Out of Focus

The Whale: Theater at its best as Playwrights Horizons does it again

I don’t casually give standing ovations. Generally, I remain perfectly content to clap from my seat, even if I thoroughly enjoyed the just completed work. However, upon the final blackout of The Whale, I leapt to my feet to acknowledge the brilliant and award-worthy performance of Shuler Hensley, and to an even greater degree, the tremendous script from playwright Samuel D. Hunter. The Whale — now playing at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater, Playwrights Horizons’s smaller, second stage — is simply one of the best new plays I’ve seen in years. Period.

I never expected to type that sentence. I was more prepared for an evening of obvious metaphor from a play that focuses on a 600 lb. shut-in and bears the title “The Whale.” Yet I have not seen such a captivating and well-constructed play in quite some time; a storyline as lean as its main character is not; and a complete set of five dynamic multi-dimensional characters with complex relationships that all work on multiple levels. Led by director Davis McCallum’s tight staging, The Whale provides a nuanced and fully-formed exploration of love, shame, regret, self-destruction, religious guilt, reconciliation, redemption, control and longing.

Hensley’s Charlie began eating himself into morbid obesity after his partner Alan passed away. While we’re never told precisely how Alan died, the implication is that he essentially starved himself to death, making Charlie’s mode of self-destruction that much more compelling. Charlie now works nonstop as an online essay tutor and never leaves his cluttered apartment in northern Idaho. Charlie knows he has little time left due to regular bouts of debilitating chest pain and his increasing difficulty breathing. His only friend Liz (Cassie Beck) – a nurse who takes care of him – berates Charlie for not letting her take him to the hospital while simultaneously enabling his slow suicide by providing him with buckets of fried chicken and meatball subs.

Continue reading “The Whale: Theater at its best as Playwrights Horizons does it again”

Wild With Happy: More wild, less happy, looking for the proper balance

Oh, how I would love to be happy all the time! Wouldn’t that be wonderful? For that very experience, vacationers spend thousands of dollars to visit the happiest place on Earth, Disney World. In so many ways, they leave the real world to enter an entirely different one, filled with multiple resorts, attractions, countries, malls and, yes, the Magic Kingdom, where every night is New Year’s Eve and ends with fireworks.

Yet Disney World is an illusion, as all those same vacationers discover when they realize just how many thousands they spent for four days and three nights hotel, food, park admission, airfare and all the other requirements to divorce themselves from life in order to become intimate with Mickey. Disney World is the fantasy life we can buy; it is an escape from the heartache, failure, sadness and loss we face in our daily real lives. This conflict between the fanciful dreamer and the cynical realist lies at the heart of The Public Theater’s current production Wild With Happy.

Colman Domingo’s play focuses on Gil, a 40-year-old gay struggling actor with a degree in English literature from Yale who lives in New York, slightly estranged from mother. He calls her by her first name, Adelaide. After a short prologue during which Gil (also played by Domingo) explains why he has renounced church, we learn that Adelaide has died, somewhat (but not 100%) unexpectedly. The rest of the show focuses on Gil’s attempts to deal (or, more accurately, not deal) with this loss.

Continue reading “Wild With Happy: More wild, less happy, looking for the proper balance”

Sunday Soapbox: My “fantasy” of how the Dems could sweep this election – a call to relinquishing leadership

In just two days, we will vote to elect a new president. But as I look forward at the next four years, it seems obvious that regardless of who wins the White House, true and new leadership is required even more in both houses of Congress. I have what I’m sure many would consider a naïve belief: The most powerful event that might change or determine voters’ minds even in these 48 hours before the election has nothing to do with Barak Obama & Joe Biden nor Mitt Romney & Paul Ryan. Rather, a Democratic win could be had if only Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid would announce that they each plan to step down from their respective leadership positions for the next term and support a new generation of Democratic leaders. Now that would be true leadership.

Conventional wisdom currently states that under either a President Obama or a President Romney, the Senate and House of Representatives will maintain the status quo: A Republican-led House that won its majority by complaining about all the laws Pelosi, Reid and their caucus counterparts “shoved down our throats” before it proceeded continuing to pass social legislation that remains unpopular with the majority of the nation; and a Democratic-led Senate with a majority that can’t pass anything due to an archaic and ridiculous rule (not constitutionally-based law, mind you) that allows for the possibility of 41 Senators who cumulatively represent less than 15% of the national population to kill any bill they like. (Roughly 80% of the 50 states have smaller populations than New York City, and yet, they all have two senators each.)

Continue reading “Sunday Soapbox: My “fantasy” of how the Dems could sweep this election – a call to relinquishing leadership”

The Ninth Annual Birthday Post: Another first (on my third Jack Benny Birthday)

If a blog sits dormant, seemingly abandoned, without a new post, is it still a blog?

I’ve had a few big firsts since I last officially visited this space one year ago today. I’ve had several drive-bys here, but until now, have not stopped and left anything behind. Maybe not as important as some of my other firsts during the first year of my 40s, but never before in the shockingly long – if unspectacular — history of Out of Focus have I ever gone an entire year without posting … something. Never before have I left one birthday and arrived at the next with nothing in between.

But this year, too, I continue this humble tradition: I’ve never failed at the birthday post. Like this one.

It’s my third Jack Benny Birthday. As I get deeper into my 39s, my relationship with writing as an act, action, activity and art develops in complicated ways that I don’t always understand.

For more than two decades, in an on-again/off-again fashion, I have kept a journal. Or rather, for the vast majority of the past 20+ years, I have actively not kept a journal: the off-again clearly overpowering the on.

A few nights ago, I was examining some miscellaneous crap I had under my desk at home, and I ran across the journal I kept in 1993. It was a UCLA-branded spiral notebook. I had ripped out most of the pages, but as I read the scribbles my 21-year-old self wrote on those lined pages with an extra-wide margin, I flashed back to those late nights, sitting on the unused sundeck – upon which nobody ever sunned – of my Westwood apartment, late at night, chain-smoking and trying to ignore the noise from the fraternities across the street.

An intense period in 21-year-old Aaron’s non-existent love-life, I spent many a witching hour on that deck during August 1993: One night, bemoaning my inability to figure out how to turn my infatuation with a friend’s friend into the courage to simply ask her out; the next, dreaming about my new – and gorgeous – upstairs neighbor; and when not flip-flopping between the two, discovering that I still couldn’t stop thinking about my high school crush, who I hadn’t seen or spoken to in over three years and who had essentially dismissed me from her life even before that.

What better time for me to mark my return to journaling?

Continue reading “The Ninth Annual Birthday Post: Another first (on my third Jack Benny Birthday)”

The Eighth Annual Birthday Post: I’m turning 4! (My second Jack Benny Birthday!)

I have never been one to celebrate my birthday, at least not since my teens. I don’t precisely remember when I stopped regularly having birthday parties, but I do remember my last one: I had a party when I turned 30, precisely 10 years ago today; 10 days after the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

I had a bit of a nervous breakdown the night before. I felt stupid for having a party while my home of the previous five years and adopted city still reeled from the previous 10 days. I felt like I had wasted my 20s, and here I was, truly and unambiguously an adult, having achieved very little of what I had hoped and planned to by that point. I was scared of 30. And even though nothing would really change when the calendar moved from 20 to 21, on that night, I sat outside my apartment building, under the awning, watching the rain pour as silly tourists waited outside to get into Café Lalo. I'm pretty sure I cried. All for turning 30.

Seems stupid now, I know.

This year, I’ve thought about dropping the “0” and just deciding that I’ll be four. But that’s not a real solution.

And actually, I didn't have a new nervous breakdown about saying goodbye to my 30s last night. My 30s were not always kind to me, but they were mine. And I survived them. And sadly, that’s more than many can say.

I can celebrate my second Jack Benny birthday; or I can look at the beginning of a new decade; or I can look at this as the final year of the last one. I told myself nearly two years ago — on new year’s eve 2009 — that I was going to celebrate this birthday, even though, it’s not what I do.

Doth I protest too much? I haven’t had parties, but in this little nook of the web, visited rarely but totally public, I have managed to announce — pronounce even! — my birthday every year, without fail. Last year, I intended to start posting more. And in fact, while the last active post is from February, I’ve written several since that just never made their way to the interwebs. I found myself spending more time on each post and not wanting to send them out to the world until they were ready. But they never were.

And then, after 18 full months of unemployment, I finally landed a job. One that has virtually taken over my life, especially over the last six weeks or so.

By 2001, was I yet a New Yorker? Some say we all became New Yorkers on 9/11. I had been here almost five years. I had no direct connection to what happened at the World Trade Center that day. I knew none of the victims personally. I did not work in lower Manhattan. I had been down to Century 21 and walked on the plaza one week before, but that was the closest connection I had.

I remember that morning; I remember seeing the smoke from the towers on the television and saying to myself, “How are they ever going to be able to fix that?” I remember going to vote that day. I remember walking from my Upper West Side apartment down to my office at HBO. I remember my friend and co-worker Allison getting very scared when she saw people running out of the subway, wondering what might be happening under us.

But that’s it. My 9/11 story isn’t that profound, certainly not compared to so many of the others I’ve heard in the years since. And yet, as I examine my past decade, it is shocking how intertwined 9/11 has become in my life — starting with my involvement with the Tribeca Film Festival from its first year through 2009; to my 18-month job-hunt journey that culminated with my joining the staff at the 9/11 Memorial in April. Coincidence? Sure. Synchronicity? Maybe. If I believed more wholly in Fate, I would certainly need to consider its power.

And so my promise to myself to truly celebrate this birthday became more difficult due to the amount of time I found myself dedicating to helping thousands of others commemorate a very different anniversary. The past six weeks have been rewarding and fulfilling at times, but also extremely exhausting. I have worked harder than ever before — including many years of late nights and long days at Tribeca. I have yet to wake-up and not feel like the dog from today's "Pooped Puppies" calendar page, pictured above. At least not since July.

I'm looking for a return to normalcy; my normalcy probably appearing somewhat abnormal to others. I anticipate getting there. And I'm trying to keep my promises to myself, so I'm still trying to celebrate what people keep telling me is this milestone.

I thank all of my friends and family who have contacted me already today. I have yet to plan any sort of party, but it could still happen soon. You know, so that my celebrating involves actual other people. That seems to be the social norm, right?

I have spent most of these birthday posts examining events that have happened on this day or offering birthday wishes to the many others — more famous than I — who share this day with me. I guess that’s one way that, at least for now, I’ll celebrate this birthday differently. I wish all of us September 21sters a great day, but this year, when it comes to this post, I’m keeping the celebration for myself.

Happy 40th Aaron.

– 30 –

Happy Oscar: Quick pre-show predix

Shockingly, I meant to write in greater detail leading up to the Oscars tonight, but instead, all I have to set my picks in stone is the ballot I submitted to indieWIRE. I didn’t do too well with the Spirits last night, since I thought the IFP crowd would want to support Winter’s Bone more. So … what do I know?

I’m usually pretty good with Oscar, though, and while there’s a very good chance I’ll be off-base tonight, I think the last-minute rush to The King’s Speech is a weird media-induced smokescreen. I believe it’s still the year of The Social Network, but as you’ll see from my ballot, I gave a “Should win” to Toy Story 3, my (at long last) named top film of 2010.

I’m also apparently the one person in the poll who thinks Geoffrey Rush will actually (apparently shock and) win for The King’s Speech tonight. I took a considered leap.

With that said … here are most of my pix:

Best Picture:
Will Win: “The Social Network”
Should Win: “Toy Story 3”

Best Director:
Will Win: David Fincher, “The Social Network”
Should Win: David Fincher, “The Social Network”

Best Actor:
Will Win: Colin Firth, “The King’s Speech”
Should Win: Jesse Eisenberg, “The Social Network”

Best Actress:
Will Win: Natalie Portman, “Black Swan”
Should Win: Michelle Williams, “Blue Valentine”

Best Supporting Actor:
Will Win: Geoffrey Rush, “The King’s Speech”
Should Win: Christian Bale, “The Fighter”

Best Supporting Actress:
Will Win: Melissa Leo, “The Fighter”
Should Win: Hailee Steinfeld, “True Grit”

Best Original Screenplay:
Will Win: “The King’s Speech”
Should Win: “Inception”

Best Adapted Screenplay:
Will Win: “The Social Network”
Should Win: “Toy Story 3”

Best Animated Feature:
Will Win: “Toy Story 3”
Should Win: “Toy Story 3”

Best Doc Feature:
Will Win: “Restrepo”
Should Win: “Inside Job”

Best Foreign Film:
Will Win: “Biutiful”
Should Win: “Dogtooth”

Best Cinematography:
Will Win: “True Grit”
Should Win: “Black Swan”, or “True Grit”

Best Original Score:
Will Win: “The Social Network”
Should Win: “The Social Network”

The new TV season: First Take — Lone Star

Kyle Killen, the creator of the new Fox series Lone Star, wrote an open letter beseeching the greater American television audience to watch his show. Why would a writer need to do such a thing? Well, in case you haven’t heard, Lone Star debuted to terrible numbers: In today’s television landscape, a 1.3 rating equating to 4.1 million viewers ain’t gonna cut it.

Fox promoted the hell out of the show. In fact, with the exception of NBC’s The Event and ABC’s My Generation, no other series of commercials for new fall season shows had become more annoying. Additionally, even with as much ad money behind it, the Monday at 9 p.m. timeslot remains so competitive, Fox likely had reasonable and moderate expectations for the early numbers.

But the shockingly low number fell too far, and even worse was the consistent decline seen over each quarter-hour. After watching the pilot myself, though, and then re-examining the time-slot, I can’t say I’m so surprised.

Don’t get me wrong: Now having seen all but a few of the first episodes from this season’s new shows, Lone Star definitely takes its place among the most intriguing prospects of this young season. As I wrote about Monday, a pilot can only tell so much, and my “first take”s are just that: initial impressions based on one hour of what will, would and should be just a small part of a larger story. Lone Star has so many twists and complexities inherent in its premise, its ability to sustain itself over the course of an entire season—much less several—remains highly suspect. But its first episode also does precisely what every pilot should, and that’s make you want to come back for more.

Still, I can see how the pilot’s opening minutes might have confused some viewers. For those hanging around for a few minutes after House, it would have been really easy to say, “What’s going on here? Meh, I wonder if Bristol’s dancing yet?” Simply following the opening 10 minutes of Lone Star took a certain degree of attention, not due to bad writing, but out of Killen and episode director Marc Webb’s determination to set the scene with a degree of intrigue and complexity. This degree of sophistication in the writing, however, may have backfired, not from the perspective of quality, but from easy accessibility.

The series has an interesting pedigree: Killen is a newbee to the TV scene, but has had his fiction published in numerous notable places, and wrote the screenplay for Jodie Foster’s The Beaver, still awaiting a release. Producers Christopher Keyser & Amy Lippman were responsible for the mid-’90s Fox hit Party of Five. Also on the producing roster? Paul Weitz (as executive producer) and his brother Chris (as consulting producer). Now, I don’t remember the specifics of a lot of Fox’s promotion for the series, but I don’t remember seeing anything mentioning “From the people behind Party of Five, Ameican Pie and Twilight: New Moon. Granted, such promotion would have given an audience absolutely no realistic idea of what it was in for, but networks and film studios do that all the time, and it could have attracted more eyes.

Continue reading “The new TV season: First Take — Lone Star“

The 48th New York Film Festival arrives in magnificently Social fashion

When I decided to return to this blog and make a serious effort to regularly and consistently post primarily reviews and commentary about film, television and theater, I also told myself I would approach this endeavor with a new writing process. Too often during the original Out of Focus days, quantity and speed took precedence over quality. Watching primarily from the sidelines over the past couple years, nothing has become more apparent than the predilection—particularly in film circles—that “first” has become more important than “good” to a whole lotta people.

I don’t refer only to “first” with coverage of actual news or information, even though I am amused by much of the “Breaking News” arriving from any number of outlets a full 24 hours after it “broke.” I’m even more troubled, though, when I get the “Breaking News” reviews, especially from the major trades. I’m not sure that a “Breaking News” alert came from The Hollywood Reporter for their review of Marmaduke, but it might as well have. And it certainly isn’t just major trades or news outlets. For some reason, someone’s opinion in the form of criticism has taken on the role of “the scoop”! That seems silly to me, but apparently, for many writers and sites, being the first to dislike something is as important as being the first to like it. When a film has 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes, apparently nothing is more important than being the first instigator of the backlash. Or, if there’s some formal element or argument that nobody else seems to have noticed—valid or not—writers eagerly stake their claims. It also seems to me that almost universally in these cases, the discourse suffers, but not as much as the writing.

I’m not trying to change anyone else’s purpose or methods, and obviously, sometimes rush deadlines exist and can’t be helped; nor am I specifically calling-out other critics and writers, but I vowed to myself to use a different, slower, more contemplative process in an effort to improve myself and my own writing. I admire plenty of writers who certainly work faster with better results than do I. But for me, for now, at least in this space, I’ve chosen to generally make a different choice.

So with that longer-than-anticipated prologue in mind, this somewhat quickly dashed-off missive qualifies as an outlier. For one thing, I’m writing and posting on the same day. (One of my “new rules”: Always sleep on a piece and edit with fresh eyes the next day.) Neither a full review nor adequate preview, I felt uncomfortable leaving the Walter Reade Theater today after one of the odder double-features in history without acknowledging that tonight marks the opening of the 48th New York Film Festival, and what a New York Film Festival it looks to be. Sadly, so far I haven’t been able to attend as many press screenings as I had hoped, and I’ve missed several films that I truly looked forward to seeing, most notably, Olivier Assayas’s Carlos, Hong Sang-soo’s latest Oki’s Movie and the special event selection Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff.

But what I have seen so far has, for the most part, been excellent. The “Masterworks” sidebar of Fernando de Fuentes’ Mexican Revolution Trilogy (which plays at the Walter Reade on Sept. 29-30) is both entertaining and fascinating due not only to the three stories told, but also because of how the three films illustrate the speedy development of Mexican cinema in the 1930s over just four years, mimicking certain Hollywood trends.

I’m also a sucker for Martin Scorsese’s essay films A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies and (especially) Il Mio Viaggio in Italia, the latter being a wonderful survey focusing on the history Italian cinema, particularly the Neorealism movement. A Letter to Elia—a 60-minute paean to Elia Kazan—may be far shorter than either A Personal Journal or Il Mio Viaggio, but it’s also quite possibly the most personal and emotional film Scorsese has ever made, and at least for me, both a wonderful educational experience and joy to watch. Seeing it back-to-back with Kazan’s America, America (featured heavily in the documentary) on Monday should be an event well-worth attending.

I’ve also seen Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s excellent Cannes winner Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (playing this weekend), and Abbas Kiarostami’s stunning and brilliant Certified Copy (playing Oct. 1 and 3), a film I saw on Tuesday, can’t stop thinking about and love more every day.

The only disappointment for me so far has been LENNONYC. “Lennon in America” would have been a better title for the resulting film, an unnecessarily-long, nearly-two-hour, meandering and unfocused documentary about John Lennon’s post-Beatles years living with (and without) Yoko in the U.S. A great film hides underneath, because the pieces—archive footage, new interviews, fabulous stories—all are individually wonderful, but they come together into an unsatisfying whole.

And then we reach today, featuring NYFF’s opening night selection of David Fincher’s The Social Network—a/k/a “That Facebook Movie”—followed by the latest from Jean-Luc Godard, Film Socialisme. I’m nowhere near ready to say anything about the Godard, nor will I ever find myself vociferously arguing for or against it.

Fincher’s film, on the other hand, definitely deserves many of the hosannas coming its way. I’m not actually sure what I had expected, nor had I read any reviews of the movie ahead of time; headlines and miscellaneous tweets comprised all the buzz to hit my ears (or eyes). If anything, my wariness of most-things-Aaron Sorkin gave me pause. (I have issues with how all his characters generally sound exactly alike.) But for me, the “Sorkinese” (as Fincher called it during one of the better post-screening press conferences I’ve attended) not only worked but generally disappeared, or at the very least, became overshadowed by the interpersonal dynamics between all these individual characters so well-played by this talented cast.

The Social Network both in its quality and relevance constitutes one of the better (if not the best?) NYFF opening night films in recent memory. I’ll write more about The Social Network before its general release next week, but for now, congratulations to the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and here’s wishing you a phenomenal opening night.

The new TV season: First Take — Outlaw

Earlier today, fans of NBC the world over rejoiced at the news that NBCU topper Jeff Zucker has finally stopped failing upwards. I’m sure he shall live comfortably for the rest of his years, and he will soon run some other sort of media company, but at least he will no longer be able to pursue his evil plot of destroying NBC. Besides, he managed to damage the Peacock enough during his tenure, rising through the ranks as the network that brought us the most provocative and entertaining television through the ’80s and most of the ’90s slowly dropped to last in the ratings.

Not to Zucker’s credit, NBC’s schedule this year does not appear completely horrific, but one interesting legacy project which in its own way exemplifies the poor decisions of the entire Zucker era premiered last week and has its second episode tonight. NBC’s new Jimmy Smits-led show Outlaw arrived on televisions last Wednesday (Sept. 15) after the finale of America’s Got Talent. I guess that was nice of them, figuring it might give Outlaw a fighting shot before it gets sequestered to the potential death-slot that is Fridays at 10 p.m. I’m sure that NBC hopes that a legal drama led by Smits might be enough to draw the older demographic still watching TV in that slot at least makes sense.

Of course, Friday was not always doomsday for series. For years, Friday night shows dominated the ratings. Dallas and Miami Vice—just to name two of many—both thrived on Fridays. But the TV landscape has changed, and unfortunately, if the pilot episode is any indication, Outlaw isn’t going to lead the resurrection.

Which is unfortunate, especially considering the odd and unexpected collection of creative minds behind the series and its interesting if unrealistic premise: A conservative, womanizing Supreme Court justice (with a secret gambling problem) abruptly resigns the bench to defend the accused and find peace with the memory of his liberal activist father who recently died in an accident.

John Eisendrath, the series creator, executive producer and writer of the pilot, came to television prominence as one of the main creative forces behind Beverly Hills 90210. He also spent time on Models Inc., Felicity and Alias. The Irish writer/director Terry George (Hotel Rwanda, Some Mother’s Son as well as writer of In the Name of the Father and The Boxer) helmed the pilot episode. And the series is part of NBC’s leftover producing deal with Conan O’Brien’s company, so the dissed late-night host about to open shop on TBS is another executive producer.

There might be a good series there, but the pilot points in the opposite direction. The case at the center of this episode was pretty by-the-numbers: a black man wrongfully accused of murder, ultimately cleared when Justice Garza (Smits) and his team discover that (drumroll, please… SPOILER!) the husband did it! In fact, far more interesting than the case itself is the casting of the innocent man: Rza of Wu-Tang fame.

The pilot fails primarily due to horrific writing. The hackneyed dialogue drops exposition like an anvil on Wile E. Coyote’s head. Within the first five minutes of the episode, after one of Garza’s clerks pulls him out of a casino because of the urgency of Gary Beals’ (Rza) final pre-execution appeal, he encounters a (beautiful, natch!) young woman among several protesters outside. She tells him that Beals’ “life is in your hands.” Let the obvious eye-rolling begin:

Garza: Let me guess: ACLU.
Hot protester: Yeah, card-carrying member.
Garza: Before you go and burn a flag in protest, a jury unanimously convicted Greg Beals of killing a cop. Three appellate courts saw no reason to overturn that verdict, but perhaps you know better.
Hot protester: I might, if you’d let him have a fair trial.
Garza: I don’t let people have anything. I follow the law.

I’m not sure why I didn’t transcribe the next couple of lines, but Garza says something about how he’s “Switzerland” and doesn’t care about the individual players involved unless he sees relevant evidence. The hot protester continues:

Hot protester: Wow, would your dad be disgusted right now. He was a hero of mine. He was never Switzerland. He used the law to give people hope. To lift their spirits not shatter their dreams.

Yawn.

After another brief exchange with his law clerk, cut to Garza’s apartment and the hot protester in post-coital dreamland in his bed. Garza, meanwhile, sits watching footage of his father talking about their relationship in an interview and how even though they hold opposite ideologies, they love each other. (A photo on the wall indicates Garza was nominated for the Supreme Court by George W. Bush.) Conflict confirmed!

The series does not lack potential, and the pilot does its job setting-up multiple narrative arcs that could prove provocative: Garza’s gambling problem; Machiavellian Republican party operatives who hate him; some loan shark-types who might be after him; a clerk who’s in love with him; and more hinted-at possibilities involving the rest of the supporting cast. However, none of those storylines will matter if the individual episode cases remain as uninteresting and the dialogue as poorly-written as in this pilot. I doubt Outlaw will ever become a long-term must-see for me, but I’ll give it another two-to-three episodes before I pass final judgment.

The seventh annual birthday post (and my first Jack Benny Birthday!): Happy World Peace Day!

Over the past six-and-a-half years, I have filled this space with plenty of thoughts, rants and ramblings, and over those same six-and-a-half years, I have also allowed this corner of the interwebs to sit dormant for extended periods of time. However, I’ve remained (somewhat ironically) consistent with one feature: I have never missed a birthday post.

I say “ironically” because during these past six-and-a-half years, these posts have really been the only way I have celebrated my birthday. For the vast majority of my 30s, which too quickly near their end, I have not been a fan of birthdays; or at least, not a fan of mine. I love other people’s birthdays, but I have not generally enjoyed celebrating my own. I’m sure some might find the psychoanalytical underpinnings for this little factoid quite fascinating, but I’m going to disappoint them and refrain from that discussion. Besides, it’s my birthday, and I’ll suppress my emotions if I want to.

Still, for whatever reason, regardless of how much attention I’ve paid to this space, I have written a birthday post every year without fail. I’m not completely sure why. The posts have remained pretty similar, mostly discussing the interesting people who and events that share my birthday. (This annual search for new people and events has prompted me to consider developing a documentary that focuses on individual dates … sort of. At the rate I’m going, you should see it on the festival circuit by the time I’m writing my 30th birthday post. Not the post for my 30th birthday mind you; that would require some backwards time travel. Then again, H.G. Wells was born on this date 144 years ago, so maybe a time machine is in my future? Wait … where was I?)

So with that in mind, I hereby recognize, and maybe even celebrate, my first Jack Benny birthday. (For those of you who have no idea who Jack Benny was, thank you for making me feel even older than I am especially since it’s not like he was a contemporary entertainer for my generation.) I even like the idea of this being my first 39th birthday.

That’s right; it was 39 years ago, at Children’s Hospital in San Francisco that I entered this world. I’m convinced that my late-night birth is why I remain a night-owl, more productive after the clock strikes 11 p.m. than any time before.

Continue reading “The seventh annual birthday post (and my first Jack Benny Birthday!): Happy World Peace Day!”