"Shut up and act"

You and your wife Ida are making a documentary of land stewardship called "A Community Speaks." Would you like to tell me about it?

We're still editing it; it's a monster. We're trying to get it down to three hours. Where I live in southern Oregon, I'm surrounded by government land, whether it's managed by the Bureau of Land Management or the Forest Service. Together, these two agencies manage probably about 200-300 million acres in the U.S. BLM, for example, usually takes care of the less desirable lands, so around 80 percent of Nevada is government land. Same with around 30-40 percent of Wyoming, Oregon and Utah. So the question is, what do you do with that land? I boil it down to a single watershed, the Applegate Watershed, which is located in the Siskiyou Mountains of southwestern Oregon. So it is a closed case study of the area and how it has traditionally been used by everyone from the pioneers and settlers to the miners and loggers.

It's an examination of how we got here and where we go from here, how we use the land in the future. We weren't financed by any group or cause, so we didn't take any sides, which allowed us great access to everyone, because they didn't think we were going to slant the doc one way or another. What we are struggling to do is look at the big picture and decide what is good or bad land stewardship. The face of the forests has changed dramatically in the last 75 years because of the decisions we have all made, and now the question is, Do we like our forests they way they are, whether they are clear-cut or overstocked with trees because nature hasn't been allowed to burn them? What do we do? Do we go in manually? What do you cut? What do you leave?

Wait, is this another Healthy Forests initiative?

Yeah, you can get into that argument all day, because it's a great title and all. If I was looking forward to some timber extraction, I'd call it the Healthy Forests initiative too. This current administration is going to get their wood out now.

Oh man.

Well, they are! For the first four years, they got hassled, but now that they've got another four coming up, it's open season on the woods. They've already recently rescinded Clinton's roadless provisions. Hopefully, the agencies will manage the extraction of lumber in a responsible way. But that's basically what the documentary is about. We talked to die-hard environmentalists, we talked to unemployed loggers, all kinds of scientists. It was fun, like getting a Ph.D. in land stewardship. I've tried to apply what I have learned to my own land. Which species should be on the northern slope, which should be on the southern one? Fuel ladders, buck brush, manzanita. Names of trees I didn't even know until a year after I got here.

Which, in a way, exhibits your philosophy rather well. Instead of getting an actual Ph.D. in land stewardship, you just went out and made a three-hour documentary about it and learned along the way.

That's the cool thing about it. I've learned some filmmaking skills over the years, so I decided to use them to shed some light on a topic that thoroughly interests my wife and me. And we're not too worried about what happens to it. Mainly, I'd like it to be used for educational purposes. We want to send it out to senators, colleges, students and the like.

OK, just a couple more on the entertainment tip. What was it like to work with the recently departed Ossie Davis on "Bubba Ho-Tep"? His passing wasn't publicized as much as I thought it should have been.

He was terrific -- and unflappable. He was in his 80s when we did "Bubba," but he looked 65. It was crazy.

It was such a great role for him.

It was, and you know what? The biggest problem was getting the script to him. Movies are made sometimes in spite of Hollywood. Because the Hollywood procedure is, you submit the script to his agent, the agent gives it to the actor, and the actor reads it, especially if the film is already funded. You put an offer out to him. Well, his agents wouldn't even give the script to Ossie. They thought it was this weirdo, low-budget cult film, so they didn't give it to him. And the director was like, "You have to give it to him! The movie is financed. This is an offer. You have show it to your client." And they were like, "No, we don't."

That's lame.

And I'm not going to say that that was the exact wording, but basically they didn't think it was worth it. So Don Coscarelli had to call another director who had worked with Ossie to get his number and said, "Look, I'm sorry to bug you about this, but I think we have a really good part for you." And Ossie read it and said yes the next day.

Which is great, because you're both hilarious in the movie and had amazing chemistry.

Well, it was really fun to work with him, because I always like to work with the old pros.

Yeah, this was a guy that delivered the eulogy at Malcolm X's funeral.

No shit. Well, he also knew Kennedy, and there he was playing him in "Bubba." Life is full of ironies.

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