Acting

I had a lot of acting this week. My playwriting instructor CW (who is also the author/director of The Valley of Fear) asked me to do a reading for her playwriting class at Mills College. I drove up to Berkeley to do an initial reading of the play, and then drove up to Mills on Friday evening to perform it. It was a good script, and I had a lot of fun. It was also my first time I've visited Mills; what a beautiful campus!

Yesterday, I was filming The Foothill College scenes of The Valley of Fear. I'm so glad that's done! My dialog yesterday was almost all monologues that I found especially difficult to memorize for some reason.

I have only one more weekend of filming, and everything I'm doing in that is make-up from the last Sunday. So I've already got the dialog memorized, which means I can relax this week.

Temptation

I first became a fan of Doctor Who when I was twelve, back in the mid-80s. I really got into it, though my ability to buy Doctor Who-related paraphernalia was limited by my lack of money and the lack of paraphernalia. Mostly, it was limited to books and the occasional box of Jelly Babies.

These days, however, I have a lot more money, and there's a lot of stuff I could buy. Even if it's not available in the U.S., I could still order it from Amazon.co.uk. Such as, for example, the Radio Control Dalek:

At £37.95 + international shipping, I'm sure it would cost me at least $80. Still, that's not outside the realm of possibility. Think of the fun I would have using it to chase my cats around the house!

Temptation, temptation.

My Next Project

Good news! I just got a notice that Foothill College will be producing my one-act play, Community Property, as part of their New Works Festival this summer. I had two short plays produced in last year's festival, and it was a lot of fun, so I'm really looking forward to this.

This year, the New Works Festival has a theme. The works are based on the San Jose Tech Museum Tech Awards. The Tech asked for an evening of new works, i.e. six fifteen-minute plays, each one of which is based, in some way, on an award winner. After they are produced at Foothill, they will be produced professionally by the Tech, though I'll admit to being a bit hazy on what that means right now. They've talked about sending it to area schools as a touring show, and I suspect they may be shown as part of this year's Tech Awards ceremony

Rehearsals start in July, and the plays themselves go up in August.

Rain

It rained today.

All day.

About 20% of my work for The Valley of Fear this weekend was scheduled for Saturday, and the remaining 80% for Sunday. Everything went smoothly yesterday, though it was cold (that sort of damp cold that sucks the warmth right out of you). However, last night at 8:00 or so it started to rain. We checked the weather forecasts closely, and they all agreed that it wouldn't rain on Sunday.

It rained.

Eventually, around 2:00, we cancelled the shoot for the day. I left around 2:30, with only 20% of my work for the weekend completed.

The frustrating thing is that the rain was very isolated. A small cell of rain parked itself over O'Neals and stayed there all day. Twenty miles to the east or west, there was no rain. After I left, I drove for 45 minutes and stopped for gas in Madera, where it was overcast but dry. 45 minutes beyond Madera, in Los Baños, it was 70 degrees with clear skies.

So, the scenes we were scheduled to shoot for today will be shot two weeks from today, weather permitting. Unfortunately, that turns what was to be a 1-day, Saturday-only shoot into a 2-day, get-back-home-at-9:00pm-on-Sunday, weekend.

I really hope it gets done then. The wild grass at the shooting location will start to turn brown, rain or no rain, by the end of May. We need to get this done before then.

Last big filming weekend

Tomorrow morning I'm going up to the Sierra foothills for what will probably be my last big filming weekend for The Valley of Fear. I've got something like nine scenes, and more dialog than in any other shoot (this is because can shoot daytime scenes now; a full weekend now consists of two day shoots, rather than one night shoot).

Despite having to learn a lot of dialog, I'm really looking forward to the weekend. Every time I go up there, it's like a mini vacation. And as work these past two weeks has been stressful, a vacation (mini or otherwise) is exactly what I need right now.

This will not be my last weekend up there. I've got one more trip in two weeks, but that weekend I'll have only one scene (foreground: our protagonist and his love interest kissing for the first time; background: me chasing another character with an ax).

Earthquake

As you've probably heard, today is the 100th anniversary of The Great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake (I guess that's its official title). Here in the Bay Area we've been inundated with earthquake anniversary stories for the past month. This morning at 5:12, the time of the quake, San Francisco set off sirens to commemorate the moment. There are other events planned throughout the day.

It's interesting hearing the heartfelt commemoriation of this disaster by people who did not experience it and were affected by it in only in a peripheral way, if at all. The rememberance of every other disaster of this magnitude (in the U.S.) seems to be driven by the survivors, and once they're gone, the rememberance dries up.

Speaking of rememberance, my big earthquake experience was the 1989 Loma Preita Earthquake. I wrote about my memories of the quake last year, on its 16th anniversary, here, here, and here.

How Do I Explain This? (VOF spoilers)

One of the interesting things about being in my film is telling people about it. They all want to know two things. First, will they be able to see it? The answer to that is: on DVD certainly. In the theatres, well...maybe as part of a film festival. I would be very surprised if got any sort of general release.

The second part is: what part do I play? And this is where is gets tricky. Because, you see, in real life I'm not the sort of person you would imagine as an axe murderer (really, I'm not). Describing how I get disembowled is also disconcerting. I'm finding it surprisingly hard to describe this film and my role in a way that doesn't weird out just about everyone. The Cute Gay Mormon Boy (CGMB) I met on Friday had a real hard time with the concept ("You're an axe murderer?" "It's just acting." "But you kill people!").

Maybe I shouldn't tell good-looking guys I meet at bars what I do in my spare time ("What are your hobbies, Dave?" "Well, I read. And I rollerblade. How about you?").

Anyway, I'm filming on the next three weekends. This weekend is the biggest filming weekend left: I'll be filming all day Saturday and Sunday. On the remaining weekends I film only on Saturdays, and on the 29th I don't even have to leave the Bay Area.

And then I'm done with it. Well, at least until I have to fly out to Sundance...

12+1

All right, I was a little morose yesterday. But I went up to the City last night and met someone very nice.

You know, gay Mormons are hot. Just for the record.

Anyway, happy Easter/Passover/April everyone.

12

This is the twelve-year anniversary of my coming out.

That is all.

Adam & Steve

Last night I caught Adam & Steve at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco (it's apparently the only theatre in the Bay Area at which it's appearing, and only for one week, hence my mid-week drive to the City).

In the late '90s, my friends and I would get very excited at the announcement of a new gay romantic comedy. Hot guys! On screen! Being romantic! But after the fifth or sixth movie about a young gay guy who works at an amusement park and plays baseball in his spare time, falling in love with his HIV+, piano-playing, peppermint foot lotion loving boyfriend, the novelty wore off. The upside to this is that I no longer expect gay romantic comedies to be anything other than light entertainment.

Which is good, because that's all Adam & Steve was.

But I enjoyed it. The acting, with one or two exceptions, was good. The story was predictable, but engaging. The strength of the movie is that it has a whole host of distinct, and funny, characters.

If you didn't catch it in the theatres, don't worry. The theatrical release is pretty limited, so I think it will be on DVD quickly (Netflix already has it in its database).

Dave on APNH

Darin from All Preparation and No H has started selling APNH t-shirts and other swag via CafePress.com. And I had to buy one.

And yes, I was listening to the APNH podcast while I was taking the picture.

Lidsville

When I was 3 years old or so, I watched a Sid and Marty Krofft show called Lidsville. It's about a kid who falls into a magic magician's hat and enters a world inhabited by anthropomorphic hats.
This show freaked me out as a kid, apparently. It's also one of my earliest memories. But unlike other freaky TV show memories from my childhood (Count Iblis turning to a pig-faced demon in the original Battlestar Galactica, for example), I haven't been able to watch this program since I was three. Why? Unlike H.R. Pufnstuf, and other Krofft "works", as far as I know this show hasn't been broadcast in decades (I've had a "Lidsville" season pass on my TiVo for five years, and it hasn't picked up anything). I didn't even know what the show was called until I was in my mid-twenties. But the creepy memory of the show has sat in the back of my brain all these years.

But this week, my copy of two episodes arrived on VHS.

And now I'm going to watch, and blog my comments live (more or less).

7:30: Hook up the VCR (I just disconnected my VCR and put it in the garage two months ago, as "I don't use it anymore").

7:35: Make myself a lemon-drop with the new cocktail shaker I bought today.

7:40: Hit "play"

7:41: The FBI doesn't want me to copy this video.

7:42: Commercials for other Krofft videos.

7:43: The opening is like I remembered, basically. The hat grows big. The kid ("Mark") falls in. And at the end of the title sequence they're all singing and dancing (?!?)

7:44: Title: Let's Hear it for Whizzo

7:46: There are good hats, who are Mark's friends, and bad hats, who work for the evil magician ("Hoo Doo") that rules over Lidsville.

7:50: Mark and his genie friend ("Weenie") are lost in a "hair forest". What the hell were the writers smoking?

7:52: Could the "oriental chef" hat be any more stereotypical? (Or the "indian" hat?)

7:53: Could Hoo Doo, aka Charles Nelson Reilly, be any more gay?

8:04: First episode done.

8:05: Second episode: Is There a Mayor in the House?

8:09: In the first episode, the Lidsville inhabitants are evicted for failing to pay back taxes. In this episode, the good hats are upset that they're being taxed by Hoo Doo. So they hold an election for mayor that Hoo Doo steals. The mayor then tries to raise taxes to make himself rich. Do I detect the seeds of the Reagan revolution?

8:23: Hmmmm. Hoo Doo has a phone that is a "hotline". It is, in fact, literally hot. So hot that he needs a potholder to hold the receiver. I remember seeing that as a kid, but I had always assumed it was from the 1960s Batman.

8:30: And we're done.

Good Lord almighty, what a strange show. No wonder I was creeped out as a kid.

I just noticed that entire series came out on DVD earlier this year. While watching a couple of episodes was interesting, I think I'll pass on the whole series.

INTJ? WTF?

Ten years ago I first learned about the whole concepts of Meyers-Briggs personality typing. I took a test online that told me I was an ISTJ. A year later my company sent me to a two-day waste of time personality-typing offsite where I was tested and, once again, found out I was an ISTJ.

Fast forward ten years. I'm reading Atari Age's blog and found that he's an ISFJ. Okay, I think, I'll take the test again and see what happens. I do, and guess what? My S has turned into an N: I'm now an INTJ.

Hmmm. The guy who ran the aforementioned offsite, the author of Type Talk at Work, was very insistent that personality types do not change. So I took another variant of the test. It also says I'm an INTJ.

So what should I conclude from this? I see four possibilities:
1. The whole personality-type concept is crap.
2. The tests I'm taking are not accurate.
3. I've changed.
4. I know myself better than I did ten years ago.

At this point, I'm leaning towards #4 (with perhaps some #3 thrown in). One big changes is that I didn't write ten years ago. Now I'm writing stories about anthromorphic cans of dog food. Apparently that sort of creativity is common with "N" people, but that quality of my personality wouldn't have been apparent to me ten years ago.

But then there's this, from the INTJ description I linked to earlier:

Personal relationships, particularly romantic ones, can be the INTJ's Achilles heel. While they are capable of caring deeply for others (usually a select few), and are willing to spend a great deal of time and effort on a relationship, the knowledge and self-confidence that make them so successful in other areas can suddenly abandon or mislead them in interpersonal situations.

This happens in part because many INTJs do not readily grasp the social rituals; for instance, they tend to have little patience and less understanding of such things as small talk and flirtation (which most types consider half the fun of a relationship). To complicate matters, INTJs are usually extremely private people, and can often be naturally impassive as well, which makes them easy to misread and misunderstand. Perhaps the most fundamental problem, however, is that INTJs really want people to make sense. This sometimes results in a peculiar naivete, paralleling that of many Fs -- only instead of expecting inexhaustible affection and empathy from a romantic relationship, the INTJ will expect inexhaustible reasonability and directness.

That's me. Right there.

But there is some good news:

Although as Ts they do not always have the kind of natural empathy that many Fs do, the Intuitive function can often act as a good substitute by synthesizing the probable meanings behind such things as tone of voice, turn of phrase, and facial expression. This ability can then be honed and directed by consistent, repeated efforts to understand and support those they care about, and those relationships which ultimately do become established with an INTJ tend to be characterized by their robustness, stability, and good communications.

Something for me to work on.

Do You Want To Be In a Movie?

The writer/director of The Valley Of Fear, the film I'm acting in, has sent out a call for extras. If you live (or will be in) the San Francisco Bay Area, are available on Saturday, April 29 and think you might be interested, read the description below. If you'd like to do it, e-mail me so I can RSVP to her.

On Saturday, April 29, 10 a.m. - 1 p.m., we will be shooting a crowd scene for the film, The Valley of Fear.

The Valley of Fear is a feature-length horror-comedy, currently in production. The Valley of Fear is about a contest held by a backwoods survival skills club. They go out to the Valley of Fear, where their founder and leader, Flinty McGraff, was mysteriously killed seven years earlier. Contestants head off into the woods under strict guidelines to set up their best wilderness campsite, and all of them are cheating. Soon they start to die, as a monster is stalking them. And...it's a comedy. You'll see.

The part for which we need a crowd is a scene at the beginning of the film where members of a backwoods survival skills club meet to hear the announcement of a grand prize for the best backwoods survivalist.

We need a roomful of people dressed as hikers and/or backwoods survivalists. If you would like to do this, show up in hiker/backwoods clothes, Saturday morning by 10 a.m. (once we start shooting, we can't add any more people).

Time: 10 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Day: Saturday, April 29
Location: Appreciation Hall
Foothill College
12345 El Monte Road
Los Altos Hills, CA

10 a.m.: Club members (extras) will (be taught and) sing the club song, a silly song with silly gestures as choreography. Those who are enthusiastic participants in this part (and those with the best clothes), will be seated toward the front of the hall. Less enthusiastic singers can be toward the back, looking unenthusiastic, and this will also be helpful to the shoot.

After we shoot the song, we will shoot crowd reactions to the short film of the club founder, Flinty McGraff, being killed.

After that, we will shoot crowd reactions to the announcement of the opening of the contest. This should all take 2-3 hours.

All are welcome! Bring your friends! Bring your acquaintances! Bring people you don't know! Bring family! We hope to get a good-sized crowd in the hall.

Sucky Job

I was at Costco just now, doing a little shopping. And grazing. If you're unfamiliar with Costco, they often have tables set up where one could get free food samples. Part of the Costco experience is stopping at these various tables and, basically, nibbling your way through the store. Some tables are more popular than others; a table giving away mini chocolate-chip cookies is going to be more popular than one giving away fish sticks, for example.

So I got in to Costco and started shopping. Along the way I got to try a lemon muffin, yogurt in a tube (!), a cookie made by Just Desserts, and a surprisingly good pre-made blueberry waffle.

When I finished my shopping and was waiting in the check-out line, I turned around and noticed a table that I had missed. It was easy to miss, as there wasn't a crowd of people surrounding it waiting for their sample. There was no one there, actually, except for the Costco employee standing forlornly with a stack of product boxes, and coupons. This employee wasn't giving away samples, because the product she was promoting was an acne medication.

Now, that's got to be a sucky job. All of your fellow employees are giving away cookies and muffins, basking in popularity as crowds of shoppers fight their way to your table. And you're stuck giving away coupons for acne medicine. You can't exactly hawk your wares the same way the cookie guy can. What are you going to say? "Got zits? Try this stuff. It really works!" Or better yet, single out the thirteen year olds: "Hey, kid, looks like you need this; it's 10% off with this coupon!".

And whose going to even want to come up to your table? The only people who will will be parents with embarassed teenagers in tow ("Does this stuff work? Because little Ashley here breaks out all the time"). So even if you convince people to buy it, any satisfaction you get in making the sale will be blunted by the resentment and/or embarassment suffered by your customers.

Sometime last year I read about how Costco provides medical insurance to its employees. I sure hope that includes some sort of mental health coverage, because I think the acne woman is going to need it.

Or maybe she can just get Prozac from Costco. 500 tablets, only $99.95!