Put a Little Love in Your Heart

     Like everyone else, I've shed more than a few tears over the senseless tragedy that occurred this weekend. And, just like everyone else, I have no answers as why it happened or what to do about it.  Bad things happen.  They just do.  There's no getting around it.  And when they do, our first impulse is often anger.  The desire to lash out, to revenge ourselves on the evil that has taken from us that thing we hold most precious and dear.  That is a natural and human instinct.  Sometimes, our first impulse is to blame, to finger-point and make wholesale declarations on how to stop another tragedy like this one from happening again.  Often, these statements are born out of raw, wounded emotion that clouds our reasoning and logic, leading to ill-advised solutions that only make things worse.  Again, this is a natural and human instinct.  When unpredictable events disrupt our lives to the very core, it is only logical that we react just as unpredictably and with equal ferocity.  

  
     But, just like every other tragic event in our history, there are tales that emerge of bravery and courage, of those who survived and those not as fortunate.  Tales of those who were taken too soon, of the lives they touched and the lives they changed.  And tales of coming together, of picking up the pieces and finding some way to move forward, to heal.  This has been the way of things after every catastrophic and heartbreaking event in our time, and of all those that came before.  For an all-too-brief moment, we put aside the things that make us different and focus on the things that make us the same.  We realize that we all have something in common, something that makes us all threads of the same tapestry.  We remember that we're all a part of something bigger, and that we're all a part of it together.  It is the greatest strength of the human race to come together in times like this.  It's just a shame it takes times like this for us to actually come together.  But again, that is just a natural and human instinct.

     In times like this, people turn to whatever they can to bring some kind of comfort or distraction to their heartbreak.  I can't pretend to know the kind of pain being experienced by those directly affected by this senseless act, and it would be foolish to think anything I have to offer would be of any solace or significance to them.  But every year around this time I like to watch some of my favorite holiday movies to get into the spirit of things and this year is no exception.  Before the events of this weekend I watched Scrooged for the umpteenth time.  It's not exactly a classic by any means, but Bill Murray is always good for a laugh and he gives a great speech at the end about the true meaning of the season.  As the film closes, this song plays over the credits.  It's an insignificant piece of 80's fluff, but it has never failed to bring a smile to my face and put me in the holiday spirit, which is something we could all benefit from right now, if only for a moment.  And while the lyrics are kind of corny and old fashioned, I think the message it conveys feels very appropriate for these days.  I hope there is a light at the end of this very dark tunnel for those who have lost so much, and I hope there are better days ahead for us all.

Kickstarter!

So, we'll just come right out and say it.  We want your money.  We'll take anything.  Loose change.  That extra five dollar bill you found crumpled in that old pair of jeans the other day.  Your kids' college fund.  Whatever you can give, We'll gladly take it off your hands.  Why?  Well, me and my friends are trying to make a movie.  A real one.  Full-length.  With color and sound and everything.  It's going to be funny and romantic and dramatic and all the things you want in a great movie.  Only problem is in order to make the movie, we have to pay for it first.  I mean, don't get me wrong, we've done everything we can to keep it ultra-low budget.  Super-ultra-low budget.  From the script, to the cast, to the locations; we've taken great care to keep it as cheap as we can.  But, even with all our meticulous planning, we still need an extra buck or two (or twenty) to get it done for real.  So, what do you say?  Help us out?  We promise to make a damn good movie everybody can be proud of, and you will have made a life-long dream for us come true.  Win-win all around.  So, have a look at our Kickstarter page and consider helping us out.  Consider donating all the loose change from the floorboards of your car.  Or the coins buried under your couch cushions.  Or that giant bag of money you swiped during that armored car heist last week.  Like I said, we'll take anything.  Then tell your friends, your family, your neighbors, people on the street, that guy in line at the grocery store, and ask them to take a look, too.  We appreciate any and all support you can give us!  It's going to be a great movie!

Soon to Be a Major Motion Picture...

There's a big item on my to-do list.  It's been on my list since I was 5 years old, and it's about time I got around to crossing it off.  The biggest goal of my life has always been to write and direct a feature film. Not an easy goal, to be sure, but it seems that patience and time has finally started to pay off.  This is a "pitch reel" for a script I wrote called "It Is What It Is," a romantic comedy set in Birmingham.  It follows a young couple, Josh and Lara, about to be married.  After a 4 year engagement, and despite some last minute jitters, they are finally taking the plunge.  To celebrate, their friends decide to take them out for a wild night on the town.  But when Josh's old college roommate, Terry, comes into town, secrets from Lara's past come to light, changing everything.  I've written other scripts over the years, but this one was designed specifically from the ground up to be shot for a limited budget.  It is our hope that this trailer will help us raise the funds we need to shoot the actual film within the next few months.  Stay tuned for more updates, including when we will be posting the trailer to Kickstarter.com and how you can help us make this film a reality.  But for now, enjoy the trailer.  It features some incredibly talented folks in front of and behind the camera that will be helping us make the real deal.  Just FYI,  a word or two is NSFW.  Enjoy!

Don't Stop Believing

40.  The number of times I've been all the way around the sun.  In the cosmic scale of the universe, 40 years is nothing.  A nanosecond.  Barely the blink of an eye.  And in truth, that's how long it feels like sometimes.  As you get older, it really does seem like time moves faster and faster.  25 feels like last week.  10 feels like last year.  5 was two summers ago.  I always thought when I turned 40 I would feel old, but instead I feel like barely any time has passed at all.  But then I stop and actually consider all that has happened in my lifetime, and it boggles my mind.  It is then when I start to realize how much can happen with each orbit around the sun.  So many events I have witnessed, so many people whose lives I have crossed.  So many sights, smells, laughs, tears, and meals I have shared.  They say your brain keeps a perfect record of everything that has ever happened to you, we just don't know how to access it all.  If we did, there are so many things I would want to experience again.  And probably just as many that I would want to keep locked away forever.  But looking back on all the times I do remember, I marvel at how every one of those experiences led me to this point in my life.  Everything I have ever done in my 40 years on this planet has brought me to right here.  So many triumphs, so many failures.  So many good times.  So many not.  So many things I wish I could do over, exactly as they were, and so many I wish I could do over, period.  But despite the regrets I may have in my life, I don't regret the life I have.  It has been a hell of ride so far, one that constantly surprises and mystifies me.  I'm still figuring it all out, and in truth I probably will never understand it all, but I kind of think that's the point.  We're all part of some giant science experiment designed to see what happens when crazy is allowed to run amuck untethered.  Half the fun of life is watching us bump into each other, trying to understand what the hell we're all doing here and why.  Sure, it can get volatile sometimes and bad things happen when the wrong chemicals mix, but when the right kind of crazy interacts, the results can be magic.  In just the past year alone I experienced the highest of highs and the lowest of lows.  So many things I wish I could undo, just as many I wish I could relive over and over again.  With a year like that, I'm sure voyage around the sun number 41 will be just as amazing, frustrating, exhilarating, disappointing, spectacular and heartbreaking as the last 40.  And I wouldn't have it any other way.  Somebody once said,  "It's not the destination, it's the journey." I really do believe that.  Then again, we could all be saying it wrong and it could actually be, "It's not the destination, it's the Journey," meaning the 80's rock band fronted by Steve Perry.  And considering how crazy everything else on earth can be while we spin around the sun, that almost makes more sense.

You've Got to Come Back With Me

So Doo Dah Day is tomorrow.  It's a great event in Birmingham, sort of a giant love-in for dog lovers put on every year by the Humane Society.  People from all over bring their dogs to the park for parades, music fun, and games.  The Humane Society also helps dogs find forever homes, which is always a good thing.  It's a great event, one that would be even better if I actually had a dog.  I'm almost afraid to go down there this year, I might be tempted to pick one up.  I'd love to get a dog, actually, but my lease doesn't allow them.  Then again, my landlord is pretty great and I bet if I called him up and asked, he'd let me have one in the house (almost makes me afraid to call him, then I'd have no choice but to go down there).  However, there are a couple of ladies living in my house already that might have some thoughts on the matter.  Not sure if Sammy Jo and Captain Kitty would take too kindly to someone else moving in on their turf.  I'll get in touch with their people and see what they have to say.  It's hard to get a face-to-face with cats if they don't want to see you.  Sure, feeding time, lap time, sleep time, they're all up in your business.  But need to ask a serious question, they are harder to reach than Old Yeller (what, too soon?).  Anyway, one of these days I have a feeling another four-legged friend will make an appearance around these parts.  We'll see what happens.  But oddly enough, when I think about Doo Dah Day, my first thought isn't dogs.  Instead I think about driving to the beach in the middle of the night, putting on a suit, and watching the sunrise over the ocean, hoping the rapture doesn't occur.  It sounds strange, but that's exactly what I did around this time last year when Joe Walker asked me to be in his Sidewalk Scramble film and had the crazy notion of driving all the way to the Gulf Coast to get a shot on the beach at sunrise.  It's also the date when crazy Harold Camping told everyone the rapture was going to happen.  Since we only had one shot at this shot (and only 48 hours total to complete the whole film), we were relieved when Camping proved to be a wackjob.  God never showed so we were able to finish the film on time.  And after we drove all the way back to Birmingham, bleary-eyed and exhausted from staying awake all night, we arrived smack dab in the middle of Doo Dah Day.  There were dogs everywhere, dressed in all manner of doggie costumes, which took forever to navigate around in order to get back to our cars to finally go home and get some sleep.  It was like we had escaped the real rapture and found ourselves in the middle of some bizarre doggie version where all dogs go to heaven and get to wear funny hats on the way.  So this year, I think I will forgo the beach trip and look into finding a dog that might need a place to stay until the real rapture occurs.  Who knows, maybe if I get one, I can take them to the beach next year.

Deconstructing Bad

I am addicted to Breaking Bad.  I came to the party late, I only started watching it over the last few months, but I have made up for lost time very quickly.  I have just wrapped up the third season and am about to embark on season four.  Everything about the show is amazing; the cast, the writing, the cinematography, the use of Bob Odenkirk; it's quickly moved up into my list of all-time Top Ten television shows.  It may have even pushed Lost off the list.  Blasphemy, I know, but the show is just that damn good.  For those not familiar, it stars Bryan Cranston as Walter White, a middle-aged high school science teacher who learns he is dying of cancer.  In order to provide for his wife and handicapped son before his impending demise, Walt starts secretly cooking and selling meth with one of his former students, a slacker pothead named Jesse Pinkman played by Aaron Paul.  Things go good for about five minutes.  And then shit starts hitting the fan.  Constantly.  What transpires over the course of the show is something I won't dare spoil here, suffice it to say that it is well worth the time to find out.  Watching the show is like getting a master class on filmmaking.  The episodes are compelling, exciting, funny, violent, and all manner of surprising.  The relationships between the characters and how they weave the story together is something I find huge inspiration in.  It is a show I have tried to not only enjoy as a viewer, but also study as a filmmaker.  There is one scene in particular that I remember watching and thinking, "Wow, this show is working on a different level than most."  It's not a huge moment in the overall arc of the show, but it's a perfect example of the kind technical artistry on display on both sides of the camera.  It's a moment involving Hank, Walter's brother-in-law (played by Dean Norris) who just happens to be a D.E.A. agent.  I'll try to keep this as spoiler-free as possible, but the scene is in the second season of the show, when Hank is trying to track down a meth dealer known on the street as "Heisenberg."  Heisenberg's meth is something of a legend in the meth world, far purer and stronger than the normal stuff cooked in somebody's bathroom.  The search for Heisenberg has become Hank's obsession, one that has put a huge strain on his home and work life.  What Hank doesn't know is that the dealer he is looking for is Walt, who is doing anything and everything he can to keep Hank from learning the truth.  In the episode, Hank has finally tracked Heisenberg down to the old RV he produces his meth in, sort of like a mobile drug lab.  Thinking he has Heisenberg cornered, Hank is  about to move in.  Suddenly gets a call on his cell phone, informing him his wife has been in an accident and is in intensive care.  Suddenly, everything in Hank's world changes.  The color in the picture drains away, the contrast increases, the sound becomes muffled and dark.  It cuts to a frantic Hank, speeding away in his car as fast as he can drive, arriving at the hospital.  He's panicked as he races down the hospital hallways, desperate to find his wife.  A nurse finally calms him down and tells him they don't know what he is talking about, there haven't been any accidents today.  Hank stops.  The realization washes over his face.  Heisenberg faked the call from the hospital.  It was a trick to get rid of Hank so Heisenberg could escape.  The anger on Hank's face sells the moment perfectly, but here is where the technical wizardry at work really started to catch my eye.  The sound slowly comes back, and the color begins to return to normal.  But ever-so-subtlely the color starts to increase.  The reds start to take over a bit, combining with the light reflecting off Hank's sweating face, to turn his face red.  It seemed like Hank's blood was boiling over, like you could almost see steam rising off his face.  It was subtle, but it was beautiful.  I played the scene back a couple of times and really started to deconstruct it, paying close attention to the editing, the lighting, the framing, and all the other elements, trying to learn the magicians' tricks.  But these are tricks I don't mind having spoiled for me.  I have been very fortunate in the past to have seen up-close how a lot of movies and TV shows are made, but sometimes when you are working on a set, you get so caught up in the rush to get things done on-time and under budget, you can lose the artistry of it.  There's so many different moving parts that it's not always possible to keep them moving properly.  I have worked on many projects, large and small, where when I watched the final product, it was a letdown.  Just one wrong moving part and it can ruin the entire thing.  Pick the wrong actor, the wrong location, the wrong costume, or even the wrong caterer, and you can doom a project to failure.  Believe me.  I worked on this, I know what I'm talking about.  But, on those rare occasions when they do get it right, when you find a film or TV show where all the moving parts are working in unison, it gives me hope that it's not impossible.  That if you keep your eye on the details, and surround yourself with other talented artists who can keep an eye on them too, something genuinely moving and worthwhile can be created.  Of course, I say this now.  I said the same thing about Lost at the end of it's third season and look what happened to that one (A light in a cave?  Really, Lindelof?  A LIGHT IN A FRAKING CAVE?  REALLY?????  Sigh.  Sorry, I'm still a little bitter).  Anyhow, I hope Breaking Bad keeps up the amazing work on both sides of the camera and avoids the pitfalls that have sometimes befallen past shows when they try to land the plane (coughLostcough).  But for now, I am glued to the screen for the rest of the ride Breaking Bad is taking me on.  I'll also be taking lots of notes along the way.  And if my film plans don't work out, the show will probably have taught me how to make meth by then, so I've got that to fall back on.  Who says TV isn't educational?

Trivial Characters

          I hosted trivia at Rojo tonight.  Something I signed up for on a whim a couple of months ago.  In some ways the only surprising thing about it is that I hadn't signed up to do it sooner.  My head is filled with useless information I'm not doing anything with.  A storehouse of random crap I have gleaned from years of watching movies and TV.  Things like who the director of Buckaroo Banzai is (W.D. Richter) or who plays the voice of the talking Johnny Cabs in Totall Recall (Robert Picardo).  I don't remember a word of French from college, but I do know that French new-wave film director Francois Truffaut is in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  Go figure.  But for some reason, those are the things that stick.  Anyway, since my head is jammed packed with a lifetime of irrelevant information, I have labored to find a useful purpose for it all.  I mean, if it's going to take up space, it might as well make itself useful, right?  Well, tonight I found a great way to put it to good use.  This giant trivia-soaked sponge of a brain inside my head provided me with plenty of material to choose from when crafting the questions I asked.  Granted, the teams who played were very sharp and answered some of my most challenging questions with ease, but I felt like the range of questions was broad enough to make it interesting and they weren't all walks in the park.  Folks seemed to have a good time, and that was the main thing, but I did get to dive deep into the recesses of my random brain and pluck a truly trivial fact out.  This was a random fact I have been storing inside my noggin on the off-chance I might get to show it off one day.  It's not impressive, it's not important, and for most people, probably not that interesting, but it's mine, dammit, and I finally had a place for it tonight.  It was so special I saved it for the last question of the night.  And here it is.  Who is the only actor who appears in Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the 1989 version of Batman?  No Googling.  Any guesses?  No one at Rojo knew the answer.  It's not something the average person probably thinks about ever.  At all.  Not even once.  It's a piece of knowledge that has no bearing on anything useful, productive, or revolutionary.  I doubt there is a single situation where this fact would be of any use to anyone anywhere at any time.  But it's in my brain.

          The answer is William Hootkins (Who?).  An American character actor who played Red Six (affectionately known as Porkins) in Star Wars, Major Eaton (one of the Army Intelligence officerswho gives Indy his marching orders) in Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Lt. Eckhardt (the fat, corrupt police officer who gets shot by Jack Nicholson right before he becomes the Joker) in Batman.  He one of the those guys who most people have seen before in small roles in big movies, but never give a second thought to.  But those happen to be three movies I have seen dozens (and in the case of Star Wars, hundreds) of times, so after a while those esoteric details kind of crystallize in my brain.  I remember realizing one day that the same guy showed up in all three of those films.  It was like a lightbulb went off in my head.  It made me realize that I know way too much about this sort of stuff.  No offense to Mr. Hootkins, but I have a feeling my knowing this fact about his choice of roles in films probably pushed out an important fact I once learned but had to lose in favor of this piece of fluff filling the space.  I used to know Algebra, Physics, and other science facts.  I used to know the names of Roman rulers and Prussian poets.  Now all I can remember is that William Hootkins played Porkins in Star Wars and gets blown up right after Biggs Darklighter tells him to eject.  Come to think of it,  how do I know that Biggs' last name is Darklighter when it is never once mentioned in the film?  Or that he is played by Garrick Hagon?  See what I mean?  Useless!  Hopefully I will get to host trivia again and I can put some of the rest of this useless information to good use.  And maybe if I start sharing some of it, it will be replaced with better, more useful information.  Like how to defuse a bomb, or save the rainforests, or design a longer lasting lightbulb.  But, considering that I know that the weird guy in Robocop who says "I'll buy that for a dollar" is named Bixby Snyder, I doubt it.  

How Much is That Kitten in the Window?

Yesterday around 3:30 in the morning my phone rang. Good news never comes that early. Jen was on the other end sobbing uncontrollably. In a quiet voice, barely above a whisper, she said to me, "Kitten just died." My heart instantly broke. It came completely out of the blue, as most news at 3:30 in the morning does, but this was particularly hard to believe because Kitten was barely 3 years old. She was always in perfect health and had shown no signs of illness. But it turns out she had an undetectable heart condition that unfortunately took her far too early.

When Jen and I were still together, we shared our home with 4 cats, all with distinct and wonderful personalities, but Kitten was special. She was our cat, the one we picked out together at the Humane Society. Sammy Jo was already Jen's cat when we met, and Baby Kitty was taken in by Jen when her sister Rachel found her under her car one morning. But when Jen and I moved in together a few months later, we decided to add a third to the mix, so one sunny Saturday we visited the shelter and took a look around. I will never forget walking into the cat room and inspecting all the cages that lined both sides of the room. I walked down the end of the line to the last cage on the bottom row and peeked into it. This little furball bounded over to me, stuck both of her front paws against the cage and gave me a tiny "meow." At this point we were still a little unsure about adding to our kitty brood, so we decided to take a minute to think it over. We put her back in the cage and walked out of the cat room. As we passed by the big windows that looked into the cages from the outside, I took another look into Kitten's cage. I couldn't hear her, but she bounded over and stuck her paws against the cage again, looked me in the eye, and gave me another (silent) meow. And that's all it took. From that moment on, she was our cat.

Kitten was unlike any cat I've ever met. She was outgoing, friendly, and wasn't scared of anything or anybody. Whenever people would come over to visit, while the other cats would run and hide, Kitten would just walk over as if to say, "Hey, how's it going? Come on in." She had beautiful, long tortoise-shell fur that was softer than any I've ever petted. And no matter how bad your day might have been, when you came home she was always there to put you in a better mood. It is an understatement to say that Jen took a particular shine to her, which was made very evident one night when we came home from a movie about a year later and discovered our back door had blown open and the cats had gotten out. We found the other 3 right away (Captain Kitty, a stray we discovered living in our back yard, had joined the household by this point), but Kitten was nowhere to be found. We scoured our neighborhood into the wee hours of the morning, but couldn't find her anywhere. Jen was inconsolable and terrified that we would never see her again. Exhausted and teary-eyed, we decided to finally go to bed and resume the search at first light. But as I pulled open my dresser drawer to fetch a t-shirt to sleep in, a little furry head popped up. Shocked, I quickly surmised that Kitten had crawled into the drawer before we left the house for the evening and I had inadvertently shut it with her inside. We had never been more happy to see a cat in our lives.

When Jen and I split up one of the hardest parts was figuring out kitty custody. Sammy Jo had taken a shine to me over the years, so she came with me, along with Captain Kitty. But Baby Kitty and Kitten had become playmates in that time, so it only made sense for them to stay together. And I have to admit, I had no doubt which one of us was going to get Kitten. Jen had a special bond with Kitten, partly I think because they have such similar personalities (well, as much as a cat and a human can be similar). They are both outgoing, friendly, kind, and have never met a stranger. I was sad to see Kitten go, but if there is anyone on the planet who loved that cat more than me, it is Jen. And I know in these last few months with Jen she was loved more than any kitty could dream of being loved. Even though she is gone, I will always remember that little furry face of hers staring back at me at the Humane Society almost as if to say, "Hi, I'm Kitten. Will you take me home?" Rest in peace, Kitten. We'll miss you.

George Lucas Didn't Rape My Childhood

So, the Star Wars saga comes to Blu-Ray next Tuesday, and the entire internet is atwitter with anticipation. Not the kind of anticipation that met The Phantom Menace, mind you. That kind of anticipation for something hasn't been seen since that Jewish carpenter told everybody he was coming back. No, Jar Jar Binks made sure that Star Wars would never reach that level of universal love ever again. Like most of the world, I was let down by Darth Maul, Gungans, and Jake Lloyd's "acting." But I remember sitting in the theater right before that first screening, nearly bursting at the seams, just like all the other guys my age. Star Wars, as funny as it sounds, was our moon landing. It was more than just a movie. It was a worldwide cultural shift. It sounds crazy to think of a piece of pop entertainment as planet-changing, but it was. Especially to a 5 year-old kid.

My Dad (half) jokes all the time that I was never right in the head after he and Mom took me to see Star Wars for the first time. But it's true. Star Wars changed my life. I sound like such a geek when I say that, but I'm not kidding. Some silly movie about spaceships, robots, and walking carpets profoundly affected me in a way that I still don't fully understand. But I'm not the only one, and we can't all be crazy, right? Whatever it was that George Lucas tapped into in 1977 (marketing, zeitgeist, the Force?), it connected with people in a big way. He created a new mythology for an entire generation. We grew into adulthood as devout disciples, having memorized all the lines and dogma from the Original Trilogy since childhood. It was in our blood now, part of our DNA. And we were nearly overcome with joy when we heard, decades later, Lucas was revisiting that galaxy far, far away and giving us new chapters to memorize. The intergalactic New Testament as it were. Well, Old Testament, actually, since they were Prequels, but George always had a weird way of counting. But regardless, we couldn't wait. With each new image, each new trailer, each new glimpse of the coming film, we lost our fucking minds. We started lining up months before the release. We collected Taco Bell cups. We prepared to have our minds blown. And the culmination of all that pent up anticipation was during that very first screening of The Phantom Menace when the words STAR WARS appeared on screen and John Williams' fanfare exploded in THX. The swell of emotion in that moment was geek nirvana. It was everything we had ever hoped for and more. Star Wars had returned!

Then the movie played. And we all know what happened after that.

When the credits rolled and everyone walked out of the theater, I remember thinking to myself, "I'm pretty sure that movie sucked. No, I take that back. I'm absolutely sure. That was terrible." I remember my dazed stumble through parking lot, looking at all the other dazed faces of the fellow geeks who were trying (and failing) to come to grips with the fact that George had let us down. If the Original Trilogy was our moon landing, the Prequels were our Kennedy assassination. There was a lot of vitriol in the geek community after that. Cries of "George Lucas raped my childhood!" were a common occurrence on message boards and internet sites. I'll be honest, at the time I was a bit upset at the letdown, but I don't think I ever went to that extreme. After all, I wasn't a 5 year-old anymore and a lot of my love for Star Wars is viewed through the very rose-colored goggles of nostalgia. When you think about it, the Star Wars Saga as a whole is a pretty cheesy in a lot of places. I mean, Yoda sounds like Grover, for George's sake. When the wisest character in your movie looks and sounds like a Muppet, you can't take it too seriously. But Star Wars geeks hold tight to their Saga and many still hold a grudge.

That is very evident with impending Blu-Ray release. Lucas has already felt the wrath of the fanboys about his refusal to release the original versions of the Original Trilogy. Back in 1997, Lucas made tweaks to Star Wars, Empire, and Jedi, adding new CGI effects and creatures, calling these improved versions "The Special Editions." Most of the changes were cosmetic, but there was one change in the original film that seemed to draw the ire of the fanboy community like no other: the infamous "Han Shot First" scene. In the orginal film, Han Solo is confronted by the alien Greedo, who has come to collect a debt for Jabba the Hutt. Han calmly sits at a table and listens to Greedo, then shoots him, just like a cowboy in some old western. In the new version, Lucas used CGI to make Greedo shoot first. It makes it appear Han is firing our of self-defense. To the fanboys, this drastically altered Han's character. Again, I know this is a silly thing to get all worked up over, but geeks are nothing if not passionate about nothing. Ever since then, whenever Lucas releases the Original Trilogy in a new format, he makes further tweaks and refinements, much to the chagrin of the fanboys. Just yesterday it was revealed that on the new Blu-Rays, Lucas has added dialogue to the final confrontation between Vader and the Emperor in Return of the Jedi. A clip of this was released on YouTube:

Vader says "NO!"

It's a minor change and doesn't affect the outcome of the story, but you'd have thought George put a mustache on the Mona Lisa the way the fanboy community reacted. Cries of "Lucas raped my childhood!" could be heard all throughout cyberspace yet again.

And that's when it hit me. This is not something grown human beings should be worried about in the slightest. Rome is burning, the world is on the brink of economic collapse, but the only thing that can inflame the passions of these apathetic idiots is what Darth Vader does or doesn't say in a movie that has walking teddy bears in it. When are these idiots going to grow the fuck up? Seriously. I love Star Wars, but I'm ashamed at the collective behavior of these cry-baby man-children. It's not global warming, it's a fucking movie. A movie, by the way, that Lucas has the right to tweak, alter, change, edit, erase, fold, spindle, and mutilate all he wants. He paid for it, it's his to do with as he pleases. He's an artist, and artists are rarely satisfied with the finished product. I know in my own small world of artistic expression, I have wanted to completely upend final drafts of projects because they never lived up to my visions for them. For example, I made a silly movie in college called "The Big City" that I shot on VHS and edited tape to tape. It was filled with glitches, bad sound, bad edits, and compromised special effects. But I showed it to people anyway and most of them liked it. Some even told me they loved it. But I can't bear to watch that version. It's not a bad movie, it just didn't live up to my expectations. Years later, I dug all the old footage out of box in my closet, threw it into Final Cut, and re-edited the entire thing. Why? For no other reason that I wasn't satisfied. It was a silly movie made with all my old college friends that no one besides them will ever see. But I don't care. It's my movie and want to see it the way I want to. To me, the only version of "The Big City" that exists is my "Special Edition." So I understand where George is coming from. He's not satisfied and he's going to keep making changes until he gets it right. Not somebody else's "right," but his. So if he wants Greedo to shoot first or make the Ewoks blink or give Lando an afro and bigger 'stache, then have at, George!

The point to all this is that George Lucas changed my life not because lightsabers are cool, or because the Millenium Falcon is the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy, he changed my life because he made me believe that I could imagine anything I wanted and then, if I was talented and smart (and lucky) enough, I could manifest that idea into reality. Well, movie reality, but it would no longer be just an idea in my mind, it could be something the entire world could witness. George Lucas introduced me to the world of film. Because of my curiosity about how they made X-Wings fly, I discovered how bluescreens work and what motion control is. Lucasfilm developed the very first non-linear edit system, the EditDroid, which ushered in an entirely new way to edit films and was the precursor to Avid and Final Cut. Lucas' development of digital video made it possible to shoot film and TV at a fraction of the cost of film. George Lucas may not be much of a filmmaker nowadays, but I believe he has been responsible for more film makers than any other director before. I once heard that something is art only when the tools to create it are available to everyone. It used to be if you wanted to make a film, you had to raise huge amounts of money, rent specialized and expensive equipment, and have the power of a film studio behind you. Now all you need is a digital camera, an iMac, and a green screen. George Lucas and the technologies his companies pioneered helped make that a reality. Hell, my job as an editor wouldn't be possible without him.

But more importantly, Lucas' silly space movie inspired me to make movies. It gave me a direction to follow in life. It might not be the most stable or lucrative or sane direction to take, but it's the one I chose. I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Star Wars, and I still love it, but with a very healthy dose of whimsy and nostalgic affection. It inspired me, like many other things have since, but it was a big one in my life. And with the help of digital tools George Lucas helped create, I will soon make another film, something that probably wouldn't have been possible without him. So, George Lucas didn't rape my childhood. He actually helped me grow up. He made me want to become a filmmaker. And for that, I am grateful.

I'll never forgive him for changing Boba Fett's voice in The Empire Strikes Back, but I'm grateful nonetheless.

One Small Step

42 years ago tonight, the entire world looked up. Nothing in human history before or since has galvanized humanity the way the events of July 20, 1969 did. Not without a body count at least. Things like tsunamis or earthquakes or 9/11 may come along every once in a while and make everyone drop what they're doing and take notice, but this was different. The entire planet wasn't focused on a tragedy this time. Instead, it was something beautiful. Something poetic. Something man has dreamed of since he was able to dream. On that summer evening in July, two men from this planet set foot on another world for the very first time. Mankind dipped a toe into the deep waters of the universe right there in the Sea of Tranquility. For a brief moment we stepped outside of ourselves and took a look at our place in the cosmos from a different point of view. Sure, we did it because Kennedy said we had to beat the Russians and all that, but even though the Cold War was less about big ideas and more about the biggest stick on the block, we still did it. For all mankind. And when we did, mankind stopped what it was doing that day and watched.

Such a shame we don't do things like that anymore. Things bigger than ourselves. We are amazing creatures, capable of so much more than we let on sometimes. We get so focused in on the day-to-day smallness of the world we lose sight of just how vast the universe is and just how tiny a space in that vastness we occupy. There are days on this planet when all hope seems lost, when there are daily reminders of the worst we have to offer, when all our problems seem impossible to solve. But one day 42 years ago we proved that nothing is impossible. All it took was for us to just get out of our own way and do it. The moon was just a stepping stone in a very big ocean, one that is as wide and expansive as the human imagination. And it may take generations before we take another step like that again. It makes me sad to think I may never experience something like the moon landing in my lifetime. Then I think about the distance between the stars and how impossible it seems that we could ever reach them. But the moon was out of reach, then one day it wasn't. In the future, day-tripping to the Andromeda galaxy may be as common as taking a taxi across town, and even though I will never experience that firsthand, I know someday someone from this planet will. Despite the fact that we seem to be on the verge of causing our own extinction on a daily basis, if we put our minds to it there's nothing we can't do. We could just use a few more small steps these days to remind us of those giant leaps sometimes.

Mosaic

I have weird dreams. All the time. They are vivid, full of detail, and usually make no sense to anyone but myself. Like the one I had many years ago where I was hired by the government to assassinate Sean Connery with a crossbow. Okay, maybe that one doesn't make sense to anyone including me, but you see my point. The subconscious mind plays all sorts of trick on you when you're off in lala land, filling your dreamworld with images, symbolism, and random celebrities night after night. A lot of times I wake up in the morning with those images burned into my mind, almost like real memories of real events, but a few minutes later as I start to adjust to the real world again, the memories fade like a Polaroid picture in reverse. But every once in a while a dream will stick past breakfast and I can't shake it loose. Not only is the imagery strong enough to survive the waking day, but the symbolism contained in it is so precise I know exactly what it means. Wednesday night I had one of those dreams. It absolutely spoke to my current state of affairs, and, in a weird way, gave me some clarity that I have been missing in my life lately.

I've been reluctant to talk out loud about all the things going on with the D-word, mostly because I've been trying to pretend that it doesn't bother me as much as it does. Truth be told, though, divorce sucks. It really, really sucks. The process has been a lot harder than I have been willing to admit, and it's only recently that I have been able to start confronting all those feelings. In the past, whenever I have been faced with major upheaval in my life, I tend to fall into the same pattern. I choose to ignore the past, pretend that it doesn't exist, and move forward as quickly as possible. This behavior can be traced back to very early in my life when I moved around so much. Whenever my Dad would get assigned to a new Air Force Base, we were uprooted from where we lived and had to move thousands of miles away. And, since this was in the days before Facebook, email, and Skype, I had to literally cut all ties with my friends, never to see them again. As a kid going through this process every 3 years or so, it hurt. A lot. And the older I got, the deeper the bonds I formed with my friends, and the more intense the loss became when I had to break them. So whenever I was faced with yet another separation in my life, I tried my damnedest to move on as quick as I could, in the hopes that the pain and sadness wouldn't follow me into my "new" life. It's a pattern I have repeated many times over, through many moves, romances, and other life changes. But every time I did this, I wasn't pushing the pain away, I was just pushing it deeper and deeper into myself. I would store it up, not deal with it, and just add to it. Eventually, after a serious break-up right out of college, I wound up seriously depressed and saw a therapist for a little while to help deal with all the things up to that point I had been refusing to deal with. And even though I discovered why I been doing the things I had been doing, I never really learned how to change my behavior. I got better at dealing with some things, but eventually I started dealing with major changes in my life the same way I always did: run away, hide the pain, and not talk about it. Lather, rinse, repeat.

The end of a relationship is always a traumatic and harsh experience. There's a myriad of emotions and feelings that wash over you: fear, sadness, regret, anger, despair; take your pick. Getting divorced is certainly no exception. If anything, it only makes it worse because not only is the relationship ending, there is paperwork to file with the courts, waiting periods to suffer through, and a host of other legal mumbo-jumbo that serves to prolong the process of splitting up. It's not the clean break it might have been if we were just a couple, unencumbered by our official legal status as husband and wife. Jen and I probably entered the realm of divorce a bit naive about what a toll it would take on each other. I remember the day we got our divorce papers signed at the notary. We took a picture of it, laughed about it, and posted it on Facebook for the entire world to see. It seemed like a funny way of dealing with it at the time, but looking back there was absolutely nothing funny about it. True, our decision to get divorced was far more amicable than some, but that shouldn't have turned it into a comedy. But, that's the way we dealt with it, and I think it lead to a false sense of security in the days and weeks that followed. In the beginning we vowed to stay friends, promised to talk every day, and do as much as we could to prevent the anger and hurt so many other couples go through when they get divorced. In other words, we tried to pretend that nothing was going to change, when in reality everything was about to.

The weeks following our decision have been a roller coaster of emotion and we have both dealt with the loss of our marriage in different ways. Neither of us has a guidebook to follow to navigate the uncharted waters we are both adrift on. It was and continues to be a sea of uncertainty that will hopefully lead to safer shores somewhere on the horizon. In the beginning, I tried to carry on like nothing was wrong and, like I always have in the past, move forward as quickly as possible. I tried to convince myself that the only way to get over the loss would be to ignore it and pretend like it wasn't happening, but I realize now that's the worst way to deal with it. The loss of a relationship is like any other loss, and when those losses happen you have to mourn the loss before you can move forward. The death of our marriage is exactly that: a death. There has to be a period of grieving in order to move through the darkness and back into the light. It has taken me some time to see that, but I've never really dealt with losses like that before, so there has been a bit of a learning curve for me to get up to speed.

Jen gave me a book that has helped her deal with a lot of what she's been going through, and after reading it this week I have to admit it has changed my outlook on a lot of things. It is called Moving On by Russell Friedman and John W. James. Basically it outlines that we are taught from birth to ignore negative emotions and reward positive ones. For example, as a child you might come home one day and tell your parents that kids at school have been picking on you. The natural reaction for most parents is to tell you, "Don't let it bother you. Here, have a cookie it will make you feel better." We are taught to suppress the hurt and replace it with something else. As a result, we tend to believe that bad feelings are something to hide and that we have to find solace in something else. In actuality, what we should do is confront how we feel head on, experience the emotions, process them, and only then can we move forward. I'm not one to follow a lot of self-help stuff, but this book really spoke to me about not only my relationship with Jen, but virtually every other broken relationship I've ever been in. If we don't deal with the hurt and the loss, we carry that excess baggage with us into our next relationships, and then we get surprised when they don't work out either. The authors of the book say there are 6 Myths that we are taught when it comes to dealing with painful emotions:

Don't feel bad.

Replace the loss.

Grieve alone.

Time heals all wounds.

Be strong.

Keep busy.

The book then goes on to explain why each of these 6 Myths do nothing but harm in our lives, then gives advice on how to overcome these fallacies and deal with negative feelings in a positive way. It was a very powerful book and I highly recommend it to anyone who has ever gone through a break-up. It has given me a lot of new insight on how to deal with the end of my marriage and how to move forward without ignoring the past and sabotaging my future.

So that (finally) leads me back to the dream I had Wednesday night. In the dream I was moving out of the house Jen and I shared (something that I will be doing in the real world in the next month or so). I had enlisted the help of some old college friends to come over and help me box my stuff and carry it out to the moving van. For some reason I decided to check my cell phone and discovered a new email. It had been sent from an artist who had apparently taken some photographs of Jen and I and turned them into mosaics. Attached to the email were pictures of these mosaics, made up of shattered shards of glass, broken bottles, and all manner of found objects. Each one was a snapshot from our relationship, pictures that I recognized from the real world. The mosaics were beautiful, but in the dream I began to cry. I looked at each one and felt sadness at the end of our relationship. I read the email and it said that these mosaics were meant to be a wedding present, but it had taken the artist so long to complete them that they were unable to send them to me until now. I just kept looking at the mosaics over and over again, conflicted by the beauty and sadness contained in each one.

I woke up Thursday morning with that dream firmly planted in my head, and I immediately began writing it down. I didn't know exactly what it meant at first, but it was such a powerful dream that I felt I had to preserve it somehow. Then as I was writing, I was reminded of a song by Wang Chung, one of my favorite 80s groups. Ironically, my favorite album by them is called Mosaic and is one of those rare albums I can listen to without skipping any of the songs. I first owned it on cassette back in the late 80s and would listen to it over and over again, then again on CD in the 90s, and now on my iPod. It is always in rotation and I know pretty much every word to every song on it. The last song on the album is called The World in Which We Live and is sort of an epic finale about how life on earth is made up of so many different people and it is our differences that make this planet such a crazy, wonderful, confusing place to live. I started singing the following lyrics, which is where the title of the album comes from:

The world is a mosaic upon a golden floor

Moving silently, darkly through space.

And our lives are the fragments of all that's gone before

Broken jewels frozen in place.

Pretty deep stuff from the guys who are best known for telling everybody to have fun tonight. But, then again, I've always felt Wang Chung is highly underrated. In any event, I spent all day thinking about what it all means. I started thinking about mosaics in general, and how when you look at them up close, they are just broken fragments, often with very sharp edges, that don't look like much. And many times if you run your fingers across them, you can cut yourself. But if you take a step back and look at it from a distance, you see the beauty contained in them. The entire picture comes into view. I think that perfectly sums up my life at this moment. If you get too close and focus in on certain details in your life, they can be painful and don't look and feel like anything but broken glass. But if you give yourself some perspective, you can see that your life does make a pretty picture when taken as a whole. Yes, my marriage has ended and it sucks right now, and at times it feels like I'm just running my bloody fingers across the sharp fragments of my life. But if you take it all in and not get lost in the details, life is beautiful. It's hard to see it right now, but I just have to keep adding pieces to the mosaic of my life and not forget to take a look at the whole thing. Sure, there is pain and sadness and loss, but that just makes for a more interesting and, ultimately, a better life. It's difficult to believe it sometimes when you're so close to it, but it's all part of the bigger picture. And like the mosaics in my dreams, the pictures we make with our lives can be beautiful.

In Brightest Day...

Green Lantern rocks. I've known this since I was 6 years old. He has been my favorite super hero since childhood and in a week's time, I will finally get to see his live-action adventures on the big screen. The little kid inside my adult body is practically bursting at the seams at the excitement of it all. All little boys who read comic books grow up picking a favorite super hero that they imagine they could be like. Some pick Superman for obvious reasons; he's the most powerful and the most popular amongst the general public. But while Superman is right up there, he's an alien so it's hard for a kid to identify with him completely (or at least, for this kid). Batman is cool, but he's just a crazy rich guy in a suit with cool gadgets. Batman has no real super powers, so while I admire his Bat car, Bat copter, and all the rest, he's not the one I would choose to trade places with. Most of the others like Spider-Man, the Hulk, and the Flash were born out of crazy science experiments gone haywire. And while the resulting powers they got were awesome and all, having to subject yourself to the untamed forces of nature seems a bit extreme just to be able to run fast or climb walls. The X-Men were all born with their powers, and the last time I checked I wasn't born a mutant, so they're out.

But Green Lantern was different. For those who don't know, Green Lantern is actually test pilot Hal Jordan, a brash, cocky flyboy who spends his time in the clouds trying out the latest and greatest jet planes for Ferris Aircraft. One day while he was in a flight simulator, a green beam of energy came out of nowhere, grabbed hold of him and flew him across the desert to the wreckage of a crashed spaceship. Inside, a dying alien named Abin Sur told Hal that he had been chosen to become the new Green Lantern of Space Sector 2814. With his dying breath, Abin Sur gave Hal a power ring that would give the wearer almost unlimited powers. Hal placed the ring on his finger and suddenly he became Green Lantern! Whatever he could imagine in his mind, Hal could now create with his ring. And he could fly, too. How cool is that? Soon, Hal discovered that he was one of many Green Lanterns across the galaxy, all chosen to protect a specific sector of space from all manner of evil villains. They made up the Green Lantern Corps, a veritable space police force. They each possessed an identical power ring limited only by the willpower of the wearer (and the color yellow, which is kind of a silly weakness, I know, but hey, all super heroes have to have at least one, right?). And how did they all get chosen to be a Green Lantern? Were they all the best and the brightest from their respective planets? Nope. Were they physically and mentally the best of the best? Nope again. There is only one requirement to be a Green Lantern. Deep down, they must possess the ability to overcome fear. That's it. That's all it takes to become one of the most powerful super heroes in the universe. Just don't get scared and you've go what it takes. Well, to the 6 year-old who first discovered Green Lantern inside the pages of a DC Comic, that's all it took. I was hooked. To me, Green Lantern was the one guy with super powers I had a shot at becoming. All it would take was overcoming my greatest fears and I was in. What kid couldn't identify with that? So, from that point on, I considered myself a member of the GL Corps In Training. I just had to work hard at overcoming my fear of the dark and the monsters under the bed and broccoli, and then one day Abin Sur would show up at my doorstep, hand me a power ring, and I would be off flying around the galaxy fighting off my arch-nemesis Sinestro while romancing the beautiful (and deadly) Star Sapphire (in reality, Hal Jordan's girlfriend and boss, Carol Ferris), and saving the universe from evil-doers like Darkseid, Krona, and Hector Hammond. What more could a kid want?

As I grew older, my passions turned from saving the universe to movie making, and I always thought in the back of my mind that if I ever got the chance to helm a $200 million super hero blockbuster that Green Lantern would be the one I would to make. And truth be told, I am a little disappointed they didn't ask me to do it. But whatever. The fact that it even got made is miracle enough to me, and from what I've seen it actually looks frighteningly close to the source material. I hope it doesn't suck. But the best part is I get to take my 6 year-old nephew, Ben, to see it next week (on my birthday no less). I can only imagine what kind of super hero he wants to grow up to be, but whichever one he chooses, it'll be awesome to share the exploits of my favorite one on the silver screen with him. And for a short time, there will be two 6 year-olds in that theatre watching Hal Jordan save the earth. In 3D no less. And when Ryan Reynolds says the Green Lantern oath, I'll be saying it right along with him from memory, a memory I've held on to for over 3 decades:

In brightest day, in blackest night,

No evil shall escape my sight,

Let those who worship evil's might,

Beware my power,

GREEN LANTERN'S LIGHT!

Of course, my biggest fear is that the movie will suck. But if Hal Jordan can overcome his fears, I'm sure I can overcome that one. And if it does suck, well, that'll just make for another blog post.

One Day at a Time

The outside of the house has been newly painted. The trim is shiny and new. The bushes have been cut back and the flower beds are arranged and pristine. Inside, the house is spotless, clean and presentable. Even the office, which is always in a state of disarray, looks semi-professional. Yes, it is fair to say that in the nearly 2 years I have lived here, the house has never looked better. And it has never felt more empty. It's not where I live anymore, it's just the place I sleep at night. Funny how that has happened. I'm still trying to come to grips with it all. There was a time not too long ago that I would have considered buying this house. It is, after all, a great fucking house. But the rental lease runs out in August and I can't afford to pay for the mortgage on my own, so my landlord is getting it ready to go back on the market. So I have to keep the house nice as I can so the realtor can show it to potential buyers. Don't get me wrong, it's always been well-maintained and I've tried to keep it looking as good as I can, but Brian (the landlord) has really done a lot lately to make it look even better. And I'm sure he won't have any trouble finding someone to buy it. It will make someone a very nice home. It's just not my home anymore. It will forever be to me the place Jen and I used to live. It was our home. And we don't live together anymore.

People have been asking me lately how I've been handling our whole situation. I keep telling them I'm sailing on uncharted waters. I've never been in this place before, and I have no frame of reference for how I'm supposed to handle it. Am I supposed to go left, am I supposed to turn right? Is there even a map to follow? Everything about our divorce has been out there in open, for all the world to see. I mean, we took a picture of the notary signing our divorce papers and posted it on Facebook for Christ's sake. It might not seem like it from the picture, but we didn't reach the decision to split up lightly. This was something that we both arrived at together with serious discussion and soul-searching. And there is no doubt in my mind that we made the right decision. I know it's hard for people who know us to understand sometimes, but unless you are actually in someone's relationship, you will never understand how that person's relationship works. Our relationship just is what it is. Jen and I aren't supposed to be husband and wife anymore. It's as simple as that. But now that the divorce papers have been filed and the dust has settled, now what? What is the next step? We aren't us anymore, we are 2 separate individuals. We still love each other and talk to each other and see each other, but where do we go from here? I'm still trying to figure that out.

As a kid who grew up as a military brat, change is nothing new. I've had to move away from places before and start all over again more times than I can count. But this time it is different. I've never lived in this city as just me before. My entire life here has been defined by my relationship with Jen. When it really comes down to it, I moved to Birmingham for her. I turned away from a life in L.A. that I wasn't happy with and embraced a new future with her. And I've never once regretted that decision, even after all that has happened to us. I've grown to love this place and I consider it my home. Jen and I have many of the same friends, we run in the same circles, and as I am learning, this town is smaller than you might think. Everyone is about 1 degree removed from everyone else. There's a lot of comfort in that, to be sure, but it can also be awkward. We aren't together anymore, so how does that work in a place like this? Is there a proper set of steps to follow? Am I supposed to lock myself away in my room and not come out? Should I try to meet new people and try to define my life in some other way? Or should I just pack it all up and move to Denmark? And what about Jen? I don't want to shut her out of my life. She's still my best friend. I would never want to do anything to hurt her, but can I do that and still live my own life? Is it being selfish to try and move on? What does moving on even mean? Some days I feel like I have it all figured out, some days I just want to stay in bed. I know it's been hard for both of us. Jen and I have talked about it, we both have good days and bad days with it. I guess the best anyone can do is just keep one foot in front of the other and keep moving forward.

And through it all, the house just keeps getting cleaner. In a few days, the "For Sale" sign will be posted out front and strangers will be making appointments to walk through the door. When the realtor shows them around, they will figuring out where their couch will go, which wall their bed will rest against, and how many cookouts they will have on their new back porch. I should know, I did the same thing when Jen and I saw the place for the first time. Soon enough, I will be living in a new place, with my own new furniture and a new address to memorize. But until then I have to walk around this slowly emptying house remembering how it used to look and sound when there were 2 people sharing the space. It's always hard to let go of the past, but, as I am learning, sometimes it's hard to embrace the future, too. When I used to think about what was to come in my life, there were 2 people in the equation. But there's new math to solve now. What is the solution for a future of 1? I don't know. Change can be a scary thing.

But then I stop and I think about how change is often a good thing. It can be exciting. It can take you places you never thought possible. It can lead to amazing adventures and can redefine who you are. People can be frightened of change. But some of the best things that have ever happened to me were sprung from sudden and life-altering change. That's why they call them life-altering moments. They literally alter your life. You never know what's going to happen when change knocks on your door. Someone new will soon live in this house and their lives will change, just as mine will change when I move out. I have plans and dreams and ideas just like everybody else, and sometimes those things get forgotten and put aside when things stay the same too long. Change is the only constant, and the sooner I remember that and embrace it, the better my life will be.

My itunes library is on random play right now. As I finished typing the last sentence in that last paragraph, the theme song to the 70s TV show "One Day at a Time" started playing. It sounds crazy, but that was the perfect song to close this post out with. As cheesy as it might sound, the lyrics express more about how I feel than anything I just said above, so here they are:

This is it. This is life, the one you get, so go and have a ball.

This is it. Straight ahead, and rest assured you can't be sure at all.

So while you're here, enjoy the view.

Keep on doing what you do.

Hold on tight, we'll muddle through.

One day at a time.

So up on your feet.

Somewhere there's music playing.

Don't you worry none, just take it like it comes.

One day at a time.

9/11, 5/1/11, and the Curse of Shiny Objects

Like everybody else alive at the time, I remember exactly where I was the morning of September 11, 2001. I was home from work, the last day of my week-long vacation at WAKA CBS 8, asleep in bed. I would have probably slept until noon, as was my normal routine on my day off, but on this particular morning my phone would not stop ringing. Usually I let the machine pick it up, but whoever was calling would not leave a message, they just hung up and dialed again. Angrily, after, the third cycle of this, I finally dragged myself out of bed and answered in a terse voice, "What?"

"Mike, it's Heather! Turn on the TV! The World Trade Center was attacked and the Pentagon just exploded! It's like World War 3!" It was one of my roommates calling from work. She was talking so fast I could barely understand what she was saying, and what I could understand sounded like I was still asleep, experiencing some strange dream. I grabbed the remote and turned on NBC. It became very clear very quickly that this was no dream. I barely had time to comprehend everything Tom Brokaw was saying about all the chaos that had unfolded in the last few hours when the first Tower suddenly collapsed right before my eyes. It was one of the most surreal experiences of my life.

The rest of the day was a blur of disbelief, grief, and shock. But whenever I think about that day, I also remember what happened to this country in the days following. There was a sense of American unity unlike any in our history. For about 3 months, we all stopped caring about our differences and just became Americans. We had something to mourn together and something to rally behind. The flag was flying everywhere you looked. It was like we all forgot to be Democrat or Republican and just became neighbors. It sucks that it took such a tragic event for it to happen, but for a brief shining moment out of the darkness of 9/11, we became the country we always hoped we could be. One nation.

Of course, it didn't last, and we all went back to the petty squabbles and finger-pointing that we'd been so good at before. In a lot of ways, the divisions that existed in the country before 9/11 just got bigger and deeper. In the last decade, pleasant debate has turned into vitriolic rancor. It's deafening how much hate and divisiveness exist in this country. Just read any message board on the internet and one starts to wonder if we're on the verge of collapse, a latter-day Roman Empire crumbling from within.

So now comes word that the guy responsible for the act of terrorism that pretty much caused all this is dead. American Special Forces stormed Osama Bin Laden's compound, shot him in the head, and carted off his body. It sounds like the plot of a Tom Cruise movie, but it's real. I blows my mind. From the moment Bin Laden's death was announced, crowds started forming at Ground Zero, waving flags and sharing in the moment. It was kind of surreal to watch it all unfold on screen, which seemed oddly appropriate for how this whole thing started.

But I can't help but wonder if this is yet another giant distraction that disguises the fact that we still have huge chasms between us in this country. Sure, it might feel good to our baser instincts that the author of the 9/11 plot is dead, but is the world any different now than it was when he was still alive? Probably not. It makes for good headlines, and truth be told I'm glad the evil fucker is dead, but it seems like too little too late. We aren't any better off than we were before 9/11, in fact we're a lot worse. There are serious problems left to be solved, and countless tragedies that we have suffered since that September morning. I have to give the U.S. credit for seeing the mission through over the last decade and taking Bin Laden out, but wouldn't that effort been better spent in solving the energy crisis? Or the housing crisis? Or figuring out how to keep the middle class from disappearing?

I was looking at footage of the destruction left behind last week during the Tuscaloosa tornado and thought to myself that the people who survived that tragedy probably don't care in the slightest that Bin Laden is dead. They've got much bigger problems to worry about. Like where to live. Or where their loved ones are. Or how many funerals they have to attend. But, as it happens all too often in this country, we get distracted by the next shiny object and move on. Look! The Royals are getting married. Look! Bin Laden's dead. Look! Dancing with the Stars is on. We just lose sight of the important stuff and turn into an entire country of ADD sufferers. It's easy to do, and I'm just as guilty as the next person.

But I hope that one day we all wake up and realize that we need to fix the problems in front of us before we move on to the next one. America used to be the place where the world turned to be inspired. I mean, we landed on the moon once. That carries a lot of weight. Now it seems it's the place everyone turns to get distracted. Who cares about gas prices when Kim Kardashian has a new sex tape? Who cares about education when Thor is about to come out? Who cares about the victims of a natural disaster when Charlie Sheen is stopping by? It took us ten years to figure out how to land on the moon, but I bet if we tried again it wouldn't take ten minutes before we got sidetracked and gave up and started playing XBox. The problems we face today are hard and difficult and aren't going to be solved overnight. It's going to take focus and determination and...ooo look! Will Ferrell is shaving Conan's beard on TBS!

Wait, what was I saying?

Yes. And...?

When I was about 13, I saw a TV special on the A&E network called "Warbabies." I don't remember why I tuned in, it might have even been by accident, but it was the first time I had ever been exposed to the art of improv comedy. A group of about a dozen comedians were gathered on a stage and proclaimed to a crowd of about a hundred or so that everything they were about to see was going to be completely made up on the spot. I had never heard of improv before, but I was intrigued. Surely these people were kidding, right? There was no way sane people would come out in front of a crowd and just make shit up on the spot. Surely there had to be a script involved. Who would pay to see folks just make stuff up? And, more to the point, how on earth could it be funny? In my naive teenage mind jokes had to be written first before they could be funny. But, over the next hour I was transfixed by these brave souls who asked for random audience suggestions (locations, occupations, relationships,and the like) and then wove those suggestions into comedy gold. The only member of the ensemble I recognized was Peter Riegert (Boone from "Animal House"), but they were all incredibly talented individuals who kept me in stiches for the better part of an hour. The most amazing scene in the special was at the end, when the entire cast came out on stage and turned a single audience suggestion into an elaborate musical number. I was mesmerized. I wish A&E would rerun the special, or that it was available on DVD so I could relive that eye-opening experience. But, from that point on, I became fascinated by improv. I didn't think at the time that I myself could ever try it, much less be any good at it, but I definitely wanted to know more.

Many years later, when I was a theatre major in college, Comedy Central started showing reruns of the British show "Whose Line is it Anyway." For most people I know, this was their introduction to the world of improv. Again, the cast members would take audience suggestions and turn them into little skits that had me rolling in the floor. By this time, I had appeared in several college plays, so I had a deeper appreciation of just how hard it was to get up in front of an audience and be funny. It was hard enough when you had a script to go by, but standing onstage unarmed was every actor's nightmare. How did these people do it? Week after week, I would watch "Whose Line" with my fellow theatre friends and we were always blown away by the wit and timing of the cast. But, even though I considered myself a performer at that point, I still couldn't imagine going out on stage with nothing prepared. It seemed insane to subject myself (or an audience) to that madness. As far as I was concerned, these folks from the BBC were truly gifted freaks of nature who had skills I could never hope to achieve.

Then in 2001, my college friend Mac Funchess came to me and said he was part of an improv group with some other folks and wanted to know if I was interested in joining. At first I thought he was crazy. It seemed like suicide to subject oneself to the theatrical equivalent of bungee jumping without a net...or even a bungee cord for that matter. I passed, wishing him and his other volunteers good luck. I did, however, go see one of their first performances at a Montgomery bar one evening soon after, and even though they were a little rough around the edges, they were pretty funny. I decided that I would suck it up and give it a shot. I soon found myself part of "Brainfreeze," Montgmery's first (and as far as I know, only) improv group. Mac introduced me to Tony Beckham, one of the founding members. Mac and Tony had taken some improv workshops in Atlanta and had read several books on improv and decided to form Brainfreeze to share their knowledge. It was here that I learned the secret of improv, the core principle that makes improv work. It is the spark from which all improv scenes grow and thrive upon. Without it, scenes wither on the vine and die. And, until Tony and Mac shared it with me, I thought it must be some elaborate, mechanical theory that takes years to master. But it's actually quite simple. It's two little words: Yes. And.

"Yes, and..." is the key to creating something out of nothing on stage. They might not seem like much, but those two little words are powerful tools. They are the building blocks for all great improv. It's very simple how it works, really. Let's say two people are on stage. One of them turns to the other and says:

"Say, Dave, isn't the sky a lovely shade of blue?"

Now, if the other actor wanted to kill the scene right then and there, all he would have to do is say:

"No, it's cloudy. And my name's not Dave."

End scene. Crickets. No laughs, no jokes, unhappy audience. What he should have done is said:

"Yes, it is. And check out that airplane flying by."

"Dave" accepted what his partner gave him (Yes). Then he added to it (And). So, with "Yes, and.." firmly in place, the scene might continue like this:

"Yes, I see the plane. And doesn't it look like it's flying a little low?"

"Yes, it is flying low. And it's coming right at us."

"Yes, it's almost on top of us. And I think we should run away."

"Yes, we should run away. And into this steel bunker."

"Yes, good idea. And I have the key right here in my pocket."

"Yes, and it's a good thing I let you wear my pants today."

And so on and so on until the scene ends. Now, this is a very simplified version of how it works (and there are several other techniques that come into play as you progress though successful improv scenes), but the starting point is simple. You agree with your partner, whatever they say, and then add to it. You accept the reality you are given, and then build on it, no matter how absurd it might be. Rejecting what you are given is called "blocking" (i.e. you "block" the other person's reality), which brings the scene to a screeching halt. By blocking, you are halting any forward momentum in the scene and bringing it crashing down on top of you (not unlike the plane headed right for Dave and his friend). It's actually quite a simple concept, but until Mac and Tony shared it with me, I had no idea how improv worked. But from that one idea, I became hooked on improv and have performed it almost non-stop since.

The thing about it, though, is that "Yes, and..." is a concept that works not only on the stage, but in everyday life. In fact, I would go so far as to say it has benefitted me more in the real world than in the imaginary one created on stage. When we interact with each other, we need to accept the reality given to us by the other person, then add to it with positivity. Never try to steer something in a different direction just because it's not the way we planned to go. Blocking is never a good thing, and leads to disappointment, frustration, and frowns. Being accepting of what we are given and then adding to it is the key to making life work. As the old saying goes, all the world's a stage, so we should treat it as such (of course, if the world is a stage, I want better lighting, but you get the idea). Next time you run into an unknown situation, just try "Yes, and..." I think you will be surprised at the results. If nothing else, you might make someone laugh, and that's something in far too short of supply these days.

It Is What It Is

I met Jen on a chilly October morning in 2006. I was the location manager for the film "Honeydripper" and we we shooting a scene at the abandoned Army barracks at Ft. McClellan in Anniston, Alabama. I was still living in Los Angeles at the time, but had been hired by John Sayles to come back to my adopted home state to work on his film for a few months. The majority of the film was being shot in Greenville, some 200 miles away, but we had one crucial scene to shoot here in Anniston, so the entire crew had made the journey north for one day of shooting. The sun hadn't even come up yet when I arrived on set that morning, so I quickly headed for craft services to get my first cup of hot tea for the day. As I was getting my caffeine on, a cute girl I had never seen before bounded down the back stairs of the craft services truck. I turned and said, "Hi. I don't know you. Who are you?" She smiled, held out her hand and said, "Hi. I'm Jennifer." We shook hands. I immediately felt that Jen was sweet and charming, the kind of person who you know has never met a stranger. I asked her how she came to be on set. She said she had been hired as a production assistant to help out with craft services for the day. She then told me she was from Birmingham and had recently made a short film starring Mo Rocca (from the Daily Show) called "Piece of Cake." It had screened in the Sidewalk Film Festival that September, where it won the Audience Choice award for Best Alabama Short, which is when she first heard out about "Honeydripper" coming to town. I was even more impressed when she told me she had never written or directed a short film before. She asked me where I was from. I told her I used to live in Montgomery, but currently lived in Burbank, California. I was only in Alabama for 3 months for the shoot, and then I would jet off back to Los Angeles right after Thanksgiving. We talked for a few minutes more, but soon I was called away to deal with some sort of location problem, and that was that. I saw her again sporadically throughout the day, but never got the chance to talk to her again. And as the day was winding down and everyone was packing up to make the 200 mile trek back to Greenville, I figured I would probably never see her again. But as I was glamorously tossing garbage bags from the day's shoot into a dumpster next to the location, Jen's car pulled up. She was leaving for the day, but wanted to give me her MySpace address in case I wanted to know more about her short film. I tucked the piece of paper in my pocket, told her it was nice to meet her, and said goodbye.

Three years to the day later, we were married.

Cue the romantic music. Fade out. Credits.

Sounds just like some great movie, right? It's a great story. Jen and I have told that story to people for nearly 5 years. When people ask us how we met, it's cool to say, "We met on a movie set." It always gets a great reaction. So when we started telling our friends and family recently that we have decided to split up, it came as a bit of a shock to everyone. Including, and especially, to us. But real life isn't like the movies; there are no guaranteed happy endings. We don't have an omniscient director guiding our every move. Award-winning screenwriters aren't plotting the destinies of the two young lovers who "met cute" on a film set. Life is what it is, and sometimes things don't work out the way people expect them to. It's not always tragic when it happens. Sometimes it's exactly the way it's supposed to be. It's sad and it hurts and it makes you cry, but after you wipe away the tears and really listen to your heart, you know it's just the way it is.

The truth is, Jen and I love each other very much. And there are things in our relationship that work like gangbusters. We support each other, we inspire each other, we bring out the best in each other. I know I am forever a better person for having Jen in my life. She has given me so much and taught me so much about myself. She makes me want to be a better person every single day. And I know that the reason for all the good things in our relationship is that we have always been totally honest with each other. We can and do tell each other everything. There is nothing I can't tell her, and she the same with me. The irony is that because of that honesty, we have decided to split up.

No relationship is perfect, and ours is no different. We found each other at the exact right time and place in each of our lives. We didn't realize it at the time, but we each had a piece of what the other person was missing in some way: Love. Stability. Encouragement. Comfort. Love. We were both alone and lost in the wilderness, but somehow we found each other. It really was like something out of a movie. But from the very beginning, no matter how quickly and completely we were drawn to each other, there was still something missing. Something intangible. A spark is the only way to describe it. That feeling you get deep down on a purely romantic level that words just can't explain. We've looked for it many times, but for whatever reason, that quality is just missing between us. We both realized it when we first met, but at the time it didn't matter. At that time in our lives, we needed each other for all the other reasons. But as time has passed and our relationship has grown, we have both come to realize that we love each other too much to ignore it any longer. It is painful and difficult and hard to admit to one another, but to pretend that it doesn't matter would mean we would have to stop being honest with each other, and that's not how our relationship works. At first, we tried to figure out how to fix it, like there was something broken. But the truth is, it didn't really break. You can't fix something that has never existed in the first place. It doesn't make it any less painful, it just is what it is. Jen is my best friend, and I am hers. And the only way for us to remain best friends is for us to stop being husband and wife. Because if we don't, even though we still love each other now, one day, be it one year, five years, or ten years down the line, we will wind up resenting or blaming or hating each other for pretending that nothing is wrong, and the thought of that is a thousand times more painful than the thought of splitting up. I can survive losing my wife, but I can't survive losing my best friend.

In many ways, Jen and I are different people than when we met. We've both grown and changed and evolved. We have different goals and interests and dreams than we did that cold morning in Anniston. We're not mad or angry or upset with each other about it. In fact, as strange as it sounds, once we finally admitted to each other that something was missing in our relationship, we were both relieved. The elephant could leave the room now. It's been weird and sad and confusing wrapping our heads around this whole thing, and we've talked about it extensively from every possible point of view, but we both agree that this is the only honest decision we can make. It sucks and it hurts and it's going to be a huge life change for us both, but it is the right decision for us to make. I will always treasure my marriage to Jen, and I know she feels the same. I don't regret a second of the time we've spent together, and I know we will always be part of each other's lives. Some people might think we're being rash, or that we need to give it more time. But that's what people do when they're trying to be polite with each other. Polite and honest are two very different things. Love is no reason to be polite.

When I Found the Big Bag of Oranges

So, you might be asking yourself, why is my blog called "The Big Bag of Oranges" anyway? Well, it's a strange story that involves college friends, cops, and the TV show "Benson." But I'm getting ahead of myself. Way back in 1993, I was a student at Auburn University Montgomery trying to figure out what the hell to do with my life. It had taken me 3 years of on-again/off-again enrollment to finally finish up the general courses. I had taken all the stuff everybody has to take when they go to college. I couldn't put it off any longer. I had to finally pick a major. I had no idea where to turn. None of the "careers" laid out in front of me seemed appealing. I hated math, so business and engineering were out. Blood makes me squeamish, so forget the medical field. I don't want to be a teacher, and I feel that if you don't want to teach, you shouldn't. Some people I know regard teaching as a "fallback" position. "If my career as a so-and-so doesn't work out, I'll just become a teacher." I think you would be doing your students an unforgivable disservice if you didn't feel passionately about teaching them. So, for me, that was also out.

About the only thing I was drawn to in college was when I performed in plays for the college's theatre department. I had signed up for an acting class my first semester because I though it would be an easy A and it might be a good place to meet girls. I didn't get lucky in that class, but I did find out about auditions for "Night of the Iguana" at Theatre AUM. Again, because of the potential to meet girls, I tried out. And, to my surprise, I got a part! I was cast as one of the Mexican houseboys (Paco or Pedro, I can't remember which). I had 8 lines, all in Spanish. The costume designer dyed my hair black and every night before the show I had to cover my body in brown makeup. I was the tallest, skinniest, and palest Mexican you've ever seen. And while the drunken, sweaty dialogue of Tennessee Williams didn't exactly set my heart on fire, being on stage did. When it comes right down to it, I'm a big showoff, so being in front of large groups of people has never bothered me. I felt at home on the stage, and for this particular show, I was part of the (minuscule) comic relief. It was a lot of fun dressing up in a silly costume every night and making the audience laugh. It became addictive. I started trying out for other shows every semester, playing bigger parts, working backstage, and hanging out with the theatre crowd. But it never occurred to me that being an actor could be a lucrative career. This was something I did for fun; a hobby more than anything, really. Sure, I might fancy myself as a bit of a comedian, but I'm not really an actor. And I wasn't really drawn to the technical side of theatre, either (I don't like to hang lights, make costumes, or wear all-black clothes all the time). But while I was there, I met a couple of guys who, like me, shared a passion for something that I hadn't even considered. And it was so obvious, it had been staring me right in the face the whole time: movies!

I love movies. I watch them at the movie theater, I rent them on video, I tape them off cable. I grew up watching them, reading about them, being sucked into them. But they existed in my mind as a fantasy realm, something unreal and intangible. I knew all about famous directors and studios and all that, but that was a universe that existed far beyond my own, in a distant and magical place called "Hollywood." I lived in Montgomery, Alabama, and even though I had grown up traveling all over the world, I never thought of Hollywood as a real place. Movies were just something "other people" did. Famous people. Not me. But, as it turns out, regular people do make movies. There's an entire industry filled with regular folk who just happen to have the coolest job in the world. And during my time at Theatre AUM, I met 3 other guys who shared the same desire as I to run off to Hollywood and live the dream: Art, Danny, and Garner.

We all met during the 1992 production of "Dracula," and we quickly realized we shared a love for movies. We all aspired to make it big in the movie business, and as luck would have it, we all wanted to to pursue different roles. Art saw himself as a director, Garner as a producer. Danny wanted to be an actor, while I wanted to be a screenwriter. We surmised that if we all worked together, we could take the film world by storm! Granted, our college-sized egos usually got the better of us, and despite the fact that all 4 of us worked at the same video store, none of us had any real idea how to make movies. We couldn't afford to buy real film, and professional video cameras in those days were several thousand dollars we didn't have. The best we could come up with was Art's VHS camcorder. And making a full length film was a bit ambitious for our first time out, so we decided to try our hand at making a parody of the TV show "Cops," figuring that the handheld, amateurish look of the show was right in our wheelhouse. As it turned out, Montgomery's Fox affiliate was airing their own locally produced version of "Cops" called "M.P.D." It was a no-brainer. The wheels turned and we all settled on the name for our show - "N.M.P.D. - Not the Montgomery Police Department." We spent the spring and summer of 1993 filming the exploits of 4 inept cops patrolling the streets of Montgomery, all while trying to find the perfect coffee and donuts. I played Detective Season, the wide-eyed, sci-fi geek who bumbled his way through each adventure. Art Douglas played Sgt. Douglas (go figure), the violent, ex-military type. Garner was Sgt. Manapua, the psychotic Vietnam vet with homicidal tendencies. Danny was Detective Juan O'Malley, an undercover druglord. Sure, it was kind of cheesy and rough-around-the-edges, but it was funny and a lot of fun to make. Some of the end results can be seen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi51-JGFMw0&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LytbQXDgQyA&feature=related

We produced about a dozen episodes (more or less) that ran on the local public access channel sporadically during the spring and summer of 1993. Despite the no-budget production values and amateurish execution, a few people besides our friends and families actually watched the damn thing. We amassed a small following around town (even sold a few N.M.P.D. t-shirts out of the trunk of Art's car. We were big time!). One of the episodes we filmed involved Garner's character being abducted by aliens (don't ask). In our lofty goals for our little show, we had always intended this to be a cliffhanger episode. Manapua would be whisked away by a UFO at the end, with the next episode revealing what happened to him inside the alien mothership. Unfortunately, my "epic" script for the conclusion proved to be too expensive to produce (i.e. we had no idea how to do it), so we scrapped the whole thing. Instead, I wrote a script where Manapua just shows up back at the police station. Everyone is shocked to see him. Someone asks, "Hey, Manapua, how did you get away from the aliens?" Manapua replies, "Well, it's a funny story..." and just as he is about to explain how he got away from the mothership, we cut to a fake news report about something irrelevant. The fake newscaster wraps up the fake news report and says, "We now return you to N.M.P.D., already in progress." We cut back to Manapua, who is finishing up his tale. He says, "...which is how I wound up at the condom factory. And that's when I found the big bag of oranges." Everyone nods in amazement. And... scene.

It was Garner who actually came up with the line about the oranges, but I thought it was a brilliant way to write around our limitations. A random non-sequiter about oranges and condoms seemed like a funny way of saying to the audience, "Hey, folks, we ain't got the money to do this, so we're just going to move on." I asked Garner how he came up with the line and he explained it was a reference to a random line he heard in re-run of "Benson" when he was a kid. In the episode dim-witted Governor Gatling was trying to recant some silly story to Benson, who was too busy to hear it. Benson tells the Governor to skip to the end. The Governor runs through the tale in his head, then says, "And you know what was in the bag? The oranges!" And... scene. Silly, random, and, at least to me, hysterical. From that point on, the line "That's when I found the big bag of oranges" followed my pen around everywhere I wrote. I tried to include it somewhere in every script or story I came up with. I got the idea from director John Landis (Animal House, The Blues Brothers, Coming to America). Landis includes the phrase "See you next wednesday" in all of his films. It's on billboards, on marquees, on posters, it's even in lines of dialogue. It's subtle and in the background, but it's there. It's a filmmaker signature, like Hitchcock's cameo in all of his own films (or Hal Needham's cameo in all of his own films). The Big Bag of Oranges is mine. It's nonsensical and whimsical and kind of bizarre, and that's why I like it.

And every time I hear it, I am reminded of the summer I spent with my friends making movies. The stuff we filmed was also nonsensical and whimsical and kind of bizarre, but it didn't matter. It also didn't matter that we had no idea what we doing. We were just doing it. We hadn't yet become jaded by the harsh realities of the film industry. We hadn't yet become distracted by the responsibilities of real life. We hadn't yet lost our sense of wonder. As time passes, I get more cynical about making movies. Years after N.M.P.D., when I moved to Los Angeles and had the opportunity to work on "real" movies, I was thrilled beyond belief. I got to watch people like Tim Burton and Martin Scorsese and John Sayles make films. I was an arm-length away from the greatest film school anyone could ever wish for. It was exhilarating, but at the same time, it was kind of sad. It was like I was watching how the magician did his tricks. Sure, the tricks were awesome, but it took some of the magic away. There was a thrill in ignorance that my friends and I shared back in 93. Acting on blind passion without a roadmap led to some pretty amazing destinations back in the day. It also led down some blind alleys, but the thrill of discovery was still there. That thrill is harder and harder to find these days. I know it's still there. I can feel it, buried deep in that part of my brain that remembers things like the lyrics to the theme to "Cannonball Run" or the name of the composer of the music to "Battle Beyond the Stars." That deep passion I have for movies never really goes away. It just takes a reminder every now and then to bring it back to the surface. So whenever I feel like giving up, I just go looking for the big bag of oranges.