Day 5: I leave Universal in smokey ruins

I absolutely had to leave today, Sunday. My sister Leslie and her family made plans to drive from upper Maryland down to my folks in Virginia (a two hour drive) this coming weekend. I'm supposed to join them there on Friday night, 5 days hence, covering about 3000 miles.

I hadn't shopped for food and the likelihood of farmer's markets dotting I-40 was remote at best. Heading down to the car, an overcast sky suggested a pleasant marine layer break from days of sunshine but the air was acrid with burnt plastic and rubber. Typical LA, I snorted. Driving up Laurel Canyon, strategizing an assault on Trader Joes, I crossed Riverside and happened to notice the two block wide column of twisting gray and white smoke venting upwards, a couple of miles away. (Not that I took this picture, let alone was even up at 4:30 am, but what an impressively destructive fire).

The smell and the smoke of copies of "Dracula (1931)", "Around the Equator in Roller Skates (1932)", newsreels from 1945 and "The Deer Hunter (1978)" not to mention the Marvellettes' recording of "Please Mr. Postman" drifted overhead while I bought pork chops, steakburgers, olive oil, eggs, breakfast cereal and kefir, packages of lettuce and arugala, dog food to last 10 days, soap, two bottles of Spanish wine, cheese (Port Salut and a wedge of Asiago), and salami.

Day 4: In which I discover a suitable meta context

I reach a deal with my producer that I will work one more day - today - and then I have to beat it, even though there is a lot of turmoil going on. The commercial we shot keeps coming out to be any between $40k and $55k over budget, based on $106k estimated. So I try one more time to provide him with a breakdown of actual costs that he can take to the mucky-mucks and plead for mercy. As far as I'm concerned, it's no one's fault except the client's whose neurotic changes of mind kept the Art Department from settling on set designs until the day of shooting.

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But back to my so-called vacation.

I want to elaborate on something I mentioned the other day. There was more going on when I stopped at the Fruit Barn in Gilroy than a taste for apricots. A couple of days before I left, when I was still in production and realizing I didn't know when I'd able to go shopping for the trip, I started fantasizing about driving across the country and stocking up on food bought only at farmer's markets. I could use them as little oases of resources, fresh, organic and local. I could be a food tourist, sampling the tomatoes grown in say, Newburg NY or the zucchini in Louisville KY and never have to step foot in a Safeway or Food Lion. I still think it's doable, and maybe even feasible.

The reason I mention this is because I think I've found not only the title for this blog, but also its theme. Spending any time with my brother and brother-in-law means having to explore every possibility of armageddon. Or at least the collapse of civilization. And one of their favorite indicators of cataclysm is peak oil.

Day 3: Still in LA

More work to be done. Contrary to those pastoral ads for banks or retirement funds, I can't imagine reconciling and actualizing costs of this project sitting at a campsite, even if it is by a lake with the sun going down.

What a rich gimmick: The poor schlemiel salaryman sitting at an airport or in a waiting room pages through Forbes with a hundred worries on his or her mind, perhaps even wishing he was somewhere elese, comes across an ad that shows a handsome guy sitting on an adirondack chair at the lapping foot of a lake surrounded by pine trees and solitude, his face lit by the cool window to the world of his laptop.

See, the beleaguered salaryman dreams, he's on vacation and getting work done. Or at least, he's out on his own, out of the office, no one telling him what to do, secreted by nature, where all things are at peace. And glad of it. Getting work done. That's all I really want.

I'm thinking about these ads because I am that poor schlemiel, caught between wanting actually being on vacation and yet still working, but without the pretty countryside all around me. And I'm here to tell you that if I were having to double check fringe costs on overtime labor to the sound of baying wolves or keeping an eye on the rustling of nearby bushes, I should be fired.

Meantime, my vacati0n goes on without me while I set up shop 0n Andrew and Damon's kitchen table, working off a little Office Depot handheld calculator. Where I daydream about getting away from it all some day, maybe going on a long cross country drive, king of the road.

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Also, don't let the chattiness here fool you. I'm plenty sick. Came down with a rotten stomach flu overnight. It's the complete package: numerous trips to the powder room, sulfurous stomach, fever, dull eyes. Andrew and Damon continue to feed me and let me take over their kitchen. If it weren't so hot, they'd be wearing Florence Nightingale capes and hats. The Saints of Agnostica.

Day 2: In which I learn how easy it is to stay put

The work I have to do to finish the job I left behind back home now seems like a two day commitment. Which is just as well, because I'm going to spend a lot of money on this trip. I know it.

I plan on going shopping, hunter-gatherer style, tomorrow, or maybe the next day, early. Before I leave. Get it? Early? Har!

Because there's nothing going on except number crunching and budget wrestling, here are two photos of my hosts, my brother Andrew and his would be bride Damon. They aren't going with me and I suspect will factor in this chronicle for, well, just another day or so. But you should get to know them any way, as they may make appearances in wavvy flashbacks or asides sotto voce.

I'm afraid Damon will have to put up with a blurry photo. It's still a new camera. As a counterbalance, here's his website: http://www.damonkirsche.com

Day 1: In which I discover how easy it is to leave

First I was going to leave on a Sunday. Then the commercial project I had taken at the last minute suddenly picked up speed, and going hard into the weekend. The train had no conductor and none of the passengers - clients, agency, and production - were screaming. Instead they were holding up their hands saying "Wheee!" I made my way to the back of the train and made some phone calls to loved ones.

I decide Wednesday is better to leave and be absent from SF for a whole month, driving across the country one way, touching the Atlantic Ocean and then driving back another way. But for reasons that escape even me, I don't really know where I'm going. Over the last few weeks, whenever I thought about making this trip, the lights would go out whenever I said, "I really should figure out how I'm going to do this."

Generally, the trip will be ovular in shape. But that's about it for planning. Like a bead of mercury. I'll just watch how it slips across the map.