My Time as a Human

When I met Andrew Berends a few years ago at the Silverdocs documentary film festival, he had just finished two films about Iraq. He was the tall crazy guy who had worked his way into the country and braved gunfire to follow the personal stories of Iraqis. I immediately gravitated towards him and we hit it off and had lunch together in a field that, for some reason, became the center of a football game. We decided not to move and sat eating and talking as footballs and angry flying teenagers flew over our heads. I made fun of him for the likelihood that it made him feel right at home. Later, when we were going around a circle of filmmakers talking about what we were going to do next he said simply, “Nigeria. You know. Oil. Rebels.” He was just arrested and detained as a spy by the Nigerian military.

AP Wire

New York Times

The documentary and journalist communities are doing what they can to get the word out and get him freed. For the moment, things are looking positive and while he has at times been denied food and water, the hope is that he will be released soon and this was simply a tactic to apply pressure on foreign journalists. I hope the same can be said for his translator and the local who was traveling with them.

Curiously enough, I was in the process of researching a pet project of mine about a man who’s freed hundreds of Chinese dissidents when I got this message. I had just about reached the point that I was going to give up on the project, as the situation had changed quite a bit and I wasn’t sure I could see the documentary angle that would work. I was also in the process of writing a blog entry about my experience playing guitar this weekend. Now all I can think about is what am I doing sitting here in the US wasting time?!

It’s not that I’m excited about being tortured. (I also listened to some of the grueling torture details touted at the Republican Convention earlier.) But what am I doing with myself here? This weekend I spent a day or two working out PHP’s new object based database system. Today I tweaked security on a system that allows students to check out microphones. These jobs are for someone else, someone who can’t swing a camera and sleep under the stars in a foreign land. There is something bigger I need to be doing.

I hope Andrew is OK. I do know that he’s doing what he loves and that he knew the risks going in, but that doesn’t make it any easier. Good luck. You’re doing it right.

Morning in San Francisco arrives at around 11:00 AM. The apartment was already empty as I awoke at noon to scavenge for food, the artist residents out doing their collection of odd jobs counting pedestrians and planning parties in the desert. “The towel on the door is mostly clean, it just has a little paint on it,” I was told via cell phone as I tried to assemble a morning routine. “Hey, did you count the girl with the storm trooper helmet as crossing the street twice? Gotta go…”

After poking through the dusty camping gear and santa suits that fill any burner household and coming up empty handed for towels, I decided to hit the street. I managed to find a french cafe I remembered from years past and ordered up a plate of avocado sandwiches. A pick up artist tried to work on me by talking about Tesla, but he had forgotten to google him first. His knowledge ran out long before his enthusiasm. Spring is in the air here, and hormone levels are high. Walking to the supermarket there was a lot of checking out going on before I ever reached the register. San Francisco is a beautiful city and I’m glad she appreciates me.

Last night was the long awaited viewing of The Dicky Box by Logan and Dicky himself. I’m pretty happy with the latest cut, or as happy as I’m going to be, and so it was time to face up to how I’d represented my friends. We rolled out a screen and cranked up the DVD. I would have made sure that everyone had beer, but they were way ahead of me, nervously cracking open bottles of Pabst. I teased them a little but, as Dicky said, “has anyone ever made a feature length film about you?”

I felt a little like I was introducing Dicky to the character Dicky that I had created from a brief time in his past. I wanted the two Dickys to get along, and learn from each other. I chuckled nervously at the silly over-the-top sequence of the kiss, and Dicky was appropriately mortified. “I mean, has anyone ever filmed you making out with someone?! In slow motion?!”

Talking afterwards, Dicky realized that he swore a lot more than he thought he did, and apologized. He also saw for the first time what made the project, and his role, what it was: how much he was both a truly emotional person and yet completely unwilling to admit to or share his emotional experience.

Logan was primarily concerned about his bad hair and strange comments. More than once he had to ask us, “what did I mean by that?” He was very generous, though, about the film I had created, and felt it was a fair representation.

It was a relief to me that the comments weren’t overwhelmingly negative. The things that made either of them uncomfortable pertained more to their own actions and hairstyles, and not the angle I provided. Dicky’s concern about font choice aside, I don’t feel the need to make major revisions now. I have some interest from a sales agent and I’ll be sending her a version very similar to this one when I get back to Austin. It’s time for this project to get some exposure and time for me to move on to the next story.

One of the things I’ve learned about both travel and film work is that I’m happiest when I’m completely self-contained and self-sufficient. If I have everything I need I won’t waste time or energy getting cranky when the producer forgets to arrange food, or only provides beef. When I’m knee deep in mud I don’t have to run back to a truck for anything. When the lights suddenly cut out while I’m half naked washing laundry, I don’t even notice the transition to a waterproof flashlight because the reflex is so fluid and automatic it’s already in my hand and lit. (I literally experienced this: looking down, startled, to realize I was already holding the lit flashlight. It was very cool.)

Here is what I had with me every minute of every day, strategically placed on my body (thanks to cargo pants) such that I could grab it without even thinking:

- Leatherman tool
- Waterproof flashlight
- Notebook
- Pen
- Extra camera batteries
- Extra Firestore batteries
- Nylon cord
- Twist ties
- Handkerchief
- Lens cleaning brush
- Lens cleaning fluid and wipes
- Rubber bands
- Tiny bottle of hand soap/body wash
- Expendable wallet with money and business cards
- More hidden travel wallet with:

- Real money
- Passport
- Immunity shot list
- Contact number for emergency evac
- Phone numbers for credit card cancellation
- Phone numbers and addresses of people in states and local
- Credit card (backup left elsewhere and uninitialized)

- Water
- Organic dried fruit and nuts mix
- Warm hat
- Wool scarf
- 300 weight fleece
- Brim hat (to swap with warm hat when the day heated up)