I was battling my preservation instinct all the way down the mountain. Twice. (And, really, shouldn't ones "preservation instinct" be left in the lodge next to the shoes and wallet before one embarks on throwing oneself down a snowy mountainside?) My technique for stopping tended to be "agony of defeat" pinwheeling falls, snow and skis and poles flying everywhere. My left groin still reminds me, a week later, that I need to get limber. Who's for Hot Body Yoga?

Ate very well in Reno, though. We went to an Indian restaurant, first time in way too long. I get Thai now and then, but when you really want the curry experience, you gots to go Indian. And this place was incredible. Seriously, I filled myself nigh unto bursting and was tempted to find a feather and go back. I know, Freddy and Shari, I know, but you need to give it another chance.

My other significant 2006 deadline, the soccer video, is also coming to an end. The Air Force colonel who contracted me to do this has gotten orders for Honduras, so we need to get it done. Only, he's the talent, and he's the one who's been dragging. Now we have only a few days left, and the weather hasn't beem favorable. In fact, we tried shooting the other day, two days before Christmas. He's out there in his soccer shorts, trying to speak his lines, frozen rain coming down sideways. I finally had to call it, not out of any concern for his well-being (indeed, although I rather like the guy, I was enjoying his predicament), but because I could see his breath. Maybe it's getting done this weekend.

My script for Short Ends was greeted by producer Matthew Jasso with nothing less than rapture. He called it the first script for one of these things that he thought in advance might make a good movie. It is a reflection of his respect for it that he omitted the phrase "except for mine." It's not an omission he makes often. I like the script. Wes (the first-time director) and I met this week, he had some good suggestions, I rewrote, and it came out a lot creepier. I hope it comes out well. There's a meeting on Sunday for anyone who wants to work on a movie. Ruta Maya, downtown, 3pm. I'll be there, if I'm not shooting soccer video.

Is it me, or has Sam Lerma departed MySpace for parts unknown? The weight of newborn responsibility might've caught up with him. I hope instead that he's given up the time-drain that is MySpace so that he can devote more of his life to making movies. We'll miss you.

But as that left a hole in my Top Eight, I decided to shuffle. See if you can figure out my theme for this week.

I've also added a new song, Henry Mancini's theme for "Experiment in Terror." Mancini is one of the few film-scorers who I'll listen to without the picture. That's not just because he scored so many awful films (seriously, did we think Blake Edwards was good for so long because of the music?) but because Hank was a serious jazz man. I just ordered the first season of "Peter Gunn" on DVD because of the music.

Been reading the collected Joe Kubert Tarzan. It's amazing story-telling. Beautiful, detailed art, sometimes goes pages without dialogue. It reads like "Prince Valiant" without the grandmother smel

Happy Christmas (War is Over)

2009-11-11T19:56:00.000-08:00

Christmas is a holiday. This was posted Monday, December 18, 2006

So, it's December 2006, and nobody but Stephen Colbert and Laura Evans are bitching about a "War on Christmas." Which means it's officially over. A moment of silence for all those brave Christian soldiers who gave their all for the cause. Wal-Mart is like a charnel house, it's all over but the mopping.

What worries me now is that, in fact, they aren't pretending there's a threat to the official US government religion. If they aren't using that to distract us from the fact that we're killing Middle-Easterns by the thousands (and losing our own troops by the hundreds, at least), then exactly what surprise are they going to spring on us this year? Two years ago, it was "look, there's Saddam in a spider-hole!" Last year it was "chain stores and the Democrats hate you!" (Which, in fact, is the truth, but it doesn't have anything to do with religion.) This year? I like to hope that the mid-term elections made them decide to give it up. But it doesn't really seem likely, does it?

I'm not a fan of this time of year. It's not the weather -- unlike most Texans, I like winter, I spent two years in Kansas, and while there's no end of reasons to hate Kansas, the winter's not one for me. Hip-deep snow drifts are my idea of fun. And besides, it's not like it's winter here anyway, calendar be damned. Might as well be Easter, for all the chill in the air now.

No, I'm afraid it's the obvious. I really dislike these holidays. (And yes, Laura, there are more than one.) The lunatic materialism. The lunatic crowds. The lunatic family.

Mostly the family. My mother was sort of obsessive about Christmas when I was a child. Everything had to be just perfect. When I was living with them, the dread began in early November. I never even got to enjoy a Thanksgiving for the anticipation of what was coming at the end of the meal. The house would have to be transformed, and dramatically so. When my parents moved to a new house (after I'd packed out to college), Mom had to have the one with the enormous picture window that opened on a room with cranberry-red walls and ceiling and white trim. She even paid extra to make the previous owners leave their furniture -- all white, naturally. She packs that window with all the tinsel and garlands and trees (that's right, plural) that will fit. (Little wonder they're burgled every few years, the insurance company probably has a folder with my parents' number prepared by every December 10.) A friend's wife once walked in and rudely blurted to my mother the phrase we'd all thought but avoided saying: "it looks like Santa Claus threw up in here!"

Mom's lightened up a bit in recent years, thanks in large part to her discovery of certain prescription chemicals that will take the edge off. (Which she doesn't know I know about, and would deny vociferously if I brought it up anywhere she could hear it, so I don't.) And I've tried to ease up a bit myself -- I can't say I love the decorations, but I tend to keep my trap shut about it. But like all families, we've all been put into certain categories and are stuck with them until we die, and mine is "the guy who wants to destroy Christmas for us all!" My siblings are wary around me, always ready for me to say something that'll light a fuse. And so I can't be comfortable with them. Or Christmas.

Now that I have a child who's old enough to dig it, I'm doing the Christmas thing. I have a tree, as always -- Lisa's understanding, but she's insisted on a tree every year, and she's kind enough not to make me work too hard on it. And there'll be gifts under it come Christmas morning (the boy wants a new bicycle). We went to the school Christmas play the other night (the reason I missed the SA film mixer). I'm enjoying his reaction to all of this (except when he sees a toy commercial on TV). I watched the Pee-Wee Christmas Special the other night (Grace Jones singing "the Little Drummer Boy"!). I'm being good. I know Santa's watching.

But I'll be glad when it's over.

Hef and the Boy Scout

2009-11-11T19:50:00.000-08:00

I like this story. Nostalgia, to quote myself, is porn for old people, and maybe I'm getting old, but damn it, I like this story. A little tone-poem of an era. I'm tempted to turn it into a short film. Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Been a lot of album rock on the radio lately. The boy wants music when we drive, and the funk station talks all the time, and the college stations aren't dependable, and well, I don't have to tell you that radio sucks anyway, right? But if the CDs come out, the boy demands one of "his" discs, all of which make me want to steer into an embankment.

So it's all the best of the 70s. And the worst. For every Stones or Bowie or Queen song I don't mind hearing over and over, and for every now-and-then like Heart or Fleetwood Mac or Led Zepplin, and for every one-off "oh, I love this song" like Golden Earring's "Radar Love" or T-Rex's "20th Century Boy," there's a hell of a lot of Doors and Johnny Cougar and Bruce Springsteen.

What really jumps out, though, is when they play a Steely Dan song. Horns, organs, Motown backup singers, themes of middle-aged ennui, what the hell was this band doing playing in the era of big guitars and earnest working men wailing about cars and girls?

Listening to the few 'Dan songs they'll play booted a childhood memory onto a front-burner of my cerebellum.

Must've been 1977 or so, that's when the album came out. Would've put me at 12 or 13, prime time for li'l Pete's sexual awakening. I was a Boy Scout, which probably doesn't surprise you. I was going door-to-door, trying to sell something for some damned reason, I forget what. Anyway, there I was, in my little uniform, thumb on a doorbell, all prepared to launch into my spiel.

And the door opens, and there he is. Tall, tanned, glint-eyed, just a touch of gray at the sleek temples. Black turtleneck, at least in my memory, with a herringbone sports jacket, and was there a pipe clutched between his ivories? Maybe. No probably not, because I'm sure I do recall a martini glass in hand. His home, what I could see of it, was the bachelor pad to launch a thousand panties. Probably there was a Nagel print, although I wouldn't have known the artist at the time. I got the hint, maybe it was a scent, of some pneumatic sexpot just out of eyeshot, curled purring on a leather settee, a Manhattan beading sweat on the kidney-shaped coffee table, coasters and tastefully provocative photobooks arranged just so. And Steely Dan's "Aja" was playing on the hi-fi, speakers hidden inside professionally-tended houseplants.

And I saw this, and I heard this, and I smelled this, and I thought... this is what I want to be.

He didn't buy whatever I was selling. I doubt I even managed to stammer out my pitch. But I sure as hell bought what he was selling. And I bet the woman did, too, whoever, wherever she was.

Damn. I gotta pull out my copy of "Aja."

Today's the last day!

2009-11-11T19:44:00.000-08:00

There was an election day just a couple weeks ago. I didn't bother. Not even sure what was being decided. Wish I'd gone to the horse races instead. I hear Kinky's running as a Dem next time. Maybe he'll get elected. That'd be fun. Posted Friday, November 03, 2006

That's right, this is the last 50 cent Friday out at Retama Park! Last chance to watch them ponies run and gorge on hotdogs and beer for two-bits!

Yeah, all right, it's your last day to vote early. Do it today, or you'll have to wait in line with the chumps on Tuesday.

I'm a little surprised at how terrified everyone who claims a party affiliation is about Kinky Friedman. Republicans I know think he's going to split the conservative vote. Democrats fear he's taking votes away from their (invisible) candidate. Libertarians... well, Libertarians aren't scared of anything, they already know better than to think that they can get elected.

But the thing about Kinky, he's got a shot at it. The Democratic candidate for governor, Bell (what's his first name? Chris? Art? Archie and the Drells?), he might as well not even be running. He's got a very serious chance of coming in fourth. (But he'll beat the Libertarian, you can take comfort in that). Good Hair and Gramma Straylander, they've got Baja Oklahoma tied up. That leaves the real Texans, those of us south of Waco, with only one vote -- the first independent candidate since Sam Houston who has a real shot at being the Governor of Texas, my man Kinky Friedman.

You say his politics bother you? Well, clearly you're looking too closely. The man has no politics. He wants to put more guardsmen on the border to keep out Mexicans? Okay. My solution for the "problem" of illegal immigration would be to decriminalize it, just let anyone who wants to be an American be an American, that's what it's supposed to be all about. But I'm not going to vote against a candidate for that stance -- it's no different than anyone else's on the ballot. (Except the lackwits who want to put up a wall, but really, why even talk about them?) He wants to bring casino gambling here, to help pay for schools. Because, hey, it worked so well with the lottery, right? Idiocy.

But he has a health-care initiative, he wants to stop the teach-to-the-test ridiculousness, he wants to pay teachers, he wants to legalize smoking (of all sorts), he has a plan for developing renewable energy and ending redistricting. He's for equal rights, he takes care of animals. He has a sense of humor.

Look, you know, I know, everyone knows it, Rick Perry's getting re-elected. We'd all like to see something else happen, even Republicans, but he's coming back. He has good hair, and he has the endorsement of no less than Chuck Norris. And being Dubya's hand-picked successor might be a negative anywhere else, but inexplicably, it means something here.

So make your vote count. Vote for someone instead of against someone.

Anyone who wants to hit the track tonight, give me a call! Let's go watch the horsies run! Fifty cents!

The Secret Life of Penguins

2009-11-11T19:40:00.000-08:00

I don't tend bar these days. Not saying I won't go back to it, but presently, I don't have the time. I can always use the money. Monday, October 30, 2006

At some point in the life of every young man born since, say, 1959, he will be required to wear a tuxedo. And on this ocassion, each and every gentleman of that and succeeding generations will steal a solitary moment in front of a mirror to say:

"Bond. James Bond."

That young man's days pass, and he'll have to put on a tuxedo again. And this time, if sufficient years have elapsed, he'll say:

"Christ. You look like a waiter."

I have, in recent days, been required to wear a tuxedo on a semi-regular basis. I like to call myself a filmmaker, and on my tax return I list my occupation as free-lance video professional. But video jobs have been few and far between of late (last one was early last week, out at Valero, a half-day conference, and that was the first new one in awhile that paid anything), so I've taken up some part time work with a temp agency for the food service industry.

Not your hair-net and double-knit variety food service, no fry-o-laters or happy meals for me, I'm not that desperate. But this is not a major step up from there -- they supply staff for banquets and private parties. At first, I told them they could put me down for serving food as well as tending bar, but I've since limited myself to the only-slightly-less-soul-sucking bar work. It at least pays better, and is easier. And is less humiliating.

But just as I don't generally wear my glasses in public, I've been reluctant to tell others about this work. I'd rather you all believe I'm a prosperous and hard-working filmmaker. If I'm not available for your shoot or screening or shindig, it's because I'm busy meeting with Clooney and Soderbergh about that script of mine they're interested in, not because I'm slinging hash at an overdressed barbecue.

It couldn't be hidden forever, though, could it?

Because they know me to be a sophisticate with sparkling repartee, the company likes to send me to arty parties where the fartsy set admire one another. I can talk that game. And at last Friday's opening at Galleria Ortiz, my cover was blown. Two of the professors from Northwest Vista College, once my colleagues, showed up. I probably could've kept my mouth shut and they'd never have quite remembered the name of that handsome fellow in the monkey suit cracking the caps off the Coronitas. But I said howdy, and we chatted. It wasn't as horrible as I'd feared, being discovered. They kind of assumed that I was volunteering my time for a friend, I gather. I didn't disabuse them of that notion, but neither did I encourage it. A blue collar hero in a tuxedo, that's me.

The night after, I was at the Daughters of the Texas Revolution dinner, slinging Chardonnay for the chi-chi. The tipping was easy; I do well with prosperous souses. I played one fellow in a tux and matching Stetson for about half a bottle of Dewar's White Label. It got where I was turning down his money after awhile, he was tipping so egregiously.

But when Randy Beemer showed, local TV personality, I bit my tongue. I think he might've recognized me, I'm not quite sure. He had that look, but maybe he has that for everyone, mirroring the faces of those he meets ("wait, don't I know you...?"). I didn't remind him that I was his producer on a local PBS show that wasn't. There's a limit to the humiliation I'll accept.

Beemer's not a great tipper, by the way.

Man-Boy Love (not like that)

2009-11-11T19:35:00.000-08:00

A blog about how much I love my son. If anything, I love him even more now. Plus a great story (if I do say so myself) about taking him to playgrounds. From Wednesday, October 25, 2006

The boy and I are at the park the other day. A mother is pushing her kid on the swing next to ours, and she can't get her other kid to heel. He's on the other end of the playground and making tracks for the sandpit. But the little brother won't get off the swing.

"I'll keep him going," I tell her, and she thanks me and charges off in her high-heels after the brother. (High-heels on a cedar-chip playground, here's your first clue where this is going...) Easy enough for me to keep two swings going, and I do. Until the little brother starts blubbering for Mommy, now hobbling into the sandpit and grabbing a kid by the ear. Her own kid, I'm guessing.

My boy swings on, happily trying to touch treetop with his toes, so I attend to the crying kid. Soon the mother comes back, and expresses some delight that her child is crying for her. "It's the first time he's ever been worried for me!" (Early indicator of Munchausen-by-proxy? I make a note to consult psychiatric journals when I get home.) Big brother tags along behind her and she makes him sit on one of the tarry railroad ties surrounding us. He's about eight, I guess. I guess because I have no idea how old kids are, unless they're four-and-a-half, like mine, or under. That's the only frame of reference I have, how they measure up to my kid. (Few make the grade, I needn't mention.)

"You could've gotten lost out there!' she shrills at him.
"Aw, Ma, I was alright..." (That's right, he talked like one of the Dead End Kids, all the kids talk like that these days, and carry slingshots and live frogs in the back pockets of their overalls.)
"Someone could've taken you away!"
"Nobody's gonna grab me here."
"Shows what you know! This is just the sort of place where men come to take little boys!"

This from the woman who left me pushing her three-year-old on a swing. I'll confess, it was very tough for me not to point at my kid and interject into their conversation, "it's true, where do you think I got this one?" The boy would've backed me up on it, he's got a nicely absurd sense of humor for his age.

Overreacting? Sure. There were other parents there at the sandpit, they'd certainly have noticed a strange man approaching. God help me if I walked up without the boy, I'd have been stoned. Already I get suspicious glares, simply for being male. And, well, kind of creepy-looking, I guess.

But what bugs me about the current culture of paranoia parenting is that there's an element of truth to it. Yeah, there are bad people around. But are there more now than there were when I was a kid? I suspect not.

My boy has never met a stranger. He walks up to people and tells them his full name, including middle and last, my name (legal, nick-, and what he calls me -- Daddy), and I'm getting a little reluctant to teach him our address lest he invite someone over to play with his dogs. (Vicious maneaters, to a one, stay away.) Within about fifteen minutes of meeting a pretty girl or woman, he tells her that he loves her. He gives out hugs and kisses like a Hollywood celeb, only he means them.

Should I teach him to be wary? His teacher (a very stern woman) says she doesn't want him hugging her anymore, it puts her "in an awkward position." What, she's Mary Kay Letourneau? He's four, he loves! But maybe she's right. Maybe it'd be wise to teach him to be a little more restrained.

I don't want him to lose his trust. He is the most unrestrained person I know. He is id incarnate. His laugh brightens any day.

I think he knows better than to walk off with anyone but me. I guess we have to talk about that. Damn.

Attach electrodes here, please...

2009-11-11T19:30:00.000-08:00

I should probably start skipping some of these old blogs. Do you really need to know about film festivals I didn't attend? I include this only because of the comments about the Cameo and Rocky Horror and especially Roy Thomas, whom I saw again not long ago stealing the show "The Brain That Wouldn't Die." I need to work with him again. First posted Friday, October 13, 2006

Damn. How blase am I about the film festivals where my "Mars Needs Bibles" is playing?

Too freaking blase, that's how. Somebody give me a jolt.

I just found out that it's showing tomorrow (Saturday) at Reel Pride Michigan in Detroit. The midnight show, before the crowd-pleaser "Creatures From the Pink Lagoon." I'm going to call it the prestigious midnight slot, because I want to believe that it's prestigious. The two together are definitely midnight movie material. We should tour, show it at all the places they need to rest their copy of Rocky Horror. (The movie, not the play, which never gets old and is running at the Cameo even now, go see it, Roy Thomas plays Dr. Frank, and he's probably the funniest, sexiest, most entertaining actor they could have gotten for the part. I really look forward to seeing it, if there is ever again some weekend when I don't have to work.)

They told me about the Detroit screening some time ago... well, not that long ago, but awhile back, long enough that I thought it was just happening sometime in the future. Long enough ago that the middle of October was a hell of a long time away.

No longer the case.

Check out www.reelpridemichigan.com for location. I'd love to hear back from anyone who sees it there. Or anywhere. It's coming up in other places too, probably...

The Soccer Witch Project

2009-11-11T19:24:00.000-08:00

A bittersweet story about what an ass I am. Well, bitter to me, sweet to the guys who were laughing at me. Posted it for the first time Tuesday, October 10, 2006

My pal Jamie flew into Austin recently to meet with some guys about a project they're working on. He was to be talking with David Goyer (who wrote a couple of the Blade movies and is currently writing/directing the Flash movie) and the Blair Witch guys, Ed, Mike, and Gregg (who just completed production on an adaptation of Jamie's reverse-alien-abduction script "Altered").

Jamie invited me to come up and say howdy Sunday night. We sat on the roof of the Omni Hotel and looked out at the city. It was the second highest point in the city, the highest point being that ginormous Frost Bank building that looks like something out of Metropolis, which lowered over us, lit up like a second moon. I'd seen it coming up over the past few years, but I don't think I'd ever seen the lights on. You could read by it. It's like those lights they have in downtown Austin, designed to keep coeds safe when walking at night. Bright.

Goyer had left the night before, but we were joined there by John Pierson (author of "Spike, Mike, Slackers & Dykes," host of the IFC show "Split Screen," new UT professor) and his wife Janet (world-traveler, raconteur, board-member of the Austin Film Society). They'd early on been supporters of "Blair Witch," got a thank-you in the credits. We spent the evening telling stories and laughing, generally a good time. John and Janet had spent time running a theater in Fiji (there's a documentary called "Reel Paradise" on the way), acting as sort of cinema missionaries. They tell me "Sorority Boys" was far and away the most popular movie ever shown there. Men wearing women's clothing is a big success with the island folk. Something to remember when trying to market that Fijian romcom you've been working on.

Somehow, the subject of Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson came up. Maybe he's well-loved in Fiji, I forget. But Gregg mentioned the movie "The Scorpion King," a spin-off from "The Mummy" series, and I was inspired to tell my Soccer Dog story. (Hold on, this starts making sense in a moment.)

Years ago, my noir thriller script "80 Proof" did pretty well in the Nicholl Fellowship screenwriting competition, put on by the Oscar folks, AMPAS. It brought me a brief period of hot (well, lukewarm), and I was contacted by a few different producers, all of whom were smaller than they'd let on (naturally, that's what a producer is, unless you've heard of him or her). And all of whom told me how wonderfully dark and twisted my script was, and how they loved the main character and narrator, a tough-talking, alcoholic, and misogynistic victim of a brutal (there could be any other kind?) immolation.

Among those who contacted me was a fellow who'd completed a submarine drama with William H. Macy (the one from "Boogie Nights" and "Fargo," not the one from "Maude"). He was developing two other projects, a proposed sequel to "The Scorpion King," (told you I'd get to it), and the latest installment of the "Soccer Dog" franchise, some sort of B-level "Air Bud" knock-off (which would probably make it C-level or lower, I guess). And, with my dark and cynical tone, I'd be perfect for... "Soccer Dog 2: Electric Boogaloo." (No, that wasn't really the title...)

Big laugh from the Blair Witch gang, and they started riffing on the possibilities, developing in their minds an "animals playing sports" film festival, hah-hah, good times. Except for Ed, who slanted his eyes at me and asked, "did you do it?" I confessed that I didn't, and he looked away. I was officially dismissed. Jamie told me that, in later conversation, they thought I should've done it. Anything for a credit, I suppose.

Only, the producer wasn't willing to pay -- not just not enough, but at all, saying I'd get a cut of the back end. Which means, I need hardly mention, no money at all, a position I've been in too often, and don't want to be in again. An IMDb search reveals that there was indeed a sequel, "Soccer Dog: European Cup," and I suppose it's possible I'd have snagged a trip to the Continent out of it (but that doesn't seem likely). As far as I can tell, there was no "Scorpion King" sequel, so I suppose it's best he didn't offer that (I might've done it).

At the end of the night, Mike wished me good luck with "Soccer Dog," and I laughed, but not hard. They'll remember me as "Soccer Dog" from here on out.

My own fault, I suppose. I could've been "Gay SciFi Guy."

Here's Some Fun For The Young People!

2009-11-11T19:17:00.000-08:00

It's funny to me now, looking back on the battles I had with computer programs. It reminds me of when I was in college, working on the restoration of "Gone With The Wind," and treating all the material with gloves and tongs. It's so much easier now! Wonder what I'll be saying in three more years? Remember Macs? Final Cut? Wow, what were we thinking...? Saturday, October 07, 2006

Hey, kiddies, want to learn some new curse words? Get your parents permission and ask me about my "new" authoring software.

For the past year or so, I've been leaning on friends like Erik and Carlos for help burning DVDs. Serious problems getting movies off of my computer. Ridiculous sacrifices from my friends to allow me to put my stuff on the format I needed. Premiere used to burn them for me, but then stopped for some reason, and I could never figure out why, and that's about where my intellectual and technological capacity found its limit.

So, at some personal effort, another of my buddies (Jerrod) got me a copy of Sonic's My DVD, a no-frills program guaranteed to pump out the discs for me. Which was really helpful, because it allowed me to get my reel out to a company in Austin that (according to a recruiter who was bugging the hell out of me for a week) was really anxious to see it after reading my resume. The latest version of which I apparently need to frame, because no one should be that excited about my resume. Said company has since evidently sat on the disc for the week since, not commenting on it. Like my hair's not gray enough.

We were talking about authoring software, weren't we?

Okay, so Jerrod used it at his place, burned my disc, I got it into the mail. Then I took the software home and started to install it on my computer. At which point I got a message that read something like this:

"The program 'Sonic' is already on your computer, do you wish to replace it?"

I'll give you a moment to let that sink in.

The past year-plus I've spent trying to get software so I could get movies off my computer and onto a DVD for my friends and loved ones, all that time mooching and kicking my computer and whining, and the program was already on my computer.

If the dogs in your neighborhood started howling earlier this week, it was in reaction to my screaming. Or possibly to Lisa's hysterical (and I might add, entirely unkind) laughter.

Anyone else noticed that I promised to only talk about positive things on my blog, and then neglected it until I nearly had an infarction over a piece of software?

Yeah, me too.

If you haven't seen Cronenberg's "A History of Violence," do. Textbook example of how a great director can turn a mediocre script into something spectacular. And watch the extras. Incredible stuff there.

The Bright Side

2009-11-11T19:13:00.000-08:00

Hmm. Guess I mentioned the "open a vein" line in the very next blog. I should read these things. Ah, well. Wednesday, September 06, 2006

It's been suggested that my blogs of late have been a bit depressing. Travis's exact words, I think, were that they made him want to open a vein. So I'll endeavor to be a little brighter. Instead of my usual rant (which tends to be somewhat cranky, I'll admit), I'll list the stuff I'm happy about right now.

For instance, I'm so glad to be in San Antonio right now. One cannot always say that. It's been hot as the pit lately, but the rain, the lovely rain, it came a-pouring down yesterday and last night, and now I have the windows open and the temp is in the 70s (if you're into Celcius, translate that as nice and cool) and the sunshine is brilliant and I feel like a new man. Rain and sun being a proven combination, tomorrow I'll no doubt have to mow, a job I do not relish. But I don't even care, it feels so good today.

And my friends, I love my friends. Yesterday was Andy's birthday, and a bunch of us met at Casbeer's. A San Antonio tradition, but I'd never been there before, and I liked it. The food was only okay, but the company was great, and the atmosphere was so wonderfully seedy. I don't know if the toothless old guy with the eye-patch (who was there when I entered and left) is a permanent installation, but he should be. Just the sort of advertising you want, if you desire the Mistah Pete dollar.

But it was my friends I was talking about, wasn't it? Andy's a great guy, and I was pleased to help him welcome a new year. His wife Dar is one of my favorites (favorite people, not favorite of his wives), and she was there. Travis and his wife Leah, whom I was meeting for the first time. Amy, Erik, Lanni, Nikki, Tony, Randy, and a number of Andy's friends whom I'd not met before. But everybody loves Andy. And there was plenty of gab and juicy gossip going around the table. Good time.

My family, I'm crazy about my family. I know my last blog might've sounded negative on the subject, but what might've been left unsaid, what I didn't think needed to be said, is that my kid really is great. He's endlessly funny, often intentionally so, and has more energy than swimming pool full of Red Bull. My wife is the smartest person I know, and she's good to me. One cannot always say this, but when I look at the blogs of so many people I know, I'm so glad not to be young and single. (Rest easy, dear reader, knowing that I'm not talking about you... the people of whom I speak are far too self-involved to be reading my blog...)

I'm due a big check in the middle of this month. Actually, it was due at the beginning of the month, but they assure me it'll get here by about the 15th. That will end a lot of money woes for me, and I'll breathe much easier.

There are a lot of new projects on my horizon, some of which really excite me. A new script, a short film or two, even the possibility of a TV show. And all of them things I want to do, not assignments. The distinction is so important to me right now that I stoop to using italics. Sure, doing my own stuff means no money coming in, but at least I'll be attacking the work with gusto. And that's essential to my happiness.

If my next blog is cranky again, you'll know the projects all fell through. Buy me a beer.

Don't, don't, don't let's start

2009-11-11T19:08:00.000-08:00

Not long after this was posted (Saturday, September 02, 2006), I saw some friends and Travis said something along the lines of how my blogs were making him want to open a vein. I guess I was a little bleak. But not sure I'd change a word in this. Not that I've re-read it closely...

Through very little effort of my own, I'm considered an expert in my tiny little world in two categories.

One is screenwriting, partly because I've acquired some minor acclaim within that discipline, and partly because my pal Kevin Williams (a professional educator) signed up to teach a night class on the subject some years ago and then bailed out, asking me to cover for him, and I've since been "the screenwriting teacher," a title with which I am more than a tad uncomfortable.

The second category is parenting. I have a child, and in the world of slacker artists and feckless ne'er-do-wells I inhabit, just having an acknowledged child is a huge rarity. Seriously, I can't think of a half-dozen people in the local film community who have kids, it's freakish.

Anyway, enough hapless suckers seem to think that I'm the expert on these two subjects that I've been asked my opinion on numerous occasions, friends wanting to know what it's like, what they need to do to get into my exalted position. And my response is always the same.

Don't.

Seriously, if you can avoid it, don't.

Screenwriting, it almost goes without saying, is a thankless profession. You get blame, but never praise. Truth be told, that division is probably about right. Screenwriters can screw a story up, but if a movie's good, it hasn't a lot to do with the screenplay. If you remember a line from a movie with great fondness, odds are good that everyone else remembers that same line, too, because it's rare. And, hell, it's more than likely that it's the delivery you dig, not the line -- the word "groovy" doesn't float any boats unless it's Bruce Campbell saying it.

But then there's parenting. Having a child is supposed to be the most wonderful thing in the world. Ask any overweight girl in the dawn of adolescence, with access to a greasy jerk her parents haven't met. Children make you complete. But it's not really like that. Kids are expensive, kids take up all your time, kids keep you from doing the things you really should be doing with your life. The sacrifices you make honestly don't outweigh the good stuff, not most of the time.

Look, if the last thing the world needs isn't another screenplay, that's only because the last thing this world really needs is another child.

Screenwriting isn't making movies. Screenplays aren't art. (And don't get me started on how if Shakespeare's plays are art, why can't screenplays be? When we start making movies in one take with a single wideshot, before a live audience, then we can talk about screenplays as art...) And making babies isn't parenting.

I love my child, more than anything in the world, and more than anything you'll ever love (unless you have your own child). He's wonderful. And I love some of the stories I've written, too (although none as much as the movies I've made).

But if you have to ask me, the answer must be no, for either of those subjects. You only do it if you must. Only if you absolutely must.

Otherwise, get a dog and a camera.

Rollergirls!

2009-11-11T19:04:00.000-08:00

This Rollergirls thing... man, I was hot on it once, wasn't I? Funny, looking back at it. Turned out to be a big mess in the end, and very frustrating. Later blogs, I trust, reflect that. Or maybe it's all in my mind. This was first posted Monday, August 21, 2006

When I tell people I'm producing the season DVD for the Alamo City Rollergirls, they always ask me the same question. Male or female, almost everyone wants to know: Are they hot?

Do people ask the guys in the tank at SeaWorld if the fish are real big? Anybody pull the dude with the jackhammer aside to find out if the street is hard? Of course the Rollergirls are hot! (If you want to impress, refer to them as "derby girls." A little inside dope for you.)

But here's the thing -- it's not just the hardbodies, the Amazons, the sleek speed demons who are hot. Ages out there range from 18 to 46 (I think that's the oldest). Body types go from Kate Moss to Lane Bryant and beyond. There are tattoos and piercings and there are moms and accountants. Satanic rockers and church-going choir girls. You see some of these women on the street, you might not think anything of it, or you might cross to the opposite sidewalk.

See them on the track, dressed to (almost literally) kill, and you'll be knocked out.

Part of it is the outfits, of course -- almost any woman's going to look good in fishnet hose and a corset, that's just natural law, part of God's plan. And part of it is the skates and pads and helmets, makes them taller and tougher and incredibly bad-ass, RoboCop in drag (which is an idea that'll make some Hollywood executive rich someday...).

Most of it, however, is attitude. These women are so confident. You watch them and can't help but want to be with them, if only in the hope that some of that might rub off. Women have known this for generations -- the bad boy is sexy not because he's bad, but because he's so sure of himself.

Last night was the best night of Roller Derby all season. The most violent, the fastest, and not a single fight, maybe for the first time. Not surprisingly, we got some great shots. Russ was there, his camera up on his monopod (not a euphemism) and swooping all over the place. Laurie was there, camped out by the benches, getting the sweep around the first turn.

And I was giddy with the excitement. I finally got the shot I've been waiting for since the first bout -- one of the girls skidded out of control and landed right in my lap! I was so cool, even I couldn't believe it (and I know how impossibly cool I am). I consciously did not extend a leg to protect myself (I was on the floor by the track), lest I injure the skater. I did bring my knee up slightly, to let my shin protect my groin, and I feel it a little, but not much. (My shin, not my groin.) I didn't waver in my shot, kept the camera right on (I think it was) Nita Spankin as she plunged toward the lens (but didn't hit it, thank goodness). If I were a photojournalist, this is where I'd be talking Pulitzer.

But that was just my best shot of the night, far from the only great one. There was so much hitting and bumping, I may have to use some of the extra to beef up the video of some of the less dynamic nights.

Next month, there are two rounds -- an All-Star game in Austin, against the best of the two Dallas leagues, the best of the Houston league, and the winners play the Austin champs. And then there's the Alamo City Rollergirls Championship itself, third Sunday, that promises to be a big one. There'll be a lot of action in that one.

If you've got a three-chip camera and want in on this, let me know. I'm always looking for more crew. And it's a great time.

Acting (the fool...)

2009-11-11T18:59:00.000-08:00

Acting is weird stuff. Just in case my last post suggested I was a genius at it, this shows you how awful I am. Originally posted Saturday, August 19, 2006

There's a reason you should always get the best and most professional actors you can. And that is because using an amateur -- especially a single amateur working amid talented actors who try to talk him through it -- is going to make your shoot last twice as long, and may result in an end product that is far less than you imagined.

Last night, we shot the last scene from "Joined," Travis's production of Andy's script about conjoined twin prostitutes. Sort of. Well, just see it, then you'll know what it's about. Anyway, we shot the sex scene last night. I was an actor. I'm not sure if I learned that one needs to schedule the sex early, to get it out of the way, or late, to put off until the end the most difficult stuff. Because, it most certainly was difficult, at least for me.

At the time, I was thinking that it was because I was getting old, but on reflection, no, I suspect it's just a flaw in my character. I'm not sure if there was ever a time when I would've been comfortable simulating noisy sex with two beautiful girls, in the bedroom one shares with her husband, and with the other's ten-year-old child downstairs. A less uptight man than myself would surely have dived into the situation with aplomb, no doubt. That is to say, a real actor.

But more than the psychic discomfort was the physical. I honestly don't know how the Hefnerian set pull it off -- there are serious blocking issues involved with a three-way, especially one where the two women involved are (or at least are pretending to be) joined at the hip. Where exactly do I position my knee here, Travis? Pants on or off? Could you by any chance phrase that direction not to be dirty, dirty inuendo? These are not questions he (or anyone) is prepared to be asked.

Then there was the linen equivalent of rug-rash, the muscle cramps, the sweat (oh, the lights, the lights!), and the little matter of where to rest my bulk when straddling a woman I'm really not prepared to be straddling quite so intimately. I found myself far more aware of the bodies of my friends than I'd ever intended to be. And leave us not forget the glasses -- I needed them on (otherwise, at least in my mind, it was just Pete dry-humping Lanni and Dawn, and not Councilman Pinksi aboard the Butterworth twins), but they kept slipping down and falling. I think they may have chipped Dawn's tooth in one particularly nasty plummet, while I was in mid-spasm.

I have found myself, in times past, scoffing at the actors who claim that sex-scenes are hard work. Sure, Michael Douglas, must be difficult rolling around with a naked Sharon Stone (you know, back when it meant something for either of them to be naked). Never again. It is hard work, especially if you've been dosed with more than your share of Catholic (well, Episcopalian) guilt.

All in all, it was like sex with a stranger. Partially dressed. In the presence of three other men. And without, y'know, any of the good stuff.

I Know What Directors Like...

2009-10-26T11:00:00.000-07:00

Another post devoted to the late Short Ends Project. And my ego. That pretty much should be the name of this blog, Devoted To My Ego. Stroke it. Stroke it, I say! Saturday, August 12, 2006

At the last Short Ends audition, Annie approached me about playing a part in her short, the role of an over-the-hill porn star. All singing, all dancing, all sex lube. As I told Paul at the time, I can sing, and I can dance, but I can't sing and dance. And as for sex lube, well, I'll moderate my comments there. I suggested she find a real actor, and named a few who'd do it better than I would. I was concerned I'd screw up her directorial debut for her.

Afterwards, at Alibi's, I mentioned it, laughing, mostly because of the thought of me acting. (I'm not an actor.) But also at the thought of me playing Ron Jeremy, because... dammit, I almost did want to play a guy like that, it would be fun! But then Lanni said, her manner so matter-of-fact that she could not possibly have meant it as a compliment, "You're better looking than Ron Jeremy." Which is the damnedest sort of damning with faint praise.

Believe it or not, there was a time when I was more attractive than the hulk you find before you today. Just after high school. Younger, slimmer, even athletic, my face less lined, and less hairy. I lacked the devastating charm that comes with maturity, or my Clooneyesque salt-and-pepper hair, but in a general way, I was what the young people used to call a hotty.

I worked at the time, on and off, at a movie theater. The manager was an elegant fellow named Reed Chambers: not young, a little creepy, but fun enough to be around, in a Paul-Lynde-snarky kind of way. He was into me, on a level far from innocent, but not terribly serious. And while assuring him that he was sniffing around the wrong hydrant, I'll admit I was somewhat flattered. It was fun to get that sort of attention -- lord knows, I wasn't getting much of it from women. He'd try to convince me, young and impressionable, that I was gay. He'd leeringly inform me that sex with men was like none other -- men know what men want. It was my experience at the time what women had a pretty damned good idea what men want, too, and in turn, I was willing and happy to give them whatever they wanted, so his progress was necessarily impeded. Just wasn't going to happen.

But today, acting in Travis Thomsen's adaptation of Andy Miller's script "Joined," I thought of ol' Reed, for the first time in a decade or two.

As I say, I acted. And as I said before that, I am not an actor, and I am certainly not a good actor. But I was pretty good today, playing a pervy city councilman. I wore Erik's flasher raincoat, and a big black hat, and a pair of pop-bottle-lens glasses that kept slipping off my sweat-soaked nose. Seriously, it was sweltering today, insanely hot. Especially in that get-up.

But getting back to it -- I was pretty good. And the reason I was good wasn't because I'm talented (I'm not), or because I'd studied the craft (I haven't), or even because I was working with actors who made me look good (Dawn, Lanni, Josh, and Scott are all wondeful, but nobody's that good).

I was good because directors know what directors want. And need.

After you've directed (and especially edited) a few times, you start to recognize problems that come about with actors. Performers who do something different every time -- which is a gift, I really admire an actor who can give you a new trick each time out -- will make you crazy in the editing room. Although my character was twitchy as a three-day cappuccino jag, I kept my performance as simple as possible, and concentrated like a sumbitch on being in the same place at the same moment each take. If Travis has problems cutting this together, I told myself, it won't be my fault.

In a later sequence, tracking my shoes along the pavement, Travis was generous enough to adjust the viewscreen of his bad mammajamma camera (that's fun to say, try it!) so that I could see my feet, and I could easily stay within frame. During the day, I made a number of suggestions, some of them useful, many of them not, all of them annoying, but they were the sort of suggestions that could only be made by a fellow director, someone who has experience in the agonies that await in post-production.

I think it should be a requirement for previous Short Ends directors to act in the projects of the up-and-comers. Not only can we maybe help out, but we learn how the other half lives. Actors are impressive people, they do things I can't do, they expose themselves in ways I never could (or should).

Travis had a great crew (his menacing footman, Donny; the redoubtable talents of Cameo Center techie-guru donfox; and -- oh, was I jealous -- even a script supervisor in the form of the multitalented Amy, whose birthday snuck past me just yesterday -- Happy Birthday, Amy!). But a mentoring program wouldn't hurt things at all.

My feet hurt. A lot. Lots of standing in acting. And running. I'm glad I didn't take the role of the porn star. Hate to think what might be sore after that.

Spotlight on: Mistah Pete!

2009-10-26T10:35:00.000-07:00

That really was a classic job interview. Much as I need a straight job right now, with insurance and a regular check, I'm glad I didn't get it. Saturday, August 05, 2006

There's been a lot going on, so I'll forego any pretense of modesty and just say it -- this blog is about me. Here's what's going on.

First, I went to Nightmare on Grayson Street and worked on Dar's production for Short Ends. It's entitled "Las Rolleras Contra El Doctor Satanico," and that's a great title because I came up with it. I wrote the thing. Nothing short of stupid, but it should be fun. Dar did a bang-up job on the set (graciously provided by Gordon and his Grayson Street crew), and I can't wait to see what it looks like. My fondest hope is that Crystal's Spanglish ad-libs are understandable (at least to lip-readers -- you'll know what I'm talking about when you see it) because they're a damned sight funnier than anything I wrote. I also put together a little bit of "animation" for the project. I'll use two words which older readers may recognize, and younger readers can Google, then I'll say no more -- "Clutch Cargo."

I'm supposed to be working on not one but two different screenplays right now. (That is to say, of course, those are projects for which I've accepted an assignment. There are more I'm supposed to be working on of my own devising, but I can no longer manage to work up guilt about missing my own deadlines, just those imposed by others.) I'm not doing them. I will eventually, but not right now. Both are rewrites, which means they're both pretty easy (the hard work of writing has already been done). But I just can't concentrate. It's been a problem for awhile. I'll walk into rooms and forget what I walked in for. I'd call the senior moments, the quaint term the old folks use for the onset of Alzheimer's, but I'm damned if I'll be old while my parents are still alive. Those people are old, I'm the son of old people.

But it's not really any brain degeneration, far as I can tell. Maybe the rum punch, but other than that, no. It's stress. Money. Great Shiva, but I hate the filthy stuff. Love of it may be the root of all evil, but need of it ain't much better. Looks a lot like things may be improving, a home equity loan coming through. It'll take away the most immediate debt (while of course adding more of a less immediate nature). It'll get me out from under that godawful feature, at least. That was a hell of a lot more expensive than the budget will ever show.

Still, I'm looking for work. Even (gulp) a J-O-B, the real thing, reporting to an office, getting checks signed by The Man. Been a decade or so since I've done that. But I went in for an interview yesterday, a company who wants a permanent camera on staff for training videos. Ruined my whole day. I put on clothes for this. A stained jacket (damn, when did I last wear this...? Oh, yeah, Mark's party...) Shoes, even. I shaved. There was a brief moment when I was having trouble getting the earring out, and I thought, hey, what the hell, I wear it, they'll know what they're getting! But I managed to get it out.

Good thing. I did the interview with the very young woman (who kept mentioning how "entry level" the position was, all the while casting a gimlet eye at the gray in my hair and beard). I answered all the questions right (she had a checklist, for crying out loud!), my best qualities, my greatest weakness (never answer "kryptonite," my advice to you, the sober-minded job-seeker). Then I asked about the corporate atmosphere (and any time you need to group those two words together, you already know you're in trouble). She told me it was a very conservative company, every man wears a white shirt and tie (and this time I'm pretty sure it was disapproval in her eye as she gazed upon my denim shirt). She specifically mentioned my hair.

Now, I thought I was doing good for putting on socks. I did wear a tie. But hair? I wear my hair fairly short, but I'll admit, it's unruly. And that's not a matter of choice, so much. It's just unruly. It has been compared, without rancor, to that of a wildebeest. To get it to behave, I'd have to go all Dracula with it, slicked down. Not something you ever want to see, my friends. I look like a mobster. Or a basketball coach. Sad.

Here's the thing. I'm a pretty straight arrow, probably the most conservative of my circle of friends. I've got a wife and child. I have house payments. I haven't multiple piercings or long hair or tattoos or a shaved head. My facial hair is fairly well maintained, and not trimmed into any style that could be termed especially outré. I'm pretty much the only person I know over the age of thirty who doesn't smoke pot. (Have I managed to offend all of my friends yet?) And yet, they look at me as if Charlie Manson's just sat down for an interview. Good gravy. What hope has the rest of the world?

And here's the part that tickled me most. The woman interviewing me, who tells me that it's a conservative company? She's wearing a tight white pantsuit with a bright pink top, the neckline scooped very low to show off décolletage enhanced by pushup bra and fake tan. Surgery's not impossible. I put a lot of effort into maintaining eye contact. It would seem that they are conservative only about the men on the staff. The women are there to provide decoration, perhaps? It's like I had a meeting with the Human Resources department of Hooters.

The Rollergirls are ignoring my emails. I need original music for their video, and they don't want to hear about it. I tell them that they can't sell the thing if it has music by, say, the Beastie Boys and Led Zeppelin on it. They say that the Rollercade has permission to play music, so they can use it, too. I need to get an intellectual rights attorney on this. This has potential to get crazy.

In a moment of weakness, I agreed to teach a screenwriting class for Northside ISD. Wednesday nights in October. We'll see. I'd pretty much given that up, I thought, but what the hell. I'll get the word out, closer it comes.

The boy's school starts next week. I'll be free for a few precious hours each day. Maybe I'll start getting things done then. There was a time when I was organized and motivated and even had some semblance of self-discipline. That was before children. I could use it again. Anybody got a good book to read? Or maybe some special vitamin? I eat a lot of fish, that's supposed to be good for the brain, right? Amino acids, something like that?

The boy had a fit last night. Kept me from hitting Andy's party. I'll save my gift until the next one... hope you like six-packs of Black Label and used Jimmy Buffett "Best of" CDs, Andy!

Adventures in First Nightery

2009-10-26T10:32:00.000-07:00

Kinda bittersweet, reading all these old posts. Almost like looking at someone else I really want to root for, but already know how he's going to turn out in the end. These were exciting days. Wednesday, July 19, 2006

It was last night, the first screening at the Philadelphia International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival of "Mars Needs Bibles!"

It opened (if you'll pardon the expression) for the feature "Creatures from the Pink Lagoon," and is that not the perfect title to be twinned with mine? I wish I'd thought of it. Although I'm sure I couldn't have done with it what was done by director Chris Diani, whose short film "Rabbit's Foot" (created in two days for the Seattle True Independent Film Festival's Weekend Film Challenge) is a little chunk of unalloyed funny.

As any dedicated director would be (and I was not), Chris was at the screening last night. He spoke to the audience, and was kind enough to give them my regards. And kinder still, he wrote me this morning (well, I read it this morning) to tell me that it went over quite well. He complimented me on my balloons. Which, if you've seen the short, makes sense, but perhaps sounds dirty if you haven't.

I've had scores of screenings locally for my shorts, and even for my sadly neglected feature. Enough, in fact, that I suspect I've gotten a little jaded about it. Frequently, I'm working on the movie right up until the disc is put into the projector (or however these things work, I still have a hand-cranked VCR), and don't have time or energy to get nervous. Whatever the reason, I tend to approach these things with a sense of sang-froid. My collaborators and loved ones tend to be more excited about it than I am. Which, at least to my bloated ego, is exactly the way it should be.

And yet, I was just bordering on frantic about this screening. Maybe because it's the first where I wasn't going to be present? No, that's not it, I missed the screening of "Lucky Numbers" at the Seguin festival. Although I was rather removed from that project, being as it was a "re-release" (after a lot of post-production work on my part) and could only be viewed by me as a partial success (due to the dissatisfaction of the original writer, who asked that her name be removed when I changed some elements). I'm a lot more attached to "Mars Needs Bibles!", that has to have something to do with it, sure. Maybe because it's at a big time film festival, and all the rest have been relatively small (no offense to those who have been kind enough to project my work, but you don't have the word "International" in your names, now, do you?). Maybe it's because I risked offending my audience even more than usual, and my punk-ass liberal guilt was nagging at me?

Whatever the reason, I had a hollow in the pit of my stomach all night. And Chris knew this (and honestly, I hardly pestered him at all about it), and let me know how it went. What a guy!

My east coast debut... damn. Shows again Saturday, if you hurry, you can still make it.

But i must confess, I'm drinking a gin and tonic

2009-10-26T10:23:00.000-07:00

This really is a good recipe. I probably put more into the reciting of it that strictly necessary. But try it. From Tuesday July 18, 2006

Just to prove how much you, my MySpace friends, are in fact my real friends, I am now sharing our rum punch recipe. Well, like all good recipes, it's not so much a recipe as it is a bunch of accidents that resulted in what we do now, but the original recipe came from a book called "Rum and Reggae, the Insider's Guide to the Caribbean." It's a good book, if a little dated now (among the items it says you need to take with you on your Caribbean trip is a "Walkman" and "tapes"). There are more recent editions. Check them out if you're planning an island trek.
Here's the list verbatim, then I'll add some of the changes we've made over the years.
**********************
2-3 oz good dark rum (the stronger, the better)
2 oz sugar syrup*
1 lime
4 oz water
bitters
feresh grated nutmeg
ice

directions
Squeeze the lime and add the juice to the rum and sugar syrup. Shake the bitters into the glass four times. Add the rocks, then sprinkle with fresh, grated nutmeg (it mut be fresh!). Yum! Serves one.

*To make sugar syrup, dissolve 1 lb. of sugar in 2 cups of water. Keep handy for quick and easy rum punches.
********************
Doubtless, that makes a good drink. But we've made some changes to it over the years, and the result is our rum punch.
First, sugar water. I don't know what a pound of sugar mixed with 2 cups of water gives you, but it sounds like a toothache. We boil 2 parts tap water, then mix in 1 part sugar, stir til dissolved. Put it in the fridge and get it chilly. For this, let's say 2 cups water with one cup sugar.
Then, squeeze limes. This is an eyeball process (eww, sounds painful) in that you squeeze until you figure you have enough. If limes are ten for a dollar, it usually means ten. If they're eight for a dollar, that's probably enough.
You pour the juice into a pitcher with the sugar water. Since you probably squeezed while the water was boiling, it's likely not cold yet. No big deal.
Then you add rum. We use spiced rum, dark, and from the bottom shelf. Don't be a sucker. If you're mixing it, use the cheap stuff. It'll kill you at just the same rate as the good stuff, and if you mix it right, you're not going to taste it anyway. I try to make it equal to the sugar water, but I never measure the sugar water, so I'm not really sure what that comes out to. Two cups of water, one cup of sugar? Three cups of rum. Make sense to you? Does to me. This is concentrated punch, don't drink this. Or you'll be finishing your party very early. Patience, we're almost there.
Now, on to glassware. Don't think this is not important. A tiki mug is essential. Really. You'll just feel bad about yourself later if you don't. If you don't have tiki, sure, go with something else. But make it fun. Jelly glasses. Something with cartoon characters on them. Go wild. But preferably something with a tiki god or a girl in a grass skirt.
Fill it with ice (especially if the now-concentrated rum punch is still warm). Measure out a heaping helping of the concentrate. Depends on the size of your glass and the fortitude of your liver. Say a half-cup. Or a big shotglass. Or maybe a hollowed-out coconut half. You be the judge. Pour it over the ice.
Then get your sparkle water. Did I mention sparkle water? Club soda's fine. Seltzer's better. Perrier will do in a pinch, but again, go for the cheap stuff. Tonic water is a no-go. Avoid any of the heavily flavored soda that has any variety of sugar and/or aspartame in it. You're drinking fermented sugar cane with sugar and lime in it. You got plenty of sweet, and you got plenty of flavor. If you try anything that says "diet" before it, you really shouldn't be reading this. Pour the same amount of sparkle water in as you did punch concentrate.
Please, please, PLEASE don't neglect fresh-grated nutmeg and bitters. Buy a little grater and keep it with your nutmegs, it's so worth it. And the bitters might not seem like much, but it makes the drink. Grate on some of the first, sprinkle on some of the second.
Garnish. I suggest having little plastic monkeys or mermaids or flamingos around. No house is a home without them. But paper umbrellas are a crowd pleaser, no shame in using those. A nice swizzle stick is good to have, mix the nutmeg and bitters in.
Enjoy in moderation. I don't just add that as a bit of CYA correctness, either. This stuff goes down really fast, barely tastes like booze at all. But it is strong. I've seen grown men become incapacitated on two. And because it is so deceptive, you might go through three or four of them in rapid succession before you notice how utterly and completely polluted you are. So be careful.
Here, I'll put the ingredients list down for you, in case you need to go to the store.
Rum
Limes
Sugar
Tap water
Sparkle water
Ice
Bitters
Real, whole nutmeg
A little grater
Tiki glasses
Decorations there-for

Lady In The Water

2009-10-26T10:20:00.000-07:00

Oh my. Look at me being clever. Never even saw the movie, for all I know it's brilliant. Sorry, M. Night. From Wednesday July 12, 2006

It becomes clear that M. Night Shyamalan is not stopping of his own accord. Therefore, we must stop him.

"the funniest antidote yet to the Christian Right."

2009-10-26T10:15:00.000-07:00

This is more like it. Just a post telling you how awesome I am. I need to do this more often, if only to convince myself. I miss the MySpace function telling everyone what I'm watching or reading or listening to right now. You deserve to know. This one was punted up there on Wednesday June 28, 2006

Hell, yeah. That's what they say to describe my "Mars Needs Bibles!" in the program for the Philadelphia International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. In fact, here it is in toto: "Like a Plan 9 involving a sexually-confused astronaut, a closeted gay preacher, Martians and a violent evangelist, Mars Needs Bibles is the funniest antidote yet to the Christian Right."

In case you didn't catch it, they're comparing it to "Plan 9 From Outer Space," the Edward D. Wood classic. Ed-fucking-Wood! Not only am I showing at a major film festival, they compare my zero budget scifi movie to *the* zero budget scifi movie! I am stoked like the Super Chief.

My finances are in the toilet, my in-laws are coming to visit next week (I like them, but Lisa's freaking, which means I have to freak, too), that ridiculous woman on the panel last night nearly made me lose my temper, and while I'm swamped like Okefenokee, if I don't get some paying work soon, I'll be released from the stress of having electricity or water or gas or cable. Not to mention, I *still* can't get a check out of KLRN, and they've already cut my invoice in half.

But for the first time in a long time, I'm feeling kind of positive about my filmmaking, all because of this brief mention in a film festival program, and one that probably doesn't sound quite as positive to you as it does to me.

Thanks, PIGLIFF! I'm going to go out and submit to a few more film festivals while I'm on this high.

Have you heard the last Jellyfish album, "Spilt Milk"? It's fun. A little Queen, a little Supertramp, a little ELO, shaken together and poured out into a very good album with at least one great song, "He's My Best Friend," the feel-good masturbation anthem of all time. Give it a spin.

I'm soooo not gay, honest...

2009-10-26T10:09:00.000-07:00

A whole blog talking myself out of going to an important film festival I should've attended. It pleases me to see Sam Lerma or Bryan Ortiz jetting out to festivals all over the place these days. What the hell was I thinking not going to this? I'm a fool. Hey, gas was the same price back then as it is now! Is that good or bad? Thursday June 1, 2006

Lisa says I need to go north so I can be there for the debut of my short "Mars Needs Bibles!" at the Philadelphia International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival there. (And is PIGLFF really the acronym you want to be associated with your party?) It's next month, not exactly sure what day. I won't be there, of course -- Philadelphia is the other side of the world, and I can't even get KLRN to pay me for the freelance debacle with them, I can't afford food, much less a plane ticket. Some have suggested a road trip, but with gas at $2.59 a gallon (and that was the price I was giddy to find last night), I might as well fly. By flapping my arms.

But I don't know if I would go even if I could. I have no problem with homosexuality; some of my best friends, don't you know. But I felt a little awkward even making this movie, being not just straight but square. Do I have the right to depict, however sincerely and sensitively (and damn, Christopher was great in the part), the pain of sexual confusion? I went to some trouble to find a gay actor (not Christopher) to put into this, in fact, once I realized that I had no one gay involved in the project at all, because I felt so uncomfortable with it.

And now I'm going to go to Pennsylvania and stand up in front of people and say, yeah, I'm the guy who made this, aren't we liberal straight guys great?

Roy Thomas uses a great gag, I've heard him do it a few times, he says "I experimented with heterosexuality once -- I fucked a straight guy." It's a funny joke, but more than that, it's empowering. He's fucking somebody, not getting fucked. But there's no straight dude version of this. And the reason is, straight white guys don't need empowering. We're already tops. Pitchers, to a man (all of us out of prison, anyway). And I can't help feeling that I'm horning in on someone else's limelight by being a part of this film festival. The fact that I love Freddie Mercury and Stephen Fry doesn't make me an honorary homo. I can't go. Can I? No. It'd be wrong.

Not so wrong that I'm withdrawing my movie, mind you, or not submitting it to other film festivals.

But I don't think I could go.

Mainly because I can't afford it. I went to Tim's OUTer fest in Austin (www.outerfilmfest.com), where "Mars Needs Bibles!" debuted last year. And sure, my crew made up close to half the audience, but I still stood up there and basked. Oh, did I bask...

Damn, but I'm an attention whore.

Imminent Risk of Laceration

2009-10-26T10:03:00.000-07:00

Ah, Short Ends, what happened? It's like when you see two friends marry, and all the potential is there, but still they screw it up and after it's all done, you can't spend time with either of them anymore. I won't mention who the "two friends" are in this scenario, but rest assured, they are concepts, not people. And I miss them. Thursday May 4, 2006

A week or so back, Sam Lerma contacted me. He wanted me to play a hobo in his new movie. Because the phrase "Sam Lerma movie" is generally preceeded by the phrase "award-winning," I didn't even ask what it was about me that suggests "hobo" before agreeing. He asked me to look like crap. I can only work with what God gave me, but I mess up good.

Last night was the shoot. It was supposed to be the night before last, but it was hailing like Captain Kangaroo's ping pong balls, so Wednesday it would be. I showed up on time, 7:30 pm, and then spent another half-hour trying to find parking. We were shooting at picturesque Peacock Alley, which is quite near the theaters, where the Lion King musical was playing. Not a lot of curb space. But I found one that was only a little bit illegal just a block or so away. They weren't waiting on me, as they couldn't get started before (a) it got dark and (b) the actual street people departed from the location.

We spent the time putting on makeup and choosing costumes. Neck brace, yes; eye-patch, no. It's little details like this that separate your movies from Sam Lerma's movies, bitch. In time, we got started, and much of my "work" involved sitting on my ass in raggedy clothing. So of course, I had to jump up and get involved in other things, moving lights, talking to passersby, throwing suggestions at Sam. You know, pissing him off.

The scene involved Josh running down the alley holding a cash-packed glass tip jar, and then he falls and it spills all over the place and shatters. These are the kinds of scenes that look great on the page, and great on the screen, but are serious ass warts every step in between. It's one thing to say, "he falls in the alley and the glass breaks," but when you actually have to throw a delicate actor onto the hard floor of an alley, and on top of jagged shards of glassy death, the realities start setting in. Being a few years older, and feeling my joints in a way he cannot yet know, I warned Josh about falling on his knees. He had that covered, he said, and he did, I saw in a few practice falls; poof, right into the trash bags on his forearms and hip, Colt Seavers couldn't have done it better. But remember there's glass, I mentioned, and you could see it dawn on him that he was going to have to avoid being sliced like cheese while making a credible fall in front of a camera.

And that also, I think, might've been the point when Sam realized that perhaps he should've reconsidered the shorts and sandals he was wearing behind the camera. The jar was going to explode mere inches before his lens, and he was going to be in the direct path of the shrapnel.

As mentioned, I was there to play a hobo, and as such, I naturally had brought along my bathrobe. It's a huge, thick, terry-cloth thing, red-and-black stripes, which I don't think I've worn since I moved into this subtropical clime. Sam cleverly decided to use it to protect himself. Now, Sam is a man-and-a-half, talent-wise, but in terms of physical size, he's about half-a-Pete. So he's got this thing wrapped around himself like Lawrence of Arabia, not a bit of flesh exposed except for his eyes, and once Josh went into his fall, Sam pulled the hood over his face, too.

So he never even saw the smash. Hope it looked as good on the camera as it did in the alley. Huge smash, enormous noise. I suspect they heard it in the Lion King.

No blood spilled, by the way. Should be a good movie. Go see it at the Short Ends screening, June 17th. Jesus tarry and the creek don't rise, I should have one playing there, too.

My Life of Leisure

2009-10-26T09:58:00.000-07:00

This one's a little painful to read again. Damn, if I actually acted all the times that I swore I was going to get my act in gear and turn my career around... ah, well, I've made a commitment not to edit myself, and I can't turn back now. Monday, April 24, 2006

Okay, I'm back. Sure, I know, most of you didn't know I was gone. Off to sunny Mexico, Ixtapa, the Club Med there. All inclusive, which (if you're one of the poor folk) means that everything was paid for. Booze, food, dancing girls, you name it. And here's what's weird -- I probably came back healthier than when I left. I ate more fish and fruit than I have in years. Got to continue this trend, I feel great.

I figured out that, to live there full time, I'd probably need to make in the ballpark of $10,000 US a week. Which, if my third-grade math skills serve me, means about $500K a year. A cool half-million. Now, that's a lot of money to you and me, but I bet just about anyone reading this knows someone who makes that kind of money. It's not outrageous. Well, it is, but it's not unheard of. Lots of people do that much.

So, why aren't they living at the Club Med in Ixtapa? Not because they love their jobs or don't want to leave their stateside lives behind. It's because you have to work really hard to make that kind of money. Not as hard as you have to work to make $40,000 a year, but hard. You have to go to an office every day. You have to make mortgage payments and car payments, and buy expensive suits to wear in the houses and cars you're paying off. You have to support a family and a few mistresses, and a therapist who'd be earning his or her hourly to tell you to go live at Club Med in Ixtapa.

That's why I'm looking for a job that pays me that kind of jack, but requires little to none of my time. Or, rather, allows me to do what I want to do with that time, and pays me for it.

I'm trained, both by nature and education, to do only two things -- write stories and make movies. Some might call them the same thing, but there's a subtle difference. One involves paper and a beach chair, the other involves going out and working my ass off. Neither pays well, until it suddenly pays very well. Other than that, I could do scut work that would pay me, but I'd never get out from under all I have to do to live that life. And I'd never live at Club Med in Ixtapa.

Here's my plan: I'm going to write books and make movies. And I'm going to make a lot of money at it. Sooner rather than later, I hope.

Been reading Sidney Lumet's "Making Movies." I saw him on Charlie Rose not long ago, pimping his movie with Vin Diesel, and he said that last year was the best in recent memory for movies. So, between those two events, naturally I thought he was an ass. But this book is great. I recommend it to you, if you're even a little bit interested in movies. This is the bookend to Robert Rodriguez's book, tells you how to do it if you have a studio at you disposal. It explains more clearly than anything I've ever read how a movie can stink or be brilliant. It needs to be on every filmmaker's bookshelf

Is Sincerity the New Irony?

2009-10-26T09:52:00.000-07:00

first written way back when. And funnily enough, there's a typo in here that changes my intent completely. But I won't change it, or point it out. Think what you will.

Monday, April 10, 2006
Is Sincerity the New Irony?

You know who's not as bad as you think he is? Mr. Rogers. My kid's a big fan, and that means I have to see the show on a semi-regular basis. In fact, I usually wake up to the chimes of the trolley on the way to the Land of Make-Believe, as the boy will turn on the set in my bedroom at 7am.

Why does he love the show? Or, more specifically, the man himself, the late Fred Rogers, as he is of course the show. I think it's because Mr. Rogers is sincere. Completely and totally honest. He doesn't talk down to kids, the way I used to think he did. And neither is he creepy, as I'd thought before I had children -- that requires a secondary level, a hidden agenda, and this guy only has one. He talks as an adult who cares about you does, he's not a jokey, smartassy guy. He's sincere. The boy will turn off the set when SpongeBob comes on, or most any other show that vaguely might appeal to me (an admitted wiseass), any of those shows designed to be viewed on two levels, with winks to the adult audience and toyetic eye-candy for the kids. But he loves Mr. Rogers.

Someone announced the death of irony not long ago, I think it was around the time of the September 11 suicide missions. And no less an authority than my long-time pal and heterosexual lifemate Erik recently commented that he was no longer a fan of kitsch. (Actually, I think he said "camp," but camp is a complicated word and the subject of a completely different rant, so for the purposes of this discussion, I'll go with his intent, kitsch.) And Erik's middle name is "Irony." (Actually, his middle name is Erik, which makes him "Erik Erik Bosse," even his parents were ironic.) Even I can't think of many things I love because they're awful, and that used to be my meat.

I don't believe irony's dead. Maybe it's just that we're overloaded with irony, in our lives, in our politics, in our entertainment, so much so that we hardly recognize it anymore. But when I see Mr. Rogers, I know it's still there. Because the rest of the world stands out in such sharp contrast.

Back to the Blog

2009-10-26T09:43:00.001-07:00

With the death of MySpace, I got out of the blogging habit. My output was sporadic to say the least, but at least I had a place to put it. Now I'll try and do it here, instead.

First up, moving all the old blogs from MySpace to here. Let's see if this works.