Jesus and Three Friends

I found this image online, and it took me a few seconds to figure out what these three guys are doing.

Comments

To me, there's a certain serenity in posting to my blog and not caring if anyone ever reads it.  It's just a thing to do, like exercising or meditating or yawning, something where the doing is as important, if not more important, than the end result.

That said, isn't there anyone out there?  Why aren't I getting the attention I deserve!

If you take a look at the "comments" section for each entry, you would think that the only person that reads this blog is my sister.  And her, not very often.  How humiliating -- my blog only has one reader, and she seems bored by it.

So you other readers -- I've heard tell of a few of you -- start commenting!  Doesn't anything in my posts make you want to respond, even if it's to say, your life stinks?  Experiment with your inner Siskel and Ebert -- rate my blog!  "I give Brian's life two thumbs WAY down!"

Better yet, start your own blog, and let's link to each other's.

Maybe if I get up to five readers, I can start selling advertising.

More Wildlife at 1433 East Mountain

Ellen spotted this hawk hanging around our front yard for the last day or two.  He's sitting on a branch of our 80 year old pine tree, screeching about something, who knows what.  Jesus, Shut UP!

My web research leads me to guess that this is a red-tailed hawk, a common sight in Southern California.  They eat rodents (including squirrels!) but also insects, snakes and frogs.  They can live as long as twenty years.

Maybe I will tame this one and give it a name.  Then I can call it my friend and train it to help me exact revenge from my enemies.  You know who you are.

A Few Work Notes

Nothing much to report except a few work notes. While I continue to look for a job, I am also still flogging my three pitches around town. Yesterday I pitched to a guy named Jason Lust at Jim Henson Productions, which is now located at the old Chaplin studios on LaBrea. I believe they own that lot now, which is steeped in Hollywood history. (First it was Chaplin's Studio, then for the longest time it was the home of A&M records, now it's Henson.) The place is beautiful, although I take slight issue with the big cheesy Kermit-as-The-Little-Tramp that tips its hat to passersby.

Anyway I plied my trade there, and there were no takers. Still, Jason was very pleasant and certainly left the door open for future interactions.

This coming Friday I have my first meeting at Dreamworks on my Dolphin project. I first pitched it to them on April 7, so it gives you an idea of how long deals take, even on a project where I basically accepted their offer. Now we're in for at least a year or two of development, maybe five, and then either abandonment or a movie made. Be sure to check back in.

Yesterday's Post

Yesterday's post was actually a cut-and-paste from a new thing I'm doing to fill the time and exercise my brain a little.  There's a new Canadian website called "talkgreen" -- a kind of clearinghouse for eco-news and meeting place for eco-discussions.  I'm sure it will tank in a matter of months.

But they advertised for writers and I decided to do it.  There's no money involved, just a share in the potentially worthless ownership of it.  And I don't know yet if the guy who is running it knows what he is doing.

But it's fun.  All I do is surf the web (generally using StumbleUpon, a thing I heard about from Peter Gabriel's monthly video blog) and find something I think is noteworthy.  Then I write a little paragraph or two about it, trying to bring to it my irreverent but hopefully fun tone.

We'll see.

Do the Eco-Hustle

One of the many problems with trying to get people to live greener is the widely held view that it involves uncomfortable sacrifice. For instance, at one end of the spectrum is the so-called "No Impact Man," (www.noimpactman.com) who made a well-publicized experiment of living in New York City for one year and attempting to have no net impact on the environment. As you can imagine, this was quite the challenge and called for siginificant deprivation. No fridge, no A/C (in the NY summer!), no TV, no electric lights. And, in the most disgusting bit of denial, no toilet paper! Of course, in the process of giving up all these creature comforts, No Impact Man found amazing new ways to bond with his family and has ended up remaining very low impact, preferring the mostly-off-the-grid lifestyle. But that's a topic for another day. Most people would consider his lifestyle VERY uncomfortable.

But club-goers in London now have a new way to enjoy themselves AND draw very little power from the grid. How do they do it? Just by dancing.

According to London's Evening Standard newspaper, come July 10, a rich real estate entrepreneur named Andrew Charalambous will be opening London's first eco-dance club.

When London's energetic dance youth arrive at the new club, they will be charged ten pounds entrance fee -- unless they can prove they walked, rode a bike, or took public transportation. In that case, entrance is free. Drinks are served in cups made of eco-friendly polycarbonate cups. And, gray water will flush the toilets.

But the most interesting thing about this club is its dance floor. It is raised a few inches, supported by an array of short columns made of piezo-electric crystals, which generate electricity when compressed. So, when the hordes of half-drunk young Londoners pogo madly to the beat of the latest endlessly repeated Euro-house dance loop, they will be generating up to 60% of the club's electricity.

Charalambous and his new organization Club4Climate (dedicated to helping halt climate change) plan to open clubs in New York, Cape Town, and Rio. Their motto: "All you have to do is dance to save the world."

If only that were true. But, this new club is -- forgive the pun -- a step in the right direction.

The Happening

 "The Happening" -- a film by M. Night Shyamalan.

We went to see it today.

Why, you might ask?  Isn't that the same M. Night Shyamalan that directed recent cinematic turd "Lady in the Water"?  Didn't he also write and direct that shaggiest of shaggy dog stories "The Village"?  Didn't "Signs" really suck?

And doesn't this movie garner a Bush-type-approval-level of 20% on rottentomatoes.com?

Yes, yes, yes, and yes.

But we went anyway.

We went partly because we liked the trailer, partly because I had read online what the secret of the movie was, and partly because of "The Sixth Sense" and "Unbreakable" -- two actually good movies, if you ask me.

Guess what.  We liked it.

Probably our expectations were low.  And, admittedly, some of the movie is ludicrous.  (I almost feel like I am spelling that word wrong, having read the spelling "Ludacris" so often in People magazine.)  And the acting is bad.  I think unless M. Night lucks into good actors, like Bruce Willis, he is at sea.

But the idea of the movie is really good and fun and scary, and there are lots of really suspenseful scenes built on very little.  I call that filmmaking skill.  I don't want to give away the idea, even though it is discussed not too far into the movie, in case anyone reads this and wants to watch it.

Anyway, it is far from the disaster that everyone says it is.  Like all Shyamalan movies, it is slow-ish.  But I found it interesting and at times gripping.  Loved the way it ended.  And I think it is a really good idea for a movie.

So there.

Now, that said, I can't help but include a link to a particularly clever and resourceful vandalization of the teaser poster:

http://filmonic.com/the-penis-or-the-happening

Maybe This is Why

I didn't get the ImageMovers Zemeckis job.  Perhaps, as suggested by the ad to the right, I didn't shave close enough!

But apparently, from the brief phone call I got from his agent today, it was really all about Zemeckis, and I guess I didn't make enough of an impression on him.  After the interviews he apparently decided very quickly he wanted to hire someone else, without a lot of discussion.

The weird thing about Hollywood is knowing the people who made the movies.  I truly love some of Robert Zemeckis' movies, but now when I watch them I'll always have a little tinge of -- hey he didn't want to hire me!

Make Way for Ducklings

It's beginning to seem like the only real news in this blog is duck visits.

A few days ago we came home to find a Mommy duck and nine ducklings in and around our pool.  Between the waterfowl and the multiple birds nests in the nooks above our covered patio, it's a regular sanctuary.

The ducks seemed to be having a great time until the little ones tried to get out of the pool.  They couldn't.  Of course Ellen and I immediately flashed on having to fish nine lifeless tiny bundles of furry feathers out of the skimmer.

A few of them were able to figure out how to jump up onto the floating chlorine dispenser and get out.  Others weren't.  Were we witnessing survival of the smartest in action?  Ellen decided to step in, God-like, and help out.  First she went out and put one end of the the clothes-dryer sneaker-drying rack into the pool, a kind of metal ramp for the ducks.  (When she first entered the pool area Mom -- and the few ducks who had already jumped out -- jumped right back into the pool.  So at first, she made the situation worse.

But then a brainstorm: she stuck a few Noodles (long tubular pieces of styrofoam used as pool toys) of varying widths into the skimmer.  After some skeptical examination, the ducklings each hopped their way up the styro-staircase and out.  Success!  After some dilly-dallying, the ducks then exited through the gate toward the front yard and disappeared into the ivy that covers our front slope.  Bye-bye!