Overexposed and Out of Focus

200 Word Reviews #26: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

2012-02-28T08:42:00.003-08:00

Rise of the Planet of the Apes(2011, directed by Simon Rupert Wyatt)

I wasn’t a fan of Apes, but it’s not the productions fault. It’s mine. Director Rupert Wyatt did several things right. Bringing in John Lithgow and James Franco as our human colleagues and Andy Serkis (aka Gollum) as its CG chimp, Caesar, proved wonderful casting. Brian Cox and David Oyelowo were perfect true-to-scale villains, and employing two practically unknown Hollywood writers to pen a heartwarming script paid off too. While apes will obviously never take over the world, even their attempt seemed, within certain comic book highways of reality, somewhat plausible.

It’s the computer graphics. I just don’t like them. I know this is where anyone under the age of forty immediately dismisses me from table talk, but I have an incredibly difficult time hurdling over the fact that an onscreen CG character is in any way interesting. Call me twentieth century, but I like real people. Once human actors bowed from stage and succumbed to computer apes going bananas in San Francisco, I gave it a few minutes, grew uninterested, yawned, and turned the movie off. Did the apes conquer the world? Did Franco save Caesar? I may never know how it ends, and I’m perfectly OK with that.

- Noel

The Photography of Michael Zukerman

2012-02-26T02:16:00.007-08:00

Alright, so I practically know little to nothing about Michael Zukerman. I don’t know where he came into this world or when he came into it (if at all), and though I have this faint understanding that he currently lives somewhere south-east of my current Long Beach, California location….. I believe in Texas, let’s face it, Texas is a rather large state. I’ve never even met the guy. In fact, Zukerman’s about as mythological as Homer or Shakespeare is to biographical history, but that’s kind of how I like it.

I guess it was Zukerman who hunted me down on Facebook first. If you’re a lucky cookie, he’ll hunt you down too, because as far as my circumstantial knowledge goes, he’s one of the best daily contributors that Facebook has to offer. I do believe he is taking applications and reservation try-outs for new Facebook friends, so you may want to swing by his online office and inquire about filling out the appropriate paperwork.

Here’s what I do know. Zukerman has a longstanding history in the media. But the specifics of his resume aren’t important to this blog post. His recent photographs, however, are. Over the last couple of years, Zukerman’s delivered a photo-series that he appropriately calls “A Photo a Day,” striding in dedicated paces to document the Midwest landscape, his homestate and city, and the world around him, uploading each varying picture, well, one day at a time.

What I particularly like about his work is the maturity that he delegates and poetic intimacy that he extracts from the sort of details that many of us wouldn’t even look twice at in the real world. For Zukerman, a road trip is never just the gasoline and burnt coffee that it takes to arrive at point B. That’s kind of the landmark identification of good art, is it not? Someone who can soulfully undress a bird on a wire or a salt and pepper shaker and scribble it down, in whatever its outlet form, so that a bird is never just ruffling its feathers on a wire and salt and pepper is never just contained in shakers.

It’s not about one’s ability to handcuff the mundane and court order it with an epic facelift. He does some of that. But let’s be honest, when we critique any sort of art, while we can dive headfirst into definitions, practicality, skill sets, and logistics, most of the time we settle on something based simply on how it makes us feel. Zukerman’s work calms my emotions. With his daily expressive exercises, I know that somewhere in the world the wind is blowing softly over a field of wheat, elsewhere a flower is yawning, stretching its fingers through the thawing snow,and that an expired beer bottle, long since opened and digested, is still appreciated on its window sill. And, oh yeah, an abandoned barn is still productive if not forgotten.

Walt Whitman put it like this, ‘I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.’ It’s one of Whitman’s central philosophies, and I think it describes Zukerman’s calling well, which makes Michael Zukerman the first on my 2012 list of interesting people.

-Noel

Ugly Duckling’s newest music video, Elevation, has finally been released,

2012-02-25T11:58:00.005-08:00

and I’m still both honored and thrilled that they asked me to be a part of it. Last June I unveiled a green screen preview of Moving at Breakneck Speed’s premier single, Dizzy Dustin (Dustin McFarland), Young Einstein (Rodney Pleasant Jr.) and Andy Cat (Andy Cooper), along with director Stoney Sharp and storyboard script and animator Justin Ridge, who makes a very fun appearance as Abraham Lincoln, in making of action. I thought I’d show off some more pictures from the shoot. I hope you enjoy them.

Elevation’s official music video can be viewed here. Watch it all the way to the very end and listen in for the mischievous sound of what appears to be a photographer snapping photos. Hmm, I wonder who that could be. Thanks again to Dustin, Rodney, and Andy. You can see part 1 of my green screen photo-shoot here: Ugly Duckling: Moving at Breakneck Speed - Elevation.

- Noel

Ron and Kristie….. 4 years later

2012-02-25T11:06:00.002-08:00

I know I don’t stress my wedding photography much on this blog, if at all, mainly because I designated it as a release from my work. This photo journal is really a way to pursue other abstract interests, mainly writing, and flesh out what I hope to be the beginning of a notable poetry career.

One of the wonderful things about being a veteran wedding photographer is following up on the lives of those who were married with my shuttering lens in focus. I particularly love it when couples send Christmas cards or e-mail me pictures of their newborn children.

Such is the case with Ron and Kristie. I photographed Ron and Kristie’s wedding back in 2008 in Newport, Rhode Island. For those of you who haven’t been to Newport, please go. Despite being roughly the size of Los Angeles County, Rhode Island is easily one of the most elegant and distinguished crops of real estate in the entire United States.

Anyways, I like how Ron and Kristie sequenced a picture that I had taken of them on their wedding day with their infant child, Conner, four years later. Thanks guys, I love it.

Noel

The Best of Facebook #4: February 2012

2012-02-17T11:34:00.000-08:00

Brian Wilson shares photos of fellow Beach Boys in the studio with Capitol Records

Included in this issue I cover the best Super Bowl, Grammys, and Valentine’s Day posts from Facebook in February 2012. I wasn't keeping up every day so I hope I didn’t miss yours. Keep them amusingly clever or funny over the next month and I’ll make sure to post them in future editions.

You know your day is off to a bad start when you've already resorted to letting the children watch movies. – Heather Yocky Goble

Photo: This can't be good - Kara Rutkin

My wife wants to know who I'm VOTING for. I told her I'm not sure. She said she's voting for Tom Brady.....uhhhh. ok. Maybe he'll hit a homerun hun – Richard Chung

The power went out in the middle of the super bowl! – John Brown

Cee Lo looked like Old Deuteronomy in the halftime show. – Lauren Levine

Lastest Aravism: "I liked the girl singer. I really liked her outfit. You could really see her armpits." – Heather Yocky Goble

It's going to get LOUD tonight!!!!!!! Not because the Giants won.. Because it's after 7pm and I'm hungry...and I want to eat something!!!!! AAAAARGH!!!!!!! – Richard Chung

Photo: Social Media explained (Brian Peterson and Ginger Hatch)

Do you have a coworker that talks to themselves and every time they do something good says, "Damn, Ninja!"?...I do. – Kevin Mayfield-Hom

Anybody need their toilet paper unrolled? I've got a professional over here. – Heather Yocky Goble

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!!!!!!! I'm on a diet. So I went home for lunch...and what do I find? My wife, mother-in-law and two of her friends (one who used to cook in a restaurant) giving cooking lessons. They're making Lasagna, Cajun Shrimp, Thai cucumber salad, French Potato Casserole, homemade wheat bread dehydrated fruit....and dessert. I told them they're always welcome in our home! – Richard Chung

Photo: Brian Peterson walking the red carpet at the Grammy’s

I'm tempted to bring my saxophone along with me to the Grammy rehearsals today in L.A. I bet Adele, Coldplay, the Civil Wars, or Taylor Swift would like some help. – Brian Peterson

Does someone wanna go play beach volleyball...oh wait – Ryan Hadley (on the new Los Angeles County law that recently passed Stupid New Law in Random Thoughts #2)

Unanticipated but apparently relatively normal side effect of the steroid: blurry vision. Awesome. Or possibly a pinched cranial nerve. Awesome – Nicole Sutterfield

Photo: from Heather Yocky Goble

Sam – "I think peanut allergies are made up. Because 15 years ago we they didn't exist. Some extreme left-wing liberal decided everyone in the office needed to bow down and cater to him. That's how it got started. I read it on Wikipedia."

Nina – "Oh, then in must be true."

Sam – "It is, because I put it there right before I read it." — Nina Unger

Me - Did you hear what I was saying?

Kev -Yeah, remember when I said the same thing yesterday.

Me -Yeah, I didn't know if you were just trying to make me feel better about myself.

Kev -Nah, I'd never just try to make you feel good.

- - Sarah May Yocky Carter

How many girls can say they received a "Happy Valentine's Day" call from someone in the midst of hiking to the top of Kilimanjaro? 'Cause I can... – Mikkel Mihlrad

Today my wife tells me I actually carry my weight well. She said usually guys that are as heavy as I am and have skinny legs, skinny little arms and a big belly look overweight. But me!...she said I've got fat legs, fat arms and a fat belly (scratching my head)...uhhhhh thanks honey...(I think) – Richard Chung

On his show, Dr. Oz just showed off pubic hair dye. Wow, it comes in natural colors and in pink and blue. Do the carpets match the drapes? No, they don't make purple. – Megan Rollins

Not feeling well... will resume my duties as face book's relationship counselor as soon as I feel better – Michael Zukerman

A few random thoughts on the Grammys 2012

2012-02-13T21:08:00.003-08:00

Remember when people thought mullets and MC Hammer’s parachute pants were the greatest fashion affirmations since Adam and Eve’s leafy underwear? Yeah, that’s how I perceive Auto-Tunes now, as parachute pants. And it’s everywhere on modern radio. I can’t stand it. Please stop recording them. Am I the only millennial generation adult who desperately wants to participate in the complete death and burial of the Auto-Tune voice? I thought I was. Then I watched last night’s Grammys. Adel and the Foo Fighters pulled the computer chords out and swept the floor, and it felt great.

Here’s another thought I had. Is it just me, or can the average twenty-first century musician come anywhere close to the creative and energetic power of the twentieth-century boomer songwriter? Remember when people like Bruce Springsteen, the Beach Boys, and the Beatles actually wrote and recorded their own songs? Darn, they performed at the Grammys this year, didn't they? And they were exquisite. Even the suffering Beach Boys, stiff jointed seventy year old men in a fifty year old band, sounded miraculously better than Maroon 5’s Adam Levine, who attempted his own noble rendition of Surfer Girl. Oh wait, his newest hit single, Moves like Jagger, is a product of Auto-Tune, isn’t it? It is. How quickly I forget.

I know there’s great songwriter musicians out there, Dave Grohl and Chris Martin being two of them, Adele shining as a soulful singer and Katie Perry an exquisite performer, but let me understand this right. A recognizable bulge of the Grammy’s performances were headlined by dinosaurs of the musical industry. These aging Gershwin’s are still turning out some of the best songs around. Move over Lady Gaga, because Bruce the Boss Springsteen still looks the best in jeans. I even had to remind my wife once, hey, he has a face, you know, and it’s up there.

I can relate to lingerie model Kylie Bisutti,

2012-02-10T16:28:00.002-08:00

who recently announced her break-up with Victoria’s Secret over personal convictions that her career was not aligning with her Christian faith and the fact that her husband should be the only other living man to see the sacredness of her body.

No, I probably couldn’t sell much underwear as a model, well, maybe…… perhaps I should call my agent…… but I do experience the daily inner urge to forge into my own soul and extract the canvas of self-expression for all to see. Though not everyone is wired the same way, I believe that many, if not all of us, are designed by God to be little creators of sorts. Whether poet, director, architect, carpenter, engineer, musician, or actor, we each have this natural inclined desire to create something, and we spend our entire lives tinkering with the idea.

Speaking on my own behalf, living out the Christian faith can often be complicated because morality isn’t always painted in epic strokes of black and white, as some fundamentals would have you believe, especially when you enter the realm of expression. I mean, some people of the faith are completely satisfied staring at David’s chiseled out stone penis, still others might blush at the thought of a whiplashed peripheral gaze, while many will completely disagree with the appropriateness of looking altogether. This friction is unending throughout all acquaintances of life politically, socially, and artistically.

That’s where my connection with model Kylie Bisutti comes in. I’ve been in the career focused position of self-expression where I’ve had to pedal the breaks and retract my own bearings, having trespassed too far into an off-shaded realm of morality for personal comfort. Living out the faith as little creators in cultured society isn’t a starving ourselves of the ability to express. It is, however, a seeking to articulate what is right and shun what is wrong. It’s sometimes confusing. I’m still trying to figure it all out.

I know, I know, we’re not all going to agree on the grey areas of right and wrong all the time, but I think most of you who have an artistic eye will at least level with me on this. Some might even argue that Kylie Bisutti, as a faith believing Christian, was not in the wrong for modeling erotic women’s undergarments. I could come up with an argument for it right now, but personally, I’m not sure where I stand on the matter, so I’ll keep tight-lipped, think about it, and then perhaps come back to you with a response in a couple or several years. It’s an uneven journey of discovery for all of us.

I will say this, though. For whatever reason, and I’m sure there’s many, Kylie Bisutti surrendered fame and riches in order to pursue her love of Jesus. There’s no shame in that. All the Kylie Bisutti’s of the world who’ve retracted a standing position, in whatever discipline of life, because they understood in their heart that it was no longer the appropriate avenue for their faith, I courtesy to you. Doing the right thing is sometimes confusing, but in the end the pursuit of it, I believe, will ultimately be rewarded.

So, there’s this stupid new law in Los Angeles County

2012-02-09T15:32:00.001-08:00

It’s so laughable I can’t help but deplete my afternoon writing a blog entry about it just so you all can comprehend how unintelligible and silently protected some of these laws can be. Here it is. According to a 37 page ordinance, the throwing of Frisbees or footballs on public beaches is now prohibited. A first time offender will pay a hefty $100 fine. Tack on $200 for the second offense, and $500 for a third.

By the way, this law also prohibits, and I quote: the casting, tossing, throwing, kicking, or rolling of any object other than a beach ball or volleyball upon or over any beach between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Volleyball, you say? If I’m reading this right, it looks like permits may even be required for our local Long Beach celebrity, Olympian Misty May.

And seriously, I can’t even roll a ball?

How am I supposed to break this news to Hope, my black Labrador retriever, who, at this very moment, is waiting by the front door with a leash, beach hat, beach towel, and red rubber ball in her mouth?

Here’s another ordinance to tack on. ‘No hole deeper than 18 inches is permitted’……. except for film and TV productions who want to shoot a scene of a child digging holes deeper than 18 inches.

This is what happens when our government reaches into their pockets and realizes that their tailor didn't stitch large enough holes through the sides of their bridges for the total measure of their greed. We’re not talking about morality, here. This is right along the lines of Jefferson's life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and the kind of unwarranted interruption from governance that really needs to be spoken into. Personally, I think we should gather thousands of people together for a first annual Frisbee competition on Memorial Day 2012, and perhaps, if we’re feeling especially feisty, we just might cast, or God forbid roll, any object other than a beach ball or volley ball in an undesignated, non-permitted area.

- Noel

This is slightly exciting news,

2012-02-09T14:03:00.000-08:00

My newest book, One of These Days I'll End Up on the Wrong Flight Home, is available at the main branch of the Long Beach Public Library. If you're bored today, tomorrow, next week, or at any other time in your potentially lackluster future and looking for something to do, you can mouse this link, LBPL Website, and scribble Noel J Hadley into the search engine just for fun. It's what I spend my day doing. Special thanks to Long Beach librarian Catrina (and 10th grade science partner) for making this happen.

Oh, and that’s me digesting the masterful poetry of Mr. Leonard Nimoy. Reader beware, you may get wet. Tissues should be properly kept within arms reach at all times.

-Noel

200 Word Reviews #25: Happy 80th Birthday, John Williams!

2012-02-08T08:11:00.000-08:00

John Williams: The Adventures of Tintin (directed by Steven Spielberg, 2011)

Today is film composer John William’s 80^th birthday, and what a legacy! But here’s the problem with his heritage, as I see it. He won’t stop creating it. How is it that Williams could ride into the sunset years of his life, retirement long overdue, and still manage to tickle the best compositions in Hollywood today? There's a plethora of young talent out there, and respectfully, none of those guys are coming close to the rich tapestry, multi-dimensional scores of William’s piano ivory. Stories have it from contemporaries that Williams is a musical hermit too, relying solely on his own influences for inspiration.

I haven’t seen the movie, but The Adventures of Tintin was clearly the best score of 2011. It ranks right up there with his career best, Jurassic Park and E.T., resonating like a vintage rewind through all four of his Indiana Jones movies. There’s little time for rest when listening, but plenty of wiggle room. Tintin is always in pursuit. Williams flickers his baton through the dark alleyways and exotic rooftops of his melodious soul, utilizing shadowy figures, comedic improvising, window shattering voices, and romantic intermissions to construct another fine musical masterpiece. Really, there’s surprises around every corner.

- Noel

The Poets Voice #4: What Are My Chances of Seeing a Moose?

2012-02-07T21:25:00.000-08:00

Here’s another poem from my latest book One of These Days I’ll End Up on the Wrong Flight Home. Once again, my gratitude goes to Kevin for lending your voice to my words.

What Are My Chances of Seeing a Moose?

That’s the question that I keep asking around Anchorage.

What are my chances of seeing a moose and where

should I go to view one?

I’ve read up on what it is to be a moose and I’ve talked

with Yellowstone rangers who claim most tourist

sightings of the largest deer family member

are really misclassified

elk-tag identities.

I’ve even snapped a few moose pictures in my head.

I imagine the first time I see one he’ll be crossing

wide river beds, a silhouette in the brilliant

yellow light of morning.

Better yet, he’ll be standing like a statue in the park,

the mighty Tetons or Denali in clear view,

broad antlers raised full mast.

After tugging luggage through

double sliding lobby doors

I ask the hotel clerk the same probing question.

“One of them lives right out there.” He points to an icy field

littered with candy wrappers, a box of Kraft Mac-and-cheese,

Chef Boyardee canned-goods,

and a frozen tire.

“And wouldn’t you know? He came by not ten minutes ago.”

The man with a lobster-backed neck and tooth-paste body, who

keeps his ball cap on even in the Jacuzzi, says,

“They grow like weeds around here.

We shoot them when we can.”

“Such ugly beasts,” adds his bikini strutting wife,

legs half draped in the cauldron with a muffin-fat belly

but perfectly skewed tan lines.

“Yup, cept when I mount them on our walls,” he says, sipping Coors,

“they’re all tux and bow-tie then.”

The woman bartender at Gwinnies laughs. “There’s a moose, hun.”

She points to a dumb-looking moose head mounted on the wall.

I swig another belly-full of Blue Moon Belgian White,

swishing the orange slice around in small circles

with the tip of my finger.

“You peep-le living in LAX think you’re so migh-tee

in-te(ll)-ee-gent,” the drunk man

on the barstool slurs intelligent together,

dripping his l’s, stretching his e’s.

“Well, people don’t actually live there, you know.

It’s international. We just visit sometimes.”

“Yes you do. It’s a si-tee of peep-le. I saw it in

a moo-vee once,” he breaths two inches from my face.

“Are you caw-ling me a li-rr?” - Then falls from his barstool.

“Yup, you’ve missed him…. again.”

Same clerk says from behind his lobby countertop.

“Big one too…. a bull…. HE-UUGE.”

Even the disc jockey’s in on some elaborate prank.

“All those moose,” he says, “who annually collide with cars.

Slow down, hurried driver…. or you might make a statistic.”

Kim is the name of the bride

who is walking barefoot through the field in snow ten below

because the view, she says, is better from out here.

Danny slushes after, numb fingers clinching her bouquet

while I net their portrait.

A stranger break-squeaks his four-by-four and drops the window.

“There’s a moose around the corner in downtown Anchorage.”

He says it was walking through the street in the right hand lane

causing traffic jams, strolling the sidewalk, nostrils

plugging upon store windows,

and if we hurry one block down and two blocks over

we might catch him in action.

Danny and Kim exclaim

how we must snow-bound one block down and two over

to cross a moose off my list and add one in their album.

To kill two birds with one stone,

is the wording that she used.

Suffice to say we finished the bride and groom photo-shoot

one block down and two blocks over without a moose in view.

What I’m trying to say is,

I cringe at all my lost moose opportunities.

There’s so many of them.

Ten minutes late, ten too soon,

and you’d never believe it,

sometimes I even miss them when my eyes are closed.

Now, in January

the sun sort of peaks its brows

over mountain tops, slugs five paces, then returns to bed

another nineteen hours.

That’s when I wake up, moments

after a fresh bucket of snow finished its dribble

and glistened the teeth of trees.

Moose tracks….. parading through the parking lost…. marching

past my rental car, circling around the hotel.

Fresh ones from the look of it.

They wander off a ways into the lonely field of trash

before leading back to the hotel where he stood

apparently for a time staring into a window,

turning in circles then stealing a second look

at some hidden traveler.

I’m not playing games with your heart when I tell you it

was my luggage in the chair and camera on the bed

and apparently my body sleeping while he

chewed on grub with his big dumb head.

- Noel

200 Word Reviews #24: My Week with Marilyn

2012-02-04T15:08:00.000-08:00

My Week with Marilyn (2011, directed by Simon Curtis)

How is it that one film could dodder from enthralling to mediocre and back again, repeat cycle, so many times? It’s what happens when you mix a so-so movie with an incredible performance by its leading actor. Michelle Williams sparkles like diamonds as iconic legend Marilyn Monroe. I’ve seen a good assortment of Monroe’s films, and I can tell you, hands down, that Williams was Monroe, perhaps a little thinner, but she was Monroe. She’s that good. I found myself gazing at the clock whenever Williams was off screen yet magically transfixed upon her return.

In My Week, we follow a young, mostly innocent movie entrepreneur, Colin Clark, who falls under Marilyn’s spell during the production of The Prince and the Showgirl. Her marriage to Arthur Miller has begun to unravel, and things aren’t going well on set. See, acting royalty Laurence Olivier is a great performer attempting to become a movie star and Marilyn is an icon seeking out her great performance. Problems ensue, and soon Clark is requested to spend a week’s hiatus with the paranoid, pill popping Monroe. The rest is a gift for Clark, but more so for us, who welcome Monroe’s triumphant return on film.

-Noel

In Other News, my new book of poetry is finally up for sale online.

2012-02-02T14:12:00.000-08:00

You can pick up a copy of One of These Days I’ll End Up on the Wrong Flight Home at Amazon.com. It’s listed for $11.99. You know, you write this stuff, and it can take well over a year before any of it sees the light of day. One of These Days really is my best work ever, so I’m thrilled to finally have it out there.

Here's a link: Noel J Hadley on Amazon.com

- Noel

Current Cravings #1: Acupuncture

2012-02-02T11:59:00.000-08:00

Infertility, insomnia, emotional pain, life-like nightmares, failed attempts at focusing, and physical tenseness, just to name a few problems, ravage my flesh. Over the last couple of years I’ve actually become afraid to go to bed, let alone sleep, as silly as that may sound. For three or four years I lingered through this prolonged interval completely vacant of anything resembling a narrative dream. Arriving to school naked, falling off a cliff like Willie E. Coyote, riding unicorns, those were good times. How I missed them. When my dreams finally did return, they sprung with a tempered vengeance.

I’d wake up terrified, still very much in my nightmare. That same unwelcome intruder of my imaginary pillow world would often be standing in the hallway or by the edge of my bed staring down at me. Then followed the insomnia, long hours of drifting aimlessly through house halls, plopping down on the sofa, television remote in hand, exhausted, contemplating how it was that I could have forgotten something so very simple as the art of counting sheep.

I’m a notch past thirty now, and it’s time that I start taking care of my body. That’s where my recent love of Eastern Medicine comes in.

Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about it: Its general theory is based on the premise that bodily functions are regulated by the flow of an energy-like entity called qi. Acupuncture aims to correct imbalances in the flow of qi by stimulation of anatomical locations on or under the skin called acupuncture points, most of which are connected by channels known as meridians.

Correct me if my observations are skewed, but modern western medicine comes across to me as a narrow methodological model that employs broader scientific logic to concentrate on singular, out-of-context portions of our bodies. Here’s an example. If you visited your doctor inhibiting eye problems, he’ll refer you to an optometrist, who will likely utilize his skills inspecting for cause-and-effect patterns within the parameters of your eye alone, and not your ankle, liver, or thigh, which, when constructed in the greater puzzle-piece picture, may prove to be the culprit. I know it sounds silly at first. My own body, and my wife’s body, had to be proven wrong before I could agree.

Doctors are perfected at crisis care medicine, not managing the health of the walking wounded. Instead of treating underlying causes or imbalance, doctors merely manage symptoms.

Drugs inhibit the belief that our body has a self-healing capacity, and doctors utilize them regularly as a promised solvent for the magic bullet. Each individual person exhibits uniqueness in their physical being that no singularly focused universal treatment can promise resolution.

In my experience, symptoms, like headaches, are widely understood as something to be suppressed rather than compass pointers to greater imbalances. How do we cure headaches? Well, Advil may suppress the symptoms, but it certainly won’t cure the disease. I had regular migraine headaches for years. I used to be one of those guys that we all know who always comes down with a cold or flu. That all changed once my weekly visits to the chiropractor began. It’s amazing how interconnected our inner organs are. I haven’t had a single headache, common cold, or flu since 2008.

Alright, I’ve only visited my acupuncturist a couple of times now, both of them in the last week, so its ultimate results are still unknown. My first experience lying deathly still for thirty minutes on a padded table in a pitch dark, soundless room, pelleted with tiny needles on my head, toes, and just about everywhere in-between, wasn’t completely pleasant. Only three minutes into my session my breathing hastened, I felt the twinge of a dozen needles, and I panicked.

Still, that was my best night of sleep that I’d experienced in an awfully long time. On the pillow... eyes shut... lights out... morning.... just like that, beautiful. On my second visit, I fell into this conscious state of deep breathing and blissful relaxation. Over the last few days my moods perked, emotions began stabilizing, nightmares subsided, and sleep began its welcome return.

I’m looking forward to this continued treatment, not only as a method of emotional stability and better sleep, I hope to treat infertility too, which makes acupuncture my first in a new blog series of Current Cravings.

The Best of Facebook #3: January 2012 (part 3)

2012-01-31T14:10:00.000-08:00

This seems pretty accurate. Most all of my fellow Chicagoans would agree....we drink "pop," although I have asked for a "soda" on occasion, maybe to be a little more formal? – Andrea Miller Davis

My rebuttal: Thanks Andrea for sharing it. I can speak on behalf of California. Out here, we never-ever use the word "Pop." It's very accurate.

The Best of Facebook #3: January 2012 (part 3)

Alright, so when I started this Best of Facebook idea, I was expecting to add updates once, maybe twice a month at most. I mean, after all, let’s face it, Facebook has become rather boring recently. I initially noticed a slump after the Facebook movie came out, especially after it won best picture, and that was a year ago. I don’t know what exactly happened, but there’s been a sudden surge of energy, and I just couldn’t let these posts float by without being noted. I especially appreciated the Generic Names for Soft Drinks map. It's been out for a couple of years now, but this is the first time that I've seen it.

In an effort to procrastinate I went to Old Navy's website and purchased some items. In an effort to further procrastinate I went online again to review my order and make sure that I still like my purchase. It's come to this..... – Kristen Figueira

We took the motorcycle to church today all decked out in our leather jackets, gloves and Kevlar helmets. I overheard someone say don't they look scary. Not exactly what I was hoping for but I guess "scary" is the new "bad." – Ryan Pearson

please don't make me unfriend you t-shirt – Leslie and Debbie Nesbitt

The baby started kicking like crazy when I started putting my mascara on which lead to me putting on 13 layers just to keep those kicks coming. Hello eyelashes! – Kacie Downing

So I get an email this morning and it greets me as.............. "Dear Overweight Suburban Dentist" OK! you got my attention with the opener....but do you really think I'm going to read any further than that. – Richard Chung

Sam and I invented a new word. Dact (adj): being a dick with tact. – Nina Unger

*Kasploooooooshhh* That is the sound of a photo exploding.... how is this possible, you wonder? What could possibly destroy a photo? Well, I will tell you. A Photobomb – Adam Rhodes

Me (Belinda): "What is a politically correct way to say Indian giver?"

Kindra: "Native American giver. Why are you laughing? You're not supposed to say Indian." – Belinda Miller Olbert

is going to tweet and see if it makes me feel better. – Michael Zukerman

Even though Matthew Broderick has very wisely sworn off any proposed sequels to John Hughes iconic classic, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, this two and a half minute unofficial sequel of sorts-commercial for Honda is very welcome. I love it.

Lastly, I came across this photo of Dave Heffernan, who we shall only refer to on this blog as the Heff, and I simply had to add it. Thanks Andrea for bettering the world by snapping it.

-Noel

200 Word Reviews #23: Doubt

2012-01-30T14:09:00.000-08:00

Doubt (2008, directed by John Patrick Shanley)

Everyone needs to see Doubt. There’s no room for rebuttal. You need to see it. Over the last decade, headlines have scandalized the Catholic Church alleging priestly relations with choir boys, but it’s not cultural relevance alone that asserts my reasons. Doubt isn’t about problems with celibacy so much as the hidden biases we carry with us in a handbag wherever we go. We refer to it unknowingly whenever emotional issues arise, and it’s usually our bias that wins, not truth.

Read no further if you don’t want the ending of this movie ruined……still here? There is no ending. Well, there is, but then again there isn’t. What we’re left with is our handbag of biases. Was Meryl Streep correct in her assertion that Philip Seymour Hoffman molested a boy at St. Nicholas, or was he innocent? We’ll never know.

I watched this movie with different audiences, each group asserting swaying judgments, depending mostly on their methods of interpretation. Personally, I think he’s innocent. But here’s the ultimate lesson to be learned. Gossip destroys. If you want to take down the reputation of any man, claim him to be a sex offender. Even if innocent, his established life is exiled.

-Noel

Facebook in January 2012

2012-01-30T12:21:00.001-08:00

In this issue of Random Thoughts: the retirement of George Lucas, my acupuncturist, 16 year old atheist Jessica Ahlquist, the state of the Union with Barrack Obama and John Boehner, Losing Las Vegas, G.I. Joe, and brownies.

When my acupuncturist found out that I down a pot of coffee per day, she made me promise that I'd drink a glass of water before and in-between each coffee cup. So now my stomachs bloated with water and the thought of drinking another cup of coffee is making me sick, and I'm only halfway through the pot....... but I must........ do this......... I must........ (choking on water)...... finish the pot.........

According to my acupuncturist, my tongue tells her that I'm a "thinker."

I woke up this morning, 13 years later, realizing this. In the movie 'The Matrix', humans are kept alive as a sort of electric generator by harvesting robots, but don't humans consume more energy than they produce just to stay alive? This would make the robots entire farming business a failed juncture. I mean, it’s not only unlikely – it’s fundamentally impossible.

The church congregations of Cranston, Rhode Island should be loving on 16 year old atheist Jessica Ahlquist, who recently won a suit involving the removal of a prayer plaque hung in the gym of her public high school, not threatening her life. She has, at this very moment, police officers escorting her to and from school and throughout each class to protect her from the wrath or religious theists. Three local florists won't even deliver her flowers from atheist supporters. What's sad is that the church, in their denial of God's love, forgiveness, and grace, continues to prove to her that she's right.

If tonight's State of the Union address were a murder mystery dinner, then John Boehner is looking awfully suspicious. I think he did it.

A random thought on the retirement of George Lucas: Lucas is not Hollywood’s problem. His fans are. Sure, the Star Wars prequels were a disappointment, but in hindsight, they are not nearly as terrible as what their ill-fated legacy demands; angry chat room ranting propelled by the disillusionment of toy obsessed, mask and robe wearing, lightsaber dueling fan boys, who sometimes have a difficult time understanding that a reel of film, or the art piece that is the movie medium, is not a comic book, collectible doll, or role playing game, just as Broadway is not a television show, a New York Times Bestseller is not a Hollywood blockbuster, and a painting is not a statue. Retire happy and healthy, George. You've worked hard. And yeah, you’ve earned it.

No judgment here, just an observation. I find it "interesting" that the common understanding of fashion is to dress in the same seasonable uniform as everyone elses fashionable attire. Case in point, I'm shopping in OC's South Coast Plaza, and I could swear that two out of three 20-40 year old women are wearing equestrian boots over their jeans. One last observation, I didn't see any horses parked in the lot.

JUST DANCE for the Nintendo Wii is my new gym pass.

So, I take it from the new "GI Joe: Retaliation" trailer that United States voters elect Cobra into the White House. Kind of a grim outlook on the upcoming 2012 elections, isn't it?

They say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. But I can tell you with complete certainty that it isn't true. Sometimes it follows you home with a receipt of marriage, and then moves into your house, and in my case, still wakes up with you each morning in bed. As of March 2012, ten years and counting.

I think I experienced just about the entire Vegas experience for my birthday: cheap booze, getting lost in the casino, coining money at slots then winning only to lose it all again, and to top it off, the guy who lost a lung or two outside my hotel room door at 4 in the morning pretty much cemented my theory that Vegas has established the only successful venture known to man where people eagerly travel from all over the world to get lost or loose.

Those stupid slot machines in Vegas took my money, and now I want it back.

How can I get any work done when one great song after another keeps playing randomly on the iPod? And besides, the dogs are barking at me to get up and dance for their amusement, so.....

Random fact learned today, the word "butt" is also an English word that can be defined as: a large barrel used to brew beer in. There's an old English children's story with a line that reads “And Santa sat on his great butt, drinking a hearty brew.” Hmmm.

When all else fails....... brownies.

The Best of Facebook #2: January 2012 (part 2)

2012-01-28T13:30:00.000-08:00

And here’s some more recent postings for my new Facebook segment involving updates and Twitter tweets that have stood out to me over the last couple of weeks. They’re the random quotes that bring Sarah spinning into the room, asking “What is it?!” because I’ve been laughing so hard. I hope to continue your postings on my blog, so please, keep the Facebook comments and Twitter tweets rolling from the social bird bath, because I thoroughly enjoy reading them. Hopefully next time I can include yours.

Staying at the apartment today to clean and organize while Kev works at the house. I told him, "I just need to make sure I know where everything is and keep track of mail and bills and things." Kev says, "Yeah, whatever you need to do to relax." He knows me so well ;) – Sarah May Yocky Carter

Chillin in my igloo – Annalisa Ure Crosswhite

The giant pack of toilet paper from Costco is the best toy ever. My children literally cheer when I bring it home. – Heather Yocky Goble

has a fever, and the only prescription is... more board games. – Anthony Friedman

Wikipedia is 'going dark' for 24hrs to protest Internet censorship and anti-piracy legislation.

Prediction: The productivity lost from people being unable to quickly look up information relevant to their jobs will be exactly equal to the productivity gained from people being unable to look up bullshit relevant to nothing while they're supposed to be doing their jobs. – Bjorn Leiren

after my much anticipated tweet yesterday evening, my number of followers has exploded to 90. I hear less than 100 followers after 2 years of membership is pretty "special"......... – Michael Zukerman

BREAKING NEWS from CH5 - Downtown streets in Fort Worth are wet. – Michael Zukerman

Arden is so happy our power is out. No TV no computer and most of all no video games. – Ryan Pearson

I told Sophath that it would be best for him to approach me the same way he would approach a crazy woman when he gets home from work. My left eye is still twitching. – Janice Kong

How do I prove to the neighbors across the street that it isn't us leaving dog poop on their grass? – Sarah May Yocky Carter

Oh, and I had to post this one. It’s an original poem by Ron Ottenad. Keep posting them, Ron.

I Love the Rain, Ron Ottenad

I love the Sun

In the morning when it is new

It rays painting the sky

With pastels of pink and blue

I love the Sun

At noon when it stands so tall

With its beams shining straight down

Making every shadow small

I love the Sun

At the end of the day

Its golden light coloring the horizon

With a palette fitting Monet

But my love of the Sun

Does not cause me to refrain

From the delight I find

In the coming of the Rain

I delight in the Rain

Falling in the middle of the night

Bouncing off a metal roof

Making sounds, happy and bright

I delight in the rain

In the subtle light of dawn

When it runs down the window

Leaving streaks of gleaming ribbon

I delight in the rain

In late afternoon

Puddles now formed and giving space

For it to dance to an unheard tune

There is, however, no greater Love or delight

Than at the end of the rain’s christening

When the sun shines through the clouds

And the raindrops are all glistening

200 Word Reviews #22: 50/50

2012-01-28T10:04:00.000-08:00

50/50 (2011, directed by Jonathan Levine)

50/50 is a hybrid film. It’s a thoughtful drama about a rare form of cancer intertwined with a fair dosage of comedy. You’d think such a pairing would end in a head-on train wreck, but it doesn’t. 50/50 is good. No, actually it’s quite good. Will Reiser, the films writer and producer, based its script partly on his own experiences struggling through chemotherapy, and therefore doesn’t lose us in the comedy.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt isn’t your typical Hollywood leading man. He’s actually the kind of guy that we all know in real life, which sort of reels us in to the reality of the situation. We probably all know a Seth Rogen too, the weed smoking best friend whose highest ambitions in life is picking up girls at the local bar. What Rogen’s recycled act does particularly well here is maneuvering us, reel-by-reel, from comedy to numbing realization and strangely back to comedy again, often within the same scene.

Throw in Anna Kendrick as a young inexperienced therapist with textbook definitions and Anjelica Huston as an overbearing mother, both of whom come through in winning stokes for Gordon-Levitt’s all too young to die character, and you have here a winning film.

In Other News, Gatsby Books in Long Beach, California

2012-01-23T16:04:00.000-08:00

is the very first store to stock my new book of poetry, One of These Days I’ll End Up on the Wrong Flight Home, on its shelves. Prints are limited, so if you’d like to relieve Gatsby Books of my ISBN, I suggest you call ahead to reserve your own copy.

Gatsby Books is located on:

5535 E. Spring St.

Long Beach CA 90808

(562)208-5862

Noel

200 Word Reviews #21: Last Chance Harvey

2012-01-21T12:48:00.000-08:00

I think I’m more comfortable with being disappointed. I think I’m angry at you for trying to take that away. – Emma Thompson

Last Chance Harvey (2008, directed by Joel Hopkins)

Risk taking was easily accessible in our youth because stocking everything on the table didn’t feel like much of a risk. It was affordable too, perhaps because we hadn’t yet piled our chips high. But that’s what happens as we age. Responsibilities wield in, we succumb to formula, acquire empires, and a risk feels like, well, a risk.

That’s where Harvey comes in. While ultimately successful in his once-aspiring career, he’s taken his as far as it will go. Fast forward to his daughter Susan’s London wedding to a fiancé whom Harvey’s never met and an x-wife with a husband, who’s taken his seat as Susan’s new go-to father. And then there’s Kate, a middle-aged woman working in an international airport, of all ironic places, but has never actually aspired to vigor. Life, it seems, has finally passed them by.

The problem here is two mismatched extremes. Harvey’s disappointed with life while Kate is comfortable with disappointment. Last Chance Harvey reminds us that the universe will prod us beyond our stagnant spirit into new daring opportunities, but only to a point. Eventually we have to close our eyes and jump off the high dive. Chance isn’t concerned with what follows.

-Noel

My Soap Box is Better than Yours: Arguable Essays #1: Twenty-First Century Closets: Israel and the New Anti-Semitism

2012-01-20T10:38:00.000-08:00

My Soap Box is Better than Yours: Arguable Essays #1: Twenty-First Century Closets: Israel and the New Anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism wasn’t buried with the Swastika. It’s on the rise in every corner of the world, it speaks a thousand different languages, and it propels itself under one common banner, the political arena, uniting all nations of brethren through a full-on collision with Zionism, and in some radical corners, seeking the total eradication of its causes. Today’s hatred focuses on the Jews of Israel, the function of Israel, and for some, Jews in general who support the very existence of Israel.

Uri Bank, a leader of the pro-settlement Moledet Party, has described Zionism as such; “We break up Arab continuity and their claim to East Jerusalem by putting in isolated islands of Jewish presence in areas of Arab population. Then we form our own community. That is Zionism. That is the way the state of Israel was built. Our eventual goal is Jewish continuity of all Jerusalem.”

OK, so maybe you don’t accept this kind of territorial scheming as described by Bank and the pro-settlement Moledet Party. Does that make you a racist? Of course it doesn’t. And by the way, I’m not even sure if I’m a cold-hearted Zionist. I kind of teeter on the subject, but I love the Jewish people….and Israel, so I’ll make this absolutely clear from the beginning, disagreeing with Zionism does not make you a member of the Nazi party or Jew hater. Not even close. But here’s the problem. Anti-Semitism finds its safe haven in anti-Israel causes. Let’s be careful who we’re holding hands with.

Across Europe, the hatred is rapidly increasing with alarming numbers of volunteer contributors. Oh well, so much for an enlightened and liberated new Millennium. Attackers, shouting bigoted slogans, throw stones at school children, at worshipers attending religious services, and at rabbis coming or going to work. Jewish homes, schools, and synagogues are firebombed. In 2003 alone, Paris police reported a dozen attacks per day on selected Jews by hooded men for an expanded period of several months. Records show that anti-Semitism is highest in Germany. One rather recent example fingers Holland, demonstrators who carried swastikas and photos of Israel, shouting, “Jews into the sea!”

Unfortunately, the problem isn’t segregated to Europe. We’ll leave the Middle-East out of it for a moment, but in San Francisco of all places, an angry crowd of protestors surrounded a pro-Israel rally screaming, “Get out or we will kill you,” and “Hitler did not finish the job!” These shameless acts are twisted political agendas spawned by ridiculous conspiracy theories and seen by many as raw vigilante justice aimed at ending Jewish tyranny. It’s Hitler’s great big ‘Simple Lie’ all over again. One recent outrageously ridiculous theory speculates that Jews sponsored the holocaust only to boost support from the UN for claim on world domination, first by gaining a foothold in Palestine, then throughout the Middle-East, and finally the entire globe. I could go on with the conspiracy theories, but I think you get the point.

We need only to look back at the observations of those who witnessed the events of vacant Palestine before the modernist Zionist movement, with its spurts of Jewish population, took shape, and who better than Mark Twain? In ‘The Innocents Abroad,’ Twain described the Holy Land as a “desolate country whose soil is rich enough but is given over wholly to weeds, a silent mournful expanse….. We never saw a human being on the whole route. There was hardly a tree or shrub anywhere. Even the olive tree and the cactus, those fast friends of worthless soil, had almost deserted the country.”

This was the same land that crusaders and pilgrims grew only sand and weeds on for a thousand years. How strange then, that the Jews return would cultivate the land with Eden like harvest riches plentiful enough to feed populations of Europe. Let the banning of Israeli exports begin. Oh wait, it already has.

In 1918, Sharif Hussein, the guardian of the Islamic holy places in Arabia, described the Palestinians lack of property interest. “One of the most amazing things until recent times was that the Palestinian used to leave his country in every direction. His native soil could not retain a hold of him…. At the same time, we have seen the Jews from foreign countries streaming to Palestine. The return of these exiles will prove to be an experimental school for their brethren.”

So, there’s this rumor going around that the Jews stole the land from their predecessors. Winston Churchill had this to say on the subject, “The land was not being taken away from the Arabs. The Arabs sold land to Jews only if they chose to do so.” Seventy years later, they still do.

The archives of history support documented evidence that Palestinians have consciously and continually rejected numerous offers to create a state for themselves. The first rejection came in 1937 when the British Pell Commission proposed the creation of an Arab state. This was repeated in 1939. This was, of course, after countless proposed revived Jewish states in anywhere but modern Israel, like, believe it or not, the state of Texas.

In 1947, the UN suggested an even larger Arab state as part of its partition plan. Throughout 1948 leading up to the 1967 war, the West Bank was not owned by Israel, and the Palestinians had a plethora of opportunities to demand an independent state from the Jordanians. And by the way, if eleventh grade history hasn’t misguided me, it wasn’t Israel that started the war. They just ended it. Bitterness followed.

In 1979, under the guidance of President Jimmy Carter, Palestine was offered full independence. 1993 saw another effort, but Palestine broke its agreements. Again, in 2000, the Palestinian Authority received another charitable offer. I was there in Bethlehem at the time, the Palestinian Territory, working on a chicken farm trying to accumulate small amounts of money by raising Buffalo wings and scrambled eggs so the Palestinian children could attend school, and you know what? They botched it again. President Clinton had this to say, “I believe Chairman Arafat missed a golden opportunity to make that agreement….. The violence and terrorism which followed were not inevitable, and have been a terrible mistake.”

I already highlighted breaking news updates from Islamic and Arab groups claiming that the architects of Zionism have construed an awful, sinister plan for world domination. As part of their theory, Zionism was the reason that the US waged its war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Never mind the World Trade Center, unless….. Anyways, shortly after the outbreak of the Bush Administration’s war, a 41 part TV series was broadcast across the Arab world, and during Ramadan, of all times, titled Horsemen Without a Horse. The theme of the series centered around an assumption that Zionists have controlled the world of politics since the dawn of history, yeah, Tower of Babel, Prince of Persia, Helen of Troy, all of that, and seeks control of the Middle East to this day.

Other critics of Zionism describe the Israeli government as cold blooded terrorists bent on ethnically sterilizing the Palestinians from their land. The ruling Prince of Saudi Arabia, Abdullah, has blamed Zionists and followers of Satan for terrorist attacks. “We can be certain that Zionism is behind everything. I don’t say 100 percent, but 95 percent.”

Should I quote Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or can we all just agree that I needn't even go there? Oh, what the heck, why not? Ahmadinejad has described Israel as a “fake regime” that needs to be “wiped off the map.” Ouch, and I thought the Parker Bros. board game, Sorry, was harsh. Zionist are the “most detested people in all humanity,” and the Holocaust, yeah, as you might have guessed, the Jews somehow gave the Nazi’s a good squeeze of the wrists, perhaps several cases of underwear pulled over the head, until they cried Uncle and dialed up the gas.

Anti-Zionists use a double standard approach, while ignoring the horrific acts propelled against the Jews, they center on the microscopic fallacies of Israel’s government by shock-and-aweing each negative act with explosive Hollywood detonation. According to Yuval Steinitz, a chairman of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, ‘It is our right and duty to build in Jerusalem. We are not committed to the road map because the Palestinian prime minister is not fulfilling even his first commitment of dismantling terrorist groups.”

Rising anti-Semitism should alarm the citizenry of the entire world into action. To think that the ethnic cleansings of the twentieth century are ghostly shadows of bastardly human behavior is pure foolery. It’s a miracle that the children of Abraham could regroup after two thousand years in exile, but I fear that the events of 1930’s Nazi Germany may only be a foreshadowing of the horrors that await them without protection from their neighboring friends. Lets be careful who we're holding hands with.

-Noel

The Poets Voice #3: Rowers Gliding Past Georgetown University on the Potomac River in the Dim Light of Dawn

2012-01-18T13:03:00.000-08:00

Here’s another poem from my upcoming book One of These Days I’ll End Up on the Wrong Flight Home. Once again, my gratitude goes to Kevin for lending your voice to my words.

Rowers Gliding Past Georgetown University on the Potomac River in the Dim Light of Dawn

After scribbling this poem’s title on a notepad I

reclined in a swiveling chair and chewed on my pencil

feeling rather satisfied.

I thought about leaving the remainder a blank canvas

without the congested morning traffic of added words

but that would not be honest.

In hindsight I thought very little about their rowing

while jogging over Key Bridge when a magnificent view

of lights first thumbprint, stretching its numb fingertips over

cathedral spired rooftops, captivated my commute.

There were the birds in the trees chirp, chirp, chirping with the frogs,

a jacket of fog lingering over the water and

a stray without a collar.

Morning rowers, like cars on the bridge or army soldiers

running in one endless line, gray shirts and yellow sashes,

were nothing more than simple strokes in an epic painting.

But now, like this poems title, they’re all I think about,

the little color coatings that form the greater picture.

Take the birds, for example. I myself am one of them.

Perched on a branch I see myself on the bridge across the

river slowly jogging by.

I chirp, chirp, chirp with my bird brethren, I chirp away

like a muse outside of time.

Some mornings I sit by my window with a coffee cup

imagining my suburban row of grass-lined houses

and street to be a Potomac river view, and Moses,

with his loudspeaker, propped-up in the back-seat of the boat,

tirelessly instructing

the authors of the Biblical New Testament, Saints John

Matthew, Mark, and Luke, then Peter, Paul, James and Jude, - to row.

I watch them paddling on by,

brows dripping, muscles aching.

Other mornings the boat is filled with substitute rowers:

Saint Augustine, William Shakespeare, Marco Polo, Albert

Schweitzer, Isaac Newton, President Thomas Jefferson,

Michelangelo and Bach.

I watch them paddling on by with Plato instructing them,

brows dripping, muscles aching.

But most mornings, drinking coffee by my window, I see

rowers whom I do not know.

Selectmen and women, perhaps, from all epochs dissolved.

A blacksmith from ages dark paddling with his poker, an

Irish housewife with her broom, Adam and Eve’s sixteenth child,

Leo Tolstoy’s next door neighbor, a Carolina slave

steering with her thorn-pricked hands,

not forgetting Enoch’s sister and Enkindu’s cousin,

I see them all rowing by.

And I hear myself chirping

them through the canvas of time.

-Noel

The Poets Voice #2: "I Like Myself"

2012-01-16T14:11:00.000-08:00

Here’s another poem from my upcoming book One of These Days I’ll End Up on the Wrong Flight Home. Special thanks go out to Kevin Mayfield-Hom for lending his voice to my words.

“I Like Myself”

Have you ever seen the movie where Gene Kelly

roller skates through the populated streets of New York on a pleasant night

when ten dollars could buy you an unlimited quarter-of-a-year three

month roller skating pass?

Here’s a hint, it’s from an old MGM classic,

It’s Always Fair Weather.

You haven’t? That’s good for me. Otherwise I’d be

accused of plagiarism when I expound on

a recent episode roller skating circles around populated

New York City crowds on a pleasant summer night singing my MGM original about

how she likes me and now how much I like myself.

You should have seen me, whistling, hands slung in pockets,

swiveling S shaped tracks.

Street pedestrians in suits, ties, dresses, high heels

and hats window shopped wheel taps with strange fixed faces.

Wasn’t it funny when I realized that I had left my shoes in the rink

locker, how I was still laced up in skate rentals?

But that couldn’t stop my wheel taps, my snake formation pivots, my shape of

a pizza mimics, my lifting a hat for a gentleman and his lady

before slicing across the busy boulevard

for an extended song, dance, and number routine.

Suddenly I wasn’t tap dancing or sliding

on rollers anymore.

I was singing in the rain seconds after my

premiere Hollywood kiss with Carrie Fisher’s mom.

She said I should take care of my film singing voice.

“But from where I’m standing,” I said, “The sun is shining all over the place.”

That’s when the kiss happened,

and that’s about the time, only seconds burned, that

I told my driver to gas on home without me.

So there I was, like a drunk on a lamp post, soaked,

singing the irony of how the sun could shine

on my face while the rain spills all over the place.

A couple passing with a soggy newspaper canoed over their head

thought how un-Hollywood it was to tap in the rain, even if you’re a Gene Kelly prodigy.

But not even drain pipes nor puddles could stop me, -

except for the rude officer, because apparently its illegal

to sing songs in the rain.

Singing in the Rain, I certainly hope you haven’t seen that film classic.

I shouldn’t like to have two lawsuits to deal with

in one written poem.

Or maybe I wasn’t dancing on roller skates in New York on a pleasant summer night.

And perhaps I wasn’t singing in the rain moments after my first kiss

with Carrie Fisher’s mom.

Maybe I was only wearing Gene Kelly shoes,

drifting aimlessly from room-to-room with the dogs

instead of getting much needed work done, and then,

if I must confess to the jury reader, I may have been leaving the shower, tossing my towel

around my head while singing songs of love, wet skinned.

-Noel

The Best of Facebook #1: January 2012

2012-01-16T10:10:00.000-08:00

This is a new segment comprised of the Facebook updates and Twitter tweets that have each stood out to me over the last couple of weeks. They’re the random quotes that bring Sarah spinning into the room, asking “What is it?!” because I’ve been laughing so hard. I hope to continue your postings on my blog, so please, keep the Facebook comments and Twitter tweets rolling from the social bird bath, because I thoroughly enjoy reading them. Hopefully next time I can include yours.

"Doug recently left little post-it notes for me stuck in random places around the house. Tonight, we went on a date and when we got back Aravis asked, "Mommy? Why did Daddy write a note that says, 'Your bottom is solid'?" – Heather Goble

“My husband just said and I quote, "In high school I could have been a hipster, and instead I went for social outcast." Oh, it was a choice folks!” – Chanell Friedman

"Nobody panics when things go according to plan, even if the plan is horrifying." - Bjorn Leiren

"There's only going to be two hits: I hit you, you hit the ground. Then I'm going to hit on your girlfriend ... ... Three hits." – Bjorn Leiren

"I have a huge fire roaring and the kids are screaming that it will be too hot for Santa, but I keep laughing and throwing logs on it". – Kelly Oxford

“The purpose of "Repost to win Free iPad" links are to confirm who the idiots are within your online social networks.” – Kelly Oxford

“When I win, I'll stand in silence until 'get off stage' music starts then start shouting random names until I'm dragged off” – Mato of Kilburnia (speaking of the Golden Globe awards)

“If you’re waiting until just now to Christmas shop you don't deserve the family you’re buying gifts for.” – Ryan Hadley (practically Christmas)

-Noel

200 Word Reviews #20: The Hurt Locker

2012-01-14T23:01:00.001-08:00

There's enough bang in there to blow us all to Jesus. If I'm gonna die, I want to die comfortable.

The Hurt Locker (2009, directed by Kathryn Bigelow)

There’s plenty of good movies out there, but few of those films raise its banner to future generations as an exemplary archetype of the filmmaking art. Technical precision isn’t always involved in that decision, but cultural significance is, and I believe Hurt Locker stands as one of them.

Director Bigelow depicts James, a reckless bomb specialist who chooses to be in danger by his own accord, often defusing explosives under gunfire. He’s obsessed with his work. He wants to feel what the bomb maker feels, which is almost ironic considering that the designer may be standing idly by waiting to detonate it. For him, war is a drug.

What we have in Locker is an experience as old as civilization itself. This time it’s given a twenty-first century facelift with a terrorist enemy that prefers pointless chaos over established order. Still, an entire generation of 9-11 adults signed up for it. That’s the focus, I believe, of the film, the generation, not your view on President Bush’s war. Locker dissects millennials with focused intensity. To future generations it declares: Say what you will about our war, but this is who we, or at least a volunteer pocket of us, were.

-Noel

200 Word Reviews #19: The Help

2012-01-14T09:39:00.001-08:00

“Isn’t that what all you girls from Ole Miss major in – professional husband hunting?”

The Help (2011, directed by Tate Taylor)

Jackson, Mississippi. Ross Barnett is state governor. Jim Crow laws and the KKK reigns sovereign…. and black maidservants write a tell-all book. You’d think The Help would at least scrape its knees on the pavement once in a while, but Help proves too much of a feel good don’t run with scissors sort of film to pour peroxide over the wound. Moreover, Help parades us with Southern racists by toying, surprisingly, with our own biases in order to butter its bread.

For example, notice how white women smoke in the film while not a single black woman puffs. White men are apparently dumb jocks, but soulful black preachers know how to make a woman feel special. The only white man to truly love his wife also reclines at the table with his black maidservant.

Then the most alarming aspect of Help, I’m supposed to care that the enlightened career oriented white heroine ends up happy and successful in the big city while husband hunting racists somehow submerge into the bitterness of their own self-defacing small town arrogance. Pat yourself on the back, modern day white girl, if you have a mall shopping black friend. This film is speaking to you.

-Noel

200 Word Reviews #18: Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol

2012-01-05T16:33:00.000-08:00

“Light the fuse”

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011, directed by Brad Bird)

What initially got me excited about this movie wasn’t the fact that it’s a Mission: Impossible film, though that’s certainly a good starting point. Curiosity did. I like that each Mission film hand selects qualifying directors to helm continuing serials in the title series. Brad Bird is a welcome addition. Previously directing animated masterpieces The Iron Giant, Ratatouille, and The Incredibles, Bird has shown an exemplary eye for dissecting authentic human character, and by doing so, creating heartfelt drama, comedy, and perhaps most importantly, heightened peril.

Character’s an imperative element to film yet often diagnosed as the necessary evil for establishing most action moneymakers, but Bird prevails. Mission not only parades these elements, it does so in a poetic framework that exemplifies and makes you thirst for each character on screen. What I like most about the script is its comedic elements in very strenuous situations. Tom Cruise barely hanging on for life from a Dubai skyscraper and angrily disposing of his broken glove only to find it sponged on a window several stories higher, as though taunting him, brings satisfactory relief to suicidal vertigo. Jump on couches all you want, Mr. Cruise, so long as you keep them coming.

-Noel

200 Word Reviews #17: The Artist

2012-01-05T13:22:00.000-08:00

The Artist (2011, directed by Michel Hazanavicius)

I never expected the day would come when I’d see a new silent film in the digital age, but that’s exactly what’s happened, and it’s wonderful. The Artist is a feel good hour-and-a-half voyage eighty-five years back in time when silent pictures, and their actors, were discarded by the wayside not only for talkies, but up-and-coming beauties to narrate them.

There’s a deeper message here. Sadly, the majority of men, no matter their discipline, will likely outlive their industry; disposable parts to newer, shinier engines. It’s a grim truth, but not entirely despairing. What Artist does particularly well is celebrate the grandparent form that gave us life. Whereas films nowadays use lengthy dialogues to bring viewers to speed, silent films could not, employing animal emotions, bodily narratives, and instinctual improvisation to carry the chronicle.

I imagine Hazanavicius kept his fingers crossed every step of the way, even recording in full screen format to make everything about his film feel historically genuine. My only complaint is that Artist ended on a happier note than for most actual silent actors, perhaps because this conclusion isn’t projected from 1932. Perhaps Hazanavicius wants us, in 2012, to gaze, smile, and declare: They live on!

-Noel

200 Word Reviews #16: Black Swan

2012-01-03T19:05:00.000-08:00

“The new production needs a new swan queen. A fresh face to present to the world. But which of you can embody both swans? The white and the black?”

Black Swan (2010, directed by Darren Aronofsky)

What does it take to become a black swan? Personally, I don’t have a clue since I’ve never seen a production of Tchaikovsky's ballet “Swan Lake,” which director Darren Aronofsky mirrors his movie from. But Natalie Portman does, executing her authority with intense passion and heroic nobility.

Not for the faint of heart, Black Swan takes an inside tour across the stage, proving alluring yet horrifying and at times grotesque. In comes Natalie Portman as Nina, a ballerina torn between the technical perfections of abstinence, as prevailed by the white swan, and the emotional, sexual dominance that cultivates the black swan’s thinking; a duo role that will only be granted to one. Introduce actress Mila Kunis, a dancer who represents not only Portman’s professional competition, but the very sexual plurality that Swan Lake requires.

What follows is a confused mix of dreamlike fantasy and puzzle-piece reality. Portman’s struggle to become both swans ignites the fear of anyone who’s ever dated an artist. Yeah, we’re prone to insanity. It’s best not to spin your head in circles trying to figure out what actually happens in the end. I suspect that’s not the point of the movie. The journey there, however, is.

-Noel

200 Word Reviews #15: Young Adult

2012-01-03T13:40:00.000-08:00

Matt: “What are you doing back in Mercury? Did you move back or...”

Mavis: “Of course not. Gross.”

Young Adult (2011, directed by Jason Reitman)

Young Adult is an uncomfortable movie. It begins uncomfortably, progresses awkwardly, and ends painfully. But that’s the point of Jason Reitman’s film. Reitman breaks with form to create such wondrously intrusive works as Thank You for Smoking, Juno, and Up in the Air. What Reitman delivers particularly well are intriguing characters that represent moral objections to society (a cigarette ambassador, pregnant teenager, and cold-hearted corporate professional who fires people for a living), but don’t necessarily learn the lesson that you’d suspect when credits roll.

Bring in Charlize Theron, a thirty-seven year old young adult novelist who’s never outlived her teenage popularity bratty-queen self despite the fact that the rest of the world, two decades later, has. She’s beautiful, but we can’t stand her. What unfolds is a depiction of her continual efforts to remain youthful by possessing her past, yet how suddenly, and often, she comes undone to herself. How one person could be so arrogant of others happiness and their own misery baffles us. When the movies through, we like her even less. While not Reitman’s greatest film, Young Adult may be the best critical commentary on the modern obsession with teenage literature, like Twilight, that I’ve ever seen.

Films by Jason Reitman:

Young Adult, 2011

Up in the Air, 2009

Juno, 2007

Thank You for Smoking, 2005

-Noel

200 Word Reviews #14: The Descendants

2012-01-02T15:57:00.000-08:00

"You give your children enough money to do something, but not enough to do nothing." – Matt King (George Clooney)

The Descendants (2011, directed by Alexander Payne)

Director screenwriter Alexander Payne doesn’t wait until the end of his films to pellet you with plate trembling reality shifts. No sir, he doesn’t let you off that easy. If you’ve seen the trailer for The Descendants, you basically understand most of the plot twists because Payne lays his cards on the table early on. George Clooney’s estranged wife falls into a deathly coma. Clooney enlists the courage of his troubled daughters in order to reengage decayed family dynamics only to learn that his wife was committing adultery. There, I've said it. Plot ruined.

Actually, that’s where the movie begins. Payne isn’t interested so much in abruptness as he is with painful realization and its curious road to resolution. As evidence, up and coming teenage actress Shailene Woodley provides a heart-wrenching performance drenched with anger from the bottom of Clooney’s leaf contaminated pool. Using the alluring Hawaiian paradise to contrast his story of grief and brokenness, Clooney is burdened with the responsibility of not biting from Eden’s apple, however personal and complicated its abstinence proves. Payne absorbs the screen using supporting characters quilted with composite personalities in order to deliver the complexity in the protagonist’s ultimate decision for doing good.

Films by Alexander Payne:

The Descendants, 2011

Sideways, 2004

About Schmidt, 2002

Election, 1999

-Noel

What’s On My iPod? Playlist Selections #6 – 10

2011-12-30T12:29:00.000-08:00

Folsom Prison Blues (live), Johnny Cash, At Folsom Prison

“Hello, I’m Johnny Cash,” declares the man in black. A wild, untamed applause of Folsom prisoners explodes. If you’ve listened thus far, I’m talking about the first three seconds of the 1968 live album opener, then you should be stomping your feet and cheering too. The rest that follows, Luther Perkin’s clear-cut guitar picking and the apparent ecstasy of Folsom inmates at the declaration that Cash would shoot a man in Reno just to watch him die, isn’t blue, it’s pure gold.

In My Room, The Beach Boys

I’m certainly not the first to say this, but Brian Wilson is a musical genius. While few tracks singlehandedly scream his aptitude from the Tower rooftops, each composition is a collective piece of the masterful Wilson puzzle. What sets In My Room apart from most other Beach Boy singles is that it delves into the fragilities of the band leaders head on an intimate level. This is the same guy who fractured practically the entire nineteen seventies consoled in the bedroom of his Beverly Hills mansion, locking out all his worldly worries and fears. For many Beach Boys fans, Wilson’s tracks are borderline transcendental. In My Room is one of them, a song of comfort that I regularly turn to when all that my dreaming and scheming needs is to lie awake and pray, or perchance, a proper diagnosis for my crying and sighing is the opportunity to laugh at yesterday.

Smile, Josh Groban

Smile was originally composed by Charlie Chaplain for his classic 1936 film, Modern Times. Lyrics weren’t added for another twenty years when Nat King Cole dusted off the tune. As of rather recently, I would have said Michael Jackson’s foray into dental hygiene, from his mid-nineties album, History, was my favorite version ever, but that’s until I uncovered Josh Groban’s attempt at the silent film stars greatest hit single. Smile, like I’ve Got Rhythm or Blue Skies, is a feel good song for every generation, and it never gets old..... or frowns.

In the Mood, Glen Miller

Sure, victory gardens, war bonds and recycled pantyhose may have had something to do with it, but you might want to add In the Mood as a major contribution to America's full frontal assault at winning the Second World War. In the Mood was played and recorded countless times by just about every big orchestra band out there. It’s a standard, but as far as I’m concerned, Glenn Miller, the feel good hinny-swinging all-nighter party tune’s original author, is still the best.

Si Tu Vois Ma Mere, Sidney Bechet

OK, so I’ve never been to Paris. But Sidney Bechet, an African-American jazz musician raised in the poverty stricken New Orleans 7^th Ward during the dawn of the twentieth century, in fact has. His cross Atlantic tours weren’t exactly perfume and flowers either. First deported from London for assault and later jailed in Paris for his participation in a shoot-out duel with a rather competitive musician rival, Bechet’s life was plagued with controversy. But thanks to Si Tu Vois Ma Mere, I feel like I’ve been there. No, not in a gunfight. I have, however, taken a lovely stroll along the base of the Eiffel tower or Seine River, stopping at curbside cafés for biscotti or croissants on dozens of occasions, all thanks to Sidney Bechet’s forceful characterizations and well-defined delivery, a perfect soundtrack intended to dress one of the most inspiring cities in the world.

-Noel

200 Word Reviews #13: Midnight in Paris

2011-12-29T17:38:00.000-08:00

Midnight in Paris (2011) directed by Woody Allen

Woody Allen’s kind of like black coffee. Either you love him or you keep a decaffeinated distance. He’s never dished blockbuster helpings, which obviously implies that most moviegoers haven’t taken the time to encounter him. I suspect Midnight in Paris will be an exception to the rule. If you’re curious but ultimately intimidated to scoop Allen’s macaroni salad onto your cinematic cafeteria plate, then Paris is a thoughtful starting point.

Owen Wilson plays a successful yet unsatisfied go-to Hollywood scriptwriter with a Beverly Hills home and beautiful fiancée whose future business minded in-laws can’t perceive his soul’s ambitions apart from seven digit paychecks. So begins the films initial conflict when Wilson’s only desire is to abandon scriptwriting, move into a Paris studio and polish up his first independent novel.

Here’s his handicap. Wilson’s a romantic. He believes Paris’ nineteen-twenties past is superior to his twenty-first century present. So begins solo late night walks, and unmistakably when the magic happens. I think most viewers will criticize his unbelieving fiancée and in-laws for not taking lamp-lit strolls with him, but Wilson’s a writer. The magic, and his eventual rebirth, as proposed in Midnight, could only happen in the alleyways of his solitude.

-Noel

Whats on My iPod? Playlist Selections #1-5

2011-12-22T13:41:00.000-08:00

Music with Noel's cow-branded stamp of approval

Blue Skies, Ella Fitzgerald

Written by Irving Berlin in 1926, Blue Skies was intended for the musical Betsy. While the show ultimately failed, Blue Skies was an instant success, with opening night audiences demanding 24 continuous encores from its star, Belle Baker. When she could no longer preform, Berlin sung his own lyrics through from the front row. The songs continued success was encouraged ten years later when Al Jolson preformed it in Hollywood’s first talking picture, The Jazz Singer. Ella Fitzgerald didn’t get around to singing Skies until 1958, but when she did, it was pure perfection. Listen for a clever humming of ‘Here Comes the Bride’ during her playful doo-dee-doo-laa trumpet-mimicked voice ranting.

I’ve Got Rhythm, Judy Garland

There’s so many versions of George and Ira Gershwin’s uniquely scaled 1930’s jazz standard classic that I haven’t come close to hearing them all yet. In the meantime, let’s just say there’s a lot more to Judy Garland than her memorable trip down the yellow brick road, and if you last saw her waking up from a colorful dream to a dreary Kansas landscape, then this is a good place to expand your rainbow horizons. Here’s another memorable rendition of Rhythm; Gene Kelly dancing with French speaking children in An American in Paris. If you haven’t seen it before, look it up on youtube.

Diga Diga Doo / Makin’ Whoopee, Bob Thompson

I like to consider these two songs from Bob Thompson’s second orchestral effort, Just for Kicks, musical nuggets of gold because they’re extremely uncommon finds among earphone connoisseurs. It’s partially because Bob Thompson never really did find commercial success. The “bachelor pad” slash “space age” genre of 1950’s Eisenhower era music that he attached himself to was kind of a flash in the pan. But if you’re anything like me, a self-proclaimed musical archeologist, then it’s worth the expedition. And besides, everything on Just for Kicks is sexy foreplay material for you and that special someone. Pour a glass of wine, turn down the lights, and light the fire with a special helping of Diga Diga Doo and Makin’ Whoopee.

Lacrimosa – Day of Tears, Zbigniew Preisner

Though Zbigniew Preisner has composed dozens of movie scores, his 1998 effort, Requiem for My Friend, represents his first large scale work not written for film. Lacrimosa – Day of Tears is the second to last track on Requiem, and like the entire album itself, is indescribably beautiful. Writer/Director Terrence Malick employed the use of this song for his 2011 film, The Tree of Life, during the pivotal evolution sequence. The word lacrimosa comes from the Latin. It literally means “weeping,” and that’s exactly what you’ll encounter through four minutes of solo harmonizing bliss, a woman weeping the words lacrimosa over-and-over again. Back it up with Malick’s Tree of Life imagery that could only come from the glorious imagination of the Hubble telescope, and that’s one heck of a cosmic music video.

Symphony No. 3 in C moll – Maestoso – Allegro Moderato, Camille Saint-Saens

Late-Romantic French composer Camille Saint-Saens was considered to be the greatest organist in the world. Listen to the opening cue of Symphony No. 3 (Organ Symphony) and you’ll understand why. To make income, he played at various churches throughout Paris. Imagine reclining in a pew on Sunday morning in the cathedrals of France and watching this guy sit down, crack his knuckles, and clean the musical pipes. Heavenly bliss follows.

-Noel

In Other News, Buy an Advanced Copy of ‘One of These Days I’ll End Up on the Wrong Flight Home’

2011-12-16T11:04:00.000-08:00

I’m very excited to publish my new book, One of These Days I’ll End Up on the Wrong Flight Home. It’s the best work that I’ve produced in my entire lifetime, and I can’t wait to get it out on the streets early next year. On that note, I have twenty advanced signed copies to hand out. They’re $10 each. If you’d like one of your own (yes..... you do...... you're getting very sleepy....... you do), call me up or send an e-mail. They’ll go on a first come, first purchase basis…. and hopefully sell like hotcakes. I'm still working on my contract with the Girl Scouts to end all cookie sales next spring in favor of distributing my book on every store front property in America. I'll let you know if and when that happens.

One of These Days I’ll End Up on the Wrong Flight Home follows the fictitious poet Joshua Chamberlain, a traveling wedding photographer (with self-proclaimed relations to the Civil War veteran of the same name), who balances time between his wife, studio, and Long Beach, California home with reflective, often humorous, nationwide navigations.

Contact:

Noel J Hadley

562. 889. 7089.

noelhadley@yahoo.com

The Poets Voice #1: Regarding the Picture that You Asked About

2011-12-12T13:58:00.000-08:00

Here’s a poem from my upcoming book of long-overdue poetry, now titled One of These Days I’ll End Up on the Wrong Flight Home, which I hope to see released in January. Vocal work was recorded at Poly high school in Long Beach, California, using the very talented reading abilities of Kevin Mayfield-Hom.

Let me know your thoughts. I hope you enjoy!

-Noel

Regarding the Picture that You Asked About, the One Where Sarah and I Are Reclining on the Grass

We were captured by photographer Jeff Gritchen on assignment

from the Long Beach Press Telegram

when Sarah and I weren’t looking

and now we’re the illustration of a picture book news story:

how two young lovers, lying in the grass of El Dorado Park

on a pleasant evening in August are enjoying what may be

the one hundred-and-one year old Long Beach Municipal Band’s last summer concert ever.

I’m reminded of Alfred Eisenstaedt’s V-J Day picture of

some sailor Frenching a nurses lips one-hundred-and-seven days after Hitler dealt history his only lifetime service act

and slugged a bullet in his head.

That is what we think about when

reviewing the careful nurse whose frozen in time holding her white dress down, locking her purse in hand,

how Europe is liberated from Adolf, how Pearl is avenged.

Let’s not overlook Robert Doisneau’s LIFE photograph masterpiece,

Kiss by the Hotel de Ville, or

more commonly known as The Kiss,

which we file from the cabinet in our head whenever we think

about what it is to be young and quivering with Paris love.

And then there’s Burk Uzzle’s iconic photo of Woodstock hippies

Nick and Bobbi Ercoline, warmed

by their blanket and a decades spanning hug while Gracie Slick of Airplane sings

to a sea of humanity.

Looking at our upside down feet,

the back of our heads turned towards the photographers camera,

two V bodies hammocked on a Mexican blanket while Sarah

exploits my arm as her pillow,

our eyes closed, ear lobes passion-drummed,

eavesdropping on the band’s rendition of Rogers and Hammerstein,

perhaps we shall never be the Woodstock attendees that people

think of when three days of peace, music and brown acid come to mind,

or lovers in Paris when the topic asks what young lovers do

when roaming the streets of Paris,

or horny sailors loosened in Time Square while we consider what

a young veteran bachelor’s to do after a war is through,

but do not discredit our love

because we’ve yet to be featured in eleventh grade history.

Something tells me we’re locked in time, that we’ve snipped a chord of our souls

for lovers still-to-come to find, that we’re both reclining into

something much larger than ourselves.

200 Word Reviews #12: Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel: a Biography

2011-12-10T14:29:00.000-08:00

Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel: A Biography, Judith and Neil Morgan

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.” – Dr. Seuss

I’m not at all afraid to admit this. I still read Dr. Seuss books. I have an entire collection of them on my bookshelf. Leave it to the dull sunset of an uninspired day or perhaps a lazy Saturday morning alone in my office; sometimes a glass of wine in the dark or pancakes loaded with syrup fail to unlock a sniffled case of writers block quite like the clever musings and imaginative artwork of Dr. Seuss.

If you’re like me, three decades old without kids, but haven’t subscribed to the Doctor since the Regan administration, then I highly suggest retrieving one from your parent’s attic, dusting it off, and sliding it in your magazine rack next to GQ or Entertainment Weekly for future bathroom reading, this time digesting his worldly observations with an adult’s authority.

Seuss innovated children’s books in a non-existent market the way Disney did animation. Judith and Neil Morgan’s intimate research reminds us that Theodore Geisel was more than just a silly word collaborator. His anthology exhibits the inquisitive ponderings of a discontented, sarcastic, often defiant muse, gazing cleverly at the fundamentally disjointed, politically obsolete world surrounding his tower window, and scribbling it down with rhymes.

-Noel

The Doctor's suggested medicine intake for bathroom reading adults:

You’re Only Old Once

Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?

The Sneetches and Other Stories

The Lorax

200 Word Reviews #11: The Jesse Stone Movies

2011-12-09T10:29:00.000-08:00

Movies that you probably haven't seen but should

"I'm just a small town cop, mostly I give out parking tickets" -Chief Jesse Stone

The Jesse Stone Movies, Tom Selleck (2005 - Present)

An aging alcoholic, promptly fired from his job as LAPD homicide detective, and recently divorced after his beautiful x-wife dumped him for her TV producer, Tom Selleck’s Jesse Stone has one final chance at redemption. That’s where Paradise comes in, a fictional coastal town serving as the suburbs of Boston. Deliver a hard ass cigarette smoking therapist, a string of emotionally distant middle aged women, regular run-ins with the mafia, flamboyant tourists with the belief that money covers all sins, a finger-digit police force, and a stiff-necked chairman board regularly reminding Chief Stone that murders discourage tourism, and the Stone movies take their shape.

The late Robert B. Parker created a masterful character rich with human fallacy. Tom Selleck perfects it. Basically, Jesse’s not the kind of guy we aspire to be. But we sympathize with him, because he’s real. He’s confused. He doesn’t have all the answers. He’s burned too many bridges, which makes him one of us. Well, most of us.

In a cinematic era overhauled with CG flexing, all seven Stone movies serve as a fresh vacation destination from the norm,a look back at simpler times when character development and street cinematography ran the effects show.

-Noel

The Jesse Stone Movies in chronological order:

Night Passage (2006)

Stone Cold (2005)

Death in Paradise (2006)

Sea Change (2007)

Thin Ice (2009)

No Remorse (2010)

Innocents Lost (2011)

Benefit of the Doubt (2012)

200 Word Reviews #10: Unbroken (2010)

2011-12-08T10:59:00.000-08:00

Laura Hillenbrand, ‘Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption’(2010)

Patton pissing in the Rhine River, Churchill, stark nude, saluting the ghost of Abraham Lincoln with Scotch and a cigar, I’ve unearthed these WWII gems before, so how is it that I’ve never heard about Lieutenant Louis Zamperini until now? Along comes Laura Hillenbrand, one time NYT Bestseller author of Seabiscuit, who details the life of the childhood alley pie thief, 1936 Berlin Olympian, one time Hitler hand shaker turned American tail gunner who crashes into the Pacific.

What follows is a horrifying forty-seven days adrift at sea fending off continual shark attacks, a Great White encounter, and Japanese gunfire. Once Zamperini’s raft finally touches shore we quickly learn, thanks to a spine tingling Japanese official known to POW’s everywhere simply as the Bird, that Zamperini’s nightmare has only just begun.

I’ve scoured through fifty books over the last year, and I can tell you with confidence, this was the best book that I’ve read in years. Unbroken isn’t just a story of unnerving survival and grueling resilience. Hillenbrand carries us years beyond a soldiers return home. I’m talking about real redemption, the act of waking up from darkness to light, and I promise, it makes his entire biography worthwhile.

-Noel

200 Word Reviews #9: The Tree of Life (2011)

2011-12-05T08:18:00.000-08:00

The Tree of Life (2011) Written and directed by Terrence Malick.

Tree of Life is a massively ambitious slice of experimental cinema from filmmaker Terrence Malick that recaptures a family living in 1950’s Waco, Texas, on both a molecular and cosmic scale. Attempting to microscope two overlapping paths in life, the way of nature and the way of grace, we’re introduced to the father, whose relationship with his three boys alternates between affection and bullying, and their loving mother, seemingly detached from nature.

Terrence defiantly refuses anything resembling a conventional plot line, showering us instead with photographic exposures and voice narratives brimming with transcendental beauty, utilizing the book of Job as a blueprint to undress birth, life, death, meaninglessness, and the mysterious shroud of God’s measure from humanity, even taking us on an exploration of big bang origins.

Unfortunately, Tree is misunderstood and underappreciated. There’s people out there telling you not to waste your time on this film, and they’re wrong. Look, it’s simple, if you think Pirates, Potter, or Transformers IS the cinematic experience, then you’ll gag your way through Life. It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before. You can’t simply watch this movie. You’ve got to surrender to it. You’ve got to let it flow over you like water.

Ugly Duckling: Moving At Breakneck Speed World Tour

2011-09-13T19:38:00.000-07:00

Ugly Duckling's new album Moving At Breakneck Speed hasn't been released in the United States yet, but various UD world tour posters and CD displays utilizing pictures from our photo shoots have been popping up in Europe and Asia. The first poster is apparently from Germany and the store displays from Japan. Thanks for the send-in, Andy.

Ugly Duckling: Moving at Breakneck Speed: Album Photo-Shoot

2011-07-09T14:04:00.000-07:00

In a recent European interview for Rockyoumentally, Ugly Duckling member Andy Cooper explained the concept of their new album, Moving at Breakneck Speed, like this, “After so many years of being in the record business as an independent group, we’ve been with a million labels and licensing and so forth, that we’re kind of on the run. We’re always making our living touring and traveling. And we almost feel like were outlaws on the run from the music industry because we never play by anyone’s rules. We do the music we want to do. We sample. We’ve never given much consideration to making music for our consumer. We’ve always done what we feel is right.”

Ugly Duckling’s been in the record making business for a long time now, almost two decades by my count, which is rare for even most chart topping artists. Preforming at one time with the likes of the Black Eyed Peas, the members of UD say they’ve watched musical trends come and go, and yet they refuse to budge with ever-shifting hit making trends. Ugly Duckling, Andy says, stays the same.

“We try and design out musical architecture to last for a long time. Someday our careers will end, but if everything goes well, years from now people will still have a special regard for our music.”

Their new still-unreleased single, “Elevate,” keeps the big beat Ugly Duckling flavor strong. I’ve heard it, and what can I say, I’m excited. Moving at Breakneck Speed is scheduled for release in the fall of 2011.

And here’s another thing I’m excited about: posting pictures from our recent Los Angeles photo-shoot. The upcoming album’s back cover sepia-postcard portrait, juiced with as much hyper-tension as the title promises, is still withholding its premier on UD's official website, but now that I’ve been given the clear via phone call from Andy, here’s some of my favorite images from our time together. All of the pictures represented here were attempts at group portraits within the Moving at Breakneck Speed touring era.

P.S. Look for appearances by Justin Ridge, art designer of the new album cover and music video animation, "Elevation," as an Abraham Lincoln prototype.

200 Word Reviews: Space Age Pop and Lounge Music of the Eisenhower Era

2011-07-08T11:10:00.000-07:00

200 Word Revies #6: Les Baxter, Space Escapade (1958)

vintage Space Age Pop and Lounge music that I keep returning to in exactly 200 words

The Bachelor Pad Space Age music of the Eisenhower administration isn’t simply dated, it’s a trash-compacted zeitgeist of American history,- musical archeology from weekend poolside cocktail parties when the lurking phantoms of the Cold War, with its sterile scientific advancements, promised a glorious cowboy exploration into the twin sunsets of orbit for every young martini drinking dreamer, and oh, so much fun while it lasted.

Just look at the album cover, two bachelor jock astronauts living it up with what appears to be three very sexy Crayola X-chromosome aliens, complete with go-go legs, cracks and curves.…..and, is that what I think it is, the shadow of an enormous erected…… rocket ship? If your eardrums can archive Walt Disney movie shorts of what the EPCOT future will hold, Les Baxter is clearly the soundtrack of that plastic house skyway.

With synonym track titles like “The Lady is Blue”, travel agency promotional backings on “Winds of Sirius,” the excitement of up-close navigations on “Shooting Star,” a pleasant future without road rage detailed in “The Commuter,” or questions like what’s a playboy of tomorrow to do with “Saturday Night On Saturn”, Space Escapades is a pleasant revisiting of a far more hopeful era.

200 Word Revies #7: Esquivel, Other Worlds, Other Sounds (1958)

vintage Space Age Pop and Lounge music that I keep returning to in exactly 200 words

While we’re on the subject of Bachelor Pad Space Age music of the Eisenhower era, Esquivel’s first American recorded album is a somewhat closeted fascination of mine, with its exotic curtain-raised jacket cover of a mysterious yet sexy nymph entrancing her human explorers upon an otherwise cold, lonely moonscape, isn’t so much a Tomorrowland take on the baby-boomers cosmic adult life like Les Baxter’s Space Escapades as it is the AM radio frequency of those soon Saturn resort vacationers.

Esquivel takes the Glenn Miller big band concept, fish feeds us crumbs of recognizable themes to lounge, exotic and cha-cha inspirations, then carries it a step further…. to space. This was his first opportunity to experiment in the studio, and unlike most lounge recorders of his day, Esquivel didn’t settle for gimmick effects. Flirtatiously fingering the piano, Esquivel enlisted a 26-piece orchestra for his soundscape arrangements with an even larger ensemble of otherworldly instrumental selections, including the six-member Randy Van Horne Singers, who regularly sauce their vocals into your eclipse goggles, gravity boots, and cake-batter suntan lotion getaway with an assortment of lounging “ooh” and “ah” sounds.

Other Worlds, Other Sounds: space frequency for inspiring tiki-torch and groovy limbo space cadets.

200 Word Revies #8: Henri Mancini, Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)

vintage Space Age Pop and Lounge music that I keep returning to in exactly 200 words

Film composer Henry Mancini tastes best with Italian olives and a bottle of chardonnay, or perhaps tortilla toppers and Zinfandel, or perhaps antipasto and Merlot. You know what, stop analyzing and just pour me one. Henry Mancini goes best with them all.

Breakfast highlights an entire catalogue of straight forward pop mixes fused with jazz, tango, and other sexy dance step variations, compositions that continually shift in mood, beginning with the Billboards topper, ‘Moon River,’ continuing with the smoke filled lounge table talk of ‘Something for Cat,’ and on to the very sexy ‘Sally’s Tomato.’

Mr. Yunioshi is a welcome intrusion of culture while the title track will have cap swimmers at your pool party swan diving till it’s through. But if you especially plan on wooing your belly-filled-with-wine lover later that night, play Holly in your Mancini mix-tape followed by The Big Heist. She’ll be kissing you all over till the, um, rooster crows.

For the soundtrack devotee, Breakfast is a pleasant vacation from the grandiose sword and sandal movie score epic. If it’s ‘Moon River Cha Cha’ tracks come across a little vintage, it’s only because Mancini was buried in the wine cellar. He tastes better with age.

Community (part 2): this is how we celebrate the 4th of July

2011-07-06T13:04:00.000-07:00

If there’s anything that Jim and Joy Post love as of late it’s their summertime fever for fast moving boats and the people being towed, or often in my case drug, behind. When they’re not slathering wave wakes across the glassy sunset waters of Marine Stadium in Long Beach, California, you may find them navigating alongside the rocky sea-legged shoreline seeking out good draft at Rainbow Harbor’s Yard House or cruising through the narrow canal alleyways of otherworldly Naples, sliding over islands of jelly fish and pointing fingers at their ideal future home, the credentials of which doesn’t promote a driveway but promises a boat slip.

Jim and Joy co-led the Fusion Young Marrieds Community with me at our Bethany Church in Long Beach until last summer when they retired to concentrate on mentoring college-aged students, preparing them for the confusing intellectual leap from Christian expectations of living under their parents roof to an independent adult life with matured theological understandings and renewed spiritual passions, which rarely happens in the modern western church. The Millinials are bleeding from the open wounds of the western church in escalating numbers, and it’s an epidemic that Jim and Joy are taking head on.

The importance of mentoring relationships plays into our growing understanding of what makes up the Community construct and its organic inner-connection to all stages of life.

Jeff and Lauren Levine have taken over as my co-leading partners now, but I still call Jim up during odd mid-week hours of the day to ask his advice on how I can keep the current group up and running however and whenever the incarnated problem reveals itself. And I like to joke with him that if he and Joy are properly preforming their job function then they’ll slingshot mentored college students directly over to our Fusion young marrieds community, which I guess kind of designates them as the matchmakers.

As I was saying (and the point of this article), Jim and Joy love good company in their home and on their boat, in both cases, where the intellectual mind can be strengthened and grow. That’s how Sarah and I spent the afternoon and evening of July 4^th, wake boarding through a surprisingly emptied out Marine Stadium on what I’d imagine to be the busiest recreational day of the year, current Fusion community co-leaders Jeff and (rather sunburned) Lauren Levine in tow. For sake of argument, let’s just call it a wet and wild leaders training retreat.

So, if you've never been on a leaders training retreat before and are at all slightly curious to know what goes on at one.......

That's my baby right there showing us how it's done.

Community (part 1): defining "community" over a game of pool and a look back at Passover Seder

2011-07-06T10:38:00.000-07:00

Last night I was playing a game of cutthroat pool at Jim and Joy Post's house with Jeff Levine, my leadership partner in the young marrieds community at Bethany Church in Long Beach, California, and his wife Lauren. He was leaning in for a corner pocket kill shot when I probed him with this question,

“What is community?”

“Community, it needs to be practical," he said, taking a deep breath, leaning on our only queue stick, his chin meat-hooked to knuckles. “I see it as two people washing dishes together, talking about the complications and struggles of their life.”

Jeff answered my inquiry with such uncomplicated ease that I can only assume he’s compiled long and serious hours into the thoughtful matter, as he should have. Community, that’s the Pee Wee Herman Show “scream when you hear it” word of the hour. We’ve been talking about it ever since our landmark breakfast meeting over coffee and burritos a year and a half ago when the subject first challenged us in-between our bites of eggs and tobacco sauce, and now we keep shuffling through it, not so much like a tired broken record, but as a couple of investigators rehearsing the crime scene evidence, seeking new, fresh and invigorating ways to solve it.

As I sought out my notepad to write down his definition he continued, this time running through the gauntlet of his definition at such unraveling speeds that I couldn’t even scribble down fragmented sentences fast enough.

“I see it as two people praying privately for each other in their homes while a larger group of friends are present,” he said, “I see it as brokenness under the cross of Christ, praise, sharing a meal together, not simply in large groups of thirty, but a married couple breaking bread with a singular couple from the larger group and perhaps a friend.”

He asked me what the first century church was identified as doing exceptionally well, and then, standing there silently, queue stick still pressed to his chin, I realized he was waiting for an answer.

“Community?” I said with an air of uncertainty. I guess I answered the question well.

It may be vital to the understanding of this documentary to mention that while our pool table conversation is engaged (or more so Jeff doing the bulk of talking, Lauren quietly studying her next aggressive cutthroat strike against us on the table, and me frantically scribbling his words into my notepad), my MacGyver-gene wife, Sarah, having learned of a lighting fixture problem on the back of Jim’s speed boat, has already gone to the hardware store to buy innovative replacement parts and is now in the driveway busy at work fixing the problem.

“Of course,” Jeff added, circling the pool table, “the ultimate purpose of community, aside from meeting the needs of others, is to reign in on discipleship and spiritual maturity.”

Repositioning legs and arching his back to execute his delayed shot at the corner pocket, he just as soon hesitated, “And guess what? This game of pool, us, here, now…. This is church,” he said.

“But it’s not Sunday,” I said, rather sarcastically.

“You’re going to have to wrap your mind around that one,” he sledged the queue stick between the sliver of his thumb and index fingers. I listened in on the uncomfortable Three Stooges skull cracking of stripes on solids.

That was the conclusion of our pool table conversation on the subject of community. Don’t worry, there’ll be plenty more in the months to come, probably years. When Lauren handed me the queue stick we were back to our very silly jabbering about Pool Highlander, how in the end there can only be ONE. By the way, Lauren eliminated both of us from the game, thus making her The One, Master of the Queue Stick.

Alright, so here’s the thing. Both Jeff and I whole-heartedly believe that we’re onto something incredible, something innovative, something explosive. Over the last two years we've witnessed an air of alteration in FUSION, our young marrieds group, drastically measured as a conversion from summer to autumn or winter to spring. Something life changing is about to happen in our Long Beach, California social life as it pertains to our growing understanding of what actually ignites the fires of a thriving community, and it has us excited. Like a pair of investigators mentally returning to the crime scene, poking at the ashy kindles, flipping through our notepad, turning over the evidence, we feel like we’re onto….... something,

which is the point of this new photo –series, COMMUNITY; my attempt to document our group of friends as we fuse together to see exactly what that something is.

For my first segment of pictures I wanted to highlight the Passover Seder dinner that several of us from the Fusion community took part in a little over two months ago thanks to our Jewish citizen, Anthony Friedman. Like any successful community, I hope that the faces you see here will be starring in a countless number of Roman numeral multiplying serial chapters to come. As part of this series I hope to stress the very important point that a successful community of people of varying, sometimes rubbing personalities isn’t battery charged with an event planned on the calendar. I’m not talking bowling night. I’m talking about weekly opening of doors into our private homes and the breaking of bread around the table, a circular, almost communal approach where each physical and emotional need is met with the intent to disciple and mature within the church body. That’s where real intimacy begins, in the home.

And since we’re on the topic of intimacy within the generation of X,Y's and all-around Mlilennials, a bottle of wine, while certainly not necessary, doesn’t hurt, either.

Anthony and Channel lead the Passover Seder.

Todd and Kacie breaking unleavened bread.

Matt and Nicole (who have since moved to Spokane), and Lauren Levine, listen in on another one of Anthony's jokes.

Dave and Andrea, I can only image.

Emily's over there in the right corner during the nights many toasts to Israel's remembrance.

Visiting Bodie State Historic Park

2011-06-28T00:30:00.001-07:00

At its peak Bodie contained ten-thousand head counts and boasted sixty-five saloons along Main Street, which stretched the incredible length of one entire mile across the lonely weather-worn Sierra slopes near Mono Lake, just east of Yosemite. It even contained its own China Town complete with opium dens, and just up the road a red light district which housed the famed prostitute Rosa May, who at one time saved dozens of citizens during a deadly epidemic outbreak yet still managed to get herself buried outside of the city cemetery.

As it is with countless towns in America’s short-lived two or three decades spanning Wild West legacy, Bodie has its stories of character dramatization, brawls, shoot outs, hold-ups, jail escapes, and posses. Conceived as a mining town during the Civil War, Bodie witnessed its steroid flux when union and confederate soldiers slushed their swords into plowshares to wander side-by-side west of the Mississippi for their new home on the range then faded into the sunset as quickly as the mythological Gene Autry cowboy could tip his hat at a passing lady. By 1915 Bodie was listed as a ghost town. When an unfortunate fire annihilated almost all of the business on its once lavish Main Street, the unsalvageable town was officially deserted by its few remaining stragglers. With the outbreak of World War Two, the US government ordered the closure of its last mines.

It’s quite plausible to imagine that one might be born in the settlement during its explosive birth, live to see its demise, and finally die as its last living marker. Actually, records show this to be the case. It’s amazing, when you think about it, how the West that we know so intimately in John Wayne and Clint Eastwood movies lasted only as long as their singular movie careers, and yet, this dust-in-the-wind era of American history has flourished in the minds of romantic dreamers everywhere. I wonder if some lonely unknown farmer or homesick cowboy on his annual drive from Wyoming to Texas and back, skin peeled by the blistering sun of summer, toes bitten by the frost of winter, rifle in hand for the hostile visitor waiting around the next bend in the road, ever saw themselves in such epic light…. probably not.

But that’s what Bodie is, Epic. To this day it’s an impressible collection of houses, outhouses, and businesses, complete with peeling wallpaper, hung paintings, baby carriages, torn curtains, bowling pins, bottles of beer never drunk and cans of SPAM in the pantry still waiting to be cooked on the kitchen stove, has survived the decades. Still, when wandering its ghostly streets we’re reminded that the West wasn’t just a collection of nails and disposable floorboards. It was an American idea.