Yesterday was quiet after the hullabaloo of the King William Parade & Street Fair of the previous day.  My neighbors were, for the most part, on their second drinks of the morning when the parade kicked off.  And they kept at the festival work throughout the day.  When Sunday rolled around, there was nary a soul stirring.  I was on dog patrol for Phil.  I took Cutesy down to the river so she could sniff around the wildflowers.

I got up early this morning to collate and staple a hundred or so sets of forms for the youth film fest I’m coordinating.  I have appointments at two schools.

And just as I stepped out the door to drive to my 9am appointment with George Ozuna at Harlandale High School (AKA, the Film School of San Antonio), the skies opened up with some heavy, heavy rain.

The San Antonio Current is our local free weekly “newspaper” — it promises hard-hitting regional journalism with a vaguely left-leaning slant and delivers neither.  Recently the Current had it’s Best of SA 2007 issue.  The opportunity to praise those restaurants and clubs which have never defaulted on their weekly advertisements.  There are also those categories which were never offered to the readers to vote on. This allows for the staff writers to gush in unrestrained efflorescent prose more colorful than a baboons behind.  That’s not to say that these subjects of celebration aren’t deserving.  Best Film Teacher is awarded to George Ozuna.  And even though the readership of the Current weren’t consulted, who else could it be.  George is the man.

I was looking forward to see what his department in the Harlandale magnet school looked like.  I was very impressed with the place.  He’s only been there for three years, but it seems to be running smoothly, with growth and expansion in the works.  He teaches the advanced students.  Dago runs the earlier classes.  Russ is there teaching animation.

After spending time in George’s class, he took me down the hall to Russ’ room.  I watched Russ do this thing.  He played a wonderfully surreal work by Run Wrake titled Rabbit.  Eight and a half minutes of beautiful kitsch madness.  Then he turned them loose to work on their projects.  Dago poked his head in and we all visited for a while.

Dago asked me and Russ if we’d care to visit the set of Pablo Veliz’s current feature, 7 Kilos.  Pablo had already shot a scene where the lead actress gets shot at in a public restroom.  But Pablo needed to build a replicate of the toilet stall so he could shoot it up.  Dago said it would be a quick scene, and that they’d be filming around five.  Sounded fun.

“Give me a call when you guys head out,” I said.

I left to make my second campus visit of the day.  Just as I stepped out the door of Harlandale, the skies opened again.  These were those fat heavy cold drops of water that make you think hail or a tornado is coming in fast over the tree line.  But only rain.  And it lasted just long enough for me to get to my car.

There was some nice flooding around town.

When I arrived at Northwest Vista College, the rain was pretty well sewn up for the day.

With ten minutes to spare I made it to the media arts department.  Bill Colangelo met me.  He toured me around, introducing me to students he thought might be interested in submitting to the festival.  I left plenty of forms.  The classrooms are large and open, yet manage to be cozy.  They have plenty of toys.  A great bank of computer work stations.  There’s a classroom devoted to audio work, with a sound-booth.

I headed back to my neighborhood.  Stopped by Pepe’s Cafe for Monday’s special, chili rellenos.  I was sipping coffee and reading the San Antonio Express-News.  There was a story about an alligator which had crawled out onto the highway on the far southside.  Loop 1604.  The cops closed down the highway until the animal control agents could escort the critter back to a nearby lake.  What got my attention was that it was an eight-foot gator.  That’s damn big.

And then I got a call from Sam Lerma.  He wanted to know if I could think of location for a film project he’s working on.  He wants an interior which will work as the home of a decaying family, once well-to-do.  Something Faulknerian.  I explained that there were plenty of places in King William, but the folks I know live in more humble homes.  If anyone out there knows of a possibility, get in touch with me or Sam.

I should point out that Sam was also in this San Antonio Current’s Best of … issue.  Third place for best local filmmaker.  He should have gotten first place.  I can say this because I voted for him.  Still, it’s some sort of recognition.

Sam told me that he was the only news shooter on the scene for that alligator event.  He instructed me click over to the KSAT website.  Go to their Video section.  And scroll down for the video.  It’s called “Gator Slithers On Freeway, Snaps At Police.”  They’ve no committed link location, so check it out before it buried by too many traffic jams and drug busts.

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Russ dropped by around 4:45, and we headed off to the eastside, just a couple of miles away, to meet up with Pablo and his crew.

The address took us to a small strip mall of three businesses.  A barbacoa place, hairdresser, and a building contractor.  We didn’t see any film people.  But soon Pablo showed up.  We were indeed at the correct place.  The contractor opened up a side gate, and we began loading equipment into a small warehouse in the back.

The owner, Adrian, had built a perfect public toilet stall.  A guy — I believe his name was Gabriel — had placed squibs on two of the walls, which would explode in a manner to resemble the strafing of machine gun fire.  He said he had experimented with electric detonation, but it didn’t work as well as firecrackers gouged into the wall from behind and lit with butane lighters.

It was one of those wonderful “movie magic” opportunities.  You know, where a shit-load of people cram into a small space and obsessively spend several hours to capture footage that will translate into 30 seconds of movie time.

We had two cameras.  The Panasonic HVX200 high def camcorder.

We set up three lights, but only used two.

Dago assembled his crane and we used it as a jib.

The call-time was about 5pm.  We wrapped by 9pm.  It was a very time-intensive shot.  And when Pablo shouted “action” we had only one take.  The squibs we
nt off perfectly.

It was a real privilege for Pablo to allow me and Russ help out on crew.  I’ve seen his previous two features.  I’m quite a fan of his stuff.

The people on the set, and I only got maybe half of their names, were all comfortable working together.  And even with all the good-natured banter, things seemed to got fairly smoothly.

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Tomorrow I start a new assignment with the Company.  I’ll be scoring standardized tests for a couple of weeks for the evening shift.  The thought of real work, even part-time, is making me pissy.  Oh well, I’ve got bills stacking up.

King William Parade!

For those who don’t think San Antonio is a beautiful place

Last night was a-buzz with neighbors putting the final touches of banners and streamers and the assorted miscellany about the exterior of their homes for the big Fiesta event — the parade that would go down our street this morning.  I could tell some had began celebrating already.  Playful banter drifted back and forth across the street.  The people on my block all get along well with one another.  I was sitting at my desk with the windows open as I answered a couple of emails.  And then I noticed that the tone of the voices had changed.  I stepped out on the porch to investigate.  Phil was out walking his dog.  (That poor animal gets dragged out for walkies ten times a day, at least — otherwise, how else will Phil be able to know what’s going on in the neighborhood?)  He saw me and crossed to my sidewalk.

“Have you heard the latest?” he asked.

I lifted my brows and he filled me in.  It seems that the group who runs the parade were changing the route.  This year it would begin on our street.  In fact, the floats would be staged along our block.  That meant that we would just be able to watch the last half of the parade.  There were also less groups represented.  Only 60 groups were allowed to match this year.  Last year it was a little over a hundred.  And people could no longer throw things to the crowds — like beads, candy, trinkets, et al.  They could hand them out.  But no throwing!  And the biggest pisser to the folks on the street is that because the floats would be set up as early as 7:30 in the morning, cars wouldn’t be allowed down the street.  Everyone on my block was prepared for a party.  They were consolidating their cars where ever they could so some of their guests could park in their drives.

I called Alston to warn her. She was coming with some friends from out of town.  I told her to come really early, or just be prepared to spend some time looking for parking.  At that point it was too late for me to call anyone else.

Parade day I got up and sat on my porch drinking coffee and watching to see how things developed.

Lee strolled up.  He would be joining Nikki to march with the SATCO (San Antonio Theater Coalition) group.  Nikki was running late and I had little hope she would make it through the barricades.  But I had forgotten how tenacious and charming she and her family can be.  She arrived with her grandmother, her mom, and her stepfather.  They sweet-talked their way in.

Alston arrived on foot with her friends.  Everyone had those portable folding chairs.  Very useful things.  Finally Gloria showed up.  Her sister and brother-in-law decided not to come.  But she had her adorable granddaughter, Bella, in tow.  I motioned her into my driveway and pulled out a couple of chairs.  Gloria told me all the lies she gave to the various police, constables, and state troopers who were working crowd control.  “My mother lives at 716 East Guenther.  I live at 716 East Guenther.  My nephew lives at 716 East Guenther, and he has my insulin.”  Gloria looked over at Bella who was petting a neighbor’s dog.  She leaned in and whispered to me.  “Bella kept asking me why I was lying. I need to sit down and explain it.”  I shrugged it off and gave her my take.  “It’s always okay to lie to a man in a uniform.”  Gloria didn’t disagree.

Gloria and Bella

My neighbor Cara had made the mistake of allowing the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz float to use her restroom.  He periodically brought other Oz characters over to also use the facilities.  Maybe Cara didn’t see it as a mistake.  She’s very sociable.  In fact, I assume that the Ozians were helping themselves to Cara’s cooler of beer and her build-your-own cocktail table.

Bradley and Dian had a huge crowd milling on their front porch.  Champaign seemed to be the order of the morning.  The same across the street from them at Jerry and Becky’s place.  Marlys and Michael were working on Bloody Marys.  And I was drinking coffee.

One of the groups staged in front of my house was the local Sierra Club.  For a description of a run-in I had with one of the paranoid assholes from their group, check my blog for the King William Parade of 2006.  I don’t recall what the woman looked like who thought I, armed with my video camera last year, was with the FBI.  And truly I could care less.  But I was intrigued.  What would these people be like?  They set to decorating two hybrid cars.  Very green.  Very virtuous.  Good for them.  And then they began assembling some windmills to represent alternative power.  I was a bit bemused that they were spread out all across my front yard without even making eye contact, let alone asking permission.  One of them was puffing away on a cigarette.  I found this mildly ironic.  It’s more of a vice than it is air pollution.  But later I heard Alston:  “No way, dude!”  I looked over.  She told me that the smoking woman had just tossed her cigarette butt onto my side yard.  I took a picture of the Sierra Club litterbug, but it came out kind of blurry.  Here’s Alston pointing at the butt.

They also helped themselves to my trash barrel without asking.  Well, one time, one of their members crossed my yard and put a half empty plastic water bottle in the trash.  “Gotta keep the planet clean,” she said with a self-satisfied smile.  I was laughing.  My recycling bin was two feet away from the trash can.

And when they finally left, there was this decorative decal sitting in my yard.  A piece of trash.  Sure you could say I’m going overboard.  But one of the things I’ve carried with me all my life from those early years of camping with, yes, the Boy Scouts, is that you police your area, and, if possible, leave it cleaner than when you arrived.  I don’t camp so much anymore, but I try and do the same when I shoot a film on location.  You pack it in, and you pack it out.

I respect the Sierra Club for the work they do and most of the causes they support.  (Except the anti-immigrant stance taken by the more reactionary of their members — but that stalled out.)  But they are not really activists.  The Sierra Club is the environmental group that the pussies and yuppies join to keep from going to hell.

Earth First! they ain’t.

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The word came down the line that it was ON.  The floats with music cranked up their PAs, the folks on horseback nudged their beasts, and the Alamo Badminton Club broke out their shuttlecocks.

Even though we just got half a parade, it was still a blast.  I saw Amanda Silva.  She was with the SAC (San Antonio College) cheerleading squad.  She was super cute in her outfit.  She reminded me that she was also with the SAC debating club, in case my estimate of her was flagging.  No way!  I know Amanda will one day put all us wanna be film folks to shame.  And then Dago passed on the San Antonio Undergr
ound Film Festival float.  Nikki and Lee marched by with SATCO. I also recognized Jonathan from the Woodlawn Theater.  Gisha, who teaches film at Say Si, was out with her video camera.  A woman who I believe is named Sheila came up to say, Hi.  She’s read my blog, it seems.  She’s a photographer and was roaming around with her SLR.

Amanda Silva

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Gloria had promised that she would show up with breakfast tacos.  But because she didn’t have time to pick any up, she felt honor-bound to treat me to lunch.  Bella was getting antsy, maybe even a little bit crabby.  We dropped her off at her mom’s.

We had a nice lunch at Demo’s, a Greek place on N. St. Mary’s.

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Back home things had quieted down.  I was thinking of a nap.  And then Carlos called.  He was in the neighborhood and wanted to know if he could park in my driveway.  “Sure,” I said.

He was driving the Camaro and had his daughter Rockie with him.  Rockie was in a sort of white taffeta princess dress.  The three of us went to the King William Fair a few blocks away.  It was crowded, but not as dense with people as the years in the past.  After thirty minutes of aimless wandering, I decided to call up Nikki and see if she was still hanging about.

Rockie.  In princess mode.

Chadd answered.  “Hey, Erik.  We’re on Johnston Street.”

“I’m on Johnson Street.”

“We’re over by the music stage.  Nikki’s standing up.”

I thanked him and hung up.  No mistaking Nikki.

Nikki, Chadd, Lori, and Lee were waiting for Luis Arizpe to begin his set.  Nikki commented that Rockie needed a tiara.  Carlos promised to pick one up for her the next time he drove past the Dollar Store.

Luis started up, and Nikki took Rockie over to the stage and danced with her for a couple of songs.

Nikki, Rockie, Carlos.

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It was a nice day.  Aimless and somewhat strange.  Cloudy, mostly, though I have a bit of a sunburn.  I didn’t have a gordita.  Nor did I get a good photo of someone eating a turkey leg.  But you can’t have everything.

Or can you?  Just looking at these lovely lasses melts all my cares away.

Yesterday and today I’ve been working on the three film events I’m coordinating.  Meet The Makers on June 1st and 2nd.  The Josiah Youth Media Festival on July 12th, 13th, 14th.  And the 48 Hour Film Project either the first or the second weekend in August.

This morning I called around to the folks who run the film departments in the local high-schools and colleges and set up dates to speak with the students about the Josiah Fest.

Around noon I managed to talk myself into going out to buy a little digital still camera.  My sister provided me with a windfall via a book she sold over the internet.  160 sounded like the perfect price for a cheapie camera, some batteries, and an SD card.  I was right.  I’m now the proud owner of a Nikon Coolpix.  I guess I could have used it to pay my electric bill, but fuck it.

The camera’s damn tiny.  I figured out the menus quick enough.  It’s a basic point and shoot.  But it has several white balance presets, a macro close-up setting, flash over-ride, and an ability to force the exposure over or under.

Now I can clutter up this blog with pictures.

Like this, my new camera.  I believe this is the first photo everyone does with a new camera.  “This is me photographing myself in a mirror.”  So ubiquitous do I imagine this to be, that I think camera manufacturers should just go ahead and load up every camera, at the factory, with a generic blurry photo of some person holding a camera and facing a mirror.

It was a perfect day — maybe a bit humid with the recent rains — but the sky was clear and the wind not too fierce.  I decided to hop on the bike and ride out to Mission Espada and back.

Here is the old Espada Dam, which was constructed around 1745 to divert irrigation water for the fields around the missions.  At this point, the irrigation channel is running between the fence line of the Mission Burial Park (one of the older and grander cemeteries in San Antonio), and the San Antonio River.  It’s always lush and green here where the water cascades over the dam, but spring is when it gets truly tropical.

In the same area, a bit further south, is the Espada Aqueduct.  It’s from the same period, and carries water over Piedras Creek.  The park is usually empty, peaceful, and it’s filled with shade trees.  There’s a misshapened pecan tree which grows parallel to the ground for about ten feet before going up.  It’s low enough to lounge on.  Many times I’ve been stretched out on it, my shoulders supported at the bend where the tree goes up, and I’ve watched car after car roll into the parking-lot, stop at the historical marker sign long enough for those inside to read it — and off they drive.  They’re missing a lot.

If you eschew the bike trail, and head out of the Aqueduct park on Espada Road, you’ll go through a peaceful farming community that no doubt has it roots all the way back to the indians who built the missions.  And then the bucolic idyllicness is mangled by the scar of I-410 cutting a frenetic path to the horizons, both east and west.

On the south side of the overpass is a dead-end street leading to a small cemetery.  I’d been down that road before, but never with a camera.  The local families who have their ancestors interred here have placed a fairly tall fence around the place.  The gates are kept locked.  Still, it’s a nice road to go down and explore.  The whole place is canopied by large trees.

Just a bend in the road beyond the turn off to the cemetery is Mission Espada.  It’s my favorite of the missions.  Smallest, and in a sense, the most crudely designed.  But it’s a work of art.  The interior of the sanctuary vibrates with a warm intimacy.  Because it’s the last Mission out from San Antonio, it’s the least visited.  That’s nice, in a way, because there are never any crowds.  But the downside is that fewer people get to appreciate the place.

If you head further south, the road curves around and crosses the San Antonio river.  This kilometer or so length of road is the Camino Coahuilteca, named for the indigenous people whose labor built the missions and worked the fields for the Spanish.  I wonder how much politicking it took the Tap Pilam Coahuiltecan Nation to get those street signs up.  Sounds like a nice small documentary.

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Fiesta (San Antonio’s two week city-wide booze-up) is drawing to a close.  But the fact is, this final weekend is what people have really been holding back for.  For some, it’s when they really let wail on their livers.  For others (like Nikki Y-) it’s when they can indulge in a gordita (maybe 2!) with no sense of shame.  [For the uninitiated, a gordita is masa dough — the same stuff you use to make corn tortillas — formed into a patty and fried.  Most likely in lard.  It’s split open along its perimeter like a pita bread … an artery-clogging pita bread.  And it’s stuffed with savory goodies.  And if you’re lucky, those goodies too have been fried.  Throw on some grated cheese, and you’re in business.  Salsa is optional, sissy boy.  Make no mistake, a well constructed gordita can rock your world.]

But I digress.

In my neighborhood, the big Fiesta event is the King William Parade.  That is followed by the King William Street Fair.  I live in the King William neighborhood of San Antonio.  It’s become very prestigious, with very beautiful mansions dating back to the 1880s or earlier.  I live on the south side of South Alamo Street.  The houses are not so grand (such as my hovel), but for some reason we have been pulled into the fold (I blame realtors … I always blame realtors).

The parade comes right down my street.  And for some reason I thought the parade was Sunday.  But this is what I saw on my street when I came back from my bike ride.

I shot both sides of the sign.  They’ve been designed like this for the three years (or has it been four?) in which I’ve lived here.  The signs, if you haven’t noticed, are printed on paper bags.  Maybe they do this so that when they clean the streets at the end, the broom-pushers can just snatch a paper bag off a stick and start stuffing it.

I got online and discovered that the parade and street fair are Saturday.  That still works for me.

For those local folks who read this and are dithering as to attending the shindiggery in King William this Saturday — just do it.  The parade is great fun.  And this is coming from a confirmed parade bigot (my disgust for parades is on par with my hatred of sports and musical theater).  And the street fair is surreal.  I just wander the streets on the other side of South Alamo Street watching people who are … watching people.  It’s an insane crush of humanity, but there’s this great warm vibe.

Parking is a bitch.  But if you come down as early as seven or eight in the morning (the parade officially begins at nine) I might be so kind as to let you park in my driveway.  I can cr
am quite a few cars in there now that Matt has moved out of his apartment.

I’m at 716 E. Guenther
Call me at 210.482.0273.

Be prepared to bring breakfast tacos, mimosas, and lawn chairs.

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After my bike ride, I enjoyed a feast of Pik-Nik 50 cent tacos and a a couple of tumblers of aguas frescas.  And then I walked down to the river, two blocks from my house.  I wanted to photograph (with my new camera) the wildflowers growing in profusion along the banks.

Later, after looking at the shots, I wasn’t too happy with the lighting (which I had thought would be low enough to be beautiful — I was wrong).  But I quite like this view looking up at one of the more beautiful houses in my neighborhood.  The picture might not do justice to the house, but I love how the sunflower is rising from the chaos of vegetation — those raw, ragged, undifferentiated weeds.

I’m fascinated by these profuse riots of weeds which grow tall and unsupervised.  It’s not the inviting garden of picnics and badminton.  These are the areas grown wild with stinging nettles, poison oak and sumac; where famished ticks and chiggers clutch desperately to blades of grass awaiting some warm blooded creature to fumble passed.

Weed-choked gardens are flawlessly defined in literature by both Thomas Hardy and H. P. Lovecraft.  These authors really have nothing in common, other than their ability to know how crazed an untended garden can get in the height of spring.

I dig it.

Today, as part of Fiesta, the San Antonio Museum of Art had a family event which celebrated the city’s patron saint, San Antonio de Padua.  That’s why we screened the Dia de los Locos documentary we made last summer.  The Locos parade in San Miguel de Allende that me, Deborah, and Ramon documented exists as a thanksgiving to that city’s patron saint, also San Antonio de Padua.  Deborah helped arrange the screening.  But sadly she was busy today and wasn’t able to make it out.  But Ramon was there, giving an impromptu lecture for both of the screenings.

“Locos” doc viewed from projection booth at SAMA

I was up in the projection booth, operating the equipment.  The attendance could have been better, but it went off well.  No technical surprises.  And Ramon’s a charming and effective off-the-cuff public speaker.

For the first screening Alston showed up.  She brazenly brought in a brown bag lunch, flagrantly ignoring the proscription against food and drink posted on the door into the auditorium.  Well done, Alston — you’re my hero.  You give those docents hell!

For the second screening, Carlos entered just as I was dropping the house lights.

Out in the main hall, Los Inocentes were singing ballads and corridos.  There were tables set up for various crafts for the kids.  And somewhere in the museum a scavenger hunt was going on.

After the event, I went for a late lunch with Carlos at Pepe’s Cafe.  He pitched for me a trilogy of short films that sound pretty funny.

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The other week a major cultural event went down here in san Antonio.  April 13th was the opening of, well, this museum downtown.  I guess they kind of screwed up with the last decade of hype. Trying to please too many people has given it too many names.  Let me try to make sense of their website.

It’s called the “Alameda.”  Okay?  So, it’s in the old Alameda Movie Theater?  Um, no.  It’s pretty close, but ….  Oh, here we go.  “The Alameda National Center for Latino Arts and Culture.”  Right?  But — dammit! — lower on the page I read: “The Museo Alameda.”  But, wait, because this museum is an affiliate with the Smithsonian, I see they’re also referring to it as “The Smithsonian in San Antonio.”

What jackasses are running PR on this thing which is potentially one of the most important cultural centers to hit this city in over a decade?  I guess it’s too late to fire them.

Here’s a quote from the website.

“In 1997, The Alameda National Center for Latino Arts and Culture became the first organization in the United States to sign an affiliation agreement with The Smithsonian Institution. President Bush, then Governor Bush, designated The Museo Alameda as the Official Texas State Latino Museum.”

Oh, that clears up everything.  It’s the “Official Texas State Latino Museum.”

Um, I don’t think that’s it ….

Who writes this shit?

I’ll keep calling it the Smithsonian Annex until I see some letterhead.

But the fact is, other than the local media parroting press releases, there really was no buzz.  I know a lot of people in this town affiliated with museums, galleries, latino cultural centers.  They don’t talk about this place.  All the painters, sculptors, architects, and filmmakers I know in San Antonio barely are cognizant of this place.  And were it not that I’ve been currently working with George Cisneros, and the fact that he was commissioned to create a large installation project for the museum, I’d not have known when the place opened.  True, I don’t read the paper every day, but I pick it up fairly often.  The point is, this should be a big word-of-mouth thing within the local art community. The only other person I know who was involved in the museum, is my friend Alejandro (AKA Alex).  He assisted artist Franco Mondini-Ruiz who designed the museum’s gift shop, which was also something of an installation piece.

Earlier this night I got a call from Alex.  He told me I needed to read Edward Rothstein’s piece on the museum published recently in the New York Times.  While I listened to Alex talk trash about the museum, I got online and looked up the review.  Pretty savage.  Rothstein had little positive to say about the museo, with the exception of the gift shop.  “That says a lot,” Alex paused thoughtfully in his rant.  “I mean, who reviews a fucking gift shop?  They’ve got Laura Bush’s purse on display and some shit belonging to Ladybird Johnson.  What the fuck have those women done for my people?  Maybe if they had the purse open so you could see a box of condoms and a crackpipe to make some kind of statement.  Hey, can I call you back?  I’ve got a call coming in.”  And thus ended another adrenaline-driven rant that periodically comes in over my phone line.

I blanch at the 8 dollar admission fee, but I feel I should visit the museum just to see if it really is that lame.  It certainly doesn’t sound like it’s serving the community, beyond the rich locals who like to think that they’re doing good work bringing us their watered-down notion of art and culture.

Oh, and here’s a nifty quote from a puff piece on the museum that appeared in the LA Times.

“Locals have nicknamed the museum MAS — Museo Alameda Smithsonian — Spanish for more.”

Yet another name.  And I’d like to know what “locals” are saying this.  I want attribution.  Probably some pinche gabachos holding forth expansively over a bottle of Chardonnay in the bar of the Menger Hotel.

I’ve heard, in passing, the vague buzz about a fistfight at the Museo on the VIP opening night.  This really doesn’t interest me.  Uppercrust assholes and their drunken misbehavior is rather tiresome.  This level of entitlement is the ugly side of American culture.  But as I’m sitting here writing this out, I thought I’d see what it was that went down.  A simple Google search with the key words Museo, Alameda, and Fight brought up a few selections.  This turned out quite fortuitous.  I discovered the website of Barbara Renaud Gonzalez.  Her blog is called Las True Stories from San Antonio.  She’s a very good writer, and I immediately put her blog into my online aggregator so I can keep up with her work.

I’m reminded of one of the things Alex told me tonight.  When he was a kid and he used to go to the Teatro Alameda (back when it was a movie house screening spanish language films).  He and he friends called it the Alamierda.  Somebody better get his or her, um, shit together, or the people who brought this Museo Alameda to town will find that it has yet another name.

I took a day off from Leftovers.  In fact, I took a weekend off from Leftovers.

Today I needed to finish off a DVD slide show for a retirement party as well as show up and present it.  And tomorrow I need to do the same thing with a different DVD at the San Antonio Museum of Art.  Both gigs are paying me.  Not a lot, but enough so that each will pay off a utility bill.

I got up at seven this morning.  And I was so happy that I didn't have to be up in Seguin for a 5:30 call time.  In fact, I realized that seven was way too early.  I rolled over and slept for two more hours.

Nine o'clock I woke refreshed.  Made a pot of coffee and began playing with all those little pesky things that need to be addressed in the final edit of a video project.  Opening and closing credits, transitions, font choices, audio (or in this case, music) cross-fades.  I was done by noon.  I took a break to pick up some tacos at a little drive-through place on Presa and Steves.

Back home I ate tacos and finished off the orange juice that Pete and Cooper had brought me earlier in the week to help me through my cold.  I designed a basic DVD menu.  I burned five DVDs in all, just in case family or friends wanted to buy some.  I also printed a copy to mDV tape as a fall-back.  And then, in preparation for tomorrow, I burned a couple of fresh DVDs of the Locos documentary.

Burning disks is a baby-sitting job.  I sat at my desk and listened to some more science podcasts.

I made it to Centro Cultural Aztlan by 5:30, half an hour before Gloria Vasquez's retirement party began.  I hadn't been to the Centro since it officially opened its doors at the new location in the Deco Building.  But it's looking great.  Malena Gonzalez-Cid is pulling it all together nicely.

When I walked in, Gloria was sitting with one of her sisters who was in from out of town.  Javier was there.  As was Juan.  And I finally got to meet Gloria and Ramon's two daughters, Edna and Marisol.  They are wonderful and beautiful women.  The grandchildren, the cousins, the co-workers, the old friends, the new friends … everyone started coming in.  And I was wrestling with a digital projector loaned to us by Gabriel, the DJ.  It had a fixed lens, so I had to drag it closer to the screen.  I plugged it into my DVD player, and managed (with the help of Gabriel) to patch the audio into the DJ PA system.

The video slide show was well-received.  I thought 12 minutes would be too long.  But there were enough family members in the room, so that people were whooping it up throughout.

A success.

I was sitting at Gloria's table.  Her daughter Marisol was sitting beside me punching at her cell phone trying to get ahold of her father.  Marisol's parents, Gloria and Ramon, have been divorced for most of her life, but they remain good friends.  I made some quip that maybe Ramon was having a hard time making it to the party — he lives about five blocks away.

Ramon finally showed up.  When the mariachis arrived along with the video guy (Roger, and I can't remember his last name — but he's a fellow NALIP member), I looked up.  There was Ramon, in the middle of a knot of people.  Later I kidded him about how he must have waited until he saw a man with a camera, and then he made his entrance.

It was a nice evening.  Good food, good people, good music.  I felt included in this extraordinary family's extended circle.

I've been slowly plowing my way through Astronomy Cast, a weekly astronomy podcast.  I'm not sure where I heard about it.  Jennifer Saylor sounds like the obvious culprit.  But I'm thinking it was off digg.com or just some serendipitous google search.  There are 32 episodes currently archived, each about 30 minutes.  I've gone through more than half of them.  Today, while listening to episode 11, about Dark Energy, someone hammered on my door.  I hit pause.

It was the mailman.  He had a package from my sister.  For filler, she had stuffed in the latest catalogue from Forced Exposure.  It had arrived at the bookstore where she works.  Forced Exposure is a music distributer in Massachusetts — it's the one-stop source for the most adventurous, innovative, and odd music you could hope to find.  On those rare occasions when I have money not needed by my landlady, utility companies, and collection agencies, I hop onto the Forced Exposure website and place an order.  It had been over two years since I'd seen one of their printed catalogues.  How exciting!  Over 60 pages of stuff, mostly of which I'd never heard of before.  But clearly the catalogue was an after thought.  Paula had also sent me two CDs.  Actually, two double CDs.

Roky Erickson, “Live! — Live at the Ritz 1987 / Live in Dallas 1979.”  It was put out in 2005 by a Paris-based label.  The Ritz is a theater in Austin.  And I had only a passing interest in this CD #1.  There are plenty of Roky Erickson live recordings from this period.  But CD #2 is Roky backed by the Nervebreakers, the seminal Dallas punk band.  I'm listening to it now.  It's pretty good stuff.  Poor recording quality.  But Roky's voice is clear and plaintive as he launches into such standards as “Two-Headed Dog,” and “Cold Night for Alligators.”

Also, Cafe Tacuba, “Un Viaje.”  Material from two days of live performances in Mexico (de efe) 2004.  I'm not a huge fan of live albums, but Cafe Tacuba's  live performances show amazing intricacy and depth.

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This morning I drove to the San Antonio Museum of Art (SAMA) to meet with Nicole.  She and Katie now run the museum's educational department.  I guess I hadn't been to the museum since Rose and Deborah left (they had the jobs that Katie and Nicole now have).  Nicole took me up to the projector room at the back of the auditorium.  It was much as I remembered.  I dropped my DVD into the projector to test it out.  The damn thing froze up at the 30 second mark.  I ejected it and rubbed it some with a lens cloth.  It played better, just a small hanging glitch.  Nicole seemed unconcerned.  She suggested I burn a fresh one.  “It'll be fine,” she said, with a smile.

I can never seem to adequately convey my ire of home-burned DVDs.  And I'm pissed.  We had this format shoved down our throats.  Perhaps the technology is sound, in theory — but there is no standardization of encoding, compression modes and rates, burners, players, blah blah blah.  Fuck the DVD!

But I'll come an hour early Sunday morning.  See if a newly burned disk will work.  I'll also have, as a backup, my camera to use as a deck.  If need be, I'll play a copy of the doc on mini DV tape.  Now there's a stable medium.  I just need to remember to bring an S-video cable, as well as a mini to RCA cord.

And, again, I put out the invite.  Two screenings Sunday.  One p.m., three p.m.  It's free.  SAMA.  The auditorium off the big hall.  This will be the largest screen I've shown it on, as well as the biggest sound system.  So I'll be cringing as I see every poor editing decision.  So, come on — watch me cringe!

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Christy Walsh is a dancer / choreographer I met through Russ.  She wants to make a dance film, and had contacted him.  Russ brought me along to the first meeting.  That first day, I realized I'd seen her dance months ago at an event at the Radius Center I attended with Deborah.  After having spoken with her as well as having reviewed a couple of DVDs of her dance and film work, it became obvious that Christy is one of the true artists working in this town (a town with more than its fair share of dilettantes and self-important gasbags).

Christy invited me to the Cameo for tonight's performance of Cabaret.  She knew well my disdain for musical theater, but she persisted.  She'd seen the piece the previous week, and was trying to spread the word.

The truth is, she didn't have to twist my arm over-much.  I adore Anne Gerber.  She's one of the great actors I've had the opportunity to work with.  The film I directed which featured her, barely took advantage of her talents — and I'm chagrined at the wasted opportunity.  In fact, I've seen her in a lot of bad films.  And a few good ones.  But she always stands outs.  And everyone loves to work with her.  As far as her stage work was concerned, I kept putting them off.  I love theater, and try to get out there when I can.  I knew I would have to go see her, even if so much of her stage work has been MUSICALS — the very word causing my sphincter to begin snapping like castanets.

My problems with musicals is that the songs are usually bad.  Kitsch, but not in a fun way.  There are, occasionally, perfectly valid story-lines which are pulled to a jarring stop as some smirking asshole begins to launch into some asinine sing-song bit of narrative exposition.  I don't like expository dialogue, so why should I like it when it's accompanied by music?

The musicals I tend to find palatable are where there is some framing device that allows for the musical interludes.  The campier and stagier the better.  Rocky Horror, Hedwig, and all of that tribe.  Great stuff.  About half of Cabaret fits into that category.

When I showed up at the Cameo, Christy could only manage to rope in two other people.  So we were four (not enough for a group price break), yet that still allowed us to have a table up close to the stage.

(I was there a bit early, so I was hanging out on a bench along the side of the building.  A couple of very attractive women walked up to me.  This is something that, as a general rule, just doesn't happen to me.  “Erik?” one of the women asked.  I looked up.  It was Evie Armstrong.  I forget what a stunningly beautiful woman she is.  I stood up and and she introduced me to a friend of hers.  I expressed my disappointment at missing the table reading of Dora Pena's up-coming feature, “The Dream Healer” (an unfortunate title).  Evie is playing the evil aunt, I believe, of Gabi Walker's character.  I think the last time I saw Evie was also at the Cameo, where she was one of the lead strippers in Kerry's feature, “Garrison.”  I did sound for that film (and I'm sure they're still cursing my name), and we turned the Cameo Theater into King Tut's Titty Bar.  It was a tiny role, but Evie put in a flawless performance.  She's great.)

Cabaret was a great show.  The best thing I've seen at the Cameo.  Because I've been working on a feature film where I've been designing most of the lighting set-ups, I found myself looking at the lighting arrangement for Cabaret.  Very nice.  And then I saw in the program that Jesse Arenas did the lighting.  H
ell, yeah.  Jesse knows his shit.

All the performances were solid (though some accents slid in and out).  I was very impressed by Amy Sloan as Fraulein Schneider.  I suspect she was playing significantly older than she really is, but she never wavered with the German accent (even in song), and gave a deep and nuanced performance.

But really the show belongs to Anne (as Sally Bowles) and Rick Sanchez (as the MC, AKA, “Emcee”).

After the first act, we had an intermission.  I scrambled for the program.  Why had I never encountered Rick Sanchez in local films or theater productions?  He's fucking amazing.  He is so over the top in every scene, but it's clear he remains in complete control.  As Emcee, he functions more often than not as a one-man Greek chorus.  This is a wonderful device that allows him to chew scenery like a brigade of beaver.  I mean this with the utmost respect.  He's playing this iconic character representing the pure id.  When things are going well in the world of pre-war decadent Berlin, he's randy and ready with winks and leers.  But as the city — the nation — falls under the shadow of repressive fascism, he begins to falter, a little bit more with each scene, like he's becoming drunk or ill.  And as I skimmed his CV in the program, I understood why I had never encounter him before.  He's mainly in musicals.  Ah, I see ….  Those damn musicals.

And then there's Anne.  I knew she's a great stage actor and singer even though I hadn't yet seen her on stage before tonight.  She gets all the plum roles.  And the critics seem unanimous singing her praise.  Probably I should have dragged my ass out to see her in Chicago, but I didn't.  She's just amazing.  The penultimate song starts off slow and lifeless and boozy.  Sally is in the eye of the Nazi storm that is about to lay waste to the giddy decadent freedom of the Berlin club scene.  The song moves from an off-kilter elegy into a heart-breaking condemnation.  That's when Anne is belting out the lyrics clean and big.  Wow!  At that point I can't imagine that anyone in the audience thought that he or she was sitting through some small town dinner theater bullshit.  One more night.  You gotta go.

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After the play, I came home and found one of Cara's friends standing on the sidewalk in front of the house talking on his cell phone.  It was about ten-thirty.  The frufru gingerbready house on the corner was having a dinner party that was just wrapping up — people were hugging on the porch and walking away to the half a dozen cars parked on Guenther and Constance.  Across the street, Hope was on her porch, hanging up Fiesta decorations with some friends and family.

Just another Friday night in the King William neighborhood.

I went inside to check my email.  Nothing.  So I grabbed my copy of Phil's house key and walked outside.  As I approached Cara's friend (still chatting away) he fell back into her driveway.  Two houses down, I let myself into Phil's place.  Cutesy stopped scratching herself and looked up at me.  She rushed up eagerly, and I took the leash off the inside door knob, made a loop, and offered it to her.  She pushed her head through.  We went outside for an evening walk.

As we moved to cross the street — I was moving at Cutesy-speed, as she has to sniff everything — I watched a middle aged woman in a white knit cap and a layer of skirts and jackets walk down the middle of the street towards Brackenridge High School.  When me and the dog were halfway across the street, the woman stopped.  She whipped around.

“Sir?”

I stopped in the middle of the street.

“Yes?”

“Where is it that I'm located right now?”

I knew this could become a very long and tedious exchange.  But I decided to take it bit by bit.

“You're on Guenther Street.  In the King William Neighborhood.”  She wasn't looking pleased with my response, so I pointed in the direction in which she had been heading.  “That's Brakenridge High School all the way down there where the street ends.”

“Do you have a cigarette?”

“Oh, no.  Sorry.”

She moved in a bit closer to me, closer than strangers tend to stand.  She asked: “Where's Travelers Park?”

“You mean Travis Park?” I asked.

She made no response.

“It's downtown.  Just walk back to Alamo Street and turn right.”

“I've been walking around in circles.” 

“Sorry.  Um, but you just walk towards the big tall buildings of downtown.  You can see them from Alamo Street.  Remember, turn right, and then you–“

I don't know if my suggestions irritated her, or if maybe the vehicle coming up made her think it was a police car, but her eyes suddenly lost focus on me, and she turned and walked away, back towards Alamo.  That was great for me.  I didn't have to talk to her any more.  So I gave a tug to the leash and brought Cutesy over to the sidewalk in front of Chip's house.  I heard the car buzz behind me and then bump over a curb and slide to a stop.  There was the sound of a sliding door rolling open.

When I looked across the street at the front of my house, I saw a taxi cab van up on the curb and angled into my driveway.  A young man in brown brogans and a long sleeved black pullover tucked into black slacks tumbled out and he began retching violently onto the grassy parkway between my sidewalk and the street.  I mean, he was going to town.  Plunging and heaving.  I just stood watching in amazement.  The woman in the knit cap was long gone.  I could hardly blame her.  There was an ugly moment when I thought perhaps this was some guy who I knew, who had rented a cab to come visit.  But no.  I heard the cab driver say: “You probably should just starting walking.”  And another young man — this one dressed in white — stepped out.  I guess he paid the cab, because it drove off.  Man in white helped man in black to walk down the street, toward Alamo Street.

When me and Cutesie came abreast Hope's house, she came up to the fence with her daughter.

“That was disgusting.  He ruined my perfect moment.  I was hanging my Fiesta decorations, and I heard that taxi go up over the curb. And then it was a bunch of upchucking.”

(To those readers not native to San Antonio, a brief explanation is in order.  Fiesta is a ten day bacchanalia of parades, street fairs, parties, masquerade balls, and on and on.  The city plans for months, and when April hits, every thing takes it to the back-seat as Fiesta eclipses all, if you'll excuse the mixing of metaphor.)

I suggested she just put it behind her and try as best she could to salvage the rest of her evening.  “It's Fiesta, babe” I felt like saying, a la Chinatown.  And as tonight (Friday night) officially begins the ten days of Fiesta, I can think of no better line of demarkation than one's first sighting of vomiting connected with public intoxication.  And as that young gentleman anointed my lawn with his half-digested late night dinner of margaritas, peanuts, and light beer, I felt like walking out into the middle of my street and addressing the imaginary camera crew: “And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, it is now officially Fiesta.  Let the festivities begin!  And back to you in the studio, Gwen.”

Yesterday afternoon Gloria stopped by.  I'm putting together for her a video slide show of her life she can screen at her retirement party this weekend.  She's leaving the IRS, which she fondly refers to as “The Service.”  We spent two or three hours putting a hundred and fifty photos in her preferred order, and choosing some music.

She was kind enough to treat me to dinner at Tito's.  I like Gloria.  She has a feisty, playful sense of humor.  She and Ramon divorced a long time ago, but they remain very close friends.  And as such, I know many people who Gloria knows.  We were getting a bit into some bitchy gossip, and then I realized how much a folly it is to engage in this sort of discourse in such a small town as San Antonio when you're sitting in a restaurant with your back to the door.  Especially when you're talking about arty people while dining in an arty neighborhood.  I did the wise thing.  Sat in the booth with my back to the wall and my feet along the padded bench, so that I could see who might be entering.

After saying goodnight to Gloria, I stopped by my neighbor Phil's place.  He wanted to show me how far his new contractor had progressed in his kitchen.

More than a year back, Phil had gotten irritated at the sloping floor in his kitchen.  He's a furniture restorer by trade.  Works on wood all the time.  He decided to do the floor job himself.  So, with the help of a friend, he began ripping up an area of the floor to get to the support pillars.  But he discovered all sorts of rot down there.  Eventually he had half of the kitchen floor torn up.  He suffered through the summer, because he couldn't cool his place off.  I mean, there was this gigantic hole in the floor.  Same problem in winter.  Freezing.  And, as I am his official dog-walker when he's spending quality time with his girlfriend up on the far north-side, I got to see the absolute lack of progress in the repair work.  Every so often, I would have to hop down into the hole to pull out one of his clumsy aging dogs who had fallen into the gaping wound in the kitchen floor.

Finally, at the beginning of the year, Phil hired a contractor to finish up the job.  The guy went in gangbusters.  Tore out all the floorboards in a day or two.  Then he started making excused.  He had other jobs across town.  He wasn't feeling well this week.  He needed more money to buy hammers or something.  Finally Phil had to fire him.  He's brought in this guy who's doing it right.  There is a floor now in the kitchen.  The back of the house has been gutted and reframed.  There will be a new bathroom.  A new bedroom.  As Phil gave me the tour of new work, I made the expected agreeable grunts which I assume men expect from other men when matters of construction is involved.

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Today I sent in my application to Christy in hopes of being part of her up-coming Dada Dinner Party.  Again, if anyone is interested, drop me a line.

In the application there is a space for “dish suggestion.”  One of the stipulations is for vegetarian dishes.  And, because of this notion of dadaism, I came up with a meatless art-related dish.  Experience my Kasimir Malevich's White on White Seven Layer Casserole.  (Malevich is best known for his most static work, white squares on a background of white — visually boring as hell, but conceptually … it was pure brilliance.)

Kasimir Malevich's White on White Seven Layer Casserole:

“In a lightly greased casserole dish place a foundation layer of steamed white rice.  Next, arrange a layer of slices from boiled or baked potatoes.  Atop the potatoes, scatter a covering of pine-nuts.  Add a layer of tofu slabs which have been fried with crushed garlic and peanut oil.  In the same oil, saute minced white onion and add them as the 5th layer.  Crumble a generous layer of ricotta cheese.  And finish with white bread-crumbs.  Bake in a pre-heated over at 325 F for 40 minutes.  Serve with a single large marshmallow as a garnish.”

I'm thinking that it might be a bit bland.  Probably the ricotta should be substituted with a mixture half-and-half of gorgonzola and ricotta.  Maybe I should prepare it myself and see if it's works.  Perhaps it needs some green leafy vegetables.  But that's just me thinking of what my mother would say.  It's white on white, dammit.  And probably it should be served by pulling it from the casserole dish with an ice-cream scoop and placed into a paper snow-cone thingy.  Food on the run.  Portable.  Dive right in!

All the cups of coffee at Tito's Saturday afternoon (and they have excellent coffee at Tito's) must have backed-up in my bloodstream.  I tossed and turned, and was lucky if I made it to sleep by three.  I finally reached over and switched on my reading light because of the futility of it all.  The short stack of books on the floor was a light-weight treatise on Buddhism from the '40s by Christmas Humphreys, one of Huysmans' lesser novels, and Montague Summers' “The History of Witchcraft.”  The Summers book (1926) is a masterpiece of paranoia gullibility.  He was an educated man who was convinced that witches (those historical as well as those contemporaneous to himself) were possessed of supernatural powers.  It's a giddy screed to read, with just enough turgid pomposity (or so I hoped) to nudge me towards the arms of Morpheus.  It apparently worked it's magic.  So to speak. And I slipped under.

I had time this morning to cook up a couple of banana oat cakes and make a cappuccino before Russ stopped by.  We loaded up my c-stands and field monitor, and took his truck to our restaurant location downtown for production Day 13 of Leftovers.

Some of the folks had gone to the Cameo last night Anne Gerber in Cabaret.  I was still feeling pretty puny, so I stayed home.  But it seemed that Anne's parents came to town from Toledo to cheer on their girl.  In fact, Anne showed up on set with the folks.  It was quite nice.  Anne's mom reads my blog (well, probably just to see references to her daughter), but mom and dad were wonderful, gracious, and totally supportive of Anne.  I tried to convey how integral Anne has become in the acting community in San Antonio.  In the two or three years she's been here, she's been in over a dozen short films, at least two feature films, and has been in quite a few plays and musicals, always managing to land leading roles in the bigger, more important productions.  I've never read anything but a glowing review of her work.  If she needs to put together a reel, she now has so much great work to choose from that came from her work in this town.

When we arrived, there was some minor misunderstanding about the call time.  We thought we had access to the restaurant at 8:30, but the people who would be letting us in weren't coming until nine.  That gave Robin, Russ, and myself time to shoot a few exterior establishing shots of the restaurant entrance.

Inside, we set up for a scene where Anne and Andrea are having a conversation in the kitchen area.  We staged it so that Anne moves around into the kitchen, and Andrea remains in the prep area.  They continue their conversation through the order-up window.  It proved to be a fun scene to light.  But with this cold, I'm all stopped up.  I probably only heard every third word anyone said to me.  Every few minutes I would blow my nose into a bandana handkerchief or fall into a coughing fit.  And because I certainly wasn't breathing much through my nose, I had little patience when Robin started complaining about smelling gas.  Of course she smelled gas.  The industrial stove had at least two dozen burners.  Maybe a pilot light had blown out.  Let's just shot this and move on.  But Rudolfo was taking Robin's side.  He claimed he heard gas hissing through his microphone.  I just sighed.  Rudolfo and his god damn meticulousness was going to keep us here forever.  If he could just —  But I watched him vindicate himself.  He waved a lit match across the range top.  One of the burners jumped to life.  It seemed, um, that a burner was turned to high — blowing out gas, all night long, and all the time we were there.

Maybe that explained why it took so long to shoot that first scene.  We were all doped up on toxic fumes.

We broke for lunch, and I was finally able to ask Erin why she had her arm in a sling.  (Actually I still don't know the full story about her unrelated pickax incident of the other week.)  Anyway, she's suffering a pulled tendon or muscle, but can't make it to the doctor because she's so busy prepping her students for the TAAS Test or the TAKS Test, or whatever standardized tests they're keel-hauling the poor kids (and teachers) with these days.

The next scene was in the kitchen prep area.  Anne, Andrea, and Rick.  It turned out to be one of the warmer, more playful interactions between Anne and Andrea.  Russ set up a beautiful shot where we saw Rick walking through the background, pause, ask the girls a question, and, perplexed with their off-color remarks, moves on.  It was a fairly tight shot of Rick, so that meant that the women were in extreme close-up, with just pieces of them hugging the left and right frames.  What a wonderful composition.

As we moved around to the interior of the restaurant proper, we set up for a scene where Anne's character is lounging on a stool at the counter before the lunch rush begins.  Matt, who players her manager, is trying in his awkward, neurotic way to get her to do something — clean some tables, fill up the mustard bottles, just do something, the lunch rush is minutes away.

Russ wanted to shoot a basic wide establishing shot.  He pulled his camera into the middle of the restaurant, along the side where the booths run against the wall.  He set the tripod low and shot across a table.

“I'm thinking you want to get someone wiping down the table,” I said to Russ as I moved my hand inches from the camera, as though I had a towel in my hand. “But, and I know this would have to me a different movie,” I began tentatively.  “But with this composition, it'd be so wonderful to have a seedy guy with fingerless gloves seated at this table hunkered over a cup of coffee.”  I illustrated by sitting down with my shoulder and chin and nose defining the right edge of the frame.  I lifted an imaginary coffee cup and took a sip.  A sad, dejected figure. Ephemeral.  Nothing more than set dressing.  Actually, I was just kidding around, while we were waiting on something.

But Russ took me seriously.  And the next thing I knew, I was constricted into being an extra.  And that's when it hit me.  I do look quite seedy and pathetic.  Well, the show must go on — so, I grabbed a coffee cup, filled it up, and found a spoon.

I have to admit, my dim, grizzled silhouette served well the scene.

Saturday I met with Russ and Christy at Tito's.  We had lunch and talked about the dance / film project Christy plans for late spring or early summer.  She's not expecting the full funding she had hoped for — a common stumbling block when it comes to grant monies — so we're looking at a more scaled down approach.  Instead of commissioning a sculpture to function as the centerpiece of an installation, she's leaning toward an exterior location.  One prop that will be needed is an old fashioned claw-foot bathtub.  We need to borrow one for a day, but it can't be hooked up, because we need to transport it to the location.

While we were hanging out at Tito's, talking about film, martial arts, and Christy's aversion to raisins, I noticed that Nicole, one of the waitresses at Tito's, as well as a local artist, was very clearly pregnant.  I realized it must have been some time since I'd last seen her.  And then I saw Deborah enter the restaurant. I waved her over and introduced her to Christy.  Deborah explained that she was here for Nicole's baby shower.  Nichol was one of the model's in Deborah's Tara series.  Before she headed back to the side room for the shower, I thanked her for wrangling a screening of our Locos documentary at the San Antonio Museum of Art.  I'll get some money out of it.  Deborah's always watching my back.

Christy then told us some more about where she is with her up-coming Dada Dinner Party, on the 12th of May.

She's looking for audience members as well as 6 diners (including a director and a server).  If anyone is interested in knowing more about this performance / happening, shoot me an email.

When I first heard of this, I immediately thought of “The Futurist Cookbook,” by Marinetti (the brilliant artist with questionable political leanings).  I looked around, but I can't find my copy.  It must be boxed up with many of my books in my mother's garage in Dallas.  It's not so much a cookbook, as it is a playful and poetic conceptual oddity, originally written in 1932.  I found a few passages on the internet.  Here's a nice one.

AUTUMN MUSICAL DINNER

In a hunter’s cabin secluded in a green-blue-gilded forest, two couples sit down at a rough table made from trunks of oak. The brief blood-red twilight lies in agony beneath the enormous bellies of darkness as if under rain-soaked and seemingly liquid whales. As they wait for the peasant woman to cook, the only food that passes along the still empty table is the whistle that the wind makes through the door lock, to the left of the diners. Dueling with that whistle is the long, sharp wail of a violin note escaping from the room on the right belonging to the peasant woman’s convalescent son. Then, silence for a moment. Then, two minutes of chick peas in oil and vinegar. Then, seven capers. Then twenty-five liqueur cherries. Then twelve fried potato chips. Then a silence of a quarter of an hour during which the mouths continue to chew the vacuum. Then, a sip of Barolo wine held in the mouth for one minute. Then a roast quail for each of the guests to look at and inhale deeply the smell of, without eating. Then four long handshakes of the peasant woman cook and off they all go into the darkness-wind-rain of the forest.

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My friend Rose, who's in Morocco with the Peace Corps, sent me an email.  She met a beekeeper who wants to make a documentary, and of course she invited me to come on over.  As much as I'd love to travel to Morocco, I can barely chase off the creditors, let alone travel to northern Africa.  And even if I could scrap together the funds, I'd find myself wrestling with whether I should update my video equipment.  But when else will I have an invite to Morocco?  Perhaps it's time to sell that kidney.

I just read a blog from my friend Melanie in Fort Worth.  She was musing on her dislike of storms — fear, actually.  (While she was writing, a storm was raging outside her home.)  She went on to mention specific incidents of devastation inflicted upon her and loved ones from lighting, tornados, hail, and the general wrath of the big storms that march through central Texas.  And just as I closed my web browser and starting writing this blog, I heard what I thought was a neighborhood kid throwing a rock against the house.  The second time it happened, I realized what was going on.  I rushed onto my porch, expecting a delightful, dramatic hail storm.  You see, I love that kind of stuff.  But all I saw was Jerry rushing back to the cover of his porch, pulling on his big black Labrador, their leisurely evening dog walk interrupted.  It might pick up some, but right now it's more rain than hail.

At least it'll be a cooler night then last night.

I didn't sleep too well last night.  I hadn't invested in a bottle of NyQuil, so the need to get up and blow my nose or cough up some mucus kept waking me.  For the best, I suppose.  I was having some fairly nasty dreams.  One sticks out.  I was wandering around an empty space which a friend wanted to rent for a shop or a gallery.  As she was talking to the realtor I looked around.  It'd be a great space for a bookstore, I found myself thinking.  In each room I made a quick count of how many bookcases would fit.  There were probably about nine rooms.  In the last room, I noticed a door, slightly ajar.  It had no lock, not even a knob.  I pushed through.  I found a narrow corridor  maybe five feet wide, twelve feet high.  The floor was cement.  The walls were painted a dingy green.  Flickering florescent lights in the ceiling were interspace at enough of a distance to keep the place in gloom.  Feeling adventurous, I started moving at a good pace along the corridor.  I was going up a slight slope.  There were doors every so often, and other corridors branching off here and there.  At times I would be going down a slight incline, at times, up.  After a couple of minutes of all this, taking a left branch here, a right branch there, I thought I should stop before I got absolutely lost.  And then, with a sinking feeling, I realized I was already lost.  Most dreams of labyrinths I welcome.  Getting lost is what it's all about.  One odd tableau would give way to another, even odder.  But here, it was all the same.  Unlike Borges' endless library, this place was unpardonably bleak and dead — besides, there was nothing to read, nowhere to sit down.  Just locked doors and narrow passageways.

I was happy to cough myself awake.

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Around one thirty I drove to UTSA.  Lisa Cortez-Walden was defending her dissertation (“Compromisos: Strategies of Transformative Media in the Latino Community”), and I was on her invite list.  I never knew such things were open to the public.  I was curious about the process.  Also, I'm very fond of Lisa and was happy for a chance to show my support.

Just as I started up my truck, I got a call from Christy Walsh.  She's the choreographer who Russ and I spoke with a couple months back about collaborating on a video dance piece for Contemporary Art Month (which is July, here in San Antonio).  She didn't get her grant, but she still wants to do at least part of her project.  She called to see if I could make a meeting with her and Russ tomorrow.  Of course, I said.  I had Saturday free from Leftovers (we'll be shooting Sunday).  She brought me up to speed on several of her projects.  And then she explained that she intended to see Anne Gerber in Cabaret this weekend.  I expressed my distaste for musicals in general, but my desire to see the show nonetheless, because of Anne.

By this time I had parked in the lot under the elevated section of I-35.  I put six quarters into the metal box, slot 242.  I walked toward the UTSA downtown campus, still talking on my phone.  I asked Christy to tell me more about her Dada Banquet.  She explained that this is a staged event where a dozen or so diners are seated at a banquet table eating absurdist meals of their own design.  There would be dada public speeches and bad tango dancing.  There would be an audience.  I expressed interest, as I no longer fear public speaking.  Also, I'm as capable of bad tango dancing as anyone else — more so, I suspect.  She was mostly concerned about a venue.  She really wanted an outside area in the Blue Star Arts Complex, but she was getting lost in the phone tag game of getting the go-ahead from board members.  She said she was heading over there right now to meet someone.  I wished her luck, hung up, and looked at the building I thought Lisa would be in.  She's mentioned in her email it was building MB, which stands for Main Building.

I was standing in front of the Durango Building.  I was already a minute late, so I hurried across the quad to the line of connected buildings.  None were the Main Building.  At the final building, I saw the offices of the campus police.  I leaned in and asked a man seated at a desk where I might find building MB, “You know, the Main Building?”

He smiled.  He looked over to a guy who was sitting half asleep at another desk.  He looked back at me, his smile half an inch larger.

“Yeah, I know where it is.”  And he laughed a little bit.  “You're not going to like it.”

“Um, is this a bad time?”

“Naw, it's not like that, man.  The Main Building is on the Main Campus.  Up at 1604.  Sorry to break the news?”

1604 is the outer loop highway.  I was something like 15 miles away from the main campus.

I shrugged, told the campus cop not to worry.  And I walked away.

It never occurred to me.  I associated Lisa with the downtown campus.  Oh, well.

I headed to the post office and mailed my IRS “I-need-more-time” form.  It's the 4868, if you're curious.  I never make enough to have to pay them money — and that's hard to do when you're self-employed.  But they still want all my information, and I just don't feel like making sense of it all right now.

Back home I took the little peanut butter jar I keep my change in to the HEB supermarket.  I fed the contents into one of those coin machines that counts the contents and gives you a redeemable ticket for the full amount … less 8.9 percent.  I remember back when banks used to do that.  It was just one of the services they provided for “free” — although it was understood that these services were underwritten by the interests they made holding onto the money in your account.  They don't give those “free” services anymore, do they?

I found myself 25 dollars richer.  Or did I find myself two dollars and something cents poorer?  Shit!

I made the rounds of HEB, shopping for the basic staples needed here at Casa Erik.  At the checkout, I noticed that the man in the next lane looked like Marcus Neundorf (the father of the late Josiah Neundorf, the namesake of the Josiah Youth Media Festival that I'm coordinating with Urban 15).  I'd only met Marcus once, and I wasn't certain it was him.  Five years ago I'd been too shy and neurotic to give it a shot; but, what the hell, I shouted out, “Marcus?”

He turned, and I knew it must be him.  He smiled and waved.  After paying for his groceries, he walked over.  He told me that he had an ar
t project in mind.  (He's pretty cool in this regard.  He's an architect, but he always seems to have several strange arty projects in the works, mostly for his own amusement.  Last time I saw him, he wanted Catherine Cisneros to give him some pointers on constructing an angler fish hand puppet.)  He told me that he had been in the Hill Country during the slight snow storm we had this Easter.  He'd taken some video with his cell phone.  And he wanted to edit it.  He had in mind “a very existential piece.”  I was intrigued.  All forms of media acquisition should be valid.  And because I do believe in this, I should know how to play around with cell phone video.  Marcus pointed to a port on his phone that took a memory card.  It was empty, because he'd not bought the card.  I asked if he had the instruction manual.  He grinned and told me he had downloaded a copy.  A hundred and fifty pages.  I could tell he wasn't keen on reading the whole thing.  I told him that when he found a way to get the file or files onto a computer (through a wireless transfer, a USB cable, or a memory card) he should give me a call.  I felt pretty sure I could work with what ever format the phone used.

These are the people I love.  The true artists.  They are always adrift in ideas and possibilities.

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When tonight's storm was at it's height (it's all over now), I was standing on my porch mesmerized by how the pecan tree in front of Marlys' house swayed under the onslaught of water and wind like an Indonesian dancer, fluid at the arms and shoulders, but always mannered and formal — a counter-point to the chaotic wind and rain.

I leaned against the pillar where my mailbox is attached.  I yawned and stretched and then put my hands into my pockets.  I found a half-dried bluebonnet blossom I had picked yesterday while on my weekly walk with Dar.

For those who were taught as was I that it is illegal to pick bluebonnets in Texas because it's the state flower, don't believe it.  Pure bullshit.  Pick away.  I mean, they're hardly endangered.

The bluebonnets are out in force in McAlister Park.  We saw at least two varieties.  The short, familiar ones.  Also, the taller species similar to those found in far west Texas.

It's always nice to hang out with Dar.  Not just because she's fun to talk to, but because we're doing similar things.  I'm running three film events so far this year.  Events established by preexistent organizations, I should point out.  What Dar is doing is something more interesting.  She's starting a film festival from the ground up.  SAL.  The San Antonio Local Film Festival.  I'm not sure if she's set a date for the screening.  Sometime in September or October.  But she's got all her non-profit paperwork in order.  And she's already getting donations coming in.  Dar and SAL are serious and definitely in it for the long haul.  I'm not at the point where I can toss some cash SAL's way, but I'll definitely be there every step of the way helping in any way I can.

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For those who have not yet seen my Dia de los Locos documentary, it will be screening a week from this Sunday.  On Sunday, April 22nd, the film will be shown in conjunction with the San Antonio Museum of Art's Family Day.  Bella Merriam will be running a mask-making workshop, as I understand it.  It will be a blast.  For those who have kids, check this out.  It's free.  The Family Day events at SAMA are always great fun.  The event runs noon to 4.