My Life is a Festival

Day 1

My day started at 5am CST.

I had set my alarm but Tim the Wonder Horse called to wake me up a few minutes early. By 6:30am, we were in the air, leaving Austin. This was only my second airplane ride and while taking the 3-hour flight, with a 45-minute layover in Phoenix, I wrote some notes on the beauty of the impossibility of flight. They were beautiful poetry to me then, notes for the site that would, well, soar. But that was just the beginning of my day - the most glorious day of my entire life. I’ll skip over them now to get closer to the good schtuff.

Tim TWH and myself were going to have to wait 2 hours for Web and his wife Nettie to land, arriving from their flight from Houston, but they were delayed. The Salt Lake City airport is a small atrocity, with absolutely no food court, the filthiest bathrooms on the planet, and no sense of caring. Spending 3 hours there was a nightmare. We went to the bar, had 2 burgers, 2 fries and 2 Cokes. It was $30 - $34 with tip. What a fucking rip-off.

We played Gin Rummy a bit and I lamented on how we were so close to the festival but so far away. Chuck and Nettie landed, we got our baggage, our rental vehicle (dubbed the “Yukon Cornelious” by me) and were off to the condo in Park City. The beauty of the area and the majesty of the mountains were breathtaking.

Let’s get to the fest - we checked in at the condo but I wanted to make the “Meet the Filmmakers” thing at Slamdance. Stubby arrived and we were off. Nettie stayed behind and caught up on some sleep.

We get to the Slamdance headquarters and immediately, a tall, attractive man asking me where I’m from and such accosts me. He is involved with a film called “A Galaxy Far, Far Away.” His name is Terry Tocantins. Terry takes me into the filmmaker’s lounge, shows me around, and discusses the future of digital video and digital projection with me. Terry is very high energy so we say almost all there is to say about this topic in less than 2 minutes.(check it out yourself on streaming video.)

Terry invited me to the screening of “Galaxy” at 6:30 and he was so hyped that, even though I wasn’t really thinking of seeing the film, I resolved right away to see it when the time came. Terry said, “Just wave your hands and I’ll get you in” and I immediately felt like a Warhol Superstar being ushered into Studio 54.

Thus begins what is 2 hours+ of the greatest schmooze-fest I have ever attended. It was great. I talked to what seemed like everyone, including: A guy who had a short film called “Pacifier” Christopher Wilcha, who has a documentary in the festival called “The Target Shoots First” Charlie Call, whose “Peep Show” I have continually lambasted on the site Bob Ray, whose Austin film, “Rock Opera” is one of my local faves One of the people behind “What I like About You,” which features music by “Sweet Thing” director and Austinite Mark David

It was great. Then came time to get the press passes. Web had set everything up, so when I came in, I expected no problems. Wrong. I got the runaround, of course. The Slamdance folks acted like they didn’t have press passes for me. It was a nightmare. But in comes “my hero!” Web enters the scenes, fresh from a ten-block hike after parking “Yukon Cornelious” and flashed his smile and within seconds, I had a “Media” pass hanging from my neck. He rocks!

We walked around, talked to anyone we could find, took flyers, handed out flyers, and generally made our presence known. Filethirteen is in Park City and ready to rock the hiz-ouse!

Oh wait - while we were talking to the Slamdance folks, who were pretty cool, even if they tried to shine me on, someone came in and said “Jodie Foster is outside.” I tried to act nonchalant but inside I was screaming like Paul Lynde at a Hot Tub party! Tim TWH, who had been filming a lot of this, ran outside and got some footage. I eventually ran outside and there’s Terry, hyping “Galaxy” to Jodie while she is surrounded by cameras and microphones. It was great!

After catching our breath, we went in to the Filmmaker’s Line-Up and Dan from the Slamdance festival introduced a lot of people. One of them was a cute, okay - more than just cute - a drop-dead-fucking-gorgeous-drain-my-bank-account young blonde guy who is slender and modelesque and a superstar waiting to happen. I had noticed him earlier and assumed he was an actor but when I tried to get close to him, I noticed he had a “Staff” badge. Turns out he’s on some new interview webcast on the official Slamdance sight. He and some tiny-waisted female host the program and their names are “Eddie and Bob.” I don’t know if he’s Eddie or Bob, but he’s a living doll. Yum.

Then, all the filmmakers stood up and introduced themselves one by one. It was great to see this. It gave the festival a great sense of community. And those of us in the “media” felt like we got to be a part of this. It made me want to be kind and open-minded and thoughtful when seeing and writing about the films these folks made. Not that I’m not usually this way anyway (ha ha), but it felt more communal, more familial.

There was a long line to see “Galaxy” and I was thinking of skipping it and just grabbing a screener when Stubby, who had been making the rounds like all of us, ushered me in. Guess the media pass works. Media even gets up front seating so, even though eventually we were crowded into a massive throng, at least I got to sit on a sofa. See, Slamdance is alternative. And, in the Filmmaker’s Lounge, unfortunately, that means it’s the alternative to traditional theater seating, air conditioning, fire codes and even a basic sense of comfort.

After the massive nightmare of the unpleasant room temperatures and cramped leg space, Web and I had to get out and get fresh air. Stubby and Tim the Wonder Horse clocked in and covered the Q&A. They had missed the screening, but since we dropped out, they dropped in.

By now it was after 8 and we decided to head back to the condo and look at all we had gathered. There were programs and flyers and stickers and handwritten notes and business cards to pour over. Plus we already had hours of video and audiocassettes to edit. We had several digital images to upload. I had a ton of stuff to write. We had a website to get together.

We walked the 10 blocks to Yukon Cornelious and handed out flyers and I got to look at the beautiful town of Park City. The downtown area is simply gorgeous. We meet a lot of nice people on the street who asked us questions about the site and seemed to be having as much fun as we were. I really did have the best day of my entire life. I never want the beauty and the wonder and the joy of a day like today to ever become “old hat” or passe. It’s too immediate and too special. It’s freaking nirvana on Earth.

Still, Park City doesn’t seem to be happy to have the festival here. They don’t seem to want all the tourists and flyers posted and noise and headaches. That’s the only negative vibe I’m getting right now. So - screw that! I’ll just push that out of my mind and get on with loving every minute of it. I won’t buy into the bitterness… yet…

also...check out Tim's Virgin eye view of day1.