The Drink Tank 070 (2006).pdf

The Drink Tank 70 Talks About 12 Days of Cinequest and Why

Christopher J. Garcia’ll Never Be The Same Again

be back at Cinequest and exactly

what CQ means to me as a person

and a dreamer. It’s never easy the

day after the fest but this year was

even harder than any other year.

I’ve often said that Cinequest is

like a twelve day Con with tonnes

of programming and a decent

con suite. This year is the perfect

example of that. Let’s start at the

beginning.

dark. I asked him how he was doing.

“Well, I’ve been better. I stubbed

my toe, I was ired, I found out that

my dog died, that I had rickets, that

I had been secretly married and then

divorced and that I had AIDS.”

Knowing that Grifin was kidding

around, I found the only appropriate

response to my man.

“Wow, bad news about the whole

AIDS thing. It’s tough when you get

it as an adult. You really should have

tried to get it when you were younger.”

I know that exchange alone

makes me a bad, bad man.

Natasha showed up. I don’t see

the girl enough anymore, so that’s

always a plus. We chatted and waited

for the rest to show up. They were late

and after an hour or so, we left and

got some dinner. Of course, the folks

arrived exactly at that moment. The

This Issue won’t be nearly as sexy as

issue 69, but it will take a long look at

what I’ve been up to with Cinequest.

I’m starting it just twelve or so hours

since the end of the Closing Night Party.

Enjoy.

Wednesday- March 1st

I show up early. I always do,

and I helped Miss Stephanie Nix

to set up the Hospitality Lounge.

It was a lot of carrying, and while I

could have just sat around and done

nothing, I helped where I could and got

things all set up. In a strange twist, I

had to decollate a bunch of packets.

That was weird. I had to do a few little

things, like picking up my

paycheck and buying things

to keep my car working as

a base of operations while I

was at the fest. When I got

back from that, it was time to

meet the friends.

I ran into Grifin, a guy

I’ve talked with at Cinequest

for years and who has done

the video news for the festival

for a number of years now.

We had an exchange and he’s

always in that weird form of

humor which is incredibly

Cinequest 2006 or Why Nothing is

The Same

I want nothing more than a lot

of sleep. A whole lot of sleep. It’s been

almost two weeks since I got myself

enough rest. So, after I checked out of

my hotelroom, I came home, threw on

a DVD of Mr. & Mrs. Smith, started

this issue and then went to bed, snug-

gled up warm in my own bed. Strange-

ly, it was during that long nap that I

realised exactly how much I wanted to

Natasha, Jason and Grifin taken by Anna

group we were waiting on was Jason

Schachat, who you may remember as

the artist of issue #2 of Claims Depart-

ment, Steve Sprinkles, who did issue

#1 of CD, and Kate Kelton, Canadian

of Czech extraction and German birth

who is the star of The Last Woman on

Earth. I had seen Steve over Christ-

mas, but I hadn’t seen Jason since

Baycon and Kate since we got back

from Disneyland in October 2004. It

was wonderful to get back with them

and the stuff started lowing, all the

good thoughts and weird ideas that

drip from us like ichor. I’ve wanted to

use ichor for a while, so I’m sorry for

that.

We headed into the beautiful

California Theatre. The California is a

beautiful theatre that was originally

the Fox, and they’ve restored it to the

Arts & Crafts glory that it once was. I

love the California even more than the

Stanford whcih I love so much. It’s gor-

geous and the screen is silver, ready

to glow with whatever you show on it.

They chose a great ilm for Opening

Night too.

I love Christopher Buckley. He’s

the son of another of my all-time faves,

William F. Buckley. Now, I know that

sounds weird, but if you ever saw his

appearance on Laugh-In, you’ll know

that he’s a funny funny man (the gag

about Rowan springing springing for a

plane with two right wings is one of the

classic political lines) and I love Chris’s

writing. His book The White House

Mess was the irst I read, but then I

got ahold of the book Thank You For

Smoking and I knew what the perfect

political satire was like. I read it and

then reread it about a year later...and

once more after that. I’ve passed it

around to other folks, many of whom

have really enjoyed that as well. They

made a movie out of it, featuring Aaron

Eckhert (born and raised in Santa

Clara County, just like me) Katie Holm-

es, William H. Macy and Robert Duvall.

The ilm is about a lobbyist for the

Tobacco industry who ends up kid-

napped. The kidnappers try and kill

him using nicotine patches. Funny bit.

Sadly, they changed much of the end-

ing of the book and got rid of a couple

of characters, so things in the ilm are

much more open-ended, though I do

like the inal outcome of the changes.

It was a really good opening night ilm,

though some complained that it was

too ‘Hollywood’.

There’s a tradition after the

opening night ilm where I go and get a

little sloppy for an evening. This year,

I didn’t get sloppy at all, I just had a

glass or two of free wine and talked.

The place they held the party, Paragon

in the Hotel Montgomery, was small-

ish, so after 250 people were let in,

they had to stop allowing folks to enter.

Me and Natasha and Kate had made it

in, so we brought stuff out to our com-

rades in line. That was nice of us.

The party went on and I recon-

nected with friends from previous years

and then met a few folks, like Wayland

and Holly from The Marionette, Ryan

from a Colombia and the folks from

Chalk. Nice people one and all. I was

there until one-ish and then headed

home for sleep.

Thursday The Second

Woke up, got out of bed, lost a

brush inside my hair. OK, that’s not

true, but I was up and smellin’ sweet

by ten am. I headed over and spent

some time at the Hospitality Suite.

That’s where ilmmakers hang and the

highest level of passes can go there too.

I hung out and met folks and we ended

up heading off to see The Big Question.

Mike Flores (who Invented The Cheese

Grater and was the First to Climb Mt.

Killamanjaro) joined me. I’d already

seen it at Cinema Epicuria in Sonoma

twice last year, announcing it both

Mike Flores!

thing I know about how to sell a movie

to a crowd that’s already bought tick-

ets. On that irst Friday, I announced

three shorts programmes, but irst, I

had lunch.

Jason and I have a tradition of

going for Mongolian BBQ, so we gath-

ered everyone we could to go and get

some ine food. Wayland and Holly of

The Marionette along with Jason, Kate

Natasha and Steve. We were loud and

dirty and strange and had a good time.

Holly, the director of The Marionette

and a lovely lass, was a lot of fun and

actually managed to match me on the

‘Holy Jesus that was Wrong’ scale.

The irst one was a massively

sold-out programme of Comedies called

Hit The Ground Laughing. I did the

write-up in the programme guide and

it included a lot of wonderfully funny

shorts. Scott Allen Perry, who directed

Side Effects a few years ago, had a

short in competition too, so we had a

chance to catch up. The movies were

really funny too. The Method, which

Scott was in, was a ilm that Cinequest

made possible because the star and

the director all met at Cinequest. It’s

the story of a guy getting the biggest

audition of his life and going to Master

Kowalski to get training in The Method.

That was my fave, though The Racist

Brick, about a guy making a video for

the funeral of his best friend, and K-7,

about an interview for a new CIA killer,

were both great too.

After that, I got a few minutes to

prepare and ended up announcing a

series called In Combination. The tone

of the programme was darker than

most, with a few real heartbreakers in

there, but there was a great comedy

and a really strong experimental piece.

The two best pieces are Where Are You

Going, Where Have You Been, a short

based on the story by Joyce Carrol

Oates (one of my Profs from back in

the Day) and The Method (not the

same as the one in Comedies) which

was long but with all the darkness

around it, it got big laughs. My fave

was The Lookaway Life, which told the

tale of a man who has to pay a hooker

to have arguments with him since

he can’t ight with his wife. I’m glad

my relationship with my whore is far

simpler.

The inal programme, which

started after Midnight, was called

Mindbenders. This was a combination

of all different sorts of mindfucks.

There was an animation called Keep It

Real, Dawg which was bizarre. It did

introduce the PCP-Upgrade and the

Eye of the Bear-Tiger which became

running gags. This was where The

Marionette showed and also the only

real SF short called A Through M, all

about futuristic torture. It was a strong

programme with a lot of good old

fashioned ilms you could either love or

hate.

times. It’s a good little documentary,

but I only made it through 1/2 of it be-

cause I was late for picking up Evelyn.

I watched her until 9ish and then came

back. I saw a short but I didn’t actually

watch a full movie. For the irst time

since I started with Cinequest, I hadn’t

watched at least two movies on the

irst full day. Wow.

Friday the 3rd

The third day featured my irst

announcing duties. I’ve been thought

of as the best Theatre Announcer for a

few years now. The guy who I always

thought of as the Big Guy in Theatre

Announcement hasn’t been back to

CQ in a couple of years. I miss Mr. Ed

Soohoo, the guy who taught me every-

Saturday the 4th

I made a mistake. I agreed to do

more Theatre Announcing on Saturday

starting at 9am. Mindbenders ended

around 2:30, so sleep did not happen

much. The irst ilm was a feature

romantic comedy from Brazil, which

I watched a fair amount of but had

to leave because I was about to

fall asleep. The second ilm was a

documentary about a guy who moves

into an old folks home called Andrew

Jenks: Room 335. I didn’t see all of it,

but what I saw I really enjoyed.

That night we all hung out and

here I introduce you to the good people

with the ilm Dancing. They were VJ,

Dashiel, Oscar and others. We had wild

fun all week. We had met on Thursday,

it would seem, but I don’t remember

when. We chatted and drank and had

a wonderful time.

Next was Oscar night. We all

watched a movie or two (nothing

exciting) and then the Oscars

happened. I arrived at Paragon to

join the crew there. We were in the

expensive seats, which somehow

Dashiel had secured without question.

After a period of complaints, mostly

about noise, we were booted. Yeah,

we’re a boisterous bunch. We then

headed out to the Camera 12 where

they were showing it on the big screen.

I got to see my hero Robert Altman

receive his Honorary Oscar and then

we led there because we were again

just too darn loud. I did answer a trivia

question (who won the very irst Oscar,

the answer being Emile Jennings) and

we wandered to the bar called The San

Jose Bar & Grill.

The place was dead, but we got

them to put on the Oscars and we

Sunday the 5th

This was the day of our World

Premiere. Kate and Steve and Jason

and I were all revved up and we got

the word out more. A lot of folks we

knew were there. All in all, we, along

with the other movies showing with

us, managed to sell out the San Jose

Rep and we were the irst short shown.

We got a great reaction, but more

importantly, I got a good laugh for my

one silent gag. That was enough to

make me smile. Gen, Evelyn, My Mom,

and just about everyone else I know,

came and saw and laughed. Good

stuff.

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