The Doncast

Henry 1997-2015

don@donwoodonline.com (Don Wood) — Thu, 19 Feb 2015 17:40:00 -0500

Today was the last day we’ll pet Henry. He died peacefully, in his own bed, under sedation, with bacon on his breath and our hands in his fur. It was all we could think to give him and the very least he deserved.

Henry was a very good boy.

The truth is I didn’t choose Henry, I received a call from the floor of the Houston shelter telling me he had to be chosen. There had been eye contact, and that was it. Annoyed, I mumbled something like “If you love him, I’ll love him” and went back to work. I arrived home to a puddle of vomit full of worms and a dog so dirty it looked as if it had been dipped in wax. There was a small “woof” from this instant watchdog, so I bent down on one knee and stuck out my hand. There was eye contact, and that was it.

A long medical road later he was a prince of the unofficial Houston bayou dog area off Montrose. He loved to chase a ball, stop where it landed and wait for me to come over and throw it again. He loved being chased in those days. He could not be caught. Not by Greyhounds, not by Whippets, not by Rat Terriers. He had enough speed to outrun the quick dogs and enough quickness to evade the fast dogs. He’d run three miles, five, fast as you’d care to run it.

He never learned tricks. Tricks were beneath him. Instead he learned-or perhaps revealed at his own pace-how to be a fairly well behaved human person, a standard to which he usually held himself and always expected to be treated. He was the perfect watchdog; a single bark from somewhere in the apartment when a stranger passed the door. He learned to stay away from people who were eating and taught me I had a certain way of taking the last bite of my dinner and placing my fork down, marking the end of dinner and the beginning of his rights to the leftovers.

That was something I didn’t know about myself, and of course it was one of a thousand things he taught me about myself, and life, and animals, and other people. If I end up being anything like a decent father it will be due in large part to lessons Henry taught me. Lessons about patience and perspective and the shame of losing your temper with the powerless. And forgiveness, just the endless forgiveness. And how sometimes helping a loved one means things are going to get really, really gross but in the end it doesn't kill you and anyway that’s what soap and laundry and the garbage are for.

He kept me from the bottom of so many holes and out of at least half the trouble I would have otherwise got into. He woo-woo-woo’d encouragement at the most jubilant points in my life, not caring what the occasion was, just that he was fully participating in the celebration.

He was Mutt Healthy once he cleared what he had picked up in the streets and the shelter. As a younger dog, he once figured out a way to get a five pound box of fudge off a fireplace mantle while everyone was out. We returned to an eight foot by ten foot room with a newly brown floor, wall-to-wall, but a sleeping, not comatose dog who was ready for action the next morning. He loved to lay out on snow drifts. He hated rain. Hated, hated rain. Eventually, an X-ray for a dental exam revealed a grapefruit sized tumor on his spleen. Surgery to remove it revealed other, smaller tumors. After that, we knew our time with Henry was borrowed and we just had to enjoy it as long as it lasted. That was five years ago. Cancer took a leg. Age took the vision in one eye. Recently, most of the rest of his vision and hearing left. He was a tough cookie these last few months but it’s been a while since he’s been able to do any of the things he enjoyed. He never complained.

Today the house call vet asked if I wanted to spend more time with his body once we wrapped it in his warm green blanket and tucked it in a Henry-sized wicker basket with handles. I told her I didn’t, it wasn’t him. Henry was not the crazy scruff and the eyebrows, the mohawk and the beard and the prance-prance-prance. Henry was *Henry*, the personality. He was the dog people crossed the street to meet. Clipped to a parking meter or tree, there was no trip into a store so short he wouldn’t have someone scratching his ears upon your return. At stoplights windows would lower so people could yell their recognition of the fact he was clearly not restricted to the back seat, just being chauffeured. He loved a bar that opened onto the sidewalk where he could lay on the warm concrete, spoiled by a parade of bar patrons out font for a smoke.

That quality is one of the reasons I am writing this-that, and not knowing what the hell else to do with myself for the rest of an afternoon like this, that included this. About the third or fourth time you hear “It’s Henry! Hi, Henry!” yelled from a passing car or across a busy street by people you have never met, you realize you are not in a traditional Dog/Owner relationship. Because of Henry’s personality and people’s reaction to him, I don’t feel I was Henry’s owner so much as the guy lucky enough to be chosen as caretaker of a knee-high, national cultural treasure. So many people loved him. He brought a lot of smiles into the world and made literally thousands and thousands of people happy for a few seconds here, a few seconds there as they passed him on the street. All that happiness, added up? It is a stunning achievement for any lifetime.

I was so, so lucky to know him. So, so lucky to be the guy who got to be his best friend for all these years.
We all lost a good one, the best one, today.

Talking about Talking to the Babies of the Poor.

don@donwoodonline.com (Don Wood) — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 12:48:00 -0400

This Article

...sent me off on a Facebook post that grew long and rambling enough it took refuge over here on this old warhorse of a blog.

About 50 different fascinating/frustrating conversation starting points in this article. I was interested to see them address one interesting wrinkle I wondered about, having spent a lot of time working on the Upper East Side: rich babies with Nepalese nannies (it's a thing) who have little English.
More seriously, it amazes me we'd rather pay to put an extra cop and a gun and a radio and a squad car in a neighborhood than a nurse with a clipboard and some brochures, given how much long term difference each one can make.

I've seen a lot of coverage on the school closings issue here in Chicago. The city had a bunch of meetings where parents could speak to the Superintendent, the Police Chief and other city functionaries. The amount and variety of the questions and demands that went to the Police Chief confused me, until I realized that to people in these neighborhoods, the police are the only-yet a constant-point of interaction with the government. How can this be a workable solution, on any level? It is expensive to flood a neighborhood with extra cops, socially as well as financially, and is of questionable long term effectiveness. The big strides in New York city safety were not only the result of more police but of smarter police strategy, a unique population density situation and perhaps a low number of gang members, which is something people are trying to figure out).

I have a liberal bias and believe in government as an expression our collective will as a citizenry. If that will would have us change the situation of places like Chicago's South Side, for moral or straight up financial reasons, don't we owe it to ourselves to do it in a way that makes sense from the perspective of social science? The benefits of programs for the children of poverty are well documented, yet watching the news nearly every night, I see many standing at podiums and on siren lit street corners demanding more cops and nobody pounding their fist saying we need to double or triple the amount of social service workers on those same streets. Why do we not have social service patrol cars, (yellow-and-whites?), rolling around town with a nurse and a social service worker in each one, making connections with people and looking for places where the government can intervene in a positive way. We force default this job to police officers once things have gone too far,and it shouldn't be their job.

It amazes me how often I realize I am making a terrible parenting mistake, and I am literate, have access to the internet 24/7, wise and supportive friends and family, a few baby care classes under my belt, an adult life's worth of life experience and a stack of child-rearing books in our home. Tons of kids are growing up in homes where their parent or parents have none of that help when making their parenting decisions, and that is going to hurt those kids. Period. Now a parent myself, it is clear to me parenting worthy of the name is not the sort of magic, instinctual force of wonder a lot of our popular culture makes it out to be. When Leona was born, The Parenting did not arrive like this:

Rather, it seems to be a series of decisions and actions which will lead to either better or worse outcomes. With a base of knowledge and experience, one can improve the quality of those decisions and actions and therefore, the outcomes. A pretty good definition of a skill, or perhaps a trade, in either case something that can be improved with coaching and practice no matter what your level of underlying talent. We have devised a system in this country to provide training to every person who drives a car, whether that comes from a class or a more experienced driver. We do this because we have to share the road with these drivers. I'm not sure a good portion of the country sees themselves as having to live with these children.

Yet these children are our big chance. Again, I'm a believer in using government to change things, but I'm not sure I've ever read anything that convinces me the government has come up with any measurably positive way to get adults in poverty out of poverty. I can't honestly say that I believe the majority of people over 30 on government assistance right now will ever be fully self sustaining. There are a lot of reasons for that, a big one being so much of the money that used to circulate among the middle and lower classes has been sucked out of that part of society and locked up in the very top tier where it sits, doing nothing. Still, the fact remains, we can probably do only so much for older generations. Maybe even those in school already.

However, all the signs point to the premise that we can do a whole hell of a lot for those kids 3 and under. And next year there will be more, and we can help them too, and 15, 18 years from now the science says we should be able to expect much higher grades, much lower drop out rates, much lower arrest rates, much lower teen pregnancy rates and much better parenting by those teens who do get pregnant.
All of which saves us money, improves entire lives and perhaps helps to throw some hiccups into the cycle of poverty.

BREAKING: Movie Stars are Good Looking

don@donwoodonline.com (Don Wood) — Sun, 27 May 2012 19:41:00 -0400

I've noticed that a good portion of the traffic to the website of my business comes through this page, so it seems only mannerly to have something recent and not-too-think-piece-y on it. Here' goes:

In the gym today they were playing The Empire Strikes Back on one of the TV's and I looked up to realize with surprise Carrie Fisher was incredibly attractive in that movie. Of course she was, she was the (sort of) ingenue, but I was surprised by this fact, having been just young enough when the first movie hit the theaters that Han and Leia were not actually people of an understandable age to me. I knew girls my age, and which ones were cute, I knew adults and which teachers were pretty, but these people in their twenties confused my ten-year-old self and by the time Empire came out and I could appreciate and fear girls who were nearly twenty Han and Leia were my family, basically, and off the Hot or Not track for good.

I had the same experience a few months ago when I went to see a newly remastered print of Raiders of the Lost Ark. (totally holds up, by the way...) As the opening sequence closeups in the cave's treasure room rolled by, I turned to my wife and whispered "Jesus Christ he's good looking." I was stunned, just as I was today at the gym, as everyone is when going through old boxes of family photos and stumbling on a picture that looks like a promo still for a silent film starlet. That's great aunt Esther?!

What Hath They Wrought?

don@donwoodonline.com (Don Wood) — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 13:30:00 -0400

http://goo.gl/oBU7d

As you can see from the time stamps below, I don't often venture over here, but from time to time there are things I'd like to write down that are not a few characters long or-heaven forfend-require linking to more than one source. This requires exactly two, though given free reign I shudder to think where one might end up.

The herd of cats that is my "selection" of news feeds delivered two public resignation letters this morning. One you've probably heard of, from a man at Goldman Sachs. The other, from a now ex-Google employee,(hit paragraphs 1, 3-4-5, 8,9, skim the rest) is burning through the tech news this morning and may or may not crossover into the mass media. They are connected in two ways, as I see it, both of which raise questions.

The first question is "Why does a search on Google for 'Goldman Sachs Resignation' return four HuffPo links and a USA Today link before it finally lists the original NY Times article? In what world do these search results avoid choking the life out of the worthwhile content that drives people to use your search product?"

The second is perhaps more serious. What did these guys think they were doing? Or maybe the question is how were they able to avoid knowing what they were doing. What makes these two resignations notable is that by most measures these are two of our best and brightest. We have here products of the finest schools, survivors of two legendarily competitive hiring processes.
One has recently learned Google is an advertising company, the other that Goldman Sachs is primarily in the business of making money for Goldman Sachs.
How did this happen? These are not Benjamin Braddocks or Holden Caulfields, these are people extremely accomplished in their careers leaving pay packages in the multiple six figures by writing letters of a tone usually reserved for the second-to-last-scene in a John Hughes movie.

This situation has had me remembering those talks one saw on tv alot from 2009 through 2010 about how to some up the previous decade and wondering:

Were the Aughts the Decade of Lying to Ourselves?

There were some doozies in there.

WMD's
Iraq was a 9/11 participant.
40 year old men can just naturally get way better at baseball.
Housing prices will always double every 4 years.
Complicated new banking products are a great idea and the banks are totally handling it.

Some believe these were all calculated campaigns of disinformation. I am not that cynical anymore and also find that line of thought uninteresting. Instead, I look at that list and see a bunch of situations that a well meaning person who had the best of intentions could desperately want to be true due either to decisions they'd already made or decisions they feel they need to make. Not James Bond villainy, Shakespearean villainy and/or heroism, depending on the play. This is where it ties into those resignation letters. Were these two clearly bright young men and the decisions they made about where to spend their careers just doing the same thing the country was doing as a whole, creating a fictional version of their reality in order to justify the far more lucrative of options?

It's not something I think I can answer, but I thought the question was interesting, as was the fact all these fictions had similar life spans.

credit

A note about the title of the post: It is, of course, a reference to the first message Samuel Morse sent on his new technology the telegraph. "What hath God wrought" he sent, ascribing to an outside force the credit for something he had spent years building himself. I meant to weave it in in a clever way, but have spent too much time here already with many things to build myself.

Remodeling our Cities

don@donwoodonline.com (Don Wood) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 08:39:00 -0500

The top 20 Remodeling Markets have been listed and Chicago juuuust makes it in at number 20, up from number 22 last year. Everybody keep your fingers crossed.

Why is this important?

Remodeling basically *is* the residential construction industry in cities. The high end of this market was where I made my bread and butter for around 15 years. Then it ended.

Most of the remodeling jobs I used to work on were a result of the property changing hands, with the cost of freshening up the bathroom and kitchen rolled into the mortgage. As @PeanutFreeMom would say,"Um, yeah, hi, nobody's buying houses anymore."

People are not moving. Some of this is due to poor employment opportunities and some of this is due to real estate values returning to historic norms. (I feel it is much better on a lot of levels to think of the current real estate situation in these terms rather than the "plummeting housing values" you usually hear about.) People who bought overvalued housing can't sell and are stuck.
Say the J.Q. Public family does need to move from Urban Home A to Urban Home B. Unable to sell Home A, they turn it into a rental. Unsure of their future in the present economy and without the cash in hand from a sale, they are also likely to rent Home B instead of buying.

This is something I think gets overlooked in discussions about construction employment. Ten years ago, the J.Q.Public family move would have likely resulted in two sales, two mortgages, and-rolled into those two mortgages-two remodeling jobs. It now results in two rental units. Nobody remodels a rental between tenants. Yes, some do, but rarely, and even then, they are quick and dirty business propositions done to the lowest acceptable standards, (which makes perfect sense and is at is should be, btw). This double hit has been the big story in my corner of the construction industry, and while there does seem to be a lot of attention being given to helping get the housing market going again, I don't really see the same being done for remodeling.
Sure, a rebound in housing in general will help the remodeling market, but tax breaks and other incentives targeted toward home remodeling, especially urban remodeling, could help spark a bounce in construction jobs.
There are a lot of reasons an urban remodeling bounceback would be great.

The sheer volume and density of housing stock in the nations cities provides a lot of advantages. Most of the housing stock inside city limits is much older than the stock without, is larger (multi-unit), and holds more people. Updating the energy efficiency of these buildings with insulation, better windows, etc. would make a huge difference to the country's energy consumption and, in the long run "pay for themselves". The large amount of multi-unit buildings makes the process more efficient as well. In places like Brooklyn and Chicago, one renovation project can result in two or three families living in more efficient homes.
Density also means workers travel less far, using less money and energy to get to work. This might seem silly until you work on a construction site in Houston, where some guys are driving an hour to work every day (done that), and then work on a construction site in a city, where many of the workers can just bike there. (done that) This has a lot of side benefits. Workers can have access to work without being on the hook for car payments, gas, insurance, etc. This raises the net effect of the worker's wages.
These are not tract home construction jobs. I've worked with people who had years of tract home experience. They knew alot about a couple things and were terrible remodelers. When you look over a sea of identical houses in a typical suburban development it is easy to see those houses as widgets, and that is exactly how they are built, as widgets, in a factory process where one crew just does the same small part over and over every day. It is efficient, requiring only workers who can be taught one small part of the process, factory style. Remodeling by its very nature requires the constant solving of unique problems. It is a process of discovery, deliberation, compromise, improvisation, customization, customer relations and frustration management. Learning how to go about doing it doesn't just make good carpenters, it can produce good workers with valuable social and intellectual skills they can take into other areas of employment as the economy changes.
The world is going to live here anyway, so it may as well be nice.

"Satan Hates You" DVD Available Today!

don@donwoodonline.com (Don Wood) — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 10:58:00 -0400

(Hey, that's me on the lower left!)

Another one of the micro-budget movies I was a small part of for Monsterpants Movies is finally out now on DVD and available on Amazon. It is not for everyone, but I think if you don't hate it on principle, you'll probably get a kick out of it. There are some really horrifying moments, some hilarious moments, and plenty of gore...pretty much standard fare for Mr. McKenney. Was very glad to be able to work on this and met some amazing horror pros. Check it out!

This Just Occurred to Me.

don@donwoodonline.com (Don Wood) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 15:01:00 -0400

Was just listening to Terry Gross interview reporter Richard Engel on her radio show,"Fresh Air". During the interview they played a clip from an Engel report from Afghanistan in which a young soldier breaks down and shows his grief at the death of a friend. It is at 2:30 in the video version of Engel's original report, below.

As I was listening to the Sergeant apologize, it occurred to me that we often hear people apologize for becoming overcome with sadness in public, but never hear apologies from people publicly overcome by hate and anger.
I'd never noticed that before, and it seems noteworthy.

Mets Keep Calm

don@donwoodonline.com (Don Wood) — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 09:10:00 -0400

Mets Keep Calm, originally uploaded by mattmorettini.

Season days away....

Doughnuts Away!

don@donwoodonline.com (Don Wood) — Tue, 8 Mar 2011 10:32:00 -0500

SO, the drama at Chelsea Hotel finally ended and the Doughnut Plant has opened. I need to do some punch list stuff and take more photos , but here is a slideshow of the basics (if you follow my work blog you've seen these before):

And here is a slideshow of photos of the place on flikr (just realized you can do this), do NOT look if you are hungry. I did the tables the nosing on the banquette and the back bar.

Doughnut Plant’s Chelsea Hotel Location Is Held Up by ‘Drama’

don@donwoodonline.com (Don Wood) — Thu, 4 Nov 2010 18:32:00 -0400

Doughnut Plant’s Chelsea Hotel Location Is Held Up by ‘Drama’

I'm mostly posting this so I'll be sure to remember where it is. I'm designing and building the cafe tables for this place, so I have a vested interest in the story.

Video: Founder of the EFF on the History, Future of the Internet

don@donwoodonline.com (Don Wood) — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 13:36:00 -0400

I like to hear smart people talk. I don't hold their history in the Grateful Dead against them.
John Perry Barlow on the TWIT network.

Los Angeles - Las Vegas Vacation Pics.

don@donwoodonline.com (Don Wood) — Thu, 5 Aug 2010 13:11:00 -0400

Softball Pics

don@donwoodonline.com (Don Wood) — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 07:57:00 -0400

Thanks to Eric for the great pics, as usual. And for continuing to catch every single error I make on camera.
Bastard.

Lighter Notes

don@donwoodonline.com (Don Wood) — Tue, 6 Jul 2010 11:09:00 -0400

The above Very Crude Video was shot with my iphone3 while jogging in Fort Greene Park. In it, a man is playing a piano put in the park as part of the best public art project I think I've ever seen. "Play Me, I'm Yours" is the brainchild of British artist Luke Jerram. He's dropped off pianos in public parks and street corners throughout New York City. I've been biking around Brooklyn alot lately and have been really stunned by the power of this project.
My initial reaction was a completely cynical faith in the pianos bringing out the worst in people. Trashed pianos, an incessant tuneless banging of fists on keys, etc. The reality has been the complete opposite. I have seen these pianos in use many times now, and I've never heard someone who wasn't trying to play something, even if it was a young child reviewing their latest piano lesson. The vast majority of my experiences have been of average people walking by, perhaps with their friends, and stopping to reveal an amazing hidden talent.
The pianos are not perfectly tuned, by any stretch, but watching someone coax a melody out of one is edifying. It instantly draws onlookers, who are suddenly all participating in a connected human moment in the center of a torrid-busy city on what have been scorching hot days. Unexpected things happen, such as the young girl's dorky piano lesson scale studies striking her friends with awe, perhaps changing her whole perspective on the activity. And a normally invisible old man, daily needs in a plastic bag, setting that bag down, addressing the keys and becoming an entertainer, the center of activity in the park.
More, please.

July 4th and Sunday Morning Media

don@donwoodonline.com (Don Wood) — Sun, 4 Jul 2010 09:53:00 -0400

Up early and doing a morning round of the news sites, I've been struck with the fact most of them are running wounded soldier stories on the front page. This put me in the position of confronting my own jingoistic expectations.
Because I am a patriotic American and I want, when I wake up on July 4th, to read on the front pages things that make me proud to be an American and glad to be free of the British. The latter isn't a high priority for our media over here, as 98% of BBC television programming has been doing just fine in that department for years. For every "Monty Python" there are 100 "East Enders". Also, they eat fried blood for breakfast. Snog on that.

I want pro-American fluff this morning. Not even fluff, just mild propaganda. Eagles and fire trucks in bunting. Pictures of families pretending to get along at barbecues in backyards we won't mention are in foreclosure. Profiles of the Founders that sidestep the whole landed gentry slave owner thing. In fact, I'd be okay with placing friendly, professional, pepper-spray-toting guards on Noam Chomsky's door today, at least until around 5pm. (The Zinn household, sadly, may be skipped, this year and forward). That's how ripe for jingoism I am.

But the press let me down today. If anyone was wondering if patriotism had been redefined in this country, turned into a brand so it might do what brands do, serve a master, well, look at what the media believes will make us proud to be Americans.

Wounded soldiers do not make me proud. They should be proud of their service, but I'm not proud of it. Humbled by it, moved by it, yes. Not proud. And that's a shame, because if I was, I'd be in the middle of a great run, the longest war in our young history! Suck it, Orwell, you were right, and guess what, it's awesome, and fulfilling, and imbues life with meaning and you were wrong. But I'm not. Because any country can produce wounded soldiers, and most do. Hey, if looking at wounded soldiers makes you beam with national pride, pack your bags, 'cause you're gonna love the Democratic Republic of the Congo! If we were able to figure out a way to get our foreign policy done without wounding our soldiers, that would be something to crow about.
Don't get me wrong, I am proud of our military in general. I listen to a lot of public radio talk shows while in the shop, chock full of professors, authors, filmakers and the usual Liberal Elite. The most well spoken, composed guests are always young officers from our military. And I'm proud of the way the soldiers comport themselves in ridiculous positions we put them in. The sacrifices our military make are so important, they have their own holiday, a couple, actually. This isn't one of them. Yet, being patriotic in this country has been reduced, on purpose, by a small political elite, to a precious few notes, one of which is Military Worship. Because the act of bowing toward this idol is uncomfortable for the press, we don't see the honest version they do in other countries. Putting convoys of tanks and skies black with Apache helicopters would be too much, and produce angry feedback. But who can complain about stories of brave soldiers with missing limbs? Go with that. The result is flag-draped Amputee Porn. We are not a great country because we have done this to our youth, we are a great country in spite of it.

And we are a great country, and that's what I want to see this morning. I want to see things that make me proud to be an American. Selfish, I know, but true. And it should be easy! There are countless, countless things, beginning with the land itself. At least one channel should just show nothing but HD flyovers of the different geography of the country, all day. I'm proud of that. Which is odd, maybe, but true. That's a no-brainer. Another no-brainer? The world was a hair's breadth away from Nazi domination. We stopped that.
I'm proud of the social progress this country has made in recent history. Of how we don't hide behind "cultural integrity" like they do in Europe and face our problems regarding race and immigration head on and in the open. I'm proud of the good we do around the world.

I'm proud of a lot of things, and those are what I want to see. My personal propaganda wish list.

Me and a Professional Writer!

don@donwoodonline.com (Don Wood) — Tue, 8 Jun 2010 09:11:00 -0400

I suppose it is impossible to have dinner at age 43 with someone you first ate with at age 7 and not think about the trajectories of life and the decisions we make that set those compass points. One of the unconscious decisions I made very, very early on-perhaps over another meal, most likely involving Salisbury Steak and a half pint of chocolate milk-was to have the highest quality friends possible. This has always served me well, and become a central feature of my life, its importance underscored this week, when the first word I'd received in months from a member of my generally estranged family was an automated notice they had unsubscribed to this blog's RSS feed.

I didn't even know I could get those notices.

On days when it becomes clear your family has moved beyond "We're not close" into the realm where deleting unread email updates becomes unsupportable effort, reminders of the family one picks up while plying those trajectories above are welcome. This picture is such a reminder. The chances I would be standing next to Mike this year, that we would even know how to get in touch with each other, were slim enough to render this bizarre, and has required at least two or three pieces of random luck. Of course, he's a newspaper editor and columnist in Dallas now, so he's a bit easier to find, but when his family moved in 4rth grade, I was pretty sure I'd never see him again.
We've had very different lives, set very courses for ourselves, but I was amazed how easy it was to spend time together. Of course, we were still trying to get milk to spew out of each other's nose, but I think thats a sign of...youthful vigor. More importantly, we were able at this age to crack open the code of silence of our Perfect Suburban Youth and compare notes on the worlds of two 7 year-olds that perhaps made a 35+ year bond, however tenuous, inevitable.
So, here's to family portraits.

On a lighter note...Softball at McCarren

don@donwoodonline.com (Don Wood) — Mon, 7 Jun 2010 16:04:00 -0400

Crazy, crazy dust devils included...

The Sweat Cure.

don@donwoodonline.com (Don Wood) — Thu, 3 Jun 2010 22:10:00 -0400

Rope was jumped. Pull ups were done. Squats were sunk into and somehow returned from.
A large amount of sweat hung lazy and heavy between fibers of a poly/cotton blend.
Not the random physical effort of work or even the more calculated risk of effort involved in sports. The premeditated, constant effort of exercise. Purifying. Cathartic.
I'd like to say waited until the last possible day for it to do any good, but as is usually usual, it was probably the day after. Or rather, two days after. If I had started two days ago, I could have avoided yesterday. Maybe.
Yesterday was that day when it just becomes impossible to ignore the fact one is probably somewhere mid-breakdown. Half unraveled. The mental state that can really shake a person...the first 14, 15 times. But experience breeds...what, acceptance? Carelessness?
Sometimes experience just means having one more idea than you had last time, one more thing that might work.
That voice that tells you "Yep, you should probably jump some rope..."

Last Sunday's Softball Game, in Photos.

don@donwoodonline.com (Don Wood) — Wed, 19 May 2010 08:26:00 -0400

Now that I am on a Facebook hiatus, deciding where to put different things is more of a challenge. Facebook really was more of a one-stop-shop. One fantastic side effect? I now devote about an hour less time per day worrying about political crap I can't do anything about anyway, getting progressively (get it?) more frustrated at the ability of Ideology to trump simple, easily verifiable Fact.

See? It's sucking me back in....
So here are some photos of people playing softball. One of them has a clear addiction to sports gear. Down 7-3 in the middle innings, they came back with a ten run, two out rally in the 7th eventually won. Those of you who have not seen a 7 run, two out rally have not watched a lot of softball...or the Mets defense, POW!

Lesson of the Day: Childhood is Powerful.

don@donwoodonline.com (Don Wood) — Fri, 14 May 2010 15:17:00 -0400

A bizarre,random event made this morning a very emotional, very crappy morning. The kind of morning that can have one reaching for touchstones by the afternoon; simple, silly reminders of what a privilege it is to be alive and able to experience joy.

The amount of creativity on display in this video is stupefying. And it is amazing to me that the score, over 30 years later, can still pour adrenaline into my bloodstream, even as I watch legos and sandwiches act out the scenes.

Lesson of the day:childhood is powerful.

Star Wars Uncut "The Escape" from Casey Pugh on Vimeo.

Age

don@donwoodonline.com (Don Wood) — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 17:53:00 -0400

A confusion on the occasion of my 43rd birthday:
On the subway platform, waiting for the train to the Mets game, earbuds plugged in and Shuffle bringing up "O Saya", the music accompanying the opening credits chase scene of Slumdog Millionaire. And it is all I can do to keep tears from streaming down my face. Just being reminded of that sequence, and the perfection of the fit with the music and the absolute mastery of the language of cinema the whole package displayed and, and...just how much I fucking love the movies, and the escape, and how much that has meant to me since childhood.

So, the question, am I, on this birthday, becoming a weepy old man? Or enjoying the last gasp of young man's feeling, Art is My Religion?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

A Week Without Socialism

don@donwoodonline.com (Don Wood) — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 07:09:00 -0400

Dear Glenn, Sarah, etc.;
You may have read my recent post about Altar Chimps. If so, you know I'm an Idea Guy, a Solution Guy.
And have I got one for you.
I know you just had a big Tea Party for Tax Day, congrats. But now what? What can you do to grab the next news cycle?

A National Week Without Socialism!

I know, right? Why didn't anyone think of this before? For one week, all freedom loving people will wake up and go about their day without relying on Big Government and its intrusion into our lives, our families, our very souls!

4am.: Alarm goes off. Up and at em! Grab those bootstraps, it's time to get the little ones ready for work! Fourth and Fifth grade were boring and tilted left by the liberal education elite anyway. During AWWS, Billy and Sally get to throw off the burdensome yoke of child welfare laws and freely pursue their best potential at the local bucket factory.
5am : Check on Grandma and Grandpa and Grandma and Grampa. They're all sharing the kid's room. They moved in for the week. Freed of the regressive Social Security system, they're back as part of the American Family Unit. Now elderly and unable to work, they'll bond closer with Billy and Sally when the kids get back from the bucket factory tonight, knowing they are now dependent on the children's income for food. And Billy and Sally will now get a chance to really get to know them, and the intricacies of their health problems, taking over for the Nanny State's home health aids.
5:30 am: Breakfast. Sure, oatmeal is bland, but after Billy almost died from tainted sausage, it seemed like the wise thing to do.
6am: Take out the trash. Tricked you! Silly reader, there's no taking out the trash, because those sucking-from-the-public-teat garbage collectors won't be around to pick it up! Just burn it, or better yet, do what was good enough for our Founding Fathers and throw it in the front yard! Smells like freedom.
7am: (via Todd Bublitz) I'm off to walk my kids to (expensive private) school (so I don't have to use those public roads). We'll walk across private property and pay each land owner a toll as we go.

So many ideas! Wish I didn't have to go to work. If you have any ideas for the AWWS event, post 'em in the comments or send them to me and I'll add them to the post.

Remember: Freedom Isn't Free, It's Ad Supported.

Thank You, Europe.

don@donwoodonline.com (Don Wood) — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 11:21:00 -0400

This has been a weekend of humiliation, so I'd just like to thank the well dressed European gentlemen and ladies who were eating where I was eating late last night for showing me that as low as I was at that point, after a frenzied day of physical work, I still smelled better than professionals from The Continent.

Henry on the Mend

don@donwoodonline.com (Don Wood) — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 10:59:00 -0400

The above picture would be sad, if it we hadn't just seen him with his belly stitched up a few short weeks ago. It is all perspective, I guess. He whimpers, still, but is alert (for someone with a pain patch and pills) and in fairly good spirits. On Sunday the bandage will come off and I believe........the cone will go on. And that is sad.

How to Get on People's Bad Side

don@donwoodonline.com (Don Wood) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:38:00 -0500

"Go to two."

(NOTE: This was originally titled "How to Suck At Your Job: Indie Film 2nd AD", but in all honesty, I do not know enough to know if this or that member of the production staff is, on whole, doing a bad job. All I can know for sure is how they have done their job as it pertains to me. So, I think things were mishandled, or not handled. I still believe all that, but it is one thing for me to believe it, another for me to splash it as the title of a piece that might come up in a google search for information on the movie. That was probably uncalled for on my part as my problems were not at all personal, just job performance related.)

So as you know if you are reading this, I am currently filming "Hypothermia", a microbudget monster picture (pronounced correctly only as pick'-shah and only if holding a cigar) that takes place on the lake ice of upstate NY. This will be the fifth talkie I've made with Monsterpants, the fourth with Glass Eye Pix and the first with Dark Sky. Each new endeavor has had perhaps in the ballpark of twice the previous budget. I don't know the real numbers, but I know that "Canniballistic" cost about 8-10 grand on McKenney's credit cards and it is public knowledge that the current production is classified by the Screen Actors Guild as an "ultra low budget" affair, which means a cap of around ~~$270,000~~ $200,000. What has become clear is that with more money comes more folks who pay themselves more than you to tell you why you can't afford things. I understand that for many if not most of you, hearing a 42 year old man having this epiphany about middle management is akin to watching him find out about Santa Claus, but bear with me, it'll be more fun in a second when I start burning bridges...

When this production started I recieved a call from James McKenney asking me to be sure and return all production calls asap, as we were now working with pros who mistrusted our ragtag, somebody-get-the-grill-lit-so-it's-hot-by-lunch-and-get-Don's-dog-out-of-the-shot style of making movies and we really needed to step up out game and prove we could play on this next-if incrementally so-level. Turns out he needent have worried, as I was never called, or emailed, until a week before shooting began when I sent out an email cc'ing anyone I had an address for, asking about small details such as "Am I still in the cast?","Where exactly is it shooting?","Where am I staying?" and "How do I get there?"
But that is just me, and I am an actor on this job, and if actors are not treated with disdain, something is wrong. I expected to have the Production Assistant told to drop of a box before he drops me off. I mean, actors, we've earned that disdain over a period of centuries. Actual tens of hundreds of years of vanity, hypochondria and sloth.
Such is not the case for the crew. They work for a living. At jobs that cannot be done with a phone and a laptop. There are quite a few on this film, double what we have ever had. I was impressed by that, by what money had brought, only later would I realize the laptop and phone folks had multiplied by five. These crew are doing a great job, often in actual blizzard conditions. They have made it possible to shoot five, seven pages a day, which may mean something to some of you. I include in this group the PAs, a group that can encompass both seemingly masochistic uberworkers and mouth breathing producer's relatives. This shoot has the former.
Which is why when the conductor on the train I am travelling toward the shoot on announced snow would cause a three hour delay in our travel, I emailed the phone and laptop crowd. Not because I was concerned about making it to the set on time-after all, they put me on a 7am train for a scene that will probably start shooting about midnight- but because even an actor can dig down deep enough to find some tiny modicum of respect for the poor PA who would be sitting at the train station in Amsterdam,NY at the scheduled train arrival time, waiting for both a train that was not coming and the terse "Where the hell are you?!" over their radio that absolutely was coming.
The ending writes itself, of course. Fifteen minutes after my train was supposed to arrive I recieved a nervous call from the sweetest of the PAs wondering, umm, you know, um, just making sure you,um, got on the train okay and um, that it left and everything, you know, cause, um, I'm here at the station.....