SXSW (Part 2)

Hello, folks. Sorry for the long delay between posts. I have been under the weather ever since my trip. I am only now feeling up to writing, which is saying a lot.

Ok, for this post, I thought I would talk about the movies I saw while in Austin. It's a varied list, mostly dominated by shorts and documentaries. Of course, if you think about it, that makes sense at a film festival.

Movies I Saw:
Cowboy Del Amour is a documentary about a retired cowboy who helps American men meet Mexican women. Based on his own experience in finding a Mexican bride, the cowboy realized that there are many Mexican women who are looking for a good man, and at the same time, there are many American men who are fed up with the American woman who wants "everything" and is happy with nothing. For $3,000, the cowboy "of love" will take men across the border and help arrange meetings with prospective mates, as in life-mates. The cowboy says he is not running a brothel and that there are cheaper and easier ways of getting sex, so he make sure that his clients are looking for something beyond one night.

As with all good documentaries with quirky subjects, this movie is also part character study. As the movie follows the journey of 3 gringos looking for love, the old cowboy imparts country wisdom and quips on the subject of love to the audience. We also learn that while the cowboy "del amore" has seeming success in setting up his clients, his own personal relationships are anything but perfect. For example, the cowboy did not like it when his Mexican wife, now his ex, started taking English classes. As the story unfolds, we see that it is often easier to see it when other people make mistakes than to see it when we make them.

I definitely recommend this movie, but unfortunately, I doubt it will ever get distribution. Keep an eye out for it, though,. Who knows, it might make its way to DVD, and it certainly would be worth a rental.

As an added treat, they had the director of the film at the screening, along with the cowboy and a couple that he successfully sets up in the movie. The couple now have a child (and one on the way) and have been together for over 3 years.

High School Short Competition - These were basically what you would expect. There were a few good ones, but mostly they were unpolished. I am sure once they have a college film course, or two, under their belts, they will be making much better films. With all things, it takes practice to be successful.

Comedy Shorts had some standout films, including a Bill Plympton cartoon called Guard Dog, which depicts what goes on in the mind of a particular dog when it goes for a walk with its master. The dog imagines that his owner is forever in danger from innocuous animals and plants in the park, such as squirrels and flowers, which are (in the mind of the dog) plotting to take his master's life. It is only by barking and scaring the would-be assassins that the dog is able to stop them from unleashing (pun intended) their evil plans. In one scene, the dog and his master come upon a gopher. The dog imagines the gopher digging a pit large enough for his master to fall into, filling it with a live bull and then concealing the hole with sod. In the dog's imagination, his master steps on the trap, falls through the sod and somehow, while falling, is dressed by the gopher in a Ronald McDonald costume. When the dog's master lands and stands up, the bull immediately recongnizes him as the person who has made so many hamburgers out of his bovine brethren and cartoon violence naturally ensues. Wonderful!

Rock School is by far the best movie I saw at SXSW. In fact, it is the best movie I have seen this year, including Million Dollar Baby. It is a documentary about a music teacher in Pennsylvania who teaches music to his 9 -17 year-old students by teaching them the music of Black Sabbath and Frank Zappa. It is a real-life version of School of Rock with Jack Black's character being played by Paul Green, a man who cajoles, taunts and teases his students into being the rock gods they want to be. It is funny, inspiring and amazing, and the good news is that the movie has secured distribution and will be out in theaters June 3rd. Go see this movie and tell your friends.

Short Films II - I have no idea what the Short Films I was like, but these short films were really funny. The best short was a comedy about a French boy born to American parents. Imagine the parents' horror to find out that their child can only speak French and prefers to eat cheese and fruit to hot dogs. While other kids collect baseball cards, he collects the cards of famous philosophers. Needless to say, his life is miserable from all of the teasing he gets at school, which only brings out his reflexively French desire to wallow in being misunderstood and smoke cigarettes even more. It is a masterful film. I wish I knew the name.

Next time: Music.

SXSW Report (Part 1)

Aren't vacations great? (That is, despite getting rundown from the travel itself.) You come back with new ideas and things to try. My trip to SXSW was no exception.

Case in point, I have been inspired by my buddy, Tim, who I haven't seen since last year, to start losing weight and putting on muscle. You see, Tim looked like me last year, which is to say, slightly overweight. Tim is roughly my height and build, and last time I saw him he weighed about 185, which is what I weigh today. He no longer looks like this. He has dropped 40 pounds (technically, he's lost about 50 pounds of fat and gained about 10 pounds of muscle.) He looks tremendous (and, I don't use that word lightly.)

I was immediately fascinated with how Tim had been able to achieve his success. I started asking him all sorts of questions. It turns out he had been using the Body-for-Life program. Knowing Tim as I do, I am sure he approached this program the way he approaches everything - wholeass! If he does something, he does it to the fullest amount possible. I am sure he jumped in and followed the program to the letter, if not religiously. Good for him.

Based on what I know about the program from Tim and what I know about nutrition, the Body-for-Life does not seem to be a fad diet. It seems to be what it's name suggests - a plan to have a health body for life.

Furthermore, this seems like a plan that I can live with. First of all, it does not take a huge time commitment. For example, all of the workouts are designed to be less than 50 minutes long, with the average workout being closer to 30 minutes. I workout 5 days a week already. It would only require one more day of aerobics to my existing program. The total amount of time I spend working out, might actually go down per week.

Second, the program designs in opportunities to "give in" to our desires. None of us can be perfect all of the time, which is why one day a week, the program instructs you to have a "free day," a day where you do not have to work out and can eat anything. The other benefit of the free day is to keep your body from thinking that food is overly scarce, and therefore , tricks it into not slowing our metabolism down.

To be honest, the real challenge for me will lie with eating right. I have really have been falling down in this area. Besides not eating proper portions, one thing that Tim was telling me is that I have been eating way too little protein. The daily recommended amount of protein is 50 grams, which is hard to get unless you focus your effort. Needless to say, I have not been getting enough protein. Furthermore, if you are weight training, that daily requirement jumps up to 150 grams, which is almost impossible to achieve without a dietary supplement. This was news to me.

Here is the inspiring thing to me: I think with the right guidance about what to eat I can look as good as a model on the cover of a men's health magazine. I truly do. And, until I saw Tim, I would have never thought it was possible.

You see, the result of Tim losing all of his weight is that it shattered my worldview. I didn't believe people like us, with our builds, who've always struggled with their weight, could do what he's done. To my old way of thinking, it was impossible for us to reach the level of fitness he's attained. Consequently, I think I have always set the bar for myself lower. In the past, I would have been happy to lose 20 pounds and gain 5 pounds of muscle. (Interestingly, I have come close to this goal several times but never pushed past that barrier.)

I realize now that I was sabotaging myself. It truly was the case where my own preconceptions held me back. Sometimes, you need someone to show you what is possible before you can reach a new level. So, thanks Tim!

I will be starting the Body-for-Life program next week. As a part of keeping my commitment to myself, I plan to make you all aware of my goals and my progress. The thought is to use my own aversion of letting people down to create self-imposed social pressure, which will compel me to keep going when the going gets tough. Expect more on this later.

Greetings From the Lone Star State

Well, it looks like a minor mission has been accomplished: I am in Austin, blogging to my heart's content. I have commandeered a computer at an AMD processor display in the airport to write this, which is about as close as I will ever probably come to real gonzo journalism, but I'll take it.

By the way, this computer really sucks. The return key and the tab key don't work, so I am forced to write in one continual paragraph. I will try my hand at writing in some HTML code when I am done that addresses the lack of carriage returns. Hopefully, you will not have to suffer through a similar trauma while reading this post. But, I make no promises 'cause I am relatively new to building web pages.

So, onto the thoughts running around in my mind. On the plane, I was reading "The Best Political Writing of 2004," which has excerpts from books and whole articles from magazines on the last year of politics. It's a good read because invariably you miss worthwhile articles.

I read an article by Joe Kline that was originally published in Time, which described what the Democrats need to do in order to beat the Republicans. The article was titled, "How to Build a Better Democrat". (I apologize for not providing a link to the article. Aside from not allowing me to use the return key, this computer will only allow me to have one window open at any one time so I can't search for the website without losing what I have written here. Sorry.)

The article talks about the Dems three problems: being weak on national defense, being depressing as all get out, and suffering from an acute case of consultantitis. I agree on all three scores. We need to be inspired by our leaders. We need them to have big ideas and speak with bold words. In this way, Bush clearly has it over the Democrats. Howard Dean captured our imagination and our hearts and, in retrospect, seems to have been the best possible candidate to have defeated Bush. And, even if he had eventually lost, at least we could have felt like we went down swinging for the fences! Sweet Jesus, we didn't even take the bat off our shoulders.

Hey, the code worked! Sweet!

SXSW

I will be in Austin, TX for the rest of the week for the SXSW festival. I have no idea what I will be doing other than seeing The Queens of the Stone Age and Flatstock 6. It will probably involve a movie or two.

I hope to be able to post from Austin and keep "all y'all" up-to-date on my adventures. But, we'll have to see what the gods have in store. Wish me luck, and please remember to feed the plants and water the cats while I'm gone.

More of a Dustbuster

There was a very good article in the Times this Sunday about the increasing number of news reports being paid for and produced by the government. The article itself revealed nothing new. If you have been paying attention, you should have heard all of these stories before. Still, it is a good summary of what has been happening with increasing frequency.

In case anyone was confused, the practice of governmental interference in / influence over the media is nothing new. Anyone remember the Alien and Sedition Act? Well, at least no reporters have been put in jail recently. (Though, they may have been targeted by the US army!)

While I don’t think we are living in an Orwellian world quite yet, these things do bother me. Relaxed restrictions on media ownership lead to fewer, more powerful voices. These voices are openly operating in a capacity to help themselves and other corporations. (Yes, I know about the blogosphere, but have you ever heard of shouting in a vacuum?) In addition, there are now greater incentives for the networks to use government made media aside from the purely selfish motives. One reason is the expanding and insatiable need for video content as a result of emergence of 24-hour cable news. Exacerbating this problem is that news room staffs are shrinking to satisfy the constant need to increase profits in the face of an ever shrinking number of viewers.

Is all hope lost? No. At some point, it will all balance itself out. I just expect it to get worse before it gets better. Which reminds me, have I told you about my latest idea?

Interview With A Blood Sucker

USA Next Update: A very interesting interview in New York Times Magazine with Charlie Jarvis, chief executive and spokesperson for USA Next, a retired-persons lobbying group and rival to AARP. I got a kick out of the fact that his kids don't agree with him. [Original post]

50 Things - Huzzah!

1. In high school, my dating exploits were so epic I was nicknamed "Tom Juan Demarco."
2. As evidence, I submit the time I dated 9 different girls in a period of 9 months.
3. I am the only person I know who thinks moving to Honduras sounds like a good idea.
4. When the Cubs win the World Series, I will be there.
5. I realize The Great Pumpkin-esque nature of the above statement.
6. I stole this idea from Al who stole it from Em who borrowed it from Becks.
7. I was a virgin until I was 18.
8. Though I have slept with 10 people since, I don't think this makes me promiscuous.
9. I have achieved what I set out to achieve. I am only 80% satisfied with the results.
10. I am looking for a new goal.
11. Going to Notre Dame messed me up in more ways than I care to admit, even to myself.
12. If it were not for the fact that my father keeps a pocket knife with him at all times, I would have lost my left hand at the age of 5 when I tripped on my shoelaces, fell forward and my jacket sleeve got caught in the teeth of an escalator.
13. I am fairly certain I want kids. I am also fairly certain I don't want to get married.
14. At this moment, I can't decide if I want a Diet Pepsi or a Giant Kit Kat bar.
...
15. At this moment, I am regretting the decision to get both.
16. I once made out with a girl on the Haunted House ride at Disneyworld.
17. It's not that hard. Really.
18. I firmly believe that you can do anything, no matter how unpleasant, for a limited time.
19. And, I still may not want to.
20. I wanted to be a movie producer until I realized I don't like "movie people."
21. I can't decide if I want to wait until I am 30 to have my midlife crisis.
22. I have 5 scars on my left hand and graphite lodged under the skin of my right hand.
23. I broke my nose playing tackle football.
24. The doctor who set my nose had the worse case of rosacea on his nose that I had ever seen. When he grabbed a glorified butter knife to shove the broken bits of bone back into place, I questioned privately whether his standards for performing the required procedure might not be high enough.
25. I have 28 first cousins.
26. Despite choosing a career in finance, I can't "do numbers" in my head.
27. I believe that directors who "Lucas" their movies after several decades should literally be dragged out into the street and shot because maybe then they would stop doing it.
28. I am impressed by people who read several books a week.
29. I am allergic to penicillin.
30. It bothers me that I look like my brother.
31. I am not afraid of dying, but I am afraid of getting terribly injured.
33. I am often awoken by nightmares in which the car I am driving is about to get hit head-on.
34. My current relationship is the best one I have ever been in - thanks, Hon!
35. Red is my favorite color, Gold Medal Ribbon is my favorite ice cream, The Foo Fighters are my favorite band, baked Alaska is my favorite desert and Mickey Dolenz is my favorite Monkee.
36. I named my first cat "Licker" because he liked to lick people.
37. Doing the right thing was more important than seeing my name on a ballot.
38. I have bribed Mexican police officers.
39. I have seen and used "Scotland's most disgusting toilet" from the movie Trainspotting.
40. At my mother's urging, I crossdressed for a presentation in the first grade.
41. I still buy comic books.
42. I have literally seen Star Wars over 100 times.
43. According to several tests I have taken, my IQ is over 140.
44. I don't know my home phone number.
45. I need more adventures.
46. The first CD I bought was Led Zeppelin's IV.
47. The first DVD I bought was A Bug's Life.
48. I don't have a favorite book.
49. I don't have a favorite movie, either - I have 5.
50. It was easier for me to name 100 movies than it was for me to make this list.

File Under: I Still Don't Feel Safer

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Airline passengers, who already are prohibited from carrying torch-like butane lighters onto commercial aircraft, will be prohibited from carrying any type of lighter on planes and into secure areas of airports beginning April 14, the Transportation Security Administration announced Monday.

The Judicial Branch Grows Some Nuts

The Justice Department was told by U.S. District Judge, Henry Floyd, who was appointed by Bush in 2003, that they have 45 days to either charge Jose Padilla with a crime or release him. Federal prosecutors say Padilla, a Brooklyn-born convert to Islam, was arrested in 2002 at O'Hare airport after returning from Pakistan because he was planning an attack with radioactive material, otherwise known as a "dirty bomb".

The decision is significant because Floyd's 23-page opinion clearly limits, for the first time in recent memory, the President's power to do whatever he wants in "the war on terror". Specifically, the decision states, "The court finds that the President has no power, neither express nor implied, neither constitutional nor statutory, to hold [an American citizen] as an enemy combatant." Snap!

Justice Department spokesman John Nowacki said the government will appeal the decision. [More]

I highly recommend reading the Court's decision, starting with the above quote at the top of page 20.