Bryce Zabel's FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH

READY TO BELIEVE: Free MP3 of Obama Fight Song!

Last January, while we were still on strike as members of the Writers Guild of America, my wife Jackie and I sat down in a Los Angeles coffee shop with our good friend, musician Cherish Alexander.

Before the coffee was cold, we decided, improbably given the time frame -- as a couple of striking screenwriters and a singer-composer -- to write, produce and distribute the song you'll soon hear.  It happened over a five day period and we released it immediately before the California primary.

So far, "Ready to Believe" has cumulatively had its video versions viewed close to 100,000 times on YouTube.  Plus, it's available on iTunes.  You, however, don't have to buy it in the closing days of the 2008 campaign.  We want you to download it for free and to send it to your friends.

It was written to stand-up for Barack to the Clinton campaign's charges claiming he wasn't ready for the presidency.  We find that the need for this song is as solidly right-on today as it was last February (only Clinton is on the team now and the argument's being made by John McCain).  It needed rebuttal then, and it needs rebuttal now. 

Please give it a listen.  Click the link below to just hear it.  Otherwise,right-click to actually... we'll say it again... download "Ready to Believe" for free.  Again, you have our express permission to download it and to give it away. 

Download_Ready_to_Believe_Song.mp3

Some have asked for a PDF of the actual lyrics.  Here you are:

Download_Ready_to_Believe_Lyrics.pdf

Here's the You Tube version:

Please also visit the web-page of singer-composer Cherish Alexander (http://www.cherishalexander.com/ready_to_believe/) where all the goodies are also available.  She and fellow producer Damian Valentine did an awesome job with this project as you can hear for yourself.

We know the hour is late but if you support Barack Obama, we'd urge you to join us and expose as many people as you can to this song.  Especially Obama volunteers.  We've received a good deal of email from campaign workers who thought it was like an anthemic "fight song" for the cause.  That's certainly what we intended it to be.

Remember to vote.  Even if the polls say he's ahead, you have to vote.  Take nothing for granted. 

Still fired up and ready-to-go for Obama!

Cherish Alexander, Jackie Zabel, Bryce Zabel

Get That Blimp Out of My Airspace!

My director pal, Lev Spiro, just sent me an email exchange that has to rank as one of the funniest pieces of unintentionally hilarious writing by a bureaucrat that I've ever seen. Apparently, Lev had written Goodyear yesterday complaining that their blimp was noisily circling his house for four hours.  Here's the response he got today:

Dear Lev,
I do apologize for the recent fly over of your neighborhood last evening. While flying at a safe and legal altitude, it is not our intention to upset anyone whose residential area we are flying over.  We  were working on a television show and I do not expect that we will be flying again in that area for some time, and certainly not for a prolonged period. Again, please except (sic) my apology for any incontinence (sic).
Sincerely,
Bob Urhausen
Airship P.R. Manager

Here is the reply Lev sent back:

Dear Mr. Urhausen,
Since I make my living as a television director, I can only conclude that karma is a bitch.  It hadn't occured to me that the blimp was for a production, but that makes sense. Rest assured, the blimp may have been inconvenient, but it did not cause me any incontinence.
Cheers,
Lev L. Spiro

Thank God for Goodyear that they've got the able Bob Urhausen on the public relations front.  He'll make sure the company looks good!

Snakes in the Grass (and Other Locations)

I've just spent a couple of hours in my backyard with the "Hollywood Rattlesnake Wrangler" -- a great guy, Bo Slypapich. Bo is a one-of-a-kind who has hunted down rattlers for everybody from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Brad Garrett and today he came to my house after working for Sally Field.

We had started our morning with what we thought was the discovery by our gardener of two baby rattlesnakes in the back yard. We were referred to Bo and he showed up looking like a cross between Indiana Jones and the male version of Tomb Raider Lara Croft. He had gizmos, belts slung around his waist to hold the gizmos and an enthusiasm for his business that was, honestly, very re-assuring.

Bo started catching snakes over forty years ago with his neighborhood friends in Malibu Canyon. He kept his passion for snakes and built a business in the entertainment industry by clearing locations prior to the arrival of the crew, and securing locations while filming.

"One day I got a call from a local doctor who knew me, and was aware of my business. He asked if he could recommend me to another doctor whose daughter was bit while playing in their backyard by a rattlesnake, and then had crawled under the house. They had been unable to find anyone willing to search their property to find the snake or any possible dens."

Bo has been called to hunt for, track down, and remove snakes who have bitten children, dogs, and adults. Unlike others, Bo will crawl under houses, bushes and porches to find and relocate the snake or snakes.

What's great about Bo, however, is his passion to educate. Rather than a standard service call, he asked me to join him (at a safe distance) as we went throughout the backyard and he did a show-and-tell about what we were doing right and what could use some improvement. He also spoke to my gardener and my wife.

Bo had about ten snakes in the back of his pick-up truck in sealed plastic containers and, for the first time in my life, I got a truly authentic close-up look at rattlers of all sizes. He also had the harmless snakes for comparison. Now, I can actually tell them apart. Rattlesnakes have larger heads and thin necks and, well, rattles for tails. Every other snake you find in southern California has necks the size of their bodies and tails that end in a point.

As it turned out, ours were not baby rattlers which was good because it means there's probably not a nest with mom and other kids. We have, however, been tasked with some garden reconstruction and our rattlesnake fence appears to have been breached by the elements in a few key places that needs repair.

By the way, Bo has never been bitten in all his years. He does not kill rattlesnakes unless he has to. When he goes underneath houses, he has a full body armor outfit.

My friend, Michael Nadlman, also had a Bo and rattlesnake encounter only his was written up in the local paper and you can read that article here. That article, by the way, got linked to by the Drudge Report which gave it a global warming related headline and, as a result, the article got 40,000+ hits in just three hours.

Read all about Bo at his website, www.rattlesnakewrangler.com and, yes, somebody is actually developing a reality TV show for him. I'd definitely watch.

Morning Wake-Up Call

Last night, about an hour after I got to sleep, a magnitude 4.5 temblor hit. I know people think we're all matter-of-fact about these things out here in Los Angeles, but I don't think it's true.

This one struck just before 1 a.m. about 4 miles northwest of Chatsworth, which isn't all that far from where I live. It hit with a real jolt and it went on long enough that I was wide-awake and planning where to hide when it subsided.

The thing is that you never know if it's going to be a little shaking or whether it's just the beginning of the "Big One." I was living in this same house back in 1994 for the Northridge quake and it was pretty insane. It literally turned on my stereo (which was turned off) at extremely loud volume for about four seconds. So I woke up then shaking to loud rock-and-roll. We all went outside into the cul-de-sac and worried with the neighbors, got out the flashlights and went looking to make sure everybody was accounted for. It was pretty scary, not something you'll ever take lightly.

Anyway, this recent one went away before it got serious. I checked my son's room and found out he slept through it. My daughter was out, we tried calling but it didn't immediately go through. But she was back home in a few minutes to check on us.

Then we all went back to sleep.

Global Warming? Talk About Cognitive Dissonance!

To all the people around the United States and the rest of the world who are freezing, stuck in fifty-mile long traffic jams, sitting for half a day on an airport tarmac waiting to take off, shoveling snow and all the other things I've been seeing and hearing on the news...you can be forgiven if you're feeling a little skeptical about the whole global warming thing.

It feels so unreal watching what hardships you're enduring. Because here, where I live, this is our weather report.

Today...Mostly sunny. Highs from the lower to mid 70s at the beaches to the lower to mid 80s inland. Local north winds 15 to 25 mph with gusts to 40 mph below passes and canyons from Malibu to Hollywood.

Tonight...Mostly clear. Lows in the 50s...except in the lower 60s in breezy locations. Areas of north to northeast winds 20 to 30 mph with gusts over 45 mph below passes and canyons from Malibu to Hollywood.

Saturday...Mostly sunny. Highs from the lower to mid 70s at the beaches to the lower to mid 80s inland. Areas of north to northeast winds 20 to 30 mph with gusts over 45 mph below passes and canyons from Malibu to Hollywood in the morning...diminishing during the afternoon.

That's right. I expect the temperature to get over 80 degrees today out by my house. It's shirt-sleeves and shorts weather. Margueritas at the outdoor cantina. That kind of thing.

I'm sorry to have to report that dismal news for you cold-weather types, but facts are facts!

The Hollywood Cookbook: A Holiday Win-Win for Charity

The first copies are back from the publishers and it will be in the major bookstores and Amazon.com will start shipping within the next week. I'm  talking about "The Hollywood Cookbook." It's the best win-win I've seen in a long-time. Really... think of it as Good Cooking, Great Causes...

Pre-Order Now for 2006 Holidays
Available Mid-November
$5 Per Book to Charity

To paraphrase Martin Landau's Bob Evans character from HBO's "Entourage" -- "If I told you there was a way to give somebody a modest gift for the holidays that they might actually like and, at the same time, give money to charities that help make the world a better place, would that be of interest to you?"

Regular readers of "For What It's Worth" know that I've never asked you to buy anything in all the time this blog has existed. This one just seems like such a great idea that I want to help.

The whole concept started a couple of years ago when my wife, Jackie, got this idea. She would find twenty celebrities, each one with a favorite charity, then ask them to supply their favorite recipes for a cookbook. Five bucks from each book would go into a pot to be distributed to the charities. She'd get the Entertainment Industry Foundation -- a group that has an outstanding reputation -- to divvy up the money. She'd sell the book, starting at the holidays, so that people could give it instead of a card saying "A donation has been made in your name." I mean, let's be honest, I'm always glad that a charity has gotten money in my name but it's a little disappointing. We'd like something tangible to go with it. Well, now you have the perfect compromise!

It's been a snowball effect of support. She's partnered with her good friend, Morgan Most, and together the two of them have practically willed this into existence. Celebrities like Ron Howard, Michael J. Fox, Jane Kaczmarek and Bradley Whitford immediately wanted to help. Charities were supportive and appreciative and put some of their key supporters in touch with the women of "Good Looking Cooking" (that's the name they came up with in order to publish the book). Later, as an added bonus, some very, very famous celebrity chefs also came aboard to offer some of their own special recipes. People like Wolfgang Puck and Mario Batali (plus Mark Dacascos from "Iron Chef.")

The book is literally at the printer now, pre-orders are being taken, and it can end up in your hands before Thanksgiving, in plenty of time to wrap it, mail it and give it to friends and co-workers for the holidays.

Listen, I could go on and on about this idea. I work in Hollywood where so often everything is a problem and it's great to salute an idea where everything is a solution. You want to know what was the most significant problem to overcome? Figuring out how to get $5 guaranteed to charity, given all the costs that go into books these days. But Jackie and Morgan have been unyielding. $5 to charity. Not a penny less.

They have a superior web-site that explains the whole thing better than I can do in this blog. Check it out. Feel good this year about at least one of the gifts you give. Make a difference. You can see all the charities there and check out the links to their sites for yourself.

Let me put one other thought out there. After you've checked out http://www.thehollywoodcookbook.com, you'll probably agree it's a great idea, too. Now, let's do some math...

Say they sell 10-thousand books before Christmas. That means charities will get $50,000 to split. But if we can push that number up to 100-thousand books that would mean a $500,000 check going to charity in early 2007.

So, check out the site and if you catch "The Hollywood Cookbook" fever like I have, stick a link to it on your blog or website, write about it in your own words, send the URL to your local newspapers with a personal note of endorsement and send one of those e-mails to all your friends asking them to send it to all their friends. Even better, buy a book for everybody on your shopping list and be a force multiplier. Think of it this way: buy 10 books; give $50 to charity.

Let's go viral in support of a great cause! We're the Internet, dammit, this is easy!

The Hottest Election EVER in California

I just voted today around 7:30am, and it was already hot. Like shorts and tee-shirt hot, like go to the beach hot.

The heat was on Monday in Southern California, too, with temperatures in downtown Los Angeles reaching 95 degrees in the early afternoon — making it the hottest Nov. 6 since authorities started keeping records 129 years ago.

And while I was driving home from doing my part to send Arnold Schwarzenegger back for a second term, they said on the radio that out where I live, it may even hit 100 degrees today! I know this isn't going to get me a lot of sympathy from my friends around the world who are already into rain and snow and cold territory but, really, 100 degrees seems a little extreme for early November. The only place where this kind of weather wouldn't be a harbinger of global warming would be, say, Venus.

Maybe it's just the heat but I also voted to send former-Governor Jerry Brown back to Sacramento as our Attorney General.

Schwarzenegger: The Power of Forgiveness

The governor's election is all over here in California. Yes, we still have to vote and they still have to count the ballots but it's done. Stick a fork in it. Arnold Schwarzenegger is on his way to a second term. Even the reliably liberal L.A. Times has concluded: "California's one-sided contest for governor was decided weeks ago, based on polls and any clear-eyed glance at the race." If you ask me (and the Times apparently agrees), it all comes down to two words that you almost never hear from a politician: "I'm sorry."

Schwarzenegger Mends His Fences
Photo: Karen Tapia-Anderson, Los Angeles Times

What makes this stunning is that only a year ago, Schwarzenegger was political dead meat. He'd tested the voters patience with a package of reforms that were soundly rejected. His own polling numbers were at the bottom of the barrel. But then he did the unexpected. I wrote about that on November 11, 2005 in a blog post I called "Why I Still Like Arnold."

Now I've always liked Arnold. I voted for him in the special election that brought him to office and I defended him back in June of 2005 in another post called "Still Liking Arnold" when his disapproval number among voters had swelled to 58% (pretty much where Bush stands today).

For a man who made his career being bigger than life, Arnold Schwarzenegger has saved his political life by being humble. It hasn't hurt that key political heavyweights like Steven Spielberg have come out publicly in his favor. Or that the guy he's running against looks and sounds like Ichabod Crane. In his Capitol Journal today, Times reporter George Skelton further explains:

Schwarzenegger used his repeated admission of "a mistake" — along with the display of an open mind — to project inner strength.

Imagine where the national Republican party might be today if President Bush had the same attitude. Instead he dug in, and his party is in peril.

You can read the entire LA Times Article here.

Still More Snakes on My Brain

Another day, another rattler dead. Situation normal out here in the suburbs of Los Angeles. And, trust me, despite that movie that got all the hype, this is the real deal.

I never got around to seeing "Snakes on a Plane" but why should I? Nothing on celluloid can match the sheer heart-pounding thrill of nearly stepping on one of the damn things out in your backyard. Talk about zero to sixty. Screams, debates about calling the fire department, frantic search for implements of destruction, analysis of snake type, freak-out over sound of rattle, etc.

Apparently, it's still snake season here in California and rattlesnakes seem to be out in force. Some people say it was all the rain that creates an increased rodent population which spurred on more snakes. Or maybe it's just another sign of the apocalypse. Or maybe the rain was the sign of the apocalypse and now this is only a symptom, I can't be sure.

All I know is that they are out there and even the Los Angeles Times reported this summer that a poor chimpanzee in our zoo died after being bitten by a rattlesnake. Zoo director John Lewis commented:

"Our staff is constantly on the lookout for rattlesnakes. Typically when they find them in the zoo or the exhibits, they relocate them to the park."

Good plan, John. Let's put them in Griffith Park so that families who are having a picnic with their kids can have a little excitement.

Anyway, yesterday, we found a baby one out in the front driveway and attempted to decapitate it with a pooper scooper ordinarily used for our dog. It did not have proper severing power, but it did crush the head sufficiently. Today, we got one out under one of the bushes in the backyard and managed to separate head from body. The body twitched for half an hour before it settled down. Too graphic? Sorry, this is our life. Of course, we could have tossed it across the fence so it could live and grow and kill our dog once it built up its strength. We decided to draw the line.

Our gardner Tom, an ex-Simi Valley police officer, found one in August and showed up at our front door holding it... ALIVE! He had gotten the reptile by the head between his thumb and forefinger so that we could all get a good look at those fangs. Wow... they were not something I would want nipping at my ankle, let's just leave it at that. Tom actually threw this mutant over the back fence before I could tell him to beat it senseless. This was actually very kind of Tom, given the fact that last year he got bit and ended up in the hospital for several days with an arm the size of Burbank. Apparently, he'd been reaching in some brush and got bit, but thought it was a scratch and so didn't seek help immediately.

By the way, other than getting to the hospital ASAP, they also recommend that you do not elevate whatever limb that was bitten above your heart. My reaction is that if you have to think about where your limbs are in relation to your heart, then you probably should be in a hospital, you know? Anyway, here's what else Wikipedia had to say on the subject of First Aid:

"It is important to keep a snake bite victim calm in order to avoid elevating their heart rate and accelerating the circulation of venom within the body."

Calm? After being bit by a rattlesnake? We have people freaking out just seeing one. If they got bit, man, I really think most people I know would start calling in airstrikes.

So far almost all the neighbors in our cul-del-sac have found one of them and called the fire department. On one call, for example, two trucks and four firefighters showed up, complete with snake wrangling equipment. I think they're getting a lot of calls these days and, at least where we are, handling more snakes than brush fires.

Then there's my running partner, Zach, who found one up by his horse barn. He used one of these extendable tree trimmers to grab the varmit and then his wife and son ended up beating the thing into a bloody pulp with garden tools. Based on the zookeeper, I'm pretty sure this is not the politically correct way to deal with a rattler, but it did prevent that particular snake from terrorizing Zach's horses any time soon. By the way, he reports that snake blood is bright red, like ours, which was our observation, too.

Now the snake web-sites will tell you this is an unnecessary overreaction because snake bites are a part of life in some parts of this country. If you get bit, besides not elevating or panicking, they also recommend you don't use a tourniquet or cut it or anything. Get bit, go to hospital. Check.

One of the reasons I don't hike in the Santa Monica mountains this time of year is my fear of getting bit by a rattlesnake. Imagine being several miles from trailhead, getting snagged by a long pair of fangs, but remaining calm and avoiding raising your heart rate while hiking back in to your car. Pass.

My wife and I were watching an episode of "Animal Planet" last year about a father who came in with a snake bite. We watched out of curiosity to see how long it would take him to recover and what kind of ordeal it was. You know what happened? The poor bastard died!

Maybe that's why Zach and I march to a different drummer. Out here in the Southern California desert, when it comes to snakes, it's kill or be killed.

The Anti-Arnold?

I'm sure not many people in the other 49 states were paying much attention to Tuesday's primary here in California. What you probably know is that our current governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, hasn't been all that popular lately and that he's up for re-election. Now we know who the Democrats have annoited to slay the Terminator. Here's a look at the Demo-Gladiator Tuesday night:

Demo-Terminator-Terminator?

His name is Phil Angelides, the current state Treasurer. He won a plurality in a nasty, nasty campaign with his opponent Steve Westly, 48% to 43%. He looks a little bit like Ichabod Crane to Schwarzenegger's Terminator. How's that for a match-up?

Here's the rest of the joke. After all the terrible things that Westly said about Angelides and all the terrible things that Angelides fired back about Westly, even the staunchly pro-Democrat and anti-Arnold Los Angeles Times has to admit that Angelides now has his own "negatives" in their polls that outweigh Schwarzenegger's. Even so, Angelides has joined the fall campaign fired up, calling himself the "Anti-Arnold" and the games now begin.

Still, the reality on the ground today is that Arnold is now the favorite for a second term come November. It's like one of his movies. The hero has to be down, almost out, so that he can come back in the third act and kick some butt. If I were Phil Angelides, I'd start putting in more time at the gym...