wednesDAY, January 19, 2000

Nicole and I walk in the door at 2AM, fresh as zombies and as I’m unpacking my carry-on, Nicole starts playing the dozens of messages waiting for us on the on the answering machine. Somewhere around message number nine is Jim Boyd saying that the No Dance Film Festival in Park City, Utah wants to screen Rock Opera. The festival starts in two days.

Thursday, January 20, 2000

I got my shit together quick and I’m leaving tomorrow to check out all the hype. I’ve never been to Park City, but I know a handful of Austin filmmakers that will be up there. Among them are some of the folks that headed up the western feature that I worked on back in November called The Journeyman: Brunson Green, James Crowley, Dan Shaw, and Caroline Mithoff.

Angela Lee, the director of the SXSW film fest, will show up on the 25th and she’s throwing a SXSW party there. Slamdunk is playing Mark David’s feature Sweet Thing at and the Producer of said flick, Tony Hewitt, will be screening his latest production at Slamdance.

I called up the No Dance Park City HQ and talked to Echo, the No Dance Line Producer, and she has kindly offered the floor of the No Dance crew condo for me to crash on. It looks like I’m in business I have a place to stay for, at least, the first few nights. The potential problem is that I’m staying through the 30^th and No Dance ends on the 25^th, so I might have to bum a place to sleep for the extra nights. I’m also trying to find a snowboard to take with me so I can hit the slopes.

Park City & No Dance

Friday, January 21, 2000: Day 1

I went to the dollar store and bought a case of Zig-Zag rolling papers. When I got home I printed up some mailing label stickers with the Rock Opera logo and some pictures of Toe on it. I cut the stickers to fit the Zig-Zag pack and made official Rock Opera rolling papers. On the back of the pack, I put a sticker with the quote from the San Francisco Indie Fest "The funniest celebration of unrepentant drug ingestion since Cheech & Chong’s Up In Smoke, Rock Opera has 'cult hit' scribbled all over it. One of the year's great finds." and on the inside flap was the screening time. Pretty snazzy if I do say so, myself. I assembled the propaganda while on the plane.

I flew into Salt Lake City and caught a shuttle to the No Dance crew condo. The pad is pretty damn nice. All the people seem really cool.

I wandered around Main Street and put up a shitload of Rock Opera propaganda.

I came back to the house and hung out with my new roommate, Jessie Blanco. Jessie’s from NYC and the company he works for, Zuma Digital, made all the DVDs for the No Dance competition films.

Saturday, January 22, 2000: Day 2

Damn near every piece of Rock Opera propaganda that I put up yesterday is covered by two or three layers of crap from some other flick. I should have brought much more stuff.

I went to the No Dance HQ on Main Street and put up some fliers and met some more of the crew.

I headed over to the Sundance box office to check on the ticket situation and almost every single screening is sold out. The best bet, it seems, is to wait outside in the snow for several hours and hope that some people don’t show up so you can buy a ticket.

So I bail and as I’m walking down the street, a hippie girl asks me if I get high. "Hell yeah." I say. "Well follow me," she says and we wander off to smoke out. We hop in Airelle’s big ass truck, she fires it up and we smoke the joint and watch the freak show from our front row seat, parked in the heart of Main Street. I’ve been here two nights and each night a total stranger got me high. Pretty fuckin’ cool.

Celeb watching: I saw Jodie Foster cornered in a doorway and surrounded by a dozen rubber neckers. Jessie pointed out Matt Perry and someone else pointed out Julia Roberts walking down the street.

I ended up at the Slamdance opening night party. It was pretty cool: free booze. I ran into The Journeyman folks and then the No Dance Crew drank and partied a lot.

Sunday, January 23, 2000: Day 3

I put up all the rest of the Rock Opera stuff that I had brought for tomorrow’s screening. Then walked up and down Main Street, handing out handbills.

Later, I went down to the IFC party… all kinds of big shots: Ethan Hawk, Marissa Tomay, John Pierson and God knows who else. I had as many free drinks that I could pour into me before last call, but considering how long it took to get into this thing, that wasn’t many. I saw Echo plugging No Dance to the E! television camera.

I ended up at the No Dance after hours party at Jim Boyd’s pad. This is a kick ass condo, complete with pool table and hot tub. I smoked out some friends and got loaded until 4 AM before bumming a ride back to Main Street from some nice folks with a car and a joint.

Monday, January 24, 2000: Day 4

I woke up around noon and went to the IFC lunch/interviews. John Pierson was interviewing Steve Buscemi, Danny Trejo and Ed Somethingorother (Mr. Blue from Resivior Dogs). I talked to John briefly after the screening but he seemed preoccupied and the conversation went awkward, so I bailed.

The Rock Opera screening was small, about 20 people, but everyone, except a roundish older lady who walked out, seemed to enjoy the flick (perhaps she was expecting some opera). I did a Q&A and afterwards, and then I sold 5 CDs and 3 T-shirts. The audience had great enthusiasm for the film.

There weren’t any industry types at the screening. But the guys from the Filethirteen.com web site showed up. They’re good guys. We all walked down Main Street to meet up with Mark David, the Filethirteen guys were looking for him and I was supposed to meet him at Cisero’s, so we made our way up the hill. We saw Kyle McGlaughlin getting his photo taken. We walked into Cicero’s where Mark, Will Tabenaeu and their band had just finished sound check for the What I Like about Party that will be held later tonight.

Had some food and other such exciting stuff.

Later in the evening, I saw Jimmy and Brunson and crew and headed over to the What I Like About You party. We all teamed up and talked our way into the party. Pretty fucking slick. Open bar equals drunk.

I met Bryan Wendorf, the fella who runs the Chicago Underground Film Festival. He said that he’d waive the entry fee for Rock Opera. So I gave him a tape and a press kit right there. I’ve been lugging them around for days now, it’s about time I got some use out of them. Got more drunk. I saw Jason Priestly and Rachel Hunter. Mark David’s band played followed by Shawn Colvin.

Tuesday, January 25, 2000: Day 5

Slept in. When I got up, I heard that Jim is adding screenings and Rock Opera looks good to get one.

I went down to the Slamdunk panel discussion on acquisitions and talked with Fine Line/New Line’s VP of Acquisition Arianna Bacco. I gave her a press kit and plugged Rock Opera. I got her cell phone number so I could call her and let her know the date and time of the second Rock Opera screening.

At the Slamdance happy hour, I drank free vodka with Michael Dalmon and The Journeyman guys. I ran into Allison Wait, she worked for a week or so on Rock Opera and now writes for some web ‘zine out of L.A.or something like that.

I ended up at the No Dance closing night party. More free booze and blur.

Wednesday, January 26, 2000: Day 6

Today is snowboarding day. It was a blast. I’ve only been once before and that was about six years ago. I think all the wakeboarding I’ve been doing the past few summers really helped out.

I went to the Tromadance Film Fest and watched part of Terra Firmer. I bailed early so I could catch the Austin film What I Like About You screening at Slamdance. Some folks I know from Austin are involved with the flick: Tony Hewitt produced it, Michael Dalmon acted, Mark David and Will Tabeneau did the music. It’s a fairly main stream romantic comedy and despite the fact that in most cases I could give a rat’s ass about romantic comedies, it did have it’s funny parts.

I saw Jim Boyd and he offered Rock Opera a second screening on Friday at 2:00. I wrote it down and put the note in his pocket, so he wouldn’t forget, then made a copy for myself. Michael Dalmon, Mark David and I went down to the Tromadance after party and had a few drinks. Topless fire breathers and more free booze. Need I say more?

Thursday, January 27, 2000: Day 7

I made a bunch more Rock Opera propaganda and flierd up Main Street. As it turns out, there are new laws in Park City this year, making it illegal to put up fliers (except on the designated boards set up by Sundance and then it must be a Sundance film or it’ll be removed). So what this really meant was that damn near every pole on Main Street was naked. Not for long. I hit every pole, telephone booth, trashcan, wall, and building in sight. Sure it was illegal but that’s prime turf and all the competition is aparently too timid for such guerrilla antics. In the end, Main Street was a Rock Opera billboard.

I headed down to the SXSW party and ate some BBQ. Some dorky looking short old skinny guy came up to me, smiling like a possum eating shit, and introduced himself as Merl Bertrand. My mind was scrambling to see how and why I knew the name: Film Threat, critic, he gave a bad review to Rock Opera when he saw it at SXSW as a work in progress. He ragged all over the editing, said it should be hacked up with a machette. It took all I had, but I played nice and shook his hand.

"I bet you want to punch me out," he said.

"Yeah, could you hold your chin up for me."

After all the excitement, I walked down to the No Dance happy hour and had a few more drinks. Then it was down to Harry O’s, the location of the Lapdance party scheduled for later tonight.

The club was in the process of being set up for the show, so I wandered right in. I ran into Les Claypool of Primus fame and he traded his business card for some Rock Opera propaganda. While on the inside, I set up a few options for getting into the show later tonight. I picked up a few names to drop at the door, combined with Les’ business card and a fairly decent sob story as a backup plan.

After wandering around some more, I went back down to Harry O’s and talked my way in using Les’ card, an old invite and those names (this is the game up here, folks. If you’re a nobody like me and you wanna get in…shit talk)). The show started off with Vinyl playing a cool and mellow set. There were Penthouse Pets wandering around and all kinds of scantily clad dancers gyrating to the music. Just a big ol ball of sexual frustration, buddy.

DVDA went on next, Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s band. And once they fixed the guitar problem (while they were doing so, Les came up on stage and did a little "Hey Baby Do You Wanna Lay Down With Me" improv) DVDA played and they were really good. They played a variety of songs, including tunes from South Park and Orgazmo as well as a cover or two.

Les Claypool and the Holy Mackerel headlined. They fuckin rocked. I ran into Trey Parker and gave him a Rock Opera CD. Then I stood around for hours on end watching all the gyrating girls. Finally, sexually frustrated to the brim, I wandered back to the condo at 4AM in the -35 degree weather

Friday, January 28, 2000: Day 8

I woke up at 9AM and packed my bags and moved over to Jim’s condo. Check out is at 10AM.

I received a message that my Aunt Catherine is in town. After the move, I get out and go to the pay phone near the No Dance HQ. I call up Catherine on her cell and when she answers I ask her where she is. "Standing out in front of the No Dance HQ. Where are you?" she says. I turn around and say, "I’m looking right at you," and hang up. Here I am, calling her NY number and she’s standing twenty feet from me.

She’s with her husband, Peter Miller who did sound for two of the Sundance films. So they are in town checking them out. We ate lunch and chatted for about an hour before they had to leave for the airport.

I saw Les Claypool again and chatted briefly, he was hanging out with Matt Stone and I talked with Matt about our mutual friend Authur Bradford. Matt and Trey (along with John Pierson) are executive producing Arthur’s documentary about a home for mentally retarded adults who have their own news program called How’s Your News?

Two o’clock rolls around and we have the second screening at the Main Street Mall (directly across the street from the Egyptian Theater). Michael Dalmon showed up and laughed hard and loud throughout. Angela Lee stopped by to wish me luck. After the screening, I did a short Q&A.

Guillermo del Torro came up to me and said "It’s even better the second time." I thanked him for coming out to see Rock Opera again. I think it’s really kick ass of him to make time to stop by and support the film. I’m sure he has a packed schedule and I was flattered and moved that he made time for me. He fuckin rules.

I did an interview for Loadtv. A fella named Chris was at the Monday screening and he brought his girlfriend Heather to today’s screening. Heather works for LOADtv and they’re both into the Rock Opera type scene and music, so we hit it off real well. They invited me to the LOADtv party tonight (the invites consisted of a one dollar bill with a sticker on it, and while at the Lapdance party last night, Chris handed me one to stuff in a strippers underwear).

So I end up at the LOADtv party. Chris is out on the balcony cooking up some bad ass chicken on the grill. To drink, there’s Red Bull and vodka (I end up smoking weed from a Red Bull can, making this the second night in a row that I’ve smoked weed from a can). The two halves of the duplex where the LOADtv party is being thrown are connected by a steamy basement. And in this basement, there’s a live action simulated sex show of the pornographic type going on. Right smack dab in the middle of the room, writhing and gyrating in the bubbly brew is this naked couple going at it, surrounded by a horny herd of slack jawed gawkers, standing around and popping boners. Pretty fuckin funny stuff.

Back upstairs I have more vodka and Red Bull, not bad. I eat a Soma that someone hands me (you know who you are) and wander back to the porno basement. Hey, there’s Andy Dick standing in the corner watching the porno hot tub show and looking pissed like someone who can’t seem to make a drug score. The Cult show up and the place is packed. A freakin madhouse.

Saturday, January 29, 2000: Day 9

I helped Jim and Will clean up the No Dance screening room at the Main Street Mall. After which Jim, Will, Miranda & I hung out and relaxed in the hot tub. It was awesome. We were just kicking back in the warm water, having a few drinks under the bright moon and the snow covered mountains… it was perfect.

Later on, we met up with Echo and Drew and all went out for dinner. We ran into the A Clockwork Maury gang and learned that their film got picked up in what was the biggest acquisitions deal in Atom Films history. Good news for both the filmmakers and No Dance.

A lame Sundance party and a rave later I ended up back at Jim’s condo for a wind down, some drinks and herbal cure.

Sunday, January 30, 2000: Day 10

Packed up and bailed out. It’s back to Austin for some endless sleep.