The Chris Moeller Archives

Greetings from TV Fest, Part V

A hearty thanks to everyone who ventured out to the festival this weekend. It's a hotly contested debate about whether or not we broke the event's attendance record. Thirteen people watched at least one of the 16 programs we aired Saturday and Sunday, and last year's mark was 14, but one of this year's guests was pregnant with twins, so there you have it.

Becky Stockel and Katie Geltz were terribly gracious hosts, and Aaron and I want to thank them, along with all of the other participants who shared their time, their wit and wisdom, and their insatiable curiosities. Please contact your physician immediately if you experience nausea, lightheadedness, or stomach pain- the most common symptoms of food-poisoning.

Aaron and I wrote these "greetings" for this year's program. Search for your used copy this week on Ebay...


2006- December 9th and 10th, Cedar Rapids, IA, 15* people in attendance:
(*- disputed figure)

The 5th Annual Moeller TV Festival- Taking it to the Next Level
by Aaron Moeller

The conversation is still crystal clear in my memory. It was a warm summer's night in 1980 and Chris and I had retired to our bunk beds for the evening. That was the famous summer when curly-headed, corn-fed twin boys throughout the world were sleepless and discontented, wondering who had shot J.R. "Aaron," I can still here Chris whispering to me in the dark. I assumed he was talking in his sleep. Dad has often told the story that Chris would call to me in the night to save him from his nightmares. "I can't sleep. I'm worried about something."

"Oh, don't worry about that," I assured him. "I'm sure you'll outgrow this bedwetting thing."

"No, that's not it," Chris said. "I'm worried that by the time we've reached our fifth festival, we'll have nothing left to present. By then will we be simply going through the motions, mere shadows of our glorious TV Festival hosting past?"

"Chris, you don't need to be concerned," I told him. "Don't you know you never have to worry about television? It will always provide for us. Trust me- there will be enough great television to fill up five hundred TV festivals."

"Number five," I assured Chris again this summer, "is where legacies are made. This is where we'll solidify the name." Don Knotts spent five seasons as Barney Fife. Shelley Long had her own half-decade run as Diane Chambers. "Moonlighting" aired for exactly five years, as did "Newsradio." "Curb Your Enthusiasm" just reached its fifth season and "60 Minutes" has been so successful that it has run for five years seven different times.

"But how do we make this one unique and original?" Chris asked.

And that's when it hit me. Kicked me right in the walnuts. Like a pissed-off lightning bolt wearing a steel-toed shoe. The idea was staring at me like it had been there all along, but whereas before I was wearing archaic 19th century spectacles, now they were replaced with space age, telescopic x-ray specs (with an optional mind-control setting.) I knew the time had finally arrived. "I've got it! What would happen if... we took it to the next level?"

Chris looked stunned. He was, I think, as taken aback by the thought as I had been. "Eureka!" Chris finally shouted. "By golly, that's it!" (This is how he talks.)

So that's what we've done. We've taken it to the next level! The Fifth Annual Moeller TV Festival is different, and promises to be unlike any other that has come before, unlike anything you've ever experienced

So don't be shocked if- at some point over the weekend- you find yourself at a place you don't quite recognize. And don't be alarmed if you look around at that new place to which you've been delivered and realize it's an unsettling (yet thrilling!) place. You may just be at a level where you've never been before. The next one!!!

Thanks for indulging us again,
Aaron Moeller

---

"Merry Christmas! Out upon Merry Christmas!" bellowed Scrooge, "What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer. If I could work my will, every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!"

And thus began a performance of Noah Wylie's one-man production of "Bah! Humbug! A Scrooge-tinged Christmas" last December at The Golden Apple Dinner Theater in Sarasota. Aaron and I were "opening night-ing" (again!) for this exhaustive and one-of-a-kind revue of the full Dickens musical catalogue, and we marveled at its timeless message for the season. No more let miserly thoughts and deeds dictate our overflowing, year-end social calendars. Unfasten the dragging chains from the tormentors of our sherry-induced hallucinations, and live, damn you, LIVE.

That's why it was such a shock to hear the following words escape from Aaron's mouth two weeks ago: "Maybe we should hold off on the 5th Annual Television Festival until after the holidays." These were words born-- and then too-long breast-fed-- of sheer frustration, products of a series early winter mishaps. His rash of bad luck had begun with the dislocation of a shoulder in a futile reach for the last Furbee on the shelf of the local five-and-dime. It continued with a near-electrocution and castration while attempting to wire a string of icicle lights to his Yule log. His weighted words of doubt and fear hung in the air, in defiance of gravity, like those real top-of-the line saline breast implants. They wafted into the ether, and in the distance... a solitary train whistle. I remained frozen, metaphorically.

A fitfull night's sleep later, and Aaron was astonishingly back in the pink. He said nothing of his reasons for reversing course, and wanting to now pursue a mid-December festival date. But upon awakening, he did ask of me, "What day is it?" December 2nd, I replied. "Have they sold the prized turkey that was displayed at the mid-town poulterer's?" he asked next. Quite confused, I replied that they had not, that the carcass still hung from its hind legs, dripping with blood, in the shop's front window, frightening the local children. "Marvelous," he shouted, "Warm up the motorized carriage and we'll submit an equitable bid for the cadavar."

We drove to the area of town zoned for commerce, stopping numerous times en route that Aaron might engage the street beggars, and pat the village children on their tiny, squishy skulls. Then I recognized the words of Noah Wylie in his rapid and mostly-nonsensical speech, "I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy." The dots connected. In the overnight, Aaron had experienced either a Scrooge-like nocturnal fantasy of moral and habit of conduct, or a very vivid and satisfying sex dream, or both. "Make up the fires, and buy another coal-scuttle before you dot another 'i', Bob Cratchit!" he said as we reached the butchery. I smiled, knowingly, pushing open the establishment's heavy oaken front door, sturdy from stem to stern.

Chris

posted by CM @ 1:11 PM