Invisible forest

I shot a film earlier this year called "The Invisible Forest". The film is almost done, and the director has a nice trailer up here. The trailer gives a really good sense of the film, and the sharp eyed will see that Gary Dailey (The Fear Project: Pinch) and Juliet Tanner (from Crowded Fire) are also in the cast.

I saw a pre-pre screening of the film on Christmas Eve. I quite liked it, and the few issues I did have I told Antero about, and it seems that two of my concerns had been voiced elsewhere and will result in some minor (but significant) adjustments to the final copy. It's a very meditative, visual film. It's very beautiful. I'm looking forward to hearing what others think of it, because I'm entirely too close to it to have any objective sense of how it works. It's more like a painting than anything else. I have so many memories attached to almost every shot that it's hard for me to decontextualize the film. So, if you see it, please let me know your thoughts.

Christmas day I spent at Dave and Kate Austin-Groen's place. I visited my aunt in the morning, then headed over to their place for a mind-bogglingly delicious dinner and a long afternoon and early evening of conversation and games. I like my holidays stress free, and this fit the bill perfectly.

Brian Schirmer got me a t-shirt that says "I'm big in Japan", which is an ongoing joke at Radiostar, due to our unusually high download stats from that country. Dave and Kate got me another t-shirt that says "I want to direct". I wasn't expecting any gift exchange at all, but my embarrassment quickly gave way to delight at the shirts.

Today, I work from home and discover how cold it is in my apartment. I wish I had direct control over my steam radiator...

get this...

It's just become sickly funny.

I had two more actors drop out of the show last night. Boom.

We have five rehearsals left.

The reasons why aren't important, although I understand why one of them needed to leave. The other, well he clearly wasn't invested in the show once he realized how small it was, so I halfway think he just took the first excuse he had. That sounds bitter, but it's not. Others in the cast had noticed it too, so I don't feel like I'm projecting.

Regardless, as of 6:20pm last night, I was down two actors. I was able to fill one role within ten minutes. I called Paul Jennings, who had originally turned down the role for schedule reasons that no longer apply at this stage in the game and he is on board and will be off book by his first rehearsal. This is good, since he only gets four rehearsals before we open.

The other actor was playing two roles. A bit harder to fill. The call has gone out, and the call appears to be spreading rapidly. The community is rallying for us, and I deeply appreciate it. My remaining cast has been in a bit of shock, but are pulling together regardless.

Various ideas have been floated of what to do if we can't get this last actor. One was to do a "concert version" of the show, which would work but is not my first option. Another idea was to turn one character, who isn't a person so much as a psychotic hallucination of a person, into a puppet. This will cost us some choreography, but it fits perfectly into the logic of the show and would be hilarious. I don't know if we'll do that, but I bought the puppet a few minutes ago so it will be here if we need it. That will make the casting a little more loose, since we don't need someone who can act, sing and dance. Just act and dance.

I should be completely freaked out by now, but I'm not. All I can do is what I am doing. The show will go on, one way or another.

The show always goes on, dammit.

break

My new duties in my day job involve lots of Flash, Photoshop and Powerpoint/Breeze work. As a result, after doing tech work professionally for 12 years, I am just now starting to experience a bit of discomfort using a mouse. So, I'm taking a break and doing a little typing instead.

The show is going well, and it feels so nice to say that. It's hit a point where rehearsals are fun, and my stress over the show is back to what I would think it should be. Of course, the stress level I expect is very high, but at least I no longer have questions as to whether or not the show will HAPPEN.

There are moments of relaxation, however. Dave and Kate Austin-Groen restarted their annual book party, which was on Saturday. Last year didn't happen due to birthing issues, and I had missed the previous two years due to show commitments. This was, therefore, a real treat. I gave a book about the schools of philosophy as expressed through the Simpsons, which went to a computer programmer who I believe will actually read and appreciate it. Lucky break that. I got a book called "A Humument" from Martha Soukup, which is a victorian novel which has had each of its pages painted over, revealing individual words and phrases that offer up observations about love in the midst of a refrigerator magnet type narrative. It's strange and beautiful, and I am looking forward to slowly savoring it. In addition to the books, lots of wonderful people were there, including Dylan Russell, Arwen Anderson, Brian Schirmer, and Kevin Montegrande.

Later that night I went with a new friend to go see Crisis Hopkins playing at the Climate Theatre. I haven't seen much theatre in the last month, and it's been even longer since I saw any improv. Julie Potter has stepped down from active membership, it seems, but the quartet has filled out with Lily Harvey, who I've always been a fan of. I laughed hard enough to bring tears down my face, so I consider it a good evening. I didn't hang out for long after the show, however, as I have been feeling the exhaustion rather more than usual.

The easy reason for this would be "age", but that's not the real reason. I'm sure that my temporal location as a man in his late 30's is having an impact, but the fact is that I don't get home until almost 11pm every night, and got home much later for much of last week, and when I get home I can't just fall right asleep. I should probably read, as it might send me to sleep earlier, but instead I've been picking up the XBox 360 controller and playing an hour of whatever is in the tray before slamming my head against the pillow.

As a result, I am tired all the time.

I know that I should just fall asleep when I get home, but part of me is unwilling to release that little time to play and let my mind disengage from everything that is going on. I wish I could figure out a way to have that disengagement without it resulting in so much fatigue, but with Christmas coming up next week, and New Year's after that, I'll have a few chances to chill out and catch back up on my sleep. Once I hit January, my weeknights will be completely open... at least for a while.

Honey, have you seen the cat?

Heather McCulley found this one.

So, South Korea has cloned cats with modified genes. Why modified genes? They say that it is a step towards being able to clone animals that suffer the same diseases that humans do, so that more precise research can be done in finding cures for human illnesses. Let's lay aside the ethics of creating animals for the express purpose of suffering for a moment, although you may guess at my stance based on the phrasing of this sentence. Why would the first thing they clone be glow in the dark cats?

I see a new pet market forming.

I am a dream

Antero has posted a little clip from The Invisible Forest, the film I died my head white for this summer. The final product should be done in January, but this is a neat preview.

Also, fun for anyone who wants to see what I look like as a crazy, white haired old wizard.

ew

In my apartment building, near the mailboxes, there is a small table. People can leave things there for the other tenants, and sometimes UPS puts boxes there for people who aren't home. It's a very useful table. I leave postcards for my shows there, as do some of the other theatre people who live here. I've seen books, New Yorkers, knick knacks and odds and ends left on that little table for anyone who wants them.

This morning there were six individually wrapped twinkies.

I thought that was rather odd, but was not tempted by the synthetic sweets. I used to like Twinkies when I was a kid. Hell, I was practically raised on Hostess snacks. Still, whenver I've succumbed to the nostalgic urge for a HoHo or a Hostess Cupcake, I've felt let down. My tastes are changing, and it really does taste pretty awful.

When I came home tonight, there were three Twinkies sitting there in their individual wrappers.

I've been wondering about it for a while now. Who picks up Twinkies left on the garage sale table?
Did they enjoy them?
Do they feel..... dirty?


I would.

Time for a new job

I so want to be an astronaut right now.

And I can think of at least one of the four that would work.

A question from a non-breeder

As part of her Advent Calendar of Hilarity, Becky Haycox continues to bring the holiday funny with this photo gallery of unhappy santa visitors.

Now really, children being terrified of Santa is not news. It seems that ever since we've had department stores, we've had Santas to terrorize our young ones. What I wonder is this: Why would otherwise loving parents do something to their children that they know will turn them into terrified and screaming balls of sound? Do we so buy into the idea that this is something that you MUST do that you're willing to put your child through that? Do parents secretly *enjoy* seeing their children suffer? Do kids scream in fear so often that it no longer curdles their blood? Why not, when you can clearly see that your baby wants nothing to do with the frightening man (and really, Santa right up there with clowns on the scare-o-meter), just get out of line and walk away?

"You're going to embrace the magic of Christmas if I have to drag you kicking and screaming through the candycane fields and elf infested warrens of the north pole, and you'll like it you little monster!"

And Merry Christmas to you, too.

Bits and Bobs

Brian Schirmer brought this to my attention. Good lord. It is official U.S. policy that we can go to any country and kidnap people and bring them back to the U.S. without the permission or sanction of the country that they are in. Now, I don't particularly like the idea that someone can embezzle a billion dollars and get off scott free simply by hopping the border, but I like it even less that as a country we've taken the stand of "If we want you, we'll get you, and damned be the laws or rights of any other country that wants to stand in our way." Basically, we've once again given the finger to every other country on the planet. I swear, I wonder why we have any allies left at this point.

Becky Haycox made me aware of this debunking of a myth I had never even heard of: that candy canes are rich in religious symbolism and were developed out of piety. The more likely version, based on evidence, is that the only thing religious about them was church leaders taking the existing candy and having them made into shepherd's crooks in order to keep the restless children occupied during holiday mass. What I find rather disturbing about the whole thing, however, is the historical retrofitting of something highly banal to make it spiritually profound.

It's much like an article that one of Neil Gaiman's readers pointed out, detailing the numerous "authors" of the poem "Footprints" and what has become practially a sub-industry of legal wrangling, chest puffing, and positively hallucinatory arguments of asserted authorship. Absuridty of the highest order.

As for me, things are moving along. Sweetie Tanya continues to move forward. In some ways, it's all golden. In some ways, shakey. Yet, the shakey things aren't about the quality of the work that's being done. I am still having casting issues, or might be. I'll know for certain tonight. I've stepped into the role of the Boss after holding auditions, offering the role to two people and those people having to turn it down for reasons either mundane or heartbreaking. I'm not prepared to enter the Equity waters at this stage of the production (Equity is the Stage Actor's Union for those of you not in the field), and I don't want to keep hunting endlessly for an actor when we should be rehearsing. So, unless a "Boss" falls into my lap (so to speak), I'll be performing in January. What this means, however, is that if I can't resolve this other casting issue by tonight, I need to look for another performer again. I can't step into both roles.

The lesson to be learned, boys and girls, is never to rehearse a show over the holidays.

Bang the head slowly

Good things, as a general rule, don't come easily.

"'Sweetie' Tanya" has the potential to be the best script I've developed, but getting it to the stage has turned into a logistical nightmare. I've hunted for actors, lost actors, found actors, lost more actors, and had more scheduling issues than I've ever experienced before. There are numerous reasons for this, not least of which includes the decision to do the show in January and thus rehearse during the holiday season.

Still, I've come close to closing shop of a couple of occasions. Each time, the problem has been resolved just before my frustration crossed into a mood of destruction and closure. Now that we've begun rehearsals, however, I am unlikely to go down without a fight. Listening to Dave Malloy work with the songs and with the performers, watching Kate Austin-Groen and Alexis Wong inhabit these characters, seeing the others move from wariness to joy and excitement over this very dark and strange script... it's a joy. I love the rehearsal process, but my love of producing dwindles by the day.

I've been in talks with directors about future projects, but at this point I seriously doubt my stamina for another project in the near future.

No matter what happens, I'll continue to produce Radiostar, which posted its 100th improv show last week.

effects of change

I went to the most unusual audition today. It's for a film, and they asked people to bring in true life monologues. Nothing from plays, just come in and tell a story on camera. They filmed the auditions, and filmed them in groups of three so that they could get a sense of how you listen as well as how you speak. I was in the second group, but arrived an hour early due to extremely light traffic. I had brought my own set of headshots with me, as I'm still looking for three men for Sweetie Tanya.

I told an amalgamation of kidney stone stories, which had the desired effect of being amusing and horrifying in equal measures. Indeed, the stories from all the people in the second group were a sweet and sour mix of the goofy and the horrifying. I wish I had been in the first group as well, just to hear people telling their tales.

I get a bit spoiled, I suppose, as we do this sort of thing at the beginning of each Radiostar session. We tell true stories, based on a word or idea culled from someone in attendance. It's a good exercise, and the stories are often so compelling that Chris has often spoke of taking them and making them a podcast of their own.

I think it would be a good party game... to tell people not to bring food or drink, but a story to share, and to share them throughout the evening.

Most of the rest of this weekend was spent relaxing and working on Tanya. I had a fantastic meeting with our choreographer (Tonya Amos), and discovered some crucial things about how Nolan Cook's music will play into the piece. I also met an auditioner, who has become one of our Coffee Crush Chorus. I have an entire stack of old headshots of actors who will be getting emails from me tomorrow, hopefully ending my casting period.

But tonight was spent watching Doctor Zhivago. It's a long movie, but epic and gorgeous. I'd always heard of the film, but never seen it before tonight. Oddly enough, I am also nearing the end of a memoir about growing up during the Cultural Revolution in China. The book is called "Spider Eaters". The book and the movie bounce off each other in interesting ways, as both ultimately detail what it is to move as an individual through a revolution that denies the validity of individual meaning and experience. Both also heartbreakingly describe what happened to private homes and gardens that were gutted, over occupied and ruined during the revolution. In the film we see Zhivago's home, as he returns from the war, occupied by thirteen families and himself treated like an intruder. In the book, we learn of the author's grandmother, whose home was taken over by many families of the people, while she, old and suffering from diabetes, was stuffed into the pantry and left there for her last five years.

It's a quandry. Massive social change by its very nature requires the suffering of individuals. Yet, in the case of both these historical episodes... the change, for all its idealism, hurt the very people it claimed to serve and truly benefitted only those with a need for power. It seems to me that the moment that idealism loses sight of its impact on the individual, it becomes little more than a new tool of oppression. On the other side, there is a line from the film that gives me pause. "I told myself it was beneath my dignity for arresting a man for pilfering firewood. But nothing ordered by the party is beneath the dignity of any man, and the party was right: one man desperate for a bit of fuel is pathetic; five million people desperate for a bit of fuel will destroy a city."

But then again, what created the situation where five million people would be desperate for fuel?

Meta

The lovely and talented Slackmistress commented earlier this week about blog readership, content, and presumed gender roles. Seeing as how I haven't been posting a lot lately, and when I have been it's usually all about projects and whatnot, and not about my inner emotional turmoils, it made me think about my own blogging history. Back when I first began writing an online journal in 1997, I was very emotionally transparent. I wrote as much about matters of the heart as anything else. In the last few years, I've made a very conscious decision to keep my entries more tied to information about actions than meditations on feelings.

My reason for doing so was largely because of how the online culture has evolved. The development of Livejournal and similar communities where there is no shortage of people willing to open a vein for the world to see led to to reconsider the value of my old writing style. The rise of emo music, and an entire subculture that seemed to scream "look at me! I'm in pain! Look! LOOK!!" caused a reaction in me that continues.

Maybe it's also that I'm just getting older. My personal sadness and frustrations seem much less important than they did back then. I remember telling Joseph once that I was a bit more emotionally guarded than I used to be, and he laughed and said that a guarded Dan was still way more emotionally open than any other male. Still, as the years have gone by I'm definitely emotionally much less open than I was when that crack was made.

So, is it "ok" for women to be emotionally revealing in their blogs while men can talk about politics and robots and video games? I don't really subscribe to gender roles in most matters, let alone this one. But I know that I'm less and less interested in emotional exhibitionism.

And I want to go on the record that Slack is not an emotional exhibitionist. She's actually been extremely controlled with what she puts out there, but also brutally honest. I just found it an interesting question.

The Quiet time

I've been hibernating for the most part. After "the incident" I just stayed indoors for a few days. I did some office work on Tuesday and was able to think clearly enough to work from home all day on Wednesday. We're under a bit of a deadline, so I didn't feel good lounging, and I knew that if I went into the office I wouldn't get my work done. People from work have been *incredibly* supportive, bringing over food after work and during lunch breaks and generally being extra kind. When I did go in on Thursday, a large portion of my day was spent rehashing what had happened so far. I've worked the story down into a very concise monolgue by now.

I meant to work on Friday, but I first needed to in and get my eyes examined and get new glasses. It's been years since I had this done and forgot about what happens when they dialate your eyes. My day was pretty much shot as soon as they put the stoner drops in. I had no control over my ability to focus for the next several hours. I had cartoon character pupils, which made actually choosing frames a bit of a challenge. I felt fortunate I could see well enough to pick up the frames and try them on, let alone decide what looked best on me.

After several years of practically invisible semi-rimless glasses, I decided to go for the full on hipster-geek glasses. If I'm going to make a change and go around with my hair dyed white, I might as well go all the way, right? The problem, however, is that it takes a week and a half to get said glasses back from Kaiser, so I've been squinting, straining my eyes, exhausting my brain and generally not seeing well ever since then.

That said, I was able to see well enough when the police came by on Saturday with some photographs for me to look at.

They caught them.

It seems that there were other victims that night, and one of them got in a car with their sibling and drove around until they saw the thugs and then called the cops and let them know where they were. Absolutely brilliant. I only saw one of them clearly, but was able to give a fairly certain identification based on the photographs. Whether I'll be called in to testify or not remains to be seen, but the fact that one of the victims decided to go out and nail these guys is inspirational. Another victim, however, was apparantly hospitalized. Again, I feel fortunate that they got me in a brightly lit intersection. that might have been me....

Since then it's mostly been staying in, watching movies, trying to read books and play Halo. I can't focus on my laptop too long or my eyes get totally unusable. Since I project on my wall at home, the image is enormous and much easier on my eyes, but even that is a strain. The new glasses come on Wednesday, though. I will be back to normal then, and I can't wait.

mugged

I got mugged last night. Some of the folks from the hospital think it was a gang initiation, but I think they just saw me working on my laptop on the BART train and decided to follow me off the train.

It's two short blocks home. I was entering the intersection on Oak and 10th when I heard foosteps behind me. Clearly running. I clenched my bag, which was over my shoulder and not firmly on my back, and the grab failed. I turned and the assailant got aggressive. He had a friend a few feet off. I decided that this was a failed snatch attempt and decided to play my "I'm as big as you, don't fuck with me" card. One of them saw the keys in my hand and warned his friend, thinking I had a knife.
Bravado might have worked, but I glanced behind me for an instant and saw four others running towards me from the shadows. I got sucker punched in the head. Then again, again, again. I finally went down and they kicked the shit out of me. I kept fighting back, blind with anger, and they got away with my wallet, but not the backpack they had clearly been after. It was the middle of a brightly lit intersection. If they had waited another half block they would have had me in total shadow and might have killed me.

Bleeding, without my keys (I still haven't located them) or glasses, I got myself the final block home. I didn't see which way they went. I buzzed the manager, but she didn't answer. There was movement in the apartment right next to the front door, so I knocked on the window and asked for help. I was getting blood all over the doorstep. They let me in, helped me clean up, and got an ice pack for my head which was already swelling at the temple. Most of the blood appeared to be coming from my nose.

They leant me their phone and I called the non-emergency line. After all, it was over and no longer an emergency. I let the cops know where I was and was told to expect them shortly. My neighbors found the manager who came and joined us. She called 911, since it had been 20 minutes since the first call. After what was almost an hour I headed up to my apartment with the spare set of keys the manager had located for me, unsure when the cops would show up. As soon as I got in, and begin figuring out how to cancel the credit cards, the cops and the ambulance arrived. I suddenly had an apartment full of people. The cops said they would meet me at the hospital and the paramedics took me.

I made my statement, wishing I could have been a bit more clear in some of the details, but I only saw one of the six clearly, and only for a second or two. The only actual words I could remember was after they thought I had a knife. "you gonna stick me? you gonna stick me?".

The first question the nurse asked me (a Philipino male) when he learned I was mugged was "black or white?" The first question the orderly asked me (an Afrian American male) when he learned I was mugged was "black or white?". Same with the doctir (a white female). For me, it isn't the color but the age. That was the second question from the orderly. "Young men?"

Yep. Young thugs.

The cat scan shows that if anything was broken in my skull it's nothing that requires surgery. It will heal itself. My nose may or may not be broken, but it's not deviated. I'll be getting more information over the next couple of days. I need new glasses too. I got my cards cancelled when I got home around 4am (thanks to the taxi voucher the hospital provided) and they hadn't tried to use them yet. So, all they got from me was $8 in cash and a couple of checks. If they succeed in cashing those, they probably got around $150, or $25 each.

Me? I'm just glad to be alive. If I had seen 6 men from the start, I would have handed over my stuff. I thought it was a simple foiled bag grab and resisted. I'll be ok, and I'll be a lot more wary, but I'll be ok. But I could have died.. repeated blows to the temple could have killed me, but it didn't. I have a harder head than I thought.

Still. I'm an assault victim.

And I keep wondering how I'm going to tell mom without her becoming hysterical.

Phishing

One of my colleages pointed me to this article about an online teaching tool to help people identify scams and keep their information from getting phished.

It's a somewhat cheezy game, but it does a very good job at teaching people how to identify phishing scams, so if you consider yourself to be at all at risk I recommend spending a little time playing with it.

In other news, I saw Chinese Angle again on Friday and the cast completely nailed it. I was extraordinarily happy with the show and I think it bodes well for our final weeks of performance.

My weekend was fairly mellow. A birthday gathering in the park, a farewell party in the evening for Chris DeJong and Ann Speyer, and time with my Mom and Aunt Bev on Sunday. No high drama, no excitement. I've actually been feeling pretty exhausted, as if the last few months have decided to settle on me with a vengeance. I sort of have another mellow night tonight, but I need to work on a retirement montage for the Berkeley Superintendent of Schools, Michele Lawrence. This will be similar to the montages I do for the ELC conferences, and I have a vague idea of what I want to do, but she needs it by this time next week. My time is fairly booked between now and then, and if I don't get it done tonight, I'll be spending my Friday night working on it. I would have worked on it yesterday, but all my media clips were in the office. I need to start carrying that drive with me, I think.

Yeah, not a very exciting entry, but it hasn't been a very exciting weekend. I'm really ok with that.

retroactive pirate

I should probably also mention a guest appearance I make on Chris Walsh's blog.

Chris is pretty much my boss at this point, so when he wants me to be a pirate, I'm a pirate!
Actually, I'll be a pirate for pretty much anyone who wants me to be one. Other guests are Jennifer Novakoski, Bob Montgomery and Bo DeLong-Cotty.

Actually, Bo's name sounds kind of piratey anyway.

Conferences, improv, illnesses, and ninjas

Things are moving along at a more reasonable pace, it seems. I've actually had a few nights this last week where I just hibernated at home.

On the good news front, my Aunt June who has been suffering from Pancreatitis has been in the hospital for a good nine months is a little farther out of the woods. She was in a "have surgery or die" situation with a surgical procedure that might itself kill her. Things were looking pretty bleak, but they got her in a day early and did a different surgery that wasn't as dangerous and removed a litre and a half of fluid from her system. It seems that her intenstines were leaking. Now, that's profoundly disturbing, but if they've fixed that problem it greatly enhances her chances of getting through this.

I got the call from my Mom last night, and I knew things were looking good since her tone wasn't somber from the get go. Of course as soon as we got that good news cleared up she had problems with the new Macbook that I bought her. She managed, on her first day with it, to drag her AOL folder into the trash. Rather than take it out and put it back where she drug it from, she decided to reinstall the program and was confused.

Some would say, "oh, it's because she doesn't understand how to use a Mac", but dragging things in and out of the trash is pretty much the same action as on a PC, so that doesn't wash. I highly encouraged her to plug in her mouse and quit trying to learn the trackpad until she felt more comfortable in her new environment. The hour I spent on the phone with her was a good reminder of why I am very glad to be leaving Help Desk duties forever.

I was in a good mood, though, since I had served on a panel for the Theatre Bay Area annual conference that afternoon. I skipped the opening session and got some much needed production work done on Sweetie Tanya and, terrified that I was unprepared and underqualified to talk about "New Media and its use in Expanding Audience", I loaded up a slew of tabs in Safari with content that reflected everything I could imagine we'd talk about and packed up my LCD Projector. I didn't need the projector as the panel after us had ordered a projector for their use, so we just used that, but having everything preloaded was a godsend, since there was virtually no network connectivity in the building. Hell, there was only one power outlet in the entire room!

I got to sit on a panel with folks from California Shakespeare Festival, Impact Theatre, Killing my Lobster and promotions guru David Perry. The panel was very well attended and I think I managed to come off as reasonably competent. I had been very stressed over it, but as usual my fears had simply resulted in me being extremely over-prepared. Great motivator, Fear.

In other news, I cancelled the last half of the Submergency run, since we had virtually no audience for three shows in a row. Two people showed on to our Sunday show, and that was the most paying audience we had managed to garner. The other two shows in that space didn't fare much better, and one of them closed as well. In an excellent example of making lemonade out of lemons, we decided to use the space on Sunday night for Radiostar and to make it a live recording with a jam afterwards. A small group showed up, despite the last minute nature of the affair and the absolute lack of publicity. This was largely because it was also an unofficial sendoff for Radiostar genius Christopher DeJong. Chris and his wife Ann are going to Camaroon for a year where they will engage in do-goodery.

None of us have managed to fully accept doing Radiostar without him, and I myself am firmly in denial about the whole thing. Still, a year will go by very quickly, and we're in enough of a groove that we can continue to do great improv for Radiostar in his absence. I imagine that his return will result in lots of exciting changes as he'll be full of pent up creativity by that point.

On a totally unrelated note, Ninja Women from Pittsburgh robbed a gas station. I don't know when the world is coming to when today's ninja youth are letting themselves get caught on tape performing petty larceny. I mean, seriously, cigarettes and lotto tickets? In my day, ninja's stuck to the shadows, clung to walls, descended from ceilings and performed ruthless assassinations. Sure, maybe a few ninja might engage in theft, but only if it involved jewels large enough to sit in the eye socket of an ancient stone idol.

Kids today.

success, failure, life, and ...?

to say that it's been a tumultuous weekend would be an understatement.

Thursday night, I went to the theatre to drop off programs and watch the show. I was also supposed to update some of our sound files, but due to a miscommunication the necessary cable was not at the theatre. I had finally passed the stone that afternoon and my body was feeling light and I hadn't lost the glow of adrenaline that my body gets when it finally rids itself of such an unwelcome intruder. As the show approached though, my chemical uplift began to fade and I found myself on something resembling a caffeine crash. I headed home and chilled out for the evening. I found out the next day that one of the speakers had begun to go bad, and that most of the sound cues were marred by unbearable crackling. Not cool.

So, Friday comes and I'm supposed to be at the Eureka at 7 so that I can do box office for Match Play. I need to go to Chinese Angle first though, to update the sound files I had failed to update the previous night. I get there at six, and proceed to wait for a half hour for the stage manager to no avail. While there, one of the theatre techs shows up to look at the bad speaker. I can't stick around long though, and finally leave at 6:30 and just miss the stage manager with the cable.

I realize that I failed to bring a video cable adapter to allow me to use my laptop with my LCD projector (both of which I'm carrying), so I swing by CompUSA to get a new one. They are out. Aware of time ticking rapidly away, I move further away from my final destination to get to the Apple store, only to find that they are sold out of the necessary cable there as well. Hot, sweaty, and late, I arrive at the Eureka carrying lots of gear that I cannot use, having run all over downtown fruitlessly for 45 minutes after not doing what I wanted to do at the Playhouse.

I was a bit cranky.

My mood was not greatly improved as 10pm drew closer and closer. We had no advance reservations, and foot traffic was non-existant. 9:40 came and went, and we had no audience. 9:50 came, and still we had no audience. 10:00pm came, and it became painfully clear that a huge crowd was not about to appear on our doorstep. I didn't need that cable I had run all over failing to get. We didn't have a show.

We all sat and drank the concessions for an hour or so, and then headed a block up to a local bar. I'm not that much of a night owl, so I was surprised at how the bar got fuller after midnight... the time I usually make my departure from night hotspots. One of my performers lives not far, so I had a ride for the evening so we stayed out very late. One of our crew, who I see but rarely, kept petting my hair and talking about how every time she saw me I had a new identity while her husband grinned drunkenly at us both. On some level I was relieved to not have performed that night, as we were all bone tired. Still, I felt this was a bad omen.

Anastasia tried to buy me a shot before I left, despite my protests, so I ended up giving it to a young lady who had just arrived at the bar. After seeing her male friends responses to that, I advised her to keep her mace at the ready and we made our exit. Despite my having snubbed the drink, Ana declared it just what she would have done and gave her full approval.

I got home well after 2am, exhausted, frustrated, and pleased all at the same time.

Saturday morning brought my mother and aunt. We were going to visit my other "aunt", who is actually my second cousin. This aunt is suffering from severe pancreatitus, and had been scheduled for surgery on Thursday but couldn't do it due to an attack of pneumonia. I had seen her a few months earlier. She had been in an induced coma for six months, and was unrecognizable. Her hands had been fairly deformed by the swelling and her face was that of a stranger. She made an odd noise with each breath she took, somewhat like a throat clearing, and she did not move at all. Very little had changed since then. I know that she can feed herself and move, but chooses not to. The swelling has gone down, but not by that much. She needs to have this surgery immediately, or this could be the end. Paradoxically, the surgery itself might kill her. It is truly a damned if you do and damned if you don't situation. I made her smile a bit, best as I could, telling her of my friend's fixation on my new identities as her husband grinned on, but I don't know if that was to be our last meeting.

Mom dropped me off at home and I tried to rest a bit before heading into the city, but I was unable to take a nap. I had gotten a call while on the way to the hospital about further technical problems with the Chinese Angle that had resulted in a total absence of music during the two songs, forcing one song to be abandoned and the other to sing a cappella. I canceled my dinner plans and got to the theatre by 6. The light operator's boyfriend thought he knew what was wrong and promised to bring some adapters, but what had been communicated to me by my stage manager led me to believe that he was barking up the wrong tree. I spent an hour diagnosing the problem and creating a stopgap solution, telling the producer and stage manager that the only thing that would truly get us back to the way we were was a new speaker with the right connectors. No adapter that I knew of would do the trick. I mixed all our music to a mono connection so it would no longer be directional, but at least be heard out of the other speaker when the light operator's boyfriend showed up right at seven... with a new speaker. He plugged it in and everything worked perfectly again. We had both diagnosed the problem correctly, and the information I had been passed had been scrambled. I raced off to the Eureka to help with Box Office again.

Audiences for Match Play haven't been much better than Submergency, and as 10pm grew closer, I knew in my heart that we were in for a repeat. Sure enough, not one single person showed up for the show. Chris, Brian, Trish, Dave and I went to the nearest pub got some beer and played pool. I noted that a perfectly fine pub, with nice furnishings and a great downstairs pool table was practically deserted at 10:30 on Saturday night. It was agreed that this was a strong indicator of our problem. The theatre is located in a late night desert. We are not a destination. I vowed that if no one showed up for our Sunday matinee, I would end the run of the show.

Sunday. Off to Suzuki, which was a good class and I was able to talk to Jeffrey a bit about Sweetie Tanya and about what is happening with Submergency. For all its technical problems, the Chinese Angle is an enormous success, and for all that people enjoy the show, Submergency is an abject failure. I am experiencing the highs and lows simultaneously.

I go right from class to the theatre and get everything ready for the show, knowing in my heart that this is the end. Remington shows up to do lights and box office, and we catch up for a bit. The cast shows up, and two women walk up and buy tickets, thinking that we're part of the fringe festival. Ten minutes later it's time for the show to start and I give them back their money. They are very understanding and undeterred, but I am a bit heartbroken. I would have liked to make them laugh today.

Submergency is dead, at least for now. Match Play is also going to close early, so we decide to take over next Sunday evening and bring Radiostar to the theatre and do a live set for friends, followed by a farewell improv Jam for Christopher DeJong, who is leaving in a few weeks for Africa. It's turning lemons into lemonade, but we all feel good about it.

Well, at least mostly good. I am glad to get my weekends back, but sad for the failure. I have succeeded. I have failed. But the failure is hard to be too heartbroken about, when the image of my aunt looms so close in my mind. Her body essentially broken, but her will even more so. I can only imagine what she would give to be able to succeed and fail as I am doing.

I have tomorrow, as far as I know, so I'll treat that as a gift.

having the stones for it

I woke up yesterday at 6:30 am, and I was in pain. It was a very specific kind of pain, and one that I've learned to recognize. Imagine that someone jammed their knuckle into your kidney, then left it there, and slowly twisted. That's the pain. I had experienced a toned down, and brief bout of this two nights earlier, so I knew that a kidney stone was passing, but normally I only get one bout of pain. This second bout just kept going, and going. After two hours of pacing around my apartment, trying to stretch and massage my kidneys to allow easier passage for the little invader, I finally gave in and called a taxi to get me to the hospital. I was near the verge of tears, and that's too much pain to "tough it out" through.

The cab itself took about a half hour to arrive, despite the initial assurances that it would be there in "five to ten minutes". It's one of the few times I truly regretted not having my own transportation.

Still, the emergency room at Kaiser Hospital was not terribly busy at 9am on Wednesday and I was screened almost immediately and taken into the E.R. proper. What was odd, however, was being security scanned before I was allowed to enter the emergency room. It was like boarding a plane. I had to empty my pockets and get wand scanned before I could hobble into the reception area. Life in Oakland, I suppose.

The rest of my stay was rather surprising and at times even fun. My nurse noticed my Lunatique Fantastique shirt and revealed that he had met Liebe before, so we traded stories about that and discovered that he also knew Davina Cohen and Thessaly Lerner as well. Very small world. The other nurse who took care of me was about six months pregnant, so we talked about that while she took my vitals and attempted to get my I.V. in. This seems to always be a problem with me, and sure enough I am sporting a very large and painful bruise today. I'm growing to accept that this is going to be inevitable every time an I.V. is attempted.

When I am in pain, I tend to become extra-polite. I almost turn into a Jane Austin character, I am so polite. The control I have to exert to fight the pain translates into a highly formal and pleasant personality, which may explain the extra kind level of service I received while being treated. The room I was in had a SpongeBob Squarepants television/DVD player in it, so they put in a movie for me to watch while I waited for the stone to pass. They had pumped me full of pain meds, and every time they wore off, the pain was less than before, until finally I felt quite normal again. Then they gave me lunch and waited to discharge me until I had finished my sandwich. (Egg salad)

The nurse who knew Liebe had come by a few times with an intern to practice skills on me (I had to prompt the intern once to ask me if I had any allergies), and on their final visit they felt compelled to let me know that they both thought I greatly resembled (and sounded like) James Spader. This last bit has happened to me more times than I can count, but it's the first time I've gotten it with my platinum blond hair.

I went home a little after 3pm. The stone had moved to just above my bladder and is 6.5mm, which is right on the edge of being operable. Any larger and they would have had to use the sound wave machine to blow it apart or reverted to more severe methods of treatment. This is why I had so many hours of agony as it shredded its way down my urinary system. It had reached a safer place, however, and was expected to pass without further incident.

All and all, I was incredibly impressed with the care I was given, which is not something one normally hears about a large HMO.

in spite of myself

Last night we had an almost sold out show for Chinese Angle, and the Chronicle this weekend ran a large picture for us in the Pink Section for Sunday's paper. Very nice. The show is off and running, and will most likely be the most successful thing I've ever directed. This is something for me to ponder as I consider the ongoing role of Cassandra's Call in my life and if I'm better off just directing and not producing anymore.

Far too early to say, though. But it's not too early to say that Submergency has been suffering from my lack of attention to it, and today was much more difficult and haphazard than it should have been. Still, we had a tiny audience (The Eureka, unlike the Playhouse, is far from Union Square), virtually no rehearsal, wonky tech... and the show was still a lot of fun. The squirtguns-short form comedy combination is pretty fool-proof. As long as the performers are having a great time being vicious to each other, the audience has a good time as well. It's kind of like Who's Line Is It Anyway? meets the Three Stooges.

Still, there are various things I can do this week to make the remaining eight shows more smooth and successful, so my work is far from done. Today was more like a preview, especially since the tiny house was almost entirely comps (free tickets).

No Radiostar tonight, so I should finish editing the show that needs to go up on Wednesday, but I'm extaordinarily exhausted so I think I'll push that off to tomorrow night.

I've earned a night off.

The Chinese Angle

The show opened last night. It was a decent sized crowd for a small theatre premiere, and that was good. The show is mostly there. A few missed lines, a few slow cues, some delayed lighting, overamped sound and a collision with a bit of the set failed to mar the experience for our very friendly and supportive audience. Many of these issues have been resolved or will be resolved tonight and tomorrow night.

A critic came and quite liked the show. He asked me questions about my training as a director, which is something I've never been asked before. Other than a single course in college, my training is entirely of the "watch other directors, then do it yourself" school. It seems to have worked well enough for me, as the producers and some of the cast seem quite pleased with what I brought to the table. I pointed the critic to my Flickr page for additional color photos of the show, so between those and the press photos, he has many options to choose from.

The Bay Times has always been very good to my work. Tom Kelly was the critic until recently and wrote fair, honest, and intelligent reviews about the show without telling the reader the plot or droning on about the biography of the playwright. Rather, the reviews gave you a sense of what the play was like, and at the end you would know if it was your kind of show or not. I have high hopes for this other reviewer.

The next hurdle is the Submergency opening. Improv comedy is a radically different beast, but we have the benefit of having done very similar shows in the past and everybody being on their game pretty much all the time.

Still, until we get past the first show, I'm going to worry.

It's what I do, after all.

A True Dream

I had a true dream this morning.

I dreamt that I was on a tropical island. A paradise. I was disguised as an old man, a great acting teacher of renown and I was to go and extract wisdom from another. I went to a tunnel in the pure white sands and the further inside the tunnel I went, the narrower the tunnel became until I was on my hands and knees and the white sand was being scraped off the walls and ceilng by my shoulders and head. I finally reached a small window, set in concrete and knocked upon it. I saw my host through the opening and he came and removed the barricade and allowed me to crawl through the larger opening and clean myself off.

It was John Goodman, but he was attired like Earnest Hemingway and was himself imitating someone else. He was pretending to be Richard Burton. He asked me my name, and I could not remember who it was that I was impersonating, so I decided that he person I was impersonating was going to impersonate a "nobody" in a clever way to get wisdom. Burton/Goodman seemed content with that. I wondered at first why he was allowing this charade, but was content that he was content. We sat in his palatial room, with an amazing view of the island and ocean. I could not remember the question of wisdom, so I made something up and he was content to tell meaningless stories in order to illustrate an answer to the question but we were two men who were pretending to be what we were not, acting out this little existential exploration for some unknown benefactor and content for our own reasons to play our little game.

No wiser than I was when I arrived, I was not sure what to do next, but then a small chinese boy arrived. He was clearly poor, and mostly naked. He said that he knew the answer to my question, and we both smiled and decided to indulge him. He began telling a story that was full of racist terms and we were both embarrassed to listen, but too polite to stop him due to his age and because we had told him he could talk. His mother appeared and stopped his story, saying that she needed to take him to town to use the bathroom. Relieved that we were quit of him, I good naturedly said that we would hear the end of his story, perhaps, at a later date. The boy suddenly grew very quiet and smiled and said, "There is no need, for this will suffice. Who is the one for whom I will stop my story and obey?"

In the dream, all had grown quite still. "The one with authority over you", I said.

The boy said, "no. Authority can be resisted."

"The one who loves you", I ventured.

The boy said, "no. It is an easy thing to run from those who love you."

"The one that you yourself love", I said at last, knowing that I hit it.

The boy smiled.

and I woke up.

Crunch time

Everything is coming to a head. The Chinese Angle opens in eight days. We have five of those for rehearsal due to the holiday weekend. In many ways, we're where I'd like us to be. In some ways, we're not. A lot can happen in a week though, and it's a damn good cast. Other bits are coming together. The bar looks nice, and the stairs are halfway finished. Costumes are being assembled and we're talking hair tonight. Details, details, details.

In the midst of all this, I'm trying to get the pre-production done for Submergency. The performance isn't my concern here, but the framework. To be precise, the opening videos. I have the script and the concept. I just need to film them, and every time I've tried to do so at Radiostar, something has come up to eat up our time. Unfortunate, but if we meet this Sunday I should have no problem getting things done quickly.

What I keep forgetting is that Feedback Loop, the playwright's workshop, opens before either of these. Hayes is facilitating the first week, but I need to have various things done for him.

It's good that we have the holiday weekend. That gives me all day Saturday and Sunday to work on these issues before spending Monday helping load everything into the theatre.

trying to chew

Just a quick check in.

"Hi!"

Things are going all kinds of nuts, but mostly in a good way. We're two weeks out from the opening of The Chinese Angle, and it's shaping up nicely... but it's also TWO WEEKS from opening.
Submergency postcards came in and I've started labeling them so we can get them in the mail by Monday.
I haven't touched next week's Radiostar show yet, so I know what I'll be doing Saturday after rehearsal.

I wasn't able to be at last night's Bay Area Professional Small Theatre meeting, but I hear it went well and I get the impressions that we're starting to move towards a specific course of action.

Work kicked my ass this week with lots of Flash programming, but I beat my demons this morning and after several days of smashing my head against the wall I was able to update all six presentations today. Crazy, crazy.

It looks like we're going to BARELY have enough people for the Feedback Loop playwright's workshop, so I need to inform our attendees tomorrow that we're a "go". Part of me was kind of hoping that this wasn't going to happen, but all the pieces are in place, we just need to do it. The trick is going to be finding the time to put the polish on it.

I've been supposed to do a redesign for the Tango and More website, but that's been the thing to suffer the most from this time crunch. I have a basic idea template, so I hope to get that up in the next few days with all the new content. We can adjust it once it's up.

As you can tell, this is a high volume time, even for me. I'm feeling a bit freaked at the moment, but if I can get past the next two and a half weeks, everything will be fun from then out.

Just be patient if I seem a little distracted/absent.

Delays

Today's frustrating was a mixture of frustration and joy. I had hoped to get twice as much done today as we did, but much of the work we had done before had to be re-examined. We've been splitting our rehearsals between my large rehearsal room and the producer's home. My space hasn't been available every night, due to ongoing pre-existing rentals, which is a shame. Well, we had blocked the second act while at the smaller location and things began to look quite different for some reason in the new space (which is much closer in size to the actual theatre).

So, only got through half of what I wanted.

But we got recordings of all the songs, and Adrian agreed to record a bunch of scene change music stings for us, which is going to really amp things up a bit. Even that took longer than expected though, and we had to pack up before we were truly finished as I had other renters coming in.

It can be difficult, when things take longer than they ought to. Hard when you expect to resolve certain things, but find delay after delay instead.

More Joy

Also, we got the postcard art in for Submergency: Damp Summer. The artist, Mark Chun, did the portraits of Ana, Julie, Diana and Barry off of our YouTube clips and stills off of the CCP website. I am officially envious of his considerable talent.

Joy

My last post was about everything going on that was horrible. As usual, what is bringing a smile to my lips is my work. Jenene, when she was giving me my super snazzy new 'do, referred it to as my "other girlfriend". I can't really dispute it.

The Chinese Angle is turning into a daily delight, as the cast is having a fantastic time and the work is easy, fun, and rapid.

Also, the postcards are printed and being distributed. They look pretty nifty.

Close calls, Near misses, and failed saves

There have been some personal crises over the last week.

My mom has been having a lot of pain for the last few weeks and was told by her doctor to have an MRI done. She has a history of cancer, and there were concerns that her spinal problems could be cancer related. She went in Thursday, and got the results today.

It looks like arthritis, which is bad enough in the spine, but it's not life threatening. She has a lot of pain and struggle ahead, but it's something that she can work with and through. It's not great news, but better news than we were afraid to get.

My niece was hit by a truck. She was in the back seat of a friend's car, and the other vehicle "T-boned" the car, striking them full in the side. Her hip was fractured in three places. My first thought was "thank god, she survived". My second thought was "Will she ever be able to have children?"

This may seem a strange thought for me, as I have no desire for children of my own, but I know very well that my instincts are not those of most people.

While in the emergency room, the nurse mentioned that they had an expert in the kinds of fracture my niece had received, and called for advice on how to proceed. The surgeon told them to have my niece on her operating table at 2 that afternoon. Tiny screws were put in place, and less than a week later, my neice took her first steps with the help of a walker. It's going to be a lot of pain and struggle ahead, but it's something that she can work with and through.

In the light of these incidents, what happened to me personally seems barely worth mentioning. Friday morning my laptop hard drive crashed, completely and totally and with very little warning. I was able to mount my drive as an external device and recover some raw radiostar files and video files I had been working on. Some of these were lost, as the machine would lock up whenever I tried to access them to copy them to a safe drive. After several hours of this, I trusted that the office backup system had gotten everything else and reinstalled the operating system. From that point, the machine wouldn't boot at all, but simply restart itself over and over again as it tried to function. The backup administrator was out of the office, and so I had to wait until this morning to find out how bad it was.

My backup client had never been activated. My fault. I had backups of many of my personal files, and my current projects were on another server, but all my photographs (and I mean ALL of them) seemed to be gone. Also, much of the novel and who knows what else. Later, bless him, he found a backup from my last laptop, which had been used as a loaner for other staff before getting rewritten. I can get everything restored, from January 2007 back. I still lost about seven months of photographs (that didn't get on Flickr) and other spreadsheets and records...

It will be a lot of work to recover, and some of what I value is lost forever, but it could have been much, much worse. What I have, I can work with and through.

and yes, I'm getting a better personal backup system.

Snowball is rolling

Tons of stuff going on. Sorry for not updating more. First off, I am a shorn lamb. I haven't put a pic up yet on Flickr, but I'll try to get to that soon. Jenene did a fantastic job on my poor little head, and while people haven't died from the shock of it, I've gotten a lot of double takes.

Rehearsals for The Chinese Angle have begun, and I'm already having a great time with this very diverse and fun cast. We're primarily fleshing out the world they inhabit, which I find to be a very grounding way to begin the process. We learned a lot about the characters that is only suggested in the text, and at least began to answer the questions that the text proposes about our shifty and unreliable personas. This is my first noir piece, but I am really enjoying playing with the conventions and the moral complexities that the genre offers up.

We're very close to a postcard image for Submergency. Mark Chun is doing the art again, and the little sailor man from the last show has become our official mascot with this card. I'm feeling a little ADD with thinking about Chinese Angle and Submergency simultaneously, but they are very different aesthetics so it's nice to be able to steer my impulses into their correct corral.

I'm looking very forward to seeing Stardust this weekend. I saw some clips last year in San Diego, so I know not to expect an extact translation of the book onto the screen, but Neil's happy with it and that gives me a lot of confidence that I'm not going to leave the theatre traumatized. Neil posted a link to this article about how spin and perception of success and failure work in Hollywood, and it is a great reminder of why I want nothing to do with the place.

In other news, I somehow completely missed the fact that Eddie Izzard was performing in SF this last weekend. I am full of fury and rage, as we didn't have Radiostar this last Sunday and I could have attended the show. I am not sure what sin I have committed to result in this travesty, but it must have been a big one. Then again, maybe the gods felt it was a little unjust, since I got a spontaneous lunch with Angela Mazur today.

This weekend looks like a fun one, with a Harry Potter Decompression dinner over at Ms. Creely's, Stardust, rehearsal, Marca Cassidy playing at the Rose Street House of Music (a house concert venue I haven't visited in years), and the reconvening of the Radiostar ensemble after a nice long vacation. There's a possiblity that I might make Three Musketeers out in Berkeley on Saturday afternoon, but after the bus fiasco last weekend, I'm not making any promises. I mean, seriously, you shouldn't have to wait 40 minutes for a bus before giving up and going to the local pub. I'm just sayin'

not actually traveling anymore

I've actually been back for a while, and just posting my entries that I wrote while on vacation. Needless to say, I'm back safe and sound and have been as busy as ever. I just got back today from filming Antero Ali's new film "The Invisible Forest". It's been a two week process of workshops and finally filming up on Mt. Tamalpais. Antero and I haven't worked together since 1999, so this has been a real treat to reconnect. It's also allowed me to spend time with the reclusive doting father, Nick Walker and my old Ubu Roi castmate Juliet Tanner. While I single out these old faces, the entire cast was a delight to work with and I hope to work with each of them again in time. Of course, in the case of Jessica Bockler, this might be difficult as she came out from Liverpool to do the film.

I grew my hair and beard out for four months in preparation for the film, and Jenene Curtis took brave new leaps in hair design in bleaching and dying not only my head silver (as she had done for "Chain Reactions") but my beard and moustache as well. The effect was striking, but not quite complete and required me to acquire some white shoe polish to clear up the banana- yellow spots on my lip and chin. The end result was effective enough that the cameraman, after spending three days with me in the woods, was astonished to find out that I was four years younger than he was.

I may have mentioned this here before, but I was playing an actor in a theatre troupe, and my character was developing the role of Prospero, from The Tempest. Thus, my aged appearance.

I could not shave my beard off fast enough when I got home. It's immense size had been irritating to me for several reasons, but having it full of shoe polish was just too much. Still, I find it odd that there is no longer anything upon my chin to stroke.

I have returned to an immense amount of work for WestEd, which I will be tackling as soon as I finish this post. I've had enough people email me, commenting on how they know I'm on a boat somewhere, that I felt I should clarify what's been up.

There are many, many pictures of both my time on the boat, and on the set of the film, on my Flickr page. (see the link to the right).

Tenth Day: Breakdowns and Departures

The end draws near of my time in paradise. We pull up anchor off one of the remote "motus" of Rangiroa and set sail back to the Kia Ora in preparation for my departure the next day.

I try to do some work on the novel, but rather than writing in a new chapter, do a chronological breakdown of what has happened, when, and to whom. I find that I need to move a few chapters around to make sense to the reader and will probably need to break up the chapters a bit more in the next draft. I also map out what needs to happen and the chapters I expect them to happen in. Chapter-wise, I am halfway through the book, although I think that the chapters will be getting shorter as the action begins to speed up. I'm currently at 40,000 words, so it will probably end up being around 70,000 when all is said and done. If I can get the battery on the laptop fully charged before I leave for the airport, I can hopefully do another chapter on the plane before my power runs out.

Not long after we anchor, we discover that part of the de-salination equipment has broken. It's a plastic, threaded bottle that has had it's bottom blown out from the pressure. Bill tries to repair it with epoxy and a strange stretchy kind of duct tape, but after letting it dry and harden, we find that it's no go. Creola is no longer making fresh water.

Gene and Jennifer from the Emelia swing by to invite us to a gathering that night on their boat. Gene finds out that he'll be playing the guitar while they float off our stern and accepts his fate with good humor. They take the broken part back with them to see if they have a replacement part Creola can borrow until a permanent solution can be acquired.

Linda continues to astonish me with the game hens she presents for dinner, although with a stunning puree. I have to ask if she's pulling out the stops for the guest, or if they always eat this well. Bill confirms that she spoils him terribly, and it's not because of me. Given the scarcity of supplies, and how long they've been at sea, I'm at a loss to understand how they are able to keep their provisions as well as they do.

Not long after the sky has exploded with stars, we take the dinghy over to Emelia, where we are shortly joined by the folks who gave me ride to Creola from the dock a few days earlier. There's a good deal of boat talk, but conversation frequently moves into other areas, including Gene's music. I knew that he had some success as a country songwriter, but I learn that he's been penning hits since the late 80's, if not before. I'm not familiar with his work, as I've never really followed country, but the names of the artists who have used his stuff are familiar. He plays a little James Taylor for us, but mostly we insist on hearing his own stuff. We hear some of his more popular tunes, as well as a song he just finished writing which is truly beautiful and a self-depreciating comedy song that he feels no country artist will ever buy, because they don't like to make fun of themselves. As the evening comes to a close, he invites me down to see what a "cheap boat" looks like, but a quick inspection reveals that this is another example of his quiet and dry humor as the boat is nicer than a lot of apartments I've been in.

He and Jennifer give me their card, as I express an interest in looking up more of his work online, and he jokes that I can write off my entire vacation as a business expense since I talked about Sweetie Tanya with him.

We motor back to Creola, the hour very late by sailing standards and my mind full of music and my stomach full of rum punch. The next day will be my departure from this land of sea and sky, and it will also be my thirty-seventh birthday.

Before I go below deck, I say a silent good-bye to the sky. I don't know when I will see the stars next.

Day Nine: Downtime

I largely checked out on this day. Bill and Linda have been marvelous companions, but I am craving a little solitude and time with my book, so I stay on the boat while they do a little snorkeling and atoll exploring. The thought of exploring the land with Bill and his machete is intriguing, but I really do need a day to just be alone. That being said, there is not much to journal about. Instead, I will share a few things about Creola.

As I have mentioned before, she's 49 feet long. I'm not sure of the width. Of the boats I've seen over the last week, she is the move beautiful one of her size. Her extensive wood work, however, makes her high maintenance. The Phoenix, for example, is largely plastics and foam construction, which makes her a very fast ship and somewhat easier to maintain than the Creola, but not as ... well... lush.

The Creola has a desalination unit on board, so she can make her own fresh water. I've met boats who are not so equipped and have to carry all their fresh water with them as supplies. She also has a generator on board, to keep the batteries well charged, which has allowed me to keep up this journal.

She has a full galley, and I've seen apartments in San Francisco with only slightly larger kitchens than this. Granted, this isn't saying much. As pretty as it is below, everyone spends most of their time on deck for the simple reason of the breeze.

I am not, as a rule, a big "outdoors" person. I burn very easily (and yet have remarkably avoided that fate this trip), have allergies, and generally have an ongoing experience of Mother Nature being a rather abusive parent. (the insect bites on my feet and ankles, that look like something out of a medical journal attest to this). Thus, I have never been one to love the heat. I might have been very miserable here if it were not for the constant breeze. On nights when I have had to close my hatch for rain, I have been deeply grateful for the twin fans that are mounted over my bunk, as I would have smothered without them.

Back to the Creola, she has top notch navigational equipment which allows for limited auto-pilot ability and weather tracking. It's a very impressive setup although it by no means results in a care-free travel experience. Bill and Linda have found that the cruising live is far harder than they would have expected. Their mood was surely impacted by the 22 day open sea voyage they had just completed when I arrived. They have seemed in much better spirits over the last few days.

Indeed, while I have fretted from time to time over my inability to repay their astonishing generosity on this trip (for indeed, most of my attempts to contribute in one way or another are joyfully shooed off), I have begun to realize that my biggest contribution for them as been a change of pace. I am someone to hear all the stories of their adventures, to talk about old memories with, to catch up on news of friends and colleagues, and to be an audience.

Cruisers are like actors in that they are constantly meeting people in different ports, finding folks that they really like, but then do not see again for months or years. They have a constantly changing lifestyle that is nevertheless quite consistent in its challenges.

I do not know that I could do what they are doing. I find that the taste of salt water is becoming a disincentive, and I miss my friends, my home, my chosen solitude, and even my job. A week is about perfect for a vacation for me, and I am ready to be home.

I have experienced amazing sights here, met delightful people, consumed incredible meals, had intriguing conversations, and had a fantastic time. My heart is not in the sea, however. It's back in Oakland on Alice street, and I shall return there in two days.

Day Eight: Solo and Across the Lagoon

Up to this point, our specific plans outside of our current anchor haven't been established. As my departure draws near, we decide that I will fly back to Tahiti from Rangiroa. The problem, of course, is that I need to get to the travel agent's office to do this. This means another trip into town, which is not appealing by dinghy. I decide that I'll try to use the resort phone, which does not work as the agent's english results in her telling me to call back in an hour. Instead I rent a "fun car" from the resort and head into town. It's about a 20 minute drive in the little go-cart like vehicle, which maxes out at 40mph. There are many speed bumps on the road, so I am rarely at maximum speed.

Knowing now that everything closes at 11, we were careful to start this expedition around 9am. I arrive at the agency, quite aware that I had forgotten my shoes on Creola, and gingerly pick my way across the hot gravelly rocks to the front door. There is a polynesian couple ahead of me, but I am grateful for the unusually air-conditioned office. Once at her desk, we're able to quickly get my tickets to fly back to Tahiti on Sunday around 3:30. That will give me seven hours in the airport, but I am hoping that I can check my bags in and then walk around the town, since I didn't do that when I arrived. I pay for my plane ticket in cash, taking care of the previous day's overwithdrawal problem.

I get back to the fun car and push it back on the road (the fun cars don't have a functional reverse) and peel down the road. I know that Creola is short a pair of diving fins, but haven't seen a pair at any of the places I've been over the last week, including the resort. There was a diving club that Bill and I stopped at earlier, when we were looking for the gas station, so I pull into there and hop over the sharp coral rocks into the club. The gentleman who helped us before is not there, but the lady is who is speaks english well and extremely helpful. My suspicions are confirmed when she says that I'd need to look all over the place for a pair of fins. I don't think that the locals use them for swimming, and guests have access to the resort ones. Everyone else arrives with their own. There is one place, she reflects, that has a variety of odds and ends and that I might try. It is right next to the Gendarme (police). "You have seen the police station? It is very large, and very white, and incredibly clean. It is like they are not in Polynesia." The place she sends me is right next door. "A little building, with three large garage doors next to it, usually open. He gets all kinds of stuff and sells it from there. That would be your best bet." She tries to call him, but has never had need to before and can't find the number. Aware of the need to set sail soon, I thank her, push my Fun Car back onto the road and speed off.

I almost miss the spot, which is immediately before the Gendarme. They have two sets of fins available, and they cost about $40 each. The fins are about twice as long as the fins I've seen on Creola, but I don't really have a lot of options here, since these may be the only fins on the entire atoll I can purchase. I toss the fins in the back of the Fun Car and speed back to the resort. The full trip is about an hour, leaving me an hour of time before the car is back. Successful in all I attempted, I try not to think that it cost me $50 for a 1 hour go cart ride.

While I'm waiting for Bill or Linda to notice me on the dock, the dinghy of another yacht arrives and offers to give me a ride back to Creola. Apparently, the news that a tall, very shaggy looking redhead is traveling with the Creola has been passed around the entire cruiser community. I gratefully accept.

On board once again, we raise anchor and set sail for the opposite side of the lagoon. Much of the process is automated, which allows Bill and Linda to make such long voyages alone, and also means that there is little that I have to do. I go below to get a book from my cabin and discover exactly why they didn't want to make an overnight trip with me. Below deck, the violence of the pitch and roll of the Creola gives me my first taste of sea sickness. I grab the book quickly and stumble back above, vowing not to return below until we anchor again. While I did not actually get sick, I would have had I stayed below for more than a minute or two. Creola is a 49 foot long boat, and above deck the motion of the ocean is striking but bearable. As long as I have the fresh air, peripheral view of the sea, and frequently get my bearings, I'm at my ease. I spend most of my time in my book, however, as the view is beautiful but unchanging. I cannot even see the other side of the atoll until we are halfway across, and even then it looks identical from a distance to where we just left.

Up close, the primary difference is quite apparent. This part of the atoll is listed as inhabited, but if it remains so it is inhabited only in the barest sense. We see a few sticks joined together in a kind of arch that might be used for drying fish or laundry, but other than that there is no indication of human habitation.

We get into the dinghy and head towards the shore and a mini-lagoon that lies between the sections of atoll. The beach is almost entirely shards of shell and coral. With the new fins on, I float through the very shallow water (at points only two feet deep, if not less) and see nothing but this sharp and unfriendly "sand" and dozens... no, hundreds of sea cucumbers. Black and slug like, with little wavering tentacles, the cucumbers are everywhere. I begin to think that this particular snorkeling endeavor is a wash when I come across some coral. It's not the healthiest looking coral, but I begin to see a variety of fish. The further in I go, the more coral I find, and wider and wider varieties of life. In shadowed waters, I feel the heat of thermal currents, and in sun drenched waters I feel the chills of alternate currents.

I explore the coral, and at one point find a path through it that is just large enough for me to move through without damaging it or myself. Everywhere fish, clams, and anemones are around me. We explore for around an hour, as near as I can figure, ending up resting on a less shard laden beach. Linda has found several beautiful shells, and I have located a whole clam shell that I am considering giving to Betsy, who so adamantly requested that I bring her something back. Bill, who has gone back for the dinghy, offers me a complete clam shell that he found, which is much more beautiful than the one I had located and I return my find to the sea.

That night, I stay up late reading. Much later than usual, ensuring me a solid night's sleep on the much calmer waters in this remote location.

Day Seven: Landlocked

Today was a day of business. It wasn't meant to be, it just sort of worked out that way.

There were certain objectives: go back to pearl farm for free oysters, fill up the tank for the dinghy, go to bank, go to grocery store, go to fruit stand.

It doesn't sound like five hours worth of work, does it? Still...

We picked up Jennifer from the Amelia, in "Spicy" the dinghy. I had sat between her and her husband, Gene, on our pizza night and she and her son had been involved in the Spinnaker Flying. They were loaning us enough fuel for the dinghy to get to town and needed to hit the grocery store as well.

We started off going to the oyster farm, which was about halfway to town. It was a surprisingly long trip, since there were four of us and we were moving against the current. Have I mentioned that that the atoll is 48 mies long and 18 miles wide? The farm is probably about five miles away from the Kia Ora resort, where we are anchored. We were returning there because the proprietor, Stefan, had told us that if we wanted to bring us a bucket, they would fill it with oysters who were not being returned to the sea for more pearls. They keep the oyster shells, of course, but there are only so many oysters that the staff can eat on a given day. We had to clean them, of course.

While dropping off the bucket, the others do a little more shopping now that they've had time to think about it. I wander a bit, but there is only so long that looking at pearls is interesting for me. I find a book on pearl making and flip through it, reinforcing the information I had learned the previous day.

Objective one accomplished, we head back into Spicy and push off, wondering again how much the staff makes each year to do such a specialized, but highly repetitive job. Oyster technicians spend two years training before being allowed to do the surgery that inserts the nucleus that becomes a pearl, so it isn't exactly the kind of job you pick up because you have no other options.

We take the dinghy another five miles or so and anchor in town. This is the farthest down the atoll that I've been to date, and it actually feels something like a town for once. The ladies go off to find the bank while Bill and I go to find the gas station. We're offered the grocery/luggage/cart to carry the gas tanks on, but we wave it away. It won't be that far to the station, after all.

The station turns out to be almost a mile away. Not a problem walking to it, but rather grueling on the way back with full gas tanks. I am forcefully reminded of the trip down the hill from the airport motel with all my luggage. About halfway back we succeed in flagging down a van that takes us the rest of the way into town. We dump the tanks into the dinghy and immediately head to a small snack shop and get a couple of the local beers. It's fairly good stuff, but not something that will go on my short list.

As we meet up with the ladies, Bill and I sit on a stoop and pet some very old dogs who are suffering from what looks like mange. Across the road, we see the sea developing white caps. It is decided that Bill will take the dinghy back to Creola, keeping it as light as possible, and I'll walk back with the ladies, stopping at the grocery store and fruit stand along the way. Bill's adventure, as I would learn later, would involve navigating waves that were an easy four feet from crest to trough.

I find out where the bank is, and that the travel agent is right next to it, but that the bank and everything else closed a few minutes earlier. Everything pretty much closes from 11am-2:30pm in Rangiroa. Despite hearing that the ATM machine is highly finicky, only giving Linda money after a third attempt and never giving Jennifer anything, I decide to check it out before we head to find food. My own magical tech powers work once again, just like at the office, and I get my cash without the slightest hiccup (much to the slightly indignant surprise of my companions). My error was in once again misplacing the conversion rate so that I picked up around $300 instead of $30.

We make the long walk down to the grocery store and find it closed. The pizza place is open, however, so we head over there to grab some lunch and find out how long until the store opens. This is where we find out that things reopen at 2:30. We order salads and pizza and bide our time. A very pregnant cat begs for table scraps and I discover that she's quite keen on mushrooms. By the time we finish, it's not much closer to store opening time, so we wander down the road to the fruit stand, which doesn't close. I start to worry about my sunscreen.

Pickings are sparse, although there is a deal on cherries, all the way from California. I spend most of my time hovering in shady areas. I've gone seven days without serious sunburn, and I don't want to break that streak.

We end up sitting in front of the grocery store until it opens and we're able to fill up the cart. We start walking down the road back towards the resort. As you may have guessed, there is really only one road in Rangiroa, and then little side paths to individual locations. If anyone is going your way, you'll find them. We keep our thumbs out, but as we are three with luggage, we're not an attractive option. A pickup truck pulls over finally and we jump in the back. They are not going as far as we are, but any little bit helps. They get us a mile or so down the road and drop us off at the power station. We resume our walk, with me veering to the far side of the road in order to walk in the shade as often as possible. We make it past the airport before a blue economy car speeds by, slows down a quarter mile ahead of us, turns and comes back. A woman and her two kids offers a ride, but there's no way we can all fit in the car. Immediately, there is a struggle for who will be more noble. Finally Linda and I get Jennifer in the car with all the groceries and send them off to the hotel. The odds are in our favor to get another ride, since there are now only two of us, or so we think.

We end up walking all the way back to the resort from there. We meet up with Jennifer who has been feeding the kids from the car our chips. The little girl with her is probably about seven years old and is wearing nothing but underwear and flip-flops. Here, in a midst of a resort where patrons are spending $575 a night to sleep on the beach, the poverty of the average resident is stark and sobering. The language barrier only enhances the effect, as we're barely able to say more than "hello" to her and her own bewilderment at our gibberish is quite apparent.

Bill eventually sees us on the dock and brings the dinghy over to get us back to our respective boats in order to unload groceries. Gene is on Creola with Bill, cleaning the oysters from the farm and we end up spending the early evening together, eating them. At least, they eat them. I am still too stuffed from the pizza at lunch to consider eating anything. Gene, I learn, is a songwriter who has several country-western hits under his belt. A shame that I already have all the songs for Sweetie Tanya accounted for, as I'd love to hit him up for a tune. We talk about the project, however, and he's intrigued at the multi-artist route we're taking, which in his mind may be the best way to move out of the stylistic rut that makes musicals so unappealing to him. I hope he's right.

The Amelia returns to their boat and the Creola plays a few more rounds of the dice game "Farkle" before turning in.

Day Six: The Black Pearl

I slept even worse last night than the night before. More tossing and turning and more rain in the middle of the night left me weary as I stumbled up to the deck. I was the first one up, so I tried to read a bit in "In the Company of Crows and Ravens", but soon found an on-deck nap to be a better option.

It was not long before I was joined by my hosts, bearing fruit, baguette, butter, jam, peanut butter and nutella. After breakfast I was finally given a task! Their Windows laptop has an erratic and odd driver error, and their Mac is generally jacked up with a default system date and inaccessible control panels. I worked on the PC for a bit and got a good understanding of what the problem is, but not certain how to fix it with no network connectivity. The Mac was a considerable challenge (it's a good six years old), but I eventually got it back up to snuff.

My labors were interrupted, however, my two adventures. The Phoenix, populated by the Coasties and the fledgling musical actor, was leaving that day, but was going to do a little "Spinner flying" first. They had been talking about this the night before, but I didn't know what is was and didn't realize that I was expected to participate.

Basically, this involves a racing sail that can be opened and closed from the deck via a lengthy tube sheath attached to a rope. This sail has three other lines attached to it. The boat is turned around and double anchored so that the wind is blowing away from the stern. One line, which is connected to the two corners of the sail, dangles down in the water. You sit (or stand, if you're insane) on the line, but not directly in the center for reasons that I barely understand on the theoretical level. They then begin to open the sail up, and up you go. I let Bill go first, but watching him dance all over the sky was not a reassuring vision.

See, there's no real way to control what happens once you're up in the air. By up in the air, I'm talking twenty feet or more. You can hang there like a glider, or you can find yourself spinning like a top, dipping and weaving madly. Note, there is no seat. You're just balancing yourself on a medium sized (but very strong) line. And yes, it hurts your butt.

Up I went, and the sea was VERY far beneath me. I was three stories in the air, with nothing holding me up but wind, sail, and cord. I was lucky in that I didn't go spinning out of control, but as they tried to close the sail and bring me down, I veered to the left so hard I was afraid I was going to lose my vice like grip on the line. "Don't look down" they yelled, but looking down wasn't the problem. I tried to look up, and felt my big heavy head tilt me backwards dangerously, the center of my weight shifting from the place I wanted it. Forget that, I'll look down. The wind had picked up and was much stronger than when they had begun, and getting me down was becoming much more difficult as the sheath was having a hard time closing the sail. Suddenly I dropped about ten feet, then was lifted up several feet as another gust caught me. Another savage tilt to the left that must have looked much less terrifying than it felt, and finally I came down to the sea in a somewhat controlled way.

Linda went up next, and they had a hard time getting her down as well. Finally, the captain of the Phoenix made one last go, and the wind was so violent by that point that a false landing and rising caught him so off guard that he was thrown off the cord, and caught it again with his knees. He hung there for a few minutes as his wife and daughter tried to close the sail and bring him down. They got his head about six feet or so from the sea and he released his knees and did a half gainer into the water.

We bid the Phoenix adieu. I opted to swim back to the Creola rather than take the dinghy back, as the current was with me and I had never attempted a ship to ship swim before. If I was going to do it, this was the time, since the salt water makes it very difficult to sink. I am not a strong swimmer by any means and have been able to stay in the water for 20 minutes without any real fatigue.

I went back to work on the machines until 1pm, when we started getting ready for the next excursion. One of the other boats had come by earlier to invite us along for a trip to a black pearl farm. Tahiti is the only place in the world to get black pearls, because the oysters here are the only ones that produce them. The pearls themselves are not completely black, but the name was coined by early sailors to differentiate them from standard pearls.

We all piled into the van and headed further down the atoll than I had been thus far. After disembarking, we got a tour of how pearls are produced now. Nowhere in the world are there naturally produced pearls anymore, as the ratio of pearls to oysters is utterly absurd. As it is, the treatment of the oysters is tightly regulated to prevent damage to the population. Once an oyster egg has hit the bottom of the sea, it cannot be touched by oyster farmers. Instead they place ropes into the sea that are highly frilled to catch as many fertilized oyster eggs as possible. These oysters are then taken to the farm to be raised for three years. Once that time has passed, they are checked to see if they are ready for surgery. If they are, they are left for another six months and then brought back up out of the water. They are only allowed out of the water for two hours. During this time, they are opened a few millimeters to relax the oyster, twenty minutes later, they are opened a few centimeters more and a small nucleus is placed inside the appendix of the oyster along with a piece of oyster with appropriate coloring. This piece of oyster's DNA gets absorbed by the host oyster, and combined with the nucleus, a perl begins to form. More months pass and the oyster is checked to see if it has died from the surgery, been eaten by predators, or rejected the nucleus. If none of these is true, the oyster is left alone for another eighteen months while the pearl is formed. If the oyster survived, but rejected the nucleus, it is left for six months to recover and they try again. Once the pearl is extracted, and if the pearl is perfectly round, a new nucleus, the size of the original pearl, is placed back into the appendix and the process starts over with a much larger pearl being the result eighteen months later. Some oysters produce a third generation pearl even larger, and very rare oysters will actually produce a fourth generation of enormous pearls that are worth several thousand dollars.

When an oyster can no longer be used, the shells are sent to a company in India that uses them to make buttons for nice shirts and the oyster itself is eaten by the employees.

I'm back at the boat now and have succeeded in fixing the Mac, although the PC will require a complete wipe and reinstall. The sky is growing dark and I suspect we'll have more rain tonight. Bill and Linda are making chicken curry and margaritas and I suspect we'll finally play this Farkle game he's been going on about all week.

I can only wonder what tomorrow will bring.

Day Five: On Foot and Online

By my standards, it was a rough night. The boat pitched and rolled and I was awoken by the beginnings of a light rain through the hatch. I scrambled up and closed my hatch, and the side hatches in the head and the spare cabin before crawling back into my bunk. Amazingly, I haven't been seasick at all, but I can understand the reaction. If I ever got caught in a true storm, I'm sure that I would understand it even better.

When dawn came, I decided that I wasn't particularly up for another scuba run. My left hand was decidedly pink, and my nose and forehead had a dangerous hue as well. A day on the boat, writing, seemed the ticket. So after breakfast, Bill and Linda headed out and I sat down and tackled another chapter of the novel. Things are happening much faster now, it seems, although it would be more accurate to say that I need to shift locations between characters more quickly to maintain the thread of events. Thus, my 10 page chapters are turning into 4 and 5 page ones.

Halfway through the chapter the rain began again, sending me below to close all the hatches. Again, it was only a light rain and not a proper squall, and the topside was sufficiently covered to allow me to continue to work while I watched the water grow choppy and the wind blow the countless palm trees on the shore.

Once it had passed, I opened everything up and wiped down everything that had gotten wet before finishing the chapter. I had just completed the final words when Bill and Linda returned. They had seen dolphins, but only from a great distance, and also a small shark. I would have been truly sad if I had missed a dolphin encounter, but there are still six more days for that.

We took the dinghy into shore for a produce and internet run. There were rumors of a place that would let you use your own machine and I hoped to upload this week's Radiostar episode and check email. The sole taxi was not running that day, however. Another yachtsman had rented a small vehicle for the day, but it would only carry two. We agreed that I would take the usual transportation route and he would take Linda where she needed to go. I would meet her at the internet cafe.

I began walking down the road. To my right was the small general store and dock we had visited earlier. To my left was the rest of the atoll. As I walked, the sky remained thick with clouds, but was beginning to lighten. I pulled out the spare can of spray-on sunscreen and was dismayed to find that it didn't work. I could trust rain clouds to protect me from sunburn, but not cloudy haze.

To my right I could see the lagoon, stretching as far as the eye could see. To my left, I could see the ocean. The atoll is very long, but extremely narrow. It is next to impossible to not have an "ocean" view here.

As I walked, I stuck out my thumb for vehicles passing my way. Yep, the usual way to get around is to hitchhike, according to the hotel. A few cars passed by, but then a old local stopped and picked me up. He spoke no english and didn't understand that I wanted to go to town, or to the cafe, or internet. Eventually, we kind of agreed on village, but in truth it was a matter of him waiting for me to tell him to stop. So we drove in silence, past the airport until I saw the sign for internet/restaurant. I tried to give him some money in thanks for the ride, and he looked at me as if I was a very strange person and waved me off.

The rumor had been that this was a place where you could bring your own computer and get online. That place was across the street, apparently, and had closed up shop for three weeks. The place we did have available had a windows box that we could use for rather exorbitant fees. Once Linda was through with it, I located the url for my personal webmail and began my online adventure.

The connection speed was, at best, 14.4. My webmail seems to be java based, so simply getting a list of emails took me almost fifteen minutes. Each email I read took an eternity, and replying to it even longer. This arduous process was not aided by the French keyboard, which has a considerably different layout. How different? Well, you need to use the shift key to type numbers. After 45 minutes, I was able to respond to four emails and it cost me around $9.

I will be posting these journals when I arrive home.

As frustrating as this experience was, I was glad to send a very few words home to Radiostar, Mayuko, and my Mom.

The yachtie who got Linda there took her back and them came and picked me up as well. It was back to the boat for a little relaxing.

There was a pizza gathering not far down the road from the internet restaurant that evening. Three boats were represented, although the Creola was the first to arrive. We were about a half hour before the place opened, so we checked out the large grocery store across the street. Linda bought some lettuce, which turned out to be from Salinas, CA. It was a very small place, but compared to what else I had seen on the atoll, it felt like shopping at Costco. A large freighter had docked earlier, so the folks that run the store were madly stocking the shelves.

The pizza was quite good, on a kind of thin cornmeal crust. Individual pizzas were more than I could handle, but we had a couple of teenage boys at the table who were more than happy to take up my extras. Table talk was a little less technical than it had been earlier in the week and I heard some interesting tales from the folks on the Phoenix, who are both "Coasties" (Coast Guard) and talked with another gentleman about life in South Carolina and about Nashville. There was a bit of polite curiosity about my relationship to the McKeevers, no doubt wondering how this scruffy nerfherder got to come down to paradise for the week. I seem to have passed the test, however, as queries were made about Radiostar and I promised to give the Phoenix a few shows to listen to as they make the next leg of their journey.

Yep, I'm half way around the world and shilling my podcast. I'm a good producer.