#17

INCLUDES

Casino el Camino

I (heart) Video

Rich and Kelly

"The Messenger"

Clockwork Orange at the Alamo Draft House

"Dogma" sneak

"Sleepy Hollow" ticket hunt

Monday night, I went out to Casino El Camino. On Monday's, the owner, Casino, DJ's and plays retro new wave/punk stuff. He started the night with some song by the Jam that I'd never heard and so I talked to him a bit about it. Later, after I got good and drunk, he played some Bowie and then a song that sounded exactly like "The Jean Genie" but older. I went up to him and asked and he said it was "Oh Yeah," by the Dark Knights. They also did a cover of "Gloria," which he played. It was cool.

Left pretty drunk and went to I (heart) video looking for "Chasing Amy," which was checked out already. So I went to the gay stuff and rented a video put out by Something Weird in Seattle which distributes all kind of underground retro films. They specialize in the sort of "Pink Pussycat" videos and stuff like that. Grindhouse, when grindhouse used to mean "bump and grind" and not gore. Although Something Weird has Russ Meyer and Herschell Gordon Lewis stuff as well as Ed Wood, Johnny Legend and Bucky Beaver. All sorts of 60's loops and such. They have a few "gay" themed retro films and these are generally referred to as the "Third Sex Sinema" videos. I rented a video with two shorts and a feature. They were odd and awkward and so naive. What a weird and wonderful and strange and confusing legacy gay film has. These were definitely from that era that sprung from "Glenn or Glenda" and lead into "Boys in the Band."

Went to Rich and Kelly's, even tho it was late, and their lights were out. I didn't knock and was going to leave when Kelly popped out and invited me in. I spent the next two hours presenting myself as a rambling drunk to them and they still were quite gracious and nice. Rich was playing with a microcassette player and got a little annoying and Kelly was in an odd mood, but it was I who popped in uninvited at 2am, so I guess I have no room to judge. I felt like we talked about a lot of interesting stuff. But, overall, I was just a slobbering drunk. Hopefully, they will forgive me for being so intrusive.

Tuesday, I slept late, watched my "Third Sex" video, and then went and paid some bills. Tim came over after work to borrow my camcorder, as he is going to shoot some stuff with Rich and Kelly tonight. We talked for a long time about "The Messenger," which he saw a sneak preview of. He had mixed feelings about it, thinking it was long and went in too many desperate angles. He explained some of it to me, since I do not plan on seeing it, and it seemed sort of a mixed bag. Apparently, though, Dustin Hoffman is quite good in it, even if he only shows up at the end for a few minutes.

Was late going to go to the Brandon Teena story for AGLIFF but I was running late and then couldn't find anyplace close to park to The Ritz, so cursed the lousy traffic and then fought through it to come home and write.

Went to see "A Clockwork Orange" at Alamo. The service was pretty slow and the film had some scratches. I like to sit close but at the Alamo, this means you have the only speakers in the place blaring at you. It got a bit annoying. Anyway - it was weird how great Kubrick's futuristic masterpiece is and it's still quite ahead-of-it's-time. And also right on the money in some of it's prophecy. It's a great film.

Went to I (heart) Video and rented "Chasing Amy. So, I got to see all 3 major Kevin Smith films before the sneak of "Dogma."

Wednesday, Went with my friend Tim to see "Dogma" at the Metropolitan. The theater is huge and plush and comfortable and new. The film ran well only slipping out of digital a few times. Harry Knowles' crew was there (sans Harry). 101X gave out shit in a sloppy display of their usual amateur quality. It was all pretty dreary, except for the rocking ass film.

Saw one of my friends waiting in line for the sneak with his girlfriend and said "hi." He seemed to "cold shoulder" me. This left me upset and unsure of myself for the rest of the evening. Perhaps I am better off being alone and not around people. I don't generally understand others. Sometimes I just don't fit in well. And, being a "people pleaser," yet refusing to not be myself for any reason, I am generally left unhappy and unsatisfied in relationships and friendships. I simply will not pretend to be something I'm not for anyone or for any reason. Ah... the old phrase that always makes me feel better: Fuck 'em.

Thursday night, after hell day at work, Rich invited me over to help him work on a title sequence for the video project he is doing called "The Paul Collection." He had some interesting set-up to make the arty title cards. We worked on this a bit and also on title-ing some of his short films. Mostly, however, what we did was talk. This was the first time I had ever been on my own with Rich. He's a really great guy. Spent about 3 hours there where we actually accomplished very little "real" work. Still, I had a great time.

Friday was a hard and long day as well, so I came home after work and zonked for 14 hours. It's my only night off til after Monday, but I was just too tired to do anything. Didn't seem to be a whole lot to do. Alamo has "The Outsiders" for it's film this weekend. Dobie has "Pink Flamingos." Seen both of them.

I have zero desire to see the new "Pokemon" movie but my morbid curiosity may get the best of me. My mom didn't help when she sent me an e-mail that described it as... "if Ed Wood made a cartoon..."

The moon... oh the moon. The moon must be in a funky place for me because, these past few days, without a doubt, have been the worst days I have had since moving to Austin. Perhaps it's a residual funk I'm getting from reading Richard Hell's novel "Go Now." It's an awesome book but it definitely drags you through some muck and mire... in a poetic way, of course. Perhaps it's the moon. Perhaps karma. Things have been so exemplary here for 4 months, I guess there had to be some down time. Regardless, life this week was lame. More than that though, it was exhausting, depressing, degrading and sad. The kinda week that makes me want to dig a big ass hole in the ground, crawl in, and cover myself up. Throw in the towel... The kind of week that makes me lose all faith in my fellow man.

Saturday, Sunday and Monday continued to be abysmal days at work. My boss is on vacation and my co-workers have taken advantage of this in ways not even remotely comprehendible by myself. It's been like Peyton Place and a Bergman film and a Klan meeting all wrapped into one. It's been a freaking head-twisting nightmare....

Saturday, went with my friend Tim to try and get passes to the "Sleepy Hollow" sneak preview. They were available via the Austin Chronicle at Alligator Grille at 2pm. The address was listed as East 6th... Well... I knew I had never seen an "Alligator Grille" on East 6th, but this town is so strange I thought perhaps I was wrong. We get there and the address is for a little shop called Vertigo. The girl behind the counter was very nice and told us the Alligator Grille was at Manchaka and Lamar. Well, of course, we had no idea where that was exactly, but that didn't stop us. We got on Ben White, then drove south on Manchaka (or however the hell you spell it, say it?) and drove forever before we stopped and asked and found out that it was north to the intersection, not south. So we turned around and drove to the intersection, then drove another 5 minutes finding the Alligator Grille. There were people milling about and we had to sign a list for the passes. This was about 1:15pm. There were 4 pages of signatures. When the guy came at 2:00pm to give away the tickets he told us he had 45 passes. What a fucking rip-off. Un-fucking-believable. So, of course, we didn't get any.

Now... Who can you blame?... The Chronicle published the address wrong, but it is a free magazine and the passes are free. Because of them we wasted lotsa time and lotsa gas and came away empty handed. Also - why sign a list? If the passes are to be given away at 2pm - then give them away at 2pm. What's this "signing a list" shit? This was just a horrible mess. I know how this goes. The Chronicle has either sold ad space to Alligator Grille, or in an effort to woo them, have given them free space to show them how their advertising attracts a crowd. Either way, the only commercial entity I can blame is the Alligator Grille. So you can bet your ass I will never eat in that place ever! That will teach them!

Why do they even give away free passes to movies like "Sleepy Hollow" or "Dogma" anyway? The only people who get anything out of this is the movie company who gets free advertising. Well, I can see this for small movies like "Light It Up" or "Anywhere But Here." These film need all the advertisement and word-of-mouth they can get. But by giving me a free pass to "Dogma," all they really did was take 7 bucks out of Kevin Smith's pocket (Okay, and Lion's Gate and the other people with points or whatever)... I guarantee you 90% of those who got in free were going to pay the $7 anyway. It's a waste of money - money that could be in their pockets. Stupid, really.

Of course, people with their own websites dedicated to movies should get in free anyway.... But not the rest of these slackers...

Monday night was punk retro night at Casino El Camino again. Casino himself did not DJ, some younger groover did and he was pretty lame. Lotsa rag-tag songs that bounced between old guitar-ladden rock, retro hip-hop, Dicky Dale wannabee stuff... just a collection of junk, really. He even played some modern stuff, like Marilyn Manson. It was rather drab. At the end of the night, however, he did start playing some retro wave and even played Bowie's "Moonage Daydream," redeeming the night from total boredom. Well, there was one other nice diversion: A youngster in a leather jacket with longish jet-black hair. He or she could have been Patti Smith's little nephew. Or, then again, someone who listened to a lot of Slash and Guns'N'Roses in high school who is now older and wiser. I'm pretty sure, but not 100% positive, that it was a guy. Whatever it was, it was divine and beautiful and real and, of this I am sure, full of tiny surprises. (They we playing some stupid movie I couldn't see on TV and he laughed at one point and his face laughing suddenly was like the gates of heaven just as suddenly being thrown open).

Tuesday, I slept late and went movie bumming. Saw "Being John Malkovich" at Tinseltown and the Shohei Imamura film, "The Pornographers" at the Alamo. They are showing films by this director every Tuesday for the next few weeks, until Christmastime. Also, got a copy of the Alamo's "winter" schedule, through the beginning of January. Nothing really interesting going on, it seems. They are getting new seats in December.

Also - Harry Knowles birthday is coming up and they are having a 24 hour movie-thon at the Alamo. It cost 5 bucks to get in and then you have to pay to leave early too. The earlier you leave, the more it costs. (Isn't this against the law somehow? Like kidnapping or something? I'm so cheap that if I wanted to leave, I'd start a fire so they would had to evacuate the place). All the money goes to charity, so that's nice. I would go but I am not sitting in the Alamo's old chairs for 24 hours. No way. Also - Harry's favorite movie genres and mine are miles apart. I could only watch so many old Japanese monster flicks. Well, not even one really - before I ran screaming into the street. Even if Linklater and Tarantino (or whoever) were there. I bet they don't have to pay to leave early!

Wednesday. Went to the Village Arts and saw Harmony Korine's new film, "julien donkey-boy." Afterwards,, went to Waterloo records to see what they had offer. I still feel Cheapo's is a better used record store. Anyway, mid-way through my shopping, when they were playing some sort of cover of Iggy's "Nightclubbing," someone kept turning on some noise-maker electronic gizmo on the little stage there. Eventually a guy got up and talked some nonsense before introducing what was, without a doubt, the most awful performer I have ever seen in my life. Her name was Meg Lee Chin, although she didn't look Asian. She had pink hair in ponytails like some pretentious Bjork rip-off kid. Except, of course, she looked about 35. She sang to some prerecorded electronic crap in a cacophonous voice that would kill pigeons. Worse yet, but at least amusing, was her dialogues between songs which were so ironic as to be hilarious. After one song, she said, "That was exhausting." She had no idea how exhausting and infuriating it was to be on the other side of the stage. She, to put it bluntly, sucked. One of her songs had a title like, "God turned ape into man in 30 minutes and that wasn't hard work at all" or something silly like that. Whew. I still have the stink of her on my clothes. Then, after about 5 songs or so, if you could call them songs, the guy who introduced her got up and started doing his stuff, which was exactly like hers except without all the feminine idiocy. She was like a bad Bjork. He was like a bad beat poet trying to be Leonard Cohen. It was god-awful. I got my used Nina Simone CD and split outta there quick.