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Friday, December 28th, 2007 

Friends and family got together on Christmas Eve, and as is our tradition, I always share a little bit of a story or verse with them. Below is this year’s offering, which I share with you. 

Come 

Come gather my children and give an ear 

It truly is that time of year 

To sit at this gate and await the morn 

The glistening dawn when the child is born 

To hearken the earth so duty bound 

And ring the bells for a joyous sound 

And recall a time when we all knew 

And sang a song, first one then two 

To hark the herald the angels sing 

And deck the halls the holly we bring 

And come all as faithful to gather again 

Joy to the world, oh yes, let it begin 

For soon she will pass through the city gate 

Not a moment too soon or a second late 

Donned in winter linen and hair of snow 

A string of blinking lights with her face aglow 

Candy lassos surround a rocking horse 

Buckles and bows, and glittery bulbs, of course 

She scurries her way into the burgeoning day 

Bringing a whirlwind of dazzling toys 

Dancing and prancing in a gush of joy 

Sit here son upon my knee 

And you dear girl wait with me 

For surely Mother Christmas is near 

Of this be sure and have no fear 

And one more time we can smell her sweetness 

Of cakes and pies all arrayed in neatness 

Come dream with me as we sleep just a wee 

For soon we rise and once again will see 

The beauty that is strewn across the whole Earth 

By a mother so proud of what she did birth 

For if sweets be tasted can peace ever tarry 

When the children are heard rejoice and make merry 

She soon will grace our table prepared 

With hopes and dreams we all have shared 

Come sit with me ye children of the most High 

And await the dawn as it lights up the sky 

And we will as one congregate to be 

United as an earthen family 

Waiting for the Christmas morn 

When the baby child was born 

So raise your voices and fill your glasses 

Men, women, lads and lasses 

And never grow weary awaiting the day 

For because the one child was born in hay 

Lady Christmas shall have her way 

To see that all children born of earth 

Can share in the beauty of a second birth 

And possess the notion of all good things 

That One night’s inspiration did truly bring 

So come, be patient and wait with me 

I see a light coming over that tree 

Soon we will see the Christmas morn 

And hear the first cries of the child born 

And taste the fruits of a banquet of reason 

And drink the cup to this blessed season 

Come sit and tarry with me 

The night is over, just you wait and see. 



I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and are looking forward to a prosperous, joyous, innovative and generous New Year. I am leaving for two months in Phoenix to tour with books and movies, do some premiers and also be a part of the filming of the new movie, Melvyn’s Clock. I will continue to send you a weekly blog and you may continue to peruse it as long as interest sustains. 



My best to you. 



Yours, 

J 

Friday, December 21st, 2007 

Why a policeman? 

I mean, I don’t have anything against the men and women in blue who protect and, honestly, intimidate the hell out of each of us with their stern and Spartan appearance. What I mean is, why has America selected the profile of being the policeman of the world? Is it our great fetish for conquering with the use of guns and innumerable choices of ammunition? 

Because everyone knows that historically, no nation has ever gathered, funded and equipped an army without using that force to subjugate and conquer neighboring peoples, usually under the auspice of doing a good thing for either God or country. 

And it’s not that we have an impressively large military force—matter of fact, the point is made quite often that we don’t have enough troops right now to cover our presumed global interests. Many nations have raised larger armies. Napoleon, from the tinier country of France , fielded a much more immense fighting force. Hitler, Stalin, probably even Genghis Kahn (if any of the Mongols actually knew how to count) did also. 

Why have we selected to be the world’s policeman? Because, God knows, we could have become the world’s grocer. We have the land, the farmers, the seed and the means to grow enough crops to feed the entire planet several times over, if that’s what we wanted to do. Does anybody hate their grocer? Does anybody decide to blow up their twin towers of stacked tomatoes? 

How about the world’s plumber? Just think if we became known for providing sewage, water, drainage, warmth and comfort to the entire globe. Aside from the bill—often steep—does anybody create a stink about their plumber? 

Maybe we could just be the world’s entertainer. We have some of the most creative, intelligent and prolific writers, singers, musicians that the world has ever conjured into existence. Do you think the planet would be a better place if we provided a song instead of a gun? 

Maybe we could be the world’s counselor. Yes. We once had great diplomatic skills to arrange treaties and bring people together to a common good. Does anybody really want to kill their counselor? (That is, unless he suggests that you take industrial arts in high school because you might need to know how to build a birdhouse…) 

What would be wrong with being the world’s minister? I don’t mean some flamboyant fundamentalist, pounding the Good Book and raging about immorality. I mean “minister” in the sense of “ministering” to the needs of body, mind and soul and certainly including the hearts of all humanity. 

Would there be anything wrong with being the world’s banker? The Swiss have sure stayed out of wars by collecting interest instead of armaments. After all, we did have Ben Franklin, who said a penny saved was a penny earned. He wasn’t known for saying, “Shoot and ask questions later.” 

Would it have killed us to try to become the world’s friend? I know there are people who dislike you just because you’re friendly. But these misanthropes are usually done away with pretty quickly by stubbing their own toe on their way to the next calamity. 

What is our obsession with being the world’s great military might? Didn’t we learn anything from Caesar? How did that Napoleon thing work out? Adolph Hitler still selling condos in Munich ? But yet we persist—under the auspice that we are the “best country in the world.” 

Reminds me of a young girl I knew in high school named Tia, who insisted she was the “best kisser ever born.” Now initially, it was a very effective strategy because every guy took her out, curious beyond words about her particular pucker power. But with such a build-up, the possibilities of let-down were beyond comprehension, so even though many people ended up kissing young Tia, no one ever agreed that she was the best. 

Isn’t that the way life works? If you keep insisting you’re the best, people say “put up or shut up.” And honestly, when all the statistics are tallied of all the possible categories of stuff on this planet—folks, I’m sorry to say, the United States of America gets beat out a lot of the time. And on many occasions, when we do excel, people refuse to give us our props because of our initial burst of arrogance. 

Why can’t we be the nation’s baker? I know man shall not live by bread alone, but it is the foundation for a great sandwich. 

And speaking of food, I had a great time yesterday at the give-away, an annual event where I have the privilege and honor of purchasing meals at a local restaurant for anybody who dares darken the door as my selfish attempt to bless my own being during the Christmas season with all the good cheer that is created by this simple act of generosity. A hundred and ten meals yesterday—and lots of handshakes and hugs and this greedy bastard that I am walked out loved, appreciated and revered all because I did this simple little deed. 

Why can’t we learn that in this country? There’s a good start. President Bush, Congress and all you Presidential candidates, why don’t you just go out and buy lunch for somebody tomorrow? Send out a notice to the entire world: “Lunch on US today”—and that US would be the United States . 

I have to be honest. Policemen scare me a little bit. I don’t think I’m alone. Farmers are fine. I think it’s because, when I was a kid, Mr. Greenjeans always was so friendly and knew everything about animals and growing stuff. Yeah. Why can’t America be Mr. Greenjeans? Or even Captain Kangaroo, for that matter? After all, we have deep enough pockets. 

Oh, well. Have a wonderful, Merry Christmas. And I hope you find, under your tree, something that will make you want to plant new hope in everybody you meet in 2008. 



Yours, 

J 

Friday, December 14th, 2007 



Attempting to break a bad habit of always arriving much too early for any event, I drove up to the Cinema Hollywood in Birch Run, Michigan, at 10:52 AM for an 11:00 premier of the new movie, Wonderful, still early. I sat in the parking lot for a moment and watched as the cars began to pour in from everywhere. It was a delightful, encouraging experience. After having spent an energizing year working with some of the most intelligent people in the state of Tennessee , I still was occasionally despondent over the lack of interest that is dribbled out over anything fresh and new here in the heart of Dixie . 

Just to sit there for a moment and bask in the wonder of people arriving to experience an innovative piece of art was almost a bit overwhelming to this well-traveled scribe. 

I sat a little too long because by the time I got into the theater, the only seat available was on the very front row, looking up the three-foot nostrils of people towering above. I didn’t care. The response was tremendous. People bought DVDs and hung around for an extra hour and the owners of Cinema Hollywood were ecstatic over the outpouring. 

It did my heart good. 

Don’t get me wrong. I haven’t grown weary in well-doing. It’s just that I’m a little tired of living in a social, political, spiritual and creative climate where people are just not willing to “give it up.” What saddens me is that the work of the Extra/Ordinary Film Project and the eight films that were made in the 2007 calendar year will be more extolled after we leave and go to Phoenix , Arizona , than they were on-site in the moment of this past few months. 

What causes us to take for granted that which we truly do not possess? What makes us think that we are the equals of all of our fellows when good sense and the balance of power tell us otherwise? 

I think it all began with the notion of self-esteem. Although an interesting concept and perhaps of some limited value, self-esteem has produced a generation of people who feel like there is nobody “better than them.” 

Can I make it clear during this Christmas holiday season that there are many people better than me? I drove by a garbage truck the other day and watched for a moment as the young gentlemen did their job, completely overwhelmed by the depth of their task and feeling an ache in my own muscles and joints over even the notion of even trying to duplicate their deeds. I watched a waitress last evening delivering food to tables, meticulously keeping the orders straight while schmoozing just enough to get her 12.5% tip off ungrateful patrons and I thought to myself, with a knife and fork so near, wouldn’t I have killed somebody by now? 

Why can’t we understand that unless we’re willing to give it up and admit that there’s somebody better than us, there is no way in heaven, hell or earth that we can be better at something than someone else? 

I hope you were smart enough to take advantage of the year 2007 when some crazy people came into your lives and said, “Let’s make a bunch of films and see what happens.” I hope you could stand back in admiration of their efforts—and your own—as ideas became words and words became scenes and scenes became scripts and scripts became story-boards and story-boards became auditions and auditions became shootings and shootings became dailies and dailies became a wrapped project and a wrapped project became edited material and edited material became a musical score and a musical score was added to a rough draft and a rough draft was feverishly formed into a finished product and a finished product was humbly presented to a nonplussed public. Were you there? Are you there? 

Tuesday is my birthday. Every year on my birthday, in lieu of receiving gifts, I ask my friends and family to allow me to take the money they would have spent on the next pair of pants that just really don’t fit and permit me to go out and randomly buy meals, help folks and just do wacky things to bless my fellow-humans who are a lot more like me than they’re even willing to admit. So this year, from 11:00 AM to 12:45 PM on Thursday, December 20th at the New China Buffet in Hendersonville , Tennessee , the first 125 people who walk through the door get a free lunch on me. 

I mention this because it includes you. 

If you would like to come out and celebrate my birthday with me by enjoying some Kung-Pao with an egg roll and join me in giving it up to the beauty of this journey, then, for that one day, you can do it for free. 

If you don’t, then I wish you a Merry Christmas and you’ll just have to hear from me in my next stop somewhere down the road where you’re going to find this aging, balding fat boy—giving it up. 



Yours, 

J 

December 7th, 2007 



I have just become convinced that marriage may be a bad idea. 

I don’t know—maybe we were just meant to have really wild, hot, sex with our partner, gulp down some wine, giggle and then run out of the room in different directions. I know it doesn’t sound quite as romantic as investing ten thousand dollars in a three-hour event that often lasts less than three years. So, am I right? I have sought both civil and religious documents to confirm my findings, and excavating none, I must conclude that I am erred in my discoveries. 

Of course, this will not hinder me from sharing them with you. 

Just about the time that America has become all worked up about holy matrimony and insisting that it should be between a man and a woman, forbidding all homosexual individuals to indulge in the mangled mayhem of misinformation, I am putting forth the theory that somewhere along the line the idea of relationship between human beings on an intimate level that would involve joint checking accounts, joint children, joint cars, joint holidays and joint joints (referring to homes…) has become flawed—not by the purity of its concept but by the fact that the application of the idea was apparently turned over to committee because of how miserably it actually works out. 

I mean, there is great chemistry between people. When you first meet someone, things are really hot. That’s because you’re avoiding the deadly and sinister fault of “neediness.” You’re caught up in a world of want—I want you. I want to go out. I want to take off your clothes. I want to do things to you that would be against the law in the state of Georgia . 

You feel this want because the person is a bit mysterious to you—usually living in a different location, leaving you for periods of time so that you don’t know what he or she is doing, wondering what they’re thinking, curious about they’re discoveries absent of you, and this state of wantonness drives us into a passion that causes us to have a complete inability to keep our hands off of each other. 

This is soon rectified by the introduction of a ring, a ceremony and a series of pledges that make us needy of each other instead of wanting each other. 

Let’s be honest. Need is not sexy. It may be clever in a movie to say the line, “You complete me.” But if anybody really says that to you, after the initial little blush that may surface on your cheeks and the little tear that may appear in your eye and you actually begin to think about it, what crosses your mind is, “Yuk. Why don’t you have a life of your own? Stop clinging.” 

Human beings were never meant to be needy. We were created to be ablaze with passion and the lust of want. Of course it gets out of hand but so does an addiction to marshmallow peeps that are shaped like Christmas trees, that are so moist and soft and sweet…(pardon me, I digress. My therapist says it’ll take a few more sessions before I can discuss it in mixed company…) 

Flatly and bluntly, people lose heat and relationships grow cool as they intertwine with common need instead of being set afire by the wonder of individuality and lack of dependence that naturally produces a state of horny want. When we look at the person that we love and we realize that they do not need us—that they are an individual unto themselves and they can stand on their own successfully in this world without our participation, it causes us to want to court them and date them again and place them as a trophy on our wall of honor of those we have vanquished. 

It’s the jungle in us. 

If you’re a cave man, you don’t get turned on by a woman who can’t start a fire. If you’re a Hun, you don’t get turned on by your man if he can’t hunt down the animal to make that really weird-looking fuzzy hat. If you’re an American patriot during the Revolutionary war, you want your woman to sew the flag while she’s loading the gun to blow away the Redcoats and she wants you to be defying those English pussies while you’re simultaneously writing a pamphlet to distribute to declare independence throughout the entire commonwealth. 

Independence is a horny thing—even when you are involved in a relationship with each other and interdependent on one another for some of your basic needs. 

I am not stimulated by anyone who needs me. I am not interested in anyone who thinks that they express love by hovering around me and propagating the notion that they couldn’t live without me. That is why dating works and marriage fails. Dating is the pursuit of someone whom we do not know we can get and certainly do not know if we can maintain and are constantly, intensely trying to impress. 

Marriage, on the other hand, is the assurance that that person who used to be so elusive is now the pink toothbrush on the right side of the cup. 

So what can you do if you’re already involved in a relationship with a big knot tied in the middle? Encourage each other to be independently creative, independently thinking, as independent financially as possible and, every once in a while, turn up the heat by turning off the stove. Never look at romance as an obligation or something that has to be achieved to fulfill either a contract or a status quo. Romance is for when we know that we are very lucky to be with the person that we are about to exchange body fluids with. Any other time it is boring, stupid, awkward, cantankerous, frustrating, unfulfilling, barbaric and, did I mention?—not very good. 

If you want to have a relationship with anyone of any quality, you must remove need and insert want and stand back—because here comes the fire. 

So I don’t care if you’re gay or you’re straight or that in-between area called Episcopalian (I jest with my Anglican brethren) if holy matrimony means “holy cow, I don’t know what I’d do without you,” it’ll probably end up being, in no time at all, “holy shit, it that you again?” 

Put the heat back into your friendships and your relationships. Become a whole person and scare the hell out of anybody who feels they need to be completed. You’ll be glad you frightened them off. 

Huggy, cuddly, nervous and needy people make lousy lovers. 

Thank you for letting me post early this week, because I’m off to Michigan for the premier of Wonderful on Saturday. 

Go want something—maybe for the first time in your life—and see if it doesn’t make you just a little bit excited. 



Yours, 

J 

November 30th, 2007 



You can’t judge a book by its cover. 

What prim and proper perpetrator of platitudes came up with that pile of poop? 

We not only judge books by their covers, but also insist on creating a secondary dust jacket which is completely permeated by artwork and bylines to titillate the potential purchaser into leaping in to discover the beauty and depth of the contents. 

Are you trying to tell me that if somebody walked around dressed like Rhett Butler or Scarlett O’Hara that we wouldn’t assume they fancied a bit of Dixie on the old plantation accompanied by a particularly well-blended mint julep? We certainly don’t see many black folks wearing the Confederate flag on a T-shirt and if we did we would assume they were out of their cotton-pickin’ minds. 

Do the Amish telegraph to us (perhaps using the word “telegraph” here is a poor comparative…)with their black clothing and horse-driven carriages that they’re not particularly interested in CD-ROMs or a coupon for a free oil-change from Jiffy-Lube? 

And that guy walking around in forty-degree weather in a skin-tight tank top—don’t you think he wants us to notice that he’s in the midst of an intense work-out regimen? And the young lady with her breasts protruding from the top of a constricting blouse—do you really think she’s trying to draw attention to her SAT scores? 

I guess this one has always been easy for me. Being overweight, I know that the first thing people notice about me is that I’m fat. Insisting that this is prejudice on their part is either an exercise in futility or redundancy. 

Of course it’s prejudice. But God didn’t put two eyes at the top of our heads popping out of our skulls because we are particularly internalized, spiritual creatures who, through time and tenderness, reason things out to a respectable conclusion. We see, we judge, we determine and we decide. 

I understand it. 

So I compensate accordingly by being as well-dressed as possible, clean, and by trying to be a very active, intelligent and caring fat person. You see, I understand how the game’s played and I don’t really have any trouble with the game—until people try to change the rules because they’re losing. 

Do we really think that guy over in the Middle East that’s dressed up like a really tacky extra from the Ten Commandments with his robe, long beard, turban (or dangling towel) is actually making a fashion statement? Or is he strongly communicating to us that he really doesn’t think that anything of quality has happened on the Planet Earth since Mohammed made the trip from Mecca ? 

Oh, I know we are led to believe that folks of that ilk wear that garb to protect their skin from the desert sun, but I haven’t checked lately—how many nomad sheep herders are left in Iran ? 

No. People communicate through their outward appearance exactly their intentions. There is only one day a year when we dress up as something we aren’t. It’s called Halloween. The rest of the time—good, bad or ugly—we are communicating exactly what we are by how we look. 

Do I always like that? No. Once in my life, I would like to be considered svelte. It doesn’t look like it’s going to happen on this side of the funeral home. So I work with it and I communicate other aspects of my life that I hope will counter-balance the immediate visual representation that literally bulges from my being. 

But let’s not pretend. I know it’s popular to define tolerance as proclaiming that everybody is okay. But if you’re wearing the same fashion that was worn two thousand years ago, you’re either extremely poor or intensely motivated to communicate the value of the attributes of a time long past. 

If a man walks in a room wearing a Gestapo uniform with a swastika on the sleeve with a tiny mustache, I think it is clear to me that he is not interested in coming to a Bar-Mitzvah. Am I being prejudiced to refuse to invite him to the synagogue? Or has he made it clear his intentions? 

Don’t tell me you’re interested in loving everybody in the world and then dress up in the most drab, conservative and ugly clothes that are available in the back door rejected pile at the local Goodwill. Don’t tell me that you have deep concern for your community and then dress up in hip-hop clothes covered with bling with gold teeth and a pistol in a holster around your chest and tons of attitude. 

Yes, you can judge a book by its cover and probably will have to in order to make the needed evaluations to propel your life along. 

Is it profiling? Is there a margin of error? Yes. But everyone needs to understand how all of this comes down and if you’ll pardon me saying, dress accordingly. 

I for one am tired of realizing that the world’s remaining oil reserves are predominantly held in the control of people who don’t think that any good book has been written since the Koran. Does that make me bigoted? 

If by bigoted you mean trying to adapt to the time I’m living in while applying universal principals of love and tenderness and standing against backward notions and cultures that prohibit the free expression of ideas and inhibit members of the human race such as women from being expressive, then Goddammit—yes. 

Put a hayseed in my mouth and call me “cracker.” 

It’s time to understand that human life is a visual medium. Maybe God looks on the heart. Maybe it’s because he’s smarter, kinder, and more spiritual or maybe he just has more time. I’m not God and have no desire to apply for the job. 

So when you’re around me I will try to be as open-minded as possible to your visual presentation but doggone it, cut me some slack and be clear about who and what you are by the package you deliver. 

Can’t judge a book by its cover? There’s only one time that I know of that that ever worked—it was the Beatles White Album. Of course, they were the Beatles. You noticed that Bob’s Polka Band didn’t try it. 

Be clear. Be concise. Be aware. You are on display and your packaging does determine a lot of your value. 

I’ll see you all Thursday night, December 6th, at the Palace Theater in Gallatin for the premier of Wonderful (dress right or be prepared to be talked about…) 



Yours, 

J 

November 23rd, 2007 

Anyone who has ever taken Theater 101 knows that a dramatic play—or really, any play, for that matter—is normally laid out in three acts. The first act is set aside to expose circumstances and develop our main characters. The second act is relegated to conflict and the need for some sort of intervention and change to solve a problem or situation. And the third act is generally speaking, included to initiate a resolution of the conflict and an establishment of our characters’ future or destiny, presumably in a positive light. 

As I said, even the most elementary study of the art of theater is taught this as the faithful gospel of the thespian. 

Of course, being human beings, we try to transfer elements of what we learn into all phases of our thinking. So naturally, we deem that our lives should work as astutely and intelligently in this framework as things do in a well-written play. We want to have time to develop our character and reluctantly recognize that there will be conflict but with the ardency of a monk, we desperately believe that there will also be resolution and completion to all difficulty, culminating in what we determine to be a “happy ending.” 

No wonder we have so many frustrated people, waiting for their knight in shining armor or the last-minute call from the governor to stay execution. 

We have been seduced by Hollywood and by this theatrical view of life which has caused our entire society to be induced into a catatonic state of shock when life fails to deliver the fulfilling third act. Because anyone of sanity knows that there is always a first act—a time when we develop character and learn the circumstances of our surroundings and adjust to the scenery which has been set up for our particular performance and become acquainted with all the props made available to us during our reading of the lines. And most certainly, we all do understand (although we object) that a second act does arrive, where the circumstances that surrounded us in the first act are challenged and placed into conflict, and our very essence is put to the test. 


But there is no third act. 

And we become foolish children, peering out the window on a rainy day, hoping that the clouds will go away so we can go out and enjoy recess. 

In real life, after the second act comes with its conflict, instead of a third act of resolution, we return for a reprise of Act I, where more character is developed, more personal discovery is made, and our circumstances are enhanced to counter-balance the crisis that seems to permeate our world and dominate our plotline. 

There is no third act—and I don’t say that to be jaded or negative. Life proves the need for itself to continue beyond the realm of this mortal spider web because resolution is not only not a given, but rarely overshadows the ongoing concerns that array themselves in gala battle against the human traveler. 

I do not know why we think we’re going to be happier believing in rainbows and lemon drops instead of understanding that this human journey is about discovering who we are, developing the best parts of our character and applying what we believe and hold dear into every situation that darkens our door. 

For instance, I had a wonderful weekend last weekend in Lilburn , Georgia . But Monday morning didn’t care. Monday by its very nature aspires to be something different from Saturday and Sunday. Saturday and Sunday were days of celebration, times of fulfillment, opportunities to be creative and appreciated. But Monday didn’t care. Monday was given one task—the job of canceling me for this weekend, taking away sums of money and all vestige of the notion of infallibility or even value from my personal treasure-house. Monday didn’t even apologize. Monday felt no regret. Monday was faithful to its position as executioner of my next opportunity to shine and be successful. Should I hate Monday and favor Saturday and Sunday? Should I decry Monday’s purpose in my life and insist that it was an aberration and that it was spawned from some dark place in the bowels of hell? 

No. Monday was faithful to its mission. And it was my job to understand that there is no Act III to this play called “My Life.” Monday is there to determine what measure of character I had developed through my performances on Saturday and Sunday. Am I worthy to be ushered into a tawdry Tuesday, a wacky Wednesday, a thirsty Thursday and perhaps, a frolicking Friday? 

Cryptic, you say? Perhaps too deep? 

Yes, maybe you wish that life, rather than being a play, was a cartoon where the roadrunner always wins and the coyote ends up having a box fall on his head and in that way, as long as you remain the roadrunner, only good things will happen to you and all the coyotes will be destroyed. Feel free to maintain that delusion if you must. But even cartoons are honest enough that, upon conclusion, they mock us with a silly expression of “that’s all, folks,” 

Yeah. That’s the truth. That is all, folks. The best we can hope for is a first act where we can develop our character, a second act of conflict, and then, blessedly, another chance to garner experience and continue to enhance our person. 

If you’re waiting for the third act, candidly, it doesn’t happen here. And if it does by some miraculous, masterful and magical moment, you might want to thank your lucky stars. 

Lucky stars…aren’t we funny? Of course, that does mean there are unlucky stars. Am I right? 

See you soon. 



Yours, 

J 

November 16th, 2007 

I have just finished—or recently finished—watching both 

the Republican and Democratic Presidential debates. I
don’t know why I felt the need to do that. Perhaps doing penance for feeling up Linda after Bible class when I was sixteen years old… 

Whatever my reasonings or moments of insanity, I did watch and I did listen. I am struck with the notion that politics is different than anything else. That’s what they want us to believe. It’s the old chuckle and swat on the back with a booming voice saying, “Well, it’s politics. That’s an entirely different animal.” 

Really. 

Maybe the first thing we need to do in America is finally insist that these overgrown little boys (and now little girl) be held to the same accountability of maturity and actions as everybody else in business, commerce and social entwining. Why do they get a free pass to be an absolute obnoxious misleading errant unchanging jerk just because they’re running for President of the United States ? 

Honest to God, if anybody else in our lives recited their resume to us as much as these candidates do, we would take them out and shoot them and put them out of their misery. 

If anybody else hemmed and hawed around an answer the way these childish politicians tend to do, we would walk out on them in disgust and seek other companions. If anybody else preened and practiced deception at the same level that these jokesters initiate, we would file suit or at least alienate them and never invite them to any party. But instead, we’re trying to decide whether they should be the head of their party and even the leader of this great nation. 

Why are there different standards placed on individuals based on whether they are educators, ministers, politicians, businessmen or minimum wage grunts? It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that we demand much more integrity, work ethic and punctuality off of a cashier at MacDonald’s than we ever do off of a candidate running for office for the highest position in our government. 

Are we just insane? 

Do we think that the job is any different than any other job? 

Do we buy into the philosophy that the position is just so difficult that allowances have to be given for both quality of performance and truthfulness? 

I am tired of a double, triple and often quadruple standard in a society that is attempting to be a gleaming example to the entire world. 

I feel there are three standards that must be applied to any occupation to grant it credibility and to find its purpose. I have to live by this, so I want these Presidential candidates to adhere by it, too. 

1. This is what I’m going to do. Does anybody in the room have a better suggestion? Because I plan on faithfully executing this plan to the T. 

Sometimes questions have “yes” and “no” answers. But we all have the right to know exactly what you plan to do and exactly how you plan to pay for it and exactly how it will be executed. 

2. When the plan does not work, I will make adjustments based upon wise counsel and the information provided to me without any fear of looking like I am flip-flopping or that I’m very disorganized because of changing my mind. 

Evolution is a part of life. The very notion that someone can come up with an idea that is not going to need to evolve or even downright change in entirety is the most immature, obnoxious and dangerous concept to ever come across the table of human discussion. 

3. I will make sure that the most qualified people possible are given the jobs to do that are necessary to accomplish our aspirations, even if those people are not my cronies, nephews, nieces, sons, daughters, political persuasion or golfing buddies. 

We owe it to ourselves and most certainly others to place qualified individuals with insight into positions that will enhance the productivity of our efforts. 

Let me tell you in this blog: you may think that it’s about Republican and Democrat. You may have a pet issue of taxes or abortion or homosexuality or even the war in Iraq . But all of those things pale in comparison to electing someone who has the politics of convenience and believes that he or she can maintain a firm hand on the rudder when it’s been proven that the course is inaccurate as they guide the good ship USA over the tumbling falls into oblivion. 

Give me someone who will say, “This is what I think we should do and when we get additional information we will update you and change course accordingly to maintain the dignity of our goals and mission statement. And I will certainly do my best to place the most qualified people possible in positions of authority and the most diverse and intelligent folks I can find sitting next to me to advise me, so help me God.” 

If you don’t hear someone say the essence of those words, don’t waste your time voting for them. They are children in the marketplace, cast into a position of authority, waiting for the next opportunity to throw a childish rant when they are cornered or disappointed. 

Read over those three things again and see if you don’t have to live by that standard. So why shouldn’t these candidates? 

If you think leadership is about what party you’re in, you are doomed. If you think leadership is about gender, you’re cursed. If you think leadership is about issues, you’re blinded by your own short-sightedness. 

Leadership is about a vulnerable integrity delicately blended with a steel will to perform and faithfully execute the duties that have been proven for the time being to be worthwhile. 

We’re having a great week getting ready to do the final rough cut edit on Wonderful—and it is, by the way—wonderful, that is. 

Have a great week. I’m on my way to Georgia —whether they like it or not. 



Yours, 

J 

November 9th, 2007 



Sitting here this morning, I am preparing for a recording session for the music for the new movie, Wonderful. I have blended a combination of new material with some music from my Christmas CD, Have Yourself a Clazzy Little Christmas and some music from my orchestral works from Ingathering and Crystalline. It is an exciting conglomeration and I’m looking forward to it. 

I’ve also put together what I hope is a very special arrangement of Auld Lang Syne for the closing of the movie. 

I got to see thirty minutes of scenes from the movie this week in a rough form and I’m telling you—it’s going to be a very special Christmas time for everyone. 

Two premiers—one on Thursday night, December 6th at the Palace Theater in Gallatin, which will certainly be our last presentation in the Gallatin area of the movies. We will be filming Melvyn’s Clock in Phoenix , Arizona in the months of January and February and the comedy Has Been in the San Francisco Bay area in the months of March and April. We will be holding our main premiers in those areas but may pop a few back this way. 

Of course, we will be keeping up with you folks via the blog, emails and just general bugging from time to time. 

We would like to encourage you to be there on December 6th for the premier of this Christmas movie. We are going to leave after the premier for another premier of Wonderful in Birch Run, Michigan , at Cinema Hollywood on Saturday morning, December 8th, at 11:00 AM. There’s a real good buzz up in Michigan about it, so we’re looking for a good attendance. 

It’s been an incredible year—one which we are truly thankful for—and appreciative of all the folks who have extended courtesy and time to this endeavor. 

In the ten-month period of 2007 that we worked together, we put together eight movies: Bernee, Ought, Budd, Too, $6 Man, Summer’s Morn, The Drive and Wonderful—and such an array of entertainment and inspiration it was. A hundred or more actors, an equal number of locations and thousands of extras involved in shaping a little piece of our own hearts and our own dreams. We hope you have benefited from the experience. We hope your resumés were fattened and your hearts filled. And to anyone we offended along the way, understand it was never on purpose but like the kid starting the first day of school, sometimes your shoes are too big and you trip and fall a lot. 

Come out and celebrate with us for this premier of Wonderful and get in the Christmas spirit and discover once again why we believe that life and you are truly Extra/Ordinary. 

I’m off to Parkersburg , West Virginia this weekend. Russ and Tracy are doing a premier of $6 Man in Crossville on Friday night, November 16th. Have a great weekend. 



Yours, 

J 

November 2, 2007 

A culture of disappointment. 

I was not born in the South, but I’ve lived here for twenty-five years of my adult life. Of course, that still makes me a Yankee at heart and a Yankee by birth and a Yankee amongst the secret cult of Dixie . 

Whatever remnants I have of my Ohio roots is long gone except for an ongoing appreciation and interest in the Ohio State Buckeyes. But I have never been able to embrace the Southern way of thinking. 

Because it is a culture of disappointment. The women seem to bounce between fits of giddy, rapid-fire conversation and bouts with depression brought on by the resignation to the hopelessness of anything really improving or transitioning to a different pattern of behavior. 

The men are relegated to positions of solitude and silence, only to raise their passions when imbued with the possibility of sexual fantasy or sports. 

Just the sheer glee of the unexpectancy involved in life escapes them. It’s because tradition hovers above each new project and thought, eyeing it with suspicion and fear that there might be remnants of revelation and revolution hidden deep in the fabric of the new cloth that is attempting to be sewn on the old quilt of the confederacy. 

Fear. 

I know many people want to believe that President Bush invented it, but it is really that he grew up with it deep in the heart of Texas . It is undoubtedly true that fear is a great motivator, especially when accompanied by the anger of resentment and the ferocity of nationalism. But at the end of the day, when fear is perfected, it casts out all semblance of love and the lust for life. 

I like the South—as an idea. But like most ideas, its implementation is often squandered in a lack of real energy and buried deep within the tomb of religion and reticence. 

What good is a belief that merely tells us to avoid everything that resembles change? What good is a God who is preoccupied with following the form and coloring within the lines and has no interest in sprouting a new idea for a new day? What good is a political system that is riddled with corruption because it has ceased to believe in the power and motion of a freshly sprouted concept? What good is a woman if she is so labored by her chores that she sighs more in exasperation than pants in pleasure? What good is a man if he is so locked in to responsibility and rhetoric and a belief that he is mentally inferior and incapable of organization and so he entombs himself in the catacombs of correctness? 

In the Civil War, the South was too busy defending the honor of its land to consider the depravity of slavery. As I travel this great country, I am saddened by how misunderstood my Southern brethren are in the other far-reaching corners of this great nation. But no one wants to follow tradition without being given a reason—or at least a rhyme—to make it more melodic and purposeful. The South has toted a knapsack filled with abstract concepts like dignity, Southern hospitality and family values while sporting an expression that looks as if these virtues are burdensome and painful to the soul. 

We must never forget that the gospel that is so elevated in this culture as being the true Word of God, when first preached by its author, began with the word “blessed,” which, loosely translated, means “happy.” 

When is the last time you saw a naturally happy and motivated Southerner? Giddyness is possible but rarely comes from within but rather has to be prompted by outside influence and comedic farce. 

The culture of disappointment causes a people who have great integrity to be some of the poorest representatives of their own message that have ever walked the face of Planet Earth. 

It is too bad. We in the South actually have much to share. It’s just that people rarely listen to the words and the ideas that come from a saddened and grumpy face. 



Yours, 

J 

Friday, October 26th, 2007 



Greetings from the state of Michigan and the film site of Wonderful--our new Christmas flick. 

It has been a thrilling week, filled with the normal ups and downs associated with the kind of labor that should be relegated to people of much of more substance and technical ability. Absent such creatures, we have become the unworthy substitutes. 

The shooting is going terrifically, even though we had a brief set-back on Thursday due to camera problems. Russ, Tracy and Jass were situated near Kalamazoo , Michigan , when the camera started to act up at a particularly beautiful location of a local Bed and Breakfast. As you can imagine, when the camera wants to control the destiny of a shoot, it pretty well has the single thrust and opinion for the situation. Just when desperation and frustration were about to win the day, the idea popped up to drive the three and a half hours into Chicago and be at the doorstep of the repair location in Aurora, Illinois when they opened the following morning. So it was thought and so it was done. 

That next morning, a couple of disgruntled but fairly willing techs took the camera, offering no promises, and one hour later, returned it totally repaired and even more astounding, free of charge. 

One problem remained: Russ, Tracy and Jass were supposed to be in Flint , Michigan , at 4 o'clock that afternoon and it was now twelve-thirty PM and they were a full six-and-a-half hours away. Awaiting them were fifty or so extras to appear in the next scene. So you don't need to get your calculator. Let me simplify it. It was a standard case of "you can't get there from here." 

They pulled up at the site at seven-fifteen with most of the extras still there, patiently waiting and ready to go. For every time we get in a bad mood and wish that God would damn a particular group of people, we also must remind ourselves of how blessed humanity can be. 

The shot the scene, it was great and it seems as of this moment, that some normalcy has returned to the schedule. 

We are due to return on Monday with a brand new film in the can, ready for the next bath of editing. 

It was also a week where our movie, Budd, was shown at the Memphis Film Festival in front of an enthusiastic, but tiny group of people. Film festivals are fun but not that dissimilar to the type of audience you might run across at a Star-Trek Convention in Lincoln , Nebraska . (You may draw your own conclusions from these comments...) 

Any time you decide to leave your comfort zone and your base of operation to pursue some convoluted idea of your own making, there seems to be a Master Minx who loves to hatch discouraging details and sometimes disparaging remarks in your direction to counter-balance your enthusiasm and attempt to assuage your efforts. 

I do not know who the Master Minx is. But there certainly seems to be a natural order that wants to determine how perseverent you are and is not always impressed with your simple state of willingness. 

Well, the Master Minx took his best shot. And we're still laughing and having a good time. 

I hope you have a great week. We will be returning to spend a few days in the Middle Tennessee malaise before treking off to Huntington , West Virginia for a weekend of fun and inspiration (We Are Marshall!!). 

Enjoy your time and do your best to frustrate the Master Minx. 



Yours, 

J 



October 19th, 2007 

Well, it seems it’s time for us to talk about the fresh crop of Presidential candidates that are being proffered to us during this particular excursion into political suicide. And of course, I do use the term “fresh” in reference to meat that has been bleached at Food Lion. 

There are many to choose from, although choice does not seem the correct terminology, so I am going to rephrase that to say that there are many selections, but it seems to be boiling down to about six possibilities. You got a Rudy, two Johns, a Hillary, a Barak and a Fred. One is Italian enough, if you think Fazoli’s fills the bill. Another seems to be in his doddering years, although he once was a Viet Nam hero. Still another is an actor who muttered his way through a series of successful movies and would be more than willing to do the same at any summit of our choice. Still another is a boy from North Carolina , although we Southerners are smart enough to know he’s just another damn Yankee. Then we have, of all things, a woman. I think that stands without comment. And a man of color, who actually seems a bit more caramel dipped and politically candy-coated than carrying any particular potential street cred. 

The hilarious thing to me is that there is no great white hope. Not really. I suppose Huckaby might fall into that category but I have found that anybody who’s name begins with “Huck” might have a little bit of trouble in the great rhyming scheme equation. He also does not believe in evolution and was a former Southern Baptist pastor, which doesn’t mean he’s bad, just potentially crazy. 

Did I fail to mention a guy in the race named Mitt? Please forgive me. Mitt’s a Mormon. How fascinating. We have the beginning of a great alliteration: Mitt, the mighty Mormon mounting a motivating motion of momentum towards the mountain of megalomania. Mitt doesn’t adhere to multiple marriages. Or gay marriage. Smiles a lot. Could be a male model. And should keep his resume available for such a potential. 

So here’s the question. Without a great white man candidate, will America actually elect an Italian who once wore a dress? Or someone who wears a dress, who probably has dated Italians? Or a Mormon who can’t make up his mind even on areas of his own faith? Or a man of faith who makes up his mind too quickly and might begin the end of the world? Or a man of color who’s young and attractive and inexperienced? Or an inexperienced man who’s willing to get a really good haircut and be more young and attractive? Or do we want another actor who can really look presidential until we really need to get ourselves out of a crisis? Or should we opt for the aging man who once got out of a serious crisis but seems frightened that if he offends certain portions of his party they might take the tapioca off the dinner tray for his evening meal? 

When I was twenty-one years old I voted in my first Presidential election—for Richard Nixon. It seemed right at the time. But honest to God, it cured me. Ever since then I have done something very un-American according to most people. I’ve sat out the elections. I have been told by people that this is unpatriotic and if I don’t vote I shouldn’t feel free to complain. Okay. I won’t complain. I will just tell you this: voting is not anything like what people think it is. People always poll more liberal than they really are because they think liberal makes them look sophisticated and smart. But when they get in the voting booth, they vote like Mom and Dad are looking over their shoulder, making sure they got all the right answers. 

How else can we ever end up with such a precluded selection of candidates and assumptive nominees, lacking any true sense of cultural expansion, political adventure or real backbone of purpose? 

No, we end up with safe choices that we safely can promote who safely campaign in the safest of areas to safely guarantee that their safe states are brought home to safety in the Electoral College, which is a safety net for the great pit of apathetic non-change. 

I think it would be wonderful if either a woman, a Mormon, a man of color, an Italian, an actor or the son of a North Carolina mill worker were elected President if they actually stood for something and were determined to lead us to greener pastures. What will America do without a great, white hope—that one white man who has safely selected to do as little damage as possible and leave alone any troublesome problems that plague us? 

What will we do if our only selections are non-white, non-descript, non-interesting and non-fat? Do I think it’s time for a female to be President? Hell, I think they’re fifty-four per cent of the population, so I think they should be fifty-four per cent of the Congress and every corporate board room in America . But as long as we have a series of authors and lecturers and television programs pointing out the differences between men and women and joking about how we are from different planets, women will not just get the short end of the stick but they will also get stuck with it. 

Do I think it would be wonderful to have a man of color as President? Hell, Nixon was a Quaker. What is the percentage of Quakers in this country? Yet the number of people of color is growing exponentially every year. 

Yeah. I think it would be wonderful. 

Do I think a Mormon should have a crack at it? Why not? Maybe they could bring down some tablets of stone or talk to the angel Maroni and tell us how to stay out of wars as much as possible and if we actually have to get into one, have the balls, fortitude and intelligence to win it. 

I don’t think I have to ask if an actor could be President. They all have enough thespian credit to get their Screen Actors Guild card. Because after all, at the end of the day, it boils down to looking Presidential, which usually means white, reasonably tall, conservative and handsome enough to turn a head or two. 

So what is the purpose of my blog? To encourage each one of us to stop lying. Don’t tell people you want a woman to be President if you know you’re going to go in the booth and chicken out. Don’t say a black man has a right to the office and then lynch him with your ballot. If you want a white man, tell them you want a white man. Otherwise, let’s stop looking at color, gender, religion or even too much at resume. And let’s ask for the two things that really establish leadership—ideas which are humbly presented with the understanding that change is inevitable. We had a tremendous premier last night of The Drive in Gallatin . If you did not get a chance to see it, you do not want to miss this one. It is more than art, it is thoughtful art rendered with a heart of compassion. 

Yes, a heart of compassion. Wouldn’t that be nice? 

So what is a President? He or she should have a mind as wide open as a Wyoming prairie, a soul as expansive as the amber waves of grain, a body that can stand as tall as the purple mountains of majesty and a heart that can be broken so that it can pour forth the ointment of healing to mend others. 

Now who would that be? If you think you know, go ahead and go in the booth. If you don’t know yet, don’t settle for the great Italian, Mormon, black, white, female, actor or Viet Nam veteran hope. Demand the excellence that is supposed to be the symbol of this great nation. For after all, it’s still early. Or wait—maybe it’s late. 



Yours, 

J 

October 12, 2007 

You do know that life by itself is not exciting, right? 

The reason is that a certain amount of jeopardy is necessary for us all to achieve any potential for variety or success. In other words, you have to be willing to get into a certain amount of trouble to actually improve your situation. That’s why most people—or maybe it’s just unfair to say “most”—how about if I say a goodly portion of our fellow travelers choose what appears to be the safest path possible to procure their own sense of well-being and escape from difficulty. 

That’s why ministers can convince us to be frightened of hell, politicians can rally us through a fear of terrorism, salesmen can convince us to purchase their product because we’re afraid to be without and employers can trick us into taking less money for the “good of the company” and promised benefits down the road. 

Yes, I have to be honest with you. If you’re not willing to take the risk of additional problems, you will never be able to address the ones you have. 

It reminds me of the word “dictator.” Of course, when we say “dictator” we immediately think of someone like Adolph Hitler. But actually a dictator is anyone who decides it is their mission to dictate to others what and how they should do things. Perhaps it is the reason we’ve come up with the term of calling somebody a “dick.” We all know them. We should confront them—simply because of the tragic results they bring in trying to impose upon others concepts which ultimately have no universal application. 

How does one identify a dick? I thought this would be valuable to both you and me. Yes, perhaps a listing of the attributes—or the drawbacks—of a dick. Here are some things we know about dictators (which we have summarily now termed “dicks): 

1. They are convinced that their way of doing things is not only right but necessary for the general well-being of all creatures great and small. 

2. They are willing to take a certain amount of extreme measures to see their message or ideas evangelized among the less fortunate people who have not yet discovered the way. 

3. Because of this, they determine that outside influence and additional opinions are of little value and make themselves the sole decider in all discussions and decisions. 

4. They are willing to impose their will on others under the guise of ultimately being for the common good. 

5. They are willing to sacrifice even some forms of human life to see their goals achieved. 

6. They are convinced that their mission and purpose is right even when evidence to the contrary is offered into the situation. 

7. They believe they have a divine mission to fulfill a calling, as it were, to complete their task. 

8. They feel persecuted by those who do not agree rather than questioned or challenged. 

9. They are convinced that people who are against them are ignorant and become quite smug about their superiority. 

10.They develop a set of rules to which all the followers must adhere—rules which occasionally change at the dick’s whim. 

11.They call other people who do not share their values “dicks.” 

12.They are always looking to attack a common evil, thus establishing themselves as the common good. 

13.They believe the greatest motivator in the human experience is not love, but instead, fear. 

14.They use personal attacks to destroy the credibility of their critics. 

15.They cloister into smaller and smaller groups based upon a paranoia that their enemy base is spreading. 

16.They start wars—for after all, how else can we get the message out to the ignorant masses? 

17.They sustain wars out of a fear that the absence of conflict might rejuvenate an age of reasoning. 

18.They insist on a mass acceptance of a common enemy. 

19.They believe that people are envious of them, even when it’s obvious they are pitied. 

20.And finally, they will continue to prosper until they are called out for the dicks they really are. 

This Thursday night, October 18th, at 7:00 P.M. we will premier the movie, The Drive at the Palace Theater in Gallatin . It is already on its way to the Sundance Film Festival and the buzz on it is delicious and delectable. 

The next day, Russ and Tracy will be on their way to Michigan to film the final movie of this year, entitled Wonderful—a little holiday treat which you will thoroughly enjoy. 

In closing, as long as we’re afraid to handle our own personal problems and take responsibility for them, dicks will gladly come in and insert themselves into our lives and enforce their will and ways into our existence. 

And you wonder why the world’s so screwed up? Just look at all the dicks. 

See you Thursday night. 



Yours, 

J 

October 5th, 2007 

Fish rots from the head first. 

You ever heard that saying? The reason I ask is because two of my sons had never heard of it and I was thinking maybe it was a generational-type thing, or maybe just two of my guys need to get out more. 

It’s a pretty simple saying. It means that if you leave a fish lying out away from ice or water, that when it starts rotting, it first begins that process in its head. I guess the purpose of the analogy is to demonstrate that changes in our society don’t occur among the populace before they’re instigated in the leadership. But it also starts out on the premise that the fish is dead. Live fish don’t rot—from the head or otherwise. 

I don’t know why someone decided to note which end of a fish would become putrid initially after it was dead but I guess we all occasionally have some time on our hands. 

I spent the week doing some programs in schools—seven to be exact. I don’t know why I still do that at my age—I guess part of it is because I can. I mean, I’m not dead yet. Another part of it is because someone asks me to do it and as an artist I have a fit of desperation in my soul that prompts me to take all invitations out of a great fear that all the invites will dry up. 

But I suppose I also do it because no one else really wants to go to the schools and present any kind of program of creativity, inspiration, diversity, mingled with a whole batch of lively innovative music. So, lacking that, they ask me. (Just kidding.) My point is that the schools which possess a leader—a principal, in this case—who is still in the hunt for a passionate pursuit of both education and creative expression have students who are also filled with piss and vinegar instead of bedraggled, wondering where the next complaint is going to come from or a swat on the head. 

But the fish is still dead. 

Some of these fine educators may have put their mission on ice, trying to keep the whole body of work and aspirations from stinking up the place, but the fish is dead. Combining the very worst of liberalism and conservative values, our educational system is belabored with a clumsy and often ill-suited plan of action that keeps running right and then back left, perpetually colliding into itself. 

What I mean by that is, in an attempt to satisfy the need for a secular and broad-minded representation of learning, there is always a backlash of conservative folks who fear that additional expansion will mean the loss of traditional mores. 

In other words, dare we read a book that even suggests that religion is flawed by its very genesis (pun intended…)? And then, those same conservative values, which, by the way, do have treasure to the soul expression of every human, are often cast aside as being ill-tempered and old-fashioned, if not irrational musings of ancient relics who really do not know what is best for our blooming youth and leave the students without any sense of compass or guidance. 

So what happens to the student? The student becomes the experimental piece of bacteria examined under the microscope for infection instead of the prize-winning tomato exhibited at the county fair by the proud farmers. 

We are not doing well by our youth. 

We send 160,000 of them over to Iraq to fight an enemy whose religion wishes to take over their government and schools and turn their children into little Muslim puppet masters while we simultaneously have a strong contingency of religious fanatics in this country who are totally convinced that we need prayer and Bible study in our classrooms and it sure wouldn’t hurt to bring a little sermonizing of the Christian way into our English and history studies. We want creationism taught next to evolution and a form of state-sponsored religious instruction to be part of the everyday curriculum for our young, aspiring fish. 

Does that seem hypocritical to anyone else besides me? That the enemy we fight in foreign lands—an enemy of religious intolerance and intellectual retardation—is welcomed in this country as just a political arm and force in our society? 

Am I offering any solutions here? Hell, no. 

It’s exhausting enough just to complain about it. I know this: the separation of church and state has become the debate when the greatest danger in our society has become the separation of passion from education. 

Where is that debate? Where are the parents demanding better salaries for their teachers while simultaneously encouraging the teachers to arrive at school with some semblance of a human soul and desire to instruct our young offspring in higher ways and learning? Yes, we all know that the fish head is rotting and we shouldn’t be surprised that it’s trickling down everywhere from Wall Street to Main Street to Academia Street . But can we understand that the reason the fish is rotting from the head first is because the fish is dead? 

We took a great idea called the United States of America that was swimming along beautifully in the water of liberty and the flow of diversity and yanked it from that environment and put it on the shore and watched it die. 

I watched it die for the past twenty-five years slowly, through several administrations, none of which was aware of what the real problem was. One kept waiting for it to trickle down; another thought it was about a wicked dictator in a far-away land; still another was convinced it was the economy, stupid and the final man occupying the Big House was totally convinced that terrorism was the greatest threat to our national security. 

None of them were right. 

The greatest threat to any people who want to truly be free is ignorance, which manifests itself with a doctrine of stagnancy as we all commune on the wafer and wine of greed. Those are the sins of the American people. Terrorism will not destroy us. Terrorism may bust in the door of our country, only to find us already dead—suffocated in a cloud of fear—fear of change and fear of difference in each other. 

So what is the answer? 

Don’t be so foolish to think that the most important thing in life is an answer. The most important thing in life is to acknowledge that there is a question unaddressed and that question, very simply, is: how in the hell do we think we are going to do the same things that other civilizations before us have done that caused their destruction and other nations are doing now, which has proven to be unfruitful and ridiculous? Yes. How do we expect to do the same things that all the lunatics do as they howl at the moon and yet come up with different results? Why? Because we’re America and God blesses us? Here’s a clue. God’s bored. And when he was here on earth, he never fished for rotten meat, just sought those who were lost. 

So what can you and I do about this? Disrupt. When conservatives rail for their cause, present the contrary opinion that brings the debate that might just help us find the bull’s eye of the target. When the liberals chant their mantras, ask clearly and decisively what is the destiny of their ideas and the potential as compared to what we’re already doing and what has proven to work in the past. 

This country was not founded by forefathers who were either religious nor particularly libertine. It was founded by very practical men, many of whom spent most of their day in a field trying to figure out how to raise a crop, who just realized, like Thomas Paine said, that common sense dictated a course of action. 

Yes. I would like to go back to common sense. But common sense means it needs to be common. That means it can’t be my over-zealous religious fringe opinion, nor my overly-expansive open-minded rubbish that has no proven quality of the test of time. 

Common. A blending of you and me and the guy over there that we both really don’t like. That’s America , isn’t it? You, me and the guy we both don’t like. 

That’s why I’m an American. How about you? 

I saw the final product of The Drive, the movie we’re premiering on October 18th. You all are going to be so proud that you were a part of this crazy project when you come and see it. 

I’m on my way to Macomb , Illinois , to bug some more Mid-Westerners. Who knows? Maybe I’ll find some live fish. 



Yours, 

J

9/28/07



So the politician on the TV set tells me that what we need is more goodness in this world. I guess there have always been varieties of that statement--politicians always try to find the most popular thing to say that really is obvious to everyone and phrase it in such a way that it sounds like they came up with it. 

After all, who could be against goodness? And I’m not against goodness. I just would like to have it defined.

I’m uncomfortable when the only goodness we think exists is in a book written thousands of years ago. I’m just a little miffed that the only goodness we think is continual and holy in its own way comes from a creator we have dubbed “God.” I guess I find it a bit short sighted that goodness began and ended in your particular religious affiliation, political party or family tree.

I saw a lot of goodness this week. I saw two people work very hard editing a movie with no immediate plan in place to gain financial remuneration or fame but just for the sheer love of the craft and the passion over the message of the flick. I saw a friend of mine go back to her family and declare her humanity and value and stand up for what she believes. I saw simple folks in a little town open their hearts to new ideas—ideas so expansive and full of such great promise that you would never have thought they would be able to contain them. I heard of another woman stand up and help another woman who had a crutch with a tray. I saw a man who was in desperate trouble with the law over a single mistake he’d made given another chance and redeem for the moment to discover a better path. I have seen seven sunrises and sunsets since we last talked—an ongoing confirmation that no matter how much we may warm and chill the planet, Mother Nature remains determined to be faithful.

I’m just a little bit frightened of hand-crafted or canned goodness. Just like the Supreme Court justice once said—that he would know pornography when he saw it—I think it’s even more important to know goodness when you come into its presence and to bow your head for a second to be in the court of such a gracious queen of class and then raise your voice and acclaim the beauty that insists on persisting among the ashes.

Twenty-eight per cent of the young people in this country have tried marijuana, which means, for some reason, that seventy-two per cent—nearly three out of four—just haven’t gotten around to it or have decided to pass. Is that not goodness?

Forty-four per cent of the people in this country believe that homosexuality is a sin. That means that fifty-six per cent of the people either think that it isn’t or more than likely figure it’s none of their damn business anyway.

Goodness comes in all shapes, colors, sizes, persuasions, denominations, parties and even, I believe, from all planets. So—get a sense of goodness and goodness will find you. 

I think my favorite beatitude is blessed are the pure in heart. So what does it mean to have purity of heart? Since the heart is the center of emotions, it means that I am emotionally prepared for life to turn out better than whatever others tell me is going to happen. So, happy are the people who are looking for goodness in life for it says they shall see God.

And I do. I see God in everybody. I even have to ask toleration from my atheist friends for seeing God in them. It’s a wonderful way to live. I guess if I were feeling particularly narrow-minded, I would say it’s the only way to live. 

We just sent our new movie, The Drive, off to the Sundance Film Festival. It is a monstrous cinematic achievement filled with superb action, acting and a storyline to open your soul but maybe break your heart. We’re going to premier it on Thursday night, October 18th at the Palace Theater in Gallatin. You can feel free to miss it if you must, but I can promise you it will be a little piece of that goodness we’ve been talking about. 

I’m on my way to Byron, Georgia, to return to tell you more reasons why I still believe that a pure heart is the only way you’ll ever see God.



Yours,

J


The Blog – September 21st, 2007



So, let me get this straight.

A comedienne named Kathy Griffin, who makes her living out of being one big bucket of spoof, often doing satire of her own abilities and popularity in the most deprecating way, who takes great joy in alarming the senses and using verbal slapstick comedy to gain both attention and audience, decides to say something irreverent in front of an audience that thinks irreverence is both cool and posh, and we are supposed to take that out of context and act as if she walked into the First Baptist Church in Murfreesboro and used it as her sermon text?

“Suck it, Jesus” does not bother me. I understand it startles the sensibilities of believers, but my first question was, she didn’t say, “Suck it, Jonathan” so I should be more curious what the person who she told to “suck it” would feel if he heard his name associated with “suck it.”

Maybe I grew up in a different time and place, but I never found Jesus of Nazareth to be an overly sensitive guy who was afraid of a little onslaught of criticism or even downright meanness. Let me make it clear to you right now that I don’t think Kathy Griffin was trying to be either mean or critical. Just obtuse.

For a group of people who are constantly ploying with the concept of “What would Jesus do?” It seems to me that no one asked that question concerning an off-the-wall comment on an award show giving away gold-plated tin statues. Let’s be honest. He’s been called worse. He’s been called a drunkard, a glutton, a friend of sinners, certainly somewhere in there a bastard, a Galilean (which would translate, in our lingo, to some sort of hillbilly reference), a sinner, a Satanist, a demon-possessed man, and finally—King of the Jews—not exactly meant as a flattering phrase.

I think he survived all the alleged mistreatment with a bit of grace and style. 

But if that wasn’t enough, everybody became equally as upset at Sally Field’s calling war “God damned.” Now, I will relent to you that some wars may be necessary—I may even go so far as to say pertinent to maintain the dignity of this planet. But even the generals themselves throughout history have referred to war as “hell” and “cursed” and “foul” and to be avoided at all costs. It seems the people who do not want to damn the wars are in a great fervor to propagate that we have happened to stumble upon the one single conflict that is “God approved.”

What’s wrong with us? Have we forgotten what the really bad language is? What foul speech truly consists of? And where our words go awry with evil intent? 

Religious people will argue with you that a “fuck” and a “shit” and a “damn” offend their tender consciences and create great sadness and turmoil in their souls. Well, let me tell you the thirteen words that I consider to be bad language—foul—and should be censored from all children and civilized people everywhere. Are you ready? Hide the children—those most sensitive to language need to stop reading at this point, because here come the thirteen words that really do make Jesus angry.

Torture. Shrewd. War. Smug. Bigotry. Misogyny. Apathy. Fanatic. Discrimination. Ingratitude. Fundamentalist. Spite. And gossip.

I must apologize immediately for my bad language—and I only use these words in an instructive capacity, not as personal choices for my own speech or character.

There you have the thirteen evil words in this world. What makes them evil? Evil can be defined by that which kills, that which steals and that which destroys. “Fuck” and “shit” never killed anyone. “Fuck” and “shit” never destroyed anything. “Fuck” and “shit” never stole anything from anyone except maybe a few disconcerting moments. But the thirteen words listed above, nearly burning a hole in the paper due to the fire from hell they possess, have killed, stolen and destroyed more of the essence of humanity than any misplaced or misguided shroud of impropriety and irreverence could ever conjure or achieve. These words alienate, segregate and eliminate possibilities for children and people everywhere whom a God of creation intended to rise up and instead, are thrust down by some defining inadequacy or spotlighted weakness.

I’m not a complete goofball. I understand that there are times that words may be inappropriate for a particular gathering of individuals and can even be inflammatory. But I think it’s time that we take off our three-cornered hats and pull down our Bobbie socks and grow up a little bit and understand that time marches on, language changes, but the destruction of human beings either in heart, soul, mind or body, is always the only thing that causes the universe to revulse in aggravation and weep in despair. 

“Suck it, Jesus” will come and go, as will this “God damned” war. But those people who often hate the word “fuck” the most have no problem with words like apathy, bigotry, war, torture, fanatic, spite, gossip, ingratitude, discrimination, misogyny, smug and shrewd. 

The correct phrasing from the Bible is to not use the Lord’s name in vain. Well, I just talked to him this morning and he told me it was just fine to God damn any war in his name that I wanted to, even one unfortunately necessary. Making a quick call to Jesus this morning, we had a nice mutual chuckle about Kathy Griffin’s comment about “sucking it.” I believe his phrasing to me was, “Not the worse thing I ever heard said about me, even in my own house,” (Because, if you remember, his family thought he was stark raving nuts.)

So please accept my apology for using those thirteen foul words on you. I just felt I needed to make a point and I guess it just seemed to be fucking right.



Yours,

J 

September 14th, 2007



I had a most delightful time driving up to Findlay, Ohio, last weekend for my performance. I don’t know—there is just something magnificent about the freedom of hopping in your car and going to do something of your own volition, permitted a fleeting sense of controlling your own destiny.

I wish that for everyone.

I often think that we wax cold in our emotions because we’re overtaken by the complexity and the adversity of forging a living while fulfilling all of “Caesar’s demands”. Sometimes we just need to step back and say ‘ENOUGH”.

It’s difficult to do that when you’re pressed on every side by a political environment offering only two approaches to every problem—Conservative or Liberal. 

Of course, I’m back to this driving in the car rear-view mirror thing. And like we discussed last week, as important as it is to know what’s behind you, you must know that in driving, people hate the motorists who occupy the middle lane because those in the right lane want to go slower and think that you’re going too fast because you’re obeying the speed limit and those in the left lane think that you’re not fast enough and will even honk at you as they zoom by on their way to a destination undetermined.

See—that’s the purpose of those side-view mirrors. You got one on the right of your car so you can keep an eye on those slow drivers and one on the left so you can keep an eye on the fast drivers.

Right and Left.

This is what America offers to us, both politically, socially and spiritually. The right wing is cautiously clinging to the berm, frightened to death of any transition that might bring about even the sense of change, clinging to traditions more or less to feel nostalgic about their own childhood and upbringing and the left wing, that wants to go forward as fast as they can with no sensitivity to either the laws of gravity or the general principles of propriety.

If I’ve gotten you lost in this analogy forgive me. But basically the whole philosophy of right-wing politics can be summed up in a phrase that we shall call, “Fear of the Queer.” For instance, they don’t really know whether or not stem cell research is improper or immoral. They aren’t concerned about the validity of the situation—just convince everybody to fear something queer that is coming onto our horizon. It’s not necessary to prove that terrorism is a legitimate present threat to the continental United States. Just produce fear that those queer Arabs might come over one more time and fly one of our planes into one of our buildings.

On the other hand, the left wing has a philosophy to “Queer is Dear.” At times, they really don’t care whether the cause is just or has been proven to have sensitivity to moral ground, just as long as its different and out of the main flow of society, it should be coddled and cuddled up to like little Suzie’s teddy bear.

What is the harm of approaching everything equally? I mean, with equal portions of openness and evaluation to determine whether it passes the three-fold acid test. And what would that be? 

1. Is it historically viable? In other words, have we already tried this in history and found out that it was a disaster? If so, what makes us think that we’re so damned pretty that we’re going to pull it off now? I mean, there are just causes that are just stupid. As justifiable as it may be to have removed Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq, did anybody even open an encyclopedia to see what had happened to other people of other nations who had tried to intervene in that part of the world? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with tipping your hat to the forefathers who have already gone through the shit and can tell us where to step.

The second acid test is:

Is it human and planet friendly? I am sick to death of people talking about God’s will without including the feelings and the rights and the status of human beings and the Planet Earth within the discussion. Do you really think you’re going to do something that pleases a universal creator while you’re attacking and destroying some of his favorite creations? No. Anything that is done must be people-friendly and planet conscious. 

And finally:

3. Do we have the means and the power to do this? Or even, do we have the ability to begin? Once again, there are many causes that are righteous but presently beyond our capability. We should not reject their value just because we are inept to the task. But by the same token, we cannot launch into projects that are doomed to end in failure in our sea of inadequacy. For instance, health insurance for everyone is a noble notion. Yet, we have two main obstacles: doctors and insurance companies—and not necessarily in that order. Until we tackle these two monstrous lobbies and bring them to at least a state of awareness over how the health system in this country has been manipulated by greed and inefficiency, health insurance for everyone is a pipe dream. If you are going to be a functional person who is making a difference in your family, your community and ultimately, your country, you have to understand that the right lane of driving is always too slow, too critical and too determined to take the first exit at any sign of trouble up ahead. The left lane is always too fast, too careless, too shortsighted and, I believe, often too loose with the letter of the law in an attempt to keep the spirit of freedom alive. That’s why we have that glorious, wide windshield in front of us—because our most valuable resource is our own personal vision—seeing what we need to see directly in front of us and addressing the things as they come up without being afraid of what’s to our right or overcome by what’s to our left or ignoring what is already behind us.

Would it be possible to motivate a group of people who are willing to take on each issue based upon the value it has to mankind and the planet Earth and to ascertain the destructive potential it has to each of us? 

Here’s the problem, friends. Conservatives are never right. Conservatives were for slavery. Conservatives were for Jim Crow; conservatives were for prohibition; conservatives touted that there was a moral majority; conservatives placed us in a no-win situation in Iraq, which, honestly, if it had been handled with a bit of grace and wisdom, could have turned out much differently. But conservatives, in an attempt to maintain tradition, are stained with arrogance. But on the other hand, liberals have a tendency to launch the ship without either sails or an anchor. Liberals end up also never being right because they plan poorly and by the time the real problems come to the forefront they’re ill-prepared to address it because they are so bogged down in their agenda and overly committed to their supporters. Liberals have never met a lost cause that they didn’t embrace and claim to be essential to the national good. The fact of the matter is, contrary to the liberal view of life, the jury is out on a lot of things. The right to choose an abortion does not mean that some living entity is not killed. Homosexual rights on a political level may be pertinent, but we have no idea whether the homosexual community is going to blend into our society in the realms of committed marriage. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not making a judgment on the people, I’m saying the jury is out on many of these issues because the conservatives have kept the possibility of test-marketing ideas off the plate and the liberals have kept everything so emotional and extreme that no one feels comfortable totally embracing their concepts.

There is just so much we don’t know about so many things and our political system does not allow us to investigate because the conservatives “fear the queer” and the liberals have a reputation for “the queer is dear”

How do we approach this? 

Ask a question. 

I find that irrational people are stymied by questions. Don’t believe the news media. Investigate it for yourself. That’s why you’ve got a windshield on the front of your car. There is not only a great right-wing conspiracy in this country; there is also a great left-wing conspiracy. I welcome the diversity, but if you don’t mind, and it’s not going to offend you, and you won’t find me wishy-washy, I’m just going to go ahead and decide for myself. I don’t need CNN or Fox News. I just need the facts, some time, a little bit of heart, a whole lot of thought and some space.

And then, maybe, if we would involve ourselves, we could drive this great vehicle of the United States of America forward without fear of becoming tyrants or targets. Have a great week.



Yours,

J





The Blog - September 7th, 2007



Maybe it’s because we just finished filming a movie called The Drive, but for some reason, my mind has been transported this morning to thinking about the process of what is involved in propelling an automobile down the road with me behind the steering wheel.

The first thing that comes to my mind is that there are four major considerations that go into the process of driving a car and it’s not steering, operating the gas, pushing the brake pedal or selecting right radio station.

Honestly, we spend a lot of time fussing about whether we’re going to steer correctly, and if I’m not being too simple here, doesn’t the road determine that for you? If it goes to the right, you adjust. If it goes to the left, you adjust. It’s really not that difficult once you realize that steering a car is not getting in and moving the wheel back and forth in a frenzy but rather, adjusting to the turns and bumps that come along the way.

It’s the same thing I feel about braking. If you’re about to run into something that’s an obstacle that will do you damage, it’s a good idea to stop. And the gas pedal really is about following the speed limits or running the risk of chancing the men and women driving the sedans with the cherries on top. And may I add concerning radio, is there really a difference between Bob and Tom and Jack and Dick?

So really, that’s not what driving is all about. Driving is about a windshield and three mirrors—a windshield that shows what’s in front of you, a rear-view mirror that shows what’s right behind you and a right and left mirror that shows you all of your blind spots.

Let’s talk about the rear-view mirror. Why do we put a rear-view mirror in a car? Better question, do I need a rear-view mirror in my own life? In my own dealings? In my own thought process? While driving, a rear-view mirror tells me what is directly behind me. As a father, it has given me a chance during my lifetime to keep an eye on my young children in the back seat. Most problems in my life happen because I don’t learn anything from what has already happened to me on this planet. I don’t keep an eye on my own rear view. I just keep hoping that the road up ahead will be different than the terrain I just passed, when deep in my heart, I know it’s probably going to be more of the same, and if I don’t occasionally look in the rear-view mirror to see what’s going on behind me, I am in no position to handle or consider or deal with what’s coming up in front of me.

In 1965, my parents, who were not southern, but rather, Ohio people, told me that black people were too stupid to vote and that civil rights was ridiculous because the black race was inferior. They weren’t alone. They were wrong. What can I learn from that? I look in my rear-view mirror of that event and I come up with this conclusion: I do not have any right to judge anybody at any time or to consider them inferior. You see, that statement is no more popular today than it was in 1965 with my surprisingly bigoted parents.

In 1969, Richard Nixon told us that if we didn’t fight the Vietnamese and the Communists over there, we soon would be fighting them in our own land. It was called the “Domino theory.” In other words, stop them over in Indo-china or Communist soldiers will be running up and down the streets of our cities, raping our young women, destroying our churches and spreading ideals of their evil empire throughout our populace.

55,000 dead young Americans later, Viet Nam did fall, became a Communist nation and nothing else happened. Pretty soon Russia fell and China is teetering on the verge of philosophical collapse. What did I learn from that? You don’t fight for freedom. Freedom is like nature. It always makes a way. You just have to make sure you don’t do anything to try to stop it. But freedom must always be achieved and worked for by the people who will benefit directly from its gifts.

Then in 1982, Jerry Fallwell told me there was a moral majority in this country who would not be happy until we had a Christian president, a conservative Supreme Court and immorality was eliminated from our land. Much as I believe that morality has a natural place in mankind’s progress, at no time has it ever been functional to transfuse from one person to another, either by desire or law. We all become more moral people as we exhaust all the possibilities of immorality. That’s a fact.

So for the past eight years, the Christians have actually gotten their born-again President, we’ve had a conservative swing in this country and are we any better off than we were before? I’m not convinced. People often ask me what my politics are. They say, are you a Republican or a Democrat? I always ask them, what political party does Mother Nature belong to? Because that’s the one I want to join. After all the smoke and mirrors of backwoods and back-door policies of all our political parties are done, it is the press of time and the wisdom of Mother Earth that informs us of what truly works and what is truly a passing fancy of people merely trying to make a name for themselves.

A car has a rear-view mirror so we can see where we’ve come from to better operate our vehicle in knowing where we’re going.

If you don’t mind, I’m going to continue this next week, and talk about the other mirrors and the windshield that make it so clear to us how we should drive our car.

Much thanks to the handful of folks who came out to our Halfway Celebration. We rolled out the red carpet, we played some beautiful music, showed some clips from the movies, saluted the actors who were there and gave honor to this project and to the efforts of all people who have participated.

There were not many people there. The table was spread, the opportunity was ripe and ready. We put a call out to the highways, the by-ways and the hedges and there was still room in the theater at the end of the night.

I don’t care.

Nature is doing her work and I’m watching her carefully and following the flow of wisdom and practice.

I’m off to Findlay, Ohio, which has just survived a flood. I talked to the lady who was sponsoring me in town and she said, “It’s a flood. We’ll get over it.” God bless you, dear. You’re right. We will get over it. But only if we look carefully from where we’ve come and apply the wisdom of those discoveries into our forward thinking.

Talk to you soon.



Yours,

J

August 31st, 2007 

I know a lovely woman in Arizona who’s name is Sherry. I suppose there’s no particular significance in the name Sherry except it does fall off the tongue with a bit more fluidity than Penelope (no disrespect to Penelope…or her pit stop…) 

Sherry has been in a struggle with leukemia for many years, including a bone marrow transplant, which, to my feeblemindedness, is the closest thing to the creation of a Frankenstein monster available in the medical field. Except Sherry isn’t Frankenstein. She’s a delightful young woman with a family and dreams. She went in for a series of tests and discovered, much to the surprise of the doctors, that the leukemia has beat a hasty retreat and at this point, is showing no signs of wanting to return for an engagement in this particular human body. In other words, it looks like Sherry’s gonna make it. 

It got me thinking about the whole spiritual connection with that term so frequently thrown around—being “born again.” I have no problem with true spirituality. But religion, if it weren’t so insipid and inadequate, would aggravate me to the point of cursing, which would only serve to confirm amongst its adherents that I was the unworthy lost sinner they presume me to be. 

I remember a saying when I was a kid: “it’s enough to make a preacher cuss.” That’s the way I feel about religion. To me religion is like taking a really good idea and using it for a foul purpose—similar to holding up your bed and keeping it straight by sticking a copy of Shakespeare under it, or my friend, Janet, who likes to take a perfectly good chair and clutter it with clothes, files and anything else that’s handy to throw thereupon. 

I mean, I think the idea of being born again is not only beautiful, but a necessity. We get born once to learn how to do crap and then discover what people expect of us and then act out what they think we should do and then land in some sort of general heap of modicum performance—neither pleasing nor particularly fulfilling. 

It’s at that point that we need a rebirth. 

But (pardon my language) for the sake of brevity—no birthing happens without there first being a really good fuck. Nothing is conceived without that happening. 

The reason most of us never get the experience of a redo—a start-over—or being “born again,” is because we either avoid all the fucks that come in life or we take them so personally that we recoil in defeat instead of using them to conceive a new life. 

Leukemia is a big fuck. Sherry could have literally rolled over and died. But she did everything they asked her to and then went one step further. She inserted her will, her perseverance and her faith and turned the big fuck into a new conception, which has led to the birthing of a new life. It’s her SHERRY LIFE. 

What about your Sherry life? 

How often does each of us roll over and play dead because we either see the big fuck coming or we think the fact that it exists is an indictment against our character and soul? 

It is neither. 

One person’s fuck that is done in love is another one’s rape that is a crime against nature. It all depends on how you receive it and whether it’s your idea in the first place, to accept it and turn it into something beautiful. 

I’ve been fat all my life. Fat is either a formula for disgrace, ridicule and ultimate death or a great opening line to vulnerability, humor and finding an angle for excellence outside of showcasing your body like a cheap blue light special at K-Mart. The power is always in our hands. 

Religion wants me to believe that God controls everything and I’m rendered helpless in my inadequacy. I don’t believe it. How could he audaciously call himself a God of love and take away the very essence that makes me human—that being the power to choose, the power to change, the power to do, the power to will and the power to achieve? 

I’m not claiming to have all the answers. Hell, I’m not even sure the answers exist. All I’ve achieved in my years of life is to be able to tell the difference between a pile of chocolate and a pile of shit. Makes it a lot easier when it comes time for shoveling and eating. 

And, my dear, sweet friends, religion is a pile of shit. 

But developing a Sherry life—a new life—a second chance of your own making—taking the fuckups that seemingly are determined to turn you into a jiggling bowl of gelatin, frightened to death of your own shadow—that reality, that choice, that newness is just a box of chocolates. 

So are you already in the midst of your Sherry life? Or are you in the need of commencing one today? How do you begin? Well, you begin everything by ending the previous foolishness. And then move into the next thing that looks like it will take you some place brand new. 

So here’s to the Sherry life. And here’s to the power of true spirituality, which I believe can best be defined by “I will not believe that this is ever all there is.” 

Gonna see you Thursday night, September 6th at 

7:00 P.M. at the Palace Theater for the celebration of Halfway There. Don’t miss it. We’re going to have a red carpet, movie clips, music from all the film, a blooper reel and an absolutely fabulous program with pictures of all our actors. So come along and let’s join our Sherry lives together to create a new voice in this community and our country—a voice that is not silenced by difficulty but rather, gains volume and intensity through adversity. 



Yours, 

J 



P.S. If I offended anybody with the language, just chalk it up to my immaturity and realize that maybe I’m just not as religious as you are… 

August 24th 

R ichard Allen Baird died on Monday noon in a 

Sumner County hospital. He had cancer, but it was pneumonia that finally did him in. Of course, most of you don’t know who Richard Allen Baird is, or should I now say was? So though you may make some attempt to feign interest, your humanity, such as it is, will only permit certain levels of hypocrisy and false involvement before either embarrassment or just sheer boredom overtakes the moment and leaves you looking for a way to scurry for an exit. 

So I don’t mention this to you so that I can go into some long eulogy about a man you did not know. I don’t mention it because I’m looking for a series of sympathy cards for my loss. 

I mention it because one of the worst injustices and atrocities immediately follows death: it is called a funeral. 

The funeral is when people determine how well-liked we are by the number of butts that arrive in the seats and the number of nice things that can be conjured in a brief two-minute speech and, worst of all, the number of different ways that we can anemically express that our loved one has gone to a better place. 

Who in the hell knows that for sure? 

I don’t know who to attribute the quote to, but most of you will be familiar with the notion and statement that we should “pursue life like we believe there’s a God but live it like we’re pretty sure we’re wrong.” 

No kidding. 

I sat through a solid hour of heavenly dialogue and scriptural wonder-words about how miraculous it was to finally be gloriously embalmed and on our way through the gossamer express to the pearly gates and streets of gold. 

(Why do we spend our whole lives trying to free ourselves from the rigors of materialism to supposedly go into an eternity advertised to be a Jamaican get-away bungalow for Donald Trump and Associates?) 

It came my time to speak and at the risk of being considered brutish and irreverent, I told the gathered, tiny ensemble of expectant souls that Richard Baird fought like hell to stay out of heaven. 

It’s what I liked about him most. Because no matter how much we may do in this life span—how many souls we may touch—how many various creative endeavors we may accomplish—two weeks after we die, people will be right back to worrying about mortgages, blemishes and the brats they have spawned. 

Except… 

Yes, there is an exception. Tradition says we are dust and ash. Maybe. Actually, we’re like a sack of skin and eventually the skin wears out and decides to die on us. So people reach inside that sack of skin to pull out memorabilia. So all of us boil down to the little treasures that are left in our sack of skin when it wrinkles up and dies on us and it all comes down to giggles, gags, goals, goodness and goof-ups. 

That’s really what we all are. Did we make people laugh? Did we let people laugh at us? Did we have an idea of where we wanted to go and make it clear that we were heading there whether we reached it or not? Did we move toward compassion for our fellow-humans whenever possible? And did we make our mistakes so obvious that everybody could enjoy a good snicker with us over our dumbness and hopefully, learn from our mistakes? 

Damn. It’s the only way to remain alive after the skin gets stuffed in a box. 

Richard Allen Baird. What will I remember? Well, I won’t remember whether he goes to heaven or not. That’s between him, his soul and his maker. I will remember the giggles, the gags, the goals, the goodness and the goof-ups. 

So here’s to us—a species that insists that we are so resilient and important that we must be granted the honor and privilege of eternal life. (Of course, simultaneously, we basically eschew the notion of doggie heaven and kitty paradise, although we might accept the concept of skunk purgatory.) We are an arrogant breed who feel that we matter so much that God, Himself, must secure prime real estate for us to languish and rest for the eons of time. To achieve this and to acquire this honor, we breathe a lot of air, pollute even more, procreate, pay taxes, fart, cut people off in traffic, reluctantly attend family reunions and sit in a church pew desperately slapping our faces to stay awake. 

Seems like a good trade, doesn’t it? I certainly don’t know why God would pass up such a fine exchange. But in case he does, go out there this week and work on your giggles and produce a couple of gags. Reassess your goals. Let goodness have a moment or two in your twenty-four hour span, and celebrate and revel in your goof-ups, which only make you more endearing to your fellow-goofers. 

It was a great week. We finished filming The Drive, which will premier October 18th at the Palace Theater. Congratulations to D.R., Tammy, Jasson and all the cast members. You are truly treasures which we hold deep in our hearts. Don’t forget the upcoming celebration of our halfway point on September 6th at the Palace Theater in Gallatin , with music played by the Sumner Pops and clips of all the movies plus a movie short competition to be judged by the audience.
Well, enough from me for this week. Hopefully, nobody else in my life will die before I talk to you again, so I can avoid the funeral. 

Heaven is really a nice idea. Almost as nice as living—if you do it right. 



Yours, 

J 

August 17, 2007 

It all began with a raccoon—a raccoon, by the way, which was crossing the road at a most unfortunate time because my car was possessing the turf which the raccoon desired to pursue. In other words, the raccoon was about to join his brothers in a long line of Davy Crockett coonskin caps. 

Now let me explain to you that I have known many people who would not swerve to miss a raccoon in the road. I have no evidence to prove that they actually would enhance their aim, but I have known a few who take great pride in adding up the number of road kills that they’ve been able to achieve in their earth passage and brag about it even in the midst of discussing some great theological point or a scriptural interpretation with me. 

I do not feel self-righteous, but I am officially a raccoon dodger. It is so inbread in my thinking that I will swerve my car, slam on the brakes and jostle all the contents of my trunk to allow a raccoon to enjoy another day frolicking in the woods. So on this particular morning I was fortunately able to hit my brakes and miss Rocky Raccoon. He scurried across the street onto his duties. 

Duties? you say. What duties? You see, we are such an arrogant species and believe that our human existence causes the entire planet to prosper and the universe to shudder in anticipation of our next mostly-predictable moves, it never occurs to us that a single raccoon who was spared from the tires of a car can go into the woods and find a fish that has been swept ashore by the stream and eat that fish and then become very sick and lay there, suffering, until a young boy who is training to be an Eagle Scout comes upon the ailing raccoon, and is able to place him into a safe container, take him to a veterinarian, who, upon testing the raccoon, discovers that the animal has been poisoned. Being a diligent fellow, he calls the EPA and the EPA comes out and traces back into the woods and finds the fish that was swept ashore along with several of its unfortunate gilled brethren. The EPA takes the fish and discovers that they’ve been poisoned by the stream. Tracking it back upstream they come to a lake and find the source of pollution—a nearby plant dumping illegal chemicals into a town filled with thousands of children. The water plant of the town, unaware of the pollution in the water, had not thoroughly treated the drinking supply for the town, so unbeknownst to the citizenry, bits of foreign chemicals had been going into their systems and into the young bodies of their offspring. 

An outrage ensues and the plant is forced to cease its pollution and pay fines for their indiscretion. The fines are used to buy new supplies for the school to teach the students about the dangers of pollution and about the legitimate information available about global warming. One of the students is so inspired by the course that he decides to go to college and make alternative fuels his thesis for study and ends up, in the next decade, coming up with the first car totally and completely powered solely by water, which works just as efficiently as any gas combustible engine ever could boast. 

Soon, everyone in the world is driving water cars. The air is clean, the children are safe, the streams are less polluted and the world is just one step closer to understanding the importance of doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. 

And how did it begin? It began because I didn’t kill a raccoon in the road. I know this sounds wacky to many of you and a bit far-fetched—well, actually, more than a bit far-fetched—we are a jaded people who believe that if we save a raccoon’s life, we’re just unleashing a raccoon to go out and screw around and make other raccoons. 

But what if it all is inexplicably linked together? What if the reason that God is such a mystery to us is because we look at things in singular bursts of notions instead of linked efforts from many sources joined together to create a common good? 

All I know is that there are only four things in life that keep us from being happy. You declare war on those four things and you pretty much have the ballgame in your park every day with the fences so close that home runs happen with every hit. 

Wow. What a huge statement. 

Four things that keep us from being happy and successful and maybe, just like in the story of the raccoon, send a chain, if you will, a tremor, down the lineage of all the species of the earth, creating a disruption of harmony and a total loss of synchronicity. 

What are the four things? 

They are killin’, hurtin’, worryin’ and bitchin’. 

You want to declare war on terror? Then make a personal decision in your own life to stop killin’, stop hurtin’, stop worryin’ and stop bitchin’. If you do that, it frees up a helluva lot of time to find a good excuse every day to find something to laugh about—preferably yourself. 

Those four things are at the heart of everything that is considered evil in this existence we call human life. 

On this particular day, I didn’t kill a raccoon. I was able basically not to hurt anyone’s feelings without making it right. I didn’t worry about much of anything except my weigh-in on the scales five days from now and I refrained from bitching, even though I was tempted at a restaurant with a particularly obnoxious waitress. I could lay my head down that night and say it was a good day. It feels good. 

There’s nothing unique in this generation. We’ve just found more noble ways to kill, creative ways to hurt, national pride issues to promote worry and general discontent to allow for great American bitching sessions. 

In the name of all humanity and for the good of raccoons and children everywhere, may I say of all good conscience and all good intent, why don’t you just shut the hell up? 

Now you can feel free to get offended by that and find that to be hurtful and if you do, I’ll have to repent of it later in my quiet time before I doze off to sleep. But someone needs to stand up and call us all out for the mediocrity we have accepted in our lives as just the flow of how society goes. 

So here’s to my friend, the raccoon, who lived to wash his food another day (you know they do that. They’re actually cleaner than any back-kitchen at a McDonald’s…) 

If we don’t believe the small things we do in life create at least the possibilities for larger blessings, then what in the hell is the purpose? You can tell people that they have self-esteem and you can tell them they’re important, but until you convince them that the next thing they do has far-reaching effects that can even touch the very core of this planet’s need, they will probably walk around in a mental haze with no intention of doing anything outside the bubble of acceptability. 

So, in closing, stop killin’, hurtin’, worryin’ and bitchin’. And everyday, find a good excuse to laugh about something—preferably yourself and you won’t have to fuss about going to heaven, because, honest to God, you’ll already be there. 



Yours, 

J 

August 10, 2007

Remarkable—that which is worthy of remarks.

I have found two such individuals in my life this past week, which I would like to remark upon and establish the value of some of their ability.

One was this past weekend during my touring. Most of you probably do not know that I go off on weekends to do book tours across the country and put on a little show—a program which includes readings, instrumental music and even a little bit of singing.

At one of my appearances, they were taping me for a local radio station (which, by the way, they’re always careful about because they don’t want to infringe on our copyright status. I think it’s just a whole bunch of malarkey. If anybody actually ends up stealing my stuff, they’re going to have a real hard time because it’s all covered, and if they succeed, I’ll just go out and hatch some new schemes…)

Anyway, there was a lady listening to the live feed broadcast. That in itself is remarkable, considering it is a local radio station, which has a normal listening audience as expansive as the owner’s family. But it doesn’t stop there. By the way, her name was Becky. She listened to the entire presentation and enjoyed it so thoroughly that she decided to turn her car around and drive to the location of the remote broadcast and try to meet us so she could purchase some of our books and things. Upon arriving at the location, she discovered we were gone and that we had sold out of materials, so she pursued further to get our email address. The following Monday, she emailed us, telling us of her adventure and requesting that we send her a couple of the package deals that we offered during the radio broadcast.

You understand, at any point along the way, she could have stopped. At any juncture, she could have done what all of us have been trained to do, and that’s deny ourselves the fulfillment of a completed project, locked in and absorbed into our being as a success instead of an ongoing tally of unrequited attempts. 

But she didn’t. I, of course, emailed her back and thanked her for her perseverance, interest and just general human quality. 

And then it happened again last night at the absolutely delightful premier of Summer’s Morn, the movie that was directed by Tracy Cring. Walking in the door, at least forty-five minutes ahead of time, was one of our actresses from Budd. Her name is Paige. Paige was not in Summer’s Morn. Paige was not an investor, nor was she going to take in any profit from the evening’s accumulations other than the sheer joy and pleasure of being there and being entertained by someone else’s productivity. But she was there. It wasn’t easy to get there. She had to drive in, survive traffic, weather the hundred-plus degree heat and have that bizarre sensation, which we all hate, of initially feeling somewhat like a stranger in a strange land. But she came. How remarkable.

You see, having done my work for almost thirty-five years, I will occasionally get that phone call from somewhere across the breadth of America, from someone I used to know decades before in some town where I briefly showered and shaved. They will call to tell me how much my performance, my work, our time together or some such thing, meant to them during my passing through to their passing fancy. You see, what the problem is, I don’t remember them. It’s not because I’m becoming senile. I have friends going back three decades. I don’t remember them because when the thing was happening and I was really in their presence, they only gave a minimal interest to the work and the ideas and the projects and for that matter—me.

But now the time has passed. Their selective memory has changed and placed them deep within the hunt of the original endeavor and has their remembrance sweetened by the passing of time and also the absence of anything else of significance that has invaded the borders of their thinking and deeds.

In other words, when it happened, they were blasé about it. But now that it’s over, they realize how important and powerful it really was.

I sit around all the time and hear people complain about Middle Tennessee and Nashville and the Southern culture and how it’s a fallow ground of un-appreciation for new ideas and creative energy. And then I enter a theater last night where creative energy was teeming through the roof, and local people are being stimulated with magnificent ideas and challenges to our social equilibrium and emotional balance and look around and wonder if anyone here or if anyone not here realizes that this is only a dispensation that will soon pass away and either be a fond memory of how, for a brief time, we upset the moonshine cart of Dixie or will be remembered as something truly amazing that we chose to merely surface and watch at a distance to see if it would gain acceptance and mainstream inclusion.

Are you remarkable? Are you a sweet Becky, who makes choices of her own to do amazing deeds to satisfy her own curiosity? Are you on Page with Paige? To pursue something that seems fun and enlightening, even though you yourself are not necessarily glorified or directly benefited from the occurrence. 

I love this country because in the roots of its makeup is a challenge and decision not to be spectators, but rather, innovators. As I get older, I realize that much of that pioneer spirit is being lost to the insecurity of sameness.

So…are you remarkable? Or are you just average?

Make up your mind. Or know this for a certainty—time will pass and it will be decided for you.

Yours,

J




The Blog – Friday, August 3rd, 2007

Social communism. 

I grew up in a time where communism was feared. The Soviet Union had missiles pointed at every primary location in our country and was prepared to use them if we did not eventually succumb to the wisdom and power of the might of the socialistic way of thinking. Who would ever have imagined that it would all come down to bread lines and not being able to grow enough potatoes to make vodka? 

The Communistic system failed because it left no room for individuality and creative expression—the kind of conflict that socially and emotionally set brother against brother without physically and spiritually doing the same.

So I have a question. Why do we think that the move in our country over the past decade to create a social communism, a universal sense of what is acceptable for all people, is going to be any more successful but instead is going to create a similar situation with people emotionally starving to death and others drunken on the power to control the thoughts and intentions of the masses?

We were just not meant to be socially equal. 

What I mean by that is, everyone is going to find a place and a niche where they’re comfortable in their own skin and if we allow people to express their individuality, that action may create the invention and innovation that is so absent from the American culture and society. 

The politicians insist that we’re a smart people. But smart is just a series of random facts and figures unless it’s incorporated and given function and unction by a heart that is willing to be different and come up with the ideas that change our society from typical to topical and finally to expansive.

In 1961, Dr. Martin Luther King was an outcast with the majority of the American people, including the good ones, at odds with his assertions and tactics to achieve equality for a race of people who had just been deemed historically and culturally inferior.

Move ahead forty-six years, and now only the most severe ignoramus would put forth the contention that black people are inferior in any way. 

What changed? Well, what changed was that one person with a great idea once again stood against the crowd until debate and conflict created reason and repentance and therefore, established a new social norm—black people are okay.

Where are the people today who are willing to overcome the rigors of the social communism that tries to promote a regulated society of ideas, mores and entertainment? Is Harry Potter really the best book out there? Is this new movie, Stardust, which is speckled with actors who used to have a serious bent and a creative edge, really the best thing we can come up with in Hollywood ? Do we really need Shrek 4? Is the next Spiderman movie going to take us into a world of fantasy where we can escape not merely the hum-drum of our everyday existence, but our own conscience that tel