by Cash Peters
And another thing, while we're at it, he throws in: the tribe certainly doesn't want to hear my news about John Frum not living inside the volcano and the whole thing being a hoax. That, he advises earnestly, is something I'd be wise to keep to myself—okay?
“Sure—but—”
“Okay, Cash?”
“Er … yeah, okay, okay.”
On that peculiar note, I figure it's time to head on out.
“Before you go, though,” Joe jumps in, “you should drink kava.”
“Oh, no thanks,” I reply very firmly.
After what he told me in the market about how it's made, not a single drop will ever be passing Sir's lips, of that I am certain. Kava is one aspect of the rich indigenous Tanna lifestyle that can happily remain a mystery. Sorry.
“Joe's right,” Eric chimes in. “You can't leave without trying it. It would be a great way to end the show.”
And blow me if everyone else doesn't agree with him! It would be the perfect way to wind things up, they insist. After all, how can I find kava at the start of the episode and not drink it by the end? The viewers will be so disappointed.
“So?” I dig my heels in. “They'll get over it. I mean …”
The bottom line is, I don't do drugs. I smoked weed once at my friend Len's condo in Santa Monica and it triggered a major paranoid episode. Within minutes, I became convinced I was trapped inside a photocopier and some seabirds were conspiring to kill me. I've never touched the stuff since.
“… er …”
“But not here,” Eric adds, somehow interpreting my “er” as a gung-ho yes. “We'll get some on the way back.”
Our clandestine kava-drinking session happens an hour later at the hotel, in a spot in the grounds that Mark's rigged with lights to make it kind of look like the John Frum village if you're not paying close attention.
Kava bars are a staple of Tanna life. They're all over the island. Little wooden shacks set back from the roadside with lanterns burning outside to draw customers. On the way here, Joe stopped off to buy a small quantity of kava already prepared, which he now pours into a small bowl he brought from the hotel kitchen.
“Okay—action.”
“Come on, Cash—drink,” he says seductively, pushing the bowl to my lips.
After it's been dug up, sliced up, mashed up, chewed by prepubescent children, spat out, strained, mixed with water, and stirred, kava becomes an unattractive purple color, thin in consistency, not unlike emulsion paint. Because it smells of nothing at all, that makes it deceptively innocuous.
“Drink, Cash,” Joe says again. “Driiiiiink.”
Crouching anxiously by the roots of a tree, I can hear the surf beating on the shore to my left and staff members laughing in the restaurant, competing with the chatter of my conscience. “Don't do this,” it's saying. “You know what happened last time.”
The camera's rolling, all heads are turned in my direction.
Yet, despite the risk, I'm poised on the verge of following through.
Here's how I reason it.
It's about fitting in. I have a bunch more shows to shoot with these people. And if something as silly and as bold as swallowing a few sips of mildly hallucinogenic painty-looking liquid would help bridge the gap between us, giving them a small reason to accept me more, viewing me less as a wimpy host who's allergic to, scared of, and paranoid about everything he sees, and more as someone who's “on the team” and ready for anything, then that would not only be a feather in my cap but would stand me in good stead for the rest of the season, wouldn't it? That's what I'm thinking.
After all, it's only a bowl of liquid. How bad can it be?
“Take it, Cash,” Joe whispers in a satanic growl, “and driiiiiiink.”
So I do.
Sure enough, it is, without exception, the worst thing I have EVER put in my mouth! I try swallowing, but it won't go down, any more than brake fluid would go down, or donkey urine, or the sweat from a sumo wrestler's crotch. But before I can spit it out, and for want of somewhere better to go, it slowly starts to seep down my throat.
“Aaaagh, ugh!” Jesus Christ!
As I struggle to keep from vomiting, I hear Mark's characteristic high-pitched giggle behind the camera. Tasha's stuffing her knuckles in her mouth. Eric has turned away in case he laughs and ruins the shot.
“Keep drinking. Driiiiiiink.”
I've consumed a third of what was in the bowl. That's quite enough.
“Now, just relax. And wait.”
“Okay.”
It's this, the waiting part, I find the scariest. Luckily, the narcotic effects of kava roll over you super fast. First thing that happens: your tongue loses all sensation, followed by your lips and your throat, as, bit by bit, a creeping numbness rises to engulf you. Anyone who's tried watching the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy at one sitting knows this same feeling. In under two minutes I'm rendered immobile. That's how quickly it tightens its grip. If you're standing up, then you must sit. If you're sitting and you had plans to go somewhere, you should probably call and cancel.
Instantly I understand why the men on this island spend so much time lounging around on the ground doing nothing. Once this stuff's in your system, you not only lose your get-up-and-go, but even flopping down idly against a tree twiddling your thumbs begins to feel like a delinquent waste of effort. It's as if you're dead, but you can't remember what killed you. The curtain comes down on the headlong scrum of life and you're lulled into a blissful state of resignation that leaves you soothed, unrushed and, yes, partially paralyzed too, which is scary, but that's only temporary.
When you're in this state, it's better, according to Joe, to stay where you are, cocooned within a deliciously cozy, tranquil shell of delirium, and just… sit it out. Indeed, a large part of the kava experience seems to consist of waiting for it to be over.
“Will you be okay?”
An echoing voice seeps through the invisible mist.
Twenty minutes have gone by already. Joe's left for his hotel. Mark and Todd are dismantling the lights. Tasha's grabbed her backpack and is heading off to her bungalow. That was the final scene of the show, and whatever the camera captured just now, it must have been TV Gold, because everyone leaves smiling.
“Sure,” I tell Eric, sounding wobbly. “Sure. It's all fine.”
I'm floating, leaving my body behind, happy in my new world of qualified consciousness and drug-induced quadriplegia. Seeking space and time to savor these feelings, I say good night to the others before navigating an uncertain course through the darkened gardens in the direction of the hotel bar, my legs moving with the slowed-down swagger of a diver bobbing along the seabed.
It must be very late. The dining room is empty, the staff long gone. Fresh white dust sheets, spread across the furniture, gleam translucent, giving the place a shadowy, spookily abandoned feel. Don't know how I do it, but somehow I waft my way into a chair on the veranda, where I sit for the longest time, motionless, deliciously warm, letting a fresh wind off the ocean noodle with my hair. As my brain swims, the crash of the tide on rocks not ten feet away writes a symphony of foaming melodies that swish inside my ears. Up above, a damp smudge of a moon filters halfheartedly through clouds of stretched lint, obscuring billions of stars that I badly want to reach out and touch. And would, too, if the wretched kava hadn't sapped all the power from my arms.
This, I hear myself saying, each word punctuated by infinity, is amazing.
To think, there are Buddhists the world over who at this very moment are closeted away in hilltop sanctuaries; maybe they've been there for their entire adult lives, meditating in solitary silence in an effort to glimpse a fraction, a tiny speck of the nirvana I'm experiencing right now, when really, honestly, they're wasting their energy. The answers they've been searching for were right there waiting for them from day one. All they needed this whole time, it turns out, was drugs.
Lots and lots of lovely drugs.
Who knew?
2 TV talk. Postproduction is a period of controlled panic that takes place at the office after you're done filming a show. It includes editing, sound, voice-overs, digital effects, music, color correction, and so on. This is when you discover that half the stuff you shot doesn't make sense or won't fit together in an even semicoherent way, and as a result you'll be lucky to end up with even ten minutes of usable material to send to the network. When that happens, the director will blame the cameraman, the cameraman will blame the editor, the editor will blame the director and the cameraman, and, when still nobody can decide why the show isn't working, everyone will blame the host, who will run, crying, to the executive producer, who traditionally resolves the matter by firing everyone and bringing in a whole new bunch of people, who will go on to screw up the show too, but in different and previously unimagined ways. It seems like a very odd system, and not how I'd do things personally, but it works.
)3 My own book refuting this—Er… No He Not; It's All Made Up—will be available in trade paperback next spring.
7
Solvang
You know what a pilot show is, right? We're talking a low-budget dry run of a series idea. A tease, a presentation. Taking it out for a spin to see if it flies.
As Fat Kid promised, ours was shot in the scenic town of Solvang, north of Santa Barbara, deep in California wine country. Fascinating place. Founded around 1911 by a bunch of sour-faced schoolteachers—you should see the photos!—who left Denmark to build a new life in America, but then, when they got here and saw what America was actually like, changed their minds. “Screw that,” they cried, “let's build another Denmark instead.” So that's what they did, laying cobbled squares reminiscent of the ones they'd left behind, and surrounding them with cute windmills, half-timbered gingerbread houses, and tea shops that are still standing today, many of them owned and run by descendants of those original settlers, who, despite being several generations along, still find themselves stuck with Danish names, such as Lars and Bent.
Anyway, for three days I romped carefreely around town with a film crew of six people—frantic, buzzing electrons to my nucleus—pretending to be lost (first essential element of the concept), shuffling from square to museum, museum to café, café to windmill, chatting with pastry-shop owners and smorgasbord restaurant waitresses, wangling free food off them wherever possible (second essential element), and ultimately finding a local baker to offer me a bed for the night (third essential element). And I carried it off very successfully, I thought, without insulting anyone, or casting their dull, quiet, annoyingly eccentric little town in anything but a positive light. All in all, it was tremendous fun. Doing TV was a darned sight easier than I'd imagined.
The result was pretty different from other travel programs. Funny, insightful, and innovative—everything most reality shows are not, in fact—an initiative that paid dividends. Two months later, our fourteen-minute mini-episode about Solvang was a monster hit when it was shown to focus groups in Las Vegas.1 Every measurable demographic right across the board warmed instantly to the All Washed Up concept. The only one that didn't, I believe, was the “people who live in Solvang” demographic. Apparently, they were in an uproar.
Just saw the episode of your show on Solvang, my hometown … you appear to be a brainless, soulless, blithering no-talent hackjob.…
—Gerald.
Mr Peters!
After viewing your travel segment, i find u 2 b, a total fucking idiot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What ever happened to having talent to be able to be on tv.
—Ryan.
Well, if you're going to be picky, whatever happened to using grammar, punctuation, good English, and manners to write e-mails? Hah!
Later, a friend of mine spotted this article in a Santa Barbara newspaper.2 I was stunned. Here's just a fraction of it:
Traveling Buffoon Stranded in Solvang
Cash Peters … embarrassed everyone he met in Solvang with boorish behavior and willful stupidity.… Peters badmouthed those who helped him, insulted their heritage and their wives, and played at falling down drunk, before he hightailed it out of town.…
Actually, that's not quite true; I didn't hightail it out of anywhere.
It was the last night of the shoot. Late. We were in a men's lodge called The Danish Brotherhood, and I'm sorry to say I drank way too much of something called aquavit, a clear, watery liqueur made from fermented potatoes. Three shots was all I had, but that's enough. Enough, I suspect, to tranquilize a bear. In fact, I got so wasted that I broke loose while the camera was still rolling and started hugging every Lars and Bent I could lay my hands on—another groundbreaking departure in TV, one from which other travel hosts could learn a great deal, and which would surely set our series apart from the dozens of mediocre ones hosted by insipid, milquetoast men in pastel golfing sweaters who never kiss or hug anybody during their shows.
Well, the Solvanistas thought otherwise, obviously. They hated it. The way the news article described things, you'd think I stopped just short of raping their town. Somehow, with my peculiar knack in life for taking lemonade and turning it back into lemons again, I'd riled up enough of the townsfolk to warrant an outcry. The reporter went on:
… [T]his was a crass, foolish pack of lies from the get-go.3 Peters should be stranded permanently, off the air,4 so he can't afflict other communities with his moronic antics.
Cash Peters tossed down aquavit with the boys until he was reeling, then staggered off to sleep in [Bent] Olsen's guest room. He grabbed Bent's wife like a Titanic survivor grabbing a lifejacket,5 and wouldn't let go.6 He made fun of Bent's piano skills.
“The drunk act was a put-on,”7 Mrs. Olsen revealed. “He can't drink.8 He's a diabetic.”9
Well, at least the focus groups liked it. A lot. Which meant the American public probably would too. Plus, hey, a little controversy's a good thing, right?
Furthermore, I was sure that, with some canny British ingenuity, we could reframe this terrible review, tighten it, pick out a few choice phrases, and turn it into something that didn't defame me quite as much as the original. Let me see, now …
“Cash Peters helped … their heritage … with his … antics.”
Perfect.
So that's how we got picked up for a series. Putting the Solvang minirevolt behind us, and with the wind of confidence filling our sails, we embarked on this one-year project. During that time I would be dumped in a whole new set of places, including Greece, Mexico, Kenya, Russia, Vanuatu, Romania, Alaska, Dubai, Colorado, Turin, and the Idaho wilderness. There was to be no obvious link between any of these destinations. Each episode would start afresh in a new location. The only common element was that all the places should offer us a unique and very different culture to explore. Cultures that would help turn All Washed Up into a winner.
No, better than a winner—TV Gold.
1 TV Talk. Many TV executives today have no idea what will make good television or what shows should get made. And those that do are often too scared to back their hunches. After all, they have mortgages, car payments, and kids to put through school. So, as a rule, and rather than endanger their family's security, they outsource the really important decisions to focus groups. Focus groups are ordinary people who know absolutely nothing about television either. But they are very good at telling TV executives what to think. Synergy, I believe this is called.
2 The Santa Barbara News-Press. This excerpt is reproduced with their kind permission.
3 No it wasn't. A crass, foolish pack of factual oversights possibly! Not lies.
4 No I shouldn't.
5 No I didn't.
6 Yes I would.
7 No it wasn
't.
8 Yes I can.
9 No I'm not.
8
The phone rings. A crisis meeting is being called.
When I finally track down Eric he's in the cavernous white lobby of our hotel, agitated, pacing up and down, wearing his usual uniform of plain T-shirt and cargo shorts, pale anorexic legs rattling around inside them like bell-clappers. Tasha's off to one side, hunched on a couch, chin resting on a clipboard, Director Mark beside her.
“Dude, this town is super boring.” Eric sighs. “Tasha went out yesterday and scouted around, and there's …”
“… nothing,” she picks up. “It's a quaint little coastal village, but that's all. There are churches, hotels, bars, a monastery, some ancient ruins … I mean, it's a vacation place. Really beautiful, and quiet and stuff, but…”
Not enough to fill a thirty-minute TV show.
Deep in thought, Eric migrates to the bay window, juggling his cell phone between hands, tossing, catching, tossing, catching, as he squints out into blinding sunlight at a sweep of unbroken olive groves descending to an oceanscape of such improbable blue that it looks like it was painted indiscriminately by an ungifted child, the way it does in cheap postcards.
Tasha's right about the quiet. It's suffocating. The entire town is in a round-the-clock coma. Nothing moves in the heat, except maybe a lizard or two, or a bedraggled peasant plodding along the lane outside with a donkey and cart piled high with cheese. Evidently, we've been sent to a place that, to someone in a cubicle in L.A., must have sounded like dynamite, positively packed with promise, only to find that many of the things we came here for don't exist, and the ones that do are too boring to make a show about. As a holiday resort, a place to rest and unwind, this would be ideal. As a location for an entertaining adventure travel show, it's pure anesthetic.