Awards

Getting awards make me feel uneasy. Like I'm supposed to feel superior or something. Perhaps it is part of my era, having grown up in the 1950-60's. Perhaps it is having grown up around so many simple people in farming communities from Missouri. While I am thrilled to be recognized for my work, crowing about it, or even too much 'marketing' makes me want to find a way back to my quiet home.

What ever that thing is, I can do the public speaking part.

This week I was deeply honored to have my show on the Jocotoco Antpitta receive the distinction of having been chosen as an official selection of the Beverly Hills, California "Going Green Film Festival". I think this hit me because after all isn't Los Angeles the center of the motion picture industry? Hollywood, movie stars and all of that. I mean I am from St. Louis and film birds. I am self taught. I live in rural Montana. My neighbors are Richardson's Ground Squirrels and Red-necked Grebes.

The idea for this show came from my friend Andrew who had spent quite a bit of time looking for this bird. He saw it run from the deep, dense and wet cloud forest cover to a compost pile grab and worm and disappear. He said, " I think you can get it."

So I hired Don, spent way too much money getting ready, found an overpriced guide, and we flew to Quito. I "hedged" my bet by staying for 2 months so I could film in a bunch of great places, then adding an extension to Buenos Aires and planning another month in Argentina. Don would stay for about a month and we would film near Quito, Mindo, Cuenca, and Zamora. These are locations that appear from a map to be close by and easy to access.

We made friends with everyone, and I fell in love with Ecuador and its people. The food was fabulous and I rarely have felt more healthy. We found amazing reserves, several run by the Jocotoco Foundation, but- We did not see the Jocotoco Antpitta on our first visit to Tapichalaca.

This is like making a movie and the star doesn't show up. Suddenly, you are in a panic because there is no script... and you are speaking in Spanish while trying to rapidly figure out how to salvage your vanishing investment.

I had forgotten how hard it is to work in foreign countries.

Now I am flying to LAX. Probably no one I know will be there. And to top it off... I get to schmooze with people so I can find the funds to make a conservation-oriented TV series about the rare birds of the world.

Please- send me back to a foreign country, so I can work. My partners at Cortina can do the awards, I'll just film the birds.

Commuting part 1

My commute yesterday was not tied up in traffic. In November, I left northern Virginia after working most of the day, to drive to Cape May. I had already calculated that I would not be able to make it in time to catch the Ferry from Lewes to the Cape. So that left me one option: drive there.

This is part of my routine. My body aches from this option.

I seem to have this ability (or perversion) of driving hundreds of miles in a day to make an appointment the following morning. I neatly stack cases of gear, clothing tents and cameras into confined trunks of small hybrids just so I can get 40+ mpg. This, I tell myself, is helping to save the earth.

From Mapquest, I followed the shortest route to the interstate belt system. Living in rural Montana does Not prepare one for the concept that at 6:15 pm there are still 1,000's of people still doing this same exact thing in an urban area the size of Washington D.C. So about 2 miles from the entrance I encountered the line.

How was I to know that line- realistically- lasted for nearly 20 miles? 2 miles to get on the Beltway, and 18 miles to the exit going north into Maryland.

The quest for peace, wildlife and some level of solitude does not always simultaneously prepare one to adapt to this type of existence. Stop and start driving when conducted by a "country-friendly person" is not "urban friendly". I was victimized with because I routinely feel that it is OK to allow other people (who perhaps are taking advantage of me) cut in. People who are behind me seem to get impatient. I noted that one more than one occasion they felt the need to cut around me and wave with a certain finger upraised. Hey, I'm courteous even to them. All I wanted was a safe overpass to film this ordeal from. The thought of timelapse images of jammed highways, somehow is comforting. As if the digital capturing of this daily insanity some how makes it all better.

Eventually, the pressure of excited people wanting to join this happy throng ebbs, and space occurs between vehicles. Suddenly, movement begins.

I should mention before we move on that this concept of- listen people- of allowing space Between Vehicles, is part of creating movement. Urban people have a great deal of difficulty grasping this concept.

At the slightest sign of an opening, one of them immediately wants to fill that opening. If you think about it: this is Nature abhorring a vacuum in Hyperdrive. Behind every wheel was another Apolo Ono looking to slip into that tiny gap before speeding past into first place. The Need for Speed.

Two days ago, I began my other commute. It is a totally different: non-speed, non-pressure, non-sprint type of commute. The Marathon as a form of commuting.