Notes
from Austin Volume 2 #37
LODGER's
Notes
Well, it's been a couple weeks since I put together a
"Notes from Austin" and in that time, a lot has happened.
Most importantly, I lost one of my best friends in the
world. I had only known John Christensen for about a year
and only become one of his circle of friends within the
past 10 months or so. John had a light about him. He was
a beacon. He came home with new people all the time. I
met so many close and dear friends through him. I cannot
believe he is gone. I don't think my life can ever be
the same.
John was just starting to get noticed in the Austin
film scene. He had done work on local films and student
shorts for years. He was beginning to get featured work
in some big budget films in town. (John would shake
his finger at me if I called him an "extra." He was
"featured.") He had just been in a short scene in "Where
the Heart Is" or whatever that Ashley Judd Wal-Mart
baby film was. He has a speaking role in the upcoming
Jam Pictures film "The Duo" and was an extra in "Miss
Congeniality." He is supposed to be featured in the
new Jesse James film "American Outlaws" and had just
shot some work in "The New Guy," the new DJ Qualls film,
in the last week or so.
John's biggest upcoming part, however, is in Richard
Linklater's computer animated DV feature "Waking Life."
He plays the "Social Lubricator," a role that he was
seemingly destine to play. John talked about working
with "Rick" and how the director worked with actors
to get dialogue and plot that reflected their true characteristics.
His role as the Social Lubricator came out of talking
to Rick and improvising some dialogue with Wiley Wiggins.
Later, Rick incorporated much of this improved dialogue
into the script. I have a feeling this will be a role
that could have catapulted John to real acclaim. He
was perfect for it. It will be so hard for me to watch
it now.
John leaves behind so many friends and admirers. He
was so rare, so unique. We clicked almost instantly
the first time we hung out. As was his wont, he invited
me to come hang out at his apartment on a weekend night
when he was having a little get together. Through him,
I have met numerous Austin and Texas filmmakers and
actors. And good, good friends. Mark Brauner, Trish
the Dish, Bob Dude Bob, Bunny, Ryan... and so many more.
John died due to a stupid, stupid accident. I knew
that I cared for him and loved him. I did not know how
truly deep my love was until I lost him. If only I could
hug him one more time and feel his radiance beam upon
me. He was a light. A star.
I don't know how life will ever be the same....
This "Notes from Austin" is dedicated to John Christensen.
Who still is teaching me, even today, what a joyous
and precious gift life in Austin truly is...
Saturday the 9th was John's funeral. It was strange because
he had planned a wine and cheese party, something he did
often, for that date. I had planned to go to Mexico during
the day with my friends Jan and Mary and then come to
John's party that night. John, Mark Brauner and I had
talked of going to Mexico often but now I'll never get
to make that trip with John. I had also wanted to go to
Wimberly with John and his friends. It was something of
a tradition within the circle. I had never made the time
to go. Now I was going to Wimberly to see John one last
time.
I was still in a state of denial. (I still am). I
don't normally like open caskets but I thought if I
saw John one last time and knew for a fact it was all
true, I could accept his death. I still, in the back
of my mind - at that place that is so close to insanity,
thought that maybe it was all just a terrible joke.
John would be waiting there with Mark greeting his friends
and laughing at us, telling us he knew it was the only
way to get everyone together. I would be angry at him
for a few minutes but eventually we would all be laughing
about it. It was a childish, silly, unrealistic, hope
of denial. And it was, of course, not true.
I got to the funeral home and greeted friends gathered.
I went inside to see John. I didn't want to go up to
the casket, just see him, out of the corner of my eye,
from a distance, just enough to prove to me it was all
true. I did this. I still didn't believe it. I didn't
break down. Why can I not accept John's death. It is
so senseless and so unfathomable. It is not true.
I wanted to be alone. To grieve. But funerals aren't
about being alone. They are a gathering of friends to
grieve and to celebrate a life. I tried to hide around
a corner but friends came to console me and make sure
I was okay. So much love and friendship. It was selfish
of me to want to be alone.
So many friends there. Trish the Dish, Sausage, Naked
Dan, Ryan, Patrick, Matt (and the Lube TV Arkestra),
Vassily Fedyaev (the Russian filmmaker now living in
Houston), Bob Dude Bob, John Marshall and Bubbles, Brooks
(whom I had never met before), Jules the Dancing Bear,
Alan Campbell, and so many others. People I hadn't really
known. Tim, John's brother and his friends, and other
folks related to John. His life touched so many people.
The service was a full house. SRO.
Thank God for Mark Brauner. Funerals are so awful
and the ministers are generally pretty ignorant of the
deceased. The minister here was pretty lame. But Mark
found the strength to get up and eulogize our friend.
It was perfect, loving and honest and so much in the
spirit of John. It said for all of us what needed to
be said. It made us remember our friend vividly. It
made us feel okay to laugh and cry and love. I miss
John. I miss that voice. I miss that huge smile. I miss
those big arms around me, hugging me, saying hello.
"Lodger, dude... Fun rules!" I miss my Johnny. We became
so close so quickly. We clicked. We liked the same movies
and music and stuff. Now there is no time left to get
to know him completely. So much of Johnny is now a mystery
to me. In the selfishness of drinking, having fun and
partying, a chance to really sit and talk with John
eluded me. I didn't make it happen. I didn't try hard
enough to get to know him well. We were having too much
fun for that. Still, this is how John would have wanted
it. Me to. "Fun rules." And we had so much fun together.
After the service, I wanted to talk to John. His casket
was know closed. So many people went up, to see the
pictures laid upon the casket, to speak with John's
family, to show their love. I just wanted a moment alone
with John, to tell him how much I loved him. Every time
I went up to the casket, someone else was there or would
come up. I waited until the church was almost empty
and then walked back up to John. Words wouldn't come.
This wasn't John in the casket, just his body. John
was everywhere, his spirit all around me. I didn't have
to say I loved him out loud. I felt it. He knows it.
He is everywhere around me.
The rest of the day was spent going to an impromptu
lunch for John where about 30-40 people showed up, taking
over a Mexican restaurant and having a good time talking
and sharing. Then we all went to Pioneer town, a little
resort on the water in Wimberly that was a hang-out
for John and his crowd. So many traditions to keep alive.
We partied and talked and remembered and had fun. "Fun
rules!" All John ever wanted to do was "lubricate the
social environment," and his complete skill in this
endeavor was obvious if you just look around you. All
his friends were together, so many people from so many
different place and so many different walks of life,
all having fun, talking, sharing, crying, loving one
and other, comforting each other, taking care of each
other. The Great Social Lubricator had done his job.
We must now continue his work. Loving friends, meeting
new people, opening up to them, not judging them. John
never judged anyone... well, at least as much as that
was humanly possible. Like all men he had his frailties
and his flaws, but overall he lead a life of happiness
and giving to others. He brought people together. Now,
without him, the cohesive force, I wonder if we can
remain together. I wonder what the future hold for us.
We came together one last time in Wimbo. So many friends,
so many walks of life, so many people with their own
jobs and problems and projects. Can we stay together.
I miss my Johnny. I am selfish. I want him back. I
want him here. No God or heaven could need him as much
as we need him here. Driving home from Wimberly in the
night, in the dark, it was foggy and drizzled. The rain
made it so hard to see my way, so hard to find a path.
I could have gotten lost. Thankfully, John's friend
Alan Campbell, perhaps the biggest misfit in our group,
perhaps the most misunderstood among us, lead the way,
driving ahead of me, lighting a path and leading me
home safely - through the fog and the drizzle of rain.
And now the regular edition of "Notes from Austin..."
I got to see the one woman show about Elenaor Roosevelt
at the Paramount while it was in town. The piece was a
sort-of dream project for Jean Stapleton, who, of course,
played Edith Bunker some 20 years ago on "all in the Family."
I have always had an affinity for Stapleton, especially
as Edith Bunker. All of my morals and ethics, in fact,
come as much from my mother and father as they do from
Norman Lear. I think "All in the Family" was the first
TV show that actually reinforced all the things my parents,
especially my mother, were trying to teach me.
Anyway, the "Eleanor" show was okay but nothing special.
There were a lot of lesbians in attendance, since Roosevelt
has kinda become a lesbian icon over the years. The
show tried to have some emotional impact but Stapleton
was obviously having a bad night the performance I witnessed.
She got lost, dropped lines, stumbled over dialogue
and even put a cough drop or mint in her mouth mid performance.
The piece never seemed to gain any real momentum and
although a couple of passages became quite interesting
and heart wrenching, it was never the drop-dead bang
that the piece was aiming for.
Still, I love Stapleton and I loved seeing her live
on stage at the Paramount. Even the venue's uncomfortable
narrow seats, lack of leg room, steep balcony altitude
and pack-em-in attitude didn't keep me out.
I have begun previewing films for SXSW. As opposed to
AFF, as opposed to any film festival I've ever seen, SXSW
is a pretty well oiled machine. It is far to organized
and sterile. Angela, the film programmer who has accepted
me as a film previewer, seems to be much of the impetus
behind this. It's going to be interesting to see how this
all plays out as it seems there may be more of a group
effort to help finalize the film's picked than there was
at AFF.
Okay. I'm addicted to webcams. About 3 or 4 years ago,
I began to watch a cam that a young man named Nick had
put up in his room. Nick did not do anything sexual or
strip or anything. He did appear shirtless occasionally.
But mainly, he just sat in his room, studied, played guitar,
listened to music, watched TV and slept. Over the summer,
I watched Nick evolve from a geeky teenager into a self-assured
goth rocker who painted his nails black, bought a black
trench coat and got contact lenses. I think much of his
self assurance came from the fact that he got tons of
mail from people (males and females) assuring him he was
attractive. Nick also had "Question of the Day" and other
a mailing list that allowed the visitors to his site to
communicate with one and other and discuss topics. Longfellow
said, "a boy's will is the wind's will" and Nick typified
this. His topics of discussion varied from sexual matters
to politics, entertainment and philosophy.
After the summer, Nick shut down the cam saying it
was getting "boring" and I often wondered if the constant
intrusiveness coupled by the "insane" element of viewers
that could become fixated on the young man expedited
this "boredom." Was it possible that he had a stalker
or someone becoming to obsessive about him? Or had he
become attractive and assured so much that he did not
want the constant eyes upon him. With the return to
school, had Nick's peers found out about his bold openness
and taunted him about it? Any number of hypothesis could
be true but it seems just as likely that Nick did indeed,
in his youthful brooding and increased sociological
understanding of the world, become bored.
The webcams I watch now are generally at www.camarades.com.
These cams vary from those, like Nick's, that are in
people's houses, to cams in businesses, weather cams,
traffic cams, and school cams. There are shots of neighborhoods
through windows, family pets in their habitat and cars
in the garage (security cams?) Through the mechanism
set up by camarades, you can view six thumbnails at
a time of live cams and opt to look for more or to open
up a webpage with the cam. It can be fascinating.
What is most odd and exciting about the cams is the
sexual voyeurism they provide. The main idea here seems
to be finding someone on cam you are attracted to and...
watching. Sometimes nothing happens, sometimes not.
These cams, the ones with live people on them, are
generally operated by males. Females do have cams but
it is rare. Male heterosexual viewers will find real
frustration here. The male cam owners, it seems, are
about 50/50 heterosexual and gay. Many of the straight
guys have messages on their sites explaining they are
heterosexual and asking for mail, IM's and chats only
from females. Some are blatantly rude with comments
like "No Fags" in their descriptions. But for every
one of these there are 10 who explain themselves politically
correctly by saying they are "not gay" and "never will
be gay" and only want to talk to females. This leads
one to speculate on what kind of mail and messages these,
generally, young men received before they put up such
messages. It makes one wonder if some of them haven't
been pushed to a limit by gay male viewers who ask them
to do sexual things. Of course, some guys can't even
take a compliment from another man, such as "you are
attractive" without getting bent out of shape, but overall
I'm inclined to believe that many male viewers who write
the cam ops are overly bold and demanding.
In addition to the primary sexual tension and (general)
frustration that webcams can provide, they also offer
a unique opportunity to view people in their habitats.
We feel like invited guests into a strangers home. Is
it messy? Are their pictures or posters on the wall?
What is the object of the cam wearing? Are their other
people present? Are their pets? Although the niche of
webcams generally is taken advantage of by white, upper
to middle class young men, there is an increasing number
of ethnic minorities and middle class operators. (Camarades,
by the way, features webcams from all over the world
with The Netherlands being one of the most popular points
of origin as well as the ubiquitous United States).
With the popularity of the internet expanding into the
common market place and web cams becoming increasingly
cheap and obtainable, more and more people seem to be
opening up their homes to us.
Some guys (cause I really only watch guys) do nothing
on their cams. They sit and work at their computers.
Often just watching an attractive person be themselves
can be quite engrossing. Others seem to be exhibitionist
ranging from those who do commit sexual acts on cam
to those who appear shirtless, flex, show of their body
parts, waistbands and other non-sexual areas (feet,
for example).
And then there are the rare exceptions, those who
actually perform for the cam. Not sexually, but humorously.
In addition to those who simply mug for the camera,
one can occasionally find someone putting on a "show"
for his or her viewers. Webcam operators often write
messages on paper and flash them to the audience. Since
most cams do not have sound, we are returned to an era
of silent film when title cards either help explained
stories or provided humorous commentary. A young man
named Chris who recently got a cam wears wigs, plays
with his collectible dolls (He seems most interested
in "Star Wars" and "The Simpsons"), and puts up hilarious,
oft times absurdist, comments via his hand written messages
ranging from "I'm in love with my shoelaces" to "Canadians
suck." His purpose seems as much to entertain himself
as it is to entertain us as it is obvious he too is
watching his cam on the Internet and mugging for himself
as often as he does for us. But this odd, introspective,
Narcissistic and exhibitionist display becomes "entertainment"
nonetheless. His "shows" have made me laugh out loud
and I find myself checking his cam more and more often
even though it is obvious there is only a minute sexual
factor at play. He is very cute but never seems to be
interested in expressing himself sexually on a cam.
Web cams continue to fascinate me. For many guys (and
girls) they seem to be a way to promote self-assurance
and body image. One new web cam operator even commented
in chat, after being complimented, "I should have gotten
one of these years ago. It's great for my ego." Of course,
the opposite can happen as well with an ever increasing
audience discovering the cams. Who is watching will
become more and more important, as important as why
we watch.
In all of this, Andy Warhol's visionary comment that
"In the future, everybody will be famous for 15 minutes"
seems increasingly more true. But even more interesting
is the Warholian aspect of webcams where we watch people
commit the most kinetic and seeming non-kinetic of activities.
We watch them, like an early Warhol film, as they eat,
drink, stare into space, and, most obviously, sleep.
It's a fascination of watching the static lifelessness
of life as it goes on it's day to day drudgery. It's
about more than just eating, sleeping, masturbating
or simply staring into space. It is ultimately about
death. And the expending of time itself.
Dude, I saw Hobble at the Ritz a few days back. They played
upstairs with Excess Lettuce. Oriah dressed up like a
nerd with a sweater and glasses yet rocked the house and
eventually ended up shirtless, of course. One of the most
fun shows I've seen them do in a while.
I got the new U2 CD a few days ago. I had heard the song
"Beautiful Day" a few times and I really liked it, plus
I have most of U2's stuff, so I wanted this new one. It's
so world weary. Within the context of the album even the
single sounds almost like a last gasp. Suddenly it feels
like even Bono is attempting to convince himself that
it is indeed a beautiful day.
Okay, I know traffic and the freeways in Houston suck,
but I will give them this: The know how to make a level
road. Driving through the streets of Austin is like driving
on a roller coaster. It's crazy. My shocks and struts
are shot. This town will reek havoc on your tires, axles,
undercarriage and the like. I don't think they know how
to grate dirt and level it into a decent roadway. At first,
I just thought this was the old roads, but even the new
ones like Todd Road and others are piss-poor throughways
full of dips and bumps. It's ludicrous. Is Kirk Watson
getting a kickback on these thing or something. Someone
needs to look into this. I talked to Karrie at the Alamo
Drafthouse the other day and we were looking at some of
the upcoming films. "Chinese Torture Chamber Story" comes
highly recommended by her. I saw a trailer for this film
when I went to "God of Cookery" a few weeks back. It has
wire-fu sex acts. You don't get that every day! I had
heard a rumor that Robert Zemeckis' new film, the Tom
Hanks vehicle "Castaway" was 3 to 4 hours long. U had
heard people call it Zemeckis' art film and heard talk
that it had a whole hour in the center of the film with
no dialogue. The latest solid info I have seen is that
the film will probably run about 140 minutes (2hrs, 20).
The stupid trailer for the film even tells you that Hanks
gets off the island after four years. Is there really
any reason to see it now?
Tim the Wonder Horse has got a new computer and is using
it to throw down some beats and try and work on some music.
He's also using samples of some of his friends musical
stuff to put together some tracks. He invited me over
the other day to check it out but I've just been to damn
busy.
Tim also got a gig as an extra in "the New Guy." He's
going to be playing one of the football players, I believe.
Monday night, I went to Casinos. I was supposed to meet
Kelly there cause he had never had one of their burgers.
I got there and the men's room had flooded the hallway.
It was a mess. Ivan was working his butt of trying to
get it taken care of. Monica did a shot with me and we
talked about Lube TV as she has seen an episode of it
where I was guesting. Monica also told me that she has
a band called Wall of Sound (www.wallofsound.com) and
that they are working on a Cd that should be out sometime
in January. I'm going to have to go check them out sometime.
Anyway, Kelly came but they wouldn't let him in cause
they were thinking of closing so they weren't going
to let in any new people until they were sure. Some
guy I didn't really know was working the door. I'm sure
I could have asked Ivan and he would have said okay,
but I didn't want to be "that guy." Also the kitchen
was right by the flood, so chances of getting a burger
anytime soon seemed highly unlikely.
We walked to the Ritz and went in a had a drink and
played some pinball. I had never been in the downstairs
at the club before. It smelled like piss. We ended up
going to this place called "Buffalo Wild Wings" for
food. It was pretty decent but the place was like some
kind of frat boy hang out. They were watching Monday
Nigh Football and there were actually people there who
cared who won. Really!
The Texas Film Network, which is run by Brandon Howe and
a pal of his named Ray, put together a sneak preview of
"13 Days," the new Kevin Costner flick, on Tuesday. They
gave out T-shirts and other stuff. The thing was sponsored
by some company called something like Price Cooper Waterhouse
or something. They ran the most corporate and dorky 5
minute commercial before the film. It was one of those
pitches where they try to convince you that "Were not
corporate!" but they do so in a manner that is so corporate
and false it makes you ill. I couldn't even tell you what
these sell-outs do for a business. Is it some sort of
Internet marketing scheme or what?
At least Brandon had gotten this really funny girl
named Michelle to open up the screening. She did about
15 minutes and cracked me up! She says she plays the
Velveeta Room a lot. I'll have to try and find out who
she is and when I can see her again. I laughed my ass
off.
And that's a wrap for this week. Fun Rules! Lodger2000
Austin
Film and Entertainment News:
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Austin films, actors,and directors, as well as info about
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