Friday, May 23, 2008

Father Serra

The Father Serra film is about half-finished. When it is complete, the 80-minute travel film will be titled: "The Travels of Father Serra: Majorca to California."
However, we are treating the half we HAVE finished as a complete guide to the California Missions of Father Junipero Serra and aiming to market the DVD to gift shops, bookstores and Serra International.

During our last trip to California, in April, we went to Mission Santa Barbara, "The Queen of Missions," which was the next one begun after the death of Serra. It's almost a Serra Mission. He was there to raise the cross and bless the site, but then there was his controversial relationship with Governor Neve, who probably vetoed the new mission just because he and Father Serra didn't see eye to eye.
Serra said "in my poor judgment this is not a good place for a presidio or a mission," but it is an uncharacteristically negative remark.

Anyway: we have the DVD of "The Missions of Father Serra," (that's the first nine missions) plus two bonus tracks, as we used to say in the music biz: Santa Barbara and Soledad. Well, we will have it next week. It's being mastered and produced at Dale and Sandy Johnson's Trailwood Films in Shelbyville, Kentucky. It's looking good and we just got the covers from the printer in south Shreveport.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

May

We are in Louisiana for a few weeks. Last night we played a party for Joe Thibodeau in Natchitoches. There is no name which is more essentially Cajun than Thibodeau, unless it's Boudreau. Joe has a dog named Boudreau. Of course, Fonteneau is pretty strong, too. And a few others which we won't even get into. Joe had a housewarming at his new place on the rivah, the north bank of the Cane. Or is it the east bank?
We stayed the night with our friend Conna who told us all about the new Natchitoches movie, The Garden Club. It is the work of Bobby W, or Bobby Deblieux, Conna's next door neighbor, and it's premiering next weekend. Should be a great hit. Check it out at Garden Club in our "Friends and Family" list at left.
In the morning, Saturday, we had played music at the Cane River Green market down by the river front in Natchitoches. This is always a great pleasure: there are lots of kids on hand and Marsha has them singing, dancing and playing along on tambourines, spoons, rubboards, ti-fers, or whatever else she has in her bag of tricks.
I will be leaving for England on May 28th and soon after heading for Scotland to film some stuff for our next film, "Etched in Stone: Scotland to Provence." Marsha will be joining me a little later. She will not miss the France part of our travels, and I can't blame her for that. France may be our favorite place.
The one kitten has grown and graduated from the computer drawer. The other kitten disappeared while we were out on tour. We understand it may have been too weak to survive. Amber is pregnant again and may come up with two more kittens. Anybody want this kitten? She's litter box trained and quite adorable.