A new project is brewing!

In a few weeks I'll be able to share with you a new project I have been working on for the last few months. I'm keeping it very hush-hush and top secret so the big launch will be a surprise, but I can say it is very exciting and I am having a great time putting it together.

Earlier I wrote about losing weight and getting fit and all that, but one of the unexpected results of all that exercise and moving my body around was a clearing of the energy surrounding my creativity. Maybe because I have more energy, I have more energy to create. Or maybe my creativity was stirred from its slumber. I am writing and creating more than I have in years.

In a few weeks I'll share it with you.

Do you think you're free?

Happy July 4th, 2007. Independence Day! Home of the free and land of the brave. A lot has changed since 1776, though to hear some people speak, that shouldn't have any bearing on how we interpret the constitution and the laws of this great land.

Today I just want to ask you, are you free? Do you live your life the way you want? Always and at all times?

Do you make decisions based on what you want? Or do external forces and what others want for you influence you choices? Because that to me is the essence of freedom.

There is no right or wrong. I just think today is a good day to think about these things and see if any adjustments can be made to our lives to get closer to the ideal of freedom.

So many people give lip service to freedom. A dark cloud hangs over freedom these days, and until we start living free lives, that cloud will cover us all until it's too dark and too strong to ever recover from.

Ashley Marriott's Burn and Firm

As I wrote about in previous blog entries, earlier this year I was selected to participate in a workout program, Ashley Marriott's Burn and Firm. In exchange for my testimonial, my before and after pictures, and my consent to appear on the eventual DVD program, I received 12 weeks of free fitness training with Ashley.

It was something I really wanted to do on my own; work out and lose a few pounds, but I knew I never would. For me it's easier to sit at the computer and work for 12 hours than get up and workout for an hour. So I challenged myself, and soon I was hooked on working out. I was going to class six times a week. A lot of it had to do with Ashley, who is so motivating and enthusiastic it was infectious. But this is old ground, I've covered all this before.

Here are the results. If you visited here earlier, you probably saw the before and after pictures, but I have taken them down. I felt silly having them up here. All my friends have seen them already, so I'd rather not have them up on the web for eternity.

Here are the results of my 12 week fitness program with Burn and Firm by Ashley Marriott. Pounds lost: 19. Inches lost: 15 1/2. Waist before: 36 1/2. Waist after: 31. Bodyfat before: 21%. Body Fat After: 12 1/2%.

In the two months since the training ended I continue to workout on my own and lost a few more pounds. It is now easy to get up and go to the club. Working out is not a chore, but a fun challenge.

If you want a fun workout that really delivers results, either move to Los Angeles and hire Ashley Marriott as your personal trainer, or buy her Burn and Firm DVD when it comes out. Thanks, Ashley!

A picture is worth 1000 words...

Seriously, do you think we'll hit $4 a gallon in California by the summer as predicted?
If more stations follow the lead of this Hollywood station I drove by on 4/18/07, it won't take long.

This is not a normal price, I will tell you that. It is 25-30 cents more per grade than the average LA area station. So how come this station charges so much? Obviously they are getting it. In a non emergency situation, can you call that gouging? No one is making you stop there.

Oh, well, fossil fuels will some day be a thing of the past. Maybe in my lifetime. What's next?

30 days to go; a lifetime of fun begins.

At my weekly weigh in today, I was down another pound from last week, for a total of ten pounds in 8 weeks, and another 1/2 inch off my waist, for a total of 4 1/2 inches. I feel pretty good about that.

With 4 weeks left to go in the Burn and Firm program, I am very close to achieving the
goals I set at the start. But the main thing I am getting out of this experience, besides the weight loss and the all around boost of confidence, is that I have replaced the eating and exercise habits that weren't working, with new healthy habits that do work. It took 12 years to put on about 40 pounds, so I don't expect to lose everything in 12 weeks, but it is a good start. I will post before and after pictures at the end of the program.

So, now I look forward to a lifetime of healthy eating, exercise, and looking good on the beach. Hey, I live in California!

If I can do it, anyone can do it. Just get out there and kick some abs!

Friday The 13th

I feel lucky today, how about you? First off, good morning, how are you?

When I turn the page on the calendar to a new month, the first thing I do is check for three things; when is the full moon, are there two this month, and is there a Friday the 13th? If there is, like today, I am very happy, because I like Friday the 13th. I also like walking under ladders and having black cats cross my path. I like the added challenge and excitement they bring to my life.

You see, I am superstitious, but just not in the way most people are. For example, I'll never utter the name of the "Scottish Play", or whistle, backstage in a theatre, for that would surely bring disaster. And I always bring my baseball glove, the one I've had since I was 13 years old, to the ball park, even though I have never caught a ball, fair or foul, and it never really helps my team win. Is that a tradition or a superstition? Not sure. But I do it.

I wear a silver St. Genesius medallion for good luck at auditions and on stage. That goes back to my days in Teen Footlighters. The medallion was given to me by my dear old friend, Mickey Henningsen. Is that a tradition or a superstition? Not sure. But I do it.

I always touch the outside of an airplane when I board, as I cross the portal from the jet way onto the aircraft, to make sure the plane is real. Is that a tradition or a superstition? Not sure. But I do it.

When I enter or exit an automobile, I alway look for open holes in the ground near the car, like sewer grates or chasms in the ground that my keys might fall in if I dropped them, and I grip the keys tightly in my hand until I'm safely in the car and the doors are closed or the doors are locked and the keys safely back in my pocket. Is that a tradition or a superstition? Not sure. But I do it.

If I see a coin on the street, I check to see if it is heads-up or tails-up before I pick it up. Is that a tradition or a superstition? Not sure. But I do it. Oh, I pick up the coin either way, but I never pick up a coin if it is less than a nickel.

But Friday the 13th to me is not an unlucky or superstitious day. It's a fun day, a lucky day. So I wish you all a lot of luck today, and always.

PS: I hope Kurt Vonnegut is safely up in heaven where he deserves a special seat of honor at The Good Guys Table. He sure was one of the good ones. Good luck up there, Kurt.

I'm so vain.

Good morning. I'm fine, thank you, how are you?

Today I would like to talk about vanity. Not vanity in general, but my own. I am vain, I admit it. I check out my reflection in shop windows when I walk down the street. I can't pass a mirror without at least slowing down to see how I look, and I have been working hard lately to get myself back in shape.

As an actor, how I look directly affects how often I might work. My body is my tool, the canvas on which I sculpt a character, and so I have to be very aware of it, in control of it. I have to be very comfortable in it, and I haven't been as comfortable these past few years as I would like to be. Also, as an American brought up in the 20th century, I have issues with my body like everyone else.

You see I was very overweight as a child, and I still have not fully gotten over that experience. I have been struggling with weight issues since I was 7 years old. And let me tell you, being an overweight child is no fun. I was harassed by my family, I was harassed by other children, and even a few teachers got their jabs in too. Fat people are targets, easy targets, for an insecure nation. At my heaviest I weighed in at about 220 pounds. That was when I was 15. There are very few photos of me back then. I tried every diet known back then, from Dr. Atkins Diet Revolution (which became so popular again twenty years later in the carb-conscious-nineties) to Weight Watchers. What could be more fun for a 12 year old on a Saturday morning than to go sit in a room with a bunch of overweight middle-age ladies and hear a motivational pep talk at Weight Watchers? Then be applauded at the scale for losing weight the previous week? Go ahead, make my week! They all worked for awhile, but I was a yo-yo, up and down, up and down.

When I was fifteen, I was taken to see Dr. Happy, who prescribed "diet pills", (narcotic amphetimines), to help me lose weight and stop looking like a blimp. They worked for my Aunt Madeleine, and they worked very well for me too. Dare I say extremely well. Maybe even too well. I lost a lot of weight, but had a lot of sleepless nights, and continue to grind my teeth even now, thirty years later.

Like all fat teenagers, there was no more hated time than the dreaded GYM class. Being made fun of in the locker room or the shower was enough to make me cut gym and or cut school altogether. (Do kids still say "cut" class? I hope so.) I couldn't run, I couldn't play basketball, there wasn't a single sport I was good at, except binge eating. In that I excelled. Until I met Dr. Happy. Dr. Happy changed all that with his magic pills and his advice at my bi-weekly weigh-in. I remember the Dr. actually smoked during my visit, as he looked at my chart, made a few notes, and asked me how I was feeling. I was hip to the game after awhile, so I told him the pills were no longer working as well, I needed more, and asked him to up the dose, which he usually did. Ah, Preludin, you were my best friend in high school. Did you see Aronofsky's Requiem For A Dream? Remember when Ellen Burstyn visits the diet doctor, gets the speed pills, and eventually gets really paranoid and goes crazy? That was me. Good times.

But I digress. I started talking about vanity and got sidetracked by my history of being overweight. It is important though, because even though I eventually shed most of the weight and was to most casual observers, thin, the effect on my body image has never really healed. Even though at long last I was within the norms of the Insurance Industry's height/weight charts for my height/weight, I still thought of myself as fat. That must be pretty common, like phantom limb syndrome, phantom fat syndrom.

The world looked at me and saw a thin person, but I didn't. I'll never forget the thrill I felt as I was being arrested in New Orleans one time and the booking officer called me Slim, as in "Hey Slim, let's see a profile". Was he talking to me? I was in heaven! I was really at the central police station, but it was heaven to me.

Shedding a fat body image is a difficult thing to do, but I think I am finally close to accepting myself as the newly thin person I am. Which leads me back to vanity.

So, I was thin for many years, and I felt good. I traveled around the world, I was athletic, I worked out, I had many girl friends, I went back into theatre, studied mime and physical theatre in Paris, and oh, did I mention I had many girl friends? For a fat kid who had a hard time talking to girls, that was huge.

Eventually I moved back to Chicago, where I met Kris and we married. I was an actor at first, but about ten years ago I quit acting and got into the film business. Working on movies is a passion for me, but with it came the crazy hours, the easy access to crappy food and snacks, and the unhealthy lifestyle that saw me care less about my body to get the job done. I went from my adult low weight of 155 up to 195 in about five years. I was embarrassed, but had no time or will power to change it. I am lucky, I guess, in that I can carry some extra weight and conceal it rather well. The men in my family all have big guts, except for my brother Steve, which is where most of my weight stuck, but it spread out pretty evenly so with a jacket and good fitting clothes I didn't look "fat".

In addition to gaining weight, or because of it, I wasn't happy with my job, I needed a change. The extra weight brought stress and the stress brought extra weight. The cycle was repeating.

Then about three years ago I got back into acting, did less film production work, and started to make decisions that were better for me. I started to listen to that little voice that tells you what you really want, what you should really do with your life. Getting back on stage again made me happy and that motivated me to lose weight. I was being seen again.

A year ago Kris and I made a huge lifestyle change; we moved to Los Angeles where I dedicate myself to acting. Los Angeles is very body conscious, in case you didn't know that. And Hollywood is quick to typecast or bodycast actors.

By the time I moved to LA last year I was down to about 180, but still carried a bit of a spare tire around the middle. Now there is nothing wrong with that, unless you don't want to carry a spare tire around the middle. It's not the healthiest way to be, and it wasn't how I wanted to look. I wanted to be thin. I wanted nice clean lines again. I wanted to be a thin person on television, not the middle-age guy with a spare tire on television.

I'm so vain, I guess I think this blog is about me, don't I, don't I?

Two months ago I saw an audition notice for a workout video. The offer was this; 8 weeks of free personal training in exchange for a committment to going a certain number of times per week and allowing before/after pictures and a testimonial. I applied for and was accepted into Ashley Marriott's Burn & Firm Training program. The duration of the program was extended to 12 weeks, and week 4 just ended.

This is the best thing I've done in a long time. It is really working out well for me. I knew I needed to work out, and I wanted to lose another 10-15 pounds, but I lacked the self-motivation to do it. I knew if I was accepted into this program and made the committment, I would follow through. I needed an external push, kind of like diet pills, only healthier. Much healthier. Ashley is wonderful; she's motivating, encouraging, is a great trainer with great information, and is helping to replace old unhealthy patterns with new healthy ones in all of us. I see the difference in my self and all the other people in the program. And, it doesn't require a class three narcotic prescription from a doctor!

Ashley's Burn & Firm program is a combination of dance steps and aerobic exercises that strengthen, tone and build endurance. The cardio work is burning fat and the strengthening work is building muscle. After the first four weeks I look better, I feel better, and I sleep better. I started the program at 171 pounds, and am now at 167. I went from a 36 1/2 waist to a 34, and also went down at my chest, thighs and hips. See, I told you I was vain. And with 8 more weeks to go, I am confident I will hit my target weight of 160, with a 32 inch waist. Then when I walk down the street and check myself out in store windows, I'll really like what I see.

Getting in shape is really getting in touch with your body and spirit. I am getting back in my body, getting comfortable in my body. For an actor, that is really important. Remember I said this is my tool, this is what I have to work with. I can't work as effectively if I am thinking about how to hide my weight, or how this costume makes me look fat. (Does this fat-suit make me look fat?) I have to take that out of the mix. There is enough to think about as it is while acting. The choices I make with my body and voice in real time are difficult enough without the insecurity of not being comfortable with my body.

So yes, I am vain, I am an actor. And I am a better actor now that my mind/spirit is more connected, more comfortable in my body, my spaceship, I travel through this life in.

I will post the embarrassing before and the powerfully motivating after pictures in approximately 8 weeks when the Burn and Firm program ends. Until then, I hope you all feel great in your spaceships and have a great time travelling through your life here on planet Earth.

I play one on TV...

I'm not a cop, never wanted to be one, but playing one on TV is another story. I could do that all day long. Good cops, bad cops, it doesn't matter.

But I'd like to have a good catch phrase, you know, something people will remember. Like, "Book 'em, Dano", or, "Who loves you baby?" I'd like to see tee-shirts with my catch prase, and posters, and bill boards. A big bill board on the Sunset Strip of me telling the perp, "Wasn't such a good idea now was it shit-for-brains" as I cuff him. Or, "Rights? Don't make me laugh!"
Yeah, I like that.

As you can tell, I probably had a good time playing a cop on LA Forensics. Playing a cop is much better than actually being a cop, I'm sure. No one really shoots at you, the hours are better, and you always get the bad guy.

Everyone on the crew of LA Forensics was very nice, they work quick, and treated us actors well. What more can you ask for? I got to play, and that's what I'm here for.

I took a few photos while we were on set. That's me above with a badge and a gun, and then four of us in our TV cop show pose.

Hey, why do I like playing a cop so much? Is it the power a cop has? Am I becoming reactionary as I get older? Do I really wish I could carry a gun and dole out punishment to those who transgress the laws of our great nation? Man, now I'm confused. I wish I knew what was right?

"Rights? Don't make me laugh."

LA Forensics

Well, it's just a few weeks short of one year since I moved to Los Angeles. I am still full of certainty that it was the right thing to do and that I am on my way to getting what I want here. The pieces are falling into place.

Today I will do my first TV show in a featured role. I will be the lead detective investigating a crime on LA Forensics, a show that airs on the Court TV network. I don't know if it airs outside of Los Angeles. I watched it last night, and it breaks down a real crime with interviews with the real detectives, and filmed recreations of the crime and how it was solved by LAPD.

I am booked for three days and I'm looking forward to it. It should be some good stuff for my reel, and it should be a real hoot. I get to look all serious and play a cop on TV. While the recreations are without dialog as a voice over explains what's happening, I've already been rehearsing the lines I remember from so many cop shows: Where were you the night of...You're lying!....Come on, let me help you out here....You scum bag, why I have shit on the bottom of my shoes with more brains than you...Miss, what were you doing with six grams of crack up your ass?... The perp knew the vic...he's getting away!!!...stop, LAPD!...and other fun things like that.

I think this is my first cop role.

Book em!

Variety Review of Phantom Love

Phantom Love

A KNR Prods./Menkesfilm presentation of a Kevin Ragsdale production. Produced by Ragsdale. Executive producer, Julian Goldberger. Co-producers, Nina Menkes, Ragsdale. Directed, written, edited by Nina Menkes.

With: Marina Shoif, Juliette Marquis, Yelena Apartseva, Bobby Naderi.
(English, Russian dialogue)

By ROBERT KOEHLER

Stanley Kubrick's confident statement -- "If it can be written or thought, it can be filmed" -- receives stunning confirmation in Nina Menkes' "Phantom Love." While the helmer's four previous features similarly function in a state of dream logic and concern female states of being, the current pic strikingly puts a woman's subconscious thoughts and dreams onscreen in ways more radical and beautiful than in her past visually stunning semi-narrative pics. "Phantom Love" may be too rich for most U.S. distribs, but sophisticated foreign buyers and fests will lust after this piece of pure cinema.
First seen in sweaty coitus with her lover (Bobby Naderi), Lulu (Marina Shoif) appears distanced and expressionless, her face suggesting that her mind is elsewhere. "Phantom Love" is intentionally designed and structured in an open manner, welcoming the viewer to various interpretations. One of them -- implied by the title -- is that much of the rest of the film's images and sounds are the wandering thoughts Lulu experiences during sex.

These images are in black-and-white, and not since Bela Tarr's "Werckmeister Harmonies" has black-and-white looked so stunning and mesmerizing -- thanks crucially, to cinematographer Chris Soos' masterful use of high contrasts, shadows and depth-of-field in the film's majestic interior locales. Though she has handed over lensing chores this time, Menkes functions as usual as her own camera operator, displaying again her gift for framing and nimbly following spontaneous action.

This includes several extended scenes in a Koreatown casino, where Lulu works (akin to Menkes' Vegas heroine in "Queen of Diamonds") at a roulette table. Although the scenes seem at first repetitive, they are actually staged and shot with great variety, including some amazing close-ups of the excited players' faces and hands.

Like dreams often do, images repeat themselves as Lulu tries to work her way through her erotically triggered troubles. One of these involves her dressed in a classic little black dress and heels, carefully walking down a long hallway around an enormous snake. Animals abound in the film, including a fantastically viewed squid in an aquarium and scenes in which Lulu's mother (Yelena Apartseva) is surrounded by bees.

Menkes is not so dreamy a scripter that she fails to link these otherwise showy and random images to Lulu's real-life problems, some of which involve struggling with her mother who's overstayed her welcome in Lulu's home, and her emotionally troubled sister Nitzan (a fine Juliette Marquis), whose momentary disappearance marks the only point in the film where a fixed psychological reality takes the place of subconscious fears and desires.

A repeated view of Lulu crossing a bridge (ravishingly filmed in Rishikesh, India) suggests a passage to another sort of life, and, in a film intently focused on material objects and bodies, the sight of Lulu being drowned in light offers a striking spiritual note.

Actors' perfs matter far less here than their place in the overall staging, but Shoif and Marquis are allowed considerable freedom to express themselves along the lines of silent cinema (the first real line of dialogue occurs well past the 30-minute mark).

Pic triggers memories of movie images from Jacques Demy's "Lola" to Jean Cocteau's "Orpheus," and an amazing shot of a sleeping woman rising off her bed sends the viewer back to the medium's earliest days. Soundtrack, mixing sound effects and Rich Ragsdale's music, creates an audio dream state of its own.

Camera (B&W, 35mm-to-DV), Chris Soos; music, Rich Ragsdale; production designer, S. Logan Wince; costume designer, Erica Frank; sound, Ed White; supervising sound editors, Menkes, Joseph Tsai; sound re-recording mixer, Michael Kreple; visual effects supervisor, Tim Carras; line producers, Aditya Singh, Elyse Katz; associate producers, Lena Bubenechik, Paul Inman; assistant director, Natasha Subramaniam; casting, Bubenechik. Reviewed at Sundance Film Festival (New Frontiers), Jan. 19, 2007. Running time: 86 MIN.

Sundance 2007 - Day 5

No, we didn't get up at 7 and get to Park City by 8. We did wake by 9 and get out of the motel by 11. We are not being very good at getting up early. And why should we? We're on vacation, screw it.

Should we rush to Park City to see a movie? Nah, this will be the Sundance trip where I didn't see any movies I wasn't in. So be it.

Breakfast, er, lunch, on Main street, a quick stop at the festival store to buy a poster where we are assualted by the angry bitchiness of a woman working there (Kris - "I hope she enjoys being her all day"), and headed back to Salt Lake City. Our trip to Sundance was over. Kris' first time and she had a blast. You talk to people everywhere, everyone is in a good mood, there is so much energy, and it's all about film. So cool.

We had lunch in Salt Lake with my friend Andy, who I've known since third grade, and who was also in Footlighters with me.

Then we flew home. Uneventful.

If you have never been to Sundance, you really should try to go sometime. It is an awesome experience, especially if you are in the film biz, or just love movies. You rarely get a chance to ask a director or an actor a question after a movie, but at the Q & A's after every screening there you do. A lot of film lovers go and volunteer to work the festival a few hours a day and then get to see films and go to parties.

You see celebrities, you go to parties. It's a blast.

I'm going to start planning next years trip to Sundance, today.

Hope this wasn't too boring. I know I tend to write too much and edit too little. I love details. I love coincedence. I love telling stories.

Now I have to go back to writing about other stuff. What's next? I don't know. Tune in tomorrow and find out.

Sundance 2007 - Day 4

Damn, Safari just crashed and I lost 30 minutes of writing on this post. I don't really feel like doing it again. So here is day 4 in a nutshell.

Woke up and watched the Bears win the NFC Championship game at a crowded Bears friendly bar on Main Street. Yeah.

Ate over priced Thai food. What isn't overpriced in Park City?

Went to the Illinois Film Office party. That was fun. Saw some old friends from Chicago. Met the new director of the film office, Betsy Steinberg and wished her well. Spoke to Brenda Sexton, the hostess, who after four years running the film office is going to move to LA and start producing. We promised her we'll take her hiking in Griffith Park, which is our favorite thing to do in LA. Spoke to Chaz Ebert, Roger's wife, who I have met several times. What a sweet lady. She was here to let everyone know Roger is doing well and to promote his Overlooked Film Festival in the Spring.

Met Jeff and Liz again for dinner at Cicero's on Main St. and then got into the Method Fest party. Kris said hello to Lou Lombardi, who played Edgar Stiles on 24, our favorite show. He was nice. Kris told him she was sorry they killed him off.

At the party I start talking to a guy, and his name is oddly familiar. Then I remember. I had lunch with him 15 years ago in Chicago. He married a woman I knew in Chicago after she moved to LA. Small world.

Back to Coalvillle for the last time. It's past midnight - I know, early for Sundance, but we have no more parties to go to, and we are going to try to get up early and see a movie tomorrow. Yeah, right.

Sundance 2007 - Day 3

Saturday in Park City and it is pretty busy. The busses are crowded, the sidewalks are jammed, and the restaurant staff don't give a damn.

Waking up and taking our time to leave the motel in Coalvillle, we drove back to the Yarrow Hotel in Park City to park the car and have breakfast. Then up to Main Street. I go to my scheduled interview with the ladies of Indie Appeal
(myspace/indieappeal.com), a sort of hip The View, or as they say, not your mother's talk show. Kris walks up to the Egyptian Theatre to get wait list tickets for a 3pm movie.

The interview goes great. The ladies, Amy, Lauren, Maura and Mecca are all really sweet and full of bubbly energy and fun to talk to. I'm getting the star treatment for a few minutes and it's great. I talked about Phantom Love, Cup Of My Blood, and my film, Slave. Fun stuff, I can't wait to do more TV appearances.

The interview was in a building on Main Street that was set up like a big promtional and swag event for invited guests only. There was a liquor sponsor, a furniture company, a water company, a clothing company, The Illinois Film Office had a booth, a Canadian diamond company, The Penninsula Hotel in Chicago, and a few others. My friend John Diggles sponsored a booth for his product. Xango, a new mangosteen drink, that is quite delicious and good for you too!

Kris talked her way past the doorman and was waiting for me downstairs on the first floor when the interview was over. Kris couldn't get wait list tickets for the film because this year they only give one per person, so no movie. I said we should go back up to 3, I wanted to introduce her to the Indie Appeal ladies. That turned into them asking to interview Kris, so a time was set and we left the Main Event building to have a coffee and look around Main Street.

There was a Starbucks on Main St. last time I was here, and it was now a local coffee place. How often does that happen? I wonder what the story behind that was?

We went back to the Main Event and watched the ladies finish their interview with some filmmakers who have a film in Slamdance, Over the GW. It looked pretty intense.

Then Kris was just about to go on set for her interview, when the press agent for the event brought up a guy (a celebrity) and asked him if he wanted to talk to the ladies? He jumps right on set an takes over, and they let it happen. The guy was Dustin Diamond who played Screech on Saved By The Bell from 1989 - 1993. Wow. I missed television those years.

It was pretty funny to watch as he talked about why he is here (he is being followed around for a reality TV show) and he did comedy bits from other movies and turned everything into a self depricating sexual inuendo. Wow.

Kris did her interview and she was great, talking about her art and her clairvoyance, and how she works the two together.
We took photos, we chatted and left.

We went downstairs to the second floor to see what else we could get from the other sponsors. I could get used to the star treatment. We talked to the Peninsula Hotel people from Chicago and tasted their amazing hot chocolate. Then had a Patron margarita, it was after 3 already, and walked to the back room by the Gold Toe sock display. The two ladies there, Jen and Ericka, were so nice, invited us to sit. I think they were happy to have company. They gave us lots of socks, and told us they get calls from stars, like this, "I'm in my closet, and it's all beige and brown, and I don't have any socks to match, can you send me 100 pairs?" And they do it. Once.

They gave us socks.

Then Jen asks Kris what she does, and Kris starts telling her about painting in reverse on vinyl, and Jen gets this weird look on her face and says, "I know you, some one told me about you." Someone who Kris doesn't know had told Jen about her paintings last year. Jen remembered her as soon as she heard the reverse painting on vinyl. That was a spooky cool wow moment for Kris.

All this has happened and it's not even 5 PM. So we leave there and go up Main Street to meet Jeff Gold and his girlfriend Liz, and a couple of other friends for an early dinner. The restaurant is Shabu, and the only reservation Jeff could get was 5 pm. This is important because later it comes up. The restaurant is very crowded and very expensive. Fine dining, right?

The food is good, the service fine, we are all talking and drinking and enjoying ourselves. The bill comes, it's paid, and two members of our table leave, and we ask the waiter for more water. Jeff leaves the table for a minute, Liz, Kris and I are there, and the waiter tells us, very rudely, that we have been there too long, our reservation was from 5 to 7, they let us stay till eight, (it's only 7:30) but they have been very generous to us and let us stay but now they have to turn the table and we have to go as he grabs the water glass away from Liz. We were stunned. The billl for 7 of us, though I didn't see it, had to be about 400 to 500 bucks. This isn't a diner. So Jeff comes back and I tell him what happened. He gets mad, Liz gets mad. We all got mad. So we said something. Jeff wantes to talk to the manager. The waiter goes away, and when he comes back he is very apologetic, but never really says I'm sorry for the way he acted, but the manager has instructed him to tell us we can stay and they would like to buy us a drink. So we take the drink, and take our time, but it was a very strange experience. A Waitergonebad for sure!

After that we had to get going to our second screening of Phantom Love, which I liked even more the second time, and this time I was invited down to the podium by the director for the Q & A. That was fun. Nina answered questions about the film.

By the time we got out of there it was almost midnight and we decided to head back to Coalville. Nothing happened on the way. We sat in the hot tub at the motel. I'm addicted to hot tubs now. That was day three.

Sundance 2007 - Day 2

Yesterday I mentioned that anyone who is somebody has a festival pass, a big bright orange pass hanging around their neck, and they wear it proudly. Well, now I have one too.

Yesterday, we left Coalville and went to breakfast at the Yarrow wherre we overheard the director of My Kid Could Paint That being interviewed. Then up to Main Street and said hello to Jeff Gold, a composer friend of mine who lives in SLC and is running a small festival on Main Street at The New Frontier Building called the Music and Film Festival, devoted to music in films. Went to a free cafe sponsored by The Wall Street Journal Week-end edition and heard John Sloss and Brett Morgan (Chicago 10) talk about their film.

Then we went back to the Holiday Cinema to get wait list tickets for the 5:30 premiere of Phantom Love. Across the parking lot for a sandwich and ran into John Diggles, fellow Chicago filmmaker and producer of the 2002 Sundance film, Design, by Davidson Cole.

Got into the screening of Phantom Love ($10 tickets!!!) and saw Nina, the director and others from the film and was thoroughly mesmorized by it. It's a personal story, a search for meaning and self. Not for everyone, as evidenced by those who walked out, but I thought it was beautiful, full of haunting images, and shot in beautiful Black and White. Then I came on screen, preaching, in two shots, close ups, powerful, and it was a real kick to see my self up there.

After the screening we had a drink and at dinner we talked to our neighbors and met some cool people. We decided to head back early, sit in the spa and get some sleep.

Here is the fun capper to the day. We park at the motel in Coalville, and up pulls a Jeep to the front door. As we walk in I see the Indiana license plates and comment that they have come a long way. Then we enter the lobby and the guy who got out of the Jeep was Rusty Nails, a guy I went to Columbia College with and a Chicago filmmaker. He was just stopping to ask directions. They were just driving here from Chicago. I gave them directions and I'm sure we'll see them on Main street. Good thing I didn't owe him any money. That would have been uncomfortable. What are the chances? If it were in a movie, I don't think I'd believe it. Life and movies, sometimes it's hard to tell them apart. As my friend Al Rose wrote; "Shit like this you can't make up."

Day two was a blast, and met a lot of people.

Sundance 2007 - Day 1

It's late, and I've been traveling all day, but I wanted to write something before I go to bed. I'm here at the Sundance Film Festival. This year, unlike anytime I've been here before, I'm connected to a film in the festival. I have a small part in the film Phantom Love by Nina Menkes. When Nina wrote me that the film was selected to premiere in the fest, I knew I had to be here. If it weren't for that, I wouldn't have come this year.

It's cold here! Yeah really, it's winter. The high today in Park City was 20 degrees. I haven't experienced a cold winter in a year, and you know what? It's the same as I remember it. You have to wear a lot of clothes and it's cold and hard to move and its cold. But I'm not here to talk about the weather.

We flew into Salt Lake City today, rented a car and drove up to Coalville, UT, about 20 miles east of Park City. It was the only place I could get a room a month before the festival that didn't cost $300 a night. After checking in at the Best Western in Coalville, we went down and sat in the spa for a while. That helped releive some of the stress of travel.

Then we drove into Park City for dinner and to look around. Tonight is the opening night of the festival, so it isn't that crowded yet. Already the bars and restaurants are busy, but not like it will be tomorrow, and the rest of this opening weekend. The festival runs for ten days, but most people come either the first weekend or the second. The opening weekend is busier and more star sightings are likely.

Kris has never been to Park City or the festival, so this is all new to her. This is my fourth festival, so I know the lay of the land a bit.

One thing that didn't work for me about this years festival was the system they created for buying individual screening tickets. You see, if you are anybody, you have a pass. A pass says you are somebody. Sombody with either an expence account, a studio job, or are successful enough or important enough to shell out hundreds (or maybe a thousand) for an all access full festival pass.

The rest of us must beg, borrow or steal tickets to get into the best films. Or get lucky in the ticket lottery to buy single tickets. This year they had a lottery system and here's how it worked. You had to pay 5 bucks to be entered into a lottery, and create a user account. Then a computer would randomly assign all those who entered a time to purchase individual tickets to screenings via a secure website. The time slots were from Monday to Friday of the week before the festival. Kris and I entered. Her time was Thursday afternoon, mine was friday morning, the last day tickets were on sale. Now, they don't really know how many pass holders are going to attend a given movie, so they must have a system for estimating how many will, and based on the number of seats at a particular venue, (there are 8 in Park City) how many individual tickets they can sell.

So you log onto a website at your assigned time, access your account, and start selecting tickets. If you called in on the phone at your assigned time, there would be a ten dollar service fee, on top of the one dollar service fee on each tickets bought on-line or on the phone.

When Kris' time came, we started logging in to use the service, but the system was so over loaded that it didn't work. So we tried the phone, and that was busy for over a half hour. Then our call was answered and we were put on hold for a long time. When we finally got an operator, every movie we wanted, and every back-up second choice we wanted was already sold out. The only movie we were able to get tickets for was a screening on Saturday night at a theatre about 6 miles outside of Park City (who wants to leave Park City just to see a movie!) of Phantom Love, the film I am in. That's it. Everything else was sold out. And with the service fee, the lottery fee and the telephone fee, it cost us 52 dollars for two tickets to see the movie I am in. Great!

Now if you can't afford 26 dollars for a movie ticket maybe you should stay home and rent a movie and make some micro-wave popcorn. This is Sundance baby. You might be sitting next to "someone" at a screening. You might see a big star on the street or the table next to you at lunch. Once I ran into Hope Davis at the Albertsons doing some shopping. You never know. So, no, I'm not complaining about spending 52 dollars for two movie tickets, I'm bragging about it! $28 for an entree? $13 dollars for a glass of wine? Bring it on.

Tomorrow we will get in line for last minute tickets to the Premiere of Phantom Love. I hope we can get in. I want to see the first screening, to go up on stage after the movie with the director and the rest of the cast. That is what I want out of this.

I got paid 100 bucks for my participation in this movie. I'm spending thousands to attend the festival. Is it worth it? You bet it is. It's priceless.

More tomorrow! Look for us on E - entertainment! Signing out from Coalville, UT -

Noel

Happy New Year 2007

Greetings friends and strangers,

I hope 2007 will rain health and wealth and happiness down on you like confetti in Times Square on NYE. I hope the New Year will bring you all you desire and that you get to wear fabulous new clothes. I hope your breath will always be pleasant and your dandruff under control. I hope your feet will carry you on amazing paths through exotic countries and your tongue will learn many new words. I hope the lottery numbers you saw in your dream last night and played today match the Big Game. I hope your teenage children appreciate you for the amazing person you are. I hope you never need Viagra or Vagisil. I hope you smoke only the good stuff. I hope your blood pressure is low, your I.Q. high, and your bowel movements regular. I hope your evil boss gets transferred, your obnoxious co-worker has an epiphany and moves to Tibet and is replaced by someone super-cool. I hope you finish your screenplay. I hope you win the Nobel prize. I hope your line of women's thong bikinis gets picked up by Macy's. I hope your dog's obedient training classes go well. I hope your coffee is always strong. I hope you look good in every photo you are in this year. I hope that re-hab job in your home is over soon. I hope you marry the person of your dreams. I hope you learn to ride a bike. I hope you learn to play the guitar. I hope your psoriasis clears up. I hope your garage sale is a success. I hope your girlfriend loses that 20 pounds she's been trying to lose. I hope the wars and destruction around the planet will end and the healing can begin. I hope your car gets 45 MPG. I hope I can move on to the next paragraph of this entry soon. I hope the Cubs win the World Series. I hope you get your own sit-com. I hope you learn to golf.

The new year is getting off to a great start for me here in LA-LA land, my new home.

I've been here for 9 months now and in that time I've lived in two apartments, bought a new car, had a lot of jobs, and had a role in a film that will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival this month. I've been asked to be a company member of the Atwater Playhouse in LA, performed in Invisible Bars, the second show at this new theatre, and continue to study my craft and get better all the time.

I'm going to write more in 2007, so check back often.

Peace to you all,

Noel