I feel a cold coming on.  Not a very auspicious beginning for 2009.  Where, I wonder, could I have caught this?  I don’t recall interacting with another human (well, face to face) in the last three days or so.  Well, maybe at a convenience store or a drive through taqueria.  Oh well, I’ll try and ride it out.

The holidays are almost over, and that’s something to cheer for.  It seems that I never plan my way around these special days.  Invariably I run  out of groceries on the eve of some big event.  Tonight, New Year’s Eve, was a case in point.  In a half-ass attempt to get a jump on the clean slate of a new year, I gathered up all the plastic grocery bags I’ve accumulated over the months and headed off to HEB.  Not my favorite choice for shopping, but I knew that the HEB on Nogalitos has a drop-off bin for plastic bags – you know, so that you can pretend they will be sent off to some sort of plastics recycling center.

There was a long line of cars to get into the parking-lot.  So I bailed, turned on Malone, and headed east to Flores to my La Fiesta.  Crowded there, too, but no so insanely and densely packed.  Needless to say, I’ll be driving around with two fat bags of bags rolling on my floorboards for who knows how long.

In a similarly proactive move towards a New Year’s clean slate, I decided to finally come to terms with the pile of emails clogging up my in-box – circa twenty-five hundred.  There were emails dating back to 2005.  Some probably very important.  If an email contains something crucial, I’ll leave it in the in-box.  Maybe it’s someone’s email address I never got around to entering into my contacts folder.  Some, of course, are spam I never got around to deleting.  Or, well, who knows.  In the back of my mind I guess I assumed I’d hunker down one week and deal with it.  Or maybe chip away, several pages per day.

Today I just hunted around, found the Empty Folder button, and consigned it all to the digital dump.

Rather exhilarating.  And so today I’ve been like a madman.  I’ll see, on my new iPhone, a fresh email.  Those pesky spams for boner pills and notices that a warrantee on a car I don’t own is about to expire don’t stand a chance.  I click on that icon of a trash can without a second thought.  Gotta keep my new pristine email box clean.

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Ah, my new iPhone.  It’s only 200 clams.  What a bargain for one of the best toys I own.  The downside, of course, is that AT&T has increased my monthly cell phone rate by about 30 bucks.  The rational is because I now have unlimited access to the internet via the phone’s WiFi feature as well as this 3G network thing that I don’t pretend to understand beyond the fact that it allows me fairly fast internet access where there is no WiFi signal.

Since I had my iPod stolen back in the summer, I’d planned on getting a new one.  In fact, my sister, for Christmas, transferred the needed funds into my account.  And as an iPhone is also an iPod, I went ahead and got it.  I haven’t yet loaded up any video.  However, I do suppose I should at least put my video reel on the phone.

But, as one of my sister’s co-workers said in high praise of his iPhone, “It’s all about the Apps.”  To be sure, iTunes has already made a mint selling the iFart application (something like that), and at only two or three bucks a throw, that must be quite a lot of adolescent tedium being spread around.

One of the free iPhone apps that intrigued me is “The Bike Computer.”  It’s a GPS application that can track your route, speed, mileage, top speed, average speed.  It interfaces with www.everytrail.com.  This is a website geared mainly for serious hikers and geocachers (the high nerds of the GPS subculture).  A quick perusal of the folks posting to the Every Trail forums led me to the conclusion that their GPS devices of choice were exotic items I have never heard of.  No one was praising the iPhone.  And so, I suspect that this iPhone app is pretty new.

The application however proved rather clunky.  True, as a GPS device, the iPhone is far from the cutting edge.  But I finally dumped the Bike Computer and switched to the EveryTrail GPS app.  The bike computer was created to ape the stand alone devices you can buy at bike shops, but those are weather proof and meant to be attached to you handlebars with a readout screen easy to see in direct sunlight.  This isn’t a good description of an iPhone.

What makes the EveryTrail app so cool is that not only does it mark your journey and allow you to upload it to their website so that other hikers, cyclists, and such can discover new routes (often with a written commentary), but you can use the digital camera on the iPhone to take a phone (without shutting down the GPS tracking app), and that photo is geo-tagged and will be uploaded along with the traveled route, so that people can know what to expect.  For instance, if you follow the link below, you can see a bike ride I took Monday along the Mission Trail.  There are photos of all four missions and other scenes.  Maybe I’ll get around to writing a little bit of commentary.  The photos, certainly, need contextualization.  Only three-quarters of the ride was recorded.  Someone called me, and apparently when you answer the phone, you need to reset the EveryTrail app.

http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=96525

On the day I bought my iPhone I had a Luminaria steering committee meeting over at the Witte Museum. Most of the other folks who sit around that chunky wooden board room table are comfortably employed in tony positions within the local arts and cultural industrial complex. In fact, one of my co-committee members had just bought a Mercedes SUV because another person at the table was so happy with hers. I took a seat in a deep padded and armed swivel chair and I looked around the table,  I saw half a dozen iPhones readied at people’s elbows, like stacks of chips for a serious night of poker. I slipped mine from my pocket and laid it on the table. “Deal me in,” I said to the room, and I gave a wink to the first perplexed woman in a pants suit who looked my way.

I have something of a love / hate relationship with technology. When it works, I just love it to death. But because there is such a significant price tag for the cutting-edge machines and software, I always seem to be about two years behind the technological curve. Early adopter, sadly I am not.  That’s a rich person’s game. I do believe that if I were financially flush, I would be scarfing up quite a collection of techno toys as they hit the market. Having said that, I also know too well just how much time I squander fucking around with these ephemeral contraptions and applications, culminating in the very antithesis of a life full of purpose and meaning.

Putting aside its inherent vapidness, the iPhone (and all these current crop of hand-held devices) represents the new information frontier. Computers will migrate from their perch on our desk and laps, and settle in the virtual realm of the internet. What we will physically own will be a device that allows us to access the net, where all of our processing and storage needs will reside. Visual displays — whether they be TVs, hand-held, or something resembling eyeglasses — will be connected wirelessly to the ubiquitous hand-held machine. The keyboard will have to be significantly revamped. Soon we will all be wirelessly interconnected. The internet will become our collective consciousness. We will spend even more time in there than we do now.

See you on the inside, chums!

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I haven’t been posting to this blog in ages.  But I’ve been writing.  So, here we go.  I’ll shave down nine thousand words of unpublished drivel into some highlights of the tail end of my 2008.

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(On spending two weeks in the Big Bend and three weeks in Dallas.)

In the last five weeks, I have only spent two nights in my house. Funny how my rootlessness of those weeks has resulted in fewer phone calls and emails. Sometimes we get so caught up in our lives that we actually believe that what we do is crucial and were we to disappear, it would all go to shit. So, when we realize that this is almost always nonsense, our ego recoils, feeling slighted, down-grade to traveling through life down in the steerage section with the superfluous of humanity, those day players and non-featured extras.  But then it hits. That sense of liberation. “Oh, so they don’t really need me!” And then you know that you can chill out, slack off, run away to some godforsaken corner of the Chihuahua desert, and all guilt free.

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(On a recent occasional gig working for an auction house in Dallas.)

I’m still in a bit of a shock that I can wrangle temp work  for the rare book department of a major auction house and get a wage that translates to a solid day rate I’d get were I working in film production in San Antonio. I sometimes forget that I have decades of experience in a rather obscure and occasionally bankable industry, the antiquarian book world.

Here is a photo of some nifty skeleton chairs apparently waiting to go under the hammer.

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(On the 2008 SA Film Commission holiday party.)

Drew and Janet brought together another outrageously successful annual San Antonio Film Commission holiday party. The Depot at Sunset Station was packed. I think we had about two hundred and fifty people. Some of my favorite people were in attendance.

At one point I was standing in the center of the room (the old train depot, refitted for swanky events, such as this) and I was talking to Travis Thomsen. And I looked over to the sign-in table. Wow, I thought, that sure looks like Angela Bennett, one of the more accomplished actors I’ve had the pleasure of working with. She played a tiny role in me and Pete’s feature, “Vaya Con Dios, Asshole,” and I swore I’d cast her, one day, in a major role.  But she eventually moved to LA.  However, some minutes later, I looked up to see the woman closer.  I had not been mistaken.  I walked up and asked if she was back in town for good.  She is. I asked if she’s still acting. Yes, she said. In fact she’s in a play that the Renaissance Guild will be putting on at the Jump-Start in February.  I know I’ll be there.  Welcome home Angela!

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(On the 2008 NALIP Christmas party.)

Two celebrations rolled into one at Pocha y Payan’s place.  The the annual San Antonio NALIP (National Association of Latino Independent Producers) holiday party … and, for those hanging around until midnight, glasses were lifted to celebrate Victor Payan’s fortieth birthday.

The place was abuzz with some of the best of the local film community (and only a couple of irritating blowhards).  Even though the evite gave the party a run time of 7:30 until 11, I knew I should stay to at least midnight.  And at the point, Victor’s wife Sandra Sarmiento (AKA Pocha Peña) came from their kitchen with a lighted birthday cake.  We all fell to snapping pictures.  And after a cursory round of “happy birthday,” we all began eating cake.  At about 12:20 local icon David Zamora Casas showed up with his entourage and a bunch of beer to revitalize the shindig.

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(On finally dragging my ass out to the AtticRep.)

Roberto Prestigacomo is the Producing Artistic Director of the Attic Rep theatre.  I met him earlier in the year for the 2008 San Antonio Creative Capital weekend retreat.  I’m a bit embarrassed that I’ve never been to see a play at the Attic Rep.  But the last production of the year was Sam Shepard’s True West.  The piece is known to most by the filmed version staring Gary Sinise and John Malkovich.  In this local production Rick Frederick plays one of the two leads.  I worked with Rick as a fellow crew member on Anne Wallace’s film we shot down on the Rio Grande, but with all the praise Rick’s been getting from his performances in the San Antonio theater scene, I had never managed to see him do his thing.  So, I headed off to the final matinee performance of True West.  As I climbed the stairs to the Attic Rep, I saw the sign.  “Performance Sold Out.”  I signed up on the waiting list, but Roberto kindly found me a seat.  It’s a small and intimate theater.  I found myself on the front row.  I looked around at the audience.  There were my next door neighbors, the artist Marlys Dietrick and her husband Michael Looney.  Sitting next to them was teacher, author, and filmmaker Frances Treviño and her husband the author John Philip Santos.

The production was tight.  Nice art design.  Rick and his co-star, Andy Thornton, were perfect as the mismatched brothers.  Andy played the character of Lee.  The wayward brother.  The character is almost always drunk, and prone to unexpected turns of violent outbursts.  A perfect and intense performance.  Rick’s character, Austin, is more complex, and his is the character who undergoes something of a transformation.  Fucking amazing job.  From nebbish to muthafucker in two acts.  Brings to mind Dustin Hoffman as the mathematician pushed too far in Straw Dogs … but with funnier dialog.

Great play. Wonderful production.  And congrats Rick and Andy for giving the audience no other choice but to rise from our seats to give that well-deserved standing ovation.

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So, Happy New Year’s.  May 2009 be a damn sight better than 2008.

It’s 1:30 in the a.m. on the first of January.

I’d planned a night of sitting here grousing at my keyboard in a high state of self-pity.  Around nine I was pleasantly surprised to receive a call from Deborah.  She was sitting at Ric-Ron Taco House, a delightfully cheerless 24 hour dive on Roosevelt.  She had opted out of the parties to which she had been invited and was prepared to drown her sorrows in a late night plate of huevos rancheros.  She asked if I was doing anything?  I told her I’d be right over.

We had dinner, loads of watery coffee, and then, around eleven-thirty, I suggested we head downtown to watch the fireworks.  We parked in the old Handy Andy parking-lot.  There were families setting up tailgate celebrations with folding camp chairs.  We heard several bottles of champaign popping.  It’s a nice spot to watch the fireworks.  Last year, as I was walking my neighborhood New Year’s eve, I stopped here to admire the fireworks shooting up around the Tower of the Americas.

Deborah and I walked down to South Alamo and followed the crowds to Hemisfair Park.  It was a bit chilly, but no too bad.  As we cut across the park we gave wide berth to a goth girl in thigh-high boots and a leather mini skirt as she leaned against a live oak and vomited like a champ.  She chose her wardrobe wisely — those splashes will hose right off.

San Antonio has a ritual along the lines of Times Square.  But instead of a lighted ball dropping, we have a lighted elevator car climbing up the Tower of the Americas.  When it reaches the top, a big sign flashed from 2008 to 2009.  And then the orgy of fireworks began.  Deborah laughed and pointed out all the cellphones lifted high, snapping shots of the light show.  I would have taken a picture of the people taking pictures.  But because the iPhone’s camera has no flash (and, well, as a camera, it’s pretty lame) I went with the flow and took some low resolution smeary firework phone photos of my own.

A truly nice way to welcome in a new year.  A spontaneous low-key adventure with one of my favorite people.

Thanks for calling me out, Deborah!  And let’s make 2009 the best year yet.

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After returning Deborah to her car at Ric-Ron I headed home to pick up the thread of this blog.  I plugged my Sony headphones (the ones I edit video with) into my iPhone, switched on the Pandora app, and tapped over to my Cockney Rejects “channel.”  I was deep into the Ramones’ version of “Chinese Rocks” (a heroin song rendered so poppy and inoffensive it could have come from the Archies) when my phone began ringing.

It was Carlos Piña.  He and Shelley had just come from Bonds 007 where they’d welcomed in 2009 with Cindy Osborne and her band, When Words Attack.  Carlos could see through my window a silvery glow off my computer monitor.  He’d planned to leave a Christmas gift on my porch, but he didn’t want me over-reacting and diving for a pistol once I heard boots on my porch.  This is Texas, and Carlos knows the score.  Thanks Carlos and Shelley for the big bag of produce from the Rio Grande Valley (and no, it isn’t not that kind of produce).

Thanks guys.

Friday night I hit town, coming in from the west on I-10, right at rush hour.  I had been driving straight for seven hours, fueled by a huge can of Monster brand energy drink and (quite inexplicably) a couple bags of chicharrones.  For the three hundred miles from Fort Stockton to Kerrville the speed limit is eighty miles per hour.  And so, as I neared home and encountered the slower speed limits, things seemed suddenly sluggish, and, because of the hour, congested, what with the  commuters.  I was listening to Smog “Dongs of Sevotion” at high volume.  The songs are tragic set-pieces all about impoverished desperation and senseless murder on the open road.  You know, classic Americana.  The sun, which drops so early these cold afternoons, angled low before slipping behind an endless bank of clouds.  As I was pulled along with the rip tide of commuters on the elevated section of the highway nearby the downtown cathedral, I looked up and marveled at the line of blackbirds perched on the signs overhead.  They were shoulder to claw, watching the surge of humanity below.  And then, from the west-side public housing district, several dark and thick clouds of more birds plowed up and over the cars.  They took a sharp tack down, looking for more cozy roosts closer to the tourist traps like Mi Tierra and The Museo Alameda.  And all the while I’m listening to Bill Callahan matter-of-factly intoning the lyrics to “Cold Discovery.”  Oh, good god, what a mess.  As I took the South Alamo exit, I turned off the CD player and took a deep breath.

I stopped at the Pik-Nik convenience store for a batch of 65-cent tacos.  Back home I ate those tacos.  And I unloaded the truck.  Next, I walked two doors down to collect my mail from Phil.  My $300 economic stimulus package check had arrived!  Halle-fucking-lujah!  Looks like I can now pay my rent.  Thanks so much, Geo. W., and try not to let the door hit your ass on the way out!  Chinga usted, hijo de puta!

But I digress….

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I spent the last ten days or so visiting friends down in Redford, Texas.   I hadn’t been out to that part of the world since early summer of last year, when I brought Enrique and Roberto to San Antonio to represent the Jumano Apaches of the La Junta region during a screening of Alan Govenar’s “The Devil’s Swing.”

My Redford hosts, dear friends Enrique and Ruby Madrid, put me up in one of the apartments behind their home.  They had recently been through an ordeal.  The worst flooding of the Rio Grande in recorded history had hit Presidio and Redford.  The people of Redford had been cut off for a couple of weeks.  Helicopters brought in mail and food.  And even though the waters had pretty much receded by the time of my visit, a two mile stretch of the only road to town, FM 170, was shut down because the river had undercut the highway and the pavement is now cracked and seems on a slow and steady slump into the river.  There is access, though.  Highway workers have been busy smoothing out a dirt jeep trail, which can now accommodate just about any car, if driven slow enough.

I had about a day and a half catching up on the local news and gossip before Enrique took ill.  That’s when my 2008 Big Bend Excursion took a u-turn.  I received a front row seat into the appalling inequities of health care in southern Presidio county, one of the poorest regions in Texas.  If you’re lucky, you make it to Ojinaga, the Mexican sister city to Presidio, Texas, where health care is dependable, efficient, and affordable.  But if you’re unlucky, you get so sick so quickly that you have to phone up an ambulance (such as what happened with Enrique), and you get driven three hours away to the nearest clinic in Alpine.  And once they discover you have no insurance, they boot you out … well, once you’ve become stable enough to not croak in the parking-lot.  And, again, this is what happened to Enrique, after five days in the Alpine clinic.  They cut him loose before making more than a half-assed and uncertain diagnosis (pneumonia or TB are the top contenders).

The health care system in this country is a fucking vile joke.  We wince when reading about those sick chapters of human history where, say, Nazi researchers set about to advance medical knowledge through human vivisection.  And rightly so.  This is not to be allowed.  Let’s take it forward, yeah?  In the future, folks will gasp and grind their teeth in frustration to read how people (especially highly educated individuals who took an oath to do no harm) made a living by forcing sick people to pay them money to make them better … and if these people had no money, they were pushed aside, and allowed to die.

Everyone, repeat after me — Free Health Care Is A Right.  Enrique and Ruby are now saddled with yet a new crop of medical bills they can’t afford to pay.  Enrique had also suffered from an earlier, unrelated health problem.  As Ruby explained it: “We’ve always been poor, but never in debt.  We now owe more money to doctors than me and Enrique have ever made in our lives.”

I’m depressed, and a bit exhausted.  But it’s nothing compared to the people of the border regions in Texas.  Their lives are spent dealing with the indignities of being an occupied people.  We are talking about Occupied Texas.  This is where you have to show your papers.  And if some asshole in a badge asks your nationality, you had better say, “US Citizen,” ’cause otherwise, they’ll mess you up!

Fuck you, la chota!

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There is a contingent of the Meixcanos living in southern Presidio County who have decided to look to their roots.  They are retrieving the threads of their Jumano Apache ancestry.  These people have been living in the La Junta region for over 1200 years and they’re getting more than a bit pissed the way they’ve been treated.  Young Ezequiel Hernandez (RIP) was the most egregious and the most recent injustice.

I hope that Enrique gets better soon.  The battle continues.  And he’s needed.  Also, I guess,  it’s time for me to make myself available.

In fact, let’s all get off of our asses and work to make this a better country … a better world.

From Google, 11.05.08, 8am, CST:

Monday night.  November, 3rd.

I’ve not been very engaged on the blog writing front of late.  It didn’t help that last Tuesday, while I sat on the panel of the San Antonio Film Commission’s monthly Film Forum at the downtown public library, moderator Nikki Young mentioned on several occasions that my blog is a must-read, and had me blurt out the website.

It’s not that I’m lacking in anything to say.  My life continues to be an intriguing mosaic of little unexpected adventures here and there.  I have something of an ant’s-view, myopic it may be, of a substantial region of the film and video world here in San Antonio.  Actually I should get on the stick and use my blog to spread the word on three important events.

One.  The 2009 Luminaria Arts Night in San Antonio.  I’m co-chair of the film committee.  And, dammit, the submission deadline has already passed.  Maybe I didn’t do enough to get the word out — leastwise in my blog.

Two. There’s the San Antonio Film Summit.  It’s part of the NALIP-sponsored Adelante Film Forum, which will be this coming weekend.   The Summit will be Friday, November the 7th, at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center.  Free, and open to the public.  We hope to bring together the local production companies, independent producers, broadcast media, independent media, media educators, artists, activists, actors, and on and on.  We want to see where we are in this city in regards to time-based visual media.  There has been talk about a city-owned building which might become available to the film community.  Nothing so elaborate as Bergstrom Field in Austin, but something remarkable, nonetheless.  This Summit will hopefully also serve as a sort of needs-assessment from the San Antonio film community.  I’m banking on that most important triumvirate of San Antonio bureaucracies will be there to see what a diverse and extraordinary group we all are.  The crucial city offices I’m talking about are: The San Antonio Film Commission (attached to the CVB), the Office of Cultural Affairs, and lastly a group that so many filmmakers and artists forget about, the Economic Development Department.

Three.  Then there is, of course, the Adelante Film Forum.  We need people to sign up!  I believe it’s only 30 dollars, 10 dollars for students.  Check the website, in case I’m wrong.  www,napil-sa.org.  NALIP stands for the National Association of Latino Independent Producers.  If you check out the websites, national and local, you’ll see that their mission statement makes room for non-Latinos to be members.  Personally, I think it’s pretty difficult to make films in San Antonio and not fit into this mission statement.  Anglo I may be, but I’m not only a member of NALIP, I’m also an executive officer of the San Antonio chapter.  I feel I should point out that the NALIP-sponsored Adelante Film Forum, an excellent three day conference, is not geared specifically toward Latino producers or even filmmakers who are working on Latino-specific productions.  This year’s Adelante Film Forum, just like the previous three years, is bringing in producers, distributors, writers, and so forth, of all ethnic backgrounds who are open to all manner of productions.  Come on out, join me,  and get involved.

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The other day I attended a meeting with a local film group, and it hit me that I’ve become increasingly ambivalent to this whole film production thing.

I’ve been fumbling around in this city for half a decade, and it seems I’m nowhere near the position I need to be in to make a comfortable living doing what I want to do — and that’s making movies.  Well, I think that’s what I want to do.  But I can’t blame this city.  I just don’t seem to have the drive to make things happen for myself.

With the recent advent of a well-paying temp job (which like so many temp jobs could evaporate at any time, it’s akin to living on a month by month lease), I’m not so desperate in wondering where my next paycheck is coming from; however, with this vague financial stability I’ve found myself at a sort of crossroads.  I could remain here in San Antonio and concentrate all my energies on trying to get my own projects funded and made.  Don’t get me wrong, this temp job working as a copywriter for a major auction house up in Dallas (“guest cataloger” being the term they use) still keeps me under the national poverty level.  But that’s okay, I suppose, because I’ve never known anything else.  By working, say, two or three weeks every two mouths, I’ll still be doing better than any full-time retail job I’ve ever worked.  So, I’d be able to keep the wolves at bay and have loads of time to polish a script, seek funding, and so forth.  Appealing.  But this isn’t too divergent from the lifestyle I’ve managed here in town for the last three or four years.  And that obviously wasn’t working.  Where’s that feature script?  That novel?  That polished film?

My other potential plan would be to make another sabbatical down to the Big Bend, perhaps permanent.  As long as the auction gig is to last, it doesn’t seem to matter too much where I live.  They pay traveling expenses.  And the cost of living in the Big Bend is easily less than half of that here in San Antonio.  It’s an economically devastated region, don’t you know.  Besides, there’s not a lot to do there … well, you know, not a lot to do that costs money.  Hiking Closed Canyon, camping under the stars, biking caliche jeep trails deep into the Bofecillos Mountains, grabbing a free Spanish lesson from the borrachos who hang out under that huge salt cedar behind Rosendo’s store, or watching the javelina come down from the hills at dusk to drink from the river … these things cost nothing at all (well, you might want to pop for a few cerveza fria for los borrachos, ’cause who could be that pinche?).  So, the question remains, would I do a better job of making projects down on la Frontera?  First, I should point out that there is no shortage of great stories to turn into documentaries throughout the frontier borderland.  But the amount of support from their local film community is, last I heard, zero, as there is no local film community.  The self-aware dilettante in me is intrigued with the notion of being the big fish in the micro-pond.

I’m conflicted.

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Tomorrow is election day.  I got a jump on things and hit the early voting back on Thursday.  I had toyed with the notion of voting with the crowds tomorrow, but I decided to just get it over with.  I was over on the east-side of town, scoping out a building L. Darlene Miller, CCIM, Commercial Realtor and film festival promoter extraordinaire, threw my way as a possible studio space.  It was a bit out of my price range, but the fact that it was coded for office space as well as for a restaurant, I wanted to at least peer through the windows.  Can you imagine a home studio with a huge kitchen complete with electric fryer vat?  I kind of liked the place.  It’s on East Commerce.  It used to be an old house, and still has a curved, railed front porch.  But I decided that even if I had the funds, the place lacked a large central space I could use to build sets and stage more involved shots.

Next, I headed down Commerce, even further east.  The Claude W. Black Community Center was doing some solid business aiding the locals in all their early voting needs.  I felt a certain properness to be casting my vote for, I certainly hope, our first black president there in the heart of San  Antonio’s African-American community.

As my sister wrote on her blog (in response to her early voting experience), it was quite a thrill to vote for a presidential candidate who you really want in the office … and, of course, who you actually think has a good chance of winning.  I would feel a lot better about Obama if only he would stop his saber-rattling about increasing troops in Afghanistan.  Yes, I know this was mostly his attempt to look tough when talking alongside Hillary (whose rhetorical blood-thirst was second only to that of Lieberman); but, here’s the thing — I’m gambling that Obama is actually a screaming progressive leftist (and perhaps he actually paid attention to the time he spent with the Reverend Wright), who is cleverly concealed by a thin candy coating of semi-liberal centralism.  A feller can dream, can’t he?

After leaving the polling place, I made a stop at that huge, rambling series of east side cemeteries.  I shot some scenes of grave stones for a video piece I planned to do for the Centro Cultural Aztlan’s Dia de los Muertos show.  But I had to call Deborah and cancel.  I wouldn’t be able to do it.  I can’t seem to author DVDs on my computer anymore.  My Mac’s iDVD program has crapped out on me.  I think it happened either when I upgraded my operating system to Leopard (which has yet to impress me), or when I upgraded my video editing program, Final Cut Pro.  I do have a copy of DVD Studio Pro, but this son of a bitch has a learning curve like the Matterhorn.  I need a few weeks of intense study to master it.  I hated to, but I had to bail.

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Another current project is a proposal I submitted Friday to an artist-in-residence program out in Roswell, New Mexico.  Back when I applied for the San Antonio Artists Foundation’s annual grant, I figured I had a good 85% chance to get it.  This Roswell gig, I’ll give myself a 15% chance.  And seeing as I didn’t get the SA Artists Foundation, I’m pretty sure Roswell’s gonna turn it’s nose up as well.  But, hey, you have to play to win.  It’d be sweet to get the residency.  It’s for a year.  They provide a living / studio space and an $800 monthly stipend.    Roswell sits on the edge of the Staked Plains, aka Llano Estacado.  The fringe of the Rockies hits just to the west of town.  Take a two-lane blacktop towards the town of Capitan, and you’ll soon find yourself passing low mountains within the Lincoln National Forrest.  It’s wild, lonely, and beautiful.  And if you don’t mind appearing the rube, you can also look for UFO crash sites.  There are two not far from Roswell.  One’s on private property.  Another is at a really nice place to camp.  Oh, my goodness.  I believe I have just outed myself as a rube.

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Halloween.  Back on Friday night.  My friend Kat, is, I believe, currently in town.  I’ve spent at least two Halloween’s with her on my porch.  But this year she never gave me a call.  Kat lives an unusual life, and I would never make demands on her.  Either she calls me, or … well, that’s the only choice.  She goes from one bad relationship to the other.  And it’s marriage one season, annulment, the next, and probably now, some unstable and inadvisably young fiancee.  (For those regular blog readers checking their scorecards, this might not be the Kat you’re thinking of.  I know about five women named Cat or Kat.  This is the one who has on occasion advertised in the back pages of the San Antonio Current and, no, that’s not how I met her.)

So I wasn’t hanging out on my porch, handing out candy.  Instead, I walked to Chip and Becky’s place across the street.  They make a big deal every year.  Hell, you have to in this neighborhood.  Kids come in from all over.  As I’ve said before, the citizens are rich (except for me), the house are old, cool, and spooky, and the candy is damn plentiful.  So, yes, of course the kids will come to this neighborhood.  Chip and Becky are on one side of the street.  Their house faces that of Brad and Dina.  Chip has always struck me as a perennial Republican.  His wife?  I don’t know.  But across the street from them we have a clear case of a house divided.  Dina is for Obama.  Brad, McCain.  But in a clear and playful approach to bipartisanism, Dina and Brad’s house was dressed up as a clear McCain / Palin house.  Dina was dressed as Sarah Palin.  Her husband, Joe the Plumber.  Across the street, Chip took on the role as a serious Obama supporter.  Their yards were filled with political signs and all sorts of red, white, and blue festoonery.  Loudspeakers in the trees of each house were playing the most outrageous statements from each parties’ ad campaigns.  Clearly Chip came up with this scheme.  He kept shouting out what he though was the rhetoric from each side after it has been cooked down to its sugary essence.  “It’s either Socialist, or War-Monger.”  I was about to explain that only one was a dirty word, but I decided to shut my mouth.  Hell, I was enjoying the man’s tasty homemade chili and a comfy seat on his front porch.

These two families had also strung across the street what amounted to a clothesline on pulleys.  Hanging over the street was the “Undecided Voter,” his or her head was a box with a question mark on it, with the arms and legs made from streamers.  One of his hands held a sign for McCain (it was on Dina’s side), his other held a sign for Obama (on Chip’s side).  As the kids came up to the porch for their candy, they were asked (on both Dina’s porch and Chip’s porch) who were they going to vote for.  When they’d name McCain or Obama they’d get an “I Voted” sticker placed on the costume, and the dangling effigy would be pulled one way or another — toward the fake democrat house when Obama was mentioned, and toward the fake republican house when McCain was mentioned.  I can only say that Chip wasn’t pulling too hard with each Obama vote.  Because if he were being fair, that dangling “Undecided Voter” should have been hugging his house, the Obama house, after the first ten minutes.  95% of the kids said Obama.  The other 5% I guess had apolitical parents and they were just guessing, you know, and hoping for candy.  If only we could allow the children of San Antonio to vote, Obama would have Texas sewn up.

To Chip’s credit, he allowed this “Undecided Voter” to remain hanging over the street, poised above the curb on his side (the Obama side) until early this morning when a big truck thundered through and tore it down.

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Yesterday I decided to figure out how to burn the most basic  disk using DVD Studio Pro.  Nikki and Chadd at PrimaDonna Productions had been so kind as to burn me a DVD for a work sample which I sent along with my Roswell proposal, but I knew I had to come up with a method to do it myself.

I hit a few forums and message boards, and it seemed that many other people had experienced iDVD failure after upgrading to Leopard.  And to be honest, I wasn’t even sure where my iDVD program had come from.  I believe it came loaded on my G3.  I hunkered down Sunday and checked the internet sites of Ken Stone, Creative Cow, the DVX Users Group, and between all these resources, I found a streamlined method on how to use DVD Studio Pro to author the most basic DVD, free of any menus.  You load it into your machine and it starts playing.  A breeze, right?  There must be a simple drag and drop button.

Ha!  It took me an hour find a clear tutorial, and another hour to follow through with the instructions.  Add to that the time it took to get one burned.  On the first pass I utilized an incorrect compression.  There was also the hour and a half when I downloaded some freeware DVD burning program that was completely useless.

But I made a successful burn.  I now know how to make a bare-bones DVD Studio Pro disk, sans menu.

Software developers are either sadists or highly functioning morons.  Here’s my question?  Why is it that when I watch, say, This Old House, I can learn how to construct a hardwood floor, wire an entire house, or install a septic tank (true, I might do all these things quite badly, but, dammit, I understand the process and work flow), yet when it comes to Photoshop, DVD Studio Pro, or any number of music composing programs, I find myself spending three hours with an instruction manual, tutorial book, or a companion DVD, and I’m still perplexed and lost?

I want the guys who build my porch and snake my toilet in on the process of software development.

W.I.P. stands for Works In Progress. It’s a monthly series presented by the Jump-Start Performance Co. and the San Antonio Dance Umbrella, and held at the Jump-Start space in the Blue Star Arts complex. It’s a great place to see innovative performances. Last night there were maybe 20 people in the audience. This is about average. It’s a chance for the artists to receive feedback from an audience. After the performance, there is a critical response portion where artists and audience members engage in a conversation about the performance. Last night there were three pieces. One by choreographer Jayne King. Another by performance artist/actor Ana de Luna. And the evening ended with a great modern dance piece by Spank Dance Company, from Austin. I’ve only been to three W.I.P.s so far, but it’s just the sort of privileged position of peeking into the creative process before the final polish that I love. As an unabashed voyeur, I appreciate any chance to see art in the raw — pushing my way backstage, paying particular attention to that man behind the curtain, you know, that sweaty dude desperately pulling levers, picking his nose, and hoping that the fog machine will cover up all the mistakes.

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I was out riding my bike late yesterday afternoon. It was just a half-ride out to Mission Espada — meaning I drove with my bike in my truck and parked at Mission Park. This turns a twenty mile bike ride into a mere ten miles. Anyway, as I was pedaling crossing Espada dam, heading back to my truck, I noticed that the sky had turned dark and turbulent. What had minutes earlier been a strong and steady wind on my back from the south, switched to a chilly and blustery assault from the north. I shifted down to those wimpy gears I hardly ever use, to deal with the mammoth resistance of a serious headwind, and I found myself inching along almost at walking speed. All around me grackles were taking to the air in small flocks like packs of seasoned surfers who see that the waves have turned particularly feisty. They were strutting and scratching around all over the levy slope down to the river. And, for no discernable reason, six, seven, or eight would hop into the air and flap with crazed intensity into the brunt of the maelstrom. They’d inch along, just a bit faster than me, climbing higher and higher, and then, with a sickening lurch, the entire group would turn perpendicular to the wind, open their wings, and they’d catch that sweet wave. They’d be heading south now, the wind behind them, climbing or maybe diving, but moving like rockets.

The wind is still blowing out there, even though it’s approaching midnight. Just another autumnal cold front kicking my summer further and further away from me. I do, however, hope it adds to that wind of change which had better blow across this country come November 4th. I honestly don’t know what I’ll do if McCain makes it into office. I still haven’t updated my passport.

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Tonight I was back at Jump-Start. Amber Ortega-Perez was doing a run-through of her new dance piece, “The Willing.” Performances Friday and Saturday nights. She’s hired me to video the piece. And so I flopped down on the floor at the apex of stage left. I went in for tight shots with my DVX. The image-stabilizing setting is pretty impressive. I mean, on a good day I’m fairly jittery (too much coffee today … and too much bad living for the last few decades), but the OIS setting makes a noticeable difference when shooting hand-held and when zooming in tight.

The piece is very strong, and Amber should be proud of all the hard work she and her dancers have done to bring it to completion. I’d attempt to draw in a crowd through this blog, but because I suspect that most of those reading this are folks involved in the local film community, I’m not expecting much. San Antonio film folks tend to lean towards a low-brow narcissism. Take away their buckets of blood, prop firearms, or anemic forays into sophomoric romantic angst, most would quickly become desperate and snappish, like a junkie forced to drink cold medicine. But, what do I know? Come one, come all. Amber Ortega-Perez has created a new dance presentation, The Willing, this Friday and Saturday at Jump-Start. It’s hip and artsy. You know — it’s the shit, the cat’s pajamas, the Yin to the low-brow narcissist’s Yang.

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Mornings have been chilly these last few days. The seasons are changing. This means I need to head to the hardware store and buy a roll of duct tape so I can weatherize (whoa! my spell-check recognizes “weatherize”) the broken window panels in my front door and my bathroom window. Last year’s tape has lost its stickum and dropped off.

Curious as to what the weather might be bringing my way, I got onto my favorite weather website, www.weatherunderground.com (because I love American terrorists from a certain era), and I was shocked to see a forecast for a few days in the future where the maximum temperature will be low 60s, and the night-time low, an insane 38.

That McCain-inspired passport is sounding more necessary. Because, you see, I can’t get to equatorial Africa (where it’s nice and warm, or so I hear) without an updated copy of that little blue book, entitled Erik’s Passport.

I was sitting at my computer after a long and relaxing bike ride sipping a big tumbler of hibiscus tea mixed with Topo Chico fizzy water and catching up on video broadcasts of Democracy Now streamed over the internet.  There was a musical break between guest.  Some groovy far-out jazz.  I was hoping Amy Goodman would announce the performer after the break — she doesn’t always do this.  It had a faltering beat, artfully off-kilter, and the brass and woodwinds were stabbing and shrieking all topsy-turvy.  I was thinking something sweetly pretentious from the ’70s.  My money was on the Art Ensemble of Chicago.  Nope.  It was Fela.  Fela Anikulapo Kuti, the Nigerian Afrobeat pioneer.  He’s one of those names I’ve heard for decades.  Always at the top of several of my musical heroes’ own musical heroes list.  For some reason I’d never got around to listening to his work.  I wasn’t expecting this fearless mix of Steve Coleman and Anthony Braxton.  Hop onto YouTube and type in Fela.  It’s brilliant free jazz with an west African beat and hints of R&B and soul and there are sometimes live shows featuring voluptuous dancers wearing little more than costumes created out of what I’m guessing is about eight ounces of coconut husks.

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Last week I received a phone call from Janet Vasquez.  She wanted to know if I would be available for the next Film Forum that the San Antonio Film Commission hosts at the downtown public library.  The fourth Tuesday of each month.  Begins at 6:30.  Free and open to the public.  I’ve been wrangled in to sit on a panel at least once before.  This time around the topic is Experimental Films.  Yes, I know.  It is unlikely I was at the top of the list.  In fact, Janet has brought in two legitimate panelists.  Leslie Raymond and Gisha Zabala.  They are the real deal, video artists who produce critically acclaimed work on a regular basis.  I’m beginning to think that Janet wanted me to represent Luminaria Arts Night in San Antonio.  I’m co-chair of the film committee, along with Veronica Hernandez.  And, yes, we’d like experimental films submitted.  (Actually, we want all sorts of film proposals submitted — get thee to the web site and make your proposal, be it narrative, doc, experimental, or none of the above: www.luminariasa.org.)  There was a moment when I thought, okay, I’ve done my fair share of experimental films.  You know, “El Jardin,” “The Prometheus Thesis,” “In Memoria / Wind,” “Melancholy” (with Russ and Christy), not to mention my fave, the “Generic Lemon / Lime Beverage” faux promo in my lone mockumentary.  But, of course, that’s kids stuff compared to the other panelists.

And then, today, I got an email from Janet asking for a bio for the Forum.  I looked at what I’d previously written for: a.) The Paisano Fellowship (denied); b.) The Texas Filmmaker’s Production Fund (denied); c.) The Artists Foundation (denied this very afternoon — thanks for fucking nothing!).  I came away with with a heady melange of sensations … all having to do with me being a a grand flop.  I also learned that my impulse to do as little work as possible and crib a previous written bio wouldn’t work.  Not because all the previous ones seemed crafted to alienate, but because they weren’t crafted for an audience curious to see folks involved in a field other than narrative moviemaking.  Here is what I sent to Janet:

Erik Bosse is a writer, photographer, and filmmaker who has been working in San Antonio since 2003.  He currently sits on several committees of local arts and cultural organizations, including Luminaria, and the San Antonio chapter of NALIP.  In 2006 Erik traveled to Mexico to produce a short documentary, “Dia de los Locos.”  He has been actively collaborating with artists, poets, choreographers, and indigenous rights activists.  Recent work has appeared at Cine Festival, Weeping Woman Gallery, and Centro Cultural Aztlan.  Next month Erik will be down in the Big Bend region taping interviews for his new documentary on one of the lesser-known cucuy stories, “El Bulto.”

Actually, this Bulto piece will probably be my Luminaria proposal (yep, I can make my own proposal, even though I’m on the committee … and with my track record, will be turned down — oh, the mortification!).  I’m heading down to spend a couple of weeks in Redford, Texas (aka El Polvo) with my friends Enrique and Ruby.  I’ll be there with my new camera, nosing around and shooting scenes of the recent flooding — the worst in recorded history.  The hamlet of Redford (population about 125) is a farming community at the southern tip of Presidio County.  The crops are watered by the Rio Grand.  The recent flooding has swallowed up all the tilled land in the floor plain of the Redford valley.  I suspect the water has slowly been receding in the two weeks or so since I last spoke with Enrique, but it’s going to take some time for the waters to completely go away.

I’m hoping there will be at least three interview subjects who will be willing to tell me on camera about their eye-witness accounts of bultos, amorphous floating entires whose ambiguous and never-articulated agenda can make them maddeningly terrifying.  Harmless, sure.  They’ll just scare you to death.

My new camera.  Have I written about this?  I have three unpublished blog entries I’ve not gotten around to posting.  I guess I have yet to share with my blog readers (whether or not they care) that I have recently purchased a Panasonic DVX100b camcorder.  I’m not presently in the financial situation to upgrade to the HD format, but the DVX is a damn fine workhorse.  The best standard definition camcorder in it’s price range.  Hell, it’s come down about a thousand bucks since I bought my trusty Canon GL-2 ages ago.

Here it is, perched on a tripod beside my GL.

I’ve been shooting here and there, getting to know it.  In fact, last week I was at Say Si meeting with Andy Miller and Travis Thomsen.  We were standing out front talking, and who should walk by but my favorite teenager and second favorite local filmmaker, Jessica Torres.  The last time I spoke with her and her mom it was all about buying a DVX — she was not yet sold on the idea of HD and she wanted her own Panasonic DVX100b.  When I saw her at Say Si I told her I had just bought a DVX.  She got a bit pouty, as if I were bragging.  “No,” I said.  “I’m poor, yet I managed to do it — so can you.”  She smiled and held up her hand for a high-five.  And I did not leave her hanging.

It’s all possible.  You just have to work for it.

One of my ex-students called me up recently.  He wants to make a film, but he doesn’t have a camera.  He’s from a continuing education class me and Pete taught on filmmaking, and I assume he’s at least 30.  Clearly he can budget for a cheap miniDV camera.  A trip to a pawnshop should reward you with a decent camcorder for about three hundred … maybe less.  And if you have a recent PC, it came bundled with Windows Movie Maker.  It’s essentially a free editing program.  So, if you want to make movies, buy a camera and a computer.  You have the tools.  Go to the library for some good filmmaking books.  Problems come up, look for solutions online.  Also, open yourself up to the local filmmaking community — anyone and everyone … professionals and like-minded amateurs.  But, the bottom line is, get off your ass and go out and make movies.  You have that camera and that computer, right? (Because if you don’t, you’re no filmmaker — this is like wanting to be a writer, but not bothering to purchase a pencil and some paper.  You are not helping yourself.  Why should I want to help you?)  Take your tools and use them, dammit!  Your camera and your computer are your paint brush and your canvas.  Go out there and create.  And then come back and share your vision.  (These words are, of course, directed more towards myself than this former student.)

Monday I received an email from Deborah that our friend Ramon had suffered a heart attack the previous Friday. He was scheduled for open heart surgery Tuesday morning. Ramon Vasquez y Sanchez is well known in San Antonio as an artist, culturist, Chicano activist, and a spiritual leader and elder of the Tap Pilam Coahuiltecan Nation. I expect he’s known to some through my blog. I spoke this evening with his former wife, Gloria Vasquez. She’d spent the day at his side, along with her three children and her and Ramon’s extended families. The surgery is over and as of last night he was still in intensive care. I hope for a complete and speedy recovery. I’ve seen Ramon on so many occasions sharing a ceremonious Indian blessing with sage smoke and words of deep truth, and so, at the risk of tarnishing my street cred as a confirmed agnostic, I’d like to think that the entire city is returning all those blessing. Ramon is one of my favorite people, and I expect to see him soon at some art or cultural event slyly whispering some inappropriate off-color comment that only those standing near can hear, causing me to unexpectedly snort and chortle as the canapé-set shoot me admonishing glares over their trifocals and the rims of champagne flutes.

See you soon, Ramon.

Here’s a favorite portrait I took a couple years back of Ramon Vasquez y Sanchez, the man, the myth, the legend.

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An unfortunate event has fallen on my friends in Redford, Texas.

My sister has been emailing me links for the last few days to news stories about the flooding in southern Presidio County. It sounded bad, and I would click over to the links and read the articles with squinted eyes, afraid I might see the name of someone I know from the region who had been swept away.

Heavy rains had swollen the arroyos in the region, but the real problem was the rising waters behind several reservoirs up the Conchos river in Mexico. There are little in the way of flood control systems, and when the waters crested the dams in Mexico, the waters rushed towards La Junta, that region where the Rio Conchos joins the Rio Grande at the international boundary where the Mexican city of Ojinaga faces the American town of Presidio.

It’s the worst flood in the region in recorded history. The international bridge is shut down. Dozens of farming communities in the flood plains of the Conchos and the Rio Grande have been swallowed up.

But it was the little farming hamlet of Redford I was concerned about. It’s on the Rio Grande sixteen miles downriver from the town of Presidio.

I finally broke down this morning and called Enrique and Ruby’s home phone number. I was surprised that someone answered the phone. I’d assumed that the entire village had been evacuated and I would have to call up their friend Roberto in Presidio to track them down in some FEMA trailer in Shafter or something. Ruby answered. And a couple of minutes later, with her on one phone, and Enrique on the extension line, the years melted away. It was back to those long and languid nights when I lived in Redford over fifteen years ago and we’d drink cappuccinos and talk of philosophy, science, literature, and local gossip. Since living there I probably haven’t visited more than once every two or three years — I hadn’t spoken to these important friends in about a year and a half. But soon we were on the conference call vibe chattering about Coen Bothers movies, the Large Hadron Collider, Schopenhauer, Herman Melville, Enrique and Ruby’s recent trip to Berkeley to talk at a scholarly symposium about the goddamn border wall, and eventually we got around to the big flood.

Enrique, in his slow and laconic manner, explained where the flooding was making trouble. There were swollen arroyos flooding the river road in both directions. Traffic couldn’t go to either Lajitas or Presidio. Enrique did explain that there was a rutted jeep trail that 4-wheel drive vehicles could travel from Presidio, but it was pretty rough going. They had been receiving their mail and emergency food via helicopter. I think we were talking about Melville (or maybe string theory) when Enrique explained that he heard the daily helicopter, and they would have to head out to check the mail and get supplies.

Below is an aerial photo lifted off the Presidio ISD website. The building at the lower left is the Redford elementary school. Just a few feet further below the image is FM-170, the only road through town. The school is directly across the road from Enrique and Ruby’s house. That big region of brown at the top would be the flood waters. The river is usually a quarter of a mile away.

I plan on visiting Redford for a week or two in early November.

Expect an update.

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This coming weekend will be the fourth time I will have attended the annual Manhattan Short Film Festival at URBAN-15. This year there are twelve films from ten countries. So come on out.

I’m going to be there both Friday and Saturday night. You’ll see me selling popcorn, pouring out complementary aguas frescas, tearing your ticket, hell, I might even be running the projector. This is best annual short film festival I have ever attended. It never disappoints. You also get to vote for your favorite film.

Click over to the website and read about the films:

http://www.msfilmfest.com/

You can now order tickets for the Manhattan Short Film Festival online through the URBAN-15 website:

www.urban15.org

Or go straight to the ticket site:

https://urban-15-group.ticketleap.com/

Of course, you can also buy tickets at the door.

WHO: Why, you, or course.

WHAT: Manhattan Short Film Festival.

WHERE: URBAN-15 Studios, 2500 S. Presa / San Antonio, TX / 78201.

WHEN: September 26 and 27 at 8 p.m. (either night — Friday or Saturday — you can see all twelve films: two hours of films, with an intermission in the middle.

WHY: Must you ask?

See you this weekend!

Earlier in the week I attended an advanced screening of Chris Eska’s “August Evening.”  It’s a smart, beautiful, and sensitive film (and not deserving of the shit review it received from the San Antonio Current).  I’m going back again tomorrow (Sunday) to show my support.  The distributor is waiting on the opening weekend audience numbers before fully committing to getting Chris’ film out into more theaters.  Sunday is the last day when the people in San Antonio can vote on this film with their pocketbook.  Come on out with me and $how your love.  I only hope that others would do the same for any future film I might make and then struggle to get into the market.  I also hope that San Antonio filmmakers (and those in town wanting to become filmmakers) will hurry out and see what can be done with: 40 thousand dollars, a clear purpose, and love of the craft.

A “shifting baseline” is a concept found in science and statistical modeling.  It’s often used to describe current systems whose behavior is different than that of the past.  For instance, the initial use of the term was in a fisheries study where the researcher found a need to show the deviation between the current population of a species of fish in a given region to the population level that had been previously encountered before human exploitation.  Back when  Robert Rodriguez made El Mariachi for 7 thousand (or whatever the amount was), many of us were so enamored by the wonderful product created for so little money that we all helped as midwives to bring about this inane period of budget fetishism.  And thus began the race to the bottom.  The bottom line.  The baseline shifted, each year, to a lower and lower budget.  After the digital revolution, it became moot.  We began to hear about filmmakers who were acquiring equipment by buying it from Best Buy and shooting the film in 30 days so that they could return the camera for a full refund.  These sorts of stories became the central kernel for so many press releases of low-budget films being created.  I only wish more of these films were worth watching.

What I would hope is that we let that micro-budget independent film baseline shift back towards aesthetic value.  Because the truth is, if you make a feature-length narrative movie for under a hundred thousand dollars that knocks my socks off, I could care less if you made it for 90 thousand or 9 hundred.  Why?  Because you probably fucked a few people over along the way.  If you make a feature narrative on film or HD and pay people a living wage for their work on the project, most likely the budget is going to start shooting up fast.  A hundred grand soon ain’t nothing.

Let’s have two baselines for independent features.  One for the cash-strapped under-funded underdogs who make heart-achingly beautiful pieces of art.  And another for the savvy first-time filmmaker who wrangles a shitpile of cash and spreads it around to all his or her colleagues within the community.

I want people to see “August Evening” so they can applaud a perfect example of the former.  This is unabashed art which has bubbled up from a disciple that so often strains to become simply entertainment.

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Around six I rode my bike downtown to Travis Park for the annual Jazz Alive free concert.  I’d never attended it  before because I love jazz, and most jazz performed for the hoi polloi is to real jazz as a Hostess Ding Dong is to an eclair.  I decided to go because URBAN-15 would be performing.  Also, I was almost curious to hear  David Brubreck, because he played with loads of folks I love … although I must admit that I have never found his compositions to be more than pretty and unchallenging.  I prefer my jazz gritty, scratchy, a bit dirty, and sometimes, yes, even ugly.  If I can understand the melodic structure, I want my fucking money back.  Give me Cecil Taylor, Anthony Braxton, Pharoah Sanders, Albert Ayers, and Sun Ra back before he learned to say please and thank you.

I guess my Brubeck bigotry will continue apace, because I didn’t stick around.  I stayed only for URBAN-15 and a leisurely chat with my favorite waiter from Tito’s restaurant.  I would have lingered, but I’m not a fan of dense crowds, and, man, that park was packed!

After peddling back home, I got in my truck and headed over to my current grocery store, the La Fiesta on South Flores.  Maybe this says more about my social life than I care to examine, but it seems that I do my grocery shopping mostly on Saturday nights.

I found myself in a little sweet interlude that is usually lost to San Antonians not living on the south or west sides of town.  The woman working the register was being assisted by her daughter, who I’d clock in at about eight years of age.  She was kneeling up on the counter, bagging the groceries.  Mom was polite and reserved, but the kid looked up and gave me a nod.  “How’s it going?” she asked.  I let her know it was going good.  “Glad to hear,” she said, and began separating the items her mom slid down the counter.  She gave a running commentary as she worked.  “Eggs go with the milk and cheese.  The tomatoes — oh, they’re plums! — they go in here.  Oh, here are some tomatoes.  Same place.  Dish soap and laundry soap together.”  The girl turned to her mother and asked, in Spanish, something about a woman named Ofelia.  Her mom shook her head, placed a finger to her lips for silence, and touched her watch.  “La media,” she said, meaning, I assumed, that this Ofelia would be there at nine-thirty.

Kids in the work place doesn’t always mean child labor.  Sometimes it’s just a kid hanging out with her mom because a babysitter crapped out.  And I’m fine with that.  We should all be good with that.  So many businesses are anti-family.  Not La Fiesta.  Bravo!  La Fiesta is pro-family!!   But fuck HEB, the evil supermarket chain in town.  They hate you.  And they hate your family.  And I bet they cheat on the crossword puzzles.

And, below, for the Google search quote:

I, Erik Bosse, take my business to La Fiesta.  Shouldn’t you?

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Last night was the ¡Presente! show at the Centro Cultural Aztlan gallery.  This being September, and September being FotoSeptiembre(tm) here in San Antonio, well, the show was photography.

The place was packed.  Mombasa Code played a loose jazzy latino soundtrack to the evening.  And there were even artists not known for photography showing work, such as Luis Valderas, Sabra Booth, George & Catherine Cisneros, and Erik Bosse.  For those who missed it, try and make future shows at Centro.  Malena and Deborah are bringing in some excellent artists.  Besides, the openings always makes me feel like I’ve been embraced into the hippest family I never knew I was part off.  Centro wants to be part of your family, so come on out.

Here’s my photo from the show:

I’m littering my day with chores of procrastination.  It’s eleven pm and I’m writing a blog.  Things must be desperate.  What I’m supposed to be doing is working on my Artist Foundation grant proposal.  Oh, and preparing film proposal submission guidelines for the 2009 Luminaria Arts Night.  But, nope.  I’ve rearranged my living room.  I hesitate to say that I’ve cleaned it.  And I really should clean up this shithole I quaintly call home.  In fact, I had to turn away a fellow filmmaker yesterday.  All he wanted to do was use my place to prep his actors — wardrobe & make-up — but the truth is, I’m sick of seeing the raised eyebrows when people take a glimpse at this midden pit.  So, I’ve shifted the gyno examination table under the air-conditioner (and, as the charm of this playfully exotic piece of furniture has clearly diminished, I think I might contact the owner of our local annual haunted house — I’m sure he can put it to good use).  I then placed my sectional sofa with its back flush against the fireplace.  I won’t be using that anytime soon (actually, it’s a faux fireplace, and good, because the birds like nesting up there).  I moved my stereo from my breakfast nook (where my desk and computer are stationed — I had been running my amp and speakers into my computer for video editing, but because I not longer have a dependable video deck (or camera to use as a deck) the sound equipment had been going to waste).  It’s been  ages since I have felt inclined to play my hundreds of CDs.  Usually I connect, on-line, to a distant hipster radio station, or else I run the paltry collection of CDs I’ve bothered to rip to iTunes.  But this is nice.  I’ve fed into my five disc changer “White Light From The Mouth of Infinity,” by the Swans; “Tanglewood Numbers,” by Silver Jews; “Laser Guided Melodies,” by Spiritualized; “Waiting For the Love Bus,” by the Jazz Butcher Conspiracy; and “Terror Twilight,” by Pavement.  Put the lot on random rotation and there you go.  “Punks in the Beerlight” following by “Rosemary Davis World of Sound” and I think we’re onto something.  I’ve also pulled two of my bookcases out of my gigantic walk-in closet (which is actually the 3′ x 20′ central hallway down the middle of the house that I appropriated back when the other two apartments were untenanted).  I crammed all my books and bookcases in there over a year ago when I was shooting a scene for a movie.  Shit!  That was during the filming of the ill-fated (and poorly titled) “Leftovers.”  Man, that was the spring of ’07, I believe.  I am indeed a lazy bastard  Anyway, these four bookcases were made by Dallas artist Buddy Mitchell for the defunct Chelsea Books.  They were made to sit atop six foot tall  bookcases to take advantage of high ceilings.  There was a rolling ladder to get to these high books.  But by themselves, sitting on the floor, these cases come up to my sternum.  I usually stack them two high, but presently I have two of the cases pulled from my closet, and they are back to back, an island in the middle of this room.  I’ve always wanted a standing desk.  I placed my little ASUS notebook on the surface.  Plugged in the AC power cord.  Plugged in the mouse.  Plugged in the snazzy portable folding keyboard.  And then — what the fuck — I lugged in the chunky VGA monitor that came with the Gateway Computer I took away after the demise of the Aldredge Book Store.

And here I stand, typing away, serenaded by the dreadful poignancy of the Swans.  I’ve a brace of red votive candles illuminating the keyboard.  I’m leaning here at this ecclesiastic station fiddling with these empty rituals of typing and waiting and waiting for a deep inspiration worthy of this jury-rigged cockpit of this spaceship running far into midnight galaxies.  The fuel, or course, is a heady mixture of procrastination and mixed metaphor.

There was another ill-fated feature film I worked on, this one during the tail  end of summer 2006.  Two years ago this week, I do believe.  Now, as it was back then, we have hoards of butterflies flitting about Bexar County.  They are to Monarchs as Border Collies are to Lassie — drab miniatures.  I believe they’re called snoot-nosed butterflies.  They formed denser clouds back in ’06, but I’ve been finding wonderful pockets of them on bike rides out around the southern missions — Mission San Juan and Mission Espada.  There’s a spur of the bike trail that runs between Mission Park and Rancho Charro.  The mesquite and pecan trees make a shaded tunnel, and when you roll across the asphalt with the free-wheel bearings making their speedy metallic purr — tickticktick — the snoot-nosed butterflies, startled, lift off from the links of the wire hurricane fence where they were drowsing and they become jubilant confetti that refuses to settle.  And, I swear, there was one of the little fellas about a mile further south that raced with me — keeping pace, and I was going fast —  and he and I ran nose and nose for a hundred feet, easy.

One of the problems typing at this station is that I have no internet.  This notebook is enabled with wi-fi, but none of my neighbors are caring enough to provide me with an open wireless connection off which I might mooch.  I am learning how dependent I’ve become of Google, to function for me as a dictionary, style book, arbiter of idiomatic usage, and an all-around idea-generator.  It’s back to the basics.  Hell, I might have to poke around this place.  Where the hell is my dictionary?  As I recall, it’s red.

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For those film fans in San Antonio who have been wondering when will a film come from here which we can be proud of, I have only to draw your attention to the Bijou theater.  Crossroads Mall.  You know, one of those Santikos joints where you can eat bad pizza, drink over-priced beer, and watch a movie.  The dates? September 19, 20, 21.  The film?  “August Evening.”

I still haven’t seen the film, but I know it’s the local-boy-done-good story of the last decade or two or three.

When was the last film of importance to have come out of San Antonio?  Maybe Pablo Veliz’s first two movies, back when he was relevant.  Yeah, that was back before he started making action films which one would assume were being ginned under the Ponderous Productions banner.

I have been keeping track of the feature films to come out of this city for the six or seven years I’ve lived here.  They’ve run the gamut of marginal to execrable.  Most, in the later.  Hell, I’ve crewed on some of those.

Perhaps it’s problematic to ask who will be the next Robert Rodriguez.  He’s an independent filmmaker, and we love him.  But sure as shit he ain’t no John Sayles.  What happened to you, Bobby?

But we have a hero, it seems, in young Chris Eska.  He’s from some small town a bit east of here.  And even though no one in the San Antonio film community seems to really know him, he’s done something so many of us want to do.  He created a feature narrative film embracing the quirky and beautiful essence San Antonio.  In short, an unabashedly regional movie.

And so, for those film fans in this town who want more than Double Daggers, The Innocence Saga, or the newest “intentionally bad” zombie or flick, plant your ass in a padded seat at the Bijou this coming weekend.

“August Evening,” I suspect that’s where it’s at, man.  That’s where it’s at.

It might be hurricane season for those poor saps living in the gulf coastal regions, but in my neighborhood it’s clearly sap season according to the pecan tree arching over my driveway.  My truck is currently encased in a mottled veneer of syrup.  Tonight I got out of my truck and leaned over the side rails to fish the grocery bags from the bed.  A gibbous moon, set in a mackerel sky, played behind the clotted clouds drifting aglow and to the west.  I had to peel myself off the side of my truck.  It took me back to boozy midnight breakfasts in Fort Worth at the Old South Pancake House where your forearms would adhere to the tabletop if you got too comfortable.

The trees know the seasons are changing.  And I too can sense it.  It’s been cooler in the mornings.  The summer is wrapping up.  I really need to put an end to these film events I’ve been coordinating.  They’re killing my summers.  Dammit, I want stress-free time to enjoy the endless sunny days and languid heat.

The Josiah fest is over, as is the 48 Hour Film Project.  In fact tonight was the final 48HFP conference call (though I still need to turn in my paperwork for my 2008 obligations to officially sunset).  But it all keeps chugging along.  I’m helping to get the word out for URBAN-15 for the Manhattan Short Film Festival which they are, again, hosting.  And then there’s the up-coming Adelante Film Forum, hosted by SA-NALIP.  As a member of the executive committee of the San Antonio chapter, I will be involved in some of the organizing.  Then there is Luminaria Arts Night.  I’m co-chair of the film committee.  It’s turning into a fairly serious commitment … and things are just going to get more hectic as the event itself approaches six months from now.

Did I mention that none of this pays?  It seems that all I ever do is attend meetings.

It helps that my sister wrangled me a temp gig as a “guest cataloger” for the Dallas auction house where she works.  Ten days of low-impact research & data-entry in the rare book department paid me as much money as two stressful months pimping the 48HFP.  I hope I can keep making periodic visits to the auction trough.

Monday night I headed up to the opening reception for the European Film Festival.  I’d planned to skip the EFF again this year because, two years running, it’s up on the far northside.  Call it the Boerne Film Festival and be done with it.  But for some reason I decided to make an RSVP phone call Monday morning and go see who might be attending the gala opening.  The upstairs bar was packed.  Of the 160 people mingling, I recognized seven people from the San Antonio film community.  Everyone else seemed to be poised (and posed) for the paparazzi (conspicuous by their absence).  The chocolate fountain chugged away on an adjacent table and waiters moved about dispensing free wine and mini quiches, but it took no great amount of time for me to feel topped-off by the desperate ambiance of abundant wealth.  Not even the delightfully hennaed toupee perched  atop a very familiar elderly man could hold my interest for more than half an hour.  I enjoyed an excellent wedge of baklava and washed it down with one of the most appalling glasses of iced tea it has been my misfortune to sample, and then I headed back to the southside, where a chocolate fountain is a scatological euphemism  and Chardonnay ain’t nothing but your co-worker’s baby’s mama.

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My friend Venus allowed me to share some wall space in her studio for last week’s First Friday.  She’s up on the second floor above the Jump Start Theatre in the Blue Star Arts Complex.  September in the San Antonio arts world is more properly FotoSeptiembre(tm), a chance to focus (so it were) on photography.  And therefore I printed up eight photos and framed them.  (Well, Deborah printed them up for me, and I owe her big time.)  The pieces were priced to move.  Yet they didn’t.  But Venus sold two of her postcard-sized prints for five bucks.  Perhaps that was the magic price point.

I could have expected a few of “my people” to have popped by, but they were busy on the other side of town with brisket and beer and wishing Andy Miller a happy birthday.  I can’t blame them.  Andy and Dar do parties right.

But not to panic, people.  My photo-dabbling continues into September.  I will be showing a photo in a group show at Centro Cultural Aztlan. “¡Presente!  Photography of the Present Moment.”  There will be work by dozens of photographers.  Many of the local luminaries, such as Arturo Almeida, Mimi Duvall, Ned Meneses, Kathy Armstrong, Ramin Samandari, Justin Parr, Sabra Booth, etc.  Come out to the opening reception. Friday, September 19th, 6-8 pm.  Eats, drinks, and music by Mombasa Code.

See you then.