Lonesome George: bangin' around

A couple years ago I talked here about Lonesome George, the last of the Galápagos Pinta tortoises. Well, it turns out he might be a daddy! Let's hope that these eggs give birth to adorable little turtles and that ol' George is progressive enough not to hold the fact that they're half Espanola. He's an old guy, after all. It's be nice to see him with the times.

So, after spending the bulk of my day reading texts on cataloging (i promise you right here and now that is the least boring description I can possible give of this text), it is now early in the morning on the 4th of July. I'm sitting on my porch, enjoying a drink, and trying to think about what I can type about how I feel about this country of ours (if there is by any chance that there's a reader of this in another country, I'll crap my pants. leave a message and you'll make my year). And so I've been thinking about this harder than usual. Part of me wants to link to a shitload of sites (and to be fair, I sort of will), but this should be more than that. I'm trying to keep this thing going while I am REQUIRED by my studies to create 2 blogs* in addition to this one, so I am extra guilt-ridden about the state of HDF at the moment. In a lazy moment, I would just link (again) to the Born in the U.S.A. video, which after the 3 minute mark remains one of my favorite documents of 1980s America of all time. But unfortunately for you, the reader, I'm not feeling lazy just yet.
This story begins in of all places, a church: The church I was christened in, I taught in (!), and that I was confirmed and married in. I only mention this portion of this story because it still impresses me, because it is neither a religious diatribe nor a commentary on ethics. This is just a simple story on something that had great impact on my life, which I like to think most of these posts are about. Alright, we all know that's not true.
Anyway, this is about an event this church holds every year called the Fall Fair. It's usually a smorgasbord of cheap, decent furniture, but this goes back further than that. Because there is always a book sale there. and anyone with the patience to sort through hundreds of books will know the sort, as I did when I had such patience. I found all sorts of things there that would impact my reading life over the years: Bradbury, Lewis...even the Fletch series. But this is about something much bigger than bruised paperbacks.
It was when I was 16 or 17, and I found a book called American Pictures. It is the essentially the photodiary of a Danish man bound for the priesthood who instead for a few reasons ended up hitchhiking across the United States from 1970 to 1975. His view wasn't even something that unique (I would later discover Larry Clark's Tulsa, among others), but to me -a high school student- it was like having someone beat me and leaving me for dead in the shadow of my national pride (or lack thereof) at the time.
It's a concept that is almost impossible to grasp now, at least for the people savy enough to abuse the internet at work for something like this nowadays, but I digress. This guy was given access to every part of the country, from the sharecropper shacks to the millionaires at the time. If somebody can tell me how a homeless Dane can grant me access to Jay Rockafeller these days, I'm all ears, but I think I think it's part of a bygone era. Anyway, this book remains to me a look at America that only could provide that a de Tocqueville could provide. Especially when considering this country at the time. I mean the best and the worst presented to you in a neat little package that you'd rather not see. There is young love, there is high society. There is heroin addicts shooting up and there are fresh murder victims a la Weegee. And whot's more impressive is that these shots never seem posed or staged. These are people living on whatever side of the law that actually trusted this foreigner to tell their story. Can you imagine taking a picture of Jay Rockafeller and some pimps nowadays? You might, but I can't.
But I'm getting off track. It's just that... think of the sixties. Think of the civil rights movement (should that be capitalized?) and the atmosphere of the early seventies. Think about the fact that while we were patting ourselves on the back for our progress for the efforts of a distinct minority, while we know what the cities were up to, nobody was paying attention to to everywhere else but this Dane who was selling blood plasma for film.
These are shots that illustrate how for we are from utopia (again, capitalized?), how much more progress there is to make. It means a lot to me when I view these pictures that I can still view them with a sense of pride. We are America. We for better or worse, are the beacons of freedom and democacy. But when you're looking at a murder victim in New York or gang activity in Richmond, Virginia, it's not like you can cling to bragging rights. and these pictures aren't diplomatically contained to the mid-Atlantic. There are things that we've probably all seen to some degree, however scary that might sound.
and the weirdest part is that I don't look at these pictures with shame. I really don't. and nor should you. This is America at its baldest truth. Obviously, things are different now, but can you really tell me that you would want to see the update? I won't lie, I did, and I saw a dead man on the streets of New York in 1994, after the city was cleaned up and presentable. But I saw this naked love in the city, and I saw hope in the places I would never have expected to see it.
I was stupid at that young age, as we all are, and I sliced up that book to make interesting collages for my dorm room door in college or whatever, and it's haunted me.
Years later, my wife looked at this book and found herself as enamored with it as I once was. and I had to explain where some of those pictures went. It was not pleasant. But as a shitty make-up (I am filled with these), I tracked down Jacob Holdt's books and hoped for the best. It turns out that he's still there, and presenting the America that I want to ignore but can't. The America that's under our noses but that even our new president won't see. and I wouln't, either. Sure, he's got several girlfriends in the states (and a wife and children at home), but you still have to wonder what this bearded foreigner sees that we don't. So in honor of this holiday, I'm not going to give you Chinese-made fireworks (although they are awesome) to celebrate this country of ours, but instead a real depiction of what we all want to defend. We are the greatest nation on this planet. But We've a ways to go.

See Jacob Holdt's website here.

As a side note, I meant to start this post about the Haden triplets, but this is better, trust me. I'll update this soon, I promise.

in the meantime, I beg that you explore Mr. Holdt's pictures and take the pride and shame for our fantastic country that I hold.

I recently found out that he's been trying to bring to light the humanity of white power groups, which surprised me as much as you, but sorta delivered.

*It's been like 3 years and I still cringe when using this term

Senator Franken?

It's almost July, and Minnesota might just have two senators now.

It was 40 years ago yesterday that Cleveland's lake Cuyahoga caught fire, giving Pittsburgh something to feel good about for years before the Steel Curtain instilled a whole new pride. It's improved a great deal since then, but it does remain on the EPA's polluted list. Frankly, I think it's nice just to see some improvement in the region. Western PA/Ohio has historically had some of the most polluted waterways in the country, stemming largely from industrial sites, many of which are long gone. The region is still paying for it, though (Consider that PA has as many superfund sites as California, for a second, despite having less than a third of the area). So as laughable as the fire was, at least it gave birth to some serious reconsideration on our environmental stance, which we should be grateful for.

Anyway, there's a great article here documenting like 15 other fires that took plce on the river, going back well over a century. Apparently, "Compared to the 1952 inferno, the 1969 fire was nothing special, a freak accident that merited little local concern, but sparked national attention because of increased environmental consciousness throughout the country".

It seems like most of the pictures we see and associate with the 1969 fire (and likely including the one above) were actually from the 1952 fire. Huh.

Holy Crap

Spider bites can cure the disabled.

That's probably the coolest story I've read in years. Except for that last sentence.

Obama lifts stem cell research funding ban

Score another one for the good guys.

Listen, I'm not going to say that stem cell research can't be used for bad ideas. Obviously, the technology opens up hundreds of thousands of moral gray areas and can certainly be abused for the wrong ideas. There's such a vast array of uses for this science, and breakthroughs will be made for good or ill regardless of whether research funding is legal. Genius is genius, and it likes to work.

The ban hurt almost everyone, though, since under it there was zero chance for the legitimate and well-meaning doctors to obtain funding for combating the gravest of illnesses, while the shadier, more sinister side of the research* could always obtain funding, since they're not waiting for research money from endowments or above-the-board grants and whatnot. Anyone who personally has the resources to fund this stuff for ill gain certainly isn't going to let some pesky law stop them.

*I'm being somewhat vague with this because it's really, really hard to consider just how reaching this technology could go without sounding like a Philip K. Dick story. Needless to say, I have no doubt in my mind that in labs all over the world right now, people are already working on all sorts of ridiculous stuff that would make even my sci-fi addled head spin**. I find comfort in knowing that now we can put some of our brightest minds on to helping everyone.

**For some reason, I keep thinking of someone trying to create the cenobites from the Hellraiser movies in a lab. You can see why I don't actually type this crap out sometimes. I also know how little sense it would make to grow a cenobite, as opposed to a person with four arms or some Dr. Moreau-type shit. Yikes.

excuse me for not including any pictures with this. You rereally don't want what I was thinking, anyway. I should just put up a picture of a smiling, healthy child. But I can't be that sappy, now can I?

It's 3:27 on a Monday morning and I can't sleep. I tried for an hour and just kept staring at the ceiling. Which isn't that new. But I talked to Carrie, then I watched a great movie*, I listened to some speeches, and I'm still up, thinking about the fact that tomorrow there isn't going to be a Bush administration when I go to sleep again.

I never really cared about politics until the 2000 recount. I mean, I guess I cared about politics, but only in a past tense, with history on my side. Which is a fantastic advantage when you think about it. But I guess the politics of history will always be as fought over as the politics of the present, so it's not like they're completely different. Anyway, I never really thought about it in high school. I followed the Lewinsky thing, but I couldn't have found Bosnia on a map if you gave me an atlas. I held a firm belief of disinterest and distrust in all things pertaining to the government, thanks largely due to interest in conspiracy theories and bullshit counterculture movements from previous generations.

But that recount. It was such absurdity from the start. Kathrine Harris and butterfly ballots... I remember the news room at school and everyone laughing about how ridiculous it was. It was almost funny how out of hand things had gotten, and I still think that the main reason the press was so easy on Bush at first because they were just standing there slack-jawed trying to figure out if he was for real or not. Politics was fun again, and not like that cheapass intern scandal or "I didn't inhale", this was like some good old-fashioned craziness. Obviously, they were give several key opportunities to make things worse. and worse. and worse.

Eight years later, and I've tried to keep as up to speed on politics as I can. I read all sorts of useless blathering; will leave C-span on and actually listen to it. I listen to shitty podcasts until I think I've got at least two opinions on the matter at hand. But I've always had something to be completely entertained by. I mean, if you break it down, there was at least one noteworthy scandal for every three months of the Bush White House. I mean, say what you will about the guy, but he's given us plenty to talk about. I'm worried that with the Obama administration I'll be so overwhelmed with uneasy complacency that I'll be reduced to attending town hall meetings and complaining aggressively about the damn music in the kids' cars these days.

So tomorrow we get a new president. I know it's supposed to be the biggest occasion of the decade, that we're electing a black president and he's going to save us all and blah blah blah...
and I can truly appreciate all of that. But what it boils down to for me mostly is that for now, for right now, we're going to have this current administration gone. For me, that's enough of a celebration for me.

And it's not like I don't have hope for Obama. I want to root for this guy with everything I got. But right now he's still got a relatively clean slate with me. I like his prior voting record okay enough, and I think he's got the right approach to a lot of our problems, but until he's sworn in, I can't form any sort of opinion. Just gotta hope for the best and be thankful that this clown isn't representing my country anymore.

To be truthful, I'd be enjoying this repose even if McCain had won and I don't think I'm alone. Of course I'm happy that Obama won. But for the time being at least, let me relish in that. I look forward to being able to raise my standard of governmental expectations in coming weeks, but right now I just want to close the door. Take a deep breath or two. And just be glad that we finally got that out of the way.

Thank the patron saint of second chances, and let's walk into this thing with fresh eyes, everybody.

*Let the Right One In. I've been meaning to get around to it forever, and am now kicking myself for not watching it sooner.

I made a promise to myself that after the election, I'd treat myself to a news embargo for a few weeks. Of course, thanks to the Minnesota Senate recount, I'm still waiting on that. In light of the devastating situation in Gaza*, I sort of wish I was. In any case, the recount has ended (for now) and it looks like Franken won with a margin of 225 votes, which ensures that this shit will not be settled for some time. I wanted to post Franken's comments about the results, though, because they're among the classiest things I've read in politics in awhile:

"It has been a remarkable couple of months. Our recount brought national attention to Minnesota, and what Americans saw is that we take our democracy seriously. Our recount process was long, it was fair, and it was thorough. We should all be proud of our state, and we should all be grateful for the incredible hard work and dedication of all of our elections officials, from the state canvassing board and the Secretary of State's office to the officials in the cities and counties and precincts of Minnesota.

"After 62 days, after the careful and painstaking hand inspection of nearly 3 million ballots, after hours and hours of hard work by elections officials and volunteers across the state, I am proud and humbled to stand before you as the next Senator from Minnesota.

"This victory is incredibly humbling - not just because it was so narrow, but because of the tremendous responsibility it gives me on behalf of the people of Minnesota.

"While the recount process played out, the challenges facing our state and our nation have only grown. With tensions in the Middle East reaching the boiling point, our economy facing its worst crisis since the 1930s, and Minnesota's middle class families being squeezed harder than ever, it's clear that we have a lot of important work to do.

"I want you all to know that I'm ready to go to Washington and get to work just as soon as possible. And I look forward to joining President-Elect Obama and Senator Klobuchar in getting our country moving in the right direction again.

"I know this is not an easy day for Norm Coleman and his family, and I know that because Franni and I and the kids have had plenty of time over the past two months to contemplate the possibility that this election would turn out differently. Norm has worked hard for this state and this country, and I hope to ask for his help to ensure that Minnesotans can continue to count on receiving excellent constituent services from their two Senators without interruption.

"I also know that this was a hard-fought victory, and that I didn't win the support of every Minnesotan. I'm going to have to earn it by being a Senator who fights for every Minnesotan, whether you voted for me or not. And I want every Minnesotan to hear me say: I work for you now. And I will work hard to earn your confidence.

"There may still be additional legal proceedings related to our recount. But I'm now in the business of serving the people of Minnesota. And the best way I can serve the people of Minnesota right now is to focus all my attention and all my energies on getting to work for them on the issues we'll be facing together.

"I would like to close by doing something I wish I'd gotten a chance to do properly on Election Night, and that is to thank some people. My amazing staff and supporters across the state who made this victory possible and stuck with us this whole way. All the volunteers who woke up the morning after Election Day and got right back to work to help our recount effort. Our state's dedicated elections officials, our tremendous congressional delegation, and our fantastic Senator, Amy Klobuchar, who continues to be a mentor and an inspiration. And, of course, my beautiful wife Franni and our amazing family.

"For our state, today marked the end of a long process that will forever be a part of Minnesota history. But today is also a beginning. The history of our country will be forever altered by what we do together to address the challenges we face together. So, with tremendous gratitude for the victory we have won, I'm ready to get to work.

"Thank you."

Al Franken, classy guy.

*I'm too horrified at the moment to even think about what to say about this here. Turning the news only shows me more and more destruction and I just can't let my mind rest on it long enough to write about it without getting very, very depressed. Unfortunately, it looks like I'll have plenty of time to voice my opinions on it, but i actually pray that this is resolved in the right way as soon as possible.

Happy 2009

Probably the quietest NYE I've ever had, watching movies and having a modest glass of champagne. It was wonderful. Nothing great to post, but I hope everyone's 2009 is better than their 2008.

In other news, this will hopefully be the last New Years that we have to see those year-shaped glasses. Yeah, I know they can put that 1 over the nose and... damnit. We're never gonna end this, are we?

Sitting in an empty house, getting ready for the big speech tonight, getting ready for Casey's speech, and even more, Sebelius's speech. And then the bug event. Columns? I still need to see it to believe it, but surely by now Obama's people have heard the grumbling about the columns and have figured something out. But none of that has started yet. Right now we're still outside the building, watching the nutjobs and the weirdos and the commentators.
-There's a woman pulling for McCain in the parking lot, and I think Chris Matthews almost snapped when she tousled his hair.
-Glenn Beck interviewing Bob Barr. yikes.
-A guy in the background of MSNBC with a bullhorn, repeating "9/11 was an inside job" over and over and over while David Gregory pretends not to notice. It's that guy's right to protest. Hell, I truly believe he's got the right to be out there and say whatever he wants. But I also firmly believe it's everyone else's right in that parking lot to take that bullhorn away from him and punch him in the adam's apple. Seriously.
I'm trying to figure out who makes the party look worse, the yahoos with the buttons and shit on the inside of the building or the nutjobs with the bullhorns on the outside. I'm gonna say the latter, but not by some huge stretch.
I think that the press should really be covedring the protests outside of the building. I do. Because they truly are talking about some of the important and overlooked issues (what's up with that Blackwater contract? Remember that telecoms scandal?), but when some idiot with a bullhorn can effectively neutralize a major news outlet for 40 minutes... well, that's kinda awesome. But still, someone shoulda taken him out.
Now they're interviewing will.i.am. Shut.up.
sigh.
i think i need a drink.

40 years ago today: listen to it. Refamiliarize yourself with it. Use it for context. Sure, nothing's been fixed. But at least remember how far we've come. What can I say I'm big on optimism at the moment. I promise it won't hold up long.


Speaking of context, now listen to JFK giving his nomination acceptance speech at the L.A. Coliseum 48 years ago. Of course, you probably won't see these until long after Obama gives his speech, but it's not going to hurt you to listen to these speeches again.

Patton Oswalt's Hich School Graduation Speech

Patton Oswalt was invited to speak at his high school's commencement ceremony, and I just finally read it. and of course, it's awesome. So yeah, here it is. Click it to get top his site, which is funnier:

First off, I want to thank the teachers and faculty of Broad Run High School for first considering and then inviting me to speak here. It was flattering, I am touched and humbled, and you have made a grave mistake.

I’m being paid for this, right? Oh, wait, there’s some advice, right off the bat – always get paid. If you make enough money in this world you can smoke pot all day and have people killed.

I’m sorry, that was irresponsible.

You shouldn’t have people killed.

Boom! Marijuana endorsement eleven seconds into my speech! Too late to cancel me now!

It’s dumb-ass remarks like that which kept me out of the National Honor Society and also made me insanely wealthy. If I move to Brazil.

I graduated from Broad Run High School 21 years ago. That means, theoretically, I could be – each and every one of you – your father. And I’m speaking especially to the black and Asian students.

So now I’m going to try to give all of you some advice as if I contained fatherly wisdom, which I do not. I contain mostly caffeine, Cheet-o dust, fear and scotch.

I know most of you worked very hard to get here today but guess what? The Universe sent you a pasty goblin to welcome you into the world. Were The Greaseman and Arch Campbell not available?

So, 1987. That’s when I got my diploma. But I want to tell you something that happened the week before I graduated. It was life-changing, it was profound, and it was deeper than I realized at the time.

The week before graduation I strangled a hobo. Oh wait, that’s a different story. That was college. I’m speaking at my college later this month. I’ve got both speeches here. Let me sum up the college speech – always have a gallon of bleach in your trunk.

High school. A week before I graduated high school I had dinner, in Leesburg, with a local banker who was giving me a partial scholarship. I still don’t understand why. Maybe he had me confused with another student, someone who hadn’t written his AP English paper on comparisons between Jay Gatsby and Spider-Man. But, I was getting away with it, and I love money and food, so double win.

And I remember, I’m sitting at this dinner, with a bunch of other kids from the other local high schools. And I’m trying my pathetic best to look cool and mysterious, because I was 17 and so into the myth of myself. Remember, this dinner and this scholarship was happening to me.

And I figured this banker guy was a nice guy but hey, I’m the special one at the table. I had a view of the world, where I was eternally Bill Murray in Stripes. I’d be the one with the quips and insights at this dinner. This old man in a suit doesn’t have anything to teach me beyond signing that check. I’ve got a cool mullet and a skinny leather tie from Chess King. And check out my crazy suspenders with the piano keys on them. Have you ever seen Blackadder? ‘Cuz I’ll recite it.

And then this banker – clean-shaven, grey suit and vest – you’d never look twice at him on the street – he told me about The Five Environments.

He leans forward, near the end of the dinner, and he says to me, “There are Five Environments you can live in on this planet. There’s The City. The Desert. The Mountains. The Plains. And The Beach.

You can live in combinations of them. Maybe a city in the desert, or in the mountains by the ocean. Or you could choose just one. Out in the plains somewhere, perhaps.

“But you need to get out there and travel, and figure out where you thrive.

“Some places you’ll go to and you’ll feel yourself wither. Your brain will fog up, your body won’t respond to your thoughts and desires, and you’ll feel sad and angry.

“You need to find out which of the Five Environments are yours. If you belong by the ocean, then the mountains will ruin you. If you’re suited for the blue solitude of the plains, then the city will be a tight, roaring prison cell that’ll eat you alive.

He was right. I’ve traveled and tested his theory and he was absolutely right. There are Five Environments. If you find the right combination, or the perfect singularity, your life will click…into…place. You will click into place.

And I remember, so clearly, driving home from that dinner, how lucky I felt to have met someone who affirmed what I was already planning to do after high school. I was going to roam and blitz and blaze my way all over the planet.

Anywhere but here. Anywhere but Northern Virginia. NoVa. You know what a “nova” is? It’s when a white dwarf star gobbles up so much hydrogen from a neighboring star it causes a cataclysmic nuclear explosion. A cosmic event.

Well, I was a white dwarf and I was definitely doing my share of gobbling up material. But I didn’t feel like any events in my life were cosmic. The “nova” I lived in was a rural coma sprinkled with chunks of strip mall numbness. I had two stable, loving parents, a sane and wise little brother and I was living in Sugarland Run, whose motto is, “Ooooh! A bee! Shut the door!”

I wanted to explode. I devoured books and movies and music and anything that would kick open windows to other worlds real or imagined. Sugarland Run, and Sterling and Ashburn and Northern Virginia were, for me, a sprawling batter’s box before real experience began.

And I followed that banker’s advice. I had to get college out of the way but once I got my paper I lit out hard.

Oh this world. Ladies and gentlemen, this world rocks and it never lets up.

I’ve seen endless daylight and darkness in Alaska. I’ve swum in volcanic craters in Hawaii and saw the mystical green flash when the sun sinks behind the Pacific. I got ripped on absinthe in Prague and watched the sun rise over the synagogue where the Golem is supposedly locked in the attic. I stood under the creepy shadow of Christchurch Spitafields, in London’s East End, and sank a pint next door at The Ten Bells, where two of Jack the Ripper’s victims were last seen drinking. I’ve fed gulls at the harbor in Galway, Ireland. I’ve done impromptu Bloomsday tours of Dublin.

I cried my eyes out on the third floor of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, all those paintings that Vincent and his circle have to each other as gifts because they were all broke some cold Christmas long ago. I’ve eaten crocodile in the Laneways of Melbourne Australia and ortolans on the Left Bank of Paris, France.

I’ve been to Canada.

I’ve been to every state in this country. I’ve been to hidden, subterranean restaurants in New York with the guys from Anthrax and eaten at L.A. taquieras with “Weird” Al Yankovic. I held the guitar that Hendrix torched at Monterey Pop and watched Woodstock ’99 burn to the ground. I’ve lingered at the corner of Bush and Stockton in San Francisco where Miles Archer took a bullet in The Maltese Falcon, and brooded over the grave of H.P. Lovecraft in Providence, R.I. I’ve hung out with Donny Osmond and Jim Goad, Suge Knight and Aimee Mann, Bill Hicks and Don Rickles.

I’ve done stand-up comedy in laundromats, soup kitchens and frat houses, and onstage at Lollapalooza and Coachella. I’ve toured with bands, been to the Oscars and the Superbowl, and been killed in movies by vampires, forest fires and air-to-air missiles.

And I missed the banker’s lesson. 100%, I completely missed it.

In my defense, he didn’t even know he was teaching it.

Telling me about the 5 Environments and urging me to travel? That was advice. It wasn’t a lesson. Advice is everywhere in this world. Your friends, family, teachers and strangers are all happy to give it.

A lesson is yours and yours alone. Some of them take years to recognize and utilize.

My lesson was this – experience, and reward and glory are meaningless unless you’re open and present with the people you share them with in the moment.

Let me go back to that dinner, 21 years ago. There I was, shut off from this wise, amazing old man. Then he zaps me with one of the top 5 pieces of information I’ve ever received in this life, and all I was thankful for was how it benefited me.

I completely ignored the deeper lesson which is do not judge, and get outside yourself, and realize that everyone and everything has its own story, and something to teach you, and that they’re also trying – consciously or unconsciously – to learn and grow from you and everything else around them. And they’re trying with the same passion and hunger and confusion that I was feeling – no matter where they were in their lives, no matter how old or how young.

I’m not saying that you guys shouldn’t go out there and see and do everything there is to see and do. Go. As fast as you can. I don’t know how much longer this world has got, to be honest.

All of you have been given a harsh gift. It’s the same gift the graduating class of 1917, and 1938, and 1968 and now you guys got – the chance to enter adulthood when the world teeters on the rim of the sphincter of oblivion. You’re jumping into the deep end. You have no choice but to be exceptional.

But please don’t mistake miles traveled, and money earned, and fame accumulated for who you are.

Because now I understand how the miraculous, horrifying and memorable lurk everywhere. But they’re hidden to the kind of person I was when I graduated high school. And now – and it’s because of my traveling and living and some pretty profound mistakes along the way – they’re all laid open to me. They’re mine for the feasting. In the Sistine Chapel and in a Taco Bell. In Bach’s Goldberg Variations and in the half-heard brain dead chatter of a woman on her cell phone behind me on an airplane. In Baghdad, Berlin and Sterling, Virginia.

I think now about the amazing thunderstorms in the summer evenings. And how – late at night, during a blizzard, you can stand outside and hear the collective, thumping murmur of a million snowflakes hitting the earth, like you’re inside a sleeping god’s thoughts.

I think of the zombie movies I shot back in the gnarled, grey woods and the sad, suburban punks I waited on at Waxie Maxie’s. I think of the disastrous redneck weddings I deejay’d for when I was working for Sounds Unlimited and the Lego spaceships my friends and I would build after seeing Star Wars.

I think about my dad, and how he consoled me when I’d first moved to L.A. and called him, saying I was going into therapy for depression, and how ashamed I was. And he laughed and said, “What the hell’s to be ashamed of?” And I said, “Man, you got your leg machine-gunned in Vietnam. You never went to therapy. Humphrey Bogart never went to therapy.” And my dad said, “Yeah, but Bogie smoked three cartons of cigarettes a day.” And how my mom came down to the kitchen when I was studying for my trig final, at 2 o’clock in the morning, and said, “Haven’t you already been accepted to college?” And I said, “Yeah, but this test is really going to be hard.” And she asked, “What’s the test for again?” And I said, “Calculus” and she closed my notebook and said, “You’ll never use this. Ever. Go to bed or watch a movie.” And how when I got my first ever acting gig, on Seinfeld, my brother sent me a postcard of Minnie Pearl, and he wrote on it, “Never forget, you and her are in the same profession.”

I didn’t realize how all of these places and people and events were just as crucial in shaping me as anything I roamed to the corners of the Earth to see. And they’ve shaped you, and will shape you, whether you realize it now or later. All of you are richer and wiser than you know.

So I will leave you with some final advice. You’ll decide later if this was a lesson. And if you realize there was no lesson in any of this, then that was a lesson.

But I’d like all of you to enter this world, and your exploration of the Five Environments, better armed then I was. And without a mullet. Which I see you’re all way ahead of me on.

First off: Reputation, Posterity and Cool are traps. They’ll drain the life from your life. Reputation, Posterity and Cool = Fear.

Let me put that another way. Bob Hope once said, “When I was twenty, I worried what everything thought of me. When I turned forty, I didn’t care what anyone thought of me. And then I made it to sixty, and I realized no one was ever thinking of me.” And then he pooed his pants, but that didn’t make what he said any less profound.

Secondly: The path is made by walking. And when you’re walking that path, you choose how things affect you. You always have that freedom, no matter how much your liberty it curtailed. You…get to choose…how things affect you.

And lastly, and I guarantee this. It’s the one thing I know ‘cause I’ve experienced it:

There Is No Them.

I’m going to get out of your way now. Get out there. Let’s see which one of you is up here in twenty years. If you’re lacking confidence, remember – I wouldn’t have picked me.

JET PACKS: FOR REAL

FINALLY. Of course, I can't imagine having $100,000 to drop on one of these babies, and I'm sure the gas mileage is atrocious (how about a hybrid, Glenn Martin?).

and yes, this is the best image I could find of the Arrested Development jet pack. Other than a youtube clip of the instructions, which would sort of be beside the point.

"the Democratic National Committee will no longer accept contributions from federal lobbyists, will no longer take contributions from PACs"

I really don't think I can believe it. But hay, if you dicks can keep to your word I'll be impressed.
I'm thinking that "federal" might be a key term there. Also, I'd like to see the individual democratic politicians knock it off as well.