and now for something completely different.

In 1993, my first band Dyn@mutt went on its first tour. I believe we were excited that it was a multi-state tour, even though the total number of states were two: Texas and New Mexico. We toured with our friends in Seed. A star-studded lineup of two bands that nobody outside of Houston had heard of; a certain recipe for a disastrous tour.

And objectively, I suppose, it was more or less as disastrous as one would reasonably expect, but it was so fucking awesome being on the road for the first that, for me at least, it didn't matter, or if it did nostalgia has occluded my unhappiness. My memories of it are partial and random; one of the strangest was being in a parking lot outside of a Randall's somewhere, me eating a green or red pepper (capsicum, if you're a Kiwi) like an apple, and Brian from Seed saying, "now that's punk rock". Being a 19-year old geek, I took some small twinge of pride in this. Conversely, although I'm pretty sure we played Lubbock, I don't actually remember anything about it, other than some story about flaming Dr. Pepper shots that I had no part of. (The joys of touring when you're 19 and look 14.) I have much more vivid memories of not playing Dallas (or was it Fort Worth?), where our show was cancelled because it hadn't been promoted and it cost the owner less to keep the club closed and not run the air conditioner than it would to open the club and hope somebody besides our bassist Chad's parents came by.

Apart from a show in Copperas Cove, which merits an entry all of its own at some point (if I haven't written it already), I most vividly remember New Mexico. We played two gigs there. One was in Alberquerque, with Nothing Painted Blue. NPB were one of our guitarist's favorite bands, and we thought we had scored a coup getting this show. However, their fan base was neither large nor passionate, for those few that might have been interested were probably holding out for their show with another larger band (Tsunami, maybe?) 8 days later at the same club. (The Golden West, I believe.) I think we got a few random folks to pop in, though - maybe as many as 20 people, even.

This was like a sold-out 3-night stand in Madison Square Garden compared to our show in Santa Fe. We had a house show set up on a reservation outside of town with a local punk band, Dr. Romero, if I remember right. When we got to the house, it was clear that nobody that lived there had any idea we were to be playing a show. A few hasty phone calls, and a little bit later a couple people had straggled in so it wasn't entirely humiliating. I'm pretty sure we played a set, then Dr. Romero hopped on our gear (I believe they didn't ask everyone, causing somebody in the band to be fucked off, but I don't remember who) and played some of their snotty punk songs. (Dr. Romero apparently later badmouthed us, saying that we weren't punk enough or something. But do they eat green peppers like apples? I doubt it.) Their set, however, was cut short by the arrival of the pueblo police, as we were violating noise ordinances or some such. We packed up and left without Seed getting a chance to play.

That night, Dave and I stayed at the pre-school that a friend of ours taught at. In the morning, she showed up along with one of her young charges. We noticed a Fisher-Price turntable sitting around, and broke out ALLES IST GUT, the split 7" we were on, with our track "Blue-Light Special".

The beat kicked in (shamelessly if unconsciously ripped off from The Minutemen, albeit in a simplified form), and this young boy, who I remember shirtless and in a diaper, went crazy. I mean crazy happy. I mean dancing around like a mad fool hearing the sound he has been waiting to hear all his life, throwing his pudgy little fists up and down, bumping into the turntable and knocking the record around and barely noticing, too rapt.

At the time, I was mostly concerned about scratching up a record we intended to sell.

Now I look back and I think about how simple and pure that happiness was, and how rare and wonderful moments of grace like that are for us grown-ups. I have no idea why. Well, that's not true. I have ideas, but I still stubbornly hold on to the idea that they are possible, not just as rare events, but as a regular part of life, regardless of how often life conspires to prove otherwise.

I have been fortunate enough to have one of those moments of grace this weekend. My flatmate Heath is the handiest person with building things I have ever met in a walk, and on my suggestion has built a jib arm. A jib arm is a piece of filmmaking equipment that allows stable vertical motion of the camera. He's built it out of plywood, some steel he's lathed together, and some bearings he's bought, and it is fucking awesome.

When I think of making my own films, one of my major obstacles has always been achieving the fluidity of motion that is to me the heart of cinema. There are some movies that I love shot only on tripods, some movies that I love shot handheld, but when I see a gorgeous tracking shot in a Tarkovsky film or THERE WILL BE BLOOD, or a fluid camera movement like those that litter the underseen and incredibly brilliant Italian film THE CONSEQUENCES OF LOVE, my heart moves a little faster. But all the equipment used to do these things is typically quite expensive and without practicing it, it's hard to really know what's doable or not.

So my co-conspirators and I got together today with no plan and in three hours threw together a 1-minute short film using only that and another invention of my flatmate's, a CineSaddle (basically a bag that allows the camera to sit on the ground stably, allowing you to get some killer low angles that are impossible with tripods). We came up with the shots and a basic story, and the final* product, while certain not to win any awards and embarrassing in at least one major aspect (CLEAN THE LENS NEXT TIME, GENIUS!) -



- it is fucking revelatory in what it will allow us to do by putting these tools and principles to work on a larger canvas. And despite all the crap and pain that I've been dealing with in the past weeks (not a tenth of a single percentage point of which has anything to do with anyone who writes or has written for this blog, to forestall that being taken the wrong way), seeing this potential reveal itself makes me feel three years old, hearing a strange and beautiful music, and dancing because it is all I know how to do.

*This is not the final product, actually. The pictures are not graded, and I intend to fill out the sound mix more, either with music or ambient sounds or a combination.