Year: 2004

Ocean’s Twelve (the sequel to Ocean’s Eleven) is filming on the lot right now, and while I’m not generally the movie star stalker type it’s impossible not to be curious about a film starring George Clooney, Matt Damon, Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, Catherine Zeta Jones, Don Cheadle and Bernie Mac. They’re using three gigantic soundstages for filming, there are more than twice as many movie star trailers parked on the lot than I’ve ever seen before (each with a nametag of “Linus”, “Danny”, “Rusty”, etc), the sets look to be huge, but sadly aside from knowing that Matt Damon’s car is much, much nicer than mine, and that George Clooney is apparently driving a souped-up Honda motorcycle these days, my lunchtime strolls have otherwise not been very informative.

Site’s back up — a power outage knocked out the router a couple of weeks ago, and this is the first weekend I’ve been back in the Bay Area to fix it.

The SAG union contract is an amusing read. The last clause, “If an Background Actor is rigged with any type of explosive device (including squibs)…” is particularly well-done.

ESPN today named Cleveland fans as the most tortured fans in all of sports. No disagreement here, although I’ll still swear to the fact that God himself came to earth in the form of Bernie Kosar, accompanied by the angels Newsome, Brennan, Minnifield and Dixon.

And yes, I know the site is unavailable. I think it’s an issue with the router, but I won’t be home to fix it for another two weeks. It’s thrilling to know that after finally getting the site onto all of the major search engines that I’ll probably be dropped again. Thrilling.

I think this is the longest I’ve gone between entries since starting this journal… anyhow, here’s a summary of the last two weeks:

July 2nd

The Goob had the brilliant idea that we should go to the Giants vs. A’s game on Friday, so I flew home and we headed off to the stadium. We missed the first couple of innings standing in line for beers and dogs, but it was all good. We had bleacher seats, and no sooner had Aaron told me that they never hit home runs when he goes to the game than Bonds cranked one about six rows in front of us. In all the Giants hit something like six dingers, at least ten people were thrown out of our section by security, and they gave us these cool rainbow glasses to watch the fireworks with.

July 3rd

Lounged around all day, played some basketball at night (and got rocked in game two after playing it close in game one) then caught a late night showing of Spider Man 2. All women should be red heads.

July 4th

The Goob worked all day, then at night we went to a Native American sweat lodge ceremony. We were early, and the people who owned the land where the lodge was located were setting off fireworks. The third one they launched hit a tree, veered towards the ground, and lit some grass in a gully on fire. Aaron, fireman in training, was astute — “Um, there’s a fire over there, um, burning… in the grass… the fire.” Meanwhile everyone else ran for hoses and buckets, and disaster was averted. The sweat lodge started really late, lasting for almost two hours until well after midnight. It was an intense experience.

July 5th – 12th

Flew home Monday, and the effects of the sweat lodge really kicked in — I’m not great with heat (imagine that, the guy who loves Alaska and Antarctica) and I was drained all day. By Tuesday the smoke and steam had given me a really sexy voice, and by the time Saturday rolled around I had no voice at all and was reduced to speaking in signs. Julie had fun with that one, and then today at work my voice left me again, allowing the boss to have all sorts of fun at my expense. With luck I’ll soon be capable of communication more advanced than nodding, although I’m not holding out a lot of hope that I’ll be resuming my concert career before the week is over.

Went and saw Fahrenheit 9/11 yesterday — the lines from the theatre streched for over a block, which surprised me. It disappointed me that Moore twisted facts in the first half of the film (the Bush-Bin Laden connection is very sketchy) because I think it blunted his message during the second half of the film. That message, however, was spot-on: the responsibility of putting someone’s life in danger is a grave one, and those in power owe it to those fighting to never put them at risk needlessly. Moore’s harrassing Congressmen was a bit over the top, but it made a point: if you don’t feel strongly enough about a cause to send your own son or daughter, what possible right do you have to ask someone else to?

Aside from the film, a highlight at the theatre was a lady passing out anti-Patriot Act flyers while we were standing in line. Person after person refused to take a flyer, and finally when one person turned her down she just smiled and said “All right, save the trees.”

The itinerary for the Falkland Islands portion of the Fall trip is just about nailed down. Since almost all of the lands in the Falklands are privately owned the only way to visit is to make arrangements in advance, and then hop a ride on one of the small government planes to get to the chosen destination. The public face of this air service is apparently a man named Fraser, and he informs me that it will indeed be possible for me to visit everywhere I’m planning to go, but that I’ll be limited to thirty pounds of baggage. For a two week trip I’m guessing I’ll have 10-15 pounds of camera equipment, so there is a very real danger that a choice might have to be made between filters or extra boxers; let it be known that I really love my polarizer.

Anyhow, here’s how things are looking thus far:

• 30 Oct – 01 Nov Return from South Georgia to Stanley
• 01 Nov – 04 Nov @ Sea Lion Island
• 04 Nov – 07 Nov @ Saunders Island
• 07 Nov – 12 Nov @ Pebble Island
• 12 Nov Return to Stanley
• 13 Nov Depart Falklands

Score.

The team of myself and Adrian pulled off the bowling miracle of winning tonight’s evening out while nearly also winning the award for lowest average score. Our strategy of progressing through the bracket as the lowest scoring winner was indeed a good one. The drinks that followed with the Brits were of course enjoyable, but even more enjoyable was the rather spirited discussion about quids and bobs and stones and spots and boots and crowns. The world needs more Brits in it.

Another Meat Massacre is in the books; the ballads about this year’s edition are still being composed. Aaron got the festivities started early by riding through the grocery store in an electric chair while we were purchasing food. Later, when the Home Run Derby started we brought beers along, and as a result the event went from the normal ten-plus innings to a four inning affair followed by much imbibing in the shade. The actual Meat Massacre was the usual good time, with much meat consumed and more than a few people grabbing their stomachs in obvious signs of distress after eating far too much. A couple of memorable highlights include the shitfish story and tales of Trey’s pool sharking days (“Who’s the guy with the barco-lounger on his truck? All right, let’s rack ’em up, baby!”).

So I had some car trouble on the drive from LA to the Bay Area tonight. I usually stop at the same place near Bakersfield to buy gas, and when I stopped tonight a biker at the pump next to me told me it looked like something was wrong with my engine. Being the know-it-all that I am, I told him that it was probably just steam coming off of the condenser, but to humor him I came around the car to take a look.

Smoke was pouring out of the right side of my engine.

Being a bit concerned, I took the car next door to what the gas station attendant said was a repair shop. The guy there poked around my engine a bit, then told me that he thought I had just hit something on the road and it had got into my engine. My brain was obviously still numb from driving, and somehow this explanation seemed logical. “Yeah, I probably hit a bottle of oil, and it miraculously flew into my engine. I’ll buy that.”

Still, to be sure, I drove around for a bit on the local roads, and when the car was still smoking my brain awakened enough to tell me that I was an idiot. It was only after returning to the repair shop and noticing that it was a tire repair shop that I realized how much of an idiot I was.

After debating the merits of getting towed to Bakersfield for $150 I decided to risk driving. Every second building in Bakersfield seems to be devoted to automobiles in some way (auto parts, oil change, tire sales, you name it) but none of these places seemed to do general car repair. Pep Boys sent me to Goodyear, Goodyear sent me to Sears, and Sears sent me to some little shop that they said might help. Following the directions from the Sears guys I turned a corner and was suddenly no longer in Bakersfield, but in a scene straight out of Desperado. The signs were all Spanish, old Mexican men were sitting in front of stores, and the buildings that weren’t auto-related were all taco stands. I half expected to see Antonio Banderas walking down the road with a guitar case.

I finally found the garage, which was a single bay in a wooden building. I parked outside, stuck my head in, and was greeted by a lot of Spanish that I didn’t understand. Finally a four-year-old kid was summoned to translate, and when I said there was a leak in my car then four Mexicans appeared out of no where and began poking and prodding my engine, muttering to one another, and occasionally even tasting the fluid that was leaking. Finally one of them turned to me and began explaining the problem, but he was doing so in Spanish, and the young translator had vanished.

After much confusion another translator was summoned, and this guy told me my CV boot was leaking. “Great, can you fix it?” “The axel is no good. We get new.” “Axel, I thought it was just the CV boot?” “Better get new axel. Monday we do it. Until then, very dangerous. Fire!”

By this point I was loving life very much. If the axel of my car was going to be ripped out, I was going to let a Subaru dealership do it, not a band of gauchos. I found a phone book, called the local dealership, and was greeted by a surly “What?!? Smoke?!? The Subaru guy isn’t here today. Bring it in Monday.” I was taking shit from no man by this point. I told him I was stuck, that I would leave the car, get a rental, and somehow make it to the Bay Area in time for Sunday’s family barbecue.

Once at the dealership I sat down to give my info to the guy I had talked to on the phone (bald head, fu manchu, probably capable of ripping my arms out of their sockets had he wanted to). In the middle of this an old woman wearing heavy makeup walked in, sat next to me, and yelled “My ex-fiance wants me to marry him! But two other guys in Bakersfield want me to marry them, plus another guy in the Bay Area.” I was then subjected to a rant about this Miss Havisham’s life, including a segway into the shoddy treatment American Olympians receive, and a brief treatise on actors and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Just at the point where I thought this woman would never, ever stop she abrubtly left, and I noticed that the automotive guy had been silently laughing the whole time. As soon as she was gone he doubled up in a fit of laughter. “That was great. Claire’s crazy. Your car will be fixed in an hour.”

Turns out while Claire was telling me her life story the mechanic who works on Subarus had come in to fix a problem with his own car. My bald-headed friend grabbed him, told him I was stuck, and convinced him to fix my car. I was later told that something in the CV boot had exploded, and the gauchos turned out to have been right after all — I drove away an hour later with a new axel joint, and without the cloud of smoke that had been following me for the previous four hours.

The strongest storm in thirty years hit McMurdo base in Antarctica on May 16. Winds were sustained at one hundred miles per hour for five hours, with peak gusts of 160 miles per hour. Would have been neat to have been there and experienced it.

More on Burt’s upcoming launch from CNN.