hello

my name is woode wood. i am a singer/songwriter based here in austin. i am working on my first doc, about my experience in this musical world that i live in. i just completed my fifteenth music video and they will be part of the doc. i have posted two here on docubloggers and i will be posting more. i just completed my first tour, “the cheap cars & acoustic guitars” tour. i also completed my fifteenth record by the same name, it is a “best of” of all my mastered records. the tour covered sixteen states in fifteen days. to vermont, over to ohio, and back home. you can read about it and my musical life on my blog:

http://woodewood.blogspot.com/2007/06/inner-child-i-have-to-say-for-my-first.html

the blog post i posted here is an unbelievable day that happened to me in cleveland. great reading if i do say so myself…..

all of my videos are on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=woodewood

talk to you soon…..

As many of you may already know, Ken Burns is about to release a new multi-part documentary on PBS. It’s called The War, and will air this fall. He follows the stories of men and women that were touched by the war both fighting abroad and standing vigilant with bated breath at home. Domenique and I are heading a production team that is producing a documentary from the local perspective here at KLRU. It will air this fall as an intro to the national Burns series. As we go along, we’ll be posting clips from our interviews with veterans and scholars right here on the Docubloggers website. Stay tuned for those.

As part of our coverage of this time period, Domenique and I set out one Sunday to the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg. They have a field not far from the museum that they’ve converted into a re-creation of a battlefield from the Pacific. There, a few times a year, volunteers led by Marvin Schroeder gather as part of the Pacific Combat Living History Program (PCLHP) to educate and demonstrate the history of the Pacific battlefield of WWII.

Visitors to the re-creation are shown what soldiers fighting in the Pacific went through, the weapons they used, and the enemy they fought. It would be easy to beat the war drum and tout our country’s victory over an adversary, but the approach taken by the PCLHP is one of respect and sensitivity. This is what stood out to us most, followed closely by the program’s attention to detail.

It all begins with a demonstration of what the soldiers carried with them into battle. Marvin asks for an audience volunteer, and then proceeds to load them up with their pack, gun belt, weapon, trenching tool, etc. You can see the cumbersome burden manifest itself on the volunteer’s face as they sweat in the Texas sun. Following this intro to proper equipment protocol, volunteers of the program demonstrate the weapons and tactics of both the US and Japanese troops. This is essentially several mini-history lessons, each followed by a demonstration of the weapon in action. The biggest gasp from the audience comes as fire spews forth from one of the few operating flamethrowers from that era left in existence.

Following these demonstrations and history lessons, an explosion rocks the combat zone and the volunteers begin their re-creation of a battle to take out a Japanese pillbox. As another testament to the sensitivity and respect shown by this program, they don’t show American GIs fighting or killing Japanese soldiers. Instead, they create the perception of battle as American soldiers storm a Japanese encampment. The program does recognize the inevitable death that war brings as they have one of their younger volunteers simulate being shot and killed by enemy fire. It is a grim reminder of the cost of battle, but stands as a far more tasteful example than most video games and movies that glorify the brutality of war.

The testimony of history is perhaps the most valuable guiding light for humanity. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This philosophy is threaded throughout the Pacific Combat Living History Program. The clip above is the battle re-creation. It was shot from two vantage points, one stationary (Dom) and one moving on the ground with the volunteers (me). The recreation is short, but stirring. It’s a balance of disturbing imagery and history coming alive. The volunteers that contribute their time, energy, and expertise to this program are dedicated to the importance of this history. Contact the program if you’re interested in attending a future show or volunteering your time.

Hi, my name is Jihae Min who will guide you through the 7th Annual Greek Festival in Austin. But before that, I would like to introduce myself in a polite Korean way.

Yes, I am from Korea and am currently interning for the show, Docubloggers, at KLRU-TV. You could wonder how an Asian girl such as myself ended up here.

Please allow me to explain. I’m an exchange student at the University of Texas at Austin from Australia, where I’m an international student from Korea, studying journalism.

Yes, Korea is my country. I’ve been outside Korea for more than 4 years. I miss it: My family, spicy Korean food, Korean pop culture, the Korean language - including being able to understand what others say more easily. I miss breathing in my culture.

When you’re apart from your home country, you’ll understand what I’m trying to say. You just miss it. You have to have it.

But … well … if you are an American, it could be different. McDonalds is located all over the world. Starbucks will welcome you anywhere you go. Americans might not feel as homesick. As for me, I am from a tiny land called South Korea.

When people are apart from their heritage, it’s human nature to try and keep their culture alive. In this sense, it was not a surprise to see a Greek festival in Central Texas. The 7th Greek Festival provided a place for the Austin community to celebrate Greek culture. About 3,000 people enjoyed Grecian dance, music and food over the first weekend of June at the Austin Museum of Art Laguna Gloria. It was the Festival’s first time to hold their celebration at this venue. In the past six years, it was held at the Fiesta Gardens on the east side of Austin. People said the festival brought authentic Greek fun to a new venue. According to John Kalogirour, Austin chapter president of American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association or AHEP, “This location change is an effort to renovate the festival to more a cultural and educational setting, and The Museum of Art at Laguna Gloria was ideal for this vision.” John is Greek who’s proud of his Hellenic heritage and believes all Greeks should be too. “Ancient Greeks defined democracy and western civilizations as we know it today. The contributions to science, art, mathematics, and social studies have been enormous,” he said. “Greeks like to enjoy life and seem to be able to do so even when circumstances are difficult.”

When I arrived, I couldn’t help but notice Greeks know how to party. Live Grecian music could be heard throughout the festival, and people were dancing. It seemed they danced with a style that had a Greek flare. My producer, Sean, a big fan of Tejano music, overheard the festival music while I was editing at my desk. He said that it sounded like Tejano Music. I agree, some parts surprisingly resemble it.

Professional Grecian dance was definitely the highlight of the festival. Even when people were eating souvlaki and gyros, which are staples of Greek fast food, they could not take their eyes off the dancers. The dancers were great. Later when I interviewed two of the dancers, Katrina Babarakas and Athena Georgiadis, I found out their ethnicity is Greek and American, and they are proud of their heritage. They emphasized that the different dances symbolize each Greek island. But, they pointed out that belly dancing does not originate from the Greek islands.

At the end of interview, Katrina and Athena did not forget to mention Greece is a place people should visit at least once in their life, saying it’s a land of such rich history and has built its modernity mixed with tradition. After watching this, I hope you want to go to next year’s Greek Festival and even to far away Greece.

Here is Greg Ansin’s short video clip of an interview with me when I deserted and ran away to Knoxville, Tennessee. My name is Carl Webb and I’m a soldier that refused to obey orders to serve in Iraq or any place at all. I refused to report for training with the Texas National Guard at Fort Hood and left Austin, Texas back in August 2004. Right now I’m creating a website at http://carlwebb.net where people can find more information.

This was a final project for my documentary class last semester. I and two of my classmates went out to talk to people about the state of local business on the Drag here in Austin. We interviewed a bartender, a shop owner and an artisan with interesting results.

 About the filmmakers:

 This was filmed over three weeks in April 2007 on the Drag by Shane Greb (shanegreb@gmail.com), Kelly Haarsager and Ben Hardwicke.

It was a final documentary project for Anne Lewis’ Intro to Digital Documentary class at UT -Austin.