Rotten Tomatoes and a Living Nativity

Interesting to note that "Avatar" is almost exactly the same on "Rotten Tomatoes" as "Titanic." 82% Titanic, 83% Avatar. I'd guess it won't make the same money...too high a "geek" factor. Plus, of course, it doesn't contain that trope I suspect is secretly quite close to the heart of adolescent girls the world over: their sex is worth dying for. So romantic. Yuck. But Avatar actually steps through the mirror, takes us completely from "100% real" to "100% synthetic" with no clear dividing lines to baby-step our consciousness. NEVER seen that before.

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Some people are so petty. There is plenty to be critical of in Cameron's work. But one thing that peeves me is people criticizing him for his "King of the World" speech at the Oscars, twelve years ago (!) They act like: "see! He thinks he is literally the greatest human being who ever lived."

And I've seen comments similar to this all over the web, and in several magazines. What the #$@!!? Did any of them see the movie? That's what Jack, the doomed hero of "Titanic" yells when he is on the prow. That's the way it FEELS. Hell, it feels like you are "King of the World" when you fall in love (something they got right in "500 Days of Summer" by the way). If you won more Oscars than almost anyone in history, at the same time you had the all-time box-office champ, wouldn't you feel that way? Small minds. Small minds.

It might be best if Cameron worked with a collaborator. On the other hand, could he motivate himself to spend the extraordinary amount of energy and time on his projects, if they didn't flow from his own core? Good question, and one I don't have the answer to.

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Steve Perry brought up the valid point that many of the voice actors in Avatar are of color. Doesn't that count? Well, yes and no. In terms of actors getting paid and therefore supporting their families and communities, as well as furthering their careers...yes. But this ties right into the theory I developed back when "Glory" and "Driving Miss Daisy" were both in theaters at the same time. Both featured black casts or prominent black actors. And the posters for both obscured the racial characteristics notably. They used deep color in the backgrounds to fool the eye: you just couldn't tell what race the characters were unless you already knew. And for the first time, a little light went on in my head, and I saw how Hollywood was working it's way around the race issue. "Glory" and "Daisy" also featured another treasured trope: complete removal from the gene pool of all non-whites. Total death in "Glory" and aged black man with no apparent outside connections, in "Daisy."

But I digress. In movies like "Star Wars" and "Logan's Run" I started noticing that black faces were excluded more often than black voices. Again, the color shock thing (I posited). So when Disney features black voices in movies like "Lion King" while still not showing any actual black people (a FAR more egregious issue in "Tarzan") my suspicion that the visual image of black skin caused whites discomfort went through the roof. We needn't go to the obvious fact that, throughout American history, light-skinned blacks had social advantages over dark-skinned blacks. Huge ones. Again, if there is an aversion to the "other" in this particular sense, it would explain a lot. What else would we expect? Well, light-skinned Hispanics would be more acceptable than dark-skinned, for instance (and if you watch much Latino television, you would never know that there were black or dark-skinned Mexicans, would you?)

And directors like Cameron, who I suspect, has some subconscious attitudes he has yet to process (note the death rate: Terminator, one black man. Dead. Aliens: two black men. Die in first engagement. Terminator II: one black man. Dead. Do a quick scan of white characters in these same movies, and you have something like a 40% death rate for whites, a 100% death rate for blacks. Either that, or we're not in his films at all.) Clearly, I don't believe this to be a statistical blip at all. It is an expression of unconscious racial preferences, and is no different from human choices made in every other arena of life (and don't dare talk about Obama. He is clearly an outlier. If you want to see how this plays out in American political life, look at the Senate.)

What does this mean? Hell, Cameron is one of my very very favorite EVER filmmakers, and I just have to roll with it. I challenge a single woman out there to say she loves a filmmaker who has killed every woman who appears in his films. I have a hundred dollars that says no one will take the bet. If my favorite director of all time might well be Stanley Kubric--and HE was as huge a disappointment in this regard: either exclusion, inclusion only for the sake of a racial dig (a'la James Earl Jones in "Dr. Strangelove"--only there because the script demanded it in service to a joke), or the sexual nastiness of "Full Metal Jacket" (remember Dorian Harewood turned away by the prostitute because, supposedly, his "soul brother" genitals were too large? And his white buddy who got the girl instead? And remember Harewood sacrifices his life to save the white guy who got the girl? I'll start ignoring that when you can name a single movie where the only WHITE character dies protecting a black man. Come on. A single movie. No? I thought not.)

This is just the lay of the land. I've learned to deal with the fact of a low-level aversion, a mild subconscious violence that can only be alleviated by conscious awareness (which drives me crazy when Conservatives decry awareness of racial issues. They mean well, but if you don' watch this crap, the natural wiring will slant the field in the favor of the majority, every time. )

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Dan Moran brought up a serious issue: what do you do in a film if you KNOW that a given performer cannot do a given thing? In "realistic" films this might be an issue more than in "fantasy" films where, for instance, we know that Christopher Reeves cannot fly. The "buy in" when we walk through the door is a willingness to believe. I remember some yahoo complaining about Star Wars, that there is no way that a human being could out-think a tactical computer during the Death Star run. Putz.

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But what do we make of Antonio Tarver fighting Sylvester Stallone in ROCKY BALBOA? Well, if you're like Dan, and have actually boxed, then it takes you out of the Zone, and into the "that's not real" category where you have to sit and say: "it's only a movie...it's only a movie..." when what you want is to surrender to the illusion. This is made worse by the fact that...well, Tarver wasn't exactly an actor. He could really only play himself, which he did pretty well. Personally, I think that Stallone chose a real boxer because he wanted to push himself completely out of the comfort zone. The knowledge that he was stepping into that ring against a light-heavyweight champion, when they have agreed to actually punch each other (which they pretty obviously did) had to be the kind of knowledge that gets you up early and keeps you up late. Stallone trained for six months for that movie: Tarver probably just rolled out of bed.

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Interesting that BALBOA came up, because it's in my DVD player right now. I was watching it last night, without any idea that it had emerged as a topic on the blog. And my sense is that it is a minor miracle. Stallone reached WAY down to find something he hadn't touched in a very long time: the essence of the original film. Watching the delicate dance between Rocky and Little Marie was heartbreaking. The combination of raw animal strength and utter emotional vulnerability in Rocky...well, that is fine movie-making. Even Paulie, finally, after all these years, telling Rocko that he loved him...brings a tear to my eye. Stallone was a pretty decent actor who discovered he could make a lot more money being a star. And didn't turn down the big paydays, even when they led him right down the toilet. I think he is quite conscious of the mistakes he made, and is grateful for a second chance. Both "Rambo" and "Rocky Balboa" were films true to their actual core. The fact that he will make no more "Rockys" (thank God!) and that he changed his mind about pitting Rambo against a super-soldier (thank God!) suggests that he may be through selling himself out. At least for now.

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"The natural tendency of the low performer is to do what is fun and easy before he or she does what is hard and necessary. " I came across this quote, and loved it. To "fun and easy" we could also add "imperative as opposed to important." The prioritization of tasks is essential to having a successful day. Do you?

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Went to a Living Nativity display at a local church. It was lovely, and the snacks afterward were great too. And the people who put it on were actually pretty polite about recruitment--just a few polite probes from the deacons. And because I was on their territory, I kept totally to myself any thoughts about Christ's exclusive divinity. This is a holiday which, in general, seems to make the world better for a couple of weeks. I see people being kinder, happier, more loving, more polite. And even if just for a couple of weeks, that is no small thing. And I see children believing in miracles, trying desperately hard to be good for Santa Clause, and utterly enraptured on Christmas morning. Damn it, I remember that. I remember feeling totally surrounded by love and hope and cheer. And I wanted that for Nicki. Thank God Toni's family had a marvelous Christmas tradition, because I got a little burned after my Mom's death--she died right before Christmas, and it was a bummer that still makes it difficult to get into the mood. I want that same thing for Jason, and will be damned if I let my own pain stand in the way.

I can still reach down and find that wide-eyed kid I was. Remember him? The one who thought everything was possible? Who didn't know death, or real disappointment, or even real pain physical or emotional. Who had all the dreams that have powered my entire life.

I love Christmas, and want to lose myself in it even more deeply in years to come. It is a present to the little kid inside me, and the little kid who is my son, and all the boys and girls who will walk a long, long road in life, often bereft of magic or even love or hope. I say that a little muffling of my skeptical opinions is a tiny price to pay for a lifetime of stellar memories. Sometimes, a memory is all that sustains you.

I love you, Mom.

Avatar (2009)

Avatar (2009)

My eyeballs are still in a post-coital glow.

Listen, don't say word one to me about Dances With Wolves. To me, James Cameron's movie is "Tarzan" meets "Aliens Turned Inside Out." Just another of the endless "white guy out-natives the natives" movies, and I've seen 'em all my life, and have more right to be sick of them than most.

But I loved this movie. How rarely we get to see an extraordinary creative talent at the height of his powers, taking twelve years of his life to get it as right as he can. And if some of the derivative elements aren't totally digested, screw it. THIS is science fiction, sense of wonder, with intelligence and real caring dripping off each pixel. Of course it could have been better. But few filmmakers in the history of the medium could have even attempted something like this, and you get to see it for ten bucks or so. If you care about the genre at all, if you love adventure, if you have any interest in where the medium of film is going, or what it is capable of, you have to see this.

The story is simple: Jake Scully, a crippled ex-Marine, is hired as a mercenary by a ruthless industrial combine with its own army. He will use an "Avatar," a psychically linked synthetic alien body, to infiltrate a group of Na'vi natives and convince them to step aside so Earth can plunder their goodies. They sit atop a giant lode of a precious mineral, Unobtainium (that was a great giggle.) Of course he falls in love with the native princess, and of course he has a change of heart, and see that the "simple" natives are closer to his heart than his own species. That's the tale, and the art is in the telling. And frankly, there has NEVER been a movie that looked like this, where we moved between total reality and total unreality as smoothly. Never. Cameron is right: this IS a threshold film. It is a game changer. And the technology used to create this will birth real transformative art one day. This isn't that. It is still utterly remarkable, if you can forget wishing that Cameron had four instead of, apparently, three normal human brains crammed into his head. Lord God, Billy Bob--this might not have been one of the great films, but it WAS one of the really, truly, great movies. Maybe the best B-movie of all time. Naw, that's probably RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARC. This ain't that. But then Raiders wasn't AVATAR, either. Nothing is, or ever quite has been. James, you done yourself proud.

For anyone who has ever munched popcorn and simply let their inner twelve year old out to play, this was an "A+"

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WARNING! SAMBO ALERT!

Don't expect good things for brown-skinned men in James Cameron movies. Or even a brown-skinned voice actor. I'm just sayin'. I will admit that there seems to be one black NCO with two lines of dialogue. We do not see him die. I'll take what I can get.

Bond, Body Types and Health stuff

Ooh. The first whisper about the new Bond movie has been heard. According to Daniel Craig, filming begins late in 2010.

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Frank--posting stuff on government officials guilty of theft doesn't move me. What WOULD is if you somehow proved that government employees are somehow more dishonest per capita than employees in the public sector. And if you can't do that, what we're left with is that approximately the same percentage of private and public employees are honest, dishonest, or whatever. With one major difference: a corporation is legally obligated to make a profit. OBLIGATED. That, plus the fact that multi-million dollar bonuses make it possible to accumulate vast money without stealing, suggest to me that the consumer isn't always best served by an organization whose first obligation is not to the customer, but rather the investor or stockholder. Seen entirely too much thievery among corporate types...and that is true even in a situation where, as I said, they don't HAVE to do anything illegal to get frickin' rich. Sorry, but someone who is motivated primarily by money is going to go where the money is.

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And so far, except for one bleating from a medical provider complaining about Medicare reimbursement, I've yet to see much addressing my specific question: why is it so important to some of you to stop me from giving my money to a government employee, if I want to buy into Medicare at cost plus 10%? Even that provider executive surely wouldn't complain at the possibility of getting MORE money for the same services they are already providing. The only good objection I can think of would be from die-hard political types who are aligned with those who have sworn to keep the Democrats from a victory. Prove me wrong, please. It's my money. My body. I am a grown-ass man, and I can tell for myself whether I'm getting my money's worth. What is all of this crap about individual liberty, when you are trying to tell me, and millions of others, how to spend our money? Especially if I'm not asking a dime of yours. Please, show me how I'm wrong.

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By the way, I have to confess to having an agenda here: I believe that, deep down, those in favor of the private sector have a belief that the people who work there are actually more honest...better, in fact. Not just that private industry is set up to encourage the most creativity, but that there is less thievery (why else mention public-sector graft? Certainly, if one thought there was equal tendency toward dishonesty on either side, the most appropriate thing would be to list problems in private industryas well.) Communistic types would probably claim that private industry is by nature more corrupt. My contention, always, is that people are just people, there will be an equal percentage of assholes on either side, and given that, you make decisions about which services should be in the commons. Note that when people object to socialized medicine, they say things like: "maybe the government should make cars, too!" confusing goods and services...or maybe not confusing them. Maybe counting on the confusion of others, because they are engaged in a culture war, and don't care about the cost. Political creatures on both sides engage in this nonsense, of course.

So to be clear: if you DON'T think there is a difference in the basic honesty of those in the public and private sector, please explain to me why I am best served by a system that DEMANDS they charge more than the cost of delivering the service. And if you DO think there is a difference, kindly explain your reasons.

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Insofar as basic body types, and the way they respond to exercise. I would say that an exercise regimen that concentrates on body-weight movement: pushups, situps, pullups, running/walking, swimming, etc--will produce a body that is very natural to your genetics, while equipment-based exercise is more likely to "force" your body into a proportion that isn't quite as natural. Some are lean runner-types. Others blocky lifter-types. Others muscular warrior-types. And others can walk for days, but will always look a little soft. What is NOT natural is puffy couch potato-types. That matches neither hunter nor gatherer. Neither stalking prey nor avoiding predators. And I've known the soft puffy types, and know the kinds of romantic partners they yearn for--and oddly, they are almost always bodies that ARE the bodies that would support hunting, gathering, or avoiding predators. That's what lights their eyes up, quickens their pulse. I think that any body that is in alignment with our animal heritage will then support our emotional life, and our intellectual life.

But...ectomorph? Mesomorph? There are real differences in how our bodies respond to exercise. Better to strive to have over-all ease of motion, as well as high energy and facility at SOME physical activity (of your choice. The "Perfect Template" concept), a sense of health, and when you look at yourself naked in the mirror, you should be the equivalent of what you are attracted to. If not, either change your values, or your behaviors. To have your body and your heart going in opposite directions is a recipe for disaster. And...do you really want to feel that your husband or wife "settled" for you? That you were just the best they could do? Or do you want the sense that they find you utterly delicious?

We only have our bodies for a little while. They should be temples, toys, tools. Far too often, for far too many, bodies are just bags of garbage hauling around their brains and genitals. That pains me.

Dances With Smurfs?

My voice just about went out on me yesterday, which is NOT a good thing when you are starting a phone-based coaching business. Yerch! Any secret home formulas out there?

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The 101 board is so emotionally satisfying, watching people changing habits, losing weight, connecting with their hearts. The original plan was to keep it open and free for a limited time, and then to switch to a fee-based structure. I'm not so sure any more. It seems to me that there is a value in simply providing a service to the universe. Being able to watch the process of growth is quite educational. It definitely starts with taking responsibility, and telling the truth. Once those two things happen, it seems that the unconscious mind can finally exert leverage. If there is a large amount of blocked emotion, there HAS to be meditation, journaling, or a circle of friends to vent to. Given those things, and clear defined goals...movement happens. There is stress, and the universe will test you. But growth is a natural, normal state. Stasis is indicative of disease, in my opinion.

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"Dexter" ended its fourth season with incredible strength. Just in case people had started relaxing, thinking of Sexy Dexy as a "good" serial killer, just kinda misunderstood, they started the season with him killing the wrong man. Oops. Then he got cocky, and didn't take care of business on John Lithgow, as the "Trinity" killer. And all season, we knew that Lithgow was far more dangerous than Dexter believed. And wow oh wow, were we ever right. I enjoy this show about as much as anything I've ever seen on TV. More than the "Sopranos", that's for sure. About as much as a good season of "24". And by the way, the new season of Jack Bauer starts in about three weeks. I'm moderately optimistic. Last season was terrific, but they may have shot their wad. We'll see.

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A state opt-out public option? That would work for me. We'll see what happens to businesses moving around to avoid or take advantage. What will happen to population drift? And the ability to have experiments: does it work? Doesn't it? Would work for me. As would a buy-in for Medicare. What does NOT work for me is for-profit health care having a monopoly. Every single day I'm watching people struggle with being denied care. I've watched them suffer and perhaps even die. I've had enough. I pray that Obama is on this, playing his game behind the scenes, because if this collapses I will be seriously disillusioned. So far, things have clearly gotten further than they have, health-care wise, in about eighty years of trying. The resistance is incredibly, highly organized, and while there are many of good will among them, I consider that much of it is incredibly cynical.

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I didn't leave myself off the list of "best bodies in SF" for modesty's sake. It was because, while I am quite happy with the way my body looks, I have never, ever, tried a "bodybuilding" approach to fitness. Never specifically tried to create balanced hypertrophy. Now, even if I had, I don't really have the genetics for some kind of muscle beach body. But what I wanted was a body that feels GOOD when I wake up in the morning, moves well, has high energy and health, no joint ache, and has the capacity for deep recovery. I'm delighted that Tananarive thinks I'm the bee's knees, but beyond that, I don't much care. If you want to build a "bodybuilding" body, you can lift for separate body parts, and rest 60-90 seconds rest between. The truth is that I'm trying a bit of a hybrid approach right now. I had to find Coach Sonnon's "Six Degrees of Freedom" program, which sorts exercises by their movement through the basic twists and torques. Tried the bodyweight version, and liked it: I got sore without getting stiff. Cool! I then took a look at the kettlebell and other exercises that moved through the same ranges. Tried sequencing them, and liked the result. Ah! I was onto something: for the first time in my life, I could get a hypertrophic effect without binding up.

The next step was sequencing it for fitness. I chose a Tabata sequence: twenty seconds of work, ten seconds of rest. Six exercises, one specializing in each range of motion. The last step was concentrating the entire thing on the abdominal region: each exercise had to have a special effect on the core. I figured that radiating out from my core would be the smartest thing I could do. So I've got about twelve minutes of real hell that works the whole body abs-out, and provides basic aerobic fitness as well. Liked the results. And then I started wondering if I couldn't afford to spend just a little time sculpting my body. I mean, don't I deserve, just once in my life, to see how GOOD I can get myself to look...?

So I'm doing something kinda fun. The double kettlebell Clean and Jerk is basically a whole-body exercise. I'm experimenting with five sets of 8-12 with 60 seconds of rest between sets. Takes about seven minutes. Trashes my whole body. There is a modification of this called the "Kettlebell puker" (nice name!) that basically integrates a Burpee with the C&J. It is an awful, awful exercise. Doing push-ups on the KB handles demands a serious engagement of the abdominals. I cannot think of a single muscle it doesn't work, except maybe some of the neck muscles. Everything. So what I have is several options of 15 minute combos that both work everything and don't bind my muscles a lot. My 5 Minute Miracle sessions concentrate on Prasara Yoga and Silat, just a little break to tweak my nervous system.

That's the program: health, then fitness and skill...and then, maybe just maybe, a teensy bit of ego boo. We'll see what happens.

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The question of the day is: Who thinks Avatar will rock? Who thinks it's gonna be "Dances With Smurfs"?

"Up In The Air" (2009)

I fail to see how anyone who isn't an insurance company stockholder, or a rabid political partisan, could object to me buying into Medicare at 110% of the actual cost of delivering services. What exact harm am I doing to you? The only broad negative effect I see from the entire possibility of Universal Health Care is that, if it was tax funded, wealthy people might end up paying for services they don't use (they might well remain with private providers). I sympathize, but sympathize more with the dozen or so people I know, RIGHT NOW, who are suffering from lack of health care, or frightened to leave a bad job because they can't get reinsured. I remember a dear friend who was seriously considering suicide because her pain management was simply out of control, and she was too ill to navigate the bureaucracy. My own mother postponed medical tests, afraid that she wouldn't be able to pay for them. And died of a (potentially) curable cancer. This is nuts. Isolating some one small group and comparing their life spans merely invites the other side to isolate some other small group and trump them. At which point each side will go off and study the reasons, until another generation is gone, and tens of thousands more people are dead who could have lived. Are bankrupted, who might have kept their homes. And America slides into being a Third-world country while the rest of the world provides education and medical care, creating a safety net from which the talented can truly rise and contribute.

Why are you trying to control my behavior? Why don't you want me to have the option to buy a non-profit plan, since you're so convinced that profit-driven plans are superior? Do you think people are too stupid to see that the government plan isn't working? It feels that those who believe that Capitalism is the best system for all (or at least this) aspect of life don't really have confidence in their position. I think that private health insurance will continue to exist, they simply won't have a monopoly on medical care. And why anyone except stock-holders would cheer for that monopoly makes little or no sense to me.

Please...would someone please tell me why it is so important to some of you to stop me from buying into Medicare at cost plus 10%?

The current health care bill sounds horrendous. Christ--the role model for success and efficiency is all around us.

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"Up In The Air" (2009) Hey, I love award season. Almost every day a new Oscar-bait film appears in my mail box. Monday George Cloony's latest starring role, under the direction of Jason Reitman, the guy that did "Juno". Cloony plays Ryan Bingham, a professional corporate down-sizer. This guy literally flies around the country firing people for bosses who lack testicular fortitude. He has no life, other than airports and hotel rooms. The story revolves around his relations with two women: a youngster named Natalie Keener who wants to computerize/teleconference the process (Anna Kendrick) and Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga) who seems to be exactly the same creature as Ryan...only "with a vagina." And the story winds through their various interactions, romantic, mentorship, business, whatever. Brilliantly written, it has a lovely sense of rhythm, and knows when to go for the gut-punch. It feels like "Jerry McGuire" but turns into something considerably different. Not better, not worse, but different. And I loved it. An "A." It really is one of the very best studio films I've seen this year. Maybe the best. Cloony is one of the very few actors who could have pulled off this role, revealing callousness, intellect, emotional pain, and ultimately a devastating self-awareness, in layers. This is fine film-making.

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"Tournament" (2009) is a British action film about a clutch of assassins killing each other for a ten million dollar prize. Look: it is what it is. What is different is that there is a bit, just a bit of genuine heart: Robert Carlyle as an alcoholic priest accidentally caught up in the competition, and Kelly Hu as the killer with a heart who protects him. Ving Rhames plays a former champion who returns for personal reasons, and most impressively, Sebastian Foucan (the freerunning bomb-maker from CASINO ROYALE) as, well, Spider Man. There is an extended sequence of Foucan chasing a car down an alley that just has to be seen to be believed, Jackie Chan-level movement that had me scraping my jaw off the floor. There is other fine stuntwork as well. This is a good deal better than most DTV, and for action fans, check it out. A solid "B."

SF Writers and Fitness

Someone asked about science fiction writers and fitness. I would guess that they tend to be a little fitter than fans on average, but still fall into that category of people who live primarily from their heads, and store blocked emotion in their bodies. A spooky amount of dysfunction...with lots of ultra-liberal and Libertarian sentiment--to me, both are symptoms of people trying to believe they can think their way out of a box. By the way--ultra Righties strike me as people yearning for a past that never was really all that great. At least if you aren't a white, Christian, heterosexual in the top 10% of earners. So there.

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Watching the health care debate is so sad. Down the road, we're going to have Single Payer, I believe. The amount of lying and obfuscation to distract people from the fact that it has been proven to work all over the world, getting better results (for the average person. Yeah, if you're in the top 10% maybe the current system works great for you) for less money. I know some of you disagree with that. Those of you on the Left--will you look at the responses we've had on this forum. To my knowledge, none of the people opposed to a Public Option or whatever are being paid by the insurance companies.

Now, some of them might be so politicized that they will say anything to try to bring Obama down, therefore opening the door to re-taking the White House. But the majority simply see the situation differently, or interpret the statistics differently. I think I said that as neutrally as possible. So whatever comes out of Congress, if it doesn't match your image of what the best bill would be, you'd better grasp that Joe Lieberman, who everyone perceives as pissing in the punch bowl, is still (probably) more Liberal than any Republican. And that there are other Conservative Democrats to be dealt with. This thing has a fantastic amount of inertia, and yes, the bill is gonna be non-optimal. But if you think you can get there in one jump, I just don't think there's much realism going on in your mind. This is a bloody, violent clash of ideologies. Capitalism has some fantastic benefits, but voracious immortal corporations clamoring for all the rights of individuals while having few of the disadvantages ain't one of them. People who think the media, in general, obeys anything other than what will put cash in the corporate coffers have a very different view of society than I have. It is horribly amusing to watch both Right and Left claim that the media is a puppet of the other side.

Nobody seems to get the joke, and that gives the wealthy and powerful a free hand to pick our bones. Just, by the way, as the disadvantaged at the bottom of the pyramid would "eat the rich" if they had THEIR chance. The difficulty is not that some group is "worse" than the others, it is that we have this need to believe that "our side" is more ethical and "better", rather than seeking to understand how such differences in perspective can exist in intelligent, moral people. I think that a generation from now, we'll have Single Payer. And if the American public digs it, the history books will be re-written, trying to make it look as if those who opposed it were actually its staunchest advocates, in the same way Conservatives try to act as if they were the champions of civil rights, or Liberals try to say THEY are the only real patriots. It's sad, and it's just the human condition.

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Yesterday I roughed out a scene in the new Dream Park book. The second to last major scene, in fact. In it, we are jumping reality levels: gamers playing a game inside a game, with REAL kidnappers breathing down their throats. Larry and I got blocked for a while because of the difficulty of conveying the rules of the "game in a game" to readers and "gamers" without disrupting the flow of the book...in the same way that the GameMaster has to educate the players without disrupting the flow of the game.

Arrgh. But if I am aware that we are pushing the edges of reality-level juggling, then hopefully we won't fall into the trap of shallow characterization. This is such a lovely trap, really. It works like this: in general, the deeper the characters, the simpler the story. And the more complicated the story, the shallower the characters. It isn't that people deliberately set out to do this: it is that a writer only has so much talent. Let's say they have a hundred cubic units of talent to expend upon a project. If they go for a story with wild twists and turns, and serious extrapolation...that uses up more units, and they just don't have as many left over for their characters, which often come out shallow and unconvincing...but WOW! That plot! And the stories with deep, resonant characters are usually stories of everyday life, small drama writ deep and wide. Scathingly real human beings against a backdrop of the mundane.

Note that from this model, both of these, the fast-moving twisty-plot action/suspense novel and the "literary" novel of psychological depth require the same amount of "talent" to produce two very different kinds of books. You would be best off understanding that you don't have infinite resources, and expending them in the way that makes you happiest. I promise that you ain't gonna please everyone, no matter what you do.

That said, Larry and I are going to finish this first draft. Then I will travel through the book, following one character at a time, looking at every reaction, every motivation, every word of dialogue--from that character's perspective. This has always worked for me in the past, and I have no reason to doubt it will happen again.

Secret Service Strangeness

So the head of the Secret Service testified that Obama has faced no more threats than the last two presidents. I assume he means per day, at this point in all their presidencies. Not, for instance, that in his first year he's received as many as they did in their entire terms. I'm nervous about the way people mess with the language, and find this VERY difficult to believe based on the violent rhetoric, and America's history in general. However, I would be delighted to believe it, if it were true, and would love for someone to point me toward a more thorough investigation of these numbers. Thanks.

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Coaching has been an adventure for me. Having done it in various forms for decades, deciding to make this an actual part of my income stream changes the game in some fascinating ways. So far, the issue I see most of is lack of clarity: people don't really know what they want. After that it is a sense of having trouble staying on track. That's an easy one, and one the coaching paradigm is designed for.

I'm working with Scott Sonnon as he prepares for a major grappling and MMA competition in Vegas next year. For a man with this level of discipline, focus, and overall accomplishment, my real task will be seeing that his dogs are all pulling in the same direction, that he doesn't waste energy on non-productive activities, and that he doesn't allow vampires to drain his energy. Oh...and that he is taking sufficient recovery time. The human race might be broadly divided into two camps--those who push too hard, and those who don't push hard enough. Champions tend to be in...well, you know which group they're in.

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Today, I'll be back into the new Dream Park book, working on a chapter suggested by H.G. Well's LITTLE WARS books on table-top gaming. Had a REALLY good meeting last week, some folks who want to turn D.P. into a movie. Well, I've heard THAT before, but on some level have always believed it would happen one day. We'll see.

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"The Hero's Journey" is the current title of the " human adulthood for men" course I'm putting together. Almost ready to start taping. It's designed as a month-long program, twenty lessons five days a week with homework on the weekened. The material is extremely dense, so I've had to organize it six ways to Sunday, making sure that everything references everything else. Tomorrow, I may make the first 1/2 hour recording. I'll be talking about it more later, but so far it looks fabulous. God, I wish I could have gotten my hands on this forty years ago!

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Oh...back to Dream Park. There is a scene that is tricky...involving multiple characters, a game within a game, a moral lesson..and all under time pressure. I believe I know how to handle it, and want to spend the day today roughing it out, and then smoothing it over as much as I can.

The trick is that this is someone's scene. This is the time for one of the characters to break out and move to the next level of their personal arc. I think I know who it is, too...an older lady named Maud Abernathy, playing the game as a psychic. She has been something of a downer for much of the book, sniping at her husband and then breaking down under pressure. But this would be an opportunity for her to shine, and I want to let her do it. Every character should have one moment, one time, when they are standing up and showing their stuff.

I think of it in a very similar fashion when I'm writing scripts. I want to create a scene that will have the actor saying "hey! I can play the hell out of this!" and trusting them to bring their skill and heart to the role. Trusting the actor. Or in this instance, trusting the character. Remembering that from the character's point of view, the entire story is about her. The entire world revolves around her. If I remember that, every