Evil Pink Pony

John and Andrzej (Andres) Golebiowski

Hi all! We’ll try and make it a habit to throw some still images taken from bits of footage we shoot, just for fun and to give a general sense of the “feel” of the piece that will no doubt be subtly communicated through the composition and mood of the…

Ah, what the hell, here’s some pics:

One day Gabe and I were given an awesome tour of the already-legendary Golebiowski garden, when Valeria’s professional sausage-making husband Andrew came home. Within minutes we were treated to his amazing homemade Polish sausages, drinking (at his constant, seemingly endless request) 196 proof, plum-flavored Polish liquor, and having what I would deem a good old fashioned eastern European time of it.

Johnny and me outside the mold-ridden apartment

Pam felt sick one day because she is allergic to mold. The apartment next to her has been vacant for some time and recently flooded. Nothing was done about it and the place became overrun with some pretty powerful mold. John and I went in and I shot John boarding up the place and trying to block all of the orifices. It was actually kind of fun, although I felt extremely light-headed and woozy afterward. But still.

House demo on Dupont
Gabe and I have been hanging out with Molly Priesmeyer, who writes for the Minnesota Independent and who is doing an awesome job covering the housing crisis. This house on Dupont had been the victim of arson after it had been condemned, after it had been abandoned, after it had been foreclosed upon, after the owner had been…well, you know, read the papers.

House demo on Dupont

Gabe and I have been hanging out with Molly Priesmeyer, who writes for the Minnesota Independent and who is doing an awesome job covering the housing crisis. This house on Dupont had been the victim of arson after it had been condemned, after it had been abandoned, after it had been foreclosed upon, after the owner had been…well, you know, read the papers.

Home Improvement, starring John and Juley
John’s real estate agent Juley is a fantastic on-camera presence and an even fantastic-er real estate agent, as she is always ready to show John any number of houses in his price range on and around his block. This house was actually pretty cool. I think Juley threw the frisbee over the fence or something, can’t remember.

Home Improvement, starring John and Juley

John’s real estate agent Juley is a fantastic on-camera presence and an even fantastic-er real estate agent, as she is always ready to show John any number of houses in his price range on and around his block. This house was actually pretty cool. I think Juley threw the frisbee over the fence or something, can’t remember.

Valeria Golebiowski
The prodigously-talented-in-the-field-of-home-gardening Valeria Golebiowski, ladies and gentlemen. She is one of our favorite characters we’ve met during the production of the movie, and she is endlessly generous and sweet to Gabe and I. She’s lived in Hawthorne since the 60’s. Seen it all. Here she is in Peter Teachout’s backyard during National Night Out.

Valeria Golebiowski

The prodigously-talented-in-the-field-of-home-gardening Valeria Golebiowski, ladies and gentlemen. She is one of our favorite characters we’ve met during the production of the movie, and she is endlessly generous and sweet to Gabe and I. She’s lived in Hawthorne since the 60’s. Seen it all. Here she is in Peter Teachout’s backyard during National Night Out.

Finally, John’s on vacation and I can blog about the movie

Hello, there! Thanks for checking out the production blog!

Okay, here’s the deal: we (and by we, I mean myself, Jacob, and the movie’s other producer, Gabriel) met John back in April when Gabe randomly discovered John’s newly formed blog. I distinctly remember that day, because it was a Friday and I didn’t really want to be sitting at the computer editing that day. It was real sleety and crappy out, which dampened my mood. I especially didn’t want Gabe calling over to me from the other room: “Hey, Jacob, we should go over to North and check out this guy whose blog I just found. He sounds like a total nutjob!”

Great. Yeah, let’s go over to the Hawthorne neighborhood and hang out with some ex-military wingnut who’s probably going to get us into trouble somehow while we’re shooting, plus it’s cold and sleety out, plus it’s Friday. Isn’t there an easier way to try and tell a story about the housing crisis?

Turns out it was one of the best ideas Gabe ever had. Oh, John turned out to be a wingnut, alright - and I mean that as the highest compliment. We were fascinated at his documentary “ratio.” Where we normally have to shoot a few hours worth of footage to cut together a reasonably informative and - god forbid - entertaining short documentary, we were able to fashion 3 pieces out of what we got that morning with John. And we only shot 90 minutes. The original Johnny Northside short documentaries can be seen here.

Anyhow, now it is August. And a lot has happened. Here’s a condensed list:

1 ) Spring came

2 ) Gabe and I decided to immediately embark on a lengthy feature about Johnny and the Northside and foreclosed houses.

3 ) We started shooting a bunch of activity with Johnny, including, but not limited to: boarded up houses, drug and prositution surveilance, pig testicles, lengthy diatribes on the evil of phonebooks, little bitty neighborhood groups struggling to change things, out of control mold spores, binge drinking with Polish immigrants, grafitti, “shoe patrol,” pizza, fathers and sons, demolitions, slumlords, and giant bullfrogs from Thailand.

4 ) We gave Johnny a camera. Since that day, he’s given us dozens of tapes that he’s shot on his own.

5 ) Gabe threw together a pretty cool website for the movie. We were about to make it public when -

6 ) Our office got robbed and they took everything; computers, cameras, microphones, and all of our footage.

7 ) Gabe and I wandered around in a depressed funk for a few weeks. Johnny continued to blog and drive his truck and feel bad about the whole thing.

8 ) The cops caught they guys and we got most of our shit back! Yay, pawn shops!

9 ) We picked up the pieces, published the website, and continued onward with our little production.

We’re in the middle of a particularly interesting stretch of activity at the moment, and we’re hanging out with John and the other small cast of characters we’ve come to know over the last few months as often as we are able to.

And, as for the title of this post, John’s out of town - driving to Missouri? Mississippi? - to deliver god-knows-what manner of disgusting critters in his white truck.

We will update this blog every time something production-like takes place. We’re really excited about the movie we have so far, and we appreciate your interest more than you know.

More soon!

6-Oct 2008