Notwithstanding his association with the "Prince of Persia" flick, what's your beef with Jake Gyllenhaal? And, if I may, do you dislike Maggie Gyllenhaal?

I'm jumping out of order on this one . . . AND I'm answering more than one in a day. (My "Blogging for Success" book says you have to develop a relationship with your readers . . . so I am accommodating YOU trustworthy questioner!)

So . . . what is my beef with Mr. Gyllenhaal? Well, mostly it stems from his constant comparisons Tobey Maguire back ten years ago. At the time they were both up-and-coming young actors. Both has large doe-y eyes. And they both a.) were supposedly in the running for Spiderman and b.) dating Kristen Dunst.

(So much so that when Maguire was rumored to be out of the Peter Parker role for Spiderman 2, there was strong opinions that Gyllenhaal would step right in.)

Andbutso, the point is, I've always thought Maguire was the better actor. I first loved him in Pleasantville, and really, really loved Spiderman and especially Spiderman 2. And I liked The Ice Storm and thought he did a fine job in Seabuscuit. Meanwhile, Gyllenhaal was in stuff like The Day After Tomorrow, etc. (Though I really did enjoy Donnie Darko.)

And there were always these persistent rumors that Maguire was a bit pretentious and a bit Too Much. But at least he never had The Bubble Boy on his resume.

So, while I was in the throes of my love for Spiderman and Spiderman 2, I became (willingly) associated around my office friends as a lover of all things Tobey. And to help bolster that definition, I sort of adopted a (kind of irrational) dislike of all things Gyllenhaal. And it helped that another of my work friends was willing to play along and support Gyllenhaal in opposition to me.

But that has mostly died off at this point. If pressed, I'd say that Tobey deserves an Academy Award before Gyllenhaal's pecs get nominated for one. But I'm willing to live and let live as I get older.

*****

As to Maggie, I don't dislike her at all. I enjoyed her just fine in The Dark Knight, squirmed my way through two-thirds of Secretary, didn't realize she was in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, need to watch Donnie Darko again, and keep getting her mixed up in my head with Zooey Deschanel.

But, no. I have no beef whatsoever with Maggie Gyllenhaal.

So, there's my answer.

Thanks for asking.

Ask me anything

If you had to convert to a non-Western religion, which one would it be?

I am not going to give this answer much in the way of the appropriate thought that it should have. And partly, I feel that I should do some research and think about it for a while and really, kind of, PRAY on it . . . you know? (For all the humor that brings to your mind . . . )

But, my initial gut reaction when i read the question was Buddhism.

The mental discipline aspect of it (or what I perceive it to be) appeals to me.

(And let me say as I go forward with this answer that I haven't done the aforementioned research and I'll speak in half-truths, misrememberances, demonstrations of profound ignorance, and who-knows-what-else as I complete this answer. But from this word on, I'll do it with CONFIDENCE.)

So . . . Buddhism seems like an attractive way to live a life. If you are really into it, it is a way of thinking about the world and your place in it. How you can connect with others and see how you affect (or don't affect) them. Such an attitude could probably help a lot of Christians, I venture to say.

Anyway, I've read some Daoist koans--back in college when "The Dao of Pooh" and "The Te of Piglet" were popular. (Yeah, I read them both.) But I also did read some honest-to-goodness koans. And I liked the thought-puzzle nature of the phrases. Plus, one of my brothers was into that at the time and I enjoyed the connection that it gave us.

Anyway, that my answer.

Thanks for asking.

Ask me anything

LOST: The End

In the summer of 2004, I started seeing commercials for a new J.J. Abrams TV show called LOST. The commercial details were carefully vague. I noted a ensemble cast and the only member of the cast that I recognized--and who was featured prominently--was Dominic Monaghan, of The Lord of the Rings movie fame.

I was a Dom fan and certainly was a fan of Abrams other TV show then running, Alias, so I thought I would give it a try. But I wasn't particularly thrilled about it or anything. I probably thought something along the lines of "Hmm. Castaways on an island, huh? Well, Survivor has already done that (for reality programming), and I have serious doubts about how they can sustain a viable plot when you are confined to a deserted island."

(The lesson, as always . . . I'm no genius.)

Six years later and I watched it all end Sunday night. Other than M*A*S*H's "Goodbye, Farewell, Amen" this was (I think) my most anticipated series finale ever. And in a similar way to the M*A*S*H send off (or even parts of The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King or the last several chapters of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) LOST's "The End" had me crying here and there, swept up in the emotional experience of saying goodbye to the characters that I have experienced for these many years.

When LOST began, I didn't know what to expect. But when poor Greg Grunberg's pilot was snatched invisibly into the air with a mysterious roar/ticking sound and his bloodied body was seen atop a 20 foot tall jungle tree . . . well, I got hooked pretty fast. The mysteries just kept flying in that first season and I traded many impressions with my friends on WWYG?! Omnimedia.

One of my favorite moments was when a friend of mine was complaining about how 40+ people survived the crash, but we only got to intereact with about ten of them. Here is how she broke down the cast list at that time, probably no more than two or three episodes into the series:

Jack
Kate
Sawyer
Sayid
Lin (should have been Jin)
Sun
Michael
Walt
Large hippie (funniest bit of all; this, of course, is Hurley)
Charlie
Claire
GWH (stands for Great White Hunter, a.k.a. John Locke)
Cute thief (poor, poor Boone)
His bitchy sister (the almost universally reviled Shannon)
The Dog (ahh, Vincent)

So . . . LOST has been a part of my life for years and it has been a commonality through a great many changes, most notably at work where friends and colleagues have come and gone, moved up, and moved away. During the first season, I brought in video tapes of episodes and we would eat lunch while watching it in a meeting room, then debate.

Seasons 2 and 3 broke up that party for most people. The show never recovered from those years, which many felt where meandering and muddled. Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have publicly said many times that they were admittedly stalling while they tried to figure out how to plan the steps they foresaw to tell their story in the time they wanted. (Probably a good amount of hogwash there, but I forgive them some of their misstatements over the years.) My friend Shirtless has never been able to completely forgive the show for what happened in Season 2 . . . but any season that introduced us to the fabulous Michael Emerson and the character of Henry Gale/Ben Linus can surely be forgiven a few tedious experiences with "Waaaaaalt!" and "Where's my BOY!!???!"

Oh how we debated the history of the DHARMA initiative! How excited I was when "The Man Behind the Curtain" provided us with Ben's flashback story. And then, the next big surprise . . . the flash forward that marked the season three finale "Through the Looking Glass" and the tragic, heart-tugging end for Charlie Pace. (I don't think I've ever enjoyed a simple piano piece as much as the one that Michael Giacchino composed for Charlie's death and for every subsequent death scene in the show.)

Even when the show experimented--as with "The Other 48 Days" when we rewound the tale to see it from a different set of "Tailie" characters or, most infamously, in "Expose" when Nikki & Paolo--two of the "socks" (background characters) were brought forward to become a walking talking part of the cast--I found things to like. I've been drinking the LOST kool-aid from the very beginning and I wasn't going to let anything slow me down.

And so, Sunday came. I knew ahead of time that all of the mysteries weren't to be answered. I knew that the perpetrators of the outrigger shootout from the Season 5 time jump would not be revealed. I had made my peace with the fact that the glowing Heart of the Island had only been introduced a few TV hours previous. But I also knew that the story of the Oceanic 815 survivors would finally be told. And I was moved and pleased with how it ended. Many people have said that they loved the first 2+ hours and disliked the last fifteen minutes. And I have grown very frustrated with the misperceptions that many have taken from what Christian said to Jack in the church. But I have to let that go and let other people make up their own minds as to what they think they saw. (I suspect that each of us would experience an encounter with the Smoke Monster differently, as well.)

So . . . goodbye to LOST.

As I said at the end of things that night . . .

Working with an iPad

I am at the Easton Apple store waiting for Grace to finish a Daisy Scout visit to Build a Bear workshop. So I took the opportunity to get my hands on an iPad for the first time.

It is surprisingly heavy when you lift it up. And considering my recent problems with dizziness and a fear of dropping fragile things, I began to wonder if I was going to drop it. (Wouldn't THAT have been a tragedy!)

But I am not writing this on an iPad--though I tried. I was able to load up a new post, but I couldn't get the keyboard to come up when I was in the text entry screen. I wonder what I was doing wrong.

Right now I am typing this on a MacBook laptop--something that might serve as a replacement to my increasingly decrepit iBook G4. I like the feel of this keyboard and the laptop as a whole is feeling pretty solid. Not that I am in the market to buy anything at the moment.

But I was just wanting to get a feel for things.

I think I would feel very self conscious holding and working with the iPad--and I don't know if I could get use to the keyboard. It seems to feel a bit more cramped, but I didn't get much of a chance to really try typing.

Anyway, that's it for this field report. I'd better go before someone tries to make me buy something.

Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour

Back before Stephen Colbert ran for the presidency there was Pat Paulson.

Back before Jon Stewart criticized the government, there was the Smothers Brothers.

I was too young--actually not yet born--to remember the show during its original air dates in the late 1960s. But I was a bit familiar with the show and I did grow up a huge fan of The Carol Burnett Show--which owed much of its early existence to The Smother Brothers show. I also enjoyed Laugh-In (eventually), which was kind of like TSBCH's younger, more popular, hip brother.

David' Bianculli's book on this important show of the Vietnam Era has been a long-time labor of love. Bianculli, who I know best for his Friday hosting duties on NPR's "Fresh Air with Terri Gross" grew up watching the show and has long been a fan. The book grew out of the Smothers Brothers specific request to tell the story of their show, giving him absolute freedom (it seems) to tell the tale, warts and all.

And it is a good story. It shows how TV was beginning to shift from the hyper controlled studio/network-controlled system of the Tube's earliest days and shifting into a more "artistic" direction. Much like Hollywood film's simiar transformation from studio-controlled spectacle films to more auteur-driven works of art that are the reflection of a singular vision, TSBCH came along to challenge the television studios. And challenge is the central theme of the book, chronociling the ongoing and ever-increasing battle between Tom Smothers (the creative force behind much of the show) and the CBS censors. This battle, where Tom wanted to constantly push the boundaries of television in new directions while also using the televised platform to speak his mind against Vietnam, LBJ, and Nixon, led to the show's cancellation at the end of the third season.

One of the best things I can say about the book is that it made me want to seek out DVDs of the show's three seasons and experience the many skits, musical performances, and ideas that Bianculli carefully describes.

Of course, the things that were seen as so scandalous to the CBS censors in 1968 are laughably tame by the far more lax standards of today. But even just two or so years past the cancellation of TSBCH, Norman Lear's All in the Family was doing things far more scandalous than the topical variety show put together by Tom and Dick Smothers.

So, if you like the history of political protest; if you like television history; if you like a true story, well told, give this one a try.