Belated blog post: KCRW's 24-Hour Radio Race and The Last Thing You'd Expect

I had really meant to keep the blog updated, but you know, real life and all that.  It's actually been some good stuff though.  I'm getting ready to embark on a new education which hopefully will lead to a second career (and if not, will still be a heck of a lot of fun).  However, that's not the point of this post.  More on that later.  The point of this post is to start getting caught up on stuff I should have been posting.  My next few entries will probably fall under that category.  This is the first of them.

The Brother and I participated in KCRW's first annual 24-Hour Radio Race (as described here) a couple months back and it was truly an adventure.  We didn't win anything, but had a great time writing it.  The actual recording of it was a bit more of a struggle.

The topic was released Saturday morning at 10am and the finished product had to be up on Soundcloud by 10am the following morning.  The topic was great: "The Last Thing You'd Expect".  We loved it and after kicking around a few ideas I remembered this.  Even though that article from two years ago tried to blow off the idea of legitimizing "minor-attracted persons" (you know, pedophiles), it's recently come up in the news that recent pro-gay marriage rulings by the Supreme Court have emboldened these people to start coming out of the shadows and demand the same type of rights and acceptance that gays have won over the past couple of decades.  And having seen the success of gay mainstreaming, pedos have decided to basically follow the same playbook.  Legitimizing and eventually demanding acceptance of child molestation?  We thought it was a subject that screamed The Last Thing You'd Expect. 

We spent most of the afternoon researching, editing and refining our project until we were satisfied with it.  Here's the written version:

This is Team Work in Progress for KCRW wondering…Where Do You Draw The Line?

He was my seventh-grade math teacher. He was probably in his thirties and mentioned a wife and baby at home. It didn’t matter. In my twelve year-old mind, he was the love of my life. When he called on me, it made my day. Any attention paid to me only encouraged my childish fantasies.

Luckily, my story doesn’t have a sordid, inappropriate ending. I mooned over him, he was oblivious (and probably would have been horrified at the thought of a relationship with one of his students), then the semester ended and we both went our separate ways. I’m kind of embarrassed to admit I don’t even remember his name now.

But will a schoolgirl crush be more than just a crush in the near future?  It might in the next twenty or thirty years, if a certain group has its way.

Did you ever imagine you would see the day when a NAMBLA-type organization would be emboldened to not only reveal themselves to the mainstream, but would feel brash enough to publicly demand acceptance of pedophilia in the same way the homosexual community has mainstreamed in the past several decades?

You have now.

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision favoring gay marriage, activists in the pedophile community have decided they know a successful playbook when they see one. And with the dust barely settled from the Supreme Court decision, they’re already hard at work putting it into play.

The American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its official list of disorders in 1973.  B4U-Act is an organization devoted to making this happen for pedophiles, including referring to them as “minor-attracted persons” rather than pedophiles in an attempt to remove the stigma of their practice, much as “homosexuals” became “gay”.  B4U-Act’s website and press releases are riddled with language intended to re-educate the masses: “fear”, “misunderstanding”, “stereotyping”, “stigma”.

B4U-Act and other supporters of pedophile rights are using the same arguments used to break down traditional barriers of societal acceptance of homosexual relationships:

·      They argue that they can’t help their “orientation” (who they’re attracted to) any more than heterosexual and homosexual adults can.

·      They make assurances that they are only interested in “consensual” sex with minors they deem to be mentally and emotionally mature enough to embark on such a relationship.

·      They point out that age of consent can vary from state to state, from country to country, and society to society.

And that’s the problem: However much society may find the idea of pedophilia – and the idea of associating it with homosexuality – offensive, you do have to give them credit for ingenuity in adopting a proven method of sexual acceptance.  Distasteful?  Sure.  But it’s also actually kind of brilliant.

If gay people really, genuinely can’t help who they are attracted to and can use it as an argument for equal rights, then why can’t pedophiles, or minor-attracted persons, or whatever you want to call them, do the same?  Where do you draw the line?

The potentially terrifying aspect of this argument is that, like it or not, they have a point. If modern society agrees that straights and gays can’t help whom they’re attracted to, can you not make the same argument for pedophiles?  And if it’s no longer acceptable to stigmatize non-heterosexual relationships, then why shouldn’t this consideration be extended to “minor-attracted persons” as well as gays?  Where do you draw the line?

The one obvious argument is whether or not a minor is mentally and emotionally mature enough to make the decision to be involved sexually with a much older adult.  They may think they are, but are they really?  Shouldn’t an adult in this situation be mature enough to say no? There are reasons age of consent laws exists. But the argument could also be made that one person could be more mature at 17 than another person is at 21.  One size does not fit all.  But still, a line has to be drawn somewhere. So where do you draw it? 

Factor in the loosening of morals in modern American society and you have to wonder if, in a few decades, pedophile relationships will in fact achieve acceptance on the level that gay marriage enjoys today. 

Imagine a world in which your twelve year-old daughter embarks on a sexual relationship with her math teacher and if you object, you are an intolerant, closed-minded, bigoted hater.

With that in mind, will “minor-attracted persons” become the new gay?  Should they?  Only time will tell where we draw the line.

"This piece was produced by Thomas Prochnow and Melinda Loomis as part of The 24-Hour Radio Race from KCRW's Independent Producer Project." 

My biggest fear was that it might seem we were advocating for these perverts, which couldn't be further from how I feel about these selfish bastards.  There's a reason To Catch a Predator is one of my all-time favorite TV shows.  I find it disturbing as hell that these people are feeling comfortable enough to start emerging from the shadows to demand that their sexual victimization of children be treated as a right.  But the fact is that the "born this way" argument is kind of evil genius, because if you are willing to apply it to one group, are you not a hypocrite if you refuse to apply it to another?  The term "devil's advocate" comes to mind.

Then came the adventure of actually recording it.

We started at around 5pm.  We don't have any recording equipment, but The Brother felt that the recording app on his iPhone would do the job.  It doesn't have any editing capabilities, so we had to nail it or start over.

The original plan was for me to read the first three paragraphs (true story, BTW) and then he would come in to do the reading honors, but he had trouble with points of emphasis and inflection.  After a couple of tries he had me read it out loud, since I did the writing, hoping it would help him to hear how it sounded in my head.  It helped a little, but not enough, so the decision was made for me to read the whole thing, which kind of sucked because I don't have a great voice.  He would read the opening and closing to give it some variety.

Did I mention that we couldn't edit it, so it had to be read clear through without a hitch?

I actually got through my first recording pretty much flawlessly, but when we played it back I was talking way too fast.  The second time I made a point of speaking slowly and deliberately, but on playback it proved to be positively snooze-inducing.  It droned on and we went to Take 3 without even letting it finish.

We recorded it several more times, but although I got the pacing figured out, there was at least one point in each of them where I stumbled over words.  By this time it was around 10pm.  We were determined to persevere until we got a clean take, but then the recording app decided to quit.  Brother kept tapping on the icon, but it simply wouldn't respond.  He fussed with it for almost an hour, but it had had enough of us.  Around 11pm he was frustrated and we were both exhausted, so we finally decided we would go with what we had.

Here's the recorded version: Where Do You Draw The Line?

Yeah, I'm a lot better at writing than performing.  I actually got more comfortable with it after a few tries and would like to have kept going, but stupid iPhone app.  It's pretty rough, but considering we had never done anything like this before, we were proud of ourselves for at least getting it done.  We learned a lot in the process and enjoyed it immensely.

There were 101 entries.  Here are the winners.

Random acts of kindness

Huge thanks to Heal Thyself on Facebook for posting this link: These 20 Photos Are Going To Make You Cry. But You'll See Why It's Totally Worth It.  From the article:

There’s no denying that the world is full of cruel, evil people capable of things you probably couldn’t even imagine. We see it on the news pretty much every day.

But believe it or not, there’s a lot more good and kindness out there than you probably realize. Sometimes, people do incredible things – things that restore our faith in humanity. For example…

1. When some kids left this note to track down the owner of a forgotten skateboard that they could’ve easily stolen.

Some of the pictured acts of kindness are large, some small, all touching.  Do check them out, especially if you're having one of those days when your faith in humanity needs a hug.

It's that time of the year again!

I know I post these things every damn year, but hey, it's Halloween and they're awesome!  So here goes:

Comedy and tragedy punkins I made a few years back when I lived in Hollywood.

How a lot of people will be spending November 1.

Some guy made this costume for his daughter.  Too cute for words.

 And then there's this award-winning classic:

Happy Free Candy Day!

They're funny cuz they're true!

Tip 'o the hat to Writer's Digest on Facebook for linking to this: 18 Weird Things That Authors Do.

Nailed it!

Awesome Star Wars blooper reel

Huge props to io9 on Facebook for unleashing this on an unsuspecting world: An apparently new Star Wars blooper reel.

Be sure to scroll down to the comments, they're impressively articulate and polite for the internet (at least as of when I typed that sentence).

Do it.

Updated 10/30/13: And another one!

SNL's awesome Wes Anderson horror flick spoof

Despite the fact that The Royal Tenenbaums was released in 2001, I think it took a few more films until a mainstream audience would recognize the Wes Anderson look, plus it's awesome, so I'm not going to rag on SNL for referencing a twelve year old movie.  Bottom line, this thing is brilliant:

The actor playing Owen Wilson really nailed his voice, plus props to whoever found the dead-on wig.  Not to mention everyone else involved for hitting this out of the park, because I'm convinced that if Anderson did decide to do a horror film, it would look and sound a lot like this, especially the choice of songs.

H/T to TV Tattle.

Updated 11/8/13: Just found this "How We Did It Article" by SNL staffer Alex Buono.  Thanks again, TV Tattle!  I didn't even realize "The actor playing Owen Wilson" was actually Edward Norton.  I didn't recognize him at all.

YES PLEASE: James Ellroy embarks on "Second L.A. Quartet"

Great news: Self-described greatest crime writer ever James Ellroy has announced that he is returning to 1940's Los Angeles with a brand spanking new L.A. Quartet:

My design for “The Second L.A. Quartet” is unprecedented in scope, stylistic execution and dramatic intent.  I will take characters -– both fictional and real-life -- from the first two extended bodies of work, and place them in Los Angeles during World War II –- as significantly younger people.  The action will begin the day before the December 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and will carry an enormous range of people through to the end of the war.  Massive police investigations, political intrigue, grand love affairs, war profiteering, Axis sabotage plots.  Four 700-page hardcover novels that will span the homefront breadth of the greatest worldwide event of the twentieth century. 

The sequels will apparently be prequels.  The original L.A. Quartet (The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential and White Jazz) took place in the period of the mid-1940's to the late 1950's.  Perfidia, the first book of the new quartet, takes place in 1941.

As usual, Ellroy will feature a number of real life and fictional characters including legendary LAPD Chief William H. Parker and Dudley Smith from the original L.A. Quartet.

Dudley Smith is the overarching villain of “The L.A. Quartet.”  In PERFIDIA, he’s the 36-year-old homicide detective investigating the baffling Watanabe case.  The case means money to Dudley. He’s embroiled in a hot wartime romance with screen legend Bette Davis.

Bette Davis?  I freaking can't wait for this book, but it looks like I'll have to wait about a year - per the L.A. Times, Perfidia isn't due out until fall 2014.

Sorry state of the union

There has been much ado about the governmental shutdown, who is responsible and reprehensible for what, and what should be done with it.  And that's even before the online clusterfuck of the launch of Obamacare.  Here's what I have to say about all that:

As someone who has actually worked as a covered employee, in HR and in the health insurance industry and has seen it from the viewpoint of agent, customer service rep, employer and insured, I'd like to go on record as saying the plans offered by the so-called "Affordable Care Act" (aka Obamacare) offer the highest premiums, highest deductibles, highest co-pays, highest annual out-of-pocket costs and highest costs to the insured I've ever seen.  EVER.

Our current health care system may not be perfect, but I don't see how making it even more costly than it already is benefits anyone.  AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, REMEMBER THIS: The very politicians (Congress and our President) who put this piece of shit that they couldn't be bothered to read before passing into law think so highly of Obamacare that they refuse to subject themselves to it.  But they're more than happy to sanctimoniously inflict it on us peons.  THINK ABOUT THAT.

Also, just because something is "the law" doesn't make it right. Slavery - owning and having the right to viciously abuse another human being who didn't sufficiently do your bidding - used to be the law.  Women not having the right to vote used to be the law.  These laws did not make it right to treat women and African Americans like lesser beings.  They just made it legal.

So stop looking at the (R) and (D) after names and THINK FOR YOURSELF.  You voted for Obama?  Guess what - he doesn't give a crap.  Obamacare for thee, but not for him and his familee.  And with very few exceptions, Congress isn't any better.  Like it or not libs, a group of those horrible Rethuglicans offered up a compromise to the current government shutdown that was rejected by Dems because it demanded that Congress be equally subjected to the awesomeness of Obamacare that the rest of us are expected to mindlessly embrace.  Because Obamacare is just so awesome that it's the law so just fall into line and stop whining you stupid Tea Party Nazis.

Can't imagine why the Dems turned that offer down.  That was sarcasm, by the way.

The winds long to play with your hair

It's a beautiful, sunny morning in Southern California, so let's have some beautiful, sunny words of wisdom:

Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true.
 (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

To succeed in life, you need three things: 
A wishbone, a backbone and a funnybone. (Reba McEntire)

You cannot be lonely if you like the person you’re alone with. (Dr. Wayne Dyer)

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.  (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

There is no pillow so soft as a clear conscience.  (French Proverb)

Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair. (Kahlil Gibran)

The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness. (Michel De Montaigne)

Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.
(Mother Teresa)

When you laugh you are not afraid. When you are not afraid you are free. (Gregorius Nekschot)

An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day. (Henry David Thoreau)

A well-developed sense of humor is the pole that adds balance to your steps as you walk the tightrope of life. (William A. Ward)

I pray thee, Oh God, that I may be beautiful within. (Socrates)

When I play with my cat, how do I know that she is not passing time with me rather than I with her? (Michel De Montaigne)

Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine. 
(Anthony J. D'Angelo)

Writer's Digest Self-Publishing Conference

As part of their west coast writer's conferences, the Writer's Digest Self-Publishing Conference was held Friday at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in Century City.

The conference seemed sparsely attended to me.  It might have been due to it being a weekday, but whatever the reason, it was still a great event.  Very informative with some really great speakers.  I also liked that each session was only 50 minutes in length and that there was a moderator who kept everyone on schedule.  This way none of the sessions ran long or dragged.

Here are some things I learned about self-publishing at the conference:

• You need a separate ISBN code for each format (hardcover, paperback, ebook).  In addition, some ebook publishers will retain ownership of the ISBN.  Although you retain the copyright, if you move to another publisher you will need a new ISBN.  ISBN codes can be purchased through Bowker, which also provides other services for self-published authors.
• Even if you self-publish, at some point you will probably need the expertise of an agent for issues such as foreign markets and film rights.  Agents can also help you avoid scams.
• Good literary agents today are more like literary managers.  It's not enough for them to just be flipping contracts.
• When selecting an agent or publishing house, be sure they are experienced in your genre.  This seems obvious, but apparently there are people who will sign with anyone just to have an agent or publisher.
• Self-publishing (or DIY, as guest Roy Carlisle calls it) is where traditional publishers are looking for new talent.  Agents also scope out self-published authors as potential clients.
• Although there are only now five major traditional publishers, there are 40,000 independent presses in the U.S.  Check them out as an alternative to self-publishing.
• Audio books are exploding.  Author Hugh Howey has said that he could live comfortably just on the revenue generated by his audio books.
• The importance of blogging to connect and stay connected with your audience was mentioned several times, which I thought was interesting because it seems like a lot of people think blogging and/or having an author website is passe and has been replaced by Facebook.  Today's panelists did not agree with that idea.

The day went by really fast and I learned a ton of stuff about self-publishing.  The WD conferences were pretty pricey compared to other writing conferences I've gone to, but fortunately they gave the option of attending the self-publishing portion as a stand-alone, and it was worth it.  Highly recommend it if they have it again next year.

Marina del Rey has a film festival?

Apparently so, although it's coming up soon and they don't actually have their titles set yet.  Should be a neat atmosphere to see a movie.

Sailboat school, Marina del Rey Channel, summer 2012

Picpost: Kailua-Kona sunsets

Pretty much every night was like this.