may
14th 2007
portage la prairie manitoba to thunder bay
ontario
yesterday was a long day. the day prior we were very tired
so we didn't drive
as much as usual. we made up for it today that's for sure. wowie what a tiring
one it was.
hello colby. this is colby.
so! we left manitoba today and drove into ontario. in calgary
dave said that it would take as long to get through ontario as it did to get
through
alberta, saskatchewan and manitoba and boy he wasn't kidding.
he also said they cut through large amounts of rock to make the roads
and there are large amoublahblahblahgood god i'm tired.
this is a picture i took when we were filming a scene when
i ran out of gas
i didn't really! TEE HEE! blah blah blah blah blah. pfft gaag plabgk.
bfiubwef wei fbwif fwiubwegiub ewfgibwg ? OH YRS??? GKWGEWR
here is the sign you see when you're going into ontario
NO SHIT REALLY JIM WOW LOLS!!!
this is a dead moose. you can see where someone ran over it's head.
i didn't do it i promise. someone else did.
here i am in a room painted like a fucking mental institution.
today blew. fuck shit piss whatever.
may
13th 2007
regina saskatchewan to portage la prairie
manitoba
today there was another headline about someone
hurting a dog which made
the front page of a newspaper. people in canada sure love their dogs. i can't
blame them!
dogs make great companions, i rarely see them upset and they are always saying
hi
enthusiastically in a dog fashion. jumping about. letting you know they are
there. it's quite nice.
it didn't feel like we drove alot today but
we did. we're in a town called
portage la prairie. we've grown fond of super 8 motels. they offer a free
breakfast
and have locations pretty much all over the place. this one had a waterslide.
the presence
of waterslides in motels has been great since we've gone further north. today
colby had
a chance to enjoy one. i failed to bring a bathing suit since i haven't really
owned one
since i was a teenager so i couldn't enjoy the waterslide. some little boy
enjoyed
checking out colby in her swimsuit. it was adorable.
here i am. colby drove some today. i wanted
to stop in manitoba to make the manitoba
pete footage authentic. man i'm tired. this is alot of work but i'm really
enjoying myself.
i just asked colby. she is enjoying herself as well.
this is what you see when you enter manitoba.
it's a giant thing in the shape of manitoba.
this is colby flashing you the "peace"
sign. she is saying "peace" with her hands.
we're very close to the manitoba/ontario border.
ontario appears to be very large and it looks
as if it may take 2 or 3 days to get through all of it. soon we get to meet
casey in ottawa and
hopefully stefan in toronto. then it's to the falls and home again home again.
i am drinking alot of coffee on this trip.
it's free at alot of the places we've been staying.
why on earth would you give a shit about me drinking coffee? i dunno.
we have a fair amount of shooting to do tonight
so i am going to say taa taa.
"taa taa"
may
12th 2007
calgary alberta to regina (pronounced like "vagina")
saskatchewan
today in the morning we left calgary. it was a bummer to have
to say goodbye to
dave josh and talia but shit happens. every time i think it'll be the last
time i see
dave or missed an opportunity to see dave..i get to see dave again. i was
told this morning
that calgary has 2 film festivals and i thought it would be cool to perhaps
fly back
next september if i could get in the festival for the film. what better place
to show a film
called "onward to calgary" than calgary? i dunno!
here is a shot of chinatown in calgary. about one road away
from
canada 1 east was a giant detour that the gps didn't really like.
we ended up in a parking lot turning around. this is 100 tops!
this is where bottoms who aren't having luck go.
and here we are on the beautiful trans canada 1 east. that car in the backround
is mine.
i kept saying to myself "i need a shot of that sign before i leave alberta"
and this was
near the end of alberta. i would have kicked myself if i didn't get this shot
cause i had it
in my head since i saw the sign. the actual shot i got doesn't have my car
in it, it's of the
landscape on the right and the sign in the far left. i was pleased.
this is gull lake. the film has been morphing about to take
new shapes as new things
pop up around the way. this was the working title of the film inside the film
"let's go to gull lake". i'm not certain if i'm using that angle
anymore. colby and i both
got excited because we didn't know what gull lake looked like. it's a nice
small town.
this is an outhouse. it's a hole in the ground. a funny scene
was shot here.
i do believe it will make the audience cringe. i cringed.
this is a prairie dog (?) that hung around the rest area.
there were a family
of them with a vast network of holes around and about and they would
all peek out at different times. if we were looking one way and turned around,
we would
notice another one checking out our bottoms. cute lil' things they were.
here is another shot of one. i got real good footage of one
back in the states
i left the camera pointing at it's hole for about five minutes, then it came
right
right up to the camera to check it out, and then i took the camera away quite
happy with the shot i just got. then some trucker came over and poured
water down it's hole and possibly killed it.
this is a seagull we saw at the same rest area. we gave him
some crispers
which are a canadian snack food cut like lil' "s" shapes and are
tasty.
we moved the car to move to another outhouse and the seagull followed us.
unfortunately for him, colby gave the remaining crispers to the prairie dogs.
sorry buddy.
and this is a shot of the sunset. i'm going to sleep now.
oh before i forget. i don't like it here in regina. not one
bit.
may
11th 2007
still in calgary
we awoke bright and early to shoot footage
at tubby dog this morning.
around 8 a.m. this is colby looking as radiant as she usually does.
this is david in costume at tubby dog. the
scene went very well
these are the hot dogs protesting hot dogs.
we got a few very cool shots.
colby and dave really made these lil' guys (and girl) come alive.
after the hot dog scene was done i left the
hot dogs in the care of dave to
do what he wishes with them. hopefully one will remain in tubby tog and the
spirit
of the film will live on there. the gap in the front of the trunk above is
all our
newfound space which i've already utilized. this will give me a feeling of
ease
when i park overnight in places i am unfamiliar with. i had so much stuff
that i either
had to bring it all indoors with me or cram it into the trunk of leave it
on the
back seat and hope for the best. now the back seat can remain free for our
basic bags and yeah.
this is josh. josh lives with dave. josh is
pretty rad.
he works at a bar bartending. in the day he makes really cool posters
for the club he works at. he is a hard worker. i've been looking forward to
meeting josh for years and i'm very happy i had the opportunity to do as such.
he was the creator of one of the funniest animations i've ever seen called
"barney happy penis"
head on over to newgrounds
and search for it.
a hott calgary headline. not as shocking as
"pregnant woman shot in leg two blocks from peace rally"
BUT PRETTY CLOSE.
may
10 th 2007
rosetown saskatchewan to calgary alberta
this is the view from the nice place we stayed last night. you look right
out front and whammo
there is this big..thing. i dunno what it is but it's big and a thing. the
mood is good today
for we know that it's mere hours before we reach our destination
and here it is. beautiful calgary alberta.
only took us six days to get here and boy it was
worth the trip. what a nice place! how pretty!
how very confusing and busy it was. so many
new streets to enjoy!
the sights the sounds. tall buildings! A NEW TREAT! NO FARMS!
here is my buddy dave. he is grating cheese.
he works at a place called tubby dog
which is located on 17th street in calgary. 17th street is where all the hip
calgary shit
goes down. hip things. good times.
this is colby making her "pretty" face. behind her you can see a
plethora of
tubby dog related things.
and i don't recall taking this shot but this was the setup for the scene last
night
we covered the windows with cardboard and made the place look very trashy.
they were tremendous sports i must say. very funny as well.
may
9th 2007
morris manitoba to rosetown saskatchewan
holy smokes! today was quite a long day. we
left morris around 9:30 this morning.
when i left i had no inkling of the silly happenings which stood before us...unflinchingly.
this is a streetsign. i'm guessing it was around brandon?
this is happy rock. he's going to be on screen for at least
ten seconds. when we drove
past happy rock i knew it was something i had to stop and shoot. i think the
people
are really going to enjoy happy rock. i know we enjoyed happy rock. there
is a sign
on happy rock which says "do not climb on happy rock". i didn't
get close enough to
happy rock to climb on happy rock but if i did get that close i probably wouldn't
have
climbed on happy rock out of respect for the people who put the "do not
climb on happy rock"
sign on the happy rock.
i don't know if you can see how cool this is from this picture
but this was the coolest view
i saw today. i was originally on the other side of this and didn't stop to
take the picture until
was here. it looked cooler from the other side. i do believe we'll be taking
the exact same
road on the way back to the states so i'll get a shot of it from the other
side then. there
were alot of things i wanted to stop and shoot which i'll be doing on the
way back.
this is the GPS i got a few days ago. without this GPS we
would have gotten so
megafucked this trip wouldn't have been fun anymore. this even has small lil'
dirt roads in it that you can turn around in if you make a mistake. i really
like this
little guy. and to think people had to use maps in the days of yesteryear.
i guess it's
spoiling me a little, this guiding mechanical voice. it even guided me through
the busy streets
of saskatoon.
in massachusetts there is a road called route 1 which you can catch out of
boston
and it bypasses a chunk of route 95. it runs through peabody and saugus and
a
few other places. this street is lined with shops and motels. many many of
them.
now the funnest part of route 1 is the speed limit, which is 55 miles per
hour. that mixed
with the amount of space you have to get into these shops and it's almost
a death trap.
there is a kelly's roast beef place which is off of route 1 and the last time
i went to it
i really thought i was going to get into an accident trying to get into the
parking lot.
this is what circle avenue in saskatoon reminded me of. jam packed with shops
and motels
into a tiny tiny space. coming from very rural areas into this kind of situation
proved
quite interesting. this was originally our stopping point for the day, and
it had been our
longest day of travel so far. unfortunately, all the motels were booked except
for
a few very expensive suites which didn't work with my budget. we kept driving.
we gained another hour somewhere. we were wondering why it
was 10 pm and the sun
hadn't set yet. it was quite curious. now the time is 11:24 and our bodies
are on eastern
time which would make it 1:24 am. we're very exausted. it's only about 4 hours
to calgary now
but dave doesn't know we're coming yet. i should probably call him but it's
too late.
oh well.
this is the beautiful saskatchewan sunset. how lovely.
and if i look to my right this is what i see right now. behind
me is a bed which i'll be in
in about 5 minutes. catch you later.
may 8th
2007
st. cloud minnesota to morris manitoba
hello. how are you today? i'm good. i'm good because i didn't
get turned away at the border. why would i get turned away at the border
you ask? i'll tell you at the end of this entry
here is a rest area in north dakota. it didn't take long to get through north
dakota
today. the gps pretty much just said NORTH NORTH NORTH so that's where
we went. i wasn't expecting to get dumped into manitoba, i was expecting to
end up in saskatchewan but shit happens i guess. i listen to the gps. i figure
it knows how to get me where i'm going the fastest. i hope.
this is moorhead north dakota. they have nice signs and interesting
water towers
here. we've passed alot of water towers...and land. colby and i got some great
shots of a crop duster/waterer(?) zooming about. when i got out of my car
and
started filming him he flew off. perhaps he didn't want me to get his methods
on tape.
it seemed like his methods involved flying very close over the highway and
scaring
the cars. i found this very amusing.
this is pembina north dakota. it's the last town in america
before you cross the border.
i didn't know this. there were parts of the film that i wanted to shoot in
america before
i crossed the border and the border certainly took me by surprise. i've thought
of
a clever way around it though so we could keep going while utilizing the hotel
stays for the film. so the film will have secrets in it. some of the "american"
hotels will
actually be "canadian" motels. TEE HEE MOVIE MAGIC DON'T TELL!
i don't know what this is or what it does.
and here is a picture of the canadian highway right over the
border.
everything in canada looks like you're looking at it through a wide-angle
lens.
oh yeah, the border thing. this is a picture of a form i had
to fill out.
i had a butterfly knife on me which i use for opening boxes at work.
butterfly knives are not allowed in canada. when the custom agent asked me
if i had any knives i remembered "oh yeah! my butterfly knife" so
i told him.
he told me that i needed to go inside so it could be taken
care of. i pulled over
my car and got out and went in. they took my knife from me and asked me a
bundle of questions. very polite people. then they made me go out and get
colby out of the car and asked us both a few questions. we talked to a few
different
guards. they all asked questions about the film i was making.
"oh it's a comedy about a mentally unstable poet who
has a tomato for a friend and
he's bringing him to alberta to meet a girl tomato"
i believe the guard said "that sounds pretty far out"
then i had an option. i was told i could either go back to
north dakota and
mail the knife back to myself or surrender it to them. i decided even though
it's
made it's way through 4 jobs (one in the music business and three in the print
business)
and opened thousands of caselots of cds and cases of paper, that it was time
for us
to part ways. i gave it to them. then we were on our way.
for one scene colbys character needs to show me a handgun
she carries for protection
and i was very tempted to buy a very realistic looking pellet gun in a k-mart
this morning
but i chose against it because i thought chances are it would cause alot of
trouble at the border.
i think it was the smart thing to do to hold off. i can always get one in
massachusetts and edit in
the footage later.
the mood is good. we're looking forward. i believe i'm about
800 miles from calgary right now
maybe even less. so in the next two days we'll be getting to know colby's
character and then
we'll be in calgary getting to know dave. i think you'll like dave if you
don't know of him already.
you know, dave teatro, creator of bananaphone.
also creator of the friend society website. you may have heard of the site
last year
when somebody decided it would be a good idea to post fake bomb threats
talking about certain sporting arenas all around the united states. good times.
i'm off to spend an hour watching television before i shoot
the footage i need tonight.
talk to you later.
may
7th 2007
harmony illinois to st. cloud minnesota
today was a pleasant day. it felt like we drove a little less
than we had the previous
two days but it was enjoyable. i don't think we did drive less though, i think
we drove about
500 miles. i think we've been doing 500 miles a day. we crossed a time zone
yesterday? and i can feel it.
it's like staying up an extra hour. i've been so tempted to say "i'll
just film that tomorrow" but i haven't.
it's my own fault for writing such a confusing script. i hope you'll find
the final product an enjoyable watch.
i haven't the foggiest idea where this photograph was taken.
when we're driving i say
"colby, could you get a shot of that please" and she gets a shot
of it. i really appreciate
having her here. she's working as hard as i am and it's a delight.
we're about halfway through the second tape now. so we've
got 70 minutes of footage
so far and it's the end of the third day. we're shooting another scene tonight.
tomorrow
the meat of the film happens. it gets meaty. we meet colbys character. up
until now the
dialogue between people and puppets hasn't been all that much. it's there,
but since
the first three days were mostly driving it's going to be edited up the whazoo
to make
sure the audience isn't watching someone driving. there is a certain movie
by a certain
director which is almost ALL driving, and when i first thought of this film
over a year
and a half ago, i promised myself that i wouldn't repeat his mistake.
the purpose of this picture is to entertain, not to make people feel like
they are
in the car with me 9 hours a day. that would make a shitty movie.
what i'm holding is a GPS system, which has since proven to
be worth it's weight in gold.
wondering if we were on the right track and stressing over turns was something
i didn't
want to think about anymore. i saw one on sale at a off highway shop for $240.00
and thought
"nahh, that's too much, i'll use maps". then the next one i stopped
at i noticed that the price
was $199.
"THE PRICE IS RIGHT"
i got that bad larry. i think it'll especially be helpful when i reach cities.
i'll be trying to find
places in calgary, ottawa and toronto which are all foreign to me. this also
inspired a
fun scene which i've lovingly entitled "TOO MUCH MAPS". with any
luck people
will find this amusing. with any luck people will find the film amusing. good
golly!
i am a very tired camper right now. very tired.
here is a picture of colby and i at a "scenic viewpoint"
rest stop in wisconsin.
we wanted to stop and eat something with the cheese we kept seeing advertised
"CHEESE"
that's what the big signs said. but we kept driving and hit
minnesota before we knew it.
that gosh darn GPS system thingy! another thing i'm keen on is how it tells
you
that you'll be taking a right turn...in 300 miles, and it keeps reminding
you. i like this.
so that empty chair is where i'm typing this from tonight
except it's not empty right now
because i'm sitting in it. tonight is the last time i need to bring jeremiah
into a hotel room
with me and it's pretty good because it's embarassing to carry him into places.
i shouldn't
be embarassed but it's like...i'm carrying a tripod and all this camera equipment
and this
child sized elephant doll and colby is with me and i wonder if the receptionists
think i'm
filming some kind of weird porno in their rooms. i don't think i would be
so bothered if
they just thought i was filming regular porno in their rooms. i'm sure alot
stranger things
happen in these motel rooms.
i'm going to go shoot the scene i need to shoot now and go
to sleep.
catch you tomorrow from near the border.
may
6th 2007
buffalo new york to harmony illinois
pleasant driving today. covered alot of area.
i believe over 550 miles. it went well.
we left buffalo around 10 am this morning and drove through pennsylvania briefly
here is colby. good morning colby.
this picture was somewhere in ohio i think because i think
youngstown
is in ohio. when i was about 21 years old i worked at a music store and the
record
label reps brought a boy band called "youngstown" through to introduce
them to the retailers
about 8 months later from that appearance, they were giving away free youngstown
cds with disposable cameras. you win some you lose some i guess.
i don't know where this was taken. it looks like most of the
things we saw today.
houses, farms, more houses, more farms.
this is a rest stop. finding tasty food is difficult on the
highway. we have been holding off
on eating real meals in the rest areas opting to save our appetites for food
cooked in more
than 30 seconds under a lamp.
i do believe if memory serves that this picture was taken in chicago illinois.
colby
wanted to stop here and eat but we were here during some outrageous traffic
and getting lost in a city i know nothing about wasn't something i wanted
to do
at the time. i felt badly about not stopping but i really wanted to get far
away
from chicago.
if you've driven around chicago recently you may have noted
the nutty road work
they are doing. the locals seem to know all about this road work and have
adapted
their 60 mph driving habits around the work, where out-of-towners like myself
crap our pants trying to like...not die on their roads. we are not in chicago
anymore.
i think this building is either in chicago or right outside
of it. nice building isn't it.
this appeared to be the tallest building in chicago. it was
nice to see it. it was tall.
and this is where we ate. forgive me if i'm wrong but i think
it was called
"the harmony roadhouse...something". i asked a waitress if she would
appear
in a very brief scene and she agreed. it was quite kind of her.
that's it for now. we are now in a super 8 motel in harmony
illinois. it's around 9:42pm. we have 2 scenes to shoot tonight.
i am going to go do that now. love.
may
5th 2007
boston massachusetts to buffalo new york
i'm writing this from a delightful establishment called 'the
hospitality inn'
a nice little place. comfortable. affordable. minimally creepy.
colby and i left massachusetts today around 12:30 and we didn't
make bad time
here is a picture of colby when we were stopped at a gas station
somewhere
here is a picture of jeremiah in the back seat. originally
jeremiah wasn't a huge part
of the film, but looking back at that spooky half elephant half boy face i've
grown a bit
attached to him and decided to make him part of the whole film. so he and
timmy will
be buddies. it'll be cute. SO CUTE YOU'LL BARF
this is me wearing my styling driving helmet. i just had a
scare not too long ago when
i thought i failed to bring the stickers i needed for my helmet. i did bring
them though and
tonight it was treated to a nice new sticker. new york.
somewhere around lee,massachusetts i think.
we saw a sign on the side of the road advertising the normal rockwell museum
and it seemed like something that would fit nicely in the film. upon trying
to find this museum though
we had no luck. we did however find a giant beaver and i pulled over to take
a few seconds of footage of it. it's a giant beaver. beaver.
this is my toll ticket for the new york thruway or whatever it's called.
if you want to drive the whole distance it'll cost you around $12.50.
driving the whole mass pike will cost you under $4.00. it's all good though
it was a nice drive
chock full of farms. who doesn't like farms? i know i like them. alot.
this is jeremiah using the facilities.
and here are the boys enjoying a little television while i
type this up.
that's it for today, talk to you tomorrow.
