From Spacemen to Watchmen

Yesterday, B & I rewatched three full serials -- Radar Men from the Moon, The Lost City, and Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe -- made comments, stole lines, and came up with more concepts, scenes, and ideas for Spacemen from Space, which gets crazier and funnier as we make more and more of it up.

I was REALLY hoping to get away for about two weeks to Maine to buckle down and write the thing, but it looks like have to do some jobs at The Brick at widely separated times during the window I had for a getaway, so I'm stuck here, where writing just doesn't happen as well. I have to get out of the home, I think. Maybe I'll schlep the laptop to The Brick's depressing office space and punch in some 8-hour days next week, just writing and pacing. That means, though, I wouldn't have Berit around. I'm not sure yet if she's going to get co-writing credit on this one, but she's been more involved in the immediate creation of it than usual on my original plays, where she acts as my best critic and bounceboard during the whole process. I do all of the actual writing, and especially the conceptual and structural work, but more and more dialogue in this one is coming out of the two of us improvising scenes in reaction to the actual serials we're watching, so her involvement in more direct here in the creative process (though both of us, I think, agree, it's not quite at co-writer level yet, it may well get there).

Unfortunately, while the majority of the actors I wanted for the other three shows have jumped right in, the 22 people I asked to be in Spacemen have mostly turned me down, or said it's unlikely they'll be available, or said they won't be able to commit fully to an August show until much, much later in the year. So I may have to do a full casting call with this one and bring in a LOT of new people (apart from the people I asked, most of the people I know just don't fit in the world of Spacemen). So it goes. It was a lot more fun writing it for actors I knew and liked and figured would knock it out of the ballpark easily.

In between writing, planning, and checking in online, I continue to try to cull enough tracks out of the iPod to put in all the tracks I've got in the last year that I'd like to have there (I pretty much filled up the damned thing and stopped my regular dropping in of any and all music I was finding on March 11 of last year). I've dropped about 800 tracks from it, and now added back in about 350 from the last year. This will take a while.

So, from 25,621 tracks now in the iPod, this week's Random Ten (with related video links):

1. "Pricks Up Front (Presto Con Brio)" - Andy Prieboy - From Pauper to a King
2. "Anthology" - The Kay Gees - Keep On Bumpin' & Master Plan
3. "Run Run Run (live 1967)" - The Velvet Underground - The Gymnasium - 1967
4. "'21 Sounds For The Sunset' - LP Promo Spot" - Radio Record Promo - Psychedelic Promos & Radio Spots, vol. 1
5. "Macumba" - Piero Umiliani - Angeli Bianchi... Angeli Neri
6. "Pray Them Bars Away" - Lee Hazlewood - Cowboy In Sweden
7. "New Cooter Boogie" - Southern Culture On The Skids - Ditch Diggin'
8. "KRLA, King Of The Wheels (Full Song)" - The Bobby Fuller Four - Psychedelic Promos & Radio Spots, vol. 5
9. "Spearmint Pup" - Mike Keneally - Hat
10. "Catch A Wave" - The Beach Boys - Greatest Hits

Oh, it's March 6. What's happening today? Oh, right . . . the Watchmen movie.

Don't know if I'm going to see it . . . I think I'll reread the graphic novel today (the 20-year old trade edition I have signed by Alan Moore). Actually, Tasha Robinson at A.V. Club makes it sound like it was, for her, exactly like what I'd expect it to be for me in her piece here -- a fascinating, immersive experience with enough small (and seemingly-small but not really) changes from the book to not-quite-but-almost spoil the whole experience. She notes at the end of the piece (and repeatedly restates in the comments) that she LIKED the movie, but has still has several pages of not-at-all-unimportant problems with it.

The trailers got me somewhat excited about the movie, but the scene excerpts I saw kinda killed that buzz. The scenes I watched looked (mostly) well-acted, (mostly) acceptably staged, (mostly) deeply faithful to the book, and (heavily) boring as all fuck. Enough film writers I respect have positive things to say, overall, about it (and plenty of ones I don't respect are being assholes about it in general, which can actually also be a plus), and I'd enjoy seeing a big IMAX experience film again, so I'll probably go (especially now discovering there's an IMAX screen where it's playing right nearby in Sheepshead Bay), but I'm also a little pissed that I'll be seeing a cut-down version as opposed to the full version that will be on the DVD. I enjoyed Fellowship of the Rings on the big screen at first, but once I saw the expanded (and improved by it) DVD version, I just got more and more angry watching the later two Lord of the Rings films in the theatre, knowing there would be a better, longer version released later, feeling a bit ripped-off paying full price to see a "tab" version.

Well, however the film works out, it couldn't be any worse than the 80s Saturday-morning cartoon spinoff version . . . (hee, hee) . . .

Hey, we got some new cat pictures! Amazing, considering that their skills (especially Moni) for immediately walking away, turning, blinking or whatever whenever we get a nice shot set up have gotten more and more acute. Now we have to take pictures when they're sleeping, for the most part. Like in a box of old props and costume pieces . . .

Or on a chair . . .

Or at the other end of the couch from where I'm writing . . .

Or, when I'm taking a nap break from writing, on top of me, in photos I don't discover Berit's taken until I download the camera . . .

Maybe next week, I'll get some more active photos of the two. Maybe drinking from their new razzafrazzin' fancy-ass water dish.

While we were in Maine last time, we finally bit the bullet and spent some money on a fancy drinking fountain for them. Moni has always seemed to prefer running water, and follows us into the bathroom on every trip so she can stand on the sink and drink at the faucet, if we'll turn it on for her. So we decided to get a powered water bowl that runs water down a plastic dome into a bowl, thinking she'd love it (and that Hooker, who's pretty easygoing, would accept it).

Nope.

Moni has been terrified of the damn thing - she hates the motor sound, we think, and more and more demands the sink faucet instead, and won't drink from her new (and for us, expensive) toy -- I've been worried about her getting dehydrated, but can you check this with a skin response test, and she seems okay. It took her forever just to drink from a normal bowl we put next to the thing! Hooker didn't like it at first, but soon took to licking the water off the dome as they're supposed to. We thought this might give the always-jealous Moni some ideas when she saw him do it, but no. Berit even got down on the floor and tried to demonstrate it for her. No go.

Last night, B said that she FINALLY saw Moni drinking from the new thing. We'll see if she's got it down now . . . I'll believe it when I see it.