cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- One More Day As I write this, it is about 11 am on Monday morning. MY LAST MONDAY AT WORK. At this type of work, that is. One more day. After this I have one more day and then I'm free. Holy fucking shit. I've been pondering what to do on my first day off. I think I'm going to drive the hour or so to R1chmond and go crabbing and fishing. It is a little known fact that in the summer when the water levels are low the blue crabs in the lower, sub-tidal part of the river will migrate up into the falls to enjoy the faster-moving, cooler, more oxygenated water. Conditions should be perfect for finding them right in the middle of the city. I'm going to make a couple of crab traps tonight. I'll use chicken necks or something as bait. I will drive out there, park downtown, and walk down to the river. Set my traps and fish from the bank while I wait. This is definitely an oddball way of going about crabbing. People do not go crabbing in R1chmond and most locals have no idea that the crabs are there. But this is pretty much my style. Going fishing or crabbing in the places where everyone else goes, using the methods that everyone else uses, is not especially interesting to write or read about. Maybe I can find someone else to come along. It will be a long walk from the car to the section of river bank I have in mind and there will be a bunch of stuff to carry. I am now momentarily obsessed with grilling whole fish over a wood fire. The results with the bass that I caught under the bridge yesterday was absolute fucking perfection. Wrapping it with grape leaves was a good way of keeping it from sticking to the grill. I'm also realizing that cutting fillets wastes a lot of meat. By cooking the whole, gutted fish I lose nothing. The large chunks of meat lost in cutting off fish heads has always bothered me and using this Greek method of whole cooking allows me to eat that stuff for the first time. It is tempting to ditch work right now and go fishing. My TV show is being looked at by Animal Pl@net right now, today, this very afternoon. I have a lot of hope for this. The concept is solid and our treatment is really good. We wouldn't get a green light for the whole project right away. Its a question of moving along to the next stage. If they like the treatment, they ask to see a reel. Depending on what sort of thing they want to see in it, I either go up to NYC to do stuff in the studio or the production company sends a crew out to film with me in the field. Then if they like that, we get a budget for a real pilot. The process of getting from here to a green-lit pilot would typically be about 5 weeks. Then if the pilot is well-received -- and it may or may not ever actually air -- we would get an order for probably a full season's worth of episodes. Normally I think that would be 12 or 13 episodes. At that point we would start putting together our shooting schedule and staffing up. This is where the real work would begin. Sorting out where to go for each of the species on the list, making sure that we will be there at a time of year when the species is active and hunt-able or fish-able, researching local laws and regulations, finding credible locals to act as guides and experts, scouting, determining the most practical method hunting, and finding appropriate chefs in that region who will be good on camera. Then in many cases I will have to spend a lot of hours training with that new method. For example, I haven't shot a bow since I was about 12 years old. If we need to take something with a bow then I need to get good with one and fast. Ditto slingshots, spears, etc. I haven't cast a fly rod since I was about 13 or 14. For this, I quit my day job. I know it sounds insane. But even without a TV show, I think that the book will do well and that I will get enough for it to make a living for another year as an author. 5:01 p.m. - 2010-08-30 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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