This is a week of bold pronouncements. There are two, and I won't ultimately hold myself to either. The first, I'm no longer seeking out Wes Anderson's films. Sure, if I've been give the keys to someone's Amazon Prime kingdom, I'll treat myself--so long as I'm done with Downton Abbey--but this is my level of investment. Was Grand Budapest Hotel bad? No, I liked it better than Darjeeling Limited, Moonrise Kingdom, and Fantastic Mr. Fox, but I'm over it. The illusive 'it'? I slogged to the top of the hill, surveyed Anderson's manicured, Pantone soaked horizon, and now my descent begins. Aesthetic tedium has finally supplanted Anderson's tenuous connection with humanness, and I'm taking my portable record player home. The second bold pronouncement? I'm removing myself from the SXSW Ferris Wheel. It's time some other more invested party took my place. I gave a death rattle level of fucks this year anyway, so perhaps it's time to bow out. What do these two have to do with each other? With anything? Well, I'm not entirely sure, but I do know you can see the same thing enough times to know you don't love it, or hate it, but indifference is it's own kind of hell
The Woman Issuing My Film Bracelet
She wore an orange shirt and had a number of small
rectangular bandages under her right eye. "Have a cop stand by the door,
gun drawn, and tell people this is not a valid badge."
OverSharers, Haters, and the SXSW Venn Diagram
No, these aren't separate words, nor good enough for a
portmanteau. Although, this is the element of SXSX from which I derive the
strongest feeling. Which one? All of them. It keys my sullen superiority. It
makes me laugh. And...(shuffles feet) it makes me jealous. I fancy myself above
these warring factions within the SX universe, and therein lies the problem.
It's a keen social drama watching these disparate parts
overlap. You hate SXSW? Well I sure enjoyed your social media check in from the
event/premiere you went to. You love SX? Oh, you'll make sure we know. In full
color detail, unless you use the inkwell filter.
It's silly to hate SXSW. It's even sillier to buy into
jump the shark notions, or pine for a long gone, purer SX. You go around the
horn announcing your contempt, but all of your words, positive or negative,
breath life into the SXSW machine. It's bigger than hate, hate, don't
participate. If you're really so opposed to the festival--the millions in
revenue dollars, the jobs, the cultural capital--don't let it have any power
over you. Otherwise, if you choose to let, "South By," breach your
lips, wash it down with a free beer at free show. There are worse fates, and
more importantly, something even the hater-iest person can enjoy.
I spent a large portion of the weekend glued to my
various feeds. I'd only look up long enough to scoff, "The number of
[Social Medias] they made this week is more than I made six months
abroad." To recap, I believe my form of personal enjoyment is,
"real-er" than theirs. And I believe my social media sharing is more
noble because the quantity is lower. Ultimately, my reaction is born from the
exact same trait as the dreaded overshare, pride and vanity. How would they
tickle their ego with out the shares? How would I tickle mine without diligent
fixation? The two components of this dubious cycle were never in question.
Instead, is there any loyalty between follower and sharer? And if so, can it
survive the fierce loyalty to themselves?
The intersection is the most predictable place of all,
the Internet. Really fucking provocative, yeah? During a brief Twitter outage a
user asked, "If Twitter goes down for 20 minutes during SXSW, do those 20
minutes even exist?" We've always had the above personalities, but their
modern iterations are so very World Wide Web. SXSW is an experiential festival,
a choose your own adventure novel. This adventure--no matter your stance on
SXSW--requires an audience as eager to create media as they are to consume.
City block after city block to scroll through like a timeline, it's the ideal
convergence point of a culture whose topography is generated one post at a
time.
78 Project Movie
Overall, the technical aspects of the 78 Project Movie
are poorly executed. In the era of Kickstarter documentaries we're seeing more projects in the hands of amateurs. The
camera work is erratic and there's no keen sense of what should make it on
screen. As a result, the spaces between the heart and soul of the film are
paltry. I'm front loading with criticism for a sense of balance, because when
we arrive at the aforementioned heart and soul, its power stretches far beyond
the film's craftsmanship.
The premise of the 78 Project is two young archivists
and a 30's Presto record maker hit the great American road. In search of songs,
they travel to meet musicians they don't always know, and record them. The
caveat is the song has to be old, presumably in public domain, and the
musicians get one take. This an extension of a great American tradition
pioneered by Alan Lomax who brought us the likes of Lead Belly, Bukka White,
and Mississippi Fred McDowell. Where conventional wisdom says this is pure
novelty--it is much easier to collect quality remote recordings with state of
the art technology--there is profound magic in those seven inches of vinyl.
The musicians exert tremendous care with their single
take. Records made in defiance of perfection, these 78's capture music's
breadth alongside the fragility of a moment. And when the artists hear their
recording, complete with pops, ambient sound, and tinny vocals, their sense of
awe is as durable as the record itself.
Every song comes with a human and every human comes with
a story. Music is meted out in the space between the notes, and those spaces
are occupied with accordion playing bums in Shreveport, a grandfather who
committed suicide like his mother before him, and quill flutes used to aid pick
pockets. This film is as much about the music preserved as the stories carved
into each musician. As one guitar played noted, crouched over his freshly
pressed 78, a record is a physical model of a sound wave. Efforts like the 78
Project Movie help create an equally indispensable physical model of the human
experience.
Afternoons With Wolf
I didn't make it into the afternoon screening of Frank,
but I was in line next to a fellow who had a pompadour worth contemplating. I
went to the corner store across the street, bought two Rustin Cohle's, and
walked to the park at 9th and Guadalupe. Nestled between the public library and
county courthouse--one a building where I want to leave my legacy, the other a
more likely archive--it's a park put on earth for the best kinds of beer
swilling: illegal, public, and daytime. A single path meanders from one corner
of the park to the other, past a white stage, and through a natural low.
Reclined in the earthen depression, head on my satchel, my brown bag swaddled
Rustin was ice cold.
The Big Nowhere matched the grey SXSW day. All brutal
sex crimes and rooting out commies, it's a story about men and glove
compartment flasks, when both were still allowed. Wolf found me, and at the
time of these notes he was at the end of another relationship. Opting for the
Final Destination version of this final destination, it took six or so tries,
but the terminus arrived all the same. Who knows, there's always profit in a
franchise reboot.
I confessed. I told him I didn't really change while I
was abroad. I did the same thing in different places, so it was allowed to be
the illusion of change. While traveling I was reunited with a sense of
fearlessness (recklessness?) and a reaffirmed sense of purpose. I'm going down
with the ship--and as the atmosphere of age and unrealized ambition pull the
fuselage apart, I hope the moment before free fall is as peaceful as I've
imagined.
"It takes a lot for a man to fully change,"
Wolf noted. And I conceded that wasn't my aim. Stay elegantly wasted, just
write your way through it, that's the only way this will work.
We left the park and tried to track distant rock and
roll sounds lilting through the streets. The sound never got closer and was
soon enveloped by 6th Street's din. We talked about when Wolf will knock up
some girl. We talked about not why or when, but how many times I'll get
divorced. It was clear we were both feeling a little raw, but our hearts are
never exposed for too long. We've got each other, we're the Boy Geniuses,
co-dependence and mutual admiration have held lesser unions together.
I wanted to see Desert at 7PM. In line for over an hour I was denied entrance, but Wolf waited with me. Afterward we walked to the Brixton. They had shots and beers ready before we sidled up to the bar.
Which SXSW Film Are You?
What's your SXSW film? Find the month you were born, the
day of the week where your birthday falls this year, your level of SXSW
credentials, your day party libation of choice, and viola! Your SXSW film
description is ready to go! You might have to add an article or two, but you
get it...whatever...
Character Type:
Jan - Disaffected yet precocious teen
Feb - Post-modern-ish Vampire
Mar - Musician
Apr - A void
carved from an increasingly disconnected culture, merely a vacuous extension of
toxic modern living.
May - Manic depressive cartographer
Jun - Trevor is stuck in his dead end job
Jul - Alcoholic
soldier
Aug - Isolated stranger
Sept - A Hmong immigrant
Oct - The last skilled propeller welder in a dying small town
Nov - Writer
Dec - Disabled sex worker
Sexual Trait:
Monday - Caught in a psycho-sexual love triangle
Tuesday - With a cake sitting fetish
Wednesday - Coming to grips with their homosexuality
Thursday - Born with both sex organs
Friday - Addicted to celibacy
Saturday -Reclaiming their virginity
Sunday - Searching for their first orgasm
Trope:
Press - Uncovers a family secret with supernatural
implications
Artist - Left to pick up the pieces after the apocalypse
Platiunm - Hesitant to reconnect with their absent
father
Gold - Desperate to see the Very Large Array outside
Socorro, New Mexico, but trapped
Film - Wrestling with love and loss
Music - Is drawn into a murder mystery where time travel
is clue and suspect, and it could only come to a head...
Interactive - Begins a journey of self-discovery
None - Is beginning to lose their grip on what's
real...and what's make believe
Location:
Lone Star - Across hundreds of lifetimes
Fancy Beer - At the bottom of a well
Vodka - In the infinite expanse of their mind
Whiskey - Inside a collapsing black hole
Wine - On a transcontinental journey
Gin - Imprisoned in their own artistic creation
Whatever's Free - Williamsburg
3/12
After my films were over, I hit the ramble. I knew I
could get into the British Music Embassy, and they had free pulled pork
sandwiches. I saw Eric, was close enough to cut him, but I didn't. I also
didn't say hello. An elegant figure stood perched at the bar with a drawn on
mustache, a cloak, and headphones around his neck. Ram's Pocket Radio, a name
they mentioned an inexcusable number of times, was on stage ladling out their
pop mush. Bobbing heads during SXSW are hardly an indicator of quality, but
someone walked out of that room in love with that band. I was not one of them,
but determined to hate those who did, I wondered what overlap me and this
theoretical person have in our music libraries. Then I wondered how I
appreciated the artist in question the correct way.
I left and wandered until something caught my
imagination. Dense sedimentary bands of sound poured from the open facade of
Friends. River Runs North roiled the packed room with taut orchestral chaos.
After their set I ran into Zack. Then it was Rob, then it was Melissa, then it
was Lisa and Eric. I ate more free BBQ and grabbed a free Bud Light. Ghost
Beach played next. As empty and overused as descriptors like,
"anthemic," and "deep groove synth-rock," may be, it can
still be done right, and Ghost Beach does it with the lights on. On a
punctuated timeline they pushed to a frenetic pace. Drops fell like hammer on
firing pin and waves of shimmering keyboard lines flooded the room with buoyant
energy. Demanding fun, cheering us on, Ghost Beach insisted on as good a
performance from us as we expected of them. Observe, perfect rock and roll
symbiosis in its natural habitat.
After the set everyone reconvened outside and parted
ways. I popped into a random club, and an old man--beat track coming from his
amp--excised virtuoso blues from a horrific Ibanez guitar. Upstairs a SoCal Rap
Rock Punk Metal Dub group played. The crowd matched the band, and the band
lived up to their disastrous musical premise.
In the street I stumbled upon Heath and Kelsey. We went
to the Brixton. I had a couple of beers and a shot, and a band launched into
their set. Too heavy for the mood, too raucous for the point in the day, I'm in
no position to say whether I liked them or not. The lead singer had a forearm
tattoo of the Misfits logo wearing a flower wreath. It sent all the right
messages. We went to Yellow Jacket Social Club to ride out the 5pm-8pm lull. We
drank and chatted and I took too many pictures of ennui bedazzled hipsters
under a flag reading, "Death Is Certain."
On our way out I smoked. They ate at the trailer food
court and I wrote in my notebook with no sense of irony. Afterward we went to
White Horse to see our friend Nick--have trombone, will travel--play with one
of at least three bands he's associated with. He was with a statuesque tenor
sax player named Lela who had silver Aladdin Sane bolt earrings. We talked
about Morphine. The band, not the drug.
I was pouring the shots down my throat and following
them with beers. I told people not to let me take anymore shots, but I kept
doing them in secret. Destructive habits aren't formed in a day. Nick played
with Churchwood, a full-throttle brass driven cult with a Tom Waits-esque
charismatic figure leading the sermon. Next on the bill was an awful, gimmicky
punk band called GrandMas (Grandmothers?). I moved to the periphery, had
another shot, and the lights went out. The room--lights, faces, sounds--smeared
together, and somewhere in time Rust Cohle whispered, "It was all the same
dream, a dream that you had inside a locked room, a dream about being a
person."
I disappeared into the night and smoked. I sat in
an empty field and drank a beer that had been in my bag at least two days. I
walked the length of downtown through darkened side streets and snapped a dozen
useless photos. Headphones on, I staggered down the train tracks and finally received a
text from Wolf calling me home. Back at the Brixton, fresh beer in hand, Wolf
and I secured our square inch of space. Two women approached Wolfman and
complimented his hair.
"You need to do better than that," I barked.
"Everyone compliments his hair. It's like me saying some boring shit like I like your dress or
something. If you're gonna hit on him you need to be more fucking
original." They were taken aback. Wolf was amused. We ended up getting
their numbers.
On the way home, my internal drunken maelstrom abating, I heard
news about a wreck. A car plowed through a crowd of people downtown, 23
injured, two dead (now three). My bullshit yoke--the sense of displacement, the
nagging self-loathing, the acute addictions--evaporated into the weightless
burdens they are. These are living person problems, and I'm lucky to
have them. The guilt got a jump on the hangover for once. It's usually the
other way around.
American Interior
Much like the outset of any ambitious sojourn, the
search for John Evans begins unfocused. The goal is clear, to follow the trail
of this forgotten Welsh explorer, but the beginning is all muddy water and
jangled nerves. When the adventure gains momentum and determines it's own
direction, American Interior--this concert film/feature/documentary--solidifies
into the bold endeavor John Evans, as man and legend, best represents.
Gruff Rhys, a founding member of Welsh rock outfit Super
Furry Animals, is at the helm of this mad creation. In short, Gruff wanted to
live the story of John Evans. An idealist and adventurer who left Wales in the
late 1700's, Evans traversed the American interior in search of Welsh speaking
Native Americans. This tribe was believed to be the remnants of a mythic Welsh
prince, Madoc, who allegedly discovered America before Columbus.
The beginning of the film is hectic. Abrasive cuts
fracture an already unclear narrative direction, and the first 20 minutes I was
certain this movie was going to fail in the gate. Though, when Gruff makes it
out of Wales, and out of the American city centers, the arcs--including what
seemed an ill-conceived John Evans puppet Gruff carries with him--take on
profound depth. The American heartland is the central character, historians,
Native Americans, and haunting vistas all extensions of this rugged idea. Each
destination sheds new light on the Evans expedition, but the intertwining of
these men on parallel paths yet centuries apart, is the true crux of American
Interior.
A tall tale riddled with countless turns, the epic
tragedy of John Evans eventually comes to fore. Punctuated by clips from his
stilted one man show and PowerPoint presentation, Gruff writes the song of John
Evans as he goes. Does either man find what he seeks? Well, this is a spoiler
free write-up, but as one person Gruff meets along the way shares, "John
Evans believed Madoc was real." The stated outcome is the smallest measure
of any quest, but the journey--those of both Evans and Gruff--is a story worth
telling.
Joe
It took 10 films, but David Gordon Green is finally at
the peak of his powers. Joe, his latest effort staring Nic Cage, is nothing
short of a masterpiece. Where Green began as some sort of
proto-Malik with Altman-esque tendencies, his career took several divergent
paths. With lyrical dramas at one end of the spectrum, and bottom of the bong summer comedies at the other, it was hard to discern exactly what DGG's
legacy would be.
Last year he surprised with the quiet and charming
Prince Avalanche, and now with the release of Joe, he's proven himself to be an
ever evolving and essential American filmmaker. Joe, adapted from a Larry Brown
novel, is savage, but potent humanity still finds purchase in the relentless
brutality. Solemn embers smolder beneath the verite style camera work and
minimalist dialog. Thin on point by point narrative, the story is far less
important than the characters. A rousing ensemble of amateurs led by Nic Cage, his portrayal of the titular character is one of those increasingly rare roles where Cage reminds you he's not a
YouTube clip of freak outs, but an exceptional talent.
There are symbols, social commentary, and cinematic
prowess enough to fawn over, but these are secondary traits. Joe is a simple
story about the long road to the middle. An existence where all are equally
punished and redemption is unimportant, one selfless deed holds untold
possibilities. To overcome is the hopeful ideal, but for most, enduring the
unheralded existence takes a far greater measure of determination.
And to whom it may concern, David Gordon Green has to
adapt Harry Crews' A Feast of Snakes. He's proven himself a talent fit to wield
this awesome power, and the world can't go on without it.
The End of the Affair
On recounting the SXSW weekend, it finally occurred to
me; I can't get past everything SXSW isn't. SXSW isn't some assault on my
diminishing coolness. SXSW isn't a contest where showoffs and braggarts angle
to outdo one another. SXSW isn't an over-exploited corporate morass where
drunks and scenesters pass themselves off as taste-makers. SXSW isn't any of
these things, but I can't move beyond my own misguided certainty this is all
SXSW really is. I know people who had a great week, met their idols, saw some
good street brawls, and hardly paid a dollar. This is the possibility of the
festival, but petty frustrations and outside forces and my unshakable
perceptions now stand fused between me and SXSW.
In an effort to dovetail this back into my opening Wes
Anderson rant, at the end of Grand Budapest Hotel, they say something in regard
to one of the characters: His era was over before his time began, but he kept
up the illusion with grace and dignity. Or something like that. All the same,
it's clear I can no longer do either.
