I’m going to my first Chicago Blackhawks hockey game since the late 1970s tonight. A lot of things have changed since then. First, the old Chicago Stadium where I watched them play is long gone. The United Center- the House That Jordan Built- is where they play across the street from where the old Stadium loomed and what is now a parking lot.
My old heroes- Bobby Hull, Stan Mikita, Whitey Stapleton, Tony Esposito are also long gone. The new guys- Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, Marion Hossa- are just names to me. I hear they’re good. The Hawks are so good for the first time in decades they’re favorites to win the Stanley Cup which they haven’t done since 1961 when I was seven years old. I’ll believe it when I see it.
I haven’t followed the NHL for years but I know there was a strike, a few franchise moves, and that no Canadian team has won the championship since Wayne Gretzky in the 1980s led the Edmonton Oilers. I actually continued playing hockey into the ’80s when I worked in Denver. I was a defenseman on a media team that played some long-gone NHL veterans at long-gone McNichols Arena before a long-gone Colorado Rockies game (they moved and became the Stanley Cup-champion New Jersey Devils).
I’m looking forward to tonight’s game against Vancouver. Combined with the exciting games between the US and Canada in the Olympics, I’m curious about hockey again, just like I was nearly fifty years ago as a kid skating down at the reservoir all winter, playing pickup games and wearing my white, extra small Blackhawks jersey.
If they’d invented these 30 years ago, I might’ve never gone into TV. I’ve been shooting for a company named TurnHere for more than two years. They’ve become successful and been instrumental in my own company’s success. Recently, they spun off a new company named Vook. The name comes from “video book.” They put videos to books made available on-line for download to your computer, PDA, phone, whatever. Numerous vids are sprinkled throughout a Vook, short and artistic scene-setters that put the reader in the mood or otherwise enhance the experience. They contacted me because I’m one of TurnHere’s “preferred filmmakers” and wanted me to produce one.
Some of their titles are new, some are literally ancient. They wanted me to tap into the virtually bottomless vault of literary works known as “public domain.” Books, essays and other writings so old (Plato, anyone?) that you can reuse the work for any purpose you’d like and not have to pay royalties. I looked over the extremely partial list of titles Vook was interested in doing and found one I thought would be outstanding: Jack London’s “Call of the Wild.”
I say outstanding because it’s not only a classic, suitable for the family, involves dogs, sledding, mystery and, of course, redemption. It also gave me the chance to take my camera up into the mountains and do what I love at my favorite time of year. There was one major question though: where was I going to find sled dogs and an old mine- two major ingredients to the story?
I got the email from Vook on a Saturday morning in early February giving me the green light on the project. I was spending the weekend in Park City helping my wife run an academic conference (helping as in skiing). I thought about it a second, remembered I was right in the heart of Winter Sports USA, and spun the Google of Fortune. I revved up the laptop and did a search for “Park City Dog Sled.”
I found several local firms that offer dog sled rides for families and groups. But I also found an international dog sled event happening just a few miles away. I paged down to find the date. It was TODAY. In fact, it was an hour from now. I threw on my coat, gloves, etc. Then I realized. I don’t have my camera gear. Insert word here most Utahns never imagined.
I mushed like hell down to Salt Lake City (that “all downhill” thing works great until you realize it’s eventually “all uphill”). Got home, grabbed the camera, Sorel boots, anything else warm I could find among our house construction debris, jumped back in the car and screamed back up the 3,000 ft. vertical to PC. I got to the dog races just in time to catch the start.
It was a perfect day for Park City. Not sunny, dry and in the 80s. But partly cloudy, slightly snowing and in the 30s. It took all the creativity, endurance and muscle I had- with the inspiration of 3-4 lattes- to shoot around the crowds, tents and cars to transport a 2010 spectator event into a desperate, solitary slog through Alaskan gold country in the 1890s. Thank God for filters and Photoshop.
The next day, Sunday, we were supposed to go home. But I still needed to find an old mine: another central element to the plot of “Call of the Wild”. The night before, I was in a Park City bar (doing research, of course) when I struck up a conversation with the couple next to me. When they asked me what I was doing there (besides goofing off), I told them about the Vook. They were from Utah and excited about the idea. So I asked them if they knew of any good, old mines. The guy said, “Yeah, saw one yesterday right behind the golf course.” Of… course.
Park City is an old silver mining town but ruins can be hard to get to because of the steep terrain and deep snow. So “right behind the golf course” sounded pretty good. Sunday morning, I drove to where he said they were and, sure enough: saved as a landmark to promote a housing development called “Unbelievably Convenient and Visual Mine Ruins Estates”. Or something like that. It worked beautifully.
The weather held so I took the next day to shoot in the Uinta Mountains east of Park City and at Echo Reservoir near the Wyoming border. Running down one of my favorite showshoe trails to simulate dog sled POV (I’m not posting the video of my lens-first fall for professional reasons), I just happened upon the perfect dog (a Bernese) for one of the book’s great scenes. The dog’s owner, also a snowshoer, was into it. I told him the story and he told the dog how to act. Good job, but working with animals is harder than herding anchor people.
So my first Vook experience was a gas, plus I got to use my extensive news gathering skills to do something that wasn’t a murder, scam or other tragedy. “Call of the Wild” will be released soon and I’ll let you all know when. Thanks to Stacy Waters, Peter Duddington and everyone else at TurnHere and Vook for being so good to me over the years. I look forward to more Vooks in Utah’s spectacular national parks and wilderness. But most importantly, I’m looking forward to sharing classic books and my video work with all of you.
“Chile can do things right, Haiti defenders argue, because it’s more developed. Wrong. It’s the other way around: Chile is more developed because it’s doing things right.”
- Tim Padgett, Time Magazine
Why did Chile sustain fewer fatalities and damage than Haiti even though Chile’s earthquake was 500 times stronger? Because they knew it was going to happen someday and their government and business communities made the preparations necessary to ensure their survival when the inevitable happened.
So when environmental critics, climate change deniers, institutionalized polluters like coal and oil companies refuse to clean up and prevent their messes, fight environmental regulation, fight renewable energy and conservation efforts- THEY ARE LIKE HAITI.
When companies and governments take unilateral and/or cooperative conservation and protective measures, work together to protect communities, don’t fill in wetlands, dump dangerous chemicals into oceans or public water supplies, or develop real estate in environmentally sensitive areas, THEY ARE LIKE CHILE.
And don’t tell me the destruction in either country is God’s will. It’s just more proof that Earth simply does what it does and humans neglect this natural randomness at their peril. If it’s anything connected to religion, it’s proof that as humans need to protect themselves from Nature, we need to PROTECT OURSELVES FROM GOD. Just ask the Canaanites and every other society God supposedly wiped out not because they were evil but because- well, because he felt like it. Haiti and Chile are two of the most devout Christian nations in the world. See how well that worked out?
For those critical of NBC or the Vancouver Winter Olympics, I offer these words: “Two and a Half Men”, “Gay, Straight or Taken”, and Fox News.
From start to finish, this has been one of the most exciting live events ever, especially considering the crap that’s usually on. There was tragedy, triumph and, of course, tons of redemption and helicoptered-snow. Shawn White flew higher than any tomato ever. Apolo Ohno was, well, Apolo Ohno. Lindsey Vonn was disappointing. Bode Miller was inspiring. Joannie Rochette was unbelievable. Kim Yu-na totally predictable- and totally fascinating. The Canadians were incredible. The Americans were more incredible. We fell in love with Canadian ice dancers Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir. Even the nerds of the world, who’ve never even touched ice outside of a Diet Coke, fell in love with the Norweigian curling team’s pants.
Congrats to everyone at NBC and Vancouver for a true spectacle. It shows again that winter is fun- even if you’re not the one getting snowed on.
“Hail divinest Melancholy/Whose saintly visage is too bright/To hit the sense of human sight.”
- Milton, “Il Penseroso”
Is there an upside to everything “bad”? The atomic bomb? Animal testing? The Chicago Cubs? In journalism, you’re taught to look at every side (well, at least two sides) of every story. That’s me. That’s also Pollyanna and Candide. And while it may be difficult to find the good in the Haiti earthquake and the Kardashians, there may indeed be positive benefits to depression.
As you know, my father and members of his family suffered from depression much of their lives. Therefore, I look for and see signs of it in myself. But instead of reading yet another depressing self-help book or missive from a pharmaceutical manufacturer, the New York Times has produced another excellent and useful article about the subject.
The concept of “rumination” (literally, chewing), described in the article, as a root cause of depression makes sense. My father had an excellent memory, was a brilliant student and accountant, and thought for long periods of time (ruminated) about numbers and facts before drawing what he considered airtight conclusions. While this ability often manifested itself as obsession and fixation, the article suggests that it’s a basic human trait that enables analytical and creative thinking. The quote from Milton above, as well as others from creative thinkers, artists and others in the article, indicate that “the black dog” that Winston Churchill used to describe depression can be helpful, inspirational, and ultimately productive. Depression, as Adrian Monk would say, “is a blessing and a curse.”
I strongly urge you to read this article. It will not only help you understand a friend or family member (or yourself) better. It will also help demystify depression and hopefully end the pharmaceutically-based mania that has demonized melancholia by prescribing powerful, mind-altering drugs to help us deal with what truly are life’s every day challenges. I also recommend you watch “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” again. After both of these, you’ll run outside and whistle for your “black dog” to come home.
“How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d.”
Here’s the installation of the solar hot water panels (above) at our home/my business in Salt Lake City this week. Rule of thumb is one panel per person so we have two of them. Below is in the installation of the new 80-gallon hot water storage tank. What’s great is that it’s electrically heated. That means it’s heated by our 2kWh of solar PV panels already in the backyard instead of natural gas. The savings should be huge. FYI: the green liquid in the tank video is glycol. It runs through a tube in the storage tank and is what is heated to keep the water hot. Like one of those systems that melts the snow off your driveway.
“I’m willing to do anything but use the CFLs… I put them in once and couldn’t stand the way they lit up the room.”
- Glenn Beck
A headline is supposed to shock you into reading the article. And the revelation by, of all publications, USA Weekend, that Glenn Beck is a closet environmentalist and a global warming believer on the surface is nothing short of startling. But when you actually read on and LISTEN to Beck and follow not only his professional but personal behavioral patterns, you’ll discover something less surprising.
He’s a pandering, hypocritical, carnival-barking, street clown shouting as loud as he can about whatever he can think of that will get people’s attention. Think of the guy with the sandwich board standing on the street corners of cities proclaiming the world is going to end so he can get a few bills thrown in his hat and buy a Big Mac. That’s Glenn Beck. And his hat runneth over.
He publicly criticizes Al Gore for his position on global warming while secretly (until now) agreeing with it. But end-of-the-world scenarios are Beck’s raison d’etre and the lynchpin of his multimedia empire. Human-induced climate change is probably the best apocalyptic theory going today with the exception of an asteroid plummeting into Midtown Manhattan. Without inspiring fear of divinity-inflicted mass destruction, Beck’s just another right-wing cartoon character. It’s good to know he’s on the green team. Still, it’s just hard to understand why he’s lying to everyone else- just like every other Republican, though the others defy Beck’s model by also lying to themselves.
Another in a long list of incidents involving killer whales happened in Orlando today. Reading about the incidents in the linked article, you get the impression orcas might not LIKE being held captive for human amusement. One thing about the fans who saw this latest episode: they will never forget that show. Question is what did they learn? Orcas are dangerous. Humans are vulnerable. Amusement is relative. My kid’s afraid of the water now.
How about “stop this stupidity and leave those animals alone?” We know dolphins like us (maybe not the guy in the picture) but they are not good at killing us without a lot of help. You have to pick your captive animals like you pick your friends: carefully.
“The culture here is the same as inside the park. “You’re getting cheated inside. You come out here, you can see everything for free.”
- Ai Yong: (minority) rubber farmer in China
It used to be called, in English translation, “Racist Park.” And while China’s new theme parks featuring their ethnic minorities are designed to be some sort of twisted tribute, they really live up to that ironically accurate name. The NYT article about China’s celebration of overt, escalating and Han (majority)-inflicted genocide is truly eye-opening- if not eye-rounding.
Like any zoo, you can see Tibetans, Dai and other ethnic minorities dressed in their colorful native garb, dancing their happy native dances, and re-enacting their ancient customs. All this while those real minorities are still alive (barely) and still engaging in their real ancient cultural customs in their real communities. But the Chinese would rather you not see that. In fact, they’ve made it so difficult for most Chinese and Westerners to visit Tibet and other cultural enclaves that you almost have to visit Racist Park.
Why is the Chinese government and military doing this? To continue their paranoid campaign of oppression and eradication of the Tibetan, Dai and other people they deem inferior and dangerous to the Han majority. If China’s leaders had their way, the only Tibetans and minorities would be in zoos. And at this rate, they’re not only succeeding. They’re making even more money at it by making genocide, literally, a day in the park.
I’m going to my first Chicago Blackhawks hockey game since the late 1970s tonight. A lot of things have changed since then. First, the old Chicago Stadium where I watched them play is long gone. The United Center- the House That Jordan Built- is where they play across the street from where the old Stadium loomed and what is now a parking lot.
