Cinema Sideshow

The First Week, She Is Almost Over

I had intended to blog here every day during the first week of the Legion of News/Rick Emerson Show adventure, but I hadn't counted on the sheer exhaustion I would experience from focusing so fully on each day's work, then not getting enough sleep because my brain would keep me up every night with a million spinny thoughts.

I've been doing the show. I've been trying to sleep when it's dark outside. At one point, I went to see a movie for review purposes. Everything else is fuzzy. Sadly, I had to beg off doing the commentary for Cort and Fatboy's Independence Day screening because I barely got home tonight without crashing the car, my fatigue was so great. My sink is full of dirty dishes. My dog keeps making sad faces at me, because she's used to having me around.

This week, I've discussed, on air, the prescription meds I take, my low-brow dining habits, Nazi werewolves, serial killers, Al Gore's sex life, and Michael Jackson.

I have drunk five Visos, three Coke Zeros, and countless cups of coffee. I have eaten bagels, tuna sandwiches, cold pizza and Raisin Bran. 

There was the triumphant moment when we finally got paper towels in the restroom. That was ... magic.

I have battled printer issues, we've had technical problems, I've doubted my voice, my talent, my intelligence and my sanity. 

I've received amazing e-mails and messages from listeners offering compliments and support. I haven't done anything drastically wrong yet. The shows have been bumpy, a little uneven, but it's not bad. Some of it has been (dare I say it?) really, really good.

I'm having a great time.

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Tomorrow the Circus Comes to Town

For some time now, this blog has been a repository for the occasional link/reprint of film reviews, the even more occasional original post, and a gatherer of a whole lot of Internet dust. (What does Internet dust consist of, anyway? Digital mites? The epithelial shavings of decaying 1s and 0s?)

But new life adventures and career mishaps are on the horizon -- tomorrow marks the start of my daily radio blatherings with Mr. Rick Emerson via Legion of News and The Rick Emerson Show. My schedule, my focus, and the entire foundation of my existence will be anchored to a midday appointment every Monday through Friday in a small room in SE Portland. Everything is about to change, in ways I'm only vaguely able to comprehend.

This important, world-changing turn of events requires blogging! This all must be chronicled! And look ... this Cinema Sideshow thing's sitting right here. So shall it be.

The work process with Rick has, so far, been pretty straightforward (although, given our separate and mutual neuroses, it's been both wildly random and OCD-appropriately obsessive.) Once we established that we were, indeed, doing something together, we had to figure out:

1. What it is, exactly, that we're doing.
2. Where we'd do it.
3. How we could make any money off of it.
4. What we needed as far as space, equipment, and other outside help.
5. When we'd start.
6. Whether anyone would actually listen.

... and, from there, the details piled up. Content, of course -- what we'd talk about, and when. And guests -- who do we want? And how do we deal with the goddamn trains going by every ten minutes right outside the studio window?

Other highlights of the working-with-Rick process include:

 Rick telling me that we all have to bring our own chairs for use in the studio. Then, after I complained that only he and I had brought in chairs, he said that he hadn't insisted on it, that it was just a suggestion.

Our  coining of the term "milk-packing district" to describe the neighborhood where we are now located.

The discovery that the shared restroom in our small office building has a shower. If this were a movie, that detail would be some sort of foreshadowing for something important in the future. Such as ... murder!

Rick's purchase of a queen-sized egg-crate foam pad to muffle sound coming and going through the studio door, but not having the proper tools to cut it to size, so we now have a giant, floppy mattress pad attached to the door with a slit cut in it to access the door handle.

Rick coming back from a Viso run, forgetting about the big, floppy mattress pad, and scaring himself when he opened the door.

Putting on headphones and firing up the mics, then talking to each other through them even though we're sitting right across from each other. Also sending each other e-mail from across the room. 

Doing a run-through, and finding it surprisingly easy to slip into "show mode" even though no one was actually listening.

I'm heading back over to the studio in about an hour, and we'll go over a number of last-minute details, do another run-through, and pray that nothing goes wrong tomorrow. I'm keyed up as hell -- my butterflies have butterflies. And their butterflies have baseball bats. Yikes.