xtcian

1/3/03 Day XIII of the

1/3/03

Day XIII of the Dogs and Ponies Road Trip of Unabating Puppies and Calves Achin' From Street Pounding

Bel Air, CA

We had nary a scarce free moment today, as five meetings clouded up our schedule starting at 10:30am and ending past 7pm. Doing these meet'n'greets with prospective investors and agents can take a lot out of you, making it seem like you've spun all of the syllables off your spindle, leaving it twisting blankly in dry cardboard. Fortunately, there's two of us doing the talking, but I have to say Tessa really shone today. She's excellent at maintaining her energy, and each person she meets gets the full brunt of her unsquelchable candlepower.

We didn't ask anybody for money outright - which is how these things work - but I think we fostered good will, and in this environment, that's almost as valuable. The rub remains: we need to finish a rough cut in order to show our film to the Important People, but we need about $20K to get us there. This is the hump we're overcoming on this trip, even if I need to drive us to the moon for cheese.

The only super drag of the day was coming back to Silver Lake in the middle of all this, just to let out all the dogs and keep the canines happy. It did, however, allow me to capture Seor Poopypants in his full sunset regalia:

ain't the Chopes cute?

So cute you could eat him. At least that was the dinner conversation in Venice tonight at Michael Stuno's place apparently black dogs are a delicacy in some far-off Asian place or another. Which led me to wonder if there had been some blind taste tests between a black dog and say, a yellow Lab, with the black dog proving far more delicious.

The crowd which consisted of Jason, Tim, our producer Penny, her new husband Matthew, along with Tessa and I – plowed through all these conversations, touching on the Taliban, the monkey we have running the country, childhood horrors, bad Christmas presents, and the redemption of our fathers. It was a humdinger, tellya what, and you had to be fast on your feet to catch this runaway train of witty persiflage. Proof that there is sign of incredibly intelligent life in Los Angeles (even if all of them just came from New York).

Jason, Penny and Tessa wax philosophic from the couch