Yesterday was the final day of the laser show. It was a bit hectic, but because we had fewer kids per show, nothing got too much out of hand. Also, we had plenty of volunteers, thanks to Victor and Danny. The problems were some of the schools. There was one school which had requested 50 tickets for the 9:30 show, and an additional 50 tickets for the 12:30 show. But because they were using the same bus, it became clear that they wouldn't be able to return to campus, empty the bus, and load back up in time to make the 12:30 show. And then we had another school which was to bring 170 kids. Also for the 12:30 show. I gave the school a call ten minutes before show time to see if maybe they had problems with the bus. An administrative underling told me that they had canceled the field trip. I was told that the individuals who might know the reason why this happened were all in a meeting. How very convenient. If patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, meetings are the perennial sanctuaries of the cowards. It would have been nice if they'd let us know. And the third piece of confusion was a school who showed up late because their bus driver inexplicably took them to the Institute of Texan Cultures. I guess that the detailed map I emailed was considered a mere suggestion to the bus driver. “You know, the kids might really like the Institute of Texan Cultures.”

Also, the handicapped elevator crapped out. This sweet little third grader in a wheelchair was trapped in the lift for about ten minutes while the Aztec Theater staff tried all sorts of configurations of opening and closing the inner accordion doors. They sent the lift back up and down to all three levels. Finally, it opened, and the very patient girl was rolled out to her waiting bus.

The Aztec disability elevator is a lawsuit just waiting to be settled out of court. I'm guessing, once the legal fees had been siphoned off the top, it's worth something between a giant flat screen TV and a domestic sports car.

Once the venue remedies that damn elevator, figures out a plan so that the fucking police don't hassle school bus drivers who are only trying to unload kids quickly and safely, and implements some sort of online ticket purchasing system … once these issues are resolved, it might be the perfect place to hold these sorts of school events. The kids absolutely love the Aztec. And why not? Everyone who enters the space is simply blown away by the high cool factor — it's stratospheric.

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The Film Commission's Holiday Party last night was a great success. It always is. Drew and Janet do a wonderful job of finding the perfect venue, providing entertainment, great food, and stuffing the place with a comprehensive collection of local film folks, running the gamut from the production company pros, to the struggling little fish, like me.

I saw loads of familiar faces, as well as lots of people I didn't know. I tried to work my way around the room, but there were so many great people I wanted to catch up with, that I missed talking to so many people.

After hitting the sign-up table (and thank you so much, Janet, for handing me my name tag over the heads of the teaming hoi polloi — you made me feel like someone special!), I turned around and there was Lee Hurtado. I praised his piece on actress Danielle King in the newest issue of SWAG magazine. I was hardly surprised. I've been reading Lee's blogs for, I believe, as long as he's been blogging on MySpace. He's a damn fine writer. And when he learned I had read the magazine from the on-line pdf version, he quickly handed me a hard copy.

I was very impressed with SWAG on-line, but to see it in the flesh, so to speak, was much more rewarding. I'm amazed with what Mary Robinson is doing. No only is she a talented actress, probably the most beautiful woman in this city, but she is also a good writer and is doing an impressive job as editor of the fledgling magazine, SWAG (which stands for Southwest Actors Guild).

Great job, Mary!

It was nice to have a chance to talk with Adam Rocha, of the San Antonio Underground Film Festival. I've been kicking around the San Antonio film scene for four years or more, and I always seem to keep missing him. His film festival was a bit shaky the last two years, but 2007 it came back with a bang. I'm so glad he's going to keep it going. Adam also teaches video production at Jefferson High School. He promised to get some great work from his students into the second annual Josiah Youth Media Festival. I can't wait to see what they have to offer.

And then Bill Colangelo and his wife walked up. Bill teaches video production at Northwest Vista College. He's close with my dear friend Deborah. And when he started to talk to me about the Todd Haynes film, “I'm Not There,” I soon realized that he reads my blog. It's such a strange thing to discover that someone who you barely know keeps up with your personal journal writing. And then there is the other side of the situation — those people you suspect read your blog. I often catch myself before saying certain things because I've already gone over that stuff the other night in my blog, and I don't want to sound like some redundant self-quoting blowhard. When writers aren't allowed to quote themselves, their pyschies get all backed up and additional abrasive neurosis begin to develop. Well, that's my excuse.

But I digress.

It was nice to see the aforementioned folk, as well as: Nikki, Joey, Annie, Pete, Cooper, Bryan, Amanda, Manny, Christophe, Andy, Dar, Brant, AJ, Yollette, Laura, John, Vanessa, Paul, Michelle, Druck, Raven, Michael, Janet, Dago, Rosalinda, Travis, Carlos, Shelly, Rockie, and some smug ass from Austin. If I've forgotten you, I apologize. Assuage your bile with the thought that at the very least you aren't that ass from Austin.

Or are you???

Here are some photos. First we have John Montoya (AKA, Johnny the Hottie), with Mary Robinson and Raven Kaylor.

Amanda Ramirez talks with Rick Carrillo.

Brant Bumpers and Nikki Young, and I think I need to make a film where they are a couple. They're really quite cute together.

The Lone Bannana table. They won second place in the San Antonio 48 Hour Film Experience contest with a wonderfully playful mockumentary on a Nessie type monster who lives in Woodlawn Lake (and for those not from San Antonio, Woodlawn Lake is 30 acres). That's Joey Carrillo sucking back the beer. Way to go Joey! I really loved the film.

Here we have Laura Evans and Dar Miller. Laura — stunning as always — had decided to place her nametag on her handbag. And Dar, no doubt anticipating the flash off my little camera, has blinked, thus appearing as though the outrageously over-priced glass of cabernet was not her first drink of the evening, but number fuck-it-I'm-gonna-call-in-sick-tomorrow. I was there, and Dar was sober and articulte. And I'm pretty sure she went to work the next morning.

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Wednesday, now. Late. A fairly unproductive day. I dropped by Urban-15 to close out the Holiday Laser Show project. Mailed out a few thank you letters and organized all the paperwork into manila folders and filed them away for next year.

Two of the schools have already sent in thank you cards from their students. The best ones were, of course, those with illustrations. I'm now intrigued with the thought of putting together a coffee table book: “Third Graders from Texas Draw Reindeer!” (I think the exclamation point is crucial because, well, you know, the title kinda sucks. But, dammit, the concept is pure gold!)

And that was pretty much my day. Well, a trip to the grocery store (for disposable razors, votive candles, cilantro, peanut butter, and flour tortillas — you know, the basic staples of life). Sad, I know. But it's a cold, overcast, drizzly day. Winter is a miserable time of year. But at least, here in Texas, we can expect a week of warmth and sunshine counter-pointed with a week of cold grey drizzle. But right now I just wish I had a plane ticket to equatorial Africa. I'd be warm, and also I'd be free from this Christmas and New Years bullshit. My ill-informed guess is that they don't push that stuff much in Tanzania.

I knew this balmy weather couldn't keep on.  I went to sleep with several windows open, and when I got up around 7 this morning it was decidedly chilly.

By the time the Urban-15 team made it to the Aztec Theater, it became obvious that this mild taste of winter was planning to hunker over the town for the next few days.  Cloudy skies, low fog.  The sort of dreary days I hate.  However, we were so low on volunteers, that the time flew by.  We were just seven people hustling 1500 kids — herding them off buses, getting them up the stairs, taking tickets at two different entrances to the theater, ushering them into seats, and getting them out the lower level, onto their buses … all the while making sure that the buses of the kids coming for the next show were being properly wrangled.  We had a fairly good scheme of buses dropping off on Crockett Street, and later, picking the kids up on Commerce street.  It helped that we had learned a few short cuts from Thursday and Friday.  Also, we had our secret weapon: Stanley.  He's one of the drummers with the Urban-15 drum and dance ensemble.  And that guy's amazing — worth at least three mere mortal volunteers.

Tomorrow I think we have a couple more volunteers, thanks to Michael Druck of PrimaDonna Productions.

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Carlos was in town yesterday.  He dropped off the “evoL” music video he directed and I shot.  The internet connection he has out in their new homestead in the Lulling Oil Fields (which I really want them to start calling Haunted House Ranch to dovetail with Carlos' production company moniker of Haunted House Studio) is on the blink, so I told him I'd compress the video and post it online for him.  I've placed it on his Haunted House Studio MySpace page.  And then I noticed a six frame glitch.  It was my fault.  I did the first edit on the piece.  Carlos came through and made some changes.  But between us, we over-looked a still image that wasn't cropped for the wide-screen aspect ratio.  And for some reason, MySpace won't let me delete the video so I can repost it.  Maybe no one will notice.  However, I recommend that if folks haven't seen the piece, cruise on over to the slightly improved version on YouTube by clicking:

Here.

The song is basic garage rock, easily in line with the Misfits.  The images are perhaps a bit grisly and seemingly on the misanthropic side (perhaps even misogynistic) — but really, I'm the last person who would notice that sort of stuff.  I recall someone telling my how embarrassed he was watching Reservoir Dogs with his grandmother during some family event.  A cousin showed up with the DVD, they put it on, and he was mortified.  “What?” I asked.  “It's just a heist movie.  You know — a bank robbery story.”  “Hello!  A guy gets tortured by having his fucking ear cut off!!!”  And that's when I realized just how jaded I have become.

Anyway, it's now out there on the web.  Finally Carlos' European fan-base can wallow in American excess.

As I was making a mDV dupe of Carlos' DVD (which will explain much of the digital artifacts), Carlos explained that his major mission down to San Antonio was to find a part for his and Shelly's Camaro (well, I believe Shelly claims it as hers).

He'd recalled a blog where I mentioned his visits to the Pick-N-Pull, and he invited me along.

I could think of no finer way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

We got in his van and headed south on interstate 35.  Just past South Park Mall, you hang a right on hwy 16, like you're going to Poteet.  Past Palo Alto Community College, and when you get to the intersection of Applewhite Road, turn left.  It'll take to by the Lucha Libre grounds.  The road curves around, taking you by a juvenile correctional bootcamp and a trailer park.  And before you know it, Pick-N-Pull!

At the risk of sounding like a rube, it's, well, just so cool.  I mean, I never was into cars.  It's one of those things men are usually introduced to by their fathers.  I was introduced to a lot of things by my father — H. L. Mencken, Fritz von Erich, Ernest Tubb, Anatole France, Bill Boyde (AKA, Hopalong Cassidy), Hunter S. Thompson, and on and on.  But I never saw my father rotate a set of tires nor change a car's oil.  In fact, I can't recall the man ever opening the hood of a car, least it was to look up from an ominous cloud of steam and comment that things didn't look too good.

Carlos grabbed his tool chest and I followed him to the entrance.  A man in a cage leaned out of a window when Carlos sat his tool chest on a raised surface.  He rooted around to make sure there wasn't anything suspicious inside.  At the next window, we paid the entrance fee.  I hesitate to call it the box office ….  Anyway, I believe it only cost a buck per person (and thanks, Carlos, for paying my admittance).  I even got my hand stamped.  For those new to Pick-N-Pull, you must go for the experience.  You must!  Take a lunch, there's some picnic tables.  It's damn cheap at a dollar!

When you get past the ticket booth there's a diagram posted on the wall.  It's a map of the huge facility.  It's broken up into grids.  Each grid holds a make of car.  Ford, Chevy, et al.

As we were looking for a Camaro part, we headed to the Chevy section.  Carlos had rented a wheel barrow for a buck.  He'd learned that it was worth the cost so he wouldn't have to haul his thirty pound tool-chest around into the huge auto salvage yard.  And, man, it's fucking enormous.  The whole places is laid out very properly.  It's clean and neat.  No doubt that once the gates close at night, and the sun sets, the place is taken over by rats, 'possums, and coyotes.  But, in the daytime, it's a very orderly place.

I'm posting the photos all together.  Thy're thumbnails.  Click for a larger picture.  I was playing around with the faux exposure on my little cheapie point-n-shoot digital camera.  I need to start playing with putting the flash on when I'm shooting outside and dialing down the sky so that the stuff in the extreme foreground will be well lit and I'll still be able to get those morose apocalyptic skies.

And here we have the item we came for.  A little length of very specific wire.

Pick-N-Pull — build it and they will come.  Next time I'm bringing pasta salad and humus dip!

I just now received my first telemarketing call ever to my cell phone (a pesky Spanish speaking robot). I've had this number for maybe six years. And for probably the last five years I've been without a landline — and I'd never go back. But because the cell phone is immune to telemarketers (because of some arcane telecommunication legislation) I tend to smiled indulgently when other people bitch about telemarketing interruptions during their daily life. It'd be like listening to people whine because of their acne or the problem they have getting someone to buy beer for them. This is stuff that I quite simply can't relate to — we're talking about things so far back in my past that really it's all just vapor. Phone spam and pimples are things of my distant past. And so should they remain.

Please, telemarketing robots, leave me be, I'd rather not relive the misery of the 20th century.

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I've been working long production days for this Holiday Laser Show — about 12 hours per day. Wednesday night I was with the crew at the Aztec Theater setting up the laser equipment. Tim Walsh, the laser artist, arrived pulling a trailer filled with large, heavy cases. The Aztec — one of the old San Antonio movie palaces — has been renovated to show 70mm films. There is no “floor” seating. The lower level is one of the pathways where the audiences can enter. All the seats are in the balcony, which I'm pretty sure have been raked up at a steeper angle than original. At least that's my take after lugging some damn heavy equipment up all those steep steps to the projection booth.

I shouldn't complain too much. Hector was the one small enough to navigate the crawl-spaces under the seats to snake the fiber optics for the laser. Actually, Hector has years of experience in theater tech — so it wasn't only about him being the right size. Poor Hector must have been worming about down in there for three or four hours.

I wasn't much involved in the technical side of things, so I'm a bit vague about that stuff. However, my understanding is that the show just uses one extremely powerful laser. Max, another one of the expert theater techs in town, was telling me how much power the laser draws. Something outrageous like 90 amps. Now I don't know much about electricity, but my basic rule of thumb for hooking up tungsten lights for film production is that if you're using a 110 volt system, like in someone's house, for each amp on each breaker, you can get almost 100 watts off it. So, a 20 amp circuit can managed a bit under 2000 watts. Say, three 500 watt lamps, and then you move on to outlets that feed off different breakers, you know, to be on the safe side. So, to get an idea of this laser, my one bedroom apartment has 80 amps available, coming in through 4 circuits. And that laser needs more power than my home could deliver, and it needs it fed through a single circuit. The laser uses a water-cooling apparatus to keep it from overheating. And with an array of mirrors and three laser projectors (connected to the laser with fiber optic cables), this single laser is able to provide all the light, shapes, designs, animation — add two smoke machines, some loud Christmas music, and 500 rambunctious kids (mostly from area elementary schools), and you've got a show. Yep.

Thursday was our first day. We had three shows, with about 500 kids per show. I believe 14 schools were represented. And bearing in mind that a school bus holds 50 children, that's thirty buses arriving and departing throughout the morning. They dropped the kids off on one side of the theater, went to an assigned parking lot on the far side of downtown for the duration of the show, and returned to collect the kids on the opposite side of the theater. This worked, mostly, but some of our teachers and administrators apparently never looked at the map we provided with the tickets. These maps explained where to drop off the kids, and later, where to pick them up. And then there were the god damn bicycle cops. They were telling us we couldn't unload the kids in the loading zone. Seems like one can unload beer and brisket for the adjacent hotel, but god forbid you let some third graders off a fucking school bus. There was a moment when George went over to speak with one of the cops — I believe he was given two choice: do what the cop said, or get hauled off to the station. I was amused with the image of George riding all cozy and tandem with the bike cop to the downtown police station, but then I realized that a patrol car was doubtlessly just a radio call away.

It eventually became apparent that this was their passive aggressive way (though not so passive) of letting us know that we damn well should have hired an off-duty officer to direct the traffic. And, yep, we should have. Well, the Aztec should have.

But we managed to get through the day without a bus driver getting a ticket, George arrested, nor a child tasered. That's all I ask for. I'm really a man with simple needs.

Production work, whether it's film, theater, or these sorts of events, have many things in common. There's a lot of unbridled chaos, followed by a certain amount of downtime (sometimes, a monstrous amount of downtime, depending on your crew position). But the one thing that separates a person who can do this work, and one who can't, is the ability to be flexible. When things go off track, and they so often do, you have to not panic and just work through it. If you don't have a plan C in mind, you need to cobble it together on the fly … 'cause, like the guy said, the show must go on.

After the first day of student shows, I was beat. Only five hours, but I was up and down the stairs on all four levels (if you count the projection booth). And then I headed back to Urban-15 to make phone calls and generate the paperwork for the next day.

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Here we have Tim Walsh and George Cisneros.

And here are some photos I took of the laser show. Because I couldn't control the shutter speed, I got some interesting effects of multiple images of the laser light zipping around.

I also took some photos of the Aztec. Here we have a water fountain, the men's room, and a bench.

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I don't know if today really went any smoother. Sure, we'd learned some things from Thursday. But we had new problems, like moving the kids off the buses faster so we could try to avoid the attention of the cops. So we were parking hundreds of kids in the lobby until we could clear the theater from the previous show.

And then there was a school (and I'll not name names) who decided to take all four of their buses to the Urban-15 studios about three miles away. I guess someone decided not to use the map I hand-delivered to the school.

That was for the first show of the day. We had to keep that laser in check for ten minutes as we rushed the kids to their seats.

Thankfully all us crew and volunteers (thanks so much Dar!!!) had on festive holiday head-wear. This sort of stuff makes the kids so much more attentive to your authority, don't you know.

Actually, my snide comments aside, when you have third and fourth graders, they haven't yet been crippled with cynicism and societal bile. I received a surprising number of complements on my costume. “Cool reindeer antlers,” was the chirpy refrain of the last two days.

Mostly the kids seemed to be amazed by the Aztec Theater. And who can blame them? Lavish is an understatement. I imagine ten thousand dyspeptic interior designers who have just eaten several copies apiece of the most vividly illustrated editions of Popol Vuh, chased it down with tumblers of DayGlo poster paint, and were then allowed to run around the space, vomiting like a champion runway model — yeah, that's what the place looks like. Quetzalcoatls, corn gods, and shit like that. The kids eat this stuff up. Meso-America cultural tropes as bastardized by PT Barnum and H. Rider Haggard's gayest younger brother. When I find myself walking through the Aztec Theater I ask myself why I'm not dressed in a gold lame suit and clutching a calfskin riding crop? Screw those reindeer antlers. This would get the kids to “form a line straight and to the left!”

Here we have some of Santa's elves (Hector and Herman) who were ushering the kids. Hector (on the left) knows how to place a hat at a rakish angle. He really needed a cigar.

One of the Aztec staffers made some comment that the stairs could get exhausting. “All this up and down,” she said shaking her head and pantomiming exhaustion.

“It's the Aztec,” I said with a smile. “You really just need to do it once. Up at the top, the projectionist, I believe, will be more than happy to cut out your heart with an obsidian knife and then toss your carcass down the back.”

She made some excuse to leave. Something about paperwork. Wow! And I'd thought I was being so charming. I'm serious, I'd caught her smiling at me earlier — and don't think I don't cut a striking figure with a pair of antlers on my head. However, it was the word “carcass,” wasn't it? Girls don't like it when, in speaking to them, you use the phrase “your carcass.”

Shit …. And, hey, wasn't I supposed to be spending my holiday months in a cave in the Bofecillos Mountains living off mesquite beans and cottontails? Yes, I believe that was the plan. And I don't have a plan B, let alone a plan C.

I have mixed feelings about the idea of “film races.” They have become very popular. Usually they demand that the filmmaking teams complete a short movie (script to finished edit) in either 24 hours or 48 hours. Some push it to 72 hours. The first such event I witnessed was a 24 hour film contest connected with the Dallas Video Festival. This was back in 2001 … maybe 2002. There were several hours of movies screened. I believe that the maximum run time was three or five minutes. And though my memory is shaky, I think that there were over 70 teams. Hardly anything sucked. This amazed me.

Flash forward a few years. San Antonio has had three years of our home-grown San Antonio 48 Hour Film Experience. What's up folks? Each year, worse than the last. There were eight films this year. Two were solid — good work! Two more were watchable and entertaining. That left four that weren't watchable. I'll not make enemies by being specific, but you can access them online. And if they aren't posted yet, keep trying the links through the blog site:

http://www.sa48hr.com/

I want to give high marks for Drew Mayer-Oakes, our film commissioner, for running this event. Even if I'm on this blog grousing about the quality of the work submitted, it shouldn't reflect poorly on Drew. His SA48HR Film Experience is the real deal — a gift to the film community in this city. We can choose to use it how we wish. (Though my hope is that we'd decided to shine, rather than flounder — I can't really make a stink here 'cause I decided not to run a team, so shame on me.) As for the other similar and more recent film event, the San Antonio 48 Hour Film Project (which is connected to the national organization), I think it's not so near the honesty of Drew's grass-roots SA48HR. Let's see if we can kick SA48HR Film Experience back up to speed in 2008.

And one more thing I want to say about the SA48HR Film Experience is to express my thanks to Salsa.net — this organization has been brilliant in hosting the online presentations of all the films produced for the three years of the SA48HR Film Experience. This is one of the more overlooked resources of locally produced San Antonio films which are available on-line.

There were 75 people at the downtown library for the screenings tonight! That's great. Lee Hurtado greeted me when I came in. He posited a rhetorical question when he wondered why all these people didn't show up for the free monthly summer film forums. I muttered something about the “narcissist factor” (how people love to show up to film events if the project they worked on or appeared in is being screened). Before Lee could make a reply, a certain local actress cheerfully greeted him with a hug and a milk and honey greeting: “It's so nice to see you, Chris,” she said with a purr. I slumped down in my seat and pretended to make eye-contact with a fictional friend on the far side of the room.

You never know who might think you're important.

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The downside to a large crowd at the downtown library is that there is only one lane out of the parking garage. It was a bottleneck. After the crush subsided, I headed out.

I met Pete for a drink at Ruta Maya Coffee House so we could compare notes and perform our little postmortem of the event. I explained that if only I knew how to send a text message I would have treated him (he was seated six rows in front of me) with the standard thought that goes through my mind whenever I'm subjected to a painfully boring movie: “If someone doesn't start fucking a corpse pretty soon, I'm out of here.” And, sadly, it never happened. It never happens.

I then blurted out my thought of creating the “WTF! Film Festival.” I can't recall if this occurred to me during the first or the second film of the evening. But occurred to me it did.

As we were leaving Ruta Maya, I spotted one of the poets from the other night at Urban-15. Nick, I want to say is his name. Anyway, he was one of the strongest readers. Very impressive. I stopped to thank him for his wonderful performance.

And then I realized who he was seated with. I hadn't been able to tell, because he had his back to me. But it was Joel Settles, of Comedia A Go-Go fame. Joel and the poet whose name might be Nick told me they're planning a show at Ruta Maya on December 29th. I might have the day wrong. When I get better info, I'll try and put it here. But it will undoubtedly be worth attending. I can't imagine either of these talented young men involved in something that isn't of great interest and importance.

Anyway, when I arrived home tonight, I checked my MySpace page. I had a bulletin from Comedia A Go-Go. It looked like the comedy troupe had another comedy video posted online.

Check it out.

I watched it. It won't change the world. And a year from now I might not even remember it. But it's funny, playful, well-produced, and the perfect salve to my ordeal of watching local crap.

Comedia A Go-Go's video's are, I believe, often dismissed as a kind of YouTubey viral marketing sketch comedy. But their secret is that they are solid writers, solid performers, and in the technical realm they edit tightly, light adequately, shoot smart, and collect sound like they know what they're doing.

And you know, I think they know what they're doing.

I've been feeling fairly anti-social lately. The holiday season always throws me off balance. American behavior is at no other time of the year so codified and constricted as it is between October 31st and January 1st. It's all consume & shop and clog up the highways in these twin pursuits. The daily activities of life seem to be placed on hold, making it difficult to get anything done.

If I only had the financial security, I'd take a sabbatical for these two months in a cave in the Bofecillos Mountains. Yeah, it sounds cheap enough, but I'd still need to pay the rent on my place.

But here I am, in the city, surrounded by the candles in pumpkins, the frozen turkeys and tamale fixin's pilled in grocery carts, and the endless residential districts festively lit with lights in red and green (which I rather like, I just wish they were a year-round sort of thing). And then there's all this sports crap — it seems so much more strident now than other times of year.

At least I have a job that should get me through to the new year.

I've been helping out with Urban-15's Holiday Laser Show that will be happening this coming weekend at the Aztec Theater.

The show is designed by Tim Walsh, a laser artist from San Marcos. It seems he was one of the founders of Brave Combo. What a interesting career arc.

Check the Aztec's website for show times. But, for Urban-15, the most pressing component of the Laser Show is their outreach program to the local elementary schools. Most of these schools are on the southside and westside. We're expecting over 5,000 students for three shows per day for four days: Thursday, Friday, Monday, and Tuesday (which is December 6th, 7th, 10th, and 11th).

My job last Thursday and Friday was to hand-deliver the tickets along with lesson packets for the teachers. We have 34 schools coming. We split up the deliveries. I took those further to the south, as well as the schools on the westside. It was nice to see that some of the schools are still in the old buildings that still have character, however, way too many were in these horrible structures that look like low security prisons … which, I guess they are.

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I've found myself in a weird position. Other than floundering along on my November novel (I only made half of my 50,000 word monthly quota), I've not been engaged in anything with even the hint of creativity in months. But still, I seem to move fairly freely within this city's art world. And therefore, I'm getting more dirt than a Bissell Broom can masticate. The San Antonio art community runs on a paltry amount of $$$, but, make no mistake, the slack is taken up by high octane gossip (which you might know as “chin music,” or perhaps “balloon juice,” as regional idioms do vary).

The most recent topic of conversation is our Mayor's push for the Luminaria.

This, from the website, sounds promising:

“An artist-driven celebration of the arts, Luminaria is an unprecedented collaboration of over 40 non-profit organizations that will come together for 1 day to celebrate the dynamic vitality of San Antonio’s creative spirit.”

The problem is that there is not yet a provision for paying the artists. Cause, you know — “artist-driven.” I've heard some folks say that this will be remedied. I certainly hope so. Because this sort of crap needs to end. When local vendors, who sell beer, gorditos, and Alamo shot glasses, make loads of money on an event where people show up because of the arts, well, one would assume that the artists would all get fat honorariums. However, this just doesn't happen in this town.

I'm hopeful that this Luminatia event will fix this problem and recognize the artists in this city with some cold coin, and not just the old style assumption that pro bono work makes them all giddy and sweaty with the hope of promoting their names and their works. For the most part they're not terribly giddy … unless they get ahold of enough Alamo shot glasses brimming over with beer and frozen margaritas.

Much of this event will happen along Houston Street. And this brings to my mind that, for some odd reason, I've only recently heard of a monthly arts event that happens in downtown San Antonio (which is pretty much where I live). I'm speaking of the Houston Street Fair & Market. This event is just not talked about in the arts community. And therefore I assume it's just an opportunity to sell frozen margaritas, turkey legs, and Alamo shot glasses. We've all stumbled into these festivals, right? Mylar balloons and soulless music. I'm afraid that this Lumanaria will be much of the same — just larger, and lasting late into the night.

What's up with this city's obsession with parades and festivals? If the city council wants to support the arts, do it. Just fucking do it. Get all these filthy vendors out of the picture and aim the spotlight at the arts.

Or, hell, just begin laying out the plans for the 2008 San Antonio Turkey Leg Festival and Parade! Sign me up for the one-legged race.

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Last weekend was the San Antonio 48 Hour Film Experience. There was a time the other week when I almost signed up. But my camera is ailing, my editing set-up is having problems, and I just don't feel inspired. But for those who took the challenge, bravo!

The screening will happen tomorrow (Tuesday) night at the downtown library.

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Instead of rubbernecking at the SA48HR Experience kickoff, I spent last Friday night at Urban-15. They had a poetry event, part of the Urban Verses series. It was part poetry slam, and part curated show.

Anthony M. Flores was running the event. And as curator, he'd decided not to read any of his works. I was disappointed. I've heard him read at least twice before, and he's very good.

Andrea Sanderson and Midnight Radio were one of the evening's featured performances. Andrea is a talented young poet, as well as a singer. However, there was a moment in the evening when Andrea and the two fellows backing her as Midnight Radio, deviated from their original songs and moved into some covers … and at that I had to stand up, pretend to get a call on my cell phone, and slink down the back stairs to join Hector, Debbie, and Rosendo in the courtyard. As the strains of “Killing Me Softly with His Song” (which I hated in the '70s, and it has yet to grow on me in the ensuing decades), I was glad to see that the clouds were starting to break up, and the misting rain that had been an off and on affair for the previous few hours had headed out of town. There were tiki torches, strings of white Christmas lights, and a cozy fire blazing away in a raised cage off towards the back fence.

And then the slam itself began. I'm not really familiar with the rules of poetry slams, but one of the poets gave me a run down later in the evening. Rules and competition. Yeah, sounds like the perfect way to suck the life out of poetry.

However, the poets who took up the slam challenge were all great. This city has some outstanding poets.

The professionalism of the evening was maintained, no doubt, by the fact that I decided against reading a poem I'd prepared.

Whether my piece is good or bad isn't the main issue. In fact, I susspect it's fairly good. But the problem is, I'm not up to the level as a performer to compete with the likes of Amanda, Rene, Nick, Andrea, and even Santiago, who got up to read after having been away from poetry for quite a few years.

Guess I just whimped out.

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On a poetry-related note, it might amuse some that because of a near cock-up (so to speak) with spell-check, the poetry slam was almost promoted as a Poultry Slam. That would have been something else all together. But in some regions of the East Texas Piney Woods and probably most of the Florida panhandle, such an event should attract quite a crowd. No doubt many would arrive with their own notched and polished lengths of 2×4 lumber nestled in velvet-lined cases.

“Yo, pops, where do me and Skeeter sign in?”

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I took in a matinee of the new Todd Haynes film, “I'm Not There.”

I never saw Haynes' “Far From Heaven,” but I was very enamored of his “Velvet Goldmine” when it came out.

To call “I'm Not There” overly pretentious is only a problem is you find the artificiality of Todd Haynes films off-putting.

The clips I've seen of “Far From Heaven” are so screamingly lush in their set design, that it takes one's breath away. And were it not for my irrational aversion to Julianne Moore, I'd probably have rushed out to see it. As for “Velvet Goldmine” — it was so obsessed in recreating the euro trash glam rock aesthetics of a bygone era that one wonders how anyone got around to the business of acting.

That times ten with “I'm Not There”.

The script breakdown for this film must have been a nightmare. There are five different actors playing six different fictionalized versions of Bob Dylan, and each of these intertwined sections has a different look and a different sensibility — different film stock, different lighting, different color palette. I mean, you have fucking Richard Gere as some weird confluence of Billy the Kid meets the current old man Dylan riding his horse through some old west town peopled with Runyon rejects, circus freaks, and the occasional and inexplicable giraffe and ostrich.

I think the film's a fucking mess. But it's so beautiful. And just when it seems to be veering into high-earnestness, it down-shifts to playful surrealism. For instance, the scenes with the Beatles, Brian Jones, and Pete Seger, are dead center between creepy and comical. To paraphrase “Brownsville Girl” (that masterpiece where Dylan and Sam Shepard collaborated) “I didn't know whether to wince or to laugh, so I laughed.” These scenes are all in the Kate Winslet section. I was a bit distracted by her prominent cheekbones (so lovely on a pretty girl, like Kate — but so, and here I'll say it again, so creepy on Bob Dylan) — but Winslet had the mannerisms of Dylan down solid.

It's a lovely disjointed mess. I have nothing against long movies. Some of them need a lot of time to tell a story. But with “I'm Not There” it seems like too much padding and bloated showboating. It would not have suffered were the whole section where Heath Ledger's Dylan persona were stripped out. (Yeah, yeah, were that allowed to have happened, we would have lost some moving, winsome performances by Charlotte Gainsbourg … and, um, her nude scenes …. And now that I think it through, it seems these sorts of decisions are made by folks wiser than I.)

Probably the elements that will make this film sink or swim among the fanatical Dylan fans will be the book-end bits. We open with Marcus Carl Franklin. He plays Dylan as an 11 year old black boy calling himself Woody Guthrie as he rides the rails and eats fried catfish in the homes of sharecroppers. (And I'm not making this up.) And then, at the end, we have the Autumn (Winter?) of Dylan's life, where Richard Gere trots though rural Missouri on horseback wearing granny glasses and a buckskin hat and he's seemingly been transported back in time to that era of outhouses and Victrolas. And if all you can grumble is a sour “what the fuck?” I can only caution that it sounds like you've wandered far from Brother Bob's path, and you'd better pop into the nearest freight elevation, fire up a joint, and get right with God and get the fuck back into your seat before the opening credits begin rolling on the next screening. Tell me that the second time around still has you scratching your head, and I'll know you to be a rube not worth my time.

The film made me realize that Bob Dylan means so many things to so many different people.

Todd Haynes has his own personal interpretations of what Bob Dylan and his music means to him — much of his point of view is lost on me. Haynes' is walking his own subjective beat.

My own take on Dylan is a scattered memory of images and sounds. First, there was that great “Subterranean Homesick Blues” period. Somewhat later was that iconic scene in “Don't Look Back” (Pennebaker's wonderful 1968 documentary) where Dylan and Donovan meet in a hotel room, and both come off as self important twats — but the scruffy American is the one who, ultimately, has something worth saying. And I guess that, really, so much of my knowledge of those early Dylan songs comes from the versions done by the Byrds.

The fact is that the most interesting (at least to me) period of Dylan's life was already in the past when I was of the age I could have embrace it — but in my youth I already had contemporary music of my own. For those years of my life, Dylan was little more than a guy from another generation who had a nasal voice and often wore funny hats. And then, in the mid '80s, I was blown away by the song “Brownsville Girl.” Sam Shepard wrote the lyrics. Bob Dylan made the song. I remember the first time I heard it on the radio. I had to go out and buy the album.

And so that is my Bob Dylan. The kid from the super-8 music “video” for “Subterranean Homesick Blues;” the cocky brat who made Donovan look like a washed up flower-power casualty; and the well-seasoned burnout who sang about driving across the country, skirting the law, and, as is mentioned in the final stanza, was more than comfortable with vanishing into the absurdity of his own iconography:

There was a movie I seen one time
I think I sat through it twice
I don't remember who I was or where I was bound
All I remember about it was it starred Gregory Peck
He wore a gun and he was shot in the back
Seems like a long time ago
Long before the stars were torn down

These are my interpretations of Dylan. He had a strong impact on my life. And, really, I'm not at all what you'd call a fan.

And that, I believe, is as good a definition of a pop icon as you can get.

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To close on, here's what you can do to serve your community.

Click for full image

This is in my neighborhood (well, a bit further south in the trailer park and ice house district). I'm trying to figure out the best type of spray paint to use when I add the word “CRAP” at the end of the first sentence. However, another person suggested that the alteration should be to cross out the word “serve, and add the word “POISON.” And then another person pointed out the the closest McDonalds is over at I-35, a couple of miles away. The fact of the matter is the double arches isn't even poisoning the community where they are advertising.

“The guy in the billboard is too happy to work at McDonalds,” someone in my vandalism focus group said.

“And too svelte,” piped up another, scowling in the back row.

The exit polls had “poison” and “crap” in a dead tie.

I've not been so conflicted since the return of the McRib.

I'll have to think this over some ….

I managed to celebrate Buy Nothing Day. It was pretty easy. You see, it's too fucking cold and miserable to leave the house. I squandered the day drinking coffee (and might I recommend Cafe Bustelo cafe espresso, if you must buy a can off the supermarket shelf), eating pecan pie, and watching videos off the TED.com site. The only thing that got me out of this place was the fact that Phil is out of town and I had to walk his dog. If I had some disposable diapers, I'd fit the critter with a pair and let nature take its course until the sun reemerges Monday.

Earlier in the week — Tuesday, I believe — I dropped by the Cove for a screening of several music videos. For those who haven't been to the Cove, it's the perfect establishment to be located near a college. In this case, SAC (San Antonio College, the downtown campus of our community college system). The Cove is a restaurant, a bar, a laundry, a car wash, and, well I don't know what else. It's not nearly so quirky and cool as it sounds, but it seems to be thriving, the food is very tasty, and the owners are wonderful people. (For a truly cool fusion of bar and laundry, it would have to be the Bar of Soap in Dallas. I believe Carlos was there during his recent production gig in Dallas. My sister's bookstore, Chelsea Books, was just a couple of doors down from the Bar of Soap in another decade, another life.)

The screening was put on by TMC. The Texas Music Coalition. Nikki Young, who is on the board of TMC, was the MC of the event.

I arrived a bit late. It was a small but cozy crowd. The screenings were slated for 7 to 9 p.m., and with filmmaker Q&A sessions, Nikki was able to squeeze in all DVDs that had been brought. We saw maybe ten videos. Actually, I missed the first three or so.

I was a bit taken aback when one of this town's filmmakers came up and seemed actually perplexed as to why I was in attendance. What an odd question. I said something about how I try my best to make as many screenings around town as possible because I think it's important to support fellow filmmakers — as I try my best to make other art events. We're all in this together.

When I added that I shot and helped edit the video that Carlos Pina was screening (“evoL,” by the band Nov. 2nd) he seemed to finally understand why I was there.

The greater question should have been why weren't more of the local film community present? But I've come to expect this sort of general malaise and apathy.

If you didn't make it out, here's a cool video that played:  “Silent and Automatic,” by Boxcar Satan, directed by Brant Bumpers.

There was also this nice piece by a band called The Krayolas that played before I got there. I was able to hunt it down on the internet because one of the band members was fielding a question from the audience concerning a location. It quickly became apparent he was talking about the ruins of the old Hot Wells resort far down South Presa. The song is “La Conquistadora,” and it rocks. The video looks great and shows some amazing footage of Hot Wells.

The Krayolas were apparently a local band here in San Antonio with a decent following in the '70s, and continuing into the '80s. I'd never heard of them before, but the'ye back together and touring. After a quick internet search I also found a recent video of them doing a song called “Little Fox” that was written by Augie Meyers for the Sir Douglas Quintet, but apparently never recorded. It sounds just like SDQ, but there's no real energy to it. After hearing it, I was mostly left sad to be reminded that Doug Sahm is no longer with us.

Here's a YouTube video of the Sir Douglas Quintet — one of the great garage bands to have come out of San Antonio — doing “She's About a Mover.” The band sports incredible page-boy cuts and they are surrounded by a truly preposterous faux-to-the-max Medieval backdrop. This is from the TV show Hullabaloo. Doug is singing, and Augie Meyers is on organ.

Oh, yeah. Back to the TMC event.

As a late-comer, I was standing in the back of the room at the bar with Dar and Andy. At the halfway point Carlos' little girl, Rockie, made her way to the bar and pulled herself up on a stool.

“Hi, Erik,” she said. She handed me a twenty. “I'm thirsty. My daddy said you would buy me a drink.”

(This isn't Carlos being a deadbeat, the fact is, he was at a table sandwiched between a few other filmmakers.)

“Sure, kid,” I said, giving the bill a couple of snaps. “What sort of beer do you want.”

She signed and rolled her eyes.

“Not beer. I want a Sprite.”

I nodded and waved the bartender over.

“No, water,” Rockie suddenly said with the sort of firm alacrity not usually encountered in five-year-olds. “My doctor said I should drink more water.”

“What? Wait a minute,” I said, holding my hand up towards the bartender who had just walked up. I turned to Rockie. “What if your doctor had said, Young lady, I want you to drink Sprite, and plenty of it! What then?”

“Water,” she repeated with a furrowed brow.  She looked at the bartender, “I want some water.”

“Okay,” he said. “You want like a bottle, or just some from the tap?” He looked from Rockie to me.

“Hey,” I said, “kid's got money.” And I held up the twenty.

Rockie nodded and pointed at the line of chilled plastic bottles in the lighted cooler behind the man.

She got her bottle, collected her change, and headed off into the crowd.

Here's a photo I took later of Rockie, standing beside her dad. Not many people can pull off this sort of seasonal outfit. It helps immensely not to be an adult.

And here's a photo of Carol Sowa, vice prez of the TMC.

Regular attendees of the King William Parade might know Carol better as the ambulatory stick of butter.

When you have an outfit like that, you gotta wear it.

This is the sort of surreal outfit that would be wasted on a kid.

And to sum it up: Santa Suit, cute for a kid; Stick of Butter Outfit, perfect for the open-minded adult (I can only hope, breathlessly hope, that Carol has worn this costume to jury duty or an IRS audit).

Ever since iTunes made some unauthorized update to my computer several months back, causing me to get pissed off and attempt to delete the program, and thus allowing my techno ignorance to further muck up things, I have been unable to play CDs on my computer.  Unlike PCs, Macs don't come preloaded with a basic default CD player.

Were it not for a request from Jennifer Saylor's blog, wondering what interesting Christmas music her readers might know of so she could start on her annual holiday mix CD, I'd not have gone to the trouble of finally tracking down a free piece of audio software that's compatible with my old and creaky OS 10.2.8.  For those who may be in a similar situation, I recommend Audion.  Check it out.  Screw you iTunes!

Thanks to Audion I am now listening to The Flaming Lips doing their wonderfully low-fi rendition of “Little Drummer Boy” from their rather obscure 1994 EP, “Providing Needles for Your Balloons.”

I'm not terrible keen on Christmas music, but I have to admit that there have been some great rock and roll Christmas songs.  “Father Christmas” by the Kinks is a perfect example.  And right now, as I was trying to remember how it went, I did a Google search.  All I got were printed lyrics.  Of course!  YouTube.  And first on the YouTube list was a version of the Kinks' song by OK Go (you might remember their killer video of recent months, “Here it Goes Again” — my sister pointed that particular gem out to me).

Yeah, “Father Christmas” stills hold up fairly well.  But it wasn't the Kinks in top form.  They were sounding a bit desperate at that point in their career, trying to recapture their youthful brilliance.

As I was checking online for the date of this Kinks song (1976), I stumbled on a couple of other power-pop Brit '70s Christmas tunes.  “Merry Christmas Everybody,” by Slade, and “I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday,” by Wizzard (AKA, Roy Wood of The Move fame).

It is, of course, too early to begin speaking of Christmas music, or for that matter Christmas anything.  Especially for someone who so despises the holidays as do I.  But it is impossible to escape.  And so, Wednesday evening, I got a snootful of Holidays, both barrels (or, to avoid the mixing of metaphors, I suppose I mean “both nostrils”).  I was shopping at the HEB supermarket.  Yep.  The night before Thanksgiving.  Pete and Lisa invited me to their place for Thanksgiving dinner.  I thought I should bring something.  A pecan pie.  That'd fun to make.  The problem is, I didn't have much of the ingredients.  I'd have to make a run to the store.

And may God have mercy on my soul.

As I pulled into the parking-lot, I leaped upon what proved to be the only available parking space.

This wasn't shopping for amateurs.  You have to keep moving.  There are no second chances.  Don't even think about pausing to scratch your head and ponder over whether you want Kayro Dark Syrup, or Kayro Light … and, wait, is that a low carb Kayro?  Nope.  You will get caught up in the riptide of shoppers and become carried away down the aisle, but not pointed in the correct direction, facing sideways or backwards, and if you lose your footing, you will be instantly trampled into a chunky marinara, and with a staticy announcement over the PA system for “clean-up on aisle 7,” you will never be seen again.

So, I kept my head and stayed with the ebb and flow, and watched, with the detachment of a social anthropologist, as people scurried to add items to their shopping carts they'd never think twice about for the other ten or eleven months of the year, such as cans of jellied cranberry sauce, boxes of stovetop stuffing, huge disposable roasting pans, and any items with the word “giblets” in bubble font of an autumnal hue.

When I had made the rounds from the north side of the store for the the frozen pie crusts (and even down here in Bexar County I can hear my sister gasp — but I tried to call you, Paula, to get your cold water pie crust recipe, but you weren't answering the phone), to the south side of the store for the finest butter Falfurrias, Texas offers for export, I finally let the current move me to the lines queued up at the cash registers.  The truth is, it didn't take nearly as long as I thought it might.  The little girl seated in the grocery cart in front of me only made her way though “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” twice (although I do believe “White Christmas” was the tune playing on the sound system).  The kid had it down pretty good.  She accompanied herself with a box of Friskies Seafood Medley, shaken like maracas … until the checkout girl reached for it and trigged a tearful tantrum.  Perhaps that little girl should have held back her sobs two beats until the call went out for “clean-up on aisle 12” — another casualty of Black Wednesday.

Oh, this brings me to yet another Flaming Lips Christmas song playing on my computer.  “A Change At Christmas (Say It Isn't So),” from the EP “Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell.”

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Wednesday I met Deborah and Ramon for lunch.  We are trying to come up with a new art and / or video project.  By the fourth coffee refill this guy walks up and asks if we wanted to buy some tickets for a barbecue plate to raise money for a particular religious organization.  I quickly recognized the book the man was carrying.  Outcry From the Barrio, by Freddie Garcia of Victory Ministries fame.  About a year back in this blog I wrote a short passage about a guy with Victory Ministries who approached me in a parking-lot on the southside.  I had been intrigued to see him clutching the book which I have seen for years in used book stores throughout Texas.

And Wednesday, this man standing at our table had the same book.  The Spanish language version.

Deborah was reaching for money, but Ramon just grinned.

“I painted that,” he said, tapping the book.

“You're kidding?” I said.

“Naw, it's mine.”

The man holding the book, paused, a bit rattled by our reaction.  We weren't letting him explain how he overcame his drug addiction and was now on the straight and narrow.

Ramon took the book from the fellow's hands and began leafing through it.

“My name's in here somewhere,” he muttered.

Deborah suggested he look at the acknowledgments section.

The ex-addict mumbled that his copy was in Spanish.  Then he became a somewhat curious.  He asked Ramon if he knew Pastor Freddie?  Ramon just nodded.  Deborah said maybe it was in the back.

Finally Ramon found the passage where he was mentioned.  He pointed it out to the guy.  And then he picked up Deborah's pen and, though not requested to do so, he scribbled his autograph inside the front cover of the book.  The man seemed thankful and somewhat confused.  Ramon handed him a couple of bucks and he wandered off.

“Did you ever get paid for that?” I asked Ramon.

“A hundred bucks,” he said.  “It was small.”  He showed me with his hands.  “There was no scaling down.  It was the same size as the book.”

“More people have seen that than anything else you have done,” I said.  I knew a shitload of those books had been printed.  And, apparently, they are still being published.

“They didn't let me sign it,” Ramon said of the original art work.  He
just shrugged.

For some reason the images on the book's cover remind me of the religious comics of Jack Chick.  Even though I believe Ramon did it in the '80s, it has a decidedly '70s style.  Very Chicano iconic.

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Ah, now we have the greatest of the Flaming Lips Christmas songs.  “Christmas at the Zoo,” off the excellent “Clouds Taste Metallic” album.  There is a very fun video of the song posted on YouTube.

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Ramon told me that he would be spending Friday night in a tipi with other members of the local Tap Pilam Coahuiltecan Nation.  I'm not exactly sure what the ritual will be commemorating.  But he told me he was planning to bring plenty of blankets because of the cold front which was coming in.  I hate to hear that sort of stuff.  It looks like it will be a cold and damp and miserable weekend.  Oh well, at least I won't be spending it in a tipi.  However, the Coahuiltecans will be well provided with peyote, and I'll have … well, nothing much along those lines.

As we were each getting into our cars after lunch, Deborah asked when we should meet again.  “Sometime next week,” I said.

Ramon agreed, but said Monday would be bad.  He shook his head, bugged out his eyes to us, and he made a little circling motion around his temple in the international crazy symbol.

“Oh,” said Deborah.  “The peyote.”

Ramon nodded.  “It takes it out of me … for a few days.”

I was at Gemini Ink earlier this week for my novel writing group.  Because, least you forget, National Novel Writing Month is more than half over.

My first 12 pages of The Cucuy Club were open for feedback.  Unlike many of these writing groups where everyone kisses one another's posterior parts, I think I got some useful comments.  Gregg Barrios, who's leading our group, had some keen insight on restructuring the opening.  I think I'll take him up on it.  We also discussed the works of two other writers in our group whose work impressed me very much.

On my short drive to Gemini Ink, I saw my friend Alston walking into Tito's Tacos.  I had to pull over and go in and say hi.  She was meeting someone there for dinner — a friend who had not yet seen her paintings displayed on the walls.  Check it out.  I really love her art.  Great use of light and shadow, and whenever I see her stuff I'm stuck by how they remind me of two favorites of mine, de Chirico and Guston — I'm amazed by her use of perspective, as well as the forceful gravity everything in her paintings seem to possess.  Her show is on the walls of Tito's for the rest of the month.  And don't forget to grab a bite.  The Enchiladas Tejanas kick ass!

After my meeting at Gemini Ink, I headed to the HEB closest to me.  And there was Catherine Cisneros doing her Thanksgiving shopping.  She said she was going to cook shrimp.  “Who makes turkey anymore?” she mused rhetorically as she placed a few bottles of wine in her cart.

You never know who you're going to meet in this neighborhood.

For the last few days I've been working for Urban-15 for their upcoming Holiday Laser Show.  It's one of there big yearly events.  They will be having it at the Aztec Theater.  December 6th and 7th (a Thursday and Friday), and again on the 10th and 11th (Monday and Tuesday) are the days for the local school districts.  I believe we're expecting over five thousand students.  (There have been some budget cutbacks, and we're trying to make sure that all the schools can afford buses.)  On each of these four days there will be three shows between nine am and two p.m..

If anyone who reads this blog is interested in volunteering as ushers for that time-slot on one of those dates (or, even better, multiple dates), please let me know and we'll make it happen!

There will be additional shows Friday night, and Saturday and Sunday matinees for the public.  The Aztec will have their own staff, so I can't offer any volunteer gigs on those performances.  But it's only 12 bucks, or 8 for kids.

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Last Friday night was the final film slam put on by NALIP for 2007.  Because of some restructuring of key personal within the local chapter, we only had three slams this year.

I was considering blowing it off.  You see, when Dora called me up and asked if I had a good idea of a venue for this slam, I mentioned a few places.  She said she might follow up on one or two.  But she was leaning toward the Blue Star Brewing Company.  I said it might be good to go with a place she'd worked with before.  And we left it at that.

Somehow I had forgotten all about the incident back in September, which, in the San Antonio art world is Foto Septembre, an entire month devoted to celebrating local photographers.  But unfortunately a certain individual was hired to curate a photography show at a swanky local watering hole (ooooh, it's so fun writing like a bitchy and vague gossip columnist!), only to be rebuffed by the owner, once all said art had been hung upon the walls, that it was too nelly for his establishment and may well bring in drag queens and fellow travelers.  He was having none of that.  Well, one of the other establishments owned by this gay-unfriendly entrepreneur, is, of course, the Blue Star Brewing Company.

(Use your Google-skills to learn more.  There was an editorial written in the San Antonio Current by, I believe, Elaine Wolff.  That particular piece isn't nearly as interesting as the massive under-crawl of comments by on-line readers, some of whom were present during the exchange.)

(And, here, as an additional parenthetical, it should be obvious to anyone who runs a bar in an artsy area of a major city that you are already catering to the gay crowd.)

While on the phone with Dora, I'd forgotten I was supposed to be boycotting the place in solidarity with San Antonio's Nancy Boys, Diesel Dykes, Switch Hitters, Glam Trannies, and the whole raft of offended members of our town's GLBT constituency.  One of the reasons I hadn't given this too much thought was because I'd already, in effect, been boycotting the Blue Star Brewing Company for some years as a yuppie haven, clogged with soulless sots. Besides, it was too pricey for me.  Yeah, yeah, I know.  That's not true boycottery.

However, if Dora hadn't called me Friday afternoon, asking if I could help out at the slam later that night, I'd likely have stayed home.

Okay.  So I headed over — hell, it's just six blocks away.
 
It was a night a great films.  And I wish it hadn't been.  What I have loved most about past NALIP video slams in the past is that you never knew who would show up or what they would bring.  And some of the rough and downright crude works are often as fun and memorable as those with polish.

The first one I went to, maybe three years ago, was a wonderful mishmash.  Katsy Joiner was there to workshop a short film of hers in an early edit.  I thought that was so cool.  And there was also a technical experiment that AJ Garces had put together.  He had been working with a Military recreation group in Fredericksburg.  He'd shot loads of footage on his XL1 and, in post, he'd processed the video to look like period black and white 16mm film.  He'd gone so far as to insert fake muzzle flashes whenever a “recreator” would pretend to shoot his gun.  Pretty cool stuff.

But last Friday it was all good and polished work.  Just another dreary showcase.  Most films I had seen around town in other venues over the last few months.  There was AJ's Crush, Chadd's Dating Danielle, Ranferi's Roses and Graves, a couple of great shorts by Prime Eights Mark Walley & Angela Guerra, Brant's great Heinz spec commercial as well as one of his excellent videos for psycho billy locals Boxcar Satan, Bryan Ortiz's very impressive Last Chance, a film titled Reflections by a young local filmmaker new to me whose name I can't recall, and a piece called El Ride also by a young local filmmaker new to me whose name I can't recall either.

I really wanted some edgy and challenging and absolutely uncategorizable works.  We had nothing of the sort.  Just polite polish. 

I was conscripted to be one of the judges.  The other two judges were Hank (who helped out taking tickets), and our MC, Jessica Hernandez, who works for the local Fox News affiliate.  We took maybe five minutes to chose El Ride.  It's very good.  Cute, smart, flows well, and it delivers exactly what it promises. 
According to Dora, the piece had screened at the San Antonio Underground Film Festival.

We were also treated to a short snippet of Dora's feature, Dream Healer, which is still in post production.  It looks great.  Bravo, Dora Pena!

I only wish I could heap praise on the folks at the venue.  Anecdotal accusations of intolerance aside, we had next to no one to help with AV issues.  Manuel was there, as always, to run the tech for the slam.  But the venue was almost useless.  I can't really shit on the two guys who were on hand to help us out.  They did their best.  But they were also expected to be running the bar and waiting tables.  It soon became apparent that, even though the management knew we would be in their event room, using their audio visual equipment, the soundboard hadn't been hooked up.  Also, there was no remote to the DVD player, so people who provided us DVDs with menus were shit out of luck.  It took us fifteen fucking minutes to find someone who knew how to turn off four spot lights aimed at a stage to the side of the room.  As for all these stories I hear about the Blue Star Brewing Company double-booking their back room for events, I'm still not sure if it's because they're looking for the best deal, or they're just inept.  Or both.

If you're in the King William area and you have a hankering for beer and burgers, you might wanna give La Tuna a try.  It's just across the street.
 

Monday morning I was thinking about crawling out of bed and facing the day. But, really, why? I'd put the trash out on the curb the night before. So I was good there. And then I heard the rumbling of a diesel engine that didn't sound like the trash crew, and it was just idling in front of my house. So I peered outside. It was a truck with a sign on the side: “Speed Hump Crew.” Great! They were going to start early morning construction in front of my house installing one of those horrible speed bumps. But, wait. All they did was put up a “Work Crew Ahead” sign. They then headed down to the next block to fuck with some other layabout's sleep. I crawled back in bed. And then I heard my neighbor Jerry shouting across the street to my other neighbor, Bradley. “So, Brad, I see you're heading into work? You didn't get the day off?” Suddenly I realized it was a holiday. Fuck! Another goddamn day where I knew my check from that national film organization (who still haven't paid me) will not arrive. Therefore I had no earthly reason to get out of bed. But I couldn't manage to drift off, back to sweet oblivion.

I was working on my first cup of coffee and checking out the blogs of a San Antonio artist new to me, Dawn Houser. She had introduced herself to me through MySpace. She's working in that fascinating growing craft subculture that's definitely not your mom's macrame and decoupage. Among the photos of her garden and studio and pets was a wealth of writing. I read some about her recent experience at Stitch, an annual event in Austin that brings together the armies of the DIY handmade expression revolution.

www.dawnhouser.com

And then the phone rang. I was tempted to ignore it, but I took a peek at the display. It was Deborah. And I never ignore Deborah. She wanted to know if I wanted to videotape any of the Dia de los Muertos alters at Centro Cultural Aztlan. This was my last chance. The show was coming down that day. I said I'd be there in thirty minutes. So I took a shower, packed up my camera, and headed out. I detoured down Crofton to bypass the Speed Humpers (which sounds like a particularly lame New Jersey rock band, circa 1989).

Deborah was holding off taking down her own alter at Centro until I got some footage. I made a round through the gallery taking close-up slow passes of about a dozen Dia de los Muertos alters.

Ramon happened to be there. This video taping was connected to a potentially larger project. Ramon Vasquez-y-Sanchez, one of the founders of Centro Cultural Aztlan, had been the first person to think to bring these alters which remember the dead into the realm of the art gallery. Me, Ramon, and Deborah are considering a video project to explore this pivotal point where a cultural phenomenon transitioned into an artistic expression and eventually became the commercial entity it is today.

Deborah asked Ramon is he'd like to sit down for an interview in the gallery and give his history in this development. He said he had to go do something with one of his sons. And then Deborah realized she was supposed to head over to Bihl Haus to babysit the gallery while artists from that gallery's last group show came by to remove their works. And I had to get ready for a writers group later in the day at Gemini Ink. We decided to get together the next day and have breakfast in La Rancherita's (where Ramon used to have breakfast every day before work back when Centro was located in Las Palmas Mall). I hadn't been to La Rancharita's in two years or so. This was where me and Deborah and Ramon first began to lay down the framework for what eventually became our group identity of Proyecto Locos, resulting in a trip to San Miguel de Allende, a short documentary on that city's Dia de los Locos festival, and the first annual Dia de los Artista parade and festival here in San Antonio.

We agreed. And we all went our separate ways.

I returned and sat down to read four prose passages by my fellow novel-writers in the ad hock “class” at Gemini Ink. Everyone is supposed to share their first 12 pages with the group, and we all provide one another with feedback.

The first two were well-written but very mediocre. I expect that in two years we will have a computer program that can write stuff like this. The other two pieces both had heart and made me smile. The sort of stuff computers probably will never be able to write (though I might be wrong … I, myself, might be a computer — really, who can tell these days?).

I scribbled out some lame, but supportive comments.

And then I did my best to clean up the first 12 pages of my own November Novel. I'd already posted it on line through my blog. It was a mess. And I've cleaned up some of the dumbest typos. The first person to shame me was Thorne. He pointed to a blunder in the very first line. Thanks man, for pointing it out … also for mentioning it in an email and not a blog comment.

I sat down and read through the 12 pages again and found typo after typo. It's currently fairly clean. Perfect? I doubt it. I'm a horrible speller. And my grasp of grammar is, as you, gentle reader, can heartily agree.

Anyway, I printed up ten copies of my first 12 pages and headed to Gemini Ink. The group is pretty good. My second meeting with them. Some decent insights being shared. And at the end of the night I passed out my pages, and headed on home.

@@@@@

Tuesday morning, at La Rancharita's, it was the return of the prodigal son. Felix, the owner, ambled over and sat for awhile, commenting on how long it'd been since he last had seen Ramon.

I'd gladly give a plug. A great family-run Mexican cafe on the southern westside. It's on General McMullen Drive, just a couple blocks north of Castroville Road. Light and fluffy corn tortillas.

We then headed to San Fernando Cemetery No.2, which is just across Castroville Road from Las Palmas Mall. This is where many of Ramon's family are buried. We walked to his grandmother's grave and he set up an alter of things meaningful to her and to him. As a Native American offering, he lit some sage in a clay pot. Deborah attached a wireless microphone to his shirt and I framed in a bit of sky over the gravestone. He gave us a solid oral history of his memories of the day of recuerdos while he was growing up. He then segued into his work bringing the alters into his gallery. And he finished up with a commentary of where things currently stand, with shows all over the country (and abroad) on the second of November.

It turned out very nice.

I grabbed a bike ride later in the afternoon. And I made the mistake of lounging among the fire ants in the grass on a hill overlooking the San Antonio River. It took me a moment to realize I had company, but when I felt the first bite, I sprang to my feet brushing off those evil little bastards. I'm still blaming every poor decision I've made during the last two days on the formic acid no doubt still toxifying my blood stream. The pustules are finally beginning to subside.

Oh my god! I've the title of my next short film! Finally I feel inspired to make movies again. Tighten your belts, folks. “The Pustules Are Finally Beginning to Subside” will hit the multiplex near you — summer of 2008!

Back home I found — FINALLY — a check awaiting me from a particular national film organization. It only took eight weeks. But good. I was assuming I'd have to live on the bounty of my pecan tree. I was down to “seeds and stems,” as George Cisneros is found of saying, channeling the argot of Richard Linklater's sophomore film.

I was in a pretty good mood when I arrived at the downtown library for the Film Commission's final Film Forum of the year. It was all about animation. Folks on the panel from Prime Eights, UIW, Geo Media, New Tek, NESA, and the Film School of San Antonio.

Before the forum began, I was chatting with Michael Druck. When he realized I had seen Bryan Ortiz's recent short film, Stand, he asked what I thought of it. Well, I know that Bryan and Michael work pretty tightly together, so I tried to be kind. I began by saying I assumed it was done on a schedule crunch, because Bryan usually makes tighter, cleaner short films. My criticism didn't seem to bother Druck over-much. He was curious of my option. I followed it up with the observation that, had anyone else done this, I'd be fast with the praise. But because Bryan's work is so smart, clever, and professional, I just wasn't impressed. He's set the bar very high for himself. If all anyone had seen of his stuff were these shorts: Compose, Goodbye Digital, and Last Chance, he or she, after watching Stand, would assume that this was the earliest of these four shorts, and not the most recent.

But no disrespect to Bryan. He's one of our truly gifted emerging filmmakers, and I know I'm not the only one who expects great things from him. And, also, it always good to see Paul Scofield, who is a great underutilized San Antonio actor. So, it'd be a killer film were it directed by, say, Erik Bosse. As a piece given to us by Bryan Ortiz, it's merely so-so. However, I'll certainly be waiting for the next one.

And then Janet, from the film commission, came up and requested my “technical expertise.” I explained I had but a modicum. She wasn't dissuaded. And so I walked up to where the panelists would be seated. I took it that I was to feed the panelists' DVD demos into the Film Commission's laptop which was hooked up to the Film Commission's video projector.

Little did I know, the AV folks with the library had gone home for the day. And there had been no one there to vet the manner in which the equipment was hooked up. Each panelist had a microphone, but the volume, we learned fairly late, was set very very low, and the controls were in a side room behind a placard written in an angry Sharpie: “Do Not Touch Equipment!”

It really was no problem, the hall was small, so the voices carried. And because the turn-out was fairly slight, those who couldn't hear could move closer. But Drew (our film commissioner) has been providing these film forums as audio pod casts, so we needed to know that everyone had a live microphone. I was thinking it'd all work okay, because the mics were picking up their voices — the output through the speakers to the audience was the problem.

When I tried to play to first DVD of the night, which Angela of the Prime Eights had given me, it just froze up on the computer. And I was trapped, in semi darkness, trying to remember how to operate a PC (me having become a Mac guy). This laptop is what they're stuck with at the Film Commission. I borrowed a laptop of theirs before. And for those filmmakers out there that think Drew and Janet can wrangle them massive $$$$, I ask that they look at the old equipment they're having to use. Their resources are always stretched thin, and we need to applaud all the work they do to creatively make their limited funds deliver tangible results — such as these film forums.

And so, I had to shut down the computer. I hoped that by starting it back up, we'd get the disk to play. Nikki (our moderator) thought I'd resolve this issue quickly. She has too much faith in me. But when she realized how long it takes to shut down and restart an old laptop crammed with software, she finally decided to move from making film-related announcements, to talking to the panelists. Fine. Because Angela's DVD failed the second time. I was ready to blame the computer and not the disk. Angela and Mark had given me a Prime Eights demo disk a couple of weeks back, and it played fine.

I saw that Lee, who was busy taking still photos, had brought his own laptop. But he said it didn't have the right sort of output for the projector.

And at that moment, Rick Lopez saved my ass. He said his Mac Book Pro (which he had with him) had an s-video port. Konise from NESA hauled out an s-video cable. I quickly conscripted Rick as the AV guy and gave him my chair.

Nikki kept up her conversation with the panelists. But I was having a problem getting the projector to recognize the s-video feed. The guy from UIW (University of the Incarnate Word) quietly handed us one of those Mac VGA monitor adaptors. Rick fed it into his computer and suddenly we had picture.

It takes a village … indeed it does.

Picture, but no sound. Rick aimed one of the spare microphones toward the built-in speaker of his computer. It helped a bit, but not much. I'm thinking it was picked up for the audio pod cast, but the audience had to strain.

Oh well, I think we got the point across.

With the third DVD, Rick's swank Mac was having problems. And, because the video feed was showing his computer's desktop, I could see that he had already tried about four different methods to play that particular disk.

I told Rick to cue up the next DVD, and I would try the Film Commission's laptop on this particular DVD. Maybe it was a Mac issue. It wasn't. It was a fucked up DVD. I won't name names, but when the panelist gave it to me, it was the only disk not in some sort of case or protective sleeve. And it was scratched and smudged. From the look if it, I can only assume this individual has been transporting the demo reel inside a mayonnaise and gravel sandwich for quite sometime. It simply would not play.

Luckily, Rick's computer quickly got aboard the library's wifi service and we were able to see some of the work being done by this panelist which is posted on the web.

All in all, it wasn't awful. I was feeling a bit embarrassed that the technical problems, which had been given to me to handle, were only slightly handled. Thankfully Rick was there. But, ultimately, we had some people saying some interesting stuff. And, really, it's a free forum.

So, as I was helping pack up the equipment — while the rest of the room was getting deep into their networking opportunities — I was somewhat perplexed when Nikki and Janet ambushed me, pleading that I not savage them in my blog.

What?

I was amused by their appeals to my compassion.

Maybe Nikki had recently read the blog entry where I had some snide things to say about the San Antonio Office of Cultural Affairs. She was obviously thinking I had just gone nuts! I told them not to worry.

But I guess the biggest pain in the ass was that I suddenly felt my own performance anxiety. They were expecting that I'd be blogging about the event. IK actually hadn't planned on it. I mean, I am supposed to be writing a novel. But, guys, here you go.

As we all walked to the library parking-lot, Janet did her best to give us a smiled which failed to mask the obvious tsunami of frustration of a night she thought was an unmitigated disaster. (Janet, it was no such thing.) She wanted to know who was up for a stiff drink.

Later, at Ruta Maya Coffee House (they have a liquor license), I discovered that Janet's notion of a stiff drink is a single glass of red wine.

And if that's all it takes to smooth out an unmitigated disaster, you've done well.

It was a fun night. I was able to see some great animation work being done in this town I hadn't even know about.

The only question I have is to Pete. You get any helpful info about rotoscoping?

For those curious about my november novel (AKA, “The Cucuy Club”), you can click over to my fiction site and read a very rough draft of chapter 1.

http://erikbosse.wordpress.com/

Much of the description of the ruins of Antigua Guerrero were inspired from my recent trip to Mexico.

Hope you enjoy it.