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This shrimp chorizo burger in Hong Kong’s K-Town Bar and Grill in Kennedy Town was $28. Yowza! I’m here to direct and produce an episode for a series on the new Red Bull Channel, hired by Story House, a production company with offices in Berlin, Halifax, and Washington, D.C.
On the team are DP Paul McCurdy, who’s wielding the C300 and a Red Epic on the Ronin for slow-motion! Our soundman is Mark Roberts, who’s on top of everything and nice to boot. When David Chung is not fixing for us, he runs his own local production company, Lemonade and Giggles. David captured this:
We get a lot of coverage on our first day. In addition to directing, I’m also running second camera. I’ve been trying to get better at the Glidecam, and I was really happy with it today. It gave me a lot of options for smoothly following the action. And when I needed to lock down or get a stable interview, I just set it down or balanced it on my belt. Here’s a little clip following our protagonists down some windy stairs and along a sidewalk — something that would have been too bouncy to even consider trying without the Glidecam. Check out the banyan tree roots that stretch for 40 or 50 feet down the sheer rock wall. Amazing!
I’m interested in experimenting with the Glidecam in other situations where you’d never dare filming on the move. Like following trail runners bouldering over the rocky Billy Goat Trail in DC, or other outdoor stuff.
If you’re a butcher, don’t open up shop in Ethiopia—the country is fasting. For most, this means not eating meat or dairy. They fast for Lent, which seems to go on longer than normal. And people fast Fridays. And Wednesdays. And yes, there are other prophets, and people fast for them too.
It’s my first day in Addis Ababa, and the fasting explains why my unit producer, Addis Alemayehou, is angry. Or maybe that’s because he picked this week to quit smoking.
In any case, Addis looks like he can take it, so I rub it in: “This injera with spicy beef is pretty good,” I smile, still baffled that meat is literally off the table 200 days a year.
Addis heads 251 Communications, a local PR and business facilitation outfit that’d riding the crest of Ethiopia’s economic boom. He’s also the former Chief of Party of a successful USAID project (I’m here to tell the story of how it made a difference). Addis grew up in Canada, is whip smart, and seems like the perfect bridge for a dynamic Ethiopia looking to nail down new markets.
During the next five days, I film different entrepreneurs and their businesses. They’re in different sectors—apparel, shoes, handicrafts, tourism—but all have benefited from USAID support, mostly in the form of technical advice to improve their production processes and “export-readiness,” as well as trips to U.S. trade shows. As a result, they’ve increased exports to the U.S., grown their revenue, and hired more people. My client is IESC.
The second night, Addis (the friend, not the capital city) takes me to Yod Abyssinia, which is part restaurant, part cabaret. I join a gaggle of expats and friends who are enjoying local music and dance. In what is swiftly becoming a trend, I eat more injera. I try Meta beer.
Meta is supposedly the upscale beer, but I prefer St. George. It’s an unassuming light lager, like 90% of beers in Africa. The way it slays your thirst after a bite of injera and spicy beef is just like how a Miller Lite washes down a Ben’s Chili dog at Nats Stadium on a summery DC day. It quenches, it doesn’t inebriate (suffice it to say, I’m not a fan of this rating of Ethiopian beers).
The next morning, I film another business. My driver is the genial Kirubel Melaku, and his new van I dub “Big Red.” It looks like somebody dipped Scooby Doo’s Mystery Machine in a red bath. It has red carpet on the ceilings. Need I say more?
Outside of Addis, the country gets poor and hardscrabble pretty fast. It’s the dry season, and dust whips across the fields and highway. A pack of gaunt horses assembles on the highway median, inches from speeding vehicles—it’s the only place with wind, explains Kirubel, so bugs bother the horses less.
Lots of buildings are going up. Outside the city, there are scores of roadside scaffolding shops. Long, denuded trees are stacked and bundled, ready to be transported to construction sites, where workers will scale the fragile trellises. My only thought is that if they don’t stop using trees for scaffolding, there won’t be a tree left in the country.
Kiru drove Bono around last summer when he visited Ethiopia, and shows me pictures. Another passenger downloaded the Billboard Top 100 on Kiru’s phone. That explains why, as we crawl through bumper-to-bumper traffic, I put Pharrell’s Get Lucky on loop. Somehow, it fits.
The Chinese are everywhere. The largest shoe factory, the largest steel factory, building the largest highway—trucks and motorcycles and phones. I wonder if the Chinese write stuff about us on their blogs: 美国人到处都是。最大的汉堡包特许经营店，含糖的可乐类饮料，最糟糕的不合身的运动服。和美国的游客大声，脂肪和忘却。
By the third day, I realize I can’t say a single word in Amharic. It’s not for lack of trying, but honestly it’s super tough! So the whole day I’m trying to learn something, but it goes in one ear and out the other.
Suddenly, I have the most bizarre synapse and am saying “thank you” without a hitch. “Ameseginalehugn,” is the byzantine six-syllable expression of thanks. My breakthrough is this: its iambic pentameter is strangely analogous to how I learned to say “Hello” in Hungarian: Jó napot kívánok. Six syllables each, same rhythm. It’s odd, but it works!
All in all, the people I meet are bright and friendly. And especially going there on the heels of a film trip to locked-down Kabul, Addis is like a breath of fresh air! I’d definitely go back to Ethiopia again.
Finally, no dispatch from Addis Ababa would be complete without a knock-down drag-out darts competition with a dozen locals at a German pub:
It’s spring and the sun’s out! Now that I’m more consistent with cycling workouts and eating healthy, that only means one thing: I’m making smoothies! (see and print recipe)
Here’s my favorite: the insanely yummy “Perfect Life Hack” (recipe below). It packs a punch of 9 different fruits and 11 vegetables? Yeah . .
Cramming fruit into the blender is the perfect life hack.
This smoothie is function over form. It’s a meal-replacement energy kick that’s better than drugs. And knowing I’m getting a week’s worth of fruits and veggies is peace of mind. Not to mention that it makes my evening burger and beer relatively guilt-free.
I’ve been making smoothies for about a year. I first got inspired by my old friend Lucy, who made a zesty carrot and lemon special at her Dorset home, summer 2012. But it wasn’t until I got wind of Dr. Oz’s 3-day detox that I bought a $99 Ninja and went to town. They were easy, healthy, and tasted great! Trifecta!
I’ve been experimenting ever since. I like to meal-replace for lunch. When I’m traveling for work, I tend not to eat as healthy as I’d like (like Afghanistan, Lebanon, or Brazil). When I’m back in the US, I usually work from my home studio, so I have the flexibility to eat when and what I want!
I mess around with the recipe, depending on my mood. I’ve stopped using kale; too much of a chore to chew (I substitute spinach). If I want my smoothie creamier, I’ll add more bananas. If I want it sweeter, I’ll add more mango or mixed berries. If I’m especially hungry or I know I need more calories because I did a long ride, I’ll double or triple the avocado.
This smoothie [is] a meal-replacement energy kick that’s better than drugs.
Last Christmas, my brother and his wife splurged on a Vitamix. If the Ninja is a Honda Accord, the Vitamix is a Tesla. That same week, I read this article in Bloomberg BusinessWeek.
That’s when I realized I’m not making smoothies because I’m some evolved foodie. It’s because I’m a dude!
I don’t love to cook. I love to eat. I prefer to eat healthy, but not if I regularly have to work too hard at it. Getting 20 fruits and vegetables delivered to my door (Peapod or Safeway) and then taking 15 minutes to Ninja the hell out of them to make meal-replacements for 2-3 days — now, that’s good times!
Or as Bloomberg author Joshua Green wrote: “Cramming fruit into a blender . . . [is] the perfect life hack. . . a whole universe has sprung up to support the hapless male user. The Web abounds with recipes and video clips demonstrating all sorts of easy concoctions. . . . A Vitamix is essentially failproof; with a banana or a splash of apple cider, even an old shoe could be made delicious. The seductive ease of liquefied foods eventually makes ordinary methods of food preparation seem as burdensome and archaic as churning your own butter.”
Hmmm, guilty as charged! But “hapless?” Come on, Joshua!
“Perfect Life Hack” smoothie. That’s a good name! Better than “Ryan Secrest’s Brazilian Thunder Green Smoothie,” right?!
Mix in a ninja or other mixer. Organic items noted because of measured pesticides in these. Mix half, add rest, mix (half spinach at beginning and half at end). Top-notch smoothie-ready mango juice available here. Mix with granola.
This shrimp chorizo burger in Hong Kong’s K-Town Bar and Grill in Kennedy Town was $28. Yowza! I’m here to direct and produce an episode for a series on the new Red Bull Channel, hired by Story House, a production company with offices in Berlin, Halifax, and Washington, D.C.
