Wednesday, July 6, 1999

The computer should be fixed by Thursday. It seems like its been down or acting up since SXSW. Hopefully, I will be able to finish this thing in the next two weeks.

The opening night screening for the Alamo has been pushed back to September 3^rd. A big factor is that the Austin International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival (aGLIFF) is opening up the week we had planned for the premiere (8-26-99), and we don’t want Rock Opera to conflict with that.

Another reason is that I have it on good account that aGLIFF wont be on the cover to the Austin Chronicle that week and that means that no other local film event would be (as it might seem like a slap in the face to aGLIFF and I have it on good account that the aGLIFF wont be getting the cover that week (8-26) and therefore, no other films would. However the possibility of getting the following week’s cover (9-2) is pretty good, so I hear.

I talked to John Pierson on Thursday, 7-1. He received the tapes and press kit that I had sent him. He watched the trailer and the "making of". He said "I watched the trailer and it looks interesting, but I’m not sure what to make of it." He went on to say that he liked the "making of" and that it was well done, but not right for Split Screen. He’s supposed to call me after he watches the film.

I should know if I’m screening Rock Opera at the IFFM by Monday.

Tuesday, july 20, 1999

No dice on the IFFM. At least they sent back my $400 entry fee. It only cost me a hundred bucks to get turned down (they make you join their club for a $100 before you can submit your film for another $400). What a deal!

The editing system is finally fixed and I worked all last night. Its been nearly two months since I’ve been in the editing room. The problem was with the hard drive that I bought for Rock Opera. One of the drives kept freezing up. Barna sent the drive back to the manufacturer and they suposedly fixed it. We couldn’t access any of the information on drive 3 (of 8 total drives), so Barna sent it back again. This time they fixed it for real. Luckily, we didn’t loose any of the information on the drives and the system seems to be working better than ever.

I am real close to locking the picture. I watched the entire film last night and only saw a few things that I want to tighten up. If I can get in there three or four more times, I think I’ll be able to lock the picture this week, or by the end of the month at the latest.

Hopefully, Kurtis and I can do all the sound work the first two weeks in August (Kurtis and Tracy are expecting a baby on July 30^th, and he and Dylan "Chicken" Grifith are starting their own music store/rehersal complex, so I’m sure Kurtis’s time is tight). Then, just in time for the screening, we batch digitize the high quality transfer into the system, output it to tape and be done with it.

Still no word from John Pierson. I figure that either he didn’t like the film or he still hasn’t seen it. Maybe I’ll give him a call tomorrow to find out. It’s been a few weeks since we last talked.

Latin Works did a poster design for me and I don’t like it a bit. The pushed back the meeting two times and when we finally met, they showed me this design of a razor cutting through the name ROCK OPERA which was made to look like cocaine. Problem is, it’s not a cocaine movie. It’s a rock and roll pot movie. I sat down with Beth Sams (the fine young woman who maintains the web site) and we designed a poster. I initially liked it a lot, but I see some problems in it. I think what I’m looking for is something of a mix between the SXSW poster that myself, Beth and Ben Davis had a hand in designing and this new poster that I made with Beth. I think I’ll go to Ben and mix the two together and see what happens.

Here’s the press release I sent out on 7-15-99:

Tuesday, July 27, 1999

I locked the picture! Again. Now I just have to fix up the sound & dump in the good transfer & output it to tape & I’m done!

I talked to the Austin Music Network and they’re interested in sponsoring Rock Opera. Hopefully, they’ll play the trailer. I’m going to fax them our demands tomorrow.

Corri Hubbard hooked us up with Ruta Maya Coffee House for the late night party that’ll follow the second screening on Sept. 3^rd and feature the Fuckemos. We’re going to hit up Lone Star and/or Celis for some free beer.

Beth and I should finish the final poster design on Thursday. Then Joe Emerick of Voltage fame will help me screen print up the posters. Hopefully we can shit some out by Saturday.

Jerry has a casting appointment tomorrow for Richard Linklater’s new flick.

It looks like I’ll finally be able to finish cutting the Fuckemos’ music video the first week of August. Barna is leaving town for three weeks and I’ll have a lot of access to the editing system. I’m going to try to cut together a 30 second and a one minute trailer for the flick as well as a music video for the PigPoke song "Kane" that’s featured in the movie.

Tuesday, august 3, 1999

All right, the god damn hard drive is fucking up again. Tamas is going to try to fix the son of a bitch. Right as I was getting into cutting the Fuckemos video, the bastard froze up. This time, though, it was a different drive (or at least a different light on the outside of the box, indicating that it was a different drive). Hopefully Tamas can fix it or send it back for repairs and have it up and working before I get back from Sleazefest on August 11^th (my brother Floyd’s birthday).

Tamas is going to design some fancy opening credits for us.

I’ve been talking with 101X, the local "alternative" radio station and they have agreed to give away a bunch of tickets for the premiere and the week following in exchange for logo placement on all propaganda and allowing them to throw up a banner at the screening.

I talked to the head honcho, Rick Melchoir, over at the Austin Music Network. He;s definitely interested in the project. We’re going to meet tomorrow and hammer out the details.

The Austin Writers’ League will run an interview of myself in their September newsletter (they are the non-profit umbrella of the Austin Cinemaker Co-op).

Ruta Maya Coffee House has agreed to let us have our after party at their space, only a block away from the theater. The Fuckemos are going to play if they have all their shit together by then. Guitarist Ed lives in San Fransisco, so who knows.

Brian Dare over at GSD&M has said that they are interested in helping us our, but they need to review the materiel and get back to me, maybe tomorrow.

Beth and I finished the poster design. I’m supposed to print them up tomorrow with Joe.

I sent out a bunch of e-mails asking DVD authoring companies to produce 5 DVDs for us in exchange for promotional consideration. I figure that if we’re going to show Rock Opera on video, we might as well do it in a format that wont have drop-outs and there’s no risk of the machine eating the tape. Also, we can promote the fact that we’re screening on DVD and eventually do the first ever DVD theatrical exhibition tour. I got a call from a fellow named Todd Kushnir at California DVD on Monday morning and he seems like a heck of a nice guy. He’s fired up about the project and is going to make the DVDs for us. He comes from a music background as well and seems to like what Rock Opera is all about.

Thursday, august 12, 1999

Me, Nicole, Corri Hubbard, Tony Linder, Brad Weaver, Dylan Grifith, and Richard "Bucket" Rendon got back from Sleazefest yesterday. It was the best goddamn road trip that I’ve ever been on. Much music, drugs & drunkenness in Chapel Hill and then Atlanta.

We hung out with Randy (The Man) Randall and, Doug "Goose" Duncan & Scott Mominee of Phanotom Creeps fame. Here’s an e-mail that is Scotty’s take on Sleazefest:

Me and Nicole bought a Gretch drum set at a Goodwill in Durham for $200.

After Sleazefest, we went to Atlanta and saw the Melvins. They are still the heaviest fucking band in the universe. They played a couple of songs with three drummers: Dale, the drummer for Vaz, and the Melt Banana drummer. It was bad fucking ass.

We all got fucked up in Atlanta with Jeremy. Dylan decided that he needed to exposes himself repeatedly in Jeremy’s local bar, the Highlander. So he pulled his dick out. Everyone walked off and he stood there with his cock in his hand. Later he was seen harassing two girls playing air hockey, he says "How you chicks digging me?" They weren’t.

After closing at 4AM, we went to Jeremy’s to get more fucked up and Dylan pulls his dick out again and sticks it in the dictionary. Jeremy’s roommate wakes from her sleep and starts to complain about the noise and Brad barks out "Hey, you ever been mouth fucked?" All good fun.

But now it’s back to business. Brad Dare from GSD&M says that they’re on board. He has set up a meeting with myself and the big wigs for tomorrow.

friday, august 13, 1999

GSD&M bailed out. They are concerned with all the drugs in the film and their image. I guess we’ll shit can the reception and focus on the after-party. Speaking of, Fuckemos have confirmed that they will play the after-party at Ruta Maya. That should be fun. They’ll probably scare a lot of people.

The god damn computer is freaking out again. I got about two minutes of work out of it before it crashed and wouldn’t start up again. There’s still a lot of sound work and all the digitizing to be done and we’re supposed to have the final tape to California DVD by Friday so they can author, master, and burn the DVD.

However, there’s more time to play the drums.

I’m putting the finishing touches on the flyer for the Austin Film Society mail out. As soon as I get all the logos, it’ll be finished.

Tuesday, august 17, 1999

Yesterday, Nicole, Mike G., Shannon, Jerry, and myself went down to the Austin Film Society to help them with the mail out. We folded papers, including the Rock Opera flyer, and put labels on them. Me and Jerry had the job of putting on the labels. We were reading all the funny names out loud when I started recognizing some of them. I scrawled notes to some of my friends on the inside of the flyer. Eventually we got to the stack of out of town labels and saw the names of Steven Soderbergh, Matthew McConaughey, Ethan Hawke, John Pierson, Gus Van Sant, George Huang, Quentin Tarantino, Sarah Jacobson, etc. And of course, Jerry and I had to write some notes to these folks.

I reminded Quentin about the time at SXSW ’96 when I tagged him with a PigPoke sticker and then let him know how PigPoke tied in to the film. For Matthew McConaughey, I invited him down to get drunk, high and thrown out of Emo’s (Nicole used to see him at Central Market, stoned out of his mind, and after the Ed TV premiere, he was drunkenly moshing around to a ska band at Emo’s and was reportedly roughed up and thrown out). Jerry offered beer, weed, hookers and blow to Quentin. We hope they show up.

Today I was interviewed by Rick Linklater for an article to appear in the Austin Chronicle on September 2^nd. The interview was real casual. At first I was a little worried that Rick was going to get all Dennis Miller style obscure with me, referencing all sorts of films that I hadn’t seen. You see, Rick is a walking encyclopedia of film knowledge. That fella has seen more flicks than the rest of the world combined. No shit. There’s a good reason why he started the Austin Film Society. He simply loves film.

The interview was relaxed and fun. We just sat around, shooting the shit. He had a bunch of nice things to say about Rock Opera. He’s a class act all the way.

After the interview, I went in to check out the hard drive. I called Chip Mosher, a pal of mine who works on a Media 100 over at a place called Pixel Perfect. He took a look at the editing system and all but confirmed that the problem was the hard drive itself. So I took the drive out and mailed it off to the manufacturers, Jems. They said that they’d fix it, again. The fucking Fed Ex bill was $210 bucks.

Today I found out that I’ve been bouncing checks. I deposited thirty bucks into the bank and learned that I have a negative balance of $150. I sort of lost track of the running balance the week before we went to Sleazefest. I do have a box full of coins that I can cash in and a little over a hundred bucks in my wallet. I’ll deposit all that in the bank tomorrow.

I think I’ll try to get a job at Vulcan Video, I need some income in a bad way. Working security at Stubb’s is too infrequent to keep me in the black.

The bi-monthly phone termination ordeal was today. Every two months, the phone is cut off because Floyd is too lazy to pay his part of the bill. It takes about two months for the balance to get to a point where it is high enough for them to cut us off. So far this year, they’ve discontinued our service in January, March, May, June, and August. I guess the outstanding balance from May was enough get us cut off in June, ruining the luxury of having a phone for more than a month straight.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 18, 1999

I took the jar full of coins that I had and deposited the loot into the CrashCam account, the change totaled 183 bucks. That puts me back in black. I also deposited the hundred bucks the Jerry paid me (he now only owes me $9, a slice of street pizza and ten drinks. At one point, his debt was over a grand). The new balance in the account is a cool $99.93.

Since I can’t work on sound today, I think I’ll script all the lines that we need to loop and schedule the recording session for later in the week. I’ll also try to get as many signatures as I can on the music release forms. Maybe I can finish the damn posters, make some new hand bills, and/or shoot some screens for printing t-shirts, although I have no cash to print any of these things up.

friday, august 20, 1999

The photographer called to schedule the photo shoot, it appears that me and Richard Linklater will be on the cover of the Austin Chronicle. I told Jerry the good news and all he could do was bitch about how he’s not being featured. Apparently it isn’t enough that when I was scheduling my upcoming radio appearance, I lobbied to get Jerry on the air with me, or when I was pushing for a TV appearance on the Austin Music Network, I got Jerry on as well, or even when I was asked to be interview for Austin INSite magazine, I got them to agree to interview Jerry with me.

The little bastard didn’t even congratulate me. I don’t see how Jerry is going to become a successful actor when he obviously can’t see life from any point of view other than his own. He’s just about the most self centered and egomaniacal person I’ve ever known. And if he’s this bad right now, I can’t imagine how his ego will swell when the film opens in two weeks. He’s doomed to be even more obnoxious (if that’s possible).

I got the hard drive back today and did a little work on the film. I was in the editing suite for about six hours and got about two hours worth of work done. The fucking thing is having new problems. It’ll let me edit, but it freezes up when I try to play the film. The bottom light is now the one that stays on when it freezes up. The manufacturer, Jems, put the drives in a new box (apparently the box was causing the problems), and that fixed the old problem, but might have created another new one.

Monday, August 30, 1999

Jerry apologized about being such a bastard. I think Tony had a talk with him. Everything’s back to normal again.

The computer started working again last Monday. Since then, I have locked the picture. I went in yesterday to digitize in the high resolution footage at one in the afternoon and came out today at 2:30 PM. We had a press screening today, so I had to pull an all niter in order to finish the tape for the screening. I did it, there were a few glitches, but nothing major.

Four folks from the Austin Chronicle showed up: Marge Baumgarten (the film editor), Russell Smith (film critic), Ken Lieck (writer of the music gossip column "Dancing About Architecture"), and Chris Grey (music writer). The head honcho of the Austin American-Statesman’s film section Chris Garcia showed up as well (all kinds of folks have warned me about this guy, saying that he hates everything and doesn’t support the local scene. He ragged on Kubrik and gave Armageddon four stars, so whatever). A representative from the Daily Texan was in attendance, and a couple of folks came in late to boot. They all bailed right after the screening, so I don’t really know if they liked it or not. I did hear some laughs from the crowd, so someone thought it was funny.

Tim & Carrie League )owners of the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema) made some good grub and brought booze to the press screening. Good shit