HB COLD

I suppose we all need a Francophile moment at one point in our lives. I have been fortunate enough to have had more than one. For example, the very best peach I ever ate in my life was in France. I remember it vividly. I also think one of the reasons why I remember it so vividly is because I have written about it once before on this blog, and therefore remember it more clearly than I would otherwise - had I not written about it in detail. Well, regardless of whether that is true or not, the fact remains that the best peach I have ever eaten in my life was in Jean Les Pins, in May of 2005. Admittedly, I am about to write about this in a way too embellished fashion, but bear with me...

I remember I saw the peach the day before I actually tasted it. I had even held it in my hands the day before I tasted it. It was easily the best of a very nice bunch, but nevertheless, it smelled better, felt better and just genuinely had it going on. I think I have a pretty good nose for fruit and this one was my best selection to date. However, I could not taste it the day I found it. The train to Cannes was leaving in less than five minutes, and although the shop was only across the street from the train station, I still ran out of time and had to put the peach back on the shelf. Cause when I got there, the shopkeeper was in the backroom doing his sublimations. He was a Muslim and it was time to pray. And he was praying as I held the peach in my hand and stood by the register (Side note: The song I'm listening to right now "You Know I Couldn't Last" by Morrissey, just sang the words cash register as I was typing register in the last sentence, swear to god.) And I'm not about to interrupt a man in the middle of praying to buy a 45-cent peach. The man was into it and I wasn't about to stop him. So, and with a heavy heart, I replaced the peach. Sure that it would be gone when I returned the next day.

But it wasn't. I saw the damn thing and freaked out. I think I may have said something out loud. I was on my way back to the hotel the next day and I stopped by the shop and saw the same dude, but he wasn't praying and then I saw the same peach. It was a white peach and it was the frickin best one I ever ate.

That's probably number one on the list. And I totally admit that this is a ridiculous amount of feeling to have for a peach, but sometimes it's fun to exaggerate to the point of ridiculousness.

Number two on the list happened in a train, and this bodes well for my next few days, when I will be spending several hours on a train in France. Well, on the train from either to or from the festival and the hotel, there was a group of young French twenty-somethings and they were a loud bunch. Sure I didn't understand a word of what they said, but after something was said, one of the girls said, "Ooo la la." And that was quickly followed by a guy saying (and I hope I can spell this to match the sound) "Onhh, hunh, huh," and this was quickly followed by the same thing but in a different tone. It was literally THE most stereotypical cartoonish thing that any French person can say, and they all said it. Right there on the train.

I also think that there were some other moments involving snails and other recently living, slimy creatures, served on a platter with a lot of lemon, but those two before are at the top.

So I mention this because on Thursday I will be flying to Paris and then taking a 5 hour train ride to Cannes. And then the following Wednesday I will take the same train back. And, as it would happen, I have just started to read Les Miserables. I am about to get all sorts of French on your ass.

I can't remember the last time I went this long without writing something in this thing. Especially when I've been in town, and almost constantly on the computer. I guess it went on for so long that I just didn't know what to say and so I said nothing. Kind of like an old friend that you know you should call, or write to, but just never get around to doing it. Well, I think I'll fall back on an old excuse, March. March sucks in Finland. I may have mentioned this once or twice before. I mention it because it's true.

However, this March was uniquely sucky. Usually it's the weather. Usually the weather is absolutely awful. One day it snows and then it freezes and the next day it's sunny and warm which melts the snow, or at least makes it dirty, and then it freezes again, ad nauseam. But this March it was warm and sunny. All of the ice and snow melted quickly and never really showed itself again. Ahhh, but March is a devilish month. It lures you in with one trap, but it's merely the bait for another. And what's the other trap you ask? It's nothing. Absolutely nothing. That's what March has up its sleeve, absolutely nothing.

But this is no ordinary nothing. This nothing is total. Only to be broken up by a week in Joensuu making a movie. The last week of the movie, after which comes...nothing. And now, April arrives with its meetings and seminars and party's and job opportunities. Like March never even existed, only as a month to test one's perseverance and it tested mine thoroughly.

And, as rarely happened in March, I'm about to go out with a friend. But now that I've broken the ice, I may be able to conjure up a couple of tales from the past month. Like, for example my nickname among the actors as Howdy Doody and / or RdooDdoo (like R2D2, but like a child would say it). Yeah, I thought Howard the Duck was bad. I wonder if that movie came out in March?

The day that people started getting out of my way on the streets of New York was a good one. I felt proud that I had assimilated well. It meant something special, in an idiotic sort of way. But still, in whatever way it was I had got some respect out there.

This place is a little different. The way you walk on the street doesn't mean a thing. People will still walk right into you rather than getting out of the way, or stop right in front of you on the street, or better yet, stop at the top or bottom of an escalator.

Old ladies are the worst, and since I'm kind of jobless at the moment I am out and about when all the old ladies are out, and it's hard to get mad at an old lady, except for the fact that there are just so many of them. Small, slow, but totally off limits when it comes to yelling or even frustration. It's quite funny actually. I mean there are just to many of them, and in the grocery stores! The place is absolutely littered with pushcarts and old ladies - who, by the way, are almost invariably decked out in fur. Just looking out over the tops of them in the produce section is something to behold. The cheese counter is completely inaccessible.

But what happens when regular looking guy turns into Jake the Snake looking guy? What happens when people look at you and then look away and then look right back? What happens? They get the hell out of the way. That's what happens. On the street, in the store, people see me and then move just enough out of my way so as to not bother me. It's wonderful.

Although I admit it's a bit distracting for others that know me. I ran into an old classmate on the street last night and she couldn't look at me without cracking up and telling me how different I looked. And later on the same walk I ran into another classmate and her boyfriend who couldn't agree if it was me or not. It was.

This brings me to a funny thing. Whenever I walk around the town at night I have my headphones in and the music on. And last night it was dark and misty. So that right there has taken away one of my senses and dulled the other. And since the sense of smell and taste don't really come into the mix on one of my walks, I'm pretty much in my own world. Which is why when Niina and Pancho stopped their pole walking and started shouting at me as I walked out onto the bridge that goes to a nearby island, I didn't recognize them at first. My initial reaction was that there was someone behind me. When I looked around and saw no one I thought that these crazy people must be warning me not to go out onto the bridge. But then I looked at the bridge, the bridge that I just saw them walk out from and thought that they must be mad. But still they yelled again and so finally I took off my headphones and got close enough to realize that they were just my friends saying hi. By the way, all that took place in the span of five seconds, it just drags out a little when writing.

This brings me to the next topic. The island that I was walking out onto, Uunisaari. It is almost always empty, but I have never walked around the whole thing at night - it's tiny - because I always wind up creeping myself out. Well, the dark sky and frozen sea and total emptiness creeps me out, but my imagination helps. And so I walk out, closer and closer to the far beach - really like 40 yards, not far - but each time it creeps the hell out of me. It also doesn't help that I am always listening to creepy music, trying to get myself in the mood for writing the screenplay and its creepiness. But the cold, frozen sea at night, alone, far enough away from the city, it gets me every time,

Could this, at long last, be the first March that doesn't suck? A sudden and sustained burst of warm weather has melted almost all of the ice and slush on the street and the temperature looks like it's here to stay. The days are getting brighter and brighter and March is almost 1/3 of the way over.

That's it, I've just ruined March. Tonight it will freeze and ice over and then it will melt, and it will continue to do so until April. I'm sure of it. Why did I have to open my big mouth? You can all blame me. But wait! I didn't open my mouth, I just typed it. I know that the last time I used this logic - the don't write it cause you'll jinx it logic, but say it all you want - but now I'm reversing it. Am I allowed to do this?

Another new item on the plate for 2007. I just shaved a handle bar moustache beard. I am totally straight out of a 70's porn flick or a 2007 NASCAR competition. And the weird thing is, I like it. Also, I shaved it last night, only roughly so that Karoliina could shape it better in the morning. As soon as I did it I thought I confined myself to the house, so as not to be seen with an absolutely crazy beard. So what happens? I get an invitation to go to a birthday party for a cultural center where it would be a bit of a scene. I, of course, would only add to the scene with my Holmesian appearance. And what do you know, people were coming up to me complementing me on the beard. Utterly crazy. When K comes home I'll take a picture and post it for the world to see.

More firsts for the year 2007. This weekend I saw a live television performance and I regretted going as soon as we got there. But it was when they turned the floodlights on and right on top of us that I really started hating it. Now it's a harmless show, and it wasn't without some laughs - although mostly from Mikko making fun of the way one of the contestants' voice. But holy crap was it hot! Normally in those types of situations they keep the studio cold so that when the lights go on it ain't all that bad. But not this one. And since it's March and still pretty cold out I was still wearing the long underwear and was also wearing a thermal undershirt. In other words, I was sweating my ass off and the time couldn't go by fast enough.

After this I went to a Purim party and got a little goofy with a Rabbi - another first. There was a limbo contest, but I wisely chose to decline participation. Limbo is no game for a 30 something tall man to get into when there are also some 20 something small people playing. They start a whole lot lower than me. They're short. They always win. I'll bet they invented the damn game.

I easily ate the worst ketchup of my life this past week. Now I have never met a non-Heinz ketchup person, but I know that they're out there. Otherwise how would Hunt's stay in business. But I would have given anything for Hunt’s; in fact I probably would have enjoyed the opportunity for a taste test. This shit wasn't even the Finnish version of Hunt's, Felix, at least that would have been something I've tasted before - there are non-Heinz people all over the world, I have no idea why, but there are.

No, the proprietors of Harjulan Piha in Hammaslahti, North Karelia, Finland (a.k.a. the absolute middle of nowhere) enjoy another kind of ketchup all together, and I decided, since we'll be keeping weird hours during the movie shoot, I should have a steady supply of turkey, with which to make a turkey with ketchup sandwich whenever the time called, and you would be surprised how often time called for turkey. And each time it was that damn ketchup. My god it was bad.

I just got back from the coldest place on earth and we spent hours and hours outside every day in temperatures ranging from 20 F to - 10 F in flat, open and windy areas. I just got back and went to the grocery store. It's about 5 F out tonight and I thought it was warm. I think I thought so because I was able to take deep breaths and feel my toes at the same time. I was generally worried for my feet this past week.

I thought, since I had lived in the area for a two winters that I knew how to deal with seriously cold temperatures. I think it's possible that I did learn, but only how to deal with those temperatures for short amounts of time, like an hour, at the most. This was 10 - 12 hours and well into the night. We always had a bus or a van or a cottage to escape the cold. I was with the actors and the actors got it good on the set. Not like the other 20 or so people who are working their asses off in this stuff the whole time.

We sat around until it was time to film and whenever they were speaking, I was there. Sometimes the set up would last a couple of hours, sometimes 30 minutes, depending. But when it went into multiple hours, at night, it was awful. The last night was the coldest, - 10 F. I had on 5 pairs of socks, 2 wool, 3 thick cotton and this was inside of wool lined boots and still my toes went below ice cold and took hours to thaw, or at least until we got back to the ketchup crazy hotel and sat in the sauna for 30 minutes or so at a toasty 190 F.

It was a real fun time hanging around though, except when it was boring. Even the cold is bearable, for example my toes didn't fall off, but the boredom is the killer. I've always thought that doing nothing is the hardest thing to do and, just like my ketchup preference, I'm right. It's true that the boredom is usually broken up by laughter, but until it happens it's horrible, and it's especially horrible if the break is forced and doesn't do its job correctly. And to top it all off, after we dropped the actors off at the airport for their 1 hr plane ride back to Helsinki, I got into the train and prepared for a 5 hour train ride and I had just finished my book the day before. AND because we finished shooting so late last night and there was very little booze left in the hotel, I got a good night's sleep, so I wasn't even tired. I came home and did laundry, went to the grocery store, and cleaned the kitchen.

I'm off to J-town for a week's worth of winter exterior shots for Lieksa! Here's hoping it'll only be in the teens and twenty's.