They always split up as soon as they enter the amusement park. Michael will go left, heading toward what Sally derisively calls the County Fair Rides. She’ll go forward instead, maneuvering through the crowds with turns and pivots. The rides get more intense the further back you venture and Sally rides nothing that scores a “thrill” value lower than five, with one exception.
Visiting a music video set? Forget visiting a movie video set, despite how awesome that building was. Yesterday I was a volunteer PA on the pilot for a television show. In the Zone with Dhani Jones.
I hung out with a friend from college yesterday and she showed me around some of the scenic bits of Northern Kentucky. We drove up and down curvy roads and sat and stared at the Ohio river, and the smoking refinery across it. The last stop on this meandering tour of Northern Kentucky was Devou Park and the gorgeous overlook of Cincinnati that I almost managed to capture in the photo above.
Arriving in Cincinnati yesterday was only slightly confusing. I’d planned to be entirely self-sufficient again, getting myself to the place I was staying with the help of Google Maps public transit feature, as I’d done in Chicago and Columbus, but after arriving was made aware that the-father-of-the-ex-girlfriend-of-the-person-I’m-staying-with was on his way to pick me up and drop me off at the place I’ll be occupying for the next week. This turned out to be kind of awesome. I’d never met the man before. He’s been living here since ’53 and the thing he repeatedly conveyed about Cincinnati was that “it’s conservative.” (Which is also the descriptor I got from the person who let me into the place I’m staying, the one who’s populated all the spare corners with daleks and signed glossies of Peter Davison and is therefore clearly awesome.)
All of this was obviously fantastic, however the errand I was taken along on in the evening topped it all. The person I’m staying with runs Pinata Productions, and we stopped in to take a look around a music video that was being shot so she could see how things were running and show her face. It was awesome. Those stage lights and thick black cables I was so excited about a few posts back? They don’t hold a candle to the set-up I was in the middle of last night. Of course, I didn’t touch any of last night’s equipment either. It all felt very serious and I stood against the wall with my hands in my pockets feeling like I’d doubled my “cool” score just by being there.
Lending part of the overwhelming air of awesomeness to the scene was the building itself, which I have been scrounging around the internet trying to find a history of for a good part of today. The internet has revealed nothing though, and the people connected with the shoot last night didn’t seem to know its history or how they got to be there either. This building is inexplicable. High ceilings with careful molding spanning their entire width and breadth. Then there was the large safe straight out of the ’30s just hanging out, open and empty in one of the rooms. That was the room with the two prong coat hooks going around the whole perimeter. There was an entire third floor that I didn’t dare venture up to explore, as it was dark and unused. The place was begging for a group of bohemian artists to take up residence in it and then, rather than creating art, end up using all their talent throwing elaborate parties that bordered on art themselves.
Whatever else happens here, I think I’ve had an experience to make this stop worthwhile. Plus I’m still managing to continue my tour of the US only through cities that start with C. I feel like this should be a segment on Sesame Street.
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