Ready for a (long) travel story? Then read on…
I have a new project. It is entitled Once Upon A Podcast.
Once Upon A Podcast will be a twice-monthly podcast of 5-minute radio plays. The plays will be written over the course of two days, loosely based on a theme chosen (as of now) by myself.
There are two options to be included as a writer in Once Upon A Podcast:
1) I will choose 3 people from a list of writers that have already e-mailed me. These people have the option of either producing it themselves or asking for assistance finding a director, actors and an editor.
2) Anyone else can look at the theme and decide to make their own production-quality short. If it passes muster, it will also be included in the podcast.
Note: If you are interested in participating as a writer, actor, director, editor, or something else, please e-mail me at roni@dontworry.tv. You do not have to have known me beforehand to be involved in this project. All interested parties will be welcomed. Read more »
There is a movie coming out this year that is called Adventureland. It’s from the director of Superbad. While the trailer doesn’t make it seem too promising (despite having Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig, two of my SNL favorites), it did bring up some childhood memories.
To me, Twitter seemed entirely useless. I heard the buzz, but I didn’t see any benefit that a Facebook Status Update didn’t have.
Today, I found a personal benefit.
Let’s assume you know nothing about me. I’ll give you one tidbit. I used to produce a 5-minute play festival called “Once Upon A Weekend” (OUAW). It was brought to the University of Washington School of Drama by the Head of BA Drama, Shanga Parker. I produced it for 2 years, then handed it off to the next group of undergrads.
Now, thanks to Steve Thomas, a fellow that helped me produce OUAW back in the day, there is an idea to bring 5-minute radio plays to a podcast.
Now, I need actors, writers, sound people, editors… Whoever has any interest in trying to get this done, contact me either through your usual channels or at roni@dontworry.tv.
Hey folks,
If you’ve been checking out the blog, as the stats seem to be suggesting, feel free to leave some comments, esp. if you have some tips on what you want more or less of, as I’m still trying to get a gauge on this whole blogging thing.
Thanks much,
Roni
I’m convinced that to maintain a blog, one needs content.
Well, I’m exhausted, so you’re not getting much.
Here’s the scoop: This hostel reminds me of crappy ones in Thailand. I’m at Residential Uno in Puerto Iguazu, Argentina. The bed is a mattress on a flimsy slab of plywood which might break on me later on. The bathroom is the toilet with the shower right next to it (and apparently, according to a woman that’s in another room, our bathroom is “spacious”).
And one of the owners called me a “clumsy ass” when the water that I was boiling boiled over and then grumbled how I wouldn’t clean it up.
And they have 7 cute little puppies that are intent on urinating wherever possible.
But hey, I really enjoyed the Falls. And I now will start to say that I’ve been to Paraguay and Brazil. Because it’s true. Even if Paraguay was literally for about 2 minutes. I do have a story, though, about it, so it counts.
I was walking with a plastic bag of food, and my apple fell out of the bottom and rolled into the street. A guy that was handing out flyers for one of the many electronics people waved the masses of traffic to stop so he could get it. The poor rolling apple was like in a game of Frogger, but thankfully didn’t get squashed. And apparently, my cookies/crackers had fallen out behind me and another of the flyer-hander-outers probably would have kept it, had I not seen that it was there.
So there’s your story/content.
More when I have time/energy.
Off to the Argentinian side tomorrow.
Wow.
I have been clicking through the various WordPress blogs to get some inspiration on how to make a blog, researching what to do to make a good one.
Unfortunately, I’ve been better able to find what *not* to do.
Thus far:
and even worse than hate speech?
In my world, there’s a difference between a blog and a Livejournal. A slim one, but one nonetheless.
Know any good blogs that would be of use/interest to me? Lemme know.
After the cop didn’t continue the investigation into the taxi driver, et. al charging me almost $200 for the ride, I figured my last resort was to try contacting the press. The Santiago Times is the local English-language newspaper.
Here was their response.
———————–
Hi Ronnie (and Peter) -
Ronnie, thanks for your note. What a terrible experience.
I am sharing your note with Peter Murphy, who happens to be
researching tourism abuse at just this minute. I am also sharing your
story with staff here at the ST. We are shorthanded just now, but
maybe someone here will be interested in helping push officialdom
towards some kind of real response…..
Peter, thought you’d like to know. Ben says this subject interests you…..
Steve
————————–
Ever since the taxi debacle occurred, my plan has been to take it as far as possible with the police, then try with the media and if nothing else happened, write it off as a life experience. The police part of the story ended when the investigator said he couldn’t do anything without the name of the taxi driver.
So after leaving it alone for a bit, I sent that e-mail out to The Santiago Times, the local English-language newspaper. Over the course of today, Monday, I received that first e-mail, then, while I was at the bank, cashing my work checks, I got a call from Peter Lewis, who works for a bicycle tour company and is somehow connected to Gustavo,
who works for Canal 13, a major TV station in Santiago. Peter Lewis told me that Gustavo would be calling in the next hour or so, and sure
enough, he did.
Gustavo and I scheduled an interview for today at 1:35 PM. Stupid me
had my times an hour off (class goes from 1-2:30 PM), so I tried my
best to contact Gustavo, but no luck. But I received a call from him
while I was still in class (I had already warned my students that I
might be getting said call) and he said 2:35 PM was no problem. I had
thought that we would be sitting down together and just chatting a bit
to see if he thought there was a story to be had. I had thought
through the various scenarios of how a lunch appointment might work in
terms of whether he’d be paying or not.
When I walked out to where we were supposed to meet (by the metro
station), there was a film crew set up (well, a camera guy and a
sound/crew guy). I imagined that this had something to do with
something else, as this is a very central part of town. But no, this
was for me. Gustavo and I chatted for a little about what happened
with the taxi stuff, then asked me if I spoke Spanish. I said a
little, so they put the microphone on me, told me not to move my feet,
to look at him and we started to do the interview in Spanish. We were
standing in front of where the taxis are in this little cul-de-sac.
After I muddled my way through, we did it a second time in English and
he said that he would probably be able to edit it to use both. Then,
they took some establishing shots of me walking and said that they
would try to see if they could get a taxi driver to let me in the car
for another shot. Gustavo leaned in and said that they wouldn’t be
telling the driver what this was all about. They said that I was
going to go in the taxi and that I would just go around the
cul-de-sac. I warily asked if they were sure. We had a good laugh
about this. Took the shot of me in the taxi. The taxi driver seemed
to be a little confused about it all.
I asked Gustavo what the chances were of this actually getting used.
He explained that they wanted to go to the airport and find the guys
and film them, asking them why they do this. This was *exactly* like
my fantasy of what I wanted to happen with my investigation and then
with the media afterward. It made me so unrepentantly excited. We
agreed that on Thursday, we’ll go to the airport to try to make this
happen.
They took some final shots of me walking off and I went back to work
to gloat. I opened up my e-mail. Earlier, I had e-mailed to the
publisher of The Santiago Times a copy of my old mass e-mails about
the whole taxi situation and said that if there was anything that
could be used from it, to let me know.
His response:
—————–
Hi Roni -
My hunch is that your letter to friends would serve as a great
“Feature Story” for the ST some day soon. So, with your permission, I
will edit it a bit tonight and publish some time later this week???
Steve
—————-
Few people have seen me this excited. Sean has, back in the Haggett
cafeteria, when I ran around the table a few times. The citizens of
Seattle and my friends who received calls early in the morning,
outside of Seattle U. after a late night… But today, the people at
work got to see me hopping and tap dancing and sliding onto the floor
of the teacher’s room. Just unbounded energy and joy.
As for more details of the interview:
He had me explain the whole situation in English, then Spanish. If
I’m not nervous about my Spanish enough as is, imagine being filmed
speaking crappy Spanish. It’s funny, because it wasn’t the camera
that made me nervous, but the guy that was peering through it. After
that, he asked me what I did after the police didn’t do anything
(hinting at my own investigation), which I relished in. Then he asked
how things have been in general with Chile and such, because the piece
is about tourist impressions of Santiago. I told him fine, but this
wasn’t a great first impression. He seemed to be into what I was
saying, but perhaps that’s just his job. But I know that he was
definitely impressed with the fact that I had my own investigation.
So yeah, that’s where things are at. Heady, exciting times. And I
predicted it, vaguely. Yesterday, I said I felt like life’s momentum
was increasing. And so it is. As of now, there’s really only one
thing missing to make me really, truly happy all around. But hey, as
I was singing on my way back to the apartment, “You Can’t Always Get
What You Want.”
But a boy can dream. And he does.
Last night, they had a Madonna concert here in Santiago. It’s the event of the week, month, year or lifetime, depending on one’s perspective. My roommate went, the daughter of the secretary at the company that I work at, as well as it being displayed in the statuses of various Chilean Facebook friends.
According to my Tues/Thurs. morning student, the reason it’s such a big deal is because Chile is so far off in the realm of nowhere that singers and bands don’t come here very often. According to him, this is Madonna’s first time in Chile, and given the length of her career, that means it isn’t too off to call it a potentially once-in-lifetime event.
My student also went on to say that when he took a trip to Los Angeles, he was surprised at how there were so many concerts with famous singers/bands and how it just wasn’t a big deal.
It really changes your perspective when you think of how you might only have one chance to see you favorite singer/band live. Makes you more appreciative, I’d think.
Also, my student has said that people just are into the exclusivity of the event, since tickets cost so much compared to the average Chileans salary. Apparently, Chileans are willing to pay 50% higher ticket prices just to be somewhere with such cache. He said how he went to U2 a few years back and there were these 17-year-old girls who really had no clue who U2 were, but they just kept calling and texting their friends to brag about the concert.
Another story involves a company that paid for Ennio Morricone (composer of a lot of spaghetti westerns, as well as for The Untouchables) and gave half the tickets to their employees and sold the other half. Because of the limited number of seats, people went crazy and lined up to buy tickets, waiting on line for hours before they started selling tickets, as if Morricone was a rock star. They ended up having to add an extra night.
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