Writers with a ‘Sense of Foreboding’

Tell me about it. Tell any writer about it. If this is what you do for a living:

1. You are to be pitied.
   
2. You know damn well a sense of foreboding is hanging over your head every moment of the day.
   
   1. Will I have another good idea?
      
   2. Will I get paid?
      
   3. Will I eat?
      
   4. Will I get read?
      
   5. Will I get produced?
      
   6. Will my words get edited into a strange approximation of what I actually wrote?
      
   7. Will the critics rip me up?
      

Unfortunately, this sense of foreboding is about the WGA/AMPTP negotiations. A couple months ago my money was on 'no strike'. Now, I don't know. I think we're in for some lousy times. Heck, we're already there because most people are assuming that there will, in fact, be a strike; and the town has been in that mode for some time now.

The smart money in this town is betting on a strike-- Damn it! Because it doesn't matter if you're in the union or not, this is shutting down the town for the most part. It messes with the mindset of everyone, large or small.

Basically, I'm anti-union. Yes, the idea of a union is a good one but it's been so abused and I have seen unions screw things up so much, that I have a knee jerk response to them. Maybe it's because I am also a producer. In the case of the WGA, I am also not overly impressed by their abilities; not as a bargaining entity, and certainly not as an ethical business. That goes for all the guilds by the way, not just the WGA.

That disclaimer made: I hate to say it, but this strike, if that's what happens… has to happen. While the AMPTP did take their initial 'rollback' -- "oh, and *uck you" off the table (that was the one where they wanted to end residuals as they now exist), they are standing fast with the main issue, which is residuals for internet downloads etc. Yes there are other things thrown in for confusion, but that's the one this is all about.

And writers need to not bend on it. Everyone talks about how this is the future. Well scribes, I have news for you -- It's already here. My last movie made almost as much money with VOD as with DVD. It's a big secret that is being kept quiet by the Producers at this point. I know—I'm privy to all the business side of my movies. DVD's and other physical media are going the way of the DODO bird. Writers, jump on download residuals now or lose.

So this is why, with a heavy heart and very mixed feelings -- even though I hate unions and even though this is really screwing my projects up, I believe -- The Writers Guild has to stay firm.

Now, with that said, I'll get angry again. Why, why, why, can't these stupid guilds band together? You want to fight the man? Get together! Today, in the same story that mentioned the "sense of forboding", SAG (actors guild for those who don't know) said they wouldn't walk out with the Writers. Yes, they have their own negotiations coming up as do the directors – but why does everyone have to protect their precious hide so much?

Band together, you bastards, and do it right. Remember – United we stand?

To read the full LA TIMES story, click here.

 

Also, if you're a writer and you're not already aware of this Craig Mazin's blog, shame on you… and get over there now.

 

But is it art?

Some friends of mine returned from far-away lands. We hadn't seen them for a long time and just had a wonderful evening with them. Unexpected gifts from these far-away lands were an additional delight.

I must explain that these friends have impeccable tastes. But they also have a sense of humor which will sometimes manifest itself as a "comment" about 'taste' and "what is good". They can find charm and meaning in something with no artistic merits whatsoever; absolutely BAD can in itself, be art. Or they can trash what others would consider High-art. They may laud the taco wagon under the overpass or trash the five-star French Restaurant. The same goes for music, art exhibitions, etc. They themselves are serious artists – in many mediums - including culinary.

This may seem strange and excessive introduction, but is a necessary stage-set for the following.

One of the gifts they gave us was this…

At home, Marianne and I studied it, not entirely sure of what it was. Marianne thought it was perhaps a plaque to be hung somewhere - somehow.

I thought it was to be eaten. After all, it would be a horrible piece of 'art' to be hung anywhere. But if it was food, she wondered, why was it glued to the wood? And if it was food, why would it be on a plaque of wood, a piece of a log in fact, in the first place? I argued that the wood was presentation – that could be used as wished afterwards: A tiny cheese cutting block, or kindling on a cold winter night… the possibilities were quite varied. I didn't have an explanation for the glue.

The 'what is it?' was shrink-wrapped and labeled in the language of the far-away land from whence it was brought. Incidentally, I can read, write and speak this far-away language – thereby complicating the matter.

I read the label on the back, which was a list of ingredients. I could make out some of the ingredients: flour, sugar, food dye. Others, I couldn't translate quickly. All of these things were potentially food – or paste for an arts and crafts project. What I could also easily translate was a warning at the end of the ingredients: Not for children under 14. Hmm… dangerous?

The 'what is it?' sat on the kitchen counter for the day.
Later, while Marianne was running errands, I wandered into the kitchen, esoteric discussions of past floating about in my head. Is it art? What is art? Define Art? Cripes that's awful art. My friends have good taste – but they are witty and occasionally troublemakers. It could be a 'comment' about the whole nature of gift giving and trinkets from far away lands. I was in a quandary. Damn.

I pressed on the "pretzel" and the "sausage". They were malleable. The "Mustard" was hard as rock. All were solidly affixed to the scrap of log. This mystery was not revealing itself easily.

After mulling it over for several minutes, turning it this way and that, pressing gently, rereading the labels – wondering if I should hang it up in the kitchen above the spices, I did what any true art critic or meta-art critic or artist or any derivation of the whole tortured business would do.

I ate it.

When Marianne came home I mentioned to her what I had done. She looked at the cross section of the pretzel (and the sausage – I ate a piece of that too).

"I guess we're not hanging it up", she noted. She asked me what it tasted like. I wasn't sure. I had tasted it before, but I couldn't recall if it was when eating dessert at a high-end restaurant or when eating Play-Dough in first grade. Food group or Kitsch Art, there was less of it in either case. So Marianne did what any art critic, meta-critic, or any derivation of the whole tortured business would do.
She cut off a piece and ate it.

You can say this about us: We may not know art when we see it, but we know it when we eat it.

The plaque of pretzels, sausages and mustard was marzipan, of course. Thanks B, E&A. We love it!

Currently there is an exhibition of Cosima Von Bonin artwork at the Museum of Contemporary Art, a multimedia artist; he doesn't hang everything on the walls either. The museum is merely minutes away. We're thinking about going there for lunch.

It does look lovely between the spice racks.

WGA – Will they, won’t they? And where’s my damn money?

Fall – the weather is beautiful as is to be expected in Southern California. For the moment, I'm listening to Bach, sitting under the pergola with the laptop. A picture perfect moment.

While that sounds like a nice respite, it is in fact, incredibly inconvenient; a moment created because the internet is not working. I'm on a silly deadline to write something (a favor for a friend) that is due within a few days and has not yet been started. I'm expecting to do a few interviews for which information may or may not be awaiting; won't know till the internet comes back. Can't make a phone call on my landline cause it's voip. It's frightening how much I've come to rely on that umbilical cord. I suppose I could go to a local coffee shop with my cell phone and computer -- but that's simply uncivilized.

Onto Real issues that might actually interest someone:

The WGA has just re-elected the same board as before. A couple changes, but not many. I don't really have much thought on that, so I'll keep quiet. However, shortly after the elections, the WGA put a vote to its members – a permission to strike vote. That takes this town one step closer to the mess that always arises from strikes. The arguments for and against the vote are all with merit. Those that want a "YES" say that giving the board the power to initiate a strike will give them leverage; that a NO would show weakness in the face of negotiations with the thugs that are the AMPTP (studios). Those in favor of "NO" argue that the board is a bunch of trigger happy non-writers, not overly concerned with general rank and file. Both sides are right. And in this era of stupid wars wrought by stupid presidents, we don't have to look far to see the consequences of giving people power to wage battle.

At this point in time, everybody – the studios, the Guild – are making crazy demands of each other. Where it ends is anyone's guess at this point. My gut tells me there will not be a strike. How much more than that, I don't know. My feeling is that, given the success of the last strike (not very) and the way television has moved toward 'unscripted' shows, a strike would be a real tough nut for the writers. It's not made any easier by the fact that the studios are entities within multi-conglomerates. A strike against Sony or Warner or the like is not going to kill them. Sony makes computers and a bazillion other things. Warner basically owns the world (my non-working internet is via Time-Warner). Unfortunately, I fear that these days, the studios can weather a strike much more ably than the writers. If it were up to me, I'd try to convince writers, directors and actors to give the finger to the studios and start their own damn studios. Okay, so I'm still a bit of a dreamer.

In other Guild-related news … I got another foreign levies check from the DGA. This surprised me greatly as I expected the first one to be a one-off. It's not as if they are still playing my first feature on German television… are they? More interesting is the fact that that thus far, the WGA has not come close to equaling the amount the DGA has written. The amount apportioned both guilds is supposedly the same – so somewhere, someone isn't doing their job properly. Doing the job properly of course is assuming that one agrees that it is their job in the first place.

Which really, it's not. They just 'volunteered' for the job.

And along the lines of that thought – a director friend of mine, alerted by yours truly to the whole concept of foreign levies, discovered that he is owed "under fifty dollars" in foreign levies by the DGA. However, he was told that they are holding on to this levies money because it's their policy not to write checks to people for amounts of less than fifty bucks.
How very nice.

I love it when someone says "it's our policy…" This guild is holding on to money that doesn't belong to them because they have "a policy?" I wonder how many 'less than fifty dollar amounts' they are holding onto? Actually, I don't wonder – I know. MILLIONS… by their very admisson!
Earning interest.
Which they keep.

Keep in mind, the guild was never authorized by my friend to collect his money. The guild is not responsible for having 'created' his money. It's money that was collected by overseas entities. The guild just took, I mean, collected it. Now they have a policy not to give it to him? What if (and this is more likely than not) his movie never makes another dime? Do they keep the fifty indefinitely?

Hmmm. I could have a policy to beat up people that happen to pass by my house. Doesn't make it legal.

That's show biz, folks.

Oh, and with that, my internet seems to have come back.

I'll try to get a few more blog entries written before I go to Russia. Oh yeah – I'm going to Russia!

Rendering…

The Pre-viz is finished!

Well, it still has a few more things to be done. I'm going to replace a voice and trim two shots, but basically it's finished; Finished enough that I'm able to start thinking about other things.

Though this is an industry tool – I'm putting it online for your viewing pleasure. I don't know how long it will remain online, but I see no harm in doing so now.

Currently the file is rendering. My laptop is running at a toasty 75 degrees Celsius and the processor is at full bore – almost literally cooking through the file.

This project has been fun but it's also been a lot of work. It took about two months of ten-to-fourteen hour days to do the ten minutes that you can see – which included learning, improving, and honing my skills with the software itself. The details are what really take the time in these projects. Anyone who has done 3D work will know what I mean. A basic move or virtual world might not take too long to build, provided you know what you're doing -- but getting things to go juuust right… That's the time suck.

Every camera move, every person, every virtual inch of the set – the world – is created. If you re-direct an 'actor' to go somewhere a little more quickly, it means that every camera following his/her/its action has to also be adjusted. And so on with every aspect of the world.

23 minutes left of render time…

I could go on describing the difficulties, but that's not the point.

So what is the intention of this pre-viz? The screenplay for Diamond Chasers is getting very good reviews. That's great, but that's certainly no end game. It's just a start. As it "goes out" into the world, I'm giving it an extra push with these ten minutes. There will be other elements to demo it in addition to what you'll see.

This ten minutes of this pre-vis represent pages 20-30 of the screenplay: The ACT 1 break.

Here are the actual pages from the script. You might have fun comparing them to the actual pre-viz.

The pre-viz not only visualizes the pages, but also visualizes them in the way I would do it; so it's also a demo of my directing style… this is pretty much the way I see these pages (as live action, of course) If you like it, it not only means you'd like the movie as a screenplay, it means my native directing style would be to your liking.

12 minutes left of render time…

When working in the 3D world, it's very easy to do camera moves that would be absolutely impossible to do in real life. The WOW factor might be very high but that's not really the point. It's not supposed to remind you of a video game, it's supposed to be like a live action movie. It was "directed" as a live action piece. This means that I didn't really use the conventions that an animated piece might use to accentuate character emotion. Take this into account when you watch the characters faces – these will eventually be live people, grimacing, gaping, wondering, screaming…

The HOW of it all

Except for two shots – the shots of fuel gauges, this pre-viz was done with ANTICS 3D. The fuel gauge shots were done in After Effects. Any custom set stuff was either done in Photoshop (when 2d) or exported from 3D MAX (which I don't know how to use past making extremely simple models based on unaltered primitives)

4 minutes left of render time… Done… 9 minutes to upload…

And now – here it is…

Diamond Chasers

After viewing, hit the Back button on your browser to return to this blog.

Still grinding the stone with my nose

Just a quick note to let people know I'm actually alive. I'm still in full 3D mode on the pre-viz, but the light at the end of the tunnel has gotten pretty bright. I'm (I believe) about a day away from being done with the visuals; and then I can move on to sound, blessed sound. My friend, mathboy pointed out that this would represent ten percent of the movie. Quite a bit of screen time for such a relatively short period of work. It's also - in terms of animation - some of the more difficult stuff - though the bar room brawl, and the final aerial hand-to-hand battle would be pretty tough too.

In the meantime, I've put a new little do-dad on the right column of the blog. It's an IM of sorts. Good for if you wanna send me a quick note that's not specific to a blog post.

All work and no play, but Johnny is happy

The Me7erg Ergohuman office chair by Raynor is quite a great piece of engineering.

Before you think I've sold out and am shilling for the company, I'm not. It's just that I've been spending twelve and thirteen hours glued to my chair, in front of the computer and – no pain. Wow, wonderful! Since plenty of people peruse this blog because a google search for a good office chair has led them here, I thought I'd mention it once again. It deserves it.

I'm in the midst of building the pre-vis for The Diamond Chasers and yesterday, I goofed around with adding some sound. Something I say every time I post a movie or show of some sort is how important sound will be. I've said this to countless past clients as well as many a test audience, however, I never cease to be amazed by just how effective music is. Every time I add sound (music and/or effects) to a project, I am as amazed and thrilled as the first time I did it. Doing this pre-vis has given me a chance to experience the drug-like rush without having spent the millions (which it would be in this case) of actual production. As I'm watching some of the roughs, with sound, I firmly believe that if I can't fast track the movie based on these, I should go into carpet sales. Or maybe masonry. I've always fancied that.

Anyway, short story – I am deeply immersed, not exercising or eating and slowly going insane as I maneuver little people on, over and into virtual biplanes.

But man, am I having a good time and my back isn't aching.

Tomorrow I start recording voices for the pre-vis. First up is a friend of mine who, in addition to TV and film acting, does quite a bit of game VO (voiceover). I'm looking forward to hearing him do some accents and eccentricities.

Soon my masterpiece vill be complete!

Hollywood Executives Call for End to Residual Payments

From the July 11^th NY TIMES:

'In an unusually blunt session here today, several of Hollywood's highest-ranking executives called for the end of the entertainment industry's decades-old system of paying what are called residuals to writers, actors and directors for the re-use of movie and television programs after their initial showings.'

Now, this should instantly be filed under the "Dude, it's not April fools Day" or "Dude, give me some of that crack you're smoking" or any other number of derisive thoughts. And it will be. But for now, I have the feeling that every industry blog is writing about this as quickly as can be. I'm sure there will be similar thoughts to mine, much better worded. Think of these as quick, undisciplined musings, subject to editing.

'The executives stopped short of saying they would demand an immediate end to residual payments in the upcoming, probably difficult negotiations with writers, actors and directors. But they were emphatic in calling for the dismantling of a system under which specific payments are made when movies and shows are released on DVD, shown abroad or otherwise resold. Instead, they want to pool such revenue and recover their costs before sharing any of the profit with the talent.

"There are no ancillary markets any more; it's all one market," said Barry Meyer, chief executive of Warner Brothers. "This is the time to do it." '

Wow, from the mouth of the head of the Cosa Nostra himself. One must never forget that Warner Brothers invented the Gangster picture. There's a reason for that. Never forget that. I say this not from second hand information. I have a deal with Warners. I know. I get the statements.

The idea of pooling revenue and "sharing profit with the talent" – they should never have said that because that's the giveaway that it's gotta be a joke of some sort. Movie 'profits' and accounting are the worst, most notorious that exist. There are always expenses eating away at the profits – to the point where most movies lose money on the books.

So, this will never fly.

The thing is, I do have mixed feelings about residuals payments. Why should we (the artist) get residuals? We didn't take the risk in producing (funding) the movie, did we? We already were paid to do the work once. It's the same as if a car mechanic wanted a piece of the action when you sold your car down the line.

The studios will likely point to super stars like Tom Cruise who reportedly has made 400 million dollars on the Mission Impossible series with residuals and cry - "oh, we can't afford this." So get rid of him. Oh, yeah... you did. So the fact is that you don't have to pay it if you don't wanna.

The flipside of the argument is that movies become more valuable as the creators of them become more famous – so they should be able to share in the profits. It's also not really the same as fixing a car. It's a creative business. The talents and the faces of the of the people are the thing.

Additionally, most residuals are for actors and writers who aren't making that much money. This is life blood; a one day gig which is dependent upon their face, or words might initially pay a few thousand bucks. If it generates millions of dollars, isn't it fair to give a piece to the face or wordsmith?

Frankly, I believe, while these statements obviously have a lot to do with the upcoming negotiations of the Writers Guild (the big part of the negotiations is INCREASING residuals in future mediums), they also have something to do with the can of worms I helped open a couple months ago – about foreign levies and the perverted definition of Authorship.

See, studios buy the work that the writers, directors and actors do. They own it. Legally speaking, a "studio" could accept the Oscar for "best screenplay by" because according to copyright law with film, screenplays are "works for hire" thus – it's the studio who can take all the credit (why not go for all the money too?).

This is going to be contended; something I think will wind up at the Supreme Court level with the studios fighting tooth and nail, every step of the way. This crazy statement is an early punch in that fight. If they (AMPTP, ET AL) lose that "work for hire" definition, they will have to license the screenplays, etc. from the creators. That will solidify residuals payments in a way that doesn't exist now.

Barry Meyers, along with the other Studio/TV heads are pulling a Cheney/Bush trick: be outrageous in your statements – go WAYYY out into right field, do it righteously and with a straight face. Then, when people ask for something realistic – you're still WAYY out there. Be Audacious.

The one thing that these finite, forgettable people (Barry and co, you will be a forgotten piles of dead dust while people still talk about and remember Billy Wilder, Robert Towne, etc.) must realize… if they push on this in the slightest, every guild AND non-guild member will stop working. NO ONE is going to go for this. It's a war they can't win.

I will elaborate, perhaps edit this entry. For now, I put it up and hope to hear some comments.

Here is the link to the entire article. You may need to login or create an account – which is free and doesn't take long.

Antics 3d Pre-vis Tool is Amazing

Generally, I try to title my blog entries with something clever – something that might not make sense till the entire entry has been read. This is a practice shunned by those trying to get the most readers possible. Rightfully too; people looking through the various feeds, and google searches, etc. – would have no idea what the heck "The Old Grind", "Itchy Fingers on Keyboard", or "Partial Reveal" are about. I don't care as I'm not obsessing about building a reader base or anything of the like. Not at the moment, at least. Ironically, the most frequent searches taking people to this blog are for the ME7ERG Ergohuman office chair (which is the incredibly great chair I'm sitting on now as I write this) and Miniwax Polyshades (awful product btw), which I described when I was building a DVD shelf.

I break my tradition of obscure blog titles because I DO want people to surf to this entry – to learn more about this product.

I'm currently pre-visualizing several scenes from the movie I'm in pre-production on (to be known from now on as The Diamond Chasers) and have to report – this is one of the coolest pieces of software I've used in a long time. I'm excited in the same way I was when I moved from tape to digital editing with audio so many years ago; the same feeling as going from a typewriter to a word processor. This is a radically important piece of software. It works and it works well. It not only makes it possible to visualize a movie before it's made, it enables one to really practice directing; honing visualizations or creating entirely new ones one that might never have been thought of on set - where the ever present knowledge of cash vanishing into the ether rightfully stifles the creative musings of a director in flux.

Incorporating ik (inverse kinetics), lighting, character movement – as well as gaming logarithms AND some AI, this stuff is nuts. It's a big program and it does bog down the computer after a while, but man o man… so cool. I am not a 3D person, as I previously wrote, but this software really allows people who don't do much with 3D to avoid the mind-numbing modeling and other work, and get right to the creative stuff – creating a scene.

I will be putting the actual pre-vis online when it is finished, but for the moment – I tease with twenty seconds of part of it. There's still geometry crashing through itself, lighting and shading is super basic and still in test mode, timing isn't right, I'm still playing with camera angles – and it's obviously silent – but it gives an idea of what can be done with this incredible program.

Pre-Visualization

Okay, I'm back with an honest to god entry. It's bad when people start razzing me from other continents.

Somethings I've noted about why personal blogs and websites are or aren't updated in general:

1. Nothing is happening in your real life, so you sit in front of the computer and write meaningless entries about meaningless things.
   
2. A lot is happening in your real life, so you don't have the time to write about all the interesting things going on.
   
3. You are shamelessly promoting something (usually yourself), so you are trying to keep yourself out there in the world and will write about anything to do so. This frequently devolves into reviews of things or editorializing about other people.
   
4. Things are happening in your life and you are so well organized with your time that you are able to find the time to write about them.
   

By the way, I don't really think #4 exists – unless you are a paid writer. I am a paid (occasionally) writer, but since this blog is strictly for kicks, it gets updated last. And I admit to having been guilty of all the above enumerated reasons.

That all said…

The script for the next project is done. Well, at least it is as done as it's going to be until the next set of changes falls upon it. That's the way it goes.

I'm happy with it, the happiest I have been with any script I've written. Early word back from readers is that - this is it. Which is good because it's going out.

"Going out", for those not familiar with the vernacular of show business types who have the pathologic need to drop dopey phrases to appear 'in', means – The script is going to be sent to people who could help move it to future phases.

"It's going out" is most frequently used by people who "Do Lunch" and "Take Meetings". In case you're rolling your eyes about how infantile everyone in Hollywood is, these are expressions most frequently used by people who aren't actually 'in' but are rather, desperately trying to appear 'in'.

I will leave further snarkiness about Hollywood to those that do it better and focus instead on what I'm beginning to do now – which, actually – is really cool and also the title of this entry.

PREVIS

Given the cost of making movies and given the collaborative nature of the form, from early on, pictures, sketches, still photos, etc. have been used to demonstrate the director's vision. This is most often done for stunt scenes or situations where camera coverage has to be done absolutely perfectly and hopefully as best as possible, artistically. A conversation between two people is not so important. Any decent director should be able to come up with an interesting way to cover those on set. Or perhaps, not so interesting a way, but still a serviceable filming thereof. Okay, some directors should pre-vis a conversation between two people.

Pre-visualizations are also a way to aid in pitching the movie to those who might become instrumental in getting the damn thing to happen in the first place. Frequently these are the same people the movie "goes out" to.

Pre-visualization of stories has, over the years, become quite sophisticated: moving from pencil sketches to beautiful oil painted renderings, to full animations, or clips from other movies; all to demonstrate, "It'll look something like this!"

That's what I'm doing now.

I'm beginning to work on a visual and audible demonstration of what parts of the movie will look, but more importantly, feel like. Basically, it's a fancy sales tool. The idea is that it will help people actually pick up the script and read it – and get it. An unfortunate (and I am one of these people) problem is that reading scripts is a drag. For one thing, there's so many of them. There really has to be a reason. Either you're doing it as a favor, or it's a potential gig. Though a good script can be a great read, I don't think anyone actually reads them for pleasure. Watching something for a few minutes is much easier.

Though I can't draw my way out of a paper bag, I'm a pretty handy animator when it comes to doing 2D animation on a computer. Certainly, I'm no Scott Hale, or any of the wiz kids working up North, but I can get by. 3D though has never been my bag. Too much scrolling around a virtual world, and I always end with 3D characters that look fine from one angle, but from another angle have arms three feet away from their bodies. If you've done any 3D work, you might know what I'm talking about.

In researching methods of doing previs work, I found several pieces of software which I've demo'd. In this brave world we're in, there seems to be a tool for every job. Of all of them, one blew me away. Designed specifically for this exact job, thus far it seems very workable – even for a 3d challenged person. You build a set, inhabit it with characters, direct them, place cameras and move them… and it creates full motion, with all the camera dollies, cranes, lens, etc. built in. Depending on how crazy you want to get, it can do some pretty decent shading and rendering (that roughly translates to – how realistic it looks in the end).

Though it was rather expensive, I just bought it, and am now crash coursing myself on how to use it properly. I feel certain that it will worth the investment.

This is also a tool that could really allow for an idea I proposed around 'town' about nine years ago. More on that in future entries.

So, there you have it. Expect to read much more about the previs of Diamond Road, and hopefully soon, see some examples.

Memorial Day

I promise to return to the subject of my Los Angeles life and the entertainment business soon.

But not quite yet. Not for the Memorial Day weekend.

Memorial day is a strange holiday. It's a time to remember all those who died having served our country in war.
It's a very noble holiday. However, like Christmas, it's been co-opted by big business. One of the most guilty is, of course, Hollywood. This weekend translates into big bucks. Get the pirates out there waving their swords. It's seen as a harbinger of business to come for the summer months.


Did you know that Memorial Day originally was to honor the dead of the American Civil War?

There is irony as I think about memorial day this year and how the monkey is guaranteeing a fresh stock of bodies for us to be memorializing for years to come - in what is now another civil war.

So, while you eat your Hamburgers and drink your sodas and beer, do think about the soldiers of the past that never got to see another picnic. About that, don't be cynical. People laid their lives down fighting great battles that were important. Battles against true evil - especially during World War Two.

But also, think hard about these newly dead.








And think about what this well dressed animal is eating this weekend.

What is he celebrating?