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Originally entitled "Walkin' In Erkan with JSB," this is a short film my friend Jeff Lazar and I made two years ago in Erkan, one of the oldest settlements in the Penghu archipelago. 

It wasn't really meant to be anything but a goof; actually, I'd gone there to research  a brochure for the Penghu Government called "Penghu: In the Middle of Everywhere" (clicking the title will take you to the website, which oddly enough, I just discovered moments ago while using google to try to remember what the title was. So much for keeping up with my own body of work, eh?). 

We were traveling with Abula Lin, a photographer in charge of shooting for the brochure (he's the guy eating the fish eyeball, though "Yanjing" would be a better translation than the one I gave off the cuff). Since Jeff had schlepped his DV camera all the way from Korea, we figured what the hell, and shot about 30 minutes of film, which we edited down to the 4 and a half you now have before you. 

We were going to sell it to Lonely Planet TV and use the money they paid us to fund the revolution; oh, such dreams we had...alas, alas...

Anyway, I still think it came out OK for something completely unscripted and unplanned, except for my strange references to Michael Palin and Ozzie Osbourne, which really were  uncalled for in the context of the project. 

The girl you hear laughing is my step-sister Gabrielle, who was visiting for the summer), and the Erhu Music is by the amazing Cheng Hsiao-mei, who will one day score the far more serious film which I'm writing now. 

Still ready for that close-up, Mr. Fellini...