pedaling

I bought a bike yesterday. For the purpose of a bike trip this summer. Myself, my girlfriend, and another friend will be biking from here to Belgium, to Amsterdam, taking the train to Berlin, going down through Czech Republic, Austria, Croatia, Slovenia, Italy, back through France, visiting the monk. We think to do that in a month. Will it be possible? Only Pope Benedict knows. And Natalie Holloway.

Having bought the bike, I went for a ride with girlfriend. I should give her a TSL name so I don't have to disguise her name in her penny title. We'll call her Garth. So Garth and I went bicycling, first to her dad's house for lunch, then through the ugly outskirts of Paris, supremely depressing cafes and old women on park benches miles away from the traffic noise of Paris, quiet with birds and melancholy motors. Back up a hill into Paris, the parisian rooftops reappearing. Garth and I rode from the 20th back to her home in the 14th. Later at night we went to a bar to meet her high school crowd friends. it was alright at first, but then I realized these people were not truly out to party--just to socialize, and that depressed me. If people aren't out to party the first month that school's over forever, when will they ever party. So, I stopped enjoying myself, drank one beer, and then enjoyed myself on the bike ride home with Garth, for truly I enjoy my bike. I got it for 80 euros. Not bad. And 20 for a lock.

Reversing in time, I shall talk of this film I just finished. I don't really know how to describe the feeling of shooting a feature film. I was thrilled to have the main role and eventually there will come into existence a cute french flic in which I play an american, speaking french, living in paris, trying to become an actor, falling in love with a french girl. It's hard to imagine because the process of filmmaking is so different than the film a spectator sees. Only the director has the idea in his head what it's all going to be like. As an actor, I could only make my best guesses about what I should do and listen to the director and do as he says. In the end, at the wrap party, he told me I did very well and it should be a nice film, but he said a little bit I was trying too much, putting too much effort into my performance. I understand what he means, and I tried to add as little as possible, but in a way, you can't put absolutely NOTHING. All the actitng gurus would say "do nothing, don't act", but I guess I can only understand that up to a certain limit. I mean, there's words I have to say. I have to SAY them, I can't NOT say them. I can't literally do NOTHING. And give me a break, there's times you talk faster and excitedly and other times you reflect deeply as you talk, and so on, so you can't really do NO ACTING. You have to make choices. You try to make it as simple as possible. You let the story dictate the character. The sequence and montage of events explain meaning. You as the actor are there to let it all pass through you, through your actions. It's a fucking awful paradox. LIGHTS... CAMERA... DO NOTHING.

FYI. We don't say lights camera action. It's usually slightly different for each shoot. Ours was: camera... speed... action. other ones I've been on have been: sound... speed... camera... rolling... action. son... ca tourne... camera... ca tourne... action. It's funny. These phrases get repeated fifty times a day, so it kind of sets the rhythm of the shooting.

so this film was a 17 day shoot and I was there for all 12 hours every day, except one day I was called to come in two hours late because we shoot the only two scenes in which I didn't play. So I was there as much as the entire crew, as much as the director. And while I didn't have as much setup work and I didn't have to pack the equipment and lug them home at the end of the day, in many ways it was more exhausting because I had to be ready in front of the camera to be happy, in love, or fighting, or sad, or attentive, or dreamy... whatever. The worst day was when it had been five consecutive days of shooting at one point, I was tired, it was 95 degrees in a small apartment with no air conditioning, filled with hot lamps to light the scene, and I had to do a happy scene having lunch with my girlfriend, then another cute scene where we're flirting the morning after our first night together... It was a very difficult morning. Luckily, after our lunch break, we went to a fight scene where I storm into the room and call her a bitch, liar, etc. And we just sort of improvised it and it was great I went off and all the tension of the heat and effort of the morning flew out as I called her a lying bitch, trying to ruin my life, etc. It was one of the best scenes we acted, the reality of our exhaustion coming through my yelling and the girl's crying, the sound recorder cried watching the scene as the girl falls apart into tears. And after that was the sex scene. Jesus Christ. That was the worst day. All the days were long and exhausting and my physical, mental and emotional energy were drained through and through over three weeks. I didn't see anybody except this crew and occasionally Garth. We finished shooting on the 5th and I took about 3 days more after that to return to being myself. When we see the film, let's hope it was worth it.

So, that's it, I finished this film for the last month and now I'm going away on the bike trip for a month, so I probably won't be around on the site much for a few weeks. On the other hand, I'm thinking of striking a visit to the US (east coast) in Sept. And I really want to get out west to see y'all, just I'm broke as hell and I don't know how it could be possible. I mean I'm out on the street again by October. I'm looking into greyhound. I'd like to get to D-town, T-town and ...

oh, I just thought of another story. So this Saudi billionaire wanted me to write a film for him. We met at Garth's prom and he dug my style as a writer and my ideas and etc. etc. So he said I should write and direct a film for him and he'll find the money. I met with him again a month ago and indeed his Parisian appartment is fucking Versailles and he had his chinese maid bring me a cup of the finest coffee ever I have tasted, and not only is his room bigger than anywhere I've lived in four years, but each hallway in his house is ten times bigger than my past three apartments put together. This, I am not even exaggerating. He had no chairs in his house, only plush armchairs with ornately decorated embroidered cushion and gilded lion feet for setting the device upon the carpet. All this to say, the dude claimed he could get 200,000 from his uncle to finance a film and I can believe that this is no problem for him. So we came up with a basic idea about the story. A grandfather teaches his grandson a lesson about life. The grandfather grew up poor. The grandson grows up rich due to the grandfather's success and the grandson must learn a lesson about humility.

So while I'm shooting the other film, I have three weeks to come up with a synopsis to convince the uncle to invest in the film. My reward, who knows. I asked around and a first feature script should earn around 30,000 euros. My problem, though, is that little Saudi friend's talking all "verbal contracts". When you got billions, you can fuck around on verbal contracts, when you envision spending November under a bridge, you want to SEE THE CASH. So I'm a bit skeptical already. For early July we arrange a meeting. I call him. He can't make it. We move the meeting to two days later. I remind him in the morning with a text message. No response. I wait. I wait. 10pm rolls around. I call him from a pay phone. I'm out of credit on my the cell I've been borrowing. "Hey, this is Finnagain. As this is the fourth time you've cancelled or haven't gotten back to me when I expected you (he was also supposed to email me something he never emailed), I have to tell you that I don't feel like you are a person I can work with to make a movie. I will warn you for the future that it takes a lot of cooperation to make a film and people need to know they can rely on those they are working with. I have written the synopsis and it is good, but because of your lack of commitment, I will try to get this film made elsewhere with other people who can devote the necessary time. You are unreliable. We cannot work together."

Three days later I get a text message from him. "If this film project is really over, I must tell you that as it stands right now, 75 percent of the idea of this film is mine, so if you want to make it elsewhere, you will have to buy the rights from me. Also, I believe there are many talented artists who go unnoticed and who I will be able to work with."

My immediate reply: "No, you don't own 75 percent of it. I wrote a synopsis that you've never looked at and that you don't know the first detail about. It's mine. And I copywrighted it. So you can't touch it. In the future, you will stop treating artists like you're too busy for them, expecting them to wait for you . I don't have time to wait around for you to make time for me. And good luck finding talented writers. It's gonna take you a while."

Fuck Saudi oil money. I will live under a bridge with pride!


update: I remembered also that I wanted to share that my sketch comedy group I started in New York was nominated for the Emerging Comics of New York awards. In two categories: Best Sketch Group and Best Director. And they won em both. I can't take that much credit cause I've been away for two years, but hey, I founded the group.