Faye and I were interviewed on Pretty/Scary! We're so totally famous.
I fly at forsaken
WEEKEND RECAP
FRIDAY
After a long day of meetings, I headed over to Uptown Espresso to meet with Team Gadzook and begin my portion of the 48-hour Film Challenge. On the way, I stopped at Ralph’s to get some Kettle Corn and chocolate-covered espresso beans for later. The writers were to be me, Faye, Cherry and a little fellow I will call Baz. Gevin, Pat and Amy were also there for a bit to lend their support and brainstorming ideas. Dom and Borgia ran off to Nimble for the genre drawing and to find out what our criteria would be. While we awaited our fate, we looked at some photos of our available locations on Dom’s lap top. We also briefly rocked out to one of three songs that Dom had in his i-tunes, “Cold as Ice”. (When Dom and I first started dating, I would probably hear that song once a day. Hearing it will remind me of Dom for the rest of my life). Shortly after 7, the phone rang and Jef read us our genre: Romance. Everyone groaned in unison. BORING. We had the option to take the “wild card” (which we asserted couldn’t have been much worse than “romance”) but we decided to suck it up and try to make it work. Our criteria (which each of the 24 Seattle teams has to incorporate into their film) was as follows: the character is “J. Ellepano, Fisherperson”. The prop was “doormat” and the line of dialogue was “Maybe, but not on my watch.” I suggested early on that we have the character deliver it “Maybe…but not on my watch.” Hopefully it won’t be done that way a dozen other times.
Anyway, we started brainstorming. Many good ideas came out and we wrote them all down. Then everyone but the official writers and Dom (the director) left to get some sleep. And here’s where we started to realize that we weren’t all on the same page creatively. We are all trying to make the best of the crappiness of the Romance genre by being as bizarre as possible with our ideas. We had a GREAT idea of doing a 4 minute Jane Austen-style story but it was becoming too complicated. We had several other ideas that were pretty out there and cool, but one of the writer’s just wasn’t having it. They kept pitching conventional romance story ideas and wanting us to provide logical, real-life explanations to the fantastical situations we were pitching.
We thought we had FINALLY come up with a compromise by having a somewhat conventional romance montage with a bizarre surprise ending. We had an outline and then moved locations to write the thing. But as we started to write, our defector kept trying to change the story and even START OVER with a new story. At this point, it was midnight and we just wanted to get something written. There wasn’t time to start over and there wasn’t time to explain 500 times why we didn’t need to exposit the reason that this magical thing happened or that happened. Who cares what the character’s back story is? It’s a 4-minute film challenge short. And it’s supposed to be FUN. It’s not going to be Felini. At 1:30 we finished what we THOUGHT was a pretty fun, tight script that we could all live with and went home to sleep. When I got home, I suddenly had a bad feeling that the defector would try to change the script in our absence, since he was going to be the only one of the writers on set the next day. But Dom was asleep and I didn’t want to bug him. He had a big day coming up.
SATURDAY
Dom woke me up a little before 7 to say goodbye. I groggily wished him good luck and then went back to sleep. Around 10:00 I got up and called Dom. I wanted to know what was happening. I wanted to make sure that they were using the script we all agreed on. When I called Dom, I expected to leave him a message, but instead he answered and said “we’re in the middle of a shot”. So I said, “Call me back when you get a break”. At this point, I was paranoid and making myself angry. “They’re using a different script, aren’t they?” I thought. “Those bastards! I was so annoyed that I tidied the hell out of the apartment. I should get annoyed more often. But then Dom called me back an hour or so later and told me that yes, another script was brought to the set, but they were using ours. Phew! He also said that little Baz would like to have his name taken off the writing credits. It’s pretty lame because he actually DID contribute to the script, however reluctantly. But alright. Whatever makes him happy. Sadly, we certainly won’t write with him ever again, but I hope this isn’t the beginning of a feud or any animosity be’twixt us. We really liked the guy. It’s just pretty clear that we do not, and will never see eye-to-eye when it comes to movies. Strange, though, that he was SO opposed to our ideas, when he actually worked on “Snow Day”. BLAAAH! I’m done.
So Faye and I sped off to SeaTac to pick up our friend “Mark from Hollywood”. We found him by the Alaska terminal with his L.A. sunglasses on. He hopped in and we settled on the Canterbury for lunch. We stopped at my now, un-embarrassing apartment so he could drop off his bag and meet the kitties, and then we strolled up the street for a nice, greasy lunch.
Unfortunately, Mark didn’t get to meet any of the sweet, cutie waitresses that The Canterbury is so famous for. Instead we got some grumpy new girl who didn’t even ask us what kind of toast we wanted and who took liberties with Faye’s grilled cheese. Mark was very kind to pay for lunch, especially considering the “Alice”-like service we received. We assured him that it was rare form. Then we decided to try and find the cemetery where Bruce and Brandon Lee are buried. We didn’t really know where it was. Only that it was in or around Volunteer Park. So we headed over there and just headed toward the end of the park not oft’ explored by us. On the way we passed a wedding party and a small gathering of Shakespearean actors. As a detour, we decided to check out the conservatory which was really neat and only $2. As we wandered through the plants in the wrong direction, we spotted the cemetery out the back window! What a fortunate detour! After petting some cacti, taunting the carnivorous plants and smelling the Corpse Flower, we moved toward our intended destination.
As we wandered through the cemetery, looking for the graves, I wondered allowed how many people visited them every day. Faye suggested “four…at least today”. We finally found them on a hill, by a tree, just as Mark had said. I was stupidly surprised to see several Chinese people there taking pictures. I had expected, if anything, to find a bunch of Robert Smith-looking fellows abound. I had forgotten completely that Bruce Lee was famous for, like, bringing kung-fu to America. Jesus Christ, I can be thick sometimes. Anyway, the graves were very beautiful and there were some cool little notes on them. It was pretty clear that more than four people visit in a day. On Brandon’s grave was his famous quote about life being fleeting and previous that he gave in his last ever interview. It was all very nice. A nice way to remember someone.
We walked back to my house for some water and to google directions to the Sound Garden. Mapquest was very helpful as usual by identifying it as being in Magnuson park somewhere. Thanks. Mark had been there before so we thought if we just journeyed over there, we would find it easily enough. I mean, it’s got to be well-marked, right? It’s THE Sound Garden. Wrong. We wandered and/or drove around the park for an hour looking for the damned thing. At this point, the sun was out in full force and we were wondering how our 48-hour friends were doing with the neutral density and skin protection. We FINALLY found a secured gate that Mark assured us “looked right”. But there was no guard on duty and no visible way to circumvent the gate. We sat there in the car looking dodgy for a few minutes before deciding to give up and drive back. I guess since it’s not 1994 anymore, they figure no one wants to see the Sound Garden.
On the way back, we stopped at 7-11 to get Mark some tissues and get us all Slurpees. I hadn’t enjoyed a Slurpee in a very long time and it was wonderful. At a stop light, we saw three suspicious-looking teenagers attempting to climb the side of an apartment building. Kids today. They know nothing of covert operations. We stared them down until the light turned green.
We parked Faye’s car back at her apartment, rested for a little bit, introduced Mark to the rats, and then began the journey down to the Crocodile. Faye needed some ATM action so we hit Broadway. Two people with mouths full of gold teeth stopped her and asked “Can I borrow $20?”. Count the things that are wrong with that sentence. 1) “borrow”? Since we don’t know you, when exactly are you going to pay Faye back? 2) What exactly do you need money for? Usually pan handler’s at least make an attempt to convince you that it will be spent wisely. Faye suggested that it was for more gold teeth. 3) $20??!!! Are you kidding me? Being the liberally-trained youth that we are, Faye’s response was “Sorry man, I don’t have any cash”. But instantly she realized that she should have said “What? Are you crazy? I’m not giving you twenty fucking dollars!”. She wished that they would come back and ask her again. Would that it were Groundhog Day. While she was at the ATM, an extremely tweaked man paced around me telling me that he really liked my skirt (what, this plain black one? Thanks) and that he was from San Diego and the weed was SOOOOO much better down there. Ok. Cool, man. I have to take this call. As we attempted to leave Broadway as quickly as possible, we saw the tweaker harassing the unfortunate souls who were dining outdoors with only a rope to protect them.
On the way to The Crocodile, Faye and I explained to Mark that it was owned by Mrs. Peter Buck and that many a celeb has been spotted there, including Peter Buck himself, David Cross and Deathcab for Cutie. Our delicious meal was served and Sherrard and Doug joined us. As we whooped it up trading poo and webcam boner stories (you’d be surprised how many of each we all have), we noticed someone being filmed in the corner. It was a woman I had never seen before. Every once in a while we would overhear part of her obviously scripted speech about the delicious eats at the Crocodile. “They’re filming a commercial for the Crocodile,” I said. But as the woman was leaving, Faye finally recognized her as some Food Network star. None of the rest of us had ever heard of her but we still wondered if we would be visible as extras in the show. Probably not. I wonder how many takes we ruined with our poo stories. Feeling guilty for not throwing some boobs into this supposed bachelor party for Mark, (as people shot down my suggestion to go “Poke our heads into the Lusty Lady”), I picked up one of those free postcards which depicted a sleazy-looking woman and a tiger. We all agreed that she was in no way attractive. Even when Faye made the postcard dance.
Next, we moved to Shorty’s for more drinking and possibly some video games. The sad bastard DJ from yore had been replaced by yet ANOTHER John Gulager look-alike in a Night of the Living Dead t-shirt. This guy rocked. He even played the Monkees! The riveting conversation and story-swapping continued as we downed the delicious drinks (Blackthorns!). Before long, nachos were in order. The very kind man behind the counter stuffed as many chips as he could into the paper bowl and scooped no less than FIVE scoops of cheese onto them. I gave the knight in indie armor a very nice tip.
Ben called around 9:45 and said that Team Gadzook was finally done shooting. He was headed home on account of his having to work at 3am. Dom was going straight into editing. Borgia and B-Rex were going to the Satellite for post-funking. We finished up at Shorty’s and got into Doug’s truck for the ride of a lifetime. Even though there was apparently plenty of room in the cab, Faye and I opted to ride in the covered back of the truck. We lay down on blankets to avoid being seen by the cops, and Doug sped off toward Capital Hill. He blasted some Polenesian music over his P.A. system. Every once in a while, we could hear Sherrard addressing the people, but we couldn’t hear what he said. On several occasions, we were bounced around like rag dolls. On one occasion, we actually both caught air. It was terrifying and exciting all at once. I attempted to take a picture of the view we had from the back of the truck.
We sauntered into the Satellite and found there was no room at the Team Gadzook table, so we set up in the corner booth. Borgia came over to visit and told us that they had been playing truth or dare. At this point, things were starting to get a little hazy. It as loud, the waiter forgot about us, and I don’t remember all of what was discussed. Needless to say, it was fun! At one point, Borgia slapped a man, in defense of Faye’s honor and beer. (Apparently, one of the dares was to steal Faye’s beer). We closed the place out and then meandered home. On the way, we ran into Ahe who was also very drunk, and friends. She identified Mark as “the guy who was sleeping with the rats”. I accidentally insulted her ankles when I meant to compliment her boots. Then we went our separate ways. When Mark and I got back to my place, Dom was (not surprisingly) sound asleep.
SUNDAY
Dom woke me up to say goodbye again, but this time I got up right away. He managed a quick hello to Mark before he had to be out the door and back to editing. Mark and I had a nice little morning chat over water and then organized a breakfast outing to Charlie’s with Sherrard and Faye. On the way, I photographed a creeply placed baby doll in a tree and a poor smashed television. We also posed for pictures in front of the poor little thing. At Charlie’s, the great conversation just kept on flowing! We played a few fun games including “the one where you add ‘the’ to movie titles” (i.e. The Starship Troopers) and “the titular line game” (i.e. “That sure is a lot of Office Space”). Faye also invented a modified version of “the one where you add ‘a’ to movie titles (i.e. “A Titanic”). Fun stuff. After, breakfast, Faye had to take off to go help the puppies and so Mark, Sherrard and I were left to wile away the afternoon. Eventually, we had to catch the bus to Ballard so that Mark could meet his dad, who was playing accordion at the Nordic Heritage Museum for their “Viking Days” festival. We tried to think of something cool to do in the meantime, but we ended up just shooting the breeze back at my place until it was time to go. That suited us just fine, methinks. As we waited for the #10, Sherrard told one of his lovely stories that starts with “One of the most horrible things I’ve ever seen…”. We got on the bus and sat in the back on account of Mark’s large bag. Things were going well until, a few stops later, the very picture of lunacy caught the bus in time and meandered immediately toward us. At first we thought nothing of it. Plenty of unfortunate people ride the bus, usually without incident. Sherrard began a describing the opening seen to the fairly obscure film “Eating Raoul”. It was then that the woman piped up. “Don’t talk about “Eating Raoul”! I saw that movie in the theatre and it was awful! I walked out and got my money back. Did you know that if you walk out in the first half an hour of a movie you can get your money back? I just want to pass this on to as many people as possible.” We all looked at each other and kindly dropped the subject, but another woman about 5 rows up loudly called back “What movie?” “EATING RAOUL,” said the crazy woman. She then turned back to us and we finally saw the full horrific site that was this woman. She was dressed in a black sleeveless blouse, with some sort of a bonnet/visor on her head. Her hair was short and gray and spiked straight up. She looked at us with her crazy, lazy eyes and exclaimed “I usually have the back of the bus to myself. I ride this bus all the time. This is my bus and I don’t want to hear about “Eating Raoul”. We said we would drop the subject and hope this would make her go away. It did not. It was at this point that I noticed her large, yellowed front teeth with the black tar around them. “So, where do we make our connection?” Sherrard asked me in a desperate tone. “Pine,” I noncommittally answered back. I didn’t want to reveal the fact that our destination wasn’t until 4th avenue, in case the situation escalated and we had to disembark earlier. “I usually have the back all to myself” the horrible woman said again and she stood directly in front of us with her arms outstretched, gripping the bars on either side. I couldn’t avert my gaze from her hairy armpits. “I like to do my gymnastics back here,” she said, and she pulled her feet off the ground and swung slightly. Mark, concerned, said of me “you should be careful or you might kick her in the face”. The woman said “Oh, I would never do that. I’m a dancer. I am very coordinated and graceful and I would never do anything like that”. Mark persisted that it had nothing to do with her being a dancer, simply that the bus jerks from time to time and it’s not the best idea to invite injury by swinging from the bars. The woman grew angry and sat RIGHT NEXT TO ME, saying to Mark “You haven’t heard a WORD I SAID”. Mark, having ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA how to respond to this, said “I thought I did”. “Well, you didn’t,” she said. It was then that I made a snap decision. We had to get off the bus at the next stop. I didn’t want to ride all the way downtown in such horrid, uncomfortable silence, and the woman clearly wasn’t going to leave us alone. The bus stopped at Broadway and we bolted for the front door. I didn’t know what time another bus was coming. It didn’t matter. Must. Get. Away. From. Crazy. Lady. She shouted something at us as we scurried off the bus. Now we know why she usually has the back all to herself.
Not long after, a 49 arrived and we still managed to make it to our connecting stop with one minute to spare. While we waited, we watched a cancer patient ride a stationary bicycle in the middle of Westlake Center and uncomfortably joked about the escalation of mental illness in Seattle. We rode to Ballard without further incident and found the Nordic Heritage Museum in the middle of a residential neighborhood. Apparently, the festival was almost over. We had about half an hour to scarf down the delicious traditional baked goods (thanks, Mark!) and find Mark’s father in Valhalla (a.k.a. the beer garden). Sherrard and I briefly met Mark’s dad and step-mother. Mark’s dad fulfilled his fatherly duties by making fun of his son’s haircut in front of new people, and then Mark watched us back to the bus stop. Thanks for the visit, Mark! We had a GREAT time. I haven’t had such fun non-stop conversation in ages. Come back soon!
Sherrard and I took our seats marveling at the strangeness of the weekend. A few stops later, a couple who looked (and dressed) suspiciously like dwarves (LOTR style) got on the bus and sat across from us. The man in the group was VERY OBVIOUSLY listening in on our conversation. I know because he was staring directly at us. I looked over at him once or twice and he just smiled. Did he want to JOIN the conversation? I don’t know. I just wanted a nice ride home with Sherrard. I ignored him as much as possible. We got off in downtown Ballard to grab some dinner and the dwarves got off at the same stop. The guy HELD THE DOOR OPEN for us. The BUS door. It doesn’t need to be held. I’m pretty sure he just did it so he could get right up in our faces and say “Have a great afternoon”. Er…thanks.
Sherrard and I had just about enough of eventful bus rides. After a quick Sushi dinner, we caught the 44 back home. The dwarves were on that bus too, but luckily, we were able to sit very far away from them and have a private conversation.
I got home around 7:00 and spent the rest of the evening watching Angel Season 5 commentaries. Wonderful. Best. Weekend. Ever. Until next weekend! (Also Longest. Post. Ever.)
PS: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, FAYE!!
PPS: See pictures from the weekend here.
by comb be much wop
This morning I had my first dentist appointment in over 3 years. I was really nervous going in because despite not having any mouth pain, a lot can happen in 3 years. Still, I’ve always been pretty lucky with my teeth. They may be yellowed from tea and coffee but I never had to get braces and I’ve only had two cavities in my life. They took 18(!) x-rays of my mouth and scraped the shit out of my gums. They put the fear of Dentist in me by telling me that usually when someone goes that long without a check-up, they will need a “deep-clean” which involves a local anesthetic and an hours worth of extra scraping. They would let me know what the x-rays reveal. THANK YOU TEETH GENES! No deep cleaning for me. I got the usual flossing lecture and they seemed pretty annoyed that I hadn’t been to a dentist in so long (I’ll be damned if I would go to a dentist without insurance. Sorry, guys), but I was outta there, relatively pain-free in under an hour.
Things are very slow at work today. I REALLY miss the internet when it’s slow. This 30-minutes at lunch situation definitely sucks. I am typing this on-the-sly and will upload it at break. However, since I am now in a prison of my own volition, I promise I won’t whinge about work so much. Moving on…
Last night we had a meeting for the upcoming 48-hour film Project for which I am one of the writers. If you aren’t familiar with the project, it goes down thus:
20 or so teams from each city meet on Friday evening at 7 to receive a character, a line of dialog, a prop and a genre. Each team gets a different genre (though there are only 12 options and 24 Seattle teams so we will be doubling up). We then have 48 hours to write, shoot and edit a 4-7 minute film within the given guidelines. The winners receive endless glory and fabulous prizes. There’s not much you can do in a pre-production meeting for a film that you haven’t written yet, but we did our best. We have a general location/group of locations for our arsenal and we can secure some gear. I think it will work out pretty well though. Hell, Faye and I wrote “Retard to Retard” in half an hour after a bottle of wine. Of course, that’s not exactly prize-winning material, but I feel fairly confident. Especially since one of our writers is Jef who wrote the FABULOUS “Future Good” for a previous and similarly-structured contest.
After the meeting, the Troika pondered the premiere of the Stella TV show on Comedy Central. We had gotten free promo DVD’s of the pilot in advance so we decided to just watch that immediately at 8 instead of waiting till 10:30 for the aired version. As we had suspected, Stella feels a little stifled without the rampant comedic use of dildos, dirty jokes and swearing. They also recycled two jokes from their shorts, which is really annoying. But it’s still better than, well, MOST half-hour television that’s on right now. I hope Stella gets a whole new audience and they can move to HBO where they can be all the filthy that they want to be. Later, I found out that some of the more irreverent jokes were actually cut for the aired episode. I hope it was just for time because if not, what gives, Comedy Central?
We also caught the second half of a new hidden camera show that our friend John was on. We missed his part, but luckily, Dom had ghetto tivo’d it so we watched it later in the evening. The show is called “Fire Me…Please!” and the premise is that two “contestants” per half hour get a job for a day and are as annoying and incompetent as possible without doing anything illegal, so that they can get fired as close to 3:00 as possible and win $25,000. Our friend John worked in a smoothie shop and was competing against a guy working in at a dog groomer boutique. The contestants are tipped off about their new “bosses” pet peeves so that they may play against them in order to get fired. It’s an interesting concept and it’s kind of amusing. Obviously, they hired actors to do this so that the show would go according to plan. It’s funny how they still pretend that they AREN’T hiring actors for all these reality shows. They said that our friend was a “waiter from Seattle, WA”. Sure, there’s a partial truth to that. But he moved to L.A. to act. ANYWAY, our friend didn’t win but I think he was infinitely more entertaining that his opponent. He got fired by making evening plans on his cell phone every five minutes and by not memorizing the smoothie ingredients. John was FANTASTIC at being weird and annoying. In the beginning, when his trainer showed him how to make a smoothie, his trainer made scooping noises for emphasis “Bamp [scooping up the berries], Boom [putting berries in blender]”. From that point on, every time John did anything with the ladle, he would say “Bamp, Boom”. At one point, when he was “trying to remember” what went in a smoothie, he drummed loudly on the blender for a good solid MINUTE to jog his memory. Any time he got lectured by his supervisor, he would yawn really big. Those guys wanted him out of there at 10am, but they kept him on till a little after 3, thus costing him the money. I’m not sure if I’d watch the show every week if I didn’t know anyone on it, but it was still fairly entertaining.
his take an cruciform morals
Last night, the Troika went to a book signing by one Mr. Bruce Campbell for his new book “Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way”. We were first treated to a Q & A session wherein Bruce got really annoyed by the usual questions. He even preluded the Q & A by saying he didn’t want anyone to ask about Evil Dead 4 or Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash. Yet ask they did. Also, many questions were prefaced by “I heard a rumor that…”. “Oh, you heard a rumor? Where? On the internet? Then it MUST be true”, snarked Bruce. After a while, when someone began a question with “I heard a rumor” he would just say “Moving on”. He also went on a tirade about Hollywood drivel saying there are no new ideas and Hollywood wonders why box office sales are declining with films like “Herbie the Love Bug” (“It’s been re-made so many damned times, I’VE even been in a version.”), “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” (“Gene Wilder was funny. Johnny Depp is just WEIRD.”) and “War of the Worlds” (“I don’t care how many times Tom Cruise jumps up and down on Oprah’s couch, I’m not seeing it.”) coming out. He also cited “Batman Begins” as one of these unnecessary pictures. Disagree as I might, about the quality of that film, he does have a point. It’s certainly not a new idea. There were no juicy tidbits to be leaked to Aint It Cool. Just the man himself being himself. Fun stuff. After his Q & A, we got in line based on the numbers on our signing tickets. Thankfully, we had a relatively low number and were actually out of there shortly after 7. Dom held a “Snow Day” DVD in his hand with all of our names on it. We weren’t allowed to dilly dally. We had to have our names inscribed on a post-it before we got up there. We had to remove the book jacket. He wouldn’t pose for pictures but his assistant would take a picture of him writing in our books with us standing over him with our camera. He wouldn’t sign memorabilia. He wasn’t our little monkey. There were lots of rules and as unromantic as that is, it did keep things pretty damned organized. But we WERE allowed to give him gifts, so Dom got up there with our DVD and told him our movie was playing in the San Diego Comic-Con. I think he asked Dom some technical questions about the movie. Book signed. Picture taken. Hand shook. Moving on. Then Faye got up there and he asked her what she did. She said she made the movie that was sitting to his left. More technical questions. Book signed. Picture taken. Moving on. Then I got up there and he said to me “[Looking at post-it note] Are you Jessica?” “Yes I am.” “You’re all gussied up tonight.” “I came from work” said I. “What do you do?” “I’m an administrative assistant… glorified monkey, really. [pointing to the DVD] But I made that movie.” “Oh really? What did you do on it?” “I co-wrote and co-directed it.” “Well then, I’ll see you at the Comic-Con.” Hand shook. Book Signed. Picture taken. Moving on. The whole whirlwind took approximately an hour. The man knows how to run a show. And I thought it went rather well for what it was. Whether or not Mr. Campbell watches the movie, is another story. But he was polite and professional and accepted the movie. We didn’t expect anything more than that and were just pleased as punch to be standing in front of the guy. So yay for us.
apache
WEEKEND RECAP
FRIDAY
A bunch of us went to see the LONG AWAITED new George Romero zombie film “Land of the Dead”. We knew it was going to be cool because it's the man who INVENTED the genre. Still, I was a little worried about there being name actors in the film. I always liked the anonymity of the actors in the other “of the dead” movies. It made the whole situation seem more real. My fears were assuaged early and often. Simon Baker is dashing and dreamy, Asia Argento is the cutest lil Italian prostitute with a machine gun ever. I want to put her in my pocket. Even John Leguizamo was really good. Dennis Hopper, of COURSE, was tremendously amusing. The violence was creative and delightful. The zombies looked cool as hell, and Romero totally sold the whole “smart” zombie thing. There were two really exciting cameos too. The first was that of the endearing “smart” zombie from “Day of the Dead, Bub. The second was Tom Savini. Tom Savini rules. Supposedly, Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright are in there as zombies somewhere too but we didn't see them. It was, after all, a LAND of the dead. And it was really quite a perfect film.
After the movie, Faye, Sherrard and I headed over to Queen Anne for Dan's birthday. He was having an “Iron Curtain” themed party. There were people there dressed in whatever they considered to be european 80's club attire. I rifled through my closet to find something acceptable but Dom told me I looked like Brittany Speares and Faye said I looked like a “Madonna Supporter”. I'm not proud of either of those comparisons. Turns out it didn't matter too much anyway. It was a party and everyone was HAMMERED. Only about half the attendees were in costume. Faye and I saw an old college friend who we were actually happy to see. That so rarely happens. Everyone was in a pretty good mood too. Fun party. The only downer that happened was that a particularly snobby Tacoman decided to make fun of my drunken state by quoting one of my less than intellectual sounding utterances in Ahe's book. I was quite heavily intoxicated at this point in the evening and I knew that I would be too hung over to attend the Saturday yoga class. So I commented to Sherrard (I think this is pretty close to what I said) “I am so not making it to yoga tomorrow. I am so fucking serious”. Admittedly, it sounds pretty stupid when taken out of context. The context being the fact that I was drunk and that yoga carries with it a certain stigma that I don't normally subscribe too. Regardless, what she did was cruel and unnecessary. And why she decided to direct her cruelty toward me at that moment is beyond me. I may never have exchanged more than 10 words with this person. Admittedly, what I said sounds pretty stupid when taken out of context. And I make fun of people I don't know all the time. But to do it in such a way that she knew I would see it. It just wasn't nice and it kind of brought me down for a little while. Still, it might help me curb what I say about people I don't know…for a little while at least. After a while, the embarrassment and hurt subsided and I continued to enjoy myself well into the wee hours.
SATURDAY
Ow. I slept well past noon in an attempt to alleviate a very painful hangover. I was in my pajamas till after 4, at which time I showered and prepared myself for the evening's festivities. We started with dinner at the Canterbury where we gorged ourselves on too many fries and milkshakes. Then it was off to a Nimble Productions fundraiser to help the fine fellows earn enough money to buy the festival rights to “Here Comes Your Man” by the Pixies. They screened the short and made a very good case for why they needed that particular song. It was a very funny and well produced short so I hope they can make it happen. After that we headed back to the Hill for Kayobi's housewarming party. We met Kayobi's three awesome cats (one of whom is the very definition of butter ball) and saw their very cute new apartment . For their gift, I brought them a drinking game called “What the F*ck”. In this game, a person must choose between two undesirable activities and everyone else must guess what the person in question will choose. Those who guess incorrectly must drink. It's pretty simple because, well, it has to be. Complicated drinking games never go over well. This one didn't go over as well as I thought it would, however. A lot of people were disgusted by having to choose between two human secretions to consume (in popsicle form) or deciding what they would rather insert into their various orifices. After a short while, the game trailed off. I, for one, enjoyed myself. But then again, I've proved myself to be rather anti-intellectual this weekend, whatwith brain-busting quotes and high-brow games about boogers. Faye wasn't feeling well, so she left the party early with Borgia. I walked home on my own and had a GREAT time. I had never strolled through the quiet parts of Capitol Hill by myself so late at night. There are so many huge beautiful houses in tucked-away cul-de-sacs. I've been living in the city for so long that I forget how rare it is to have total silence. As I was walking through the neighborhoods, all I could hear were my own footsteps and the occasional backyard fountain. It was creepy and exciting all at the same time.
SUNDAY
Another lazy morning. I woke up around noon to the sound of helicopters overseeing the Gay Pride Parade. Dom and I tooled around the apartment for a few hours, enjoying doing nothing. I wrestled with Tobe a little bit. Then we headed to West Seattle for Dom's sister's baby shower. It was a pretty atypical baby shower. It was really more like a party. They had a keg and people were just hanging out and talking. There were, however, kids everywhere. That many kids around makes me nervous. I'm not sure why. We found out the possible names of Dom's future niece or nephew. If it's a girl, she will be called “Indie” (but that's Dr. Jones to you). If it's a boy, he will be either called “Vann Damon” or “Issac”. We were dismayed that they weren't going with our suggestion: Optimus Prime. It works for either sex!
We had to take our leave to go and record audio commentary for the “Snow Day” special edition DVD. Recording commentary is hard. You want to impart useful information and you also want to be funny. Marrying the two is where it gets tricky. I think next time we definitely need to be drinking. I think it's the key. Everyone knows the best commentary in history is the drunken commentary on “Cannibal, The Musical”. Apparently, there's a drunken commentary on the new “Orgazmo” special edition too. I've yet to hear that one.
And now the weekend comes to a close. We have quite a full week ahead of us, starting with meeting Bruce Campbell tomorrow at his book signing in the U District. We plan to hand him a copy of “Snow Day” but there are all kind of crazy rules printed on the signing ticket so he may tell us primitive screwheads to piss off. Like in the deal. Wish us luck.
Live from my bedroom
FUCK YESSSSSSSSSSSSS! WE ARE GOING TO SAN DIEGO!!!!!!!!!!!
Apparently, all it took was a panicked blog entry and a lot of drinking to make it happen.
Please confirm everything
SERIOUSLY, San Diego Comic Con. FINALIZE YOUR GODDAMNED FILM SCHEDULE ALREADY. If “Snow Day” DOES get in, at this point, it will cost us almost $400 to fly down there. And we can't NOT go if we get in. So if we're in, PLEASE tell us soon so that we don't break our banks on a weekend trip. Thanks.
Is wait as expound
WEEKEND RECAP
Friday
After a particularly trying workweek for me and Meep, we decided to have a relaxing and quiet-ish evening at the Canterbury. We started out just the two of us and whiled away the time by outlining our new web series “America's Next Judge Reinhold”. I'll just let that sink in.
After a while, Sherwood showed up and later Borgia and Dom. Sherwood was already drunk and ended up leaving early. Around 11:00, we tired of the Canterbury and decided to try our luck with an adventure elsewhere (sans Dom who had to get up at 5am the next morning for a shoot). We paid our bill, leaving one of my remaining New Kids on the Block trading cards along with the tip. (I bought a pack at Archie McPhee's and have been leaving them all over town. The response is surprisingly positive). Anywho, once outside, we were at a loss for where to go. Nowhere on the Hill seemed to temp us. Finally, I remembered one of the places Faye and I have always wanted to go: 13 Coins. How can one NOT be seduced by a dodgy sign on the side of a major road with an arrow pointing to seemingly nowhere that boasts “24 hour dining and lounge”. So we hopped in Borgia's car and headed down there. When we finally turned down the right street and feasted our eyes on the green awning for the first time, we had mixed feelings. We couldn't really see inside and so whatever was on the other side of the door was going to be a surprise. To our shock, it was POSH inside. We went into the lounge which looked like Gentlemen's Club (but with ladies inside and no one wearing robes). We took a gander at the menu and found everything to be overpriced. Not what we expected at all. (And kind of not what I'd hoped. It was no Great American Dive Bar). But with 13 coins shellacked into the table, a mosaic ship lamp in the corner, and menthol cigarettes on the menu, everything checked out. We had one beer and called it a night. My curiosity is now sated and I can check 13 Coins off the list.
Saturday
I went to the noon yoga class and was happy to discover that the slow-talker wasn't teaching. When I got home, I felt pretty good. I had way more energy that I usually have after the 4:00 Sunday class. I think I will start trying to go to Saturday noon more often. SOOOOOO, after a shower and a small lunch, I met Faye to go to Value Village. We were costume shopping for “Retard to Retard” which we are shooting next weekend, right before the Earth opens up and swallows us. After that, we relaxed for a little while and met BennDunn for dinner at the Red Line. After having an orgasmic sandwich there a couple of months ago, I have been bugging Faye to go back there with me. (Actually, I've been bugging everybody, but she was the first one I could talk into going). The sandwich actually wasn't as orgasmic as the last time but it was still good. And a cool crisp beer is just what I needed to wash it down. Then we headed down to the Crocodile for the comedy stylings of Eugene Mirman. (If you visit his website, make sure you are on a computer with speakers). The opening act was the most ADORABLE cross between Chuck Barris and Cat Stevens. His name is Langhorn Slim and he's a 23 year old bluegrass prodigy. He plays guitar like the devil is after him. He dances around and sings songs about heartbreak like only a literate 23-year-old prodigy can. I think Faye and I were utterly smitten after about the second song. It's funny. I went in there all jaded and skeptical, ready to hate whatever he was about to play. I have been so displeased with new music lately. But when he started playing, I could actually feel my cold, dead heart melt and turn into ice cream and puppies. Buy his album. You won't regret it.
After Chucky Baby played, it was Ron Lynch from Home Movies. When Faye and I first got tickets, Brendon Small was on the bill. But according to his website, he done got busy. So we got Ron Lynch instead. It turned out great because my face hurt from laughing long before Eugene even hit the stage. Holy crap. The man is funny. I especially enjoyed his character bit in which he is a comedian who's suffered a nail gun injury. He stands on stage with a bandage on his head and just stares straight ahead. Meanwhile, on his lap top, his bit is played through a Stephen-Hawking-style voice generator. Effed up. And awesome.
Then Eugene came on and was even better than the first time we saw him with Stella so long ago. The best part was when he played a real recorded phone conversation between him and a Christian phone company that tries to get you to switch to their service by telling you that other phone companies support gay marriage. He totally takes the piss and they have NO IDEA. It's AMAZING to me how few Christians seem to have a sense of irony. Particularly the ones who say “ya'll”. Buy HIS album too.
After the gig, we drank some more and played a new game we made up wherein we decide which filmmakers, actors and films should be awarded “hacks”. As an example, Eli Roth gets 5 hacks. Were “Cabin Fever” not so over-hyped as being so extremely edgy and violent (which it isn't), we may have been less harsh. Kevin Smith gets 4 hacks. The only reason he doesn't get 5 is because of “Mallrats” which is entertaining enough. “Ferris Bueler's Day Off” gets 5 hacks because it turns out the character of Ferris Bueler is not endearing but rather a mooching, manipulative arsehole. Now you play!
Faye and I started craving some nachos from Shorty's so we popped over there for a Nacho Nightcap. BennDunn snapped some very compromising photos of Faye and I deep-throating a veggie dog. Hopefully they will never see the light of day. Ordinarily, we're all for amusingly inappropriate photos, but these didn't turn out that way. I can't explain why but they really do look disgusting and wrong. Horribly horribly wrong.
Sunday
I really DO love not having the pressure of 4:00 yoga hanging over me. It was very liberating. I went to the grocery store, tidied up a bit and watched a TON of tv. Delightful. I also happened to catch the end of “Pretty in Pink” on TV. And once again I realised that a film I found enjoyable as a kid is actually a huge load of crap. So at the end, the beloved Ducky, who is in love with Andie, “lets her go” be with Andrew McCarthy because he's such a nice guy. Aw. Poor Ducky. I bet this is going to be awful for him. Unrequited love is horrible. But wait a second…who's that young thing making eyes at him from across the dance floor? I don't know but she's hot! Andie who? And with that, all of the reason for us to care about him goes out the window. If they had only played it out a little bit different. Maybe if Ducky had flopped his sad ass down in a chair and the cute girl came over to find out what was wrong. She sits down and starts talking to him. He's still sad, but there is a hint that this young chicklet might help him get over it soon. But no, they had to go for the instantaneous erasing of any open-endedness. NO ONE CAN BE SAD. This is John Hughes' world. No one is allowed to have more than three emotions and CERTAINLY no one can go into the fade-to-black with unresolved issues. John Hughes, I give you 5 hacks.
Later, Faye and I went to the Mercury which, once a month, hosts a neat little shindig that's open to everybody. They have video games, music, drinks and legos! On this particular night, they were showing our movie so we went to introduce it. It was a great crowd and despite the fact that the sound and picture were AWFUL on their system, the audience was really receptive. Our movie didn't go on until 11 so we didn't get home until after midnight but it was worth it, I think.
bacon
Things are kind of frustrating right now. Here are some of the things that are burning my bacon.
When are they going to post the schedule for the San Diego Comic Con? It's in a month and plane tickets are not getting any cheaper. I really want us to get in, obviously. But I don't want to find out a week ahead of time and then have to ask for time off work AND pay $500 for a plane ticket. I hope all festivals don't take their sweet time like this.
Marilyn will NOT stop bullying poor Tobe. This morning, Dom discovered that Tobe has been peeing in the corner by his food. I thought about it and it makes sense. That's the only corner in the house that's HIS corner. Whenever Marilyn chases him and hisses at him, he runs over there. So he's probably marking his meager territory. He's probably also scared to use the litter box. On SEVERAL occasions, I have seen him go in there, only to have Marilyn follow him a minute later and chase him out of there. Where is my baby supposed to poop? I don't understand why Marilyn is giving him such a hard time. He's SO mellow and offers no resistance. I hate being mad at a cat. It makes me feel kind of evil.
If one more person who HASN'T seen “Snow Day” says “it sounds like a rip-off of 'Shaun of the Dead'.”, I will…I don't know what. I'd LIKE take away their movie-watching privileges because if they don't realise that there is MORE THAT ONE move allowed within a genre, they don't deserve to see any more movies.
My job, of course, is frustrating. Tuesday, after several days of me looking for other work, my boss called me into his office. He told me he'd had a “revelation”. He realised that not everybody who works in a job needs to be trained in and/or planning on doing that job for the rest of their lives as long as they work hard while they're there. He also realised that people with a more diverse background are better in a job because they can offer a different perspective. That lead him into saying that he didn't know where I was with moving on, but that he would like to keep me here as long as he can. He said I did really good work and that he really appreciated everything I added to the company. He knew that eventually I would need to move on and pursue my movie career but that if I'm just looking for another office job, he would really like me to stay here. He said he'd talk to the Powers That Be about getting me involved in profit sharing and that he would welcome any suggestions from me as to how to make the work environment happier. He even said he understood that while working hard is important, a happy work environment is also essential. I certainly wasn't about to suggest that he let me have my LJ back, but I found the whole conversation to be very confusing. I hate to compare my job to a bad relationship again, but that's really how it feels. I'm in a relationship that isn't right for me. But I've been in it for so long that it's hard to imagine being without that person. There are a lot of perks that I would miss (free bus pass, for one). And if I did get a different office job, I'm sure the bullshit would still exist. It would just take on a different form. Profit sharing, eh? Fuck. I don't know what to do. This place really does depress the shit out of me. I'm certain that this job is, in part, why I've been so moody (and tired) all the time. But right now there isnt necessarily anything available to me that would be better. Not until I can actually con someone into paying me to make movies. Fuckety fuck.
I need some funny pictures of celebrities to cheer me up.
an ingratiating smile, as
Last night was the Cast/Crew/Friends/Dom's Family screening of “SDBSD”. It was kinda weird. I was a little disappointed at how UNsmoothly it went. We had technical difficulties so the 6:30 screening didn't start till, like, 6:50. A lot of people showed up late (who shows up late to a movie?!) and due to lack of volunteers, Faye and I ended up working the check-in table instead of schmoozing and “guaging audience reaction” as Dom said we should. So I guess it's a good thing that most of the industry/press folks we invited didn't show up. Faye and I did sit in for the second screening, though. And I learned a few things.
1) Oh my god, I hate looking at myself on screen. During the EPK interviews, I was seriously mortified. And it wasn't just because of my nervous tick/stroke victim mouth. It's a damned good thing I'm not an actor. Still, if Faye and I are to be one day interviewed by Guilianna DiPandi on E!, we best get used to the camera. But Jesus. A giant Jessica is not a good Jessica.
2) The problem with having such a short movie is that if people laugh at one joke, they will be laughing over the next joke.
3) Our movie is not “laugh-out-loud funny”. It more of a “chortle quietly to yourself” film. I hope.
4) Drinking Vodka on a weeknight isn't necessarily a good idea.
Which brings me to the after-party. Faye, Jacob and I were cleaning up so we arrived late and discovered that there were no seats left the room we reserved at the Canterbury. It was ok though because Elyse decided to buy us shots at the bar. She asked the bartender to give us three “sorority girl shots”. A VERY hammered girl at the bar overheard this and said something like “I can get those” which led us to believe she worked there. She didn't. She was just HAMMERED. So, for lack of ideas and little cooperation from the bartender, we ordered kamikazes and then went to sit down in a different room to eat. We were hoping that the room would clear out a little, leaving us seats. While we ate, the drunk girl from the bar came over with a blue highlighter and proceeded to write greek letters on mine and Faye's arm. She was rambling something awful so I STILL don't know what she said exactly but it was something about her being sorry (?) for wearing stockings. She was only wearing them because she'd been to a job interview at 2:00 that day. And drinking ever since, I'm assuming. The night was pretty tame after that. But I still drank way too many Vodka Collins' and thus have some major tummy rumblings today. I hope I have time to get in a nap after work because it's back to the party grindstone tonight for Ben Dunn's birthday in the Mos Eisley Cantina where gay Tom Savini works! Also, everybody's welcome to come if they don't already know about it. The more people to give Ben birthday spankings, the better!
Effed by the Wind 