Just get here from TravelBlogs.com? Want a quick intro to me and my trip? The About Page aughta be helpful. I have no real plan, but there’s a rough framework of what I’m doing on The ‘Plan’ page. For the truly lazy, a 5-second explainer of what my trip is about is the equation to the right.
I’m currently in Krakow, Poland after spending more than four incredible months in South America. Two months in Peru, two months in Colombia, and a week in Buenos Aires before a change in (non-existent) plans lead me here. I’m still missing me some South America.
Here are a few stories to get you started:
When I was in Peru, I pretended to be a doctor visiting from the United States and lied to children: Dr. Shipley Visits Peru
I ended up with two transsexuals at a gay bar in Bogota after heading out in search of a stripper that does tricks with bottles. In Search of Bottle Girl
I have just gotten back from my second night at the much-anticipated Etiuda & Anima film festival in Krakow. I’ve been to three 2-hour shows of shorts now and there’s plenty more where that came from. While I was there, I mentioned to the Film Festival that I have some production people amongst my readers, and they asked me to please post the following letter for consideration.
November 14, 2008:
FROM: The Polish Film Festival, Krakow, Poland
TO: Filmmakers
Dear Filmmaker,
Hello. We, The Polish Film Festival, cordially invite you to submit your film to our festival. As the 2008 festival wraps up, we’re looking for new exciting entries for the 2009 Polish Film Festival and along with ANYTHING else we can scrape up, we want YOUR film.
We receive the same common questions from many different filmmakers and would like to go over those questions with you right away. To make this simple and assuage any concerns you might have about submitting your film, here is the Polish Film Festival FAQ for Filmmakers:
Polish Film Festival FAQ for Filmmakers:
Q: What if my film was shot on shit DV and looks terrible? Should I still send it in? A: SEND IT IN!
Q: What if I haven’t had any time to do any audio editing and am just using the on-camera microphone in my film? Is that a problem? Is it unprofessional? A: We don’t care. SEND IT IN!
Q: What if my film is supposed to be a “deep” documentary about an Arab kid that annoys tourists at ruins and tries to get them to buy postcards but everyone is rude to him and no one buys the post cards and every shot is the handheld camera 1 foot from his face as he walks around pestering people? Would that be a good fit for your festival? A: Absolutely. SEND IT IN.
Q: Do I need characters in my film? A: No.
Q: Should there be a lot of people credited that worked on my film to surprise viewers that so many people had a hand in it’s creation, even though it still ended up sucking REALLY hard? A: Not required, but definitely a plus. SEND IT IN.
Q: What if my film is really “artsy” and just kinda weird for the sake of weird? What if it’s 15 diconnected, random scenes and then ends with several wide shots of public places where everybody just freezes and stops walking and then they all lie down on the ground and then I include several other shots of people lying on the ground kind of like they’re dead and then the dog that I kept cutting back to with the heartbeat sound on the patio goes back in to the living room and sits across from the TV with the video of the fish in the aquarium on it before it cuts to black and rolls credits? A: That is truly beautiful. You know what to do. SEND. IT. IN!!!
Q: What if my film is about 10 minutes long but only has a shot of cars going along a street, a really zoomed in shot of the moon REALLY SLOWLY crossing the screen, and a shot of a guy hanging off of a boat in a harbor by his arms? If it helps, I can include the sound effect of a gunshot in the middle of it and a quick cut to someone’s face. A: We are speechless. We need this movie.
Q: What if my film is called “Karaoke” and has a fucked up bizarro German song and consists of 4 solid minutes of a full-frontal naked man screaming in to a microphone while a fat guy sleeps on a coach in front of him and his breathing is in fast motion? A: WE WILL LOVE THIS MOVIE! SEND IT IN!!!!
Q: What if my film has literally no narrative whatsoever? A: SEND IT IN!
Hopefully this FAQ will take care of some of the most common questions our prospective filmmakers have before submitting a film to The Polish Film Festival. While we are quite selective in what we include in the festival, it takes a special breed of filmmaker to be included in our show.
We hope that you’ll consider a submission and then after the screening you will leave in disgust before the second set of films is over and walk home in a huff, too angry and disappointed to even go in to a bar and have a beer on a Friday night.
We look forward to hearing from you, Filmmaker.
Best Regards,
- The Polish Film Festival
So. Yeah. That is an excerpt from an email I actually sent to a friend when I got home last night. On a Friday night. I tried to think of how to describe the film festival to blog readers, and decided against re-making the wheel.
On the bright side, it has inspired me to create things. Maybe something people will laugh with, possibly relate to on some level, or even enjoy.
Ah, who am I kidding? There’s no market for stuff like that.
It’s a small studio near the center of Krakow owned by a very nice Polish family. Mom, Dad, and the two boys (26 and 20) live upstairs. Mom doesn’t understand why her eldest son Andrzej doesn’t want to get married. I’m with you, Andrzej. Fight the power.
In the interest of geekery, we’re going to try a little something different for the apartment tour this time. I’ve sloppily put together a 360 degree Quicktime file of my apartment that you can click on and pan around to have a look. Just click on the image and get your drag on (If you want to get fancy you can hold the Shift or Control button with your mouse over the image to zoom in or out.):
Be curious to hear if this works for people.
A Thursday Night in Kazimierz
A typical bar or club in central Krakow is underground. Not secret underground but actually underground. You can’t see most bars from the street and thus have to walk in to a gated alley and then down in to the cellar of a building. I was initially confused when I got here because, seeing no people, I thought everything was dead. Turns out you just need to go down the typically precarious stairs to the basement. It actually has a cool and cozy feel to it most of the time – exposed brick walls, low, curved ceilings, candle light. The Kazimierz area, on the other hand, is a bit more typical – the bars are just at street level and have plain old windows.
Polish Satan and his Girlfriend
Thursday night started in one such Kazimierz bar playing the Marilyn Manson version of “Tainted Love.” I met Polish “Satan” and his girlfriend by getting in to an argument over who did the original version. They said it was The Cure, which is what initially brought me in to the conversation. The bartender (pictured right), who Wikipedia tells me was actually correct, said it was originally by Gloria Jones. I erroneously insisted that it was Soft Cell.
Polish Satan’s real name is “Gregor.” That’s him and his lady pictured below to the left. Gregor is an electrical engineering student. However, he emphasized that as an atheist he prefers to be called Satan and/or Lucifer. Subtle. I respected his request, but was more entertained when he took his hair out of the ponytail and we all agreed that he looked the most like Jesus.
This lead to an entertaining conversation of me fielding questions about America. Satan’s girlfriend initially started this off by saying, “Tell me about you country.” I rambled for a little bit and then asked if she had any more specific questions. She did. For example, things like, “When you walk down road is all person really so fat?” or “Why is United State so crazy??”
For the first time I got to practice my new Obamafied outlook when she asked about the elections! Nice. She is an Obama fan, but I had to explain that the N word is not the preferred way to refer to a black / African American guy. Satan already knew this.
Attempting to Swear in Polish and English
We then continued by having a conversation about our respective languages. As with any typical language conversation, it went straight to the interesting stuff: cuss words. I can now say all manner of filth in Polish. Or rather, because Polish is a really difficult language, I have to actually take out my notebook, find the right page, and read the words that I have copied down phonetically in English, which tends to make it funnier due to the overall awkwardness of the process and inevitable mispronunciation. “Oh, wait, wait! I got one. Hold on, hold on… let me just find it here. … Yeah. Kurwa! Zajebiście!” Hilarity ensues.
Satan’s girlfriend had just been informed that day that she was going to be fired by her (coincidentally American) employer and was drowning her sorrows at the bar. She wanted to practice her English swear words and her inebriation made the entire conversation all the more ridiculous. The most confusing for her seemed to be the phrase, “Take a shit.” The conversation went like this:
Polish girl, “But this words I do not understand. To make, ehh, poop, to make shit — you know hhhow is this — is this the correct word? Shit?”
Me, “Yes. That’s it.”
Polish girl, “Yes. I have to go to toilet now and make shit. But that is not how you will say. What will you say? I do not remember the correct.”
Me, “I think you mean you need to ‘take a shit.’”
Polish girl gets excited now and continues, “YES! Yes, this is! Why is this? ‘Take a shit?’ I make a shit. I do not take to you when I finish. It stays and I do not take it. You know, it…” She trailed off and did her best to pantomime flushing a toilet and spinning her hands around like water being flushed.
Me, “Yeah, it’s just one of those things, I guess. Just how we say it. Take a shit.”
This was apparently very funny to her. She couldn’t stop laughing at the mental image she had by our misleading phrase. She laughed and rambled on about how she was going to “go the toilet and take back gift for American.” “I will take you my shit! Where is the bag!?” she exclaimed. Next to her, Satan laughed.
The bartender was starting to pour free shots for our group, which seems to be common here. Not wanting to get sloppy, I made my exit. Like my old man says, you can’t soar with the eagles in the morning if you hoot with the owls at night. There was a little more hooting to do, though, I just didn’t want to fall out of the tree.
Kazimierz Karaoke
From here I stopped by one of the many stands that sell cheap long pieces of bread topped with a variety of different options. I think they’re called “zwykła” but I really can’t be certain. They’re very popular late-night food in Krakow. I chose one with salami because it was the only thing I was relatively certain I could pronounce properly and avoid too much confusion with the restaurant workers who never speak English. There’s the menu pictured below.
I hung out with a group of art students outside for a little bit before making my way to a bar called “Fuego” for karaoke, which was the entire point of me heading out.
The karaoke was happening, but it wasn’t super crowded. Perhaps I got there a little bit too late. However, within minutes I met a big group of Polish people and a random French guy that ended up being fun to hang out with. Unfortunately, I was unable to find any hiphop represented in the selection of available songs. There was a pretty even mix of Polish songs and American/British songs.
This video below is roughly what it was like. Witness “Always” by Bon Jovi being belted out by a duo. When it got to the faster part of the song, the female singer did backup (or just gave up and went with a single-sound approach instead of specific words). The guy with the pony tail is supposed to be doing the other part. Apparently one girl did not approve of the pony-tailed guy’s job and actually tried to take the microphone away from him mid-song. As you will see, he did not like this. Poor form on her part.
Going to restaurants here is even more of a crapshoot than in South America, where I would at least have some idea what I was getting myself in to. Polish menus are complete mysteries to me. I just point at something that isn’t too expensive and eat what they bring me.
My favorite staple thus far has been make-’em-at-home pierogis. Buy frozen:
Boil for 8-10 minutes in salty water:
Enjoy!
They’re fast, easy, filling, cheap, and consistently tasty. Much better, though, where the made-from-scratch ones that the family who owns my apartment invited me to share with them.
This is a Polish pancake:
I did not cook it. It’s filled with something white and really tasty. It was given to me by the mother of the family who owns my apartment because she feels bad about the construction happening in the building right next to my room. I feel bad about it too because the workers come in early every morning and are using some sort of industrial adhesive to put down new flooring that makes my lungs hurt.
Other highlights include Crack cookies:
I also seem to have a tendency to buy the wrong things. I was duped in to thinking I was buying frozen pierogis, but I ended up with only puff-balls filled with nothing. They were spongy and pretty bland, but I soldiered through them:
I purchased a strange, sour fruit-ish concoction thinking it was milk. It says “Maslanka wrzensinska” on the bottle, has an expiration date, and was in the dairy section. I don’t think it’s yogurt, but it has the consistency of yogurt, and the taste of bad. I have yet to buy more milk.
I also had to actually ask someone what was butter at the Carrefour. “Przeproszam. Czy mowi pani po angielsku?” (My best Polish phrase meaning, “Excuse me. Do you speak English?”) “Yes, I do,” replied the random girl. “Oh! Great! Hey, sorry, do you know which of these things is butter?” I was in the completely wrong section despite the fact that twenty different tubs in front of me could have easily been some sort of buttery spread. She was quite helpful and lead me to the butter. Humbling.
That’s all for now, kids. I leave you with pictures of the Krakow old guy chess spot (it doesn’t have the intensity of Peruvian Chess Culture, but it’s still good.) and one of the central plaza in Krakow with a cloud that looks like Greenland:
How’d I watch and share the election results in Krakow? On the internet. I finally went to sleep when the sun was coming up. Screen looked something like this:
Browser with ton o’ tabs (CNN, Kos, Drudge, Pollster, Slate, email, FB), IM conversations, Skype live video chat with Andrew, Erin & King, Twitter tweets, and streaming MSNBC TV.
He did it. America did it.
I’ll keep this (relatively) brief because this is not a political blog, but from an American world traveler’s perspective, the 2008 presidential election has been more than just a side note as I move from country to country and the results mean more than just a little to me as someone representing America to the rest of the world.
To the folks at home, I know from first-hand experience that the rest of the world is, generally and eloquently speaking, balls-out elated right now.
The world cares. A lot.
Everywhere I’ve been, people asked me about the election. “Have you voted? Who will win? What do you think?” It almost always came up. This goes for Peru, Colombia, Argentina, and Poland — and the people from all sorts of other countries I’ve met while traveling in these countries. (Australia, Germany, Israel, France, Brazil, etc.)
When they ask if I voted, I proudly said that I did — absentee. Then I say that my vote was for Barack Obama.
With the exception of one time*, the mention of Obama’s name immediately cuts the inherent tension in having a political discussion with someone who’s leanings you don’t know. None of them are sure initially if I’m a Bush guy or something, but when they hear that I voted for Obama, they relax and smile, the floodgates open, and the conversation gets interesting and honest.
* I met a Colombian Cab driver who insisted that America was “not ready for a black president” and that America needed a “strong man” to lead it. As an example, he explained that, more or less, everything that George Bush has done after 9/11 has been the right thing to do. I actually bet him $15 that Obama would win. Guess I need to go back to Colombia to collect now.
The world is well informed.
During these conversations, I am continually impressed with the breadth of knowledge people in other countries have about news and politics in the United States. Many of them are probably better informed (and even care more) about our politics than Joe Six-Pack. Cabbies in Colombia, other travelers, bartenders, whoever. They largely know a surprising amount about our politics and they can talk intelligently about it.
The world loves Obama…
… and summarily seems to hate George Bush. According to my unscientific survey, of course.
They seemed at the very least unexcited about John McCain. Reactions towards Palin were probably best summed up by the 50 year-old Scottish car mechanic at the hostel in Krakow, “Oh, shite. She’s a nutter, that one.”
I’m not sure how many times I’ve heard variants of the phrase, “Well everyone in my country hopes you elect Barack Obama.” “We want Obama.” “If I could vote, I’d vote for Obama.”
I’m sure there are exceptions, but other than the war-mongering Colombian cab driver, I have yet to personally meet anyone.
And me?
This means a lot to me.
I have generally been quick to say negative things about America and what our policies represent around the world because I’ve disagreed with what we’ve done on the international stage and who we’ve chosen to lead us. Since I’ve actually cared about politics and the news, I’ve always felt a mistrust, a shiestiness, and general douchebaggyness surrounding the whole affair of America and it’s politics. I’ve been a cynic about a system that I’ve never felt included in.
That may have changed last night at 6:00 in the morning sitting in a small studio apartment in Krakow watching MSNBC streaming video online while I video chatted with friends in their living room.
Sitting on the other side of the Atlantic and for the first time in my life, I actually feel pride in my country. I am proud of what we’ve done and what it means. I am proud that we are showing the world we might not be nincompoops after all. The Little Snowball in Hell that has yet to melt and I are proud of the state of Indiana which looks to go BLUE. (!) I’m not gonna start blaring that one “Proud to Be An American” country song or anything, but at least I know America hasn’t totally lost it’s shit.
(Apparently one of the Scottish med students I met in Arequipa, Peru feels the same way. She just updated her Facebook status to say, “happy Americans-aren’t-so-stupid-after-all day.” See what I mean?)
Even if Obama biffs it or even if one were to argue that the election of Obama was merely a rejection of the Bush administration and not an endorsement of Obama, that’s still enough for me to walk prouder around the world.
Maybe now the next time I’m at a random pub in another country and strike up a conversation with someone, I won’t have to ready my battery of, “But, hey, don’t worry – I’m one of the Good Americans!” explainers when they ask where I’m from.
Finally. I might just have faith in America again.
Thanks, people.
Editor’s Note: And to the McCain supporters and/or Barack cynics: Don’t sweat it. I ain’t judgin’. I still do appreciate a variety of opinions even if I and the rest of the world tend not to agree with them. This is America, after all.
It’s beautiful here in Krakow. It’s not really cold yet, but we’re right in the middle of a gorgeous fall. The leaves are even changing. Nice. I’m writing you from my small studio apartment in central Krakow.
I also left you hanging a bit. What was I excited about in my last entry? Read on.
I’m world-renowned for telling people different variants of the phrase, “It will be okay.”
Such as, “Things will work out,” or “I’ve got faith in you,” or, “Ahh, don’t worry about it, you’ll be fine,” or I’ll quote quote Outkast’s SpottieOttieDopaliscious and say, “Funny how shit work out sometimes, y’dig? One moment you frequent the booty clubs and the next four years you and somebody’s daughter raisin’ y’all own young’n.” Whether it’s relevant to the situation or not — and it never is.
I believe it, too. (Except the part about raising my own young’n anytime soon. I hope.) I have faith that good things will happen. Even when bad things happen, they’re usually transitory and I tend to either learn things from them or laugh at them. Thanks, Mom, for the positive world-view.
So what does this Love Fest of positive energy and thoughts have to do with Poland? It’s what happened. I was in a distinctly average hostel near the city center of Krakow which was in a building where the gestapo used to torture people. Nothing crazy-exceptional had happened until I wandered over to the Wall of Business Cards and I found these:
Cards for a film festival.
Hell yeah! There’s a film and animation festival in Krakow. While I’m here. I’m specifically here to spend some time working on a creative venture or two and what better than an international film festival to pass my time and grab a little inspiration with!
But wait, there’s more. I went to ask the receptionist at the hostel about where I could buy tickets. She said, “Oh, this is cool. I worked it last year, will be going again this year, and have a bunch of friends with films in the festival.” We talked some more and it turns out she’s a film student and producer in a nascent film production company she and a couple friends are starting. Who knew?
Furthermore, I showed her my demo reel and she told me about a potential green-screen shoot in Poland’s capital city of Warsaw which she might be bringing me along to! Awesome. They’re still working out the details of the shoot, so I don’t know if it’s going to happen or not yet, but if it does, I’m totally going. Woot.
So thanks to a spoonful o’ random chance, things took a nice turn in Krakow. Had I not looked at the Wall of Business Cards, I would have had no idea about any of this.
Nice. Thanks, Krakow.
Propaganda Bar in Kazimierz
I have found where I like to go out in Krakow. I spent the first few nights wandering around the beautiful main square in Krakow. It is certainly beautiful: full of incredible architecture, nice restaurants, and nice bars. A bit too nice at times.
Enter Kazimierz. It’s a historic Jewish district in Krakow and has the good-to-Shipley spots to go out to. It seems “hipper,” for whatever that’s worth. Apparently it used to be dangerous to walk around in but is in the process of coming up. It also includes last night’s destination: a bar called “Propaganda.”
Propaganda is chocked full of, well, propaganda. Old Soviet posters, old radios, gas masks, all sorts of bizarre decorations. It’s weird. It’s awesome. It’ll probably be my first destination when I go out. There was even a fight between a couple of drunk Poles with the smelly guy that was sitting next to me at the bar and making out with some girl acting as a sort of moderator. Naturally, the first thing I did was bust out the camera and shoot video:
All of the patrons were quite nonplussed by the whole thing. The guys got pushed out the door and that was that — I still have no idea what happened. The bartender cleaned up the broken glass and the everyone moved on. I decided on a change of venue and wandered over to another bar where I met a group of girls from England in for the weekend. While far from Polish, they were fun to hang out with.
The Mall.
So, the cheapest place to buy groceries around here is at the Carrefour. Which is in a massive mall. I still don’t like malls, but I did find some enjoyable things:
A women’s clothing store called “Troll.” Hah.
Forever 21 is one-upped by “Forever 18″ … Europe continues to be on the bleeding edge of fashion. I’m sure when the US gets around to having a “Forever 18,” these guys will have already moved on to Forever 16.
Finally, a sign in the “Ecco” store referring to the “Husky Rangers,” which I’m pretty sure is just a promo for some winter clothing line – Google shows no mention of a book or film by the same name. I’m sure they’re referring to the dogs, but I like the idea of slightly overweight park rangers on an adventure. They’re not large, they’re just, you know, “husky.”
I am in Poland. I’ll be moving in to my Krakow apartment on Tuesday. Woot. There are some pretty exciting things to talk about and I’ll have all the juicy details here soon. For now, though:
This afternoon I walked around for 2 hours in central Krakow shooting video with the only video camera I have: my pack-of-cards-sized Canon SD-1100 point-and-shoot camera. Thanks to the newly-acquired laptop, I can actually edit stuff. Started shooting at about 3:00 pm this afternoon, finished editing at a leisurely pace by 11:00 pm.
Fun to make up a simple project and just finish it in a day.
I have had pierogis three times at the pictured pierogi restaurant. They are awesome. The “Buty” store, which I pronounce “Booty” every time I walk past it, sells shoes. And boots.
So, in all of it’s one minute and five seconds of glory, here is what central Krakow is like. Music by Herb Alpert. Thanks, Loxy.
Just get here from TravelBlogs.com? Want a quick intro to me and my trip? The About Page aughta be helpful. I have no real plan, but there’s a rough framework of what I’m doing on The ‘Plan’ page. For the truly lazy, a 5-second explainer of what my trip is about is the equation to the right.
When I was in Peru, I pretended to be a doctor visiting from the United States and lied to children:
I ended up with two transsexuals at a gay bar in Bogota after heading out in search of a stripper that does tricks with bottles.
In Colombia, I went to Pablo Escobar’s now-defunct estate and had to bribe some cops on the way over:
After a Colombian death metal show, a crazy guy told me God was going to kill me and all the gringos. Then we met Sausage Shorts:
This is America, after all.
