So, of course, the night before the festival, I had to have a respite. I went to Elysium down on Red River for Retro night, Resurrection Wednesday, and hung out and drank and got sloppy. This was, of course, after "Lube TV" aired.

The music was really awesome with tunes like Talk Talk's "It's My Life," Peter Murphy's "Cuts You Up" and lots of other random new wave music played. This was a little bit different than the normal Bauhaus and Cure and Siouxie songs that generally make up a Goth oldies night at Elysium. There were a lot of songs that I really liked and haven't heard for a while, so that was cool.

Some chick came up to me and asked me if I ever felt like a ballerina when I dance and how she felt like she was on stage dancing and then asked me if I'd ever seen "Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion," which, of course, I have not. I smiled and didn't say much to her and she said, "I'm really, really drunk" and then bounded back to the dance floor.

You see, all night I was pulling that "I'm too cool for you. I'm distant. I'm so above the rest of you" vibe (while also lip-singing to The Smith's "How Soon is Now") and the ladies really like that. They respect power and pomposity in a male. That's why the Ladies Love Lodger! Guys are intimidated by it. The smell the power and they fear it! That's why the guys never hook up with me. It's fear, man.

I got plastered on Hard Core Cider and closed the place down, went home and crashed.

Thursday at noon, Web, my cohort in crime here at Filethirteen, my Web-master, called to tell me he was in town. I got up, showered, shit and shaved and met him at my front door 20 minutes after his call. Lodger has to be ready to rock on a moments notice.

We went down to the Omni to pick up our festival badges and get registered On the way into the Omni, we saw Janeanne Garofalo, J-Lo and Joe Buck from "Midnight Cowboy." (Perhaps they were imposters hired by AFF to make the fest seem more prestigious!) We go into the Omni to find the registration area but the Omni was empty, practically. We saw the AFF screening room at the Omni, but there was no place to register. We went to the concierge to see if he knew anything about it and, lo and behold, it was Stacy Keech at the desk. I guess times are tough. I thought that "Titus" money would have helped him out but I guess he drank it all away.

Ryan also told me that when he heads back to the West Coast, he'll be shooting a short film over the next two weekends. It's a silent, 5 minute thing set in Vietnam which he will be shooting somewhere in Malibu. I just love that he's doing the fest thing going back to LA and directly beginning to shoot a film. How cool.

We finally went in to register and Web had no problems. Ryan had no trouble as well. But, of course, they could not find my packet. We talked to several volunteers before they finally got me the head of Registration or something. He seemed very unconcerned. I explained all of my problem to him, which led him to say, rather smugly, "So, basically, you don't exist." That kinda pissed me off.

See, part of the problem is that I have only one name, Lodger. No first name, no last name, just Lodger. You know, like Cher or Madonna. Anyway, there was also a problem because I am both a screener for the fest, a volunteer, and a member of the press. They couldn't figure out how to help me. Finally, when they looked and looked and could find nothing, they called Lisa, the AFF Film Programmer. She was across the street at the Driskoll and told them she would be right over.

A few minutes later, we met her outside and she walked right up to the mass of packets, went right to the front of the very first one and said, "Here it is." I should have told them that I was probably in a special place, like at the front of all the packets. Don't they know me? Lisa was a little perturbed that they couldn't find my packet as easily as she had and asked me, "Who helped you?" Not wanted to make a scene, I said that pretty much everybody had looked.

So, I got registered and then Web and I decided to go to Hut's and have a burger. Web was suppose to meet up with this guy he met online on a screenwriter's site. See, Web and his brother Stubby have been writing some scripts together and putting them up on Zoetrope's site and even Project Greenlight, I think. Web told me about a script they worked on, a black comedy about a killer group of cattle, called "The Herd." They have some hilarious taglines already thought up and I'm thinking that we just go to Park City with three posters using the taglines and stand on a street corner with these posters with their prominent taglines and wait for the money to roll in. These things are awesome. Okay, I'll give you one. "Udder Terror." Huh… huh…. Hehehe That's fucking funny.

At Hut's the pretty boy who waited on me last time (when I hadn't cleaned up, see the most recent "Notes from Austin") came over and seated us. He is just as sweet and cute as you can imagine. He even dug my cool checkered Vans. Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention those. I bought this cool set of checkered Vans, Jeff Spicolli style, at Tegknar on MLK a couple of weeks ago. $35.00 and worth every penny.

Anyway, the cutie Hut's guy talked to us for a second before and older and even more gay waiter came over and nearly knocked him out of the way. I thought there might be a catfight or whatever, but little cutie knew his place and resigned himself to it. Poor hottie. We ate and Bobby from "Twin Peaks" came and sat at a table a few seats away from us. We also picked up a new Chronicle. (Why isn't AFF on the cover?)

Went back to the Filethirteen Studios, now dubbed Lodg Angeles by Web, and set up Web's computer so we could rock F13 all weekend. At 5 or so, we went down to the Copper Tank for one of the opening night parties. Something crazy happened. Web got out of the car where we parked on Trinity. He had his keys on his lap and when he got out of the car, his keys slipped off his lapped and dropped to the street. Of course, he parked right next to a water drain and the keys fell right into it. We heard them land and it didn't sound like they feel too far. I would have panicked but Web kept a fairly cool head. I asked him if he had a coat hanger and he did, so we used a coat hanger to get the keys Web got down and stuck his arm down the drainage hole and eventually hooked the keys on the hanger and brought them up. It was really crazy. What if that drain had dropped 20 feet?

Went to the Copper Tank and there were a lot of people but the party was rather lame. No one I knew was there. But the food was really good and so we ate and had a beer and looked around for anyone interesting to talk to. There was no one.

We decided to go to the other opening night party at the hotel over by the Paramount and we drove over and parked. We walked down South Congress and I ran into my friend Jan, who is always almost first in line at every sneak here in town, and Ravkill, another web critic. They were both going to the Terry Gilliam screening at 7. Went into the party and it was packed full. Web ran into the guy he's been talking to on-line, Pete Barnstorm from www.screenplayers.net, and we chatted a bit. Some hottie chick who was some sort of hostess for the hotel came over and chatted with us too. She was gorgeous.

Okay, so I'm at the fest and, of course, I always dress up weird during the early days of the festival. I have on an orange Agliff T-shirt (from the gay film festival here in town), jeans and my checkered vans. The nails on my right hand (except the thumb) have shiny silver nail polish and I've globbed dark, black eye-liner all around my eyes. It looks ridiculous. I do this for several reasons. I like to look weird. I actually think it makes me look better. I like to look out of place. And I like to be noticed. I know there are several people who look at me and think "Who the fuck is that crazy ass weirdo!"

I'm sure the bigwigs at AFF have no idea what to make of it. In fact, Barbara Morgan, the AFF Executive Director, who started the festival I believe, passed by us and asked me, "Have you been crying?" I know she was joking but I still had to wonder what she thought of it all. We've spoken in passing, but never about anything all that important. I really, really wonder what she thinks of me. She is always very nice to me.

The film began with the new AFF2002 trailer. This was a rather goofy and humorous affair about a guy pitching his ideas to some sort of industry type. I understand there are several versions of this trailer, with different people doing pitches, but both films I saw on the first night had the same one. It was funny enough

My friend Ben Kobbs works with a local DP named JP Lipa and they shot the trailers for the fest. They look beautiful. They're very crisp and clear and the colors are really nice. I was really impressed with the trailers both for the content and the visual style. The one thing that pissed me off, however, is that all the people who worked on the trailer (a total of a few days) are listed in the AFF program in big bold print. I must have put in 200 or 300 hours screening films and I am not thanked anywhere in the program. That kinda sucks. When I screened for SXSW, they listed all the screeners in the program. Why doesn't AFF.

Here's the deal. It's really hard to get people to come to the smaller films at AFF. There are 5 films playing at once, usually, during the fest, and this film was scheduled up against the sneak of "White Oleander" at the Paramount. I had seen a sneak of "White Oleander" on Monday night, otherwise I would have been there. There was like only 20 people or so in the audience at the Westgate but by the time they got the problem solved, a ton of people had walked out. There was, maybe, 8 or 9 left. That's not good.

One thing I noticed about "Abbie Down East" was how different it looked on the big screen, and on 35mm, as opposed to the VHS screener where I first saw it. The film was beautifully shot, more colorful and more intense as a result of this. However, there were other things to consider. On the big screen, the hand-held shots were even more jerky and the matte shots and miniatures even more obvious. This wasn't even noticeable when watching it on VHS. Also, the lead actress, who plays sort of a spoiled teenage girl, seemed far more harsh (and a little bit less good) on the big screen. It was just an interesting juxtaposition to think of the film as it splayed across a giant screen on 35mm as opposed to the little TV screen in my room when I watched it on VHS.

It was after midnight by the time the film was out and we headed back to the F13 studios. Web crashed and I watched a little bit of webcams and then crashed. It's all happening!

Lodger 2002 @ AFF2002