The Rest of the Year

An update! Wondering where I've been and what's cookin? Read all about it here!

Where have you been??!

I mentioned I would be taking a break but it’s now come to an end. My favorite season is beginning (though it still feels like summer here). It’s funny to be writing again today over coffee but I do have a couple of projects to not only attend to, but promised myself I wouldn’t lapse. One of these of course is this here Substack, which I haven’t kept up with to the extent I had hoped. Don’t worry there are things coming today and tomorrow!

First things first, an update on everything going on. One - I decided that I took on a bit too much with the Blu-Ray reviews. Not that I can’t do them, but part of me realized I can’t give it my all with those in the way I do with the regular essays. I don’t like doing half-assed things so I've decided to nix the plan of asking for copies of Blu-Rays to review. Have a lot on my plate and a lot to focus on, including my health and other projects. Took on a bit too much. Plenty of others are writing Blu reviews already and maybe this is for the best if my heart isn’t completely in it the way I am with other things like…

The podcast! Director’s Club is still alive and well though it’s been about a month since the Keith Gordon episode. The plan right now is to record these episodes for the rest of the year starting in 2 weeks: Jeremy Saulnier (with Mitchell Beaupre), Guillermo Del Toro (with Chloe Waryan), Michael Mann Redux (with Brian Tallerico & Ryan Verrill), Jackie Chan (with Sam Inglis). Then it’ll be time for the year-end award season madness so I will be focusing on that entirely come December. The year-end summation episode is always a big draw so I tend to give it my all especially for awards voting.

New music! For my yearly tradition of performing a live show at Reed’s Local in November, I will be playing one brand spanking new song and a slew of fun covers as usual. Looks like it will happen on Thursday, November 21st so stay tuned for the full line-up and flyer. This will be the best show yet, promise!

New library gig in October! This is exciting in terms of the day job that I love dearly. Not only will I be five minutes walking distance to work but this is the branch I always hoped to transfer to. By some miracle, it happened. I feel very fortunate and won’t take this for granted either. It’ll be a change of pace and I’m nervously excited for this new chapter in my career as a nerdy librarian. 

Yes I am making a movie! Jokingly calling it for now, Untitled Jim Laczkowski Project, but yes, it is a documentary/mockumentary hybrid where I go inward, mostly. It’s about music, movies, my past, my present. My main idea initially was that it would be purely silly and comedic (like a satire of Behind the Music) but there will definitely be a lot of truth in it, surrounding mental health, my connection to the arts, the silly movies I made in high school and a lot of home video footage never seen before. It’s definitely influenced greatly by the work of Ross McElwee but there’s also wacky comedy along the lines of David Wain and/or Joe Pera for kicks and giggles. I hope you’ll like it??

My plan is that the film will be done around the holiday season but if I need to spend more time with it and wait til next year, then I will. I’m calling this my first “real” movie so I don’t want to do this half-assed either. It’ll likely only live on Vimeo since I’m including some copyrighted clips and needle drops. Actually there’s one big needle drop that I’ve even asked for the rights to include. I don’t know if it’ll happen but it’s been fun to go about trying. Maybe (this is a BIG maybe) a public screening will happen in Chicago but that’s only if it’s for a small audience at a tiny venue, which is what I’d expect anyway.

Now that I’ve summarized what’s been happening and what will happen, I of course have to thank you all for reading, supporting this Substack (or any project) and this will become more consistent again starting tomorrow. I also have a review/interview to post today so that’s next on the docket. I greatly appreciate your patience and your time - there’s a lot to look forward to for the rest of the year and beyond! Back to writing, editing and recording now.