If only our relationship with Iraq could have been solved with a simple tension-breaking noogie...

Just in case some of you were wondering... no, I did not do this myself - I don't have that much time on my hands... okay, I do - but I don't spend it doing stuff like this.

Originally posted at Proj:Pedal...

Recently, I remembered that one of my original intentions for this site was to help other indie-filmmakers - but when I say "help" I obviously don't mean in the same way that SunDance helps, or the same way IFP helps, but in a way that sometimes we newcomers desperately and unknowingly need the most... emotionally. [For me] to hear directors admit that their films were an uphill struggle and that, more often than not, their films were in danger of being red-lite or just falling apart right in-front of their eyes. It reminds us [little-guys] that a few [or an overwhelming amount of] "bumps-in-the-road" are how these things play out.

And in remembering this, I realized that I need to be more emotionally open in my post, quicker to admit that everyday I wake up and ask myself if I can still pull it off in the 'x' amount of days I have ahead of me? Will I find the money I need? Will I find a crew [up to the challenge] by late May? Will my film touch people's hearts like my first trip touched mine?

If this site never brings in the money I need... if this site has nothing to do with the search for a crew... all I hope from it is that out of the billions and billions of aspiring-filmmakers, just one stumbles onto this site, reads my story and the slow progress of preproduction and is inspired to push on with his project... or even better, to begin a project thats been on the back of his / her mind for who-knows-how-long.

Having that said that, I would like to admit that things have been a bit slow around here, I've been playing the waiting game with a few aspects of the project and fallen into a rut of "unintended-laziness". It feels good to get that off my chest. I'm far from finished... I've just found myself dragging my feet, I suppose these things happen - but with six-months left to go, I've got just enough time to take a deep breath, push-on and pull it all together... or die trying.

I suck so bad... I had a whole page written in here and accidentally closed the window... and here's the worst thing: it was a completely "normal" post. It was all about a conversation Billy and I had about MGM releasing a special collector's edition of Wizard of Oz DVD with Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side of the Moon' as an additional audio track... it's not going to happen of course - but it would cut out the "middle-man". For those of you who don't really know what I'm talking about, imdb can explain it:

If you begin the album on the third roar of the MGM lion, there are a striking number of coincidences between events in the movie and musical cues (and lyrics) on the 1973 Pink Floyd album, "Dark Side of the Moon". It is highly improbable that the band had a print of the movie with them at Abbey Road, and few attempt to claim it to have been deliberate, but the coincidences are remarkable nonetheless.

But yeah... it's gone now, so congratulations to me. Now for the part of the post I hadn't quite gotten to yet -- I was reading a few articles earlier in the week about: the coming economic Armageddon... US education... Military spending... and our poverty level... these were mostly separate articles but in a way that all seemed connected... but the part that shocked me the most was the fact that out of the world's top 23 industrialized nations, guess where the US ranks on poverty levels for children... go on... take a guess. Drum roll... the answer is: 22nd. Our poverty level just barely out-leans Mexico's. I couldn't believe it - and I'm not even under the dilution that the US is the greatest nation in the world... and I still didn't see it coming. 22nd out of 23. It's so sad... and obviously, by example of the 21 nations taking better care of their young, just unacceptable.

By the way... why am I the only damn person writing on this blog anymore? I know I'm not exciting enough to entertain the three reads we have left...

I'm guessing 98% of American's couldn't care less about 'Buy Nothing Day', they would probably be hard-pressed to think of reasons why it exist... but for the few of you out there who are willing to put-down-the-credit-card, then todays the day. Happy post-thanksgiving, everyone.

Originally posted at Proj:Pedal...

On a positive note: last night I watched a documentary titled, Girlhood, by Liz Garbus, the film follows two girls over the course of three years, beginning with their stay at Waxter Juvenile facility... here's the films synopsis:

"...tells two coming-of-age stories from the real America: Shanae, ten years old when she was gang-raped by five boys, responded by drinking and drugging, and then graduated to murder, with the stabbing death of a friend, at age 12. Megan, whose mother abandoned her to turn tricks to support her ravaging heroin addiction, ran away from ten different foster homes before being arrested for attacking another foster child with a box cutter. Both girls ended up in the Waxter Juvenile Facility, home to Maryland's most violent juvenile offenders. It is here that their journeys really begin".

It was a really nice change in the topic of documentaries I've been finding myself watching lately, in the past month I've rented: Uncovered: The War on Iraq, Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, Control Room, and more that I can't seem to remember right now. I'm not sure what got me on the political-docu-kick. As far as homework goes, their argumentative structure isn't at all the direction I need to be shooting for, not to mention afterwards I am left feeling depressed and overwhelmed.

So last night's Girlhood, a simple story following the lives of two people and the friends and family they encounter along the way, was exactly what I needed. In it's own way, I found it very inspiring - not necessarily in a filmmaking-sense, just inspiring on a every-day-life level, it was interesting to watch how differently the two girls reacted to life after 'juvi', I don't want to give any of the story away for those of you who might watch it in the future, so I will move on.

On a not-so-positive note: I'm finding myself running into dead-end after dead-end with the film's finances, recently I've been researching grants for independent documentaries and every-time I find one that I 100% qualify for, I find it's application deadline has passed. I've looked everywhere I can think of: IFP's Anothony Radziwill Fund, Film Arts, IDA, Moxie Docs, Next Wave Films... I'm running out of places to look. No matter what combination of words I Google I get the same twenty results.

Amanda and I are driving down to San Diego tomorrow night to catch the last screening of Go Further, [coincidentally] a film following Woody Harrelson on a coastal bicycle trip - but with more of a twist, the documentary revolves around the idea that there are "viable alternatives to our habitual, environmentally-destructive behaviors". The travellers include a yoga-teacher, a raw food chef, a hemp-activist, a junk-food addict, and a college student who suspends her life to impulsively hop aboard.

Amanda has been dying to see this film for the past year, I have to admit I'm a bit jealous of their tag-line: "What's so funny 'bout peace, love and organic farming"? That kind of Elvis Costello reference is hard to top, not that I'm necessarily out to "top" Go Further, but you know what I mean - it's something to shoot for.

This following email was written by Farnaz Fassihi, a Wall Street Journal reporter, who was at the time knee-deep in Baghdad, it was sent to a friend that, for whatever reason, forwarded it out to others, and eventually over time the email made it's way onto the open web.

When I came across the letter I almost decided to not read it - it was fairly long and since I wasn't 'looking' for it, I didn't know what it was - but right away there something captivating about her words. The thought a 31 year old woman [that just wanted to tell a story that would make a difference] who has suddenly found herself in a shit-storm of guerrilla-warfare was as frightening as it was interesting... anyways, after reading this I wished there was a way that every last American could hear her story... I think it would be a very sobering experience. If you choose to read the email, please - when you are done, copy it in it's entirety and forward it to everyone you know... I believe despite Farnaz's feeling of helplessness, that her letter could unintentionally help make a difference.

Being a foreign correspondent in Baghdad these days is like being under virtual house arrest. Forget about the reasons that lured me to this job: a chance to see the world, explore the exotic, meet new people in far away lands, discover their ways and tell stories that could make a difference.

Little by little, day-by-day, being based in Iraq has defied all those reasons. I am house bound. I leave when I have a very good reason to  and a scheduled interview. I avoid going to people's homes and never  walk in the streets. I can't go grocery shopping any more, can't eat in restaurants, can't strike a conversation with strangers, can't look for stories, can't drive in any thing but a full armored car, can't go to scenes of breaking news stories, can't be stuck in traffic, can't speak English outside, can't take a road trip, can't say I'm an American, can't linger at checkpoints, can't be curious about what people are saying, doing, feeling. And can't and can't. There has been one too many close calls, including a car bomb so near our house that it blew out all the windows. So now my most pressing concern every day is not to write a kick-ass story but to stay alive and make sure our Iraqi employees stay alive. In Baghdad I am a security personnel first, a reporter second.

It's hard to pinpoint when the 'turning point' exactly began. Was it  April when the Fallujah fell out of the grasp of the Americans? Was it when Moqtada and Jish Mahdi declared war on the U.S. military? Was it when Sadr City, home to ten percent of Iraq's population, became a nightly battlefield for the Americans? Or was it when the insurgency began spreading from isolated pockets in the Sunni triangle to include most of Iraq? Despite President Bush's rosy assessments, Iraq remains a disaster. If under Saddam it was a 'potential' threat, under the Americans it has been transformed to 'imminent and active threat,' a foreign policy failure bound to haunt the United States for decades to come.

Iraqis like to call this mess 'the situation.' When asked 'how are thing?' they reply: 'the situation is very bad."

What they mean by situation is this: the Iraqi government doesn't  control most Iraqi cities, there are several car bombs going off each day around the country killing and injuring scores of innocent people, the country's roads are becoming impassable and littered by hundreds of landmines and explosive devices aimed to kill American soldiers, there are assassinations, kidnappings and beheadings. The situation,  basically, means a raging barbaric guerilla war. In four days, 110 people died and over 300 got injured in Baghdad  alone. The numbers are so shocking that the ministry of health -- which was attempting an exercise of public transparency by releasing the numbers -- has now stopped disclosing them.

Insurgents now attack Americans 87 times a day.

A friend drove thru the Shiite slum of Sadr City yesterday. He said young men were openly placing improvised explosive devices into the ground. They melt a shallow hole into the asphalt, dig the explosive,  cover it with dirt and put an old tire or plastic can over it to signal to the locals this is booby-trapped. He said on the main roads of Sadr City, there were a dozen landmines per every ten yards. His  car snaked and swirled to avoid driving over them. Behind the walls sits an angry Iraqi ready to detonate them as soon as an American convoy gets near. This is in Shiite land, the population that was supposed to love America for liberating Iraq.

For journalists the significant turning point came with the wave of abduction and kidnappings. Only two weeks ago we felt safe around  Baghdad because foreigners were being abducted on the roads and  highways between towns. Then came a frantic phone call from a journalist female friend at 11 p.m. telling me two Italian women had  been abducted from their homes in broad daylight. Then the two  Americans, who got beheaded this week and the Brit, were abducted from their homes in a residential neighborhood. They were supplying the entire block with round the clock electricity from their generator to win friends. The abductors grabbed one of them at 6 a.m. when he came  out to switch on the generator; his beheaded body was thrown back near the neighborhoods. Cont'ed...

I was skimming through the news today when I stumbled across this article on Disney giving Toy Story 3 the green-light. Now I had recently heard that Disney was considering releasing a Toy Story 3 & 4 [without Pixar's involvement], this was just the first time I'd heard it straight from the horse's mouth.

To those who don't closely follow Disney's relationship with Pixar, this idea might sound great, the first Toy Story was a huge breakthrough, it was extremely funny and well-written with lovable characters, and Toy Story 2 was somehow, even better than the first, something amazingly rare these days. A lot of people ask, "how do they do it... how do they keep dishing out such knock-out hits into the theatres"?

Well first off, Disney has nothing to do with Pixar - Disney simple puts up the money to distribute Pixar's films, and before Pixar was a house-hold name [pre-Toy Story] Disney managed to gain the rights to their characters, most importantly the entire Toy Story cast. And with Pixar announcing that it will no longer continue it's distribution-partnership with Disney, it seems as though they have swung back with Toy Story 3's go-ahead...

Now I don't want to be overly pessimistic, but these sequels are going to be down-right bad. I don't know how many of you have ever watched the behind the scenes of Toy Story 1 or 2, Finding Nemo, or Monsters Inc, but you can plainly see that Pixar spends an unusual amount of time and energy on their story... they go through draft after draft of scripts, they story-board relentlessly and plan every last beat of the film. As for Disney [thanks to Michael Eisner] has been slowly but surely loosing it's reputation.

This move is out of spite and greed, and don't let them tell you otherwise, they are going to whip out a half-ass movie [any of you ever seen Lion King 1 ½ ], they are going to spend all the money [they saved by not-writing] on advertisement geared at kids. And Disney will have invested little [time, energy and money] and made a lot, and in the process, ruined a perfectly entertaining string of movies. There's no love in Disney anymore, and I'm not the only one with this point of view, click here to visit 'Save Disney'.

I think I am going to write to Disney and give them a piece of my mind, if you want to do the same you can click here.

So, It's been quite a few days. What's happened? Well, my roommate Chuck moved out and went back to Michigan. His last few days kept me up quite a bit (from Tuesday to Friday I had slept a total of about ten hours). I dropped him off at LAX Friday morning. He's going to spend a month backpacking Europe and then hang out in China for a bit, just because. Now with Chuck gone I have a lot of free time on my hands. So, that's...something.

With Chuck gone I had to eat dinner by myself Friday night (well, I didn't have to, but I did). I decided to go to Sizzler, which I had been wanting to do since I got to California. No reason...I just wanted to. Mmmmm-mmmmm, that was a mistake. To begin with, I was served a 'four-bean soup' with no beans in it, but a lot of carrots and potatoes. For my meal I ordered a rib-eye steak. Whatever I received, it wasn't anything resembling a rib-eye and man, was it tough (and sans eye)! For a bread you get a basket of 'cheesy-bread'. The whole time I was eating the first piece, I was trying to figure out it's very particular taste. It took me a piece and a half, but I finally placed it. Their 'cheesy-bread' was nothing more than Cheese Nips crushed and seered onto the bread with butter. Is that messed-up or what? I didn't even finish half of my meal before I just got up and walked out. For the $18+ I wasted there, I could have enjoyed a really good meal somewhere else. Chalk that one up to experience, I guess.

All weekend was just work -blah, blah, blah. Today, though, Ted Danson and his daughter were in. He was such a cool person -very personable and friendly. He was talking to everyone like there was nothing that he would rather be doing. He seemed like just an all around great guy. An actress was in earlier, too. I can not for the life of me remember what roles I've seen her in, but I recognized her right away. She's an older red-haired lady...usually plays fairly reserved roles (I'll think of one eventually).

I am currently working on character sketches for a 15 minute short I'm going to be doing sometime in the near future. I hope to have it done by the end of the year, but I have a feeling there's going to be a lot of trial and error. I'll post up some of my sketches for it once I have it all laid out and ready to start animating.

I hope everybody is doing well. Until next time...

I woke up with a soar throat this morning and now, it's almost midnight and I can barely talk. Looks like I will spending my next two days off of work sick at home in bed.

Tomorrow, or today by the time any of you read this, is my baby-bro's birthday. Happy birthday, Nick! I love you. I'm sending you a gift, not much cause I'm broke, but since I'm mailing it tomorrow it's going to be a little late. I suck. I hope you're birthday is cool, I don't remember what I did on my 19th b-day... hmm... I'm only 23 and already my memory is gone.



But yeah, despite my amnesia, I hope you do something that you'll never forget - and I wish I could be there to celebrate with you.

Well, I told a lot of people I would give them the address of my new blog once I had it set up, so that's what this is all about. I've created it to document my travels in Europe and China and maybe pass the time when I get back as well. For now, it only has one post, so you probably aren't missing anything big if you skip it.

Keep an eye out though, because pretty soon I'll be putting up pictures of Europe and all the chaos that ensues. All I have to do is get some reliable web hosting.

I'm a terrible son - because I've barely seen my mother enough to say "hi" and I got home and she'd washed all my clothes for the trip. I just wanted to say thanks, mom. I love you. It's going to make packing tonight a lot easier.

I tried to buy a backpack at REI, but I didn't like any of them and the guy was convinced my pack would weigh 35lbs. I don't think he realized I wasn't going to bring guidebooks, a laptop computer, and extra shoes. So it looks like my bag will be made in Germany. (Not that a bag purchased here wasn't made in China.)

Pete asked for brownie mix. I'm going to try and bring him some.

Oh yeah... the link. It's called the Chuck Guide. Enjoy.

In an effort to "even-out" the blog's content, I've been holding onto this video for the past few days, but there's no better time like the present I suppose. And it just wouldn't be complete without the icing on the cake.

Happy Birthday Mike!

I hope you have a great day today.... I love you.

I figured it had been a while since caliblog had a good amount new photos posted - so I dug through our Sequoia stash and thought I would go with a black & white theme, hence the title. Now I think Amanda used at least five rolls of films at the park but only one of those rolls was b&w, so I or someone will share the rest some other time. Until then...


I believe this was taken the night we got back from the park, poor cat had been locked up the bedroom all day.


This was probably the third time we pulled the car over within a five minute period, we wanted to keep driving but the look-out points kept getting better and better.


Actually, this one didn't have anything to do with our mini-vacation... but it was black and white and got mixed in with the others... so yeah. Our mirror is dirty.


We thought this tree was cool 'cause it was named the "Michigan Tree", plus it was the first fallen tree we stumbled upon, no wait - the second, but the first one was cut into two halves so it doesn't fully count. But seriously, look at the size of that stump, I guess you can't tell from the pic but she is sitting within the bottom 1/3 of the base. Later on I climbed around to the top of this tree, and keep in mind it was tipped on it's side, but it was without a doubt the highest off the ground I had ever been in a tree... vertical or horizontal.


Again, nothing to do with our trip to Sequoia. We just take a crap-load of pictures of our cat in the sink, he loves to sleep in there.


You can't really tell from this picture, but there is a tunnel running right through the center of this fallen tree, and it's hollow enough were you can actually walk around with out hunching over at all. Impressive.


I don't know when this was taken of me, I know it was in the park of course, but I'm drawing a blank.


Here's the "Michigan Tree" again, you can see a little more of it's height in this pic but still, not all of it.


And aww... here's a photo of me kissing Amanda's cheek because if I tried to smile at the camera it would have just turned out scary... I'm not very photogenic 98% of the time.

Now I'm making a huge effort here to not mention anything involving the "p-word"... so I would greatly appreciate some response people. Or else it's back to "p-word" commentary, well okay, that's inevitable, but I'm making a big effort to balance my post from now on. And it's far more difficult than you would assume, it's like waning yourself off of cigarettes or pop... the first step is admitting you have a problem right? Not that caring about the state and direction of... stuff... is a bad thing, but too much of any one thing can blow up in your face. Okay, I'm rambling. Enjoy the pictures... 'night.

The other night, around two in the morning, minutes after our friend, Lorrie had walked out the door, Amanda and I heard a loud crash outside followed by some barking inside our neighbor's apartment. We both turned to look outside on our balcony and saw that the sliding door was cracked open and the cat was nowhere to be seen. Amanda flicked on the porch light and we peeked outside to see our cat on the neighbor's balcony staring in through their sliding door at a dog, two seconds later a woman came and dragged her growling dog away from the window - keep in mind it's two-something in the morning and they have two newborn babies.



Usually shaking the cat's bottle of treats will have him come running from any corner of the house, but he just sat there staring in through the cracks of their vertical blinds, deaf to the world around him. So, I had to spiderman across the ledge of our balcony onto theirs, trying not to image how bad it would hurt to slip and fall onto the brick fencing below, now that the cat has seen me he decided to hide beneath a giant wicker-chair with a bike leaning against it - I can't touch anything without causing it to crash over - I'm 60% sure the neighbors are peaking through the blinds watching my every move...



Long story short - he's grounded, no more balcony for the cat for at least two months!

I've been at it again.

I get more and more tired of this "face-lift" with every passing day... actually now that I wrote that, I'm not entirely sure I believe it.

Maybe it's just my recent desire to turn off the comments... not because I want to censure anyone's opinion... but I'm actual finding myself not posting at all just because of the site's vibe - even if I want to post something non-controversial, it almost feels the same as when you get into a mini argument with someone and then the next day you're not really mad at them, but anything you say is more of an icebreaker than a small-talk statement... if that makes any sense.

But yeah, either way, I'm building myself up to redoing the site again... this one just doesn't have what it takes for the long haul. The first major re-haul grew on me over time, and this one is having the opposite effect. Ahh, you win some - you loose some. Okay. I'm busy working on Amanda's Grandma's birthday present, so I think I'll keep this short.

(Originally published in GenericCity.com on Oct. 21, 2004)
So, tonight the neighbors across the hall got into another one of their usual shouting matches, which happens at least a couple of times a week. The difference this time is that as it got a little more heated and it moved out into the hallway, I looked out to make sure everything was OK and their vocal dispute had escalated into him beating the green eggs and ham out of her as he forces her back into the apartment and slams the door. I just wanted to grab the S.O.B. and toss him down the stairs, but I've jumped to aid of women before in similar situations and every time she switches to the defense of her 'loving' man. So instead I called the police and told them what was going on. During this time I can hear her screaming about how bad her eye is and about her nose (which he has generously broken for her five different times, apparently). After anywhere from 35-40 minutes, the police finally arrive, knock on the door, enter the apartment, and within a minute's time are heading back down the stairs and leaving. I was so frustrated the I wanted to go across and beat the daylights out of her myself. And the police just LEAVE. Not even enough time there for a verbal 'slap on the wrist'. Nothing! But I bet if you were jay walking or were going 5 miles over the speed limit t you'd be stopped and fined. A person can be harshly disciplined for driving recklessly or drunk due to the danger that they could hurt someone else regardless of the say of the incidental victim, but when an obvious harm is being maliciously done, they don't even sneeze about it? What is wrong with the world?

What makes someone so blindly love somebody enough to allow them to do something so horrible to them? You know what?...No... What makes a person care so little about themselves to allow someone to do something so horrible to them...and regularly? I mean, I know why. It just doesn't help it make anymore sense. Man, people are messed up...

"How can 59,054,087 people be so dumb?" -- EU news publication

You have to ask yourself, when D.C., the home of the White House, the home of the Pentagon, the heart, you might say, of American politics... when this state [maryland] votes 90% for Kerry - you have to wonder, is the rest of American missing something? Are the majority of American's over-looking the facts... underestimating the world's need for change... misinformed by American-corporately-owned mass media...

90%. If this kind of blatant disapproval from the nation's capitol doesn't make you wonder, then nothing will.