Realizing...No One In My Family's Had It Better

Years ago we bought a flat screen TV and stuck it on the wall in our bedroom. It wasn't the biggest TV and it wasn't the best one available. It was your basic JVC--I don't even know how big it is.

And, as things go, since we bought that TV my wife and I have found ourselves in stores where they sell TVs. Of course, there's the newest and greatest models--some at amazingly low prices. I wonder what it would be like to see a big game, or the latest movie on those things with the sharp picture and heavenly sound systems. If I rationalize hard enough, I can even justify the purchase.

But then I think...

Why?

The TV on my wall is better than any TV anyone in my family ever owned, not including my present family. I'm talking about all of my family that went before me. The first TV I remember our family having was one my father actually built. That's still an amazing thought to me. He ordered the kit from a company and built it. My dad would flip if he lived to see the day when a TV with a screen more than twice the size of the one he built could be lifted by one person and hung on a wall like a painting. That was science fiction stuff for him.

So, when I pass by those big boxes containing bigger and better TVs, there's absolutely no reason to buy them. The one we have still works great and it's better than any TV anyone ever had.

Today, as I looked across the street at my neighbor's car--a car he's thinking of getting rid of this spring--I wondered what it would be like to be able to afford a newer car. Then it hit me, the cars we have, the house I live in, the almost unbelievable live me and my family live is better than any cars, homes, living conditions of any of my family that lived before me. 

We live in a society where we're supposed to want more, and not only to want it, but to feel like crap if we can't get it. What a lie! We're more than what we own. We're more than where we work, or we should be. Realizing how amazing my life is is something I should do more often. I'd sure be a lot happier person if I could. I know past generations sure would be.

The Picture Of The Words "The End" In An Audio File...Are Beautiful

It may not look like much, squiggly lines rising above and below a straight line. It's the visual representation of sound and sometimes that visual representation can be beautiful. Case in point, the words, "the end" look like many other words, visually speaking, but like a fingerprint, each word is unique, individual, based solely on the speaker, the way he/she enunciates the words, the pronunciation, the accent, even the way the air moves from the speaker's lungs through the air to the microphone--all contribute to make each word different...like a snowflake.

Tonight I finished working on a project for my publisher, Immortal Works. In December I was asked by the president of the company if I could edit an audiobook. 

I said yes.

Man, that's hard work.

And luckily, the book wasn't that long.

Years ago I worked as a computer audio engineer for a software company. It was a great job. I knew I could edit an entire novel, but I'd never done that before. I thought I could work on it at night and on weekends. And I did, but it took a long time.

Editing the audiobook was also a very educational experience. If a fly were on the wall of that recording studio, then I heard everything that fly heard, every word--intended and unintended, every sound, every page turn, every swallow...everything.

I don't know the process from here. I'm not sure how long it will take until the rest of the world can hear what I've heard. But, when it's available, Kevin L. Nielsen wrote and Zach Bjorge narrated a great little sci-fi book, Colonial Prime: Humanity. Well done Kevin! Well done, Jason! Well done Zach!

The Next Gangrene Comedy Film Festival...Lawrence Welk Edition...Is Coming To Town This Fall!

One of the most unique annual events along the Wasatch Front is the Gangrene Comedy Film Festival and 2019 is no exception. The theme for this year is as follows:

Lawrence Welk: A Wunnerful Celebration of Music, Movies, and a-one, an-a-two.

How great is that?!

There are amazing things associated with the Gangrene Comedy Film Festival, incredible music, things you won't see anywhere else. And, word has it, they're looking for unusual acts. Earlier today a friend associated with the event let us know.

Here's part of a notice issued earlier today for acts:

Just putting this out there. We are doing Lawrence Welk for The Gangrene Comedy Film Festival this fall. We are looking for weird and exciting acts. If you know how to juggle squids, catch a cannonball with your gut, sing a duet with your pet lobster, play the recorder with the third arm growing out of your back ... well, you get the idea. 

That's right--if you've got a mind-blowing act, leave a comment below. Of course, as with all things in life, there's no guarantee, but maybe, just maybe all your performing dreams could come true!

Inevitably...The Curtain Must Fall

It's been vacant for years, minutes and hours, days and weeks have passed with no one entering, no one leaving--a playground for ghosts and memories. I've passed the structure a couple of times a month since it closed and each time, a feeling of melancholy washes over me, as if a great unfairness has occurred, for how can a place that held such wonder, such creativity, such beauty, fun, heartache, and passion sit idle for so long?

It can because it does.

Yesterday a dear friend posted several pictures of the place we knew simply as RMC, or Rodger's, or our second home. As with all things--since all things are temporary--the building is being razed to make way for places to live. My friends were there to record the moment, to share the space's fleeting moments. I borrowed one of their pictures for this post. They went because they felt compelled to be there as if the building called out to them wishing them to be there as it will soon vanish.

They answered the call because they had to.

Accompanying the pictures my friend explained just how special the theatre was for her and her husband. She included a couple of memories as to why it's so important to them, but she could have listed hundreds more. I wish I could have been there with them to see the space myself, but their captured moments will have to do.

It is in the places of creation where the memories have the strongest hold on our lives. Theaters, homes, (sometimes work...), schools, and studios, beside lakes and atop mountains--it's where inspiration finds us and intertwines with our souls. And when those theaters, homes, schools, studios, and other places where we've been touched by creativity go away, a part of us dies.

Rodger's Memorial Theatre's success also sealed its doom. It could no longer hold back the wave of anticipation for a bigger space, newer facilities, multiple bathroom the paying public demanded and so it was abandoned when the new shiny theater opened a few miles away.

There's a saying in theatre everyone knows. "The show must go on." This means, of course, that the show must inevitably end. A theatre is built and therefore, it must be destroyed--everything's temporary. A theatre may last millennia, or for one night, but like all things, it's time must come.

And the curtain has fallen on our friend.

Join Us In 2019 At LTUE...We're Talking About The 1980s Version Of 2019

Many times, the spectacle of something overwhelms the details and those who should get more credit don't. One of the biggest examples of this, for me, is TV producer and writer Glen A. Larson. He was responsible for so many shows that helped form my childhood and impressionable years and changed popular culture for decades.

In literary terms, another name that sometimes gets lost in his creations is Philip K. Dick. Since I sometimes run with literary types, many of my friends know, and are familiar with his works, but for most, they only know the names of the movies that were born from his words. Blade Runner, Minority Report, Total Recall, and more recent The Man in the High Castle, and Electric Dreams--all these and more came from Philip K. Dick.

The New York Post wrote an article about how Blade Runner and The Running Man predicted live in America in 2019. Dick did not write The Running Man (that was Stephen King), but both envisioned a society in the year we've now reached. You can read the article by clicking: HERE. It's interesting. In my opinion it reaches to prove some of its points, but still an interesting article.

In a few weeks, the 2019 version of Life, the Universe, and Everything, or LTUE will take place in Provo, Utah. On Saturday, February 16 from 12 noon to 12:45pm a group of panelists will discuss the writer and those films. Here's the panel write-up from the LTUE website:

If you want to go the website directly, click: HERE. You'll find this panel on Saturday's schedule.

I'm looking forward to this one. I've been on panels before with Mr. Wells and Mr. Parkin (Scott Parkin and I were on a previous Philip K. Dick LTUE panel a few years ago...). If you're in the area and want to learn more, or you'd like to contribute, stop in and say, "hello."

One Of Those Anniversaries That Brings A Different Reaction...

Forty-five years ago today was also on a Sunday.

I think that's something I'll never forget.

It's been forty-five years since my father passed away, forty-five years to the day. It's the kind of anniversary you don't necessarily celebrate, even though it's important to acknowledge. Because of the amazing time in which we live, I did a quick internet search to find out what other interesting things happened on February 3rd, 1974. Apparently, not much.

A lot can happen in forty-five years. Back in 1974 the population of the world was 4, 016,608, 813. We've almost doubled since then. The most popular baby name for girls that year was Jennifer, and for boys, Michael. It's incredible what a simple internet search can reveal.

It's been almost half a century since he passed. And what I know of him, he would love the world of today, the ability to access all the known knowledge instantly. He was a remarkable man.

Today it's estimated that around 360,000 babies are born everyday around the world, about twice the number of people who pass away. In five, ten, twenty-five, even forty-five years from today, people will look back on this day in history, February 3rd, 2019 and it will be an anniversary for them, some a day to celebrate and some a day for reflection and imagine a world that might have been.

Miss you, dad.

Yesterday...I Wore Red

Yesterday, I wore red. Personally, I think red is in the top two of the best colors. To me, red is the color of life. I've got a couple of red shirts--yesterday, I chose my TriUtah shirt, even though I'm no longer associated with that particular organization.

I chose the shirt and wore that shirt yesterday because I wanted to show some support for the American Heart Association's Go Red for Women Day, a day set aside to bring awareness to women's heart issues by having as many people as possible to wear red-colored clothing.

As with most awareness days, wearing red is the very least a person can do to support the cause (well, not the very least--a person could wear no red, or even worse, wear blue...). I could have donated time or money for the cause. I could have done more, even told others why I was wearing red. But no, all I did was wear a shirt of red.

On social media many people posted pictures of themselves wearing red and wearing smiles. See--wearing red makes people happy. More people should wear red. I think the whole world would be a better place if more people just wore red. And not just on Go Red for Women Day, either. Ah, red...it's in the top two of the best colors, and a fantastic color choice to show support of a great cause.