Michael Moore's new movie - Slacker Uprising!

Clipped from http://www.michaelmoore.com/.

The Event - short film for PAH Nation (.org) contest

I spent the week working on a short film, The Event, for a short film competition at Project Accessible Hollywood - PAHNation.org.

Our film is up for public vote Sat (8/16) thru Sun (8/17), so please check it out and give us a 5 star vote! :)

Pablo's film is called "The Event" by Team Pablo, online at http://pahnation.com/theater.php?loc=bayarea08#.

Cast & crew -

Pablo Louis Alicia Robert - the Ghost Ari

we also had Steven Moon as our composer. I didn't get his picture, but he mentioned his webpage.

I got to coach a team for the event. Pablo was an alternate called in after a last-minute cancellation by 'Team Russia'. Pablo had only a treatment, but he crafted a complete story the night before the shoot. I gave him some pointers and he created a well thought out screenplay. Filming was tricky because we had a few locations, and we had a few tech gliches with mic and 'white balance', but other than that it was all good and all 'auto' (exposure & focus). The finals looked great. Steven's music added the final touches to take it to a real mysterious sequence.

I also submitted this piece, 're-spinnin tone poem', which I thought was kinda cool. It has an old song I made plus video shot on a 'flip video' handheld camera, the idea was to use video to illustrate a song.

Nuclear is Green? Sure, and I'vegot a bridge to sell you...

I was shocked and amazed months ago reading an issue of Wired lamely describing nuclear power as 'the new Green power'.

What's most amazing about people arguing nuclear power is a green power is they rarely seem to understand that when green power sources break down or have problems, nothing is destroyed. Also, I'm not sure where nuclear power enthusiasts want to place the nuclear waste, but IMO it should be on their property. Bush just bought thousands of acres of land, let's put all that waste on his land! HA

We are a democracy, yes? When do we get to vote on whether we use earth-friendly power sources or earth-unfriendly power? Oh, that's all passed to our democracy representatives, the rich people who clearly share our interests and desires on where to lead our country and our planet. Bush is clearly 'just another US citizen' with the good heart who wants to help out... or not.
NOT.
Bush is really 'just another rich US white Aryan racist' who is doing his best to accumulate and maintain a power division between rich and poor, while pulling out as much revenue as he can (for family, cronies, friends) before they can push for Armageddon and the earth will blow up and they'll be judged for how much successful capitalism and exploitation they achieved.

I think the whole 'red state/ blue state' boxes we lump US states into are so poor b/c the USA is largely PURPLE. Some groups have more influence in some areas, but many elections are decided by so few votes... and tampered voting machines.

Personally, I want to see Cindy Sheehan elected as a rep for SF because her main goal is to get Bush's Impeachment on the table, which Nancy Pelosi (IMO a traitor to the USA and also impeachable) has blocked, an act which violates the US Constitution.

I've already heard Obama speak about his desires to make conciliatory gestures to the Right Wing to get some things he wanted passed. (Listened to his speech yet in Berlin, Germany? Give it a listen!) Did anyone ever hear Bush or Reagan make pleas to reconcile with the Left Wing, or them express willingness to negotiate??? It's always Left that appeases, and the Right that demands less partisanship while getting their way in most areas and robbing the poor people blind.

Has anyone in US media called the latest scandal, the USA home loan scandal, anything like fraud or crime or even a disgusting mismanagement of funds by corporate leadership? Is there any accountability? Have any of these 'free market' advocates suggested that the banks which mismanaged loan practices be forced to suffer for their bad management?

I find it amazing how fast it all gets pushed back to the public and tax revenues to bail out another American banking fiasco. (Does everyone remember that Bush Sr's brother was the head of an S&L during that scandal? Do you think he paid even one cent for his own accountability? Or did that entire scandal get paid by the US public in the form of taxes.)

I was just in Venezuela for the month of June filming a documentary. From what I was able to see, I guarantee you that 90%+ of what the US media covers about that country is falsehood.

The 'horrible and dictatorial' revolution taking place in Venezuela is called SOCIALISM. The people who are benefiting are POOR PEOPLE who now have free medical, subsidized food prices, subsidized gas prices, and incentives to purchase their homes.

The revolution in Venezuela is their government is taking oil revenue (which is enormous), nationalizing it, and re-distributing that wealth to the people suffering ath the lowest levels.

Can anyone imagine the USA doing that with our 'record billions in profits' that are going right into the hands of corporate executives with no accountability for the gas price hikes which are destabilizing the US economy... imagine if those record profits were taxed at a higher rate, and that money instead went into:
a) free medical for all
b) schools
c) food subsidies
d) gas subsidies
e) free college educations

The reason Bush gave everyone a '$600 spending incentive' is because his presidency has stolen more public money than they expected (via illegal warfare, contracting private mercenary firms, Haliburton, allowing 9/11 to happen w/o taking any action -- despite being informed prior to the (supposed) attack, and more), so maybe it was guilt money...?
Bush went after Social Security, b/c the wealthy are not comfortable with poor elderly people living comfortably after slaving their whole lives for wealthy executives, and while he was trying to privatize that money they were arguing it was because the social security fund was unstable -- and then he advocated spending trillions to kill Iraqi people in a country that never attacked the USA. Priorities? Oil over people, military before public, guns before butter. Did you really have any confusion here anyway?

Nah -- Bush doesn't suffer an ounce of guilt. He feels he's chosen by God. That money is to help you all spend happily while the USA splits into a society of wealthy landed aristocracy and poor serfs, with a middle class getting shattered by govt corruption.

Whew! Long rant!

New York 2008 -- different

8 days in NYC w/Lex. WOW. We had a blast!

Ah, memories.

It's so different than when I lived here, it's really surprising -- cleaner, kinder, and somehow 'softer'. I was amazed to find (and hear a musician talking about) a 'Whole Foods' in the middle of Soho. There's barely any 'roughness' left to those neighborhoods... Is that so bad...?

We're staying near Grand Central Station on E.Side. That station is beautiful. We've been to Guggenheim, C.Park, the Met, and will probably round things off w/trip to MOMA and a few other spots. Shopping? Done that. St. Marks place? Done that.

I went solo to UN for a tour while Lexann went shopping. (I hope Obama gets us more deeply in there and less deeply in with the torturers. Saw a book in UN by Colon Powell where he had a quote "I would shut down Guantanamo this afternoon, not tomorrow", but bring prisoners into US judicial system, and he went on about how it was hurting US internationally. I'm no huge fan of Powell, but he sure got the Bush Jr shaft.) I don't know if/when it will happen, but a united Earth govt does not have to be oppressive or totalitarian, and I'd like to see it happen in a positive way. I have no idea what it would look like. I was surprised to know the UN has a branch that was solely devoted to ending colonialism. While that branch had been quite successful, they did not address anything abstract like economic or cultural colonialism, but even so just getting the dominators OUT of countries is a big thing.


Been staying at the Dore pad. Love it. It's awesome. We're in a great neighborhood, surrounded by Dore's amazing artwork, and it's very pleasant.

Happy days!

Dark Tower #7 - completed the 800+ pages!

Well, before splitting for a 1 month Venezuela trip, I randomly picked up book #2 of Stephen King's "Dark Tower" series. I've read Dead Zone and maybe another King book over the years (but can't recall any titles), but this one looked big and daunting and somehow ... good. Plus there's the classic Dark Tower board game.

So I read it, and 700+ pages later I thought, well, this was ... average. Not much in there, but it was sure stretched out far. I also felt like Detta Walker's brogue monologues were questionable or unnecessary. But I guess what bugged me most was that King said (in the preface) that he'd written these books to be his version of the Tolkien-esque epic. Basically, I was disturbed by some of the sexism and racism of the book, so perhaps that's the similarity? I did like the concept of a gunslinger travelling from other worlds, even if it lacks much common sense.

So on to Dark Tower #7. I ONLY read #2 and #7 (total ~ 1500 pages), so I guess I'm not 'hardcore' there? HA HA I think it's hilarious to say I read the equivalent of 5+ novels and not be hardcore.

I enjoyed the books, but when I look back at other long series/epics that I've read (all those Tolkien books, DragonRiders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey, the Taran Wanderer books by Lloyd Alexander, the Amber books by Zelazney, Aasimov and Pratchett and Piers Anthony and even the cheesy endless series of Star Wars & ShadowRun books, and the latest John Zakour cyberdetective books, I feel a distinct difference ... the plot factor.

In some ways, this series reminds me a lot of Tarantino's Kill Bill, a pair of movies which I didn't like at all b/c it gave the plot in the first 5 minutes and the rest of the book was an awkward stumble to get to the end (or was it an endless kung fu battle with too many 'cut-on-action' shots). I don't recall any major twists in Kill Bill, but Dark Tower definitely has more than it's share of twists.

But does anyone REALLY wonder if Roland will make it to the Dark Tower? My main issue is that there is very little tension in these books, for me. When I read Tolkien and watched the Hobbits stand up against all kinds of odds, there is always some tension. In this book, I felt like everyone's death was written a few pages (chapters?) before and when it finally came I was happy that we could move on to the next thing. And that includes the 'bad guys', the enemies. All that buildup of Mordred, and then he's really nothing at all to the story...

I quite like the Doors, the Dark Tower, Detta & Susannah, Orizas, Bumblers, the crab creatures, the Robots, and a bit of the 'Ka' language ... but overall I felt the books lacked something very important.
I guess I'll have to ponder what that was and then re-post when I figure it out.