INT. J ROLAND KELLY - NIGHT

The average pay is $150 per month. You’re in a $5 room. Everything is still. It’s 10 pm. Ta-Da. The MacBook Pro starts up.

No. Hell No.

I couldn’t find a way to turn off the start-up sound on my Mac without installing this program: StartupSound.prefPane.

There was some question as to if it would work on a modern Intel MacBook. I had no trouble. I don’t know why this isn’t just built into the operating system, except Steve Jobs is an arrogant son of a bitch.

Ta-Da… Come steal my laptop.

The majority of laptops I’ve seen of travelers are Macs.

Because of the Jobs & Pixar connection Wall-E (in the distant future) starts up with that Ta-Da sound. I don’t want to hear that sound past 2012.

Steve Jobs you’ve been warned. Watch it, buddy.

-J Roland Kelly

Two Saturdays ago, that being August 9th; well, let me start this way, there is a major avenue in Quito called the 10th of August (Av. 10 de Agosto), but I sometimes have trouble putting dos and dos together.

…Saturday, I go down to the lobby of my hotel and the woman behind the counter tells me there’s going to be a fiesta at six. I ask her, where? The hotel? She says no, throughout the old town.

Okay.

I go about my business; I do notice that they are setting up stages around El Centro (Old Town) and at six there was a very nice parade. It had period customs from Quito’s history, including women in pocahontas outfits. Got me?

One thing I didn’t understand, at the front of the parade were maybe five voluptuous cheerleaders on stilts.

Five voluptuous cheerleaders on stilts led the big parade. Why? In a parade about the history of Quito where else would they go; I guess.

There was a devil character in the parade, and it’s no secret that the devil has a big Spanish nose, but I’m just stating what everyone already knows.

So the parade was nice, and then it was over.

THEN THE REAL F***ING PARTY STARTED

I’ve been to a pre-deluge Mardi Gras, and this was just as big. There are only 1.4 million people in Quito, everyone must have been here in the Old Town, El Centro is not a small place.

This throw down was nothing less than the 200th anniversary of Quito being liberated from the Spanish.

I’m still not sure of the open container policy in Quito (later on, I did see people drinking wine in the street) so I Michael Jackson’ed it. You know, Jesus juiced it? Put it in a coke bottle.

I walked around the Old Town going from stage to stage all evening; a lot of stuff I didn’t understand. I think I saw people playing blades of grass, or some kind of leaf.

People had jumped the fence and were climbing on the statue of Mariscal Sucre, the hombre who defeated the Spanish in the final battle, and I did the same as it led to a better view of a stage. Gringolandia in Quito official name is Mariscal Sucre named after this field marshal.

In the absolute center of El Centro, the Grand Plaza, the oldest plaza, the first one, by the presidential place, they had set up projection monitors for a concert.

The entire plaza was filled with white plastic chairs.

It was an interesting contrast between the ancient plaza and modern technology, and after the concert was a fireworks display… they used the roof of the first cathedral in Quito as the base to launch the fireworks (this is also in the grand plaza).

I was close enough to see everyone on the cathedral sh!t their pants when fireworks exploded on the roof, as opposed to a few hundred feet above the roof. Ecuador needs to give the people who put that on combat medals.

This was the fireworks display after the concert; there would be a whole other fireworks display at midnight marking the actual 10th of August.

I was back in the Grand Plaza later on in-between shows, actually going to another stage, when El Presidente came out onto the terrace of the presidential palace for a smoke, or a photo opportunity, one. He came over to the edge and waved at the crowd for a few minutes.

The great thing about Quito is it celebrates itself often. There were Pre-Incan indigenous people here, then 100 years before the Spanish came, the Incas conquered, then so the Spanish couldn’t get it, the Incas destroyed the city, then the Spanish re-founded it, finally Quito was liberated from the Spanish.

Quitenos celebrate all this, although I hear the indigenous people don’t like the celebrations honoring the Spanish, you know because they’re not Spanish, and f*ck big noses.

I swear there are people here cheering on space aliens, and young uptown progressives cheering on the liberation of Quito from the space aliens.

More wine, please.

By 1:30 in the morning I was in Santo Domingo Plaza near my hotel dancing like a drunken madman. The entire plaza was a dance floor. It had started to rain and everyone was slightly wet.

Everything was breaking down. The one-two-three dance of salsa was turning into something tribal. People were holding hands and dancing in circles. Chinese vampires were standing in one place and hopping up and down. I, for some reason had dissolved into short jerky bluegrass movements.

Somewhere a Virgin Mary was crying real blood, and a stone Ganesha was drinking fresh pure milk.

Never in all my ever increasing years, has someone told me “hey, fiesta at six” and it turned out to be some kind of world super party.

Quito Luz de America - may God protect it.

-J Roland Kelly

A couple of years ago, on my way out to a new life in California I was standing by a overloaded Geo Metro smoking a cigarette at a rest-stop somewhere along I-40, watching a guy watering his dog, and to make a long story short: I struck-up a conversation with said guy, who was going to where a circus was bedded-down for the winter and I received an official invitation… to run away with the circus.

If you roam around long enough anything will happen.

I started a conversation with a guy in my Quito hotel that turned out to be a writer David Joshua Jennings, on assignment for a travel guide. We talked about teaching English abroad, he said he was meeting people for drinks later, invited me out, and that is where I met Quito screenwriter, filmmaker & musician Carolina Arroba.

I saw her little studio, listened to her new unreleased album, and read the screenplay for the film she is currently shooting. F*ck yeah. I’m not allowed to say anything about any of this, but I’m going to see if she will give me an interview, I’ll post it to this blog.

Anyway, Happy Birthday Carolina.

-J Roland Kelly

Above photo by Chris Falcony

I’ve had enough time to wonder around Quito and get a grasp of the cost of living. I reside in the historic center of Quito (Old Town, El Centro) on what turns out to be an inexpensive working class street.

All of the Old Town is an Unesco World Heritage Site, and a great place to be alive.

If I hang out in gringo bars of the Mariscal Sucre, the traveler’s ghetto or “gringolandia” as some locals call it, it costs gringo dollars (American dive bar prices) but if I stay away from touristy or major hubs the everyday working class prices are as follows:

Hotel Room – $165 per month. See my Quito for Expats post for pictures of my room.

Large beer from bodega - .80 cents. The national beer is called “Pilsner,” guess what kind of beer it is.

Internet - free with room but faster at Internet café .70 cents per hour. It’s high-speed.

Lunch & Dinner - $1.50 a piece. Nothing scary, I promise. They know bananas, and fruit juices. Order what ever you want or you can get the set menu for lunch or dinner, it’s like their special, or a lunch or dinner of the day sort of thing. Multicourse and good.

Laundry - $1 a kilo for someone else to do it.

Public Bus - .20 cents, years ago when I was in Quito it was full of pickpockets. I don’t know about now, they’ve cleaned up the city.

Taxi - $4 bucks from the old town to the new town, almost as far as you would want to go, not including the airport which cost $8.
 
Things like shampoo – if imported same price, maybe not San Francisco, California bodega prices, but certainly supercenter or target prices.

5 liter bottle of mineral water - $1.10

3 liter bottle of coca cola zero - $1.50

Bootlegged DVD - $1 Bootlegged DVDs are everywhere.

Private Spanish tutor - $4 bucks per hour

Touring churches and museums – approximately $1-3 depending.

Salsa Club with live music – all different of course, but one I like in the Mariscal Sucre is $6 bucks and includes one drink, $2.50 a drink after the first one, Salsa lessons from women who know how to wear high-heels free.

I guess I should say the National Currency of Ecuador is the United States Dollar. They no longer have their own currency, inflation was at 60% and in the year 2000 they decided to abandon their currency for the US Greenback.

This is good for Americans because while the US dollar is losing strength in the rest of the world, Ecuador is pegged to us, that, and you don’t have to change money at the airport.

Quito, Ecuador

 When I first got off the plane in Quito, I was exhausted. My cheap ticket from San Francisco ($550) was too Indiana Jones like, from SFO to LAX to Panama City to Quito. All of this was over night, and took 12 hours with layovers.

The flights themselves where not long enough to get comfortable, and I have a habit of getting good and exhausted before a trip even begins; it’s always been that way with me.

Maybe getting deliriously tired is my way of calming the nerves.

After all, what does it take a normal person to move to a foreign city with no connections?

So, there I am in the newly remodeled Quito airport trying to stand up straight and look okay for customs, and the first thing that I remember is that Quito is very high at an altitude of over 12,000 feet.

The air was thin, and I had been living almost at sea level in California.

No problems with customs. Ecuador offers a 90-day visa for US tourists. It’s my understanding that I can just cross the border and get another 90-day visa when the time comes. I guess I’ll find out in October.

I got my backpack, hid my cash, went outside to the smell of car exhaust (I’m getting less tolerate of these types of things and I think they use ¨dirty diesel¨ here), walked away from the airport, got a taxi, and started for the cheap side of town.

In the taxi, I realize how this routine is second nature to me.

Each time I put my backpack in a closet, I think never again. I even burned my passport once; then three months later spent 80 bucks to have it replaced for a trip to London.

This time things are different; my backpack hasn’t been dusted off since Western China in 2004 (excluding moving to California, which is it’s own country). In the down time, I’ve tried focusing on expressing myself in different artistic mediums but the backpack stays with me.

Now, I’m trying to bring art and travel together. It might be magic, it might be disastrous. I’ve never tried this combination before, but I figure others have made it work and I still have some youth to burn.

Back in the moving taxi from the Quito Airport, the driver says something into a CB radio that I don’t understand, which could be anything in Spanish ¨I’m leaving the airport, be back in twenty minutes¨ or ¨I’ve got the gringo, get ready,¨ just in case I calmly locked the three doors, leaving his door the only one unlocked.

At the first sign of trouble, I decide (and it seems totally rational at a time like this) I will kick this old man’s head off and take control of the taxi, but there never was a first sign of trouble, nothing bad ever really happens, and getting half crazy is half the fun of traveling.

I fell asleep in a five and a half dollar hotel room, woke up in the middle of the night, when nothing was open, went back to sleep, woke up in the afternoon and thought damn this place looks like San Francisco.

I had a good laugh; I didn’t pick up on that the last time I was here. It took me 12 hours to get to Quito from Mountain View, California.

How long does it take to get to San Francisco (North Beach) in accident laden rush hour traffic or public transit from Mountain View? I’ve been stuck in traffic for over three hours.

Commuting in the Bay Area, I will not miss.

Since the first night, things have been good. I am staying in the historic part of town (El Centro), which people just call the ¨Old Town.¨

It’s beautiful, and I found out they don’t allow cars into the old town on Sundays.

And even better, on the last Sunday of every month they close the main drag here from one end of the city to the other for every thing but bikes.

All of this has been reassuring, I was worried that since my last visit Quito might have fallen apart. There’s been a coup, multiple new presidents, etc. but costs are still low, crime is down, the things that needed to stay the same, stayed the same and things that needed to change, changed.

Don’t get me wrong, nothing is perfect, if I were half the man I were five years ago (slamming fist on table) I would take a power-washer to this place, who-ra.

- J Roland Kelly

Plus I can do a 45 in 35.

I´m here in Quito. I found a place for the month with free internet for $165. No problems with the visa. Don´t show up in Quito hung over as it is a very high city. Full report to come. J Roland

There’s a lot of talk about 3D films coming back. Over the weekend I went to see Journey to the Center of the Earth in Real D to see what all this noise was about.

The new 3D is going to be huge. I now know what all the noise is about; I was blown away. I always thought these were gimmick films and I didn’t bother to see one until just now.

But man, it was magic. I was like a kid. Take an unsuspecting woman to see one of these new 3D films; if the two of you haven’t seen one you will be bonded forever.

I have been wrapped up in film history films for too long. I’ve been watching French New Wave films as of late, and I couldn’t believe I let something like this pass.

The whole experience was fantastic. The glasses themselves fit over my real glasses, I forgot that I was wearing them. Everything on the screen seemed new again.

In terms of storytelling Journey to the Center of the Earth was not great, which is why you should see it. You don’t want a story getting in the way of wigging out on this new Real D.

Smoke in 3D; just imagine it.

There have been a number of animated stories in Real D, and Beowulf was also released in it, but I considered these children’s movies. I don’t see children’s movies because I’m an art snob, and there you have the reason that I’m only now getting floored by this.

I suspect that here are a number of people in this boat.

Sitting in the theater, watching this film, I realized that most of the standard continuity film edits no longer work in 3D. There was a time before Sergei Eisenstein, when one character looking at something and then the camera looking at that something, and the audience connecting the link between the two, didn’t exist.

How basic is that? Editing.

The train could be filmed pulling into the station and then what? Hitchcock would have still filmed the train going into the tunnel, the perv.

Anyway, when I was in the theater I had a feeling that something as basic and simple has yet to be done with 3D.

This will be huge. The previews for other films at the beginning of Journey to the Center of the Earth where also in 3D, there are a lot of these Read D films coming.

Go blow your mind, see if you are the genius who will come up with the new 3D Battleship Potemkin.

Here’s a tip. Get there early, so that you can sit directly in front of the screen (not off to the side). The effect is diminished as you move off to the side.

Even the freaking credits at the end in 3D were interesting. 

-J Roland Kelly

Read the local paper. Take a walk. But read the local paper. Check out this story from my current town of residence Mountain View, CA.

No car, no recourse ?Vacationer returns to find his car towed, auctioned and up for sale on Craigslist — by a tow company employee

Seeing this story makes me remember how much I despise tow truck drivers. Full disclosure. They’re dirty carnies.

I think getting a car towed is something that we all have in common. It’s happened to all of us, or one of our close friends. It seems to happen at the worst time.

It’s not something you can really protect yourself from because cars never get towed when they are blatantly parked illegally; it’s only on some trumped-up charge, and it’s the kind of thing that will burn in the back of our minds forever.

That’s a perfect audience for a story.

And yes, I had my car towed a couple of weeks ago. It cost $400 to get it back, and it was a hassle.

The car was stolen by the City of Mountain View when it was parked on the public street in front of my apartment for more than three days.

There is some code against this (22-1651-O). I’ve read it. It’s so badly written, every car in Mountain View, just in terms of math, breaks this law.

Someone should take Mountain View to court.

I bike commute during the week, so yeah it was parked. The real reason my car was “towed” was that some neighbor wanted my spot.

I regret that apartment complexes have worked out deals with towing companies to tow away the cars of friends that are visiting (also, happened to me) and that municipal governments have given letters of marque to these pirates to profit-share in the bounty.

There’s no semblance of legality about this.

So, what’s the story with these tow truck drivers? I think everyone wants to know.

I don’t think I’m the only person that would put a documentary about this on their netflix list, and certainly I would chuckle if some big-screen serial killer turned out to be tow truck driver.

To the gentleman in the news story: I’m sorry your car got stolen by carnival folk, but If it makes you feel any better I will buy the exclusive rights to your story for like $10. 

A couple of days ago I mentioned that I went to a screenwriting workshop taught by Terrel Seltzer who worked on the screenplay for Chan Is Missing. I was thinking about it. I dig this film. I like it because it is shot Dinosaur! style, and I like everything shot Dinosaur! style.

I think it’s an inspiration to all of us what you can do with a single camera and a good-looking city for a backdrop. Forget permits, just move to a city long enough to know how to get away with it.

With this film, and because it is low budget, you get to see real 1982 San Francisco.  No closed off streets, no one is holding the crowd back during shooting, none of that, just a small group of people with a camera trying not to get noticed in a larger group of people.

Also, the film has some significance for me. I first saw it on a 30 inch flat-screen monitor, when I thought 30 inch flat-screen monitors were unbelievable large. I had just moved to the Bay Area and I was living in a closet in San Mateo, and it was the first Indie San Francisco type film that I saw. 

The film was made by this guy.

-J Roland Kelly