Wednesday, August 13, 2008

August - Summer 2008


Wisdom of the Sages
Episode VIII - August 2008

Hello All:

How about this weather, hey? I mean it’s been danged nice out. I hope you are at least getting out and enjoying it. If not, well, I don’t know. Sorry about the lightness of this month’s edition, as stated before, I have had a series of gut-punches and the hits keep coming. I’m a creature that has lived through such things before and I will live through the same reactions and consequences again. Hey, it was bound to happen. History repeats.

Oh well, when you can clearly see the road ahead, you tend to never look for the bumps. Forget all that morose stuff for now and let's deal with something a touch less fun. Ha. I think from now on I’ll write this intro in the form of a three paragraph Star Wars opening scroll. What do you think? Let’s begin, shall we?:

:[ A lady had her dog, which passed way, cloned so she wouldn’t have to go through the grief of losing her beloved pet of 12 years. So, 5 puppies were created for her out of the DNA of "Booger", her dead dog. Because we should spit in the face of God for our own comfort right? I mean it’s all about HER happiness.

:[ I think Chicago should have, SHOULD HAVE scooped up Bret Favre. I mean the best way to get revenge on the Cheese heads is to win the Super Bowl with their own quarterback. Who cares about what Grossman and the others would think. Had they been winning, we might take them seriously.

Not that I care about Chicago Sports, I am just a fan of ironies.

:[ Three Kingdoms Update - Now where near completion on the script or the grant application, but I am gearing up to take a serious crack at film funding. So far no takers on reading the treatment. On the reading front, again, stalled, have not picked up the book due to reading many other things. See next item. But I did find a CTV series "The Legend of Guan Gong" on DVD in the Skokie Public Library. Sweet. It tells the story of Lord Guan, one of the Oath Brothers, done in typical CTV style of hammy acting, cheap costumes and bad ADR. It is frickin’ great. I love it. I urge you to pick it up if you can. So far the only media on the Three Kingdoms in IL. I know CTV has done a Romance of the Three Kingdoms, 80 episode series, but so far, haven’t found that anywhere.

Plus, John Woo’s "Red Cliff", the two part epic movie about the decisive battle that established the Three Kingdoms opened big in Asia becoming their biggest movie ever. And they did it without a Batman! It opens in the US next year in a condensed one film version.

:[ At the urging of Mike I picked up World War Z by Max Brooks and was utterly compelled by the writing and stories within. The personal stories of surviving a war were the best. The military summaries dragged a bit, but, I believe it is the best novel ever depicting our war with a rampaging horde of world-consuming zombies. I hear the audiobook was very well done and hope to check that out very soon.

:[ Now, the Dark Knight backlash begins. One viewer said that the husky rasp didn’t sound like Bruce Wayne. Well, that’s because it’s BATMAN! The real character of the film. Anyways, I love the film and it has been the only movie I’ve seen in the last month!

:[ Walking around the neighborhood, especially into Dollar Stores, it is so cool to see how much little kids enjoy just getting things. You know?

:[ Shoshoni Connections Update - Again, I’m gearing up for a serious bid on finding funding through various grant programs, and hopefully finding a producer that shares my passion for the project. I need to tighten up that script though. I will send it to a select few once I get that done. Do up some story boards and animatics (Which I will need help shooting) and we’ll see what happens then. This is the thing I need to do now, not only to kick start my feature film making, but, to drag me out of the dark place I’m in lately.

:[ Neal Postman, author of "Amusing Ourselves to Death" writes; "...the clock made us into time-keepers, and then time-savers, and now time-servers. ...we have learned irreverence toward the sun and the seasons, for in a world made up of seconds and minutes, the authority of nature is superceded. ...the inexorable ticking of the clock may have more to do with the weakening of God’s supremacy than all the treatises produced by the philosophers of the Enlightenment."

:[ Speaking as a Star Wars and Lucas Apologist, when it comes to the new Clone Wars animated feature; let it go George. It's done.

:[ A moment of silence for Isaac Hayes.










:[ John Edwards admits to an affair. Oh MY GOD, this means Barrack Obama is totally unfit to be our President!!!

:[ "If your will is not strong, if your thought does not oppose injustice, you will fritter away your life stuck in the commonplace, silently submitting to the bonds of emotion, forever cowering before mediocraties, never escaping the downward flow." Zhuge Liang Kongming (180 - 235 AD) Prime Minister, Han-Shu Dynasty - from "Mastering the Art of War"

:[ There were some fierce, terrifying lightening storms that swept through Chicago and its suburbs last night. A tornado grounded as well. But the lightening and the thunder never subsided all evening and night. There was something on the order of 800 lightening strikes a minute. Just when you thought it was over and passed, it would come back. It filled my room with bright, white flashes of light as I looked out over the distant Chicago skyline.

The storm blasting thunder and the lightening was endless and quick. It was perfect for my long monologue about the disparities of life and the choices we make and how we have to live with the consequences of those choices. I even dropped to my knees in anguish. The thunder booming and the lightening flashing as if adding needed emphasis on the ideals contained in my passionate speech!

To bad I didn’t have an audience to witness it.

(Hey, Halmet and Dr. Baron Von Evil monologue-d all the time!)

That will do it for this month’s edition. I have gotten some responses to The Note and am glad that some of you got that the form-letter formatting was a joke. But man, did I hear from those who disapproved of it. Yikes. It also showed me how out of date my address book is. Total readers, according to my address book and The Note: two.

Until next time; "I think you and I, are destined to do this forever."