开云体育

Xmas 2006

It's been quite a year: movie producer, concert booker, theatrical lead, adopted uncle.

In January I FINALLY met with Jeff at Acclaim Talent (he spends most of his time in Louisiana, where much of the action is now). He signed me up, so I've got an agent again. Also, in January Amy Jordan welcomed me into her family as her adopted uncle.

We completed shooting "Z: a Zombie Musical" in August. John McLean had been editing during free time and was able to finish that process in late September. Due to all of my work on the film, I was promoted to a Producer. When I realized that we would be unable to finish by the Austin Film Festival’s regular deadline, I was able to get an extension (I have worked there as a volunteer the last four years). They accepted our film, but, just as John finished the end credits, our hard drive crashed. All of the film was lost (including Joe King Carrasco's feature film). We were able to recover it all for $3105. The delay, however, kept us out of the festival this year. They offered to screen the film after the festival as part of their Austin Film Festival Presents... series. However, since such a screening would keep us out of other festivals, I postponed it, pending other festival results.

I was able to get an amazing collection of cameos for the film. Joe King Carrasco was our zombie mayor. Our Austin mayor, Will Wynn joined two former mayors, Jeff Friedman and Bruce Todd as zombie highway bums. Peter Bay (conductor of the Symphony) was an artist's model. Mark Zupan (star of "Murderball") was a zombie badass. Dale Watson was a zombie senior (lip-synching to my singing). Joe Ely, Sara Hickman, Michael Fracasso and Jimmy Lafave performed as a zombie guitar quartet (covered by Jim Swift on KXAN-TV) . Joe was originally scheduled to be part of a guitar trio, but Dan Rather and Senator Kirk Watson backed out. The Tosca String Quartet recorded a song composed for them and appear in the film dressed in black, wearing angel wings, in a cemetery. Kinky Friedman agreed to do a cameo in January, but was too busy during the campaign and changed his mind. I'm hoping we can add a bit with Kinky in early 2007. (not able to)

In September I spoke with Willie Nelson while working as an extra on his film, "Fighting with Anger." Willie agreed to do a cameo for us. Sadly, he was in Hawaii the last two months of 2006 and is in Europe in January. With his busy schedule and the difficulty in getting the needed paperwork from SAG, his bit may not be possible. (It wasn't.)

News 8 Austin ran two stories on Z. . Hanna Hardin (our female lead) and I were interviewed as zombies on a Sunday morning KVUE-TV newscast. . John Kelso wrote a column on us for the Statesman and Joe O'Connell wrote an article for the Chronicle about his role as a zombie casting director. and

We have had three cast/crew screenings: one at our attorney’s screening room, one at the Dobie Theatre (during which three of the songs got applause) and one at the Arbor Theatre. All three audiences enjoyed the film. I am very proud of the film, especially the music, which was my responsibility. We have one more screening scheduled at St Edward’s University this month. In December I was a guest both on KOOP-FM (playing six songs from the soundtrack) and on The Jeff Davis Show (local access TV).

John McLean, our writer/director loved my acting: "Just wanna say again how proud I am of your work as The Philosopher, a role I created and wrote specifically for you, as you well know. You freakin' NAILED that part, from start to finish, and I'm always delighted whenever I get to that section of the picture and get to watch you work for a bit."

In October we scheduled a benefit at Threadgills to pay for the hard drive recovery, but weather caused a postponement. The booker kept switching dates on me after I had already announced them, until I finally dumped him and found a reliable venue, Trophy's. We had a wonderful concert in December. Sadly, due to the repeated postponements, attendance was disappointing. After Joe King returns in February, he will organize a second benefit. It was fun lining up the musicians (including The Jigglewatts, a burlesque group consisting of Amy and the three zombie nuns from our film). Having to do it five times was too much.

So far we have applied to fourteen festivals (including one in Lisbon, Portugal). We did not get into Sundance (no surprise, no shame; we were one of the 5000 films that did not make it). The next festival makes its decision in mid-January. I think we should be able to qualify for most if not all of the Texas fests we have entered (SXSW, AFI Dallas, USA, Worldfest).

I read 296 books in 2006, a new personal high, (no surprise). My grand total is now 6250. With that many, I can recommend quite a few. The Manhattan Beach Project (Peter Lefcourt) was enormous fun. Great books on the mess in Iraq were Night Draws Near (Anthony Shadid), Fiasco (Thomas Ricks) and State of Denial (Bob Woodward) (he and Carl Bernstein will be at HRC in 2007). Reading Lolita in Tehran (Azar Nafisi) is an excellent book about Iran. More titles: Inventing Late Night: Steve Allen & The Original Tonight Show (Ben Alba), Fast Food Nation (Eric Schlosser), The Know-It-All (A J Jacobs), Balzac & The Little Chinese Seamstress (Dai Sijie) (the movie was also wonderful), Misquoting Jesus (Bart Ehrman), Possible Side Effects (Augusten Burroughs), The Self-Made Man (Norah Vincent), North Toward Home (Willie Morris), The Omnivore's Dilemma (Michael Pollan) and David Lean (Kevin Brownlow).

Concert highlights for the year were Small Potatoes (third time I've seen them), Tish Hinojosa (hadn't seen her in 14 years – I had helped interview her years ago) and Luka Bloom, an Irish folksinger making his first Austin performance (I have loved his music since his first album 16 years ago, so it was a thrill not only to see him but chat with him as well.)

I saw some great movies; one of my favorites actually opens in 2007, Freedom Writers (just read the book which is also inspiring). Films I enjoyed the most were An Unconvenient Truth, The Producers, Akeelah & the Bee, Water, Deep Sea 3D, United 93, and The Queen. I was able to see 33 films at SXSW and hope to see Z there in 2007. (nope)

I saw 39 plays; the best was Twelfth Night; other standouts were Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Hello Muddah Hello Faddah.

I was able to attend most of John Pierson's great master classes, seeing and briefly chatting with Mark Cuban, Gus Van Sant, Rick Linklater (whom I have known since the '80s) Kevin Smith, and Steve James (Hoop Dreams). I got autographs from all of them as well as from Bill Plympton (the great film animator), Sydney Pollack, Christopher Lawford, Roger Ebert (by mail), Lily Tomlin, Molly Ivins and Peter Bogdanovich.

In March I was invited to be in the David Belke play, Blackpool & Parrish (Live Oak UU Unicorn Players). My audition consisted of a cold reading of the play (recorded for rehearsal purposes). Both the role and play were great, so I gladly accepted. I was Blackpool ("the agent of all that is Evil on the planet Earth"). Parrish was the agent of all that is Good. The two of us had been battling for 5000 years; and we inform our kids, whom we had been training the past 25 years that tomorrow was the Apocalypse and that they would get fight it out for the survival of the planet. We performed in May and the director said that it was his company's best production. I did a great job.

I took three acting classes this year: improv classes in the spring with Shana Merlin and later with the Coldtowne Theater Company (a group of Katrina refugees); the latter is based a block and a half from my home, which is very convenient. Finally I took a film acting class in the fall with Mona Lee. All were beneficial and lots of fun.

Last year I wrote about the water pipes breaking; in June I finally had all the water pipes replaced, expensive, but it needed to be done.

I worked on a few other films besides Z this year. The highlight was Script Cops (five short trailers for the Austin Film Festival (which won its trailer competition). I'm in the "lost" episode on the website, as the "corpse" from Se7en. It took 2 hours to turn me into a very convincing cadaver. I was in Baghead, the new feature from the Duplass Brothers (whose The Puffy Chair was in theaters for a while this year (with great reviews) - I had been introduced to them at a screening on that film at St. Ed's). I also worked as a paid extra on a short, The Body, as well as the Willie Nelson film.

I have now worked on over 100 films. One 2005 film of mine, Chalk, (I have a small, but very noticeable role, improved in a new edit. Several strangers have recognized me from the part.) won the best audience and jury awards at the Austin Film Festival and has been nominated for the John Cassevetes Award in the 2007 Independent Spirit Awards.

I continue to get lots of exercise walking - 306 miles in January, one of three 300-mile months (only one of those before this year - there was also a 299 mile month!) I finished the year with 3409 miles, 300 miles over my previous record, and double that of six years ago. I averaged 9.3 miles a day. One day in December I actually walked 17.1 miles.

I transferred my master list of emails from the films I've worked on to a data base and discovered there are over 6000 entries!

John McLean gave me a novel he wrote in 1999 about Nellie Bly's solo trip around the world in 1889. It is fantastic and I have been looking for a publisher. I can send it to you if you'd like to read it too.

My Honda hybrid averaged 53 mpg this year; the overall total since I bought the car is now over 50 mpg!!! I haven't had to fill up the tank twice in one month since July, 2004!!! I also realized that I could use the UT shuttle buses when I needed to get to campus and there have been many days when I have not needed to drive at all.

I now have a URL on MySpace allowing me to keep in touch with some friends as well as make some new ones. (no longer)

I have been going to AOMA most weeks for acupuncture and it has helped reduce some of the pain in my back and shoulders from all my typing.

My casting list continues to grow and there are about 5200 members for Austin and 7000 more on the other Texas lists. My personal list, continues to have its faithful subscribers. (it ended in 2020 & was replaced with /g/DanEgglestonList)

The city has an awesome program to plant trees (for free) near the street. In October they placed one in my front yard (which reminded me of the tree I planted about 20 years ago when I lived on Avenue A, which is providing great shade).

As 2007 starts I have been helping John in pre-production for our next project: "Ex Libris." He wrote the script 3 years ago and it is the best script I have ever read. It will cost a LOT, so it may be a while until we can start production. If we can get Z into festivals and find a distributor, that may make the difference.