Arthritic Joints

I got the final word on my foot, for the moment. The injury is a bit more involved than I originally thought. The fix?

Nothing...

for now. The fix would be surgery to fuse 3 bones together. This would return the foot to the way it worked. However, this won't be happening anytime soon. The doctor said the time to do the surgery would be when my foot is bugging me so much I will be saying "enough is enough!" And limping all the time.

Brilliant plan. So in the meantime I willl have custom made orthontics molded for my foot. And I will just cope. Fuck. I only limp for a few steps in the morning when I first get up. I am very aware of how I move on it. Fuck.

It would be nice to run if I feel like it, and not have to worry about being in pain later.

Fuck.

Acting

I am on the SAG Nominating Committee. I get to vote for the performances that are in the SAG awards. This means I get to see a lot of movies for free. I missed a number of things this past year. The BIG movies. Transformers 2, Terminator Salvation. Paul Blart, Mall Cop. The movies I am getting to see are smaller and a bunch are really good.

Watching movies or anything when you are an actor causes a very strange reaction. At least for me it does. I look at movies as someone who is in the business, and I see the parts I could have played. I swear to you, in my head I think, "I could have done that." "Why didn't I get to audition for that?" The simple answer to that is I need kick ass representation. Which I don't have...

In the meantime, I invite people to come see movies with me. I love that ther are no previews, no food or drinks. The movie starts at the time listed. No fuss or hoopla. It's like popping a dvd in and watching at home...

Hemp Heads

Once again I was accosted by a marijuana user advocating it's legalization. This was someone I was working with 100 feet in the air on an I-beam, so I couldn't really get away from him. Nice guy, but I don't want him to rig while stoned.

He was telling me about how useful it is; how it can be used for all these medicinal purposes. That the brain has a certain part that all it does is be effected by marijuana. How he can drive an hour after smoking wihout being impaired--no matter how much he smoked. In fact, peope who have smoked marijuana are more careful driving than people who are stone sober.

In my head I'm thinking, "Really? Really?" The research and studies he is quoting are not in his footnotes, so I think the data is rather anecdotal. Something that is passed down from stoner to stoner. What may have been studied is lost with the "Dude!" factor. The brain thing? Evolution created a part of the brain that it's only use is to be effected by THC? Wow, I guess I'm only using 9% of my brain then. The driving thing is bullshit. Flat out bullshit. People who have smoked dope before driving are probably more careful because, A.) they are stoned, and B.) they are paranoid they are going to get picked up by the cops.

It has always seemed to me that stoners are constantly, desperately trying to convince people that smoking dope is not a bad thing. They also come up with other uses for hemp; paper, clothing, rope, oils, the list is rather long and gets a bit absurd. And I tend to think they thought up all these uses for hemp while they were stoned and giggling.

They also say that alcohol has worse effects on people and driving. It most ceratinly does effect driving, reason and judgement. But also there are laws that put your drunk ass in jail if you drink and drive. Marijuana also effects your drving reason and judgement. Eat a whole box of twinkies while you have the munchies and see what happens.

Last time I smoked dope was at a bachelor party 9 years ago. A totally hot nude stripper offered me a toke. Since I have a rule agreeing to whatever a hot nude woman says, I acquiesced. That rule has generally garnered positive outcomes.

Do I care if people smoke dope? No. Don't drive. Hit my car and I will be very cross. Most dope smokers are quite harmless. They sit on the couch happily eating marshmellows. Just don't preach to me about how it is a misunderstood drug. People who are tweakers don't advocate Meth. Same with coke heads, and heroin users. It's just the pot heads.

Blasphemy, Blasforyou

Some people in a major religion with 1.6 billion followers, some very extreme, want to criminalize blasphemy.

Well, This is very difficult to do on a worldwide scale considering there are 6.6 billion people in the world. How do you criminalize thought? Who is the group that decides what is blasphemy? Are there different standards for different religions? Are some more tolerant of the freedom of speech than some of the more sensitive? How much prison time do you get for blasphemy? Is the punishment for written blasphemy cutting off the hand that offends? Spoken blasphemy, cutting out a tongue?

Who is the fucking Hall Monitor? Hunh? What about Freedom of Speech? This Right is what makes America great. If the people in this religion think they are likely to subvert what this country is founded upon, they have another blasphemous thing coming.

You can believe anything you want to believe. I'll believe what I want to believe. I suggest you lighten the fuck up. Live and let live. If God, Allah, Buddha, Vishnu, Odin doesn't like what the fuck you say about them, it's in their own hands to exact vengeance. They are all powerful, right? They don't need your help.

3-D Movies

I just saw A Christmas Carol. The lastest version from Disney with Jim Carrey. It is completely computer animated and 3-D. It's pretty cool. The thing that made it a bit jarring for me was the 3-D stuff. So much of it was planned to use the technology that it was obtrusive. Does the camera really need to pass thru a stream of falling peanuts, or the Christmas reef? I don't think it does. Just because you have the ability to do so doesn't mean you should. Doing so kept throwing me out of the movie. And it happened all the time. The speeding thru the snow so it hit the glasses... That's fine if I'm skiing, but give me a break.

I recommend it, but the 3-D thing might make you crazy.

Scientific Break Thru!

Scientists have created a computer that simulates the brain of a cat.
Really? How does this manifest? The computer ignores you? It brushes up against you but won't let you touch the keyboard? It smacks around a ball of digital yarn? It suddenly decides it needs to be in the next room IMMEDIATELY? More important, how would you know for certain you had accomplished such a task?

So, some brainiac has created a computer that thinks totally illogically and selfishly. One that is distracted easily by birds or fish. One that attacks your moving feet under the covers as you sleep.

To what purpose? How does this improve the world? Making a computer even more confounding than they sometimes are? This time could be better spent. Doing, uh, smart... stuff...

Snippets

I don't have anything in particular to blog about. So I will do a few small things.

How to Make Love to Adrian Colesberry, by Adrian Colesberry. This is a book by a friend of mine I know from doing extra work. Years ago he would be writing with a stylus on a small hand held device. (I don't think anyone has them anymore.) One day during a lull on a beer commercial I asked him what he was doing. "Writing a book" was the reply. This is an impressive task. And even more astounding is he completed it and it was published. Lots of people start books. Few finish. Fewer get published. This will be a fun read. Congrats Adrian. He was always kind enough to come to my plays and say nice things afterward. (even if they were merely ok.)

Screenings. I have been going to a lot of screenings lately because I am in the SAG Nominating Committee. Which means I get notices in the mail about lots of movies; some I have seen; some I haven't seen; some I have never heard of. When the notices come in I tape them to my livingroom wall and cirlce the ones I want to see. I have a 7' x 7' portion of my wall covered with notices. So I have been going to 5 movies a week lately. Last time I was in the SAG Nom Com, I had a job that kept me so busy and so exhausted so I saw only one movie. I'm making up for lost time. Anyone wanna see a flick?

Muppet Burlesque. You read that correctly. I went to see a friend of mine perform in Muppet Burlesque at the Monday Night Tease. It was funny and weird. I was afraid it would wreck my childhood, but I had in excess of 25 more years it couldn't touch...

Paper Clutter. I went looking for last year's tax return. Didn't find it. I have a good decade worth of paper clutter in my apartment. I have a shredder for the junk mail and use that, but to clear out this kind of detritus I would need a industrial shredder. Or a flamethrower. I will clear out a lot of this stuff, but it will probably kill the shredder I have. Need a fireplace. Heat, light, and destruction! Awesome.

Wild Things

I saw the movie, "Where The Wild Things Are" recently. It has had me thinking a bit. My friend Amy said the monsters on the island were emotions. So armed with this knowledge or thought I viewed the movie. Now everybody is probably familiar with the book, but I hadn't read it since I was a kid. While walking thru B&N the other day I picked it up and read it again. It took all of 3 minutes. Like most kids books it is short, with lots of pictures and the story is really about 20 pages long. Tough to make a 101 minute movie out of 20 pages. And I do think some of it showed.

Max is a wild out of control kid and runs away from home. he finds a boat and sails to an island of misfit monsters. Amy's take was the monsters are emotions. All the negative, bad, destructive emotions. A lot of the ones that are making Max rebel. The emotions run wild & free, and build things and destroy things. Max becomes the king and learns there are things that just can't be fixed. At the end Max decides to stop trying to be an adult and go home to be a kid once again. His mom greets him with hugs and smiles and dinner. The monster Max is gone replaced by a better little boy.

Hm... It was a simple ending and I might be thinking about it wrong, but I had a hard time buying Max's redemption. It was too movie simple. There was growth and an unspoken epiphany, but like all movies, wrapped it up in a nice package.

I find that I have an island where my monsters run wild and free. And they are destructive and lonely like the monsters Max found... I'm going to probably always have these monsters. I just need to make them better monsters...

Wackiness continues

My upstairs neighbor is a liar. She went out of town for 4-5 days but left her dogs in the apartment. The husband she kicked out of the apartment lives down the block now and would come by 3 times a day to walk the dogs. But in the meantime, they were left alone and barked quite a bit. I took notes and sent the times and duration to the landlords for the court case they are doing to evict her. I thought the barking was strange since she was jumping on the dogs as soon as they opened their mouths because of the eviction notice she received on her door. So having them bark was weird. Also, I didn't hear her activity at all. I deduced she was gone.

After she returned, she sent a packet of letters to the landlords saying she was out of town and the dogs were not in the apartment for those 4-5 days. This is a BIG LIE. But there are letters from 4 people saying the dogs were with them in some apartment down the street. The people are lying for her. In court where this is all going to end up, it's called PERJURY. Which comes with fines and jail time.

Also, she included a letter from her daughter claimng she lives with her. No, that is a lie too. After she got married she kicked her teenage daughter out. This was "her time now". And the daughter was sent to live with her dad in Utah. The daughter is now in Tucson with her grandmother, my neighbor's mom. The daughter wrote a letter to the landlords saying there was an altercation about an alarm clock. And I was obscene to her.

There was an altercation about a clock radio in 1995. It would go off every morning between 5:30 and 6 am. It blasted Radio Disney for the next hour to an hour and a half. I complained. The neighbor screamed at me after this altercation "If you don't like apartment living, Fucking move!" Did I ever confront the daughter, no. Would I ever be obscene to a child? Absolutely not.

The thing is, that altercation has absolutely nothing to do with her being evicted over her noisy dogs. She is trying anything and everything to not get evicted. Having people submit letters that are lies is a bad way to do anything in the court system. I just hope the judge doesn't buy this load of crap.

This is all part of a long history with this neighbor. And, Friends, if I never invited you over, this is the reason why... It's a great apartment, great location, great rent, horrible evil neighbor.

Shootings

In the past 2 days there have been 2 shootings. One in Texas at Fort Hood, and one in Florida. The shooter in Texas was shot by an officer and wounded. But the thing that I find funny is this guy is the "alleged shooter". It took 4 bullets from the female officer to stop the guy. But because the nutjob didn't die, he is "alleged." If the nutjob had died, he would be the "slain gunman."

Yes, everyone is "presumed innocent until proven guilty", but this is pretty cut and dried. However, if the news were to call the wackjob a "gunman" without the "alleged" part, lawyers would try some legal bullshit to have the case dismissed or moved because the jury pool is tainted. Well, the jury pool is tainted because the guy lived. The jury pool is tainted because he killed 12 people and wounded 31 and did not die when the cop shot him.

My advice for his lawyers, plead out. This is Texas, pal, they love to kill people there. And you just shot up a bunch of patroitic volunteers. There isn't a whole lot of chance you can get out of this. You can try to plead insanity, but when you shout, "Allahu Akbar" before you pull the trigger, you become a terrorist.

Paid!

Yesterday I drove 100 miles round trip to get the check for the work I did in September. Read the entry below. Hopefully I don't have to do that again for the 2 other invoices that are pending with them...

My Strange Life

I lead a strange financial life. I work doing lots of things that pay, sometimes, pretty well. But I don't get a check with any kind of regular schedule. And this makes me crazy on occassion. Currently I am waiting on a check from a company whose policy is to cut a check 30 days after the invoice is delivered by email. 30 days is a long time to wait for money. It's been 39 days. I have a stack of bills to go out and nothing in the bank to cover them. I'm pretty new dealing with this company. In fact this is from my first job with them, that aside, FUCKING PAY ME!!!!!!!!!!! I don't know if this is typical, but to all the accountants who work for them DO YOUR GODDAM JOB! If they only have one accountant, then get this dude some help. This company's payroll from some jobs can be 100 people. This shouldn't be brain surgery, cut the fucking check.

One company I knew of used to have the entire payroll on direct deposit. By doing this the money in the accounts could accrue interest until the last possible minute, before it was all deposited in the employees respective accounts. Is this what is happening with this fucking deliquent company? Fuck.

Lately, I am racing from check to check and trying not to have the bills go horribly wrong. This month I'm fucked. Sigh...