here are samples of the things mark does.
some video
some writing
some still photography
first...
some sample clips of video...
next...
some samples of writing!
< here's a writing sample from mark's blog site, KIELBASABLOG.
this one's about traveling to ireland.
it's called It's Not Easy Being Green.
it will make you laugh.
read below.
It's Not Easy Being Green
"Ugh! Overcooked again, Mary!"
I went traveling in Ireland recently, which, I have to tell you, was a real freak show. Leprechauns, Unicorns, sheep, Bono, smiling non-threatening people acting friendly. It was twisted. Quaint, but twisted.
If YOU are planning to travel to Ireland, here are some things to be aware of:
--The Irish don’t know what the f*** to do with bacon. Certainly they don’t know how to cook it. In fact, I’m not at all convinced they’re even trying to cook it, although they insist on presenting some flaccid fatty version of it endlessly at every meal. I’ve long been a fan of bacon, but the stuff they have there seems to have been prepared by having prisoners roll around in it in the shower.
--The Irish population is very nice, with the exception of the airport rental car woman, who is a witch, and our waiter from the hotel restaurant last night, who I’m guessing has recently just lost his last job supervising bacon production at the local penitentiary.
--The weather in Ireland is not, as is often reported, cold, gray, wet, and dreary. However, if and when a day occurs when it improves to that degree, an Emergency National Holiday has been planned to accommodate the retina blinded rampaging mobs of Irish nationals who presumably will be crashing across the landscape tearing off their clothing and splaying themselves grotesquely with legs and arms outstretched akimbo, thrust upon every available square foot of open land in the hopes that at least once before they die, they might experience Vitamin D in it’s natural form and the Keltic equivalent of a one year Caribbean vacation.
--The Irish are skilled drivers. When it comes to giving directions, they are criminals.
--Nobody in Ireland has ever heard of any address you are looking for. Nobody. This includes the property owners themselves, the mapmakers, the census takers, police, postmen, as well as residents standing inside of the actual address you are looking for.
--Driving in Ireland is not difficult. It is beyond difficult. To prepare for driving in Ireland, Americans are encouraged to practice, practice, practice. Besides screaming hysterically, this should also include operating an unfamiliar motor vehicle while wearing borrowed prescription sunglasses and driving the wrong way through an active car wash, in reverse, drunk. Ideally this scenario will also include a cow.
--Somewhere early in it’s history, Ireland was invaded and occupied by Vikings, whose contribution to the Irish gene pool was the introduction of red hair. Hence originated the measurement acronym “RCH”, commonly used to describe the distance between two vehicles passing on any Irish road.
--Mealtime in Ireland consists of four courses. A Guinness. A sandwich. A cigarette. Another Guinness.
--Snack time in Ireland consists of four items. A Guinness. A sandwich. A cigarette. Another Guinness.
--By law, everyone in Ireland is required to consume at least one sausage product per meal. Be ready to provide verification. They take this one very seriously.
-Nowhere in Ireland will you find anyone speaking Gaelic. Never-the-less, every street sign, menu, receipt, message board, instruction manual, ingredient listing, television broadcast, verbal threat and public announcement gets translated into Gaelic. Nothing in Ireland occurs without getting translated into Gaelic. Water gets translated into Gaelic. Dust gets translated into Gaelic. Dreams get translated into Gaelic. Dogs barking gets translated into Gaelic. If you fart in Ireland, it gets translated into Gaelic.
--Whether you want to or not, expect to tour a castle within three days of your arrival. By “tour” I mean “purchase something from a gift shop set up next to a heap of old stones”. Nobody cares if you have any interest in history, just do it. And make sure to pretend to be enchanted, even if to you it just looks like a big pile of discarded building materials from a medieval housing boom that didn’t go so well. If you don’t at least fake enchantment, people will become suspicious of your intents, and the tourism police may ask you for proof of sausage. (cont.)
(Want to read more? Go to http://www.kielbasablog.com/1/archives/06-2012/1.html)
If YOU are planning to travel to Ireland, here are some things to be aware of:
--The Irish don’t know what the f*** to do with bacon. Certainly they don’t know how to cook it. In fact, I’m not at all convinced they’re even trying to cook it, although they insist on presenting some flaccid fatty version of it endlessly at every meal. I’ve long been a fan of bacon, but the stuff they have there seems to have been prepared by having prisoners roll around in it in the shower.
--The Irish population is very nice, with the exception of the airport rental car woman, who is a witch, and our waiter from the hotel restaurant last night, who I’m guessing has recently just lost his last job supervising bacon production at the local penitentiary.
--The weather in Ireland is not, as is often reported, cold, gray, wet, and dreary. However, if and when a day occurs when it improves to that degree, an Emergency National Holiday has been planned to accommodate the retina blinded rampaging mobs of Irish nationals who presumably will be crashing across the landscape tearing off their clothing and splaying themselves grotesquely with legs and arms outstretched akimbo, thrust upon every available square foot of open land in the hopes that at least once before they die, they might experience Vitamin D in it’s natural form and the Keltic equivalent of a one year Caribbean vacation.
--The Irish are skilled drivers. When it comes to giving directions, they are criminals.
--Nobody in Ireland has ever heard of any address you are looking for. Nobody. This includes the property owners themselves, the mapmakers, the census takers, police, postmen, as well as residents standing inside of the actual address you are looking for.
--Driving in Ireland is not difficult. It is beyond difficult. To prepare for driving in Ireland, Americans are encouraged to practice, practice, practice. Besides screaming hysterically, this should also include operating an unfamiliar motor vehicle while wearing borrowed prescription sunglasses and driving the wrong way through an active car wash, in reverse, drunk. Ideally this scenario will also include a cow.
--Somewhere early in it’s history, Ireland was invaded and occupied by Vikings, whose contribution to the Irish gene pool was the introduction of red hair. Hence originated the measurement acronym “RCH”, commonly used to describe the distance between two vehicles passing on any Irish road.
--Mealtime in Ireland consists of four courses. A Guinness. A sandwich. A cigarette. Another Guinness.
--Snack time in Ireland consists of four items. A Guinness. A sandwich. A cigarette. Another Guinness.
--By law, everyone in Ireland is required to consume at least one sausage product per meal. Be ready to provide verification. They take this one very seriously.
-Nowhere in Ireland will you find anyone speaking Gaelic. Never-the-less, every street sign, menu, receipt, message board, instruction manual, ingredient listing, television broadcast, verbal threat and public announcement gets translated into Gaelic. Nothing in Ireland occurs without getting translated into Gaelic. Water gets translated into Gaelic. Dust gets translated into Gaelic. Dreams get translated into Gaelic. Dogs barking gets translated into Gaelic. If you fart in Ireland, it gets translated into Gaelic.
--Whether you want to or not, expect to tour a castle within three days of your arrival. By “tour” I mean “purchase something from a gift shop set up next to a heap of old stones”. Nobody cares if you have any interest in history, just do it. And make sure to pretend to be enchanted, even if to you it just looks like a big pile of discarded building materials from a medieval housing boom that didn’t go so well. If you don’t at least fake enchantment, people will become suspicious of your intents, and the tourism police may ask you for proof of sausage. (cont.)
(Want to read more? Go to http://www.kielbasablog.com/1/archives/06-2012/1.html)
here's another sample from KIELBASABLOG.>
this one is more serious.
it's about a 9/11 experience.
it's called The Paper Bag Patriot.
this one is not to laugh.
read below.
The Paper Bag Patriot
It was through a mist of dark stimulation that the stranger moved toward me, and I regret now that I did not pay them proper attention. I regret that I did not make more eye contact, or shake their hand, or take a moment to ask their name, or get their story. So much was happening in those hours, and I admit with some shame, I was overwhelmed.
I remember mostly that it was a stranger on a strange landscape, and I remember the fatigue and the sadness of their movements, and the loneliness of their steps as they approached me, and the kindness that cut through it all.
It was 2001 on the West Side Highway, sometime in late afternoon, and it was Thursday, September 13th.
The air in lower Manhattan that afternoon was colder, not cold, but uncomfortable all the same, and it was thick with odors of dirt and dust and pulverized concrete, all stirred into an unnatural and unsettling cloud. It hung over everything, sticking particles of smoke and steam onto fabric and hair, bi-products of the collapse and the underground fires that would not burn out. We could literally smell and taste the disaster, but because of our delayed arrival, we were left outside the perimeter, and we could not see it.
Jim Keen, Chuck Ranney, Jason Fraggos and myself. Officially we were the VideoLink live shot uplink truck and crew out of Boston, buttoned down and professional. Unofficially, we were just civilians and nervous like everybody else. We were working for Fox News, and we’d been dispatched from Boston fifty-odd hours before with no assignment more specific than to “get there” as soon as possible, “there” being the scene of the World Trade Center terrorist attack of 9/11/2001. That vague assignment, it turned out, was in itself no small task. By the time we reached the New York state border, access to Manhattan Island was officially closed. We should have been stuck. We weren’t. Running our truck was Jim Keen, an ex-Marine, who along with our field engineer Chuck Ranney, refused to accept any notions of “no access”. With a mix of audacity and some creative routing, they somehow managed to get us into midtown Manhattan on September 11th, …well before sundown, just shortly after 5pm.
But because of the now intense security we were forced to keep our distance from the attack site. Instead we spent the next day and a half floating around mid and lower Manhattan, setting up and tearing down live shot positions, shooting random b-roll, and providing Fox news partners and network affiliates with a place to file and feed their stories.
Huge amounts of confusion and chaos were at play that week, but eventually, a string was pulled, a favor called in, a district chief dialed up, a captain pressured, and our crew was permitted to pass through the first layer of security. We were directed to the forward edge of what appeared to be a construction site next to a pier, and told to go no further. All around us were piles of dirt, lumber, and chunky slabs of broken construction debris. To our left was the roadway into Ground Zero. To our right was the river. It wasn’t total access, it wasn’t perfect, but we were closer. In the near distance we could see damaged neighboring high-rise buildings, the gaping hole in the skyline, and the incessant plume of smoke. We were there to make images. Now, at least, we could make a shot.
As we set about building our position a constant stream of activity moved along beside us. Heading in, huge cranes, earth movers, and trucks of all type crept slowly forward. On foot, an endless army of fire fighters wearing grim expressions and an astonishing assortment of town names printed on their bunker gear, trooped steadily down West Street into a situation where all their years of training and experience and dedication would be soon be reduced to little more than putting fist sized pieces of rubble into simple plastic buckets.
Heading outbound were other groups of exhausted first responders, most of who had been working against all odds, non-stop for 3 days. Empty eyed, they traveled out on foot, on construction vehicles, on flatbeds and in pickups. The lucky ones got to ride their own rigs, powdered vehicles pulling long spectral contrails of white gritty dust that swirled in slow corkscrews behind them. The less fortunate walked out alone. Very few of them ever made eye contact with us, something that I must confess now, was for me a selfish relief.
Humbled by the landscape and the scope of the tragedy, we pulled aside some pallets and set about building our shot and minding our business. Focus became tunnel vision, and tunnel vision was a good place to hide.
I don’t recall exactly what I was doing then, when the stranger approached. Most likely I was fumbling with light stands and cables and sandbags. I believe I was alone, but perhaps that is just how it felt.
“Would you like something to eat?” the stranger asked.
I replied with what I’m certain was a defensive tone in my voice. (I still expected at any moment to be challenged and removed as an interloper. This was force of habit I suppose…it was still New York City, after all.)
“Excuse me?”
“Are you hungry? We have food,” she said, and I remember that she smiled. I noticed then that she was holding a cardboard box and that she was smiling. “We have food for you guys.”
You guys?…. It took a moment to absorb, but I understood then what was happening, or so I thought: A well meaning but misguided civilian, some do-gooder with all the best intentions, had mistaken me for an emergency worker…and that I had come to help the residents of her neighborhood, to help the victims, the actual people in trouble. It was a gesture of kindness that she was offering, and genuine, but I was embarrassed.
“Thank you…that is nice of you…but we’re okay. We’re just a news crew” …and I waved vaguely to our satellite truck. “We’re just here to do the story. You know …we’re just a news crew. You probably should save that for the others”
“It’s okay…” she said, and then she reached into her cardboard box and pulled out a brown paper bag. “Go ahead, take one …you’re here, you’re working. You are doing a job. You need to eat, too”, and she handed the bag to me. And I nodded and said thanks and she smiled and I watched her wander off, over the dirt piles to other groups of people, in no particular order with no apparent plan.
Such a tiny gesture in the midst of such colossal events, it seemed kind of…silly. I stuck the lunch bag in my jacket, and for the moment, forgot it.
A couple hours later, I remembered it. A break in our work helped me remember, I was tired and I was scared and I was famished. I was stuck inside a secure area, and now I was hungry, and the only food that I knew was accessible, was in my pocket. A crumpled up paper bag containing God-only-knew what kind of food, but man, I was hungry. So I took it out and for the first time, actually bothered to look at it. I’ve kept it all these years, ever since.
It was an otherwise ordinary brown paper lunch bag containing an ordinary sandwich and chips and a cookie, but it had been decorated with two stars and an American flag and it had writing on it, a child’s writing, and the writing said…
“RESCUE STAFF
You are our heroes
We love yous!!
We are all very sad.
Love
Cecilia Meccia
Ramapo Ridge 6th
Mahwah”
Then I flipped it over. On the back it simply said…
“Be strong”
And it was then that the fog of the last three days began to clear for me, and I could once again begin to remember and appreciate simple acts of decency, and simple gestures, and simple little things, like the value of the brown paper sack that I held in my hands on that day. (cont)
(Want to read more? Go to http://www.kielbasablog.com/1/archives/09-2011/1.html)
I remember mostly that it was a stranger on a strange landscape, and I remember the fatigue and the sadness of their movements, and the loneliness of their steps as they approached me, and the kindness that cut through it all.
It was 2001 on the West Side Highway, sometime in late afternoon, and it was Thursday, September 13th.
The air in lower Manhattan that afternoon was colder, not cold, but uncomfortable all the same, and it was thick with odors of dirt and dust and pulverized concrete, all stirred into an unnatural and unsettling cloud. It hung over everything, sticking particles of smoke and steam onto fabric and hair, bi-products of the collapse and the underground fires that would not burn out. We could literally smell and taste the disaster, but because of our delayed arrival, we were left outside the perimeter, and we could not see it.
Jim Keen, Chuck Ranney, Jason Fraggos and myself. Officially we were the VideoLink live shot uplink truck and crew out of Boston, buttoned down and professional. Unofficially, we were just civilians and nervous like everybody else. We were working for Fox News, and we’d been dispatched from Boston fifty-odd hours before with no assignment more specific than to “get there” as soon as possible, “there” being the scene of the World Trade Center terrorist attack of 9/11/2001. That vague assignment, it turned out, was in itself no small task. By the time we reached the New York state border, access to Manhattan Island was officially closed. We should have been stuck. We weren’t. Running our truck was Jim Keen, an ex-Marine, who along with our field engineer Chuck Ranney, refused to accept any notions of “no access”. With a mix of audacity and some creative routing, they somehow managed to get us into midtown Manhattan on September 11th, …well before sundown, just shortly after 5pm.
But because of the now intense security we were forced to keep our distance from the attack site. Instead we spent the next day and a half floating around mid and lower Manhattan, setting up and tearing down live shot positions, shooting random b-roll, and providing Fox news partners and network affiliates with a place to file and feed their stories.
Huge amounts of confusion and chaos were at play that week, but eventually, a string was pulled, a favor called in, a district chief dialed up, a captain pressured, and our crew was permitted to pass through the first layer of security. We were directed to the forward edge of what appeared to be a construction site next to a pier, and told to go no further. All around us were piles of dirt, lumber, and chunky slabs of broken construction debris. To our left was the roadway into Ground Zero. To our right was the river. It wasn’t total access, it wasn’t perfect, but we were closer. In the near distance we could see damaged neighboring high-rise buildings, the gaping hole in the skyline, and the incessant plume of smoke. We were there to make images. Now, at least, we could make a shot.
As we set about building our position a constant stream of activity moved along beside us. Heading in, huge cranes, earth movers, and trucks of all type crept slowly forward. On foot, an endless army of fire fighters wearing grim expressions and an astonishing assortment of town names printed on their bunker gear, trooped steadily down West Street into a situation where all their years of training and experience and dedication would be soon be reduced to little more than putting fist sized pieces of rubble into simple plastic buckets.
Heading outbound were other groups of exhausted first responders, most of who had been working against all odds, non-stop for 3 days. Empty eyed, they traveled out on foot, on construction vehicles, on flatbeds and in pickups. The lucky ones got to ride their own rigs, powdered vehicles pulling long spectral contrails of white gritty dust that swirled in slow corkscrews behind them. The less fortunate walked out alone. Very few of them ever made eye contact with us, something that I must confess now, was for me a selfish relief.
Humbled by the landscape and the scope of the tragedy, we pulled aside some pallets and set about building our shot and minding our business. Focus became tunnel vision, and tunnel vision was a good place to hide.
I don’t recall exactly what I was doing then, when the stranger approached. Most likely I was fumbling with light stands and cables and sandbags. I believe I was alone, but perhaps that is just how it felt.
“Would you like something to eat?” the stranger asked.
I replied with what I’m certain was a defensive tone in my voice. (I still expected at any moment to be challenged and removed as an interloper. This was force of habit I suppose…it was still New York City, after all.)
“Excuse me?”
“Are you hungry? We have food,” she said, and I remember that she smiled. I noticed then that she was holding a cardboard box and that she was smiling. “We have food for you guys.”
You guys?…. It took a moment to absorb, but I understood then what was happening, or so I thought: A well meaning but misguided civilian, some do-gooder with all the best intentions, had mistaken me for an emergency worker…and that I had come to help the residents of her neighborhood, to help the victims, the actual people in trouble. It was a gesture of kindness that she was offering, and genuine, but I was embarrassed.
“Thank you…that is nice of you…but we’re okay. We’re just a news crew” …and I waved vaguely to our satellite truck. “We’re just here to do the story. You know …we’re just a news crew. You probably should save that for the others”
“It’s okay…” she said, and then she reached into her cardboard box and pulled out a brown paper bag. “Go ahead, take one …you’re here, you’re working. You are doing a job. You need to eat, too”, and she handed the bag to me. And I nodded and said thanks and she smiled and I watched her wander off, over the dirt piles to other groups of people, in no particular order with no apparent plan.
Such a tiny gesture in the midst of such colossal events, it seemed kind of…silly. I stuck the lunch bag in my jacket, and for the moment, forgot it.
A couple hours later, I remembered it. A break in our work helped me remember, I was tired and I was scared and I was famished. I was stuck inside a secure area, and now I was hungry, and the only food that I knew was accessible, was in my pocket. A crumpled up paper bag containing God-only-knew what kind of food, but man, I was hungry. So I took it out and for the first time, actually bothered to look at it. I’ve kept it all these years, ever since.
It was an otherwise ordinary brown paper lunch bag containing an ordinary sandwich and chips and a cookie, but it had been decorated with two stars and an American flag and it had writing on it, a child’s writing, and the writing said…
“RESCUE STAFF
You are our heroes
We love yous!!
We are all very sad.
Love
Cecilia Meccia
Ramapo Ridge 6th
Mahwah”
Then I flipped it over. On the back it simply said…
“Be strong”
And it was then that the fog of the last three days began to clear for me, and I could once again begin to remember and appreciate simple acts of decency, and simple gestures, and simple little things, like the value of the brown paper sack that I held in my hands on that day. (cont)
(Want to read more? Go to http://www.kielbasablog.com/1/archives/09-2011/1.html)
here's one that was published in The Boston Parents Paper.>
it's called I Deserve This. I Completely Deserve This.
this one is about being a father, and it won a prize.
it's humorous.
read below.
I Deserve This. I Completely Deserve This.
Dear Kids:
This is about Father’s Day.
Oh yeah, Father’s Day. The made-up holiday. The one invented as a greeting card company afterthought. The one that everybody snickers at and rolls their eyes. The one that nobody ever worries about forgetting. The one that nobody ever stands in line for. The one that nobody ever worries about making a reservation for. The immediate seating holiday.
Well you know what? I’m a father and there is something I want you to know. I deserve this holiday! Let me give you a few reasons why.
First of all, I kill bugs. That’s right, bugs. Big, slimy, wiggly, hairy, multi-legged, flying stinging bugs. The ones that live in the basement and hide behind the refrigerator and cling to the ceiling over your bed and freak you out in the middle of the night and would (if I didn’t kill them) outwit you and outrun you and crawl up the inside of your pajama pant leg and do God knows what. Those bugs. And I do it at great personal risk not because I like doing it but because I’m the Dad and it’s my job.
For another thing, I protect you from monsters, boogy-men, Martians and all other forms of hostile invaders from inner and outer space. This is something that very often gets overlooked and taken for granted these days, but that is because we fathers do it so well and so discreetly. But I assure you, not a week goes by that I don’t dispatch some tentacled three-eyed blood sucking psycho-mutant that’s hanging around underneath your bed and/or inside your closet. (Remember when you were little and you used to scream in the middle of the night because you thought you saw something horrible in the shadows and I would come in and tell you that it was just a nightmare? Well, I was lying. It was real. Where was mommy then??)
Next, I let you eat crap. Mom makes you eat vegetables. I let you eat crap. And when Mom comes home and sees the Cheetos crumbs on the rug and the pizza in the VCR, I always take the blame and make it seem like I’m exploiting your innocence to indulge myself in all types of cheesy salty junk food when the truth is I prefer spinach and kale and, once in a while, a nice plate of radishes. But I love you kids and want you to be happy so I let you eat crap.
Also, I let you watch MTV, NASCAR, The Worlds Most Dangerous Police Chases and The Man Show, even though I would much prefer to watch Judging Amy or Ed. I make this sacrifice because I believe you can learn a lot from the athleticism of girls on trampolines and that you should be able to develop your own tastes in the visual arts and I wouldn’t want to do anything to snuff your sense of curiosity. That’s just part of being a dad, the sacrifices.
In addition to your cultural development I also take care of your personal security. I protect you from bullies. Did you know that? It’s true. That’s why you can ride the school bus free from the threat of wedgies, because your daddy can beat up their daddy. Usually. The ones I can’t actually beat up I pay off. I’ve been spending about $200 per year keeping you wedgie free.
And you can thank me for keeping you so physically fit. That’s why, instead of allowing you to wallow around on the couch like a doped-up sea lion, I always insist that you run out to the kitchen to get my beer. I remember when I had muscle tone and I want you to have that memory someday too. I do this for you.
And finally, the best reason of all for remembering me on Father’s Day. Propane. That’s right, propane. That metal tank of noxious flammable gas that defines fatherhood and separates courageous dads everywhere from all other forms of the human species. If anybody understands noxious flammable gas it’s dads. Dads know how to buy it, how to install it and how to light it, (...and to a certain extent, how to make it) and that makes us special. That makes us.... The Lords of Barbeque! And if it wasn’t for our expertise, your summers would be spent eating tofu bologna sandwiches, spinach and kale, and maybe a few radishes. So keep that in mind next time you’re chowing down on nicely grilled Italian sausage. Your brave dad made that possible.
So this year, don’t just take it for granted that Dad doesn’t mind that Mom got a diamond bracelet and all he got was a homemade card. We care. We don’t always show it, (Usually we squeeze in a few weepy sobs while you’re running out to the kitchen getting our beer) but we care.
Instead, this year, take something else for granted (chores? homework? sharing the internet?) and take your Dad, your poor Dad, to lunch.
(for more writing samples, travel here... http://www.kielbasablog.com/todays-kielbasablog.html )
and here are some samples of Mark's still photography
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