Post-Trip Status Update

Cutting together a short documentary film to for film festival submission this next year. Get ready for an incredible and novel aesthetic experience done in an experimental fashion, providing a distinctive perspective of American society in 2008.

Day 28/29 - VEGAS to LA!!!

UPDATE:
We go to pick up Tao (aka Charlie) at the airport and after 40 minutes of looping around, we resort to paging him over the loud speaker in the airport. Why? Tao's phone was out of batteries and we couldn't meet him where previously ordained since all the car clearance heights were much shorter than 10ft. Poor Dusty. It's a hard life being 11 ft tall.

An airport traffic official stops us and notifies us that a man has been looking for a bus just like ours. Finally, the stars align and we find our Tao! Time for a night of celebratory dancing and a little bit of gambling...because what would Vegas be without it?

Vegas is great, but we are itching to get to our final destination. After working up a sweat on the dance floor at the Palms, it's time for a beautiful drive home to LA in the early early morning. Tao is ecstatic to be reunited with the LAFCO bus and us girls. He sits behind the wheel, and brings it all home.

HELLO LA! WE MADE IT...(of course).

Day 28 - VEGAS!!!

Just got into Vegas. Getting the interior of the bus cleaned by a wonderful woman named Crystal who invited us into her home and out of this 105 degree+ heat. Thank you Crystal!!!

Tao just booked a flight from LA to Las Vegas. We're gonna look all hot, go to the Bellagio and raid their all-you-can-eat buffet, pick up Tao at the airport, and do what people do when in VEGAS!

Day 27 - Grand Canyon

Made it to the Grand Canyon. Wanted to hike down to the Colorado River and go rafting but we were strongly warned against doing it in one day. We went halfway down and saw the sunset...and almost died on the climb back up. 3.6miles round trip.

Day 26 - Taos, NM

Quick stop in Taos, NM for some nature and reflection.

500 mile+ drive to the Grand Canyon.

Day 25 - Santa Fe

We hang out in a cafe in Santa Fe and do an intense uploading of photos and video onto this site!

We are off to Frogville, an artist commune, 15 minutes outside of Santa Fe.

After that, Taos, NM!

Day 24 - White Sands

We enter the White Sands National Park at 10am. It is a phenomenal sight and we decide to film there and add it to our short that we made in Marfa.

At 2pm we head to Taos, NM. Gallo, another LAFCO member, calls to inform us that he is in Santa Fe, NM. We meet up with him and his brother, Paul.

We sleep in a public parking lot in the center of Santa Fe, NM.

Day 23 - Marfa Farmer's Market

After an amazing breakfast at the Austin Street Cafe, we head to the Farmer's Market in town where we are greeted by familiar faces.

We chatted with our new friends in Marfa and visited the stands (almost adopted a dog - ALBERT!) We run into Tom Michael, the director of the Marfa Public Radio Station. He agrees to do an interview. However, he surprises us by inviting us into the studio and has us on air for the interview segment.




We leave for White Sands National Park in New Mexico later that afternoon. On the way out of Marfa stands an art installation of a Prada Store. Check out our still photos short - to be re-edited at a later date to original music.

On the border of Texas and New Mexico, we hear a pop and a hiss in El Paso, TX. We see a brakes shop and get off at that exit. But, it is 5pm on Saturday and everyone is closed. We open the hood and immediately spot the issue: the air compressor hose has now popped off. We finally find a mechanic who replaces one simple ring and we are on our way again.

En route to White Sands, the roads start to get hilly. About 20 miles south of White Sands, the bus starts lurching - the gears are not working properly. We stop to let it rest and finally make it to White Sands National Park at 11:30pm. We pull in and the park ranger informs us that they are closed for the night and we can't park there. We drive 13 miles to the next town, Alamogordo, NM and park in a Holiday Inn parking lot to sleep.

Day 22 - Marfa, my love

Sandra takes us to the community garden which she started a year ago. We help her pick arugula, which she sells every Saturday at the Farmer's Market in town.

We explore the galleries and museums in town. The Ballroom Marfa has an art installation exhibit entitled "Hello Meth Lab In the Sun."

On the street, we meet a ton of Marf-ans. Sasha and Maggie meet, Lisa and Jack, who run the Austin Street Cafe. They invite us to stay in their guest cottage.
[Lisa]




We started filming a creative short at the RV park where we stayed the night before.

We headed to Sandra's for dinner for the second night, where we met Justin, the installation artist for the Ballroom Marfa exhibit.

PHOTO SHOOT: In Flavin's Lights - Chinati Foundation [Marfa, TX]

Day 21 - MARFA

We drive all night and arrive in Marfa, TX at 5am on an empty gas tank. The entire way, it was not dark out due to the nearly full moon. We park the bus next to a palace-like building lined with fragrant trees. We go to sleep with the morning dawn light and sounds of sprinklers going off.

We wake up and explore the town. Have an excellent breakfast at the Brown Recluse. We visit the Chinati Foundation, where we tour the art work of ex-Marfa resident Donald Judd and his contemporaries such as Dan Flavin.

We meet up with a family friend of Tao's, Sandra and her daughter Eliza. Sandra invites us over for dinner. We bring along Luis and Emily, two interns at the Chinati Foundation that we met on the tour that day. Eliza invites her friend Trey. We make sushi.





After dinner, we try to see the infamous Marfa lights, but alas it is a full moon.

Day 20 - Austin, TX

We go to the Wheatsville Organic Co-op for some food. Bryce meets us there.
We go to Barton Springs (a natural water swimming area) with Bryce and his friend Tinus.

After eating at Freebirds, where Bryce works, we set off for Marfa, TX at 7pm. Tao just been to Marfa, TX in May to screen his film "Fix" at the first Marfa Film Festival.

Day 18 [Part II] - Texas

We stop in Athens, TX, a beautiful Texas town for some food. We stop into the Flying Gatto and meet some great people. In particular, the Bowden family who runs a gallery down the street. We spend some time in the gallery and Bobbie Bowden takes us to the Texan, a deserted old movie theatre. She puts us in touch with her brother, Bryce, who lives in Austin, TX.





We stop for gas in Hewitt, TX (next to Waco, TX) and once again the bus won't start up. We find a 24 hour mechanic: William (age 20) comes out at 1am and works until 3am and he can't figure out the problem. He promises to come back at 7am the next morning. We sleep at the gas station once again. Jennifer decides to test out her tent.

7am the next morning, William's father, Dave and his mother come out to fix our bus. He fixes the wiring from the battery to the starter, our transmission leak by replacing the hydraulic hose, and our oil leak.

We make it to Austin later that afternoon. That evening, we see people congregated on a bridge. Apparently, Austin has the world's largest bat conservatory and every night around 8pm there is a flight of bats.

Day 18 - Interview with Oliver Stone

Oliver graciously invites us to view the "W" production office. We get a quick interview with him.

We get back on the road for Austin, TX.

Day 16 - Shreveport, LA

A friend from the night before, Derek, stops by to check on us before going ATV-ing. He tells us that his friend is a mechanic that can probably fix our brake lights. Randy fixes our brake light problem by putting a simple fuse in (from a free kit given to us at the Harrah's Casino in New Orleans).

We make it to Shreveport by 5pm. We meet up with Oliver and go to the "W" wrap party.

Day 15 - Leaving New Orleans for real this time

We go back to the lower 9th ward and speak to volunteers from lowernine.org. We also stop at Cafe Reconcile and speak to the foundation's coordinator and a participant. Cafe Reconcile is a Zagat's rated restaurant in New Orleans, its mission is to give teens the skillset to work within the service industry.

We set off to go to Austin, TX at dusk. At the border of Louisiana and Texas - Lake Charles, Tracy wakes up and finds a voicemail from a friend of LAFCO, director Oliver Stone. He just wrapped his film "W" in Shreveport, LA and invited us to the wrap party the next evening.

We make a detour north. In the town immediately north of Lake Charles, Moss Bluff, we stop for gas. After filling up, the bus won't start. A filling on the air compressor has busted.

There is no 24 hour mechanic in the area. We meet Moss Bluff locals our age and talk until the wee hours of the morning. The next morning, Joe the mechanic comes and fixes the air compressor part. He informs us that we have a transmission leak. And our brake lights are not working. He can't fix either, we deem this not that urgent and set off.

Day 14 - Discoving New Orleans

Tracy and Jennifer go to City Hall to meet with Norris Henderson of SafeStreets. At the meeting, the New Orleans Council passes a controversial and long-awaited proposal that would implement independent police monitoring in New Orleans.

Sasha and Maggie go to the Garden District and meet artists.

Day 13 - Leaving New Orleans

We try to leave New Orleans for Austin, TX. We stop at Walmart to get some supplies. Pulling out of Walmart, the bus loses any acceleration capacity.

We get towed to a shop outside of New Orleans. It's an easy fix, a new distributor is needed.

We plan to stay in New Orleans for at least another day.

Day 12 - NOLA

We tour the 9th Ward to see if there has been any progress.
We meet up with Chloe Cockburn, an attorney for the Vera Institute of Justice (NY), who has been working in New Orleans to help revise their criminal justice system. She is Tao Ruspoli's sister-in-law.

Day 11 - Getting ALL Our Tires Replaced

The front tire that popped off was the one that had been replaced on July 5 by Wingfoot. It was improperly replaced.

Tracy, the Wingfoot salesman, has to drive 100 miles to get a used 10R20 rim. We negotiate with Wingfoot and get one new front steering tire and four all-terrain rear tires. This time, they are top of the line, heavy-duty Goodyear tires.

We leave at 6pm to get to New Orleans, LA. We arrive in New Orleans that evening.

Day 10 - ON THE ROAD

We set off at 9am after putting the posters that Venice, CA artist Robbie Conal, gave to us.




On the road for nearly 2 hours, the air pressure alarm goes off (the bus runs on air brakes and thus needs at least 90 psi to brake). However, the gauge tells us that the air pressure was at 120+. We pull into a rest stop and call the mechanic from the night before. He tells us that we should be fine and something must be wrong with the gauge.

We get back on the highway, only to discover that we had been going on the wrong freeway for the past hour: we were on 75-S instead of 85-S. We pull out our road atlas and find a smaller highway that will connect us to 85-S.

We drove with the alarm going off for another 2 hours. Now the air pressure has fallen and we are driving without brakes. We start calling mechanics to see if one is near where we are or if they could meet us where we are. We find one in Columbus, GA. We safely stop at a gas station where he meets us and fixes the governor of our air brake system.

We're on the road again to Mobile, Alabama.
20 miles north of Mobile, Alabama on I-65S (a 2-lane, 70 mph highway) we are on a suspended road over a swamp that will take us into Mobile. Right before we go over the bridge into Mobile...we feel a jolt and then looked out the right windows of the bus to see our tire bouncing past us. We come to a quick, smooth stop to avoid sparking of the rims. But there is no shoulder on the highway; we are in the right lane without our hazard lights working. We quickly run out to see what happened. We lost a tire and the rim, but the wheel is still intact. Cars are speeding by and an 18-wheel tractor-trailer almost hits us. He stops in time, leaving his truck behind the bus to divert traffic.

Calls are made to AAA for towing, and to 911 for highway assistance.
3 hours later, no towing service is available to tow our bus. The Alabama State Troopers have stopped traffic (on the tail end of July 4th weekend), creating a 5 mile back-up. The troopers finally call in a favor and a semi-truck is borrowed to tow us.

The bus is towed to Wingfoot in Mobile. We spend the night at a Super 8 motel down the street.

Day 9 - Search for tires

After many phone calls, we find the rare 10R20 tires available with Wingfoot, a national commercial truck tire company.
They come to the bus to change the tires. But the treading on the tires were not appropriate. Desperate to get on the road, we agree to change the front two steering tires and change the four rear drive tires at Wingfoot in Mobile, Alabama.

That evening, all of us test drive the bus to a celebratory dinner. We plan to leave at the crack of dawn the next morning. When we park for the night, we smell an overwhelming smell of burning rubber and the entire rear underbelly of the bus is smoking.

We call a 24 hour truck mechanic, cajole him to drive over an hour to us, to ascertain the problem. He tells us that it is our air brake tube. He replaces it.

Day 8 - July 4th

We can't do anything with the bus because it is July 4th weekend.
We hook up with James Wade, a LAFCO member, who invites us to a Fourth of July BBQ at the house of music producer, Rico Wade [Outkast].

Day 7 - The engine is put in

The engine is put in. The job is completed by dark.

But, we are told that the tires are all dry rotted.

Day 6 - New Engine Arrives!

The new engine arrives. Joseph recruits a friend to help him. The engine is assembled, using components from the old engine.

Day 4 - New Tactic

Time is ticking...Joseph can't find the right engine. He suggests that the engine be re-built. We drop the engine off at Joe's Automotive, outside of Atlanta, GA.
Joe tells us that the engine is a 366 and not a 454, as originally thought.

We find a 366 engine in Georgia. We put in an order with Jasper Engines.

Day 2 - Meet the Mechanic

We meet the mechanic, Ian Joseph, for the first time.
He tells us that he was sent the wrong engine.

Day 1 - Arrive in Atlanta, GA

Day 1
Tracy, Maggie, Sasha arrive in Atlanta, GA from Newark International Airport.
They find the bus in the parking lot of a warehouse [2 High Studios].
A new engine is sitting next to the bus.
Jennifer flies in from Los Angeles International Airport.

Introduction

LAFCO Bus Tour 2008
Founded in 2000 by Tao Ruspoli, the Los Angeles Filmmakers' Cooperative (LAFCO) is a mobile, self-sufficient film production studio based out of a fully-equipped school bus. LAFCO's mission is to give voices to those who are underrepresented in mainstream media, all while using the unique aesthetic of its filmmaking style. LAFCO has produced three feature length films that have screened at independent film festivals across the United States and earned numerous distinctions: Camjackers (2006), Pocket Change (2008), FIX (2008).

More than merely a physical production base, the LAFCO bus is critical in the ongoing effort to find and explore what is true, authentic and beautiful in a chaotic world. As film becomes an increasingly accessible and powerful medium, the members of the Los Angeles Filmmakers' Cooperative continue to seek countless adventures in the United States and beyond, producing dozens of music videos, documentaries, and narrative films.

On June 27, 2008, the LAFCO bus was entrusted to four young women: aspiring actresses, directors, and editors. Total strangers, the only thing they had in common was each of their separate encounters with LAFCO and their shared belief in and commitment to the LAFCO mission. Their journey began in Atlanta, Georgia and leads them across the great American South to Venice, California. Along the way, they plan to upload 2-3 minute short pieces that reflect their unique discoveries among the American landscape and how that shapes each person's personal journey. Upon successfully completing the trip, the short pieces will be edited into a 30 minute short film (for festival submission) that will, hopefully, capture a distinctly contemporaneous take on the American condition that can inform, inspire, and/or spark an effectual dialogue.

STOPS THUS FAR:
Atlanta, GA
Columbus, GA
Mobile, AL
New Orleans, LA
Moss Bluff, LA
Shreveport, LA
Athens, TX
Austin, TX
Marfa, TX
El Paso, TX
Sante Fe, NM
Taos, NM

CREW BIOS


(L to R: Tracy, Sasha, Jennifer, Maggie)

Tracy Chung
Graduated from Columbia University in the City of New York in May 2008 with a major in Political Science – International Affairs and an unofficial concentration in filmmaking. An aspiring actress and filmmaker, she is currently writing her first feature length screenplay. Her collaboration with LAFCO started when she met Tao in Los Angeles in the summer of 2006, during which she attended the Lee Strasberg Institute for Theatre and Film. She is the primary bus driver on the trip because it is a cold, hard fact that the most skilled drivers hail from the dirty 'Jerz.

Jennifer Hobdy
Born and raised in Southern California. A vegetarian for life. Graduated from Stanford University with a B.A. in Psychology and Studio Art. Her professional career began as an editor working for Plum TV in Aspen, Colorado. After snowboarding for two seasons, she got sick of the snow and then moved back home. Loves to travel but is deathly afraid of mosquitoes and getting stuck in any one place. Current priority: meet new people and make it back in one piece.

Alexandra Metz (Sasha)
Graduated from Brown University in 2008. Although a Human Biology concentrator, she began entertaining her dream of performance arts during her Junior year at Brown. Due to boldness and keen talent, she now holds credits in many play and film productions, confirming her need to continue stimulating and satisfying her creative drive. As a strong believer in the notion that "everything happens for a reason," she is grateful and excited to be a part of this crazy journey across the country.

Margaret Odette Perkins (Maggie) graduated from Brown University in 2008. Her degree in Art Semiotics allowed her to focus on her keen interests in critical film theory and production. She began acting at a young age, performing in plays, musicals, and local film productions. In the spring of 2008, while working as a staff member for the Ivy Film Festival, Maggie met featured guest and LAFCO founder Tao Ruspoli. Within months she signed on to be part of the LAFCO bus' tour back to LA-LA Land. Maggie hopes to see, hear, smell, taste, and create some really cool shit while on the road. "Hey Maggie you should film that….Toooooo Laaaaaate!"


Special thanks to:
Tao Ruspoli, friend, mentor, executive producer, LAFCO founder
Sarah Redlich
The Sulmers Family, Atlanta, GA
Cortez and 2 High Studios, Atlanta, GA
Ian Joseph of Mobile Mechanics, Atlanta, GA
Lee of Yessir Services, Hiram, GA
Joe's Automotive, Decatur, GA
James Wade, Rico Wade, the Dungeoneeze family, ATL
Maddock Truck Repair, Fayetteville, GA
Godwin Road Service, Phenix City, AL
Alabama State Trooper Eubanks
Goodyear-Wingfoot Mobile, AL
Coleman's Wrecker Service, New Orleans, LA
Chloe Cockburn of the Vera Justice Institute, New York, NY
Norris Henderson of SafeStreets, New Orleans, LA
The Moss Bluff Crew
Oliver Stone
Sandra, Marfa, TX
The Copelands and their lovely Austin St. Cafe, Marfa, TX
Crystal and her magic cleaning wand, Las Vegas, Nevada

...

Disclaimer

All photos and video are the sole property of LAFCO. Please contact us at lafco2008@gmail.com for terms of use.