French Class Postin’!

I am posting this while I sit in French.  We are watching French commercials in order to get a real world application of the material.  I wasn’t aware that commercials presented life as it was really lived, most of them seem to be fantasy worlds of supermodel women loving beer-drinking men, but maybe in France they try a little something we like to call “truth in advertising”.  It’s a novel concept and is usually applied to the product being advertised or the service being advertised so as not to mislead the consumer.  However, there are many people who believe that the rampant use of sex in current ads falls under the “truth in advertising” umbrella.  If you drink this beer you will have sex with supermodels.  If you wear this deodorant then women will want to rip your clothes off.  If you drive a Cadillac then you will become rich and famous and everyone in the land will envy you and your taste.  They seem to have that one backwards.  If you ARE rich and famous then you will buy a Cadillac and you will be the envy of the unwashed masses.  Buying a car or a deodorant will not really improve your station in life, will it?  We can’t possibly have given that much power to the items that we buy and, even worse, to the items that we manufacture.  I’m not going all Tyler Durden or anything but our society is off the rails and careening through the tunnels at breakneck speed while engulfed in the perpetual flame of burning petroleum.

On a lighter note, I have learned what kills us in record numbers.  Per the French commercial I just watched:

In Japan, very little fat is eaten and the heart attack rate is lower than the US.

In Franch, a lot of fat is eaten and the heart attack rate is lower than the US.

In India, very little red wine is drunk and the heart attack rate is lower than the US.

In Spain, a lot of red wine is drunk and the heart attack rate is lower than the US.

In Brazil they have much more sex than they do in Algeria, and the heart attack rate in both countries is lower than the US.

So in other words: Eat. Drink. Have as much sex as you want.  What really kills you is speaking English.

True Dreams of Wichita

The day before my second anniversary. Two years have gone by since Leanne and I said “I do” and there have been many changes in our lives as a result. We were remarking the other night that we’ve never really been in a relationship that is this effortless to maintain and that just continually pushes itself forward with very little interference from us. We fight occasionally, as any couple will from time to time, but they are rarely fights of any consequence or lasting damage and we are both mature enough to admit when we are wrong. I can’t stay mad at her and she can’t stay mad at me. It’s what I always imagined an adult relationship would be like and it’s the same kind of relationship that both of our parents have. We consider ourselves extremely lucky to have had such great role models when we were growing up. Most of our friends’ parents are divorced, separated or in general just kind of miserable in their relationships. Most of our friends are in relationships that are dysfunctional or so riddled with problems that they can’t possibly survive for long.  Fifty years ago we would have been conventional and now we’re the exception.  What a strange world we live in.

Apply Directly to the Forehead

I am a chronic sufferer of headaches.  They didn’t start until I was in my early 20s but they come on stronger and stronger with each passing year.  They hit me immediately before or immediately after a storm.  It’s kind of like my own superpower.  Instead of flying or turning myself invisible I can tell you if a storm is coming.  Or if a storm is leaving.  I’ve learned to live with this affliction, knowing that my life can’t stop just because it might rain today, but I find myself trying to plan activities based on what the forecast looks like.  I never used to pay attention to weather patterns, figuring that if I stepped outside and it was raining then I was just going to get wet, and I wish I could go back to that.  Previously I thought it would be nice to live in the Pacific Northwest (Portland, Washington…even Northern California) but now I have to pause and consider whether I would have a constant headache every day of my life.  Is it the presence of the storm system or is it the drop and rise in barometric pressure?  If there are ever-present storms does that mean I would be fine because they are never moving in and out of the area?

Maybe we’ll just live in Los Angeles

The Eye of the Storm

Currently, I am the only member of my family that is not sick with an upper respiratory infection.  In fact, I’m not sick at all.  Well, not physically anyway.  Leanne and London are both a bit under the weather and stayed home, from work and school respectively, in hopes that they could recuperate.  London really doesn’t feel that bad other than the cough.  He sounds like a lawn mower trying to start when he goes off on a coughing jag but he’s in good spirits and is going back to school again tomorrow.  Leanne is a bit worse.  She has multiple symptoms and is feeling pretty bad.  She’s going back to work tomorrow because she doesn’t have the PTO to use for another day, since she’ll need it to do observation for her classes later in the semester.  I think she’ll be fine but her stress level was pretty high the last week and the more stressed you are the more susceptible you are to infection.  I am, of course, the man of steel.  I get sick very infrequently.  So infrequently that when it happens I’m like a petulant child.  I hate being sick and am keeping my distance from my wife and son for the next few days.  Luckily my schedule doesn’t offer me much in the way of contact anyway so our routine is safe.  They can be miserable together and text me updates

I’ve been working on a script off and on for the last few months and I think it’s coming along nicely.  It’s the first truly adult and mature work that I’ve written in full length form.  I have some shorts that I think are very nice but this is a more complex and emotional story that I couldn’t have possibly written ten years ago.  I’ve also been rolling some short story ideas around in my head for a month or so and I think I might try and get them down on paper soon.  I love to write and always have and it’s something that I think I should get back into.  If and when I get something written I will post here it for people to read and will welcome any and all criticism.

On the heels of the John August trailer contest, I was debating entering the Apple-sponsored Insomnia Film Festival for high school and college filmmakers.  It seems like it would be right up my alley but it’s a 24-hour festival, meaning that you have to conceive, write, shoot and edit the entire 3 minute short in 24 hours.  They give you three key pieces of the puzzle (be they props, dialogue, setting or genre….etc) on the morning of the competition and you have to incorporate the in the film.  They’re way of keeping out cheaters who would submit a previous project.  The main problems I have with doing this right now are:

1. No time.

2. No crew.

3. No time.

4. Working on the day of the contest.  So I could try and do it in 12 hours but that seems a bit unrealistic.

5. No actors.

6. Did I mention “no time”?

So I just don’t think it’s in the cards for right now.  I would have a week and a half to put together a crew, a cast, a location or two, a few ideas for shorts, ask for the day off from work and free up the space on my overloaded harddrive.  The last short I shot was done in 48 hours but it wasn’t done that way by design and I had already written the script and secured the location and some of the actors.  I love the challenge of doing spur of the moment filmmaking in the guerrilla style but they couldn’t have possibly picked a worse time for this.  Oh well, there’s always next year.

The Aftermath

French is a beautiful language.  It flows from the tongue so nicely and gives the speaker an air of sophistication that they might otherwise never achieve.  I think I probably passed my test but I don’t feel as strongly about it as I want to.  It’s one thing to write sentences in your home with your French/English dictionary and your textbook to guide you, push you in the right direction if you are unsure.  It’s an entirely different experience to produce on command an essay containing no less than 8 paragraphs discussing what you like to do during the week and what you don’t like doing on the weekend, complete with timed deadline and a huge clock that I could swear made loud ticking noises that drowned out whatever stray French thought I had at any given moment.  I soldiered on but the results were not as full and varied as I would have liked.  All of my sentences seemed to fall into the basic “J’aime joue au football americain” style.  To the average American I’m sure that looks impressive but it is literally the work of a 2nd grader in France.  A 2nd grader who has been left back a grade or three and might have sustained a serious blow to the head at some point in their young life.  Hopefully over the course of the next month I can make enough headway with the language to feel comfortable talking to 6th graders in France and not have to whip out the old dictionary to translate the French form of “asshole”.

Best Tone Poem

I had some fun with John August’s trailer competition for his new movie The Nines. He was gracious enough to let us play in his sandbox and my entry was named Best Tone Poem by John and his team. There were some nice entries in the contest and I had a great time doing it. You can check out my entry below:

In other news, life is soldiers on. I have very little spare time but I’m not feeling too bad about it right now. I get to see my family less than I’m used to but we have tried to spend quality time together when we have the opportunity. School is going well and I’m just ending my first week of full tests for all my classes. I’ve done better than I expected so far in some of the classes and hopefully that trend continues. Tomorrow will see my first test in French. I am hopeful but hesitant to say I will do well. I feel like I understand much more than when I started, naturally, but the amount of rules causes pause when speaking or writing it and when doing it under a time constraint I’m not as confident as I would be otherwise. We’ll see how it goes.

The family is good. London loves his school and is doing great so far. We’re very proud of him and he seems to have taken to middle school better than we all expected. He still has a few things to work on organizationally but he’ll get it, I have no doubts.