TCFF

As I mentioned, last week was spent in Traverse City and my time there coincided with the 3rd annual Traverse City Film Festival. It's becoming a very popular event increasing in size, scope, and, so far, regional popularity every year. The festival was founded and still run by uber-liberal (though more of a populist in my opinion) Michael Moore.

There is delicious irony in the success of the festival in this area of Michigan. Traverse City is notoriously conservative politically. So, here is Moore, a nearby resident in the area and the devil incarnate to many a conservative, working in partnership with the bedrock conservative groups in T.C. to bring the film festival to life. I guess when there are dollars at stake, political differences fall to the wayside!

The wife and I made it to only one ticketed film - a documentary involving the 2004 election - hosted by Moore and then sat in on the post-film Q&A with him and noted 60's documentarian D.A. Pennebaker (Monterey Pop, Don't Look Back [Bob Dylan]). That is, until the clock struck 12:30 AM and our Cinderella carriage was going to turn back into a pumpkin (re: the parking garage was locking its doors at 1 AM).

We also took the kids to the free outdoor flick Raiders of the Lost Ark at the downtown Open Space park. I have to say, I've seen the film many times but never noticed the frequent slamming of port-a-potty doors on the soundtrack or the image of an electrical box in the lower half of the screen for the entire movie. Go figure. ;)

I did learn that the State Theatre, a T.C. landmark (shown in picture above) and my former employer (projectionist, circa 1990), will be re-opening full time in November (thanks to Moore and the film festival). Hooray!! These old theatre's are classics and need to be renovated and saved whenever possible.

This Weekend:

My first trail run, The Legend, is this Saturday morning just north of Lansing, MI. Ten miles of off-road fun. I'm very curious to see how different it is from a road race. I need to get some rest though. Sunday's 17 miler wiped me out more than I care to admit. Last night's 6 miler was tough in the humidity. And to top it off, I was awoken at 3:30 AM last night (morning?) as work needed me to stare at some computer code to fix a problem as if the brain functions at this hour.

I have discovered that Girls Gone Wild seemingly has an unlimited budget to advertise between the hours of 3-5 AM on Comedy Central. Who knew that so many 'normal, every day college freshman willing to bare all' also resemble your garden variety stripper?? I'm sure they are just regular women choosing to pull their tops up though right? Not strippers. Nope. Not that there's anything wrong with that...

Happy trails.