Dairy of a Madman

This is how our mornings start off:

• I try to wake CL after she dozes through three separate alarms.
• I try being sexy, knowing that there’s no better way to start a day.
• I whisper sweet nothings to her as the coffee brews a room away.
• When all that fails, the bodyslamming begins.
• And then, because I know she’s awake (I saw your legs come out from under the covers, bitch — don’t you lie to me!), it’s time for more sex. This time with my first and most intelligible words of the day.

Art Teacher Loses Job After Kids See Nude Sculpture: Children Were On School-Approved Field Trip

I’m still trying to figure out what people are so afraid of when it comes to the human body. I’m also amused that we seem to have no ethical problem exposing kids to violence, but an unclothed human body — something that we all have, mind you, that we are born with, that nature dictates will unite us as a species — is the greatest sin of all.

Okay, fine: we can’t say “fuck” on broadcast television or radio; it’s just a word, and I think it’s stupid, but the majority of the people don’t want their kids hearing such language, so we keep it off the public airwaves. I can type it here all I want — fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck — and nothing happens, and kids can read that. Seriously — any kid, anywhere.

And again, I have an issue with the balance apparent (or not) here. We go out of our way to prevent our kids from hearing words, or combinations of words — when it’s up to the listener to give those words power, not the speaker — but we have no problem with (in fact, seem to encourage) them listening to lies, slander, and all the other crap inherent with politics (and a lot of religion).

We can show the inside of the human body, but not the covering. Everyone I know thinks the latter is beautiful, and the former disturbing if not downright disgusting (hey, we’re only meat, guys); in essence, we’re discouraged from the beauty in the world.

I think someone should market child-sized blinders. Those would make someone a fortune, if pitched right to the puritanical crowd that seems to think that pleasure is not something to be experienced in this lifetime.

Muckfuppet is reviewed! Or pimped. Once ethics and personal relationships come into the picture, I get my terms all screwed up…

• Glenny at the Birmingham Weekly is the only person ever to mention my movie and a drunken office party kiss in the same breath.
• Considering that I’m on the tail end of a cold and suffering allergies, I’m not sure that Wade should have used “coughed up” as a metaphor for me writing the script. I hope Muckfuppet is prettier than the thing coming out of my lungs this week.
• Podcasting! Woot! Birmingham public radio’s Tapestry…

I think this is called TMX Elmo? I don’t care. I want twenty. Can you imagine how great this will be on stage? Or better, how freaked out the cats will be?

The universe is something like 13 1/2 billion years old, right?

Okay. While I don’t keep a very tight record of times and dates (happy birthday to my little brother, by the way, about ten days late. Or is it eight days late?), I think, if memory serves*, we’ve been working on the sophomore Exhibit(s) album for about three days longer than that.

It’s all worth it, though, as this Friday night, September 22th, we’ll be holding the official CD release party. It’s at Bailey’s Pub in Southside, where two of us were born, a third will one day die, and the last of us met his true love. It’ll coincide with a three-or-so-hour set of live tunes (with potential Very Special Guests), including originals new and old, our usual eclectic mix of covers, and an a cappella rendition of Slayer’s new CD, from first track to last.

I was going to say that its obvious that one of those won’t be happening, but it’s not so obvious, really.

The new album (it’s either called AVERY ELLIS PRESENTS THE EXHIBIT(S) IN ACHLUOPHOBIA: MUSIC FROM, INSPIRED BY, AND COMPLETELY UNRELATED TO THE MOTION PICTURE HIDE & CREEP, AVERY ELLIS PRESENTS THE EXHIBIT(S) IN PRODUCTION AND DECAY OF STRANGE PARTICLES: MUSIC FROM, INSPIRED BY, AND COMPLETELY UNRELATED TO THE MOTION PICTURE HIDE & CREEP, AVERY ELLIS PRESENTS THE EXHIBIT(S) IN DEVIL TOOK THE WHEEL: MUSIC FROM, INSPIRED BY, AND COMPLETELY UNRELATED TO THE MOTION PICTURE HIDE & CREEP, or NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS…; we can’t decide) will be available in a special, limited edition format** for only five dollars. There’s no cover charge, and Bailey’s has some of the cheapest prices on drinks in town, so you really can’t have more fun for less money***.

Come out: Bailey’s Pub, 10:30 PM until ??, Friday 22 September 2006, Exhibit(s) CD release party.

* Memory obviously doesn’t serve me very well.

** Soon to be collectible and fetch high dollars on eBay! Buy five!

*** Unless you are a serial killer or a very boring person who defines fun as “not fun to anyone else.”

(This appeared in its original form at www.muckfuppet.com on October 27, 2005)

Muckfuppet is largely based in truth. The character names aren’t even that far removed from reality (which prompted one of my readers to comment, “Why can’t you filmmakers ever use names of people that you don’t know?”) — Kevin = Kenn and Celia = Neely.

Yes, I know Celia and Neely aren’t that close. But can you think of a name other than Celia that even comes close in sound?

This, fellow writer/directors, is the importance of bringing in outsiders to work with you, and being open to their input:

Because it’s so largely grounded in truth, I know how it ends (and yes, I’m aware that the “ending” of the script is sort of transparent from the word go, and I’m okay with that). It colors the tone of the entire piece in my head, and thus makes the lines read a very specific way to me. When Melissa sat down with me for the first read-through, we discussed the character and the lines at length.

(Melissa knows Neely, but she’s not playing Celia as Neely, which I feel is a good choice. In fact, I mentioned that she might play Celia as reacting to Kevin as me — if that makes any sense.)

But when we got to the mid-section, and she was asking me how I saw certain lines being played, her approach made me realize that there were many more options for the final outcome than reality, than the eventuality that is stuck in my head. And it opened everything up on so many different levels, and honestly made me more excited about the script than I’ve been since it was written.

And about the strange dynamics: Melissa is my ex-wife, playing Celia, who is based on Neely, one of my closest friends, who is dating Scott Ross, playing Kevin, the character based on me. And the first time I ever met Scott, he was in a play that involved him kissing Melissa.

It’s a strange small world, this Birmingham. But filled with a scary amount of talent.

Muckfuppet is showing at the Alabama Theater at 1:30 PM, Saturday, September 23. It’s part of the Alabama Shorts #2 Block of movies; admission is $7. More details can be found at www.sidewalkfest.com.

The joy of doing media appearances to promote yourself — Muckfuppet, in this case — is getting up at the asscrack of dawn in order to make a three minute appearance on local morning shows. It sounds like nothing, but that’s a demographic — specifically, people that are awake before noon, and probably not hungover, maybe even employed — that I don’t have a lot of contact with, so those three minutes could really bring some good extra attention to the film.

So I stumble through my morning routine and heavier-than-accustomed traffic, and make my way up the hill to the local Fox affiliate’s studios. All the way through the check-in procedure (security gate guard, front desk guard, segment producer), people keep blinking at me when I tell them my name, then asking who I’m with; when I answer that I’m part of the Sidewalk Film Festival, they ask if I’m with Jennifer West (the director of Piece of Cake; we’re supposed to be splitting the segment). I figure at this point that, since she got Mo Rocca in her film, they’re just putting her as the marquee name instead of confusing the media people with two names, so I just nod appropriately.

I wait fifteen minutes, and then Jen and I are shuffled to another area of the studios, a break room. We get a little coffee, joke about meeting deadlines (Chance put the finishing touches on Muckfuppet Sunday night; Jen’s still working on the color correction today), and then are finally shown into the studio proper.

Where I am informed that they only have time for one of us, and it ain’t me.

This isn’t really a big deal to me. The whole point of these appearances is to draw more people to the Alabama Theater at 1:30 PM on Saturday, September 23, 2006, for the Alabama Shorts #2 block at the Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival*. Jen and I are in the same block, so as long as one of us is on, people will come (and to be fair, Mo Rocca is a much better draw than “award-winning screenplay”). Still, I got up about two hours earlier than usual, paid extra for a BetaSP of a clip from the film, and Chance put some extra time into pulling that clip, so I’m a little offput by the situation.

Jen does fine — exactly as Wade, media relations guru, had coached, and the segment is done. Rick Journey, the Fox morning anchor (who has a lot of experience with Sidewalk, handling emcee duties at more than one of the closing night ceremonies in the past) comes over an explains the situation to me. Apparently, the Fox management was concerned about the title; it wasn’t time, but fear of my film that got me bumped.

It’s not a big deal to me, really. In fact, although I’ve already taped my segment for Tapestry, a local NPR arts shows, and have been featured in other local outlets (with the same film title, mind you), I can understand the concern. It’s a stretch, but then, keep in mind that this is the same town whose ABC affiliate ran a piece on the local production of The Vagina Monologues without ever once using the word “vagina.”

Seriously.

Besides, I now have a new tag for my film. “Muckfuppet: Too dangerous for Fox6.”

Really, just because no one can say the title without slipping and risking FCC fines, I don’t see what the big deal is.

Muckfuppet is showing at the Alabama Theater at 1:30 PM, Saturday, September 23. It’s part of the Alabama Shorts #2 Block of movies; admission is $7. More details can be found at www.sidewalkfest.com.

* See, self-promotion isn’t that hard, if you keep your eyes open for opportunity.

(This appeared in its original form at www.muckfuppet.com on October 25, 2005)

I have a feeling that making films turns out to be well worth the effort for some people, but to date, I’ve not made anything that I would think is worth the time and energy expended on the project.

The writing is the easy part, for me. It hits me in a flash; I put the story on paper, in some level of detail; I sit on the script for a month or so, doing my best to forget about it; and then I return to the script and make tweaks as I need to.

It’s really that simple for me. Always has been.

Making the film, though… that’s another story altogether. Reminds me of making a song that was written on acoustic guitar into a full-blown arrangement in the studio, only more torturous. There’s a billion more things to think about, it’s more expensive, it requires more people to help out and do it right…

Oh, and thinking visually is not something that comes naturally to me. Not like thinking aurally (and that’s not even something that I feel like I do well).

No, what I do is write stories. Thank god I’ve got a lot of friends and acquaintances who know all the other parts of the equation.

Today:

Looking back on this, I’m really glad — and fortunate — to know the folks that I do. I saw the final cut last night (the edit has actually been done since March, but there were some technical issues that required going back through and replacing every shot with the same shot from a different source), and it’s really, really good. Looks good, sounds good, flows well… Not only do Melissa and Scott and Donna do a wonderful job bringing the characters to life, but Chance and Chris somehow managed to make an 8 minute conversation in a booth at a diner look interesting.

Finally, I have something that I can feel proud of on film.

Muckfuppet is showing at the Alabama Theater at 1:30 PM, Saturday, September 23. It’s part of the Alabama Shorts #2 Block of movies; admission is $7. More details can be found at www.sidewalkfest.com.

Michael Hedges may be gone, but his legacy lives on:

Next week, I will be appearing on Fox6’s morning show, as well as on Thursday’s edition of TAPESTRY on WBHM, in support of Muckfuppet. Which is just my way of letting you all know that you might want to tune in to Fox Tuesday morning, because it’s live TV, and you never know how many manners (or how much common sense) I may forget that early in the morning.

And because I’m such a narcissistic whore I love you all, I’ll make sure to include the video and audio (respectively) once they’re online.

Remember: Exhibit(s) CD release party at Bailey’s Pub on Friday night (come get your special limited edition of the new CD for only $5), Muckfuppet world premiere at the Alabama Theater on Saturday at 1:30 PM (part of the Alabama Shorts #2 block of films). Fox6 Tuesday morning, Tapestry on WBHM at 6:30 PM on Thursday, and pick up the Birmingham Weekly this week just in case, because this time, someone else brought the vaseline to the party.