Special thanks to these beautiful people!

Robin Lambaria: Film Festival Director and Founder

For allowing Black Iguana to be part of the film festival experience! It was awesome!

We hope to be part of the Second Annual Marfa Film Festival!

Hotel Paisano: Caffeine Salvation

For providing complimentary coffee!

We may have over-indulged, but it was only because it tasted so good! 

Rachel, Fred & Agustin: The Local Scene

For graciously rolling out the welcome mat to beautiful Marfa!

We appreciated all the driving directions!

Beverly & Johnny: Free Spirits

For the most interesting and friendliest Close Encounters of the Cadillac Kind.

Socorrito: From the Heart 

For that warm abrazo and delicious home-made tamales!

Marfa Golf Course Clubhouse:  Chilling Out

For making Black Iguana the #1 beverage!

We had a great time chilling out with the local crowd at the clubhouse!

Black Moses: Peace

For taking the time to connect with the Black Iguana team!

Thanks for the invite to Venice, CA!

David Modigliani: CRAWFORD Director

For being such a good sport in trying out Black Iguana and letting us film you!

Also, thank you for spending some time after your film screening to answer our questions! It was very late at night, and we know you were tired.

Tao Ruspolini: FIX Director

For inviting us in to your LAFCO/FIX RV before your film screening!

Thank you also for graciously accepting our Black Iguana Frozen Ritas! We figured since you traveled all the way from California, you could relax a bit with some Frozen Ritas! We hope you enjoyed them!

We love Lola!

Bradley Bores: SODA CAN LOVE Director

For joining us in the Black Iguana fun!

We definitely enjoyed hearing about your film!

Dallas Girls: Texas Proud

For hamming it up on camera for Black Iguana!

Pass the word out about Black Iguana!

JEM Brothers: Organic Lifestyle

For letting us sample your coffee-nut beverage and to-die-for chocolate!

Much success on your catering business!

Eugene Simor: Alamo Beer Co. Owner

For sharing some space with another Texan, Black Iguana!  

We enjoyed your Texas Alamo Golden Ale proclamation at the Crowley Theater! 

And we join your fight against the evil behemoth beer companies!

Mark: Friend of Eugene

For hanging out with us at the after party that almost got shut down!

We really enjoyed your filmmaking stories (and of course, your life-saving heroics)!

And welcome back to Texas!

A Note About the Chronicles

They’re listed and numbered in descending order, from most recent to oldest post. 

To go to the first (oldest) post, scroll to the end of the blog. 

SUNDAY (Chronicle #30): Arrived back in Austin at 8:00pm. What an awesome Marfa Road Trip!

Over 1,000 miles of driving in 3 days!

The Marfa Film Festival was worth every highway mile x $3.75 per gallon gas bill!

SUNDAY (Chronicle #29): Today we head back to Austin. It’s been so much fun here in Marfa. None of us want to leave yet!

From our hotel in Alpine, we call Agustin in Marfa and make plans to drop off the remaining supply of Black Iguanas. We plan on meeting him at the Hotel Paisano late morning.

We arrive in Marfa and of course we need our Java fix — we go straight to the complimentary coffee in the Hotel Paisano lobby. We enjoy our coffee in the beautiful courtyard — it’s breezy, cool and sunny. It’s absolutely perfect. So relaxing!

Agustin arrives and we enjoy recapping with him some of our experiences at the festival and getting his perspective on the whole event — what he and his friends think about all these out-of-towners descending on Marfa. Turns out that most of the locals are not following the film festival events. We’ve been the only ones that’ve made any effort to engage with him and his friends.

Robin Lambaria (film festival DIRECTOR and organizer) comes by our table in the courtyard. We wish her well and tell her that the film festival is obviously a HUGE SUCCESS!

Mercedes Sports Car

We walk over to the Avalanche — Augustin’s truck is parked next to us. Just as we’re getting ready to offload our priceless Black Iguana stash — the Dallas girls drive up in their convertible Mercedes sports car. We offer them a small stash of Black Iguanas and of course they get all excited! We give them instructions that they need to freeze the Black Iguana pouches for the OPTIMUM experience.

Who Are You?

Then this guy opens the car’s front passenger door and gets off and stands next to us and asks if we know who he is.

Huh? Should we care?

Well, it turns out he’s Thomas Garza, one of the festival coordinators. He’s somewhat peeved that we had not contacted him to coordinate our product placement.

We quickly dismiss him by responding that we’ve been dealing directly with Robin, the film festival DIRECTOR — from Day 1, we’ve been in touch with Robin. On the other hand, we never once ran into Thomas — but we did hear about him from the JEM brothers. Thomas set up their JEM catering operation in an Airstream on a sand lot across the boarded-up mortuary building.

When we offer to let him have a stash of Black Iguanas, he rudely retorts that they’re heading out to get something to eat, and won’t be back until maybe 45 minutes or longer. Stupid move on his part — we counter with that we’re heading out to Austin now.

Dallas Girls Rule!

So one of the Dallas girls quickly gets out of the car and offers to take their stash of Black Iguanas to their hotel room’s freezer. The other Dallas girl drives off with Thomas to drop him off and returns back to the Hotel Paisano where we’re parked.

We’re hoping the Dallas girls enjoy the Black Iguanas sans Thomas! We’re betting that won’t be hard to do

SATURDAY (Chronicle #28):  We swing by the after-party at the CW on the highway leading to Alpine. They’re serving Patron, so we opt not to promo our Black Iguanas. An LA band, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, is playing.

We meet up with the Alamo Beer Co. owner, Eugene Simor, and his friend from San Antonio, Mark. Eugene’s one of the after-party sponsors — he’s supplying his craft beer for this event. He’s looking a little tired — maybe he’s been drinking too much of his beer?

Mark on the other hand, looks like he’s caught his second wind. We stay close to the bar and talk to Mark, who’s also a filmmaker with quite a flair for humor. He’s a very entertaining storyteller!

Soon after, we realize that Tequila, beer, wine & spirits are not the only choice at this party — we catch a whiff of you-know-what from the dance floor area. The sheriffs soon show up — followed by TTBC agents. Mark finds out that they’re shutting down the party — the band announces that they’re allowed one more song and then the party’s over.

It’s a long, long song. But we decide to cut out before it ends.

Several sheriff cars are blocking our exit. We approach one of the officers in the parking lot and ask if he can help us move our Avalanche so that we can drive out. He’s super friendly and has the other law enforcement cars moved — and now we’re back on the highway to Alpine.

SATURDAY (Chronicle #27): Jackie hits it off with FIX actor Black Moses at the golf course clubhouse. He’s involved with LAFCO, a filmmakers cooperative in Los Angeles, CA.

Black Moses LOVES our Black Iguana Frozen Ritas! He requests a media kit from us — and he’ll help promote it in the West Coast! He extends us an invitation to visit in Venice, CA. The guy is super, super sweet!

The filmmakers, including FIX director Tao Ruspoli, are mingling with the locals and enjoying Black Iguanas.

The outside screening is almost over, so we decide to wrap it up and head to the after-party.

SATURDAY (Chronicle #26):  The Crawford documentary has had quite an impact on us…we’re kinda in a funk. We’re sitting in the Avalanche, trying to decide whether to continue the Black Iguana promo activities at the Alamo Drafthouse for the outside screening at the Marfa Municipal Golf Course.

After a few minutes, we shake off the blues — pop in an Earth Wind & Fire CD… raise the volume to That’s the Way of the World and we’re on our way to the Alamo Drafthouse screening!

We take that winding road to the golf course — we were there last night, so we know our way.

We park the Avalanche directly in front of the golf clubhouse — that way we can roll the Black Iguana ice chest more easily to the clubhouse patio. It’s not freezing like last night — so people are relaxed and hanging out in the patio. The weather gods are definitely favoring us tonight!

We see Robin Lambaria, the film festival organizer!  She’s ready for a Black Iguana Frozen Rita – she’s been working some crazy long hours overseeing the film festival venues. She’s ready to chill! Robin’s done an awesome job with the film festival!

We set up the Black Iguana chest outside in the clubhouse patio and the THERE WILL BE FUN begins! We’ve got a little problem — the lanyards are all tangled up in one big ball, but one of the local ladies quickly offers to untangle the mess! Sweet!

Can’t keep up with the demand — everyone’s lining up to be “anointed” with the signature lanyard for clipping on the Black Iguana pouch. 

Everywhere we look — it’s beautiful people “wearing” and sipping Black Iguanas and having a beautiful moment!

The Black Iguana ice chest is EMPTY. Mission accomplished!

SATURDAY (Chronicle #25):  They finally open the doors to the Crowley Theater for the  screening of the documentary film, Crawford.

We take the middle seats in the bottom first row — it’s a full house. The film festival coordinator announces that there will be a Q&A session with filmmaker David Modigliani after the screening.

Crawford is an engaging glimpse into small town life and politics. The film’s ending is totally unexpected — it’s left us completely stunned. The film credits start to roll, the theater lights come on, and the crowd begins to file out; unfortunately there will not be a Q&A session with David. Outside we spend a few minutes with David, asking him some questions about the principal characters.

We walk back to the Avalanche — we’re somewhat emotionally shocked with the film’s ending. This is one film you should NOT miss!

SATURDAY (Chronicle #24):  We’re back at the Crowley Theater. We get in line to buy our entrance tickets for the Crawford film screening. Things are running a bit behind schedule, so we’re having to wait outside in line — and it’s getting very chilly (in the 40s).

Patron is one of the film festival’s sponsors. They’ve got a table set up against the front entrance of the theater. There’s some empty Patron Tequila bottles on the table — who’s been handling those bottles? A woman is walking up and down the ticket line with a tray offering free Tequila shots in those tiny plastic cups — they’ve even run out of lime slices. Very cheap presentation!

No one’s too enthused about taking Tequila shots… the Patron woman keeps starting at the head of the ticket line and running out of shots by the time she reaches the middle of the line. Someone finally advises her to start at the middle of the line and work her way to the back of the line. 

The next run of Patron Tequila shots is done by filmmaker David Modigliani. The guy in front of us thought David was one of the festival volunteers — didn’t realize that David was the filmmaker. Somehow, that just doesn’t seem right — having the filmmaker doing Patron’s promo job.

SATURDAY (Chronicle #23):  It’s time to head back to Alpine to rest a bit — we know it’s going to be a long, long night again at the film festival.

We drive back to Alpine and stop at Mi Tesoro to pick up Regina’s set of custom earrings that match the necklace she bought on Friday. The necklace and earrings are original jewelry pieces designed by Mi Tesoro owner Susana Sandoval.

The beautiful earrings are simply magical!  There will be more magic tonight! Susana has cast her magic spell on the necklace and earrings — to ward off all negativity and attract all that is good and positive!

We shall return to Marfa later tonight for the Crawford film screening! There’s a lot of buzz about this film. We missed the film screening at the SXSW Festival in Austin.

SATURDAY (Chronicle #22): Eugene Simor, the Alamo Beer Co. guy and his friend, Mark, had recommended that we check Adobe Moon out for some great BBQ.

The place has great outdoor seating and there’s an actual teepee set up on the grounds.

Eugene and Mark were absolutely right! The BBQ is awesome!

Their slogan is “Serving the best BBQ West of the Pecos.”  Great food, great friends — great time!