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.
"i love those moments. i love to wave at them as they pass by."
the LOUDEST CROAK in texass goes to this little froggie. you may remember him from his voiceover work in The Grudge, starring Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
i saw Pirates of the Caribbean II today, at one of the country's best theaters: Alamo Draft House. in typical Alamo style, an ancient preview was played prior; this one being "the pirate ship" or something like that, starring Kristi McNichol and Christopher Atkins (blue lagoon). it was a musical. i think i would have enjoyed it more than POTC 2. hate to say it...
yeah so my favorite parts of the movie were the island with the wicker ball cages and all the goings-on there, and then the cragon was pretty neat too. the rest of that was too slapstick and too reliant on CG effects. not that the effects were poor, because the makeup and CG on the villain's boat were pretty badass, but i had enough CG villains in the first movie. it was overload. it would have been cool if keira and orlando had already popped out a few kids or something. or if jack had a woman. did they try to develop a love between keira and jack? cos someone said they did and i missed it. or it was weak, anyway. the last 5 minutes of the movie led me to believe that the last one might be a little different and more worth seeing.
sorry to my boaty & pirate peeps. i just wasn't feeling it.
Buzzcocks & Benders
Yesterday Denver was hot as hell and near unbearable. Then the sun disappeared and we washed the perspiration off in cool showers, made some dinner, drank some wine, and headed over to Goosetown Brewery for a drink before the show. Sasha and I were just finishing our drinks when Andrew arrived. We went across the street to the Bluebird Theater, gave over our tickets, and Sasha proceeded to order more booze. It was 10pm, and the start of our night, and I was already drunk and happy.
The Bluebird is a perfect live music venue for music that inspires standing or dancing. There's a literal mosh "pit" in front of the stage, spanning the length of the stage and going back 12 feet. Then you walk up a short flight of stairs to the next tier, which has a railing in front and is also around 12 feet back. Add a few more of these tiers, each one being about 4 feet higher than the last, with the bar at the top and the balcony reserved for the young'ns. It's small, but it rocks. And EVERYONE can see very well.
Ok, so there weren't very many young'ns. C'mon, the Buzzcocks are almost 20 years past their heyday! While the crowd made me think of Ben Fold's song "Underground", it was refreshing to be one of the younger folks at a punk show. Plus I think Denver caters to the 30-something set more than any other town. This is apparent at many of the bars we've visited. I've been trying to mentally pin down why that matters at all, and ultimately, it doesn't, but the big difference between a show audience or bar crowd full of early 20-somethings vs kids my age is... comfort. Is that the word I'm looking for? Hmm. Specifically, the women seem casual and comfortable and genuinely happy, even without being drunk, and the guys are just there with their buddies and having a good time. It's not a meat market and there's no outrageous attention-hungry displays of drunkeness. No furtive glances "is HE looking over here?!?!" In fact it reminds me of going out to bars in europe. Relaxed and happy and not forced. Nobody cares too much about looking good or hooking up or getting obliterated because they all have girlfriends or wives or they long ago learned the reality of the meeting-girls-at-bars scene, and they also have jobs to go to then next day. So yeah... that was nice.
Oh yeah, the Buzzcocks! They rule. Man those guys are well seasoned performers and excellent musicians. They looked around 50 years old, and the bass & lead guitarists were full of energy and personality. The vocals were spot-on and they kept the crowd hyped up the entire time. Good fun.
After that we headed to "Benders", which is now my favorite bar in Denver, possibly the world. (note the Aqua Teen picture on their myspace!) Benders has a room for bigger live shows, where they were playing some lame house music, so we skipped that and entered the main bar/karaoke area. Once 4 girls decided to do Love Shack we promptly headed outside to the smoking section - reminiscent of many outdoor bar areas in Austin. The backyard was packed. Feeling talkative, I made friends with a couple from Oklahoma City, a tattoo artist who gave me some ideas for my future calf piece, and a fishing captain from Kodiak, Alaska who was a real dick but I won him over and then he commented on how if he was going to "get with" anyone there tonight it was going to be me, because I'm so straightforward. I laughed. Right then I realized that I'm such the committed girlfriend that I don't even flirt, and then I'm surprised when someone comes on to me. I really should flirt more. It's fun and harmless.
Andrew had been inside for a bit, watching the best rendition of "Hey Jealousy" ever performed (crawling up the walls, etc) and the staff was closing down the smoking section, so we went in and suffered through a terrible attempt at a Perfect Circle song. After that, though, this funny and wasted lesbian sweetly sang "Stand By Your Man" to her girlfriend, and the night ended with every soul in the building rocking out to two 30-yr-old hipster boys giving BelBivDevoe's "Poison" their full effort, while one of the guy's girlfriends, looking like Summer from Firefly and wearing a red tank top, short black jean shorts and tan worn out boots danced between them. It was the first time I'd ever witnessed a room full of strangers belting out the chorus to a BBD song.
And that was my night. It was fun fun fun and today I fly out of Denver. Short but sweet and I'm looking forward to visiting again. Maybe late spring or early fall would be more tolerable, though, weather-wise.
The Bluebird is a perfect live music venue for music that inspires standing or dancing. There's a literal mosh "pit" in front of the stage, spanning the length of the stage and going back 12 feet. Then you walk up a short flight of stairs to the next tier, which has a railing in front and is also around 12 feet back. Add a few more of these tiers, each one being about 4 feet higher than the last, with the bar at the top and the balcony reserved for the young'ns. It's small, but it rocks. And EVERYONE can see very well.
Ok, so there weren't very many young'ns. C'mon, the Buzzcocks are almost 20 years past their heyday! While the crowd made me think of Ben Fold's song "Underground", it was refreshing to be one of the younger folks at a punk show. Plus I think Denver caters to the 30-something set more than any other town. This is apparent at many of the bars we've visited. I've been trying to mentally pin down why that matters at all, and ultimately, it doesn't, but the big difference between a show audience or bar crowd full of early 20-somethings vs kids my age is... comfort. Is that the word I'm looking for? Hmm. Specifically, the women seem casual and comfortable and genuinely happy, even without being drunk, and the guys are just there with their buddies and having a good time. It's not a meat market and there's no outrageous attention-hungry displays of drunkeness. No furtive glances "is HE looking over here?!?!" In fact it reminds me of going out to bars in europe. Relaxed and happy and not forced. Nobody cares too much about looking good or hooking up or getting obliterated because they all have girlfriends or wives or they long ago learned the reality of the meeting-girls-at-bars scene, and they also have jobs to go to then next day. So yeah... that was nice.
Oh yeah, the Buzzcocks! They rule. Man those guys are well seasoned performers and excellent musicians. They looked around 50 years old, and the bass & lead guitarists were full of energy and personality. The vocals were spot-on and they kept the crowd hyped up the entire time. Good fun.
After that we headed to "Benders", which is now my favorite bar in Denver, possibly the world. (note the Aqua Teen picture on their myspace!) Benders has a room for bigger live shows, where they were playing some lame house music, so we skipped that and entered the main bar/karaoke area. Once 4 girls decided to do Love Shack we promptly headed outside to the smoking section - reminiscent of many outdoor bar areas in Austin. The backyard was packed. Feeling talkative, I made friends with a couple from Oklahoma City, a tattoo artist who gave me some ideas for my future calf piece, and a fishing captain from Kodiak, Alaska who was a real dick but I won him over and then he commented on how if he was going to "get with" anyone there tonight it was going to be me, because I'm so straightforward. I laughed. Right then I realized that I'm such the committed girlfriend that I don't even flirt, and then I'm surprised when someone comes on to me. I really should flirt more. It's fun and harmless.
Andrew had been inside for a bit, watching the best rendition of "Hey Jealousy" ever performed (crawling up the walls, etc) and the staff was closing down the smoking section, so we went in and suffered through a terrible attempt at a Perfect Circle song. After that, though, this funny and wasted lesbian sweetly sang "Stand By Your Man" to her girlfriend, and the night ended with every soul in the building rocking out to two 30-yr-old hipster boys giving BelBivDevoe's "Poison" their full effort, while one of the guy's girlfriends, looking like Summer from Firefly and wearing a red tank top, short black jean shorts and tan worn out boots danced between them. It was the first time I'd ever witnessed a room full of strangers belting out the chorus to a BBD song.
And that was my night. It was fun fun fun and today I fly out of Denver. Short but sweet and I'm looking forward to visiting again. Maybe late spring or early fall would be more tolerable, though, weather-wise.
Denver Beer Night
My aunt and uncle needed some help loading their 18 wheeler in Iowa City, IA and then unloading in Durango, Colorado. Yesterday they dropped me off in Denver, because I wanted to visit my friend Sasha. It's been 5 years since Sasha and I last hung out together. She took me to some great Denver bars, where we drank good beer at Goosetown Brewery, shitty beer on sale at the Grateful Dead tribute bar known as Sanchos (pictured above), and some PBR to wash out the taste of the shitty beer. There's a few good music venues near these bars, and I noticed that Muse and Tricky are coming soon - thought of you, Jarad. Then again, after the sleepy Sigur Ros show I'm not so sure I'll be attending many ambient type shows in the future. So Tricky may be a no-go. It was fun to go out with Sasha - we used to get drunk in Waikiki regularly.
almost live! from michigan...
these are totally out of order. here are some pics of polly and her mom, and some shots i took from my window on the train.
Today's Hero: Joel Bakan
Everyone should see the dvd "The Corporation"!
Full of action! Bruce Willis! Catherine Zeta Jones! cameos include Steven Seagal, Julia Roberts, and Denzel Washington!!! Suspense! Sex! LOTS OF SEX & VIOLENCE! You'll LOVE IT!
ok so now all the people who NEED to see it, will go see it, right?
I just watched it today, and I'm feeling pretty enlightened.
Things I did not know previously:
a corporation is a group of people forming one business group, but legally considered to be "one person", therefore corporations have the same rights as individual humans (this right granted by terrible judges allowing the 14th amendment - which was supposed to guarantee more rights for blacks and abolish slavery - to also guarantee rights to corporations)
once upon a time, legal patents on any living organism were not allowed. some more judges thought it should be ok for bacteria to be patented. the patent office then decided that the only thing that could NOT be patented was a living human being. what's next?
also, where was i when all this privatization of water in 3rd world countries was going on? with my head in the sand? i mean, i heard something about it... no i think i heard about somewhere in the US where they were trying to privatize water and it wasn't working out. or maybe i wrote it off like i wrote off the privatization of utilities in california a while back. plus there's the fact that i rarely watch tv or read the paper. but damn... bolivians DIED fighting for their water! a San Francisco coporation called Bechtel bought the rights to ALL their water. these already poverty stricken people were not even allowed to collect RAINWATER! but they rose up and overcame. hmmm what will it take for US to finally rise up?
this bolivian guy made a great point: when their masses marched, all the company people and the authority figures fled. they OWNED the streets. reminds me of the rodney king riots and WTO (i was there - yes there were lots of cops but they were all huddled together. the rest of us had the run of the streets). terrible to equate the two, but the point is, there's a lot more of us than them. and there's a slow kind of genocide going on. corporations are killing us off with cancer and mental disorders - it'll turn a quick profit but sooner or later won't the sick public, sans health insurance, cease to earn a living and therefore cease their existence as active consumers? hmmm
and if you watch this, you may never drink milk again.
anyway, it's not as leftwing as i make it sound. it was objective and factual. be sure to watch the special features where the writer, Joel Bakan, speaks.
it got me wondering if there was an online store where people could buy reasonably priced household items and food. like a one-stop guilt free shopping site.
Full of action! Bruce Willis! Catherine Zeta Jones! cameos include Steven Seagal, Julia Roberts, and Denzel Washington!!! Suspense! Sex! LOTS OF SEX & VIOLENCE! You'll LOVE IT!
ok so now all the people who NEED to see it, will go see it, right?
I just watched it today, and I'm feeling pretty enlightened.
Things I did not know previously:
a corporation is a group of people forming one business group, but legally considered to be "one person", therefore corporations have the same rights as individual humans (this right granted by terrible judges allowing the 14th amendment - which was supposed to guarantee more rights for blacks and abolish slavery - to also guarantee rights to corporations)
once upon a time, legal patents on any living organism were not allowed. some more judges thought it should be ok for bacteria to be patented. the patent office then decided that the only thing that could NOT be patented was a living human being. what's next?
also, where was i when all this privatization of water in 3rd world countries was going on? with my head in the sand? i mean, i heard something about it... no i think i heard about somewhere in the US where they were trying to privatize water and it wasn't working out. or maybe i wrote it off like i wrote off the privatization of utilities in california a while back. plus there's the fact that i rarely watch tv or read the paper. but damn... bolivians DIED fighting for their water! a San Francisco coporation called Bechtel bought the rights to ALL their water. these already poverty stricken people were not even allowed to collect RAINWATER! but they rose up and overcame. hmmm what will it take for US to finally rise up?
this bolivian guy made a great point: when their masses marched, all the company people and the authority figures fled. they OWNED the streets. reminds me of the rodney king riots and WTO (i was there - yes there were lots of cops but they were all huddled together. the rest of us had the run of the streets). terrible to equate the two, but the point is, there's a lot more of us than them. and there's a slow kind of genocide going on. corporations are killing us off with cancer and mental disorders - it'll turn a quick profit but sooner or later won't the sick public, sans health insurance, cease to earn a living and therefore cease their existence as active consumers? hmmm
and if you watch this, you may never drink milk again.
anyway, it's not as leftwing as i make it sound. it was objective and factual. be sure to watch the special features where the writer, Joel Bakan, speaks.
it got me wondering if there was an online store where people could buy reasonably priced household items and food. like a one-stop guilt free shopping site.
views from a tug
strangely, i was sitting in a coffeeshop in grand rapids, michigan today that serves "fidalgo bay coffee". just two weeks ago i was thinking of visiting grand rapids, michigan from fidalgo bay...plus there's a shot here of downtown seattle from the galley porthole.
oh snap
A major insurance company sponsored testing & polling to find out where the best & worst drivers in America are. Oregon & Washington! Numbers 1 and 2, respectively. California was 14th, Texas was 24th, and all the New England states were dead last except for Vermont (3rd place).
I think the main reason I'm posting this is because it was hell yesterday; driving my mom and grandma around. Convincing them that I knew what I was doing and where I was going was frustrating. Neither have driven much in the city for the last 10 years... and shit, I've owned an RV, a motorcycle, a few cars... and driven a variety of cars owned by others as well. And I've driven ALL OVER THE COUNTRY. Including other countries! Sheesh. I think it's just their nature to be cynical. Anyway, yeah... I'm one of those good drivers, so THERE!
I think the main reason I'm posting this is because it was hell yesterday; driving my mom and grandma around. Convincing them that I knew what I was doing and where I was going was frustrating. Neither have driven much in the city for the last 10 years... and shit, I've owned an RV, a motorcycle, a few cars... and driven a variety of cars owned by others as well. And I've driven ALL OVER THE COUNTRY. Including other countries! Sheesh. I think it's just their nature to be cynical. Anyway, yeah... I'm one of those good drivers, so THERE!
TLC
I've been around some TV sets the last few weeks, and seen few valuable nuggets of interesting stuff. Today a 3 minute glimpse of the show "Honey we're killing the kids" on The Learning Channel had me almost in tears. I assume it's a show about the bad lifestyle habits that today's parents inflict upon their children. The part I tuned into was when this lady showed 2 overweight parents (not morbidly obese, though), a fast foward projection of how their young boys will probably look over the years, until age 40. The parents watched the computer program display of their sons changing over the years, and the sons were obese and definitely not healthy. The parents were so ashamed they were practically speechless. The lady asked them how they felt about seeing this, and they quietly spoke of how they'd wished so much more for their boys, and how the boys unfortunately looked just like them. The lady went on to say that the parents were reducing the boys' life expectancy by 10 years, if the eating habits don't change.
It was moving, because lately I've been feeling that we're all so self-absorbed and here was a way to really inspire these parents to change for the sake of their children. People can go on hearing how bad their lifestyle is and never really do anything about it, but thank god most people want the best for at least their own kids... because by the look of utter shame on their faces I think that these two are likely to make some changes.
It was moving, because lately I've been feeling that we're all so self-absorbed and here was a way to really inspire these parents to change for the sake of their children. People can go on hearing how bad their lifestyle is and never really do anything about it, but thank god most people want the best for at least their own kids... because by the look of utter shame on their faces I think that these two are likely to make some changes.
