I don't know if the drought is continuing in Asheville, but here in San Antonio, it's like living in a terrarium … with intermittent thunderstorms. It's about time to run another load of laundry, and I blanch at the thought of the squadrons of mosquitoes at their ready the next time I sashay out to the laundry line clutching my bag of clothespins.

This morning I was setting up for a photo shoot on the second floor performance space at Urban-15. Catherine didn't care for the photos I had taken previously for the Josiah film festival. And I guess I wasn't too thrilled with them either.

So at ten a.m. I laid out the props and planned out the two shots I wanted. Russ showed up with an Omni Pro light kit. By that time, I was pouring with sweat. Damn weather! I turned on a fan, but it wasn't helping. As Russ set up the lights, Hector wandered in. He's like the building manager, you know, the guy with the tool-belt … the man who knows more than he'll admit about what goes on. “You guys want the AC on?” In lieu of a verbal response I just began closing the windows. He fired the cool on high. And by that I mean, low. Bliss.

Amanda showed up. She was our model. She helped with the lights and I went down to the courtyard and grabbed a ladder. I knew I needed to get up high for the shot.

With all this production of three lights, a ladder, a beautiful girl, and ninety-something DVDs spread out on the floor, there I was clutching my little point-and-shoot Nikon Coolpix. Perhaps I've come down a few pegs from my teens and twenties when I'd prowl about with my Nikon FE SLR; but this is the 21 century, and if you can't use a 150 buck digital camera to generate photos for the antiquated print media (as well as, well, blogs), than you have no business around any flavor of camera, whether it be humble, or highfaluting. But try explaining that to someone who sees you unpacking a 1200 dollar light kit followed by a $150 camera. “Soooo, that's what you're using? Huh.”

Russ also had brought along his new point-and-shoot pocket camera. One of those incredibly slim-lined Canon Elphs. That son of a bitch went from being envious of my little camera, to becoming one who is envied by his cooler little camera.  Damn.

The shoot went well. It's always a joy to work with Amanda.

As we were packing up, Catherine flounced into the room wearing this puffy white costume with a tight white cap — it made me think of Busby Berkeley productions. The room we were shooting in was where the Urban-15 dance troupe practiced (and occasionally performed) — therefore several of the walls were covered with mirrors. Catherine approached one of those walls and began dancing, watching her reflection.

“Nice, um, costume,” I suggested.

“I'm dancing the solstice,” she said, watching herself with a critical eye.

“Oh. And, um, is that today?”

She shot me a glance over her shoulder with just enough pity for it to convey that I was a silly boy.

As she moved slowly, dancing with her reflection, she explained that her husband (George) had been something of a collaborator on an art project which had been installed some years ago atop the parking garage at the San Antonio airport. I gathered there are, like, stain-glass panels that only come to life during the solstice.

“Like Stonehenge?” I hazarded.

“Six minutes after one o'clock this afternoon — that's the solstice. We always dance there for the summer solstice.” She stopped dancing, and turned to the windows on the far side of the room. “But I'm afraid it might rain.”

“Yeah,” I said, collapsing a light stand. “The clouds would mess up the sun.”

“What? No, the rain. We'd get all wet.” She puffed out her skirts. And giving one last look at the mirror — approval — she headed downstairs.

Me and Russ exchanged glances. The unspoken thought was: we both have cameras, yet neither of us took a photo of a beautiful woman in a bizarre costume dancing with herself in a mirror. If I were indeed a man of honor, I would tear up my Nikon Voyeur Membership Card. But, I hardly need to point out that men with such credentials are rarely honorable.

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I'm still in the preliminary stage of viewing the DVDs of the Josiah student film fest. I've watched just over forty of them. They run the gamut of painful to excellent. Like, of course, any film festival. It's the excellent that intrigues me. There are some really strong pieces here. Quite a few, actually. It's going to be a good three nights of screening.

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For those interested, I have created a MySpace page for the Josiah Youth Media Festival. It can be found at:

http://www.myspace.com/jymf

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Tomorrow night I'll be at the San Antonio Underground Film Festival. Adam Rocha has taken his festival to a whole new level. Three days, two venues, loads of great films!

I wish I had the cash and the time to see it all. But I think I'll go to the “Program II” (7 – 11) Friday night at the Aztec. They will be screening the entirety of Brant Bumpers music videos for the band Boxcar Satan. I own the DVD.  Brant is one of my favorite directors. Do yourself a favor. Show up to see these great works. Also, in this block of film/video is Ya’Ke Smith's award winning short, “The Second Coming.” The San Antonio Current put him on the cover last week. As well they should. His work needs to be seen.

Great job, Adam! If I knew the festival was going to be so swanky, I'd have budgeted a full pass. Hell, I might have even cleaned up an edit of one of my shorts and submitted it — crossed my fingers with hopes of inclusion.

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If you're not hanging out at the San Antonio Underground Film Festival this Sunday, 5 – 7:30 p.m., join me at La Luna.

Here's my MySpace bulletin pitch:

Best Poetry in Town — This Sunday

Come join me this Sunday afternoon for some of the best poetry in San Antonio.

It's at the ultra-cool jazz club, La Luna (on San Pedro, near Camera Exchange).

Only a $5 donation — and that'd be cheap if only Jesse Cardona was reading (and he fucking rocks). But there are nine kick-ass poets. Be there or be square. Are you square? I didn't think so.

Friday night I attended a poetry reading at the Bihl Haus.

Deborah is the artistic advisor there and she curates most of the shows, so I try to attend as often as my schedule will allow. Friday was to celebrate the memory of poet Trinidad Sanchez, Jr. There were over 15 poets slated to read. For most, this would be a red flag. Beware — poetry! But some of the people slated were writers whose works I've enjoyed in the past. Unfortunately Naomi Shihab Nye was unable to make it. I like her work, but have never had the good fortune to hear her read. She and Sandra Cisneros are this town's literary rock stars (I guess I could mention John Phillip Santos, but I'm never sure if he still lives here …). Jesse Cardona continues to amaze me. Why he's not a household name, is beyond me. Oh, right. He's a poet. Ramon Vasquez read a poem I'd heard him deliver at his mother's retirement party a couple months back. It's very moving and was well received. Xavier Garza, whose playful and iconic Lucha Libre paintings are currently on the walls of the Bihl Haus, stepped up to the microphone. He, like most all of the participants, had known Trinidad. Xavier, besides being an artist, is also a story-teller and collector of folklore. He treated us to one of the Cucuys he had heard from his father while growing up in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. A Cucuy is like a Mexican boogyman, and, as a story-telling form, Cucuys are kind of like urban legends. He launched into a tale of a gigantic ghost owl with glowing red eyes who torments a hapless borracho, a poor old sot who is just trying to get home after the bars closed.

If all these folks who read are, to some degree at least, the creative off-spring of Trinidad Sanchez, Jr. (most were effusive naming him as their mentor), then he made quite an impact well beyond the body of his published works. I realized, during the intermission, that of all the group poetry readings I've attended (from invitation-only to open-mike), this was the first time I was quite happy I'd decided to sit on the front row. [For those not habituates of these sorts of events, you always sit in the back near the door so that when you have to make an exit — if only for your own mental well-being — your frantic egress will not be so disruptive.] But it was a great evening with no need to flee.

Perhaps things went so well because Ramon Vasquez y Sanchez (the Man, the Myth, the Legend) suited up in his Coahuiltecan garb and blessed the event and the building Indian-style with the smoke from burning sage.

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Pete's spent the weekend at the Creative Capital workshop. It's purpose is to help artists navigate the choppy waters of business. A good idea, as arty people seem to lack that money gene. Hell, I failed to apply because when I heard about it I only had three days to meet the deadline. As I had several projects in the works, I knew I didn't have time to chase down all the paperwork and letters of recommendation and et al of which they were asking for. I found myself whining about this to TJ Gonzales. He just shrugged and told me I should always have that stuff on hand. He is, of course, correct.

So, I'll have to corner Pete in the days ahead and glean some of what he learned.

The other day he called to see if I had some project descriptions and budgets we'd generated some time back for a production. This is stuff he thought might help in his Creative Capital work. The stuff was on my old computer, and I printed it up for him. While he had me on the phone, he asked if I'd seen the latest issue of the Current (San Antonio's free weekly entertainment tabloid). Nope, I said. He suggested I check it out.

I didn't have any reason to head out and find one, so I checked online.

The cover story was film-related. I clicked on the photo. The title of the lead piece was: Inside the San Antonio Film District.

Jesus. Now I know why Dora Pena was asking me what I knew about the San Antonio Film District. She had been contacted by Current writer Ashley Lindstrom.

I read the article. For the most part, it's well-written. It shows that Mark Sullivan's operation, the San Antonio Film District, is currently a nonfunctional production facility. There are descriptions of crumbling infrastructure within the huge warehouse space, not to mention businesses which Sullivan claims to have working relationships with, yet they've never heard of him. All this should make one suspicious. So, why end the piece with a pie-in-the-sky quote from Sullivan: “…the San Antonio Film District is a movie-making machine”???

The San Antonio Film District is nothing of the sort.

And here is one of the problems in this city. If the film and video production people in San Antonio are disinclined to go on record without being so damn polite, this city will continue to fail in its struggle to bring in out-of-town productions. I wonder how many production companies have turned tail and fled after encountering the likes of Mark Sullivan and his San Antonio Film District, or Al Frakes and his San Antonio Film Council? These gentlemen might mean well (and I truly believe that they do); but, please, create the reality before sending out the press releases. Make no mistake, guys, we all share the shame you generate.

I've been to the San Antonio Film District space (AKA, Sake Studios). Not as a filmmaker, but as an audience member to see a film that the San Antonio Green Party was screening there. I tried to visit the studios over three years ago when I moved here. Me and Pete met Mark Sullivan and his (then) partner Robbie at a NALIP video slam at the Wiggle Room. They invited us to come and visit. We were given a phone number, which they never answered, nor did they returned our calls.

Over the years I have pieced together the manner in which the San Antonio Film District operates from talking to half a dozen local filmmakers who (like us all, it seems) are too circumspect to go on record with their perplexing experiences with Mr. Sullivan over there in that huge warehouse. I've created what I feel is a good model by reading between the lines. True, my opinions are based primarily on gossip, and I'm not going to share them here. But when I finally gained entrance to the facilities to see the Green Party's screening of Greenwald's Iraq for Sale, I was saddened by the waste of possibilities. It seems that Mark Sullivan is holding onto a dream which died half a decade ago. The warehouse is huge, true, but the reception area is unmanned, the sound stages are mostly outsourced as storage facilities, many breaker boxes seemed dead (Green Party volunteers used flashlights to help us find the screening room), and the screening room itself, though functional, was spare as a maquiladora dormitory.

What struck me the most is that the author of this article missed out on the real story. Over the years I have been fascinated by the snippets I've heard of the District, and it seemed to me to be a great story of high hucksterism and missed opportunities; but instead, Ashley Lindstrom gave us a near puff piece, when what we needed was to be entertained with a clever hatchet job. Where was the bit where our intrepid reported asks: “This facility is extraordinary — but where do you keep that machine?” “What?” “You know. That machine that squeezes the oil out of the snakes.”

Oh, I forgot. That machine is called the Press Release.

Tonight (Friday), I stopped at the HEB near my house (HEB is the supermarket chain which has a near monopoly on this city — it's rather freaky). In the check-out line this energetic young man with a buzz cut asked: “Didn't you used to live across the street from me?” He had this sort of generic latino frat boy look, and I didn't recognize him. Besides, other than the weeks (or was it months) I mooched off Pete and Lisa's good nature, I've only had one address in San Antonio. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “You still live there. The white pickup truck. I live in the green house next to Jerry. My name's Ross.” I gave him mine. We shook. I realized that I hardly ever saw him except at night, and then just as a shadowy form unloading his SUV, or, perhaps, having a cold one on his wide front porch.

Ross asked what was it about all those movies I was always making on the street. I knew what he was thinking by his unabashed leer, but rather than let him assume I was the porno king of E. Guenther, I set him straight. Well, I tried. It's hard to explain to people why you make short films, especially where money is rarely involved. I then mentioned Robin's film which had been partially shot on my block. I explained that it was a project hopeful of distribution. It was beginning to make more sense to him.

I explained that two friends would be making films on the street this summer. AJ Garces has some scene for a project planned for my block. And I discovered Wednesday that Dora Pena's feature, the Dream Healer, is quite probably going to be principally shot on my block.

When I asked if Ross would be willing for someone to use his house, he just grinned. “Fuck yeah! You only live once.” Perhaps he was back to thinking about porn. But, still, he seems a good connection.

Back on Wednesday I dropped by the G2E offices (home of media wizs Robb Garcia and his brother Ron Garcia). Dora Pena had a desk there which she was using to bring her feature into the production phase (in just a few weeks they'll be shooting) — Los Bros Garcia will be integral collaborators. Anyway, I dropped by because Dora, in here capacity as NALIP-SA's Chief Financial Officer (meaning, she lugs around the checkbook), was the one who would be reimbursing me for the Meet-the-Maker event I helped coordinated a couple weeks back. I handed over the receipts, and she wrote a check.

We chatted about various things, mostly film related.

Then I mentioned something about how I hated to get emails about productions with no names attached, just a phone number.

“If I get something forwarded to me from someone else in the film community with, you know, we need this piece of equipment or these types of actors or whatever, and the only info is a phone number, I'm not going to forward it.”

Dora waited, patiently, understanding I was still in mid-rant.

“For all I know,” I continued, “it could be some project being run by one of our local film assholes. And I don't want to put myself in the position of sending someone I know towards one of those situations.”

Dora nodded.

“Let me give you an example.” I leaned back in my chair. “Maybe two days ago, I got a call from my landlady. Seems someone wants to shoot on my block. In my house — well, me three-plex. I told her to get a name. Not some vague production company, but the name of the director or the producer. I cautioned her that she didn't want to get stuck with some irresponsible jerk bringing a nightmare down on her property.”

Dora folded her feet up into her swivelly office chair.

“So, um, where do you live?” she asked.

“King William. I'm across the street from Sandra Cisneros.”

She laughed.

“It was us! We want to shoot in that two-story house on the corner. But we also want to be able to shoot the exteriors of some other houses — with actors on the porches and things like that.”

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In some nearby parallel universe, I would have, at that point, removed a plastic-tipped White Owl cigar from it's cocoon of cellophane, lit an Ohio Blue-Tip off the stubble on the hard line of my jaw, and I would have fixed her with the cold blast of my gaze.

“Listen lady, ain't nothing film-related goes on in my neighborhood without my approval. I recall when Joe Dante was sniffing around town for his bio pic, Whitley Strieber, the Teen Years. He'd been in some sort of negotiations with neighbors two doors down because they have this kick-ass tree house. When I got wind, I raised hell, I did! Told that Hollywood hack I was the dealmaker on the 700 block of East Guenther — the goddamn dealmaker! He played me some chin music about a brace of studio lawyers kept on short leashes and just waiting to lunge on small fry like me. Little did he know, I'm pretty tight with the infamous El Picante. Rumor has it, this pinche badass keeps on retainer a squad of Samurai werewolves headquarters in the Rio Grande Valley.”

“Wow! So, what happened?”

“When's the last time you heard of Joe Dante?”

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The Josiah Youth Media Festival is moving along. Urban-15 has just installed their new nine foot movie screen. It has a little motor that makes it retract back into the ceiling. Very useful, because George and Cat want to make the space useful for all sorts of events.

I dropped by Urban-15 last night. I had been busy that day with Russ and Christy working on Melancholy (the movie) [and I want to hear that read as a terse voice-over: “put aside all sharp objects, and lock up your meds, because after the coming attractions, we will be viewing” — deep reverb — “Melancholy, the Movie!”]. George left a message on my voice mail that he'd be at the studio late watching the basketball game.

So, after Christy dropped me off at home sometime after ten, I got in my truck and drove to the old church where Urban-15 has its headquarters to be brought up to speed on the JYMF. I rang the bell. George answered it. We went downstairs.

There were two woman I didn't know sitting with Catherine in front of a back-projected large screen — a gigantic TV experience. They were cheering the Spurs, probably drinking, and helping themselves to loads of chips and dips.

I talked some with George and Catherine, but they seemed fairly involved with the TV action. I should point out that I am, in the words of John Waters, “A sports bigot.” I stood behind the women watching what I guess was a really close score with 7.5 seconds to go. Fifteen minutes later there was still 7 seconds to go. There was talk about piling into someone's truck and cruising downtown with a bullhorn and a box of firecrackers. It sounded kind of fun. But I was exhausted after a long day of shooting and, really, it was just some silly game ….

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Thursday. Another exhausting day shooting Melancholy.

We started off in Seguin. Russ knew he could cajole his friends Brooks and Barb to let us use their property. Russ already had his little hand-made boat, Ponga, stored there on the shore of the Guadalupe.

We were still doing the Eve and Despair sequences. Christy still wore the dark wig. And we were still working with Andrew. Also, we still had Martin to help us. At one point, Russ mused that it would be helpful to have someone out on the river other than our two actors — to wrangle the boat. Martin pointed to a little plastic kayak. “I can work one of those,” he said with authority. And so he could. He was a great help.

The scenes of Russ' homebuilt boat drifting slowly across the fame with Eve and Despair facing each other and running through a sequence of ritualistic movements involving a length of red cloth was truly beautiful. The warm tones of the wooden boat contrasted cleanly against the green waters of the Guadalupe River.

After the Seguin scene we headed back to Canyon Lake.

We were only able to shoot a very short scene with Christy and Andrew in a tree before a line of dark clouds came fast across the lake towards us. We arranged a couple more quick set-ups and called “cut.” We scurried about breaking down the equipment and moving everything up a steep, rough trail.

The skies didn't look that they were going to settle down, so we called it a day and grabbed dinner at an Italian place near the lake.

Monday I headed out to New Braunfels with Christy to work on her short film, Melancholy. The back seat of her car was crammed with a large cooler, Andrew (who was to play the part of Despair), and his friend Martin. Neither Christy nor myself are much in the way of morning people. But Martin crackled with high-energy and kept a running commentary from the backseat. He mentioned later that he had been up all night, so I assume he was in the giddy sleep deprivation mode.

We stopped by Russ' place. He had all the equipment loaded up in his truck. So, after I finished off Russ' pot of coffee, and Christy changed in the bathroom, we were ready to head out. Christy's wig was in better form, and looked much more natural on her than the previous day.

At Comal Park, on the shores of Canyon Lake, we were waved in by a fellow manning the security kiosk. Christy had arranged permission for us to shoot through the very helpful Army Corps of Engineers.

We lugged everything down to the shore near the dead trees Christy wanted in the shots.

It was one hot and humid day. And both me and Russ were damn glad Martin showed up. He remained in great spirits no matter what grunt work fell his way.

Christy and Andrew looked great in their costumes. Like samurai warriors seen through the lens of the old Buck Rogers comic strips.

They started out in one of the dead trees. After some striking set-ups, we moved the equipment down to a rock ledge at the water line. Christy and Andrew were rehearsing their moves — a sort of balletic martial arts faux fight — and me and Russ were looking for a nice wide shot. I suggested that we place the crane off center on a rise looking down on them, and slowly track the action with a lateral movement. Russ had another idea. He placed the crane dead center on the rise and lifted straight up. It turned out to be an amazing over-head shot. There was a long strip of read cloth (used throughout the piece), and it was snaking across the limestone ledge. The sun was directly overhead, so everything was in sharp contrast. This also caused Russ to whimper in frustration because the camera kept casting a shadow into his perfect shot. But we tinkered with the crane and camera placement until we were ready to go.

We broke for lunch. Martin, it seems, took advantage of his insomnia the previous night to cut up all the carrots and celery for our veggie dip. Culinary school paid off.

And then we caravanned to the stretch of mud flats where Despair (Andrew) was to drown Eve (Christy). I had on a pair of water sport moccasins someone had given me years ago. Russ had a similar kind of water boots. I offered Andrew an old ratty pair of sandals I had also brought along. As his feet are much smaller, they tended to shift around a bit on him. Martin had finally crashed, so, we cracked the windows a bit, and left him snoozing with his feet up on the cooler.

The shallow water nearest the shore was rather hot. But as we slogged out to a nice stand of drowned trees, it cooled off. There were regions of deep mud, quite a bit of rocks, and a few submerged logs. We moved slow and finally decided on the perfect place to drown our Eve.

As Russ pointed out, the nice thing about shooting in a nasty, inhospitable location, is that you move fast so you can get the hell out. I'm convinced we got some great footage. But after Christy inhaled a bit of brackish lake water, and after she stabbed her hand on something sharp, we decided it was time to head back to the cars.

Russ invited Christy and Andrew to avail themselves of the showers at his Yacht club, and we called it a day.

I try and not take for granted the beautiful neighborhood I live in. Actually, so much of this city has, hidden throughout it, exquisite marvels, some of which come up on you quite unexpectedly (like the Kiddy Park on Broadway, the cock-eyed Liberty Bar (San Antonio's version of the leaning tower in Pisa), the old city cemeteries on E. Commerce, and the breathtaking Olmos Dam). I was reminded of the beauties of San Antonio while watching some of the student films submitted to this youth film fest I'm helping to run. The works submitted by the kids at the after school arts center, Say Si, are mostly top notch. But what they most had going for them were the locations. Most were shot around the Say Si classrooms, in this wonderful, older neighborhood. When you shoot in King William and downtown San Antonio, you've given yourself an aesthetic edge that the kids on the north side just can't match.

Of the twelve short films I've shot during the four years I've lived here, ten were shot, at least partially, in my neighborhood. A few, exclusively. And I know that the admittedly amateurish work I do (okay, occasionally amateurish) has been solidly mitigated by beautiful locations (not to mention beautiful actors and actresses).

It's always nice when large Hollywood productions come here to take advantage of the local color. In fact the recent passing of House Bill 374 (a film appropriation measure) provides incentives for large productions to work in the state. Personally, I'm not terribly moved. I'm more interested in Texan filmmakers working their way up in a grassroots manner.

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Russ came by Saturday morning at 9:45. He had switched Saturday and Sunday. This weekend we visited the dance rehearsals Christy is having for the film project we're helping her produce. Saturday — 6 p.m.; Sunday — 10 a.m.

Well, as I had no other plans for the day, I hopped in Russ' truck, and he took me to look at the house he is renting. Finally he found a place in San Antonio. It's in Terrell Hills. He can't move in until the end of the month. But it's a nice bungalow. I got a sense he was slipping into the funk of renter's remorse. I tried to convince him that it's a nice neighborhood.

“You're halfway between Pete and Nikki. They're good people who wouldn't consider missing your housewarming barbecue.”

He's still grumbling a bit.

We headed back to my neighborhood to find a good cup of coffee. I suggested we try the Southtown Cafe. It's close to me, yet I've never been there. I felt I should support it. But when we arrived, it was closed. Seemed strange. Saturday. 11:30 am. Oh, well. Forgetting the coffee angle, and thinking more along the lines of lunch, Russ asked if La Tuna would be open. Well … it should be. Right? I mean, Saturday lunch is a big deal. But I've found La Tuna closed more often than open. (I've brought this up to my next-door neighbor's, co-owners of the place — they seem perplexed and say they're always open.) Well, the fact is, La Tuna ain't open for Saturday lunch.

So we went to Cascabels. They have kick ass cafe de olla. And the food is very good.

Afterwards, we wandered the riverwalk downtown. It's still monstrously hot and humid. But I had fun sitting at the outdoor theater in La Villita and watching the people. It's high tourist season — the tour boats passed down on the river about once every four minutes. And they were packed. We stayed awhile, but I never saw Bob or Cara, the two tour boat pilots I know. They're probably working the second shifts.

Eventually we headed over to Woodlawn Lake to watch Christy rehearse with Kristen. They were on a grassy area on the south-east shore.

Me and Russ watched them go through the choreography. It will start out on the ground, and end up in a tree.

I'd watched Christy work with Kristen a couple of weeks back during the auditions. And now I understand why she chose the woman. Kristen is very focuses and talented. She's long-limbed but still very graceful. They work well together.

For those who've never visited Woodlawn Lake, you're missing a wonderful area in San Antonio. The whole park has a very WPA look to it. A great utilization of a public space. And the people of the neighborhood use this park. People walk, jog, skate, cycle, fish, picnic, and all that stuff. I was a bit taken aback that so few people paused to watch the action — I mean two beautiful women in skin-tight outfits were working through a dance routine. Maybe they were scared off by the two middle-aged men with digital cameras circling around these women, crouching down, leaning in, and generally appearing (to the uninitiated) as grade-A perverts — but, I hasten to add, our resumes are posted on-line; I mean, goddammit, we're artists!

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Sunday, we returned to Woodlawn Lake to watch Christy rehearse with Andrew. Christy was wearing a wig that her character will have on for the sequences she will perform with Andrew. She insisted that the wig would look much better for Monday's shoot after it received some TLC from a brush and some styling compounds.

I certainly hoped so, because Sunday morning, that wig just wasn't doing the girl any justice. It wasn't quite the Joan Jett look I was hoping for.

(Actually, I'm posting this Monday night. We've already shot our first day of the piece. I'll add some pictures soon. But the wig-work turned out just fine.)

This morning I met with Deborah and Ramon at Pepe's Cafe. We want to get our short edit of the Locos documentary mailed off to some of our friends down in San Miguel. We all have too many commitments to make it down for the Locos Parade this year. It's later this month. But we don't want the people who were so kind and helpful to us last year to think we've forgotten them.

We also talked some about an idea Ramon has for a new visit to San Miguel to chronicle the Dia de los Muertos celebration down there. When he would speak of this before, I would find myself wondering what new angle could be added to a subject already heavily analyzed. An added problematic layer was the fact that most of the lavish celebrations are further down in Mexico: Oaxaca and Michoacán. But Ramon has fallen in love with San Miguel. And so have Deborah and I. So, we do have a selfish agenda — we want to be able to return. One of the positive notes is that we have forged some good contacts with many people in that city. And the more I thought about it all, the more plausible it seemed. Ramon was somewhat instrumental in bringing this holiday into San Antonio. In 1978 he was commissioned to create a painting to commemorate the Dia de los Muertos. At the time there was scant evidence of people celebrating the Day of the Dead. Ramon began staging Dia de los Muertos shows at his gallery, as did other galleries. I suggested that we focus on the artistic side to the celebration. Ramon has already talked about creating San Antonio and San Miguel as “sister cities in the arts.” Both cities are famous for their active art communities. In fact, there is quite a bit of travel back and forth by the artists of San Antonio and San Miguel. We could interview artists from both cities who make works which feature and acknowledge the Day of the Dead. Also, we could investigate the ways in which the American interpretation of the holiday has made it's way back to Mexico and influenced how they celebrate the day.

I'm looking for a fresh angle on things. A good hook. We'll see. The three of us are still in that thinking out-loud phase. Trying to give vague ideas shape … shape enough to generate the sweet rhetoric that puffs up the corpus of a good grant proposal.

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Early afternoon I dropped by Urban-15 to work some on the Josiah Festival.

Urban-15 is housed in an old church building on S. Presa. The basement space is always in flux. I believe George once intended it to become some sort of occasional coffee house artsy hangout.

But because he has several projects going on, the space is becoming this sort of ad hoc creative space. This is where he created his Somos video mural for the Alameda Museo. Herman helped out quite a bit on the editing of that piece. And now Herman's editing a Katrina documentary in the space. I've a little work station for the Josiah project. Amanda (who is always involved in several projects) has moved her computer down from another part of the building. George was refurbishing a hundred year old snare drum down there last week. Something always seems to be playing on one of the two rear projection screens.

It's a chaotic, but very pleasant place.

I told George that we needed some sort of image to send out with the press release for the Josiah Festival. He suggested that we have one of the submitted films projected, and some of the Urban-15 folks can be watching it. After George wandered off to attend to some other project, I arranged a couple of chairs in front of one of the screens. I placed a table between them piled with all our DVD submissions. I was thinking a low shot up at the screen with maybe George and Amanda in the foreground, watching and commenting — a mountain of DVDs between them.

George returned and set up a digital SLR on a tripod. He was having some problems with it. It seems he'd dropped it the other day. Actually, he said he was carrying a bunch of stuff, and the camera and a portable hard drive fell. He could only grab one of them. True to a technophilic multi-media artist, he automatically grabbed the device holding the most complicated digital files — the camera's just a tool, replaceable, but the drive holds information, and probably the result of a lot of hard work.

He had me and Amanda posed in the shot. A bad idea, there. I'm talking about me. Amanda's a beautiful girl and should be in the shot. So as George was fiddling with the rubberband holding his Olympus camera together, I suggested I use my little point and shoot digital Nikon. And he could switch places with me. He's much more photogenic than myself.

But because the light in the basement is a bit dim, I has having a hard time getting a good exposure. I couldn't use the flash or it'd wash out the image on the screen. I pulled in some ancient Smith Victor scoop light on a stand which was parked in a far corner. It helped a bit. I think I have a usable photo. I need to desaturate it and see how it looks in black and white. But it might suffice for the newspapers.

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Tomorrow and Sunday I'm meeting up with Russ to watch Christy and her dancers rehearse for the impending video we'll be shooting around Canyon Lake this month.

I sure am busy. When can I return to work on my newest short story, “Joachim Phelps' Demitasse Nightmare”? I haven't even got to that crucial scene where he must choose his biscotti — macadamia nut or double dutch chocolate.

What an ordeal my life has become.

I'm caught up with all the back-dated entries of my desert drives.

I'm back to Houston-like stickiness here in San Antonio. The only time I'm cool is when I'm driving around with my truck A/C blasting away. When I step out, my glasses fog up. That's my validation that this nasty humidity isn't just in my mind. I need to buy some more fans. I could fire up the old window unit, but that causes my electric bill to reach dizzying heights. Besides, it's not really powerful enough to cool down this whole apartment, and I end up closing off the bedroom and sleeping on my sofa. It's like I'm stuffed in a gigantic wet sock.

With the Meet the Maker film screening out of the way (though I still need to find out who is going to reimburse me for all the dosh I shoveled out), it is time to get serious about the Josiah Youth Media Festival. The submission deadline has come and gone. It was a postmark deadline of June 1st, so I'm not really expecting any more. The good news is we got a shit load of stuff. I logged them Tuesday. Now I need to line up the judges and schedule blocks of time to view all the works.

Also, I need to begin moving on the 48 Hour Film Project by late next week.

This stuff keeps coming at me.

Me and Russ met with Christy the other day. We have our dates for shooting. But I might not be able to get the old clawfoot bathtub which belongs to one of my neighbors. Christy wants it for a prop. And I agree, I think it's an important addition. I've not given up, but if the folks don't return to town by Saturday, we might have to rethink that scene. And so, if any of my readers (local, that is) have an old bathtub (not installed in your home) we could borrow, give me a shout.

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When I was logging DVD submissions at Urban-15, George Cisneros mentioned that he had managed to get one of his old public art works resuscitated. It's the video installation in the front windows of the International Center on S. St. Mary's downtown near the Aztec Theatre. The video wall is titled “In Light of Passing Measures.” It was installed back in 1995. And for the entire time I've lived in San Antonio, it has been dead. The funds allocated for the upkeep seemed to have evaporated. But I passed by tonight, and it was running. There were no parking places in the vicinity. But maybe late one night next week I'll cycle over and watch it.

This is one of my gripes with public art. (Though my biggest gripe is that so much of it is pure crap, apparently chosen because it's inoffensive abstractions, such as Mark di Suvero's huge assemblages.) There is something so wildly irresponsible about a city forking over funds for a work of art, and not following through with it's up-keep. There is a wonderful sculpture near Mission Espada. It's in a little park, and I often sit beside it on one of Carlos Cortez's faux bois concrete benches. The metal on the work is rusting away. It's very sad. So, bravo to George on getting his work back to it's original health.

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I stopped by my landlady's place to pay my rent. She invited me in and began to bring me up to speed on the state of her health. She's maybe 70, and up until a year ago she'd be out with her son and her daughter-in-law mowing the lawn here. Too cheap, I suppose, to hire someone. Hell, she has at least a dozen rental properties. And she was filling trash bags and ripping up weeds by their roots. Basically doing twice the work of her strapping son. But she's slowing down. And so this afternoon I learned more than I cared to about angioplasty, colonoscopy, and some species of herniated esophagus.

But she's feisty, and I suspect will outlive many of those around her. Who, I should point out, will finally be spared her graphic and minute explications of megadoses of laxatives and the insertion of a fiber-optic camera into various orifices.

Luckily I had a valid excuse to escape. I was meeting Alston for a late matinee screening of “Away From Her.”

I'd read about the director, actress turned filmmaker, Sarah Polley, in a recent issue of Movie Maker magazine (Drew, our film commissioner, somehow managed to get a bunch of San Antonio film folks free subscriptions).

The article was very positive about the film, but if one of the leads hadn't been Julie Christie, I might well have forgotten all about it. For a first feature film, it's very impressive — a young director, not yet 30, working with themes of aging and Alzheimer's with such an apparent sense of ease, was an eye-opener. She adapted one of Alice Munro's short stories, and made it warm and personable. That's no small accomplishment. The structure was a bit clunky (perhaps that's a carry-over from Munro), but the pacing and the photography was perfect. The acting was stellar. It's not a life-changing film, and I wouldn't recommend it to everyone, but it's is nonetheless an impressive piece of filmmaking. And Julie Christie, as beautiful (if not more so) as ever, gives such an outstanding performance as a woman who finds her sense of self slipping away, that I was rather taken aback by costar Gordon Pinsent who actually managed to outshine Julie Christie. Quite an achievement, that.

I'll close with two random photos.

Monday night I arrived back home from my trips to Big Bend. And after five days and 1,950 miles of driving a zippy little car, I'm back to the pickup truck. I decided to head to the supermarket for supplies before it shut down for the night. I hopped up into the roomy behemoth and turned the key. Nothing. Shit. The battery seemed fine. I had a dome light. Head lights. And as I reached down and popped the hood latch, it occurred to me that I had forgotten that some cars have these things called a clutch. My truck's just fine, as long as I remember that it has a standard transmission. It's amazing how quickly we can relearn behavior.

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On the drive back to Redford Saturday, Enrique was in the front passenger seat, Roberto sat in the back. Roberto made some comment that he had planted a palo verde in his front yard. He found the little trees attractive.

“Oh, they're the worst things in the desert,” Enrique said with cautioning displeasure.

“But you gotta love that green bark,” Roberto relied.

“Have you ever found yourself in a thicket of palo verde? The spines will tear you to ribbons. They don't offer shade. The leaves are just these spindly things. The worst thing is the symbiotic relationship they have with the blister beetles. If they get on you, it's awful.”

“Some people like them as ornamentals,” Roberto said.

“Personally, I think they're quite beautiful,” I added. “The palo verde, that is. Don't know what the beetles look like.”

“Sure. Some people like how the leaves curl up at night.” Enrique shook his head and continued. “But once they've shown you that, their repertoire is exhausted. It's the only trick they know. And once they get a foothold, they take over. That area behind Fort Leaton is all palo verde. A whole field of spines and blisters.”

“I thought those were salt cedars,” Roberto said. “I guess you hate those too.”

“Oh, no. I've started the Friends of the Salt Cedar Society. We're fighting the negative propaganda.”

“I hear they've developed a new herbicide for dealing with the salt cedar problem.”

“Problem! When the farmers cut down all the cottonwoods all we have are the salt cedars to keep the river from washing away the farms. It's a wonderful shade tree. You can barbecue with the wood. You can't do that with palo verde. Your steak will taste like tar … and blister beetles. The panaderia in Ojinaga makes a magnificent bolillo. They fire the ovens with a combination of mesquite, cottonwood, and salt cedar.”

“Salt cedar is an alien species, I understand,” Roberto said.

“Yes. The tamarisk. They were brought to this country as an ornamental. Historically, they grow along the Nile in Egypt. For over a hundred thousand years the people there learned to live with the salt cedar. If they can do it, so can we. And all these people who want to kill them off, they don't understand that they need to plant four cottonwood saplings for every salt cedar they eradicate, or else the banks will wash away.”

“I had a salt cedar on my land,” Roberto said softly. “I tried to cut it down, but it kept growing back.” He looked out the window as we passed the rolling hills around Ozona. “I got some of that new herbicide from a fellow in Marathon. They were still testing it.”

“How did it work,” I asked.

“Like a charm,” said Roberto.

“Oh, no,” Enrique gasped in that strange way he has where you don't know if he's genuinely distressed. “I need to recruit more members into the Friends of the Salt Cedar Society.”

“Sounds like a loosing battle,” I said. “You need a proactive stab into the very heart of the opposition. I suggest you rent a crop dusting plane, cram it full of salt cedar seeds, and fly up and down the river.”

“Like Johnny Appleseed,” Roberto mused. “An elegant plan.”

“I'd love to type up a press release for that,” I said. “And see how many freaked-out salt cedar hating locals show up with shotguns at the airport.”

Maybe Enrique's right. We came to accept the tumbleweed (AKA Russian thistle) a long time ago. In fact, it would be hard to envision a western movie without a few blowing across the boardwalk in a rustic town.

The conversation drifted to other invasive alien species roaming around the La Junta region. Russian boar escaped from a ranch up near Casa Piedra some years back. They've thrived and worked their way down the Alamito Creek until they finally reached the Rio Grande and the lush farms of the Redford Valley. And Aoudad, more commonly known as Barbary Sheep, are frisking about in the Big Bend Ranch State State Park. They too are making their way into the Redford Valley.

On a positive note, these are tasty critters and you don't need a license to take them down. According to Enrique, the locals are taking advantage of these new-comers to these parts. I can only hope that they are roasted over glowing tamarisk coals.

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When we dropped off Roberto at his little ranch on the outskirts of Presidio, Enrique phoned Ruby to see if we needed to pick anything up at the grocery store in town. He discovered that one of their dogs was in the midst of having puppies.

We hung out for an hour or so talking to Roberto. Perhaps Enrique didn't want to deal with birthing no puppies.

And so we stood in the shade of the ramada where Roberto parks his pickup truck and leaned against the rails of his truck, facing inward to the bed … as men with trucks tend to do.

“There's talk of putting a wall in Presidio,” Enrique said. He pointed to the river, about a hundred yards from us across a field.

Roberto told us that his wife (who was visiting friends up in Fort Davis) liked to take her morning walk along the levee. Recently she was told by two Border Patrol officers in one of their iconic green and white SUVs that she wasn't allowed to walk there.

“They can't do that,” I said. “Can they?”

Roberto shrugged. “We're looking into it.”

“What's their reason?” I asked.

“They're looking for foot prints in the sand. People crossing the river. She was messing up the dirt path.”

Now I understood. When I was driving the other day near Langtry, I saw down a side road a Border Patrol vehicle pulling three tires behind it on chains. They were dragging the dirt road smooth so new foot prints would be noticeable. At the time I had no idea why. The only time I'd seen anything like that was years ago when I lived in Fort Worth. I saw a guy walking his pitbull near a trailer park. The dog was dragging a tire, clearly to bulk up the dog for fighting purposes.

We looked off toward the river. A couple of jack rabbits raced across the barren field and vanished into a stand of catclaw.

“Your wife needs a pitbull with a tire,” I offered. “Enrique could even sell his puppies — each one comes with a tire and a chain. The dogs follow behind you dragging the tires. I mean, it's a win-win situation. Because it sounds to me that the Border Patrol wants your wife to do their work for them. And using my newly patented Dog-N-Drag they'd have nothing but unblemished dirt roads, smooth as the surface of the Rio Grande.”

Roberto and Enrique smiled indulgently. But I knew their feelings toward the Border Patrol (and all the other groups of uniformed and armed men on the border) ran deep and dark.

The border is an occupied territory. It will get worse before it gets better. The people there know this. But, like a unified Europe, this fucking border will fall. Unfortunately, not soon enough. And every wall, guard tower, electronic sensing device buried in the sand, and those god damn tethered blimps … all this will come down like the iron curtain. Every penny paid out to create the repressive environment is money wasted. Worse, it's setting us up for greater future waste when these walls will have to be dismantled — when our country begins to move away from this current experiment in fascism.

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Ruby met us with word of six puppies. By the end of the night there were eight.

We had a wonderful meal of chicken mole. And just as it was when I lived in Redford and would come by twice a week or more for dinner and late night talks, I didn't get to bed until 2:30 in the morning.

I think it was Alan Govenar who pointed out that after the shooting of Esequiel, Enrique became a driven man. He now concentrates much of his intellectual energy on seeking justice — and not just posthumously for Esequiel, but for all of the people on the border dealing with life under occupation of the War on Drugs, which has morphed into the War on Terror.

He's become strident. Not so playful. It's less likely we will follow a conversation down the road of German Romantic poetry, abstract expressionism, the cosmic background radiation, the recipe for the perfect pumpkin empanada, or Julian Jaynes' bicameral mind hypothesis. Now the conversations tend to come back to the day four American Marines in Ghillie suits stalked and killed a teenaged boy who, in the words of Enrique, was “the most innocent person on the border.” And this shooting happened a quarter mile from where Enrique lives. How would this have effected you?

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Sunday I wanted to walk around some in the desert. It was about one in the afternoon. I put on some sun-block and told Enrique and Ruby I was heading out for a couple of hours. I wanted to, perhaps, hike some in Closed Canyon.

Enrique insisted that he and Ruby come along. That was fine with me, but it was incredibly hot. Probably a hundred degrees. And I'm fine with that. When I lived in Redford I would usually head out for a hike or a bike ride in the hottest time of day. With enough sunscreen and water, I'd be fine.

But, if they wanted to come along ….

We went up to the Big Hill. This is a stretch of the River Road that takes a steep climb up to a wonderful observation point which looks down onto the Rio Grande, and then it slopes dramatically down and the highway continues to Lajitas.

The Big Hill used to be a solid structure, perhaps a couple of million years ago. It functioned as a sort of damn. The area up-river toward Redford was all underwater. A big lake. In geological terminology, it was called the Redford Bolson. Eventually the waters crested … and erosion turned a series of inter-connected lakes into a serious river.

Next we headed back up-river to Closed Canyon. Enrique says that the old timers call this Tapado Canyon. Nothing strange here. Tapador is Spanish for to cap or to plug. It means the same as a closed or a box canyon. But there is a highway sign for something called Tapado Canyon a couple of miles away. There are all sorts of misnamed places and structures in the Big Bend. Official US maps say one thing, the local people say something else.

Personally I call this Lost Tourist Canyon. It starts out simple. The walls rise up steep and high. The canyon cuts through this mesa and eventually it makes it to the Rio Grande. It's a dry canyon (most of the time), and as you head in further, you begin to find where the floor drops down. Sometimes one foot. Sometimes ten feet. The places where it drops are smooth from water erosion and thus hard to climb back up. I contend that there is a point where the adventurous tourist has screwed him or herself and can't get back out. Like a roach motel.

Enrique decided to wait for us in the parking area. There was a picnic table under a primitive ramada. And so me and Ruby hiked out to the entrance to the canyon.

We walked in maybe a quarter mile. When we came to a drop off of maybe five feet, we decided we weren't feeling that adventurous.

It's a beautiful place. And I was happy to hear that Tommy Lee Jones used the canyon in his movie, “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada.”

My photos don't do the place justice.

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With great sadness, I climbed into my rental car early Monday morning and headed out of town.

I need to discover a way to live in Redford and yet somehow manage some sort of income — particularly one that allows me to travel.

If I find the secret, I'll let you know.

Friday morning I had a few things to do, so I left Enrique and Roberto to fend for themselves. The beckoning flesh pits of San Antonio might have their allure on lesser men, but these two historians loose in the big city, they found themselves at the downtown public library just as it opened it doors for the homeless keen on free internet access or a comfy chair to sleep in.

I drove over noonish to pick them up. Roberto wanted barbecue. Enrique, still suffering from indigestion from hotel coffee was indifferent. So I drove to a place in my neighborhood I've not yet tried. There was quite a bit of activity on S. Alamo Street, and then I remembered it was First Friday. The locals were gearing up for the drunks, the artsy people, and the drunken artsy people. We sat outside. The food was pretty good, as was the people-watching.

In an attempt to play tour guide, I suggested we see one of the Missions. The Alamo aside, the nearest was Mission Concepción.

Enrique chewed some on the ear of a park ranger. He suggest several books he thought the gift shop should carry. He explained that the mission built in Redford (a small adobe ruin) considerably pre-dated the missions of San Antonio. And he told the ranger the story of the “Lady in Blue” (AKA, Mother Maria de Jesus de Agreda) — and how it was his, Enrique's, forbearers, the Jumano's of La Junta, who brought this story to the attention of the Catholic honchos in what is now El Paso way back in 1639.

I pulled Enrique away from his proselytizing (history, that is — the man's a confirmed disciple of Dawkins and Dennett), and we headed back to the hotel.

The AV equipment for the screening was due, and I wanted to be there. Yet when we arrived at El Tropicano, I found out that the guys from AVW-TELAV had already got everything set up. Phillip Sherrod (and I forget the other man's name) had everything needed plugged in, calibrated, and all I had to do was hand them the two DVDs I intended to screen, and they played them and made a few adjustments to the equipment.

I don't know what strings Drew Mayer-Oakes at the film commission pulled to get this to happen (gratis — at least for me), but, damn, what a sense of liberation to have professionals like AVW-TELAV. (If this sounds like a commercial, fuck yeah! I had enough stress as it was, and these guys alleviate a good chunk of it.)

Dar showed up. She was kind enough to volunteer to run the registration table. Pete also volunteered. And this was nice. Made me feel less alone. Bob, who I hadn't seen in over a year, came by. And Lisa and Roger from NALIP showed up. Ramon Vasquez with the American Indians in Texas was there. I got a call from Carlos. He was having trouble finding the place. I guess I should have mentioned that El Tropicano is owned by Holiday Inn, and, from a distance, that is the largest and most noticeable logo on the building. When I told Carlos to look for Holiday Inn, he had no problem.

Nikki Young and Chadd Green from PrimaDonna were there. As was Konise Millender.

All told, about 45 people showed up. Thank you everyone! Janet Vasquez from the Film Commission. Brilliant actress Catherine Crowley. Ignacio de la Vega, who is working with the Jumano Apache people. A good crowd.

We started off with four short pieces by Ray Santisteban. His work always has a polished and an intelligence to it that makes it a joy to watch. In my awkward introduction to his pieces I explained that every grant and every festival I tried to get into, there was Ray, ahead of me, picking up the swag and accolades. And I couldn't get pissed. His stuff is great! He deserves what he gets.

Afterward, Ray talked some about his work. Fielded some questions. In retrospect, I would have liked to have stretched it out some more. I think I needed some assistants who had collaborated with me the schedule of the night's fare. Dar and Pete were great, but we never really talked about how it was going to play out.

“The Devil's Swing” played without mishap. I was nervous around the 45 minute mark. When I previewed the DVD on my player, it froze at that point. But I cleaned the disk and that seemed to help. There were no technical difficulties.

Well, there was a bit of a problems when I pulled Enrique and Roberto up to the front. Pete pulled up three chairs and I sat with them in front of the screen. I guess I hadn't taken into account how softly Enrique talks. I should have assigned someone to audio and brought in some of my microphones.

But, dammit, it's over! And if I were to slip into a more candid mode, I would be railing about all the problems that faced me in this journey towards this little screening. I managed to piss off some folks. Perplex others. I blame it on my inexperience, sure. But I also blame the problems on the fact that I was working with two non-profit organizations with divergent agendas.

Success? Sort of. But, it weren't no failure.

Mr. de la Vega wanted to take Enrique and Roberto out to dinner. Enrique invited me along. I explained that NALIP had, in their budget, funds for an after-event meal. So I said I'd get it — hoping that a reimbursement would one day come my way.

Mrs. de la Vega suggested Mi Tierra, a tourist place downtown. I would have suggested Tito's but with First Friday in full swing, I knew we'd never find parking.

Mi Tierra has good food. But Friday night? Avoid it. I gave me name to the hostess. An hour wait. And we waited. Pete meet us in the bar just as we were paged to our restaurant table.

Here we have Roberto Lujan.

Mr. de la Vega told us all about his decades as a musician working in quite a few genres. He also worked as a private detective. Also, body guard. He guarded Selena — but not towards the end (that'd be a resume-killer).

A good time was had by all.

Saturday morning I met Enrique and Roberto at the hotel. He had coffee and a simple breakfast at the hotel bar. I had a banana. Roberto had some granola.

On our way out of town, I stopped at the Pik-Nik convenience store near me. I knew they carried day-old newspapers. I'd promised filmmaker Alan Govenar that I'd send him a copy of all the press. And as I had sent a press release to the San Antonio Express-News, I assumed they'd put the event in their Weekender event supplement. Well, the bastards didn't. Everyone else did.

Anyway, we decided to have something which more resembled a real breakfast. And so we sampled the 50 cent tacos at Pik-Nik — and then it was west Texas-bound.

Some blog purest might see this back-dating as a form of cheating. But for me, it's a game of catch-up.

So, setting back the calendar to Wednesday morning, I hoofed it to the car rental place on St. Mary's. After some fancy footwork to avoid all the bullshit like additional insurance, a costly upgrade (“this Mercedes is the perfect choice for the sort of road trip you have in mind, sir”), and god knows what else — after a “no,” a “I don't think so,” and a firm “thank you, but, no,” I got out of there with the same Nissan I had reserved the previous day, and almost at the same rate. Tuesday I was quoted, with tax and et al, $195 for Wednesday through to late Monday afternoon. The next day, I was given a quote of $207. Close enough, and I grabbed up the keys and skedaddled before it climbed any higher. But, truly, I hate this sort of arbitrary crap ladled up by all the swine who work in these seemingly unregulated service industries where the language of mathematics and accounting (hitherto the most succinct and accurate languages know) have become slippery and mutable.

I headed out of town on highway 90, through Castroville and Del Rio. The car had an auxiliary plug into the face of the stereo. Brilliant! All cars should have this. I patched my iPod in with a mini plug from one of my wireless lavaliere microphones. Worked great.

A little bit after noon I crossed over the Pecos River. The canyon country along the Tex Mex border from Del Rio to Dryden is a deceptive topography. What looks flat from horizon to horizon is in fact a corrugated surface cut through with sloping arroyos or steep-walled canyons.

Highway 90 hooks up with 67 just before you hit Alpine. And on through to Marfa, this is the high plains of Trans-Pecos Texas. Isolated clusters of mountain chains dot the land off in the distance. At Marfa, 90 and 67 split off. 67 heads south to Presidio, a descent of 1/2 a mile in elevation. It gets a bit rocky and wild at the town of Shafter. The designation as a ghost town seems a bit forced. It has a tiny population, but there are people living there. It's not what it once was when the silver mines were in full swing back in the early part of the 20th century. Shafter was used quite effectively in the movie “The Andromeda Strain.” It's where the infected satellite landed and killed off all the inhabitants save (if I recall the film correctly) two.

About two miles south of Shafter, you come out of the mountains, and there you see all of the Presidio valley. You're up on the shoulder — the foothills — of the Chinati Mountains (Chinati is Spanish for grackle — it's also used colloquially in northern Mexico to describe Indians with very dark skin). This is always something of a homecoming to me. This is where La Junta begins. And La Junta de los Rios is why I'm heading down into the valley formed by the Conchos and the Rio Grande rivers.

It's all so familiar to me. The mountain chains are like old friends. The Chinatis, over my right shoulder. The Cienegas are some ways off, and I can see them if I crane my head to the left (with their worn soft slopes, they are, geologically, the oldest mountains in sight). Cerro Alto sits just across the river in Mexico, huge and low, like an enormous tortoise. Cerrito de la Santa Cruz looms up long and jagged just behind Presidio's Mexican sister city, Ojinaga. Atop Cerrito de la Santa Cruz is a cave where the devil is imprisoned. This mountain plays a major role in the documentary, “The Devil's Swing.” And that's why I'm here. I need to collect one of the subjects of the film, and drive him back to San Antonio, so that he can talk to an audience who'll come to watch the film. I will find him in Redford, Texas. It's also known as El Polvo. The little hamlet is on the Rio Grande, 16 miles down-river from Presidio. I look off in that direction and see, in the distance, the Bofecillos Mountains in the US, and Sierra Rica, across in Mexico.

I aim my little rental car south, and I descend into the valley.

Presidio hasn't changed too much since I last visited a year and a half ago. There are a couple of new stores. The improved fire house was open. My favorite gas station (family-owned) was shut down. A new gas station (complete with a soulless convenience store) was now across the street.

I got on the river road and soon left Presidio.

Before I got to Redford, I pulled off the road and took a few photos.

This stretch of highway 170 is still in my bones. I lived here for about a year a decade and a half ago. I come back and visit when I can. This is the road I would drive my 1969 Coupe DeVille with the cheap black paint job (perhaps the longest two door car of its era). For the citizens of Redford, the river road is almost a private road to their community. Well, that was then. It all changed in 1997 when Esequiel Hernandez, a shy and conscientious high-school student, was killed by a team of US Marines on a covert, clandestine operation.

Redford has a population of about 130. It formed as a farming community in the 1870s. There isn't much farming anymore, and the locals have a hard time making ends meet. It's common for people to work elsewhere for six months, and live the rest of the year in Redford. It's a beautiful place, just desperately poor. When I lived there, Redford boasted a general store and a gas station. Not anymore.

I drove through town and pulled up at the old Madrid Store. Before I moved to Redford, Enrique's father ran a combination general store and gas station. It eventually shut done. Enrique's father died. His mother, a retired school teacher, turned the shop into a free library. She wanted to help out the kids who attended the one room school house across the two-lane highway.

Mrs. Madrid, the library, and the school were all there when I lived in Redford. Now, they're all gone. Redford doesn't even have a school.

When I rolled up to the Madrid's, Enrique stepped out the front door. Three frisky dogs danced around him barking at me. The dogs charged, and soon they were rubbing their heads against me, licking my hands. I didn't recognize them. Pets in Redford often come and go quickly. Many meet their demise from cars on the highway, snake bite, or coyotes coming down from the hills at night.

Enrique looked pretty much the same. A few years back he had lost a considerable amount of weight after he modified his diet when diagnosed as diabetic. And as he's decided to identify himself as an indigenous American, he's been growing his hair long. These are changes I've seen develop in my visits. The only new addition was the grey hair. Both he and his wife, Ruby. They don't really seem older to me, but they now have grown gray.

As me and Enrique caught up, Ruby disappeared into the kitchen. I eventually heard the hissing of an espresso machine. Their friend Roberto showed up in time for cappuccino. Roberto is a history teacher at the Presidio high school. He's also on the books as a Jumano Indian. Because Ruby had to work and couldn't come to San Antonio with me and Enrique, Roberto was going to fill in. His semester had just ended, and he was open for a road trip.

We all watched a new documentary titled “The Ballad of Esequiel Hernandez.” It was shot while Tommy Lee Jones was in Redford directing his “Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada.” The documentary crew was from New Mexico. They got Tommy Lee Jones to provide some voice-over narration. The film is currently working the festival circuit. It's incredible. They got access to almost everyone. I now need to contact the filmmakers and see what I can do to get the work screened in San Antonio.

After the film, we had dinner. Ruby's cheese enchiladas are so enjoyable that I half-expect them to be classified as a Schedule II drug by the Department of Justice.

The next morning me and Enrique drove to Presidio and picked up Roberto. We all headed to San Antonio.

Drew Mayer-Oakes over at the film commission have arranged for Enrique and a guest stay at El Tropicano Riverwalk Hotel. This place has an early '60s vibe. Very retro. I kept expecting to look up and see Sammy Davis Jr. walk through the lobby — he'd be wearing a black two-piece suit, a white turtle neck sweater, a huge gold peace sign necklace, and the cocktail glass in his hand would feature mango chunks and triple sec.

We had dinner at Taqueria Guadalajara on Roosevelt. And called it a night. I dropped the guys off at their hotel room.