Lockwoodn't You Know: Pun City Interviews An Up-And-Coming Director

With Summer blockbuster season upon us, Pun City decided it'd be cool to post an interview with one of this summer's up-and-coming directors. You may remember Kyle Lockwood from such English projects as "Wild Wild Midwest" and... well, probably just that, if that. For those of you that weren't watching, this is the story of Jack Daniels fighting vampire desperados. But Kyle's back at it again later this summer (probably) with "Wild Wild Midwest II: The Legend Continues."

Pun City: How's production of Wild Wild Midwest II: The Legend Continues going?

Kyle Lockwood: Almost done with the script.

Pun City: Cool, cool.

Kyle Lockwood: I should be done with that by this weekend. Then I got to build one of the sets and get everyone's costumes together.

Pun City: Sounds ambitious, but cool. Is the vampire still in?

Kyle Lockwood: Vampire/demon...I don't think it matters what it is called.

Pun City: As long as it's nocturnal.

Kyle Lockwood: No.

Pun City: Hahahahaha.

Kyle Lockwood: I refuse to shoot at night, way too much work.

Pun City: So, the characters are just going to talk about what happened at night the next day?

Kyle Lockwood: Nothing is going to happen at night, everyone goes to sleep at sundown.

Pun City: But the nocturnal demon is going to be up though, he seems like he's pretty important.

Kyle Lockwood: Black vampires are allergic to the moon.

Pun City: Hahahaha, how are any of them around anymore then?

Kyle Lockwood: They hide from the moon.

Pun City: But the moon's out like 75% of the time, and they only go out at night, so they're extremely limited it would seem.

Kyle Lockwood: No, black vampires are dayturnal! They only come out when the moon isn't (out).

Pun City: Hmm, well then all of the main characters would be able to really attack him at night.

Kyle Lockwood: Well... they would have to find out where he sleeps.

Pun City: So the movie's going to focus on their quest to find where he sleeps, that's cool.

Kyle Lockwood: No, you're being difficult.

Pun City: This blog isn't sure it follows.

Kyle Lockwood: The movie is Jack Daniels versus evil demon trying to destroy the world (only during the daytime).

Pun City: That seems like a pretty poor idea, this blog means, if someone's trying to destroy the world, wouldn't they take advantage of the night also?

Kyle Lockwood: The demon isn't very smart....the ritual can only be performed at noon.

Pun City: Oh man, are you going to have the demon take an intelligence test to establish he isn't too bright?

Kyle Lockwood: Look...the time of day is irrelevant to the story.

Pun City: Oh, so you'll just film it some during the day, some at night then.

Kyle Lockwood: No... I'm going to film it when it is convenient for me and the cast to film. As long as there is enough natural light to see everything. If it would make you happy I can simulate the passage of time between one day and the next.

Pun City: So like, night vision cameras?

Kyle Lockwood: Night vision is kind of lame I think.

Pun City: This blog doesn't know, Pun City means, this blog saw this one video...

Kyle Lockwood: The whole movie takes place over the course of two days, so I will have a time lapse shot of the passage of time from one day to the next.....so you can be happy.

Pun City: Hmm. Can you get Night Ranger to perform in the soundtrack?

Kyle Lockwood: Who is that?

Pun City: It's an '80s band, they sing "Motorin'"

Kyle Lockwood: Never heard of it. The sound track is pretty much the last thing.

Pun City: Are you going to include songs that were performed at night?

Kyle Lockwood: Nope.

Pun City: Man, you're just trying to silence night.

Kyle Lockwood: I think the intro to the movie is going to be a Pink Floyd song.

Pun City: This blog thinks Pink Floyd generally performed at night.

Kyle Lockwood: Doesn't matter when they performed...

Pun City: Well you just said you weren't going to include songs that were performed at night.

Kyle Lockwood: I'm the director, and I can do what I want.

Pun City: Well of course, but it's just kind of confusing with the switching of opinions there.

Kyle Lockwood: Doesn't matter if you're confused...

Pun City: This blog doesn't follow.

Kyle Lockwood: Good.

Pun City: Cool, now everyone's happy!

Kyle Lockwood: Good deal.

There you have it folks. "Wild, Wild Midwest II: The Legend Continues" will probably be out on YouTube some time later this summer. Pun City will be sure to keep you posted on any developments.

Pun City Cruises Death Valley and the Prize Table

March 12th, 6th day of the trip. This blog is omitting March 11th, since it can be summed up in the following paragraph.

Drove to Los Angeles, met Pun City's friend Josh for lunch, drove to Pepperdine's graduate campus and Long Beach State's campus, got average to below average Mexican food for dinner w/ Josh, crushed Josh in tennis, then crashed at Josh's anticipating a very early morning.

Ahhh...back to March 12th. The Los Angeles to Las Vegas drive got off to a rocky start when this blog couldn't follow Mapquest's directions via nowhere, but a gas station clerk pointed Pun City in the right direction.

Driving through Death Valley is a little weird. It's not as unpopulated as this blog was led to believe. This blog is convinced that there aren't any points through the whole span where it would be tough to walk to the next exit for gas. Also, there are a number of "mini towns" spread through the whole stretch that make it pretty normal. Plus there's this (relatively) large town called Barstow that is the centerpiece of the drive.

The traffic problems led to this blog getting to Las Vegas a little late. The opening Men's 8-9 game between Wyoming and Colorado State was almost to halftime. Approaching Las Vegas was pretty cool, a lot of huge skyscraping hotels coming out of a flat desert area.

Within Vegas, this blog found it somewhat tough to navigate the Strip at anything over a snail's pace, but this was to be expected. The Mountain West or the Thomas & Mack Center had a few good ideas this blog is going to cover now, but keep in mind that these applied throughout the stay in Vegas, for future blog reference.

One cool idea was general admission tickets for everyone for sessions that were not expected to be well-attended. This included all women's games except for the championship, and the men's 8-9 game. So, for the 8-9 game, Pun City was in the front row (behind the hoop), which was a nice spot.

Another idea that worked out cool for Pun City was the tickets you got when you paid for parking. On this day, this blog got a red ticket to throw in the dash. The parking voucher was good all day, so you can come and go as you please, as long as you have a red ticket. Keep that in mind for the next post.

Colorado State, winless in the regular season, broke out some new shoes for the tournament and won over Wyoming in an upset.

Colorado State's new shoes did the trick.

This leads to the final cool idea from the Mountain West. They made All-Session pass buyers get seats for the women's games along with the men's tickets, so Pun City had tickets to 4 women's games if it wanted to go to those for the rest of the day. As it turned out, this blog only wanted to go to about 1 and a half, but it was a cheap option for killing time around Las Vegas.

The first move this blog made after the Men's game was to the State Farm Insurance table, where they had a spin-to-always-win table giving out branded merchandise. Pun City was going to do that, but first tried the Pop-A-Shot rig they had set up. The record was 42, and this blog was a little concerned it would fall well short. The woman working the stand taunted Pun City by saying a girl had set the record and that this blog wasn't going to beat it. But, this blog got 50, and for setting the record, they let me choose any of the available prizes, and this blog ended up with a wristband and a water bottle. Then Pun City spun the wheel and got some free flip-flops.

Given that this post is getting pretty long, Pun City is going to hold it right here. Next post should have updates on checking into a hotel (that was missing a little something), going to the casinos, and fast food dining.

USD Knows How To Party

March 10th, 4th day of the trip. After a long night with double overtime on the 9th, it was good to sleep in. And for this blog's money, there's not too much better than spending a Monday in a warm weather town knowing that you'll be watching basketball all week instead of work.

Going to San Diego State University was cool, even though Pun City was denied in its request to check out the basketball court. The reasons for SDSU's awesomeness were multifold. First, it was a big campus, reminiscent of UW-Madison. Second, Pun City found a Jack-In-The-Box right next to campus. Third, SDSU has an awesome student union, including free pool, bowling, and ping pong. And lastly, because Pun City found ten bucks on the ground there.

Jack-In-The-Box was good, this blog tried out this new kind of self-service touch screen ordering system, that was kinda cool. (It also helped avoid a very probable language barrier, which was key).

Pun City then stopped at Enterprise to tell them this blog's Check Engine light had been on for 2 days, (they weren't concerned and attributed it to a gas cap being loose 2 days ago). Enterprise didn't have any cars available, they offered a minivan but Pun City was all too glad to keep the mid-size car at that point (especially with the upcoming drives to LA and Vegas).

The main event was going to happen this evening. Homestanding San Diego versus top-seeded, perennial champ Gonzaga. The two largest fan bases in the tournament. Cool in that this blog would see a pretty charged-up environment, as well as a sellout. Not as cool in that this blog was not going to be able to get any good seats. There was also a concern that USD fans wouldn't like seeing a dude with a Gonzaga hat there, and Pun City had no USD gear. (And furthermore, USD's bookstore was pretty weak. Pun City really tried to get some USD gear, but it was all pretty lame, and they were out of the slightly less lame items in this blog's size).

Gonzaga was used to the national spotlight, and when ESPN announcer Stephen Bardo entered through the tunnel, the Kennel chanted "Bardo, Bardo, Bardo...." Additionally, former GU star (and current LA Laker) Ronny Turiaf was in attendance, garnering similar "Ronny, Ronny, Ronny..." chants.

The game was very cool, with the Toreros grinding out the victory after going ahead by 8 with 7:04 remaining. The coolest part was the song the arena PA blasted after USD's win. Not "We Are The Champions," not "Praise You," by Fat Boy Slim, not even "One Shining Moment." The PA blasted, appropriately, "California Knows How To Party."

As Pun City was leaving the arena, it was walking next to a USD student who was calling an out-of-town buddy on the phone. His comments and level of excitement reminded this blog of the day Wisconsin qualified for the 2000 Final Four. Here's his statement as well as this blog can recall: "We Beat Gonzaga!"....."Yeah, we're going to the tournament now!" "Yeah, that's the big one, March Madness!" "It's gonna be a long night tonight, but it's so awesome, I can't believe we beat Gonzaga!"

Well put.