(Written Sunday, Posted Tuesday)

It’s a quiet Sunday night. Fiesta is finally over. And to be honest, I barely knew it was happening. In years previous, I would make a conscious decision to avoid driving through downtown during this elven day booze-up. And, to be honest, that keeps me pretty well removed from the action. That is, of course, until the final Fiesta weekend. And then there’s no way I can ignore it. I live at ground zero of the King William Parade. The parade is staged two blocks from me. It passes in front of my house. It’s a blast. And it gives my neighbors, more gentile than trailer trash, an opportunity (by that I mean, an excuse) to begin a long weekend of family fun and binge drinking.

I awoke early Saturday morning. I’d been up late the night before, working on a few projects as well as formatting video cards and charging batteries for my Saturday morning shoot with Seme. I’d convinced her to shoot over near Roosevelt Park, because I thought the area was aesthetically interesting, and yet far enough removed from the Fiesta bullshit so that we could work relatively undisturbed.

A little bit before eight I headed out. Eight in the morning. My next door neighbor was standing at the curb with a champaign bottle. He launched a cork across the street. And he was answered by a single volley from the other side. And thus at least two Fiesta parties were suddenly underway with mimosas and, I presume, frittatas. (This is exactly why I miss my former neighbor, Alex. He would have waited until a reasonable hour to get up. Like ten minutes before the parade began. And then, if he saw me, he’d graciously invite me to join him in a breakfast of Lone Star Beer and barbacoa tacos.)

It was easier for me to walk to the place where we were shooting. The whole neighborhood was shut down, with street closures and barricades because of the parade. I had a shoulder bag with my camera, a spare lens, extra batteries and CF cards, and a bunch of filters. I also had my tripod and a monopod in a bag with a shoulder strap.

A block beyond the champagne neighbors I stopped to talk with Connie. She’s not one of the gentrifier’s. Her family grew up in this neighborhood. She had just finished driving some five-foot lengths of rebar into her lawn. These were to be the post to support the orange plastic contraction fence she was putting up. I stopped and raised an eyebrow. “What? I almost lost my lawn to the drought. It’s finally coming back. You think I want these parade people stomping around — urinating, even — on my lawn? They can set up their chairs on the other side of the sidewalk.” She caught her breath and started laughing. “You do what you have to. I mean, I love the parade. And I’m going to be cheering as loud as anyone else.”

I smiled and nodded and left her to her impromptu fence-building.

The site where I was to meet Seme Jatib and her dancers was about a  fifteen minute stroll from my place along the extended San Antonio Riverwalk. You go past Brackenridge High School, continue under the railroad bridge, and turn right on Lone Star Boulevard. It’s hardly a boulevard. But it is the street where Lone Star Beer once had their central brewery.

The place we were to to be shooting at was this weird industrial building which is used, somehow, for flood control along the San Antonio River. I really need to learn more about this structure. I’ve shot there before. I love the architecture of the place. There are several other matching structures around town which also seem to regulate the flow of the river. I think there might be a fun little documentary there….

When Seme showed up, we toured the area. She arrived with her husband, Kevin, and her fellow dancers, Serena, Tiffany, and Mario. We hit upon a few good places to shoot. I was shooting video on my Canon 7D while Kevin (a very accomplished photographer) was shooting still images on his Nikon.

I love working with dancers. It’s a simple proposal. Let’s say you’re a filmmaker, and people with beautiful bodies who are very accomplished at moving their bodies through weird and wonderful and aesthetically satisfying positions want to know if you’d be interested in filming them. If you shrug and mumble that, naw, you don’t really like dance….well, sir or madam, you’re a fucking moron. There’s nothing sweeter than shooting bodies in motion.

Here’s a shot of all four dancers in a playful pose.

Below is a raw and unedited bit of me shooting my friend Seme. Who wouldn’t want to to be running camera when beautiful people are doing stuff like this? So, you say you don’t like dance? What if you could take a camera and move into the flow of action and shoot people like this? Dance is about liberation. And people who hate it are afraid of freeing themselves. Oh, I know. I’m still one of those people. This is why I’m so enamored by dancers. They do what I dream to do.

Click on the link below to see some beautiful video:

vimeo.com/22638576

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I headed home and took a nap. The parade was over. And there was no reason to head over to the King William Fair. I resent having to pay to attend what’s essentially an over-sized block party.

And a couple hours later, after clearing off a couple of CF cards and making sure my camera batteries were all charged, I headed out. I had been asked to video tape URBAN-15 as they performed in the Fiesta Flambeau Parade. This is one of the last grand events of Fiesta.

My neighbor had my truck blocked in from all her guests attending her barbecue. It took a few minutes of moving three cars, and I was able to squeeze out of the driveway.

But, dammit, when I reached the URBAN-15 studio, the buses had already left. I let myself in. As I was using one of the computers in the front office to see what buses I would have to take to get to the parade staging area over near the Pearl complex on the other side of downtown, I was interrupted by one of the wives of one of the URBAN-15 drummers. She was helping prepare the post-parade party in the courtyard.

“You’ll never get there by bus,” she said. “It’s Fiesta. They’re all detouring and unpredictable.”

She offered to drive me as close as possible to the parade starting point.

What a relief.

I was able to meet up with the 50 or so URBAN-15 drummers, dancers, and support team. I knew that at the end of the parade I could get into the bus with them. This would work out perfectly, as my truck would be waiting at the other end to get me home.

Here’s a shot of one of the lovely URBAN-15 dancers getting ready for the parade.

Last year I also shot URBAN-15 in the parade. This year I was about 20 pounds heavier. And, occurring to two people timing the event, the parade moved much faster this year. Back in 2010 there were many occasion when we’d stop moving, and the dancers would perform for a section of the crowd. This was great for me. I could move around, getting some good shots. Last year it took about 80 or 90 minutes for URBAN-15 to complete the parade. This year it was 62 minutes. It was almost a run. And because I’m old and fat, it about killed me. I had to run forward, set up my camera on my monopod, and shoot the group as they filed by. And then I had to move, double time, back to the front of the group…and they were hardly ever at  standstill.

When we got on the bus, I was beat.

But it was a blast. I saw Cindy before the parade started. No surprise. She and Ray are in that neighborhood. And I’m pretty sure I saw Michael Soto. He and his family paused to have a picture taken with a couple of the URBAN-15 dancers. And along the parade route I saw, in the crowds, Veronica and Joe. I saw Max. And I also encountered some fellow video guys. Alejandro. And, later, Smiley.

Back at the URBAN-15 studio, everyone dispersed, stowing away equipment and costumes. Catherine stuck a beer in my hand, and I went out to chill on a picnic bench in the courtyard. After awhile the dancers and drummers began filing out. George made some speeches. The caterer explained what she had created. And then we lined up for eats.

The food was amazing. And the performance, also, had been amazing. This was a hungry crew feasting on their just rewards. Everyone was still stoked with adrenaline. I enjoy being around that kind of energy. After a couple more drinks and some wonderful food, I quietly made my exit.

I hope I remember to get my IRS extension in the mail before the Monday deadline. I hate tax time. My returns are always so convoluted and daunting. But that’s not really the reason I have been filing extensions these last few years. The problem is that because all the work I do is of a freelance nature, and there is no employer withholdings, I tend to have to pay a sizable chunk to the IRS, even though I’m living at the poverty level. I did get a new camera and a new computer n 2010. Maybe if I completely write those off with no annual depreciation, I might soften the financial burden when I have to pay six months from now.

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I piddled away and did little of consequence today. Thankfully Deborah called up and asked me out this evening, thus pulling me from my malaise. She wanted to show off her new computer. We talked about our various projects, as well as Seme Jatib’s dance performances coming up which we are both helping out on.

I often find myself getting so pissed off that this wonderfully creative city can be so divided. We artists in San Antonio divide ourselves along class and ethnic lines. But we also divide ourselves along disciplinary lines. It occurred to me tonight, while talking with Deborah, that she has had an enormous impact on how I act around artists from varied backgrounds. She’s never allowed these old San Antonio divides to stop her from befriending and collaborating with artists from various backgrounds. And, certainly, there is no one in San Antonio more comfortable crossing cultures and disciplines than Deborah Keller-Rihn. Painting, photography, sculpture, dance, film, performance art, religious rituals, etc. She’s introduced me to so many incredible people. But also, she’s taught me, through example, how easy it is in this city to reach out to fellow artists and build rewarding collaborative work.

Also, Deborah and I know how important it is to use works-in-collaboration to try and bridge these petty divides.

We are both thrilled that an artist of Seme Jatib’s caliber was reached out to us to help on her up-coming dance performances. I will be providing video clips to be used for the multi-media projections. Deborah will work on the stagecraft design.

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Kiko Martinez wrote a piece about the San Antonio Neighborhood Film Project. I’ve only seen the online version of the article. I need to get the newspaper tomorrow. I’m curious if the group photo of me, Manny, Rod, and Scott (a photo, I believe, taken by Rod’s wife) is in the print edition. I have a couple of quotes. Pretty cool.

Click here for the newspaper piece.

I have no problem engaging with the media. I’ve been interviewed probably twenty times during the eight or so years I’ve lived in San Antonio. My pontifications have made their way to print, radio, and TV. Almost always I have been turning on the chin music, the balloon juice, the gassy blather to promote the works of other people. On rare occasion (like in this piece) I get to blow air into my own horn.

Follow the link above.

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I should be working on the first of two promo viral videos for the Push Pens. I was hoping the first would be ready tonight. But as it’s now “tomorrow” morning, I think we’ll have to wait until a Friday night release.

This first promo will be a bit of theater and a bit of music. We shot it in the theater. It will give people a good idea of what the show’s like.

Here’s a behind the scenes shot of the three Push Pens, with director Steve Bailey.

The second promo we shot last night at the PediCab Bar. It’s more of a music video. And we still need another night of shooting.

I was a lot of fun. I am so in love of shooting HD video with the Canon 7D. Stick a fast lens on the camera (I’m using a 50mm f 1.4 lens, which is longer than I really want, but it does look great!), and you’ve got a lovely look!

Bars are perfect places to shoot with these new breeds of HD video-enable DSLRs. Move your subjects around to the most flattering pool of light. Find a sweet compromise between ISO and f-stop, while keep the shutter speed at a 50th of a second (if you’re shooting at 24 frames per second).

The concept behind this particular Push Pens song, “Pretty Packages,” is that pretty people bring opportunities of love into your life often when you’re quite happily in another relationship. And the question is, how will you deal with it?

The Push Pens are Dino Foxx, Cros Esquivel, and Billy Munoz. Here Billy is the bartender. The two parallel stories are about Dino and Cros, two best buds, one gay, one straight. Dino is being seduced by a pretty guy; Cros is half-heartedly fighting off a pretty girl.

And there there’s Steve Bailey, the director of the up-coming Push Pens’ show at Jump-Start. He was there at the shoot, doing this great job of shouting out suggestions of what the actors should be doing. We weren’t running sound, so this was fine. But better than fine, it was a blast to have Steve on set. He helped to move things along fairly quickly. And he had us all laughing and at ease.

I’ve known that I would really like Steve for years, but he’s rather stand-offish. But lately I’ve been privileged to see him work. He’s just the sort of brilliant. committed, playful, wise, and sweet man I always wanted him to be.

Here are some screen-grabs fro the shoot.

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Saturday is usually my one time to partake of Fiesta (the two week San Antonio spring bacchanalia). This is the King William Parade. It’s a blast. It goes down my street. I love it.

But this year I’m shooting some video of Seme Jatib and her dancers for her up-coming shows in late April and early May.

Not hanging out at the parade seems so wrong! But I will be doing something equally cool.

I’m really looking foreword to this shoot with Seme!

Sunday.

I know I grumble with grating frequency about all the free work I do on other people’s projects. I’m beginning to wonder if I even like this film and video stuff. But back on Friday morning (fresh back from a week in el despoblado) I headed over to San Antonio College to help Amanda Silva on her new short film. I’ve known Amanda for about seven years. She acted in my third narrative short film, back when she was just 17. She’s smart, creative, and curious. Also, she’s involved in community-driven art projects. So, of course I was willing to help her out. Even is she hadn’t helped me out so much in the past on my projects, I’d still be keen to assist her in whatever creative ideas she wants to develop.

I showed up with an assortment of camera and audio equipment. She was also being assisted by Alejandro Rodriquez (a young filmmaker who’s been enjoying considerable success lately), as well as a fellow student from her SAC film class. As we moved through various locations on campus we were joined by her three actors. Alejandro was the second camera operator with a borrowed 7D. And because my 7D had a fast prime lens, I was shooting the close-ups, with Alex doing the wide and medium shots.

Our main character was played by a lovely young woman from Austin. It was a joy to shoot extreme close-up shots of her looking pensively off into the distance. The other two performers were also great to work with. It was a long and fun day of shooting. I enjoy Amanda’s company. And everyone else was also having a good time. I know that I collected some gorgeous shots of beautiful people. But, I hope that I was able to capture all the shots that Amanda’s going to need when she gets around to editing.

Here’s a photo of the lead actress:

So, last night I realized I have been working on three projects of late where I shot some lovely digital video on my beloved Canon 7D. I made a quickie video with clips from Amanda’s project: some stuff I shot while vacationing in the desert of southern Presidio County; and some tasty slow motion footage I shot for Slab Cinema (a project I need to start editing together later this week). But I was happy to be able to upload some beautiful images I had shot onto FaceBook so I could share them with others.

Click on this link to view the video.

Tonight I went out to a parking-lot on the northside to watch URBAN-15 in a dress rehearsal for their upcoming performance in Fiesta’s Flambeau Parade. I shot some video and made a quick edit which I uploaded to FaceBook.

Click here to see URBAN-15.

And tomorrow I’m working with the Push Pens at Jump-Start Performance Company. I’m shooting a part of their upcoming show. Some video they can use to promote the show. And Wednesday night, me and the Push Pens will shoot one of their poems / songs as a sort of music video. I’m looking forward to both nights.

Even though only one of these five projects will pay me, I’m still having a blast. It really comes down to a question of who I’m working with. These are all people who smile at me and seem to enjoy my company. And I like them, too. So, if you want my help, and I’m being vague or uncommunicative, it’s probably because I think you’re an asshole and/or an individual with the aesthetic sensibilities of a flatworm or someone who works in public relations.

If I like you, you probably know it (I sure hope so!), and if I don’t, well, please stop calling. You’re giving me the creeps.

It’s Friday night now. Last night I arrived back home to San Antonio from occupied Redford,Texas. The whole of southern Presidio County is (as usual) lousy with Border Patrol and other assorted men in uniform terrorizing the locals.

The plan was to get away for a week or so and visit my friends down in the desert. Also, I thought I might shoot some interviews of people, with a bit of cacti and mountains thrown in for b-roll, and see if I might return with something I could submit to the Texas Monthly film contest.

The first person I interviewed was Rosendo Evaro. When I lived in Redford, about twenty years ago, Rosendo was already an old man. Now he certainly qualifies as one of the town’s elders. I’ve always enjoyed Rosendo’s wry humor. But as Redford’s most committed capitalist, perhaps not everyone is a fan. Years ago, when he was farming cotton on his land, day laborers would come and work in the fields (back then it was legal along the border). One of the guys from Palomas (the tiny town across in Mexico) wrote a corrido about Rosendo, claiming he was so pinche that he paid a one-legged man only half a days wage, because he was only half a man. I assume it loses something in the translation. And, really, who of us gets to have a corrido written about him. I believe Rosendo’s somewhat proud of this fleeting fame.

Rosendo has spent his life trying to scrape a living in the poorest region in the poorest county in Texas. Through hard work he’s managed to take care of his family. But it was never easy. and because of his tenacity (opportunism, if you will), Rosendo’s life parallels the ups and downs of the Redford economy.

The problems in the farming industry in Redford are rather complicated, involving the US government’s slippery laws which allowed, at times, Mexican day laborers to freely cross in the border regions, as well as NAFTA, which did a number on small farms along the US-Mexican border, on both sides. But by the time I arrived in Redford in the early 1990s Rosendo had stopped farming. He rented his land out to other families. The cash crop at the time was alfalfa, and Rosendo’s hay fever forced him to change careers.

When I moved to the area, Rosendo was the hardest working man in the town. He was about 60 at the time. He turned his old packing shed into a convenience store. He also built several apartments which he rented out to the Outward Bound field school. The Redford Post Office was moved into the store and Rosendo became the local Postmaster (the previous Postmistress had worked out of the living room in her house half a mile down the road). And Rosendo also drove the school bus. (The story of education in Redford is long and sad — Redford is in the Marfa school district, and there was a time when they bused the kids to school ninety miles away.)

As I interviewed Rosendo, I was surprised to learn that his convenience store had been built just a year before I arrived. It had seemed so well integrated into the community.

Everything seemed to be going fairly well for the year or so I lived there.

But things started to really go down hill when high school student Esequiel Hernandez was gunned down by an ill-trained group of Marines on a covert operation as part of this obscene “war on drugs” (which is quickly morphing into the Mexican front of the “war on terrorism”). Half of the town was related to Esequiel, and everyone loved him. Even the infamously pinche Rosendo dug deep into his savings to help send a delegation of Redford citizens to Washington and remove the Marines from the border.

Because there are already plenty of documentaries about this horrible incident, I never asked Rosendo to talk about Esequiel. Besides, I knew it to be a very painful memory, still.

Instead, he told me that because the Marfa Independent School District shut down the one-room school house in Redford and took with them that little bus, Rosendo lost one of his many jobs. With no school, they had no need for a school bus driver.

And then the war on terrorism. A month after 9/11 the federal government closed all the legal crossings in Big Bend except for the International Bridge at Presidio / Ojinaga. The footbridge at Candelaria was dismantled. The chalupas (the little boats) at Redford, Lajitas, Boquillas, etc. were all shut down.

And this is why Rosendo closed his store. You see, the population of the little hamlets across the river in Mexico is greater than on the US side, and therefore the majority of Rosendo’s customers were coming from Mexico. Remember, this was a legal crossing. And when it was shut down, it wasn’t just commerce which was impacted. There were families divided. Siblings, cousins, and even parents and their children were suddenly denied what was once their sense of extended community. And then there was Rosendo. He told me with a smile and a shrug, “I remember the year I sold 35 thousand dollars of Bud Light. But when the chalupa stopped running, I couldn’t go on.”

In 2008 a huge flood came into Presidio and Redford. Heavy rains were filling the reservoirs in Mexico which were fed by the Rio Conchos. The Mexican authorities began releasing enormous amounts of water to control their flooding. But the Conchos feeds directly into the Rio Grande. This was the worst flood in recorded history for the region. Redford was cut off. The river road was washed away both towards Presidio and towards Lajitas. The entire farming fields were inundated. The levee was destroyed. And when the waters receded, requests for federal assistance were met with a terse reply that the land wasn’t of great enough value to rebuild the levee system. Nothing has been done to restore the farm lands.

And then there’s the Outward Bound field school. I don’t know how long they’d been in Redford. But I do know two important things. Their Big Bend adventures were immensely popular. And they were a huge economic driver in a town which could no longer farm. The organization rented houses and apartments from five families that I knew of. They also paid some of the locals to use their land up in the foothills of the Bofecillos Mountains for camping. No one in Redford has a clear idea of why Outward Bound pulled their most popular school. The speculation is that the continued government propaganda that Redford is the drug capital of the southwest had given them cold feet. (I know these people. The only citizens of Redford with enough money to need a financial advisor would be the parents of Esequiel Hernandez who were awarded a couple million from the US government who murdered their son, the most innocent person on the border.) So, without the Outward Bound rent, Rosendo has placed a big For Sale sign in front of what was once a decent operation. But now it’s just a cluster of empty buildings in front of a half-mile strip of dusty and now un-irrigable farmland which runs down to a river patrolled by paranoid passive-aggressive assholes, the Border Patrol, who seem to mainly consist of skittish city-boys in their mid-20s.

Que cosa!

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The other interview I did was with my friend Enrique Madrid, If you’ve ever seen a documentary about the Big Bend region, it’s likely to feature Enrique. Even the great Michael Wood talked with Enrique in the Cabeza de Vaca section (“All the World is Human”) of his four part BBC production, Conquistadors. You can see him in Alan Govenar’s excellent documentary, The Devil’s Swing. He’s a prominent figure in heart-breaking POV documentary, The Ballad of Esequiel Hernandez. He’s also in this low budget documentary about the closing of the Texas border crossings called, I believe, The River Never Divided Us. It’s weird, but I have seen all these four films in the living room of Enrique and Ruby Madrid’s home, in Redford, Texas. And each of these viewings would slip into deep and lengthy discussions of border issues.

Anyway, all I wanted from Enrique was something light and simple. I hoped to create a short film which, if nothing else, would be a vehicle to humanize these beleaguered people who have been shamefully libeled as immoral criminals.

After an amazing meal of asada, with rice and beans and homemade corn tortillas, I set up my camera in the Madrid’s backyard. It was night. The clear sky brought down Orion and the Pleiades, close enough to touch. I set an old steel tubed chair in from of a mid-sized cactus tree. I placed my little battery-powered camera light on a battered table off to an angle. And then I coaxed Enrique into the hot seat. I wired him up with a lavaliere microphone and he told me about what this little town was like when he was a kid. He told me about the Gypsies who used to come across from Mexico. They’d buy goods from his father’s shop. And they’d read palms, tell fortunes, and they would show films from an old rickety 16 millimeter projector against the white washed wall of the adobe church. He told of the old timers who still followed the Indian ways of their grandparents, building sweat lodges, fashioning moccasins, and giving morning thanks to the gods of nature, such as Sierra Rica, the mountain to the south which brings the rains. He told me about the current economic privations, as well as the intrusive nature of all the armed men in uniform on the border. “They say that every seven seconds men think about sex.” Enrique looked down at his hands. Then he looked back up. “Every seven seconds, we think about the Border Patrol.” He paused. “I wish we could think about sex.” His thoughts on the future of Redford were not terribly heartening. But, because Enrique identifies with his Jumano Indian ancestors who have been in the area of for thousands of years, he takes the long view. “Our people have been farming this region for over 3500 years. I suspect we’ll be here for thousands of more years.” He shrugged and offered a sad, pragmatic smile.

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Before heading back from the Big Bend, I harvested a medium amount of popotillo (AKA, Mormon Tea, Apache Tea, Ephedra, Soma, etc.). This common desert shrub is perfectly legal. You boil the sticks for about 20 minutes. The infused water is a great relief for bronchial obstruction, such as that caused by asthma. But it also gives you a bit of a lift, but not so ragged as caffeine. Back when I lived in Redford I would take ten mile hikes during the insanely hot afternoon hours. My canteen was usually filled with popotillo water. Refreshing, and you could walk forever.

I also was carrying three leafy branches of creosote (AKA, Greasewood). My sister wanted this common desert plant to hang in her home. Creosote is a humble and ignoble botanical critter, beautiful in its own way. Whenever I walk past a creosote plant — especially if it’s dried and dying — I reach over, strip off some of the leaves, rub them to dust in my hands, and then I inhale the scent from my hands. It’s the smell of the desert. A mixture of ozone, blood, and soil. When rain falls in the Chihuahua Desert, the smell is magical, evocative — it’s the smell of water on the backs of the dry and thirsty creosote bushes.

Anyway, I made sure to put these suspicious botanical samples in the bed of my pick-up. On my drive from Redford to Dallas I passed through two (or was it three?) Border Patrol checkpoints. I only noticed confusion once. The guy was leaning over the edge of my truck, clearly looking at the plants, which were openly displayed. He blinked and wet his lips. And instead of asking “what the fuck is that?”, he stepped back from my truck, swallowed, and told me to have a nice day as he waved me through.

I wanted to wink, and tell him that I thought about him every seven seconds, but I just returned his guy-to-guy nod, and drove on.

Fuck the border. All borders. We’re human. This is our planet. Goodbye nation states, goodbye. Brothers and sisters, you’re now free to walk around your world. I hope to see you all soon!

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Here’s a pretty picture I took of the Rio Grande.

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And here’s a taste of my next blog post. This is a still from a film I’m shooting for my good friend Amanda Silva.

And so now, good night!

(Friday.)

Well, the diagnosis on my computer was dire. It’s back with me, but with a new hard drive, and lighter by about 200 gigs of miscellaneous files. Hell, I don’t even know what’s missing. So, tonight I begin the long process or reinstalling Final Cut Studio. This is a massive suite of programs which will clog up this new hard drive with over 50 gigabytes of stuff. The first things I put on were the browsers I actually use. Firefox and Google Chrome. For some reason, I just can’t warm to Safari. Also, Handbrake and MPEG Streamclip (handy workhorses for video hackery). And you gotta have VLC, as a great universal (and free) media player.

The biggest pain in the ass was one lost file. A little and seemingly inconsequential Final Cut project file. This is what kept track of all my cuts and fades and effects of an 18 minute edit of the last Windows Performance for Jump-Start. About 15 hours of work has vanished. I still have the original HD video files, so I’m not in panic mode, just surly and bitchy.

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One of the more constructive things I accomplished today was to get my CAAP proposal off to OCA. OCA is the Office of Cultural Affairs. Most local artist know them because of the funding they provide to art and cultural organizations, as well as individual artists. They have a sizable budget, which is principally pulled from a percentage of the San Antonio hotel / motel tax. One of their new programs is the Community Arts Access Program. This initiative will allow the creation of a San Antonio artists roster. Artists and art organizations submit proposals of what they have to offer to communities. If they are chosen, then they will be placed on the roster list. Community organizations, cultural centers, schools, etc, can then request these artists, performers, groups, and such. The artists will get their full fee. OCA will match the fee on a sliding scale of 50% down to I believe 25% (depending on the total amount). It’s similar to successful programs which have been presented by Humanities Texas and the Texas Commission on the Arts. One big downside is that it actually puts the onus on the artists to get out and hustle and find community organizations to invite them to come do their thing.

The two videos I wanted to use for work samples were also lost on the Great Hard Drive Crash of 2011. But I had a third option. I went with that.

As I filled out the online proposal form last night and this morning, it occurred to me that my proposal might not fit the criteria. I offered what I called a Digital Documentation Workshop. I would work with various arts and cultural organizations, training their staff on how to record their projects and events using digital video cameras, audio recorders, and nonlinear editing systems. The hands-on workshop would also include taping one of their events or performances and making sure that, by the time the workshop had wrapped, they had a finished piece. These videos could be used for their archives, to broaden their audiences by posting video files online, and to create more polished and professional video clips when seeking grant funding.

Because what I’m proposing isn’t in itself art, I hope I don’t get kicked out in the early stages before I have a chance to defend the proposal.

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(Saturday.)

I woke up too late to make it to the Cesar Chavez March. Bummer. I love that feeling of positive group energy. If you’ve never marched in a rally, you’re missing out on an amazing experience. This is when you truly understand that the streets belong to the people, And if we ever become as complacent as I fear we will, it will be because fewer and fewer people and organizations take to the streets for events, rallies, demonstrations, and even parades. I remember once my sister asked me why I sometimes join with bicycle clubs on group rides. I couldn’t give her an answer. I had to confess that it’s just one of those things you have to experience for yourself. And I hate giving lame answers like that.

So, blowing off the Chavez march began a series of shirking other cool events I had wanted to attend. The Dignowity Park Pushcart Races. And the events put on by my friends at the American Indians of Texas (AIT-SCM) down on their land on the far southside.

I did, however, manage to take a short bike ride out along the Mission Trail. It is finally Spring, and there is no turning back. The swampy and rich fecundity wafting from that creek which feeds into the San Antonio River near MIssion San Jose was filled with all the odors of hatching mosquitos, the fruity-tinged scent of the mountain laurel, sun-warmed mud, algae blooms, and all the earthy agitations which come from the rising of the sap, from flora and fauna alike — all those birds and bees and horny feral dogs back in the thickets. I feel we’ve finally emerged from that dark tunnel of winter. Fuck, yeah!

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The big deal was Saturday night. I had a short film, “A Bourbon Would Be Nice,” screening at the Guadalupe Theater. It was selected to screen with over a dozen other entries to the Neighborhood Film Project contest. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t win the $3,000 prize for best film in the Southside division. I had seen Rod Guajardo’s short, and realized it was, um, well, a bit better then mine. But still, I wanted to see all the work; support my fellow local filmmakers; have my peers, cast, crew, and anonymous audience members, see my piece; also, I wanted to see how it played to a live audience (I’m still not sure if I want to fix the obvious problems and send it off to festivals, or just put it to bed and move on to the next project).

Click on this sentence to view the film on my Vimeo page.

Lisa Suarez is my star. I very much wanted her to see the piece, so I asked her to be my date some weeks back. This gave him time to contact a “Mami-sitter” to look after her mother, who has Alzheimer’s.

I was happy to have a good turn-out of my cast and crew. Below is a photo of Amanda, sporting a new ‘doo.

There was Lisa and I. Deborah came to join us. Shimi. Amanda. Nikki. And there were other supportive people around. Many of the cast and crew of Robb Garcia’s film were sitting in the row in front of us. Nikki, with her PrimaDonna Production posse, was across the aisle. The place was filled with many artistic people who I truly care about and who I respect. I felt very honored to be in such company. And my row had the coolest people. Amanda Silva, who I’ve known since she was 17. She was an amazing teen, and is now an even more amazing adult, A wonderful actress, performance artist, writer, producer, and so on. And then there was ST Shim, who I’m been so lucky to have befriended. We have collaborated on several projects. She is a wonderful actress, dancer, writer, and, well, she’s just incredible. And then Lisa Suarez. I don’t know her all that well yet. She’s an insanely gifted actress and writer, I certainly know that. And a warm and wonderful human being. I hope to work with her on future projects. And then there was also Deborah Keller-Rihn, one of my best friends. An important local artist who allows me to occasionally conscript her into helping me on my little movie projects. I hope my dependance on Deborah hasn’t kept her from doing her own work, because I think she’s one of San Antonio’s top visual artist. I sometimes wonder if I’d still be hanging around San Antonio if she wasn’t here.

The films began. They were broken up by the four regions. There were 16 in all. One might think that there would be four films for each region. And because there were two categories, student filmmakers and non-student filmmakers, it should have been the two strongest student films and the two strongest non-student films per each four regions. But one of the problems was that the Eastside only had two entries. Just two fucking entries!?!? And no student entry. This threw symmetry out the window.

Let me just say that I am not $3,000 richer (Rod won for the southside, and I applaud the judges, his piece is very well done — were I a judge I may well have awarded his piece more points than my own). But, and here’s the cool thing, while my piece screened, the people in the audience laughed when they were supposed to. I succeeded in entertaining people. And maybe, just maybe, the audience response has pushed me towards reshooting three scenes, adding three new scenes, and doing a bit of ADR … and then sending the piece off to the festivals. There is this major reality gap when your friends are giving you critical feedback. Your friends suck at this. And actors are even worse. And actor friends …. are you nuts? Anyway, I’ll switch this around and look at that one scene which people say they like most. The scene with Shimi and Chris. I agree. This is my favorite scene. It has the best acting, the besting lighting, the best location, the best background distraction (the very very sexy Shimi), the best audio, and, well, just the best sense of playfulness. So, if people are praising what I think is the most praiseworthy scene, it helps me to feel that I’m not too filled with absurd self-delusion (and, let me tell you, there’s that in shit-loads amongst San Antonio independent filmmakers). But, people, help me out. If you don’t want to tell me when I suck (and, really, I can take it), tell me when I DON’T suck. That also helps.

Mostly I agreed with the judges’ decisions. I’m proud for us all. And when I saw Joy-Marie Scott, one of the judges, I had to walk over and tell her how much I loved her FaceBook comment which she posted following the screening session for the judges. (Let me add that Joy has recently moved to San Antonio from the California Bay Area). Here’s what Joy wrote: “A few Saturdays ago, I was lucky enough to screen all the film projects in competition — what a way to get a crush on the city. I can’t wait to see the finalists on the big screen, and then I’m gonna search out those fish hanging from the bridge and the horses Southsiders keep in their garages.”

I was quite put off by the low turn-out. I’m not sure how many people the Guadalupe can fit, but the place was only about half-filled. Last year the event was held at SAMA, They filled up that auditorium (not too much smaller than the Guadalupe), and at the last minute they created a second screening.

So, by having the event on the westside, we lost serious audience. I don’t blame the westside. I blame ill-educated audiences. They need to learn that not only is the westside safe and friendly, it’s also pretty fucking hip.

Well, it was a great night.

One of the more high-profile after-parties was over at the El Tropicano Hotel. This party was put together by Rod Guajardo’s better half (and trust me, he’s a handsome guy, but reserve judgment until you meet Rosemary, because, well, oh my goodness). The party served to celebrate the whole night of great films. But also we were celebrating Rod’s birthday. It was all very sweet.

Here’s a photo of Roman Garcia, Me, and Lisa Suarez.

Around midnight I dropped Lisa off at her home. She needed to let her Mami-sitter leave. And I headed home. After I was back home at my computer, more than a bit inebriated, I got a text from Rod. It seemed the after-party had become an after-after-party at the Pedicab Bar and Grill. I ignored the text. I was already home. And ten minutes later, the phone rang. It was Rod. A bit drunk. I let him know I’d be at the Pedicab Bar in ten minutes, but he’d better buy me a beer, because last call was coming up fast.

The Pedicab Bar is maybe four blocks away from my place as he crow flies. But there’s that pesky river. So I decided to drive. I was there in maybe five minutes. It was my first visit to the Pedicab Bar. Funny, I had tried to get the Bike Porn traveling film fest there many months ago. And I had written a short story where a fictionalized version of my actor / wrestler friend Gabe the Babe works as one of the Pedicab drivers for a somewhat fictionalized version of this bar and pedicab business. I was happy to find that it was just the sort of laid-back cool divey venue I had thought it to be.

And even though when I walked in to some motherfucking Karaoke, the coolnes of the place wasn’t diminished. The place is raw and punk. And no amount of flirtation with mainstream bullshit will strip away the Pedicab Bar’s friendly fuck-you attitude. I like the place.

I hate, and I mean absolutely hate stand-up-comedy. But when I arrived there was my friend Roman Garcia, actor and comic, He took to the stage (there were very few people in the bar). He did a version of his recent act. But very laid-back. He was talking to us, and responding to us. But not in some antagonistic format. The bottom line was that Roman was giving Rod a wonderful present — a free performance. I have to say it was one of the most sweet and playful stand-up routines I’ve ever seen. If all stand-up was like this (a weird kind of community event), there might be whole new audiences. And then Roman did some Karaoke. It was a Journey song, I think. He fucking nailed it. So now I know that Roman isn’t just a great actor and comedian (I already knew that), but he can fucking sing.

Jose Bañuelos was also there. I know him as an excellent actor and committed filmmaker, but until I heard him do Elvis — and damn well — I have to admit, I have new respect for the guy.

They eventually shut down the bar, and I was able to escape without ever having to take the stage and bellowing out some song.

The night eventually ended. I do wish I had won. Three grand would have been nice. If I won, I would have taken a thousand dollars and distributed it equally among cast and crew. And the balance I would have used for another project, where I could also pay my wonderful collaborators.

Oh, well. I’ll keep trying. Maybe I’ll get a bit better with each new project. That’s always been the idea. And sometimes it even seems to work out that way.

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(Sunday.)

The second screening of “A Bourbon Would Be Nice.” Again at the Guadalupe Theater. It played with about a dozen other films which were submitted to the Neighborhood Film Project. The Westside and Southside, only, in keeping with, I presume, the longstanding rivalry between those two sections of the city. This was part of the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center’s Cinema in the Barrio series of free movies. I was glad to have an opportunity to see some films which weren’t selected to play last night. Such as a cute and polished narrative from Scott Greenberg. I was dismayed by the very thin turn out. And dumbfounded how few directors of these thirteen or so films were in attendance. Just Scott, Rod, and myself. (True, I did see Alejandro Rodriguez in the audience, and he was a central crew member on Ismael Leiva’s film.) Manuel with the Guadalupe contacted all us filmmakers. Free passes for ten of our friends and a chance to get on stage for a Q&A session. Who turns their backs on that? And we three all did films for the Southside. Not a single Westside filmmaker was in attendance. And the Guadalupe is ON the Westside — in fact, it was featured prominently in many of the Westside films. What’s up? I think I know who won this throwdown.

(Wednesday.)

I’d like to credit Kellen, of Bihl Haus Arts fame, for succeeding in driving me from my house today. I had been in a horrendously useless mode. How I even managed to drag my ass to Eddie’s Taco House to pick up a chilaquiles plate for breakfast at their drive-thru is beyond me. But sometime around 2:30 Kellen called to ask if I could help her burn a DVD which would loop for the Bihl Haus event Thursday night. No problem. I grabbed my laptop, a spindle of DVDs, and assorted devices (as I didn’t think to ask what sort of media I would be working with). I headed over to C4.

She showed up with a DVD, what I refer to as a “playable DVD,” meaning one which is encoded for a DVD player. I would have preferred a file, but ever since I’ve learned the ropes on HandBrake (a wonderful and free piece of software for ripping files from DVDs) I am no longer daunted by these sorts of procedures. After a couple of false starts, I had a disk formated the way she wanted. And finally I was able to see the video. This was the Bihl Haus offering for Luminaria. It’s about 6 minutes. The narrator is Barbara Renaud Gonzalez reading her own words. I’d never given much thought to how much strength of character her voice carries. Wow. Also, there was an appearance of Marisela Barrera’s adorable little girl.

Coincidently, I’m finishing up a quickie edit of a video clip of Marisela where she took her bilingual story-telling talents to a classroom of very young and very excited kids. (When I shot the performance one of the boys asked if I was Superman. Kids these days must be used to setting their bar very low. I tried my best to let him know that, on a good day, I might aspire to be Clark Kent, but that was about it.)

The one thing I planned on doing today was to attend a free film workshop at the El Tropicano Hotel (pardon my redundancy, but I think the sentence flows better with the double-barrel bilingual article, “the El” — also I don’t want people thinking I’m trying to write Tropicana, ’cause this super cool retro hotel is all male, baby, decorated in high Rat Pack machismo: I mean, fuck, the ballrooms are named after famous brands of cigars!). Workshop? No. I knew it wasn’t so much a workshop as an out-reach seminar. The idea was to let people know about the upcoming Texas Monthly short film contest, “Where I’m From.” But still, it sounded like the place to be on a Wednesday night.

First, I decided to get some grocery shopping out of the way. As I was getting out of my truck at the La Fiesta on S. Flores, my cell phone rang. It was Deborah. She wanted to know if I was going to this “workshop.” I said I was. And if she wanted to go, I’d pick her up after I shopped and put away my groceries.

Later I learned that she’d heard that the event started at six. I’d read the information on the Texas Monthly website which said seven o’clock. We arrived a few short minutes after six, and discovered that there was a free reception / mixer from 6 to 7, followed by the presentation. The local host for this event was the San Antonio FIlm Festival (AKA, SAFilm), which is headed by Adam Rocha. As Deborah and I were walking up to the entrance of the El Tropicano Hotel, we saw a couple of Adam’s film students walking up: the uber-talented Jessica Torres and her mom, Sandra. They were accompanied by Jessica’s boyfriend, whose name I’m embarrassed to say I forgot.

Inside we saw Adam in the lobby. Good thing, too. I was thinking the event was going to be held in one of the ballrooms or meeting rooms on the ground floor. Nope. Third floor. Adam let the way.

One of the first people I saw when entering the meeting room was Joy-Marie Scott. Her presence at an event is always a good indicator. There were somewhere between thirty and forty people there. And I only knew about half of them. This is good. This means new people are coming out who are interested in making movies.

Here we have Adam introducing the event.

Texas Monthly magazine is gearing up to promote the second year of their regionalism-embracing short film contest, “Where I’m From.” The panelists were John Phillip Santos (filmmaker, writer, and San Antonio native son), Miguel Alvarez (San Antonio-raised Austin filmmaker), and David Gil (representative of the Austin Film Festival, who are a major partner for this contest). John Phillip talked about his experience making his first film here in San Antonio years ago. And he talked about the “Where I’m From” essay he wrote for Texas Monthly. Miguel talked about his life as a filmmaker. We also had an opportunity to watch his short film, “Kid.” Well-crafted and powerful stuff. David Gil talked about, as he said, the “boring stuff,” like the contest rules. Be he also gave a bit of insight into how film festivals program their screenings.

Two additional films were shown. I hope neither won best film for last year. Both were rather weak. However, because both were created by nonprofessional filmmakers, they probably appealed to the curious amateurs still sitting on the fence as to whether they wanted to do this or not.

One was from Beaumont. It was rough and raw, but it made me smile. A lot. It was basically a slide show of decently composed photographs with a quirky voice-over narration. Oh, and the occasional animation was also pretty cool. And then we were shown a piece submitted last year from San Antonio. Another voice-over narration. The writing was promising. But I assume that the filmmaker was reading his own copy. He should have hired an actor. It would have sounded less pretentious. And even though I think the narrative arc to his video essay was smart and well-thought-out, it was emotionally flat.

I’m wondering, are we supposed to see these ephemeral works of hobbyists as something to emulate, or something to exceed?

I guess it really doesn’t matter. If I decide to submit something to this contest, I’ll simply do my best, and hope it doesn’t suck too much.

My hope is that San Antonio will be well-represented. I want loads of San Antonio filmmakers to submit. And for each of these semi-pros I want there to be at least one matching film made by an absolute amateur. I’m fine with some quasi-literate sewer worker to win with her flip camera documentary of her father’s westside taco truck. You bet!

So, let’s all roll up our sleeves and make some movies.

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(Thursday.)

As I was getting ready to burn a DVD for a fellow artsy type who needs some support material for a grant, I discovered that my fancy new MacBook Pro suffered some catastrophic ailment. It began the process of booting up, but it couldn’t progress beyond the corny Beatles chord, and then that pale blue screen would just star at me, with mute disinterest. I say mute, but I could just barely hear a soft clicking sound which I’ve always associated with dead and dying hard drives.

Remembering that one can’t just tuck that laptop under one’s arm and saunter into an Apple Store, I went to the nearest Apple Store’s web page (thankfully I have another computer hanging about). I could find no link to make an appointment, so I of course called the store. After ten minutes of listening to Beatles music, Brent answered with a sort of chirpy disdain. I explained my problem, succinctly and calmly, and closed with, “so, could I go ahead and make an appointment?” He told me that there were three ways I could set up an appointment with one of their um geniuses. “Your iPhone, on the web, or by calling the Apple Care line …. would you like me to connect you?” I said sure.

I was at that point, of course, talking to a robot. I was instructed, by a prerecorded voice, to name the particular Apple product I was having trouble with. “MacBook Pro,” I said slow and firm. “I’m sorry, but could you repeat that, please?” I did. “You’ve said iPod Nano.” And then I was shouting into my phone, “MacBook Pro, MacBook Pro, you miserable fucking robot.” I rather think that my neighbor Debby, who usually returns around this time of the afternoon, must have been a bit concerned. I hung up. And after ten minutes of poking around on the Apple Store’s webpage, I finally found the labyrinth to make my appointment. 7pm.

This left me an hour to try and find away to get Mari’s DVD burned. Even though the Final Cut project file was trapped on my dead computer, I still have the media file on an external hard drive. So I fired up my old rickety version of Final Cut Pro, and began processing the video the way I wanted it. I started the DVD burn, gathered up my dead laptop, power cord, original disks which came with the machine, and even a couple of external drives just in case they were able to coax it back from the brink long enough for me to tease away a couple of crucial files.

When I walked into the Apple Store, Jared pushed his glasses up his nose and asked how he could help me. I explained I had an appointment, and– He held up a hand with a wisp of a smile. I should, he explained, check in with Marcus. He hooked his thumb over his shoulder and resumed his conversation with girl in dreadlocks. I walked towards the back of the store. I stopped in front of a young man whose tender years were telegraphed by the sad showing of an attempted mustache. “Marcus?” I asked. He nodded energetically. “Yep. And you?” I gave him my name. “I have a seven o’clock appointment.” He looked down at the iPad which he cradled like a clipboard. There was my name on a spread sheet. He tapped his finger on my name. A new screen appeared. “Consider yourself checked in! Jason will be with you momentarily.”

A couple of minutes later, Jason tracked me down. I followed him to a counter. I explained the problem and produced my computer. He nodded. Hooked it up to an ethernet cable. After a few minutes. “Yep, hard drive. Though it could just be the hard drive cable. And then you’d be fine. We’ll check it out.” He printed out some paperwork (which shocked me as a sort of throwback to the 20th century), and I signed … with ink … on paper. What a world. When he gave me that paper receipt I felt like snapping, “What, you want me to lug THAT around? Can’t you email it to me?” But I held my tongue, least Jason or one of his tribe spit into the exposed underbelly of my beloved laptop as it lays exposed under the harsh fluorescent lights of the back warehouse.

Here’s hoping it’s just a bum wire, because if I have to recut that Jump-Start Fish Tale performance again, I’ll open a vein (not because the [performance was bad — quite the contrary — but I fucked up on a couple of places whilst shooting, and it took me AGES to fix my messes). I did luck out because even though the Fish Tale files were on my sick (dead?) computer, I still have all the original files on my spare CF card.

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I drove home, pulled the burned DVD from my lesser laptop, and I headed out to Bihl Haus Arts. This disk was going to find it’s way into Mari’s hands no matter what. I know she’s insanely busy because she running so many events. And I wanted to make sure she got her work sample in hand on time to deliver for the grant deadline.

The Bihl Haus was putting on a multi-media performance, “I Was Born Here.” The piece was directed by Virginia Grise. The text which served as the foundation was a poem by Barbara Renaud Gonzalez, one of this city’s literary stars, a woman of playful wisdom and unyielding conviction. Of the four actresses who performed in various stations in the space, I was familiar with Marisela Barrera and Natalie Goodnow. Mari and Natalie were brilliant, as I knew they’d be. But everyone shined. While the performance was happening, a film component of the work screen on wall off to side. The video had been shot by my good friend Pocha Pena. Also, the video included a performance by Mari’s adorable little girl, Inez. The whole space was wonderfully decorated by Deborah Vasquez; it was a chaotically cozy installation … a sort of familiar organic psychedelia. Kellen Kee McIntyre, Executive Director of Bihl Haus Arts should be incredibly proud of all the creative individuals and forces she brought together to make this special night.

Here’s one of the performers who I don’t know. She kicked some serious ass!

And then I headed home. I too have a grant thingy I need to work on. The problem isn’t just that the media I want to use as support material is on an absent computer, but that now as I look at the proposal form, I’m beginning to wonder if my planned proposal actually fits the criteria….

Probably I should just go to bed and work on it in the morning. Too bad I never made it to the store to replenish my coffee.

Now THAT’S upsetting!

(Monday, March 21.)

Back in 2008 I took a little tour of the old Kress building in downtown San Antonio. Dora Pena was the head of the video component for the first year of Luminaria. Several rooms on the ground floor of the building would be set aside for video projections. It was an interesting space. Rough, and in various stages of demolition from it’s previous tenant, some sort of music club. Four years later (tonight, in fact) I entered the same space, now dramatically transformed into the restaurant Texas de Brazil. But the purpose of my visit was strangely similar — an echo through time. This is where a party was being held for the 2011 Luminaria Board and Steering Committee. I invited Deborah along because it helps to have a pretty woman to hide behind when one has little to say to a bunch of people — besides, Deborah knows about as many of these people there as do I.

We were in a side meeting room with a spread of munchies and a little bar area where a couple of guys were making some damn tasty caipirinhas. There was a point where the noise level in the room pretty much negated my ability to hear what people were saying to me (especially those of diminutive stature). So, I apologize to those of you who I was smiling and nodding to while you told me about your daughter’s divorce or that recent procedure to correct a prolapsed rectum. My condolences.

Deborah and I rode the trolly from King William to the Alamo and walked the three blocks to the Kress Building. Afterwards, we walked back to our neighborhood. It was a beautiful night, and it’s always a joy to walk through downtown and King William, especially with a good friend.

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My plan is to make it out to the Big Bend in a couple of weeks. Not the National Park, but the tiny town of Redford, AKA, El Polvo. It’s a tiny, impoverished farming community along the Rio Grande. The fertile river valley is between the Bofecillos Mountains on the US side, and Sierra Rica, on the Mexican side. I’d love to stay for a couple of weeks with my friends down there, but I’m involved in three projects which need my attention in April. And I can’t slip out of town until the very end of this month because of an unwise commitment I made. Well, there is also a fun gig as well (some work which will actually pay!).

(I feel a need for a digressive parenthetical rant. Many of us in the arts and the production communities find ourselves, on occasion, doing work for free. There are various reasons we do this. Me? I volunteer for loads of reasons. And sometimes I never explain why. The reason, at times, might be personal, and no one needs to know. But I’ve come to discover that many people who I find myself helping out take my willingness to give, as a form of weakness. This must be a common mindset, because I often see people treat their unpaid crew in shockingly crass and cavalier fashion. God, I hope I don’t do that to the wonderful people who have been so gracious to help me out. The bottom line is, if you ask me to help on your movie project and you don’t treat me with the slightest regard, and, in the future, you wonder why I don’t want to continue to do pro-bono work for you, well, it’s because I have had my fill. If you’ve brought me on to your project and I realize I’m not there to qualitatively enhance your production (such as adding a certain technical expertise or creative insight), but, instead, I see that I’m essentially a quantitative component (another pair of hands who will show up on time), well, don’t expect to see much of me in the future. This is not to say that I’m all pissy and will never help people again. Far from it. I love collaboration. But collaboration means mutual respect. I also am fine with helping intelligent and creative people on their excellent projects, if I’m quite certain that they will help me on mine. Mutuality and reciprocity kick ass! I will give until I have nothing left to like-minded and community-minded people and institutions. But ego-driven projects are pure poison to me. And the truth is, I’d rather be the first bridge someone burns than the last, because that sort of crude and dismissive behavior is bullshit–particularly when it dribbles down upon an unpaid crew.)

But I was talking about a trip to the desert. I hope that March has brought a fair amount of rain. The cactus flowers — yellow, white, and red — are beautiful. And the ocotillo, when in bloom, are amazing. This weird plant of twisted, thorny stalks, produces a tear-shaped cluster of blossoms at the tip of each stalk. The flowers are bright scarlet. And when they bloom, the desert is covered by a mist of red, floating five to twelve feet over the ground.

I also want to replenish my stocks of popotillo. This is a low-laying plant usually found in the arroyos. It grows as a cluster of green sticks, a little thicker than wooden matches. The plant has leaves, but they are so tiny they are often missed. Popotillo is cut from the bushy plant, allowed to dry, and boiled and drunk as a tea. It is also known as Mormon Tea and Apache Tea. The Mormon’s prize it because it has a kick to it which isn’t caffeine, which they avoid. The active alkaloid of popotillo is ephedrine. There is much evidence that the “soma” drink mentioned in the Vedas, half a world away from the Chihuahua Desert, utilized a plant almost identical to popotillo.

And what’s it like? It’s a tasty tea, when you add honey and lime. A bit bitter without. When I lived in the desert years ago I would make sure my canteen was filled with popotillo-infused water. And I would go out on ten hour hikes back into the Bofecillos Mountains in July and August, where it would get over 115 degrees. Yep. I swear I could walk all day. It’s the good stuff. In fact, I’m pro-popotillo.

The truth is, I’m afraid what I’ll find when I make it to Redford. It was freaky enough when I visited three or four years back and discovered that my friend Enrique had lost his leg to infection, compounded by diabetes. And while I was there he came down with some respiratory infection and was rushed to the nearest hospital over a hundred and twenty miles away where he almost died, and was eventually kicked out, still undiagnosed, because he had no insurance. The people of Redford have much in common with the people of the Rio Grande Valley, (where so many of my San Antonio friends come from). Crushing poverty, poor to nonexistent health care, and, to make life almost intolerable, they are essentially living under occupation in this insane war against drugs. In southern Presidio county there are paranoid bastards with badges over every hill and behind every bush. ICE agents, the DEA, Border Patrol, state troopers, National Guard, the US Marines (who are supposed to have been removed from the region following the shooting of Esequiel Hernandez in Redford some years back, but there are those who say they have returned), and  on a good day throw in the Texas Rangers, FBI, and, if you can believe some of the locals, the CIA. All this for an empty stretch of inhospitable desert, sparsely populated by some of the poorest people in the United States. It’s a pretty ugly situation. There are helicopters at night, unmanned drones, and motion detectors and hidden cameras placed on private property without the owners’ knowledge.

The history of abuse and violence directed towards the American citizens of Mexican heritage along the river in the Big Bend area goes back to the 1870s when citizenship and land was offered to Mexicans to settle this wild frontier. And ever since then, they have carried a metaphoric target on their backs for any American thug in uniform with a gun and a badge. This despicable heritage goes back much longer, because the Mexicanos of the Big Bend are, for the most part, descended from the Jumanos, the indigenous people who worked this rough region before European contact. If you want to know what THEY had to put up with, ignore the history books and pick up Cormac McCarthy’s grisly “Blood Meridian.”

I have visited this area often over the decades. The locals call it La Junto. Or, La Junto de Los Rios. This is where the Rio Conchos joins the Rio Grande. Archeologist have learned that this region has been settled, uninterrupted, for ten thousand years. These are proud people. They once had a sort of playful defeatist outlook. But when an American Marine, with a secret drug interdiction force, happened to shoot to death a young high school student who was out taking care of his family’s goats after school, well things changed dramatically on the US side of the border. A patient, pragmatic, and patriotic people were allowed to see just how ugly and boundless American institutionalized racism can be. These were law-abiding and innocent men and women who had problems mostly with the harassment of the Border Patrol agents and the corrupt legacy of Sheriff Thompson, of Presidio County, who is currently serving a life sentence for drug trafficking. But many of the men of La Junto proudly served their country in the armed services. And yet, the Marines, the best of the best, had been skulking around the farms of Redford, unknown to anyone. They were outfitted in ghillie suits which blended into the desert scrub. And when a young Marine, hunkered down with his camouflaged crew, grew suspicious of a carefree teenager, who was out walking on his family’s property with a small herd of goats and a couple of dogs, and happened to be carrying an ancient rusty single shot .22 rifle … well, some naive, ill-advised “profiling” got way out of control. We might never learn what really happened that day, but by the time the sun set, Esequiel Hernandez lay dead, having bled out before the Marines ever got around to radioing for help. And that’s when it all changed on this stretch of the border. When a large region of the United States views the US Marines as monsters because their most beloved and innocent teenage citizen was slaughtered by the most noblest branch of the US military, well, something has gone terribly wrong.

The most beautiful region of Texas has been wounded. The people are still in mourning. And the occupation continues. I want to go have fun, tramping around in the desert. But I know the locals aren’t the carefree gente I used to know.

We seem to always come in and fuck up paradise. We do it abroad, and we do it here at home. This is what happens when we turn our back on community.

(Friday.)

Because I don’t want to retype, please allow me to cut and paste from a FaceBook comment of mine:

“Friday, March 18, 2011. Spring Break, Lent, and Friday. These factors created a perfect storm on the southside where the crowds at Rudy’s Seafood on S. Flores were so massive that police were directing traffic in the parking lot. In fact, those who couldn’t get in had to take sloppy seconds at the Fred’s Fish Fry down the block (and I NEVER see people in there).”

I drive by this place a couple times a week and have never seen this sort of excitement. But I had a hint from Sandra Torres’ FaceBook comment that she’d seen the craziness during lunchtime. Apparently they have famous lent specials. And there I was, heading to the La Fiesta to buy groceries some hours later. This would be the early dinner crowd. People were parking in obviously illegal spots. But that’s fine. If you hire cops to keep order, they’ll watch your back, even turning a blind eye to minor infractions of your patrons. The right lane was all cars idling with flashers for two blocks waiting their turn at the Rudy’s goodness.

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At La Fiesta is a young woman who works the registers. Her name is Disney. That’s right, Disney. And yet she seems wonderfully well-adjusted. While I was waiting for my groceries to be rung up at the adjacent register, I overheard a woman tell Disney: “I love your name. My sister-in-law had two daughters who she named Merry and Melody.” For my San Antonio friends, this is exactly why I shop at La Fiesta instead of Central Market (AKA the Gucci HEB).

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My day was fairly unproductive. I did, however, deposit a smallish check into my bank over on the eastside. As I was returning, I noticed a film crew a few short blocks from my house. They were across the street from where Sam Lerma used to live, so I was pretty sure it was the crew for his new short, Lilia. I pulled over, grabbed my camera, and walked over. Producer Ralph Lopez came up. We chatted. They were in the middle of day two, with two more days scheduled. I watched the action happening across the street. There was Sam, Dago, Rosalva, and several people I recognized, but whose names I didn’t know. Ralph headed off to deal with important production stuff. I crossed the street and took some photos. Between setups Sam came over and said hello. Things seemed to be running smoothly. There was a shitload of equipment, and a crew who seemed on top of things. I’m looking forward to a truly fine and polished short film. I have been a fan of Sam’s vision for years. He is clearly one of the best filmmakers in town. I hope his steady successes culminate in a big break. It couldn’t happen to a better person.

Here’s a photo from Adams Street.

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I met with an emerging filmmaker tonight (Friday) at Tito’s. Noi Mahoney was at the PGA mixer the other night at the GCAC. He’s a newspaper writer and editor who’s wanting to get into filmmaking. He’s done some early work which is rough. He knows this. And, like all of us, we have to start somewhere. He’s eager to learn and I hope he begins to find like-minded people here in town he can work with and learn from.

The San Antonio film community does exist. It’s a bit fragmented, and certain corners seem to run on high-octane spite. But mostly, we’re nice and reasonable and helpful people. Yes, it’s great that we find ways to be polite and helpful even to those who we are periodically at war with. But what I really want to see is honest and constructive criticism. We, as a whole, need to stop sucking so much. I’m as guilty as the next person. Let’s admit our inherent lameness, and figure out each filmmaker’s particular weakness, and then, collectively work to remedy these defects.

Noi asked me to name some of my favorite filmmakers. When I mentioned Guy Madden, he said that not only was he aware of Madden’s work, but he had a friend who lives in Winnipeg. This is a city in the Canadian great plains where several wonderfully weird and idiosyncratic filmmakers live and work. Noi’s Winnipeg friend asked him if there was anything in San Antonio like the rich film culture in Winnipeg. Noi truthfully said no. The sad fact is that this Canadian hicksville with a population of 600,000 is internationally know as a home for innovative filmmaking, and San Antonio, with over twice the population, has little of which to be proud in the film area.

We need to find our odd, idiosyncratic, regional geniuses, and make them shine. Winnipeg has Guy Madden, Portland has Karl Krogstad, Baltimore has John Waters, Wellington has Jane Campion. We need our Guy Madden. And we need to stop making fucking zombie movies and films about drug deals gone bad. Jesus! What’s wrong with you people?

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(Sunday.)

I was cleaning my place earlier this afternoon. I’m not much for house-cleaning, so when I discovered a piece of mail addressed to one of my neighbor’s under my sofa, I realized it could be maybe two years stale. It was from his family in England and didn’t have any sort of dated cancelation stamp. This is a neighbor whose house and dogs I often looked after when he was out of town. I hope nothing horrible happened because he never got this letter. Perhaps there had been some rift in the family with him being eradicated from a will. The neighbor in question has moved to the other side of the county. I guess I’ll give him a call and get his new address.

Oh, well….

Rod Guajardo gave me a call about an hour later. He told me he was heading to Tito’s. Did I want to join him? I said, sure. If it got me away from cleaning (which was, in turn, keeping me from doing a final pass on editing a project which, um, I’ve already been paid for). When I walked into Tito’s, Rod was at a table in the side room with his wife Rosemary, and their two youngest kids.

(The other night Rod had emailed me a link with a password so I could view his submission to the Neighborhood Film Project. I did the same for him. He and I will be competing against one another as filmmakers representing the southside. I’m not sure who else we’re up against. His film is damn tight and very good. If I had been the judge, I would have given his work more points than mine. Ah, and now I’m depressed.)

After a late lunch, we headed over to the Friendly Spot. This is a laid-back “ice house.” True, it’s infested by alcoholic hipster parents who can toss their kids into the fenced playground and suck back their cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon al fresco, but the truth is, it embraces all types of patrons. The place was pretty crowded. Rod showed me his new lens for his Canon Rebel. It was a zoom lens with a very wide aperture. I asked him how much it cost. Rod look up. Rosemary was fussing with their little girl, and was about to walk her back over to the playground corral. “I’ll tell you when Rosemary leaves.” I assume she heard him, be decided not to comment. When Rosemary walked out of hearing range, Rod told me. It was about what I had assumed. And as envious as I was, the lens was far beyond my budget.

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I headed home and took a short nap. Then I headed over to the series of events at Gallista Gallery. It was: “Spring Equinox: The Chicano New Year, Curated by David Zamora Casas.” The event had other events within. Such as an anti-nuke rally. Some music performances. And various artists with shows in the studios there at Gallista. The main reason I was going was because of Monessa M. Esquivel. Her show, “Underground Ghetto Cartoon People: Part Juan,” was also there at Gallista. I’m very fond of Monessa. She’s an extraordinary actress (one of this city’s best), a compelling performance artists, a sensitive and accomplished writer, and, I now know, a smart and playful artist who can damn well rock a sheet of graph paper. She’s also one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever met. I tend to get a bit tongue-tied around her, but I was able to get her to pose for a picture in front of her art.

I was also impressed by the work of Roberto Sifuentes. His flat varnished neo-pre-Renaissance panels were very impressive. Here’s the largest. Maybe ten feet by eight feet.

Some guy, and I forget his name, had a room of very cool stuff. But my favorite piece was this, which is clearly a collage made from the flattened paper of hundreds of roaches. What a beautiful abstract work!

I stayed for a few songs with Rithe, a tight trio very influenced (in a good way) by Joy Division.

A very nice Sunday. I just wish I could have made it to the eastside where there was an art kite event. That would have been fun to shot photos and video.