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The shoot yesterday went as well as could be expected, with the weather attempting to kill me both on the way there and especially when trying to get back to home base. Not being proud, I pulled into a parking lot and waited for the worst of the watery onslaught to pass.

The Robots exhibit takes its name and most of its displays from the animated movie of the same name. It’s geared toward kids, and that’s cool. Some nice models of the characters, fromt he reference maquettes to life-size mockups. Some interactive displays, lots of noisy video monitors (can’t wait to check the audio on my interview) but what really struck me, when I walked into the hall, was this:

It’s hard to miss Gort. He’s about seven feet tall. You see him all the time in one of your favorite movies, but you don’t truly recognize how massive he is until you run into him in the wild.

These were unarticulated statues, no movement, lights or anything. But boy howdy, was that a pleasant surprise.

September 8, 2010
Categories: Life's Rich Pageant . . Author: drfreex . Comments: Leave a comment

I need a damn long weekend to recover from my long weekend.

Saturday – supposed to be off, but received a call that a couple of groups wanted a show. Thank God. I needed the money after handing my entire paycheck over to the Power Company for August’s feeble attempt to keep my house livable.

Sunday – get up, go immediately to brunch, take wife to theater. Cool my heels for an hour to see if I can get into the sold-out preview for her show, George Bernard Shaw’s The Doctor’s Dilemma at Main Street Theater. Have a latte, get a couple of Marvel Essentials at Half-Price Book’s 20% off Labor Day Sale. Attend show. Shaw is talky as hell, but always interesting. Very good cast kept the show – which was heavily cut for time and still weighs in at nearly three hours – moving at a good clip. It didn’t feel like three hours until I stood up at the end.

Afterwards, walk to nearby Italian restaurant to celebrate the fact that our friend Joel, who starred in the show, has joined the Half-Century Club. Excellent food, way too expensive. But by ordering off a special menu, a portion of our bill did go to the local food bank, so I’m concentrating on that, the food, and the great company.

Yesterday? I have no idea what happened to yesterday. I did break the Summer vacation I took on 50 Foot DVD, and will hopefully manage to keep it going on a bi-weekly basis. Most of my crew on City of Heroes was also in Doctor’s Dilemma, so that was our first chance to crack skulls together in a while. There went the evening. There was also a trip to the grocery store somewhere in there.

Now I sit in my office, preparing to shoot an interview at the Museum of Natural Science. The outer bands of tropical storm Ermine produced thunderstorms all night, keeping me awake. We’re under a tornado watch until 1:00pm. I’m not sure this interview will even happen today, but I need to be prepared.

And look forward to the next long time off. I swear to God I won’t waste that one with activity.

September 7, 2010
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So one of my very oldest and dearest friends, Scott, was waxing eloquent to me about this Canadian series he positively loves, Slings and Arrows. His wife tracked down the box set of the entire series, and Scott pressed into my hands the first two discs, the first season. “Let me know what you think.” he said.

Now, Scott and I are both, basically, theater people. Scott blames me for corrupting him; he did speech tournaments with me and others back in high school, but it was in college that he really caught the bug, and switched his major. He was one of the student directors awarded an actual slot in the season at the college, and it was one of the best shows I’ve ever done in my life – Tribute.

So. Slings and Arrows is about theater, obviously. I’ve only seen the first episode so far, and I have to say that its primary impact is to plunge me into a deep state of melancholy. This was not what I was expecting, as I had been told, by various people, to expect something that was “hilarious”, or “pure bliss”.  Those adjectives have increased, since I admitted to this state of affairs on Twitter, and therefore Facebook.

The major thrust of the series is a trio of theater professionals, director, actor and actress, who years ago did a definitive version of Hamlet that was so good, the actor had a “mental breakdown”, ending his career. Years later, the director is the Artistic Director of the New Burbage Theater, churning out increasingly commercial and empty productions of Shakespeare, the actress is bitter that she has grown into playing Gertrude rather than Ophelia, and the actor is chaining himself to the door of his ramshackle warehouse theater to protest being evicted for non-payment of rent.

This is really good, terrific TV. It’s obviously being written by theater people, because I recognize all these people, I recognize the thwarted passion, each and every thing rings absolutely true. There is only the smallest intimation of what happened after that premiere of Hamlet, but I recognize there is heartbreak ahead, and I find myself identifying too closely with the characters. Way too closely. Way, way way too closely.

Yes, I’m sure it lightens up in the second episode. Yes, I’m going to watch it tonight. Yes, I’m still unsure as to what my reaction will be.

This is rather like the time back in the late 80s when I was going through a really terrible patch and was horribly depressed. Clinical, probably, but that’s sort of beside the point. Well, maybe not. Anyway, my best friend Diane – we spent most of the late 80s and early 90s keeping each other sane – brought over Sid and Nancy, recently released on video, to cheer me up.

It made me even more depressed.

But you know, on the other hand? I’ve often remarked that I envied other people’s ability to still be affected by media. This was largely about people who can actually be frightened by horror movies anymore, but the point remains the same: I thought I was jaded and untouchable, but I have to admit Slings and Arrows has, indeed, touched me – just not in the way I expected.

August 30, 2010
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Okay, let’s start winding down a pretty hectic week.

Film festival weekend, funeral trip Monday with included double blow-out action. Tuesday spent catching up on stuff put off during last four days, and trip to country seat to shoot story on Women’s Shelter. Wednesday is staff meeting, but not much else, thankfully. Yesterday, load-in for live broadcast of School District budget hearings, then tear-down, pack, and return equipment to home base.

Budget meeting: well, there’s no real way to make this stuff interesting, except to randomly interject car chases and ninja attacks (hey, it worked for Cannon Films), but as this was not in the budget, I will settle for being thankful that they held it down to two hours (these things have gone eight hours and more in the past) and that there were sammiches and cookies.

Today… not much, again thankfully. Not seeing the salaried folk this morning, and I don’t blame them. Need to return some library books that were due yesterday, and wouldn’t you know it, their Web page was offline so I couldn’t renew them. Ah, well. Looking forward to Sunday, which looks to be an actual day off, but I have a sneaking, sinking feeling that something will come along.

Tiredly, I wave bye-bye and wish you a good weekend. And ask you to cross your fingers for mine.

August 27, 2010
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Yeah, I said I’d talk about T-Fest today. Sorry, that was incorrect. I am chewed up, spit out, and burned to a crackly crunch.

I think I drove more miles in the past four days than I have in the past year, combined.  To Dallas, Friday. Plano, if you wish to be technical (and who does not?).  Bit of driving round the area for breakfast, lunch, after-fest gelato (bacon gelato!) Saturday, then back to Houston Sunday. Then discover the mother of one of my wife’s closest childhood friends has died, and she’d like me to come with her to the viewing in Austin on Monday, the only day she can be be reasonably late getting back for her rehearsal.

(My wife, Lisa, is acting in a production of Shaw’s The Doctor’s Dilemma at Houston’s Main Street Theater)

Something tells me I should go.

Outside the small town of Giddings, a troublesome vibration in the front end has gotten worse, There is a sound that roughly spells out as WA-BAM, and more sounds from the undercarriage, which is whatever is left of the two front tires richocheting around.

Not mine, but pretty close.

I wish I could tell you about the brave effort it took to control the car and get it safely to the shoulder of the road, but the truth is I don’t remember a single thing about it. I did it, and that’s what’s important.  I am also thankful for cell phones and good coverage, because we were roughly in the middle of nowhere – as it was, it took the tow truck the better part of an hour to get to us. I would not have liked the alternative – walking however many miles in 100+ heat, dressed for a funeral.

So. Three hour there (plus time for accident and tire replacement), three hours back,

I don’t care if I never drive anywhere again. So, of course, I have to drive to the county seat for an interview this afternoon.

Hopefully I can get some rest this evening.

I nearly said that with a straight face.

August 24, 2010
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No sooner do I get back from Dallas that I find I have to go to Austin for a funeral.

Hopefully I’ll return to normal blithering tomorrow, and tell you about T-Fest.

August 23, 2010
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First up: I’m leaving town tomorrow, so you’re not going to hear from me again in these pixels until Monday, Why? I’m headed to Dallas with The Boy to attend T-Fest, an informal gathering of fans of crap cinema. I helped start this oh so many years ago, and it’s grown. It has its own Facebook page, even. I’ll be live-Tweeting it, as I am able, so anybody who follows me has that to look forward to, oh boy.

I enjoy spending time with my herd. It’s a rare group that equally enjoy Charles Laughton upstaging his co-stars, then The Zombies of Sugar Hill, then wash it down with some Nightmare City. Well, nobody enjoyed Theodore Rex, but then, I think that is an utter impossibility, right up there with folding a piece of paper seven times. Mythbusters can manage it, but not many more.

Go on. Watch it. I dare you.

So I was wondering what would turn up at the last moment to ruin things. You know, as usual. First candidate is my bum knee, which has grown much worse since that Amazing Race-style shoot a couple of weeks ago. Apparently you don’t heal as fast in the second half of your life as you do in the first. GO FIGURE. Second candidate is my hillbilly teeth. Gum disease and brittle teeth gallop down my mom’s side of the family, whom I most take after. Mom had a full set of dentures by the time she was 30. I’ve beat that by nearly a quarter of a century, but probably can’t for much longer. I brush, I floss, I use Listerene, all of which has helped delay the inevitable; but last night another tooth just simply broke off, snap. It was apparenly already dead, I feel no pain, but dammit, I also feel uglier than ever. I’m never going to act again, except as maybe a meth addict.

My Precioussssss

I guess, if you need an upbeat thing to offset the misery, my second job sprang for my new phone, and I finally have that Droid. (Brief pause for the iPhone users to proselytize) I was surprised at the learning curve involved in switching to a touchscreen phone, and am thankful that the Droid 2 still has the physical slider keyboard. The onscreen keyboard and my fat fingers do not play together well. I am totally digging the customization level. I even used it as a GPS navigation unit last night – to a location I already knew, thank you – and the Droid even used the shortcut I always employ. That was impressive, even if the setup has a few more steps than necessary. A dedicated GPS unit would have been much easier, but what do you want for an included extra? And a nifty one, at that?

So I’ll see you on the Twitter, or here next Monday. Have a good weekend. I’m sure as hell going to try.

August 19, 2010
Categories: Life's Rich Pageant . . Author: drfreex . Comments: Leave a comment