Top Ten List

The Top Ten reasons I haven't been posting as often as I should:

10. There are two movie posters I have to design and complete printing on a catalogue by October 30. One poster is for Beyond Loch Ness. I did my required two comps and then realized the second one was eerily similar to another design I had done for the same company a couple of years ago (although I have no idea what movie). The second one is Termination Point with Jason Priestley and Lou Diamond Phillips. I haven't finished that one yet - even though it's due tomorrow - because they sent 5 DVDs of stills for me to wade through. That's about 3000 photos, mostly repetitive. Aack!

9. Take tomorrow's schedule, for instance...(a) drop car off to the mechanics (last time I took it in was 15,000 miles ago...oops), (b) pick up rental car, (c) drop an advance copy of the book to my publicist, (d) stop by photo lab doing the prints for the gallery shows and tell them I don't like the test printings and discuss the possibly of them just doing the color but on a different paper, (e) stop by two other labs to discuss the possibilities of them doing the black and white prints (old school style) for the gallery shows, (f) call scanner dude and see if he can whip out two large prints for a TV show I'm taping on Wednesday (even though they're in the midst of moving to a new building), (g) make an in-person sales call on Virgin, (h) make another stop to pick up my tickets for the Elizabeth: The golden Age premiere, (i) get back to the office to do the regular work.

8. Read my book in preparation for a Tuesday morning radio interview. It's for the Young & Verna show and will be geared to the country people in the book, but the guy that's interviewing me also wants to do a second interview geared to the rock musicians as well. I think it all goes through Westwood One and the interview[s] could end up on hundreds (300 - 500) of radio stations, including the Armed Forces radio. No idea when and where it's going to air, but if anybody happens to hear me on the radio please let me know when, where, and on what show.

7. Prepare for the TV interview on Wednesday. I'll be on Joan Quinn Profiles. It's a national cable show and important because it's not only a respected author interview show with the die hard book-buying public but we will also use the tape to show that I don't look and sound like a complete dufus on TV. Problem is, it's a small show so I have to provide the show and tell - blow-up prints for the set and mounted pages from the book that Joan can hold up as I talk about the book. And there's no make-up person so I have to find someone. And I have to mentally prepare just like I do for every interview.

6. Thursday morning I am flying out of Burbank to Seattle, picking up a rental car and driving up to Vancouver. Why wouldn't I just fly right into Vancouver, you ask? My Canadian passport renewal is still being processed (watch...it will arrive in my mailbox on Wednesday) and as of tomorrow, October 1st you cannot fly to and from Canada without a passport. However, you can drive across with a driver's license and green card. Go figure.

5. Thursday and Friday will be spent hunting down a gallery or space I can rent and turn into a gallery for my show. This is last minute because I just found out the gallery I will be showing at in L.A. can't do my opening until at least mid-November. So, I've decided to try and launch the book with a blow-out party in Vancouver, where about 85% of the pictures in the book were taken.

4. Also on Thursday, Friday and Saturday I hope to catch up with the record reps (now all doing other things) that I worked for up there and haven't seen in a million years. Oh yeah, and also line up some publicity and meet the sales reps that work for my Canadian distributor.

3. I will return to L.A. on Sunday evening and catch up on all the work I missed while away (hopefully most of it will be taken care of by my trusty assistant that came on board a week ago) and finish up the movie art before I leave for Austin, Texas at 7am on Wednesday morning.

2. I will spend five days in Austin attend the Austin Film Festival (aka drinking in the Driskill bar) and also doing whatever I can to pimp my book. I have a couple of meet and greets lined up and am trying to get a meeting with the SXSW folks in hopes of doing a gallery show during their festival in March '08 (anybody reading this have a direct connection to the top people at SXSW?). Would also like to do some press while there.

1. All the other stuff I have to do that should have been done yesterday...or last week...or last month...things that don't have a specific deadline, including but not limited to getting in touch with more family members of the musicians in the book, contacting associated record companies, move on our online campaign, create a pitch for something to do with the book that I can't tell you about...and...breathe.

Okay, that wore me out. G'night.