News

Ok, here’s something I don’t understand. Oh, note that this will be a rant mostly on traffic and terrible drivers in LA so if that offends you or you are one of those people, please move on. That said, here we go:

Many people in LA have their heads up their asses. Sadly, a great deal of those same people are behind the wheel of a moving vehicle. Many times, said moving vehicle is of the foreign and expensive kind (i.e. Mercedes, BMW, etc.). I’m not sure why but it sure seems, at least in my experience, that if you drive a Mercedes or BMW in this town, you drive like shit and have no consideration for anyone else on the road.

Not only that, you seem actively engaged in behavior designed to cause other drivers to have accidents. Some will protest that I am generalizing or being hard on a particular minority or whatever. The truth is, their are a crap load of people who drive a Mercedes or BMW in this town so I am speaking about a large number of LA residents.

Are all Mercedes or BMW drivers reckless hacks? No, of course not. That’s like saying that all Republicans are against clean air and clean water. Absurd. What I will say is that I have found a vast majority of Mercedes or BWM drivers that I come into contact with are very concerned that they be allowed to get ahead of you or with how fast you are driving or with why you are on the road at all.

They seem determined to have the road to themselves and will pass you without hesitation, even to the point of going into oncoming traffic, if they feel you are driving too slow. It’s probably because they have to get to that really important meeting.

Just as telling, when parking, they believe that it is ok to take up two spots so nobody else can park near them. Now, nobody likes to have dings in their door but come one, who says you have the right to park that way? Do you think that because you paid more for your car than the average person earns in a year that that entitles you to some sort of special treatment? I’m afraid the answer to that is a big fat no.

Perhaps it is not just the fact that this group of folks (sorry, couldn’t help myself) drive expensive and exotic vehicles? Perhaps it is because of the jobs that many of these people have that allow them to have these vehicles? Los Angeles is pretty much a company town where many people work in some aspect of “the business”. These people, in order to get ahead, are sometimes forced to relax on some of the more common courtesy type behavior. In short, many of them become dickheads.

So, perhaps a dickhead is a dickhead if he drives a Mercedes or a BMW or an H2 Hummer or an AMC Pacer. The instrument of choice is not really the issue. You could then make the case that the vehicle is irrelevant and its really the person who is to blame. I do have some friends that drive some of these cars and I can say that most of them are not dickheads. Although, they sometimes drive very badly.

I’m not sure what that proves really. Perhaps I should buy a Mercedes and see if I change and become one of the “elite” with the giant sense of entitlement. I wonder what would happen? Would I become a dickhead? I would like to think I wouldn’t.

But just in case, you better get the hell outta my way or I’ll pass your slow ass. See, its starting already.

Later.

As always, in the rush to get my reaction to the debates out, I forgot to mention one or two other things going on in the world. Not that I take this kind of thing lightly, but i feel like this couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

Professional dickhead Bill O’Reilly is being hit with a sexual harrasment suit. Shocking, I say. Maybe he should have turned his phone off?

And, to no one’s surprise, Disney has decided to end its partnership with Miramax Films and Bob and Harvey Weinstein. I can’t say its hard to believe. They want to release films that are edgy and interesting and don’t fit in with the Disney view of society. So, they must be punished. Believe me, I used to work for Disney and I drank the Kool-aid.

Now , I just drink.

Later.

Here it is folks, the last Presidential debate. I, for one, will be all ears (or really, eyes. or both) Anyway, it is shaping up to be quite a night what with all the bad news the Bush campaign has been getting recently. To recap:
Mr. Cheney’s saying that he never implied that Iraq and September 11 were related when, of course, he did exactly that.
Rumsfeld’s statement that he was not aware of any direct link between Al Qaeida and Iraq even though he had been saying all along that their was a link. What is he thinking?
The release of the Gov. report that states emphatically that there was no sign that Iraq had any WMD program for more than a dozen years and that they had abandoned those plans for lack of funds.

John Kerry needs to press President Bush on these issues. He needs to show that these men who run or government are either incredibly stupid for not asking the right questions and demanding answers before they sent troops to war or they purposely made decisions that were unsupported by the facts simply for personal reasons such as they wanted to take over Iraq.

Go get ’em Mr. Kerry. And now, the debate . . .

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Later.

On Sunday, the US has won “gold” in the World Cybergames. Team3D defeated the Titans of Denmark in CounterStrike to take home the $50,000 prize. The final match was played before an “enthusiastic crowd” of unspecified size in San Francisco. Ok, let me hear it “USA!”, “USA!”, “USA!”, “USA!” Thanks, that was good.

A few days ago it was the one year anniversary of Microsoft’s pledge to make security job one. How’s it going for them? Jon Udell has a good article on the subject in this week’s Infoworld. His conculsion, Microsoft is on the right track but they still have a lot of work to do. I’ll stick with my macs and OSX thank you very much.

The FBI has shut down 20 sites that were part of an alternative media network known as Indymedia. Rackspace handed the servers over after receiving a court order on Thursday. It’s not clear what Indymedia was doing wrong, but the FBI says it was acting on the request of Swiss and Italian authorities. 

Indymedia said it had been “asked last month by the FBI to remove a story about Swiss undercover police from one of the websites hosted at Rackspace. It is not known, however, whether Thursday’s order is related to that incident since the order was issued to Rackspace and not to Indymedia.” The seizure has sparked protests from the International Federation of Journalists. The EFF is offering help.

Halo 2 has gone gold. Bungie says the hotly anticipated XBox game will make its November ship date. Now if they would just hurry the f*** up with the Mac version (or even the PC version) I would be a happy camper.

And finally, now that I have given the happy and fluffy puppy news, here’s the bad shit. Apparently, some equipment that could be used to make nuclear weapons has gone missing and nobody seems to know where the f*** it is. Isn’t that nice? Now you know why I hardly sleep people.

Also, a US Senator is closing his office until after the November election over fears of an impending terrorist attack. Is this guy crazy or does he know something we don’t know? Either way, its a bit troubling.

And, fellow blogger Sean Bonner has some info that could be related at his blog.

What a world, eh? I sometimes wonder if we ever get the complete truth from any media outlet. Perhaps our leaders feel that we “just can’t handle the truth”. I don’t know about you but I am getting rather tired of getting things spoon fed to me and having my news “spinned”. Maybe after the election is over and we have a new President things will be different? Probably not but its a nice dream to have anyway.

Later.

Episode 2 – The Empire Strikes Back. A few friends and I spent most of last Saturday watching two of the three Star Wars DVD’s. Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. I realize that sounds pretty geeky but it was a really good bonding experience. It was me in a living room watching a 50″ television with three friends who are all film directors.

I’m not a film director. Although I have directed short films and what is called “2nd Unit” on films before. 2nd Unit is a group of people who go around shooting stunts or inserts or whatever the main unit (aka 1st Unit) doesn’t have time to shoot. Things like closeups of feet pressing gas pedals during a car chase or shots of what the actor is reading in his hand or cars flipping over and blowing up (my personal favorite).

The funny thing about our little group that day was we all had one major thing in common, beside or love of gadgets, pizza and asian supermodels. We are all roughly the same age and all work in the entertainment industry and all saw Star Wars when we were kids and all of us found it a life-changing experience.

I don’t know if I knew exactly what had happened to me at the time. After all, I was only a boy. I did feel it though. Something came alive in me in that dark theater on May 27, 1977. As I said in my previous post when I watched Star Wars earlier in the month, I knew something important was happening to me. I knew for the first time what I wanted to do with my life. I knew for the first time who I wanted to be.

We all had that same experience. As I looked at the faces of my friends last Saturday I didn’t see a bunch of jaded guys in their mid-thirties with nagging wives, crazy girlfriends, studios gutting their movies or any of that. I saw a bunch of kids watching something extrordinary. I saw a bunch of kids who, despite their age or what had happened, or not happened, in their careers or their lives, were able to put that aside for a few hours and relive what it meant to be a kid again.

So, whatever George Lucas did to the movies. How he changed them or added this shot or these silly characters, he can’t change what the film and the experience means to us. No amount of “enhancements” can alter that. We were lucky enough to grow up at a time when movies were about something and had the potential to change people’s lives.

I have spoken and written about what a golden age the seventies were for movies and how those times are gone. Star Wars came out at a time when we needed something to believe in. Vietnam, Watergate and the other events of that time were a little easier to handle when presented with such a bright and hopeful vision of the future. The idea that we are all part of a whole and that a force binds us all together is a powerful message.

It’s a message we could all use today. Unfortunately, the hollywood of today, with its corporate ownership, audience testing, direct marketing and quest for profit, is incapable of producing something like that. Just as tragic, the so-called “independent” studios are all but gone as well. Swallowed up by their corporate parents and unable to exercise much creative control over their projects or to take a chance on any “risky” fare.

All is not lost, however. Somewhere, perhaps in a darkened theater right now, is the next visionary who will finally get it and do something about it. It might have even been one of the guys in that living room with me on Saturday. And that’s the greatest thing about showbiz and life in general. You just never know what might happen. After all, tomorrow is another day.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Episode 2 – The Empire Strikes Back. A few friends and I spent most of last Saturday watching two of the three Star Wars DVD’s. Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. I realize that sounds pretty geeky but it was a really good bonding experience. It was me in a living room watching a 50″ television with three friends who are all film directors.

I’m not a film director. Although I have directed short films and what is called “2nd Unit” on films before. 2nd Unit is a group of people who go around shooting stunts or inserts or whatever the main unit (aka 1st Unit) doesn’t have time to shoot. Things like closeups of feet pressing gas pedals during a car chase or shots of what the actor is reading in his hand or cars flipping over and blowing up (my personal favorite).

The funny thing about our little group that day was we all had one major thing in common, beside or love of gadgets, pizza and asian supermodels. We are all roughly the same age and all work in the entertainment industry and all saw Star Wars when we were kids and all of us found it a life-changing experience.

I don’t know if I knew exactly what had happened to me at the time. After all, I was only a boy. I did feel it though. Something came alive in me in that dark theater on May 27, 1977. As I said in my previous post when I watched Star Wars earlier in the month, I knew something important was happening to me. I knew for the first time what I wanted to do with my life. I knew for the first time who I wanted to be.

We all had that same experience. As I looked at the faces of my friends last Saturday I didn’t see a bunch of jaded guys in their mid-thirties with nagging wives, crazy girlfriends, studios gutting their movies or any of that. I saw a bunch of kids watching something extrordinary. I saw a bunch of kids who, despite their age or what had happened, or not happened, in their careers or their lives, were able to put that aside for a few hours and relive what it meant to be a kid again.

So, whatever George Lucas did to the movies. How he changed them or added this shot or these silly characters, he can’t change what the film and the experience means to us. No amount of “enhancements” can alter that. We were lucky enough to grow up at a time when movies were about something and had the potential to change people’s lives.

I have spoken and written about what a golden age the seventies were for movies and how those times are gone. Star Wars came out at a time when we needed something to believe in. Vietnam, Watergate and the other events of that time were a little easier to handle when presented with such a bright and hopeful vision of the future. The idea that we are all part of a whole and that a force binds us all together is a powerful message.

It’s a message we could all use today. Unfortunately, the hollywood of today, with its corporate ownership, audience testing, direct marketing and quest for profit, is incapable of producing something like that. Just as tragic, the so-called “independent” studios are all but gone as well. Swallowed up by their corporate parents and unable to exercise much creative control over their projects or to take a chance on any “risky” fare.

All is not lost, however. Somewhere, perhaps in a darkened theater right now, is the next visionary who will finally get it and do something about it. It might have even been one of the guys in that living room with me on Saturday. And that’s the greatest thing about showbiz and life in general. You just never know what might happen. After all, tomorrow is another day.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Christopher Reeve has died. He never gave up on life despite his injuries. He really was, I have to say it, a super man.

He will be missed.