Book Club #16 Update

For those of you who don't know, Mongrel isn't just about cool progressive HD cinema, we're also very interested in literature, and music, and basically anything that has anything to do with art and communication and outsiders and absurdity (theater of the absurd).

Literature is changing, like everything else. It's been changing for a while, but most people don't know that because they've remained enslaved by the walls of academia and mass market publishing. With the internet, thank goodness, these walls have crumbled. Comic books, genre books, cult books, true crime, memoirs. The playing field is so much less vertical and more horizontal - the way it should be. Good writing is stimulating and challenging and entertaining - doesn't matter what the forms or formulas or journals say. Because of the internet, and sharing and community people are now forced to think for themselves and be proactive about what their aesthetic/intellectual/sensual jujus really are.

The book in paper form isn't dead, yet. It's still great technology that hasn't been much improved on. At Mongrel we read books and we share ideas and we talk. This is the Mongrel bookclub. We've been doing it for over a year and half. We pick outsider writers who are cool and controversial. We meet about once a month and talk shit and usually drink stout, or hard cider, or beer, or whatever. Anyone can join the group at anytime for any reason. Past members have been actors, writers, artists, teachers, and psychobilly musicians. I love this group because I always come away with insights and inspiration I totally would not get if I was just reading and drinking stout in my office and talking to my wall.

This month we're reading Valis by Philip K. Dick. We'll be meeting around the first week of April at the Barbarella Bar in L.A. Yes, I know, L.A. - people do actually read in L.A. For those of you who live outside the center of the center, we're trying to set up a videopodcast and encourage those in the sticks to read and post comments. This is fun and it's free and it's all for you.

Please post a comment if you have any questions or concerns. Thanks.

red Hands diary

Here's the hot trailer we cooked up, in case you haven't seen it yet.

Red HANDS DIARY

Did the party at the location. Was perfect. Most of the cast and crew showed. Lots of other cool people arrived, thanks to our amazing AD. The location is like the Disneyland that exists in my mind. I got to see the basement -- I didn't even know basements existed in L.A. county. People were rowdy and drinks were spilled.

Ed, our director, has his own version of our first two scenes that he's cooking up and he's convinced they're like a million times better than what our editor Bob and me came up with. Ha! As if. I challenged him to a smackdown and like a fool he agreed. In about a month we're gonna hit some night spot over on the Westside of L.A. and show both versions and get in a fist fight and let the assembled mongrels and civs vote to decide what they like better. Should be a hoot. I'll also unvail the next Mongrel Movie Project which will be really cool and fun and most important FREE; something to tide us over until we get the cash to finish Red Hands.

If you missed this first party you really don't wanna miss the second, or the third, or the...