Fallen Egg

Found in Overton Park Forest yesterday

Soapbox Tuesday

A while back I served on a jury for a crack cocaine case. I don't know why they picked me since I was the only potential juror that answered all of their "do you think _____ drug should be legal" questions with YES, YES, yes, yeeeeesss, yes, that too, ooh too bad they don't make qualudes anymore ... and so on.  The furthest anyone had gone up until then was "oh I think marijuana should be legal for medical use." I don't know how it is in other courtrooms, but in downtown LA you speak into a microphone when they are asking you these questions. Everyone heard everyones answers, and I can confirm that people really will say anything to get out of jury duty.  I wasn't saying that drug stuff to get out of JD, I was just telling the truth. I think I was finally selected for my answer to the question about being able to discern between what I believe, and what is legal. You know, intelligence.  They picked all females in their thirties for that jury.

The whole case was hinging on a bunch of bullcrap and the narco cops, while extremely handsome (confirmed first thing when we were all finally able to deliberate) were really lazy and essentially offered up this testimony: "man in a van with a scale and a bunch of ones nearby a guy who had a small rock in his pocket" - from this we were supposed to convict this dude of dealing a couple rocks. I wasn't about to lock up a human being with such flimsy evidence and I could tell a few other people thought the same thing.  The case lasted three days, who knows how much all of that costs the state, but don't even get me started.  I would love to elaborate more on the awesome witnesses (an ex-girlfriend, a mom, a friend) and the defense attorney (a middle aged woman who looked like Danny Devito's penguin character from the bad Batman and who ate cheeseburgers and wore same gray suit three days in a row), but I am trying to stay on track as to why I felt the need to write about this in the first place.

In the deliberation room, after we got the discussion about the detectives and their jewelry and nice-fitting suits out of the way and started to give our opinions about the case, the first woman who spoke announced that she was a mom and that, "she didn't want drugs on the street."   Not a word about evidence or the case. Just her fear about her kids being exposed to drugs.

Who knows, maybe that was a dig at me and my desire to make herion available at CVS (which is not the street by the way), but I gathered that by her logic, we were supposed to vote guilty because this mom, along with the rest of the geniuses and profiteers behind the war on drugs, had figured out how to get drugs off the street.  You just lock people up. Anyone.  If only juries had the same conviction about cases involving violence against women... but I digress!

I bring this all up because last night  I finally got to see The House I Live In - a documentary about the real effect of the war on drugs on our communities and economy.  I didn't expect it to, like, completely blow my mind since I was an advocate against mandatory minimums back in my college days and I currently teach in a prison, and unlike the rest of the naive, sheltered population, I actually am aware of the number of non-violent people that we, as a society, have put in cement cells, but what I liked about this film is that it indubitably, passionately connects the dots for people that don't know and tells them why this actually matters to everyone. Another one to put on my long list of documentaries that will most likely not be seen by the people that need to see them. You should see this one.

We ended up submitting a not guilty plea for that crack case, because it really was a shitty case built on crappy policework and a couple of us pretty much took all the non-critical-thinking gals through the logical steps until they forgot what they were trying to say in the first place, because the truth is people like that don't actually believe in anything and they live their lives sound bite by sound bite. I still think about this so much because I remember thinking how very afraid everyone should be at the average person's willingness to lock someone away.

You Can't See Any of This

Some kind of photo malfunction isn't letting me upload pictures today. 

The Best Intentions

Whenever I start to type I intend to write one of those beautiful essays that are about a mothers breath, wanting a stranger to touch our elbow, the effect of a sunny day on an old heroin habit, the pain of the pain of the pain, the lightness of our hearts after we have that one experience that makes us realize we were standing right in the place we were looking for the whole time.... but nothing comes out of me.... My words are always so clunky and even though I try, there just aren’t sweet ways to write about being cranky.  

It doesn’t help that I woke up this morning with my sinus bones snot-glued to my brain bones, a rejection email waiting in my inbox, and a fat tax bill from the great State of CA (thanks 2007) in the daily mail. I only check my mail because I am hoping Sargent Sparkle will post something my way. I made the mistake of watching The Invisible War the other day so, every day that I don’t hear from her I am certain that she has fallen into an Army rape den in the middle of Afghanistan. 

And then I looked around... maybe what I had been looking for was right in front of me the whole time!

Something to Wear with Bakersfield Flair

We got to check out the Country Music Hall of Fame the other week - they have a great Bakersfield Sound exhibit right now.

I took home one of the activity guides and put some Bakersfield flair on my country clothes.

Before:

After:

If you like this, don't forget to check out my old completion photo drawings.

A Study in Dorff

I can't get enough of this commercial. It's mesmerizing:

That one minute video is better than all of Somewhere. "We're all adults here"

If you don't know him - Dorff is a smoker and a ruffian. He is just live-wirey enough to be cast in Britney's video as the magazine-flinging, box-kicking boyfriend:

(Yeah, I know, thanks Spring Breakers for reminding me about that pop song).

Alumni Power

I took on the volunteer task of sending handwritten postcards to encourage potential students to attend my alma mater: Wayne State University.  A large university right in the heart of Detroit.  I loved going there, well I kind of got more of an education from the city, but nevertheless.... like many things, the further away from it I get, the fonder my memories.

But when I got the postcards, I couldn't help but question my brain health.  Did I go to THIS Wayne State?

I don't remember trumpets or grassy fields. Or any kind of grassy field you would want to walk in unless you were looking for something you lost after a high-speed police foot-chase. 

To be fair, that horn may be a french horn. I'm glad things are progressing, but I am not sure what to write now that I am under the watchful eyes of these happy young people on the front of these cards. Maybe I could draw over the pictures to give a more accurate portrayal of the WSU/Detroit experience? 

I'll probably just do my duty, say my educational experience shaped my life into the masterpiece it is now, and then invite the students to check out a future blog post where I dig up some more old pictures of the old D days. 

Go Tigers. 

MissMatched Neon Bikinis

You don't need me to review Spring Breakers because a bunch of people already have. Well I saw it yesterday, Easter Sunday, and I found it to be a mix of Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Excess Baggage, Belly, and early 90s MTV Spring Break specials.  It isn't nearly as exploitative as Teen Moms so don't worry about being offended.  It also reminded me of my own spring break in Clearwater Beach, FL: 1992 - we had a few less guns but that didn't mean we still didn't find trouble, ok? We drove down with five girls in a '91 Cutlass and didn't stop to change drivers. Figure that out. Maybe I'll do a vine reenactment later.

Most of my movie reviews include what the people next to me were saying because I always have someone sitting in my area that feels the need to talk. A couple reasons for this are 1) I attract verbal communication and 2) southerners can't be quiet.  The highlight this time was when the mother from the family sitting behind us whispered, "What's double penetration?"

What else do you want to know? This is not a movie review.

95 More Posts Until The End

My attention to this blog has been better lately, but lets be real, it has been sporadic in recent years. And now that I can't use the great and powerful Windows LiveWriter, I don't like posting pictures here as much as I used to. I tired to use what everyone tells me is the Mac equivalent: "MarsEdit" and another one - both were total crap as far as image editing and placement. But that isn't the only problem with hanging onto blogger, the problem is that my juicy stories need to be put on the secret blog (limited public viewing) or sold for cash or cigarettes and nowadays it is just easier to tell stories on tumblr, instagram, and vine and..hmm..maybe twitter. Although, my problem with twitter is that it is only as good as the moments I'm checking it. Too many tweets! You better hope your witty tweet showed up in the block of time I was glancing at my account or I will never know how hilarious you are.

Here is proof of my blogging decline:

2009 was obviously a big year.  I think moving to the south was very inspirational.  Let's not even talk about 2005!  What a statement! ONE post.

To further crunch the numbers and give you an idea of how much one has to "blog" to keep up respectable content:

3 posts a week = 156 posts a year
2 posts a week = 104 posts a year

And for fun, here are my comment stats:

Wondering about the comments awaiting moderation? Some cool spam from hotels in India and religious sites that I haven't brought myself to delete because I may need them for a story prompt or I may need to give my comment numbers a vanity-boost someday.

And finally the total number of posts on this eight-year-old endeavor (if you want to count 2005, nine years):

905 posts! 95 more I will have reached 1000 posts and then I can retire, well, retire this blog anyway. I would hate to set it on the shelf without a nice round number so I'm going for 1000. 

I found this handy days-from-now calculator and determined that if I were to start blogging once a day every day from here on out. This blog would retire on July 2nd, 2013 and August 9th if I wanted to take the weekends off. 

If I actually post 95 more times this year I will reach 111 posts for 2013 and that is back to 2011 levels! What if I get so inspired that I don't want to get rid of this beaute? We'll just have to see what happens. 

Library Book of The Week: FERNS!

Not all ferns are friendly!  You need this book to make sure you get along with the ferns in your house.  Published in 1976 by The Peter Pauper Press. (Illustrations to die for)

Food Critiques from "Four Weddings" Contestants

• The food was seasoned well and it was hot.
• Gumbo shouldn't have chunks of tomato.
• No seasoning.
• There was no labeling on the food.
• The beef is just bad.
• The pasta is kind of cold but it is good.
• The candy table had lots of options! There was chocolate and their was lots of sugar.
• The food wasn't what I thought it was going to be.
• My favorite thing at dinner was mashed potatoes. They were served in a martini glass.
• It was cold.
• It was different.
• I would have never put gumbo with mashed potatoes.

The show site.

The Olds Days

On my last visit to Michigan we went to the R.E. Olds Transportation Museum in Lansing.  Roughly 31% of my childhood/coming-of-age memories are somehow associated with the Cutlass so I was so excited to check this museum out. 

It may have been around awhile but we learned from a volunteer that the museum was under new direction and that they have hopes of it being of a Henry Ford level, By the way, if you haven't been to either of these museums you must go. If you don't know the history of the automobile you dont know America. But that is easy for me to say because I was raised in Michigan where everyone was somehow connected to at least one of the big three and I knew how to identify the production year of a camero from its headlights by the time I was ten. Thanks big bro! I have continued to develop this skill and hope to make it into a gameshow someday. 

The R.E. Olds Transportation Museum is on the Motorcities Passport Program, so that makes it even better for a National Park Passport enthusiast like myself. 

The place itself is lacking a bit of narrative (I like a museum map and a brochure/bio) so you never really get the whole story of RE's life or how things, like the cars, came to be and how things came to and end (Oldsmobile stopped production in 2004), but what it lacks in story, it makes up for in metal:

I spared you some of the photos of the earlier cars and skipped straight to the muscle. Grand National! Glory days!

I loved the group photos of all the folks that worked on the lines:

I wonder what happened to this rebel dude wearing the Lou Reed shirt?

To top it all off, the gift shop had vintage postcards from GM dealers:

*I like to imagine that 72 cutlass smashing a fixed-gear bike. Wait, I am totally kidding. I love bikes very much. 

Life of Tags

It has come to my attention that my brilliant idea to use #LATTS for an instagram tag for Left at The Thrift Store finds might be a bit confusing because it seems other people have been using that hashtag as well.

See what I mean: Check it out. Total sexy time.

Please continue to use the hashtag for both your thrift finds and body parts.

In other news:

It is nearly 70 and super sunny outside, but it looks like may be trapped inside under head cold quarantine for the rest of the day.  Looks like the rest of my afternoon will be filled up searching the hashtag #PECS.
And:
I'm reading this.
I'm writing about that.
And watching TONS of these.

Here is the 411

My phone kicked the bucket when I was in Michigan and I got an old-fashioned loaner phone to get me through my travels. I have a fear of commitment and didn't want to sign another cell contract so I was considering just living the flip-phone life, but the past two weeks have convinced me otherwise. Being without a smartphone for that time was a not-surprising affirmation of my addiction to my handheld information box (and instagram). I apologize to those of you who have been left in the dark as to how many vanity plates I've come across on the road and in parking lots, what interesting things I have been finding at Ikes, and what I have been drinking. It looks like I will be back online soon.

What was surprising to me was how the world of non-smartphone information has changed. For instance, the other night I was driving around looking for trouble in East Memphis and really wanted to see a movie but had no way to check the times or locations of the theaters. So I thought to call 411. I was stoked when the guy on the line asked me if I would like him to read the movie times. So we went through the list and times together. He must have been on the other side of the world because he would start each movie time with "showings at 1pm, 4:40.." and it was already 7pm in Memphis. I should have asked him for his recommendations. I'd like to start my own movie hotline where people can give me a call on my non-smartphone and we can just go over movie times and reviews from the local paper. I'd consider a TV Guide version of the service as well.

I did like having only dedicated access to my emails instead of having them fired at me at all times. For a while I imagined a time where I would just have this simple cell phone life, a thing that can "only" call and text. I would have to start carrying more reading material. Paperbacks or thin magazines like Newsweek. I would also have to probably carry around a flare, a digital camera, and a note pad and paper. Maybe a walkman. And an atlas. Thomas Guide? Definitely my library card in case I had to stop and get online somewhere.

Even though, thanks to large purses, I carry a lot of those things on me anyway, I opted to replace the crappy phone if only because being without my smart phone has made me realize that everyone around me gets nose-down in their phones in between activities, after eating, while waiting around for a third party... it really is like the new smoking habit. And I have succumbed to peer pressure.

 See ya on instagram: theskl

In My Moms Backyard

Low Angle Aviary from Sara Kaye on Vimeo.

Map to Lansing

Reflections on Fundraising

This article turned out longer than I anticipated and I still have more to say about our crowdfunding experience for The Keepers. I can be such a windbag, but really, this article is a good one - so read it if you want some stuff to think about as far as documentary ethics and crowdfunding.

I am so grateful the fundraising part (for now) is over - we are going to be hunkered down finishing production and editing. We have lots of shoots scheduled next week so if this blog is lucky, there will be more production pics here soon.

Until then, standby for more on Michigan....

Country Time

Michigan is cold and fresh as always. I'm having a nice visit out in the 'ville and I'm even testing out the Brinno on the backyard bird feeder:

It would be really nice if a big snowstorm could roll through here because that would make for a nice time lapse.  

Success Update

We did it. We reached our goal with 6 hours to spare. 15 grand is no easy feat in a the super saturated crowdfunding world. Everyone that gave gets to go to heaven!

Thanks to all my pals and readers who have put up with all the blog-hogging, email solicitations, and social media bombardment. I don't plan on doing another crowdfunding campaign for a good ten years. By then there will be fresh new planets full of alien film fans to tap into for money. 

For those of you interested in crowdfunding success, I have much more to say on that topic so check back in with me after I recover. 

For now I can get back to blogging about people talking during movies, people crying at work, matte lipstick, air travel, weather maps, Valentines Day, and other interesting things. 

Zoo Mania!

We've been busy! Just 36 hours left in our Indiegogo campaign.

The local press is taking notice - check out the video above. Most of my part was cut because I rambled about how I have an uncontrollable urge to climb in the lion cages. I need to stop talking about that because it really lessens my credibility. 

We were also written up in the Memphis Flyer and Memphis Daily News. 

It's been really interesting to raise funds for this film. We are an independent film crew who, after a ton of research and meetings, was granted access to the zoo to make a character-driven documentary about the zookeepers. We aren't funded by the zoo or affiliated with them at all, but we are finding it gets mixed up in the media message. Hey, the film is going to bring attention to the Memphis Zoo, so if people think helping us, helps the zoo - they are not wrong!