it was a mouse. it had to be a mouse.

the droppings have been found.
the likely point of entry has been identified.

there were visions of ghoulish monsters swimming blindly in a bowl of soapy water.

now i'm replacing said visions with those of a cute, perky rodent, splashing around like an furry moron.

the hardware store is about to make some money.

the bottle of tylenol pm in the fridge is about to expire... might as well make a dent in it tonight.

i'll have druggy dreams of a blind monster battling a witless mouse. they'll build forts of steel wool and have a shootout with caulking guns.

I haven't the Vegas...

Vegas is sad: I do not like it.
Mostly, it gives me side glances when I walk through the Casino.
Every now and then, it rushes to greet me, mellons bobbing, cigarette hangin' out of her mouth, just like Liz in Who's Afraid of Virgina Wolf.
Vegas has been watching me work. It knows I do not speak slot machine, so it shrugs me off...muttering something incoherent, cowboy guns a' blazing in neon.

Entering Vegas and functioning within it is like standing in front of a camera and being asked to tell your life story. Once the camera lights go on, the IQ goes down about 20pts, that's how I felt when I arrived here. My theory was tested when I had to put the camera on some people. Once that camera light went on, they froze- pretty bad, as the first question was "give me your name and where you're from. I've seen this happen to stars on a set many times before, It is harder to talk about yourself on camera, than to read from a script...
I imagine it's a lot like placing a bet at a gambling table-I still wouldn't know, but I've seen it.

Hoffa THE MOVIE

No, this is not a blog about the Teamster and Hoffa, dear reader, it's just consuming my days so this is what I'm blogging about....
This morning I hit the ground running at 7AM- out of the shower, just in time to here my hotel room ring (sadly it was NOT French sounding). On the other end of the line was the Teamster's Dir. of Communications (they call him Boss Hog, on the walkies, his sidekick answers to Capt. Stuebing), he was basically calling to recant something he said last night, and that YES IWAS RIGHT AGAIN, I should be in the convention hall at 7:30AM to catch the rally.
All I can say is Thank God I brought my DV camera and Camera Genius Yervant!!!
Together we shot some footage that was pretty amazing. There were 2 lines of Teamsters and a procession down the middle of it! The procession started with flags and drummers, then Hoffa, shaking hands. As I was walking backwards, guiding Yervan who was shooting, I had to hold him by the belt loops. It was so funny and cute, here's sapcey Yervant shooting an artsy move on the waving flags, totally holding the procession up. I grabbed him and gently guided him through the cheering masses.

It was totally like that movie HOFFA-no joke, that was how I felt. The cheering, the flag waving, Hoffa giving the speech with the bull horn and then pumping his fist in the air...

Alexis and I are going to rent the movie when I get back home.

my weekend in rhyme

Saturday:
i went to the office, came back,
watched 5 hours and laid on my back
I’m talking like CJ
While wearing my pjs
The West Wing is my new-found crack

Sunday:
The F train is full of detritus
i'm scowling and being a tight ass
rainbow flags...
drunken hags...
My girlfriend is still in las vegas.

Sunday night:
i ventured away from my skulking
for some friends and some wine and some laughing
we sat in the dark
for shakespeare in the park
i left after Act 1 due to coughing.

Represent

My girlfriend Alexis has been dancing virtually everytime I tell her that I'm not so happy to be in Vegas. I am now doing the happy "I told you so" dance since I was right about the map in the open having it's own beat in the Teamster video, and Jeffrey's initial plan of a gavel coming out of a box, cutting into this footage is now out.

We are putting all the gavel shots at the end of the peice to segue into the gavel's live arrival onto stage. 40 Teamsters will hand it down to the guy who is calling the convention to order.

Another fun part of my job here producing, was interviewing Teamster's as to why they are here at the convention, and what does it mean to them. I met some really cool people and I found out that there is an LGBT Caucus in the house! At first they wouldn't talk to me- they were shy and afraid to speak on camera, I coaxed them into speaking and they were great! I am going to put them in the closing video-gotta represent!

So now I want to follow my father's footsteps and be a teamster, something I thought I'd never say. Hilmer, who know feels more like a brother than a work mate, joked about sweat shops and long hours spent editing. I've joked about this many times before...I guess I still find the joke funny -we do get obsessed with frames here in this little edit suite!

Legacy

I remember seeing the Teamster Logo on checks my sister and I got after my father died, we recieved checks until we turned 16, I think it was in the neighborhood of $70 per kid per month, but hey it was a nice gesture. How strange to jump cut my life: here's me at 40, walking through Bally's Casino, carrying a gavel specially made to "call the Teamster Convention to order"-it has the Teamster logo on the box and on the wooden block, where you strike the gavel. I'm carrying it because I have to shoot it for the opening video tomorrow. The lady that gave it to me from the Teamsters (a woman who was referred to as "GOD" by the other people in the room) said I could take it if it was to be locked up tonight. I replied: "Yes, Cindy (apparantly God's name is Cindy) it will be locked in our edit room." She said that would be ok, and I thanked God and left, gavel in hand.

The shot we need to get tomorrow, is a 3 second shot of a hand taking a gavel out of the box, the idea is to show how Teamsters carry everything across the country, the gavel came from DC and is now in Vegas. It's an interesting metaphor, we have a google earth map zooming into Vegas, the Paris Hotel, (by the way, it's really crazy to see an Eiffel Tower on a satellite image) then we insert this 3 second shot of the gavel.

I told the segment producer Jeffrey, a self-described, obsessive neurotic Jew from NY, I think we should just show the gavel being struck on the Teamster striking block-instead. I don't think anyone is going to get this story of a gavel coming across the country in 3 seconds, so I will be shooting that tomorrow as well, when the Executive Producer looks at this gavel coming out of a box shot and wonders where the "pay off" is. I know Jeffrey wants us to see the gavel in real time-on stage and then that will be the pay off, I just think it's a lame idea.

Did I mention that this is all scored to Survior's EYE OF THE TIGER? Oddly enough, this Google Earth map treatment and a gavel looking like a hammer, reminds me of Pink Floyd's movie of THE WALL.

So this is what my creative arts are channeling these days.
I applied for a job as a field producer on my favorite show today. I hope I at least get an interview.

hoffa and celeb-reality

Currently I'm cutting some "celebrity greetings" for the teamster convention with Hilmer, our editor. We are having fun pairing up these sound bites shot remotely from celebrities like Jack Nicholson, John Travolta and Tom Hanks, with sound bites from teamsters. the most fun part is finding music to underscore the whole thing, like Johnny Cash "I Won't Back Down" and Neil Young "Union Man."

The hard part is weaving sometimes, seemingly disembodied celebrity comments, with what the teamsters are saying. I think Ving Rhames had the most heartfelt salute out of the lot. Where as every teamsters is coming from a place that's very real. They're saying cool things about their lives and their struggles to be treated fairly and how they are proud to be a teamster, a part of something that is fighting for them, the convention theme is "moving forward together." The celebrities are just wishing the IBT Happy 100th!

I'm getting with this brotherhood/sisterhood thing. Some guy called me sister and Hilmer, brother the other day.

Holy Mama of Distraction

Ok, so I saw my first (ever) showgirl today. Live and in person. She wasn't on a stage in a chorus line with other showgirls, kicking her legs up and dancing with big fans, she was walking toward me down a very long hallway. It was a showgirl-out-of-context moment and what happened has led me to this blog.

I was distracted, excited and of course curious why she was even in this part of the very large building where I am working. Apparently she was walking toward a door to a back path to her stage, the levels of seedy underbelly back alleys in this town is mind boggling. As she approached me, i could not help to smile and even blush. She was wearing a big pink headress, a sequin bikini type top and a pink sequin wrap, in pink heels.

It was not so much the fact that she was so boldly scantily clad, or was it the way she was wrapped up? No, it had to be the height, between the headress and the heels-easily 7 feet! Maybe, it was just that she was in this totally mundane setting, a hallway, with dim lighting and beige carpeting. She was like a totally constructed dessert, like the kind you see on the Food Network, that chefs compete and use blow tourches to construct, she was artful and glamorus, and so not like me.

I remember reading somewhere when I was in college taking a women's study class, that women watching porn will watch themselves on the screen. I never agreed with that, I guess because I'm a Dyke. the whole mirror stage and Lacan, I don't even want to really go here, but I did experience a difference, a rupture if you are thinking of Jacques Lacan. There was a seperation in my gaze, but it also went into a place of desire. I did not want to grab the showgirl, it was her image, the power of her image--again, completely out of context, that had transfixed me. She was untouchable, like a rare species of exotic bird that I had just "happened upon."

It was this untouchable aspect even in a hallway, or shall I say--especially in a hallway, that resonated something majestic. Something unattainable and fleeting, what this city thrives upon.

children

According to the BBC, a number of European nations may start offering free fertility treatment. Fertility rates are dropping, and Europe is afraid there will be too small a workforce to care for its pensioners in the near future. The proposed answer is for Europeans to have more babies.

Here's one reason why this is stupid:

A shrinking workforce and growing elderly population is a public policy problem. It can be solved with policies, for example: cut pension payments, or raise retirement ages, or increase legal immigration of working age singles, or decrease other social spending to make up the gap, or increase a tax to make up the gap, or better socialize global pharamceutical companies to decrease costs, or change land and property tax policies on nursing homes to cut costs there... and that's just off the top of my head.

There are enough working people in the world to support all the elderly and then some. Though the economy is global, political boundaries persist. Why not open the borders if you need more people?

I suspect those promoting free fertility treatment are racist.

(With Jac in Las Vegas, i have no one to vent to when i'm listening to the BBC on the radio.)

privee

There is NO private space in Las Vegas and certainly not in the Paris Hotel...even when you are in the hotel public bathroom you are listening to "canned" froggy themed thoughts...
Noise is a constant in Vegas in general, and if you've retreated from the din of the casino (which by the way, all sound the same no matter what casino you find yourself-in whatever city) to squat, and have a moment of privacy while you release your bladder and or bowels. That is when you will hear a French female accent instructing you on how to speak French phrases like: "Would you hold this for good luck" or "My what a big bagette!"

The City of Loss Wages

Well, I arrived last night into the simulacra of Paris. The Paris Hotel in Vegas is not quite as glittering as I thought it would be, remember kids, I went to Disney World upwards of 35 times when I lived in Florida, so my eye is keen on spotting what I like to call "simulation drop out."
People raved about the ceiling being painted a lovely sky blue with clouds, this trompe l'oeil usually impresses me, so I thought I would like it. Instead, I saw the edges, I saw the con, it didn't "fool my eye" at all, my eye is too discriminating.

Maybe it's this damn cold that I have, keeping it real for me, I can't sink into glazed over stares, the cold medicine won't let me.
It sucks to have to walk thru the casino to get to where I have to work. The cross-section of America represented here is exactly why my girlfriend won't join me in Vegas while I'm on this 2 week stint. Everyone is holding drinks in their hands, from beers to huge exotic foamy eiffel tower shaped cups. Everyone is smoking, you smell if you walk thru even for minute. Everyone is spending, and there are ATM machines that give out cash in hundreds- they make it easy on you to spend it. I asked a clerk if they had change for $100 and they look at you like duh, of course I do.

Crazy..at least there is a raw food place for me to eat at....

global warming

i saw the global warming movie yesterday, "An Inconvenient Truth." At its worst, it reminded me of the apocalyptic films from the early 1980s that insane born again christian youth group leaders would show to children, preferably after keeping them awake until late and feeding them chocolate. Those movies - the end-of-time rapture movies and An Inconvenient Truth - made it seem like there was no way you could ignore the issue, at the very least you had to change all your behavior starting right now and - at least! - tell everyone you know to change their behavior. But that won't stop what's coming. You also have to live your life proactively preparing your fellow man for what's to come. Even then, it's unlikely you'll have any effect. In the end all will be hellish and many will suffer. your efforts will be like drops of water in lake michigan. but *at least* you'll know you did your best. you can't just sit back with this information and continue like you have your whole life - - - thinking about what to cook, checking out your hair in the mirror. you have to do something right now, all the time. When the Son of Man returns to earth in judgemental fury and asks you why the polar bears all drowned because they ran out of ice to hang on to, He's not going to turn to you and say, "Nice hair." He's going to be all pissed off. Which is how you should be all the time, and right now.

Thanks a f*cking lot, Al Gore.

mirrored vanities with bulbs and Jacque

Actually Alexis, I don't like working in a dressing room. I find myself staring at myself all the time, which really sucks when you are working on a laptop or eating (doing both together in a mirror really sucks). And i must say, I'm a person who is less inclined to check and re-check one's self out in these damn things. I avoid mirrors like vampires avoid mirrors. It's not that I hate how I look, I hate the process of looking at myself in a mirror. I mean who IS that chick, and WHO the HELL does SHE think she IS???

Mirror gazing is like a critical analysis of your life which is also distracting. I think I conceived a stress zit while working in front of this bulbed vanity crap! Hilmer the editor said he would edit it out of my mirror frame, but now I just want lip stick to start writing on all of these feckin' (Irish plays, I can't help me self) mirrors!

I confess I walked flat into a mirror wall today. I saw myself coming and kept walking-I guess I thought: "hey I know her!"

I feel like I'm in the fun house mirror room and I have to get out to pee.

Mirror walls are like instant messaging, think about it.

A List of Dreams

I just ate a piece of Dove dark chocolate. The inside of the foil wrapper said, “Make a List of Your Dreams”. Here goes:


I’m on the third or fourth floor of a building and a tidal wave is coming in right at eye level. I have to save the turtles.

I have to teach a class about something very technical and, amazingly, I know all about it.

The city is dark and smoky and people are walking on all fours like apes. They can’t read, and they like ketchup.

I’m Buffy, but I’m not really Buffy, but Buffy is there and she’s in a class at SIPA.

I’m in a split level house and something is very scary in the closet upstairs.

There’s this cheerleader ... She’s interactive.



That’s about it. If anyone reads this and would like to Make a List of Your Dreams, please do so in the comments. I’d like to read them.

Learning from Past Summers

I was looking through my email inbox for something, and I came across an email chain between me and Jim. I had just gotten back from the Jersey Shore. I’d been telling him about how awful it was, and he found it on google maps.



-----Original Message-----
From: Jim
Sent: Thursday, August 11, 2005 12:58 PM
To: Alexis
Subject: Awful!


Jim: Just north of Seaside Heights, NJ. Eeek!
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=point+pleasant,+nj&ll=39.991391,-74.061713&spn=0.007579,0.021458&t=h&om=1


Me: That's EXACTLY the place I was talking about last night. It's even worse on the ground - - hot, unfriendly, everyone is white and republican. It's the most outwardly exclusive and racist place I've ever been to in America. F*ckin Jersey.


Jim: Wow. What amazing powers of clairvoyance I have! Hee hee!
Strange configuration - staggering the houses like that. Also, is that concrete I'm seeing surrounding the houses? Like it looks like just one huge field of concrete upon which homogeneous dwellings are placed.
Effing weird.


Me: It's sandy concrete and pale beige and pink pebbles for the driveways and "gardens", which are little pebble moats around the houses.


Jim: [sound of me hurling]

75% Marshmallow, 25% Banana Candy...

I like the idea of listing ingredients.

The office i work in is presently comprised of 60% public relations, 20% taxes, 10% art supplies and 10% steakums.

My apartment consists of avocado, smoke, and mirrors, with a pinch of blue.

Jac is made of peanuts, soy, and other kinds of soy.

and so on.