2018 Newsletter
Another year in the book. More memorable events. This year I was the initial speaker for a new group, the Austin Entertainment Business Mixer, which meets monthly. I was also the featured guest on a local cable access show, Da Big Daddy G Show (my segment is at ).
I've been sending out annual newsletters since 1992, continuing a family tradition my parents started which they ended in 1988.
I got to see twenty-one of my former students, ten at a McCallum reunion. It was a delight that some were my favorite students Alice Rodriguez, Ashley Doyle Darnell, Heather Murphy, Kristina Acuna, and Kimmy Robinson.
My health is still good. I walked 5864 miles, the most ever. One day I walked 22 miles and never walked less than 12 miles. I only needed to fill the tank on my Honda hybrid twice this year and am averaging 53.6 mpg so far. I avoided driving 96% of the time, either walking or taking the bus (I drove on twenty-six days.)
In 2017 I tracked down five Dobie Middle School (where I taught for two years) yearbooks Sadly, the yearbook sponsor at Dobie refused to help, which makes it more of a challenge. I found ten more in 2018 and there are now fifteen posted on Facebook. I was quite active on Facebook and now have 1989 friends there.
I added some new BBC shows to my collection (courtesy of a friend back east) with works of literature now the focus of the additions. And there is an enormous collection of Shakespeare (with multiple versions of some plays). I've greatly enjoyed listening to these shows and have many more hours of them to listen to. Among the new ones is a collection of many of the wonderful Terry Pratchett Discworld books, the James Herriot books, Robert Sawyer's great "Rollback" and Peter O'Toole's "Loitering with Intent." I continued listening to "Quote Unquote", "I'm Sorry I haven't a Clue", "Just a Minute", "The Navy Lark," Alistair Cooke's Letters from America" and "Jean Shepherd". Maybe I'll complete some of these series in 2019. I also discovered a great podcast on BBC, "Composer of the week" ().
As always, I saw tons of movies. The best feature films were "The Green Book", "A Hard Day's Night", "Mary & The Witch's Flower" (Japanese animated film), "The Hate U Give", "Wolf Children", (another animated Japanese film), "The Favourite," "Eight Hours Don't Make A Day" (Fassbinder's mini-series), "Underground" (Yugoslavian), "Closeup" (Kiarastami), "The Insult" (Lebanon).
The documentaries, as always, were some of the best. They included "My Journey Through French Cinema," "Fierce Love Parents," (a local documentary, in progress, on autism, ), "Brimstone & Glory", "Three Identical Strangers", "Operation Odessa," "Bisbee '17," "Garry Winogrand: All Things Are Photographable", "Science Fair", "Served Like A Girl", "RBG", "Leaning into the Wind: Andy Goldsworthy", "Brimstone & Glory"
AFS Cinema continued to screen the best movies in town and I saw 154 films there this year.
My best acting role during the year was for an ACC film: "Life's Student" (). When I auditioned, I was recognized from a film I was in ("Tovarich Ulyanova") from the previous year that had been shown in class (). I had a great role in a UT production, "Mall Walking Olympics" but sadly my big scene (being propelled faster by flatulence) had to be cut due to time constraints. I was filmed in an episode for the end of season 4 of "Fear the Walking Dead." I played a rabbi in an abandoned temple. There were four other bits with extras filmed that day and mine was the only one filmed inside and not in the heat outdoors. (And I was in a dark suit). Maybe they'll use it in season 5.
I did extra work for a few projects. The Alamo Drafthouse had a theater full of folks for bits that they use in their party screenings. Deanna Wheeler shot a video for her song "Wasted Space" and my dear friend Natali Jones (down from Dallas) helped her make it. I was in a bit for the Waller Creek Conservancy and another for "Some Kind of Peace."
I got to see two films I was in, "Allowable Dreams" and "Fetish." Small roles in both, but too many times I've never gotten to see films I was in.
I added some films I'm in to my YouTube channel. One of the weirdest one was my scene from Fourplay:Tampa. (). A feature film I was in, "The Sauce", was finally released & my scene was enormous fun (). I also posted "Blackpool & Parish", the play I starred in several years ago. .
Austin was lucky enough to have a Stickworks exhibit, which I got to visit.
Early in the year Fred & Callie contacted me about a documentary on the making of the zombie musical (Z: a Zombie Musical) that I helped John McLean produce in 2006-07. We've had a couple of meetings, but the project is still in preliminary stages.
I had two photo shoots this year: a quick one with Caitlin Mack and a longer one with Zira Amunet. Zira was in Austin as a featured extra in "Mall Walking Olympics", and due to time constraints in shooting, turned out to have about as much screen time as I did. She also joined me for the Sean Penn Overheard taping.
The best concerts I attended this year were by Ken Gaines (6th time I've seen him), Chorus Austin, Chaski, and 3 concerts of the Bach Christmas Cantata at UT
I saw 21 plays, three of which were extraordinary: "Doubt", "The Immigrant", and "All My Sons".
As always, I attended all of the "Overheard with Evan Smith" tapings (28 this year – I've now attended 249). The best ones were with Yamiche Alcindor, Bill De Blasio, Sean Penn (his intro is at ) , Cecile Richards (her story about her mom (Ann Richards) is at ), John Kerry, Lawrence O'Donnell, Mary Chapin Carpenter (preshow Q&A ), Jake Tapper, Michael Schmidt, Michael Beschloss, and Jason Reitman. Upcoming tapings will be at .
I survived Austin's "water crisis" which lasted about a week in October. Due to heavy rain, one of the water treatment plant's filtration system was overwhelmed and we had to boil our water before drinking or cooking with it.
I got to see playwright Terrence McNally (I've seen ten of his plays), John Brennan (CIA), Jerry Brown, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Joe Lansdale, and Bob Costas (). I'd read three of Lansdale's books when I re-discovered him and read 30 more this year. I found that his great Hap & Leonard books are now a mini-series on the Sundance channel. I met Julian Castro, who is running for president in 2020.
My friend Ken Johnson died in January and there was a wonderful memorial service for him. I added a few more of his films on YouTube. You can see his plays and films on my playlist (as well as my films) ()
As usual, I read 365 books. Here's a fairly long list of the best of them, starting with non-fiction. First the biographical books: "My Life With Groucho" (Arthur Marx), "The Secret Life Of Bob Hope" (Arthur Marx), "Red Skelton" (Arthur Marx), "A Gift of Laughter" (Allan Sherman), "The Monk Of Mokha" (Dave Eggers), "Fritz Pollard" (John Carroll), "Oriana Fallaci: The Journalist, the Agitator, the Legend" (Christian De Stefano), "John Wayne: The Life and Legend" (Scott Eyman), "Inseparable: The Original Siamese Twins and Their Rendezvous with American History" (Yunte Huang), "Will Rogers His Life & Times" (Richard Ketchum), "Hank & Jim: The Fifty-Year Friendship of Henry Fonda and James Stewart" (Scott Eyman), "Logical Family" (Armistead Maupin), "The Wind in My Hair: My Fight for Freedom in Modern Iran" (Masih Alinejad), "I Was Looking for a Street" (Charles Willeford), "Life Animated" (Ron Suskind), "The Execution of Willie Francis" (Gilbert King), "The Gorilla and the Bird: A Memoir of Madness and a Mother's Love" (Zack McDermott), "Something Wonderful: Rodgers and Hammerstein's Broadway Revolution" (Todd Purdum), "Robin" (Dave Itzkoff), "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" (Sherman Alexie), "Reporter: A Memoir" (Seymour Hersh), and "King Leopold's Ghost" (Adam Hochschild)
The rest of the nonfiction books: "A Fine Mess: A Global Quest for a Simpler, Fairer, and More Efficient Tax System" (T.R. Reid), "A Very Expensive Poison: The Definitive Story of the Murder of Litvinenko and Russia's War with the West" (Luke Harding), "Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win" (Luke Harding), "Long Haul: A Trucker's Tales of Life on the Road" (Finn Murphy), "Present at The Creation" (the NFL - Upton Bell), "I Was Told to Come Alone: My Journey Behind the Lines of Jihad" (Souad Mekhennet), "See You Again in Pyongyang: A Journey into Kim Jong Un's North Korea" (Travis Jeppesen), "It's Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration is Doing to America" (David Cay Johnston), "Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High" (Melba Beals), "Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right" (Jane Mayer), "Deadly Force: The True Story of How a Badge Can Become a License to Kill" and "Playing with Fire" (the craziness during 1968) (both by Lawrence O'Donnell), "Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America " (Gilbert King), "I Can't Breathe" (Matt Taibbi), "Beneath A Ruthless Sun" (Gilbert King), "Big Chicken: The Incredible Story of How Antibiotics Created Modern Agriculture and Changed the Way the World Eats" (Maryn McKenna), "Arc of Justice" (Kevin Boyle), "American Fire: Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land" (Monica Hesse), "Insane: America's Criminal Treatment of Mental Illness" (Alisa Roth), "Strange Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas" (Jane Mayer), "The Newcomers: Finding Refuge, Friendship, and Hope in an American Classroom " (Helen Thorpe), "All the Truth Is Out: The Week Politics Went Tabloid" (Matt Bai).
The fiction books: "Front Desk" (Kelly Yang), "Crashed" (Timothy Hallinan), "Barely Legal" (Stuart Woods), "Column of Fire" and "World Without End" (both by Ken Follett), "Tibetan Peach Pie" (Tom Robbins), "How Green Was my Valley" (Richard Llewellyn), "The Late Show" (Michael Connelly), "Last Flag Flying" (Darryl Ponicsan), "Vanderbeekers of 141st Street" (Karina Glaser), "So You Want to be a Wizard" (Diane Duane), "The Taliban Cricket Club" (Timeri Murari), "Nyxia Unleashed" (Scott Reintgen), "Redshirts" (John Scalzi), "Everything Everything" (Nicola Yoon), "Britt-Marie Was Here" (Fredrik Backman), "Us Against You" (Fredrik Backman), and "Far From The Tree" (Robin Benway).
I discovered several albums by musicians whose music I love, but was unaware of their more recent music: Mary Chapin Carpenter (as a result of seeing her on Overheard), the Austin Lounge Lizards, Steve Tilston, Theodore Bikel, and the U.S. Marine band
Hope that 2019 is a good year for all who read this and for me.
