I was standing in front of the beer section of the La Fiesta grocery store on S. Flores trying to talk myself into a six pack of Bohemia when a guy politely reached in front of me. He snagged a 24 ounce bottle of Dos Equis. “To start off,” he said with a quiet smile in that sort of guy speak that men use with other men they haven’t yet sized up. He then pulled down two 24 ounce cans of Lone Star. “To finish with.” And he spun away, in a cloud of denim, and was gone, taking with him that buoyant wisdom of blue collar pragmatism.

“Hey, guy, don’t rush off,” I could have said. But it was too late. I grabbed some beer of my own, and scuttled away.

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Sunday I helped Veronica video-tape a recital put on by the Ballet Conservatory of South Texas. I’d seen a performance a few months back at the Carver which was quite impressive. This time the venue was the auditorium at the Alamo Heights High School. Great space. And we got to see all of their dancers. Not just the good ones. All of them. Some who were very young. Not only had some of these kids not yet taken up smoking (the ballet vice, or so I’ve heard), but I’m not convinced that they were all at the point of eating solid food. Stick these little girls in foam rubber suits sculpted in shapes of pea pods and rhubarb stalks, and, well, we’d have been at an Anne Geddes photo shoot. What am I saying? It was really sweet. And, you know, a quite receptive audience … of giddy parents and grandparents.

I was glad to see Amber there. As an important member of this city’s dance community, it seemed natural enough. But she explained that her interest in the Ballet Conservatory of South Texas was a bit more personal. First, she was one of the teachers. And, second, her son was one of the male dance students … one of a very small number. I was also surprised to see Angela Martinez (of Slab Cinema fame). Her and Rick’s adorable little girl is one of the dance students with the Ballet Conservatory of South Texas.

The arts and cultural scene in San Antonio seems small because it’s so interconnected.

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Later that night I headed over to Victor and Sandra’s place for a party to welcome them back from their recent trip to Europe. Also, Sandra’s mother was in town. And, also, do Sandra and Victor (AKA Pocha y Payan) really need a reason to have a house party?

It was actually a small gathering. Heavy on couples with kids. Dora and Manuel Pena were there with two of their kids. Dora’s firming up a date for the premier for her feature. We’re all looking forward to this! Late summer, early fall. Keep your ears to the ground. And there was Guillermina “Gisha” Zabala and her husband Enrique Lopetegui. It seems Gisha has been pregnant for months, but has only recently begun to show. The truth’s out now! They are both very happy, and hope to learn if they will have a boy or a girl this week. Veronica and Rick were there with their two daughters, Emily and Mia. Sandra Torres was there with her husband and their daughter Jessica.

Sandra loaded up a slide show on a computer, and we all pulled chairs in and watched, drinking, and eating desserts. With computers and digital technology, the old entertainment form of the slide show is returning. It’s suffered a bad rap. But I’ve always liked personal slide shows. There’s usually enough of an idiosyncratic edge to give the whole experience the feel of outsider performance art.

Pocha ran the show, with supplemental comments by Payan. The best part of the evening is when Pocha gave us a playful dissection on the sexual interpretation of the six huge Cluny Tapestries. I don’t think I’ve heard the word “engorged” so many times in one night (and perhaps that speaks more about me than anything else — perhaps something I need to rectify).

It was a wonderful time. I was surrounded by people I care about. And we also all got to catch up on the chisme of the San Antonio arts world. It is currently in the slightly-bland to juicy phase.

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Today I surfed over to Phil Plait’s blog, Bad Astronomy. He posted a video link which is incredible. It’s taken outside of Fort Davis in the Davis Mountains of Trans-Pecos Texas. This is where the McDonald Observatory is located. And on the night of the Texas Star Party, this guy shoots a time-lapse sequence of the sky. It’s a very short clip. You see the Milk Way rising over the horizon. It comes up bright and clear. This is us, looking at the heart of our own galaxy, and it is so cool!

http://vimeo.com/4505537?pg=embed&sec=4505537

Now as I was waching this video, I was also playing (on my new laptop) the current archived radio show of Ben Judson. This radio station link may only last for a week. Check it out. And if you miss it, you have to listen to Ben’s weekly show, Free Jazz Hour, Mondays at ten pm. Where? Go to KRTU, 91.7, the great radio station at Trinity University. Anyway, play this video (which has no audio), and give it the soundtrack from the Free Jazz Hour. If the current show (May 18, 2009) is no longer available from the archive, no matter. Any of the music Ben programs will add greatly to the experience. His show is a must.

http://stream.krtu.org/archive.html

Scroll down Monday to 9pm. Merge the two. Video and audio. Go for it. It rocked me.

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This blog seems not to have lent itself to a photo opportunity. And here, in a desire to add visuals, is a photo I took here in my neighborhood. I quite like it.

I have mixed feelings about “Making Hay,” Tom Otterness’ installation of three sculptures in the park across from Mission San Juan. It’s quirky and playful. I like that in art. But it doesn’t seem like a proper fit for the neighborhood. I suspect (though I do not know) that there was insufficient community involvement into this project. I believe it’s slated to remain at this location for a total of two years. The work is on my cycling route. It stood unmolested for a few weeks. The vandalism started small. People began pulling handfuls of hay from the wire stays attaching it to the large humanoid figures. After a month one figure had been completely denuded. The other two looked very shabby.

Last week I was heartened to see that the work had been completely restored. I walked into the field and waved to the workmen who were putting the final touches to Otterness’ work.

In the back of my mind I was a trifle pissed off that the vandals hadn’t been more creative. I was hoping someone would perform some grand and transformative transgression to “Maying Hay,” giving us something weird and wonderful.

I think we’ve all enjoyed creative vandalism popping up in unexpected locations. For some reason this crudely depicted devil horn graffiti caught my fancy. It was just so unabashedly adolescent. So, you know, fuckin’ A!

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The other morning I discovered that my hot water heater isn’t working. I’d actually planned to shave. That was out. The shower was a better eye opener than two cups of coffee. And as I sit here typing this up near midnight I realized I never crawled around on the floor to see what the problem is. Hopefully it’s just a case of the pilot going out.

I was up early, having decided to attend the San Antonio PodCamp. This is an annual event which is entering the third year. It’s run along the lines of a “bar camp,” which is a sort of free-flowing ad-hoc conference where the attendees decide on the agenda. Jennifer Navarrete put it more eloquently in her opening remarks. The venue was the El Tropicano Hotel. It began at nine. I decided I’d take the bus. And, what the hell, I’d treat myself to breakfast at Tito’s. A kickass migas plate and coffee.

I think I got on the wrong bus. I thought I was on the S. Alamo line, which actually goes down Lexington and drops one off right at El Tropicano. But this bus took me down St. Mary. Close enough. I got off at the Radius, and walked two blocks.

Janet Vasquez was there. And Rocket Ron was running to camera for the live pod cast. Kaye Cruz was running around hooking up computers to projectors. Dar Miller eventually showed up and joined me at a table up front. She’d been the one who’d reminded me about this event.

We stayed for several presentations and discussions and left at the lunch break.

Dar offered to give me a ride home. I suggested that we stop at C4 Workspace for a quick visit.

C4 is a venture that Todd O’Neil is putting together. He’s the sort of person you expect to be at events like SA PodCamp. In fact, as I was riding the bus earlier, I had seen, via his Twitter feed, that he wouldn’t be able to attend because he was busy getting his new space together. He gave an open invite for people to stop by and check out the place.

Actually, one of the presentations at the PodCamp was about the phenomena of co-working. Susan Price of Firecat Studio was making the presentation. She mention a couple of local co-working places. Firecat has a monthly co-working day. First Friday. And when she mentioned Todd’s new place, she mentioned that it was at St. Mary and King William. And I lifted up my iPhone and thumbed over to the Twitter app and added: “It’s at 108 King William.”

Little did I know that Todd and his crew — though busy painting the walls — were watching the live feed from the PodCamp.

Anyway, I was getting curious about this place. It’s in my neighborhood. It’s called C4 Workspace. The “4” is in the superscript. C to the fourth power? What? Maybe the C is for carbon. Isotopes are set up with superscript numbers. The problems is the isotopic number proceeds the element abbreviation. Besides, there is no Carbon 4 isotope. Maybe it’s a molecular form of carbon. You know, like fullerene (AKA the buckyball) is carbon 60 … but I believe the 60 is a subscript, not a superscript. I thought it might be a reference to a Scrabble tile. Two problems there. The numbers that follow the Scrabble letters (and that the numbers follow the letters, this is good) are set in subscript (and this isn’t good). The second problem is that a “C” is worth only three Scrabble points, not four. I give up. All that’s left is plastic explosives.

But I digress.

When Dar and I showed up we were waved in by a woman named Debbie. She and Perla gave us a tour. And there was a guy we were introduced to, but he was busy painting the walls and I didn’t get a chance to talk with him and I can’t recall his name. After a few minutes of looking the place over, Todd returned from an errand.

It looks like they might be able to make the June 1st opening. They have a lot of work still to do. I plan to volunteer starting next week. And I’m giving serious thought to renting a desk space here.

Check them out:

www.c4workspace.com

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Monday Night:

Hey, what do you know? I’m sitting out on my porch typing this blog on a fancy new laptop. And if I want, I can suckle wireless connectivity off my own network. But before you follow my lead and leap into the 21st century, head my warnings. The road to hipdom carries quite a cost … and not just financial. Today I visited three places which, in usual circumstances, I do my best to avoid at all costs. The Apple Store. Wal-Mart. And a protracted phone session with tech help from the subcontinent … which lasted just long enough for the supermarket to close for the night, leaving me with little more in the fridge than three onions, a jar of mustard, and some zucchini which has, quite inexplicable, suffered freezer burn in my lower crisper tray. (Get your head around that potential emergency casserole nightmare.)

I’ve been hitting a wall with certain limitations on my beloved Mac PowerPC G4. What was pushing the sci-fi envelope in the year 2000 is nine years later beginning to feel like navigating the Autobahn in a Morris Minor.

I had some savings to blow (just don’t let the tranny crap out in my truck, or ditto on my prostate) and so I decided to go for a laptop. And because I want to keep with Apple (for reasons of software and familiarity), I only really had two choices. The Apple family of laptops runs about four flavors. Two, for some reason, no longer offer a firewire port. Both of my camcorders prefer to output via their firewire outlets. The obvious choice would be a MacBook Pro. It’s a great machine, with loads of options. But even at the most basic, it’s around two grand. The other choice was the basic MacBook, what is referred to as the MacBook White, because it’s cased in cheap white plastic (notoriously prone to cracking). But in January, Apple upgraded this line with more RAM, a faster processor, and a new and faster video card.

The specs beat my current computer by quite a bit. For a thousand bucks I could get a portable computer that would be able to do significantly more than my current desktop computer. It would have no problem running my video editing software. And I can now work anywhere. Access the internet anywhere there is an open WiFi. I did, however, add a hundred bucks upgrading to 4 gigs of RAM.

I’m sure there are PC laptops that can best the specs of my new Mac, but this is now an extension of my Mac desktop, my iPhone, all all that email and calendar and software cross compatibility. And seeing as how I have no plans to begin working with HD video for at least another year, I feel I’ve made a decent choice.

But I can’t sit out on the porch all night. There’s a cool breeze coming in, which is nice, but it’s not deterring the mosquitoes.

Inside now. Weird in that I have two computers sitting on this one desk. Actually I’m glad I bought that wireless mouse for my little ASUS netbook. It’s also perfect for my new MacBook.

I know I shit on Apple Stores. And they are grim places. The phoniness is so thick that it lingers in ones blood stream hours later. This is expected, and I’ve somewhat learned to adjust. But in San Antonio both of our Apple Stores are in shopping malls. And that’s a double whammy of phony wrapped in phony (my head is still spinning and I suspect that the only adequate cure would be to attend the cock fights in that tin shack behind Jasper’s Pick & Pull outside Ardmore, Oklahoma). But I survived the Apple Store. In fact while they were doing the RAM upgrade, I headed over to the North East School of the Arts to talk to two of Konise Millender’s cinema classes. I like Konise’s kids. And not just because they’re accomplished filmmakers, but also because they always ask lots of questions.

Back home I printed up all the forms for my Humanities Texas mini grant. I’d been making the final touches earlier in the morning — since six, actually. And so now I took the final paperwork to URBAN-15 to get a couple of signatures. Unfortunately, a family emergency kept both Catherine and George from making it in. This is still okay. I think we have time to hit our deadline.

I did some work there for awhile. And then I headed back home with the plan to take a bike ride down to Mission Espada. But back home I couldn’t ignore my new computer. I powered it up and plugged it into the the internet. Nothing. I took that same ethernet cable and put it back into my desktop. Nothing. Well, either my service was shut off, or my cable was the problem (the latter was my assumption — one of the ends had lost it’s plastic snapper lock).

So I headed to the closest place I could think of that might have an ethernet cable. Wal-Mart. Way the hell down on SE Military. But I needed it. I had found myself without internet. Forget a water heater crapping out on you … this is serious stuff!

Wal-Mart. People say love it because it’s so cheap. That is patently wrong. The cheapest ether cable was 15 bucks. And when I decided I needed to get a wireless router, the cheapest one was 45 dollars.

Yes. Like an idiot I bought a wireless router at Wal-Mart. Let me implore you, do not do this. The over-priced piece of shit was a Linksys brand. NEVER by from this miserable company.

At least I was smart enough to hit the bike trail before trying to set up the router.

It was a beautiful day. And I enjoyed an early evening bicycle ride. One of the areas I went by was this sad demolition site. This is the rubble of the first screen to fall at the old Mission Drive-In Theater. I’ve heard they plan to keep one standing. But still, it’s so sad to see one of the few remaining drive-ins to go away.

Back home I began the process of setting up my wireless network. I knew it’s be fairly straightforward. Hell, I’d helped my sister set up hers. But I wasn’t prepared to be Linksys up the ass. I set my password to my network. I’d gone through the entire set-up. But afterwards, I wasn’t able to sign onto my new network. I tried with my new laptop. I tried with my ASUS netbook. I tried with my WiFi-enable iPhone. And after a while one tends to give up. I called tech support. Those assholes charged 10 bucks to my credit card to walk me through the process. The problem? The password I chose by using the Set-Up Wizard doesn’t seem to work for anything at all. In fact I learned that my actual password is unique randomly generated series of letters and numbers. This information never came out during the automated set up.

Ah, the price we pay to check out email and watch old Buster Keaton films via Google video whilst sitting on the front porch sipping chardonnay.

Monday morning, as I was sipping my coffee and checking my various email accounts, I happened to glance up at my calendar. Something didn’t look right. I pulled it down and squinted closer. Oh, fuck! I’d scheduled for Tuesday two campus visits to pimp the Josiah Youth Media Festival. Jefferson and Taft, both at 11 in the morning. I sent an email to Adam Rocha to see if I could reschedule another day to talk to the kids in his film program at Jeff. I was moving on to some other important task (probably catching up on the blogs I subscribe to) when the phone rang.

It was Adam. “How about today?” he asked. Sounded great to me. Knock it out, and thus accomplish an important task for Monday. “When?” I asked. He said eleven. I said I could do it, no problem … though I wasn’t too sure what time it was at the moment. “Great,” Adam said. “I’ll see you in twenty.”

As in twenty minutes.

So, I put on a some pants and jumped in my truck. I’m not too far from Jefferson High School. It’s on the west-side near Woodlawn Lake. Actually, I got there in plenty of time. I went inside and checked in at the front office. I was given some very involved verbal instructions. Ten minutes later I found myself out beyond the athletic center in some godforsaken wasteland where I can only assume the seniors escape to get high, or whatever kids do these days. I backtracked and asked directions from a perky student equivalent of a prison trusty — hall monitor, maybe. She gave me some useful directions which took me to a smaller building whose entrance was maybe 50 feet from where I’d parked my truck.

When I entered the building, I began aimlessly wandering around, looking for the room. As I passed an open and unmarked door, I heard a familiar voice shout out: “E. Boss! Where are you going?”

It was, of course, the ubiquitous Jessica Torres, one of San Antonio’s top young filmmakers.

I walked into Adam’s room. There was a photo op in progress. The kids were crowded around Adam as a woman took their picture. I, of course, had to pull out my iPhone and snap off a few blurry photos. (No wonder the Japanese have no interest in the iPhone — the camera sucks.)

I pitched the festival … poorly. I wasn’t prepared at all. And damn when I mentioned ASCAP Adam asked me to tell his students what ASCAP stands for. My caffeine levels plummeted and I froze up. I blathered a couple of inane sentences and Adam asked me something more basic and I moved on.

All in all, it proved quite the success. Adam had already gotten eight of his students to submit completed films with paper work. I walked out of there with eight submissions to the 2009 Josiah Youth Media Festival. Adam’s students are on top of things. 21 days ahead of deadline. Yeah! Mustang Cinema rocks!

I thought I’d celebrate. I called up Deborah to see if I could buy her lunch. We met at a little cafe over near the Woodlawn Theater. I wanted to see her before she left for two weeks in New York City.

It must have been while enjoying a torta and a few cups of coffee that I realized that my cold was gone. How inexplicable. It hit me on Thursday and was gone in Monday. Oh, hell, it probably wasn’t a cold at all. Just some biological warfare experiment being tested by one of the many military installations in this city. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll cough up my pancreases.

So, feeling more human than in recent memory, I took to the bike trail for a late afternoon ride. Hot and way too humid. It helps to know the stops along the Mission Trail where you can find water fountains. Especially water fountains with chilled water.

The coldest water on the Mission bike trail is at the rest rooms of Mission San Juan. Push the spigot button, let it run for about ten seconds, and, there you go. It will make your teeth ache, but in a wonderful fashion. Well, perhaps you have to have cycled for thirty minutes or more to truly appreciate this experience.

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Tuesday I headed out for another school visit. It was Comm Arts. AKA, Communications Arts. This is a magnet school out at Taft High School which is located in NISD, the North-side Independent School District.

The freaky thing is — and here, let me quote Wikipedia: “San Antonio and Bexar County are served by 17 separate independent school districts.” That’s nuts.

Anyway, last year Comm Arts submitted several really impressive pieces to the Josiah Festival. In fact, a documentary they gave us won best in that category. Heidi Whitus and the other instructors working up north at Comm Arts are doing an impressive job bringing out the best in their kids.

I’ve been in email communication with Heidi for a couple of years. To the best of my knowledge, I have yet to meet her. And Tuesday got me no closer. I met with another instructor, Stephen Villela. I like him. His students asked some good questions. I’m looking forward to some strong submissions again this year from the Communications Arts Magnet School at William Howard Taft High School, NISD. What a mouthful!

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My other Tuesday student film commitment was the 800 Pound Film Festival at Santikos Northwest 14 Theater. This is the film festival put on by NESA. This stands for North East School of the Arts. It’s an arts magnet in Robert E. Lee High School. Which is in NEISD, the North East Independent School System. This endless iterations if ISDs is, to put it impolitely, a fucking morass. But, I gotta say, this little impoverished blue collar city has more student film programs (at the high school level) than Dallas or Houston. In fact, if someone were to tell me that San Antonio had more high school-level film programs than all other major Texas cities combined, I wouldn’t be too surprised. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again. San Antonio is rich with high school film programs (and excellent ones, at that), but appallingly poor with college-level film programs.

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Thursday, I headed up to St. Mary’s Hall. This is a private school with Episcopalian roots. K-12. Carol Parker Mittal teaches the media / film classes. Her students’ work has been featured in the last two years of the Josiah Festival. The two stand-out pieces were both claymation narratives. But St. Mary’s Hall students have also submitted live action narratives as well as abstract experimental works.

Carol let me into the media room and then she headed out to find some students. I believe they were on their lunch hour. But she returned with maybe ten students. Of course she did. She was treating them to pizza.

While I was waiting for her bring in the kids I took some time to check out the set they had designed for this year’s stop-motion animation project. It’s something else. A mad scientist’s lab. I believe he’s experimenting with pets, as the tiny prop books on the tiny shelves all had pet-puns as titles. I noticed, behind the fly-away walls, two battery packs. This means that all the lighting effects would be practical effects. No CG bullshit here. Old-school. The camera? A Nikon. DSLR.

I took a few shots with my iPhone, feeling like a spy on a movie set. I’ve decided not to post them here. My dozens of readers need to come out to the Josiah Festival (or any of the other local screenings that this piece will play). It doesn’t yet have a title. But keep your eye on this blog. I’ll let you know. I’m sure it’ll get into every festival that it’s submitted to. I was given sneak previews of three clips. I saw a dolly shot. I saw a rack-focus. Wow!

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Thursday night was a NALIP-SA meeting, We had all four executive officers show up, which hasn’t been the case recently. (Mostly because this is the first meeting I have been able to attend in maybe three months.) I would have liked a better turn out, but I think we laid out the programing for the next three months.

Attendees: Veronica, Dora, Manuel, Raemelle, Sandra, Victor, Ron, Ralph. And, myself. I can spell Raemelle’s name with confidence. I have her business card from the NALIP national conference. The card has a breathtaking photo which I assume is her acting headshot. I think she lives up in Austin. How cool. She and the fiance drove down just to be with us!

I was hoping to have more time catching up with Sandra and Victor (AKA Pocha y Payan). They had just returned from a tour of France, Italy, and NYC. All I really know of this excursion was lifted from their Twitter feeds and FaceBook posting. I’m not sure, but I think Sandra might have been traveling (in part) to research an art project.

One of the things Sandra showed me was this Tarot deck she’d picked up in Paris, designed by Alejandro Jodorowsky (my vote for the most important living filmmaker).

She said he’s very accessible. In fact, when she and Victor dropped by to meet him, they were told to “come back next week when he’ll be back in town.” But they had to fly back to the states. What a bummer!

My favorite Twitter post from Pocha whilst she was in Italy (I probably could look it up, but I choose to paraphrase from memory): “Italy filled with cliches. All the men ask me if I’m married. And then they ask me if I’m Catholic.”

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I stumbled on an early silent Buster Keaton film online.

Click over to Sherlock Jr.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8074699069179823154

My honest and unexpected laughter came at the 5:56 mark.

I’ve never heard of this film before. A quick internet search has informed me that it is often cited as a surreal film or an early work of meta-narrative.

Maybe. I still haven’t seen it all the way through. Most likely it’s just a playful comedy by an enormously talented early actor / director.

I’ll finish watching it over the weekend.

I hauled my ass over to the polling place Saturday afternoon. I’d spent most of the day nursing a cold with endless glasses of guava nectar mixed with plain Topo Chico and watching Hulu.com.

Bonham Elementary School is only eight blocks away, but as I was in self-pity mode, I grabbed the keys to my truck and drove.

There were only three things to vote on. Just candidates. No bond issues or propositions. Just: Mayor, City Council Member for District 1, and SAISD School Board member for District 1. I was in and out in maybe five minutes. No other voters to stand in line behind. There wasn’t a candidate who I was thrilled to vote for. Oh well. It’s done. Unless there’s any run-offs.

Okay …. I just checked the results. None of the three races I voted in will result in a run-off. Two of the three folks I voted for won. I won’t say who’s who, but our new Mayor is Julian Castro. Mary Alice Cisneros has held her seat on the city council for district 1. And Ruben Cuero has made it onto the SAISD school board.

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Friday night I ambled over to the Jump-Start Performance Company to attend the first night of a two night performance of the Renaissance Guild’s ActOne Series.

I can only assume that most everyone was out watching Star Trek. The Renaissance Guild (either the best or the second best theater company in town, depending on my mood) usually fills whatever venue they call home. These last few years it’s been at the Jump-Start Performance Company (either the best or the second best theater company in town, depending on my mood). I think there were only 100 or 120 people in the audience. About half capacity. Blame it on JJ Abrams.

I try and make every performance of the Renaissance Guild. The ActOne Series is a must. It’s an evening of one-act plays. Each with a different playwright, director, and cast. I like theater. But I also have a more pragmatic agenda. As a filmmaker I like to know what sort of acting talent we have in San Antonio. And events like the ActOne Series as well as Theater ASAP are prefect situations to see a large number of talented actors doing what they do best.

Angela Bennett, one of my favorite actresses, directed one of the plays. That was another reason for me to be there. I had taken my seat and was flipping through the program. I looked up. Angela was walking up the central aisle. I stood up to give her a hug. She was with another woman who looked very familiar. They sat down behind me. I turned around and asked the other woman what I’d seen her in. She reminded me that she was, along with Angela, in “Fabulation.” Then I remembered her. It was Stephanie Hicks.

She mentioned something about the comments in my blog follow the performance of “Fabulation.” “I was one of the lackluster performers,” she said wryly. “Yeah, you were great,” I gushed. “You and Angela as the two tramps in the jail cell was totally brilliant!”

(However, when I got home last night, I tracked down my old blog entry. There was mention only of Angela and Jenelva. As I recall, I had written a long-winded “review,” but I had scrapped most of it. That’s not to say Stephanie was lackluster. In fact, she was great. She stole the scenes she was in from everyone.)

I glanced back at my program. Stephanie was also one of the directors.

Because I have never directed theater, I really don’t know what it involves. Angela wanted me to give her my assessment at the end of the night. This would be her first time as a director, and she wanted feedback. She’s been acting professionally for over a decade. In fact, she’s landed minor roles in major TV shows. A true working actress.

But as I sat there watching five one act plays, it occurred to me that the world of theater is dominated by the work of the actors. I don’t know who is more superfluous, the writer or the director. A good actor can make a bad script an amazing thing. And maybe the most important thing for a theater director to do is to give the actors important and immediate feedback. “Look, you might feel like what you’re doing is fine, but it’s really not working.” And this is why the best theater directors have a deep background in acting. And this also explains why improvisational comedy is often so painful to watch — the performers on stage lack that critical distance. They can’t see themselves from the point of view of the audience.

This, the 13th ActOne Series, had five pieces. Three serious dramas. Two comedies.

It occurred to me that when you’re limited to a one act format of no more than 20 minutes, it’s hard to make serious stuff work. Farce is the way to go. With tragedy or something serious like social commentary, you really need time to develop the protagonist enough so that when he or she makes that profound discovery, the audience gives a damn. This is why most serious short plays aren’t about the protagonist learning something profound. They’re mostly concerned about the audience understanding the rules of this universe. That ah-ha moment when you realize, ah, this room they’re in represents Hell. The audience is given a handbag of clues and by the final curtain the message is revealed.

Comedy, in a short piece, is easier — you can end with an action. You create tension. You break that tension. Comedy can function well with only a thesis and an antithesis — a set-up followed by a punch-line. Tragedy needs to end with a message. That additional component, the synthesis. (Perhaps we’ve moved on from Aristotle’s model, but, for the most part, I don’t think so.) A lot of baggage to carry for a one act play.

Maybe that’s why the first two plays were fundamentally unsuccessful.

“A Very Lovely Dress” suffered from a very unpolished script. The actors did a fine job. But the O. Henry reveal at the end was unsatisfying and unbelievable to me. I needed to know these characters for a longer period of time before the carpet was pulled out from under my feet and everything was recontextualized. The message carried some heavy social commentary. But it was crudely delivered. Personally, I’m exhausted by these overwrought theater pieces dealing with the direct action of “terrorists” and suicide bombers without allowing the narrative to contain information about the generational anguish of oppression and struggle.

“Tiny Dancer” also didn’t sit right with me. And it took me a bit to realize why. It’s a monologue, wonderfully performed by Colisia Bayles. Because the information is placed up front, I don’t feel like I’m spoiling anything when I say that our protagonist introduces herself as “a dead whore.” The lights come up with a young woman lying on a table with a toe tag. She’s in the morgue. She sits up and addresses the audience. She begins to talk about her life. How she came to this situations. And her story is all about her love of dance. Stripping was the only dance form that paid money. She still went out and auditioned for “real” dance roles, however, she paid the bills as an exotic dancer. Sure, she claimed to put most of that stripper money “up my nose.” But damned if I can recall a single line in the piece about her turning tricks. Now back during my misspent youth, I worked as a DJ in a burlesque theater. Very few of the strippers worked as prostitutes. So, the playwright was falling back on asinine cliches. But wait. During the Q&A session, playwright Trisha Sugarek said she made it a point never to fall into cliche. All I can say, Trisha, is if you have a character who is open enough to call herself a “dead whore,” we need at least one example of her performing sex for cash. Taking your clothes off for money doesn’t make you a whore. Sure, a character might believe that about herself, but you need to make me understand that fact.

“10,000 Cigarettes.” This was so welcomed after two clunky scripts. Wonderful acting, directing, and writing. The playwright is an Australian. The piece involves four women sucking away on cigarettes. They rhapsodize about their love of the thin white tube. It’s presented almost like a monologue, but delivered by four people, often with one finishing the sentence of another. Constant chatter. And the women have to slip into various accents. I know nothing about Jodie McMaster, Scharlette Donald, Natasha Dillahunt, or Dialis Molina, except that they have really weird names … and that they can really fucking act. Their timing was amazing. It’s a very strong piece. And Stephanie Hicks should be proud of the solid tone and clever pacing she got from these amazing women.

“Ask Roberto!” A wonderful farce. Rigel Nunez is the director. Everything about this piece is perfect. “Ask Roberto!” is sweet, playful, and salty. And this can be placed on the poster. Roberto is played by Albert Penuelaz who I don’t think I’ve seen before. He reminds me of a somewhat younger Fisher Stevens, a great combination of petulance and charm. He played opposite Sophia Bolles, and they were great together, playing their entire interaction over a telephone.

“Be More 282.” This was the final one-act of the night. Directed by Angela. A very powerful piece. As I said earlier, a one-act tragedy works best when the audience is piecing together the universe of this play — not really following the development of the characters. Okay, I’ll go ahead and spoil the story line. We are in a limbo state with two characters who are dead, in fact, murdered. She’s a pregnant young wealthy blond. He’s a young black reformed gang-banger. They are both trapped in this shadowland, awaiting their bodies to be found and identified. And they are both aware just how much energy is being used in the world of the living to find their killers. The girl is still on the front pages. The guy, well, because of his ethnicity and social status, his name remains unpublished. In fact, so many young black men die in our country, he keeps remembering his name differently. He represents all young African-American men who die of violence and who never are reported by the press, never named. And he knows that all of those young men he represents, none will get the sort of attention as the blond.

All in all, a great night of theater. I hope Saturday night saw a larger attendance.

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Rigel Nunez. What a kick-ass name.

When I typed it out, I found myself wondering just how far away it is to Rigel.

You might recall that Rigel is one of the brightest stars in the heavens. It’s very easy to find. You know how to spot Orion? Of course you do. Rigel is Orion’s left foot. I was a bit surprised to discover that Rigel’s distance is open to dispute. It seems it’s too far to be measured with fine accuracy via parallax measurement. Let’s pull out an easy to use guestimate. 750 light years away.

Wow. That’s pretty far for an incredibly bright star. I mean, our closest stellar neighbor is Alpha Centauri (or more aptly, the binary system of Alpha Centauri AB) — only 4.37 light years away. (Seems we can get pretty accurate when objects are that close.)

And so I started thinking, 750 light years, that’s really something. If we imagine a spherical space with us in the middle and Rigel at the edge — a big ball of Milky Way with a diameter of 1500 light years — just how many stars would be in this area? In short, how many stars are closer to us than Rigel, the sixth brightest star in the sky?

Well, it’s a rather involved problem. The first item needed is the density of stars in our stellar neighborhood. The Gliese catalogue gives us a density of 0.12 stars per cubic parsec in our neck of the galaxy. (The density is not a constant as we move away from our system, but we’ll go ahead and use this number anyway.)

A parsec is 3.26 light years.

So, Rigel, at, say, 750 light years away, is 230.06 parsecs distant.

Okay. We can now use the basic measurement of finding volume for a sphere.

v = (4/3) * pi * r3

Volume equals 4/3 times pi times radius cubed.

Fine. This comes out to: volume = (4/3) x (3.14) x (230.06)^3

Volume = (4/3) x (3.14) x (12,176,524.5)

Volume = (1.33) x 38, 234,286.9

Volume = 50, 966,304.5 cubic parsecs.

Number of Stars = Stellar Density x Volume

(0.12) x (50,966,304.5)

Approximate number of stars 750 lights years away or nearer would be 6,115,957, rounding up. I’m horrible with math and I’m using this iPhone as a calculator. So I might be very wrong.

What do we think when we realize that the sixth brightest star in the heavens is competing with six million stars closer to us? That’s one bright star. Also, there are millions of stars closer to us than Rigel which have never been seen by a human being without a telescope. On clear nights (were we to visit both hemisphere), we might be able to discern, with the unaided eye, about 9,000 stars.

And just what do we learn from this?

Clearly, I can be quite creative while procrastinating more pressing work.

My trusty old Power Mac G4 (which was the shit eight years ago) has been delighting me with some new tricks of late. After eight days on the road, I returned home to discover these quirks … such as a ghostly semi-transparent layer which comes rolling down the screen with a text box tells me that I need to restart my computer by holding down the power button. Not terribly convenient. But on the positive side, the three pages of blog I wrote the other night (humble though those three pages may be) were still there, waiting for me when I powered back up. And I know I didn’t hit save while composing. Perhaps this is one of the bonuses that came when I upgraded my operating system. This is why so many of us put up with technology. It fails us so often, but just when we’re about to hit the offending machine with a handy c-stand or Shiner Bock bottle it does something endearing. You know. It saves a document when you thought all was lost. The inorganic analogy to a puppy who, after being left alone all day, gnaws the heel off one of your favorite classic Converse All-Stars and then takes a dump in it. You are, of course, incensed. And just as you’re about to toss the pup into the backyard during a heavy rain, he looks up with those liquid brown eyes and wags his tail with pure joyous abandon … he’s just so thrilled to see you. So, instead, you drop into his dog bowl the imported prosciutto you’d brought home for dinner and downgrade yourself to that old desiccated biscuit of Raman noodle hiding in the pantry, there, behind the Clabber Girl. What are you gonna do? That’s one cute dog. But don’t you see that this is exactly what the machines are doing to us? They’re playing us as chumps, a bunch of mush-minded puppy-lovers. God save us all once the next generation of Japanese-designed computers begin to make their way into our lives. How will we be able to demand absolute dependability when our computers, laptops, smart phones, and so forth are designed to resemble lovable puppies, kitties, or school girls … in sailor suits? We’ll forgive them all their flaws and faults. Windows Vista? Aw, look at it, it’s adorable! But once these adorable machines become smarter than us (which may have already happened, all things being relative), well, we’re all fucking doomed.

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While in Dallas I had the opportunity to see a shrunken head. Nope. Not a rubber one from Archie McPhee. Someone I know had received it in via a courier. It was supposedly an authentic Peruvian shrunken head. I only saw it in passing — just long enough to shoot a photo.

I know nothing of it. How old is it? Who is it? Sad to see a piece of a person tossed about as a commodity. For all I know, there is some Amazonian tribe making these things for the collectible trade. They just wait for the next seasonal crop of Peace Corps workers, Seventh Day Adventists, or anthropologists, and then they harvest the heads. Shrink them down. Then wait for the dealers in exotica to come up river to purchase their folk art. And they make it to collectors of such oddities in places like Dallas.

A photo? I give you the only know remains of Dr. F. Llewellyn Maynard, formerly chair of the Anthropology Department at the Narragansett Institute of Advanced Studies. You’d never guess that he was a strapping man of 6′ 3″, tipping the scales at 255 pounds. Where be your jibes, now?

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Swine Flu. I have little to no interest. I just cruised over to Wikipedia. I see that the US has two confirmed reports of Swine Flu deaths. The annual numbers of deaths in this country to influenza in general is over 30,000 (or 11,000 depending on which study you Google). This “swine flu” just can’t compete. Here’s something that I found interesting. I typed this into the search field of Google: us deaths swine flu (no quotes). The first two listing showed a crazy disconnect.

“Despite 2nd US Death, CDC Says Don’t Close Schools for Swine Flue.”

“WHO Warns Swine Flu Threatening to Become Pandemic.”

Well, who should be believe? The Center for Disease Control? Or the World Health Organization?

Maybe we should just apply common sense. More people have died of peanut allergies in the US during 2008 than have yet to die world-wide from this Swine Flu. I have yet to hear the WHO of the CDC interrupt my televised programing with a “Beware the Peanut” press conference.

Pandemic? Fuck me Miss Marple! We’ve become such wusses. Black Death, anyone? Or HIV / AIDS? Or how about the thousands of Americans who die each year because they can’t afford basic medical care? And influenza AH1N1 has people scared and slathering themselves in Purell and demanding that we shut down the schools so that our children won’t become infected by, what? The fucking flu? A healthy kid is more likely to die by being struck by lightening or eaten by a bear than he or she is to die from swine flu.

Don’t get me wrong. The flu sucks. You feel all aching and sicky. You fight it off and get better. Or, well, you die. But that rarely happens, because, you know, it’s just the flu.

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Perhaps I’m waxing a bit disingenuous mocking people and their Purell fixations. See, I’m coming down with a cold. Maybe constant attention to Purell hand-baths would have zapped away this species of cootie slowly plundering my corpuscles. And, you know, I rather like that fresh clinical smell of Purell and disposable alcohol wipes. Maybe I need to reevaluate my bigotry towards, well, cleanliness, I guess.

Wait! Maybe it’s not the common cold. I did touch that shrunken head. Oh, sweet Jesus, it’s the curse of Wagnibamba, the snake god of the Kugapakori tribe! Guess I just blew $6.95 on this Nyquil. Unlikely patent medicines will have much effectiveness on an Amazonian shrunken head curse.

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These last few days I’ve been struck with what I fraud I am. A top shelf hypocrite. Not only have I spent endless hours laughing at people who use hand sanitizers only to have, myself, come down with a cold. But I have also waxed with pure single-minded pomposity about how it’s been cold cold cold these last six months. And now that we’ve shifted directly from winter to summer here in San Antonio, I’m miserable. I do have enough sense of self to hold my tongue, but, man oh man. It’s hot and humid. I feel like someone has stuffed me into a huge sweaty sock. And I’m hesitant to admit that I have actually turned on my little rattling AC window unit.

Weird weather. I was driving out to Harlandale High School Thursday morning for a 9 am appointment. There was this oppressive haze hanging over the city as if we were surrounded by raging brush fires. Or maybe Mount Poteet had finally blown her top. Actually, I think it was just the haze resulting from the sun trying to shine through all that water vapor of a 750% humidity day.

I was heading to the Harlandale High School to talk to the students at the San Antonio Film School … the school within a school. I was a bit nervous because with this Swine Flu scare, many schools were canceling extra-curricular activities. Maybe this applied to people like me, coming to promote a student film festival. And with Harlandale there was a further, extenuating circumstance. I don’t know the whole story. There was some sort of death threat last week with the police called in. I’m not sure how that whole thing played out, but I was expecting a bit of a hassle. However, Dagoberto Patlan had emailed me that it shouldn’t be any problem to come talk to his students, so, what the hell.

The campus is in the midst of a major expansion program. Construction crews all over the place. It took me about ten minutes to find the main office, But once I did, there was not problems.

I was escorted to George Ozuna’s class first.

George has more energy and bravado than anyone you’ll ever meet, and that includes you, punk. Once he shines his charm on you, you’re a goner. Pity the poor fool who storms in prepared to do battle with the man. Three minutes later: “Ah, George, you beautiful bastard, I think I can afford to sponsor three of your students to Sundance — who do I make the check out to?”

When I entered his classroom George began spreading on the marmalade. “Kids, if I could have your attention. I want to introduce you to Erik Bosse, perhaps the greatest human being I have ever met.” Now I don’t think that’s actually what he said. But there was some sort of Jedi mind trick going on, and I swear that’s what I heard. “Ah, George, you’re too kind,” I said, besotted and purring like a little kitten.

I can only hope that Ozuna is using these high powers of charisma for good, because if not, we’re all lost.

I’m looking forward to the projects his students will be submitting. George created this program from the ground up just a few short years ago. I’ve been watching the work coming out of his program for the last three years. The films are getting damn good.

Next, I headed over to Dago’s classroom. He teaches the beginning and intermediate students. They were younger and a bit more shy than George’s kids. But Dago helped me out. He’s great with the kids. Clearly he’s their favorite teacher. I hope we get some submissions by these younger filmmakers.

Finally, I headed to Russ’ room. He teaches the animation classes. He’d told me that he was in another building, far removed from George and Dago’s rooms. Dago had given me directions, but I felt a little turned about in the courtyard. I made he mistake of asking an administrator type who was walking across the campus. “Sir, excuse me, but do you know where the animation classroom might be?” He froze and frowned. “Well, that’s quite a question.” He smiled weakly. “We teach animation?” I leaned back. “No, sir. You teach award-winning animation.” He shrugged and walked away.

Eventually I found Russ’ room. When I tapped on the little glass window in the door, Russ pulled me in and cleared his throat and loudly introduced me to his students. I pitched the festival. And then Russ took me around the room and let me see some of the great work his kids are doing.

There was a piece about a ninja cat that had some great graphic design and killer composition. There was a work-in-progress about how malaria is spread with some very cool art work. Also a quirky fantasy piece about militaristic fleas living on dogs. I hope we get a bunch of these animation projects. These kids are so much better than they think they are. Even though their heads should be swelled with their recent Emmy Award.

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Thursday NALIP-SA hosted Bryan Poyser from the Austin Film Society. He came to town to offer a free grant-writing workshop for AFC’s Texas Filmmaker’s Production Fund. We met at the Radius Center. About 25 people showed up. And I’m always perplexed by these sorts of gatherings where people show up who I don’t recognize. Maybe a third of the attendees were new to me.

Who are you people? I was only able to talk with one of the newbies as everyone filtered out. She was a graduate of Full Sail film school in Florida.

I was nice to see some of the stalwarts of the San Antonio film scene. I’ve been out of pocket for so many recent film-related events that I felt pretty disconnected. Chadd from PrimaDonna was there. Druck from Film Classics. Angela and Mark from Prime
Eights. Rocket Ron was there. Janet from the Film Commission. Jaime Ledezma. Veronica, of course. Rick Carrillo. Also, Scott Greenberg was there. Scott won a TFPF grant last year. He’s working on a hospice care documentary.

My plan is to apply, yet again, to the Texas Filmmaker Production Fund. I’ve done so four times before, only to be turned down. You have to play if you want to win. Last year they had just over 200 submissions. They awarded about 20 grants. A one in ten chance isn’t so bad.

They cut me loose from the auction house several days earlier than I had anticipated. This means I’ll be lighting fewer Churchills with Franklins. Lighting up Doral Ultra Lights with Tender Vittles coupons lacks the same panache. Therefore, I’m rather glad I gave up smoking years ago.

One of the groovy items the auction house is considering for an upcoming auction is a complete set of blue prints for Fort Knox. Forget your Oceans 11 through 29. Here’s my pitch for a heist film more in the Ealing Comedy styling. A bunch of socially inept nerdy aging experts in collectible historical items who work in an auction house begin to hatch a scheme once a set of Fort Knox blueprints comes in from a hopeful consigner. The ringleader makes sure to run copies of all 23 sheets on the huge in-house flatbed scanner before the Treasury Department gets wind and confiscates the original documents. So of course the team suits up in their most sensible tweeds and ascots, tucking flintlock derringers into waistbands and Madrigal-palooza 2002 fanny packs and they head off to Kentucky with a large Chartpak brand Expand-A-Tube, filled with 23 rolled-up pages with all they need to know about ventilation shafts and the drainage system into the janitorial closets. Once we get Wilfred Brimley and Chad Everett locked, the funding will surge in!

Here’s a taste of the top secret plans:

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While in Dallas I dropped by my friend Jean’s place. While I was showing off my iPhone, it began searching for a WiFi connection. I was amused by the top two available in the neighborhood. Usually people give their WiFi routers a boring name. Not so for “Not Your Bandwidth” and “Hidden Rebel Base.”

I was glad I’d decided to look up Jean. Her daughter Emily, a gifted photographer, was having her first solo show the following day. Here’s an iPhone photo of Emily standing in front of a massive picture of a coconut. Her show was all fruit. Emily Lamberty, “Edible Goodness,” at the Wit Gallery, Dallas, Texas. Great work.

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It’s been a long day. Earlier this morning I was sitting in Dallas at my sister’s place working on a Humanities Texas mini grant. And then I headed out to deliver some Josiah Youth Media Festival propaganda to some Dallas film and video programs.

The first stop was SMU. I used to go to SMU back in my 20s. I like to tell people that it was the cheapest school I could go to. That’s all thanks to Uncle Adolphus and the family scholarship over in the theology department. Both me and my sister leveraged those funds to study abroad. I also took several classes on campus. After the account was depleted, I had to go elsewhere.

Yet, I do have fond memories of SMU. The overwhelming elitism aside, there were some damn fine teachers. And a few worthwhile students. But I’m a sucker for campus life. I’ve taken college courses on six campus in England, Massachusetts, California, and Texas. All that, and the best I can show is a measly BA in English LIt. The fact is, I miss the academic world terribly. I’m pretty certain that I don’t really belong in those hallowed halls, but I continue to Jones for it, constantly wondering why I’m not in grad school.

And today, while walking across the quad at SMU, it was like those two decades separating then from now just vanished. It was the smell, that most evocative of the senses. The mowed grass, sure. But something else … something earthy which seemed to be wafting off the live oaks surrounding the Meadows Museum. Something.

Next I did a few drive-byes, dropping JYMF materials off at Dallas private schools. I would have hit some of the public schools, but those lacksidasical folks at the Dallas Film Commission never got back to me. I’d phoned, asking which high schools have film programs. I was instructed to send an email, submitting my request in writing. This I did. Things looked promising when I received an email explaining that my email had been forwarded to the proper department. I can only assume, two weeks later and dead silence, that it went to the go-suck-an-egg department. And, therefore, I can only assume that the gianormous city of Dallas, Texas has NO high school film / video program in their ISD.

The Performing Arts Magnet sounds a good bet, but, no. I’m sure that they have some insanely talented students making films on their own time, but this sort of production work isn’t on their curriculum, leastwise not according to their website.

What gives? Tracking down student video programs shouldn’t be this difficult. Most of the programs in San Antonio are proud to post this info on their websites. Google student film programs in Dallas, and you get a lot of nothing. Different story for San Antonio. If there are public school video production programs in and around Dallas, they need to get the word out. I have no problems eliciting works from private schools. I’m not a total snob. Hell, I graduated from a private high school. But, shit, Dallas, what’s the problem? I know your kids are making movies. But why are you hiding them?

Next on my agenda was to squeeze in a bike ride around White Rock Lake. The sun had come out for the first time in several days. And as I had brought my bike with me, I wasn’t going to waste the opportunity. The parks around the lake were fairly busy. It seemed that some people must have called in sick to take advantage of the first sunny day in weeks.

Here’s a view near the boat house on the west shore with the spillway in the background.

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My next stop was to drive out to Arlington to visit a class of film students at UTA (University of Texas at Arlington).

And so, in one day, I managed to visit two University campuses which bear prominent placement on my college transcript.

UTA is where I finally graduated. After, I believe, 16 years of piecemeal education. And UTA is where I met filmmaker Andy Anderson and became interested in making movies. He was, back then, head of the art department. He also taught screenwriting and film production. At some point (after I graduated) Andy left UTA. But now he’s back. UTA has a master program in film, and Andy is running it. This is very good news

Anyway, Andy was kind enough to let me pitch the Josiah fest to a classroom of undergraduate filmmakers. It was great to be on the UTA campus again. I was also happy to see Andy. He’s looking good. I guess I haven’t seen him in six or seven years.

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And now, it’s three in the morning. Tuesday. I’m back in San Antonio. I was hoping to meet with students in the film program at Harlandale high school this week, but this swine flu bullshit might have scared them off bringing in guests. Sure, I can wait until next week. But, guys, I am 100% flu-free, just like almost everyone else on the planet.

It’s the flu, people, not fucking smallpox or even dysentery. Get a grip.

Ah, Twitter, that useless tool of the instantaneous transmission of ephemeral blather. This morning I noticed that Annele Spector had Tweeted about fitting herself with false eyelashes at the crack of dawn. I assumed she was planning to be in the King William Parade. I replied that I’d appreciate if she’d “blow me a kiss, shoot me the finger, or something” when she passed my house atop her float or pedaling a unicycle or whatever she might be doing.

Ask and you shall receive. I’ll have to check my video footage to see if I captured her mini performance of that kiss followed by a rude gesture as her float went by.

So, don’t be hating on Twitter. It can make wondrous things happen.

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The parade was a bit tepid this year. But it’s always a good time.

Afterwards I headed over to the King William Fair. It’s gotten so densely packed with people these last couple of years. And I really wish they’d kick out all those vendors selling those crafty items. You know, clocks made out of driftwood, old tarnished spoons fashioned into wind-chimes, lovingly crafted mesquite walking sticks that must weigh twenty pounds, etc. The food vendors don’t bother me at all. The odors of frying funnel cakes and sausage-on-a-stick help to cut the under-current of tens of thousand sweaty people (one, undeniably, being me).

The kids area was impressive. Just where does one rent a rock-climbing tower?

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Back home, my neighbor, Debby, invited me to hang out with her huge extended family who were crammed into our communal driveway. She made sure I loaded up a paper plate with all the fixin’s. (And do I really need that apostrophe? … I mean have you ever heard anyone say “fixings” when speaking of side dishes??)

And then as a nephew was pulling a TV outside so we could all watch the Spurs game, I conveniently recalled that URBAN-15 was setting up, over at the studio, for their annual panoramic photos of their drum and dance ensembles in the costumes they will be wearing for the Flambeaux Parade, later in evening — the event to close out Fiesta.

I grabbed my bike and rode over. The Goldbeck Company is the last word in panorama photography.

Check out E. O. Goldbeck’s Handbook of Texas article:

http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/GG/fgo49.html

Goldbeck sets up tiered risers. And it seemed that the larger group shots had already been done. But they were still shooting some of the smaller ensemble groups.

I took a few photos, chatted with some of the ensemble members, and then I decided to bike out to Mission Espada. I had no desire to go home and suffer through a loud beer-fueled driveway of Spurs fans yelling at a TV.

It was a Houston-humid day and maybe that was why I wasn’t too bothered by the strong head wind I was fighting for the ten miles out to Espada. As I was riding down that tree-covered lane beside the refinery, I slowed as three little girls began angling across the street in front of me. The youngest waved to me and pointed to the girl beside her. I slowed to take a closer look at the turtle she held that was the size of a dinner plate. I thought I should tell them to be careful. It looked like a snapping turtle. But they’d find out soon enough.

Out at the low water crossing near Mission Espada the huisache was in full bloom. I’m not sure if these are the same as the desert catclaw, which they resemble. But the huisache is much more fragrant. It smells like mountain laurel blossoms.

The ride back was more pleasant with the wind at my back. I decided to take a break at the park across the river from the ruins of the old Hot Wells resort. No doubt the Spurs were still playing. I flopped onto a shaded picnic bench and took a nap like a common vagrant … who happens to have a mountain bike and an iPhone (my credentials, I suppose, if some hotshot park police were to come up and hassle me: “go sleep it off at the public library, pops”).

Back home the game was ending. But the party was just getting into high gear. I pulled a comfy chair over to my computer, put on my headphones I use for editing video, and surfed over to hulu.com. I browsed through their movie listings and stumbled upon an excellent featurette by a young filmmaker. He’s in his mid-twenties. Cullen Hoback. The movie’s called Freedom State. Check it out:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/66783/freedom-state

It’s beautifully shot on digital. Kick-ass art design. Solid acting. However, if you find Wes Anderson manipulative and mawkish, you might not care for it. But I liked it. A wonderful little movie. Quirky, playful, and sweet.

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I’m heading off to Dallas for a couple of weeks tomorrow morning. I really should do some laundry. But it’s too late. I’m sure I can find something to wear for tomorrow. But I feel weird packing dirty clothes (true, I won’t be “packing” so much as stuffing into a plastic bag). Of course my sister, who I’ll be staying with, couldn’t care less, but it seems like really poor planning on my part. I’m losing my grip as an upstanding citizen. You know, like that guy sleeping it off in the comfy chair at the public library. And I really need to take a shower, ’cause I suspect that after this long and sweaty day, I’m smelling quite a bit like that hypothetical vagrant fellow.

(Friday)

My neighbors are out on their porches tonight in party mode. Tomorrow morning the King William Parade will pass down this street as it snakes through the neighborhood. So tonight’s when friends and relatives come to visit and sleep over (well, not here, but throughout the neighborhood). Wise move. The streets will be barricaded off in the early hours. Cops and parade officials will be walking the route alerting everyone to get their cars off the street and into the driveways. And then we will truly be in the block party phase with no easing up until after midnight Saturday.

The folks in the big house across the street are putting up ribbons on wooden stakes to keep people from bringing their folding chairs and grabbing some seats on that strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street. How rude. That’s the antithesis of community spirit.

The neighbors next door are entertaining all the cousins on their porch. I decided to retreat from my porch after I realized that the Best Hits of Elvis Costello had begun to play again. I was never a huge Elvis fan (don’t care for either of them), but I did try and like Costello. The Buddy Holly with angst shtick appealed to my sense of the ironic. And, yes, he wrote some great songs. But now his stuff just seems so dated, like Ric Ocasek or Warren fucking Zevon.

The chief two religions in San Antonio are the Spurs and Fiesta. The former is one of our sports teams. The latter, some sort of drifting celebration whose sacraments are Shiner Bock and Sausage on a Stick. Oh, yeah. There’s also Catholicism, running a close third.

Early on during my tenure here in San Antonio I realized that this city marks its calendar with festivals and parades. We love to celebrate outside — in our backyards, on our porches, or in the streets. Celebrate what? It doesn’t matter. Fiesta. Luminaria. Dia de los Muertos. Final Four. César Chávez March. Jazz Fest. MLK March. Contemporary Art Month. First Friday (a monthly arts event). The Thanksgiving Day Parade along the San Antonio River. The pushcart races at Dignowity Park. And in the spring when the San Antonio River Authority drains that portion of the river which flows through downtown (the Riverwalk) we have our annual Mud Festival. We make a party out of anything, even mud. Even I had a hand in creating a parade. Deborah, Ramon, and I brought the Artista Parade to the Deco District. Well, Deborah did most of the work. Sadly, it never took. We thought it might become an annual event. It didn’t.

Let this be a lesson to those wanting to begin an annual event. Let’s say your passion is for Italian Mannerist painting. You’re just an average working Joe trying to bring attention to you pet organization, the Alamo City Pontormo Appreciation Society. The city agencies from whom you’re seeking funding just don’t seem interested. Try this: “Well, I’ll make this PowerPoint presentation quick and to the point. As you can see, the Pontormo Parade will terminate here, in front of the Alamo. With fireworks. Of course. The gordita stands will be stationed here and here. The region highlighted in yellow represents the bank of margarita machines. And Shiner Beer, our main sponsor, will be set up in front of the Menger Hotel.” The response might surprise you. “Crikey, but you make a good argument for a greater respect among the people of South Texas for Florentine pre-Baroque masters. Let’s put you down for four million. Good fireworks don’t come cheap.”

Who don’t love a parade?

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This afternoon I headed out to Northwest Vista, one of the campus in San Antonio’s Alamo Community College District. My plan was to drop some flyers and submissions forms for the Josiah Youth Media Festival at the media department. Northwest Vista is up in that blighted region of strip malls and cul-de-sacs. It sits in the shadow of Sea World. In short, not the sort of place I normally travel to. Hell, it’s a 20 minute drive out beyond Kelly Air Force Base and even Lackland Air Force Base.

But I forgot about Fiesta. It seems that the Friday before the end of Fiesta is a holiday for most people in San Antonio. The whole god damn campus was shut down. I couldn’t even get into any of the buildings to leave off my manila envelope. It was like some post-apocalyptic movie. A large campus with nothing but empty parking lots. All it needed was Chuck Heston machine-gunning zombies.

Here in San Antonio, Fiesta fucks up the social order worse than Christmas.

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George and Catherine’s son, Antonio Cisneros, is in town shooting a short film. He’s DP on this project. They’re using the Red. Here’s a quick shot of Antonio on set today.

They had a big-ass grip truck as well as a generator trailer from Raging Bull Grip and Lighting. It reminded me how much I love being on set. And how long it’s been since I’ve made a film or worked on someone else’s project.

Gotta get outta this slump.

I video-taped a dance performance several months back. I shot three performances of the same work from different angles. The client finally requested a chance to look at what I had. When we were working out the date to review the footage, I suggested today, Thursday. It would give me three days to clean my place up once I returned from the NALIP conference. You see, this apartment is in pretty bad shape. She agreed. But because I’m a notorious procrastinator, I put the house work off until last night and this morning. My office, the little breakfast nook off the kitchen, was a holy horror. My plan? Move my computer into the living room. Problem solved. Just clean up one room. It worked out fine. We reviewed the material and made a few decisions. And so now, Thursday night, I’m trying to figure out if I want to keep my computer here. I’ve set things up on my little TV table (the television has been moved to a closet, as I never use it). The table has shelves — my stereo is down there — so I can’t sit close. But it has possibilities. Maybe I’ll leave it here … besides, if I moved things back into the other room, I’d feel obligated to actually clean the place.

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There’s a filmmaker in Fort Worth whose blog I read. Recently he wrote about a friend who was working on a feature film shot in HD on a Canon camera. A camera, not a camcorder. A DSLR (that’s Digital Single Lens Reflex). The Canon 5d Mark II can shoot 12 minutes of HD video. And it’s already set up to take prime lenses. No need to invest in a bulky mini 35mm system. It reportedly works very well in low light conditions. About 2500 bucks — body only, no lens. The down-side? It shoots at a “frame” rate of 30 — 24 isn’t an option. Also, it can only shoot 12 minutes of high def video. But what does this mean? Can it be upgraded with a larger memory card? Or is this some sort of internal storage which needs to be dumped to a laptop once filled before production begins again? Not a deal breaker, that. It’s simply a work-flow concern. But I’d like to know more.

The footage I’ve seen is lovely.

Local filmmaker Jesus Sifuentes, mentioned something to me about either this camera or his interest in Nikon 35mm lenses. I can’t remember. From his blogs and his Tweets I gather he’s selling off his Panasonic HVX and is actively ordering lenses. Sounds like he’s moving to the Canon 5d Mark II. I need to call him up and get his take on shooting movies with a DSLR. I believe I also heard Dagoberto mention something about this camera quite some months back. This sounds reasonable. Dago always has his ear to the ground and knows the major trends within the film and video world before they hit the mainstream.

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I’ve lived a Fiesta-proof life these last four days I’ve been back in town. Fiesta is that weird two week-long city-wide generic booze-up. According to Wikipedia Fiesta has “origins dating to the late 1800s. The festival begun as a single event to honor the memory of the heroes of the battles of the Alamo and San Jacinto.” Heroes? Well, to each his or her own. But the thing I find hard to reconcile is the almost universal appeal of Fiesta to the local population. You can meet the most cynical San Antonio son of a bitch, and sure as shit he’ll get keyed up when you mention the impending Fiesta. “Oh, man, the Oyster Bake is gonna be killer this year. Have you got your tickets to NIOSA, ’cause mi abuela is selling them for her church.” (I have no fucking clue as to what Oyster Bake or NIOSA actually are — sure, they’re parties, but what’s their significance?) There’s a “Battle of the Flowers,” river parades, masked balls, and something called Cornyation, which may or may not be a gay event (or, perhaps, a straight-friendly faux drag booze-up your grandmother wants to go to). Because I don’t like crowds, I have sampled very few of the Fiesta events. I tried to check out the Flambeaux Parade last year. Rode my bike downtown to watch. But it was an insane crush of humanity. I fled. Last year I did take part in Incognito, a masquerade ball. It’s sponsored by URBAN-15, and I was there as a volunteer. But the two events I always partake of are the King William Parade and the King William Fair. The parade comes down my street. And the fair happens about five blocks away.

As I’ve said before, the King William Parade is the closest thing this city has to a gay pride parade. It’s heavily represented by the local arts organizations — no surprise that this group skews queer. It’s our freak parade. And I love it. It’s filled with my people, from my neighborhood and my community.

Sunday I have to head back to Dallas to lower myself back down into the salt mines of the auction house where I slave away as part of the Rare Book Industrial Complex. I do believe Eisenhower warned us, yeah? What can I say? It keeps the collection agencies off my back. And the work’s rather fun. But the biggest problem is that I’ll be out of town during the early voting period.

My goal is to get back to San Antonio for election day. It’s imperative that I cast my vote for mayor. Do I vote for Napoleon Madrid, or against him? Do I love him, or do I hate him? Is he a brilliant performance artist? Or a delusional simpleton? His claim of an IQ of 180 and his intention to bring “perpetual energies” to San Antonio has me on the fence.

I can see I have a lot of thinking to do. And, I need to make sure I’m back in town by the 9th. Actually, it’s most important for me to vote for the mayor ot San Antonio no matter who that candidate might be. As long as he or she isn’t Trish DeBerry. We need to stop thinking that voting for candidates with business back-grounds is a good idea. Government isn’t a business. It really isn’t. Reference the last eight years.

I spent four days in Newport Beach, California. No one should ever be forced to spend four days in Newport Beach. It was like living in La Cantera (for those not from San Antonio, think of your most tony shopping mall). I was there for the NALIP annual conference. This was their 10th anniversary. And as much as I might bitch about the aesthetic paucity of a four or five star resort hotel in the US, I did have a nice time. There were great people, some useful panels, and wonderful speakers.

The San Antonio contingency was impressive. We were about ten. Veronica, Dora, Manuel, Jaime, Patty, Yolanda, Joe, Raemelle, Francis, and myself. We should be able to claim Sandy. Though she’s from Dallas, she comes down to visit us every so often. Also, Drew and Janet from the film commission were there. Call it thirteen. Why not.

Thursday morning I made it to the airport two hours before my flight. Just like I was told. Now keep in mind, the last time I was on a plane was five years ago … and before that, maybe twenty years ago.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the concept of flight. But I dig traveling on the surface, and meeting the people who live there. Anyway, my trip almost turned to shit before I had really woken up. The woman working the check-in desk looked at the receipt I had printed up from the online purchase I had made.

“You’re already changed this flight from Friday to today?” she asked.

I looked closer. The paper said I was booked for an outbound Friday flight. God dammit! I hate buying stuff online!

Noticing my distress, the woman looked up with a smile. “We have one seat left. I can put you on board for only an additional 260 dollars.”

I had bought the round trip — San Antonio; Orange County; San Antonio — for about 260.

I mumbled “too rich for me,” and walked away. I guess I’d just have to leave on Friday.

On my way back to the parking-lot I made a phone call to another person going to the conference. I won’t give out a name because this person said, with true insider confidence: “Don’t leave. I might be able to work this out. Give me the confirmation number.” I was then instructed to return to the terminal and wait for further instructions.

Maybe ten minutes later my problems were no more. My angel had interceded. I was saved! Now all I had to do was empty my pockets, take off my shoes, walk through a metal detector, and say “thank you” to the geriatric uniformed guard keeping America’s sky’s safe from … whatever. But, dammit, I was IN!

Note to self: if you ever again travel by plane, lose fifty pounds.

When I checked into the Island Hotel in Newport Beach all I did was give them my credit card. A smiling young woman gave me my plastic keycard. I picked up my bags and headed to the elevator. Veronica, walking beside me, asked me about the rate. I confessed I never asked. I was working on the notion that I would be sharing a room with three others. This would take my nightly rate down to maybe a hundred dollars. And of the three nights, NALIP would pay for one night. I think Veronica said something like, “Dude, you should make sure.” She, of course, was right. But I never did.

When I got into my room, I saw one double bed and one rolling cot which had been installed near the windows and made up with sheets. There was a suitcase on the double bed. Fine. I placed my luggage on the cot. I wouldn’t have to worry about sharing with a stranger. But I was taken with this nagging notion that the room was set up for only three people. My understanding was that I would be sharing with three others. But, well, I decided to go with the flow. To be honest, I was probably going to pay that extra 260 at the airport if I hadn’t been rescued.

This roommate situation is one of the more amusing things about the conference. I stayed three nights in a hotel room with just this one other guy (there were no other roommates), and we never met. It’s true. If he walked up to me right now, I’d be clueless. Each night I went to bed around midnight. I kept to Texas time. Midnight was two in the morning. The roommate never came in earlier than two. I’m not a deep sleeper when I travel. So I was awake when he quietly (and drunkenly?) entered. Were he louder, I would have gotten up and talked with him. But he was tip-toeing as he used the bathroom, undressed (or not), and fell into bed. I was amazed in that he fell asleep and began snoring in under 20 seconds every night. And in the morning, I would get up with the sun.

Six am. That’s eight, Texas time. No problem. What I usually do. And so I was up, showered, dressed, and out of the room before the guy ever stopped his soft gentle snoring. Now, I’m sure he’s a great guy, and I’m sure we’d have got along famously, but, in a sense, I couldn’t have asked for a better roommate. And my hotel bill was exactly what I budgeted it to be.

(Because the bellboy slid a note under the door, I have to assume that my roommate was filmmaker Darryl Deloach of New Mexico. Sorry I missed meeting you, Darryl!)

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One of the great surprises of the conference was when I learned that Juan Gonzales, who participated in two of the panels, was actually THE Juan Gonzales, powerful journalist as well as the co-host of Democracy Now! I was too timid and star-struck to approach him. But he was great in the two panels.

Also, Ela Troyano was in attendance. She was on a panel about music rights. I met Ela last year during the Creative Capital workshop. I was impressed that she remembered me. She’s quite an accomplished filmmaker with a lot of helpful hints. And she’s also kinda cute.

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One of the nights at the conference several of us from San Antonio headed out to a restaurant in Laguna Beach. I suspect that there had already been some drinking. The taxi ride out was filled with rather salty talk — mainly from the women. Veronica was talking to the Armenian driver in Russian. Francis began talking about her love of the novel Moby Dick. At the point, it all fell into dick jokes … but strangely the two males (me and Joe) stayed silent. This helps to reinforce my notion that women are much more likely to sexualize their conversation than men.

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My initial plan was to have a few projects in stages well developed enough so that I would be conformable pitching them. I was supposed to have my script finished for my feature, “Tunnels Under the Tower;” my treatment for my TV show, “The Cucuy Club;” ditto on my treatment for my feature documentary, “The Jumanos People;” and a show bible for my playful and rather asinine reality TV show, “American Mayor.”

But I got sidetracked by other projects and did my best to network, collect business cards, and learn from the panels and workshops.

I was impressed by the high quality of some of the works samples these people were attaching to their pitches.

Maybe later I’ll give more of a run-down of the panelists and filmmakers I met. It was really an impressive group.

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The trip back to Texas was more grueling. Perhaps I’d gotten fatter. Other than the tight fit in the seats of Southwest Airlines, I found myself with five hours to kill at the John Wayne Airport. This after a twenty dollar limo ride from the hotel. Once inside the security region, I treated myself to a nine dollar sandwich, the cheapest I could find. Man, I guess I’m a bit out of touch with the real world. In defense of John Wayne Airport, they do have free WiFi and plenty of AC stations to plug in your laptops and phones free of charge.

Than, I found myself with a two-hour lay-over in Phoenix, a pathetic excuse for a city, thanks in large part to that asshole Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Phoenixites (or whatever you call yourselves), clean that shit up!

I made it to the San Antonio airport a little after one a.m.

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Monday was a scramble for support material for a project grant I was trying to push through the San Antonio Office of Cultural Affairs. It’s an experimental film tentatively entitled “River Quartet;” however, after I posted (via Twitter) this photo of one of my locations, Dago Patlan asked if the location was supposed to be an alien cemetery.

And, of course, he was on to something. Who wouldn’t fund a project with the name of “Alien Cemetery”? (Were Philip Jose Farmer still alive, I can imagine him writing an Allan Quaretmain pastiche adventure: “Exhuming the Alien Cemetery.”)

But I digress.

I was able to wrangle all my support material and deliver it to the City Clerk’s Office by the 4 p.m. deadline with about ten minutes to spare. I wasn’t the only one coming in just under the wire. I also saw Gabe Vasquez, Marisela Barrera, and Veronica Hernandez.

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As I was enjoying celebratory cheese enchiladas at Tito’s, Victor Payan called me up and suggested I should apply for a NALAC conference grant. He explained that NALIP-SA members were all NALAC members. The deadline was midnight. That midnight. So, I went home and pushed another application through. This one, conveniently on-line.

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Monday I also learned that the funding request to pay the conference registration fees for all San Antonio NALIP members attending the national event had gone through. Great news. One of my nights at the hotel had been comped. I’d received a travel stipend in the form of a check at the registration table (which paid almost all of my plane flight). And now I learned I’d get a check for the registration fee. Not bad.