Folks...

You know...

People have asked.... “Don’t you people have lives?”

Here’s my answer....

Tonight... God took a piss on us, and my lord it was magnificient!

Word had it that a storm was coming. A wicked storm. The type that Snoopy begins his tales with. But only children are afraid of a flash of lightning and a rumble of thunder... right?

When the rains began I was showing one fella the EYES WIDE SHUT ShoWest footage in a cubby hole chiseled out of the side of the METROPOLITAN theater. Then... The rains came.

Vinyl-Boy, RoRo, Johnny Wad, Quint, Mr FanBoy, Father Geek and I are all huddled together. When Father Geek says, “The flaps are not all zipped up on the tent... Our shit is gonna get wet!”

All of a sudden, I stare the sky in it’s bubbling toiling eye and begin unbuttoning my shirt. I’m heading into the, up to, 80 mph gale force winds with blinding rain and a chance of golf ball size hail and tornadoes to ‘Zip up the Tent’ and ‘hold down the fort’!

Instantly the wind propells me past the tent, like Buster Keaton, I lean into the wind at a ridiculous angle whilst unzipping it. I dive in trying desperately to see.... You see, at this exact moment, God took out the lights. The theater, the parking lights.... EVERYTHING was plunged into darkness. Be very fucking afraid. The dome tent was looking closer and closer to a snowball stuck on the side of a brick wall, with me as the wet center.

I struggle to feel around for the lamp. One of those collapsable ones. I snap it open, twist the switch and..... LIGHT! Hahahahaa! I scream with joy. I can see!

The interior of the tent’s sides would range from convex to concave, from Giger-esque to O’Keefe-esque... I felt like I was trapped inside the television set from VIDEODROME. The flapping sound of gigantic leathery bat wings, thousands of them filled my ears, driving me insane. I look about for some candles to light to melt wax onto cloth to stuff into my ears so I can pilot myself through this storm like Captain Sinbad.... But there were no candles.

Instead... I found my portable CD-Player. I get my SINGING IN THE RAIN cd, advance to the Gene Kelly ‘Singing in the Rain’ track (#20) hit repeat mode and began singing along as I begin fixing up the tent. Zipping and strapping. Moving items off the ground of the tent and Up into the safer regions where I lay.

I hear screams of terror, excitement and visceral thrills coming from tents and people hiding all around me. I turn the volume up, till all I can hear is Gene Kelly... and a faint flapping of the pteradactyls attacking my tent.

I begin making shadow animals on the animated sides of the tent, when suddenly the Four Winds that live above Crom decided to kick my ass. Until this point, it was merely exciting... but tolerable.

This is when the gusts started coming from all sides and.... My god, I was “Taya in da wind” like a naked Clarice Starling on a camp.

A big poof levels my dome tent, snapping the poles in a mighty crack. My arms shoot out to begin fighting the interior of the tent. trying to keep some semblence of protection. It wasn’t looking good. Folks... I tell you at this point the Coleman lantern was knocked off the cooler, Cds were getting wet and I.... Well... I was all that stood between the roof of the tent and the floor.

The wind was howling, picking up parts of the tent and folding it. Waves of water were lifted off the cement ground and washed over me. I could feel the pools of water on the other side of the nylon membrane. I was in a very violent womb.

The bungee cord pull downs were loose and in the lightning blasts I could see their shadows pounding about my head with a percussive “th th th thump!!!!”

Folks... It really doesn’t get any more remarkable. I hear my AICN crew screaming, “HOLY SHIT! THE TENT IS LEVELED! THEY’RE ALL LEVELED!”

I see shadows of chairs flying, inflated mattresses floating in the air, and any second I expect my ass to land on the fucking wicked witch of the east! Any second Helen Hunt’s dad is gonna be swept up into the twister. I’m in the shit.

Folks... If you think I camped for a movie, you are sadly mistakened. I camped for THIS. An experience, a thrill. The howling of winds, the pounding of surf, wrestling with the elements. Sure the chances of having a real life adventure alongside a movie theater over the course of a scant few days is not very likely....

But guess what? It happened. An intense visceral experience that tells you that you’re alive, you’re breathing, that life is a fucking blast... That adrenaline is a damn amazing natural high! That, that which does not kill you can entertain the living shit out of ya!

The movie has always been secondary to me, it’s been the line. WHat would happen, how would the experience work? Would cities be leveled? Would the world end?

And ya know... For over an hour tonight after the wind broke that tent, and I clutched ahold of the poles trying to wrestle them back into place and the Harpies were tormenting me whilst my light went out and I was as blind as Phinius and the Argonauts never came. I was left to my own devices... And I liked it that way!

It was my adventure. Me vs the BLAIR WITCH. Me vs the terrible SAND STORM. Me upon the deck of the Sea Wolf strapped to my wheel howling obscenities and laughing like Wolf Larson.

Tonight is the life I lead. It doesn’t exist just in a movie theater, but on the other side of the wall as well. After this is posted... I’m heading back for more. Just had to come home and let you hear about it!

23 hours to go.... heh heh.... What a cool fucking way to kick off the last 24! No more tents, just us and the elements. Mano a Nature. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. We’ve been through hell and high water... and we’re seeing this movie. It may suck, it may rock, but it’s the journey we take to see the movie that really matters... and what an odyssey it has been....