Leaving it all behind. A Trip of a Lifetime by Greg Montemurro

Why, people may ask, would I quit a desirable job I have enjoyed for 10 years, move out of a my comfortable home at the beach, distance myself from fabulous friends, and leave behind a city I love? Why would I take off a year of my life, sell my 500SL Mercedes Benz for spending money to travel around the world all by my lonesome?

Call it adventurous, call it crazy. Some of you upon hearing my decision look at me in envy, while others just look. To me crazy is doing the same thing continuously, like a hamster spinning aimlessly on the wheel. While most of us fear the unknown, I fear knowing that this is all I’ll know.

Who hasn’t ever thought of just taking off and leaving it all behind? Easier said than done, huh?
We are basically creatures of habit and it’s easy to do the same thing repeatedly, no matter how good or how bad it is. It is what we are comfortable with, like an old shoe that we are reluctant to toss away.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my life. On the other hand I don’t care what you do; no matter how good, the routine is going to get old. Hugh Heffner is excluded in this rationalization. The only thing getting old is Hugh’s pecker.

We do need new challenges to keep life fresh. I’m sure if there is a God, The Big Guy sure is bored of watching over all our tired asses. I wouldn’t be surprised if He has slammed a couple of beers (probably Old Styles, brewed in God’s Country) a night or two and taken a trip South of the border to go raise some Hell. And if Jesus did come down here to save us from our sins over 2000 years ago, don’t you think he’d at least come back down for one measly week of Spring Break.
Like an athlete riding the bench, I can hear the chosen one plead, “I’m ready coach, put me back in. I’ve still got game!” Damn, that water to wine trick would be a big hit with the kids in Daytona Beach.

I am not touting my own horn; I don’t even own a horn. I am not saying my life is the way you should live. Some people actually have responsibilities! Everyone is different, despite the notion that says we all were created equal, (Tell that to Billy with the two inch penis.) Your mind is your reality and your reality is your world. Whatever makes you happy, right?

The reason I am probably not settled, even at the age of forty -two, is that to me settled means just that. One has settled, accepted his fate, and have chosen to go no further. I guess I’m kind of like a shark, constantly in motion, scouting out my next prey. However, I do sleep on occasion and I live near the water not in it.

I think we begin to get old when we start looking back, reminiscing about the past instead of looking forward to the future. If all your sentences start off with, “I remember when...,” you’re getting old and probably urinating on yourself right now. I want to move forward and create new memories, to me that is the key to staying young. The way I look at it I’ve been 21 for 21 years now.
That’s not to say that I am sometimes envious of people who for example can fiddle away in the garden, enjoying a simple life and are as happy and content as can be. As Forrest Gump put it “Simple is as Simple does.” Maybe I am the one cursed, constantly chasing something, never content. But I don’t think so! I’m just living like a kid, when everything was still new, because in reality there still is so much new. How could we have done everything? Why do we stop? Do we just get tired of being beaten down, our spirits subdued by past failures and the daily grind?

Well I will not accept defeat. Of course Cournel Custer probably said the same thing before he took an arrow in the ass.

Remember the first bike you got! Remember the thrill in learning to ride it and the pride that engulfed you like the wind through your hair. Discarding those retched training wheels you zigzagged down the block to new pastures and playgrounds. Well no matter how old we get, there will always be new things out there to experience, to see, to feel, to conquer. Life to me is like a merry go round. It’s easy to stay on it and just go with the flow, but every once in a while we need to step off of it and let it go on without us.

Take out a year of your life and look at your surroundings. Have things really changed that much? I’ve had associates at work miss six months due to unfortunate circumstances. Upon return to their job, Co-workers will look at that person and realize they haven’t seen them in a bit and say, “Hey have you been on vacation for the past couple of weeks, I haven’t seen you?” The point being that we just get so wrapped up in our own little world and in reality that is all it is, a small little world!

Well it’s time for expansion! It’s time to move on. It’s time to see the world. It is time to jump off the merry go round and let it continue without me.
If I choose to, I’ll be back in a year and if I choose to hop back on for another go around, you’ll probably say, “Hey Greg, where have you been, I haven’t seen you in like a month!”

Mission Accomplished:
The Year in Review

I have reached the end of my yearlong journey around the world. I know you are probably saying, “Has it already been a year since that bastard left us with all this work, to go travel frivolously around the world like he doesn’t have a god damn care in the world.”
Well unfortunately, yes. For me the year lasted a lifetime and was still too short.

June 1st, I arrive back in Chicago to chill with family for a few weeks. I will attempt to make up for all the holidays I have missed over the years, the result of life in the TV biz and living on the West Coast. Damn, I’ve got a lot of Christmas gifts and turkeys to buy. It will also give me a chance to ease back into society, reality and a previous life, one, which seems like a distant memory from so many months on the road. Of course I am just putting off having to go back to work, some good home cooking won’t be too bad either.
I’m tired of menus with dogs, rats, bugs, spiders, and frogs on it. You should have seen the appetizers.

The past year was an amazing adventure that spanned 5 continents, 30 countries and over 130 cities. I slept in more beds than a Heidi Fliess girl. I can hear the jokes, “You did the same thing back home!”
I’m talking about hotels, guesthouses, boats, trains, tree houses, caves, jungles, mountaintops and the occasional gutter. No jail cells I am proud to say. Why do you think I kept on moving?
I covered over 53,000 miles in my travels. 48 buses, 21 flights, 22 boats, 2 cars, 18 trains and as many motorcycle rides propelled me forward to new lands and seas.
Starting in Iceland, through most of Europe, the Middle East, South Africa, Australia and ending Southeast Asia, I traveled alone but hardly ever was.

In the end, I feel kind of like Forest Gump after his years of running, constantly chugging along, going forward, continually in motion, gathering steam and friends along the way and all of a sudden halting and saying, “Om gunna stop naw.”

It certainly was a great ride and everything I had hoped for. As difficult as it was to leave, in many ways it will be even more difficult to return. The reasons are obvious. A life of no responsibilities except deciding what beach to go to during the day and what bar to go to at night are just a couple. The other reasons are less glamorous.
I will be starting over again.
I come back homeless, (I rented out my house for two years) jobless (I quit my job at Fox) and without wheels (my 500sl Mercedes paid for the trip)

I did give up a lot materialistically to do this trip, but I come back so much richer in spirit through the people I met in my travels and the experiences I encountered. They will surely last a lifetime. As Brad Pitt said in “Fight Club,” and it is so true, “You don’t own your possessions, they own you.” I was free from it all.
(Talk to me two months later when I am delivering newspapers on my bike before retrieving to my cardboard box and I might have a different story.)
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There were many highlights during this adventure. Starting in Iceland and the snow capped glaciers north of the Arctic Circle, through all the old cities of Europe; the enchanting cities of Prague and Venice stand out as most memorable stops. Some cities are like those from a fairy tale and don’t seem real, until you experience them first hand. When you do it is like being transformed into a different time and dimension.
Rome is an out door museum with so much history. The coliseum was made even captivating through the movie, The Gladiators. You could just imagine these Roman warriors going at it, and almost hear the crowd roaring. Works of art like the Sistine Chapel and the sculpture of Michael Angelo’s David leave you breathless at their perfection and the enormous commitment, determination and accomplishment it took to create them.

Plenty of adventure too. Trekking through the Jungles of Swaziland amongst rhinos, elephants, giraffes and other wild animals is like morphing into a Jurassic Park movie. You know these animals exist but it seems like from another time ago. To see them up close and in their own environment and not some god damn petting zoo is indescribable.
The grace of a giraffe running, as if on air, is hypnotic.

This Chicago boy rode a horse for the first time, an Icelandic one at that, through the volcanic covered hillsides outside of Reykjavik.
I hiked up numerous mountains from the Alps in Austria, to Mt Saini in Egypt.
Camel trekking through the Sahara with the backdrop of the great pyramids of Giza is a spectacular sensation, even with those damn sand flies swirling around your head. Now I know why they wrap that towel around their head.

For me there is no greater sense of freedom than leaving the masses behind and hopping on a motorcycle and cruising through the countryside. You get an up-close and personal view of surrounding life and get to meet curious locals along the way. Cruising through the Cambodian Jungles was a highlight of these many rides, especially with the great Angkor Wat's of Siem Reip as a destination.

In Saigon where the streets are so packed with motorbikes that you feel like you are in a motocross demolition derby, it is hard not to become one of the casualties. It was told to me in Saigon, that there are two types of drivers, those who have been in a wreck and those who are about to. It took me about a month to join the group, getting blindsided near the Saigon River. I was lucky to stumble away with a cut leg and a bruised knee. Everyone who owns a bike carries cuts and scars and burns on their legs. I call them motorbike tattoos. It just comes with the territory.

But the worst rides were the long cross-country bus rides, so whenever I had a chance to take a boat I did. The best were sailing on two of the greatest rivers in the world. The Mekong River from Vietnam to Cambodia and cruising past the lush green jungle vegetation and rice paddies that engulf the stream is second to none.
Just as unique was a three day trip down the Nile River departing from Cairo on a felucca and sleeping under the stars at night and also stopping along the way to visit the remarkable Tombs of The Valley of Kings.

On board a yacht, I sailed up the coast of Turkey and the Mediterranean for 4 days. A vacation within a vacation. It was Temptation Island without the on looking girlfriends. 10 girls out of the 13 traveling aboard. It always helps to chum up to the guide who books these things. Being in close quarters for days with the same group can make or break a trip depending on who you are stuck with. No way was I going to get stuck on the gay parade boat. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Whatever floats your boat?

Traveling is more than just the sites in history books, of course. Some of the best sites were wearing bikinis. I have had longer relationships on this trip than I have had in the past several years. Of course time is in abundance on a trip like this, unlike never having enough of it in life back home. We are often so reluctant to give someone a share of our precious time, fearing that we might be wasting it with someone not worthy of it. I am certainly guilty of this. Of course it goes both ways. There are probably just as many girls who wouldn’t have a thing to do with my ass either. I did however find plenty of worthy candidates on this trip and I had all the time in the world to share with them.

Hanna who I met in The Greek Islands and again in her hometown of Innsbruck, Austria visited me in Italy and also spent a month with me in Vietnam.
Linh made me feel at home in my six weeks with her in Saigon and we traveled to Vung Tau. Just as interesting was a surprise party thrown from Suzie in Melbourne, a girl I had met for 1 night 7 years ago.
I met Jae a local girl from Thailand in Chang Mai and after trekking through the Northern Hill tribe region, came back to visit her again.
A couple of Swedish girls Anna and Anne made my trip along the remote coast of South Africa from Swaziland to Cape Town definitely more interesting. We kicked some ass playing paintball in the jungles of South Africa and celebrated Halloween together in Coffee Bay.
Helen I also met in South Africa and met up with in her homeland of Australia to shoot some hoops with. Some of my best times were playing ball. In Lithuania, with some Iranian buds I met in the Greek Islands and in Cambodia with some Croatian dudes.
Who says soccer is the universal sport.

I met so many good people along the way, people like Danny and Richard from Canada and Switzerland, who I hung out with in Dahab, Egypt after our 3 day felucca ride up the Nile River.
Seeing familiar faces from back home makes it even better. It’s also kind of strange, like” how did you get in my world?” You almost forget the existence of a previous life after so long on the road. Partying with my LA buds for a week in the Greek islands was a blast as it always is with those wackos Vic and Gal. Even after all these years we continue to act like kids on spring break. I continued on with Gal and spent time with his family in Israel.

My friend Paulo invited me to his home in Balogna, Italy to enjoy a nice home cooked meal from his mother and party with his buds for a few days. Of course you all know how picky I am in my tastes or lack of it. Every time his mother went into the kitchen to bring the next round of food I had to give some of the food I already had sitting on my plate to Paulo to eat so I wouldn’t offend her. You don’t want to piss off an Italian cook mother for that matter. I did eat most of it though.

Another Southbay resident and TV associate Jim Toten started the trip with me in Iceland, helping me on a few video shoots there. I also met up with him in Australia half way through my trip, hanging out in Surfer’s Paradise during Australian’s version of spring break, called “schoolies”
Julie showed me a good time for four fun filled days in Nice, France. Eggert a fashion designer in Iceland was an incredible host and meeting Elisa a model who was showing off his fashions made it even more worthwhile.

My friend Matt from Houston was doing business in Malaysia and met me for 1 night of partying in Phuket, Thailand before flying off to Caracas, Venezuela. I woke up the next morning hung over and wondered if he really even was there at all or had I been just so desperate for the company of a friend, that I had imagined it.

Some of my best times were just wasting time, letting the days slip away, reading a book or just being lazy with someone that you just don’t want to get out of bed with.

A day really isn’t wasted if you enjoy it. Something I could never fathom previously, in LA. I always placed guilt on myself for not taking advantage of every minute of the day mistakenly missing out on other just as fulfilling things.

Diving in Dahab and the Red Sea was the most incredible underwater experience I have seen. The waters were so vivid and clear, filled with a wide array of fish and colorful coral below.

I had many firsts during this trip. I am no longer a virgin!
Well of skydiving anyway.
I parachuted over Cape Town. The most exhilarating thing I have ever done. Well the sisters in Cambodia also rate high on the list.
The toughest thing about skydiving, wasn’t actually jumping, but crawling out of the small airplane door and out to the small step outside the airplane with the wind blowing in my face at 15,000 feet above the ground.

Repelling down Table Mountain was also something I thought I would never do, but was just as cool. To me it is all about doing something new and overcoming fears. Stepping off a ledge several hundred meters high, attached to a rope just doesn’t make sense until you do it. Actually it still doesn’t make much sense, but that didn’t stop me from doing it again.

Since I am a disciple of The Sun God, there were naturally numerous beach stops along the way.
This was after all the endless summer. I was following the sun. Well actually the earth’s rotation around the sun and at a speed of 66, 000 miles an hour and 365 1/2 days that it takes to circle the sun, I had a lot of ground to cover.

Some of my favorite beaches: Nice in the French Rivera, of course Bondi Beach in Australia, Ios, Greece, Fethyie, Turkey, Na Trang in Vietnam, Sihanoukville, Cambodia and the numerous Islands I ventured to in Thailand which has too many to list.

I definitely got a varied mix of cultures along the way but also experienced what was like to live in another city, something that I had hoped to do before I left. As a traveler, most cities are just a temporary stop and while we can catch a glimpse of what life is like for those living there, to truly understand the locals and their world we must submerse ourselves in their society.

I spent six weeks in Saigon, and nearly ended up staying much longer as I came oh so close to buying a restaurant /bar in the city. I even put a deposit on it, but pulled out after the SARs epidemic hit. I would have lived there for 2 years, the duration of the lease.
It was the toughest decision I have had to make in a long time. Tougher than my decision to do this trip. That was an easy decision, not necessarily easy to follow through but it was something I had always wanted to do, a no brainer. Owning a restaurant bar is also something I have envisioned in the future. I just wasn’t sure if the future was now.

Still, it was a great experience. I met a lot of local friends there and learned a vast amount about the restaurant business and what it takes to operate in a still communist country like Vietnam. Another factor in my decision was the rainy season was on its way, something I have not experienced there before. With tourism already being slow it couldn’t be good for business. On the personal side, I hate rain and was beginning to miss the beach, any beach. There are many things about Saigon that suck you in but those same things can be suffocating after a while.

I also did some other work in Ho Chi Minh City as they call it now; shooting and producing a commercial for an Internet site I am helping market for a woman in Los Angeles. I am sure I will have continued business in Vietnam and the restaurant and other opportunities are still there.

Looking back on it all, you might ask was it worth it, after all I did give up a lot to do this adventure.
Some people when I told of my aspirations to take off looked at me with envy and admiration, others just looked at me.
No doubt, I did have a great life. This was by no means was a mid life crisis. I truely enjoyed my life in LA and my work. I wasn’t fed up, done, I just wanted to take a break.

I had lived part of my dream. Coming to Los Angeles 12 years ago after a 9-year stint in Dallas with hopes of making it in the television industry, I had attained many of my goals.

Stability in the Entertainment Industry is something uncommon, but I had managed to work with Fox 11 for 10 years. This allowed me many benefits, a nice paycheck and many of the luxuries that go with it. I was living a lifestyle I had imagined as a child growing up in Chicago. I just never imagined I would have to work so hard to get there.
I always wanted to play sports, that’s not work. But after 12 surgeries from knees to shoulders to ankles about the only sport I was equipped to play was chess and I suck at chess.
I had always wanted to live in California, doing something creative, rewarding and having all the advantages and things of the more well off people I aspired to be.
I eventually obtained these possessions.

I had the 500sl Mercedes convertible, a 3-bedroom house at the beach, a live in housekeeper. I worked 3-11, never having to wake up at the sound of an alarm clock.
My days started reading the paper, going to the gym, maybe rollerblading at the beach or meeting a friend for lunch before heading into work.

My weekends were time to enjoy with my friends and we partied like rock stars.
I had the life of a celebrity without the annoyances of stalkers, law suites, and therapy sessions.
With my status at Fox and around town, I could get in anywhere. Clubs, concerts, tickets to Laker Games, Playboy Mansion parties, whatever. It didn’t hurt that my two good buddies worked in the limo business, so we always drove in style.

With big black limos parked in my drive and the constant flow of girls and guys coming in and out of my house on weekends, some of my neighbors had to wonder what I actually did for a livings, especially during my long hair and ponytail days.

It was always a great time, just like our constant jaunts to Las Vegas, Mexico, or were ever we decided. Money was never a problem.
The problem was, I just saw my life spinning away, out of control. If ten years had gone by so quickly, is it possible I could be doing the same in another ten years. I had always hopped around, been the unstable one and now this stability that allowed me so much was beginning to control me.

I still enjoyed my work but I had tried to develop my own projects over the years, TV shows. It was a very time consuming process and also a very frustrating one. I told myself I would not quit my job or work anywhere else until I sold a show. The years began to pile up. It just took up too much energy. I wasn’t trying to create just a show but an enterprise. Aptly called Party Around The World. It was never about the money. It was always about doing something I enjoyed and believed in. But I did always expect more of myself.

I spent years, developing my projects, with numerous meetings, so many highs and even more lows. I felt guilty if I did not devote all my spare time into accomplishing my goals. But of course I always found time for fun, no doubt about that. It was a real balancing act. Looking back, I probably didn’t do enough. To succeed in Hollywood on a major level takes not having much of a life at all, and I was never willing to give mine up. This is where LA gets some bad rap. So many people are here for a purpose and it is mostly selfish and self-consuming.

Unfortunately in this business, that is what it takes to make it, a lot of determination and a lot of time and focus. Fuck everyone else; they are mere distractions and disturbances in your path to success.

I had seen many who had given up their lives to make this happen, and I didn’t particularly like them much anymore. I certainly don’t fault them. They were just chasing their dreams.
But are they ever really happy. It is never ending, just a constant cycle of never enough.
I know I felt like I was constantly chasing the carrot. I was tired of the race.
I couldn’t live like that. It made me question if what I really wanted, was worth it all. The saying, “be careful of what you wish for, it might come true,” rings true, but we never actually know until we get there. I could see the writing on the wall.

I had sold a show to Canal Plus, the largest international distributor in the world. The project got put on hold after numerous mergers. Developing a show and selling one may take years, but getting to that point isn’t the end. It is just the beginning. The pressure and responsibility of producing a series of shows and the time involved wasn’t something that I looked forward to at this time in my life especially on a small budget.

I could have just continued on with my job at Fox, but the only way I had managed to stay in the news business that long was with the distraction of my other projects and dreams. Without those hopes I would be just like many other lifers in the business, angry, resentful and hopelessly trapped in the vicious cycle that is news.
Storm Watch 2009. A Rain drop fell in Los Angeles. Give me a fuckin break!

Most people in the business though aren’t as cynical and I respect them immensely. They live for news and it flows through their veins, each new story giving them their next fix. As far as jobs go, it was still a pretty damn good one. A job that I still enjoyed to the end, for the most part. From day to day you have no idea what you will be working on and you were always where things were happening. From fires to floods, earthquakes, riots, movie premiers, Oscars, Grammy’s, Fashion shoots, parties, and sports, I certainly got to cover and see my share of events. Of course for all the good one’s there are always the cat up in the tree stories too.
I did take great pride in my work and always tried to find new ways, new angles to tell a story. It was just time to move on.

The more I made, the more I bought and the more money I needed to maintain that lifestyle. Commercialization and capitalization at it’s best. It is what drives the economy but it is a never-ending cycle that doesn’t bring happiness and more often than not just headaches. Are our lives really more easier with computers, laptops, palm pilots, cellphones, At times yes, and many more just an additional burden.
We become slaves to it all.

The most prized possession we all have is time, but even that we have little control over.
We never have enough. “Can you spare some time?” I don’t have enough time.
You’re never on time. I don’t have the time right now.
We try to turn back time, but it spins ever so faster out of control.
Even though it is a precise measure of unit, it is all-relative as Albert Einstein amazingly pointed out.

Einstein was on a whole other level, himself. I really think his mind had Bluetooth technology and was remotely uplinked to a huge server connected to the entire universe. Just reading his theories gives me brain lock, like drinking a freezing cold slurpee. I constantly have to hit the control alt delete buttons to reboot my brain trying to comprehend his writings.

But time does change according to your perspective. Most people are creatures of habit and get stuck with a regular routine like a gerbil spinning on a wheel. We are on our own merry go round. It is like a Fred Flinstone cartoon where the background scenery never changes. It is all looped. We are sometimes on autopilot. We all have driven to work and upon arrival have no real recollection of having made any turns or how we got there.

Time goes by very quickly this way. Each year seems to go by quicker and quicker.
When we were kids, it would take forever for the end of the school year or for Christmas to come. Now most of you have kids yourself and wonder how they grew up so fast.

As quickly as time goes by, the changes in our lives are often gradual It is like reaching old age and all of a sudden not recognizing the face in the mirror anymore.
Well, I didn’t want that to happen. I didn’t want to wait my time, until
I was old and retired to do the trip of a lifetime. How would I pick up college girls then?

Many travelers that I met along the way were just out of school or had just completed military service. I was a little bit unorthodox in my timing. Since I started working right out of college and continuing until now I didn’t get that early chance.

What I did was just basically call a time out right in the middle of my career. Call it half time.
I am fortunate that I am able to do so. Most people have too much responsibility, family, and bills. They are like a giant Oak tree who’s roots are so firmly embedded in the ground that they are unable to move, continually growing more branches as the years go on, the weight of obligations, heavier and heavier to bear.

Oh I know I am a single son of a bitch and the rewards a family brings, are something I have no idea of. Maybe some day I will be there, but for now while I still could, I needed to break away. My roots were starting to sink in too.

In doing so, I managed to stretch time. I really did. As this year ends, it doesn’t seem long in the end, but during the year it did seem an eternity. It was just like being a kid again, with the summer off and no school till the fall. I experienced a lifetime of memories that I will carry with me forever. In terms of American vacations given at two weeks per year for most, this would have taken me 23 years to see and do all the things I have done in this past year alone.
They say you only have one life, but I am trying to get as many lives out of that one, that I possibly can.

For me life is about having control. I was made to be my own boss, but I wasn’t, not completely. These feelings are probably the result of all the private Catholic schools I attended and constantly being told what I could or shouldn’t be doing.

When in 7th grade I was brought into the principal’s office and asked by the nuns and priest to cut my hair, I replied, “Didn’t a guy by the name of Jesus have long hair?" I don’t go by the rules.
I have always been independent and always a freelancer throughout my career. In trying to create my own projects and give myself the freedom I was looking for, I still had to rely on others helplessly for things to get approved and move forward. It was constantly out of my hands, out of my control. At least in taking off by myself, for a jaunt around the world, I would have complete control over the path I would be heading, literally.

Even still, it was difficult to break away cleanly. When I left I couldn’t completely detach from my life in LA, still holding on to that guilt for seemingly running out on it all and not succeeding in my goals. Part of me felt like I was quitting. The other part of me looked at this as a challenge also. It is not an easy thing to do what I did.

I ended up doing some work for National Geographic, planning ahead and setting things up months before I left. I thought it would be a great way to make money along the way, keep active in the business and have somewhere to go when I was through or a way to extend my travels if I didn’t want to return.

It eventually became more of a hassle than what it was worth, but still I don’t regret it.
Keeping in contact and having to deal with news directors made me carry those feelings of stress and loss of control that I tried to leave behind. I very seldom get stressed out at all, but dealing with Hollywood Honchos does it for me.

I ended up doing three stories for National Geographic, Three for Fox and several for PBS. I enjoyed working on my own projects as I did in Los Angeles, with complete freedom and choices to do what I thought were interesting. Since I already had a relationship built up with each station, I would just email a story idea and I would either be given the green light or not.
Sometimes email wouldn’t get there or returned, phones not answered, money not paid. What was supposed to be easy wasn’t. The other factor of hauling around the equipment to do these projects was also an anchor and a heavy one. A Sony Dvp 150 camera with audio gear, a tripod, and laptop to edit my stories.

I sent back completely produced and edited stories that I researched, shot, wrote and edited, all on my own. Some were easy and fun, others were a lot of work, and one nearly got me killed. Following a friend back to Israel, I got caught in machine gun fire that erupted outside the Holy City, killing a police Officer and an innocent bystander. It sure mad a good story though.
All of the stories I thought were interesting. The time I put into them didn’t matter. I had plenty of time.

The money I made was hardly sufficient for what I was producing but it was a good sum from NG. Fox and PBS are cheap asses! It would at least allow me to possibly come back home at the end of a year with some money in my pocket. It also allowed me to get in front of the camera and do my own reports, something as a cameraman, editor and producer, I had not done before. I felt I was already creating a new direction for myself down the road, opening up new doors if I wanted to return and open them.

By the time I gotten through Europe, I was burned out on trying to do it all. Lugging all this shit around was a chore. I had proven to myself that I could do this, and no longer felt the need to have my year long holiday interrupted by frustrating attempts to sell my ideas. Afterall, that was the very reason I had escaped Hollywood in the first place. A train staion on the outskirts of Rome would change all this.

They say things happen for a reason. I believe in this to a certain extent, at least in trying to make a possitive out of a seeminly negative situation. Why dwell on the past. It’s over, move on. We can’t move forward if we hold on to the past.

I was taking a train from Florence to Rome, and had stopped off in Pizza to see that leaning tower thing.
It was a rainy day and a long day by the time I arrived on the outskirts of Rome. My train was supposed to take me to the central station but it didn’t. I was left about ten miles east of the city with no other trains running to make a connection. It was midnight and no busses either until 7am.
Having slept on airport floors, caves, tree houses, moutain tops river rafts, the thought of having to spend the night on the floor of a dirty, “night of the living dead” train station floor was not that big of a deal. There were a handfull of homeless people already catching some Z’s and it was a welcome shelter from the damp cold outside.
I picked a spot in the corner and layed my soaked body on the floor padding myself with a towel. My backpack was my pillow and my suitcase I used as a wall to sheild me from the other transients. One bum was playing loud music from a boom box, it didn’t matter. I had been traveling all day and it wasn’t long before I was fast asleep.

It seemed like a bad dream, the cold floor the blarring music and suddenly I woke out of a sound sleep. My suitcase was gone. I was shocked. It couldn’t be. I jumped up frantically looking around. The music was still kicking, I ran around asking the few people around if they had seen anything. Everyone shook thir head. The police were no help either, actually yelling at me for falling asleep. I felt violated, mad at myself for allowing this to happen. All of my stuff gone. My video Camera, my still camera, film, video tapes.

What would I do now. I was cold, tired and at the end of my rope. I just wanted to go home, be back in my bed. But I didn’t even have a home anymore. Maybe this all was just a bad dream. How could this have happened, I heard nothing, didn’t feel anything, the music still stomped, driving me even more mad. I should just go over there and beat the hell out of that guy anyway. He probably had something to do with it. A diversionary tactic.

I lost over $6,000 worth, almost all of my belongings. The only clothes I had, were the clothes I was wearing. I was feeling sorry for myself and then after a few hours of soaking in the rain and my own self pity, it hit me.

If I have nothing, I have nothing to lose. I certainly won’t have to drag that heavy ass suitcase around any more. No more camera, meant no more work. I had actually been set free. It was like being cut from a ball and chain. It was my enlightment, like being born again. I wouldn’t look back, and I was now ready to go forward.

A heavy weight had been lifted from my shoulders, I felt so much lighter now as I hopped on the next train and continued my journey.

Buddhism teaches one to live in the moment, and I was drawn to it’s preachings throughout my trip. Traveling was made for this belief, but why can’t everyday life be the same. Let your thought go and absorb all your senses. Buddhism also preaches mindfulness.

Of course it is much more difficult to practice these consumtions in our cluttered society. It is letting all the thoughts of your mind disappear and living for the moment, absorbing all your senses. For the many travelers I met along the way, this is the way they live.

I understand now, why a lot of the people I met in my journey only return back home long enough to make some money and hit the road again.

In the end it all seemed like a dream that I must now wake up from. Who knows what lies ahead, but I now know that there is another world, a world that I can return to and am quite comfortable with, if I get tired of the one I am coming back to.



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