Now sitting overlooking 6th street on a rooftop nursing a very very mild hangover only to find out that you can't smoke until 2 in Austin. Some weird smoking ban thingy. At 2 we shall party Austin. Until then, it's suit and tie time.
Two weirdest interactions so far:
1) While trying to wake up Tom Groenwald from the Chicago office (whom we had kept up very late last night) we were pounding very loudly on the door of this "extended stay" motel. Weekly rates available. The door next to us opens up and out comes a very ragged 40-year-old blonde. "Oh, I thought it might be my husband coming back to beat me."
Yeah. We visited her, and yes, she was living there with some very silent guy who was there to protect her from the husband and listen to a lot of Audioslave.
2) Woke up early to go have breakfast at Las Manitas: A restaurant where it was rumored that Robert Rodriguez has breakfast with his wife and kids on the weekends. Having eaten breakfast next to Johnny Knoxville months earlier I headed out early to Las Manitas.
There was not a single person on the streets of Austin, too early for them. Some of my favorite times when visiting other cities is getting up before everyone else and walking the streets, I've done it in New York, Scotland, L.A., it's a great way to experience a new place absent of the influence of humans.
...so anyway. Not a single body on the streets (I would find out the whole city was in Las Manitas) and all of a sudden some dude's behind me, could I spare any change? I couldn't: "I'm just trying to get back to Ohio, I joined the carnival but I got depressed." "They left you in Austin?" "No, they're still here but I really want to go home." I've never felt more like I was in the movie Slacker in my life.
And no, Robert Rodriguez wasn't there.
I went to a Writer's Panel with Jim V. Hart, (Bram Stoker's Dracula, Hook, Contact) and Tim McCanlies (Iron Giant, something else), and a few other writers. I've increasingly gotten less an less from writer's panels now that I know how to write a a screenplay and, in theory, know how to make money writing. But one thing has remained consistent on these panels. The audience asks the dumbest fucking questions. Should I like this movie? What do you think about the opening scene of Titanic?
Here's my favorite guy, he shows up at every panel I've ever been to ever. "Yes, question, um I'm a big fan of (filmmaker we all had shoved down our throats in film school) and I think his use of (what we were taught was so great about that filmmaker over and over in film school), so I just wondered what you thought about that." That is a way shortened version, because obviously the question is not about gaining new knowledge but rather sharing the knowledge he has with the world and impressing the panel, so USUALLY they get completely lost in trying to relay their lesson with all the things they want to say and the "question" just ends in an ellipsis...
Headed off to Gretchen. Don't know anything about it. And that's what film fests are all about. Will I like it? Will I hate it? Pleasantly surprised? We shall see.
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