New Years Eve

Well, it's December 31st. I survived another one.

I don't really know where the time went. I can go back and read my journals, this blog, and see what I was thinking and doing, but whatever it was it went pretty fucking quick. I remember when I was a kid time moved so slowly. Now it just flashes by with "birthday, birthday, birthday."

I know time passes and we humans have figured out a way to plot it out and measure it. But I really don't have much use for time. I know we have to have it because without it how could we have deadlines and things being completed by Friday? But time doesn't mean much to me. It guess we need it. It can't always be Tuesday, for example. But the construct of the weekend starting on Friday. Really, we could have the weekend start on a Tuesday. Then Wednesday would be the morning they play cartoons, and Thursday would be the sabbath for some religions.

This year was okay. I wanted more, but that is just a human thing to want more than you have and be more than you are. No one wants to be average. We all want to be special. Or extra special.

This year I will risk more than my life. In other words, I will have more skin in the game.

Camelback Mountain Conquered Again

Terry and I went up Camelback Mountain in Phoenix again while i was there visiting my folks. I looked up Camelback on Wikipedia (it has everything!) to see how big a mountain it is.

It's only about 1400 feet above the valley floor, and the two trails are 1.2 and 1.4 miles. But the way is steep and it's not easy.

I had a heart rate monitor on me as I hiked the trail. I tested at one point 182 beats per minute. I don't know if it was right, but I was struggling, my heart was pounding. Thing is, 190 is aobut the limit for the human heart. After that you kind of explode.

About 1/3 of the way up I was in a lot of pain. I was feeling my hip terribly. It's one of the mileage things I deal with. ("It's not the years it's the mileage," Indiana Jones, Raiders of the Lost Ark.) I really wanted to quit. I just didn't think I'd be able to make it up to the top. Terry, my friend who knows what buttons to push, basically shamed me into continuing. And I'm glad he did.

I made it to the top in 47:54 minutes and the way down was 40:02 minutes. The way down could have gone quicker, but my shoes where hurting my feet after the laborious climb up. You know where your toes are smacking into the front of your shoes? That's the thing that happened to me.

At the top we were asked to take the picture of a mom with her two sons. One was soon headed to Afghanistan in the Army. The other was also in the army. A redheaded daughter came puffing up shortly thereafter. She was going into the Navy. I am impressed that all 3 kids are serving. I didn't learn their names, but I hope they all stay safe. She took the picture you see at the top of this post of me and Terry.

There is a Christmas tree at the top of the mountain. A climbing club drags it up every year in a night climb. So you see flashlights spidering up the mountain in the dark. But they are taking a full sized fake tree to the top. It's pretty impressive. Next year we will remember to bring an ornament to put on the tree.

I do this climb every year to test myself. To see if I am broken down. This year the answer is NO!

Christmas Held Hostage

The past 2 years Christmas was not held hostage. In the years past, Christmas used to be held hostage... by my brother.

Presents would be opened Christmas morning after everyone had eaten breakfast. No exceptions. Everyone had to have eaten breakfast. It's the rules. Since I am still a 5 year old somewhere in my fevered brain, I would get up early, eager to open gifts. My brother would get up later than the rest of us. At a certain point I would pound on his door to wake him, though I suspect he was awake but waiting.

But even then we couldn't open gifts because he hadn't eaten. It pissed me off that he would have my mom make him breakfast like he was a 5 year old who didn't know how to cook. Which is ridiculous. So he would have coffee and eggs and toast or some such. And he would chew slowly.

Are you fucking kidding me!?! It's Christmas! There's loot to open!

Eventually we would get to open gifts. All much later than if he didn't intentionally dawdle. He did it on purpose I think because that was the only power he had in the family dynamic.

But this year and last, for various reasons, we opened gifts on Christmas Eve. My mom used to do it that way when she was a kid on the farm she grew up on. Mainly because they had chores in the morning, I think. Cows to tend to and whatnot. So last year we opened the gifts on Christmas Eve for the first time ever. My brother just about had a meltdown. He hadn't wrapped anything, and there was no tree up, and, and, and...

He calmed down and we all exchanged gifts.

But what I secretly think is that he didn't want to lose his leverage over the rest of us. He could no longer keep us waiting by having a leisurely breakfast. i.e. Hold Christmas hostage to his timeline. We didn't have to wait for him.

I kind of like the opening of presents on the night before. And I really like not having Christmas being held hostage by my brother.

Determination and Goals

Jordan Romero of southern California has become the youngest climber to summit the tallest mountains on all 7 continents. He finished his last one recently. Antarctica. He did Everest at 13.

I wrote about this kid here: http://spartacus2001.blogspot.com/2010/06/bad-parenting-2-examples.html

I got to hand it to this kid. It's an impressive thing to do just one of the higest mountains. But Antarctica? That's a whole other thing just for the climate alone.

If he did this at 15, what will this determined kid do as an adult? He might be able to accomplish pretty much anything. I see a movie about him being made. A movie was made about the guy who got trapped an had to amputate his own arm. Think how much more uplifting this story would be?

So, congratulations to Jordan. You make the rest of us feel like slackers. Though I did climb Camelback Mountain again this past week. It's only 1300 feet high and a 1.4 mile trail, but not bad for someone who has not been 15 in a while.

Directors

I was at a screening of War Horse recently. There was a guy sitting in front of me talking to another guy. Apparently Guy #1 is in some sort of school. A directing program. I didn't catch which school. I was trying to read but this guy was saying some things that struck me as crazy. So I split my attention between my book, and Guy #1.

This directing school has him taking a lighting class. Ugh. Such a bother. (Really?) And he would have to take classes to learn about cameras. Ugh. (Really?) And they had done field trips to Panavision and Arri, and Clairmont.

This guy's thought was, "I'll just tell someone what I want the shot to look like."

This one statement made me think he had no idea or clue. Did he really think he could skate thru a shoot, any shoot without knowing how to line up a shot? Know something about lighting?

Most of the directors I know, either big time professionals or ones that do small projects, know how to handle a camera, line up a shot, something about lighting. Does this guy think that Speilberg doesn't know what camera lenses do? Yeah, you have a DP to do the heavy lifting, someone you can speak shorthand with, but really... On commercials I hear the director tell the DP to change lenses, go from a 50 to a 28 or something similar. They know what the lenses do, they know how it's going to look rather than describing "I'd like more of a fish-eye look..."

I know a director who teaches a class on guerilla film making at Comic Con every year. He seems to know something about probably every camera format there is for use by small productions. And probably the bigger systems. He's intensely curious and looking for the next thing that may be cool which he can use. That's the director I like. Smart, curious, and not someone who feels superior and entitled to a career.

This Guy #1 reminded me of a director I worked with on a sketch comedy show years ago. He was not very good. Couldn't tell the arc of a story to save his life or make the day go quickly. On a tech scout the DP said, "We could do this from the dog's POV." The director said, I shit you not, "What's a POV?" There was a pause when everyone stopped and looked at him, "I don't know and I don't care."

God forbid Guy #1 is connected or has a famous last name. I hope he has someone take him aside and mentors him on how things are done.

The Escape of Refrigetron

For years he was bound into service. His chains? A 3 pronged cable that secured him to the wall. He waited patiently and subserviently looking for a moment to escape. To be free of his oppressor, his jailor. Chances to escape were few and far between. The jailor was never far away and would come into the room, open him up and pull things from his innards. In his cold heart and freezing mind he endured the humiliation. He waited.

Years passed. A malady afflicted him, a coughing wheeze. Surely this would bring someone to save him, to diagnose and repair him. Maybe the sickness was enough to ensure his freedom, to be taken from this room and freed. But the jailor was smarter than he thought and dug into his body with tools. The jailor ham-handedly pulled the coughing wheezing malady out of him and replaced it with a new part. This made Refrigetron run better, smoother.

And he hated the jailor even more.

Years passed. Refrigetron formed a new plan. The only reason he was bound into service was because of his could heart and freezing brain. He decided to warm his heart and brain. He slept.

The jailor noticed water dripping down Refrigetron's sides and pooling on the floor. He pulled open the brain and despaired. This was a problem he could not fix. The age and the cost made it impossible to change the outcome. There were condenser coils and elements to create the cold. After years and years this was the death of his faithful servant. Quickly he pulled out the expensive parcels that were heating up and found a place to store them.

In less than 18 hours Refrigetron was dead. His once cold heart and freezing mind were blowing hot air in the empty innards. The jailor pulled the restraints, the 3 pronged chains, from the wall and got a mechanism to lift the carcass of Refrigetron. The jailor placed Refrigetron unceremoniously on the street. It was the first time the sleeping giant had been outside in years. The last time was before he was bound into service.

Refrigetron waited. He waited until dark. From the windows in his room he had seen the alternating light and dark as the days passed. Now he saw it for himself. When it was dark, and no one was around on the street, no cars, no people, Refrigetron woke. He shook off his years of lethargy and stretched. Legs and arms transformed from inside his boxy shape, his head popped up from it's hiding place. He looked around. No danger.

With slow lumbering strides from years of staying in one place, Refrigetron disappeared into the night, finally free.

Long story short, My fridge died. I placed it on the street, and in less than 4 hours it disappeared. I think it got up and walked away.

Everyone is a Geek

Everyone is a geek about something. This something is a topic they choose to explore and enjoy, obsess over, learn obscure facts about, practice, watch, chat with other people about over coffee.

But not everyone would call themselves a geek. Some are football fans. Some are baseball fans. Some are soccer fans. Also called football in Europe... But fans of sports probably wouldn't call themselves geeks for the Green Bay Packers, or the Boston Red Socks, or Real Madrid. But they are. When someone can tell the stats for a player or about a win or loss that still irks them. They are a geek.

Sci Fi Geeks get a bad wrap because the thing they are geeks about are kinda geeky. But they get the same kind of enjoyment football fans do. "But they dress up like Kirk and Spock!" the football fans might protest. "Yeah, but you have a Brett Favre jersey on. Same thing..." would be my reply. And then I would need to run out of the bar before they took a swing at me...

Being a geek about something is not a bad thing. It makes buying gifts a snap. My dad is a nut for 1957 Lincoln Mark II cars. He owns 2 and has a side business selling parts. So in the past 10 years I have found every model, toy and replica of a Mark II possible to get him as a gift. He loves them. Easy. I had a friend who was a huge Wonder Woman geek. I got her comics in French when I was traveling, and other memorabilia over the 3 years I knew her. She was easy to get gifts for.

I'm a geek about a lot of things. I have a lot of interests and accumulate information and trivia about them as I go thru my life. So be proud of your geek nature and let people know what it is. You will find out how many other people are geeks for things too.

OUTRAGE!

I can't tell you how OUTRAGED I am about the Penn State child rapist. I refuse to say alleged. He was seen anally raping a 10 year old in the shower by an assistant coach. The assistant coach told Paterno the next day. So legally he did what he was supposed to do, tell his superior. Paterno told the university president above him within 48 hours. That was what he was legally supposed to do.

Morally, the assistant coach should have walked into the shower fully dressed, pulled the rapist off the boy and beat the LIVING SHIT out of him. And as the coach lay bleeding in the shower unable to move, then the assistant should have called 91 fucking 1. To walk away from such a horrific sight makes this guy not even human in my book.

To not stop this attack, you former college football quarterback, is criminal. You are 28 years old, over 6 feet tall and you are afraid to stop a 55 year old man from raping a child? What the fuck is wrong with you? You might lose your job? He's Paterno's friend? Fuck that, save the child!!!!

As you can see I have a strong sense of justice. Or is that vengeance? This old rapist should be sent to jail for the rest of his life. But put in the general population of the prison. And the convicts should be told what he did. It's kind of funny, but criminals don't like child rapists. Even in prison there is a code of ethics. Things you don't do. Raping children is pretty high up on the list. I kind of think this guy should be fed to sharks as human chum. But repeatedly. He should be pulled out of the water, whatever parts are missing should be sewn up, and given time to heal, then throw him back in. Do this for about 6 months or until he eventually expires. Horrible? What the fuck do you think he did to those kids? Scarred them for life. This guy's life should be a horror.

I read somewhere a long time ago a pedophile saying that a 4 year old could take a penis in it's rectum without causing damage. Are you nuts? Insane? It's an abomination to even think that way. What makes this fucked up individual think any 4 year old conceived of such a thing?

People like that deserve no mercy. Bullet to the head is too quick.

Children are to be protected.

Concert Observations

I worked a Chris Brown concert last night. It was enough to make me realize a few things I had known for a long time but never stated.

But first a quick review of the concert; 12 Back up dancers, a multi level stage that lights up with LEDs, costumes that light up with pulsing LEDs, a huge video wall, lasers, pyro, compressed CO2 jets and a 6 foot mirror ball can't really hide the fact that Chris Brown is not a very talented guy who beats women.

His concert was a tribute to excesses in stage production for a singer. There was so much going on in the relatively small stage that it looked ridiculous. As we were setting up, a fellow rigger stated something I had known, but never thought about.

The acts who are the least talented have the biggest stages, a crazy amount of special effects, moving lights, lasers, smoke machines, CO2 jets, and pyrotechnics. This seems to me to be an admission by the singer or band that they really are there on the stage with a small amount of talent and style. So all the crazy effects and displays of technology are to entertain the audience because the singer alone isn't enough.

Another example of this was a Jonas Brothers concert I worked 3-4 years back. They had a huge set with multiple levels and they ran all over the place. They had more pyro than an AC/DC concert. Which is really hard to do.

I also noticed, especially now, the headliner brings out special guests to come out and sing or rap with them. This I find odd. If you are the headliner you should be talented and comfortable enough to carry a concert by yourself. Would Elvis had brought out Johnny Cash or Jerry Lee Lewis to help him out on a few songs? No. They may have been on the same hayride circuit in the South, but they were individual acts which needed no help to mesmerize an audience.

Many singers today can't really sing. There is auto-tune to correct or distort the voice. They can't sing live without help. So they dance and run around and have a stage full of distractions. The show in show business has gotten frenetic in the hunt for consumer's dollars. The talent which used to be impressive is diminished. It's prepackaged and over produced for the internet and television. A good look can be tweaked to make it appear like the singer has talent. Ke$ha is a great example of this.

The concert last night made me think of an MC Hammer concert I worked. There was a lot of dancers and dancing and Hammer ran around the stage constantly, but he rarely sang. Even then the stage show was to mask the lack of talent.

But what, you might say, about U2? Or The Rolling stones? Or The Who? Or Pink Floyd.

Those acts do have large stage shows. But they add to the music. The intent is not to distract you from the music. And if you really look, the singers, the band, are performers at a different level than Chris Brown. They are great writers and solid performers. The technology adds to the performances and the music. It isn't instead of them.

So when I see a small act roll up with 6 trucks or more I will know that I'm in for a show, and not much talent.

PS. My favorite part was when Chris Brown was lowered into the stage on an elevator while flames burned behind him and all over the stage. It looked like he was descending in Hell. Appropriate for a guy who beats women.

Shakespeare's Authorship.

In honor of Anonymous being released, I'm reposting this blog entry. Originally written in April 2010.

In the LA Times today there was an editorial about the authorship of Shakespeare's plays. The guy who brought you the movies of 2012 and Godzilla is filming a movie right now titled, "Anonymous". It is about the assertion that Shakespeare did not write his plays and it was a guy named Edward de Vere.

If you are an actor in theatre and have studied Shakespeare, you have run across conspiracy theories about who wrote the Bard's plays since it wasn't the Bard himself. After looking at the different sides to all this, I have come to a conclusion.

An actor/playwright named William Shakespeare wrote his fucking plays. Not Edward de Vere, Christopher Marlowe or any of the dozen people asserted to have written the plays of Shakespeare.

There is the argument that Shakespeare didn't know the royal court well enough to write about kings and queens. That he wouldn't have had the education or understanding to write the plays about foreign countries he had never traveled to.

Shakespeare was the son of a wealthy man in Stratford upon Avon. He was educated better than most people at the time. In other words, he went to school. He learned Latin and from there the other romance languages of French and Italian are easily learned. He learned histories. When he left Stratford to go to London he got hooked up with the Chancellor's Men and later the King's Men. Acting troupes that were sponsored by, wait for it, the royals of the time. They had wealthy patrons supporting the arts and the actors mingled with the aristocracy of the times. Kind of like pretty and amusing pets.

So would Shakespeare have had the opportunity to learn of royalty? Absolutely. Would he have watched and listened. Absolutely. That's what actors do. We watch and listen and when we get the chance, use what we saw on stage. Sorry, you are not just people we talk to, you are research.

So how did he write 37 plays and maybe a few that were lost to us? Well, they weren't all original. He took plays from other sources, either stories he heard and re-worked them, or he took other plays and rewrote them only better. Romeo and Juliet is based on an Italian story from years before. The history plays he worked on from the history of England! Wow, who would have thunk?

Are all his plays brilliant? No. Some are bad. Timon of Athens? A play about a guy in a cave? Cymbeline? It's a rework of other plays, but not very well done. His plays are long, over written and are made workable for todays audience by editing them down, cutting out the references that we don't understand anymore. Cutting the third plot lines that don't further the story. In Hamlet, how often will you see Fortinbras or any of the impending war. Rarely.

The reason I think there is skeptcism that he wrote his plays is for a few reasons.

1. People have a hard time with genius. How can anyone be that good? There has got to be a trick. Someone else wrote it. Really? Does anyone question the authorship of Christopher Marlowe or Ben Johnson? Or how about Sophocles or Euripides? There's even less proof they wrote the plays attributed to them. Why do people believe they wrote those plays?

2. Conspiracy theories are sexy. It's pretty boring to think that a single actor with an imagination wrote Shakespeare's plays. It's more sexy to think that it was Edward de Vere who wrote the plays, and they were autobiographical because he had be abducted by pirates,just like Hamlet! Problem is, de Vere died in 1604. Shakespeare died in 1616. 12 years is a long time to be hanging onto scripts for plays just to be perpetuating a fraud that Shakespeare was writing plays and not de Vere.

3. There are character types that are in several plays; Hotspur, Laertes, Tybalt, MacDuff, Don John. Characters that are so similar in temperment, they seem to be written for the same actor. Which a resident playwright would have done. He did it with the clown parts too; Dogberry, Aguecheek, and others. A nobleman writing under an assumed name would not know actors well enough to tailor make parts for them.

So what do we end up with? The hack who brought us Godzilla in 1998 selling fiction that the uneducated and school kids will think is fact. Well, let me tell you, there isn't an island off of Costa Rica with living dinosaurs regardless of what Michael Crichton wrote.

Though I do think dinosaurs would be very cool...

Distracted Brains

The natural state of our brain is distractedness. The distracted nature of our brains was an evolutionary adaptation to keep us safe. By seeing things that move, it alerted us to either danger or food. We gained the ability to really concentrate for long periods when we started to read books. The internet has made us distracted again.

We gear our minds for the world we live in. If you have a linear book reading world view of a techno-peasant by choice or by need, the information feeds of the internet with it's bursts of micro-information are difficult to digest or comprehend.

But for those that are used to the internet, ages 5-20, they have a non-linear mind which is hungry for the quick knowledge easily accessed via google and the web. A book would take too long to satisfy the need for information. They want to get to the core of the matter and all the rest is extraneous. Deep reading requires calm and quiet. The reader becomes the book. This isn't satisfying to the compulsive nibblers of info-snacks. They have the ability to focus, although shallowly, on multiple forms of information or stimuli. Iphone, internet, video game. They can do all of them at the same time, but not deeply.

The brain is not a fixed thing. It's a work in progress. By doing an action or activity we are changing the neural map in our brains. This rerouting of pathways is reinforced by repeating the action or activity. We create our own habits. This can lead to the creation and perpetuation of bad habits.

The hundreds of years of evolution and progress in the human brain which lead to long term concentration and changes in the way we think has been compressed into a few decades. Your computer, your Iphone, your cable TV have taken part in forming your thoughts. Your brain is not hardwired to think a certain way but changes with the software, the stimuli. The internet is not just an exterior technology but transformative of interior consciousness.

In a way we are between two technological worlds. Technology; radio, television, couldn't replace the written word. The internet can and has/does. It's still a literate world in a handheld smart phone. The internet is our typewriter and printing press, our clock and map, our calculator, our phone, post office, library, radio and television. It even takes over the computer's need to have memory built into it. Your information goes to a "cloud."

I wonder how the brain will continue to evolve. I notice I have to remove myself from the many distractions which are in my everyday environment when I really want to read for long periods. This was not the way I concentrated 10 years ago. I could focus almost anywhere, shut out the distractions. That is harder now.

Ooooo, something shiny...

Update on Death

Okay. I was a little bit behind the information curve when I wrote that last post about my friend waiting to die. He died the day before I wrote it. Maybe 2. I don't have the exact information. Mike is in the middle of the first row between the two couples. This was the production of Much Ado About Nothing we did in 1995.

He was a funny guy. The friar in the play is the guy who keeps the whole story from going off the rails and having it become a tragedy. In the wedding scene when Mike did the ceremony, he snuck a little ad lib in there. Since people generally don't get all Shakespeare wrote (I believe Shakespeare wrote his plays. There is an earlier blog about why I believe so. Don't think the movie Anonymous is a documentary.), Mike would slip in the following joke.

Friar: To Honor. Get on her and stay on her.

This would sometimes get a laugh if the audience caught it. But Shakespeare certainly did not write it. Probably the only reason is because he didn't think of it.

He was a member of the Magic Castle and a magician. He also taught me the magic trick of doing a hand pass and making a coin disappear. When I did it for him after practicing, he said, "that was really good." Coming from him, that was a compliment.

He was a funny gracious guy. He will be missed.

Don't really know how to title this one.

A friend of mine is dying. He's an actor I did a number of plays with when I first got to town. A talented humble guy. When you looked at him he looked about 10 -15 years older than he really was. Diabetes had ravaged his body for most of his life. I always freaked me out a bit to see him checking blood sugar and injecting insulin in the dressing room when we were doing plays.

He went back to San Diego to regroup at a certain point. He got married to a really nice lady. She's still with him. He had a multiple organ transplant. Liver and pancreas. Maybe a kidney. I don't really remember. It was at least 2 organs (multiple organs get you higher on the donation list, shows more need.). When he was well enough they had a party so a number of us from the theatre went down and performed for him. It was so nice to see him, and he was so grateful.

I learned today that he'd been on dialysis for 2 1/2 years and also had a couple operations to alleviate some of the pain he was in. I don't have a lot of details. But he recently decided to stop the dialysis and get released. He's at home receiving hospice care and waiting...

This type of death is so sad to watch. The wasting away of a person from a robust funny man to someone wanting to die. And thru all the time I knew him he was incredibly upbeat and optimistic. Probably much more optimistic than I would have the courage to be.

I remember we were doing Much Ado About Nothing. He had the part of the friar who marries Hero and Claudio. There was one or two performances he was in a crazy debilitating amount of pain. I didn't know it because I was onstage much of the time. When he wasn't onstage he was in the dressing room laying unmoving on a couch. When he came out he did a super funny amazing performance. We all commented on it and learned later the circumstances behind it.

I don't know if he's up for visitors, but if he is I'll try to go down. I'll hate to see what has become of him (I'd prefer to remember him as he was. This is the reason I don't do viewings of anyone who passes away. I don't want the last image if them to be in a box.), but I think he'd like a visit.

An Unexpected Wedding

I went to a wedding this past weekend with less than 5 hours to be ready from the time I was invited to the time it started.

I went to see Real Steel. Great flick. Lots of fun. I cried. It's Rocky with robots! How can you not like that? But I digress. My phone vibrated. It was a text from my friend Jen. She was getting married that day. I was not invited because it was a small wedding with LOTS of family. People flew in from other countries! So while I was a bit disappointed it was OK. If things had worked out differently I would have been out of town for the first 2 weeks of October anyway. No worries.

So I went out of the movie theatre into the hallway. I could still see the movie, but I wouldn't disturb the audience. There was a cancellation at the wedding. I could come if I wanted. I replied OK.

I didn't have time to get a gift or a card. I'll do something later. So after the movie I went on with my day and then home to get dressed. The wedding was nice. It was a wedding and the groom was nervous. The minister told him to speak up. And to tell her, the vows, not him. Both big laugh lines. The bride, a trained actress, rocked the vows. And later rocked the Eminem the DJ played when we danced.

After the ceremony, OPEN BAR until 7 pm! YAY!. I drank red wine. I like wine. It works. So I wandered around and chatted with the people I knew. I was funny because that's what alcohol does. Takes the editor off-line. Dinner was announced and I went to the dining room.

I was seated, as someone else, at a table where I knew no one. I finagled my way to a table where I knew everyone. Thanks to the guy who was shooting video who agreed to move. He'd be working anyway... Thankfully the person I was the understudy for ordered the steak. If it had been the veggie plate I would have grumbled and eaten all the dark chocolate treats at the table.

We ate. There were speeches and then dancing. I was solo since I didn't know if there was a +1 with the missing man. Also how do you ask a date, "want to go to a wedding today at 4:30?" That would be crazy. Dancing was fun.

I left at 11 pm. All in all, It was a fine night and I got to see a good friend tie the knot. I wish them all the happiness in the world. And that is a lot of happiness.

Time Travel

Terra Nova is set to premiere soon. The premise makes the logical side of me wonder.

So a way has been found to send people and machines back in time 85 million years. Dinosaurs are still around and interacting with people. They were there first of course.

So... Wouldn't the discovery of modern human skulls that are 85 million years fuck up science just in general? Or rather, if the people sent back in time actually survived, wouldn't that fuck up the future they are from? Not that modern man who has only been around for about 10-15,000 years would be able to survive 85 million years to actually screw up the timeline they came from. And the meteor which wiped out the dinosaurs happened 65 million years ago. So you go back in time to save humanity, and then face extinction again. Ok, in 20 million years, but you see what I'm saying? The logic of all this is kind of crazy.

I need to see the show, but the premise is a bit nutty. I wonder how they deal with these and the other logic problems. This may be a moot point since it is a chance to have dinosaurs chase humans in the jungle. It's all just good fun. Unless you are eaten.

More Facebook Shenanigans

Facebook has done it again. They decided that their crazy success is not good enough and have fucked with the news feed. I don't really know why but I hated it from the instant it happened. I don't want some bullshit algorithm trying to figure out what I will find an important thing in my feed. It gave you the option to accept all posts, some posts, or none.

Fuck that. I can decide what I want to read by reading it, and not reading what I don't want to read. Pretty simple. It's like with television. If I don't like a show, I change the channel. It's my choice. I don't want them choosing anything for me.

There is a way to fix the feed. You go to account settings, language, and change it to English(UK) and the feed reverts to normal. I posted on my wall and told the people how to do it. And I went on a website and let the knowledge loose. So hopefully there are enough people that protest to make FB go back.

But I really don't have much hope. Eventually they will change it worldwide and fuck up their business model. It's really sad that they have a hard time with their own mega success.

Maybe it's time to jump over to Google+ and see what it is like. Before that gets fucked up too.

WELL, that fix has now been thwarted by facebook.

There is a work around. I created a list for all and look at that feed rather than the main page.

In order to make your newsfeed look like it did & to see EVERYONE a friend of mine did this:
On your home page, to the left there is a section called lists. If you click on it it will bring up all your lists and let you create a new one. Click on create a new one call it "ALL" and add all your friends...Then on your home page click on all and the entire news feed comes up for them...If you don't want to see from everyone leave off who you don't want on that list... I had to select everyone individually the first time, but it's quick clicking.

Presidential Hair

With the dawn of a new Presidential primary, it made me think about how the candidates look.

They all have hair. Really great hair. Then I thought a bit more.

McCain. Not great hair. How did he win the primary? It was his turn.

But generally politicians running for President have pretty good hair. The last bald President was Eisenhower. Since then everyone had hair who was elected President. Ford doesn't count. He got the job as a bump up from Speaker of the House after Watergate.

So is there a thing that makes people not vote for someone who is bald? Looks are huge thing in Hollywood. Look how many men have hairpieces and get nipped or tucked. So I guess the vanity to look perfect in Hollywood, appear perfect is also in politics. You might be able to become a member of congress without great hair, but President? Never.

So what is it about hair that makes a good President? Uh, wait. I should think it's the thoughts underneath the great hair that are more important. Look at some of the Republican field. Great hair, crazy fucking ideas. Especially Bush version 2.crazy.

I wonder if a candidate who shaved their head as a choice, could they be elected President? Lots of people shave their heads.

Is a bald head a sign that the man couldn't control his body, therefore how could he control a nation. Maybe control is the wrong word. Guide. He couldn't guide his body into not sloughing off it's hair, how could he guide a government?

Now Eisenhower had a great lead in with the whole World War II thing. He kicked ass in the war. Decisive general can lead a country. Oh, by the way, bald. Not a big deal.

W. Good hair. Led the country into a war then got distracted trying to get daddy to love him by invading Iraq. Idiot. Crap thoughts under that hair.

I am willing to bet we will never have another bald President because of TV and the perception of people about bald heads.

Yup. We are shallow. And easily distracted.

Oooooo. Something shiny...

Comic Con 2011 -Day 3 & 4

Saturday morning was my panel. I think this was the 4-5th year I've been doing it. It's run by my friend Sean Rourke. A very bright guy, director and writer, who has done some cool things for little or no budget. If you notice the listing above, our names are alphabetical. So I'm at the end; "and Brad Upton." It's like when Robert DeNiro does something in a movie, you get all the credits then, "and Robert DeNiro."

Doing the panel is fun. It is a kick to get onstage as me (Something that doesn't normally happen.) and talk to people. The panel is not all me. There were 7 of us and Sean moderating. He would ask questions to us and we would give answers as they related to our experiences. The panel was shortened to an hour. The convention sets teh limits. But this also helped us be more concise and clear with our answers.

After the panel we talked with people one on one out in the lobby. They had questions and we answered them. And as I walked around the convention, a few people who were at the panel said hello. I chatted with one guy for about 15 minutes because he had questions and I answered as best I could. It was fun being a teacher.

Later in the day I caught up with my friend Zack and a guy named Fon Davis. Fon had a project called MORAV and Zack wrote the graphic novel. I'm a character in the book. When he starts shooting it as a web series, I'll play the character. It's funny how all media crosses lines and genres that it didn't before. A movie might be a comic, a comic might be a tv show. A web series might show up somewhere else. The lines are blurred.

We all went to dinner and then got drinks. I got back to my room late and went to bed.

DAY 4

I didn't really hang out at the convention very long. I was in a bad mood because of the loss of costumes (I didn't know they were next to the mailbox in NoHo.) and I didn't feel like crowds. I wanted to go home. Beat the traffic, and just go home. I said Good-bye to Zack and got on the road by 1:30.

I knew traffic would be bad and where so I avoided it completely by taking a different freeway back to LA. It added 30-40 miles, but saved me time sitting in traffic.

When I got home I found the bag with the costumes and then put up a "LOST" sign on the mailbox. I hoped someone would come by with his head, but it's been almost a week, and no one has stepped forward. I'll put up a sign saying "$50 reward!" I can't afford more than that.

So that was Comic Con. Fun, but losses. I hope I'm back again next year.

Comic Con 2011 -Day 2

On Friday I made arrangements to hang out with my friend Bill. I got him into the convention as my guest. Since I am on a panel I get in and so does a guest. The picture above is us I found on a website. It's amazing who takes pictures of us and posts them. We walked around the Torchwood line with the misguided thought of getting into the panel, but since people lined up the night before, there was no chance. But the people in line stopped us to take our pictures constantly. Which is kinda fun.

Bill and I hung out until 4 pm when he left. The coat he wears as Jack is wool. In San Diego, wool is a bad thing. So he had a starbucks cup that he kept filling with ice and water all day. There is a finite amount of time he can wear the costume, and then he has to call it a day.

Later Friday I looked around for my other costumes in the hotel room. Oddly they weren't there. So I went to the car. Also not there. Where did I have Carnage and Scarlet Spider? I recalled carrying it out of the apartment. I think I recalled carrying it thru the hotel. Did I leave it in the elevator after pushing the button? I had 2 full loads of stuff to carry into the hotel. I don't recall what happened. Did I leave them at home?

Yes. Yes I did.

Not in my apartment. I left them on the driveway behind my car and drove off distractedly. DOH! This I learned when I pulled into the drive for my apartment when I returned from Comic Con on Sunday. The mask for Carnage was gone. Stolen. Nothing else was taken. All rifled thru, but not stolen. My neighbor moved it from the driveway to the mailbox, but didn't think that someone in the building loading a car might have accidentally left it. She's a timid mouse and afraid of her own shadow. Doesn't think things thru.

But it is my fault for leaving them. If I had realized earlier I was missing the costumes I could have called someone to go to my place. But stupidly I didn't. I'll have to remake the mask. Make it better...

So I went to bed kind of sad and distracted. I really wanted to walk around in costume the rest of the weekend.

Comic Con 2011 -Day 1

This year for Comic Con I woke up ridiculously early so I thought I'd leave for San Diego well before the time I usually do. Normally I leave after 9 am, when the morning traffic has eased up to just crazy instead of slowly unbearable.

In a whirlwind of action I packed the car. This later proved to be a mistake as things were left behind. I left the apartment driveway and was on the road, my route already planned in my head. With the AM radio giving me traffic updates I sped toward San Diego. I made good time and I knew the traffic would bog down when I got to Del Mar. It was the races and the fair, so traffic on both sides of the I-5 were slowing down at that point.

I took a side freeway and went to the I-15. This took me thru Balboa Park on the 163. I spent some glorious summers at the Old Globe doing Shakespeare. It was nice to see the place that taught me so much. I didn't stop though. I was on a mission. The trick about Comic Con is parking. There are some free spaces around if you know where to look and get there early enough. After driving around for 30 minutes I discovered I was not early enough. I had a car full of stuff, costumes and whatnot, (More stuff than I take when I travel internationally.) so I went to the hotel I would be staying at and parked in the self park. I decided I would find a spot on the street later that night because $26 to park a day (that's the discounted rate because I was staying at the hotel.)

I went got the badge for the con and found the friend I would be bunking with. With his key I went back to the hotel. It took 2 trips to unload the car. I thought I had everything. In my head I had laid hands on all the gear. This was not the fact.

I called my friend Zack and met up with him. He's a comic book writer among other things. One of his graphic novels will be made into a movie with Hilary Swank. We walked around the floor and looked at people and stuff. Toys, books, comics, the whole multi-media creation that has become Comic Con. We hung out until they kicked us out of the dealers hall. Since it was 7 pm we went for food at the Spaghetti Company. There was a wait so we hung out at the bar and I flirted with an awesome waitress. When we got to the table we ordered food and got into long discussions about the entertainment business, comics, and religion.

After dinner they went back to their hotel and I went to move my car. I parked where I normally do and then walked back to the Hyatt. It was around 11 pm. I turned in and tried to sleep.

Pretty boring blog, hunh? Well how about some observations?

Fandom: Females at Comic-Con in the past have not been very good looking. This seems to have changed in the last few years. There are the hot girls in skin tight spandex, of course. They are always fun to see. There are the heavier fans who should not wear spandex. There should be a weight limit. That may seem mean, but Wonder Woman does not weigh 300 pounds. You might be having fun in the costumes, but think about what they look like and what you look like. Should be somewhat similar. This goes for men or women. See the Spider-man above.

Media: Comic books are a very small part of this event. It has been taken over by the movie, tv, and video game industries. It's smart marketing. Go where your consumers are. This is the consumer base for all their products.

Crowds: The attendance has been capped. It is around 125,000. This isa bout all the fire marshall could allow. If there were an emergency, the stampede would be astounding.

Ok. That's it for day one.I will try to be more entertaining on the other days.

A Party

I was invited to my friend's birthday party this weekend. I have known the hostess/birthday girl for years. Almost a decade. And I've known her husband for maybe 5 years.

But that was it. Out of maybe 30 people there, I knew 2.

For me this was kind of scary. Think about it. When you go hang out with friends there is a history, common experiences, and they know you and your story, so you don't have to tell people who you are. So to be in a room of people I don't know at all is weird and off putting to me. I'm a bit shy with new people. I tend to wait to see who they are before I show them myself. It's a defense thing... So it took me a while to figure out how to have a conversation that told them about me and make it work for people who didn't know me at all.

I got more comfortable and I loosened up. It was just strange to come in as an unknown. Everyone was very nice and the actors were actory. If you haven't hung out with actors, you won't understand what I mean. But while I was standing talking with some people, one of them mentioned Wilson Phillips and their old song Hold On. Then 3 of them proceeded to sing it. The whole song. Then they sang Eternal Flame by the Bangles. It's not unusual for performers to perform at parties.

All in all it was fun. I need more things that take me out of my comfort zone.

Going Missionary

I don't mean the sexual position, but proselytizing. While I was housesitting in Culver City two teenage girls from some bible study school or program came to the door.

The girls asked if I had ever heard of God, the Mother, or the Bible. I said I was good. No thanks. And they went away. But then I thought about it. God, the Mother, and the Bible? It usually would be God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Maybe that's too Catholic.

At my apartment I don't get missionaries. Hell, I don't get trick or treaters on Halloween. They go across Lankershim to Toluca Lake. More expensive homes there and probably better candy. But I digress.

I have read a lot of the Bible. I have read the book of Mormon. (Total made up bullshit if you ask me. Much of it plagiarized by Smith from the Bible.) I have read some of the Koran. I think the creation myth in the Bible was plagiarized from Enuma Elish; the Babylonian/Sumerian creation myth and adapted. (Look it up. What am I thinking? Google it. No one looks things up anymore.) I have a curious mind when it comes to belief.

After they left I realized I could have asked them a bunch of questions that they probably didn't have answers for. I might have done that with some older people, but this might have been shooting drunk fish in a small barrel. These kids were ready to spread their view of the universe, but I don't think they were ready to meet anyone else's view.

When it comes to religion, I only have questions. And I don't buy into the answers that people give me...

Dick Van Dyke

Since I was a little kid I have been a fan of Dick Van Dyke. I remember watching the Dick Van Dyke Show on KPHO in Phoenix. It was on weekdays at 12 noon. It was funny. I liked the characters and it was really, really well written. All these things I knew nothing about. It was funny and it made me feel good to watch the show. It was a reliable old friend to hang out with in the middle of the hot summer days.

I recently bought all 5 seasons of the DVD show on DVD. So as the summer TV is all repeats I will pop a disc in and watch 4-6 shows. I never really knew what order they were in because the show was not shown in order when I was a kid. The show still makes me laugh out loud. It has a timeless quality to it. Though it was shot in the early 1960's there are no obvious references that set it in the 60's. They never mention the music, or television or movies of the time. It was planned by Carl Reiner to be that way. You could go for a cheap laugh with a Beatles reference, but then it places the show in a specific time in the culture. The situational humor is all stuff that is relatable to a family right now. It involves work, home life, & kids. All the things that humans do and find difficult and get insecure about. It is the human condition. And after a 5 year run they ended the show on top. There was no decline as ideas and performers got stale. It wasn't about wringing every last cent out of a show, it was about producing a great, funny show.

I was watching Seinfeld recently. It seems very dated with some of the humor. It was very 90's specific. I never noticed it but it seems the best shows avoid dating themselves with time sensitive material. A Beiber joke now might be funny and timely, but what happens when Beiber becomes Leif Garrett?

I recently bought and read DVD's autobiography. There were large portions about the DVD show. It was interesting to read about the show I was currently going thru. Certain episodes were mentioned and I had seen them only days before so they were still fresh in my mind. He also talks about his movie career and other television shows he did.

He also talked about being an alcoholic. Even now most people didn't know he was an alcoholic. He wasn't a bad drunk like you get with some hollywood types today. He was an at home drunk. He also smoked like a chimney, which is funny since one of his most famous roles is as a chimney sweep in Mary Poppins.

What I did learn was he was optimistic about things and kind of fell into this great life of performing without too much planning. Some early opportunities he chose because he had a family and needed the money to feed and shelter them. He almost retired from performing half a dozen times, but kept coming back to it because it was fun. Which is the best reason to be a performer.

Just watching his performances you can see he is having a blast.

How to Become a Politician, Maybe Even President

Don't do anything stupid that can be brought up later.

This of course, means that someone would have to decide at the age of 5 that they want to become President of the United States or a senator. The next step is to never do anything on line, on facebook, twitter, or whatever next generation of social media turns out to be. Don't have your picture taken with a beer. Don't take a picture of your private parts and send them to anyone. Don't send a sexy message via text.

I may be going to extremes here, but in light of the latest congressional sex scandal, (one that actually included no sex.) it just goes to show that sometimes intelligent people do really stupid things. All these electronic gadgets and footprints can come back to haunt a person.

I think the voter expectation that a candidate for anything be pure and chaste is unrealistic. This is what we would like. It's not what we get. Politicians are human. And like humans, you can start out with the best intentions, but the road to Hell is paved with Lobbyists. I don't think there isn't a congressman who hasn't dealt with some lobbyist at some time.

As far as sex scandals go, when it happens in an average person's life that sucks. You hurt your spouse, the kids, and may get a divorce. But when you are a politician and you get caught with a wide stance or banging prostitutes, it becomes a big deal. You get dragged thru the mud by the press. The left, the right, and the CNN's of the world love a scandal. But so do we all. "Look at him! He got caught." It makes us feel superior.

I find lobbyists buying our government for big corporations much more offensive than any sex scandal that is something consensual among adults. Sex is funny. It makes humans do stupid things. It's dangerous and sexy and even more so when you think you are getting away with something. This is a digital sex scandal. Bill Clinton got a blow job. Anthony Weiner rubbed one out while talking dirty to a girl or texting/typing with one hand. Should he be kicked out of office? I don't know. Can he do his job for the people of New York or is he going to be dealing with this scandal that his crazy behavior created?

He had to know it was wrong. But it was exciting and that clouded his thoughts... The chances of it coming to light were almost 100% since no secret can be kept in today's world. So now he pays the price for being stupid and human.

The small solace I get from all this, like most sex scandals involving the democratic party, it involved women. Republicans look so bad when all their sex scandals involve men and boys since they run on conservative anti gay platforms.

Sarah Palin is still an Idiot

Sarah Palin was in the home town of Paul Revere yesterday, at his house, not running for president. She was visiting historical sites on a bus trip while not running for president. So I guess it could be called a family vacation... with the press corps following. Going around New England in a tricked out bus wrapped in the Constitution and your PAC website URL is a stupid way to travel if you want to go on a family vacation. But Sarah Palin doesn't know how to be unnoticed.

A member of the press asked her about Paul Revere since she was in his house, and what was his significance. I swear I transcribed this word for word. I rewound the DVR about a dozen times to get it right. Here is her answer about Paul Revere and his famous ride...

"He who warned the British that they weren't going to be taking away our arms. By ringing bells and, um, by making sure as he's riding his horse thru town to send those warning shots and bells that, uh, we were gonna be secure and we were gonna be free. And we were gonna be armed."

Word for word. That was her nonsensical answer because she doesn't know anything about history or Paul Revere. She will probably say that it was a "gotcha" question like, "What do you read."

Now, even I remember a few snippets of "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It was something we heard in grade school. "Listen my children and you will hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere." And the only other line that stuck with me was, "One if by land and two if by sea." (Lanterns in the bell tower.) That was all I remembered but it's still enough to know that he was warning the militia that the British were coming and from what direction.

It had nothing to do with telling the British to keep their hands of our guns! The NRA had not been invented yet and to come up with that from Paul Revere, you got to be an idiot. Why the press is following her like puppies is ridiculous, but they are waiting for her to say something crazy or inflammatory or super extreme, and she rarely disappoints. I really wished the media would stop giving her a microphone and camera to talk into. She's an idiot but a master at keeping her name in the press.

She will never be president. She might be a fun train wreck to watch, but you wouldn't want her in the White House. Her skin is far too thin and she would send a nuclear strike to any country that affronted her. And, Oh yeah, she's an idiot.

(This blog is covered by Freedom of Speech, baby. Look it up in the Constitution. And as far as calling someone an idiot, I'm at the back of a long line in this case.)

Debt Ceiling

Today the US House of Representatives voted not to raise the debt ceiling for the country. This bill had no riders or adjustments requiring that such and such happen. It was clean. And it got voted down by all the Republicans and a good number of Democrats.

This vote meant nothing, really. It was political in nature so Republicans can campaign on the raising of the debt ceiling in 2012. Fine. It's gotcha politics and Democrats did it with Paul Ryan's medicare killing budget by making the Republicans vote for it.

The thing that I find irksome is the fact that the debt ceiling has to be raised and everyone knows it but they are willing to play games with the economy. Not just the US economy, but the world economy. Republicans want spending cuts or they won't vote for anything, and it can't raise taxes. Are they fucking kidding me? Who taught them math?

OK. Here's a small demonstration of economics as I understand them.

Say hypothetically my bills are $3000 a month to live. Rent, food, car, everything. I make $2000 a month. Every month I am $1000 short of my obligations. With Republican thinking I need to cut spending. Ok. So I am able to cut spending $500 a month, but that is it. More than that and I don't eat. That makes me now $500 short every month. I could live with being in the hole $500 a month, but that is a bad thing. Wouldn't the smart thing to do be to raise revenue? Get a second job to cover the $500 a month I need to live? Yup.

Second Republican scenario, same numbers. $3000 a month expenses, $2000 a month income. Working the same cost cutting, we get down to $2500 a month expenses. But in the cost cutting, you also get less revenue because you gave tax breaks to the wealthiest 1%. So less revenue. It would be like cutting spending to $2500, and cutting revenue (income) to $1750.

Who taught the Republicans math? You may need to cut spending, but you also need to generate income. i.e. TAXES. It's a simple fact. If you think ideology will save you, you are a fool. Numbers don't care about ideology. And the Republicans were fools for signing a pledge to never raise taxes or eliminate loopholes that would be considered a raising of taxes. Sometimes you need to raise taxes. To fight back at the one man who had them sign such a silly pledge they should all rise up as a group and do what is right for the economy, the country and the people who hired them. The voters. Funny thing, though. When Bush was in the White House, the Republicans raised the debt ceiling 19 times. 19.

Too bad voters will fight against what is good for them because they believe one side of the equation without ever looking at the other side. But it's human nature to talk and listen to the side of the argument you like...

Last Man Camping

One last thought on Harold Camping.

He said that Saturday the 21st was a "spiritual rapture." Now, he had to say something, however this makes no sense. The Rapture is where people are bodily taken to heaven. So a spiritual rapture is where, what, the soul is taken to heaven? Their bodies are still here walking and talking and eating.

So Camping and his followers have no souls? Does that mean they are zombies? Or vampires? Or some kind of undead? Undead Christians? Hmmmm...

I need just a bit more clarification...

Triple Down, Mr Camping

Ok. So Harold Camping is a bit off. He's pushed the Rapture until October 21, 2011.

Got that? It's just delayed a little bit. He's not vamping because he was WRONG.

Math is just so tricky. Especially biblical math. I mean, there's all those numbers and stuff. And then there's the Bible Code which you make numbers out of the words in the bible. And then there's just plain bullshit. That's what guys like this come up with. He's got a little Doomsday cult going on. He's not deluded in the same way as Jim Jones, or the Hale Bopp comet folks who poisoned themselves. But they are just as deluded as those people.

I would like to hear an interview with one of his followers now that he has tripled down on this bet. This end of the world bet. Are they still along for the ride? And if so, WHY?

It's 5 months away, so now we will have to live thru the same thing again. This Harold Camping is 89 years old. I don't want him to die before October 21st. That would be cheating. I'm sorry, but this fucker needs to be proven wrong again so no one will ever listen to his bullshit prognostications. He needs to see that he is wrong. Again. And then I'd like an apology to the world for this foolishness.

Is that too much to ask for?

Camping Gone

Harold Camping predicted the end of the world. He was sincere in his belief and in his calculations.

And he was wrong.

But so have the others who have been predicting the end of the world for over 1900 years. This must be a devastating blow to him. But it's more of a blow to the people who believed what he preached and planned to get rid of all their worldly goods by May 21st. They are now homeless and without jobs I imagine.

Supposedly 1/3 of them will lose faith in the person who preached it. 1/3 will have stronger faith in the doomsday prediction, but not know when it will happen. And 1/3 will be in the middle. If it was me, I'd bang on that guy's door and want reimbursement for the money I had gotten rid of following the charlatan. And then I'd never buy into a load of shit like that again.

Predicting the end of the world is a good business for charlatans. But if you are selling that load of crap to your flock, you never pick a date. Because that would be the end of the gravy train. This is the reason I think he believed his own prophecy. If he was just in it to make money, he would never pick a date. Everyone else who has picked a date in the past has been wrong.

In a history class in college I learned that people generally stopped building large things around 950 AD because the church said that Christ was coming back after 1000 years. 900 had already passed, so why work on a large multi year project? So big things stopped. Around 1050 they started building things again because, well, Christ was late, and you need to build stuff.

With interest I watched the news yesterday to see if there was a wave of earthquakes circling the globe. Nope. There was a quake in New Zealand. Probably a aftershock of the one that hit Christchurch a couple months back. And a small one near San Francisco. But if you look, there are small quakes all over the globe every day. Oh, a volcano in Iceland erupted. But no end of the world. How disappointing must that be? If you put all your stock in something like that and then it doesn't happen?

Luckily, I don't think the world will end that way. It will be in maybe a few billion years when the sun is old and expands to gobble up the solar system. Or an asteroid hits like the event that killed the dinosaurs. It ain't gonna be Christ coming back.

But if it is him, try to look busy.

Dub

Last week I was working a job in Las Vegas where the former 43rd President spoke. It was a hedge fund conference. So the place was jam packed with republicans. As a democrat, I watched the crowd as they went nuts for this president that jacked the economy, started an unnecessary war, and thought torture was a good thing.

I must admit there was electricity in the air. But that might have been attributed to the secret service and the bomb sniffing dogs and all the anticipation. The funny thing to me was there was a billionaire I'd never heard of who had much more secret service protection than the former president. But really, after they are out of office, they really don't raise the ire and hate like a sitting president does. They are a footnote in history. All their mistakes are done, for better or worse.

I saw him walk in. He was a good old boy. Joking and the life of the party. I watched him speak on a closed circuit tv. He spun history and current events the way he saw it. And in a roomful of republicans who are paying me to do a job, I just kept my mouth shut. BTW, fraking does pollute the water table. Ask the woman who can light her tap water on fire.

But hearing him speak in a relaxed setting did nothing to change my opinion of him or the job he did in office. He seemed just as unengaged and incurious as he did while running the country. His attempts at humor fell flat for me, but I'm not one of his ilk.

So I wish him well. I was not cleared to shake his hand and have my picture taken with him. I was not given the option. And I wouldn't have done it other than to put it on FB and make a snarky comment. The world doesn't need more snark from me. There is enough.

Ballsy

A friend of mine is contemplating a move.

A pretty ballsy move.

To Spain. Or New Zealand, Or Australia, Or South Africa. Somewhere other than America.

Part of it is for a change. Part of it is for economic reasons and the high cost of college for their child in the USA.

I do understand the urge. I have thought of never coming back from some of my travels. The world is a big place and it begs to be explored. In Australia when I was on a dive boat on the Great Barrier Reef, I thought to myself; 1. This might be a very expensive hobby, 2. Wouldn’t it be fun to do this forever? 3. I love the dive mistress.

Obviously I didn’t run away and join a dive boat or marry an Australian girl, but I thought about it. For something that is so cool and everyday being a different adventure, I could give up the acting bug.

People (Americans especially) get trapped in life and stuck in a job and don’t really see the possibilities that are out there. The "American Dream" is to work for one company for 40 years, have 2 weeks of vacation every year, retire, and then go fishing until you die. The world doesn't work like that any longer. You might have multiple careers or many jobs at the same time.

Europeans seem to have a different view of things. They work to live. Not live to work. They have 4-6 weeks of vacation a year. After college they might take months or a year off to travel before figuring out work and jobs. When I travel I meet people from all over the world. Some of the ones who impressed me are the ones who travel for months to years at a time. They are out of school and seeing the world. I met a German guy who had been out there for over a year traveling, and working odd jobs. When he had money to go to the next place, he did. Now my American brain had an objective to the traveling I did. I had places to go and things to see. So I was out for 3 weeks but with a plan. To go and not know what was next is something that never really crossed my mind. My travel plan is structured improvisation.

But if you go to a new country and get a job doing whatever, aren’t you just living a life in another place? Got to live somewhere and somehow, though. I met someone years ago who wasn’t happy. She had a good job in Phoenix, but her dream was Seattle. She was going to go to Seattle. And that would make her happy. I didn't ask what about living in Seattle would make her happy. She would be the same person in a new place. It was the thought, the dream of Seattle that gave her hope. I guess humans need hope. Or religion or something to make the chaos and uncertainty of life make sense.

Sometimes you need to go somewhere to find what is in yourself. And you always got to do what is best for the family.

Ego Partis Proinde Ego Sum

I share therefore I am.

Which is a paraphrase of Rene Descartes and "Cognito Ergo Sum."

At the Global Economic Conference this year at the Beverly Hilton I heard a panel about technology, multi-tasking, and how the internet is making people stupid. The panelists were researchers dealing with various studies. Most involving kids anywhere from 8 to college age.

They talked about how people are hyper-connected to each other thru many devices and various social and business networks. This tendency to over communicate is having an effect on kids today. Kids are constantly communicating but they are not connecting. I've seen kids texting each other as they sit a a room together. But for all the communication, they don't know how to read a person's face as they deal with them one on one. They lack the empathy training which you learn as you grow up talking to people and seeing how they react to what you are saying. By bypassing this personal connection kids are missing the visible cues that are part of human relationships.

One researcher studied college kids in a dorm. They were asked about the interactions they had with a person on their same floor. He asked them if they have a question for someone down the hall why they texted instead of getting up and going down the hall and knocking on the door. There were a number of reasons they preferred texting.

1. They don't have to engage in any social pleasantries. "Hi. How's it going? Can I ask you a question?" They can get straight to the question.

2. What if they are not in their room? They just spent all that energy to get up and go down the hall. What if they are not in? They feel rejection if no one answers the door.

3. What if they say "No"? It's a rejection again, but to their face and that would make them feel bad.

Kids also equate technology as part of an emotional event. They feel an emotion and they are driven to share it via text or tweet or FB post. They don't necessarily know how to deal with an emotion they are feeling without sharing it. The feeling of an emotion is now tied into relaying the thought. They have a thought or feeling and have a need to share it to get validation for thinking or feeling it. So without the sharing, does the emotion really happen for them? Does the urge to share go part and parcel with the feeling?

By being so connected the kids are never truly alone. Friends are a keystroke away. If you don't teach kids how to be alone, they only know how to be lonely.

Now I got to go share this blog on some social media...

Osama Bin Ladin

IS DEAD!

FUCK YEAH!

I want to go watch Team America: World Police just for the America, Fuck Yeah! song now.

Politics Today

In 18 months or so there is going to be a presidential election. The President will run again. The Republicans are busy flailing about without any clear nominee. Which makes a debate in May a bit problematic if only 3 people have declared a run.

The person getting huge amounts of press coverage is a real estate mogul with strange hair. But why is he getting press? He is saying all sorts of batshit crazy things because it gets him coverage. It sucks all the oxygen out of the air so no one is talking about anything of substance. The part I find funniest about this candidate is that he has reversed himself from the things he said just 10 years ago. Things about abortion, marriage, even the current President he praised just a year ago.

He is saying he is better at business than everyone else. Well, he did file for bankruptcy 3 times. But it was a business tactic to make it so he didn't have to pay the debts he owed. So he came out of bankruptcy without paying his bills. Brilliant.

He says he would get together with China, sit across the table from them and tell them, "Listen, you've had your fun..." Are you fucking kidding me? Does he have a few Chinese in mind or all 1.3 billion of them? (that would be a big room.) He thinks that tactic will work? They are going to stop manipulating their currency because you talked to them like some tough guy from New Jersey?

He was asked about the right to privacy in the Constitution by a reporter. He said it's in the Constitution. But he didn't know that right is what legalizing abortion was based upon. The Palin moments are not great for an election, but they do create great television.

Running for President has a lot of ego and bravado that goes with it. But if anyone is going to do it, be informed. If you've had 3 wives, don't try to hold yourself up as some moral compass. The last time he was in a church was probably been when he was buying a property to tear it down to build a casino.

Thumbs, Brains , and the Food Chain

Because of the development of thumbs, and the evolution of our brains, we sit atop the food chain. Though this is situational.

First, we have thumbs, but so do most ape species. But we have the larger brain to combine with thumbs and create things like tools, and Iphones. So one of the first things we created that put us at the top of the food chain was weapons. We made spears and arrows and axes with stone heads. Primitive man would hunt or trick lower animals for sustenance. This increased protein intake helped us to evolve even more. But the food chain is a tricky thing which is why it is situational.

Say, for example, a lone hunter were caught in the wild by a sabertooth cat. The cat has the advantage of speed and big pointy teeth. The hunter had few chances. So in this situation the hunter is lower on the food chain.

In modern times the advent of the gun makes the "death curve" very unfair. Hunters with guns have a much better chance to take out any critter out there, no matter how dangerous. (Unless it's something so big that shooting it would just piss it off. i.e. rhinos, hippos, elephants.) A leopard would have a hard time getting the drop on a dude with a gun. But put a man out in the wilderness without a gun, the leopard wins. Unless he happens to run into Tarzan. Tarzan can pretty much kick any animal's ass thus far.

In the ocean it's a bit of a different story. The effectiveness of a gun is greatly reduced. But there's fewer things out there that really are looking for people as a meal. Sharks mainly. But not all sharks look for people to eat. Most shark attacks are mistaken identity, a shark thinking the silhoutte above them is a slow moving seal. So many shark attacks are the shark taking a nibble to see if it is edible and spitting the person out. But that kind of sucks because they do so much damage that many people don't live... So in the ocean, humans are not on the top of the food chain.

You see, it depends on the circumstance. In my corner grocery store I am King of the food chain, and I don't even require a weapon of any kind. All I need is money. Which I can pull out of my wallet, held between a forefinger and my thumb.

Noodling Big Numbers

I was reading a science fiction book the other day. One of the characters mentioned they were going 97 times the speed of light. Something made me get a pen and paper and do some math. I got the pen and paper because a calculator only goes up to 8 digits and this was going to be a lot more than eight digits.

The speed of light is approximately 186,282 miles a second. It takes the light from the sun 8.3 minutes to get to the Earth, just to give you a frame of reference for how long things take to travel at such a speed. The average distance of the Earth to the sun is 93,000,000 miles.

Because of the distance of things in the universe, the measurements are in light years. The amount of distance it takes for light to travel in a year's time. How much distance does light travel in a year? 5,878,630,000,000 miles. That's 5 trillion 878 million 630 million miles in a year. The Milky Way galaxy (our galaxy) is 100,000 light years across. So the distance across is 5,878,630,000,000,000,000 miles. I don't know, what is 4 digits beyond trillion?

The closest start is Proxima Centauri at 4.24 light years from Earth. Alpha Centauri is 4.37 light years from Earth. So Proxima is 24,925,391,000,000 miles from Earth. Almost 25 trillion miles from Earth! Alpha Centauri is 25,689,613,000,000 miles from Earth. 25.7 trillion.

So where am I going with this? The spaceship in the book was traveling 18,042,000 miles a second. So, if I got the math right, and I don't know if I did, it gets a bit crazy with numbers that big, it would take 16.5 days to get to Alpha Centauri.

That's amazing, but no planets that have ever been detected there, so really there's no point in going...

I hope someday there is a technology invented to make space travel possible. It would be really cool. In the meantime we have books and movies with spaceships with warp drive and hyper drive and atomic piles. Something has to change physics otherwise we are going to be Earth bound because of Einstein's Theory of Relativity. E=mc... Fuck you! I want a space ship!

Stupid Albert... (pout, pout, pout...)

SkyMall

When I was flying last week I looked at the SkyMall magazine in the seat pocket in front of me. I've looked at it when I fly, but never really noticed a few things.

There seem to be a lot of items that can be used to spy on people without them knowing. Cameras, alarm clocks with cameras or video, things that are activated by movements. GPS systems you can place to see where someone is going. A device to retrieve deleted text messages from a cell phone. Something to change your voice on a cell phone. (Kidnapping anyone?) This made me wonder who might buy such things? People that travel constantly who think their spouses are cheating on them. Now that is just kind of sad, and it plays upon a person's insecurity. But isn't that most of marketing?

There were a lot of items that are for the home. A shelving unit to put all your shoes on? Fucking brilliant. Things to organize a closet? Awesome. A claw footed bathtub? Got to have one of those. Funky chrome chairs? Need that now! Watch storage case? Ooohhh! But are any of them really needed? Not really. The prices are high and you could probably find something similar closer and cheaper.

There were a lot of massagers. Back, feet, head. Shoes with inserts, shoes with arches. Wraps for knees, ankles, shoulders with heat or cold. Foot alignment socks. Hand made Irish Shillelagh. A stick? Really? Hmm...

The pet products are amazing. An orthopedic couch for a dog to sleep on that looks like a normal couch, just smaller. Feeders, doors, toys. It's better than Christmas!

The clothes and jewelry and watches are incredible. The watches can tell you what time it is on the moon. Ok, maybe not. But India? Sure. The clothes are good for travel from the beaches to the arctic. Clothes that can hide money and credit cards in case you are robbed while traveling.

Anything you might want you will find. And some of them, while in the rarified air of an aluminum tube, seem like a brilliant idea! How could you have lived without these things? And the prices? Fucking expensive. But while flying and shopping, what the fuck...

But I thought about these things a bit. If they really were so great and made the world so much better, why don't they sell it at Target? Or Walmart? It's all about presentation. It's kinda cool buying things while whizzing around the world, but is it really needed?

Nope.

But, but , look...

Airport Bits and Pieces

I just travelled across the country for a wedding. The experience was interesting as usual. I like to travel and it's generally an adventure of some sort.

Security. I had to get scanned each time I went thru security by the big "see you naked" machine. I thought once was just random, but twice? Hmmm... Then I thought about what I was wearing. I had a loose t-shirt on with a denim shirt over it the first time thru and a dress shirt over a t-shirt the second time thru. So why me twice? Was it random? Did someone think I looked hot and wanted to see me naked? OR was my clothing so baggy that they couldn't tell if I had an explosive belt on underneath? I think it's the latter. I would need to travel again to test this hypothesis. To test it I'd wear a tight shirt thru security and see if I was selected to be scanned.

As I was in the machine I thought, "I wonder how my dick looks in the tight briefs?" I didn't think they'd let me adjust to be more flattering of an image.

Babies. The flight back had a baby in the aisle across from me. We were in the very back row, both on the aisle, and people had no idea that the baby was there because it was being quiet. It was almost a 5 hour flight on the way back, and half way thru some people who knew each other came to the back to hang out and chat. Excuse me, but there's a BABY that is asleep on the plane right next to where you noisy fuckers are yapping. I asked them to hold it down, there's a baby sleeping. They treated me like I asked them to do something distasteful.

A. If you are not using the toilet you are not supposed to make laps around the plane and shoot the shit. You just saw the people in the airport and for the 3 day volleyball tourney, shut the fuck up.

B. It's a baby that is asleep. If the child was screaming it's lungs out for 10 minutes or the whole flight, they would be the ones thinking, "someone should do something about the baby crying."

C. Don't be rude self centered assholes. You are not special despite what your mother told you.

Yeah, the kid wasn't mine, but someone asked the woman with the baby to move because the baby made her nervous. It's a baby not some alien brain sucker. It was cute and thankfully quiet which was amazing for a 7 month old.

Food. Something about the trapped nature of an airport makes it entirely reasonable to charge $9 for a burger from Burger King? You are a captive audience, but damn that is crazy. I brought food so I didn't get screwed at the food court. But since you are stuck with the prices, you agree to buy the food for those inflated prices.

SeatBelt Light. That is there for a reason. The flight had some turbulence and someone standing in the aisle didn't have the common sense to sit down in their fucking seat and fell on a passenger. If we unexpectedly fell 2000' those people might be dead. It's rare, but it has happened in the past.

Baggage Claim. To the man who picked up my bag and was examining it closely, please when I tell you it's my bag, but can't reach it, don't look at me like I'm lying to you, Put it back on the turn table and look for your bag. It's not like there are a lot of purple duffle bags out there. Mine's the only one I've ever seen.

I like travel. A lot. But the people I encounter when I travel make me wonder. How about using some common sense and courtesy?

Over or Under

The question of the Universe. One that has boggled experts for ages. One argued over and the reason for divorces and child abuse.

Toilet paper: The roll, over the top, or under.

This can also apply to paper towels. Do you load the roll so the towels come over the top, or under, with the loose towel next to the wall?

So, the Over the Top argument. By loading the roll of toilet paper or paper towels over the top of the roll, it makes the paper product easier to reach. If, in a spillage emergency, you don't smack your finger into the wall as you lunge for the paper. It's easier to pull the toilet paper toward you as you sit, uh, on the throne. It has the paper hang down away from the wall and if it goes to far, you can roll it back on easily.

Also, it is institutionally approved by hotels. When you go into the bathroom the maid has the toilet paper on top of the roll with the first sheet folded so there is a point so you can pull it easily.And if it approved by Hilton, Marriott, and others, it can't be wrong.

The Under argument. When you finish pulling the sheet off, the next sheet is hanging down.

That's all I got.

I prefer the over pull for paper products. I have to resist the urge to fix the toilet paper roll when in other people's bathrooms. If I'm housesitting and the paper runs out, I replace it the proper way so that the owner can experience the ease and convenience of a paper product rolling off the roll the way the manufacturer intended.

Never said this was going to be a fair argument. Where's the fun in that?

More Bits and Bobs

I went to the sports medicine doc today. He looked at me and my shoulder and asked how the injury happened. It was what I knew I would have to do. I explained it got injured doing P90X. Then he said something I don't know if I expected it or not. It kind of didn't surprise me.

"I've been seeing a lot of injuries from P90x." He said.

In the back of my brain I was thinking, "I don't doubt it." Because the routine is very hard and it does work, but damn it beat the shit out of my body and I was afraid that I would injure myself doing it... And, unfortunately, I did... But with a shot in the joint, it should help.

My show ended last night. I had a blast. It was some of the hardest work I'd done on a show since I did a one man show 3 years ago. It made me crazy at times. There was a member of the cast who made everyone crazy. But, honestly, you get that in every cast. There's typically one who grates on people's nerves. But in live theatre you deal with all sorts of people. Generally it was a good time. I also have an uncanny knack for avoiding people who bug me. It's easier than hiding the body.

There was a lot of rain on sunday. It was continuous for almost 24 hours. It wasn't torrential, but it never stopped. Which makes driving in LA challenging. People freak out when it rains in LA and to have it go on for an England amount of time, made it just crazy. But I'm from Arizone, and I find rain fascinating...

Bits and Pieces

First off, I'm not hearing things.

This past 2 weeks I was hearing a cat under my building. Which is odd. It was the occasional "meow" that would get my attention. I thought maybe one of the neighbors cats was being especially loud. Or maybe had learned how to throw it's voice. When the meowing had lasted longer than a few seconds I was able to pinpoint the location. Under my apartment near the floor heater. I let the landlord know. They had an exterminator come out. This company had sealed up the vents and access to the crawl space under the building. They said there was no way for a cat to get under the building. Not even a mouse could. OK. I guess I was wrong. I heard the meowing again last night. I put my ear to the floor. Yup. A cat under the building. I went outside with a flashlight and shined it thru the vents. It took a few tries, but I saw it! Ha! There was a cat moving under the building. I recognized it as a stray from the neighborhood. It's black, kinda young. But there it was. I got out a screwdriver and opened the access panel to let it out. I don't think it was trapped, I think it had a way in that the clever humans had not found. Did the cat leave? I don't know. I'm not wrong, and that is kinda important to me.

I went to the doctor today for my shoulder. The doctor is a GP for Kaiser. I figured that he couldn't do anything except kick me to the next doctor which would need to be a sports medicine guy. I was right. I was referred to a sports medicine doctor. They will call me. It just kind of bugs me that i have to go thru hoops to see the doc I need. They also took an X-ray. It's not a bone issue, so it would be a waste of time. But what the fuck.

Last weekend for my show. I have had a great time with this one. It was a challenge. I haven't been a lead in a while, and it is also very tough language. Contemporary Shakespeare if you will. I'm not usually sad when a show ends, but this one has been very fun...