Due to SxSW, NCAA, Spring Break, and the Ides of March, our projected attendance at the National Comedy Theatre is not so very good tonight.
So, you can attend either of tonight's shows (3/16/02) for free if you make a reservation at 266-3397 (comedy7) and tell them "Shoe sent you".
What are these "shows" you ask? They are both improv comedy shows in a style very similar to Whose Line Is It Anyway? The 7:30 show is in a sports format with two teams and a referee (and the points do matter (sort of)). This is a clean, all ages event. The 10:00 show is called "The Jet Set" and is 18 and over only. It's looser and more freeform (no team division or ref) – and we get to say naughty words.
But wait, there's more! We serve wine, beer, and handmade food (like pizza). The Theatre is located at the back of Northcross (ex-) Mall. We have an outside entrance with a maroon awning that says "Yes!". There's more info and a map on the NCT website.
I'll be ref for the first show and playing in the second. Please let me know you're a belly fuzzer (?) if you make it on by.
I need your input Blane e-mailed me to let me know that the domain name registration for bellyfuzz.com is coming up fairly soon. What's that mean? Well, we can remain "bellyfuzz.com" ... or we can pick something else.
Please post your suggestions on the site. I'd like us all to gab about it. :-)
I seemed to be moving in slow motion on Saturday. I got to a few venues with too little time to get in, and was on the wrong side of town for a couple of others. Important Safety Tip: Drink less on Fridays.
The highlight for me on Saturday was The Last Party 2000. More professionally produced and significantly more insightful than Journeys With George, it paints a similarly bleak picture of democracy. After a visit to three major party conventions, two sets of protests, a shadow convention, NRA Gun Show, Christian Coalition Rally and the WTO conference protests, you too will cry for Argentina. Philip Seymour Hoffman narrates and hosts—his reaction shots alone are worth the price of admission.
Sunday
Saw John Leguizamo, Oliver Platt and Wesley Snipes, along with an impressive child actor named Sam Jones III in David Goyer’s directorial debut ZigZag. IMDB has already posted my review. Tried to get in to see Money for Nothing, shown in the impossibly small Hideout on Congress. Who knew this tiny coffee shop had a comedy club and a theater inside. At 59 seats it is the smallest venue of SXSW film, and I got shut out.
Monday
Spent time in the trade show and the interactive festival conference. Saw some cool demos of digital projection, DV to film conversion aids and Final Cut and Avid editing suites. Great DV and DVcamPro cameras on the show floor, and many new HD cams as well. The formats are confusing—the images are stunning, and from the look of several films shown in 35mm blowups or transfers from DV, can look very filmlike.
Tuesday
This was the day of my video shoot. Unfortunately, it has been postponed. So much for stardom. As my old Broadcast Communications professor Dr. Hogan used to say “Basile, you’ve got a face made for radio...” I did hear that it may be rescheduled soon, and they do want to use me, so that is good.
Saw Owned and Chelsea Walls. Owned covered the DefCon hacker convention in Las Vegas, and was an amusing and interesting look into the lives of hackers, crackers, Phone Phreaks and industry denizens like the famed “Captain Crunch.” Featured a hilarious game of “Spot The Fed” at the convention, when two FBI agents were exposed by the merciless crowd, which then awarded them “I’ve Been Spotted” tee shirts. A real eye-opener that should be required viewing by anyone interested in computer security.
My own review of Chelsea Walls was also posted on IMDB already, but is now gone for some reason. They work quickly if you are timely, succinct and don’t curse. Can’t wait to see if they post my review slamming another recent screening. I liked it a lot.
Wednesday
Saw my film fest highlight on Wednesday night. AMAZING. Too bad I also chose The Misanthrope that day. For reasons I cannot fathom, this lamely produced, horribly edited 3-joke film got a special jury award for narrative feature. What were they smoking? I can only hope the award included some money to pay an editor.
Marred by terrible, uneven sound, amateurish cinematography and a horribly muddled plot with more loose ends than Farrah Fawcett on a bad hair day, the film had a few moments of humor as it traced the life of a down on his luck actor/teacher who decides to stage the play in his grade school. Surely there is an out-of-work editor that could have rescued this, and made it what it is: a 20 minute short. Unfortunately, this version ran on (and on, and on, and on) for 86 minutes, and made Brad Pitt’s interminable Seven Years In Tibet seem positively energetic.
Salvation came in the form of Jamie Catto and Duncan Bridgeman’s musical documentary/”Zen travelogue.” (sayeth Stephen Saito in his review)
1 Giant Leap absolutely blew me away. It was a mesmerizingly beautiful documentary, featuring a world music soundtrack with live performance footage of several dozen musicians from all over the world, brilliantly edited and interwoven with commentary from Vonnegut, Tom Robbins, Dennis Hopper, Anita Roddick, and a number of clerics, writers, painters and others on creativity, faith, brotherhood, ecology, socially-aware investing, sex, oil, slave labor manufacturing, religion, racism and living for the moment.
It was beautiful. It ended with a sort of visual reprise, set to a song called Braided Hair done by rap-styled vocalist Speech (from Arrested Development) and Neneh Cherry, shown over intercut imagery and musical performance shots that summed up the film. The last 5-8 minutes alone made the film worthwhile for release. I'll buy it immediately on release on DVD and have to check out the collection of CDs available. Oddly, for a film about how we are truly one world, the initial DVD release is Region 2 only (Europe) with a Region 1 DVd to follow.
The film's website is pretty good if a bit overwhelming. There are film clips, spoken word excerpts and "making of the DVD" links. Be sure to check out the participants listing—there is a snippet of how they contributed. Remarkably ego-free for a film with so many stars. Dennis Hopper was excellent in particular as was an orthodox Jewish Rabbi in Thailand.
I'm going to try to see it Friday at 5:00 at Alamo.
Thursday
The day began well with Nothing So Strange, a quirky pseudo documentary (mockumentary?) on Citizens For Truth, an organization formed to investigate the facts behind the assassination of Bill Gates at an L.A. Rally in 1999. Think Blair Witch Project meets JFK with a little bit of Best In Show style humor. Edgy stuff, it succeded in catching me up in its earnest LAPD-fearing paranoia. Well-crafted, funny and an example of real creativity in this often stodgy genre. It opened with a very funny short on how the Apollo moon landings were faked. Airplane Glue did what a short film should do: make a point and end. Too many directors seem to be in love with every single frame of film they shoot.
Get Well Soon looked good on paper, and did not disappoint, as far as it went. Starring Jeffrey Tambor (as a talk-show host’s put-upon manager, no stretch) it is Vincent Gallo who holds your attention in this romantic comedy. I don't like him--he is not really believable as a talk show host, but his performance is strangely compelling and sardonic and ultimately funny. Courtney Cox is also fine and in good humor as she chews the scenery, and her "is he or isn’t he" boyfriend cracked me up. Tambor was funny too, but can he play some more roles where he isn't "Hank" from the Garry Shandling Show?
The Cat's Meow is Peter Bogdonovich's latest, based on a true scandal involving William Randolph Hearst and a murder in 1924. I knew nothing about the story or the cover-up, but the film was a well-done look at the power of the press. British comedian Eddie Izzard (best known as a cross-dressing comic) excels as a lovestruck Charlie Chaplin, and wonderful character actor Edward Herrman is impressive as Hearst.
South By South Baze This is a look at the SXSW Film festival through the sometimes bleary eyes of yours truly. Sort of "South By South Baze"
Opening night of the festival was Friday, 3/8, the same day as "St. Practice Day" at B.D. Riley's. I should have known that was going to be a problem. The pub has definitely become my "HQ" for the fest.
I picked up my registration materials and big bags of stuff (one for the film conference, on for the interactive), and had my first cool moment of the fest: I got a job. I ran into a friend of mine who runs a cool video company that did some work for Tivoli a while back. He asked me if I could work on Tuesday and of course I said yes, so I'm doing some sort of narration or voiceover for some corporate video shoot. Might even be for Tivoli. Nice moment of serendipity--George was looking to cast somebody, I was there and available. Nice.
Then I sat down to chat with a visitor from Chicago. He was here for his 3rd SXSW, and was really looking forward to it. I thought he had a distinctive voice, and told him so. It turns out he is a music critic, a psychologist and a storyteller, He has been on NPR doing these rock and roll stories, like Jeff Beck and the Stupid Comb, and a good one on the difference between a rock anthem and a rock classic. His name is Mitch Myers, and his uncle happens to be Shel Silverstein. He tells good stories, and loves good music. Check his stuff out with a quick search on the NPR website, they are available in RealAudio.
I stopped into the bar in the afternoon to drop off a draft of a flyer for the 1759 society, and of course to have a pint. Then I headed home, only to have my car die about 1/2 mile away. The "serpentine belt" broke, a piece of rubber about 97 miles long that touches every single thing that spins inside the engine compartment of my 96 SAAB. Important Safety Tip: When smoke comes out from under the hood, that is generally not a good sign. When this particular belt breaks, power steering, air conditioning, water pump, alternator and the bat-turbines all stop spinning. Basically, the car limps to a halt, and believe me, 4:45 on Friday evening is not the best time to get service, a tow truck or a rental car. But Roger Beasley came through with a tow truck and Enterprise brought me a spiffy new Saturn in about an hour, so I was back on the road again with little delay.
Of course, pre-movie I had to stop by headquarters, and after a pint at BD Riley's set off to see Journeys With George, the much-talked about docu-home movie about the last year of the Bush campaign as seen through the eyes and hand held video cam of Alexandra Pelosi, NBC News producer and new documentarian. I saw her on the Today show this morning, and she is here now in the audience--thanks to jet travel you can almost be in two places at once.
Pecking Order The line stretched down Congress from the Paramount almost to 6th. Not a good sign. Then I realized that this was the line for people without passes or badges. Good news. North of the theater entrance, the lines (two of them) stretched in parallel north to 7th street, and around the corner. I learned the SXSW "pecking order." Badges were best, Platinum, Gold, then Silver. Passes were next in line. Then the line I saw earlier--"lowly" folks who were trying to buy tickets, made available 15 minutes before show time if the badge and pass holders had not filled up all the seats. At the Paramount, a big theater, many seats were available for these modern-day "groundlings"--ultimately, the house was filled.
Journeys With George The best part of the usual festival opening chatter before the film was hearing Louis Black from the Chronicle wax poetic about how what we were about to see was NOT a home movie, but instead a fully realized film, and how Alexandra was really a filmmaker. Immediately after he left the stage, Pelosi herself came up, handheld video cam in hand and said "what you are about to see is my home movie of the Bush campaign's last year on the road. It's not a film--it's my home movie." Great stuff.
The film was a lot of fun--and it was a home movie. Jerky, amateurish but earnest, it reflected as only a year of access on the bus and on the plane can do just how weird our electoral process is. The primary season, and the endless staged photo-ops do NOT come off favorably. Especially nice was the huge pile of pre-painted "hand-lettered personal signs" that you always see at rallies stacked up and ready for rally faithful to grab as they enter. The effect of kids waving signs that said "kids for Bush" was greatly diminished when you realize that party operatives make them up in advance to appear spontaneously in the hands of the.
A flurry of interest surrounded Representative Lloyd Doggett in the crowd--you have to wonder how he viewed this look at how broken our electoral process really is.
P.I.B. The festival opening party was held upstairs at Buffalo Billiards, across from HQ. It was a trip to see all these People In Black (PIB) at an Austin party, especially one held in a billiard hall that wonder like a cross between a Moose hunting lodges and a frat house basement. The weirdest festival behavior I saw was "name badge eye contact" and it went like this: whenever somebody entered the room, or came up to someone in conversation, eyes went immediately to the badge hanging about gut level, instead of to the eyes. Even attractive women with especially ample upper bodies were spared the burden of men staring only at their breasts--instead they were looking at their badges, in case they might be someone famous.
Jeffrey Tambor was there--looking quite comfy with a beer in hand and no handlers or entourage. We chatted briefly--I saw him on a panel or two last year, and in a great film with Jill Clayburgh called "Never Again" which I hope makes it to video soon. He's nice. After a free Bud/Bud Light or Coors Light (which I graciously turned down in favor of a paid-for real beer) I wandered back across the street to HQ. My third visit on this day, I seriously began to wonder about rehab, and about how hard it might be to get a new liver or at least a blood flush like Ron Wood had,
The bar was hopping, PUBCRAWLER was playing and the Guinness was flowing. I stayed too long, was indubitably over-served, and left after the lights came on at 2am. I don't ever want to see HQ in that light again.
I did not make my 10am session on Saturday. I also did not make my 1pm session, as I was just about done waking up fully at that point. Saturday is another day.
Six Months I intend to post some SXSW stuff, but today it seems like remembering is the thing to do first. Mostly, I recall how very very deeply sad I felt in the days and weeks after the attack. It was profound, and all but overpowering--I wondered how we would endure this. I wondered if we would see another great depression as I looked at empty stores, shops, restaurants and theaters. And all the time, for weeks afterward, I found myself crying watching the news. Short of losing a family member in the past I can't ever recall feeling that bad about anything.
Mostly it was family, friends and time that changed this. Today brought back a lot of those memories, but it also showed me how far we (and I) have come. I'm still sad, but more hopeful.
Surprise, surprise! I suffered a burst of creativity this evening and decided to direct it at birthing a new design for bellyfuzz that would be a little more soothing and a lot less blustery than the last design. I think this new one will "stick" for a while as I'm more pleased with it than any of the past designs I've whipped up.
If you have any suggestions for further tweaks, nips and tucks, please send them to me!
On a side note, please check out obscurestore.com. It's the best daily digest of "news of the weird" that I've found. And because it links you out to the full stories found elsewhere in the media, it brings a high level of credibility to every odd snippet it shares with its readers.
