slime mold

2009-07-10T22:43:00.001+02:00

The hole in the bridge

2008-11-25T22:14:00.006+01:00

So I had been hired to light the Hawthorne bridge in Portland, Oregon. The crew had cut a hole in the bridge to access the underside. They covered the hole with a grid made out of what seemed to be tubing from old TV antennas. I found a board and cover up the hole as well as I could but I still thought it was unsafe so I went in search of something else. I found myself at an old black man’s house. He took me downstairs to his basement workshop which had a window from which I could see the bridge. He gave me a couple of welding clamps and I found a bigger piece of plywood leaning against the side of the house. I went back to the bridge. I then began to think that the hole was only in my imagination so I climbed up on the bridge's superstructure. I then leapt towards the hole. As I approached the hole suddenly everything became sandy and yellow and the dream ended.

Water Slide

2008-11-20T00:34:00.002+01:00

I am someplace in the United States. Someplace in Rhode Island I think. I am in a car but I seem to have an inflatable raft too. It is a beautiful day. I am in rural area. I see a man in another inflatable raft and he is floating in a muddy creek that is running very fast. I now too am in my raft and going down the creek. The creek cuts though a field of tall green grass. I pass a creek side mom and pop grocery store and come to rest on a muddy bank. I get out and realize I don’t remember where my car is. I seem to abandon the raft and begin walking. The road runs though beautiful rural landscapes. I eventually come to what I guess is tire store and see a short man dressed in a sort of loud suit. I ask him for a ride to my car and explain the raft trip. He tells me it happens all the time and says he will take me but alludes to the fact that he will need to be paid. I pull out a five dollar bill and he tells me he was glad it was five because he would have been disappointed if it were anything less. Somehow my dog Mac appeared. We get in his old station wagon and retrace route I followed to him. I see my car and wake up.

Approaching 10 million views...

2008-05-08T10:27:00.000+02:00

I did a series of spots a few years ago for a Belgian phone company. They were rude, crude and lewd. Really. I loved them. We did 7 in 2 days. I shot them too. The budget was like 18 bucks. So this morning before the family awoke I was checking out a video on youtube that a friend sent me about this overly enthusiastic Korean drummer and for some reason on the little sidebar thing I see a frame from one of these spots. So of course always happy to see my work once again I click on it. OK I watch the spot and then I see that nearly... 10... million... people have seen it. Madre mia... friggin' hell...

So this brings up all sorts of issues... one... how can I get a piece of this... two... if 10 million people are looking at my work why do I feel so lonely... three... wouldn't it have been nice if the agency said good job little man, here's six pack of Belgian beer and we'll see you on the next one baby. See it here.

I am sure I will be yammer on about this in the near future. Like in 15 minutes or so.

Walter Ate a Peanut... the blog...

2008-03-27T10:49:00.000+01:00

To track the joys and disasters of our short film "Walter ate a Peanut" we have set up a site here. It's early on but perhaps breathtakingly interesting to some. Forgive the left over html goo... it's my first day.

Processions

2008-03-19T07:35:00.000+01:00

I have to say that I am surprisingly moved by the processions. Last night we went to three. Basically what happens is that hundreds of people parade through the streets. Some wear the traditional garb of anominity which looks exactly like what the klu klux klan wear... which takes a little getting used to. The women all wear black dresses and mantillas, the traditional tall hair combs and lace veils that we all remember from "Ferdinand the Bull". Then there are the platforms with life size representations of Jesus and Mary which are carried by a bunch of guys who are hidden from view by an ornate cover and a band or two playing sad, funerial marching music that sounds like what you heard in the Godfather.

If you are lucky some will begin to sing an improvised song to the Virgin. The procession stops and all attention turns to the individual who just popped put of the crowd. As incense swirls the wailing rings out through the narrow streets. Tears are shed. Rosaries are clutched a little tighter. The singer makes his or her final plea and then dissappears into the crowd.

Many people touch the platforms as they pass by in hopes for good luck or good health. I have to admit that I did too.

I took lots of pictures. I will put them up on flickr as soon as I can.

Sin part one

2008-03-17T10:23:00.001+01:00

The Andalusians believe one must sin during the week so one can confess one's sins and repent on Sunday. We did it backwards by sinning on Sunday by having a 4 hour lunch of pinchos, carne a la brasa, pan con sal, couscous, chorizo, tomates, galletas americano, vino, cervesa, cafe... We finished up with a jam session featuring Evert and Fernando on Guitar and Pepe y yo on harmonicas... 2 harmonicas? Si!!!

Semana Santa

2008-03-17T10:13:00.002+01:00

We are in Granada for Semana Santa... the week leading up to Easter. Andalusia is really ground zero for the Spanish version of fundamental Catholicism.

It should be an action packed week of holy processions and penitentes, tapas and dolores, sin and salvation. Tune in regularly.

Darrell really is a genius

2008-02-25T19:02:00.001+01:00

So I and Darrell and Kathleen Lopez all met for dinner on Friday night. After a few hundred hours of story telling we finally got down to the business of shooting this sucker. Ultimately its going pretty well. There are some pretty big tasks at hand but we seem to getting though the list. I had this brain storm... I plan on coming back to Portland with the whole family this summer. We should shoot another one of these. We need another script from Darrell. So I tell him about this and he says, "Well, you know, I just can't come up with things that quickly..." I said I understood but if he did have any other ideas he should let me know. We eventually said our goodbyes and I headed back home. Before I went to bed I checked my email, there were 2 news stories from the maestro... Darrell really, really is a genius.

Old freinds

2008-02-25T17:16:00.000+01:00

You know there are just people that you just align with. You can be completely different with radically different lives. But like breathing it's just there and it goes on for life time. It's easy. In our American culture we seem to be closer to our friends than to our families. Its great to just be comfortable with who one is and to be with people who are seemingly happy to have you be who you are.

Shaken...

2008-02-25T15:48:00.000+01:00

How do we fall away from extremely close friends? How do we not know that one of the most special people in one's world has left it. To have missed the smile and laughter of a truly remarkable woman. To have not been there to share the loss, to help, to support. How does it happen?

Workers in Dubai

2008-02-04T17:52:00.000+01:00

Workers in Dubai, originally uploaded by robinwillis.

Finally scanning in the Dubai photos. Here's the first.

Clones again

2008-01-31T07:06:00.001+01:00

I somehow missed the fact that the EU has provisionally approved cloned meat and dairy products before the FDA. Japan's in too. Wait till the Chinese get a hold of this. 6 legged chicken anyone? Read this and this.

Mc Clone part 2

2008-01-25T13:30:00.000+01:00

Read this.

It's a done deal. Hostia.

Mc Clone

2008-01-25T13:23:00.001+01:00

I've been picking this up pereferally through the Spanish papers. OK genetically modified corn was one thing but the FDA is going to approve meat and milk from cloned animals! I should have guessed this was coming. Isn't anybody going to react to this! Next up... Blade Runner. Or Pakistani clones working on the next Dubai. Am I missing something here...

Caras de Sants 2

2008-01-25T12:26:00.001+01:00

Kid in Metro.jpg, originally uploaded by robinwillis.

Finally go the scanner working right. 35MM, TRI X baby. Nikkormat with 35 Nikkor. Here's some hints for those that need them. My pain is your gain. For black and white negs scan 16 bit at 400 DPI or as close as you can. It will give you a great 12 X 17 inch print if you want. I'm using an Epson 3590 with Vuescan software. Get it. And Lightroom rocks. I just wish it wasn't an Adobe product. There, I just gave you info that cost me 3 weeks of dinking around.

Camel Spaghetti

2008-01-22T15:24:00.000+01:00

Well me and my pal and perhaps the world's best doc editor Georgia Wyss have finally put together 7 minutes from the Saharawi footage. The idea now is to set up a film boot camp in the... camps and teach the Saharawi how to direct, shoot and edit their own TV program... to be run on the BBC? Channel 4? Lake View, Nebraska Cable Access. We are trying to talk to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation about bankrolling the project. Ah... dreams for a better world. An entire army of super talented pals have signed on. God bless them all! Take a look. Send cash.

"Walter Ate a Peanut" The Movie

2008-01-22T11:45:00.000+01:00

Folks there is a new project beginning. Remember my friend Darrell's amazing short story, "Walter Ate A Peanut?" Well I am going back to PDX and we are going to turn it into an equally amazing short film. And here's how: Like Chris Marker's famous short "La Jetee" we are going to do it with a still camera and then edit the stills into a movie on my laptop. We are shooting for a budget of around a hundred bucks. Which is less than half the budget of the commercial that brought me to this lonely place at the top of the advertising food chain. Anyway like that commercial we will use next door neighbors exclusively as talent. Hopefully my old friend Kathleen Lopez is going to produce it. Tune in regularly to follow this hot, fast breaking story.

Snowboarding for fun and profit

2008-01-13T23:26:00.001+01:00

We went skiing. OK beeg deal. Well chicos it is for me because I is back! Yes I went up last year once and did OK for a cripple. But this year I wolfed down some cortisone and did some pretty quick runs down the black slope... OK it was a not very black... black slope but I did good enough for me to have major back spasms on the way up on the chair lift over and over again. I am glad the slopes were basically empty because my fellow chairlift travelers would have though I was having a heart attack or a religious experience or both. By the way the place we went to was super fabulous... Vall de Nuria. OK not much to speak of run wise but it so beautiful and the only way in is by rack railroad. The Pyrenees are just too wonderful for words. Little mini mountains with happy shepherds and mountain sheep. And great chow!

Anyway the last half day I rented a snowboard and walked up and slid down the bunny slope until I got it. So I have decided its time to retire the ski equipment and buy a bong and go riding. I don´t know what it is with the big flat stick but it just feels so much better. Look, fundamentally you can only do perfect turns. I have been skiing for 20 years and I think I have been happy with a turn like maybe 3 times. OK I have high standards but the whole Zen, doper aesthetic just seems right right now. The boots are big, floppy and comfortable. The board is easy to lug around and you can use it for a coffee table when you are not riding... man.

The other thing that was enlightening was that I basically had no arthritis related pain... OK thighs on fire and the aforementioned labor pains yeah but no joint stuff. Before my hips were killing me and my right ankle was a little rough and the left knee was reminding who was the boss... but on the slopes I completely forgot about it and the euphoria has kept on going for a week. So as far as I am concerned it`s full tilt action man from now on. I am going up again this week. Just me, my pal Mick's board, my new "on sale" boots and my bong... man.

Dubai Part 2

2007-12-29T15:12:00.002+01:00

So I recently went back to Dubai for a job. OK it was strange but then how it could be anything but. Folks it ain't supposed to be there. It's a modern end game construct built by Pakistani slaves, funded by trafficking in ever increasingly rare SUV and jumbo jet juice and ignored and exploited by a growing list of multinational corporations and celebs. Tiger Woods and Gordon Ramsey are there and Rod Stewart owns the Scottish replica of an earth shaped man made archipelago called not surprisingly called The World. There is the world's largest indoor ski area and the world's tallest building. If you could build your dream world from scratch would it resemble Dubai? Hmmmm... not in a million years...

After the shoot I spent a day taking pictures of buildings and Pakistani and Indian workers and as soon as I get them scanned... yep I be shooting film... I will let you know. Mas tarde.

Luis the Angolan Dietitian

2007-12-28T23:30:00.001+01:00

Luis is from Angola. He has a sense of humor and a very calm presence. I like calm presences a lot these days. So my diet is:

Breakfast

12 almonds

6 dried apricots

Soy Yogurt

A fresh juice of carrots, apples and celery

Fresh Fruit

Lunch

Well it varies but basically its a mixed salad followed by a plato combinado of a protein like eggs, fish, meat or tofu and some sort of vegetable and a non gluten starch like rice or potatoes. Highlights include:

Boiled vegetables with a poached egg

Rice noodles with poached fish

Quinoa (a grain from South America) with a tofu burger

Dinner

Repeat breakfast

I cannot have salt, wheat or dairy products. I am supposed to take a nice walk twice a day and make a tea of this strange weed called Maria Luisa after each meal.

So after the first month I told Luis that he might be a good dietitian but he is a lousy menu designer. I asked him if I could take his basic components and use them to make up my own menu. He agreed so I pretty much divvy up the week between fish, meat and eggs and make sure to have salad, a starch and vegetables at each lunch. Dinner and breakfast are pretty much lost causes so I just toe the line.

The problem is that I live with people and I have always loved to cook and eat. Breakfasts are fine but dinners are a disaster. I eat my fruit and watch Zoe and Benedicte eat real food. And since I am kind of the man in the kitchen the dinners have been getting progressively simpler. Zoe gets a few slices of ham, a couple of tomato slices and rice or potatoes. Benedicte might have salad or just hit the taco chips if she is just up to opening a bag and stuffing her face.

The positive aspects are that my obsession with food is now waining. I am beginning to see it as more of a sustenance delivery system and less of a religious experience. Perspective is good but there was much I loved about being obsessed with chow. I really need to find a balance. The other good thing is that I have found quinoa... OK I 'm reaching for positives but it really is an interesting alternative to mono culture crops like wheat. Hey and it tastes good.

Ultimately as I mentioned in my previous entry after 3 months it's not obvious to me that the diet is having any effect. Yes I would like to attribute a bad day to that gram of pie crust that I snuck into my mouth but it's just not clear that this is the case. We'll see.

Mashed Yeast

2007-12-28T09:39:00.000+01:00

I wish I could be enthusiastic about more things. I wish I could report back that by eating bland and tasteless chow that is often the color of dirt is a cure for what ails me. But the truth is after 3 months or so I am not in anyway convinced that this is a solution for anything other than making me eat and cook bland and tasteless chow by myself and adding a chunk of cash to my dietitian's wallet.

So the program is to try to cure RA through a change in diet and homeopathy. Listen I really want to get rid of this stuff. Yes the medication I am taking is helping tremendously but if I didn't have state funded health care I would be popping for a monthly bill of 1200 bucks. Not a pleasant thought and besides there are days like today when I know that what I am taking is just treating the symptoms. No I am not wailing in agony but I can tell you exactly which "articulation" is affected, And disturbingly the list is growing. So it makes perfect sense to me to get this stuff out of me.

OK friends recommended a homeopathist. Her name is Otrud. Obviously she is German. And she is very scary. Otrud says I have been suppressing my bodies desire to kick my ass. Otrud says that I will go through "hell" as my body gives me a whuppin' for taking the evil elixirs from the conniving, blood sucking "western" doctors. Six months of howling agony and then and only then Otrud will bring me back to life of mobility and Karma and brown rice and soy products.

I will also be required to abandon all of the medication that has in actuality has, depending on the day, given me back maybe 90 percent of what I had before I ate the dreaded camel.

So I did my due diligence. I spoke with the "cured" patients of Otrud and to be honest the results are impressive. I had lunch with a very pretty scientist who ironically is researching the just how RA affects the human body. For 10 years she had suffered from our shared malady... it was everywhere, including the joints between her jaw and her skull... there were days she could hardly bring herself to talk... anyway after Otrud's cure she now has no symptoms what so ever.

I spoke about the possibility of homeopathy with my evil western doctors who are seemingly some the nicest people I have ever met and they did not throw me out of the office and laugh at me. They understood my concern and said to try this new path. But they also said to not stop taking my evil western potions as Otrud has demanded.

I also spent sometime researching RA and homeopathy and read that according to the International Association of Homeopathists no lawful homeopathist would ever suggest not taking "western" medicine cold turkey when it comes to a serious illnesses.

So I have come to the conclusion that Otrud is not for me. I am still willing to explore homeopathy and have found a another doctor who is not so... hardcore. He is suggesting that homeopathy can cure RA but he prefers to work with my evil western doctors, gradually lowering the dosages and hopefully, in time suspending them.

Regarding the diet and the dietitian. Instinctually I do feel that this wheat, lactose and salt free diet is having a positive effect but I need to validate his opinions. I am going to go see a "western" food allergy specialist and see if I actually do have a sensitivity to these things. Look I love bread and cheese and if I don't have to give them up why should I. Onward.

Recovery

2007-09-30T08:47:00.000+02:00

I am embarking on a new adventure. I am going to try to get rid of my rheumatoid arthritis through homeopathy and diet. Yeah it's under control and I pretty much can do anything I did before I ate the dreaded camel spaghetti but still everybody including my rheumatologist tells me that one of the things I am taking is insanely nasty and toxic. I really can't tell that it is but I guess I'd prefer not to wake up dead one morning. A little joke. Hah.

So I am exploring the possibilities and it may turn out to be a good yarn. So far the list of characters is looking promising. There is Ostrud the incredibly direct "star" homeopath who counts such luminaries as Peter Greenaway as a patient, Luis the white Angolan dietician, my friend Georgia who got me headed in this direction and Rita the former RA sufferer who is now apparently completely cured. Stay tuned.

Mr. G is Born Again

2007-09-05T09:36:00.000+02:00

Darrell sent me this too. Mr. G rocks now that he has found salvation.

Darrell is a genius part 3

2007-09-05T08:42:00.001+02:00

OK this just in. What do you with a freind who has one of the most unique voices in all of literaturedom? Well climb up on BLOG MOUNTAIN and holler, "Darrell Williams is a Genius!" Read on for one perfectly crafted paragraph. 1 PARAGRAPH I TELL YOU!

Walter Ate a Peanut and Passed On

Greta knew that Walter couldn't eat peanuts. He was deathly allergic to them. His parents had discovered this one day when he popped a peanut into his ever-exploring mouth at the age of two. He was rushed to the hospital and from that day forward was never again given a peanut or anything containing peanuts. As he grew older, he often wondered what they tasted like and what he was missing. In 1955, he met and married Greta Moussleman, the love of his life, with whom he sired and helped raise five children without peanuts, for fear that one of them might have Walter's deadly allergy. One by one, the children would secretly discover that they did not share their father's burden, and would go on to lead full and happy peanut-eating lives. So it was a shock to hear of their father's sudden death, and even more disturbing that it had been caused by ingestion of not one, but upwards of the equivalent of 35 peanuts. Equivalent is the word used, because the peanuts had been dry roasted and finely ground into a powder that had been sprinkled onto Walter's morning oatmeal. Greta insisted it wasn't she who had ground and sprinkled the peanuts, and her children could find no reason tosuspect that their father's mate of some 56 years would have cause for murder. Shortly thereafter, Greta passed away like so many forlorn mates of deceased loved ones and the mystery of Walter's death continued to haunt the children until Eric, the oldest son, discovered a secret cash of peanuts in his father's workshop cabinet, along with a sealed envelop that read: upon my death. Eric was shocked to read the words of the letter within, and decided that none of his siblings should ever know their father's final thoughts about life, about the miserable years he spent in a loveless marriage, his hatred of his wife, and how the irresistible urge to try the forbidden legume was more appealing than continuing to put up with Greta. Eric shortly thereafter became depressed and went on medication. None of his bothers nor his sister could understand why.

Darrell Williams

Film at 11...

2007-08-25T23:23:00.000+02:00

Ok I got the "film" back from the "lab." And I had them scan them into digital land too... Well they were supposed to do big honk'n files but they did little crap files and heck I paid for big honk'n file so I guess I will go back and run the risk of them losing the "transparencies" one more time. This was one of those pro joints with 3000 euro bodies just begging you to fork it over... I might as well have went to foto-casita. Dang!

Anyway all said there are some winners in the "roll." Here's one. What a lovely guy. Obviously he hasn't been spending his golden years dealing with Telefonica. I'll flickr 'em when I get the real deal scans in or I pop for a "pro" scanner and do it myself. I think "pro" scanners are going for like 11.95 now. If I wait until tuesday they will probably be giving them away with a bag of spaghetti.

Caras de mi Barrio

2007-08-18T08:39:00.001+02:00

I Finally go off my culo and started taking pictures of the people who live in my neighborhood. I have been talking about this for probably as long as I have lived here. And as always things are different once you dive in.

My new art buddy Alissa and I hit the streets in search of those denizens of Sants that have always caught my eye. Alissa, is from Portland, Oregon, lives on the other side of the block from me and is here doing a documentary about Angolan children who are victims of land mines. Is it strange that another Portland filmmaker who shares the friendship of a certain accordionist happens to live a half a block away from me in this very off the radar neighborhood of Barcelona? Yep. Very.

Anyway I talked Alissa into going along for two reasons:

1. After wandering around the Saharawi camps alone with a camera and in general practicing "art" by myself I thought it would be more fun to do something like this with somebody else. It was.

2. Ultimately I am a coward and a single guy going up to strangers with a camera and asking to take their picture usually doesn't work and is... for the single guy, kinda scary. Like the Mormon missionaries, the little old lady Jehovah´s Witnesses and cops, 2 is better. Enough with the brave thing.

The parameters were these. Stop anybody I thought looked "interesting" and shoot out one 36 exposure roll. Yep... film!

Even with the two for us our refusal rate was about 90%. But what we did get is pretty amazing.

I have to be honest that for this project the people I had in mind were the snarly old ladies that have completely destroyed my usually positive opinions of old people and ruined my hope for aging gracefully. We did indeed start out asking these golden agers but as one would expect they were not interested and many of which expressed the same generosity of spirit that they demonstrate at the vegetable stand at my mercado... But the people who did agree had a quality that was open and in it's own way beautiful. OK I am drawn to how do we say this... interesting looking people. This is not about shooting babes in bikinis this is about shooting people with strange noses, big ears and odd tuffs of facial hair... and that's just the ladies. But there was something behind these strange and remarkable faces and oh so not perfect bodies. There was the man whose son had downs syndrome, the guy white haired guy with the dew lap, gucci shades and his shirt open to his navel, the beautiful very, very old man with a cane who seemed to be thankful for every painful step he was taking. The capper was 87 year old Maria Sanchez and her daughter Francesca. At first Francesca was suspicious and for some reason kept running back into the carniceria that we were in front of. But soon she returned and told the story of her son who has leukemia and there search for a bone marrow doner. It turns out Francesca is a professora at the University of Barcelona and they have found someone with a bone marrow match someplace in the United States but they can't locate his exact position. She was holding back the tears.

The thing about Spain is that everything thing is just below the surface. It's sometimes a hard surface but it's brittle so you can just tap it and you are in to another world. I guess the task of taking somebody's picture is all that is needed to break through. I'll put the pictures up on flickr as soon as get them processed and scanned.

Culos Obvioso y Oscuro

2007-08-12T21:23:00.001+02:00

You I'm starting to lose it. But I'm coming to the some conclusions. Here`s a few simple ones.

In Europe the assholes are not as obvious as in the US.

US. Bush. UK. Blair. Blair... here's an example... had a nice quiet photo opportunity lunch with Gaddafi... ok it was a while ago but hey it happened. I remember the press conference. I think thay talked about the beautiful beaches.

The Aids injecting Bulgarian Nurses. Ok they are going to die. The they are going to live but be in some Libyan dungeon for the rest of thier lives. Then they are gong to die. Then they are free. These people were in said dungeon for 8 years while their fate was decided and Tony was having lunch with Muammar. Try the Fatoush. I love Fatoush. Well firstly I am happy about this but secondly why? Link. Because the EU and the French paid 438 million euros to get them out of there. The figure comes from 1 million Euros per infected kid. Cecilia Sarkozy probably brought the check. Pass go, pay 438 million and you are out of jail... after 8 years in the hole and a little torture to boot. But this Gaddafi guy is OK now in Sarkozy's and George's and Tony' book... well Tony's book is not so important now... Gordon's book? How does Mr. Brown feel. Ah heck what's a little thing like Lockerbie. "Hell Momut why not come on down to Guantanamo and ask some of your people some questions."

And Nick is having such a good time hanging with George. Link. Baked beans. Burgers. Ketchup.

You know in Europe they have this way of looking the other way. Look at Blair. Man, that guy could talk! Impressive! But it's all about the power dance. Sarkozy, well at least he speaks his mind... scarey as that might be... until he gets elected and he makes nice with the socialists, hires a whack of them and the cutlery and china remains firmly in place on the French lunch table. And it's not like the socialist had any trouble working for the Vlad Sarkozy. They friggin' curtsied. And then a guilt wracked Segolene comes clean and admits that much of she was promising was complete merde. Why? Well my guess is that she wants a job too. Scoundrels on the left. Scoundrels on the right. At least with GW we know he's an asshole... all the time, 24/7.
And then there is Dubai, which continues to haunt me... mas tarde. Jeez, I better get back to talking about Zoe, Ham and my old commercials.

España donde esta mi España...

2007-08-12T16:44:00.001+02:00

So was I down a the bakery this morning waiting on line for my sometimes regular Sunday "Media Luna" which is basically an very good apple turnover. OK its not really Spanish or Catalan it's French and comes from a quasi-French bakery chain called "Paul." So I guess I'm cheating but for many things like this and croissants Paul is pretty much "the" place for this kind of baking. But to give credit where credit is do the bakery across the street has the best bread in Barcelona... I should know because I'v probably tried 100 bakeries so far.

So it's a Sunday in August, everybody is away on vacaciones including Benedicte and Zoe who are in the US of A. Living in this very working class barrio I sometimes lose track of the quiet side of Spain and Catalunya. Sants is soooo noisy. Scooters, buses, cars... and everybody trying to be heard by screaming over the top of it all. And lets face it Spaniards are not exactly known for being soft spoken. But Paul and the Calle were for once quiet. I asked the lady in front of me if she was the last in line and she said she was... this very Catalan solution to the lining up problem could be it's most valuable contribution to the world. It's brilliant, you enter a shop, bakery, hardware store and you ask, "Who's last?" The last person responds and you can go about what doing other things or just wait comfortably knowing that all you have to watch that persons progress. Of course when someone new enters and asks the big question you of course are the one who needs to say, "Yo!" And so it continues.

But I found my self waiting comfortably and perusing the newly added ice cream and it's incredibly expensive contents. 125 CL cups for 5 euros... please, this is neighborhood that prefers its ice cream in the shape of Spiderman or Mickey Mouse. The door opening was announced by a very soft bell and not a buzzer from the Gong Show and a pretty young woman entered. She seemed to know the slightly portly fellow who was next in line after me. They greeted each other and began a lovely quiet conversation. She was speaking with this soft and resonant voice that had the lovely sibilant of well spoken Castilian. Beautiful.

Living in Sants I have lost track of what I fell in love with in Spain. It's not the hubbub all though that is part of it. It's not the screaming neighbors or the garbage being picked up outside my bedroom at 4 in the morning. It's voices and people like that girl in Paul.

I'm finding young alternative-y Spanish folks to be what I find most attractive about this country. The are smart, open and committed to change. Older folks can be really hard and closed minded, particularly in working class. Keep up the fight chicos and chicas.

Water World

2007-08-06T16:13:00.000+02:00

We spent a couple of weeks in Brittany with Benedicte's family. It's a yearly thing, every year Benedicte's parents rent a house and invite the entire clan. Depending on how far the net is cast this can be up to 11,000 people... or at least it seems that way sometimes.

I just try to help out as much as possible and what seems to help the most is if I stay the hell out of the way. It's a machine. A french machine but still... a machine. So I try to grab Zoe and do things. Go fishing. Go hiking. Go to the cafe and draw. But this year I had the wise idea to bring... wet suits. OK lots of slack from Benedicte... "When I was a kid we didn't have wet suits!" Well neither did I and let me tell you I was friggin' cold. I always seemed to be cold. Rubber boots and cotton socks during a snow storm. Wet mittens that made better sponges than insulators. Brrrrr.... So I got Zoe this cute pink shorty. Mask, fins, suit... all pink and all for like 40 bucks.

Zoe was one of those water babies. You know like on the Nirvana album cover. It always made sense to me, we spend the 1st 9 months underwater... why not just toss them in the pool on their second day out of the womb. Well it wasn't exactly day 2 but she was in the pool at 6 weeks taking lessons but sadly in her case it didn't work. Although she has always loved the water she has also been very afraid of it. Later on through her school they offered more swimming classes... after weeks of trying to get her jump in they put her in the shallow end and told to stick with the 3 year olds. Luckily she didn't mind.

But I am proud to announce that this summer through the Robin Willis reluctant swimmer program she is now a fish. She would spend hours paddling around looking at fishies and crabs and well, a lot of rocks. The slight buoyancy of the wet suit seem to help her and the mask and snorkel replaced the fear of down there with fascination.

So obviously I too was out there with her. While floating amidst the flotsam and jetsam I revisited the idea that our species biggest mistake was crawling out of the sea. I feel completely free when I am underwater. It seems as natural as breathing. I do not desire anything. No cars, big screens... no career ambitions... Time does not exist. Neither does gravity. Neither do problems. I am one with the waves. I have always thought that I was really an otter who oddly wound up as a television commercial director. I think Zoe is one too.

Out-there-a-stan

2007-08-06T09:03:00.002+02:00

The Beirut story is long and complicated. Yes there were bombs going off... in the suburbs. Yes I was pretty much required to go back to my hotel every night and stay there and watch the Discovery channel and eat Fatoush. Yes the lovely folks at the production company did have an office pool regarding which neighborhood would be bombed next. Yes Moneer the Egyptian creative director who is based in Dubai with the agency refused to shoot in Beirut. At one point the shoot was cancelled, then was to be moved to Kuala Lampur (?!) then Moneer was instructed to not be such a wussy by his boss, strap himself into his flack jacket and get his hiney over to Lebanon. Yes I saw Dubai and was completely freaked out. Beirut is on the radar but Dubai... what hath Allah wrought?

The big questions is why? Why did I do it? Why is there Dubai? Why are people seemingly so intent on screwing up things?

Answers:

1. Well it just happened. I got these really strange boards via email and the next thing you know I was booked. And I needed the job. And I think I have this strange desire to see odd places in the world and in general I like people and am fascinated by other cultures. It is probably related to eating camel and living with the Saharawi.

2. You got me. But I think it has something to do with pure unfettered evil. Greed. Exploitation. Insanity. All the big corporations are there. There is the world's biggest indoor ski area. The biggest market in the world for private submarines. It is usually 50 degrees. The sun is eternally behind this wall of white that is in fact the sea boiling away. Inside buildings, cars... it's proudly 15 degrees. The brown skinned people who are building Dubai are for the most part slaves. They hold their passports. They do not have the benefit of air conditioned Mercedes SUVs. Its like working on Mercury. Why? Tax free zones? No workers rights? Big bucks? Swank restaurants? Starbucks? Ample cheap big screens?

3. In general I don't see this in kids... well most kids... It seems to be a something we think is required of as adults. Table alignment and fork placement. Believing in a concrete definition of God. Killing people because they think that eating with your left hand is the sign of the devil or that the holy ghost did or did not impregnate the mother of God's son... which is a conceptual problem because I count 3 separate deities and what is supposed to set the world's largest religion apart from tree fornicating pagans is that it's monotheistic.

Being waste deep in advertising I have come to see that most of these big international mega-corporations do not care squat about anything other than the quarterly returns. It's not like everybody who works for them are blood thirsty capitalist with horns and tails. Its just people with families and responsibilities who need a job and have been conned into thinking that this is the right path. Heck I have derived my income for longer than I care to admit on these various entities. (See the answer to question one for a clearer description.)

We have got to carve out a different path for our kids. My 7 year old daughter's school has offered her Chinese lessons. She is taking them because she wants to learn another language but the school is not offering them so she can hang out with Chinese folks and better understand dim sum, the school is offering them because "its' the future". Well it's a future that I don't want to go to. Sweat shops cranking out more and more crap for Wall Mart. Phony pharmaceuticals that kill people. Zilch environmental concerns. Human rights? What's that compared to a DVD player for 20 bucks? Why are we turning a blind eye to this stuff. Why is the world not looking at Dubai and cringing?

It's taken a while for the Beirut job to sink in. While I was there I never had one moment that I felt unsafe. I had grave doubts about doing a spot for a powdered soft drink for the Saudi's because the agency and client think it would be just the thing to compliment the pre and post daylight gorging that goes on during Ramadan there. But I felt like I was on adventure. I felt lucky to be seeing a place like Beirut up close and personal. I loved the crew and still miss them. The Lebanese are absolutely amazing and lovely people. But now a couple of month's later I really don't know what the hell I was doing. It was dangerous. There were really bombs. The army was on seemingly every street corner. I got frisked on the hood of car by a young soldier with a machine gun.

What's odd though is that I'd go back to Beirut in a heartbeat. There is something about the place and the people. It's a dark and perhaps dangerous intoxication. Here are links to my flickr accounts and some pictures I shot on my cel phone or DV camera.
Beirut
Dubai

Tang in the desert part 2

2007-06-26T07:20:00.000+02:00

Well Lebanon is in no way in the desert. It´s lush and truly beautiful which only makes the "situation" there even more ironic.

Since I have returned the "situation" has only gotten worse. I picked up the paper yesterday to see front page photos of UN "peacekeepers" all of them from my adopted country frantically dragging a wounded or dead comrade away from out of focus flaming rubble. Yeah "the situation" is mostly "in the south" but considering that the country is, accordng to the CIA fact book, 4/5th the size of Connecticut, that's sort of like saying that it´s over there just past Ikea or Walmart. And considering that a few bombs went off "in the suburbs" of Beirut while I was there I guess the notion of down there "in the south" had moved a pretty close to home.

Mas tarde...

This just in... Breakfast drink commercial director held hostage by HezBullah...

2007-05-24T11:57:00.002+02:00

Folks. A strange turn of events. I thought I was going to Lebanon, Oregon, not Lebanon... Lebanon. So I am in Beirut. Staying at a hotel, listening to somebody saw concrete in the next building which sounds exactly like somebody sawing concrete in the next building back home in Barcelona. The big news is that first day here featured according to CNN, "The Worst day of urban warfare in the last 30 years." remember... Beirut... the 70s... Civil War? Ouch.

Why am I in Beirut? Well I met a girl... no seriously... I met a boy. A boy named Gary. Gary reps me for places other than Germany and Spain and Belgium. Belgium... No that's not right, Belgium is available again. Gary is a great guy. Gary is a Scot. Which usually, in my book, automatically means great guy.

So I get on of Gary's calls. let me be clear about this, in a business seemingly teaming with scoundrels, nare-do-wells, charlatans and posers Gary is a true gentleman. OK he's not one of those prissy kind of gentlemen with lacquered nails and an extended pinky finger he's a Scottish gentleman. Which means that he waxes poetic, tells great stories, turns a phrase with exquisite delicacy is straight as a ruler and I suspect, drinks.

So he says he has some boards. Great! I say as slunk around trying to be a proper father, husband, adult white male and not freak out as the old financial gas tank hovers just slightly above reserve. May I send you an animatic? Sure I say. An animatic is this thing that agencies use to work out exactly how they will steal an idea they got from a Argentinean spot from 1982. But seriously an animatic is sort of an crudely animated series of drawings that the agency uses to convince the "Client" the guys who make the stuff and want to sell the stuff that their idea is sound and has a high enough percentage of frames in it that include the label of the stuff (roughly 97.672). Gary has always had huge problems with the Internet. I have no idea why but things like the provider's server suddenly goes down for 3 weeks because somebody plugged in the salad spinner and the hairdryer at the same time or some balkan trojan horse viral CPU suckering worm has run rampant through deepest reaches of their backplane, bootstrap, USB, ISO 12-0067(a) and caused a CRT, CPR, EEG heap panic. All I know is that it takes awhile to get things and that Gary has on occasion sent me screen shots proving that he indeed did send me a note telling me that the Latvian spot for a combination douche and hair removing product has gone to a Chilean Porn director solely because he said he would fly economy and promised not raid the mini-bar.

So days pass, Gary's ISP gets another hamster for the server and I get this really weird little movie. It has guys wearing funny clothes and speaking this strange language. I don't know what the hell it is. So it turns out it's a spot from an production company from Lebanon and their client and agency in Dubai and there stuff to sell... "Tang." To be continued...

Revisiting the Velvet Bowels of Advertising Part 7: Oregon Lottery Poet and Chuck

2007-05-12T08:30:00.000+02:00

So here are parts 2 and 3 of a Oregon Lottery Campaign. Again I now marvel at the writing. Well I marveled then but "then" I didn't much to compare it to. Pretty much everything was of a similar caliber of shall we call it "genius."

Come on, a grease monkey taking his lottery winnings and building a time machine to visit Lewis and Clark... and Chuck? A "Hotdog on a Stick" girl writes a poem about her trip to France in a Dodge? These days most things are so beat up by the process that the good ideas have been hunted down and strung by their petards long before they get to me. Whatever spark is left is yanked out by it's roots either at the preproduction meeting, on the shoot, in the edit or the dreaded post post nether-world where the wife of the brother in law of the secretary of the brand manager from the Andorran district office gets to say that they don't like the left eyebrow of the extra who 50 feet behind the talent and is on scene for 3 frames... and thanks to the lack of balls, hutzpah, guts, fear of not getting paid, call it what you will, the agency and the production company will honor their opinion, the shot will be yanked and/or 6 thousand dollars worth of flame work will be done to "fix" the offending eye brow. I learned long ago to do my cut just shut up. It's process of erosion. Good stuff gets killed. Bad stuff gets through. Why does this happen? Is it just human nature? Oh well... there was a time when good was good and bad was bad and stupid was stupid. I offer a big thank you to those that let me be part of those times.

A break from the tedium of the past. The tedium of the present: My Bio.

2007-05-10T16:14:00.000+02:00

Sometimes I think I just don't take the commercial biz seriously enough. I've been requested to write a bio for the new web page for the nice company that reps me in España. I written quite a few of these things. They always end with something warm and tingly but the best of these I think was the one I wrote for GAP in Munich. Gap reps me exclusively for the area just outside thier office, between the post office and the drinking fountain. Beyond that I'm up for grabs.

Here goes:

"He was born long, long ago in place called Portland, Oregon. His father was a lumber jack and his mother, a school marm. His grandpa whittled him his first camera when he was just a bug. Unfortunately at 13 he developed a desire to sing show tunes and cook. After the 50th rendition of Oklahoma and a failed attempt at a souffle he was shipped off to the Rumsfeld Academy for Wayward Skinny Boys of Potentially Confused Gender. He was made a man of. He had a dual major: Body hair and ladies dream. He drove a 1972 burgundy Plymouth Roadrunner. Bored out V8. Hemi. Kragers. Jail followed. Sentenced to 11 years for assault with a deadly battery. In jail his ability to sing show tunes made him very popular. He organized a prison playhouse and directed and played all the roles in Chekov's Three Sisters. He escaped while touring grade school cafeterias across the southern states of America. After stealing a reel from a drunken has-been director in Sarasota, Florida he self financed a spec spot for Waymeyer's Nipple Cream using 37 disposable cameras and an inflatable crocodile. Back to jail. Out on special souffle dispensation he moved to Spain after misunderstanding the term, “Tapas Bars.” He will be survived by his daughter Zoe and wife Benedicte. He desires to own a dog and a IPOD."

I still don't have a dog.

Revisiting the Velvet Bowels of Advertising Part 6: And Now for Something Serious: "March of Dimes"

2007-05-07T21:12:00.000+02:00

There was a period before "Bud's Dance" where I seemed to land on the radar enough that I at least got a couple of boards. Up until my full embrace of the comedic "Cloudy Bright" sun over your shoulder esthetic as presented by Kodak on every box of film that they every made I was obsessed by light. Which I suppose I should have been since I was a lighting guy for a decade before my decision to be a director... a decision that understandably nobody concurred with.

But folks at the Coats Agency gave me a chance and I did a few spots for them that all featured what I used to refer to as, "dark, teutonic photography." Basically the idea was to make things as vague and indistinct as possible. I think the inspiration for this look was the work of Matt Mahurin, particularly his video for Peter Gabriel's "Mercy Street." In this video there is one shot in particular that continues to haunt me. A hand enters the frame and pulls out a drawer. The hand is extremely over exposed... so over exposed that the grains seems to scattering like sandy particles. Like every thing else in that video it's an amazing shot.

I guess the early photographic work of Edward Stiechen also was an inspiration. I found his dark indistinct shapes to be very, very compelling. My mind could wander in the obscure tonalities and try to distinguish shapes and images. I guess it's sort like when we as children try to see images in the clouds.

I guess in this spot I was trying to realize a pretty misty concept... I was simply trying evoke the magic and wonder of the inception of life. Nothing like biting off more than you could chew.

Having a child of my own I have come to the conclusion that young kids do seem to be close to something that we as adults have lost touch with. Up to around the age of 4 or so Zoe always had lots of imaginary friends. At one point I think there were around 12 in the car with us. The 2 favorites were Rahoo and Raha. Rahoo was always good and Raha could behave pretty badly. Sometimes we would set a place at the table for one or the other or both of them. After awhile I really started to think that maybe they were real. As strange as this sounds it also crossed my mind that maybe all these imaginary friends were entities that Zoe had known when she was on... gulp... the other side. I know it's all a little gooey but looking at this film again and I realize that I was trying to visualize how I felt about the moment that life begins and how it actually might be more of a crossing point.

From a technical point of view all the shots are in camera. We did crazy things like hang the camera on a jib arm the shoot into a mirror that had water running down it then into another mirror looking at various babies who where lying on a big mattress topped turntable which we could rotate. Often we were not looking down but across and shooting into reflections of water which cast on simple foam core panels. We also had a rotatable glass disc mounted in front of the camera. On this disk I had random densities of... vaseline!... which I could rotate in and out of the frame. Since we were always using long lenses the actual goo could never be seen but the images sure could get vague and dreamy.

Again Ray DiCarlo was there. He designed the baby mover, the mirror tricks and the water tanks for projecting ethereal water patterns. I think there we maybe three or four of us on the crew and that it took us around 6 hours to shoot. We also had at least 5 stunt babies all of whom got drunk and made a mess of the waiting room.

The other thing is I can't remember that we had any sort of a pre-production meeting or that I drew any boards what so ever. Ah... those were the days.

Oh the music is by Arvo Part as performed by the Kronos Quartet. Great stuff... so great that it only is on my cut as it was too expensive to acquire for the actual broadcast version. Arvo, Kronos... forgive me I stole your music for my version. Oh and one more thing, we tried to get Blythe Danner to do the voice over. She wouldn't do it.

Revisiting the Velvet Bowels of Advertising Part 5: Cel One Food and Cities

2007-05-02T19:26:00.000+02:00

Here's the final 2 spots from the Cel One campaign. Again, I'm amazed at the writing. Carl you should be writing books. Heck maybe you are? But then again maybe your talents are best represented in this medium. 30 second chunks of perfection...

The thing is I think ideas work in succession and that creativity is really viral. The client wants to sell something. The agency wants the client. The agency wants to do good work. They hire talented people to come up with the creative stuff. The talented people come up with ideas. The director reads the script. he thinks of ducks and little smokies and grilled cheese sandwiches served in his Grandmas fish plates which were given as a Starkist Tuna promotion 5O years ago. 1. Without the product there would be no reason for this work. 2. Without the writer there would be no idea. And 3., without the director there would be no sushi on the set... just kidding. It's a big stew. And when the ingredients are good and combined with care the stew is really tastey. And is again more than the sum of its parts.

The thing about spots is that when they are good they work on many levels. The client gets to sell something. The agency gets to be successful and grow and offer a space for creative types to work. The creative types get something to be creative to do and exercise their poetic craftsman muscles and directors and actors and the crew get to add there skills to the mix and work on stuff that they are proud of. An everybody can pay there bills and hold there head high and have things to talk about.

Mona Mensing, wardrobe stylist, would like her work to be mentioned. I am happy to comply. Here's the deal. Often as a director people want you to have an opinion about everything. Which cup, what color and sometimes which socks. Listen, I don't know everything. I don't know which collar is currently fashonable. I don't know that you don't wear 2 different plaids. I don't know that it's not OK to wear a brown belt with black shoes. And again I really want the end result to be more than the sum of it's parts. OK the little man inside might hop out at any point and say that putting a towel on the shoulder of the talent is really dopey but I want the people that work with me to have a point of view. Maybe I'm just lazy. Mona always did an amazing job on wardrobe. She had a point of view. She always got it and I guess got me. She made it easy and her finger prints are all over the spots. Thanks deary I still have Moultrie's cardigan and I right now I'm wearing the bathrobe you made for "Oregon Lottery Christmas". Is this admitting that I steal things from shoots? Yeah. doesn't everyone?

Revisiting the Velvet Bowels of Advertising Part 4: "Energy is Power"

2007-04-27T15:48:00.001+02:00

OK I just remembered. Before Bud's Dance, before the Oregon Lottery work, before the World Cup spots for Weiden and Kennedy, before the first taste of the sting of bad, expensive and lucrative big name national boards there was "Energy is Power." I'd known Darrell Williams for quite awhile. He was one of the guys at Marx, Knolls, Denight and Dodge advertising agency, which was one of the places I went once in a while when I was trying to make the transition from lighting director, AKA gaffer to director... what! I'd do a spot or show something that I shot as a cameraman or recut something and stop by. Darrell and the guys would come out. They would look. They would smile. They would ask a couple of polite questions, thank me and return to what they were doing. Ray Dodge, the guy with his name on the door, was a really sweet man. I remember having a conversation with about how he was troubled by doing a spot for a lumber industry lobby group. Integrity? When I think about the Portland Advertising community in those days I remember pretty much everybody as really decent people. At Borders, Perrin and Norrander executive creative director Tom Kelly went to the trouble to find me even though he couldn't read my phone number on the overly artsy label I used to have on my reel. There was Rob Rosenthal when he was at Cole and Weber and then Jim Carey who took over for him when he went on to start his own shop. And Darrell.

Let me say this right up front. Darrell Williams is a genius. Darrell Williams is one of the best writers I have ever read. Darrell can turn a bleach commercial into a warm, touching and needless to say funny exploration of the duality of human nature as seen through the eyes of a smart, slightly alienated 12 year old girl. Listen it's one thing to get to work on really whacked out creative at either end of the spectrum. Big money. Nike. No money. Oregon Lottery. But it's another thing altogether to consistently come up with brilliant stuff in the world of direct marketing.

On one potential project he had this idea that he and I would get cheap round the world tickets, a camera and a minidisk recorder and hit then very new ruta del Lonely Planet. In fact the minidisk recorder was the product. The story was about this cool, quirky, young vagabond and his recorder gathering aural souvenirs from the globe. Music, conversations, street sounds, Gitanos in the caves of the Sacre Monte in Granada, Inuit Throat singers, death metal bands in Helsinki, old ladies hocking fish in Indonesia.

OK, I have a minidisk. I love it. Others love it. But the concept and the product tanked. Why? Because it was designed to be an alternative to something that was basically perfect. The CD. OK it was smaller and like cassettes you could dump music on it but really who needed it. Nobody. But what this 3" x 3" x 1" wafer could do was record amazing audio. And what you recorded was available in a non-linear way... it was like a studio in your pocket. Darrell saw through the smoke of another corporate dance to sell yet another format to an unsuspecting public who had in a period of just a few years just dumped their records for cassettes and then dumped their cassettes for CDs. Darrell saw what the thing was good for. Darrell saw a huge army of pierced, dread-locked backpackers kids hitting the road to see the world beyond the suburbs. He wanted them to take these gadgets and grab sound like snap shots. Sound without images. Sound as an absolutely pure, unsullied medium. He wanted to change the world through audio and this cool little box. Millions of kids making mix tapes (disks) of little windows into the soul of man, passed around like trading cards, spreading a virus of understanding and compassion. It was brilliant. It was transcendent. Well, they, being the big they, passed. You wanna what? You're going where? I suspect they wanted a well scrubbed, cute teenage couple happily jabbering between "Call to Actions", pimping the box and the Mariah Carey catalog to that vast demographic perceived to have money to burn, no brains and nothing to say... American youth. If they had only listened to Darrell.

Darrell came up and I suspect comes up with these works of genius on an hourly basis. Being brilliant is as easy as breathing for this guy. It's in the wiring.

The road trip seems to figure into Mr. Williams world and it was one of these that he proposed to me over breakfast one Saturday morning. Why me? I have no idea but I'm glad he asked. Ostensibly he had to create a short film for the a trade meeting for the Bonneville Power Administration. He wanted to drive up the Columbia River Gorge. He wanted to take an very straight office intern who would serve as talent. We would shoot some stuff.

So we hit the road with a wind up Bolex, a cheap tripod incapable of panning and the intern. On the way up we talked about our childhoods, the business, our wives, his children, my pets, movies we wanted to make and music. As long as I have known him Mr. Williams has been this oracle of really great and often obscure music. And his taste is impeccable.

At that time I had been watching a lot of documentaries by Errol Morris. Although I found parts of his films to be mean spirited and not exactly fair to his subjects I was attracted by how he just let the camera sit there. No swank moves. No severe lens. Just a plain frame... an unadorned canvas. And the timing of his editing was just... off. Things were on the screen for too long. A guy would slowly walk across the frame, look at the camera, wait for very long time and then a pull lizard out of a garbage can. It was so designed but unpolished. I loved it.

I guess "Energy is Power" is the first time I tried to purposefully be unflashy. The guy stands there. He waits too long and gestures. He acts uncomfortable. He was uncomfortable. It's funny. The scale of things is off. 10 story power lines loom over an almost imperceptibly tiny guy. Metaphor? Probably.

I think too that in this film I started to play with a concept that I began to think of as "wet and dry." Energy is Power has a "dry" half and a "wet" half. Obviously the dry half is the stuff with the intern and wet stuff is the archival (stolen) stuff at the end with the music. Both parts are in there own way fine but when you combine them you really get something that is more than the sum of it's parts.

About the trip. I think we brought the bike so we must have had some idea in mind. We picked the inflatable punch bag up in the Dalles. The plastic pig too.

I shot the other material, the frying pan, the fan, the tea kettle, the spring in the studio of a friend the next afternoon.

We then hit the library and the video rental store gathering images to steal for the "wet" section. Darrell brought in a piece from "Big Audio Dynamite" for the soundtrack. See I told you he had great taste. We cut it one a Montage, the first non-linear editing system. Then on to sound design across the hall at Digital One. Then we had a beer and in the process of making this little gem had became friends. Here's to you Mr. Williams!

Revisiting the Velvet Bowels of Advertising Part 3: King

2007-04-26T14:34:00.000+02:00

OK so after Cel One things were really started to get going. We were running the jobs out of our house. PAs and crew folks running up and down the 39 steps to the little old house on Gilham street. We had one tiny bathroom. It got a work out. Who cleaned the place? I dunno I guess we did. Yow.

Another set of three great ideas this time from Jim Carey´s band of loonies at Cole and Weber. Great simple idea. And no cuts. 1 take. No coverage nada. Gutsy! And... Cheap!

Norman Bonney one of my oldest friends came up from the Bay Area to cover my butt as assistant director. After his stint as an AD Mr. Bonney went on to be one of the countries best DPs.

The dog thing. Listen here's the deal. We were setting up and although I had an idea that I wanted a dog in the spot I didn't really have any idea of what to do with it other than be a prop. So I set the dog "Suzy" up next to the actor whose name I think was Richard and we did a rehearsal. So we figured out that it was really funnier if the King stood up from his lawn chair and then sat down again after his speech. So then I get this idea to have Suzy stand up and sit down exactly at the same time as the King. Now Suzy was just a dog, not a movie dog, just a pet. I ask Suzy's owner if she thinks Suzy could do this. She says that she's not sure but let's try. Suzy did it like clock work for over 30 takes! Why 30 takes? Well that's one of mysteries of advertising. I think we used the second take. We always use the second take.

OK regarding the background. At that time I was really interested in sort of secret deep background action. Originally we were going to have a forced perspective two story house built to go behind the fence at the back of the yard. I wanted to put people hanging out the window doing something. Accidentally dropping babies... I don't know. But since the house was maybe 1/2 scale we'd have to to put 1/2 scale people in the house. The solution... midgets. I got the idea from reading about a scene in F.W. Murnau's "Sunrise." Well the house idea turned out to be too expensive so that was it for the midgets. Until I came up with the idea of two midgets dressed as children beating the heck of each other in a wading pool again way back by the far fence wall. Since Richard was black I thought they would have to be black too. At that time Portland officially had around 17 black people living there and we had one playing the king. Basically there were no black midgets in the greater Portland area so that idea was out. The midget idea woud resurface in another Lottery spot, bu that is another story. However I had another great idea. Why not have this really big maple tree cross the frame back behind the far fence. You know, just loping along like it was out for walk or something.

So we took a construction crane and put a really big tree on this little skateboard wheel dolly Walt Dimick had handcrafted with his Dad I think. This in turn went on this track that was also hand built by Walt. Anyway we gave the dolly a shove and being designed to carry maybe 200 lbs and not 2000 lbs. the wheels of course collapsed immediately. So that was it for deep background action as well as Walt's dolly.

To see how the shot would all work art director Ray DiCarlo and I had previously set up the shot at Laurelhurst park which is where as a young child I remember once getting beat up in the wading pool... no not by an African American midget but by a girl. See there is a reason for everything.

Laurelhurst Park was OK but there were too many trees that would compete with the big leafy one that would be scooting across the frame so I then had another idea which was that we should shoot this in the world's biggest open backyard. So we shot out at Willamette Turf Farm which is where they grow hundreds and hundreds of acres of grass. Clean green as far as the eye could see.

In retrospect I wonder how everybody put up these crazy ideas. I never heard Ray ever say, "Come on... you want a giant maple tree to saunter across the frame like it's out for a Sunday walk? Are you nuts?" Well the correct answer would have been, "Well yes, actually I am."

And finally because of YOUTUBE the beginning pan over is a little hunky. My move was much smoother. And after 30 takes I would hope it would be!

Revisiting the Velvet Bowels of Advertising Part 2: "Cel One Transportation"

2007-04-25T15:05:00.000+02:00

So Bud's Dance got quite a bit of attention. 1. I was really happy that this happened and 2. that my first official ( i.e. paid for) spots were for this great agency Rob Rosenthal and Al Moffat had started not long before we shot. No creative slouch himself Rob hired terrific writers and creatives like Carl Loeb from whose brain these amazing ideas sprung.

The campaign featured Moultrie Patton. Moutrie was the sweetest guy in the world and his history as a retired saloon singer, raconteur and World War 2 Tank commander only added to his mystique. After these spots he went on to become Walt the Trapper on that trendsetting series "Northern Exposure".

At the time we shot these I was fixated on physicist Richard Feynman... well I guess I still am. In my mind this campaign was sort of a tribute to guys like him. Crazy, brilliant, funny and rebellious in a positive way. Carl and I must have of been on the same wave length or at least reading the same books.

My old friend Art Director Ray DiCarlo and his wife Jean came up with this wonderful and strange world of an older genius obsessed with chihuahaus, edible plankton and croquet. Ray went on to shoot a feature and then start up Bent Image Lab along with two of the world's best animators; Chel White and David Daniels.

Lance Limbocker, "the best sound designer in the known universe" worked his audio magic. It's worth listening to this with headphones to pick up all of his aural nuances. And Greg Ives did this super stripped down music track that pretty much consisted of a stand up bass and a set of bongos. How hip was that?! This must of been some sort of a golden age. All of these talented people doing astounding work in a wet, then pretty ungroovey, medium sized city in where? Oregun? What were we smoking?

Also that's "Tiny" the chihuahua in the back of the Isetta. Small enough to fit in a coffee cup he was owned by a lady who was large enough that she could barely fit through the door of the production Winnebago. Ah the stories I could tell...

Revisiting the Velvet Bowels of Advertising Part 1: "Bud´s Dance"

2007-04-23T10:57:00.000+02:00

Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends and Neighbors, Boys and Girls...

I have been going though the vast vaults of the Robin Willis Memorial Commercial archives located in Crawford, Texas just down the road from Jorge´s rancho, right next to an abandoned "Hot and Now" drive thru.

So let us begin at the beginning. Well at least the part where there is some hope of upward movement... before that it was just too sad as I desperately tried to convince the world to love me.

Speaking of desperation I had pretty much given up hope of the above happening and had gone back to school to finish my degree. 10 years or so previously I had majored in "Incomplete" at the hallowed halls of Portland State University. I was digging my new life as an older student at Marylhurst College, dominating discussions in class, calling up the professors to have my grades changed to A´s. Burning though 120 credit hours in 3 semesters though a cunning combination of professorial brow beating, testing and writing. Call me Robin College, I got a 4 point!

Anyway my friend and fellow director Todd Korgan called me up and asked if I wanted to direct a couple spots for the Portland Creative Conference. They had... wait for it, 500 bucks for both epics. Being nuts I said yes... under the conditions that I would write it, shoot it, cut it and would be left totally alone to twist slowly, slowly in the wind. Todd said he was hoping I would say that.

So I asked my next door neighbor, retired math teacher "Bud" Eugene Boughton if he would be so kind to star in these productions. He agreed and with the help of a water glass full of scotch delivered a stunning performance.

The spot was a big hit and went on to win many awards including "The Rosey"... which was and is Portland Advertising Federations big award. This might not sound like much but the fact is that Wieden and Kennedy, "the most groovy advertising agency in the world" also resided in my home town and had traditionally gobbled up everything. But this spot, which cost $250 dollars... that´s right 250 bucks, won one. Hurrah for the little man! Hurrah for being an ego maniac! Hurrah for moi!

Anyway things got strange after this. People from big, big agencies located in big, big cities would call ¨the office", my cubby hole over the bedroom looking for "Robin Willis´" reel. I would disguise voice to sound like a a high powered "executive producer" kind of guy and say off handedly that I´d see what we could do... And what we (me) could do was... panic.

In the future I shall be dusting off more of these icons of modern comedic advertising. Forgive me.

Dia de Mona!

2007-03-29T12:40:00.000+02:00

At Easter in Catalunya it is traditional for a god parent to give his god child a cake... the Mona de Pasqua. Zoe's godfather lives in Berkeley and my various god kids are strewn throughout distant countries around the world so I guess we are all off the hook but the bakeries are full of giant chocolate paeans to age old themes and characters like Barca, Bart Simpson and Barbie. Last night Zoe had me stop at a candy store to pick up some nubes (clouds) which are for the most part marshmallows. Zoe picked 6 long cylinders of fluffy sugar and... I dunno, I guess sugar.

Today deary arose from a dream about chocolate cakes as today she will add her nubes to a collective work of bakery art created with her classmates. Tomorrow after school we all dig in.

Evolution of a malady...

2007-03-26T19:32:00.000+02:00

Food for thought.

I was surprised by my general state of mind when I got sick. I was quiet, spiritual, positive, appreciative, introspective and had a strange sense of humor. As I've gotten better to the point of being just about back to normal I'm finding that my sense of blind grateful euphoric optimism has done left. OK I've learned many things from this time but I lost my rose colored glasses. Maybe it's all part of the truth seeking process. OK the big positive things like my daughter continue to astound me and fill me with joy and wonder. And I am still often amazed at the magic of the smallest things, like a walk, a good conversation and, well, ironing. But the things in my life that are obviously just wrong... relationships, places, situations, things that don't work, bad designs, rude people... I feel that right now I can really do without anything but good things in my life. I wonder if this a common reaction. I wonder if euphoria often is part of being seriously ill. I wonder if recovery is often accompanied by intolerance of nonsense and hooey. Hmmmmm...

Puedo Esquiar!!!

2007-03-26T14:00:00.000+02:00

This just in. OK months on the couch. Hobbling around like Tim Conway's little old man. A cane. Mi dio! Well folks it's more or less over. I skied this weekend!!! OK day one was more of an exploration of the bunny slopes with frequent breaks for chili dogs but day 2 saw the return of old swivel hips! Booma, a couple of screamin' snow grabbing super G carve-o-matic descents told me that all was good down there. OK the knee ain't what it used to be but by and large I seem to be able to compensate for it. I just have to watch twisty falls because there just ain't a lot left cushion wise. I'm going to get one of those robo-braces for Mr. Lefty. Carbon fiber... stainless steel studs. Oh boy another guy toy to obsess over! Gracias dio, gracias Doctores Heuget y Alegre. As long as I'm taking the rat DNA I'll be doing fine. Going up again on Sunday!

The end of the honeymoon...

2007-03-24T06:24:00.000+01:00

OK... An announcement. After 7 years... My love affair with España is finito. Basically it was the process of buying and fixing and moving that finally drove the dagger in.

I would like to wax rhapsodic about little old ladies bringing us cookies but I'm afraid all I have is neighbors who scream about my daughter singing on the terrace at 4 PM on a Sunday, the presidente of the communidad and his bleach blond rubia mujer who have a business selling mustache waxing machines who find a way to skim whatever he can whenever he can... Sergi the evil real estate agent/executive of the communidad who lied about just about everything, Anna the distant upstairs vecino who spies through her curtains and whispers in the stairwell about things like singing 7 year olds... gotta make cookies... this rant will continue. Believe you me.

Tango Land

2007-02-18T23:26:00.001+01:00

OK revelation time. I'm a sucker for just about anything with passion and Buenos Aires has it in spades. What is passion? Life. Love. Laughter. Sadness. Insanity. Sweat. Fear. Joy. Smells. Tastes. Success. Greed. Jealousy. Failure. Birth and rebirth. Passion is everything that is good about our species it's also what can really fuck us up too. The blind love I feel for my kid is passion. So is invading Iraq. This duality is so present in Buenos Aires. What a history... Except for a golden age of about 20 years these poor folks have just gone from one nightmare to another... and much of it was caused by themselves. Isn't that just so human. Military coups. Dictators. Economic crashes as that appear like clock work. Corruption. Murder. Fear. And a profound sense of homesickness.

Not wanting to be simplistic but the Tango and the history of tango really expresses all that is Argentina. And maybe all that is in being human.

I love this place.

Planes and Trains

2007-02-11T14:26:00.000+01:00

So I flew from Madrid to Hamburg then Hamburg to Paris the to Buenos Aires. I lose track of the hours on long hauls like this. It becomes so abstract. I did watch 2 great movies... if only I could remember them... OK, sorry Steven Frears Queen and Clint Eastwood's, "Flags of our Fathers". "Queen" was terrific and I've had this Helen Mirren thing for a very long time. It's nice age with someone you love. Even if they don't know you exist. I'll say this about the flight... Air France's food was terrific, which is not always the case. And I really loved the dignified but attentive service. I felt so adult. It beats begging for another micro-bag of peanuts to go with your 4 buck mini can of coke.

Airports are all basically the same. They suck. OK there are a few exceptions, Barcelona being one of them and Portland, Oregon, my home town, being another. Why are train stations so romantic and evocative and airports so ugly and inhumane? Truthfully Barcelona Sants Station isn't exactly Grand Central and for most part has taken the best attributes of a Greyhound bus terminal, like sticky floors and dirty toilets, and just made them bigger and grimier. However Estacion de Francia (BCN's other station) is a modernista jewel, and hardly ever used. Go Figure. Having said all that Buenos Aires Airport is just another poorly constructed giant box with planes.

Papas and Pampas

2007-02-11T10:56:00.001+01:00

I leave for Buenos Aires today. I shall direct a commercial for an old German brand of all things potatoes. Mashed, fried, baked... snacks, balls, discs, shredded, powdered...

I've been doing Pfanni spots for the last 5 years or so. How? I dunno. Why? It's fun. The folks I work with are great. The ideas are cute. I get to go to interesting places and tell people in a very charming way, what to do. The money. I like potatoes.

This time we find our self jetting to Buenos Aires, home of the tango and "great meat." Well I can actually tango... or at least I used to be able to. And I like all kinds of meat. Except camel.

So to bone up on this amazing city and country I watched a BBC DVD on Astor Piazzola the self professed creator of, "EL Nuevo Tango." Listen I love his stuff with all my heart but...

Mostly it's a concert film and a good one but the it's the extras that get a little scary. OK Piazzola come off as great guy in the interviews. His Noo Yarhk accent is a little disconcerting... who would have thought that Mr. Argentina/Italia would sound like he comes from deepest Brooklyn (he and his family moved there for 11 years when he was 4). But it's the interviews with his family that are disturbing. First there is his son David, who looks a little rough around the edges and does not look like he gotta a lotta love when he needed it. Then there is his grandson who looks a lot like Dad and talks about how Astor would see him once or twice a year. Then his daughter appears and talks about her sainted mother and how she supported Astor whilst he was developing his nuevo tango and pressed his shirts to boot. But then she starts talking about this book she wrote about her Dad and how his only editorial request was that Amelita was not discussed. His daughter goes on to describe Amelita as one of his, you know, women. We then get an interview with Amelita who waxes rhapsodically about her time with Astor and God and their understandable eventual breakup.

Then there is another interview with another pretty heavily surgically modified older lady who was the wife of one of his musical pals and how she got invited to Astor's seaside retreat and his husband didn't. Hmmmmm.

The bottom line is Astor kind of came off as a not exactly saintly.

I hate it when your heros are just humans. Sometimes jerky humans. Perhaps more research is required. Yep. More is. The taxi is here, off to Tango Land!

From a cafe: Barna-CeloNa

2006-12-15T10:13:00.000+01:00

I think of Barna as a city within the city of Barcelona. Barcelona is a city on the Mediterranean. It's big. It's confused about it's identity. It's still grappling with old problems. Problems of worth and importance. Problems with the past and with the times of Franco and before and with immigration from with in the country that it is currently located and from world outside it's lightly drawn borders. Barcelona has a dark side. A side that is closed, constricted, fearful and fatalistic. Old families and old money protecting their kingdoms. Protecting Catalunya from Spain and the world and from memories of times when the worst of human nature was well represented.

Barna on the other hand has many of the elements of Barcelona but it's more open, younger and less fearful. It's hipper and happier and less fatalistic. This hipness too has it's downside. Everything in Barna is "designed". It's fashion driven and temporary. It's expensive and sort of shallow. It has little concern for the future or for the past. It shares same love of money as Barcelona but rather than use it to control more it fritters it away. It's become wealthy in a very short amount of time and in some ways it's not wearing it's new clothes well.

But there is a another city with in this city. It's part Barcelona and part Barna and part something new and wonderful. It's open, it's hip in profoundly worldly way. It's light and hopeful and inviting. It honors its unique and wonderul culture while at the same time being interested and open to other cultures. It's a world of rossinyols and samosas. O calsots and breakdancing. Of bikes and 150 year old mercados selling oranges grown in the garden of an abuela who gives them out in handfuls to kids of any color. BCN is part of Spain. Part of Catalunya. And part of the world. This is my city. Visca BCN!

1st Aniversary of eating camel spaghetti

2006-12-09T23:29:00.000+01:00

Well it's coming up on a year from my trip to save the Saharawi. Much has happened. I ate camel. I got sick. Hardly able to walk and instructed to not drink a drop of alcohol I sat on the couch for 3 months cold sober learning to play the harmonica. We moved to a new home in a working class barrio of Barcelona. Last month I began taking some new super expensive biological medication that grafts the DNA from a rat's butt onto my forehead, or something. Apparently it is working because I'm thinking about going skiing. Now if it would only just snow. Oh and I really like cheese. I am now a rockin' harp player. I can now have a glass of wine or a beer every once in a while. The 20 hours of footage that was to save the Saharawi sits in a box waiting for me to confront it. The book about the trip and the wierd unexpected side effects has yet to written. Zoe is 12 months older, as am I. Insights? Yep. Wisdom? Well, I'll let others judge that. It's time to hop back in the pool and start swimming.

Halloween in Catalunya

2006-12-09T09:21:00.000+01:00

In Catalunya all Saints Day (Tot Sants) is a holiday. Traditionally people eat chestnuts and sweet potatoes from street side stalls. This is supposed to give you wisdom. OK cosa numero uno: these taste bad. Cosa numero dos: the folks who sell these things jack up thier prices for this day and this day only. Considering these two facts and that everybody continues to do this ritual I guess the truth is that they don’t work.

Ni hao

2006-10-13T07:44:00.000+02:00

Zoe is learning Chinese. I got to tell you that my initial reaction to her school's suggestion that she take it was that it was sort like learning martian just before they invaded. Come on let's be real. It's not about appreciating shu mai and the folks who invented noodles it's about getting a job ordering widgets from a sweat shop or introducing pharmaceuticals or SUVS or in the case of Spain jamon to 885,000,000 Chinese speakers.

However Zoo Zoo loves it and is taking to it like a Peking duck to the mouth of a nuevo rico DVD bootlegger. We all sat around the coffee table as she instructed us how to write characters representing the numbers 1 through 10. Yep she learning how to write in mandarin. Wow. My kid is a genius.

A trip to the U.S. of A.

2006-08-13T08:46:00.000+02:00

Zoe and I will be returning to my home town of Portland, Oregon for 3 weeks. Last week's bomb threats have pushed US air security in to the dreaded red zone. This means that 6 assorted dry sausages (chorizo picante and fuet), 2 chunks of Spanish cheese and 3 packets of pata negra jamon are now in the refridgerator and not in my suitcase. I'm risking a stay at federal bed and breakfast (3 squares a day and sex whether you want it or not) for even thinking about trying to slip a few cans of atun y sardinas through customs. But hey, it's for the padres.

Already I've been told that my harmonicas could be construed as menacing weapons (and if you've ever heard me play you'd know why), I should forget about my meds and do not under any circumstances drink water from an airplane even if it's from a bottle.

When I went back two years ago I completely freaked out when I saw self service check out at the grocery store. This could be an very interesting trip. Mas tarde.

IKEA SUCKS

2006-07-31T22:38:00.000+02:00

Just got back from Ikea. It was worst experience I've had in years. Much more later.

Confessions

2006-07-28T08:50:00.000+02:00

My friend Ann-Katrin sent me the new Eels DVD, "Eels with Strings." Firstly it's really good. E's fundamentally sad songs set to simple nursery rhyme like music are profound and disturbing.

I remember seeing E on his first tour. He seemed like a "goofy" young guy singing simple poppy tunes about... Well I guess I wasn't listening to the lyrics.

And on the literary front I recently finished reading Spaulding Grey's second to last book, "It's a Slippery Slope." Like E I always thought Grey was just a "goofy" guy who happened to recant his silly, funny East Coast life. But like with E I guess I wasn't really paying attention. "It's a Slippery Slope" is a "goofy" light romp describing a middle aged guy spinning out of control and spiraling downward to oblivion. Forget the uplifting ending, Grey eventually chose to jumped off the Staten Island Ferry.

The job of being a "Poetic Craftsman" can be dangerous and in the case of Spaulding Grey there can be industrial accidents. Confessions can on occasion not be good for the soul and the truth does not always set one free. I applaud the bravery of people like Grey and E but for some people for sanity's sake the phrase "Don't go there" could be the right path to take.

Habla Espanol?

2006-07-21T10:31:00.000+02:00

Sometimes I don't know what is wrong with me. A confession. A real confession. Hablo espanol muy malo.

Let's face it I'm the poster boy for a strange malady which does not allow me to acquire a second language.

I have this friend Alan who is Scottish. Alan speaks English, French, German, Spanish and Catala. Alan has never had one lesson in any of these languages nor has he ever cracked a book regarding this.

I have another friend Evert. Evert is Dutch. Evert speaks Dutch, French, English, Spanish and maybe Catala but I am not sure. Evert told me that he never took one lesson is Spanish.

I have another friend Mark, Mark is British. Mark speaks English and Spanish and he too has never taken a lesson.

Now lets look at me. I have taken months if not years of classes. I have bought a library full of books and software. I have 3 hours of intercambio every week. I have had tutors and the support of many,many Spanish and Catalan friends. My wife is French. She has a huge family. They have all for the most part been very, very... understanding.

But I still suck big time when it comes to other languages.

Is there something I am missing? Is it my wiring? Should I be taking some special vitamins? Smoking some special dope?

Does anybody have any insight about this?

Sticks to fight the heat

2006-07-20T08:41:00.000+02:00

It's hot. Too hot. It's going to be over 90 today and the forecast indicates that there is no end in site.

I've always thought my next door neighbors, an older couple named Edu and Orelia, were silly to live in a dark hole. Orelia would come over and marvel at how much light there was in our piso. After she'd left we'd roll our eyes and be amazed at older Spanish peoples fixation with the dark. How could they live in cavernous spaces with windows shuttered and curtains closed?

Well let me tell you right now I'm sitting in the living room. The windows are wide open but the exterior shutters firmly shut blocking the direct rays of the beast of el sol. It's calm, slightly romantic and much, much cooler. The beauty of shutters is that they block the light and as such the heat but let air circulate. It's a convection thing. It must reduce the temperature by 20%. All this with out a noisy, wet, ugly, expensive, poorly engineered inefficient machine blowing out refridgerated air. Shutters also let me sit here buck naked. Having been sewn into my underwear at a very young age this is to say the least a very new experience for me. Do you know how hot the bottom of an I Book gets? Believe me, I do.

Early Sunday Morning

2006-07-16T07:49:00.000+02:00

I was awoken by voices of the lawyer and his friends. He lives 2 floors down in the entresuelo or the principal and as such has the benefit of a large terraza.

As opposed to many other pre dawn Sundays it was soft conversations that invade my sleep and not The Doobie Brothers or Leo Sayer.

The voices were part of my dreams long before I actually woke up. A buzz of Spanish words punctuated by the lawyers low, gruff, ducado voice. As my dreams gave way to the reality of Sunday morning a woman was softly saying, "No, Carino, no." Which was followed by an incongruously louder, "Estoy una Aleman." Estoy? I layed there with my eyes closed letting the voices wash over me, amazed at my luck of being here and being alive for another morning.

The lavender light of dawn was slowly replaced by the amber rays of the sun. The colors being accentuated by the ochre color of the building and the stories high ceramic blocks that someone had failed to paint.

The neighbor and his friends voices had seemingly also awoken the birds who make their home in the in the patio de la manzana. The weird free jazz noodlings of the swifts triggered the sharp chirping of the pet parakeets which in turn started the low cooing of the pigeons. I rolled over to see a single grey feather slowly spiral down to the floors below.

Dissing.

2006-07-12T23:44:00.000+02:00

At my friend Lucy's insistence I just finished watching a DVD about Catalunya's own Ferran Adria, perhaps the most famous chef in the world. The show was hosted by "Kitchen Confidential's" Anthony Bourdain. Lucy served as a field producer and translator and even had a substantial on camera roll. And Lucy... You looked fabulous.

OK yes my perceptions about the fundamental notion of food were unalterably changed. It's that simple. He has reinvented cooking... And eating. But so many other things went though my mind as I watching the show. This guy and his team are the same time artists, physicists, neurobiologists, craftsmen, magicians, jesters, jugglers, strategists, entertainers...

A bigger question for me was why are we, sorry, why am I afraid of anything that is radically new. I've been respecting but at the same dissing Ferran Adria for years. It's not pretense, Adria is a simple guy from a very, very working class suburb of Barcelona. It's pure creativity. Like Richard Feynman. Or, what's an art analogy for Richard Feynman? Picasso, no too sophisticated. Too calculated. Marcel Duchamp. That's it. There is so much whimsy in Adria's work. It's childlike. It's simple. It's playful. And like good science it's seems like magic. There are lessons to be learned here. Yes indeed.

Too many interesting things...

2006-07-11T18:10:00.000+02:00

I'm just to interested in too many things. And the internet doesn't help. I learned about a book promoting a completely new approach to playing and listening to jazz. It's terrific. The author is now my buddy. I started thinking about musical instruments that are below the radar, like the ocarina. Yep, there a huge number sites dealing with this sweet and very old instrument. I got a great ukelele for my birthday, now I want to make them. Uh huh, an encyclopedia of information on ukes and their construction. I thought I'd be funny and clever and learn to play a profoundly un-ukelele like tune like, "Smells like Teen Spirit." There are of course tabs and chord charts available online but there is also a highly distributed video of "The London Ukelele Orchestra" scratching out this tune on British television.

I really don't know if this access to everything is good or bad. But it sure is entertaining. See ya later, gotta go find out how to turn an old carburetor into a bagpipe.

This just in...

2006-07-08T18:51:00.000+02:00

I have a yahoo mail account. It now only exists as a magnet for junk male. For some reason I thought I should check it. I have 3999 unopened pre-screened junk mails and 1500 non pre-screened junk mails. That latest email was from one Della Penn. Della's header says I have an expiring account or something similar. I check it only to find a notice about a herbal penis extender. Now the mysterious part was what I found at the bottom of the email. Has Mr. Burroughs returned to add poetry to solicitations for penile growth?

itch skid educated airport magnify hummel pristine southland
gleanings simon commissioner stack flat-broke psychotherapy
febrile discuss

Zippy songs for wierd times...

2006-07-08T18:35:00.000+02:00

Here's a little number just for summer. Hit one of the streaming versions and you shall feel uplifted. While you are there marvel at the Internet Archive. Yow. Some things are just soooo cool.

As things get more complicated other things get less complicated. Hence the Ukelele revival.

Old poop listens to new bottles

2006-06-22T17:35:00.000+02:00

I often go to David Byrne's web page and marvel at all the things Mr. Byrne seems to be capable of. For example, while the rest of us were busy decking the halls, down to the wire shopping for vaguely remembered relatives and whupping up clam dip, on Christmas Eve he took the red eye to Manila to do research for an operetta about Imelda Marcos. I mean he seems to have time to produce a series of albums featuring Inuit throat singers and Welsh mining choirs, building a sound instalation in Berlin that takes up a whole building, taking his kids to school, giving interviews, mantaining a complex website, doining a daily blog that is more than six lines and picking and tossing up a months worth of amazing music for his internet radio program.

Well no matter how he does it this month's radio offering is really special. He's focusing on "Avant Pop." What is "Avant Pop"? It's hard to describe; a little casio peeping, loops of hub caps being rubbed with a spatula, breathy, emotion drenched, whispered vocals and lyrics that could break the heart of Dick Chaney if he'd only tune in.

A big find for me is "Antony and the Johnsons." "For Today I am a Buoy," just kills me. At first listen I thought it was sung from the position of a strong but very gender confused 12 year old but considering that Antony is singing "Buoy" rather than "Boy" I can only guess that the message is something else entirely.

Man are we living great times or what. "poetic craftsman" are really whacking together some great stuff.

Artists

2006-06-22T14:59:00.000+02:00

I have a problem with the word artist. I have a problem with the word art. They both have such weight, such baggage. Most "Art" I see, read, taste, feel I don't like. But some moves me to change. Some re-appears in my dreams or when I close my eyes.

I think we need a better phrase to describe intended creative work. How about "poetic craft" to describe art and "poetic craftsman" to describe those that make "poetic craft." Let's keep it lower case for awhile.

"Catalunya is a Nation" and four words a problem make.

2006-06-16T13:08:00.000+02:00

This Sunday the region of Spain where I live will vote on a new constitution. As far as I can tell the changes are not really that substantial regarding this regions relationship with Spain. Economically the regions of Navarra and Pais Vasco already have a similar level of autonomy and big cultural changes like Catala being the language taught in public schools have already transpired.

The big issue really is four words that are in the new constitution, "Catalunya is a Nation." Words can be so powerful. What will be the effect of those four words on the future of this region and of Spain?

Time will tell.

Stranger in a Strange Movie

2006-06-04T20:26:00.000+02:00

Benedicte and Zoe are in France this weekend for an 18th communion. I'm happily playing Senior Rodriguez which is Spanish shorthand for when the cat's away the mouse will drink directly out of milk cartons and leave the seat up.

So after putting my shod feet up on the couch I, in anticipation of making the years first batch of "Cheery Cherry Jam" (scroll down to the bottom of the page) , combined a kilo and a half of cherries with a kilo and a half of suger and left them to become one overnight. I then took myself to see Pedro Almodovar's new movie "Volver", which in Spanish means return .

I hoofed it down to the metro, made a connection and popped up a block away from one of this fair cities finer movie houses. I waited on line, got a ticket, bought a medium coke and an ice cream bar, found the right sala and settled in next to two slightly overwieght older women.

OK a confession, my spanish is only so-so so the complex and lengthy dialogue that Almodovar is fond of would be challenging. But I like his work and for some reason still can't get enough of Penelope Cruz. Let's analyze this Penelope Cruz thing a little bit. I don't really know what is about her but she is just so... Spanish. She walks funny, has a strange nose and odd lips and seems like she would be really a lot of trouble to live with but still she's irresistable in a wierd earthy way. Kind of like Spain.

So the film is this lovely combination of pathos and goofy comedy. Almodovar seems to own this style, nobody else even tries. It's the contridictions; real and fantastical and hopeful and almost happily fatalistic. There are parts of the story that would come off being tragic with anybody but Pedro. People die in Almodovar films. People are crippled in Almodavar films. They get cancer. They get beat up. They get gored by bulls. But it's moving and not sad. It's life; it's funny, magical and transcendant.

Every once in a rare while ans only when I see a film alone, I come out of theater somehow changed. It's like being in a lovely fog where the movie has continued and you're in it. Call it being movie drunk.

I could tell as the lights went up that Señor Almodovar had made me a little more than tipsy. I acknowledged the 2 ladies next to me got up and made my way down the aisle. Depositing my ice cream stick and my empty medium sized paper cup I exited the theater into a very long corridor. Futher along I noticed a sign indicating a bathroom and decided to take the offensive and use it before being trapped in the metro. I entered and was surprised to see that the room was full of loud chattering older Spanish ladies. One of them noticed my confusion. She smiled and pointed out that I was indeed in the right place as the bathroom had a common sink area. I entered the next room, did what I needed to do and rentered the rooms where the sinks were. All the women had left but the electric hand dryer was still going. Back in the long corridor I eventually came to a door that lead to the street which has oddly quiet for a Saturday night in Barcelona. I walked back to metro, passed through the turnstills and took the elevator down to the platform. The train came in a few minutes.

I got off at my station and walked back to my apartment reveling in my last few moments of being altered by a lovely film.

Harmonica break through

2006-05-27T08:46:00.000+02:00

Whilst away on a job in Germany undt Austria I had quite a bit of time to practice my chromatic harmonica. Armed with my crazy French software I learned George Gershwin's "Summer Time", Ray Charles "Georgia on my Mind" and Steven Sondhiem's "Send in the Clowns." For some reason I'm still struggling with "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat." It's has such a long melody line and I always loose my place on the cool little fiddly bits towards the end. I'm going to try some Antonio Carlos Jobim next. Soon you will be able to find me in the long tunnel at the Paseo de Gracia metro stop. I'll be wearing a yellow scarf and flubbing the last few bars of "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat."

Poo Poo head

2006-05-04T11:50:00.000+02:00

Although Zoo Zoo knows all about the birds and the bees as well as a whole whack of languages she still is 6 year old. I'm away on a job in Germany so every day I talk to her in the morning before she goes to school. The highlight of the call for Zoe is when she tells me her daily joke which goes something like this:

"Daddy, here's your joke for today. You have a nose made out of poo poo and there is spinach coming out of your ears." Or "You have a big fat culo." A culo is the word for butt in Spanish. These comments are always followed by Zoe's impression of Felix The Cat's laugh, "Aaaah hah hah hah haaaaaa...!" I regularly point out that I indeed do not have a big fat culo, I have always had a culo which only barely allows for my pants to stay up.

This morning I extended the joke to include the little madame. I said, "Well you have poo poo on your hair and a zucchini coming out of your nose." Ah kids, they bring out the best in ya, no?

M.C. Austin's Pancake Dinner

2006-04-25T16:03:00.001+02:00

Every once in a while my grandma, the one, the only, Marie C. Austin, used to make my brother and I pancakes for dinner. It was a real ritual. They had to be served pipping hot and she would make them only a couple at a time. No making up a big batch and putting them in the oven for her. She also used this amazing old electric griddle that seemed to be capable of evenly applying the perfect amount of heat.

So at Zoe's request (once again introducing the idea that she really is Marie come back for seconds) last night I whupped up some pancakes for dinner. Living in Espanya means many things, including no access to Aunt Jemima. Nope it's pancakes from scratch or nada. And considering how easy "from scratch" is I wonder how Aunt Jemima stays in business.

It's "falling off a log simple". Beat one egg with one teaspoon of vegetable oil and a cup of milk.

Sift twice 1 and 1/2 cups of flour, 2 tablespoons of sugar, a pinch of salt and and 1 tablespoon of baking powder. You can leave out the sugar if you want to.

Using a whisk or a hand mixer (hey, a whisk is easier, there is little clean up and it is good exersize) gradually combine the dry ingredients with the liquids.

You have now completed the batter phase of this project.

Preheat a griddle or a skillet to medium low. Melt a tiny bit of butter in the pan and coat it as evenly as possible.

Using a ladle or a 1/2 cup measuring cup pour the batter into the pan. Use one ladle or measuring cup per pancake. When bubbles form on the surface of the pancakes it's time to flip 'em. So flip 'em. I have a nice commercial spatula. Peek at the other side and when
it's nice and golden brown that's it. Serve with butter and heated maple syrup.

I sometimes add frozen berries to the uncooked pancakes right after I ladle them on to the skillet. Small berries work better than big fist sized strawberries.

Also last night, in place of maple syrup I tried a some of my brother-in-law's liquidy blackberry jam that didn't set (obviously he is not reading the valuable information about making jam that is presented in this blog). Oh man, I love maple syrup but Francois' runny great tasting mistake won hands down.

Arroz Griego a la Saharawi

2006-04-23T16:18:00.000+02:00

OK another adventure in leftovers. Thanks to the Saharawi Diet, I am always hungry. And for whatever reason at this moment in time I can eat, and eat and eat and have no physical consequences like a spare tire, a big butt or god forbid, a double chin. The end result is that I raid the refridgerator frequently. So amongst the jelly jars and pickles I sound some leftover rice, eggs, feta cheese, big fat acitunas verde and a hankerin' to chow down.

I started by frying the green olive pieces over fairly high heat in a little olive oil. Olive whacking secret: 1. Place olive on cutting board. 2. Take big knife and place flat side against the olive. 3. Take your fist and pound once or twice on the knife which smashes the olive into either pieces or mush, depending on the variety. It works even better for garlic.

Then I added maybe a cup of pre-cooked white rice. "Pre-cooked"... very important. Whilst this was transpiring I took an egg and whisked it with a little water (why water and not milk? Well milk just didn't seem very Greek to me) until it was nice and yellow and foamy, french omelete style. I lowered the heat to low and tossed this in with the rice and the olives and moved them all vigorously around the pan.

Finally I added some feta that I had previously chopped into 1/2" cubes. I covered the pan for a couple of minutes to soften but not melt the cheese. A little salt, a little pepper, OPAH! Lunch is served!

I tried it on Zoe a couple of nights later subsituting black olives for the green ones, adding some chopped up Jamon and leaving out the feta. She no like feta. Let's call that one Arroz Andaluz a la Frigador. She loved it. What a girl!

Quintessential: Scissors

2006-04-23T15:28:00.000+02:00

So, sometimes I am astounded by really good thinking in a lot of day to day things. Scissors for example. What a cool and elegant tool. Using the magic of leverage and a bunch of other physical properties the names of which I can't think of 2 pieces of sort of sharpened metal, more or less joined at the middle can cut through cloth, paper, metal, tree branches and yes, meat.

I use them in the kitchen all the time. You wanna half an apple turn over? Snip. There you go. Zoe needs her steak chopped up. Snip, snip, snip. Open the milk carton. Yep. What else can do this without a potential loss of blood. Cuts though squid like butter. Cuts through butter like squid.

God bless who ever invented these things!

An education in humility

2006-04-23T13:29:00.000+02:00

My friend Agustin has been educating me on the wonderful world of the harmonica in Spain. This week I saw a young guy named Antonio Serrano at this terrific jazz club called Jamboree. It was like seeing John Coltrane at the Village Vanguard in the early 60's. This guy is absolutely one of the greats on the chromatic harmonica. Ripping through everything from straight ahead bebop to nailing the neuvo tango of Astor Piazzola, I was completely beside my self watching this unassuming chico. It was also a pretty good review of how my progress on this instrument is going. Perhaps like the night when Bill Frissell saw John McLaughlin and Paco de Lucia at the Hollywood Bowl and decided that he would need to take a different direction on his chosen instrument or hang it up, I too got sort of a wake up call. I probably won't be playing "Flight of the Bumble Bee" anytime soon (and to be honest I can't imagine why I would want to) but I maybe able to develop a nice, round tone and make the few notes I can manage to get out count.

I'm 3/4 of the way though "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat." It 's interesting how just taking a little time to focus on just one thing can create other opportunities in seemingly unrelated areas. I was pretty much stuck a quarter of the way though after getting the first few bars pretty quickly. After getting way too frustrated I decided that I needed to:

1. Listen to the piece very carefully, over and over and over.

2. Get the score and...

3. Figure out a way to translate the notation to harmonica tabs (squiggly lines and arrows that tell you when and where to blow and suck).

Well amazingly I realized that I didn't have a copy of Mingus' original version. so off to I Tunes I went to contributed 99 cents to Mr. Job's king of the world campaign. Listening to the tune I realized that somehow I had taught myself the first few bars in the right key. Hmmmm... How do da brain do such things? It was great playing along with Mr. Mingus and the boys for the first part of the tune but as soon as the notes started going up I had to sit down and shut up.

OK time to invoke part 2. Except that for this tune I couldn't find any sheet music for free or other wise on the Internet. Hmmmm... I put a call out to my cyber harmonica buddies. Boom! A file and a chord chart. Thanks guys! Anyway to make a long story short I found another program made by these crazy French brothers that automatically spits out tabs for wierdo harmonicas like mine as well as Latvian Spike fiddle, and Ullean Hose Clamp. 20 bucks! Amazing what's out there!

So now I have a path for the last indecipherable bars of "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat." Now I am on the way to refreshing my ability to read music. Now I have a program that makes anything, including "Flight of the Bumble Bee", a tab. Now I know where to focus my attention, it's not speed and virtuosity, it's heart and soul. Or is that sole?

Fava beans, Chianti and an old friend for dinner...

2006-04-23T12:30:00.000+02:00

Pal, confidant, hermano verdad... Mr. Glenn Miccalef came a visiting and inspired by the local mercado came up with this recipe for fresh fava beans which are as common as dirt here in Espanya. Hey if you ain't got no favas try it with limas or even green beans cut into something like 2 inch pieces. Remember favas can have many names; broad beans, horse beans, pigeon beans... they are all fava beans.

Over medium heat saute (AKA fry) a handful of 1/2" chunks of bacon. Add another handful of slightly larger chunks of spicy spanish chorizo (as opposed to Mexican chorizo which is not cured and is more finely ground). If can't find chorizo try any medium hard cured sausage. As open as I am I still would not consider canned vienna sausages, weenies or little smokies... well maybe little smokies. When thoroughly browned reduce heat to low and add cup and a half or so of shelled favas and a few (like maybe 6) whole peeled garlic cloves. Do not let the garlic burn. Here's a trick. On one side of the pan mound the cooked chorizo and bacon on top of the garlic. This holds in the heat and kind of makes a little oven and roasts the garlic. Move the favas around a bit. When the garlic is tender cover the pan for 10 minutes or so and let the favas steam there way home. When the favas are soft, eat.

Quintessential: The White Cotton T Shirt

2006-04-08T22:31:00.000+02:00

Let's face it how much clothing do we really need? I've always dreamed of having a simple rack with 3 pairs of jeans and a drawer with 7 pairs of white cotton socks, 7 indentical pairs of boxer shorts and 7 pressed white shirts. Now T shirt wise up until recently wearing anything other than a garment only slightly smaller than a pup tent would have been out of the question but thanks to the Saharawi diet I can wear a medium with out people turning thier heads. Hence I have fallen in love with the idea of a clothing article that is a distillation of the essence of the notion of what we wear. Is this a "habit" like monks and nuns wear? A modern robe for a modern aestic who is just trying to learn to play the chromatic harmonica? I dunno but it feels great. Here's to a fresh shirt everyday.

Sex Ed. in Espanya

2006-03-21T11:35:00.000+01:00

So I was walking home from school with my soon to be six year old Zoe and she said,"When I was born was it natural or was it by caesarian?" She said this while making a cutting motion across her stomach. "Uh, naturally", I responded trying to look as cool an as unpuzzled as possible. "So do you know how we are made?" "Well, yeah, you mean how are we conceived?", I said trying not to use the phrase "where babies come from." I mean the kid's fluent in four languages and regularly uses words like profound and facile. "Do you?", I asked with a slight amount of apprehension. ""Yeah, sure, the man places his penis in the woman's vulva and then he gives the woman a baby and she makes it grow." Note that when Zoe mentioned penis and vulva she touched mine and then of course hers. This went on on one of the busiest pedestrian streets in Barcelona. "Is that right?" "Yep, about 95% of it is right on the money." "You and Mommy did that?" "Yep," Laughter ensued.

I spoke with Senyor Casas who owns the school that Zoe attends about the conversation that I had with her. Mr. Casas is a swell guy and is always available to chat about things like penises and vulvas. Yes, in Spain schools are required by law to educate the children in kindergarten about, gulp, sex. Being an American I was a little bothered by this. But you know, why not? They take the dark mysteries out of it right away. The kids don't seem to freak out with this info. It sure beats my introduction at a much older age which lead to all sorts of confusion regarding appropriate orifices. The less said about this the better.

Quintessential

2006-03-12T20:55:00.000+01:00

The older I get the more annoyed I get when "things" don't work. I'm going to start posting pictures of great things. Things that don't break. Things that work every time. Things that are perfectly designed to serve a purpose.

Here's number one: The aluminum espresso maker.

Darrell is a genius, again...

2006-03-12T16:12:00.000+01:00

This just in from Darrell Williams:

The Enormous Nothing

The leaves moved across the sand like lizards until there were no more leaves and only the soft sound of countless specks of former mountains moving in slow-motion along the never-never. David Kngwarreye stood motionless in the sun. Today would be a better day, of this the birds had sung. Sky would turn to water, snakes would dance in the wind, and David would cross the Kakadu in bare feet like his ancestors before him. Tomorrow would be his death. Of this, he was sure. But today stretched before him like eternity and that would be a good thing. He was alive for today, and that was a good thing.

Makes you want to read more which is more than I can say for a lot of fiction these days. Darrell's abilities as a film-maker are so evident in his writing. It is just so visually and emotionally evocative.

Three gold stars

2006-03-12T12:23:00.000+01:00

I bought myself a present for my birthday; a chromatic harmonica. Now this is not your usual chromatic harmonica it's a custom tuned (G diminished, if there are any musicos reading along) number made by a little company located what was formerly Eastern Germany.

The whole process of getting this beauty was a lovely experience (more on this later) but todays topic is a few thoughts on learning and accomplishments. OK let it be known that I have an aptitude for music. I can pretty much make a passable noise on a bunch of instruments. But with this aptitude comes laziness which has hindered my ability to move to a higher level of skill. Translation: I can fake it, so why bother with all the tedious stuff? I've been playing piano since I was 4 years old but if even you put a gun to my head I still couldn't play a scale the "correct" way.

I've been playing harmonicas off and on since my debut with Dave Johnson and Devan Garlock in the Fremont Jr. High talent show. I played the french horn (?) line on Simon and Garfunkel's "The Boxer." It was the beginning of my short but sweet academic "popularity phase" where at lunch time I actually got to sit at the same table as the groovy kids. Anyway, I kind of get harmonicas and can do (fake) some pretty mean "Chicago" blues riffs on the diatonic (OK jargon watch, a diatonic is the short one favored by cowboys, sharecroppers and burley black guys in sharp suites). The chromatic is another instrument all together. It has all 12 notes available (the diatonic, "officially" only has 7). Fewer people play the chromatic and as such there really are only a handful of relatively famous players. Toots Thielman is probably the most well known but Stevie Wonder started his career (when he was known as "Little Stevie Wonder") spicing up his lovely tunes with a chromatic.

Anyway I made a promise to myself to not to just dink around with this new intrument. I want to learn it properly; starting with the basics and then moving into tunes and then improvisation.

Allow me to bore you for a bit. The diminished tuned chromatic is a pretty novel harmonica. You can play all 12 keys by learning just three simple patterns. Compare this to a normal chromatic where playing 12 keys require you learn 12 patterns (some of which are pretty nasty) and you can see it's advantages.

So I gave myself a goal; one pattern in one week of 1/2 hour sessions. Well I was too generous with needed time, basically it took me an hour per pattern to more or less "get it."

By learning the patterns I felt as though I had really accomplished something with a small but well directed amount of effort. I then decided to reward my self by learning a tune. I've always wanted to play John Coltrane's beautiful ballad "Niama." You know what? On the "dimi" chromatic I had it picked out in half an hour! So reward rewarded it' back to the wood shed; task: play the patterns descending. Once that is acomplished the next reward is learning Charles Mingus' "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat." Another slow wonderful ballad that I've been dying to play for years.

It seems that just about everything in life is so intangible. What are we successful at? Being a parent? Our work? Friendships? Relationships? So much effort is put into day to day life and to be honest the rewards are often pretty hard to percieve. Money. Affection. Acknowledgement. Acceptance. Other than dinero these are all so vague. I've always wished there was somebody out there to put a gold stars on the top of the notebook paper of my life. I guess it's up to me to put those stars on. Getting this instrument maybe the best thing I've done for myself in years. Three gold stars for Robin. "Good Job! Keep it up!"

Spaghetti a la Hobo

2006-03-05T08:55:00.000+01:00

Last night I got creative with the left overs. OK some of them were pretty high end, particularly the Jamon, but still it was a bold session of winging it.

First I chopped up a sad half an onion. Then the aforementioned ham. Hey, I've fallen in love with using scissors in the kitchen, it made quick work of an aging but still tasty, sort low level Jamon Serrano. OK, there was a scrawny weeny in the fridge too and rather than look at for the rest of my life I sniped that up as well. To be honest weenies will not be visiting this dish again...

In to the magic cast iron skillet it all went, of course with a little olive oil. I should have done the onions separately but who's counting.

Now comes the free form section. I tossed in some left over spaghetti, stirred it around and hey it looked pretty good but it certainly wasn't dangerous and out there and I suspect has been on Italian farm tables for 500 years. So to shake it up I broke 2 eggs, added some pre-grated bag guyere to the noodles and commenced to moving the stuff around the pan with two wooden spoons. After the eggs looked more of less cooked I sprinked on some Parmesan and tested the concoction on Zoe who gave it a favorable review by cleaning her plate and asking for more.

Alas this was not possible because there was just enough for moi. OK, I did slip her a few strands of pasta. Like I said, the only mistake was the old hot dog. Maybe spaghetti and hot dogs go together in the world of "Franco-American" but not in my kitchen. Hey no disrespect meant to "Spaghetti Os." I used to love that stuff. Who would of thought it, spaghetti in a can. Post war America was soooo easy.

Darrell is a genius...

2006-02-28T09:58:00.000+01:00

This just in from my friend the genius writer:

Electricity flowed through the wires of his house, it rippled around the rooms and snaked through the outlet and slipped into the television set and coursed across the circuitry to ignite phosphors on and off until pixels danced and winked and altered their wavelength ultimately making Simon and Paula and that big black Randy animate as if they were real and not just a figment of a producer's imagination, a manifestation of a script written in silence while waiting for better ideas to emerge. When I snap my fingers, you will awaken and remember nothing. On the count of three, you will open your eyes and stumble into bed.

Darrell Williams

Fixing things

2006-02-09T07:35:00.000+01:00

Last year I bought a very funky but lovely sounding guitar from a great old guy in Havana. Zoe pulled it out last Sunday to play the 5 and half year old blues. She strummed away for a while and then left it on the couch. I noticed that a pretty gnarly crack had developed on on the back. I immediately blamed the kid and had her go and clean the bathroom and wash the car... nah, she's always gentle with the instruments and besides we don't have a car.

I got on the internet, well I seem to always be on the internet... and googled "crack, accoustic guitar repair." I waded through all the sexual and drug related references and came cross this guitar maker who also teaches others how to make guitars. One of his students had written in to discuss fixing pretty much the same problem.

The guitar makers point was that the crack was probably caused by a change in humidity. Ditto... Havana humid to the point of needing a wet suit, Barcelona in the winter, dry as a bone.

So the guy says to first wet down the body of the guitar with a spray bottle and then stick it in a plastic garbage bag over night. Hmmm. OK I empty out a windex bottle and spritz my baby and then dug out out a garbage bag, put it inside and sealed off the neck with some masking tape. This apparently is supposed to re-humidify the instrument and will seal up the fissure that has been caused the wood drying out.

OK I wait until the next morning and remove the guitar from it's new damp environment. Viola! The wound healed!

Phase 2 was rubbing Elmer's glue to the now healed crack for " not less than 2 minutes using your finger tips." I cleaned up the excess glue with a wet paper towel as described and I now have a repaired guitar!

Much of my world is so abstract. The vagueness of what I do, the general lack of any kind of a schedule or a day to day rhythm... It felt good to do something physical and see the results of a small amount of labor. I 'll remember my success every time I play this old happily unfashionable guitar.

Sunday in Barcelona

2006-01-22T23:39:00.000+01:00

Traditionally Sundays in Barcelona are for getting up early, fixing a big breakfast of bacon and eggs, hash browns, wheat toast, OJ and mugs of hot, hot coffee. Then it's off for an early bike ride and then on to a museum or two and finally a movie. IRONY! In general Spaniards stay up until 5 am 7 days a week. A typical Sunday consists of rolling out of the sack at 2 in the afternoon followed by hunk of dry bread and shot of espresso and depending on what you had the night before a shot of something else. Then it's off to lunch with some friends and then a movie and then a drink and then dinner and then a drink and then a club and then somehow it's 5 am again.

We came close to this today. Zoe woke me up at 8:30! I got her some juice and went back to bed. Everybody was officially up by 10:30. Good fer nuttin' lay-a-bout sinners were we.

A Sick Kid

2006-01-19T19:17:00.000+01:00

Poor Zoe came back from school sick last night. The classic. The standard. The stomach flu. Yep lots of evacuation. We did the good parents thing and got her to bed. What felt good when I was kid when I was sick? My mom being with me. Soda crackers with margarine, Seven Up and Campbell's chicken noodle soup. An of course watching reruns of Perry Mason on TV.

Zoe's day was sort of similar but you can't find soda crackers or Seven Up here. Chicken Soup yes but no Perry Mason.

So you subsitute Catalan cooking shows and DVDs of Scooby Doo run off the laptop and you are almost there. But still those Perry Mason episodes were something; Della and Paul, Burger the DA and Perry sweating out a last minute on the stand confession from the dead guys nephew or business partner or wife. I'm sorry but bad Spanish Muppet clones cannot hold a candle to that.

Shadow of the Wind Time in BCN

2006-01-17T16:20:00.000+01:00

It's definitely winter here. The trees are bare and it's damp and cold. Less people are on the streets. Barcelona is a very romantic city, a romantic city with a dark side. Black clouds gathering over the old amusement park on Tibidabo. Brooding modernista buildings with their organic shapes looking like grimacing mouths and bones. The old gothic part of town with it's labyrinth of dark and narrow streets. It's all in Carlos Ruiz Zafon's book, "The Shadow of the Wind." Get past the first chapter and you'll be hooked.

But for me considering my mood I think I need to re-read "The Great American Novel" by Philip Roth. One of the funniest books of all time. I kid you not. Hey! Anybody wanna make a movie of this! I know this director...

Dark Taxi Ride

2006-01-16T21:08:00.000+01:00

I had to go way up on the hill to have an appointment with the Rhumatologist. It was scheduled for 6, well into the Spanish winter evening. My downstairs neighbor Alfredo came along as a translator. When it comes to money and health I need the information to be pretty concrete.

It was a weird dark ride. It was raining and the taxi driver was playing sitar music on the stereo and he had a plastic Jesus and a plastic Buddha stuck to the dash board. Alfredo kept visiting these extremely dark topics, topics that seemingly affect both of us. But it just wasn't the right time. We wound up through the Eixample and into Sarria. For much of the trip it was bumper to bumper traffic. Lots of time to hear just about how bad things could be. I couldn't get my leg comfortable. I appreciated the company and the help but I eventually asked him to please change the subject.

Finally we arrived at the office. We waited a for a while and I kept pretending to read Hola, sort of a Spanish "People" magazine but Alfredo kept getting back to bleakness. Eventually the Rhumatologist saw us. He just kept banging away in Spanish. OK, OK I know it's my fault I live in Spain, but he he wouldn't slow down and he wouldn't back up. It was 90% techno jargon that seemed to have a lot to do with my future.

On the way back Alfredo continued with his devil's advocacy. I occasionally closed my eyes and just wished I was in another place. A place where people spoke English, were nicely taciturn and didn't make everything an emotional upheaval out of cultural necessity. A place where my leg didn't hurt. I wanted a pine log on the fire, a dog on my lap and a slightly warm beer. OK put Zoe at my feet drawing pictures of raccoons and you have version of heaven.

Saturday morning at the biblioteca

2006-01-15T20:46:00.000+01:00

Zoe and I go to the library either Friday night after school or on Saturday mornings. I like Saturday mornings because we can hang out for hours. She automatically goes to the kids section and I go grab a stack of magazines, the more trivial the better. Currently I seem to be attracted by mountain bike rags featuring 5,000 euro uberbicis made out of endangered bald eagle feathers and compressed hydrogen. Anyway I take my pile and join Zoo Zoo at one of the kiddy tables. Zoe has thing for this series called, "El Cuerpo Humano." She's always been interested in cartilage, why I dunno, but it just won't go away, but this Saturday she was fascinated by the immune system. Oh boy... Dads going to be a science project. For some reason white corpuscles are her favorites. I guess it's because they are cute, doughy and kind of cuddly.

She usually picks out a couple of books and a DVD or 2. Me I go for the DVDs and the CDs. I got Marc Ribot for the 4th time and "In the Name of the Father" or more accurately "En el Nombre Del Padre." OK I'm a real bookworm but let's face it the chances of me reading Catalan are slim to non-existent.

On the way home we stopped in a farmacia for some of the many things I am taking. The nice pharmacist was at the mercy of his brother's reorganization of the goods and couldn't at first find what I needed. I find that Catalans can get strangely fastidious over minutia but can live with a telephone cable hanging in front of their window for years. Maybe it's a subconcious reaction to the cable hanging in front the guy's brother's window that caused him to move all the boxes around. But he eventually found the right cubby hole.

The big news is what was on the counter. There was a display in happy kiddie colors from a major manufacturer of rubbers. The gadget, all wrapped up like it was a novelty candy like pop rocks or warheads, is a disposable vibrator kind of thingy. Apparently it's designed to be inserted where the sun don't shine and is guaranteed to last for 20 minutes. Jeez, twenty minutes! Comes with happy candy colored lube in a festive applicator. Imagine the research that went into this product. Can you imagine the focus group? Zoe was very interested. I told her it was a new kind of yo yo. She didn't buy it.

A short errand

2006-01-13T22:13:00.000+01:00

I've been trying to get out more. My pal Lucy has me drinking homemade kefir. It's another cultured lactose thang sort of like yogurt. Anyway it has these chunky bits called grains that you are supposed to filter out and reuse to make more kefir. You need a medium fine strainer. So off I go to the tienda para everything you need including magnets and dog leashes. It's 2 blocks down the street so it will be a challenge. I shuffle along as all the fit and handsome people point and make comments about the poor guy struck down way too young by a vicious case of an overly aggressive immune system. I have now added a cane to my ensemble.

I make it to the shop and enter the closet like space. There is really a huge amount of stuff tucked inside. Pots, pans, knives, pasta machines, hedge clippers, toilet paper roll holders, decorative figurines and motor oil. Mr. Tienda is reading the newspaper. Mrs. Tienda greets me and ask me what I need. Wisely I had looked up the name for strainer in the dictionary before my departure. "Nesecito uno colado pequino y fino, por favor." "Si", she points to the wall behind her which has at least 50 different types of strainers. "Es para kefir, metalico es una problema, tiene plasticos?" Like she is going to know about kefir... Jamon si, kefir or kambucha forgetaboutit. Mr. Tienda looks up from his paper. "Abajo" there under a pile of swim fins are a few dusty lime green numbers. I acknowledge a successful search and say I'll take it. She wraps the strainer in beautifully printed paper and hands it to me. "Quando questa?" Back behind his paper Mr. Tienda says, "Uno euro" to his wife. Following protocol she tells me, "uno euro." I give a euro and take my new lime green strainer and hobble home slighter better for the experience.

Edu in the restaurant

2006-01-12T11:26:00.000+01:00

In addition to yesterday's morning meeting I again descended the stairs of pain to go lunch with my buddy Alan. We went to the restaurant on the other side my front door. It's called Ca' Nuri, which pretty much means Nuri's joint. Over the August break they completely gutted the place and gave it the full BCN modo makeover. It's a nice place.

So Alan and I discussed relationships, how to be an artist and how to get into more trouble going to even more weird places with a camera. It was lovely.

Now here's the real story. Sitting next to us was Edu. Edu is probably 60 and owns a nice cafeteria (coffee shop) on the other side of street. He's an interesting guy, he has a grey pony tail and makes a good cup of coffee. Edu says he makes the best cup in all of Barcelona. OK, why not.

Alan wanders off to the servicios and although we really don't each other I strike up a conversation with Edu. So he tells me about his house in Horta (another neighborhood) and how it's on a quiet street and how the birds sing in the morning and how he can see the mountains and the sea if goes up on the roof and looks between the heating vent and crack in the wall... and then he says that this week I should come with him to his house and he'll fix me lunch because he's a great cook.

OK there it is again. That Spanish thing. "Hey how you doing?" turns into a invitation for a home cooked meal from some guy that you have bought a few cups of coffee from. Damn. What a country.

One Word... Joselito

2006-01-11T20:19:00.000+01:00

So today I had my first meeting away from the casa since I got home. OK it was just at the corner of the street at the resturante called "Tapasbar" which of course does not serve tapas. Considering my pathetic Tim Conway old man walk I thought I'd get there early, find a chair and do the FDR thing. You know be regally seated as the other meetings participants arrive. But as it turned out my new friends arrived even earlier and were seated right in the window I would have to pass directly by. I didn't know what they looked like but I could tell from their wild gesticulating hands and smiles that they knew who I was. Damn... what a cartoon. I kept right on going around the corner to the health food shop, picked up my pal Lucy's recommended vitaminas and garlic capsules, 2 jugs of zumo de manzana and headed back to the resturante. Yep it was them. I sat down and regaled them with tales of the Saharawi, dysentery and camel humps.

Before we got down to business for some reason we started talking about Ham. Well in Spain just about before you do anything you usually eat ham and if have none to eat you talk about it. Word. Joselito. The Jamon of Jamon. Remember it.

Visits

2006-01-11T08:22:00.001+01:00

Yesterday 2 friends stopped by. Well 3 friends were going to but one had a cold and wisely thought that with the immune system suppression rat poison I'm taking it might be such a good idea if he dropped in. Probably so.

Visitor 1 was the Dutch Flamenco Maestro Evert. Evert and I are in the midst of a budding friendship. He's wandered a long way off his musical path and wants to return. Me, I'll honk on my harmonica at the slightest sign of protest. Over a cup of coffee we finally hatched a plan. The goal: busking on Saturday mornings with our kids. Note: busking is performing on the street. We will learn 3 songs. One will be "Way Down Yonder in the Minor Key" by Woody Guthrie. Another will be "Niama" John Coltrane. Kind of a diverse rep, no? Another might be this song I wrote this summer. The kids pass the hat. Evert and I keep the cash.

Simple. Doable. Done.

Visitor 2 was the indomitable new Lucy. What ever she is taking I'll take 2. Over botifarras, peppers and potatoes we engineered a possible future for the Saharawi project.

Good friends. God bless them.

Conflict

2006-01-10T09:25:00.000+01:00

I guess we have preconceived notions about what it might be like if we get sick. How people will react. How we will react. Will we be John Wayne toughing it out, step by step, on his way back in a navy hospital so he can return to fight evil? Emotionally and spiritually supported by his wife looking on with a slightly worried, affirmative, beatific smile.

Will tawdry problems go away? Will troubled relationships heal themselves in the face of a larger, more profound issue? Will we be better people because of this? Will connections deepen?

Well as in everything else it's not a black and white answer. Friends and family have come out of the wood work to offer so much. Twice daily calls from my parents. Bi-weekly calls from my brother. Visits from friends. Soup from neighbors. Cards. Presents. Flowers. Amazing acts of kindness. People acting out of love and compassion. Humanity at it's best.

An what about effects on the patient? Well I have been amazingly optimistic and positive. It's not something I have had to rise to, it's just there. I guess John Wayne is not a bad model.

But do the big, big unresolved problems go away. I don't think so. I know that there are other, new pressures that are added to mix. More work. More demands. More pain. More insecurity. More fear.

Domestic conflicts have unfortunately not gone away and intersection of the emotional and physical is magnified by the situation. A angry remark can completely negate the John Wayne effect, turning a stand up model patient into, well something else. It seems that in being ill everything becomes clearer. Angels appear. But unfortunately the other guy too.

The truth is: the truth is the truth.

A touch...

2006-01-09T19:52:00.000+01:00

So this morning I had to go get a blood test. The process of getting there was pretty horrific. We live in an old apartment building without an elevator so I had to descend 3 flights of stairs. Thank God for hand rails. We got in a cab. Another world of pain. We then made it to the outpatient facility but unfortunately you have to descend another flight of stairs to get to the entrance. And no handrails. But there was this gadget to get wheelchairs up and down the anti-handicapped barrier. I used it and felt really sad for doing so. Inside they took me right away. I went with a nice middle aged nurse and she must of seen that I was in pretty bad shape. Here's the magic. She took my hand and stroked her fingers lightly against it for quite awhile. It felt so good. Another angel I'm sure.

Haitian Birthday Party

2006-01-08T07:59:00.000+01:00

Zoe's friend Gamy and her older sister stopped by earlier this week to invite her to Gamy's birthday party. Gamy lives up stairs, is about to be 10 and and she and her family are from Haiti.

Zoe heads upstairs at the appointed hour. We hear an army of kids all having a great time. "Who let the dog out! Woof, woof, woof, woof!" seemed to be a favorite tune.

Anne Rose, Gamy's mom, showed up later to see why we weren't there. We thought it was a kids only party which apparently it wasn't so Benedicte accompanied Anne Rose back to the party. Me, I guarded the couch. Which what I've been doing mostly since I got back from the sterile slammer.

An hour or so passed and Benedicte and Zoe returned with platters of Haitian goodies. Dirty Rice, roast Pork, plantain fritters, macaroni and cheese, guava cake, spicey meat turnovers... in short, Caribbean heaven.

I love Caribbean cooking. I love black cooking. It's like it's made by angels. Black angels who kiss you on both cheeks, hug you and laugh like there is no tomorrow.

El Reyes

2006-01-06T20:30:00.000+01:00

Traditionally in Spain it is not Santa Claus that brings kids presents it is the 3 Kings. Catalunya has Tio Caga but that is an entirely different matter having to do with happy children beating a log until he poops candy... I am not kidding. Anyway I digress... of course now kids in Spain get the full magilla of gift opportunities; Christmas Eve, Christmas Morning, but the big one is the 6th of January, the day after Epiphany.

Here's the deal, all over Spain, from the tiniest hamlet to the biggest cities the three kings arrive and are then paraded through town. In addition to looking noble and in general "king like" they also machine gun tons of rock hard candies into the surrounding throngs. Eyes are put out, fights ensue and in general a good time is had by all. After the participants return from various emergency rooms and first aid stations the children open a window and then put out a bowl of water and a plate of bread for the thirsty and hungry camels who are carrying the three kings. The next morning of course the water and the bread has dissappeared and gifts from the kings have appeared under the tree (or log if you live in Catalunya).

So of course Zoe did her bit for tradition and was rewarded with a fairly slutty "Baby Bratz" doll (I'm gonna have a word with the kings next year); some dance slippers, tights and tutu and a personal electron microscope from geeky old Baltazar.

OK when I was a kid I was up at 6 nagging my parents to get up so the festivities could ensue. Now it's me that is up at 6 nagging my wife and kid to get up. Funny how things never really change.

Another round of viva Espanya...

2006-01-04T21:01:00.000+01:00

Tonight I got a house call from Dr. Jordi. Dr. Jordi is a doctor for Spain's amazing national health system. Thanks to Benedicte's hard work in addition to our health insurance I have been assigned a doctor from the national health system. He's a lovely guy with a family, completely unassuming an very proud of the health care in Spain. I mean he made a house call!!! He entertained my daughter with stories of the arrival of the three kings answered my and Benedicte's questions and then left to visit a little boy with a high fever.

Obviously spending taxes on education, transportation and health care just works out better than invading countries, short changing old people and letting black people drown.

I fell in love with Spain 15 years ago. The love affair is still going strong.

Back Home

2006-01-03T09:09:00.000+01:00

I am back home. I was released yesterday afternoon. First another round of kudos to the hospital, the staff and the doctors. it would not be possible to have been more compassionate and thorough.

So while I was having my stitches out Benedicte went to meet with the rhumatologist. Shudder, hack, oooh boy. We're talking years of ingesting rat poison, bi-weekly blood tests and horror of horrors no booze for FOUR YEARS!!! Man, all because I ate camel?!

Zoe and Benedicte and I hopped in a cab. The driver was a nice middle aged woman. She was playing this chat show on the radio very loudly. Then she changed the station. This James Blunt song came on. I think it's called "You're Beautiful." The sun had just set. We descended down Balmes, past the tony charcuteries and bakeries. From upscale Sarria to middle class Eixample. People getting back from the 3 hour Spanish lunch. It seemed like a movie. I felt humble and lucky and apprehensive of the future. I felt alive. My girls were with me and we were heading home.

New Years Eve at Dexeus

2006-01-01T10:16:00.000+01:00

OK so I'm still here in Room 219. It's been 12 days. I know every doctor, nurse, cleaning lady and orderly on every shift. There is my main man Antonio... great guy, always calls me caballero and I return the complment by calling him meastro. He keeps wanting to give me a bath and I keep resisting. Maybe I shouldn't and add it to the list of new experiencias. There is Jaunita and Juan the night nurses, very sweet. If any body can give you your 6am injection and make you almost look forward to it is those 2. There is Ester and Neus (which means snow in Catalan) the afternoon ladies. Doctor wise we have Dr. Robert the day to day internist who really has called every shot perfectly; Dr. Gaspar my man's man lecherous GP; nice Dr. Heuget the rhumatologist who I feel will be seeing until he retires; Dr. Vidaller the high powered immunologist and the weekend guys.

OK Telefonica sucks but I'm here to tell you that Spain gets the important things right. The care I've been given here has been amazing. If I was in the US it would have been a few pills and then out the door. Here I can't get them to release me! And it's all done with such a human, informal but professional touch. Yep Spaniards are amazing. Viva Espanya! Viva Catalunya! Viva Pais Vasco! Heck even Viva Extremadura! And like 8 people live there but I bet they are swell.

So last night Benedicte and Zoe and my downstairs neighbor Alfredo and his 5 year old Sergi showed up with Cava, really great ham, olives, a yule log from Paul the fancy french bakery and most importantly chips and salsa!!! It was kind of a tough day for me and my gamy leg but having a New Years Eve party sure helped.

Everybody has been so nice and supportive. My parents call twice a day. People stop by at all hours and hang out and bring books and videos and contraband goodies. Not to get all weepy but I feel really fortunate to have such nice people in my life. Wow, am I lucky.

Fiesta in the Hospital Room

2006-01-01T10:14:00.000+01:00

So as I sit here in my room in the Hospital Dexeus waiting to see if my leg will need to be removed 4 adultos and 2 ninos are hanging out eating Panetone and listening to Cuban music. If one has to have an amputation this is the best way to do it. I am not serious about the amputation but this sucker does occasionally hurt like the blazes. Damn gamy leg! What, what!

Report: Return From The Saharawi

2005-12-30T13:19:00.000+01:00

OK I’ve been away. We went through Christmas. I got arrested. I ate camel hump. I got sick. I’ve been in the hospital for over a week. You will soon learn all. It’s not a pretty picture but from your perspective it’s probably damn funny. Much more to come. Duh, duh, duh, duh... In fact I've decided to spin this off as a separate blog. Which can be found here.

Off to the Desert

2005-11-28T07:39:00.000+01:00

The Saharawi are nation of people with out a nation. They have been in a refugee camp in one of the most inhospitable areas in the world for 30 years. Happenstance, timing and a little bit of foolhardiness has me going to the camps to shoot a documentary about them for 10 days. I am going by myself and I'm am anxious. Multiple language barriers and many, many unknowns are causing to me regularly wake up in the middle of the night thinking "what the heck am I doing?" I leave on midnight the 2nd of December.