Happy Celtic New Year

The pic is from our front walkway - a string of jack o' lantern lights from Target. Happy Halloween, kids. Wheeeeeee!

Of course for Samantha, this was Samhain (SAH-wen), or Celtic New Year's Eve. The time when the fabric between the material and the spiritual planes were thinnest. After much historical and cultural study, it became my New Year as well.

So honestly I was not surprised when Kayligh and I showed up at my brother's house to let her trick-or-treat in her pirate best, and what should we hear wafting out from his front room but the opening strains of "Demons" by And Tears Fell. Gavin had just opened the door and the last song was fading out, when my opening guitar chords rang out. Gavin stood there with a creeped out look on his face, and Kayleigh flashed a big grin when she heard Sam's voice start to sing.

Thanks for checking in, hon. We're doing fine.

I'll have pics of Kayleigh's pirate getup tomorrow. Right now I'm exhausted and need to go turn off the pumpkin lights. Cheers all - Happy Celtic New Year. May the coming year bring blessings beyond measure.

A Different World

My 91yo grandfather recently had spinal surgery. I just talked to him on the phone, along with my grandmother. He's doing great in physical therapy and she's a human dynamo - just as always. I love them fiercely.

Something my grandfather said stuck with me. They read my blog regularly (he calls my entries "soliloquies"), and he said how much they enjoy keeping up on what's happening in my life, although some of what I talk about is way outside their experience. "It's a different world," he said. Not like in a "you young whipper-snappers and your rock & roll" kind of way, but as a legitimate, heartfelt, observational truth. How often do we of the generations subsequent to the Greatest Generation actually stop to ponder how the world has changed (for better or worse)? And what contribution are we making to forge a better world?

65 years ago, my grandfather stood with his peers and fought against fascism, genocide and unbridled imperialism. Stuff not unlike what we're exporting now. The technology that made his spinal surgery possible (and thus, years of additional comfort and mobility) also makes the world smaller. Makes it easier to communicate and yet easier to be misunderstood. On the upside, that technology has given everyone a voice. On the downside, everyone can talk at once, in fire-and-forget soundbytes - so there's more crap to sift through. The technology that put humans on the Moon also carries death and destruction to any target in the ever-shrinking world. On the one hand, I hold a lot of hope for future humans leaving this planet to explore the galaxy beyond. On the other, I have to ask: do we deserve that privilege before we've got our collective shit together as a species?

I'm not saying my grandfather's generation didn't have its problems - they had plenty. But at least at some point they stared down an economic depression, a world war (and the curtain call in Korea), and kept a sense of optimism and hope for the future. My generation is the product of Vietnam, Watergate, OPEC embargoes and corporate media. Hard to maintain a sense of optimism when you've been conditioned by experience not to trust authority. I don't have a "solution" so much as just stating the obvious fact: that is our challenge.

"It's a different world." Amen. Food for thought.

* * *

Finished the rewrite on Duo. The aforementioned producer seems to like it. It finally has the ending I was always trying for, but never quite achieved. Unfortunately, I was so head-down in the work that I totally spaced calling my little brother to wish him happy birthday. I'm the worst big brother EVAR. Although on Sunday the kids and I met up with Gavin and some of his friends for The Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D. Some of the 3D was well done, some of it was way off and gave me a headache.

Watched my region-2 UK import copy of Hannie Caulder. It's crappy quality, but I'll take it over no movie. With the new interest in westerns and exploitation movies from the '70s, why is this film not getting a new region-1 special edition? It's an underrated western, and Raquel Welch's character is arguably the inspiration behind Sharon Stone's character in Sam Raimi's The Quick and the Dead. Just a thought, Anchor Bay. We love Raquel. We love a nice spaghetti western. We love revenge plots. Give us a decent edition of Hannie Caulder.

Also watched the original 3:10 to Yuma with Glenn Ford. What a great western! I never really heard about it until the recent remake came out. Really great character study. And... IT'S GLENN FORD! Come on. How can you go wrong??

Another coffee date coming up this week, and of course Halloween tomorrow. I promise pictures.

I Has a Flavor!

Apparently...

Hot hot! I am Curry Flavoured. I have a spicy personality. If you can take the heat, you'll love me, if not, I'll probably make you cry. I am not for the faint-hearted. What Flavour Are You?

Six Bullets

• Saturday: had a brunch date, saw Elizabeth - The Golden Age (and despite it being a shamelessly pro-England propaganda piece, found it extremely well done, a satisfying sequel to the first Elizabeth film). We went out to coffee afterwards.
• Sunday: hung out with the kids, watched movies, did projects.
• Monday: got a ton of work done, especially on the currently top-secret collaboration with a well-known actor whose name I cannot yet reveal. I'm diggin' the concept.
• Today: FINALLY got my car back from the dealership - took it in two weeks ago to get the driver's side seatbelt fixed and ended up with a whole new SRS harness... all the airbags, all the pre-tensioned belts, all replaced. Gotta love that warranty!
• While the Kia was in the shop, the dealership didn't have any extra loaner cars, so they put me in an Enterprise rental. Unfortunately the first car (a 2007 Taurus) was a piece of crap, so after a couple days I switched out at the West Seattle location into a 2008 Monte Carlo coupe. I don't think I'd ever own one, but it was definitely preferable to the Taurus! Nonetheless, I now have my Sportage back, and I'm a happy man!
• Several of my peeps are in plays around town, so I think I have a lot of theater to go see in the next week.
  

Grindhouse, As Promised

Having a couple kids, I don't always get to go see "grown up" movies in the theater, and must await their arrival on DVD. Such was the case of the Grindhouse double feature of Robert Rodriguez' Planet Terror and Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof. Please remember this is only one filmmaker's opinion - I don't claim to be the definitive authority on anything, so if you absolutely love or hate these directors, save the fan/hate mail for them.

Planet Terror - I don't always like everything Rodriguez does, but I *always* respect his maverick, low-budget process. And more often than not, I actually *do* like his work. He's consistently pushing the envelope in terms of the Hollywood production model, creating films one either loves or hates, and when a director creates something that inspires such vehement emotion (on either side of the coin), in my opinion, that's the very essence of art. Look at Sin City. Love it or hate it, you cannot deny it is a work of staggering visual genius.

So let me preface my commentary on PT by saying I didn't start out a Rodriguez fan. I thought his half of From Dusk 'Til Dawn blew goats, and totally didn't fit with Tarantino's first half. Then I went back and discovered El Mariachi, and followed that trilogy through Desperado and Once Upon a Time in Mexico. And that won me over. I finally started to understand this guy. Then I took Tyler to the first Spy Kids movie, and it blew my mind - here's a director who can clearly compartmentalize the creative process and make different kinds of films for completely different audiences, with a high standard of technical quality on a low budget (thus "buying" himself more creative control on his projects).

Anyway, I've grown to respect the man as an auteur (he frequently writes, produces, directs, directs his own photography, edits and scores his films), and must say Planet Terror was a filmmaker's dream to watch. The DVD is the extended unrated cut, and since I missed the general release I don't know how it varies. But it does include a trailer for a fake movie called Machete, in the best grindhouse exploitation tradition. Cheech Marin as a shotgun-toting priest who delivers one of the best, most trite lines I've ever heard delivered: "God has mercy. I don't."

Planet Terror is a zombie movie. More specifically, it is THE zombie movie. A rural Texas population is exposed to a military chemical experiment gone awry, and soon popstar Fergie is getting her brain eaten. The cast is a smorgasbord of talent from across the spectrum of TV and cinema: Jeff "Lawnmower Man" Fahey, Michael "The Terminator" Biehn, Josh "The Goonies" Brolin, Michael "Twin Peaks" Parks, Bruce "Sin City" Willis, Tom "Dawn of the Dead" Savini, Carlos "El Mariachi" Gallardo, Freddy "Six Feet Under" Rodriguez, Marley "Pleasantville" Shelton, and the incredible Rose "The Black Dahlia" McGowan (and an army of really great quirky character actors). The plot revolves around a disparate group of uninfected folks having to fight their way through zombies that go POP! when you shoot 'em, through the infected soldiers at the military base, and into the helicopters that will take them to a remote part of Mexico.

It's ludicrous-level violence, and the "film" is "aged" to look like a piece of celluloid that's been chewed up by a projector over and over again. I found this to be particularly impressive, since Rodriguez shoots in HD video. The color correction and aging are perfect. There's even a point at which the film breaks and burns, and we get a MISSING REEL slide from "The Management", only to be thrown back into the movie at a later point in the story. Now, this is not the first time a film has been artificially aged and/or chopped up to convey a story. The parody Amazon Women on the Moon did exactly that. But the way in which Rodriguez uses the gimmick clearly evokes the visceral grindhouse movie experience - I loved it. I mean, come on: a stripper loses her leg and has it replaced with an automatic rifle!! A doctor carries around a hypodermic needle pistol strapped to her leg!! Fergie gets her brain eaten!! What's not to love??

Which made Death Proof somewhat of a disappointment in comparison. Although it has a totally able cast (Kurt Russell, Zoe Bell, Rosario Dawson, Sydney Tamiia Poitier, Tracy Thoms, Rose McGowan, Jordan Ladd & Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and a workable premise for an exploitation movie, it felt like most of the second act was more like The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. I mean, I like Tarantino's writing more than his direction most of the time, but this was chatty even for him, and it didn't necessarily do anything to advance the plot. And while the film (and Tarantino does shoot on actual film) carries some of the wear & tear that Planet Terror uses to such great effect, by the middle of the film it's pretty much gone, and we're watching a pristine print, which kind of defeats the purpose of using the gimmick in the first place. It was almost like Tarantino, with his vast, impressive knowledge of film history, was trying to make a good-looking product, and in doing so, misses the point of making something look crappy on purpose. Death Proof is not a bad film (certainly not his worst), but is completely outclassed by the total camp sci-fi horror experience that is Planet Terror.

On the upside, the chase sequences and car stunts are AMAZING, and the first wreck has some of the most amazing cinematic violence ever put on film, in my opinion - another application of the term gore-nography, for sure. But the chatty stuff just distracts from the whole stalker/cat/mouse/revenge story.

And for the record, I preferred Tarantino's portion of From Dusk 'Til Dawn to Rodriguez' portion, and think QT's best screenplay was True Romance. I still think Pulp Fiction is iconic cinematic genius, and I loved Kill Bill Vol. I. So I'm not writing this as some kind of Tarantino-hater/Rodriguez-fanboy.

Also recently watched Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (wow) and Domino (Tony Scott, you are a mad genius and I love you). Those two films really deserve more than a blogger's footnote, but I really need to get to work...

No Sh**, There We Were...

Well, suck. We had one of those "we'll look back on it later and laugh" moments last night at the Comic Stop screening of OA. I promoted it, the shop promoted it (both on the front page of their website and on their MySpace page), and they'd had customers asking about it and phone calls asking about it for days. Kayleigh and I spent two hours setting up the back room for the screening.

Dennis (Lucifer), Natasha (Eloa), Aaron (Cadmiel) and Oliver (Child) showed, Dan (Editor/Assoc. Producer) showed, Oliver's family showed, and Brian (friend and associate) showed. No one else showed. Granted, the wether was crappy and Seattle was setting records for multiple-car accidents, so maybe it's to be expected... maybe it was just a crappy time to hold a screening.

On the upside, I got to hang out with Kayleigh, have dinner with her, chat. That's always good. And I got to see some of my actors again, which is always fun for me. I also hadn't seen Dan in over a month I think. So it was a nice reunion. We're looking at holding a mini-film fest at Emerald City Comicon in May, and will assemble our actors again for a better-targeted experience.

I've decided I'll hold off on the posting about Planet Terror until I've watched Death Proof as well. This Friday for movie night I will screen something family friendly first, and then show Planet Terror after the kids go off downstairs to play games. That's usually how it works. Pizza and one flick, then they get bored and go amuse themselves with games and various creative projects. Which is great, really, because I get daddy/kid time, and I also get Todd/adult-friends time.

Kayleigh has been discovering her dad's life through the films of John Hughes. Last week it was Ferris Bueller's Day Off, or An Analog for Todd's Senior Year in High School. She's already seen The Breakfast Club, or The Time Todd Got Caught Having a Ferris Bueller Day Off and Got Sent to Saturday School. This week it will be She's Having a Baby, or Todd & Sam Get Married and Begin Adult Life. It's really spooky how John Hughes and Cameron Crowe really nailed my life - how they captured the essence of the post-Boomer generation. Case in point: Fast Times at Ridgemont High (written by Crowe, directed by Amy Heckerling) - came out in 1982, the summer before my freshman year in high school. The Breakfast Club (written & directed by Hughes) - came out in 1985, junior year. Ferris Bueller's Day Off (written & directed by Hughes) - came out in 1986, senior year. She's Having a Baby (written & directed by Hughes) - came out in 1988, forecasting the life of Todd & Sam by 2 to 4 years. Say Anything (written & directed by Crowe) - came out in 1989, recalling the life of Todd & Sam 3 or 4 years previous. Singles (written & directed by Crowe) - came out in 1992, just after we moved to Seattle, capturing the essence of being a twentysomething creative type in the Emerald City. I guess they've just had an eye for the zeitgeist.

Anyway, back to the morning grind. Gotta drop Kayleigh at school and Elvis at the vet. Then back to work writing.

Note to Self:

Write a blog entry on Robert Rodriguez' Planet Terror, which just came out on DVD and left me chortling and steeping in a pool of my own mirth.

Right now, I need to get to bed...


P.S. "zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..."

Zodiac, or Early Childhood in the Bay Area

I watched Zodiac today. If you haven't seen it, this post may contain spoilers. I've been a fan of David Fincher since Alien 3. Now just hear me out on this, because there's a method to my madness. It's amazing that such a steaming pile of crap of a script like Alien 3 could be given to a first time director, who could make it look so good, given the limitations of material and budget. That's some fancy directing skill. And of course, Se7en was his redemption. Sam and I went to see that in the theater, and were totally blown away - from the juxtaposition of Morgan Freeman's and Brad Pitt's characters to the hyperkinetic opening credits, to the incredibly intense morality play. And Fight Club... genius.

So, David Fincher gooood. Fire baaaad.

Zodiac really hit me, and here's why. First of all, it's based on the case files of an infamous serial killer who stalked the entire state of California in from the mid '60s to the mid '70s (mostly known for a very active period in the San Francisco Bay Area between 1969 and 1972). Although a prime suspect was finally identified in 1993, he died before arrest and the case remains open in several California counties. So it's viscerally real. It's also really well designed, with very impressive historical detail.

I was a wee lad when we moved back to the States from my dad's Army posting in Germany, and we lived in San Mateo, which actually had a curfew in effect due to the Zodiac killer. In fact, my first memories of TV news were (in order): Vietnam coverage, Zodiac, Watergate and the Patty Hearst kidnapping. Fincher's team does an excellent job recreating the Bay Area of that time period, right down to the construction of the Transamerica Pyramid, aside from the Golden Gate Bridge and Coit Tower, probably the most recognizable San Francisco landmark. It's all there - the hairstyles, the clothing, the cars. The air of depression, the ever-present layer of cigarette smoke wherever you went... you can almost smell the laundromats and urine. My only beef with the art direction is that the main characters don't change a whole lot over the 20 years covered. My parents were not exactly fashion plates, but they changed their hair and clothing styles radically (several times) throughout the '70s. But since I don't know what the real people being portrayed looked like during those years, I can't really say it's a huge issue.

Yes, there are scenes of brutal killings, as you'd probably guess, given the film's subject matter. But the way they are captured totally take any potential Hollywood gloss and throw it away. The camera is usually at the victim's level, and there is an eerie lack of musical score during those intense moments, which means that Fincher is really putting us there in the moment. He knows what buttons to push, and it's really effective.

The cast is great: Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Edwards, Donal Logue, Elias Koteas, Dermot Mulroney, Adam Goldberg, Charles Fleischer (who knew the guy who played Roger Rabbit could be so damn creepy??) and Brian Cox as famous California attorney Mevin Belli (they even mention his episode of Star Trek). Ione Skye makes a short and uncredited but memorable appearance as Kathleen Johns, a potential Zodiac victim who lives to tell the tale.

Anyway, it just really made that time in my childhood come back to me, as bittersweet as that is. A similar thing happened with The Pursuit of Happyness, with Will Smith - another really powerful film also set in San Fancisco.

So that gets me thinking, if my earliest TV memories were the aforementioned tragedies, what were we watching to escape? Mod Squad. Ironside. Bridget Loves Birney. Bewitched. I Dream of Jeannie. The Courtship of Eddie's Father. That Girl. Nanny & the Professor (loved me some Juliet Mills). The Flying Nun. The Brady Bunch. The Partridge Family. The Monkees. And Star Trek in syndication.

ADDITIONAL (10/16):
Watch this film. Funniest most perversely beautiful documentary I've seen in a long time.

Yay!

Had a productive couple days writing. Also had my niece here for the weekend, but all three kids miraculously kept each other amused without a major meltdown.

Met up with Sally & Justin and signed off on my '06 taxes. They get mailed in tomorrow. And I've sworn it's not going to take 10 months to do my '07 taxes. :)

Been listening to this band. Elle & Elliott Nelson are the talented offspring of the iconic Bill Nelson, on of my all time top musical influences. The apples didn't fall far from the tree in this case. Imagine Dif Juz meets Mazzy Star meets Cocteau Twins and you'll get the basic idea.

Wednesday evening we have an Ordinary Angels screening/Q&A/signing at the Comic Stop in Lynnwood. If you're in the greater Seattle area, try to get out there - it's gonna be fun!

Elvis Catstello goes into the vet on Thursday to get his first checkup and probably get snipped as well. Sorry buddy, but we can't have you getting into the spray habit.

Pirates and Projects and Teens, Oh My!

Wow - over a week without an exciting post to fill the time. But in all honesty, I've been so busy living the excitement that I have either lacked the time or energy to post at a given moment.

So here's what the last week and a half brought:

Did the Twelfth Night Cabaret fundraiser last Friday, put on 30lbs of costume and gear and did my thang. I haven't heard the final numbers, but I think we came close to our $20K goal. I had a serious temporal wtf experience in looking at one of the players, John, who is 16 with the requisite acne and braces. The same age and condition I was in when Sam & I got together. It blew my mind.

Kayleigh had a pirate-themed birthday party on Saturday; four 10yo girls dressed as pirates, hopped up on sugar. And two 13yo boys trying to eat me out of house and home while leaving messes behind (during my cleanup for K's party especially). You see, Tyler chose that weekend to have Project Halo, wherein he and his best bud Miles stocked up on oh-so-healthy chips and soda, and proceeded to play all three Halo games in their entirety in 48 hours. And me the only adult. So that was fun. Hang on, let me lay down for a minute.

Sunday I had a very productive 2-hour production meeting over lunch at the Swell with a couple creative professionals I really dig - one of whom I've known for 7 years, the other I met in recent weeks (but am very familiar with her previous work). Unfortunately, I cannot say more about the project at this time, but it's looking like a lot of fun and a great opportunity.

Simultaneously, there has been interest in Duo, the film we were working on when Sam died, from a production company in Seattle. They want to add it to their pitch roster to a funding source, as most of the projects are pretty heavy dramas and they need a romantic comedy to balance things out a bit. Duo does have a lot of elements in its favor: it's pretty much ready to rock, pending an editing pass to finesse and tweak a few bits; despite some interpersonal drama in the story, it's a pretty light, feel-good screenplay without being saccharin or predictable; three of the principal actors Samantha cast are willing (and excited) to come back and do the project. The deal is that if Duo gets funded, I will direct. To think of what I could do with that film with a proper budget...

Still working on the OA feature script, as well as a classic scifi parody screenplay. Plate full, certainly. But carved out enough time to have a coffee date with someone from Match. Nice gal, intelligent, well-traveled and with a common music culture. Spent a great deal of time in Heidelberg, Germany, my own hometown. You don't find a lot of folks out here in Seattle who can say they hail from Heidelberg, Germany, so I figure it's worth exploring a bit. We'll see - I'm certainly in no hurry.

Took the Sportaaj into the shop yesterday for an oil change and to replace the driver's side seatbelt, which hasn't retracted properly in awhile. Turns out the faulty retractor can cause the entire airbag system to not work, so it's good I'm having it done - it's a warranty fix anyway, so I'm not out any money. Unfortunately they were missing a part and had to overnight it, which means I'm in a loaner: an ugly as f**k white Taurus with a cassette deck. Anyway, the repair should be done today or tomorrow.

I close on my refi today. Thanks to Carrie, one of my widda pals from Gilda's, who happens to be a mortgage banker and got me a nice 30-year fixed. Beats my current ARM, and it will allow me to pay off the stupid lien on my house from the rebuild. Then I won't have to fight on two fronts and can concentrate on my settlement with RestorX (for which I've hired a local attorney).

I'm checking off the to-dos and lining up really cool professional projects. Aside from getting over a nasty flu bug and a sore shoulderblade, life is good.

Happy Birthday, K!

My little girl turned 10 years old today. Wow. She's an amazing girl, full of talent and promise. I'm very proud to have her as a daughter, and love to watch her continue to evolve.

Oh, it's pretty much official: I'm directing Deathtrap for the TNP spring show.

The TNP Cabaret is this Friday - I'm doing my usual pirate shtick.

Happy Anniversary

Dear Sam,

Here we are again. This would have been our 17th wedding anniversary.

It's hard to believe that so much has happened in the last two and a half years. The kids are growing... both are so much stronger and more mature. I'm definitely a different man than the one who held you as you left on that quiet April morning. Even the house we made a home has been rebuilt; a different version of the former thing.

Things are happening for me professionally, creatively... I have rediscovered my heart, and the capacity to feel deeply enough to have it broken. That's just fine, because it all adds up to closure and completeness.

I still think about you a little every day (some days, like today, more than a little). I look back on our almost 15 years of marriage, just over 20 years together, as one would perceive an old slide show. While the images may still be clear, time and distance seem so much greater now. Before you died, I was always able to maintain a very strong temporal continuity; past experiences seemed close and accessible. Since then, even recent events sink into the distant past so much more rapidly.

I wish you were here to share what I've learned and what I've become, but a big part of that was gained from losing you - so it is an equation without a solution. Solve for X, but X no longer exists in the alphabet.

I could say more, but really, nothing more need be said, since if your spirit persists as I believe it does, you already know all of this anyway. It's just a way for this corporeally-bound human being to order his thoughts on a pretty somber occasion.

Raise a glass beyond the veil tonight - I will do the same.

Love always,
Todd

TMBG, You Suck.

Dear They Might Be Giants,

It was with much excitement that I purchased tickets to your September 26th concert at the Moore Theatre in Seattle, looking forward to taking my kids, 10 and 13, to your live show (having introduced them to your music since they were toddlers and could dance along to "Particle Man"). I have been a longtime fan of your music, since your first album and earliest videos on 120 Minutes. My kids were thinking I was the coolest dad ever.

So imagine our disappointment when we arrived at the entrance to the Moore (having paid $10.00 in event parking) to find out that, at the band's request, no one under 14 was to be admitted. I mean, I understand playing an 18+ show, or a 21+ show in a club where alcohol is served. But nowhere on the tickets or the Moore website did it forewarn me that my kids would not be able to see your show. Ticketmaster lists the show as "recommended for ages 14+", but as their parent, I should be able to determine their ability to see a rock concert - and "recommended for ages 14+" is not the same as "absolutely no one under 14 will be admitted, period". It's not like they're babes in arms - they're worldly, music-savvy tween/teens who have great taste and have been looking forward to this show for more than a month.

Luckily I was able to get a box office refund from Ticketmaster, but I'm still out 10 bucks for parking and have a couple kids who are disappointed in the policy, disappointed in the lack of notice, and soured on They Might Be Giants in general (and I don't blame them). They were really looking forward to seeing you perform, and we all feel like you let them down. In the future, you might do your younger fans (and their parents) the courtesy of stating your age policy somewhere more visible than at the venue box office in sharpie, and in clearer, more concise language than "recommended for ages 14+".

Thanks, Johns.

Todd, Tyler & Kayleigh Downing, Seattle

It's a Bird! It's a Plane!

It's BUSYMAN!

Sorry about the lack of posts this week. Been going full tilt on the homefront, getting some contract projects finished, blah blah blah.

Got back into a gym schedule. That's good of course. It's interesting to go back through my posts over the last couple years and see how many times I say "I gotta get back to the gym", and I do, but 4 months later I'm back to "I gotta get back to the gym". Oh well. It may be two steps forward, one step back, but at least it's generally forward motion.

Been developing a new film project which I'm not going to elaborate on until it's much farther along. It's the emotional opposite of Ordinary Angels.

Kayleigh's blue is almost completely gone. Alyssa said she would find a different, more long-lasting product and re-do it for free. So that's today. I'm also heading up to the Comic Stop this afternoon to say hi to Brian and be introduced to Gigi Edgley. There's collaboration, comic books and indie film projects involved, and that's all I can say at this point.

Tyler has TWO math classes this semester, his regular class plus MESA math. His class went to the Puyallup Fair yesterday, and he ended up walking home from school, which is a big step for us. He is maturing and growing at an alarming rate, and my grocery bill has skyrocketed. But that's what *I* was like at 13 (sorry Mom), and it means he should hit his initially estimated height of 6'2". I think he might even surpass that.

Anyway... I'll get caught up today and tomorrow and begin to elaborate more next week.

OA DVD FYI BYOB

Well, those of you who were waiting with baited breath for the release of Ordinary Angels on DVD have no longer to wait. It's available. So get that bait out of your mouth and go buy one already. Heh.

The new OA site is also just about live. You can go there now, but the CONTACT page is still being worked on. I'm actually just the media/director contact. Sally is the development contact.

Oh, and those of you who received an email from me regarding this: on the first three groups (everyone from A to N, I think), I included the wrong URL for my own film - how lame is that?

It's www.ordinaryangelsmovie.com. Please make a note of it - there will be a quiz later.

Creeping Into Fall

Sunny weekend in Seattle, but some breezes started coming in. You live in a place long enough and you can start to recognize the signs. Fall is just around the corner. The kids are back in school. Kayleigh is taller than her 5th grade teacher. Tyler has made a friend. I have high hopes for them this year.

Saturday was dominated by a rare and wonderful meeting of the D Constructed partners at my place for a combo festival postmortem/DVD release company party. Watched Forged and Zombie Love. Had lunch. After Sally & Justin left, Dan & I hammered out a basic site design for a whole new OA website. Should be done pretty soon. And the DVDs will be available from FilmBaby soon too! And Andrew Kenrick continues to make strides on the RPG.

Met my friend Mike for coffee this morning, then headed over to Staples to run some copies of the Ruby Slippers script. Got back in time to have a visit from Dennis Kleinsmith (aka Lucifer) from the OA cast. He picked up his copy of the DVD and a poster, and we chatted about projects. Dennis is all kinds of cool.

One of our leads for the play reading (the aforementioned Damn These Ruby Slippers) got stuck in Portland and was unable to get here. So thanks to Raff, we got a sweet and accommodating friend of his to read in her stead. In all honesty, the last time I'd heard it read aloud was in October 2004, when Sam organized and cast the reading. It's a lot more verbose and intellectual than the OA script, not that one can truly compare subject matter. Ruby Slippers was originally written in 1999, and I can see where I've really evolved as a playwright. Honestly, although I enjoyed the reading, hearing it aloud again kind of left me sour on it. I think it might be too dated... like the window for that particular play has passed. I dunno. Maybe it's because the play comes from a different place and time, a totally different guy - jeez, it's been almost a decade, y'know? A lot has happened since I first sat down with my friend Jordan and bounced ideas off each other. In fact, Jordan has pretty much exited our circle completely. And it seems kind of... un-epic... in comparison to my life the last few years. But there's ninja in it, and dream sequences, chair throwing and bondage gear. So it may not be a complete loss.

When it comes to original stage plays, there is currently little opportunity within Twelfth Night. They need to get specific grant funding for original works for it to make any sense financially. I'm supposed to direct something for them this season, and Deathtrap has been tossed around. Muriel is directing The Foreigner this fall, so I'm off the directorial hook until the spring (at least). In terms of original works in my own arsenal (when the time comes), I have a couple projects aside from Ruby Slippers.

I began writing Tragic Heroes shortly after Sam's cancer diagnosis, under the guise of putting a comedy out there to kind of do my part to lighten the mood. In reality, I just thought there was (and is) a shocking lack of costumed superheroes on the modern stage. Unfortunately by the time I'd gotten to finishing act I, Pixar's The Incredibles came out, so I had to go back to the drawing board on a lot of elements, and ended up shelving it indefinitely. Too bad - there's some decent shtick, and my favorite way to portray Aquaman (without it being the real Aquaman of course): as a drunk.

Vampyre Genesis is about the "haunted summer" of 1816, when Lord Byron, Percy & Mary Shelley, Claire Claremont and Dr. John Polidori congregated at a Swiss villa, took lots of opiates and held their famous contest to see which of them could write the scariest story. It was the summer that produced Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus. But the lesser-known work to emerge was Polidori's The Vampyre, arguably the first of the modern, romantic vampire tales, which Bram Stoker would raid liberally for his Dracula a generation later. I used a lot of contemporary literature and Polidori's own journals, which seem to indicate a lot more competition with Bryon than Byron would have ever acknowledged. There is also some question as to whether or not Byron's child by Claire was actually his and not possibly Polidori's. In pouring over all of the writings and histories, it became clear to me that the major inspiration for Polidori's character of Lord Ruthven (pronounced "RIV-ven") was Lord Byron himself, so the concept of the stage play formed around act I being the historical set-up, the actual "haunted summer" (or rather a liberally dramatized and condensed version), and act II would be an adaptation of The Vampyre, with Byron, Shelly, Mary, Claire and Polidori portraying the roles that were inspired by them. Sort of a play-within-a-play, kinda... maybe.

In any case, the technical requirements are somewhat beyond Twelfth Night's abilities in terms of an off-season show, and I'd need actors who were REALLY good at accents and could pull off Regency-era dialogue and make reciting Coleridge sound interesting.

Anyway... there's always improv.

Okay So A Few Things...

The kids are back to school finally. I think Tyler is going to do well at his new middle school this year - next year he's off to HIGH SCHOOL! Yikes! He's been doing fairly well without his meds, sleeping and growing like a weed. Kayleigh is now taller than her 5th grade teacher... and there's something else different about her - read on.

So here are a few bits and pieces of catch-up from the last week or so...










The marble entry of the Grand Hyatt in Buckhead (Atlanta, GA).










Nicholas Cage and me - we're like THAT. (Photo by Todd Lubitsch)










We have a new family-operated pizzaria here in Westwood - they do custom slices.










Oh yeah - Kayleigh had her hair dyed blue in front. Alyssa, who did hair and makeup on Ordinary Angels, works at Salon Fauntleroy in West Seattle, and does the family hairs. This was her work, and I must say it looks cool. Having been a teenager in the '80s, I'm no stranger to brightly colored hair, so this is really low on my list of parental battles. She wanted streaks throughout, but we compromised (with Alyssa's help) on the front streaks. The strong blue really makes her eyes pop. So far everyone at school loves it. Her teacher says she will probably start a trend.













Sam used to have a blonde streak in front when she was 18 or 19.

OA got a nice nod from this film connoisseur, who saw the premiere in Atlanta. Scroll down to his writeups and look for 'O'. Thanks, man!

DVDs will be available in a few days from FilmBaby. Watch this space!

New Angels Trailer

I finally did a new (shorter) OA trailer...

Hey Laughing Boy - No Mo Buwwets!

• I've now been awake for almost 20 hours. Had a quiet breakfast pastry, banana and OJ in the cafe at the Hilton where the main con entrance is, killed some time until the local Starbucks opened at 8:30AM (that's right, on Sunday the Starbucks opens at 8:30).
• It appears that Atlanta's indigent, transient and mentally-ill-but-released-and-still-wearing-the-hospital-bracelet population all come out in the mornings. I saw guys combing through garbage cans for their breakfasts, all the while holding very intense conversations with nobody in particular. It was just a bit freaky.
• I did slip a couple Washingtons to the dude setting out the chairs and sweeping in front of the Starbucks - apparently he's had cancer treatment, and is trying to work his way out of medical debt. Whether that's true or not, the fact was that he was working, and I wanted to encourage that. Besides, he let me in the SB before they were technically open.

• With some caffeine in me and a sandwich procured for later (thinking ahead), I went to the sci-fi film block in the screening room. A lot of them had to do with toxic environments and folks wearing gas masks or environmental helmets.
• Ambassadors Day was very unique and I thought well done.
• The German film Deus-in-Machina blew me AWAY. Incredible effects work and a really original and intelligent plot.
• Sat in on a panel on legal issues in independent film. It focused mostly on copyright, trademark, product placement, music licensing and the fair use defense. Valuable stuff there (although I was already well ahead of the curve on most of it).
• Sat with Kely McClung of Blood Ties and the previously mentioned David No for most of the blocks. What a great couple of guys. Kely's girlfriend (?) Amanda is super nice and really funny.
• The comedy block that followed had some pretty great material.
• Enter the Grasshopper runs like a fantasy sequence out of Ned's Declassified, with great production value and a fun premise.
• Monster Job Hunter - funny and gross and cathartic. Especially if you play 1st person shooters.
  
• 07, once again, hilarious parody of 24.
  
• Todd Lubitsch's Blood of the Cross was shown in its official capacity in this block. That was fun to see again.
• Had to stick around for another screening of Zombie Love. I managed to get a copy from director Yfke (pronounced EEF-kuh, as I understand). Gave her a copy of OA.
• I will definitely be showing all of these film trades to my cronies back in Seattle.
• Went to dinner with David, Kely & Amanda. Todd L. showed up and the two of us went for drinks while the other three went to David's millionth screening of Forged - that was a huge hit at the con. It played on the Indie Film Festival track, the Apocalyptic cinema track and the Silk Road (Asian cinema) track. Nice reception for David in the States.
• I had several people come up to me today and say how much they enjoyed Ordinary Angels from it's premiere screening. Wow!
• Now I'm making the truly last post before I return home tomorrow.
• It was a really great festival/convention. I made some good contacts, not just in a professional capacity, but in a way which I think is rooted in mutual respect and admiration for one another's work - perhaps even friendship. People who are in visual media for the right reasons and who are just plain Good Folks (TM).

Bullets Over Atlanta, part III

This may be my last post from Dragon*Con. I fly home tomorrow.

• It's 4:12AM Atlanta time, 1:12AM Seattle time. I don't know why I can't sleep, seeing as how I'm finally used to the hotel bed.
• Ordinary Angels had it's official premiere at Dragon*Con yesterday, closing out the afternoon fantasy block. It was well-received, and if the screening block hadn't been delayed and run long due to some small technical issues, there would have been more time for Q&A. The interest was definitely there.
• The fantasy block was ideally timed to coincide with the exodus from the main ballroom across the hall, ensuring we had a packed house of walk-in traffic.
• I got interest from some roleplayers, which could bode well for Andrew Kenrick's licensed OA RPG.
  
• Talked at length with Ron Lehman, director of Jakob and the Angels, a darkly funny short about a man who must call exterminators because his attic has become infested with angels and their constant singing of celestial hosannas are driving him nuts.
• Vanished Acres, Blue Dreams Downtown, Alien For Christmas, Art's Desire, Tunnel Vision, Whale, and Clicker Clatter all stood out to me in some way.
• Talked more with David No, writer-director of Forged. Got a copy of his film. Watched a panel on international filmmaking with David, another Aussie and two Canadians. It was the Commonwealth Show.
• Watched a block of very good animated shorts. Talked with the animators. Some guys who'd worked on Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Squidbilly (and had this short and this short to offer), and Randall Christopher, a cartoonist from San Diego whose comic book and short film, Kleeman and Mike, is very entertaining.
• When the World Goes Dark, a student animated short, also stood out.
• I saw a wookiee walking down the street in Peachtree Center. To even ponder putting on a 50lb fur suit and full head mask in Atlanta in high summer... zoinks, Scoob. That's dedication to one's hobby.
• Oh yeah. Some guy actually donned a top-notch C-3PO costume and had a buddy running a full-scale remote-controlled R2-D2. Check it.
  
• Stormtrooper Elvis was funny. Use your imagination. Better yet, here's a pic.
  
• Saw classic Aquaman sitting in the hotel bar. I wish I thought to get a photo, because I've always taken great delight in lampooning the King of Atlantis by placing him in tavern-ish settings.
• Had a good dinner at the same brew pub as when I first arrived. This time had the brown ale - that was better than their stout. I still like Northwest micros better overall. Just about every food is either really sweet or really salty.
• Atlanta smells like pee. Seriously. Maybe I'm so used to living in cities with decent offshore breezes. Not only downtown Atlanta, but upscale Buckhead, where they are building a friggin' arcology of $1,000,000.00+ condos a block from my hotel. I kid you not. Smells of urine. The folks are plenty friendly, but between the climate and the pee smell, I could never live here.
• Wind came in and cooled everything off late yesterday. Unfortunately it just moved the pee smell around.
• This morning I'm going to go see the Sci-Fi film block at 9AM, then figure out the rest of my day. What could there possibly be to do at the largest sci-fi/fantasy convention in the US?