The Big Boycott -or- Say No To AVP2

I've decided to boycott all remakes and sequels coming out of Hollywood for the next two years. These people need to be punished, really punished. It used to be that remakes and sequels were done only to megablockbusters, but these days if a movie turns a profit at all then it's going to get a sequel. Big Momma's House 2? Alien V. Predator 2? Remake of the Hitcher? Remake of Adventures in Babysitting? Love Boat's coming soon, you can count on it.

The gf insists I'm missing out on a complete life by not watching Superman Returns, but I have to take a pricipled stand on this one. I won't reward these executives for their complete lack of balls. Every year there are fewer and fewer films that don't come from some prexisting source material, be it a former version, a prequel, a famous novel, a Broadway musical, whatever.

The exception to this is Jackass 2, b/c it was shot on mini-DV for about 5 dollars...

I notice that Neil La Bute has remade the Wicker Man, BTW, and I fear the worst...

Big Muddy

Portland
Detroit
Long Island
NYC
Dyersberg, Tennessee
Oneata, Alabama
Pascagoula, Mississippi
New Orleans

Back in New Orleans again to finish up this State Farm commercial I've been working on. Because the French Quarter was settled on some of the highest ground in the city, there is an inverse relationship between the age of the buildings and how they weathered the storm. The 1800 buildings were fairly unscathed. Further afield the 1900 buildings did almost as well (the Garden District, etc). The areas furthest away, settled on the lowest ground, got their asses kicked.

Almost a year after Katrina and some of these areas still look like they got hit by a bomb. Gas stations with caved in roofs, Demolished strip malls, vacant streets, water marks on buildings 10-15 feet in the air, FEMA trailers everywhere. Each residence had a spray painted x on it with numbers filling in the quadrants of that x: number of residents, number of bodies found, number of dead animals, etc.

The French Quarter and financial districts are up and running but some of the suburbs still don't have electricity. Outside of the city center it's hard to see this "renewal" that's supposed to be happening. They are poor areas and they were ignored before and they are still being ignored and they will be ignored in the future.

Former population of Orleans parish and its environs: 1.1 mil
Current population: 200k

It kills me to see New Orleans like this. The place is f***ed up good.

It makes one want to have a drink or three and hey, New Orleans can still accomodate this urge.

This is a picture of the crew outside of Larry Flint's Barely Legal strip club at 4 in the morning. I have never felt so exploited in all my life. I return to a hotel room and pull out crumpled one-dollar bills from all pockets. Strippers, weird...



This is a picture of Sleepy E at the controls of a helicopter after the all-night debauch and one hour of sleep. Helicopters are always more squirrelly than you realize. He does not vomit.



This is a picture of some demolished homes. FEMA trailers in effect.



This is a picture of what I was looking at when my door flew open in midflight and wouldn't lock shut again. "Don't worry," said the pilot. "Not a big deal."



This is a picture of downtown. We were the first people to photograph the rebuilt Superdome in 35mm, which was completed the night before.



This is a picture of Cafe du Monde at 1 in the morning the next night. Being here again fills me with wist.



This is a picture of cafe au lait, 3 beignets, and ice water. Three dollars and fifty cents.



This is a picture of Sleepy E after his two-week beatdown. Note the classic Spud/Dominique era Hawks shirt and puffy-eyed optimism of the sleep deprived. You cannot hear the chirp of cicadas or see the winged cockroaches scuttling across the floor or feel the grimy press of humidity against your bare skin but you know these things are still there, of course they are.

Detroit Rock City

Didn't stay in D.Troit proper but somewhere northeast. Stayed in when I should have gone out: shenanigans at a Canadian strip club, director gets her bod licked onstage by Russian stripper, E sleeps back in the hotel.

This is a picture of the combo DVD/VHS player in the room:



This is a picture of the CD/alarm clock:



This is a picture of Ethernet and phone cables (no wifi):



Given this data can you pinpoint when this hotel came into existence?

The Whine Bar -or- Shut Yo Mouth

What is it about the non-complainer? What is it about this person? The stoic smile, the gentle reassurances, the fortitude, the boundless optimism. How in the do they keep their negativity in check? Or is it that they are able to shut it off at the source? How is this done? But how do they not rail constantly against the annoying injustices of existence? How I ask you? I try desperately to be like them, to keep my mouth shut, to detach, to cowboy up and be a real man who endures in silence, who never shows weakness. But still I cannot stop myself.

I complain pretty much constantly. I don't know when this started but that's where I'm at and that's where I've been at for a long time. There are two possible explanations for this: 1) The amount of complaining is not directly related to the amount of catharthis-requiring suffering, and so fills up time and space regardless of mood, and 2) That my life is unbelievably and consistently crappy.

When I first started doing camerawork there was always some older, bitter crewmember on set who grumbled about the rates, the food, the work, everything. "Why did he take the job, then?" I'd ask. "Put the guy out of his misery." How unpleasant to be around someone like this, a negativity oozer, a sour sack of bile. Yuck.

I have become this guy. Which is terrible, really, and selfish. I basically disallow too much complaining in my department but I'm free to whine as much as I want because it makes me feel better. It's what we do when faced with our own powerlessness. We complain. The complaining will not solve the problem, nor address the forces that created the problem to begin with, nor alter any decision or result in the future. It helps us to cope with our impotence and that is all. Can you believe that? How horrible.

They say committing adultery in your mind is just as sinful as the completing act itself. I wonder if the same thing goes with complaining...if I still experience a burning need to complain but do not--does this signify anything? Is this an improvement? Or is this just eliminating the symptoms of a much larger problem (alas, fixing the sweaty palms does not make a fever go away).

I wish I could be one of these people, one of these patient people who could stifle the need to rant about poor customer service and unappreciative employers and idiot policy. What would that be like? Or, even better, what would it be like to feel no ill will at all?

Perhaps it's God I need to find. Many of the poorest countries on earth (Haiti, etc.) are happier than wealthier countries b/c they have religion. Ah, to complain less, surely it is more difficult than giving up coffee. A noble goal but hardly realistic, I know this. God, this is horrible. I hate this. How I hate complaining all the time. Stop it. Shit.

On Tour

Portland is the first stop on a two-week, eight-city, post-Katrina State Farm commercial. This sounds fun but is actually kind of stressful b/c we are understaffed and there is a motherlode of unreliable equipment to marshal and I am the only one to blame really when things start to go bad.

I haven't been to Portland in many many years but it is beautiful and small and leafy and filled with bicyclists and young almost-indigent alt kids that bring back "My Own Private Idaho."

I love Portland.

This is a picture of Powell's.



This is a picture of Evelyn Waugh marketed as Chick Lit (!).



This is a picture of the Willamette (sp?).



This is a picture of the teddy bear that came with my swanky eco-friendly hotel.



This is a picture of my purchases (I have no business buying so many books and lugging them around without reading them).