Badass Film Tour 2 – Day 20: NYC to Providence

November 29, 2010

3:40 PM – CHAD
It seemed like we were in New York for about four months… not that I’m complaining. I told you about how I lost my camera in the city about three nights ago, the night of that screening in Manhattan, right? I even called the theatre and everything, and they eventually called Bob back and told him they never found the camera. This is something that Bob will remember personally, and it is important that I have him as a witness. I also told you way back on the first day of the trip how we got all those pills in Houston, didn’t I? Well, I want you to know that up until now, I’ve been very proud of myself as far as the pill intake is concerned. As I mentioned, we got about forty valiums and forty somas. Well, I have been very careful to take the valiums one night and then the somas the next, never mixing the two. I know it might sound ridiculous to a normal person to hear this, but I honestly take that as a sign that I’m growing up. I have a problem, however. I mean, beyond the drug problem… I have a dilemma. If I lost the camera last Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, then what the fuck was I doing in B&H Electronics on Thanksgiving itself looking for a camera to replace the one I had already lost? Or, let me put it this way. If I had already lost my camera by Thanksgiving, then why was I convinced that I had used and lost it at The Tank a night later and kept calling them on the phone and shit? I obviously don’t know what the hell has been going on, do I?

Here’s what I know for sure. It was absolutely Thanksgiving when I went to B&H Electronics, because they are a hardcore Jewish business with the hats and tassels and everything and strictly follow the Jewish calendar, which is the only reason they were open on Thanksgiving, to begin with. This place gets absolutely slammed with business, and has easily the most intricate anti-shoplifting measures in place of any store I’ve ever been in. You don’t even get to touch your merchandise until after it has been bought and paid for, and you are on your way out the door. To sum it up briefly, you go up to a guy who has the camera you want bolted down on a fucking table, ok? You tell him you want the camera, so he points you to a line and tells you, go wait over there and tell another guy that you want the Vado 4GB Camcorder in purple, because that’s the only color even close to appropriate that is left in stock. This second guy then prints you out an order form, which you take to a line with a bunch of cashiers. You give a cashier the order form, and they charge you for the camera. You pay for the camera, having not even touched the fucker yet. Then, the cashier gives you a receipt that you take to a fourth person who finally gives you your camera on your way out the door. I go and buy a camera on Thanksgiving, with Raphael and Lara Pan waiting outside. I go through the whole rigmarole and check point bullshit, pay about a hundred and fifty bucks for the camera, and finally have it handed to me on the way out. I walk through the doorway, and a fucking alarm goes off. This guy comes up to me and asks me if he can see my receipt for the camera. Keep in mind; they don’t even let you touch your merchandise until after you’ve paid for it in this shylock shithole. I told the guy the same thing I tell the people at Wal-Mart and elsewhere who do the same shit… you know, the people who aren’t even the police to begin with, and even if they were, they wouldn’t have the right to accuse you of theft with no proof, thus no right to search you, but Americans let them rile through their bags every day? Those people… I always tell them no, of course you can’t search through my shit, are you out of your goddamn mind? I usually start out saying that in a bit nicer manner, but inevitably the conversation always devolves into rudimentary phrases such as the previous one. Well, I get into it with this guy, and I really think that he thought he could just search people’s shit anytime he liked. To make sure, he asked me to wait while he went and got his supervisor. By now, a crowd had gathered, and I told him please do, go get everybody right up the chain, so that eventually there are like five Jews there in the doorway telling me I have to show them a receipt before I can leave with the camera. Somewhere along the way, I realized that I had a bunch of weed and some pills in my pockets, so I had to abandon my initial plan, which was to just walk out into the streets dragging all these Jews with me until the police came and broke the whole thing up. My fantasy was that after the cops stopped the fight and were stripping everyone down, they would find the receipt in my pocket and I would be fully vindicated, and maybe even become some sort of local hero in the New York media and then just move there and host the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade from time to time.  In reality, the police would have found all the drugs and arrested me for possession, along with assault and battery, shoplifting, and all kinds of other stuff. This was the first time in my life that I can really point to and say that drugs held me back. I had to settle with singling out the head rabbi and telling him look, I’ll give you my receipt, but I also want you to take this camera and stick it up your ass, then walk back through all those lines in there and get me my money back. I might even have taken the opportunity to remind everybody how far we were from the West Bank, at least in geographical terms. By the time I got back outside, Raphael and Lara were like, what the fuck took you so long? I know this was on Thanksgiving, because we went to George and Virginia’s house after that and I was bitching about the experience all night, in addition to having to shit really bad and watching the Longhorns lose to the Aggies.

I know this for sure, too. The night that I have been convinced I lost the camera on all the way up until this point (Late January) when I am actually sitting down here and writing this shit was November 26th, 2010 also known as the only night we showed the movie at The Tank in Manhattan. I can remember having it in my Astros jacket pocket at one point when I was talking to George Gierer out in front of the Pork Slap place, and I remember using it to film the introduction and/or question and answer portion of our program. Now, how in the hell could I have still had the camera a day after I was trying to buy a new one to replace it? The only logical explanation is that we have been traveling back through time on this whole trip and I don’t want to rule that out, but I think I might just be all fucked up and have no idea what I’m talking about. Except this: It is now Monday, November 29th (four days after Thanksgiving) and we are in the car leaving Manhattan to haul ass to Providence, Rhode Island in time for a screening tonight, but not before we stop back by B&H Electronics so I can buy that fucking camera… again…

7:15 PM – BOB
I’ve never been to Rhode Island.  I don’t know a single person in or from the entire state.  We’ll see what she has in store for us.  My gut tells me that this week will be a bit of a slow-crawl, but I’m hoping that the Fri/Sat 1-2 punch of Baltimore & Philly will kick us back into high gear before we besiege the south once again.

Leaving NYC

Enter Providence

8:58 PM – CHAD
We’re at The Cable Car Cinema in Providence and Total Badass is about to start. Here’s the Introduction, the very first thing I filmed on the new Vado camera, which sucks by the way:

9:10 PM – CHAD
While the crowd enjoys the movie, I have walked over to The Wild Colonial Tavern, where I will meet up with Bob in a bit. The tavern was pretty cool, but not near as cool as this butthole I filmed on the way over there. This was the second butthole I found on the trip, if you recall correctly (the first one was on St. Augustine Beach, Florida) but this one is manmade, while the first one was definitely a carbon based life form.

1:45 AM – CHAD
We ended up staying with a girl named Ally who worked at the Cable Car Cinema, but that was actually all a big coincidence because we had already been hooked up with her by Raphael’s roommate, Anna before we ever knew where she worked. Anna and Ally were friends back at The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) which all the locals here pronounce as RIZ-DUH. Ally had a very nice place, a really cool quilt, and a cat that we were lead to believe would try anything to escape. I don’t remember the cat’s name, so I’m sticking with Dragon. As in, “Jonathan Brisby made possible the rats’ escape from the terrible cruelty of NIHM. He was killed today while drugging the farmer’s cat, Dragon.”

Badass Film Tour 2 – Day 8: Augusta Snow

November 17, 2010

Drive to Augusta, GA

2:27 PM – CHAD
We drove from Gainesville to Augusta today, apparently.  Seems like something I would have remembered, but what am I, a fucking almanac?

Pig – Oink

Chad Intro

Bob in Augusta

10:21PM – CHAD
We got into Augusta, Georgia and screened at The Sky Lounge. It was a pretty cool bar, and they have started showing some films in the back so they had a screen set up and everything. We met some cool people there, Coco Rubio, Alamo, Jordan… the whole thing was really made possible by my good friend Nick Snow from Brazoswood High School, who moved out to…. What’s that? You can’t hear me? Oh, that’s because Nick won’t shut the fuck up, he’s been talking for twenty-five years straight. No, but seriously, I remember when Nick moved out to Austin for a while back in the 90’s and as soon as he got to town, he rode down to Mexico with me on a pill run. Everybody on that trip remembers Nick because he got in the car, started talking, and never stopped, even after he’d lost his voice. He literally completely lost his voice and would still keep talking to you for hours, with no sound coming out. While the movie was playing tonight, I remember looking up in the front row and seeing Nick sitting there with like, five or six friends that he’d gotten to come out and I remember thinking it was cool that he had brought a crowd and shit, but I felt bad for them because I knew they couldn’t hear a goddamn thing, except Nick talking. For real though, Nick great to see you again. Hope we hook up with you on the way back south, as planned. I’ve included two videos of Nick here, for those of you back in Texas. It’s vintage Nick Snow material, trust me…

Nicks No

Nicks no Talk Black

5:14 AM – BOB:
The details are fuzzy. In reality, I’m at the Whole Foods in NYC (the library closed). I’m just acting like it’s Day 8 and I’m still awake in Augusta, hunting and pecking away at this tour journal. The truth is, the details are fuzzy. According to Google Maps, we probably drove for about five and three quarter hours today… unless we got lost.
I remember that Augusta was cool and that we hung out with the dude who used to drum for the Riverboat Gamblers. At some point there was either a swap or a mutual giving of goods to one another. Either way, we left with some kind bud and either parted ways with a DVD or some pills in the process. And the Soul City Sirens derby gals here were cool too. We had us a fun as fuck time. Chad’s pal Nick, who seems like a nice motherufkcer and might be crazy, likes to talk.  It doesn’t matter if you are watching a movie or taking a dump in the stall next to him, Nick will chat you up good.

Film Tour Page: www.badassfilmtour.com

Badass Film Tour 2 – Day 4: Mobile

November 13, 2010

10:35 PM – CHAD:
When I woke up this morning, it occurred to me that Bodger, the dog, is a living example of what I’ve been doing with my life for the last 20 years. I opted not to hang myself in light of this. Or him, for that matter…

Also, here is a look at the ghost house…

Additionally, here is a peek at some of the wildlife native to the region:

Drive to Mobile

6:33 PM – CHAD:
So, we split from New Orleans and are now in Mobile, Alabama where we began the evening with a rollergirl pre-party at Veet’s, which struck me as a nice place to watch football games if you’re ever in Mobile, and then all of the girls skated down to the Crescent Theatre for Hell on Wheels. The procession can be seen here:

Mobile CAKE!

10:45 PM – CHAD:
We really had a great time with Max, the theatre owner and Will, the projectionist. Here they are early on in the night giving us the lowdown on The Crescent Theatre. Things got so much worse as the night went on, I assure you:

Thanks, Max and Will for Keeping Indie Film Alive in Mobile, AL!

11:30 PM – CHAD:
Well, I told you things got much worse, right? First, we left the theatre in the back of a truck with Max, the theatre owner and Will, the projectionist so as to go to their houses to look at art and presumably get all fucked up if they were, indeed, the getting fucked up type. Here’s some footage of Mobile from the back of a pickup for those of you who’ve never seen it that way. Like there’s any other way to see it… (I also threw in a clip of Max’s place.)

Mobile Truck Ride

Max  – Art:

12:08 AM – CHAD:
I’m not sure what went wrong, but Bob and I seem to have missed the Q and A for Hell on Wheels in Mobile, Alabama. Actually, I’m understating just how bad things went. The movie just flat out quit playing with about 25 minutes left in it. That probably would have been easy to fix but Max, the theatre owner and Will, the projectionist, were with us at some bar on the other side of town all fucked up on weed and pills, so there was nobody there to handle the problem. Max got a phone call from the ticket agent and we all had to hop in the truck in a mad dash to go back and try to fix things. Is said mad dash on film? You bet it is. Highlights include:  Dragging along a girl from the bar we were at, black people telling me not to film them because they feared it would capture their souls, Will the projectionist bailing in a traffic jam to run the rest of the way to the theatre, this old-ass fucked up rugby player (there was a rugby tournament in Mobile that weekend) named Gene hopping in the back of the truck and partying with us for the rest of the night, Max the theatre owner just getting out of the truck in the middle of an intersection like it’s the normal way to do shit (he was driving) and pissed off rollerderby girls filing out of the theatre upon our arrival…

The second video listed above shows Bob on damage control trying to soothe the masses after his movie went to shit, and then closes with a wonderful example of how we do shit on the road, as far as finding places to stay is concerned.

Mobile Tunnel

12:09 AM* –  BOB:
*(but really, I’m writing this from the distant future (Day 15), but faking like it’s still Day 4)
Yeah, that sounds right.  That sounds about right.

Mobile – TBC’d

Tour Page:
http://www.badassfilmtour.com

Badass Film Tour 2 – Day 1: Houston, TX

November 10, 2011

“Chad Retires – Departing, Delays, and the Damn Ice House”

3:01 PM – BOB:

Here we go again.  I spent the last three and a half months booking another tour.  This time we’re headed through the South and up the East Coast.  Tour producer Mia Cevallos and her right-hand woman Jamie Flaxmann have been busting every hump they have to help find locations and get us some press.  We post all the good stuff we come across on the two Facebook pages:

http://www.facebook.com/TotalBadassTheMovie

http://www.facebook.com/HellOnWheelsTheMovie

 

Getting Started  (late)

Picking up, Chad

Check list…where’s, Billy Bishop?

Departure Pause (again)…and OBSOLETE© Billy Bishop?

3:33 PM – CHAD:

As you may recall from our West Coast tour journal, the last time I left town with the movie, I put my lone surviving guinea pig, Suckerfish, in charge of selling weed for me while I was gone. That is not the case this time around, because I have officially retired and I’m not even fucking kidding. I’d love to sit here and tell you it was due to strong ethics on my part or some sort of divine rehabilitation, but that is simply not the case. I mean, I’ve wanted to quit selling weed for about seventeen years now but could never bring myself to do so. I can look back on my life since I moved  to Austin in 1991 and it’s basically one landmark after another of times I promised myself I was going to quit selling weed, but never did: Every birthday and New Years for the better part of two decades, when I got kicked out of college, when I went back to college, when my son was born, when I left the family, when the kids moved back in with me, when I got a felony for making the fake SXSW wristbands, when I got off probation for it five years later…. Every time I swore once the date or event passed, I was done selling weed for good. Never has this been more the case than when the movie about me selling weed came out.

Once Total Badass was actually out and we showed it in town four or five times then toured the country with it, I was pretty sure it was about time to go ahead and quit. You have no idea how nerve wracking it is to sell weed when there’s a movie out about you selling weed, trust me. When I got back in town from that first tour, I even told my son, Shay, that I was going to be making some big changes in the way we do things that were long overdue and our lives were going to be much better because of it. I now refer to that as my “Pay No Attention to the Three to Five Pounds of Weed in the Closet Speech”.  I put it right up there with The Gettysburg Address and George Bush’s Mission Accomplished lecture as far as eloquent, yet misguided monologues go.

In the interest of making excuses and condoning crime in general, let me say  it’s always been financial reality that sidetracks me from walking the straight and narrow. I’ve explained before how selling drugs is like magic…. You’re just able to look back at the last year and somehow you’ve been able to pay for shit like rent and beer and sporting events when, in real life, the math never would have added up. So, even when I got back in from our tour over the summer, the realities of the bills and the car and all this shit just came right in and took over any plans I might have had about quitting. All along, I’ve also suffered from the common delusion about how if I could just get a little bit of money… just enough to pay my debts and get a little ahead on my bills… then I would walk away and never look back. Since selling pot is no different than any other shitty little job as far as getting ahead and upwards mobility are concerned, that day never comes. Except this time, it did.

Back right before the summer of 2008, on the first day that Bob and I ever worked on a scene for the movie, my grandma died. I actually had tentative plans to go by and interview her on our way back from the guinea pig show we went to, but it was too late at night by the time we were finished. The next morning, my Aunt called me and when I saw her name on my cell phone, I knew Meema had died. Well, fast forward two years later, and I’m back in town from the West Coast, spinning my fucking wheels for the thousandth time and, if I may get a bit personal, at an all time low as far as hopelessness and reality creeping into my head are concerned when my Aunt calls me again. Meema had left me some money. Not much, by any stretch of the imagination, but enough to equal about a year’s worth of weed selling salary. I’m not saying that I squandered any of it, but I did spend enough to pay off my debts and get a little ahead on my bills… and stop selling weed for the rest of my fucking life.

Now, I love Meema very much and her and Pop’s deaths are certainly right up there on the list of shittiest things that happen in life, but for the sake of humor and being honest, I have to tell you that the psychological relief that came along with that little financial windfall was so overwhelming that I couldn’t get the song, “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” out of my head for like two weeks. Seriously, I’d just be driving down the road with this huge smile on my face and the words to the song on a permanent loop in my brain. Here, sing them with me: “Grandma got run over by a reindeer, walking home from our house Christmas Eve. You may say there’s no such thing as Santa, but as for me and grandpa we believe.” So, when I get back in town this time, don’t ask me to sell you any weed, because I quit. Take this job and fucking shove it. I feel like the biggest burden of my life has been lifted, because I’m never going to sell another scrap of weed ever again for as long as I fucking live… except for the three quarter pounds I have stashed away at my house because obviously, I can’t just let that sit there and go to waste.

4:17 PM – BOB:

Fucking Billy Bishop.  I love the bastard, but he’s late as usual.  Billy is a badass artist and poster printer, but odds are you won’t get your posters until the event they are promoting is half over.  And so here we go again…

MEET Billy Bishop?

Guinea Pig Tee…no Billy

Got Shirts

So yeah, fresh out of the gate and we’re already running late.

On the drive to Houston, Chad and I decided to write a few scripts on this tour.  We figured to do that last tour, but blew it off and partied non-stop instead. Our re-commitment to writing scripts on tour was, shortly after, followed by a silent re-commitment to blowing it off again.

Arriving in Houston

7:16 PM – CHAD:

Our first official stop on the tour was at The Dam Ice House which is right by the Alamo Drafthouse West Oaks where the movie played. The Dam Ice House is… well, I’ll let our friend, Dave, tell you:

The DAMN ICE HOUSE

Headed to and at the ALAMO

A Fist full…

In review…

11:11 PM – BOB:

Houston screening was rowdy fun.  LOTS of laughs.  The ‘toons got the mood set right and the flick killed.

11:34 PM – CHAD:

We had established The Dam Ice House as the staging ground for an eventual assault on the theatre, but when we got there, only Bonnie Bilski, Holly Anders, and Chris Cortez were to be found. Luckily, after the movie, a lot more Brazoswood High School Alumni showed up, as evidenced in the following video: (Before showing the video, I would also like to add that Thao Ho, Kathy Krampota, Eileen Asswood, and countless other B’wood women were there looking better than ever as was my “cousin” Abbey, who is still not literally related to me and thus it would be perfectly fine if we made out, sweetheart.)

Roll Call

The Houston screening was fucking great, to put it lightly. We had unbelievable support from the guys at 1560 The Game, a shitload of high school friends showed up, and someone gave me so many fucking pills, you might as well quit reading this shit now because I don’t care about it anymore. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Bob and I fail to post a goddamn thing on this journal for over a week.  The Q and A after the screening was easily the best one we’ve had on the east coast trip so far, especially towards the end where Holly Anders asks the question that exposes Jesse, Charles Jesse Miller Jr, as the farce that his life has become:

(Coming Sooon): VIDEO D01-c-qanda

Badass Film Tour – Day 19: Salem to Eugene, OR

August 1, 2010

10:15 AM
CHAD
We woke up in Salem, and Sally had made us this great breakfast… Eggs, sausage, cantaloupe, and these badass fucking cinnamon rolls. Turns out we spent the night on a farm. We drove into town and Sally showed us the capitol. Then we had to head out to Eugene. Here’s the capitol in Salem, Oregon in case you were wondering:

10:19 AM
BOB:
Woke up in the Oregon countryside.  Enjoy:

12:41 AM
BOB:
Went to the Oregon capitol building:

2:33 PM
BOB:
The drive to Eugene was short and uneventful.  Which was nice.

7:00 PM
CHAD
The theatre we played at in Eugene was called the David Minor Theatre. This is a great opportunity to go back and post video from when we were partying in Denver with David Minor, Carmen Hinjosa and her sister-in-laws, not to mention Katherine Hargrave and Beth Edminston:

While I’m at it, here is the video of Bob’s introduction and question and answer section for the Eugene showing of Hell on wheels:

Also, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention we went to a place called The Jackalope. It’s the second one we’ve seen, we drove by one in Salt Lake City, too. Here is video proof that will double as a commercial for our sponsors, The Jackalope and Cupacabra back in Austin….

Also, thanks a lot to Blue Ruin of Emerald City Roller Girls for the place to stay! I kind of did laundry after you were already asleep, and didn’t want to wake you up to ask. Hope that wasn’t out of line….

8:02 PM
BOB:
There’s some fuzzy math afoot in Eugene.  See if you can follow it:
So, it turns out that I made a bad deal.  The cinema was hesitant to book us, so we agreed to have the first money that comes through the door go to the theater until they reach what would have been their rental price.  Which was $300.  Anything beyond $300 was to be divvied up between the cinema and me.  When I arrived, dude at the box office informed me that he forgot what the ticket price was supposed to be and just went with five bucks.  Which was fine with me.  But then I learned that the cinema seats 50 people and even if we sold every ticket, we would never be able to bring in even the $300 rental.  Let alone, go beyond that and get a bit of the scratch coming my way.  Best case for us was packing the house and earning $250 for the theater. We never had a chance of breaking the $300 dollar mark.  So I didn’t see a single cent from the gig.  I did managed to sell $65 worth of merch and we did find a couch to sleep on.  So all is not lost.

Having just left the Seattle area after swirling around it for ten days, there’s a tad of re-adjusting the life on the road.  There are some keys to survival.  The main one being, get what you can when you can get it.  This is vital for beer stops (and will keep you juiced when in a dry county or a low-alcohol content state like Utah).  We always keep a cooler full of brews in tow.  But the rule is good for many things: showers, gas, sex, pills, weed, couches/beds and other forms of hospitality, food, and general debauchery.  Forget looking down the pike for another go at it, if it presents itself, grab it, embrace it and ride it!  The oasis on the horizon might be a mirage.

Help us spread the word!!! We have more screenings coming up and could use your help w/ promo:
http://crashcamfilms.com/filmtour2010.htm