Backwoods Bash 2013

This past Memorial Day Weekend I spent all of my time at the always awesome, always independent, and always a blast, Backwoods Bash Music and Camping Festival. It's three days of camping by a beautiful lake, hanging out with some beautiful people, and listening to a beautiful collection of indie bands from around the region. My personal fav band this year was GROOVEMENT out of Fayetteville, Arkansas. But there were a lot of good musical acts to choose from. A little something for everyone.

This year the festival is supporting the non-profit organization SIAME which I'm a member of. The organization had a nice tent set up for fun activities for the kids like painting, a drum circle, and feather art. 

Whole Foods donated tents for SIAME plus free organic bananas and apples with coffee for campers. I worked the tent with some wonderful volunteers and it was one of the best experiences I've had at the festival, which is saying something since I've been participating in Backwoods Bash since the very first year.

The festival itself has come along way in six years. In 2008 we had maybe 300 people, but now that number has grown into the thousands with more discovering this great festival every year. I'm so proud to be a part of it and can't wait to see what wonderful things are in store for Backwoods Bash and for SIAME in the near future.

Good people. Good music. Good times.

The First US Formula 1 Grand Prix in Austin (Day 2)

Thanks to my father, I was indeed fortunate to be given the opportunity to go to my first Formula 1 race in person. I've been a huge F1 racing fan for many years. I love it so much I even wrote a young adult novel about the sport. What made this event special was that the Grand Prix race was held at a brand new racing circuit called, The Circuit of the Americas. It was built specifically for Formula 1 cars, a first for North America. The circuit was raised from the ground up during most of 2012, then polished up just in time for the Formula 1 race weekend on November 16th-18th of this year. The following is part two of my first-person account of the race weekend. Hope you enjoy it. (Click here to read Part One) 5:45am Sunday morning. Race morning. We get up and our brains are still on snooze, but we get dressed and hit the road anyway. Our hotel is in Temple, Texas which is about an hour north of Austin, only place we could find under $150 a night. And we booked months early too. It's all water under the bridge as we chow down on a quick McDonald's breakfast and make it to the downtown shuttle bus location in Austin. It's a forty-five minute bus ride out to the track, then a few miles walking after you get off. And then another mile or two walk to our seats. No one can say that we aren't getting our exercise during this trip. We make it to our seats at 9:30am just in time to see the first race of the day, a 10-lap all GT-3 Porsche race. It's fun watching these Porsches thundering down the racetrack. But one thing I notice is these cars look slow going through the S-curves compared to the lightning fast speed of the Formula 1 cars, which is strange because these GT-3 Porsches are quite fast in their own right.
 

Next race is an all Ferrari super-car lineup. These showroom Ferrari's are slightly modified to handle this circuit. The honor of driving them falls on a bunch of Ferrari dealers who get to pitch these cars around in this amateur race. It's fun to watch one of them crash a brand-new Ferrari. The crowd also pity-applauds the Ferrari in last place.  Hunger tickles our bellies so I convince Dad to go grab our lunch now so he doesn't miss the start of the Grand Prix. The food choices here are interesting. The jumbo corn dogs that you can get at the state fair for about $6 are $10 here. That's nuts. What's that a 95 percent markup? It's a hotdog with batter.  The big sausage sandwich is $15. Someone also sells Krispy Kreme donuts at a very high price too. Dad found a hot dog place yesterday that was only $5 a dog, a bargain here. Unfortunately today, everyone found out about the hot dog place and now it's too busy. So dad gets us nachos which comes with a cup of cheese, a cup of peppers, and a bag of Tostitos Tortilla chips. Oh well. We're not here to enjoy lunch. We're here to see some racing action! The pomp and circumstance for the Formula 1 race begins. The University of Texas marching band plays at the Start/Finish line. We see them on the jumbo-trons, pounding on their drums, smashing on their cymbals, and blowing their trumpets. But we're too far out and can't hear them at all. Guess the show is not really for us. Now a line of vintage American cars forms on the grid. All convertibles. Each Formula 1 driver sits on the back to wave at the crowd as the cars make their way around the circuit. Except driver Kimi Raikkonen's Mustang, it's having some issues so he hops on-board with another driver.

After the tour on the track ends, we wait. The race cars form on the Start/Finish grid. The crews make last-minute checks. The national anthem plays as a man with an American flag parachutes down.
 

A flight of three World War Two aircraft and an F-16 do a diamond-shape formation over the circuit. The parachute guy realizes he's taking too long and dives down quicker to get out of the way of the low-flying aircraft. Finally the safety car (or pace car as we like to say in America) leads the group of cars for a parade lap around the circuit. Cars weave back and forth to try to warm up their tires so they'll stick to the pavement better.

I'm way past excited. The cars are right in front of me. I'm not seeing all this on television. It's in-person and it's wonderful. In the stands, I can feel the anticipation in the air. Over 120,000 fans collectively hold their breath, like 120,000 antsy children waiting for the teacher to call recess. The cars do their parade lap and line up to their places on the grid. We have to watch the jumbo-tron for this part. But that's okay. Five red lights come on one by one and I know what's coming next. Wait for it... The lights go out and the cars are moving. Many fans are ooing and awwing at the screen, but my gaze falls to my left. I'm not missing my first glimpse of all those cars screaming down the S curves in front of us for the very first time. Here they come. Fast. Very fast. The leaders at the front. My favorite Ferrari driver Fernando Alonzo had a great start on the grid, managing to jump from 8th place to 4th going before going uphill to the first turn. The screaming engines fill the air, piercing my eardrums, and it feels soooo damn good.

The race is fast and furious. My head swivels, trying to check out everything that's happening. The cars on the S-curves in front of us. The faraway straightaway on the other side that funnels cars to the action-packed Turn 12. The series of turns out of turn 12. Lots to keep up with and it's awesome.

 Kimi Raikkonen makes an amazing pass on the tricky S-Curves in front of us. How cool is that? It was so gutsy that no one else tries to duplicate it during the race.

Sebastian Vettel, who is leading the World Championship, keeps the number one spot. But second-place Lewis Hamilton reels Vettel in lap-by-lap while Alonzo and Kimi make their own charges up the black pole. Soon Hamilton catches up to Vettel and zooms around him going down the long straightaway towards Turn 12 opposite us. And we see it right from our seats! Hamilton keeps his lead. Alonzo climbs to third-place but can't make any more ground on Vettel and Hamilton. Hamilton goes on to win, joining Vettel and Alonzo on the winner's podium. Normally, each driver wears a cap from the Italian tire manufacturer Pirelli  with #1 #2 and #3 on them. But Texas always has to be different. The Pirelli caps have been turned into black cowboy hats. It looks funny on all three of them. I'm sorry that Alonzo wasn't able to win. But it's nice to see Hamilton win because lately it's been all Vettel and it's kind of boring. Still, what a fantastic race! Now all of us have to leave... All 120,000 of us.

The human traffic jam is enormous. Waiting to go through the two pedestrian bridges takes awhile, in some places you only move four feet every five minutes. Yet, we still make it to the other side and walk down the long, gravel pathways to the long bus shuttle lines. Saturday's lines were long, but it doesn't compare with these. Almost a half a mile I would say, maybe longer. So we wait. But the cool thing that we all get to witness is world democracy in action. Our line is filled with every nationality and ethnicity one can think of, forming a true melting-pot of the world. And in this world the one thing that can bind people together...is their outrage of seeing a-holes trying to cut in line. Especially THIS line. One by one, people in line rat out people who try to cut in. And we always know when these little line-dodgers are getting near us because the crowd takes turns booing and verbally mocking them all the way down to the end as they do their walk of shame. It's hilarious. Finally we climb aboard our bus and get to our car in Downtown Austin. We are tired but in extremely high spirits. The weekend is the best I've had in a long time and I think my dad would agree. As an American fan of F1, I'm glad to have our race back again.  A huge thanks to the people of Austin, the people who run the Circuit of the Americas, and all the people involved in Formula 1 for making it a special weekend! I hope to be back for more next year.

The First US Formula 1 Grand Prix in Austin (Day 1)

Standing on the Turn 5 bleachers at the Circuit of The Americas[/caption] Thanks to my father, I was indeed fortunate to be given the opportunity to go to my first Formula 1 race in person. I've been a huge F1 racing fan for many years. I love it so much I even wrote a young adult novel about the sport. What made this event special was that the Grand Prix race was held at a brand new racing circuit called, The Circuit of the Americas. It was built specifically for Formula 1 cars, a first for North America. The circuit was raised from the ground up during most of 2012, then polished up just in time for the Formula 1 race weekend on November 16th-18th of this year. The following is my first-person account of the race weekend. Hope you enjoy it. So here's my problem. Due to unforseen circumstances, I can't drive down to Austin, Texas with my father on Friday of race weekend like we planned. So I whip up another plan. Dad drives down to Austin and grabs our room in Temple, Texas while I work in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Now Saturday is when things might get a little tricky... Qualifying for the US Formula 1 Grand Prix begins at Noon and I want to be there. So I book a one-way flight on Southwest from Tulsa to Austin early Saturday Morning with a plane change in Dallas. According to the schedule, I have 35 minutes to make my connection to Austin. Yikes! Once I clear that hurdle, I have to grab a taxi at the airport and take it straight to the racing circuit and hope I get there before Noon. So to park my butt in the stands on time, everything must go perfectly. Air travel. Perfect? Yeah, I'm screwed. Early Saturday morning. I park my car in Tulsa, go to the gate, scarf down coffee and a muffin, and get on the plane. We leave on time. We get to Dallas. EARLY. It takes me only ten minutes to find my connecting gate. The flight leaves on-time and gets me to Austin EARLY. Are you kidding me? This is America and airlines don't run like this. But what do they say about looking a gifted horse in the mouth? Maybe the taxi ride will be a fiasco. I find the taxi lanes. No lines. I grab a taxi and it takes me way out in the boonies. I have no idea where we're going. But the police roadblocks and luxury charter buses tell me I'm heading to the right place. My taxi pulls into this massive expanse of white dirt and rocks with lines of taxis lining up to drop passengers off. There's a F1 racing circuit out here? I give my driver a credit card, but his wireless card reader has a tough time getting a connection way out here. Great. Good thing I brought cash. I pay him. The time? 11am. Wow. I can't believe I made it.

 

I'm now walking up this wide and rocky dirt path. Trees and shrubs all around me, a very Texas landscape. I don't see a track. But I hear one. Loud engines whining at full-power and screeching over the trees. The sounds moving from one side to the other. Excitement pumps into my veins because there's only one type of race car that makes THAT particular sound.
  I then see a tall viewing tower over the trees and the brush. We walk around a bend and a large all-metal sign stretches over the walk way. The Circuit of the Americas. Cool sign. Still, I don't see the track yet. More walking. And more walking. And more...you get the idea.

Finally I come to an area with cement. A large parking lot full of limos and shuttle busses that the important people get to use, not us rank and file fans. Then...we come to the circuit.

The big Circuit of the Americas tower.
 

Final Qualifying Grid for the 2012 US F1 Grand Prix[/caption] Large grandstands. And the big black pole with the fastest 12 drivers, their name and position number listed. I am here. Right where I need to be. And so are thousands of people. Many, many thousands of people. And they all speak so many different languages and dialects. Australian and British accents. New Yorker Bronx accents. Texan drawls. Russian. Spanish. Arabic. French. Japanese. It's truly a melting pot of the world, jammed together in just a few square miles of Texas. Now to find my seats. I called Dad at the airport, but I only got his voice mail. Didn't hear back so I assume I'll find him at our grandstand seats. To get to our side of the circuit, I have to cross two bridges over the race track. The first one is stuffed with people and moving at a snail's pace. They covered the sides of the bridge so people won't stop to look at the race track. But still, it's slow going. Now I go through bridge number two and its slow-moving also. Great. I travel all this way with no problems, get to the track an hour before Qualifying. And I'm going to miss it because I'm stuck on a stupid bridge OVER THE RACETRACK. Finally, I break free of the bridge and a voice says, "Doug! Doug!" It's my father going the opposite way toward the bridge. Ha! Almost 80,000 people here and I find my dad by chance. This morning is still going too perfectly. Dad takes me to our seats and...wow.

 

 We sit at Turn 5 and the view of the track is AWESOME!!! We can see the S curves in front of us.

 

We're high enough on the grandstand to see way over to the other side of the track. There's the long straightaway which has a critical turn at the end where lots of passing should be taking place. Then a couple more tight turns before the track tucks back behind the grandstands and meets back up with the Start/Finish line. At this point I'm as giddy as a school girl. These seats are near perfect. I had a sneaking suspicion that this section would have great views of the circuit. And it does. Feels so good when you've been proven right. Noon. Qualifying begins. In Formula 1, all the cars go out during a specific time session where they try to post the fastest lap times. Those making the cut, go to the next round and that's how the starting grid for the race is formed. The first Formula 1 car screams down the track in front of us and my eardrums are splitting open. The high-shrill of the V-8 engine is unbelievably loud. Holy Skidmarks. But I don't care because this is too awesome and no one can scrub the smile off my lips. Not even with a Brillo pad. Luckily Dad gives me earplugs so I don't go deaf.

 

Famous cars that I've seen hundreds of times on television now streak in front of me, but this time I see them with my own eyes. There's Michael Schumacher! Fernando Alonzo! Lewis Hamilton! The jumbo-tron shows George Lucas in the pits! The father of Star Wars is at my Grand Prix! (BTW - Thanks for selling off the Star Wars franchise, George. Personally I think it's a great move.) I just look at Dad and smile. I can't believe we are sitting here. Months ago, when we first heard that Formula 1 was coming to Austin, we both knew that we had to be there. Hell or high water. And now the dream has become real. And we're only halfway done. Now it's time for Denny's! We drive an hour north toward our hotel room in Temple, TX. (Austin rooms were way too expensive for that weekend) Dad and I are tired and hungry so we pick a Denny's on the side of the road. Lucky for Dad, they have Frodo's Pot Roast Skillet!

My dad falls in love with the dish and savours every morsel. He's so happy that Frodo made it fresh just for him. Perfect for a man who is a real JRR Tolkien fan way before it was cool. And to top off an already fantastic first day, the waitress gives my 70-year-old father a pack of free Hobbit trading cards! Next post...Sunday racing glory, world democracy in action, and the $10 jumbo corn dogs. READ PART TWO

The Austin Film Festival

 

This is the fourth time I've been to the Austin Film Festival. The last time was in 2003 when my script THE VETERAN was a second rounder in the screenwriting competition. The Austin screenwriting conference is held in conjunction with the film festival and it's one of the best conferences for screenwriters in the country. A-list writers from Los Angeles and other parts of the country descend on Austin, Texas to talk craft, bitch about Hollywood, and enjoy tasty beverages. 

I haven't been able to go in a while since I made the switch from screenplays to novels. However, the perfect storm began to form earlier this year when my brilliant screenwriting teacher, (I'm not exaggerating) Max Adams, moved from LA to Austin. Max teaches online classes through her Academy of Film Writing website and runs screenwriting group 5150. Most of her students have never met face to face, so getting such an opportunity to meet Max and all these awesome people in person...was just too good to pass up.

 

Friday of that weekend, I drove eight hours and reached Austin around three o'clock in the afternoon, then I headed straight to the classic and cool Driskill Hotel. Everyone knows the bar in this hotel is the beating heart of the festival. No VIP areas here. Everyone is equal and welcomed. I find my teacher Max and classy writer friends Kitty, Jacqueline, and Deborah surrounding a leather couch, just hanging out.

   

At first, I thought I would have to introduce myself, but within seconds they yelled, "Doug!" It was like we were all best friends forever. I couldn't believe how happy they were to see me. After multiple hugs, I sat down with my friends and we had a long night of drinks, friendship, and plenty of laughter. 

That night I met the awesome Julie Howe, a student of Max's who won the best screenplay award last year at Austin. Her script JASPER MILLIKEN was picked up by producers and director Jonathan Lynn (MY COUSIN VINNIE, THE WHOLE NINE YARDS) just signed on to direct the film. Hopefully it'll be coming to a theater near you. 

I also met Michael Canales. What a bubbling personality and so full of energy. Michael's the type of person that lights up a room when he enters. I have a sneaky feeling he's good at pitching his scripts in front of Hollywood execs. 

   

Saturday I got up early and caught two morning screenwriting sessions. The first had a group of authors who wrote screen adaptations of their work. Tom Perrotta, wrote the book ELECTION which the Alexander Payne movie with Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick was based on. Another author, Pamela Ribon, is also a writer for the television series SAMANTHA WHO and has developed many other television series. Cool stuff.

   

The second morning session I went to was with BONES show-runner Hart Hanson and author Kathy Reichs who writes a book series the television series is based on. 

Lunch was an adventure. I teamed up with my friend Deborah Chesher and a few other new writer friends and walked into one restaurant, but the manager wanted me to dump out my Starbucks coffee and also search the girl's handbags for smuggled food. Seriously? I don't know why he thought twelve hungry people would smuggle food into a restaurant. So we go to the bustling Irish Pub on the other side of the street. The Irish stew was delicious.

   

Saturday afternoon begins with a panel about writing fantastic horror movies. Rhett Reese who wrote ZOMBIELAND was there. And the most awesome screenwriter ever, Alvaro Rodriguez, the writer of MACHETE and FROM DUSK TILL DAWN 3. I'm excited because Alvaro was in Max's 5150 workshop 
and has been so cool about supporting me and a lot of other writers. 

   

The last panel I go to is with four television show-runners. Rodrigo Garcia who runs HBO's IN TREATMENT and has directed episodes of SIX FEET UNDER. Rob Thomas who created VERONICA MARS. Donald Todd writer/producer of  SAMANTHA WHO, ALF, and CAROLINE IN THE CITY. It was moderated by Barry Josephson. Quite a panel of heavy hitters. 

That night, I went to dinner with my friends. We find a nice Thai restaurant and discover our waitress is brand new and has trouble understanding English. You see where this is going. Luckily most of us did get what we ordered, except for Max.  Instead of the Thai version of beef stew with bread that she ordered, out comes a bowl of pond water with colorful veggies floating on top. Yuck. But soon things got cleared up and Max got her bread and something that looks like it had beef in it.

   

That night we found another leather couch and hung out at the Driskill bar where I met screenwriter Terry Rossio. Terry is an A-list screenwriter and such a nice guy. I just listened as he talked about his Hollywood war stories.

 

Sunday Morning I decide to check out the Texas Book Festival on the grounds of the Texas State Capitol. It was packed, but it was nice to see so many kids at a book festival. There were a lot of exhibitor tents with food, games, entertainment for the kids, and a big list of authors. I was so happy to see that young adult writer superstar Ellen Hopkins was going to be there that day.

Ellen's panel took place on the floor of the House chambers inside the Texas State Capital. The audience got to sit in the large leather chairs the representatives use, each of us with a fancy wood desk with a metal panel that had Yay or Nay buttons for voting.

   

Sunday afternoon I returned to the good old Driskill Bar. Deborah Chesher finally had time to show me her short film END OF THE INNOCENTS. She ran a Kickstarter campaign to fund it and I tossed in a couple of bucks. The movie is so freaking good and she did a fantastic job directing it. The cinematography, the directing, the acting, everything was exceptional. Deborah made the short film as a visual calling card for her feature-length screenplay version of the story. Go to her website to view the trailer. 

Deborah will be submitting END OF THE INNOCENTS to film festivals and I'm confident you will be see this film making the rounds. Keep your eyes out for it. 

Late Sunday afternoon and the screenwriting conference is wrapping up. The bar at the Driskill gets quiet. Alvaro Rodriguez and his friend Jose sit down with me and we talk about writing. Alvaro is writing this cool western that I hope gets made because the premise sounds awesome. Jose is a trip. He's from Philly and we bitch about the same things. As he told me later, it was a very cathartic conversation. 

Sunday night comes and I must say goodbye to all my friends, old and new. Reluctantly, I steer my car North towards Oklahoma, convinced I've just had one of the best weekends of my life. 

As my friend Trevor would say...Good People, Good Times.