Fritschie good

Today, I came the closest I've come to giving up on challenges I set up for myself. Note: I didn't. Mostly because I knew deep down that I was freaking out over what amounted to nothing. Been there before, and odds are I'll be there again.

Oddly enough, the thing that I chose to distract myself with was something else that normally would send me into an anxiety attack of gargantuan proportions. But, I went forth, despite the nagging instinct to freak out. No, tonight, I defied my gut feeling. I turned off the rest of the world as best I could, and in the end, I felt more like my ideal self than I have in years, if not ever before.

It feels really good to impress yourself. Restraint has always been a problem for me. Reserved is never a word to describe a guy like me. I am the reason candy bars are next to the register, and the reason every casino has an ATM. I've never been one to take just one bite of dessert. Tonight, I feel I walked away ahead and am a better man for it.

I sure as hell don't exactly know what is in store for me. All I really know is this: I'm not scared, and tonight, I had the best coffee ever.

Weekend Update

FRIDAY

I spent the majority of the day on Friday cleaning up my office. Yes, it was that slow. In the evening I went to a friend's birthday party and had a blast. I wound up staying out until around five, with the last hour or so spent at Village Inn. That skillet breakfast and two cups of coffee has thrown my metabolism off all weekend. Aside from the energy issues, it was a great time.

SATURDAY

Slept in until noon, then spent most of the afternoon tracking down this one specific CD, which I found about three and a half hours. Then, I helped my friend Mary with her piece for my art show.

After dinner with Mary and her family, I headed down to the Nightingale Theatre to see Justin McKean's Born Again Yesterday, a one-man show about being a recovering fundamentalist Christian. It was a great show, unapologetic, extremely funny and profound in pointing out the big difference between the truth and what we're all told to be the truth. My recovering Catholic father would've loved it.

The midnight movie at the Circle was the Road Warrior: Mad Max 2. I haven't seen this movie in ages, and it was awesome. Someone really needs to strap Michael Bay to a chair, prop his eyes open a la Clockwork Orange, and force him to watch everything George Miller has ever done. Here's a guy that not only knows how to dazzle the audience, but knows how to do it without a overblown special effects budget.

I got home around two, but couldn't fall asleep until three, thanks to the jumbo Cherry Coke I got at the theater. I only got about three hours sleep because...

SUNDAY

Seven A.M. It's about 35 degrees outside, and we're heading to a cemetery to set up a photo shoot for my art show, this one inspired by Nightmare Before Christmas. Ironic, getting up at dawn to do a piece based on a film that takes place at night.

Fortunately, the artist/model was freezing her ass off in her costume, so we had to move quickly so we could go get some coffee. Shots turned out great!

Today, I've been taking my jolly freaking time cleaning up around here. I gotta have some friends over tomorrow night to take care of some more art show stuff, and I've pretty much reserved myself to the idea of doing a ninety mile an hour cram everything in the closet session before they come over. Bullet over the band aid.

Now, I must go to bed.

I hope there's this much fuss when I die

Heath Ledger is dead. Another promising young actor, gone long before his time. I must admit, I was shocked. More shocked than I usually am when I hear someone younger than me has just passed away. By age 28, Ledger had managed to stack up the kind of film roles that most actors only dream of having, and he made every one of them honest and natural...an ultra rare talent these days.

It will be difficult this summer to watch The Dark Knight, and Ledger's performance as the Joker, and not get that same odd feeling I had when I first saw Brandon Lee in The Crow. Even sadder was the report today that before his death, Ledger had signed on for the next Batman film as well.

However, in the 28 hours since the first report of his death, my shock and sadness has been officially replaced with disgusted rage. No more than three hours after his body was discovered, I heard the first "I guess he finally found out how to quit you" joke from someone on the net. That joke was apparently repeated by John Gibson on Fox News this morning. Gee, to see it as a reposted Myspace bulletin is one thing, but to say it on national TV with a smirk on your face is the sign of the ultimate douchebag.

Even more upsetting was this press release. Yep, the Westboro Baptists are at it again. First, they picketed AIDS victims' funerals, then the funerals of soldiers killed in the Middle East, all because they believe that these people deserved death because our country embraces homosexuality. Now, they plan to protest the funeral of an actor who once portrayed a gay man in a movie we know they never watched. Gee, you know your rage is disjointed when it makes Ann Coulter look focused and reasonable.

So, is this a new sub-category for the Westboro Baptists: Straight actors who played gay? Will they one day be protesting the funerals of Tom Hanks, Robin Williams, Steve Zahn, Willem Dafoe, Robert De Niro, Bruce Willis (although, to be fair, his character in the Jackal was bi), Kevin Spacey, William Hurt, Kevin Bacon, Tommy Lee Jones, Joe Pesci, Patrick Stewart, Al Pacino, Will Smith, Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas, Keanu Reeves, Tom Cruise, Robert Downey Jr., Tobey Maguire, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Matt Damon, The Rock, Jude Law, Michael Caine, Colin Farrell, Forest Whittaker, etc.? Please keep in mind, this list was compiled with help from Internet Movie Database...I'm not a scholar in this field.

Hell, I've often joked about popping open champagne the day both of the Wayans brothers are dead, but I at least have a somewhat logical reason: They not only acted in some of the worst movies ever made, but also wrote and produced them.

And the rumor is that Ledger had pill bottles around his apartment. Does that automatically mean he died of an overdose? No, it doesn't. There was even a report today that a twenty dollar bill found near his body tested negative for cocaine. The autopsy report was inconclusive, and the toxicology report will take at least ten more days. Can we withhold judgment, please? Or, at the very least, stop speculating until all the facts are in? Sweet Jesus, his body hasn't even left the morgue, much less been buried in the ground!

So much for resting in peace!

Another great Saturday

It's been a busy week. The day job has been just fine, but the art show has been coming up pretty fast. I've been in heavy promotions mode, and I'll have much more to report on that as things develop. Suffice to say, I'm gonna be jugging a lot of things these next couple of weeks: Getting the artists' stuff together, getting my own stuff together, Meeting and greeting, etc.

Yesterday was the first day I was able to step away from all of this stuff. I went to do laundry in the morning, which was nice considering this was the first time the laundromat wasn't completely packed on a Saturday morning. When I got home, I checked the movie showtimes, and booked it to the theater to catch a matinee of Cloverfield.

I would write a long review of this film, seeing as I really, really liked it, but I won't. I will however, give you this list of precautions to take if and when you see it:

1. Take some dramamine and or avoid sitting in the front half of the theater. This film is shot entirely from the perspective of a video camera being manned by a character who admits to having no clue how to operate it.

2. Don't get anything from the snack bar, because A) you might get so queasy that you won't want to eat or drink anything, and B) this film works best if you have nothing around you to remind you about the real world. Plus, I saw it alone, so that helped.

3. Do yourself a favor and don't nitpick it while you're watching it. Just let yourself go and allow yourself to get sucked into it. Sure, the guy should've just dropped the camera and ran away at full speed, but where would the movie had gone from there? Would you watch an hour and a half of a monster tearing up NYC if the camera had filmed it on its side in the gutter?

4. Take your time leaving the theater. The music playing over the end credits is pretty cool...Plus, you're gonna need the time to get over some mild vertigo.

5. Don't bitch about the title. If you see it, then I dare you to try and come up with something better.

6. Completely forget about The Blair Witch Project. Comparing it to Cloverfield is like comparing apples and oranges...only in this case the apple is still an apple and the orange is 25 stories tall, really pissed off, impervious to all of our weaponry and will fucking eat you.


AS soon as I got home from the movie, I immediately got a call from Mary, Amy and Andey asking me to come over and hang out/help them with cleaning out Mary's "big room". When I got there, they were all drunk from the wine left over from Mary's birthday party on Friday. I stayed, had a couple of drinks and we all pretty much gave up on cleaning.

Once we sobered up, we went to Shiloh's for dinner. Usually, a family diner like this makes up for the bad quality of the food by dealing it out in volume, but in this case it was really fucking good food in huge portions....sorta like the culinary equivalent of a down comforter. We waddled out of the restaurant feeling a helluva lot better emotionally. Physically, we felt like we were gonna explode.

I got back to my truck and got back on the road just in time to make it to the final act of my friend Corey's Lord of the Rings marathon. The Return of the King really helped with the digestion. We wrapped up the movie around one and shot the shit until around two. I went home and fell right asleep. Found my keys in the door this morning.

The Writer's Strike

When it comes to the writer's strike, I definitely side with the writers. When their last contact was being negotiated, no one foresaw the huge boom in technology (internet streaming, DVD sales skyrocketing, etc.) that would allow the studios to hoard that much more of the percentages. I think the strike was a really good idea, albeit really poorly timed.

Many of the best prime time shows in my time were lacking in quality this season before the strike began. Heroes' second season could've started out much better than it did, and it was just starting to gather a little bit of steam before they had to wrap up the storylines abruptly and tack together an eleventh hour finale before the strike. CSI: started a subplot that I was so sure to set up a bad outcome for one of the characters in the season finale that I made a bet with a co-worker of mine that I lost when the final episode of this short season aired last week. 24's and Lost's new seasons are only half done, with the former waiting on the shelf and the latter airing until they run out of fully produced episodes.

On the good side, the strike crippled the Golden Globes, and most people preferred the press conference format to the three hour plus circle-jerk snoozefest it usually is. The same result happening to the Grammys would be far from a tragedy for most. Hell, the Oscars have been falling so far in the ratings these past few years that other networks don't even bother with re-runs anymore.

But is there anything the writers can do to actually prove their worth? I mean, they protested the premiere of Alvin and the Chipmunks, for Christ's sake! Does anyone honestly believe a movie like that was written on anything other than cocktail napkins? And you would think that professional writers could come up with better sign slogans and picket line chants than what they have now.

Plus, this is the studio dump season, that period of time between the Oscar gold rush and the summer blockbusters where the studios drop the films they've either had on the shelves for three years or couldn't market any other time of year. Case in point: Meet the Spartans.

Meet the Spartans are the latest spoof movie from "writers" Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, whose previous credits include Spy Hard, Scary Movie 1-4, Date Movie and Epic Movie. That's right, their last SIX screen credits have the word "Movie" in the title! All of these films put together are the equivalent of manning a shift at Blockbuster where all the teenage stoner employees formed an improv troupe. If there was any justice in this world, the Writer's Guild should have have these guys face a firing squad manned by Harold Pinter, John Milius, Robert Towne and David Mamet.

And the studios and networks aren't even flinching. The studios already have their big 2008 blockbusters in post-production, and the networks have a whole crop of reality shows set to run in the meantime. Personally, I can't wait for Touching a Hot Stove for Cash, Truth or Waterboarding and Where's Your Antidote?. That should hold the American audiences for a while, until they re-discover books.

Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tulsa artists take on cult classic cinema with Personality of Cult

TULSA, OK – January 7, 2008 – Circle Cinema will be presenting Personality of Cult, an exhibit of works by Tulsa area artists inspired by their favorite cult classic films. The show will be on display from February 8 through March 30, 2008 in the lobby of Circle 2, 12 South Lewis in Tulsa.

Twenty-three artists will be participating in the exhibit, each bringing their own unique visions of such classic films as Rocky Horror Picture Show, Night of the Living Dead, Blade Runner, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and many more in a wide array of media, including paint, pen and ink, photography, ceramics, etc..

"These kinds of films are deeply ingrained in our popular culture." said Dan Fritschie, organizer of the exhibit. "Even someone who claims to have never seen one of them are at the very least familiar with their iconic imagery, and can see its influence on other films, TV shows, music and books. Our goal with Personality of Cult is to show these classic films from a different point of view; from an artist's perspective."

An opening event for the exhibit will take place the evening of February 7, starting at 7:00 p.m.

The Circle Cinema first opened on Sunday, July 15, 1928. It is the only remaining historical movie theatre in the City of Tulsa. The Circle Cinema mission is to create community consciousness through film. Construction continues toward the July 15, 2008, opening of the next two screens, celebrating the Circle’s 80th birthday.


CONTACT:

Dan Fritschie, organizer
324 West 13, #3
Tulsa, OK 74119
Telephone: (918) 519-6593
personalityofcult@yahoo.com

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Cable's back!

One month after the ice storm, I finally have everything back to normal. I got my cable and internet back tonight.

Books have been read, DVDs have been watched, CD's have been listened to. But those days are over. I have cable again. No more trips to the office to check my email. No more getting my news solely from NPR. I can finally get my TV fix.

Not that it means a whole helluva lot, what with the writer's strike and all. Oh, well...

At least I can get back into following the political races again. I was pleased with the outcome in Iowa, but a bit confounded by New Hampshire. Is it just me, or do all of the front-running Republican candidates look like the bad guys at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark? Huckabee looks like he's melting, McCain looks like he's drying out, Romney's head is about to explode... The Democrats, on the other hand, haven't garnered a pop culture comparison in my mind. Yet.

Latest News

It has now been four weeks and the cable is still out at home. The TV shows I'm missing I could give a rat's ass about, it's the internet that the problem. I do a lot of shit on the internet and it's driving me crazy butting heads with th cable company.

I decided not to call to get the cable lines fixed until after I got power back, since it would be pointless to get the cable back on and have no power to do anything with it. So, when I first called, I got put at the back of a really long list. That, I understood.

I called back about a week later to try to get an update, and it turns out my service order got lost in the shuffle. So, I got to the back of the line AGAIN!

The third time, the operator had the nerve to tell me my service was back on, when I was looking directly at the wires still on the ground! Their computers said it was fixed, it wasn't, so I got put back on the list, and that it would be back on by Thursday afternoon.

Thursday night, the line was still down, and I called them again. This time they told me that someone was working on the line at that very moment. Being on a cell phone allowed me to walk outside and down the block...to see that no one was even in the neighborhood working on the cable lines. So I called them on their bullshit again.

Friday night, I called back, only to be told that I wouldn't get anyone in my area until Sunday afternoon. On Saturday afternoon, a cherry picker showed up and reattached the cale line back to the pole. Still, no cable service to my apartment.

This afternoon was my scheduled service appointment, which consisted of a technician coming to my door and informing me that there's a break somewhere down the line that's preventing any signal from making it to my apartment. This break may be down the block, down the street, or the whole damned system is screwed up...like I needed any further evidence of that.

The good news is, they're working on it, and it turns out my downstairs neighbor works for their billing department, so I may not only get a prorated bill, but a discount on future service.

Fingers crossed. In the meantime, I'm at the office checking my email, fixing to get some groceries and maybe catch a show at the Nightingale tonight.