No Show DVD, Late DVD, Have to Change Venue Because I Have No DVD to Screen DVD, Damaged DVD, Expensive DVD, Air Freight Direct to an Airport Will Pick Up in Nearest City at 1:30 Day of Event So I Can Race Back Here in Time DVD- we're gonna be OK. Come celebrate the momentous achievement that I've been working on for the past four days straight if nothing else! It should be good, and if you come because you saw it here, please make a special effort to let us know. Your attendance is amazing to me!
BEND Oregon is all coming together! Gotta love all the last min bullshit that almost closed this party down! Matt is on his way to the airport right now to pick up the video..2 1/2 hrs til party time, but we pulled this off! We have beer & food and PJ...approx 50 guest arriving soon...we'll post pics and so forth tomorrow...anyone in Bend tonight, come on out and join us!
I knew all the rules, but the rules did not know me...GUARANTEED!
BEND Oregon is all coming together! Gotta love all the last min bullshit that almost closed this party down! Matt is on his way to the airport right now to pick up the video..2 1/2 hrs til party time, but we pulled this off! We have beer & food and PJ...approx 50 guest arriving soon...we'll post pics and so forth tomorrow...anyone in Bend tonight, come on out and join us!
Strong work... everyone have a great time tonight, three hours until go time for us!!! I hope we have a good turnout. I stopped by the Obama campaign headquarters and got all sorts of voting info, cool stickers, and a few nice posters to handout as well...
BIG THANKS to dream_on_it for hosting here in Waco!! We really enjoyed meeting you guys & the film as well! Anytime you guys want to come over & watch some PJ, the door is open!
Our party was a HUGE HUGE HUGE success thanks to Matt, and getting this organized so last minute. I'm sure he will be on later to throw down his thoughts, but again, a great successful party with approx 35 participants
I knew all the rules, but the rules did not know me...GUARANTEED!
My party was still fun! I love the t-shirt, I wore it to work yesterday for voting day. The poster is awesome too! We all loved the video. Weather was horrible!!!! It was so friken windy. I think my son had a blast too, he was jumping all over the place and dancing. :-D Where do we post pics?
I attended the screening here in Waco and Amanda (the winner of the contest-aka: dream_on_it) was cool enough to give me her shirt!! I can't say that I'm surprised b/c PJ fans are so generous! Anyway, it's a very "small size L" blue shirt & it doesn't fit me. I offered it to my wife, but she knows that I have a massive PJ tshirt collection (like how everyone else is with posters) & suggested to see if anyone on here would want to trade my L for their XL. So here I am! So if anyone needs to trade their XL, just let me know! And thanks again to Amanda!! I still owe you a bootleg..just tell me which one you want!
Well, here is the story behind my VFC film screening:
First of all, I was super stoked to win the chance to screen this. I don't usually enter contests, let alone win them. I knew the time was pretty tight going into this, but I figured so did the 10C and Sixstair, so I also thought that I would be well supported. I had talked to the original venue where I had wanted this thing to be and they were concerned about the proximity to the actual showing date. I told them I would get them a copy by the end of the week so they could see it thinking that the power of the material itself would clinch the deal.
Last Thursday, I was expecting the film to arrive as it seemed people on the East Coast were getting theirs and I was on the West Coast where this thing was coming from. It didn't show Thursday so I was sure it would be here Friday. Friday, the original venue's cold feet were freezing over and I set out to find another venue. After pulling a huge favor with a downtown business owner, I secured an art gallery/studio in a loft inside a sweet old building. As their was no food or drink on site at our new venue, I met with a couple of great friends, including Yahamita, who were helping organize. We made lists of people, food, etc. and set off again at full speed trying to make this a cool event that I would be proud of were it my band or my film. As of Friday afternoon, the DVD had still not shown up.
After doing some research here, I discovered that they were arriving US Mail, so I was thinking at least it would be here Saturday. I couldn't help but wonder why these film copies were sent out with something as nebulous as priority mail through the USPS. In my experience, you only use the US Mail if you don't really care when it gets there. I was starting to really care as I was getting pretty committed and there were a lot of people I knew that were coming out for this event. The people who directed the studio/gallery space were really hoping to screen at least part of it before they let me use the space.
Saturday, at 4:00pm, the package finally arrived. I was very relieved to say the least and I opened it right away. The first thing I pulled out was the poster which I noticed immediately was pretty crushed even though the box was in good condition. Since I'm one of these crazy poster collector people, it looked to me like it had been stuffed into the box, not damaged in shipment. I was bummed, but I didn't really care for the image either, so I shrugged it off. There was a t-shirt as well and I set that aside to give to a friend. Then there was the movie. I don't know what made me do it, but I popped it out of the little plastic case and flipped it over to look at the burnt side. The top of the DVD had been hand painted and there right in the middle of the wrong side of the disc was a small blob of paint. There was also a circular band of what looked like an unburnt section that lined up with the paint. Now, I don't know how these things work technically, but I'm going to guess that they hand painted these things before burning them and the band was where the information couldn't burn each time the disc went around- that's just a guess.
At that late on a Saturday, I was pretty involved with family and kid activities and I didn't have a chance to drop everything and screen the movie right then, but I was praying it would work. In fact, it wasn't until late afternoon on Sunday that I sat down to screen it. I was glued to the screen when, right in the middle of Watchtower, the thing stopped playing. My skin turned cold as I tried to skip ahead thinking maybe I could just miss part of the particular passage of the movie with my attendees, but the disc just stopped playing all together. I went into the office and tried to play it on the computer- same thing. I immediately sent out a message to the 10C and CC'd it to the people at Sixstair asking for emergency assistance.
Within an hour, I got a call from someone at Sixstair. At this point, I had poured myself a glass of Scotch to calm my nerves and the Sixstair guy told me to take a deep breath and that there was a way to make this work as he could tell the panicked tone of my email. He suggested that there was a flight service that could get it to me by Monday afternoon in time for the screening. He also suggested that it would probably be pretty expensive and asked if I was ready to pay for it. I told him there was no chance of that- I already had committed to the venue, had reserved beverages, was trying to find out how to feed everyone. I had already fed-exed myself a copy of Body of War to show at the screening from Amazon after my direct order from that company was apparently unable to be filled because they had run out (apparently, this happened to all the 10c linked orders). I was tapped!
He said he would look into it and call me back. It was 6:00 on Sunday night, but I poured myself another Scotch all the same. A while later he called back and said it was pretty expensive to send it directly to Bend- did I know someone who would be coming over the snowy mountain pass from Portland in the morning? I made some calls, but it was pretty 11th hour at this point. When he called back again, he asked if I would be willing to drive to Portland to pick it up because it was looking so expensive. Now, Portland is a harrowing winter alpine drive 3 hours to the north, my screening was at 6:00pm Monday, I had a million responsibilities to still pull it off as it was, and it was Sunday evening, which I had explained to him the first time around. It wasn't happening. He said he would check around and call me back again.
About an hour later I got a call from him saying it would be coming to Bend via an Alaska Air flight on a freight service at 1:30pm Monday. The cost was 200 some dollars and he said he thought I was a good person and so he asked if I would send him some money and pass the hat at the showing because he knew I would "do the right thing".
OK- #1. This was not my film or my band- essentially, I was doing some pretty sweet guerrilla marketing for free for both parties on my dime. #2 I won a contest. I wasn't thinking I entered to win a financial liability. Sure, I expected it to be fun- that was the point- but I didn't want it to be this stressful. #3 It wasn't my choice to send the DVD snail mail so it would arrive randomly a few hours before the event I was supposed to host if at all. #4 I didn't invite a hundred or so people by saying they were going to have to pay to ship the film I was showing them. There was no way I was going to ask my guests for money once I had lured them there with the promise of an evening of free fun #5 Where was the 10C's place in all this?
Now, about this time I was realizing that the answer to #5 was that the 10C wasn't as involved in this as I had originally thought. Sure they've made some mistakes in the past and they get their fair share of feedback here, but this was starting to feel really backwoods. I do believe that 10C's intentions are good, and it was beginning to feel like maybe they had gotten hooked up to these couple of skateboarding yokels (I'm one too, so go figure) who had no idea how to align their disorganized business with an organization as large as the bands due to their involvement in this shelved film project.
Monday came around, and I bought drink and keg buckets, ice, picked up keys to the venue, cleaned, organized, talked on the phone until my ear almost fell off, coordinated with co-conspirators, drove the adjacent town where the airport is located to pick up the film, and just generally gave myself up to the event to try and make a great time for screening. Just as I was going into the store to buy food, Yahamita called to say that a fellow PJ fan named Dave had donated the catering. That was a huge relief! The space itself was really really great, and I would think it was likely unique among the screenings.
The loft space has been converted into a studio/gallery which hosts 10 local young up and coming artists in residence who are supported by the gallery with the idea that, with their art, they in turn give back to the community. Exposed original ceiling beams, wood floor, and cool lighting all lend to a uniquely cool atmosphere. As people began to show up, new friends and old alike, it became clear that the space itself was lending to great atmosphere of fun and camaraderie that the evening held. It was a cold rainy night outside, but that just helped us all feel that much more lucky for sharing this time together. I had to get up and speak a few times at the prompting of a friend, but I guess that came out ok I was told.
There was an elderly gentleman with his wife who challenged me about the film publicly. He couldn't understand the point of it since it was from 2004, and he didn't really understand why we would be showing it. After talking with him over the PA for a few minutes, his agitation was not being helped as I calmly tried to explain the idea that this was a look back- a snapshot in time if you will, not necessarily a look into the future or a comment on the present, although I did point out some parallels between the present and what was going on in 2004. I think a couple of people wanted to tackle him, but I was thankful for the opportunity to have an open dialogue, although I was starting to feel bad about doing it over the PA, so I excused everyone for a bathroom break since it was in between movies and went to talk to him directly.
He ended up being a strong supporter of the constitution party (one of the 100,000 or so according to 2008 poll results actually), and while I was respectful to him as I could possibly be, I couldn't get behind some of his ideas of how change could be affected or what that change should look like. I really wish he would have stayed for Body of War, as I think that made an excellent coda to the first VFC documentary. Body of War was extremely powerful and professionally done and it just affected everyone there so heavily. I had to get up and leave for a minute twice to collect myself.
Overall, it turned out to be a fantastic night. I thank everyone who attended whether or not they read this. We had 35 people total, and while I'm sure it could have been bigger had we had more time to plan, and it had been on a weekend, etc., I think everyone had a really great time. I would love to have the honor of hosting the next movie that Pearl Jam is involved in (hopefully it is a concert DVD) although I would think twice if I thought it was going to be so disorganized on the other side. I am especially thankful for my friends who pitched in an helped set up/break down. It truly was a great night!
Comments
Hail Hail HIPPIEMOM
Wishlist Foundation-
http://www.wishlistfoundation.org
info@wishlistfoundation.org
Strong work... everyone have a great time tonight, three hours until go time for us!!! I hope we have a good turnout. I stopped by the Obama campaign headquarters and got all sorts of voting info, cool stickers, and a few nice posters to handout as well...
Here's hoping the polls are right!!!
ps--thanks for the shirt!!!
www.cluthelee.com
www.cluthe.com
Hail Hail HIPPIEMOM
Wishlist Foundation-
http://www.wishlistfoundation.org
info@wishlistfoundation.org
Also, what color shirts are there? Someone earlier posted a blue one, I got an orange one (medium), are there anymore?
I got a blue one in my size. I was pretty impressed. I love the poster too. here's a pic of me in my shirt with my son.
http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a59/WildChildR/cropped2.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qL-CgzQ0FY
I just took a picture of my orange shirt, I can post it if anyone is interested.
Mine was my size too, I have no idea how they knew
Normally I'm a small but the medium worked out. It's a rather small medium. :-D
www.cluthelee.com
www.cluthe.com
http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a59/WildChildR/IMG_0562.jpg
Skyler and the CD.
http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a59/WildChildR/IMG_0563.jpg
Kelly
http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a59/WildChildR/IMG_0564.jpg
All the great food Kelly made.
http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a59/WildChildR/IMG_0567.jpg
Lisette and Skyler.
http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a59/WildChildR/IMG_0566.jpg
Lisette and her Bison guitar.
You're drinking grape juice, right?
Ha ha nooo... just a little red wine. :-D
First of all, I was super stoked to win the chance to screen this. I don't usually enter contests, let alone win them. I knew the time was pretty tight going into this, but I figured so did the 10C and Sixstair, so I also thought that I would be well supported. I had talked to the original venue where I had wanted this thing to be and they were concerned about the proximity to the actual showing date. I told them I would get them a copy by the end of the week so they could see it thinking that the power of the material itself would clinch the deal.
Last Thursday, I was expecting the film to arrive as it seemed people on the East Coast were getting theirs and I was on the West Coast where this thing was coming from. It didn't show Thursday so I was sure it would be here Friday. Friday, the original venue's cold feet were freezing over and I set out to find another venue. After pulling a huge favor with a downtown business owner, I secured an art gallery/studio in a loft inside a sweet old building. As their was no food or drink on site at our new venue, I met with a couple of great friends, including Yahamita, who were helping organize. We made lists of people, food, etc. and set off again at full speed trying to make this a cool event that I would be proud of were it my band or my film. As of Friday afternoon, the DVD had still not shown up.
After doing some research here, I discovered that they were arriving US Mail, so I was thinking at least it would be here Saturday. I couldn't help but wonder why these film copies were sent out with something as nebulous as priority mail through the USPS. In my experience, you only use the US Mail if you don't really care when it gets there. I was starting to really care as I was getting pretty committed and there were a lot of people I knew that were coming out for this event. The people who directed the studio/gallery space were really hoping to screen at least part of it before they let me use the space.
Saturday, at 4:00pm, the package finally arrived. I was very relieved to say the least and I opened it right away. The first thing I pulled out was the poster which I noticed immediately was pretty crushed even though the box was in good condition. Since I'm one of these crazy poster collector people, it looked to me like it had been stuffed into the box, not damaged in shipment. I was bummed, but I didn't really care for the image either, so I shrugged it off. There was a t-shirt as well and I set that aside to give to a friend. Then there was the movie. I don't know what made me do it, but I popped it out of the little plastic case and flipped it over to look at the burnt side. The top of the DVD had been hand painted and there right in the middle of the wrong side of the disc was a small blob of paint. There was also a circular band of what looked like an unburnt section that lined up with the paint. Now, I don't know how these things work technically, but I'm going to guess that they hand painted these things before burning them and the band was where the information couldn't burn each time the disc went around- that's just a guess.
At that late on a Saturday, I was pretty involved with family and kid activities and I didn't have a chance to drop everything and screen the movie right then, but I was praying it would work. In fact, it wasn't until late afternoon on Sunday that I sat down to screen it. I was glued to the screen when, right in the middle of Watchtower, the thing stopped playing. My skin turned cold as I tried to skip ahead thinking maybe I could just miss part of the particular passage of the movie with my attendees, but the disc just stopped playing all together. I went into the office and tried to play it on the computer- same thing. I immediately sent out a message to the 10C and CC'd it to the people at Sixstair asking for emergency assistance.
Within an hour, I got a call from someone at Sixstair. At this point, I had poured myself a glass of Scotch to calm my nerves and the Sixstair guy told me to take a deep breath and that there was a way to make this work as he could tell the panicked tone of my email. He suggested that there was a flight service that could get it to me by Monday afternoon in time for the screening. He also suggested that it would probably be pretty expensive and asked if I was ready to pay for it. I told him there was no chance of that- I already had committed to the venue, had reserved beverages, was trying to find out how to feed everyone. I had already fed-exed myself a copy of Body of War to show at the screening from Amazon after my direct order from that company was apparently unable to be filled because they had run out (apparently, this happened to all the 10c linked orders). I was tapped!
He said he would look into it and call me back. It was 6:00 on Sunday night, but I poured myself another Scotch all the same. A while later he called back and said it was pretty expensive to send it directly to Bend- did I know someone who would be coming over the snowy mountain pass from Portland in the morning? I made some calls, but it was pretty 11th hour at this point. When he called back again, he asked if I would be willing to drive to Portland to pick it up because it was looking so expensive. Now, Portland is a harrowing winter alpine drive 3 hours to the north, my screening was at 6:00pm Monday, I had a million responsibilities to still pull it off as it was, and it was Sunday evening, which I had explained to him the first time around. It wasn't happening. He said he would check around and call me back again.
About an hour later I got a call from him saying it would be coming to Bend via an Alaska Air flight on a freight service at 1:30pm Monday. The cost was 200 some dollars and he said he thought I was a good person and so he asked if I would send him some money and pass the hat at the showing because he knew I would "do the right thing".
OK- #1. This was not my film or my band- essentially, I was doing some pretty sweet guerrilla marketing for free for both parties on my dime. #2 I won a contest. I wasn't thinking I entered to win a financial liability. Sure, I expected it to be fun- that was the point- but I didn't want it to be this stressful. #3 It wasn't my choice to send the DVD snail mail so it would arrive randomly a few hours before the event I was supposed to host if at all. #4 I didn't invite a hundred or so people by saying they were going to have to pay to ship the film I was showing them. There was no way I was going to ask my guests for money once I had lured them there with the promise of an evening of free fun #5 Where was the 10C's place in all this?
Now, about this time I was realizing that the answer to #5 was that the 10C wasn't as involved in this as I had originally thought. Sure they've made some mistakes in the past and they get their fair share of feedback here, but this was starting to feel really backwoods. I do believe that 10C's intentions are good, and it was beginning to feel like maybe they had gotten hooked up to these couple of skateboarding yokels (I'm one too, so go figure) who had no idea how to align their disorganized business with an organization as large as the bands due to their involvement in this shelved film project.
Monday came around, and I bought drink and keg buckets, ice, picked up keys to the venue, cleaned, organized, talked on the phone until my ear almost fell off, coordinated with co-conspirators, drove the adjacent town where the airport is located to pick up the film, and just generally gave myself up to the event to try and make a great time for screening. Just as I was going into the store to buy food, Yahamita called to say that a fellow PJ fan named Dave had donated the catering. That was a huge relief! The space itself was really really great, and I would think it was likely unique among the screenings.
The loft space has been converted into a studio/gallery which hosts 10 local young up and coming artists in residence who are supported by the gallery with the idea that, with their art, they in turn give back to the community. Exposed original ceiling beams, wood floor, and cool lighting all lend to a uniquely cool atmosphere. As people began to show up, new friends and old alike, it became clear that the space itself was lending to great atmosphere of fun and camaraderie that the evening held. It was a cold rainy night outside, but that just helped us all feel that much more lucky for sharing this time together. I had to get up and speak a few times at the prompting of a friend, but I guess that came out ok I was told.
There was an elderly gentleman with his wife who challenged me about the film publicly. He couldn't understand the point of it since it was from 2004, and he didn't really understand why we would be showing it. After talking with him over the PA for a few minutes, his agitation was not being helped as I calmly tried to explain the idea that this was a look back- a snapshot in time if you will, not necessarily a look into the future or a comment on the present, although I did point out some parallels between the present and what was going on in 2004. I think a couple of people wanted to tackle him, but I was thankful for the opportunity to have an open dialogue, although I was starting to feel bad about doing it over the PA, so I excused everyone for a bathroom break since it was in between movies and went to talk to him directly.
He ended up being a strong supporter of the constitution party (one of the 100,000 or so according to 2008 poll results actually), and while I was respectful to him as I could possibly be, I couldn't get behind some of his ideas of how change could be affected or what that change should look like. I really wish he would have stayed for Body of War, as I think that made an excellent coda to the first VFC documentary. Body of War was extremely powerful and professionally done and it just affected everyone there so heavily. I had to get up and leave for a minute twice to collect myself.
Overall, it turned out to be a fantastic night. I thank everyone who attended whether or not they read this. We had 35 people total, and while I'm sure it could have been bigger had we had more time to plan, and it had been on a weekend, etc., I think everyone had a really great time. I would love to have the honor of hosting the next movie that Pearl Jam is involved in (hopefully it is a concert DVD) although I would think twice if I thought it was going to be so disorganized on the other side. I am especially thankful for my friends who pitched in an helped set up/break down. It truly was a great night!
Here are some photos:
http://s224.photobucket.com/albums/dd143/mdgsolo/Vote%20For%20Change%20Screening%20Party/?albumview=grid
Skyler is watching "Given to Fly" and he says:
"He is singing from his heart."
How cute is that?!