Friday, April 30, 2010

Jewelry, Movies and Baseball

Good morning. It's beautiful here in Chicago, and it looks like what promises to be another perfect day. My only complaint is that it is early Friday morning and no one needs to get up. Yet I can't sleep because I am so use to getting Ed up and driving Becki to the train station at this hour.

Speaking of Becki. We went to a fashion jewelry demonstration last night. We enjoyed ourselves. There were about 9 people there, and 3 of them decided to have parties. Becki spent time talking to the demonstrator afterwards, and decided that she wants to sell jewelry. It's a huge outlay at the beginning, which the demonstrator told her would come back almost instantly. The girl said she's brand new at this and has had 9 parties in less than a month. She's already turning a profit.

This looked like something Becki and I would go around about for hours. I told her, "You're an adult. You're old enough to make your own mistakes. I can't help you with the outlay. You have to do it yourself. If it works out for you, great. If not, you're stuck with the fallout." So, I guess we wait to see at this point. If she can come up with the cash, great. If she does well at this and really does make money. Absolutely fabulous. If she loses money, she learned a hard lesson.

The other excitement around here is that Ed is working on his final project for his film appreciation class. He's making a movie. The script is pretty funny. It is about one brother who is arrested for public urination, and the second brother who tries to bail the first out of jail. This has been fun to watch. He's given all of his friends parts, and they have been loyal about showing up here for filming. That is all but Bubby. He's had to work, so bowed out early.

I'm enjoying watching this happen, and Ed has been a different creature since beginning this process. He and his best friend, Tommy, wrote the script. Luis is directing. Adam is playing the lead and Arthur the incarcerated brother. Amanda is the brother's girlfriend. There's a few smaller characters as well. Dave is filming it and Hector is the sound man.

That surprised me because Dave hasn't been here in over a year. After Jon finished his schooling, he threw a kegger. Dave got so plastered he picked a fight with Jon, although he refused to leave. I got up at 6AM and I found him and Chris sitting in the kitchen. Chris was sober but afraid to leave Dave to his own devises. Dave had his arms wrapped around the keg, saying, "But there's still beer left, Man." (Ah hem, alcoholic.)

They started filming Tuesday, and they spent most of Wednesday editing. Ed came home complaining that all of his best friends were crappy actors. They filmed some yesterday and edited some last night. "Two things went wrong," he said. First off, he said that the words they wrote sounded so good on paper. Once he had real people speaking them, they sounded so contribed. After a while, the actors were instructed to put the script in their own words.

"Big difference," he said. "You know the scene in the car?" he asked me.

"What about it?"

"Everytime we hit a bump the camera jumped." So that's something he has to work out. He has a lot more planned today.

Jon is truly disappointed he isn't here for this. He and Luis had their very own cable access show when they were in high school. It was called 'History from the Hill.' Luis was the on air talent while Jon did the camera work, directed and produced it. But then again he's disappointed too, because he joined an adult baseball league with Eric, his cousin, D, and his roommate. He couldn't be here for the first practise.

Oh, and we're all kind of disappointed. Ivan is leaving again. This time he's traveling to California where he intends to go to culinary school. He was a cook in the Navy, so I guess this is a good a thing. We'll miss him, but we are pulling for him.

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