MORANADU

SUMMER OF '79

2011-07-04T12:30:00.003-04:00

Where were the “Super 8” kids when I was growing up? I would have fit right in with J.J. Abrams’ scrappy band of Goonie-esque movie makers. I have no idea how autobiographical this movie is, if Abrams really had childhood buddies willing to do special effects, make-up, and act while he bossed them around from behind the camera. If that was the case, I am extremely jealous. Back in my middle school days, I would have killed to have friends like these. While I certainly had good friends back then, none of them were as obsessed with movies as I was.

My envy extends to the era in which Abrams got to be a kid. Thanks to Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, the late 1970s were a wonderful time to be a young movie lover. “Super 8” is set in the summer of 1979, and its heroes are about thirteen years old, Abrams’ age at the time (my own summer of '79 was spent teething and crapping my pants). These are exactly the kinds of kids who would have been terrified by “Jaws,” thrilled by “Star Wars,” and awed by “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” I grew up on those movies, too, but I saw them all on video a decade or so later. By that time, they were canon. I don’t remember a time when those movies were new and fresh, the way they were for millions around the globe.

Not that I was deprived of pubescent cinematic joy, mind you. In the summer of 1989 alone, at the age of ten, I was completely swept away by Tim Burton’s “Batman,” James Cameron’s “The Abyss,” and Spielberg & Lucas’ own “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.” I saw each one of them three times, and each has a special and formative place in my movie-going heart. All were rated PG-13, which gave my ten year-old self the tasty satisfaction of seeing something that was ever-so-slightly forbidden. They were also three very distinct visions – one a fantastically Gothic urban nightmare, another a sunny globe-trotting adventure, and another a plunge into the depths of the ocean, with glowing alien visitors. All very cool. And each movie won a single Academy Award apiece (Art Direction for “Batman,” Visual Effects for “The Abyss,” and Sound Effects Editing for “Indiana Jones”).

But still, as much as those movies from ’89 resonate for me personally, they don’t seem to evoke the same transcendent cultural nostalgia as do the early works of Spielberg & Lucas. Some will say that they’re just not as good as those older movies. A fair and arguable point, but every movie fan has rose-colored goggles for the films that first got him or her excited about cinema. Thankfully, I had big sisters who, like Abrams, were old enough to experience those Old School Spielberg movies first-hand on the big screen. When they were kids, home video was not an option, and online streaming was as sci-fi as a tricorder. If they wanted to see a movie a second, third or fourth time, they’d have to seek out the local second-run theater. When VCRs emerged, they thankfully educated me in the “Lucasberger” classics, but I still wish that I got to see those movies when they were new. The Big Screen mattered more then, and that is a vital part of why those movies are so beloved.

Back to “Super 8.” The screening I attended was at 8:15pm, on the movie’s third Saturday in theaters. It was projected on one of the multiplex’s mid-sized screens, and the place was packed, with many people struggling to find a seat after the lights went down. Interestingly, for a movie primarily concerning the plight of middle-schoolers, more than half of the audience members were in their forties. These are the same people who were awed by Spielberg as children. My guess is that they were all feeling nostalgia for those early days at the movies, when fantastic things emerged from summer night skies and your best friends were there to witness them with you.

Eventually, I did find my own band of “Super 8” kids at a summer filmmaking program when I was seventeen. And like the kids in the movie, we used monster make-up, fake blood, and stolen shots to make our own goofy visions. We had a lot of fun doing it, and many of us still do it today in one way or another. “Super 8” remembers what it is like to find your tribe, however unusual it might be, and how wonderful it feels. I hope all my movie freak friends go see it.

LIVE BLOGGING: A VERY FRANCO OSCARS

2011-02-27T19:05:00.050-05:00

Here goes, my first attempt at live blogging. I'm not gonna bother with the red carpet crap... just the Oscarcast itself.

This year, it's personal. As an uncredited production assistant from the Cambridge shoot of "The Social Network," I am unashamedly rooting for myself. I've see seven of the ten Best Picture nominees. Many of them are very good, but my movie is better than all of them. My guess is that the boring old fuddy duddies of the Academy will give Best Picture to "The King's Speech." Whatever. My hunch is my boy Fincher will still squeeze by with Best Director.

If nothing else, we'll have the glorious goofiness of Franco as our co-host for the evening.

See you at 8e/5p.

8:38 pm - You can't lose with Franco in a bear suit.

8:40 - Morgan Freeman really needs to start having more fun with his soothing voice over persona.

8:43 - Franco missed a golden opportunity - he really should have come out with a bloody stump of an arm.

8:45 - Gone With The Wind Sucks. Scarlet O'Hara was a whiny, slave owning, gold-digging bitch.

8:49 - Art Directors shouldn't speak.

8:50 - YAY! WALLY PFISTER!!!!!

8:51 - It's official. This is the year of The Stammer.

8:55 - Kirk Douglas has gigantic earlobes. And he's still horny. He must really love his daughter-in-law.

9:00 - Poor Melissa Leo. She'll be the last person to see Kirk Douglas alive. And she'll have hefty fines from the FCC.

9:05 - Mila's Kunises are trying to escape from her dress. And that's okay.

9:09 - Yeah, yeah, Pixar rocks... snooze.

9:13 - Screenplays! Go Nolan and Sorkin!

9:14 - YAY!!!! I have officially worked on an Oscar Winning Movie!

9:18 - You know The King's Speech is a movie for old people when the writer can't find the microphone to give his Oscar speech.

9:24 - Leave Hugh alone!

9:25 - Franco in drag. It was just a matter of time.

9:32 - Yay! That's two Oscars for actors who successfully pulled off Massachusetts accents!

9:43 - Trent Reznor just won an Oscar!

9:51 - I'm glad I saw Inception at the Imax theater with vibrating seats. That's Oscar-winning taint stimulation!

9:56 - "That's gross." I love you, Cate Blanchett.

9:59 - Colleen Atwood. Moley, moley, moley.

10:02 - Obama?

10:09 - Shut up, Adrien Brody. Stop making commercials.

10:12 - Short films = I gotta pee.

10:17 - I actually want to see the Facebook Autotune Musical. Go JT!

10:18 - Oprah's boobs are each bigger than her head.

10:27 - Billy Crystal should still be given the option to host.

10:32 - You rock, Downey.

10:35 - Yay! Even though they left me on the cutting room floor, congrats to Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall!

10:43 - Country Music's newest star... Gwyneth Paltrow? The fuck?

10:47 - Best acceptance speech - Randy Newman

10:52 - Ahhhh, the death montage featuring Celine Dion. Their hearts didn't go on.

10:56 - And the award for the hottest dead person goes to Lena Horne.

11:03 - Tom Hooper. Whatever. Your Mums got your movie for you.

11:14 - I'm getting some Winter's Bone for Jennifer Lawrence.

11:21 - Sandra, you've made some crappy movies, but I still love you.

11:23 - Waaaaaah! I'm the King of England. Waaaaaah!

11:25 - Franco would've given a way better speech.

11:33 - During the Best Picture montage, Dayna and Paul's cat decided to lick her vagina in front of the television. It kinda stole the king's thunder.

11:36 - The King's Speech. Whatevah.

11:38 - You know that you haven't won the crowd when a Best Picture winner has his speech cut off by the band.

11:39 - These kids didn't need to lip synch.

11:41 - Again, whatevah.

REDRUM

2010-12-26T19:53:00.001-05:00

THE SCENE: FRAMINGHAM, MASSACHUSETTS, USA

THE PLAYERS: MUM, DAD, AND ME

THE FORECAST: BLIZZARD WARNING, STATE OF EMERGENCY DECLARED IN MASSACHUSETTS, 8 TO 16 INCHES OF SNOW, POTENTIALLY DAMAGING WINDS, CONSIDERABLE BLOWING AND DRIFTING OF SNOW

WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

PRAISE, I THINK

2010-12-10T21:51:00.000-05:00

"Mike's the kind of guy you WANT to fuck your mom." - My manager, 4 days after I got a raise.

Mother Lover (Uncensored) - watch more funny videos

THE ANTISOCIAL NETWORK

2010-10-31T17:31:00.003-04:00

The photo above was taken on a night on the town back in early 2009 in Perth, Western Australia. I’m the douchebag in the stupid “Drunk Chicks Think I’m Hot” t-shirt (truth be told, that shirt was a great icebreaker at the pubs). The young lady in the photo? We’ll call her Julie (not her real name). Julie was a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend. If memory serves we shared a few drinks, danced a bit, mugged for the camera, and parted ways. My friend Anthony (pictured on the right, whilst texting) tagged me in this photo on his Facebook page. I promptly de-tagged myself from the photo, but have now resurrected it to make a point – the world needs to see FEWER photos of me like this, not more. In all likelihood, I will never see Julie again since she lives on the other side of the planet. I wish her well. However, I don’t need for all of my Facebook “friends,” including co-workers, 12 year-old cousins, and Mom, to see unflattering images of my fleeting shenanigans from a long time ago, in a country far, far away. For that reason, and more, I am quitting Facebook.

I know what you’re gonna say – Mike, why don’t you just adjust your privacy settings?

Here’s why - There are 173 photos and 4 videos in which I am currently tagged, and I never uploaded a single one of them. They are how the world sees me, for better or worse. I don’t have the damned patience to go through each one of my 335 “friends” and decide who is worthy or unworthy of seeing this photo or that video. That an image can be tagged and put on semi-public display without a tag-ee’s prior full consent has always been my main quibble with Facebook.

Another gripe (although it’s not really Facebook’s fault) – Some people put interesting links and intelligent comments in their status updates… and some others don’t. Actually some others put up unbelievably mundane crap about their lives about which absolutely no one needs to know. No, I don’t care if the baby wouldn’t let you sleep! No, I don’t care how many calories you burned in your aerobics class! No, I don’t care about your hangover! And no one else cares either! Just because something is up on a computer screen doesn’t make it amusing or important! Get back to work and shut the fuck up!

Phew! Okay… calming down.

Speaking of work, Facebook became a major sucker of time and productivity for me when I was unemployed. Many days when I could have been aggressively job hunting, writing, or educating myself, instead I was nostalgically (read: voyeuristically) looking in at other people’s more interesting lives rather than improving my own. It was my own damn fault for getting sucked in, but how many millions of others are doing the same thing? No wonder the economy’s in the crapper.

A big question… If I stayed on Facebook, what would happen to my page after I died? Someday all 500,000,000 of today’s Facebook users will be dead. Will our descendants care that we “liked” Waffle House or thought that the Patriots played a shitty game one day back in 2010? When he’s having a quiet day in the Oval Office On The Moon, will Michael Moran III check out old photos of his namesake and Julie and wonder - if things worked out a little differently, could that Australian chick have been my Grandma? I dunno. It’s all a bit creepy. (I didn’t mean you, Julie. I meant the concept of a digital pseudo-autobiography that lives forever in cyberspace was creepy… not you. You're just fine).

Oh, but Facebook has its good points, too. If it had never existed, Betty White might never have hosted SNL, and I might never have gotten to work for (cue shameless namedropping) David Fincher. One year ago, I was working as a production assistant on the “The Social Network.” The movie turned out great and I am proud to have worked on it (although it is difficult to prove that I actually did work on it, as my name isn’t in the credits). So, thanks for that, Facebook. Also thanks for re-connecting me with one of my best childhood friends and for vindicating my theory that the girl I had a crush on in 3^rd grade would grow up to be a stunner. But in the end, the bad stuff outweighed the good for me and I’m pulling the plug.

Among many great lines in “The Social Network,” one that stands out is “The Internet isn’t written in pencil; it’s written in ink.” If so, I’d like more control over the pen. So, I’m regressing back to a time when if there were embarrassing photos of me floating around, I was blissfully unaware of their existence, as were my family, friends and casual acquaintances – a time when it took a bit more than sharing a beer at that party that one time to qualify as my friend – a time when people didn’t feel the need to inform everyone they know that the baby just farted. Ahhhh.... 2005! It's good to be back!

So folks, if you have something to share with me, do it as nature intended… with a letter, phone call, email, text message, or - ahem - blog comment. And please, for the love of Gawd, “follow” my blog. I still crave some attention!

AN AMENDMENT (11/01/2010): In case I offended any parents of babies on here, let me clarify my point of view. Maybe "shut the fuck up" was a little harsh. I have absolutely no problem with parents taking cute photos and videos of their children and showing them off to close friends and family on Facebook. Nor do I mind it when people write things like "Junior said his first word today! It was 'platypus!'" in their status updates. That stuff is fine and good. I love kids, especially my adorable niece and nephew and I cherish every photo that their parents send me. Its when parents (particularly new parents), write down every single detail of their progeny's development, no matter how trivial, (ie "the baby cried all night, the baby won't eat peas, the baby has diarrhea") and broadcast it throughout the world that I get annoyed. Someday, those kids are going to grow up, and not all of them are going to like the fact that their childhoods were on display, especially if their parents were complaining about how irritating they were or are. I am not yet a father, so I cannot speak to the joys and frustrations of parenthood. Facebook allows parents to share those joys and vent those frustrations. I just wonder who's really listening, and who might get hurt.

THE CURIOUS CASE OF MATT DAMON

2010-10-24T14:04:00.002-04:00

Damon in "Hereafter"

Matt Damon kicks ass. As a fellow Masshole Libra who likes good movies, he inspires.

I haven’t seen “Hereafter” yet. It looks pretty good. Rumor has it that Damon’s character is able to commune with the dead. Judging from the movie’s poster, he must also be capable of time travel, specifically to 1992 where he stole his headshot from the set of "School Ties," returned to 2010 and gave the photo to the Warner Bros. marketing department.

Damon on the poster for "Hereafter"

Damon's only 40. He's youthful, but he's not that youthful. The movie was directed by Clint Eastwood, a man who has proved time and time again that bad-assery knows no age limit. Why does Damon have to look like an undergrad to sell this flick?

Just sayin…

"I'm 80 years old and I'll kick your fucking ass, you little pissant!"

ROBZ N THE HOOD: A QUICK REVIEW

2010-05-16T08:58:00.006-04:00

This movie should have been titled "Nottingham Origins: Robin Hood." That's not a compliment. What we got here is a grim war movie that serves as prelude to Robin Hood's heyday in Sherwood Forest. Problem is, I don't much care how Robin Hood became Robin Hood. I'd rather he just got down to business. Russell Crowe is already pushing 50 and looks it. If this is a setup for a Robin Hood franchise starring Crowe, we're in trouble and so are his knees. As with any Ridley Scott flick, it looks great, can be gripping at times, but isn't exactly fun. Cate Blanchett does what she can to liven things up, as does Oscar Isaac as Prince John The Swarthy, and if the whole movie were anywhere near as cool as the animated end title sequence, we might have had something here. But is isn't, and we don't.

So there.

ROBZ N THE HOOD

2010-05-12T22:27:00.008-04:00

Someday, I will make The Ultimate Robin Hood Movie, or at least, My Version of the Ultimate Robin Hood Movie. I am hardly unique in the desire to bring this medieval tale to the big screen. Moviemakers have been visiting and revisiting Sherwood Forest since the silent era, and with good reason. Everyone likes Robin Hood. He’s a dashing, charming rogue with mad archery skillz who robs the rich, feeds the poor, and gets the girl. What’s not to like?

As with all timeless tales, each generation gets the Robin Hood they deserve. The story works fine on its own, allowing filmmakers to highlight the concerns, styles and trends of their own particular eras.

In 2010, we are about to get Ridley Scott’s version. Judging from the trailer, it looks epic, humorless and violent, with curiously mature actors filling out the leads. With all due respect to Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett, I have always envisioned Robin Hood and Maid Marian as passionate young lovers rather than 40-something Oscar-winners. Sir Ridley continues the ironic tradition of casting a non-Englishman as that most English of heroes (weird, isn’t it). I have my concerns (a shiny-armored Maid Marian riding into battle?). But hey, it’s still a Robin Hood movie, so I’ll be sure to check it out. But before I go, I felt that I should look back on some earlier cinematic versions of the Robin Hood tlegend, and see what they could tell me about their time periods.

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) Directed by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley

Ever seen a Bollywood movie? For the uninitiated, Bollywood is India’s film industry, the world’s most prolific, which produces hundreds of movies each year. Typical Bollywood productions are fanciful extravaganzas filled with music, chaste romance and bloodless adventure made to appeal to vast swaths of humanity, including millions living in wretched poverty. With its dazzling colors and innocent romanticism, The Adventures of Robin Hood could comfortably share a double bill with the latest offering from Bombay.

If you want evidence as to why the Hollywood (with an “H”) studio system peaked during the Great Depression, this movie could serve as Exhibit A. It is relentlessly cheerful, optimistic and colorful in ways that are laughable for a modern American audience, but it must have picked up the spirits of the impoverished back in the day. With athletic swagger and wise-ass quips, Errol Flynn bounces through every scene like a gazelle (albeit a bright green Bedazzled™ gazelle). His band of Merry Men aren’t so much a forest-dwelling guerilla squad as a bunch of good-humored drinking buddies who swing on vines in goofy outfits whilst redistributing wealth to the masses. What downtrodden Hooverville resident (or Slumdog) wouldn’t want to join these scamps in their quest to stick it to The Man? Olivia de Havilland is every inch the damsel in distress, and her own goofy outfits range in style from Sparkly Habit to Sequined Swiss Miss. “England” never looked as sunny as it does in this movie. It all seems rather cartoonish today, but America needed a cartoon back then, just like India does now.

And speaking of cartoons…

Robin Hood (1973) Directed by Wolfgang Reitherman

Walt Disney died in 1966, and with him went the lush, vivid, and expensive animation style that made his studio famous. Lots of animation buffs see the years following Uncle Walt’s demise as a lackluster time for the studio. I respectfully disagree with them. Sure, movies like The Aristocats, The Rescuers and The Fox and the Hound may not have the same dazzling production values of the Disney “classics” of old, but they also lack those films’ pretentiousness. The Disney movies of the 1970s have a shaggy charm about them. Rather than grandly executed fairy tales, they are modest bedtime stories more likely to give you a good chuckle than to inspire awe. And Robin Hood is the best of the bunch.

Ooh De Lally, would I like to know what they were smoking during the Robin Hood brainstorming sessions (it was the early 70s, after all)! I imagine the pitch going like this: “Okay, so we’re gonna do Robin Hood, but with animals instead of people. And it’s gonna be a Western. And there’s gonna be a hoedown in Sherwood Forest. And drag humor. And boob jokes.” And that’s exactly what they did. The choice to make each character an animal underlines their personalities in a playful and effective way (Robin Hood is a sly fox, Little John is a big-hearted bear, Richard the Lionhearted is, uh, a lion). The dialogue is hilarious, particularly the banter between Peter Ustinov’s Prince John and Terry-Thomas’ Sir Hiss (name me another Disney flick with memorable comic repartee, besides Aladdin), and the songs are terrific. The whole movie feels like it was made by a bunch of good-humored hippies who had just watched M*A*S*H. And that’s a good thing.

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) Directed (more or less) by Kevin Reynolds

I know it’s hard to believe, kids, but twenty years ago Kevin Costner was the hottest star in Hollywood. He was on a massive winning streak – The Untouchables, Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, and his personal best Dances With Wolves all came out in the space of four years. He was the All-American Movie Star with two Oscars to boot. So when the chance to star as Robin Hood came along, he wasn’t going to let his limited acting range and unmistakably Californian accent stand in his way (to be fair, Errol Flynn wasn’t the greatest of actors either). Thus, the world was given Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. I loved this movie when I was twelve. Back then, I didn’t much care that Old Kev-bo sounded more like a surfer than a Saxon nobleman. The action was good, the settings were appropriately gritty, and Alan Rickman made a hilarious and kick-ass Sheriff of Nottingham.

Now that I am old and jaded, however, the film’s flaws are easier to spot. It was a notoriously rushed and difficult production, and it shows. Tonally, the movie is all over the place and its oh-so-1990s stabs at political correctness come across as half-assed. Morgan Freeman’s exotic and educated Moor helpfully introduces the Merry Men to the wonders of telescopes and gunpowder, yet has no wants or ambitions of his own other than protecting the hero’s life. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio’s Maid Marian is introduced as a masked warrior who nearly cuts Robin to pieces, and is then stuck as a vulnerable damsel for the rest of the movie. Worst of all, when the Sheriff attempts to rape her (!), it seems to be played for laughs. Yuck!

And then there is Kev-bo’s monstrous ego that radiates through every frame. Rumor has it that he and the producers took over the editing of the film, and man, does this movie love Kevin Fucking Costner! When he gives what is supposed to be a rousing speech calling the Marry Men to action, he comes off more like a schoolyard bully bending the weaker kids to his will than a charismatic leader of men. And that damn waterfall scene! Maid Marian stumbles upon a nude Robin taking a dip and gazes longingly at his manly physique (well, partially his physique – a stunt butt was employed). Even in his heyday, I don’t recall Kev-bo being known for his sexy bod. Hell, that very summer a couple of doors down in the multiplex, Brad Pitt was putting all mankind’s bodies to shame in Thelma & Louise, so that lingering gaze on Marian’s face is just a bit much. Get over yourself, Kev.

Such was the way of the world in 1991. How quickly the times change.

So, on Friday I will be off to see Ridley & Russell’s take on the Sherwood Bandit. Of course, it will never be as good as My Version of the Ultimate Robin Hood Movie, but it could be pretty awesome, nonetheless. I am always willing to give Robin Hood the benefit of the doubt, and I’ll be there. With tights on.

LAZY BLOGGING PART IV, WITH JAMES LIPTON

2010-01-14T11:42:00.005-05:00

I promise to do some real writing soon. Until then, here's something to make you giggle.

THE SECRET OF GREAT ACTING

2009-11-18T15:28:00.005-05:00

I have a Love/Hate relationship with Inside The Actors Studio. On one hand, James Lipton coaxes some great interviews out of his guests. On the other hand, many of those guests get mind-blowingly pretentious about "The Method" and "Their Craft." Sure, there are some great actors out there and just as many ways to conjure up a good performance. But at the end of the day it's all just... well, I'll let Sir Ian McKellen explain it.

THREE YEARS GONE

2009-11-04T14:31:00.005-05:00

Today marks the third year anniversary of the day I took of for the Southern Hemisphere. As I look out my window, I see the same autumnal colors that bade me farewell back then, and its impossible for me to not get nostalgic. I can still picture the mist rolling over the mountains of New Zealand as my plane made its way into Auckland. The excitement of living on my own in a new country was raging through me. Yes, I did and saw some amazing stuff, but it all would have been pretty empty if I weren't sharing the experiences with some awesome people. And I miss those people terribly and it pisses me off that I can't just meet up with them at John Harvard's tonight.

I'd give you more of my Backpacker's Withdrawal Spiel, but thankfully Australian blogger Ben Groundwater sums my mood up perfectly in the article below, so I can go back to being the lazy American blogger that I have become. Enjoy.

THE WORST THING ABOUT TRAVELLING

I used to know a tour bus driver who loved telling people he was "world famous".

"I know people all over the world," he'd tell his latest bunch of wide-eyed tour passengers, "so I reckon that makes me world famous."

The guy was no Bono, but he had a point. He did know people from all over the world, fellow travellers he could call his friends - as could most people who've spent a bit of time overseas.

We've all got the odd mate in England, friends in Germany, people we could call on in the US, a couple of Dutchies we'd like to hang out with again, some South Africans who said we should come stay some time...

And you know what? It sucks.
Some people might like the idea of having friends all over the world, but I'm not one of them.

I don't want to know that I could go stay with one of my friends for a few nights if I ever found myself in Los Angeles. I want to know that I could go to the pub with them right now.

I don't want don't want friends on other side of the world - I want them on the other side of the street. I don't even like having to cross Anzac Bridge to see my brother.

There are plenty of downsides to a life of travelling - lack of money, career etc - but that, for me, is the worst. You meet these amazing people, have incredible experiences together, and then you bid them goodbye.

Sure, you swap emails, look each other up on Facebook, try to keep in touch ... but you both know there's every chance you'll never see each other again. And that sucks.

I used to work for a tour company in Europe, and without doubt the best part of the job was being presented with a new group of 30 or so people to get to know for the next three weeks. That was fantastic. The worst part of the job, without doubt, was then waving them all goodbye when those three weeks were up.

You tend to forge some pretty amazing friendships when you're travelling, not just on group tours, but just going about the everyday act of getting from one place to the next.

You're always more open to meeting new people when you travel. And through shared experiences like eating strange food, comparing bed bug bites, trying to speak a different language, or just the sheer act of living life in another country, you forge close friendships very quickly. And then you go your separate ways.

Some of those people, you'll never see again. They'll just be a funny character you'll tell bored mates about when you get back home. Others, you'll hook up with again at some other time, in some other place, and you'll find the magic's just not there any more. There'll be this weird moment when you realise that for all the fun you had together overseas, you really don't have much in common.

Others will become friends for life - only from the other side of the world.

The internet's made it easier than ever to keep in touch with the people you meet when you're travelling. All it takes is a couple of quick clicks, and few minutes of reading status updates, and you can tell what, say, Jorge from Argentina is up to now.

There's also a new website, Trip Reunions, where old tour passengers can register and get back in touch with the people they travelled with all those years ago. Some groups organise reunions, where you all get together to drink a few beers and reminisce about that crazy Kiwi bloke who always took his pants off when he was drunk, or the girl you could have sworn you saw dashing out of the bus driver's cabin one night.

It's all good fun, and you'll have a great night, but it's just not the same.

Some people might like being world famous - but I'd prefer it if all my friends lived here.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

2009-08-01T18:15:00.002-04:00

THERE AND BACK AGAIN

2009-07-06T12:09:00.011-04:00

I am a naughty, Naughty, NAUGHTY Blogger! Sorry for the delay. Spank me... I dare ya!
Last you all heard from me, I was working the streets of Perth convincing strangers to fork over monthly donations to charity. I ended up spending nearly five months in Perth, my longest stretch anywhere in Australia. To be sure, it’s a nice place - great beaches and lots of fun young people. My job worked out well and I made some great friends, but I needed to hit the road back home as my visa was running out. After several farewell shindigs, I hopped on the Nullarbor Traveller. It was a terrific 9-day bus tour that took me all the way from Perth to Adelaide, a distance of about 2,400 miles. The bus was populated by myself, three German girls, a Scottish lass, and Lachy (rhymes with “hockey,” short for Lachlan) our Aussie driver. Not a bad ratio there! We camped almost every night and saw lots of awesome stuff as we made our way eastward. Cape Le Grand National Park was particularly cool. We did some nice hikes, the best being Frenchman’s Peak. There was also the gorgeous white sand of Lucky Bay. It was already a bit too late in the season to go swimming, but it was stunning, nonetheless. Along the way, we also saw Wave Rock (It’s a rock that looks like a wave), lots of stunning coastline, fantastic caves, and many, many miles of flat treeless land along the Nullarbor Plain. One of the best spots was the area around Coodlie Park on the Eyre Peninsula. We stayed there for two nights and did all kinds of cool stuff. There was a moonlight 4X4 tour of the farm where we saw kangaroos and wombats, side trips out to spectacular caves and rock formations, and sandboarding down massive dunes. From there we departed to Baird Bay where we went snorkeling with dolphins and sea lions – probably the best thing we did on the tour. Our group went out on a little pontoon boat, donned wetsuits, and jumped right into the water with those crazy critters! Being wild animals, the dolphins didn’t really do much but swim by us very quickly. The sea lions were much more fun! They are like friendly, playful dogs that can swim. One was repeatedly putting his nose right up to my facemask. I stayed in as long as I could, despite the freezing water. So much fun!

Over the next few days we did some more hikes and tours. In Port Lincoln we went out to a tuna farm where I did some more snorkeling. There were massive tuna nets with dozens of big, fast tuna swimming around. I would feed them by hand and they swam with incredible speed right by my face. On the boat we got free samples of their sashimi-grade tuna steak. MMMMMmmmmm… fun and tasty!

One of the last things we did was a quick little surfing trip. I hadn’t surfed since I had left Gisbourne, New Zealand more than two years earlier, and it was great to do it again. One of these days, I gotta get a board of my own.

Oh yeah, we also killed a kangaroo. It was an accident. For all their cuteness and physical dexterity, kangaroos are pretty stupid animals. One evening crossing the Nullarbor, Lachy spied two roos a few hundred yards down the road. He honked the horn and flashed the lights repeatedly, but to no avail. One of the roos jumped right in front of the van and took one for the team. This is not an uncommon occurrence Down Under. The sides of any country road are littered with carcasses. Roos are far from an endangered species, so it was really just Darwinism at work. We were merely thinning out the herd. The surviving roo hopefully hopped back home and told his friends that Steve (as I called him) unfortunately got plowed down by a van, and that maybe in the future he and is friends should jump AWAY from oncoming vehicles, rather than towards them. I’m just sayin’…After disembarking in Adelaide (more like Ade-LAME!), and taking a few showers, I went on yet another tour around Kangaroo Island. It’s a huge island, more than 100 miles across. Because of its isolation from the mainland, it has been spared many of the environmental invasions that Australia has suffered since the Europeans showed up. Its name is no coincidence – there are all kinds of kangaroos all over the island, along with koalas (so cute and dopey!), penguins, snakes, seals, seal lions, and other unique species. Thankfully, none were killed by our tour group. The highlight of this trip was probably the Remarkable Rocks – huge & fantastic rock formations looking out on the Southern Ocean. Millions of years of wind & rain have carved these rocks into bizarre shapes. One can easily conjure up visions of pagan rituals being performed on these things. Very cool.Once that trip was done I returned back to Adelaide and hung out with my buddy Matt from Leeds before flying to Sydney for the long trip back to America. Whilst back in Sydney, my friends from “Wolverine” informed me that there was going to be a cast & crew screening of the movie at Fox Studios Australia on April 26th. Unfortunately, my flight was booked for the 23rd, so I couldn’t make it. Damn! I’m still pissed that I missed that. It would have been a great way to finish up my wacky Australian adventure. But, whaddya gonna do? At the very least, I got to spend my last three days in Australia at Noah’s Bondi Beach, one of my favorite hostels anywhere. Flying home was, well, it was flying home. I fell asleep somewhere over the Pacific and woke up in Los Angeles. I spent a week with friends & family around LA. Lots of Mexican food was consumed and I had a great time catching up with people whom I hadn’t seen in years. It was bizarre to be back in America to have “Wolverine” billboards and posters on every bus & street corner. Sadly, Fox decided that they didn’t need to credit the PAs from the New Zealand crew, so my name is nowhere to be found in the end titles. Still, it was nice to go see the movie on opening night in my hometown, at the very movie theater that I worked at all through high school, and being able to point at the screen and say “I was there for that!”

Anyway, I have had to adjust many things since I got home (chiefly my belt, as home cooking, car travel, and the most consistently bad weather in more than a century have contributed to my rapidly expanding waistline). I’ve had to make up for lost time by going to weddings, birthdays and other events that I didn’t have the luxury of attending over the last 2½ years (they’ve been great, by the way). Some things have changed since I left – Obama is president, Michael Jackson is dead, Massachusetts seems to have a viable film industry, the Natick Mall has metamorphosed into an up-market monstrosity dubbed The Natick Collection, Mom & Dad did some remodeling – and some things haven’t – war in Iraq & Afghanistan, debate over gay marriage, Kim Jong Il acting crazy, Mom & Dad’s busted skylight, etc.

There is no way for me be able to process all the things I’ve done, places I’ve seen and people I’ve met over the last couple years and come up with some grand conclusion, so don’t expect one. All I can say is that it has been a fantastic time in my life. Travel is extremely addictive, and I don’t see myself stopping anytime soon. I’ve had wonderful and horrible days. Though traveling has its hardships, expenses and unexpected speed bumps, it’s just too good to pass up. I may have to stay home for a while, but I know that I will be getting back out there someday. If you really want to do it, save up some cash and just go for it. You won’t regret it. So, dear readers, Moranadu will be reverting (temporarily, anyway) to its roots as a place for me to rant and rave over whatever I damn well please, rather than my international shenanigans. Expect the unexpected. Or don’t. I’ll write what I want, so there.

GONNA MAKE YOU SWEAT!

2009-02-14T03:54:00.007-05:00

First off, in case anyone was concerned, I am alive and well and more than 2,000 miles away from the fires in Victoria. They are pretty horrific. Nearly 200 people have died already. Australians aren’t very used to large-scale natural disasters, and this one is hitting home hard. It’s nice to know that my current job has contributed to the relief efforts, but we’ll get to that in a bit.Where were we? Ah, yes. Darwin.

Darwin was getting way too hot and boozy. Before I left the Top End, I took a three-day tour of Kakadu National Park. I expected to encounter all sorts of freaky Aussie critters, and I was not disappointed. We saw frilled lizards, emus, pythons, crocodiles, dingoes, and wallaroos (too big to be a wallabie, too small to be a kangaroo). But the creatures that I will remember most from my Kakadu experience were the thousands upon thousands of flies that were buzzing around my sweaty head at any given moment. Australian flies crave the salty goodness of human perspiration. It is widely known that I am The Sweatiest Man in the World, and when The Sweatiest Man in the World went to Kakadu, The Sweatiest Place in the World, a perfect storm of Sweatiness erupted. The flies of Kakadu greeted me like manna from heaven. From dawn ‘til dusk, they never left me alone. They didn’t bite. Instead they just buzzed and crawled all over my face, occasionally creeping into my eyelids as I tried to appreciate ancient Aboriginal rock paintings (many of which are sex education literature in hieroglyphic form).Still, Kakadu was pretty awesome. We did some nice walks and took lots of dips in spectacular swimming holes. The highlight of the trip was our first night of camping, when I ate kangaroo meat and played a didgeridoo under a full moon while dingoes howled in the distance – my most quintessentially Australian experience so far. I barely got a wink of sleep and the tour group was kind of lame, but it was still a good time. It was our tour company’s last trip before they shut down for the wet season, and our guide made no secret that he was trying to score an English girl from another tour group at the campsite as a year-end bonus. Not sure if he succeeded.After several farewell drinks with my Darwin friends, I took to the skies and flew to Perth. Flying over the vast expanse of Western Australia was humbling. Gazing out my window, I could see astoundingly little evidence of human development – just miles upon miles of desert punctuated by the occasional mine site or dirt road to nowhere. The in-flight movie was “Mamma Mia,” so many of my future reminiscences of the Outback will be scored not with “Waltzing Matilda” or “Blue Sky Mine,” but with “Waterloo” and “Dancing Queen.” Thanks, Qantas. And for the record, Pierce Brosnan can’t sing for shit.

If Darwin is Australia’s version of a Texas oil rig town, then Perth is an Aussie San Diego – nice weather, great beaches, suburban sprawl, a mellow populous, not a whole lot of character, but still a nice place to live. My buddy Sam got me my current job, which involves me standing on the street and encouraging strangers to donate money to charitable organizations. It’s not as hard as it might seem (I got promoted!). You just gotta learn to deal with constant rejection. If I get four sign-ups a day, I’m doing well. The easiest people to sign up are recent African emigrants, and there are plenty of them in Perth. I’ve signed up folks from Sudan, Egypt, Kenya, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe (I had no idea there were so many white people from Zimbabwe). Black, white, male, female, old, young – the Africans are very charitable and generous. Without a doubt, the hardest demographic to sign up is suit-wearing, white dudes. Shocker.

I suppose that I can’t get through this entry without mentioning the election of Barack Obama. I watched the results come in at The Fox Ale House, one of the pubs I worked at in Darwin where my buddy Carboni was nice enough to let me put on the big screen TV. A girl from California strolled by the pub and watched it with me. As nice as it was to hear Australians cheering and applauding the speech of a soon-to-be American president, it was great to be able to share that moment with a fellow Yank. Hope home is treating you well, Marie! As for the inauguration, I was at a hostel in Busselton where I had to wake up at 1:30 AM to watch live coverage. I don’t think I’ve ever watched a live inauguration, not even for Clinton. I was hoping for some momentous “The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is Fear Itself” quote from Obama, which never really surfaced. But I suppose the fact that such a seemingly decent, intelligent, charismatic and inspiring person who just happens to be a black man became the president of the United States in front of a crowd of millions of proud, hopeful and motivated Americans speaks for itself. America, FUCK YEAH!!!!

Back to Australia…

Perth was Heath Ledger’s hometown. As big a city as Perth is, its isolation gives it a small-town familiarity, and all the locals seem to know someone who actually knew Heath or at least knows one of his family members. His Academy Award nomination for “The Dark Knight” came on the anniversary of his death, and made front-page news here. Assuming (and it’s a safe bet) that he receives a posthumous Oscar, it will be interesting to see how Perth reacts. I wonder what it must be like for his family to walk around Perth, where “Dark Knight” merchandise is inescapable, looking at images of their boy and his now iconic incarnation of The Joker displayed on posters, DVDs and t-shirts in every other store window. If any Ledgers are reading this, you have my sympathies.And if there are any Academy members reading this, how the hell could you not nominate “The Dark Knight” for Best Picture and Best Director? What the fuck is wrong with you people? The movie is beloved by audiences and critics the world over. It has a great story, terrific acting, and superlative technical artistry. It is now the second highest-grossing movie ever made. You gave the film eight other nominations, but just couldn’t see it in your crooked little hearts to give it the big ones, presumably because it is based on a comic-book character and therefore must be kid stuff - incapable of exploring significant psychological or dramatic terrain. That attitude is snobby and retarded. Why does Stephen Daldry have three (THREE!!!) Best Director nominations to his credit while Christopher Nolan has zero? The man has never made a bad movie. You weren’t even this mean to Spielberg in his early days. Wake up, douchebags!

Ah, well, at least some other genuinely decent movies got nominated, and it will be fun watching my former boss tackle the hosting duties.

Perth will most likely be my last major stomping ground in the Land of Oz. My vague plan is to save up money here, see a bit more of the outback (not sure where or what exactly – somewhere ABBA-free, if possible) and then head homeward in April. My big dilemma now is deciding which way to go. Next time you’re near a globe, find Perth and then find Boston. I am nearly as far away from home as the North Pole is to the South Pole. I could go east or west and spend about the same amount of money and travel time. As nice as it is, how the hell did I end up here?

Shameless Self-Promotion Alert!!!!

Click here to view the trailer for "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," the movie that completely consumed my life just a year ago. After all the hard work that thousands of people put into the production, it is hugely gratifying that the trailer looks as good as it does, biased as I am. I was physically present for pretty much every shot that features a motorcycle, helicopter, explosion, mountain scenery and/or Hugh Jackman fighting with Liev Schreiber. When I was a kid and fantasized about making movies, this is the kind of stuff I saw myself working on. The movie will be released on May 1st, and I hope it lives up to the trailer!

In the meantime, dear readers, I hope you all survive the Global Financial Crisis with your life savings intact. For those in the movie biz, try to get gigs on funny flicks – Hollywood thrived during the 1930s thanks in great part to cheaply made screwball comedies. To all my “Pineapple Express” buddies, keep Judd Apatow on speed dial, and please put in a good word for me!

TROPIC THUNDER

2008-10-27T22:59:00.011-04:00

It’s been a long time coming. Here goes:

Got a job at a resort near Port Douglas in northern Queensland. Lived in the jungle for 6 weeks and damn near lost my mind due to isolation and immobility. It was pretty, but living there was akin to living in Jurassic Park without any dinosaurs to make it entertaining. Made some friends. Had some laughs. Got outta there. Got a bus back to Cairns. Didn’t like it there, either. Flew to Darwin. Darwin is hot. Really hot, and I don’t mean Paris Hilton’s definition of hot. Darwin is closer to the Equator than it is to Sydney. Since my arrival in late August, we have been experiencing “The Build Up” which is the transition period between the dry and wet seasons. That means that every day it gets a little more oppressively hot and humid until the big rains come. Mother Nature’s got PMS, and we’re all feeling the wrath.

Territorians, as the locals are known up here in the Top End, have a name for the craziness that everyone feels this time of year. They say that someone has “gone troppo” if he or she displays strange and/or violent behavior. I’ve seen plenty of it first hand. It’s not just the heat. The history, geography and social structure of Darwin all contribute. The Northern Territory is sort of an Australian Texas. Unlike the rest of Australia, the NT is not technically a state, something of which Territorians are quite proud. There is very much a frontier element around these parts, and no wonder. The local ports and military facilities see hundreds of sailors, miners, soldiers and oil rig workers come and go every day. There’s a crucial shortage of ladies up here and bars are packed every night with sexually frustrated dudes knocking back pints, anxiously waiting for the wet t-shirt contests to begin. Flashings and fisticuffs are frequent. Darwin has beaches, but it’s not safe to swim this time of year thanks to deadly box jellyfish and the occasional crocodile. If there’s a public pool, I haven’t found it. Chilling out in Darwin is a challenge.

That said, I still kinda dig the place. Right next to my hostel is Crocosaurus Cove, which houses “the worlds largest collection of Australian reptiles.” They have all sortsa beasties in there, including an albino croc named Snowy, even though he’s really a pale shade of brown. A couple of weeks ago, I got to escape to Litchfield National Park, where there are some awesome croc-free rock pools and waterfalls (too bad it’s an hour and a half drive from here!). I managed to get a decent job at a bar and have made some good friends. As usual, most of them are Irish. Are there any young people left in Ireland? The Union Jack in the Australian flag should really be replaced with the Emerald Isle’s green, white & orange. Every Sunday night, some buddies of mine would play traditional Celtic music at a local pub, and all of Darwin’s Irish Diaspora would show up. Good times! Sucks that The Galway Boys are leaving for the East Coast this week. Gonna miss ya, lads!Oh yeah, I turned 30 a few days ago. I got the whole weekend off. It was, um… well it was fun. I think. Yeah. Pretty sure it was fun. Anyway, my current plan is to work 2 or 3 more weeks in Darwin, check out Kakadu National Park, and then find my way down the west coast to Perth where friends, gainful employment, and swimmable beaches await. I’ve heard that Darwin’s gender imbalance is reversed there, so that’s another selling point.

When I first decided to go traveling two years ago, I figured that I’d do one year in New Zealand and then come back to American reality. Obviously, that didn’t happen. Recently, I decided to ditch my open-ended ticket home (which expires November 4th) and use up the rest of my Australian visa, which is good through late April. Much thought and consideration went into that decision. The toughest thing about traveling has been missing big events back home, be they happy or sad. I’ve missed Christmases, anniversaries, engagements, weddings, births, and, worst of all, deaths. To all my family and friends back home, I want you all to know that I think about you every day and love you all so much! There will be much catching up to do when I get back. Take care of yourselves and be well!

Until then, vote Obama and enjoy the video below, which manages to be sexy, funny and inventive whilst making a statement about censorship. I promise it will brighten your day!

The BPA - Toe Jam Featuring David Byrne & Dizzee Rascal
Uploaded by TheBrightonPortAuthority

CELTIC PRIDE, REEFER MADNESS & INDEPENDENCE DAY

2008-07-06T01:50:00.008-04:00

Enough with the cunts.

While I sorted out the replacement passport and credit cards, I settled into a semi-comfortable existence at Noah’s Backpackers on Bondi Beach near Sydney. It was a fun place with lots of cool people and just a couple minutes walk to the ocean. The place was bursting with travelers from all over, but mostly Ireland. I met more Irish than Aussies in Bondi and learned some valuable bits of Celtic slang:

“What’s the craic?” = “How’s it going?”
“Your man” = “Some guy” or “That guy”
“Moik, ya cunt!” = “Mike, my friend, it is good to see you!”

I guess I wasn’t done with the cunts. At least they were friendly cunts.Irish backpackers are in such great numbers around Bondi that many of the locals have taken a dislike to them. Never in my lifetime did I expect to encounter “No Irish Need Apply” hiring practices, but I did in Bondi. Here’s a brief transcript of my interview for a bartending gig:

BAR MANAGER: So, Michael, where are you from?

ME: From the US, outside of Boston.

BAR MANAGER: And you’re backpacking around Australia?

ME: Yes, but I’m going to need to work for a while to finance more travel. It will take me some time to save up enough cash, so I’m looking for something full time.

BAR MANAGER: Well, let me be frank. I’ve had bad experiences with backpackers. I won’t hire Irish anymore because they’re so unreliable.

ME: Ah, well my name is Moran and I’m Irish-American.

KIWI BAR MANAGER: Well, you’re more American than you are Irish.

I was a bit stunned by those last couple lines of his and didn’t really have time to process them, so the interview continued. He ended up offering me a trial shift, which I didn’t show up for. I may never have been to Ireland, but for that guy to say that I’m “more American than Irish” took brass ones. To take that job would have been spitting on the graves of my ancestors. Instead, I embarked on a series of “labouring” jobs. These included holding up paintings and sculptures at art auctions, mixing cement, digging holes, and shoveling various materials. I also helped an old Iranian guy build a porch (“Why, OF COURSE I have construction experience!”). The cash slowly added up, and I escaped north to Airlie Beach.

Airlie was a nice, if not overly friendly town where people book boat trips out to the Great Barrier Reef. I signed up for a 3-day trip on the Pacific Star, and it was great. We left the marina at night and motored out to the Whitsundays, which are a gorgeous group of islands between the mainland and the reef. On our first morning, we did a quick hike to stunning Whitehaven Beach. It was a bit cloudy, but the beach was nonetheless gorgeous. I have never felt sand so soft. My feet sunk 2 inches with each step. I also spotted a stingray just offshore. Pretty damn cool.The next day, we made it out to the outer reef. And yes, it is amazing. We hooked onto a mooring and stayed there all day. The water was dazzlingly clear and innumerable fish swam all around the boat. I did three dives that day, where I saw all kinds of fish and coral. The coolest dive was the night dive. We jumped in the water just after sunset and stayed down for about half an hour. All we had to light our way around were some flashlights and a light from the boat. So spooky and cool! We spotted a sea turtle sleeping on the bottom and huge fish would drift in and out of sight. It was like a submerged haunted house, but with friendly ghosts. Awesome stuff. On our final day, we headed back to port with some quick snorkeling stops. We’d spot turtles and manta rays just off the boat and some humpbacks breaching in the distance. Getting back on dry land was a bummer!

There aren’t too many work or accommodation options in Airlie, so I took an overnight bus to Cairns (rhymes with “cans”) to do some job hunting. It’s a relatively small city that mostly exists as a gateway to the reef and the tropical north. I’ll most likely get a gig here or do some fruit picking, if it comes down to it (I hope it doesn’t!).By the way, the 4th of July totally sucks in Australia. Granted, there aren’t too many Americans in this part of the country, but in a city overflowing with backpackers you’d think at least one of the numerous bars in town would have some kind of Independence Day celebration. Some of the bars in Airlie had Canada Day parties a few days ago. No such luck for the Yanks. The closest I could find to an American party was a bunch of drunk college kids from Maryland running around the streets with sparklers. They were nice enough, but 5 minutes was all I could tolerate with a bunch of hammered 18-year olds. Instead, I did my patriotic duty and got a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese McValue Meal®. A nice surprise came in the form of a Samuel Adams Boston Lager, which I found at a local bar. Those of you who know me know that I loves me some Sam. It had been nearly 2 years since I’ve tasted my favorite beer from home, and it went down nicely (but not cheaply - $8.90!!!!). God Bless America!Oh, yeah! Congrats to the Boston Celtics! Once again, my home team has won a championship and I am thousands of miles away and unable to watch! Not that I’ve ever been a big basketball fan, but it would have been nice to see. I have some very faint memories of their 1986 victory, mostly germinating from the giant Kevin McHale poster that adorned my childhood wall and charted my growth. That was kind of cruel, in retrospect. Why give a kid with insecurities about his height a life-sized poster of an NBA player complete with measuring marks along the side? There should have been a word bubble coming out of Kevin’s mouth reading “Little Michael, no matter how much milk you drink or how many jumping jacks you do, you will never be as tall as me. In fact, this poster will give you an exact figure as to how tall I am versus how short you are. Try gymnastics.” That would have better prepared me for the realities of life. Oh, well.

TOMATO/TOMAHTO

2008-05-18T23:19:00.002-04:00

“Cunt” is a loaded word. In North American English, there is probably no more offensive word, with the possible exception of a few racist slurs. It is strictly feminine, and used only to degrade a woman in the worst possible verbal way. Having grown up in a feminist household, I was taught to never, ever use this word… even though I’ve heard my sisters use it to describe some of their female co-workers. If a man uses this word publicly in the USA, he runs the risk of a sexual harassment lawsuit and/or getting a slap.

In the rest of the English-speaking world, they throw “cunt” around much more freely (no pun intended). It can be feminine or masculine, an insult or a vulgar term of endearment, similar to the way we Americans use “bastard.”

i.e.: “He’s a funny old bastard/cunt.”

No matter the context, “cunt” still carries a bit of tastelessness. I don’t think anyone of any nationality would say it comfortably in front of their grandmother.

It has been 18 months since I left my homeland, and there are certain words and phrases I have added to my vocabulary due to cultural osmosis. I catch myself saying things like “no worries” and “sweet” in the surfer-influenced Pacific Rim manner. When you’re away from home for this long, it just happens. Somehow, though, I had avoided the casual use of the word “cunt.”

Until now…

To the person who stole my American Express card in Thailand and went on a shopping spree… you, sir or madam, are a cunt.

And to the person who stole my daypack from my former hostel in Sydney which contained my passport, work visa, Responsible Service of Alcohol certificate, sunglasses, notepad, and (worst of all) my beloved Nalgene water bottle… you, sir or madam, are also a cunt.

And to the money-grubbing slumlord proprietor of the aforementioned hostel who didn’t see the need to equip his/her rooms with lockers or electrical outlets, or security cameras in the kitchen from whence my bag was stolen despite posters that would indicate the contrary… you are a cunt, too.

That is all.

MISTY MOUNTAIN HOP, SIAMESE DREAM, & THE MERRY OLD LAND OF OZ

2008-05-01T08:24:00.027-04:00

I’ve covered more mileage in the past month than in any previous month of my life. I’m in a new city in a new country where I’m searching for a job and a semi-permanent place to crash. Therefore, my editorial skills aren’t up to their usual standard. Here’s the shortest version of my latest journeys that I can muster without leaving out key details.

Brace yourselves.

We finished work on the movie. Well, to be more accurate, the 2nd Unit of the New Zealand crew of The Movie About A Famous Comic Book Character With Claws finished their work. Many hundreds of people will continue to work on the movie on sound stages in Sydney and special effects houses in Los Angeles for the next several months. It’s a big damn movie!

Once the wrap-up partying subsided, I began tying up loose ends in Queenstown. Naturally, that involved a bungy jump and a trek through the wilderness. The bungy jump was the world famous Nevis Highwire Bungy. The Nevis is a 472-foot jump with 8 full seconds of freefall into a rocky chasm. Remember that scene in “Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey” when they’re falling and screaming on their way to Hell, pause quietly for a moment, and then start screaming again as they continue to fall? The Nevis is just like that. You jump. You scream. You stop screaming. You realize that you’re still falling. And then you scream again before you bounce back up a few hundred feet. My hands were shaking for 10 minutes afterwards. It rocked, and thanks to my flatmate Matt, I got a 20% discount. Cheers, geeza!
The aforementioned wilderness trek was the Routeburn Track. The Routeburn is a 3-day, 24-mile hike through the mountains, gorges and rainforests of the South Island of New Zealand. The first day was great. Sunny skies, fresh air, stunning mountain views and amazing stars at night. The next two days were… not quite so enjoyable. It rained. A lot. And it was windy. Very, very windy. Everything got soaked. Several times, I had to walk through raging streams on steep slopes that could have sent me plummeting down the mountainside a-la “Romancing the Stone.” Didn’t happen, thankfully. The moment I finished the track, the sun came out, and I successfully hitchhiked back to Queenstown (a 3-hour trip). It amazes me still that the two German guys who gave me the lift didn’t kick me out of the car, ‘cause I smelled so horrible after three days in the mud. Danke, dudes! Muchas danke!

After some farewell drinks with friends, I began the very long trip to Bangkok. Many means of transportation were involved in this endeavor. First was the 8-hour bus ride to Christchurch (an interesting city that I wish I saw more of - rent “Heavenly Creatures” someday to see why). Then there was the 6AM flight to Melbourne, where we were meant to have a 4-hour layover. Due to technical issues, we had to take a different plane and spend 14 fucking hours in the Melbourne airport terminal. Jetstar, which is Australia’s answer to Southwest Airlines (you know – Ghetto Air), did their best to compensate us with “refreshment vouchers.” The terminal had no proper restaurant but did have plenty of beer on tap, so basically the whole plane got drunk. Once we were airborne, everyone applauded and then passed out. We landed in Bangkok at 4:30AM. I got a cab to Khao San Road, which is Bangkok’s Backpacker Central. All tolled, from the time I left my cabin in Queenstown to the moment I checked into the D&D Inn in Bangkok, I had been in transit for 52 hours.

Ah, Thailand! You giant nut job of a nation! Bangkok is insane. It is a sweaty, seething, sprawling metropolis that seems to stretch out forever. If you want peace and quiet, do not go to Bangkok. Everything, and I mean everything, is for sale. Everywhere you look are cars, tuk tuks, pushcarts, Buddhist monks, prostitutes, transsexuals (or “Ladyboys” in the local parlance), aged hippies, food and drink vendors, Siamese cats, lactating dogs, counterfeit merchandise, Indian guys relentlessly selling cheap designer suits… it goes on and on. And it’s hotter than the surface of the sun on the muggiest day of all time.

I did my share of cultural stuff. I toured Wat Pho and the Grand Palace, both of which reminded me of World Showcase at Epcot Center. The temples were so astoundingly colorful and opulent, they just… I’m sorry… they were just very Disney-esque. Wat Pho had a 200-foot long golden Buddha laying in a pose that bore a striking resemblance to a reclining Anne Bancroft in “The Graduate.”

“Mr. Buddha, you’re trying to seduce me… aren’t you?” Everything comes back to a movie for me. And I know “The Graduate” is not Disney. But if Walt Disney had directed “The Graduate,” the Robinson’s house would have looked like Wat Pho.

If there is a Buddhist Hell, I’m sure that I’m on my way there thanks to those last few passages.

Anyway, Bangkok was wearing me out, so I took an overnight bus and a ferry to Koh Tao. Koh Tao is a tiny island in the Gulf of Thailand where lots of people go to get cheap scuba diving certifications, myself included. Scuba diving is awesome! It really is like being an astronaut. We saw coral reefs, anemones, stingrays, giant clams, spiny sea urchins, and hundreds of schooling fish. It was fantastic, and I can’t wait to do it again.
My arrival in Koh Tao coincided with Songkran, the Thai New Year. Songkran is crazy. Everyone in the country spends three days dousing strangers with water. Dozens of children, teenagers, and responsible adults were lined up on the side of the dirt road near my dive school with buckets and super soakers. Whenever someone walked or drove by on a moped, they got soaked. As the day went on, it escalated and escalated. I hopped on the back of a truck with about 20 other people. It took more than an hour to get the 5 miles from our beach to Sai Ri, where most of the partying was going on. I have never seen anything like it. Hundreds and hundreds of strangers soaking one another and laughing their asses off. I wish I had pictures, but there was no way I was gonna risk getting my camera saturated. Good times.Scuba certification involved a lot of homework, so once I finished, I decided to move on to a new location for some unadulterated fun. I suppose that I could have headed up north and gotten more of an immersion into Thai culture, but hey, this wasn’t a National Geographic expedition. I was on vacation, so there. Off I went to the party island of Koh Phangan. Koh Phangan is just south of Koh Tao, and backpackers from around the world know it as a massive playground for tropical debauchery. It is home to the world famous Full Moon Parties that take place on Hat Rin Beach. Nearly every night is a party on Hat Rin Beach, but the Full Moon is really huge. Thousands of people rocked out ‘til the sun came up, and then they kept going. Everyone was a little nervous when it began. At the February party, an English guy went missing and was never found. And then in March, a 14-year old Thai kid stabbed a reveller to death. Nothing bad happened this time, thankfully. There was music everywhere, twirling fire sticks, bodies undulating, drinks flowing, 8-year old kids selling seashell necklaces at 3am, dudes pissing in the ocean as others swam in the darkness… it was massive, awesome and exhausting. Again, good times.

At this point, I have to give a shout out to all those European girls who feel completely free taking their tops off on the beach. On Koh Phangan, it was like I won the Boobie Lottery. They were everywhere! Technically, they shouldn’t be taking those things out in Thailand, since Thais don’t do public nudity. Thais go swimming fully clothed when its 100 degrees out, for Buddha’s sake. Didn’t stop those Swedish chicks, though. Cultural sensitivity only goes so far when European breasts are yearning to breathe free and soak up the sun. One funny phenomenon I noticed – some girls would sunbathe topless for hours as hundreds of gawking guys would stroll by, but when these girls decided to go for a swim, they’d walk down the shore covering their boobies with their hands until they got into the water, as if they think guys only look at knockers when they’re in motion. Hate to break it to ya, ladies, but as long as you’re showing them off (and even when you’re not), we’re gonna look at your boobs – bouncing or otherwise. Sorry I have no pictures, but I'm not that much of a perv.

I must also salute Thailand’s fantastic army of massage therapists. I got four massages in Thailand (and get those dirty thoughts right out of your minds, people - they were therapeutic, non-sexual, and totally legit!). Each cost the equivalent of about $10, and they worked wonders. I had a knot near my left shoulder blade that had been driving me insane for five years. It’s gone now. The lady who fixed it had me near tears on the table, but it was all worth it. Yay, Thailand!

So, after partying for a week in Koh Phangan, I had to head back to Bangkok to catch my flights to Australia. Once again, that involved a night bus and a redeye flight. My layover in Melbourne was only delayed by a half hour. And I was headed for Sydney…Crikey! I haven’t been in a big, world-class “western” city for quite a long time, and Sydney impresses easily. Well, the city center is nothing special, but anywhere near the harbor or beaches is pretty awesome. Of course, I had to make my way down to the Opera House as soon as I could. It’s pretty damn cool, but a little smaller than I had imagined. The Sydney Harbour Bridge, however, is friggin’ huge. It’s like the Sagamore Bridge on steroids. I took the train out to the famous Bondi Beach and did a nice walk along the cliffs as thunderstorms and rainbows were forming out over the Pacific. Gorgeous stuff.

When planning my flights to Sydney, I had totally forgotten that my arrival date, April 25th, is ANZAC Day, a major holiday for Australians and New Zealanders. It is sort of their version of Memorial Day, and takes place on the anniversary of the siege of Gallipoli in WWI (Rent the movie. It’s good.) during which thousands of Australian and Kiwi soldiers died. Australia has troops serving and dying in Iraq right now, so this was a big ANZAC Day for them. All over Sydney, there were memorial services taking place. I hung out for one at Martin Place. Hymns were sung, prayers were said, and then the priest reminded everyone “that ANZAC Day is also a day to party.” And party they did. Every guy in Sydney put on a uniform (no matter how far removed from an actual military garb that uniform might be) and hit the pubs. I saw lots of 17-year olds dudes in ill-fitting suits getting turned away by bouncers. It still throws me when I see teens drinking, legally, in public places. So sheltered, we Americans are.

Australia’s criminal history has ended up effecting my arrival in an amusing way. As is turns out, there is an infamous Melbourne crime family named – you guessed it – Moran. There is a bestselling book about the Moran family’s nefarious deeds, and as luck would have it, the book was turned into a miniseries that is currently airing on local television. Thusly, the name Moran is very much in the Australian zeitgeist at the moment. One of the key figures of Melbourne’s Morans is “crime mum” Judy Moran. I have an Aunt Judy. Unless she’s leading a double life organizing the criminal element on Nantucket that I haven’t heard about, she probably bears as much resemblance to her Aussie namesake as I do to any local gangsters of note. Every time I check into a hostel and provide my name, I get second looks. They always check my passport twice and look me up and down. Imagine that I was an Australian backpacker checking into an American hostel under the name Gotti, and you start to get the picture. I suppose that it doesn’t much help that I bear little resemblance to my passport photo anymore. But then again, how picky can a former penal colony really be about such matters?So yeah, Sydney’s nice. It’s Fashion Week here, so there are lots of skinny people running around in designer clothes, making my grubby backpacker attire look all the more shabby (or is it Shabby Chic?). Gotta do some shopping. After the horrendous toilets of Thailand, I wanted to kiss the pristine commodes of Australia. I thought better of it, though. As for exotic antipodean animals, my one sighting so far has been a flock (if that’s the right word) of enormous flying foxes that roost in the Royal Botanical Gardens. Name me another city where you can casually stroll through a lovely park and happen upon hundreds of salivating bats dangling googly-eyed from the trees. You don’t see that on The Common. Other strange encounters include fellow crewmembers from the movie. One of the visual effects guys almost hit me with his car, and I ran into some of the actors in a café in Bondi. Small world. Sadly, the Australian crew is already in place for the duration of the shoot, so I won’t be working on the movie anymore. It would be cool if they let me crash the wrap party, though. That party will rock, I’ll wager. In all likelihood, I’ll have to venture back into Hospitality World. At least the wages are better over here than in New Zealand. They damn well better be, ‘cause Sydney ain’t cheap! Unfortunately, I’m a bit late for the peak beach season here, so I’m gonna have to head up into Queensland to get some decent fun in the sun.

So there you have it, folks – my current life in a nutshell. Once I’ve gotten settled and have hung out with some more crazy Aussie critters, I’ll let you know. Until then, as another International Man of Mystery so eloquently put it, I’m spent.

LORD, I WAS BORN A RAMBLIN' MAN

2008-02-23T22:32:00.008-05:00

This is long overdue. The past few months have been insane. You might remember an entry I put up in December in which I ruminated on the World Series, foods I miss, and my new job working on a movie about a famous clawed comic book character. I took that entry down because I didn’t want to risk violating my scary and litigious non-disclosure agreement. I don’t think I violated it, but I didn’t want to run the risk. More on that in a bit…

I hope everyone’s holidays were fun. My own were spent with other goofball travelers. Parties at local hostels. Beer. Barbecues. Funny accents. Fireworks. Same shit as last year. I started early on New Years Eve and ended up falling asleep around 1:30 AM. Not since the late 1980s have I quit so early on New Years. Pathetic.

Another troubling thought – Here in New Zealand where the drinking age is 18, spirits can legally be served to people born in 1990, the year I began puberty. Had I put my biological developments to prodigious use and sired a child, I could now have a drink with him/her to celebrate my liberation from child support payments. Woo hoo! No more Baby Daddy drama!

I missed the Super Bowl. I guess you can’t have the Red Sox and the Patriots win within such a short span of time. When the Pats won in 2002, I was 2 blocks away from the victory parade in Boston. It was absolutely freezing, but that didn’t stop more than a million fans from celebrating in the streets. That particular victory was the first bit of good news Boston had heard in months. It was just after 9/11. Israel was blowing up. The Church scandals were finally coming to light. Anthrax was in the mail. That Super Bowl lifted everyone out of the mire. For the first time in months, everyone was happy (Pats fans, anyway). It would have been even better if my lame-ass boss had actually let us go up to the parade like every other sane boss in The Hub. What a dork.

All of New Zealand was bummed out by the passing of Sir Edmund Hillary, co-conqueror of Mt. Everest. Up until the rise of Xena: Warrior Princess, Sir Ed was the world’s most renown Kiwi, and the national papers ran full page photos and articles commemorating his life and achievements. There is a movement to name a mountain after him, which seems appropriate. I wonder if there’s a Mt. Tenzing somewhere in Nepal. Maybe Mt. Everest should be renamed Mt. Hillary-Tenzing. Shouldn’t the mountain be named after the guys who first climbed it, rather than a former Surveyor-General of India? Compared to Hillary and Norgay, Everest was a punk-ass bitch. Why does he get that naming rights?

Bummer about Heath Ledger, too. He was one of the few young actors to emerge in the past few years with the potential to be a truly interesting and unpredictable leading man, rather than just another overly hyped pretty boy. When I heard he would be playing The Joker, I was fascinated. After such a brilliantly understated performance in “Brokeback Mountain,” I wondered what he would bring to one of the most over-the-top characters ever conceived. What the hell was he gonna do with it? How would he compare with Jack Nicholson? The fantastic trailer for “The Dark Knight” boded well. He looks wonderfully sinister, and I think it would have catapulted him to a new level of stardom. It always depresses me when talented people die too young. At least we’ll have that last glimpse of his talent. RIP, dude.

I managed to catch “Sweeney Todd.” As with any Tim Burton flick, it looks fantastic. Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter are terrific. But man, what a weird movie! It has nasty people living in a hellish environment committing horrific acts, but they’re constantly singing. I have nothing against musicals. “Moulin Rouge” still ranks as one of my favorite movies of the last decade. I thought “Chicago” was well made, even though it glorifies the kind of people I despise. “Rent” totally sucked. There has never been a musical like “Sweeney Todd.” There are no big production numbers, no dancing, and very little in the way of romance. It is a bloody tale of revenge. Really bloody. The first big throat slashing (and there are many) had me wincing. And they just keep on singing from one gory scene to another. The juxtaposition of form and content was baffling. I walked out a little depressed. I have a hunch that I’ll have to see it again to make my final verdict.

So, yeah. I’m working on a great big movie about a guy with claws. Most of the movie will be shot in Sydney, but there are several weeks of location work here in NZ. When I first started traveling 15 months ago, I never thought that I’d be doing film work. I figured that I’d tend bar or do whatever I needed to survive. Now I am halfway around the world working on a production bigger than any of the shows I worked on in my 3 years in Los Angeles. Isn’t it ironic (dontcha think?)?

At the moment, we are doing night shoots. 6 days a week, usually 14 hour shifts. It’s exhausting. My #1 task on set is to distribute and keep track of nearly 200 walkie-talkies and constantly supply fresh batteries. We’ve shot in magnificent valleys, forests, a mountaintop, and a very muddy lumberyard. We’re supposed to finish in mid-March, but you never know what could happen. If the writers’ strike is 100% resolved, revisions could be made. We shall see. I won’t get to see the Oscars this year, either. Kinda sucks, but I haven’t seen any of the Best Picture nominees anyway.

Until I finish the movie, I will have basically no social life. Once we wrap, I’ll need a week just to catch up on sleep. There are a few things I want to do in Queenstown before I leave, but I’ll be very eager to move on. I’m not sure what the first stop will be, but it will definitely look something like this:

YOU SAY IT’S YOUR BIRTHDAY, IT’S MY BIRTHDAY TOO, YEAH!

2007-10-17T20:54:00.000-04:00

I turn 29 today. It’s my last birthday in my 20s. One year closer to responsible adulthood (hah!). This is the first birthday I have spent in another country. Interestingly, I have two new friends with the same DOB. First is my new flatmate, Sam. Like 90% of the English folks I have met on this trip, Sam hails from the Manchester area. I have met so many cool people from Manchester. They all talk like Daphne from Frasier. I really need to go there someday. Sam moved into the cabin a couple of weeks ago and keeps himself busy doing construction on one of several hotels going up in Queenstown. He turns 22 today. I remember my 22nd birthday, a huge letdown after the mayhem of my 21st. No one even bought me a drink. Buttheads.

My other birthday mate is Leon, one of my coworkers at Brazz. Leon is from Holland and is very, very tall. The Dutch are statistically the tallest nationality on Earth, and all the proof you need is to see Leon and his Beneluxian friends hanging out together. They are giants. My theory is that they have to be tall in order to survive the inevitable bursting of the dikes. I am very proud of that last sentence. Leon and I were both born in 1978. We did some figuring, and we’re pretty sure that I was born about two hours before him. Thus, I have God-given power over him despite both his occupational seniority and my own diminutive stature. New Zealand has become a more interesting place to live over the last few weeks. The major news of late was the elimination of the All Blacks from the Rugby World Cup by the hated French. This was a major blow to the national psyche, and the Kiwis were so pissed off and disappointed that reports of domestic abuse rose substantially in the days following their defeat. Sound a little crazy? Allow me to put this in perspective. Sports fans outside of North America are a different breed. Sure, in America we have loyalty to our teams and our cities and we get all wrapped up in it and it’s all well and good. We have our own sports and aside from an occasional game with a Canadian team, we don’t pay attention to any athletics outside our homeland. We kind of pretend to care about international events when the Olympics are on, but with no Godless Commies left as major threats the Olympics just aren’t as much fun as they used to be. We are perfectly content with our baseball, football, basketball and hockey. But for folks from pretty much every other nation on Earth however, sport is war. They all play football (don’t call it soccer) and quite a few play rugby, and some play cricket… for some reason. If you are a player for a national team, there is a chance that you’ll be going up against a team with players whom you may recently have met on an actual battlefield. Your grandma might have been thrown into the gas chamber by your opponent’s grandpa. Centuries of ethnic and national rivalries are played out. Lose, and you could face disgracing your nation, color and/or creed. Also, there is a chance that a team from a third world country could defeat the most powerful nations on the planet. So yeah, the Rugby World Cup is a big deal around here.

And just how enthusiastic are All Blacks fans? Here’s a snapshot. In New Zealand, there is no baseball, hockey, basketball or football as we know it in America. Imagine all the passion that Americans have for those sports, roll it into a single sport and a single team. Add to that the patriotic pride that we’d assign to an Olympic dream team. Then toss in the nationalistic fervor that other countries give their football (soccer) teams. Top it up by having what’s considered to be the best team in the world, one that is capable, favored, and expected to triumph over nations of greater political and economic standing. Factor in that fans are more than willing to wake up at 4 AM on a weekday to watch a game being played in Europe. There are only 4 million people in New Zealand, so players can’t just blend into the crowd. Everyone knows everything about every player. Lose, and players can’t just get traded out to Denver and live peacefully. They are more or less stuck where they are. So, if you’re an All Black, you don’t want to lose.

But lose they did. To France. I asked some French people if they care about rugby. Being French, they say they don’t (even though they are hosting the World Cup) which makes the defeat all the more painful for the Kiwis. Queenstown was dead silent in the hours after the game. The headlines the next day reminded me of the Challenger explosion (if not quite 9/11). It was a national tragedy and a hallowed symbol of Kiwi supremacy had been toppled. Reporters wondered how it would effect the economy, a legitimate concern in a small country where the players’ faces are plastered on every conceivable piece of merchandising and $50 million in tax dollars had gone into support for the team. Everyone (aside from visiting Australians) was bummed out for a few days. A couple of weeks on, they seem to have recovered and are trying to decide which country to support in Sunday’s final game – their old masters, the English, or their colonial brothers, the South Africans, a team with whom they hold a prickly relationship.

It’s all been fascinating to watch, and I have to work during the final at 8AM Sunday morning. We are already taking reservations. I can’t wait for it all to be over. Also, I am trying to convince my boss to play the World Series games when they come on in the following week (hopefully with a victorious Red Sox!), but it’s a tough sell to any non-American. I reminded him that there are tons of Americans in town and that baseball games are very long in comparison to rugby, which means more time for the purchasing of beer and ribs. We shall see.

In other local news, we had a series of earthquakes a few days ago. The first hit at about 1:30 AM. Measuring 6.7 on the Richter scale with an epicenter about off the coast of Milford Sound, it certainly shook up the cabin. It lasted several seconds and woke me up, but didn’t throw me into a panic. Nothing collapsed or fell, so there was no damage. There were aftershocks at 3:00 AM and again at 10:30 AM. The 10:30 AM one was interesting. I was at work. Glasses started rattling and everyone just stopped what they were doing and stood completely still. There was no major damage, but it probably would have been smart of me to move away from the gas-fueled fireplace and giant plate glass window. These are my first earthquakes, people. The whole stand-in-a-doorway-or-jump-under-a-table instinct hasn’t been drilled into me just yet, so cut me some slack for my poor reaction time. I wasn’t nearly as freaked out by the whole thing as I thought I would be. Compared to jumping out of a plane, it lacked a certain urgency.

Around the same time as the quakes, the New Zealand government moved in on a bunch of suspected “terrorist camps,” mostly in remote areas of the North Island. Several people were arrested and weapons seized. Those arrested included members of all sorts of groups, ranging from Maori sovereignty advocates to environmental activists to wannabe anarchists. Supposedly, these people were getting paramilitary training and stockpiling weapons (or parts of weapons, and reportedly, not many) for various purposes. This has stirred up lots of tension, particularly in Maori communities. Civil liberty advocates are crying afoul. Declarations of racism are being shouted. The reports are all rather vague, and not many details have been divulged. There are rumors that one particular Maori group (and there are many) was planning an IRA-style uprising on their very remote home territory. Most people say the whole thing has been blown out of proportion and the busts were politically motivated to influence an upcoming vote in parliament. I don’t know. Territorial law is a very hot issue in New Zealand, dating back to the Treaty of Waitangi, which struck the settlement deal between the British and certain (but not all) Maori tribes back in the 19th century. Parts of the treaty are still strongly disputed. While the Maori have fared much better than most colonized peoples, there are definitely social and economic inequalities with their White countrymen. It will be interesting to see how this situation plays out. And no, I don’t feel like I am in any danger. I’m more afraid of another earthquake than of some half-assed uprising in the rainforests of the North Island.

Back to the living situation. New flatmate Sam moved in two weeks ago to replace Theo, the weirdo from the Philippines. Theo got fired from his job at the local paper and took off to his family’s place in Christchurch. On his last night at home, he got completely wasted and threw up on the bathroom floor, losing his dentures in the process. He left the cabin toothless and hungover, but was nice enough to clean up the mess and leave a week’s rent. I can’t say that I’ll miss him much.

My friends back home are sending me constant reminders of my impending 10-year high school reunion. Sorry, guys, but I don’t think I’ll make it. My current plan is to save up for the next few months and then head over to Australia. I am in the process of extending my visa here, which required me to get a medical exam and chest x-ray. Roughly a week’s pay gone, but it will be worth it.

Go Sox!

SISTER SOULJAH

2007-09-13T22:32:00.000-04:00

Sorry about all the griping. Things have improved vastly since my last entry. Back in July, I was very close to packing it up and leaving Queenstown without doing anymore of the local goofy adventure activities. Luckily, I got myself a new job and am back on the road to financial recovery and the occasional bungy jump (more on that later). Sure, my new gig is waiting tables, but it is full time and the place isn’t nearly as intense or pretentious as the last one. I now busy myself shilling ribs and beer at Brazz On The Green. We overlook a nice little park, so I understand the “on the Green” part, but I have no idea what “Brazz” means. Perhaps it is a clever play on “brass,” with Zs (or Zeds) replacing the Ss to juice things up a bit (everyone knows that Z and X are the coolest and edgiest letters of the alphabet). Not important. The people I work with are all very cool so far, and I haven’t once been publicly chewed out by my boss, so it’s a step up.A couple of weeks ago, I got a visit from my Big Bad Sister, Jessi. She was the first person I had seen from home since I left the real world ten months ago, and we had a blast. She bounced around New Zealand for a week before making her way down to Queenstown. Having Jessi around for a few days was the perfect excuse to blow a bunch of money on bizarre near death experiences. Our Sainted Mother made me promise to not take Jessi bungy jumping, so naturally that was our first stop. We caught a bus out to the historic Kawarau Bungy Centre (dating all the way back to 1988), which was the world’s first commercial bungy site. There is a museum there where you can learn all you ever wanted to know about the hallowed traditions of bungy jumping. A Kiwi named AJ Hackett was inspired by the strange rituals of the people of Vanuatu, who jump from towers with vines attached to there ankles to prove their manhood. Being a good Capitalist Honky, Hackett set up multiple bungy sites all over New Zealand and the rest of the world and is a millionaire now. I had already seen all that crap, so we headed strait for the bridge. They had a bunch of classic rock songs on rotation, all of them with words like “jump” and “fly” featured prominently. Jessi was the first to jump, and it was a little unnerving to hear Don MacLean singing “bye-bye, Miss American Pie” while my sister’s ankles were strapped to a cord dangling 142 feet over a river. No matter. She jumped like a champ and survived. So did I. That night, we went to see “Die Hard 4.0” (as it is titled outside the USA), which was goofy but fun.The following day, we went jetboating on the Shotover River, which was freakin’ awesome. Envision being in the fastest speedboat you can imagine going up and down rapids with jagged rocks on both sides of the river while your skipper does twists, turns and spins with spectacular mountain scenery around every corner non-stop for a half an hour and you start to get the picture. It rocked and I had a big goofy grin on my face the whole time. It was better than the best roller coaster I’ve ever been on. Kickass! That night, we took the Skyline Gondola to the top of Bob’s Peak and enjoyed a couple drinks as a snowstorm moved in. Pretty.On Wednesday, we woke up early to catch the bus to Milford Sound. I was a little wary of this since my original trip to Milford was, literally, a washout. Not this time. We had absolutely perfect weather with nary a cloud in the sky. On the same road where I last saw nothing but trees and the bottoms of waterfalls, I now saw the most awesome alpine scenery I have ever encountered. It was magnificent. Superlatives fall away in trying to describe Milford Sound on a clear day. Mitre Peak towers 5,583 feet over the ocean, with sheer rock walls from the snowcapped top to the watermark. All around us were green forests, waterfalls, and amazing rock faces. It is mind-blowing. Just go there, people. Thursday was hang gliding day. Jessi and I were picked up in town and taken halfway up the long, steep dirt road that leads to the Remarkables Ski Field. The hang glider dudes have a take off spot there with terrific views of Frankton, the Kawarau River, Lake Wakatipu and Coronet Peak. They put you in a goofy jumpsuit, harness you to the glider and tell you to run as fast as you can down the hill whilst holding on to the straps on their suits. It was fantastic and funny. Once second, you’re standing on the edge of a mountain, then you’re feeling the exhileration of flight, looking at the ant-like people and cars below, and trying to make idle chitchat with the dude piloting the glider (“so… how long you been in this line of work?”). The coolest part was when my glider dude made us do swooshing turns just above a bunch of trees. I think Jessi’s pilot did a few more of these than mine. Lucky. Landing was a bit less awe-inspiring as we touched down in a field of sheep shit. Poop not withstanding, it was about as cool a five minutes of my life as I can remember. I had to work that nite. No coffee was necessary. I had to work on friday, so Jessi went horseback riding in Glenorchy, which is a gorgeous little town up the lake that I haven’t made my way out to yet. Jessi said goodbye on Saturday morning and headed off to the first of four flights it would take her to get back to Boston. We had an awesome few days together and it was great to have someone from home visit. Now that I have most of these adrenaline junky activities out of my system (or, have they just entered my system…?) I can concentrate on working for the next few weeks. The weather is ever so slightly warming up, so living will be more comfortable. I am not sure what my next step will be, but I will be sure to let you all know. In the meantime, be sure to tune into the Rugby World Cup currently taking place in France, and support the All Blacks.

And no, I didn’t know that there was a Rugby World Cup, either. And Happy Birthday, Jess!!!

THE WINTER OF MY DISCONTENT

2007-07-31T21:16:00.001-04:00

First off, I must preface the following entry with the declaration that I have been having an absolutely amazing time since I arrived in New Zealand last November. I have had more fun more consistently than I have had in many years. I am fully aware of how lucky I have been and continue to be. In a world full of poverty, war, disease, famine and oppression, I have had it incredibly good. Compared to your average blind Afghani orphan, mine is an incredibly privileged existence and I have absolutely no business complaining about anything. But this is my blog where I do what I want at no cost to anyone, so I’ll bitch ‘til the cows come home if I so choose.

Since I arrived in Queenstown nearly four months ago, I have encountered obstacle after fucking obstacle that has made life Goddamn frustrating. Not Darfur refugee frustrating, but frustrating. The Kiwi Dollar has gotten very strong, so my American money isn’t going as far as it was just a few months ago (not good when you’re living in the most expensive part of New Zealand). Queenstown is a tourist town with a steady influx of adventure seekers from around the world. From far and wide, people come for the skiing, snowboarding, bungee jumping, skydiving, legalized prostitution, jet boating, and hang gliding. A few blog entries back, I bemoaned the lack of bartending jobs, which forced me to pick grapes for the better part of a month in order to survive in some level of comfort. At every bar that I attempted to drop off my CV (that’s what the rest of the world calls a résumé), I was told that they weren’t hiring and that I should “come back in June.” Well, June came and went without me getting a single shift as a bartender. Soon I realized why. All those people who told me to come back in June should have added “and be a mildly attractive female, no experience necessary.” I was at a pool hall with some friends recently and asked the chick behind the bar for a Bacardi and soda. I got Bacardi Black and tonic water. I was tempted to see the manager and say, “I know she’s kind of cute, but she doesn’t have a clue what she’s doing and I need a job. Wanna hook a brother up?” Coulda, woulda, shoulda.

By the way, I have been lucky enough to try some Cuban rum. Holy shit, is that stuff good! Once Castro croaks, we really need to lift that embargo!

The only job I could get was waiting tables at a restaurant. I am pretty sure that my boss, an Australian, hired me solely because I am American. He told me “I love working with Americans because you guys understand service.” I wanted to correct him and say that we don’t understand service - we understand tips. New Zealand and Australia are non-tipping societies. There is no incentive for service industry people to put extra effort into their jobs, so your average waiter or bartender will give you pretty much the same standard of courtesy as a McDonald’s employee. Say what you will about America’s many flaws, but Goddamn it, we know how to run a restaurant. The host or hostess will seat you, the waiter or waitress will provide you with food, the bartender will fix your drink, and the busboy will clean up and reset your table when you are done, and you tip them accordingly. In New Zealand, the waiter or waitress will single-handedly host you, take your drink order, make your drink, take your food order, deal with the asshole chefs (why are chefs such dicks?), bring you your food, clean up after you, set the table for the next customer, and not expect a tip. Waiting tables in New Zealand sucks. Not only does it suck, but they are cutting back on my hours so I will have to get another job fast. GRRRRRRRRR!!!! I miss bartending!

A few weeks back, there was what New Zealanders call a massive winter storm. It was windy, the mountains were coated with snow, and about an inch or two accumulated on the ground in Queenstown. Chaos ensued. The local airport shut down for three days, something that hadn’t happened in decades. Snow tires are nonexistent around here, so drivers are required to put chains on their wheels when the white flakes start falling. This tore the roads to shit. Visitors to town had no idea about the chain requirements, so tons of them were pulled over and ticketed. They also couldn’t drive up to the mountains, so the ski fields shut down. This must be the only ski town in the world that shuts down when it snows. Since all the skiers were stuck in town, pretty much all they could do was hit the bars and get stupid. They did. There were record numbers of burglaries, vandalism, and public urinations. Yay, Queenstown!After the weather cleared up, Julia, my former flatmate from Paris, convinced me to try snowboarding. She assured me that since I know how to ski and liked surfing, that snowboarding would be no problem and that I would have lots of fun (I needed some). Never trust a French woman. I spent four hours falling, falling, and then falling some more. And I wasn’t falling on nice soft powder. It was rock fucking hard snow packed like concrete on the lamest bunny slopes imaginable. Back when I first learned to ski, I used to fall all the time. The difference was, back then, I was 11 and weighed about half as much as I do now. On several occasions I wondered if my pelvis had shattered. It hadn’t, but it still fucking hurt. Also, like Derek Zoolander, I am physically incapable of turning left. Think I’ll stick to skiing from now on.

I finally got out of Chateau Ugo. Thankfully, I never had to go to a hostel. Some wonderful new friends let me crash on their couch for 2½ weeks (!) while I searched for a new place. I almost wish I didn’t find my new place, because that couch was awesome. I had the whole living room and kitchen to myself, complete with fireplace, DVD player, broadband internet, X-Box 360 and a dishwasher. They even trusted me with their car! And rent free! I offered to buy them firewood and pay a share of the bills, but they refused. They were all fun to hang out with, too. I love them!

My new place is a cabin in a holiday park. I share it with a guy named Theo from the Philippines. He works days and I work nights, so I barely ever see him. I have a room with a full sized bed all to myself, thank God. There is no phone line, laundry, or internet, but we’ll survive. Miraculously, there is also no electric bill, so we can leave the heaters on day and night. You have no idea how much you’ll miss central heating until it’s gone.

Sadly, just before I moved in, I got a nasty sinus infection. I had no idea that my body could produce such vast amounts of day-glow green snot. Seriously, I could have bottled all the shit coming out of my nose and sold it as an industrial lubricant. It forced me to call in sick to work, something I haven’t done in years, just when I need hours the most. It also killed my three days off, each of which was spent at home with a stack of tissues, a Peter Jackson biography, and reruns of Tyra Banks’ talk show on the only channel with decent reception. A fine woman, that Tyra. I called the nice folks who let me crash at their house. It seems that half of them have caught my disease. That made me feel even worse. I am the fucking Outbreak Monkey.
So, my new mission is to find yet another new job since the restaurant is now only giving me two shifts a week. Those shifts will be five hours long at the most, and that just ain’t gonna cut it, even for survival money. Back in middle school, I enjoyed wood shop. The sconce and clock I put together still adorn the walls of my parents’ house. In high school, I eschewed wood shop for music and photography classes. Now I realize what an incredibly stupid decision that was. Had I advanced my carpentry skills, I could now be making $24 an hour in New Zealand. There is a shortage of skilled laborers in this country (tons of young Kiwi guys take off for Australia and elsewhere), and construction sites are crawling with well-paid foreigners whose only qualification is that they have some knowledge of woodworking. Why did I have to be all artistic and crap?!

So, dear readers, I hope you’re all enjoying yourselves. For those of you in the warmer parts of the Southern Hemisphere (Australia, Thailand, Argentina), enjoy the “winter.” For those of you in the God Ole Northern Hemisphere, enjoy the summertime and send me some warm vibes. In return, I promise to smuggle some Havana Club rum home for you. I’ll mix you the Mojito of your dreams. And go see “Knocked Up.” It’s funny.

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY

2007-06-25T00:19:00.001-04:00

PART I: THE GOOD

I needed to get out of town. There had been a series of annoying events in my life (more on that later) and a change of scenery was in order, so I hopped back on the Stray bus for a four-day loop around New Zealand’s southern coast. It was a relief.

First stop was Milford Sound. The ride to and from there was astounding. We drove alongside Lake Te Anau and were soon surrounded by mountains and rain forests. Eventually we encountered enormous walls of rock with countless little waterfalls cascading down into the valley. Awesome stuff.

Milford Sound was one of the four or five places I promised myself to see while in New Zealand. Above, you will see what Milford Sound looks like in good weather (I did not take this photo). Below, you will see what Milford Sound looks like in a deluge, which is what I encountered. Instead of giant mountains next to the sea, I saw thousands of raging waterfalls. The area has one of the wettest climates of the planet (roughly 20 feet of rain annually) and we felt every drop. I could only stay on our boat’s deck for a couple of minutes at a time for fear of destroying my camera. It was impressive, but the rain was a bummer. Gotta go back on a clear day.

That night we headed for the village of Tuatapere – the Sausage Capitol of New Zealand. We made a visit to a local farm where the owner demonstrated how to shear a sheep. I didn’t actually do it, but I got to hold a sheep down and then shove it down a slide into the “shorn bin.” It’s much more humane than it sounds.

Next morning we were off to Stewart Island. To get there, we took an hour-long cruise from the tip of the South Island. The weather was unusually warm (70s compared to 40s in Queenstown) and I contemplated taking a dip in the nice clean water. Too many sand flies, though. There is a tiny village on the island that reminded me of coastal Maine, but a bit more modern. I bet it is a nice place to stay for the summer. The island is actually quite large and undeveloped. I am sure that there are some nice long hikes to be had. Some of the other Stray people went fishing, so we had a nice big fish dinner. Yummy.

Early the next day we took the ferry back to Invercargill. I haven’t gotten seasick since I was 13, but I did that morning thanks to an empty stomach and the winds of the Roaring 40s. Once I got some food in my belly on dry land, I was fine. We spent the day driving through a beautiful area called the Catlins. I haven’t been to Ireland yet, but the Catlins resemble what Ireland looks like in my mind – impossibly green fields rolling gently towards a rocky coast. Very few people live in the Catlins, so there is little to spoil the beauty of the place. It was the perfect antidote to the majestic but imposing landscape back at Milford. We stopped at a beach and found a rather surly sea lion on the beach. She had a tag on one of her flippers and kept shooing us away with sand.

That night we arrived in the city of Dunedin (pronounced dunn-NEED-in). I had been sleeping on the bus and it was a bit of a surprise to wake up in a city. Many of the local people are of Scottish decent and there is a definite Scottish feel to the place (Dunedin is Gaelic for Edinburgh). There are lots of gothic buildings and gargoyles. Also in town is the Speight’s Brewery. Speight’s is one of New Zealand’s top selling beers, and we did a brewery tour. I didn’t pay much attention to the process, but we got to do a tasting at the end. Again, yummy. I liked Dunedin and wished that we had more time there, but we were off early the next morning. We made a couple of stops along the way. One was a beach north of Dunedin where there are weird boulders that resembled the alien pods from “Cocoon.” The dead stingray was sort of cool, too.

It was a beautiful but long drive back to Queenstown. We made one last stop in the town of Cromwell where there is a bridge over a great big lake. Our driver told us that Stray staff members all have to jump off the bridge during their training trips and that we should all do it. I was a bit hesitant, as the water was freezing and the bridge was about 30 feet up, but some Dutch kid and I did it anyway. Below you will see the precise moment when we hit the water. Several gallons of water went up my ass. It still hurts.

PART II: THE BAD

(No Photos Necessary)

Here on the other side of the world, it is winter. It is cold. Not Boston in January cold, but cold. As I write this, a flurry is dusting the trees outside with snow. The surrounding mountains are magnificent. Down in Queenstown, the annual Winter Festival is in full swing with parades, concerts and other events. The ski fields (down here they call them “fields,” not “slopes”) are open and everyone in town seems to be in a good mood… everyone, that is, except the residents of Chateau Ugo.

Chateau Ugo is the name I have given to the house I have been living in for the past two months. It is named for Ugo, the Brazilian guy whose name is on the lease. Every Wednesday, my fellow flatmates and I give Ugo our rent money and he delivers it to whomever it is that actually owns the house. At first, he seemed like a nice enough guy. He appeared to be a laidback dude with decent taste in music. The other residents of the house were cool, and the rent was ridiculously cheap considering the house’s location. I figured that I had lucked out and made a terrific find. How wrong I was. Simply put, Ugo is a douchebag.

The shit really started to hit the fan when the refrigerator broke down. The moment I noticed it, I alerted Ugo. Seeing as the fridge preserved the food of five people, including Ugo’s, you’d figure that he’d do the responsible pseudo-landlord thing and call the refrigerator repair shop the next morning. Nope. For two long weeks, we went without a fridge. All of us had to completely alter the way we shop for food, being careful not to purchase perishables. I pressed Ugo on this issue several times. You’d think that in the age of cellphones he could have made a simple call on his lunch brake and have the whole situation solved, but no. I was the one who actually called the repair place to make an appointment. That appointment was eventually cancelled when Ugo decided to rent a new fridge instead of fixing the old one. Since all of us had to throw away a bunch of food, you’d think he might compensate us monetarily. Nope. Not only did he not give us anything, he decided that it made sense to charge us an extra $5 per week for the privilege of having a working fridge. We bitched and moaned about this, but he wouldn’t budge. Dick.

During the same time period, we ran out of firewood (I know that I griped about this issue in my last post – deal with it!). Neither central heating nor proper insulation come standard in New Zealand, so a regular supply of firewood is necessary to keep the house warm. We had no wood for two weeks and could see our breath in the living room. You think Ugo made the call for the eventual wood delivery? Of course not. That was left to Ivan, our other Brazilian roommate who was smart enough to jet off to Fiji because he was sick of Ugo’s shit. And it was I, not Ugo, who stayed home to receive the wood delivery when it actually arrived. Oh yeah, I was there to receive the $5/a week fridge, too.

Once Ivan left, Ugo decided that he needed to have another one of his countrymen in the house. Enter Jose. Jose was a nice guy. Another Brazilian, he was about 6’2” and had a gut that could gestate triplets. Unfortunately, his grasp of the English language was even worse than Ugo’s. Seriously, he didn’t speak a word. Verbal communication was impossible. At least with Ivan, I could talk. Living with Jose was akin to living with a Samba-obsessed Teletubby. Jose left a couple of weeks ago and was replaced by Tiago… Jose’s brother. Seemingly every night, we get a steady stream of Brazilians coming over to party with Ugo and Tiago. Guitars, smoke, and the Portuguese language blast through the halls ‘til the wee hours.

All this has taken its toll on my fellow housemates and me. Max (from Argentina) is leaving for Tahiti on Thursday (lucky bastard) and can’t wait to go. Julia (from France) has had it the worst. She’s been here for six months. Before I arrived, she had arranged to share her room with a female friend of hers from back home. Two days before the girl was to arrive, Ugo moved Ivan into the room without saying a word to Julia about it. Who knows what happened to her friend? One day, Julia closed a door a bit too loudly for Ugo’s taste and he threatened to throw her out on the street. Had he actually done that, I would have called the cops immediately. As usual, he was all talk.

The last straw was yet another goddamn issue with the refrigerator. Ugo tried to convince Julia, Max and me that since he bought the original fridge himself (which is laying dormant on the porch) and that it broke down while we all were living here, that we each owed him $40 because all of us could have done something to bring about its demise. Bull…….shit. We all refused. Julia and I both gave him our two weeks notice and announced our intent to leave the house. Julia is perfectly content to live in her car (she did it all winter last year) and I would rather be in a hostel than put up with this crap anymore. Since we gave our notice, the house has gotten even more Carnival-esque. I met the dude who will replace Max as my roommate. Three guesses which country he’s from. With all due respect to the millions of decent Brazilians out there (what’s up, Gaya!), if I wanted to party like I’m in Rio each night, I would have skipped New Zealand and stayed in Framingham.

I’m sure that it will improve around here, but man, it’s taking a long damn time! It’s been more than two months since I arrived in Queenstown, and I just now am starting a steady job! Starting this week, I will be waiting/bartending at a restaurant in town. I still might have to get another side gig to keep the money flowing. I’m looking at other flats now, and they aren’t cheap. It will be a massive relief when I get one. Expensive or not, it will be worth it.

PART III: THE UGLY

Behold John Travolta in "Hairspray." L. Ron Hubbard almighty!

GOD SAVE THE QUEEN(STOWN)

2007-05-20T22:34:00.000-04:00

It has been more than a month since I arrived in Queenstown. It has been occasionally fun and often frustrating. As I wrote in my last entry, I arrived at an awkward time to be job hunting. This is a ski town and the snow won’t arrive until June, so most places are not hiring seasonal employees just yet. It will be a big relief when they do! Until then, I shall continue to do the temp jobs that have kept me busy over the last few weeks.

My primary temp job has been picking grapes on local vineyards. Lots of you at home have asked me about this - Is it as beautiful as I imagine? Do you get to stomp the grapes? What kinds of grapes? Which wine label? Do you get any free wine? What are the working conditions? How do they treat you? Does this give you any insight into the plight of the world’s migrant workers? And so on…

Here’s the deal. Most of the vineyards I worked on were about an hour outside of Queenstown, so I usually woke up at about 5:30AM and walked into town where my fellow workers and I were picked up in vans and driven out to the vineyards. Once we arrived, we were given buckets and pruning shears and proceeded to walk down the enormous lines of vines snipping off the good grapes, and then dumping them into huge tractor bins. We got three breaks over the course of the day and then were driven back to Queenstown. Not much to it, really. Almost all of the pickers were other travelers and I had lots of interesting conversations with people from all over – the USA, England, Scotland, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, France, Japan, Israel, Mexico, Italy, Argentina, Germany and other spots. It was nice to be working outdoors and usually the locations were usually quite pretty. We picked Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir, and Riesling. Riesling was the worst because they burst easily and made everything sticky. Oh, yeah. No grape stomping or free wine. Frosty mornings weren’t much fun either.

Most of the picking was for Gibbston Valley Wines and a couple of other winemakers. The owners were nice, for the most part. One of them was a guy from Providence who came to Queenstown to ski twenty years ago and never left. He had an interesting habit of wavering between his native Rhode Island accent and his adopted Kiwi one. On my last day we worked at a place closer to town where the owner was a bit of a dick. He and his daughter micromanaged everything to an insane degree. We were discouraged from talking too much, as it would slow us down and it was costing him a lot of money (minimum wage) to give us the privilege of picking his grapes. He even fired an English guy because his picking method was a bit too efficient when compared to his own. Turd.

As for gaining insight into the plight of migrant workers… well… every job I have had since college has only lasted a few months. Only one had health benefits. Work has taken me to the mountains of New Hampshire, abandoned insane asylums around Boston, the Mojave Desert, the sprawl of Los Angeles, the streets of New York City, and now vineyards in New Zealand. I haven’t had a room to myself for seven months. I’m short, tan, and can speak Spanish. Who are we kidding? I AM a migrant worker.
The harvest is done for the year, so I’ll continue doing temp jobs until places start staffing up. I spent last week working in a timeshare complex where I had to clean and then reseal the coating on stone tile floors. That sucked. I also had to replace about twenty beds and mattresses. That was an easy gig, but it made me realize how weak my arms have gotten over the last few months. Overall, I have lost some weight and my legs are strong from walking everywhere, but whatever upper body strength I had before (granted, there wasn’t much) has gone to crap from lack of exercise. Gotta start doing pushups or something.

My house is interesting. I am the only native English speaker. My roommate Max is from Argentina, but his family is from the blondest corner of Austria. I get to practice my Spanish with him, which is cool. Also in the house is Julia from Paris who is never home much and two Brazilian guys, Ugo and Ivan. Ugo is our landlord and is into music in a big way. Ivan has traveled all over the place and speaks English, Spanish, Italian, and probably a few other languages. He is a concierge at the nicest hotel in town and has lots of interesting stories about the super-rich guests that stay there. With the exception of illegal drugs, he will hook the guests up with whatever they request. This includes whores, as prostitution is actually legal in New Zealand. Every big town has at least one brothel, and there was a funny article I read recently about a formerly quiet, churchy mountain town that has now turned into a low-rent sex resort. And no, Mum, I haven’t partaken.

My house is also very cold. Apparently, Kiwis do not believe in central heating. Every house I have seen in Queenstown has a wood burning stove in the living room, space heaters for the bedrooms, and very little in the way of insulation. Problem – we just ran out of firewood and it will take a few days for a new delivery to come in. Also, I don’t have a space heater for my bedroom yet so I have to get bundled up in my sleeping bag. Having just enjoyed two summers back to back, the cold is kicking my ass and it’s gonna get colder.
As for Queenstown, it has its charms and its annoyances. For scenery, it is hard to beat. The mountain views are stunning, and will be even more gorgeous once the snow arrives. All the crazy adventure activities are at my fingertips, but I haven’t had the time or money to enjoy them yet. The cultural breakdown here is quite different from other spots I have been. The farther south you get in New Zealand, the whiter it gets (unless you count all the Brazilians). In the five weeks that I’ve been in Queenstown I have met tons of travelers and immigrants, but sadly not many locals. I miss the Maori influence that was much more dominant up north. Sometimes it feels like I could be in any ski town in the world and not necessarily New Zealand. There are way more Americans down here than I have met elsewhere in New Zealand, which is actually kind of nice. Sometimes it’s a relief to hear another voice like mine that doesn’t give a shit about soccer, rugby, or (most especially) cricket.
I’ve been hanging out with a lot of Brits lately, and I’ve made some interesting observations. These people have a deep, passionate love for the song “Mr. Brightside” by The Killers. There has not been a single night I have been out on the town where I haven’t heard it played at least seventeen times to the delight of Her Majesty’s spastic younger subjects. I am not a huge Killers fan. They have some good songs and the lead singer’s got a decent voice, but they’re a bit too Euro-synthy-prettyboy-dandyish for my personal taste. Like most people, I assumed they were British upon first hearing them, so I suppose it makes sense that the Brits love them. When I learned that they’re actually from Las Vegas, I was quite surprised. I’m not exactly sure what I expected a band from Las Vegas to sound like, but it wasn’t The Killers. Anyway, I think I could live a very happy life without hearing “Mr. Brightside” ever again.
The Brits (and really the entire Commonwealth) have a similar affection for the movie “American Pie.” I like “American Pie” just fine. It’s a funny movie. I even saw “American Pie 2” in the theater. I didn’t bother with “American Wedding.” I assumed that the world’s appetite for the naughty sexual hijinks of American teenagers had been satisfied. How wrong I was. At my local video store, I counted no less than five “American Pie” movies and they were all rented out. I asked my English buddy Xander why they love these movies so much. He’s a little younger than me, and he said that it was the first time he’d seen a funny movie about teenagers having sex. Granted, I have seen more movies than most sane people and was born in the 1970s, which makes me old, but have “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” and all the lame teen sex comedies that followed it faded so quickly from the zeitgeist? Don’t young people today know that Eugene Levy walking in on Jason Biggs having sex with a pie is just an echo of Phoebe Cates walking in on Judge Reinhold pleasuring himself? Or that Sean Penn used to be funny? It’s all very sad. Anyway, so passionate is the former British Empire’s craving for all things “American Pie” that any movie that has horny teenagers doing funny things (i.e. “Eurotrip”) gets billed as “in the spirit of ‘American Pie.’” Surely there are horny teenagers in England. If they love these movies so much, why isn’t there an “English Pie” franchise?

So, yeah. It will be a big relief when a steady job comes along, not only so that I can enjoy all the crazy stuff in Queenstown but also to let me see some of the other spots nearby. It’s less than a two-hour drive to Milford Sound, which is very high on my list of places to see, as are Glenorchy, Christchurch and Dunedin. Until then, I’ll just keep on keepin’ on and searching for firewood.

FINDING NEVERLAND

2007-04-22T20:28:00.000-04:00

I know, I know. Almost a month with no updates. Shameful. I’ve been kinda busy.
The first of April was a busy day. I got up early to catch the 8:30 ferry from Wellington to the South Island. The weather was nice, and I got lots of pretty pictures of the harbor, Cook Strait, and the fantastic coves and forests on the way into Picton. The whole trip took about three hours. I picked up the Stray bus, and a quick stop at a winery we were off to Abel Tasman National Park.

Remember “Hook,” Steven Spielberg’s flawed attempt to update the Peter Pan story? One thing that always bothered me about that movie, even as a 13 year-old, was how artificial the Neverland scenes looked. The sunlight wasn’t natural and the sets… well… they looked like sets. The design team obviously put an enormous amount of work into creating them, but I was always conscious of the fact that the whole thing was built and filmed on a soundstage. It never came to life for me. In my imagination, Neverland was a lush, beautiful place with sparkling waters, green mountains, and little coves filled with sexy mermaids - not some art department wank-fest. In my imagination, Neverland looks like Abel Tasman National Park.
The park is named for the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, who is credited with being the first European to spot New Zealand. The waters of the park are an amazing shade of translucent green. There are dozens of little islands and coves, all covered with lush greenery. Imagine the coast of Maine with its craggy rocks and rolling hills, but with swimmable water and you start to get the picture.

I did a four-hour hike with some of the people from the Stray bus – a young couple from England, a girl from Scotland, and a girl from Canada who was undoubtedly most hyperactive human being I have encountered in my 28 years. She was sweet, but she was so relentlessly perky that I wanted to suffocate her with my quick-dry towel. I managed to enjoy the hike anyway. We walked through the coastal forest and met up with a catamaran in a gorgeous little inlet. When we first stepped on the beach, I spotted a stingray in the water. After a quick lunch, we went sailing, which was terrific. The weather was perfect.
The next day, we headed down the spectacular west coast. Lush does not begin to describe it - lots of big mountains, forests and crazy rocks for the surf to crash upon. After an overnight stay in Barrytown (there was a pub and a place to make your own knife, but no town to speak of), we headed for the town of Franz Josef and its glacier. With the exception of flying over Scandinavia and Greenland on my way back from Russia ten years ago, I had never seen a glacier before. It was pretty damn cool (no pun intended). It looks like, well… it looks like a giant river of ice flowing down a gorge. You know, something you want to climb!
So, yeah. I climbed a glacier. After being fitted with special boots, crampons, and a supercool ice picks, myself and eight others were guided up the… um… the glacier (sorry to keep using the word “glacier” - it has no synonyms). It was surreal. Seriously, how often do people get the chance to climb a fucking glacier? The guide was constantly using his pickaxe to chop steps out of the ice for us newbies. We had to squeeze through narrow passages and sometime jump from one block of ice to another. Slipping in the wrong place could have sent us down into icy caverns where a dark, icy death was pretty much guaranteed. The higher we climbed, the narrower the crevasses became. We got stuck in one for the better part of two hours. The guide tried very hard to find a way out, but we eventually turned around and headed back down. Once we got back down to the bottom, the guide pointed out just how far up we had climbed - about ¾ of the way up. I asked him how high up he usually takes people. He said that he had taken our group up higher than any group had gone in more than a year. That felt pretty badass. I slept well that night.

Oh yeah. Peeing on a glacier is interesting. The blue ice makes your urine appear day-glow yellow. It’s like cartoon pee.
The next couple of days consisted of more spectacular driving down the west coast. It was beautiful, but with one major drawback – the fucking sandflies. Sandflies fucking suck, literally. They are horrible little gnat-like creatures that crave human blood. The second we hopped off the bus to have lunch on the beach, they swarmed us. It was impossible to enjoy the views, they were so relentless. Fuck you, sandflies!
I hopped off the bus for four days in Wanaka. Wanaka is a beautiful little town on the edge of a huge lake and surrounded by the Southern Alps. There were some great walking trails with some terrific views.I considered trying to find a job and flat there, but it was kind of dull and expensive, nice views notwithstanding. Instead, I opted to seek my fortunes in Queenstown.

Ah, Queenstown! Spectacularly insane Queenstown! Man, did I pick the wrong week to show up! Upon my arrival on the Tuesday after Easter, I was suddenly surrounded by hundreds of Americans. I had gotten used to being the only American in New Zealand. No more. Hundreds of American college students who were studying in Australia had hopped over to Queenstown for their Easter break. And they were not backpackers. They were rich kids who had come to party. Queenstown had turned into an Alpine Cancun. Fittingly, I went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner where I was instantly reminded of my first nights out on the town during my days at Cape Cod Sea Camps, the nights when a large group of loud and indecisive frat/sorority kids would take over a restaurant, change their orders twice, demand separate checks, and generally drive the wait staff insane with their stupid requests. Man, did they piss me off. In light of my country’s current standing in the world community, I try to do my best to be courteous, patient, and informed – you know, the things Americans aren’t supposed to be. It’s tough to do that when you’re surrounded by a bunch of spoiled douchebags doing their damndest to reinforce the stereotypes. GGGGGggggggrrrr! Frustrating! Anyway, the TriDeltas took off over the weekend, and my job hunt began in earnest. Thanks top its dazzling geography and location, Queenstown is the biggest tourist destination in New Zealand. The skyline is dominated by an aptly named mountain range called the Remarkables, the most jagged, gothic mountains I’ve ever seen. They are reflected in the waters of fifty mile-long Lake Wakatipu. The activities are endless: skydiving, bungy jumping, jet boating, canyon swings, horseback riding, helicopter tours, mountain biking, sailing on an America’s cup boat, and skiing in the winter. There are hotels, bars and restaurants all over the place. Getting a hospitality job should be no problem for an experienced guy like myself, right? WRONG! We are in the early months of New Zealand’s autumn (they don’t call it fall). The summer folks have left, and the winter crowd won’t show up for six weeks. Everywhere I went, people told me “Come back in June.” Given my current financial situation, that doesn’t really work. I will most likely have to pick grapes on a vineyard or do hotel housekeeping for a few weeks until the town picks up a bit. What illegal Mexicans are to America, backpackers are to New Zealand.

At least I found a nice flat. It is a ten-minute walk from town, and is actually cheaper than my former digs in Taupo. Cleaner, too. I share a room with a guy from Argentina. Also in the house are two Brazilian guys and a French girl. They all speak English, which is a plus. The house is very quiet, so far. Kind of boring, too. I’m sure that I will have lots of fun around here once things get busy. Until then, I’ll just continue my current routine of dropping off resumes, admiring the mountain views, and perusing the local bookstore’s magazine rack without actually buying anything, which is exactly what I used to do in LA between film jobs. You can take the boy out of Hollywood, but you can’t take Hollywood out of the boy.

Speaking of Hollywood, I saw “300” a few days ago. It was entertaining, but so grotesque that I had to laugh out loud on several occasions where I think the director had intended me to be thrilled or titillated. Remember that “South Park” episode where they had a running tally of each time the word “shit” was uttered? Someone needs to do that with “300” counting the times the characters say “Sparta” (or, more accurately, “SPAAAAAAAAARRTAAAAAA!!!!). The movie never pretends to be realistic, and that’s part of its charm. Still, I have a funny feeling that ill-informed kids everywhere will believe that ancient Sparta was populated with a bunch of superbuff (and curiously blonde) dudes in their underwear who did battle with hordes of 9-foot tall Persian trannies and their mutant minions. Seriously, what was with that hunchback seduction orgy? There was actually an actor credited as “Transexual (Arabian) #3.” Jaysus! I hope he/she usues the success of "300" to launch a fantastic career. Allah knows that the world is craving more stories about Arabian transexuals.

On the Road Again… in Three Parts

2007-03-26T19:58:00.000-04:00

It has been a crazy couple of weeks, so this is a long one.

(Huh-huh, huh-huh, I said "long one!")

PART I: THE TAUPO TRAP

I was going to leave Taupo on the 14th but I stayed until the 20th. I did this for two reasons. #1 – I wanted to do the Tongariro Crossing but the weather was bad, and #2 – I decided it would be more fun to do St. Patrick’s Day with the friends I made over the past three months rather than celebrating with strangers in Wellington. I am glad that I stayed, but it was an exhausting week of good-byes and partying. It was not a clean break.

I fell into what is known locally as The Taupo Trap. In a nutshell, The Taupo Trap is a phenomenon in which foreign travelers stop off in Taupo to work for a little while but end up staying much longer than expected. They typically get paid just enough to live, eat, and have fun, but not quite enough to move on to somewhere else. Inevitably, friendships and relationships spring up. People get comfortable and attached. Also, there are tons of things to do in Taupo (in summer at least). The lake, rivers, mountains and forests are beautiful and the nightlife is pretty damn good for such a small town. Taupo is a nice place, and it wouldn’t be a sad fate to stay there permanently. Buuuuuuuut, I only have a one-year visa and I had to get moving before the weather turns too cold to enjoy the great outdoors.

A couple of weeks before I left, the last girls moved out of the house I was living in. Thusly, the Rotokawa House mutated into a multinational testosterone-fueled flophouse. Burping, farting, and ball scratching increased exponentially. Beer was ever-present and the dishes were never, ever clean. Broken glass and cigarette filters littered our yard. I am pretty sure that Domino’s made at least two deliveries each day. Even when it was warm outside, someone was always stoking the wood-burning stove. One of my Kiwi flatmates had a runty Jack Russell terrier named Nevis who had a gum infection, a broken foot and liked to shit all over the place. I will not miss that dog. Interestingly, the house was much quieter after the girls left. Dudes are much less chatty when there are no ladies around to impress. Still, I sort of miss the place. I made a few good friends there and had some fascinating wallpaper (see below).

I was getting sick of my hair. It hadn’t been cut since late October and was getting a bit high-maintenance. After weighing the pros and cons of growing it long again, I resolved one night to buzz it all off… almost. I decided that I wanted to have a Mohawk for a day. My friends with hair clippers were happy to help out, and for roughly twelve hours I got in touch with my Native American roots and sported a very floppy Mohawk. I didn’t have the industrial strength gel that would have been necessary to keep my hair sticking up, so I finished the shaving job off the next morning. Woo hoo! No shampoo for at least two months!

St. Paddy’s Day was predictably crazy. The partying began early and didn’t quit. It was great to have a last hurrah with my newfound friends in Taupo, but it ended badly. After I went home for the evening and was getting ready for bed, I took a bit of a spill. It was pitch black in my room. Something was in the middle of the floor when it shouldn’t have been. Whatever it was, I tripped over it and did a faceplant on my carpet. My nose gushed blood and I got some minor rug burn on my face. Back in my senior year of high school, my anatomy teacher Mr. Platt warned all of us to be wary of injuries to the area between our eyes and the tip of our nose – an area he called The Danger Triangle. According to Mr. Platt, a harsh blow to The Danger Triangle could easily bring about one’s demise. Remembering that sage advice, I ran to the bathroom and cleaned up my nose. It didn’t take long. The next day I emerged from my room with scratches on my forehead and nose. With my freshly shaved head and facial injuries, I looked the part of an English football hooligan after a night of pints and punches. I wish I HAD been in a fight. It would have made a much better story.

PART II: THE FOOTSTEPS OF DOOM

I got back on the Stray bus on Tuesday morning. We headed for the untamed wilderness of Tongariro National Park and its famous walk, the Tongariro Crossing. The Tongariro Crossing is a roughly 10-mile trail through the volcanic areas of Mt. Ngauruhoe and Mt. Tongariro. Anyone who has seen the “Lord of the Rings” movies has seen this place on film. It was used to film many of the scenes where Frodo, Sam & Gollum are climbing up Mt. Doom. It is incredibly rugged, bizarre and awesome. Mt. Ngauruhoe (pronounced “Now–roo–ho–ee”) was amazing to behold. It is only about 2,000 years old and is perfectly conical. It last erupted in the 1970s. Some people in my group actually climbed to its summit, even though our driver told us we didn’t have enough time to do it. I wish I had gone with them.

Instead, I stayed to the track, which was nonetheless astounding. There were incredible rocky slopes, green and blue thermal lakes, red volcanic craters, steam rising from the ground, and endlessly breathtaking views. It was unlike anything I have ever seen before. The whole walk took about five hours and I’d love to do it again someday.

After a day’s rest, I went up Mt. Ruapehu, which was in the news recently. Two days before we arrived in the park, the crater lake at the mountain’s summit burst through its natural dam sending tons of water, mud and rock down into natural spillways for miles around. This kind of landslide is called a lahar (nope, I hadn’t heard that word before either). It went down the opposite side of the mountain, so we were never in any danger. In the winter, people ski down Ruapehu on the Whakapapa Ski Field. In the off season, you can take a chairlift a good way up the mountain for hiking and sightseeing, which looked pretty damn cool to me, so I did it.

The rocks on Ruapehu were incredibly jagged. It seems amazing that if I came back in only a couple of months, those rocks would be under several feet of snow, with thousands of skiers sliding gracefully down the slopes. This area was also used in “Lord of the Rings,” and I found myself in a similar predicament to Frodo & Sam at the beginning of “The Two Towers.” I was climbing over a bunch of rocks when the clouds rolled in. Neither I nor the weird South African guy I was climbing with could tell where we were going in such poor visibility. When the clouds lifted, we realized that we were going in circles. After that, we stuck to the marked trail.

PART III: WINDY WELLINGTON

The next day, we began the trek to Wellington. Along the way, we stopped to see some of the debris from the lahar. I am guessing that we were at least ten miles away from Ruapehu’s summit, and there was mud everywhere (check out the photo below). Pretty cool, especially since there were no human casualties, injuries, or even property damage. The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful – lots of farmland and sheep.

We arrived in Wellington in the late afternoon. It is a beautiful city and kicks the crap out of Auckland. It lives up to its nickname, Windy Wellington, as it lies at the southern tip of the North Island. The Cook Strait, which separates the two main islands, is a major bottleneck for winds that otherwise get stuck on New Zealand’s mountain ranges. Physically and atmospherically, Wellington is like a miniature San Francisco. There are steep hills and harbors all over the place and unlike Auckland, it is very compact and has a lot of character. I dig it.

Of course, Wellington is home to Peter Jackson’s many filmmaking enterprises. There are several tours one can take to see the moviemaking sights in the city. Instead of paying $100 to have some dude show me around, I decided to seek these spots out myself. It wasn’t hard. The “get off the road” scene from “The Fellowship of the Ring” was filmed in Mt. Victoria, a big public park within walking distance from my hostel. I’m pretty sure that I found the spot where the Black Rider first sniffs out the hobbits. If not, it sure looked like it. I also made my way over to the rather spooky neighborhood of Miramar, which is home to Weta Workshop, Weta Digital, Park Road Post, Camperdown Studios, and Stone Street Studios. Compared to the filmmaking facilities I’ve seen in the States, these studios are pretty small and unassuming (from the outside, at least). Park Road Post has a cool Frank Lloyd Wright-esque design, but the other buildings looked right at home next to the construction and automotive enterprises that surround them. It just goes to show that talented people with vision and ambition can make great movies without Hollywood’s grandiosity. Currently, the second “Narnia” movie is being shot there and I saw some signs for the art department for “Avatar,” James Cameron’s first movie since “Titanic.” I will definitely be checking this place out more after my loop of the South Island.

My face has healed up nicely, and I will probably stay in Wellington for a couple more days. There are lots of sights I still want to check out. I still have to book my ferry to the South Island and hope for good weather. It was a lot tougher to leave Taupo than I thought it would be, but I am loving the new places I am seeing and the people I am meeting. Everyone should come here sometime in their life.

Might As Well Jump!

2007-03-02T23:29:00.000-05:00

I was bored last Thursday. After two and a half months of tending bar and riding around on my bike, life in Taupo had become a bit tedious. The crystal clear waters of Lake Taupo and the Waikato River had lost a bit of their allure and my second bungy jump didn’t give me quite the same jolt as the first. In an effort to liven my dreary existence, I did the natural thing and jumped out of a plane.

Skydiving is very popular here in Taupo. There are three competing skydive companies in town, and I have flatmates that work for each of them. Some work in the office. Some pack the parachutes. One pilots the planes. Two of them have made skydiving their careers and have jumped literally thousands of times. I figured it was time to take advantage of my connections and signed up to jump with the good people at Taupo Tandem Skydiving.

Upon my arrival at the hanger, I was fitted with a close-fitting jump suit that made me resemble a mentally challenged superhero. You get to choose to jump from an altitude of either 12,000 or 15,000 feet. Wannabe badass that I am, I opted for the full 15,000. If you’re gonna be a bear, be a grizzly.

We were all packed extremely tight on the plane. There were five or six jumpers with a tandem guide for each, and everyone was basically sitting in each other’s lap. My tandem jumper was a guy from Sweden named Markus whom I had met at a party a couple of weeks back. It was a relief to see a familiar face, but still a bit awkward as I was not only strapped to him but sitting snuggly in his crotch. Why is it that on this trip I keep finding myself in physically awkward situations with Swedish dudes named Markus (or Marcus)? Remember Swedish Marcus from Zorbing? There was also a cute Israeli girl on the plane named Moran. Think about it: if we were to have hit it off and gotten married, she would be Moran Moran. That’s almost as good as Tamarvin, eh Jeff? Gotta love those Israeli girls.

Anyway, seeing as skydiving combines several fears (flying, heights, falling, traveling at great speed, invasion of personal space, and general fear of death) into one giant phobic extravaganza, the tandem jumpers are trained to put you at ease. They do so by telling dirty jokes to break the tension. As the plane gained altitude and we all sat in a straddled mass, Markus decided it was time to test out his comic stylings:

“Hey Mike, what’s the difference between a hard-on and a Ferrari?”

“I don’t know, Markus.”

“I don’t have a Ferrari.”

Even though my flatmates had told me that my tandem guy would do this, I still think that’s a pretty good joke.

Once the plane reached 12,000 feet, the first group jumped out. Watching those people suddenly disappear was bizarre. One minute, you are riding in a plane with a bunch of strangers. The next, they are jumping out of the door and plummeting to the earth. We 15,000 footers still needed to climb for another 5 minutes or so as the air got thinner and thinner. I was the first one of our group to go. Markus pushed me towards the door and I dangled my legs out. I leaned back so that I could get my exit photo taken (see above), and then we jumped.

From 15,000 feet, you get a full minute of freefall. I spent the first 30 seconds screaming and looking straight down. Markus tapped me on the head, which was my reminder to put my arms out to feel the wind and have a look around. We spun around a bit and watched clouds fly by. The only sounds I remember were my own screams and the wind. It wasn’t scary so much as it was surreal. Complete sensory overload.

After falling 10,000 feet, Markus pulled the chute. It wasn’t a violent jerk the way you think it is from TV. It takes a few seconds to slow down, and then you still have a several minutes to slowly drift back to earth. It becomes very quiet. Markus spun us around so I could enjoy the spectacular views of the lake, mountains, and forests. I spent too much time looking straight down, which makes you dizzy. I began to wonder, if I were to vomit at that point, would the vomit fall at the same rate of speed or would it just drift away like the 12,000 foot jumpers? I managed to keep my lunch down, and we drifted to the surface. We landed in a field right next to the hanger. Solid ground never felt so good.

I paid my bill (TTS’s policy is that you pay “upon survival”) and got my ride back into town. So much adrenaline was pulsing through my body that I could barely speak or form coherent sentences for the first hour. I went to bed early that night.

In other news, for the first time since the late 1980s, I did not see all of the Oscars. They were replayed at 10pm Monday night ‘round these parts. I made it through the first couple of hours (boooooooooring) and then the Indian food I had bought for dinner decided it that it hated me. Around the time Jennifer Hudson accepted her I’m-A-Better-Actress-Than-Beyonce trophy, I headed for the bathroom for an extended visit. I finally caught Marty’s acceptance speech on YouTube and I am psyched that “The Departed” won. It was by far my favorite movie of last year, even though I didn’t see many movies.

Come to think of it, here’s a list of notable movies from 2006 that I have not seen:

Little Miss Sunshine
Children of Men
Pan’s Labyrinth
Babel
Dreamgirls
The Queen
Flags of Our Fathers
Letters from Iwo Jima
X-Men
Superman Returns
The Illusionist
Marie Antoinette
Apocalypto
Cars
Happy Feet
Monster House
Blood Diamond
Casino Royale
Stranger Than Fiction
United 93
World Trade Center

Granted I didn’t really want to see all of these, but in any other year I would have seen most of them just to satisfy my movie cravings. At the moment, I have other priorities.

I gave my notice at work and will be hopping back on the Stray bus on or around March 15th. Next on my itinerary are Tongariro National Park and Wellington. I’ll probably stay in Wellington for a few days to get the lay of the land (Knock Knock, Weta!) before I catch a ferry to the South Island. Once I get there, who knows? I don’t have a real plan. Everyone says that it kicks the North Island’s ass. Hard to imagine that.

The Cartoons Are Coming! The Cartoons Are Coming!

2007-02-05T21:05:00.000-05:00

Sssshhhhhhhh!!!! Listen! Can you hear it? That guttural chortle echoing across the land? That there is the corpulent ghost of Orson Welles enjoying a hearty belly laugh at the expense of the city of Boston. No doubt, Welles is looking down at the Hub from his billowing thundercloud made of fish sticks with a knowing smile, reflecting on how little human nature has changed in the seven decades since his “War of the Worlds” broadcast. Once again, a bunch of 20-something artists has triggered the nerves of a paranoid culture. The key difference is that Welles did it on purpose.

I am writing this from the living room of my boarding house in Taupo, New Zealand, about as far away as from my home city as I could geographically be. Recently, I have been updating all of you on my adventures in the Land of the Long White Cloud. The recent uproar and apparent near-pandemonium back home grabbed my attention and amusement. I felt the need to comment.

I caught wind of The Great Aqua Teen Hunger Force Scare of 2007 a few days ago on Yahoo.com and later on a rebroadcast of ABC News. To see marble-mouthed Mayor Tom Menino and newly minted Governor Deval Patrick throwing hissy fits over a marketing campaign for a movie version of a stupid cartoon was hilarious and dumbfounding. They both resembled a pair of junior high school vice-principals enraged over a cherry bomb being unleashed in the school’s toilet system. Come to think of it, a cherry bomb is a hell of a lot more destructive than the strategically placed Lite-Brites that unintentionally set of Mass Hysteria (get it?).

Was it unfortunate that Boston’s safety workers had to be deployed and that apparently the entire city came to a stand still costing the city a huge amount of money over a false alarm? Of course. It is also unfortunate that in a city with an enormous student population no one thought to ask a college student or recent graduate what they thought these fiendish-looking black boxes with crazy little light bulbs and (OH SHIT!!!) D sized Duracell batteries might be instead of hitting the panic button. For a city that nourishes the brains of many of the smartest people in America, Boston looks pretty retarded right now, especially considering that the same covert ads (oooooooohhh, how shadowy!) were placed in several other cities with no notice. Pity poor Deval Patrick. We all had such hope for him, and a bunch of bird-flipping cartoon characters have made him look like a jittery ass on national television.

I remember my first encounters with Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Some of my friends in LA tried to turn me on to its surreal charms, without success. I tried to find the laughs, I truly did. No luck. I wrote it off as one of those goofy pieces of entertainment that can only be fully enjoyed in a dorm room choked with bong smoke, just like “The Wizard of Oz” with “Darkside of the Moon” playing and every Phish album ever recorded. I certainly never imagined that those talking French fries, meatball and milkshake would one day strike terror in the hearts of my homeland’s elected officials. I fear someday soon that all major cities will be evacuated due to a promotion for the new Simpson’s movie. Sideshow Bob would be approve.

Okay, okay, it probably wasn’t a smart thing to put mechanical boxes on bridges and other important buildings. I know that we are living in dangerous times (have there ever been safe times?) and I have little doubt that the military and other government agencies have foiled and continue to foil horrific plots against American citizens that we will never know about, but c’mon! I seriously doubt that any serious advertising agency would intentionally design a campaign for any product to purposely be perceived as a terrorist threat. The two guys who were arrested for putting those boxes in place are obviously a couple of starving artists who meant no harm whatsoever. They didn’t make any bombs, and it probably never crossed their or their boss’ minds that people might think they were bombs. They are NOT terrorists or criminals, and any time they spend in jail is pointless and unjustified. That being said, I have a hunch that those who designed the campaign back at the agency will be enjoying promotions and hefty bonuses. Millions of people who had never heard of Aqua Teen Huger Force now have some knowledge of its existence, and there will be some curiosity factor. You can’t buy that kind of publicity, but you can give credit for it.

So, my fair Boston… Beantown, Cradle of Liberty, Hub of the Universe, sleep soundly tonight. You are, for the moment, safe from The Terrorists. But for your own good, please elect and hire some young hotshots from the enormous local talent pool into public service and safety positions. Having a few young hipster whippersnappers on staff could have saved you tons of money and anxiety. And let those two dudes out jail. One or both of them could go on to make the next “Citizen Kane." Oh yeah, and watch more cartoons.

P.S. I don’t get the Daily Show around here. I am sure that Jon Stewart and Co. had a blast with this story. If anyone has a link, please send it this way! Thanks!

Workin' For A Livin'

2007-01-22T20:57:00.000-05:00

Many apologies for a month’s delay in my blogging. I have spent the last several weeks in Taupo working my ass off and saving up money, which hasn’t left much time for adventuresome activities. Also, no pictures this time. My life isn’t all that photogenic at the moment.

Still, it has been interesting. Christmas didn’t feel like Christmas. The folks at my hostel had an all-day barbecue with a Secret Santa. As is usual with Secret Santa and Yankee Swap-type scenarios, I stupidly opted to unwrap one of the unopened gifts rather than rob someone of a nicer one. My big Christmas gift for 2006: a Winnie The Pooh soapdish and toothbrush holder. Truth be told, I really didn’t want much of anything. My backpack is enormous and is stuffed to the gills already.

Most of the local hospitality workers are foreign travelers, and there is a little network to put us all to good use. All of Taupo’s businesses and lodging seem to be run by a very small group of people, all of who know one another. When I mentioned that I was looking for a job, people immediately told me to stop by one place and talk to this guy ‘cause he knows that guy and that guy can help you find a flat and so on and so forth. I feel like my Irish ancestors arriving in America and immediately being sucked into a Boss Tweed/Tammany Hall-type organization the moment they hopped of the boat. So far, no one has asked me to vote for them or beat up a rival hospitality workers gang, but you never know.

Once I started my bartending job, I decided to move into more economical housing. At the advice of some of my co-workers, I checked out a house about a mile out of town. It is owned by a guy who, of course, also runs a couple of other local hostels. The price was right (NZ$100 per week), so I moved in a couple of days later. The place has seven rooms with two people in each room. Along with a few Kiwis, my housemates hail from Ireland, England, Scotland, Holland, and other parts of the US. Most of them are nice, but sadly they are also slobs. I lucked out with my roommate, a Scotsman named Wayne. He’s a cool guy, and we seem to be the house’s cleanest residents. Thus far we are the only people who regularly wash our dishes or take out the garbage. Basically, it’s a bit like my sophomore year at college, only with funny (or funnier) accents.

Since I have had time to catch my breath in Taupo, I have been able to see more clearly the subtle differences between New Zealand and the land of my birth. Outpost of the Empire that NZ was and is, there is a British slant on many themes. Besides the whole driving on the left thing (something I find more terrifying than bungy jumping), the letter “Z” is pronounced “Zed,” the NZ$20 note is blessed with the glorious visage of Her Majesty The Queen (or is it Helen Mirren?), they actually care about the game of Cricket, Robbie Williams is very popular, and they generally turn a blind eye to Michael Jackson’s freakishness. When it comes to food, French fries are called chips and a meal is never complete without some form of sausage. There is a condiment called “tomato sauce” that looks like ketchup, smells like ketchup, and is packaged just like ketchup. It ain’t ketchup. It resembles very thick, cold tomato soup, and it sucks. When it comes to casual attire, it is socially acceptable for dudes to walk around in bare feet and short shorts (like the ones my Mom used to buy me in 1991, about 5 years after their coolness had expired) while sporting a mullet or even a bleached rat-tail. Seriously, they still have rat-tails here! And they bleach them! Shirts are optional in most situations. Occasionally, I’ll spot someone wearing a t-shirt or cap supporting an American sports team. Tragically, they are usually Yankees merchandise, but I have seen a number of Celtics t-shirts, so they haven’t all sold their souls to Satan.

I haven’t mentioned smoking. I am not a smoker and I don’t like the smell of cigarette or cigar smoke (I do kind of dig the smell of pipe tobacco), but I am not one of those self-righteous assholes who consider smoking to be a crime against humanity. I hate those PSAs they play on TV at home that portray tobacco companies as genocidal regimes. Everyone knows that smoking is bad for you. The same can be said for eating bacon. I say choose your vice and don’t trouble others with it. That being said, those obnoxious PSAs and other anti-smoking campaigns are clearly having an effect on younger Americans. Of the travelers I have met, I’d estimate that at least 60% are smokers. Granted, I haven’t met many Americans here, but I am constantly running outside to hang out with my new foreign friends and watch them light up with greater frequency than I ever did with my buddies at home. If I only hung out with non-smokers, I would be very lonely and bored. One funny thing is that most of the cigarettes in New Zealand must be hand-rolled. At first, I thought everyone was rolling joints, but no. Pre-rolled cigarettes are way more expensive around here, so everyday I watch new (mostly) European arrivals struggle with rolling papers and filters. With all the heckling I get for being American, at least I can say that we are making better progress in the battle against nicotine than our neighbors. Take that, Terrorists!

Anyway, I will probably stick around Taupo for about three more weeks. There are lots of things to do around here (sailing, skydiving, jet-boating) but they are all pricy. I haven’t gotten much sunshine lately, so I gotta make up for it down the line. When something more interesting happens, I’ll let you all know.

Merry Christmas From Mordor!

2006-12-23T21:31:00.000-05:00

Okay, I am not actually in Mordor, but I can see it from here. Pictured above, at great distance and thick cloud cover, are the mountains of Tongariro National Park where many of the Mordor scenes from Lord of the Rings were filmed. The three big mountains (actually active volcanoes) are Mt. Tongariro, Mt. Ruapehu, and Mt. Ngauruhoe which played the part of Mt. Doom. There is a world-renowned hiking trail through the area, which I will attempt in a few weeks. Even though it is a good distance away, it is nice to see a little snow at Christmastime.

But let me back up a bit...

The Stray Travel people screwed up and abandoned me in Gisborne for one extra night. There are far worse places in the world to be stranded, so it wasn’t a big deal. They even paid for me to get an intercity bus to Rotorua the next day. Along the way, we stopped at Huka Falls, a waterfall on the crystal clear Waikato River. It was 15 minutes of pure whitewater viewing pleasure before we headed off to Taupo.

For the first few days, there wasn’t much to see due to crappy weather. When it cleared up, the views proved to be spectacular. Taupo sits on the northern edge of Lake Taupo, which is a volcanic crater that was formed about 26,000 years ago during a massive eruption that supposedly was 100 times more powerful than Krakatoa. There was another eruption in 181 AD that caused crazy sunsets all over the world. Mt. Ruapehu last erupted in 1996, so there is a chance I can see some liquid hot magma.

I spent my first night at the Urban Retreat Backpackers. They stuck me in a tiny, windowless room right next to the big common area/TV room/bar. That kind of sucked, so I moved to the Go Global Backpackers the next day, where some cool folks I met in Raglan were staying. It is a decent enough place with cheap beds and interesting residents from all over (as seen below).

The cold, wet weather did not deter me from doing my first bungy jump! A few of us went to Taupo Bungy on my second day. If you get there before 11 AM, you get a cheap jump (NZ$79) and I always try to be thrifty with my Near Death Experience Fund. The location was gorgeous (no pun intended). The jumping platform juts out over the Waikato River from a 150-foot cliff. The technicians (or whatever you call them) adjust the bungy cable to the appropriate tautness for your weight and give you the option of being dunked in the river. It was already raining, so I went for the wet option. It is ridiculous how casually you entrust your life to the guy strapping the cable to your ankles. He did so with all the exuberance and enthusiasm of a DMV employee. He and his assistant urged me to the edge of the platform and told me to lean forward. I complied, and screamed “OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTT!” as I plummeted to the river below. I dipped to just below my waist before being snapped back up in the air for three or four more bounces. As I dangled upside down with my soaked shirt covering half my face, a raft appeared beneath me. The girls onboard extended a pole for me to grab, so that I could be lowered onto the raft and be transported back to dry land.

It wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be. This was mostly due to the bored, surly attitude of the bungy technician team. They put me through the process so matter-of-factly that I didn’t have time to consider (or reconsider) my actions. I got to see a video of my jump, but I was too cheap to buy the DVD or pictures, so you’ll all just have to take my word that I actually did it.

Just around the corner from the bungy are some thermal hot springs that feed into the river. A few people from the hostel and I got some beers and hopped in the water, which was hotter than a bath. I think the cold rain actually made the experience more interesting, with steam rising up from the water. Primordial, dude!

So, I like Taupo and got myself a job. I am currently employed as a bartender at the Plateau restaurant. They hired me on the spot with almost no questions asked. Everyone in this town knows everyone, and they like to help each other out, which is cool. My hostel is having a big Christmas barbecue, so I won’t be too lonely. I figure that I will try to find a flat around here and will stay around for a month or two to save up some cash. It seems like a good place to be, and the views are gorgeous.

This will be my first Christmas away from home, which is a bit strange. It means so much to me to get all of your comments and kind words on this blog!

I wish all of you the happiest of holidays!

Hail to the Chief!

2006-12-12T23:30:00.000-05:00

It has been a comparatively quiet couple of weeks since my last entry. I opted to spend some extra time (and money) to explore the East Cape of the North Island. This is not part of Stray’s main circuit, so we only had a small van. The passengers were only myself, a carsick German girl, and a very jolly French-speaking Swiss girl who sounded exactly like Ana Gasteyer’s impression of Celine Dion. Our driver, Dave, picked us up in Rotorua and took us Eastward. The coastline was amazing – lush forested mountains next to the ocean. There were few signs of civilization. We would pass a few houses from time to time, but no real towns. The majority of the local population is Maori, and there is very little work to be had.

One thing I have noticed in New Zealand is how well people maintain their properties, particularly in poorer areas. When you drive across rural (and not so rural) parts of America, you see house after ramshackle house with rusting cars and other assorted junk rotting away on the front lawn. Around here, the houses may be small and simple, but they are mostly clean and well kept. I don’t know if they have stricter environmental laws or just better junk removal, but it nice to see. They may be poor, but they take care of what they have.

Our first stop was the village of Hick’s Bay. Driver Dave informed me that our hosts for the next two nights would give us a traditional Maori welcome and that since I was the only guy on the bus, that I would be our group’s chief. Not only would I have to present our group’s boarding money as a gift, but I also had to speak on the group’s behalf, since women are not allowed to speak during the ceremony. I was not expecting this.

Upon our arrival at our hostel, we all had to sit on one side of the porch while Joe, the owner, greeted us in Maori and then English while all of the hostel’s other guests (all female) sat behind him in silence. He told us about the area’s history, a bit about Maori culture, and what was expected of us as guests. It was then my chiefly duty to present our boarding money and speak a bit about where I was from and why I was visiting the East Cape. I don’t recall much of what I said, but I must have done something right, because Joe later invited me into his house for tea. He asked me more about why I was in New Zealand and about America in general. He said I did not seem like “most Americans.” I’m pretty sure that was a compliment, but I didn’t press him on it. As it turns out, his daughter is now in New York studying - no bullshit - film editing! How crazy that a girl of Maori and Scottish decent from one of New Zealand’s most rural areas is now in NYC studying the same thing as a Boston boy visiting her home on the other side of the world! Anyway, it was a nice chat with Joe.

As we finished our tea, Joe informed me that as chief I was also responsible for coordinating dinner - which the women would prepare. All I really had to do was tell one girl to do the salad, another to do the pasta, and another to work the barbecue. To my great surprise, all of them did what I said while I enjoyed some wine with the other men joining us. I kept wondering how my mother and sisters (and indeed, most American women) would have reacted to this scenario. The dinner turned out great (mostly due to my coaching, I thought), and Joe insisted that the ladies have first dibs on the food since they had worked so hard. They also had to clean up afterwards while I built a campfire on the beach. To paraphrase Mel Brooks, it’s good to be the chief.

Hick’s Bay was very beautiful and quiet. There were lots of cool trees and rocks. It was a great place to do some reading and take some pictures, but it got kinda boring after 36 hours. The girls at the hostel weren’t much fun so I was eager to move along, my status as chief notwithstanding.

The next morning, we headed off to the East Cape lighthouse, the most Easterly lighthouse in the world. It sits atop a big hill next to the Pacific and looks out over the inventively named East Island. We had terrific weather, so the view from the top was great. We then headed south along the coastal road. The landscape bore an amazing resemblance to parts of California. I could have sworn we were diving through Santa Barbara, Napa, or Marin County - rolling golden hills, vineyards, and patches of redwood trees filling up the little valleys. The ocean was a beautiful emerald green.

Our next stop was Tatapouri Beach, just north of Gisborne. The hostel we stayed at doubles as a headquarters for a scuba diving outfit. One of the guys working there took a bunch of us walking out to of the reef just offshore where we got to watch him feed stingrays. They were huge! About 3 feet in diameter. They were swimming all around our feet, and the guy told us to stand still, lest we disturb them and meet a Crocodile Hunter-esque fate.

The next day, I hopped off the bus in Gisborne to check out the area. The city’s two claims to fame are its geographical location (the first city in the world to see the sun) and its place in history (Captain Cook’s first landfall in New Zealand). Nowadays, it is mostly known for its surfing and Chardonnay.

The first couple of days were unseasonably cold, wet and windy. After spending two restless rainy days in the hostel, I went for a walk on the beach with a girl from England, a guy from Germany, and another guy from Canada. To our surprise, a photographer from the local paper hopped of the dunes and asked to take our picture as we ran giddily down the beach. The next afternoon, we found our picture on the front page of the Gisborne Herald at the local corner store. The ladies at the store actually asked us to autograph the paper!

Yes, Mum. I will send a copy home.

The weather cleared up on Monday, so I spent the last couple of days surfing. I heard on the news that a little boy was attacked by a shark on the very beach where I learned to surf in Raglan. Maybe it wasn’t so bad leaving there after all (I still wanna go back, though!). There are a few cool people at my current hostel and the town is halfway decent, but I am getting antsy to move on. Stray can’t pick me up until Friday, so I will spend the next couple days living cheaply and (hopefully) surfing. The next big stop will be Taupo, which lies on the shores of the New Zealand’s biggest lake (really a gigantic volcanic crater). I have heard that it is beautiful there, with lots of goofy adventure activities and mountain views. In all likelihood, I’ll have to get a job around there and stick around for a while.

I have no clue where I will be or what I will be doing for Christmas or New Years. A lot of backpackers seem to be headed for the big cities (Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch), but it is reportedly very difficult to find accommodation. I’m making all of this up as I go along anyway, so I’ll figure something out.

Surfin' Safari

2006-12-02T21:08:00.000-05:00

I have done enough crazy shit in the last two weeks to fill five blog entries, but since this is MY blog where I make the rules, you’ll just have to read one big fat entry and deal with it.
After leaving the Bay of Islands, I had one day back in Auckland for shopping and tying up loose ends before I took off on Stray’s New Zealand circuit. Warmer clothes needed to be purchased and excess baggage stored at the International Exchange Programme’s office. I was then off to the town of Hahei on the Coromandel Peninsula. The ride was spectacular, with crazy mountains covered with green, gnarly trees. I kept waiting for Juan Valdez to emerge from the forest with his trusty donkey in tow bearing coffee beans.
Upon arriving in the village of Hahei, most of our group went kayaking to the stunning Cathedral Cove. It was the most perfect little beach I have ever seen – soft white sand, walls of volcanic rock, wild trees clinging to the cliffs, crystal clear water, surreal rock formations and islands out in the bay, and a huge cavern than leads from one beach to another. Absolutely gorgeous.That night we had a Thanksgiving barbecue. I was one of only two Americans in the group, so I took it upon myself to tell the group about the Pilgrims and Wampanoags. Everyone seemed genuinely interested. I am guessing that there were about 25 of us sitting at picnic tables eating beef and sausage instead of turkey. Ironically, it was probably the closest thing I have ever experienced to the actual Thanksgiving – halfway across the world with people from at least five different countries. That night, I snuck down to the beach and saw more stars than I have ever seen with the naked eye. The next day, we took off for the west coast surfing town of Raglan. The landscape was straight out of “The Goonies” – rocky cliffs, dark sand and a raging ocean. Supposedly, Raglan has the longest left hand break in the world, and was featured in “The Endless Summer.” We stayed at the Karioi Lodge, by far the coolest hostel I have been to. It is a tiny set of buildings up in the rain forest, a good 15-minute drive out of town with a view of the Tasman Sea. They have hiking trails up through the forest, a ropes course, a flying fox (more on that later), a supercool lounge area, a sauna, and the offices of the surfing school.

About surfing…

SURFING. IS. AWESOME!!!!
I FUCKING LOVE IT! I should have done it a long time ago. Actually, I did try it once on Cape Cod five years ago and failed miserably. No more. Thanks to the good people at the Raglan Surfing School, I am now a Surfer Dude. I stood up and rode many a wave all the way back to shore. When I think of all the lame weekends I spent sitting on my ass in Southern California when I could have been surfing! Grrrrrr! At least I know now. I spent three extra days surfing in Raglan and did not want to leave. I asked the hostel if they needed any help, but they were all staffed up. Damn it! I am sure I’ll make it back up there, eventually.

So… back to the flying fox. A flying fox (or zipper line) is basically a very long cable suspended from one tree to another at a steep angle. From this cable hangs a little seat that goofy people like myself can sit or stand on to ride very fast through the trees. It is a lot of fun. Pretty much everyone at the lodge did it a few times, especially at night when you couldn’t see where you were going. It was rumored that some people have been known to do this whilst butt naked. No one was actually doing it, though, so I volunteered to strip down and swing through the trees like the naked Tarzan I always new myself to be, hoping to inspire others to do the same. About 15 people watched me drag my bare ass up the hill and ride the thing to the bottom au natural. A nice girl from England even snapped a photo, but it didn’t come out very well. Everyone got a big kick out of my little stunt, but no one elected to do the same. I mean, c’mon people! I exposed myself in the name of group camaraderie, and no one followed! It was pitch black and you could barely see anything anyway! Pussies.

Since then, I have earned a reputation as The Naked Flying Fox Guy. I have bumped into several people since then who recognize me from the incident, even if I don’t remember them. Just this morning, there was a very cute Dutch girl making breakfast at my current hostel who recognized me. Sure enough, she was one of the spectators that night.
Since I couldn’t stay in Raglan any longer, I headed off to Rotorua. Here in Rotorua, there are lots of geothermal pools, bubbling mud, and geyser-type thingies. The air smells funny. There are tons of activities around here – white water rafting, luging, Maori cultural shows, and Zorbing. Zorbing is hilarious. A zorb is a large plastic ball with a hollow center than can fit up to three people. “Zorbonauts” take a short ride up a hill, climb into the zorb, and roll down a grassy slope. Basically, you pay $35 to be put through a washing machine’s spin cycle for about 45 seconds. It is one of the goofiest things I have ever done, and was totally worth the money. Here’s a picture of me post-zorbing with Swedish Marcus from my Stray group. Rafting was fun, too, but the trip was only an hour or so long. There was a 7-meter waterfall and lots of “Jurassic Park”-style greenery. Still, it was not as cool as the New River in West Virginia. One thing this trip has inspired me to do is to explore more of America when I return.

All in all, New Zealand has been awesome thus far. I only have two big complaints.

#1 – Virtually all coffee here is made from espresso. Granted, this makes it taste better than your typical American coffee, but you cannot just go into a café and order a regular cup ‘o Joe. Black coffee is called either a “Short Black” or a “Long Black,” depending on how much water they use. If you want milk or cream, you must order a “Flat White,” which is actually more like a latte or cappuccino. All I want is a regular coffee with cream and ½ a sugar, people! Is that so hard?
#2 – The faucets here totally suck, at least in the hostels. 90% of the sinks I have encountered have old-timey separate spigots for hot and cold water, forcing me to mix water in the basin to my desired temperature. This makes the rinsing of contact lenses a challenge, along with shaving and the washing of hands, face and feet. I know some of you are going to knock me for washing my feet in the sink. Trust me when I tell you that it must be done. When you spend 75% of your time in Teva sandals and no socks, your feet can get downright nasty, and I don’t want to alienate my fellow travelers with stinkiness. If it is only your feet that are dirty, taking a shower is just wasteful. Sink washing is clearly the best option. It just sucks that I have to plug up the sink, fill it with hot & cold water, add soap, contort myself so that I can stand on one foot while washing the other, switch those around, drain the sink, fill it with clear water, rinse, dry, and then drain the sink yet again to wash my hands and begin the process all over again.

Anyway, I must soon decide whether I should head south to Taupo (big mountains by a huge lake, bungee jumping, skydiving) & Tongariro National Park (crazy volcanic landscape where they filmed the Mordor scenes in “Lord of the Rings”), or pay an extra fee to explore the East Cape (gorgeous coastline featured in “Whale Rider” and more surfing!) for a few days. Such difficult decisions. Woe to me…

I keep forgetting that I will be here for an entire year and that there is really no need to rush. A great but tough thing is when you meet terrific people on your bus who are on a different timetable. They are your best friends for a day or two, and then they get bussed away, often never to be seen again. Sometimes you bump into them down the road, but by then you’ve made all new friends and lines get blurred. With all the language barriers, cultural differences, close living quarters, partying, rapid-fire friendships and romances, I am amazed how well everyone gets along. I haven’t seen a single serious argument or even the most minor of scuffles. Everyone just wants to have a good time (knock on wood).

Oh yeah… I gonna hafta get… ya know… a job… soon. I will definitely need to work for a while before I head off to the South Island. I have heard that things are more expensive down there, but are even more spectacular. We shall see…

Escape From Auckland

2006-11-19T20:54:00.000-05:00

My money transfer came through, so I have hit the northern road. I have signed up with Stray Travel to take me around New Zealand. They are one of three or four touring companies that compete for the money of backpackers such as myself. Stray promoted themselves as being the travel company for people who want to have more of an adventurous, mind-broadening trip (translation: more hiking & rafting, less rich drunken European teenagers). Since I am here for a year, I signed up for their most generous package. It allows me to travel all over the country as many times as I want. I even get to hop off and hop on at any point, too. Pretty sweet. Their drivers all seem like cool people. There are still plenty of drunken Europeans, but they’re a little older and have less money than those whippersnappers on the Kiwi Experience busses.

As a bonus for buying their most expensive package, Stray has sent me on a sort of free trip to the Bay of Islands, where I have been since Thursday. It is pretty nice up here. I am staying at the Pipi Patch Lodge in the town of Paihia. Paihia is one of the first stops for Auckland escapees, so I have bumped into a lot of the same folks I saw in the city. There is a little road here with about five hostels on it, and the Pipi Patch is clearly the one where backpackers come to party. These people have amazing stamina. I mean, I love to knock a few back and jump around like the goofball that I am… but every night? I don’t know how their brain cells or wallets survive.

On Friday, my little group took a trip up to Cape Reinga at the northernmost tip of New Zealand. Along the way we stopped to see a Kauri forest. Kauris are great big trees that Europeans loved to cut down and turn into masts for their ships. I guess they were pretty big. Not Redwood or Sequoia big, though. The Good Old US of A still has the biggest damn trees in the world and no amount of Kiwi eco-progressive conservation effort is gonna change that!

We then drove on the flat sands of Ninety Mile Beach. It is really only sixty-four miles long, but whatever. Our supercool van drove up a river (!) where we encountered giant sand dunes. We climbed to the top and slid all the way down on boogie boards. I had never inhaled sand before. If you feel the need to climb to the top of a giant dune and slide down it, wait for a calm day.

Next was the road to the tip of Cape Reinga. It was cloudy, but still spectacular. From the lighthouse you can watch the Pacific Ocean colliding with the Tasman Sea. The water was a shade of blue I have never seen before. There were Portuguese Men-of-war all over the beach, and I almost stepped on several of them.

Surreal moment of the week: Saturday night at the Pipi Patch, they had a Love Boat theme party. Lots of people came dressed up as various characters from the show. I was tempted to mention that my first paid job in the movie business had me working with none other than Ship’s Surgeon Bernie Koppel, but I didn’t want to be too boastful. Now for the really weird part. To get the party started right, a bunch of guys, mostly gigantic Maori dudes, performed a Haka. A Haka is a Maori war chant and dance. They are loud, scary, and awesome and I was psyched to see my first one in person. It WAS awesome, but picture THIS being performed by guys dressed up like Isaac and Captain Stubing. Very weird.

Yesterday, a bunch of people from my Stray group went sailing on a great big yacht. I hadn’t been sailing for years, and it was great. We cruised around a bunch of islands and got to hop off on one of them. Lots of cool trees, jagged rocks and tidal pools. I was tempted to go swimming, but it is still a bit cold around here. There was a nice breeze, so we moved along at a good clip. Fun!

I am getting a bit sick of hearing criticisms about America. A few folks (mostly Europeans) feel the need to tell me how much they don’t like America’s policies and culture. Usually these are people who have never actually been to America and have little to no knowledge of how the government works. In light of the recent elections, I try to explain a bit about congress and what Democrats and Republicans (and others) stand for, but it does little good. To them, George W. Bush is America and vice versa.

I wish I could get it through to them that America is a huge, diverse and amazingly beautiful country, that we have more natural splendor than you could possibly digest in a lifetime, that despite the actions of certain politicians we still have hundreds of millions of intelligent and reasonable people, that we’ve exported technology, medicine, culture, music and freedom of speech all around the world and if people really didn’t want it, they wouldn’t buy it. Some people don’t want to hear that though, and no amount of politeness or rational explanation on my part will change their minds. I wish I had the balls to ask these cultural critics to name one country that has a perfect track record and no skeletons in its closet, but I don’t want to be rude. Kill ‘em with kindness, I say.

Most of the travelers who actually HAVE made it to the states have lots of good things to say. They love our cities, our landscapes, our people, our movies, and especially our music. I hope all those critics will eventually jump across the pond and see what they are missing. Until then, I’ll just try to hang out with the cool people from all nations who are here to see THIS amazing country and leave preconceived notions behind.

Oh yeah, here's me with a Kiwi bird. Happy, Comerford?

First Photos

2006-11-13T20:51:00.000-05:00

Here are 10 pics of my first days in Auckland. The nature-y ones were taken on Rangitoto Island, a dormant volcano in Auckland Harbour. These photos do no justice to the view from the summit. It was amazing.

Here I am, quite sweaty, at the top of the volcano on Rangitoto Island. Behind me is Auckland.

Your typical hostel room.

Lame ass Queen Street. Note the Dunkin Donuts.

The Auckland Sky Tower. Yes, that is a person sliding down two wires.

Amazing view from Rangitoto Summit #1.

Amazing view from Rangitoto Summit #2.

Amazing view from Rangitoto Summit #3.

Volcano and lava rocks.

Cool rocks!

NZ1 - New Zealand's "Big Boat" challenger to the 1988 America's Cup. Friggin' huge!

The best-named restaurant in the world.

Roam If You Want To

2006-11-10T21:53:00.000-05:00

Kia ora! Welcome to the first Moranadu entry from the Southern Hemisphere. I have been in New Zealand for six days now. It feels like much longer.

The flights weren’t nearly as bad as I had feared. I flew from Boston to Washington/Dulles to LAX to Auckland. Apparently, the whole of the United States and the most of the South Pacific decided to be cloudy just to make the views from my window as boring as possible. The only cool things I saw in the USA were LA at night (been there, seen that) and Catalina Island lit up by moonlight. I managed to sleep most of the way from LA to Auckland. Tylenol PM, how do I love thee? The sun came up just as we passed the International Date Line. The first land I spotted was a bunch of huge rocks, followed by rolling green hills and valleys filled with fog. Very pretty.

I made it through customs with little fuss, and it was on to Auckland. Ah, Auckland! Unremarkable Auckland! Actually, Queen Street! Unremarkable Queen Street! Queen Street is the main drag of Auckland that rolls quite steeply down a large hill to the harbor. It could be the main drag of any large western city. American businesses are everywhere – even Dunkin Donuts! How is it that New England’s great institution of fried, sugary pastries and addictive coffee found a market in the most isolated nation on Earth yet was nowhere to be found in Los Angeles? The Kiwi accents were the only indicators that I had left North America. Queen Street sucks.

I decided to caffeinate myself through my first day, thus making jet lag My Bitch. Soon I discovered that with an 18-hour time difference, jet lag is no one’s Bitch - least of all mine. Delirium set in around 11AM during my orientation at the International Exchange Program’s headquarters. They were giving us the rundown on New Zealand’s varied regions and job opportunities when speech became slurry and hands unsteady. I went through three copies of a bank account application before I spelled my name correctly. Still, I fought off sleep through the afternoon and collapsed at around 9PM.

Hostelling is a new experience for me. The one I am currently staying at is basically a 7-floor dormitory populated by transients ranging in age from 18 to 75 from all corners of the globe, but mostly Germany. My room has four beds, and people are constantly coming in and out. So far, I have shared the room with a couple of Americans, a Brit, a Canadian, a German, and a very smelly 40-something Australian bloke who I call Stinky Dundee. Great Christ, does that man smell bad! I have noticed that the older hostel dwellers have a more difficult time masking their Backpacker Stench than do the younger ones. There is a room down the hall from me where the BO is so bad that it actually creeps out from behind a closed door. Gross. There are lots of cute girls running around, but also a lot of not-so-cute girls with facial piercings and blond dreadlocks. The hostel has showers on every floor, ladies. Take heed.

On Tuesday, I took a free tour of the city courtesy of Stray Travel. It was led by a guy named Nate who is undoubtedly the greatest tour guide in the world. A half Welsh/half Maori, he showed us Auckland’s hot spots. There was hardly a sentence that didn’t include shit, fuck or an insult directed towards Australians (“The Convicts”). My favorite quote was his description of New Zealand’s winemaking industry: “A hundred years ago a bunch of dairy farmers got sick of milking cows and said ‘Fuck it, let’s make wine.’” He advised us to run over any possums we might encounter on the roads, as they are unwanted Australian pests that are destroying the local ecosystem. We saw some of the residential areas which could have been plucked right out of San Francisco or Los Angeles – small single story houses set about a foot apart from each other with little to no backyard. Then we saw the harbor, which is pretty amazing. I have never seen so many sailboats. Supposedly, dolphins and whales swim through the harbor all the time. I didn’t spot any.

Another stop was the Sky Tower, which is New Zealand’s answer to Toronto’s CN Tower and Seattle’s Space Needle, meaning that it is a very tall building whose height serves no practical purpose. This is New Zealand, however, and tall things must be jumped from. Three people from the tour took the elevator to the top and rode a vertical zip line down the entire length of the building. Take THAT, Toronto!

The bus then took us up to a gorgeous hill overlooking the harbor and surrounding areas. To our left was the Auckland skyline. To our right, distant hills and a giant bay filled with sails. Behind us, a sacred Maori meetinghouse. Before us, a dormant volcano. It was here that Nate made the sales pitch for his tour company, detailing all the amazing activities his company could provide us – swimming with dolphins, rafting on whitewater and in caves, thermal hot springs, skydiving, skiing, surfing, scuba diving, and many, many more things that I can scarcely describe for a relatively good price. SOLD!

After that, we headed over to the Auckland Harbour Bridge. The crew there harnessed us to a guardrail as we climbed up the catwalk under the bridge to the bungy jumping pod. I am guessing that we were 150 to 200 feet over the water, and a little Indonesian man won a free jump. His wife, in full Muslim headgear, photographed the whole thing. It was hilarious and awesome. Nate saw the big goofy smile on my face and surely knew that he would soon be enjoying a healthy commission from the deluxe travel pass I would be purchasing. He invited me and a few other prospective buyers out for a pint.

Which brings us to The Fat Camel. The Fat Camel is a hostel/bar near the waterfront where the Auckland backpacking crowd congregates. It is the closest thing I have ever seen in real life to the cantina in Star Wars. There people from America, Canada, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Holland, Ireland, England, Scotland, Germany (MANY from Germany), Australia, Fiji, Indonesia, Japan, Belgium, and of course New Zealand – both White & Maori. Several people asked me what I thought of Dubya. They all hate him, and were relieved when I told them that I didn’t vote for him either time. There was music, games of pool, cheap beer, cheaper food prepared by residents of the hostel, and maybe a dozen languages being spoken. People were negotiating road trips and house shares. Everyone was friendly and easy to talk to. It fucking rocked! Sadly, jet lag kicked in around 10PM, and I headed back to my lame ass hostel at the top of the hill… and Stinky Dundee.

The last few days have been less eventful. Bizarre rain and wind storms blow in and out with amazing speed and ferocity. There are still a couple of parks and museums I’d like to see in Auckland, but I really want to hit the road and I can’t do that until I clear up some legal details and get my stupid money transfer from home (Bank of America can bite my ass). I found a nice, cheap public pool and discovered how out of shape I am after ten feeble laps. Gotta get leaner & meaner. I have been unable to find a place to go online with my own computer. All the internet cafes have PCs and charge too much. No free wireless anywhere. Boo!

Elsewhere in the world the Democrats have taken control of Congress, Rummy resigned, Deval Patrick is Governor of Massachusetts, Saddam’s gonna hang, and Jack Palance is dead. Crazy. More to come.

Leaves are falling all around... time I was on my way

2006-10-13T12:24:00.000-04:00

I have been a very bad blogger, but I have a good excuse. On November 4th, I will be setting sail… or boarding a plane… or actually two planes… well, not two planes simultaneously (that would be impossible)… but one plane and then another. The first plane will take me to San Francisco, and the second plane will take me to Auckland, New Zealand. The first flight will be six hours long, and the second flight will be thirteen. My ETA for Auckland is 5:15 AM local time on Monday, November 6th which will feel like 11:15 AM Sunday, November 5th to me, or sometime thereabouts ‘cause the daylight savings time switch will screw me up even more. The toilets will be running backwards, the moon will be upside down, and miles will be called kilometers. I will be leaving the glorious New England autumn behind for the Southern Hemisphere’s early summer.

Why am I subjecting myself to such confusion? I’ll tell you!

(Cue the Alan Menken-style “I Want…” song here)

I have always wanted to study and/or work abroad. My sister Jessi got to spend several months in Germany during her college years, and my sister Gretchen got to study ooids in the Bahamas. Back in my NCSA days, I was accepted to a semester at sea that would have taken me to ten different countries on four continents. I backed out at the last minute since none of my lame-ass film school credits were transferable and there was no way I was going to spend another year in Winston-Salem. Dayna went on the trip. She ate octopus, went on a Safari, and learned how best to use one’s Dong (ask her what that means). Jealousy will drive you mad.

I have been a geography geek even longer than I’ve been a movie geek (1990 Geography Bee Champion of Stapleton Elementary School – look it up!), and that country has more varied landscapes acre for acre than pretty much any other country on Earth. I have an open ended ticket and a yearlong work visa that allows me to take any kind of job I can get. Pretty much every Kiwi I have met has been mellow, funny and welcoming. The whole country seems to be designed with travelers in mind (hostels everywhere). Also, they are making some awesome movies there.

Now, I know some of you are going to make fun of me here. Yes, I saw each of the “Lord of the Rings” movies four times on the big screen (some thirty-eight hours of movie viewing). It is true that I own all three extended editions of the movies on DVD. And the original releases. And the books. And the soundtrack CDs. Yes, I was once mistaken for Sean Astin on a movie set (just to clarify, they asked if I was Rudy, not Sam). Some of you will accuse me of being a dork who wants to go live with the Hobbits. That is simply not the case. What I really want to do is go to the other side of the fucking world while I am still young and free enough to enjoy the experience to its fullest. Hobbits don’t go bungee jumping, jet boating, surfing, or scuba diving. They don’t hook up with sexy Norwegian babes in their hostel’s hot tub. I emphatically deny having any intention to go live with the Hobbits. Hobbits don’t exist. And if they did, I’d rather live the Elves anyway.

The last several weeks have been spent readying myself for the trip – renewing my passport, giving notice at work, getting letters of recommendation, etc. In spite of our love of travel and fresh air, we Morans are not to the wilderness born. We like roofs and beds. Hostel hopping will be a new experience for me. Since I have never lived out of a backpack before, I made a trip to the LL Bean store to get a bunch of travel crap. In my naïveté, I somehow let the creepy sales guy convince me that I needed to spend $39.50 on a headlamp. He assured me that a traditional flashlight would be entirely too cumbersome, and that I would be much better off having a blinding beam emanating from my forehead. If I am to succeed in a foreign land, I need to be less trusting of strangers.

I still have to get rid of my car and see “The Departed” before I go. More updates will come.

Burn, Hollywood, Burn

2006-08-23T14:21:00.000-04:00

Much like the Red Sox, Hollywood is shitting the bed. Here’s the proof:

- Mel Gibson, Robin Williams, and the dude from that band Keane that I don’t listen to are all in rehab. Apparently, Mel doesn’t like Jews very much, either. Shocker.

- Haley Joel Osment has officially entered Act II in the Life of the Hollywood Child Star. Let’s all hope Act III is more Drew Barrymore than Danny Bonaduce.

- Tom Cruise has been dumped by Paramount Pictures and supposedly has a mutant baby somewhere. I don’t care.

- Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston might be engaged. I cannot fully express how much I don’t care about this. Why do people give a shit about this?

- Kate Hudson realized that even though we’ve never met - and I haven’t seen any of the crappy movies she’s made since “Almost Famous” - that she and I were meant to be together and dumped Chris Robinson. Unlike Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston, this is actually important. It really is best for everyone. Her movies and his music were way better before they met. Rumor has it that Kate and Owen Wilson were messing around. Purely transitional hijinks, I say. Two people that blond can’t mate. I think the universe would implode. Call whenever, Katie Darlin’. It’s our time.

- Speaking of blonds, retarded people everywhere are freaking out that Daniel Craig, the new James Bond, has blond hair. What they should be freaking out about is the fact that unlike every Bond movie since “Goldeneye,” “Casino Royale” looks like it might actually be good. Idiots.

- The new “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie is still making gargantuan amounts of money. I’m pretty sure that it also set a new record for the amount of tentacles featured in a movie. Seriously, I don’t think there’s a single shot in the whole flick without a tentacle in it. Jerry Bruckheimer used to pack his movies full of insanely good-looking people, cool cars, and Kenny Loggins songs. No more. Bruckheimer has entered his Tentacle Period.

- Every woman in America has seen, and loved, “The Devil Wears Prada.” Don’t care. Won’t see it.

- Steven Soderbergh says that “Ocean’s Thirteen” will be the final chapter in the Ocean’s Trilogy. God is crying.

- Bruno Kirby is dead. I am truly kind of bummed about this. He was a good actor.

- “Lady in the Water” tanked (ha ha ha) and there’s a whole book detailing how arrogant and delusional M. Night Shyamalan is.

- Worst of all, “Rocky Balboa” opens in December. Sylvester Stallone writes, directs, and stars in this fucking movie. In the trailer, we learn that a computer simulation estimates that, in his prime, Rocky could beat the current number one boxer. Guess what happens next! The voiceover calls this movie “The Greatest Underdog Story of Our Time.” No, Sly. It is not. The first Rocky movie came out THIRTY GODDAMN YEARS AGO!!! Gerald Ford was president! 8 Track tapes were the hot technology! Hip Hop didn’t exist! Nor did I! THAT IS NOT “OUR TIME!!!” I truly hope that Harrison Ford is watching the outcome of this movie closely. Why? Because for years now, we’ve heard that a new “Indiana Jones” movie might get made. And ya know what? I don’t want it to happen. I don’t want it to happen because I love the “Indiana Jones” movies. They are three of the best damn movies ever made, and I don’t want a big steaming pile of shit movie to ruin my affection for them (Ahem, paging executive producer and co-creator George Lucas!). Harrison Ford is sixty-four years old. Most of his movies lately have been crap, but I feel confident that he, unlike Sly, could make an awesome comeback movie without milking a quarter-century-old franchise. I want my Indy to be kickass and cool – not old, tired and grumpy. And I just want Rocky to be gone.

Hollywood is in the crapper. Here’s how to fix it:

- No sequels for at least 10 years.

- No TV adaptations.

- No more CGI animated comedies about funny animals.

- Six figure salary cap for all actors, directors and producers. You get rich off residuals.

- Sylvester Stallone, Tom Cruise, Kevin Costner, John Travolta, Vin Diesel, and Mel Gibson all need to be shipped off to a private island where they can’t annoy anyone anymore.

- Laws against paparazzi & celebrity magazines. They ruin everything.

- New movie stars. The sooner, the better.

- More tentacles.

- Put me in charge.

Shameless Self-Promotion

2006-08-02T16:02:00.001-04:00

Hey, kids. I encourage all of you to peruse Troy's Bucket, a veritable treasure trove of pop culture musings for which I have written my first entry.

Blog on, my brothers. Blog on.

Insert Clever Editing-Related Title

2006-07-14T16:20:00.000-04:00

It’s been a while…

When I haven’t been working, I’ve been visiting my niece & nephew. They’re cute, I don’t have to clean up their poop, and they’re conveniently located near the beach. I am way behind on my movie going and renting. Superman, X-Men, Pirates of the Caribbean, Cars, and Nacho Libre all remain unseen.

I did finally get around to renting City of God. It’s the story of kids growing up in street gangs near Rio de Janeiro, and is pretty amazingly shot and edited. A couple of years ago, I went to an editing seminar at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. All five of the editors nominated for an Oscar that year were there to show off a scene from their movies and discuss The Craft of Editing. It was a fascinating and entertaining program, which surprised me because I think discussing The Craft of Editing is pretty boring and aimless. Unless you have seen every frame of footage shot for a movie, you really have no idea how well a movie is cut, but anyway… City of God’s editor, Daniel Rezende was there, along with William Goldenberg for Seabiscuit, Lee Smith for Master and Commander, Jamie Selkirk for The Return of the King and His Editorial Majesty Walter Murch for Cold Mountain.

The place was packed. There were the usual nerdy discussions about Avid vs. Final Cut Pro and the digital revolution. Everyone knew that Jamie Selkirk was going to win the Oscar, so there wasn’t any debate about awards. I’d wager that half of those in attendance were film students who had just read “In the Blink of an Eye” by Walter Murch and wanted to see their new messiah in person. For those of you who don’t know, Mr. Murch cut picture and sound for a few great movies – most of which came out a couple of decades ago – and wrote the aforementioned book which every editing student at every film school is forced to read. Mr. Murch is a talented and articulate guy, and was smart enough to put his theories about editing down on paper to be devoured by movie geeks everywhere. It’s a good book, and is really the only book on the subject. Thusly, he is revered like a god in the post-production world. At the seminar, he was clearly relishing his professorial status, delighting in the spotlight. Then something interesting happened…

Enter Rezende.

Daniel Rezende looked about sixteen years old. He spoke softly with a thick Brazilian accent and was visibly intimidated by his surroundings and fellow nominees. He looked totally out of place. Then they showed the opening sequence of City of God. It was astounding. It is an amazingly constructed scene of gang members chasing a chicken through Rio’s slums. There are shots you’ve never seen before cut together with stunning energy and originality. It was the most exiting piece of action movie editing anyone in the room had seen in years. When the clip was over there was thunderous applause. Rezende was flooded with praise and questions. He did very well considering his limited English, but he was a bit stunned by the adulation. The film students had a new hero - one only a few years older than themselves. Walter Murch may have packed the house, but Daniel Rezende emerged as the star.

I had some sympathy for the other editors on stage. They had all done some terrific work. Jamie Selkirk showed the Shelob scene from Return of the King, was unpretentious and somewhat dismissive of all the film theory talk. You got the sense that he’d rather be off cutting King Kong than yapping it up in Hollywood. Lee Smith was funny and seemed like he’d be a good guy to work for. William Goldenberg gave off an I’m-just-happy-to-be-here vibe. It was like that scene in Amadeus where Mozart takes Salieri’s ho-hum march of welcome, plays around with it on the harpsichord and turns it into a vastly more entertaining piece. Rezende didn’t have Mozart’s arrogance or delight in his own talents, but you got the feeling that the older editors went home thinking “Who is this little punk and how did he get so good?”

Anyway, it was one of my more interesting days in L.A.

On a completely unrelated note, I encourage all of you to watch It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia on FX. Imagine an episode of Seinfeld as directed by Kevin Smith and you’ll get an idea of the show’s tone. It’s hilarious and you all should watch it. It's on right after Rescue Me, which you should also be watching.

That is all.

Eye of the Tiger

2006-06-22T13:54:00.000-04:00

I have a nephew! My sister gave birth to the first male in my immediate family since the late 1970s. Not that I wouldn’t have been thrilled with the arrival of another beautiful, healthy niece… but c’mon! My dad and I have been outnumbered for more than a quarter century. At last, Devlin Moran Towers has arrived to balance out the Estrogen Extravaganza of the last three decades! We shall eat bacon double cheeseburgers! Leave the toilet seat up! Scratch ourselves with impunity! Gold Bond Medicated Powder will be proudly displayed next to the soap dish! ROOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAARRRRR!!! Belch! Fart!

All this reminds me how female-dominated my house was as a child. Not that my two awesome big sisters were Super Girly Girls. They weren’t. But there were plenty of things that typified 1980s American boyhood that just didn’t make their way into our house, and if they did, they weren’t welcomed with much enthusiasm. To this day, I have never seen a Rocky or Rambo movie in its entirety. They were forbidden in my house for being too violent. My room overflowed with Star Wars and Transformer action figures, but I don’t recall owning any G.I. Joe paraphernalia – too militaristic. It’s okay if robots blow each other up, but not people.

The same philosophy carried over into sports. Consider my experience with hockey. I know a lot of people reading this grew up in the South or California, where no one gives a crap about hockey. And what is hockey, really? Hockey is a game in which two teams of guys don heavy padding, strap on shoes with knives on the bottom, slide around on a surface as hard as cement, and use wooden sticks to knock a puck into a net. Slamming into your fellow players is mandatory. Fighting is not only acceptable, but encouraged. And it’s all done in the freezing cold. Ballsy.

In Massachusetts, hockey is a pretty big deal. My neighborhood was no exception. There was a pond in my backyard that froze over in the winter, and all the local kids went there to play. Of course, I wanted to be one of the cool kids, so I wanted to play, too. Problem: I was a small kid with bad eyesight who was taught that it wasn’t nice to slam into people. My best friend, Justin, didn’t have those difficulties. He was a little scrawny, but it didn’t matter. He had boundless energy and loved everything about hockey, especially the brutality. His house was the antithesis of mine. He had a brother and no sisters. His mom was a housewife and his dad was a firefighter and Vietnam vet. The three dominating odors of their house were sweat, smoke, and aerosol deodorant. It wasn’t long before I followed Justin to the local Pee Wee team.

Somewhere in my house, there are pictures of me on the way to my first practice. My mother, who grew up without any brothers who might have taught her better about the humiliations that boys go through, dressed me as she saw fit. In addition to the baffling pads and helmet, she made me put on three sweaters, two pairs of snow pants, a winter jacket, hand-knit mittens, and worst of all, double-bladed skates (hockey’s equivalent of the Short Bus). I might as well have worn a shirt emblazoned with the word “LOSER” writ in neon. The coaches must have thought my parents were either crazy or retarded.

My hockey career didn’t last. I could skate but couldn’t stop without crashing into the boards. I have a hunch that my parents were secretly happy about it. Mom probably thought that I would get horribly injured or grow up to be a toothless thug. Dad probably figured out that hockey is one of the most expensive sports one can participate in, and waited patiently for my interest to wane. It did.

I tried other sports - although Mom made it clear that boxing and football were barbaric and out of the question. I was too short for basketball and soccer was for Freedom Haters. My most vivid memory of Little League baseball was making a diving catch in left field on a 100° day when my ungloved hand landed in a pile of dog shit. I was pretty good at gymnastics. The rings, high bar, and vault were lots of fun. But who, for the love of all that is Holy, invented the pommel horse? Who sat down and designed a big log with wooden handles on top of it upon which a guy is supposed to support himself with his hands whilst swinging his legs around wildly, praying to God that he doesn’t slip and destroy his genitals? Anyway, I could never land a handspring, so I quit gymnastics, too.

I settled on swimming. My dad and his brothers were swimmers, so it was in the blood. And my mom was no doubt pleased that the worst injury I would suffer (short of drowning) would be a groin pull. Swim meets were fun, but practices were incredibly monotonous. My best event was breaststroke (huh-huh, huh-huh), and I probably would have been a captain if I didn’t quit my junior year out of sheer boredom. Doing shows, singing stupid songs, and obsessing about movies were much easier - and there were more chicks around.

Anyway, being a boy is tough. I hope my nephew has an easier time of it than I did. Over the last few decades, America has been so focused on redefining what girls should and should not be taught that boys have been left in the dark in a lot of ways. I hope that changes, and I hope that I can help my nephew out when he needs it. He already has two great parents, a fantastic big sister, and gets to grow up on Cape Cod, so he’s off to a good start. Someone has to teach him to belch the alphabet, however. I think I can do that.

Billion Dollar Babies

2006-06-05T18:55:00.000-04:00

I have been neglecting my blog lately. Life has been full. Golf season is officially on at the club, and those dudes love to drink. Also, my sister is about to give birth to her second child. I wasn't around for the birth of her first, so this should be interesting. Hopefully, the new kid will be as cool as his or her older sister, pictured above with Alice Cooper when he made an appearance at my sister's radio station.

With the little time I have had for myself, I've seen a few movies. "The DaVinci Code" was pretty good, although I think it completely wasted Tom Hanks. Seriously, I don't think he's ever played a less interesting character. The best thing about the movie was Ian McKellen, who could read a phone book and make it sound intriguing. I only read the first hundred pages of the book, but I correctly guessed who Audrey Tautou's character really was about 1/3 of the way in. Still, it was entertaining in a hokey way. I think Opie missed a golden comedic opportunity when Tom & Audrey pulled up to the intercom at McKellen's chateau. Gandalf asks them three questions before he lets them pass. They really should have referenced the Bridge of Death scene from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" here:

MAGNETO: What is your name?

FORREST GUMP: Robert Langdon, Professor of Symbology at Harvard University.

MAGNETO: What is your quest?

FORREST GUMP: To seek the Holy Grail.

MAGNETO: What is the capital of Assyria?

FORREST GUMP: I don't know that!

(FORREST AND AMELIE ARE FLUNG INTO THE GORGE OF ETERNAL PERIL)

I also caught "Art School Confidential." It started out really well. I recognized many of the characters from my days at NCSA. If it had just been a quirky ensemble comedy, it could have been great. Sadly, it all goes to Hell. The movie turns nihilistic and hugely depressing, and I just wanted it to end.

The only other summer flick I'm really looking forward to is "Nacho Libre." If that turns out to be crap, well... that would just suck.

Thunder From Down Under

2006-05-19T01:31:00.000-04:00

Last night I had a dream that Naomi Watts was my girlfriend. The dream was very PG-13, but it was very nice.

Oh, The Humanities!

2006-05-15T16:49:00.000-04:00

I took a lot of crap courses during my senior year of high school. During the previous year, I did the hard-core academic stuff that would look good on my college applications (two math classes for fuck’s sake!). Knowing full well that my destiny lay in the world of filmmaking, a field in which academic achievement isn’t nearly as valued as is the ability to spin quality-sounding bullshit, I chose the appropriate courses to further my aspirations. Instead of Calculus, I took Problem Solving (a full semester of impractical brain teasers). In place of Honors Biology, I opted for Oceanography (guaranteed monthly field trips!) and Anatomy (when I actually showed up, we spent the entire time eviscerating fetal pigs and cheating on tests). But there was one class that truly stood ahead of the pack – a class that has stuck in my mind, shaped my life in innumerable ways, and has come back to haunt me. That class was Humanities with Miss Soave.

As defined by my computer’s dictionary, Humanities is the liberal arts as subjects of study, as opposed to the sciences. That’s a pretty broad definition. The class itself could have been called An Introduction to Beatnikery or Blue State Attitudes and Aesthetics 101. We studied Jazz, wrote “music-inspired” essays, analyzed Robert Mapplethorpe’s tamer photographs, watched clips from “The Breakfast Club,” and learned to Samba with our illegal Brazilian classmates. We also went on two field trips that I’m pretty sure put us on NSA watch lists for future communists and NEA contributors - one was to an exhibit of Herb Ritts’ Uber-gay portraits of naked dudes holding tires, and the other was an all-day visit to Harvard Square in all of its druggy, intellectual splendor.

Miss Soave was sexy in a nerdy/hippyish way - an attractive, female version of Mr. Van Driessen from “Beavis and Butthead.” I am guessing that she was only about 28 at the time. She made great pains to be the cool young teacher. On our first day, she let us know that we’d all have “a really rockin’ year” and that she didn’t want to hear any “dissing of anyone in this classroom.” Her grading system was awesome. I could have vomited on a piece of canvas, explained that it was a metaphor for fascist oppression, and gotten an A for it. Dayna somehow got a score of 120 on a paper she wrote contrasting the book and movie versions of John Grisham’s “A Time To Kill.” Seriously, 120 points! I didn’t know that grades like that even existed.

Near the end of the school year, Miss Soave had us write a letter to ourselves in ten years. In it, we were supposed to write our dreams and aspirations for where we would be in a decade. She assured us that she would mail them out to us at the appropriate time. I received mine in the mail a few days ago. She mailed these letters out a year early, perhaps so that her former students could take that extra year to accomplish any unrealized adolescent dreams. Here is the abridged version of my letter:

May 13, 1997

Dear Me (what are those things coming out of her nose?), (a cheeky “Spaceballs” reference)

In ten years I will hopefully be working on a movie set somewhere, filming what will become a huge worldwide box-office success. I will probably be engaged, if not married. I will NOT be married to Dayna Pell. Ms. McPherson will be watching me become successful and she will be eternally bitter. I will be a perfect physical specimen, and might have a Southern accent.

At this time, a #3 at McDonald’s costs $3.77. A gallon of gas is about $1.60. A movie ticket costs $7.25, but I get in for free.

Much Love,
Mike

So, how am I stacking up? I have worked on several movie sets. None of them have become huge worldwide box-office successes, as of yet. I would be as shocked as anyone if I become engaged or married in the next 12 months. For those of you who don’t know her, Dayna Pell has been my close friend and partner-in-snarkiness since the eighth grade. Many of our high school friends speculated that the two of us would eventually hook up. It will never happen. We are way more Jerry & Elaine than Harry & Sally. You can read her take on this blast-from-the-past letter by clicking here. Ms. McPherson was my evil drama club advisor who was making life miserable for all of my friends at the time. To this day, I would relish the opportunity to make her seethe with envy at my successes. I am far from a perfect physical specimen, but hey, I’ve made some progress since my college days. The Southern accent thing was a reference to the fact that I would soon be leaving my native New England for four years in North Carolina. The accent didn’t stick. For the sake of my aforementioned physique, I wish that I didn’t know how much a McDonald’s #3 cost. I weep for the gas prices of yesteryear. And I don’t get into movies for free anymore (although, I still use my NCSA Student ID to save a couple of bucks).

It is pretty obvious that I haven’t changed a whole lot since high school. Having observed human nature as a camp counselor, lifeguard and bartender, I don’t think that most people do. I was in Harvard Square a few weeks ago on a perfect sunny day. I perused foreign magazines at the world-famous newsstand, dodged Christian and Scientology missionaries, was never far from Smart People discussing Important Subjects, or Stoned People discussing Stoned Subjects. I couldn’t help but think about the day I spent there at the age of eighteen, and the class that brought me there. As goofy as that class was, I can remember it in greater detail than virtually any other class I took in four years of high school. It was a godsend during a particularly shitty year in my life. I actually got to discuss, write, and joke about things that I actually found interesting.

Goodnight, Miss Soave, wherever you are…

MUM #1: Empire of the Sun

2006-05-01T16:30:00.000-04:00

Here’s the first in a series I am calling Mike’s Underappreciated Movies. MUM #1 is Steven Spielberg’s most underrated directorial effort, Empire of the Sun. I remember seeing it in the theater when I was about eight years old, and it became one of those movies that was always in my house even if none of my friends had ever seen it.

In a nutshell, it is the story of a spoiled English boy named Jim (played by a 12 year-old Christian Bale) living in China with his wealthy parents at the outbreak of World War II. When the Japanese invade Shanghai, Jim is separated from his family. He lives on the streets, befriends some shady Americans (John Malkovich and Joe Pantoliano), and ends up in a prison camp next to a Japanese airfield for the duration of the war.

If all that sounds pretty depressing, it is, but Spielberg goes through great pains to show these events as a kid would see them – horrific and sad, to be sure, but with a child’s sense of excitement, beauty and even humor. Empire of the Sun contains many of Spielberg’s recurring themes: the Lost Boy, the distant father, flight, and a World War II setting. You can see him warming up for later projects. The scenes on the streets of Shanghai and the prison camp are echoed in “Schindler’s List.” The terrifying invasion sequences (especially those in the car) and images of rivers choked with corpses would resurface in “War of the Worlds.” One could argue that this movie has several parallels to the Spielberg-produced “An American Tail”, which was released around the same time.

What sets this flick apart are the settings, style, and performances. If there’s another movie out there about rich Brits in China during World War II, I haven’t seen it. In fact, how often do we get World War II movies with an Asian view (even if it’s filtered through American and English eyes)? Sad to say, I have very little knowledge of what the Chinese went through during the war. Based on this movie, I would like to know more. Also, why haven’t we seen more Japanese films about the era? God knows they have some stories to tell and some fantastic filmmakers who are up to the challenge, but I digress. The film’s contrast between the lifestyles of the wealthy Europeans and the impoverished Chinese is very striking. One early shot nails this point home brilliantly: Jim’s family and friends are on their way to an opulent costume party just before the invasion. To get there, they must be driven through the crowded streets of Shanghai in their expensive cars. One of the rich women is made up to look like Marie Antoinette. She stares out of her car’s window in a daze at hundreds of desperate peasants. She feels safe in her fancy car, but is completely surrounded. The revolution is coming, along with the guillotine.

Another brilliant but strange sequence comes late in the film. The British and Americans have been uprooted from their prison camp and have migrated across the plains to an abandoned stadium. The stadium has been filled with chandeliers, grand pianos, and fine furnishings that were looted from the Westerners’ homes after the invasion. There is very little dialogue, and the way cinematographer Allen Daviau captures the surreal setting with gorgeous early-morning light is magical and creepy all at once.

In terms of spectacle, Spielberg does not disappoint. On that basis, this is probably the closest he has ever come to emulating his idol, David Lean. Since this movie was made in the mid-1980’s you can be sure that the thousands of people fleeing tanks and crossing vast wastelands are not digital extras. Many of those 1940s planes flying past the airfield in perfect synch with practical explosions are quite real. Whatever miniatures were used are impossible to spot.

If for nothing else, rent this movie to see Christian Bale. I can’t think of another performance by a child that covers such a breadth of emotional and physical demands. He starts off as an effete brat that you want to slap (thankfully, his Chinese nanny does that for us), loses his parents, nearly starves on the streets of a war-torn city, becomes a gutsy, peace-keeping busybody in a refugee camp, crawls through mud, has a nervous breakdown, is betrayed by a friend, and somehow emerges as a peculiar but likeable kid. Bale is in nearly every scene, is always convincing, and there is never a split second of Child Actor Cuteness. Put this flick next to “American Psycho” and “Batman Begins” and you will see that this guy has tremendous range, and should be around for a very long time.

The movie isn’t perfect. John Williams’ music is absolutely gorgeous, but a bit overbearing. I wish I knew more about Miranda Richardson’s character. The kamikaze pilots saluting Jim is a beautiful image but is kinda cheesy. These are minor quibbles. There’s a lot of great stuff in this flick, and you should definitely check it out.

Oh, yeah. Ben Stiller has a couple of lines in it, too.

Under the Table and Dreaming

2006-04-21T11:53:00.000-04:00

Last night I had a strange dream. I hope that my loyal readers can interpret the symbols within said dream and tell me which psychiatric drug I will no doubt be prescribed. In the dream, my mother was giving me a lift home from some unknown place. We were both hungry, so we stopped at the McDonald's drivethru. At window #1, we placed our orders and paid the cashier. At window #2, a weary looking woman gave us our food and asked if we wanted ketchup. She looked familiar to both of us, and then we realized who she was - none other than Claire Huxtable herself, Phylicia Rashad. She had dyed her hair orange, and there were some lines under her eyes, but there was no mistaking it - this was Phylicia Rashad in the flesh, slinging out Quarter Pounders to the masses. My mom got all excited and told her how much she loved the Cosby Show. Phylicia thanked my mom and told her how tough things had gotten for her since her second show with Bill had been cancelled. She even pleaded with us to let her know if we knew of any acting gigs that might be coming up. My mom promised that she would. We all parted amicably, and I ate my fries.

What triggered this dream? Maybe it was because I caught the last ten minutes of a Cosby Show rerun yesterday afternoon. It was the one where Vanessa had snuck out with her boyfriend and Cliff used two apples to illustrate how close the two of them had gotten in the car. It wasn't a Claire-driven episode, so I don't know why it was Phylicia Rashad that got stuck in my subconscious. In real life, Ms. Rashad has gone on to a very successful career in theater. She even won a Tony a couple of years back. I'm guessing that the royalties from her 80s heyday are keeping her and her kids fat, happy and educated. Unless she was doing research for an upcoming role as a fast food worker with orange hair, there would be no sane reason for her to be working at McDonald's. Why did my twisted mind concoct such an image? What is it about middle-aged black women that has captured my imagination so much of late? Enlighten me, please, someone.

Are You Hungry?!

2006-04-17T22:00:00.000-04:00

There are some things that I find oddly fascinating - things like maps, conservative Christian movie reviews, and those mini-roller coasters for marbles that you can buy at museum gift shops. They do not so much inspire affection or joy as do they stimulate regions of my brain that don’t normally get utilized. Once these things enter my line of sight, any and all neurons that attempt to distract me are soundly overpowered. One of the stimulants of this brainy arousal is a person – a very special person with true star quality that defies conventional standards of attractiveness. Of course, I am referring to the Honey Bunches of Oats Lady.

You know her. She’s everywhere (except Google Images). She is the middle-aged black woman wearing a shower cap and protective goggles whom Post Cereals has chosen to be the face, voice, and spirit of Honey Bunches of Oats in their national commercials. I doubt that many would call her beautiful. I must confess that I don’t find anything sexy about her. Indeed, there is something psychotic in her folksy cackle. But damn it all to Hell, when she pops out from behind a doorway excitedly screeching “Are You Hungry?????!!!!??” I cannot turn away. Yes, Honey Bunches of Oats Lady, I am hungry – hungry for knowledge!

Who is this woman? Why does she love Honey Bunches of Oats so much? What possesses her to promote said bunches to apparent strangers with such ferocity? Does she work at the Honey Bunches of Oats Factory? Is that why she wears that shower cap that seems like one small step up from Aunt Jemima’s old school doo rag? Are she and the Burger King lovers? Who is the actress who so fully embodies this character? Was there a large search put out seeking enthusiastic, heavyset, mildly deranged yet pleasant black ladies who don’t mind being portrayed in a somewhat subservient light? Is she Pepsi to the Pine Sol Lady’s Coke? Is it actually Halle Berry packing on the pounds and prosthetics to stretch herself as a performer?

Why do you haunt my dreams, Honey Bunches of Oats Lady? I mean, when you say that a spoonful of Honey Bunches of Oats is “like a mouthful o’ joy,” adding about four extras syllables to the word “joy,” I really believe you! No breakfast cereal has ever made me feel that way, but you make me suspect that this particular cereal might just do the trick. You, Honey Bunches of Oats Lady, could sell refrigerators to Eskimos. You are a superstar!

Royale With Cheese

2006-04-04T13:11:00.000-04:00

Ah, Europe - the continent from which I got most of my genetic material! I’ve only been there once. At the age of 18, I went to Russia for a couple of weeks to sing a bunch of goofy songs with my classmates as part of a cultural exchange program. We sang in a bunch of schools and went on endless tours of magnificent palaces and cathedrals. We were also treated to the leftovers of the Soviet Bloc – gargantuan apartment complexes that were crumbling to the ground, shantytowns with thousands of people living in shacks the size of my bathroom, and food so old, terrible, and ridden with parasites that I prayed for death on my toilet. It was an amazing experience, but I returned home extremely thankful that I was American.

Europe puts out a lot of movies. A lot of them are awesome, and a lot of them are mind-bogglingly pretentious, bizarre, and annoying. Our Euro brethren seem more concerned with creating Art with a capital “A” than entertaining people, and I’m cool with that. Variety is the spice of life. Something I find interesting are the crowd-pleasers that are made by Europeans for Europeans. It’s in those movies where you begin to see the subtle differences between cultures, because everyone likes to laugh, but we laugh at different things.

For instance, there is a particular kind of British comedy that has flourished over the last decade. All the films within this genre contain variations on certain themes:

1) An economically depressed industrial village
2) Colorful villagers who need money fast
3) A quirky taboo being experimented with to bring prosperity back to the village
4) Pasty naked Brits who have no business being photographed in such a state

Classics of the genre include “The Full Monty,” “Calender Girls,” “Billy Elliot,” and “Waking Ned Devine.” Actually, Ned Devine is set in Ireland, but it was filmed in the UK by an English director so it still counts in my book. All of these movies were made on low budgets and were hugely profitable. Something about naked old people being silly drives the Brits into hysterics. I dunno. They’re kinda funny, but in an old people sort of way. There’s a new entry in this genre entitled “Kinky Boots,” which has more repressed English people raising their spirits, this time with slutty boots and a drag show or something. Your grandma will love it. I will not.

Not to be outdone, the Germans have come up with a crowd-pleasing sub-genre of their own: The Gay German Sports Comedy. I was not aware of this phenomenon until I perused the Apple movie trailer site and came across previews for two new movies. The first has possibly the funniest movie title I have ever seen: “Guys and Balls." Seriously, they named their movie “Guys and Balls!” It’s about a gay soccer team that defeats the odds and teaches us about humanity and all that crap. The American voice-over actor they chose to narrate the trailer had to have been laughing his ass off in the studio. The way he annunciates the title at the end is fucking hilarious. Gay German Sports Comedy #2 is called “Summer Storm” and seems to be about gay rowing teams that defeat the odds and teach us all about humanity and all that crap. Whatever. The Germans have a long way to go before they can teach me much about tolerance, but I guess that these movies are a step in the right direction for them as a people. Although, I am wondering, are there any Straight German Sports Comedies? Is that a contradiction in terms?

Anyway, I think it is fair to say that no American studios would have financed these movies. I also doubt that many Americans will go see them, myself included. When it comes to comedies, we’re currently more amused by the antics of Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, Ben Stiller, Will Ferrell, and Steve Carell… and I like it that way. They all make me chuckle on their good days. I’m not a complete philistine, though. Check out the trailer for “Art School Confidential.” I can’t wait to see this movie. I miss you, NCSA!

I WANT YOU!

2006-03-29T12:55:00.000-05:00

Am I the only one who is really pissed off by the new wave of military recruitment ads? You know the ones I’m talking about – a young guy returns home in full uniform and he and Dear Old Dad have a man-cry moment about how much better he is at handshaking, a fatherless kid of about 18 decides that he can prove his manliness to his mom (WARNING: Oedipal overtones!) by joining the army so he can go to college, etc. Dear God, do these disturb me.

Liberal-leaning art school wuss that I am, I still think this country needs a strong military. I also think that in order to have a strong military you need people who want to be there, like any organization that aims for success. For a lot of people, the military can be a terrific opportunity to get ahead in life. Immediately after 9/11, even I considered it. I was unemployed at the time, unsure of what I wanted to do next, and felt like I was contributing nothing to society when society clearly needed all the help it could get. I have three uncles and a cousin who were in the Navy, so it is in the blood. But then I reminded myself of all the things that I would hate about life in the armed forces: the mind control, the humorlessness, the lack of free will, and the real possibility that I might play a role in killing people. I would have gone crazy. I also realized that there were plenty of other ways to improve the world we live in without enlisting. But hey, that’s just me. A lot of people love that disciplined environment, and I’m glad that they’re out there fighting for us and making something of themselves. Too bad a lot of them are fighting and dying in an unnecessary war that is now three years old, declared by a president who has never given a good reason for its being declared, and now doesn’t seem to care that there’s no end in sight, but I digress.

What angers me about these recruitment ads is how misleading they are. Instead of showing any kind of reality about military life, they show young kids how proud their parents might be if they join the army. No marching, saluting, guns, planes, ships, rockets, or national monuments. Certainly no explosions, screaming civilians, hospitals, or body bags. All we see are ambitious kids having heart-to-heart talks with Mom and/or Dad. I’m guessing that since enlistment rates are at such a low point, the military figured it needed to try a new marketing strategy to loop in kids that normally wouldn’t be interested, which apparently includes the kind of kids who fix radios, like snowboarding, have engineering ambitions, and are incapable of simultaneously shaking hands with Dad while looking him square in the eye. It all reeks of trickery to me, and I hope that those targeted kids see through this line of bullshit. I hope that they take some time and find out exactly what they are in for. If, after doing some investigation and hard thinking, they want to join up, more power to them. I respect that. I just really hope that no one joins up and dies because he saw a piece of melodramatic propaganda from a desperate and dishonest administration.

Let's Dance!

2006-03-23T13:36:00.000-05:00

Back in my high school days, I was quite the drama dork. I was frustrated that in order to get any kind of acting experience, I had perform in the lame-ass 30+ year-old shows that suburban high school drama clubs always do (Anything Goes, Annie, Fiddler on the Roof). They were the kind of shows that didn’t offend anyone and packed the house with Grandmas. As a young, energetic, heterosexual male who liked to go onstage and kick some theatrical ass (granted, there weren’t many of us), something was always missing. I just couldn’t get pumped about Dolly and Mr. Vandergelder getting married, or Tevye and Golde finally packing it up to leave Anatevka. There just wasn’t much I could sink my teeth into. Now I realize what had been eluding me: the twin colossal forces of Kung Fu and Rock & Roll.

According to a recent item on imdb.com, your one-stop shop for journalistic integrity, a new Broadway musical is in the works about martial arts legend Bruce Lee. As is if that aesthetic pairing was not weird enough, the music for the show will be provided by none other than David Bowie! That’s right, kids! The Way Of The Intercepting Fist will be put to glorious song by The White Duke, himself. I envision vast battalions of singing, dancing, kung fu warriors doing battle with Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars in the show-stopping finale “AAAAIIIIIIYYYEEEEEEAAAAHHH!” Wouldn’t it be awesome if Kareem Abdul-Jabbar made an appearance, so that he and whoever’s playing Bruce could duet on “Anything You Can Kick, I Can Kick Better?” I can’t wait for the inevitable Jackie Chan/Iggy Pop follow-up, which I think should be titled “I Gotta Rust for Rife.”

Why weren’t there shows like this in the mid to late 1990s? If only my evil drama club advisor had had the foresight to inject some heavy metal and ass kicking into the shows we were doing! “The Sound of Music” would have totally rocked if Fraulein Maria had traded in her nun guitar for a kick-ass Stratocaster and whipped those little von Trapp bastards into a band of sword-wielding blonde assassins that put an end to Nazi tyranny. That would have been The Balls!

By the way, I haven’t had time to learn Photoshop yet, so those of you who want to see what Bruce Lee would look like in full 1970s Bowie makeup (and who doesn’t?!), please have at the two (crappy) photos posted above. I have a feeling it will be amazing.

Remember, Remember the 5th of November

2006-03-19T22:50:00.000-05:00

I decided to skip out on the parade in Southie today, and instead went to see "V For Vendetta." All I can say is WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT ALL ABOUT? The media has informed me that it has parallels to today's political climate, the Thatcher years in Britain, Nazi Germany, and other totalitarian states. Outside of the political stuff, I spotted references to works in various mediums (Batman, Phantom of the Opera, 1984, Amadeus, Zorro, Triumph of the Will, Joan of Arc, Apocalypse Now, and others). I'd warn you about spoilers, but since every commercial and trailer shows you what happens at the end of the movie, why bother? The plot was muddled and confusing. I never really understood why Natalie Portman was so bound to this guy and what exactly he meant to her. The super duper IMAX theater I saw it in comes equipped with Tempurpedic chairs that have subwoofers wired into the seats, so that every time something loud happened on screen my balls were jiggled accordingly. When Parliament blew up, I experienced something I've never come across in a movie theater - I was kind of horrified by the sight of a building that houses one of the world's great democracies exploding spectacularly to the delight of the onscreen crowd, and at the same time Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture and stupendous sound effects were being pumped into to my undercarriage with such force that I damn near creamed my pants. I walked out of the movie feeling confused and a little violated. Maybe some of my faithful readers could enlighten me as to what it all meant, and calm me down.

They can't cancel us. We're Public Access.

2006-03-18T11:41:00.000-05:00

St. Paddy's Day at the club was lame, although the old ladies (one of my key demographics) loved my scally cap. There was no way I was actually going to don one of those stupid bright green plastic derbies that fake Irish people wear on St. Paddy's. I'm authentic, you bleedin' tossers!

Instead of going out to party after work, I got myself a pizza and turned on the local public access cable channel. Pathetic, you say? A little, but there's something kind of fascinating and train-wreckish about it. There are some innocuous shows where my neighbors talk about cat grooming, and another one where incredibly old people talk about how much the town has changed since 1872 and how the giant dome that topped the Jordan Marsh at Shoppers' World was one of the great architectural wonders of its time. It's gone now, replaced by an Olive Garden. Who needs a dome when you can have neverending breadsticks?

Sandwiched between shows like this are a couple of interesting programs. One is a broadcasting of video production projects from my high school. There was no honest-to-Allah video production class when I was there a mere nine years ago. These kids are so damn lucky. They have real equipment and giant plasma screens for their editing! Most of their projects are music videos. I'm actually kind of impressed that most of them pick halfway decent music. I was shocked that a kid born in 1990 would be compelled to make a video for Bohemian Rhapsody rather than something by Fall Out Boy or some other crappy current band. After watching a few of these videos, certain motifs began to emerge:

1) A good 75% of these videos feature the hero of the piece being awakened from a blissful sleep by an alarm clock

2) Teenagers spend a lot of time running down hallways (these are the AV geeks, so there's no athleticism to their running)

3) Teen girls (especially the AV geek ones) feel a lot of pressure to be pretty, when sadly, they're not

4) Heart wipes and pixelated dissolves are the editorial transitions of choice for the iPod Generation

5) Skater kids think anything they do that is captured on video is hilarious, particluarly when they're not wearing shirts

In addition to the high school video stuff, there is a whole series featuring this guy in my town who is determined to rid Framingham of those awful illegal immigrants (this isn't an actual picture of him, but you get the idea). Over the last couple of decades, thousands of Brazilians have moved to my town. I'm sure that some are illegal, and some are not. Naturally, this scares the shit out of old white people who have nothing else to do but complain. Framingham is actually nicer than it was 10 or 15 years ago, so I don't really see the problem. If your beloved New England hometown is going to be "overrun" by illegal immigrants, you could do a lot worse than the good folks from Brazil. Brazilian food is awesome, the chicks are hot, they know how to party, and our soccer team will be kicking some major ass. But anyway, this dude with his lame ass show has made it his mission in life to keep these people out of his town. He's so crazy, he actually took a video crew and some fat dude with a rifle to the Mexican border in Arizona to show how serious he is. I have no idea how two pasty-ass middle-aged dudes with guns in the Arizona desert are supposed to keep us Framinghamians (some 3,000 miles away) safe from illegal Brazilians, but whatever. They get an "A" for effort, and a big fat "F" for geography.

I’m Alriiiiiiiight! Ain’t nobody worried ‘bout me!

2006-03-16T14:18:00.000-05:00

Thursday, March 16, 2006 – St. Paddy’s Eve

Since November, I have been bartending at a country club. The average club member is about 55 years old, plays golf, flies down to Florida on a regular basis, and probably voted for Bush - both times - even though some have come to regret it. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m probably not the ideal bartender for such a setting. A good barkeep should be able to chitchat about topics that his or her clientele give a crap about. I just keep the Dewar’s and Bud Light flowing, smile a lot, and hope for the best. I try, but it is damn near impossible for me to shoot the shit about golf, or pretty much any professional sports topic outside of the Red Sox - and even that’s a stretch this early in the Spring. Don’t get me wrong - I have nothing against golf. In the summer of 1999, I played nine holes as a goof and had a good time doing it. But to fork over several thousands of dollars each year to whack a ball across a field into a tiny hole 18 times is just something I have no interest in doing. If there was a country club for movie, music, and comedy fanatics… now that would be something. I would dazzle the patrons with my encyclopedic knowledge and rake in tips like the hottest stripper at Scores.

Tomorrow night, there is a St. Patrick’s Day party at the club, which I have to work. Kinda sucks, ‘cause St. Paddy’s Day in Boston totally rocks, and I’ve never been able to really enjoy it, either because I was underage or out of town. I should be able to swing over to Southie on Sunday for the parade. I went there last year and had a blast. It made me want to be a fireman for a day. When the firefighters march down the street, the women of Southie go absolutely insane. Many of them drape banners from their windows emblazoned with “Men In Uniform Drink For Free.” Lucky bastards. If only assistant editor/bartenders were invited into anonymous women’s homes for free drinks and good times! Oh wait, firefighters run into burning buildings and save thousands of lives every day, and I don’t, so I guess they do deserve it, and I don’t. Maybe I could get a job on “Rescue Me” where I could digitize footage of actors pretending to be firefighters running into burning buildings to save people’s lives. It’s sort of related. I bet then I could weasel my way into some residual safety worker adulation. I was a lifeguard for a while, and my grandfather was a volunteer fireman back in the day, so it’s not totally preposterous – just 99.9%. Hey, even a wuss can dream.

Baby, here I am, I'm the man on the scene

2006-03-13T11:51:00.000-05:00

People asked for it, so here it is... my very own blog. I have no idea just yet what I will be writing about. My friends with blogs tend to jibber jabber about movies, comic books, politics, literature, cars, macs, and 20-something cynicism. I may touch on those subjects from time to time. Well, probably not much literature, 'cause people who read too many books end up drinking a lot of Earl Gray tea, develop bad eyesight, and are afraid of social interaction. Here in Moranadu Earl Gray tea sucks, my eyes are pretty well fucked already, and I love a good party. I don't care much for comic books, either... unless they get turned into cool movies. Talking about macs is retarded. Cynicism is pretty pointless. Politics are important. I vote all the time. Talking about politics kind of blows, though.

Once I start doing real posts, my style will emerge. I hope you enjoy the ride.

- Captain Mike of the USS Awesome