the ringing of the division bell has begun

never go back to the hotel.

yesterday was just like any other day. my groceries were still sitting on my kitchen counter, not yet put away, i had just finished watching dodes'ka-den, which i'd (accurately) heard described as akira kurosawa's worst movie, and was on my way to the byu bookstore to pick up a packet for my brother-in-law when i decided to check the mail. amidst the weekly coupon fliers and my gas bill was another small envelope from texas A&M.

great, they want to reject me again, i thought as i opened it out of curiosity in my idling car.

Dear Jeffrey, Congratulations! We are pleased to inform you of your admission to Texas A&M University for the Fall 2010 semester....

i reread it and scanned over it, catching only every fourth word as my eyes stumbled in confusion. hmmm, that's interesting. i'll have to call them tomorrow, i thought as i put the car in gear. i made it about 25 feet further down the street before the possible implications had my heart beating so fast that my hands were shaking as i made a u-turn and was soon running up the stairs to my room. i read over the letter again and saw a name and number to call if i had any questions.

i most definitely had a question.

by 4:30 utah time their office was already empty, though i called twice just to make sure. the contact info also provided an e-mail address and i typed one out as quickly and coherently as i could manage, constantly stopping to make sure that i was making sense as i hurriedly fumbled over the keyboard.

i compared this letter to the rejection notice dated eight days earlier, hoping for some sort of explanation. it seemed that one, the rejection, was from the university at large, while my acceptance was from the department to which i had applied. i remembered that the application process had seemed a little vague at places, as it seemed that i was filling out forms on both the main university website and the department's own site. i went over it enough times to make sure that i had completed everything, but it seemed i hadn't. if that was the case, at least it seemed that i had made it through the more demanding selection. maybe i had just not finished the university application and with some appeals, could amend it and secure my admission.

my head was spinning. a week ago, the door had seemed shut for at least a year. just monday, a friend was asking me what i was going to do now and i ad libbed that i would apply again, finding a few more colleges to add and make sure everything was nicely polished. really, i hadn't thought about it much, with work being so busy, and i was grateful for that distraction. but the door wasn't yet open. maybe i had not chance at reversing the university's rejection, that i had only passed one of two criteria and would simply have to do better next time. it was maddening. maybe my whole life would be changing in four months, or maybe i was still out. i did my best to hold to hope without getting in the way of disappointment.

i wanted to keep this all quiet, just in case it didn't happen. there was no need in disappointing anyone else with me. still, i had to tell someone, so i called my sister. i made a cryptic post on facebook that i later regretted (wanting to keep the whole thing off the radar) but by the time i got around to deleting my status update, there were already comments. mark suggested in-n-out for dinner and, holding my thick chocolate shake, i chose to tell him, too, or else i wouldn't have heard a word he'd say.

thankfully, an evening of rock band and movie night and more rock band helped me forget the uncertain balance that my future was in.

i hoped to call the admissions office early this morning, but didn't have time before breakfast at ihop with my sister and then a funeral. but the first thing i did when i got home was make the call.

the lady i talked with knew who i was and when i explained what had happened, she told me i was in.

i was only partially successful in holding back my exasperation as i thanked her for the news. she said that last week's rejection letter was also from their department, but that after they had decided to look over my application again and reconsidered. she noted that in the twelve years she had been there, this was the first time she had ever seen something like this happen. hey, works for me.

so, yes, i am 100% officially in to the school. classes start august 30.

it's like going on a mission, except that i'm not coming back. while i'm taking all of my possessions (well, maybe i'll slim down some things), i'm leaving the rest of my life. the slate is getting wiped clean. just as in-n-out came to provo, i'm leaving. the international cinema, weekly trips to the orem public library, the long-running tradition of movie night, laughing with the office, rock band, meeting here for whatever's going on, snowboarding, everything. it's time for a new start.

but i've had a great time in provo. it's been wonderful. and i know it's time for a change, even one as drastic as this. it's a big unknown, to be sure, and i'm one who generally doesn't like moving. likely it'll be hard to leave so many friends behind and there will be lonely times this coming fall. but that will also be less distractions and more reason to dive into my studies and work at school. classes start august 30. i expect i'll leave a few days after my 31st birthday.

as jaime noted, the curse has been lifted. this means that at lagoon this summer, that puma is mine.

remembering how merciful the Lord hath been

this is a post that likely won't have the strength that i had originally imagined, but it's something i want to write down just the same.

last sunday night i was helping sam clean up the kitchen as i was being moderately successful at controlling the anxiety inside of me. i had just come off a rough week of work on a short, one by some first-time film makers, where the writer, producer, and star were all the same person. the hours of the show had been all over the place, doing nights then a day then another night and i had gotten home that morning in time to fall asleep on the couch for an hour, with my shoes on and still holding my cell phone, before stumbling up to my room for another hour of rest and still getting to church in time for sunday school. i didn't mind the rough hours, i've gotten accustomed to that. what had me nervous was what was coming up.

i was starting the next morning on a movie called 127 hours, the new movie by danny boyle. if that name sounds familiar, it's because he won the oscar for directing slumdog millionaire last year and had been one of my favorite directors ever since i saw millions. i was absolutely thrilled to be working on the same set as him; for me, it really doesn't get much bigger. but not only was i going to straight to his show on very little sleep, i wasn't going to be on the camera crew, but was doing video assist: recording and keeping track of all that goes through the director's monitor and playing back whatever scene or shot he should require. in short, being in charge of a little cart with a million different buttons and cables, and only having a brief once-over training on a few nights earlier. further, on thursday the production was moving to southern utah, where we would be hiking into canyons and shooting there. this meant i was taking a whole new package, one that had not really been field tested to make sure we had everything we may need. and i was the one getting thrown into all this. i told sam i was most nervous for monday (my first day on the job) and friday (our first day making it all work in the middle of the desert), and that i was very curious how i would be feeling the following sunday, when i would be done.

i kept a prayer in my heart. today, i found myself looking back and thinking what a good week it was. it was hard, to be sure, but everything worked out just great.

the first day was rather light work on set. i was quietly excited to be on set with the director and cinematographer whom i had read so much about in my magazines and to watch them work, my friend who was on the other unit's video assist kindly came in three hours early before her call time to help me get up and running, and before long, everyone was telling me they were glad i was there.

i spent the next two days watching james franco cut his own arm off with a pocket knife, again and again. needless to say, when i watch this movie on my clearplay next year, i won't need to have the "violence/gore" filter on. (the movie is the story of the guy who got his arm caught rock climbing and had to cut it off in order to save his life) i occasionally had to look away during the cutting of the arm's nerve itself, but i've seen it all. and my friend in props tossed one of the fake nerves onto my cart, anyway.

southern utah was a definite workout. we had to backpack in some of our equipment over a half-mile hike, which for me included a 60 lb. backpack of my gear along with a couple of quite heavy batteries (usually i found some charitable soul to help carry those). our location was 100 miles from our motel, meaning that we had to leave at 5 a.m. to be in time for our 6:30 call. and the first night i arrived in town at 1 a.m. and was up until 3 getting everything ready, pushing through the following day on about an hour of sleep. the next night i got four hours and it felt great. for being a kid who was never good about getting up for early morning seminary or particularly relishing scouting hikes, i found myself at times wondering how i ended up in this job.

it was odd not being in the camera crew, and i found myself instinctively looking up when someone mentioned my former crew. doing video assist is much less stressful, although it can feel a little lonely, since you are the only one in your department. as such, there's no one else to specifically help you move equipment or make sure everything is arranged and taken care of. but i know pretty much all of the crew and we pitch in to help each other out as needed. somehow, it all works.

there were some hard times, too, down there. for varying circumstances, we didn't have much (or any) lunch for either day, one camera assistant suffered from heat exhaustion, and, saddest of all, the gaffer on the other unit passed away in his sleep on friday night. he was the father to our key grip and best boy electric and was well-known and loved by the whole crew. it was a very sad moment on set, but there is a great comradery amongst the grips and electrics and they pulled together to carry on. a very sad day, just the same.

and now i have one week off, then i'm back on to finish out the show. i'm missing some of the most beautiful scenery, but it's so nice to have time off, a week to refresh and take care of some things. for how uncertain things seemed last week, and how far away today looked, i feel really good about it all.

the curse of makbule

last summer, some friends and i went to lagoon. there, i determined that i would win the biggest prize at the park, a giant plush puma, which i decided would be named "makbule." i knew that with enough money and persistence, i could win the game and imagined what a cool story it would be to tell as makbule hung out on the back couch during movie nights.

despite all of my confidence (and $20+ in quarter tosses) i didn't win the darn puma. and i was kind of surprised by the failure, actually. i had imagined the awesome blog post i would write. it was going to be so cool.

as some of you know, i applied to texas a&m's graduate program of animation for this coming fall. it was such a cool story: i had a film background, learned some computer animation, miraculously pulled together an application in the midst of a busy semester in the byu lab, successfully took the gre without any time to study, and slid my application in barely under the final deadline. i felt pretty smooth, ferris bueller-like.

they said they had received my application and would notify me around the "end of march or early april."

for the past three weeks, friends and family have been eagerly asking me if i have heard from them. as i was beginning to wonder if i missed some new method of notification delivery, i saw their name on an envelope as i was bringing in the mail through the cold rain this evening.

it was a very thin letter.

as far as rejection letters go, it was relatively blunt.

the curse of makbule continues. i had imagined writing a blog post (title chosen and everything) about how exciting it would be, yet how hard it would be to leave all the friends and wonderful things i have going on here. i looked forward to being in a singles ward in texas (or would i go to a family ward?), of making new friends and hopefully teaching sunday school there, of being really lonely and dearly missing my friends and movie night and hpbc and wondering if i had really made the right choice to leave everything but trusting that i had. not to get carried away, i mentally sketched out what would write if it didn't happen, too. just in case.

well, i'll be here for a while longer, now. which means now i need to think about what to do with the hpbc once we finish the series (although, with the way work is going, it's going to take us a while to get through "the deathly hallows"), continue to plan movie nights, consider getting a season pass to one of the snowboard resorts, and search for the new path in my life.

this morning on my way to work, i was listening to some old conference cds. my all-time favorite talk came up, the final talk given by elder maxwell. in it, he shares lessons learned throughout his life. the line that has always stuck with me is "never go back to the hotel."

recently, i've been learning (or noticing) that president hinckley was right, "things will work out." our plans don't always go as we plan, but they do keep going, and often better than we planned ourselves.

at the moment, i have no idea where i'll aim next. but, at the start of this year, i commented that i was excited for the unexpected things this year will bring. it's barely april and i've already had the chance to meet the cinematographer of some of my favorite movies and am currently on the set of danny boyle's newest movie, one of my favorite directors. these awesomenesses don't solve my question, but they do remind me that surprises and the unexpected do happen, big and small.

never go back to the hotel.

family conference for the single guy

only one post in march. for shame.

conference. dang, this weekend really flew by (excepting the closing prayer). i love it. no matter how many times i've been able to be in the conference center for a session, it's still exciting to be there. during the sunday afternoon session i tried to take notes not on what the speakers were saying but my thoughts as i was listening. i still plan on taking a severe highlighter to the ensign next month.

in the past, i've posted here a summary of the speakers and what they spoke. sitting in the nosebleed section as elder andersen got up to speak, i was thinking about the unmistakable common threads throughout the weekend. and i wasn't the only one, either, as the junior apostle commented on it as well.

family, raising children safely, and the hope of the rising generation: these were the topics that permeated all ten hours of the 180th general conference. counsel to teach children the gospel and love of the scriptures early was repeated and much of the priesthood session was directed toward those of the aaronic priesthood. it was interesting to hear all this talk to "the youth" about the greatness of the rising generation and to realize that that's no longer me (and it hasn't been for a while...) i will definitely look this conference up when i have my own children in five, ten, or twenty years.

but at the moment, i don't have children, don't attend a ward that has a young men's program or a primary, or really have much interaction in any way with people under 20 (allison, you are 20 now, right?) outside of babysitting my toddling nephew. so, what's a single boy supposed to do? there's still plenty. elder christofferson's talk on the stupendousness of the holy bible made me want to press on with my study of the book, elder oaks clarified how blessings of healing work, and, dang, i could easily go through my notes and list a fat paragraph of things i learned and was reminded of: the gospel is not easy to live, duty is virtuous, set up spiritual early warning systems, and it goes on.
and the power of example, mentioned in a couple of talks, can influence more than just children.

as i'm working to be patient for the day when i will have a family, president uchtdorf wonderfully taught that patience includes actively and persistently working towards the accomplishment of a goal.... ; )

my favorite movies: 2009 edition

oh my blog, how i've missed you so! facebook is quaint and convenient to be sure, but i and my life are far more than two-sentence soundbites. it's nice to have the time to write, with room to move and express.

with today being the oscars [editor's note: yeah, we wrote this a few days ago], it seems appropriate to list my favorite movies of last year. regrettably, i haven't yet seen a handful of those that i'd like to (up in the air, the hurt locker, inglorious whatevers, etc.) and so am going to list not only my favorites from last year, but also the my favorites that i saw last year, irregardless of when they were released.

the 2009 crowd:

5. ponyo

i can't remember the last time, if ever, that i went into a movie knowing nothing about it; it's a rare treat. and after the opening minutes of ponyo, i had no idea what was going on, but i was loving it. like the wrestler, the only reason i wanted to movie to end was so that i could write about it. in a world of 3-D animation, it is exciting to see a traditionally drawn animated movie. contrasted with the preview for the princess and the frog, ponyo's animation initially seems flat and rough, boasting fancy lighting or even attempting to hide its pencil marks. but it feels completely alive.

the story is a moderate adaptation of "the little mermaid", although the similarities with disney stop at the heroine's red hair. instead of teenagers in mad love, the heroes are five-year olds. it could be a called a love story, but it's a 5-year old's love story, looking at the unique friendship between a little boy and a little girl. it was during this that i realized what a master miyazaki is with children. watch the way sosuke carefully ducks through a hole in a fence while carrying a bucket of water; his children move, react, and have the nuances accurate to their specific ages. just as disney animators spend hours observing lions and pumbaas to get the subtlest gestures

and it's likely the first animated movie to ever mention the cambrian era.

4. the fantastic mr. fox
i actually saw a trailer for mr. fox at ponyo. i liked the odd sense of humor but wondered if i was seeing all the funny moments in the trailer. a few weeks later, i heard that it was wes anderson's project and that pretty much sealed it for me.

from start to finish, through and through, it's a wes anderson movie: flat, balanced framing, retro art direction, bill murray, the alienated father-son relationship, and incredibly dry and subtle humor. rocio and i laughed almost the whole way through, while the family in front didn't seem to fully understand why all of this was so funny. need to see it again so i can remember the lines to quote.

3. me and orson welles

the night after seeing this movie, i found myself thinking, wow, zac efron got to work with orson welles....

no, he didn't. welles has been dead for 25 years. but christian mckay's performance is so perfect, so magnetic, that he alone is the eponymous reason to see the movie. he does not seem to be doing an impression (as some have said of jamie foxx in ray), but has taken us back in time to be with orson welles himself. zac efron does fine, and i think he is wisely and successfully moving to being a serious actor and i wish him the best. the movie is a brush with one of the legends of film through his eyes. like citizen kane, though, it seems that no one really saw the real orson welles. his persona was an bold, brash, audacious, demanding genius who let nothing stop him, hiring an ambulance to hurry him through traffic and improvising radio play scripts as he had the whim. yet it seems that inside it all he held cowardice and insecurity. at the end, the story is over, but it's such an unforgettable experience to have been with orson welles for ever a brief time. i'm quite sad that mr. mckay was not nominated this year.... i would have been rooting for him all the way.

2. watchmen

i had forgotten how much i enjoyed watchmen until i went through the former 786's list and saw it on there. i was familiar with the graphic novel from my days of reading comics but hadn't read it personally and so wasn't in a fervor for the movie. but me and clearplay watched it one night and were surprised with how good it was. super hero stories are most interesting when they are grounded in reality, and with one (major) exception, no one here has super powers. it's a partial inspiration for the incredibles, as the crime fighters were once public heroes, but fear and paranoia soon sent them in to reclusion. like bone, each character is the embodiment of a different philosophy of life, and seeing them work to find understanding, balance, and justice makes for a very thought-provoking film. i was very happy that my brother had read the book so that he could answer and discuss the questions i had about the story, the people, and their world.

1. up

it started two years ago with ratatouille. it didn't look very interesting. the first time i saw it it was ok. but on progressive viewings i came to think it may have been the best movie of the year. wall-e looked weird and esoteric and after seeing it the first night i thought i was ok but the whole "green" message was pretty heavy handed. well, you know how that ended. so when the trailers for up started coming around and it looked vague and aimless, i wasn't worried. when i left the opening day showing not wholly bowled over, i took it as a good sign. and, despite me sincerely trying to find another champion, pixar has, for the third year in a row, made my favorite movie of the year.

for a detailed explanation, see here.

if you prefer lists and a writer other than me, go for this one.

squirrel!

i'll get the list of the best movies from years other than 2009 that i saw last year up soon, probably next week after my movie wraps.

text addict

i got my first text from the scort many years ago. he sent me a zero. i didn't know how to do it but i thought i was pretty cool. a few years later, heidi, the super secretary in the film office, showed me one afternoon how to text on my phone. i don't know if it dominoed to my other friends but it suddenly seemed as if we were all texting each other; maybe they were just waiting for me to find my way out of the late nineties.

soon, it became apparent that the 50 complimentary texts on my plan would not be enough and i added the option for 300 texts. not long after i moved to the red door i outgrew that, too. i don't remember if 800 was the next option, but i have been on "unlimited texts" for several years now.

my blue flip phone that meowed was my workhorse during my texting boon. i got to the point where i could text a whole message without even looking, my thumb+brain team knowing not only the location of each key and what letters where on it, but what words would come up on the predictive text and how many times i would need to scroll through for a particular word. sadly, the phone's sim card only held 50 messages and i would have to delete it every night. i began keeping a notebook of my favorite texts, since they were so transitory.

for my xxxth birthday, i got a mytouch, t-mobile's iphone. i can't text blindly anymore, but it does hold a lot more text messages. i'm not sure how many, because i've currently got 8,318 since i last cleared it on october 5. as my messaging program has been getting sluggish, i think it's time to clear it out, and i thought it would be interesting to look at the numbers:

my top five text friends:

1. jaime (no surprise): 2,033
2. mark: 1,161
3. kristin: 659
4. t: 639
5. brooke: 553

jaime and i not only text the most, but also the longest. it's nice that we're both on t-mobile, since we can send longer texts, which is an advantage, as we usually talk about life, the color blue, philosophy, the occasional dating frustration, and everything else under the sun.

mark and i are usually much briefer, arranging where to eat, when to play rock band, exchanging random awesomeness we see throughout the day, and the occasional dating frustrations.

with kristin, they're mostly warm fuzzies. it's nice to have plenty of those on hand.

tim is even shorter than mark. often they're 3-5 words to coordinate who's driving and where to meet, but we do a lot together and it adds up. in between that is a good amount of dry humor, again of odd and bemusing things that happen to us. i find myself laughing as i browse through them.

brooke is a hodgepodge, ranging from coordinating events (movie night, harry potter book club, office night, et al.) to friendly chit chat about whatever's going on at the moment.

in short, 61% of all of my test messages comes from those five people. jaime alone has 24% of the total.

looking through these as i'm about to delete them, i'm wishing i could export them to a text file somehow. at least i've still got my notebook.

editor's note: turns out i'm not the only one who wants to save text messages. a google search and a flip through the "mytouch" magazine i got in the mail a few days ago both offer a handful of programs to download text messages from phone to computer.

Christmas letter, 2009

editor's note: sending out a Christmas card in the first few weeks in january is, while perhaps a bit late, not entirely unheard. and that was our plan with this post. but then came the sundance film festival, a bout with (suspected) salmonella, then work on a disney channel movie, all without a day's break. and our writer spent last monday snowboarding. as a result, the yearly Christmas letter is only now being published. sending printed pages through the postal service is customary, but as most of our kinship and demographic is connected via interweb communications, we have opted to post the Christmas letter here, instead. further, we have chosen to eschew the traditional prosaic format, favoring instead snippets of moments of note from the year two thousand and nine, anno domini.

and a happy new year to you, too.

jeff gustafson

editor-in-chief

sheep go to heaven

in 2009 i learned...

our worth is not determined by cans of food

it doesn't matter who sustains you in church, the calling is the same

goats make excellent Christmas presents

*nsync marionettes make the best white elephant gifts

the world's largest recorded game of capture the flag is 1200 people. i may have been in a bigger one

30 is not too old to have a disney character on your birthday cake or bed sheets

it takes more than dogged deterination and whole ton of quarters to win the biggest prize at the amusement park,

i'm just not sure what that is

a movie about clouds can make you laugh, cry, and laugh again in five minutes

maine my new second favorite state

the biggest ball of twine in minnesota sits under a makeshift pagoda

don't break down your fee for a wedding video into an hourly rate; it's so small it's not even worth it

back up your hard drive often

some movies are too boring even for me

helvetica is a very common font

there are bears in yellowstone

rafting down a river with floating pieces of ice will leave you frozen from the waist down

the best movies are rated pg

i blessed a baby with a movie star

most of joseph smith's ancestors aren't lds but they look like him

teaching fifth graders can be terrifying, but if you bring treats and good music, they'll think you're pretty cool

if you're going to take pictures in the middle of a corn starch fight, use a disposable camera

it's fun to be a groupie

nephews are awesome

it's easier to go up a mountain than to come down it

we should be like darth vader

in life, it's the boring stuff you remember most

it's never too late

the final days of sundance

yeah, been a while. since sundance ended, i got (what i think was) salmonella, then did prep for a movie, took a team of newbies snowboarding (good times had by all), and worked a good, full week on said aforementioned movie. now that's it sunday night, i finally have some time to recount the tale of what happened two weeks earlier.

saturday was the last official day of the sundance film festival. i got the office around 11 and our dispatcher handed me my trip sheet: i had a pickup at 2:30. he then offered me a ticket to some movie, starting at 12:30, saying i should go. i was apprehensive, since a) well, you never know what you're going to get with sundance films, and b) it seemed like i wouldn't make it back in time for my pickup, which i thought he'd be concerned about. apparently this wasn't an issue for him, and he urged me and another driver to go. we had a friend drop us off (a nice perk of being on a team of drivers), assuming that someone would be there to pick us up when the movie was over.

the film was called double take, and neither during the movie nor at the end nor now do i have any idea what it was about. it reminded me very much of an orson welles movie called f for fake, one that i love dearly. welles's movie ducks and weaves in and out of several different topics--art forgery, perception, deception, illusions, howard hughes, charlatanery, and picasso--all chopped up and thrown together with welles narrating and commenting like a favorite uncle telling a story. it's absolutely a delight and it works. but welles was a genius, and masters make difficult things look easy. double take affirms the greatness of orson welles by saying nothing in 90 minutes. instead of welles, it begins with another filmic legend, a hitchcock impersonator, talking about meeting his own doppleganger in a room. this is mashed with footage of kennedy and khrushchev, commentary on how television affected cinema, and discussion on hitchcock movies, specifically the birds. all without managing to say anything about any of them. to be honest, i kind of liked it, but it never went anywhere.

we left the theater at 2:15 to find ourselves in our own mess; there were no drivers available and i should have been ready for my pickup now. my friend called to organize a ride back to the hotel for us while i checked my own messages. robert yeoman had called me, suggesting we meet up around 2 that afternoon. tragically, that didn't work, but i called him back and he suggested breakfast the next morning. that would be driving up from provo just for that, but when someone like that asks to have breakfast with you, you take it.

i was ten minutes late when i picked up my ride, a south american director with his wife and daughter. they mostly talked to each other (in spanish) but seemed to be very cool and fun. i dropped them off at the broadway, now thinking i should have gone to see his movie, as he would go on to win the award for best directing and best screenplay (reading the review in variety, his daughter noted that they compared him to luis bunuel; in spanish cinema, it doesn't get much better than that). instead, i called my sister, wondering if i could visit for a bit. becky said yes, then asked if i'd talk to mom. i hadn't, so i called her. mom asked if i'd talked with dad. i hadn't, and she said to call him. (why hadn't becky just told me to call dad in the first place? why couldn't someone just tell me what's going on??) i called dad (the van has bluetooth...) and asked him how last night was, just like mom told me to. the tone in his voice made me think that the cat had died or something. he said that the stake president had extended a call to him to serve as the bishop of the fargo first ward. while i know my dad was very humbled by the whole situation, all i can say is that it immediately and verily felt right. it felt good. after i hung up, i switched back to the radio. guns-n-roses was playing. i switched to the classical station.

i played with caleb as i talked with becky and brady about "bishop gustafson" and had dinner. becky has taught caleb sign language (which has eschewed any need for him to speak, in his opinion), and the sign for "cool uncle jeff" is for him to cover his eyes. it started out as miming "glasses" (since that's how my sister thinks of me, i guess), but with caleb, these signs tend to mutate ("drink" started out as miming taking a drink and has settled at "finger up the nose"); she tried to shift my sign to a sort of "bowtie", but the hands over the eyes was already firmly entrenched. over dinner, becky noted that i was wearing my "uncle jeff" shirt: my tally hall shirt with the "see no evil" monkeys, including one covering his eyes. and i was able to talk becky into giving me a haircut, too, all in time for me to be back to pick up the family from the broadway (they said the showing went great). later, in the hotel, the drivers would all be amazed that i found time to get a haircut during a run.

that evening was the awards ceremony, and i drove the south american guy and his family from salt lake to the awards plaza, having to swallow my pride and admit that i didn't know exactly where it was at 6:57, after my attempts find it turn up fruitless. thankfully, i was just a few blocks from it and they still got there on time.

i ended up back there a few hours later, waiting in the snowstorm for the "new african cinema" who, after 40 minutes, did not show up. it was party night, and several drivers spent the evening driving people from party to party. i was in the hotel room, on call in case the gang from sympathy for delicious needed a ride back from their party. the rule was that we had to wait until 2 a.m., but by 1 a.m. i was starting to eye the door. around that time, a friend came and said that because of the snowstorm, provo canyon was moving at about 10 mph. with me planning to meet bob the next morning, i decided i was going to sleep on the chairs in the hotel room (because i was NOT going back to the driver house....)

i changed into my pajamas, worked on my sunday school lesson for a bit (scriptures and teacher's manual all on my phone), and, when the last guys left around 3, got some sleep.

five hours of sleep on a hotel room chair (and a few ottomans) isn't too bad. i was grateful i'd brought my pajamas (that makes a huge difference) and toothbrush and wondered why i hadn't bothered to bring toothpaste. i tidied up the room and finished out my lesson on cain and abel and the ministry of enoch. sunday school started at 12:30, and if bob would call me to meet around 10, i just might be able to make it. he did call at 10, but said that his ride to the airport left at 11:55 and suggested 11:30. i said that would be great, knowing that it would put me about fifteen minutes too late to teach sunday school, conceding that we don't always get what we want.

i went down to the lobby and met up with bob, who regretfully told me that they had moved his departure time from the hotel up but said the he would be happy to meet for a few minutes. i said that was fine (rejoicing in my head that i might still be able to teach sunday school), and asked the two questions that i had prepared. i asked about his lighting design for the royal tenenbaums(yeah, i'm talking with the guy who shot that!), how he kept it so flat without becoming boring. (bounced soft light and good production design). and i asked him my million dollar question: how he balances family life, and his answer was the same as everyone else i've asked; it's hard. i was expecting that, and it's nice to know that the big guys have the same challenges as the guys i work with, affirming that my decision to find a more stable field is the one i want to make.

i thanked him and he offered me his e-mail address, saying to keep in touch and ask questions as they come. i then texted sam, telling him to tell the ward there would be two sunday school classes, and hopped in my van. i arrived the building just as elder's quorum was ending, and walked into sunday school wearing a tally hall shirt and leather jacket, with my lesson notes written on the back of some papers i'd grabbed from a recycling bin. i took a pair of old scriptures off the shelf and began the lesson, feeling awesome that i'd managed to pull all of this off. and it turned out pretty darn good, too.

the former 786, to answer some of your questions about the festival and driving:

• we work for the festival. they pay the first year drivers comparable to a low production assistant rate on a movie. second year drivers get the same as a bad rate for a loader on a camera crew.
• there are different fleets. i was on the "film maker fleet", said to be one of the best because we just drive directors to the screenings outside park city. "jury" is also a good fleet to be on, because you're just driving the jury members to their screenings. "premiere" is the one that drives the stars to their showings. it's cool because you get to say you drove [famous person], but you're also driving neurotic/obsessive publicists and crazy entourage members. and often from party to party until long hours. "paid packages" is just that: someone comes into town and hires a car and driver for X days. during that time, they own you. film maker fleet didn't brush me with as many celebrities as the premiere team had, but i had cooler people to talk with (the doc guys are much more down to earth than the fiction directors; you know, the movies with "acting" in them) and no really late nights.
• i think there were about 11 of us on the film maker fleet, and i really liked those guys. i think jury had five drivers, while premiere had 15. ish? i was told that there were about 100 drivers total, meaning that paid packages has 70 or 80. i never saw nearly that many, but i guess they were off doing their own thing.
• there are several different venues around park city showing movies, but those often sell out the day they go on sale in the fall. if you really want to see movies (instead of hoping to get a glimpse of a celeb), go to the showings outside of park city: the broadway theater and the tower theater in salt lake, the egyptian theater in ogden (very cool), or the sundance resort in provo canyon.
• each fleet has a dispatcher, who assigns us a run. we had a room at the marriot hotel (the festival headquarters) that we'd hang out at in between runs. some guys had friends or family they'd stay with in park city, and there was a house for us to stay at, but my experience with it that one night was less than ideal. like most, i'd drive home every night (though a few people offered to let me crash at their place in salt lake, a little closer).
• would i do it again? absolutely. it was an overall blast.

fri

10:16 i was told to be in park city around 10. i think i'm still within the parameters.

11:07 my first assignment is an airport pickup at 1:10, but another group needs a ride to the airport now. me and my soccer mom minivan are a good fit for that.

11:22 i'm driving a trio of londoners to the airport. they seem agitated about the quality of their film's print but they're polite to me and i like their accent. they ask if we'll see salt lake city on the way. unfortunately it's somewhat smoggy today.

12:27 i read anything that looks interesting in this week's complimentary "entertainment weekly." i see chris from sympathy for delicious in their sundance photo session. in the past, oscar nomination announcements have come out during the festival and i've been able to snag a swag issue. this year the noms come out next tuesday.

12:54 i'm done with my magazine.

2:56 i drop off my directors at the eccles theater. i like coming here because it's the most high profile and the guards move the gates when i pull up.

6:16 we go out to eat at "el chubascos", just across from the hotel. i learn that tomorrow is essentially the last day of the festival and that sunday is pretty low key. i might be able to teach sunday school if i'm not driving some excited festival winners tomorrow night.

7:53 there's not much going on, so three of us offer give a few staff members a ride. afterwards we talk about going to the eccles theater and pretending we're famous. they offer to be my bodyguards. i decide my name will be gustaf jefferson, from bulgaria.

9:00 my assignment is to take a director to the tower theater for a Q&A. should be a decent night.

9:41 getting near the theater, he says that the show starts at 9:45 (so much for an early night) but that he doesn't want to stay for the movie and would rather go eat. the polite french girl with him asks me if i've already eaten.

9:47 despite what my trip sheet said, their film is not playing at the tower, but at the broadway.

9:53 i drop them off at the broadway. they leave quickly and i'm not sure if they're just running in for a moment or staying for the whole film.

10:22 a police car turns it's lights on behind a car at the corner of state and broadway. an identical scene happened when i was waiting here two nights ago. i can't tell what they may have done. i've been in the "taxis only" parking area for at least half an hour. i wonder if the police care.

10:37 i learn that lithium, the satellite grudge/90s alt rock station, doesn't edit their songs.

10:48 i notice that a legitimate parking spot has opened up behind me. i back up and now i feel more comfortable pulling out my harry potter book and just reading. plus, there's a tree just out my window with blue Christmas lights. i like that.

10:58 it's always a little strange to hear songs on the radio that i was introduced to through rock band. at the moment, it's "flirting with disaster" by molly hatchet. i notice the guitar solo more than i normally would.

11:00 it's followed by "paradise city" by guns 'n' roses. i wish that was in rock band....

12:12 their movie ended almost an hour ago. fantasize that maybe they've already left and i can go home from salt lake, but a) i've been out front this whole time, they couldn't miss me, and b) they left their scarves and gloves in my car.

12:24 they show up, but stand outside the car to have a smoke first.

1:08 on the way back, the director of the doc and the girl with him talk. she's really smart and knows her film history. after i drop off the director, i talk with her a bit. she's a french actress named julie gayet who also has a production company to help independent cinema like this one. it turns out that her first movie was blue, the first in the three colors trilogy which i saw at the international cinema two weeks ago. that's pretty cool.

1:19-2:16 i put "this american life" on my ipod. it's got stories of people who, for various reasons, are up through the night. i can't quite figure out why there's there's thick fog on the long road between heber city and the canyon, but there has been for the last few nights. at times it's so thick i have to cut my speed in half down to 40.

1:48 i pass a car with its brights on. "lamer," i think. i look down and see that mine are on, too.

the snow-covered mountains of provo canyon look wonderful in the full moonlight. absolutely beautiful (but then, i'm a sucker for moonlight)

2:29 feels so good to be in bed.

breath of air

i think today is friday. i've slowed on taking notes over the past few days.

• wednesday morning my first ride is a group down to the sundance resort. they're six guys from denmark, two of whom are comedians of korean-decent. i introduce myself and say that if they have any questions, just ask. the comedian in front asks me what is the meaning of life. i tell him, "to be happy. next question." "are you happy?" he ask. i say yes.
  

• their movie is called red chapel, where the two comedians pose as a "famous" danish comedy team (i don't think they had met before the film) and try to tour north korea. on the way down, he says they wanted to show the problems of the country through comedy. after seeing the film, they weren't as witty and sarcastic as michael moore or as audacious and brash a borat. the film was interesting to see what life was like in north korea (most controlled and austere than i'd thought), but overall wasn't anything notable.

• driving back, i discover i'm out of washer fluid. that doesn't sound like a big deal, but for thirty miles on wet and dirty highway roads, it makes a difference.

• after seeing countless commercials for domino's's new pizzas, we order some. i like it.

• 10:04 p.m. i've been waiting outside the broadway. i've been here for an hour and am hoping they don't show so i can go home through salt lake instead of stopping through park city first. "standing outside a broken phonebooth (with money in my hand)" comes on the radio. i love this song and realize that it used to be on my itunes but isn't for some reason anymore. i buy it when i get home. along with "surrender" by cheap trick, "here i go again" by whitesnake, and a couple of other songs i can't remember because it was after midnight.

• we had to all be at the hotel room at 7: 30 thursday morning. i'm not entirely sure why. but there were donuts. i post that on facebook and get more comments on that in an hour than my post about me driving some oscar-winning director.

• in the evening, i was scheduled for an ogden run (my fourth) but another driver asks to switch and gives me a run to sundance. they're a pair of doc guys who seem cool but are busy. the odd thing is that they want to be there a few hours before their showing, meaning that i've got four hours to wait. sweetness. i check the i.c. schedule but, tragically, red, the third part of the "three colors trilogy" isn't showing until 10. but i get a good scripture study in (it feels so good after a week of craziness), make a warm, balanced dinner, do some laundry, get sam hooked on 24, and watch last week's office. it's so nice to have time to live a normal life for a moment.

tuesday: forgiveness and redemption

• my 7:00 a.m. pickup becomes 7:40. we still get to ogden in time, as the guys are only planning to do the Q&A after their movie. they want a place that has coffee and internet and i take them to a gandolfo's down the street. they take a table in the corner to do whatever sundance directors do. from where i'm standing, it looks like facebook.

• finding the common ground of us both being from utah, the guy behind the counter asks me a little about what it's like working in the festival. like most people, he seems to think that my life in "the movies" must be more interesting than his. to be fair, i do think my life is pretty cool. but running a sandwich shop seems kind of interesting, too.

• the movie this morning is called bilal's stand, about a kid in detroit who need to choose between helping his family's coffee stand and staying in school. so it's showing for a theater full of high school students who seem to respond to the movie for more than it just being a chance to get out of school. i'm kind of sad i didn't get to see it.
  

• the director, sultan sharrief, makes a good point during the Q&A: "a lot of people don't tell you this, but pursuing your dream, and even living your dream, can be really stressful."

• in describing it to the students, he refers to the film's style as "neorealist." i think that's pretty cool, since today is the day that criterion is releasing roberto rossellini's "war trilogy", the quintessential films of the genre. i think this is kind of cool and try to talk with him a bit about his film on the ride home, noting his stylistic description of his film. kindly, he tries to enlighten his driver about movies: "a lot of people think my film is a documentary. do you know what a documentary is? it's a movie that doesn't have acting." i'm so amused on different levels with that response that i just let them talk amongst themselves for the rest of the ride.

• there's a lot of downtime that afternoon. we hang out in the hotel room, laughing at jesse's story of getting bounced back into a bathroom by michael moore and watching mark try to see how high he can pour a can of pop into matt's mouth.

• that evening i give a ride to a lady who's the festival director (or something pretty high up). i introduce myself to her and she asks if i'm the same jeff who drove lynn shelton. i tell her i am and she says lynn raved about me, asking if i could be her driver for the whole show. it's nice to know that i'm making a good impression.

• walking out to my car, i'm singing "here i go again" by whitesnake. i get in my car. the song is on 80s on 8. today has been a much better day.

mon.day 5: from dusk til dawn

• the movie was called sympathy for delicious. it was about a homeless guy in a wheelchair who used to do scratch turntables. he auditions to play with a wild rock band but is rejected. inexplicably, he is given the ability to heal people with his touch. he doesn't understand it, but the priest at the shelter encourages him to help other in the homeless community, while the band courts him to be a part of their act. the characters, the story were all great, and i was surprised to see a film at sundance that was optimistic about faith and religion. the language was as bad as you'd expect from an indie feature about rock and roll, so i can't recommend it, but the development of it all was excellent and some scenes were simply sublime. orlando bloom was spot on as a crazy front man, juliette lewis and mark ruffalo were solid, and chris was great as the central character. it was an interesting experience to be sitting next to the guy who wrote and starred in the movie i was watching, a guy who i had talked with for the last half hour.

note: a google image search for the movie yielded three pages of orlando with his shirt off....

• adding to my list of new experiences was being able to talk with the writer of a movie for an hour after seeing it. i spent the whole drive asking chris questions about where ideas came from, how plot points developed, his thoughts behind some scenes, and anything else i wondered about. i think it was safe to say that this was the best conversation i would have throughout the festival.

• here is where my night started to wilt. we got back to park city and the gang asked if i could take them to get a pizza first. we're only required to drive to and from venue screenings, but they were cool and i agreed. this soon became a treasure hunt around town, ending an hour later with only two domino's pizzas and half a minivan of tired people, finally dropping them off around midnight. and i checked in to find that i had a 7:30 pickup in the morning. add to that an hour's drive each way and that meant i would only be home for five and a half hours. i decided it would be best to stay at the drivers' house in town.

• i waited in the hotel room for a guy to take me to the house, since i wasn't sure where it was. i thought about staying in our bedless room at the marriott, pushing some chairs together and even ordering up a blanket and some pillows. but as i was getting comfortable, someone came in to do some work and my guide showed up, so i decided to go. i should have stayed. so should have stayed.

• we because the luxurious park city streets are narrow and the house parking lot was full of cars (very full), we had to park a quarter mile away at a park and walk under the clear cold sky. the house was surprisingly awake for it being almost 1 a.m. downstairs were some king-size mattresses laid out on the floor, with a few blankets scattered about. i was told that the blankets all belonged to people and that most of the spots on the mattresses were claimed, but i'd probably be ok on a spot. i didn't understand the culture of the house here but i just wanted to get as much sleep as i could before the morning, so i changed into my pajamas and tried to curl up under my leather jacket.

• around 1:45 i was jostled from my pseudo-sleep to a girl upstairs saying "[forget] those guys downstairs!", followed by eminem asking for the real slim shadey to please stand up. this went on for about an hour until they decided to play rock band, again throwing decibel consciousness completely out the window. amidst seeing red, i gathered that the drummer was our boss, thereby ruling out any feasibility of asking them to turn it down. the singing would have fit in well with the who, and, to make things almost criminal, the girl playing guitar was really, really bad and kept failing. excluding nights a few nights of violent illness, i couldn't think of a worse night in my life as the remaining minutes to sleep dissolved away. as i lay curled up on a bare mattress trying to stay warm under my jacket, i fantasized about finding the circuit box and flipping off the power to the whole house. i prayed that i would magically fall asleep, that i could calm down, or at least that i would not fall asleep tomorrow.

• in the end, i got about two and a half hours of lame-o sleep. my alarm was set early enough that when i was told my pickup was changed to 7:00, i was still there on time. ...even though my ride showed up at 7:40.

• my day could only get better. : )

monday, sundance monday

• there's a dang awesome sunset this morning. a bold pink sky over the dark blue snow on the mountains. today is going to be a good day.

• last night i drove one of the programmers for the festival who was telling me about several of the docs this year. i'm usually more of a narrative guy, but a lot of the docs this year seem to be the more interesting of the lot. one of the most notable was a movie called a small act, about a lady from sweden who contributed $20 a month to put a child through school in africa. the boy when on to go to the university of nairobi, then to harvard law school, and is now working for the u.n. he later sought her out and how now set up his own such foundation. my first ride this morning was jennifer arnold, the film's director, on her way to the broadway theater in salt lake for a screening for high school students. she said that roger ebert had written a great article on her film and waiting for superman (directed by davis guggenheim, whom i drove yesterday), praising them as being two excellent films on the power and importance of education. i think she said she met bill gates here, too, who was interested in her film.

conversation with a security guard who looks like jimmy carter above the broadway theater, trying to find my way into the locked theater:

"hi, uh, is there a way that i can get to the theater from here?"

"no."

"i'm a driver with the festival and the doors are locked downstairs, do you know how i could...."

"no."

"i know this isn't the theater but was just wondering if there's another entrance."

"no. we're not part of the theater. no."

"ok, thank you."

"no."

• after the screening, there was a Q&A and then the students left. in the lobby, a goth girl came over and talked to the director. she was obviously very moved by the story and asked to give her a hug. it was cool to see the movie have that kind of an impact on someone like that.

• when i'm driving someone, i usually keep the radio on the classical station. it's peaceful and unobtrusive amidst the hurricane of being a director at the festival. i dropped jennifer off and switched to a new station and jubilantly sang to "what's the frequency kenneth?" and "footloose." and dang the 80s on 8 plays a lot of bananarama.....

• my run that evening was for mark ruffalo's movie. i knew his name but couldn't think of where i'd seen him. looking him up on imdb, i learned that i saw him in collateral a few weeks ago and would be seeing him in eternal sunshine of the spotless mind next week at movie night. a total of six people, said my trip sheet. even though all of my rides have been good, i still get nervous waiting, wondering if they're going to be jerks or impatient or have some odd preferences (as i'm writing this two days later, i no longer get nervous). and mark is the biggest name i've had yet.
  

• the group pulled up in another van and i helped everyone into mine. the man with the wheelchair sat up front and the other three loaded in the back. it turned out that mark was starring in another movie that was premiering tonight and would be attending that showing and not going with us to ogden. so i had an entourage of actors who wanted me to go and pick up another of their friends before we got on the road. despite the schedule allowing us ample travel time, i always seem to get in situations that leave me racing the clock to get to ogden on time. i tell them we'll make it all work out.

• i'm in a van with actors who have one movie at sundance. so far, i've driven mostly documentary people. narrative film makers (and actors) are a little more interested in the public/fame scene, it seems. but there's a group of them in my van; they're energetic, praising each other and talking about their chances of winning. i'll let them entertain themselves and i'll focus on driving. about 20 miles out of town, the guy up front starts talking with me a little. his name is chris and not only does he star in the film, but he write it with mark over the last ten years. we hit it off well and talk all the way to odgen. it's his first time having to do press interviews all day long and it can be pretty grueling he says. the actors in the back also talk about the whirlwind feeling of doing press, of getting some silly questions and that most of the time the reporters were interested in orlando bloom and juliette lewis (in the film but not in my van).

• i'm not familiar with the film or much about it, but chris is happy to talk about it, despite having done so all day long. he tells me that my questions are better than the press's.

• we get there just after the movie has started, so they don't get to introduce the film. i'm able to park the car right out front. i tell the theater people i'm the driver and am seated right next to chris.

author's note: i forgot to charge my computer last night and it just threatened to shut down in a moment. coming up next: my best conversation of the festival and the nightmare night that followed.