I got a call from the Company.  They would not be needing my services tonight or tomorrow night.  Something about computer problems.  This means I will have a much smaller paycheck than I was anticipating.  But, on the bright-side, I didn't have to go to work.

In fact, I was able to attend a free screening tonight at SAC.  Gustavo Stebner previewed his newest short film, Ovat Beer.  With the collaboration of locals such as Robb Garcia and Dora Pena, I knew it'd be an event of note.

The story-line is fairly straight-forward.  A man is going out to dinner with his girlfriend to finally meet her parents.  He orders an Ovat Beer.

His girl's father asks, “Ovat?  What's that?”

And the guy launches into the mythic history of this European beer.  With voice-over narration, we cut to a flashback of Baron von Ovat (or something like that) played by the dashing and heroic Wesley Blake Conklin.  This is his adventurous life before he became a brew-master extraordinaire.  We watch as he rescues the princess from the villain, as played by screenwriter TJ Gonzales.    There are several goofy vignettes.  The whole thing is quite clever, very funny, and well put together.

You can see it for yourself.  I believe tomorrow it goes online.  Try looking for it on Gustavo's website.

www.stebnerstudios.com

The turnout could have been better.  But there were still a lot of familiar faces.  TJ and Lisa.  Dora and Manuel.  Robb.  Jennifer Ortega, who I hadn't seen in ages.  Nikki was there with her friend Lee.  When she asked if we'd met, I quickly said yes.  But it occurred to me later that I don't believe we had.  Because I have seen Lee's photo on MySpace and because I have read several of his blog entries, I had made that weird sort of blunder — not so uncommon in this era — where you “know” people virtually, yet not empirically.

Actually, I get a charge out of watching people, like Nikki, who are much more free-spirited than myself, as they step right up to someone they'd never properly met before and say: “Hi!  You're my MySpace friend!”

And why not?

Lisa is working on her dissertation or thesis or whatever.  I'm not sure what her discipline is.  Communications?  Film?  Sociology?  Cultural Studies?  Anyway, she's studying the NALIP (National Association of Latino Independent Producers) organization, with emphasis on the San Antonio chapter.  She and her husband, TJ, are members.  Lisa organized last year's NALIP-sponsored Adelante Film Forum, and she will run this year's forum as well.  She was in the audience tonight holding aloft a tape recorder, like Jimmy Olsen hot on a scoop.  After the film screened, she got some brilliant and incisive commentary from me and Nikki.  And later I gave her a short interview.  She wanted feedback on those who attended the Adalante Forum last year.

My problem is that I'm profligate with my candor, and, worse, I so rarely listen to myself that I don't always know what I've said.  So, I probably ranted for some time about the local film industry folks who have their heads further up their own backsides than the lunch I had at Taco Haven was up mine.  (The above sentence clearly establishes my weak grasp of even the basics of grammar.)

Speaking of Taco Haven, I'd like to thank Carlos for buying me lunch there.  Rockie was sitting across from me, playing the guessing game.  “What's big and green and eats leafs?” she'd ask.  I looked around me, thinking she was talking about something in the restaurant.  There was a mural with a jungle scene.  “A parrot?”  She just laughed.  No.  A stegosaurus.  It's still mostly dinosaurs with her.  And the occasional vampire.  I mean, she is Carlos' daughter.

I helped Carlos load up two more of his films onto his MySpace site.  “El Pollo Fuerte” (written by me).  And “El Diablo, the Devil” (mostly shot in my house, and with maybe 30 percent camera work by me).

As I transfered the DVDs to mDV tape (so I could get them on to my computer, compress them, and upload them to the internet (what an ordeal — digital revolution, my ass!)), I was struck by a few things.  Laviana Hampton is a very solid performer.  Hector Machado cracks me up with his portrayal of flawed nobility as Uncle Chapo.  Anne Gerber is a genius.  And Carlos is a really fascinating actor, especially in the films he directs.

If you've never seen Carlos' stuff, or haven't seen it lately, check it out.  This is raw, punk rock filmmaking.

http://www.myspace.com/hauntedhousestudio

I was talking to Alston the other day.  She's one of the few people who I can bitch about the paucity of art in movies who will understand my disgust.  Following one of my rants, she mentioned a piece she'd seen by video artist Bill Viola.  From her description, I assumed she was talking about The Greeting.  I saw this piece several years back in the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.  It's stunning in its simplicity.  It is done in a single take with just a one camera set-up.  It's been a while since I saw this, but I'm guessing the piece lasts five minutes.  It's in ultra slow motion.  The real time of the action probably was about 15 seconds.  There are two women talking in front of a neoclassical back drop.  A breeze is moving their dresses.  A third woman enters and they all greet one another.  The emotional dynamic changes.  The newcomer whispers in the ear of her friend, and the other woman is now excluded.  There is high drama in this tiny sliver of time, which is played out in glacial-mode.  Make no mistake, it's high epic, but in miniature.  Like Joel Barlow's brilliant faux epic poem of 1792 entitled “The Hasty Pudding,” a 370 line poem about making and eating corn mush.

Joel Barlow was playing it for grins (much as as Robby Burns' “Ode to a Haggis”), but Viola wants a more serious appreciation of his work.  I'll give it to him.  I find his work beautiful and moving.  And when Peter Greenaway (one of my all time favorite directors) says, of Viola: “Bill Viola is worth ten Scorseses,” I couldn't agree more.  True art will always trump hackery, no matter how clever that hack might be.

There are two films on my need-to-buy list.  I have only seen little clips.  Sadly, they aren't in major distribution.  So I can't rent them.  And they probably won't get screened here in San Antonio.  But from what I can make of what little info I have, they are the real deal, clearly worth many Scorseses.  I'm talking about Cory McAbee's “The American Astronaut,” and Todd Rohal's “The Guatemalan Handshake.”

There is so much great art bubbling up from all over the place, why are we even talking about the mainstream shit?  Sue Corcoran has completed a second feature, and still we find ourselves talking about the Oscars?

I haven't watched the Academy Awards more than four times in my life.  It's no way to look at films, good or bad.  It's like choosing the greatest novels of the year, but you can only pull titles from the catalogue of Scholastic Books.

When my cell phone woke me up (it's also an alarm clock) at 6am, I was well aware that I had managed to get no more than four hours of sleep after an intense day previous of shooting for almost 20 hours.  I think I was having some real interesting dreams.  But I dragged ass out of bed.  Showered. And loaded up some equipment.  I made it to the location pretty much on time.

The scenes we were shooting involved the protagonist's work place.  Carol (played by Sherri) has a part time gig as a radio shrink.  She's about mid-point between Frasier and Doctor Laura.  Our radio station location was the studio of Keith Harter Music.  He has an amazing space over by Austin Highway and Harry Wurzbach.  Keith's studio isn't only involved with music.  He also does film work. He told us about working on ADR for a major Hollywood blockbuster.

We used one of the standard studio rooms.  You know, two rooms separated by a soundproof glass window.  We started out slow today.  We are all exhausted from Saturday.  But Kevin learned from all the bitching of the previous day.  We finally had coffee.  And loads of the stuff.

Coffee can only help so much, and then you have to take some of the blame.

There was plenty of blame to go around.  But all productions limp along for the first two or three days until the crew learns how to work together.

No one can blame make-up artist Ezme Arana.  Ezme had a lot of work on the scenes we shot today.  It was one location, but we were supposed to see these two women through, I believe, four different days.  What makes Ezme brilliant isn't that she creates radically different looks for our actors.  Nope.  Not even that she actually makes these two beautiful actresses even more beautiful with  make-up.  Whatever.  This is the stuff all good make-up people do.  What makes Ezme rock is the way she delivers a complete look, different each time.  There was one costume change where Emily Eldredge (a powerful and sexy actress from Dallas who plays the producer of Carol's radio show) was wearing this clunky necklace made from large smooth-tumbled stones.  The predominant color in the necklace was a dark-tone amber.  And when Emily, playing out her scene, reaches out to clutch Sherri's arm, I noticed that Ezme had painted Emily's nails for this scene in an amber color, but in a mottle design, like some natural rock pattern.  I hope the camera caught it.

I can say with fair confidence that today the camera crew came close to living up to the high bar set by both Ezme and Emily.

I think me and Russ managed to create an intimate space by keeping most of the two sound studios dark, with light mostly thrown on the two women's faces.

We had the final scene still to shoot when five o'clock rolled around.  That was when we were supposed to leave.  Our contact with the location was out, and we had no one to beg a spare 45 minutes from.  After a tepid confrontational exchange between Russ and Robin (come on guys, don't hold back on my account), it was decided to push on.  I think, even rushed, we got that final scene down well in a couple of interesting set-ups.  Sherri and Emily were delivering the goods — at least they appeared to me to be giving strong performances.  My only concern is whether the camera work will cut together.  I don't believe we had any safety cut-away in case the two camera set-ups don't cut.  But working with talented actors has saved my ass so many times when I'm editing.  They hit their marks perfect every time.

This movie has a weekend only schedule.  And for some reason, we have next weekend off.  So, we won't be meeting up until Feb. 24th.  I only hope that Rudolfo hasn't died on us.  If not, we'll finally be able to see his face again.  I'm not sure I'll be able to recognize him without the face mask. 

It's Sunday night as I write about the Saturday shoot for Leftovers.  The first thing I want to say is that the title is awful. There.  I got it out of the way.  The next thing I want to say is, I am beat, man.  I woke up at 5am to make a 6:30 call time in Seguin, Texas.  We all busted ass until a little after midnight.  We packed up, and headed out.  I got home at two in the morning.  I made a quick crash into the yielding comfort of my futon, because I had to make a 7am call time the next morning.  I mean, of course, later that same morning.

So, Saturday, the first day of shooting, we met up at our only location for the day.  It's a beautiful house on the banks of the Guadalupe River.  We were shooting only interiors, which was good.  The warm weather of the previous week had turned back to cold and dark.  And we were shooting only in one room.  A roomy, visually engaging kitchen.

Most of the action we shot involved three actors.  Sherri Small Truitt.  Andrea Hallford.  Tasha Straley.  I had only seen Sherri's work previous.  She was one of the stars of Robin's first feature, Water's Edge.  Sherri conveys warm and appealing with seemingly no effort.  She's probably just playing herself.  But beyond her natural charisma, she make a strong mark on Water's Edge with a few very potent emotionally charged set pieces.

Tasha unfortunately had very few lines in the scenes we shot Saturday.  But I had fun watching her reactions to the other performers.  This is one of the perks of crew work on a film.  When I direct (and I assume most other directors work the same way), I pay attention most to the performances which are important to the scene.  And it is only when I look at the footage later that I realize how nuanced a performance I got from an actor who's character wasn't carrying the scene.  But if you're less involved — on this film I'm camera assistant and lighting — you have the luxury to check out everything.  And Tasha was giving a great performance.

Andrea looks incredibly beautiful on camera.  She's got the upbeat apathetic teenage daughter of privileged parents locked down to perfection.  Playful and not yet committed to a direction in her life.

There were times when Sherri, Tasha, and Andrea were running through lines in a very free unguarded, manner.  But when the camera began to run, that magic drifted off.  I think one of the problems here is that when actors are doing film work, a part of their brains are always preoccupied with physic blocking, so they will be in the same place and the same posture for each take and each camera set-up.  You loose a fair amount of that spontaneity.

Later on, David “DB” Brown, showed up to act in a single scene.  I finally understood why they cast him.  I had only met him once before.  He seemed quiet and unassuming … well, for an actor.  But when the camera began to roll, he gave us some unexpected depth on the lovable pussy-whipped hubby of a successful, driven woman.  I'm looking forward to see him do more work with his character.

Sometime around seven at night, we realized that we would have to re-shoot one scene at a later date.  We were too far behind to get one of our child actors in and out quick enough.  The actor was Ayla.  I hadn't seen her since the auditions for Operation Hitman, about a year ago.  She blew us all away at the auditions.  As did Gabby.  I'm not exactly sure why we decided on Gabby, but they were both phenomenal.  I'm glad to see I'll be working with Ayla.

She and her parents came upstairs while everyone broke for dinner.  She wanted to give her folks a tour of the location.  After her tour, I hung out in the kitchen for a while with her and her mom and dad.  It seems that this little girl has been pretty busy … specializing in portraying little girls that get murdered.  She seemed to find the creepy stuff a lot of fun.

She told a great “Hollywood” story about a recent film she worked on which also featured David Carradine and Ron Jeremy.  (IMDA tells me it's the Adam Rifkin caveman film titled Homo Erectus.)  I won't go into the story, it was really the way she told it — and the fact that it was being told by a child.  For a kid, Ayla is funny, smart, adorable, and tough.  And if you have written a script which features a sarcastic ten year old girl who can kick the shit out of, well, David Carradine and Ron Jeremy, get Ayla's people on the horn ASAP.

All in all, it was a long damn day.  The saddest thing was sound genius, Rudolfo Fernando.  He's down with the flue, or something.  He still managed to  show up pretty much on time.  But, in his desire not to infect anyone else, he spent the entire 18 hour day wearing a white surgical mask. 

We were all too busy to generate much pity.  Sorry Rudolfo.  Get better soon.

Dar and Pete lined up a birthday lunch for me Friday.

I had not heard of this tradition.  My first exposure was to Andy's birthday lunch last year at Casbeers for excellent old style Tex-Mex cheese enchiladas that took me straight back to Roscoe White's Corral in Dallas — where my father would take the family to dine at his favorite dive.

For my birthday lunch, I was treated to Jacala, the first restaurant Pete and Lisa took me to when I visited San Antonio four years or more ago.  They do make a damn fine puffy taco.

Other than Pete, and Dar, Andy showed up.  He was wrapping up his first week on the new job.  After at least a year of freelancing, he looked a bit shell-shocked to have found himself no longer able to schedule his own hours.  Alston was there.  Carlos showed up late, toting in Rockie, who was dead asleep, tuckered out from what sounded like an intense night of cartoon viewing.  She perked up after awhile.

Dar gave me, as a little gift, a journal.  And as I was digging on it (wooden squares are sewn on the front cover), I noticed Alston whispering something to Pete.  She was pointing to the back of the menu.

I was expecting the worst.  You know, a crusty sheet cake kept in the meat-locker for just such events, and trotted out with an assault of Mariachis striking it up with patronizing smirks.

I did get a waiter, who obligingly sang “happy birthday” along with the rest of the table.  But the charming part was the single serving of flan, with a little candle stuck in the middle.

As I was finishing off my desert, Alston leaned over.  “How's the flan?”  I looked up.  “It's good.  Flan's always good.”  I dragged a finger across the plate through the puddle of caramelized syrup, and brought it to my tongue.  “It's hard to fuck up a flan.”

Pete glanced over.  “That's going to be the title of Erik's next blog.”

I realized he was right.  Unless I forgot.  So, I opened Dar's journal, and wrote, on its virgin pages: “It's hard to fuck up a flan.”

Dar and Andy had to return to their jobs.  Pete had to go pick up “the boy.”

Me, Alston, Carlos, and Rockie, went to check out the newest show at the McNay Art Museum.  I'd skimmed a couple newspaper pieces about Factory Work: Warhol, Wyeth, Basquiat.  I admit I had little interest in the show.  Warhol has always struck me as a vapid huckster, who just happened to have found himself periodically surrounded by people who intrigue me.  As a cultural catalyst, I admire him; however, as an artist, I have no interest in his work. Basquiat I rather like.  Playful and innocent.  But lacking in depth.  As for Wyeth, I guess I thought they meant Andrew Wyeth.  Don't care for his stuff.  Soulless.  His dad, N. C. Wyeth, I find much more rewarding.  But I keep forgetting about Andrew's son, Jamie.  I've never seen much or his work before.  Mostly, his farm animal paintings.  Like his father, his work is technically flawless, but I find some of the outre subject matter more engaging in the son's work.  You know, pop icons preening, guys with hard-ons, and stuff like that.

So even though I have only meager interest in each of the artists, the context that pulls all together is pretty fascinating.  As a whole, it's a great show.

But more rewarding, at least to me, was another, smaller show, in a room off to the side.  Jacob Lawrence and the Migration Series.  The entire series apparently appeared in Fortune Magazine in 1941.  It's some powerful work, spare, and poignant.  He was just a kid of 24 when he finished these off.

I first became of Jacob Lawrence fairly recently.  It couldn't have been more than five years ago when me and my sister were pricing some art books that came into the family bookstore.  She was very impressed by a Jacob Lawrence art book which was signed by the man.  When I confessed I had no idea who he was, she was surprised.  Like most people, I am constantly discovering holes in my cultural literacy.  But now, not only do I know who one of the most important 20th century African American artists is, I have also allowed myself to be introduced to some amazing art work.

Speaking of art, I went with Alston for coffee following the McNay.  We went to the Starbucks in her neighborhood.  She had promised my a birthday coffee, but I also wanted to see the paintings she had hanging on the walls there.  She's been doing some really exciting stuff recently, exploring space and perspective.  Her studies on buildings and architectural forms are my favorites.  She makes me think of Giorgio de Chirico and Philip Guston, two of my favorite painters.

Chadd and Nikki dropped by Starbucks to hand off some video work to me.  When I mentioned that Alston had painted the work on the walls, Nikki immediately said that a mutual friend, Hector (an actor / architect) would probably like her work.  I'd thought the same thing.  Probably because I know Hector is a de Chirico fan.

But I had to end my meandering day, hanging out with friends.  I had to be up north for my night job with the Company.  I was afraid I was running late, but highway 281 was smooth sailing.  I got to me desk with maybe two minutes to spare.

“Didn't someone call you?” my supervisor asked.

“Call me?”

“The day shift weren't able to scan in enough tests for the night crew to score.”

“You're kidding?  I just pissed away four dollars of gas for nothing?”

“Well, almost everyone has left.  If you want to score until you run out, we can pay you for that time.”

So score I did.  I probably should have taken my time, but I can only work at whatever speed gives me a comfortable rhythm.  Otherwise the job becomes an ordeal.  And I happen to score really fast.  So, an hour later, and it was all done.  I headed home.

Not much money, but the short shift allowed me to get more sleep.  I had to wake up the next morning damn early to make the 6:30am call time in Seguin for what was being promised to be an 18 hour shoot.

And you can't get more foolish up than that.

Unless you're doing it for no money.  Yeah, that's worse.

Tomorrow I'm going to be a year older.  44, I think.  I'm so bad with numbers that I have to look at my drivers license to know what year I was born in.

When I was a teen, I would think of my future.  But never did I push my fantasy beyond 40.  In all candor, I didn't expect to live this long.  There were all manner of things readied to take me out in the ensuing years.  Asteroids, robot insurrection, global plague, nuclear winter, or my own dark moods.  But mostly, I couldn't imagine myself older than 40, because I'd no longer have that connection with youth.  You know, I'd be an old man.

Fuck….  Where are those damned robots?

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I don't have the luxury to wallow in self-pity.  I need to prepare myself for the first day of shooting on the new Nations Entertainment Group's feature this Saturday.  For some idiotic reason, they've decided that the first day of production will run 18 hours.  Someone forgot to read that first paragraph in just about every “so you wanna make a movie?” book.

It usually goes something like this:

“Congratulations, you novice mogul, you.  You're well poised to be the next Howard Hawks!  Just make sure that the first day of shooting is slow and leisurely.  Nothing complicated.  Not an over-load of pages or set-ups.  You want to start things off with your cast and crew loving the experience.  So you go, tiger.  You go.  Make a movie!”

Mark my words, someone's gonna get tossed over that balcony at the location in Seguin. 

I just haven't figured out who it's going to be.

All I can say is there'd better be plenty of coffee.  So, Mr. Ansley, don't hoard the stuff, or it's over the rail before the egrets lift their first wing of the morning.

But I will do my best to keep my name out of the police blotter in the Seguin Gazette-Enterprise.

This current work schedule throws my weekly hike with Dar into some confusion.  But by some smooth stroke of luck, she had to take a half day off from work to get some work done on her car.  She uses a place downtown.  So, at one o'clock I drove over and picked her up.  We went for a walk along the Mission Trail from Mission Park to the Aqueduct, and back.  About seven miles.  It was a great day.  Warm and sunny.  I should have planned more wisely for the duration of the walk.  We were out there about three hours.  And I am currently sporting my first sunburn of the year.  Definitely a sign of the change of the seasons.

One of the problems of writing public journals (especially with the sort of frequency I've been doing of late), is the tendency to quote oneself.  It's fine if it's something I've written which no one has yet read.  True, there's this pesky echo in my head, like an actor delivering a line poorly (“shit, I can do it better than that”).  But the up side, in these instances, is that it makes you look clever (or so you tell yourself).  But when it's something you've placed on the internet, and you know for a fact that many friends and family read those postings, just about everything begins to sound like old material.

Me and Dar were walking along the trail this afternoon across the river from the ruins of the old Hot Wells resort.  She asked what was up with those old buildings.  As I answered, I found myself cringing.  I was hearing (in my mind's ear) my tendency to fall into a rather florid syntax, not to mention all those halting verbal mannerisms, as I launched into several lines lifted directly from a mini documentary I made over a year ago about the place — which I posted on my video blog.

Clearly I was deep into the “stop me if you've heard this before” territory.

So, Dar, and anyone else interested, link here for a tiny 2 minute piece.

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My sister turned me on to The Travis and Jonathan Show a few years back.  Travis Harmon and Jonathan Shockley started on cable access in Nashville.  They now are in LA.  I wasn't a huge fan of their stuff they did back on channel 19 in their home town.  Fun but rather forgettable.  However, they've been doing some pretty wonderfully weird stuff.  A disturbing take on two men's fascination with Brokeback Mountain, that makes the Post Show look like Teletubbies.  They did a strange parody of Werner Hertzog's Grizzly Man, where Jonathan's portrayal of Hertzog is as unfocused and perplexing as Chris Elliot's Marlon Brando “impersonation.”  And then there are the duo's brilliant video podcasts as Jackie and Dunlap in Red State Update.  They play two hardcore southern rednecks, surrounded by mountains of empty beer cans, bourbon bottles, and overflowing ashtrays.

One of the recent postings is a little mockumentary.  It's titled “In The Studio with Rick Rubin and Ray Stevens.”  Travis portrays iconic music producer, Rick Rubin.  The man known for his work with Metallica, Johnny Cash, and Audioslave, is inexplicably working on a fresh interpretation of Ray Stevens classics such as “The Streak” and “Ahab the Arab.”  I think what I most like about this little piece is Jonathan's take on Ray Stevens as a clueless goofball, trying to convince his producer that all music sounds better with a laugh track, even Slayer.

It may well be correct….

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So, to recap.  Don't let this happen to you.

Use sun-block, a burka, or midnight rambles through the cemetery.  Whatever best fits your lifestyle.

I don't keep current on all manner of pop culture, but here I'm assuming that Punxsutawney Phil proclaimed his oracle that, indeed, spring has sprung.  For here in San Antonio, it certainly seems that those pesky, depressing cold sunless days are behind us.  I'm back to enjoying afternoon bike rides along the Mission Trail.

Out near Mission Espada, I was walking the bike along the banks of the San Antonio River.  There was a good amount of flotsam on the grass from when the recent heavy rains caused the river to flood the banks and deposit on the ground an assortment of styrofoam cups and plastic grocery bags.  At one point I saw the signs of juvenile delinquency.  A spent tube of airplane glue.  Ah, sweet youth.  I leaned down and idly picked it up.  But this was not the sort of tube for sniffing.  It was for another form of entertainment.  I was holding an empty tube of Anal Eaze.  Perhaps it washed down from Warren Industrial Lubricants, which is upriver a few miles at Southcross.  A quick Google search proved enlightening.  Warren makes lube, but not for heavy-duty (industrial) fornication.  No, it provides lubrication for large machines … you know, like tractors.  And let me tell you, when you've plowing up the back forty with a Foton dual clutch FT354 tractor, a 1.5 oz tube of Anal Eaze ain't gonna get you past the first furrow.

Or so I've heard.

Warren Industrial Lubricants, it's for the big jobs.

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I got out early tonight from the Company, and was able to make the Short Ends directors meeting at the Jim's restaurant at 281 and Thousand Oaks.  The location was only a couple of miles from the Company.

There was just four of us.  Matthew, and three directors for this up-coming screening.

Joey, me, and Veronica.

Imagine my surprise to learn that the Veronica I had not yet met, was indeed a Veronica I had already met.  I just hadn't put all the info together.  It was Veronica Hernandez, who I'd met through several NALIP events.

She talked about some projects she's currently working on.

The Short Ends film she is directing is from, I believe, Jerod's script.  And, off hand, I'm not sure what genera they're working with.

She's also working on a project that's hiring Austinite Michael Morelan as DP.  I've been on set with Michael before.  He's professional, focused, oozing with talent, and has loads of great equipment.  I tried my best to convey to Veronica that Michael will guarantee the project to look beautiful.  Plus, he's fun to work with.

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For some reason, I never got into Michael Moorcock.  He's a science fiction writer with literary pretensions.  He's often mentioned in the same sentence with people like Phil Dick, Ballard, and Alan Moore.  Politically, he's an anarchist.  He dismisses Tolkien, and praises Mervyn Peake.  He sounds like the perfect author for me.  Why have I put off reading him for so long?

I decided to get something by him the other week while I was poking around the library.  I saw this book titled “Tales from the Texas Woods.”  It was published by Mojo Press in Austin.  1997.  Why don't I know about this stuff?  It gets worse.  Moorcock (a famous Brit author) lives (or lived) in Lost Pines, Texas.  Shit!  That's like discovering that Colin Wilson has been living for the past decade in Sanderson, Texas.  I'm not supposed to be out of the loop on these sorts of things.

Even Mojo Press has basically kept beneath my radar.  A Landsdale title or two I'd seen.  And my friend Matthew A. Guest provided the illustrations to one of the Mojo's graphic novel anthologies.  But, for the most part, I've been clueless about their stuff.

I'm halfway through this Moorcock book.  It's not a good introduction to his work.  It's filled with a couple of short stories, and loads of ephemeral writing — forewords, introductions, half-assed essays.  I will now have to read a real novel to see if he can truly write.  He does a nice Sherlock Holmes pastiche in here, but it came off too polished.  August Derleth (in his Solar Pons stories) did a better job of capturing the feel of Doyle.  And Derleth brought to writing the same artistry with which a robot would bring to dance.  But that was fine, because here I think that Conan Doyle's purple prose had more in common with Derleth's pompous over-writing than it did with Moorcock's clean, clear prose.

But I'll  have to give Moorcock an honest read.  The guy who created Jerry Cornelius demands some serious attention.

It's true what they say.  A house is not a home without a 50 cent bottle of Louisiana style hot sauce.  Who was it said that?  Ah, of course.  The Louisiana Condiment Advocacy Board.  Don't know how I got on their mailing list, but I can't complain with the stellar culinary results of a quick stop at the neighborhood HEB supermarket.  That huge batch of lentil and carrot stew I cooked up over the weekend, now has fire and fight.  A couple of dried chipotles into the stew pot was a nice touch, but, still it lacked an edge.  Now?  Kicks like a stew should.

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Friday I received a call from the Company: the gig where I, on occasion, pick up temp work scoring standardized tests.  I started a project today.  I'm hoping to get two weeks out of this one.  It'll be two anemic paychecks, as I'm working nights on this one.  4.5 hours per day.

I had been told over the phone that I would be scoring a reading component of this test.  Fine.  Reading, and particularly writing, are the fun ones.  But when I signed up, I discovered it will be math.

At the training session I spoke up.

“Um, I believe my employee records must mention somewhere to not allow me within fifty feet of a math test that needs scoring.  I know for a fact that I failed the math orientation test when I signed up for this company.”

One of the other scorers rolled his eyes.

“It's fourth grade!”

“Oh.  I did not know that….”

As the team leader began discussing the training material, I tried to recall what math was like when I was in 4th grade.  I think I did okay.  Keep to the add / subtract / multiply / divide stuff, and I'm fine — those functions so ubiquitous that my cell phone can do them.  And, yes, I am smarter than my cell phone.  But it's not one of those fancy kinds.

My final falling out with public school came with my first exposure to algebra.  When was that?  Sixth grade?  Seventh?  Up to that point I loved numbers.  To me, they were inextricably tied to science.  And that's what I wanted to be as a kid.  A scientist.  Or a writer.  There was a beautiful order to numbers.  Patterns in their behavior.  The playful, upward progression of a Fibonacci series, or the enigma of pi.  A pristine poetry, or so I thought.  However, on the first day of algebra, I saw those damn letters squatting right there in an equation.  They didn't belong.  They were supposed to join together.  Make words.  Yes, words!  Those willfully slippery things I love as much now, as I did then.

That was the beginning of the end.  It's hard to fake comprehension in a math class.

My middle school years were spent at a science Vanguard school — sort of a junior Magnet school.  The two guys running the science programs were fantastic.  One was a botanist, the other a herpetologist.  It was all life sciences — with a smattering of physics and chemistry.  I can't recall a scrap of math.

The Science Magnet I went on to for high-school chewed me up and spit me out.  I was sent packing.  Mainly because of my failing in math.  Very sad.  I mean, I had this amazing cytology class.  Cytology … in high-school!  The chemistry teacher was a bit of an asshole.  But funny, and brilliant.

I soon found myself in the high-school I would have been at all along, were it not for my excursion to that realm where I just couldn't measure up.

Failing grades there, prompted my great aunt to offer money to send me to a private school for rich fuck-ups.  And thus I was able to purchase my high-school diploma — a year early, even — and get out, and on with my life.

But I do love math.  I'm just a mess when I try and do algebra and calculus.  I could blame dyslexia, but I don't buy that.  People over-come all sorts of limitations.  Really, it's about just doing the work.  Much like learning languages.  Total immersion.

(And, yes, Jennifer, I know.  I should track down a good college math lab.)

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Yesterday I had called for a production meeting.  When it was pointed out that Sunday was the Super Bowl, what could I say.  A good filtration device.  If fucking sports means that much to you, we really shouldn't be working together.

Sports fans and nationalists need not apply.  If uniforms excite you (and NOT in a fetishistic manner), I can guarantee, I just won't be able to understand that sweet, subtle essence that makes you, you.

Anyway, I was expecting–  Scratch that.  I was hoping for 10 people.  I got 4.

Carlos showed up.  In fact he was the first one there.  He'd already been to an audition earlier in the afternoon.  Chris, dependable as always, showed on time.  And an actor Carlos wanted us to work with, Roze, drove down from San Marcos with his daughter.

It wasn't a complete waste.  I got to meet Roze.  Great guy.  And it was nice talking to people about the script and the project.  These sorts of meetings help to generate momentum and enthusiasm.

Ah ….  Enthusiasm.  I remember that.  It seems so distant.  I need to find a project that gets me excited again.  Maybe this one will be it.

But I recall those days, not so many years ago (four, in fact), when I was making films with fellow students.  It was amazing.  We were all committed.  100 percent.

Film instructor and UTA Art Department head Andy Anderson, used to accost every student who said he or she couldn't make a shoot because of, I don't know, “I've got to study for a chemistry test.”  “Oh?  Well, do you want to be a chemist?  Or do you want to make movies?  Because the rest of us, we're going to be making movies.”

Enthusiasm?  Yes, yes.  I'm trying to foster it.  Tough, at times.

There's a full moon up there tonight.  But I'm not so foolish as to try and go  out and enjoy it.  It's in the mid 30s, and that's not enjoyment weather for me.  However, when I was walking my neighbor's dog earlier, I was quite taken by how the moonlight plays across my tin roof.  I've been here in San Antonio for three years, and I still get a kick out of these tin roofs — they seem so exotic.

I hate to let a great full moon go to waste.  When I lived in the Big Bend, I would walk around the desert on those full moon nights without even taking a flashlight.  I could easily see the coiled rattlesnakes in the arroyos or goat paths, and step around them.  You could count on the ground the ants (those diligent creatures, always on the move) without even bending low.  I used to lie on the hood of my '69 Coupe de Ville and watch the wispy midnight clouds drift across the sharp-defined disk on the moon.  I could read by that silver light whenever I needed to reference my set of Burnham's Celestial Handbook, the three volumes of which would comfortably perch on the lip along the windshield where the recessed wipers hid.  The entire desert shone in clean monochrome — the little waxy leaves of the greasewood bushes glittered with a riot of tiny silver ovals.  And the bats, jittering about in impossible zigzags, were charcoal silhouettes; in fact, they seemed to be the only black forms playing about in this world of silver objects which shone in various degrees of luminosity.  Even the dark nighthawks, with their round woody songs, wore a reflective lateral stripe across their wings.  But the bats, they were all black.

Tonight I know those bats are still wintering far to the south in Mexico.  I want summer now.  I want those bats returned to their proper San Antonio roosts up under the I-35 overpass by the Market Square.  Texas is only half a thing without our Mexican free-tailed bats.

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I've been nursing a cold today and watching, over the internet, several episodes of Torchwood.  Jennifer was right to caution me about the decease in quality after the rather promising pilot.

The show is a spin-off of the current version of Doctor Who.  It's along the lines of a X-Files and Men In Black.  It seems uncertain as to whether it's geared for children (such as Doctor Who) or adults (like, say, Firefly).  The adult aspects, such as prevalent bisexualism and flirtations with existentialism, are in constant struggle with an adolescent playfulness along the lines of Biggles and Harry Potter.

I shouldn't carp.  It does not pretend to be more than simple entertainment.  I've seen more than half of the first season.  All in all, it's fun stuff.  I'll keep watching.

One of the nice things about the show is that it's set in Cardiff, the city where the show is produced.  They probably could have done a decent job making it look like it was set in London, but they didn't.  They played up the visual strengths of Cardiff, and created a script so that it made sense for this top-secret alien-hunting organization to be headquartered in Wales.

And I find myself thinking, why not San Antonio?

It's a beautiful city.  And I'm not opposed to ripping off someone else's work.  That's the definition of our art and culture in this country.  Besides, what successful American TV show wasn't stolen from the British?

I've already created the perfect underground headquarters in my short piece about tunnels which were created by an ancient civilization beneath San Antonio's Tower of the Americas.  We have chupacabras, ghost tracks, Tom Slick (world famous cryptozoologist, deceased — or is he?), a gigantic unquenchable mulch fire, and all sorts of wackery I'm forgetting — or don't yet know about.  You see, I'm still convinced that in the sub-basement of the Southwestern Research Center (Tom Slick's brain child), a 21st Century spunky Nancy Drew could very well stumble on the mother lode:  an advanced breeding colony of Venusians; Nessie's little sister in a huge, murky tank; and a couple of Yeti-Bhutanese hybrids working in the secretarial pool.

Yeah.  Time to start shaking the trees for investors.

It's no more ludicrous than Torchwood … or American Idol.