I’ve been to New York two times before: the first was to film interviews at the ‘Gunks Reunion and the hood of the car I rented flew up on the freeway and I crashed it (actually 2 unrelated events on the same trip - no more rentsies for Oakley) and the second was on day 30 of a massive road trip with my 3 crewmates Alex, Nick, and Corene after we filmed the majority of our interviews & principal photography.  Needless to say, after living in the ‘76 van and interviewing non-stop from CA to NY I was too exhausted to really enjoy the city.  But now, everything’s different!

I’ll explain in the next couple of days more on WHY we are going…for now, wish me luck and to not have to wear all my clothes onto the airplane like last time.

That only took 2 days!  I can’t even tell how long it took to do the painstaking stop-motion animation by hand….I just go by the empty bottles of wine in the recycling bin.

This film has gone on quite a journey.  We followed storylines that I didn’t know about before we started, and gave up on others where the story just couldn’t happen for us.  In the final stages, I had to cut a lot of dear material out.  Oh what a terrible, terrible journey its been!  But in the end, it’s shaped into what I think is going to be a memorable, thoughtful film.  I hope you will like it!  And I will let everyone know as soon as we set up the first real screening.  It will be a sweet, sweet (soon to be) day.

We are continuing to compile archives for the film and the future as we near completion of the film.  If you’d like to help, we can always use more archives or a few extra dollars to help the process along! (Donations can still be made following to donate link to our IFP account).

Favorite childhood memory? I wrote my first short story on my grandmother’s lap when I was five years old. She was a budding businesswoman, the second B&B owner in Bar Harbor, and she owned the first Apple computer in town. I told her my story, all three paragraphs of it, and she typed it in. I forget what it was about, but it was good.

Been involved in arts before? I have never been a part of a project such as this. I was a member of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston for a while and even wrote an entire novel sitting in front of three different Monet paintings, but this is really my first foray into supporting the arts and I am very excited to be a part of this project. I think it is important, and for whatever reason it hit my heart in the right way.

What do you like about writing? I have always been drawn by attaching similarities of life with the characters in my mind. Non-fiction simply isn’t as interesting as fiction because there are always more truths than can ever be told. With fiction, the truth is always what is written or imagined. Van Gogh’s blue grass could never be green, because that’s not what it was when he painted it. Steve Perry’s South Detroit will forever be believable even if South Detroit is really Windsor, Canada. It is true, because that’s the way it is. That’s what I love about writing: the making the imagined believable and the real identifiable.

What do you like about climbing? Climbing for me is therapeutic. I am so focused that the world vanishes behind me. I supposed I could find another activity, but why? With surfing the beaches will always be busy and the waves forever competing for the best boards. With swimming there is only repetition. I love to swim, but the monotony would get old after a while. It is the same with cycling. For me, nothing is better than being on pitch six of a ten-pitch 5.7 alone with my partner, the empty ground below me, and the wonderful, wild air around me.

(photo courtesy Greg Burns)

At what point did you decide to take the plunge, quit your job, and start fresh in South America? My heart was always with writing, but I was not mature enough to understand what that meant. I was married for a time, and my devotion was to her and her expectations. She was a great girl (still is, but not for me now), but I was caught in a corporate career in healthcare finance. When the marriage dissolved, I evaluated my life and determined in December of 2008 that 2010 would be the year. I worked my butt off in 2009 to save my money so that I could do this. South America was a means to and end (in Maine, we learn French, not Spanish). Chile was cheaper than New England and more interesting than Mississippi (to me, that is). I moved there to write and save money in December 2010.

(photo courtesy Greg Burns)

Describe your daily schedule in Chile. This depends greatly on my friends, my creative flow, and the allure of the Santiago night. I am not a partier under anyone’s imagination, but to wake up when I wake up, to write when I write, to sit in a cafe sipping Escudo until the darkness hits, and to toast pisco sours (or whatever else suits my fancy) until the early morning hours as I wish is probably the best thing about life here as a writer. I mostly just write, however, and maybe fend off my climbing partner’s Chilean attitudes about not making plans until the last minute (this is a war that must be won), but I am living the life and I do live it as it is deemed necessary. Oddly, my friends have caught on to this and have deemed most nights lately to be “necessary.”

Favorite places? Home, of course. Bariloche, Argentina. Edinburgh, Scotland (the best city in Europe?). And wherever I have yet to go that will knock my socks off when I get there.

What did you see about The Last Wild Mountain that made you want to get on board? Anyone can tell a story from point A to point B, but to tell it from other people’s perspectives, using their words, in my mind is different from what is currently on the market. For me, I like the human part of life, and to be human is not to be glorified. This is what I focus on with regards to writing, too, so documentaries in general tend to catch my eye. This one caught both my eye and my heart because I felt as if I identified with the stars of the film. For once, I wanted to learn about them instead of simply watching them in awe.

What’s next? Who knows? I will return home for the summer in 2010 and then find somewhere else to go. Maybe I’ll return to South America. Maybe not. Spain is a possibility and so is Thailand. I have a feeling I will end up in Brasil, but who knows? When I chose this life I chose to throw myself at it and see where it took me. Thus far I am here. I assume that later I’ll end up there.

You can check out Greg’s writing at his blog at Climbing.com. We recommend #9 if you want to get those southern vibes.

Loosely inspired by historian Joseph Taylor III’s comment that in the late 60s “wearing a carabinier was like being a member of a secret club” this button is the remixed version of that concept.

If you got in on our Kickstarter, you can expect to get one of these in the mail soon.  Want yours?

Remember this mugshot photograph that appeared in our Kickstarter video?  Joe Kelsey, who gave us the photo, revealed the delightful details of it’s ending up in his possession.  Enjoy:

“I believe it was fall 1970, though it might have been 71. It was the fall after the Stoneman Meadow riot, wherein hippies threw stones and bottles at mounted rangers. We returned to the Valley after summer in Wyoming to find hostility between rangers and climbers (and anyone else who looked disrespectful of society’s norms).

The Valley wasn’t as multinational then as later, but there was a colony of Brits, and they gathered nightly around a campfire and sang. Most Yanks thought singing to be not macho, but Claude Suhl and I got into it and learned the songs. One night two rangers appeared and did that bullshit routine of formally stating, three times in quick succession, “You are an unruly mob. You will disperse.”

This was the Vietnam/Civil Rights era, and the Brits were intimidated by American authority in general and the possibility of deportation in particular, so they nervously scattered. However, the rangers cornered a few, and I felt valorous enough (inebriated enough) to come to their rescue. One ranger was unnecessarily bullying them. It being the Vulgarian way to throw curve balls, I calmly, soothingly lectured the rangers, as if they were children, about addressing climbers not confrontationally but politely. The Brits disappeared into the night, and I was requested to produce photo ID. When my New Jersey license failed to provide a photo, I was under arrest.

Claude appeared and was perceived as interfering with an arrest. I took the opportunity of this diversion to explain that my bladder was bursting, the arrests conveniently taking place just outside a bathroom. The kindlier of the rangers told me to go ahead, in fact to get lost, it was Claude they were really after. Claude always looked more like trouble than I did, no matter how hard I tried. The next guy out of the bathroom had my hair and mustache. When I emerged, he had become me and was in custody, and I had to re-introduce myself as the perp.

Claude and I were escorted into a paddy wagon that happened to be the same vehicle used a week before to transport us to an El Cap rescue. We departed Camp 4 serenaded by a mob chanting “Fascist pigs! Fascist pigs! Fookin’ fookin’ fascist pigs!” No sooner had we been booked, fingerprinted, photographed, and incarcerated–after they took our shoelaces so we wouldn’t be tempted to hang ourselves–at the correctional facility (behind Yosemite Village, near the soothing sound of America’s most beloved waterfall), the Fookin’ Pigs chant could be heard outside. Shortly, Rob Wood, a Brit living in Vancouver, was thrust into an adjacent cell. As luck would have it, it was a Fri night, and we were told the wheels of justice would not be turning till Mon. So we were duly astounded when a ranger appeared Sat a.m. to say our lawyer had arranged for our release for the weekend, provided we left the park.

How, you may ask, did the likes of us get legal representation?  It’s certainly what we were asking. It turned out that the accidental impostor who emerged from the bathroom before me had graduated #1 in his class in law school, before deciding to do something less detrimental than practicing law.

The baddest thing I did during this episode I did as we were leaving the correctional facility. The mug shots sat on the corner of a cluttered desk by the door. No one was looking, and I couldn’t resist a unique Yosemite souvenir, classier than a rubber tomahawk.That’s how they became preserved for posterity, or at least for the sort of posterity I’d prefer them to be preserved for.

We and a dozen or so fellow travelers (two VW buses full), including a few chicks who surmised that we were a happening cadre, obeyed neither the letter nor the spirit of our release by going to Tuolumne for the weekend. We didn’t spend the weekend paying our dues to society.

First thing Monday morning we were outside the courtroom, with our lawyer and perhaps as many as 100 Camp 4 residents. Our lawyer wisely suggested everyone else wait outside while he went in and introduced himself. Shortly he and the judge came to the door. The judge asked if they all witnesses, and our lawyer replied, “They could be, your honor.” So judge and lawyer retired back inside; the judge asked the lawyer to describe the events of Fri night and told our lawyer he suspected such miscarriages of justice were going on, but too many youths were afraid to talk. Our arrests were “expunged,” meaning we were not only found not guilty but even the fact of our arrests was supposed to be eradicated. Which didn’t happen–last I knew I could be pulled over for a taillight out, and the cop, after running my ID, would look at me knowingly and say, “I hear you’ve been disorderly.”

The kindlier ranger was fired; the mean ranger, who turned out to be an ex-Marine officer, became a pianist in the Ahwanee bar. Could I make that up?

Well, thanks for giving me the opportunity to reminisce about the days when life couldn’t have been sweeter!

I only hope that you’re identifying that wayward youth in the mug shots as Fred Beckey.”

- Joe Kelsey

You can find more of Kelsey’s clever writings in such classic and ill-reputed publications as “The Vulgarian Digest” and The Climbing Cartoons of Sheridan Anderson as well as the current & upcoming edition of the Wind Rivers guidebook and possibly, quite possibly, in the narration of The Last Wild Mountain!

Luckily, there’s a few things you can do these days to try and get your art made anyway….

We met our Kickstarter goal!!!!!!

Last night, I sent out an email about it, and we had raised $12,330 to finish the film.  This morning, I checked again and we were at $13,235 with more than 20 new supporters.

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to everyone who has helped us get this far!!!

If you haven’t seen the Kickstarter site yet and were still thinking of getting involved/getting some schwag (there are MORE prizes)/ pre-ordering your copy of the DVD/or supporting…do it now because there’s only 3 DAYS LEFT!

We’ve met our goal, but every extra penny counts.  For example, if we get $1k more, we can even afford live musicians/orchestra for the soundtrack and not just our composer and his MIDI keyboard!

TELL ANYONE YOU KNOW WHO MIGHT BE INTERESTED! Or tell anyone you know who might not be interested. Say, “This is definitely NOT something you want to be involved in!” just as long as you use this link:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1301221085/the-last-wild-mountain-a-nearly-finished-rock-doc

Sincerely,
Oakley

Director

The Last Wild Mountain

]]> http://rockadventuremovie.com/filmdiary/?feed=rss2&p=1250 http://rockadventuremovie.com/filmdiary/?p=1239 http://rockadventuremovie.com/filmdiary/?p=1239#comments Thu, 16 Dec 2010 21:20:04 +0000 alex http://rockadventuremovie.com/filmdiary/?p=1239 Rich Romano was recently involved in a climbing accident at the City of Rocks.  We interviewed Rich back in 2008 and was just a really nice/interesting/passionate guy to talk to.  He is actually featured in the video on our homepage.

Fellow Gunks legend Rich Goldstone has started a fundraiser to help offset the medical costs that Rich Romano will incur from the accident.  From Rich Goldstone:

“Rich Romano, one of the most prolific climbers in the history of the Shawangunks and the primary developer of the Millbrook Cliff as well as other outlying areas, recently had a serious accident at City of Rocks, Idaho. His rope, which was too short for the pitch he was lowering off, ran through the belay, resulting in a serious fall. Full details about the accident and his recovery are on the gunks.com thread

http://gunks.com/ubbthreads7/ubbthreads.php/topics/54460/ALWAYS_tie_a_knot_at_the_end_o#Post54460

Rich’s insurance is supposed to cover the enormous helicopter evacuation and hospitalization costs, but it does not cover his ongoing post-ER visits and the various co-pays and deductibles, all at a time of lost income from the inability to work.

A few of us have have started a project to raise some cash for Rich for his ongoing medical expenses and at the same time provide some value to climbers, based on Rich’s extensive and in many cases exclusive knowledge of Millbrook. We are producing a series of “harness route cards” for “The Bank,” Rich’s affectionate name for the cliff. These are 4 X 6 cards, laminated, with a cord loop that can be clipped to a harness. The cards will have two or three classic routes on a high-resolution photo. The photos we are using afford nearly straight-across views that show superb cliff detail, at an angle that is easily interpreted by a climber at the base of the routes. There is no comparison between the photos we are using and the aerial photos in any of the current guidebooks, which are exceptionally hard to interpret and which, because of the time of day they were taken, fail to reveal even massive features of the cliff.

In large part because of Rich’s efforts, Millbrook is one of the “traddest” cliffs in the country. There isn’t a single bolt anywhere, and perhaps a handful of fixed pitons, just about all of them from the early soft-iron days of climbing in the U.S. Almost every route is in the same condition as it was on the first ascent. It’s steepness, functionally remote location, and the seriousness of many (but not all) of the routes makes Millbrook one of the premier destinations for high-level trad climbing in the country.

The route cards are an attempt to make some of the mysteries of Millbrook just a touch more accessible without, we fervently hope, reducing the cliff to the modern paint-in-the numbers beta-fest that now dilutes the trad experience worldwide. In keeping with the adventurous spirit of Millbrook climbing pioneered by Rich, the cards show clearly where the routes go, give their grades, but leave all the other details of the ascent to the climber.

We are planning on producing a combination of classics at various levels of difficulty, some of which do not appear in any of the Shawangunk guidebooks. The first card is now ready. It lists two of the best and most accessible routes at Millbrook, Westward Ha!, among the best 5.7’s in the Gunks, and Cruise Control (a Romano Route), a superb line at 5.9-. On the flip side is a schematic map of the best trail approach to Millbrook from the West Trapps parking lot and the location of the standard rappel tree.

we are selling the cards through Rock and Snow for $5. Because of the support and generosity of Rock and Snow, every penny of the $5 price of the card goes to Rich. Please feel free to add an additional donation if the spirit moves you. We can only handle either cash, if you want to send it through the mail, or a personal check made out to Rich Romano. Send a stamped self-addressed envelope big enough to hold a 4x 6 card to

Romano Fund
Rock & Snow
44 Main Street
New Paltz, NY 12561,

Or stop by Rock and Snow if you are up at the Gunks.”