The Wry Side of Life

One of my routines every morning is to psych myself up by listing to music that makes me want to dance or sing along. Lately, I have been in the mood for Rage Against the Machine. I've been struck by the song "Bulls on Parade" and it triggered a memory. The Jimmy Kimmel show would have concerts on the street off of Hollywood & Highland. I was lucky enough to attend one of these concerts that featured Audioslave. Audioslave is made up of members of other bands that have broken up, Chris Cornell of Soundgarden and Tom Morello, Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk of Rage Against the Machine. At the time, they were performing songs from Soundgarden and Rage Against the Machine in their sets. So I was so excited to find out they would be performing a concert for the Jimmy Kimmel Show. I went to Hollywood & Highland a little bit early to have dinner and to stake out a good location to watch the show. I found a spot on the second level that would be looking down on the stage....

I've read several commentaries about the suit brought against the Bachelor TV show for discriminating against African American contestants. Some try to argue why should there have to be people of color as contestants when you have individual niche networks like BET? What if the Bachelor has a preference for white people only? The real elephant in the room and what no one will be brave enough to acknowledge is that it is the advertisers pulling the strings. The problem with having an African American bachelor is some would think this means they would need to cast African American women as suitors. An advertiser may assume that since the show is all black no white people will tune in. Likewise, if they were to open the casting and have a diverse range of races represented it would mean we would have an interracial couple. That's another thing that worries advertisers, because there is a segment of the population that can't handle interracial couples and may tune out. ...

About a month ago I had the opportunity to crew on a documentary shoot about the Occupy movement in Los Angeles. It happened to be on the two month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. An impromptu protest was launched at 7am that day, and protesters were arrested. Another protest was schedule for noon. As I was waiting I saw cops on bikes go back and forth along the street. Several helicopters were in the sky. Next thing I hear is cop sirens and six cars flew by and turned on Spring. The filmmaker and I made our way to Broadway where the protest was under way. As we were getting the equipment together I hear sirens again. In come six cop cars, but out pops the riot police. They flick out there batons and load themselves onto these trucks prepared for transport. I got the chance to walk with the protesters and witness this exchange. Young Asian man yells "Go Get a Job". A protester responds with there are no jobs. They go on and on with this topic and I felt like interrupting. ...

I watched Sucker Punch for 99 cents and I'm glad that's all I spent. While I think Zack Snyder is a step up from Michael Bay; he too shares the same flaws. He's good with visuals, but has issues with story beats and is clueless when it comes to weaving a cohesive story. The story is about a girl named Baby Doll, who accidentally kills her sister while defending herself from her evil stepfather's attacks. She is sent to an insane asylum, where in 5 days a doctor will come and give her a lobotomy. She develops a plan to escape after going into her dream world, where a Raydenesque character tells her she needs to retrieve four items and the fifth one will be revealed at the appropriate time. She teams up with other patients, Amber, Blondie, Rocket and Sweet Pea to bust out of there. Don't these sound like names of the Pussycat Dolls? This movie was a point of contention for some critics over whether it was exploitative of women or empowering. I stand on the side tha...

(If you haven't seen the Private Practice season finale proceed with caution. Spoilers ahead) Have to admit that I was very close to being over Private Practice, but they had to go and suck me right back in. It all started with the Sam and Addison break up. I can understand if they broke up and it was for a believable reason. Trying to force someone to have a child by a certain time frame seemed rather unreasonable, and I felt like she needed more time to deal with her mother's death. She then proceeded to get involved with a new character played by Benjamin Bratt. You almost thought she was going to run away with him, and then boom there she was at the end in bed with Sam. Her resolution to their problem? She was going to have a baby on her own, but she was also going to stay in a relationship with Sam. I believe that this is a brave decision on the part of the showrunner and writers to go this route. It would have been so easy to use Sam's reluctance to have child...

If you are a fan of Sex and the City you might remember this episode called La Douleur Exquise translated as The Exquisite Pain. This is one of my favorite episodes of the series because it equated that relationships can turn masochistic and not in the typical sense. In the beginning of the series it seemed like no matter what Big did to Carrie she would keep coming back to him. It is in this episode that she realizes she is in a masochistic relationship with him, and that she keeps hurting herself over and over. It reminds me of my own bittersweet relationship with my own Mr. Big. I think part of the reason you keep going back is you assume that your love is so powerful that the other person will change because of it. When they don’t a sense of disappointment sweeps over you and you try harder. However, there is a time and place when the realization takes over that the pain is not worth it. It’s like taking a razor blade to your arm and you keep cutting and cutting. I like to use exam...

Every time a New Year rolls around we all seem to want to make some kind of New Year’s resolutions. How about this one? Why wait till New Year’s when you can start today? I’ve resolved that we shouldn’t have to wait to get started. We all know what we want to accomplish. For instance for myself, I’ve resolved that I will lay the foundation for big changes that will improve and enhance my life. I will not be waiting till New Year’s. I’m starting today and so can you! Lately, I’ve come across this idea of why we don’t get what we want and why we continue to suffer. I had a friend who was going to lose her job because her company was relocating to Arizona. They gave her the option of moving to Arizona and work over there. She at first decided that she was going to do it, and had started making plans. A month to go before the move and she starts having panic attacks. Fear had taken a firm grip on her mind, and she became convinced that she could not handle the move. Fear is a...