hot time in the old Old Town tonight

[fflo]

Took this picture 'round the corner on Ashley:



So what if the bike was artfully placed.

"Artfully placed" was a joke with the handful of high school filmmakers I helped do some maudlin after-school-special type movie slide show when I was in ninth grade. "Life Faces," I believe the dreck was called. A girl called Tracy was supposed to be crying in one scene, and to get the tears to show up we practically had to drown the young woman in what we were calling "artfully placed tears."

The next year all sincerity went out the window with the tongue-in-cheek slide show about Prohibition, "I Love You Still" -- script by ME, 'cept for a hokey poem at the beginning. Then there was vjsmom's class and its film---help me out here, Sandi--- "WHUT's Unabashed Documentary on Ancient Egyptian Monoliths and Their Discoverers"? THAT was some funny sh*t.

The following year I'd break out on my own to direct the dramatic, unflinching depiction of a day in the life of a soda pop machine: "No Canadian Coins" ---no dialogue---in the style of a silent picture, with musical accompaniment. In the same year the spy and I also made the classic animation dud (that took its name & much of its plot from the Black Sabbath song) "War Pigs." It was the spy's project, really. The bad guy in "War Pigs" was an sorcerer warlord with a Smithers-like flunkee (voiced by me) called Farkas. Farkas was a shlub who sneezes a lot and dies at the end of the picture. He's named after the spy's "western shore" nemesis, Michael Farkas, of (wealthy) Montgomery County, where students had access to all sorts of fancy expensive filmmaking equipment, unlike us rubes from what the then-governor publically (and unapologetically) called "the shithouse" of the state.

I didn't go to the state film fest at which this Michael Farkas became the distillation of all green-eyed antipathies for the spy, as I hadn't worked on "WHUT." I don't know that the spy had, either, actually. Maybe he went for the ride? Anyway, that Farkas kid had and was everything the spy hadn't and wasn't. As for me, masterwork "No Canadian Coins" didn't make it across the Chesapeake; we lost (!!) in a regional competition to a piece of crap called "Saturday Mice Fever."

I was just remembering how the spy really wanted the marching band to do some Styx song. He'd spent some time imagining what kind of marching could happen at what point in the music. Was it "Come Sail Away"? Oh, it pains me just to imagine it. We were going to arrange the song for the band, or for a drum corps, or what the hell we were going to arrange whole drum corps shows. And find your keys, put on your shoes, gather your books, load up the car, stop at the Farm Store, ask Fred Dinges why you can't mix Kool-aid in a metal pitcher, and go out and make a million dollars.

- ~ - ~ -

I seem to be having me a lot of weekend this weekend, already. Last night set the bar high. I may have to have some kind of Rocky Balboa raw-egg breakfast drink, with a gallon of coffee and a few cc's of adrenalin, to reach consciousness tomorrow morning.

Did forego the Italian astronomer's party tonight. This fact indicates that I'm not on a complete bender. Right? I do wish I coulda mustered it, though. I bet it's quite the party. And it's probably still going on.

Comments

[fflo.livejournal.com]

sure! or, to top you, sure sure sure!!! :'] i'll put a shirt on when i see you coming...

alright, i admit i kinda love that it was hot today.

[shmizla.livejournal.com]

come right now? i could do that now that we're neighbors (and bring you your boxes and your table! although that way i can't walk to your house)

[fflo.livejournal.com]

yeah, come right now!

don't worry about the boxes unless you want. i could come fetch 'em one night this week. don't forget i have your bike.

[shmizla.livejournal.com]

i know i know! i'll see what i can haul.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

ok. see ya soon.

i may even ready the sunday night trash putting-out in your honor! step one: litterbox.

p.s.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

i love the applause [icon], but is it just me, or is there something creepy about it? besides how white they all are, i mean.

Re: p.s.

[shmizla.livejournal.com]

that's why they are so happy! (not arrogant or, god forbid, negative)

Re: p.s.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

there you go again, thinking too much. really, you should just be grateful they're there at all, and settle for 'em!