The film crew..

Emile, whose project it was to put together the documentary of our relocation and fruitarian lifestyle, and David, his well trusted camera man, were with us from the 6th of December until the 19th, when they left us to drive back down to Sydney, for their scheduled flight out of here back to the US on the 23rd..

We've not yet heard from them since leaving, but our internet activity is down to a record minimum (access is via an ultraslow very flaky telephone line, dial up connection here on the farm), and I should really write them a short note to find out how their return trip and flight were..

Anyhows, on arrival they hired this convertible sports car at Sydney airport, but the deal was it had to be returned to the same airport, otherwise they perhaps may have stayed an extra day or 2 or so filming, and then flown down to sydney from cairns.. I didn't envy them leaving and driving down again in such a short space of time. they would have had to do a fair bit of night driving too, to make it in time.

in their convertible, they were able to get some road shots in too, filming us from both behind and in front, and a few overtaking sort of shots..surprisingly they only got pulled over twice by the police (both times in Queensland), and each time they were let off lightly with a warning, I suspect the attitude of the police may have been slightly harsher had they not been so presentable and more hippylike of appearance..

still, the good thing, for us, was that we were able to drive on and not get involved with the police stuff. I'm not a fan of police, despite no criminal record, and being such a good boy and all that, I still find their presence intimidating, and dislike their authorative tones they brandish.

Not sure if I mentioned it before, but Emile first heard of fruitarianism when he ran into Julian on some backpacker place somewhere in central or South America.. Julian, who I had met briefly in central Victoria, roughly 2 years previously, had been on a raw vegan diet, but been inspired to move to all fruit (there's an interview with him on my main blog).. Anyhow, Emile soon came up with the idea to make a doco about fruitarianism, and asked Julian if he would be willing to participate.. Julian decided he was slightly too camera shy, and put Emile in touch with me, and the rest is history.

I kind of would have liked to have gotten to know E & D better, but their focus was mainly on getting whatever footage they could, in order to later piece the mosaic together.. In fact, I believe, all up, they took well over 40 hours of film, and the thesis is only supposed to be an estimate of 20 minutes.. I'm certainly pleased that it's not I that is faced with the task of being the button monkey who has to edit it all together in some coherent sense, but very pleased that the doco is being made, and that we had 2 such open minded young guys that were up for the task!

On arrival here, at this place called fruitopia, we were greeted by Ian, already briefly mentioned in a previous post, and his dog Shelly. The farm was otherwise deserted, just days earlier, it had been buzzing with activity as roughly 25, 80/10/10 raw fooders, zoomed in on the place for some kind of, going to perhaps be a regular occurance, raw vegan gathering, organized I gather, by are old friend Harley, his partner Freelea, and a 3rd guy, Nick, the yoga guy..

Well, although they had disappeared from the scene, over the course of the next few days, the 801010'ers slowly began reappearing again.. The following day, a young american guy named Ryan strolled through together with Michelle (canadian, whose still here on a sort of wwoofing basis) and Chiharo, a cooked japanese traveller also wwoofing and unconnected to the raw vegan happening.. .

Shortly after, Harley, over the space of about a week, Freelea and Nick turned up, possibly not quite in that order, another guy named Venant, and Greg and his partner Claire.. We missed out on meeting Darrick who was also one of the guys I interviewed on my blog a while ago, although rumour has it he may be returning before he leaves Australian shores again.

Well, having so many raw vegans turn up eating such a high percentage fruit diet, was fodder for the camera, and E & D got in several hours of interviews with whoever was willing. Probably Harley being the most vocative, as he seems to be born into the whole public speaking thing. (Actually, several of the mentioned names turned up after E&D had left, but they still got their fair share of slightly differing raw food ideas.. Including a lengthy interview with Ian who, as mentioned in a previous post, is on his own version of a raw food diet, based on some guy named vonderplanet, or something somewhat similar.. He basically eats rotten fermented meat, sometimes road kills (kangaroos, possums etc), and probably mostly organic store bought, and allowed to rot.. Raw milk, eggs etc..

He's sort of being influenced by the french instincto movement too, and doesn't mind the occasional maggot, or worm infested piece of fruit.

I look at his way of eating as pretty bizarre, and am not surprised that his body got into the toxic state it did, leading him to seek medical intervention.. But he sees things differently, and somehow his body must have built up an immunity to the e-colis and salmonella that probably thrive within..

Actually though, he's a pretty good guy, and in many ways very open minded and nonjudgemental, so I enjoy his company, despite our current differences in dietary outlook.

Actually, too, I'm sort of beyond really making a big deal about what other people eat or don't eat. I understand that apart from spreading the message some, there is little I can do about others' choices, and understand too, that we are really each of us responsible only for our own actions..

Interestingly, Harley has a different stance on that one, and believes it's our responsibility to get out there and tell everyone that they are erring.

Partly I can see his point, and really admire the guy for doing what he does, and taking the approach he does.

Our slight differences toward diet, (i'm thinking now of the 801010ers and Kveta and I), sparked many long and interesting debates about what was right and what wasn't.. We believe they tend to overeat, over drink and push their bodies to extremes that ultimately aren't healthy, they believe we are undernourished, dehydrated, and lethargic, and are highly skepitcal as to whether a solely fruit diet can be maintained over an extended period of time..

I enjoyed the challenge of our discussions, and may write more of them at later dates..

I've moved away from the subject of the post.. Well.. I didn't really know where I was headed when I started writing..

Think I'll end now.

Peace,
Mango