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dokumentari amerikanski

If you have any West European pen pals, friends, family, or business acquaintances, you've probably noticed that most of them end their emails with "greetings from ice-cold and gray Hamburg" or any other such descriptions of the weather, which is miserable more often than not. It leaves Californians a bit speechless. There's usually very little we can say about the weather, and if we can, it makes the news around the world, anyway, as in mudslides, flooding, levees breaking… I'm happy to report we can join the gang: Man, it is cold here! Last day of April and it's 7 degrees (on both scales), and we didn't bring winter clothes. There's some rain (which feels like snow), ominous gray skies, and as it is Sunday on the long May 1st weekend, most people seem to be hiding indoors.

We spent the morning at Dampas', met his wife Marija and sons Roko and Jan, and then, captured on our 100th hour of A-roll footage, ventured outside with him, visiting the old town, and Bar Melin Monroe, where he picked up Journal 469 in 2001.

Melin Monroe had closed, but Dampas mentioned something along the lines of dokumentari amerikanski to the guy who was cleaning up yesterday's party, and the doors magically opened…

Scotty, beam me over

From Ralph's house to mine, to LAX, packed into an Airbus to Munich airport, repacked into a Dash-400 to Zagreb… April 28 turned into a double-day. Arriving here on April 29, and seeing these Croatians on their Saturday evening stroll between rain showers, was already well worth it! Zagreb is a beauty of a city, and doesn't feel "sanitized" yet, renovated and restored to death.

Opening any German magazine or paper during the layover, the big items are the Fussball world championship, and the 20th anniversary of Chernobyl, with people answering the infamous "where were you that day?" question: I got a TV that day, a b/w hand-me-down from a friend. I installed it in my apartment, switched it on to the frightening news, and then that piece of junk of a TV imploded! Not to make light of it, but it did feel like my own private Chernobyl, on top of the fall-out approaching us rapidly from the Ukraine.

In any event… Ralph and I and all our stuff have made it to the old world, and we can't wait to get going here.

A few more days

Only a few more days of planning, researching, writing. In less than a week, we will flip the page to another story, and then again, and again, and again… Criss-crossing Europe presents us with some challenges, for instance, how are we going to find our way around Zagreb, Croatia? Mapquest didn't make it that far, yet. I'm never shy asking for directions, but have no knowledge of the Croatian language. I heard some words sound a bit German, but what do they mean? The spelling at least doesn't look like anything I know, at all. Courtesy of the CIA, I found a few interesting maps on the internet which date back to cold war times, and are marked for military and industrial installations. On grid 8071, for example, is or was Prvomajska, a machine tool factory, and Sljeme, on grid 7872, is or was an agriculture and industrial combine. Dampas, the once-upon-a-time keeper of Journals 323 and 469, spends part of his time with a group of scouts. Guess what they will be doing next weekend, should Ralph and I get hopelessly lost. From Zagreb, we will fly to Marseille, where Journal 987 got its start. Then on to Frankfurt, where we will rent a car to drive to German and Dutch locations: Cologne, Amsterdam, Essen, Braunschweig, and back to Frankfurt airport. Then we will fly to Finland, then to Manchester, United Kingdom, and from Manchester back to Frankfurt and across the Atlantic home to Los Angeles. The "hardware" we need for the trip is pretty much prepared already, and in the next few days everything else will get done: stop mail and paper, pay bills, pile some clothes into a suitcase… and off we go.

&rew

Andrew (a/k/a &rew) from the ArtFest Beach Journaling Party, whom we filmed while he added to Journal 172, sent me an email and offered to answer the questionnaire. Of course I said, "yes, please." After &rew filled in his IRS forms yesterday evening, he poured over my questions. He has been deaf since birth, and wrote beautifully about creative communities and the internet: "Internet helps me to gain more independence and greater degree of self sufficiency, and at the same time, enables me to build a new network of supportive & creative friends. And my creative and social needs could not be ignored. I meet them by seeking the company of other creative people, and I need to stay connected. I simply can not afford to isolate myself from anyone as I found it difficult to create most things alone. I thrive in creative & supportive environments."

When I approached him with the Journal, Ralph and the camera lurking nearby, he became really afraid of the filming. He wrote: "I am so happy I did not listen to that fear, and it was a moment of triumph for me. Grace under pressure, indeed!" I guess you've already been catching my drift: I'm quoting this also because of the people we will film in the not so distant future…

Wrap and prep in full swing, simultaneously, we are building up on stories "already in the can," for example, the very beginnings of Journal 987 that set the tone for almost everything else that followed in its pages, or the magical travels of Journal 469 from San Francisco across the country, to Milan, and on to Croatia. As in all those weeks before, we have close to no idea where the Journals will lead us, and who will open their doors… And so the experiment continues!

97 hours

So far, we have filmed 97 hours of A-roll footage, and just a bit over 4 hours with the B-roll Baby. Ralph and I spent the rest of the week in the editing room, and have finally captured the last days in Australia and all of Singapore, and about half of the action and interviews in New York City. There are 30 more tapes to capture on a new 500 GB hard drive, and then we have lots and lots of logging to do. And meanwhile, we have Europe in the works. Today in 3 weeks we'll be touching down in Zagreb, Croatia.

1108 S Sycamore

…and we're back. I've already picked up our editing computer, the external hard drives, and all our footage, which my wonderful neighbor Richard has been safeguarding, so Ralph and I can start capturing and logging the stories of the past four weeks. I'll fill you in on the last few days as soon as our Production HQ's up to speed. Just so much: It's been great. All of it. This is an experiment, and you are part of it. Thank you!

1000 stories

In July 2005, we spent a week with someguy and focused on the beginnings of the 1000 Journals Project: getting the journals ready with cover artwork, stamps, and numbering, and getting them out into the world. This time, we looked into what happened once most journals started traveling: the first sightings, the first scans, the development of the 1000 Journals website  to include a gallery, the boxes of snail mail someguy received, and the thousands of emails… 1000 Journals, 1000 stories.

Saratoga

And back to San Francisco, the 1000 Journals Project home base, for 3 more days with someguy. We started with a trip to Saratoga, where Team 550 got ready to personally hand-over their journal. Lauren, Laura, Diane, Michaela, and Kiku, the pet rat contributed to it over the years, along with many more in an extended circle of friends and acquaintances. Job and home changes, at least one marriage, kids growing up, Journal 550 is like a history book of the last five years…