Traveling in terms of states per day

I think I've just been the furthest inland in North America I've ever been.

It started on Friday night, a trip Andy, Jessie, MB and I had been planning for weeks: MB and Jessie's high school friend, Heather's baby shower. The plan evolved from a night-long driving relay between Andy and me to Huntingdon, PA (just this side of Pittsburgh) to a more sensible break at a hotel in Pittston (near Scranton). The earlier iteration of the plan was scrapped when the three others realized how I get weird--even for me--when I get tired. That kind of high could be dangerous behind the wheel--or if I'm a passenger that thinks the wheel is now some kind of teddy bear or something.

In the week prior to the trip I had tried to conserve energy to little profit by sleeping as much as possible. On Friday I just drank as much caffeine and vitamins at lunch as possible and showered to wake up when I got home. We ordered some Pinky's Pizza and ate with Jessie and Andy before leaving to the classic Boston road trip song "Roadrunner" by the Modern Lovers.

As would be the trend for the weekend I would drive through the worst of the weather, but it was quite a luxury to have Andy's GPS, whom he named Jane after the voice he chose. We would play a game where we'd try to get the ETA to tick down by making up as much time as possible. I had clocked us at an estimated arrival time at the Knight's Inn of about 12:50AM before we stopped at a McDonald's to stretch and snack.

To keep me awake, MB played me some Beatles CDs so that I could drive and sing.

The motel was decent for the price, except for the smell of BO that permeated the air (I'm usually turned off by the excessive disinfectant smell in most roadside motels, but at least that is presumably sanitary).

The next morning I beat my alarm by waking up around 7:00 and decided to see what the continental breakfast consisted of here. It was a box of twelve doughnuts for the whole hotel, some regular and decaf coffee, and a fountain with apple and orange juice. I grabbed some fliers and newspapers on the off chance we'd want to explore Scranton before heading to the shower or on the way back the next day and returned to the room just in time for everyone else to wake up.

We settled on a place about two doors down for real breakfast, it was a Perkins, which is apparently Pennsylvia's answer to Bickford's.

Omelettes for everyone.

We made a few stops on the way for gas and food and to donate some bodily fluids to the local sewage systems, including a stop at a Pizza Hut/KFC. It had been years since I've even been inside a sit-down Pizza Hut. I remember going to the one on Boston Road as a kid with pitchers of neon Mountain Dew and pan pizza. Here we got some pizza rolls to justify using their bathrooms. It didn't occur to us until later that they might have meat in them so MB didn't have any and I ate three out of four, including one that had been baking on the dashboard (There are starving kids in China).

The shower was pretty nice. I had only been to one other baby shower, it was for a doctor co-worker of mine at UCLA. He had been subject to some games that were at once embarrassing, gross, and touching in their thoughtfulness. I have now witnessed what it's like to change a diaper when the contents are foul peanut butter.

This one was different though. It was in a friend of Heather's house and there was a pool and barbecue food and people of all ages. The only people around our age though were Heather and her husband Sean. Andy and I managed to have fun instigating a water war with some little children though. Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges.

We drove to Heather's house paralyzed with laughter from tasteless jokes, though sadly none were inspired by the West Hempfield Middle School visible from their house. It was here that I realized my long-dormant fear of dogs. I didn't grow up with pets and my neighbor's dog backed me into a corner at a young age. Having staked out our rooms for the night, and with the Siberian Huskies now a calm mass of resting fluff on the floor, the six of us sat on opposite couches exchanging hilarious stories of our wacky adventures, while I tried to help Andy with some Sudokus on his computer.

The next morning we chatted some more over some eggs, bacon, and toast while we plotted the trip back. MB and I were interested in stopping in a city at some point in the day to walk around and say we were somewhere (of course with four people blogging about the same thing, surely someone will believe us?). We, however, realized the daunting task ahead of us as we planned a trip that had taken us two days to get there to be done in one.

Andy and I would switch off more frequently than the past two days and we'd play our game of watching the ETA tick downward, even as we made several stops. The total stopping time was about two hours, we only lost one.

The route we took home was Interstate 76, not the video game from the 90s, through New Jersey, to New York, where we were dangerously low on gas and made a wrong turn to the gas station, and north on Interstates 95 and 91 to the Mass Pike, back onto 95 and Route 2. We ate at a Chinese/American buffet and I thought that Jane would want us to take 91 up to Springfield, bringing me close to my folks home, but it wasn't to be. It was probably an expensive set of tolls (Andy's car has EZ Pass, so we'll figure it out later), but it was worth the saved time through Pennsylvania's perpetual construction, despite one last traffic jam on the Mass Pike.

We had traveled five states in about 51 hours. It was quite an adventure, and quite a feat, but it would have been nice to have another two days so that we could actually walk around some cities along the way.

Perhaps we will the next time someone has a baby.

Good writing skills?

I'm in the process of applying for a job at a foundation that funds documentary films. It's a part-time job that pays better than my current full-time temp assignment, which would enable me to open my schedule up to more volunteering at WGBH and at RFB&D. In looking at the listing on hireculture.org I noticed they wanted solid writing skills. So I thought I'd show them my published article from Imagine News' August 2004 issue. I'll also post it below if you'd like to look at it:

Emerson College: What You Put Into It

By Eric Cheung

Strolling through the streets of Boston on a Sunday afternoon on a nice summer day, one might expect to find a pleasant sea breeze, tourists with cameras in hand, or perhaps a film crew-also with cameras in hand. The more nosey among us may inspect the scene with curiosity and find clapboards, CP cameras, boom mikes, and boxes to transport this equipment. There’s a pretty good chance those boxes are labeled “Emerson College.”

So it was on July 10th and 11th outside of South Station when Dawn Morrissey, producer of THE VIRTUOSO a Film III project organized production with directors Ramone Kendall and Steve Cook. “The film is about how the Democratic National Convention can disrupt even the simplest things in people’s lives,” Morrissey says.

“A street musician who plays his violin outside of North Station everyday and has a crush on a business woman who smiles and drops a buck in his case every morning. The convention comes to town and the virtuoso, oblivious to politics and the convention, tries to set up shop outside but is moved on.” The crew shot at South Station because “it doubled for North Station which does not have such a great facade.”

Film III summer session professor Jim Wolpaw says, “This is an interesting project because there are only three students in the class so it’s one film. They’ve built a story that sort of interacts with the Democratic National Convention. They’ll intercut actual television footage with the film footage so that whatever happens interacts with the story.”

Morrissey is enrolled as an adult undergraduate. “I am a mature student so the application process is not too laborious: an essay, a sample of your work and references.” From Ireland she had applied at NYU’s Tisch School and Goldsmith’s in London. She decided on Emerson because, “Emerson has a lot of adjunct faculty who work in the industry. I think they contribute a huge amount to student life at Emerson. You become a realist here after listening to their stories in the field but at the same time you’re allowed to grow artistically and they cultivate that.”

Wolpaw, who has been teaching at Emerson for the past ten years, is one such faculty member. A filmmaker for twenty-five years, his works include the Academy Award nominated documentary KEATS AND HIS NIGHTINGALE: A BLIND DATE and the cult rock comedy COMPLEX WORLD. “I didn’t go to school for film. My only formal film school training was two production classes at the New School. I learned by doing,” says Wolpaw. “One thing I’ve learned [from teaching] is there are just so many different ways of making films that work. What I can do is point out dangerous paths and what makes sense.”

Although he’s taught at Emerson for the past ten years, he’s also taught at the University of Rhode Island, Rhode Island College, and Rhode Island School of Design. At Emerson College, he’s noticed that “the student has everything they need to produce a really professional film.” Wolpaw says that what sets Emerson students apart is that they’re very serious about learning film. They see it as a viable career option.

This leads many Emerson students to seek internships at local production companies like David Sutherland Productions. The company, best known for the mini series “The Farmer’s Wife,” currently hires several interns every semester. Associate Producer Erin Anguish is in charge of the interns. “Interns at DSP, Inc. play a major role in the completion of our current film by helping to sort through, log, and transcribe our 2,000 plus hours of footage. In so doing, they are privy to a wealth of knowledge that can only be gleaned by watching original footage from as reputable a director as David Sutherland. Additionally, David makes use of the interns' intimate knowledge of the footage by inviting them to assist him in editing, looking for shots and sounds while providing valuable insight into the story structure as well as intelligibility of voiceover and narration.

“Emerson has been a wonderful place for recruiting interns. The bi-annual career fairs have been of tremendous help to me, and David has spoken at several Emerson events, putting a human face on an online ad. Many interns have actually contacted us after hearing David speak at one of such events, and those interns tend to be the most dedicated and motivated.

“I would say that one area where Emerson interns tend to stand out is the sheer force of their numbers. At least one third of my interns have been from Emerson, a fact that I largely attribute to the school's emphasis on the internship experience as well as their many on-campus recruiting events and unique forums in which students can interact with members of the Boston film community.”

Student life for an undergrad at Emerson involves lecture classes on film theory, hands-on classes with experienced professors, and internships at area production companies, but it also provides extra-curricular avenues for professional development on campus. One such organization is Frames Per Second. Undergrad Jay Pachomski has been involved with FPS for the past few years. “FPS is a student-run organization where students write scripts and choose a few to work on from pre to post-production.”

He describes why he likes FPS “I think it’s two part. First, there’s the opportunity to work on something outside class. Every semester you get to work on at least one or two short films. Second, there’s the chance to meet like minded people, into the same stuff. You can build those relationships that will continue into the real world.” As Jim Wolpaw says, “Students get out of Emerson what they put into it.”

For Dawn Morrissey one big advantage Emerson has are the contacts garnered through recent alumni. “They call me to work on big shoots,” she says. “[Alum] Evelyn Carrigan was working on a Touchstone film in Providence last year and they needed crew. She called me and I was on set a day later with Alec Baldwin, Matthew Broderick, and Jeff Nathanson who directed.” Nathanson also wrote the screenplay for the recent hit, CATCH ME IF YOU CAN. Says Morrissey, “the Emerson name is well known in the industry and our training is never questioned because the industry professionals know we have received a firm background in film production!”

Fetch! Fan-fic?

Well not really, but I recently signed up to be a docent for WGBH, which involves and eight-week training class. My first homework assignment was to watch an episode of Fetch! with Ruff Ruffman and either design a challenge for the show or write an autobiography from his point-of-view (in the context of the assignment he won the Yuppy Puppy Canine of the Year Award and had to write an autobiography for the program to the ceremony). I decided to do the latter as it was genuinely fun to write jokes again.

I actually have a brief history with this show. Four years ago I started working at the Museum of Science. One Sunday morning I was groggily working in the lobby after a late night doing comedy when a camera crew and several kids between 10 and 14 ran up to me. "Do you know where the nearest star is?" they asked. I pointed them to the Solar System exhibit, the focal point of which is a model of the Sun, the centerpiece to a scale model of the solar system that stretches all the way to the Riverside stop on the D-Line. I signed a release from the PA who happened to be a former classmate of mine at Emerson and forgot about it.

Several months later one of my co-workers told me that her kid liked me in the show. See if you agree by clicking here and watching the part that starts at 6:30.

Anyway, I only re-watched that and a few other clips here and there, and looked at the Wikipedia entry for the show (wherein I was surprised to learn just how many animated supporting characters have appeared on the show in the past three years), before considering that enough research to do scribble a couple of pages on the way to class.

Ruff Ruffman is someone who doesn't just have delusions of grandeur, he's also a hopeless neurotic. It's that tension that generates most of the humor in the show. He's able to marry those two halves to form a cohesive whole that makes him a Chinese food loving, endlessly pretentious, and charming game show host that gleefully messes with the contestants by enforcing strange rules, but is also laid-back enough to know when to break the rules. I think I could write someone like that (this week's homework is much easier, listen to The World on WGBH Radio).

So then, here's the product of my frantic ride through the Red Line and the 86 bus:

Ruff Quixotic Ruffman

I can't tell you how waggy my tail is for having received the Yuppy Puppy Canine of the Year Award--and I applaud your literary taste in allowing me to write my own autobiography!

First of all, like most geniuses, I'm slightly neurotic and my work habits are a bit erratic. So I want to apologize for the tardiness of this biography...my person ate it...as a salad, with croutons, cucumbers, some lite Northern Italian dressing and a fresh mix of Romaine lettuce, tomatoes, shredded carrots, and some peppers for a little extra kick...along with my favorite: chow mein noodles!

But I digress...

I was born in 1995 or 13965 in dog years, either at the beginning of the year or the end of it. I don't remember. I slept through most of it.

Like most of my family, except for my cousin Murray, I was born a walking, talking dog (to the lay-down person); canine anthromorphicus (to the stand-up and be taxodermic persons).

Along with chopstick-using opposable thumbs, I was born with a love for every new thing around me.

So naturally, I gravitated towards music. I love big band so much my person got me a Benny Goodman squeeze toy.

I LOVE German opera. At my last checkup I used the word Brechtian so much my vet thought I had post-nasal drip!

And I love love love reality television, especially The Amazing Race (It reminds me of the time I let Spot Spotnik beat me in a contest to be the first one to catch a car. He sold his prize squeeze toy to pay for the resulting dentist's bills).

And it's that love of television, coupled with my curiosity, and my consummate leadership skills, sprinkled with my endless charisma that brings me here tonight.

That stir-fry of awesome has given me the insight to con--er, convince WGBH and PBS to buy my show.

On Fetch! with Ruff Ruffman I make all the rules! And I know when to break them!

Thank you for this award. I'll bury it in The Victory Garden.

Practice using Photoshop

Last week was a little slow, temporary-job-wise, so I decided to use some of the programs I actually bought specifically for this computer (I bought Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Premiere Elements because I figured that I should put my Film major to use, even as a hobby).

Here now are two of my favorite quirky folks of the moment. I wanted to get an older photo of David Byrne, because circa "Stop Making Sense" he looks scarily like Buster Keaton, but this photo actually works really well for what the photo is supposed to be. I considered making Byrne a warden, leaning outside the cell, but having him leaning inside was more of a challenge and I figured the two of them would probabaly be, either in the same pickle, or become fast friends in jail.

David Byrne now actually looks more like David Lynch now (as they both have psychotically upswept shocks of white hair). Maybe I'll add Lynch later. One could be an angel on Keaton's shoulder, the other the devil. I'd let you decide whom.

I was in a movie

I'll probably be writing a story about this experience in the near future.

Wave of the future

I've had CNN on for most of the weekend; I've wished that Inauguration Day fell on Martin Luther King Day, not only for the symbolism, but for the more selfish reason that I could witness history, unfettered by the trappings of the workplace.

Yesterday I watched CNN's broadcast of "Normalcy, Never Again" also known as the "I Have a Dream" speech for it's most famous last quarter in which Martin Luther King Jr. improvised a finale to his plea for economic parity, at the urging of gospel singer Mahalia Jackson to "tell them about the dream," with the language he usually reserved for his sermons, declaring famously that he had a dream that people would be judged by the content of their character instead of the color of their skin. The speech itself ran for roughly seventeen minutes.

This was roughly the length of Barack Obama's speech today.

I came to work hoping to get there early to make sure I could get a live video stream of the Inauguration from CNN on my computer. Unfortunately the computers at work are starting to get a little old. They work perfectly fine for what they do, but streaming software upgrades trot past the time-capsuled system requirements of a few years ago. I can no longer watch The Daily Show on the official site, but for some reason I can watch it through IMDB.

So, I had settled on MSNBC's coverage, exactly counter to the FOX News programming on the TV when I got there (my office clearly supported Obama but FOX just happened to be what was on). It being the internet, my computer was lagging behind the television, especially because it would occasionally hiccup until I decided to click refresh. When I did things only got worse as the intermittent audio was supplemented by what was effectively a slide show.

My connection was worst during the oath and the speech. So, I put down the work I had and justified working in the front office (with the view of the waiting room television, now turned to ABC), by using the time to go through the faxes and scan documents. I managed to take the full amount of time in order to watch history live.

Almost everything stopped in the office as the speech started. My eyes welled up as two of the doctors on duty walked in. They came in just after the oath, which they watched in their office, under similar circumstances as mine. I didn't catch all of the speech, but it wasn't because I wasn't paying attention. I was after all at work, so there were still patients calling into the office, there were still patients waiting for apppointments, and there was still the whirr of office equipment. I did catch mention of the sacrifices made at Concord during the Revolutionary War, which reminded me of the museum where MB works, and I heard mention of the wonderful diversity of religious belief, including non-believers. But much of the speech blended into that whirr of immediate activity.

So, soon after the speech, I found the transcript, and the YouTube video (Part I and Part II), which I'll review later in the sober quiet of my apartment.

My first blog here

Okay, I'm starting a blog here too. Because why not? I might as well conquer the universe by going viral and strewing my words about aimlessly on my own. This way I don't have to rely on people actually reading this thing and I can just deliver this to every site I can, strewing the breadcrumbs for the pigeony public.

If this entry is tinged with a bit of cynicism I guess it's because I wonder if I'm too old for more and more social networking sites. I can't wait to embrace my curmudgeony attitude fully in my old age.

See you in the blogosphere.