The story of how I almost went under the bridge:

Shortly after the 1989 SF earthquake, I had 4 (and sometimes) 5 roommates in a Westlake Village 2 bedroom, just over the SF border into Daly City.  One of my roommates, Francis, had a family friend w/ a 36" yacht they docked across the bay at the Oakland waterfront docks.  Francis took care of the boat for them, kept it cleanly, waxed it, kept the supplies stocked and then often slept on it when he understandably got tired of sleeping in a living room w/ 3 or 4 other dudes.  We all planned a Saturday, sailing w/ him to Angel Island and around Alcatraz and then out to the Golden Gate Bridge and maybe beyond.  For whatever reason, none of our other roommates could actually go when it came to the day so just Francis and I went.  I had been sailing maybe 7-10 times with our across the street neighbor Stan so I knew the basics as a 'first mate' but would never call myself a sailor.  We headed out, pointed towards Alcatraz on a bright, windy morning thinking 'wow, these are the things rich people can do whenever they want' as I listened to Francis call out orders of which side to shift to and which ropes to let out or draw in.  Easy peasy.

It took forever to tack (zigzag) against the wind blowing at us and by lunchtime we were exhausted and decided to pull in to Angel Island to eat quickly (you need a day pass to dock for more than 15 minutes)   Sailboats don't exactly have brakes and the winds weren't helpful so we approached the docks at what was probably full on sprinting speed, the dockmaster yelling WOAH WOAH WOAH at us.  We slid up the dock higher than I thought possible, full eye contact with a horrified dockmaster and then slid back, docked, and then justifiably got yelled at by the dockmaster for a full 5 minutes.

Lunch eaten, back onboard, we headed for the GG bridge and ocean beyond.  This is where I called my parents from Francis' huuuuge brick sized cellular telephone.  The first one I think I had used at that point and definitely the first call I ever made from a vessel on water.

The winds were now stronger, the choppy waves a good 5" high as we did a loop around Alcatraz.  Ok.  On to the bridge.  The winds now even stronger, the waves 6-8", Francis and I looking at each other like "damn, this isn't as fun as the first part".  Halfway to the bridge, everything became more intense.  Avoiding oncoming boats, riding up and down big swells, fighting with ropes that pull fast when the wind hits the main sail, trying to hear Francis' directions above the wind. The sky seemed darker now and the ocean felt much deeper and more real.  We headed at a large wave trying to hit it head on, to ride high over it.  Instead, the bow of the boat disappeared beneath the wave and so did Francis.  My jaw dropped, sitting at the back on the boat, one hand on the rudder, another on the sail lines.  The boat came through the wave, Francis flopped around at midship, trying to get onto his feet when the bow disappeared again beneath another wave, with Francis completely engulfed again.  He came back up, grabbed for whatever lines or railings he could reach and then ... disappeared again beneath a third wave.  Time slowed down and I then had about 200 individual thoughts.  Top three: 1. oh my god, my friend is dead or will be once I see him float away behind me.  2. I am never going to be able to sail this thing back.  3. that is, if the boat doesn't fill with water or capsize first.   Thank all powers that be, he rose through the water, the wave washing half off the boat, half into the cabin below and he sprinted back towards the cabin, shivering and said "sail us back towards Oakland, i have to change clothes"  (avg temp of SF bay 45°-55°).
As soon as I did and the sails caught wind, fully at our back, we outraced any waves that had been slamming into us previously. More than halfway back to Oakland, Francis came back up from the cabin and we recounted our versions of horror and laughed where we could and I think, both probably cried a little inside from fear and joy.

We went from memorable-fun-day to potential-tragedy-to-never-forget to .. ordeal-averted-memory to recount in a far too long email.   : )  post.

I used to what? what's "writing"? I'm not following you.

Some might say that I used to write a lot. Some might not call it writing but something else wherein I typed stuff and you read it. Some (not you) forgot I existed and only now can name that empty, shallow absence in your life that has surely dogged your every waking moment.

It's ok. I'm here. Put your little iHead on my E-shoulder and I will virtually warble the dulcet toned tales of ribaldry that is my life. Our life. Dayani-East, Version 2.5

Why no writing in so long? Oh sure, we have an infant in the house. That's the obvious culprit. Or how about the fact that Facebook is the new black of emails-to-friends-or-family? Or, there's just not enough time in the day with job hunting and taking care of Nadia. Or, writer's block. Or, and this is my personal favorite, the closer I got to committing to being a writer, the less I wanted to do it as that would mean I might succeed in something. The most likely reason, as usual is, I let too many things that I want to write about build up and I then procrastinate writing at all, until it's months and months later. I liken it to, instead of letting an ice breaker clear a sea passage, just waiting for summer to realize your route is passable again and that you haven't seen your friends across the waters in oh such a long time.

Well what's new, then? Let's get that out of the way:

**Esra and I celebrated our two year anniversary. Kudos to Esra for tolerating my palpable awesomeness (also 'pulpable' awesomeness). I am the overwhelming electrical storm that tickles your brain and I humbly apologize for how difficult it must be to endure such joy.

**Nadia celebrated 9 months in / 9 months out. She is beyond incredible.. more on her later.

**I went from having no job interviews in 3 months to having 3 in consecutive days. Sadly, none have worked out unless they are in ridiculously long interview processes and I will hear from them sometime in the next 24 months.

**This last Friday I was offered a temp job with a salary that wouldn't even pay our rent (I'm negotiating with them but since this is an employers market, chances are they'll find someone with a Masters degree to do the job for half our rent). Remember when you had faith in the world to right itself? Sigh. Hey, nihilism ain't just a river in Egypt! (thank you, thank you.. I'll be performing at Caroline's all week).

**Esra rehearsed for a month (while I watched Nadia) for an amazing play she just was in this last Friday. Oh my lord, it was soooo damn good! The biggest gig she's been in & I'll go out on unsupported limbs to say it was probably the funniest and sexiest (OOooooEEEeeeeOOoh!)

**The stupid NY summer with it's stupid heat has gone the-stupid-F away. I am pretty sure I was not the only person on the internet to comment on the stupidity of our stupid weather.

**I made shredded cuban pork and a pot roast and chinese boneless spare ribs. Hey, big cuts of meat? You hearin' me?? I AM NOT SCARED OF MAKING YOU anymore. Cakes? You're next.

**Football season has started.

**Repeat: Football season has started. Aside from yesterday's depressing Raider loss, I have an unquenchable optimism that I will slowly and completely drive myself insane this season using only the soul crushing power of anxiety and self-loathing.

**Esra has been keeping up a blog on Nadia .. it can be found at: http://notesonnadia.blogspot.com/

**As always, pictures of Nadia can be found at: http://Nadia.Dayani.com

**And all the latest videos can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/esrajudith

Ok, that's all for now or I'll never actually hit "Publish" on this ...

testing out some web things ...

like .. google docs for my resume.

if you're looking for pics or videos of Nadia, Esra or me... everything important in the world can be found at:

pictures - http://Nadia.Dayani.com
videos - http://www.youtube.com/EsraJudith

Kory John Dayani - resume

KORY DAYANI

397 Douglass St # 2
Brooklyn NY 11217

212 . 842 . 9100

KoryDayani@gmail.com

 

 

ART / MEDIA ARCHIVES / OFFICE EXPERIENCE:

       

Phillips De Pury & Co., Gallery and Auction House – New York, NY

[current]  Art Handler

·     Active in all phases of new exhibit unpacking, installation, strike, repacking and mailing exhibit materials.

·     Hang paintings and photographic works, handle and set sculptures and design works, assist with design layout.

·     Warehouse storage maintenance using Voxme software resource and catalogue photography assistance.

·     As needed: light carpentry, electrical, lighting, wall and floor layout, painting, mounting.

 

Handmade Frames, Inc – Brooklyn, NY

[current]  Art Transporter / Art Handler

·     Art transport driving of 14’ and 20’ cube trucks in the Tri-State area and beyond.

·     Active in all phases of artwork unpacking, framing work, repacking and mailing.

·     Matte, mount, frame and hang paintings and photographic works in client homes, galleries and museums.

 

Rubin Museum of Art – New York, NY

[current]  Art Handler / contractor

·     Active in all phases of new exhibit installation and de-installation, using the ArtBase software resource.

·     Hang paintings and artworks, handled and set sculptures and design works, assisted with design layout.

·     As needed: light carpentry, electrical, lighting, wall and floor layout, painting, mounting.

·     Personally reupholstered and reinforced 140 theater chairs used for all theater events, talks, performances.

 

San Diego Balboa Park Museum of Photographic Art - San Diego, CA

Exhibit Installation Technician

·     Assisted with all phases of new exhibit unpacking, installation, strike, repacking and mailing exhibit materials.

·     Studied artist profiles and answered visitor questions regarding the works on hand.

·     Assisted with front desk duties, answering phones and questions from public, mailing list maintenance.

     

San Francisco State University Library, Archives / Special Collections - San Francisco, CA

Television News, Film and Video Archivist / Librarian

·       Mentored under head archivist in maintenance and cataloguing of SFSU's extensive archival media library.

·       Transcribed their donated PBS and CBS news footage for the period of 1968-80.

·       Wrote abstracts of news footage to be used in a national database, searchable via the Library of Congress.

·       Created an on-file resource guide of all middle-East related topics in the collection for students and researchers.

       

Video Monitoring Services - San Francisco, CA

Television News Researcher / Transcriber

·     Researched and transcribed and/or wrote abstracts for news stories of interest to Fortune 500 clients.

·     Assisted in library archiving, video dubbing and closed captioning.

       

Fast Forward - San Francisco, CA

Tape Handler / Quality Control Specialist

·     Ensured commercial video post-production work orders were processed accurately and quickly.

·     Acted as liaison with sales, control room, archive library, and shipping departments.

·     Assisted with labeling, library archiving, video dubbing and closed captioning.

       

Mediatel / Capataris - San Francisco, CA

Network Service Consultant

·     Processed, logged and archived incoming work orders for later retrieval.

·     Developed and maintained archival databases via MS Access and Excel.

·       Designed and distributed graphics oriented flyers for Countrywide Home Loans.

KORY DAYANI

397 Douglass St # 2
Brooklyn NY 11217

212 . 842 . 9100

KoryDayani@Gmail.com

 

 

MEDIA PRODUCTION EXPERIENCE:    ART DEPARTMENT - June 2006 – Present

VARIOUS CONTRACTOR:  Rubin Museum of Art: chair reupholstery: reupholstered all chairs used by Rubin Museum for theater events, talks, performances

       

SET DRESSER:  Interesting Monster promotional event: H&M clothing line launch party / Grace Jones concert :: Transistor Films commercials: Giant Eagle Supermarkets :: Sonora Films TV pilot: 'Men-U' :: Interesting Monster promotional event: Michael Jordan clothing line season launch :: Interesting Monster photo shoot: Harper Collins, book cover :: Humble TV commercials: Honey Bunches of Oats

       

ART DEPARTMENT PRODUCTION ASSISTANT:  Crooked River commercials: Cablevision  ::  Mechanikal commercials: CNN “Zapp” News Application  :: Karma commercials: Maybelline  :: ABC TV series: Fringe :: MJZ commercials: Dial Soap, cleaning products :: Universal City Studios Feature Film: Untitled Nancy Meyers Project :: Anisa Productions TV series: America's Next Top Model :: Two Cities Productions TV series: Stylista - with Tyra Banks ::  Take It Over  TV series: Legally Blonde :: New York Production Services (NYPS) print ad: Macy's President's Day sale :: N.Y.P.S. commercials: David's Bridal :: N.Y.P.S. commercials: Macy's Christmas :: Interesting Monster: stage reading: Now and Then, Cate Blanchett led staged reading at the Guggenheim Museum :: N.Y.P.S. commercials: Macy's Christmas :: N.Y.P.S. commercials: Macy's thanksgiving :: N.Y.P.S. commercials: Weight Watchers ::  N.Y.P.S. commercials: Macy's One Day Sale :: Smuggler Films - commercials: Verizon broadband :: Left/Right Productions TV pilot: Court TV: Young and Reckless

       

OTHER PRODUCTION POSITIONS: 

Universal City Studios Feature Film: Untitled Nancy Meyers Project (Producer's Assistant) ::  Martha Stewart TV series: Everyday Food: Baking :: (Culinary Production Assistant / Assistant Food Buyer) ::  N.Y.P.S. commercials: Macy's thanksgiving :: (Shopper / Art Dept Production Assistant) :: Day O Productions commercials: Honda :: (Production Assistant) :: N.Y.P.S. commercials: Macy's One Day Sale :: (Shopper / Art Dept Production Assistant) ::  Project East/West A Feature Film: Achchamundu! Achchamundu! :: (On Set Dresser / Buyer)

TELECOM WORK EXPERIENCE:

       
IPC Network Services  - New York, NY  ::  August 2004 - June 2007

Network Operations and Billing Consultant

Managed incoming work flow, quality control and assignment of work orders to appropriate members of technical and provisioning teams. Integrated assistance and reporting for billing team, provisioning, network design and maintenance.

       

MCI-Worldcom  - San Francisco, CA and New York, NY  ::  November 1997 - June 2004
Implementation Consultant / Associate Project Manager

Instrumental member of the MCI account support team for Wells Fargo Bank, MCI's second largest billing client. Created and managed an MS Access database tracking circuit conversion projects and day-to-day circuit order status. Managed and assigned incoming work orders to appropriate members of the tech team. Placed, coordinated, and scheduled the activation of circuit orders for ATMs, banks, data centers, branches, etc.

 

EDUCATION

College: San Francisco State University // American Studies, Documentary Film emphasis

Typing Speed: 85 WPM

Computer Skills: fully versed in Mac and Windows-OS; highly proficient with all Microsoft Office (including MS Access, Excel, Word, Outlook, Acrobat, PowerPoint, etc.), familiarity with Avid Studio Pro, FinalCut Pro, Quicktime Pro, Photoshop, light HTML

damn inventors, always inventing bad things

From the hallway wall of the elementary school where I play Sunday volleyball.. poems for Haiti:

Videos / Songs Of The Month - January'10

Starting a new feature...

open the videos in a new window, watch 'em, or just listen while you lose yourself in the whimsical wonderfulness that is reading my Journal entries.

I'm going to post the video and a link to any interesting info about the song, the band or the video itself. Each of these songs have been stuck in my head for no less than 268 hours each (give or take 260 hours) so ... treat these like I just said "Oh my lorrrrd, check out this song/video, etc":

You will be tested. And punished. (regardless of how you do on the test. I know. it's not fair)

"Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth With Money in My Hand" - Primitive Radio Gods.

MIA - Paper Planes

Tough Alliance - Holiday

Little Miss Princess aka Pretty Chicken aka Nadia Perihan Dayani

Months and months have passed since I last wrote .. (6, for exact exactness)

And me with the most and best writing material there is!

If you've been following this journal, you know that's when I write least. But here I am and here you are and with my fingers now moving and nothing at all to stop us from the pleasure that is my writing.

Nadia. Oh dear, sweet bundle of life-change.

Where to start?

Hmm. Well, where did I end? St Maarten: ay yes.

Esra. My dear, sweet bundle of pregnant, waddling uncomfortableness. She glowed. Her growing glowing, portable nursery room for one. Belly and feet growing along with the glow. I learned to walk slow (and then slower, and then slower still) and she learned to be frustrated by my inability to walk slower. We waited and dreamt and imagined first-parent dreams about a boy or girl who'd reveal to us what life would soon be like. A family of three. Wow. So many "wow"'s, actually. Pre and Post pregnancy.

We took a six week birthing class.. and then proceeded to forget all of it, in the moment, in the hospital. We (she) labored near home, not knowing if it was 'soon-to-be-active-labor' or the beginning of a potential two weeks of laborious contractions prior to birth. Esra, with mild contractions, and her parents did laundry and ran errands while I worked the art handler job. When I got home, contractions were intensifying, the timing and strength building, trying to match the textbook count of 5-1-1 (5 minutes apart, 1 minute long for at least 1 hour) At 11, I began to see the "ok, it's time" face. At 11:30 we were in her dad's car, bound for St Luke's Roosevelt in Manhattan. Admission, triage, throwing up.. uncomfortableness, heart monitors, beeping, squeaking, sounds from a floor full of new lives manifesting.

Labor, pushing, grunting, squeaking.. everything you'd expect on that front. Of course, it was all new and hyper real to us, in the moment, but I'll spare you the minute to minute details of the birthing room except to say that Esra was a champion mother living the most maternal event a mother can experience and humbleness aside, I've been told (but still love hearing) how I was the perfect birth partner, always present and reassuring, snapping into my nature mandated role of nurturer to wife and baby alike.

At 5:21am on December 1st, 2009 .. baby Nadia Perihan Dayani was given those few last pushes that brought her head, then seemingly forever later, shoulders out, then zip... all of her, out and whisked away for a tune-up and 3-point inspection (it's possible they don't use automotive terms in the delivery room, I'm not remembering that part too clearly right now). As I stood, hovering over the newest and best living creature in the universe (objectively speaking), I saw myself, Esra and our branching family trees of faces and expressions in our little lady. She held my pinkie finger, I stared wide-eyed at the tiniest toes and fingers and nails, little eyelashes and elbows, nostrils, earlobes.

Then the placenta followed. If you've ever seen a live birth and what follows (not the TV version, even with the gunky goo that they might show covering a newborn) you'll most likely know that the placenta is simultaneously amazingly human and shockingly alien. It's something that cant (or shouldn't) be described so I'll just say that I'm honored to have joined the club of those who've seen it and for you to enjoy it when it's your turn.

Once Esra and Nadia were cleaned up and given some time to meet, formally, we were wheeled into the recovery room wing and from there, we stared more, and marveled more, and possibly because we'd been awake for 20+ hours at that point, we sat there stunned, lucid dreaming the most wonderful awake-dream possible for humans.

Two more nights in the hospital for mom and baby and a host of friends and family that came to visit. We received about a hundred well wishes by email, phone, US mail and in person and the feeling that gave us filled up our "We Our Loved" reserves more than I'd ever experienced. All the gifts and cards and such weren't necessary of course, but please know they were soo very much appreciated.

And here we are, 35 days later. A month+ of life-changing joy and fun and (some) frustration, (some) sleeplessness, (some) worry about any and everything, but mostly ... just pure happiness and delight at having helped bring little miss princess pretty chicken (my name for her right now) nadia perihan dayani into the world. We've gone from absolutely no routine, following the whims and wishes of the newest Dayani to slowly developing some .. patterns, let's say.. for feeding, pooping, sleeping and for her current favorite pastime: staring at dark furniture against white background walls. Her face is filling out and now every day, she looks like a slightly different, beautiful, beautiful person. Despite the East Coast cold, we bundle up and take walks, stroll with strollers, hang out and look very interestedly at stuff. So many things are so very fascinating, it seems. It puts 40+ years of looking-at-stuff in perspective when your daughter can lay and stare at a ceiling fan for 20 minutes. I promise, we wont become those parents that live their lives through their kids but right now, it's the most interesting and worthwhile perspective in the universe.

As always (going forward) .. all new Nadia goodness can be found at http://Nadia.Dayani.com

TiDbItS all up in your grill

Take a look at one of these and I promise you'll go look at the rest of 'em.

If there's any justice (or intelligence) in future urban planning, this is it.

100 Free (ie. me) things to do in NYC.

R.I.P. Jim Carroll .. the first poet I ever saw perform live.

The effort put into making this + "Fur Elise"-greatness = you watching this.

50 things being killed by the internet. a Spot On critique.

A similar feel to the first link above, somehow "ghost-ier".

"No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." Edward Abbey (1927 - 1989)

Bits of Tid, the Next Generation

Esra and I went to Stone Barns yesterday to see a kids play with two couples w/ kids, friends of Esra's.  The place was the Rockefeller's farm at one point, donated to .. well, sustainable co-op farm peoples. it supplies the restaurant Blue Hill in the city where the pres. did his little date night thing.  The farm & it's buildings, land, animals, everything .. is freakin beauuutiful.   If you have kids, if you dont have kids, if you might have kids ... Go.

On Friday, we went to Central Park's Summerstage to see Istanbulive.. a turkish music (and food, and drink, ..and advertising) festival.  Good times.  Turkish people are just so damn beautiful, per capita.  Especially my favorite half-Turkish pregnant lady.

if you're ..36 to 40 or so, this is why we're the luckiest, awesomest, sexiest generation since the one that saw the moon landing (?)

NPR is doing a call-in thing with unemployed people telling their unemployment stories.  Listening to it is like having your family eaten by a brown bear and then only ever talking to people who'd had their families eaten by black bears.  it's NOT THE SAME, people!!

I cant decide between the firetruck and the streetsweeper.

Houseboats in New York.  you may buy me one at any time.

You may also buy me this and take photos of me riding it and then make fun of said photos.

as I am probably the finest the only jaw harpist that you know, here's some damn fine jaw harping.

98% of babies are manic depressive

if you can honestly say you DONT want one of these, you are still a liar.  I'll get you one anyway.

St Maarten also-should-mentions

beach dogs - are everywhere.  They belong to people but they hang out on the beach all day.  Our hotel had a hotel-dog, Stripe, pictured in the slideshow.  There were usually around four dogs within sight at all times.  All happy, friendly, tongue wagging kings of pure sloth and play: Wake up.  Eat some food (granted, dog food), Sniff the beach a bit.  Get too hot.  Jump in the ocean.  Shake off.  Sniff around some more.  Play with dog friends.  Chase dog friends off your territory. Go find a beach chair.  Dig a shallow, cool pit underneath it to lie in.  Nap ... Repeat.

dune buggies - we saw this car on our second to last day or I would have raced our rental car back to the lot and rented this in a HEARTBEAT.  Oh my dune buggy goodness.  Cant you picture me in this?  I mean, Really!!?!?!!

lizzards - are everywhere also.  My theory is they turn into beach dogs later in life.  My theory has not met with popular approval amongst the scientific community.

pregnant ladies - are everywhere also, also.  Is there a connection with beach dogs and lizzards?  Scientists may never know.

robbie's lottery - define's the term "are everywhere".  You know when you hear something like "what's with all the Dunkin Donut's in Boston??" and then you start noticing all the Dunkin Donuts and then you start thinking "WTF?  what IS with all the Dunkin' Donuts??!" and then you keep seeing them.  And then you start getting angry at Dunkin Donuts.  And then you get scared.   Wait, what was I talking about?  Oh yeah, Robbie's lottery.  It's like the Dunkin' Donuts of St Maarten.  Except they replace your income with false hope and despair.  Definitely less calories, though.

Fireman Rich - Our next-hotel-door-neighbor was a retired Manhattan fireman, ..forcibly retired by his union due to 9/11 related health issues.  Suffice to say, part of what we talked about was that day and it's after effects.  Heavy stuff, obviously, but intensely interesting, heartfelt, jaw dropping stories.  He'd been there on a neighboring island scuba diving where he dove.. with a head cold.  the pressure in his sinuses didnt equalize & he blew out an ear. [ouch?] He said he'd be recovering in weeks but that the Dr.'s told him he couldnt dive for a full year.  [ouch?]  Did I mention that he'd had a liver transplant?  And in his retirement had built his own house from scratch?  Yeah.. an amazing guy to say the least.  Oh and when he asked where we lived & i told him he said "Ah, ya.  I've got a friend who lives over there. Steve Buscemi" - (whom I'd seen on the street for the 4th time in my 6 years in NY, not 2 days before meeting Fireman Rich.  (They'd both been fireman in Engine 55 w/ him prior to Steve's acting career))

Reading World War Z while on vacation - highly recommended.  Although,.. I kept expecting zombies to walk out of the ocean & all I had around me to kill them with were coconuts and beach chairs.

St Maarten babymoon

With a renewed dedication to writing, I brought my laptop on vacation to St. Maarten.   Five days later, .. I begin my writing.  On the plane.  Heading back to New York.

   "St. Maarten?" you say.  Yes (I answer).  The mother of our previously mentioned soon-to-be offspring did request such beach-i-ness.  And request.  and hint.  and beg.  and finally, in no uncertain terms, demand (albeit, not so demandingly) a beach vacation before her belly, and our lives, become unmanageable.  There really is no fighting the conclusion: My baby['s mama] wants a vacation?, I give my baby['s mama and soon-to-be-baby] a vacation.  And so vacation we did.

  "St. Maarten?" you say.  Yes (I still answer).  We'd polled and queried and researched amongst friends as to the best of the beachy deals and [typical Kory] long story short long, we stayed here - Mary's Boon.  Situated smack dab on the beach and yet, strangely enough, smack dab right behind the airport, it was an exercise in relative perfection.. vs-moderate-to-low-frustration ratio.  While thoughts of your average airport-proximate hotel usually conjures images of rarely-washed, rarely-laundered, rarely-safe budget stays, Mary's Boon, and all of Simpson Bay.. or about half of St. Maarten actually, is close enough to the two airports (1 international, 1 Carribean-local) to make the average tourist pause and look up at the loud jet or prop plane thrusting through full power on their way to ... well, somewhere undoubtedly less beautiful.  I say "the average tourist" because most islanders seem unfazed by these occasional subsonic conversation interludes.  I should say here that flights only go between 9am and 10pm and the loud, international jumbo jets take off & land about every hour & a half, tops so honestly, it's really not that bad.  

   What is bad, or can be bad [knowing me as you do, I can not describe something with at least some description of bad vs good] is:  the state of road repair (somewhere near none?).  The level of service, at restaurants and such, also lacks at times.  Sometimes maddeningly so, sometimes understandably (after 20 or 30 years of dealing with cruise-shippers, I imagine I'd also have difficulty keeping surliness under wraps).  At our hotel, we got placed in a beachfront room (which inside and out, was honestly amazing) that happened to be right behind the kitchen.  The kitchen staff, not wanting to be confined to a hot kitchen when they didn't need to be, hung out and talked right outside.  Right outside both the kitchen and our room.  Again, a minor inconvenience that we could have solved easily by asking for a different room.  IF it had really been that big a deal.  Obviously it was not.  (I mention it only because, with a hotel full of rooms, half of them vacant, why put anyone in a room right behind the kitchen?)    The only other thing I could, or at least will complain about would be the hordes of European and American ...professional-drinkers let's call them, who treat St. Maarten as Cabo-San-Lucas-Part-II.  Yes, I know the obnoxious-level goes up when you get more than 5 or 6 drinkers together but throwing up over the side of the barge-that-is-a-floating-restaurant and then hollering out "Emilyyyyyy!!  Another .. margarita before [belch] .. before happy hour ends!" will always, always get you punched in the face, by me, ...in my own private fantasy.   Other things that will get you fantasy-punched-in-the-face-by-me:  smoking too close to my pregnant wife when she obviously notices it, treating me like "the white devil" when I ask you a simple question or make a request, and fraudulently faking election results to re-elect yourself supreme d!ckhead of the universe, thereby crushing my soul and the will of the people whose freedoms you suppress daily.   [More on this in a future post]

    Ok.  Back to St Maarten  [yes, please]   It really is quite wonderful.  The water's color and warmth, the sand (rumored to be the whitest of the Carribbean), the local food, the toplessness of beaches.  Just being on vacation is euphoric enough, St Maarten seems to amplify it.  I suppose that might also be why the negatives stood out more.  Not to say that they weren't all very real issues.

  In my darker moments, I'd have to describe St. Maarten as "the best parts of a hot, dusty day in Tijuana mixed with the worst of the narrow, serpentine-ness of Italy's coastal roads, mixed with both the good and bad smells of Puerto Rico .. mixed with the overpriced-ness of San Francisco's Fisherman Wharf or Marina districts."  In my lighter, more travel-review friendly moments, I might say "all the bliss of long-wished-for divine beaches, crystalline blue waters and year round perfection of weather.  Food and drink as good as you could hope for".  What I might never be able to describe is how much we needed and loved our St Maarten getaway.

"THE" news.. yes, that kind

  By now, you might have figured out that when I haven't written in a while, either nothing is happening or everything is.  Ok, so it's more of a spectrum and lately I, we, are far more near the everything end.

  Many of you, we've already told first-hand but for the greater world at large, specifically my enormous fanbase in the Congo and southern Chad, we are.. Esra is .. where is my drumroll???  Damn it, Frank, get in here.. I said drumroll ... that's better.    Pregnant.   Expecting.  Mom-i-fied.  Dad-i-fied.  Initiated, inaugurated, inculcated (oops, sorry, not inculcated).  Having gone from that group of humans that do not have children to (soon, though it feels like now) that group of humans with them.

  We are, Esra is, 15 weeks along and our little foetus looks more or less exactly like this:

I sort of want to know the sex of the baby but Esra doesn't so we're going to keep it a secret until/unless the moment comes where Esra does want to know.  And then we will know.  And then I will tell you.  Either way, as you can see in the photo, our baby has awesome written all over it.   It's developing with textbook perfection.. as our doctor told us "your baby is A+ .. you have an A+ baby".  Little did I know that the school grading system also applied to the gestational process. (or that "your baby is A+" would then have to be rephrased for us as ".. you have an A+ baby")

Not pictured in the ultrasound are those little cutenesses that have developed this week: the ears, the eyes moving from side mounted fishy eyes to forward facing, wiggling fingers and toes, and breathing, sucking and swallowing (relative cuteness level undetermined).

More pictures and news to come, including belly shots (like it or not) ((Esra's, not mine)) as her belly balloons babyward.

As for me?  Wow.  it's all so much to absorb.  Thinking about it sometimes brings about a dreamlike daze that I should probably avoid while driving.  How else can you tell I'm a slightly different person?  I'm going to sign off before I write half a novel.  Like I normally do.

So many changes.

Turkish word of the day

I downloaded a Turkish-word-of-the-day app for my iPhone.  this was the nugget of wisdom for the other day:

Just thought you'd want to know.

So many changes, so much the same...

  It's rare that I'm not sure whether a lot has happened or not.  You'd think life might be more straight forward.  Most worthy of note, on the subject of me and my world, is winter ending, specifically my most-hated Daylight-"Savings"-Time.  Banished are 4pm sunsets and the borderline seasonal affected disorder no one wants to admit happens.  Good riddance, DST. Stay away longer next time please.  Also gone, less joyously, is Esra's 6 year daytime job at Real Networks, everyone's 401k's and stocks and such and the global ennui that 8 years of presidential mismanagement can sometimes bring.  Work, for me, flutters in & out (mostly out) with a week or three or few days here & there - an uneasy modus operendi to be sure.  

  .....The most recent job was on ABC's Fringe, produced by JJ Abrams of X-Files (and many others) fame.  An old work-friend of Esra hooked me up with an informational interview with the set designer and as timing would have it, their Art Dept PA (production assistant) would be out on Grand Jury duty for 3 weeks, so .. cover for him, I did.  

  .....The job itself was pretty .. pedestrian,  let's say.  It's a union tv show which means that, in the art department at least, any duty that technically should be done by someone in the union, has to be done by a person in the union (and not lil' ol' me, despite how much time or interest I had to spare) - this is all under penalty of someone getting fired so .. actual work for non-union Art PA's on union jobs is usually pretty limited. And so, I got a bit lot more experience being an Art Dept office PA - which I suppose is the same as a regular Art Dept PA... minus all the nonstop driving around picking up and returning stuff, occasional heavy lifting, all the hands on assembly of the various things that'll actually be seen in a show - so basically everything)    

  .....I did a bit of research, I delivered some monster guts 

 to location (my first day on the job, sadly, it was the highlight of my 3 weeks on the show), I made a lot of copies, did a few runs into the city with the art department car but for the most part, I sat in the Art Dept office with the Art Dept coordinator and chatted, surfed the web via iphone and petted the dog belonging to the (married) set designer & art dept coordinator.  The pay on that job was ...humbling but the hours and people were truly some of the best I've seen so far. 9am - 6pm sharp is unheard of for .. well, any position on any job in the entertainment industry.  The Art Dept coordinator was actually a really great mentor in helping me get on the road (finally) to take the test to get into Union 52 (for set dressers in NY) and generally being a fountain of great information on the industry itself.  Coincidentally, a big brouhaha of industry scandal hit the front pages of entertainment consciousness while I was there.  It seems that Governor Patterson hasd not renewed the huge (30%) tax credit that was being given to the entertainment industry to continue bringing tv shows & films, commercials, etc to New York.  Fringe has all but announced that they are moving to Vancouver for their second season (an interesting component to the NAFTA treaty, I found out, is that ABC can bring only the top tier of production people up to Canada (producers, directors, DP, art dir, set designer, set dec, a few others) - whereas a Canadian program coming to the US could bring their entire crew to work legally in the US.. thanks again NAFTA) and many more shows will be leaving New York, not to mention all the new shows that wont ever start here.  We had union and industry reps on set lobbying a government rep to bring word back to Albany that there's thousands of people about to be affected, we'll see how much affect it had by the time NY's yearly budget is pushed through.

   ....aaaaand since Fringe (it's now 2 months since I wrote all the above. oops) .. I've worked on .. not all that much.  I did a Maybelline commercial(s) where I mostly drove two set decorators around NY while they shopped (I helped shop where I could but in NY, parking is something is so randomly regulated, you could park legally for a minute and get a ticket or park illegally for 7 hours and not get one.  You could also swear you parked legally but end up getting towed (oops, sorry Amer's Nxt Top Modl)... long story short, the most effective method for avoiding tickets is someone staying with the car.  There are times when this feels like the worst punishment imaginable, other times I think I have the sweetest job ever - I've chipped away at novels while stressed out coworkers search a dozen stores for the right shade of fuchsia pillow to accent a couch (that may or may not end up being visible in a shot).  

   ....And then there's the other kind of job I do occasionally.. the non-commercial / non-tv/film job.  This time it was an H&M clothing line launch for H&M execs, industry buyers and journalists.  Done in four adjoining rooms of a classy hotel in the meat-packing district, it was, as all events are, a joy not to have to jockey for the one freight elevator with camera crew, grips, lighting, etc.  Having 100 or 200 people working on the same job in the same space gets to be a bit much.  The event jobs are also great for the opportunity to be a little .. well, arty.  I get to paint, sew, maybe do some light construction, carpentry, some light electrical wiring maybe.  There's a bit more respect, all around, for everyone's abilities as equals in set dressing - a problem that has been frustratingly slow-going (on the tv/commercials/film jobs) in working my way up through the art department ranks - petty politics and high school favoritism, ass kissing.. oh it all goes on in the entertainment industry too.   But I digress....

   ....The second part of the job was a party for said same clothing industry people, journalists and .. well, whoever else gets invited to those clothing line launches.  It was to be held aboard a huge old boat, formerly used for riverboat gambling, docked at the South Street Seaport.  A sleek three story number with two elevators, full bars and a dance floor.  With a musical performance by Grace Slick.   Sounds cool, right?   No.  Not right.  The boat, we found out, would not be moving away from the dock during the party (though it would be moving up and down and this way and that - we were all seasick within an hour of working on the load in).   Not only would the boat not be cruising the Hudson or East Rivers but party goers would not be allowed on the many decks to smoke or drink or enjoy the view.   Luckily, I was on shift 1 of 3, meaning I helped finish the set up for the party and then took off with a few others to wrap up the hotel location.  Shifts 2 and 3 were present for the party itself and the wrap up of the boat at 5am (striking everything, putting it all back in our two 14' "cube" trucks) so that shift 1 could come the next day and return everything to the various prop and rental houses where we got the stuff, days before.   And that's how these jobs go.. hurry to load in, wait around while other people do their thing, then load out in a hurry & get everything back to where it came from. All done so you can do all too similar things with a different company, god knows when.

   ....And so the freelance waiting-for-a-phone-call fun begins again.

and Kory from Brooklyn writes in to say...

A month ago, I heard a rumor that President Obama would be considering ending daylight savings time because studies have proven that it doesnt increase productivity and it wastes energy.  Ending daylight savings time would "be in line with [his new] energy policy"

Today on the Brian Lehrer show, they asked 'what are the top 5 things Obama can do to help NY" so being the DLS-time hating, smart ass that i am, here's what I wrote on WNYC's write in poll

less than 5 minutes later, I heard:  "and kory from brooklyn says (of top 5 things obama can do for NY this year): # 1 .. end day light savings time .. # 2, end day light savings time, # 3 end day light savings time, # 4 end day light savings time # 5 increase funding for MTA"

and then discussing briefly with his in studio expert, said: "kory from brooklyn, why dont you call in & explain why ending daylight savings time would help NY"

(the answer of course is 5 fold:  1. DLS-time does not increase productivity or energy savings and so abolishing DLS-time would be in line with a streamlined energy policy.  2. Arizona and much of the world survives quite well without it. 3. being in a state that experiences actual, changing seasons, a standardized sunset time would decrease Seasonal Affected Disorder symptoms.  4. anything that helps NY, helps the nation as a whole.  5. Adopting a standardized clock would add weight to global non-seperatist feelings about our new administration, ie. that we are rejoining the rest of the world. (metric system still be damned, though))

sadly, as I was on the phone being interviewed by their pre-interviewer person, my buddy matt heard: "Kory from Brooklyn just called in ... but we're out of time. call tomorrow"

If I'm around tomorrow and listening, I'll call in.. If I get on, I'll paste a link to the podcast here...   [I listened in the next day but no such prompting for call ins]

 "I don't really care how time is reckoned so long as there is some agreement about it, but I object to being told that I am saving daylight when my reason tells me that I am doing nothing of the kind. I even object to the implication that I am wasting something valuable if I stay in bed after the sun has risen. As an admirer of moonlight I resent the bossy insistence of those who want to reduce my time for enjoying it. At the back of the Daylight Saving scheme I detect the bony, blue-fingered hand of Puritanism, eager to push people into bed earlier, and get them up earlier, to make them healthy, wealthy and wise in spite of themselves." (Robertson Davies, The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks, 1947, XIX, Sunday.)

Reasons you should elect me Zombie Overlord for the upcoming Zombiegedon

Greetings human-but-future-zombies,
I'd love to take a moment to share with you reasons why I should be your Zombie Overlord for our upcoming global zombie apocalypse.

I will love brains. Yes, any legitimate campaign to be zombie president should begin and end here but since we will all love brains, I will have to bring more to the table and so I will tell you this: I will love brains more than you do. How can you know that? Eat my brain and find out. You wont, will you? That's right you wont because as humans, it is against the law. Also, zombies dont eat other zombies so I guess you'll just have to go on faith for this one.

As your zombie president I will curb government excess, namely, there will be no government. This means no zombie air force one, no zombie vacations, no large zombie cabinets of overpaid advisers. Can my opponent promise this? Can my opponent promise anything? If he can, that means he is talking to you and he is not a zombie.

I'm tough on crime. There will be no crime, but still. Your fresh brain is yours to eat, not your neighbors, not the mob of likeminded zombies you travel with, Yours. My team is currently working on ways to enforce this. I call it: One Brain, One Zombie. In the future, I will most likely refer to it as "Braaaaaiiins" (assuming my lower jaw has remained intact).

In the first 100 days of my Zombiedency I will propose plans for finding and and then eating all the brains. Underground bunkers, fortified malls and chain linked compounds will be no match for our tireless dedication to eating all the brains. They will be so very tasty and there is no reason we should not have them.

I am strictly against sniper headshots, decapitations, being shotgunned in the face and / or other crowbar-like weapons thrust into and / or through our heads. It will be the only way to kill us so let's stop the violence before it starts, people. We all love a good, dramatic growl and moan but when Mr MovieHero has his sawed-off pointed right at your slack jaw, duck. Live (undead) to moan and drool another day.

Speaking of moaning, I know we cant add additional words to our vocabulary (of Uhhhhhh) but could we at least start pointing? It would great aid in helping others of us know where the humans ran off to.

With your help, we can make the future a feast of brains and glorious, bloody flesh as we turn humans, all the humans, into zombies. I'd like to lead you, future zombie. Towards .. a brain. Yes, that one. go get it.

Yours truly,
Gnarrrrrgllllarrrr ChompArrgh