September 2, 2005 -- I am at the Telluride Film Festival with one of my bands, the Alloy Orchestra. This is a legendary film festival, and the group has been here 13 years in a row (I have been here only 8 years, as I joined after the previous keyboard player left). We are a three-piece: Ken Winokur: rack of junk, drums, clarinet, etc., management; Terry Donahue: rack of junk, drums, accordion, etc.; Myself: keyboard (piano, orchestral sounds), banjo. We compose our own scores to Silent Era Films (1915-1930), and perform them to the side of the stage as the film is shown. This year we are performing our score along with the film CHANG. (The next film by the director of CHANG was King Kong).
I am rarely affected by seeing movie stars -- there are always numerous individuals of that class at the festival. Mickey Rooney sat on the couch at the pre-show party. Andy Garcia spoke w/Terry. That's cool. But at the brunch today I was informed that the beautiful woman I'd seen was Helena Bonham-Carter. I am not a big movie man, and I am hard pressed to know who my friends are talking about when they mention names. But I was truly thrilled when she shook my hand and engaged me in conversation. I described the Alloy Orchestra and she seemed genuinely interested. My knowledge of movies is limited, but her performance in Fight Club was amazing. I was surprised to feel the effect that meeting her had on me. I guess I really am a fan, after all the rest of the rubbish is cleared away.
As I sit in Smugglers, the only brewpub in Telluride (and a pretty good one), the afternoon rainstorm passes over us. I much prefer to sit outside and gaze at the mountains and listen to the creek while I do my frottage drawings, but due to the rain, I'm inside. The only negative here is the Colorado preference for bogus hippie-era music, or, worse, 70s. (good lord. Jethro Tull just came on!)
So every day Heather (Terry Donahue's wife) has the TV in our collective apartment cranked to CNN/New Orleans. I basically never watch TV on my own, but I am interested in this horror (my sister lost her house and every material possession she had in this city of magical disorientation). The worst of it is not the hurricane -- I'd much rather go down in a natural disaster than by the hand of human stupidity -- but the US government's monstrous sluggishness in responding. 3rd World Country, indeed. Well, anyway, they're mostly blacks in that dome, so who cares? Laura Bush was on camera today, and, while I'm not any kind of big fan of hers, I wished for that moment that SHE was president and not (the unnamable). She actually appeared to be human.
Well, at over nine thousand feet I'm not in much danger of floodwaters. But this horrendous situation demands renewed efforts to support those in need, and renewed efforts to fight back against the monstrosity that America has become.
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