Weather Diary 1

Towards the end of Weather Diary 1, a bored and horny George Kuchar shows us his cock in the bathroom mirror of the El Reno motel in which he has been staying. He's there on a sort of storm-chasing holiday — or, as he calls it, "storm-squatting", seeing as he doesn't know how to drive. Instead, he spends his time watching weather reports on the TV set in his dingy motel room, or observing the massing clouds from the porch. Mostly, he shelters from the rain, eating cheap junk food, ogling younger men from his window, and occasionally speaking to a neighbour or fellow motel guest.

"There's a big world out there", he tells us as he looks out over the flat, Oklahoman landscape. Not much later, he tells us that there's "really nothing much to do here." Not much to do other than wait, that is — wait for something to happen: something exciting or revealing, something real. But that "something" just doesn't want to materialize. Instead, the drama he is desperately longing for seems to be happening to everyone but him. Tornadoes rip through nearby towns, turning houses into matchsticks and leaving destruction in their wake. The young, athletic-looking storm chasers on TV talk of exciting brushes with death. And someone called Gloria has recently been dumped by her husband (it seems he has since shacked up with another woman down in Texas).

In lieu of his own big-D Dramas, Kuchar's dramas take on a decidedly more intimate, bodily aspect. He's somehow soiled his underwear, the cheap canned food he ate for lunch has made him sick, his air-conditioning unit is leaking, and the mangy dog he has befriended has rolled in a dead animal and now stinks. But at least Godzilla is playing on TV.

Jack Guariento
Filmmaker and programmer