Self-Aggrandizement: Travel Archives

Los Angeles: Day 6
Filed January 28, 2008 5:57 PM.

Despite a lovely stretch in LA (marred substantially by only an unexpected car-towing at the very end), I'm more than glad to be writing this from a New York-bound airplane. (Even despite the scent coming off the old codger next to me who drank seven - yes, seven - small airline bottles of cheap red wine.)

A few things I learned on the LA part of the trip:

1. No wifi = no productivity.

2. Jess and I are waaaay to old to do multiple 'pre-game' tequila shots before a night of back-to-back business drinks.

3. Los Angelinos can't drive worth shit.

4. Especially when it rains.

5. I no longer get even vaguely star-struck.

6. While you can't make good sushi from bad fish, you apparently can make bad sushi from good fish.

7. Despite the national infrastructure efforts of Whole Foods, California produce still wins.

8. Though, conversely, while LA may have more Kosher delis than New York, they all make crap pastramis on rye.

And, resolved: Still seems like a nice place to visit, but I still wouldn't want to live there.

Los Angeles: Day 3
Filed January 24, 2008 2:34 PM.

Yes, I lived all the way through Sundance, and even managed to detour briefly further west, all without blogging about any of it. Shame, shame.

But, really, it wasn't my fault. I had no wifi in Park City, and the supposed wifi here at the brand new Thompson Beverly Hills is dodgy at best. (Though, on the upside, the rooms are $150 a pop while the place is still working out the kinks, and the hotel is clearly the new hotness: Marky Mark was at the hotel restaurant [the West Coast incarnation of my long-loved Bond St.] on Tuesday evening, and last night celebrity stylist / drug dealer Rachel Zoe was smoking out front.)

How's the trip been? In short, excellent. After a 2007 of not enough forward motion for Cyan, we're jumping into 2008 with terrifying velocity. And after a 2007 of (unwisely) fading from the film-word schmooze-circuit, I (and the rest of the company) have already glad-handed everyone from directors, producers and actors, to bankers, hedge fund types, and the heads of the DGA and the MPAA.

Back to it.

Sundance: Day 1
Filed January 18, 2008 6:32 PM.

Newark Liberty International Airport : What a way to start a trip!

Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport: A step down from even Newark!

Our flight to Salt Lake City is delayed, so I stop in for a burger and chicken fingers at Dairy Queen. Probably not a wise choice.

Seated next to a woman named Tiffany from Mississippi who's meeting her mother and sister up in Park City for a 'girl's weekend' at Sundance. Strange that the festival is equal parts industry conference and tourist destination.

Salt Lake City International Airport: We've got mormons!

Taxi up to Park City to join the rest of the Cyan delegation, at the house we've rented just off Main St. By the time we all head off to grab dinner at 10:45, nearly everything is closed, and we end up at Butchers', a less than mediocre steakhouse that still charges $45 a filet.

"Let's get some business done this week," says my CFO, "so I can amortize these steaks."

Sundance: Day -1
Filed January 16, 2008 3:06 PM.

I haven't owned long underwear since I was about six, the point when I concluded that, while it was warm outdoors, back inside it was itchy and uncomfortably hot.

By now, I'm not sure if I feel any different. But I'm nonetheless headed off this afternoon to Paragon to pick up a pair. The temperature in Park City, Utah, is currently one degree, even without considering the windchill, and I'd ideally like to return to New York still able to have kids.

Sundance: Day -9
Filed January 8, 2008 5:44 PM.

Caucuses? Primaries? No, no. In the film business, January means something far more 'important': Sundance.

Yes, in just a week and change, the Cyan team and I (and Jess, who's bravely jumping into the fray) head off to Park City, Utah. The countdown begins.

Ugh
Filed November 29, 2007 5:53 PM.

"I refer to jet lag as 'jet-psychosis' - there's an old saying that the spirit cannot move faster than a camel."
-Spalding Gray

Back
Filed November 26, 2007 10:54 PM.

Whenever I head to California, to my parents' home, I revert to a sixteen-year-old version of myself. We laugh and talk and do. It's fun. It's relaxing. It's wonderful.

And, by now, it's at least as much so to return to my real, New York life.

Home for Thanksgiving II
Filed November 22, 2007 8:26 PM.

Eighteen people for dinner, with a handful more joining for dessert. This is, for us, 'very small'.

Mainly, no change to the classics: my mother's roast turkey, my father's stuffing (the crowd favorite), pecan-crusted sweet potatoes.

This year, though, grilled vegetables are out in favor of garlic oven-roasted (my innovation), and the cranberry bread is now cranberry / corn / whole wheat (my mother's, to her own regret).

Also new: along with last year's tomato-basil bruschetta addition (a hit), some with olive and caper tapenade, others with manchego cheese and apricot jam or Point Reyes blue and fig preserve. (These the result of my and my father's joint gastonomizing.)

And, finally: prosecco. Lots and lots of prosecco. I bought three bottles last year, and the normally non-drinking crowd sucked them dry in minutes. This could be dangerous.

Home for Thanksgiving I
Filed November 21, 2007 1:04 AM.

JFK to SFO, just more than six hours.

Almost killed my brother en route, as he kept sliding his elbow across the divider between out seats. Seems we've matured little since the back of our parent's mini-van.

In n' Out: seriously, what's the big deal? I don't quite get people's obsession with these burgers.

[Ed. note: I'll be adding to each of these postings throughout the day, for thre balance of the week.]

On the Road
Filed October 2, 2007 6:18 PM.

Off to the University of Rochester early tomorrow morning, where I'll be giving a speech cleverly titled "Get Off Your Ass: Start a Company (and Avoid a 'Real Job')" as 'inspirational keynote' of the Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour's stop there.

That's right. The Extreeeeeeeeme Entrepreneurship Tour. Like the X Games of motivational college speaking.

Don't worry, mom, I'll wear a helmet.

Weekender
Filed March 27, 2007 4:30 PM.

After too long under fluorescent lights, Jess and I headed down this past weekend for a very brief jaunt to Miami Beach. The trip started off well enough, with a smooth flight down on Friday morning, and a free rental car upgrade to a new VW Beetle - which drove sort of like a turbo-charged go-cart - in the early afternoon.

We pulled up to our hotel, however, a 'boutique' designed by Richard Meier, to discover an alarming array of rust stains running down the side of the building, and a valet parking attendant wearing, as a uniform, a pit-stained t-shirt and thoroughly yellowed khaki shorts. Further bad news inside, when we discovered that the hotel would shortly be razed to make way for a new, high-end Richard Meier condo, and that things had essentially been left to seed since the replacement had been planned, apparently a good five or ten years back.

As a result, the room, for instance, featured badly stained carpets, walls and ceilings, including what was clearly dried fecal matter crusted to the bathroom light-switch plate. The sheets looked dirty and threadbare, the closet doors hung at odd angles, and everything was pervaded with a slightly 'pungent' scent.

But, in an attempt to be good travelers, Jess and I looked past the room, and the crumpled used tissues littering the hall near our door. Instead, we figured, we'd head down to the pool and the beach, and simply spend as much of the weekend outside as possible.

Lo and behold, however, we discovered that the 'private beach' was actually a weed-ridden patch of shady sand, well removed from any observable body of water, scattered with rusted lawn chairs, and featuring an aging leathery woman sunning her low-hanging fake tits while chain-smoking Newports.

Still holding up our chins, we headed back to the pool, set out looking for towels, and were informed that we'd need to fork over an extra $25 'towel fee' for the day. With that last straw, it was back to the room to retrieve our laptop, then down to the wifi-ed lobby to kayak.com an emergency transfer to anywhere less piece-of-shit.

As the weekend fell smack in the middle of spring break, we were unable to find anything for Friday evening - instead sneaking in to the nearby Sheraton's pool, and wandering the adjacent Shops at Bal Harbour, before sleeping fitfully on top of sheets we tried to touch as little as possible. But, early Saturday morning, we hopped back in the (delightfully comparatively clean) Beetle, and headed down Collins Ave., to the National Hotel in South Beach, a beautiful old art deco property, with a long, slender waveless lap pool (designed for Esther Williams), and rooms regularly cleaned and poop-crust free.

The downside: apparently, the hotel was also the home for a weekend DJ convention, featuring showdowns by some of the best trance, deep house, and otherwise thumpy music spinners in the world. Which, while making for a remarkably MTV Spring Break scene and attracting long, long lines of pierced and tattooed visitors to the hotel, also left sunbathing a bit less relaxing than it might otherwise have been.

Still, I didn't mind. We were joined for part of the weekend by Jess' wonderful younger sister, and generally enjoyed the chance to sunburn our way out of the winter doldrums, horse around in the pool, sip pina coladas, and feel condescendingly glad we didn't look like most of the people wandering up and down Miami Beach.

Summer, bring it.

Recap
Filed November 27, 2006 11:48 AM.

How was the trip? Well, long.

But also, fortunately, good. Despite the stress of hosting twenty-something people for Thanksgiving, of introducing Jess to my parents and then having them all spend nearly a week together, of generally trying to align all the disparate spheres of my life, everything went about as smoothly as I could have probably hoped.

Still, as I often feel after time away, I think I need a second vacation just to recover from the first.

Je Ne Comprends Pas
Filed November 14, 2006 7:02 PM.

Any time I'm outside of the US, I inevitably worry that I look like an American. Sure, on balance, I love this country. But so do fat, middle-aged men on bus tours, who roam the streets of Florence or Barcelona in sweatpants, white sneakers, and "God Bless Kansas!" t-shirts. And, as a result, nearly everyone in the rest of the world looks down upon my fellow countrymen enough to provide us noticeably worse service in their cabs, hotels, shops and restaurants.

So, it was some small relief that Jess and I, while in Paris, were able to more or less blend. At least until midway into any given conversation, which inevitably went like this:

Clerk: Payerez-vous par l'argent comptant ou la carte de credit?

Me: Oui.

Clerk: [Confused pause] Payerez-vous par l'argent comptant ou la carte de credit?

Me: [Blank smile]

Clerk: Je suis desole?

Me: [More blank smile]

Clerk: Ah. [Raised, disdainful eyebrow] You are not French.

Which, as Jess pointed out, likely meant that through the (often rather lengthy) first, one-sided half of conversations, people were assuming we were French, but simply deaf or retarded.

Interestingly, they still liked us better at that point than when they deduced we spoke English.

Over and Out
Filed November 8, 2006 3:09 PM.

On the Metro North right now, headed up to Connecticut to deliver the aforementioned Extreme Entrepreneur Tour keynote. As I pulled the slides together mainly last night, the whole thing admittedly lacks the polish I might have hoped for. But, as readers of this site have doubtless already deduced, if I can do anything, it's talk out of my ass for long, relatively articulate stretches even when I have pretty much nothing to say. Fingers crossed.

Then, more excitingly, I head back to NYC, retrieve Jess, and subway out to JFK, to hop on a flight to Charles de Gaulle. I haven't been to Paris for several years, and I hear the croissant calling my name.

And while I'll (unusually) be leaving the laptop behind, I'll still be bowing to the demands of Cyan's current surprisingly ongoing success, and carting along my BlackBerry Pearl. If nothing else, it should give me something to do as I wait outside the dressing rooms in Bon Marche.

Flickr users, keep your eyes peeled; if the technology cooperates, I'll be photoblogging the (mis)adventures while they're still underway.

Heading Home
Filed August 22, 2006 2:19 AM.

Heading Home

With a touch of Hawaiian sunburn, some significant progress on Cyan's C round from the prior week, and a bad case of jet lag (to be reinforced tomorrow on my second 3000 mile leg from San Francisco), I'm headed back to New York City to resume the daily pace of my crazy life.

These few days of tropical 'vacation' were much needed, though also a good reminder that, at my age, most people only head to Maui's Wailea coast on honeymoon - attractive women and giant diamonds therefore spotted in precisely equal count.

More exciting, however, is the coming-shortly first set of theatrical returns from our ongoing Oh in Ohio release. Having sunk my personal savings into pushing Cyan ahead, and having similarly deferred salary for months to ensure sufficient dollars in the bank to underwrite the film's national marketing campaign, I'm thrilled to see the bets and sacrifices paying off, and the accompanying additional few zeroes added to the end of my bank balance.

Money may not, as they say, buy happiness, but the chronic lack of it is a serious pain in the ass.

Where in the World
Filed August 17, 2006 12:06 AM.

In San Francisco, wrangling investors for Cyan's C Round of financing; off Friday to Maui for a much-needed mini-vacation; back in NYC Tuesday evening. As ever, erratic postings along the way.

Airborne
Filed August 10, 2006 3:34 PM.

About a year back, I discovered that a flask of rum makes in-flight coke, and in-flight experiences in general, far more pleasant. Which is why, with six flights on my horizon in the next two weeks, I'm particularly displeased to discover TSA's newest terrorist-thwarting rule:

NO LIQUIDS OR GELS OF ANY KIND CAN BE CARRIED ON THE AIRCRAFT [Ed. note: capitalization theirs.]

The unfortunate sobriety leaves me doubly exposed to my recent and ever-growing flight anxiety, which I previously described thusly:

Having logged enough miles to know first-hand the odds of safely reaching my destination, I should be a calm, collected flier. Instead, I'm increasingly phobic, knowing too well each expected whirr and beep: altitude markers, well-adjusted ailerons, fully-engaged landing gear. During a flight, at least a quarter of my brain is consumed with monitoring such sounds. Was that clang right? And, if not, have the flight attendants huddled in back for last tearful goodbyes?

And now, with bombs apparently ready to take (commercial) flight, at least another quarter of my brain will be spent rationalizing away this second in-air threat.

Bon voyage, indeed.

Do You Know What it Means
Filed May 12, 2006 1:54 AM.

Ever since my first visit, well over a decade back, I've loved New Orleans. Aside from New York and San Francisco, it's the only place in the continental United States I daydream of, feel the need to return to, over and over.

Yet, as I drove along I-10 towards the Crescent City earlier this week, my stomach churned with apprehension, unsure of how the city - and my love of it - had fared Katrina.

As we closed in, the highway was lined with downed trees and abandoned strip malls, buildings reduced to shells and piles of rubble. We parked just outside the French Quarter, amidst broken windows and shutters hanging loose on their hinges.

Iberville Street was oddly empty as walked to the Acme Oyster House, to join some local friends for lunch. The restaurant, at least, was full, and, waiting for a table, I spoke with some Louisianans at the bar. And, in that one conversation, all my fears subsided.

I recognized the way they talked of the hurricane, of their surprise that friends and relatives would even suggest they consider uprooting their lives and moving somewhere else. I recognized it because I had said and felt precisely the same things, living in Manhattan in the wake of 9/11.

I don't know if some cities have a spirit and character that carries them through disaster, or if, like a cornered animal, nearly any would pull together in that same intense yet casual way were its existence threatened.

But I knew, at least, that New Orleans had. That, as we in the rest of the country worried on their behalf, fretted and opined about whether the city would ever be the same, the people who lived there had already set aside such academic debate, consumed instead with the day-by-day process of carrying on with life.

By the time I left Louisiana the next morning, continuing on I-10 towards Austin, my thoughts were already drifting back towards the city behind me. If it ever slept, I'd tell New Orleans to wait up for me; it won't be long until I'm back.

Home Again
Filed May 11, 2006 12:46 AM.

Though I set out on this week's road trip with lofty blogging intentions, two problems quickly became clear: First, none of the people we stayed with had wireless internet access. Second, our time was so thoroughly consumed with driving, eating, driving, drinking, driving, buying gas, driving and driving some more that blogging (and, for that matter, sleep) just didn't seem to fit.

As of this evening, I'm back home safe and in one piece. But I suspect I'll need a bit more recovery time yet before I can coherently recap any of the trip. Apparently, hitting six states* in five days really wears you out.

* For those following along at home: Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.

On the Road
Filed May 4, 2006 10:42 AM.

I head out tomorrow night on a road trip with former roommates Colin and James. Though the dysfunctional dynamic between the three of us is long honed, we'll also be joined by the dynamic Alicia Van Couvering, which should add a whole new layer to the boiling, barely concealed hatred we'll all doubtless feel for each other by the end of that much time wedged together in a small car.

We fly in to Atlanta on Friday evening, then head down to Athens, Georgia on Saturday. Sunday is Pensacola, Monday is New Orleans, and Tuesday is Austin. I fly back to New York on Wednesday to wrangle the three-ring circus that is Cyan Pictures these days, though the rest of the crew will continue motoring west, all the way to Los Angeles.

Apparently, we're also making a film as part of the road trip, based on a short story by one of our Yale classmates, though I've still yet to wrap my brain around exactly what that's going to entail.

But, I'm armed with a laptop and digital camera, and will do my best to chronicle the misadventures as they unfold.

Wish us safe driving, and round up the bail money in advance.

Back and Forth: Notes from San Francisco [II]
Filed November 28, 2005 10:29 PM.

Monday again? Where did the week go?

---

Actually, I'll tell you where it went: to eating, eating, and more eating. I'm now five and a half pounds heavier than when I came out West. Given how much I eat on even non-Thanksgiving weeks, that's a hell of an 'accomplishment'.

---

Where it also went: to driving. Living in New York, I forget how much time the rest of the world spends in cars.

Still, there's no better place to sing, to really belt something out, then alone in the driver's seat, hurtling down the highway at 85 miles an hour.

Similarly, I listen to lyrics much more carefully while driving. I hadn't previously realized, for example, that Sufjan Stevens' Casimir Pulaski Day is possibly the most wrenchingly heartbreaking song I've ever heard.

---

And, somehow connected to that but not really, thank you Kate for the 'Happy breakupversary!' text message that totally made my week.

---

In between the driving and the eating, I was actually fairly productive. Some good investor meetings, and a chance to lock down our next Cyan / Long Tail hire.

Which reminds me of a quote I came across earlier this week, from management guru Tom Peters:

"Never hire a human being who had a 4.0 in college. If they had a perfect GPA, it means they bought the act and never screwed around. Now a 2.0 is probably not so good. But the ones who had 3.0, yeah! Those are the freaks you want!"

---

Also, while I didn't do any Black Friday shopping, I did take advantage of a sale or two earlier in the week. Most important of which being one that led to the discounted purchase of a black velvet blazer with peaked collars and grey pin-stripes.

Hugh Heffner, step aside.

Back and Forth: Notes from San Francisco [I]
Filed November 21, 2005 8:37 PM.

Off to California, again. I'd start telling people I live bi-coastally if it didn't make me sound like a total douche-bag.

---

And, relatedly, here come a series of posts consisting of random notes I jot down during the trip on the index cards I carry everywhere in my right front pocket.

While such in-the-field notation allows me to pretend there's something vaguely journalistic about the approach, I'm sadly aware that throwing unconnected tidbits together to make longer-looking post is, indeed, the lowest form of blogging.

---

Flying out to San Francisco, I tucked a flask full of 8-year barrel-aged rum into my Timbuk2 messenger bag. It did cause the TSA screener to pause the x-ray conveyor belt, but otherwise passed security without a hitch.

Thank you, JetBlue, for providing the other half of each of my in-flight rum and cokes. Thank you also for giving me an exit-row aisle seat. And, in particular, thank you for seating me next to Callie, a highly attractive (though not particularly intelligent) young blonde; for once, I didn't mind having my seat-mate fall asleep on my shoulder.

---

Also, thank you JetBlue for getting me in to San Jose a full hour early. Seriously, a full hour. How does that work, exactly? The captain had someplace to be later that evening, so he just floored it for the whole five hours?

---

And, at the same time, lest you think JetBlue is without flaws:

First, wasn't there a time when flight attendants (perhaps when they were still called 'stewardesses') were attractive?

Second, if JetBlue now boasts a 40-channel lineup, why is there absolutely nothing watch-able on my little back-of-the-seat TV?

---

My mother does this thing, when we travel, on the first day and the last day of the trip. "Can you believe we're in Hawaii?" she'll ask repeatedly, continuing, "we were just in California this morning." Which my brother and I usually mock mercilessly.

Still, I sort of understand what she means. Early today, I'm deep in winter, walking barren streets just above freezing; this afternoon, everywhere I look the leaves are still green and I'm sitting in the backyard in a t-shirt.

Works for me.

Scandinavia: Day 4
Filed August 30, 2005 5:47 PM.

While Absolut may be Swedish, the local hard liquor is aquavit. Like vodka, it's distilled from potato or grain, but flavored with herbs such as caraway seed, cumin, fennel and coriander. It burns like turpentine on the way down, then explodes in a subtly flavored bouqeut. The name, derived from the Latin aqua vitae, means 'water of life'. Which, in short, pretty much sums up my overall view of all vodka's relatives.

The Swedes also have a number of local beers, most notably Spendrups, a light lager. The city's formerly strict licensing laws led to a slew of beers with relatively low alcohol content, but the recent easement of such restrictions has birthed new, visually and gustatively identical, brews, which contain up to three times as much alcohol. Makes for great games of liquor roulette.

###

Supposedly, Stockholm's subway system is copied off of New York City's - down to the width of the rails and the wiring of the electrical system. Still, the cars and platforms are new, perfectly operational and exceedingly clean; in other words, absolutely nothing like New York's at all.

###

As I had hoped, there's a certain type of tall Scandinavian blonde female that abounds here. Unfortunately, there are as many ugly tall Scandinavian blondes as hot ones. What a disappointment.

###

As my brother and I walk one way, a beautiful six-foot-tall Swede walks past in the opposite direction. I turn to my brother and say: "quick, you hop onto my shoulders, and we can go back and hit on her."

###

Sure, the allegory of Babel might imply it's a sign of impending doom, but for lazy Americans, the world standardizing on English as lingua franca makes things far, far easier.

Plus, the resulting conversations never fail to thrill me. Earlier today, in the Royal Palace, the exchange between a Swedish guard and a Chinese tourist, about the age and origin of a nearby tapestry, put even the best Laurel and Hardy routine to shame.

###

Finally, Stockholm and Sweden itself: I don't know why I never noted this before, but it seems this city and country aren't a real land mass at all, but rather a loosely confederated archipelago of small wooded islands. Twenty-four thousand - 24,000 - small wooded islands. Excuse me?

Despite this lack of solidity, Stockholm is remarkably beautiful - often called the 'Venice of the North', it looks to me more like Amsterdam, though with wider, prettier canals, and fewer pot cafes.

Other parts of the city remind me nearly of Toronto or Vancouver - quieter and friendlier than American cities, but a real city nonetheless. A city with a feel and daily flow comfortable enough that I could even imagine escaping here on a more extended basis. No, I'm not expatriating to Stockholm any time soon. But, when I leave tomorrow, head across the Kattegat and down into Copenhagen, Denmark, I'll be more than a bit sad to leave this little collection of islands behind.

Scandinavia: Day 1
Filed August 28, 2005 12:52 PM.

A Fortune 500 CEO once famously quipped, "if you never miss a flight, you're spending too much time in airports." Clearly, I am, as I've never once missed a plane. This is the influence of my mother, a woman who not only always arrives two hours before any flight, but also arrives as much as a full hour before movies, just to guarantee prime seats.

Thus, after childhoods of her training, my brother and I show up to the nearly deserted American Airlines terminal slightly before midnight on Friday, stroll through check in and security, mosey past rows of closed duty free shops, and pull up to our gate an hour and forty-five minutes before departure.

My perfect plane-catching streak continues.

###

Note scrawled down while waiting in boarding area:

Girls with British accents: Yes, please.

###

As I'm a terrible, terrible plane sleeper, I try something I've never done before: I pop two sleeping pills as I board the JFK to Heathrow flight. My brother does the same, then jokes about the possibility of us passing out from their effects on the walkway just outside the plane's door. Instead, we make it all the way to our seats before dropping into deep, uninterrupted sleep for nearly the entirety of the six hour flight.

###

We wander around the concourse of Heathrow's Terminal 1, too groggy to go through with our planned Guinness pint. We also pass on sandwiches at Pret a Manger, a stop suggested by my parents, who discovered the sandwich chain while passing through Heathrow one week prior. I don't mind skipping it, however, as there's a branch downstairs from my Manhattan office. Several others of the British stalwarts on the concourse - Thomas Pink, FCUK - have locations within walking distance of my apartment as well. Homogenize the world enough and one place is nearly indistinguishable from any other.

###

The customs line at Sweden's Arlanda Airport is long but exceedingly blonde and well-mannered. From there, we hop the Arlanda Express Train, and, on the twenty minute ride to the City Center, glimpse Stockholm for the first time.

Scandinavia: Day 0
Filed August 26, 2005 11:05 AM.

Looking back through my archives, it seems there's at least one sort of blogging I can consistently carry on while traveling: writing about the trip itself.

So, over the next week, as I explore Stockholm and Copenhagen with family in tow, I'll be writing about it here. I'll aim to post every day or two, and if historical precedent bears, each will likely be a collection of snippets, rather than a single long narrative account.

The cast of characters: me; my parents, who have been in Norway for the past week already, and are now en route to Sweden; my younger brother David, who, in turn, has been here with me in NYC for the past week.

The plan of attack: David and I subway to JFK tonight, hop on a 11:30pm British Airways flight to Heathrow, drink Guinness during a three hour layover, then hop back onto a BA flight to Stockholm, arriving at 5:40pm tomorrow.

The mission: for the Sweden leg of the trip - find the Swedish Bikini Team, the Swedish Chef, or, at least, some Swedish fish.

Travelin' Man
Filed August 24, 2005 5:09 PM.

If anything derails my best attempts at regular blogging, it's time on the road. Away from home, my life is usually too chaotic to regularly fit a significant stretch of daily drafting time - an unfortunate necessity for a writer as painfully slow as I. Then, even once I return, the work piled up in my absence still keeps me away from the keyboard.

Which, in short, is an oblique apology for the late lack of content. But if I don't want this already desiccating site to shrivel up and die completely, blogging-while-traveling is a skill I'd best pick up, fast. I head out of town, yet again, to Sweden and Denmark this Friday evening, then return to New York just long enough to unpack and repack for the Toronto Film Festival, which will take me away from home until mid-September.

Don't get me wrong; I'm thrilled to head out into the world. As Seneca observed several millennia back, "travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind." It's just that, these days, I never seem to have quite enough time to fully consider one completed adventure before being flung into the next. Perhaps, then, it's William Hazlitt's more recent (just centuries old) quote that's more apropos: "I should like to spend the whole of my in life traveling abroad, if I could anywhere borrow another life to spend afterwards at home."

outta here
Filed October 28, 2004 10:53 AM.

"Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer. Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen."
-Leonardo Da Vinci

Off to the airport to escape for the weekend. Assuming I can find internet access, blogging to continue apace.

clever hans
Filed September 14, 2004 5:35 PM.

Listening to conversations over the past few days, I've found my long-forgotten (and, even at its peak, already remedial) Hebrew to be holding up much better than expected. I understand about every second or third word, which is usually enough for me to at least get the vague gist of the conversation.

Where that falters, though, is on humor - apparently, understanding jokes requires far better comprehension than I possess. And, while shooting interviews, that's a problem - when someone's best material falls flat, they'll often try to explain it (or, at least, disclaimer it as an intended joke), interrupting the flow of the conversation.

So, to avoid that awkward situation, I've taken unconsciously to mirroring the expressions of the Israelis around me. When they look sympathetic or impressed, I catch myself doing the same. When they burst out laughing, I can't help but do so to; at very least, I smile and shake my head knowingly.

Yet, while I usually feel like I'm doing a surprisingly good job of following along, in the middle of each faux guffaw, I can't help but think to myself: actually, I have absolutely no idea what the hell is going on.

small miracles
Filed September 13, 2004 4:58 PM.

[Thanks to our wonderful Israeli line producer, Nir Weiss, I'm back online. As much as my shoot schedule permits, I'll be posting here near-daily, and on Cyan's site two or three times a week. To all those who emailed in the interim since my last post with their advice: yes, I promise I'll try really hard not to get blown up.]

"Nes gadol haya sham."

I recited those Hebrew words while growing up, year after year, prompted each hanukkah by the first letters - 'nun', 'gimmel', 'hey' and 'shin' - that in turn adorn the four sides of the dreidels my family would pull out of a box in our garage. Nes gadol haya sham - a great miracle happened there.

In short, that's what hanukkah - like most other Jewish holidays - is about; memorializing a great miracle that kept the Jewish people alive, century in and century out, despite the best efforts of countless civilizations. Still, in the case of hanukkah, which celebrates the successful revolt of the Maccabees, the miracle we celebrate isn't the suprising, David-and-Goliath-esque military victory, but rather a much smaller one.

When the Maccabee rebels returned to their Great Temple after tossing the greeks, they found the place ransacked, the Neir Tamid - the Eternal Light - extinguished, with barely enough oil left in the one unbroken flask to last a few hours. Yet, through the eight days it took them to pick and press olives, to replenish their oil supply, the single flask burned on.
From that, then, Hanukkah - eight days, a festival of lights. Yet, in the bigger picture of their against-the-odds win, that little miracle seems, well, not all that miraculous. But, perhaps, that's the entire point - a miracle of any size is a miracle none the less.

While growing up, I remember each year being told that, In Israel, dreidels differ slightly - the letter 'pey' replaces 'shin', the stood-for word 'po' replaces 'sham'. Nes gadol haya po - a great miracle happened here. In this very place.

I thought of that today as I drove back from Ben Gurion Airport towards Tel Aviv. I had just sent out Chris, our director, and the Israeli crew that will be following him, off to Newcastle, to shoot Sakhnin's UEFA game later this week. As we had been running behind on our way to the airport - we wanted to get there in time to film the team's bus pulling up - I had given in to the urgings of my car-ull of Israelis, and driven straight through, despite the nearly-empty state of my car's gas tank.

The fuel light had come on well before we arrived at the airport, and, on my way back, the needle was dipping further and further below the empty line. I drove along the highway to Tel Aviv, looking desperately ahead for signs of roadside gas stations on the horizon. But, not only were there not any gas stations, there weren't even any exits - aside from junctions for equally large highways shooting off towards the desert on either side - for tens of miles.

By the time I pulled off the highway onto the first exit I could find, the car was already beginning to slow slightly - my top speed had dropped to maybe sixty kilomters per hour. And, as I drove, increasingly slowly, down block after block of the small road I had exited onto, the odds of finding a gas station seemed increasingly slim. The small commercial strip gave way to sparse apartment complexes, and handfuls of industrial buildings.

Still, knowing I certainly didn't have enough fuel to return to highway speed, I kept pushing forward. I was doing thirty kilometers an hour at best, but the car kept going, one painful mile at a time. Finally, some ten minutes after I had turned onto the road, I caught sight of a gas station far up on the left. Ever slower, I rolled forward, my eye on the glowing sign ahead.

By the time I pulled in, the engine was knocking, and I was barely doing five kilometers an hour. But I managed to roll the car up alongside the pump. As I stepped out of the car, breathing in the beautiful smell of petrol, I thought about those Israeli dreidels. Nes gadol haya po. A great miracle happened here. Apparently they still do.

uprooted
Filed July 21, 2004 10:24 AM.

Over the past few years, I've been spending an increasing percentage of my time on the road - a trend that looks likely to continue, as, just in the next month, I'm slated to head out to Washington (D.C.), San Francisco, Israel and Bermuda. (Rough, I know.)

Through all my traveling thus far, I've made a few discoveries. The first, that I don't need that much 'stuff' to be happy, is immensely pleasing in a Walden-esque sort of way. Living out of suitcases, I find I rarely miss the things I've left behind. Which has inspired me, already a ruthless reducer of possessions, to further clean out my closets.

Another thing I've noticed, however, is that trips of different lengths seem to have different feels to them. For vacations, very short trips (three to five days) seem to work best for me. After that, any additional relaxation I gain from pulling myself out of real life accrues increasingly slowly with each added day - a textbook case of diminishing returns. Worse, I start to find that all of the work I managed to push completely out of my head for the first few days begins to creep back in, preventing me from fully enjoying my escape.

As a result, I've realized I'm better breaking two weeks of yearly vacation into three or four shorter trips, spread through the year. Each one, then, is just long enough for me to pull myself completely out of my fast-paced life, and comes frequently enough that I rarely have to go for extended stretches without an upcoming escape in sight.

Five days, I've found, is also long enough to do the tourist thing in a city I've never before visited - long enough to see the sites, wander through a few museums, browse thorough kitschy knick-knacks I fortunately never purchase. Even doubling that to ten days, I've found, makes very little difference. Sure, I get to see a few more sights, perhaps wander more slowly through the museums. But, by the end, I still feel like a tourist - with a vague sense of the city, perhaps, but certainly not like I really know it.

At the one month, mark, however, I've found that I start to feel like I really own a city - I have a sense of the neighborhoods, have found a few off-the-beaten-path secret spots, get some sort of feel for the city as a whole. It's a completely different feeling from the touristy shorter trips, and I find that when I return to a city I've lived in - even lived in for just a one month stretch - it feels slightly more like a homecoming than an outbound visit.

I really like that homecoming feeling, and, as I'm lucky enough have jobs (both on the film and tech sides) that can be done pretty much anywhere, it's something I've recently resolved to experience more often. So, along with my business trips, along with my frequent short vacations, I'll also be trying to take a month a year to live and work someplace I've never lived and worked before. With Manhattan rents so ridiculously high, I suspect I can sublet my apartment, and use the income to cover not only rent in another city, but even the cost of a flight to get there.

I can't relocate for a month immediately, as I'll be all over the place for the next three (mostly related to two tech consulting gigs and a documentary we're getting ready to shoot in Israel and Europe). But my schedule should calm down by November, and I'm hoping to use that eye in the work storm to test out the one month move plan. So, after that exceedingly long-winded introduction, I should now admit that the entire point of this post is to ask for help in determining exactly where I should relocate.

Currently, at the top of my list are Vancouver, the French Quarter of New Orleans, and possibly Paris. My roommate James is lobbying hard for Asheville, NC ('the Paris of the South'). But it's still pretty much up in the air. So, if you have ideas, throw 'em in the fray (ideally with some explanation of why I should choose that locale). If you convince me, I'll even break from tradition, finally buying one of those kitschy knick-knacks to send back as thanks.

thoughts from denver, part 1
Filed March 25, 2004 2:06 PM.

-The students at the University of Denver take working out very, very seriously. It seems to be the campus religion. Consequently, the main topic of discussion on campus is currently: guys shaving their chests - still Abercrombie cool or sooo 2003?

-Second to working out appears to be cars. To DU students, what you drive and how much you've tweaked your rig are incredibly central aspects of who you are. DU students drive everywhere - I've seen students who live a few blocks off campus drive to class, parking their cars further from the classroom then they would have been had they just walked from home.

-Still, as drunk driving can be hazardous to your vehicle, the students are willing to walk to bars. Or, rather, bar, as there appears to be only one immediately adjacent to campus. The Border, a quintessential over-packed collegiate dive bar, is inevitably the final evening stop, no matter where else people have gone that evening, nor how drunkenly they're forced to stagger down the street to get there. Once they arrive, however, my brother and his friends immediately fall into Border ritual: swaying unsteadily in the long line outside, complaining bitterly about the $2 cover, elbowing their way to the bar for a watery Red Bull and vodka, making one or two laps around the bar (stopping occasionally to hug girls whose names they're no longer sure of), then proclaiming the completely packed scene "totally broke", and heading home no more than twenty minutes after they came in the door.

-I am exceedingly dubious of sushi in landlocked states.

a few san francisco lessons
Filed January 19, 2004 9:01 PM.

Finally back East, after several weeks on the West Coast - a bit of that in LA, though most up in San Francisco. The trip was the longest stretch I'd spent in the Bay Area in several years, and refreshed for me a number of lessons blunted by the seven years spent living on the other side of the country. To wit:

1. While San Francisco thinks it has a public transportation, in reality, the BART, Metro and bus systems are merely sufficient to mock you with their inadequacy.

2. As a result, everyone drives. Yet, somehow, there are literally and absolutely no available parking spaces in the entire city. The few overpriced garages that do exist are guaranteed to be no fewer than ten or fifteen blocks from whichever bar you were hoping to attend.

3. Gay men love me. In the explanatory words of one drunk San Franciscan who spent the night hitting on me (including, at one point, while standing at the adjacent urinal in the bathroom, walking over to show me he was pierced): "The only thing gay guys like more than a cute gay guy is a cute straight guy who looks like he might be willing to experiment." Thanks, I think.

4. Most women actually look much better when not caked under a layer of makeup and squeezed into black pants and a tube top.

5. My trusty Timbuk2 bag is neither as cool nor as unique as living in New York might lead one to believe.

6. San Francisco is, despite the constant whining of its residents to the contrary, cheap. At several bars, I was able to buy three beers with a $10 and still have enough change for a generous tip. In at least half the bars in New York City, that $10 wouldn't buy you the first pint.

7. In San Francisco, irony isn't dead; it simply seems to have never caught on in the first place. God bless you, lack of trucker hats!

8. People... talk... much... slower. Case in point: At a business presentation I gave to a group of investors, the moderator announced that I was nearly out of time. "That's fine," I joked, "I'll just talk quicker." "God help us," heckled someone in the audience.

middle(of nowhere)bury
Filed October 23, 2003 10:54 PM.

I'm up in Vermont for two nights, having been flown in as a guest speaker by Middlebury College's film department. The school has kindly booked me into the Inn on the Green, a quaint bed and breakfast overlooking the town. Outside my window, a light snow is falling on a foliage tableau so picturesque as to be nearly painful.

Wrapped in a comforter, lying across the bed, tapping away at my laptop to finish the day's work, I catch myself repeatedly looking up, marveling at the beauty of the autumnal scene outside my window, at the enveloping stillness of this little river town, at the stars, bright and clear above, that seem to have aligned over my apparently rather charmed life.

Los Angeles: Day 6 Filed January 28, 2008 5:57 PM.

Los Angeles: Day 3 Filed January 24, 2008 2:34 PM.

Sundance: Day 1 Filed January 18, 2008 6:32 PM.

Sundance: Day -1 Filed January 16, 2008 3:06 PM.

Sundance: Day -9 Filed January 8, 2008 5:44 PM.

Ugh Filed November 29, 2007 5:53 PM.

Back Filed November 26, 2007 10:54 PM.

Home for Thanksgiving II Filed November 22, 2007 8:26 PM.

Home for Thanksgiving I Filed November 21, 2007 1:04 AM.

On the Road Filed October 2, 2007 6:18 PM.

Weekender Filed March 27, 2007 4:30 PM.

Recap Filed November 27, 2006 11:48 AM.

Je Ne Comprends Pas Filed November 14, 2006 7:02 PM.

Over and Out Filed November 8, 2006 3:09 PM.

Heading Home Filed August 22, 2006 2:19 AM.

Where in the World Filed August 17, 2006 12:06 AM.

Airborne Filed August 10, 2006 3:34 PM.

Do You Know What it Means Filed May 12, 2006 1:54 AM.

Home Again Filed May 11, 2006 12:46 AM.

On the Road Filed May 4, 2006 10:42 AM.

Back and Forth: Notes from San Francisco [II] Filed November 28, 2005 10:29 PM.

Back and Forth: Notes from San Francisco [I] Filed November 21, 2005 8:37 PM.

Scandinavia: Day 4 Filed August 30, 2005 5:47 PM.

Scandinavia: Day 1 Filed August 28, 2005 12:52 PM.

Scandinavia: Day 0 Filed August 26, 2005 11:05 AM.

Travelin' Man Filed August 24, 2005 5:09 PM.

outta here Filed October 28, 2004 10:53 AM.

clever hans Filed September 14, 2004 5:35 PM.

small miracles Filed September 13, 2004 4:58 PM.

uprooted Filed July 21, 2004 10:24 AM.

thoughts from denver, part 1 Filed March 25, 2004 2:06 PM.

a few san francisco lessons Filed January 19, 2004 9:01 PM.

middle(of nowhere)bury Filed October 23, 2003 10:54 PM.