Clip of the week...

Been a busy seven days--Monday night we celebrated Chinese New Year, yesterday and tomorrow I am working the booth at Photonics West in San Jose, tonight and tomorrow night I have rehearsal, blah, blah. I am exhausted. But this made me chuckle:



Happy hump day!

Clip of the week...

Okay, I perform on stage, and have taught presentation skills and what not, so I don't want to judge. But how do you screw up the swearing in of a new president?



Come on, John. Oy.

Inauguration Day...

Okay, I really, really tried hard not to post about this, but I just can't help myself. This is a really long, really opinionated blog, and I'm sure you don't want to read it. But since I can't afford a therapist, I had to put it somewhere. Come back tomorrow for the entertainment. Still here? Okay, then.

If you know me at all, you know I don't care for our current set of world governments. Not just ours, not just "theirs"--all of 'em. Remember when you were little, and you and your three best friends could play all day and have a blast...until the fifth kid came along and everything was suddenly wacky and weird? You had to play round-robin instead of teams. You had to find another piece for the game. You suddenly had to take turns at four-square. There is a reason the phrase 'fifth wheel' works so well to illustrate the concept 'awkward'. I believe that every organizational structure has a lower and upper population limit--an optimal quantity of warm bodies that it will work well for, and anything larger or smaller makes it unwieldy.

This theory has proven itself in my personal and world-observed life time and again: witness the layoffs at O'Reilly I blogged about just the other day. Witness the collapse of Starbucks when it reached critical mass (another wonderful phrase for 'you just got too damn big'). Our government is in the same predicament. We supposedly live in a representative democracy--but in a group of several billion people, how will *my* desires ever be suitably represented? I am not the first to notice that our representatives and congressfolk are for the most part older, richer, and whiter than most of the population. But I digress.

I didn't vote for Obama. I didn't vote for that other guy, either. I voted my belief, not my fear, not my "hope", out of the understanding that, no matter how broken I believe the system to be, the system is still the system. I am not unhappy that Obama won, but he wasn't my first choice. This is important for you to understand, because I don't want a lot of flak about who I support and all that. It is not what this is about.

What this blog is about is the trend I am experiencing among those I hear around me. There is a large group of very vocal people who *did* vote for Obama. And they are driving me to the brink of something violent.

First, there is the sentiment that the voters are super-important because they voted for Obama. I never really cared for sports fans who speak in the third person plural: "We sold Schottenheimer? Oh, MAN!" "We totally got ripped off on that call!" "We've won the series more times than anyone!!!" Um...'we'? Where were you when those athletes had to get pain shots just to keep playing? When they worked seven days a week on the offseason just to stay in good enough shape to compete? When their coaches/trainers/whoever screamed at them for several hours in a row to work harder, when they firmly believed they were doing their best? I am not a fan of taking credit where it is not due. Obama has worked very hard to get where he is. He was elected, sure, but those who elected him are not owed anything by me or anyone else, in my humble opinion. (Are you listening, Oprah?)

Second, there is an inordinate amount of hype surrounding this man, and I think it is (a) ridiculous in its entertainment base, and (b) unfair to Obama. As an example of the first, I cannot tell you since I have already lost count, how many Facebook status updates I saw this morning about Aretha Franklin, Yo-Yo Ma, and Itzhak Perlman performing at the inauguration. It's like the halftime entertainment and commercials at the Super Bowl--hey, if you don't want to watch the game, don't watch it for cryin' out loud. Rent a movie, or go outside, or something.

As for the second...well. Sure, he preached hope and revival and all sorts of repair and healing. But is he the end-all be-all we have all been waiting for? I doubt it. The executive branch is only one part of a triumverate in our country, and the other two are (in the case of the judicial branch) small and confused and (in the case of the legislative branch) owned by lobbyists and not representative of their constituents. Can Obama single handedly save our country? I didn't agree with everything the previous president did, but I don't believe Bush was the Anti-Christ. And I don't believe Obama is the Messiah.

Finally--for now, at least--I am about sick and tired of the anticipation factor in the hype. I have touched on this already, but just to clarify: I have many friends and associates who said, at the turn of the year three weeks ago, 'boy am I glad 2008 is over. 2008 sucked. I am so excited for 2009. It is going to be a GREAT year.' and so on. Guess what? One week later, many of those same people were already sick of 2009. Is it fair to assume that Obama is going to fix everything to everyone's satisfaction? The press has compared him to the famous "chicken in every pot" sentiments voiced by another president we had not too long ago. But can one man really turn around the crap we have gotten ourselves into? It took years and years to get us where we are. Can he do it in four? What if he can't? What will it do to the hyped-up people who think he can? It won't be pretty, I can assure you. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Obama is in a very bad place. Whatever good the man will do--and I believe he will do much good--it cannot possibly measure up to the vision many people have for his time in office.

Mr. President, you have my hopes, condolences, support and best wishes. May you achieve what you wish for.

Happy Birthday...

...mom!

Since Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday was, in fact, on the 15th (you did know that, right?), I chose to observe another important birthday today. My kids, my girlfriend and I all met my parents at Hong Ah, a (relatively) new Chinese restaurant in the area. They make pretty awesome teacakes (dim sum for you round-eyes)* and we had duck. VERY tasty.

I brought one of the birthday cards for her, but forgot the other one. The one I managed to remember had two dachsunds wearing hot-dog costumes on the front. They were a lot like this one:



Okay, so my mom collects dachsunds. Sue me.

Happy Birthday, mom! Hope it was great.



*geez, what is with all the parentheticals tonight?

Yet another reason why I hate corporate america...

The folks at O'Reilly Media just laid off a bunch of people. One of them was my girlfriend, Denise. But just to set the record straight, this blog isn't about that company specifically. It is about this process in our country of cutbacks, 'downsizing', 'rightsizing', whatever. A bunch of doublespeak that means "we don't know what the eff we're doing so we have to do something before the shareholders stop giving us money."

If you haven't seen Office Space yet, do so immediately. If you have ever worked in Corporate America, you will split your sides and wet yourself laughing at the perfect representation of office life. If you have not had the delight of that experience, you will still find it funny. And I might add, you can view it as a documentary. It is that accurate.

(This *might* be considered a spoiler, but it won't ruin the movie for you, and it is important to this rant. So, tough it out.) During the movie, there are layoffs. In the course of the layoffs, it becomes evident that the laying-off process is really more about reverse Robin Hooding the company: the people who do the bulk of the work are being let go, and their multitudinous tasks are absorbed by others who don't have the training to handle them and are not compensated further, while the people who 'supervise' and 'manage' others are given more money. Middle management gets richer, upper management gets richer, the workers get effed.

I have personally been through this process twice. Once was at the hands of our government, who discovered that the senior officers of the company I worked for were running a Ponzi scam and decided to shut the company down. Over 40% of the company was laid off a week later, then about another 50% of the remaining people were let go a couple weeks after that. I survived both, but realized I was just marking time until the axe fell and decided to get the hell out.

The second time was textbook Corporate America. I used to work in the video game industry. The company I worked for, Mattel Interactive, sold their entertainment division (us) to Ubisoft, and Ubisoft laid off anyone who wasn't working on the four titles they were interested in publishing. They didn't concern themselves with who the best workers were--they didn't have time or energy for that. So they kept people who should have been let go, and let a lot of people (good friends of mine) go who really knew what they were doing and could have made the company successful. (By the way, after those four titles were published, they let most of the rest of the people go, and moved the remaining handful to the city, forty miles away.)

It is as if (this is a little illustration I came up with myself and am very proud of) some folks are sitting in some boardroom somewhere. Lord High Muckety-Muck says, "Well, our racehorse seems to be about ten pounds too heavy. What can we do?" Chancellor Meek says, "Well, the left hind leg from the knee down weighs exactly ten pounds. Why don't we just cut that part off and be done with it?" Lord Muck says, "Brilliant! Simple, clean, easy--brilliant! Go forth, Chancellor Meek!" The Chancellor summons Headsman Mook, who then proceeds to severance package the ten pounds of leg, and voila! Success. Sort of.

Then Mook, Meek and Muck celebrate by giving themselves raises, and the shareholders all rejoice at the wonderful streamlining and reorganizing the company has completed. Profits stabilize (notice I did not say 'increase') and all is well in the kingdom.

I could go on, but I'm just making myself madder and madder. Feh.

My silly dog...

I have a third child, and I realized that I haven't talked about her much (at all?) here. She is a wonderful little bundle of energy. I got her from the pound nearly one year ago. I had been looking for a dog for quite some time--I have always been a "dog person" and thought it would be good for me to have one while I was going through so much with the separation, etc. I browsed the local shelters, as I didn't have money for a purebred, and there are so many wonderful pups that need homes that I can't stand to imagine being destroyed.

I saw a dog on one of the shelter websites. She was listed as a chocolate lab, and since I knew those usually go fast, I went to the shelter the very next day. I raced home, picked the kids up from school, and went to the shelter only to find out she had already been adopted. We saw a couple other dogs, but none that would work with our lifestyle or our home. As we prepared to go, I asked the boys if they would like to say goodbye to the dogs we had seen. Lo and behold, "Bon Bon" was magically back in the pen!

When we went to the meeting area, I knelt down, and the dog walked right over to me, sat down, and looked into my eyes. She did the same for my eldest son. We found out that the woman who had adopted her had returned her while the boys and I were talking in the truck--she hadn't worked out with the dog the woman already owned. So we had a wonderful little addition to our family.

On the way home, we were trying out names in the cab of the truck. I mentioned 'Penny' (I thought it would be cute--her color is right, and my last name...well). My younger son said, 'What about Maggie?' The dog instantly perked up and licked his face. I said, 'Is your name Maggie?' and she leapt over him to lick my face. Maggie it was. On Saturday, Maggie will have been with me one year.

The shelter said she was chocolate lab. I thought she might be a chocolate lab/whippet mix. Some others (including her vet) have suggested Viesla (sp?). Whatever she is, she is wonderful, friendly (sometimes too friendly), and very fast. We love her dearly. I told you all that to show you this:

On our morning commute, the car is pretty cold but warms up as we drive. The combination of the heater/defroster and the sunlight streaming in the windows makes the car pretty cozy. Maggie started to fall asleep sitting up:



Her eyelids are getting too heavy for her head. Then she starts nodding off:



before she finally crashes:



The dog is too cute.

Clip of the Week...

If you haven't read my last post, this week's clip won't make much sense. You have read it? Oh. Okay, then:

Twelve Steps...

Hi, my name is David, and I'm a Tetrisaholic. (pause. circle of sponsors responds, "Hi, David.") It has been moments since I used last. (Circle moans collectively, a mixture of sympathy and concern.)

I used to play Tetris back in the days when the game first came out. It was a time of darkness--standing alone in a seedy video arcade in Times Square, plugging quarters into a machine I didn't even know, a machine with cigarette burns near the buttons from countless other addicts who had come before me. I lived for the Russian dance entertainment at the intermissions, a time when one could stretch their carpal-tunnel-bound fingers to prepare for the next wave of colored blocks.

I used to be able to walk away at any time, but soon I found myself pouring all my spare time--and quarters--into the game. In nearly no time at all, I was popping greens, reds and purples like candy. I prayed to the machine, imploring it for the long, thin ice blues that meant multiple rows and bonus points. I begged it for the purples to fill the gaps. I cursed and bruised my own hands banging on the hard case of the machine when the orange came instead of the blue.



Finally, when the darkness became too much, I hit bottom and quit. I realized that I was powerless over Tetris, and that my life had become unmanageable. I made a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself, and turned my will and my life over to God, as I understood him, with the belief that he could restore me to sanity. I admitted my wrongs to another, made a list of all people I had harmed, and made direct amends to them wherever possible. With the help of God, as I understood him, I was clean for years.

Then someone--someone who I do not blame for my own addiction--sent me a link to the game via Facebook. There was a special holiday version of Tetris, and I told myself that I could just play a couple of times, for fun, for the holidays, and it would be okay. I could stop at any time. I quickly became mired in the depths of Tetris again, playing the Ultra version...the Marathon version...the Block Star and Sprint versions. I even went so far as to try a Beta version of a new mod of the game. I quest daily to surpass my friends' high scores. I can't seem to stop, no matter how hard I try.

Please, God, as I understand you, take my life over again and free me from this darkness. Help me to keep it green. Or red. Or purple. Or thin, icy blue...

Making the Edges Ragged, (Pt. 3 of 3)...

On the Saturday morning after Christmas, we drove to Anaheim (about an 8 hr drive, depending on how many stops you have to make to utilize the filthy road bathrooms). When we got to town, we had a bit of an adventure trying to find our hotel, but eventually we found it and checked in. After quickly throwing our stuff in the room, Denise treated us all to dinner at Medieval Times. (It was a surprise for the boys, and my first time). We got seated in the front row of the Green knight's section—Leon, as it turns out, is the enemy of the court. The food was not bad, the fighting was top notch, and it was super exciting to root for the bad guy for a change. I was really into it, and shouted more than was prudent, probably.

We went to the park the following day, right after they lowered the ropes to let people in. The weather was pretty chilly, around the high 40’s, so there weren’t a lot of people there. We covered half the park by 1:00 in the afternoon—no mean feat. But if you know how to work the system (yay Fast Pass!), you can cover a lot more ground. (We also pack our own food for all but one meal—saves us TONS of money. Let me know if you want more tips.) We saw all of Adventureland, Frontierland, and New Orleans Square. The Haunted Mansion is all decked out with the characters from “Nightmare Before Christmas”, so that was a lot of fun. We had lunch on some outdoor picnic tables at the edge of the Rivers of America, and then covered the majority of Fantasyland and some of Tomorrowland. As the sun set, the holiday decorations glittered with tons of Christmas lights—and Cinderella’s castle was ASTOUNDINGLY beautiful, with icicles and lights just dripping off it.

After debating whether or not to pop over to California Adventure for the resurrected Electric Light Parade or see the Holiday Fireworks show, we opted to stay. By the time we grabbed some seats on Main Street for the fireworks, I knew I was in trouble—the show, the Christmas holiday, the drive, the yelling at dinner, the park—combined with being surrounded by sick folks—were all taking their toll. I could feel the tickle in my throat growing worse, and the exhaustion I felt as I tried to get hot chocolate for everyone for the fireworks was quickly transitioning into fever hot flashes.

I gutted it out, though, and I’m so glad I did. We watched the fireworks and headed back to the room. The following day we let ourselves get a later start. Denise was now starting to come down with something, too, but she was being a trooper about it. We went to California Adventure and Denise and Thing 2 went to A Bug’s Land while Thing 1 and I went to the Tower of Terror. We met up and saw the most fantastic 3-D experience ever before going to a huge play space type area dedicated to the Brother Bear movie. We sat and ate our lunch before hitting California Soarin’ and making our way back to Disneyland.

Denise and I traded kids, and Thing 2 and I rode the Nemo ride while they hit Thunder Mountain (again) and the Matterhorn (again again). We met up and covered a few last rides before sitting down to dinner. We were dragging, all of us, and the two adults were getting sicker by the minute, but we didn’t want to leave. We grabbed some seats at the Rivers of America for the Fantasmic! show, and then drug our weary selves back to the hotel. On the way out, we were extremely glad we saw the fireworks the previous night, as the weather at high altitude was keeping them from happening. In true Disney fashion, however, they had a backup plan—a light show that involved all the holiday lights on Main Street (including the hundreds of them on the giant tree in the middle of town) all synched up to a holiday song.

The following day, we got up and hit the road, taking the long trip back to NorCal. We picked up the dog from Camp Bow Wow (wonderful place, I highly recommend it if you have a pup and need to board it somewhere). Then we stumbled home. A wonderful trip.

Making the Edges Ragged, (Pt. 2 of 3)…

I often get sick after the close of a show--something about the adrenaline finally slowing down enough, or the emotional drain of closing a show and saying goodbye to all those characters, or maybe just the sheer exhaustion of finalizing a run. But this time, I didn't have time to get sick. Christmas was coming! I did my shopping in and around the show time, and was able to knock out my last minute stuff successfully, and got everything ready for a wonderful Christmas. The boys were with me on Christmas Eve, and my girlfriend Denise and Thing 1 and I went up to my parents' house to help my father fold wonton. (It is a tradition in my family to have wonton soup on Christmas Eve--that old division of labor thing. Mom makes Christmas food, Dad makes it on the Eve.)

On Christmas morning we opened lots of presents, then the boys went to their mom's for the afternoon and opened even more. My parents came over in the morning for the giftwrap genocide, and Denise and I played mahjong with them all afternoon while the boys were away. The boys rejoined us in the evening, and we had a splendid Christmas dinner. Overall, the day was a wonderful success (I thought, anyhoo). There was one more gift I had for them, though.

When Thing 1 and Thing 2 were 6 and 3 years old, respectively, I took them to Disneyland for the first time. I didn’t want to go much earlier—no sense taking a kid to something like that they aren’t even going to remember when they’re that young (in Thing 2’s case). But I didn’t want to wait any longer, either—Thing 1 was at just the right age. We had such an incredible, magical time, that I mentioned (and planned, in my heart of hearts) to go every two years until the kids no longer wanted to hang out with us. We went again two years later, and were slated to go again in 2007, but divorce reared its ugly head, and I had emptied my retirement account just to fix my ex’s van, change careers, and move twice. I wanted more than anything to make it happen this year. I personally had never been during the holidays, and had heard it was a special time there (even more special than usual). I asked my mom if she would like to pitch in on passes in lieu of getting them a big-ticket item for their present, and she agreed. My girlfriend volunteered to cover one night of hotel expenses. The success of SantaLand sealed the deal.

Every year, Starbucks Coffee Company releases a wonderful giftcard holder a part of their holiday promotion. I had picked up two of them. On the day after Christmas, I handed my two sons a beautiful red felt card holder with a 2-day parkhopper pass to Disneyland inside. We left on the following day...

to be continued...

Clip of the Week...

Here's one to kick off the new year--the big bang at Big Ben:



Pretty.

Making the Edges Ragged, (Pt. 1 of 3)…

My show, The SantaLand Diaries, was more successful than we ever dreamed or hoped.

Back in October, I got an IM via Facebook from a friend I had worked with before--in fact, he was the director of this very same show when I did it three years ago. In that production, there were three of us (instead of the single actor as in the original play). He sent me a message that said, ‘I have a crazy idea. Have you checked your e-mail?’ I checked it. In his message, he was proposing that the two of us put the show up--he would direct, I would be the sole actor, and we would co-produce. I told him that I had had the same crazy idea just a couple weeks prior, and suddenly the game was afoot.

We ended up getting a cool space in downtown Santa Rosa through the Arts District. We also got sweet deals on lighting, sound, and help from another director I think the world of for our flats and blacks for the set. We got an amazing hand from an event coordinator here in town, who helped us design the house and set, and build it all, as well as house manage on performance nights.

On top of all that, we suddenly got an e-mail in November from someone in San Francisco who was producing the very same show. It seems this gentleman had produced the show in the city for six years (this was his seventh). It was a tradition, a mainstay, and they sell out every year. Since the venue they were having the show in this season had two stages, he had the crazy idea to get another production running at the same time. Would we be interested in just bringing our show down? He would provide the lights, sound, PR, everything. We negotiated a bit before backing out--the hassle of going down to the city to do a show when both my partner and I were single dads (me permanent, he temporary) in the middle of holiday when we wanted to spend time with our kids was just too much. Also, my partner pointed out that the way things were going, we could probably extend one weekend and make what we would have made in SFO in two weekends, and with much less hassle. We did extend, and we did very well.

As a consequence, however, I did not get to experience quite as much holiday wonder as I had hoped (one of my best friends in the world calls me “Captain Christmas” from November till New Year’s). But the extra weekend made it possible to take my boys to Disneyland, which was my dream for them since June. Unfortunately, it also meant that I was exhausted going in to Christmas...

to be continued...

Happy New Year...

Well, dear readers, another one for the books. As I approached year-end, I realized I had hardly even touched my little corner of the blogsphere in weeks (spheres have corners? wha?). I vowed, as many people vow to lose weight and stop drinking—“right after this last glass of New Year's Eve champagne”--to get back on the horse and write again. After all, I *need* to write, in a way that usually means if I *don't* write, I will end up eating or drinking too much. (See what I did there?)

And here we are, three days late.

I *do* have an excuse: I ran myself ragged, and fell very sick with a flu that is making its rounds here in Northern California. This one is a charmer, starting with a sore throat that just gets worse and worse. The nose starts dripping, the cough kicks in, then the fever and aches and everything. Thankfully, no vomitoriousness with this bug, but still. I spent three days on my back, which for me is saying something.

But, I am back, and will catch you up on the ragged-making events that preceded me breaking my Write-More-On-My-Blog resolution before I could even start it. Rather than post one enormous Tolstoy epic here, I will give it to you in installments. In the meantime, here is my belated New Year’s toast to you—it’s a traditional toast from Canisbay, a small village near John O’Groats in Scotland:

May the best yer've ever seen be the worst yer'll ever see,
May a moose ne'er leave yer girnal' wi' a tear drop in its e'e,
May yer lum keep blithely reekin' until the day yer dee,
And may yer a' be as happy as I'd like yer a' tae be.

(“May the best you've ever seen be the worst you'll ever see,
May a mouse never leave your grain store with a teardrop in its eye,
May your chimney keep happily smoking until the day you die,
And may you all be as happy as I'd like you all to be.”)

Happy New Year, Dearest Readers!