Monday July 13, 2009 Billings. MT As you can see there is an unnecessary gap between when I live and when I type. I’m in Montana though I am going to choose to start with a meeting with a rock scientist/ inventor, and end with the near calamity at the canadian border coming into the USA... all I can say is CAMERAS EVERYWHERE... though as Gus from my Big Fat Greek would say in preparation of a good story... Hooookay! So after coming back from Bainbridge Island outside of Seattle, we made our way south to Kent, Washington To meet with Jordin Kare and after finding the location of his side project LaserMotive we moseyed over to Shake n’go... no it’s not sushi, it’s a dope ass burger joint, and hell yeah I said DOPE ASS... after refueling, we came back to interview Jordin Kare, and it was interesting to find out his passion with lasers came when he was a child building a laser kit that was advertised in a magazine. From there he saw his first laser glowing with a brilliant ruby light that illuminated not only a dot on the wall but his dreams. From then his trajectory was MAD SCIENTIST... he was not at all mad, he was quite gracious and unbashful about his awkward geekyness... what I learned from him is when things aren’t fun anymore, it is time to move on. And that is not saying struggle isn’t good, but for me when I am struggling over a video piece or an idea the struggle is the fun part, so when that’s not fun anymore, I can move on to a modified version of the project or something else completely. So after our three hour interview and a tour of his current project a SPACE ELEVATOR! powered by a 4000 watt laser (a standard laser pointer has 1/1000 of a watt) I drove the gang to the Canadian border, I was so excited to get the F out of the expletive cuntry (that is my favorite type-o EVER), though the entry into Canadia couldn't have been anymore reminiscent of a dystopic scene ( a la Children of Men), it was raining and there was no WELCOME TO CANADA! Instead the cars were ushered into a cattle like stable and one by one, we were corralled to the Mountie! He was not as happy as I had envisioned a Mountie to be, no cool red suit which made me think back to Rocky the Bullwinkle, and wonder if I had been lied to... but never the less, the surly Mountie spoke with us and with the asking of a few superficial questions and a scan of the Ole‘ passport we made out way to Vancouver, and I was driving like a bat out of hell... well maybe not that bad, though I had never driven in the rain and my excitement was hindering my judgement quite a bit. We saw no sky line of tall buildings, and we thought our expectations of seeing a big city were dashed though as soon as the freeway curved east, Vancouver's Downtown district was exposed to us and it was exactly what we expected. Though the clock said 2am so we decided to hold the after dark adventures til the next night. We slept in East Vancouver, and with the anticipation of the next days interview, (a yoga teacher/ poet/ blogger/ wino/ radio show host) Julie Peters. The next morning I woke up and headed to a coffee shop, and it ended up to be the coffee shop of my life, I had never had such a perfect Latte and I paired that up with a pumpkin bran muffin. Then we went and talked to Julie at the studio she worked at, and it was nice to talk to someone going through a transition ( she had just moved to Vancouver from Montreal, and was trying to get comfortable in her new home) after the interview Julie left for the airport to fly off to Toronto and visit her sick grandpa, and we stayed (of course) and did yoga with the studio owner Coco and it was not what I was used to, it was very fast flow yoga, and it did make you break a sweat but I didn’t like the vibe of the class over all, but maybe it was the uber sweating man in the speedo next to me that put a damper on the experience... ohhhhh pun kinda intended... Though after the class I felt rejuvenated, and what started out to be just a location for an interview ended up to be “Hippie and Dyke” center, and it was filled with good food and nice people. My favorite eat was a Coconut and Tiramisu Gelato (separate on the same cone) all I can say is it was kinda sensual, okay overtly sensual to the point I couldn’t see because my pupils were looking straight up at my third eyes, DIVINE I SAY. I wasn’t aware that Gelato could be so God damned good. We walked around and when night fell we got dinner at a pizza shop and was told by our cashier that what ever happens to the US by extremists is what America deserves because the American people do nothing as the Muslim word is being raped, and that if we really cared we would have killed Bush. Though I tried to explain to him, A some Americans are trying to bring justice and peace to the Middle East and B murder never solves ANYTHING in American political matters, esp with a puppet like bush... it could have been any other number of puppets... though the pizzaman made delicious pizza( pesto, onion, bell pepper, and potato)! We then went to Raw Canvas on Hamilton Street which was just off of Homer Street. You can paint there though tonight the painting area was closed because of a spoken world performance by The Unreal, a SF crew who very talented and I left completely inspired to do some sort performance art, because I recognize that I inhibit myself around people, though I secretly long to be my true self, which is not afraid of confronting strangers with thought provoking words and actions... so that is now on the frontier for me. We went back to East Van to go to sleep and at the bus stop we were approached by a young man looking to trade one of his graffiti works for a few dollars, apparently to get some Donaire (Kebab plate we figure), and so he graffited “Roadtrip Nation” and went on his way. The next day we went to interview a prop stylist at her blueberry farm in Surrey which was about 40 minutes south of Vancouver. We came back to the city after, and went to Vancouvers beautiful beaches and I was blown away. I felt like I was in Italy on the riviera, and there was even a large oak tree on the top floor of a 50 or so story tall condo building. I had some amazing Malaysian curry for dinner, I WAS BLOWN AWAY, Banana Leaf was its name and their are three locations in Vancouver. After we tried to find Salvador’s show at the Media Room in Vancouver, I had texted (impersonal but have you see international cell call prices? REDIC) him the night before and told him I couldn’t come, due to the fact we had a long drive ahead of us, though we found out our trip to idaho was much shorter than we thought, and I could go to the show! So I surprisingly surprised him ( Sal’s cell was off for said international cell call prices) when we saw each other we exchanged the BIGgest hug and the show was AMAZING!... PS, thank you Foreign Born and friends for letting me and my roadmate Calvin hang with you and letting us drink your beers... FB was soooooo good, I couldn’t stop dancing and the vancouver crowd was down for it, and it was an overall AMAZING show, and the perfect precursor to the next day. Luckily the RV was only parked a block away, so I walked back and went straight to sleep. We drove along the 3 freeway in Canada and it was one of the most spectacular scene. It reminded me of photo’s of the mountains of China. They had a very distinctive shape and color, and were utterly breathtaking... I recommend it... MAJOR So we got back to the US border but stopped to swim in the warmest lake in Canada Osoyos, and it was indeed perfect but by no means was it warm! After the pseudo bath we crossed over the border, and the border was MUCH more strict then the Canadian predecessor. They had cameras everywhere, the tables were turned, and we were as weak as a wounded calf ( Mid West specific metaphor, ahhh lets call it cowboy poetry!) so they caught us filming (which we apparently weren’t allowed to do)... so the asked us to come into their offices, I didn’t know where we were until I looked at the carpet and I was like “DAMN GINA!!!!! Homeland Security AGAIN!”. It was the second time in two weeks were detained for a by Homeland security, though they let us go on our way after a bit and we drove into Washington...
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