Call me a whiner, but I am so worried about the importance of this campaign that I feel like giving up already. I'm constantly anxious and following every step of the way now. I can't believe that anyone would embrace McCain or Palin after the abysmal last 8 years. Right wingers seem to be turning a blind eye to the controversy and hypocrisy that overshadows the Palin selection.
If someone can tell me when the last time a Republican President, regardless of stance, had anything to do with protecting the beliefs of the Christian right? When did one sign legislation protecting the right to bear arms? Taken steps to make abortion illegal? Better yet, tell me if the most important thing to worry about right now is our failing economy, the lack of healthcare for millions, and the people in our own country or is it whether or not abortion is made a crime. Seriously!
Wake up everyone! It's all a distraction! Left or Right, politicians want you to be distracted by divisive issues so you aren't concerned about the purpose of government... To serve, protect, and represent the people Not corporations, not the military industrial machine... THE PEOPLE. Trust me... the rich that the right protects is not anyone we know. It's that top 5% whose wealth is impacted the most. As more jobs are shipped overseas and more people fall into poverty we come closer to a society based on servitude, much like a feudal society. Our richest people have become Kings and Queens and every else is here to support their wealth.
Is that the society we want? Or do we want lower crime by bringing opportunity to the lower class neighborhoods. Do we want to make drug abuse an affliction instead of a crime? Do you know that though violent crime is at an all time low in our country we have the largest prison population in our history? Over 7 million people in our country are in some form of the correctional system. And who pays for the prisons? Taxes... And who profits? Private enterprise and their stockholders. And the way profits increase is by having more jails. The only way to have more people in jail is to make more illegal...
On a rant... Now you can see why I am having a panic attack about this election. I you disagree challenge this. We can discuss, debate... But we at least need rational thought instead of unrealistic principles.
It's funny how this little jingle stuck with my generation so much. I remember sitting in the lunch room with Ryan Lieske, Randall Dunn. Marc Audy, and the rest of the "Death Boys" crew before the "Death Boys" had ever been officially formed when Marc said that we had to make a pact that we would refuse to grow up. That we would always remember this day and refuse to grow up. Now it is 20 years later and that memory struck me while watching the documentary "Joy Division", about the most influential band of my life by the same name. First the thought of Ian Curtis' tragic death at such a young age and then the thought of the fact that I am approaching 35 and have almost reached the potential mid-point of my life.
Would the 14 year old Jamie be proud of the man I became? So many winding roads and intersections have occurred in my journey through this thing we call life (electric word life it means forever). I'm proud of many of my recent decisions and would say I'm ashamed of some of my past, but they have shaped me in so many ways. My dreams haven't changed a bit and I'm far along the pathway to many of those dreams, but the hiccups along the way still haunt me making me wonder sometimes if the pain in the past is worth the joy in my present... and possibly in my future. I've wiped away much of that past and rarely allow it to rear it's head but occasionally it still haunts my everyday, especially when revisiting the past life I left behind at the start of the new millennium, when as Marc pointed out in another of his unintentional pivotal statements that he wanted me to be like Will Hunting in "Good WIll Hunting" and one day just disappear from everyones life to fulfill the destiny I could never reach staying with all of those who mattered most, and journey into the Unknown Pleasures and pain that could come with a new beginning ( a memory that brings me back to my love for Joy Division).
I remember who I was and I think inside I will always be that 14 year old boy... New in a school far away from a comfort zone that I had been in for my whole life... Embraced by a group of friends I still love to this day... Though often knowing that I am an occasional memory in their lives, they are a constant reminder to me of the foundation of who I am know.... The day I met Lieske he warned me not to hang with the new friends I had made on my first day of in my new school so far because they were not the "cool crowd". I asked if they were the "cool crowd" instead... He told me yes and my life became what it is now.
After we made the pact with Marc to never grow up we put together our infamous (to our own mythology) lip sync to "Nightmare on My Street" and solidified ourselves as being different enough to be different even though we were singing a song by the number one pop album of the time. Ironic that it took pop culture to come out of our shells and become the ones recognized by being different.
Full circle realized... What started with a new beginning by moving from the only school I had known from birth to 13 I moved to the place where I founded many of the deepest friendships that I still hold truest today. 12 years later I moved to Los Angeles away from the only people that mattered to me to start a new life with absolutely no support system around me. Again I feel like I had my trials, but have come out strong and reflective.
Ramblings, maybe... Maybe they are just pre-firing synapses preparing for it all to flash by my eyes when the time comes. But it's funny how it all comes together. Years later... the pivotal moments still play a key part in my foundation and I have the hopeful joy that I can watch these moments occur in my own children's lives and pray I have the patience to be understanding.
George Carlin passed away today. In honor of him, please take a moment to remember how fucking funny the shit he said was. If you don't like him you cocksucker motherfuckers can take a piss you cunt. There... Seven words you can't say on tv. Recognize...
I recently became the President of the company I work for and took on a 25% interest in the companies umbrella corporation. I'm not a rich man by any means, but the freedom and fear that comes with basically "owning" part of your own independent distribution company is amazing. I've put so much work into the past year and it's starting to bear fruit. The company has four divisions - Finance (fund raising for movies), Production (of movies also), Distribution (my division) and New Media (a new environmental website called weearth.com). Though I for the most part chose to not be involved in the other divisions, I am excited about their progress and actually have absolute trust in my partners with regard to their divisions. Our CEO is for the most part doesn't get involved in my division either and has allowed me to grow this into something that is huge. I've acquired 31 movies in the past year, a lot for an independent. This summer we are hopefully going to not only grow our international distribution division, but I am starting a US DVD label instead of releasing through other companies, increasing company revenue literally for 5 times what we currently receive when we release in the US.
Bri is now 39 weeks pregnant. That means literally she shouldn't go more than a week at most, since women deliver typically between 36 and 40 weeks. The scary thing is that I need to go to Cannes on May 11th and I at least want to spend a week with my new son Liam, amazing wife Bri, and my wonderful boy Jude. If she goes to 40 weeks that is literally all I will get. God I hope she goes into labor soon (sorry honey!). We both know that I can't miss Cannes because from a business standpoint it's the most important market of the year, where we should generate 50% of our annual income from.
I miss all of my friends back east dearly, but I am completely comfortable with the fact that I am a Californian for the rest of my life. I hope all of my friendships remain solid, and I'm sure they will because we've all been close in spite of the distance. Honestly I am grateful that I had an opportunity to have such amazing lifelong friends.
Do I sound like life is all roses? I feel like it finally is and I deserve it. I'm not quite in the clear yet... past debts creep up on me daily and some things from my past life still rear their head... but I've carved a good foundation out here that I truly believe I can build on. And life is at least getting progressively better. I am looking forward to a brighter future!
I don’t know why but I remembered this TV movie from back in 80’s tonight and decided that I’m going to find a copy and watch it again. What I remember was that it scared the shit out of me at a very young age.
It was about a retard who gets wrongly accused of killing a girl and gets lynched for it. Turns out the girl isn’t dead, but ole Bubba comes back as a scarecrow to get his revenge.
Does anyone else remember this movie? I’m going to Eddie Brandt’s Tuesday to see if they have it.
There is an elephant in the room...
Current mood: content
So can we at least acknowledge it?
Obama’s campaign is making a career out of pointing fingers the second someone makes a statement event remotely referring to race and sex having anything to do with the Democratic primaries. Everytime I read their smear campaigns against anyone in Hilary’s camp I like the Obama less. I’m sorry to any friends that support him but let’s be serious... RACE AND SEX ARE A FACTOR IN THIS ELECTION. It’s not a negative thing saying it because in case nobody else has noticed AN AFRICAN AMERICAN IS RUNNING AGAINST A WOMAN TO BECOME THE DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE! Obviously Obama is getting a majority of the black vote and race is a serious motivator for them. Why wouldn’t the African American population mobilize when such a strong candidate is running. Obviously it’s not only because he’s black, but the fact that he is does motive voters.
Contrary to popular opinion, HILARY CLINTON IS A WOMAN. No seriously! She has even had a baby to prove it. I’m sure that is a motivator for some voters. Not only that, but she is a former President’s wife. I’m sure that affects things.
I wasn’t a HIlary supporter in the beginning, but I don’t see CHANGE I CAN BELIEVE IN, but instead more of the same political maneuvers I’ve seen since the beginning of time. His inexperience wasn’t that big of an issue for me, but when he started criticizing Hilary for decisions she made while he was dealing with local politics I got angry. We all know that there was misleading intel given to everyone in Congress.
My friends in Michigan, should you get another chance to cast a vote in June, you need to keep in mind that we are not only electing the candidate that will inspire us and heal our relationships with other countries in the world, but we are also looking for a President that will lead us through the countless problems the Bush administration created. We are also nominating the candidate that will be fighting against John McCain, and if we sleep we can bet that we will wind up with 4 more years of the whole world hating us. This is a close race for a reason, but we have to think about more than idealism and start thinking realistically. We are a country at war... Not just in Iraq (which we need to work on leaving) but in Afghanistan...
Okay... Enough rambling. I’m happy that so many people in this country are getting involved, whether Obama or Clinton represent the Democrats. But please make sure you are voting based on policy and position, not just hype
I've been very out touch with a lot of my friends lately and I apologize for not being more communicative, but when life happens time is short. The following are little updates on various important changes in my life that have been going on over the past couple of months. If I listed them by importance I would just come out with the big one, but I'm saving that for last. Anyways, in no particular order…..
I have a new cell phone number. Please delete 818-441-4254 because I am canceling that service as soon as possible. I couldn't keep the number because I had to get a new phone quickly that worked in Europe so I had to start one new service while letting the other lapse. My new number is 818-281-1994. I am slowly moving numbers over, so be patient if I don't call you and try calling me sometime to say hi…
My son Jude started Kindergarten in September. Now while that doesn't sound that big to the childless, let me explain how profound of a change this has made to my life. When before I woke up at 8:30 to get ready for work and start at 9:30, now I wake up at 6:45 to make breakfast and help get my son's day started right. It's amazing how much something like this can change so many other things. We sit down for breakfast in the morning, he gets ready, then I drop him off at school. I'm in LA remember, so there are no school buses. It's all parents dropping the kids off… My wife picks him up when he gets out at 2:19 and when I get home from work at about 6:30 we have dinner, my wife helps him with his homework, and then we spend some time together before an 8:30ish bedtime. It's so great to have him interacting with other kids again and to have a rigid schedule in his life again.
Work has been insane over the past few months. Our film EYE OF THE DOLPHIN had a national theatrical on 125 screens initially and we have been moving around the prints now where it has been in over 80 cities with over 150 theaters. That took up a lot of all of time, but while doing that I was also preparing for the Film Market season that started with MIPCOM in CannesFrance from October 8-12. AFM, which is the biggest film market in the US, starts October 31st and runs through the 7th of November. To explain what a film market is in case you don't know, it's a convention of distributors from every country in the world where they meet with companies ranging in size from really small ones up to companies like Focus Features and the Weinstein Company. We show these distributors movies that we are distributing and we try to sell the rights to distribute these films to each country. We are a medium sized company, but I am really trying to build us up to the level of the big boys. My job is to find movies that aren't being distributed and once I negotiate the rights I try to sell them to these other countries. I am the VP of the company, so I am completely in charge of all distribution and acquisition. My efforts to really grow our distribution division have kept me quite busy.
Last but definitely most important… My wife and I are expecting our second child. Bri is officially 13 weeks pregnant on Monday and our current due date is sometime in late April. We are expecting to find out a more concrete conception and due date in a month or so. We are really hoping for a girl this time, but my son really wants a brother. Either way it's a blessing. She still has the occasional sickness, so your encouraging words to her are appreciated.
So that's my life in a nutshell. Again, I'm sorry if I've neglected any of you lately… It's not intentional, I'm just adjusting to a drastically different life.
This morning I woke up at 5:30am (I've suffered from insomnia since I got to Berlin last week) and walked around before I had to go to work. I ended up walking into Checkpoint Charlie at around 6am, where I sat down with a cup of coffee and watched the sun come up.
Mind you it's cold here and snowing, but much like my experience last year at the Berlin Wall Memorial, I was so overwhelmed with the history of "Checkpoint Charlie" that I didn't realize how cold it was. The whole experiece, and the fact that the only English speaking channel I get is CNBC news, has made me really think about America's contributions to the world.
According to the monument, the country of Germany and the people of the city of Berlin owe an extreme debt of gratitude to the USA for our contributions to peace in the world and for staying the hand of communism from overrunning the great city of Berlin completely.
It's kind of sad that there was a time when the world valued America's interventions and now we are so hated for them. I'm not saying I agree with Iraq or anything, because I've never been a supporter of Bush's actions there. I'm just saying that diplomacy used to be our countries forte, and we grew to be respected for that. In France near Normandy there are monuments to America's soldiers for their sacrifices made for the liberation of France, yet because of our politics today I walk around fearing that I will be spit on when I walk down their streets.
The solution is not isolation... If we isolated ourselves now and completely pulled out of Iraq and Afganistan we would leave a vacuum that would suck all of the hate in that region into those two countries and we will be worse off in the future. The solution is diplomacy. We need to be humble and ask other countries to help with a solution. New leadership in this country will play a huge part in this, but since impeachment is a long shot I think we have to just wait it out and hope for the New Face of 2008 to lead us back into our glory years.
I guess that overall my message here is just that travelling around for my job has given me an appreciation for our countries history that it's hard to find back home. I am proud to be American, and the long debates and dialogues I've had with people from Russia, France, Germany, etc... over beers at a pub have been some of the greatest conversations I've ever had because of the understanding that comes from them. I've had people say to me more than once that they they always associate Americans with George Bush and think we all agree with him, and that it's refreshing to see that many of us don't.
Wow... I've come up with the solution to the world's problems... Serve Beer at the UN meetings... Serve a lot of wine at the Diplomatic summits... As long as there is no hard liquor, by the end of the night Kim Jong-il will have his arm around Condie Rice singing kumbaya before we know it...
Sorry for the rant, but I don't exactly have a lot of people to talk to out here at 9am... Hope all of you are doing well. Auf wiedersehen...
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