[Old blog which should have been posted Friday night, March 7th.]

This afternoon, I spent a couple of hours at Urban-15 working on their upcoming Josiah Youth Media Festival. I tinkered with the entry forms and fished the internet for some high schools with film programs to mail info to. And after trying my damnedest to find a government webpage that might list public high schools with film programs, I came up with nothing. I mean, zip. I had more luck with Wikipedia. There I was able to poach addresses for about two dozen high schools across the country with film programs. The problem is, these were the more prestigious ones. And I want regular kids, not just the rich ones. I'll have to keep digging.

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Around six I headed home to pull my laundry off the line and grab some freshly recharged batteries for my little point-and-shoot camera.

Then I drove to the Centro Cultural Aztlan. I met Alston in the parkinglot. She has an art event coming up next week. When I get the time and date and address, I'll send it out. It's an event her mother is putting together. Several artists are involved. Including Alston. Those who haven't seen her stuff should amble over to her MySpace page to check it out. Here is a shot I took of her recent show at Tito's Tacos (where the food is as good as the art). It's my current computer wallpaper.

She said she plans to price her stuff to move. If I had disposable income, I'd buy a shitload. I already own one of her photographs, which I gladly bought a few years back when I had some extra money. And also, I guess I officially own the wonderful painting she did for the San Antonio 48 Hour Film Project. I'll be using it for promotional purposes again this year.

As you can tell, I'm a fan. Alston Cox. Remember that name.

“The Olvidate del Alamo” exhibit at the Centro was excellent. Twenty-one artists and eight poets. All those folks crowding into South Alamo for First Friday missed a great show with good food and plenty of wine and aguas frescas.

Here we have poet, musician, actor, et al, Eduardo Garza dancing with Malena Gonzalez-Cid, who runs the Centro Cultural Aztlan.

And Deborah talks with Russ. (From the jaunty angle of his extended middle digit, I can only assume he caught me with my camera from the corner of his eye.)

I had to snap a photo of Big Ramon and Little Ramon. That's Ramon Vasquez y Sanchez on the left, and beside him his eldest son, Ramon Juan Vasquez.

Alston left after the poetry readings ended. I stayed around with Deborah and Russ. We talked about moving the conversation to a more congenial place where we could enjoy a few drinks (not that the Centro isn't congenial, but they were trying to close down for the night). Deborah decided that she'd best head on home. And so me and Russ tried to think of a bar to go to. The problem is that on Friday night the bacchanalia that is San Antonio made the prospect quite tiresome. Where could we go that the crowds would be slight enough so that we could expect to get served?

I knew that my neighborhood would be a cluster fuck. I mean, First Friday brings massive crowds down to South Alamo. Oh, hell, I said, let's try the Bar America.

We found parking on Presa near Gemini Ink, and walked to Alamo Street. It looked crowded inside, but not insanely so. We pushed through the doors. Russ made some dismissive comment about the sign that said everyone must show a photo ID.

Inside, I tried to see if there was a viable path to the bar. But before I could move, a voice behind me shouted, “Gotta see that ID, man.”

I rolled my eyes and swiveled around so that this clown could see the ravages of age stamped upon my face and let me on by. It was Max!

Max Parilla's aunt runs the bar. And I had heard he worked the door during First Friday. But I have never been so foolish as to visited the Bar America during First Friday.

“How's it going Erik?” he asked. And he waved off Russ who was scrambling for his drivers license. I introduced Max and Russ.

Max, who is stage manager at Jump-Start theater, reminded me that he has a show which he has written coming up at the Jump-Start: “Irish / Chicano.” March 8-9, 14-16. It plays as a double feature with “The Case of the Neon Twins” (which is described as “a multimedia future-noir”). I think I'll try and make it this Sunday or next Sunday.

After a few drinks, me and Russ called it a night. We were camped out on a window ledge beside the warmth of a Dearborn gas heater. But when it got to be a serious gridlock, we knew it was our time to split.

Beside, I might have to shoot a video project in the morning, but I won't know until nine a.m. And, damn, with the time change, that means I'll have even less time to sleep right? That's spring forward, yeah? Not spring back? Because I'm pretty sure I've sprung back before. Well, recoiled in disgust. But surely they are the same.

Thursday.

Winter is hanging on grimly here on the cusp of South Texas. It's about 35 degrees out tonight and windy as hell. The scraps of low clouds scuttling from north to south with a sort of rushed nervous energy makes for a dynamic show tonight, but, again, it's too damn cold to enjoy it.

At five this afternoon I attended a meeting of all the artists involved in the upcoming Luminaria event (it's almost here — next weekend, in fact). We gathered in the old stables building at the Pearl Brewery complex off Broadway, just a scintilla north of downtown. It's a round stone building. The interior, though heavily renovated, retains the original wooden radial beam system in the ceiling.

We were broken up into groups. Big round tables were scattered about circled by chairs. There was one for the Houston Street Stage, Peacock Alley, Film, etc. I sat at the film table and gathered up some forms and flyers which were fanned out on the table. There were a couple of maps, yet another release form for me to sign, a schedule of all events, and a schedule of just our programing — we, the film folks.

Dora Pena, who's the artistic director for the film component of Luminaria, was absent. She's attending the national NALIP conference in California.

Janet, with the CE Group (the marketing firm running this event), tried to turn things into a big group love fest. I lost count of the number of times we were supposed to applauded for this person or that or, of course, the wretched “give yourselves a rousing round of applause.” True, I know that this is business as usual in the corporate world. And this sort of cheerleading boosterism coming from the public relations sector is to be expected … hell, for many, demanded. Yet some of those over-arching platitudes were just patently incorrect. “This is probably the largest event like this San Antonio has ever seen,” Janet said with a smile, her hand clinching the wireless microphone, “where the artists are the producers of the event.” And I believe we were, yet again, asked to give ourselves a round of applause. The problem is, that statement is not just erroneous, it is a slap in the face to a room full of artists. We are told one moment how special we are because the hoards of punters will descend on the downtown area to experience the arts, and the next moment we all are made to understand that we will have to bust our asses as volunteers to help make this massive project a success. To claim that we, the artists of San Antonio, are the producers of Luminaria, is, to put it bluntly, a load of bullshit.

Bullshit aside, there will be so much great stuff happening on the afternoon and evening of March 15, you'd be a fool not to come down. It's free. FREE, I say!! There will be parking at the Alamodome (free, I hope), with a shuttle in to the action.

It looks like my film will be screened in the back room of the Kress Building at 7:30. It should also be one of the short pieces on a loop throughout the night on one of the store front windows there in the Kress Building, to be viewed from the sidewalk out front.

For those who don't make it, I plan to show my Luminaria film project, “The Prometheus Thesis,” at a group show my friend Alston is putting together on March 14. More on that soon.

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After the Luminaria meeting ended at the Pearl Brewery Stables, I headed over to the Centro Cultural Aztlan for the Third Annual Olvidate del Alamo art exhibit and Poetry Reading curated by my friend Ramon Vasquez y Sanchez. It turns out I was wrong on the date. It's tomorrow (Friday).

So, for those people who read this blog, come on out Friday night at the Centro Cultural Aztlan — that's 1800 Fredericksburg Road. Last year was truly great fun. There will probably be tasty eats. Maybe even drink. But come for the art — it will all be irreverent to the sanctimonious iconography of the Alamo.

Anyway, after learning there was no art opening on Fredericksburg Road, I headed over to the monthly film mixer at Ruta Maya. When I walked in, I saw no recognizable faces among the dozen people scattered throughout the place. Three youngish men I didn't recognize were standing at a tall table near the entrance. I heard the term “headshot.” And as I assumed they were neither assassins nor porn industry insiders, I pretended to get a call on my cell, and stepped outside to talk. And I got the hell out of there.

Don't get me wrong. I love actors. Some of my best friends are actors. (And some of them are even good actors.) But the idea of walking up to three strangers and saying, “hey guys, I'm here for the film meet-up, just like you.”

I'm most likely not going to find myself in a conversation about the best High Definition video format. Nor would I expect to explore another person's take on the aesthetic sensibilities of Kurosawa, or lighting in the films of Billy Wilder.

Besides, it was cold, and I realized I was feeling pretty damn anti-sociable.

I headed to my HEB on South Presa, stocked up some fixins for enough split pea soup to get me through the next few days.

Fixins. That's pretty much a southern term. The weird thing about Texas, is that it straddles the west, and mid-west, and the south. (Whoa, can you physically “straddle” three things? That's hyper-machismo, vato! Throw in the Mexicano experience, and we're straddling like a mofo!)

And so here I am. Trying to keep warm and waiting on soup.

Last night I was over at Mad Hatters meeting with Veronica, Sandra, and Victor. We were meeting ostensibly to talk about the local chapter of NALIP. But people kept checking their phones, laptops, and assorted mobile devices to see where Hillary and Obama were at any given moment. We'd all already casted our votes, but, because of the meeting, we weren't involved in the caucuses. I understand that some of them didn't get out until almost midnight.

After some talk about NALIP, Victor and Sandra told us where they are in the development of the upcoming Cine Festival at the Guadalupe Cultural Center. This will be the 30th anniversary of one of the first (if not in fact THE first) Chicano film festivals in America.

Rene (and I wish I could remember his last name) did a solid job running the festival back in 2006. But something happened last year, and there was no festival. This year, with Victor and Sandra brought in at the eleventh hour, I'm very hopeful. They are no strangers to running these sorts of events and getting things done. They have some amazing ideas. This will be an event that everyone should start saving for so they can all get full festival passes. And, really, it's not going to be that expensive. There will be great guests and great programing. And Victor and Sandra need volunteers — one of the best way to afford film festivals. Contact them through the website:

www.cinefestivalsa.org

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Today was our second and final day of shooting for our Luminaria film project, “The Prometheus Thesis.” Me and Russ were running things. Tinkering with lights, looking for compositions, and trying to get the best out of our actors.

The three scenarios involved the same man and the same woman through various moments in history.

Citizens of the Pleistocene.

Suave hipsters of the Jazz Age.

And scientific researchers in the 22nd Century … as envisioned by pulp magazines of the 1950s.

The male lead is Hector — and damn if I can't recall his last name. He's been involved in the arts community in this city since the seventies. Mostly now he crews large performance events in the grip and electric departments. He also helps out at Urban-15 doing crucial grunt work.

The female lead is Alicia Shaddeau — and, hell, Alicia, why didn't you give me one of your new business cards so I don't have to check the internet for the spelling of your name? Anyway, those of you who have seen Bryan Ortiz's Zombie feature film, that was Alicia playing Mary Jane, the virginal cheerleader.

I knew that Hector had done some acting before. Never saw it. And apparently he hasn't done it in years. But I have always liked the guy's look and style. Even after three hours worming around on his belly in the crawl-space beneath the balcony of the old Aztec Theater where he was running two hundred feet of optical fiber cable for the holiday laser show … well, when he finally emerged, exhausted and filthy, he still radiated this charismatic jauntiness and he treated us all to his wry deadpan insights he had gleaned while inching through that dark hellhole.

As an actor, he gave us charm and gravity. First off, he looks great. But he was truly hamming it up as the cave man. He was grunting and frothing and trying his damnedest to get that fire back up fierce and warm, before the savage man-eaters out in the dark moved in and gobbled up both him and his adorable cave-mate.

And as toothsome cave women go, you can't ask for more than Alicia. For this primitive scenario, she teased out her hair to massive volume. She gathered up leaves that had fallen from the big live oaks out in the courtyard, and she had stuck them in her hair. She asked if she should dirty up her face. I said it didn't really matter to me. Having her as a perfectly made-up savage might be funny. But she wanted to add to what she had started with the leaves. I pointed to the tiki torches. I said that the underplate of the flame guard was where all the soot collected. As I was setting up lights, she began making her face filthy. “How's this?” she asked. It was a good start, but too symmetrical. Well, she didn't have a mirror. I rubbed off some tiki soot and wiped more on her face. It came out pretty good.

It all turned out great. I think me and Russ got some great footage. And I couldn't have asked for better actors.

Especially Alicia. She's beautiful, talented, consistent, playful, on time, professional, and just a joy to work with. I can't wait to start editing the footage to see some of the great stuff she was giving us that I'm sure I over-looked at the time.

What a fun night. Russ got some beautiful shots. We will start editing the piece into shape over the weekend. And I trust that Russ will construct the perfect soundtrack.

It's going to be too fucking good for Luminaria.

I'm still all croupy with a lingering cough and a noisy late night wheezing that keeps me from sleeping. Something has settled deep in the lower bronchial nodes and it's playing havoc down there. There must be some process that allows for vacuuming out the lungs. A sort of colonic for the respiratory system. Maybe I should patent it myself and sell it on the back pages of comic books. The Lunger-Out. It would basically be a Handi-Vac and you'd wrap your lips around the suction hole, begin to exhale, and then switch the contraption on — full blast. Sure, there will be the occasional incidents of prolapsed lungs, where one or both lungs are pulled from the body through the throat. That's why every Lunger-Out would be sold with the “prolapse inversion paddle,” a slim length of hypoallergenic wood — essentially it's an over-sized tongue depressor, and you just chase those rascally lung tissues back inward along the same lines of a Minuteman ramrodding wadding down the muzzle of a flintlock rifle. Every inventor must prepare himself to meet such unforeseen downsides head-on.

Actually, that's what I'm Jonesing for. A chance to turn my lungs inside out — like peeling off latex gloves — and then hose them down. I'm tired of hacking my life away. Maybe I should take up smoking again, then I'd have a reason for this affliction.

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Earlier this evening I was over at Say Si for a production meeting. Sam Lerma has proposed four interconnected short promo pieces for the 2008 SAL film festival. Dar Miller (SAL creator) was there, along with me and Sam. And eventually Sam Bayless showed out.

For those who are aware of Sam Lerma's polished film work, there is a component in addition to his excellent shooting, writing, directing, and editing — that's the rock-solid sound edit. For several years I have heard the name Sam Bayless, but had never met him. I, of course, assumed he was, a.) really Lerma, working under a pseudonym, b.) really Lerma, but one of his Sybil-like split personalities, c.) a horribly disfigured reclusive savant that Lerma had met during one of the human interest stories from the years he's worked shooting news for KSAT, d.) a brilliant pre-teen who could never get permission from his parents to come out and meet the larger film community because of his nine-thirty curfew, or, e.) some gifted sound guy who just wasn't interested in hanging out with a bunch of jackasses who call themselves filmmakers.

Tonight I discovered that none of these are true. Well, I don't think so.

What I learned is that Sam Bayless is indeed real. He's a very pleasant, thoughtful young man. Add that to what we already know — that he's an excellent artist where audio and music is concerned (Sam Bayless is, to the best of my knowledge, the third Methane Sister).

Anyway, I finally got a chance to read the entire script for Sam's first SAL promo. It will be the most involved of the series. Loads of locations and characters … well, for a 90 second piece. But I like it. And I know Sam will do a great job. It should be hitting the viral video sites near you by early April.

I will, of course, keep you up to date,

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Unfortunately, I never got around to make it to an early voting station. No problem, I'll head out Tuesday. I've nothing scheduled until the evening. Besides, I'm looking forward to visiting my neighborhood polling place Tuesday. It's going to be a huge turnout. Already, here in Bexar County, Texas, early primary voting records have been broken by a huge percentage.

I hope to see you out there Tuesday.

At the beginning to the week, according to my favorite weather site, it got up to 88 degrees here in San Antonio. What a Monday! I was riding my bike along the river, and, yep, it was a hot one. As much as I carp about my great love of summer and the insanely hot weather which it brings, I must caution that I like to be slowly and romantically lulled into the mercilessly hot days. You don't want to just jump into the deep end. I mean, shit, I was taking a breather under the shade of a salt cedar and I found myself looking around at the deciduous trees surrounding me for signs of early budding. They, however, were not being fooled.

Here's a little impromptu piece of public art anonymously constructed out at the low-water crossing behind Mission Espada.

I will admit I rotated the glove by about ten degrees to better suit the composition (will, in my opinion, that is). But, otherwise, it is as found. How does that old voice-over intonation go?

“That's the signpost up ahead – your next stop, the Twilight Zone!”

And as I stood at that crossroads, I could feel a strong wind coming in hot and fierce from the Southwest, from way out in Del Rio, where I knew that the abandoned dogs milling around the town square would be hunkered under the shade of mailboxes, their dry tongues jerking in a constant pant.

That wind helped on my ride back to town. It was like I was on a motorcycle.

That night, though, the wind shifted. It was so much fiercer. This time from the north. A cold front shambled into town, and as I drove down Broadway Monday night, there were vaguely apocalyptic plumes of dust billowing through the intersections. The traffic lights were all engaged in energetic and lusty dances (that'd be the Lambada, correct?).

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It's now Friday night, and after a few cool days, it's warm again.

Wednesday night me and Russ shot a monologue with Anna Gangai. This is our Luminaria film, entitled The Prometheus Thesis. We still need to shoot three more scenes — but I expect it to go fairly smoothly, as it will be without sound (MOS, being the filmic argot — that stands for “Mit out sound,” or so the story goes, from those heady days of the early Hollywood scene where cartoonish German directors stomped about the backlots and shouted into megaphones in their hybrid patois, their Englersnichel (you like that? 'cause I just made it up — this word's maiden voyage into the turbulent waters of Google searchability).

But I digress.

Um, where was I?

Ah, yes. The Prometheus Thesis.

I wanted something like those new agey quote-unquote documentaries. “The Secret.” “What the Bleep Do We Know?” Right? With equal measures of “Future Shock.” Check out YouTube. Orson Wells did an insanely over-the-top narration to a film version of Alvin Toffler's book by the same name.

With Anna I got all that and so much more. Imagine Shatner as Falstaff. Or, perhaps, Sharon Stone doing Media. Or, even, Kate Bush shot up with crystal meth reading Heisenberg's “The Uncertainty Principle” (the Wheeler translation). We had a row of tiki torches flicking away in the inner courtyard of Urban-15. True, we did have to deal with traffic beyond the wall. And on the other side of a tall picket fence, we had to wait out the neighbor who was dragging trash cans along a gravel path. Apparently it was trash day in the neighborhood.

We got all we needed. Anna is amazing. Very professional, and a joy to work with.

I'm not sure if it's common knowledge — and I hope I don't cross some line of privileged information — but Anna portrays Myrtle, the waitress/spokeswoman of Jims (this is a chain of diners here in San Antonio). I don't watch TV, listen to the radio, or look at the ads in the newspaper. So, I don't what the ad campaign involves. I expect it's a beehive 'do and a down-home country accent. Maybe I should have tried letting Anna give me that character (I mean, she's already got the fan-base) and feed back to me lines like:

“Ever since James Pillans invented the chalkboard in 1798 we have been breaking the very the stuff of nature on the anvil of Science and Mathematics until the finest detritus we could observe became little more than probabilistic wave-forms that may or may not exist, depending upon the tools of observation.”

I feel like an idiot that I never made it out to the San Pedro Playhouse when she played the lead (leads?) in Victor / Victoria. I bet she was amazing!

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I'm listening to Tom Verlaine crooning away off Marque Moon. I'm reminded of a line from a song by Dave Berman — “All my favorite singers couldn't sing.”

I just finished my Creative Capital paperwork. This is a weekend workshop that's coming up in, I believe, May. The submission deadline is tomorrow. It's an organization out of NYC, and San Antonio's Office of Cultural Affairs hosts them here for an intensive weekend. It's a multi-disciplinary sort of thing, targeting the entire spectrum of visual artists, performing artists, writers, et al. Last year there was a solid contingency from the filmmaking community. Pete Barnstrom, Dora Pena, Ya'Ke Smith, and Anne Wallace.

I'm hoping I can get in this year.

And I guess I'll be making a visit to Felix Pardon's office (OCA) to hand-deliver the packet … and I know I won't be the only one. That's what deadlines are for — you know, so we can all scramble.

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Deborah had sent me an email. She was going to be in front of the Alamo around noon today to look at her assigned area on Alamo Street where she'll be presenting her Luminaria piece. She wants to create a mandala on the pavement and then a friend, a physician and practitioner of yoga, Dr. Sreedhara, will dance within the mandela.

And so I walked to the trolly stand and waited. It was a nice day, and I could have walked to the Alamo, but I always like riding the trollies.

As I was standing at the corner of Alamo Street and Wicks, Bryan Ramirez drove by. He waved and honked and pulled into the Citgo station across from me. He offered me a ride.

I crossed the street and got in his car. Amanda was in the back with their new baby. As he headed the mile or two to the Alamo, Bryan explained that he'd found a better office downtown than the one he was first looking at. It sounds like it's in a building on the riverwalk near the Valencia Hotel. I'll have to make a visit when he and Amanda get moved in.

Because Bryan was nice enough to give me a ride, I was at the Alamo Plaza a bit early. So I wandered around the Alamo grounds. For those who live in this town and don't let yourselves be tourists, what's wrong with you? Downtown San Antonio kicks ass! Also, I found where the StoryCorps trailer is set up. It's in spitting distance from the Alamo. (And, just so you know, don't spit too close to the Alamo, those vile Daughters of the Texas Republic will move heaven and earth to fuck you up. Don't believe me? Give it a shot.)

After a few phone calls on my cell (there's something both sweet and strangely sinister about doing one's business whilst strolling around the grounds of the Alamo), I decided to amble to the other side of Alamo Street.

< img src="http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h7/erikbosse/DSCN2635.jpg" alt="Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting">

There was Deborah, Sreedhara, and Ramon (and I am, of course, speaking of Ramon Vasquez y Sanchez, the man, the myth, the legend). Deborah was not only checking out her Luminaria space, she was also planning to take a photo that she would put into Ramon's Forget the Alamo show. (I show I wanted to do a short video piece for, but a certain someone still hasn't notified me concerning an item of wardrobe I would need — it's looking like my involvement ain't gonna happen….).

Deborah had Ramon hold a large circular mirror. She wanted to shoot a portrait of him, with the Alamo reflected in his hands. It's going to look great!

The four of us took the trolly back to Blue Star, where Deborah's studio is. We walked over to the Jump Start Theater and talked some with Steve and Max who were lounging outside taking a break and enjoying the early afternoon sunlight.

Eventually, I walked back home. I made some split pea soup for lunch. And while I was waiting for it to reach that perfect state of mush, my new laptop finally arrived.

It's an Asus Eee.

This is a micro notebook. To be honest, until it arrived, I wasn't prepared for just how small it is.

One of the reasons I took the plunge was because I realized that my Amazon gift certificate I won almost two years ago from 15 Minutes of Fame (a very cool corporate team-building video production company) was about to expire. But I also liked the idea of having a tiny, light-weight portable computer I can use anywhere. It's ethernet wifi ready.

We'll have to wait and see if it fulfills my desire for a cheap and portable computer that I can toss in my backpack and take to the bike trail and all the wifi coffee shops around this side of town.

Keep reading to see how it all plays out. This is biggest problem (and I love everything else about it so far): the keyboard is so damn tiny! Here's a photo I took out on the bike trail. I took a break at a picnic table and added a few pages to The Cucuy Club. If you have tiny fingers, this might be the perfect notebook for you. But maybe I'll perfect the typing style needed. It's not like I actually touch type. I'm a confirmed hunter and pecker.

That didn't come out right.

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I hand-delivered my Creative Capital application packet to the Office of Cultural Affairs this afternoon. I beat the deadline by a good 45 minutes. Sarah M. Yates, the Executive Secretary to the Director, took my envelope. She was on the phone, so I sat down. When she had finished giving an artist directions to the offices, she opened my envelope, and “time-stamped” the first page so it would be official that my submission made it in on time. And then she wrote out a receipt for me. At that moment a composer entered, with his own manila envelope containing his Creative Capital application.

“I'll just set it here,” he said woodenly to Ms. Yates.

“One moment, sir. I'm almost done with Mr., um, Bosse.”

“Oh,” he said, “I thought I just handed it to you.”

“Hardly,” I said, looking up at him with a searching scrutiny that quickly trailed off into disinterest. “It's a very orderly process that involves rubber stamps, an initialed receipt, and, if you're very good, a Starlight Mint.” I paused, my fingers hovering inches over the candy dish. “May I?” I asked Ms. Yates.

She nodded perfunctorily. And, perhaps I here crossed a line: I snagged two candies. Ms. Yates smiled and handed me a receipt. I thanked her, stood up, slapped the composer on the back — “Good luck, sport!” — and I made my exit down the stairwell and out into Houston Street.

It was a fair amount of work putting all that shit together (making myself sound important is not my favorite way to pass the time), but once it was out of my hands, I felt a certain buoyancy. Sadly, however, winning this quasi grant will not result in any additional money into my pockets. Maybe something good will come from this.

Speaking of money, I returned home and plucked from my doorknob a termination notice from CPS (that's City Public Service — they provide both electricity as well as gas here in San Antonio). It's not as bad as it sounds. I get these things every two or three months. Because I live hand to mouth, I rarely pay a bill until threatened. It was a possibility that I had enough money in my account (just barely) to pay off those CPS swine. But then I looked in my mailbox. What do you know? I got my 75 dollar check from NESA (North East School of the Arts) for my one day stint as judge for the fresh slate of young supplicants.

Thank you so much Konise Millender!

Later this afternoon I dropped by Urban-15 to talk about the Josiah film fest. I was pleasantly surprised to see Marisela Barrera drop by for a meeting. I know Marisela as an actor (and I assume writer) from a few skits over the years at Jump-Start. She is also involved with La Colectiva, a San Antonio theater collective. (Also, I may well have encountered her in my more youthful years living on the periphery of the Dallas theater scene during the late eighties and early nineties when Octavio Solis was such an important component of the renaissance of Dallas experimental theater.)

Anyway, Marisela (who, even though I have gushingly introduced myself to her several times, never seems to know who I am) has this great gig. She's booking the events that will be presented in the Main Plaza.

For those people who, like myself, have bitched and moaned because they can no longer cruise through downtown along, say Soledad, to get from their home to the downtown public library because some assholes have decided to make the area of the the old Main Plaza — that area in front of the downtown cathedral — into a pedestrian region, well, I now understand the bigger picture.

Marisela spread out a huge architectural map of the construction. I looked to the right side key and saw that it was designed by Lake / Flato, one of the few nationally known companies who claim San Antonio home and who we don't hate (Clear Channel, are you listening?). It's a massive and damn impressive project. I never knew what was really planned behind the construction wall. I just thought it was a bunch of bullshit that was in my way. But, no, it's a well-defined public space that makes no apologies to the fact that the cathedral — a beautiful, striking building — functions as a central backdrop, and is, in fact, incorporated into the entire plan.

The most exciting thing is that this new, renovated plaza, will be going on line, so to speak, pretty damn soon. I wasn't listening to everything Marisela said (it was a lot to take in), but I do know that the plaza will be open by the time Fiesta crashes over our city. That's April 18 – 27.

This new venue for outdoor performances promises to be very impressive. We have Lake / Flato, and that's no slouch. But we also have Marisela Barrera. And from my sources in the theater world, the woman gets things done. So, if you are a non-profit arts organization that engages in public performances, you might want to contact Marisela, and ask which quadrant of her posterior she might like you to smooch.

Carlos dropped by around noon to grab a couple of pick-up shots for his Chort/Shorts trilogy. The problem was, his actor Christopher had changed his hair. He'd been involved in some sort of fashion event called Hairstory. His mom, Annette (of Rome Talent Agency), had explained to Carlos that her son now had frosted tips on his hair.

As we waited for mother and son to search the beauty stores for a quick hair fix, Amy stopped by with a couple of her kids. She was waiting to pick up her son, Douglas, who's in the Say Si youth arts program a few blocks away. Amy was willing to help out in the hair transformation, but by the time Annette and Christopher showed up, Amy had to scoot. Annette, however, felt confident that she could get Christopher's hair back to the original black.

I'd wanted to take before-and-after photos, but before I could get a shot of Christopher's very very blond look, I looked up and saw him using the driver's side mirror on my truck as he began spraying on black temp dye from an aerosol can.

At least I got a few shots of Annette blasting him with the color.

Carlos got his shots over fairly quickly.

I still had enough time to grab the daily lunch special over at Pepe's cafe just before they closed, and then I headed a couple blocks down to Urban-15.

George had invited me over to watch the Spirit Awards on the big rear projection TV he has set up in the basement space. I'm usually inclined to make a pass on awards shows (for example, I will not be watching the Oscars tomorrow — I just don't care). But one of the films nominated for the Spirit's John Cassavetes Award (which is given out to the best feature made for under $500,000) was Chris Eska's feature film, August Evening.

The film was shot in Gonzales, Texas, but it has some strong San Antonio ties. The Cisneros helped out the best they could by letting Chris use their Urban-15 studios for casting and what not.

Sadly, I still haven't seen the film. Last I heard, the distributor (Maya, I believe, picked it up), will be screening it locally sometime in May. I guess I'll have to wait until then.

But the best thing is, August Evening won the Cassavetes award!

Congratulations, Chris Eska! He took to the stage and made a very sweet and humble speech. Sometimes great things happen to good people.

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The fact that the For Lease sign disappeared from in front of my house a couple of weeks ago should have prepared me for the third apartment in this triplex to get an occupant. But I waited and waited and I guess I forgot about it.

But it happened today. Someone is in there. One person? A couple? I don't know yet. All I know is I can't lurk at the back of the driveway or in the backyard with my big-ass astronomy binoculars. And I completely understand. Even I wouldn't want to peek out my bedroom window and see this.

“Don't mind me, I'm just checking out M52. You know, the stellar cluster in Cassiopeia.”

Uhuh. And in some nearby precinct house a Taser, with my name on it, is nestled in its charger cradle.

Thursday

Perhaps I should read my own blog. I was all set to watch the full lunar eclipse tonight (Thursday, Feb. 21) — hell, I even went so far as to tell people today to look to the heavens. And at 10pm tonight I wondered, hmm, just when is this thing supposed to start? And I looked back at my last blog entry.

The answer? Well, here's the short version.

It was supposed to start yesterday, dumb ass! You missed it.

Jeeze! Oh, well. I did get a nice quote. I was walking across the parking-lot behind Casa Chiapas with a certain Ms. Y- and I pointed up at the lovely full moon. “There's going to be a total lunar eclipse tonight. You might want to take a look at it later.” She smiled and drifted back down the years. “I remember when I was a little girl,” she said wistfully, “and we'd watch the eclipse of the moon through a box.” I looked over at her. “You mean the sun, right?” “Pardon?” “Oh, never mind.”

Of course, I don't come out any better in this story. Off by a whole damn day. Shit!

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Members of the local chapter of NALIP met Thursday night at Casa Chiapas.

(For those out of the loop, NALIP stands for the National Association of Latino Independent Producers. I really wish NALIP would replace the word “of” with “for.” Having grown up around feminist activists, I became sensitive at an early age to the fact that NOW stands for “National Organization FOR Woman,” and I continue to be amazed when people who should know better mistakenly use the word “of” rather than “for” — it changes things quite a bit, doesn't it?)

One of the items on the agenda was the election of a new board of officers. Roger Castillo was running things. He was functioning as the interim president for the second time in a year. 2007 had been a rather tumultuous year for the leadership of NALIP-SA. However, we'd still kept close to the planned schedule of events.

When the question of a nomination of for the executive chairperson came up, Veronica Hernandez was nominated. I thought that was appropriate enough. She accepted. There were no other nominations for that position. Roger then explained that we would go through a process where members in attendance would nominate the rest of the officers. NALIP-SA has been functioning with a board of four officers. Executive Chair, Vice Chair, Secretary, and Treasurer. We would all nominate a slate of potential officers, and then each member would cast a ballot for their three favorites. The three with the most numbers of votes would, in essence, exist as officers at large, until they met together and decided who would fulfill each position.

Veronica jumped in and took me by surprise by nominating me, one of the very few token guerros on the roll of NALIP-SA. I was tempted to politely decline. But the reason I joined NALIP and the reason I attended all the meetings and events was because I wanted to help out in an organization whose mission statement fit so well with what I have been doing and wanted to continue to do in the media world. So, I said, sure, wholly expecting not to win enough votes.

There was some confusion when both Dora and Manuel were nominated. They have been the heart of NALIP-SA for years. But, as husband and wife, with kids, projects, and day jobs, they took a moment for a mini confab. They decided that only one would accept a nomination — the idea, I assume, was that someone would have to look after the kids. Manuel accepted the nomination.

Laura was nominated. She's been at the center of this chapter for years — she's worked tirelessly to program years worth of events. I could see she was really conflicted. She's in the midst of some very ambitious projects which are already enjoying a great deal of attention. She finally shook her head, no. She just had too much on her plate.

And then someone nominated both Victor and Sandra. They had actually showed up to pitch the CineFestival. They been conscripted to run the festival this year. They are long time NALIP members, but recently relocated here from California. Of the many things they do, they help run the media program over at the San Anto Cultural Arts Center. I'd meet Victor and his wife Sandra (AKA, Pocha) while running the JYMF as well as the 48HFP. They're great people. (Check out Aztecgoldtv.com for some of the video madness they create as a side project.)

And that was it. There were four nominees for three positions. Me, Manuel, Victor, and Sandra.

I felt pretty confident. I mean, there was no way I could win this. In fact, I was tempted to cast my three votes for Manuel, Victor, and Sandra. They were really good choices. But then I realized, 'tis a jackass who doesn't vote for himself.

And so, I teased two out of those three excellent choices and added them to the my ballot form. Then wrote my own name on the final line.

As Roger tabulated up the results, I turned to Dora and got up to speed on her feature, Dream Healer. It's still in post, being edited by her DP down in Mexico.

Eventually, Roger cleared his throat. The room fell silent. My name was mentioned first. Fuck. I was selected. Oh, well, it's always nice to be wanted. The other two names were Sandra and Manuel.

On the plus side, I'm now in a group with three people I feel comfortable working with, and with whom I feel confident we can continue the great work that Dora, Laura, Lisa, Roger, TJ, and all the other hard-working key members brought to NALIP-SA. I'm glad that Manuel made the cut. He will serve this new board with an important element of continuity.

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Last night it took forever to get to sleep. I kept drifting off, and then some noise would wake me up. What was it? A scratching — a sort of clawing, rattling noise. I pulled back awake, and waited breathlessly in the dark, listening. But, nothing. And as I began breathing again — dammit, there it was! The noise was coming from my lungs, not some squirrel scrabbling around in the walls. Too much mucosal fluids in the old bronchial tubes. But, you know? Nothing I can do about it. At one a.m. I sure as shit wasn't going to get dressed and drive four miles to fucking WalMart to get some NyQuil. So, I opened that deathly dull Chesterton short story collection from the library I still haven't read. I hoped it'd serve well as literary NyQuil … sans the expectorant. Actually, it turned out to be pretty fun, once you got into the rhythm of his prose.

Eventually I managed to fall asleep.

I had a series of strange and vibrant dreams. One of the images that stood out was of a nighttime scene. If it were a movie, it'd be a point-of-view shot. It was like I was sitting in the front seat of a car, at night. The car was driving through a forest (and I'm still not sure if we were on an actual road, or if we were like just, you know, driving through a wild forest). The trees were huge and old, like redwoods. But they were lighted — the trees were — brightly and irrationally. This was not light from headlights. Do you remember that montage of the night driving scene in Thelma and Louise? They're going through the desert and the distant buttes and mountains and huge rocks were lit, in a weird moment of fantasy, by magnesium military flares floating to the earth by parachute. These trees were similarly lit by some unlikely and powerful source.

Around six in the morning I must have coughed mys
elf awake. There was a bit of weak sunlight coming in from the windows. I got out of bed and walked into the bathroom and choked down a couple of aspirin. My throat was raw and sore and my head wasn't feeling too great either.

I crawled back into bed.

I soon drifted into a dream where I was sitting in a conference room with several well-dressed but skeptical men.

“This is a visual set-piece,” I was telling them. “Visual and visceral, and it's a killer. Actually, it came from a dream I had. We have this main character in the passenger seat of a car. He's exhausted, and he keeps nodding off. Finally, he pulls back, wide awake, He sees through the dashboard these huge Sequoias — you know, California pine trees. But they're lit powerfully from something more heavy-duty than headlights. Is there, perhaps, some bright-lit UFO hovering over the car? I mean, damn, it's an aesthetic moment! How can we make this dream come alive, gentlemen? How?”

I don't recall how this Hollywood pitch session ended. Most likely the dream morphed into something fundamentally unrelated, such as moo shu pork or Evel Knievel's house slippers. But this is the first time I have ever recalled where I had a dream which referenced a previous dream.

Freaky.

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Friday.

Today I headed over to Urban-15 for a quick up-date with the Josiah Youth Media Festival. I also wanted to see about using the courtyard for an upcoming shoot for my short piece commissioned for the Luminaria arts festival, March 15.

It's going to be very very good.

And the festival shouldn't be too shabby, either. Try and make it out.

Later in the afternoon I drove over to the auditions being held for Sam Lerma's four part PSAs for the second annual SAL film festival.

(The current issue of Connexion features four local filmmakers: Dora Pena, Pablo Veliz, Laura Varela, and Bryan Ortiz. They are all excellent artists, involved in some promising work. But it's sad that the man who is perhaps this city's best filmmaker, Sam Lerma, is mostly known only by other local film folks.)

I was there to help out Dar, and also because I'm on-board as unspecific crew for the video promos. Sam's directing; Russ is shooting; I'm doing most everything else (and don't think I can't make a mean peanut butter sandwich, 'cause I can).

The auditions were being held at Nightmare on Grayson, San Antonio's best seasonal haunted house. It was a last minute decision to hold it there, because SAL founder Dar Miller is a friend of the guys who run the place. And, like the rest of us in the San Antonio film community, we are hard pressed to find space. This needs to be remedied. Holding auditions in your home, a rented room at the public library, a park, or the food court of a shopping mall (and I've know all these to happen) is no way to operate. The city government and it's supposed desire to support the arts is fucking useless. And all the local film groups who have their own spaces and are always flaunting their desire to help out, quickly make themselves scare when you take them at their word and try and negotiate for use of their facilities.

Guys, if you can't make it happen, don't offer to make it happen.

Anyway, Dar actually arranged for a very cool place to hold the auditions. If you haven't visited Nightmare on Grayson, mark your calendar for this coming fall.

Michael Druck did an excellent job coordinating the audition. (Thanks Druck — and thanks PrimaDonna Productions!) I didn't count up all the names, but I think it was something like 14 actors. I saw some people I knew. Good to see you Rainya, Venda, and Stephen. There were also a few people I didn't know I had worked with before. There was a woman who was an extra on a shot film where I was the DP. Another actress was in a short film that screened twice in a festival I produced.

I think Sam has what he needs from this pool. The three (or is it four?) leads, as well as the brace of extras.

I think it was a very productive evening.

Yesterday night I had a very nice time at the offices of Prima Donna Productions. I was a featured guest for their monthly Hot Meal/Cold Read series.

It seems to have really caught on, even though it's just at the second month so far. There is a cap of only ten attendees. The events fill up fast, Nikki tells me. Tonight we had nine actors — one wasn't able to make it. They ranged from seasoned veterans, to new-comers, to people returning to acting after long absences.

Just by luck, I managed to bring the perfect amount of material. Nine actors, seven selections — and two of the selections were dialogues. Everyone got words just for them. I had forgotten how cool it is to heard other people read words I have written.

When things are going well, there's this weird necromancy involved in the writing process. It's just you, scribbling on paper or tapping away at plastic keys. And some times, somehow, you create something as real and vital as the table you're sitting at or that mosquito buzzing in your ear. They're not just words any more, you've generated the real deal, alive and frisky.

But a whole new form of alchemy begins to form when you bring in actors to use those words of yours and they make something precious out of the base metals and dross of your work. You might discover that a serious piece of poignant confession is actually an absurdist comedic riff. Maybe you learn that three pages of clever banter is nothing of the sort. Perhaps a sensitive actor shows you that your scene of slapstick bafoonery plays so much better as dry deadpan.

I love those moments when I work with actors and, after I call “cut,” I have to tell them I never knew that one of their character's lines was supposed to be funny, and if it succeeded within the scene, I say thank you, thank you so much. A filmmaker who can't learn from his actors is a fool and a hack.

The two guys who read my three page micro one-act I'm planning for the Olvidate del Alamo show were so perfect. And usually I try and set myself up, as often as possible, for color-blind casting, but this particular piece needs two white guys, to help sell a sociopolitical message, and also convey a certain sense of historical realism. But the two wonderful performers were Latino, and African-American. But, man, I need to think this through. Maybe it WOULD work with them.

And then there was my Luminaria piece. I wanted a man to do the narrative voice-over. (I had been thinking along the lines of Orson Wells from his days hawking Paul Masson, and if you're old enough you'll recall those commercials wherein Wells in his most baritone Falstaffian slurs of inebriation would intone that “we will sell no wine before it's time”.) But the actress I gave it to was so phenomenal, I had to cast her. There on the spot. Normally I would let Nikki contact her so the woman might be able to gracefully decline (I mean, I'm not so egotistical that I don't think that there are people who, after seeing the admittedly amateurishness of my film work, might decide between NO and HELL NO.) But I couldn't hold my tongue.

Before she did her reading, I explained to her that the piece was supposed to be pretentious, and she should chew scenery like a terrier going after the wainscoting. “Preposterously over-the-top,” I believe I added.

Jesus. It was sublime. I didn't know the piece was that strong and that hilarious. It was something I hammered out the other night, basically in real time, as fast as my fingers can fly over the keyboards (which, admittedly, isn't so very fast, as I believe only about five of these ten fingers really know where the right keys are).

Below we have the three blocks of the piece:

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Ever since we climbed down from the trees all those millions of years ago, we have continued to look back up. The sky held all our hope for light and fire. The blazing sun and the heavenly bodies at night provided light. And even fire came down from above in the form of lightening strikes on a dry prairie. He who could harness the magic of the heavens would be worshipped by a primitive society that placed such value on the communal hearth which could cook food, warm bodies, frighten away wild beasts, and provide light to the darkest midnight.

Ever since we first transformed a hunk of flint into a spearpoint we have worked to modify and improve our tools so that with little more than a flick of a finger or a thumb we could turn night into day or have the very primal fire leap from our hands as a simple gift to give another. It is this ease, this natural genius for invention, that marks our species as vastly superior to the baser animals.

Ever since James Pillans invented the chalkboard in 1798 we have been breaking the very the stuff of nature on the anvil of Science and Mathematics until the finest detritus we could observe became little more than probabilistic wave-forms that may or may not exist, depending upon the tools of observation. We have snaked an outlet cord so far down into the realm beneath the subatomic strata, that were we to succeed in tapping that reservoir, we could shine light onto the darkest midnight between the galaxies.

Perhaps … just perhaps.

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If you can get a talented actress to pile up the ham so that her reading makes Phyllis Diller look like Helen Mirren, you're on to something. What I got was more than I could ever have hoped for. Bombastic camp, yet still a element of grandeur that made the hairs on my neck stir.

What fun!

And great food, you know, for the Hot Meal part of the evening.

Great job, Nikki!

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Back home I sprawled out in the bed of my truck and aimed my star-gazing binoculars at the near-full moon. It is just so insanely silver and bright. The southern Tycho crater shines as albino scar tissue spreading out to the darkening region of the Mare Nubium. Under magnification, the moon looks so naked and exposed. It can only hide when it's in our shadow.

Speaking of our shadow, Wednesday night — this Wednesday, the 20th — there will a full lunar eclipse. Head outside and check it out. Here in San Antonio the action begins at about 7:45. The moon will be in full eclipse for almost an hour from 9 until just before 10. And everything should be over by about 11.

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Today was a postal holiday. President's Day (or as we like to call it 'round this parts for the last seven years or so, “Fuck Off and Die Day”). At the risk of further offending federal employees, this Monday holiday stuff really throws my NetFlix cycle out of whack. I won't be receiving Nicholas Ray's In a Lonely Place until Wednesday or Thursday. What an ordeal!

Actually, tonight I drove to the post office to stick the prepaid mailer in the box. But the gigantic outside mailbox (there's just one) was super-stuffed with all of Sunday and Monday (probably mostly DVDs in prepaid mailers), and my piece of mail would be left there, sticking out for anyone to swipe. And were that to happen, I'd be waiting forever for In a Lonely Place. Screw it, I'll just clip it to my mailbox in the morning (and hope no one but the mailman swipes it).

The DVD I'm currently lugging around with me is Terrance Malick's Days of Heaven. For some reason I had never seen this film. Malick's previous film, Badlands, had a major impact on me. What a breathtakingly beautiful movie. The best performances we've yet to
see from both Sissy Spacek and Martin Sheen. How did Malick feed us the passions of love and violence which was presented as absolutely banal, and yet every second of the film was compelling and vital? Badlands kicks ass!

Days of Heaven had, for me, a serious strike against it. I find Richard Gere to be one of the most wooden actors Hollywood has foisted on the world. Yes, I understand that many people find his “pretty boy” credentials flawless, but I'm not swayed by a pretty face with soulless eyes.

But it was a treat to see Sam Shepherd, and so young — he's always an excellent actor. Brooke Adams was also amazing. One of the great crimes of the 20th century is that Brooke Adams never broke through to feature film stardom. I was also very impressed by Linda Manz. She played the kid sister to Gere's character. Apparently Malick decided to scrap most of the dialogue in the final edit, bringing Manz into the recording studio to provide voice-over narration (much of it improvised by the 15 year-old actress). Manz's odd dialect choice (maybe that's really the way she talks???) is a bit hard to sit through. But her performance is absolutely compelling. There is something so terrifying about this little girl and at the same time something so natural. It's little surprise that Harmony Korine decided to track down this former child actress and cast her in his film, Gummo. (A friend gave me a copy of Gummo years ago, and I found it's inherent cruelty so disturbing that I could only watch it for about ten minutes at a time. Maybe I need to squirm my way through it again just to watch Linda Manz.)

I think Days of Heaven is cluttered, convoluted, and ultimately unsuccessful. To acknowledge it as a beautiful movie is a gross understatement. The extraordinary cinematography alone makes it a film I can highly recommend. But I think the story and the characters became over-shadowed by the location, photography, and the grand set pieces. But maybe it was just that I had to keep looking at Richard fucking Gere that so irked me.

Also, I was having problems with the setting. The film was supposedly set in the Texas panhandle. But it was filmed in Alberta. Alberta doesn't look like Texas. And Malick, a Texan from way back, knew this. Nothing about the film would have suffered if they said they were on a farm in Alberta. And to make matters worse, the very first time we see this Texas farm house, we know we're in Texas because the house has a flag pole out front. But for this quick shot, the art department screwed up and hung the Texas flag upside down. It was remedied in all the other shots featuring the flag, but it did set the tone (unconsciously, I presume) that we weren't really in Texas.

For the last month and a half it seems so many people I know have been hacking and groaning and tossing back all manner of cold and flue medicine. I had felt quite lucky in having avoided this current pestilence. In fact, mid-week I'd woken to a bit of a sore throat. I quickly swallowed a massive amount of vitamin C (which probably has as much impact on the common cold as touching wood), and seemingly snookered the early infestation. Obviously I placed too much faith in Linus Pauling's ideas on self-medication, because I woke up Friday with a nasty cough and even less energy than I normally can manage in the morning.

However I did succeed in pulling it together enough to make it to Circuit City. By combining a Circuit City gift card (payment for a particular dog-walking stint) with some birthday money, I knew I had enough to buy an external DVD burner to replace the ailing one in my computer. But it turned out much as I expected. There were very few brands on the shelves compatible with Mac. And of those, all demanded the most recent Mac operating system. This technological ageism is getting tiresome. Sign me up for the class action suit.

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Wednesday's excursion to check out the location for the film component of the Luminaria festival was great fun. Much of the ground floor of the Kress building is currently unoccupied. It's maybe ten stories high. Generic decoesque design. I'd guess it was build in the 1930s.

There are three large display windows so that film work can be displayed onto the street. The plan is to place 42 inch plasma monitors in each window. I was a bit disappointed. I was hoping for larger, rear-projection screens. The next area is a lobby of what I believed used to be a club. There's a little angled stage, and a small bar area. The idea is to place a large screen in this room and hang a video projector. And then we were all taken down this corridor which I believe was supposed to resemble a New Orleans street. There were faux brick walls and lighting fixtures sconced out from the walls in the style of lead-framed gas street lights. But even this kitschery didn't prepare me for the sheer vertiguous aesthetic abomination that was the larger club room we entered next. I believe I gasped and said something like, “Oh my goodness, this is awful!” Followed by: “I love it!”

It's a large space, and it was poorly lit by a single sodium vapor industrial light in the ceiling (clearly the “house” light that would be turned on back when this was a dance club so that the patrons would know it was time to leave — you know, when the low atmospheric lighting is blasted out by this unflattering glare which flashes off the puddles of vomit in the corners and lets you finally see that the amorous guy or gal desperately clutching your elbow bares an uncanny resemblance to Walter Brennen). Anyway, I would have taken more pictures, but that monster light still wasn't bright enough for my little camera, and the flash would have been wasted because the space was too big.

It was done up all Miami pastel deco, but very cursory and minimal. The sort of thing that happens when the club owner has installed the wrap-around mezzanine cat-walk, a large sunken dance floor in the center of the space, a smaller balcony dance floor, an island bar the size of a garbage truck, a dozen cozy booths, and he turns to the anemic manic-depressive first year associate from the interior design firm and says, “Oh, yeah, we want this place to look like Miami Beach, but we only have $500 left in the budget.”

This space is going to be used for longer films. A large screen will be brought in. And, like the lobby, the works will be shown via a video projector. I tried to remain positive. Meaning I kept my mouth shut as much as possible. But I could tell that the acoustics of this place were miserable. Sure, it probably worked great back in the early '90s with house music cranked to vibrate the fillings in the mouths of coked-out debutantes and failed MBAs with the keys to daddy's Mercedes … but the audio tracks of amateur films? No way,

One of the artists kept asking questions. He wasn't seeing it. He asked about installation works. I knew exactly what he was envisioning — the sort of gallery set-up that allowed for the peripatetic viewing.

“There are these windows in the hallway,” I said, meaning the New Orleans corridor. “You could frost them and back-project your work.”

He really got into the idea. Actually there were three such windows. The other side was in a room which we were not allowed to use. But it seemed possible that we could use it to set up equipment in — just not let audience members inside. It sounded intriguing.

I might try and get my piece on one of those interior windows.

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I found myself pulled into another behind-the-scenes Luminaria situation.

Thursday I stopped by Urban-15 to talk with George and Catherine about the 2008 Josiah Youth Media Festival. I hadn't made an appointment, and was prepared to drop by later if that had something scheduled.

I was a bit taken aback in that they had two major meetings planned. But now that I guess I've been folded into the Urban-15 family, they just assumed I'd stick around.

Upstairs in the performance space Catherine was meeting with two architects from the firm working on their renovation plans as well as an invited guest from the County Commissioner's Office. They had the floor plans, artist renderings, and associated images all on easels. There was also a really cool cardboard model. It never even occurred to me to take a photo of it. This might be because as this is still in the early stages where Urban-15 is seeking funding and community support, I'm not sure if the full scale and ambition of their renovation is yet ready for public consumption.

Meeting number two was down in the basement. George is helping to coordinate the performance side of the Luminaria festival. There are half a dozen stages scattered around the downtown area that George and a few other folks from the local arts community are over-seeing.

There's a shit load of stuff that's going to be happening on March 15th. And I mean even after all the shit that will be happening earlier that day in downtown San Antonio. Because, um, well, it's St. Patrick's Day.

This would be a massive cluster fuck for so many other large cities. But even though, as I understand things, this scheduling cock-up with St. Paddy was simply a perplexing oversight, the truth is, San Antonio does this sort of massive crowd control, street closings, and parade productions all the time. We've got Fiesta, a ten day bacchanalia of parades, festivals, and abject madness. We have the country's largest MLK march. Monthly art street fairs on both Houston Street and Alamo Street. We march massively for Cesar Chavez. We run for breast cancer one day a year all around downtown where cars can't drive. And we have at least two major parades that float down the San Antonio River. Oh, and as one of the three members of Proyecto Locos, I was instrumental in the creation of the parade down Fredericksburg Road back in 2006 for the Dia de los Artistas festival … although my friend Deborah did most all the work. And, man, there are so many other large public events I'm not even thinking of. San Antonio loves a p
arty, big or small, preferably outside, with music and barbecue.

Personally, I don't think this city needs another damn parade or festival. It just creates another day I can't drive through downtown. But, when I get grouchy about these sorts of public spectacles, all I need to do is attend the events — after seeing elderly couples drinking beer from plastic cups while they dance, people walking their Chihuahuas and Labradors in outrageous costumes, and people of all ages and backgrounds joyously making music together, I guess I can excuse the occasional street closure.

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Tomorrow I'm a featured guest over at the offices of Prima Donna Productions (check them out, over in the old El Cid Building, which is still, though just barely, within loop 410, and therefore safely inside my boycott zone). Um, where was I?

Oh. Yeah. PDP has begun their monthly “Hot Meals, Cold Reads” events. Actors sign up for the event — and I believe there are only ten slots each month. Here, let me poach from the website:

“This program gives local actors a chance improve their auditioning skills by learning from the pros. The next class is on the topic of Indie Short Films, and will be taught by director Erik Bosse.”

I'm flattered. Nikki and the gang are clearly stretching the definition of “pros.”

Anyway, the idea is for me to give some sort of palaver — you know, my name is such and so and I do this and that. And then I hand out “sides,” this is the production term for printed material that actors are given to read from during auditions. Oh, yeah, there is also a provided hot meal.

Actually, I'm not sure if I'm supposed to blather on a bit about who I am, but it doesn't matter. If needed, I can do this off the cuff.

Every now and then I have to remind myself how far I've come from suffering crippling shyness (which, over the years I've seen slowly erode, so that by the time I entered my fourth decade, is almost gone for good … unless, of course, I'm trying to talk to a cute girl). I'm not particularly good at extemporaneous speaking. Yes, I know I'm not horrible. But the great lesson I've learned somewhere along the way is that if I'm only mediocre, well, that's good enough. When Lorenzo Lopez arranged for me to appear on a San Antonio morning TV show last year to help promote the 48 Hour Film Project, I said, great. I had no trouble sleeping that night. I didn't try to prepare myself. I just showed up, chatted when the red light came on, and, afterwards, still had enough presence of mind to take of photo of the host there in the studio. No way could I have done that in my teens, twenties, or thirties. Self-confidence is indeed an idiosyncratic commodity, some people seem to have it straight out of the womb, while others of us have to build it piece by piece over time.

For this “Hot Meal / Cold Read,” I've printed out seven sides. They range from older works, to new works-in-progress. I had hoped to use this as an opportunity to workshop scenes from a feature script I'm working on, tentatively entitled, “Tunnels Under the Tower.” But some of the scenes were very short and didn't give actors much meat to chew on.

So, I pulled two from that piece which I thought strong. I should point out that Nikki told me the names of some of the actors who would be attending. I know some. And so, I tried to make sure that some of my sides would fit certain gender and age categories.

There's a woman I know who can play older than she looks. And there's two teen girls. So, I made sure to provide a couple of routines to fit them.

I printed up a few compressed short prose pieces of mine. They're first person narrations, so they make good monologues. And then I printed up the opening for my novel-in-progress, “Shadows Where the Darkness Was,” because it's a first person narration of a female character.

And I also plan to take the scripts for two super short pieces I plan to shoot in the next three weeks. Maybe I'll find the perfect actor. One is for an on-camera monologue that also will serve as a voice-over narration (this is my Luminaria piece); the other is a two man little one-act I want to pull off in a single take for the up-coming Olvidate del Alamo show that Ramon Vasquez y Sanchez curates every year as a purgative counter-point to all the giddy feel-good Texas nationalistic bullshit that the Daughters of the Texas Republic generate each year during this period of those “13 Days of Glory,” February 23 — March 6, when the Alamo was besieged. And for many years Ramon, and the gallery he founded (Centro Cultural Aztlan), celebrated not this Texcentric heroism, but instead, the sly, winking ambiguity you ultimately arrive at when you look history full in the face.

Remember the Alamo? Naw. Olvidate del Alamo.

Watch this space for show times.

Sunday morning Jorge stopped by to treat me to a birthday breakfast. We headed to Pepe's Cafe, and had a very pleasant hour or so of talking about this and that. Thanks so much, Jorge!

But I had to get back to the house because Carlos was stopping by to shoot some scenes from his trilogy of short films collectively titled Chort/Shorts. Armando showed up. He's one of Carlos' regular actors. I consider Armando to be one of the finer non-actors acting in town. He has no training that I know of, but his intuition is usually correct. Also, we had Christopher on set as an actor. He's the son of Annette Romo Schaefer — Annette's an actor herself, but she also run's Rome Talent Agency. Chris is still in high school, but he has a very strong presence. He's professional, focused, and damn quick if improv is needed.

There was also Carlos' little girl, Rockie. It fell upon me to do more in the line of childcare than helping Carlos in a crew capacity. The best bit was when Rockie wanted to go for a walk. About two blocks down Guenther we came upon a little girl with what I at first thought was a lemonade stand. As we got closer I read the sign.

“Cookies or Grapes, 50 cents.”

The little girl might have been even younger than Rockie. But her mom was there. I asked for two orders of grapes. The girl filled a sandwich bag with grapes, and she handed it to Rockie. She began filling up another bag, and I noticed an elderly gentleman from the neighborhood as he walked up behind us, smiling.

“Hurry, honey,” the little girl's mother said, giggling at the whole absurd thing. “We've got a line.”

As the kid was putting grapes in my bag I turned to the mother.

“I feel I should ask, but has she washed her hands?”

“Oh yes.” And then she smiled. “She also washed the grapes.”

I was waiting for the kid to pipe up irrepressibly with the phrase, “with laundry soap,” but she was all business.

I took my bag of grapes. Paid my dollar. And as me and Rockie walked away, I mentioned something to Rockie about how that little girl had just made a dollar, thinking this might be a learning experience. “Yes,” Rockie acknowledged. But then, of course, she began talking about dinosaurs. Apparently dinosaurs don't eat grapes.

“Not even the Apatosaurus?” I asked.

“No.”

That seemed like quite a broad statement to make. I'm sure there's not a single Brontosaurus (what old fucks like myself call the Apatosaurus) who would turn nose up at a succulent cluster of grapes drooping upon the vine. And then I remembered that grapes, and all flowering plants (the angiosperms), didn't begin even their most rudimentary evolution until many of the dinosaurs were well into extinction.

Chalk one up to the girl with the grapes.

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Monday afternoon I took the trolly downtown to attend an artist orientation meeting for the upcoming Luminaria fest.

The meeting was being run by people from something called CE. A quick snoop on the internet, and I'm assuming these folks were from the marketing and public relations firm, the CE Group (Communications and Events). They have offices in both San Antonio and Austin.

I'm curious as to when they were brought aboard. The main woman hustling so much of the hot air from up at the podium had her boosterism dial cranked up to 11, just a hair clockward of the “Amphetamine Weather Girl” setting.

When some guy in the audience wondered aloud — during the Q&A session — “why had it been decided to have this arts event during the week of SXSW, the biggest arts festival in the state, and on the VERY DAY of a downtown San Antonio St. Patrick's parade?” The CE woman did her job nobly, and fell on a sword of someone else's responsibility by simpering effusively. She apologized for a scheduling decision that most likely came out of the mayor's office … or some other city organization.

In the world of public relations, you get what you pay for. And, man, CE was delivering the goods.

I was, however, heartened to hear George Cisneros' name mentioned several times as the man who came up with the name of the festival. It's a great name and he should get the credit.

I saw representatives from several theater companies (Blue Frog, Majik Children's Theatre, Jump-Start, La Collectiva), a dance company (Urban-15), cultural organizations (Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, American Indians in Texas), film (NALIP), printing (Stone Metal Press) … but I only saw one person who I knew that was planning to create a work as an individual artist. True there were obviously individual artists in attendance, but just none I knew. Most of the painters and sculptures of my acquaintance who I'd spoken with in the last months about this first annual arts festival had been curious, but after they looked at the information on the web site realized there was no place for the sort of work they did.

I hope this unforgivable oversight into basic community outreach is remedied for next year.

When the cheerleading and the question and answer period ended, we were all broken up into groups. Dora Pena had been selected to oversee the film people. An excellent choice. And as we — the folks in her group — gathered to one side of the room, I noticed that poor Dora had made the mistake of backing herself into a corner. Literally. I stood back, looking on bemused, knowing Dora could handle herself. But, as I scanned the faces, I wondered just who the fuck were these people? I didn't know them from the art community. I didn't know them from the film world. Just a bunch of humorless, earnest twats (in fact I believe one indeed introduced himself as Ernest Twat … or am I thinking of the guy who played bass on the final Circle Jerks tour?). They sure were making a lot of demands for their 200 buck artist honorariums. Bottled artesian water and exotic Bosnian chocolates just aren't in the budget. Two hundred clams are all you get, guys, 'cause the flack-catchers from the CE Group don't come cheap.

Bitchery aside, I am looking forward to Wednesday. Dora has set aside some time in the afternoon when our group can go check out the film screening space. It will be in the ground floor of the old Kress Building. I love poking around in old buildings.

Maybe Ana de Portela will show up to join us. She was mentioned as one of the artists providing work for the film/video part of Luminaria, but I didn't see her at the meeting. I haven't seen Anna in a few years. And actually, I believe I've only met her twice. She's one of Alston's friends. Most of her art I know from her web site and reviews in local papers. I'm still not sure if I really care for her work, but she amazed me with the incredible charge of her personality. I was also glad she decided to pose for one of Deborah's Tara series. I only wish I had a bigger scan to poach and post.

I'm hoping Anna will help shake things up in the Kress building mid March.

Oh, yeah. There's also my piece. I guess I'd better start working on it. I believe the first step is to write a script. You see, if I want my 200 dollar honorarium, I gotta produce.

So, watch this space. I'll have more information about my short experimental video to be titled “The Prometheus Thesis.” It will be screened March 15, downtown San Antonio. More info concerning time(s) and location when I know more. Also, I'll stick it up on the web for my out-of-town fan-base. (Make no mistake, I'm very popular in Asheville, North Carolina — go Bulldogs!)