'Bred Crumbs
11.16.04
Less Than a Woman
11:20 PMIt's my birthday, and as always, I'm glad I'm not a woman.
That doesn't really have anything to do with my birthday. It's about the frelling cold I've got.
It's the end of Day 3 of the cold, the worst one I've had in a long while. It bites. I'm hot and cold at the same time. My head feels like a waffle iron. Breathing has become such an effort that I'm reconsidering the value of it. I have the raw strength of Montgomery Burns.
Then I think: Women go through pregnancy. Which is all of the above, every other day for months, plus pushing a humpback whale through a swizzle stick at the end. Not to mention that whole disgusting monthly thing the rest of the time.
Women of the world, I salute you. Except for Condaleezza Rice. She can just go suck on the oil tanker named after her.
11.15.04
CrossWalk of Fame
11:53 PM... Then my election blues were underlined by gray and rain, winter burrowing in early. Then, just about the time the sun reappeared and commanded my mood to lift, I was ambushed by the ever-pushier holidays. Mark it: this year, I'd already had my fill of Xmas by Nov. 10.
But this year I've got something to blunt the holiday edginess: new Chris Moore, The Stupidest Angel. As for the bleak political landscape, a tonic has been provided by my personal projects.
Post-production proceeds on The Point of Boxes, a mix of problems and challenges, strengths and discoveries. But lately, our prior work, CrossWalk, has come back to the fore for the moment. It started the night after the election, a surreal evening. We set out our front door to find a helicopter hovering directly overhead. Given the previous night's events, we wondered if the Morality Squad was already descending on us. But then we realized the more realistic possibility – there was probably a protest march going on. Sure enough, when we reached Market Street, we saw the sign-waving crowd moving our way, filling the street. I had an urge to join it that I wouldn't have had 24 hours before, but the temptation was fleeting; we had an appointment to get to.
We were going to be on a cable-access talk show.
To preview the Film Arts Festival, in which CrossWalk was shown Saturday night, Robbie and I, plus another filmmaking couple, were guests on the half-hour show of a local actress and film fan. Despite the unlikelihood that anyone would actually see the show, I was nervous going in. What would I say? Why didn't I get a haircut? And why, this day, did I have a friggin' pimple on my face? When I haven't had a pimple in 10 years? And I was two weeks short of turning the Age of the Answer to the Ultimate Question*, for cryin' out loud?
But the lo-res of TV, and my seating position, rendered the blemish invisble. And the chat was light and fun; most of the talk was done by our funny and kind host, who had the gift of gab. Why else would one want a talk show? Afterward, we had drinks with our fellow filmmakers. Another weird thing: all of was were sure we'd all met before, but no one ever figured out when or where.
Then came the big night, the West Coast theatrical premiere of CrossWalk. It was part of a program of 16 shorts, playing to a full house at the Roxie. As we expected, several of the films were, um, experimental – which is to say, unwatchably arty – and there were the inevitable sledge-hammer political statements. But a few of the films (The Bakery, Culpability, Drive-Thru, The Listener) were truly enjoyable and intriguing.
And CrossWalk rocked the house. It was the undeniable hit of the collection. The whole theater laughed at all the right parts, and there was plenty of residual chuckling when the film had ended (before all joy was sucked from the theater by the deadliest of the aforementioned arty ordeals). People recognized and sought out our actors as everyone left the theater. It was all a hell of an ego rub.
With our more far-flung co-star camping at our place for the weekend, we basked in the glow of CrossWalk, and finally got around to recording commentary tracks, and even the Spanish dialogue track, to the extent that anyone involved knows Spanish. Which wasn't much. Which we hope will extend the entertainment value.
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* Which means I can no longer claim, as I have for the past year, that I'm 29. Which I was. In hex.
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