Weird Girls: Day One!

What a great day of shooting! I made a little video to tell you about it.Want to know more? Check it!

Yes. I love Weird Girls.

Weird Girls is all about staying true to yourself and the things you love.

I love my home life. Love it. My dog. My dude. Our weekend routines. The sleeping in. The making fancy breakfasts. So when I skip out on all that, it's for a good reason.

This weekend I have a good reason.

Mark Gardner, Producer/Director/Writer/Champion of Cell: The Web Series is shooting a pilot for his latest web series: Weird Girls. You might remember a while back we did a table read for the whole series. It was amazing--the writing, the premise and the Weird Girls themselves, brought to life by a group of very talented young actors.

There are so many good things about being a part of this--this is an exceptional series--so reward #1. Cast and crew collaboration is reward #2. Spending two whole days with one of my favorite people in the world, and her daughter (who I have the distinct honor of co-mom-ing on set) is reward #3. Really I could go on and on. But I won't. This is starting to sound like an Academy Award speech. So I'll just point upwards and we'll save the rest for the movie.

So yes. Weird Girls is definitely another thing I love. And in the meantime, I must find teacher clothes. And love the fact that this is one shoot I may get through with my shoes firmly on my feet and a complete lack of the sticky summertime stench of fake blood.

For a sneak peek of what's to come, check out Weird Girls.

Sketchfest! SketchFight!

   I don't want to bury the lede--In May/June, Austin Comedy Hour   performed at both SketchFest 2013 and in the three-weekend SketchFight! show at the City Theatre. And we've been invited to do the Out of Bounds Comedy Festival too! YAY!

Now to the important stuff: I have a new talent. It is a latent-until-now ability to do the WORST Bill Cosby impersonation you've ever seen. It's Bill Cosby with a palsy. Bill Cosby the dolphin enchantor (yeah. high voiced Bill Cosby.). Bill Cosby as will only be seen by my sketch troupe, privately, because Scott Moss is our real-life and very talented Bill Cosby impersonator.

I discovered this talent when the aforementioned Scott Moss had to skip a line-through, and I took over. And we all (minus Scott) discovered the brilliance together.

So. Because I'm a poor blogger, you have missed the chance to see even Scott Moss's Bill Cosby. Or the return of the great Brent Foshee who came back from LA for SketchFest. Or the addition of Heath Thompson and Brett Tribe to the Austin Comedy Hour crew. And the always charming Bobby DiPasquale. We mustn't forget him.

But the good news is, you will be able to see us take the stage again in August.

Go Joe!

You guys, Joe Nicolosi rocks. He would rock even if he didn't do these awesome freaking videos, because Joe is a funny, wonderful, all-around-great-to-know guy. But, he does do these awesome videos!

And since you can't yet see his latest live action short, Hell, No! unless you're at the Stanley Film Festival RIGHT THIS MINUTE enjoying terrifying greatness in the halls of the very hotel that inspired Stephen King's The Shining, you'll have to make do with this. And you won't be disappointed.

I AM a writer, dammit!

I am.
I am, I am, I am.

If I sound petulant, it's because I'm tired of arguing with myself. On one level, yes. I am a writer. It's what I get paid to do. It's in my job description. It's my day job's raison d'etre if you want to get all fancy and French about it.

But on one level, I'm not. On that level, I'm a a procrastinator. And a perfectionist. And a self-promotion artist. Who, to be honest, should spend more time writing and less time self-promoting. And every time I whine about not having enough time, I think about Stephen King banging out Carrie on a typewriter on his motherfucking lap, sitting between the washer and the dryer with a couple of kids and a wife outside the door waiting for him.

So. I've fallen short where it hurts the most. With my own writing. And the most success I've had to date focusing and actually getting shit done has been during Nanowrimo. Which falls during November. Until, that is, I saw that holy crap! There's a summer camp! There are TWO summer camps. And damn it, I'm doing both of them. There. It's in writing.

The poems. The short stories. The novels. The children's books. The sketch comedy. The screenplays. For the love of god, something is going to get polished and finished and submitted.

And here is my inspiration: From J. Robert Lennon's March 24, 2013 review of Jamie Quatro's I Want to Show You More--

"A truly excellent writer, though, pursues her obsessions and allows them to dictate what form her work will take. That sounds simple, but in fact it is hard for any writer to recognize what those obsessions are, to face them squarely when they are frightening or puzzling, and to shape them into persuasive works of art. That is why we so admire what George Saunders is doing now, or what Alice Munro has been doing for the last few decades: They have been living with their obsessions for a long time and have figured out how to give them form."

And for just a little more to shoot for:
"Jamie Quatro's "I Want to Show You More" is an obsessive first collection that feels like a fifth or sixth. It is a dogged, brutally thoughtful piece of work, and gives us a writer of great originality and apparent artistic maturity who seems to have come out of nowhere...it is a strange, thrilling and disarmingly honest piece of work."

Coming soon. Ready or not.

Hell No: 2013 SXSW Midnight Short Write-Up

While we didn't win an audience award this year, the energy and reactions in each screening were pitch perfect. Here's an excerpt from a nice write-up by Corey Mitchell of Bloody Disgusting:

"The best of the batch included the Austin-centric Hell No, which posited the question, “What if the characters in a horror film actually made the right choices?” Director Joe Nicolosi evokes the best of horror cliches and simply says, “No more stupid choices.” The result is a bloody good riot."

To read his entire midnight shorts write up, read on. 

Film, Film, Film

Today was a work day for me--screenings of Coldwater followed by Spark: A Burning Man Story and Big Joy: The Adventures of James Broughton. So, so fun. First, the SXSW volunteers are amazing--so hanging out with Rachel Zern (manager), Rest (Austin graffiti artist) and others between films can hardly be considered work.

Coldwater came with the surprise bonus of a huge number of cast and crew members in addition to Director Vincent Grashaw. For the record, he and actor P.J. Boudousque are huggers--that always goes over well in the south. Great group of people. What a pleasure.

Then on to my burners' screening--so many enthusiastic Burning Man fans--both directors attended, and plenty of questions were asked.

Last--Big Joy. I'm ashamed to say I'd never even heard of James Broughton, so it was wonderful to be introduced to his work--especially by such a kind man as Stephen Silha and his lovely partner. I felt very badly that they received a ticket for the bed they had parked outside the theater--plus I heard rumors that one of their fans was hauled off in his underwear, but it seems appropriately subversive for the subject matter, and they managed to keep their joy in the face of it. (That's Stephen in the first picture!)

This, however, was Sixth Street when I left the Alamo Ritz. It is completely insane. It is also an incredibly lovely evening in the mid-70s, so I'm thinking we're going to make some more fans of ATX tonight. Three more movies tomorrow, and then I'm almost finished for the year. Sad!

Come see me at Topfer for the day screenings tomorrow (Short Term 12, Bayou Majarajah and Brothers Hypnotic) or come see the midnight shorts (complete with me wielding weaponry!) at Vimeo tomorrow night. There's plenty of seats--come claim yours!