Day 3: Biking, Hypnosis, and Jail

I figured out why you go to film festivals. You go to discuss the question, "What the hell just happened?"

Friday night started with wine and cheese and more schmoozing over art at the Rochester Contemporary Art Center - like you see on the left. The artist, John Katzner, obviously has serious Attention Deficit Disorder. And I ran into Taylor, the Sound critic from two nights ago, who skipped Thursday night altogether from exhaustion.

So I had this theory. Every movie I saw was better than the program description led me to believe. I had two movies to pick from, one which sounded pretty good, and one that didn't sound good at all. The latter was "Women Without Men", based on the book about 4 women living in pre-Shah Iran who get together in an orchard. Blugggh! So I went to see it.

You can probably guess the rest. I actually cried at the end, which was kind of embarassing. It was as moving, lyrical, and visually arresting as any film I've seen in a long time. But when we all got of the theatre, we started talking and found something very strange had happened.

There's one scene with a Communist sympathizer fighting a shah's army soldier. One of the women, who has fallen in love with the communist, watches them battle. The communist plunges the knife into the soldier, and the soldier falls to the floor. The woman bends down very sadly, and places her hand on the fallen soldier's chest. But when we discussed it, half the people said, "No it was the Communist who falls to the floor." And the more we discussed it, the more we disagreed. But this wasn't a quick camera shot. It was at least two minutes long. The director had basically shown us what we wanted to believe ... and very convincingly.

I'm sure we could've rolled the movie again and figured it out, like a magic trick. But wow!


The second movie, "Cell 211" was a thriller from Spain. A guy (newly married, pregnant wife) comes in on his first day as prison guard, ... and with his luck, right on the day there's a prison riot. Hostages are taken, of which the prison guard is one. But he convinces them he's an inmate.

And from there, you can pretty much write the Hollywood screenplay right? Yeah well. That's not this movie at all. So you're thinking, "Oh yeah, so the new prison guard is really an escaped inmate or something." Nope. There's no gimmick. Everything unfolds right in front of you, and it's pretty un-straightforward in its straightforwardness.

No spoilers. Just watch the damn thing! It's gonna be out on DVD soon. And if subtitles turn you off just remember ... newspapers are just subtitles for life. And you don't hate newspapers, do you?

Oh, and if you want to see trailers for any of these films I'm describing, they're at http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=FCC55060B7CFFE4F.

Anyway, Friday was a sandwich with Kerri Vaughn as the bread, and the Film Festival as the filling. A lot of you know her - she's a former co-worker, my first dance teacher, and dear friend of mine. So we started the day with a bike ride down the Erie Canal, ate lunch at Alladin's in Pittsford, and came back in a little drizzly rain. After the films, I went to the Tango Cafe, of which she is the proprieter, and drank sangria, shot the breeze, and watched the salsa dancing until 2 AM.

And salsa lessons are now on my list of things-to-do. I dunno. Seems like the souvenirs I bring home from vacations are mostly to-do items. "Been There. Done That. Got 5 More Things To Do." Bliss!

Day 2: Grindhouse!

It was 1976 and I was just about a teenager. (And no, dinosaurs did not roam the earth back then.). I listened to the AM radio station in Sioux Falls SD - KISD - and during that summer, about every second commercial was for the movie The Pom Pom Girls. There was lots of giggling, some innuendo, and an authoritative voice at the end: "The Pom Pom Girls. A Crown International Picture. Rated R."

I had no idea what was going on. I was too young to get the innuendo. But I had had my first brush with exploitation pictures. Grindhouse!

The idea was making lots of money with very little capital. So grindhouse movie makers like Crown International would follow this formula:

1. Make up movie posters, and take 5 or 6 of them around asking "Which movie would you want to see?"
2. Hand the #1 pick to the screenwriter and say "Make a movie for this poster."
3. Raise capital by asking your connections in strip joints, casinos, or whatever. Offer the investors a bit part in the movie.
   
4. Film! Since the people aren't actors, film one line of dialogue at a time - give them line, say action, let them say it, say cut, do the next line.
   
5. Release it and watch the money roll in!

The classic Grindhouse era ended back in the mid-70's, but there's been a resurgence of interest. (Mostly from Quentin Tarrantino/Richard Rodriguez flick "Grindhouse" a few years back). So Day two of the 360/365 Film Festival was a Grindhouse extravaganza!

I saw a new documentary called "American Grindhouse" that captured the era quite nicely. Grindhouse is not an genre like Film Noir. It's more a state of mind ... whatever titilates you and gets you in theater is A-OK! Gore. T&A. Violence. Like a carnival barker, you have to up the ante to get people into your tent. So the documentary had a lot of ground to cover, and did it very well in 90 minutes. It's coming out later this year on cable and DVD - it's worth the rental if you like film history.

"Gone With The Pope" is a masterpiece of Grindhouse cinema ... in the same way "Plan 9 From Outer Space" is a masterpiece of Science Fiction. The back story is fascinating. The lounge singer Duke Mitchell wrote, produced and directed the entire thing, but left it unfinished, unedited and in the can. About 15 years after that, a couple of intrepid editors got ahold of it, and spent the next 15 years (in between paying gigs) cleaning it up and splicing it together. They had to work from scripts scrawled on cocktail napkins and backs of envelopes.

The result is a jaw-dropping WTF??? These four mafiosos are on a boat in the middle of the ocean and one says, "We're going to kidnap the pope." Say what????? They pay $50K to get an audience with the pope, pull a gun on him, shift him off to the back room. A guy says, "Take off your clothes, your Holiness." And they switch clothes, and somehow get the pope out of the Vatican and onto a boat.

And it's all serious! The audience was rolling in the aisles, and I was too. I'll probably see better movies at this film festival, but this will probably the most entertaining when all is said and done.

So, speaking of better, my favorite movie so far has to be L'Enfer. If there's a word for "the exact opposite of Grindhouse cinema", that would fit here. The back story here is fascinating too. The director, the famous French director Henri George Clouzot, basically had an unlimited bankroll to make a masterpiece. The story was about a young couple, and the husband becomes obsessively jealous when the wife starts hanging around the town womanizer.

Pretty standard stuff. But Clouzot was looking for a new language of cinema to tell the story. He invents new camera tricks, different ways to frame shots, innovative uses of color. He wants everything to be perfect and in service to the story. The deeper he gets in, the more he erases and starts over. Clouzot is obsessed. He drives his actors nuts, driving the male lead to a nervous breakdown, then has a heart attack himself.

And his experiments are pretty much all that survive of L'Enfer. There's film for about 30% of the story, virtually no soundtrack. So how do you splice together something watchable? Well ... you blend the fictional story with the back story. So L'Enfer is a documentary about making the film. It follows the obsessions of both Clouzot and the male lead of the fictional story. They both descend into madness, and the psychological turmoil in his own mind translates to some weird stuff printed on celluoloid.

As I watch movies, I often ask myself "What am I getting here that I can't get from a novel?" I think that's why French New Wave (of which this is a part) is so powerful. And they have it in spades in L'Enfer. There's a shot of a woman tied to railroad tracks and a train racing for her. Pretty standard movie thing. But something undefinable makes you feel the railroad steel against your head, the binding of the rope, the hot breath of the locomotive coming for you. It's more than sight or sound, it's emotion communicated on some subspace channel.

So I'm talking to this guy, Josh, who sits in the same seat for each screening - back row, chair against the wall. He goes on and on about why it's perfect. The theater curves inwards a little, so the back seat has a little extra space for you to swing your legs. The speaker is above you so the sound comes from "out of the sky". "This place is sacred to me," he says.

And I think ... OK, so we just saw a movie about how obsession drives you to madness and heart attacks. Have you learned nothing?

Of course not! We're humans! And we will keep on learning nothing for as long as it takes.

Day 1: Basquiat, Personal Meterologists, and Dirty Martinis

OK, so I didn't get to meet James Ivory or see his new film "The City of Your Final Destination". But opening night was a blast nonetheless!

In the afternoon, I dropped Grover off at the boarding place. They dragged out his chart and said, "Uh oh." So evidently Grover was not very well-behaved the last time he was there. Doesn't play well with others. "He settled down after about a week though," they said, trying to reassure themselves a little.

So Grover, if you're reading this, you better settle your butt down! Or the next time, I'll be dropping you off at the ASPCA.

I checked into the Strathallan at - the perfect HQ for this festival - the two venues are about a mile away from each other on East Avenue, and the Strathallan is smack dab in the middle. I got a suite with a balcony and a kitchenette, and it was dirt cheap! I immediately stocked up on my patented hangover cure - raisin brain, milk, and lots of Poland Spring Bottled Water. That came in handy.

It was around 6:10, and too late to get to the "City of Your Final Destination" screening, but the festival runs four screens pretty much nonstop. So I landed at the documentary "Basquiat: The Radiant Child." It friggin' blew my mind! I didn't know much about the artist Basquiat, but the culture he painted in - 80's New York City - is pretty familiar. His style is visually assaulting and post-modern before post-modern was all the rage. The film was centered around some pretty intimate interviews done in LA, and like all good documentaries, it leaves you to fill in the details in your own mind. Basquiat was a crazy genius-head, and to see that in raw form is pretty revolutionary in the history of the whole friggin' universe, if you think about it. If we had a camera on Van Gogh or John Milton or Mozart, what would we have seen?

Afterwards, I pattered my way up through the rain to the George Eastman House for the Opening Night soiree. Fueled with Cabernet and decked out in schmoozing clothes, I worked the room and found less industry types and more just-plain-film-buffs than I thought! They had all seen the Ivory screening, so they pretty universally loved it ... EXCEPT for Taylor. Taylor, who is a film archivist, said "I thought the sound production was pretty distracting." Negative nit-picking fall-de-roll! She and I are gonna be best buds by the end of the festival.

Anyway, I've learned two important things. First, the All Access Pass means your a deity! Staff in Film Festival t-shirts fall all over themselves to make sure you're well-stocked with goodies, and your glass of Cabernet is always full. To get into the Basquiat film, I pulled out the pass attached to a lanyard tucked inside my blazer and the woman said, "Don't hide it! Be proud!"

Second, the next person who says "The Birthplace of Film" is gonna get hit. I'm already tired of that phrase, and I'm not sure how much it means in a city where 54 of the 58 Kodak factories are now abandoned. Let's move on.

And move on I did, to the Strathallan bar. Being Cinco De Mayo, they had a special on ... Dirty Martinis. OK, they're not very socially hip at the Strathallan Bar. But the dirty martinis were to die for, and I had a few too many, so I'm kind of dying in my own way right now. Anyway so the guy next to me is a meterologist. And we're talking about the Lake Effect and all that business and finally he says, "Yeah, I'm Josh Nichols."

Josh Nichols???? Holy crap!!!!

So who is Josh Nichols? Well, every night I fall asleep to WRVO public access radio from Oswego. They do old time radio shows every night - you know, The Green Hornet, Gunsmoke, Suspense, etc. Anyway, every night at 10:07, right after NPR News and before the first show, I get the weather report from Josh Nichols. Basically Josh tells me whether I can ride my bike to work or not the next day. Josh is a constant for me. He's the last voice of authority I hear just about every day.

So I invite Josh up to my hotel room. "C'mon! It's not like you're not there every night with me!" I tell him. He thinks this is pretty funny, finishes his mile high drink of something-and-grapefruit soda, and we part ways. But now, sitting on the Strathallan balcony with a dirty martini headache, I think of what might've been.

Art, as I keep saying, is a device for living all the lives you don't get. But sometimes you get to live inside your art - you get to compose the life you want to live and live it immediately, like a jazz tune. It feels like that right now.

360/365 Film Festival: Take One ... *Clack!* ... Action!

I've been known to forget vacations. I'll be sitting at work programming and about 1:00 someone comes up to me and says, "Hey! Aren't you supposed to be on vacation?" They point at the Outlook calendar, and there it is.

After about 4 or 5 times, it dawns on me. If you're going to vacate, vacate fully. (You can quote me on that - it sounds profound for about 5 seconds, then icky.) Mind erasure should be non-trivial, well-planned, and worth contemplating beforehand.

So in January I see this ad for the Rochester 360/365 International Film Festival. Rochester is the birthplace of film, you know Kodak and all, so what could be a more natural venue? And I love Rochester anyway. So I sign up for my all access pass, book a room at the Strathallan, and gear up. "Live. Breathe. Film." Yeah I can do that! Except the film part. I leave that to professionals.

And there will be some professionals there! James Ivory for one, the director of The Remains of the Day and A Room With a View. (You know Merchant-Ivory, right?) A Room with a View was my friend Margot's favorite movie, and she insisted on going to Rome and recklessly falling in love with someone. These are the kind of things you dream about as a Vista volunteer, which we both were. The Remains of the Day, according to my wife Kathy is the quintessential "non-rom" flick - two people love each other and don't act on it. She accused me of liking non-rom's no matter whether they were good or not. Obviously if I bump into James Ivory, I'm going to talk with him about that. :-)

Thelma Schoonmaker, the oscar winning editor who has worked 40 years with Martin Scorsese, will be getting an award at the festival. The editor+director relationship can be pretty tight. My brother Jon is pals with Tim Squyres, the editor that works with Ang Lee, and fed me lots of back stories about this relationship. What you leave on the cutting room floor is as important as what you put in ... in other words, they're the Thelonious Monk of a film.

So I'm gonna schmooze and hobnob. I just bought a whole new hobnobbing ensemble, directed by my good friend Jessica and bankrolled by a low-interest mortgage refinancing. Now you might be thinking, "Craig is not a schmoozer. Craig is not a hob-nobber. I don't know exactly what those mean, but he isn't either of those!"

Well, here's the thing. I like people, and film buffs especially. I've got 5 days to meet them. If you have a better plan, I'd like to hear it.

Oh and speaking of vacating fully, I'm gonna eat a garbage plate. Later, y'all!

Saturday, August 8: Returning

Spending all day in planes and airports ... at kiosks waiting for espresso, in black lounge chairs as the iPod tries to grab a free wireless signal.

The woman next to me on the plane is going to Cornell. She's a Structural Engineer from Palo Alto going to a conference on Physics. I ask her if she's presenting a paper and she says, "Nah, I'm just there to learn."

Funny, I was doing the same thing in California just last week.

To instantly conjure up feelings of this adventure, I put together an iPod playlist.

1. El Paso - Marty Robbins
2. California Dreamin' - Mamas and the Papas
3. Crystal - New Order
4. My Funny Valentine - Elvis Costello
5. Warm Ways - Fleetwood Mac
6. Only a Fool Would Say That - Steely Dan
7. One and One Make Five - Pet Shop Boys
8. Ugali - Tony Benson Sextet
9. Little Lies - Fleetwood Mac
10. Love is a Sign - The Go-Betweens
11. Lemon Tree - Peter, Paul and Mary
12. Mesmerizing - Liz Phair
13. Dream a Little Dream of Me - Cass Eliot
14. Three Flowers - McCoy Tyner
15. Gin and Juice - Snoop Dogg
16. Raspberry Beret - Prince and the Revolution

As always, thank you for riding along!

Friday, August 7: One Last Ride

A local goes down the line of cameras one by one, snapping the group picture onto everyone's camera. We're all fidgety like kids holding for their class picture.

We pile into breakfast and Doug says, "How late were out last night, young man?"

"Just 2:00," I replied. No headache this time. I made good choices.

As I'm eating my customary raisin bran breakfast, I discuss Forensic Accounting one more time. The whole week I've made up stuff, and the job gets more interesting as I go. I'm finding terrorists and drug dealers laundering money, corporations misrepresenting their earnings ... it's a blast! And I think for a moment, could I actually do this for a living?

Perhaps. It's right my alley - tracing problems back to their source. Some programmers are better at that than actual programming, and I think I'm one of them. There are online degrees in Forensic Accounting, but you must have a solid accounting background. Well, anyway. If you had told me 3 years ago I'd ride a bike 200 miles through California with people I don't know, I would've thought you were nuts. So in 3 years, changing my career is not out of the question.

Our last leg is 20 miles through the Russian River valley. There are more vinyards than wineries here, very agricultural and tucked away from the expensive tourists. The country is beautiful and familiar by now. I'm pretty sure I won't forget it.

The bike trip official ends at the General Store in Jimtown, California. Raleigh Andrea, Sherry and I are the first to make it in, and we grab some sandwiches and sit out on the porch. About a million bikers passed by in groups of two or three, many of them locals or up from San Francisco. They can bike this valley whenever they want, and I'm jealous.

The VBT van arrives with celebratory Root Beer floats. It is a wonderful thing. Boston Geoff is chasing his down with a beer, and I look at the bottle. Racer X. "Go easy on that stuff, my friend," I warn him.

"Why? You drank it and found $85 in your pocket!" he replied. True. But ...

We hug and say our goodbyes, and the mood is a little somber. But there's also this sense of accomplishment. It sounds contrary to the purposes of a vacation to be goal-oriented. It sounds too much like work. Yet, it feels like we earned all this good food and wine and conversation and scenery.

VBT has rented us two vehicles to bring us back to 'Frisco. I get to ride in the stretch limo - a first for me! Travellin' Tom finds the champagne flute-sized cup holders fit his butt like a glove.
I drink bottled water and watch the scenery go by. Cars pull alongside and their occupants try to peep in through the smoked glass.

Sorry, no. We're not movie stars. But it kinda feels like it.

Thursday, August 6: The Golden Wrench

I wake up in my room, still dressed in my clothes from the night before. There is a sharp, sour taste in my mouth. I'm vaguely nauseous and my head hurts. Uh oh. But then I pull myself out of bed, and feel something in my pocket.

A wad of cash. I pull it out and count it. $85. How did that get there?

I remember the night before, and how I didn't have enough money to pay for a $45 dinner and used my credit card. Oh man. How did that $85 get there?

Breakfast is at 8:00 and I'm about 10 minutes late already. I very quickly change into my bike clothes (the least smelly ones - I haven't had time to wash them) and go downstairs to breakfast. Everyone is at the tables. Doug asks, "Just where have you been, young man?"

I hesitate. The whole room of VBT bikers are looking at me. "There's some things I remember and some things I don't. Like how did this $85 get in my pocket?"

General laughter. Boston Elaine observes, "Most of the time, wild people lose money."

Yeah, well, that makes this all the more weird. I pour myself my soon-to-be-patented hangover remedy: lots and lots of Raisin Bran and glasses of water. I'm actually not feeling too bad. The California morning air is soft and invigorating. And I look forward to getting out on the bike.

"You sure you don't want to ride in the van?" Doug asks. I assure him no. "Well, keep yourself hydrated, then" he warns.

(right: Raleigh Andrea, Travellin' Tom, Unknown blue bird.)

I put some lemon wedges in my water bottle, and seek out Raleigh Andrea and Sherry. If anyone can pull me through, it's them. They will keep me so intent on pedaling that I will forget the little bit of nausea left.

We are reading to the Redwoods today for a picnic. Mile-wise, it's the toughest riding day - about 48 miles. But the terrain is easy and after about an hour, I'm back to my old self again.

We reach the town of Rio Nido well ahead of everyone else. A coffee shop on the corner beckons to me, and we all stop inside to collect our thoughts. As I am waiting for my espresso, I feel a woman's eyes on me. I take a quick look back. She is checking me out! Wow! OK, so now my ego is in overdrive. I get my espresso, turn around and give her a big smile. She smiles back. At this point, I am feeling really, really good.

Raleigh Andrea says, "We could do this Mays Canyon option. It's 6 miles." I say, "Hell yeah!" we're on a roll. The Mays Canyon option turns out to be very pretty. Very woodsy and shady. The whole first half is slightly uphill, then all of a sudden there's a huge cliff upwards. It's the Hess Option all over again. I kick down to 1st gear and puff myself up to the top.

A minute later, there comes million-year-old Arve. This guy is unstoppable! I'm waiting for the rest of the contingent, and say to him, "Boy, that was a real ball-buster!"

"Yeah, I guess," he says non-chalantly. Lordy!

So Raleigh Andrea and Sherry and I head back down. It's a treacherous trip down the 3 mile hill - there are potholes intermixed with shadows and it's impossible to tell the difference. But we get by without mishaps and pedal on over to Armstrong Woods for lunch.

The forest feels like a porch. The redwood trees are so large and the leaf cover so high, that you can't hear the wind stirring the leaves. It is dead silent. We talk very quietly to one another because the acoustics are too perfect. Lunch is waiting for us on the grates in the middle of the park - hamburgers, hot dogs and portobello mushrooms. Salad made of tomatoes from the Sonoma Farmers Market. And the signature dish of Peanut M&M's.


The sunburn on my legs is beginning to blister. People ask me if it hurts and proposing remedies: aloe, vinegar, first aid cream. But I don't really feel it. When your mind is engrossed in something like the forest or biking, it's hard to keep your mind on it. Or anything outside the valley, for that matter.

We come back to Madrona Manor on the opposite side of Dry Creek (which is not very dry - it's actually bigger and wetter than the Napa River.) Doug says it's the most beautiful part of the ride, and I agree. The roads are narrow and traffic-less, and I drink it all in.

There's a nagging feeling in the back of my head. In less than a day, the bike ride will be over. I try not to let it spoil the view. The only way to preserve this feeling and scenery is to memorize it, roll it over in my mind a few times, and call it back to make sure it's intact.

I sleep a few hours when we get back to the Inn, as has become my custom. Tonight's the night of the big Farewell Dinner, so I get out the ironing board and give my polo shirt a quick pressing. And then I can't take down the ironing board. It is mechanically beyond me. I could probably call Doug or Dan to do it, but I decide to ease myself back in the real world ... a world where Doug and Dan aren't there to get you out of a jam. I toss the ironing board in front of the fireplace.

The Farewell Dinner is exquisite. Organic Field Greens, very local and fresh. A risotto that's so delicate and complex that it requires you to close your eyes with every bite. Perfect local wines paired with each course, including an outstanding Merlot.

Yes, Merlot! Evidently the movie Sideways (an especially the line "I'm not drinking f***ing Merlot!") caused merlot sales to plummet and pinot noir sales to go higher. So the merlot people are trying very hard to restore its reputation by ... well, making some damn great merlot! It is my favorite glass of wine on the trip. So remember that. Wines that get no respect, especially Zinfindel and Merlot, are worth re-checking.

Doug makes some remarks about how great we are. Which is true. I have bounced between dicsussions with Atlanta Jean on my right and Boston Elaine on my left, and Houston Harry across the table. And it dawns on me. These people are so great because bike tours attract that kind of people. They are not lazy. They are not afraid to try something new. They are very outgoing. I love them all. There is not one of them I wouldn't ride with ... any time, anywhere.

And then Doug introduces the Golden Wrench award - an Allen Wrench spray painted gold. "For bicycling above and beyond the call of duty ... through wicked sunburn and hangovers and staying out until all hours of the night ... this tour's award goes to Craig Riecke."

And lemme tell you, I was elated! I mean, imagine this. I re-took up biking only 3 years ago. And in that time I have become more healthy and outgoing. The Golden Wrench reminds me of how much I've changed.

People call for a speech. Mine is two sentences long. "There's Karaoke down at the Bear Republic in half an hour! Who's with me?"

So I'm a little wiser this time - keeping my high-alcohol-content beer consumption in check. The waitress I proposed to the night before walks by, and I slump down in my chair. Then Karaoke starts. The stage is invaded by a group of kid baseball players, there for some after game shenanigans. And after a few songs, people start dancing. It's weird. I have been to Karaoke nights before, but this is the first time I see people dancing. A local named Sharon gets me out on the floor and teaches me some East Coast Swing moves. (Yes, I learned West Coast Swing on the East Coast and East Coast Swing on the West Coast.) It's a blast!

There is one transcendent moment. A college-age Russian woman goes to the microphone and with a no-note introduction to California Dreamin', warbles "All the leaves are brown, and the sky is gray!" She is loud and way off key. Some of her friends join her and sing harmony, and the rest of us are bobbing on the dance floor, eyes closed, hands in the air. We are from all over the country, and we are locals, and we have all fallen in love with California.

It's sounds goopy and over-the-top. It may be the love of a tourist. But at 2:00 AM, walking back the Inn, it's as real and enveloping as anything I've ever felt.