Ian Bull's Blog, page 2

I Still Think of Myself as a Swimmer

For years, my personal identity was framed by one word  -- swimmer.             Between the ages of 10 and 20, from grade school through half of college, I was a competitive swimmer. I swam at least five days a week, swam in swim meets on weekends, and earned money in high school and college as a lifeguard, swim instructor and coach. Even as late as my mid-20s, I taught swimming in the summer time, updating my Red Cross Instructor cards and teaching at Montessori School summer sessions.             And then I stopped. While I once wet at least two hours a day, I have swum regularly in years. Since my daughter was born, going to the pool every morning has become too time consuming; it’s easier to run, jump rope, and or leap around to my P90X DVDs in my garage until I pull a muscle and hurt myself.            I now have lived more decades dry than wet, yet I still think of myself as a swimmer. Why? If I had been a pole vaulter or a football player, I would have stopped calling myself either noun long ago.             I think it’s because swimming welcomes you back. It is a sport you can do it your entire life, so it allows you to hang on to the persona for a long time.             And now I’m swimming again. Lily is on summer break, so I’m sneaking back to the pool for the first time in two years, getting to the outdoor fifty meter pool in Sherman Oaks at 6 a.m. with thirty other people. 

Van Nuys Sherman Oaks Pool
            The first day I wondered whether I should even bother, but when I saw the steam rising off the pool and smelled the chlorine and the damp concrete, it all came flooding back to me, and I felt like the 20-year-old in me was just a hundred meter swim away.              After two hundred meters of freestyle enough muscle memory came back that I decided I could resurrect my past identity, and now I look forward to it every morning like when I was a kid.              Why does it still work for me? There are several reasons --Swimming is easy on the body, if you’re doing it right.            Running wrecks your feet and your knees, tennis destroys your knees and your back and your elbows. Basketball destroys everything. Swimming is easy compared to those sports. There’s no gear, special shoes, no big prep, no uniform, no ball. You can show up in your pajamas, as long as you have your suit and a pair of goggles. And you can actually slide in the water with torn ligaments in both knees and still exercise without hurting yourself more.If you swim well once, you can be a lifelong swimmer            Swimming is all about the breathing. When people say that swimming is exhausting, it’s because they’re not breathing correctly, so they’re never in a rhythm that works and they end up holding their breath (sometimes a little, sometimes a lot) without realizing it. Imagine running around a track while holding your breath, then gasping in intermittent staccato bursts that don’t ever fill your lungs. You wouldn’t make it more than a lap. That’s how most people breathe when they swim, without realizing it. People don’t think about their breathing when they run -- they just fall into a rhythm that they don’t even notice. You must go to the pool regularly for six months to reach that same point with your breathing while swimming.                        Those six months are easier when you’re a kid. You weigh less, you have more energy, and your life is already full of challenges that you don’t question-- so the six months of struggle pass easily. It’s much harder for adults, but, rest assured, if you put in your six months, five days a week, you will get there.            Like learning the right tennis stroke or golf stroke, the sport isn’t even enjoyable until you feel yourself doing that basic movement correctly. But once you find that sweet spot, it’s an “ah-hah” moment and everything changes, and you won’t need to buy a set of golf clubs to keep chasing it.




It’s about the Perfect Stroke, Not Strength or Speed            Olympic swimmers aren’t just swimming fast -- they’re swimming fast while maintaining good form. If you can keep your stroke perfect and keep up the pace, you swim well. If you get tired and lose your form, it’s like digging a hole in the water and you just sink deeper.            I like to compare swimming to running hurdles in track. You can’t just run blazing down the blacktop and fling yourself over each hurdle. You must find a pace -- step step step hurdle, step step step hurdle, step step step hurdle. You then must keep that pace throughout your race, never wavering, otherwise you’ll miss a hurdle and crash and fall. Maybe at the end you pick up speed, but again, you must accelerate up to a new pace and keep that new perfect rhythm, no matter how much it hurts.             The same is true in every swimming stroke, and it’s especially true in the butterfly. If you lose your pace, or back off, others will pass you like you’re going backwards, and it feels like a baby grand piano has been thrown onto your back halfway down the pool.            When I slip into the pool now, I don’t try to light the world on fire, but I do try to maintain my stroke and work on my rhythm. And again, swimming is kind. Once I find my groove, I feel a Division One swimmer again. I feel smooth and efficient. The truth is, however, that although I have a decent stroke, I only swim half as fast as a collegiate swimmer while taking twice as many strokes, and the hot shots leave me in a trail of bubbles. But it still feels sweet.It’s Yoga and Meditation all Rolled into OneA swimming pool is a water sensory deprivation chamber. Your hearing disappears. There’s nothing to look at but a white bottom and black lines. You hear your own breath and your own heartbeat. Breathe, rotate, extend, glide, pull, breathe, repeat. I’m stretching while emptying my mind, and I often forget what lap I’m on. It’s a three-in-one endorphin ohm exercise high, all in one hour, and when I get out I feel amazing.



 I like being with other near naked peopleIt’s nice to swim with the same people every morning. I can take a break from the sport and return six months later and most of my compatriots are still there -- Mike, who survived cancer, Joanne, who had twins, Sam, who swam in the Olympics, and Nate, who’s a lawyer and brings his suit in a garment bag every morning. We chat, we know each other, we swim together, but we don’t really speak too much. We’re not socializing, we’re ritualizing, and although it’s a solitary sport, we still do it together. It matters that we’re bare-skinned. Sure, there are some people with amazing bodies, and you can admire them stretching before they leap in the pool, or you see their boobs, torsos, butts and legs close-up in the lane next to you as they churn past. But there are just as many swimmers who are thirty pounds or more overweight, plus men and women in their 70s and older, and people who must use crutches to get to the side of the pool. The full spectrum of life is before us in the morning mist, a memory of our younger selves in the fast lanes to the right and a vision of those who age gracefully in the slower lanes to the left. Me, I am somewhere in the middle.             There is a Japanese term for this kind of bonding, called “sukinshippu,” which can be translated as “skinship.” In Japan, the public bathhouses and the onsen (hot springs) are full of people bathing, relaxing and meditating alone, or talking with friends, and they cherish the closeness. Everyone is equal, the young, the old, all four generations together, and no one is in uniform. The public swimming pool is our American version of “sukinshippu” and it’s something we can cherish. If the California drought gets worse, bathing at the pool may be one way to save water, and out of necessity the unintended consequence may be that “sukinshippu” will take root.             Sometimes I see someone in the neighborhood who I recognize, but I can’t quite place him or her, and he or she does the same with me -- and then we both realize we share pool “skinship” and we smile, and say that we’ll see each other tomorrow morning.


Van Nuys Sherman Oaks Pool, 1961

Don't Let Them Ruin the Internet...Send this Letter!

Dear Readers,
We have until September 10th, 2014, to send our comments to our elected officials and to the FCC before they vote on Internet Neutrality.
Please read this letter, and then copy it so you can alter it and send in your own letter, both to President Obama, your two senators, and to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler.



Dear President Obama and Chairman Wheeler,
As the cable companies finally build a much-delayed and much-needed fiber optic network across the country, it is crucial that you stand up to these monopolies and not institute any new rules that will allow them, when they have no true competition or oversight, to charge substantially more money to customers to get faster Internet service.
They should not be able to maximize their profits by controlling the price and the scope of this infrastructure system that they are building, without guidance or oversight. Their plan to offer two kinds of service, with a faster service going to consumers willing to pay more, should NOT be allowed.
They should not be allowed to charge the price they want, where they want, providing fiber optic access when they want, with limited government regulation, which is what the news rules you are considering would allow. It’s bad for consumers, bad for cities, bad for education, bad for competition, and bad for the country. 
We are far behind countries in Europe and Asia where government and private industry have worked together to lay down these fiber optic lines, and the citizens are enjoying all the efficiencies provided by the fast data moving through these fiber optic networks. Businesses thrive, innovation grows, education improves, and economies prosper.
As the cable companies finally start building our infrastructure for fiber optic broadband across the country -- they should be treated as public utilities and be obligated to deliver the same access to the Internet to everyone, not just those people and those regions who can afford to pay more money to get it first.
There was once a time when running water, electricity, heat and indoor plumbing were considered luxuries. Now, they are considered bottom base necessities for any American, no matter how rich or poor you are. 
Good roads did not exist in many parts of the country until after World War II, and then, in the 1950s, Republican President Eisenhower understood that a decent interstate highway system was crucial for economy. Now anyone can drive across the country without having to pay a toll to be in the fast lane.
Now the Internet has become a basic necessity, like water, electricity, plumbing, and decent roads. For any person or any company to compete in this country, they must be using the Information Superhighway. Equal access to the flow of information should be the base starting point, just like with roads and electricity.  We should not have to pay a toll to get our information faster.
I am not saying it should be free. But as the system is built it should be made accessible to all, with close oversight of the pricing and product so that it can be affordable to all.
We also must allow local and state governments to use their tax revenues to team with companies to create this much needed new system on their own, independent of the cable companies. The cable companies should be working with governments to facilitate that construction, to help cities get what they need, to compete.
Yet the cable companies used their clout in Washington to create regulations so difficult to follow that it’s impossible for cities to create fiber optic systems of their own, like they do in the rest of the world. In 19 states the monopolies have made it impossible or illegal to compete with them.
Even worse, the cable companies have not kept pace with the demand. While they took in 1.4 trillion dollars in profit in the last five years, they have only used 15% of their profit  on researching, developing and building this crucial new system.
You must use your position as FCC chairman to not only regulate these companies, but to de-regulate these restrictions in place, and encourage these civic start-ups
When a mayor wants his or her city to have a fiber optic system, that mayor knows how much fast Internet can help that city. It can attract businesses. It’s a boom to universities and schools. And it creates money-saving environmentally friendly efficiencies. If you want to monitor water usage, traffic flow, road repair -- anything -- a faster Internet can make your city run better. 
A city is not livable unless it works with a well-run regional utility that delivers good clean water at a reasonable rate. The same argument should apply to decent Internet service, which is why mayors want it.
The EPA just instituted new regulations that will require states to work together to reduce our country’s carbon emissions by 40%. The states can do it however they wish, as long as it gets done. To do so, allowing cities and states to build competing efficient high-speed Internet system will help. 
Using the Internet, Los Angeles could then team up with Portland to trade carbon credits, and while also tracking emissions, monitoring and helping consumers tweak home energy usage, and creating a shift-time work force -- which gets carbon usage down through efficiency and innovation.
These are just a few benefits of what an open and accessible Internet can provide.If it doesn’t happen, here are my fears, which I share with many Americans:
Fear 1 -- The Internet will become as bad as Cable:My Internet will become like my cable. No choice, no service, hidden costs, high prices.
Fear 2 -- Comcast and Time Warner will Merge:if allowed to merge, the resulting monolithic monopoly will control too much traffic and content. The cable box is destined to become the web browser/cable box. That is the merging of the TV and Computer that people have been predicting. But imagine one company controlling that box -- a company that controls the highway (fiber optic line) and what gets delivered on that highway (content). Once they control the road, they can control the speed of who is on that road, which means they control choice.
That’s because speed will determine content. If I need to watch or purchase something, the choice that is presented to me first and most often becomes the default choice for many.  The cable companies will control that choice. Pay them to be first, and you will become the default choice. If you don’t pay, you may have a great product or service, but you will be harder to download or just harder to find.
Netflix already knows this, which is why they’re paying through the nose to Comcast to maintain current Internet speeds. Not better -- just the same!
Fear 3 -- Education and Innovation and Efficiency will SufferThere are children born every day who have amazing potential.  A child could be another Steven Hawking -- but he may be disabled, live in the ghetto, or in rural Oklahoma. He or she could attend Harvard or UC Berkeley on-line and change the world -- but the cable company has determined that getting fiber optics to him isn’t profitable enough yet, or the school he wishes to attend hasn’t paid the higher price for better Internet access. He will be left behind.
Fear 4 -- Health Care will Suffer.There are sick people who want to find doctors, treatments, and medicines. They may want to hunt for a better deal on their insurance. Imagine being sick and watching your computer buffer your video endlessly as you wait for your information to appear, all because you can’t afford the faster service, or because Comcast hasn’t gotten around to your town yet. Why? Because there’s not enough paying customers there to make laying new cable that profitable. They’ll get to you, but they’re skipping your town this cycle.
Fear 5 -- Democracy will SufferThere are activists who want to change the world, and citizens who want a better community.  There are workers who want to organize, women who want fair treatment.  and people who fear their constitutional rights will be taken away. Now imagine all these people, who want to work within the democratic system, being shut out of the process because they either: 1) don’t have the money to get on the information highway and they’re stuck on the DSL side road 2) they can pay to get on the highway, but another opinion has paid more gets to be in the fast lane of the highway and gets disseminated first -- or 3) worst of all, there’s no highway on-ramp in their neighborhood at all.
Fear 6 -- We will create a Two-Tiered SystemPeople who have enough money, or who live in wealthy communities where the fiber optic system will be created first will benefit from the high speed data highway. Those who cannot afford it or who live outside of the big cities will not. The rich will become richer and the poor will continue to struggle.
Less than seventy years ago, there were many wealthy US cities that had clean water, electricity and good roads and highways -- and one state away there were towns that had none of it. That was a two-tiered system for the delivery of basic necessities.
We are in danger or creating the same scenario again, concerning data.
Fear 5 -- We will continue to lose our standing in the World.Meanwhile, other countries are innovating, helping their citizens learn, get healthy, become more efficient, and more green, we will fall behind.  
Fear 6 -- Mr., Tom Wheeler and President Obama will sell us outMr. Wheeler, please do the right thing. You have us worried.
You tried to rewrite the FCC rules about the Internet twice and the court struck them down both times -- because the new rules are confusing. You can’t write rules that deregulate the industry to favor companies who want to corner the market, while also insuring that they will also somehow deliver true net neutrality. It doesn’t make sense, and the courts sent you back to write better rules that make sense.
You raised hundreds of millions of dollars for the Obama campaign, and I fear that you are beholden to the cable companies because you took their money, and because you once worked for them. 
President Obama, as a candidate in 2007, you said that a fair and accessible Internet was crucial for a growing prosperous democracy. Since the last election you haven’t said much on this subject at all!  I’m afraid that during your golf games with the head of Comcast, you may have changed your mind.
Mr. Wheeler and Mr. President, you may honestly believe that these monopolies will operate with the best interest of the country, and they will be run the Internet like a Public Trust, with fair access for all. But I disagree.
Please keep our Internet neutral. That’s how it grew our economy in the 1990s and how it will work best far into the future.
Sincerely,Donald Ian Bull
P.S. I compare the interstate highway system to the new fiber optic system we need. It is true our country does have toll roads. However, they are always local, built by states or counties working with private business. There are no tolls taken on interstate highways, and there shouldn’t be tolls for access to a faster Internet. If a city then wants to add an additional layer for public FTP sites or public wi-fi and charge a slight toll to recoup the investment, I see that as the equivalent of toll roads in New Jersey or Southern California, for instance. 


Readers,
Tailor your letter and send it to Mr. Tom Wheeler at: www.fcc.gov/comments
To send a comment to President Obama, you can start at:  http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/sub...
If you want to know more about this important subject, you can:Watch John Oliver on HBO or on Youtube. http://www.upworthy.com/john-oliver-g...
Read Susan Crawford, author of Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age.
Check out these links:
http://www.wallstreetdaily.com/2014/0...
http://www.govtech.com/network/Teleco...

I Tortured Chewbacca

Out of all of the Star Wars life forms, wookies are the best. They’re a combination pet, best friend and handy fixer-upper. They are wonderful companions who fight by your side while making growling noises, but they can also repair your broken space vehicle. 

I am a Star Wars and Star Trek nerd, and I can hold my own in any Comi Con conversation on whether Hans Solo shot first and what the Borg represents in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Years back, when I heard rumors that for Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith, there would be a full on battle on Kashyyyk, planet of the Wookies, I became even more obsessed with the towering carpet creatures and I did everything I could to get cast as a wookie extra, but I never made the cut. 

Chewbacca, of course, is the most bad-ass wookie of them all, and my hero. He helps save the galaxy, he’s great with a wrench, he’s loyal, super-intelligent and his life span is over two centuries.  

Unfortunately, I have a dirty little secret. I managed to frustrate Peter Mayhew, the actor who plays Chewbacca so much that he begged me to stop torturing him, and I’ve been ashamed of it ever since.

In 1997, MTV awarded Chewbacca a Lifetime Achievement Award at the MTV Movie Awards. In a roundabout way, I was involved in the production of that particular TV show. One of my tasks was to send Peter Mayhew, who lived in England at the time, the crucial information he would need to come to Los Angeles, to make his appearance in costume as Chewbacca, and then receive his award for distinguished achievement. There were contract adjustments, scripts, hotel reservations, plane and car service and restaurant information -- I had stacks of documents to send to him from Los Angeles.

I didn’t want to bother my hero with an actual phone call and I was too nervous to actually talk to him anyway. There was no need. After all, his agent and the VP of Talent and Specials at MTV had arranged all that. I just had to make sure he got his documents. That was my job.

1997 was in the BEM era -- Before E-Mail. It was the Facsimile Machine ruled the office -- the fax. So they gave me his fax number. Actually, I got both his fax numbers. Plural -- the man had TWO! I figured one must be for his office, and the other must be for his agent’s office. Or one must be for his London office, and the other was for his mansion in the country.

So I started sliding the documents in the tray, dialing the number and hitting Send. Sometimes it would go through, and sometimes it wouldn’t. Actually, most of the time it wouldn’t. So I kept dialing and kept trying, and when one number didn’t work, I’d try to other one. The fax machines in the office were cumbersome and hard to use, and there was a line when it was busy show show season, and I had dozens of pages to send him, so I started to take the documents home, where I had a phone fax combo machine. I was so intent on making sure he got his paperwork, I was fine with running up my phone bill so that my hero could get his international faxes.

Sometimes, I’d dial his fax numbers at 6 p.m. at night, and I’d keep trying every hour, at 6, 7, 8, and then 9 p.m.  Yes, I am aware that there is an eight hour time difference between London and Los Angeles. 

What I did not know, because no one knew, was that Peter Mayhew’s fax number was actually his home phone number.  His home phone numbers, actually. Plural. There was no London office, no mansion in the country, no high-powered agent’s office. There were two phone lines in house...or flat...or wherever he lived. 

I was calling Chewbacca’s house in the middle of the night, and I’d keep calling, ever hour. His phone would ring at 2, then 3, then 4 in the morning. I suspect that he had a phone/fax machine combo on one line, so that if you answered and heard the buzz of an incoming fax, you could hit Receive and paper would spew out with the printed document. He must have rushed to answer the phone, pick it up, and hear a fax tone, and then hit the receive button. That’s what was probably happening when it went throuugh.  When it didn’t go through, I imagine that he just didn’t want to get out of bed, so he’d just let it ring...and ring...and ring. But then, just as he was drifting off...his other home phone would ring. Me, the dedicated jackass in Los Angeles, was so intent on sending him his faxes, I would then start dialing the other number at three in the morning.

This went on for four days. 

Each night he was probably going to bed and pulling up the covers, wondering whether the jackass in Los Angeles would call that night. Then, when the jackass did call, Chewbacca would wake up and lie there, hearing his phones ring. Sleep deprivation is torture, and I was torturing him.

For the first few days, in my stupid enthusiasm, I never noticed how the second fax number I was dialing never worked. No fax EVER went through on it. The first number sometimes worked, but when it didn’t, I’d diligently dial that second number and walk away and let the fax machine do it’s thing. Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring. It automatically would dial it again and again. 

On the fifth day, I looked at my confirmation of delivery fax reports and noticed the difference in success rates between the two lines. The fax never went through on the second number. In fact -- the machine was attempting to dial the second number right then.

So, on a whim, I picked up the receiver. 

I heard Peter Mayhew’s voice --

Hello? Hello? 

I inhaled sharply when I heard his voice, and he must have heard it --

Please! We need to sleep, in God’s name please stop calling us!  What do you want!? Who are you?

Chewbacca had lost his wits. My hero was desperate. So I did what any rational caring person would do in that situation, when his hero is in pain from the torture of sleep-deprivation.

I hung up on him. 

And I never mentioned it to anyone, ever, until now.

Peter Mayhew eventually got his faxes, and he made it to the MTV Movie Awards. I saw the large trunk arrive from LucasFilm that contained the actual Chewbacca costume. George Lucas was in the audience, and Carrie Fisher gave him his award. I saw Chewbacca backstage, and was there when this photo was snapped.  




However, I didn’t dare introduce myself. He must have known it was a jackass from MTV who was calling him, but he never complained to any higher-ups, and no one ever found out how I tortured Chewbacca.

Some fun wookie facts:

The wookie planet of Kashyyyk was also the setting of the rarely seen Star Wars Holiday Special from 1978, which was supposedly one of the worst and most surreal pieces of TV sci-fi variety ever made. George Lucas has tried to destroy every copy of that TV show.


Chewbacca's voice was created by the original films' sound designer, Ben Burt, from a mix of recordings of walruses, lions, camels, bears, rabbits, tigers and badgers in Burt's personal library.
In the Empire Strikes Back, another actor played Chewbacca because Mayhew was ill, but his performance was so lacking in creativity and “wookie-ness” they had to reshoot all his scenes with Mayhew.
I have a Chewbacca Pez dispenser.
Peter Mayhew will reprise the role of Chewbacca in the upcoming Star Wars VII, set 30 years after the Return of the Jedi.
I will be doing my best to wear a wookie suit and be an extra in that film. Maybe then I will confess my crime to Chewie.
Here is a link to him getting his award:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUXIz8C3028

Why Don't You Try on a Brain?! Concrete Imprints in your 'Hood

When my wife Robin was growing up in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, she and all the 

other kids on the block would shout a taunt at each other: “Why don’t you try on a brain?”  Now Lily, 

our daughter, who is turning nine soon, has also been heard shouting the same taunt while playing 

outside. Did Robin teach it to her? 

Maybe, but more likely she’s reading the imprints in the cement on the sidewalk, just like Robin did a 
generation ago. Throughout Los Angeles, you can find imprints left by the different construction 
companies that poured the cement for the walkways when the city was first built. In Studio City, it was 
the Tryon and Brain Construction Company that built the sidewalks. When you search the Internet, 
however, not much comes up about them, except this one article from the Los Angeles Herald in 1906:
A vast amount of street improvements have been made in Los Angeles In the past few years. Dozens of suburban tracts have been subdivided, graded and curbed, and high-grade work of this sort is in demand. ' Of the prominent contracting firms In the city doing street grading and cement work one of the most successful is Tryon & Brain, whose high grade work has added much to the city's splendid appearance.
Here’s a photo of one on my street:





There’s also website for everything now, including old construction company 
concrete imprints throughout Los Angeles: 
http://concretechronology.tumblr.com

Go there and you can see all the different imprints for the different companies, their years of operation, 
and the different areas where they laid down sidewalk. Then you can go out looking and see if they 
match up. Burbank’s sidewalks, for instance, was poured by Gibbons & Reed Co., in 1927.

In San Francisco there are plenty of old concrete companies that imprinted their names everywhere, 
and there’s a website for them as well:
http://www.lukecole.com/roadside%20at...





My favorites, though, are the imprints where the concrete companies misspelled the actual street names 
that they imbedded in street corners. Everywhere in San Francisco there are misspellings, captured in 
yet another Internet site:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/throgers/
For a time my family lived in the Sunset District, and on many corners Twelfth Avenue was misspelled 
as Twelvth Avenue, and as a kid I misspelled the world “twelfth” for several years because I would see 
it printed incorrectly on so many of my neighborhood street corners that I just assumed it was the 
correct spelling. 




I wonder how that happened? The Sunset was the last neighborhood built, and it stretches from Twelfth 
Avenue all the way down to the ocean for thirty-six more blocks. Were people so exhausted laying so 
much concrete that they just got tired and lazy? Or did the construction company just hire people who 
couldn’t spell?




Earthquakes, potholes, gentrification, spreading tree roots, and entropy end up destroying sidewalks, 
and as the new ones come in, the old logos disappear. 




Take a look around your neighborhood and see if you can spot an old concrete imprint before they all 
go away. 
Burbank recently redid all its sidewalks, and they paid $650 million out of their general fund and 
replaced all their sidewalks over seven years -- a job well done. In Los Angeles, you may have more 
time to spot imprints, however. Although Mayor Garcetti swears to make it a priority, but it may take 
higher taxes to reach the 1.5 billion dollars some say is needed (how is that possible?) to repair and 
replace all the bad sidewalks in the City of Angeles. It will also take...fifteen years. But at least you can 
enjoy the imprints! It’s a little bit of hidden history, right at your feet, so look around.
Also, this is the 50th blog post for CaliforniaBull -- which means I’ve been writing this blog for a year! 
I did take a few weeks off for holidays and busy shows, so it’s been a little more than a year. Thank 
you for reading, and I plan to write a post a week far into the future, well after the last original Los 
Angeles concrete imprint has been replaced. 
I will also have a new platform and website for the blog soon, through Squarespace and 
IntersectionProductions.com, as well as through Google’s Blog Spot. If you’re interested you can 
subscribe and get it in delivered to your email box once a week via Mail Chimp. I’ll keep you posted 
about it, and I hope you’ll keep reading!

Why Don't You Try on a Brain?! Concrete Imprints in your Hood

When my wife Robin was growing up in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, she and all the other kids on the block would shout a taunt at each other: “Why don’t you try on a brain?”  Now Lily, our daughter, who is turning nine soon, has also been heard shouting the same taunt while playing outside. Did Robin teach it to her? 

Maybe, but more likely she’s reading the imprints in the cement on the sidewalk, just like Robin did a generation ago. Throughout Los Angeles, you can find imprints left by the different construction companies that poured the cement for the walkways when the city was first built. In Studio City, it was the Tryon and Brain Construction Company that built the sidewalks. When you search the Internet, however, not much comes up about them, except this one article from the Los Angeles Herald in 1906:A vast amount of street improvements have been made in Los Angeles In the past few years. Dozens of suburban tracts have been subdivided, graded and curbed, and high-grade work of this sort is in demand. ' Of the prominent contracting firms In the city doing street grading and cement work one of the most successful is Tryon & Brain, whose high grade work has added much to the city's splendid appearance.
Here’s a photo of one on my street:







There’s also website for everything now, including old construction company concrete imprints throughout Los Angeles: 
http://concretechronology.tumblr.com

Go there and you can see all the different imprints for the different companies, their years of operation, and the different areas where they laid down sidewalk. Then you can go out looking and see if they match up. Burbank’s sidewalks, for instance, was poured by Gibbons & Reed Co., in 1927.






In San Francisco there are plenty of old concrete companies that imprinted their names everywhere, and there’s a website for them as well:
http://www.lukecole.com/roadside%20at...
My favorites, though, are the imprints where the concrete companies misspelled the actual street names that they imbedded in street corners. Everywhere in San Francisco there are misspellings, captured in yet another Internet site:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/throgers/
For a time my family lived in the Sunset District, and on many corners Twelfth Avenue was misspelled as Twelvth Avenue, and as a kid I misspelled the world “twelfth” for several years because I would see it printed incorrectly on so many of my neighborhood street corners that I just assumed it was the correct spelling. 




I wonder how that happened? The Sunset was the last neighborhood built, and it stretches from Twelfth Avenue all the way down to the ocean for thirty more blocks. Were people so exhausted laying so much concrete that they just got tired and lazy? Or did the construction company just hire people who couldn’t spell?




Earthquakes, potholes, gentrification, spreading tree roots, and entropy end up destroying sidewalks, and as the new ones come in, the old logos disappear. 




Take a look around your neighborhood and see if you can spot an old concrete imprint before they all go away. 
Burbank recently redid all its sidewalks, and they paid $650 million out of their general fund and replaced all their sidewalks over seven years -- a job well done. In Los Angeles, you may have more time to spot imprints, however. Although Mayor Garcetti swears to make it a priority, but it may take higher taxes to reach the 1.5 billion dollars some say is needed (how is that possible?) to repair and replace all the bad sidewalks in the City of Angeles. It will also take...fifteen years. But at least you can enjoy the imprints! It’s a little bit of hidden history, right at your feet, so look around.
Also, this is the 50th blog post for CaliforniaBull -- which means I’ve been writing this blog for a year! I did take a few weeks off for holidays and busy shows, so it’s been a little more than a year. Thank you for reading, and I plan to write a post a week far into the future, well after the last original Los Angeles concrete imprint has been replaced.  I will also have a new platform and website for the blog soon, through Squarespace and IntersectionProductions.com, as well as through Google’s Blog Spot. If you’re interested you can subscribe and get it in delivered to your email box once a week via Mail Chimp. I’ll keep you posted about it, and I hope you’ll keep reading!

I Like John Denver.

     I have a confession to make. I like John Denver’s music.
     In fact, I like him so much, I want to resurrect his music in popular culture today. There should be a tribute album to him, featuring the most popular alternative and country musicians, each picking a John Denver song and making it their own.
     Last week was my birthday, and my wife Robin bought me The Very Best of John Denver, mostly so that I’d listen to it in my car, in exchange for not singing his songs in the house. Yet I’m still scared to publicly reveal my secret admiration for John Denver’s songs, for fear that I will be exposed as sappy and sentimental. In the U.K. they’d call it treacle-y, after that super sweet thick molasses goop they pour on their desserts. It’s a sweet black glue that if you get it on your fingers, clothes, or table tops, you can’t get it off, no matter how much rubbing and sponging you do. When I hum one of his tunes in the check-out line people roll their eyes and step back from me, afraid that the sweet melody will create a sticky spot in their brain and stay there all day.  He is considered one of the greatest American songwriters of the 20th Century, but he has fallen out of favor. Now is the time to revive his reputation and look upon him with fresh eyes.
     His songs have stood the test of time and are still being sung today. Granted, they are not being recorded; instead, they’re being sung at summer camps, and in church social halls and temple sing-a-longs. But that’s the whole point. Someone asked Pete Seeger what makes a good folk song, and he said, “when it’s a song that folks can sing.”  Folks can sing John Denver songs, and they can play them easily on the guitar. It’s damn hard to write a good simple song that’s easy to sing and easy to play. When a gaggle of kids are sitting around the song leader, they all can sing “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” or “Sunshine on My Shoulders,” and you can see on their faces how excited they are that they know both the tune and the words (I know this one!). And even when half the kids are out of key the song still works, and when you look towards the back of the room a few of the parents are mouthing the words too.


  Our family listened to him when I was growing up and I have fond memories of him playing on the radio and on cassette during long family trips. Many of his songs are about leaving home, being on the road, and then returning, so they’re well suited for traveling. We all feel that pang to get away followed by the desire to get back. My mother has a melancholy fondness for “Sunshine on My Shoulders” because it’s a song about one transitory moment that you wish you could bottle and then open again later -- but that is a wonderful idea that can never be. For her, that was a sun-filled moment when my grandparents and our family were walking on a beach together, and she knew that the three generations would probably never all be together again...and we weren’t.  That was it, that was the moment. 
     My father loved “Annie’s Song,” which is waltz, and while my parents were driving down an empty winter road in the flats of Idaho, that song came on and my father stopped the car and my parents danced in a frozen wheat field with the doors open and the stereo blaring. Now he’s gone too, but that’s the story my mother still tells when that song comes on.
     Unfortunately, John Denver has not only fallen out of favor, he’s gotten a bad rap.  When he peaked in the mid-70s, he was one of the last singer/songwriters without irony. He was earnest and guileless. I remember him being a regular on The Muppets, and in retrospect he was a perfect fit on that show.  With his dorky goofy grin he was like a Muppet himself, a Polly-Anndy trying so gosh darn hard to put on a good show. Then David Letterman arrived and brought a wave of wry ironic humor, and earnestness was ripe for parody. Garry Trudeau began skewering John Denver in his Doonesbury comic strips, with fellow Aspen resident Uncle Duke shooting guns at his pop music neighbor. The drug-addled Duke was a thinly veiled Hunter S. Thompson, whose Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail captured a truth about America deeper than any hokey song. I remember being young and reading Thompson’s books and the Doonesbury strips and then tossing my affection for Denver aside in my efforts to be an adult. The Sex Pistols, The Clash, and early angry Elvis Costello were my music.  Artists sometimes tried to go back to that earlier era, with limited success. I remember Patti Smith singing “You Light Up My Life” in the punk era. She meant it, but no one believed her. In the 90s there was a tribute album to the music of The Carpenters, called If I Were A Carpenter. Both efforts seemed genuine, but anomalies.


But does his music speak to this current era? Or does it belong with Michael Row Your Boat Ashore?  I think his music remains worthwhile when you consider the actual man, and not his public persona.  If you know his life, you can find a message for today. It’s buried in the orchestra strings, voice over-dubbing and rising harmonies that was at the end of every hit song in the 70s. In truth, he seems to have been a restless man, ceaselessly searching, and always haunted. He had an unhappy childhood. He was born Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr., and his father was distant and difficult. John was an Army brat who grew up in a half dozen different regions of the country, never fitting in anywhere. He wrote “Annie’s Song,” for his wife when they reconciled after their first separation, but they later divorced. When they finally split up he almost choked her, and then took a chain saw to their marriage bed. He had a very bitter split from his best friend and manager Jerry Weintraub. His second marriage failed, and he battled against alcohol addiction and depression. He was an experienced pilot, but died when he crashed a new experimental plane he’d been testing.  As a child he resented that his family was always moving and that he was a perpetual outsider, yet he ended up in a similar life where he was constantly on the road. His songs are full of the regret about leaving home, yet he feels a compulsion to leave, nontheless. His songs are full of ecstatic moments (I found it! I found myself! I’m happy!) but the moments seem brief and transitory. He also writes songs about coming home again, and how wonderful that is, but the imagery is just perfect enough that it feels like he wrote them while he was still traveling, wishing he had such a home to which he could return. These “returning” songs are full of nostalgia for a time and place that maybe wasn’t really ever there, yet the ache for them is.
Here are some of the lyrics I now can hear, which passed me by in youth:
GOOD BYE AGAINWhy do we always fight when I have to goHave to go and see some friends of mine, some that I don't knowSome who aren't familiar with my name,It's something that's inside of me not hard to understandIt's anyone who listens to me sing

ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGHWhen he first came to the mountains, his life was far away on the road and hanging by a song.But the strings already broken and he doesn't really care,it keeps changing fast, and it don't last for long.

SWEET SURRENDERLost and alone on some forgotten highway, traveled by many, remembered by few.Looking for something that I can believe in,looking for something that I'd like to do with my life.

SUNSHINE ON MY SHOULDERSIf I had a day that I could give you, I'd give to you the day just like today.If I had a song that I could sing for you, I'd sing a song to make you feel this way.(Sappy as this song sounds, it’s actually about a man who is alone, singing to someone who isn’t there anymore. Either he’s left that person, or she has left him, and that person has passed away, and he wishes that he could have them back for just one more day...but that’s impossible.)

For many years I was like him. There was a part of me that was always restless, always wanting change, yet regretting and resenting that need to move on. I wanted to find a place where I could fit in and feel like I belonged there, yet when I found such places, I never trusted them. Most of us have felt this way, at some time or another. I feel our whole country is on a restless search for itself right now. Thus, it is time. Get rid of the 70‘s orchestration. Get Rick Rubin. Find the alt and emo and country stars who can take a guitar and a mandolin and make his songs their own. They’ll find the pain in between the joy, and he’ll have his second chapter.

NOTE --My editor, Candace Escobar, writes this addendum:
This post makes me think about Norman Rockwell. In junior college I had a philosophy teacher who once told me about how much he loved Norman Rockwell. "I love that shit," he said. I was surprised and a little stumped at his revelation. "REALLY??" I said. "Thats so sappy for you I'd think….kinda generic and earnest." 
But he said it was exactly the opposite. He began to tell me that he loved Rockwell's work so much because of the effect it had on almost everyone who looked at it. The notion, the romantic idea of a time or memory or place-----and it was always something that every person in this country could relate too in some way. That common thread was so thick and tightly woven into our consciousness ----- that he could have been painting our memories and most people probably felt like he was --- which is why The Saturday Evening Post was so important and now iconic.
 "But his stuff is so perfect." I said. "Even the subject matter itself is always a perfectly captured perfect moment." 
He smiled. “But the flip side of that is-----how often do you think those perfect moments actually happen-----exactly that way----to any of us? Rockwell didn't paint life as it was, as it happened. I believe he painted life as he wanted it to be, the way he would choose to remember it. And that resonated with our country. And I think thats what makes his work just as important or modern or stunning as any Picasso or Van Gogh.” 

Crazy Stuff My Mother Says

Mother’s Day is this Sunday, and to honor my mother, Carol Bull, I want to share some of her 
personal sayings, and provide some etymology. Some of her sayings are worthy of 
resurrection in the popular culture -- and some are so terrible I cringe when I hear them. 
Here’s to you, Mom! We love you!
What is wrong with me! I have a mind like a sieve! 
This is what she says when she can’t remember what to do next, or why she came into the 
room.
If my brain had a twin, it would be lonely!
She uses this phrase just as much, and she says it when she’s made a mistake and is angry 
with herself. My grandmother Mary Raynard said this often as well.
I look like Who Shot Liz.
This is one of my favorites, and I can’t find the root etymology. When you look terrible, or 
someone looks ravished, you say, “I look like Who Shot Liz,” or “She looks like Who Shot 
Liz.” In England, they use the phrase “Who Shot Lizzy” to express the same sentiment, and 
there was even a U.K. rock band named Who Shot Lizzy. Yet I have searched and cannot 
find the source of the phrase. Who was Lizzy? And the phrase doesn’t make sense. “I look 
like Lizzy when she got shot,” makes more sense, Or “I look as if Lizzy shot me.”
It’s had the biscuit.
This refers to an item that is beyond repair and must be tossed away. For instance, you might 
say, “I’ve repaired that car twenty times in the past year, and it’s still having trouble. I think it’s 
had the biscuit.” Or she may say, “these are my favorite shoes but I’ve worn them so much 
they’ve had the biscuit.” This is an English expression from World War I trench warfare. 
When a solider was dying, they rushed to give him the Eucharist and the last rites, which 
meant taking a wafer from the priest. Thus, upon dying, you had the biscuit. What once 
referred to brutal warfare, my now mom uses to describe an old sweater she must throw 
away. Then again, as kids we play “ring-around-the-rosy,” which is a nursery rhyme that 
refers to the Plague of the Middle Ages.
A lick and a promise
This is another English phrase, which means to do a barely sufficient amount of work on a 
task that requires much more effort than you are providing, but with a promise to return and 
do a more complete job later. For instance, “this kitchen floor needs a good mop and shine, 
but for now just get a broom and give it a lick and a promise.” I like this phrase, and it hinges 
on the word “lick” as a unit of work. You sometimes hear someone say, “he’s not worth a 
lick,” or “he didn’t do a lick of work today.” It may have started in England, but it’s used often 
in the American South.
It’s better to be lucky than good.
This is a phrase you chant out loud when you get lucky at something, like finding a parking 
spot when you least expect it. You also use it to remind yourself that despite your best efforts 
to plan and be prepared, luck plays a big part in any success. “Yesterday, I left for the store 
an hour early to find a parking spot, and circled forever before I found one. Today I went 
there on a whim and found one right away, which proves again that it’s better to be lucky 
than good.”  The phrase has been attributed to Lefty Gomez, Arnold Palmer, and airplane tail 
gunners World War II. The sentiment is in many old fairy tales (pre-Disney) in which the 
heroine or hero doesn’t seem very deserving, yet just gets lucky.
I have to piddle.
This one has to go. She doesn’t say pee. She says piddle. She also says it out loud to her 
adult children and her grandchildren. For instance, in a restaurant, as you come back to your 
seat, she will say, “did you wash your hands after you piddled?” I don’t like this phrase, but I 
may haul it out when I’m in my 70s and I want to be passive-aggressive with younger 
members of my family.
Oh Carol!
She often talks to herself when she is frustrated, which is slightly reassuring. It proves 
she is equally judgmental of everyone’s performance, including her own. She reprimands 
others often, but she reprimands herself just as often.
My mother was born in Canada, but her father was born in Yorkshire England, and her 
mother was born on the Isle of Lewis in the New Hebrides of Scotland. Most of these 
phrases were probably said in her own home growing up. 
In honor of Mother’s Day, my daughter Lily wrote this letter to her grandmother (with 
some help from us): Dear Tutu,
Happy Mother’s Day! I am sorry if this letter arrives late. I didn’t look at the calendar, and 
I forgot which week is was. I’m not surprised, I have a mind like sieve! I think if my brain had 
a twin it’d be lonely.
I got out of bed this morning and when I looked in the mirror my hair was such a mess I 
swear I looked like Who Shot Liz. Then I went to put on my shoes, and the laces broke. it 
was then that I realized that my favorite shoes had the biscuit, so I tossed them.
All this made me late so my dad had to drive me to school, but he got a parking spot 
right in front. That proves again that it’s better to be lucky that good.
This letter would be longer, but I have to piddle.
Oh Carol!
Love Lily.

The Jig is Up: Lily Learns that Santa is a Con Job

My daughter Lily turns nine in June, and she’s been suspicious about Santa for more than six months. I was also in third grade when I was confronted with the truth about Saint Nicholas. I remember being in the back of Mrs. Schultz’s class, hanging out with the other kids by the sink. It was a rainy day, so recess was inside, and Christmas vacation was coming up in just a few weeks. Clayton Cooke, the fastest runner in class, and Gary Nakamura, who was the fastest at the multiplication and division flash cards, were the coolest boys in class by default. They were leaning against the sink arms crossed, side by side, holding court. Gary spoke first, while Clayton just nodded.  Santa isn’t real, you know. Santa is your parents. They were smug in their knowledge, like boys would be a decade or less later when they were talking about sex. I think I remember Clayton with a cigarette half-hanging out of his mouth, but that’s a confabulation. I was shocked and ashamed. Shocked at seeing the man behind the curtain, and ashamed that I hadn’t seen such an obvious truth earlier. Of course, I didn’t tell my parents that I knew, because I still wanted presents. It wasn’t until the following fall, when I was in 4th grade that my mother broached the subject. We had left Sears and we were crossing Valencia Street back to her car, and she dropped the bomb in the form of a question: So when did you stop believing in Santa? I shrugged and said I didn’t know. I didn’t like how she said it. I couldn’t articulate it at the time, but it bugged me how there had been so much ritual and power and magic invested in this character over the years, and how we had all derived happiness from it, and then, at a certain age, it just got flipped off, like a switch.  The other feeling I couldn’t articulate was how learning all this was feeding my skepticism about everything I was being taught. If I was writing a script for a movie where the same scene played out, it might go something like this: So when did you stop believing in Santa? Pretty much around the same time I stopped believing that Jesus rose from the dead and that God and Jesus and a Ghost exists in some kind of three-for-one deal. But I was not capable of saying that as an eight year old, and my mother would never have tolerated it. When Lily entered our lives, Robin and I didn’t debate whether we’d fake her out with the cultural inventions about Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. Of course we would. That’s half the fun of being parents. We must foist our bizarre traditions and histories on our kids. Robin is Jewish, I am agnostic but consider myself “Jewish-by-proxy” due to marriage, and Lily is being raised Jewish, although we’re a bit behind on that process. We also have a Christmas tree and we go to church when we visit my mother. All I know is that if there is a higher power, we’ve got our bases covered. We could have told her the truth from the beginning, and some parents do, but I never wanted to do that. You risk ostracizing your kid that way by making them “weird” to others before they can handle it. When I was growing up, the kid who knew Santa wasn’t real was also the kid who called his parents by their first names. Weird. Of course, the truth will always win out, and this past year Robin and I had moments of anxiety. Not Lily. Us.  We knew she was hearing rumors on the school yard, just like I heard from Gary Nakamura and Clayton Cooke, or how I heard from my older cousins, Lene and Kathy, how babies were made. From the hints she was dropping I could tell Lily was going through the same deductive process I’d gone through.  She knows the story doesn’t make sense -- but if she stops believing in the story, she may not receive. And half the fun for all of us on Christmas morning is the fun of opening presents and the great feeling it gives you, even if Santa is fake. My sister-in-law has an elegant phrase she uses to this day, and her kids are all grown: As long as you believe, you shall receive.  I think Lily stopped believing this past Christmas, but didn’t want to tell us. I think she may have been guiding us towards the truth as well. She didn’t want to visit Santa at Macy’s, and when we watched “White Christmas” on Christmas Eve, she said she wanted that to be her new Christmas tradition. It felt more grown up. We got through Christmas and dodged the truth, but this past week Lily lost a tooth. As with every past tooth, Lily leaves it on the dining room table. Robin has a small fabric bag, very light and see through, small enough for a fairy to lift and open. Lily always writes a note, and places the tooth in the fabric bag, on the dining room table. No “under the pillow” in our house -- Lily is too light a sleeper. That means Robin stays up late, and when she’s confident that Lily is asleep she writes an inspirational note to her in writing so small it could fit on a grain of rice, so small you need a magnifying glass to read it. She writes a long letter too.  This week Lily got her dollar from the tooth fairy. She showed me the tooth fairy wrote back to her, but I told her I couldn’t read it because the writing was so small, so she brought out a magnifying glass so we could examine the note more closely.  Like Sherlock Holmes in braids, she made an observation:
Lily: Hey, this is written in the same ink as my letter to her.  Robin: So? Lily: And the writing sure looks like YOUR writing. Robin: You have to brush your teeth, hurry up. Lily: Are you the tooth fairy? Robin: We’ll talk about it later.
The next day was fraught with anxiety. At Christmas, Robin had searched websites about how to handle the Santa quesiton, but we’d escaped -- probably because Lily wanted to spare us. By the false outrage in her voice, I could tell she was ready to confront us about the truth. Plus the false gods of spring -- the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy -- are easier to tear down then the grand St. Nicholas. Still, Robin spent all her spare time over the next 48 hours prepping for the moment when Lily would ask again. It happened at dinner this past weekend, and when Lily asked, Robin said she needed a script, and she read her this:
The truth is that Daddy and I believe in fantasy and magic.  And your imagination is so beautiful and full of love and excitement. And you’ve reached an age when you really want to know.  And the truth is that the tooth fairy has been a wonderful legend for a very long time.And parents who really love their children and believe in magic are a tribe of magic keepers.  And now that you know the truth, you have crossed over and you are now a magic keeper for younger children, and for your own children when you grow up. That’s why we’ve gotten you these gifts – three little fairies and a magical moonstone pendant to remind you of your new role.And Santa?  Saint Nicholas was a real person from long ago. He left presents for the children in his village, and he cared for the poor and unfortunate. The legend grew over time, and became the story we all know.  Santa exists in the hearts and souls of all people who are kind and generous. Santa’s spirit is a wonderful legend that brings all of us happiness. You can keep Santa alive in your heart for as long as you want.We can all be like Santa by doing nice things for people, and expecting nothing in return.
Robin was wiping her tears away as she read this. There would be no more Christmas arts and crafts, and no more baking cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve with her daughter. An era was ending. Lily took it in stride, with a few questions:
Lily: So when I went to visit Santa, I was just sitting on some random fat guys lap? Robin: Yes. Lily: That’s so gross! Robin: Sorry. We like those pictures, they make good Christmas cards. Lily: And who ate the carrots that we left outside for the reindeer? The father speaks up finally: I did. Lily: That’s so gross! You ate ten carrots that we left in the driveway? Me: I chewed them up and spit most of it out on the ground.  Lily: Did you wash them before you did that? Me: Of course I washed them! Lily: I hope so, they were in the driveway. Robin: You can’t tell Sasha or Devin or Naomi or Zoey. Lily: Of course not! Why would I do that?
And so the magic ends. Lily would rather live in Truth. However, she was relieved to know that she’ll still get gifts from Santa. If she pretends to believe, she will receive, like with so many other human belief systems. She was upset, however, by two sets of magical creatures perhaps not being real. Fairies and mermaids.  I’ve enjoyed her belief in these two species. Neither care much about humans. Neither wants to really communicate with us. They’re not observing our behavior and rewarding or punishing us for what we do. If anything, they fear us for what we may do if we actually catch one. But she asked for the truth, so I had to had to tell her -- they don’t exist, and I’d be lying to you if I said they did. She still feels a connection to the earth and nature when she is outside, and anthropomorphizing that force is a way to understand the indescribable, and ourselves. That’s the good part of myth and legend -- learning about the myth of Psyche can help us understand our psyches. And there may be intelligent “fairies” out there, on a distant planet, or in a form or a dimension that we simply can’t perceive, riding Higgs Boson particles through the mysterious Dark Matter of the universe. Lily now accepts and understands that the only way to find them is through scientific reasoning and logic, yet she still wishes there could be fairies hiding in the garden and mermaids swimming in the ocean. When my friend Chris’s daughter was young and learned the truth about Santa, he saw her sitting on the sofa, staring wistfully out the window. When he asked her if something was wrong, she said, “I just wanted to believe a little bit longer.”

Plenty of Women Work in Hollywood

Where are all the women In Hollywood? In March of this year, the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film, which is part of San Diego State University, released its current statistics and studies, and they weren’t encouraging. Reading from their website:

For film:
Women comprised 16% of all directors, executive producers, producers, writers, cinematographers, and editors working on the top 250 (domestic) grossing films of 2013. This figure represents a decrease of two percentage points from 2012.For Television:In 2012-13, women accounted for 28% of creators, executive producers, producers, directors, writers, editors, and directors of photography working on prime-time programs airing on the broadcast networks.These statistics got pushed into the limelight alongside Cate Blanchett when, in her Oscar Acceptance Speech she said:"Those of us in the industry who are still foolishly clinging to the idea that female films with women at the center are niche experiences - they are not. Audiences want to see them and, in fact, they earn money. The world is round, people."I actually believe, but I don’t have the numbers, that there are plenty of women working in Hollywood, because I work with them every day. I just think they’re not being counted, or even being seen.            That’s because the professional women I’m talking about work in the specific genre of “Reality” Television. From this point on in the blog post, I am going to refer to it as unscripted non-fiction TV, because that’s what it is, and what it should be called. The term “reality” (in quotes) was coined by journalists’ years ago as they tried to describe the new genre taking over cable TV, and the phrase stuck. No one working in the genre called it that, and when someone says to me that there’s nothing “real” about “reality” TV, I reply that I never make that claim. Also, the phrase “unscripted” (also in quotes) doesn’t mean it’s “unwritten” either, which is another contentious subject -- but I digress -- back to the women.             I’ve worked in this genre for most of my career, moving up from editor to Executive Producer and Show Runner, and now I split time between editing and producing. I personally have worked with more women than men. I’ve hired more women than men, and now that I am an editor again, the people who supervise and guide my creative work are mostly women.            I am working on an unscripted non-fiction show right now, and as I write this I am sitting in my edit bay before my workday begins. So far on this show, which is about young people working on a luxury yacht, I have edited material for five different episodes. The show runner is a woman, the lead editor is a woman, the story producers (I like to call them writers) for four of those five episodes are women, and the assistant story producers who find footage for me are women.            These women are damn smart, too. Back in the early days of this genre, we didn’t even have non-linear editing. We didn’t have small lightweight cameras and we felt like we were creating something new and different. Can we tell a drama with this style of shooting? Can we graft a sitcom structure onto this kind of production? We thought we were breaking new ground because we could tell a story a new way. The technology has changed so much that I feel we were carving in stone back then.            Now, a generation later, I am encountering people, mostly women, much younger than me who were raised on the genre, and they are completely comfortable as storytellers when they are in my edit bay. I’m like a rock-n-roll guitarist from the 1960s who thinks he helped invent rock-n-roll, who then encounters a phenomenal kid who plays guitar better than him, and the kid says, “yeah, I grew up listening and copying all your records. But now that I know all your chops, I’m doing my own stuff now...”            These women are well-educated, smart, good leaders, great storytellers, and I enjoy collaborating with them. However, I suspect they may not be counted in the overall numbers because of a bias against the genre, even though it makes up over one-third of the television that gets produced.            And that may be why women end up working there. It’s part of the history of women in the work place. The genre doesn’t really count as television, and therefore neither do they. From my experience, I also suspect there are more people of color and more LGBT people working in unscripted non-fiction television than in other genres as well -- yet I don’t think they’re being counted either.            There’s a self-perpetuating feedback loop going on that is both positive and negative for the industry. In this genre it’s easier to break in, to find work, to rise, and it’s easier to get responsibility. If you’re a woman, or a person of color or you’re gay, there’s also a better chance that you’ll be working with other people like yourself. That’s the upside. The downside is that you’ll be underpaid, a union probably won’t represent you, and you won’t be able to take credit for the work you do.             Wait a second! Women and people of color, working and excelling, yet not being paid as well as others, and not getting credit? Why does that sound familiar?            I am editing an act of unscripted non-fiction television this week that will be hilarious farce, and my story producer and I keep going over the footage, parsing out the lines in the exact order to maximize the laughs. I’m not saying it’s Chekhov, but it’s a comedy of manners that will be pretty damn funny when we’re done. I turned to her today and said, “we’re writing this episode, you know.” She laughed, and said, “I know, but we’re not writers.” And she did what women and people of color have done for years when faced with similar work dilemmas. She laughed, shook it off, and went back to her desk. She knows what’s up. She’s writing something that’s not writing, in a genre of television that’s not really television, invisible and making a product that makes a lot of money in the industry. She wishes it were different, of course, but she’s not quite sure what she can do.            This where it gets tough. The Writer’s Guild of America agrees that what she does isn’t writing, and although they’ve raised the idea of story producers and editors getting credit as writers and getting union representation; the idea has been left on the negotiating table during the last two WGA strikes.            The Motion Picture Editing Guild is doing a good job. As I write this, the editors on “Last Comic Standing” are getting union representation after a short strike, although the editors are getting the contract, not story producers.            And then there are the directors, who aren’t really directors, but they are called field producers, unless it’s a big enough network show, and then they are called directors and represented by the DGA...it gets complicated.            But it’s all worth examining and analyzing, and it’s time for Hollywood to recognize the redheaded elephantine stepchild that’s sitting in the middle of the living room, mostly because of the money it brings in. The cable networks depend on the fast money they can earn from reality shows, and they often provide the liquidity they need while they’re waiting for the bigger expensive dramas like Breaking Bad and Mad Men which require a lot of money up front but take more time to produce.            There are several camps of “unscripted” non-fiction. First, the competition shows, which include both Survivor and The Voice. Then there are the lifestyle shows that appeal to men first and women second, like the shows about fishermen and ice-road truckers, working cops and people searching for aliens or ghosts. Then, there are the lifestyle shows which appeal to women first and men second, which include the shows about rich housewives, Mormon families, little couples, and young people working on yachts.            I believe that female storytellers are well represented in all three of these sub-genres, but they are especially well represented in the last one.             Part of the problem is built into the genre itself. I believe that much of unscripted nonfiction which in a broader sense can also be called “melodrama,” which has its own historical baggage. From Wikipedia comes this definition:            A melodrama is a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions, often with strongly stereotyped characters.            I’ve also heard melodrama described as relying too much on conflict between similar characters in a limited context. Two rich housewives arguing about a party is melodrama, because there doesn’t seem to be much at stake besides their vanity and pride. However, if one is a CIA spy in danger, or a Queen on Game of Thrones, or one of the housewives is battling cancer, then it suddenly no longer qualifies as melodrama, because emotions and problems aren’t being exaggerated. The drama of the underlying situation is doing a good enough job creating obstacles that the characters must overcome, and it’s now a “higher” form of drama. Until that happens, it’s just melodrama. It may be incredibly popular, but it’s still just melodrama.            However, melodrama can become art -- like the plays on Anton Chekhov, which are biting melodramas about an upper class world worth laughing at, which is why he called his plays “comedies.”              Some unscripted non-fiction melodramas are very good, a lot are decent but average, and some are crap -- but that’s true of all movies and TV. The ultimate truth is that doing good original storytelling is hard work no matter the genre in which you work. Some of it is great, a lot of it average, and some of it is bad, and the success of any of it has little to do with the quality. But generally, unscripted non-fiction melodramas are dismissed as entertainment fodder, the digital equivalent of the tabloids, like today’s newspaper, which the fishmongers will us to wrap tomorrow’s “catch of the day.”              And maybe for that reason, women end up here. It’s not because women are better at melodrama -- that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that since it doesn’t get the same respect as other genres, there’s a subtle message that this is the genre where she ought to go -- where she can go -- and get work. Maybe where she herself decides she should go.  She won’t upset the status quo. She’ll be tolerated. She won’t have to fight some larger societal battle. In this way, women may be half guilty of perpetuating the work situation that employs them and at the same time limits them.             Times are changing however, and it’s only a matter of time before all workers in the genre will be recognized for their work and how much money it brings into the industry as a whole.            Nora Ephron comes to mind when I think of the people working in unscripted non-fiction. Nora Ephron was a great writer, a great screenwriter, and a great director. However, she got her start writing for those crappy tabloids. People still turn their nose up at them, but if you wait long enough, that rough-and-tumble world, full of crazy characters and crazier stories, looks quaint in the rear view mirror, and people wax nostalgic for the good old days of tabloid journalism. That’s when the tabloids were good, right?  It’s also a world where she learned how to drink, how to take a punch, and how to write a story -- a world she wrote about and celebrated in her Broadway play, Lucky Guy.  What this genre needs are a few Nora Ephron’s to make a big splash in other genres.

Read about the work done at the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film: http://womenintvfilm.sdsu.edu/researc...

Shout About the Rainbow Later. You're in the Rat Race Now.

Having children teaches you to live in the moment. There is no clock when you’re an infant, or a two-year old, or even a five-year old. When my daughter was hungry, she let me know and I fed her. I had to return to the real world and present for her, regardless of whatever other plans I’d made, and no matter how rushed we were, she always shouted with glee when she saw a rainbow, reminding me yet again to live in the moment.            And now that she’s eight years old, it’s time for me to crush her innate ability to live in “the here and now.“ Sorry darling! This is the age at which she learns to compartmentalize her life and divide up her day into set hours. It’s time to parse out her needs, her pleasures, and her pain according to the clock. There is no present, there is only what must be accomplished in the future, and what we did not successfully accomplish in the past. It’s time for her to learn to rush and multi-task. You’re in the rat race now, darling, so pick up the pace. Shout about the rainbow later.            Meanwhile, all the adults I know are trying to re-learn what she does instinctively.  Simplify. Meditate. Live more with less. Be present. Stop and smell the roses. Unplug. While we’re amping up our kids so they’re ready for the modern world, we’re trying to reclaim our personal lives. It’s a schizophrenic life.            In our house, the hour between her waking up and going to school encapsulates this tension. We have our schedule perfected down to the minute. If everything falls into place, we all get what we want -- mother, father, and daughter. If we’re off by five minutes, plans start to unravel. My daughter Lily has always been good at articulating what she feels, better than me, in fact. And she’s quite right when she says, “It’s stupid to worry about five minutes.”            Here’s our schedule:            I wake up at 5:00 a.m.            I exercise until 6:15, and then wake up my wife Robin.            I make coffee and start making my lunch until 6:30. Robin checks the computer for the weather and any changes in the day’s plan.            We wake up Lily at 6:30. We used to have to go in, but now she emerges on her own, between 6:30 and 6:35.            Our goal is to leave the house at 7:35 to be at school by the first bell. All of us must accomplish a lot within that hour, between 6:35 and 7:35: Bathing, eating, brushing, planning, packing lunches and reiterating the plans for the day.            For Lily, she must eat breakfast, brush her teeth, put on her school clothes, and then sit down to get her long hair combed and braided. Depending on which day it is, there’s also a homework folder, or a letter for the office, a dance bag with a change of clothes or two snacks instead of one. All must fall into place by 7:35, on the nose.            If it’s done by 7:35, I can walk Lily to school, which is a pleasure for both of us. We can actually walk faster than the traffic on Laurel Canyon, and we get to enjoy the seasons. Walking with umbrellas in the rain is fantastic, and walking without a jacket in springtime makes her want to run. We can linger at a flower, or pet and scratch the neighbor’s dog, Sparky, who runs up to the fence to greet us. We can walk with neighbors, or Coach Marty, who lives two blocks down. Sometimes the sprinklers make rainbows, which is still her favorite.            If it’s 7:40, we have to drive, because we may not get to school in time. Even though school is only half a mile away, I must avoid crowded Laurel Canyon and sneak through residential streets. We still make it to school on time, but then we must join the tumbling rush of parents and kids jockeying for parking spots, and then a good position in the crowd so we can dash across the street before the crossing guard blocks us and makes us wait until the next light change.            If It’s 7:43, we are screwed, because there will be no parking spots left at school, and then life becomes tense. We’re tripping over tree roots as we run up the sidewalks, and then we haul ass across the playground to get her to her classroom before the second bell. Of course, all the rushing makes her tense, and when you’re tense you have to pee, so we make a mad dash to the bathroom first, which narrows the window of remaining time even more.            What a difference eight minutes make. 7:35 versus 7:43.            First bell at 7:55, second bell at 8:00 on the nose.            If we’re all ready at 7:35, then we live a blessed and balanced life where we can live in present with one another and notice the changing seasons and the world around us. Look! There’s a bird! She made a nest in our rain gutters! Isn’t life grand?             I can even afford to have a snooty attitude about the rushing parents yelling at their kids as they yank their arms and fling them across the street. But if we don’t leave the house until 7:43, I’m hunched over and frothing at the mouth like the rest of them.            Lily can tell time, but she doesn’t care that much about it.  Why should she? She’s eight years old. I’ve tried to explain to her how important it is to be done at 7:35, and that 7:43 is bad, and she looks at me like I’m insane. And it IS insane. From the look on her face, she knows that I drank the Kool-Aid, and now she must drink it too.            I have to justify this collective madness we all share, which I am now forcing on her. I must reinforce the status quo. I decide that all this is good for her.            Kids must learn how to plan. They must have good “executive functioning,” which is identifying what needs to be done, creating a strategy, and following through on it.             Kids must also learn to persist at a task. You follow your schedule today like you did yesterday, until it becomes a habit you do without thinking. That’s persistence.            And when life throws a monkey wrench into the plan, you must be able to adapt, change the plan and still get it done.              Plan, persist, and adapt. That’s what she has to learn. It’s good for her.            I’m no expert; it all comes from the latest parenting book I’m reading -- How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character, by Paul Tough. It’s a good book, you should read it.  Best of all, it helps me feel better and less guilty about torturing Lily every morning over the importance of eight stupid minutes.            Plan:            She wants to walk to school. That’s the goal. So, we created a strategy. We made a chart together, which she can look at every morning. If she’s done eating at 7 a.m., she has ten minutes to brush her teeth and get dressed. If she’s back in her chair by 7:15, she can watch Hannah Montana on the iPad while her mom rebraids her hair, which takes ten to fifteen minutes. If she’s later than 7:15, there’s no iPad allowed, because we have to rush. It always takes five minutes to gather everything together, remember what’s happening that day, do final reminders, put on jackets and say goodbye. That means we’re walking out the door at 6:35 if we’re lucky. That’s planning.            Persist:            She’s learning that if she gets out of bed every morning at the same time no matter how rough a night she had, and follows her schedule, she’ll get what she wants, and the more she does it, the easier it gets. That’s persistence.             Adapt:            She’s learning that sometimes her amazing long hair is such a tangle that it takes her mother more than fifteen minutes to unknot it and braid it again, which changes everything. No matter how well she followed her steps, our plans could be dashed and she’ll have to adjust. That’s adapting to unforeseen change.             See! I’m a good parent! She will have grit and be a success in life, just like the book promises!            However, what I’m really doing is forcing her to change her entire outlook on life. She no longer lingers as she chooses her breakfast in the morning, deciding between her two favorites -- cheesy toast or Puffin Cereal. She picks fast, the plate slaps down and she glances at the clock as she chows down like a good little girl. You have fifteen minutes to eat, starting now. Obedient little drone. Watch the clock like your daddy does. See how he eats his yogurt over the sink before rushing into the shower? Be like him. Eat at your desk at work. Live by the clock, like the rest of the world. If you think ahead, you can beat the commute! Stop looking at that rainbow, this is important. And you better get good at it, because the world is just getting faster, faster, faster and faster.             I see her chewing and glancing at the clock, and she tenses up as she wonders if she’ll make it. She’s been awake less than twenty minutes and her world is now stressful. My heart breaks. No more early morning shouting about rainbows. Her mind is in the clock now, and I’m the one who put her there. Soon she’ll be just like me, dividing her entire day up into precise 15 minute increments, checking items off life’s list.            She’s still not sure why she’s doing it, it’s just what she’s happening in her life right now. Then again, I’m not sure why I’m doing it either. Oh my god, I just realized that I’m late. No more time for this, I have to go. I don’t have time for fucking rainbows.