On November 3rd, a man named Malachi Ritscher set himself on fire near the off-ramp of a Chicago freeway. (Here's the AP story.) Apparently he was a long-time political activist who had suffered from bouts of depression; and, plainly emulating the 1963 death of Vietnamese monk Thich Quang Duc, Mr. Ritscher made the unimaginable decision to emulate Duc's act of extraordinary protest.
I just went through a Google search for Mr. Ritscher's name, and of the first 100 results, not a single one was for a mainstream news source: no CNN, no New York Times, not even the Chicago Tribune or Sun-Times covered a local story. Only the indie paper Chicago Reader, which I remember well from my years there, picked up the story. (To be more precise: according to the Reader, apparently the Sun-Times ran a small article before it knew who had immolated himself or why; since then, nothing until it reran the AP article this morning.)
Mr. Ritscher's suicide note read, in part, "If I am required to pay for your barbaric war, I choose not to live in your world. I refuse to finance the mass murder of innocent civilians, who did nothing to threaten our country.... If one death can atone for anything, in any small way, to say to the world: I apologize for what we have done to you, I am ashamed for the mayhem and turmoil caused by my country." Much of the discussion, what there has been of it, has turned on the question of whether Mr. Ritscher's problems with depression somehow invalidate his act of protest. Was he, some wonder, ever clinically diagnosed, or was it an undiagnosed mental illness, or was it perhaps a simple low-level depression such as many suffer through from time to time? I suppose that some of this results from the example set by Thich Quang Duc, a monk who suffered from no mental illness, who indeed, according to witness David Halberstam, never once moved or cried out during his ordeal. Thus Duc's motives are pure, thus his act had meaning. By implication, then, Ritscher's motives were impure (because he was, you know, sick in the head, a mental defective, CRAAAAAZYYYYY), therefore his act had no meaning.
This argument is absurd--particularly when put forth in the usual blunt-instrument terms of conservative bloggers. (Read and weep.) If it was purely a question of depression driving someone to suicide, then why was it so politically overt? Typically, when someone attempts suicide in order to get attention, it is exactly that: an attempt, a cry for help. The method chosen would therefore be something with a reasonable chance of suriving; self-immolation ain't that. Once you pour gasoline on yourself and light a match, well, that's all there is to it, you're gonna die.
Plainly, Ritscher was trying, in his last moments on earth, to make his death mean something. And even if it was partially motivated by the awful circumstances of depression, making his death a political act was a last attempt to make his life, and his death, meaningful and effective, just as Duc's death had been. It must follow, then, that this was not a petty, self-involved death, a kind of mental implosion, a black hole of personality collapsing in on itself; it was a last attempt at expansion, at significance, from a man who had devoted much of his life to political activism. In his suicide note he wrote, "My position is that I only get one death, I want it to be a good one. Wouldn't it be better to stand for something or make a statement, rather than a fiery collision with some drunk driver?"
Mr. Ritscher was not a "moonbat," not "an aging hippie loser" who recognized the pointlessness of his liberal life and just decided to end it all. He voluntarily chose to endure what is perhaps the most painful of all deaths in the last hope that it might mean something. The fact that the mass media have so thoroughly ignored that sacrifice makes it all the more tragic.
Monday, November 27, 2006
Friday, November 24, 2006
The Happy Place
It's hard to overstate how much I love the Thanksgiving holiday. Four-plus days off from work; I don't have to travel anywhere, and what with my friend Ezra's fondness for taking in Thanksgiving orphans such as myself, I don't even have to do anything--just show up at a specific time, carrying a bottle of wine, then sit back with friends and eat, drink and maketh the merry.
It wasn't always thus. Back in college, the holiday was too short to fly home, but the dorms closed so I always had to find someplace to stay. This was particularly awkward my Freshman year, when I found myself at a cast party the weeked before Thanksgiving, essentially begging the gathering for a place to stay. I found one (and ended up having a memorable vegetarian Thanksgiving that consisted, as I recall, of rice, rice and rice); but the next year I ended up staying at the YMCA on Huntington for the holiday, which was a whole different kind of memorable. (The infamous "Hail Mary" pass from Doug Flutie to Gerard Phelan came that particular weekend, and I watched the game on a tiny TV in a tiny room at the Y, sitting on my tiny bed and staring at the screen--remember, I'm a Miamian, so I was rooting for the Hurricanes, not for B.C.--while yelling things in complete shock.)
But things change, and my Thanksgivings slowly got better and better, until I am now where I am, ridiculously happy with my holiday. I ended up seated next to the utterly wonderful Sarah Underwood (she was also in Outta Sync), whom I hadn't seen in months; and at a certain point during dessert, I felt it come over me. "Ah, there it is," I said to the nice people near me (it was a very long table that covered, I think, at least two time zones), "my stomach just reached its happy place."
And then, as is always the way of things, instead of stopping there I finished what was on my plate and my stomach promptly moved to the "overstuffed and overwhelmed" place. But so what? It's not like I had any place to be; or any place I would rather be.
Then today, I scratched an itch: the single most distressing casualty of the Zen Noir distribution has been that for weeks I have had absolutely no time to do any writing. (Although I have to say--the fact that our DVD kept selling all through Thanksgiving day, in surprisingly good numbers, was also extremely pleasant.) So this morning, I sat down with my "Marathon" script and made just a tiny little change; a texture thing, really, although it does tie up a storyline that had been left dangling, and without a line of dialogue being spoken. I'd realized weeks ago that I needed to tie up that loose thread, I even knew what to do; even so, it wasn't till today that I could actually sit down and do it. It felt spectacularly satisfying.
The release of the movie will end quite soon, when we open in Chicago. I won't be traveling for that, and after that we only have to keep DVD sales moving along. At last, I should be able to get back to what I really do, writing. About bloody time.
At the same time, the stories out of Iraq today are so horrifying that I simply can't look at them. Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to think about such things, but not now, no, not now.
It wasn't always thus. Back in college, the holiday was too short to fly home, but the dorms closed so I always had to find someplace to stay. This was particularly awkward my Freshman year, when I found myself at a cast party the weeked before Thanksgiving, essentially begging the gathering for a place to stay. I found one (and ended up having a memorable vegetarian Thanksgiving that consisted, as I recall, of rice, rice and rice); but the next year I ended up staying at the YMCA on Huntington for the holiday, which was a whole different kind of memorable. (The infamous "Hail Mary" pass from Doug Flutie to Gerard Phelan came that particular weekend, and I watched the game on a tiny TV in a tiny room at the Y, sitting on my tiny bed and staring at the screen--remember, I'm a Miamian, so I was rooting for the Hurricanes, not for B.C.--while yelling things in complete shock.)
But things change, and my Thanksgivings slowly got better and better, until I am now where I am, ridiculously happy with my holiday. I ended up seated next to the utterly wonderful Sarah Underwood (she was also in Outta Sync), whom I hadn't seen in months; and at a certain point during dessert, I felt it come over me. "Ah, there it is," I said to the nice people near me (it was a very long table that covered, I think, at least two time zones), "my stomach just reached its happy place."
And then, as is always the way of things, instead of stopping there I finished what was on my plate and my stomach promptly moved to the "overstuffed and overwhelmed" place. But so what? It's not like I had any place to be; or any place I would rather be.
Then today, I scratched an itch: the single most distressing casualty of the Zen Noir distribution has been that for weeks I have had absolutely no time to do any writing. (Although I have to say--the fact that our DVD kept selling all through Thanksgiving day, in surprisingly good numbers, was also extremely pleasant.) So this morning, I sat down with my "Marathon" script and made just a tiny little change; a texture thing, really, although it does tie up a storyline that had been left dangling, and without a line of dialogue being spoken. I'd realized weeks ago that I needed to tie up that loose thread, I even knew what to do; even so, it wasn't till today that I could actually sit down and do it. It felt spectacularly satisfying.
The release of the movie will end quite soon, when we open in Chicago. I won't be traveling for that, and after that we only have to keep DVD sales moving along. At last, I should be able to get back to what I really do, writing. About bloody time.
At the same time, the stories out of Iraq today are so horrifying that I simply can't look at them. Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to think about such things, but not now, no, not now.
Friday, November 17, 2006
All Around the World
It's pretty amazing, the thought that people around the world will soon be watching Zen Noir. The DVD went on sale Tuesday (you can order it right here, with a host of free special gifts, for a limited time) and there was a lovely stretch of the day when we were selling something like 100 copies per hour. But even more remarkable was the thought of where those DVDs are going: all across the United States, of course, particularly to those places where the theatrical release could never reach; and it's not such a surprise to find them going to Canada and the U.K. and (particularly) to Australia, where sales have been particularly strong; but there are also sales to Israel and Jordan, to Malaysia, to Brazil and Sweden and South Africa, and that's just from a haphazard look at today's sales.
This is where film has it all over theatre, frankly. The reason to make art, in any form, is to have it seen and appreciated by an audience. In theatre, unless you have a mega-blockbuster like Phantom of the Opera that can set up a dozen road companies while also playing for years in London and New York so that tourists from across the world can come see it, even the best play will only be seen by people within, probably, no more than 100 miles of the theatre. (And the people who would travel that far are rare--we had a few who traveled when we did Signal to Noise, but that was really to see Neil Gaiman when he came to our special preview.) Then of course there's the time limit--a play is doing very well if it lasts longer than six weeks, but people can watch Zen Noir six decades from now. On six continents, no less.
This is really blowing my mind right now; it also leaves me seriously humble. And all I did was work on the film--it's Marc who's really responsible for it, whose story and ideas are right now being shipped across the world.
For the time being, the DVD is only available on our site, at the link above. It'll probably end up on Amazon and Netflix someday, although really truly I have no idea when that might happen; but for now, since there are still plenty of production expenses, etc. to recoup before we can start sharing the wealth with the actors and producers (who worked and have seen no rewards yet), we're understandably eager to rack up as many sales as we can--and not at Amazon's discounted rate. And so far it's working out just fine, as those little boxes make their way around the globe.
(One woman bought twelve copies, and in her "Comments" space she wrote "Well that's Christmas taken care of." Not that I'm trying to plant ideas in your head or anything...)
This is where film has it all over theatre, frankly. The reason to make art, in any form, is to have it seen and appreciated by an audience. In theatre, unless you have a mega-blockbuster like Phantom of the Opera that can set up a dozen road companies while also playing for years in London and New York so that tourists from across the world can come see it, even the best play will only be seen by people within, probably, no more than 100 miles of the theatre. (And the people who would travel that far are rare--we had a few who traveled when we did Signal to Noise, but that was really to see Neil Gaiman when he came to our special preview.) Then of course there's the time limit--a play is doing very well if it lasts longer than six weeks, but people can watch Zen Noir six decades from now. On six continents, no less.
This is really blowing my mind right now; it also leaves me seriously humble. And all I did was work on the film--it's Marc who's really responsible for it, whose story and ideas are right now being shipped across the world.
For the time being, the DVD is only available on our site, at the link above. It'll probably end up on Amazon and Netflix someday, although really truly I have no idea when that might happen; but for now, since there are still plenty of production expenses, etc. to recoup before we can start sharing the wealth with the actors and producers (who worked and have seen no rewards yet), we're understandably eager to rack up as many sales as we can--and not at Amazon's discounted rate. And so far it's working out just fine, as those little boxes make their way around the globe.
(One woman bought twelve copies, and in her "Comments" space she wrote "Well that's Christmas taken care of." Not that I'm trying to plant ideas in your head or anything...)
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Did Dean Do It?
Well, yay.
But it's curious that in all the self-congratulation I've heard from Democrats and the various media mouths, I haven't heard Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean's name mentioned once. (I know he was on The Daily Show last night, but I haven't yet had a chance to watch it.) All the attention was going to Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the Clinton-era insider who oversaw the national Congressional effort, and to Chuck Schumer, Emanuel's counterpart in the Senate. It's deserved praise, to be sure, but still it seemed a bit peculiar that Dean wasn't being mentioned. Can it be a coincidence that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid had both opposed Dean's chairmanship? (I'm not trying to spin out some kind of conspiracy theory here, I'm just trying to give some credit where it might be due.)
There was an interesting article in the New York Times last month about Dean, in which writer Matt Bai followed Dean to Alaska as he sought to further implement his "fifty-state strategy." The basis of the idea, according to Mr. Bai (paraphrasing Democratic pollster Cornell Belcher), is simple: "...Democrats do better with rural and small-town voters when they frame their positions as values rather than as policy prescriptions. This is not an entirely new insight, but to Dean it is critically important. In his mind, it means that any voter in any state can be a Democrat, if only you bother to talk to him, and if only you make the right kind of argument." And after the upheavals of the 1950s and 1960s, as demographics and political allegiances shifted, the once-mighty Democratic machine started ceding whole swaths of the country's electorate to the Republicans. Instead of adapting to the new reality their focus narrowed, a little bit at a time, election after election, finally reaching the point that during the 2004 election, 18 states were completely ignored by John Kerry and the Democratic Party.
Dean sought to do a 180 on that idea, hence the fifty-state strategy. Even places like Alaska, a sparsely-populated state where Republicans outnumber Democrats 2-to-1, needed Democratic party organizers on the ground, raising money and directing it to the right places. I won't summarize Mr. Bai's main points any more than that, instead just referring you again to his article, but will instead pivot to my own main point:
How much of the responsibility for this historic Democratic sweep belongs to Howard Dean?
Obviously, there are certain realities this election cycle that weren't so real just two years ago: the disgust of the electorate with just about every aspect of the Bush White House is plainly the dominant factor. Republican scandals that just kept on comin' had a hell of a lot to do with it, too. And without the public perception that the wheels were coming off the Republican train, Dean's strategy might have died an early death: it was dependent upon raising a sufficient amount of money to fund all those new state organizations, and without local Democrats getting excited about their prospects and therefore donating more money to the cause, Dean could never have executed his grand plan. (Indeed, as Bai reports, the Congressional fund-raising wings of the party were much more successful at keeping parity with their Republican counterparts than Dean's apparatus was--which is why the Republicans were able to spend so much more money on advertising in the last days of the campaign. Not that it ended up helping.)
There were significant gains in states like Iowa, Kansas and Colorado, which the conventional wisdom would have listed as solidly red states, the kind where a party doesn't bother wasting money because there's no way for a Democrat to win. And again, a lot of that can be attributed to the Republican implosion (what effect, for example, did the Ted Haggard debacle have in his home state of Colorado?), but how much did it help that there was a stronger Democratic field organization already in place in Colorado, and in Kansas and Iowa and elsewhere, to take advantage of such opportunities when they arose?
Remember: only a few months ago, conventional wisdom proclaimed that the chances of Democrats taking back the House were fair to decent, with a 15-seat gain "within the realm of possibility," but that retaking the Senate was nearly impossible. But more and more races--in more and more unlikely states--just kept opening up. And the party was able to capitalize on a big percentage of those opportunities.
So I'm just asking: with all due thanks to Rahm Emanuel and Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, how much should we also be thanking the outsider who no one else seems to be thanking?
(P.S. Sidney Blumenthal's post-election dissection of the "house of kitsch" that is the Bush Administration is extraordinary. I hadn't seen these clowns in this light before, but I think Blumenthal nails it.)
But it's curious that in all the self-congratulation I've heard from Democrats and the various media mouths, I haven't heard Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean's name mentioned once. (I know he was on The Daily Show last night, but I haven't yet had a chance to watch it.) All the attention was going to Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the Clinton-era insider who oversaw the national Congressional effort, and to Chuck Schumer, Emanuel's counterpart in the Senate. It's deserved praise, to be sure, but still it seemed a bit peculiar that Dean wasn't being mentioned. Can it be a coincidence that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid had both opposed Dean's chairmanship? (I'm not trying to spin out some kind of conspiracy theory here, I'm just trying to give some credit where it might be due.)
There was an interesting article in the New York Times last month about Dean, in which writer Matt Bai followed Dean to Alaska as he sought to further implement his "fifty-state strategy." The basis of the idea, according to Mr. Bai (paraphrasing Democratic pollster Cornell Belcher), is simple: "...Democrats do better with rural and small-town voters when they frame their positions as values rather than as policy prescriptions. This is not an entirely new insight, but to Dean it is critically important. In his mind, it means that any voter in any state can be a Democrat, if only you bother to talk to him, and if only you make the right kind of argument." And after the upheavals of the 1950s and 1960s, as demographics and political allegiances shifted, the once-mighty Democratic machine started ceding whole swaths of the country's electorate to the Republicans. Instead of adapting to the new reality their focus narrowed, a little bit at a time, election after election, finally reaching the point that during the 2004 election, 18 states were completely ignored by John Kerry and the Democratic Party.
Dean sought to do a 180 on that idea, hence the fifty-state strategy. Even places like Alaska, a sparsely-populated state where Republicans outnumber Democrats 2-to-1, needed Democratic party organizers on the ground, raising money and directing it to the right places. I won't summarize Mr. Bai's main points any more than that, instead just referring you again to his article, but will instead pivot to my own main point:
How much of the responsibility for this historic Democratic sweep belongs to Howard Dean?
Obviously, there are certain realities this election cycle that weren't so real just two years ago: the disgust of the electorate with just about every aspect of the Bush White House is plainly the dominant factor. Republican scandals that just kept on comin' had a hell of a lot to do with it, too. And without the public perception that the wheels were coming off the Republican train, Dean's strategy might have died an early death: it was dependent upon raising a sufficient amount of money to fund all those new state organizations, and without local Democrats getting excited about their prospects and therefore donating more money to the cause, Dean could never have executed his grand plan. (Indeed, as Bai reports, the Congressional fund-raising wings of the party were much more successful at keeping parity with their Republican counterparts than Dean's apparatus was--which is why the Republicans were able to spend so much more money on advertising in the last days of the campaign. Not that it ended up helping.)
There were significant gains in states like Iowa, Kansas and Colorado, which the conventional wisdom would have listed as solidly red states, the kind where a party doesn't bother wasting money because there's no way for a Democrat to win. And again, a lot of that can be attributed to the Republican implosion (what effect, for example, did the Ted Haggard debacle have in his home state of Colorado?), but how much did it help that there was a stronger Democratic field organization already in place in Colorado, and in Kansas and Iowa and elsewhere, to take advantage of such opportunities when they arose?
Remember: only a few months ago, conventional wisdom proclaimed that the chances of Democrats taking back the House were fair to decent, with a 15-seat gain "within the realm of possibility," but that retaking the Senate was nearly impossible. But more and more races--in more and more unlikely states--just kept opening up. And the party was able to capitalize on a big percentage of those opportunities.
So I'm just asking: with all due thanks to Rahm Emanuel and Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, how much should we also be thanking the outsider who no one else seems to be thanking?
(P.S. Sidney Blumenthal's post-election dissection of the "house of kitsch" that is the Bush Administration is extraordinary. I hadn't seen these clowns in this light before, but I think Blumenthal nails it.)
Monday, November 06, 2006
Oddments
The Zen Noir DVD
It will be released on November 14th. The best place to purchase it, for the time being, is from our very own website, here. (There won't be an actual "click here to purchase" link till the 14th, but the link above should at least get you in the neighborhood.)
The commentary tracks are a lot of fun--particularly Marc's conversation with Brad Warner, author of Hardcore Zen, about the Buddhist principles underlying the film. I'm not a Buddhist but, as you might guess, I've learned a lot about it from working on the movie, and the part about Buddhism that I find the most attractive is exactly what Brad talks about in his book: the imperative for every Buddhist to question authority, to accept nothing as writ. As a punk-rocker (and not a "former" punk-rocker, either), Brad's discussion with Marc is definitely not polite and New Age-y, it's irreverent and a little blasphemous and a hell of a lot of fun. We could have loaded up the DVD with deleted scenes and whatnot, but for my money, this particular commentary track is alone worth the price of admission.
Don't Forget to Vote
I am just about the biggest believer in voting you will ever find. For one thing, I keenly appreciate the part of citizenship that most people like to ignore: the responsibilities incumbent upon every citizen. It's why I'm such a fan of jury duty, for instance: we get plenty of benefits from being American citizens, and aside from paying taxes we rarely get asked to give anything back. But voting is the number one, tip-top item on that list, and I never miss a chance.
Besides--if you don't vote, you give up any right to complain about the government. Simple as that.
Am I excited about Democratic prospects? Not quite. For one thing, rampant gerrymandering has me worried (I really wish that last year's attempt to revamp California's redistricting process had passed); and the possibility of election fraud has me worried as well. Besides, even if Democrats do regain control of one or both houses of Congress, then they have to actually govern--and given how rotten things are at the moment, there are so many gigantic problems to fix that it may be too late for anyone to do any good. Thus allowing Republicans, in two years, to claim that Democrats didn't do any better than they did, thus allowing people to go back to voting for the Republicans who screwed things up in the first place.
Sadly, perception is everything in an election, and recent reports that Republicans are making a last-minute surge in the polls suggest they might actually be able to pull themselves out of the fire. Because if people start to think the Republicans will win again, then the Republicans will probably win again. Here's an example of why:
Back in the 1980 election (Reagan/Carter), there was a significant third-party challenge from Illinois Congressman John Anderson. I was still too young to vote, but my mother was an Anderson supporter. On voting day, she found herself in line with the usual assortment of fellow neighbors, and they got to talking. People asked Mom who she was going to vote for and she said Anderson. "Oh, I like him," they almost all said.
So Mom naturally asked, "And are you voting for him?"
"Oh, no, no."
"But if you like him, why don't you--"
"Because he's not going to win."
So there you are. If it looks the Republicans might win, they will probably win. No one wants to "waste" a vote by voting for a loser, because apparently being part of the winning team is more important than actually making sure your team wins.
Yes, a Very Nice Weekend, How 'Bout You?
It's freakishly warm for November, but surely that's just an anomaly and not part of, let's say, global warming. In any event, it made for a nice weekend, even if I did have to spend almost all of Saturday going over accounting issues for the upcoming DVD release (got to know the right way to count our money!) and a good part of Sunday indoors yet again, working in Final Cut to put together what will eventually a director's reel for Marc. (We will send it out with copies of our next script, for maximum impact.)
But even with all of that, there was more time this weekend for catching up on movies, and even for some reading, than there has been in quite a while, and I'm awfully grateful for it.
And you?
It will be released on November 14th. The best place to purchase it, for the time being, is from our very own website, here. (There won't be an actual "click here to purchase" link till the 14th, but the link above should at least get you in the neighborhood.)
The commentary tracks are a lot of fun--particularly Marc's conversation with Brad Warner, author of Hardcore Zen, about the Buddhist principles underlying the film. I'm not a Buddhist but, as you might guess, I've learned a lot about it from working on the movie, and the part about Buddhism that I find the most attractive is exactly what Brad talks about in his book: the imperative for every Buddhist to question authority, to accept nothing as writ. As a punk-rocker (and not a "former" punk-rocker, either), Brad's discussion with Marc is definitely not polite and New Age-y, it's irreverent and a little blasphemous and a hell of a lot of fun. We could have loaded up the DVD with deleted scenes and whatnot, but for my money, this particular commentary track is alone worth the price of admission.
Don't Forget to Vote
I am just about the biggest believer in voting you will ever find. For one thing, I keenly appreciate the part of citizenship that most people like to ignore: the responsibilities incumbent upon every citizen. It's why I'm such a fan of jury duty, for instance: we get plenty of benefits from being American citizens, and aside from paying taxes we rarely get asked to give anything back. But voting is the number one, tip-top item on that list, and I never miss a chance.
Besides--if you don't vote, you give up any right to complain about the government. Simple as that.
Am I excited about Democratic prospects? Not quite. For one thing, rampant gerrymandering has me worried (I really wish that last year's attempt to revamp California's redistricting process had passed); and the possibility of election fraud has me worried as well. Besides, even if Democrats do regain control of one or both houses of Congress, then they have to actually govern--and given how rotten things are at the moment, there are so many gigantic problems to fix that it may be too late for anyone to do any good. Thus allowing Republicans, in two years, to claim that Democrats didn't do any better than they did, thus allowing people to go back to voting for the Republicans who screwed things up in the first place.
Sadly, perception is everything in an election, and recent reports that Republicans are making a last-minute surge in the polls suggest they might actually be able to pull themselves out of the fire. Because if people start to think the Republicans will win again, then the Republicans will probably win again. Here's an example of why:
Back in the 1980 election (Reagan/Carter), there was a significant third-party challenge from Illinois Congressman John Anderson. I was still too young to vote, but my mother was an Anderson supporter. On voting day, she found herself in line with the usual assortment of fellow neighbors, and they got to talking. People asked Mom who she was going to vote for and she said Anderson. "Oh, I like him," they almost all said.
So Mom naturally asked, "And are you voting for him?"
"Oh, no, no."
"But if you like him, why don't you--"
"Because he's not going to win."
So there you are. If it looks the Republicans might win, they will probably win. No one wants to "waste" a vote by voting for a loser, because apparently being part of the winning team is more important than actually making sure your team wins.
Yes, a Very Nice Weekend, How 'Bout You?
It's freakishly warm for November, but surely that's just an anomaly and not part of, let's say, global warming. In any event, it made for a nice weekend, even if I did have to spend almost all of Saturday going over accounting issues for the upcoming DVD release (got to know the right way to count our money!) and a good part of Sunday indoors yet again, working in Final Cut to put together what will eventually a director's reel for Marc. (We will send it out with copies of our next script, for maximum impact.)
But even with all of that, there was more time this weekend for catching up on movies, and even for some reading, than there has been in quite a while, and I'm awfully grateful for it.
And you?
Friday, November 03, 2006
A Break in the Case?
Some time has passed, and now a perfect storm of identity-theft action seems to be beginning. After the robbery on Sept. 25th, there was one use of a stolen credit card, but that charge, for whatever reason, never fully posted with the bank and so it was impossible to track it. Then nothing at all happened, except at my end, as I tried to deal with all the unexpected ramifications of the theft.
But when I came home Wednesday night, there were a half-dozen messages on my answering machine. One was from Cingular Wireless, which told me that someone had tried to open one or more cellphone accounts using my information; and another was from my bank, telling me that someone had tried to ask the bank to mail a replacement credit card to an address in the Bronx. There was also a call yesterday from Dell Computer, which had someone on the other line at that very moment, trying to open an account in my name. Thanks to the fraud alerts I placed with all the credit-reporting agencies, these merchants all contacted me and I sure as hell told them that the other people on the line were bad, bad people.
But the way I look at it, each of these attempts represents another opportunity to catch the bastids. For example, the attempt to have a replacement credit card mailed to the Bronx means that I now have an actual street address in the Bronx, plus a couple of phone numbers. Now it could turn out that that address is a vacant lot or something, because it sure does seem stupid for the thieves to actually give their address in a traceable manner. Then again, thieves are not always rocket scientists, so maybe they really are that stupid.
(As proof, I offer this from the always-delightful News of the Weird: "New Yorkers Donald Ray Bilby, 30, in July, and Abdullah Date, 18, in August, were, respectively, convicted and arrested for sending anthrax threats to authorities in envelopes that each contained their correct return addresses. (Date allegedly also included a taunting note reading, 'Catch me if you can.')")
Of course, I don't hold out much hope that anyone at that New York address will lead back to the two guys out in front of University High School that night. Most likely, they sold my wallet to someone for maybe a hundred bucks cash, and the buyer sent it on to his contact in New York, and there's probably an identity-theft ring that processes information from thefts all across the country. In which case, it becomes less likely that they're stupid enough to actually give out an address, but you never know, and it's all worth following up.
This morning, by coincidence, I got called in by the police to look at a photo line-up. I have given the address and the phone numbers and all the particulars to the detectives, and we'll see what happens. That's all I can do: try to keep ahead of the ID theft brigade, and relay anything potentially useful to the authorities. I really truly wish this all weren't so damn time-consuming, but that's my new reality so okay, that's what I'll do.
In the Meantime...
...there's this, a photo I took of the Getty Villa on the coast. Went there yesterday with some friends and, despite occasional interruptions by phone calls relating to the bad people, it was a very nice day. As you can probably tell.
But when I came home Wednesday night, there were a half-dozen messages on my answering machine. One was from Cingular Wireless, which told me that someone had tried to open one or more cellphone accounts using my information; and another was from my bank, telling me that someone had tried to ask the bank to mail a replacement credit card to an address in the Bronx. There was also a call yesterday from Dell Computer, which had someone on the other line at that very moment, trying to open an account in my name. Thanks to the fraud alerts I placed with all the credit-reporting agencies, these merchants all contacted me and I sure as hell told them that the other people on the line were bad, bad people.
But the way I look at it, each of these attempts represents another opportunity to catch the bastids. For example, the attempt to have a replacement credit card mailed to the Bronx means that I now have an actual street address in the Bronx, plus a couple of phone numbers. Now it could turn out that that address is a vacant lot or something, because it sure does seem stupid for the thieves to actually give their address in a traceable manner. Then again, thieves are not always rocket scientists, so maybe they really are that stupid.
(As proof, I offer this from the always-delightful News of the Weird: "New Yorkers Donald Ray Bilby, 30, in July, and Abdullah Date, 18, in August, were, respectively, convicted and arrested for sending anthrax threats to authorities in envelopes that each contained their correct return addresses. (Date allegedly also included a taunting note reading, 'Catch me if you can.')")
Of course, I don't hold out much hope that anyone at that New York address will lead back to the two guys out in front of University High School that night. Most likely, they sold my wallet to someone for maybe a hundred bucks cash, and the buyer sent it on to his contact in New York, and there's probably an identity-theft ring that processes information from thefts all across the country. In which case, it becomes less likely that they're stupid enough to actually give out an address, but you never know, and it's all worth following up.
This morning, by coincidence, I got called in by the police to look at a photo line-up. I have given the address and the phone numbers and all the particulars to the detectives, and we'll see what happens. That's all I can do: try to keep ahead of the ID theft brigade, and relay anything potentially useful to the authorities. I really truly wish this all weren't so damn time-consuming, but that's my new reality so okay, that's what I'll do.
In the Meantime...
...there's this, a photo I took of the Getty Villa on the coast. Went there yesterday with some friends and, despite occasional interruptions by phone calls relating to the bad people, it was a very nice day. As you can probably tell.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
The Candy Calendar
Aaaaiiiieeeee! It's the day after Halloween and there's candy everywhere! Heeeeellllp!
When I moved out here to Californ-eye-ay, I promptly gained about fifteen pounds. After all, I'd never had a car before, so in Boston and Chicago I walked everywhere; now suddenly I became one of those SoCal drive-around-the-corner types. Plus, age does what it does, and that robust metabolism that used to just burn weight whether I exercised or not slowly became less effective, something I could could keep in check in Chicago because I belonged to a health club across the street from where I worked. But here, I couldn't afford a health club and the weight practically leaped onto me. It was a bit like standing on a scale and watching as the dial just kept moving.
The weight gain seemed to stabilize at fifteen-plus, and then with a little bit of effort I dropped five--but there it stayed, for a long while. Until a couple months ago, when I watched Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me and had a little bit of a freak-out. I went into the kitchen and did a little basic math: looked at everything I had eaten on just that one day, how many calories, how many grams of fat, etc. Made a few adjustments, mostly simple things like removing potato chips from my diet, that sort of thing--taking the absolute worst parts of what I ate, losing them, but not trying to fundamentally alter the diet itself. I had no inclination to go vegetarian or anything like that; I just wanted to see if little steps could produce measurable gains.
They did. Slowly slowly, pounds began to slip away. From week to week there was little difference when I got on the scale; but over the course of the past several months, I realized I had lost five pounds, then seven, then ten--I was back to my pre-Los Angeles weight. My belt was two notches tighter. I didn't feel so damned self-conscious about certain types of clothing. This, of course, made me ambitious: could I perhaps keep the trend going? Why, if I could lose another fifteen pounds, that would put me back at college weight! Wouldn't that be great?
But it's the day after Halloween, and everyone with excess candy is leaving it out in places where I can, you know, see it. I mean, what's a fella to do in the face of such endless temptation? Exercise some impulse control? Oh, please!
It's interesting, though--after a couple of those tiny M&M's packs, I began to feel a sugar buzz rushing up on me. Used to be I could pound back M&M's for hours; now I'm really feeling them. That, I think, is probably a very good thing; if anything is to help me master that particular impulse, feeling sick after too much candy can only be to my benefit.
But geez--Christmas is coming up, and that's when vendors start sending boxes of candy and donuts and cookies and things. Aaaaiiieeee!
When I moved out here to Californ-eye-ay, I promptly gained about fifteen pounds. After all, I'd never had a car before, so in Boston and Chicago I walked everywhere; now suddenly I became one of those SoCal drive-around-the-corner types. Plus, age does what it does, and that robust metabolism that used to just burn weight whether I exercised or not slowly became less effective, something I could could keep in check in Chicago because I belonged to a health club across the street from where I worked. But here, I couldn't afford a health club and the weight practically leaped onto me. It was a bit like standing on a scale and watching as the dial just kept moving.
The weight gain seemed to stabilize at fifteen-plus, and then with a little bit of effort I dropped five--but there it stayed, for a long while. Until a couple months ago, when I watched Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me and had a little bit of a freak-out. I went into the kitchen and did a little basic math: looked at everything I had eaten on just that one day, how many calories, how many grams of fat, etc. Made a few adjustments, mostly simple things like removing potato chips from my diet, that sort of thing--taking the absolute worst parts of what I ate, losing them, but not trying to fundamentally alter the diet itself. I had no inclination to go vegetarian or anything like that; I just wanted to see if little steps could produce measurable gains.
They did. Slowly slowly, pounds began to slip away. From week to week there was little difference when I got on the scale; but over the course of the past several months, I realized I had lost five pounds, then seven, then ten--I was back to my pre-Los Angeles weight. My belt was two notches tighter. I didn't feel so damned self-conscious about certain types of clothing. This, of course, made me ambitious: could I perhaps keep the trend going? Why, if I could lose another fifteen pounds, that would put me back at college weight! Wouldn't that be great?
But it's the day after Halloween, and everyone with excess candy is leaving it out in places where I can, you know, see it. I mean, what's a fella to do in the face of such endless temptation? Exercise some impulse control? Oh, please!
It's interesting, though--after a couple of those tiny M&M's packs, I began to feel a sugar buzz rushing up on me. Used to be I could pound back M&M's for hours; now I'm really feeling them. That, I think, is probably a very good thing; if anything is to help me master that particular impulse, feeling sick after too much candy can only be to my benefit.
But geez--Christmas is coming up, and that's when vendors start sending boxes of candy and donuts and cookies and things. Aaaaiiieeee!
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