Doug Fine: Author, Journalist, Adventurer, Goat-Herder

On no sleep and trapped on the wrong side of the River during the worst (and pretty much only) snow storm of the winter, I waited in Silver City at 1 a.m., (where Billy the Kid and now I were briefly imprisoned, 120 years apart), for my childhood friend Jason Ensler to literally skid into New Mexico with his cameraman on a spur-of-the-moment jaunt from L.A. He’d told me how much he believed in the Farewell, My Subaru project, but when the guy – a supremely talented director, as you’ll see in this film, and in a new NBC pilot he’s directing called “The Man of Your Dreams” – showed up in a blizzard that had even grizzled locals worried about our prospects for getting across a 6,000-foot mountain pass and home to the Funky Butte Ranch alive, I knew that this was going to be a special endeavor. He was even driving, yes, a rental Subaru. The car company’s choice. Karma appeared to be with us.

I recognize that this film must have been shot, because there I am hanging from windmills and delivering progressive-but-I-hope-not-preachy-dialogue about how anyone can get off petroleum if I can, but I have little memory of it. I was that tired. All I can say is, 1) it tells the story of the carbon-reduction project documented in Farewell, My Subaru remarkably well, 2) the snow is incredibly atypical in an era of Dramatic Climate Change, and added a great cinematic touch since the grid power went out and the Ranch still had solar-powered juice, and 3) I’m really appreciative to Jason Ensler for coming to shoot it – the writer’s strike had just ended, and he had to dash back the next day to start the pilot for NBC (Don’t miss it — Jason also has directed tons of films and television programs including “Andy Barker P.I.”, “West Wing” and “Scrubs”). So click on play above to see the Farewell, My Subaru film – the first, five-minute one, I should say.