COLONIAL HOUSE WRITINGS
People ask me all the time what it was like to be on Colonial
House and what it was like to come back to Modern Life. At this
point, a year and a half later, I guess I have begun to wonder
myself. I thought it might be a good idea to collect the things I
wrote about the experience just after I got back. What you see
below is generally from a private web board I started so Colonial
House participants could talk to each other about the experience
of being on the show and reentering the regular culture. Some of
it may seem disjointed, as I feel comfortable posting what I wrote
here, but not what others wrote with the assurance of privacy.
-dw- 4/1/05
House and what it was like to come back to Modern Life. At this
point, a year and a half later, I guess I have begun to wonder
myself. I thought it might be a good idea to collect the things I
wrote about the experience just after I got back. What you see
below is generally from a private web board I started so Colonial
House participants could talk to each other about the experience
of being on the show and reentering the regular culture. Some of
it may seem disjointed, as I feel comfortable posting what I wrote
here, but not what others wrote with the assurance of privacy.
-dw- 4/1/05
| The Colonial House participants left Maine around October 5, 2003: |
- Tue Oct 7, 2003 11:44 am: Howdy all. I hope this will make it easier for all of us to keep track
of each other and how we are doing. If anyone has a better idea, let me know, I would be way
up for it. Thanks, Don - Sat Oct 11, 2003 12:33 pm: Well, well, well...Vorhees...I suppose it was only a matter of time
until the rapscallions of the world found their way here...Thanks for emailing more people, I am
really hoping we can get all the colonists on here. When I started it I figured it would be just the
colonists, but maybe after more folks get on we can open it up. Or we could start a separate
group for all comers. I feel like it would be nice for a while to have a place where the insularity
of the experience remains preserved. At least until it doesn't feel like we are all visitors to a new
and strange planet. That said, I'm flexible. Go Red Sox. Red Sox vs. Cubs...now thats baseball.
If you want to hear some really bad Heavy Metal. Try looking up Manowar on amazon and
listen to a few samples ("crown and the ring is good", not to mention "Return of the Warlords"). I
have their "best of" album, and it is hilarious, if nearly unlistenable. - Sun Oct 12, 2003 11:35 pm: Man, it is fan-f'ing-tastic to see more and more people on here. I
had a huge near-breakdown today as I walked to my weekly football game. I borrowed an Oasis
CD from the friends I am staying with,and hearing the actual songs that Paul was...lets
graciously call it "singing"...threw me for a huge loop. I suddenly missed him and everything so
much, I had to just stop walking and pull everything together. ...spoke to Jeff Wyers tonight on
the phone, which was cool. We talked about what a big deal it was, getting all those logs down...
thats you boys....be proud. I am going to send him the group info and he'll be on here soon. His
family is doing very well. - Wed Oct 15, 2003 10:36 am: On this subject, what I find is that a lot of my memories are
turning from movies to stills. The other day I started a process of trying to write down specific
memories of different people on the colony. Things like waving to Jonathan as we passed on
our early morning rounds before wake-up. I found that once I started listing stuff there was a lot
more there than I initially thought. I guess the stuff is back there somewhere. Now if I could only
locate 1989-1995 I'd be all
set.
It speaks to the intensity and value of the experience, I believe, this desire to hang
onto as much of it as possible. I'm glad we are trying. We are lucky, I think, to have an
experience framed so clearly. We can't say "I'll remember that next time" so we're forced to
nurture what we have, to pay attention to our
memories.
The need for that in everyday life was brought home to me on the bus before we even
left the colony.A lot of you already know this, but I received a couple of letters that missed the
"ship" deadline when I got on the bus. One contained news of the death of a 32 year old
acquaintance of mine. I can't even say we were close, but it really ripped me up. I'm not sure
what it was, but I think it was the realization that things don't always come around again and you
often don't get another chance to talk to someone or be someplace or do
something.
I'll try and scramble back to the topic here...I guess I'm trying to talk about taking
what we are doing here--checking in, comparing notes, cultivating memories--and applying it to
the world we inhabit now. I went out for a few beers with my friend Jim last night, probably for
about the 1,000th time since I met him in 1986, but when I got home (okay, "home" is still Jim's
couch), I thought back on it, just trying to remember it, remember what it was like to talk to him
on that night, in that place. That it rained. That a woman came in with a Chihuahua in her
purse. That we talked about work and
stagnation.
That awareness of memory is something I want to hold onto. I don't imagine it will
be easy in a memory-free culture, but its worth a shot. Does any of this sound familiar?
- Fri Oct 17, 2003 9:51 am: Nothing says "autumn" like the drooling, profane screams of
Yankees fans. Except perhaps the rattle of their jewelry... - Tue Nov 4, 2003 6:05 pm: Hey Jeff, Messed up, aint it? I thought I had all my readjustment
issues in check, then opened up a whole new can of worms when I moved into my new
apartment yesterday. I actually LIVE here now, this is my actual life. Don't know if that is a good
or bad thing. Anyway, the stuff you are describing sounds pretty normal. - Mon Nov 24, 2003 7:39 pm : You're familiar with it; the theory, subscribed to with religious
fervor by the production team, that they lived a life not too far removed from ours. That they,
too, were marooned in Maine without the creature comforts of home. That perhaps they had the
luxury of communication with the outside world, but that beyond that, their experience shot
quickly down through the depths of less-than-acceptable and skidded across the bottom of a sea
of
deprivation.
Well... Last night I had dinner with Paul Cabana at Kristi's place in Manhattan.
While there, I saw some photos of the production team at work in Maine. More importantly, I saw
pictures of where this work took place. The production headquarters were located in a corporate
resort. Yes, resort. Giant timber-frame rooms with massive fireplaces, beautiful cedar wall panels
interspersed among tall glass expanses through which the outdoor decks could be seen just in
front of the gorgeous lake. Lounge-like common areas with wet bars set up with stacks of water
bottles, soft drinks and fruit. Yes, my friends, it was indeed very much like our experience. It was
in Maine. - Fri Dec 5, 2003 6:14 pm: I made a bunch of colonial food for my friends when I got back, with
the effect of making them much less impressed by my feat of endurance. "That wasn't half bad!"
And to be sure, it wsn't. I actually eat oats every morning, and having run out of raisins this week,
have been cutting up prunes to sweeten it. (Pardon me, "dried plums" as they are called in my
grocery store) I have also been eating two eggs every morning. Yesterday I decided to take a
look at the nutritional info on the side of the carton and nearly keeled over. Just a WEE bit of
cholesterol in those babies. (no pun intended) So now I take the yolks out...ahh for a return to
ignorance... - Fri Dec 12, 2003 5:16 pm : (The official Colonial House website is launched. Jimmy Williams
had left Pedro in too long...) Yeah, it is great to finally have something to show people. Man, I
got real emotional when I first started looking around, but now that I notice all the photos are
flipped, it gives me just the distance I need. It is SO wild to hear Dom and Paul talk on the site,it
really whips me back there. Great fun. Enjoy the Pats (as I will be) Jack, because baseball
season is coming around the corner, and life is looking just a wee bit harder for General George
and his troops. Bye 24 game winning Andy, hello ageing Kevin.... I love it. - Wed Mar 24, 2004 5:56 pm: My part as "gigilo" was obviously either miscast or seVEREly
underwritten...that would have been a bit more fun than the "Handy Guy So We Make Sure Sh*t
Gets Built" part that I believe I was actually cast for. In the end though, "Bearded Man #2" I'll be.
That and "Henry's
Owner".
I think that the Heinz' politics, if they come out in the edit, just might be a topic of discussion in
the US, the way the presidential race seems to be polarizing everyone. Whatever. If this thing
gets me a free beer, I'll be happy. - Mon Mar 29, 2004 4:29 pm: (After Paul Hunt, from Thailand, posted a message berating the US
versus his new Thai home.) The thing is, Jonathan, that the U.S. will continue to lag farther
and farther behind Thailand until our leaders wise up and get serious about creating and
promoting a world-class kiddie sex tourism industry! So many letters to the editor and still, no
one listens....
- Tue Mar 30, 2004 6:16 pm (Jonathan had recently posted about his continuing readjustment
and his acceptance to grad school.) Great news Jonathan, and not surprising in the least.
Congratulations. I think I am somewhere between you and Michelle and John. Sometimes it was
an eternity away, sometimes it pulls me out of what I'm doing now. I'll be lucky if I live that
intensely again. - Tue Apr 27, 2004 7:19 pm: Hello everyone, I've been busy showing the mad manc (Paul
Hunt) around town for the past week, and as you can imagine, its like trying to put a weasel in a
sock. I hope everyone is doing well and that you all got a chance to view the Red Sox f-ing de-
STROY the Yankees last weekend, including SWEEPING the Yankees in their own house....
ahhh, the sweetness of it all... Oh, hi Jack...
Annyway, I am looking at a place this week for a possible big viewing party here in New York,
and I believe the night 2 viewing party at the Vor-house is on, right? And where is this other
Hienzy article...nothing brightens my day more. I'm on my way to meet the PR people from
Channel 13, which will be kind of nice and akward, as they only called me once Paul was in
town....I am adamantly NOT worried about the press. Mostly I am worried about buying my folks
a good frame-by-frame dvd player so they have a chance of seeing their son in the show, haha!
Craig's parents are going to have to wait until that Blade Runner technology comes out:
"Freeze. Enhance. Zoom in. Farther. Enhance. Right 75 degrees. Zoom n. Again. Enhance.
There! Behind the log!" Adios, Don - Thu May 20, 2004 5:45 pm : (The show had aired at this point and colonists were starting to
learn that there were tv message boards like TWoP, where some of them were getting
excoriated.) I think any of us who read these boards will quickly take everything with quite a bit
of salt, except of course, for the stuff about how good looking I am. - Sat May 22, 2004 12:54 pm: (This was a message I posted to Bethany on our private forum
after she had expressed the hurt and frustration she was feeling at being bombarded by truly
nasty and personally insulting communications of all kinds.)
Do NOT worry about what these people say or think. Concentrate on
how good looking and funny they think I am....
Seriously, have you read how they fawn over Paul? Really, the
ignorance....
Okay, now ACTUALLY seriously: Even the most well-meaning people have
no idea what is going on. The other day I worked out that we
collectively spent about 98,600 hours on the project. Subtract
sleepy-time and you've got about 65,000 hours of waking Colonial
experience.
They see eight.
I have been startled by some of the questions I have been getting
from my friends who I have already bored to the point of insanity
with the prattling on I did about the project when I first got back.
So many things we take for granted have a contextual base that, if it
wasn't unique, wouldn't have been worthy of documentation. (Geez,
the other Don on the colony must have taken over for a sentence
there...)
Anyway, people are always talking to me about it now, and they like
people for the wrong reasons and hate people for the wrong reasons
and think that the Natives came the second day and that Amy left
after a couple weeks and that Michelle never went to one Sabbath and
that we were idiots for not using nets and trying to catch lobster....
It goes on and on.
One thing I personally choose to find amusing rather than infuriating
is my love life...no...wait...wrong website....no, I'm talking about
how Production is always given the benefit of the doubt, re: walking
the true colonial path. I was describing this the other day to some
friends when they were asking "Why would someone sign up if they
weren't going to do it exactly right the whole time?" (We'll put
aside for a moment the ridiculousness involved in asking such a
question within a culture dominated by the credit card.) I tried to
explain that everyone went in pretty damn gung ho, but that after
about the tenth "Oh, but you can't hunt" "Oh, but you can't touch the
lobster" "Oh, you need to stop this important project and take the
boat around the pond" , you as a participant become keenly aware that
you are living in what is not so much a controlled experiment as it
is a contrived entertainment. When Production is asking these "How
far are we willing to go?" questions, how can the participants
possibly be immune?
Note to self: Do not drink coffee before posting...
So, it is what it is. We can't change it, we can only ride it out.
I truly sympathize with the position you and your family and Jonathan
and the Vorhees are in. Being Bearded Man #2 has never been so
good. I will say you might want to look at the fact that between the
one or two horrifying posts on those boards, your situations on the
show have sparked quite a bit of serious, reasoned debate on some
very important issues. That can only be a positive.
As far as how on earth people can say some of the stuff they say on
those boards, I find it impossible not to see it as part of the ever-
intensifying spiral death tango of divisiveness and dehumanization in
this country. Our favorite show features a multi-millionaire mocking
the singing of children, the more cruel the better. The vast
majority of money spent on the coming Presidential campaign will be
spent by soft-money organizations who cannot, by law, run positive
ads for their candidate, meaning we will soon be awash in negative
advertising. It's a culture within which a debate is being waged in
all seriousness over whether it is wrong to take pictures of yourself
smiling next to the iced corpse of an enemy who died during your
interrogation.
All of that leads me to the one thing that really gets under my skin
about the show so far; where is the depiction of the community we
built against all those odds? You're not, as a viewer, going to walk
away from this show an expert in colonial history, but it should be
possible, given what we went through, to come away with the idea that
a bunch of people who have little-to-nothing in common can
simultaneously disagree AND harbor a deep, unbounded respect for each
other.
I hate to say it, but Oprah may have seen the project more clearly in
24 hours than many others who were involved for months.
Ladies and gentleman, I believe you have witnessed a NEW RECORD for
long-windedness!
Take care,
Don
how good looking and funny they think I am....
Seriously, have you read how they fawn over Paul? Really, the
ignorance....
Okay, now ACTUALLY seriously: Even the most well-meaning people have
no idea what is going on. The other day I worked out that we
collectively spent about 98,600 hours on the project. Subtract
sleepy-time and you've got about 65,000 hours of waking Colonial
experience.
They see eight.
I have been startled by some of the questions I have been getting
from my friends who I have already bored to the point of insanity
with the prattling on I did about the project when I first got back.
So many things we take for granted have a contextual base that, if it
wasn't unique, wouldn't have been worthy of documentation. (Geez,
the other Don on the colony must have taken over for a sentence
there...)
Anyway, people are always talking to me about it now, and they like
people for the wrong reasons and hate people for the wrong reasons
and think that the Natives came the second day and that Amy left
after a couple weeks and that Michelle never went to one Sabbath and
that we were idiots for not using nets and trying to catch lobster....
It goes on and on.
One thing I personally choose to find amusing rather than infuriating
is my love life...no...wait...wrong website....no, I'm talking about
how Production is always given the benefit of the doubt, re: walking
the true colonial path. I was describing this the other day to some
friends when they were asking "Why would someone sign up if they
weren't going to do it exactly right the whole time?" (We'll put
aside for a moment the ridiculousness involved in asking such a
question within a culture dominated by the credit card.) I tried to
explain that everyone went in pretty damn gung ho, but that after
about the tenth "Oh, but you can't hunt" "Oh, but you can't touch the
lobster" "Oh, you need to stop this important project and take the
boat around the pond" , you as a participant become keenly aware that
you are living in what is not so much a controlled experiment as it
is a contrived entertainment. When Production is asking these "How
far are we willing to go?" questions, how can the participants
possibly be immune?
Note to self: Do not drink coffee before posting...
So, it is what it is. We can't change it, we can only ride it out.
I truly sympathize with the position you and your family and Jonathan
and the Vorhees are in. Being Bearded Man #2 has never been so
good. I will say you might want to look at the fact that between the
one or two horrifying posts on those boards, your situations on the
show have sparked quite a bit of serious, reasoned debate on some
very important issues. That can only be a positive.
As far as how on earth people can say some of the stuff they say on
those boards, I find it impossible not to see it as part of the ever-
intensifying spiral death tango of divisiveness and dehumanization in
this country. Our favorite show features a multi-millionaire mocking
the singing of children, the more cruel the better. The vast
majority of money spent on the coming Presidential campaign will be
spent by soft-money organizations who cannot, by law, run positive
ads for their candidate, meaning we will soon be awash in negative
advertising. It's a culture within which a debate is being waged in
all seriousness over whether it is wrong to take pictures of yourself
smiling next to the iced corpse of an enemy who died during your
interrogation.
All of that leads me to the one thing that really gets under my skin
about the show so far; where is the depiction of the community we
built against all those odds? You're not, as a viewer, going to walk
away from this show an expert in colonial history, but it should be
possible, given what we went through, to come away with the idea that
a bunch of people who have little-to-nothing in common can
simultaneously disagree AND harbor a deep, unbounded respect for each
other.
I hate to say it, but Oprah may have seen the project more clearly in
24 hours than many others who were involved for months.
Ladies and gentleman, I believe you have witnessed a NEW RECORD for
long-windedness!
Take care,
Don
- Sun May 30, 2004 9:34 pm : I would just like to inform everyone that we had a great time at
Plimoth this weekend, treated like rock stars and partying like same. In fact I had to pull over
this morning before we even got out of town so that Paul could dart out of the rental car and
puke on some very well manicured bushes. Bring back the (beer) ration... - Thu Jul 8, 2004 5:08 pm : Walked over the Williamsburg Bridge into Manhattan today. A hot,
very nearly stifling day on the streets and in the shop became a breezy pleasure once I got
on the bridge and over the water. A hundred yards into the mile-and-a-half trip I took my shirt
off to catch some sun. Once I got about 50 yards from where the bridge dumps out onto
Delancy Street and the Lower East Side, I put my shirt back on, gettin' all presentable like.
Suddenly I was back on the Colony, heading into town, getting decent again after some
glorious, solar-powered woodworking at the work station. Yep. - Sat Jul 10, 2004 3:20 am : I just got back from a crazy night that included a message from
my ex-wife and seeing a show by my ex girlfriend from years ago ( who I was with much
longer than my wife, as an interesting side bar...). Anyway, as the cab back home passed the
United Nations Building at 2:45 am I noticed a few lights on an at first thought, "Good for
them, workng this late", which immediately morphed into "Hey! WHat the hell! With the world
in the state its in, that f-ing building should be going great guns 24/7!" Seriously. If now is not
the time for the UN building to look busy at 3 am Saturday morning, when is that time going
to come? I mean, its 3am HERE, but it's a calm 1pm for a maniacal despot SOMEWHERE....
shouldn't he be getting a call? Just wondering... - Wed Sep 1, 2004 11:41 pm: I have signed the contract, so I can now tell you all without
jinxing it that I have been added to the "cast" of "In a Fix", one of those redo-a-room shows
on The Learning Channel. I start on Tuesday and will probably do a couple of episodes a
month. It's not a very good show, I'm afraid (i've only seen two, to be fair), but it does pay
much better than honest work, so its got that going for it....Paul C. (a Colonial House
Associate Producer) was freelancing on a show at Discovery and ran into the "talent" guy
there, who told him they were desperately trying to find a carpenter. He very graciously gave
them my name and one thing led to another, which probably seals the deal for my
tombstone inscription, "I'd Rather Be Lucky Than Good".
Don Wood Online
For the love of Pete, who's in charge here?
For the love of Pete, who's in charge here?
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