Another major protest is going on just a couple of miles from my place and it looks exciting on TV. Of course, the cops, world bank talking heads and the corporate media whores are painting a very different picture than what you can see from the protestors themselves. I suggest watching the TV muted and playing IMC Radio for the best audio/visual mix. Also, a major shoutout to our cast and crew members as well as friends and colleagues who are participating today, whether it be in the streets or at the IMC. Tonight, Grandma's Mini, featuring our very own bad Washington Intern, Marisa Torrieri, will be playing at Staccato Lounge (where we shot part of our date montage during open mic night). They're back in the live music business after doing some soundproofing, which is a very good thing for such an extremely musician-friendly place. Also playing will be the greatest accordion rockers in the world, Milkmachine, whose music will be appearing somewher in this film. Good times will be had by all.

Action Alert!Girl kicked out of school for having dreadlocks. Yes, you read that correctly. If you've ever been a freak in school (like myself and just about everyone I know), it is your duty to email the principal and tell him how ridiculous this is. Thanks.

The following was overheard by Anne as people were leaving the wedding: 40 something year old woman: 'They are making a porno' 14 year old kid: it's not a porno, mom...' other 40-ish woman: 'did you hear the name??' and Anne shouted to them as they left 'it's not a porno, my fiancee wrote the thing!' but they ignored her.

OK, it's another Monday morning and once again I'm in my office with my mind elsewhere. The wedding was just fabulous! I got to see a lot of friends, and there is nothing better than seeing two friends and two families who are so happy together. At the rehearsal dinner, Adam's sister gave a Dr. Pepper toast which for anyone who knows Adam is the perfect thing. Then us boys went off to Adam's house for the bachelor party which was a great time. He has these hysterical next door neighbors who came by, and we watched the first half hour or so of the movie, the first time for many of Adam's closest friends and they were all impressed. One of the neighbors was so taken by seeing Elizabeth on screen that he started hitting on her. Oh yeah, and then the stripper showed up. The next day was the wedding and getting there was a little rough. Our room thae night before had no air conditioning, so we had to get ready in very sweaty conditions before they finally got us into a better room (and didn't charge us for the night in the sweatlodge). We got there nice and early because I was one of the 4 guys holding the chupah. Adam wore this great velvet captain's jacket and had freshly sharpened his sideburns, and Sarah was stunning in her white beaded gown. Her family did an incredible job transforming their back yard into a very classy wedding pavilion. They built a whole stairway down to it even! We got the whole thing on video, and took a bunch of pictures. It really was a blast! Besides just seeing how incredibly happy everyone was, it was great to meet so many cool new people, get to hang out with some old friends and rock out one more time with the old band. I was pretty nervous about that since the last time I touched my bass was our last gig together in January before Adam and Sarah moved to Pittsburgh, but we clicked together as tightly as ever and people loved it. I'll post the audio of that as soon as it's ready.

So we are off to the much anticipated Kroloff/Link wedding in Pittsburgh this weekend. Adam Kroloff plays our congressman (as anyone who has been watching the behind the scenes clips would know) and before the film we were in a band together. The reason that we disbanded was because Adam moved to Pittsburgh with Sarah Link (who if you've paid carefull attention to the title card at the end of that behind the scenes clip you will know designed all of our office sets) who I had met a couple of years ago on the alt.music.ween newsgroup. She came to one of our shows, Adam wanted me to give him her number, and I instead invited them both over for a movie at my place (along with Jenny Raviv, Maid of Honor in the wedding, and Republican Bimbo in the movie, who you can see in the behind the scenes clip) and the rest is history. So this post goes out to Adam and Sarah who will be off to the Bahamas by the time I post here again (unless I do a live report from the bachelor party tomorrow night).

An update on the DC Indymedia posting: Apparently sometimes a new multimedia file uploaded will cause the article to be hidden automatically. Good thing one of my officemates is an admin there. Still nobody has commented on it, not even a flame. Of course, I also have been hyping this on the Troma message boards which I cannot seem to access right now. Elizabeth came by with a great book on getting your film made by any means necesarry and she's already thinking about how to drum up a little controversey. What with the phone calls from republican senator Rick Santorum's office pestering her to pay for the damage to his SUV which she is in no way actually liable for, there ought to be a way to milk that. If she can get this republican senator to go after us, we couldn't buy that kind of publicity. We also need to get a bunch of our friends to talk about this film loudly wherever they can. I still know a few people who work on the Hill who could talk this up in the bathrooms of the congressional office buildings, maybe drop a flyer or two. So last night I tried to do some more color correction on the fight scene. What a pain in the ass! Some of it was shot very nicely but some are so washed out leaving me little to work with. This means I need to take the good footage and degrade it to match the worst of it, so I may need to figure out some artistic way of making it all look interesting instead of just a bunch of fast cuts over crappy footage. The action is definitely going to carry the scene as long as I can get a good overall look. It's going to take lots of tweaks, but I'm sure it'll work out. That's the scene I'm considering entering into Project Greenlight, so I hope I can get it right soon. I'm also expecting some of the CGI effects shots later this week. After that, I'll be putting together our phony newscasts which ought to be fun to do. I'm going to run a bunch of phony headlines along the bottom of the screen, very sarcastic, Onion-style stuff! If any of you have any ideas for a good headline, leave a comment and if I use it, you'll get a credit in the film.

Aaaahhhh, another Monday morning and I'm sitting in my office but my mind is back home editing Washington Interns Gone Bad. The weekend was fairly productive. I cut together the opening credits sequence which looks and sounds fantastic, and I also put together the lunch scene and some other bits and pieces. I just found out that Oct 10th is the deadline to submit this to be shown at Art-o-Matic which could possibly be a great opportunity for a DC premiere. I think it's looking pretty good that we can make that deadline, at least with a rough sound mix to be fixed up in time for a late Oct/early Nov showing. I also posted the Behind the Scenes clips to DC Indymedia and was immediately censored, but luckilly one of my co-workers is on the editorial committee and un-censored me, earning himself yet another film credit (perhaps "indymedia standards and practices?").

OK, I know you've all been waiting in anticipation for this, but the video clip that I put together for the Bat Cave open mic is up and streaming for you to see. The screening was quite a success. This was the first time showing it in front of people who are not somehow connected to the production and people seemed to like it. Though lugging Karen's big ass TV across 18th St and up a flight of stairs almost killed me. My arms are still incredibly sore. Just making a grip hurts my forearm muscles. But it was definitely worth it. Elizabeth is also back in town for a few weeks and she did a standup routine which had me rolling. Russ was also there and he played 2 new songs. And speaking of music, I ran into this bike courier yesterday and we were chatting about stuff and he gave me a flyer for his band, The Nighties, who are playing at the Velvet Lounge tomorrow night. The funny thing is that I had already heard their songs because I was searching mp3.com for DC bands to use in the film and Anne and I both really liked them more than anyone else I had come across. So I told him all about it and he gave me a CD and was very interested in getting some music in there. I popped one of their tunes into the Becky/Scottie date montage and it's perfect!

So the trailer didn't actually happen. It will, just not in time for tonight's showing. Instead, I put together something even cooler from the behind the scenes footage and some clips from the film which I think will be better for this event anyway. This is typical of the entire no budget moviemaking process so far. Great things happen many times not by choice but as a way to get around a limitation in time or resources. Schoolhouse Rock taught us that necessity is the mother of invention and the Mothers of Invention have taught us to Freak Out in style! OK, I haven't had enough coffee to really go into more on the Zappa tip yet this morning, but I really wish he were alive today. Zappa's strange wisdom is sorely missing from these troubling times. As I walk down the streets today dodging my way around the swarms of flag wavers, I'll keep asking myself "What Would Zappa Do?" So while I was editing that footage last night when I got a phone call from Elizabeth who is back in town for the wedding of Captain and Mrs. Paradox (at which I will be performing 4 songs in just under 2 weeks and I need to dust off my freakin' bass and practice already so I don't risk being the guy who ruined their special day) and to do some campaign work for Adam Eidinger. Anyway, She was getting out of a cab down by the Mall and as she opened her car door, a big SUV came by and the cab door took a nice chunk out of it. Now, damaging an SUV is usually enough to put a smile on my face, but this wasn't just anybody's SUV. This one was being driven by Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA). She's in town just one day and she's already fucking up republicans Wolverine-Berzerker-Style without even thinking about it. Gotta love that! So, the question of today is how to go about having a normal day today. Even though I'm boycotting television all day, there's just no escaping the bullshit that this day is bringing with it. I wish I could just lock myself in my apartment and sit around watching the first two seasons of Sopranos DVDs that I borrowed from my mom. But no, I have to come to work, just 2 little city blocks from the illegally occupied White House while that idiot inside makes our country, and this area of this city a bigger target. My thoughts are on tonight's showing, but it's hard to avoid worrying about the state of the world today.

So I go to check out the DC Indymedia site and what do I see in the picture of the top story but one of our cast members on the ground being handcuffed by the cops at a protest yesterday. Then I watched the video and saw him get sucker punched by a cop and beaten on the ground. More details on this as they arise. So after work tonight I'll be in the home stretch of putting together this new trailer and I'm not entirely sure if it'll be in good enough shape in time to show tomorrow. We shall see.

OK, the editing wall was broken through with the creative use of a title. Now the real challenge begins. It's Monday morning and I'm supposed to debut our brand new 2.5 minute trailer on Wednesday night (yes, that night also just happens to be Sept. 11) at an open mic at the DC Arts Center. I have the opening and the end title ready, but that's it. So far I don't have music, rendered effects shots, or a full idea. Oh yeah, and I have a full time job to juggle all of this with, plus trying to secure a video projector. In a world, where you only have three days to cut a trailer... In a world of crazy deadlines... In a world where things don't come together easilly... In a world of DIY filmmaking... ...yeah you get the idea.

Yikes! I've hit a wall in editing a crucial office scene with inadequate coverage for long stretches. It's like a maddening puzzle where the pieces almost fit together except for small but important little details that would throw the whole thing off. I'm sure I'll come up with something, but right now I am one very frustrated guy.

An interesting story in Salon the other day about fundimentalist christian films. It seems that while the right complains about how evil and liberal hollywood movies are, you can't really say that many of them are really pushing any kind of progressive leftist views while there is this whole new genre of entertainment coming from the religious right, from these movies to that show on TBN where Billy Ray Cyrus is the mullet wearing country doctor, all of which are preaching their ideals in an entertaining way. I hope to fill that void, starting with Washington Interns Gone Bad. While the left puts out a great many serious documentaries, it is entertainment that will win the hearts of the people.

OK, back to work after a nice long weekend, I just got back from almost a week in NY last night and as usual, I'm not ready for the whole work thing. My mom threw an engagement party for me and my sister who also got engaged recently and it was a blast. Not only did I get to see a bunch of relatives who I haven't seen in ages, but many of them were in the same room together since before my folks got divorced 20 years ago, so that was great seeing them all together like that. We had the party at the local gun club (I swear we're not rednecks - it's just a cheap hall to rent out) with animal heads on the wall and everything. I planned on showing some rough cuts of the film to people, but the VCR in the gun club was a big old hunk o' junk and it kept starting to eat the tape. Bummer. But now that I'm back, I'm gearing up to get cranking on the edit once again. John has been busy with color correction and CG shots while the other John has been sweetening the sound. I'm hoping to get into a recording studio soon as well to record some music for this. One of the songs that I thought was pretty much in the bag has fallen through which I am really bummed about. So many of the folks who had emailed me promising to send CDs have flaked, but out of the few that I have gotten, I have songs that I plan on using. I might have to take out another ad, and maybe put some flyers in the guitar stores and studios.