COUNTRY TIME - Part 5
Biscuits, Bullets, and Barefoot Benedictions
Greetings from a hotel in Fishkill, New York - a name the Dutch intended as “fish creek” but frankly sounds like a threat. I am here on documentary business, specifically about technology and humanness (natch), but the real clock ticks toward Washington. This Friday, June 12, at 10:30 AM, Films Not Made goes live at DC/DOX - an episode taped in front of actual breathing humans, with filmmakers Jessica Wolfson and Paul Lovelace and their great unmade Jerry Rubin picture. Then Saturday at 12:30, the workshop: From Pitch to Greenlight, in which Amy and I demonstrate - live, without a net - how the machines can now assist in developing the movies we all are trying to make. If you're at the festival, come find us. And yeah - I'll be the one checking levels.
Meanwhile the show has been compounding like my kids’ 529 plans. Since I last wrote, five episodes have entered the world:
Episode 5: The Sisterhood - Effie Brown and Nichol Bradford
Episode 6: The Amateur Pornographer - Ted Hope and Christopher Monger
Episode 7: Stamp & Deliver - Dan Mirvish
Episode 8: DJ Natalie's Neighborhood - Natalie Weiss
Episode 9: The Fall - Joe Maggio and Tom Hall, fresh this week: a dark Niagara Falls comedy that very nearly starred John Turturro
And for everyone who keeps asking how the trailers actually get made: I stopped describing it and filmed it. Down Into the Pipes is the full walkthrough of the backend - five years from a blinking cursor to the command line (Claude Code and its cousins) and back into the director's chair. The companion essay lives on the show's own Substack - a different church, same religion. Please subscribe there too.
Now. When we last left Nashville, the roundtable had wrapped, the baklava had redeemed the ranch dressing, and I promised you Monday. It is Monday, March 4, 2024.
Project: It’s All Country
March 4, 2024
Crossing the biscuit frontier
As Nashville delicately shrugged off its winter coat, a cavalcade of spring's early vanguards - daffodils standing to attention like eager sentinels, cherry blossoms gossiping of the impending warmth, and the air, a heady mix suggestive of the earth's reawakening - set the stage for our day's odyssey. Encased within the metal womb of our van, we embarked on a quest that was less about the rigors of production and more a pilgrimage past the architectural chimera I like to call "the 2D Castle house," a domicile conjured from the fever dreams of an eight-year-old king with a Crayola scepter.
Our journey through the cookie-cutter expanse of suburbia, where anticipation crackled like a vinyl record's static, was a comedy of errors and expectations. Upon the grand unveiling of the pièce de résistance, the collective gasp and chuckle in our van could have powered a small hamlet. Scott, ever the philosopher, pondered the existential crisis that must have besieged the architect tasked with this folly. What words were exchanged in that hallowed meeting of minds? "More turrets, please"?
What words were exchanged in that hallowed meeting of minds? “More turrets, please”?
More on this point - the hyperreality of the crenelated monstrosity was only further driven home when we had to pause our journey to allow for a school bus to pick up its roadside quarry. When I looked out the window I couldn't help but notice that we were idling in front of the entrance to a subdivision regally entitled "Hunterwood." Ah, "Hunterwood," a name that conjures images of English gentry and greenwood romps, yet simultaneously evokes...absolutely nothing. It's as if the developers, in a moment of uninspired genius, threw darts at a board laden with 'woodsy' suffixes and 'aristocratic' prefixes, and thus Hunterwood was born, bereft of hunters and woods alike. Beneath this heraldic banner, a bugle - a call to what, exactly? The wilds of manicured lawns and two-car garages? The grand irony of this emblem, a bugle, an instrument of the hunt, an invocation to gather, to chase, to sound the depths of adventure, reduced to a mere decorative flourish beneath the blandest of names. It's as if Magritte himself wandered into Tennessee, chortling, "Ceci n'est pas un bois." In this, perhaps, we find the perfect metaphor for our postmodern condition: a world awash in signs stripped of their significance, where the bugle's call echoes hollow in the void between what is named and what is known. Yes, more turrets, indeed.
Meanwhile, Kaleb, our resident Gen-Z anachronist, dialed the clock back with a playlist that smelled of mothballs and nostalgia. His sonic alchemy turned our transit into a sepia-toned memory, the landscape outside blurring into a montage set to the anthems of yesteryear. For a fleeting moment, the generational divide in the van dissolved, and we were all just kids again, noses pressed to the glass, lost in the rhythm of the road.
Our destination, The Country Boy, loomed like a gastronomic Valhalla, promising succor and sustenance. Crossing its threshold was akin to entering a smoked and cured meat sarcophagus, the very air thick with the ghosts of breakfasts past. The question hung heavy - just how many pounds of bacon does it take to marinate a building in its essence?
After setting up and surveying the end-of-day backdrop of a gently babbling creek, the siren call of bacon, egg, and cheese biscuits heralded an unforeseen test of willpower. There stood Grant, a modern-day Odysseus, wrestling not with sirens but with the tantalizing embrace of flaky, butter-laden biscuits. His proclamation, "They're just sitting there," was both a justification and a battle cry, one that resonated deep within my carb-conscious soul.
“They're just sitting there.” - Grant, a modern-day Odysseus, on the biscuits
Yet, as the hands of the clock marched on with the indifference of a metronome, I too succumbed to the biscuit's buttery siren song. Margo, ever the sage, guided me through this culinary labyrinth with the ease of a gastronomic Virgil, decreeing that the bacon and fried egg ensemble was the only choice for an epicurean of discerning taste. Her wisdom, a beacon in the cholesterol-laden fog, steered me true.
The biscuit in hand was not merely food; it was a decadent testament to Southern culinary prowess, a harbinger of a day unshackled by the Mediterranean's healthful grasp. As I stood, the weight of the biscuit in my palm a tangible reminder of the day's indulgences, Michelle's declaration rang clear - we had indeed embarked on a New World adventure, far from the olive groves and feta cheese of yore. With resolve steeled and the Latin inscription on my ring whispering of burnt ships and irreversible courses, I knew the day's odyssey was only just beginning. Thus armed, I unwrapped my prize, a biscuit so rich in butter it might well have been churned in the Elysian Fields themselves, a breakfast so decadent it could make a statin pill weep.
Yet, as the last crumbs fell, a clarion call to action rang out. We were pioneers on the biscuit frontier, ready to forge ahead, biscuits in the belly and hearts ablaze with the spirit of adventure. Our odyssey took a detour through Carrie Underwood's pastoral driveway, a serendipitous misadventure that only added to the day's lore. Finally, at Wynonna's sanctuary, amidst tales of Tanya Tucker's renegade bovine and the discovery of a lone bullet as if dropped by the ghost of Johnny Cash himself, I was anointed by Wynonna's reassuring pat, a benediction in the Church of Country, affirming that indeed, "everything's going to be all right."
I was anointed by Wynonna's reassuring pat, a benediction in the Church of Country: “everything's going to be all right.”
In her conversation with Luke, Wynonna revealed the grounding ritual of her barefoot performances, a testament to her battle with anxiety. Like a tree seeking roots, she finds her solace in the connection to the earth, a poignant metaphor for her journey in the limelight, tethered to the tumultuous soil of fame and expectation.
Raised under the austere tutelage of a strict matriarch, Wynonna learned early the gospel of grit and grind. Her gold records, now relegated to cardboard confinement in the dim corners of a garage, serve as silent sentinels to the relentless work ethic instilled in her. In the twilight of her illustrious career, she turns her gaze towards the nascent blooms of female talent in the country music garden, eager to nourish and mentor, to pass on the wisdom mined from her own trials and triumphs.
Her counsel, simple yet profound, echoes the timeless adage of fiscal prudence - "save your money." A beacon at 18 on the charts, she traversed the hallowed grounds warmed by the spotlight of country greats – Merle, George, Loretta, and Tammy – absorbing their greatness, their aura, as she opened for them, a pilgrim in the shrine of musical deities.
Luke Bryan, our troubadour of the modern era, reminisced about the rapture of a record deal, a rite of passage now lost in the digital maelstrom of streams and TikToks, pondering if the fledgling artists of today grasp the sanctity of that covenant, the vinyl communion of yesteryear. In this confluence of past and present, Wynonna and Luke wove a narrative rich with reverence for roots, yet acutely aware of the shifting sands beneath the stage lights of country music.
Then Wynonna sat in for her interview and Michelle teed her up. Wynonna now finds herself somewhere between "hell and hallelujah," her silence often mistaken for arrogance but truly a shield for vulnerability, a remnant from the bygone era of '80s country music - a time of communal bonds rather than mere industry transactions. In today's fragmented digital age, she stands as a beacon advocating for authenticity, urging artists to embrace transparency, consistency, and kindness. Reminiscing about the past's camaraderie, she calls for a revival of genuine connection, underpinned by the sage advice to get a good lawyer.
Country music's essence, according to Wynonna, lies in its unvarnished honesty and its ability to unite diverse souls in a shared narrative, especially as the genre anticipates a resurgence with the "coming summer." She cherishes the burgeoning sisterhood of female artists armed with guitars, heralding a new dawn of inclusivity and expression in country music. Onstage, she transcends the mere act of performance, becoming a vessel for something far greater, guided by a spirituality that infuses her shows with a profound sense of peace and purpose, a testament to a career built on integrity, punctuality, and an enduring respect for the craft and its roots. As she says: "don't waste anyone's time."
“Don't waste anyone's time.” - Wynonna, summarizing in five words what Seneca needed a book for
As twilight embraced the sky, painting everything in gold, the creek beside The Country Boy transformed into an al fresco concert hall. The collective, featuring Wynonna, Aaron, Justin, Cactus, and Luke, spun a sonic web that seemed to capture the dying day's glow. Aaron's guitar licks took flight, Justin's slide guitar laid down a velvety path, and the group's shared exuberance melted away the day's toll from my shoulders. Wynonna's voice, potent and enveloping, drew us into a vortex of melody and emotion, making the thought of departure unthinkable. The fellowship and laughter that flowed as freely as the music left us all grinning, wide-eyed under the spell of the moment, even Luke, who humbly admitted his fingers couldn't dance fast enough to keep pace with the chords.
The encore to our day was a second meal that, against all odds, managed to surprise, largely thanks to the heroic intervention of Ken's Steakhouse honey mustard dressing, which transformed my humble salad into something bordering on yummy. As we gathered around the table, Margo ambitiously squared off against a burger, while Scott cast his grilled cheese aside with a look of betrayal, as if it had promised him the moon and delivered a lump of coal. Amid the sounds of equipment and disposable cutlery, I couldn't help but muse on the curious magnetism of the Country Boy's fare, its "gas station food." This term, much like the suburban mirage of "Hunterwood" and the cardboard cutout castle, seemed another mismatch in the grand (failing American) tapestry of sign and signified - a culinary vortex that somehow turned the prosaic into the profound but for no good reason.
Sheryl Crow live on stage tomorrow!
PARTING SHOT
Seneca, writing two thousand years before anyone strapped on a lavalier: “It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.” - De Brevitate Vitae. Available free, in the public domain, which is to say: it costs nothing and everything.
Meanshile… the future keeps its schedule. This very week, Tribeca premiered Dreams of Violets - the first fully AI-generated feature to crack a major festival's official program. The distance from pitch to greenlight is collapsing in real time, which happens to be the precise terrain of Saturday's workshop and the whole Films Not Made podcast. Come watch us walk it.