Friend, performer, and man of bionic hips, John Sugden asked me if I would videotape the most recent play he was putting on with his students and the Woodside Priory in the hills south of Silicon Valley. Naturally, I said "$@#% no!" but he cried and begged and I finally acquiesced because of my sterling character, my generous nature, and the fact that I desperately need him for reshoots for my short film Flight Control.

Anyway, I braved sluggish traffic and got to the school just in time to tape show, which I recorded on both my digital video camera and one John had borrowed, operated by a student. After the show was over, I set the second camera up to record the next performance from one locked off position. My plan is to edit together these three recordings and make a DVD John can copy for the kids.

The play they performed was "The Mouse That Roared" (subtitle "The Wrath of Grapes"), based on the 1955 novel by Leonard Wibberley (and made into a mediocre 1959 film with Peter Sellers).

(The story concerns a microscopic country called Grand Fenwick, which is going bankrupt because a Californian winery makes a cheap knock-off of their only export. When their protests to the U.S. go unanswered, they decide to declare war, assuming the Americans will be victorious and do a "Marshall Plan" on Grand Fenwick, thus reviving their economy. But, when their intentionally futile invasion force of men with 14th century costume and longbows arrives in of New York City, they quite by accident capture a government scientist who has created the most powerful explosive in the world: a cigarette pack sized "Q Bomb" that will level 2000 square miles if detonated. Suddenly, Grand Fenwick is the super-est of superpowers, and the question becomes what to do now that they have defeated the United States!)

The play was pretty well done for kids in middle and high school. John's staging was fun, and the cast was huge (there were 44 students in various parts), as were some of his alterations to the script to make it more timely. The material is certainly dated, but as I was watching I could see how one could update it. Makes me wonder if I should look into the rights...hmmm...

Posted by molyneaux at 10:33 PM PST

Updated: Wednesday, 20 May 2009 12:07 AM PDT

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In my new efforts to get out and about more, and to explore my neighborhood of the past nearly seven years, on the 28th of February I decided to go out for brunch and then just start walking. My thought was to go up Trestle Glen, a very nice road with very expensive houses more or less due east of my humble abode at Lake Merritt. I've driven up and down the road a few times and always thought it was beautiful, and decided it would be a prime candidate to see on foot where I could take in all the homes and yards and stop and smell the roses (or whatever flowers happened to be on the way). I zigzagged off onto side streets at various points and discovered cute little bungalows, amazing homes, and one really big beautiful but sadly under-maintained apartment building.

My original thought was to go until I was tired, as Trestle Glen is mostly a gradual uphill that gets to San Francisco steepness near its finish. But, the end was only about two miles, so not as far as I'd thought. Being that I'd gone to the highest point of the walk I planned, I decided I'd take a longer route home, down Park Blvd. and nearby streets, and then around the far side of Lake Merritt. After I got home I mapped the walk on Mapquest and realized I'd gone about seven miles without feeling at all worn out. This emboldens me to take even longer walks in upcoming weeks!

CLICK HERE for a map of today's walk!

Posted by molyneaux at 8:41 PM PST

Updated: Wednesday, 20 May 2009 12:25 AM PDT

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One thing I find irritating about this Blog builder is that it doesn't let you make post-dated entries. If I don't write an entry the day something occurs, I can never actually set it for that date. Grrrr...

Anyway, I'm going to try to fill in a few things that happened on dates over the past week-plus.

I met Becky in Berkeley (there's a song there) to get dinner and a movie. After a lovely meal and good wine at a nice Italian bistro, we went to see a film that was the official Norwegian entry for the 2003 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film: Kitchen Stories.

I had to think about this movie for a while before writing about it. It was a well made picture and I was always interested in where it was going and in seeing how the situation would resolve itself. It was funny in a warm smile rather than a laugh out loud sort of way. But in retrospect the film felt a little...slight. Even as I revisit this entry later, I still don't have a lot to say. I enjoyed it, but I don't think back on it at all.

Posted by molyneaux at 8:13 PM PST

Updated: Wednesday, 20 May 2009 12:09 AM PDT

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I'm a big believer in creative work within limitations, both external and self-imposed. I don't see boundaries as walls that stop you, but as purchases that allow you to climb within a structure. I embrace Orson Welles' statement that "Art without limits is its own worst enemy."

That's one of the reasons I like the TV series Cowboy Bebop. It is a show that works within a framework of self-imposed limitations, but is unusual because a key part of this structure is informed by musical forms rather than traditional narrative ones. While "Bebop" is the name of the vessel the leads travel in, it's much more than that. The improvisational form of jazz relates to both the free-form nature of the series (stories do not follow a rigid formula) and to the lives of the characters, who are making it up as they go along but riffing on their individual themes. The musical component is not thematic only, for music plays a big part in the series, from the jazzy big band title sequence through the original compositions that appear throughout the "sessions" (episodes). Even the session names are mostly song titles ("Honky Tonk Women", "Sympathy for the Devil", "Bohemian Rhapsody").

Even the series title is more thematic than literal. There are not Cowboys per se, rather Cowboy is the lifestyle of individuals struggling to make a living out on the frontier. The show follows three none-too-lucky bounty hunters, a youthful hacker and a "data dog" on various adventures throughout the solar system. Each character has a past that is gradually revealed over the course of the series' 26 episodes (and one feature film), and the whole thing has a definite beginning and ending. It's beautifully designed, spare on dialogue, and frequently relies on cinematography to convey emotions and story points. It's also got one of the hottest title sequences I've ever seen, and it has some relatively decent science to its science fiction (ships have centrifuges to generate artifical gravity, ships without fuel coast to their destinations, etc.). All pluses in my book!

The most surprising thing about my liking this show is that it's Japanese animation, aka animé, a genre I've never cared for both in look or content. But Bebop doesn't often traffic in those animé conventions that put me off, so I've become quite taken with it. I know it's not likely to be everyone's cup of saké, but it's surely one of mine.

Click here for a good Bebop website.

Posted by molyneaux at 1:02 PM PST

Updated: Wednesday, 20 May 2009 12:29 AM PDT

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I had to take the car to the shop today to have a smog problem diagnosed. Fortunately, my mechanic is only a ten minute walk up the street from me. However, today is stormy, so I put on the rain gear I bought for my 2002 New Zealand trip in expectation of mother nature truing to soak me.

However, the rain let up right after I dropped off the car, and it was lunchtime, so I decided to risk an excursion to find lunch over on Piedmont Ave. I've lived in this area for six and a half years and I've come to realize that while I've biked through and driven along many of the streets in the area, I've never walked on many of them. As such, I decided to just follow my nose and see where it would lead me, talking an indirect course to my destination.

CLICK HERE for a map of my walk

Walking this route gave me a very different perspective on the neighborhoods through which I passed. I saw buildings I'd never noticed before, realized just what an ear-numbing roar there in on streets along the freeway, discovered a stair walk connecting two streets mid-block, and walked along a bit of one of the creeks that feeds into Lake Merritt (most of which now goes underground because of all the urban development. I also noticed that some streets that I thought looked like unappealing places to live where actually nicer than I realized, pointing out what a skewed view you can get of a place when you whiz by at driving speeds.

It was a refreshing walk, about 3 miles in total, with a big lunch at the midpoint, and makes we want to explore my neighborhood even more.

Mother Nature kindly smiled on me, as it only rained while I was safely in the restaurant eating lunch, and after I got home. Then, as I was getting ready to walk back to get my car, the rain started really coming down, and suddenly for several minutes it was hailing! Once it stopped, I decided to make a run for it, and the sun broke through the clouds. Luck-y!

Posted by molyneaux at 3:25 PM PST

Updated: Wednesday, 20 May 2009 12:39 AM PDT

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One of the downsides of urban life is you can get so busy and wrapped up in things that you can find yourself falling out of touch with friends and neighbors. Jerry and Patrick live a short bike ride away from me, and yet I don't see them often. I made up for that a little on Saturday when I joined them for brunch in Alameda. Given the current situation in San Francisco the topic naturally turned to gay marriage, and they told me that they were planning to get married there on Monday. They've been together for about 20 years, and they decided they wanted to make the statement. Good for them!*

On Sunday Becky popped over from Pleasanton and we took my car into the city to meet John Sugden for brunch and general hangout time. We convened at the Seal Rock Inn (link: map of location), kitty-corner from where we parked on our beach walk last weekend. Brunch was delightful, albeit the most memorable moment was when somehow the subject turned to John and his girlfriend and I jokingly started insinuating what they do in the bedroom using a salt and pepper shaker to illustrate (John was pepper). Becky was laughing so hard her eyes were tearing up, and at one moment she chuckled so hard John commented, "We have achieved snort!"

We then adjourned to Clement Street where we rummaged through the vastness of Green Apple Books before migrating to Toy Boat Ice Cream. I had a concoction of ice cream and coffee that was pretty good...but I had to eat it very fast before the ice cream melted. Over this, we read through the fragmentary draft of my script "The Fish Who Cried Wolf", and John had a funny suggestion for the tag which I like a lot.

We parted company there, John off on his various errands, with the image of his girl as a salt shaker forever burned into his temporal lobes. Becky and I walked back to my car but took a side trip and explored Mountain Lake Park (map of location) (link: about the park), where Juan Bautista de Anza camped when he explored the area in preparation for the first settlers to come from Mexico. It's a cute little park with nice views of the titular lake, wedged between the houses of the Richmond District to the south, the Presidio Golf Course to the North and East. It would be idyllic but for the near continuous roar of traffic from Park Presidio to the west, something I suspect de Anza didn't have to listen to.

San Francisco seen from Fort Baker

As we were right by Park Presido and about two minutes from the Golden Gate, I decided to drive across the bridge and go down to Fort Baker (weblink: Fort Baker homepage), yet another of the long abandoned old defensive positions built around the entrance to the bay. This one is on the lee of the northern anchorage of the bridge, and gives great views up at it and of San Francisco, the Bay Bridge, and the various islands. There's a Coast Guard presence here, a little marina, lots of old buildings, and the cement skeletons of gunnery emplacements. Picturesque and quiet, it's a great place to watch the ships passing through the Golden Gate, and a picnic spot I'll have to remember.

There's a lot of renovation going on here, as the place is being turned into a cultural center and has a discovery museum, theater group, etc.

Weblink: page with many photos of the area.

Click here for a somewhat fuzzy picture of me at Ft. Baker!

Becky'd never been to Sausalito, so we drove through it on our way to the Richmond Bridge and back to the east bay. At least she can say she's seen it, even if she's not actually set foot in the place. Me, I've not been there in three years and I wasn't particularly motivated to stop. I'm sure I'll have reason to go again one day. Maybe if they have a decent margarita bar...

*Sadly, Jerry changed his his mind on everything and left poor Patrick in 2005.

Posted by molyneaux at 2:49 PM PST

Updated: Wednesday, 20 May 2009 12:34 AM PDT

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I'm on the biggest roll of films I've done in a long time. Last night was another excursion to the land on cinema, this time to see the best bad movie I've seen in a long time.

I'm one of those people who really enjoys the ineptness of grade-Z exploitation pictures by the likes of William ("One Shot") Beaudine and the legendary Ed Wood. I love them for their very earnestness and ineptness. As such, I've always found homages and parodies of them to be a painful experiences because the knowing winks of the sendup perpetrators undermine the humor that comes from the absolute conviction of the form. Amazon Women on the Moon suffers from this in spades, becoming more tedious than the worst Ed Wood film imaginable.

Knowing this, it was with some trepidation that I joined my friends Christopher & Russ in attending The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra (one review and official website), a film which is in parts sendup, homage, and recreation of one of those zero-budget cheapies. Lost Skeleton suffers somewhat from these problems, and at times I winced, but for some reason I found myself laughing out loud, not usually at the obvious funny bits, but often at the end of a scene, where the cumulative absurdity would hit me. The film is written by someone who clearly enjoys these clunkers for the same reason I do, and that affection is obvious throughout. The love is in the lack of detail, from the wood grain of the 2x4 visible in a spaceship hatch, the circular and repetative dialog, cheapo props, to the garage made rubber monster suit and titular skeleton operated by painfully visible wires.

True to the genre, Lost Skeleton sags in the middle, and there were points where the it played "Nudge Nudge Wink Wink" too much. Such smug "we're in on the joke" moments derailed the film momentarily. The cinematography, even for a cheapie, was surprisingly neutral. The skin tones were disturbingly midtone gray. I cried, "My kingdom for a highlight!" but none was forthcoming.

Looking back, I still don't think Lost Skeleton was really that funny. Yet as we left we were quoting the inane lines and laughing our fool heads off. There's nothing inherently funny about "I sleep now!" and "Oh well," and yet, that's what we were reciting. Such is the power of lame dialog...

I'll probably buy the DVD. "Oh Well!"

Posted by molyneaux at 8:40 PM PST

Updated: Wednesday, 20 May 2009 12:10 AM PDT

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A flashback to a film I saw the weekend before last with my friends Terry and Carol...

The Triplets of Belleville (Flash 6 website) is a charming French animated feature that is almost a silent film. Spare in dialogue almost to the point of absence, the film is a series of sweetly comic and patently absurd set pieces about Madame Souza, a grandmother who just won't give up on her laconic grandson, whose only interest is bicycling. With only her wits, an overweight train hating dog and a trio of aged singers (the titular Triplets) at her side, she braves rain, sea, a New York-esque metropolis of cheeseburger devouring fatties, and the French Wine Mafia in her quest to save her grandson. The opening sequence struck chords with me that will likely not register by most people, being that it's a spot-on homage to a 1932 Max Fleischer cartoon, right down to the animation style and bizarre events. Fun stuff!



Click to see the Triplets!
In the theater the film is preceded by Destino (weblink), a short subject released in 2003, but based on storyboards and designs done by Salvador Dali in a short-lived 1946 collaboration between him and Walt Disney. It's Dali in motion, set to a Spanish song from which the film takes its title. Surreal, naturally, but short enough that even those not taken by such images shouldn't find it boring!

Click here for an NPR review (audio) of Triplets.

NPR page on Destino. Includes radio piece and two video segments (Real Video).

Posted by molyneaux at 4:57 PM PST

Updated: Wednesday, 20 May 2009 12:15 AM PDT

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A little behind on the Blog but going to try to catch up some today...

Sunday was another trip to the movies. John Sugden and Terry Braye joined me to see Errol Morris' Oscar nominated documentary The Fog of War (webpage), an excellent and at times infuriating interview with Kennedy/Johnson Secretary of Defense Robert Strange McNamara. In the film McNamara looks you dead in the eye (talking more or less directly at the camera) and tells you how he sees it. Unapologetic to the end, he talks about his life and his experiences in everything from helping orchestrate the firebombing of Japan in WWII through being the first non-member of the Ford family to become President of Ford, through his involvement in the Vietnam War.

One particularly chilling segment illustrates just how extensively the firebombing of Japan was by listing the % of each city destroyed and then substituting the name of an equivalently sized American city, and where McNamara makes us consider some ugly realities when he says, "[General] LeMay said, `If we'd lost [WWII], we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals.' And I think he's right ... LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral when you win?"

Coming away from the film I was struck how McNamara personifies a mentality that can reduce acts of incalculable human suffering to mere statistics and problems in efficiency. And, much as I wanted to hate him, he's not alone. In his arguments you can hear your friends and neighbors. This is especially relevant in the current geopolitical climate vis a vis Iraq and the War of Terrorism, and creepily prescient since the interviews themselves were conducted prior to 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq.

The scariest moment in the film is McNamara's discussion of the Cuban Missile Crisis. He claims that years later Castro claimed that those missiles already had warheads installed. He adds that if the U.S. had attacked Cuba, Castro had advised Khrushchev to fire them, destroying much of the south and the eastern seaboard.

The filmmaker tries to cluster the interview footage under 11 "lessons", a mechanic that help organize related material but sometimes imposes form where none is present or required. His technique keeps the film visually interesting, but some of his visual metaphors are a little ham fisted.

This is not a film of pleasant topics. And people who like to believe in America's rightness and moral superiority are liable to squirm at some of the conclusions. But it's exactly the reason people should see this film.

Posted by molyneaux at 4:40 PM PST

Updated: Wednesday, 20 May 2009 12:16 AM PDT

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I decided to forgo a rented documentary on Fellini on Saturday and spend the day out and about.

My friend Becky (click for photo!) joined me and we had a full day. Breakfast in Oakland was followed by an afternoon in San Francisco. There we walked from above the ruins of the Sutro Baths (weblink) past the Cliff House and down along Ocean Beach, where we watched dogs playing in the surf (photo). On the way back we stopped at the Dutch Windmill on the NE edge of Golden Gate Park (photo of me). The South Windmill has been dismantled for rennovation, so there we didn't wander to it.

Becky and I both decided we wanted a time machine so we could see the area in the early 20th century, when the baths (which could hold 10,000 swimmers!) were operating, Sutro's mansion was on the hill, the Cliff House was a happening place, and the Playland amusement park was between the mansion and the Dutch Windmill where now only ugly condos and a Safeway stand.

Link: Why are there windmills there?

Afterwards we met John Sugden for margaritas at Tommy's (weblink) where we tried three tequilas we had never had before. Upon parting with John, we fled the city for a pub in Berkeley. There we avoided alcohol in favor of ginger beer whilst discovering how badly I throw darts. Becky then taught me how to play Cribbage. I lost, but only after a last minute comeback on her part. Damn!

Inch-thick Chicago style pizza followed in Albany, and, filled to overflowing on food and drink, companionship and the day's experiences, we went our separate sleepy ways, and there was much snoring (at least at my place!).

Posted by molyneaux at 6:52 PM PST

Updated: Wednesday, 20 May 2009 12:23 AM PDT

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