Budapest Unscripted: An Audio Documentary

Back in Budapest after Ukraine and a summer stateside sorting out the visa. The novel is on page 290, the Bullet documentary is in preproduction, and there's a pile of un-shared media becoming digital crud. Ambient sound recorded at a bar called Zsír — Hungarian for lard. A photo dispatch from October.

A year ago today Chip boarded a plane to Budapest. Today he's under a blanket with a cold, watching the rain, thinking about what expatriation actually feels like — the absence of depth, the vertigo of starting over, and why challenge accentuates everything. Also: Greek temple friezes were painted in garish colors. He can't help himself.

On Saturday morning Chip woke up wanting a better Hungarian flashcard app and, knowing nothing about coding, decided to build one with ChatGPT. By Sunday night it existed. What followed was a gray foggy Tuesday meditation on AI — what it's genuinely good for, what the hand-wringing gets wrong, and a Ben Affleck video worth looking up. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss thi...

Day 360 opens with a dream — a blurred Hungarian in a rabbit mask who appropriated all the furniture for mailbox-related reasons. Then the actual news: a green light to move into development on the Bullet documentary. Who is Bullet? Chip tells you. Also: the human rights film festival, a week of double duty with a camera, and why he missed a few recording days. This is a public episode. If you wou...

Day 356, continued. Thirty years into a daily writing journal, something unexpected happens when you play back your own voice instead of reading your own words. A coffee malfunction, a film festival at 9 PM, and a case for feeling nostalgic for today — right now — before it becomes the past. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus e...

Day 356. Watching the courtyard trees go bare and thinking about autumn in Appalachian Virginia — and whether the version in memory is any truer than the one outside the window. An honest look at the resistance that follows a creative through every project, every season, every country. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episode...

Day 353. Making a smoothie at 9:47 AM on the morning after Trump's reelection. A digression about Barack Obama's precise almond discipline leads somewhere unexpected — into what it means to stay sane when the news machine runs on your anxiety. Strange times in Budapest, November 8, 2024. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to b...

Chip spends three weeks in Kyiv during the war and discovers that fear has a proximity effect — the closer you get, the less terrifying it becomes. Air raid alerts, Telegram threat assessment, a 5am walk to an empty shelter. And a man foraging on a prosthetic leg who refused to let the Russians take the forest from him. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscri...

A Saturday night at Nemdebar — one drink in the cold, a bar the size of a caravan, and a table of holiday-primed strangers generous with their company and their pathogens. Ten days of Magyar head cold followed: sleeping until 3 PM, a writing schedule in ruins, and one man's lungs working overtime. He's back. Mostly. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other s...

Week two. Cold, sunny, and a flat move coming on Sunday. A Friday night at the climbing gym ends in humiliation courtesy of a ten-year-old. A Saturday of decision paralysis. And a recurring question: how do you make every weekday feel like a Saturday when you've chosen to work for yourself? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bon...

Day nine. Snow collecting on fake pansies. A week of documentary films at a Budapest festival — culminating in  20 Days in Mariupol  and the 13-year portrait  Apollonia, Apollonia  — cracks something open about storytelling, craft, and what it means to tell stories from the heart. Also: big heavy snowflakes, and what they meant when you were a kid. This is a public episode. If you would like to di...

Day six — and the first full night of sleep since arriving. Frost, a little snow, and the start of a groove. A badminton club joins the calendar. Crows on the balcony begin registering a benevolent presence. Things are finding a lane. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit budapestunscripted.substack.com

Day four. After eleven hours of sleep and a slow morning walk, something starts to lift. A Thanksgiving dinner at a friend's apartment turns into a late-night conversation in a parked car — about creativity, community, and what it means to be single in your fifties. Plus: a new flat in the running, a local bakery, and the first real feeling of turning a corner. This is a public episode. If yo...

Day three in Budapest. Sleep deprivation, jet lag, and the strange weight of displacement. A first encounter with the Hungarian grocery routine. A solo Thanksgiving at a food court. And a question forming about the flat: is a constantly barking dog a dealbreaker for a writer's workspace? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus...

November 22st, 2023. I landed in Budapest the day before. My bags landed in Munich. This is the first recording — made in a quiet flat in the second district on a grey November morning, jet-lagged and slightly bewildered. I'd been thinking about doing a daily audio dispatch since before I left Los Angeles. This is where it starts. In this one: the checkout lady at the grocery store asks me so...

This is the one that explains how a three-week work trip to Budapest in 2023 turned into a one-way ticket a few months later. How a novel that started as 30 pages of character sketches in 2008 became the thing I moved across the world to finish. And how a goofy impulse to record my first morning back turned into this — whatever this is. It's also about what it really means to be an expat. Not...

Recorded two days after Hungary's election, April 14th, 2026. Viktor Orbán is gone. Sixteen years of Fidesz rule ended Sunday night with a landslide that nobody quite believed was coming, even as it was happening. I woke up Tuesday morning, phone lit up with messages from people back home, and did the only thing that felt right — hit record. This isn't a political analysis. I'll lea...