WEEKEND RECAP

Friday

It was looking like it was going to be a poor turnout for our Robocop screening. At 8:00, no one had shown up yet (besides me, Faye and Dom. And Two of us live there), so we continued to watch Carnivale and be equally amazed by it’s brilliance and amused by it’s charming Dust Bowl dialogue (you sonofabitch, goddammit). Around 8:15, Sherwood arrived, but, by that time, we were too far into the episode to stop. So Sherrard, who uninitiated into the world of the Rousties, (not that those of us who were caught up had any better of an understanding of it), checked his email and padded around the apartment until we were finished. Around 9:00 we started Robocop (first watching 5 minutes or so of commentary which was long enough for us to learn two important and amusing details.
1) Verhoeven almost didn’t accept the offer to direct it because his first reading of the script “led [him] to believe that it was a standard American action film”. It wasn’t until his wife read it and convinced him that “there was a lot more going on here” that he decided to make his American directing debut.
2) He pronounces it “Rrrrrobocup”. It’s hard to type that out the way he says it. Basically, he rolls the first “r” and makes the whole word as close to one syllable as possible. Hilarious.

Around 10:00, krk arrives with snacky reinforcements and a friend who’s name has already escaped me. (Damn you, reefer!) BennDunn arrived around 10:30 in time to catch the end of the movie, drop off a copy of the Tivo’d “Reefer Madness” and a Polaroid of his person identifying himself as “1 Ben Dur”. Everyone met and adored Tobe who reveled in the petting orgy. And then we all retired to bed because we are all sleepy and lame.

Saturday

Faye and I had some writin’ ta do. We have all these “little bits” left to add to the feature script. Things that should be easy, but when you sit down to write them, they end up taking a dogs age and you’re googling random phrases like “rectal prolapse” for inspiration and the next thing you know, it’s time to go to a backyard BBQ and croquet match in the rain. I’m hoping we’ll only need one more week on this bad boy and then we’ll have completed draft # 3.
At 5:00, we headed to our friend Chris’s house to eat veggie BBQ and prefunk for the Reggie and the Full Effect show. We ate a delicious and gluttonous portion of veggie burgers, rice and kimchi (sp?) and homemade angel food cake for dessert. We enjoyed this meal whilst watching THE most fucked up TV ever created, Wonder Showzen. This was only the second episode I have ever seen and I have to admit that even this bloodlusty wench was a LITTLE grossed out when I first saw the bit about the Chewties. However, by the time they got to the “Leprosy Nachos”, I was already desensitized. Still, I must know who these people are and how they can possibly think of things so disturbing as a child in a Hitler costume interviewing people on the street.
After dinner, we decided to break in the newly grown grass in the backyard with a game of croquet. I have only played croquet once before and it was a looooong time ago so I have to say I think I did pretty well. I was in last place but I was still right behind everybody else so it wasn’t as cripplingly humiliating as, say, high school gym class. I can’t wait to play again! Halfway through the game, it began to rain. We thought we could play through, being hardened Seattleites that we are. We were wrong. The rain came down with increasing strength and we were forced to postpone our game. Luckily, it stopped before we had to leave, so we finished the game just in time to hop in Chris’s fancy and recently acquired antique convertible. No top down for us, but Faye still wore the fifties-style scarf I bought her for this very occasion.
We arrived at El Corazon (formerly Graceland) just in time for Reggie’s set. We were horrified to find that we were surrounded by children with a mean age of 18. Despite the presence of irritating children, drunk dudes and some guy farting tacos, the performance was great. I had previously held reservations because I heard that the lead Reggie is going through a divorce and it also saddened by the break-up of the Get Up Kids. Faye and I were both worried that this meant a return to the emo sensibilities of the GUK. It did not. It meant death metal. Very angry death metal. And people adorned in fake blood. Awesome.
We left as soon as the set was over, as we had no desire to stick around for New Found Glory or to spend any more time with these people. Since it was still early, we headed to the Hill for a drink. We started at the Wok and Grill but were dismayed to learn that their juke box was broken. Having no other purpose to remaining there, we decided an impromptu karaoke session at Jai Thai was in order. We made some calls to bulk up our group and proceeded to sing!
Highlights:
-Andrew’s surprise performance of “Power of Love”. We were trying to train him for his contest the following night where they choose the song for you. He clearly did not need training.
-Chris’s balls-to-the-wall, and no doubt sore-throat inducing performance of “Mother” by Danzig.
-Some guy with a devil lock who did the most dead-on performance of “The End” by the doors, followed later by an incredible Elvis impersonation. I think I have a crush on him.
-Erin’s always flawless “One Way Or Another”.
-Me doing “Say It Aint’ So”. It might not have been a highlight for other people, but for me it was loads of fun. I wish they had more Weezer at karaoke. I would KILL to do some songs off Pinkerton.
-Some poor girl choosing “Piano Man” and being drowned out by the entire bar singing along loudly.

Sunday

It started out as a perfectly normal Sunday but escalated to a bit of an emergency situation when we realized that Tobe was urinating blood. Faye and I took him to the emergency vet (right around the time when I would have gone to yoga. Doh!) and he was given antibiotics for a urinary tract infection. The poor little guy! I have to give him a pill twice a day for two weeks. For those of you that have ever had to give a pill to a cat, you know that it is typically a Sisyphus-ian endeavor. However, Tobe is a champ who takes his pills with little protest. We will know in a few days if his problem is clearing up. I’ve had the little guy for a week and he’s already been to the emergency room. Hopefully this is just a problem that he’s had for a while and was just never taken care of, rather than a sign of a weak immune system. Poor little feller.

Anyway, now we are back to Monday and this is THE critical week in the world of Snow Day. We have to send the movie off on Wednesday (Thursday at the latest) to make it into the San Diego Comic Con. Wish us luck!

April 25, 2005
Categories: Dear Diary, I Made Movies, The Soundtrack . Tags: gigs, weekend recap . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment