For the love of GOD...

C'mon, how is this even happening in our day and age? Please, can someone tell me? WHere have all the good guys gone??? Batman, where are you??

Ranty...

So, on my way to work today, I got massively rear-ended as I was stopped with my turn signal on. When I finally turned onto the street (the main road right up to where I work), the Purple Saturn that rear-ended me sped away so fast that even turning around, I couldn't catch him. I can't begin to talk about how angry I was that this person didn't even stop to see if I was okay. Upon further review, it appeared that my rear fender was cracked, but for the most part, my triumphant Ford Escort Wagon, nicknamed Battlestar Tealactica, went unscathed. I, unfortunately did not get a license plate and in my shock, I thought about the other person's motivation for running and if I had ever been in a similar situation. I remember being in a similar fender-bender, but usually my guilt and concern for the other person's well being forced me to pull along side the other car.

Why is everyone getting so crazy lately??

GM is on the verge of going bankrupt, Fox News is telling the most obscene lies, the Earth's magnetic fieldsare changing fast, JAY-Z an American Hip-hop artist, rocked out Glastonbury, simultaneously mocking Oasis for their snide comments, there's talk that Heath Ledger could be nominated for an Oscar, the world's best athletes are about converge in one of the most polluted cities in the world for the Olympic games, Monsoons, Cyclones, tornadoes, and Earthquakes are killing thousands, most of the ice at the north poll is gone, and on and on...

WTF?????????

And Here, ...we, ...Go!

Oh my GOD!! Is there anyone else out there who just can't wait for "The Dark Knight" to come out on July 18th??? Do you become paralyzed and find yourself transfixed on your television or local movie screen when the trailer comes on, hairs on the back of your neck standing straight up??? I cannot wait for this film to come out. Reading an article on Wired online did help me a bit, allowing me to thrust my emotions into tight sentences and filming factoids concerning Christopher Nolan's latest production. Check it out here. Here's an exceprt:

Nolan's use of Imax is the natural fulfillment of an experiment he launched with Batman Begins in 2005. That film depicted Batman's dogged, bruising rise from angry rich kid to driven crime fighter, and it hinted at the consequences of embracing one's inner demon, even in the service of good. Begins ended with a warning: Batman has escalated the war. His presence ensures the rise of equally quixotic, equally obsessed adversaries. One of these leaves a calling card at murder scenes: a joker. Batman promises the police he'll look into it. In The Dark Knight, he does, and it looks right back at him, with the leering, paint-smeared face of the late Heath Ledger. Eight stories tall. Cruel reality mashed up with the comic-book carnivalesque — unvarnished, without the comforting buffer of f/x. In an Imax theater, your eyes can't wander off Nolan's enveloping canvas and can't easily dismiss what they're seeing as trickery. Maybe that's the most special effect of all.

Let's just start with Christopher Nolan. There isn't a bad movie this guy has made.

1998 Following 1st feature length film in black and white. Nothing shy of brilliant for a first film and for the budget it had. Everything you could want in an independent first film.

2000 Memento If you haven't seen this movie, it's one that's carved a place out for itself in film history. Go rent it and see why!

2002 Insomnia An American remake five years after the Norwegian original that is currently a Criterion collection film was released. Very slow and restless, perfectly matched for the story that unfolds onscreen. Not amazing, but a good character study and a film that grows on you with each viewing.

2005 Batman Begins A darker, broodier, redo of the 1989 Blockbuster that launched the movie franchise. This film completely exceeded my expectations and notions of a new Batman film being "too soon." If I had a dollar for every time I've watched this movie.

2006 The Prestige Not his best film, but not a bad film either. Beautifully shot and well acted for the most part with a cameo by David Bowie, the casting and acting was not up to previous Nolan standards, but the story was fascinating.

2008 Batman: The Dark Knight And here we are, full circle. Christian Bale, Michael Cane, Gary Oldman, the late Heath Ledger (being creepy on so many levels), Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, and a last minute sub for Katie Holmes with Maggie Gyllehnall. Looks to be spectacular!

I also have never had the pleasure of watching a movie in an IMAX theatre before. I think after reading the article above, I will finally pop my IMAX cherry. Expect to find me in a dark, air-conditioned, IMAX theatre the weekend of the 17th watching what I'm sure will blow Blockbusters for the last 10 years out of the water.

01 Lord of the Rings - Fellowship of the Ring (exception)
02 Spiderman - (blew)
03 Lord of the Rings - Return of the King (exception)
04 Shrek 2 (Give me a fucking break!)
05 Star Wars episode 3 (I think I just threw up in my mouth a bit)
06 Pirates of the Caribbean (Shoot me already)
07 Spiderman 3 (puke) Transformers (Die Michael Bay) Pirates of the Caribbean again (the shittiest piece of shit)
08 Iron Man (not bad) Indiana Jones (Holy Loser Auteurs club Batman!!)

After the horrible blockbuster summer of 2007, can we finally have some intelligent panache from a filmmaker that cares about shunning digital effects and going for the genuine article when it comes to filmmaking? I think we can. I think Chris Nolan is going to bring it home. Rolling Stone's review here.



So Bring it on Chris. Bring it on. We're ready.

The Sydney Film Festival and Scott...

Just a quick note here about my buddy Scott Henderson and the Sydney film fest. It has of course come to a close as of June 22, but I did want to put a link here for his incredibly funny video podcasts that he's done with some collegues down there in wintery Sydney as well as link to an article Scott asked me to write for the website about a movie called "Respect Yourself: The History of Stax Records." I've written under the pseydonym William Francis and for those who know where this homage is derived from, then count yourself as one of the special ones. Enjoy!!!

“I Had a Dream I Went to Bonnaroo.” –B. Shea

That is indeed what it felt like, …a dream. We were only on holiday for a week, but in that week, we traveled into the heart of America’s vast fields of nothingness to set up camp and live detached and self-contained away from our jobs, families and most importantly stress for four days. Of course the total trip was for a week and we found that our time at Bonnaroo was mostly bookended by copious amounts of time in our very fashionable and spacey Toyota Sienna. It was a van built for 8, but we were just 5 with a shit load of bags and gear.

We set off out of Austin at around 7am and instead of having us stop every five minutes to take pee breaks, I thought it would be a good idea to maximize our drive time by urinating in empty bottles along the way.

Mike, who was having his first go at the realm of traveling to a camping style festival, did not approve and was angered by my urinating in a bottle. He was afraid that I would somehow not manage to urinate entirely in the bottle and spray his pillow.

I told him to shut up and that he was being a baby.

Anyway, that’s us there on the road. Don’t worry. I got Mike who was driving at the time to look back at me last.

Our first stop was Memphis, TN, home of Stax Records, Beale Street, Graceland, and of course, my father’s brother, Neil Shea. My brother and I dropped the boys off downtown at the motel they booked in advance and proceeded to travel deep into the suburbs of Shelby County to spend the night with our Aunt and Uncle whom we had not seen in some time. We had BBQ dinner at a place called Corky’s, went back home, watched the Celtics play the Lakers and drank some Scotch that I had purchased for my Uncle as a gift for his 70th birthday.

It was nice and relaxing and in the morning, I felt rejuvenated, refreshed and ready to push on to Nashville for stop number two before getting to Bonnaroo. Unfortunately, Matt, Mike, and Travis decided to take it to the house the previous night and with the exception of Matt all looked like hammered shit. Travis apparently didn’t even get out of bed until like 10 minutes before I arrived back at the motel to pick them up. “Whoa guys! Easy! We’re not even at Bonnaroo yet. Geez.” This is right after I told Travis he looked like hammered shit. It took him about five whole seconds to muster up the energy he somehow found in his aged bones to give me this sign that he heard me from the back seat. At least he's got his priorities straight. Most of the time when I partied hard AND smoked vast amounts of cancer sticks, it usually left my mouth feeling like an ashtray the next morning, but I guess he "needs" it. **Don't forget about the "cough," that I was being accused of spreading.**

We continued on to Nashville with our regular individual regimens. I drove, cause I LIKE IT, Travis read his new Hunter S. Thompson book about the Hells Angels aloud to Matt, but had to pass it over to Matt to read because he kept having coughing fits. *These would later be blamed on me because I had some massive coughing fits on the last day of the festival. No one remembers before because of how massive my fits were. But hey, it was dusty; I had quit smoking and was on the road with four other serious smokers. Bryan my brother played Pac Man on his new phone and Mike slept. I wouldn’t pee in another bottle till later the next day.

Nashville was boring. The motel that my brother and I sort of got suckered into splitting/paying for, and thusly staying in with Travis and Mike couldn’t have been in a worse section of town. Bryan and I once again deviated from the group to visit our Uncle’s daughter, our cousin, Kristen who lived about 15 minutes away from the motel. It was good to see her. We went out for Sushi, talked about what I consider the myth of A.D.D. or A.D.H.D., Global Warming, and why my Uncle seems to take Rush Limbaugh as gospel. It was good hanging out with Kristen and her new husband Claiborne who I’ve really come to respect and admire. He made mention of this mythological cousin of his named Oceana who was absolutely beautiful and potentially single. I was asking why she wasn’t at dinner with us. It’s always been that way with this state and I. Tennessee and my family that lives there always seem to know some beautiful ladies that could be a potential good match for me, but because my stay in Tennessee is always so brief, it never works out. I'd have to love 'em and leave 'em and I'm just not sure I'm down with that. They would have me just move there, but, I don’t think it’s for me.

ANYWHO, sorry to get off track there. I got back to the motel much later than I wanted to after procuring provisions from the local grocery store and went to sleep ultra fast. Unfortunately, my coughing fits began that night and I kept people up. We left Nashville at like 7 in the morning to get a good camping spot. This would be the start of things to come in the early rise department of sleep. Matt decided that night to spend the evening and the subsequent late night hours with his future fiancé, Shannon. He also decided that he would just leave when he wanted to the next day and meet us at the camp sight, somehow. At first people were sort of upset with his last minute game-plan alteration. Not with the fact he was spending time with his future fiancee whom he would very soon be married to for the rest of his life (early November), but rather the timing with which he decided to notify us, but we somehow all managed to get past it, wish him the best and when our paths did cross at Bonnarro, we hung.

The road into the Bonnaroo campground was long and so was the traffic. There were several points where we stopped our car, put in neutral and pushed it down the road.

Everyone seemed to be adopting this philosophy and who could blame him or her. With gas prices hovering around the 4-dollar mark, turning the car off seemed to be the best idea for a lot of people.

We met up with Brian Scipione, my other roommate in Nashville and drove down to Bonnaroo wingman-style that morning so that we could park next to each other and maximize our camping space. When we finally got into the camping area with our car, we started unloading and started building our “area.” We never really named it, but we brought so many chairs, that our neighbors, both to the left and right came and joined us under our pop up tent/pavilion thing for most of the four days and just like that we had ourselves an intricate little community.

The people to left, we called the “The Peaches” because they were from Atlanta, GA. Just out of high school and having the summer of their lives, Kate, Taylor, Rebecca, and Tom had decided to travel to Bonnaroo after graduating from high school. It was interesting getting to interact with someone in a place in their lives that we occupied not too long ago. I mostly kept my mouth shut, except for questions I would ask about what their hobbies were and stuff. I watched as everyone else tried to depart some sort of wisdom they had obtained somewhere in the last ten years of their lives. The neighbors to the right we called, “The Js.”
Not because they had a bunch of Marijuana cigarettes, but because their names were Josh and Jessica and it was thought we could just refer to them both as ‘J.’ They were from Green Bay, WI and made a nice addition to our little community.

The festival in general was very welcoming with not nearly as many rules as Coachella had last year. I mean, we could bring booze into the campsite; we could go back and forth to the festival grounds as much as we wanted, even though it was far away. The searching at the gate was lax most of the time and everyone around you just settled for having a good time and for the most part, they were responsible enough to keep it safe and respectable.Inside the festival grounds, entitled “Centeroo,” there was a plethora of booths selling everything from food, to incense, to clothing, to shoes and even booths that were trying to sell opinions about the war, famine, and poverty. There was a booth for almost everything and for the first time in Bonnaroo history, there was a post office made of clay where you could mail items to the outside world.

There was the comedy tent where I saw some funny laughy type stuff and of course the Bonnaroo cinema tent, both of which were air-conditioned. The latter housed screenings of films as late at 4 or 5 am in some cases showing titles ranging from Daft Punk’s documentary “Electroma,” to the new Hunter S. Thomson doc called “Gonzo,” and of course the late night film noir screenings included titles like “The Maltese Falcon” and “Sunset Boulevard.” Sadly, I only went there to watch the Celtics and the Lakers play as both games 4 and 5 were shown.
There were many Boston fans and they were screaming after game four all night, but not so much after game 5, but we all know how that would end, wouldn’t we?

Some of the acts I got to see were: Superdrag, MGMT, Battles, The Sword who rocked the house, Vampire Weekend and a little of Lez Zeppelin who also rocked pretty hard and could be heard throughout the park. Thursday night is also the night where I went to the comedy tent to watch Reggie Watts who is fucking hilarious and Zach Galifianakis, who to me seemed a little overrated and whose set seemed sedated at best.

On Friday, I managed to see the Drive-By Truckers, Minus the Bear and The Swell Season. The latter is a group comprised of to the two lovely individuals from the movie “Once” that won the Academy Award for best original song “Falling Slowly.” Glen Hansard’s powerful voice and very weathered guitar were a high point of the afternoon and his rich, Irish voice carried far across the park bringing listeners from far away who were wondering about this Irish musician wailing at the top of his lungs. He said something I’d never forget too. He talked about obstacles in life and how frustrating they can be sometimes. He said that if you ever come up against an obstacle in life that you can’t get around and you’ve spent a lot of time and energy trying to get around this wall, as he called it, turn around put it at your back and travel all the way around the world so that eventually you get the other side of that wall. Marketa Irglova came out with the band and they all played amazing music for the next hour and a half. The crowd cheered and begged for an encore and they got it too. This would be one of the treasures of Bonnaroo. One I got to share with my friend Mike Byers. I went on to watch M.I.A., the Sri Lankan, west Londoner that now resides in Brooklyn. Her set was energetic, but objectively speaking, she’s just rapping to a record, so I didn’t really give her points for creativity and didn’t really watch the whole thing. Later on, my friends and I met up at the main stage to see Chris Rock who couldn’t have been funnier. All us guys were laughing so hard, we ran into coughing fits that left us hunched over, trying to recover our breath. I stayed to watch Metallica after Rock just because I never saw them growing up, but I was never a fan during my adolecesense. It was okay. They apparently played the hits and my roommates seemed to enjoy it. I thought it was funny though that these guys who are so much older now, with wedding rings on and kids were trying to rock out like they did almost 17 years ago on the stage in front of me. They seemed a little in genuine to me and that might not be due to lack of trying, but rather to the fact they are outdated, or the fact that I just really don’t fancy Metallica. I called it a night after that. I meant to go back to the tent, regroup and refresh, but when I sat down, not only did I almost fall asleep, but also it started to rain, heavily. I was a prisoner under the pavilion we’d set up and someone had lowered it really close to the ground so that you had to bend over to get underneath it. So there I was with Matt, my brother, and the Js. Travis and Brian were out at the festival grounds most likely getting drenched. For fear of our tent flooding, I headed for the van and slept the night in back.

By Saturday morning, it was clear and sunny again. It was like it never rained and if it wasn’t for the patchy cloud cover in the morning, you’d never see any sign that it did. I decided to get a jump on things and head for the $7.00 showers because Saturday was going to be the biggest of all days as far as time spent in the sun, acts to be seen, and other things to be done. I needed to be mentally and physically prepared. I headed out around 3:15pm to catch the end of Against Me!’s set and headed over to the Which stage to get a good spot for Gogol Bordello who couldn’t have put on a better set to date. The formula was similar to other shows with a few notable differences. It was good gypsy dance rock and I loved every minute of it. Matt Reeb, who with my brother came out there with me headed right for the mosh pit and grabbed that concert by its horns. I tried to follow, but the people were compressed and Matt seemed to have something to prove. He last for about half the set and I kept eyes on him until I saw him make a B-line for the nearest crowd exit. I supposed something was wrong, but was trapped by people all around me, not to mention being lulled closer by Gogol’s siren songs for the finale. I would go on to see Ben Folds, Iron & Wine and then over to Jack Johnson where I met Travis and Mike to prepare for Pearl Jam’s evening set. Mike still seemed to loath Jack Johnson and all the people around us that were singing to his Hawaiian, relaxed, bouncy, love songs, but Travis seemed to enjoy it and even remarked that he thought he was good. I’ve always sort of liked Jack Johnson, but to be totally honest, I was there for the Pearl Jam push. Those few seconds when the crowds would open up after Jack Johnson and Travis and would make our way up to the front for Pearl Jam.

Then something happened. Matt called Travis trying to find the keys to the van. We had decided that someone holding on to the keys every day was unfair to any one of us that wanted to go back to the van to regroup so I decided Saturday that the keys should be stashed somewhere nearby for the day. Travis hid them and then text us the location. Matt and my brother couldn’t find them to save their lives and it seemed that one of us (Mike, Travis or myself) were going to have to leave and go back to help out because as it turned out, both my brother Bryan and Matt were in a darker place. It was frustrating because Jack Johnson had already played the majority of his set and Ed Ved had just come out to do a song with him too. Finally, I called them back and verbally whipped them both into finding the keys and sure enough, after like twenty minutes of looking, they found them. Turns out they were just looking in the wrong place. Geniuses. So Mike hung back and Travis and I pushed to the front. We got as close as we possibly could (turns out there was a pit area fenced off that we knew nothing about, but people were waiting three hours to get into). And then, right at 10:15, it happened. Pearl Jam took the stage and played the most amazing, set of rarities and hits alike. Ed Ved had his words to say about the war, gas, and voting, but other than that, it was rock, rock, and more rock. I’m ashamed at myself for not bringing my camera and not getting this act on 1s and 0s. I was worried about rain and wanted to travel light that day. It was incrEdible in EvEry way PEarl Jam was ExpEctEd to be in my mind. They closed the show with “All Along the Watchtower,” and to be honest, I just looked at Travis in amazement. I was speechless and could only vocalize my enthusiasm and excitement in shrills towards the heavens. I would later lose my voice. It was the closest and best Pearl Jam concert I had ever seen and Bonnaroo was the main reason for both of those achievements getting accomplished. I will never forget Mike McCreedy wailing on his guitar while he had it suspended behind him facing back stage, playing with his eyes closed. I will never forget how badass Matt Cameron was/is and how he has been the best addition to Pearl Jam courtesy of Soundgarden. His timing and improvisation are just awe inspiring. Ed Ved, Jeff and Stone are the center three though and together reflected what my heart felt throughout their entire THREE HOUR SET. I decided that after that show, I would always try to spend VIP prices to get the best seats for Pearl Jam concerts because I realized that I would go to every Pearl Jam show I could for the rest of my life.

Travis, Mike and I after comparing awesomeness about the concert we just witnessed went back to the mushroom fountain where Chromeo was going on via Sigur Ros who has just started their two-hour set on another stage. I love Sigur Ros, but one thing is certain for that band; they have to play in a conservatory or a concert hall, otherwise the silence in their music just gets raped by the sound of loud annoying people and consumerism and in this case, the sound of other acts in the park. Chromeo was cool, but again my mind was still hard stuck on Pearl Jam. We met up with Brian Scipione and his cool friend, our cool friend Lane who was with us from Seattle. Then we all headed back to the scene of Pearl Jam’s musical ass-whipping to prepare for Kanye “Mutherfucking” West.

I’m won’t lie here, he didn’t come on till 4:30am which pissed A LOT of people off considering he was scheduled to go on at 2:15am. My friends and I who were waiting to see this “production” decided against leaving to see some other acts that we could hear across the park and desperately wanted to experience. They pushed back the time until finally making us wait for about an hour. Chants of “Fuck Kanye” and audible “Boos” could be heard all around. We just waited. Finally, the lights went out and he came on and to Kanye’s credit, what unfolded before our eyes was intense to say the least.
An explosion of lights, sound and a Broadway style production unfolded bEforE us. For the seven our eight songs he played, we were in a trance and the tunes were awesome. Then we noticed the sun coming up and two songs later, it was over. That was it. Some people chose to take the anger and dissatisfaction out on Kanye, cursing his name, others were too tired to say or think anything. I mean, after all, it was about 6:30 in the morning. I chose to blame Bonnaroo and considered that somewhere along the way, the people responsible for putting this whole festival on, in conjunction with Kanye’s Ego, did not take into account the time and energy and precise planning necessary to execute a show of this magnitude. And it turns out I was right. Kanye blogs here on June 24th about the fiasco. Finally the truth comes out. Anyway, we got back to the campgrounds, Mike went to sleep in car, Travis and stayed up briefly and then Travis crashed. I opted to stay up simply because the mornings at these festivals were always the prettiest.

Sunday was brief and used as a day to relax and not go out of our ways to tire ourselves any more than necessary. I caught Death Cab for Cutie and then headed over to the cinema to watch game 5 of the Celtics and Lakers, which was not good.

All and all, Bonnaroo presented us boys with memories that would last a lifetime. Mainly, it felt like an exercise in friendship. It felt like I was forced to “check in” with my close friends whom I’ve know for over 10 years now, some, in the case of Mike Byers, I’ve known since I was five. Oddly enough, it was him I wanted to kill the most. Just kidding, it never came to that on the trip. Everyone knew when our respective buttons were getting pushed too much and when it was time to retire to our “safe” corners. My brother who was annihilated the last night of Bonnaroo had a good time and I’m glad I was with him on his first festival stint. In the end, I think we all came out a little better people, if not as friends, then as individuals.

Things are starting to heat up

HaHa, you thought I meant the weather, but no. Obviously Obama is the first democratically elected African American to lead the party in the history of the United States, but what you may not have witnessed, was the amazing fist bump shared by Michelle Obama and her man before he spoke to a overwhelmingly elated crowd in St. Paul, MN. The fist bump originating with Bob Marley back in the day is a sign of respect and now, I think, love and you can rest assured it was heard around the world.

It’s hot outside. This week started Austin’s trip into the triple digits for our daytime high temps. Maybe we should switch over to the ol’ Celsius rating. After all, 38 degrees sounds a lot nicer and not nearly as overwhelming as 100 degrees. Thank GOD for air conditioning, which as I’ve been pulled nicely into my 30s, I’ve made sure to take total advantage of relaxing my 30 year old bones in at all times. I try to spend as much time as possible in doors. If and when I do decide to take advantage of being outside, you pretty much guarantee there will be a cold body of water nearby to counteract the effect of the suns radiation on my skin.

Speaking of being 30, …well, I finally turned it.

Bringing up the rear of our little group of friends here in Austin has its perks, but finally the fingers are all pointed at me in jest calling me the old man. Nevertheless, I never pass up an opportunity to turn the fingers around and remind the pointers that they’re just six months closer to being 31. It makes me feel good.

In all honesty, turning 30 feels just like turning 29, or 28 for that matter. I have to assume that turning 31 will be the true test. They call it “the sneak-up” age. As you relax into your 30s feeling like nothing’s changed at all, BOOM, you’re 31, a definite marker in your 30s, and with that your whole mental preparation goes out the window. But whatevs, I’m going with it.

That's me there flying a kite in the really big and beautiful park behind our house.

For my actual 30th birthday (I understand now that everyone celebrates their birthday as a week, especially if your birthday falls on a weekday), my friends and family went out to Mars restaurant on South Congress for great food and indelibly, memorable wine. I asked my mother to join me the Sunday evening before my Tuesday dinner because I got a message from her on my voice mail earlier in the day while I was at work that sounded morose. She made mention of how she was driving down from her weekend retreat and that she was sick as a dog, and that she was driving through Austin and wanted to meet up with me before my 30th birthday. As she got around to the last part of the message, I could hear starting to break down into tears and, like in perfect Chris Shea fashion, I freaked out. I’ve never been able to deal with the women in my life crying. It paralyzes me into inaction and I can find no sympathy in my heart as my logical/rational mind takes over. So I called her and told her to come to dinner with me as Bryan, my brother was already planning on coming up as well. She seemed to be more disturbed at my turning 30 than I could ever hope to be, so OF COURSE she should come to dinner. It was a good time with great food and wine shared by everyone. I honestly couldn’t have asked for it to be more perfect.

I went over to the restaurant I will soon be the bar manager of to have a few sips of Jameson 12yr Irish whiskey after Mom had left to return to San Antonio and the drinking progressed into the evening.

I don’t think I had been that intoxicated since I was 20, but fuck it, it’d been long enough, it will probably never happen again. The evening was great, except for the Spurs losing to the Lakers and I will never forget the year I turned 30. How could I?

Oh, here's me discovering a new species of party inside an atom. No matter what state of mind I'm in, there's always time for science!!!

Did I mention that Travis and my friend Adriene Mishler got together and threw me a surprise party in my backyard? YEAH! So many face were there to smile and there were other’s that weren’t, one’s that have moved on to other states in the US. I had just gotten back from playing sloshball. Essentially, sloshball is kickball, but there is a keg on third base and when you get to third base, you cannot leave to go home until you’ve drank en entire beer from the keg. Yeah, so you can see where the sloshing comes into play. There are other rules, special to the game (for instance, one handed catches mean an automatic drink and out for the kicker), but for the most part it’s hardcore athleticism meets hardcore drinking. Anyway, I had played TWO games before getting home Sunday evening to see everyone in my backyard yelling surprise at me. I couldn’t believe it. I sort of knew it was going to happen, but still genuinely surprised. I may have even had a little sob to myself somewhere.

Suffice it to say, I really didn’t drink too much more that evening as we sat next to the radio and listened to the Spurs on the radio beat the Lakers. The birthday celebration carried on through the week, but only with boring things that older people do, like watch movies and see friends. For the most part, it was enjoyable and memorable.

As the work week presses on, my friends and I, including my brother or more than likely preparing, both mentally and physically for our road trip to Manchester, Tennessee, where we will all be attending the Bonnaroo Art and Music festival for four days.

This involves, renting a big, but green van to carry us to Memphis for one night, then onto Nashville for an evening, then onto Manchester with our camping gear in hand four days of music and fun. It has been sort of testy lately to be honest with several friends trying to exert control over the planning of this festival. We have a few newbies to the festival circuit like my brother and my friend Mike. They don’t know what to expect, but I’ve assured them both that they will have a grand time, if they can just relax and flow into it.

Other than that, there’s nothing too new to report. I was offered salary the other day to become the bar manager of Opal Divine’s, an Austin-central restaurant that was established in 2000. I am simultaneously thrilled to be making good money again, but not-so-thrilled that my time and energy will be gobbled up primarily by this job with not so much time to play in the film and theatre world. We’ll see how it goes. I’ll keep you posted.

On the other side of the world, in a hemisphere, far, far away, my buddy Scott Henderson was made curator, more or less, of the Sydney Film Festival website in Sydney, Australia. I believe the red carpet, opening night gala was just the other day, or two. I keep forgetting, that in Australia, it’s already the next day there. We chat from time to time online where I ask him what the future is like and he tells me how he wishes he could come back to the past where I’m living. It’s all pretty funny. Anyway, he asked me to write a 1,000-word article about a movie that’s playing there on a panel of other American films. The film called, Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story shows on the 21st of June and I will make sure to link my article as soon as he posts it. There are some podcasts he’s doing also for the website and those can be easily seen here. Watch them, because they're amazing and funny.

On a final note, amidst all the arguing and control-clutching that’s been going on about our trip to Bonnaroo, a relaxing breathe of fresh air came into our back yard yesterday afternoon in the form of a parliament of owls.

I think they might have been elf owls and I believe it was a whole family because, well, look at the pics, some looked very mature and grown and others looked very baby-like and super cute. Either way, I considered it a good omen and suggested to my friends who were witnessing the appearance of each of these owls as we spotted them, that their arrival was a symbol that meant the trip we were about to share would be as amazing as the existence of the creatures in our tree. I don’t know about anyone else, but whenever I see an owl, I sort of become paralyzed by the great respect I have for them and they stare at you with their big binocular-visioned eyes. It’s a thrilling feeling when you share the gaze of such a glorious animal. I have thought that owls always symbolize wisdom as well, an appropriate creature to visit me right after I turn 30. It felt good.

Oh yeah, don't want to jinx it, but I finally quit smoking too. Take that 30!

The Future is Now

If you google the above phrase, "The Future is Now," and press enter, the first entry you will most certainly come across is a link to an article written by William Greider for The Nation, on June 8th, 2006. Before you ask, yes, The Nation is a left-leaning paper, but keep in mind that it IS the oldest published weekly magazine in the United States and it’s mission statement is as follows:

According to The Nation's founding prospectus of 1865, "The Nation will not be the organ of any party, sect, or body. It will, on the contrary, make an earnest effort to bring to the discussion of political and social questions a really critical spirit, and to wage war upon the vices of violence, exaggeration and misrepresentation by which so much of the political writing of the day is marred."

In the article, Mr. Greider, a prominent political journalist and author with more than 35 years experience, goes on to talk not only about the necessity of change in our economy, but how to untangle the current mess our country has stagnated under for the last 8 years, if not the last 27 years when Ronald Regan took office. To be totally honest, I googled “The Future is Now,” because I was playing around with the name for a title to this very ambitious and lengthy blog entry. I would seriously suggest that everyone who takes the time to read this blog, stops, and reads Mr. Greider’s article from beginning to end, which gives a detailed account of our economy, it’s history, and a possible shift for the future leaders to initiate.

Of course, future leaders are exactly why this blog entry comes to me today. As our country propels itself forward to November 4th, when we will very certainly elect a new Presidential leader, one has to absorb various slogans, policies, promises, commercials, debates and the like. As John McCain sits on cruise control to November, a war of words and promises is being waged inside the Democratic Party as Barack Obama, the Junior Senator from Illinois competes with the Junior Senator from New York, Hillary Clinton, for what is essentially history in the making. It would seem for the moment, that Barack Obama has garnered a lead in the contest for the Democratic Presidential Nomination. His charisma and confidence are starting to lay roots as witnessed by myself and friends at a rally on the steps of the Texas state Capitol building last Friday evening. Now, for the first time in a while, Texas and Ohio will have a big say in who continues on to the final political joust when our primary election occurs on March 4th. For Obama, it would seal the deal, pushing him forward to spar with McCain. For Clinton, it’s precisely what she needs to jump-start her campaign and get her back into this race. If she loses Ohio and Texas, she will more than likely withdraw as the superdelegates follow the momentum on the scale to Obama’s corner. My largest concerns come from the fact that the Democrats appear divided in a time where, if they are looking to fill the oval office, they need to stand united, but I suppose this HAS to happen, we HAVE to choose one candidate. Never mind that Clinton, Obama, and Edwards ran almost similar campaigns. Never mind that during the debate last Thursday night, on the campus of the University of Texas, they debated their almost-identical health plans with great vigor. In a time like this, how can one actually decide which candidate to vote for? How can one distinguish two people running under almost identical banners? This is a great question and for me it was answered last Friday night when I watched and listened with great interest and anticipation to the discourse presented by Barack Obama. My feelings of support and adoration started the first time I heard him speak at the Democratic National Convention in 2004 in support of John Kerry. The passion and truth that emanated from his person on my television sparked an involuntary reaction in me to cease and dissist everything I was doing at that moment to watch.



I hung onto every word that came out of his mouth and sat in amazement of how eloquent this politician sounded. It wakes up that intellectual part of you that feels as if it’s been asleep for so long and instantly recalls all the really wonderful and amazing people that have influenced your life and made an impact, etched in stone. It was that feeling that carried me all the way to today and will most certainly carry me to the polls to vote for him.

Now sure, you can start up the argument that words from politicians can be hollow and that actions indeed speak louder than, and we’ve certainly had our fair share of empty promises in the past. OBVIOUSLY, they’re trying to get elected and so there’s a bit of grandstanding, kissing babies, and making damn well certain they look and sound squeaky clean to the hearts and minds of the American public, but you have to look past that. You have to look past the cameras, the lights, the speeches and the media. This man presents himself in a light that I have never witnessed during my lifetime and only heard about in books and films, that told stories of a man that lived when my parents were my age. John F. Kennedy was young, ambitious, and he had a lot of ideas about how to fix what was wrong with the country. Now if you’re reading this and are naïve enough to think there’s nothing wrong with this country and that it’s perfectly fine the way it is, you can stop reading now. I’ll get back to you when Armageddon happens and make sure to shake your hand for doing nothing to change our course when we still had a chance. Barack Obama, like JFK has slowly moved closer and closer to becoming an icon of American hopes and aspirations. He is the embodiment of the American Dream, coming from nothing, working hard throughout his life, and achieving greatness; and he’s YOUNG. That’s right, if elected, Obama would be the third youngest President elected to office and something about that really excites me. His biggest critics will argue that he lacks experience in almost every arena of government. Well, to that I’d say, when did 20 years of public service get equated to “not enough experience?” Senator Obama made an amusing anecdote at the rally last Friday about how it seems everyone who thinks he lacks the necessary experience suggests he should wait until he’s older, until he looks and sounds more like the politicians who are currently occupying the offices of the executive branch today. They say that then, and only then he’ll sound more like them, look more like them, and more than likely, do his part to maintain the status quo. HELLO, this is why I’m all in favor of getting him in there right now before he becomes entangled and tied down by the lies perpetrated by the very shady bureaucracy that is our current administration. It is precisely why I believe Hillary Clinton is the wrong person for the job. She has been wrapped up in politics ever since the day her husband became Governor of Arkansas in 1979. Don’t get me wrong, I like her and being in politics for so long definitely lends her to experience, but it is that longevity in the political arena that I think would lead her to make decisions similar to the ones we’ve seen during the last eight years. Experience, as everyone seems to define in their heads, may not be the best deciding factor for choosing the best candidate. Besides, a long time ago, I made a prediction that the next president would ultimately be known by history as a “martyr” president. This prediction is pulled from a book given to me by mother a few years back called the Sanctus Germanus Prophecies. It lead me to believe that our next elected leader would have to sacrifice his or her term to fix and untangle everything that has gone wrong (and there’s a lot) during the last eight years. Then, in 2012, when the Age of Aquarius comes to be, we will enter into a new era where a “divine” balance is achieved and finally a woman will be elected President. I’m just as excited for either candidate to become President during my lifetime. The gift of witnessing that history of change is exhilarating and anyone present should count himself or herself lucky. However, it would seem, to me anyway, that change in this country, for the better, has always been predicated on the presence of a young mind and a willingness to stand up for what you believe in, against all odds, and sometimes, in the face of great adversity. It has become nothing shy of apparent to me that Barack Obama possesses not only the willingness to speak out for change against the paradigm of our static government (voted against the war in Iraq), but that he also possesses the audacity to perpetuate hope in a time when it feels like there is very little left amongst Americans.

I’ll be the first to admit, that I feel more involved in this election than in any in my entire life. I’ve made certain that if I am going to give my support to the Junior Senator from Illinois and write passionately as to why I think he’s the best option, than it is MY responsibility to have looked at every speech he’s made, goggled every action he’s taken during the course of his tenure in public office, know his biography back and forth, and I must say, that at this point, there has been nothing to make me believe that he is the wrong choice for President. In fact, to be honest, most of the arguments I have encountered with friends and colleagues about his worthiness aren’t even balanced, due to the fact that so many people I talk to have not taken the time to read about who he is and where he comes from. Advocating citizens of the United States to become more actively involved in their government is one of the main points Senator Obama made last Friday night. I have talked to people that have not taken the time to read about his ideas concerning universal health care, or trying to restore the middle class, or even his ambitious attempts to create “green” jobs that would cut our dependency on oil we’re spending billions of dollars and thousands of live on, while simultaneously restoring middle class jobs. No one knows about a bi-partisan bill sponsored by Senator Obama called the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, which is essentially a way for Americans to google the national budget and actually see where all the money is flowing, thus taking a larger role in how are government operates and keeping so called “earmarks” in check.

The man has great ideas and as I stood and listened to him, with the state capitol building, looming behind him, I knew, I knew it in my heart that this man needs to be given a chance to unite us, to show us why he's worked so hard his entire life just to get to this point, and then lead us onto a new page of American history. I feel that he will fan the flame of hope and embolden every American to lead, and thusly live better lives. The only hesitation any one can genuinely claim to have about voting for him will undoubtedly lead to a foundation of fear that has been building inside all of us ever since 9/11 and has been strengthened by the disparaging fear tactics of the Bush Administration and even more so, members of the right. We don’t have to be fearful or disinclined to ask questions anymore. In the future, we can all be brave together and have the audacity to hope again as Barack Obama opens the cob-webbed doors of government to it's people once more. I believe the future is now.

I'm sure at this point most people have a clear idea of who they will be casting their vote for and I didn't write this blog entry to sway voters one way or the next. I just wanted to express the feelings and ideas of one Christopher Shea in the year 2008. Don't forget to vote and try not to be too hasty in passing judgement. Consider all the facts and then listen to your heart. I'm listening to mine.



Oh yeah, did I mention I predicted the New York Giants would win the Superbowl???

Hardcore great in '08'