Too Hot To Go Outside
When stuck in Texas longer than I want to be (in August), I make my own fun. Thrift stores and playing with the toys that Jarad's sister collects...
SNAKES ON A TOOB!
Friday was my friend Mikey's graduation from Texas State University. It turned into a 15-hour event; the first part being a tube trip down the San Marcos River. There were 13 of us and 2 coolers of beer. The mostly mellow float trip involved Petro offering beer to 12 year olds girls, Mikey teaching the locals how to use a ropeswing, one of the coolers sinking, and at the end we shot through some kickass "chutes".Afterwards, we ate some BBQ that Mike's mom cooked up ashore, played hacky sack, drank more beer, and posed for a few group photos.
Speeding...Action!
I have a week in Austin with not much to do. So I decided to explore Craigslist for volunteer opportunities. Austin has a decent indie film production scene, and two no-budget projects were needing production assistance this weekend.
The first was a group of UT students working on a narrative short. These three, really nice 30-something guys, Daniel, Noah, and Johnny asked me to work with them Friday night just east of Austin. I'd never done PA work before, nor did I know these guys, but my worries of being left for dead in the Texas desert strangely disappeared while driving Noah out to the filming location. Something to do with my query about his musical tastes and him responding "praise music"... does my suburban white bread American upbringing make me trust Christians more? Yikes. That's for another introspective blog post...
Anyway, they spent 7 hours planning the shoot while the rest of us sat around, then we spent a LOT of time trying to achieve proper lighting and finally started shooting at 11pm. It was cool though - the two 15 year old girls in the short were sweet, as was the dude who played "El Diablo", and the owners of the house made me a pina colada. I finally bailed at 5am, and the 3 UT students thanked me profusely and have promised margaritas later on this week. In the 15 hours I worked for them I learned enough about dollies, flags, lighting and various terminology to make me appear almost knowledgeable for my sunday night gig!
Sunday night found me north of Austin at the Monument Cafe, helping a very cool guy, Christopher Obal, on an indie short that I guess is going to be shown at festivals. Besides setting up lights and standing in for actors for lighting purposes, I held a big reflective screen for a long time and kept power cords from fouling. I really dig the lighting stuff. It'd be fun to do that for a living. More challenging than viewers probably realize.
The UT students and their amateur actors were all very fun to hang out with, but I really appreciated the professionalism and efficiency of Chris. Plus he's just a nice guy. I think Jarad and Polly would dig working with him, as he's a collector of vinyl and a CPA-turned-filmmaker. The sunday shoot also included a good actress named Allison. The short was called "Temporary Man". I didn't even really catch what it was all about.
So yeah it was fun. I'll probably volunteer again for stuff like this.
The first was a group of UT students working on a narrative short. These three, really nice 30-something guys, Daniel, Noah, and Johnny asked me to work with them Friday night just east of Austin. I'd never done PA work before, nor did I know these guys, but my worries of being left for dead in the Texas desert strangely disappeared while driving Noah out to the filming location. Something to do with my query about his musical tastes and him responding "praise music"... does my suburban white bread American upbringing make me trust Christians more? Yikes. That's for another introspective blog post...
Anyway, they spent 7 hours planning the shoot while the rest of us sat around, then we spent a LOT of time trying to achieve proper lighting and finally started shooting at 11pm. It was cool though - the two 15 year old girls in the short were sweet, as was the dude who played "El Diablo", and the owners of the house made me a pina colada. I finally bailed at 5am, and the 3 UT students thanked me profusely and have promised margaritas later on this week. In the 15 hours I worked for them I learned enough about dollies, flags, lighting and various terminology to make me appear almost knowledgeable for my sunday night gig!
Sunday night found me north of Austin at the Monument Cafe, helping a very cool guy, Christopher Obal, on an indie short that I guess is going to be shown at festivals. Besides setting up lights and standing in for actors for lighting purposes, I held a big reflective screen for a long time and kept power cords from fouling. I really dig the lighting stuff. It'd be fun to do that for a living. More challenging than viewers probably realize.
The UT students and their amateur actors were all very fun to hang out with, but I really appreciated the professionalism and efficiency of Chris. Plus he's just a nice guy. I think Jarad and Polly would dig working with him, as he's a collector of vinyl and a CPA-turned-filmmaker. The sunday shoot also included a good actress named Allison. The short was called "Temporary Man". I didn't even really catch what it was all about.
So yeah it was fun. I'll probably volunteer again for stuff like this.
The Day I Missed Spam Musubi
Hawaii vs. Texas: in Hawaii you could get bbq chicken musubi, spam musubi, humbow and decent sushi at the convenience stores.Let me just tell everyone... elgin sausage is the most disgusting conglomeration of lips and assholes ever stuffed into stretchy edible intestine.
We went to a party in Surfside (along the gulf coast) on friday. It was kinda fun at first, then I wasn't feeling too hot and all the bizzarro antics of my fellow beach partiers were starting to drive me nuts. On saturday, we hit a party in Houston, and I met some nice people there. A hair stylist that was a straight male, a cool artsy guy who made his own clothes, and some musicians. But I do get the feeling that life in Houston is a little boring and generally unfulfilling. The rest of the weekend was spent helping Jarad out with his ageing grandmother, emptying a storage shed for his parents, and enjoying the generosity of his parents when it comes to eating out at the local restaurants. That, plus we're into the first season of Angel dvds, and also Wondershowzen (upon Mason's recommendation). Hilarious and over-the-top offensive.
