"Pornography...in Progress"

Notice the "actors" have no faces, no hair, no eyes...the are just bodies, where the director is much more detailed. I think I am going to keep it that way, add a camera and a stand up light and that will be it.

A Kubrick Joke

When Robert Altman died a year or two ago, he was led up to the pearly gates and welcomed by St. Peter. They walked across the threshold and into Heaven. Altman was happy to see people he knew and reognize people who were important to him.

Then he saw a fellow with a graying beard and balding head, wearing a green field jacket, blue shirt and beat up khakis. He was walking around taking photographs and asking his subjects to stand still and pose multiple times so he could get the right shot. Altman knew this man and was surprised to see him out and about, knowing how reclusive he could be.

"Wow," he said to St. Peter, " Heaven does wonders on people. Stanley Kubrick is actually out and about amongst the people up here."

Peter laughed.

"what's so funny."

"That's not Kubrick. He is reclusive. That's God...he only thinks he's Stanley Kubrick."

Kubris!

Recently, I started writing a screenplay, to be called "Pornography," which was to be a part of the novel I decided to sit on for a bit. "Pornography" is the story of a 50 something painter who decides he wants to make an existential erotic movie, examining the dark side of humanity and like the model for the painting, Stanley Kubrick, the duality of man.

Of course, if Kubrick had ever decided to make a pornography film, it would take years...first to do the research, then to develop a script, then to shoot it. How do you shoot perfection in something as imperfect as a sexual act on film? It would have been neat to find out.

Anyway, here's the Kubrick/Painter picture.

I Had a Steam with a Sex Blogger

....an Anchor Steam, and she is not just any sex blogger, she is a friend and a very good writer. You can see her work at www.sexegesis.blogspot.com.

We are both writers and hung out at the White Horse Tavern, corner of Bank Street and Hudson. Watering hole for the likes of Anais Nin and Norman Mailer, and where the poet Dylan Thomas drank 18 whiskeys and then died the next day.

After hanging out there, we walked around Christopher Street and checked out a few fetish shops. One had a good amount of leather wear and some PVC, among other things (not sure if this is a family website), and then we made our way to the East Village, to McSorley's and then the Burp Castle. Back in the day, the Burp Castle used to have a whole theme with waiters and barstaff dressed as monks, with chants played on the CD player, where one had to be soft spoken when one talked. The only aspect that remained was the low volume for talk. No chants, no monks. Good beer though. I had a Lucifer!

We also got caught in a bit of a downpour. Nothing worse than wet denims.

Overall, a very nice day and a good time. My friend is always a pleasure to hang with. And, as I said, a very good writer. Funny too. She's great at using the final line of her piece and bringing everything together.

Writing at the White Horse Tavern





With a whiskey: one down, seventeen to go!





A cigar at an actual in-house cigar shop.

March 7 Albany First Night

At the Upstate Artists Guild's Green Show, with my religious piece, "Urban Gethsemane." WWJD? What would Jesus drink, knowing he was about to be sold out, denied, and hung from a cross for three hours the next day? I say bourbon...lots of it! Wouldn't you?





Local artist Chip Fasciana and yours truly. I've known Chip since I first moved to Albany, when he tended bar at the old Lionheart...we are drinking a local favorite: Utica Club.




No one could ever accuse me of wanting to be like Hemingway...could they?

Or Would I Rather Live Like this Guy?

(Jeff Bridges in one of my favorite movies, "The Big Lebowski")

Day 1

No longer bound to the cubicle. My first day as a non-state employee has been somewhat productive. Now, I am waiting for paint to try. Earlier, I had the pleasure of walking my daughter to school. And I had my Irish coffee.

Also, I am thinking of what I can do to get some sort of consulting gig going which will supplement my eventual new career as a teamster. I developed a list of accomplisments/assets. I used a title for a company, "The McLain Clan." Strategic thinking, grant proposal development, speech writing, and issue management. If all went well, in a number of years I could be like the guy in the photo enclosed.