Friday,
August 18, 2000
So
Nicole and I make it to Chicago. We take a nap
and gear up for the opening night party. We make it down to
the Fine Arts Theater and up to the 10th floor for
the festivities. Good ol' Bryan Wendorf hands me a stack
of free drink tickets and the booze is on.
Nicole
met a fella named Eric who’s out searching for films
for the web site that he works for called Cinemanow.com.
Trimark and Lions Gate own Cinemanow. Eric seems like a nice
guy.
So
I’m milling around and putting up fliers and such and who do
I run into? It’s the New York Underground Film Fest gang:
Ed Hallter, Ann Marie and Mike Galinsky.
Anne Marie was a bit cautious when she saw one of the
Rock Opera folks. Apparently we were a bit out of hand
up in NYUFF and proved to be a bit of a headache for
poor little Miss Ann Marie. You see, she was the hospitality
coordinator and we were the drunken and stoned and pilled up
Texans raising hell and fucking shit up in the big city,
and Anne Marie had to deal with us (by us I really mean
Jerry Don Clark, Chad Holt and Randy Randall,
and to a lesser extent, Tony Linder and myself). Anne
Marie was pleased to learn that I came only with my wife
Nicole and not those Rock Opera folks. Anne
Marie has a big heart and a forgiving nature and we all
had a good chuckle about the NYUFF antics.
A
few drinks later, I run into Jeff Ross of The San
Francisco Indie Fest. So we hang out and drink and catch
up on old times.
Saturday,
August 19, 2000
Okay,
so most of the free drinks are still flowing through my system
when it comes time for the music panel I’m supposed to sit on
at 11AM. I chug as much Taurine as I can mange and roll with
the punches. Galinsky, Chicago Sun-Times critic
Jim DeRogatis, some other filmmaker as well as some guy
from Matador Records are on the panel with me. There
are lots of questions about clearance rights and the like and
I blurt out some maybe useful, maybe useless information. At
least I managed to get a chuckle or two from the audience.
I
decide to ride off the tail end of last night’s buzz while watching
some short films. One of the good ones was called The Moschops
and was made by a fella I met on opening night, Jim Trainor.
I saw Jim’s The Bats in SF and loved it. The
Moschops is done in the same style and, like The Bats,
is freakin' funny.
So
I’m back out on the street, milling around when I see a familiar
face striding down the sidewalk. It turns out to be an old
pal that used to live in Austin named Marc Wiskeyman.
Marc is in town from Louisville to visit his girlfriend
and heard that we’re screening Rock Opera up here, so
he dropped by.
So
8PM rolls around and it’s time for our screening. The house
is packed. The screening goes great and there are laughs aplenty.
I do a little Q&A and manage to sell a handful of tapes
and CDs. Not too shabby.
After
the screening, Wiskeyman drives Nicole and I down
to the Insound Party. I missed the Austin
vs. Chicago vs. New York video installation that I shot
stuff for, but heard that it went over well. I saw NoDance.com’s
Jim Boyd and Ali for a total of about two seconds.
And ran into Eric from Cinemanow.com. Eric
mistook Nicole for some other fine ass chick and proceeded
to hit on her right in front of me. So I straightened out the
guy and promised him an ass whuping at a later date. He apologized
and all was forgiven.
After
hours, we find ourselves driving around to locate the parties.
We run into Ester Bell, director of Godass and
we all make our way over to a house that is doubling as a speakeasy.
They had a full bar and dance floor and all that good stuff.
Best of all, a friend of mine found a bag of kind bud on the
floor and we all got stoned. By the end of the night, damn
near every back in the place had a Rock Opera sticker
on it.
Sunday,
August 20, 2000
Nicole
and I spent most of the day doing not a lot. Eventually, we
hooked up w/ SF Indie Fest’s Jeff Ross and headed down
to Chinatown for some grub. Next, we made it down to
the Fine Arts Theater and I saw the Johnny Thunders
flick Born To Lose.
The
evening’s party was courtesy of Manga, we had some booze
and watched some crazy Japanamation. I met a guy from Palm
Pictures named Mike Egan. Mike had said that
he wanted to see Rock Opera and had heard nothing but
good things about it, so I gave him some propaganda and stickers
and the like. In exchange, he gave me a copy of Ghost in
the Shell and Perfect Blue.
I
helped Galinsky with his video project Living Portraits.
Basically, I stood real still while he videotaped me for two
minutes. Apparently, he’ll loop the stuff, put it in a frame
and there you have it, a Living Portrait.
The
Manga party got stale and we bailed to the Fucked
in the Face party. The hype was high for this little fest
and unfortunately, the party was pretty weak. Nevertheless,
we drank the warm beer and did plenty of shit talking.
Monday,
August 21, 2000
So
I go down to CUFF to gear up for the second screening
and I run into a guy that I met at SXSW in ’99 named
Jake. I had been trying to contact Jake for weeks
before CUFF, but apparently his email had changed since
last we talked. Needless to say, I was surprised to see him.
The second screening went over pretty well. The house was almost
as packed as on Saturday night and I sold a few more CDs and
tapes to boot.
After
the flick, we headed over to a club called Delilah’s.
One of the guys that I met earlier in the week named Christopher
had been tending bar at CUFF and also worked at Delilah’s.
He was waiting for us to show up so he could screen the trailer
for the MC5 documentary that he’d been helping with.
The trailer unspooled and looked bad ass. The flick is called
MC5; A True Testimonial and should be done by the spring
of 2001, so keep an eye out for it.
After
hours we went on the party hunt and ended up at some apartment.
The place was pretty low key, but gave me another chance to
hang out with my Yankee pals and smoke weed and drink beer (it
seems that you can’t get enough of that stuff).
Tuesday,
August 22, 2000
Nicole
and I slept in. Lots of sleep. I went down to CUFF
and saw some shorts. Ate dinner in Chinatown. We ended
up at a party for Queen for a Day. Smoked weed. Drank
beer…
Wednesday,
August 23, 2000
Bailed
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