Archive for the ‘north dakota’ Category

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KHW #9: The astral portal’s on the second floor.

2009/04/16

Tuesday night, after a long long day of shooting, we got back from dinner around 11pm. I talked to Pusser in the lobby until words stopped making sense and began the long stagger of exhaustion to my room. I was the kind of tired that’s like a quarter-hit of acid – disorienting for sure, but with a mild hallucinatory tint – which probably explains why it was so unnerving to round the corner and find my eyes locked with those of a heavyset man holding what appeared to be a wine cooler. “HI!”, he chirped, grinning in a way that was not entirely normal. Next to him hunched a hollow-cheeked, sallow-skinned woman wrapped in a blanket, and between them sat no less than ten half-finished bottles of Miller light. I took in the scene at half-speed, gaze sliding from one to the other to the center, and as I maneuvered myself past them, the woman suddenly came to life. With the slow-moving stance of a carnival doll, her head swiveled in my direction, her glass eyes rolled towards the ceiling, and she said:

“Everything you want is in a box to your left.”

I was suddenly gripped by the sensation that I’d slipped into an alternate dimension. Like, maybe this woman was a seer from beyond, and her words bore the answer to all the riddles of life. I looked to my left, looked to my right, and the lights seemed to flicker and dim. Waves of vertigo distorted the lines of the hallway, my lips curved outward, and just before I could muster the strength to speak, the man’s arm jerked out, bottle aloft. “It was a song she was singing”, he told me. “Just before you got here.”

oh. ok. right on. and I unlocked the door to my room.

Seriously, I’m so glad I finally got some sleep last night. Otherwise, today might have found me humming lullabies to pink elephants somewhere on the banks of the Red River. Like wow.

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KHW #9: Wauuugh

2009/04/15

It’s the third day of our shoot, ten of six in the morning, and I’m already so tired I think my skin might fall off. Like, I’ve had a headache since Sunday and my back hurts and I’m starving all the time but I don’t have the energy to eat. Coffee makes me nauseous. Plus, last night I left the heater on in my room while I slept (for a whopping four hours), so I woke up feeling like a dried-out husk of fried asparagus.

Usually this doesn’t happen until at least day six, this kind of fatigue. Shit.

Posted in aberrant behavior, insomnia, north dakota, work | Leave a Comment »

KHW #8: Symphony of Fail, Canadian edition

2009/02/26

“I have news for you,” groaned Pusser, settling into the passenger seat on Sunday morning, “That Shiverfest is a joke.”

The rest of us didn’t bother answering. We’d all caught a chill filming sunset on the lake, so why waste energy debating the obvious.

“So, then. What today?”

We hit downtown Devils Lake under heavy clouds only to find that our usual coffeeshop was closed Sundays. Its satellite location on the main drag didn’t open until noon. Actually, NOTHING in North Dakota opens till noon, on Sundays, and it was only 11:15am. So we drove around for the better part of an hour. We drove out of town on 2 East and saw no kites, then drove out of town on 2 West and saw no kites. There were, apparently, no kites on Sundays.

Suddenly, Pusser was struck with divine inspiration. “How far are we from that Turtle Mountain reservation?” he asked, in a way that made it clear no matter HOW far away we were, we’d be going there just as soon as we got coffee. “I mean, we’re not doing anything anyway, so we might as well. There’s a ton of buffalo there.”

I’m not sure how many of you are are familiar with the geography of North Dakota, but Fargo is nearly three hours southeast of Devils Lake. Belcourt is ninety miles northwest of Devils Lake. Which means that a trip to Belcourt effectively doubles our drivetime, not including all the slowing down and circling around and setting up and shooting. Certainly, I was less than thrilled.

“There’s buffalo HERE,” I countered. “And we’ve filmed them a thousand times!”

“The buffalo there are different. There’s more. And there’s a lot of murals and Indian things.”

OK, so fine, then.

En route to the Canadian border, we photographed a billboard and did a long, tracking train shot using the car as a 10-mph dolly. Some two hours after that, we found ourselves lunching at a Dairy Queen in Rolla, ND, probably the northernmost Dairy Queen in the United States.

We drove through Belcourt and the Turtle Mountain reservation and found nothing. No signs, no good Indian figures, no buffalo. The buffalo, apparently, are also off on Sundays. We surmised that the sad state of the economy was keeping the buffalo holed up.

Doubling back home, Pusser decided he’d like to hit some small towns and see what we could find. So we took the road less traveled, running through Rock Lake, ND, where the deer outnumber humans 10:1,

Oh deer!

and then Clyde, where the only sign of life was one beat-to-shit pickup and a satellite dish.

Clyde, nd

This is me, somewhere between Clyde and Langdon, amusing myself while Kimmer shot sunset.

photo(3)

Then I stopped driving and lay down in the backseat, jacked into my iPhone and listened to Andrew Bird, wondering what, if anything, DIDN’T take Sundays off in North Dakota. The stars came out. I watched them through the windshield, enjoying the gentle sway of the car as it merged back onto I-29. As Buckethead piloted us back to our hotel, I linked my ankles through the headrest and nestled my head into Kimmer’s pillow and I thought: How wonderful, truly, to be here.

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KHW #8: Symphony of Fail

2009/02/24

So the whole reason we’re here right now, the whole reason we booked this shoot, is Shiverfest. It was described to us by the locals as a kite flying / ice fishing festival of wondrous proportion, a weekend where summer colors pattern the winter sky and blue teflon huts cover the lake.

“We’ve GOT to get this next year!” I told Pusser last February, after learning we’d missed it by two days. Our moments of accord are rare, but on this matter we vehemently agreed: Shiverfest 2009 was a go. Air tickets were booked well in advance, hotel arrangements were made, a substantial amount of outerwear was purchased. 

The crew set out for Devils Lake Saturday afternoon, with the sun shining and our spirits high. Just outside town, after the speedway but before the billboards, we spotted a smattering of kites. To us, it seemed an appetizer – a teaser before the main course – but we turned off route 2 and shot a bit, anyway. Probably 12 or 13 kites in total, held down by stakes, and one dude in a Jeep wheeling donuts around the lake. I was just excited to walk on frozen water for the first time in my life. After about half an hour Pusser got impatient and hurried the crew along so that we could get over to route 20, where the REAL action was at, before sunset.

After a brief pit stop at our hotel we took off for the casino road, eyes on the horizon, waiting for the spectacle, the color, the afternoon light casting sweet firey rays over a skybound sea of rayon…

And saw nothing.

NOTHING.

Not a single kite, barely even any ice houses. Nothing but the lake, the dead trees, and the casino windmill tilting in the distance.

“Where are they?” exclaimed Pusser, slightly undone.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “I saw a flyer at the hotel, and it said the kite stuff was at Ackerman acres, which is back where we were.”

Our van rocked with the anticlimax.

Pusser sighed mightily, and stared across the frozen landscape. “So that’s it, then, I guess?”

“I guess.”

“Yup.”

I don’t want to say how much this shoot cost, and I’m not saying it was a waste, but seriously. Air tickets for three, gas from Chicago to Fargo and back for one, plus per diem, hotel, camera rental, batteries, and all the fucking snow gear I bought at Scheel’s, so we could drive two and a half hours (one way) to film fifteen minutes of some asshole fucking around in his Jeep and thirteen unmanned kites.

I present, for your viewing pleasure, Shiverfest.

And that’s only half the story. Sunday was even more rewarding. Just wait and see.

Posted in north dakota, VIDEOVIDEOVIDEO, work | Leave a Comment »

KHW #8: I don’t know how it happens, but it happens every time.

2009/02/21

Last time we came to Fargo, I estimated my clothing-related expenditures somewhere in the range of $200 for our 16-day shoot. I had no time (read: patience or energy) to do laundry, so I supplemented my wardrobe at the local Target. One afternoon, on the shoot, the crew took a trip to Scheel’s, which, in addition to bizarre flavors of licorice, also deals in sale-priced North Face gear. Because I’m powerless to resist a bargain and because the flesh is weak, I may have spent $150 (lightweight fleece! perfect for april! maybe!) (i’ve never really had a good pair of gloves! it’s 23 below zero!) on TOP of the Target infusion and then promptly repressed whole endeavor.

Once home, I did the real math in my head, said a Hail Mary, and promised never to be so foolish again.

However.

I guess I lost the $30 gloves on Superbowl Sunday, and this morning I realized I was out of underwear, socks, and leggings. We leave tomorrow to shoot a weekender ice-fishing / kite-flying festival in Devils Lake, so I’d pretty much be dead in the water (ha ha) without appropriate outerwear and undergarments. My mission was clear. I headed into the gauntlet.

Gloves at Scheel’s set me back another fifty bucks (I saw these super cool heat-trapping glove LINERS, too, so there’s your upcharge), but they also had North Face snow pants on clearance, down to $110 from $150 (I mean, I need my legs, right? Right.), and then, on line for checkout, there was display of facemask things for the cold, and my nose always freezes when we’re shooting outside, so I grabbed one of those, too. As I signed for the total, I almost bit off my own tongue.

Debt-induced seizure aside, there was still the socks / underwear issue to be handled, so I spun over to Target. The peculiar seduction of this store has been well documented by myself and by others, so I won’t go into great detail, but let’s just say that I might have suddenly realized that I needed another pair of work jeans, and I might have, oh hey, found some more good layering shirts on clearance, and then maybe I was breaking out so I grabbed a green clay mask and also maybe some nail polish just because. And, of course, socks. And underwear. And another thousand black tank tops. And deodorant. And some black tea. (BLACK TEA? Even I don’t really get that one.)

These two trips alone almost top the entire KHW7 clothing outflow, which makes me want to curl up and die, but I’m sitting here typing this in a sleepcoma-comfy pair of MSUM sweatpants I bought yesterday at the University bookstore. I’ve never had a pair of awesome sweatpants. They were thirty bucks or something. But seriously, at this point, who’s counting.

Posted in I enjoy being a girl, north dakota, work | Leave a Comment »

KHW #8: The Ultimate Price

2009/02/19

I feel so validated from all the comments – you guys are my new list of favorite people.

And also, I am probably never going to exercise again, or lift anything else that’s heavy, ever. I woke up today and could barely move, a condition I attribute not only to yesterday’s early-morning exertions but also to the dragging around of hundreds of pounds of camera equipment. It’s all well and good to try and hang with the big guys, proving yourself as an equal by lifting Pelican cases that could hold several small children, but seriously, I need to stop doing that. I was lugging our tripod up a winding set of stairs and I almost threw up on myself from the cumulative strain.

And like, vomit + the crew van = no fun at all.

Posted in aberrant behavior, I enjoy being a girl, north dakota, work | Leave a Comment »

KHW #8: Please tell me I’m insane. Please.

2009/02/18

Let me preface: I don’t mean to be a comment whore, but if nobody has anything to say about what I’m about to write, I might just can the blog for good and go off to pick roses or something because seriously, I can barely believe it myself.

After making yesterday/today’s post, at 4am, I still didn’t fall asleep or, thankfully, die of hypothermia. Rather, I tossed and turned in the arid desert of my bed for an additional seventy-five minutes, until my restless anguish was compounded by the encroaching stench of eggs. Rotten eggs, to be exact. I’m not talking about the everyday sulfurous odor one might associate with a lit match in the bathroom – this was like, sewage and garbage and all manner of gross seeping through the pipelines and into my room. My nostrils, already raw with dehydration, actually burned from the smell. Misery was laid upon misery, and, in my wretched state, I couldn’t think of what to do.

Sleep, clearly, was no longer an option – even without the gaseous intrusion, I’d reached the point where dozing would do more harm than good – and the nearby Starbucks wouldn’t open for another hour. Without a mighty dose of caffiene I didn’t trust myself to get behind the wheel, so my tried-and-true “vehicle as refuge” strategy kind of hit a wall. And as I lay there, near-comatose, swathed in the stink of West Fargo’s industrial fumes, my mind concocted a most unlikely conclusion:

the exercise room.

So at 5:15am I got up, washed my face, did some stretches and bought a bottle of water, and that is how my first Tweet of February 17th came to read:

“It is 6am. I have barely slept. And I am on a treadmill. Like literally. Right now.”

{pause inserted, for dramatic effect}

Again, I don’t want to be one of those people who overuses caps and is all like omg, give me feedback but like honestly. Seriously. This is me, here, the me who routinely sleeps well into the afternoon, the me who DRIVES three blocks to the grocery store, the me who would, at ANY given moment, rather be lounging horizontal, with a glass of wine in one hand and a fistful of salt and vinegar potato chips in the other.

THIS IS THE ME THAT WAS ON A MOTHERFUCKING TREADMILL,
SERIOUSLY, RUNNING, AT 5:40AM,
AFTER A NIGHT OF BREATHING FUCKING DESERT AND SULFUR FUMES.


***FIVE-FORTY IN THE MORNING***
If nobody else thinks this is some kind of schism on the face of all that is right and proper… well then I really don’t know what.

(And even if nobody sees fit to leave me a note, I actually probably will still make another blog post tomorrow. Because I’m lame like that. But a collective gasp of horror would still be nice.)

Posted in aberrant behavior, anecdotal, north dakota | Leave a Comment »

KHW #8: There’s no thermostat in Hell.

2009/02/17

I don’t really know what time it is right now, but I’m pretty sure I should be asleep. I also know that the past several hours, which I would rather have spent in blissful slumber, have slipped by in a haze of goosebumps and sweat – a losing battle with the heater in room 122.

This heater has two knobs: one, ostensibly, to control the “temperature” (red for warm / blue for cold) and one to control the flow of air into the room (‘low heat’, ‘high heat’, ‘low cool’, ‘high cool’, ‘fan’ and ‘off’). My 1994 Hyundai Excel had a remarkably similar onboard system.

Since it’s Fargo, and since it’s cold, I turned knob #1 into the red, set knob #2 to ‘low heat’ (‘high’ produces something akin to the Santa Ana winds – you could blow-dry your hair in 5 minutes flat), and tucked into bed. I tossed, I turned, and soon realized I was covered in sweat. So I dialed knob #1 down a bit. Still sweating, and also parched. The air this heater kicks out is like, scientifically designed to rob your body of all moisture. Knob #1 goes down a little bit more, and suddenly I’ve got full-on air conditioning, goosebumps, and probably pneumonia, so we notch it up a tad back towards the red, chugging tap water to ward off the eventual drought. This little waltz has been continuing now for well over three hours, during which, like a hypothermia victim in his last moments before the blackness, I have peeled off several layers of sleepwear.

These sheets are like sandpaper, mind you. And I think I’m allergic to their detergent.

Frustrated and exhausted, I’ve just now turned the heater OFF. It’s nine degrees or something outside, so there’s a pretty good chance that some hapless member of the crew will knock on my door in a couple hours, eager to get started on our Starbucks run, and find me naked, frozen, and curled up under the television. (Terminal burrowing. Google it.)

~~~~~~~~~~
edit:

OH HEY WOW AWESOME! When the heater is “OFF”, it will still rouse itself for brief (but loud!) periods to spew COLD AIR across the bed! Life couldn’t get any better. I think I’ll just wander out into the street and die now, jesus christ.

Posted in i hate technology, insomnia, north dakota, personal hell, progress? | Leave a Comment »

KHW #7: Hubris or Sloth?

2009/01/20

Laundry is the most thankless of chores, I think, and hotel laundry is even worse. You have to beg the front desk for quarters, find your detergent and dryer sheets (or grovel for more change, so you can buy some from the ridiculously overpriced dispensers), get the key to the secret room, and take the elevator to the third floor, where the laundry machines are invariably in some state of meta-use by a staff member or fellow guest. The washer never rinses out all the soap and the dryer never dries all your clothes in one cycle, so you wind up making seventeen trips to and from the third floor, which is great for calorie burning and shit but is also a total waste of time. I flew out to ND pretty much determined not to engage in such nonsense.

I got the big win on this, our seventh shoot. It was our longest trip yet by two days, in the winter to boot, and I managed to squeak through the entire thing without having to fuck around doing laundry or having re-wear socks and undies.

So like, it’s no mystery, right, that my great coup was made possible by the close proximity of our local Target, and the kind help of reserve credit on my Bank of America account.

The laws of physics state that when you fly to Fargo with a bag that is already overweight, then spend a bunch of money on new underwear at Target, and, in the process, pick up more cute things like tank tops and sweaterdresses and leggings on clearance, your return luggage will be even MORE overweight and, in fact, may not even zipper shut properly. And so, you will have to mail your dirty clothes back to yourself, at a personal cost of $28.00.

My quest totaled charges in excess of $200.00 (including overweight baggage fees at NWA), and the dirty laundry arrived just today via USPS… with a giant hole in the side of the box and a pair of black XS boyshorts hanging therefrom. There’s gotta be a better way.

Posted in confession, I enjoy being a girl, north dakota, progress?, work | Leave a Comment »

KHW #7: Weird food, installment 3

2009/01/16

Some weird food is awesome. Road Meat in Costa Rica was awesome. Knoephla was awesome. Even the watermelon licorice was… kind of awesome… in it’s own bizarre way…

And then, some weird food is just straight up nasty.

photo.jpg

Footloose, on a solitary run for new and untested roadfood, I found this little gem in a supermarket down the street from out hotel. The box reminded me, somehow, of Toaster Strudel, so I tossed the it into my shopping cart. I had high hopes for Snack Toast. I thought it could be part of a deconstructed bruschetta, or a breakfast and lunch in one. (Perhaps not the blueberry version, but still.)

photo.jpg

Looks so innocent, doesn’t it, lying there placidly on my facetowel.

It’s a sleeper, let me tell you.

Train hunting the following afternoon, eyes on the prize but somewhat peckish, I fished up some Snack Toast from the backseat and snapped off a big hunk of the crusty stuff. And so like, I know I don’t drink the most water ever, but man, that shit … if you added twelve teaspoons of sugar to a blueberry flavored Dunkin’ Donuts iced coffee, then dehydrated it, then threw in a pinch of yeast, that would be Snack Toast. Imagine chewing, then having to swallow, a full mouthful of sugary, straw-filled desert.

My only consolation was the fact that, unlike some people, I wasn’t standing outside in the freezing wind on the side of a highway bridge filming this trainyard.

Dilworth train yard

So there’s an upside to every situation, you see.

Posted in eatin', north dakota, work | Leave a Comment »

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