Yeah, I hate Christmas too.

Phony, sad, nonsensical holiday held hostage to consumer frenzy and the dim, not too clearly lit nostalgia for the free toy ride of our distant past. Sincerely, I like Jesus, I like the story of his birth (doubt heavily the date ascribed to said event by the early church) and if that were the main thrust of Christmas I would be gleeful. The mindless crush to purchase and re-create a mythical christmas that is the wholesale construction of Madison Avenue makes me ill. I don't like having to purchase a lot of crap people don't really need, with money I don't have in order for everyone to have a memorable, it's a wonderful life holiday. Let me put up some lights, watch the Astair Sims version of "a Christmas Carol" and lets be done.

However: I do like burning me some 8' tall elf effigy, lighting fireworks and eating chili with 80 friends. We have created our own magical phony sub-holiday event: Burning Elf.

We Wuz ROBBED!

I left at about 10:30 AM, to go to an eye exam in Ballard. John Pai was late coming to pick up some wireless mics and called and told me to leave them on the porch- he would only be a couple minutes late. Driving down the sad, barely pave cow path that serves as our "street" there were two men walking back towards the south: they looked out of place. I didn't recognize them, one was a light skinned black guy, thin in a black hoodie, the other a large Pacific Islander in unseasonal shorts and a butt ugly, backwards, red and Black Yankees cap. I should have turned around and thought as much. I thought the guy in the hat could belong to the Samoan family down the block. I was being "un-P.C." I thought, it's just walking down the street. I went to the eye exam. My prescription didn't change but I need to go back for a glaucoma check because I have strange pressure in my eyeballs. I came home to the house, opened the side door and immediately said out loud, "well did we get robbed?" I walked to the back door- it was open. Did I leave it open? I had been working in the driveway on my table saw before I left, I could have forgot to close it...There had been an ongoing string of daylight burglaries in my immediate neighborhood. big screen TV rustling mostly. So much so, Laurie suggested that we hide our laptops when we left the house. Fortunately I did, before I left. I turned and looked at the front door and saw it was open too, the door jamb laying in pieces on the floor. I called the police. Were they still here? I didn't think so, no sounds nothing. They had walked past al;l my audio gear which lay in the front hall, neatly in cases ready to go. They had no clue what it was- 15K easy in gear. They took the Nintendo Wii. They had been upstairs, all the doors and lights were on, in every closet and drawer. Didn't look like they found much. In our bedroom they went into our metal file case in the closet, rumaging so fast they over look my Granddad's gold pocket watch. They take my 16mm Bolex. They leave some of Laurie's costume jewelry on the bathroom floor. Back downstairs they go through our pantry and desk, leaving the Bolex on the top of the cat box. In the end it seems all they got was the Wii, Ned's iPod and 40.00 in cash from Tom's wallet. Something scared them off. I wish it was the cats, who were no doubt terrified to see a huge Samoan pile through the front door. John Pai saves the day, arriving late for the equipment, pulling his car into the driveway and scaring them off through the back door. My neighbor, Joe accross the street told me that he heard pounding at my house about 10:30- he was in his yard. Because of the table saw he thought I was working on something. That means it happened a couple of minutes after I left. It was "those guys".

The cops say they know who has been doing these burglaries. They know the car.

The weirdest part. Laying by the backdoor was the prayer book given to Ned by his Oma and Opa on his first communion. Why dig through a kid's underwear drawer for that? I hope it leads to their repentance. If not then I hope they have bowel disruption in public frequently.

As I cross the imaginary barrier of my father's number of days.

Sometime on November 22nd 2011 I will out live my my father's too short life. It is both an uncomfortable feeling and a relief. My dad, Ned Sander died during open heart surgery on April 25th, 1972, at age 50. Open heart surgery was new and almost black magic at the time. What killed him I am told is easily avoidable now. I was ten years old at the time. Through the miracle of mathematics I have figured the date that I will pass him as 11/22/2011, yes I figured in leap years. When I think of the last 40 years with all the changes in society and all the upheaval in my family, my marriage to Laurie, my kids and how comforting it would have been to have had him all that time, I get angry at him. Like most American men, probably men anywhere, I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to live up to his mythologized existence in my mind. In his 50 years he lived through the depression and world war two, a successful career in the savings and loan industry, four kids and the accumulation of property and status that I will never know. I wonder what he would think about my strange adolescent choice of a career in TV, I wonder what he would have thought about the greed obsessed raiders that tipped his own industry over 15 years after his death, what he would think of our present world where the same sort have stolen our country blind. I don't know what he would think of me. I didn't know him as an adult. All I know is on November 22nd, 2011 I will have lived longer than he was allowed to live. If I live to 100, I hope that I am half the man he was.

We named our first kid "Ned". I feel like with our Ned, I can give up the old one. Thanks Dad. I hope we can get to know each other someday.

Hilarity of the Corporate "Skit"

A few times a year we are called upon to make corporate folks look and sound funny. Some times it is. Other times your flesh crawls with embarrassment from the shame of collaborating with the devil.

Your best guess here:

I hate Halloween

This is the last time Tom had fun on Halloween; he was three.

I really have a hard time trying to make Halloween special for Tom. I always thought I would be good at this but I am not. I really try but costumes are hard. I once made a really cool (or I thought so any way,) costume for Ned- a "Scarebucks" coffee cup and he hated it so much it traumatized him for life, probably me as well. The whole cute-child-in-costume-begging-at-strangers-house-that-is-decorated-like-a-slaughterhouse-thing is sort of weird too.

Tom was a half hearted Ninja this year- a red hoodie sewn to look like a mask with a fire symbol of some kind (I made it up) painted on his chest. He was fine with it- I thought he looked like a refugee in a really lame costume gaming the system for free candy. Hey I guess he was....

The world did not end again.

It was supposed to end on Oct 21 2011. It didn't.

I went to Singapore and bought t-shirts.

Singapore. Disneyland with the death penalty. A shopping mall with a seat at the UN. I went there in late September with several friends from Montana State University to help teach classes in film for our college friend, Clifford Yap and his College of Film and Television. Singapore was interesting; very affluent, very up to date and in fact made me feel as though I was coming from the 3rd world to stand in the shiny city on the hill, not a feeling I expected. All their infrastructure project and architecture outclasses anything I have seen in the States for many years. It truly is Asia's century. The food was great and English was spoken and written everywhere. There are many neighborhoods in the US that have less English in evidence. There was an almost oppressive sense of success around the city. The political scene is changing, where the government is in everything now, I got a distinct sense that the people want something a little different for the future, not that they want to give up the affluence that semi socialist iron fisted regimes can bestow, they would like cable TV uncensored and to buy chewing gum. We stayed at the "Hotel 88 Sakura" in the red light district on Joo Chiat Road in Singapore and watched Thai and Vietnamese hookers walk up and down the street in front of our local bar, the "Dragon Palace" where we would sit and drink Carlsberg beer. Rick and I visited a Hindu temple one evening and found it beautiful. We ate the local food in hawker courts and more mallish food courts. Much beer was consumed and I visited a whore house in Kuala Lumpur (without partaking of the beautiful young women paraded like a 4H auction). We also visited Maleka in Malaysia. The flights to and from were long and I missed Laurie and the kids very much. I was glad to come home.It was fun but I did miss what turned out to be a lot of work. The benefits of travel and reconnecting with old friends always outweigh the loss of income but it hasn't been as lucrative a year as last year so it is noted.

Family. Wedding. Good.

Laurie's nephew Rand was married over Labor day weekend in Portland, OR. It was a good thing. It was hot. We wore suits. A nice priest actively tried to convert me to Catholicism. It was a fine weekend. Goodness prevailed.

In this photo I resemble a worn bowling pin in a cheap suit. It is good my family is attractive, but they should leave me in the car with the window open.

Many Adventures will be instantly forgotten

Been on vacation. RV travel. Disappointing birthday for child. Trip to Pebble Beach to worship an automobile with Miss Universe. Much depression. Politics becoming unglued and most horrible. Disappointing school issues. More depression. What an occasionally stupid existence.

The Vegas McNuremberberg Ralley (In Denver!!)

I get it. I know why they have conventions. The team work issue, being all on the same page, the allegiance to the corporate hive mind, these are important things to do; to both reward the successful and indoctrinate the undecided. The scope is pretty amazing however, 16,000 marketing people, from ALL over the world flown to Denver, hoteled and fed, entertained and propagandized with company messaging. Millions spent on Vegas style keynote speeches and recognition. I went as an audio/editor on a couple small videos and spent five days and nights there. I traveled with and worked with the amazing "Sugar Ray" Woodhouse and the luminescent Abby Katzmann (who are also married, with offspring, I am told) . And the money and expense account did flow. There was a rumor of Lady GaGa playing the closing night. The miracle is that it comes off at all. The clients want full control but sometimes seem reluctant to give opinions until it's too late or want to give suggestions at the point of no return. Micromanagement and seat of your pants, hair on fire panic mashed up into a paste of confusion and stress. This actually according to the veterans of such things was calm and easy. I live in a small hole in hobbitown where this was considered strange and frightening. The whipping up of a crowd to support software and service sales is not all that much different than political or religious frenzies that we have witnessed. Is the cult to be feared or embraced?

The Denver I saw was nice. Food was good, people were friendly, downtown seemed vibrant. I rode home on my flight next to an Indian American (as opposed to an American Indian) who told me I had seen a rarefied version of Colorado, outside of downtown it was all redneck "cowboy" culture, and he was moving back to Seattle. I did meet up with old friend Frank Alli and some of his Denver family. I was adopted in to the Espinosa clan of Denver.

A Saturday in July spent in a car with Johnny the Boot

Johnny the Boot needed company. He had to go to his incredibly beautiful cabin on Orcas Island to fix the WiFi. His cabin is so beautiful he and his (lovely) wife Lorraine need to rent it out in order to own it. They spend about six weekend up there a year. The rest of the time people rent it and complain about weird things like the cutlery being inferior to the surroundings and the WiFi being substandard. I remember my Uncle Mal's cabin as being plywood and 2x4s and we loved it and it's mismatched cutlery. The trip up was beautiful on the ferry.(we didn't get on the boat until 4:00PM, returned on the 10:50PM making this the fastest trrip to the San Juan Islands ever) Tame deer were in his yard. It was idyllic and now because of economics, unattainable even for the owners.

Ghost on the canvas and mounting pressure to do something other than complain.

Geoff Dunlap is coming out wrong. He looks like Christopher Walken portraying Dracula. If I could do one thing, all the time it would be paint, but like most things I can not commit to it because every day life gets in the way. Making a living. Kids. Mowing my shabby lawn. I'm really not a very good painter; my style is common and cartoony, almost sloppy. I make continuous mistakes that I only half repair. In short I suck but I enjoy it and occasionally feel partially pleased with an outcome, more often I am fully embarrassed but unwilling to burn the offending canvas.

Things are stressful because I am working on some paintings for a friend's restaurant in Boston, and I have agreed to help teach a TV production workshop in Singapore, so it will be necessary to actually prepare and finish some projects in a timely manner as well as prepare lessons.

Four July. Parenthood. Swirling around the abyss.

The fourth of July, like all arbitrary holidays brings moments of self imposed, self conscious and obviously over wrought self examination. Specifically I am thinking of my marginal parenting skills. My kids are great, and are very much the individuals I want them to be, they are not automatons or pointless rebels, but they are sometimes frustrating. I want very much to give them the the sort of childhood memories that I had but the world is very different from my childhood (which frankly wasn't THAT great or interesting either) . The world is much more closed off and the lives of children are by the very nature of the world more interior than they were when I was a kid. I have been reading Michael Chabon's "Manhood for Amateurs" which colors these thoughts. Neither of my sons seems that interested in hanging out with friends this summer. In fact, I can not get Tom's friends to come over to play which is sad for a seven year old. His community center summer program child warehouse has no close friends in it and he prefers to sit outside of the activities and read. Ned just sits at his laptop and stews in his zombie killing video games. You want to make their lives interesting. They have to want to participate.

We were supposed to go to the boy's uncle Joe's lake house for the fourth, which would have been nice because uncle Joe goes on an extended all expenses paid central asian vacation to Afghanistan next month. Ned had a sinus infection that mysteriously disappeared the day we took him to the doctor. We did luck into the most amazing private fireworks show down the block from us. Drunken ex frat boys in one of the rental house on the block must have dropped $1000 on fireworks, lighting the sky in a most impressive way. It made my cheap roman candles look sad indeed. As usual Dad does not deliver. Laurie is patient. Kids do not know they are being gypped out of a decent childhood. The drunk ex frat boys are having a swell time and we watch.

Slow days in anticipation of slower days

Not much happened. Weather was nice. People were sleepy. Foods were eaten.

Three jobs and the bag where I work.

Three days of work. Two were corporate self love pieces: one for a soft drink distributor and the other a "private banking" (read "rich folks are not like us") training film for a giant bank that once famously held my mortgage and was a titanic pain in the ass. The other day was medical talking heads, which while it a stupid system, doctors at least personally want to cure, help and comfort other humans. Banks and soft drink distributors not so much. Most of my days are kindergarten field trips into the lives of others: jobs that I would not want for the most part. Cubicles and sales jobs. Doing things that require people to purchase things they may or may not need. I understand that most people do need things and are willing to buy them so offering it to them is no crime. I am just wary of the system and not very willing to sell them anything.

Hence I am a servant in the corporate video world, where I rarely spend more that a day working for any one company. I have very little responsibility. This is a blessing and a curse. That sounds amazingly trite, but even with the view, I do not want the desk.

I spend most of my work days in my porta brace bag gazing lovingly at my Sound Devices 442 mixer. The day at the supermarket was fun because my gear could live in a shopping cart. I don't typically have a sound cart as it is too reminiscent of the sound guys who show up with deck chairs and newspapers. I enjoy the lighting and the whole set up experience, so I am not the the first call for sound man, but I do get the two man band call when the DP does need a gaffer but the producer needs to not pay for one. I own a bunch of audio gear but like all earthly, material items they will all eventually fail you. Things far apart and entropy will not be denied. My kit reminds me of that fact every day I am out with it.

Sunday without rain

Yeah. Today was good. Beautiful weather. I fixed my lawn mower just enough to get through mowing most of the lawn before the motor seized up. A trip to Costco and the library. I fixed a chair and the railing to the public stairs next door. Crap I am boring.

Saturday, June25, 2011

A day we will never see again. Unique and magical. Mundane and long. It featured mowing the lawn with a truly shitty broken electric lawn mower, lunch with in laws at "APPLEBEE"S" , voluntary giving of blood at the blood mobile, a Mariners loss, Ned completely dazed from the lack of sleep from a sleep over at the Milodragovich's house, excellent homemade soup and I made oatmeal cookies.

There was a nap in there too.

Random image from last xmas

Day 2: Summer Vacation drags on....

So day 2 of vacation (now that the teenager is now on vacation...) Kids slept in on a cold, rainy Seattle June day. I drank coffee and thought about lawn fertilizer and contemplated my lack of parenting skills. Tom got up and ate toast, followed by a long round of Wii. Ned eventually got up and we decided to go see "The Green Lantern" as that is one of Ned's favorite comic characters and it is never too soon to be completely disappointed in filmic adaptations of something you like.

Actually Green Lantern was kind of fun. The 3D was great and while there was a scary soul sucking space octopus, Tom was brave. He did not like the kissing however. It was expensive ($39.00) but a great retro throwback to see it at the immortal Cinerama. It's still the best way to enjoy a film.

Disolving into my base elements

Hi. As the clock winds down and the infinite joke of humanity builds to a really lame punchline that will offend everyone, I spent day 2 of summervacation going swimming with a seven year old at a plush retirement home in Suburban REDMOND Wa. The nice oldsters are my parents. Tom appears as my 7 year old. I was portrayed by Sir Ian McKellan. Pizza was served. There was no harm to anyone participating. Ned finished middle school today.

Ned is "Promoted"

Ned (in the skinny tie) and three of his oldest and best friends, Drew, Raphael and Paulson (Nat was in the audience) play the steel drums at the 8th grade "promotion" ceremony. It was long, filled with speeches and awards for most improved catagories, but I could not help but feel proud of my son and his friends who are all becoming interesting humans. Ned and his friends are an actual functioning group of individuals that are autonomous and no longer in need of us, their parents, in many ways. It's fun to watch them try out their new personalities. It was disturbing how overdressed, glammed out and uber sexualized 14 year old girls can get. High School for 4 years now. Work towards scholarships boy.

1ST DAY OF SUMMER VACATION!

Tom and I have the rest of the week together. Ned's school ends tomorrow. We went to the ID today and walked around and then had Hawaiian food. It's awesome to be a dad. Spent the rest of the day in the garden, using my beloved weedeater. Could God in heaven have created a finer tool?

Half Day at good place where civilization is intact.

I spent a half day ( the hated bane of the freelancer ) at a school for developmentally disabled kids on the Eastside, interviewing a couple of the founding parents from 50 years ago. They had a need, saw a need in others and acting in their own interests left behind a mitzphah for thousands of others in their same situtation. They were really ordinary people who did something simple but utterly necessary, and did it with out wish for gain. That places that are created solely to help those who really need it, families with kids who are disabled, fills me with hope. The infinitely various evils may be growing like cancers across our land but there are still pockets of kindness left. The story of one of the children of one of the early parents is amazing: his son did not crawl, roll over, walk or talk until he was four. One day he started to say "horses" because he liked them, and it was the trigger to his development. He then quickly caught up and is now an Admiral in the US Navy.(Results are exceptional, Your results may vary)

Today was Tom's last day of 1st grade. I wish he could remain small forever. Ned is "promoted" tomorrow night from middle school. Life is passing quickly, as trite as that sounds.

Running Shoes and the creeping darkness

So, it is my expressed intention to use this server space to try and remember the unremarkable activities of my professional life. I spent five days on the stage shooting 46 web catalog videos for a major running shoe manufacturer. The people were nice, the food okay and the commute not so good (the viaduct has begun it's long goodbye by becoming an annoying two lane). The most disturbing feature of this shoot was the fact that I was asked to do 12 hour days instead of 10. This is the beginning of the long goodbye to my freelance career? The shoot never even came close to 12 hours but if it had, then OT would have been off limits. Crews are changing and my position may be one of the first to go. I didn't mind agreeing to the 12s since it was more to support Geoff in his new role as a freelancer himself. If the studio folds there goes 40% of my business. Crumby photo from crumby phone. Insert iPHONE ENVY HERE.

Crawling past 50: adolescence can no loger be used as an excuse.

"Metastasizing the despair and disappointment of my life..." is the rather self aggrandizing answer I gave when a friend asked what I was doing on my 50th birthday. It was both very true to me and a complete fabrication on most levels. I have a home, a wife that loves me and kids who, when they can be pried from their amusements are very pleasant and who also love me. In that "It's A Wonderful Life" scenario, I am a very lucky Jimmy Stewart. However... My life's work has been a disappointment to be sure; what started out as daring and interesting, has evolved into a mundane service to corporate ego. What ever excitement I had hoped from living a life in film has been squandered on mortgage payments, watching TV and quietly drinking mediocre beers in my living room with the shades drawn. I watched a video on a 23 year old girl from New Jersey who has created a school and orphanage in Nepal through hard work and clear eyed optimism and I suddenly realized that I have lived the last 30 years in a haze of low expectations and minimal risk. I created one unwatchable "independent" (read "crappy") feature film in the 1990s and gave up. The end of the beginning? That was long ago. That was the slogan of my high school graduation, and many of those people I graduated with, once young and full of potential, all play golf in flip flops now, pretending that they have made it or not caring. What we have now is the end of the middle portion. The shut down of hope and pure joy due to dietary concerns over constipation. It is the inevitable evaporation of my potential. I fear for my soul. When the rapture of Harold Camping approached a week before my birthday I watched closely, not knowing why. I know now: I feel as though the end is much closer than it ever has been (lets face it, every day is closer) and I want to make a contribution more than making Microsoft execs look and sound human.

Requiem for a Beard

Something a person does for six months , even something one does without effort, is an achievement, however meager. My beard was just such an achievement. It was strange and ugly, it made me look homeless or more to the point like the "unibomber" or a old testament wilderness prophet. The sad thing is that it made me look really old. It came in white and gray. People treat you differently, they give you more space because you look like you may snap at any minute. Dropping Tom off at school, the well coiffed and splendid young parents looked at us like we were not there. One morning at breakfast at McDonalds (the great evil feeding tube) the cashier gave Tom a happy meal toy with his mcmuffin, I'm sure because she thought we were living in our car. It was sort of ridiculous and wonderful. The kids hated the beard. Laurie was very understanding about it and feigned ambivalence until she could stand no more. I think she missed her husband and started refering to it as my "mask" and told me I looked like the Ayatollah when I wore a knit cap. Laurie finally told me, unambiguously, to shave last week. It was time. I shaved last Saturday to a disco soundtrack. My face felt instantly lighter and I realized how much the damn thing itched. I don't miss it but what an achievement...

Months Later...Bud is better, I am still evaporating.

Bud is much better. He has been in the hospital twice since I last posted but is doing much better. Mom and Bud are moving back to the fancy retirement community so they have more food and care options. Old age sucks, as they will tell you. It's nice that they have each other at least. Mom is nearly blind but hanging in there.

I have been busy with work. It has been a weird ride as usual- mostly medical shoots and strange corporate affairs. A shoot for AMD chips about urban beekeeping has made me interested in the potential of keeping bees in our yard

I went to Alaska, where I met a friend from MSU, Scott Favorite.

There was also a trip to Portland and Hood River OR for a shoot.









I nearly screwed up a Bill Gates interview but didn't. The world seems like it is spinning very fast and headed for a crash. I hope Egypt is an omen for good and not ill. I wish every one well and will post again soon.