Production is over. I'm back in New York City and about to embark on post. I have to log and digitize 125 hours (I've already digitized 60 hours in the first wave of post). At 40 hours a week, it will take 3 weeks to digitize, and another 3 to log. Luckily, I won't have to sync cameras this time around. That was a nuisance in the first phase of filming because timecode on the DVX100B would often drift when the camera was powered down, and when you're filming drug addicts and prostitutes engaging in illegal activities, you can't exactly call a time-out to sync up cameras. Overall, I think one camera was a much better formula considering the nature of the subject matter. It's hard enough ignoring one 6'2 dude with an imposing machine strapped to his arm.

In any case, we're looking at six weeks before I make a single cut, assuming a 40 hour work week, which might prove difficult when juggled with freelancing and possibly a part-time job. A dedicated digitizer/logger could cut that down to three weeks if we work together, which might be worth the 1500 to 2000 it would cost. Then again, the more I watch and rewatch the footage, the better. So yeah, I'm kind of on the fence about it.

I'm thinking of picking up a part time job to support myself and preserve my sanity. Ideally, it would entail helping people, sunlight, and physical labor. Daniel suggested working for the census bureau. I'm going to look into that today. My friend, Keegan, might be able to get me a gig selling fish at the farmer's market. Being a Director/Fishmonger is a performance art piece in it of itself. I could also canvas and/or do construction. My friend Teddy might also be able to get me a gig at a dog-walking company.

I've been so obsessed with film and video these last few years that the thought of a working a job out of the industry is kind of exciting. Breaking into the industry is such a rat race that it's easy to become obsessed to the point that you lose perspective. Marc Singer, the director of Dark Days, one of the inspirations for my film, was working construction in Florida last I heard. The guy is brilliant and a complete bad-ass in his own right. When I heard he was working construction, I was shocked. He should be making movies, I thought. I can't believe how far I've come since then.

In a nutshell: status does not make you happy. We get these odd ambitions and sacrifice everything in pursuit of them. Being labeled "Director" doesn't make a person happy. The things that really make us happy are a lot simpler than that: good company, good deeds, and personal growth. My strongest motivation in making this film is helping those less fortunate and teaching the fortunate to appreciate their blessings. I have to remind myself of this on a regular basis though, because its a form of giving that will take a very long time to reach fruition. I have to be patient and keep my eye on the prize.

Just watched Off the Grid: Life on the Mesa. I like how it embraced the raptures of anarchy. I think I'm going to incorporate that rebellious tone in my film, since many of the characters are driven by it.

Everyone should check out Grooveshark. It's the future of music.

If you live in NYC and own a bike or are thinking about getting one, go here for the time of your life.

And if you're looking to do some environmental volunteering, check out ioby.

When we receive an offer to serialize the film, and we will, I have a good formula, host, and modest budget proposal that will blow taxi cab confessions out of the water.

"I was playing hide-and-go-seek with M. and found mommy's pot in the closet." -- J.'s 10 year old daughter.

I am humbled by the spectacle of creation.

"If all consciousness is subject to essential laws in a manner similar to that in which spatial reality is subject to mathematical laws, then these essential laws will be of most fertile significance in investigating facts of the conscious life of human and brute animals."
-Edmund Husserl

Like a flashlight in a dark room, consciousness can only illuminate a small area at any given time. We rarely stop to question where the flashlight points and why, or what the effects of it pointing in one direction as opposed to another are. I would argue that the effects are profound. A number of seemingly distinct psychic struggles find a common origin in misplaced focus.

Happiness is focusing on what you have as opposed to what you don't have. Self-esteem is focusing on what you like about yourself as opposed to what you don't like. Enthusiasm is focusing on what you like about an endeavor as opposed to what you don't like.

Darkness is palpable in the wake of firecrackers that splutter across an empty sky. We want to throw caution to the wind but convention restrains us.

Sunlight slipped through gaps in the venetian blinds and imbued the running water with iridescent highlights. The water was hot and felt good on my dry hands. It felt like maybe I was washing a part of me as I scrubbed an off-white bowl.
"I don't want you to worry," she said.
I waited. "If I can't even help one person, I can't help anyone."

Prostitution is a symptom, not the cause. Salvation is psychic, not tangible. J. may have stopped but she is still secretive and ashamed: she hasn't really healed. She needs to own it instead of letting it own her. G-d puts us through trials so that we can grow and learn. We should be proud of what we've been through, not ashamed. J. has been to hell and back and lived to tell the tale. She's been through horror's we can't even begin to imagine, and somehow, despite it all, she's full of light. That's not something to be ashamed of.

Real salvation is achieved through targeting the cause. We live in a world where everything is disposable. Apathy has come to envelop people too. It's not just about prostitution. It's so much bigger than that. How many of us have felt worthless at some point or other? How many of us have felt disposable? G-d give us the strength to heal.

What's going to happen to x, not what's going to happen, is what gets us to follow a narrative, because we are accustomed to synthesizing characters through time (i.e. identifying--ourselves and others), and we do it with fictional characters. The gaps between scenes are much broader than we recognize because of how we make arbitrary brackets distinguishing a part and a whole. A movie? There's no such thing as a movie. The distinctions we make between homogeneous and heterogeneous frame the way we see everything.

At Last

I've been too visual to write coherently, so I'll update with a few excerpts leading up to production.

Sunday evening, I'm running as fast as I can though I'm not quite sure from what--responsibility perhaps?--in any case, the important thing is to stop running, but for the life of me, it's hard; I've lost perspective you see, and fear lurks in the darkness, fear of failure, fear of challenge; my whole body is wracked by fear; tension runs like electricity along muscle fibers and reverberates through all that is me; "fear of god," said Jeff. What am I going to do about it? It's hard to say. Drink. No. Write. Yes. This is the beginning, this is the boon, the beauty, the blessing, the grace: how lucky we are to have this indispensable tool and how ungrateful to use it so infrequently that it collects dust in the darkness....

****

You are the blink of an eye, the time it takes a leaf to drift to the pavement, a break in the clouds or a cloud that scuttles over the moon, a raindrop that ripples the surface for a brief second before submerging. Everything will continue as it was before and nobody will know the difference.

Wonders creeps like vines over the skein of reality, entwining the mundane with ineffable glory; for those who choose to see it, the mystery is intoxicating. I trace my fingers over the curvature of space and time and crumple dreams between my thumb and index fingers; I destroy civilizations with a casual glance and forge chaos from bars of gleaming darkness. Life curls and unfurls and wraps around itself, repeats itself, destroys and recreates itself and we are victims swept up by the tumultuous sea.

I saw Monica sitting cross-legged on the bed when I entered the room. I sat down next to her, placed a pillow on her lap, and rested my head on it. She ran her hands through my hair and asked me if everything was alright.
"I was offered a lumping job. I don't know if I should take it or not."
"You should stay." It felt good having her run her hands through my hair like that. "Your work here isn't finished."
A blue shirt draped over a corrugated lamp shade dimmed the only light source available in the room. Monica must have put it there to accommodate her failing vision.
"What are you going to do when you go blind?" I once asked.
"Vision's not that important," was her reply.
The dim light hugged the contour of her jaw.

The rumbling of individual tractors combines to form a soft roar that underlies all other sounds in what one friend referred to as the armpit of the universe, while freight trains punctuate the undercurrent, heralding their arrival with triumphant bursts of white hot noise; three head lights form a triangle of dots that signify an unmistakable "therefore", though what follows the conjunctive adverb is beyond my comprehension, along with just about everything else out here; and I'm back in the hot marsh stew alongside adults turned children in a bathtub full of stars.

There's no escape, and bit by bit, my sanity drifts away alongside crystal meth vapors beneath his grim black jaw. I almost blacked out when I saw her pinched on either side by over-exposure. Fuck, I said, and they demanded to know why, but if I told them the truth they'd realize just how far adrift I am.

Distance. There's no escape, no rest, no separation. Church on Sunday and cabaret all day monday. Ain't nobody's business if I do.

There but for the grace of G-d.

It seems like the whole world is rumbling--the trucks, the laundry, the train, the lights, my heart, compiled, inseparable, a hurricane that heaves in tandem to the beats of a billion hearts and maybe I'm going crazy or maybe I'm going sane.

Order is a construct predicated on judgment, and you can't judge someone anymore than you can judge the sun for going down. Judgment serves a pragmatic function exclusively and has nothing to do with truth. The truth is that we're all products of circumstance--you can't judge the working girls, the johns, or the pimps until you know where they came from. It might look like hell to you, but for a lot of them, its a step up from home.

If there's anything I learned out here its just how lucky I am to have the people who love me unconditionally. Destructive behavior invariably requires a void in order to take root.

So when the chaos coalesces amidst rumbling tractors, a simple song slips through the backdoor. Love is the forgotten currency that underlies human interaction and it took a journey through the dark side to unveil this fundamental truth.

A Gentle Push

It's been over a week since last I posted something on here, and I suppose that I've fallen victim to the stagnation of not putting my hands to the keyboard with the intent to type as I have been swept away by the profundity of each day's experiences. I'm also lost in the specifics of what's going on, that I haven't had a moment to step back and look at things objectively. Last night, or rather very early this morning, brought me that opportunity.

The day began like any other: with a knock on the door at 8am by a lovable, yet infuriating and hopeless crackhead. She woke us up and yelled at us for not being awake yet. In fact, she thought to yell at us for all manner of different things throughout the day, not the least of which was her spilling a cup of Frank's Red-Hot all over the comforter on the hotel bed. The fierceness of her anger at us for the strangest and most irrational things was surpassed, if only for brief moments, by her bouts of remorse and depression. She was jonesing. Hard.

At the same time, we were compelled to keep interacting with her, if not for those moments where she realized that she could let her guard down and just kick-it with us, then because she managed to produce a solid scene with three other people who are already characters in the film. The tipping point came when she smoked crack with a lumper who's been using our shower these past couple of days. It was his first time.

Alex and I both sensed a change in his personality, and we both felt guilty for introducing him to our crackhead friend. We decided to stay with him in the room instead of leaving to meet a trucker friend on the lot. No sooner was our friend gone--having long since outstayed her welcome--than we realized how tenuous this moment with the lumper was. He pulled out a dollar, which he said was a gift from a man whom he had helped out with a little gas money. I noticed that the bill was folded strangely in his hand, and as he revealed its origin to us he gently unwrapped it. I turned away for a moment to discover, upon looking into his hand again, that he was displaying a small mound of crystals and powder. Meth.

Alex and I, realizing the gravity of the situation, started talking to him about how dangerous it could become. As we talked to him, he had a glint in his eye whenever we made contact; he had a sense of purpose that would otherwise have been inspiring, if not for the destructiveness of its likely ends. Even as we spoke to him to bring him down and away from thoughts of using the meth, and even as he was engaged with what we were saying he was methodically gathering the crystals and placing them delicately into a piece of aluminum foil.

"Give me the foil man, it's not worth it," I said worried that I was about to witness the pivotal moment in one man's destruction.

"I hear this is how they do it," he said almost as a response as he moved a lighter underneath the foil to produce a tiny puff of smoke. At that moment Alex and I realized that he was locked into an intensely personal moment of addiction, and that he wouldn't be brought out of it by ordinary means. We both worked on bringing him back into the room, and brought it to the point where he seemed willing to give up the foil. He extended the paraphernalia in my direction in a gesture for me to take it away from him. When I grabbed ahold of it, he held tight. Even though the foil was already ripped I did not pull hard enough to tear it further, but just hard enough to sense his resistance.

I was only compelled to let go once he stood up and appeared prepared to dump it down the toilet. As he walked over I sensed that if he went into the bathroom to dump that meth, he would likely shut the door and breathe it all in. Alex managed to get him to hand over the foil willingly, and then walked into the bathroom and flushed it down the toilet.

~

There are clear experiences in all of our lives where, if only for a moment, our purpose becomes profoundly clear. In these moments, which sometimes seem mundane and without a trigger, we are compelled in an unknown direction by an equally unknown force. The inclination to choose a path, to resist the usurpation of our will, only serves to deny a spiritual experience which can only come to us through submission to the unknown.

~

After walking across the I-10 overpass, and grabbing an In-N-Out Burger with our lumper friend, we walked back towards the TA. From a distance we saw her, standing on a merger-strip leading the Northbound traffic across the overpass. I suspected immediately that she was, like the girl we met on our first day in town, trying to hitch a ride away from the truckstop and back to some other lot to turn a few tricks. When we walked over to her, having bid the lumper fare-well, I noticed immediately how well-drawn her sign was. It said Los Angeles in funky, and steady lettering which fit nicely into the cardboard square.

She had a lot of red hair and freckles, and she didn't appear to be dirty at all. I was surprised to see her there, and equally surprised that, upon reflection and after five-hours of sleep, I did not read her as a prostitute off-the-bat. Nonetheless, I was confused as to why she was there, and I was determined to blow up her spot and block her eye-line to the oncoming traffic until I found out more about her.

Apparently, if you can believe this, she is an international fashion model, and she hitchhikes all over the world. After speaking with us for a few minutes, and regaling us with her story at a lightning pace, we attempted to interject bits of our background into the mix. Once she told us that she had family nearby who could pick her up, and despite the feeling of camaraderie she instilled in me when she talked about her 'hitchhiker's pride' of wanting to walk up to her family's door and see her journey to its seeming completion, I was determined to keep her from getting a ride.

At the time, and in retrospect I feel embarrassingly hypocritical for acting so protective of her. It's one of the aspects of hitchhiking that irk me the most; those moments where someone tries to whisk me away from my life of danger and destruction. A veritable 'captain sav-a-ho' but for hitchhikers. Regardless, I felt informed by my time working and living at the single largest site of truckstop prostitution in America, and how so many of the truckers here see a young (or old, or fat or skinny or . . .) woman as a piece of meat. We essentially blew up her spot until a meth-addict came by in a rather disturbing manner and offered to get her a ride into LA. She promptly gathered her bags, and we collectively began walking back towards the hotel room. No sooner had we crossed the street, then did a city police car pull over and the officer, upon removing himself from his vehicle, order us to all sit on the curb and produce our identification.

After briefly haranguing us for information, he sent us on our way with a warning about the hotel we were staying at and the truckstop which abutted it. He essentially profiled us as three lost white kids and told us to find a different hotel.

Having already called her family up, the young woman kicked it with us in our room and drank coffee. We spoke, for what seemed like an hour about our film, and about hitchhhikers and squatters. Having never encountered a model in the flesh, I thought that the visceral experience of being in her presence was shockingly juxtaposed by the plasticized images of her in the portfolio which she carried. All-in-all she was a person, no more or less real than any other I had met. The unreality of the situation was in the circumstances which brought us together.

No sooner had the gravity of the situation settled down upon me, than did her cousin and ex-husband enter the room. Her cousin and I spoke for a deceptively short amount of time about hitchhiking, Rainbow Gatherings, and New Orleans after the storm. Each time they attempted to extricate themselves from the room, we found ourselves delving deeper into our conversations--exploring the full extent of our connectivity, while only really scratching the surface. Before they finally left, our lumper friend had returned and was probably just as floored by the parties gathered as by the circumstances bringing them together.

By the time they had left, I was deep inside myself pondering the plethora of impossible moments of the day. I probably would have done well by myself to have written last night. The fresh perspective that follows a five-hour nap atop a day of utter chaos and synchronicity, I suppose, is good for me to have taken the time to step into in order to do justice, at least in writing, to the events of one extremely long day on the set of Lot Lizard, the feature documentary.

Peace and Love,
Dan

Walking through the lot in the middle of the night I glance through the windows of a cab cloaked in darkness and barely make out the face of a gorgeous blond, no older than twenty, perched on the lap of a grizzled trucker; something about the trench-like wrinkles on his face juxtaposed her smooth cheeks and silky hair disturb me in a way I can't even begin to convey.

We decided to do something different for a change. This blog entry is from the subjects rather than the film-makers.

M: I'd like to give a shout out to all the crackheads. I had a nice day today, kicking it, tweaking it, tripping it, deaking it with you guys, being that I was the only one that wasn't sober besides bubbathon. Coming to life, on TA west side.

B: I just want to say to everybody out there hustling--do yo thang.

M: Trickin ain't easy.

Lala land

Apparently 'Party Row' is a term that doesn't really apply here. Every row has the potential for a party.

There is one place though, that stands out. Between the third and fourth rows, there is an asphalt slab about ten feet wide, bordered by an 18 inch concrete curb. Both the third and fourth row trucks back up to the slab, so it creates a fairly reliable party spot; there are two giant lightposts on the slab, and our first night out here there was a group of nine Bosnian truckers having a cook-out.

At first they were a little wary of us--everyone out here seems wary of everyone else--but after Alex had a very short conversation with them in Russian, we were offered steak-sandwiches from the grill and beers.

We sat there, mostly taking in the scene: a foreign tongue with loud gypsy music blasting from the tractor parked nearby. Then came one of the working-girls. She was the first one I've seen who didn't look much older than she actually was. In fact, I can only guess, but she looks younger than she probably is. She was wearing a shirt that left her breasts almost out in the open, a pair of risque underwear and high heels. Her hair was done up, and so was her make-up. In fact, the deliberateness with which she presented herself was probably most shocking to me only after I remembered how reserved and unpretentiously the older working-girls dressed in Tucson.

She came over and played with the Bosnians--first touching them seductively, then bending over in front of them. Then she offered one of them a 'date' for $300, to which they laughed her off. The whole scene had an element of a 'party.' When I think of the girls who have been out there for only a couple of more years, and I think of how quickly a body is taxed by both the continuous intercourse and its subsequent effects on their minds, as well as the drug abuse, I can't help but wonder if this atmosphere of a party changes gradually into the drudgery of a job, or if there is a singular moment where a girl just decides that she's not playing around with the guys anymore. I suppose I wonder how this girl so scantily dressed (in weather that I had to wear two sweaters and a jacked to withstand comfortably) turns into a woman hustling the lot in a full-length trench-coat without much a thought other than where the next hit is coming from.

Peace and Love,
Dan

Have you ever walked out onto a frozen lake in the dead of winter, or wandered through the streets in the middle of a thunder storm? There's a kind of solitude in those experiences: each step takes you further away from your fellow man, but brings you closer to something important, something beautiful, that everyone else is just afraid to see. We cloak ourselves in comfort and safety as the world passes us by.

I lost myself in the rhythmic symphony of the train as we zoomed between mountains black as ink, bound toward our final destination.

Tucson was phenomenal, though we came up short on b-roll after our lead cut off access. Access has been and will continue to be the most difficult aspect of this production.

As we pull up to the motel in Ontario, Kitty asks for a cigarette. I introduce myself and shake her hand, which catches her off guard. She's not used to being treated with respect. She's not used to having someone be nice to her without expecting something in return. Her smile bares her three or four remaining teeth, but she was, and still is beautiful in her own way. Mark Singer succeeded because he spent six months with the homeless without any intention of making a film. We don't have six months and the agenda corrupts us, but we can suppress it, if only for a little while. Empathy is the key into this world, not money or deception.

A good sign, in any case. "In Ontario, they'll come to you," said one trucker. 7 AM, Sunlight breaking through the fog, and just a few minutes.

Access: Denied

We're leaving for Ontario today. Our access with the working girl here in Tucson has dissolved. I think, in part, it's because she found herself on film doing things that, upon reflection, she didn't want seen by some people. This is our main difficulty out here; not just gaining, but maintaining access to our subject.

It's certainly dangerous to get involved in the illicit dealings of such unstable people, but in the end I have come to appreciate the camera's role in all of this. Without it we would just be a couple of guys asking weird questions of sketchy people. With it, we are sharing a story not often heard by the vast majority of people. Ultimately there is a reason why most people have failed to hear these stories, and we are learning how to gain and maintain access long enough to tell those stories. This time, I suppose, we were not entirely successful.

But we're on to Ontario now, and a new beginning has a certain appeal to it. This is supposed to be the single largest site of truckstop prostitution in the country, and if we're careful, we might just unlock its stories for the world.

Peace and Love,
Dan

Robert, a desert squatter in his mid-twenties, approached the small group of truckers gathered around three grills. Meat sizzled over the flames.

"This is a private party," said a retired state-trooper-turned-trucker, clean-shaven excluding an immaculate white mustache.

Robert made his way back to the Circle K. He remained slumped against the brick wall until the sun set, then wandered off into the desert.

Saturday was grueling but beautiful and intoxicating and the best way to take a break is to switch gears after all, or is that just the thought that keeps me going despite the fire?--but hell, I can take a lot more abuse than this.

A trucker/john tells all and I roll and I roll and I roll. He really bared his soul to us, his deepest and his darkest secrets, enough to destroy him and destroy whatever's left of him after he's been destroyed and so on and so forth, but I find myself sympathizing despite the horror, respecting his honesty perhaps, since it takes a kind of courage to be so forthright. I don't know what compelled him to share his tale with us, but I'm glad he did. I can't wait until you too feel that mixture of sadness, anger, disgust, pity, admiration, and hope despite it all when you see it.

Dan and Julie really knocked it out. Couldn't ask for a better team.

A Day Off

Today was a day off, of sorts. Julie went and did some yoga, and then we both did the laundry. We walked up and down 4th avenue in Tucson, and we picked up some groceries for dinner. It was nice to cook some good food and just relax. As a matter of fact, when we were eating Chicken Parmigiana for breakfast, Julie remarked, "I don't understand how it's not weird that we're eating chicken parm for breakfast." I responded casually, "It's because we've been spending our days watching prostitutes turn tricks and smoke crack. Next to that, anything would seem normal." All-in-all, I think it's quite healthy for us to be having a day off. Tomorrow, we get to meet one of our contacts at his home and play horseshoes with him. I suppose it is the weekend, afterall.

Peace and Love,
Dan

So many things happened all at once that this blog feels like an insufficient means to convey them. What you bear witness to transforms you. I hope that the dust settles with the passage of time.

B. gave us a break down of what it feels like to be high on crack between pulls from her stem. I ignored the clouds of smoke permeating the small trailer and rolled frantically. When I stepped out of the trailer into the cold night of the Arizona desert, I went over the break down that B. described.

I'm high on crack I realized.

People have done crazier things than this to make a movie, but I'll be damned if I ever let it happen again. My toes tingled as the gravel crunched beneath my feet.

Enter: Sunshine

As we roll into the Triple T (that's TTT, with two slightly smaller T's flanking a large one in the middle in a way reminiscent of the three crosses--I like to call them topless crosses) at around 4 p.m. This is the largest owner-operated truckstop I've seen; it's not a TA, Flying J, Pilot, Loves, Little America, or Petro. As soon as we park, I turn on the CB, crank up the volume and tweak the squelch down 'til I hear the static on the other end.

"Has anyone seen my sister?" I ask, this time without the forced affectation of a grizzled man from The South. The static crackles back at me as a response. I ask the same question a couple of times more before shutting off the radio and getting out of the car. Once I have both shoulder bags wrapped around me, I turn the radio back on and inquire as to the whereabouts of my lost sibling yet again, this time to hear a clear voice answering on the other end.

"She's over behind the Circle K."

Having already circled around the TTT, I rejoin Alex and Julie. Alex is gathering B-Roll already, and I propose to walk over behind the Circle K with Julie to see who's over there. We walk through the staggered alleys created by the parked rigs--five full rows all the way to the gas station--and emerge to see two folks sitting on a concrete slab. One of them is clearly a trucker to me, with his camouflage cap, aloof demeanor, and light beer. The other was an older woman who was rocking back and forth and staring into the distance.

"You mind if we pop a squat?" I ask, the man shaking his head. We both sit down and exchange names and the short stories of our lives. It becomes apparent that the man is, in fact, a trucker and the woman is actually blind. We soon start handing out cigarettes and drinking beer with them--the trucker being all-too-excited to hand out free beers, probably just to have the company.

Julie and I move over to sit next to Sunshine, having already introduced ourselves, and begin to chat her up. I tell her that I used to be a hitchhiker, and she tells me that she lost her eyesight in a car accident, but that she used to be a working girl, and that even after having lost her eyesight, she has been hitchhiking with truckers all over the country.

"They just come up to me and say, 'Sunshine, come to California with me,' and I say, 'Hell yea!' I leave with just a couple of pairs of clothes in my backpack," she says, patting the small daypack beside her, "They pay for everything, and buy me new clothes. I come back months later with three thousand dollars in my pocket," she says, leaning in my direction excitedly.

My phone starts to ring as she's telling me her war-stories, and it's Alex. He says he's got a woman who works at the truckstop barbershop on the other side of the lot, and that she wants to do an interview. I ask Julie if she's alright keeping Sunshine company, and wrap the bags over my shoulders and retrace my steps through the shifting allies back to the diesel pumps.

After recording an upbeat and strangely hilarious interview, we worked our way back to the Circle K.

~

The night went on with hours of talking about squatters' rights, life on the streets and in the desert, and lots of cigarettes and beer (good thing we got a whole carton in North Carolina). I stayed with Sunshine for most of the night, while Alex and Julie periodically went out to talk to other girls and truckers. At one point, there were as many as a dozen people kickin' it. Each one of them appeared to have their own hustle going on, and they would periodically disappear for a bit to get high. It got to a point where the general welcoming mood and communal familiarity that had framed the sunset was now overshadowed by occasional plucks of discord and disconnect. I was reminded last night of why, when I returned to college years ago, I decided to be sober; I had long ago turned away from it all to return to society, and now I am immersing myself in it yet again. When I look back on my life, and where I am now, I am quite surprised to find myself doing the work that I am doing. I am still a bit floored by what happened last night, and very tired as well. I woke up at 7:30 this morning, and just had to write something. Perhaps, given time, I will find myself with more articulate thoughts on the matter.

Peace and Love,
Dan

Dan twisted the volume knob on the CB radio.

"Free tequila, triple-sec, and pussy. Come to the red van at the Petro."

Welcome to El Paso.

A van picks up drivers and takes them south of the border to bordellos in Juarez where they can solicit prostitution to their heart's content for a fraction of the price.

On to Tucson, ETA 4 AM.

Last night in Dallas we spoke with a couple of truckers who are ex-convicts. They told us that there are a lot of ex-cons on the road driving trucks because it's one of the only jobs they can get. The industry, of course, consoles itself by paying them a small fraction of what other drivers get paid because they know that the ex-con's situation doesn't give them many options.

Aside from their situation, these two were energetic and attempted to bring a little levity into the subject matter. After telling them that I had been arrested for dumpster diving, they said that, "When you get to Ontario, one of them girls is gonna drop them draws an' it's gonna smell like a dumpster, an' you gonna go divin'."

~

We just got back on the road after pulling over to shoot a time-lapse of the sunset over the mountains; we're two hours from El Paso. Sometimes, it rattles my nerves when I think about talking to the working-girls. I'm sure they've got people coming up to them every day wanting something from them, and in a way, that's what we're going to be doing. I like to think that we're offering them the chance to be part of something; a project that will put them into the conscious thoughts of people all over America. In the end though, they're doing their job. It's not necessarily pretty, in fact it's likely to be horrible, but it's how they make a living. I don't know if what we offer them is going to help or not.

~

There are over 3 million truckers in the United States--that's one out of every hundred Americans--and countless women and men serving as their commercial companions, to use the euphemism. It irks me to think that these people are out there serving the fickle will of the nation, and that most people have no idea what they do, or what their world is like.

To be fair, I suppose that I don't really know either. I'm just a hitchhiker. I've had some truckers and lot lizards on the periphery of my experience, but I can't know what their lives are like. I suppose, that by the end of this round of filming, I will have a greater understanding and appreciation, and we will have a film to share with the world.

Peace and Love,
Dan

It was raining as she sat there, leaning against the fence. She wore a black rain coat but her ankles were exposed and a clump of beige mud stained her canvas sneakers. She was so beautiful in this way I can't describe and terrible too, calm despite the intrusion because she'd seen it all and then some. The fabric of reality shimmered when we spoke. Why was she dealt one hand, and I another?

Lucy and Jason put us up for two nights, warriors both--it takes great courage to brook convention. Dan dove into a couple of dumpsters on the way back from Dallas. I dare you to find a better field producer.

Talking to people I'm not supposed to talk to; asking questions I'm not supposed to ask.

Last night was an engaging and slightly disturbing evening. To start with, I'm coming to see that the truckstops transform every night when we're out there: when we arrive, it's dark and sketchy, but as soon as we start to engage in conversation and pull out the camera, the place brightens up a bit.

Last night we spoke with a trucker who has been driving for 33 years. He owns his own small trucking company, but doesn't really plan to retire even though he is sad to see where the industry has gone over the last decade.

"It used to be like a family. Now it's just a bunch of groups," he said, "back in the day it was like a party, and now you have to watch your back. I try not to make eye contact when I'm walking across the lot to the truckstop."

He, and another trucker, told us that they both have friends who slept with lot lizards, and contracted HIV that developed into AIDS. They described their friends transforming before their eyes from robust people into withered discolored apparitions of their former selves.

~

Most of my friends and loved-ones who have talked to me about this trip, express concern for my physical safety. After all of my years of travel, I am no more concerned for my safety (and no less wary of the dangers), however this trip is starting to give me subtle hints as to the emotional dangers of talking to people I'm not supposed to talk to while asking questions I'm not supposed to ask.

Peace and Love,
Dan

Up halfway through the night in Jackson, MS. We scored some rock solid interviews and gathered a lot of cinema verite footage of truckers doing their thing. I split up with Dan and Julie when I'm gathering that kind of footage (the smaller the footprint, the better), and they use the time to socialize with truckers, so that by the time I get back, another interview is lined up. They're doing an amazing job and it's keeping me on my toes because the camera is always rolling.

Dallas tonight.

Jackson tonight, Dallas tomorrow.

"Home base? This is home base right here," said Brent, patting the grill of his eighteen wheeler.

Dan's a natural. Can't imagine anyone being better for the job. Experience in the industry is no substitute for a good attitude, people skills, and discipline.

We snagged a few interviews at the remarkably small Pilot on the edge of Charlotte, North Carolina.

Manuel's face was drenched by the warm head lights of a looming 18-wheeler, more trucks out of focus in the distance, as he told us about his five kids in El Paso, Texas, fifteen hundred miles away.

"They grow up so fast. You miss everything..."

"Have you considered quitting?" Asked Dan.

"Quitting...? No. There are no other jobs in El Paso. Nothing else pays seventeen, twenty dollars an hour. I don't have any other options."

He took a sip from the large cup of soda in his hands and for the first time I noticed what it said in big white letters against royal blue: "The Choice is Your's." Breathlessly, I framed the close up.

Atlanta by night fall.

First time.

We spent the night in Charlotte instead of driving through to Atlanta. We wanted to have a full day at the Atlanta truckstop, and besides, we were tired and had a place to stay here.

It was interesting, my first time filming at a truckstop, to notice the similarities between looking for interviews and looking for rides. There was a lot of waiting. As it turns out, it was actually easier getting interviews as compared to getting rides. People seem compelled to talk while they're in front of the camera, and I suppose that most of us don't really understand how the seemingly insignificant things that we say can be steeped in significance when put into the right context in the editing room.

On a personal note, Alex and I seem to be meshing in our styles quite well. I'm starting to get a sense and a greater appreciation for the subtleties of framing and filming. Each time I review the footage that Alex has shot, I get a greater appreciation for his work, and each time I chide him for not handing me a receipt, or each time I score a sweet interview, and get a great line from a subject, he thinks to tell me how happy he is that I'm on board. We're really doing good work together and I'm learning a lot about what it takes to make a film. Essentially, strange as it may seem, all of our work is meaningless unless it ends up on a couple of cents worth of magnetic tape.

Peace and Love,
Dan

Falls Church, Virginia

We're a little less than halfway to Atlanta, Georgia, and extremely fortunate to be the recipients of unbridled hospitality from Susie B. and the family, friends of Julie, fellow traveler and baker extraordinaire. Two pies are baking in the oven and the comforting aroma saturates the cozy living room: a welcome quiet before the storm.

Nancy called. She was tweaking.

"It was good to hear from you," I said. "Feel free to call if you ever want to talk."

She almost broke down, unaccustomed to consideration. The darkness seethes and the moments crumble and I bring these gifts across the broken border to the unseen places.

On the road at last and the sun shatters into a million pieces on the dotted lines that guide our journey.

I give thanks to the forces and to the people that forged this second. what more can one ask for?

You'll Meet Fifty Sunshines.

We've lined up three bilingual interns in Ontario because word on the street is that a lot of the girls out there are Mexican immigrants; finding sympathetic characters will be a major hurdle, but the story of an illegal immigrant coming to the United States and turning tricks to make ends meet is a uniquely compelling one that adds an unforeseen dimension to the film. Following Peter's insightful suggestion, we shot a handful of interviews in midtown Manhattan in order to get the average Joe's perspective on the subject of sex workers. We plan to shoot interviews at cities throughout the country as we make our way west; I was looking forward to outright indignation but most people were surprisingly open-minded. It's New York City after all.

We're determined to come in under budget, and to further that cause, will pick up non-perishable groceries tomorrow, and maybe even cook up a storm. Dan is an outspoken advocate for anchovies and other kinds of canned and salted fish that turn my stomach, but I'll make a sincere effort to appreciate their finer points. Other culinary highlights we're looking forward to include peanut butter and bread. I'm exaggerating of course, but I think it's safe to say that Dan and I share an affinity towards asceticism, an affinity that will serve us well throughout production and without which we would never have hitch-hiked across America and "discovered" lot lizards in the first place.

All our ducks are lined up in a row, said Dan.

-A

We've finalized our plans. We will leave with an old friend of mine from Martha's Vineyard, who actually contacted me in response to changing my Facebook status to read, "looking for a ride down south from New York City to anywhere between Georgia and Texas." As a result, we'll be leaving on Monday around Noon and driving first to Arlington, where we'll be able to revisit the truckstop in Jessup, Maryland. Then, it's a ten hour drive down to Atlanta, Georgia where we'll have our first encounter with one of the famed I-40 corridor truckstops. Then we will travel to Dallas, Texas and explore the truckstops on the outskirts of the city, followed by El Paso, Texas and then to Tuscon, Arizona. By week's end, we should be in Los Angeles, and the Ontario truckstop; at every stage of the trip, we will be driving through the days and filming through the nights--remaining open to the possibility that the footage we are after could come at any moment. Wish us well, and keep checking the blog. Once we get out on the road, I will start taking stills to accompany the blog entries.

Peace and Love,
Dan

Preparing for the next round of filming

Hello everyone. My name is Dan, and I will be the Field Producer for the next round of filming. My background as a hitchhiker has, apparently, qualified me to this prestigious post. In my six years of hitchhiking, I have crossed America nine-times, and Canada--from Vancouver Island, to Montreal--once.

Right now, Alex is at the studio finishing the packing of the film equipment, while I whittle away my remaining days off-of-the-road posting on Craigslist's Rideshares to get a ride as far West as possible, or way down South to the warmth. Right now, we are anticipating that we may be hitchhiking out to Ontario, but we may take the easy way out and secure a rideshare all the way to the West Coast. In either case, we should be gone from New York by Friday of this week.

Throughout the process, we will be blogging on here with our words, and occasionally with video and audio, so keep checking back, and if we don't post for a while, shoot me an e-mail at dlivings@marlboro.edu to hold our feet to the fire. Ultimately, it's going to be an exciting adventure, and a trying one as well. Make no mistake about it, this subject matter, while fascinating and enthralling, sheds an unflattering light upon our society and its habit of demanding cheap goods on demand. The trucking industry is the lifeblood of Consumer-America, and everything that goes on at truckstops reflects upon our habits. Keep your eyes open, and your minds as well--this is sure to be an exciting month.

Peace and Love,
Dan