For followers of the blog, you may know that I am a film maker and theatre director. I am very pleased to announce that my short film that I just released to the international film festival circuit just a few weeks ago has already won an award in one festival and is a finalist in another.
(There is a link to the film at the bottom of this page.)
REALE FILM FESTIVAL IN MILAN, ITALY
A Cost of Freedom was a short film conceived in 2004 and shot in 2005. The story is based on a short story by Italian writer, Luigi Pirandello, called War. Pirandello lived from 1867 to 1934. Pirandello’s basic story is a group of parents riding on a train after World War 1 all talking about how their sons died in the war. Some are proud, some are hopelessly sad, some are just hopeless. The story when I first read it in college has always provoked deep emotion in me about the futility of sending young men and women to war, while the makers of war never seem to fight themselves.
PRISMA FILM FESTIVAL IN ROME, ITALY
I was moved to make the film when I read about young men and women who were not US citizens but grew up in the States legally (green card holders) that volunteered to the various services when we were attacked in the 2001 World Trade Center attack (9/11). It has always been the policy of the US Armed Services to give full citizenship to these green card soldiers if they die in combat allowing them to get a military funeral and their families the few benefits that the armed services give out. Yet, when the Iraq War was started by the Bush administration they needed a lot of new soldiers because we were now fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq at the same time. President Bush got the law changed to now not only offer US citizenship to the dead soldier but to their immediate families as well. A lot of young green card holders saw this as a way to create a pathway to citizenship for their families so they joined the war effort. I took Pirandello’s story and mixed it with the stories of young non-US citizens fighting for us in Iraq to make a film which I felt paid honor to those sacrifices but also laid bare the hypocrisy of this system of using non-US citizens to fight in our wars.
ACTORS MORRIS SCHORR AND THERESE MCLAUGHLIN
Yet when I started to make the film, I found different people reacted to my little antiwar film script in very different ways, especially when I needed a real army uniform for one of my characters. The actor I chose for that part was actually a reserve officer but to use his uniform he had to get permission from his commander. To my everlasting surprise, the commander not only approved the use of the uniform but also gave us access to many other unit elements like official flags and posters and emblems.
ACTOR JOSE ANTONIO
And that has always been the reaction to the film. People have seen past my limited view of my own film to the human elements of love and grief and pride in these real life stories and Pirandello’s brilliant original short story.
ACTOR ABRAHAM CHAIDEZ
The film came out in 2007, a time where there was really no place to view short films. There were festivals back in the day, but it was an expensive and time consuming effort to get your films around the country and the world to be viewed with no real idea that it would be screened. So A Cost of Freedom just sat on a shelf for almost 16 years until a young film editor named Tal Anderson re-edited the film for me and updated the sound and some minor effects. Since its re-release, the film has won a Best Drama award at the Reale Film Festival in Milan, Italy and is now a Finalist at the Rome Prisma Independent Film Awards Festival (in Rome, Italy).
I want to congratulate my cast and crew from back in 2005 especially my producer, Vivian Best, who is now a famous feature photographer, plus my new film editor in 2021 for their hard work and efforts. The praise and accolades should have been there long ago, but at least people are now seeing and enjoying this story told by a lot of very talented people. There is a link to the film below –
Yours, James Carey – Filmmaker of A Cost of Freedom!
It’s been a while since I wrote a movie review and posted it on this blog. However since this is the time of riots in the streets and COVID-19 plus there’s no place to go, new movies seemed like a pretty safe subject.
Peter Travers, the movie reviewer for Rolling Stone magazine and the host of Popcorn on ABC TV, just presented a list of major motion pictures that were coming out this summer. And of course, most of them were not going to appear in movie theaters so the only place left for them to go were streaming services. And the very first one he mentioned was a very low budget film noir science fiction thriller that takes place in a little bitty town in New Mexico in the late 1950’s or early 1960’s. This movie is called The Vast of Night and it is a wonderful movie by first time feature director, Andrew Patterson. You can find this movie on Amazon Prime since it was produced by Amazon Studios, and it’s truly worth the search.
WOTW Radio Station where the mystery begins.
Basic story is a small town in the 1950s and a couple of teenage science nerds uncover a strange sound on the phone lines and then on the radio air waves. They spend the entire movie trying to track it down only to find it comes from above. In the meantime, during their search they run into interesting characters and scary stories of previous alien visitations and people being taken like in Close Encounter of the Third Kind. Oh, so you’ve all heard this movie plot before, right? Well not exactly, because this is told in a fresh new super interesting way unlike any science fiction movie I have ever seen or heard.
Changing camera styles like people change their socks you go from intense closeups that last for minutes at a time to tracking shots that follow our heroes wandering through their small town. Sometimes the lighting is moody and dark, other times it is bright and cheerful filled with color. How the director Andrew Patterson got this much movie from what is obviously a very limited budget is a work of genius.
Sierra McCormick as Fay as she discovers the sounds from Outer Spaces.
Patterson also allows his actors a lot of room to do their work and in the process gets some amazing performances. Especially an about 10 minutes sequence with no cuts where Sierra McComick from Supernatural, who plays the female lead Fay, sits at an old manual phone switchboard for a small town and connects the different people who call. Yet during this sequence the first hint of what is to come appear through the phone lines and you watch Fay’s growing concern as to is happening. She handles multiple calls and each one is different but also you see her increasing puzzlement and fascination as the mystery begins to unfold. Her performance by such a young actress is astonishing.
However, this not even the most outstanding performance in the movie. That belongs to Gail Cronauer as Mabel. Ms. Cronauer delivers a long, extended monologue that in lesser hands would have bored the short attention span of today’s audiences, but she is riveting. Even more amazing is there are no cutaways during her long scene as she is filmed from only one side of her face, yet she holds the screen totally.
Jack Horowitz as DJ Everett Sloan
Another shout out as well to Cinematographer M.I.Littin- Menz and his film/light crew for some really inventive shooting. There is one extended tracking sequence where the camera goes through the entire town including inside a high school basketball game which most of the small-town citizens are attending that I am not really sure how they accomplished it. At first, I thought is was a drone shot then a steady cam then…. However, they did it – it is a great sequence and the editing by Junius Tully is flawless.
My only complement is it starts extremely slow. It is about 20 minutes before we get to anything that resembles a plot point. And that is the point because Patterson and his screenwriters James Montague and Craig W Sanger are purposely distancing you from the material. This is a movie where you have to come to it, it’s not going to come to you. Patterson is also making you pay attention to the small details that will become very important later on in the movie. Boring small town existence in the middle of nowhere, the 1950 switch board telephone system and reel to reel tape recorders which seem incredibly innocuous at first but later become very important as the movie progresses. But if you’re looking for a movie to jump at you from the 1st frame this is not the movie for you. This one takes some patience, but it’s worth it.
This movie season is going to be very different and most of it will be in your home or a drive-in. The is the first highly recommended movie of the summer and you should try to find in on Amazon Prime.
To say that Van Horn, TX is slow would be an understatement. In the little hamlet of 2000+ people there is truly not much to see or do IN Van Horn. There are a couple of interesting buildings but by and large the town would be considered very sleepy. But outside of Van Horn is another story.
Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin capsule -Photo MATTHEW STAVER/BLOOMBERG/GETTY IMAGES
Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world, must think that Van Horn is a special place since he bought over 165,000 acres of land just outside of the small town to build his spaceport where flight tests of the New Shepard are carried out by Blue Origin, his private space company. The ranch is called the Corn Ranch, and it is very hush-hush. Yet, the financial boost that you would expect from all those engineers and science types does not appear to have helped Van Horn much. There are several closed down businesses that had put up Welcome Blue Origin banners up to welcome Bezos and company.
Inside the Time Clock Tunnel – Photo The Long Now Foundation
Bezos is also digging a hole on his ranch to place a 10000 year old clock/time capsule. Actually, it is more complex than that. Bezos is hollowing out a mountain on his ranch to place the clock inside. Installation has already begun on this project that the Amazon CEO has invested $42 million in, along with the hollowed-out mountain, with the goal of building a 500 foot mechanical clock that will run for 10 millennia. According to the website for Bezos’ 10,000-year clock, visitors will (in theory) be able to view the finished timepiece, although the site notes that it’ll be a rough trip. “The nearest airport is several hours away by car” and a rugged foot trail that rises almost 2,000 feet above the valley floor. Fortunately, if the clock runs for as long as it claims, you’ll have plenty of time to plan your trip.
First prototype of the 10000 year old clock – Photo The Long View Foundation
Another interesting factoid of Van Horn is that it is the Western most incorporated town in the Central Time zone. Yet, the only other reason that I can think of to recommend stopping off in Van Horn until the spaceport is built is that it is the southern gateway to the Guadalupe Mountains National Park and Carlsbad Caverns.
Photo – paintyourlandscape.com
The Guadalupe Mountains (Spanish: Sierra de Guadalupe) are a mountain range located in West Texas and southeastern New Mexico. The range includes the highest summit in Texas, Guadalupe Peak, 8,751 ft, and the “signature peak” of West Texas, El Capitan, both of which are located within Guadalupe Mountains National Park.
Photo – NPS.com
You drive north out of Van Horn on Texas Highway 54 for about 45 miles or about an hour until you hook up with US Highway 62 that will lead you up into the mountains toward Guadalupe National Park and further on to the Carlsbad Caverns tourist complex in New Mexico. Along the scenic drive you pass the 12800 acre Sierra Ranch.
After the American Civil War, this area was the site of some savage Indian War battles between the Mescalero Apaches and a cavalry unit known as the Buffalo Soldiers. A main travel passage for settlers, mail, and stage coaches came through the Guadalupe Pass and were often attacked by the Apache tribe. The cavalry unit was ordered to the area to stop Indian raids on settlements and mail stage routes. During the winter of 1869, Lt. H.B. Cushing led his troops into the Guadalupe Mountains and destroyed two Mescalero Apache camps. The Mescalero Apache were eventually driven out of the area and into US Indian reservations.
Guadalupe Mountains – Photo National-parks.com
The national park is beautiful and has many hikes of all levels that lead to wondrous sights including one that leads to an original ranch house located next to a natural spring that was the site of a prolonged fight between a rancher who wanted the land and the Apache tribe. Eventually the rancher won and drove what remained of the tribe out of the area forever. The ranch is beautiful, but the history of it not so much.
Hotel El Capitan Photo James Carey
After taking that long detour to the mountains, it was an hour back to Van Horn and Interstate 20 and east toward Abilene. Right as you drive into Van Horn on Texas 54 you see right in front of you the most interesting building in Van Horn, the El Capitan Hotel. The hotel is a 5-star hotel built in the 1930’s. In the 1973, the hotel was convert to a bank. In 2007, Lanna and Joe Duncan of Fort Davis purchased the building from the bank with the plan to convert it back into a hotel. They rebuilt almost everything including all new bathrooms with all new plumbing. The hotel is one of five identical hotels all built in the West Texas/Carlsbad area.
Hotel Capitan – Photo James Carey
As you drive across the flat West Texas landscape you notice something that is constant and unending. The Wind! It is part of the nature and atmosphere of this environment. The constant blowing wind. And it makes you think why not wind turbines? This is the perfect place for them – however, this is Texas. The land of oil and natural gas. That is the business that drives much of America’s business engine and much of its political machine. As you approach Midland, it is obvious what part of the world you are in. Oil well after oil well, business after business that are connected to the oil business. The chances of a wind turbine out here are nil.
Yet, the wind is persistent and sustained. And as you get closer to Sweetwater you begin to understand that oil and gas maybe king but close behind is Wind Power. Huge wind turbines in all directions by the hundreds. Texas dominates the nation’s wind energy production, adding far more generating capacity than any other state last year and having more installed wind power capacity than all but five countries in the world, the U.S. Energy Department.
Texas has vaulted to the top of wind power by not only exploiting the strong winds of West Texas, but also by building the transmission to move the electricity from remote regions to state population areas. The state’s wind energy production, meanwhile, is only expected to increase and provide a growing share of the state’s electricity as advancing technology allows turbines to generate at lower wind speeds and improved weather forecasting makes it easier to integrate it into the grid. Currently, wind power is estimated to provide 17% of Texas growing power needs.
Texas added more than 2,300 megawatts of wind power last year, nearly three times the amount added by the next closest state, Oklahoma, which increased its wind generating capacity by about 850 megawatts. At the end of 2017, Texas had more than 10,000+ wind turbines producing over 22,000 megawatts of wind power, more than triple Oklahoma’s 7,500 megawatts of wind generating capacity, the second highest in the nation.
Yet, oil and gas is king in West Texas so even as Texas rises to the top of the wind power business, Texas politicians are trying to find ways to undercut the federal subsides for renewable energy which they claim are an unfair advantage. It makes one wonder why can you not have both?
After 33o miles of flat, flat road with the constant whisper of blowing wind in my ear, I pulled into a cheap motel in Abileen. A long tiring day but found out some very interesting about Texas that I did not know.
Woke up in Wilcox, AZ, the next morning to hit the road again. I wandered back into the small downtown area for breakfast at my new favorite Mexican place, Isabel’s South of the Border, and had their famous Shrimp Enchilades special. Excellent but extremely filling!!!
Main Street, Wilcox AZ
So to walk off the food, I wandered around the little hamlet for a while. Like a lot of small towns across America, Wilcox’s downtown was struggling. People moving away or just preferring the newer places on the edge of town, whatever the reason about half of DT Wilcox was closed up or for sale. Yet there were some really interesting jewels of history or culture, and innovative uses of older buildings.
Rex Allen Museum
Wilcox’s most famous citizen was a singing movie cowboy by the name of Rex Allen. Located in DT Wilcox is the Rex Allen Museum featuring memorabilia from his rodeo, radio, movies and television achievements. Across the street from the museum is a larger-than-life bronze statue of Rex, created by sculptor Buck McCain. Inside the statue is a molded bronze heart with arteries, symbolizing that Rex’s heart will always be in Wilcox. Rex’s horse, KoKo, is buried at the foot of the statue.
Rex Allen Statue
Rex Allen was an American film actor and singer, known as “the Arizona Cowboy” and as the narrator of many Disney nature and Western productions. For his contributions to the film industry, Allen received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1975. Beginning in 1950, Allen starred as himself in 19 films. One of the top-ten box office draws of the day, whose character was soon depicted in comic books, on screen Allen personified the clean cut, God-fearing American hero of the wild West who wore a white Stetson hat, loved his faithful horse Koko, and had a loyal buddy who shared his adventures. Allen passed in 1999.
The Chiricahua Museum right next to Isabelle’s South of the Border
Around the corner from the Rex Allen Musuem is the Chiricahua Regional Museum. A wonderful little museum -researched and staffed-entirely by volunteers which has tons of artifacts from rocks to art work, original Navajo/Chiricahua clothing ,medals and pictures. Only a few bucks donated gets you in and there is a volunteer on site to answer any questions. Place could use a dusting but very informative! Stop in if you have time.
City Park, Wilcox, AZ
The town has adapted the best it can to the changing times. Originally known as “Maley”, the town was founded in 1880 as a whistle stop on the Southern Pacific Railroad. It was renamed in 1889 in honor of a visiting General. In the early 20th century, Wilcox had the distinction of being a national leader in cattle production, but Interstate 10 has replaced the railroad as the major transportation link, and much of the economy is now tied to the highway, which runs immediately north of the town.
Chochise County where Wilcox sits has many historical sites within its boundaries since many of the last battles against the Apaches happened here. Many of the famous tales and stories of the Old West actually happened here. There are several sites to see and explore. You can use this link to find out more. https://www.explorecochise.com/
Organ Mountains, New Mexico photo credit – lascrucescvb.org
But needing to get on the road I had to cut my exploration short and get back on Interstate 10. Soon I crossed into New Mexico wishing I had more time to spend in this amazingly beautiful place. There is a story that when Georgia O’Keeffe arrived in New Mexico, she is supposed to have said that she wasn’t going to say too much about it, because people would get interested and she didn’t want them so interested that they came there. New Mexico’s natural and dramatic landscape plays out like a painting: vast skies with bright sunlight, and stark shadows leaving silhouettes on the desert’s wide expanse. To see some of the best drives in New Mexico follow this link. https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attractions-g28952-Activities-c47-t74-New_Mexico.html
Since I was driving and had no time to stop and had to stay on my own personal schedule, I really did not see much except what passed me on the highway, but two things did happen during my drive. I crossed the Continental Divide about 30 miles west of Deming, NM. There is a sign that marks this event on the side of the highway. On every other Interstate you drive thru the Rockies. This drive is so gentle you don’t even notice it. The elevation at this point is 4585 feet about sea level.
photo credit – krwg.com
The second adventure happened about 50 miles west of Las Cruces. The whole front end of my car started to shake. So the answer – new tires – after I entered Las Cruces I found a place still open in the downtown area. It was going to take 2 hours and 500+ dollars. I had little to no tread on the tires left and I was out of alignment. Stuck in a new town for 2 hours with nothing to do, I asked the counter man where close by is there a place to eat or drink. He pointed across the street to Amador. I walked across the street and what a surprise. Amador is part of a 4 restaurant and bar complex with several bars, outdoor dining, a concert venue. It even has an outdoor courtyard with games and room for kids of all ages to run around and play in the afternoon sun. I met a couple from California who had moved to Las Cruces to escape Cali’s growing taxes and enjoy a slower but richer lifestyle. They had been there for about 3 years and were loving it. Great scenery, a pretty upscale lifestyle, lower taxes and a slower pace! What is not to like?!
View of Las Cruces, NM photo credit Dailylobo.com
It was late afternoon when I got back on the road, and I was determined to get through El Paso and on into Texas. No offense meant to anyone, but I do not like El Paso. I have driven through it 5 times during cross country trips and I find it a nightmare every time. I am sure that it is a lovely place, but I just want to get through it. If I could find a fast alternative to driving around it, I would take it.
Billboard for El Paso, TX – photo credit 52perfectdays.com
I do remember one beautiful site as I drove east from El Paso into the deserted West Texas landscape. I stopped on a side road for a pit stop and the night was completely silent except for passing traffic. The night was black with no lights 30 miles east of El Paso, and you could see the stars and the hundreds of lights across the border into Mexico. It was a lovely and very peaceful moment after a very long day driving.
Finally, about 9 PM , I pulled off the highway at Van Horn and checked into a Motel 6. Dinner was at a 24 hours Subway in a Love’s Truck Stop. One of two places open in town at that time. As I drove down the main drag I was followed by the local sheriff probably hoping for a speeding ticket from a California tourist. No luck, I drove slower than the speed limit. There seemed to be a lot of interesting buildings in the small DT area, but I was too tired to explore. It was back to the motel and sleep.
On Wednesday, May 22, I left Los Angeles (Santa Monica to be specific) to start a 2000 plus mile journey across the country to perform my one man show – Mi Casa Su Casa – at the Atlanta Fringe Festival. This would be my 7th driving trip across the country, but the first one I had taken in 25 years.
Postcard for Mi Casa Su Casa – Atlanta Fringe Festival 2019
The reasons for the trip were numerous – some professional and some very personal – but the end result was that I was leaving my home of 19 years to see if life in another city was something to consider. I was moving to Atlanta for 2 months to see if this was the next phase of the adventure.
I had left the South 40 years before for various political and personal reasons. It was the tail end of the Civil Rights era, but the rampant racism that still existed in the places that I lived plus the desire to pursue a professional life in the entertainment business made the move to New York and eventually Los Angeles the correct decision for me at that time.
Yet, I often returned to visit family and friends, and even worked there at times. The South and the style of living there was never far from my mind, but I was convinced that I could not live there again. However, Life marches on unrelenting. The film business came to Georgia in a huge way and to such a large degree that there is now more film production work in Atlanta then in Los Angeles.
I had/have an extremely good life in LA. I own a large home that has become a very popular Airbnb destination. I have the ability to direct theatre and film projects that are only limited by my desire to create them. I have many wonderful friends and a strong support system that I can call on when I need too.
Yet I felt stuck. Stuck in my own life. No one is to blame for this but me. But stuck is not a great place to be for anyone. I was bored with myself and felt I was repeating the same things over and over again. And at my age, there was not alot of time to lose by repeating myself.
So I decided to shake things up by moving to Atlanta to pursue an idea. And I would going to use the invitation to perform at the Atlanta Fringe Festival as the opening gambit in this journey of self rediscovery.
Historic Old Yuma
I said farewell to my partner and headed south to San Diego using I-405 to I-5 and into San Diego. I had traveled this way a few months before and had ended up in Yuma, Arizona. I grew to like Yuma a lot and so for the first stop on my cross country journey that is where I decided to land.
Colorado River outside of Yuma.
Taking I-8 out of San Diego, I was finally head straight East. This short interstate highway runs through some amazing country. About 40 miles out of San Diego, you have climbed to over 4000 feet while passing Native American Nations one after another. You pass through countryside that seems like you are riding through the old West expecting an outlaw to jump out from behind the nearest boulder and rob you. Then you drop down to pure desert. Slowly as you drive toward the Colorado River, the land begins to take on the color of green and you enter one of the biggest agriculture sections of the US. All the while you are driving within just a few miles of the Mexico/USA border.
New Fence right next to the old!
Road running along the fence line.
I stopped at a little town called Jacumba Hot Springs where the main attraction is a small hotel/resort called The Jacumba Spa. But literally less than a football field away is the border fence. I drive down to the fence where you could see the new fence and the old fence side by side. And where on our side is a dirt road to patrol the fence. On the Mexican side, a rancher uses the fence to tie up his horses while they graze. Plus more than two miles down the new fence line, it stops completely. Anyone any time of day can just walk around the fence into another country. There is no camera, no fence, no sign saying stop, no nothing.
Horse tied off to the border fence.
The wall ends two miles from this point.
I drove on to Yuma and spent the night. I also took the opportunity to visit a few places that night and the next day before I pushed on. Night spots that I had found the first time I was there, and some historically interesting places that have factored in the history of the West and the USA. Yuma is historically interesting because of its place in settling the West. With one of the few safe crossings on the wild Colorado River of the late 1700’s, the Spanish used Yuma to settle San Francisco and Los Angeles and build the missions along the California coast. It at one time was a important rail head for cattle. The Arizona Territorial Prison (referred to in the film, 3:10 to Yuma) was famous for the criminals jailed there and treatment of its prisoners. Finally, while Yuma is now slower and more off the beaten track, it is still a very popular destination for senior folk looking for a quiet, mild winter and is home to some of the largest agri-businesses in the US. There is a lovely historic downtown area with a couple of excellent art musuems, and there is great access to the Colorado River for swimming, boating and fishing.
Arizona Territorial Prision inspiration for the film 3:10 To Yuma.
Photos of these various historic places in and around Yuma will follow in a photo gallery. Look out for it. Thanks.
Recently had dinner and drinks at the Hudson in West Hollywood, a casual eatery featuring American cuisine on the corner of Santa Monica and Crescent Heights at 1114 N Crescent Heights Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90046-5007.
First, how is it possible for a restaurant to open anywhere in LA and not have parking? Literally, there is no parking for customers, and the eatery is located on the corner of residential and commercial streets in West Hollywood. How does that happen?
This a cool thing. They have actually built the restaurant around living trees. You can dine, have a drink, or talk to friend in a restaurant with a full grown, stuck in the real earth, peel the bark off tree next to your table. Very cool use of space and keeping nature around.
Hudson Bar
The space has a very woodsy vibe with a lot of exposed wood and ceiling beams yet maintains a very cozy feel with booths along the walls, and tons of tables in the middle of the room with a small but lively bar area in the back of the building.
When my friend and I got there, the place was pretty empty for dinner. Yet, the host, while not rude, also just zipped us to our table, placed the menus on the table and was gone before we even sat down. Our waitress was nice enough, but was not very personable. She kept rushing away from the table to do something else. I just had the sense that the staff was trying to turn the table as fast as possible. We both felt like we were being slightly rushed the entire meal.
We started by sharing an Argula and Avocado Salad with parmesan, lemon, and olive oil. Very tasty and fresh, it was a good start to the meal. For the main course, she ordered the Hudson Brown Rice dish and I got the Pan Roasted Chicken with a lemon chill sauce. Both dishes were fine and professional prepared, but were kind of bland and not very exciting.
I like to check the service sometimes by asking for items on the side. This time I asked for the chill sauce on the side instead of on the chicken. The waitress acknowledged this and wrote it down, yet when it came the sauce was already on the chicken. I asked for more sauce on the side, and this created a real stir among the staff. The server went to get the waitress, who came to the table, then a bus boy came, followed by the manager. All of them telling me that the extra sauce (which was not extra) would take time because it had to be made to order for each chicken dish. I was almost finished with the chicken when a small dollop of lemon chill sauce arrived on my table. It had taken them 20 minutes to make this little bit of sauce.
We paid the dinner bill, again feeling rushed. To stretch the evening out, we decided to get a cocktail in the bar. What a difference! The bartenders were very friendly, made great cocktails, and while they were busy they actually tried to carry on a conversation with you. The cocktails are handmade and really very good. I was introduced to “white whiskey” something I had never heard of before. The bartender explained to me that whiskey gets it color from the barrels it is aged in, so this whiskey had not been aged for very long and that process had not been done in wooden barrels.
Trees growing right from the eatery
By the time, we got to the bar it was hopping. It had a real West Hollywood neighborhood feel to it with a very mixed crowd both by age and lifestyle. This a bar that I would come back to again.
Overall, not a bad dinner, but nothing to write home about. Bland food, confusion on the order, rushed service offset by a wonderful bartender and great drinks. So a real tossup as to whether to return or not. If you look at their reviews online, it is also a mixed bag. Great food and wonderful times for some, and sloppy bad service for others.
Check it out yourself and let me know what you think.
The Hudson 1114 N Crescent Heights Blvd, West Hollywood, CA. Call for reservations (323) 654-6686.
So I left LA at 9:50 PM on WOW Airlines, and the reason that they are WOW is that they charge for everything. Leg room, carry-on luggage, every bag that you put in the hold, and ALL food items. You get nothing for free. WOW. The fare was cheap, but by the time you add seat selection, plus checking a bag that was 23K (the industry standard), but for WOW their limit is 20K, the total cost increased by 147 dollars. The bag alone was 135 dollars that includes 75 dollars to check and an extra 60 dollars for the 3 kilos over.
Other than that cost, the flight was very smooth to Reykjavik. Nine hours non-stop. I arrived at 1:35 PM and breezed through customs. You have to take either a taxi or buses into town because the national airport is about 27 kilometers from the city. There are no trains. I used Gray Lines for about 25 dollars, but there are a couple other bus lines that I also noticed.
Hallgrímskirkja church
I was staying at 101 Hostel, really nice family hostel run by Svava and her daughter Sara right in the middle of Reykjavik’s city centre. Perfect for shopping, walking around the city, dining and the famous Reykjavik night life.
Reykjavik at 11 PM
Food in Reykjavik is very expensive as is everything else as well. So I am buying food at a chain store known as Bonus, and cooking at the hostel. An example of the eating out expense is a beer is about 12 dollars, a simple hamburger could be 17 or more dollars, and a steak could be as much as or more than 50 dollars (in not an expensive place). The money here known as the Icelandic Kroner (ISK) and is about 100 ISK to one US Dollar. So all the prices are like 5000.00 ISK or 2250.00 ISK, and those break down to about 50 US and 22.50 US. Not exactly but close enough if you always divide by 100.
By this time it was about 4 PM and I was exhausted. I crashed for a bit and took a nap. I woke up around 9 PM to full sunshine outside and went walking around the city centre to get a feel for the place. You can tell the Icelanders very quickly. They are walking around in shirt sleeves or light jackets (it is their summer), the tourists are in coats with hats and scarves. The projected temp for the time I am in Iceland is 57 degrees F daytime and 45 degrees F at night. Summer indeed.
Hallgrímskirkja church
Did some sightseeing. The image above is the famous Hallgrímskirkja Church, the unofficial image of Reykjavik. In front of it is the statue of Leif Eriksson, son of Iceland and the man who discovered North America for the Europeans. He called it Vinland and landed there about 400 years before Columbus. The statue is a gift from the United States to Iceland.
Lief Eriksson
From the USA to Iceland.
I sampled some of the local beer in two places – first the American Bar, which I can vouch that there was not one American in the place, but a whole bunch of hard drinking Icelanders. A really great band playing American rock songs in perfect English but talking to the audience in Icelandic was fun to hear. While thumbing through my phone looking at the photos I had taken so far, I realized there was an older man standing right in front of me just staring at me. I asked him if I could help him, and he repeated back to me “Can I help you?” Being somewhat confused now by him, he began telling me that he disliked Americans and Trump. I told him I was Canadian to avoid any problems, and he hugged me than walked away.
The next place was a cute Irish bar called the Drunken Rabbit. Fun place where I met a couple from Boston who had driven the Ring Road (the road all the way around Iceland). They were amazed at the beauty of Iceland and all the different types of terrain. The only drawback was the car rental for a week that was 1000 dollars. Everything is expensive in Iceland.
I wandered home about 1:30 AM and it was still light comparable too early twilight. Great first day in Iceland.
(This is part of an ongoing series of stories about the first visit I ever had to Zimbabwe or Africa in general. All the stories are true and based on my own experiences. They are also part of my one-man theatre production, Coming to Zimbabwe which was published in Germany, and has toured the USA and parts of Africa.)
First days in Zimbabwe
After my day in Imire Game Preserve, this was the first day of my new job. (You can find the story Imire Safari Ranch – Zimbabwe 2012 in the monthly section menu) I woke up the next morning and met Gavin. We loaded into his incredible small car and we headed out toward the small city of Gweru located in the Midlands section of Zimbabwe. This drive should have taken about 3 hours but the engine was so small and tired in Gavin’s car, we were in for a 5 hour ride.
We headed out of Harare on the A5 Highway or Gweru-Harare Road. This was really the first time that I was going to see the real countryside of Zimbabwe. Of course on my journey to Imire, I had seen country. But that was in such a rush and I was so on edge from Kathy’s driving, that I did not pay much attention to the scenery.
Now because the slow nature of our drive through the mountains toward Gweru, I could very much see the lovely country, yet I could also see that field after field and farm after farm nothing was growing. There were no crops in the fields that I passed on this major road through the heartland of Zimbabwe.
Farmland sitting fallow
Whether is was the outcome of Mugabe’s land reforms or for some other reason, it was plain to see that this part of the economy was hurting. Zimbabwe during the Ian Smith years, during the civil war for independence, and even during Mugabe’s first years in power, was known as “the bread basket of Africa”. The farms were so successful and abundant and Zimbabwe grew so much food that it exported it surplus food stuffs to countries all around Africa. Now they had to import food items just to be able to eat.
As we drove south, we passed through the village of Chegutu and the small city of Kadoma. We drove through beautiful mountain areas, over rivers and across savannas where the sky seem to stretch on forever. After driving for a couple of hours, we stopped in Kwekwe to stretch our legs and get some coffee.
City Marker for Kwekwe
Kwekwe is a city of about 100,000 people located right in the center of the country. At one time, it was a very lovely little town, but it is very poor there now. Unemployment in the area is about 80% or more. The town has become very dusty and dirty, the gutters are filled with trash and there are 100’s of men standing around with no work and nothing really to do. As we pulled into the town and went around the roundabout, I was wondering where we were going to stop. We passed the beautiful but very tiny Mosque on the right as we enter Kwekwe. About 3 blocks passed that on the same side of the road, we stopped in front of this seemingly brand new building made of chrome and glass. It was like an illusion in the middle of this rundown town. The place was buzzing as people came and went from the double glass doors.
Kwekwe main drag
As we walked inside, Gavin told me the place was called Ripperz and that is was a fairly new place. The place seemed to be a combination of a restaurant, bakery and food market. Gavin and I walked in and went over to a coffee bar. And to be honest, I was surprised at the thought of a coffee bar in a rundown city in the middle of a 3rd world country. As I was to learn my first world impressions of Zimbabwe were going to be radically altered in the next month in this surprising and lovely country.
Ripperz bakery and cafe
As I sat down at the bar, I realized that I was the only white in the place. For just a moment, I experienced a momentary disquieting feeling that I was truly alone in this country. I did not know one person in Zimbabwe or this part of Africa. Further, that I was truly a minority in this country. You can read tons of information about a place and hope you understand it on an intellectual level, but the feelings that you get on the ground in a place are what truly define your experience and attitudes. Not that I was in fear for my safety because of my race; on the contrary, everyone so far in Zim had been very friendly and helpful. Yet, at that moment, I realized how different I was from anyone in the room. I had only experienced that feeling once before while standing at a bar in a nightclub in Mazatlan, Mexico trying to get a drink, and not even the bartender would speak to me because I was the only Angelo there. Both of these moments were profound for me, and reminded me that I was “the stranger in a strange land.” That I had so much to learn about this country, her people and her culture, and that was on me to do. So many times as I have traveled in the world, I have found Americans who are visiting a place and act like it is still the United States. They forget that they are visiting a new place, yet they expect the people there to treat them like they are still in the US. As the visitor, you are the one that needs to adapt to the new place, because the new place is not going to adapt to you. And that has always been my guiding principle when traveling. As Mark Twain once said, “…traveling doesn’t lead to a new destination, but to a new way of seeing things.”
After ordering our coffee, one of the two white owners came from the back and walk over to us. He was from Canada and had settled in Kwekwe to work the farm that his family had owned there. They later had lost it to the Mugabe land reforms which consisted of the government taking legally owned land away from the professional white farmers and giving it to black citizens of the country. Many of whom did not know how to farm or did not want to work that hard or were not capable of running those large farming concerns, so the farms began to fail in record numbers and the food production bottomed out for Zimbabwe.
Zimababwe’s President Robert Mugabe chants Zanu PF slogans with supporters gathered at the Harare International Conference Centre in Harare, Wednesday May 3, 2000. Mugabe launched the Zanu PF’s election manifesto which bears the slogan “Land is the Economy and the Economy is Land”. (AP Photo/Christine Nesbitt)
Now please do not take this that I disapprove of the idea of the original people of a country that had been colonized by white Europeans getting their own country back. But to remove at gun point and in several cases by death at the hands of gangs of Mugabe thugs, farmers who had worked that land for at least 3 to 4 generations, who provided jobs and about one quarter of Zim’s GNP seems wrong on any scale. Plus the farmers did not do themselves any favors when they made the mistake of thinking that Mugabe was running a democracy. They provided funding to the rural party (MDC) in government elections against Mugabe’s ZANU-PF and thus provoked Mugabe to actions against them. This whole misadventure that resulted in poor food production, lost jobs, ruined communities and families, and in many cases death could have been done better and gotten the same results without the ruin and bloodshed. Mugabe took an ax to a situation that needed delicacy and the resulting decline in food production and lost economy is proof of its failure.
Marquee with my play, Coming to Zimbabwe, Harare.
We are soon joined by his partner, who was from Greece (I believe). In my play, the second owner is from Greece but to be honest I do not remember where he was from. The following conversation is what truly happened at the moment of introduction:
Gavin – (to the Greek owner) “This is James from Hollywood, CA.”
Owner – (to me) “You are from Hollywood?”
Me – “Yes, I am.”
Owner – “Do you know any famous people?”
Me – “Yes, I know some famous people.”
Owner – “Do you know Tom Cruise?”
Me – “No, I don’t know Tom Cruise.”
Owner – “You don’t know Tom Cruise?”
Me – “No I don’t. Never had the pleasure.”
Owner – “I love Tom Cruise. I have seen all of his movies. Risky Business, Top Gun, Rain Man…” (at this point the Greek owner continued to name several more Tom Cruise movies and talked about how much he liked the movies and Tom Cruise himself.)
Mr. Tom Cruise
I should also point out at during this entire time, the owner never asked why an American was sitting in his store, what I was doing or how I liked Zimbabwe. It was Tom Cruise 24/7 with this guy, or so it seemed. Gavin realized that the conversation was going south and asked for “take away” coffee for us, and it was provided. We left and had a good long laugh about Tom Cruise and the Greek owner.
Yet, two days later, as we returned toward Harare, we stopped again at Ripperz for coffee. As I walked through the front door, the Greek owner who was working the front counter greeted me with, “Hey, Tom Cruise.”
I would go through Kwekwe about 8 to 10 more times over the next 4 weeks as I traveled around with Gavin or Gary, the Irish consulate and his family as they took me around Zimbabwe to places like Great Zimbabwe, Victoria Falls, and Matopos National Park. I would often stop in Kwekwe as a mid-point for several of these journeys, and every time I would eat and shop at Ripperz. And every time I walked through the door, the Greek owner would greet me as “Hey, Tom Cruise.”
Reps Theatre, Harare. Where my play debuted 2012.
Now in my one man show, I make this part of the story a comedy high point of the show and enlarge the number of people who began to call me Tom Cruise including great numbers of people on the street. Yet in truth by my third visit, a couple of employees started to refer to me as Tom Cruise. I was also greeted one day as I walked down the main street in Kwekwe with Gary’s son to the local internet cafe by a perfect African stranger, someone that I had never seen before as… “Oh you are the Tom Cruise guy.”
So that is my 15 minutes of African fame being called “Tom Cruise” in a small city in the middle of Zimbabwe – Kwekwe. For a month, I was known as Tom Cruise of Kwekwe.
The reservoir was created by the Mulholland Dam, built in 1924, designed by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, then named the Bureau of Water Works and Supply, as part of the city’s water storage and supply system.
The surrounding recreational area is known as Lake Hollywood Park, and is open for walking, hiking, and jogging. The reservoir is encircled by a flat, paved road that is suitable for walking and bicycling.
This 3.5-mile loop circles a peaceful fence-enclosed reservoir in the hills below the Hollywood Sign. The lake has several coves and inlets that give it a natural look. When standing on the Dam/bridge on the opposite side from the lake side, you get a sweeping view of Hollywood through a thick pine forest.
There are at least 3 entry points to the Hollywood Reservoir. The northwest gate is easily accessible from both the 101 freeway and Burbank. Just follow Barham Blvd. to Lake Hollywood Drive. Follow the winding road up to the top of the hill to the intersection of Wonder View Dr. and marvel at the wonderful panoramic view of the lake and the dam with Los Angeles in the background. Start down the hill to the gate, and you will find available roadside parking on both sides of Lake Hollywood Drive. The proper address to find the North Gate is 2600 Lake Hollywood Dr., Hollywood, CA 90068.
A second entry point to the lake would be the Weidlake Gate. This is an alternate gate located on the Hollywood side of the lake. This South Gate has a nice parking area but it is full of ruts and pot holes so be careful. It is right next to the dam which is the most scenic spot of the lake, but getting there is more difficult. Take North Cahuenga Blvd. to Dix St. Left off Dix Street is Holly Drive and follow that up into the hills until you come to Weidlake Dr. Follow Weidlake to the end and you will find the parking lot, the gate, a porta-potty, and the scenic dam.
The third entrance point is off of Tahoe gate off where Lake Hollywood Dr. meets up with Tahoe Drive. The entrance is the eastern most gate and the parking is limited to available spaces in the neighborhood. You can reach Tahoe gate by a few different ways that take you up Beachwood Canyon Drive. But the easiest way is to follow Lake Hollywood Drive past the North gate, continue around the lake for about 3/4 quarters of a mile and you will find the Tahoe gate. (pictured above)
A landslide forced crews to close portions of the trail in 2005. The road to the east of the reservoir reopened in 2009, but the western side remained closed for repair work until 2013, forcing walkers, runners, cyclists and anyone else who entered the area from the East Gate off Lake Hollywood Drive or Weidlake Gates to turn around instead of completing the loop.
The landslides occurred after 35 inches of rain saturated soil along the perimeter road. The slides damaged private and Los Angeles Department of Water and Power property, requiring $9.5 million worth of repairs on the hillside and road.
Lake Hollywood is closed at night. The gates are open Monday through Sunday, sunrise (about 6:30) till sunset. Be careful in the winter months because the sun sets early and so the park closes earlier as well. They lock the gates and it is really hard to get out. I have been stuck inside for an hour after closing myself. LADWP does have a guard who stays and checks the locked gates for knuckle-heads like me, but they are not pleasant about it. There are signs with the specific times for opening and closing at each gate so check those before you start out. Also dogs are not permitted on the Lake Hollywood trail at all.
(Research for this story is courtesy of Wikiapedia, NBC LA, Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks.)
Sources used for some parts of this story are – Wikipedia, Hollywood Babylon, LA Weekly, Daily Mail, Scott Simon, The Guardian.
After opening in 1924, the Culver Hotel soon gained a reputation as an excellent hotel for visitors to the Culver City area and MGM Studios. In 1939, it would gain an even more notoriety for housing all 125 of the “little people” who played the Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz.
The Wizard of Oz was then the last word in 1939 special effects, make-up, set design and costumes, not to mention the highpoint of Judy Garland’s career. The 17-year-old child star plays the little Kansas girl Dorothy, who with her dog, Toto, is whisked away by a tornado to a fantasy land where she follows the Yellow Brick Road, kills the Wicked Witch and meets the powerful Wizard. And every step of the way, she is followed by “the Munchkins” as she goes on her adventures over the rainbow, meeting the Tin Man, the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion in the Kingdom of OZ.
The film called for as many as 350 “Munchkins” to be cast. In L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz, he described the Munchkins only as shorter than usual in stature and clad from top to toe in blue. The studio did not want to use children for the parts, and could not find enough small adults in the Hollywood area. MGM decided to use real dwarves, or “little people” as they were called in the 30’s to play the Munchkins. In fact, all the Munchkins were played by genuine circusmidgets, whose colorful contribution to Hollywood history has never been forgotten. In its search, MGM advertised all over the country, auditioned tiny choirs – the midgets had to sing – visited circuses and sent out talent scouts.
The task of assembling as many as 350 ‘little people’ to act in the movie fell to a man named Leo Singer. Born in Germany as Baron Leopold Van Singer, he had put together a troupe of touring midgets who took part in vaudeville shows all over Europe. By 1938, he had gathered a stable of 100 tiny performers and was based in America. MGM drew up a contract with him to provide as many midgets as were needed to film. As soon as word got out, seemingly every little person in the country arrived in Hollywood by bus and train looking for a part. Singer was put in charge of them all – looking after their lodging, food and attendance on set.
Of course, managing the midgets was never easy. Many did not speak English and sang in thick German accents. Some of those who knew most about performing were from Germany, but had been forced to flee the country by the Nazis’ doctrine of ‘social hygiene’, which demanded the elimination of handicapped people. About 170 came from New York and had very little professional experience of show business. Some had never been away from home before and were keener to let their hair down than work. Their only qualification was their height – in some cases they stood no taller than three feet.
These little actors might have been vertically challenged, but they were exceedingly tough. Most were old enough to have learned how to survive in New York or in Europe during the years of the Great Depression. And when they arrived in Hollywood in 1938, to be cast in one of the most prestigious films ever, it marked a distinct improvement in their fortunes.
Los Angeles was in the midst of its gilded heyday. Stars such as Jean Harlow and Katharine Hepburn had a huge following, while the love lives of the swashbuckling Errol Flynn and Charlie Chaplin were already legendary. This was the height of Hollywood as Babylon. Sex and glamour was the name of the game and the “little people” wanted their fair share. Naturally, as soon as they had money in their pockets, their behavior did not improve.
For although their antics on screen brought joy to generations of children, behind the scenes they astounded everyone with shocking episodes of drunkenness, depravity and wild sexual propositions from which no one was safe. Wild stories began to emerge. There were rumors of wild evenings with rooms ransacked and drunken midgets swinging from the rafters. One horrified observer described them as “an unholy assembly of pimps, hookers and gamblers”.
A rather unimaginative 1981 movie, Under the Rainbow, starring Chevy Chase and Carrie Fisher, attempted to bring the legend to life — and failed. That hasn’t stopped Wizard of Oz fans from smiling at the thought of a hotel overrun with members of the Lollipop Guild. (LA Weekly)
“You had to watch them all the time,” observed Jack Dawn, the make-up artist on the film. Because they were so small, it was easy for other members of the cast to make the mistake of treating them like children. Predictably, their reaction was to do everything they could to disabuse their colleagues of this notion.
“They were adults,” recalled Jack Dawn firmly. “They did not like us touching them or lifting them into their make-up chairs. They insisted on climbing up by themselves.” If the film-makers thought full-sized stars had attitude, they had seen nothing yet.
The final count of people needed for Munchkin parts settled at about 125. Singer made a deal with the Culver Hotel to house the “little people”. They began to arrive in November of 1938. The hotel found that they could place three to a bed because they were so small. They could put them sideways and almost get them all here.
It turned out to be one of the biggest collections of little people to date at that point. Julie Lugo Cerra, who’s the honorary historian of Culver City, recalls, “Many of them, like Jerry Maren, who eventually settled in Los Angeles, who was a Lollipop Kid, had never seen another little person in his life before. They came to Culver City, and they thought it was wonderful to see so many other little people. Most of them had lived in areas where they were the only ones, so they were the exception. They were not very well accepted by society, and so it was wonderful to be with their own.”
Certainly, the normal urges of many of the assembled midgets emerged during the shooting of The Wizard Of Oz. We have to remember these were adult men and women, and they became bored after hours cooped up in their hotel. So often, they drowned their sorrows.
“They were drunks,” Judy Garland would recall later. “They got smashed every night, and the police used to scoop them up in butterfly nets.”
Cast members were astounded to hear they were holding ‘dwarf sex parties’ in the famous Culver Hotel. “They got into sex orgies at the hotel and we had to have police on every floor,” producer Mervyn Le Roy remembered afterwards.
Meanwhile, Bert Lahr, who played the Cowardly Lion, noted that “assistants were ordered to watch the midgets who brandished knives and conceived passions for normal-sized members of the cast”.
There were stories that the “little” women would proposition studio electricians, while one who called himself The Count was never sober. “Once, when he was due on set, he went missing. Then we heard a whining sound coming from the men’s room. He had got plastered during lunch, fallen in the toilet bowl and could not get out.”
Certainly, some of them seem to have resorted to boosting their earnings by pimping and whoring – and indeed begging. As many pointed out later, they were being paid far less than anyone else on the film – including Toto the dog. Many of them had vile tempers, too, so much so that one even tried to kill his wife.
Yet, Julie Lugo Cerra is not so sure that the rock star/Roman orgy scene is the true image. “No, I don’t think they trashed the hotel rooms. They were having a very good time and they celebrated a lot. They worked very hard,” she maintains.
She recalled one story about her father who owned a radio store at the time in Culver City. “He said they were all over the place. And they would pile them into cars, and they would be even under the dashboards because you could get so many in. So it – I’m sure it was a hysterical scene, I’m sure that they had a very good time, and I’m sure that most of them remembered it for the rest of their lives.”
“They got their star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame recently. And they love coming back to Culver City,” points out Ms. Lugo Cerra. “They were here in the ’90s for a reunion – they do this every once in a while. And there’s probably nobody who doesn’t know about the Munchkins, and there’s probably no one who doesn’t love them.”
The third entrance point is off of Tahoe gate off where Lake Hollywood Dr. meets up with Tahoe Drive. The entrance is the eastern most gate and the parking is limited to available spaces in the neighborhood. You can reach Tahoe gate by a few different ways that take you up Beachwood Canyon Drive. But the easiest way is to follow Lake Hollywood Drive past the North gate, continue around the lake for about 3/4 quarters of a mile and you will find the Tahoe gate. (pictured above)
You must be logged in to post a comment.