The Mamma Log
From Stove to Screen
Posted on August, 25 2011
Days like today, gray and rainy, make me remember when I first became a "Foodie". I can trace it back to a very young age, probably four years old or so. My mother worked most days, so I stayed home with my grandmother when I wasn't in school. On rainy days, my grandma would make large pots of what she called AMINESTE (What she meant was Minestra-Italian for soup). While other kids my age were refusing to eat their vegatables, I was sitting at my grandma's table slurping up heaping spoonfuls of an Italian escarole soup with vocal delight. My grandmother made it so much fun, and truly made me believe I was eating the greatest thing that could ever be put before me. No matter what it was, from vegatables, to fish, I would try it if it meant sitting down with my grandma and spending time over the food that she prepared with so much love for her family.
Thankfully, I kept this with me always. It might be the biggest reason why I learned to cook and now cook so often. I enjoy looking across the table and seeing people enjoy a meal that I prepared they way I enjoyed meals with my Grandma. I think with so much else going on in life, sharing a meal is sometimes the only time we get to share ourselves and spend time.
I am thankful that I had that time with my Grandma and shared those rainy days over soup. I believe that without those moments, I would not have the story I have today in WIth Anchovies...Without Mamma. It is a story that I have come to pitch as "Big Night meets Blue Velvet", "Meanstreets with mozzarella". Those moments with my grandma inspired everything I am from stove to screen.
Rust
Posted on April, 4 2011
You know you are an Italian-American when...Christ makes eveyrthing rite as rust. Humidity and oxygen work together to weather all that builds and binds. One place, unchanged, a face that watches. Paper-illustration-doubt-identity.
Sacred Heart
Posted on March, 24 2011
You know you are an Italian-American when...your family has a blue collar and a Sacred Heart. Work to provide. Family is faith. The eyes of those you love need not look far to understand the blisters.
Saint Anthony
Posted on March, 21 2011
You know you are an Italian-Amercian when you find St. Anthony hiding behind a door in your grandparents basement. The perfect place for the patron saint of lost things. So much stored, so much forgotten, so much believed to be lost when it is actually just downstairs.
Italian American Heritage
Posted on October, 1 2010
When I made With Anchovies...Without Mamma, it was to be a film about family, and who we are without it, as well as film about culture and where we are without it. I intended it to be a piece that addressed both the part and the body. Mamma was something that helped me find catharsis in losing my Grandparents, as I knew that within the film I could speak openly and honestly about how desperate I felt my world was without them. As far as I always knew, they were me, and with them gone, I was forced to evaluate how to proceed with a life that just became alltogether strange. As always, their love, the love that I could feel despite their absence, helped me to find a way.
I have never been more comfortable in my life then the times I sat down for black coffee with my grandfather. It was a beautiful pause in the day to day chaos to listen to a man that had managed to filter out most of the bad in the world to speak only about the glory of life. He told so many stories that I wish were my own. During his stories, my grandmother would inject her natural brand of comic relief. My grandfathers patience and lyricism, accented by my grandmothers quick tongue and razor sharp sarcasm always made for the memorable. We would sit for hours. We would talk and listen, and never want to be anywhere else but right there. And then one day, that simply was not available anymore as time had turned its back. Life became filled with all the obstacles life brings, but without my grandparents I was too weary to fight them off . I could not find the time to talk, time to breathe, time to appreicate and understand what meant most, the way I did siting with my grams and gramps.
Soon I became aware of what was happening not only to me, but to the Italian American culture as a whole. Time is simply putting water in our wine. That which is most valuable to us is getting torn from our grasp. Why? Because we let it. My grandparents left me with enough love, and culture to carry on, yet I couldn't. Becasue I let the world get in the way. Then, I decided to fight a little more, and take it back bit by bit. Why? Because it was precious. Most people grow up not knowing anything about their heritage, but for me, to not know my heritage would mean not to grow up. It was part of everything I was and wanted to be.
Half-Way, Half-Full
Posted on July, 16 2010
We are at the halfway mark to the 2010 baseball season. When I was watching SNY before the start of last night's Mets-Giants game, a headline came up in regards to the Mets season thus far "The glass is half full". I woke up this morning to see the score 2-0 Giants. My boys blew it.
The NY Mets are in second place, five games back from the Atlanta Braves, and despite great strides forward, still searching. Desperately trying to figure out what it is going to take to get to that next level, to surpass the Braves and take over the NL East. Be it pitching, be it offense, something is most certainly standing between the Metropolitans and the consistency it takes to stay on top. Man, I just can't believe it....Here we go with the Braves again!
It is something you should never do, but without fail, you always look to find yourself inside of your favorite sports club. A cell in an organism that breathes for a championship. When this connection is there, and you look to your team as a mirror, their loss becomes your loss. Deep seated. I ask myself time and time again, am I the NY Mets and what is it going to take to find a way to win? I want desperately for my team to turn it around, to inspire me to turn it around. I've looked upon baseball oh so many times as a distraction from my own personal issues, but also a reminder of what I have to do to get past. It is probably a terrible approach because it creates all too much conflict. It can be highly effective as you learn champions are not born overnight, it is not a sprint but a marathon, and also ineffective at the same time as you realize that prolonged slumps can kill all hope and thrust upon your shoulders more of the same. Frustrations, a lost season, going through the motions knowing that to taste a title you will have to wait till next season.
Busy Being Born
Posted on May, 6 2010
It’s a bloody bitch trying to find your way out of the womb. First of all, its warm and comfortable in there and oh so difficult out in the cold light of reality. Why move forward? Why poke your head out when you are simply waiting to be greeted by the cruel cut and slap that life has prepped and waiting for you? You struggle, you put it off, but then you understand where your place is, and you enter a world that is as new as you.
Mamma has taken on so many different forms. Born and reborn. Each time I think I have a strong grasp, a clear purpose to move forward with, I struggle, I change, and inevitably it changes. So many variables can cause question to translate into shape. In filming this short, it seemed the concept for the feature was starting to take on a new identity. I thought everything had become so drastically different in tone and structure that what we were going to be moving forward with for the feature was something so completely different than what was realized at the inception of the project. It was different, but it felt pretty concrete. Everything seemed to make so much sense. And then it didn’t. And then it just all stood still. And then I got comfortable waiting for it to make sense.
Soon comfort became confusion and confusion became loss of time, energy and spirit. I was the dying in the hands of my maker. Then I found myself at a bar with my very supportive production partner, staring into a plate of chicken nachos and somehow, it all made sense again. Once preoccupied with diversions and distress, now I was filled with newfound clarity and focus on what we decided was the original and should be the current plan for the feature. Three stories, connecting storylines, one common theme of loss acting as a catalyst for self-discovery.
Take Back the Morning
Posted on February, 2 2010
There is something that has been bearing down on me for quite a while. Something difficult, something ugly. One of those secrets that festers like a rumor in the hands of a loud mouth school girl. It takes a while to recognize, to come to terms with that which is a detriment to you, and the progress you wish to see building in your life. You can ignore it, cover it up, sugar coat it, or do whatever it is you wish to do to convince yourself that you are dealing with the problem, but in the end...it's there. It is ALWAYS there. Waiting like a cheap shot chump to pop you in the chops when you turn your back to see who is calling you bitch. The bastard child of you and that fat woman you met at the Winger concert that one drunken night. Ignore all you want, but eventually it gets to you. It takes you over, and everyday that it slips through your feeble hands is another day that it gains the strength that you no longer have. When you reach the breaking point, you have to make a decision. Confront the problem or just hope against hope that it will go away. I've decided to confront it.
I'm completely and hopelessly addicted to sleep. I OD on the Zzzzz's. Every morning I snooze and I lose. An unfinished script looms as the merciless winter wind has me watching my dependence swell beyond the manageable. If my own inherent tendency to make excuses for this behavior was not enough, I am surrounded by enablers as well. The snooze button on my alarm clock, my soft and snorey Boston Terrier, and the uber comfortable fleece Guitar Hero pajamas my nephew got me for Christmas (They sound like a joke, but I assure you these things are no joke at all) all do their best to make sure that I stay between the sheets and out of the office. The odds are stacked against me before the alarm clock ever sounds off in the a.m.. It's like trying to quit smoking while watching Madmen!
You would think the solution is simple just get your lazy ass out of bed and you will get used to it. Not true. Once you've formed that unhealthy relationship with your snooze button, you will pat that sucker at least twenty times between the hours of 5 and 7. And I have done just that which has led to something even more maddening. The sleep that I am clinging to like a drunk to a bottle of Wild Turkey, actually isn't all that good. It is getting interrupted every five minutes by NPR giving me an update on the atrocity in Haiti and the Obama administration's most recent bouts with the GOP. (In the most soothing of voices imaginable of course. Man those people sound so damn smart and perfect. Jerks!)
Double With the Bases Loaded
Posted on January, 17 2010
I’ve never known a colder winter than the winter a couple of years back when I watched my Grandfather succumb to cancer. The pending death of someone you care about more than anything else in the world can be nothing short of spine shattering. You spend everyday trying to find a way to be whole, as a large piece is slowly being worked away from your soul’s foundation. The tangible; the flesh , the voice, being transfered from existence to memory. The hardest part is opening yourself up to the experience in an effort to understand the world in a deeper way. It is hard, but it is necessary. Shutting down is done out of fear and as anyone who has ever experienced death knows, fear does not delay the inevitable, it just makes it harder when the day comes.
I dealt with the experience with acceptance and the will to try to take every moment I could, enjoying a world with my Grandfather still in it. This was despite the fact that the inevitable said that world would not be maintained for long. I spent as much time trying to see my grandfather as I could, and I was afforded opportunities to be there for him in a way that a very fortunate grandchild should be. One day, coming home from work, I saw that I had received a couple messages on my cell phone. When I arrived home from work, I saw that I received some messages on my home machine as well. My mother had called me to tell me that my grandfather was having a bit of a good day, and had been asking for me. She thought I should give him a call as soon as possible. I called him, and my Aunt put me on the phone with him immediately. He barely had the breath to speak, though he had the will to spare. I told him to take it easy and if he couldn’t talk, then not to worry about that. He fought off his limitations and spoke. What he said to me was “Tommy, Grandpa hit a double with the bases loaded”. These were the last words my grandfather ever spoke to me.
I grew to love baseball out of love for my grandfather who played the game at home and in the military during WW II. I can remember calling him frequently from games at Shea Stadium so we could share our NY Mets together. Even if we couldn’t have a cold beer and a hot dog together at Shea, I could tell him what the atmosphere was like in the park, and we could discuss how one of our own, an Italian American, Mike Piazza would be the one to help them win it again.
Embrace the Reset
Posted on January, 16 2010
It’s a new year and the weight of hope and expectation is up to it’s usual Gleason-esque proportions. The soul is fattened on the frustrations of yesteryear and the need for timely change. New year, new decade, new hope, new me.
When I decided to write Mamma, it was mostly because of the fact that I was seeing exhaustion and convenience stabbing tradition in the neck before my eyes. One of the primary examples of this was the Italian American cultural pearl, the Feast of Seven Fishes being pawned off by my own family for a tray of cold cuts or worse yet, take out from an Italian Restaurant. I made a promise to myself that I would not only comment on it in my wok, but do my best to stop these heinous acts of cultural bastardization. I would fight this war with an army or I would go it alone. Either way, action needed to be taken.
2009 comes on, I find my voice and I finish my film With Anchovies...Without Mamma. This was never a film that I felt had a message that was accessible to everyone. It’s message is buried beneath beats of the dark and the absurd. I do believe though that the message is woven tightly within the fiber of the story. If the viewer is open and willing, it certainly is there for them. So in essence, I accomplished a modicum of what I set out to accomplish. I stated my case, and I felt very good about it. Empowered even. So what was left for me to do in 09? Finish the year off with an ambitious Feast of the Seven Fishes dinner to wash away the sins of the cold cuts, and the take out. I decided I was going to put together a table of food that would embody all the gluttony of Satyricon minus the young boys and togas. I did this, and I did it tenfold. I stood over a stove, watching through the window in my kitchen as friends fed on shrimp, bowls of mussels, calamari, salted cod and whatever else was slung out there. They smiled, they laughed and they were part of a tradition that brought my family so many memorable holidays. I felt like a chubby happy old Italian lady whose only true pleasure was to watch people enjoy food. It was amazing. Then like all things, the night came to an end. Unfortunately for me, the end came down harder than expected. Shortly after the last guest had left, I was ridden with chills and a lurking fever that was crawling through my system with bad intentions and a refusal to go easy on me. I never get sick, so I have to feel like this virus was a little like the guy that gets fired from his corporate job and comes back with a AK47 and shoots up the office. I was laid out. Christmas was cruel. I ended up spending Christmas Day in the hospital asking “Why? Why can’t this just happen any other time.” Fa la la la la la la la LA.
Lost Things and the "Go To Guy"
Posted on December, 13 2009
"Dear St. Anthony, please come around. Something's been lost and can't be found."
"Miracles waited on your word, which you were ever ready to speak for those in trouble or anxiety."
One theory that rings true for most Italian Americans is that they form a relationship with Saint Anthony early on in their lives. If you come from parents, or grandparents of any sort of Roman Catholic faith, it is ingrained into you early on that if anything is wrong, Saint Anthony will fix it, as he is the Saint of miracles, if anything is lost Saint Anthony will find it, as he is the Saint of lost things. Pretty much one stop spiritual shopping. When you were young, you were constantly losing stuff, and or hoping for a miracles to assist you in situations like that math final you need to ace to avoid going summer school. Saint Anthony became a guy you talked to on a regular basis.
Beauty and the Bitch
Posted on December, 12 2009
Things have gone so well for so long, that I knew, just knew there was a rough patch looming. The home team’s win streak ends, the wine goes dry, and the sun eventually stops shining.
I guess there is no point in creating a blog like this if you aren’t going to report the good and the bad. This entire filmmaking process is one of extreme emotions. You struggle to get the ideas out, and that struggle hurts. You finally get those ideas out, and that flow of thought is satisfying. You are no longer doubting yourself. You could be, you should be, YOU ARE A FILMMAKER. The project takes shape on page and you work as hard as you can to see it through to screen. Schedules weigh you down, finances, scenes you thought made sense, don’t make sense anymore. Then it happens. Suddenly it seems to start breathing, taking on a life of it’s own. The project is up on it’s own two legs and not only is it walking, but it is strutting like disco’s back.
You have a finished product, and you screen that product for an audience. People respond. They tell you their feelings, and those feelings match up with your reasons for making the picture in the first place. The timing is spot on. Your vision has gone from one small idea to one very big screen and life could not be better...... Then it’s festival time.
Cine-mini Shorts Screening
Posted on November, 1 2009
I am way behind on this one. Been quite a crazy past couple of weeks. The screening for the CMJ Festival went great. It was amazing seeing the film projected on a screen that big. Proper multiplex, proper multiplex screen. Very intimidating at first, but after a while you just relax and enjoy.
We were in very good company in our category. The shorts were diverse and all well made. I really felt like the people at CMJ put a great deal of time into selecting the films. We were the last film to go on. Started about 11:00pm. I was so pleased with the reaction we got from the crowd. The timing of the film seems to be on point. Seeing Mamma with that size crowd and on that size screen, it really made me get a taste for where we are going with it. The absurdist nature really comes through and it is much easier to digest the film as a comedy. For a while we were all starting to feel there was more weight on the BLACK then the COMEDY in this Black Comedy. Now, I think there is a very good balance. While approaching the feature script, I don’t think I have to stretch much for a different tone. It’s all there, I just need to sit down and finish it.
I was pleasantly surprised by the reactions from people that did not know me or anything about the film. In a way, I feel as if people who know me and are familiar with this whole long road the film has taken, bring something to the screening, and in the end it affects their experience. Those who are not familiar seem to have a more pure reaction and so far those reactions have been incredibly positive. This best feeling you can have when beginning a journey with a film is to feel as if you’ve made a connection with your audience in some way. I certainly walked away feeling that.
CMJ Is On The Way
Posted on October, 12 2009
Everything is in line for the CMJ Film Festival. I am very excited to be a part of it. It is a great first festival for the movie. Excellent lineup of bands, film, parties. Making for a very cool vibe. We are screening MAMMA at the Clearview Chelsea on 8th Ave.- October 22nd at 9:30pm as part of the Cine-mini Shorts Competition. It’s a theater I went to often while I was in college, so for that reason alone, it feels pretty great. I can remember many nights sitting there watching movies and thinking to myself “What the hell is it gonna take?”. It seemed impossible to fathom getting something I conceived up there one day. I guess the answer to my question was don’t wait for someone to do it for you. Ignore all reason, and hope it works out.
The festival is very exciting as it is a first for myself and some others on this project. I have zero clue as to what the protocol is here. I wanna go in there and act like a pro, but facts are facts, I am a child on his first visit to the toy store. Either way, I am just happy to showcase the wonderful performances by my cast at an event like this. I may not know much, but I do know that I was gifted with all of the fine actors on this film. Hopefully more festivals await and I will have the opportunity to share with more people, what I already know about these talented people.
Listen to Mamma!
Posted on October, 6 2009
With Anchovies...Without Mamma has long been a passion project of mine. It is a film that was born within my own frustrations and search for identity. Not only did I want to make this movie, but felt I had to make it. The other scripts I wrote on spec were bigger comedies that were designed for stars, studios and budgets. They were never something that I truly felt were a vehicle to explore my voice as a filmmaker. Mamma was something that was 100 percent me and it had 100 percent possibility.
I had a vision for this film which was greater than the short film that exists now. The story was much broader before I felt the need to pare it down. I knew that to shoot the the original script it would call for more money than I was equipped with. In the end, I felt that the best way to approach this journey was with one first small step. I structured a project that I felt retained the soul of the original film, but also helped me develop a vision that was tangible before trying to inspire the confidence of external investors. With the original vision in my back pocket for a future feature length picture, I went into production.
The process was cathartic in a sense, helping me deal with loss within my own life, as well as the loss that existed within the lives of my characters. These factors made everything surreal and hyper-real at the same time. What ever the case was, I was making this film one way or another. There was no chance to turn my back on it now.
