Notes from the USCAF, Pt. 1
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYffXv7jMYQ]
Orrin and I went to Aspen for the 13th HBO Comedy Arts Festival Tuesday – Sunday of last week. (Feb 28-Mar 4). We flew into Denver from Boston and were hit with a flight cancellation going to Aspen because of a massive snowstorm, which more or less stayed there the next few days.
We rented a van to Aspen instead. It was a scary five hour ride through the Rockies at night with driving snow and six-mile declines, but we finally made it, passing Doc Holliday’s Saloon in Glenwood Springs to our hotel at 11:30 Mountain Time. I can’t believe he made it there from Arizona on horseback, while dying of consumption.
The next day we picked up our luggage at Aspen airport. The staff at the USCAF including Liz, Hope, Melody and Barry, helped a great deal. The first day, we got interviewed on the Andrew Kole Show on Aspen’s Cable Access Station. Orrin and I were seated next to Slamdance co-founder Dan Mirvish and filmmaker Eitan Gorlin. A few days later I spotted Dan with a cast on his leg. He fell on the ice in Aspen and re-broke the leg he’d been rehabbing for months!
We showed our short “The Strange Trip” on Wednesday at 10:30 in the “Shorts 3” Program and introduced the film. It got a good reception. The film that won the shorts competition was called “My Wife is Retarded”, which featured Gary Cole and George Segal , a movie star from the 70s.
Later that night I got into see George Carlin . Nicole Adler got us the last two seats in the house, in the journalists section. Carlin tried out new material. I loved it.
After the concert we were going back to the hotel. It was freezing and we were waiting outside for a cab. I went inside for a few minutes because my leather bomber was not enough. I watched as Orrin got approached by some guy with a jean jacket and knit cap and they started talking. Then Orrin motioned me out; I went out wondering “why he was talking to a cab driver and where was the cab?” It wasn’t a cab driver, it was Steven Wright.
