"Not a lot of people want to stick their hand up a hole and get bit by something," drawls a confident character in the opening scene of Okie Noodling. These could merely be the words of a redneck with vagina issues, but in fact, they constitute a straightforward explanation of noodling--a fishing method so obscure as to become freakishly fascinating. Just to make things more surreal, Bradley Beesley's award-winning documentary is currently touring the festival circuit with an affectionately candid documentary about another obscure, freakishly fascinating Oklahoma phenomenon: the Flaming Lips. The Lips themselves composed the instrumental score for Okie Noodling. Slightly confused? I was too. Intrigued? You should be.

Noodling is the practice of hand-catching giant catfish. It is typically accomplished by wiggling one's fingers in front of underwater nesting holes and seizing the fish about the gills when it becomes fatally attracted to the live human bait. The secretive and somewhat dangerous sporting skill is handed down through generations, and is legal only in four states. Director Beesley's background is in indie rock--the 31-year-old's early projects included documentaries on R. L. Burnside and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, and nearly a dozen music videos for the Lips--but when a relative at a family reunion began explaining noodling to him, he knew he'd found the perfect subject for his next film.

"Most of my favorite documentary films were on quirky subjects that people didn't really know anything about," Beesley tells me via cell phone (he's strolling through a Target store in Oklahoma City). "I also knew it would be very visual--a man wrestling a fish--that's a good visual element."

That visual element proved to be so compelling that Beesley found himself directly involved, gleefully shoving his hands down muddy nesting holes, waiting for the telltale bite.

"It's the most exhilarating thing I've ever done!" he recounts. "I would stay awake at night--not thinking about getting to shoot the next day--but 'I'm gonna catch one of these mothers with my hands!' Towards the end of the film, we'd go out noodling and hand [the subjects] the cameras." Beesley's enthusiasm eventually led to the film's climax: sponsorship of the state's first official noodling tournament.

Such oddball rural subject matter is rife with opportunities for exploitation, and a less talented filmmaker would predictably go for the cheap shots at the expense of the hicks with their hands in the mud. Beesley succeeds by wisely avoiding that angle; while Okie is thoroughly entertaining, it is tempered by a refreshing sense of respect for its subjects, and an unobtrusive tone in its exploration of the community. This same sensibility makes him the perfect director for The Flaming Lips Have Landed, a cohesive collage of hilarious video footage, thoughtfully chosen still photographs, and sweetly intimate interviews with the band and a handful of their friends and family. Beesley is now a close friend of the Lips, but his initial relationship to the genius purveyors of acid-flavored bubblegum rock was simply a matter of proximity.

"I was the only guy they knew with a camera," Beesley confesses. "It was really just a relationship of convenience--it wasn't that they thought I was the best filmmaker around or anything. I just happened to have a camera and lived on the same block, so I started shooting their music videos."

Ten videos later, Beesley had a lot of extra live footage and forged enough trust with the band to capture great moments. Whether it's frontman Wayne Coyne discussing his fears that fans figured he was mentally ill when he launched his now-infamous Parking Lot Experiment (orchestrated playback of different music tapes on dozens of car stereos in a Texas parking garage [Ed. Note: Perhaps the greatest day of my life]), or the forthright declarations from Coyne's girlfriend about his workaholic, isolationist lifestyle, Beesley clearly has access.

"At this point, Wayne pretty much understands that when I'm there with the camera whatever he does or says is fair game. There was a time when I felt I was obligated to run stuff by them... but we're past that," he laughs. "And right now I don't know where one project ends and the other one begins."

Beesley is referring to his direction of the Coyne-penned sci-fi narrative Christmas on Mars, ambitiously set for release on Christmas Day, 2002.

"We broke into an old abandoned cement factory, climbed the fences with hundreds of pounds of gear, and just started shooting," Beesley explains. "And Wayne's doing everything! He's built every single costume and set piece. He helps with lighting and carries the generator."

Appropriately enough, Beesley is shooting the whole bizarre process for a separate documentary. "That's what I love about documentaries: You have to build relationships with people. With feature films you just show up and work."