Owlspotting

One thing has constantly topped my list of things to do since I came home: throw a party. I used to ask my friends every week: “so, anyone found a basement yet?” I talked so much about this possibility that we filled our time coming up with party themes: Bucegi party, reading party, underwear party and the quasi-deviant cold cuts party (a lot of thought went into planning a cold cuts party, including the creation of boloni bras and sausage skirts).

A party finally happened last night. Because of Matt’s insistence that he makes good brownies, we called it a dessert party and told people to bring desserts–preferably something made by themselves or a coerced family member. I wanted to have a party because I wanted to play DJ. I love to see people have a good time and playing music for them offers instant gratification. Plus, it’s been three years since I’ve been collecting bands and tracks that don’t make it across the ocean and it was time to play some of them.

As the pictures below attest, it was all a wonderful blur–the sugar rush from the sweets and the sweet red wine probably. I did get to play things I’ve been dying to make people listen to and here are a few tracks that come to mind:

>> Violent Femmes, Kiss off.
>> Something Corporate, I woke up in a car.
>> The Killers, When you were young.
>> Tilly and the Wall, Bad education.

Still, the party went crazy (in the best of ways) when around 2:30 AM I reached for the mid 1990s euro dance playlist. No matter where most of us ended up musically, this is where we started. And here’s what we played:

>> Maxx, Getaway.
>> Culture Beat, Mr. Vain.
>> Mr. President, Coco Jumbo.

5 AM ping pong does this to people.

You’d think people were falling asleep. This picture is lying.

See how engaged they were?

And how fast they were dancing?

Last night felt surreal for a few hours. Before me and my friends settled in the smoke-infested joint that has become our second home, we experienced Romanian Gothic and Romanian Joy in rapid succession.

We kicked off the night with a movie. We thought Romanian cinema might need a few extra lei so we decided to go see Margo, a movie we knew would feature women kissing women, women being redeemed from prostitution, old-fashioned abuse, heavy drinking and other celluloid clichés that make European movies so heavy and pretentious. Margo is easily one of the worst Romanian movies I have seen. Actually it’s so bad it would occupy two places on my Top 5 Worst Romanian Movies list (I saw “High Fidelity” again so I’m back in list mode).

Margo is like metaphor-crammed closet. You have the big breasts of women, who can command anyone’s attention, but they are actually filled with loneliness and they weep. Yes, the tragedy of the modern Romanian woman who can’t find a man unless she trips herself and drops a tit on his nose (excuse the vulgar language, but life is a vulgar beast). Then you have your central character, a whore.

“Yes, I’m a whore,” Margo says matter of factly a few times as if trying to convince the audience their kids should consider it as a career. After all, a whore makes good money and lives in nice apartments. She also owns expensive clothes (and horrid fashion sens). She is taken care off and who needs more than that, right? As in any self-respecting EuroMovie her pimp is actually her father. No!!! I didn’t see that one coming!!!

But she is a whore with a kind soul (even gays have a kind souls in this movie) and a steady hand because she spends much movie time with a camera in her hand videotaping life. Yes, she sucks in the life around her. The children in the park. The trees. The fields. The friends. The old ladies on the forgotten train. She videotapes them all to cure the solitude and the darkness of her rotting soul. Not to mention the pleasure the director seems to take from interspersing amateur images among his professional takes.

As if all this wasn’t bad enough, the movie suddenly switches to the country side–a deserted unreachable village hidden in the mountains. That is Margo’s birthplace and she returns home for her mother’s funeral. Much drama and drinking ensues. The shrieks, yells and bucolic imageries are pathetic. Of course there is a tree growing through the roof of the house to illustrate deep and penetrating ties to the land. Of course the priest gets wasted and starts dancing. Of course the mayor is curious about the clitoris–after all, the clitoris is a staple of Romanian funerals. Has anyone ever been to a funeral where the clitoris has not been discussed?

Margo is the kind of movie that will show you heaps of trash to illustrate how gloomy and shitty both our inner and outer (Romanian) lives are. How dirty and smelly and rotten we are. I hate film makers who get off on their own soul-crunching ability to notice misery (anyone remember “Wild Dogs“?) and their oh so subtle ways to shove it down our throats. Excuse me while I puke.

This movie isn’t held together by any kind of narrative string. Urban misery meets rural misery. Rural Gothic meets City Depravity. Girl meets a Boy she doesn’t like but because she was a hooker in her lifetime, she should be so lucky to at least get the fat loser. Because, as the movie all so wisely informs the public: “If you have to find happiness in shit, you’ll find happiness in shit.” There are no alternatives to shit.

We paid almost $2 a head to watch such junk. I expect Ioan Carmazan, the director-guru of this flick to call and offer me the money back.

What’s the best thing to do after watching Margo in Targu-Mures? The best thing to do is to get into a car and drive to a gardening and tools store (Praktiker, a store for the practical people) and attend its grand opening concert featuring poppy bands like Vank and Vama (until recently Vama Veche).

Drinking cheap draft beer in the parking lot of a big box retailer is almost touching. We got there just as Vank were ruining some of their perfectly decent sing alongs (yes, I own a best of Vank record) and stayed long enough to watch the set of Vama, which is what’s left from Vama Veche, one of Romania’s biggest bands in the past decade. Vama Veche announced their official split earlier this week and this was Vama’s first concert, complete with a stunningly drunk lead singer in Tudor Chirila.

What a historic moment. I was clutching a plastic cup of Ciuc in my hand and staring at the 16-year old boys in front of me who were jumping and yelling. I left Romanian Gothic behind and here I was in the unpretentious embrace of Romanian Joy. I was drinking beer in the parking lot of a giant store that proves people in my town do have money. I watched the corny fireworks and even mumbled the lyrics to some of the songs, all without the employing the same kind of condescension dumped on me by Margo.

It was one of those Friday nights in Targu Mures where little seems to make sense. But at 2 AM, when Big Papa is the only decent fast food place open downtown and Geo curses the fact that his pants keep getting caught underneath his sneakers, who cares?

I have a dear friend who has embarked on a fun quest to save the world. While I’m currently doing my part by watching movies until 4 AM while nursing a bottle of Romanian wine (thus making life better for countless people who don’t have to deal with me), she struggles for a better world in the Romanian office of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund.

She was sad this morning because some of the Romanian coverage of a recent UNFPA release, the giant State of World Population treated the findings as less than trivial. The report’s focus was on the state of migrant women, who as the BBC reported “make up half of all international migrants, totalling 95 million.” Reuters lead like this: “Governments worldwide must do more to protect a growing number of women from exploitation when they venture overseas to work and earn money for their families, a U.N. report said on Wednesday.”

At the bottom of the foodchain was the Romanian daily, Ziua, which is not traditionally a thrashy tabloid, but sure looked like one in this case. The headline: “The broads are leaving.” In an attempt to localize the report, the subhead continues: “Over one million Romanian women have left the country, either seeking a man or seeking men.”

After all, that’s the only consequence to women migrating. We’re left to jerk off left and right and wonder who will cook us lunch from now on. Maybe saving the world should start with teaching Romanian men that women are human beings, too. I know. You’ll think that’s not possible, but I bet there is some science to back that up.

The Romanian railway company CFR has launched a campaign to ban smoking on trains beginning September 1. All ash trays have been removed and people caught smoking on the train will be fined. Tickets will say: “No smoking on the train.” In the official release CFR (a state-owned beast) doesn’t mention anything about setting up a train car where people could smoke. This initiative is all about getting passengers to go cold turkey during their trips.

Statistics show more than one third of Romania’s population of 22 million smokes.

I (a non-smoker) was debating the issue with a couple of friends last night–a heavy smoker and an occasional smoker. The only thing we could agree on was that it’s stupid that no measures were taken to accomodate the smoking population, like a smoking car. I suggested that the only way to get a smoking car is to make some noise about it. So I had some fun with this and created the image below. It says: “The person with a cigarette is a person, too. Give him a train car!”

You can do your part in teaching Romanian bureaucracy to compromise by using the childish image below or e-mailing CFR at marketing.calatori@cfr.ro. With my brother and mother both smoking, it’s the least I can do for them.

Two of my former professors at the journalism school in Bucharest, George and Bradut, have been chronicling the admission exam that is taking place this week at FJSC (1, 2). Over the years I’ve given much thought to this exam and whether it could be made more relevant. At the end of the day, the point should be finding young men and women who have an interest in becoming journalists (duh!).

One of the significant differences between applying to a J-School in Romania and one in the US (the only other system I’m familiar with) is that American high school graduates have a much better idea of how the media operates and what journalists do to get a story. Some have worked on their school paper, some have taken classes on the role of the media and some have read from the abundancy of press criticism. In Romania, the general population doesn’t know that much about the inner workings of the media and the number of graduates who would say they want to go into journalism to keep their communities informed is probably lower.

You also have to consider that for American high school grads there isn’t a specific entrance exam. Just get into college, pass some introductory course, keep a high GPA and you’re in the J-School. In Romania, there is a specific admission exam to the journalism school which consists of a written exam and an oral exam. When I took the exam in 1999, there was no oral exam. I remain convinced to this day that the stuttering shy kid who would melt if he had to speak in front of a crowd would have failed the oral exam. Although I continue to be puzzled by its relevance, I won’t argue against or for it since I’ve never seen this one up close.

I have seen the written one though. It has a grammar portion and a “creativity and expressivity” portion. As years go by, I am more and more convinced it’s a bad idea in its current form. I remember this moment, just before my exam, when I was chatting with a few other people about the “creativity portion.” We were all nervous and trying very hard to hide it–being creative against the clock with 200 people around you is not easy. At one point, a woman asked us: “Who was your tutor?” I started laughing (nervously). Tutor, what a joke. But she wasn’t laughing. “No, I’m serious. Who was it?” A few others around us confirmed this. They had been tutored by J-School professors and taught to write in the style that will allow them to score the needed points with the people grading the papers.

I panicked. I had never heard of such thing. I didn’t and don’t believe you need tutors to teach you formulaic things to pass a creativity exam. In the end, I did OK, but to this day I wonder whether I really wrote something that was good, or whether I just coincidentally hit the high notes that the professors grading the papers were teaching in their private tutoring sessions.

But there is another problem that I find even more disturbing. Here are two of the creativity subjects from this year:

1. You are getting ready to play an important role in an action movie. For this, you begin taking horseriding lessons. Build a story from this situation.

2. You have reached a village immediately after it had been devastated by storm. Write what you have seen and what you found out from the locals.

Yes, the first step in your formal journalism training is making stuff up.

It took me a few years to understand the irony of this, but today it kills me. Kids are trying to become journalists and their first assignment is to create an event that never took place. I might be excessively married to the real world, but this is no way to identify potential journalists. It might be a great way to breed a Romanian Stephen Glass, but what else? It’s nothing but a subtle invitation to keep “being creative.” If “being creative” got you into the J-School, why wouldn’t it get you high marks in class where you just make up assignments? Why wouldn’t it get you get you good people stories taken from people you’ve never met? This being creative worked for a few of my friends during our time in school there.

When I applied for a master’s degree in the US I had to write essays about my thoughts on journalism and public life, short bios and other stuff like that. Yes, it sounds boring and less creative, but at least it was me. Those essays reflect who I am and how I view the world better than any story I could ever make up about horse riding classes.

Maybe the Romanian system is not build to assign an essay or an argument, but why not use the creativity exam to learn more about the candidate as a person than about him or her as an embellisher. A simple way of stating the goal of a J-school is to train people who will keep the rest of us informed. Wouldn’t we want people who are curious, youngsters who, like me at that point, naively believe that stories of people can change lives–that this thing called journalism could change the world?

Why not assign a personal essay? An argument? The dull but years later so important question: why do you want to do this?

Sure, people can be “creative” and make things up here as well. But there are only so many of us who would fake our own lives if we knew there are no specific high points we need to hit in order to convince the professors doing the grading. If I am me and I tell you I want to do journalism because I believe in its power, will you think it’s too cliche and toss me out in favor of somebody whose horse riding lessson features hand stands? I hope not.

It’s not easy to translate English-language movies into Romanian. Doing subtitles is bad enough as way too often cultural references and certain phrases hit a brick wall when meeting the translator.

But even worse is the translation of the actual movie title. Sometimes, the translation reflects the title (which happened in the case of “Inside Man” or “Ask the Dust”), sometimes the title makes the job easy because it doesn’t need a translation (“Ultraviolet”, “Miami Vice”) and sometimes the translation is so far removed from the original title, you have no idea what movie you’re about to watch.

It is this third category that we’ll feature here today. Below are 15 examples of movies recently featured on the big screen. Please add your own.

1. The Squid and the Whale = The Dog and the Cat
2. Lucky Number Slevin = Slevin: Not Guilty and with Bad Luck
3. Chaos = Hostages Under Cover
4. The Break-up = Apart, but Together
5. You, Me and Dupree = Just You and Me. The Third one is Extra!
6. Failure to Launch = How to Kick out of the House a 30-Year Old Bachelor
7. Hoodwinked = The Wolf, the Ridinghood and the Enigma
8. Find Me Guilty = I’m Pleading Guilty?!
9. The Constant Gardner = Absolute Friendship
10. 16 Blocks = Deadly Testimony
11. Prime = Taking Love to the Psychiatrist
12. Keeping Mum = A Nanny Full of Surprises
13. Wedding Chrashers = Wedding Crackers
14. RV = A Trip with Suprises
15. She’s the Man = I Love the Wrong Person

Yes, the rumors are true: Romerican stopped in Targu Mures and for those 20 or so hours, time stopped as well.

While I am sure he will offer a much more revealing review of the hostilities, allow me to preview what he will have to say by permitting you to indulge in some unrevealing words and photographs. You see, the night started early Saturday with a belief that food can nurture and please us all. Eager to please, I have parachuted Romerican and his Muse to downtown Targu Mures, to bask in the unexploited bounties of culinary variety. Yes, the moment did include Avram Iancu‘s horse’s testicles, a tourist attraction almost as popular as our clock tower.

We proceeded by injecting a motherload of pain and suffering into our bodies by witnessing the chrushing of Romania by the barbaric Bulgarians. Rumors say they rode to the game on black horses and made sinister noises to the peasants they passed by. I believe it–I have seen Lord of the Bulgarian Rings and I trembled.

Then, along with the musically inclined DJ Dan (his sets coming soon to a town near your), Utzu (who spends much time agonizing over the psychological implication of working for his father) and Lavi (soon to be bottled and sold as an energy drink) we moved our carcasses to Office, a bar known for the fact that it offers a side of smoke with every drink. We had quite a few of those sides. Matt, whom Romerican had challenged to a duel earlier this summer, returned for a second round and scored maximum points when he, along with the Muse, engagged in hand to hand combat to tracks such as “I will survive.”

A plethora of metaphors were exchanged and many stories of the happy, sad, comedic types were swapped. Few of these stories lived to make it through the night intact. It’s a pity, since a few of them–such as Romerican’s Frankfurt adventure–are instant classics. A couple of casually told stories by me (involving heavy interaction between me and the American psyche) earned me the potential nickname MC. As I’ve been told, this had nothing to do with my rapping skills (Dinu Sararu numea clipa/Unitatea de timp in care/Din tarana prostia se ridica) but it actually stands for Magic Commando. As the Bergenbier commerical insisted, “prietenii stiu de ce” (friends know why).

This would be the place where sleep normally intervenes and nights like this fade out. It didn’t, not really. When we returned to our shelter, I decided that the only way we’d reach the Flea Market on Sunday was if at least one of us, as in me, stayed awake to watch over the troops. It was hard, but I managed and by not attempting to sleep I did manage to find a fresher face in my repertoire than the one everyone else put on when they dragged their hojts (a word inspired by underground Dutch sensation band Duhnind A Hojt) out of bed.

We did go to the Flea Market (ha, told you so Nyx!), an experience to be remembered by the maximum cuteness pooches we encountered on the way there. Romerican will certainly offer a more detailed description of the Flea Market as I like to stay within the psychological realm. Yes, we were tired. One purchase that will be remembered in town is the Ping magic wand/huge match-shaped lighter. Wish I had a photo to demonstrate. Quite a sight.

Below are the pictures that speak to what will remain in modern consciousness as the Targu Mures Sneak of Early Fall.

This message was underneath a bridge passing the Mures river. It sounds like an honest confession and says (not a literal translation): “A little fun. I was drunk god damn itQ” (In Romanian it says “I was drunk, in my penis!”

One of the two small stray pooches we cam across. We put them in the yard of a house (yes, we opened someone’s gate and snuck two animals in) so they wouldn’t be run over my cars.

Second of the two pooches.

The colorful scene at the Flea Market (Piata de Vechituri).

Commerce at its best. Dig through the piles of clothes in search of who knows what. Be brave.

Our shoes survived the night, although Romerican claims to have left town carrying some blisters. Wouldn’t suprise me.

It has been said for centuries that wine is the Holy beverage. I have seen people getting trashed on wine (both on red and the less holy white) and there wasn’t much saintly stuff to report about them. They kept stumbling on their way out of the bar, taxi drivers continued to try to scam them, the night remained as dark as ever and they welcomed the morning with one mother of holy head aches.

Today, I believe I have found the true holy beverage and it will come as no suprise to anybody that it’s distilled in Romania, more precisely in the green hills of legendary Moldova.

Enter “Stefan Cel Mare” vodka, which the packaging describes as “Finest De Lux Vodka.”

Stefan Cel Mare was a Romanian prince who ruled Moldova in the 15th century for longer than communism dominated Eastern Europe 500 years later. Depending on your source of literay translation, he is either Stefan The Great, Stephen The Great, Stephen the Big or Big Steve. In our moments of national solitude we refer to the man by his full name, Stephen the Great and Holy. Thus the holy nature of this fine beverage carrying the name of this monolith of a man.

Big Steve was known for several things and a quick Google search will reveal much about his life and times. For example:

– he killed a bear with his bare hands when he was 15 years old. Brad Pitt became jealous he asked for a bear fighting scene in Legends of the Fall. Brad Pitt lost.

– he stood in front of the gates of his castle chatting with his mother who couldn’t believe the punk had stayed out so late slaying all the Ottomans he could find. At point the mother, annoyed by having to chat with him in cold weather says: “Join the army, die for country.” This idea inspired many a great military planners through history. See Rumsfeld, Donald.

– he beat the Ottomans in 34 out of 36 fights, a record bested only by the 1972 Miami Dolphins who have dedicated their Superbowl victory to Big Steve. A Superbowl ring has since been engraved on Big Steve’s humongous tomb at Putna monastery.

– he built 44 churches and monasteries during his time. It is believed Big Steve wanted to open up casinos, tattoo parlors and sword manufacturing plants but zoning regulations in the 15 century only allowed for churches and military outposts. Because Big Steve doesn’t need walls to defend himself, he settled for churches.

– he fathered enough illegitimate children to crowd a private kindergarten. This practice did not make the man less holy–he has been canonized by the Orthodox Church–because in those times of turmoil, kings were responsible for population growth.

– he stuck a sword in a wall so deep that it made the whole Excalibur episode look like a child’s game.

– he asked for a website to be built in his honor. One does exist at stefancelmare.ro but it has many areas under construction, including the official response of modern clergy to the many children he spread around mythical Moldova.

It is this man that the Botosani-produced vodka celebrates. With 40 percent alcohol its guaranteed to turn you into a holy bear slayer. The smooth and silky liquid, the box says, offers “knowledgeable people strenght, greatness and wisdom.”

It is said that when ressurection comes around, Big Steve will me marching proud with his huge sword raised high. In those circumstances, wouldn’t it be better if you marched along side the Holy Prince? Sure JC was cooler and in the end his wine does taste better, but the man doesn’t carry the sword of doom around.

I had coffee with a friend today and we somehow ended up talking about akward social moments. She mentioned being in elevators with strangers and all those seconds that seem to strech forever before the doors open and you can return to your personal space. I realized during our chat that many of the social moments I was aprehensive of have returned since I’ve been back.

In the US I felt fine in elevators and it was mostly a seamless transaction in stores, bars and restaurants. I do cringe at the overzealous clerks that chase me around the mall trying to find out what I want (especially those working in shoe stores!), but hey, at least you can call that good customer service.

I like to jest that in Romania waiters are mean. Often times they make me feel like I’m intruding on their well deserved break because they lazily drag their bodies to the table looking stone-faced and acting rude. Interacting with customer service reps in Romania is something I don’t very much look forward to. The category is broad and it includes waiters, public service workers (brrrrr) and cab drivers. Yes, I get along perfectly fine with most journalists although some do piss me off and I’m not very subtle when it comes to showing I’m displeased.

One of the moments I always dreaded–not sure where this comes from–is being on a train with someone who is eating a bag of chips or crackers or something of which there are many. What I always hope won’t happen is that the person won’t offer me food. I have no reason to believe strangers want to feed me, but the possibility that they could is not something I want to see happen. Because if it does, we’ll have formed a bond. And then what?

I always believed that the main problem with summer was the heat. Without heat, summer has the potential to be a really great season.

That’s one of the few thoughts my mind could articulate while in Greece, where the heat just refused to let me do anything much besides nothing. Below are a few random shots from my trip to Crete, a savage and beautiful island south of continental Greece. Yes, service was much better than in Romania. But we’ll get back to the Romanian question in subsequent posts soon enough.

Mythos is a Greek beer and it’s pretty good. Plus, the name is stellar!

People jumping out of a boat. Most people used the slide, this guy didn’t.

A night shot in the port of Rhetymno, one of the bigger cities on the island. Greeks sell lots of leather.

Greeks–at least those running the hotel where I stayed at–have a dubious understanding of the English language. ASS was the hotel’s sports department if you will. Very summery.

A relatively secluded beach on the south part of the island river meets sea. It’s quite a pain to reach but it’s a spectacular sight.

The Gramvousa Island has a 15th century fortress on its rocky self. It’s 15 minutes away from Balos, Greece’s spectacular blue lagoon.