Goldman Drinks Your Milkshake

Right around this time last year, I blogged about oil speculators and their willing enablers in the government, based on a report from "Countdown with Keith Olberman".

I got a surprising amount of pushback, and, after seeing a report in the New York Times that offered similar pushback (i.e. "it's not the speculators, it's peak oil that's the real problem"), I had second thoughts.

Well, clearly, Matt Taibbi, the political writer for Rolling Stone and a regular on "Real Time with Bill Maher", has more time & access to do way more due diligence than me. He goes several steps further than Keith: not only does he blame the speculators for last summer's oil spike, and not only does he name the venerable old financial concern Goldman Sachs as one of the biggest offenders.

He points to a larger conspiracy of culture: there's no sneering Moriarty at the center of it all behind the scenes, but the corporate culture of greed at the firm is so pervasive that just about everybody who works there and then takes a job in government later appears to act in the best interests of Goldman to the detriment of the public.

And when I say "detriment to the public", I mean "bankrupting pensions" and "instigating food riots" detriment.

Moreover, he holds Goldman largely responsible for most of the economic bubbles we've seen since thr 1929 stock market crash, and in virtually every case, they make huge amounts of money for their employees and get a slap on the wrist from a compliant government.

And what's the latest Goldman Sachs-backed bubble scam, according to Matt Taibbi?

Two words: "Cap" and "Trade".

The article is superlong, but man, is it worth it. And, if it's true, REALLY f'n scary.

Read this scanned copy at this link:
Zero Hedge: Goldman Sachs: "Engineering Every Major Market Manipulation Since The Great Depression"

OG'ed?

If this whole expansion of the field of Best Picture contenders from 5 films to 10 is, as Nikki Finke suggests, a ploy by the studios to get more blockbusters considered in the running for the Oscar telecast, I'm not sure that this will work out the way the moguls intend.

I mean, really, do we really think that, say, The Dark Knight would have stood any better chance of being considered Best Picture of the year by the academy if there was one more available slot? I just did a cursory pass over the films released in '08, and I can come up with at least 5 more indie films that got considerable critical love that would probably have just as good a chance, if not more, at Oscar nomination than Batman or Iron Man or Tropic Thunder or any other big studio film. Consider:

• Revolutionary Road - starring former nominees Leonardo DeCaprio & (now winner) Kate Winslet and directed by former Best Director & Best Picture winner Sam Mendes







• Gran Torino - starring and directed by perennial Oscar favorite Clint Eastwood
  





• In Bruges - starring perennial Oscar contender Ralph Fiennes, nominated for 7 BAFTAs that year and an Oscar for Best Screenplay
  






• The Visitor - 3 Independent Spirit Award nominations, plus SAG, Oscar, & Critics choice nominations for Richard Jenkins
  






• The Wrestler - 2 Golden Globes, a BAFTA, and 3 Spirit Awards, including Best Picture.

My point is, the studio movies don't need more bites at the apple, because there's plenty of beloved indie fare to take up the slack. The Academy voters have very specific tastes, and, frankly, they rarely coincide with that of the average movie goer.

And, more frankly, they shouldn't intersect. The Oscars aren't a popularity contest, in the strictest sense. That's what the People's Choice Awards are for.

Or the MTV Movie Awards. Or my new favorite, Spike TV's Scream Awards.

The Oscars are supposed to be about art, and art is not necessarily popular.

Now, of course, the Oscars are insanely political, but let's be real: The Dark Knight was an edge case. And anybody who seriously thinks Spider-Man 2 should have gotten an Oscar nomination over The Aviator, Million Dollar Baby, Sideways, Finding Neverland, or Ray is smoking crack. Or that Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (which I liked) should even be mentioned in the same breath as No Country for Old Men is just tripping.

Sounding Reasonable

Within the first month of my freshman year in college, I met a girl at a party. Not a particularly unique occurrence, excepting the fact that I'd spent the previous 7 years at an all boys private school. So Princeton was, at first, a very pleasant bit of culture shock. (Boy, did THAT wear off fast! But that's a topic for another post).

Anyway, I met this girl. She was cute. We danced a bit. And then we settled into a quieter area in the eating club to actually chat. And, initially, I was really impressed because, not only was she beautiful, but she seemed to be so thoughtful and contemplative with every thing she said.

Sadly, it wasn't too long before I realized that she wasn't really as thoughtful or considered as I'd first assumed. It's just that she talked...... really...... slow.

And the moral of this story is that, many times, presentation can trump content. At least, at first.

Which brings me to Dick Cheney.

I know he's sort of gotten off the radar lately, but I think this bears pointing out before the next time he decides to make a media appearance.

I remember during the 2004 Vice-Presidental Debate, Cheney said that, even though he was the President of the Senate and was a regular in the Senate chamber, that night was the first time he'd ever met John Edwards in person. The implication being that Edwards was a sandbagger who was too busy running for president instead of doing his job for the people of North Carolina.

Now, Edwards sandbagging-ness may be more true than not, but that, too, is another blog post.

The point is that Cheney's actual statement was just a flat out lie. Not only was Cheney rarely on Capitol Hill, but, he'd met Edwards at least three years before at the Annual National Prayer Breakfast. See?


And let's not even get into his grotesquely incorrect statements about WMDs or Iraq's non-relationship with Al Qaeda. So I wondered, why were people still listening to this guy? Why does he have any sort of credibility at all?

Again, it's all about presentation. Cheney looks and sounds like a guy who should know what he's talking about. He speaks in the hushed and measured tones of a serious man talking seriously about very serious issues.

Funny. When he was Buch 41's Sec Def, I always thought Cheney reminded me of Lt. Gerard in "The Fugitive".



But just because you sound reasonable doesn't mean that you're actually telling the truth. But I think Dave Chappelle said it best back on his show: if anybody else had said half the crazy shit that George W. Bush had said in his first term (especially, to Chappelle's point, a Black man), people would think he was a crazy man.

Chappelle's Show
Black Bush
www.comedycentral.com
Buy Chappelle's Show DVDs Black Comedy True Hollywood Story

In short, don't just hear the sounds. Listen to the words.

The Movie Lotto

Here's a lit manager's assessment of the spec screenplay sales market over the last six months. Please keep in mind, these are just the numbers for the scripts that got sent out by the various major agencies & management companies in town. It doesn't account for how many actual writing clients each of these companies rep that they AREN'T sending out, let alone the scores of writers represented by smaller companies, and the multitude of unrepresented screenwriters. And that's just here in L.A.

In short, the odds are VERY long for selling a completely original screenplay to a studio.

This is why I've become a big advocate of independent film. Don't wait for Warner Bros. or Sony to give you permission. There's more money out there than studio money. We all just need to retrain ourselves to sniff it out.

Write it. Shoot it. Screen it.

Repeat.

In Defense of Michael Bay

You know, I've written about some controversial things over the years here at Macroscope.

Torture. Election fraud. Katrina. Iraq. Rwanda. "There is no Hell".

Why do I get the feeling that this one will generate the most hate mail?

I didn't realize that my first exposure to the film director Michael Bay was one of the coolest commercials I'd ever seen. It made such an impression on me that I didn't even realize just how old it was, and by that, I mean the original "Got Milk?" commercial:



Just beautiful, right? Simple, fun, and award-winning. And directed by Michael Bay.

Who knew, right? A far cry from what we assume about the director and his filmmaking preferences, right?

Now, the first time I could name Bay was after I and a bunch of brothers back at Princeton had formed a new organization, the Black Men Awareness Group, which was basically a safe haven on campus where we could voice our unique frustrations ("I have no mentors because the professors don't understand me or my culture", "I'm experiencing extreme culture shock in this Ivy covered tower from my predominantly black town/school", "the sisters on campus don't want me, but will crucify me if I so much as look at a white girl", "I barely have time to study & work through school while my roommate is so rich he's ineligible for financial aid", etc.).

So, one weekend, our little group therapy club decided to go out, 30 deep, to have a day just to hang out and feel good. Now, there isn't much to do in Princeton, NJ, and it's too much of a pain to organize 30 dudes to head up to NYC for a weekend, so we just did something silly: we went bowling (yeah, I know), and then we went to see this new movie that had just come out in theaters that weekend.



Yes, it was Bad Boys. And, yes, we all rolled out of that theater charged, pumped, excited, happy. It was like we were seeing some of our own up on screen. It was great.

And it was directed by Michael Bay.

While I was working in New York after college, I went with some of my AC co-workers & buddies to see Bay's next film, "The Rock".

Eh. Kind of fun, especially the Nic Cage/Sean Connery banter, but I didn't buy Ed Harris' character. Did I HATE it? Of course not. I didn't love it. It was pretty forgettable. No big deal.

A few years later, that same crew of mine did a triple-feature weekend. In one day, we saw "Lethal Weapon 4" (which kicked ass. Literally. Pleased to meet you, Jet Li.), "Toy Soldiers" (which, exactly as I predicted, absolutely sucked. Not my choice. My buddy had kids with him), and "Armageddon".

FUN FACT: for those of you who hate "Armageddon" but love, say, "Lost", "Alias", "Fringe", or the new "Star Trek", it was written by J.J. Abrams.

Now, a few weeks earlier, I'd seen "Deep Impact". This was during the time when the studios had a ton of dueling movies. "Deep Impact" had Morgan Freeman as the President of the United States, was directed by one of the regular directors for "ER" and was written by guys who'd done "Jacob's Ladder", "Ghost" and "The Player".

In short, from a dramatic and emotional perspective, it's a vastly superior piece of mature filmmaking in comparison to "Armageddon". "Armageddon" was a shameless summer crowd pleaser.

And, you know what? That's actually OK. My biggest problem with "Armageddon" was that, frankly, it gave me a headache.

Of course, that may have something to do with the fact that it was the 3rd action movie in a row I'd seen that day. Maybe.

The point is, when I look at "Armageddon" on TV now, it's perfectly fine. It's overdirected, but fine.

And that's probably my biggest problem with Bay: he clearly trusts the camera more than his actors to elicit an emotional response from the audience. Hence, the turning, spinning, sweeping, steadicam crane shots of people standing against a blue sky, instead of just holding the frame on the actor giving a performance.

Anyway, Armageddon's OK. Not great, but not horrible either.

Which brings us to "Pearl Harbor". And I'm pretty sure this is where I got on the "FUCK Michael Bay!" bandwagon. I was a film student when "Pearl Harbor" came out, and that was the first time I became acutely aware of the power of film marketing. Because I actually didn't want to see "Pearl Harbor". I knew I wouldn't like it. And, yet, there I was at the El Capitan theater on Hollywood Blvd. on opening day.

And it was exactly what I thought it would be.

Well, let's qualify that a bit:
The combat scenes, and especially the dog fight scenes are dynamite. But the story around it, of the love triangle, was just a complete joke. Not only was it a joke, but they spend all of this time building up the 2nd guy as a sympathetic love interest only to toss him aside in the end. Now, clearly, Randall Wallace (screenwriter) deserves some of the blame, but it's a partnership between the writer and the director.

It's clear that Bay loves the military, so he was a kid in a candy store in making this film (In fact, he's the PERFECT guy to do a real film adaptation of "G.I. Joe" instead of this "Iron Man" knock-off crap that's lumbering it's way to a theater near you this summer, but I digress.). But it's WAY too long, and it fills it's time with a lot of nonsensical fluff.

Pearl Harbor's a bad movie. A super expensive bad movie about a real life tragedy. They were trying to make a World War II version of "Titanic", but even "Titanic" is too long, and Ben Affleck is not Leonardo DeCaprio (who, in 1997, may as well have been the 6th Backstreet Boy in terms of his teen idol status) , and Kate Beckinsale (who I think is a great, fun actress) is definitely not Kate Winslet. It was poorly conceived from the start.

But I knew all of this. I knew it the minute I heard about it in detail, despite the pretty pictures. In the end, I only really have myself to blame.

"The Island", on the other hand, is another matter entirely. In my humble opinion, this is the best, most complete, most fun film Bay has ever made. Smart. Fun. Satisfying. Great cast (Ewan Macgregor, Scarlett Johanssen, Djimon Honsou, Sean Bean, Steve Buscemi). It's biggest problem, sadly, was it's title. It's the anti-Pearl Harbor: a great film with rotten marketing.



More importantly, when I heard that Speilberg specifically reached out to Bay to get him to direct this film, it told me that he sees more in this guy than most. Personally, I think Bay has the ability to do more complete films like "The Island", with the right script and the right producer.

"Transformers"? Hey, I was a fan as a kid. I even had the soundtrack for the animated movie they did back when I was in high school.



So much so that a kid on the intramural soccer team used to make fun of me by calling me "Optimus Prime". And, you know what? For the most part, I enjoyed it. I think it could benefit from more locked off camera shots. And there are some huge logic gaps. But I'll probably go see the sequel. No stress.

So, why this trip down Michael Bay memory lane? Because I simply don't understand the absolute hatred that people have for this guy. I mean, if he's a jerk on the set and you work in the business, I sort of understand. But, whatever - don't work with him.

I think to some people, he's the poster child for a certain kind of filmmaking - the summer blockbuster, critics-be-damned, budget busters. But, at the end of the day, I basically had a good time in most of his films. I rarely walked out feeling cheated or tricked (I'm looking at YOU, M. Night Shymalan!). The money that goes into his films could make 20 indie features, so I definitely can understand that sense of waste. Although, from a studio perspective, would those same 20 little movies have gotten the same rate of return on their investment as, say, Bad Boys II?

The dirty little secret in Hollywood is that popcorn pays for award season gold. Miramax couldn't afford to make "Shakespeare in Love" if it's sister company, Dimension, hadn't made a ton of money on "Scream". And a movie like "Transformers" probably paid for "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button". So the Michael Bay's make the Slumdog Millionaire's possible.

What I really really don't get is the fanboy hatred.

Well, I suppose, if I think about it, it makes sense. It's not like Bay is Sam Raimi or Peter Jackson. He's clearly not one of us. He's a little too cool and too tanned and too tall and too permed, and how DARE a non-geek give Optimus Prime a mouth!

But, then again, Hater-Aid never makes sense.

And it's his obvious disdain for the original material that burns people when it comes to Transformers. But, you know what? The stuff DOESN'T age well. Most Saturday cartoons aimed at kids don't (with the rare exception of "Robotech"). I mean, have you tried watching "Challenge of the Superfriends" recently on Boom or Cartoon Network? It's painful!

I'm not saying that people shouldn't hate Bay. It's a free country. But I would say, take a step back and think about it. After all, the guy did help make Transformers cool again. That's got to count for something.

The sad thing is, when you look at his films, Bay is clearly a fan boy at heart. He should do himself a favor and come to Comic-Con. He'll probably get geek religion.

From Wanssee to Gitmo

I interned at HBO Films for a time when I was in film school, and, during that period of time, they produced a great film called "Conspiracy", about the Wannsee Conference.

In short, when Hitler decided he wanted to kill all the Jews, he ordered his military and bureaucratic leaders to get together and figure out how. After all, organizing the apparatus of a nation to systematically murder 6 million people is a helluva thing to pull off. So, they all got together in a mansion in Wansee to work out a plan.

Over dinner.



In short, you can find a lawyer to figure out a way to justify anything. Even a crime against humanity.

In case you were wondering, here's a treaty the U.S. signed back in 1988 (i.e. under Ronald Reagan), and ratified in 1994 (under Bill Clinton) which bans the use of torture under ALL circumstances.
Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

And, it defines torture as:

"any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity."

Now, with regard to waterboarding, as described by Bent Sørensen, a Senior Medical Consultant to the IRCT and former member of the United Nations Committee against Torture:

'"when water is forced into your lungs in this fashion, in addition to the pain you are likely to experience an immediate and extreme fear of death. You may even suffer a heart attack from the stress or damage to the lungs and brain from inhalation of water and oxygen deprivation. In other words there is no doubt that waterboarding causes severe physical and/or mental suffering – one central element in the UNCAT’s definition of torture”.

“In addition,” he continues, “the CIA’s waterboarding clearly fulfils the three additional definition criteria stated in the Convention for a deed to be labelled torture, since it is 1) done intentionally, 2) for a specific purpose and 3) by a representative of a state – in this case the US.”

“Finally,” says Prof. Sørensen, “it should not be forgotten that the consequences of torture – including waterboarding - are often long-lasting or even chronic. For instance, anxiety attacks, depression and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder are very common sequelae after torture, regardless of course, whether the victim is guilty or innocent. So torture is never just a momentary infliction of suffering.”'

Which directly contradicts the conclusions of the Bybee memo, namely that it wouldn't constitute pain equivalent to organ failure or imminent death, or that it doesn't cause lasting pyschological trauma, and, therefore, doesn't rise to the level of torture.

But, let's be honest, wasn't the whole point of using these techniques was because it was torture? It's not just about interrogation and stopping attacks. It was payback for 9/11, right? And it was to send a message to anybody else - here's what happens if you fuck with America, suckers!

Which proves a fundamental misunderstanding on the part of Mr. Cheney and others: Al Qaeda has already been calling us The Great Satan, and this is how they're helping to rally people to their cause. By using these tactics, to try to prove that we're bigger and badder than Saddam or the Soviets or any other bad actors in the world simply proves their case.

And, more to the point, the people who need to prove that they're bigger and badder than everybody else are usually motivated by fear. I'm beginning to believe Larry Wilkerson's evaluation that Dick Cheney is "a profoundly fearful man." I know it's a joke, but I'm reminded of my thoughts on Dark Sidious:

How scared do you have to be if you need to subjugate the universe?

Ground Zero

I'd been going back through my old, unfinished drafts here on Macroscope when I came across this old article I'd saved from The Atlantic. It's a letter from a woman who was in Hiroshima on the only day that most of us in the rest of the world know anything about Hiroshima, and how, as Wayne Gale would put it, she lived to tell the tale.

Choice quote:

I rubbed my nose and mouth hard with a tenugui (a kind of towel) I had at my waist. To my horror, I found that the skin of my face had come off in the towel.

This, my friends, is pure, unadulterated horror.

But worth a read when we consider the modern state of nuclear proliferation.

The Atlantic | August 1980 | 'I Thought My Last Hour Had Come...' | Guillain

About Torture

It's all very simple:

Before actually having any suspects in custody from the War on Terror, officials in the Bush Administration took a program created to help captured American soldiers resist torture techniques crafted by the Red Chinese in the Korean War to illicit false confessions and reverse-engineered it so that they could APPLY those techniques in a way that would illicit false confessions about a link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda to justify an invasion of Iraq.

Anyone who says the techniques helped prevent terrorist attacks on Los Angeles are wrong. That presumed attack was thwarted months before the torture even started.

And, consider this - after being waterboarded 180 times, KSM never gave up Osama Bin Laden.

Effective, huh?

Anyone who says it's not torture is wrong. The United States has prosecuted people as war criminals for using these very same techniques going back as far as the Spanish American War.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Anyone who says that 9/11 was so extraordinary that we had to violate the law is wrong. Is Al Qaeda really more dangerous that the Nazis or Mutual Assured Destruction? Get real.

Or, actually, let me put it to you this way: Let's assume that there is a ticking time bomb. Let's assume you have absolute proof that an attack is imminent and you have a suspect in custody that you are absolutely sure knows how to prevent it but he'll only talk if you break the law and violate him physically in some way. And let's assume, by torturing him, you prevent an attack and save millions of lives.

We are STILL a nation of laws, with a court system where you're judged by a jury of your peers. When the dust has settled, you should still have to stand trial and answer for your crimes. Because if a jury of your peers agrees that you made the right decision, they'll acquit you. The law is upheld with the people kept safe. Problem solved.

And if the jury DOES convict you, but the President knows that you did a great service for this nation, he can pardon you.

But the law is still the law. We don't just pretend that torture is OK. It's not OK. And if you think the circumstances are so dire that you're required to do some awful things, you should be man enough to stand up, say it proudly, and take your lumps because you believe in America and our system of laws.

To do otherwise, to say the law shouldn't apply to you, I'm sorry, that's just fundamentally un-American.

You want to know how you're REALLY supposed to interrogate prisoners? Read "The Interrogators", about the first guys on the ground in Afghanistan and how they got real actionable intelligence without resorting to torture.




But I think my man Shepard Smith said it best:

No. 1 on the call sheet

This interview with J.J. Abrams about his process for the new "Star Trek", coupled with a Fast Company article about McG, where he likened directing a big budget movie to being hired as the CEO of a $200 million company that only gets to launch one product, put a new idea in my head.

So, I'm about a month away from starting serious casting for my feature film, and it occurred to me, for as many actors who want to be stars, how many of them are conscious of the responsibilities, from a filmmaking perspective, that stardom brings?

I'm reminded of a conversation Tom Cruise and Jada Pinkett Smith had with Tavis Smiley
just before the release of "Collateral", where Tom said, at the time, "I've never lost the studio money". It struck me at the time because, honestly, it hadn't occurred to me that he, as the star, felt personally responsible for making sure that the people who invested their money in his performance would see a return on their investment.

As a director, I'm reminding myself that it's not just important to cast someone who can give a performance, but someone who can also be a responsible filmmaker: supporting the performances for the other actors, treating onset crew with proper respect, being engaged in the evolution of their character with the director and the writer, using their fan base to promote the film, and, in many, many cases, helping to bring in the money to make sure there even IS a film to make in the first place.

It sounds like J.J. was very blessed by Chris Pine's onset presence. He was the star of the film, and he knew it, and acted appropriately.

I hope other actors are taking note - if you want to be a star, act like one. And that doesn't mean being a diva. It means being someone that a filmmaker and a producer and a studio and your castmates can put their trust and faith in. Being a star is about having broad shoulders.

Anyway, just something on my mind right now.

The toughest five minutes you'll ever love

So, as most of you know, I make movies.

That's my true passion. It's the reason I quit an insanely well-paying job in New York and moved all the way to Los Angeles nearly 10 years ago to get my MFA in Screenwriting at the American Film Institute.

Ironically enough, I pursued screenwriting after I took a production class at NYU back in 1998 and realized that I really didn't care enough about F-stops and film stock to devote my energy to cinematography and directing. I figured, if I could learn how to tell a good enough story, I can draw in all of the technical people I needed to make my films happen.

That was, of course, before I moved to Hollywood.

Now, don't get me wrong - you will never see a good movie that doesn't begin with a good script. But, after getting my degree and years of trying to push various feature film scripts in the marketplace, I came to realize that, when all you do is write, you're completely at the mercy of other people's tastes. Certainly, spec sales happen, but, given how many scripts there are out there in the system, selling a spec (i.e. a script you wrote on your own, with out anyone paying you to do it up front) is a lot like winning the lottery. Of course, if we're going to stick with the lottery analogy, going to film school is sort of like living in Montgomery County, MD - there's just an abnormally high number of state lottery winners there, just like you're more likely to know spec sellers if you go to film school.

Anyway, I came to realize that, contrary to popular rumors, scripts are not the coin of the realm in Hollywood. Only actual finished films are the real currency in Hollywood. From a buyer's perspective, buying a script is too big of a risk - WAY too many things can go wrong because of way too many people before you get your money back. There are far more buyers for films - cable networks, foreign territories, film markets, etc. - than for scripts.

Which gets to a piece of advice a lawyer buddy told me he received from his mentor at his first law firm: He told my friend that there were lawyers at that firm who could never understand why they didn't make partner. But making partner had nothing to do with seniority or legal skill. In a partnership, you have to split the pie, and anytime you add a new partner, you have to split the pie a little thinner. So the only reason why they would ever add a new partner is if he or she has something, a client or a relationship or something, that makes the pie bigger.

No one will hand you their equity for nothing.

And, as I thought about it, I noticed that a lot of the screenwriters I really loved were also directors: Quentin Tarantino, Christopher Nolan, Spike Lee, David Lynch, etc.

In short, I realized that, if I wanted to see my movies made, I had to start making them.

So, I did this:



You like? If so, show "5" a little love: make it your favorite on YouTube, give it 5 stars, leave a funny comment, and, of course, forward it to every single person in your address book. :-)

You'll feel better when you do.

But, back to my original point, I've gotten FAR more traction as a screenwriter from this little short than from any of my feature screenplays. Why? Because it only takes 5 minutes to watch, while I script can take hours.

Which is why, whenever I run into a frustrated actor or writer, I tell them, take control of your destiny and make a film. Give yourself the role you want. Make yourself the producer who loves your writing.

Give yourself your own equity.

In the meantime, I'm planning to make something considerably.... longer. :-)

"....proud to be an American..."

"I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--

I, too, am America."
- Langston Hughes
I know I've been pretty quiet since the election back in November.   A lot has
happened since then - personally, professionally, artistically, romantically.

In many ways, I feel like anything I could write now would really pale in comparison
to the reality of the moment.

But I would like to say a few things:

• I love that Michelle's mother is moving into the White House, because it is representative of the reality for many Black families here in America. My grandmother lived in my parents' house since before I was born, and there's something to be said for having another adult who is not working a full-time job there to help raise the children. And, let's be blunt, it's much more likely for Blacks to BE the nanny instead of HAVING a nanny. But, even more importantly, having a blood relative to help with your babies is probably always better. So I love that America is going to have a "First Nana".
• I went to the Martin Luther King Day parade here in Los Angeles yesterday, and I love the weird trick of fate that we get to celebrate MLK the day before we inaugurate our first Black president. There were Obama t-shirts & signs & bootleg merchandise EVERYWHERE. But what's even more cool is how crazy diverse the MLK Day Parade itself was - there was a huge Korean contingent; Brazilian carnival-style dancers & floats, even freakin' Hari Krishnas. :-) A reminder that King's dream wasn't just about Black people. It was, and continues to be, about everybody.
• Needless to say, I can understand how some on the left are highly pissed off about the whole Rick Warren thing. But, as I think those who oppose things like Prop 8 here in California are beginning to learn, this is a democracy, and the only way to win a majority for your beliefs is to change hearts and minds. And that means you have to talk to people who may believe in things that you hate, and they have to actually be in the room in order to talk to them. I stopped listening to some folks that I like because they believe something different than me, and, frankly, that's a sign of my own weakness. And ours. So, let's be real about this. Rick Warren is a far cry from Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson, and he probably represents a very large cross-section of the church-going populace of this country. Even if you're a big believer in separation of church and state, even if you're an atheist or an agnostic, you still have to share the country with the religious people. You can't get rid of them just like they can't get rid of you, no matter how much either of you would like. That, my friends, is what democracy is all about. Just like talking to Iran is not appeasement, giving an olive branch to the Christian middle is not an endorsement. Have faith that the President may just know what he's doing.
• Don't you just love that last sentence? Above all else, I love the return of a presumption of competence to the Federal government.
• The last time I was on the national mall was 1995 for the Million Man March. After watching the festivities of the day, I'm suddenly itching to go back and go on all the tours. If I may paraphrase our new First Lady, this may not be the first time I've been proud of my country, but today is definitely the day that I've felt MOST proud to call myself an American.
  

OK. Now, let's get to work.