On the Road Again… in Three Parts

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!

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!

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'

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!

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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.