Lumbersexuals: A Phony Throwback To The Ice Age.

Dan Haggerty as "Grizzly Adams." The real deal.

Most of my brothers and I looked like “lumbersexuals” at one time or another. We all grew beards, cut down trees, planted trees, sawed or chopped cords of wood, wore flannel shirts, and occasionally wore logger suspenders. We aspired to look like Dan Haggerty (Grizzly Adams), but none of us had full beards. One of us actually was a logger, (he was a manager for a logging company). Then the 80s and 90s came along and most of my brothers and myself morphed into clean-cut metrosexuals. We stayed metrosexuals for the next thirty-five years, and wore Jerry Garcia ties to work. Sometimes we regressed and grew beards, but the heyday of looking like lumbersexuals had passed. We had all endured the passing fads, and I expect the fad of looking like a lumberjack (without being a lumberjack) will pass as well. So if you are clean-shaven, don’t change; shave as usual. Q: Yo, lumbersexual hipsters! Do you really think now is a good time to look like you’re followers of Islam? True loggers have body odor, and little flecks of sawdust in their beards. They have dirt under their fingernails, and lots of muscles they didn’t get from a gym workout. They are the real deal, not hipsters in Portlandia. Real loggers don’t have to get their bodies covered with tattoos to be cool. They go to art museums to see art, not let some dufus inject ink under their skin, of a shrieking skull. Sorry, I had to release my pent-up beardless tension.

Many of the most famous men in history had beards, like Abe Lincoln, Moses, and Jesus. Beards were right up there with the creation of the wheel, and fire, and beards came first. Adam, the first man, is depicted as being without a beard. I think they got that wrong. I believe he looked like Tom Selleck with a beard. If you loved Dan Haggerty as Grizzly Adams, you might be a fan of beards. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1Cye7d5EHI

We are an easily swayed species. Many women prefer bad boys to Calvin Klein models. One assumes women like the obvious differences between men and women, since most women cannot grow full beards. My ex wife used to talk about wanting to grow a beard. She had beard envy. Maybe she isn’t alone. In metro areas of Oregon I’ve seen many women playing the role of the man in lesbian relationships. Flannel and suspenders are de rigueur of this lifestyle (sans beards). It doesn’t explain the thousands of years Native American women preferred their men clean-shaven. Native American men mostly could not grow beards, but they had something most Caucasian men don’t have: really good heads of hair that can be braided and styled in a thousand ways by their women.

In this case, I am referring to Caucasian men. Picture the Brawny Paper Towel guy, but with a beard. Visualize a sweaty, dirty man with an unkempt beard whose beard awakens primal memories in womens’ DNA.  In some women’s collective ancestral memory, from hundreds of thousands of years ago, there is a half-naked bearded man in the mouth of a cave with his spear or club in one hand, and a dead animal in the other hand. “Honey, I’m home!” bellows the man. This cave man image pushes some women’s ancient buttons. A bearded man equals ‘He will protect me, and find me fresh meat to cook.’ His beard says he is a provider and his wife and children won’t stave. Man does not live by roots and berries alone. You need a fat, juicy, rare slab of mammoth steak once in awhile. You need the bearded man chucking the spear with his bearded bros when the cave bear shows up. Women who are turned on by bearded men, don’t see the flannel. They see the cave man in a loincloth. Women have better senses of smell than men for a reason. They can smell their man a half a mile away. But the modern men with beards are much cleaner than their Ice Age forebears. View this clip from “Sands of the Kalihari,” with Stuart Whitman. This is the epitome of everything I am writing here: Bearded man against civilization, and baboons! Bearded man gets the girl. Bearded man, GOOD! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5QLvoLxSow

Women being attracted to the top ape in ancient times is not that different from modern human society. The top ape gets to impregnate the top woman. A man’s worthiness is still based on his ability to provide. Money equals security. It still is that way for most women. But not all bearded men are good providers. This is where the logic of it breaks down. Ask a woman in her twenties or thirties what a sexy man looks like, and surprisingly a fair number of them will point to the dirty bearded man with a blue collar job. The welder, the dude riding the Harley Hog, the logger, the mechanic get second looks. Dirty men are exciting men, with loads of testosterone! If there had been a survey in the 1990s (and I’m sure there were) women would have been gaga over Brad Pitt lookalikes. Now Brad, and other celebrities, like Ben Affleck for example, have beards. One woman told me in the 1980s, “Men who grow beards have something to hide,” such as a double chin, a wicked scar, crooked teeth, etc. For much of the 20^th and early 21^st century most women would confide that the idea of kissing a man with a beard was gross. But go back to the 19^th century and beards were the thing! The further you go back the more beards you’ll see. But how can kissing a mouthful of hair be exciting? Women have told me beards and mustaches make their lips and noses itch. Is there anything more sexy than a bearded man eating soup? I don’t think so! The use of paper napkins alone would be like clearcutting a forest.

We can blame the Ice Age for this deviant thinking about facial hair. Granted, some men are better off with beards. Some men’s facial hair is so thick they have to shave twice a day. Don’t blame women. It goes back to the beginnings of the human race.  A beard kept a man’s face warm.  But who needs a beard in Southern California?

Lumbersexuals usually only cut their hair for fashion reasons. They are only pretending to be real loggers.  Real loggers wear hardhats, so it makes sense to have buzz cuts. Real loggers also chew snuff, which isn’t a habit most lumbersexuals have adopted because it destroys the effects attained by spending five-hundred dollars to have their teeth whitened. Imagine kissing a lumbersexual with snuff spittle in his beard and a lump in his lower lip. Here, honey, get some mouth cancer! Mmmm. Not gonna happen. However, in Sweden, chewing snuff is very popular, (for men and women), but not so much in Portland or Seattle. Imagine beautiful blonde women in Sweden chewing snuff and spitting on sidewalks. Are you grossed out yet? So the lack of snuff is also an indicator that a man is only pretending to be a macho man with a beard.

I will never be a lumbersexual because I've actually cut down trees with chainsaws. I have also worked on fishing boats in the Bering Sea. I’ve done all the things a man does to build a house. I know my way around tools. I am the real deal, but I'm too vain to grow a salt and pepper beard. Some men can pull it off, but not me. I’ve grown a beard a few times, and I had a big mustache and French tickler for over five years. Here is a photo of me with a mustache and French tickler. Do I look happy? How could anyone know how I was feeling with this giant mustache? I have to admit, it did make me look dashing. But I was an imposter!

Me with my big mustache.

Beards require way too much care. Lumbersexuals are supposed to not care that their beards are wild. This is all a sham. Men do care. They are as vain as women. I spend too much time in the bathroom as it is. Having a beard (or mustache) was like having to mow my lawn five times a week. The problem with facial hair for men over forty-five is that facial hair is one of the first body hair that goes gray. I just can't see myself dying my beard. If I take up prospecting, or become a recluse in Idaho or Montana I suppose a long gray beard makes sense. I like the look of my big mustache, but the upkeep is time consuming. I will never be a lumbersexual. I’m too vain to grow a beard full of gray hairs. I want to look young, and beards make me look old. My older brother told me he often has young women flirting with him. For a while he was flattered, then he realized the women were not being flirty, they were being nice to him because he was old enough to be their fathers. I am having the same problem, and a beard would be the worst cure for my midlife crisis. So I guess I'll have to look clean cut as Donny Osmond until I die. They say that hair grows after you're dead, so perhaps all men grow beards in their coffins. That's a sobering thought. I wonder if they wax their mustaches in Heaven?

A Hollywood Love story, set in Orange County, that may have a happy ending.

This is the true and inspiring story of a talented screenwriter who received a phone call one day from an elderly philanthropist, to invite him to Southern California to become his right hand man, after a con artist took the philanthropist for half a million dollars. Unlike the film, Sunset Boulevard, this erstwhile writer will probably not be found floating face down in the swimming pool of a forgotten movie star, with bullet holes in his back. 

The script is sure to attract the attention of Hollywood, but this eventuality is years away, if it is even on the horizon of possibilities, long after the philanthropist has died, and the screenwriter has retired and is about to open his last can of baked beans in a remote solar-powered cabin in the north woods, possibly in Canada, or Way Down Under in the Snowy Mountains of Australia. On that day a letter will arrive, delivered by the writer's sole friend, a prospector, and his mule. The old screenwriter will gasp at the knock on his door, and with trembling hands accept the letter and moments later find a check for five million dollars folded neatly in the envelope. The letter and its check were sent from a major studio in Hollywood that won a bidding war for the old screenwriter's feature script, titled, "McGillicutty Was Right." The script had sat on a slush pile for fifteen years. It had fallen out of the dump truck that took the pile away. The script fell in the path of a producer who was en route to his BMW. The producer didn't know why he picked it up. Maybe it was the pink covers, and the odd title. Maybe it was the bourbon the producer had sipped for most of the afternoon because of his failing marriage. Maybe it was his string of stinker films and him figuring he had nothing to lose.

The reason luck arbitrarily shone on the ruined screenwriter didn't matter anymore. He was a hero again; he was no longer invisible. He was player in Hollywood. After a shave, a long overdue shower, a haircut to trim the few remaining hairs on his scalp, and plucking the long disgusting nostril and ear hair, a splash of cologne, and a new wardrobe, our hero will make a triumphant return to  Hollywood, flying first class into John Wayne Airport so he can be driven up the coast one last time. His vocal chords will have atrophied, due to lack of use, though once he had an easygoing tone that made people trust him. It had not helped his voice to have stepped on his old worm-eaten guitar one melancholy night, and as he rides in the back of the late model Mercedes he realizes he will need several days of vocal coaching to relearn coherent speech. But the smell of the leather seats and the softness of the ride lulls him into a deep sleep and he misses everything: the surfers, the babes on the beach; the high end malls, the funky musicians, everything he misses about California. And he dreams of his acceptance speech on Oscar night, for Best Original Screenplay.

But hold on there. I am no reincarnation of William Holden or Faulkner. The hero in this true life script is me. It's all make believe, and as sticky and surreal as pink cotton candy in August, in Disneyland. Allow me to explain. I am living an alternate reality in Orange County. The real me is in that shack, but that is in the future. Listen: Most people my age have long abandoned their dreams. Apparently, I am following in the shoes of Faulkner, (and not F. Scott Fitzgerald), to fulfill my dream of actually selling a screenplay, and as a consequence, to sell my novels. So I guess what I've described is a backwards methodology to success. If it were a mathematical, logical train of thought it would go like this: Talent plus perseverance plus luck equals success. Or maybe it would go: Let your youth slip away, learn from the life of hard knocks, and come back when most people my age have long raised the white flag and moved into over fifty housing. Most people my age have gone through at least two marriages. Many have walked away from mortgages, experienced bankruptcy, and given up their dreams. I survived an eighteen year unhappy marriage and a lackluster advertising career.

Not that any of what came before matters. No matter what life throws at you, you have to move on. I know a few people who will be first in line to say they'd read about my prediction of success in an obscure blog. That's the way people are; it's human nature. You can never count on anyone but yourself. And sometimes you can't even trust yourself. Our lives could be charted on bar graphs, and the only reader of our timeline would be God. But we're not exactly bugs in dire need of squashing. No, not yet. Hold on a little longer; just hold on a bit longer and see what comes around the next corner.

There have been hints of my destiny in Hollywood, and I mostly took them for granted, a million years ago. The moral is that when opportunity knocks, it usually knocks on the doors of young people. I first came here in the late 70s to go to school. I moved from here to Santa Barbara, where, if I'd been lucky, I'd have met a cougar and had an easier go of it. Financially, I mean. Finances have been on peoples' minds in Southern California since the real estate boom. Nay, since the conquistadors. In 1978 you could still buy a house in Santa Barbara for under $100,000. Now those same houses go for a cool million. Which is my way of saying, "I blew it." After schooling and California sunshine, and a heck of a lot of tennis, and guacamole, I found myself unemployed, sitting in a dark bar in Hollywood, across the table in a booth, from the executive producer, director, some other guy halfway liquored up, and my friend, Barry, who had helped me land an animated title sequence for a feature film titled "Jimmy the Kid," which starred Ruth Gordon, Don Adams, Gary Coleman, and a few others. The executive producer looked at me and said, "How much are you gonna charge me to do the animated title sequence?" I opened my mouth to speak but the disco attired producer said, "No, don't tell me. Write it on a napkin and slide it over to me." That was how things were still done in Hollywood. It was all wink and a nod. It's not that way now. Now, nothing gets done in Hollywood until you know somebody. 

I am meeting people again. I met Al Kasha last Saturday at the eighteenth musical fundraising performance put on by the Children's Hospital of Orange County (CHOC) event, (CHOCAGO) http://choc.convio.net/site/PageServer?pagename=2015_follies_home You might recognize Kasha as an Academy award-winning songwriter and producer. Kasha's songs have been sung by stars, and been on the charts, for the past fifty years. The philanthropist I work for is a good friend of his and helped Kasha begin to put together a new musical about the courtship between Ron and Nancy Reagan. Al asked if I'd send him samples of my songs, and one of my comic plays. This is how people get to know one another. You have to be a schmoozer in the film industry. Learn about Al Kasha at this link: http://www.alkasha.com

I am living not far from a very fine beach in Orange County. A Southern California transplant in Portland, Oregon told me people in L.A. refer to Orange County as the "Orange Curtain." Ronald Reagan said Orange County is where Republicans go to die. There's the perception that Orange County is one gigantic country club, lined with tanning booths. There is no doubt this is a mostly White area. Go down to Laguna Beach and count the number of ethnic minorities. There aren't many, let me tell you. Lots of people drive nice cars. Many people don't seem to have to work anymore. But Beverly Hills, it's not.

I've got it pretty good. I have the key to a never used tennis court; the swimming pool and Jacuzzi in this Pleasantville-like retirement community are rarely used. I am helping a philanthropist help people. I'm employed. Just being here gives single women the impression that I'm rich. Every store you can imagine is within a two-mile radius of my house. I have even had my first date. I found the woman on POF (Plenty of Fish). She alleged to have been Miss Anaheim at one time. She was still pretty, but with the texture of a piece of dried fruit. We met at Peet's Coffee and talked for nearly two hours. I almost got lockjaw. I thought we were doing just fine until she began talking about her bizarre desire to be in the spotlight, healing people, and casting out demons, and materializing gemstones and gold in peoples' bibles. Christianity is also a part of this part of Southern California, but they do have one synagogue. Just down the road from me is the mega-huge Saddleback Church. The people behind the Orange Curtain are very well churched.

Here's the truth: I'm a sucker for happy endings. I'm looking for success, and TRUE LOVE. The first thing has to happen for the second thing to have a shot. Ideally, my true love is five feet seven, blonde, and has a terrific sense of humor, and dogs like her. She eats organic, and stays in shape. I can fudge on the height requirement. It would be great if she played tennis, and knew how to dance, and thought sharing a kitchen was sexy. Writers are among the loneliest people on Earth. I'm only human. I'm not Faulkner or Fitzgerald, but I feel like I'm in the right place at the right time. I drive a Nissan Pathfinder, just to be sure I'm on the right path. Even though it seems on the surface as if I've arrived thirty years too late, and am doomed to disappointment, a man has to try, doesn't he? This is Custer's Last Stand. But listen, if I end up face down in a swimming pool, or end up living life in a twisted David Lynch plot, at least I gave it my best shot. That's all you can do. 

My take on the 2015 Oscars ceremony! Or, let's get Jimmy Fallon to host the 2016 Oscars!

Everything wasn't awesome at the 87th Oscars in the elegant and opulent Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. Not the strange Lego movie musical number, not Sean Penn's racist joke, not Neil Patrick Harris in underwear, nor the unusual rainstorm that deluged the star studded entourage before they entered the theatre.

But there were a few stellar moments which made up for the irreverent not-so-classy hosting by Harris; (though, in fairness, it's a tough gig.) Like John Legend singing "Glory," for example, (from the film about Martin Luther King - "Selma"), and Lady Gaga's tribute to the film 'The Sound of Music.'

Comedy has been de rigueur for being a host of the Ocars, because comedians can improvise if things go awry, and make self-effacing jokes to keep things lively. There is a lot of tension at the podium, with the glaring lights and the star studded audience hanging on your every word. You don't want to not thank someone, (it could ruin you getting another role!) and yet you can't thank everyone. There's not enough time to thank your entire family, and the doctor who delivered you. Screw up and the audience might boo you off the stage, and throw rotten vegetables at you.

Ellen DeGeneres would have been funnier than Harris, (she was the first choice of producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron), but Ellen said no because she'd already done it three times. Chris Rock, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus also declined. Another choice - Jimmy Kimmel - was apparently not an option for Zadan and Meron, though Kimmel would probably have declined the offer because he had way too many celebrities on his show that night, Jimmy Kimmel Live: After the Oscars. Though, Jimmy Fallon (host of The Tonight Show) would have been an even better choice. He may be the funniest man in Hollywood.  This guy makes everyone else (except maybe Will Ferrell) look unfunny. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0zbTz8Ba-k

I am biased; I love Jimmy Fallon possibly more than Jerry Seinfeld loves him. Wouldn't Jimmy Fallon be the BEST CHOICE to host every Oscar ceremony from now on? Unconvinced? Check out this zany moment on The Tonight Show - a lip sync battle between Will Ferrell, Kevin Hart, and Jimmy Fallon, with a guest appearance by Drew Barrymore. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvRypx1lbR4

So, alas, on Oscar night we were stuck with Harris, and his dumb puns, male enhanced tighty-whities (a parody of the scene in the film, "Birdman," where Michael Keaton gets his robe stuck in a theater door, and walks through Times Square in his tighty-whities and black socks), and Harris's dumb predictions of who was going to win (which were in a briefcase within a locked transparent plastic case, onstage). And we survived.

Harris did do an amazing job with a musical number titled "Moving Pictures." He wasn't entirely flat. But let's not talk about Harris. Let's move along and mention the racist gaff by Sean Penn, (i.e., about "Birdman" director Alejandro G. Iñárritu - "Who gave this son of a bitch a green card?"). There was a collective gasp at that remark. However, apparently Penn did not seriously offend Iñárritu. Penn had been in Iñárritu's "21 Grams" film, though he certainly offended many citizens of Mexico, not to mention, millions of Mexican-Americans. Ah well, nobody died, or got in a fight with Penn after the program. Kudos to Iñárritu for his big heart. 

The "Glory" song, sung by John Legend, did a lot to balance Penn's unsavory joke. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWE2Yb_jMZg The song also did a lot to inject class to the show. Also, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the many awards garnered by The Grand Budapest Hotel, (and Wes Anderson - one of my favorite directors). I have not seen the film, but I feel compelled to channel my inner Danny Kay before I go. Maybe they should have digitized Kay and put him in the starring role.) The set designers must have had an obsession with lavender. I assume patrons can obtain special glasses to color correct the film if you do see it. You can read the recap of winners here: http://oscar.go.com/nominees

Let's talk about Lady Gaga, and her wonderful tribute medley of songs from the Oscar winning film, "The Sound of Music." What was that like? I suppose that would be like Alice Cooper being elected President. However, based solely on the warm embrace the Grand Dame - Julie Andrews - gave to Lady Gaga after the performance, Disney will be foolish not to get Gaga on the phone ASAP. They'll probably tell her to lose the tattoos. But, maybe she is turning a corner here. Could it be she is in love? After all, Gaga is sporting a half-million dollar heart shaped diamond engagement ring. It might be a business decision to try something new. She is all of twenty-eight-years-old, and a somewhat fading pop singer with too many tattoos. Maybe she has had the epiphany she is the Julie Andrews for this generation. Maybe her fiancé, Taylor Kinney, has shown her the way back to the light. Or maybe she realizes she just wants to be a stay-at-home mom. She has Italian ancestry, (Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta), so having a dozen children is practically hardwired into her DNA. Good for you, Lady Gaga, breed on!

 https://twitter.com/ABCNetwork?original_referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.usmagazine.com%2Fentertainment%2Fnews%2Flady-gaga-performing-sound-of-music-tribute-at-oscars-2015-2015222&tw_i=569719825280294912&tw_p=tweetembed

Gaga's singing left me gaga, but if Fallon hosts the 2016 Oscars it will be better.

A Brave New World Is Now.

It has been posited that a monkey, if given a typewriter, could eventually type the entire works of William Shakespeare. But what of office workers, or worse - factory production workers? What might they make? Interstellar spaceships? Time portals? Really decent French pastries?

Sorry to share this, but trained monkeys could do most of our jobs, and do them more cheaply. Two bananas an hour. Especially a job that requires a redundant, almost robotic series of movements.  This might be our future, if what Emily Anthes wrote in her nonfiction book: "Frankenstein's Cat - Cuddling Up To Biotech's Brave New Beasts," is all true. God help us all. I think it is all true.

The Brave New World of the future is already here. Right now, in secret labs in America and elsewhere, scientists have strapped "bugging" devices to beetles and made the beetles into automatons that will do whatever the scientists make them do. True, apes and dolphins may one day gain more protection due to their higher intelligences. Which means they won't be forced to be living in labs, subject to experiments. But the day is not far off when they have a joy stick that makes you do whatever they want you to do. Maybe they already do. And you know to whom I am referring: Them. The government. The New World Order people. Scientists have implanted devices in insect larvae to control them, and one day, as in the young adult book "Feed" they will put them in us. On the face of it, it seems like a great idea. We can all be as brainy as Einstein. But that isn't what this is about. The book by Anthes is telling us: Wake Up People! The government is going to tinker with your head. This is how they made Glow Fish. They took a gene from a jellyfish that causes fluorescence, and put it in a zebra fish. Voila! A new fad! Imagine them putting something in your kids to make them easier to find in the dark when they are partying with their friends. Hmm.

Changing a wolf into a dog took thousands of years. And look at how many varieties of dogs there are now! Woof. Anthes points out that tinkering with living things comes with a price. Larger dog breeds often have inherent problems due to breeding. All breeds of dog can develop dysplasia, but it is the larger breeds that are most likely to suffer, simply because they weigh more. Because the problem is rooted in genetics, it tends to occur when one or both of your dog's parents was also dysplastic. But because more than one gene location and interaction is involved (polygenetic) , it can skip generations, or affect some puppies in a litter while sparing others. That is what makes the problem difficult for breeders to stamp out.


The World Canine Organization is best known by its French title, Fédération Cynologique Internationale which is abbreviated FCI. It is the largest registry of dog breeds that are internationally accepted. The FCI recognizes 339 breeds of dogs, which are divided into 10 groups based upon the dog’s purpose or function, or upon its appearance or size. The 10 groups are:

1. Sheepdogs and Cattle Dogs other than Swiss Cattle Dogs (this group includes most of the dogs found classified as "herding dogs" by other kennel clubs).
2. Pinscher and Schnauzer - Molossoid Breeds - Swiss Mountain and Cattle Dogs and Other Breeds (the Molossian breeds include the dogs known as the mastiffs by most other kennel clubs)
3. Terriers
4. Dachshunds
5. Spitz and Primitive Types
6. Scenthounds and Related Breeds
7. Pointers and Setters
8. Retrievers - Flushing Dogs - Water Dogs
9. Companion and Toy Dogs
10. Sighthounds

There are surprises in this list, such as the fact that the Australian Shepherd is actually a breed created in the United States, while the Pharaoh Hound was not developed in Egypt, but in Malta. France, Germany and Great Britain are responsible for creating more dog breeds than nearly the rest of the world combined. Apparently, those countries are big on tinkering with Mother Nature.

And what of us? Anthes doesn't devote many pages to that subject in her book, the indication obviously being that we also can be improved. And natural selection has made us different than we were in the beginning. One school of thought is that once upon a time all of us were giants, just like the dinosaurs and other unusually large creatures on the planet, owing to the thicker ozone, plentiful food, and more oxygen. This would explain the legends of giants found in every culture, and tales of ancient heroes of Greece, Sumaria, and other cultures. How else did these huge stones get fashioned (some greater than 900 tons in weight)? There are millions of people who think we are the offspring of alien tinkering. And just as we tinkered with animals, they tinkered with us in ancient times. Genesis 6 seems to indicate that, and again - there are legends about visitations. The frustrating part is that no one can prove anything. Unless one day a geneticist is gazing at a gene and spots a message akin to "© God."

Here is what we can expect: Your grandchildren will likely be selecting the traits they want in their children, to make perfect children. It isn't necessarily a bad thing. It probably will be though. Personally, I like the idea that many will do it the old fashioned random way, and let genes do whatever they will do. The possibility of eradicating the bad genes from our DNA is too tempting for us to resist though. A world without disease or deformities appears to be a better world. But I doubt George Orwell would have seen it that way.

Artsy Worldwide Residencies For Wild Adventures!

Pack your suitcase baby, we’re heading for the sunshine coast!

I often drew toucans, and Tyrannosaurus Rex as a child, but never on the same sheet of paper. If I’d had a psychiatrist, (and I probably needed one), he might have sorted out what these animals represented. He might have said that toucans represented joy, and Tyrannosaurus, fear. Perhaps the toucan was what I wanted to be, and the Tyrannosaurus was what I feared I might become. Today I am of a toucan mindset. I am thinking of toucans as I peruse a site called Residency Unlimited.  http://www.residencyunlimited.org/

As an infomercial, the promotional spot I would create for RU would show a view of an exotic locale: palm trees, everyone in shorts and flip-flops, with the feeling of the 1970s 7-Up TV ads (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JinBKqSCSac), which featured the charismatic Jamaican (Geoffrey Holder) sitting in a high back wicker cane chair, beneath a ceiling fan, (a red macaw perched nearby), dressed like a Caribbean Tourist Board BIG poster boy (he is 6'6"). V.O.: “Hah, hah, hah! Happiness awaits you! What are you waiting for? Your happiness can begin today. Hah, hah, hah. You can be the "Un-American."  http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0390305/bio

RU has listings for residencies lasting from between one week to six months. The layout is so simple even a child could figure it out: Large colored rectangles with the titles of the residencies. Feeling purple today? Click on the purple  box. Feeling blue? Try the blue one.

RU is located within the former South Congregational Church in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. It supports the creation, presentation, and dissemination of contemporary art through its unique residency program and year-round public programs. Many of the programs are geared to support fine artists, but there are many opportunities for writers, filmmakers, actors, and other disciplines.

Lodging is varied as well, from huge studio spaces to one room offerings. Many provide stipends, meals, and opportunities to work alongside others in the same disciplines. There are ample opportunities to meet not only other people in the arts, but plunge into the culture of wherever you are.

Most of the residencies do cost money, but a modest sum. I found residencies in the south of France, and central Mexico, which only required participants to pay for airfare, and local transportation. Free food and lodging, a stipend, an exotic locale, and good company sounds like a recipe for happiness to me. (Some listings mention the possibility of covering airfare and local transportation costs!) It occurred to me that if one was organized it would be possible to hop around the globe for years.

Going somewhere far away can be scary, but you must fight the fear of the Tyrannosaurus, that threatens to hold you back. Imagine toucans! Imagine the good things that might come of it. Having time, for one thing - to work on a project you've put off, or can't work on because of the hectic world surrounding you. Try something new. Reinvent yourself. Be brave. Be happy. Try.

Summer is upon us, and I don't know about you, but the idea of winging off to an adventure is rather tempting. And what of those who aren't involved in arts? There are many listings for jobs here: http://www.expatjobs.eu/

So get moving! Get your passport, pack your bags, and go have an adventure!

Food For Thought: GMO or Non-GMO. Which Are You?

The foods found in our drawers, cupboards, and refrigerators, say a lot about us. One glance communicates our free time, our love or disdain of sports, our food preferences, and more importantly: whether we have strong views about non-organic foods versus organic foods. In other words, do we care what we are eating and applying to our bodies, and if we don't care, what does that say about us? And are we able to correlate the apathy of our choices into why we are fat, diseased, and unhappy?

As one would expect, non-organic proponents argue against organic products because they cost more, and allege it is inconclusive they are better for human health. Organic proponents have equally hard-line stances on the issue. One of the main points of contention has to do with GMO versus non-GMO ingredients. A GMO is an organism whose genome has been altered in order to favor the expression of desired physiological traits, or the output of desired biological products. Monsanto has said pointedly that it is the FDA’s job to discern if GMOs are dangerous to human health, which is a bit droll, and certainly rhetorical, since Monsanto has people pulling the FDA’s strings. But what of Mr. Obama? Is he also on the Monsanto payroll? Regrettably, yes.

After his victory in the 2008 election, Obama filled key posts with Monsanto people, in federal agencies that wield tremendous force in food issues, the USDA and the FDA: At the USDA - the director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Roger Beachy, a former director of the Monsanto Danforth Center. The deputy commissioner of the FDA, the new food-safety-issues czar, the infamous Michael Taylor, former vice-president for public policy for Monsanto. Taylor had been instrumental in getting approval for Monsanto's genetically engineered bovine growth hormone. As commissioner of the USDA, Iowa governor, Tom Vilsack. Vilsack had set up a national group, the Governors' Biotechnology Partnership, and had been given a Governor of the Year Award by the Biotechnology Industry Organization, whose members include Monsanto. The Agriculture Trade Representative, who would push GMOs for export, Islam Siddiqui, a former Monsanto lobbyist. The counsel for the USDA, Ramona Romero, who had been corporate counsel for another biotech giant, DuPont. The new head of the USAID, Rajiv Shah, who had previously worked in key positions for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a major funder of GMO agriculture research. And Obama's secretary of state, Hillary Clinton,who once worked for the Rose law firm, which was counsel to Monsanto. Obama nominated Elena Kagan to the US Supreme Court. Kagan, as federal solicitor general, had previously argued for Monsanto in the Monsanto v. Geertson seed case before the Supreme Court.

The corruption is deep and there is no pulling it out by the roots. It is up to US, the consumers, to decide how to live, what to eat, and what to apply to our bodies. If we do nothing, we and our families will suffer the consequences. That's sobering food for thought, eh? The bottom line: Corporations are in business for the money, not to worry about what is good for people. When discussing corporations such as Monsanto, it is THEM vs. US.

Genetically modified foods were first approved for human consumption in the United States in 1995. The FDA and the EPA have been accused of being under the control of corporations, such as Monsanto, which has its fingers in a whole lot of pies. You know things are awry when people high up in our government have or had ties to Monsanto, including Donald Rumsfeld, Clarence Thomas, and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture – Anne Veneman  (http://www.redicecreations.com/specialreports/monsanto.html). Here is another organically inclined site that addresses the Monsanto ties. http://www.organicconsumers.org/monlink.cfm

Techniques used to produce genetically modified organisms include cloning and recombinant DNA technology. The primary applications of GMOs are in the areas of agriculture and biomedical research. GMOs offer numerous benefits to society, including increased crop yields and the development of novel therapeutic agents to prevent and treat a wide range of human diseases. Concerns surrounding the use of GMOs include risks posed to human health and the generation of insecticide-resistant “superbugs.” Mom to her kids: "You kids get in here and have a bowl of pesticide laden cereal. No sense going off to school without a good hearty breakfast!"

Listen: the majority of people do not care what they eat or apply to their bodies. One blog is not adequate to address the problems with our foods, nor tackle the huge list of toxins in our personal care products. For habitual label readers, ingredients matter. There are fairly organically inclined stores out there, such as Natural Grocers (http://www.naturalgrocers.com/), Whole Foods (http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/), New Seasons (https://www.newseasonsmarket.com/), and Trader Joe’s (http://www.traderjoes.com/). 

But even within these consumer friendly stores are many non-organic products. Ticking time bombs, if you will. But let's be honest: short of making your own lotions, shampoos, cosmetics, and buying seeds from a known organic source, the odds are you are buying products with GMOs. Ninety percent of all human beings have GMOs in their bodies. You aren't necessarily doomed, but your body has been a dumping ground for years, and it takes time to detox. Eat more cilantro. The  produce grown in your garden, the nut butters, juices you made in your juicer, and jams you put away for the winter, are not 100% free of problems and could potentially negatively impact your health. Like give you cancer, for example. But at least the risk would be smaller than not caring. It is no wonder obesity is a major problem in America, (as well as diabetes). We should care, but most do not.

Finding truly organic companies is not easy. Shop in stores with only organic produce. Read labels. Buy juices without cane sugar. And if the item whose label you are examining does not mention organic sugar, it isn’t organic sugar. Sugar is ubiquitous.  Juices, such as carrot juice, have a lot of natural sugars. There are heroes out there. The Rigoni di Asiago family, in northern Italy, for example, makes excellent products without added sugars. http://rigonidiasiago-usa.com/our-products/fiordifrutta/ 

Despite all the bad out there, there are still companies that care about your health. Lakewood Juices is one of them.  http://www.lakewoodjuices.com/ Food for Life is another. They make a wonderful line of gluten free breads and cereals (http://www.foodforlife.com/), with the engaging Biblical verse: Ezekial 4:9. "But as for you, take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet and spelt, put them in one vessel and make them into bread for yourself. . . .  Coconut oil, and coconut juice are big sellers. Dr. Bronner has an organic coconut oil, as well as a line of personal care products. Here is a review of coconut products, for those of you who are not in the familiar with its benefits. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/27/coconut-oil-benefits_n_1625631.html

Take a look in your house and read the ingredients labels of the foods, and other products you use. It will tell you a lot about where you’re at, and might provide the epiphany you need to reinvent, and rethink your diet, and lifestyle. Cheers!

When Life Gives You Lemons: Part I.

You have heard the expression: "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." I did not understand that phrase entirely until this past year. When you are hit by a car you tend to have lemonade epiphanies. You have them when you are lying on your back on the warm asphalt of a mini-mall, your scratched glasses somewhere beyond reach, near your now dirty San Francisco 49ers cap. A white Toyota sedan rests near the front tire of your mangled bike, the driver mysteriously doing nothing. Like getting out to see if I am breathing, or to say, "I'm sorry." Dare I ask too much?

It is as if God is smiling down at you while the sirens come closer. God's face is like a sunflower on a blue sky May day. You smile back at God, your first thought, "Why me?" replaced by the answer, "Why not you?" I have never been one to argue with God. Random, unjust, and just things happen daily. God's finger pushed the Toyota into me.

I will not tell you all the details of the accident now. I will tell you some of what I've learned. Let's pretend this is a message to you from the surface of the moon, or the surface of a diamond encrusted white dwarf star. It is a flare gun round shot from a leaky lifeboat, which is being circled by sharks on a sultry, listless sea. You are aboard a passing tanker, or yacht, or cruise ship. You have spotted me with binoculars. You are saying to your companions, "I think there's someone out there." You and they are clutching the rails of the ship, squinting in the noonday sun. Most remark, "I don't see anything," but you remain at the rails. I am counting on you. Keep looking. The camera would be panning across the sky at this point in the story. It drops down, finds my face, and zooms in. It records my parched lips as I whisper hoarsely, "Freed-ommmm." Freed-om is the name of my new yoga instructor. I have her card in my wallet. Yoga is the latest methodology I'm using to heal me. I think I have bicycle PTSD.

It may be due to the accident, or the moon is doing a high tide thing to my brain, but I am forgetting if I have mentioned my accident. I have. It's titled: "Everybody was Karate Chop Fighting." You might want to read that one too. It's shorter than this post.  Some people might think it is foolish to mention being hit by a car. They reason that if I am sending people to this blog, and they are considering hiring me, the last thing they want to read is that I might be the lemon.  But, ironically, most love an underdog. And, I am at least 95% well. I've yet to hit a tennis serve, though, which will be the acid test, because the tendons and muscles that were affected are the same ones I'll use for serving. But, as a writer, the only important muscle is between my ears. That muscle is fine. My drawing muscles are A-OK too. I may even be more loose than before. I cheated death.

We are a culture built on the backs of strong male figures. We are brainwashed of course. Not every man is John Wayne. Allow me to tell you what it's like for a creative writer who has been hit by a car. It's voyeuristic, for one. This is what writers do: they observe. The thing I have concluded is I apparently fall pretty well. It is due to my athleticism. I might have a future as a stuntman. But listen, if you happened to land here because you Googled "lemons," or "lemonade," let me appease you. http://allrecipes.com/recipe/grandmas-lemon-meringue-pie/ This is the lemon meringue recipe your grandmother, or mother might have made. I've not made it, but it's March, and soon it will be May, and then June, and freshly baked pies will sit on wire racks cooling in American kitchens.

Let me get to the bones of writing: It's generally not a quick way to riches. But it has its perks. Some days you hit it out of the park. I mention this because, like old lemon meringue recipes, writers tend to get better the older they get. Maybe not as flashy. But, speaking for myself, I have become looser. I find it easy to write 500 word essays. I could do it blindfolded. This is why I'm as confident as I am. Yes, I can draw like Michelangelo. I don't even have to think about it. Now I'm at that same level with my writing talent. It feels good. Not even cars can stop me from my appointed rounds.

The guy who hit me, sat in his car and let the engine idle after  he hit me. Apparently he wasn't aware that idling cars dump a lot of bad things into the air. Apparently he didn't know he was gassing me to death as I lay on the asphalt, or he did know, which would make him Satan. I have no problem with older driver driving cars, but Satan is just too old to drive. We should take his license away forever. Or suspend it; in Limbo.

Oregon gets the lion's share of its gasoline from Alaska. We used to have the highest benzene levels in the nation. That's not such a great honor. Benzene is a known carcinogen. People living near freeways, and highly trafficked streets, have higher rates of leukemia. Benzene has no odor. You could be breathing it now, as you're reading this blog. Is your arm falling off? Might be the benzene you've been breathing during your morning commute. Am I scaring you? I hope so. Wear a scuba tank to work. Pretend you're doing an old episode of "Sea Hunt," and you're Lloyd Bridges. If you don't know who Lloyd Bridges was you obviously don't watch enough television. He's the guy who also became Jerry Seinfeld's trainer, Izzy Mandelbaum. The father of a couple of good actors, too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcFSOnumgZA

But seriously, all kidding aside, you should read what benzene does to people. If reading this hasn't already bummed you out. Nothing like reading how dangerous the world is to make you wear a bike helmet. I have a very hard head. I know this to be true. I fell down a flight of stairs as a four-year-old. I received a broken collarbone for that Oscar winning performance. My Mother never took me to the doctor, so it healed on its own. But I didn't get cancer, which you may or may not want to read about. Sorry, here it is anyway. http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/othercarcinogens/intheworkplace/benzene 

You may be wondering where I'm going with this. Me too. But let's talk about the moon for a minute. The potential to make lots of money is why petroleum companies are hoping to mine the moon's H3. This is going to happen.  But until then, oil companies are raping the northlands. Caribou be damned! http://www.ibtimes.com/keystone-xl-alaska-pipeline-environmentalists-vs-oil-industry-what-obama-can-learn-nixon-1401601

Space happy corporations with a Wild West modus operandi are getting ready for this next new frontier to exploit. Yes, the moon. Did you forget there's a dark side of the moon? Yes sir. I wrote a song about the moon once. If anyone did a reading of my sign they'd exclaim, "My god, man, you're a moon child." Listen: the moon's future was decided a long time ago. And you thought the moon was desolate. Nope. As it turns out, this will be where new Wild West towns will spring up. The film 'Moon' where H3 is mined and shot back to Earth by human clones (who have three year warranties) will come to fruition.  Okay, maybe not with clones. Maybe. H3 (Helium 3) is useful if you are building a fusion reactor. And why would anyone do that? Well, to make sure we have energy for the next thousand or so years. http://www.rocketcityspacepioneers.com/space/mining-the-moon-for-helium-3

But why, oh why, am I mentioning all this? Because a large percentage of wars have had to do with something of value. Legal wars too. Like when an old guy runs down a guy on a bicycle. Insurance companies are all about the money. Most people are. The people with brain damage from automobile encounters aren't so much. Look, when  they get the Helium 3 reactors going, the universe will be our oyster. Humanity will be primed for interstellar travel. We will devastate the universe like a field of grain beset by locusts. Watch out, Alpha Centauri. In 2080 a lucky, ambitious company will lasso a dwarf star whose core is made of diamond. Billionaires will be made overnight. A fat cat billionaire on Moon Station 12 to his harem: "Girls, I own a white dwarf star. How big of diamonds can you all wear around your necks? I done wrangled me a three billion carat star today." The girls will giggle, because diamonds will always be a girl's best friend. http://www.spacetoday.org/DeepSpace/Stars/WhiteDwarfs/LucyDiamondStarWhiteDwarf.html

It has taken eight months to recover. Safeco, those devils, have decided to play a waiting game. They have thousands of lawyers, and I have one, and mine is going soft on me. Safeco offered a ridiculously low settlement figure. Five dollars or something. If this goes much further I will be paying them for having been hit by a car. "Thank you!" I will write in my appeal letter. My lawyer told me the bad news a couple of weeks ago. Safeco is not new to this game. I was warned by a man, who was rear-ended while at a stop sign. His lawyers battled Safeco for almost three years. They went so far as to infer the accident did not happen. It was all in his head, not in his damaged vertebrae. But he won in the end. If you want to get a true portrait of what is going on in America, and most of the world, there is no more truer depiction. Money is our God.

What does this have to do with the search for sources of fuel? Everything. And nothing. I am suggesting that in this world there are people who will let nothing stand in their way to achieve profit. Not caribou, nor red fox, nor lupin, or Moon People, (if such a thing exists). I knew this of course before I was hit by a car, while riding my bicycle in the bike lane. I just had never had a firsthand experience. Yoichi, the driver of the car that hit me, never reported the accident. He didn't even show up to pay his fine. The City of Beaverton had to threaten to prosecute him. Then Yoichi's second rate lawyer, appropriately with the last name of Roach, admitted wrongdoing, and paid the fine. Did they take his license away? No. Why? Maybe he knew a thirty-second degree Mason handshake. Who knows? The last time I was in a major accident was in San Francisco. A big blue Volvo with six teenage girl tennis players plowed into the back of my car at the corner of Haight and Asbury Streets. The driver was the daughter of the Circuit Court Judge of San Francisco. My lawyer said, "Uh, I don't feel like ruining my career by asking for the max settlement here." This is the way business is done in America.

Now you are wondering, what else happened after this latest accident. I will tell you. I lost the house I was renting, due to having to lie around for a month, (in pain) before Safeco okayed the medical treatments (PIP), and because my crazy landlord was easing out of his third marriage. Here's one of the first things I learned, from a medical point of view, after the accident. The VA is full of doctors who have no ears to hear, nor eyes to see. Their PT people gave me thick rubber bands to get me well. I tried to use them, but they were just water balloon launchers, and I had long been graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara. I am among the little people of this planet. As the boss in the film, Blade Runner, said to Harrison Ford: "If you ain't cop, you're little people." And I ain't cop.

The Veterans and Family Center, for a comedy writer, is the Alaskan/Canadian oil fields, a white dwarf star, and H3 on the moon. It would be months before I saw it that way. It felt like a federal prison with much worse food. But now I  understand. 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest' has nothing over this cast of characters. Often I have wondered, how I will tell this story. I have gone undercover. I have lost my way like the Tribes of Israel in the desert after they left Egypt. I am Moses without a burning bush. It may take some time to congeal in my hemispheres. I guess that also makes me Jack Nicholson, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuyXTZuGPAs and Ken Kesey. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Kesey

In the meantime, I am writing video scripts, screenplays, doing a bit of freelance, and having a few epiphanies about the future.

I don't feel like telling you all the things I've seen, the people I've met. Not yet. I feel like Richard Brautigan today. Sometimes I feel like Ken Kesey. Yesterday I felt like Jack Nicholson. I expect a big Indian will stuff a pillow over my face in a while. But it's for the best. Lobotomies aren't fun. But I am kidding again. Sort of. The people here are the weirdest, most ruined, and emotionally crushed cross-section of America I would never have met if not for the accident. They are some of the most beautiful people I've met. Some of them are crazy. But not me; I'm stone-cold-sober, like always. I've been doing work for an entertainment company in Los Angeles. One day I'm going to get in a convertible and drive to Bolinas to see where Brautigan shot himself. I will go down the California coast, stop in at my favorite places, and maybe end up in Bel Air to drink something cool in the California summer. And write of course, because that's what I do. I'm finishing my seventh screenplay. It's titled, "A Love Down Under." Yeah, Australia. I'll tell you about that later.

Look, if any government official, or any news media suggests that America is in great shape, and joblessness and the economy is on the upswing, they are lying to you. But you knew this already. Stay young forever, if you can. It is your only hope for gainful employment. There is an age bias in the workplace. If you don't know someone, you won't get the job. If you didn't know that already, you will one day. We all have known older workers; now many of us are older workers. Buy a cane, you may need it.

I have landed on the diamond encrusted surface of a white dwarf star. I have landed on the moon. It is one small step for my writing career, and one great leap for me as a writer. I just don't know it yet. So hire me already.