Author Archives: crashcamfilms
Badass Film Tour 2 – Day 25: Philly
December 4, 2010
BOB 10:14 AM
Is it 10:14? I don’t know. Really, it’s February of 2012, but nobody cares about that. Back in early December of 2010, I recall that I woke up at some stranger’s house in Baltimore and then I sashayed through the cold sunlight to find the car. Hey look, I just noticed that we have right here a video and photo that might explain in images and sound what I just wrote with words. I’m not even gonna watch it and see. So, find out for yourself, if you want.
After that adventure, I embarked on another and drove across the city to retrieve Chad from his #1 fan’s house. Fan/gal lived in the nether regions of Baltimore and when Chad finally emerged from her compound, he was beset with soon-to-be flotsam and jetsam in the form of various parting gifts and memorabilia with which Chad will surely put to good use fondly reminiscing of his luxurious one night stay in this fair city. Of this, I am certain.
Then we drove. At some point, we made the following videos:
Hey, Jim James called us. He’s sweet on us for sure.
BOB 6:66 PM
An old film pal of mine hooked us up with a screening locale in Philly. I met Doug Sackman when he worked for Troma several years back. He’s got a pilot for a show called Strip for Pain. Look it up if you don’t believe me.
I’m sure he makes great non-porn movies, so don’t act like I’m trying to pigeon hole the fucker. But I’m also not aiming to bury the lead. Doug makes movies with hard core fucking in them. Specifically, he makes these fucky movies with Joanna Angel and a wet, money-shot of gore. That’s right, he’s a purveyor of fine zombie porn, complete with tons of blood and guts and fucking and sucking. Hell, he even made an Exorcist homage porn with puking and pounding and puking on top of piles of fucking. Savor that flavor, America!
Anyway, he set up tonight’s screening.
We scored two great write-ups. We didn’t land a huge crowd, but the folks who did show up feigned interest real good.
Here’s a hunk of media hype courtesy of the Philadelphia Weekly:
Bob Ray’s Down & Dirty Austin Film Tour
Screenings of acclaimed documentary films are generally more exciting when both director and subject are on the run from the law. Drugs, competitive rodent breeding, bone-crushing violence and gross-out cartoons are standard during Bob Ray’s Down & Dirty Austin Film Tour. First there’s Total Badass, which follows Austin denizen Chad Holt as he deals with a felony probation, selling weed, family drama and the difficulties of raising guinea pigs with his girlfriend. Holt and director Bob Ray will be present for a Q&A. The second feature, Hell on Wheels, also directed by Ray, follows the rebirth of roller derby, the gentlest of sports. There’ll also be animated episodes of the filthy CrashToons between features. Hopefully the evening will end without the stars getting arrested. -Alli KatzRead more: http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/arts-and-culture/Calendar-Dec-1-7-111056789.html#ixzz17M8Z0LpL
We also got some press from the Philly daily newspaper. It was good. It’s probably online somewhere.
CHAD 7:02 PM
I’ll go ahead and tell you the funniest thing to happen in Philadelphia right here and now. I have this buddy from out there who I know from when he lived here in Austin for several years, but now he’s back out in Philly. When I say “now” he’s back out in Philly, I mean he also lived there over a year ago when I was in town and supposed to be keeping this tour journal. I’m sure plenty of other wonderful things happened in Philadelphia when we were there, but this is the one I remember for sure. I’m going to go ahead and leave old boy nameless, since this isn’t the most flattering story about him, but here’s how it went down. He lives a little bit out of the city with a serious girlfriend, so the plan was that they were going to roll into town, pick up one of his drinking buddies, and head into Fishtown where we were right in time for the movie screening. We’d talked on the phone that day and everything was running smoothly. I got a phone call from him about an hour before the film, but it was a pocket dial. I listened along for a little bit, and could tell that he was in the car with his girl and the friend, driving around the city getting all fucked up before the show. I’d never met the girlfriend or the drinking buddy, mind you, these were just voices in the car, so I’m piecing this all together like some sort of high tech sleuth while I listen along. Eventually I got bored, hung up, and ate a bowl of chef-boyardee that I bought from a vending machine in the breakroom of the little artfag complex we were in there while a dog ate one of Bob’s toenails. (Wasn’t it here that the dog ate your toenail, Bob?) About 30 minutes later, I get another pocket dial from my buddy and I notice things are really starting to reach a fever pitch over on the other end. I could just tell from the sounds and the volume levels and speech patterns and shit, these people were really wasted, and I started to seriously doubt that they were going to make it by showtime. Sure enough, the movie is soon about halfway over with no sign of these folks, but I did get a few more phone calls. By about the fifth one, I pick up and all I hear is the woman screaming, “….dumb son of a bitch! You wrecked my fucking car!” I could tell by the Doppler Effect that everyone was outside the vehicle, running from the scene. The girlfriend was cussing out my buddy, who was all panicked and the friend was just goading him along, telling him to run. Next call I get, they’ve obviously reached shelter somewhere, and my friend is literally in tears, whimpering, taking about, “You never take my side. Why is it always my fault? I just want to go and see…” and homegirl just cuts him off, “I know, I know! You just want to go and see Chad Fucking Holt and his fucking movie because he’s SO fucking important!” I just want to say that, even though I’d never met this girl before, it pleased me to no end to know what a profound effect I had obviously had on her life and relationship with this man just by proxy. You want to know the best part? Obviously they never show up, and the next day I get a text from him, and all it says is, “Sorry man. Girlfriend got all drunk.”
CHAD 3:15 A.M
No, but really, Philadelphia was fun. Doug Sackman really put together a cool deal there for us and took care of us. I got to see my old Rank and Revue buddy Isaac Friese, but John Warner was conspicuously absent. Bob and I partied into the night with Sackman, Friese, this girl Sarah, and a guy named Hector from El Paso. Sarah had teats like a milk sow, this much I know for sure. We could have all nested at her bosom without a runt in the litter.
BOB 3:16 AM
What Chad said. Thanks, Doug. Thanks Sarah. Hector, you were there also.
Badass Film Tour 2 – Day 24: NYC to Baltimore
NOTE: This journal entry was written about twelve months after shit happened. Would it have been better if we’d written this shit as shit went down? Maybe. But we didn’t, so quit beating yourself up about it. And really, your expectations are unrealistic. Nevertheless, enjoy as we fake like we wrote this shit way back when.
December 24, 2010
8:00 AM – BOB
I’m not proud of it, but I wake up to an 8AM phone call. I’m still drunk from the night before. My mouth tastes like toilet bowl cleaner. There’s fair chance of a good and/or other reason for that. The toilet is smack dab in the kitchen. I regressively sat/leaned/slouched up until 6 am drinking beer and whiskey, smoking weed and watching The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia.
Thankfully (?) the phone rings me awake at 8 in the A-fucking-M. I’ll be on the air in 10 minutes. On the air in Baltimore for a radio interview, that is. They’ll call back. We’re screening down in Charm City in about a dozen hours. Also, I gotta move the car or we’ll get towed. Currently, we’re parked on the street in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. This is also where I woke up. Always a good sign.
8:25 and no luck on a new parking spot. The radio station calls back and I’m still driving around trying to ditch the car. At some point during the circling, the interview happens. I’m not sure what I said, but I remember repeatedly proclaiming “Boston sucks” and then took that gem and proceeded to plead for a couch to crash on while in Baltimore tonight. I’m certain that I just charmed Baltimore’s pants off. We’ll see how that turns out.
11:17 AM – CHAD
We got up in New York and drove down to Baltimore for our show there. I don’t know what to tell you about the drive, except that Bob and I took a wrong turn at one point, and ended up at the Newark Airport. When I say we wound up at the Newark Airport, I mean we were literally stuck in a line with all the cars trying to pick-up and drop-off folks at the main terminal there for a little bit. I’d say we were way off course.
BOB 6:47 PM
We seem to be in Baltimore. I think we drove here. Either way, we get to The Patterson and it has a Marquee large enough to honor our presence. Flattered as I am, I fear this joint is a huge 1200 seat events center. I hate those. I’ll take tight and rowdy over big and swanky any day.
The pad was actually pretty cool. Here’s a tour of the art they done had put up for your intellectual and aesthetic enjoyment.
Chad tried his luck at the lottery. The problem was, he tried his luck.
Chad’s terrible luck didn’t jinx us. It turns out that the night was a big-ass party. We packed the house for both Total Badass and Hell on Wheels. We even enjoyed some sweet home-team support courtesy of the Charm City Rollergirls. And that radio station (WTMD 89.7, thanks!), on which I puked up something akin to an interview by drunkenly, relentlessly shit-talking Boston, they gave away some tickets and helped drag in a noteworthy chunk of the crowd. Baltimore is looking good!
We also got this cool write up:
Bob Ray’s Down and Dirty Austin Film Tour @ Creative Alliance Tonight
We’ve never been to Austin, TX.
We suspect we’d like it very much if we ever had been. We like Baltimore very much, after all. We like New Orleans and Richmond and Charleston, and even liked Galveston when we went there. So we have reason to believe that we’d get along just fine in Austin, and that when Austin filmmaker Bob Ray brings his Down and Dirty Film Tour to the Creative Alliance tonight he’ll feel right at home.
Total Badass screens at Creative Alliance tonight. 7:30.
The Chop can’t sell you on this. Much like Kesey and the Pranksters, you’re either on the bus, or off the bus. There’s no middle ground here. Just take one quick look at the movie posters and you’ll know right away that this is something in which you either have no interest at all, or something for which you absolutely need to clear your calendar and go see right now!
Hell on Wheels is the second half of tonight’s double feature. 9:30.
For those of you who are on the bus, here are the details. Doors and drink specials start at 6:30 (and show up on time, because the CA screening theater is of modest proportions) and Total Badass begins at 7:30, followed by a Q and A with Bob Ray and Chad Holt.
The Charm City Roller Girls will then host the second half of the double feature, Hell on Wheels with another Q and A after featuring Ray as well as some of the finest real life bruisers in Baltimore.
If your lame schedule and crappy life don’t permit you to see both films for a paltry $10, you can check out either one for $7 at the door. We say watch them both. You’ll be glad you did. Now get on the goddamn bus and hang on for dear life.
8:40 PM – CHAD
Just to put things in perspective, this was December 3rd, 2010 that we were in Baltimore. That was exactly a year ago today from when I am typing this. Here’s what I recall for sure: The Baltimore Ravens were about to play The Pittsburg Steelers for the second time that season. The Ravens had won earlier in the year in Pittsburg, and now the Steelers would be in Baltimore two days later, on Sunday. There was a certain fervor in the city of Baltimore you could feel with the game coming up, with a lot of Baltimore Ravens signage, flags and other memorabilia hanging everywhere. I saw a taxicab drive by the theatre right before Total Badass started, and a little Baltimore Ravens window flag fell off of it, into a puddle of water. The cab driver got out and ran and picked it up real quick. The damage was done; I already knew the Steelers were going to beat the Ravens when they played. I’d have bet everything I had on it. I didn’t have much…
I also remember that a couple named Chance and Sue were there. They had won tickets to the screening on a local radio show, and were very excited about it. I was probably more excited than them that anyone had even bothered giving away tickets to anything associated with me over a radio station in Baltimore, Maryland. The fact that the guy who won the tickets was named Chance was not lost on me.
The movie played at a place called The Patterson in association with The Creative Alliance. This was in a really nice part of town. I remember this, because every time Bob or I would comment on how nice things were in that neighborhood, a local would be like, Yes, Baltimore is very nice in this little five block radius, but PLEASE GOD, whatever you do, don’t go anywhere else in this city. I’m not exaggerating when I say we heard that upwards of ten times.
Here’s the intro to Total Badass in Baltimore:
11:15 PM – CHAD
Ok, so as soon as the movie was done, we did the question and answer as usual, and I could just tell by the back and forth with the audience that one lady in particular had taken an interest in us. When we were done with the Q&A, she walked right up to me, and was like; You know what question I really wanted to ask? So, I said what and she goes, Whip out that fucking cock!! And I remember thinking that was more of a command than a question, but I knew where she was coming from, all the same. The thing was, she pronounced cock like there was an “a” in it… “cack”. Whip out that fucking cack! That’s all I could think about the rest of the night… I had cack on the brain.
It reminds me of this one girl I met here in Austin over the internet. She had a boyfriend or a husband or something, but somehow we ended up talking back and forth over facebook and deciding to meet up over at Barfly’s and have sex in my car. Maybe it was her car, but still, I remember us hanging out inside Barfly’s for a drink or two, acting like we were there to do anything other than go out and fuck on the street. We got out to whose ever car it was, and she unbuttons my pants and goes “Wow, you’ve got a fucking stuntcock!” She said “stuntcock” like fifty times while we were fucking, and I’ve got to tell you, it kind of grew on me. So much so, that to this day, I think of her as “Stuntcock” whenever I see her. I’ll be at a bar and see her there with her boyfriend and think to myself, “There’s ol’ Stuntcock… Should I go say hi?”
Anyway, homegirl in Baltimore was named Birdy. Me, Bob, Birdy, Chance, Sue and a host of forgotten others went to a couple of different bars and Birdy wouldn’t stop talking about my cack. It was like brainwashing. Everything was a mixture of my cack and the fact that I was staying with her and we needed to leave soon. I finally gave in and left with her. I mean, I intended to leave with her all along, but I kind of wanted to stay out late and shit because that might have been the only time I’ll ever be in Baltimore. Nonetheless, I told Bob I was splitting for the night and let her drag me out of there a couple hours early. We walked out the door of the bar and the second, I mean the second my foot hit the sidewalk outside, she goes “We’re not doing anything, by the way. I’m not touching you.” And I was just like…. But what about my cack? You’ve been talking about my cack all fucking night, don’t you at least want to see it, or let me get it off for you or something? I kind of wanted to walk right back inside the bar, to be completely honest. It wasn’t the fact that homegirl didn’t want to mess around, it was just the way she had led things on so strongly and insisted that I go with her right then, and shit. If I hadn’t been accused of rape just a day earlier, I would have walked right back in the fucking bar, I assure you. As it was, I decided to try and better myself. I went with her and she had a very nice place and cooked me a couple of good meals. No cack, though…
BOB 3:33 AM
Somehow, I managed to turn two badass screenings into me hanging out at a bar long enough that, out of pity and maybe the kindness of his heart, the bartender let me sleep on his couch. Well played, me. No cack, neither.
Badass Film Tour 2 – Day 23: flee Boston, drive to NYC
NOTE: This, and the remainder of the tour journals were posted nearly a year after the tour wrapped up. The reasons for this are many. If you’d read the last entry you would have an idea of this, but let’s just call it a combination of laziness, apathy, drugs, booze, rape accusations, lack of drive and an acceptance of a job half-finished. Also, Bob didn’t want to post his journals without Chad’s $.02 worth. That’d be no fun for anyone involved.
December 2, 2010
10:01 AM – BOB
Where the fuck are we? I woke up next to a pond. Chad’s here. That’s good, I guess. Canadian Geese are honking around and trying to fuck and fight one another.
Come to think of it, it’s actually kinda nice. Better than jail, anyway. The honking and fucking and fighting in jail might not be as pleasurable.
10:18 AM – CHAD
Day 23 of the trip was an off day, a driving day. We drove down to New York City from Boston and went out on the town one more time, apparently with Rafael Vargas, Eric Payson, and Bryant Jackson, according to my notes. I have no idea what we did, but feel free to enjoy some video from another night we went out in NYC (back on day 11) which I forgot to post earlier in the journal. Here’s me finding a dollar bill in the street, bringing my grand total of money found in the street during this trip to eleven dollars:
Here is one of many signs of the apocalypse we witnessed on our travels:
And finally, here is a video of me rambling on about the unisex bathroom phenomenon that is apparently sweeping every state in the country except Texas, and why I’m not a big fan. You can actually skip the video and read a written diatribe I have prepared below. Whatever you do, don’t watch the video and read the diatribe. That would be a horrible waste of time. Also, I’m not sure if you can write a diatribe. By definition, you might have to speak them out loud. In that case, the video would actually be the diatribe and the shit I wrote would be more of a… never mind, I looked it up diatribes can be written, as well.
Unisex Bathrooms- When we did the West Coast tour last summer, I encountered a fair share of unisex public restrooms in the bars and restaurants out there, but dismissed it as some kind of left coast progressive bullshit that would never fly elsewhere. When we went on the East Coast trip last winter and I saw the same thing in city after city there too, I realized what a sheltered life I have been leading in Texas. I’ve got news for you folks, I am not adapted to live in this brave new world of non-gender specific shitting and pissing. To be clear, I’m talking about regular, everyday bars and restaurants with average citizenry on the premises where everything seems completely normal until you get to the restrooms where, instead of having your traditional “Men’s Room” and “Ladies’ Room”, they’ve just got everybody going in and shitting and pissing in the same place like a bunch of fucking animals. Here’s why that sucks:
First of all, you’re making women go in and use the same restroom as men, who are generally much filthier creatures. By design, men are going to go in and piss all over the place and then women are going to have to nest in it. The rebuttal to this is that women hover above the toilet in public restrooms anyway, but it’s that very type of thinking that shows you far we’ve regressed already, as a people. Even in really nasty places with equally nasty clientele, the women’s rooms aren’t going to get as dirty as the men’s room. In fact, if a guy ever gets trapped into having to shit in a public restroom, he knows he can slip into the women’s room and do so under much more sanitary conditions. Well, that’s all gone now.
Secondly, the whole social aspect of Men’s and Women’s restrooms, where the two groups used to be able to retreat away and regroup amongst themselves, is now a thing of the past. When I was a young man hanging out in bars, entire groups of girls used to all go to the bathroom together and talk about my dick while peeing and putting on lipstick. Now, they can’t all go to the bathroom and talk about my dick anymore, because I might be in there. Even worse is the whole “bust-in” factor, where the thought of someone coming in on you while you are on the toilet used to be horrifying enough in segregated bathrooms, but now it’s enough to put you in therapy. Plus, let’s say you come out of the bathroom and there’s a fine-ass girl waiting to come in after you. You have now inherited all of the sights, smells and sounds lingering in there from hours before and will be held accountable in her mind. I guess the one positive of all of this is that you no longer have to pass off your cocaine to people of the opposite sex when you’re at the clubs, because you can all go in and snort it together. Go ahead and take a shit, while you’re at it.
This is how unsuited I am for a sexless society: When I get in line to use the unisex restroom, even if there is nobody else in line, when a girl gets in line behind me I always let her go first. That seems like a simple little courtesy that shouldn’t lead to any problems, but the next thing you know, there are three girls in line behind me, then a dude, then two more girls. I’m such a maladaptive fuckup, I’ll seriously sit there and let all three girls go to the bathroom, then the dude because I’m not going to sit there and try to explain to him how we should both wait until all the women are done and plus, it’s nothing to kill someone over despite how quickly things could escalate to that point and then after all that, I have to let the last two girls go and hope to god nobody else has to take a piss. The whole time, people are like, are you sure you don’t want to go, and I’m all no, no go ahead. I realize how fucking crazy I look to these people, standing there in line for the bathroom for twenty minutes but refusing to go in, but I’m the sane one, goddamnitt, this is a world gone mad.
Anyway, all of that was already old news the night I was in the bar where I made the previous video. I was already a staunch restroom segregationist, stuck in my ways. Then, I went into a bathroom that night, and there was this nasty bloody tampon floating in the toilet like some hideous turd from outer space that I’d never seen before. The whole thing was just a disgusting shock, because I’d never been exposed to such barbarism in my entire fucking life.
11:33 PM – BOB
We made it back to NYC. Surprising I know, but we partied with my NYC friends again. Bryant Jackson hosted us again. Big thanks to Bryant! Here are the photographic highlights, as best I can’t remember them:
Badass Film Tour 2 – Day 22: Boston, in all its Glory
NOTE: For all future peoples who might read this (that would be ALL peoples, because first of all, that’s how linear time works and secondly, I haven’t even written this shit yet, so how in the hell could you read it in the present?), these tour journals have been delayed a bit. It’s actually November of 2011 and we’re finally getting back to writing this thing. You might have noticed that on your own, what with the time stamp and all. But in case you didn’t, I wanted to give you a heads up. Some of my (Bob, that is) journals were partially written as the tour was in-progress. And what wasn’t written as it happened has surely been forgotten. Much like all of this will be forgotten moments after you read it. So yes, please do notice that this here journal is popping up about eight months or so after the last entry and nearly a year after the tour wrapped up. Why you ask? Seriously? You are asking why? Do you not know us at all? Okay, perhaps you don’t. Well, the reason why is a long story. In a nutshell (and like every other problem or hurdle that has delayed or undermined us), it’s all Chad’s fault. So, without further delay, here is the tour journal:
December 1, 2010
11:14 AM – CHAD
Wow, what’s it been, six months now? Or eight, if you want to get technical. I guess I’ll go ahead and finish up the tour journal… So, as I was saying, I passed out at James in Boston’s house within about ten minutes of Bob and me arriving, even though the question of whether or not James in Boston was going to kill us was still very much unanswered. Looking back now, I think the deal was that this wasn’t James’ regular house. This was like, his buttfucking party pad. The place had obviously belonged to an older lady with a Kennedy fixation at one point, but now James was the custodian. In fact, I vividly remember James’ face just lighting up when he was telling us about how Bobby and Jack Kennedy had run around that very apartment as children. My theory now is that James is actually partially convinced that he is the old woman (his mother, perhaps) who used to live in the house and that is why everything seemed so odd to us. Half of the place is completely emptied out for jello wrestling and fashion shows, but the other half is like a living shrine to the woman whose life he took over. I see this kind of shit all the time.
Anyway, we get up the next morning and he is gone, so of course we immediately go through the whole place with a camera, documenting how weird everything was. The refrigerator had nothing but beer in it. Sure, that sounds normal, but this was a hodgepodge of all different types of beer in various sizes and denominations. It was like a bunch of people had brought beer from different places and left it all there. It was obviously remnant beer; the leftovers from countless raves, or perhaps the last traces of generation after generation of travelers who had stopped to stay the night, never to be seen again. There was way more jello in the pantry than you would see at a normal house. This was exacerbated by the fact that jello was the only thing in the pantry, at all. Nothing but boxes and boxes of jello. While most of the rooms were totally barren, others were frozen little snapshots of time complete with postcards and knickknacks and shit that all hearkened back to the days that Bobby and Jack Kennedy had spent there, growing up. The whole set- up made my butthole itch.
12:11 PM – BOB
After a jello and beer breakfast, we hit the road. First thing out of Jim James’s apartment, I notice that neither of us were dead. Things were looking up. Aside from our dashed hopes of a romantic scenario and a grinding curiosity to learn the true nature of Jim James’ nefarious intent, we were in top form (this would get the better of us soon enough).
The second thing I noticed was that my car had been nailed with a parking ticket. We’d indeed been fucked in Brookline/Boston. In order to preserve the precious and unspoiled impression I have of Boston, I immediately decided that I’m not gonna give the knotted shit-hole any of my money. That would seem cheep and tawdry. Like a whore. The ticket remains unpaid.
2:53 PM – CHAD
Sometime during the morning, we got word that Jeff Pinkus was up in Boston visiting his son, Jefferson. We went and picked the two of them up over in Brookline and went to a Thai restaurant that was pretty good. We told the waitresses it was Jefferson’s birthday, and that set off a dramatic birthday celebration that can be seen here:
Right around the time our entrées arrived, I got a phone call from the New Orleans area code, and I knew right away it was going to be some kind of fallout from our rampage through the city a couple of weeks earlier. I took the call at the table, excited to find out what the latest drama was, hoping to share it with Bob and Pinkus vicariously via them overhearing the conversation. Well, I answer the phone and it’s Detective Vernon Haynes of The New Orleans Police Department’s Sex Crimes Unit. This had exceeded even my expectations, I assure you. I excused myself from lunch and went outside to talk to him. This is by no means to be taken as any indicator of culpability, but I knew exactly who he wanted to talk about the second he told me who he was. Again, I’m not saying I did anything wrong, I’m just saying that I had sex with a finite number of women while I was in The Crescent City, and when this motherfucker told me who he was, I knew exactly which one he was calling about. Anyway, he tells me who he is, and asks me if I know so-and-so. I say yes, she’s been a friend since about 2006, and yes, the last contact I had with her was a couple of weeks ago, back in New Orleans. He tells me he needs to ask me some questions, but that I don’t have anything to worry about. I remember thinking what an odd part of his job that must be, calling people up out of nowhere, telling them that he’s a rape detective and needs to ask them some questions about the women they’ve been having sex with, while at the same time assuring them that there’s nothing to worry about. Well, I was hesitant at first, but the guy was really professional and open through the whole conversation, so I took his word for it and talked to him for a bit. Don’t get me wrong, I knew there was a full blown sexual assault investigation going on and that everything I was saying was being recorded and shit, but something about the way he was talking to me made me feel like I could just tell him the truth (without touching on any topics of a sexual nature, of course) and everything would be fine, just like he said. One of the first things he asks me was, “Are you in this movie, Total Badass?” and I felt like either I was part of one of the greatest practical jokes ever, or someone had horribly overestimated what I’d be worth in a civil suit. I told him yes, I am, but I know so-and-so from real life and I don’t see what a movie has to do with anything. Well, he tells me that so-and-so looked up some stuff on the internet, and apparently she found out that I was, as he put it, “Traveling around all over with this movie, going crazy in one city after another, having sex with all these women.” And I’m thinking to myself: Dude, you’re not a cop, you’re my fucking biographer. I went on to tell him how I had come across the lady in question to begin with, what places we went to and how we got there, everyone else who was with us, and how I eventually ended up over at her house. I left out all of the intimate details, for legal reasons, just like I’m omitting them right now out of some kind of newfound discretion. The horrible irony is that those same intimate details are so juicy and so outrageous, that they are the very things that could have either (a) cleared up any legal questions about consent that might have been on the detective’s mind, or (b) made this one those good old fashioned nasty stories I used to write and everyone loved so much that I can’t seem to write anymore. All I can tell you is that at one point, I fancied myself an old witch doctor, working with magical salves and ointments. That’s all you get, though.
So, after I’d laid out everything to Detective Haynes, he basically told me that based on what I’d said to him and what he already knew, he was dropping the investigation and I’d never hear from him again. He did go on to add that since me and the lady were friends, he felt like I should know how things had gotten to that point with me and him being on the phone, because he didn’t want me to feel like she was trying to get me in trouble. Apparently, he told me, she had gone online a few days after we had sex and I guess maybe googled me or the movie and watched a few things, then called her friend to come pick her up and take her to the emergency room in order to, as he put it, “Make sure you didn’t have any babies in her or give her any diseases.” That’s exactly how he said it. “Have any babies in her.” (plural) as though I reproduce by the litter, like some kind of hound or demon. While at the hospital, in the presence of the screening nurse, the friend apparently asked her why she ever had sex with me to begin with and she said she was so fucked up she doesn’t remember anything about the night at all, so that bound the nurse legally to report the event to the police. This all made me feel a lot better, because it was like, so you’re not looking at me as so much a sexual predator, but more like a public health crisis? Because for a minute there, I felt kind of bad, you know? Like a bad person. But really, it was more of a deal where as soon as a girl I slept with realized who I was, she went straight to the fucking emergency room, thanks.
I got off the phone with the detective and called up my lawyer, Adam Reposa, to let him know about the incident because it seemed like the type of thing you should tell your attorney. When he answered, I could tell he was partying somewhere with a bunch of his work buddies. I got about halfway through the story and he just cuts me off and starts yelling to everyone, “Hey, everybody! Everybody! I got Chad Holt on the phone over here and he’s all fucking scared because some bitch told a nurse that he raped her!” I hung up with a table full of drunk defense attorneys laughing at me. I hate to make two Goodfellas references in the same tour journal, but you remember the “You really are a funny guy.” part where all the mobsters are laughing in the restaurant? That’s what these fuckers sounded like.
Anyway, this whole thing really ended up bothering me for the rest of the trip and even after I got home. Initially, I was touting this incident as the official reason I got so far behind on the tour journal, because I really didn’t want to write about it, but how do you write a tour journal without including all the rape allegations? In all seriousness, what I think happened is that I basically hurt homegirl’s feelings with things I said and printed in our journal or perhaps said in the press or at question and answer sessions. I certainly mentioned that I had sex with someone in New Orleans, but I felt at the time like I did it in a way where nobody would ever be able to tell who I was talking about, and that should make it acceptable. In retrospect, it’s obvious to me that regardless of the way I did it, it upset the woman involved in this particular incident, as well as other women I spent time with in New Orleans, so I really wish I had said nothing at all. I’m apologizing for the initial comments, the ensuing investigation and this current rehashing of events, all at one fell swoop.
9:00 PM – BOB
Hey look! We’re screening in Boston.
10:30 PM – BOB
One-quarter of the Butthole Surfers came out to watch Total Badass. And then there was the guy who owns a slew of Super Cuts all across Boston. He was there. An unprecedented 100% of the crowd was important people. This screening was about quality, not quantity. If you’re math-dumb, that adds up to two people. An all time low. And yes, both were friends of mine. What’s also funny was that there were two people sitting outside of the cinema, all dolled up in 30’s garb. Apparently, they were waiting for the hordes of people to file out of the theater so that they could stuff into their grabby hands a handbill promoting their alt burlesque show. They did a hell of a job and promo-ed to 100% of our audience. All both of them. To y’all young go-getters, I apologize for not providing you with a larger crowd to whom you could promote your surely awesome show.
You could blame the lack of a crowd on freezing-tits weather or a lack of promo or Bostonians not giving a shit about us or our movie (for no other reason than consistency, I fault Chad). The blame-the-mainstream-media angle won’t hold much water as there was this misinformed, misquoted write-up from whatever the hell a Patch.com is:
http://arlington.patch.com/articles/new-regent-doc-shows-musicians-struggle-for-redemption
Later in the eve, we met up with my actor/filmmaker pal Lance Greene. I first encountered Lance in Phoenix at the super-fun Phoenix Film Festival (I’ve somehow managed to keep up with nearly all of the other filmmakers I met in PHX). Lance has a hardcore-wicked Boston accent that has me cracking the fuck up every time he opens his mouth. We had some damn good fun. Here are six pictures that will save me the effort and you the pain of reading an additional six thousand of my words:
Aside from that fun, we got lost in Boston about eight times and pulled about 14 u-turns today. I subsequently learned that the streets were designed by cows. Fucking cows! Leave it to a bunch of drunk Irish hicks to allow the cows to lay out their streets. Nice planning, Boston. Since I’m getting all educational and shit, dig this: if you check out the About Boston page you can learn of the slave-rum trade and a bunch of weird stuff about Irish folks and beans of some variety. They probably mentioned this stuff in high school history class or something, but nevertheless, it was news to me. And hey, wanna start a fight? Say some shit about the potato famine. That’ll do it. These fuckers are angry drunks.
Then there’s this: I’ve seen more cops in the last ten minutes than all the cops in the Rodney King circle-jerk combined. Fuck, if you count the whole day, I’ve seen about 17 cops. Boston makes me nervous. And even if we didn’t have a car packed with weed and illegal pills, these cops would make ne nervous. They’re fucking cops.
It’s all very colorful and exciting, but my gut is telling me that Boston sucks.
8:15 PM – CHAD
Ok, so I know I’ve mentioned a couple of times here in the journal about how I went out on such-and-such a night and get really fucked up, but those times weren’t shit, ok? This night, and every night from here on out, in the aftermath of the rape investigation, I really let myself go. Pinkus was with us all night, and I’m not blaming him, but he does like to drink hard liquor from a bottle, and I’m just not cut out for that shit. I pretended like I was for as long as I could, though. I know that Pinkus and another friend of Bob’s were the only two people at the theatre, which seated about five hundred people. I know we went to several bars and drove around lost, a lot. I know I made about two-hundred rape jokes throughout the night, most of them in the form of “What’s my favorite…” as in: What’s my favorite Steve Albini band? Rapeman. What’s my favorite Steinbeck novel? The Grapes of Wrath. What’s my favorite fairy tale? Rapunzel. Who’s my favorite singer? Ray Parker, Jr. and so on… Here are some videos from the bars, the second of which features a jug band of sorts covering John Prine:
2:11 AM – BOB
It’s 2AM. We’re pulled over trying to figure out Pinkus’s GPS on his smart-phone. I kill the engine and shut down the lights moments before a cop approaches, his lights blasting our faces. He pulls a three-point u-turn right behind us. My ass starts to self-lube as I’m sure that we’re about to be royally fucked. I’m really hating Boston right now. The copper creeps by and drifts off. False alarm. Luck. I am part Irish, after all.
3:01 AM – BOB
We dropped off Pinkus and have nowhere to go. We are desperate, tired and maybe bi-gay curious so we call Jim James.
Chad is too wasted to navigate and I’m in no shape to attempt driving AND navigating. I rolled the car up a house down from where we dropped off Pinkus. I figured we’d crash in the car for the night and that Pinkus would walk out in the morning and we wouldn’t be the first thing he saw, but maybe the second or third. And that’d be funny.
5:26 AM – CHAD
When we dropped Pinkus off at home that night, I was already passed out and had been for quite some time. I know Bob got me up and tried to get me to help him figure out what we were going to do and where we were going to stay, but I was making my best case for staying right there in the car by drifting in and out of consciousness. Eventually, we did decide to pass out there in the car, and I settled in for what should have been about an eight-hour coma. A couple of hours later, I became vaguely aware that I was attempting to have a conversation with someone in my sleep. I didn’t know who they were, or why I was talking to them, but I woke up trying to explain the last time I had ever seen “The Macarena” performed in public, which had been about a decade earlier with Jim Isaacs at a wedding reception at Jasmine Hall in Lake Jackson, Texas. I heard myself saying all this as I came into consciousness, but I had no idea why, or to whom. I opened my eyes and there was a cop hanging in the passenger window, trying to talk to me. I remember concentrating on him really hard, and trying to grasp the situation as a whole, but all I really took away from it was that he was a mulatto, and it was really working for him. You know how some people will be half-black and half-white, and they look like somebody just took all the negative qualities of both races and dumped them into one person? Well not this guy, this guy looked great. I didn’t understand who he was, or why he was trying to talk to me, but I remember feeling like he was an excellent example of inter-racial bioengineering. Eventually, Bob’s voice entered into the conversation, and although I had no idea who he was either, or what he was saying, I knew there was some sort of comfort to be had in his words. I felt like it was now acceptable for me to go back to sleep, so that’s exactly what I did.
5:27 AM – BOB
That didn’t happen. In order to sleep, I chomped a soma and a valium. I got about two good hours of ZZZs on that dose. Then I heard a knocking on the glass. I looked over and Chad’s window was down a hair. A cop’s face was squeezed in the crack, like a drop a of syrup dangling from the bottle. Chad was chewing on his tongue and his teeth seemed to be made of rubber. He was bouncing unintelligible syllables around in is mouth and occasionally something you might call words would stumble out. The situation was dire. Then the cop asks “What are you doing in Brookline? What do you think you’re doing?”
I scraped my wits from the floor and managed to put forth an impenetrable defense: “We’re sleeping.”
“Not in Brookline, you’re not.”
He might be right. Or at least half right. I’ve no idea where we are, but I’m certain that we were sleeping. Or at least passed the fuck out.
“What are you doing here,” he asks. I thought I’d already explained that. He was unimpressed with the “we’re sleeping” angle, so I figure to impress him with our awesome credentials. I explained that we were world famous artists on tour and had to make it back to the big city of New York by tomorrow and that we were just being thrifty and thought it was okay to sleep in the car. “Not in Brookline. Not in my city.”
He took our IDs and retreated to his car to further investigate. Even with the brain being completely fucked with booze and drugs, the stakes of the situation became clear: We have a ton of pills in the car, three different strains of kind-bud and a pipe. That’s the shit that we know about. Who knows what a thorough search would turn up. Basically, we’re looking at: felony, misdemeanor, misdemeanor and maybe some etc.
Somehow, Chad got wise and kicked the pills up under the dash in a hasty effort. The cop returned, poked the IDs through the cracked windows and said, “I’m gonna take you some place that might not be as comfortable. Follow me.” This is a weird as fuck way to take us to jail, I thought. Or maybe we just lucked out. Irish?
He led us to a pond where I parked between two cars that apparently were packed, circus clown-car like, with gypsies. The car in front of me had a busted window and a trunk held closed with a bungee cord. It felt right. For a couple of fucked up fuckups, this felt safer than the posh town of Brookline, which had so far, been nothing but kind to us. So be it. Back to sleep.
NOT a Tour Journal: Total Badass, Bob and Chad at Chicago Underground Film Festival
Not really a Tour Journal, per se, but hopefully, we’ll finish the tour journal at some point (waiting for Chad, duh)… but in the mean time, here’s a recap of the Total Badass screening at Chicago Underground Film Festival:
The Chicago Underground Film Festival hosted the Midwest premiere for Total Badass and it was killer. http://www.cuff.org
Chicago Underground Film Festival – Day 1 (Thursday, June 2, 2011) – BOB:
I had such a good fucking time in Chicago. You might not like to hear this, but I’m personally not sorry to report that I spent a lot of time doing stuff I can’t write about. But I will say that doing the stuff I can’t write about, was sooooooo fun and badass and thrilling, that it’s a shame I can’t share the joy with you. I didn’t really get started doing the stuff I can’t write about until later in this night, but I continued to do the stuff I can’t write about as much as possible, once I started doing it. And if I had my way, I’d still be doing and would continue to do lots more of the stuff I can’t write about. But first things first:
When I got to Chicago, I met up with Amy Boyd, the hospitality coordinator. She’s so amazing and hospitable, that she was hosting me at her house for several nights of my stay. Did I mention that she’s a badass and super-nice, to boot? On this night, however, I would end up staying with another festival staffer, Emily Oscarson. Emily is a crafty and fun filmmaker who’s just a hoot to be around. Hell, I spent most of my time hanging out with Amy and Emily, as they are totally badass. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Before the partying fun began, I caught the freaky, fun and oddly engaging opening night film, Some Girls Never Learn. Then I hit the after-party. Fun! I re-met up with Amy and then met the other fellow who’d be staying at her house, Scott Braid. Scott’s an old pal of Amy’s from back in her Baltimore days. He’s a programmer for the Maryland Film Festival, and as it turns out, Scott is a hell of a lot of fun to hang out with. Amy, Emily, Scott and I would end up hanging out a lot. We’d see the sun at night more than once and we’d soon be having one hell of a time.
Back to the after-party. We partied at the Bottom Lounge: booze and such. I redact the story at this point, because that’s when I got my first taste of the stuff I can’t write about. The following day, I would taste and re-taste the stuff I can’t write about. But I can confirm that it was fucking awesome! If I had my druthers, I’d do the stuff I can’t write about all day long. And obviously, all night long as well.
CUT TO:
Chicago Underground Film Festival – Day 2 (Friday, June 2, 2011) – BOB:
Doing the stuff I can’t write about is the best way to start any day. Period. No question about it. And I know this to be true because I started this day doing the stuff I can’t write about. The rest of the day pales in comparison. So lets get on with it.
I met up with my trusted triad plus the festival director, Bryan Wendorf, for brunch and booze. Not much to report here, mainly brunch and booze.
Chad got into town this evening. He made his way down to the Gene Siskel Film Center for a brief chunk of time.
I saw The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye, a doc about the loving relationship between Throbbing Gristle’s Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and his muse/lover, Lady Jayne. The film gets weird, but this is an underground film fest, so it should. At one point, the couple underwent plastic surgery in an effort to transform their bodies to look more like each other.
I wanted to see the movie that followed this, the Muslim sex-worker flick Profane, but had to eat. So I ducked out and ate Mexican food and slurped giant margaritas before hitting the after-party at Quenchers Saloon. I met up with the film fest folk as well as Chad and his pals and we drank the requisite booze and smoked all the weed you’d expect us to smoke. Then we hit the late night bar and boozed it up some more, took some pics and danced like gaylords.
Chicago Underground Film Festival – Day 3 (Saturday, June 4, 2011) – BOB:
I think I kinda took it easy and then ate some pizza w/ Amy on Sat. That sounds right. I don’t recall seeing any films during the daytime, so I’m gonna just go with that.
A bit later in the day, I met up with my buddy Michael Galinsky and his brother Adam. We had some drinks. What the hell did you expect happened?
I saw Galinsky’s doc Battle for Brooklyn. The flick is a fine piece of well-crafted and engaging filmmaking. It’s also an important film about the abuses of eminent domain laws and land grabs by wealthy and powerful corporations. It not only entertains and enlightens, but it’ll kind of piss you off as well.
Then back to the Bottom Lounge for the after-party, karaoke-style. Guess what. Both Emily and Amy can belt out some tunes. I have pics. Dig them:
Yes, I realize that these pics are not evidence of their singing ability, but witness how great they look singing and don’t question me on their chops, you bastard.
Speaking of pics, C.U.F.F set up a photo booth. There were props, including a cool banner that Emily and Amy had made. More pics:
My new buddy Scott was also at the party. As was Jeff Krulic, the filmmaker behind the cult-classic Heavy Metal Parking Lot. We all had some of the free booze and partied until last call.
Scott, Amy, Emily and I all partied well into the night. We closed down the bars and headed back to Amy’s pad for more fun. When we saw the sun coming up, we all bolted for bed like cockroaches in the light.
Chicago Underground Film Festival – Day 4 (Sunday, June 5, 2011) – BOB:
The first 12 hours of this day were so packed with doing the stuff I can’t write about, that it was this half-a-day that was undoubtedly the pinnacle of my time in Chicago. It was unbelievably spectacular. Sadly, at the end of this 12 hour period, I’d do, for the last time, the stuff I can’t write about. But talk about saving the best for last. Hot damn!
Oh yeah, my movie screened in the middle of this 12-hour chunk. So, there’s that. Also, I nearly missed my own film and Q&A because I got so caught up with doing the stuff I can’t write about. I have no regrets about this.
I’m not sure how the screening itself went, as I was late as fuck, but I did make it in time for the Q&A. Chad made it also. It maybe wasn’t our liveliest of Q&As, but it was pretty decent. We got some laughs and had some fun. There was some tech problem and the film that was to screen before Total Badass ended up screening after it instead. This turned out to be a stroke of luck for me because I did get to catch the short. It’s a weird narrative called The Forest about a woman who fucks a deer and has some sort of man-deer husband and a boy-deer son or something like that. To be honest, I’m not exactly sure what it’s about. But I liked it.
I snuck out and smoked some weed with Chad and hung out with our ex-Austinite pal Chris Young. It turns out that blazing a bowl in front of a TV station with a cop parked about 50 feet away is indeed the safest place to get stoned.
Once high, I ventured back into the cinema to catch some short films. I really wanted to see Tyrpps #7 (Badlands) as I’d hear it was an incredible mindfuck and best seen when stoned out of your mind. Unfortunately, I was getting stoned and missed it. I did catch The Observers, a Frederic Wiseman-ish doc about a weather station in the super-windy and cold-as-tits outpost of Mt. Washington, New Hampshire, where the wind gusts hit upwards of 231 mph.
The climax of my adventures of doing the stuff I can’t write about was after this screening, and if I could write about it, I’d go off for several pages here. I ain’t gonna do that. But talk about ending with a bang! The best was saved for last, for sure. No doubt about it.
After the awesomeness, I hauled ass back down to the cinema and caught Heavy Metal Parking Lot on the big screen. That was a real treat (not nearly the treat that was doing the mind-blowing stuff I can’t write about, but not too shabby). Alongside HMPL were a couple other flicks: the weird and fun drum solo flick, Moby Dick and Jeff Krulic’s newer doc in the metal genre, Heavy Metal Picnic. But for me, re-watching HMPL (and getting to see it on the big-screen) was the high point of the eve (I mean, other that all the doing the awesome stuff I can’t write about, which blew any movie out of the water, duh).
I hit the after-party and awards ceremony at Delilah’s to cap off the night. There’s one movie I regret not seeing. I probably got caught up doing the super-fun stuff I can’t write about and missed it. The flick is called Snow on tha Bluff and it looks crazy-fun. However, I did get to meet Damon Russell, the filmmaker behind the film, and he’s promised to send me a screener. That was cool. As it turns out, Snow on tha Bluff won the narrative film award at the awards ceremony I’m currently writing about. So Damon had better send me a copy.
It was at the after party that I was really starting to become aware of the fact that I had spent the day blissfully doing so much of the fantastic stuff I can’t write about that I had not yet eaten. So I snuck off for a bite. I snaked back in and met up with Michael Galinsky, Scott, Amy, Emily, Bryan Wendorf, Lori Felker (fest coordinator & asst programmer), Chad and several other old and new friends (including Damon and the filmmaker behind The Forest, Steven Summers) and we slurped up the last of the free booze.
What with no late-night after-parties and no more doing the terrific stuff I can’t write about (damn it all!), this eve was a tad anticlimactic. However, the fest did get a hotel for Chad and me on this night. I must admit that I miss partying until the sun comes up with Scott, Amy and Emily (and certainly would love to do more of the fantastic stuff I can’t write about), but sleeping in an insanely fancy hotel was kinda nice. I mean, as a third option.
Chicago Underground Film Festival – Day 5 (Monday, June 5, 2011) – BOB:
Unfortunately, on this day, I was no longer doing the super-amazing-fun stuff I can’t write about. But the last time I did do the mind-blowing stuff I can’t write about, it was so fucking awesome, that it would have been hard to top. I would have loved to try. Fuck it, I would have topped it. And damn fate for not allowing it to be done! And, aside from not doing lots and lots more of the wonderfully marvelous stuff I can’t write about, I have no complaints. In fact, I have nothing but terrific memories of this trip to Chi-town. That, and a ton of new friends. Double-score!
Friday June 3, 2011 – CHAD:
I took a cab to the airport here in Austin, and the cab driver was this old guy who was very engaging. He was playing a CD of The Buena Vista Social Club, and very much wanted me to hear and appreciate them. My house is only about a ten minute ride from the airport, but he played me the better part of at least three songs, intermingled with his translations of the lyrics and stories about the songs or the band as a whole. As we rolled into Bergstrom, he was narrating a song about a woman who had gone to sleep with a candle still lit and burned down her house, but it was actually a metaphor for old men not getting laid. I remember being both relieved and a little let down that he didn’t elaborate.
The plane was an express jet, and it was the first time I had been on one. I get a little bit nervous from flying. I mean, I’m able to sit there and do the crosswords or watch the little television… even engage in some small talk, but deep down inside I’m usually convinced that everyone is going to die, and my innermost efforts are devoted to coming to grips with that. The express jets get whipped around by the wind a little more than the big airliners, so that’s particularly hard on me, because my perceptions of sensory data are irrationally heightened when I’m on a plane. I’ll detect the slightest change in the hum of the engine, like if the pilot speeds up or something, and even though I never say it out loud, all I can think is, “Do y’all hear that shit? We’re going down!” Whenever I think about air travel in science fiction terms, I imagine a world in the not too distant future, after the advent of whatever technology comes along and keeps planes from falling out of the sky, and I think about a little kid going on a flight with their grandpa. The grandpa is telling stories that he heard from his own grandparents about flying on “airplanes” back before they had boosters or anti-gravity or whatever little adaptation has come along, and the kid asks, “What did they do in the old days, Grandpa, before the repulsion-chute, whenever the plane broke down in mid-air?” Then grandpa would have to explain that they all just fell to the ground and died in a crash, as ridiculous as that may seem. In retrospect, we will look like some of the bravest, craziest people to ever exist on the planet. The modern day businessman-on-the-run will seem like an apache warrior or a kamikaze or some shit.
I landed in Chicago at O’Hare airport and took the train into the city. I loved the ride in because it was out in the open and you could see all the buildings and porches and shit as you rode by the city. At one point I imagined myself as a destitute old pervert who rode the train all day, hoping to see naked people through their windows. I met up with Austin expatriate and Whoopsy! Magazine sportswriter, Trey Elling. I stayed with Trey most of the time I was in town. First place he took me was his favorite Latin American food place, I forget the name and the country of origin, but they put this cabbage in all their food that made everything taste like bilge water. Seriously, I took a bite and before I realized it was the cabbage, I was like, Holy Shit somebody mopped the fucking floor and then made my tacos in the same water. After that, we met up with my friend Abby Wallig, who some of you from Austin might remember from her stint there. We got some weed somewhere along the way, and I guess just went out to a series of bars before eventually winding up at Quenchers for a party that was a part of the Chicago Underground Film Festival (heretofore known as CUFF). Since there’s no such thing as bad publicity, I’d like to mention that everyone I talked to that night or that weekend, whenever I would mention Quenchers on the itinerary, they’d go, “Quenchers? What the fuck were you doing at Quenchers?” Nonetheless, I’m pretty sure Quenchers was the end of the line that night.
Saturday June 4 2011 – CHAD:
We had a huge day in Chicago. Trey and I got up and walked around the city, ending up over at the “beach” on Lake Michigan, watching Justine Hayes and some of her friends play volleyball. Trey and I played a game against some guys, and I totally sucked. I would have liked to have played a few more games to get the hang of it. After that we went swimming back at his place, or they did at least and then I even squeezed in a forty-five minute nap when a thunderstorm rolled in. After that, we went to Maifest, which was basically just a German street festival with all the stereotypes you’d see at Wurstfest in New Braunfels; lederhosen, polka bands, big ass mugs of beer… everything but the swastikas. While I was there, I decided in my head that it is time for Germans to maybe not necessarily embrace the swastika, but at least start rolling out their WWI and WWII flags and memorabilia at events such as this, and just be like “We fought in the World Wars. Who cares whose fault it was, we fought and died like everybody else.” In the interest of disclosure, I am one quarter German, but my ascendants moved out of Germany before the rise of Hitler, thus clearing my conscience of any holocaust guilt. Conveniently, they also arrived in America after slavery, so I’m covered there, too. Anyway, Maifest was a fucking blast, as was Division Fest, a more conventional street festival that we went to later.
I almost got arrested at Division Fest. As much as a boon as it would have been to Total Badass’ overall street credit if one of us had been arrested on yet another movie trip, I’m glad that I wasn’t. It was all a matter of finances, really. In theory, there was no fucking way I could have afforded to go to Chicago for even a second, much less an entire weekend, what with the quitting of selling of weed back in November, and all. However, once the plane ticket was taken care of in what was a combination of hospitality, luck and the borrowing of money from friends, I realized that it costs just as much to be broke in Chicago as it does in Austin. Living like this, one of the things I do is, I’ll hang out at the bars all fucking night, but most of the beer I drink is bought in convenience stores and guzzled down in the streets of surrounding neighborhoods. So, I’m walking around in this neighborhood and go into the store and buy a big-ass miller light and start to crack it open right as I’m walking out the door. I walk right into this lady cop who looks exactly like Meg Ryan… so much so that I want to say Meg Ryan actually did play a uniformed officer in a movie once, but I might be imagining that because this lady looked so much like her. She told me I was lucky I hadn’t opened the beer all the way, or I would be going to jail, but the beer was literally foaming over with a frothy head and shit, so I don’t know if she was serious. It took everything I had not to hit on her, or tell her she looked like Meg Ryan, or some seductive combination of both.
We had been hanging out a lot with this buddy of Trey’s named Peter Rowell. We were over at his place later that night, and this big group of Indians (as in India, not Illini) came walking up to the place next door. They were his neighbors, and invited us up to a party. They had this food set out, a chicken dish for sure and then I don’t know what else, but it was fucking delicious. Later we were at a completely different party that was a lot like that one and I was rolling a joint at the kitchen table…. Several of us were. The owner of the place comes up, and was like… “Ah, you are doing marijuana. That’s ok, just don’t start stealing my shit.” I thought that was weird, but whatever. Later on we were out on the porch getting stoned with the womenfolk, and they were like, you know so and so’s husband is a cop… talking about homeboy. Eventually, we ended up at a club which I currently forget the name of for another CUFF party. This one had an audio visual deal set up where a guy would take your pictures in front of a white screen and then project them to the whole party. Here are some of said pictures:
Sunday June 5, 2011 – CHAD:
We got up Sunday and went and ate breakfast in the middle of a book festival. It was festival week in Chicago, apparently. From there Trey and Justine dropped me off at the Gene Siskel Film Center for the screening. I didn’t even think to film the Q and A, or anything else all weekend, for that matter. Whoopsy! The crowd at the film was decent, and we fell into a bit of good fortune. They played a short film called The Forest by Steven Summers. He was at the screening as well, and told Bob he was a high school teacher. Well, some of his kids and their parents had come to see his movie which was supposed to play before Total Badass, but due to technical difficulties played right after it, so they sat through all of Total Badass, as well. Some of the high school boys though my daughter, Jessica was fine, so I’ve got that going for me.
One of my old friends, Chris Young came out to the screening, and I ended up hanging out with him for the rest of the day as we returned to Division Fest and watched A Place to Bury Strangers (A Reason to Bury Faggots) and, more importantly, Big Freedia, the transgender rapper from New Orleans. Big Freedia is a part of the social phenomenon of extreme ass-shaking which has apparently arisen from the New Orleans transgender rapper scene, and will almost certainly prove to be one of black peoples’ most significant cultural accomplishments since wearing hats sideways, or perhaps the “crip walk”. Seriously though, if you haven’t seen Big Freedia shake his ass in person, you need to go ahead and put it on your bucket list… it’s awesome. Me personally, I have no problem with a bunch of people up on stage fucking the air with their ass out while some big nigger dressed up like a woman yells “Ass everywhere! Ass everywhere!”, but I found it odd that the citizenry of Chicago would see this as fit to fly into town and have at one of their public festivals with families and shit. Then again, someone spent $450 bucks to fly me out there to show a movie about me dealing drugs and getting blowjobs, so maybe this shit is considered fine art up there, hell I don’t know.
Later that night, I made my way across town to the CUFF final party at Delilah’s, which is apparently a sister bar of Austin’s Casino El Camino, as the owners are friends. By the time I got there, I was completely exhausted from the weekend, and just sat there watching television and listening to the metal they were playing on the jukebox. Good stuff… Iron Maiden, Danzig, Rainbow, all kinds of shit. I hope nobody thought I was being lame or anti-social there, but I really was on my last leg. The funny thing is, when I first landed back on Friday, I had immediately texted Bob, “Just landed. Where’s the drug-fueled pussy party?” He’d keep texting me shit that was going on, but I kept making it clear that whatever he was talking about didn’t sound like the drug-fueled pussy party that I had been promised. I went so far as to finally decree that I wasn’t going to be satisfied unless I walked into a party, and they had this laboratory-type set up which included a disembodied human pussy in a jar being fed drugs through various tubes and whatnot. I talked a big talk, but in reality I haven’t been preoccupied with pussy at all lately, especially with having a girlfriend who lives far away and being accused of rape on that last movie tour we went on. All that has combined to dull down my mojo a bit. Don’t get me wrong though, there was pelt all over Chicago, especially in the film festival crowd.
The film festival put me and Bob up in this really nice hotel our last night in town. I forget the name of it, but it was easily one of the best I’ve stayed in. I left Delilah’s really early and checked in and went straight to sleep.
Monday June 6, 2011- CHAD:
Bob and I flew home out of Chicago O’Hare. We were sent to the wrong gate by the airport, and had gotten there so early that we both just kind of drifted off fucking around on our computers and ended up realizing at the last minute that something was wrong. We made the flight by less than a minute. Other than smoking a joint at the airport, right outside the terminal, that is about the only exciting thing to report from the journey back to Austin. I really had a good time in Chicago though, and loved the city.
Badass Film Tour 
