In the wake of the Tuscon shootings, looks like Sarah Palin took a hit.
She stood by her crosshairs. Now it's her supporters who have run for cover.
Mrs. Palin gambled. She lost.
That's what makes a great character. A statesman, fit for national public office?
Time well tell.
The Bottom Line: Drama is good. Especially in politics.
In leadership, perhaps humility is better.
AL
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Stop! or I'll keep going...
Sometimes the smallest things stop me. I'm a writer first, so procrastinating comes easy.
My morning exercise is delayed because my headphones went missing. Then the dog came in the house with muddy paws. This morning's pages get put off because my pen is M.I.A.
Not a pen, mind you - THE pen. The one I scribbled with last night, when I woke up with a whole new Act Three resolution in my head. The one whose ink flowed so open and freely that my thoughts, too, whizzed miraculously across the page.
Never mind that I write mostly on, uhm, a keyboard.
Amid all this talk of action, and its motivation, which is essentially the point of this blog, it feels prudent to pause, to give some cred to the why nots.
Why won't she tell the man she loves what she's really thinking or feeling? Why doesn't he call?
The Bottom Line: Freud nailed it.
If Love brings out our Inner Hero, i.e, causes me to make the sacrifice, take the bullet for my valentine, or prompts him to make that call... the one that will stop her from getting on the plane... then perhaps its nemesis, Inertia, too can also be boiled down to one thing: Fear.
Beyond that, the devil, as they say, is in the details.
My morning exercise is delayed because my headphones went missing. Then the dog came in the house with muddy paws. This morning's pages get put off because my pen is M.I.A.
Not a pen, mind you - THE pen. The one I scribbled with last night, when I woke up with a whole new Act Three resolution in my head. The one whose ink flowed so open and freely that my thoughts, too, whizzed miraculously across the page.
Never mind that I write mostly on, uhm, a keyboard.
Amid all this talk of action, and its motivation, which is essentially the point of this blog, it feels prudent to pause, to give some cred to the why nots.
Why won't she tell the man she loves what she's really thinking or feeling? Why doesn't he call?
The Bottom Line: Freud nailed it.
If Love brings out our Inner Hero, i.e, causes me to make the sacrifice, take the bullet for my valentine, or prompts him to make that call... the one that will stop her from getting on the plane... then perhaps its nemesis, Inertia, too can also be boiled down to one thing: Fear.
Beyond that, the devil, as they say, is in the details.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
As a matter of fact, words do matter... or don't they?
It was a bright and sunny day.
A woman addressed a crowd.
A man pulled a gun.
The woman fell down, silenced.
Seven others followed. Everyone left standing ran. Some, screaming.
The woman is now in the hospital. The man is now in jail.
The woman now clinging to life is Congresswoman. She can no longer speak.
The man is a local student... a malcontent, to say the least. He can speak, but refuses.
Soon we learn that the Congresswoman was afraid of being shot. She had good reason: She had been threatened before. Her office had, in fact, been vandalized... recently. With a gun.
She wrote to a colleague, confessed her fears... about divisive political rhetoric - "hate speech"- among peers and constituents. How to curb it? What could be done?
Who, if anyone, responded? Does it matter?
Meanwhile, a deranged student bought a gun.
What did he say to the dealer who sold him a semi-automatic weapon... one so feared, that it was outlawed in the US... until 2004. Does it matter?
Do words matter?
When I was a kid, a young man, also a student, also a malcontent, offed himself.
His parents blamed his penchant for Ozzy Osbourne records.
In the wake of his death, a local pastor staged a bonfire. He called upon parents to burn books, albums and other materials deemed "offensive to God."
Parents and elders came. Teen and 'tweens were dragged along.
I was lucky. My parents thought this behavior was odd, even for religious folk. After all, WE were religious folk.
My sister had an Ozzy Osbourne record. No one insisted, but... she threw it out anyway.
Curious, I snuck outside. I dug the album out of the trash bin, with the tenacity of a bird dog.
I looked for the words, the ones behind the fuss. I found them. I hid the record in the garage until morning.
After school the next day, I slipped the contraband out of my bookbag, and showed it to a friend. He also liked Ozzy records.
I pointed out the offending song title: Suicide Solution. "It's about alcohol..." he said, rather flatly, swirling his index finger around in a circle, as if stirring an imaginary glass. "A warning," he intoned, as only a high school senior can. "If you drink too much of it, you can die."
All that wax, gone to waste.
Can mere words incite violence? Maybe not for the sane...
Words do matter. They mattered greatly in Rwanda, where government radio broadcasts incited genocide, even murder against rival Tutsi "cockroaches."
They mattered when General Dallaire pled to the United Nations leadership for "guidance." And their absence mattered greatly when the UN refused to respond.
That said... words alone do not kill. People kill. They do not necessarily need guns to do it.
I borrowed the below quote from Robert Edsel's insightful blog post, dated 2009... just 2 weeks after the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks:
German poet Heinrich Heine said: “Das war ein Vorspiel nur, dort wo man Bucher verbrennt, verbreent man auch am Ende Menschen.” (“This was only foreplay. Where books are being burned there will eventually be humans burned.”)
Of course, the gap between burning books out of fear and ideology and taking human lives is thinner than any of us want to consider. The importance of Heine’s observation is timeless: they are words of warning to us all…to pay attention…to think for ourselves, and to speak up and act when the very freedoms all people of good will cherish are under attack.
Kinda makes you rethink Mrs. Palin's special brand of political humor, now that a Democratic Congresswoman has ended up in the cross-hairs for real, doesn't it?
One can only hope so.
A woman addressed a crowd.
A man pulled a gun.
The woman fell down, silenced.
Seven others followed. Everyone left standing ran. Some, screaming.
The woman is now in the hospital. The man is now in jail.
The woman now clinging to life is Congresswoman. She can no longer speak.
The man is a local student... a malcontent, to say the least. He can speak, but refuses.
Soon we learn that the Congresswoman was afraid of being shot. She had good reason: She had been threatened before. Her office had, in fact, been vandalized... recently. With a gun.
She wrote to a colleague, confessed her fears... about divisive political rhetoric - "hate speech"- among peers and constituents. How to curb it? What could be done?
Who, if anyone, responded? Does it matter?
Meanwhile, a deranged student bought a gun.
What did he say to the dealer who sold him a semi-automatic weapon... one so feared, that it was outlawed in the US... until 2004. Does it matter?
Do words matter?
When I was a kid, a young man, also a student, also a malcontent, offed himself.
His parents blamed his penchant for Ozzy Osbourne records.
In the wake of his death, a local pastor staged a bonfire. He called upon parents to burn books, albums and other materials deemed "offensive to God."
Parents and elders came. Teen and 'tweens were dragged along.
I was lucky. My parents thought this behavior was odd, even for religious folk. After all, WE were religious folk.
My sister had an Ozzy Osbourne record. No one insisted, but... she threw it out anyway.
Curious, I snuck outside. I dug the album out of the trash bin, with the tenacity of a bird dog.
I looked for the words, the ones behind the fuss. I found them. I hid the record in the garage until morning.
After school the next day, I slipped the contraband out of my bookbag, and showed it to a friend. He also liked Ozzy records.
I pointed out the offending song title: Suicide Solution. "It's about alcohol..." he said, rather flatly, swirling his index finger around in a circle, as if stirring an imaginary glass. "A warning," he intoned, as only a high school senior can. "If you drink too much of it, you can die."
All that wax, gone to waste.
Can mere words incite violence? Maybe not for the sane...
Words do matter. They mattered greatly in Rwanda, where government radio broadcasts incited genocide, even murder against rival Tutsi "cockroaches."
They mattered when General Dallaire pled to the United Nations leadership for "guidance." And their absence mattered greatly when the UN refused to respond.
That said... words alone do not kill. People kill. They do not necessarily need guns to do it.
I borrowed the below quote from Robert Edsel's insightful blog post, dated 2009... just 2 weeks after the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks:
German poet Heinrich Heine said: “Das war ein Vorspiel nur, dort wo man Bucher verbrennt, verbreent man auch am Ende Menschen.” (“This was only foreplay. Where books are being burned there will eventually be humans burned.”)
Of course, the gap between burning books out of fear and ideology and taking human lives is thinner than any of us want to consider. The importance of Heine’s observation is timeless: they are words of warning to us all…to pay attention…to think for ourselves, and to speak up and act when the very freedoms all people of good will cherish are under attack.
Kinda makes you rethink Mrs. Palin's special brand of political humor, now that a Democratic Congresswoman has ended up in the cross-hairs for real, doesn't it?
One can only hope so.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Happy V-Day! An early gift for you: Flanders article on "why murder is a spectator sport."
As my VIEW changes, due to the move - due to the flooding - I am once again short on space, and face time with my pc. No time to whine, or ramble, as I have no time to kill.
Today I offer you, instead, a link to an article on murder, and story. I found it terribly inspiring.
Today I offer you, instead, a link to an article on murder, and story. I found it terribly inspiring.
One of my New year's resolutions is to think less; ACT more.
I.e., Note really think less. Analyze less. Obssess less. Use what I know. Explore what I don't.
You know, SHIP more.
You know, SHIP more.
If the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, then I expect that reading this will inspire someone to write. That is, put fingers on the keyboard and type.
Hey - What do you know- I was right!
In her article, Judith Flanders waxes poetic on why some stories are inherently more interesting than others. "Murder, at a distance," she writes, is "a spectator sport."
If you were diligent - or just plain curious- enough to follow me here, then I hope you, too will find it inspiring enough to act as well. Then both our efforts will be rewarded. How cool would that be?
by Judith Flanders
Happy reading!
Happy reading!
love,
AL
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Life and Dads and other mixed messages.
How little life resembles a linear chart going from A to B, how much more like a backroad where you may get lost along the way but end up meeting some wonderful people you'd never have met.
-Naomi Rose
I bought myself a gift today, Keith Richards' latest book. It's called Life. Catchy title.
I know, I know... Christmas is only 2 weeks away, but I couldn't wait. Patience... not one of my virtues.
No wonder I struggle with Act Two.
Earlier this week, a friend of a friend pitched a screenplay very much like the one I'm currently working on. The studio liked the idea. They bought it... for a big number. Not big. HUGE.
Friend 1 says: "See? I knew you were onto something!"
Friend 2 says: "Maybe this writing thing isn't what you're supposed to be doing right now."
At the DGA award dinner, a very famous hyphenate walked write up to me and said: "Keep writing!"
He was so animated, his enthusiasm, infectious. I'm pretty sure he was sober, too. He was simply... passionate.
It occurs to me just now as I write this that that's why a friend's friend got the big number. I stopped being passionate about the project. Life crept in, got in the way. There can only be one reason. I allowed it to.
This week I had three important meetings, with three important people. Saying yes to them meant saying no to someone else. I fell behind on my Tweeting. I took an extra hour for lunch. I made time.
My Dad always says, if you take a man's money, you owe him a day's work. If you write/direct/produce for an audience, they may or may not pay you any money. If they are kind enough to show up, then they are paying you, with their time and attention. We the Hypehates have an obligation to make it worth their while.
The Bottom Line: Live with passion, write with passion.
You owe it to your characters. They're people too.
Nothing less will do.
-Naomi Rose
I bought myself a gift today, Keith Richards' latest book. It's called Life. Catchy title.
I know, I know... Christmas is only 2 weeks away, but I couldn't wait. Patience... not one of my virtues.
No wonder I struggle with Act Two.
Earlier this week, a friend of a friend pitched a screenplay very much like the one I'm currently working on. The studio liked the idea. They bought it... for a big number. Not big. HUGE.
Friend 1 says: "See? I knew you were onto something!"
Friend 2 says: "Maybe this writing thing isn't what you're supposed to be doing right now."
At the DGA award dinner, a very famous hyphenate walked write up to me and said: "Keep writing!"
He was so animated, his enthusiasm, infectious. I'm pretty sure he was sober, too. He was simply... passionate.
It occurs to me just now as I write this that that's why a friend's friend got the big number. I stopped being passionate about the project. Life crept in, got in the way. There can only be one reason. I allowed it to.
This week I had three important meetings, with three important people. Saying yes to them meant saying no to someone else. I fell behind on my Tweeting. I took an extra hour for lunch. I made time.
My Dad always says, if you take a man's money, you owe him a day's work. If you write/direct/produce for an audience, they may or may not pay you any money. If they are kind enough to show up, then they are paying you, with their time and attention. We the Hypehates have an obligation to make it worth their while.
The Bottom Line: Live with passion, write with passion.
You owe it to your characters. They're people too.
Nothing less will do.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Funny or Not: The Dividing Line
On his deathbed, Edmund Gwenn quipped (allegedly): "Dying is easy. Comedy is hard."
For Jon Stewart over at The Daily Show, comedy is as easy as 1-2-3.
1. Start with an issue or circumstance that divides people, but few understand.
For example... Attempt to explain why Congress, the other big C, makes decisions that We the Taxpayers will pay dearly for. Meanwhile, We the Voters keep on paying them to make them.
2. Break it down in relative terms, via cultural references that people on both sides of the debate can relate to.
3. Know when to stop.
In this case, the second the British Colbert knockoff shows up.
A word of caution: If you're going to use a sight gag, don't use one that's been done by a rival talk show host recently - and better.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-december-7-2010/supercuts
The Bottom Line: Today's youth may be bereft of a Dylan or Lennon, but at least satire is alive and well. You just have to know where to look.
Thanks Jon!
For Jon Stewart over at The Daily Show, comedy is as easy as 1-2-3.
1. Start with an issue or circumstance that divides people, but few understand.
For example... Attempt to explain why Congress, the other big C, makes decisions that We the Taxpayers will pay dearly for. Meanwhile, We the Voters keep on paying them to make them.
2. Break it down in relative terms, via cultural references that people on both sides of the debate can relate to.
3. Know when to stop.
In this case, the second the British Colbert knockoff shows up.
A word of caution: If you're going to use a sight gag, don't use one that's been done by a rival talk show host recently - and better.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-december-7-2010/supercuts
The Bottom Line: Today's youth may be bereft of a Dylan or Lennon, but at least satire is alive and well. You just have to know where to look.
Thanks Jon!
Monday, December 6, 2010
The Pros and Cons of Insomnia
Watched two movies back to back tonight. Some people will do anything to avoid homework.
First, Braveheart. You'd think I hate this movie. It's brutal, but hey, Love is. It's also period, and I heart history... so there you are. It's been so long since I've seen it from the start that I forgot that the story begins with William Wallace as a blue-eyed child.
William's father is killed. His uncle takes him in. Insists that he learn Latin. Among other things.
UNCLE
Use this...
(taps young William's forehead)
and I'll teach you to use this.
(indicates his sword.)
Sucked me right in. THREE HOURS LATER...
Enter The Wolfman. I wanted to let him go. Fell asleep twice. I'll play nice here and place some of the blame on the carbs from dinner. That said, Joe Johnson's version is proof positive that if Anthony Hopkins can't save the movie, then Walter Murch probably can't either. I heart Emily Blunt. Too bad she didn't get better lines.
Somebody tried too hard.
The Bottom Line: I'm gonna hate myself in the morning.
First, Braveheart. You'd think I hate this movie. It's brutal, but hey, Love is. It's also period, and I heart history... so there you are. It's been so long since I've seen it from the start that I forgot that the story begins with William Wallace as a blue-eyed child.
William's father is killed. His uncle takes him in. Insists that he learn Latin. Among other things.
UNCLE
Use this...
(taps young William's forehead)
and I'll teach you to use this.
(indicates his sword.)
Sucked me right in. THREE HOURS LATER...
Enter The Wolfman. I wanted to let him go. Fell asleep twice. I'll play nice here and place some of the blame on the carbs from dinner. That said, Joe Johnson's version is proof positive that if Anthony Hopkins can't save the movie, then Walter Murch probably can't either. I heart Emily Blunt. Too bad she didn't get better lines.
Somebody tried too hard.
The Bottom Line: I'm gonna hate myself in the morning.
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