Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008

Every one of my entries lately seems to start with me waking up. This one will be no exception.

I wake up to a pretty vile message being left on my machine. I had planned to just sleep in past it, but the message being left prompted my action, and then a swift verbal ass-kicking. I grew up as a fat kid that’s an only child; you don’t want to get into verbal warfare with me. People never learn.

Anyways, the context of this conversation has to do with the shit day I had and how it continues to streak across the kitchen floor. That’s enough of that.

Alicia had sent out the schedule for Episode 4 and there’re many problems with the first edition she put out, and she forwards me the ten emails or so that contain the conflicts. Man, I’m so glad this is out of my hands now and she’s taking care of it. I don’t think most actors realize how hard it is to schedule a show to begin with, and then how hard it is to schedule one that makes everyone happy. These episodes are a bitch to schedule to say the least.

Steve’s band has a gig coming up in August that Steve would like to have a concert DVD made to sell as merch. Great friend that I am, I can’t remember the name of the band but it’s some Celtic music type thing they throw down. Anyways, the dude’s super busy as it is, and he’s going away on a vacation where he gets to zap people in the head with electricity and watch them jism out, so he would like to have a meeting about the concert and get the ball rolling. The sooner the better.

We try to go for later on today, which is the only day that’s good for Steve. I’m good for it, and Alicia is good for it, but Bill has to work tonight, but he says he can drop by for ten minutes or so on his lunch break. Jesse, Alicias boyfriend, drops her off at my joint on his way to band practice, and I drive Alicia to Steves place to have the meeting.

Steve gives us the tour of his pad, shows us how he’s trained his cats to stand up with the wave of a hand, and shows us either his, or his wifes, impressive weapons collection. The highlight was Steve demonstrating one of his knives saying “if you get disarmed then whoof!” and he pulls another knife out of the knife. That was so awesome I can’t even describe it. A knife within a knife.

So the meeting commences with a phone call from Bill saying he can’t make the meeting after all. Once we all start talking about it, Alicia is on this project like a fat kid on a chocolate bar. This kind of sucks, because I had big plans for the gig too, but I’m willing to step down and let her run the show. I’d probably go too balls deep and too ambitious with it anyway, so it’s all hers. It’s on the 24th, and we’ll be in the middle of shooting Episode 4 when this concert comes about, so I have other things to worry about anyway. I’ll run a camera for the show, and do what I can in the prep for it.

Alicia and I get back to my place so I can lend her The Wire (greatest show on TV EVER. If you haven’t seen it, go buy the seasons RIGHT NOW), and Raging Bull, and we meet up with Sue, who I wanted to speak to about the conversation I was lucky enough to have in the morning. We all kick it for a few awhile before we take Alicia back home, and then I hop on the computer with little to do and an inkling for some editing.

I start cutting a trailer for Desolation Row, even though we’re not even done shooting it yet. My idea for a full length trailer is stifled when I realize that I don’t have a shot that I need because we haven’t shot it yet, so I just decide to go ahead and cut a teaser for it, using some Ennio Morricone music from Once Upon a Time in the West. Truthfully, I didn’t put too much work into it, I just thought I would do it for the cast and crew that have been working tirelessly, and without complaint on it. I hope they dig it when they see it.

Here it is.