VIVA LAS VEGAS Get in an un-air-conditioned vehicle, point it east, and drive across the Mojave Desert, Death Valley and Pimm's Valley to Vegas. Do this in August. Then you can be as dumb as me. Well, no, to accomplish that you'd also have to arrange to do the eastbound leg at sunup and the westbound leg at sundown. Although August was Thesis Comes First Month, I did take three days to hang out in a casino (not poking my delicate nose out of its conditioned air to encounter the 110-degree sidewalk) getting advice on the art of business and the business of art for videographers. First, I had to join the Wedding and Event Videographers Association, for which act I was sent a certificate. Woo hoo. It reminds me of third grade, when it was assumed kids would love getting a certificate whether it represented any particular achievement or not. I didn't buy it then and I'm not buying it now. But I did come back from the convention very energized to start my business, and with ideas of how to reconcile my bohemian values with a bourgeois product. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUR QUESTIONS YOU SHOULD ASK BEFORE HIRING A WEDDING VIDEOGRAPHER 1) Do you cover the ceremony with multiple cameras? 2) Do you use 3-chip digital cameras? 3) Do you use non-linear editing and computer-based special effects? 4) Do you have a Ph.D. in elementary particle physics? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ LONE STAR Let me give you some free advice. Maybe you think Texas is a cultural wasteland littered with Coors Light cans thrown out of '65 El Dorados by racist rednecks on the way to the trailer park to beat their wives. Maybe you assume that because I don't fit that image, I must hate Texas as much as you do. Don't. Although I don't wear it on my sleeve, I am very proud to be from Texas. It's not that half the music I think is worth listening to originates from Texas (although it does). It's the culture, the people, the land. I don't know how to convince you if you're not from Texas, and I don't feel a need to try. But don't expect me to join in with your uninformed Texas bashing. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ WHY IS IT "THE HAGUE" BUT NOT "THE AMSTERDAM"? Isn't "War Crimes" redundant? Exactly which acts of war are not a crime? Apparently you have carte blanche to kill soldiers (if you can figure out what that term means in modern conflicts) but if you're going to kill civilians you better do it with smart bombs. Eventually the guys at the World Court look at the vast chaos caused by the unleashing of the war machine and pass judgment on the individuals involved -- this one killed without committing crimes, that one committed crimes, and the other one committed Crimes Against Humanity -- another phrase I can't get my head around. Is humanity unharmed by those who start wars and play by the rules? Frankly it's difficult to find some act to commit which harms every human on the planet. The only one I can think of is burning fossil fuels and warming the planet. So by my definition, the biggest crime against humanity in recent memory is President Bush's reversal on the greenhouse gas treaty. Though I doubt the guys at the Hague see it that way. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ET CETERA In the circles I run in, it is in vogue to decry the moral depravity of SUV owners. Am I the only one who finds it ironic that those of us using seven times our share of the world's energy feel so morally superior to those using eight times their share? HEALTH HABIT OF THE MONTH: anti-oxidants -- Vitamin C every day and a preference for certain vegetables. I'm so anti-oxidized I may asphyxiate. On a related note, remember those Laker flags flying from local cars? (I told you about them in June.) There are very few left, and those that I do see have turned the same dingy greyish- brownish yellow as the summer sky in L.A. It makes me wonder if my health habit for June (deep breathing) is such a good idea. I bit my mouth in a place I didn't think was topologically possible. THE TARGET DEMOGRAPHIC: I just became aware of a change that has been taking place over the last decade. Once upon a time when advertisers wanted me to identify with a character, they inserted a good-looking young man with a lot of hair. Now the products I am interested in are usually represented by pudgy bald guys. (I have a physicist friend who was once asked by an acquaintance if he would like to be in a commercial. He was positive until he saw the script, which started with "BALDING MIDDLE AGED MALE"; it turns out the ad was for hair restoral. My friend turned it down. "It's not that I was offended," he explained. "I was just too vain to appear as a character whose primary characteristic is unattractiveness.") Number of Dodgers who are older than me: 1 RAY CHARLES IS THE COOLEST MAN ON EARTH: I caught The Genius at The Bowl with the L.A. Philharmonic this month, and he had all 10,000 of us eating out of his hand. His voice isn't what it used to be but it doesn't matter. He reminds me of an old pitcher who has lost ten miles per hour off his fast ball -- even with the talent lacking he sticks around because he "knows how to pitch". Ray knows how to sing, plus he's just the coolest man on earth. He brought the house down with his ad-libs on Hit the Road Jack. GLASSES WATCH: Thanks to all you non-vain people who sent me advice about contacts. I decided my eye exam could wait until after Thesis Comes First Month (now entering its fifth blockbuster month). But I'm going to be sticking with glasses. "My face doesn't make any sense without them."* ------------------------------------------------------------------------ QUOTE OF THE MONTH: If it doesn't move and it should, use WD40. If it moves and it shouldn't, use duct tape. -- internet humor CURRENT READING: I have an introductory reader in Film Theory from which I read a chapter every six months or so. Academics sitting around trying articulate rules for what is "cinematic". It seldom makes me think I can use it to make better movies -- although by articulating what the rules are it has given me a dozen ideas for shorts that break the rules. I agree they may be "uncinematic", but they would at least be very interesting. * line stolen from a movie seen by my movie reviewer friend Dave White