Matthew Jasso dropped by and we headed over to La Tuna for lunch.  As usual, he has half a dozen projects in various stages of completion.  The guy's got way too much energy.  The sun was out, so we sat outside.  La Tuna wasn't my first choice — the food's great, but it's a bit pricey for me.  However, try to find a parking place at noon on a weekday on S. Alamo.  It's a bitch.  La Tuna has scads of parking.  A drowsy cat sunned himself my feet, no doubt stuffed from handouts of tilapia tacos and torta milanesa.  I waved to my neighbor Jerry who was breaking for lunch in the beer garden with one of his geologist colleagues.  In fact, I had a great view of the back of Jerry's house  just across the San Antonio river.  There are times when I really love my neighborhood.

I'm helping Matthew edit a project, and he was kind enough to provide me with a hefty hard drive.  This is just what I need.  Not only for his piece, but some of the jobs that have been languishing because I've run out of storage space.  For instance, there's this traveling film project looking for filmmakers to take their work on the road.  It pays well, and is the sort of thing I have been thinking of for sometime.  Take films out to the people.  I need to capture ninety minutes or so of some of my better stuff, burn a DVD, send it off to the organization, and hope for the best.  But until now, I lacked the hard drive space.  I'll be able to make the deadline.

I did have some problems installing the drive.  Matthew had loaded it up with a bunch of footage he had already captured.  But I'm thinking that when he set up the drive on his computer, it became formatted to his newer version of the mac operating system.  I'm working with O/S B.C., the Cretaceous edition.  But, with Matthew's aid over the phone, I was able to reformat it.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Alston joined me for the Methane Sisters' show, As Filthy As It Gets, at the Jump-Start.  We walked over about twenty minutes early.  I was expecting a long line because they made the cover of the Current (the San Antonio free weekly tabloid).  Inside, I only saw about half the seats occupied.  However, they all quickly filled up.

If you like Absolutely Fabulous and Hedwig, you'll enjoy it.  The piece is about half stage performance and half video.

The show opened with the girls in their punk period, hitting the stage like Jane County (formerly Wayne County) who has inexplicably received a blood transfusion from Johnny Thunders.  They were floundering around, singing about cocks and asses, as a guy on drums and another guy on a guitar, played noisily, but with bored indifference.  May Joon (Monessa Esquivel) was feeling up her microphone and grabbing her crotch, as Ann July (Annele Spector) staggered around obliviously, necessitating a roadie (Daniel Jackson, of Babycakes fame) to herd her back towards her microphone.  The cigarette butt tangled in Ann July's tall blue wig was a nice touch. 

There's a bit of video when Monessa's character is being interviewed for a documentary, and an incidental element of fetishistic infantilism and adult diapers is used quite, um, effectively.  I about lost it — and I know Alston was shaking with laughter as well.

The evening dredged up sweet recolletions of my miss-spent youth.  It seems like only yesterday that, I too, was snorting lines of coke off a cross-dressing friend's Judy Garland album.  Sometime even the most outrageous comedic cliche will have a big fat kernel of truth.

Seeing Monessa Esquivel screaming into a microphone wearing clunky black boots, ripped fishnet stockings, and a red bustier, brought back memories of seeing Frightwig, circa 1983, at San Francisco's Vis Club.  In fact, I currently have their first LP, Cat Farm Faboo, spinning on my turntable.  Brilliant.  Imagine the frenetic sludge of Flipper played by foul-mouthed women in shabby vintage dresses singing songs with titles like “Hot Papa,” and “My Crotch Does Not Say Go,” and all this while the members of Bratmobile and Bikini Kill were still trying to figure how to bite the heads off their Barbie dolls without damaging their retainers.  Deep history's what I'm talking about, baby.

Ah, can there be anything sweeter than those moments in popular culture where Trash and Glamour intersect? 

Last night I headed up to see how things are developing at the Woodlawn Theater.  Jonathan Pennington has been pulling things together quite well even with the very daunting work still to go.  But in the true theater tradition  of the show-must-go-on, he keeps the performances running.  Attendance is strong, volunteers are committed, and Jon Gillespie is a tireless champion to the cause of local theater.  I'm scoping out possible venues for the 48 Hour Film Project, and the Woodlawn certainly meets seating requirements.  Parking is a situation that will need to be addressed.  As will the renting of a powerful video projector.  We'll see how things shape up.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

The sun came out today, and finally I could truly enjoy my current status as a gentleman of leisure (i.e., an unemployed bum).  I was able to hang my laundry up on the line … sometime between my first and second cup of espresso.  And then I went out for a bike ride along the Mission Trail.  I've gotten way out of shape and ballooned up easily 25 pounds since last summer.  I decided to toss the bike in my truck and drive it to Mission Park.  This shortened my usual 20 mile bike ride out to and back from Mission Espada down to about 12 miles.  I'm going to have to work my way back up.

Along one stretch of the trail, some guy in cycling shorts and hundred dollar sunglasses buzzed by me.  Good, someone to motivate me.  I'm not a terribly competitive person, but I can rise to the occasion, especially when someone passes me on a bike.  I matched him for about four miles, and then, I looked up, and he was gone.  I remember, not so long ago (or so I tell myself), when I would have had no trouble keeping up with these serious dudes.  A goal to work towards, I suppose.

When I returned to my truck, I decided to make a couple of phone calls there in the parking-lot.  I leaned against the side of my truck and was chatting away when this guy in jeans and a grimy pearl-snap western shirt rolled up to me on his rusty single speed jalopy of a bicycle.  The wire basket attached to the handle bars  held three of those chunky 6 volt lantern batteries, you know, with the coiled terminals on top.  All were wrapped in duct tape, and he had a greasy shop rag draped over them in some attempt to hide or protect them.  He stopped about ten feet from me, and waited, politely.

“Hold on,” I said into the phone.  “What's up?” I asked batteryman.

“Um, I see you have a bike.  Do you know how I can get back on the trail?”

“Yeah.  See that fence over there — horses behind it?  Ride straight to it and turn left.  There's a short path that'll get you back on the trail.”

He nodded, but made no attempt to move.

“Yes…?” I prompted.

“I'm headed to South New Braunfels.  I could take the trail or I could stay on the street.”  He scratched his head.  “This trail will get me to South New Braunfels, right?”

“I don't know that street,” I said with a shrug.

“Of course it will.  It's alongside I-37.”

Now he was telling me, not asking me.

As the exchange was going on, a grizzled coot had pulled up near us in his wheezing Ford Fiesta.  I was wondering if this senior citizen wanted my attention, or that of the battery guy.  But eventually he lost interest and puttered off. 

“Sounds like you've got a good plan,” I said to batteryman with a smile, lifting the phone back up to my ear.

I don't know if he wanted a handout, a ride to his destination with his bike in the bed of my truck, or maybe he just wanted to chat. But finally he got the hint and rode away.

Several minutes later, while I was still in the same phone conversation, I saw, coming up from the bike trail, two young men on mountain bikes.  They were dressed in black slacks, white short-sleeved Oxford shorts, and narrow black ties.

Fuck!  I was still leaning against my truck.  I tried to lower my head, in an attitude of distressed sorrow, hoping they'd think me the midsts of a very personal phone call.  I probably was even trying to squeeze out a tear.

They didn't care.

“Um, sir,” said the older of the two.  He was maybe 20.  They were stopped five feet from me, straddling their bikes.

I lowered my phone.

“Yes?”  And I suspect I was grinning at the absurdity of it all.

“We can see you're on the phone, and all … but do you know if we can get across that bridge from here?  I can see you have a bike and all.”

“What?  What bridge?”  They kept smiling at me.  “You mean that bridge?”  I pointed to the bridge over the river not a hundred yards away in clear sight.  “Sure, you cross the parking-lot to that street.  You know, that street, right in front of you — the one that crosses the river.  The bridge across the river.”

I smiled and began lifting up the phone.

“We don't want to take up your time, but let me give you one of my cards.”

I actually became intrigued.  A real business card?  Malachi Smith, Busybody Missionary.  But no such luck.  It was a flimsy postcard displaying a picture of, you guessed it, the Book of Mormon.

“Thanks,” I said pleasantly, taking the proffered card.

“There's an 800 number.  If you call it, they'll send you a free book.  It's called the Book of Mormon.”  And here followed a quick pitch of Latter Day so forth and so on that I managed to tune out.

But, soon enough they were gone — after:  “You promise me you'll call this number?”

“Yes,” I lied.  Just as the youngster had lied to me that he didn't know how to cross the Mission Parkway bridge.

I should have explained that I already have a copy of the Book of Mormon, and don't really care for it.  A bit of a snoozer, actually.  And then I would have presented my own card.  “Call this number and they'll send you, free of charge, a copy of Fawn M. Brodie's No Man Knows My History.”  (This is a wonderful bio of Joseph Smith that kisses no ass, pulls no punch.)  “You promise me you'll read it, kids?”

And they'd play my game right back in my face, with a smiling, lying assertion of, yes, of course.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

At the moment my iPod is playing some Spacemen 3, but I have my browser open to the constantly refreshing playlist of KEXP out of Seattle.  This evening is a show featuring roots country and new country.  And I noticed that by not being tuned in I missed a Willie Nelson song I've never heard of before titled “Cowboys are Frequently Secretly Fond of Each Other.”  I just did a quick internet search.  It came out a year ago, and was written by Ned Subblette (no relation, I'm guessing, to fellow Texan Jesse Sublett).  Great title.  It's that twinning of Frequently & Secretly.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Earlier this evening I walked to Casa Chiapas for the first members meeting of 2007 of the San Antonio chapter of NALIP.

Casa Chiapas is a coffee house and restaurant on S. Alamo in my neighborhood.  It's fairly new.  In the space that Espuma (another coffee house) used to reside.

I believe 18 people showed up, me included.

There are currently three film groups functioning in San Antonio that I know of.  Short Ends, IFMASA, and NALIP.  I may well be the only person who belongs to all three.  I'm not sure
what that says about me (because, really, you gotta believe me here, I'm really not a “joiner”).  Oops.  Jorge Lopez is also a triple member.  And, I shouldn't forget Amanda Silva.  Okay, I'm not so special.

I think people are put off by NALIP for three reasons.  1.) There's a fairly stiff annual membership fee (50 bucks).  2.) The San Antonio chapter, for those on the outside looking in, seems very insular and cliquish.  3.) And then there are those put off by the L in the name: The National Association of Latino Independent Producers.

Well, the membership used to be 35 bucks when I first hit town and encountered the group.  I screened my little films at each of their quarterly video slams, but never joined … because I never had that much spare cash at any given time.  But I finally took the plunge in time for the Adelante Film Forum back in the fall of 2006.  This organization provides quite a bit for the members.  For instance, as a respected national non-profit arts organization, it functions as a potential fiscal sponsor when the members are seeking grants and other types of funding.  And workshops and screenings and scholarships, and of course, networking opportunities.

The cliquishness is something that may or may not be warranted.  But the leadership is changing and the membership is growing.  If this were indeed a valid worry in the past, it's unlikely to continue.

And, then there's the Latino question.  Hmm, you know, there might only be two non-latino members in this, the San Antonio chapter.  Me (anglo-American), and Deon van Rooyen (South African).  Perhaps there are others.  But as a member of a Latino advocacy media organization, I'm confident that much of the work I've done, and work I plan to do, fits comfortably within the parameters of NALIP's mission statement.  Hell, this is San Antonio, and if your cast and crew and script doesn't reflect the cultural demographics, than you really aren't making a San Antonio movie.  Besides, my take is that if you want to make movies, and you have limited resources, play to your strengths; play to what's available; play to regionalism.  And so, los guerros, los gabachos, los gringos, et al, stand tall, fear not, join up with NALIP. 

Their last video slam proved that NALIP members (through collaboration) are making some of the strongest movies in town.  Dora Pena's “Crazy Life” is the clearest testament anyone could ask for.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

And, before I sign off for the night:

Methane Sisters.  “As Filthy As It Gets.”  The show you need to attend.  Six words: Monessa Esquivel, Annele Spector, Sam Lerma.

Jump-Start Theater.  Friday, Saturday, Sunday.  8pm.  I'll be there tomorrow night (Friday).  Hope to see you.     

This week I passed 10,000 hits on my MySpace blog.  I've been posting this blog on MySpace since March 26th, 2006.  However I have no idea how many hits I receive on my Live Journal pages where I post redundantly, because my account doesn't let me track that sort of info. Well, I don't think it does.

The bottom line is, I guess, that a lot of people are peeking in.  That's great.

Right?

Well, here we fall into the confused mindset of the introverted exhibitionist.    “Everyone, hey, hello?  Don't look at me, nothing worth looking at over here.  Nope.  Noting at all ….  Hello.”  Add to that the strange sort of anonymity that the internet can provide.  I mean, you can even use your real name, and what effect does it have to someone a thousand miles away?  A hundred miles away?  I'm just some opinionated ass, by the name of Erik Bosse, who lives in San Antonio, Texas.  Perhaps there are readers of this blog in this very town who will never meet me.

I suspect, however, that a good number of you known me fairly well.  If you don't already know me, it's likely you found me out because I've mentioned you, your friend, your family, your organization, your project.  A Google introduction.  Fine.  I hope you come for the Serendipity, and stay for the, well, whatever it is I'm doing.

At times I wonder how many readers there are who have found me through some weird route that they can't even recall, such as my fumblings that brought me to Jennifer Saylor or Pamela Ribon.

Anyway, please, feel free to drop me a line if you want.  A quick scan of two or three of these blogs will make it quite clear that I have an unpropitious amount of free time.

And if any of you are writing blogs I don't already subscribe to, let me know where your words can be read.  I'd like this door to swing both ways.

Thanks everyone!

Damn you Jennifer!  I've been glued to YouTube (is that their new slogan?) for most of the last two days watching seasons one and two (2005-6) of the current incarnation of Doctor Who.

I never got into it all that much when I was younger.  Tom Baker was the Doctor when I was a kid.  And until Peter Davidson appeared and put me off the whole thing (with his nauseatingly sensitive portrayal (though I was quite keen on the sprig of, what was it, celery?)), Baker was the only Doctor I ever saw.  The PBS station in Dallas never aired those older incarnations of the Doctor.  I watched the show for it's kitsch appeal, the goofy surrealism, and, of course, because Tom Baker was allowed to chew the scenery like Captain Kirk on an IMAX.

But this new BBC production is a different animal.  It's still geared towards kids.  People die, but there's no blood or gore.  For instance, if the Cyber Men decided to turn a human into a robot, the view through a frosted window will show plenty of sparks flying from the rotating blades, but never the sickening splash of blood on glass that you would have gotten in the X-Files.  It's sweet and wholesome, and heaven help me, I love it.  It has all the good parts of Chris Carter and Joss Whedon without the problematic neurosis.  Nice special effects, tight writing, and just a smart production.

There are two Doctors so far.  Christopher Eccleston comes off like he's wandered in from a Guy Ritchy set.  Gaunt, hair cut down to the nub, and he wears  a lapeled leather jacket trimmed to the waist.  He's a hyper-active pub boy, now a bit long of tooth.  David Tennant, the next version of the Doctor, is boyish with a tousle of hair.  He wears a jacket and tie and, when reading is required, he pulls out a pair of black horn-rimmed glasses.  The side-kick who  is carried over through both seasons and both Doctors was played by Billie Piper.  She's always fun to watch.  But for the new season, they've brought in a new girl.

Check it out.  Glue yourself to a YouTube terminal at home or work.  The new Doctor Who.  It's stylish, quirky, and smart.  You'll be thanking me.  Just as I'm thanking Jennifer.

Thank you Jennifer!

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

I got very little accomplished today.  And I had such plans.

My neighbor, Marlyss, has an art show coming up.  End of February, I think.  I like the concept, as she explained it to me.  But I still haven't seen the images.  It's a multi-media thing.  She asked me for a sound file she could have going.  She didn't want much.  Just some white noise.  I told her that might be a bit too ugly.  She might chase away the audience.  But she only smiled.  Great!  I smiled back.  Ugly art.  I love ugly art!

I gave her a few options.  White noise is pretty raw.  It's not so much ugly or off-putting as it is painful.  I decided that what she needed was something that, well, “seemed” painful, but was in fact just mildly irritating.  I tracked down a wonderful low hum recorded at a Canadian hydroelectric plant.  I merged the two tracks.  The low Canadian rumblings helped to fill out the white noise.  The marriage created an ugly sound that can be tolerated.  I can't wait to see (and hear) her show.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Tonight I entered into my first ever conference call.

I was on line with something like 16 other people.  Very weird.  This was for the 48 Hour Film Project, of which I'm the local producer here in San Antonio.  The voices on the line were the four people who run the organization, as well as all the new local producers — such as me.

They all sounded like great people.  And I wish I could make it to the yearly meeting / screening this March in Albuquerque.  But I'm working on Robin's film.  Besides, I'm at a loss how to pay my bills and the rent for February.  I'm just about tapped out.  A drive to New Mexico sounds fun, but it ain't gonna happen.

Sunday.  I remember Sunday.  Warmish. No rain.  Sunlight.  Clear blue skies.  Beautiful!  An island of respite, which the cold, clammy winter repealed as the work week began anew.  And now that I think about it, I really wish I had a job, no matter how numbing and mundane, because I would at least have a warm  haven to spend some of my hours.  And I sure as hell ain't doing anything with the freedom my unemployment provides, as the interior of my head remains as grey and dreary as the weather.  However, Sunday was a rejuvenation.  I had planned on heading over to the Jump-Start Theater for the Methane Sisters' show.  I had received an email from the girls suggesting that if I whispered the code word “booty” at the ticket booth, I would gain admittance for only 6 bucks.

That afternoon I got a call from Russ.  Was I free to meet him at Tito's Tacos at 6:30?  The Jump Start show was at eight.  Plenty of time.  He was meeting a dancer / choreographer who wanted help putting together a dance film project.

Tito's was closed.  Me and Russ milled about at the bus stop and this lovely young woman walked up.  It was Christy Walsh, our 6:30.

We crossed the street to Madhatters Tea House and Cafe.

Christy pitched the project.  Me and Russ tossed out some ideas, not because her plan needed augmentation, but, I think, we were just refreshed to hear about a film project where the narrative element would be told through physical motion and abstract concepts.  You know, art.

Christy's not been in San Antonio all that long.  But as I fished around to see what art groups she had been affiliated with, I realized I had seen one of her performances.  It was back in 2005.  I was at the Radius art space with my friend Deborah.  Bill Colangelo and a musician from China were providing improvisational music as three women entertained us with modern dance. It was a small, intimate space.  A beautiful evening.  My thoughts that night are still quite clear.  San Antonio needs much more of this.

As we were placing our orders, Russ received some sort of ominous phone call, the details of which he has yet to share with me.  He did his best to keep smilingly on topic.  But I knew something was gnawing at him.  He said it wasn't important, and that he didn't need to rush off.  So I tried to move the conversation towards the nuts and bolts of the project — set-building, camera movements, lighting, et al.  Russ is a problem solver at heart, and I thought this would take his mind off … whatever.  I'm afraid, however, I kept drifting onto side topics.  Christy is that creature so rare to find in this city.  A polymath intellectual.  She'd obviously immersed herself deep in the liberal arts and emerged with her sense of playfulness fully intact.  She referenced, in the same sentence as I recall, Noh theater and the Cremaster cycle without an ounce of pretentiousness.  You gotta dig someone who choreographs a waltz to the music of Tom Waits.

The weird thing is that even though I'm involved in the “arts” (in the looser translation of the word), I find myself so rarely involved in conversation about art.

It might be simple enough to split the film / video world between Art and Media.  But the problem is that there is so much over-lap between the two designations.  I know that the films of Guy Maddin and Matthew Barney are art.  These are movies we usually see in museums.  Movies which often get funding through arts organization.  But for many folks who want to make movies, when you mention artistic filmmakers, they tend to think of Tarantino and Fincher.

But time passed, and after a few polite pokes in the ribs, I realized Russ needed to head out to his next stop of the night.  I looked at my cell phone (the 21st century pocket watch) and realized I'd missed the Methane Sisters.  But I got to meet a wonderful woman who I hope to work with in the future.  And René Guerrero, owner of Madhatters, came up to say hi.  He's looking fit and happy.  Truly the sweetest man to have instigated a draconian rule in his establishment.  No one can use a cell phone on the premises — for talking on, that is (my whole pocket watch thing was okay, I think).  Not that I have anything against a cell phone-free zone.  But you'd expect someone who posts such warning signs on his restaurant doors and windows to be a hard-ass.  Quite the opposite.  I can only assume he's a very complicated man.  What do I know about his motivations?  Perhaps a cell phone killed his grandmother.  I'm not here to judge.  Well, actually I am here to judge.  Hell, I do it all the time.  But selectively.  So, don't cross me!

And for those interested, I'll be heading over to the Jump-Start with a friend this Friday.  8pm.  Come on out.  The Methane Sisters (Monessa Esquivel and Annele Spector) appear in the incendiary weltuntergang of pathos and ecstasy entitled “As Filthy as it Gets.”  Leave your Handy Wipes at home, and come on down to Jump-Start! 

This weather isn't getting any more civilized.  It's cold and miserable and wet.

And I had to be in Seguin at 9 this morning for a fucking production meeting.  This meant getting up at an ungodly hour because, added to my normal morning schedule, I also had to walk my neighbor's dog.  Hmmm.  This has already become part of my morning schedule.  Leastwise on the weekends.  Damn that dog!

I let myself into Phil's house and looked around for Cutsie.  I found her in the bedroom. The dog shot me a baleful stare from beneath her matted tangle of bangs — she wasn't keen to be coaxed off the bed.  “Come on,” I grumbled, “it'll be invigorating.”  I looped the leash around her neck and dragged the poor beast into the clammy drizzle.  It made me think of one of Ivor Cutler's (RIP) short performance pieces I heard ages ago on the John Peel show.  Cutler was talking about a gruff working class Glaswegian family where the father suddenly looks up from his paper and ominously proclaims to the wife and kids: “We're going for a walk,” and with a sinking sense of dread, the family bundles up and follows dad out for a ghastly stroll around the grey neighbor of crumbling council flats as freezing rain creeps down all their collars.  But it's what Scottish families do in the evenings; they go out for a damn walk around the block, because it's a pleasant thing to do.  So shut up and enjoy it.

Once outside, Cutsie perked up.  She sniffed everything.  I had no hat, no umbrella.  I hunched my shoulders, ground my teeth until they squeaked, and ran through my generic lists of oaths which conveniently damn everyone and everything … in perpetuity, throughout the universe, as the lawyers like to say.

Eventually, I returned the dog to her master's bed.  And, back at my place, I finally fixed my morning coffee.  Ate a banana.  That was better.

The rain picked up on the 30 mile drive to Seguin.  What a mess.  At least I could enjoy my truck's heater. 

The meeting was held at one of the chief locations slated for this, the second feature film coming from the Nations Entertainment Group (NEG).  The film is to be entitled Leftovers.  And the DP (and co-producer), Russ, had secured the house of a friend of his to use for the protagonist's home.  He'd praised the place to me on many an occasion, and I was looking forward to seeing it.

Two things lifted my spirits today.  The great people on board as crew members.  And the incredible house we had at our disposal.

The house is on the Guadalupe River.  The banks are literally in the backyard.  It's lifted up, with garage and and a nifty woodworking shop on the ground floor.  Up on stilts, the house proper is wood and stone.  Large open rooms with sublime views out onto the river.  Dark-grained wood everywhere.  Quirky architectural devices throughout the place.  It's a stunning house.

It brought to mind the locations and sets of some of David Lynch's films.  I'm a huge fan of Dune.  True, there are some great actors doing some horrible acting.  The story is presented in such a stiff, unyielding fashion, that it's hard to follow the plot.  But, the art design sings!  Hand-carved ornamental paneled walls on a space ship?  Hell yeah!  That's the future I'm hoping for.  Twin Peaks had some of the most incredible interiors of any TV series, ever.  And one of the few things I remember about Lost Highway is the house's interior.  A clear attention to design and interior decor is a hallmark of Lynch's work.  This location will give us something to work with.

It was a male-bonding morning.  Robin (writer/director) wasn't there.  And for some weird reason, there are no woman in the key production roles.  (Russ mentioned something about the art department being staffed with “a bunch of girls;” a statement that hit a solid “yikes!” on my stereotype meter.  We'll just have to wait and see how things play out.)

Anyway, it was Kevin, Russ, Bob, Mark, Eric, Rudolfo, Larry, and me (that gives us one too many Eric/k's on set).  We spent a few hours working in the house with the equipment, testing things out.  We set up lights, ran sound, and shot picture.

The camera is on loan from a San Antonio software company.  The JVC HD100.  Yep.  We're going high def.  I'm dubious if this makes much sense.  I still think standard definition, intelligently lit and shot, can blow up well enough to a 35mm print.  However, that's unlikely for this project.  Though, certainly, it will give us an edge on visual resolution.  How much of an edge?  I still haven't developed an opinion.  But we'll do our best with that advantage.  Also, on a positve note, Robin and Kevin are set up to edit in HD.  The “in-kind” donation quotient is very high on this shoot.  And that's always good news.

Over a year ago I attended a sales session where a representative of JVC had given a pitch about the camera to me and maybe ten other people.  I was unimpressed by the footage they showed.  It didn't look all that cleaner and sharper than what I'd seen on well shot SD projects, such as what AJ Garces does with his Canon XL-2.  But I was still very impressed by the camera, and the system built around it.  JVC had obviously given serious thought to make themselves desirable for low budget narrative films.

Today, however, was the first time I was able to hold one of these cameras.  It's lighter than I expected.  Not Fisher-Price light.  But not as substantial as, say, the Canon XL-H1 HD.  But I like it.  The lens it comes with (which, like the Canon, can be replaced with a high-end professional lens) works quite well.  The focus, zoom, and aperture ring are all set up like a real film camera.  I'm looking forward to returning to more of a photo work flow, where we can use discrete and specific information like zoom setting and aperture, and matching this stuff for reverse shots.  We'll be needing a tape measure!

We're trying to figure out how to acquire an HD field monitor.  If anyone wants to loan us one, shoot me an email.  I'm assuming my non-high def field monitor is useless.  But what do I know?  This HD world is a new one to me.

Friday afternoon Chadd from PrimaDonna Productions called.  The question: “Hey, Erik, what are you doing today?” always gets a protracted pause from me.  I made a non-committed murmur and waited.  It seemed that an actor they worked with needed a video audition to send to a casting director working on the TV show Prison Break.  An amount of money was mention.  I did some quick mental calculations, and when I realized that it translated into six days worth of cheap lunches at Pepe's Cafe, I had an answer.  “Yeah.  Sure.”

Three hours later Mark showed up dressed in a suit for the role.  He explained that he had a previous engagement out of state on the date they wanted him to read at their offices in Austin … or maybe it was Dallas.  They suggested he just get someone to video tape his reading the scene.  We looked at the two pages of the script that featured his minor character.  He didn't have many lines, and there were two other characters with whom he was to interact.

“We need more actors.  At least one more.”  Mark agreed with me.  I called up Carlos.  I knew he'd be in the downtown area because he was putting a birthday party together for his friend Wendy (AKA, the Queen of Twilight).  With no hesitation, he agreed to head on over for an hour of acting.  I tried Ryan, but he didn't pick up.  Pete was up to his neck on the deadline of putting together Season One DVD of Alamo City Roller Girls.  I toyed with the idea of trying TJ Gonzales, but I thought I'd already pestered enough people.  We could work around the third character … hell, he only had a single line.

When Carlos showed up, I was glad to see Shelly was with him.  Not just because I like Shelly, but she could stand in as character number three.

If this were just a basic monologue, I would have done a single set-up, and taped the performance, and let Mark take the miniDV tape straight to the Fed-Ex depot.  But we decided that over-nighting on Saturday would be fine.  It'd give me a chance to edit together two or more camera set-ups.

Prison Break is one of about three TV shows I current tune into.  I watched most all episodes of the first season.  But this second season I've missed some big chunks of plot, so I've kinda given up.  But I think the writing's tight.  The acting top-notch.  And most of the characters are compellingly developed.  Mark hadn't really followed the show, but he'd tuned in often enough to know the basic plot-line and the major characters.  Carlos was probably the biggest fan in the room.  And when he realized which secondary character he was to play in this fragment of a scene, he slipped into that character.

We sat Shelly in a chair wearing a knit cap so my over-the-shoulder shot wouldn't have her looking too girly.  She was playing one of the escaped prisoners apparently nabbed by the authorities.

I did three set-ups.  And because I didn't want to throw in a reverse shot of Shelly (“hey, it's a girl!”), what I had to work with were essentially two jump cuts.  #1.) Wide shot — Mark throws hero into chair and Carlos enters.  CUT TO:  #2.) Med. two-shot — Mark and Carlos interact.  CUT TO:  #3.) Close-up on Mark over Carlos' shoulder — intense exchange.  END SCENE.

It worked well enough.  I mean, we pulled it together with no real planning.  I had no fears, because Mark is as serious as an actor comes (well, without being insufferable).  And Carlos is incredibly focused.  They are actors I love working with.  Engaged by the production process.  Quick and humble when offering their ideas.  And both are a joy to edit — they are in the same places at the same time, take after take, set-up after set-up.

I hope Mark gets the part.  It's more likely I'll see him on Prison Break than in his recent gigs in musicals and with the San Antonio Opera (I mean, unless Richard O'Brien or Bertolt Brecht are involved, I want my actors Speaking their dialog).  Besides, he deserves all the success the world throws at him. 

One of the more amusing stories here in San Antonio at the moment is the Mulch Fire in Helotes.  Helotes is a town to the north.  And this fabulous smoldering mulch is an 80 foot mount of brush cleared from the lands being developed in the Outer Cracker Belt where the rich assholes cohabatate and cavort in their gated monocultural ghettos which are swallowing up some hitherto beautiful countryside.  Teenagers have been blamed for starting this fire.  I have my doubts.  Teenagers as vandals are the 20th century scapegoats.  The current crop lack the cojones to step outside, let alone climb over a barbed wire fence.  But whatever the cause, the fire has become a thing of legend.  It will not die.  The recent monsoons have not fazed it.  And fire trucks and aerial dousings can't kill it.  It's too huge.  The fire is now inside the mountain, smoldering at its own pace.  It's exposed some serious problems with bureaucratic jurisdictions.  No one wants to take responsibility.  I've seen reports in the paper where various companies specializing in, well, I guess, mulch fires, have crunched the numbers and come up with a range of 1.7 to 6 million dollars to take this beast down.

All the absurdity was brought home to me the other day while reading the San Antonio Express-News.  It seems the Mulch Fire has it's own MySpace page.  You bet it's been folded into my friends list.  On the MySpace site there's a very nice piece of video showing the entire humongous mound blazing away during the first night.  I doubt that currently any flames can been seen.  Just smoke.  But, early on — wow!

That was one mean mulch fire!

http://www.myspace.com/mulchfire

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

The recent rains had made my weekly hike with Dar problematic.  The parks we normally visited would be muddy as hell.  She suggested the downtown River Walk.

We'd done the River Walk a few weeks back.  Back then it was drained for cleaning.  After New Years, tourism is marginal enough to justify shunting the river around downtown through the networks of tunnels and canals that were part of the whole WPA River Walk project.  But today the water was back, coursing through the middle of town.  This week we bypassed some construction and made our way to the more touristy loop that includes the convention center which we'd avoided previously.

This took us into La Villita.  This is where the historic settlement affiliated with the Mission San Antonio Valero (AKA the Alamo) once stood.  The WPA River Walk project attempted to preserve the buildings.  And by the time of the 1968 HemisFair, the real bastardization must have commenced.  Now we have this hybrid of old buildings and new buildings made to look old to house tourist shops selling scented candles and “starving artist” quality paintings.

La Villita has its charm, but what really caught my attention is that area of the River Walk.  This is where you'll find the Arneson River Theater.  It's an outdoor amphitheater where the tiered seating faces the stage on the other side of the river.

We were climbing around the seating area.  I was wondering how this might be used as a location for a film.  And then I wondered how I might go about arranging to use the theater itself to do some sort of weird puppet theater or something.

At that moment one of the tourist barges nosed around a bend in the river.  I heard the boat captain give the spiel about how this theater had been used for Miss Congeniality.  I had forgotten about that.  And then I realized the captain was my neighbor, Cara.  I waved to her.  She saw me and smiled.  “If you look to the left, you'll see Erik, my neighbor.”  I couldn't help but start laughing as about twenty guileless, smiling tourists waved excitedly at me.  Of course I waved back.  They will all return to Nashwauk, Minnesota and Dime Box, Texas gushing about how “everyone knows each other in San Antonio!”  And, you know, they'd be right.

Last night I was pleasantly typing away at a slight blog entry when a blackout took me by surprise.  The power cut off with no warning.  No thunderstorm.  No POP of a nearby transformer exploding.  Just a sudden abrupt drop in the juice, effecting the entire block.  Luckily I had about a dozen candles flicking in this and the adjacent room.  But I hadn't saved.  I never save.  (Well, except when editing video.)  Fifteen minutes later, and I was back in business.  Lights up, computer humming.  I started up again for an hour or so, multi-tasking with writing the blog again, and occasionally switching to answering a few emails.  Again, nothing saved.  And the darkness struck again.  I switched on my battery op camcorder light and washed the dishes, made a midnight snack, and read for a bit before going to sleep.  The power came on sometime in the early hours before I got up.

We're calling this an ice storm.  Nothing too dramatic.  Endless rain.  Freezing temperatures.  Sleet — not in my neighborhood, but on the northside of the county.  There's a beguiling appeal to freezing rain.  The way the topside of magnolia leaves wear a turtle shell of ice.  How the eaves of homes  drip with icicles, as festive as refrigerator ads.  And, last night, my truck was encased in a pristine coating of ice that glistened under my neighbor's porch light like a giant canned ham. I never saw ice form on the road, although most of the schools shut down yesterday, and perhaps today as well.

My friend Amy called yesterday offering use of a spare heater she had.  She fled with her husband and kids back to San Antonio when Katrina hit, so she knows how important it is to offer aid when you can.  I explain that, all my whining in pervious blogs about the cold aside, I still had another gas heater I had yet to hook up.  So, I'm doing okay.

Winter-time is, of course, open season for those who live above the 35th parallel to yuck it up about the wimpery expressed by us southerners.  I admit, we often get a bit carried away when the mercury drops to levels below a 7-11 beer cooler.  But the fact is, it's all very foreign to us.  Take San Antonio.  January is usually just another month for us, with flip-flops and t-shirts.  Let me illustrate this durth of winter-wear by an amusing sight I witnessed at Monday's MLK march:  it was about 30 degrees and I saw this boy running to catch up with his family — he was wearing two promo beer koozies on his hands as mittens.  We don't often buy gloves or mittens to wear for only a few days of the year.  We don't understand the concept of anti-freeze.  Rock salt we buy to make ice cream.  Our houses don't have insulation or storm windows.  And this is even more noticeable in the houses in the older neighborhoods, like mine.  The transom over my front door won't fall flat to the casement.  There is a space where I could easily pass a chocolate bar through to someone standing on my front porch (someone very tall).  But that's something I can live with.  Winter in Bexar County is usually an eight day affair.  It's almost done with.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

I've been pestered with emails from at least three different organizations wanting to use one of my shorts for their pay-on-demand download services.  Two of these folks have sent multiple emails.  The film they all ask about is Kitty Loves a Rug Sucker.  I've posted the video on four different sites.  MySpace, Trigger Street, blip.tv, and through my mac.com hosting account.

This whole world of video available for download through the internet to ones computer or wireless devices is fine.  I watch various types of video programing on my computer — in fact, I watch stuff on my computer more than I watch TV (and I'm not just talking about porn and YouTube ephemera — I watch scientific lectures, Democracy Now, the American Avant Garde, work by other filmmakers who provide their own works online, and on and on).  If, as the years go by, we can keep winning the fight for “net neutrality,” this democratization of content and expression will continue to breath life into our culture; we've lost so much of the creative commons of the past, so it's important that we give space for the commons of the present and the future.  But because of this mountain of free video content online (admittedly, some of this is being made available in pirated form), I'm baffled as to why someone thinks that consumers will pay for this stuff.

I should point out here that I'm clueless about most human behavior.  Especially about the whole entertainment licensing question.  I do, on occasion, when I have disposable income (what a strange phrase …), buy CDs.  But what I've discovered is an enormous and exciting world of free music online.  These aren't illicit downloads.  These are artists who make their work available free of charge for any numbers of reasons.  It's often very innovative, because the bands or artists are just starting out and trying to get attention, exposure.  In fact, if you're poor (like me), or simply cheap (again, like me), you can amass quite a play-list of fun stuff to carry around on an mp3 player.  But, again, that's just my perspective.  I know quite a few people who either pay to download their music, song by song, or else, pay a subscription to a music provider service.  So maybe there is a financial future for making video to be downloaded.  (I'm still doubtful, though.  The latest episode of Lost I can understand, but a five minute video from Erik Q. Nobody?  I don't think so.)

Most likely I'll go ahead and give one of these guys their vague “non-exclusive” license, if for no other reason that to try and get a read on how this nascent industry works … or plans to work.

And, please, anyone out there who has experience with these sorts of video services, let me know your take on things.  I have no illusions of making money off the work I've already done (it's me learning the craft), but if there are ways I can expand my audience, that interests me.  Because, don't you see, the world needs to know the brillence of Russ Ansley, Kerry Valderrama, Kathleen O'Neal, and Carlos Pena.  Oh, and me.  Of course.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.  I’ve heard from several sources that the MLK march here in San Antonio is the largest in the nation (which, I guess, makes it the largest in the world?).  I’m always a bit suspicious of hyperbole.  Besides, the important thing is that the turn-out today was quite massive.

I attended with Dar and Andy.  Last night I had trouble sleeping.  It’s been brutally cold lately and I’ve closed off my bedroom so the rest of the place warms up more.  (I also keep the bathroom door closed because one of the little glass panes is missing from the window.)  This left me with a sofa to sleep on which isn’t all that comfortable.  All night long it pissed down with rain.  How this slop failed to freeze, I don’t know.  It was about thirty degrees as I drove to the park-and-ride station at the Alamodome.

The wind kept up briskly, but once the march started moving, I warmed up.  There were a couple of moments when the crowd clumped up a bit, and we able to stand there in the middle of the street and turn to see the full length of the march, which strung out a mile and a half or two miles behind us.  But otherwise, the march moved pretty smoothly. 

Here’s a photo Dar took of me and Andy.

The organizations running this event had it all down well.  There were plenty of news crews on the streets and ‘copters above.  I was hoping more chanting and rousing of the rabble, but I think the cold (bitter as hell for us Texans) kept most of the folks with bullhorns a bit sedate.  But it’s always a kick to see entire families out with peace signs and homemade posters.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Has Dr. King’s absence ever been more sad and telling than these last few days?  Five days ago Bush gave his address to the nation explicating this new troop surge.  One of the bizarre elements of this speech was that video was allowed, but not still photographers.  The online and print media outlets were given a choice of using video frame grabs (of questionable quality), or the Big Brother style images provided by the White House.  I have nothing but the most hostile contempt for the world of public relations and marketing.  In fact, they seem to have successfully replaced the world of journalism.  In previous generations, the fourth estate wouldn’t have taken this shit lying down.

As I recall, the American people coughed a bit, low in our collective throats, and set forth a fairly clear mandate back in November.  We don’t like your war, Mister President.  Yeah.  We said that.  So why is this clown and his vile cohorts continuing to carry forth this abysmally unpopular action?  It gets worse because — not so much in Bush’s speech, but from a recent interview with Cheney — it seems Iran is the intended new front.  It all seems so sad and desperate.  And if it weren’t for an insane stockpile of our own WMDs this could be quite comical.

We’re pushing the third act here.  And it could turn ugly fast.  We the people need to move beyond our vocal yet rather passive actions at the polling place and get active.  We had these guys on the ropes, dammit!  Don’t let them bounce back.  And just because some blowhard by the name of Nancy Pelosi says, “Impeachment is off the table,” we need to remind her and all these other officials we’ve elected, that it is our table, and we’ll jolly well pile it with what we want.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

There have been two recent passings that sadden me.  Robert Anton Wilson died on January 11th.  I was reading through the Boing Boing site when I saw the notice.  My sister soon sent me an email.  In her blog she writes about a reading / stand-up performance she’s attended in England years ago while studying abroad.  We had also seen him give a performance in Dallas, at, of all places, the auditorium of the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children,  (does this mean Wilson’s Masonic connections were legit?).  Somewhere around here I have a photo Paula took of me getting a book signed by Wilson.  Man, that must have been back sometime in the mid ’80s.

I guess I first discovered Wilson by reading the Illuminatus Trilogy which he had co-written with Robert Shea.  It was just at that perfect time in my life and my readings where many of the inside jokes of the novels could resonate.  I was maybe 17.  I was heavily into Lovecraft and all those Weird Tale writers.  I’d gotten deep into Beckett (but not yet Joyce).  Everything William Burroughs had written up to that point I had read.  I was nibbling around the edges of the Edwardian New Age, reading Crowley and Ouspensky and Gurdjieff.  I’d read some of the cheesy popularized forays into the quantum world such as Zukav and Capra.  I’d explored the upper rind of zen with Christmas Humphreys and Alan Watts.  I was pretty much current with all the stuff — fiction and nonfiction — Colin wilson had written.  I had a smattering of knowledge on anarchists and kindred idealists and activists.

Reading the trilogy and all of Wilson’s other work made me feel much smarter than I actually was.  I was just getting the references is all.  He wasn’t synthesizing all these desperate writers and ideas, he was simply bringing his somewhat obscure interests into the same simmering stew pot.  It was a heady concoction, and I loved it.  He certainly set me off on half a dozen other intellectual pursuits.  The Sufis, Yates, the Warren Commission, forgotten ’60s garage bands, and on and on.

He’ll be missed.

Also, Alice Coltrane passed away late last week.  When I’m in the mood for post-bebop free jazz, I often find myself pulling out my Alice Coltrane albums.  In fact, it’s safe to say I more often listen to her that I do to her husband.  She’s probably best known for her work on the harp, but I mostly think of her work as a keyboardist.  When she approached the piano, the sound came out clean and bright, more melodic than Taylor, Monk, or Sun Ra, but still beautifully challenging in its straightforwardness.  Apparently she reappeared from retirement in 2006 for a few performances.  I need to do some research and see if recordings were made.

RIP.