The Low(Budget)Life, by its very nature is chaotic - let's face it - no sane person would willingly endure the vagaries of a profession where, more often than not, you make little if any money; the hours can stretch into an 18-20 hr. workday... easily, and where the manifest neuroses & psychotic behavior of fellow co-workers are merely colorful character traits. Herein lies a tale of strange people doing stranger things on celluloid & videotape in the hopes of obtaining fame, a bit of immortality & hopefully, a shitload of money.

  It all started with going to the movies, obviously - in my hometown (Cape Girardeau, MO) there used to be 3 main movie theatres: The Esquire, The Broadway and The Rialto (or as we called it, The Rathole); all located on the main business drag in town at the time and all within walking distance of the other. Each had their own distinct vibe, though my favorite was The Esquire - it got most of the big pictures when they were released, plus it had just the right atmosphere of faded opulence & slight seediness. During high school, I had friends who worked there, so there were perks of free admission (when the manager wasn't around), hanging out in the projection booth & offices, and the occassional late night screening that the projectionist would hold every now & then.

  There was also a drive-in, The Star-Vue, but most of the memories there are of the newspaper ads - I was way too young to attend it during its prime of showing soft-core porn & grindhouse flicks like RAW MEAT, TENDER FLESH & the classic THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. The times I went, it was with family members to see AT THE EARTH'S CORE & OLD DRACULA and IT'S ALIVE/IT'S ALIVE 2. When I was finally old enough to drive, the drive-in was in its decline - The Star-Vue was torn down around 1985-86 and a rest home occupies the lot where it once was - a savage metaphor for the times. All 3 theatres eventually died once the West Side started to develop and businesses started deserting Downtown & the multiplexes came in.

  How it shifted from watching movies to actually making them was due in large part to my friend Ian McBride (RIP). His older brother Clay, and his friend Larry Aschellman (son of my high school typing teacher) were into the movie thing and they actually showed the way -  on separate occasions, they both came back to high talk about their work in class; Larry was into special effects makeup ant at the time (this was early 1980's) he had brought in his portfolio... he had just finished work on Wes Craven's DEADLY BLESSING and Ted Kotcheff's SPLIT IMAGE. Clay brought in storyboards he'd done for Don Coscarelli's THE BEASTMASTER. It was the first time that I really thought it would be possible to work in films - if these guys from the same backwater city I was in could do it, so could I.

  My first exposure, in a roundabout way, came through high school theater, in which I was a big participant in. The next best thing to making movies was acting in them, and the stage was the next best thing to movies. I kept getting cast as old men during my stint as an actor, which reached its apotheosis my freshman year at college, in a one act play by Lorraine Hansbury called, WHAT USE ARE FLOWERS? It was about a dying old man, the lone adult survivor of nuclear apocalypse, attempting to teach a group of feral children so that the Human Race Will Survive - guess who I was cast as? Actually, it was my one lead role & probably the best acting I ever did.

   I don't act as much anymore - I still enjoy it; mainly, I no longer have the drive to actively pursue an acting career. Most of my acting on film has mainly been bit parts & walk-ons, where I don't need to say anything. One notable walk-on was in a NBC-TV movie called THRILL that starred Antonio Sabato, Jr. that was shot in Santa Cruz, CA in early '96. I worked two days on that, one as an extra & the second day as a stand-in for Bill Cobbs (black character actor - you know his face although you can't remember his name. Had a memorable role in THE HUDSUCKER PROXY, among a thousand other things.) I caught the broadcast of it shortly after I moved back to the Midwest, & was surprised that I actually made the cut. The film runs periodically on cable, so you can catch my 8 seconds of network obscurity. I'm in the first 20 minutes - I'm the guy in the blue jacket that Bill barks orders to & I get a nice closeup in this sequence where the log flume is sabotaged. (The hands typing on the computer keyboard in the opening sequence are mine - my stand-in duty). Since I'm being totally self-serving, I have a small bit in a film by SF filmmaker Richard Walsh called SWINE - if I haven't been cut out, that is. Have not been able to see the finished film, as of yet.

  I transferred to film school at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, IL (a school that was known for its infamous Halloween celebrations, now clamped down; and has the distinction for being completely [and accurately] dissed in two books: CLASS by Paul Fussell and THE REAL FRANK ZAPPA by Frank Zappa), where I slogged along working on student projects & sat around with others, plotting our takeover of Hollywood.

   My first (& to date, only) 16mm film was EMPTY, TRY ANOTHER, which was an experimental narrative that drew a metaphorical parallel with a woman's chain smoking habit & her (unsuccessful) relationships, all to the tune of a Joni Mitchell song, "Empty, Try Another" from the 'DOG EAT DOG' album, from which I got the idea. It's a student film in the worst way; I got great performances from my actresses (Tracy Evans & Jane Brockman), but the film is only partially successful - it's a minute too long, has a bad sound mix & suffers from too much minimalism, due to lack of funds - I couldn't afford to do titles, so I just spoke them at the end!(A Truffaut homage). I can still watch the film without cringing & at least people who have seen it do get the metaphor - I was in the process of a breakup when this was shot, so there's a lot of baggage with this film. I even started smoking due to this film.

   Besides the film classes and most of the people I encountered (most of whom I've lost touch with), I can't really say that the film school route was really that useful - most of the people who were actually serious about film eventually went their own ways; those who weren't changed their majors to other disciplines, got married (& probably divorced by now) or whatever. The main lasting relationship from film school was with the school itself, pestering me to pay money that I didn't have - but that's a different story. Knowing what I now know, I would've just moved to the Coast, jumped in production & the money that is now owed to school, could've been made to make a film.