Actually this whole weekend has been a little unnerving. One of the primary investors is being hit hard by the current economy, and may be pulling out of the project. Which, with three and a half weeks to go, will introduce a serious complication. LOL
Of course, that was always one of the main points of 23E Studios, to devise a project so ambitious it could only fail, and then find a way to make it succeed.
I meet with that investor today to talk.
Then I begin improvising. As deflated as I feel fearing this is coming, I must say I’m also a little excited. Up until now everything has gone so smoothly…
Too smoothly. The film was going to be boring.

Another aspect of the unnerving weekend was that our potential architectural model maker leaves town on the 22nd of June. And he can’t give me a bid, let alone start building, until I get some measurements from a crew member, who hasn’t had a chance to get the measurements from her studio. So, over the last few days I’ve been watching the narrow window of opportunity for the architectural model close. Which, given that this afternoon we could conceivably lose half of the remaining money I was expecting, is probably for the best.

Our press release and other promotional materials that were supposed to be finished this weekend, are all tardy. So, those deadlines have been on my mind a lot, too.

Having said that, we’re now in a place where the project is simply unstoppable. And this is really the part of the project that is most thrilling for me, being caught up in something that is beyond control. The next few weeks can be nothing but pure improvisation. I get to live my art the way I play my music, by the seat of my pants; constantly adjusting to my partners and peers; sometimes leading or throwing out a riff we all ride, other times having to change direction on a dime when they introduce a new line. It’s probably a poor metaphor, but that is one of the ways I think about Disembody - it is one of my compositions, but the sound is spread out over the course of a year, impossible to hear with human senses and on a human time-scale.

I used to compose works that required performing acts of sound throughout a day or a week or a year. All the while recording my life, sometimes around the clock for weeks. Those recordings were then compressed to discover the rhythms inherent, or to find the composition of the sound acts within the music of my life.
Disembody is very much like one of those compositions, except this time our final product is a film. And this time it is a piece of music improvised by an orchestra of my closest friends, as opposed to being a solo work within the orchestra of my life.

Disembody is a unique feeling. There’s a wonderfully complex and seemingly contradictory feeling I get (and I think many performers do) before playing music with people. The mix of fear and excitement, feeding each other, hopped-up nerves. It’s a great feeling, really addictive.
Normally I have that feeling in the hours leading up to a performance or a studio session.
But for the last few weeks I’ve had that sensation coursing though my days and nights. It comes in waves. But I’ve never had it so regularly, so frequently before.
Except maybe on my first oRSo tour, when I’d get it before the show each night.
Except now I get it at the most random times. It’s strange how trepidation and fear can be so addictive and thrilling.

Anyway, the past three days I’ve experienced a very heightened sense of deflation mixed with the thrill of having to overcome a challenge.

So, having talked about the things not going right, let me mention that they are greatly outweighed by things going right. Stel and I met last night and he is bringing a couple of eight port gigabit switches so we can set up a solid network in the gallery. As well, he’s bringing several wireless access points. And he came up with a simple and reliable way to pull off the ending of the film, that doesn’t require a video switcher.
Phil and Libby are both raring to go on the project now that their wedding is behind them.
All of my crew members blow me away with their dedication and skills. Erin and Jonny have worked tirelessly on the website (our main promotional tool), posters, the confessional, screen printing, the arcade and a ton of other aspects; Amy is bending over backwards trying to help find funding and food donations; Carol-Anne and Keturah are spending hundreds of hours creating the interior design and all of its elements; Carson and Ted and David are all working on the build out; marcella, elise, Alex and Skye are pooling their resources to fashion an incredibly organized and efficient shoot; Hanif, Han and Ote are all working to make the promotion and conceit of the project as broad but focused as possible. Janet and Arthur are going far beyond the call of nepotism in accommodating all my demands and desires. And Susan, of course, is simply mind-blowing in her openness to letting us do whatever we dream up.

So, all in all, despite missed deadlines and a few setbacks, I find my spirits remain high. I’ll weigh in again after I meet with the investor. Maybe I’ll even have news on how we’ll need to rejigger the project to accommodate such a substantial loss.

My friend Travis pointed me to a newsprint printer in Sf who may be just the ticket for the theater calendar which is going to double as our free catalog and poster. I am terribly excited!

As well, I am going to put a deposit on some theater seats tomorrow. So that seems resolved. And at a price I adore. I am looking at two different prop houses tomorrow before making my decision. Hopefully good news in the afternoon. Amy put me in touch with a contact at one place.

I scanned sixty some pieces of ephemera today. They are uploaded and I expect Jonny will have them live on the site soon. I also put the ephemera on our flickr site.

This afternoon/evening I’ll be contacting some more folks about items we need. I’ll also be making drawings of the installation for our potential architectural model maker. Pity the fellow.

Been scanning ephemera this morning. Hopefully it’ll be up in the next few days.

Also been finding theater seats. Amy just called with a contact at Omega Props. I’ve been trying to get ahold of another contact there for the past couple days, but with no luck. Hopefully her contact is responsive.

I’ve also been calling around looking for a soda fountain. No luck thus far. Pepsi doesn’t do temporary machines, period. No local soda companies I can find do soda fountains, either. Coke does, so I’m penning a letter to them now.

Spoke with the folks at Citizen L.A. about where they get their newsprint printed. Expect to hear from them today so I can follow up on that.

Last night I watched The Corporation. Or tried, at any rate. I stopped about 40 minutes in because it’s tired propaganda. I’m a convert to what they’re selling, and not terribly interested in the dumbed down polemic which seemed to be all they had to offer. This is what I hope Disembody turns out to be nothing like.

I moved over to a Bonnie Banks loaner, Matango: Attack of the Mushroom People. Fell asleep about an hour in, but enjoyed what I did see.

I was away from the garoffice yesterday. What was I doing?

Monday night I BBQ’ed with Amy and our friend Mark Rodriguez. Mark’s been living and working in L.A. since getting out of school a couple years back. He does a lot of art installing, and works as an artist’s assistant a fair amount, as well. He makes a mean guacamole. I picked his brain about the L.A. art scene.
Later Amy and I reworked the Disembody and 23E logos. We made duotone graphics for stencils, stamps and screen prints.

Yesterday morning Amy and I went to Fringe to measure the space for the theater seats. That didn’t work out, as I don’t yet know the actual sizes of the seats. But, while there I realized I needed to flip the central wall dividing Fringe to create the theater and lobby spaces. That wall will diagonally bisect Fringe. In all my original plans I had it starting one third of the way along the left hand wall of Fringe and ending dead center on the right hand wall. Yesterday I realized it needs to angle not from left to right but from right to left. Hopefully that won’t be too big of an issue for the build crew.

After that revelatory trip to the gallery, I met with my friend Chuck, a film producer in L.A. He’s been helping out with contacts and advice.

Then I walked five miles back to the garoffice. I love walking in L.A. This is a truly beautiful city, chock full of people watching. An hour hoofing through L.A. is an hour well spent: Highland, Melrose, Fairfax, Wilshire, these are streets full of varying sights and sounds. I think a lot of people miss this aspect of L.A. We tend to think of New York as a walking city and L.A. as car-bound. But that’s not my experience here. Walking L.A. is just as fabulous as walking NY. Both cities offer a cornucopia of architecture and people and businesses to drink in.

In the evening I spoke with Jonny about the ephemera page, in particular the video going up at the archive. It also looks like Jonny is going to make some posters for the show as he learns to screen print. Turns out another of Erin’s many skills is screen printing.

It looks like we may have found some of the items we need for the recording studio. I’m meeting a friend of a friend this afternoon to look at his little home studio, and the gear he might loan out. As well, I’m meeting Jake, Susan’s friend, who might make our architectural model, this afternoon. And I have leads on two wireless lavaliers, which is a big deal, as sound is our greatest fear right now. All and all, everyone I know is really reaching out in an incredible manner as the deadline approaches for the opening. The generosity of the folks I know is rather overwhelming.

Last night I watched Ulrich Seidl’s Animal Love, which was simply beautiful. The more of his films I watch the more impressed I am. They are incredible portraiture.

I watched William Greaves’ The Fighters a couple nights ago. The fight I fast forwarded through because it was boring. Guess I’m not a boxing fan. But the observation up to that point was beautiful. I find I’m partial to documentaries that don’t (explicitly) say or do much, that seem pointless, plot-free.
Whether I’ll get anything remotely like that, I don’t know.

Which is why I LOVE this project!