Sometimes I have to look back at my blog and see what I have actually posted. Often I begin a blog entry, and before I can get around to editing it, it’s become too stale to post. And, with a bit of truncated recap, I move ahead.

For the last two weeks or so I’m been officing at the C4 Workspace on King William. The idea is that if left to my own devices at home, I’d just fritter away my time with inane distractions. Having an environment where I go to work is starting to pay off a bit. I have done a lot more work than I’d have done were I cooped up at home. However, I should point out that I’m writing a blog entry while at “work.” Oh, well. This is still a form of productivity. I’ll call it an extended coffee break. And why not? I’ve just brewed up an ultra strong pot of Cafe Bustelo. Toss in some honey and Mexican chocolate, and it’s a meal to itself.

Check out the C4 website and learn a bit about coworking. And if you would like to try it out, I have several day passes (a perk of membership) I’d be happy to make available. You get access to wi-fi, electricity, a desk to use, a color copier, coffee, refrigerator privileges (there’s usually a variety of sandwich fixins to chose from), and people of various backgrounds working around you to bounce ideas off and network with. Also, it’s located in the beautiful King William neighborhood.

Come by and check it out.

http://www.c4workspace.com/

And a short Wikipedia article on coworking:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coworking

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Tonight we begin judging for the Josiah Youth Media Festival. We hope we can get it all done in two nights. There’s a mountain of strong entries this year, so it might mean a couple of late nights work.

Unfortunately this means I’ll miss tonight’s screenings at the San Antonio Film Festival. Once again forces beyond my control will have kept me from seeing Sam Lerma’s Trash Day.

I’m afraid I’ll also be unable to attend the afternoon screenings of the SAFF tomorrow. I have to pitch my OCA project proposal to the CAB (Cultural Arts Board). I’m hoping they’ll fund my short film, A River Quartet. Afterwards (if I’m not too dejected) I’ll head over to the Instituto de Mexico in HemisFair Park to check out the Saturday evening screenings at SAFF.

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Over the weekend I attended the final performance of The Case of the Neon Twins, a multimedia futuristic noir play staged at the Jump-Start Theater. Billy Muñoz and Daniel Jackson produced the piece. It starred Joel Settles, S. T. Shimi, and Monessa Esquivel. There were also about five other actors whose performances were previously video-taped. In some instances the three principle actors were interacting with the video performances. And this is where the piece lost me. It’s hard to act against a prerecorded performance and make it seem natural. And to give Joel credit, he did a pretty damn good job. But a half-second delay very effectively pulls you out of the moment. The other technical problem was the audio in the prerecorded pieces. I’ve made a hash out of enough bad audio myself that I can recognize an unsuccessful attempt to strip out unwanted background — usually the compressor on a refrigerator or the drone of an HVAC unit. The audio was so flat and compressed that I had a hard time hearing all the dialogue in the video pieces.

Tech problems aside, the concepts were great. Given more resources the piece would have been impressive. When the interplay between real and virtual performer worked, it was very effective. I hope both Billy and Daniel continue to polish this multimedia technique. I love this sort of stuff.

And bravo to all the actors! I already know to expect solid work from Joel, Monessa, and Shimi. But it was also a treat to see Kim Corbin and Sandy Dunn doing some wonderfully weird performances as the “Ladies in the Sky” (two women in some sort of secret government spy blimp hovering over San Antonio in the year 2068).

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Wednesday was the final W-I-P (Works In Progress) for this season at Jump-Start. I think they’ll start back up in September.

This was the site-specific night. Well, I say night, but 7pm in June it’s still pretty bright.

We started off with Marquez Rhyne. He gave use a performance piece incorporating song, dance, and spoken word. It was a poignant meditation on the loss of a brother from whom he’d been estranged. I’m not sure if he plans on expanding the piece or not. I hope so. The performance was staged on the raised platform in front of Jump-Start.

Next, we headed over to the new high-rise in the Blue Star complex where the Lazarus coffee shop used to be. S. T. Shimi performed a dance piece with a hula-hoop down in sort of a pit, with we the audience looking down. I don’t know what I liked more, the dance, or the location.

Finally, the Robin Getter School of Rhythms & Dance did a west African dance piece accompanied by drummers. Their location was near the parking-lot overlooking the river. Very energetic and colorful.

Every few months my landlady sends her handyman over to my place to attack the grounds with a lawn mower, weed whacker, and leaf blower (the second most useless contraption ever invented). I easily become accustomed to the dandelions nosing up to peek at me through my kitchen window and the chiggers growing fat from the blood of those squirrels foolish enough to come down from the trees. And just as this domestic jungle has become another backdrop to my daily grind, I’ll wake up at the ungodly hour of eleven to the sound of a gas powered lawn mower. Two hours later, this frantic assault will have ended. As the dust settles, I will inevitably look out on one of the worst jobs of lawn mowing I have ever seen. It resembles my head, when I cut my own hair — just on a larger scale.

I do my best to avoid the handyman, but this time around, he knocked at my door. He had finished mowing, whacking, and blowing. And, yes, as I opened the door, it looked like a battlefield out there. “Bosse,” he said, in his irritating deferential manner, as if he were shortening the proper form of address, you know, Lord Bosse, the stern but fair master up at the manor house. “Yeah, what’s up?” “Landlady said that Debbie in the other apartment thinks something died up in the attic. What do you think? Says she smells it.” I told him I wasn’t smelling anything rotting. He nodded and then said he’d go up into the attic through the hatchway on the back porch and plug up any animal holes he saw. I wished him the best of luck. I would have gone back to bed, but, hell I was already up. I went into the kitchen to make some coffee.

About 15 minutes later, as I was pouring out my first coffee of the morning, I heard the guy stomping around up there. And then I heard a series of strange sounds. It was as if he was tossing a metal chain, and letting it fall to the attic floor. This happened several times, and then it stopped. I supposed the guy was just dicking around, and I thought no more about it.

That is until I came home later that afternoon. The whole place reeked of moth balls. I finally realized what had happened. The handyman was up there earlier flinging mothballs all over the attic. This is supposed to keep animals away. Hell, it’d keep me away. I hate the smell of minty camphor. And after several days, the smell hasn’t begun to diminish.

I’m tempted to call up my landlady. “Oh, hello Trudy. I didn’t think I’d get your answering machine. Well, I hope you’re doing well. I’m just calling to let you know that because your handyman has seeded the attic with some horrible-smelling toxic substance — I’m thinking mothballs — I’ve tossed a dead possum up there (don’t worry, I found the poor beast flattened at the intersection of S. Alamo and Probandt). The carrion has finally become ripe enough that now I can barely smell the mothballs. So, don’t fret. All’s well. Cheers!”

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I was over at C4 late this afternoon putting in a couple of hours working on a video editing job which has become more involved than it should. Around seven I decided to take a break. I set the alarm, locked the door, and walked down to Tito’s for a leisurely dinner. When I got back to the space, I made sure to pull out my little slip of paper on which I had written the security code. It’s just several numbers, but me and numbers just don’t get along. Hell, I’m not sure if my zip code is 78210 or 78201. And even though I’ve had this same cell phone number for over five years, I have to fish out a business card when someone asks. That, or cruise over to my website. I unlocked the door, stepped inside, and faced the security panel. I held up my note and keyed in the numbers. Good. And I was just about to turn away when the alarm went off. Frantically I keyed in the numbers again and again and again. I took a deep breath. Looked at the note as calmly as possible. Then I realized I had been transposing the two final digits over and over and over. I did it right this time. Sweet silence fell down. Damn, that alarm was loud.

I decided I was done for the night. If the cops were to come storming in, I’d rather be long gone. Too many news stories out there with taser-happy cops with frisky trigger fingers.

I think I’ll keep my JVC video monitor at C4. And I need a USB hub. A second pair of cupped headphones. And I really need to buy either an Apple keyboard, or one of those FCP keyboards. Some of the important Final Cut Pro short cuts don’t work on this tiny laptop keyboard. Oh, and a nice goose-neck desk lamp.

Also, I need to make friends with the alarm system. If only security codes could be a series of words. Spumoni – migraine – tungsten – fungible – cuticle? Yeah, I’ll remember that. You can keep your 9 – 7 – 2 – 8 – 3. Numbers? They’ll be the death of me.

“Erik?” asks the voice in my cell phone “Yeah, who’s this?” “Look, dammit, we don’t have the time for introductions, and you don’t have the security clearance to know my name!” “Hello? What?” “Okay, Erik, there should be a timer sitting on top of the bomb.” “It’s counting down, man. It’s at 57 seconds!” “It’s simple. Take a deep breath. You see that numeric keyboard beside the timer?” “I do.” “Great! All you need to do is punch in five numbers, in proper sequence. We have the code, so it’s going to be smooth as spreading peanut butter in July. Just type in 9 – 6 – 3 – 1 – 2. That’s it. Got it?” “Yes. Here we go: 9 – 6 – 3 – 2 – 1–” “NO! Asshole! 1 – 2! 1 – 2!” But it is, of course, too late. Scorched earth from Poteet to Bastrop.

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Speaking of my estranged relations with numbers, I finally processed all the incoming DVD submissions for Josiah today. We don’t have 88 submissions, as I’d claimed (allowing for a press release bragging “almost 90 submissions”). We actually have 92 submissions (allowing for a new press release bragging “over 90 submissions!”).

This will be a year of three nights of some very strong, polished, and groovy and funky short films.

Please mark your calendars. July 9, 10, 11. Each night we’ll have different films. Come one night, two, or three. Come join us for two reasons. Let the young local filmmakers know you support them — there will be dozens in attendance each night. Also, there is some top-notch work that will entertain and inspire you. I’ve only seen a smattering of the submissions (I’ll view them all over the next few days), but I can already tell that this will be out best year yet. That’s saying a lot. Our first and second years had some fine work. We also have so much animation this year. Come and be amazed.

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Tuesday night was the inaugural mixer for the 2009 San Antonio 48 Hour Film Project. This is it’s third year in San Antonio. And this is the first year that Michael Druck is running the local component of this incredible international event. I was thrilled to learn that Druck was taking over the reins. He knows everyone in town. And, better yet, he’s loved by all of us. He’s a master of promotion and bringing people together. So, I was not surprised to see the huge crowd of local filmmakers, actors, and curious wannabes converging on the Olmos Perk coffee shop last night.

I’d love to run a team of my own, but I believe I’ll be out of town on the weekend in question. But I’m giving it some thought. Hell, I might even drive in from an out of town gig to throw myself into a frantic weekend. Now that I’m writing this, it doesn’t seem so impossible. So, Druck, don’t write me off the possible list yet!

I’m anticipating the best year yet for the San Antonio 48 Hour Film Project. Druck will get people in a froth. So, and I’ve a bit of experience in this line of work, you might want to head over to the website and sign up your team ASAP.

http://www.48hourfilm.com/sanantonio/

Maybe I’ll just sign up and then figure out how to finesse my August schedule. Because, you know, I don’t want to wait a few weeks and then find that it’s all booked up.

Okay, so I was out at the La Fiesta grocery store over on S. Flores. As usual, I avoid grabbing a rolling cart. That’s just too much of a commitment to my shopping experience. You see, I’m just buying for myself. A hand basket is enough for me. But even a little basket can add up. The truth is I had too many items for the express lane. So I got in line behind a family with a rolling cart. I wasn’t that overloaded, but, man, I got a shitload of plastic grocery bags. In fact, I just did the math. 22 items in … wait for it … 11 bags. Shit! That’s it, man. I’m taking my huge Central Market canvas bag from here on out. I mean, my can of Cafe Bustelo was in its own bag. Anything could have been stuffed in with that can of coffee, expect, perhaps, a canister of enriched Uranium — and I’m pretty sure La Fiesta doesn’t carry such a product.

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Josiah Youth Media Festival news.

It’s seven days after our postmark deadline. And, the Josiah Youth Media Festival received a batch from our friends in Minnesota at the In Progress youth program. Great multicultural stuff. We’ve had Asian and Mexican immigrant pieces, as well as some outstanding Native American films from the reservations throughout the region. We also got the DVD from our first international submission. A school in Taiwan. I watched a couple of minutes while processing the paperwork. It promises to be a strong piece.

We are at 92. This is great!

Tomorrow I’m heading to Allied Advertising to reserve a place for our street banner. I hope it isn’t too late to get a nice location.

And some more good news about the Josiah fest. Even though we only received a portion of requested funds from Humanities Texas (don’t get me wrong — we are thrilled to have them on-board this year!), it was wonderful news when Drew over at the San Antonio Film Commission graciously offered us some much needed additional funding!

One of the cool things about working with URBAN-15 is checking from year to year (or even project to project) to see what organizations, governmental bodies, corporate entities, and individuals can be listed on all the promotional work as funding partners. Fund-raising is hard hard work. I’m not good at it, and I don’t enjoy it. But, damn, it is so necessary for so many non-profit arts and cultural organizations. There are amazing people in this city who have been scrambling for funding for their excellent programing for decades. For the life of me, I don’t know how they keep their sanity.

Thank you so much Humanities Texas! And thanks, and thanks again, San Antonio Film Commission. Both Drew and Janet from the Film Commission have gladly donated their time in the past to help the Josiah Youth Media Festival fulfill it’s mission in promoting and recognizing the tremendous talent of young media makers in Texas and beyond!

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I finally made the leap.

I signed up for a table at C4 Workspace. Paid my month in advance. Got my key. I’m good to go.

Filmmaker Alejandro Rodriguez sent me a query. Just what is C4, he wanted to know? The problem is, Alejandro asked me via Twitter, and although I might have his email around somewhere, I just responded, again, via Twitter. It’s hard to explain co-working in 140 characters or less.

C4 Workspace is the brainchild of Todd O’Neill. And I put this to you, Todd: please compose a 140 character definition of co-working.

Here’s a nice quickie from Wikipedia:

“Coworking is an emerging trend for a new pattern for working. Typically work-at-home professionals or independent contractors or people who travel frequently end up working in relative isolation. Coworking is the social gathering of a group of people, who are still working independently, but who share values and who are interested in the synergy that can happen from working with talented people in the same space. Some coworking spaces were developed by nomadic internet entrepreneurs seeking an alternative to working in coffeeshops and cafes, or to isolation in independent or home offices.”

Different people want different things from these sorts of environments.

Personally, I’d rather be working in a co-op type environment along the lines of Michael Albert’s participatory economics. I don’t expect to find this in San Antonio. So, I’ll give this environment some of my time and energy. Todd’s interested in creating a collaborative synergistic environment — I’ll see what I can add to it.

My own reason for renting desk space is two-fold. I’m intrigued by the concept of co-working (I just wish those who I hear talking about this weren’t these social media mavens who are just so deadly boring — guys, go jump out of an airplane or taxidermy a squirrel or whatever it takes to extract head from ass and give yourselves some interesting real world experiences!). But also I have come to realize I do almost no work in my home. Sure I occasionally go through a couple of weeks of blog-writing Renaissance (like right now) — but this is only because I’m procrastinating. Therefore, if I have to shell out some money to rent out office space so that I can get some serious work done, well, maybe that’s what it’ll take. I remember reading an interview with Martin Amis many years ago. The journalist who wrote the piece was impressed that Amis kept an office near his home. Amis, the novelist, dressed for business, and went to work. He wanted to approach the work professionally, and not just write at some home office in his underwear. Well, lord knows, I write all the time at home in my underwear. In full disclosure, I’m doing it right now. But, I have to ask myself, where has it gotten me? On a good month a dozen blogs written for a readership of maybe 150 people. Where are my short stories? My novels and screenplays? Where are my films?

This is an experiment. Will I produce more now that I’m renting a work space? I don’t know. Let’s wait and see.

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I’ve helped to run this local student film festival for three years now. One of the things I’ve learned that continues to frustrate me is how many of these robust and active high school programs which turn out some amazing work by talented kids, seem to have no streamlined apparatus to get the student work into festivals. There are short films being produced by young people in this city that can go up against the work of anyone. Age irrelevant. So, why am I getting submissions by well-respected and well-funded youth media programs where they turn in group submissions with several works on a single DVD?

Dammit. I spent about three hours the other day burning redundant copies of DVDs so that each entry had its own disc. And then there was the multiple entry from a youth program out of town with no paperwork. This organization submitted a single DVD with several quicktime files I’m going to have to turn into playable DVDs. Actually, I can’t bitch about this. The set of rules just says DVD, it doesn’t specify file format. But, guys, if you run a film program, and you want to submit the work of your media-makers, it should stand to reason that the festival in question will want to consider the submissions on a filmmaker by filmmaker basis.

So, let’s all repeat after me. Each festival submission has it own paperwork and it’s own physical media — in this case, as indicated in the submission guidelines, a DVD. Seven entries? I’m looking for seven sets of paperwork and seven DVDs.

I know it sounds like I’m being all pissy. But this is where I’m coming from as a filmmaker myself. I often find myself submitting my own work to festivals. And it seems I’m constantly submitting grant proposals as well. And in all candor, when I send this stuff off, I have to tell you my sphincter’s snapping like castanets. I’m in a neurotic meltdown, second-guessing everything. Did I send off enough copies of the support material? Did I remember to staple instead of paperclip? Did my work sample fit the runtime? Was it provided in the correct format? So I’m sweating over all this bullshit every time I reach out to the big, wide world for recognition and funding.

Don’t be so damn blasé! Please read those guidelines and follow them!

Oh, well. It’ll all work out. I’m fairly good about accommodating people. But individuals like me are a minority. The rule of thumb in these situations — when the submissions numbers get really large — is to look for reasons to thin out the slush pile.

…just sayin’….

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I’m not really sure what the San Antonio Writers’ Guild is. I thought once about joining, but their membership fee (though not too high) is date-based. And if you don’t sign up on August first, you’re screwed — it’s not pro-rated out. What’s up with that? The other organizations I’ve paid to join (from NALIP to the Hill Country Bicycle Club) have no problems giving you a membership card, good for one year, which begins with the date you join. SAWG, dude, what up?

Also, back during National Novel Writing Month (that’s November for the curious and clueless), I was checking out the San Antonio activity on the national NaNoWriMo website — the SAWG folks all seemed like a batch of creepy middle-aged genera-writing socially-maladaptive habitués of Renaissance Fairies. Not that there’s anything wrong with that (I cringe in realizing that I fall dangerously close to that demographic myself).

So, it was with some trepidation that I headed out one night last week to check out their monthly meeting. I’d read that Sandford Allen (of Boxcar Satan fame — one of San Antonio’s premiere post punk bands) would be there to talk about Flash Fiction. Sandford is also known as Sandford Nowlin, and he’s moving into writing fiction, leaning toward horror stories. He is also, I believe, president of SAWG.

The meeting was held in a church. This helped give the whole evening a sort of AA vibe. Even new-comers, such as myself, were asked to introduce themselves. And then the members were given a change to talk about their recent successes and failures.

Eventually Sandford gave his talk. And it was good. He’s a smart and thoughtful guy. And, from what I’ve read, a strong writer. (But as a Boxcar Satan fan, I’m a bit biased.)

Once they move into the new membership phase (August) I might sign up. But truth be told, I was a bit unsettled by the fact that out of the 28 people in the room, I counted only 3 people of color (and here I’m including those who I might recognize as Latino (1) along with Asian (1) and Black (1)). When I attend the free writer workshops at Gemini Ink, the ethnic demographic is closer to that of this city. And the fact is, I’m much more comfortable in diverse groups than in mono-cultures.

However, I will certainly return a couple more times. See if there are any powerful writers. I keep looking for talented creative people to help inspire me to start creating more work of my own.

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Late Friday afternoon I walked to the C4 Workspace to attend their grand opening party. As it was First Friday, I put on my headphones and thumbed my iPhone over to the Pandora App, and clicked on my Ariel Pink “channel.” This helped to give me some sort of buffer as I passed the First Friday vermin setting up their fucking tables to hawk their wares. Whether it be doggy sweaters, wind-chimes made from flattened pewter spoons, barbecued turkey legs, or patchouli amaretto nougat scented candles, I can agree that’s it is an amusing carny world, but it sure ain’t art. And correct me if I’m wrong, First Friday is a monthly open house day for art galleries and artist studios. And this they do. But you just have to side-step the human excrement littering the pavement selling their dream catchers and whirlygigs.

If I might be so politically incorrect to quote Travis Bickel (a fictional character from Taxi Driver, we should keep in mind): “All the animals come out at night — whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal. Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets.” Or, to cook it down to the essential, a quote from one of my favorite songs by that great post punk Australian psychobilly band, the Scientists. The song “If It’s the Last Thing I Do,” starts off with: “Sometimes I feel like Travis Bickle / Just wanna shoot up all the bad lurking in this town”. Either statement, when spoken aloud, will get you nervous stares at a Jim’s restaurant after midnight. Use sparingly.

Where was I? Oh, yeah.

C4 looks great. It needs more work, but the transformation since I first looked at the space back on May 16th is impressive. Back on Friday Todd was working the crowd. Debbie was back at the bar / kitchen window laying out snacks and drinks. A camera man from Univision was there. I arrived just a few minutes too late to see Perla being interviewed. She’s fluent in Spanish, and, amongst other gigs, works as a professional translator. Drew Mayer-Oakes, of the San Antonio Film Commission, had been by earlier, but I understand he left to attend an event at Say Si. And after I left I later learned that Andy and Dar Miller dropped by for a visit. Loads of other cool people showed up. I saw Susan Price and Jennifer Navarrete.

I left fairly early. Maybe 6:30. Todd has a wide outreach. And I’m sure the space got pretty packed later in the night. Hell, he had a keg of beer on ice.

I decided to wander down to the Blue Star complex. I’d phoned Deborah and she told me she had her studio open.

As I was walking down S. Alamo, just before Tito’s, I noticed a huge monster truck. Tthere were young bosomy women way up there in the bed of the truck handing down free cans of Monster energy drink. It was hot. Damn it was fucking humid. And, yes, I drink energy drinks, but not when I’m thirsty. They aren’t so refreshing as they are, well, energizing. I looked over and saw, not one, but three San Antonio police officers clutching sweaty cans of free Monster and talking excitedly to one another. I wondered how long it’d take before the first hopped up cop shot some stoned and confused wind chime vendor.

Up in Deborah’s studio she was allowing a friend and former student, Donna, to show her paintings and photographs. Nice work. While I was hanging out in Deborah’s space, some guy who looked very familiar walked in. Deborah welcomes everyone who walks into her studio. After introducing herself and Donna, she pointed to me and said: “I don’t know if you know Erik Bosse.” The guy smiled and nodded at me. “Oh, yes, we know each other.” I said something like “how you been?” A couple of minutes later, I finally realized it was Ranferi Salguero, one of the truly gifted young San Antonio filmmakers. He’d done a killer short, “Roses and Graves,” two years ago. I hadn’t recognized him at first, because he used to wear a signature hat. And tonight he was hatless. He introduced me to his wife. They are expecting their first child, a son, pretty damn soon from the looks of her. He said he was looking for a good local granite supplier. It seems that he’s also a sculptor.

Estevan Arredondo, who has his studio two doors down from Deborah, stopped by to say hello. I love Estavan’s work. It’s very flat, very minimal. But there is a playfulness which reminds me of some of Paul Klee’s drawings. It’s feel-good abstract art I can get behind. So I was thrilled to learn that Estevan is part of the Artists Looking at Art program at the McNay. Wow! Thursday, June 11th. 6pm. Unless I have some event I absolutely must attend, I’ll be there.

After an hour or so, I said goodnight to Deborah and Donna. I went downstairs to check out two small but crucial galleries. Three Walls. And Cactus Bra. Great shows at each.

I walked outside and headed up the alleyway by the Jump-Start theater. I tried to make eye contact with a local artist who was walking towards me. She either didn’t see me, or she decided to ignore me. This is someone who was in last year’s Creative Capital weekend retreat with me. And lord knows I show up at her openings. But she never acknowledges me. I mean, it’s not like I’m selling macrame cell phone holsters or salt water taffy. What’s up, girl?

My favorite character in Dickens’s Great Expectations is Trabb’s Boy. This is a little guttersnipe of a character who knew the protagonist, Phillip “Pip” Pirrup, as a poor boy. Because of a strange reversal of fortune, Pip is allowed to head off to the big city, where he becomes an educated gentleman with a good profession. When Pip returns to his home town, he’s embarrassed by Trabb’s Boy (older, but still a guttersnipe), so he ignores the young man. Trabb’s Boy will have none of this bullshit. And there’s this classic scene where, as I recall, Trabb’s Boy follows Pip through town, pretending to be a puffed up gentleman himself. “‘Don’t know ya, don’t know ya; ‘pon my soul, don’t know ya.”

Excuse me for a second while I make a quick notation in my Little Black Book of Karma and Comeuppance.

Seconds later, I saw people who would never ignore me. Andy and Dar. They were standing near the entrance to the new location of the Blue Star bike shop. This is when I learned that they had been at C4 earlier. Andy was out celebrating having finished a screen writing course. He now has two feature scripts in early draft stages. He plans to polish them during the summer. That’s pretty cool.

Congratulations, Andy!!

As I was talking to the Millers, I saw Ray Palmer of Mombasa Code fame. I shouted out his name a couple of times. But there was a band playing nearby, and I guess he never heard me. Dar was looking at me inquisitively. “That son of a bitch stole an extension cord from me during Luminaria,” I said. “Um, well, him or the folks with Slab Cinema. Oh forget it,” I suddenly said, returning my little black book of Karma and Comeuppance to my back pocket. “I think the cord in question is one I inadvertently stole from Dago Patlan. What comes around goes around. Life’s rich cycle of gettin’ screwed and then making a doofus outta yourself.

The submissions keep rolling in for the Josiah Youth Media Festival. With a postmark deadline of Monday, June 1st, we received most of the local videos Tuesday. Today (Wednesday) we got submissions from Dallas, Houston, Austin, and one from Albuquerque. Tomorrow we should get some from further afield. Some stragglers Friday and Saturday. And our international submissions (well, there’s one that I know of) maybe not until next week.

We currently stand at 84 submitted short films. It’s not inconceivable that we’ll break 100 this year.

This is year three for JYMF. Our first year, if I recall correctly, we received 90 or so submissions. And over 40 came from the Film School at Harlandale, representing two years of hard work from the talented students under the guidance of George Ozuna. So, Ozuna’s kids stacked the deck back in 2007. And because young filmmakers aren’t allowed to resubmit their work, we received a smaller number from Harlandale for 2008. I forget what the final number of total submissions were, but it was less than 2007. But it looks like this year we’ve managed to push our out-reach so as to over-come the 2007 Ozuna effect.

Early this evening I checked my email. I had mail. And it was from Humanities Texas. I’d applied for one of their mini grants to help with the funding of the Saturday student workshops for the Josiah Fest. The mini grants top off at 1,500 bucks. We didn’t get the full requested amount. This is far from uncommon in the granting world. And, dammit, it can be rather frustrating. Not because the funds aren’t as much as you’d like (because, you know, they could have given you nothing), but because this can send ripples throughout your paperwork. In this case, it wasn’t so bad. All I have to do is send in a couple of forms. Budget adjustment and such.

Even though JYMF isn’t a personal creative project of mine, it is a film festival of which I’m the project manager. And it was me who generated the granting paperwork. So, in a tangential way of speaking, I just got my second grant. (My first grant was even more tangential.) (And in another parenthetical I should point out that I (and I mean “we”) would never have gotten this grant were it not for all the decades of hard fucking work the Cisneros put into URBAN-15. But, still, I want to claim a tiny little slice of this success.)

Pretty cool! URBAN-15 is kicking ass!

And Eric Lupfer and Humanities Texas — well, you guys just rock!!

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I was checking Twitter today and saw mention from Sam Lerma that he would be sending a live video stream of the San Antonio Film Festival’s press conference. I’m dismissive of these live streams. Usually I’m too busy to tune. However, if I remember later, I do go back and click on the link and usually it’s archived. And then I watch it.

Anyway, today I decided to give Dar Miller a call and see what was going on with her film festival, SAL (San Antonio Local Film Festival). When she answered, she asked if I was watching Sam’s live feed. As we chatted, I opened the browser on my laptop and clicked over.

There was Adam Rocha, film teacher at Jefferson High School’s Mustang Cinema department. He’s been running this festive for, what, 14 years? It’s currently on it’s third name change. You might remember it as the San Antonio Underground Film Festival. This will be the second year it’s the San Antonio Film Festival. It’s an integral part of the San Antonio cultural landscape. Sitting behind a row of tables were several people other than Adam. There was the glamourous and ever-camera ready Gabriela Franco-Palafox. She’s the director of the Instituto Cultural de Mexico. This is that great gallery space in the HemisFair. They provide incredible international art shows and film series. Ms. Franco-Palafox also has been kind enough to host the San Antonio Film Festival as well as the film component of the 2009 Luminaria Arts Night. Also on the panel was San Antonio filmmaker extraordinaire, AJ Garces. To be honest, I wasn’t listening to the press conference. But I hope he was there because his amazing short film, Death Rattle, will be in the festival — and it’d better win some sort of prize, dammit. A couple of men on the panel I did not recognize. Dar said they were Mexican directors whose works would be screening later this month at the festival. I’m thinking I really need to see if Sam archived this video stream.

Okay. I just looked it up. Sam comes through! Now everyone can suffer through all the 39 turgid minutes of history in the making.

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/1600926

First, let me get this important bit of info out of the way. The San Antonio Film Festival runs June 25 -28. Get more info on their website: http://www.safilm.com/ and please come out and see some great stuff. I know I’ll be there.

But, PSA out of the way, I have to come clean and admit I was only paying the vaguest attention to the press conference (I mean, I’m happy Adam is getting the press, but I already know I’m attending the festival). Mainly I was calling up Dar to get the inside skinny on this promotional concept she has planned for the SAL Film Festival. I’d mentioned it previously. It goes something like this: You’re a filmmaker, right, and there must be a film which has had significant impact on your work, yeah? Make a short film, taking this into account. Homage, pastiche, documentary, confessional, antagonistic inversion, whatever.

Look for updates on the SAL site: http://salfilmfest.com/

I’m still thinking of entering into this promotional showcase. In a previous blog I mentioned I might like to deconstruct The Third Man into a San Antonio specific short film. And I still see that as a possibility. I have also reconsidered a sort of Mercury Players radio show device where I find a retro home to use as a set. Old ’30s console radio. Depression family sitting around listening to the radio. They become increasingly agitated because the show they think is the news, is actually a play, a la Well’s War of the World. I thought it might be fun to do a comedy like Harvey. Maybe corny horror like Frankenstein of Dracula.

Does anyone who reads this blog have access to a parlor or a living room which is all early 20th century. A large period console radio preferred, but I might be able to find one to bring in as a prop (next question — who has an old console radio?). I need this location (and radio prop) for a half day shoot. Five hours max — to light and shoot.

If you know of a lead, shoot me an email at erikbosse@mac,com or call me on my cell at 210-482-0273.

I was over at URBAN-15 today processing the DVD submissions for the Josiah Youth Media Festival. Monday was the postmark deadline. So today we received a load of locally mailed pieces. We can expect some from further afield in the state tomorrow. And those from out of state Thursday. As for our international submissions (and I only know of one), well, it’ll arrive when it arrives. Currently we have 59 submissions. We have films from Dallas, Arlington, Austin, and Houston. Represented are, I believe, eight Bexar County youth programs. The youngest filmmaker, is ten. The oldest, twenty-one.

I predict we’ll get at least 80 submissions. And then our brave judges will make the first cut. They will decided what will be screened and what won’t. I guarantee this will be a sober process …. however, I wouldn’t hold it against them if our judges were to close the night out with a few cocktails. The fact is, each artist has to make some less than stellar work before finding his or her strengths, and thus to develop those important skills and and aesthetic sensibilities needed for an artist. Having said this, I have previewed a few submissions, and there are some very strong films this year. The final judging will probably be done the third weekend of this month. And in keeping with the last two years, we expect to screen different films on each of the three nights of the festival. The only films which will be repeated will be our four winners.

On the final night of the festival we will give out the awards as well as announcing which of the four winners wins the additional prize as “best of show.”

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This morning I received a call from the auction house where I do some temp work. The head of the Texana department asked if I could meet with her in a few days to look at a library of Texas books which may be consigned to the auction house. It sounds like some very good books. I’ll get some travel expenses and a bit of money to help me through to the end of Josiah (my major work commitment for this summer). And if the books are brokered for consignment, I’m sure I’ll be asked to come in and help research them and write the copy for the auction catalogue. I love writing copy describing rare and collectable Texas history books. It’s material I’m familiar with,and yet I always learn something new — also, there are so many bibliographies available that it’s almost impossible not to sound like a genius.

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The other day I walked around to the back porch where the communal washer and drier are located. It’s a semi-enclosed screened-in porch. As I’m setting the wash cycle and closing the lid, I find myself straining to better make out what I realize is music I’ve been hearing off in the distance — so faint, it barely registers. I step out into the backyard to get away from the noise of the washing machine. I hear a weird sluggish atonal violin attack, yet it sounds strangely familiar. Who in this neighborhood would be a fan of experimental music? And what is it? Alfred Schnittke, I’m thinking. Or maybe something performed by the Kronos Quartet. It’s frustrating not knowing. But at least I now know that there’s a kindred soul in this neighborhood who enjoys listening to adventurous avant-garde music.

As I turned into the side yard and began walking down the driveway, the music wasn’t receding. This couldn’t be. My next door neighbors? This didn’t sound like what they would listen to. But I had to remind myself I don’t really know them that well. How cool.

And then it hit me. It wasn’t coming from the neighborhood. Well, not in that sense. It was coming from my pocket. The mp3 component of my iPhone. I had to laugh as I fished the phone from my pocket and switched off Elliot Sharp’s “Abstract Repressionism.”

I was struck by two things at once. It’s shocking how infrequently I hang out with people who groove to the likes of Sharp, Xenakis, Meredith Monk, Cecil Taylor, et al. AND … how I’m just so pathetically narcissistic in that I think the hallmark for someone else’s hipness is that he or she enjoys my pretentious musical tastes.

Creative Capital is a New York-based art-funding organization. They’ve been around for ten years and have been increasing their funding levels every year. They also provide the Creative Capital’s Professional Development Program, which is a weekend workshop retreat. The city of San Antonio (through our Office of Cultural Affairs) has sponsored this program for three years so far.

It’s an intensive program geared to make artists look at their creative life in a new light. As a business. Creativity is all fine and well, but there are pragmatic necessities that can’t be ignored. For instance, what is your time worth? And this isn’t always a dollar figure. Maybe it’s more important for you to cut down the hours of your day job — thus sacrificing income — to give more time to work on your art. Or maybe you just need a longer buffer zone between your professional work-a-day life and your artist life. But, of course, money is important. Is there a way to transition out of this weekend artist life with a supporting job into becoming a full time financially stable artist?

There are times when the CC retreat slides into a cultish realm along the lines of EST or Bible Camp (’cause they are indeed pushing an ideological agenda … though it’s not so bad; the bottom line is, what is it that you, the artist, needs to continue to make your work?) They provide a lot of workbooks as well as conceptual tools, such as time-tracking; one year and five year plans; writing your own obituary; and other basic life-hacking tools to break us out of our old and unsuccessful patterns.

Anyway, I was selected for the Creative Capital PFP in 2008. And the 2009 recipients were tangentially engaged in the retreat last weekend. Saturday night we had a potluck at Joe Lopez’s famous Gallista Gallery on S. Flores. Alums from 2007 and 2008 were invited, as well as the fresh meat, those from 2009 … and those boor bastards still had another day of grueling workshops and self-revelation.

It was a wonderful night. First off, Joe Lopez is the best host you could hope for. He was a 2008 alum, like me. A truly good human being — a respected elder in the San Antonio Chicano arts community. Also, I just love his art work!

The place was filled with so many great people from the San Antonio art community.

At the bash were Oscar Alvarado, Dora Pena, Ann Wallace, Guillermina Zabala, Estevan Arrendondo, Julia Barbosa Landois, Erik Bosse (that’s me!), Ilze Dilane, Donna Dobberfuhl, Rex Hausmann, Deborah Keller-Rihn, Jose Luis Lopez (that’s Joe Lopez), Roberto Prestigiacomo, Luis Valdaras, Nate Cassie, Dayna De Hoyes, Rebecca Dietz, Rudolf Harst, Modrea Mitchell-Reichert, Victor Payan, Sandra Pena Sarmiento, Ethel Shipton, and Laura Varela.

These are the folks I who I already knew or who I met Saturday night. There were attendees of the Creative Capital retreat 2007-2009 who I know but didn’t show up. And there were folks who showed up, but who I don’t know. But the bottom line is, Saturday night at Joe Lopez’s Gallista Gallery we had a great show of the vitality and powerful diversity of the San Antonio art scene.

One of the folks brought down from New York was Cuban-American filmmaker Ela Troyano. She has come down with Creative Capital all three years. I found her very inspirational last year. And when I was in Newport Beach for the annual NALIP conference earlier this year, she was in attendance. I was cool reconnecting with her in California, and again tonight.

Felix Padron, head of the San Antonio Office of Cultural Affairs, showed up with his wife. He made a very heartfelt speech, praising the Creative Capital experience. I liked that he acknowledged Joe Lopez as a “national treasure,” “one of this city’s most important artists.” I couldn’t agree more.

At some point, Sebastian Guajardo came op and asked me if I’d like to be interviewed as an alum of Creative Capital. Two things to take into consideration. Sebastian is an outrageously charismatic guy recently hired by the San Antonio OCA. I can’t see anyone saying no to the man. Certainly not me. And my friends Deborah and Rose (who had started drinking earlier at Tito’s with margaritas) peer-pressured me into a couple of glasses of Chianti before Sebastian pulled me away.

Troublemakers.

And so there I was with Sebastian in one of the side galleries at Gallista. Linsey Whitehead of the OCA was standing behind the camera. Sebastian stuck a microphone in my face. I blathered some useless bullshit. I pity the poor bastard who has to edit my nonsense. But Felix, Linsey, Sebastian, and all the crowd at the San Antonio OCA are really working their asses off.

I had a great time. I finally met Shimi’s husband, Oscar Alvarado — he’s a very interesting guy. He credits Creative Capital for his recent and outrageous successes as a public artist.

I also had a chance to catch up with Anne Wallace. I love what she does. And I have an enormous amount of respect for her as an artist and as a person. I’m curious about an upcoming public art project she’s doing for the southern river extension.

It was a good night. Thank you everyone for showing up. And especially thank you Joe Lopez for being our host!

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Over the weekend I was at the C4 Workspace. The word was put out for volunteers. I headed over and helped to assemble about a dozen chairs and 14 tables, It’s all IKEA. I still don’t know if the IKEA master-plan is brilliant and very useful, or just plain evil. I love how the stuff is put together — intriguing puzzels. But how long do you think this stuff will actually last? I just don’t know. But we did what was needed to be done. I found myself working with Perla. I like her a lot. If I decide to rent desk space at C4 I really need to know that I will be surrounded by good people in this workspace environment. So far, they’re winning me over.

Below is a picture of tables and chair assembled by volunteers

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Sunday I headed over to the Attic Rep Theater, deep in the bowels of the Trinity campus. I’ve only been there on two occasions, but I expect that my third visit I’ll be, once again, opening up the browser on my iPhone, getting to the AR webpage, and reading the incredibly detailed directions. The directions are impeccable, but why is it that I never seem to be able to get my bearings on the campus?

I was there to see the final performance of Edward Albee’s “The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?” This was the San Antonio premiere. This surprised me at first, because I thought it was an older play. Not so. It first opened in New York in 2002.

Whenever I see a play — particularly one by an iconic playwright — I find myself breaking my response into two spheres. What I thought of the production. And what I thought of the writing.

The production kicked ass. But the characters were unengaging, the plot was overblown, and, quite frankly, the dialogue was not nearly so clever as one expects from Albee.

It’s a story of love, love’s betrayal through bestiality, and the eventual collapse of an all-American family. (Yeah, that’s right — I said beastiality, what of it?) I assume that Albee wants us to see this as a comedy, at least on one level. But if it’s also supposed to be this high (though absurdist) Euripidean tragedy, we really need something more transgressive than a man whose wife leans he’s fucking a goat. When Woody Allen handled the same material decades ago, it was slapstick. As it should be. (Well, as I recall, Allen was dealing with a sheep — maybe a man in love with a sheep is comedy, and the same with a goat is a tragedy?)

Now, I do think the play could be run as a thorough thigh-slapping farce. In fact, Shakespeare would have been incapable as seeing this as a tragedy. I mean, the guy’s fucking a goat. Part of me wishes that the Attic Rep would have gone pure farce. Basically, the goat fucker (let’s use his character name, Martin) and wife would be Rob and Laura Petrie. Everyone loves them. The perfect combination of hip and square. Sally walks into the office and hooks a thumb Rob’s way. “What’s with his long face?” Buddy looks up from Variety. “The wife caught him fucking a goat.” Sally reels back clutching at her throat. Rob shakes his head and says, with a weary smile, “Her name’s Gloria, and she lives in a little pen on a farm up in Bucks County.” Sally croaks, “But this is monstrous.” Rob toys with the keys of his typewriter. “Really? Is it all that different than what you have with Mr. Henderson?” Big laugh from the audience.

It just seems pointless to take a topic which Woody Allen and John Waters understood is racy … for 12 year olds, and build a Medea around it. Yes, I know it’s supposed to be absurdism. But, dammit, why do our great American and British absurdist playwrights create the most bloodless and uncreative story-lines? I blame the New Yorker magazine. Decades ago we began to see less Katherine Anne Porter, and more John O’Hara. Less of the magnificent Southern gothic of Flannery O’Connor, and more of the appalling suburban gothic crap of Cheever and Updike.

Albee takes absurdism and squeezes out the absurd so that it becomes, again, naturalism. The goat fucker … sorry, I mean Martin isn’t setting Sylvia up in some Greenwich Village love nest where he’s carpeted the floor with winter wheat. And don’t expect that the two of them, during their amorous encounters, share a fine Riesling from the same trough before retiring to the circular waterbed in the boudoir. But, nope, he’s fucking a goat in a field somewhere out in the country. Sure sure. Albee has Martin carrying around a photo in his wallet of Sylvia. Absurd? Maybe. But why hasn’t he put his goat friend on his life insurance policy? Why hasn’t he bought adjacent cemetery plots with her? Why isn’t it revealed that Martin has been sneaking around and paying for Sylvia’s pedicures and Pilates classes? I’ll tell you. Because this is half-ass absurdism. I’ll give some points for the bestiality. Hell, who wouldn’t. But we need more than that. This is the 21st century, Mr. Albee! I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. If someone doesn’t start fucking a corpse soon, or hot-wiring a UFO for a road trip to Uranus, well I’m outta here! Audiences need some stimulation. And they need it ASAP!

Now if Albee really had los huevos grande, he’d have had his hero on the receiving end of the goat fucking. Let’s push for a rewrite. “The Goat, or Who is Sylvester?” Really, I’m thinking it would have played Broadway a couple of week longers. Just saying.

But I digress.

The cast was great. Andrew Thornton and Rick Frederick were unstoppable together in True West earlier in the Attic Rep season. A little less Rick this time (which was sad), but they were both phenomenal. Gloria Sanchez (who I might have auditioned for a film years ago) brought this spunky Suzanne Pleshette energy to the piece, before the weird and wild deconstruction got into high gear. By that time, she was not just good. She was awesome. Robby Glass, as the teen-aged son had very little to work with. But he sure as hell held his own alongside Thornton’s fantastic energy.

The art design was also top notch. I loved the set. I was sneaking a photo before the play began. Little did I know that this Swedish modern room would be completely trashed by the end of the second act. And the trashing of the set was handled in such a smart and surprising manner.

Plays at the Attic Rep are damn pricey. I paid 20 bucks. But they are always sold out. Why? They give you flawless performances of incredible plays. I have no problem making these occasional splurges.

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I’ve been thinking about a film opportunity. There is no pay (of course, I never seem to pursue projects that pay). The concept runs something like this. What movie made you want to be a filmmaker? Take that film, and, with your own special twist, retell it. The run time, I suppose, is ten minutes or less. This is a promotional concept for a local film festival. There are some problems here. Much as there were problems when the Cine Festival wanted to get people to contribute to their Trailer Trash Fest (something like that), where filmmakers produced fake trailers for films. Both concepts place a large onus on the filmmaker to shoot at quite a few locations. I don’t care if this is two minutes or ten, that’s a lot of production to shoulder.

But, still, it’s an intriguing idea. The problem is, I don’t really know when I wanted to make movies. It was a slow-percolating process. I watched loads of classic and foreign movies in my teens.

The other day I was running some classic films through my head. The Third Man seemed a pretty basic story line. Guy comes to another city because an old friend has written him about a job. When guy shows up, he’s shocked to learn his friend has just died. He has arrived in time for the funeral. Next he learns his friend might have been killed. He begins to investigate. It becomes a mystery story. He eventually learns that his friend was actually a criminal, whose activities caused the death a many people. He then learns his friend is still alive. He betrays his friend by helping the police track him down. The friend dies. This time, the funeral is for real. Roll credits.

I’m thinking of taking a San Antonio specific story under ten minutes which can accomplish these plot points, be engaging, and still stand as it’s own story, it’s own film. We’ll see. Did this film make me want to be a filmmaker? Why not? I fell in love with it the first time I saw it.