What's Wrong, Fwad?

In the spirit of the season, we went to go see FRED CLAUS on the English language screen at the Oktobr. This was Fwad, Fwad's wife Maggie (and I apologize for Anglicizing the spelling), Marius, Marius' girlfriend Marina and myself. The movie had not been generously reviewed in the U.S. but I laughed a lot.

After the movie we settled into the theater's cafe'. I had a cheesecake.


Fwad is a screenwriter. He went to film school in Los Angeles with Marius. Fwad is in the middle of a contemplation of the conflict between films as entertainment and as an art form worthy of scholarly redemption and thus one's time.

It seems that there is still something of a distinction here between films as popular entertainment, unworthy of serious regard and films of more serious intent, in theme and purpose, and that these two worlds shall not intersect. It weighs heavily on Fwad. In the U.S. worth is all too often based entirely on your ability to make money. Yet even with this commercial test, America has, for the most part, left this distinction behind. Not that AMPAS knows this. But the audiences do.


We piled into Fwad and Maggie's Volvo and set out for a drugstore. Marius' girlfriend Marina arrived in Moscow last night from Los Angeles. She will be here for the next couple of weeks during the extended New Year's holidays. She also arrived with a terrible cough. So she needed to cruise a drug store for an appropriate remedy. I needed to cruise a drug store for bath soap and shampoo.

Marius wanted to show Fwad and Maggie some clips from HITLER KAPUT! so we went back to Marius' apartment. Shoes were deposited outside the door and house slippers were distributed.


Neither Fwad nor I got slippers. This was disappointing. But I shall put this ugliness behind me and continue on.

The subject of film and entertainment and art and the whole imbroglio was picked up again as assorted raw meats were prepared and set out on the coffee table.


Marius is a bona fide kindred spirit. In spite of having grown up in Russia in the waning days of the Soviet system, he has the most profound respect for American filmmaking and the attendant professionalism that accompanies it. Philosophically speaking, the aspect of it that most inspires him is in respect to comedy. In making comedies without political agenda, America truly honors the audience, honors the individual. Russian state-sponsored films almost always come with the not-so-subtle subtext that the experience is to be codified as an expression of one's loyalty to the state.

But in the U.S. -- and you'll forgive me for heaping all this meaning on it all -- but in the U.S., Will Farrell running around a race track in his tighty-whiteys shouting, "Help me Baby Jesus! Help me Oprah Winifrey! Help me Tom Cruise!" is a uniquely American expression of our core values of individual worth. Obviously it's not something we in the U.S. would ever stop to consider. But for someone like Marius, this is a powerful idea. And it rededicates him to bringing this sort of thing to Russia. Now when it needs it the most.


Fwad is a brilliant, conscientious writer. But so far he's never done comedy. So the dilemna of what his peers consider to be worthy and what they do not weighs on him.

It does not weigh on me. I thought FRED CLAUS was hilarious. Anyway, here are the credits.

Year of the Rat

It's not possible to overstate the scope of the New Year's holiday here. It's Christmas, New Year's and the Fourth of July all rolled into one. The city is festooned in shimmering lights and trees. Quite spectacular, actually. Not that I have the photos to prove it right now.

Anyhoo, the below is reproduced from the Russian news service, Pravda. Most explicitly without their permission...

"The upcoming New Year, the Year of the Rat, is going to be a successful and ambitious time according to the Chinese calendar. The Rat is considered to be one of the hardest-working signs in the Chinese zodiac."


"There used to be a tradition in ancient Russia to breed cockroaches in homes to emphasize the well-being and hospitality of its dwellers. Oriental nations bred rats for similar purposes. A Chinese proverb on poverty runs that rats can leave only poor homes. That is why the rat as a zodiac sign symbolizes success.

"The rat became the symbol of the year owing to its artfulness, an old Buddhist legend says. When Buddha was handing out the years, the cunning Rat left the Ox, the Pig and the Dog behind. “It reminds the situation with the presidential election that will happen during the Year of the Rat. So, we’ll see which Rat will take the lead and the office,” a famous Russian astrologer Anna Kiryanova said.


"In spite of the fact that the rat is an omnivorous animal, the meals for the New Year should include grain crops, nuts and cheese. It is desirable to cook as much as possible. It would also be good to leave some food after the party and not to eat everything at once. “The more food is left, the better the year will be. It is important to stress out the abundance of food at this point,” says the astrologer.


"Close people should celebrate the New Year together because the rat hails family ties. However, it is very easy to frighten the rat: it can not stand scandals and loud noise. As for clothes, rat prefers luxury and precious metals. Astrologers recommend to wear the best clothes on New Year’s night.

"The room where people are going to see the Year of the Rat in is supposed to be special. The room interior should be simple, exquisite and sophisticated. Astrologers also recommend to talk about perfectionism, something ideal and wise because the rat is an intellectual animal. Leo Tolstoy, George Bush, Carmen Electra, Eminem, Prince Charles, Scarlett Johansson and other famous people were born in the Year of the Rat."

Translated by Ksenia Sedyakina

Everybody got that? A rat can not abide a scandal.

The Dissidents in Building 2

It seems my next door neighbors have abdicated Father Frost and Snow Girl and devoted themselves to the Claus. Not sure how I feel about this. Have to think about it.

One Of Those

You know those places you sometimes see? This is one of them.

The Roof

The Roof is a club built eponymously on top of an old beer factory just across the Moscow river from where I live. Everything in Moscow is something on top of an old something. There's a metal frame staircase leading to a platform against an aging plaster wall. Barbed wire coils across the top. Makes sense. Don't want the partying to escape and run free through the wide ulitsya of Moscow. No. Don't want that at all.


Inside is a warren of rooms, some of them dance floors, some just quiet, moody, modernist salons with white bean bags and fuschia neon. That's where Marius, Yuri, Olga and myself ended up.


It's no wonder bean bag chairs seem emblematic of the mod 70s. Groovy rap sessions seem to naturally flow from these malformed ovoids of dubious support. I don't know how groovy our rap session was. Seemed lacking in some essential groove. In other words, I'm not sure it was a real happening.


The salons were all watched over by The Man's big electric eye, man.


Sucking down helium and doing the funny voice thing sounds just as funny in Russian as it does in English. I've never actually done it. I get scared my vocal chords would get stuck that way and I'd have go through life sounding like Truman Capote.

Oh, and this is interesting. Olga was telling me that the sound of English being spoken by a native English speaker is a very pretty, almost romantic sound. Clearly she's never been to Mesquite, Texas.


We finally adjourned our quorum and headed into the frigid night along the frozen banks of the Moscow. Sheets of ice reflected the violet lights sparkling on the bridges over the river... That was when Yuri decided to go topless.


See, I get a lot of flack over my coat. But I promise you, I'm the only warm man in Russia. Last night's walk to the main road was especially bitter. Marius, Olga and Yuri -- Russians all of them -- were in sub-zero distress. I, however, bundled into my Canada Goose Expedition Arctic-rated parka was as toasty as a New England clam simmering in a pot. Yuri decided that an appropriate protest was in order so walked the remaining distance to the boulevard al fresco. Them crazy Ruskies.

Baby, I Never Meant It To Be This Way

Seriously, my intention had never been for this blog to be a tour of Moscow's bistro and club scene. It's just that we work from the crack of noon till the wee hours of late dusk which gives me no time to set out on more touristy excursions. However, I believe that in the coming weeks this may change somewhat. We're getting close to being able to turn over reels to sound. This means the frantic sprint is about to become more of an urgent lope. Then, with luck, a vigilant amble will settle into a lugubrious plod. The resulting ennui-filled nihilism should give me a chance to strike out into some more touristy territories.


So we ended up at Prado again. This restaurant was described in one of my very earliest posts. Marius is friends with the owner so we eat for free. I like that. The food is good. The setting is elegant. And it takes an act of God to get in.


I was convinced to try a traditional Russian dish commonly known here as "Fish in a Fur Coat." Doesn't that sound yummers? You think so? You oughta see it. Listen, I 've had nothing but the greatest, mostest tastiestest foodstuffs since I've been here. Even the mean meat chunks they bring us for lunch are surprisingly delicious. But the Fish in a Fur Coat must be an acquired taste. A taste I am still trying to disacquire at the moment.


I call the above photo Dish in a Fur Coat.

Olga has become a regular part of our evenings out. Her English is very impressive. She recently passed one of her Law exams. Hard to believe she's only 24. But like Julia, she pronounces "law" as though saying low. I've done my part in encouraging healthy international relations and clear communication by correcting both of them. They were grateful but found it hard to make their mouths make the correct sound. I can empathize. Just try saying the Russian formal 'hello', zthratheetswia. It's harder than it looks.

The Tschiakster

HITLER KAPUT'S producer, Sergey Livnev hosted a kind of office party upstairs for his immediate employs. Downstairs, Marius and I had received an invitation to be a part of it. When 7pm rolled around, we were still chopping away on our Avids. But a series of messengers kept storming the editing room saying that everyone was waiting for us. So we bundled upstairs to find everyone gathered around the conference table with drinks in their hands, poised for a toast but missing only us.

Thankfully, a wide assortment of cheeses, meats and salads were about, because I was starved. Soon a chant broke out demanding the appearance of Father Frost, and in no time at all a fully decked out, well, woman in a Father Frost outfit showed up. But I couldn't escape a large drunk guy hanging on my shoulder and sputtering in my face in his broken English, "You are David? ...You are David?" "Da. I am David." "You are David?" And on it went.


Later, after a late night of preparing a screening version of the movie, Marius, Sergey and myself adjourned to a coffee shop called "24 Hours." It is and does what it's called. But what's really important in all this is that I finally got to drive in Moscow. Marius wanted to drink so I got to drive -- which I've been dying to do since I got here. So after picking up Sophie, we finally landed at 24 Hours.

24 Hours sits right next to The Tschiakovsky Conservatory, one of the premier music schools in the world. Don't know why, but it was a special thrill to be in proximity. A statue of The Tschiakster himself stands sentinel in front of the building.


Inside 24 Hours, we gathered at a corner table. I told Sophie of all the mispronunciations during her day's broadcast. And I ordered a strawberry ice cream that was suspiciously pink. But it was good.


We were soon joined by a press agent who's name I never got. But an intense discussion on HITLER KAPUT!'s audience demographics ensued.


We were supposed to move on to a club at which Marius' friend Fwad was hosting a birthday party for a friend of his. Olga and Agnes were (apparently) there waiting for us. But we stayed so long at 24 Hours that by the time we got to the club, everyone but Fwad had left. Olga and Agnes were (apparently) angry.


The tiny dance floor sits right next to the stage and directly in the path of the bathrooms. So when you make your way to the WC you feel obligated to dance your way through the crowd and dance your way back.

The sub woofers were rattling our vital organs so we decided that enough was enough and decided to call it a night.

Agnes Revisited

Happy Boxing Day, everyone! Well, I had intended for today's post to be about the HITLER KAPUT! test screening we were to have. However, the layback to tape failed due to a missing XLR cable. So the theater was unbooked, the guinea pigs waved off, and all my good intentions cast asunder.

So for lack of anything better, and because celebrity gossip always seems to work, we'll take just one more quick look at Agnes. For it turns out that she isn't just in Moscow with the dream of becoming an actress. It turns out she's an actual bona fide movie star.


That's her above sandwiched between those two guys. The movie is called ZHARA, or Heat. No relation to the Michael Mann film of the same name. The theater you see just behind the billboard is the Octobr. It's a multi-screen affair, among which is the English language set-aside auditorium in which I've now seen two films.

ZHARA was a big hit here. Agnes' real-life squeeze is the actor to her right. Well, our right. To the inside of the banner, to the right. They're a celebrity couple in the vein of Brannifer. Or Jenniston. Or Benniston. Or Bannijenniston. Which sounds like a cough syrup.

I took the picture of Agnes below at Apartment 44. I think it's cool.


But Agnes also has a huge cosmetics contract like Beyonce' for Cover Girl, or whichever one it is she's shilling for. So rather than the Picasso-like image above, most people see Agnes on movie screens or in magazines, like on the page below...


Agnes has promised to teach me a few key phrases in Lithuanian.

A Lesson In Pronunciation

So. If in the Cyrillic alphabet...


And, if in the Cyrillic alphabet...


And if in the Cyrillic alphabet...


Then, what is the name of this restaurant?

This is Not a Santa Claus

It's Father Frost. As explained previously, on the whole, most Russians don't celebrate Christmas. However, any holiday involving the giving of gifts is bound to be worked in somehow. So it's not surprising that in post-Tsar, Stalinist Russia, New Year's became the de facto Christmas. Also, kids are going to sniff out when they're not getting what's owed them. And if Western kids are getting toys under a tree then, by Trotsky, they're gonna get toys under a tree.

So Father Frost is the Russian surrogate Santa Claus. He has a pedigree involving agriculture, the Winter solstice and the rejuvenation of the fields. But my favorite thing about Father Frost is his comely assistant, Snow Girl. Now, the way she's been described to me is that Snow Girl is a highly efficient helper who is basically the operation's CFO, COO, and distribution manager all rolled into one fetching package. She wears a blue leather outfit with white fur trim. I haven't seen her yet. But while I gave up on Santa long ago, my belief in Snow Girl is unshakable.


This afternoon Father Frost was in the nearby park conducting some sort of seminar with local children. Mostly it seemed to involve a kind of a ring toss game.


Apparently, Father Frost hands out these little rings then encourages the children to chuck their rings through a big ring. Then the child has to scramble out onto the ice and retrieve his or her own ring. Then you do it again.


I wish I cold tell you that it was seasonal tableau of great frivolity. Truth is, most of the kids seemed a little nonplussed. A few even preferred to play in the shadow of the dictator.


Frankly, I don't blame them. Father Frost had an accordian player who I swear I saw in one of the rooms at the end of The Shining.

Apartment 44

I'm gonna give you a couple of guesses here. But no peeking below. First photo. Where do you think I am...?


Not yet? Yes? Some of you? Okay, next one...


I know most of you have it by now. But here's one last clue...


Okay, so for those of you still not certain, this oughta lock it in...


Well, this is what the building looks like on the outside...


And this is our waitress's name tag (with appropriate flair, of course)...


Yes, we may all be proud that one of America's most impressive cultural exports is nothing less than T.G.I. Friday's. And I, for one, could not be more flush with the rich red, white, and blue blood of patriotism. For where else in Moscow could the lonely expat go for canned guacamole, rubbery quesadillas, and potato skins bathing luxuriously in a tepid pool of their own grease?


Just to be clear, this was not my idea. It was Olga's. Originally, we were supposed to go bowling. That was Olga and Agnes' idea. But it turns out that all the best alleys are taken on a Friday night. We've since resolved to hit the lanes on a weekday. In any case, in lieu of lanes, Olga decided we should go to T.G.I. Friday's. Marius was disproportionately excited by this idea. But then again, he's never been to one. Had he -- he probably would not have.

Marius and I got there first and (starving) ordered right away. Olga showed up just as the skins were landing. Now I know skins. I've eaten skins. I've made skins. And you, comrade, are no skins. Yes, they'd hollowed out the spud nicely. And the deep fry was passable. But there were no chives. And the bacon bits were stingy. And there was no ranch dressing. Usually this last one is a deal breaker but maybe I was just a little homesick. Actually not at all. But in a spirit of research I wanted to see what they were going to come up with.

The fajitas were alright. Marius raved over a peppercorn steak that I thought looked inedible. But there was neither a pepper nor a corn remaining by the time he finished. Long leggedy Olga noshed on the quesadillas.

Yuri showed up and ate all my 'leavins. I mean all of them. Even the soggy little peppers that constitute the flotsam of fajitas. But no Agnes yet. She had apparently decided that when the bowling went away she would instead go and get a tattoo. I last saw Agnes at Yuri's birthday party. She is a Lithuanian beauty living here in Moscow so in order to be an actress.

So the new and improved grand plan was to go to The Diaghelev Project to see a Moscow rapper named Tim-y-Tim do his thing. Tim-y-Tim is like the Kanye West of Russia. He's gigantic. He also has a cameo in HITLER KAPUT! Which is why we were going to see him. But the bigger reason was to have a gander at what is possibly the hottest, most exclusive club on the continent. But Mr. Tim wasn't going on till 2am. And I needed a full day of work on Saturday since we have a test screening on Wednesday. So since it was only 12:30, we piled into Yuri's car and took the long way around Moscow to Apartment 44.


Apartment 44 is a small bistro on three floors of a former residence. The rooms are small and cozy, populated mostly by the young and smoky. But it's warm and inviting. And with Frank Sinatra playing quietly in the background, you'd almost swear you were in New York.

In case you should be in Moscow and you wish to find Apartment 44, it's down this lane...


Across from this building...


And just inside this passage...


There. Now you know everything.

We settled into a table in the corner, surrounded by shelves of books and record albums and next to a New Year's Tree. People lounged and ate and sipped tea and vodka at the tables around us.


It's nice being around this particular group of people. Yuri speaks decent English. Olga has only been taking English for a year but has a remarkable command of the language. I can't say why exactly, but it's a unique thrill to be in a far away place that happens to feel so comfortable and familiar, around friends who speak English with a foreign accent. It just kind of makes you feel warm all over. Especially around people so funny and who greet you with traditional Russian kisses on each cheek and who are always throwing their arms around you.


The things you don't know about people. Olga is actually an expert hunter. A marksman, a tracker, she can go into a dense Birch forest and come out with black bear. Then she could take the fur, fashion something fashionable and walk the runways of Paris next to any model anywhere. She's currently studying Foreign Relations but harbors a secret dream of hosting an animal show for the Discovery Channel. She has black cat named Bagheera.


Agnes finally showed up with her tattoo artist in tow. It didn't take long for her to roll up her jeans high enough for us to take a gander at her calf where now, freshly inked, was a Zen-Buddhist icon hot off the needle.



Agnes. Again, Agnes is from Vilnius. Her father is Lithuanian. Her mother is from the Ukraine. In the Ukraine they churn out stunning women like they're rolling off an assembly line. The classic myth of the Russian Bride is actually referring to a woman from the Ukraine. There's a town there, the name of which escapes me, where the ratio of women to men is 10 to 1. 10 to 1. Speaks for itself.

At the end of the evening there were too many of us to fit comfortably in Yuri's SUV so Agnes decided she would ride in the backmost area usually reserved for your sacks of fertilizer or your pet Lab. So as we make our way through Moscow en route to everyone's respective homes, all you hear is Agnes' dusky, disembodied voice from somewhere in the back tossing out witty asides. She soon found a Tom Stoppard book amongst the clutter. You could hear her telling everyone's fortune based on your random selection of page number and line number. Apparently, for me, love is a religious experience. At least that's what Tom Stoppard says on page nine, line 23.



Second-hand smoke continues to be the most wretched part of this entire experience. I couldn't even begin to estimate how many of these people will die of heart disease and lung cancer in the next ten years. There's going to be something like twelve of them left. Certainly one way to solve the traffic problems here.

By 2am I was able to convince Marius that I would see The Diaghelev Project some other time and that for tonight anyway, the needs of the film needed to be put ahead of the needs of the writhing masses.

On the way back to the car, I saw this familiar face in a window...


I always suspected Frosty was a Bolshevik. Now I've got my proof and I'm gonna nail him.