Changes

As you can see, I've made some upgrades to the look - decided that there had to be better looking templates than what I was using... sure enough. Plus, I can put links to the side, although I lose the direct e-mail link. Oh well. If you're interested, you'll get in touch.

This was prompted by EBeth's comments (Hi there!) and anyone else that might end up here. I'm more than motivated to do something with this blog, but as to what that may exactly be - well, there's the rub, isn't it?

When I was putting out the paper namesake of this blog, there were lots of things said about 'the zine revolution' about the sense of community it fostered... Granted, I've been lucky to have met lots of interesting people (some of whom I still keep in touch with), the one drawback being that we all tend to exhibit the same traits - a marked lack of wacky adventures of those of our ilk, and a tendency towards isolation.

Not that there's anything wrong with that - if we seem to be a surly bunch to the majority of the world, it merely means that we've learned to keep our mouths shut about the really good stuff. If you're lucky enough to be having threesomes with disease free, athletic and relatively mentally stable people, you don't want to trumpet it out to the world, which will come down with the Hammer and have you as fodder for Dr. Phil, Oprah and Maury - keep your mouth shut and enjoy yourself... or selves.

In other words, don't expect anything too juicy here yet.

But I'll try to make this work to at least my satisfaction - hopefully others out there will like some of it.

Silent Speed Film Festival

For those of you in Seattle, or if you have film-loving friends/relatives in Seattle - the Silent Speed Film Festival is a venue for Super-8 films and one of my Super-8 shorts, TWIN PEEKS AT LAURA (the title is a pun) will screen this Friday, 7/29 just after 7:20pm, or so it says on the schedule.

It's a 5 1/2 minute "visit with a close friend in Seattle in the early 90's and the cultural touchstones of the time." all to the music of The Pixies and Angelo Badalamenti.

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...

SONG OF THE DEAD in Kansas City 3/31/05

The zombie musical comedy screens as part of the Comedy Arts Festival in KC, currently going on. I'm doing the pre-talk with filmmakers Chip Gubera, James Robert Swope and Gene Ertel at 6:15pm tonight at the Westport Coffee House in KC.

Their production company, ShowMe Pictures, has updated their site with nifty pix, and new stuff, like the trailer for SOTD. Keep your eyes open for it to screen near your town sometime soon.

You're going to Hell if you laugh...

...but it's hard not to. Fucking Brilliant, whoever created it.

Terri Schivo's Blog

"Topeka, KS - We Hate Everybody, Not Just Fags"


The above was my proposal for a new city slogan, but I didn't make first cut, apparently.

The Time Magazine piece is fairly brutal, but pretty truthful. Take some time to read the printed version; the online version is abridged.

SONG OF THE DEAD

Poster for the MO Theatre benefit in Columbia, Mo