Bruce Sallan gave up a show biz career to parent his two boys and now writes about his experiences on "A Dad's Point-of-View" and is the house dad at "Mom Logic."
Do men really have good support for emotional issues, on a regular basis? When a man reaches a certain age and he’s depressed, he’s struggling with his place in the world, he’s going through family problems or a divorce, or financial and job worries, etc., where can he turn? Add into the mix that he’s a single dad and has no immediate family around and you have my situation, a few years ago.
When my marriage first broke up, I was blessed to find a circle of men that supported and guided me through the horrible ups and downs that followed. No, it wasn’t some beer-drinking group of women-haters, nor a drumming in Indian war paint Robert Bly-type of thing. It was regular men, with regular problems, getting together and talking about the real stuff.
I’ve stayed with this group, through various incarnations of men leaving and joining, for going on eight years now. Unlike the stereotype beliefs of men’s groups, ours completely supports parenting and a man’s relationship with his spouse and children. But, unfortunately, this is unusual, as men don’t tend to maintain their close male relationships after they marry, have children, and get further into their careers.
This is a classic case where the men and women differ greatly, since women, even if they’re working, tend to maintain their female friends which provides a regular outlet, in which to vent, to discuss, to get feedback, and to get help. It isn’t always healthy to go to your spouse with every question or concern you might have. As women tend to be influenced more by their feelings, it’s really helpful to us male slugs, that they can bounce something off their friends, before hitting us with it.
Bruce Sallan gave up a show biz career to parent his two boys and now writes about his experiences on "A Dad's Point-of-View" and is the house dad at "Mom Logic."
E-mail is so ubiquitous that we forget that it isn’t talking on the phone or having a conversation in person. Subtlety, facial expressions, or tonality are all lost in an e-mail message. I have found this has gotten me in trouble when I think I’m being funny, subtle, or sarcastic in an e-mail. And, the habit many of us have of forwarding a joke, photo, or an article creates even greater problems in many cases.
I think e-mail should probably be treated as Eliza Doolittle was advised in “My Fair Lady” about making conversation. “Stick to the weather and health” was Professor Higgins’s caution. Even that proved problematic as Eliza went into too much embarrassing detail about her own family’s health, before she completely blew it with her expletive encouraging one of the racehorses to “move your bloomin’ ass!”
I read recently that e-mail, like so many new technological innovations, may be receding in popularity among the younger generation in favor of instant messaging (on cell-phones and computers) or “tweeting” via Twitter, which is limited to something like 140 characters of text. Acronyms are the norm and the list of these short cuts, like “ttyl” (talk to you later) or “btw” (by the way), just keep growing and growing.
Correspondence, like in the days of pen and ink, has gone the way of the horse and buggy. But, e-mail is its own special creature and I’ve found it rampant with potential misunderstandings and strains on relationships. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been stung by an e-mail reply to something I’ve sent out that I felt that person might really enjoy--or maybe, God forbid, learn something from. “My bad” to quote my son as I’m learning that almost no one but those closest to you want such e-mail.
John Lennon would have been 70 years old this October 9 had he not been gunned down 30 years ago on December 8, 1980. No doubt last year he'd have been smiling, if he'd lived, to know that The Beatles Rock Band was kicking ass in homes across the country, and that those re-mastered Beatles CDs were, once again, burning up the charts. But that emotion has cooled, and it's thirty years, and there's not much comfort in that loss hitting such a definitive mark.
As a collector of news magazines, I note that both Time and Newsweek gave over their covers to Lennon's passing the week it happened. I've chosen Newsweek to focus on because it has that haunting portrait by Richard Avedon. Also, I had previewed the first Newsweek cover to feature the Beatles back in 1964 in an earlier post, and it's interesting to compare how the coverage changed in those intervening years.
Newsweek devoted twelve entire pages to the death of John Lennon in a special "pull-out" coverage. It contained a handful of separate articles entitled: "Death of a Beatle" which was the news coverage, "Lennon's Alter-Ego" about assassin Mark David Chapman, "Strawberry Fields Forever" about the influence of the Beatles, and "An Ex-Beatle 'Starting Over'" about Lennon's new emergence on the public scene after nearly five years of absence.
"Come together, he had once asked them in a song, and now they came, tens of thousands of them, to share their grief and shock at the news. John Lennon, once the cheeky wit and sardonic soul of the Beatles, whose music had touched a generation and enchanted the world, had been slain on his doorstep by a confused, suicidal young man who had apparently idolized him. Along New York's Central Park West and West 72nd Street, in front of the building where Lennon had lived and died, they stood for hours in tearful vigil, looking to each other and his music for comfort."
Lee Goldberg is a working screenwriter, novelist and blogger who writes regularly on A Writer's Life.
Roman Polanski drugged, raped, and sodomized a 13-year-old girl and then fled to Europe to avoid imprisonment. If his name was Tyrell Washington, and he was black, and did everything Polanski did except direct movies, people would be thrilled that he was arrested. But because Polanski is an Oscar-winning director, we get abhorrent comments like these:
France's culture minister Frederic Mitterrand also criticized the U.S. "Seeing him alone, imprisoned while he was heading to an event that was due to offer him praise and recognition is awful," he said. "He was trapped. In the same way that there is a generous America that we like, there is also a scary America, and that has just shown its face."
In Germany, there was also support for the director. The Berlin Film Festival demanded Polanski be freed. "The Berlinale protests the arbitrary treatment of one of the world's most outstanding film directors," the fest said in a statement. "We declare our deep respect for Roman Polanski and we demand his immediate release."
The German Film Academy also condemned Polanski's detention. Academy presidents Senta Berger and Guenter Rohrbach said in a joint statement: "The German Film Academy finds it revolting that Roman Polanski has been arrested for an act committed more than 30 years ago."
I'm the father of a 14-year-old girl, maybe that's why I find all this anger over the arrest of a child rapist disgusting and infuriating. I don't care if he's made good movies. Why?
Because Roman Polanski drugged, raped and sodomized a 13-year-old girl...and fled the country rather than go to jail for his horrible crime.
What is truly "revolting" is the defense of this criminal and the stunning hypocrisy that it represents.
We all know how much NBC has riding on its debut of "The Jay Leno Show" in primetime. You can read all about it in, like, a billion places.
Now, however, the truth can be told. In the ultimate conspiracy theory, NBC had Jay cloned years ago to protect its comedy investment in case the unthinkable happened. And now, as the new show prepares to go on-the-air, that investment gets his big break. Or break-out, as it were. You'll see.
It's "The Adventures of Jay Clone," a short video that stars Jonathan Zabel as "Junior" and Don Most as "Doc." Did we mention there's a rubber chicken and a Leno mask?
The video was directed by USC School of Cinematic Arts graduate Kareem Dimashkie. Jonathan Zabel played Young Jay and Jay's Son in nearly a dozen "Tonight Show" appearances in the Clinton Years. Trained in improvisation, Jonathan now lives and works in the heart of Silicon Valley.
"The Adventures of Jay Clone" was just picked by eGuiders as its "Featured Comedy Pick for the week of September 14 to 20." It's also, as you can see, on "Funny or Die." We hope, if you like it, that you'll visit that site, vote for it as "Funny" and list it as a "Favorite." Thanks!
Back in the Clinton Years my oldest son, Jonathan, played Young Jay Leno on "The Tonight Show" about a dozen times. Now he's a USC film school grad (who just got a new job working for a major videogame company up in Silicon Valley) and he and his director buddy Kareem Dimashkie (with a throw-in by Jackie, me and our friend Don Most) put this video together in anticipation of the new "The Jay Leno Show."
"The Adventures of Jay Clone" is based on the concept that Jay Leno was cloned by NBC years ago as an insurance policy to protect its comedy investment and now his young copy -- who's never had a date, driven a car or gone Jaywalking -- escapes to discover the real world and live out his genetic predisposition to comedy!
It stars Don Most as "Doc" and Jonathan Zabel as "Junior." You no doubt remember Don Most for his portrayal of Ralph Malph on the sitcom "Happy Days," something that's given him worldwide fans ever since.
This version of "The Adventures of Jay Clone" is hosted on Vimeo and can be watched in HD by clicking on the screen rather than just hitting play and watching it through this blog. Sometimes there are some streaming issues, but the quality is very good.
Maybe you've heard of "The Wedge" down at Newport Beach. It's a magnet for body surfers and it has been known to hurt, maim, paralyze and even kill people who brave its challenges in tough weather. That apparently happened July 24 when 50-year-old Monte Kevin Valantin of Lawndale slammed into the rocks after going into massive waves that supposedly were topping 20 feet. He got pulled out by lifeguards, made it to Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian and was declared dead.
Our friends -- Leslie & Peter -- live down there and sent us a picture Leslie took of these waves with her new camera lens. As you can see, the break was big enough to draw a crowd (but most people stood safely ashore and didn't go in to test the waters).
Apparently, summer in Newport Beach brings outrageous waves based on currents from around the globe (as far away as New Zealand) that roll powerfully toward us, building strength and eventually creating the dangerous Wedge experience. I'm not a surfer, and my body-surfing is limited to flopping about in small waves, but it seems that these waves bounce off the jetty's boulders and form the perfect shape that is intoxicating for bodysurfers.
Angelenos, for years, woke up to Rick Dees in the morning (replaced a few years back on KIIS by Ryan Seacrest). I remember that one of Dees' big pieces of advice he would always trot out for his listeners was, "Don't do anything that will get you killed." I know that can't be taken to heart in every instance -- if we did, then no one would have climbed Everest or gone to the Moon -- but, generally, I'm pretty much in synch when it comes to bodysurfing huge waves. It can get you killed and I'll just take a pass. I'll watch those from the sidelines or just appreciate a friend's photo. I was sorry to hear the news of the latest fatality. Sad.
The above photo was taken by Leslie Feibleman with a Nikon D50 Digital SLR camera and a Nikon AF Nikkor 70-30mm lens.
Back on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin kicked up their own moon dust when they became the first human beings ever to walk (or bounce) on the Earth's Moon and the world's most trusted man summed it up, "Oh, boy." The world is probably evenly divided now between those who were alive when the Eagle landed in the Sea of Tranquility and those who weren't. I was. It was unforgettable, but not necessarily for the reasons you might think. As with 9/11, JFK's assassination, and the deaths of John Lennon and now Jackson, our memories of these super-events are colored by where we were when they happened, what was going on in our own lives, and how we felt about the actual events.
Where were you?
For me, July 20 remains an important day -- not solely for the awe and accomplishment of the technological and spiritual acheivement of the moon landing -- but equally for the extreme personal impact it had on my young life.
Let's roll the time machine back four decades. It was 40-years-ago that Neil Armstrong made that little jump off the ladder from the lunar lander:"That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." The ghostly TV transmission had people glued to their sets around the world, blowing past barriers of nationalism and politics. And, up in the Pacific Northwest, it was also exactly 40-years-ago that I was fired from my first job. I have since been fired again, laid off, cancelled, and otherwise unemployed in a variety of ways, shapes and sizes and, as someone with great depth of experience in this area, I can tell you that Cat Stevens was correct when he wrote that oft-recorded song, "The First Cut Is the Deepest."
If you remember The Wonder Years(that great TV series set in the 1960s starring Fred Savage), it'll help you appreciate the tone of what will follow. If you're too young to recall the 60s (when the series was set) or the 80s (when the series was filmed), then you'll have to settle for this shorthand. The series told the story of Kevin, a kid growing up during the time of Vietnam, hippies, civil rights and moon walks, all told with a gentle sense of humor. So, in this story, I'm Kevin. And Kevin's dad (Dan Lauria) had a gruff son-of-a-bitch exterior, always was pissed off, and never connected with his kids. Like my dad, Harvey, who was a high school teacher in Hillsboro, Oregon at the time. It had something to do with his being a part of the "Greatest Generation," having lived through the Great Depression and World War II. Like a lot of guys who had that experience, he was changed by it. It seems so much more understandable to me now than it did when I was a kid.
Anyway, back then, I was the youngest fry-cook in all of Washington County, having scammed my way into a job at the Arctic Circle Drive-In before I was strictly employment legal, I think, based on the fact that my older brother Alan had paved the way. It was a sweet deal -- I was making a full $1.35 an hour, up from my starting wage of $1.10 a year before. Do the math, that added up to a whole $10.80 a day and, if overtime was involved, man, that was serious bread. Of course, those burgers only cost nineteen cents, a quarter for a cheeseburger.
The boss was a tough immigrant -- a Basque from Spain -- named Mariano Bilbao and he was living (or working) the American dream. Work, work, work and, if you did that, life would be easier for your kids. His kid was just a baby, and Mariano was in full pay-the-dues mode to get ahead in time for his kid to have the good life he dreamed of.
When the schedule for the week of July 20 got posted, I got a sinking feeling because I had the night shift and, if all went according to plan, Neil Armstrong was going to be moon-walking while I was slinging burgers. At the time, I was very into the whole moon landing, even more (if possible) than the rest of the country. I'd actually tried to mimick a Gemini capsule with a refrigerator box a few years earlier in our basement until my mom made me come up and eat dinner. Plus, Harvey, being an American history teacher, made sure we all knew that history didn't come in any bigger size than this.
So I asked Mariano if I could trade shifts with someone. No. Maybe we could have a TV in the kitchen so we could watch with every other person within ten miles of a TV? No. A radio then, just to listen to hear in real time how it went? No.
Resigned to missing it all, I accepted my fate, strapped on my apron, and went to work. Being the boss, even Mariano was at home, of course, watching the moon-walk with his wife. Back at the grill, I was going insane because there was almost no business because everyone else in town was home watching TV. About thirty minutes before Armstrong was scheduled to set foot on the lunar surface, I snapped. I called my dad and told him I wanted to come home to see the moon walk. Would he come pick me up?
There was a long pause. I waited on the other end of the phone, knowing that The Lecture was coming. About responsibility, about sticking with your decisions, about not screwing up. Instead, he said, "You know you'll be fired?"
I said I knew. I waited again. Surely The Lecture was coming now. Another beat. "I'll be right down."
So my Dad drove down to the Arctic Circle Drive-In on Baseline Street in a moment of high drama in my young life. We went back home, gathered with the rest of the family around the TV set, held our breath with everyone else and watched Armstrong's ghostly image from the moon. It was the most exciting TV I had ever seen. Better than the Beatles on Ed Sullivan kind of TV, if you want to know the truth. Part of the attraction was the danger. These guys might die on live TV. Or they might sink into moon dust and never be heard from again. You never knew.
When it was over, dad said we had to go back to the restaurant and I had to face the music. I had done the crime, now I had to do the time. As I returned, it was clear that my co-workers had given me up to Mariano, who was there waiting for me and, man, was he pissed. He was a short guy with a fiery temper and his face was as red as I'd ever seen it.
Mariano fired me that night, as predicted. My dad told him he was missing a great worker and he was a small-minded man to not understand the importance of what was happening, and how this event had changed the world for everyone. Even teenage fry-cooks.
All I know is that my dad had never stood up for me quite like that before and never quite like that after. I remember July 20, 1969 as clearly today for turning in my greasy apron as I do for Armstrong and Aldrin doing the moonwalk. And I remember July 20 because it was also the day that my dad passed away back in 2001.
So -- that giant leap for mankind -- for me, it isn't about where I was when it happened -- but all about where I wasn't.
For those of you who experienced your own "Moonwalk Memory," please do leave your own personal stories in our comment section. Thanks!
"When Visitors Come to Call" originally posted on Movie Smackdown!
Contact (1997) -vs- Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
The Smackdown. If you're old enough to remember the marketing campaign for "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," then you'll remember the goosebumps you got when you heard the phrase, We are not alone. What was great about that simple sentence was that it promised a movie about aliens that was about wonder and mystery and wasn't about the same old Hollywood treatment of life in the universe, namely that if it bothered to interact with humans it was for a nefarious reason, everything from "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" to "War of the Worlds" to the later "Independence Day." Twenty years after "Close Encounters" came another film that promised to make first contact a matter of humanity's growth out of the cradle and not some intergalactic cage match. Both "Close Encounters" and "Contact" were aliens for smart people brought to you first by the immense talent of Steven Spielberg and later by the immense intellect of Carl Sagan. In my Hollywood career, I've had the good fortune to discuss UFOs and extraterrestrial life with both of these men and found them to have some very different visions of the subject. They each have used film to express their views about life as it might exist "out there." The question is, which version comes closest to what might be the truth about first contact, and which one is the better film?
The Challenger. "Contact" (the movie) directed by Robert Zemeckis is a faithful film adaption of Contact (the novel) written by Carl Sagan. In both tellings, radio astronomer Dr. Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster in the film) hits the cosmic jackpot when the giant radio telescopes that are part of S.E.T.I. (Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence) actually turn up a non-random signal from across the universe. Someone is talking to us or, more accurately, talking back. You see, they've picked up the very first television transmission the Earth ever leaked outward, amped it up and sent it back to us. It's an excellent surprise and -- without spoiling it -- let's just say that the first TV signal that went out from Earth is, well, unexpected. After that, the story kicks into where no film has really gone before. There's another signal buried in that TV re-transmission that is, basically, the blueprints for building a gigantic spacecraft... for one person! Well, if there was ever a situation designed to stretch our humanity to the breaking point, it would be trying to determine who's going to be that lucky (or, in failure, unlucky) person. Where will they go? Will they ever return? Will they die? Is it some kind of trick?
I'm not talking about fangirls as in, say, teenage passionistas for Hannah Montana. I'm talking about women in my health club, the ones who show up for spin class (group stationary biking with loud music) oh-so-serious about it all. Usually they pile three towels on their bikes (do they even know the energy cost of washing a single towel?) and do the entire stretch set after class.
Why fangirls, you may ask?
You see, most bike spin classes let the instructor control the lights, the music and the fans.
The fans are designed to circulate the air in the room which can get pretty damn muggy, especially when the class is packed. The women are almost universally in favor of a "no-fan" policy. They come to class in their sleeveless tops and they simply hate the idea that the fan could chill them by blowing air across them. So when the instructor asks, "Fans?", they shout in union not to turn them on. This is not the exception, this is the rule.
There is another side. Guys runs hotter, a lot of us are packing on extra pounds. We need the fans to keep from passing out. We are almost never heard in this debate. If we dare to ask for the fans, we are shouted down as if we are suggesting some violation of civil rights. From my observations, this is an argument that women almost always win.
Last week a miracle occurred. One of the regular instructors called in sick and a guest instructor (a woman) took the class. She put the fans on. The women began protesting loudly. "No fans! Turn them off!" It was getting ugly.
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