Last week a film critic in the Arizona Daily Star wrote about me for his weekly series of profiles on Tucson filmmakers. It was a nice little article, even though it contained many minor factual errors and creatively constructed "quotes" - this is normal for journalism, so I'm not upset about that, since none of the inaccuracies were serious or slanderous.

I've received several compliments and positive new contacts are being made as a result, but one unfortunate, though amusing, side-effect is a trickle of the usual, fanatically hateful anti-immigrant people who always explode into fits of spitting rage whenever anything about the border appears in the news and doesn't match their level of prejudiced right-wing fervor. Here're a few samples, cut-and-pasted verbatim for you amusement:

From: netscw@q.com
Subject: Tell the other side!
Date: August 10, 2009 12:01:57 AM CDT

THE ILLEGALS MAKING 300+ NEW PATHS THROUGH OUR BEAUTIFUL DESERT, TRAMPING DOWN THE FLORA, INSECTS, KILLING THE WILDLIFE, POLLUTING THE ENVIRONMENT WITH THEIR GARBAGE, FECES; COWS & OTHER ANIMALS EATING THE PLASTIC AND DYING HORRIBLE DEATHS, DEFECATING OUTSIDE AND ALL THE POLLUTION, DISEASE THAT BRINGS, NOT TO MENTION THE DISEASES THEY THEMSELVES CARRY, OR THE TERRORISTS THEY ALLOW TO SNEAK IN AMONGST THEM OR THE VIOLENT CRIMINALS AND CHILD MOLESTERS THAT ATTACK AMERICANS & OUR CHILDREN. ILLEGALS HAVE BEEN KNOWN TO CUT OFF A LIVE CALF'S LEG AND EAT IT WHILE THE BABY BLEEDS TO DEATH, THEY CAUSE THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS OF DAMAGE TO RANCHERS' TROUGHS, PIPES, ETC. YOU MAY WISH TO TELL HIM THAT THEY CAUSE MORE ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS ANY DAY THAN THE BP - WHO ARE TRYING TO PROTECT THE PEOPLE OF THIS NATION!

The amazing thing is that these wackos take the time to somehow find an email address online for me but they can't take the time to properly use their Caps Lock key on their keyboard. Here's another that at least doesn't "yell" as much:

From: laura427@cox.net
Subject: FOR STEEV HISE: About your article on some movie you are making about The Wall on our border!
Date: August 9, 2009 2:18:17 AM CDT

I live about an hour from the border. People in my state are being murdered every day by illegals. The rate of child molestation is unreal! Phoenix is now the kidnapping center of the country and AZ the car theft capitol of the world! All because of illegal aliens!And tons of illegals are involved in drugs and drug smuggling!

Your movie appears to be lop-sided. Perhaps you would like to interview my two friends whose children were murdered by illegal aliens from Mexico and tell them how you consider it more important for illegals to be able to sneak into our country and we should not be protecting ourselves. I worked for several years with illegal aliens and met murderers, rapists, child molesters (at least 16% to 80% sneaking through now were violent criminals before ever coming here). Perhaps you would like to speak to some mothers of children who were molested by illegals. Have you ever seen a cow die from eating plastic left by these illegals (and by the way, don't call them "immigrants" - my parents were immigrants and it is an insult to every person who has ever come here legally to use this respected word which has just ONE meaning in immigration law and that is for people who come legally - otherwise the correct immigration term is "illegal alien". Every person who is not an American citizen is an "alien" and you will never ever hear a legal ALIEN complain about being called one. Only those who wish to intimidate you into using the respected word so they can manipulate one's mind will try to change the conversation and the words one uses.
An immigrant waits on line for years, complying with the necessary things they go through (background checks, health checks) to protect Americans and themselves). The word must never be used for people who spit on our laws. They have trampled down hundreds of new paths, killing flora and small animals/insects in their way. I have heard it will take thousands of years for the desert to come back if ever. Also, a rancher friend of mine told me illegals will slaughter his cattle live to cut off a leg and eat it while the animals (usually a baby calf) will lie there bleeding to death. You are another misguided soul.Every time you hear of another illegal murdering, raping, molesting, robbing an American - know you have helped do this. You should be ashamed of yourself! The media is supposed to show an unbiased view, but then you don't seem to know what that means.

Well, I hope I don't have to wait "on line for years" downloading this kind of ludicrously inaccurate bull.

(Oh, and speaking of bull - maybe, if it were true about all the cattle dying because of undocumented migrants, this would be a great solution to the problem of ranching, which has been destroying the environment of the West for over a century. Can we get more of those evil, hungry "illegals" to come and eat the legs off our cows? Please? )

:-)

author: Brad Prager

name: Steev

average rating: 4.19

book published: 2007

rating: 4

read at: 2009/08/04

date added: 2009/08/04

shelves: filmmaking

author: Leslie Marmon Silko

name: Steev

average rating: 4.00

book published: 1991

rating: 5

read at: 2005/11/01

date added: 2009/08/01

shelves: fun, novels, politics

review:
one of my favorite books of all time and it takes place largely in the town i live in.

Here's another example of the burgeoning field of making interesting aggregate works out of raw materials found on YouTube, along the lines of Kutiman's synthesized ensembles. This one forces hundreds of cats from around the world to play 3 piano pieces by Arnold Schoenberg, the composer who sort of invented modern Western atonal music. If you're a music geek or a collage nut or a related type of dork, or if you just like cats, these video clips and the explanation of how they were made will be really awesome to you, otherwise, well, watch out....

This post is one of those non-personal musings (rants?) about current events, rather than a detailed explication of my recent activities.

What I'm musing about here is Bernie Madoff, after reading something about him and his "victims" in the latest issue of Harper's. (why do I instinctively put "victims" in quotes? Read on...) In this short entry in the Readings section of the magazine, the editors provide a selection of Victim Impact Statements sent to the judge during the sentencing phase of Madoff's trial. This one particularly struck me:

Madoff deserves no better than to live under a bridge in a cardboard box, scavenging for food - the existence to which he has undoubtedly consigned some of his victims.

Now, is this complete hyperbole, or is this writer actually claiming that some of the people who invested money with Madoff are now literally homeless paupers because of his betrayals?

How could this be? Of course I sympathize with any innocent people and organizations who were cheated by this guy, especially non-profits who were affected. But let's get real: anyone who put all their eggs in one basket sort of, at least somewhat, deserves whatever they get. I mean, c'mon! You gave Madoff ALL your money? Every cent, other than the $1000 you spent on that magnum of champagne you drank the night before he got caught? Did you even give him the Rolex on your wrist?

Everyone with a brain understands that you should diversify your investments. You put something in high risk, high yield ventures but keep some in something solid, like treasury bonds or, hell, maybe you might just want to keep some of it back in an FDIC-insured savings account, for a rainy day? You don't just hand everything you have to some fast-talking guy named Bernie. Even poor people understand this. That's why they have multiple kids.

Or "invest" in friends and family so that you'll have someone who'll take you in on their couch when you lose your home, maybe.

The thing is is that this "impact statement" and all the others elide a certain unspoken truth that very few are talking about, regarding Madoff's scam but also applying to the general financial crash we are all still reeling from: you can't get something for nothing, and if you think you can and you put everything into your something for nothing scheme, then you're a fool. And there have been an awful lot of fools, of various types, getting the other shoe stomping on them.

And if you're rich enough to be investing in the first place, in anything, you're on a level, you're in a class, far above many many people in the world. A huge number of people even in the U.S. make barely enough to stay out of poverty, and in the wider world, the numbers are even grimmer and "investing" means having enough kids so that after half of them die you'll still have enough able bodies to till the fields and take care of you when you're old.

Madoff certainly had no right to steal your money, oh "victim," but where did you get that money in the first place? Was it really yours? What gives you the right to have all that money to invest, when most people in the world struggle every day just to feed their families? You are the beneficiary of a global, millennial ponzi scheme called Late Capitalism, and you're too stupid or in too much denial to know it, and you're now whining because you were too stupid to at least stash a little emergency funds away somewhere safe?

You're on the karma payment plan.

author: Mark W. Travis

name: Steev

average rating: 5.00

book published: 2002

rating: 5

read at: 2009/07/11

date added: 2009/07/13

shelves: filmmaking

For a little over 2 weeks, we've been in production for Truth On The Line, the new project I'm directing (and wrote). It's been very exciting, and things are going quite well other than feeling like each shoot is very rushed.

We have been shooting at quite a speed - an average of 6 script pages a day. Usually 5 is a good rule of thumb for an "indie" project. We've been pressured by time constraints involving the location and the natural light, as well as my own inexperience at scheduling, but for other shoots coming up I'm hoping that we can have things be a little more relaxed. Read more>>>

I'm in the middle of pre-production for a new project which I do not think I've mentioned before on this blog. Truth On The Line is a TV/web show which will be a hybrid of fiction and nonfiction, news journalism and drama. I like to say that it's a cross between "Slacker" and "Broadcast News", and the news will be real.

I first came up with the idea for this project almost 2 years ago, and have been gradually thinking about it and keeping it simmering on the back burner of my creative stove every since. It was this spring that I finally finished the script for the pilot episode and began. Read more>>>

We're still in pre-production for the pilot of Truth On The Line, the TV/web series that I've been developing for the last 2 years. I finished casting a couple of weeks ago and I'm now trying to schedule rehearsals and shoots, and it's really really challenging. There are 14 speaking parts, so trying to arrive at times where even most of the cast can be there has been crazy.

We did have one meeting where we did a first read-through and I managed to have all but 2 or 3 actors there. That was impressive and it went really well. A photo from that is above.