Salmon Fishing in Yemen

Had to finally call it a day. Up at 7:30 am. Stop work at midnight. No, not loving it, thanks for asking. So. Decided to take the advice of my astute wife, who has a rather strict list of rules when it comes to film (which as frustrating as it is at times to find a film we both can agree on is just one of the many things that I adore about her). It goes something like this: NO violence explosions killing vulgarity rude comedy horror zombies vampires rapists glamorizing of drugs or alcohol gratuitous sex or foul language etc etc, which basically leaves Victorian era British films, old Hollywood classics, French Iranian Japanese (minus lots of fighting ) or other foreign films, and the occasional actually good American film that wants to tell a good story rather than one-up the studio next store with how vile they can be.

By now I've relaxed into bed with a new movie she saw on the plane over to the Middle East and suggested i watch too called SALMON FISHING IN YEMEN. The thing is that as always it's a fantastic film so far (or why would I have paused it to share with you?) Great story, small little great stories in between, good writing and a fine cast. And see that's the thing with film today isn't it? Hollywood unfortunately sincerely believes it must fill its works with all of the above mentioned 'no nos' to create a big blockbuster. Shock, rather than brilliance is the rule of their industry at the moment. There's a reason why Woody Allen decided to leave New York and never make another picture here and instead seek his funding from European movie studios. Google it. He refused to cave in to this wretched rule of shock and schlock. And for him it's working marvelously.

But for the rest of us, nit so much. The theatres and On Demand and pay per view and cable are filled with murders vampires horror zombies sexual predators foul language dick jokes and vulgar comedies explosions ridiculously impossible and intelligence insulting stunts long boring car chases and a truckload full of other such nonsense, leaving almost nothing to watch if one prefers to avoid such things.

But every now and then a good one gets funding and gets through the system. And here we are. So far a damn fine film. I don't know how long this trend of garbage spewing out of Hollywood is going to last, but I dare hope it's not forever.


- Posted using BlogPress from an iPad. All errors typos mishaps and other such distractions are the sole responsibility and property of Apple Corporation

Occupy Your Home

      Day three without Princess Little Tree. She's gone to see her parents in Tehran (which under the current circumstances is another story entirely). But I am not worried for her safety. I was unable to accompany her on this trip. It came at the last minute, a feeling we both had after speaking with her father most recently, and in a breath's notice we decided it was best if she went there at once. Unfortunately it came at one of the busiest times of our current life. I couldn't imagine working harder to be honest. And thus the trip was out of the question for me. Though for her we felt it was quite necessary. And despite the nation of Israel's constant threats of violence and "attacks of prevention not retaliation", though they make our hearts sad and heavy, the situation does not frighten me for her safety. Princess Little Tree is an angel of some sort, born with a subtly glowing halo just above her head, both beautifying and protective. 

        And besides, it is in her blood, and I would dare say now through our heavenly bond mine as well. I will never forget something I was told once regarding this subject. Sitting in the hot office of the Minister of Defense in the city of Tehran several years ago, sucking on one sugar cube after another while sipping on the most authentic Persian tea I have ever had the pleasure of tasting, one of our colleagues asked the gentleman if he or the other Ministers in the Iranian government "feared the West", in light of what the United States and Great Britain were doing in Iraq and Afghanistan at the time (and still are, only they've now added Yemen and Pakistan to that list). His response portrayed the long running Persian strength of will as much as it did their even more admirable strength of wit. "As a people, we have been here, in this land, the same land and the same people, under the same name and speaking the same language longer than any other nation of people on earth. We are surrounded by no less than eleven foreign countries and our history is one of constant defending ourselves from foreign invaders and occupiers from all sides. So no my friend, no matter what you may hear on the news in your own country, I do not believe that our people are very concerned with what America says on any given day about us. We have a good life here and we intend to keep it as we always have." I will never forget his sly and quiet smile, almost a chuckle. The man he was responding to was no less than the editor of a big-time American news magazine. That quieted him up quite nicely. At least for that meeting.

        I already miss her so... Her smile. Her laugh. Her smell. Her presence. But we are busy. More than busy. We are overwhelmed with busy. And that is a very very good thing. When we are young and growing up, this is what we dream about. This kind of busy-ness and business. So no complaints from me. But I still miss PLT terribly. I feel slightly depressed when we are not together. My life has changed so much since we got together this last time and finally decided to make it official... I have structured my life in a way now where being without her for even a day is unacceptable to me. I never thought I was that kind of person to be honest. I guess we don't really know who we are completely until we meet the ONE and then we understand why others are that way as well. 

        Almost done with this newest city street art installation. Nothing big. Just a small token of an action to feel worthy of breathing. Talk about boring and tedious. So much just sitting there filling in each letter of each word with a marker... But necessary. It's one thing to make a little sign that says ""Occupy" something"". But I just couldn't and can't take it anymore. There's just too much negativity bombarding us from all sides. The presidential campaigns are absolutely nauseating in how low they are willing to go in their lust to "win". The problem is that regardless of who wins, they will destroy each other so much, and denigrate themselves to the core of their very nature, that being "president" will mean next to nothing. As it pretty much doesn't now. The way people speak about our current president. Times have changed. I have never seen a presidency so disrespected and dishonored as we have over the last three years. And the one before it wasn't much better. The worst part is that they are doing it to themselves. I don't know what is worse, Romney's attack ads against Obama, or Obama's attack ads against Romney. Either way, neither of the two men come out looking admirable honorable or respectable unfortunately. And the media plays right along with it, in fact making it all the more negative. It gives one a sick feeling inside. Not exactly inspiring at all.

        Any way we can take an action to tip the scales in the direction of positivity in our world is a good thing. But the problem with "Occupy" for example is that if it's nothing more than a little sign you're holding and posting to Facebook, then it's not really saying or doing much; because to many people that doesn't even mean anything. I feel like we need to give meaning to the word. More meaning one should say at least. And not to ourselves, those of us who know and understand what the movement is about, but to the world outside the small confines of the movement.

---

        And this is the same problem many of us have been having with the protest aspect of the movement lately too. Just like it's Tea Party counterpart, many of them can come off very negative. There's a lot of anger out there, justifiably so, and many of the participants who show up to these events are there just to express their anger. Nothing wrong with that. Except for the fact that most people do not respond well to anger, nor do they respect it, nor do they take people seriously when they are absorbed in anger; besides the fact that it just adds more negativity to an already negative pool of emotion. If our tool against all the negative things in the world that we want to change is anger, which is negative itself, then we are just adding more of that same negativity to the mix, maybe just shifting it from "greed" to "anger" for a few minutes in the attention of consciousness. But it's still perpetuating the negative. 

        Such were my thoughts last week when I came upon this idea. I decided that this idea I heard a friend of mine promote a few months back -- Occupy Your Home, or Occupy Yourself, or Your World, etc. -- could actually be tangibly facilitated, as opposed to just being a slogan... not just by taping a little handmade sign to your forehead that says that and snapping a picture, but in a real tangible and visible way. An "any way you can" kind of way, using your actual home. In our case we have 13 windows that face out onto a major highway/avenue in New York City. You get the idea. As I said, nothing fancy. Hence 13 posterboards that just happen to be perfectly cut to to the size to fill our windows. Anyone and everyone can do it. Imagine a world where instead of expressing our anger and dissatisfaction with the problems of the world, we instead promoted the ideals we desire most. Through any means available to us at the time. Even if it's as simple as hanging up a few posters...

        When contemplating what the message was, that was easy. We all know what the problems are, what we don't like, what we are trying to change so to speak... So why even bring those things up at all? STOP GREED just promotes greed. NO MORE WAR just promotes war. Well what's the opposite of greed? Fairness. Justice. Equality. And the opposite of war? Peace. Love. Joy Cooperation. And on and on. Messages of hope and elation. For we all know too well what the problems are. And there are enough of us now working on the solutions. Tomorrow they go up. Of course by covering every window in the apartment, these posters will almost entirely block out the sun and leave me walking around in the dark for weeks, but with this current heat wave, that could be a good thing. ;->  

More later. 

Love and Peace, Fishy

Bankrupting Capitalism

        Still taking in about 50 to 60 calls a day from customers of the Room Store. It's non-stop and extremely maddening, considering that we have nothing to DO with the freaking Room Store. Bastards. You should hear these poor people. Many of them are Hispanic or African American, or lower income Southern "white" people, many of them with thick accents and some who can barely speak English. Honestly. I've never heard anything like it before. But then again, I had never heard of The Room Store either. [I joked the other day to a colleague after getting off a call that lasted almost ten minutes where I had to speak Spanish the whole time, "The f*&king Room Store should pay me a HUGE bonus for doing all of this. (Now that's a statement overflowing with irony to say the least) To not only be taking their calls for them, but where else do you find a customer service rep who speaks five languages?!?!" Of course we aren't going to be remunerated from these corporate clock sucking crooks and we know it. At best we will find a way to get this ever growing list to the Better Business Bureau and hope they actually do something about it].
        The point of the racial reference is this: I've taken at least 200 calls myself over the last two weeks from these people. And I know nothing about The Room Store. But I know business. Having owned a multitude of them over the last 20 years, I know as much about target markets and demographics and micro-niche market casting as one needs to in order to make a few million a year from understanding and servicing your customer base. The Room Store's target market appears to have been either lower income people or people of color or immigrants... or maybe it is just the nature of that particular class... lower income people; as in what they say about the immigrant and minority classes in America... how they are in the majority of those at the very bottom of money earners in the United States. Perhaps they are easy to deceive and manipulate, I do not know, for I have never had a business like that. But that's exactly what we are hearing call after bloody call. Crazy deceptions and run around stories. Much like what the banks and the credit card companies do to these same people. And all it does is make us more mad as we continue to take these calls and listen to these people's sad stories.

Murder is Not Justice -- It's Murder

        The senseless movie theater shooting tragedy that occurred in Aurora, CO today killing 12 people and injuring 59 more is a shock to us all. These kind of events, public mass murders with no apparent intent behind them, are seeming to increase exponentially in the United States over the last ten years. There has been SIX already this year alone. The myriad reasons for this is a subject for another conversation, though one could safely assert this epidemic certainly seems to be symptomatic of our collected state of mind in modern times.
         Facebook and Twitter are abuzz with sentiments of mourning, anger, loss, sympathy, and unfortunately vengeance -- some want the alleged killer to be shot dead on site. No questioning, no testimony, no learning why or how he did what he did, no habeus corpus and no trial. In other words, they want us to break the laws that govern us in handling this man because he broke the laws that govern us.
Others are already jumping to call for capital punishment against the man, without knowing anything about him or his mental state or the full details of what actually happened behind the scenes. That's as primitive and barbaric as the alleged shooter himself. It still always surprises me when I hear people who appear relatively intelligent and sane speak of it. Killing people who kill to teach that we shouldn't kill. No different than how this mind-bogglingly disturbed psycho in Aurora, CO acted.
        Murder is murder. We are either against murder or not. We can't have it both ways. We've all heard it said that two wrongs don't make a right. Which is why we cannot righteously defend an evolved stance against murder in a humane society while continuing to perpetuate the practice of it "under certain circumstances" (such as for vengeance or anger (terrorist groups like Hezbollah or Hamas), punishment (as in capital punishment), fear of being attacked (ala Israel or the United States), resistance to Democracy (ala Syria's dictatorship), war profiteering or colonialism (name your country...)).
If we believe that all life is sacred and want to teach that to our children and firmly integrate that ideal into the fabric of our society then we need to walk the talk of it with no exceptions. Once and for all we need to learn that we must stop sending mixed messages out into mass consciousness and human society with this "do as I say but not as I do" mentality.

Doing the Right Thing

        Well wouldn't you know it, if we didn't have enough on our plates already, a company called The Room Store has filed for bankruptcy and on their only 800 number left in the world they have mistakenly -- (or not) -- given out OUR record company's 800 number as their "claims department". It started about a week ago. We started receiving an inordinately high volume of calls compared to normal, and more odd was the fact that they all seemed to be coming in from "middle American" towns and States like North Carolina or Texas, places we never receive calls from. Being in the entertainment industry, I'd say a good 99% of the calls we receive come in from either New York or LA. [Hold on. I've got to take another call from one of them....] One can tell from the area code if it's a real business call or not. A lot of times if it isn't a NY or CA area code it's a wrong number; or it's some poor young artist who thinks they can just call up a record label and get a record contract. (I remember being like that once... So I don't blame them. But it just doesn't work that way. Damned if you can get an undiscovered young artist to realize that though...)
        Talk about annoying. At first I and the rest of us here at DVG just kept "ignoring" all the calls and sending them right through to voicemail. After a few days, we were going so out of our minds with it that we started answering the calls and telling the people that we were the Room Store and that we were going to award them a $500 gift certificate for their troubles. [Hold on. I'm taking another call now...] We only did it a few times and were just having a little fun. Hey, remember now, we're in the business of rock and roll and compared to most of the things we do, this is pretty mild. But we hadn't yet discovered what was really going on. After speaking to one too many of the Room Store's frustrated customer's we discovered that the company has in fact gone out of business and filed bankruptcy.

Motion Sickness

Dear Kristen,
      Sorry to hear about your little one's motion sickness. I have NO idea how on earth you heard that I have it -- talk about the end of privacy in the modern age! -- but you're right. I do. And no, I don't mind taking a few minutes to share how we handle it. You are right, I am someone who travels a lot. And that makes it all the worse. But there are ways to treat it. Like your two year old son, I have suffered from motion sickness since i was a baby. At first my parents thought that i had contracted some sort of flu, until a doctor recognized that it was probably just motion sickness. Decades later I am still "dealing" with it.
      Hyland's Motion Sickness tablets as you mentioned are slightly helpful. But being a homeopathic product, and therefore very "subtle" on the bio-system -- they are probably just not strong enough for your little one compared to how severe his motion sickness is. I use that product regularly -- whenever traveling (even in cars, but also planes trains and subways (forget about boats -- I cannot get near them) and it does seem to make a difference.
      It may be in my head, haha!, but it seems to help. BUT... i must add that it is in addition to taking half a tablet of non-drowsy formula Dramamine (the ingredient is called meclizine hcl, 50 mgs and you can get the generic version of it much less expensively than the name brand Dramamine). I buy them from Amazon.com in bottles of 100, usually three bottles at a time. I basically live on the stuff in order to not feel dizzy. Sucks. But it's just the way it has been for me since I can remember.

Think Less Do More

Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. Think less. Do more. 

Which Self Improvement Course Do You Recommend?

     One of the many aspects of this profession is answering a constant onslaught of questions that come in from other people. It is an endless chain of a nearly infinite collection of topics and subjects that comes in 24 hours a day from all over the world. They come in the mail. They come through email (no matter how often I change email addresses). And they come through social media such as Facebook and Twitter, or in Comments on various websites we run such as this one. Most I do not have the time to answer. Most are ridiculous to be honest. But some are intensely heart felt and thought provoking. For the most part I try to answer a few per day. Especially if they are substantive or from someone that I know. Bare in mind that I "know" many people, as my ever tolerant wife continues to remind me.Lately I have been entertaining the idea of answering the questions that come in (if appropriate) publicly. It might help minimize the flow, and in the bigger picture I hope it serves to help more.

     The other day, a few weeks ago actually (I have a thing with "time"), I received an email from Toad. He had taken a self-improvement course a few weeks back and found it to be tremendously helpful. He felt lighter and more energetic than he had in years. But he wanted to go further. His girlfriend, who is getting her Ph.D in Psychology, had fears about him venturing any further into this direction for she was afraid that he might be getting involved in some sort of "cult". 

     I have always found this term an odd one, especially in America, because Americans are so devoutly religious and all religions are at best just very wealthy cults. If one is to believe the basic parameters that have been created to describe what a cult is and isn't. The major religions of the world have been around long enough and raised enough money to buy their way into a certain legitimacy with mainstream society. So much so that they sail past "cult status" and are taken more seriously. As if there is something to them other than the "loyal and deliberate adherence to non-tolerance of other equally popular religions" that modern day cults are defined as having. Many of them have even built schools with which to further indoctrinate their loyal subjects in an attempt to seem more legitimate and more substantially founded in reality, and hence not so cult-like. 

     The problem is that the foundational beliefs of almost every major religion in the world that humankind has invented thus far -- except perhaps Buddhism (which unbeknownst to many is not a religion but rather a philosophy, for it has no grand deity) -- are absolutely and insanely unsubstantiated and bonkers. An all seeing higher power that is at once both all knowing and all controlling (which throws the idea of "Free Will" out the window). Except when He or She is not and bad things rather than preferred things happen to that religion's adherents. Then he's either NOT responsible (the Devil did it), or he did it for reasons as of yet unseen (destiny, fate, good will come of it later, God works in mysterious ways, etc.) Flying invisible angels. Demons and bad spirits. One's dead family watching over you (while at the same time being in a heaven hell purgatory or a new reincarnated body. Virgins waiting for you up in heaven if you do a good job killing people here on earth. Karma, reincarnation, the transmigration of the soul through an infinite cycle of lives in order to obtain Nirvana. One could go on and on... Say or do what you will, religion, when viewed objectively, is quite possibly the biggest scam humankind has ever perpetrated on itself. At least in the manner they are currently being practiced by the world's "major accepted religions".

     Perhaps now would be a good time though to remind readers once again that I personally am still religious and a dues paying member of a church and the religion that goes along with it. (Similar to Charles Darwin, another surprisingly loyal congregate). Most long time readers, friends and fans already know this about me. This is not the main topic of this entry though, so suffice it to say that this fact, as puzzling as it is even to myself, is not something I had much of a choice of in my humble opinion. If i had my way, I'd still be a card carrying hardcore intellectual, existentialist, humanist or agnostic. For in reality, there has never been anything more evil, duplicitous, deceptive, malevolent, manipulative, and destructive on earth than humankind's barbaric religions. And I for one have never wanted to have anything to do with them. 

True Love

Hit me like a ton of bricks on the head. All at once. Just bam in the moment. Watching one of those Ed Burns New York period films. NEWLYWEDS I think. Anyway at one point there's this woman on the screen, a closeup, just her face. She's an older woman who's been married for 18 years who has a son who's about to go to college and getting divorced.
I'm kicking back watching this movie and staring at this woman's face, who's perfectly normal looking, in fact she's the epitome of plain, nothing wrong with her. But she's old. Probably mid to late forties. But not bad looking. And she's talking about now that she's divorced she's going to go out with all these men. So as a man myself I'm staring at her and thinking "there's not a chance I would ever go out with that chick. Look how old she is."
And then it hits me. I'm married. And to a woman who's older. With kids even. The Associated Press interviewed us last year for an article about "cougars and cubs" for Gods sake. And yet I totally love my wife. I mean I am madly in love with her. Always have been. Since the moment we met. Kids and all. And I had a strict "no kids policy" the entire time I was a single man. Never even entertained the idea. Not once. Not one girl in 20 years as a single man.
And yet here I am. Married for almost three years. Kids and all. Wanting to have more kids even. And happier than I've ever been in my life. And that's the thing. The age thing. That may matter when you're watching a movie and you're in your head and thinking about whether or not you'd be attracted to some strange girl you see on the screen. Same with looks and size and facial or body features or maybe even where the persons from or what they do for a living.
But in real life it doesn't work like that. And that's a good thing. A real good thing. In real life none of that matters. When you meet the one you just know. And it doesn't matter where they're from or how old they are. You turn around and look at your special someone and you get that feeling inside. Your heart melts just a little bit more. As it always does. And you know.

Dyslexia: Observations

As discussed numerous times in the past, I've had dyslexia since I was born (so we've been told). They say it stems from or at least often accompanies ADHD; both of which I was diagnosed with at an early age. ADHD has been the greater challenge to be sure when comparing the two. Especially since the ADD portion of it had not yet even been discovered (or invented as some argue) and definitely not yet understood or labeled back then. I, along with millions of others, was instead just labeled as being "particularly special" or a problem or a trouble maker or learning challenged, and usually placed in a variety of different "Special Ed." type programs. (To make matters more confusing for us all, especially pour moi and my young mind, I was also ironically made to begin school a year early, skip the first grade entirely (both of which made me ridiculously smaller, more immature and less hairy than my peers -- but that's a different story, albeit a funny one), and placed in what they then called the "Gifted" programs due to higher than normal test scores. Yes, indubitably my first 16 years of life were a mind boggling roller coaster of fuck all confusion and chaos.)
To be fair to others, in order to better understand the context of anything i might say here, it should be noted that although it was recommended repeatedly to my parents throughout my school years, they chose to never put me on medication for these "challenges", always insisting that with just a little more effort I could do just as well as the next kid. I just "needed more discipline". This isn't really the area I intended to focus on here, so let's leave the pros and cons of that argument to the side for the time being and perhaps come back to it at a later date.
Ok fine, now that I've got us thinking about it, yes I do believe that that was a terrible mistake, though I'm sure an innocent one out of pure ignorance on my parents' part, and indeed I most likely would have fared much better during those years had they at least tried a few medications as suggested. I will never forget that moment, on the floor of my mother's office, seeing my transcripts for college at the age of 16 for the very first time -- 11 years of school and never a grade higher than a D or F on every report card. I was more than shocked. Which illuminates the problem of the condition of ADHD itself perhaps better than anything else one might come up with: my mother God bless her couldn't understand my shock, casually remarking "Well Fishy you know you've never done well in school. You're very lucky your father and I were able to get this college to accept you." To which I replied "Well... I knew I wasn't an A student... But I had no idea I spent the last 16 years producing over 40 report cards filled with D's and F's my entire life. My God! Why didn't you all DO something mom?!?" "Honey we tried! Do you have any idea how many visits to the principles office I have made on your behalf since you started school?!? I practically lived there!"
And she was right. She had practically lived in the principles office since I could remember. The telling point is that up until that moment, for whatever reason... There must have been something different about that moment... I was never "aware" that I was a "bad" student or made bad grades. Even though all the adults around me knew it, assumed it to be true and tried everything they could to help me. That in a nutshell is what having ADHD is all about. You're here. And yet you're not here. You appear to be here to everyone else. But you're just not really here. So people assume you know things that you just don't know. In fact you don't even know there are things that you're supposed to know but don't. It's that bad. At least it was for me.
So as not to cause inadvertent influence in a direction unintended, I will state for the record that since those early years I have tried every medication known to humankind for these challenges and have found none of them to be a benefit enough to surpass the detrimental side effects of them. An important side note I believe.

The Science of the Avatar

Just caught this DVD -- surpringly filmed in front of a small audience way back in 2004 -- presentation of a lecture by William A. Tiller, the physicist, wherein he presents proof through clinical studies and formulas that human beings through intention can significantly affect physical reality. Another grand leap for science into territory that has normally been reserved for spiritual, new age, occult or paranormal paradigms and often dismissed by the scientific community.
Of course Dr. tiller's discoveries are not new to the world of science. Those who have been following this exciting vectoring and merging of the two assumed disparate fields remember well the infamous book The Tao of Physics, to name but one. But Dr. Tiller's work here only adds to what many outside of hard science have known for millennia, that there is much more to our human potential than just doing our best to navigate the events that "happen to us"... But rather it is us who are actually creating those events. They may "happen", indeed; but not without our direct or indirect intention in one way or another.
Harry Palmer, the discoverer, inventor and author of the Avatar series of knowledge and techniques -- books, DVD lectures, and most importantly courses -- has been the chief proponent of these theories over the last thirty years, long before the concept took hold and became hip as a pop culture phenom. [Palmer wasn't the first to propose the idea that beliefs precede experience or that human beings create their own reality.