kind of a postscript

It is only several minutes after I wrote what I just wrote. I was trying to beat the clock and hit the "publish" button just before midnight so that it would say Thursday instead of Friday. So I didn't spellcheck or even proofread, and then just hit the publish button at, well, actually, 10:59, thinking that it was almost midnight in the CENTRAL time zone... so I was an hour early. However, it still said Friday, and I didn't get to spellcheck or proofread, so I apologize for all the mistakes!

What am I going to do next?

Spring Break 1980

Every time I go somewhere like this, I mean a place with a lot of people gathered, be it Mardi Gras, the Super Bowl, Indy 500, or Kentucky Derby, or in this case, a film festival, I seem to find myself with a group of people trying to find a place to go as a group and have a quiet moment among the crowds of drunken idiots. Maybe not so quiet, but I presume everyone would like to be able to talk at least, and hear what the other people are saying. It's nice to get out, of course, if you've been at "home" for hours and hours. Anyway, I'm not being critical of the idea, but what always seems to happen is having trouble finding a place where a group larger than four can sit comfortbably, and then when we do find a place, it's too loud to hear anyone talking. I then sit and stare and possibly mediate and space out-- all as kind of a survival technique. We did this tonight, once again, it's so famailiar, it's really pretty funny. But I decided, as I have lately in such situations, to just go home, do something else, and then get up in the morning and start something new. I'm much happier that way.

Main Street in Park City reminds me exactly of Daytona Beach, Spring Break 1980. I say 1980 because that was the last year I went somewhere on spring break, among all the idiots and screaming idiots. I'm one too, or I was back then I guess. I am still, just not screaming quite as loudly. Okay, I'm not screaming at all. Maybe I should scream once in awhile. Maybe that would make some kind of at least different impresson...

This day or that day

Already several days have gone by without me being able to update this journal, which is too bad because I've forgotten the last couple of days. I saw three movies in one day, which may have been Sunday, which is too many for me to see in one day because they all kind of run together. I'm not going to write any kind of reviews or impressions of any of them because I'm not paid to do that, and there are plenty of people who are, and I find that kind of thing painful to write. Actually, there are plenty of people who AREN'T paid to write that kind of stuff who LOVE to do it anyway, and so there you go.

Yesterday was the first screening of The Pool, which was exciting, it looked good, the first time I've seen it really finished. My attempt to be objective about this movie that my friends made, and I had some hand in as well, has destroyed all possibility for me to be objective about any other films here. One of the things that people regularly ask you here is what you've seen and how you liked what you've seen. Which is fine, and understandable, and I do that too, but it's a bit taxing.

So those are my excuses for not writing about films I've seen. We did have a dinner with a celebrity chef last night at something called Chef Dance. It was at some place with at least four different names, or maybe it was four or five places together. There was high security, we had to get wristbands and show them to eight or nine different security people to finally get in this back room with long tables, and a huge kitchen, lots of cooking going on, waitpeople bringing out one after another courses (with a lot of time in between), and the best part, some real characters hanging around, watching the door, maybe? Or the joint owners? A lot of them looked like character actors in the parts of restaurant owners, bouncers, hit men, etc. Now I'm thinking that maybe they WERE actors, kind of there auditioning, waiting to be discovered. It might work, too. If I was looking for some actor to play a Russian Italian gangster who might beat the shit out of someone, I would have approached one of these guys.

Okay, more later, I hope. I mean more on this day, which was yesterday, if I get the chance, and this day, which is this day, doesn't get in the way.

Saturday (I think)

I'm at the Eating Establishment for breakfast--this place is exactly the same! That's kind of comforting. I just beat the crowds--now they're piled up in the vestabule, waiting for a table. I'm the only asshole by myself here--though I'm sure not the only asshole! I order an omelette-- and then, attempt, it's worth a try-- when I decline the wheat toast I ask for extra potatoes. They might say no, but at least that tells them that I'm not some Atkins Diet freak. The waiter says "sure" -- then he also brings me an extra bowl of fruit!-- which is really nice of him-- plus the potatoes! There are too many potatoes-- a massive heap-- I try to eat them all, along with the entire pot of watery golden west coffee (Hunter Thompson described some coffee that way once, so I always thnk of that when I get those copper colored plastic thermal pots they leave on your table).

Yesterday Chris, Kate and I went to the HQ to get lanyairds and shit-- it's at the Marriott that used to be the Olympia Park (or some similar name). Crispen Glover is in the lobby, with a small crowd around him. Did I overhear that Johnny Rebel might be making a surprise musical apperarnce? We can only hope my ears were deceiving me. We go upstairs and get the lanyairds and shit. Doing much the same thing is Mike Bonanno, one of the illustrious "Yes Men" who I first met at this same spot (well this town, and film festival) 11 years ago. Then later I see, at Albertson's, James Westby, a filmmaker from Portland who I haven't seen in like eight years-- he recognized me, said "hi"-- He's made a couple of films since I saw him last. I was auditioning for a small part in one of his films-- but the guy who played Les Nessman on WKRP in Cincinatti got the part!

On The Plane

Some people love flying, and with all due respect, I'm not one of them. I could elaborate, but there are people who have described their distaste for flying with much more flowery language than I have at my command. And I imagine there are even people who actually hate the ACT of flying more than I do, but they make strong prescription drugs for those individuals. One nice thing, though, there are actually PEANUTS like in the old days. There were a lot of years when it was either tiny pretzels or wheat covered peanuts. Today there is a choice: it sounded like they said, "Some chips, peanuts, bit-off cookies, cream cheese with chives, or crackers." I assume that you can't get the chives (a vegetable!) without the cream cheese or viceversa, but what would you put it on? Crackers is a separate choice, which I don't really consider, since I'm not a fucking parrot. "Some chips" sounds kind of left-over, as does "bit off cookies," even more left-over. So peanuts-- they gave me two bags-- and they're easy to open-- so you don't have to struggle with it, peanuts flying all over. I open the bag, pour them out-- four peanuts. I open the second bag-- not much better-- five peanuts. That makes nine. Okay, I'm exaggerating a little bit-- maybe there were like 14 peanuts altogether.

Up in first class, behind a why-bother curtain that looks like one of the flight attendants is hanging her nylons to dry, do they really have it any better? I bet not really-- no smoked salmon-- probably an individually wrapped Famous Amos cookie and a "mile-high mojito." You always think the rich people have it better, but really they don't, not much. But they're not going to tell you that. They're too busy trying to convince themselves.

More You're NO Help

It's my birthday right now, but no one knows it or they might have humored my latest suggestion at least a little but. It might have required a bit of additional shooting, and I fully realize that at this late date that's a tall order, but we dwell here on the edge do we not? That was my exact question... and was met with blank stares.

Anyway, my idea was to end the film with some kind of an dance number, maybe a dance contest in which the Indian youth comes to the United States, travels across the country, and gets on one of those new TV shows that are like talent shows. I'll admit, I haven't actually seen one, but I can imagine that they might be like the old "Little Rascals" show. Am I wrong?

So, against all odds, he wins the contest, and it's pretty heartwarming and also funny. But then, because we still want to have a message, you know, other than, all you have to do is believe in yourself and all that, the Indian youth gets mixed up somehow with a battalion of soldiers being shipped out to Iraq. Laughter, tears, horror, vomit, Let's go!

Just Trying to Help Out

Everything's been pretty hectic, as you might imagine--or maybe you don't imagine--I mean, I guess I wouldn't if I wasn't here--I'd prefer to imagine tranquility, harmony, and quiet. Anyway, everything is hectic. I'm not much help, having no technical skills whatsoever. Did I already say that?

Well, okay, it's the last chance for last minute changes, what do they call that? Eleventh hour? Something like that. It's time to question EVERYTHING, every decision that made perfect sense three months ago now seems like it was made by a TOTALLY INSANE person! Who was this insane person who made these decisions? Who hired a RUMMY as captain of this ship?

I'm talking about the movie, The Pool. We're leaving for Sundance Film Festival in a couple of days. A couple of us. Others coming later. Anyway, my last minute suggestion was CHANGE THE BEGINNING of the film! Open with Venkatesh, the main character, lying facedown in the pool, riddled with bullet holes. But get this, he's doing a VOICE-OVER. He's narrating the story from the dead position. How did he get there? It’s a grand mystery!

Well, needless to say, my suggestion was met with all manner of derisive comments. I can understand it's not really in the SPIRIT of the film, plus would be hard to pull off (requiring re-shoots, and an entire narration track), but I thought being pelted with OBJECTS was a little harsh. I'm just trying to "take it to another level" after all. Give me a break!

More Truth

Anyway, so in Iowa City, where this story starts, the name thing got REALLY complicated. Besides the name of my closest (male) friend, whose name was Chris (the same name as my co-worker), I met a young filmmaker named Chris, though we’ll get to him later. I used to frequent a restaurant called Hamburg Inn #2, which you can tell is a REAL restaurant name, because who would ever call something by that name, especially if you never ate hamburgers there? Also, there was no Hamburg Inn #1. Okay, I admit to having frequented the place not for the bad coffee or average breakfasts, but because I was infatuated with a waitress. This is hard for me to admit in the days, now, that I no longer find my myself infatuated by waitresses, but maybe the younger (male) readers of this journal could find themselves sympathetic with such folly. SO where this gets particularly complicated is when I found out the waitress’s name (they didn’t wear name tags, customers referred to her by name CONSTANTLY) was, yes, Chris. It now occurs to me that it would be GREAT if that wasn’t her real name, but a WORK alias which she used, realizing that the fantasizing, infatuated hoards who learned her name and thus recited it in an almost abusive fashion, was a name of a fictional personae, the cute waitress, and she was no more that person than she was the fantasy of that person contrived by the drooling (mostly male) clientele. But, actually, probably, her name WAS Chris.

This might be a good place to relate a medical condition I have, a gluten intolerance called celiac sprue, which I discovered while living in Iowa City and during my tenure at the Hamburg Inn #2. See, my initial infatuation at this place (besides the fascination with ALL non-chain establishments that serve breakfast to customers who can sit down for and drink coffee for excessive time periods) was the very, very large cinnamon rolls, one of the regional Iowa specialties I grew fascinated with while living there. These cinnamon rolls were nearly as big as a dinner plate, and baked fresh and hot were covered with about an inch of thick, glistening, white frosting. To eat a whole one by yourself would be enough to end your day right there, and indeed, many of my days ended in such a fashion. The wheat gluten involved, and in the toast, in such breakfasts didn’t help matters. When the crack medical team at the University of Iowa Hospital discovered my condition after a couple years of very expensive head scratching, I was quickly on the road to a renewed healthy, and a new life, though I kept one foot comfortably in the grave through heavy drinking. The reason I mention this is because it doesn’t exactly make for good fiction when everyone is drinking beer except for you (beer is made from fermented barley, which is wheat, and off limits) or you go out to a pizza place and eat a salad. But this is a true story, so there you go. And the thing about this detail that makes me feel better, thinking about it now, is that I am not entirely sure that I didn’t develop this waitress crush AFTER giving up the cinnamon rolls, and so perhaps I can be forgiven for replacing one infatuation with another.

Now, if this isn’t all complicated enough, the new woman who would soon enter may life went by the name of, yes, Chris. This will come a little later, but I just want to mention it now because it is kind of crazy. I was considering changing THAT name right from the start, but I am just worried that doing so, changing ANY names, would compromise the integrity of the truthfulness of this story. So I’m not going to change it, no matter how much confusion it causes. That just reminded me of something I read awhile ago in the local newspaper from my home town, Sandusky, Ohio. Apparently there is a couple there, a man and a woman, and they are BOTH named Chris Smith. You can imagine when they met, it was funny, something to joke about, and then to their horror and delight to find out they were attracted to each other. It wouldn’t be so weird once you got used to it, but it might be an ongoing source of annoyance anytime you met new people. Anyway, what is even WEIRDER is that the newspaper discovered that there was ANOTHER couple in this SAME TOWN (of only about 30,000) who were also both named CHRIS SMITH! I could barely believe this when I read it, but there is was in the newspaper, one would like to believe they check their facts and all that. So there you go. There are odd coincidences with names all the time, and this is the real world.

Oh, the fact that I suspect that anyone reading this might think I’m making it up, reminded me of another odd occasion involving names that came up during one of my less illustrious jobs over the years, vacuuming the large carpet at the Lerner’s clothing store in the Northland Mall in Columbus, Ohio. I was the only man working in this woman’s clothing chain store, and all the women addressed each other by Miss or Mrs. Or Ms. And then their last name. Miss Smith, and Mrs. Jones, I can’t remember any of the names now, except for two, which were so shocking to me that I was nearly derailed by a surrealistic, hallucinatory distraction every time either of them were referred to. The names of these women were: Miss Liberty and Miss Justice! Now this is a true story (and if you stop to think, why would anyone make up something so idiotic) but EVERY TIME I tell this to anyone, I get the sense that they simply do not believe me. I can see it in their eyes, in their body language. I say, “yeah, and their names were Miss Liberty and Miss Justice,” and the person I’m telling it to is overtaken with a weariness, a sadness even, a disappointment in me for not making up more interesting, more meaningful, and more BELIEVEABLE lies.

But it’s true, Goddmamnit.

Update on Movie

Okay, I was right in the middle of that story, and then the holidays came around, not that I did anything on the holidays, but I was still disrupted. Actually, I tried to clean my kitchen over the holidays, but I only got as far as moving all the pots and pans and shit into the bedroom so I could clean. I didn't get around to cleaning, and now the pots and pans and shit are in the bedroom.

Actually, we just kept right on working on the movie, The Pool, over the holidays. Well, actually, my co-workers kept working on it while I attempted to clean my office. I got everything off the shelves and onto the floor, where I've been tripping over it for days now, but the project stalled out due to my kitchen cleaning project (see above). As soon as they (my co-workers) would get a new edit of the movie done, we'd wait until nightfall and then watch it in our state-of-the-art screening facility.

The reason we wait for night is because we have to wait for all the other offices close up for the day and go home (this wasn't an issue over the holidays, by the way) because there are women working in the other offices and it might inconvenience them not to be able to use the women's bathroom. Yes, we use the lady's lounge as our screening room. That is because it's the most movie theater-like room in the building. When they remodeled this building, they went all out on the gal's toilet—it's like one of those old-fashioned lounges, with lots of mirrors and couches and a big white wall that we project the movie on. We move a few more couches in, and really, it's pretty nice. For some reason they didn't do much to the men's—it's pretty much like one of those at a filling station where the door is around back—it's always cold, it's small, and there always seems to be water dripping and a sewer gas smell. They clean it every day, though, that being the big difference from a filling station. Oh, and I realize there is one woman, Kate, working in our office, but during screenings she uses the bathroom before we set up the projector, and then gives us a hard time about the sorry state of the men's—like it's our fault or something.

The movie was pretty much finished being edited back in September, but we're now watching for the fine tuning, the little things that, if you know anything about editing, or movies, or art, or anything, you know that these little things are crucial—they are pretty much what makes the difference between a masterpiece and a floating turd. Watching the movie in the restroom causes us to keep turds on our minds, as in, “pay attention to these small details or else.” I mean, it's not going to be a turd no matter what we do at this point, but we want it to be the best it can be. I mean, my co-workers do, even more than me. I want to get my office cleaned up before I trip over anything else. Fortunately, it's a group effort! The film, I mean—I mean fortunately it's not just me, because I kind of have the habit of leaving things on the floor where everyone trips over them.