Another decade has passed and it's time to review my life in 2019. While going over the past year it's enjoyable to discover things that I had completely forgotten about.
I opened the year in January with a delightful role in a music video for the local band Wrongbird, "Leap Year Birthday." (). I portrayed the father of a "little" girl who's celebrating her 6th birthday (at the age of 24). It was a paid gig filmed over two days in Lakeway.
In February, Blair Bomar (a dear friend) was in town filming a short, "My What A Lovely Vase." She needed a large restroom for a location and I was able to hook her up with Ken Rogers, the head of the film program at McCallum High School, where they were able to film.
The following month I was in my fourth film shot at McCallum, written and directed by Emma Lindsey (who happens to be the step-daughter of Beth Sepko, one of Austin's top casting directors). In the film I play a custodian who is killing off students. ()
In April I saw Robert Caro speak on his new book, "Working." I've been a fan of his great books for decades, have read all of his books and loved his latest, a short one (in contrast to his usual books). His first book "The Power Broker: Robert Moses" has 1336 pages, and the publisher had to omit about a million words, since that's all they could fit in one volume. Caro hopes that the omitted sections can eventually be published. I've heard Maria Hinojosa's voice countless times over the past twenty-five years on NPR, so it was a delight to see her talk on campus that month.
In May I did some background work for my friend Bita on "Latecomers" (the film is not finished, since its director's time has been tied up in his move back to the UK). After the filming, I got to see one of my best former students, Lisa Bush, who's now an associate superintendent for middle schools for AISD.
In June I saw several former students at their 30th McCallum reunion: DeSean Roby, Kelly Spain Hensen, Amber Banks, Sherwynn Patton, Scot McCann, Shannon Davis, and Keith Bradley. I'd seen some of them at their 20th reunion. In March I saw Erin Rosales at an art exhibit which included her work. Austin Moore, LeAnn Roberts and Devon Brown were at AFS Cinema (Devon was there for a screening of his film). I ran into Dave Wiginton several times since he works near the Overheard tapings. Lisa Brannan-Blair was at a capitol rally. Yvonne Kinnibrugh was at a UT concert. Lisa Slater, Ryan Clarke and Sato Nishimura were at a pre-game McCallum gathering. Cliff Collier, Samantha Riegler, Tim Riegler and Geoff Zeis were at a post-funeral celebration. Melanie Fetty was at the preview screening of the Ken Burns Country Music film. Denise Ashley saw me at a bus stop. Stephen Layne was at Seaholm. And I saw Dena Kyser, Tanya Sandoval and Shametra McGregor in Elgin when I visited there for Shametra's graduation celebration. Throughout the year I saw Stephanie Acosta several times since she's in the same part of town.
In July was in a short film, Green (), in which I played a PA (production assistant), attending an academy which teaches students how to be PA's. It's an amusing satire and was fun to shoot.
In August I had the most unusual audition of my life. Each of us, in a group of four, was asked to laugh together as a group; nothing more. I got a callback and again we had to laugh in a group but this time also individually. I was cast and later that month we gathered at a Gamestop store in south Austin to film a commercial. I was dressed as a basketball player with a tie-dye shirt and shorts. By the time we finished the scene after multiple takes of laughing my throat was sore. The ad was scheduled to run for six weeks starting in late August and was extended another six weeks (earning me a second paycheck). A friend saw it on a Hulu show, but I only found it, eventually, on the store's twitter account. A friend found the extended 30-second version for me. () and (). The 15-second version found an audience right away and has more likes than all but one of the videos I've uploaded.
In September I was in a brief scene in "Finger." Due to editing complications (adding animation to some sequences), it was not finished at the end of the year. Also, in September AFS hosted the great film director from Mexico, Arturo Ripstein (who worked with Luis Bunuel in 1961), for a screening of his latest film "Bleak Street." I got a photo with him. ().
It was hottest September in Austin ever. The average temperature was 88, which is 8 degrees above normal. It was hotter than June and July with nineteen 100-degree days and ten record highs.
In October I was in a fun scene in the Brian Burns film, "Through a Glass Dimly." I was in a group of three seniors playing checkers. The script called for a chess game, but we could only find a set of checkers, so I helped adjust the script from "checkmate" to "checkermate". The same month I attended a UT master class with Polish film director and screenwriter Agnieszka Holland, one of Poland's most eminent filmmakers. She began her career as an assistant to Andrzej Wajda and is best known for her films "Europa Europa" (1991) and her 2011 drama "In Darkness", which was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film. (excerpt: ). I also saw a great panel featuring local authors S.C. Gwynne and Stephen Harrigan. I realized I hadn't read some of Gwynne's books (his "Empire of The Summer Moon" was on my best of list for 2012) and this year I really loved his "The Perfect Pass: American Genius and the Reinvention of Football."
In November Susan Rice was on both Overheard and at the LBJ speaking on her new book (which is great). She served under both Clinton & Obama & was the latter's National Security Adviser and Ambassador to the UN. I was able to speak with her and get a photo. The same month I saw Gloria Steinem speak at the LBJ on her new book. Wonderful. I was delighted to see her for the fourth time.
My health was good. I was under the weather for a few days in March, though it may have simply been fatigue after the insane pace of nine days of SXSW. I had a physical exam in April and all was well, although there was a most unusual entry on the report I got: "primary ovarian failure." I walked 6,046 miles, the most ever, with an average of 16.56 miles a day. I discovered that I've walked 65,205 miles since I started keeping track about twenty years ago. This year I avoided driving 91.5% of the time.
I hadn't gotten any new Dobie yearbooks in months and late in the year I located three new ones. I now have added eighteen to the Dobie Facebook page. () I talked to the Dobie principal's secretary before Christmas and hoping she'll help me find many more in 2020.
When I was a little kid growing up in New Jersey in the fifties one of my favorite TV shows was "Hopalong Cassidy". I discovered in 2018 that there were sixty-four Hopalong movies & that the Encore network was showing them. I've now seen fifty-four and hope to see the remaining ten. I also plan to watch the two seasons of the TV show.
I've seen dozens of authors at BookPeople, but it was a treat in November to see a dear friend, Amy Edwards, promoting her new book, "The Trouble with Becoming a Witch." She allowed me to read the book before it was published and I enjoyed it. She was interviewed by Carolyn Cohagan, who has written some great books.
Erica de la Garza, a very dear friend, moved back to Austin at the end of the year and joined me to see a play.
All too often I am not notified about films I was in once they are complete (some are never completed). I discovered a very amusing scene I was in from 2017 in "Lazer Team 2" (). From 2009 I posted a Doritos spec I was in. () (I found some of these as I reviewed old editions of these newsletters, doing so because Yahoo has deleted the copies online). From 2005, "Land of No Return" in which I played God. (). I also discovered a feature film, "The Emeryville Experiments", in which I had a nice, though small role, is online & free. (). When it was first completed I was sent a private link to view, but at that time my internet connection was so slow, that I was only able to watch the first twenty minutes.
I saw 22 plays. The best of them was "The Book of Will."
I attended all of the Overheard with Evan Smith tapings (I've now been to 245 of them). They're always worthwhile. This year the best of them were Timothy Shriver, Stacey Abrams, John Grisham, Ed Zwick, Scott Pelley (), Jose Antonio Vargas, Susan Rice, and Isabella Rossellini.
I saw many movies. It was my most enjoyable SXSW ever, and I've been to every one since the film festival started in 1994. The documentaries I loved at SXSW were "The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley", "I Love You Now Die: The Commonwealth Vs Michelle Carter", "Breakthrough", "Ernie & Joe", "Icarus", "For Sama" and "Raise Hell: The Life & Times of Molly Ivins."
More documentaries during the year that make my "best of" list; "Carmine Street Guitars" (I met the director Ron Mann a few months later & learned that the store had gained two years worth of guitar orders), "The River and the Wall ", "Mike Wallace Is Here", "Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles", "Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice", "That Part Feeling - The Universe of Arvo Part", "The Bleeding Edge" (a fantastic doc on medical tools), "Ken Burns Country Music", "The Ancestral Sin (the story of Israel's "development towns"), "The Raft", "Chasing the Moon", "Fantastic Fungi", "Maiden", and "One Child Nation."
The best feature films: "Above the Clouds", "Where'd You Go, Bernadette", "Noise" (a French film), "The Fall of The American Empire", "The Farewell", "Pom Poko", and "Parasite"
As always, I spent many hours at AFS Cinema. I saw 171 films there; 124 of them were new for me. What a treasure it is.
I didn't go to that many concerts. The Bach Cantata Project had a great one in October, I saw Shawn Phillips for the 42nd time, and the Air Force Band of the West Brass Quintet was a delight. In May I also saw the annual UIL wind ensemble festival with sixteen bands from around the state and in June the great Longhorn Music Camp bands. I also discovered some great music by three composers: Heinrich Schutz, Louise Farrenc, and Eric Whitacre.
As usual I read 365 books. The nonfiction book list is longer: first, autobiographical and biographical books: "Memoirs of an Amnesiac" (Oscar Levant), "A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II" (Sonia Purnell), "Long Haul: A Trucker's Tales of Life on the Road" (Finn Murphy), "Robin" (Dave Itzkoff - Robin Williams), "I Was Looking for a Street" (Charles Willeford), "A Gift of Laughter" (Allan Sherman), "John Wayne: The Life and Legend" (Scott Eyman), "Life, Animated: A Story of Sidekicks, Heroes, and Autism" (Ron Suskind - the movie is also great), "The Gorilla and the Bird: A Memoir of Madness and a Mother's Love" (Zack McDermott), "Logical Family" (Armistead Maupin), "My Life with Groucho", "The Secret Life of Bob Hope" and "Red Skelton (all three by Arthur Marx), "Monk of Mokha" (Dave Eggers), "Oriana Fallaci: The Journalist, the Agitator, the Legend" (Cristina De Stefano), "Inseparable: The Original Siamese Twins and Their Rendezvous with American History" (Yunte Huang), "Will Rogers His Life and Times" (Richard Ketchum), "Strange Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas" (Jane Mayer), "Reporter: a Memoir" (Seymour Hersh), "Hank and Jim: The Fifty-Year Friendship of Henry Fonda and James Stewart" (Scott Eyman), "Tibetan Peach Pie" (Tom Robbins), "I Was Told to Come Alone: My Journey Behind the Lines of Jihad" (Souad Mekhennet), "Fritz Pollard" (John Carroll), "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" (Sherman Alexie), and "The Wind in My Hair: My Fight for Freedom in Modern Iran" (Masih Alinejad).
More nonfiction: "A Fine Mess: A Global Quest for a Simpler, Fairer, and More Efficient Tax System" (T R Reid), "Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win" and "A Very Expensive Poison: The Definitive Story of the Murder of Litvinenko and Russia's War with the West" (both by Luke Harding), "Present at The Creation" (Upton Bell - NFL History), "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 1968 Election and the Transformation of American Politics " (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 - the death of Eric Garner), "Beneath A Ruthless Sun" and "The Execution of Willie Francis" (both by Gilbert King - Willie Francis was a black man who was executed twice), "Big Chicken: The Incredible Story of How Antibiotics Created Modern Agriculture and Changed the Way the World Eats" (Maryn McKenna), "The Arc of Justice" (Kevin Boyle (Detroit Housing)), "Something Wonderful: Rodgers and Hammerstein's Broadway Revolution" (Todd Purdum), "American Fire: Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land " (Monica Hesse), "The Perfect Pass: American Genius and the Reinvention of Football" (S.C. Gwynne), "Insane: America's Criminal Treatment of Mental Illness" (Alisa Roth), "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 Fix: How Nations Survive and Thrive in a World in Decline"(Jonathan Tepperman), "See You Again in Pyongyang: A Journey into Kim Jong Un's North Korea" (Travis Jeppesen)," The Perfect Weapon: How the Cyber Arms Race Set the World Afire"(David Sanger).
In fiction: crime novels: "Crashed", "A Nail Through the Heart", "Breathing Water", "Hot Countries", and "The Fear Artist" (all five by Timothy Hallinan - I read twenty-one books by him this year, these are five of the best), "The Defense" and "The Plea" (both by Steve Cavanagh), "The Late Show" and "Dark Sacred Night" (both by Michael Connelly), "Barely Legal" (Stuart Woods), and "Past Tense" (Lee Child)
The rest of the fiction: "World Without End" and "Column of Fire" (both part of the Kingsbridge trilogy by Ken Follett), "The Taliban Cricket Club" (Timeri Murari), "King Leopold's Ghost" (Adam Hochschild), "The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street" (Karina Glaser), "So You Want to be a Wizard" (Diane Duane), "Last Flag Flying" (Darryl Ponicsan), "How Green was my Valley" (Richard Llewellyn), "Redshirts" (John Scalzi), "Granted" and "Insert Coin To Continue" (both by John David Anderson), "The Apothecary", "The Apprentices", and "The After-room" (a trilogy by Maile Meloy), "Nowhere Boy" and "The Door by the Staircase (both by Katherine Marsh), "Far from the Tree" (Robin Benway), "Wonder" (R J Palacio), "Oblivion" and "Nicropolis" (the final books of the Gatekeepers books, both by Anthony Horowitz), "Winter Sisters" (Robin Oliveira), "The Casket of Time" (Andri Magnason), "Everything Everything" (Nicola Yoon), "Britt-Marie Was Here" and "Us Against You" (both by Fredrik Backman), "Front Desk" (Kelly Yang) and "Nyxia Unleashed" (Scott Reintgen). The grand total is now10,890 books.
I didn't have many large purchases this year. My microwave died in the middle of cooking eggs, but it had lasted a good ten years. I've had iPods since 2002 & loved my iPod nanos since they were so compact and reliable. Apple had discontinued the line and I now have an iPod Touch. It has way too many "features" & although I have it turned off, the voice control occasionally activates, a real nuisance, and it's much larger than the nano. My scanner only lasted three years, but I have a newer model now.
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. I continued listening to "Quote Unquote", "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue", "Just a Minute", Alistair Cooke's Letters from America", "Dead Ringer," and "Jean Shepherd". One new BBC discovery was the delightful "Fry's English Delight." Maybe I'll complete some of these series in 2020. I also discovered a great podcast on BBC: "Composer of the week" () (which is where I discovered the music of Louise Farrenc).
Late in the year I realized that, since I was born in the forties, 2020 will mark the ninth decade that I have lived in. I hope that 2020 brings good things to all of you who are reading this.
I'm slowly adding xmas family photos & then ones of me, one a day at
