Why I've Fallen Out of Love with the Movies

There was a time when I wanted to be a big movie director.

I cherished escape into the big stories of the screen in my adolescence and young adulthood: ET the Extraterrestrial; Close Encounters of the Third Kind; The Color Purple. Steven Speilberg made me think I wanted to be Hollywood. I was pretty good as a creative writer and if life required a career, I could think of nothing better than directing movies: telling stories and sharing dreams with the world of movie-goers. In college, my tastes focussed and congealed. I discovered the subtleties of the art film: Brazil; Blood Simple; Birdy. My heroes were Terry Gilliam, the Coen brothers, Peter Greenaway, and Louis Malle.

In the late 80s, after a few years in school pursuing filmmaking, I lived in Los Angeles and worked in the film industry, copying and delivering scripts for a screenplay development company which had had success getting movies like Short Circuit made. While trying my own hand at writing, I felt tension between my own instincts to write spontaneously and creatively and the demands of my mentors, who were married to the Hollywood formulae (i.e. plot point: create an obstacle to the protagonist's intended goal on page blahblahblah.) While my efforts were encouraged, I felt the results were disingenuous.

At a time when I was becoming politically and environmentally aware through the International Green movement, I began to see the film industry as an incredibly resource-dependant and wasteful operation. The compromises I was encouraged to make by those who wished me success in the film-making world were antithetical to my new objectives: to remind humanity of our co-creative relationship with fate, and to convince individuals and industries to take responsibility for the resources we borrowed and ease the burden of our debt to future generations. Film seemed like it should be able to communicate ideas like this to the people who saw them. But that isn't how it works. Rarely are audiences moved to action by stories of bravery, courage, and resistance. Most come and go with their points-of-view intact, entertained or not, they return to the patterns of their lives, which will probably include going to see another movie next week for another $8 bucks. I ultimately stopped trying to come up with something creative and original with which to revolutionize an entrenched and profitable beast.

Through this whole experience, I unashamedly still found movies to be my favorite form of entertainment. New filmmakers appeared on my radar which challenged and moved, entertained and nourished me: Pedro Almodovar; Wes Anderson; p.t. anderson; Jane Campion; Richard Linklater; Steven Soderburg; Trey Parker and Matt Stone. I could count on the arthouses and video stores to get me what I couldn't always find at the local multi-screen cinema. I still see movies that encourage me and offer me hope, (most recently, I loved Stardust and Two Nights in Paris) but I'm dubious of the reasons why.

Today, watching a few previews online for films out now, I recognize myself in a frustrated attitude toward the medium. I generally have not been a fan of outright conflict-oriented films. High-action; romantic comedies; horror and slasher movies. The genre material routinely churned out by the industry are the very formula-driven stink-pie that drove me out of a career in that industry in the first place. But today, I am even more keenly aware of how our storytelling and mythmaking shape our culture by speaking to the individuals who go and see the movies.

As we sit in a darkened room staring at a wall of light and the shadows cast there, we invite our subconscious out to absorb someone else's dream of the world. It is a world made of pre-packaged, scripted, sweetened, and addictive elements; imaginative, stirring, riveting, and made only because an executive in a hi-rise on the west coast knew you'd buy a ticket or rent the video. Movies *have* changed the world, in exactly the way they'd hoped to. They're exciting to keep you coming back, without much care about what you do between now and the next time you send money to their accounting office. The markets have had their hand at co-creating us.

My interest now is in media that truly nourishes: that helps me become an agent of healing and compassion and sharing in the world. Stories and music and images that contribute to the construction of Paradise for Life on Planet Earth.

See ya at the movies.

Wednesdays Off...

For several years now, I've worked my day job as a media librarian at Sprint just 4 days a week, taking Wednesdays off to take care of all the little things you can't do on weekends: banking, meeting with contractors and professionals, doctors appointments. I've recently secured financing to get some long-awaited work done on my property, so Wednesdays will be a crucial day for me to manage that project.

I also get to imagine myself semi-leisure class. Hang out at the coffeehouse. Read and draw. Work out. Watch the world spin. Right now, I'm enjoying a big bowl of oatmeal with sliced bananas, walnuts, almonds, and maple syrup. I am putting off yoga until a little later, after I've digested a bit.

I'm reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It's one of those intense, exciting, drama-filled books that keeps me riveted, but that I know is perpetuating a "good vs. evil" dynamic that I'd like my co-inhabitants of Planet Earth to move past. I'm simultaneously re-reading Robert Anton Wilson's Historic Chronicals of the Illuminati Trilogy. I've finished Book 1: The Earth Will Shake, and am just a few pages into Book 2: The Widow's Son. It is astonishingly good. I learn something new on practically every page. And Wilson's book is set up so you think you know what is good and what is evil, but then reminds you we're all just people trying to stay on top of things.

The way to stand up to those who would lie, cheat, and steal to stay on top is to tell the truth, play fair, and share. The missing piece seems to be what to do about those who take advantage of those who do this in order to stay on top. How do we get them to recognize they are being obstacles to the goal of life? The excuse our culture keeps using to lie, cheat, and steal is that if we don't, someone else will, and then we will go without. This is the same for individuals living their lives, businesses and organizations, all the way up to multinational corporations and governments.

The lie: (e.g.) You can be anything you want.

What's interesting is that's also the truth. The liars turn it into a lie by telling you the fact, and then throwing obstacles to it's manifestation in your way.

The truth: I am what I make myself.

The cheat: (e.g.) Using power to help some while keeping help from others.

Playing fair: There is enough for everyone. Relax and be nice.

The steal: Property is an illusion. The best I can figure out is that we are taking care of everything we "own" until such time as it leaves our care and returns to the world. Anything we claim to own is stolen from the rest of the world.

The Sharing: We are given the world by being born in it. We are sharing it every moment of every day.

Urban Wildlife - Bluetailed Skink Sighting!

Before I moved into my present neighborhood in 1995, I had not seen a wild lizard in Missouri. Odd, then, now that I live blocks from downtown to the north, the industrial West Bottoms and Southwest Trafficway to the west and South, and the commercial Crossroads to the east, that I spot one to seven 5-stripe skinks every year in my own yard. Today, for the first time, I found a young bluetail (5-stripe skinks' tails are vivid blue-lavender when young) on my second floor porch. He spied me and made way somewhat casually to a nearby piece of furniture under which he could hide. He poked his snake-like head out, and tested the air with his tongue a few times, even getting brave enough to come out and lounge in the sun for a few seconds before realizing I was still watching. I came inside to get my camera phone, but I just couldn't get the skink to pose while getting close enough to capture his beautiful tail, so I swiped the photo illustrating this entry off someone else's blog (thanks, dogsandjen).

Other creatures I've seen in my neighborhood, of the wild variety, include o'possum, racoon, squirrels, mice, toads, ring-neck snakes, and lots of birds. I saw a gorgeous golden finch on my sunflowers about a week ago! We regularly get the fantastic cardinals and bluejays for color. Then there are the sparrows, robins, mosquito hawks, doves, and partial flocks of starlings that burgeon in the autumn to form enourmous rolling dragons in the sky above the interstate every evening.

Closer to the ground, and on the smaller scale, we've got plenty of worms, slugs, and snails, plus spiders (big, beautiful gold and black garden spiders, and many others I haven't identified), butterflies (monarchs, cabbage whites, and others), katydids, ladybugs, cicadas, fireflies, and of course, many flies, ants, mosquitoes, sowbugs, fruitflies, bees, wasps, and termites.

Termites actually entered my building recently, and did some damage to window frames and hardwood floors. I was especially glad to see 2 skinks in the last week after being concerned about their welfare due to the treatment I applied for the termites earlier this spring. The skinks are back and I'm happy as heck.

waxing nostalgic

Please excuse me while I enjoy a selection of my favorite songs from the decade I shall always remember fondly, no apologies...

Special AKA - "Nelson Mandela"


Split Enz - "I Got You"


The Polecats - "Make a Circuit with Me"


The Smiths - "How Soon is Now?"


Strawberry Swithcblade - "Since Yesterday"


The Specials - "Message to Rudy"


The Cult - "She Sells Sanctuary"

I am Bush Village!

I am riding a train bound for Pakchong, after spending several hours waiting at the station in Bangkok. For the first few minutes of the journey, I have my own seating section, but at the next stop, I am joined by a group of students, one of whom speaks a little Eglish, and is anxious to practice. After a couple of minutes of introductions, Tree, my new friend, hands me a cup of beer on ice. I thank him and enjoy the cup, handing it back so the cup can be enjoyed by the next thirsty member of the group. After a couple of rounds, I politely bow out, but the students continue, getting steadily plastered. Each time the train stops, the largest and youngest rider sticks his head out to see if a beer vendor is nearby, going out to purchase more bottles and ice if it's handy.

About an hour into the ride, Tree looks at me and says, "Bush Village!" and points at me, smiling happily. I am confused. I'm pretty sure I had not told him my last name was Bushman. Was he making a reference to the President somehow?

"Bush Village?" I repeat, making sure I heard him correctly. Tree smiles and nods. "Bush village!" he says, conferring with his friends, who smile and nod too. "Bush village! Bush Village!" Now Tree is gesturing at his chin and nodding at me, referring, I think, to my goatee. I rub my own chin, and say it again: "Bush Village? I don't understand."

Tree looks at me incredulous. "You don't know Bush Village? Die Hard? Die Hard 2? Die Hard 3? Big star international!"

Suddenly, I understand. "Bruce Willis?" Tree smiles wide in acknowledgement. "Bush Village!" I look at them all. "You think I look like Bruce Willis?" They nod and smile with glee. I gratefully accept their interesting compliment as they slowly get smashed and the night comes on.

Tree looks at me in earnest. "Good memory in diary for you." He makes a vague gesture with his hand. I nod and smile, assuming he wants me to remember this night. He is unsatisfied. "Good memory I make." He gestures again, a little sloppily, but I think he is pantomiming a pen and writing. I dig in my pocket for a pen, thinking he wants to write something in some unrevealed diary. He takes the pen, nodding, then looks at me searchingly. I look back at him, and he says "paper." I pull my backpack down from the rack and fetch him an envelope for him to write on. He smiles and gratefully writes me the following message:

"I am Tree. I love Stephen Bushman. See you again for ever."

I am touched by the sentiment, and I thank him in Thai: "Kawp Kun Krahp."

See you again for ever, Tree. Good night and good luck.

Holiday in Cambodia...

... in which I inadvertantly gas the lobby lounge of a Siem Reap hotel.

I am waiting for our group to gather for the evening's outing to dinner. I wander to a small private bathroom in the business center just off the lobby to apply citronella. It repels the mosquitoes which thicken considerably when the sun goes down. I walk past the Cambodian lounge singer at his keyboard crooning John Denver's "Country Road". The business center, where one can use the hotel's internet connection or telephones, is just behind the lounge act, and I close the bathroom door and lock it, and pull out my trusty spray bottle.

I have become known in my group for my use of citronella. Our Thai guide, Uan, had led me to it just before we left Thailand a week-and-a-half before, and I seemed to be the only one in our group who preferred it to the DEET-containing applications used by my tourmates, which were perhaps not so noticable in terms of odor. No one seemed to mind it; I was given friendly jabs about my evening scent, and sometimes I am proposed a sitting partner if someone forgets their own mosquito repellent. Bob, my roommate on the tour, even likes the scent. He says it's fresh and herby, but he has asked me to practice restraint when I apply it in the hotel room, as I tend to get enthusiastic with my spraybottle, and in close quarters it can get a little overpowering. Which leads me back to the night in question.

Feeling like I can let loose, since I am not in the hotel room, I give my exposed skin and clothing a good spritzing. I soon find, however, that the confined space of the bathroom is an even worse place to spray, so I pocket my bottle and leave before I am overcome by the fumes.

I am sitting again in the lounge with a few of my gathered tourmates. As we await the rest of our group, I notice that the citronella smell is a little extra strong tonight, and I am a little self-conscious, but Carol, who is sitting next to me puts me at ease and tells me it's no stronger than usual.

Then I notice the Lounge singer.

He's doing Neil Diamond, now, "Song, Song, Blue". But his singing is quickly interrupted by a small cough away from the microphone, then a few choked lyrics and some more violent coughing. He is looking around and sniffing the air, and choking a bit, but keeps playing music without singing.

Next, I notice a couple sitting between the singer and myself flag down a waitress, who helps them move to another table, a little furthar away. The lounge singer is now coughing even more fitfully, and turning off his equipment and running toward the bar, as a pair of waitresses with napkins and scarves covering their mouths and noses move in to find the source of the offense. No one is moving towards me, and I check again with Carol, who says it's all in my mind, but I'm convinced now the business center bathroom is leaking citronella gas into the lobby and I am to blame. I'm unsure how to fix the situation, and the final members of our dinner party are waving at us from the hotel lobby doors to come join them, which I thankfully do, stepping into the humid night air and praying for the fumes to dissipate. Behind me, I hear quick footsteps and the hurried words "Sir! Sir!"

Cheezit. I am found.

"Your drink, sir," says the innocent-eyed bartender. "What room number should I charge?"
"Room 314, please." I respond, cool and mosquito-free. "Thank you very much."

More on Thailand, but from Laos...

Okay, I'm in Luang Prabang, Laos, now, but I need to go back a bit and fill in some blanks. Chiang Mai is a wonderful city, pretty laid back, plenty of comforts but also lots for the do-it-yourselfer.

I met my friend Jeremy's cousin Josh, who has been living there for 2 1/2 years, and speaks excellent Thai, a strange and difficult language. Joshua is a vegetarian, and took me to a great restaurant that serves fresh, healthy foods. Then he took me to the mountain overlooking the city on his motorbike, where we hiked along a trail to a lovely waterfall. Then back into town for more food and a casual tennis practice. I haven't played in years, but my serve is still pretty good. My aim, however, has much to account for. That evening, we went to a Thai club which I have sworn to keep secret, because Josh doesn't want it becoming touristy, and we know how much influence this blog has.

Thanks, Josh, for your excellent hospitality, warmth, and generosity.

The next evening, I met my tour group: Rich and Carol from California; John from Colorado; Lori, a friend of John's in Colorado, but now living in Sudan working for the US government; Jonathan from Seattle; and Bob, my roommate, from New York. We have a lovely Thai dinner, then gather in the morning for a busride north, to Chiang Khong, on the bank of the Mekong, across the river from Laos.

We stayed at a beautiful guesthouse, The Boathouse, overlooking the river, and in the morning, we boarded a longboat and crossed into the Lao People's Democratic Republic.

Lots of bumpy, dusty, highway-still-under-construction later, we arrive in Luang Nam Tha, where we get just enough food and rest to prepare us for a 7 hour trek (!) through rather intense hills, and dinner, sleep, and a 58 km bike ride (!) of which I completed about 45. There was one section of about 13 km that was almost constant ascent, for which Lori and I gratefully made use of our vehicle support. At the top of the climb, we got back on the bikes for a lovely downhill and flat approach into our next city, (which I'll have to get the name of at a later time, since my memory is unable to grasp at the moment.)

Next day, another hard trek, this one about 9 km, through the hills and 5 Akha villages. The Akha are the native hill dwellers of this land, and have managed to maintain much of their village lifestyle, despite many changes in the country and economy over the years. We stayed overnight in one village, in an ecolodge built in the Lao style, on stilts and rattan roofed. We were fed dinner and entertained by villagers with music, dance, and laolao, the homemade rice whiskey they brew. Not bad, but man was I sick the next day of travel.

Now I am in Luang Prabang, the "Jewel of Indochina", basking in the comforts of our swanky hotel, in a former Royal Palace. It is named for a statue of the buddha which was presented to the city as a gift. It is said to have been cast in Sri Lanka in the 1st century AD. Today, we saw the Prabang when we visited the National Museum, and climbed to a beautiful stupa built high on a rock in the center of the city with astounding views of the mountains and rivers which surround us. My appetite has returned, and my sense of humor, too.

Thank you, Luang Prabang.

ThaiThaiLandLand

I've spent the last 24+ hours in constant air-travel or airport confinement. I'm finally in Chiang Mai, Thailand, but not much to report yet. I pretty much slept all day. I've made my first purchase (water and batteries, mostly to get smaller bills) at a 7-11. Took a long walk around the moat that surrounds the old city. Many smells to consider. Buddhist temples and spirit houses adorn the city streets. I look forward to more earnest exploration. Also, I need to learn how to use my new digital camera. Is there some reason the alkaline AA batteries that came with it ran out of juice within minutes of me turning it on for the first time to check out the features? Here's hoping they were bum batteries, and not that I will only get 4 minutes and 37 seconds of use out of each pair I buy.