Carmel, CA

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Come Friday afternoon, I will be across the bay from DM in Carmel. The Queen will be with me. I'll be dodging the Steinbeck associations while celebrating the birth of Father Junipero Serra.

[Drunk Monk]

Cool! I won't be back in town until later tonight, after Kung Fu practice. I'll wave.

How long you in town for?

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

We are here until Monday am. Busy all day tomorrow and in the morning on Sunday. And that mostly applies to me. The Queen will be in hang and football mode.

[Drunk Monk]

...which is why i said i'd wave to you two.

tomorrow i have to do parking at T's school (it's their open house - parents must volunteer) and tomorrow night, i'll be at the CA amateur MMA finals. those are in downtown santa cruz. damn, if i knew you were coming, i'd have got you a press pass to shoot. sunday it's chores and probably hunger games with T & her friends (hopefully i'm not too old to hang out for that).

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

we could see you really well on Sunday afternoon as we had to head north to have a late lunch with mom and dad in Moss, Landing.

[Drunk Monk]

Sorry we missed. Didja get any good whale pix?

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

We left the cameras behind this weekend because it was all about celebrating the birth of Junipero Serra.

[Drunk Monk]

We left the cameras behind this weekend

..and how did you hack into Greg's account?

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

I might have taken a couple. Well only one important picture.

[Drunk Monk]

cute

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Do I talk about the Hitchcockian Crows? Why bad priests are homosexuals and not pedophiles? The blessing of the ornamental beer keg? Or the beach where parents bring their children to drown?

[Drunk Monk]

tell all. this is DOOM. we love a good greg yarn.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

I had a plan.

November 24th was Father Junipero Serra’s 300th birthday. My father’s group the Serrans were going to descend on Carmel to celebrate much like they flew to Majorca to visit his birthplace back in June. Carmel was Serra’s main base of operations in California and he is buried in the mission.

My father decided I should come up and show a video I had made about the Serra exhibition at the Huntington Library. I could also show the documentary I had helped work on by director Jim Kelty about Father Serra’s life. For this I was to be paid a princely. It was also thought that since I was there I might as well make a documentary and DVD surrounding the festivities in Carmel.

Sure. Fine. I will come. I will show videos. I will take pictures. I will make a DVD which I will then sell to the Serrans. I will even make the flyer to sell the DVD ( Now on sale in the gift shop for $14.95, $19.95 for Blu-Ray) I will even bring the Queen along rather than let her sit alone at home in comfort surrounded by the creatures she loves.

For long time Greg watchers, they can probably already sense the fly in the ointment for this whole plan. Carmel is Steinbeck country. He has been known to break out in hives at the mere mention on Monterey. And for God’s sake don’t bring up Pacific Grove beach.

The Queen and I arrived just in time to have a bad lunch at the Rio Grill across the street from out hotel. Fun fact about our hotel: They didn’t pay off the city and now everyone who enters pretty much has to make a u-turn at the light to get into the facility. Yes, they did widen the street at the light to allow the u-turn, but it would have been much easier for everyone involved for there merely to be a left hand turn into the hotel.

The Rio Grill had the twin prongs of being over-priced and not that good. We were looking for something simple and they a had a menu of California cuisine. Amusingly, there was a man at the bar with a bird on his back that squeaked through most of our meal.

We also made a brief foray around the mall to find me a new belt. The Queen thought it imperative that I had a belt that actually held up my pants and wasn’t falling apart. Fortunately, the Rio Grill was situated in a mall that held no men’s clothing stores. We proved this fact after a diligent search.

The theme for the weekend for me was rushing. I’m thinking the theme for the weekend for the Queen was sighing every time I had to change our plans. Every time we got somewhere, I would realize we needed to pick up the pace so we could get somewhere else. We had to get to the Mission to get the sunrise. If we were downtown, I would get a call to come back to the hotel.

Our first stop of the day was the docent tour of the mission. The tour was supposed to last about thirty minutes so the docent could get onto the next tour. If you are a docent and want the tour to run on time, don’t say the following “Are there any questions”. Especially among the Serrans. The tour killed all of it’s time for the tour at the first stop out in the courtyard. The docent asked for questions and the next thing you knew there was a long discussion about Father Serra breaking out. I wandered around taking pictures. The Queen did the same.

We left the tour to get ready for the first Mass of the weekend. It was important to go to the masses because the celebrities of churchdom, the Bishops, were going to be there. They were coming from all over California. Probably the biggest get of the weekend was former Cardinal of Los Angeles, Roger Mahoney.

The Mass was held in the Cathedral of San Carlos Borromeo, second smallest Cathedral in the United States. The smallest is in Alaska. I did not find out what marks the difference between a church and a cathedral.

I was able to secure a nice spot up front with my two cameras after some discussion with Peter the media director for the diocese. He was afraid I was going to block people with all my gear. That would have been true, if any people had actually been sitting in that side of the church. Attendance for the first mass was pretty light. Cardinal Mahoney did attend as well as three other bishops.

After mass, we had a less than delightful roast beef dinner. I did manage to count two coups. I slipped Cardinal Mahoney a drink coupon so he could get an extra drink and I took a picture of the Queen and the Cardinal. No mentions were made of the Queens religious leanings.

I also did a short interview with the Bishop of Monterey, Bishop Roger Garcia. This was only marred somewhat by the loudspeaker blaring over my head announcing that table 10 could now go get food.

The problem with getting up at 4am without dogs walk is there is a whole lot of nothing to do time before the world gets rolling. Especially since I was going to do some sunrise time-lapse at the mission. And since, Carmel is not what you would call a bustling metropolis, the only place open in the wee hours for breakfast was Denney’s. Of course, if I hadn’t gone to Denney’s this weekend I wouldn’t know the horror/delight that is the Hobbit themed menu at Denney’s. They had plenty of movie tie-in menu items like Radagast Red Velvet pancake bites for instance. I came away knowing that according to Denney’s, Hobbits like a lot of things with pumpkin spice.

Sunrise time at the Carmel Mission had to be pushed back from it’s scheduled time because there was a mountain between my spot and the light giver. After looking at the pics later, I’m going to have to say this wasn’t my best idea.

From there, Cindi and I went to the beach driving passed some very nice homes. We even picked up flyer at one empty lot. The price for the tiny lot was 7.5 million.

At the beach just down the road from the mission we met this lovely women who asked us if we from out of town. We concurred. Then she told us how this beach kills people every year. Families come with their children to what they think is a very stretch of sand and then their children are dragged out to sea by the vicious riptides, never to be seen again. Um, thanks for the heads up?

I spent the rest of the day listening to Serrans and their speakers. There were nuns and priests and Bishop Garcia. I was looking for something to skip so I could join the Queen in taking a nap but that didn’t occur. I was also nominated to run the DVD player for the nuns presentation. They had an AV guy there but the less I saw of him the better. His base line assumption was his customers didn’t know anything and proceeded to treat them like children. For instance, he thought it would be best to show me how to put batteries into the wireless microphones in case there was a problem. It is bad form to punch people during a religious conference.

I finally decided nobody needed any footage on Vocations so I grabbed the Queen and took her to Monterey. I know Greg willingly going to Cannery Row. That’s how much I was enjoying the convention.

We ate lunch at the tourist pier. The pier was full of restaurants, each one had a barker enticing people to come in. They were handing out coupons for a free appetizer as an enticement. but once you sat down, the only appetizer you could order for free was Calamari. Yeah, calamari and I don’t get along since that incident in Indonesia.

We opted not to go to the Aquarium because it was 35 bucks and basically we didn’t have enough times. Instead we invested our time in photographing things and looking for a belt shop. Cannery Row is also against belt shops. But the nice man at the sock emporium (Home of Hannukah Socks but not belts) directed us to an outlet store just passed the end of Cannery Row.

A belt was secured there and my pants were aloft again. During this time, my father called and ask why I wasn’t manning my post near the projector and where was the computer? In my room, of course. I was told I needed to be back at the hotel so I could fire up the projector by 4.

So, we raced back to the hotel. I grabbed the computer and ran to the conference room to set it up. I had five minutes to spare.

Turns out the person that needed the computer had been cancelled. Thanks but no thanks for setting up the computer.

I did film a bit of the Vocations talk but everyone including father said I missed a great speech by the Bishop of San Jose. They were disappointed I didn’t get that.

Although, I did hear the nice man step up and say how did they screen for homosexuals when looking for priests. Because as everyone knows it is the homosexuals that abuse children not the pedophiles. Of course, he was afraid to say that around non-serrans because if you do people immediately assume you are a homophobe.

Oddly, nobody shouted him down. The priests giving the lecture even took the time to answer his question. The question I should have asked was “How is celibacy different for homosexuals than it is for heterosexuals?”

The next stop on the excitement agenda was Mass number two. This was going to be the big one with the largest gathering of Bishops and the Cardinal. I had worked out with my father that we should get this group together for a very memorable picture. He said there would be time right before the mass to get them all together for a quick snappy. We had arranged this weeks ago.

So when my father told me he wouldn’t be attending that night’s mass at the mission I asked him who the hell was going to wrangle the big-wigs (or hats in this case) for the photo. He shrugged.

Turns out it was going to be me. I wrangled media-guy Pete to ask Bishop Garcia. Bishop Garcia said it wouldn’t be a problem there would be a few minutes right before the processional when they would be available. I just had to keep an eye out for when they left their prep room. Then I would get to race back to my spot at the front of the church to film them coming down the aisle.

To top it all off, I got to stand next to the Secret Service guy. Secret Service Guy? His name was Ed. I asked him who he was here to protect. He was non-committal so I told him I thought he might be here to look after Mahoney. More shrugging.

While we were waiting to start, Cardinal Mahoney walked over from the prep room. I told him it was nice to see him again. He checked the crowd in the Mission and then walked backed to his room. At this point Ed thanked me for pointing out the Cardinal for him. Then he went on his lapel microphone to tell everyone what the Cardinal was wearing (Hint: He wears a red hat) He also gave him the code name: Texas. I think that was the name. Okay why am I identifying to the security detail the guy they are to protect?

At this point, it was time to race to the front of the mission to take pictures of the Bishops. By now it was pitch black in the courtyard. These pictures were going to look like hell. I had brought extra flashes with me, but I didn’t think I would be given enough time to set them up. I was wrong. Plus, a big group of parishioners seeing their religious leaders all line up for a picture immediately brought out there cel phone cameras and iPads. I admit it. I barked at them and told them to put them away. Then I wrangled the cats, I mean priests into position, fired off some shots and sent them on their way.

I raced to the front of the church to my position near Ed. Fortunately the door I had to enter, the one Ed was going to lock when the last church goer entered, didn’t latch properly and I was able to come in.

Since I had shot the mass the night before, I figured, once they got into the Holy Communion section, I was good to go out front to catch everyone leaving the church. All I really needed was the homily which comes before Holy Communion. I was a bit disappointed that Mahoney wasn’t going to speak but oh well.

Bishop Garcia starts the Communion and I pack up. I stand at the far end of the church and catch a few shots of the parishioners in their seats. Just waiting for them to wrap up.

Naturally, this is the point they decide Mahoney should speak. Instead of me being about five feet from him in my front of church spot next to Ed, I’m at the rear of the church about a hundred feet away with groups of parishioners standing in front of me. Sigh. I did what I could.

You would think now would be a good time to call it a day and crawl off to bed. Not so much. Now was the time I was at the whole event. Now was movie time and dinner.

Dinner wouldn’t start until the Bishop got there and I knew the Bishop was behind me. I went back to the hotel and plugged in the computer. I then had a discussion with my father about counting along the lines that we needed nine place settings at our table to feed nine people and currently there were only eight place settings. It’s math really. He resisted saying we had plenty of settings for the guests.

I thought I was going to have to give a speech, but my father took over those duties. I was just in charge of pushing buttons on the computer. Before you knew it or more like an hour later the day was done.

In our next post, the excitement of day three, which wasn’t that exciting.

[Drunk Monk]

So what is the difference between homosexual celibacy and a cathedral? Inquiring DOOMers want to know.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

It turns out I pissed off a photographer so much during the big photo shoot before Saturday's mass he was going to punch me. My sin was to tell him not to take photos when I was taking photos.

It was only later I learned this from a man who attended the event with the photographer. I vaguely remember telling me people not to fire off their cameras thinking at the time I didn't want their flashes ruining the exposure when I took the picture.