Ramblings from a rut

I'm in a rut. I feel bored and restless...stressed out and lazy. I have equal amounts of things I want to do, need to do and should do, yet don't do anything. Aside from Spiderman-3, there's nothing I'm really excited about. I hate feeling this way.

I spent this morning trying to avoid getting out of bed and basically scrolling through all the crappy thoughts in my head. Then, when I finally got up and got in the shower, I tried to think of what I could do that would make me "happy." Until recently, I took a perverse pleasure in beating myself up and feeling crappy. So, rather than jump into that mental cesspool again, I asked myself point blank what would make me happy. Nothing came to mind. But, I figured I'd write some stuff here because I've learned that just doing little things can get you going again. Soo.....


Last night I had a dream that I was watching a super sneak preview of "Indiana Jones 4." It was o.k. There was alot of running going on. That dream segued into a dream where I had been forced to be a kindergarten teacher for a day. I wasn't too worried until I got to the class and just drew a total blank on what I should do. I also remember the teachers assistants asking me to sing a song with the kids and I couldn't think of any. Then I remembered "Old Dan Tucker" and we sang that. Either before that or after, I had a dream that I was handing out snacks to the kids at my work and it was basically a big bin of gross looking saltines. The kids weren't happy.

Last week on my way home from work, I stopped at the liquor store to get a diet coke. I saw a mom from my work buying 2 pints of "Damn Hot" cinnamon schnaps. This woman just had a baby 3 months ago and it was in a stroller in the store. Hher other kid is a lil on the slow side too. I kind of hid in the back of the store until she left but as I went to my car, I felt relieved. I had always thought the woman was just stupid, now I realize she's just a drunk. At least she walks around town all day with her kids instead of driving.

I went to the Butter and Eggs day parade Saturday in Petaluma. It was so-so. I didn't see as many people as I thought I would. I had a bunch of beer and only ate a corndog. My sister offered to take Igby to my moms and then come pick me up and take me home later. That was awesome of her. I needed to get home because I wanted to see a concert that night. My sis got me home and I ate a cold pork chop from the fridge and called my friend Kevin to see if he'd come get me. I then promptly passed out and missed my ride. I called Kev and he said he rang the doorbell and called me 3 times and nada. I was out.

Rather than call it a night, I took a cab down to the show. I asked the cab driver if he knew Norman Greenbaum. He said, "No, but that song kicks ass!!" He and I then sang "Spirit in the Sky" for the duration of the 10 minute cab ride. Norman Greenbaum lives in Santa Rosa which seems really cool to me, I thought the cabbie might have known him.

The show I went to was good, but I was just beat down tired and drunk. I took another cab home and had the cabbie take me through the Jack-in-the-Box drive thru.

So...there's my random musings. I feel much, much better.

My newest lil opus...

So, a few weeks ago my doc filmmaking partner John and I participated in the "Fairfax Documentary Challenge." Basically, you had 10 hours to make a 4 minute doc that has to do with the city of Fairfax, CA. Neither of us had been to Fairfax so we started emailing around, asking for ideas of what we could do.

Of the 6-7 responses we got, all of them mentioned this "colorful" local character that wears super short shorts, drives an old convertable and is rarely seen with less than 3 young girls on his arm. We had to find this guy!

So the Friday night before the challenge, John and I holed up in a bar in Fairfax and started trying to track this guy down. We got some good leads and the next day, we made this doc. It's pretty cool (if I do say so myself) and John and I won second place in the challenge!

Enjoy and pass it on!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkziEfeb374

If this little snippet...

...ever gets old or doesn't make me totally, totally crack up...start diggin' my grave...

I think I mentioned it...but

Our little film that could (sometimes) is playing at this years Sonoma Valley Film Festival! That's right, STRINGERS has managed to get into it's 3rd film festival (out of like, 7 submissions...not bad!) and I couldn't be more proud to show it in my home county. Even more exciting is the fact that we're playing before the film VOYEUR which looks very cool and intriguing. AND we're in "Mia's Lounge" which is the hip and edgy theater. They're going to have wine and cheese and I spoke with the festival somallier, my old buddy Chris Sawyer, and he's doing a pairing just for our film(s)!! I reccemmended Mad Dog 20/20 or Boones Strawberry Hill...but I don't think they're sponsors. We shall see.

Anyway, if you're within distance, we're playing on Saturday night at 10:00 and then again Sunday at noonish. I'll be at both screenings for the intro and Q&A but Sunday I'm also on a panel about documentaries so I'll intro STRINGERS, go do my panel and come back for the Q&A...all with what will assuredly be a massive hangover! Yay me! Barf. Then again, I can't really put away the wine so if there's no beer, I should be O.K. Then again, Sonoma is about 15 minutes from my house and there's a nice selection of local bars.

I hope to see some of you there. More info at:http://www.sonomafilmfest.org/

We got second place!

So our film "Riding with Snoopy" took second place in the Fairfax Documentary Film Challenge! Very cool! We won a really nice Premiere editing package...a value of over $800! The theatre was sold out and all the doc films were really cool. I'd do this again next year for sure!