Through the ringer...
Oh man. What a last couple of days. It's been nuts. I'll start off with this morning--- Pete and I had to go ice diving. That consisted of me doing a cannonball off a couple of blocks of ice into the incredibly polluted Songhuajiang River. I was freezing my cohonies off. It hurt. We've been dealing with outside temperatures well into the minuses...and the water today was enough to bring on some serious hypothermia. The ice pool was carved out of 3 feet of ice, and I've never swam so fast in my life. Actually ended up swimming so fast from one end of the pool to the other we had to do it a second time to get a bit more coverage. Brutal.
But two nights ago was really brutal. We ended up doing a scene on Russian vodka in an ice bar in the center of town. Pete and I basically put away a fifth and half of vodka between the two of us in a much shorter time than advisable--- encouraged by our crew to get a bit smashed to make the scene a bit funnier. There are some pretty huge gaps in my memory from that night, and both he and I were down for the count. Such pain I didn't crawl out of bed until 6 pm the next day. All in the name of Nat. Geo... I'll spare you the disgusting details. The most bizarre and coolest thing from that night though was when our dad (Pete and I were already a few shots in) showed up as a total surprise. I couldn't stop laughing-- the grain alcohol, cold, and unexpected shock of our dad showing up out of nowhere was absolutely mind-boggling. It really was fantastic though. So much fun to see him up in Harbin with us--- the same place that we all lived in 1981-82 together, back in the day when everyone wore Mao suits and brushed off coal dust. It really meant a lot to both Pete and I. He was in Asia on a business trip and arranged the whole thing with our producer who kept us in the dark. Absolutely the highlight of this shoot! Unfortunately he could only stay for basically that night and part of the next day, but I hope he knows what a cool thing it was for him to do...love you pops.
But two nights ago was really brutal. We ended up doing a scene on Russian vodka in an ice bar in the center of town. Pete and I basically put away a fifth and half of vodka between the two of us in a much shorter time than advisable--- encouraged by our crew to get a bit smashed to make the scene a bit funnier. There are some pretty huge gaps in my memory from that night, and both he and I were down for the count. Such pain I didn't crawl out of bed until 6 pm the next day. All in the name of Nat. Geo... I'll spare you the disgusting details. The most bizarre and coolest thing from that night though was when our dad (Pete and I were already a few shots in) showed up as a total surprise. I couldn't stop laughing-- the grain alcohol, cold, and unexpected shock of our dad showing up out of nowhere was absolutely mind-boggling. It really was fantastic though. So much fun to see him up in Harbin with us--- the same place that we all lived in 1981-82 together, back in the day when everyone wore Mao suits and brushed off coal dust. It really meant a lot to both Pete and I. He was in Asia on a business trip and arranged the whole thing with our producer who kept us in the dark. Absolutely the highlight of this shoot! Unfortunately he could only stay for basically that night and part of the next day, but I hope he knows what a cool thing it was for him to do...love you pops.
posted by dealing with vagaries... at
8:52 AM
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