I (Audrey) recently took a trip down to Hot Springs, Arkansas to begin researching a documentary film I am making. I met my mother (whom the film is partially about) down there and we spent 5 days digging up the past, eating fried catfish and barbecue, bathing in hot springs and soaking up the vibe of this little town, and I have to say- I am in love with the history and old Americana feel of Hot Springs. Here are a couple of photos from the trip, the rest are on Mark’s Flickr page. I will be posting more about this project in the months (and years?) to come, I may even create a separate blog for the film, but I will keep everyone POSTED. Ha ha. Pun intended.
One of my new almost heros (almost, since I have not yet, in fact, read his famous book The 4-Hour Work Week), Tim Ferris just posted an interview to his blog with Slovenian marathon swimmer Martin Strel who became the first man to swim the entire length of the Amazon river. Yeah, that’s 3,274 miles, folks.
Choice scary quote:
Q: What were the biggest challenges you faced on the Amazon swim?
A: …Piranhas, snakes, spiders, candirú, bull shark or other animals which make unpredictable attack; you have to be ready all the time if any piranha attack you. We had some buckets of blood ready in case of emergency, to distract the piranha and get them away from me if necessary…
…Peeing; I didn’t pee into the water straight as this attracts a very dangerous fish called the candirú, which lodges up human orifices with a razor-like spike and then sucks your blood. I was peeing all the time through the wetsuit…
An expedition is 95 percent misery and 5 percent ecstasy. After three weeks of constant motion in a land far way from home, something strange occurs in the sould of a man. He gets broken. The first symptom is a tired or sick feeling, maybe even some fear and a little helplessness. Loneliness. Then something slowly changes within. The old attachments start to fade and he becomes completely present. He forgets about all the crap that keeps him up at night back home. None of it matters anymore.
Longtime readers will know that I day dream a lot about long distance bike adventures, but it’s been a while since I wrote about one.
At MountainFilm in Telluride this year, we had the pleasure of catching this amazing film made by two young French Canadians called Asiemut. The courageous and adventuresome couple, Olivier Higgins and Mélanie Carrier (heros!), bike their way across a significant portion of the Asian continent completely on their own. It’s an amazing film, truly one that inspired me in my own dreams of documenting such an adventure. It’s one of those films that makes you think, ‘damn, you can do anything if you stick your mind to it!’
If you’re planning on doing a trip like this (who isn’t?) they’ve got some great tips on how and where and when to travel on their website. I’m bummed they don’t have a full trailer up on YouTube, though they do have this short clip to give you a sense of the tone of the film:
Asiemut certainly reminded me of my blog buddies, Project Pedal. I’m sure they’ll dig this. Maybe you guys would like to do a bike trip with Audrey and me next? Haha. I can’t wait to see their film!
Since I’m a video nerd, statements like this make me drool (over the possibilities):
We filmed the whole documentary film with a semi-professional camera, mini-dv Sony pdx10, 16:9 format. We traveled with seventy mini-dv tapes and two 360 minutes lithium batteries. We also had one charger, a stool, and a laptop. We took ourselves every single images of our film!
As you can see on the picture below, we had a camera mount that permitted us to film and to speak to the camera as we biked. We created it ourselves in the north of China with the help of two amazing chinese welders. It was attached at the front of our luggage support and was also attached to our handlebar. It was a homemade camera mount, quite heavy, but worked very well!
We had a fantastic day adventuring in the pine barrens with orchid and rare plant fanatic Lord Whimsy on Sunday. It was a rainy, cool spring day, but that didn’t dampen our rare plant finding enthusiasm one bit. Whimsy, his wife Lady Pink and friend Bill were joined by Audrey, Norm, Heather, Brandy and me. Here is a video and some photos of the day. See the whole set of pretty photos here.
My friend Scott is trying his hand at indie film distribution and Train on the Brain is the first film he’s putting out (it’s available for purchase on DVD on the site). Scott’s all about alternative living. We’re kindred spirits in that regard. This film probably won’t disappoint on that front. Women filming themselves hopping trains around America. Excellent. Gritty.
Filmmaker Alison Murray drops out of the rat race, grabs a camera, and hits the rails with some other punk kids on a trans-continental freight train hopping epic. On their odyssey they encounter a cast of hobos and runaways, scallywags and castaways, finding adventure at every turn. Amidst run-ins with the law, and surviving the perils of the elements, Alison weaves an epic narration over beautifully shot film and video with an old-time soundtrack by Beck (think Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly). Train On The Brain was originally produced for Channel 4 UK by MJW Productions, and was Alison Murray’s first documentary film before directing Mouth to Mouth starring Ellen Page. Train On The Brain is hollywoodcansuckit.com’s first film release.
Sadly, I haven’t made that statement in quite some time, though it remains extremely high on my list of lifestyle priorities. Over the past year, I’ve worked too far from home to effectively bike. Recently, my company moved to a suburb a *little* closer to my house, so after some prodding by my friend Stellargirl, a gorgeous sunny spring morning and an overwhelming need to get my blood pumping, I gave it a whirl today. Just shy of 12 miles according to Google Maps. And boy did it feel good. Now, as I sit and type this on my lunch break, I realize - oh shit. I have to bike all the way home again! My legs are still sore.
If I did this every day, though, I can tell you I would be fit as a fiddle. And I like the sound of that!
Coincidentally, once I got to work, I discovered that this is Bike to Work Week thanks to my pal Sara. Cool!
A family band piles in a van and spends their life surfing and traveling, documents it all on sexy 8- and 16mm film. Can’t get much better than that, folks. The film comes out in a limited release over the course of the summer. It’ll be here in Philly starting June 20th at the Ritz at the Bourse. I’m so there.
Also, here’s the website, but beware: nasty browser resizing, ugh! Surfwise
Wow, it’s hard to believe, but 25-year old Scottsman Mark Beaumont just did. Crazy, huh? And what would a good trip around the world be without a little video blog action?
A good buddy from my Telluride days and awesome adventure filmmaker, Ben Knight, has his first of what I hope are many videos up on the New York Times. Nice job, Ben! You gotta dig skiercross. It’s a pretty killer sport, I’m glad to see it’s going olympic.
One of my favorite travel blogs Intelligent Travel just did a fantastic interview with author Robert Neuwirth. He writes SquatterCity, a blog that covers the plight of impoverished people in urban areas. He’s also coming out with a book Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, a New Urban World which “is an attempt to humanize these maligned settlements.” In the interview, they talk about how to go about visiting these parts of the city, why you should and why it’s good.
I have a special place in my heart for downtrodden urban areas of the world. Not only do I live on the fringes of some of the worst neighborhoods in my own country, but I’ve been to others in my travels around the world. They are certainly sad places to be, but important for us not to ignore. And certainly not places or people to fear. Seeing the way people live in urban poverty compared to rural poverty is always striking, and I think we can learn so much from the contrast. About the cost of globalization. About human dignity. About the true price of material wealth.
This article also brings to mind a daring documentary I saw at a couple film festivals last year, “Ghosts of Cite Soleil“. It tells the story of some of the gangs in Haiti who struggle with control and survival in the big shantytown of Port-au-Prince. Not sure if it’s been released theatrically, but when it comes out on DVD, I highly recommend it.
This is a completely random collection of short vignettes from our trip. We didn’t want to stick to any over-arching theme or anything too complicated (we wanted our brains to be mushy), so this is kind of a mishmash of moments in time. Enjoy!
Thanks again to all you lovely folks who contributed to our honeymoon wedding present. We love you!
Audrey and I returned just before Christmas from our indulgent 10-day voyage to the Yucatán. We have lots of fun stories to tell, but I’ll let the photos do the talking for now (since I’m at work now and shouldn’t be blogging!). Here are a couple of choice images. Many more on my Flickr set. Stay tuned for the (of course) video!
Audrey and I are in much need of a long vacation after many months of hard work. So it’s off to Tulum, Mexico for our honeymoon! We promise to return with good stories, funny videos and lots of amazing photos to make ya jealous. In the meantime, we are unplugging completely. No inkernet. No phone. Nothing. Just hammocks, margaritas, ocean and sunshine. Happy Holidays! See you soon!
Arthur Magazine’s blog Magpie has been fantastic reading for the past few months. At least once a week I find something fascinating being delved into with reckless abandon. It’s fresh and interesting. I highly recommend you checking it out if the mystical, the psychedelic, the musical, the dreamy, the progressive political strike your fancy.
Today, they post about The Miss Rockaway Armada a group of self-made Mississippi River pirates floating downstream from end to end on a crazy raft made of recycled, reused and repurposed materials. Fun! Here’s a quote from the gang:
We want to create: to invent a new sustainable way to travel, to demonstrate different ways of living and moving that are friendlier to the environment and to each other, to indulge in that essential urge to make something out of nothing. We want to meet people: to learn from new folks along the way, to teach what we know, to share our art, our music and our performance, and to make new friends. Finally, for adventure: to reclaim and reinvent the old American urge to strike out and discover the vast, mysterious land we inhabit and see it for ourselves.
I love adventure, but I really love cool weirdo stuff like this. Living passionately is the only way to be!
Audrey and I just completed the 10th episode of Season 2 (the 22nd of 24 total) in our video series, Illadates. Now’s your chance to catch up on some of the episodes you missed! Did you see us getting crazy in a costume shop in Mount Airy? Did you see us watching the sunset from the Ben Franklin Bridge? Did you see us galavanting around Port Richmond? How about watching us suck it up at bowling? You can watch every episode in the viewer below! Just click the ‘book’ button, then the ‘episodes’ tab, and pick yr favorite.
This week’s date was to Washington Avenue and the amazing Mummer’s Museum! Fun!
We’ve had a ton of fun making Illadates over the course of this year. It’s been a fantastic project. We are, however, happy to take a break from making the show week-in and week-out. We’ve already shot episode 23 in Fishtown (stay tuned for that next week), and be sure to see the season finale, the ‘Win a Date‘ episode in two weeks.
What’s next for us, you may ask? Well…. Audrey and I are already scheming up our next project, of course! But it’s a secret for now. You’ll see. Watch for that in February of 2008.
Audrey and I took the opportunity on a sunny late-November Sunday to hop in our new cute lil’ car “Trigger” (more on him later) and drive aimlessly around the southern coast of New Jersey. We happened upon a totally weird, almost Twighlight Zone scene in this little town called Bridgeton where all these people were wandering the streets zombie-like. We high-tailed it outa there once the police started closing off the streets for a random parade. We thought they might be cordoning off the zombies.
After that, we pointed to a speck on the map called Sea Breeze and drove out there only to find nothing but a swamp. Seriously. Here’s the video:
As the afternoon crept up on us, we kept zig-zagging our way down the Coastal Heritage Trail (map) towards Cape May so we could watch the sunset. We saw another fun dot on the map called something like “NJ Tall Ship” near a very small dot called Bivalve. Who’s ever heard of a town called Bivalve? Sounds like a place to go for heart surgery. Bivalve, however, ended up to be a rotten-smelling boat launch for professional fishing boats. We got some amazing photos there, though. Like the one at this:
As the late fall sun quivered over the horizon, we pulled up to Cape May Lighthouse and the beach where we could pick up shells and cool-looking rocks and run around doing cartwheels and stuff. That was fun! And romantic!
And at last, we headed into the town of Cape May in search of a good meal. Alas, this was the only downside of the trip. Having no guide in a nearly dead off-season town with 90% of restaurants and businesses closed, we chose what appeared to be a quaint local joint. Instead, it had big screen tv with football playing, ditzy waitresses and crab cakes boiled down to crispy hard balls that looked and tasted like crap. Luckily, it was ‘buy on get one free entree night‘ so it was only half as bad as it might have been.
Spontaneous road trips on a sunny Sunday. Can’t beat it, baby.
One of my favorite film festivals in the world is MountainFilm (I’ve attended 7 of the last 8 years!). It’s more than just a film festival, it’s a celebration of the indomitable human spirit. In an era of post-terrorist cynicism, these folks bring together some truly positive thinkers and media makers.
They’ve really been on the move over there in Colorado, launching a great new blog and making a bunch of big announcements today, including announcing their new festival director, David Hollbrook (.pdf). Congrats, David!
The next festival is their 30th(!) and it’s happening May 23-26, 2008. Lord knows I’ll be there. I’m one of the lucky ones who gets to work tech up in the projection booth at the festival and shake hands with all the amazing people they invite to speak. I got to meet one of my heros last year, Paul Hawken, and chat it up for a good five minutes while we worked on setting up his program. But it’s really that kind of festival. Hang out, chill with awesome folks with big ideas, change the world. You know. Fun.
If you’re a filmmaker and you’ve got work you’d like to exhibit in Telluride, head over to their Call for Entries form. They’re looking and they’ve got a $10,000 prize purse! Also, they send their films on tour, so check and see if they’re coming to your town soon. Chances are they are.
Every so often we here at The Poverty Jet Set get pinged by a cool new blog, and I wanted to send a shout out and a word of thanks from Lara Dunston at Cool Travel Guide. She was kind enough to add us to her short and highly reputable blogroll, so of course I checked it out and was pleasantly surprised, so I subscribed! Check out, for example, one of her posts on traffic hazards in Thailand. Having traveled extensively through South East Asia myself a few times, I can relate! In fact, that reminds me of an amazing post I’m going to write about an insane bus ride in Vietnam…
And for you foodies out there, she’s got lots of great posts on the joys of eating and travel like this one.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted about a good ol’ long-distance adventure blog, so I thought it high time. While certainly not quite as hard core as walking or biking around the world, the Half Throttle guys did a pretty bang-up job on documenting their adventures motorcycling from Utah to Panama. They’ve got some great videos and photos to prove it. Have a look at Episode 29: Pan-American Highway:
