Since we’ve been on an automobile-smashing trend, it seemed time to introduce these folks.
The Vulgarians, famous for their tough climbs, free-spirits, death defying races, parties, sex, drugs, and rock and roll, are the unofficial keepers of the Shawangunks.
Two copies of the “Vulgarian Digest” featuring Dick Williams, left climbing nude and Elaine Matthews, prominent female Vulgarian, topless on the right.
We interviewed Vulgarian Burt Angrist and Vulgarian and overall climbing legend Jim McCarthy about 2 hours after our car crash. Jim, Burt, and Anka (Burt’s lovely wife) welcomed us into their home and immediately put us at ease with kindness, cheese and crackers, and Bourbon.
(Yup, proceeded to drink shots of Bourbon with Jim McCarthy as we interviewed him!)
Suffice to say, any lingering worries I had about the smashed up rental car dissipated as I listened to stories of the Vulgarian Grand Prix and stuff like this:
The Vulgarians are often given more publicity for their antics than their climbs, that are equally noteworthy. The people who made up the Vulgarians throughout the early days of the ‘Gunks scene pushed the limits of climbing and partying, and remain heroes to many a bourbon-drinking, car-crashing, free-spirited climber like myself to this day.
It was an honor to be heckled, the next day, by Jim and Burt as they came across us climbing an ‘easy’ 5.5 Gunks climb called the Horseman.
I’ve always thought car window landscapes to be very poetic. But to be frank, it’s a good thing for the “poetry” of the clips above that you can’t smell this video. After 15 days of living out of a suitcase on a tattered shoe-string budget with two boys, the sweaty, dirty, rough and tumble battle of wits/nerves/dollars/cents/sleep and shower deprivation permeated inside these windows would be enough to wipe out a colony of fruit flies (which worked out well to keep the population springing up from the leftover fruit rinds and coffee cups in the car to a minimum).
I also entitle the first part of the journey: PART 1 - Freezing, Sleep Deprived, and Hungover
We were met in Golden, Colorado with freezing, slushy snow-capped aspens and mountainsides, having pulled out of a sweltering 90 degree southern California garage some 14 hours earlier. Having pulled an all nighter the night before, then driven 14 hours straight from 7pm till the early morning, I arrived in CO sufficiently hopped up on Frappucinos and anticipation. This would be the running theme for the entire trip.
We came one day early to see the rare surfacing of Layton Kor giving a slideshow. Naturally, we went to not only the wrong theater, but the wrong city altogether, realizing just minutes before the show was to begin. We jumped in our overburdened Ford Escort station wagon with luggage rack and screamed down a tiny interstate to the nearby city of Boulder where the slideshow had been relocated. I thought it was fitting, as we zoomed around turns, pedal to the metal, that we should be on our way to see a man speak who developed a reputation driving hair-raising hair-pin turns on his way to the Black Canyon in the 60s.
If our arrival in New York had pegged us as ‘hippies’ (as I’ll explain in later entries), then our arrival in Colorado landed us the role of “City Slickers.” The state of Colorado has suppposedly more outdoor enthusiasts per capita than any other state, and your average Coloradoan can be found mentioning climbing, snowboarding, hiking, and scuba diving all in the same conversation.
complete sets of outdoor gear inside the Music Tent at the Craggin Classic
With my Skinny jeans, my Blackberry, and my lack of an alpine light North Face backpack, I fell immediately into a Southern Californian stereotype (as did Jason for numerous reasons similar to mine and Max for his flip flops). Not to mention that we were in town not to climb, but to film interviews in a dark room all day long where we were recreating a “campfire look” Hollywood style in the basement of the American Mountaineering Center’s extensive Library with 2k of lights and a Magic Gadget Flicker Box that baffled pretty much all of our interviewees (baffled or blinded, either one).
Despite our telltale Californianism, it’s an anything goes scene, and we were welcomed in to the free-beer-music-rain-frenzy just as warmly as the next guy. You have to hand it to the AAC for putting together such a cross sectioned event — this was the first annual Craggin Classic, and I hope it will be the first of many (and maybe next year I can go back without having interviews and just purely have some fun!) The people around ranged from funloving outdoorsman to international up and comers to climbing superstars and legendary climbing icons. Our interviews reflected this smorgasbord, with interviews ranging from Jim Donini and John Gill to Alison Osius and Bob D’Antonio then Matt Samet, to Majka Burhard, Rob Pizem, and Katie Brown. The only important things on this trip were these interviews, and I’m happy to say that they were amazing. I’ll be posting bits of them very soon.
Everyday would also follow the Craggin pattern: Interviews all day, then 5pm Happy Hour started with unlimited beer and wine, followed by unlimited food, and free live music. For young budget filmmaker/climbers on a road trip, FREE is pretty much a mandate for binge overconsumption, and thus, though sleep deprived as we were, I don’t think there was a single day of the Craggin that I didn’t wake up with a hangover.
me, Corene, and Danielle making the most of the unlimited booze
We had a brief few hours our last day involving both rain-free weather and no interviews, so we drove out to Eldorado Canyon to hit up a classic route or two not far from the road (ok, right off the road).
We did this (Northcutt’s Direct - great FA story of Ray Northcutt being sandbagged into the first 5.10+ in the country) and the crack on the right that’s an old school Classic 5.7 “Bastille Crack” - also in my mind from the earlier Kor reading; leave it to Pat Ament to paint a portrait strong enough to imbue a seemingly normal 5.7 by the roadside with a magical sense of history…
No backwards falls this time.
After our last interview in Coloroado with Bob Culp at his store in Boulder, we grabbed some food and beer and headed back to Keystone where we’d been bunkering down with Corene, the hostess with mostest in her granola bar supplying, shuttle drivin ski resort apartment. We got in about 11pm, with packing for the flight to New York in the forefront of our minds as we had to leave for the Denver Airport at 4:30am, only a few hours away. But when we arrived, it became immediately clear that our hostess, having consumed her weight in smirnoff screwdrivers, had no intention of letting us inside…unless we promised to get in the hottub with her and the rest of the ski bum crew! After multiple attempts at pleas and phone calls, and even a successful attempt by Max at scaling to her balcony, we had no choice but to acquiesce.
After the interlude in the hottub, I headed downstairs to begin packing, weighing (with Corene’s scale), and repacking our 6 suitcases with film gear to make sure each was under 50lbs. My wet hair froze stiff. 3:30am rolled by, still packing. 4:00am, getting close.
The clock struck 4:25 in the morning, and I realized that I had no space or time left to pack any of my own clothes, so…
3 undershirts, 3 t-shirts, 1 polo short, 1 sweater, 1 sweatshirt, 1 peacoat, 1 pair of longjohns, 2 pair of pants, and a hat later, I waddled through Denver International Airport Security, and we were on our way to New York City!
4 all nighters, 1 car crash, 21 interviews, many MANY cups of terrible gas-station coffee, 6 suitcases (1 destroyed), 1 million dead braincells, 1 leader fall, 6 flights, 15 days, and 5,000 miles later and the journey has, ceremoniously, begun. It was not an easy feat, and we had the smells to prove it. (Insert feat/feet pun at your leisure.)
Stay tuned for parts 2 and 3, with the car crash, the Gunks, and the various interview clips soon to be released!
Come this Wednesday Oct. 8th - we are taking off for Golden, Colorado followed by New Paltz, New York for the first of our interviews!!!
And this is all happening because of you, YOU OUT THERE! Thank you for the dollars, the letters, the emails, the equipment, the offers of beds and couches, and most of all, for the encouragement. That means more than I can possibly convey in a blog. It’s been a very tough month, with changes and setbacks and the usual difficulty associated with a creative endeavour trying to happen at the very apex of economic collapse (haha, i exxagerate) but having support and encouragement has made all the difference in the world. As Orson Welles put it,
“A writer needs a pen, an artist needs a brush, but a filmmaker needs an army”
This is out our army - our list of Executive Producers, friends, and good spirits to date:
Alejandrina Davies
Alexandra Fallows
Allatoff Chaffage
Athena Tan
Binh Ta
Brandon “El Guapo” Kampschuur
Chelsea Taft
Christopher Cart
Corene Petlin
David Meeker
Elliot Wong
Gary Moore
James Williams
Janice Lee
Javier Morawski
Jean- Paul Cart
Jeffrey Shih
Jennifer Chiu
Jessica Hewins
Joby Petronis
Joe Takai
Jorge Perez de Acha
Joseph Dionisio
Judith Moore
Julie McPherson
Justin D. Williams
Kathleen Kim
Kay Donahue
Kevin Skaggs
Lisa Dracolakis
Lisa Hanawalt
Mark Moore
Marlaice Shoemate
Mary “Egley” Petronis
Melissa Bargman
Nathaniel Ben Cohen
Paloma Young
Seth Ichikawa
Sue and Tony DiCello
Sue Wildt
Tara Porter
TREVOR BARRETT
Vicki Anderson-Moore
Vince Smith
Xandre de Bellis
Zachary Joseph
Thank you to everyone for an act of generosity that accumulated into a collective effort that is making this trip a reality! We will be updating this constantly now with clips and pictures and results, and I hope you will all know how much a part of this you are!
And now, for a few random pics of the preparation process:
