On Saturday, I almost threw a terrified kid off a bridge after menacing him with a vintage 1930s Louisville Slugger. I was involved in a high-speed chase, hanging out the window of a sleek black sedan as it ran down an orange motorcycle.
    I said "fuck" a lot.
    An absolutely lovely gentleman with mutton chops and an infectious laugh killed me with a crowbar. It stayed sunny all afternoon, and everybody had a great time.
    Close Encounters with Far Away Things is the second film project I've worked on with Mike O'Connell. He wrote the script and is co-directing, along with the rest of the members of a special film class. Natalie Berger (who shot some of Marlon) and Alex Maier (who spent about a month recorded me making sad, agitated faces on a short film called Dissonance; more on that later) are also working on the flick. They're shooting on a Red Scarlet in 4K. For those of you who aren't familiar with Red cameras, watch The Great Gatsby, Elysium, Gone Girl, Lucy, Flight...the list goes on and on. These cameras are absolutely amazing.

This is me on the bridge, preparing to toss Shane O'Connor into the river. Also pictured: the RED SCARLET.

    Driving to the bridge location, hot in a leather jacket, with my hair pomaded back and a black cigarillo hanging out of my mouth, my great-grandfather's beat-up Louisville Slugger tucked against the car door, Mike and I talked about movies.
    I love talking movies. Before Marlon, there weren't many people in my world who would talk—really talk—movies with me. Diatribes on desaturated color palettes and costume choices used to underscore character development, deep examination of what exactly it is that makes a Coen Brothers film so distinctly them, hours of worship at the altars of Fincher, McQueen, Tarantino, and Lynch...it's not the sort of discourse many people can sustain.
    There's a certain set, however, who thrive on it. When I made Marlon, started looking around for cast and crew, THEY came out of the woodwork: the cinemaphiles, movie geeks, afficionados of film. Mike O'Connell is one. Stephen Wardell is another. Some of the actors and camera ops weren't when I first met them, but three months of immersion in an offbeat indie horror directed by a loudmouthed madman with a penchant for old no-budget black-and-whites and cinema-obscurité can do things to a person. Some of my favorite texts from Ryan Sitzberger (the Nate to my Marlon) are pictures of whiskey and cigars (text: "You've ruined me") and pictures of HD DSLRs and assorted lenses (text: "You've ruined me").
    One of my principal camera ops, Tyler, is working on a truly frightening web series. Mike wrote a gangster flick that is a fast and dirty love letter to Quentin Tarantino and the Coen Brothers. (I'm trying to convince him to do a feature-length comedy with me. If ever someone needed to do a full-length indie, it's Mike.) And Ryan....
    Well. Ryan's not eating cigarette butts and sand to stay alive anymore, and so far as I know, he hasn't slept in a mop closet since March, so...good for him.
    I love that my friends are making movies, is what I'm getting at. People should. It's not hard. Really. You don't have to write hundreds of pages of script, or rent a Red (if you're insanely wealthy, you should, though; those cameras are amazing), or hire a bunch of method actors from your local dilapidated theatre. One of the best movies I've seen in the past few years, Bindlestiffs, didn't have a script. The actors are the filmmakers. They used clip-on mics for audio, improvised every scene based on a "general idea of what was going to happen later."
    If you've ever wanted to make a movie, the quickest way to scratch that itch is to make a movie. Do it with an iPhone. Throw it up on Youtube. There: you're a filmmaker.
    I'm sorry. This is rambly. I'm trying to get off coffee again, and if this blog is any indication, black tea is simply not cutting it. Maybe I'll bite the bullet, drink a dark roast, and write something with wit and verve here tomorrow. Something about the Psychobilly band Alice (of Morning Word fame) and I have formed, or an essay on the skewed, repressed sexual politics of America, or an in-depth examination of Tobe Hooper's 1974 indie masterpiece Texas Chainsaw Massacre as a commentary on life in America today.
    In the meantime, in lieu of something of value from me, I'll show you Dissonance. It was on the set of this short drama that I met Mike and Alex, and it feels like I've been working with them in some capacity ever since. It's a good way to be, always working on something creative with people you like.
    Dissonance is about schizophrenia, the dissolution of self, and the subtle costs of love. Stephen Wardell is the tall, dapper guy with glasses. I'm the bald one who looks sad a lot of the time. Mariah is the hair.