Weekend in Chicago

I spent the last few days up in Chicago - and like most trips, it had good & bad moments...

I've been itching to road trip again, since having the Honda serviced earlier in the year - it was in good condition; the engine running well, despite one mechanic trying to convince me that it had a blown head gasket, when all it needed was to have the hoses replaced - I'd taken short hops in the car, but no big road test as of yet.

My friend Jon, (mentioned in the Archives previously with his film "Late Breaking News") is currently working on another documentary, about the Latin School in Chicago and it's "Nazi Mind" history class, which culminates with a simulation of the Nuremberg Trials. I was asked to help out with the filming of the simulation, and I accepted, of course.


It was a 12 hour session in one of the courtrooms in the Daley Center - some of Jon's other friends & associates were helping out as well, and it turned out to be impressive, considering that these are all high school kids doing college level work - and I sure as hell never worked as hard in college. I'm now anxious to see his cut of this sometime next year.

Things went very smoothly, which was great - I put off leaving for a day, due to the snowstorm that blanketed most of Central MO and IL. Counting up the amount of semis and cars embedded on either side of the highway between KC and Columbia, MO, that turned out to be a wise decision. However, I wasn't quite free of the weather, despite the clear highways.



The above is the result of an ice chunk blown off of a semi that I was in the process of passing, just south of Springfield, IL
Luckily, I wasn't hurt and the window stayed intact until I made it back home to KS.

LATE BREAKING NEWS - a film by Jon Knoll

Such exciting times since my last post...

I had the privilege of introducing my friend, Jon Knoll, and his documentary LATE BREAKING NEWS at the recent Kansas International Film Festival in Overland Park. I've known Jon since meeting him at SIU-C where we were film majors and have kept in touch with him through our divergent paths (me on the path of poverty fringe culture and him on the road to success in local (Chicagoland) TV). I got to see an early assemblage of LBN, followed by its premiere in Chicago in Spring of '04. Since then, he's been on the festival path, which finally paid off by getting accepted to KIFF, and CUFF (Chicago Underground Film Festival), and the Hot Springs Documentary Festival, coming up in Oct.
Hopefully, this will eventually lead to sales and its premiere on television, and more work from Jon.

Despite the early screening time (5:15pm... on a Monday), the turnout was pretty good and the audience had plenty of questions during the Q&A session afterwards. The only thing marring the experience was the sound problems during the screening... but then, what's a festival screening without some sort of technical problem?

Summertime, but the livin' ain't easy


In the midst of summer here in the heartland... if there's anyone who's periodically checking for new posts (and who's to say there's not), I should stop disappointing him or her (them, maybe?), and get back on track.
So from time to time, I will make an effort to start posting more.

A good portion of time since the last posting was spent in search of transportation. Another auto accident in April killed the Cutlass, which didn't last a year in my hands, thanks to a truck who merged into the lane I was in and didn't notice me there.

Luckily, I wasn't seriously injured...








I continue to submit LENEXA to festivals, with no success as of yet - which is frustrating, but understandable due to several artistic choices I made. But then, getting anything shown is hard... my friend Jon's documentary, LATE BREAKING NEWS is finally getting some play at the Chicago Underground Film Festival, then he'll be in the KC area for its screening at the Kansas International Film Fest in September, but this has been after a year or so of submissions and rejections. I don't have thousands of dollars riding on LENEXA's discovery by a waiting public hungry for parody/satires (thankfully), so I shouldn't complain too much.

Have recently read JONATHAN STRANGE AND MR. NORRELL, and ended up liking it, although it took getting through the first 200 pages and seriously considering putting the book aside to get to that point. Some of the writing is a bit too precious, although it does convey the mood the author, one Susanna Clark, is setting. I will admit that the payoff made up for the set-up.

Burned through Andrew Vachss new novel, TWO TRAINS RUNNING, which I enjoyed immensely - a departure from his "Burke" stories, he goes into Ellroy-type myth busting with this Postwar noir parable, with a tip of the gat to Mr. Hammett. I'm sure that those who'll have some major criticisms are the type of folks who don't like A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS either. Or YOJIMBO. Or LAST MAN STANDING... well, nobody liked that, come to think of it...