Names in the database

The IMDB listings. My father is there, so is my uncle, but that I expected as they are movie people, folks you would think would show up because they've had their time in the industry, messed around on screen, worked the teams that built the movies, the tv shows. I would expect for them to show up online as they've been part of the industry for a long time. And while many walk folks out once the action is done and the theater lights resume, I've been taught by those men that, hey, those people you see there up on the credits? well, they are the people who put the movie together, they are the real stars of the picture, so sit down and give them their due. So I do and my kids do, too. Takes lots of people to put together a movie.

So I was thinking about old pals of mine, wondered if any of them showed in the Internet Movie Database, too. So I trolled awhile and came up with one old friend of mine, a guy I used to be really tight with. Traveling buddy, drinking pal, a kick around friend that shared a lot of highs and lows with me over the years. In the midst of all that tightness he had to go away, as friends tend to do when they find new work. This old pal of mine moved out to the high desert, not in search of fame or to be a hermit, but to work for the Department of Defense to be a missle tester. He found a gal, bought a couple homes, got some horses, became involed in local theater, became a big shot with the hometown vaudeville troupe, took his fascination for guns out to the local tourist trap and became a black powder/stunt show/wild west reenactorand then, somehow, someway, made connections with Hollywood and got on the production team of a few movies, got his mug up on screen. How cool.

So his name is out there on the net, on IMDB, with all the rest of the folks and productions that ever came out of La La Land. I am happy for him and pleased that I know yet another real life Hollywood player with behind the scenes, and in his case, real on screen time. How great is that, Steve? Pop the bubbly, buddy, you're a star!

Action!

IMDB reference to my old pal:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0805647/

My son, the auteur

"Please come to the ArtsWest Film Festival and enjoy our two PG-13 offerings: ASILO and SCATTERED. May 17th, at 5:30-6:40 pm at the Flicks, in Downtown Boise. It’s free admission, please purchase a few food items from eth FLICKS as they have donated the screen time for our showing. Feel free to take a look at the 3 minute ASILO Intro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5J1AcA7ug8. Our 3rd and 5th period film classes have worked hard the last semester making these great films. My hope is that you will enjoy them as much as we did making them. ASILO is a psychological drama/horror about love, loss and mental instability. PG-13 for violence and violent special effects.SCATTERED is an action/war/drama about loss, revenge, resistance and dictatorship. PG-13 for violence and violent special effects."

The above info was what I received one afternoon around the end of April. It was an announcement for an upcoming film fest, a real film premier, one guaranteed to have a red carpet at the entrance of the theater, be balloon festooned, to be followed up with a crew and hangers-on party at the home of one of the parents. All very Hollywood, all very much downhome Boise, all so Our Gang.

It was a grand time, not only to see my kid's face and his name up on the big screen, but to have heated follow up discussions about the pros and cons of the film, to see his dedication in following up on those niggling problems and cleaning up the sound issues, the continuity issues, that made the initial presentation so hard to take.

So, I feel good now about all the choices, the small paths, the financial outlay that got him there. All those years of buying movies, cobbling together quality electronics, sitting up late at night and watching film after film with him is finally paying off. His storyboarding techniques, his choice of gaming materials, his general overall sweetness and light shows in his demeanor but more in the way that he is approaching this possible career choice. His heart is set on going forward with film and somehow I see that happening regardless of future financing or peer influence. His friends of late are all art school students, and each and every one of them is poised and ready to make their mark on the world, with or without film as the key tool of choice.

I saw that movie premier as being the public launch of a long term film career, never mind that his stop motion animation piece and his other live action number, Special Delivery, were even better, more exciting, viewing. I look forward to someday sitting in a darkened theater and seeing his name up on the screen as the credits unfold. All big things have to start somewhere. I am happy to have seen the start of it.

Action!

Genghis Blues, Paul Pena and the glories of discovering a very wonderful singer and a great man just a bit late..

I was trolling the aisles of Goodwill yesterday as I generally do when I'm bored and rootless. I really didn't have the cash to be throwing around, but hey, that's what next week's payday is for, to make up for the small budget busters of the weekend. Looked over the movies and found a VHS copy of the Academy nominee film Genghis Blues. I had heard Tuvan music before, was a big fan of Tuvan recordings back in the days when I worked for SPL up on Queen Anne hill. I was even lucky to catch Hunn-Hurr-Tu once at a folk festival in Seattle, so finding a movie based on the experiences of a blues singer going over to Tuva to sing in their national symposium on throatsinging sounded like a lot of fun.

Never did I expect for the story of Paul Pena to strike so deep a chord, to hit me so hard. I watched the movie, the story of a blind musician who found himself immersed in a musical form that so few Westerners knew about or understood, who managed, through the help of Friends of Tuva, to make his way to Tuva, to sing with folk masters, to win the hearts and minds of a nation through his warm and inviting nature, and I kept asking myself as the movie unspooled, as the man got closer and closer to having to return to an America, to a land that never really appreciated him or gave the break he always deserved, "did he ever get to go back?"

There was a moment in the film, a real two hankie scene, where everything seemed to go bad for the crew. Paul had medication issues that needed to resolved in order to him to live, a San Francisco radio dj that was along for the trip suffered an almost fatal heart attack and their good Tuvan friend and guide fell and broke his hand warding off a drunk. Everyone there, both crew and the folks of Tuva, were all wishing good things for Paul, saw his distress and wished that they could somehow make all his problems go away. I was watching this man truly ache, wishing he could stay there in Tuva, live with it's people, for it seemed to him and those of us fortunate to watch this moving documetary that he had finally found his people, in the way that movie stars or writers sometimes find their audience in lands far away from where they normally write or publish. In Paul Pena's case, he stumbled on Tuvan music one night back in 1984, cruising his short wave radio looking for Korean language lessons. He heard a cut off a Tuvan recording that was being played on Radio Moscow, spent years looking for additional recordings of the music and then, once he secured a cd from a little world music store in the Mission, immersed himself in it, learning the music and the language the best he could through a sort of cobbled together system of repetitive listening and sheer brilliance (no English Tuvan language dictionaires existed back then).

I found out today with a bit of internet research that Paul has since passed away, that illness and disease and all the bad breaks that seem to fall out of the sky for blues singers finally did him in. But was lucky, in that he found friends in far away places, made friends in a faraway land where, if all things were fair and good, he would have more than likely spent the rest of life living in. It wasn't enough to watch the film, now I want to seek out his Genghis Blues recording, I want to hear some of his old blues recording, too. I want to plug into that movie again if only because that man made me feel something deep and profound, something that I think went into hybernation during this long furlow of mine. He made see that illness or blindness or a lack of work, nothing, really, should get in the way of your passions. Really, Paul, what more can anyone own other than that?

Thanks, Paul, for blazing that Tuvan trail, for sharing with the rest of the world your heart and soul. Rest in peace.

Action!

Friends of Tuva website: some links are old and don't work, but check it out:
http://www.fotuva.org/friends/paul_pena.html