Yesterday as a comment to my previous entry here, my friend Carolyn made a good point about what the holiday is about - the veterans who died in our wars - but the media and our leaders certainly don't limit it to that in their rhetoric. Obama last weekend "called on Americans Saturday to tribute to the nation's veterans and service members" (UPI story) And veterans like our old highschool classmate Jeff Klaessy spent their valuable Facebook-time yesterday reminding everyone to think of their (still living) selves.

Meanwhile we have most people just thinking of the day as another chance to get off from work and drink beer in the park. Which is what most holidays get used for.

I'm sorry about your Uncle, Carolyn. I wish there was truly a day where people really just focused on those who died in wars. I wish every holiday still had its original focus, with laser-like precision. I wish Xmas was still about the winter solstice and not about buying and receiving presents. I also wish there was a holiday to honor all the slaves that this country was built on. And a hundred other holidays to focus on and honor all the other honorable people that have sacrificed or been sacrificed for this country, holidays that people really used for their intended purpose.

But that's not how our messed up society works these days. Culture has become a battleground where people fight over the meanings of things and what people will pay attention too, every moment of every day. And if, on Memorial Day, some feel the need to call attention to WHY some people were sacrificed, well... I don't know. Maybe I just don't get it because I don't have any relatives who died in a war - thankfully. I just really wish that nobody did, and ever will again. But sadly, that's not how our society works either.

On this day, Memorial Day, please take the time, just a minute if that's all you have, to not only think of those who fought in our wars, but also think about how few of those wars were really necessary, and how many of them were begun based on lies to the american people.
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Last Saturday, Greta and I took part in a special tour of households in Tucson that have chickens.

Ours was one of 18 stops on the tour, and we had over 100 people stop by in 4 hours to look at our chickens and coop, as well as check out our garden and solar oven. (our friend Matt's house was also on the tour). It was pretty fun and it seemed like a lot of people were inspired and thinking about raising chickens themselves, or doing it differently if they already did, and/or inspired to garden more, or use greywater, or build/get a solar oven. It was encouraging to see that so many people are into these sustainable practices -- Apparently the food co-op sold 200 tickets to the tour, raising 1000 bucks for the community food bank, and they had to turn away 200 more people.

I'm in the middle of pre-production for a new project which I do not think I've mentioned before on this blog. Truth On The Line is a TV/web show which will be a hybrid of fiction and nonfiction, news journalism and drama. I like to say that it's a cross between "Slacker" and "Broadcast News", and the news will be real.

I first came up with the idea for this project almost 2 years ago, and have been gradually thinking about it and keeping it simmering on the back burner of my creative stove every since. It was this spring that I finally finished the script for the pilot episode and began.

I cast 5 of the 15 speaking parts first, people I knew. Then I did a casting call about a week and a half ago. Since then I've been working a lot on casting, sorting through the dozens of responses to my call and holding auditions. It's been incredible. Fun, but lots of work. It's great though just to meet some very creative actors, and I find myself wishing I could work with almost all of them, but of course, I can't and I have to make some choices. Hopefully a week from today, or so, I will have made those choices.

The other thing I'm doing is trying to decide if I should create a new blog for the project. It will eventually need a website. I'm tweeting in twitter about it using the #totl tag. But should it have its own blog?

I'm very inspired lately reading the blog of Christopher Sharpe. He's been diligently blogging and tweeting about his film, The Spider Babies, which is in pre-production too. He plans to ask his main castmembers to tweet from the set as well. That's a really cool idea. But he hasn't created separate site or blog for the film yet, as far as i know. So, maybe I shouldn't either. Yet, at least.

Anyway, stay tuned for more on this project as it progresses.

I got into a Twitter game/meme/virus yesterday - combining movie titles with common words to make crazy imaginary mashup movies that were pretty funny to think about. My tweets from yesterday show how into this concept I got:

• 09:42 working on editing the Battered Immigrant Women's video again. #
• 09:42 Cinematic mashup that probably won't work: Snakes on a Mystery Train #cmtpww #
• 10:08 Cinematic mashup that probably won't work: Little Miss Sunshine Cleaning #cmtpww #
• 10:27 Cinematic mashup that probably won't work: Good Will Hunting For Red October #cmtpww #
• 10:52 Cinematic mashup that probably won't work: Sling Blade Runner : "Yes ma'am, I reckon I want more life, fucker!" #cmtpww #
• 11:38 Cinematic Mashup that probably won't work: Eternal Miss Sunshine of the Spotless Mind #cmtpww #
• 11:57 Cinematic Mashup that probably won't work: The Quiet American Graffiti #cmtpww #
• 12:24 Cinematic Mashups that probably won't work: Inland Empire Strikes Back To The Future #cmtpww @novysan @mikl_em #
• 13:18 Cinematic Mashups that probably won't work: Roger (The Rabbit) and Me and You and Everyone We Know #cmtpww #
• 17:39 just getting done with meeting about revising the film I did for the Sierra Club. now, TGIF #
• 17:41 Cinematic mashup that probably won't work: Down By Law and Order #cmtpww #
• 17:46 oh my god my office is easily the hottest room in the house. about 110 degrees. #

click http://search.twitter.com/search?q=cmtpww to see even more from others...

author: Michael Pollan

name: Steev

average rating: 4.03

book published: 2007

rating: 5

read at: 2009/05/07

date added: 2009/05/07

shelves: politics, spirit-self

review:
I'm only still on the first chapter but already love this.

author: Chris Kraus

name: Steev

average rating: 4.20

book published: 1998

rating: 5

read at: 1999/01/01

date added: 2009/05/06

shelves: fun, novels

review:
This is a great book. Heady and hilarious, the best mix.

And having just been to a lecture by the real person the book is about (who was one of my teachers at CalArts 13 years ago), i sort of now want to read it again.

This is great news. From Frontera Norte-Sur News:

Historic Femicide Trial Gets Underway

Thousands of miles and a continent away, it

• steev's blog