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Recovering From the Suburban Shit Hole

It was an unproductive low-impact kind of day. After a late breakfast at Eddie’s Taco House I made my way to some hotel at 1604 and 281 (and why anyone would willing travel to such a suburban shit hole — let along live there — is beyond my comprehension (that is where my imaginative prowess breaks down). Anyway, this is one of the locations chosen by OCA (the San Antonio Office of Cultural Affairs) to hold their community outreach workshops where they explain to interested artists and arts organization a new initiative of theirs. CAAP, or the Community Arts Access Program, has been created to replace the Neighborhood Cultural Initiative (something like that — and I would never dump on that now retired program, because Ramon, Deborah, and I benefited from it back in 2005).

The Drury Plaza Hotel is a sad structure. Maybe a year old. It’s one of those buildings so popular in Texas’ edge cities, built out of aluminum, styrofoam, and industrial stucco. It’s an eyesore now, but wait five years and it will be an unkempt eyesore, as those disposable materials with which it was constructed begin to give way. (And, really, most of the new growth hotels in downtown San Antonio are in the same boat. If only I had the money to purchase them, I’d buy them and set the wrecking balls loose up them.) I do know I’m digressing. But one last dig. While we were in the meeting room (I believe it was room 103), I had to suffer an hour and a half with two semi-recessed ballasted lights in the ceiling flicking, out of synch, every two to seven seconds. I sure hope OCA didn’t dish out any money for this dreary Drury venue.

I’m done.

The presentation was run by Frank Villani. Frank’s cool. He’s smart and funny, and very sharp. He’s a good man to have on the side of the arts. I’ve met with him on several occasions, but I’m never sure if he remembers who I am.

The CAAP sounds like a good idea. The concept is for OCA to petition San Antonio artists and art & cultural organizations to submit proposals to be listed on a city arts roster. This is similar to what we here in Texas have on a state level (until those god damn Republicans pull the funding for the arts in Texas … just as they pull funding for education (these fiscal conservative tea party assholes won’t be happy until the general US population’s cultural and technical literacy is akin to that of Somalia).

I’ve worked with Humanities Texas and their roster of experts for an event I produced. I was able to find a sponsor to get the needed matching funds to bring in a guest speaker.

This is how CAAP works. There is a sliding scale of the percentage which OCA will pay the artist. The organization who wants the artist (or group) to preform or present needs to find a way to come up with the balance. So, this is basically an incentive program. But here’s the weird and wonderful thing. Okay. Say you are an artist who passes through the vetting process. Let’s say you’re a performance artist who wants to reach out to kids. You create a story-telling style. You offer several stories. Video examples are posted on the CAAP website. A school calls CAAP. They’ve seen that you will come out with your guitarist for 500 bucks. They pay 250, and CAAP pays 250 (and don’t quote me on the breakdown, because it’s not always half and half) — and, here’s the great thing: of that 500 dollars, it all goes to the storyteller (hopefully she (or he) throws some to the guitarist). But you see that this can be quite empowering for the artists in town. Yeah, I’m sure there are already people thinking of how this is just a divisive crock, but, me? I’m using the next five weeks or so until the submission deadline to figure out how I might present myself as a wonderful artist, educator, facilitator, for this new venture of OCA.

And let me say this about the San Antonio Office of Cultural Affairs. If you are an artist in San Antonio and you feel that OCA doesn’t give a rat’s ass about you, well, what are you doing about it? As a filmmaker with little in the way of a CV — I don’t have a Masters and I don’t often screen at festivals — I have managed to work with OCA in such a manner that I worked on a group project (Dia de los Artistas) which was heavily funded by OCA; I attended a professional development conference as a member of NALIP, and OCA paid a good chunk of that; OCA sponsored me for their annual Creative Capital weekend retreat; I was one of the judges for the first annual Neighborhood Film Project, co-sponsored by OCA and the San Antonio Film Commission; and for three years I have sat on the Luminaria Arts Night in San Antonio steering committee, an annual event heavily funded by OCA.

You said, hey, OCA’s not helping me much! Well, does OCA know who you are? OCA barely knows who I am, but OCA has given so much to me. Oh, and, yeah, I try my best to give back to OCA. Don’t worry. It’s fine. All San Antonio artists and performers are part of my family, my community. And that includes the arts administrators. Sure, there are many of you (artists and bureaucrats) who I don’t really like (many know who you are), but if you’re besieged, I’ll leap in to defend you.

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As the sun began to set tonight I realized I really wanted to see an art instillation on the nearby riverwalk extension. I had seen the installation before several times, but only in the daytime. This is a footbridge with sandstone blocks on the sides which have been painted in festive colors. But the paint has been mixed with a luminous agent. They been made into glow-in-the-dark bricks. It sounded so cool to me. I love glow-in-the-dark anything! So, tonight, I decided to go out and see it. I wanted to take pictures, so I grabbed my Canon 7D and a tripod. I got there at twilight. No big deal. The bridge is only a quarter mile from my place (but because I still have a cold I feel vindicated that I drove there instead of walked).

As the sun set, I took some pictures of the river. Here’s a slow shutter image.

And when the sun finally set, I walked back to the glow-in-the-dark bridge.

What the fuck? It was lit by a bright sodium vapor street light on the railroad bridge above. Here’s a shot of the bridge at night, lit by that damn lamp.

So, what’s the problem? Who allowed this to happen? OCA? PASA? I know we can’t blame the artist. This problem has to be fixed. I know something like this would never have happened on the northern museum extension. The city had better get their shit together. Don’t leave the southside hanging. Kill this light and fix Anne Wallace’s bridge a mile down river.

Swapping Chisme at Ric Ron’s

I was posting something on a FaceBook page about post-pop music created by Eric Bosse (my doppelgänger who spells his name with a C). I shared a link to a song by a band called Shock Header Peters. They arose from the dissolution of the Lemon Kittens (mostly known for band member Danielle Dax). Anyway, I mentioned a fond memory of my father. First, let me explain what will be the punchline below. The Shock Headed Peters named themselves from the German children’s book, Der Struwwelpeter, which, in English translations is titled either Shockheaded Peter, or Slovenly Peter. The books are famous for the buzzer and grizzly images to scare your kids shitless and make them behave. For instance, there’s a little story about a little girl who plays with matches. She, of course, burns to death. Anyway, back to my father. I was maybe sixteen and hanging out at the family bookstore. The phone rang. My father answered, “Aldredge Book Store.” He paused while the other person spoke. Then: “I’m sorry, but that’s a very personal question.” He hung up the phone returned to perusing the Weekly World News. “Well,” I finally said. “What was that all about?” “Oh, they wanted to know if I had a Slovenly Peter.”

And then there was the occasion I was doing some minor leather restoration on a set of 18th century bindings. The phone rang. He answered. “Aldredge Book Store.” Pause. Then: “No, but I think I have a book about rats in Tibet. … Hello?” He shrugged and hung up. He returned to pricing a stack of Texana items. “Well?” He looked over at me. Took a sip from his can of Lone Star beer. “Wanted to know if we had anything about Meissen china.”

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Today was the deadline for the Neighborhood Film Project. Friday, Feb. 17. 3pm. The date and time had been stamped on my brain since my first day of shooting, back on February 8th.

Here’s a random screen grab. My star, Lisa Suarez, is so damn appealing.

I can’t remember when I first came up with the story concept. When I decided to enter the contest I was assuming Seme and I would collaborate on a Dance for the Camera piece. Her choreography, my cinematography and editing. But then had the opportunity to take a workshop in Brussels. Pretty cool. I rethought things and decided to do a straight narrative.

My idea was all dependent on Lisa Suarez. Sure she’s shouted out to me on the night of the Jump-Start Performance Party something like, “When are we going to work together.” But was she serious. I decided to write a short script where I could exploit her ability to play an elderly woman. I created the charter of a woman who runs a local theater hitting tough times. She decides to use her theatrical skills to transform herself into an old lady and rob a bar. I was thrilled when Lisa said yes.

There were several things working against me. Lisa is a very busy woman. And I had to accommodate to her schedule. I’m not complaining. I knew this going in. Besides, if I win this film contest, it will be because of her. She’s fucking amazing–clearly the secret weapon giving me an edge. There was also the problem that I needed to shoot some b-roll of dense First Friday crowds. But the one opportunity to shoot was such a cold and miserable night that there were no crowds. And worst, I guess, was the fact that I had no crew. I’ve not shot a narrative in three or four years. I’ve fallen out of touch with my so-called crew base. And I put off the pre-production so long that I wasn’t able to give potential crew a reasonable lead-time to adjust schedules.

My crew consisted of three friends. On one day I had two. On two days I had one. And on one day I had none–just me.

When it came down to me editing the footage, I was dismayed that the audio on some of the days was way too soft. I can’t fault my crew. I established the audio settings. Well, we do what we can do. Hopefully we learn. I think I fixed some of the problems I created for myself shooting the JSPC Performance Party video. I became more conscious of my aperture. I created a solid workflow during the editing process. And I delegated more to my tiny crew.

I wish I had secured a couple of locations I never actively pursued. I wish I had started earlier. And I wish I had had a larger crew. But nonetheless, I had a masterful cast and a small but wonderful crew, I enjoyed every shoot. What a great time!

Here’s a clip from the film:

At around 2:30 I dropped my entry off at the offices of the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center. Manuel Solis, who runs the GCAC’s CineFestival (and I assume all their media programs) told me they’d already received about 30 entries. Knowing how insanely tightly filmmakers ride a deadline, I was confident that there could still be 30 more entries. As I was chatting with Manny, Pablo Veliz entered to drop off his entry. He told me his was for the westside. Mine, the southside. Good. Who wants to compete against Pablo?

I went home to hang up my laundry. And because I hadn’t eaten all day, I decided to chase down a mid-afternoon breakfast. My choice was Ric Ron’s Cafe. Their food is good but not great. But they are open 24 hours a day. And, really, trying to find a Mexican Cafe open after 3pm in San Antonio isn’t so easy — they’re basically breakfast and lunch. I had a tasty cheese enchilada platter.

Then I headed home to take a nap.

But Deborah called. She said she was at Ric Ron’s and would I like to join her.

I don’t believe in the supernatural, but in the interest of a narrative device, it’s clear we have a psychic connection.

I rushed right over. I mean it was Deborah. And I don’t say no to Deborah. When I say down at her booth, I pulled out my iPhone and showed her the photo I had taken of my Ric Ron’s cheese enchilada which I had eaten only an hour earlier. And to make it stranger, she was sitting at the same booth I had been sitting at. And the booth we normally sit at was one space away.

We hung out for a couple of hours, drinking bad coffee and swapping chisme. I’d also brought along my laptop and a copy of my film to give her. We watched it on the table, but because the audio on a laptop isn’t so robust, and there were other conversations going on, I did my best to explain the storyline. She seemed to enjoy it. I popped out the disc, gave it to her, and suggested that she watch it somewhere where she could control the volume.

I headed back home to take my laundry off the line.

Proudly Sunburned

I think Old Man Winter has finally been put down. Me, well, I’m happy to dance on the sour bastard’s grave. I earned my first sunburn of the year by spending a wonderful day shooting video out and about on the southside.

The morning was a bit suspect. And as I was assembling my morning cappuccino, I found myself looking out on a dreary morning with a light mist settling down on the neighborhood. I knew it was supposed to clear up and get warm by late morning or early afternoon. But it looked like the first scene I planned to shoot of the day would be overcast.

I planned to shoot in the large central parking-lot of the Blue Star Arts Complex. But the construction crews working on the river walk expansion were out in noisome force. Backhoes, cement mixers, bobcats, big diesel generators. Shit! I decided to move to that little alleyway back towards the UTSA satellite gallery. Jacinto Guevara was the first to show up. He was to play the role of a fictional Southtown artist. He gave his character a name. Odum Hohnerman. My friend Deborah showed up to help me out. And then Nikki Young showed up. She was to play the role of a TV news reporter. I had sent her a script. And she made some great embellishments, such as creating a name for the TV station, as well as giving her character a name. Nova Mendoza. She showed up absolutely glamourous in a stylish suit. (Afterwards, Deborah said that Nikki really should be a TV reporter or news personality, but she might be too cute with too much fashion sense.) The shoot when great. Jacinto and Nikki were perfect. I only hope we didn’t get too much in the way of artists Bryson and Holly Brooks, because we were basically shooting on the front porch of their Blue Star loft.

Deborah and I took a late breakfast at Los Sarapes (a cafe on S. Presa, located in the building which once housed the late and lamented Pepe’s Cafe). I highly recommend the chicken chilaquiles with the tomatillo sauce.

And then we drove back to the Blue Star parking-lot to meet up with Lisa. And that’s when the sun came out. Perfect. I wanted clear skies to shoot a montage of Lisa jogging along the river on the southside.

Lisa brought along her mom. Mom can walk, but she’s getting up in years, and we were planning to set up shots where we needed to walk a bit of distance, so Lisa had brought along a wheelchair. Lisa’s mother suffers from Alzheimer’s, and it’s fascinating (and quite moving) to watch the coping mechanisms which they both have developed to help them navigate through their days.

We shot at five locations along the river, from Blue Star, all the way down to Mission San Juan. Lisa grew up on the southside, so she knew the area well. And Deborah has a long history of the area as well. And I also know the area fairly well. The four of us had a great time.

What I was shooting was a montage of Lisa jogging. It’s important to the script to show her as a strong, fit woman. And I knew she could pull it off. Lisa isn’t just one of the more talented actors in town, she’s also a certified gym rat. She teaches various workout classes. For a woman almost as old as me, she’s beautiful, sexy, and very fit. Here’s a still from today’s shoot.

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We wrapped around five. I headed home, with the thought of taking a nap. I never managed to get around to that. I had some pressing email to deal with.

By seven in the evening I gathered my audio equipment and headed north to a grocery store on the far northside to crew on a short film which the good folks of PrimaDonna Productions were shooting. It was just a two and a half hour shoot.

The best thing was that I got to see Katsy Joiner. I love her. I haven’t seen her in probably four or five years. She’s a wonderfully accomplished and lovely actress. She’s not aged a day. What I like about Katsy is that she always treats everyone with the same warm and kind consideration. She’s engaged and curious about the whole production process. I like to think that in high school she was this bombshell who looked like she should be a cheerleader, but she was actually something of a nerd in the AV club.

So, now, it’s pushing 1am. I’m winding down. Drinking Modelo. I should be editing or sleeping. I’m foolishly doing neither. I’m gonna had to bust ass tomorrow and Thursday. I need to turn all this mess (video and audio clips) into a coherent eight minute (or less) short film, with the delivery date and time of 3pm at the Office of Cultural Affairs–oops, I mean the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center (this is good, because the parking will be easier to find).

And, now that I think about it, I realize I’ve not eaten since Los Sarapes. I wonder what’s in the refrigerator…?

If Only de Chirico Had Painted Machu Picchu

There are two people I know who are having to travel to attend funerals this week. And I was speaking with another friend the other day who has had three important people in her life recently pass way. And so it would seem petty of me to bemoan being alone on Valentines Day. And though I do find the notion of some woman swooning over me appealing, the cold truth is, it just ain’t happening. So, I’ll do my best to remind myself that I have quite a few friends who, though not apparently swooning over me, might find my passing poignant enough to travel to attend my funerary services. So, guys, I’ll rewrite my will so as to be interred in Fiji or Machu Picchu. Start saving up now.

Today was about downtime. I’ve been busy shooting my Neighborhood Film Project short movie these last few days. Tomorrow is the final day of shooting. And then the editing begins. Right now I’m preparing my video and audio files. I’ve been shooting on a Canon 7D. To make the video files work best with my version of Final Cut (video editing program) I’ve needed to transcode all of them into the Apple ProRes format. This is fairly slow on my computer. About a minute of reformatting for each minute of video. Also, I just finished going through the SD card from my solid state audio recorder (the Zoom H4n). It had audio clips from 4 days of shooting on my project, as well as from the night I gathered sound on a short film being shot by PrimaDonna Productions. (The Zoom allows you to save to various files, but I didn’t bother to do that, so everything was in one big folder. But it was easy enough to separate them.) I’m not really looking forward to matching the audio to the video. It’s not that hard, but it’s tedious. There’s a piece of software that runs about a hundred bucks that does it for you. I’m sorely tempted.

As I’m typing this, the MPEG Streamclip program (it’s free and simply awesome!) is chomping through my video, as it turns the clips into something more palatable for my editing system. I look over to my other computer’s screen every so often. There’s a little window which shows images from the video. There’s some great stuff! I love all my actors and crew. My script might not have been terribly strong. My shooting, uneven. And to be honest, I’m not sure we’re going to win. But the truth is, I captured some wonderful performances.

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An aside. I am listening to my blip.fm channel. “The State I’m In,” by Belle & Sebastian just came up. I adore this song. Here’s what I wrote on my blip.fm page about this tune: “Though Jack Black’s explosive reaction to Belle and Sebastian in High Fidelity cracks me up, I do love this song.”

Click here for a taste of saccharine goodness:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soMbZ7eLKlM

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Tomorrow Jacinto Guevara is showing up for my penultimate video shoot for my current film project. Jacinto grew up on southern California. He’s been here in San Antonio quite a few years longer than I have. His paintings are vibrant and colorful and alive. His portraits are quite magical. But I think I prefer his paintings of homes and other buildings. He distorts perspective in a way I can’t quite understand. He gives luminosity and life to the cityscape. He makes me think of de Chirico. Here’s a webpage with some great images of Jacinto’s works:

http://www.slabcinema.com/jacinto/

Tomorrow he’s going to play a fictional Southtown artist who has just finished a rendition of a robbery suspect in the manner of a police sketch artist.

Oh, and my on-the-scene reporter will be played by the luscious and madly-talented Nikki Young (my dear friend who I believe is one of the few people still reading my blog). (Hey, Nikki!)

Following the news crew bit, I’m off with Lisa to shoot some b-roll of her out and about in the environment. And then, we need to shoot a short scene of her at home. And I’m hoping we can use Deborah’s apartment.

Yeah, and I also have to shoot an insert of the close-up of a TV playing the news. Maybe I’ll shoot that Wednesday.

I’m also excited about the music component to this piece. I reached out to a FaceBook friend who I’ve never met before. Lisa Arnold (AKA Falling Lisa). I don’t know who friended whom. But over the months (years?) I’ve been amazed at the depth and breadth of her musical influences. Much of her work which she’s presented on social media sites is of the singer-song-writer style. Often just her and a guitar. But there are also a few tantalizing clips of her more experimental side. She called me earlier today and said she’s sending some audio files over soon. I can’t wait!