Wednesday, November 25, 2009

I’m Telling My Story Dec. 3rd, 7:30 pm, at Workmen’s Circle

It’s the climax of this ten-week storytelling workshop I’ve been taking.

I’ll be reading a story that is 1400 words long. It should take ten minutes.

There will be refreshments. It is free.

Workmen’s Circle is located at 1525 Robertson Blvd, LA, CA, 90035.

A Great Gift Idea - Scene Seeker!

I have a new motto for holiday shopping this year: Fun but affordable. Forget expensive gifts that soon find their way to the remainder bin at some big box retailer, or presents that quickly fall out of style and gather dust. This time, I plan to go digital -- with iPhone applications.


With tens of thousands of applications from which to choose, and having an iPhone is a great present for your special someone (note to friends and family alike: I want an iPhone!), you can easily pick the right application for the right person. Which brings me to Scene Seeker, the coolest application for the iPhone ever, so cool that it makes Santa and his helpers - is the North Pole a union shop or a right-to-work territory? - pale before the geniuses at Bizmosis.com, the creators of Scene Seeker.


Scene Seeker gives you incredible details about your favorite films and TV shows. For example: you're in New York City or Los Angeles - and since I live in the latter, let's use that locale as our point of contact - and you want to know which movies or TV shows take place (or were shot) in the area. Well, Scene Seeker gives you all the information you need - and then some - including: names, locations and GPS directions - yes, GPS directions! - to these places. Which means, that fabled skyscraper or haunted house or iconic restaurant, the places that define our most beloved films and TV shows - they're all available through Scene Seeker.


So, here's my new plan: get all of my friends Scene Seeker - I'm on that list, too - and then watch a bunch of movies, and use Scene Seeker to really explore Los Angeles. Throw in some snacks, and I'm a happy camper. Get Scene Seeker! Enjoy the holidays -- and be merry!


Saturday, November 14, 2009

An Improv About His Dad

"Who wants to share what they brought in?" asks the teacher.
"I'd like to do an oral," he says.
"OK," she says. "You'd like to do oral storytelling? Would you like me to ask you questions?"
"Yes," he says. "I've got a subject. I'd like to talk about my father."
"Great," she says.
"My father got two PhDs in 18 months each," he says. "A very disciplined man."
"In what?" she asks.
"The first one in Rhetoric. The second one in New Testament Studies. Eschatology -- what will happen at the end of the world. They were both in religion."
"What is Rhetoric for religion?" she asks.
"He did his PhD in Rhetoric. He did his PhD thesis on the rhetoric of the Apostle Paul."
"So what did he tell you that he was studying?" she asks.
"He got his first PhD eight years before I was born," he says.
"But what did he tell you about them? The child?"
"He told me that he did it in 18 months and how the odds were against him and that was all the time that he had and that he got up at 4 every morning and wrote his thesis before going to class. He was a self-made man."
"Why do you think he was telling you that and not about the subject?"
"I read what he wrote for Rhetoric when I was 20. It wasn't groundbreaking. It was that he did it in 18 months that was extraordinary.
"I was going through a period where I was shucking away the way I was brought up and forging my own life.
"I've been going through my adult life trying to thrust him away. My first girlfriend said to me, the more you try to be different from him, the more you'll be like him."
"And are you?" asks the teacher.
"Yes," he says.
"So what does that mean?" asks the teacher.
"It's a curse and a blessing," he says.
"What's the blessing?"
"He's disciplined and I can be disciplined. He's well-read. He taught me about books."
"How did he teach you that?" she asks.
"He took me to the library and explained how it worked," he says.
"What did he tell you?"
"This was in Australia when I was about nine years old. He explained to me how the Dewey Decimal system worked for the library catalogue. When we came to America in 1977, when I was eleven, he took me to the college library and showed me how it worked. He pointed out the Christian Science Monitor and said that many people considered it the least biased newspaper."
"And why do you want to talk about him now?" she asks.
"My therapist recommended that I write about him," he says.
"Do you want to?" she asks.
Long pause.
"If I can find something to say," he says. "I feel like I have nothing to say about him. I'm not interested in writing about my father."
"And why do you think that is?" she asks.
He turns his hands into fists and starts punching himself. His face flushes and his whole demeanor changes. He repeats the question. "We're dead to each other. We don't communicate except through my stepmother. Maybe once or twice a year directly. I've made him feel like he's failed me and I know he did the best by me. He was always steady and reliable."
"Is your communication completely on an intellectual basis?"
"It was largely that during my late teens, early twenties. It's just minimal now. We love each other. We've gone separate paths."
"Have you talked about religion to him?"
"Not for years," he says. "That wouldn't go down well. He's a Christian minister and I became Jewish."
The class cracks up.
"So that's what you can write about," she says.
"When I was going through the conversion to Judaism process," he says, "I was still living with him. And I grew a beard and answered his phone shalom."
"And what joy did that bring you?" she asks.
"It brought me a lot of joy," he says.
"How do you think he heard it?" she asks. "It means peace, right?"
"It was a giant f--- you," he says.
"Do you think that was conveyed?" she asks.
"Yeah," he says. "I think that was conveyed."
"How much of your conversion has to do with him?" she asks.
"I think a substantial part," he says.
"You could've picked any religion though," she says. "Was that the worst one for him?"
"No," he says. "I didn't consciously do it."
"How did you tell him?" she asks.
"I was living with my parents at the time," he says, "because I was pretty sick with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I was bedridden. I didn't tell him about the actual conversion process until it was finished."
"Why? Did you think he would talk you out of it?"
"No," he says. "They knew it was going on but it was one of those things you don't bring up. I was really sick and they knew it was helping keep me alive.
"I told him one night that I had finished my conversion to Judaism today. He calmly looked up from his book at the dinner table and said, 'They're certainly not like the Adventists, out there proselytizing.' He knew how hard they had discouraged me and pushed me away."
"So how did you take that?"
"I thought it was a really cool answer," he says. "He loses sleep worrying about my Heavenly salvation."
"Do you lose sleep over his?"
He laughs. "No."
"Do you think you are going to the same place?" she asks.
"Yes."
"Do you want him to know that?" she asks.
"I sure he knows that," he says, "if he knows anything about the Jewish religion, that it holds that all good people have a place in the world to come."
"Is he a good person?" she asks.
"Yes," he says, "he's a good person."
"What's your image in your head of him?" she asks, "and then we'll end. What portrait do you hold?"
"This pained smile," he says, "where he knows that nothing he will say will do any good and yet he has every reason to fear that I will not be in Heaven. He's looking at me with this pained smile."
"You have a lot to write about," she says. "If you want... Or you could also write about a character based on your father. Who are these two people? A Christian minister. And you're an Orthodox Jew. You didn't just go the easy Jew route. What are these two men and what are they saying to each other by the religious roads they chose? What is all unsaid and what would the rhetoric be?"
"Just imagine what dinner table conversation was like with a self-made man with a PhD in Rhetoric," he says.
"And I don't understand how you can be self-made with Rhetoric?" she says. "You can't make money on Rhetoric."
"No," he says. "He's a theologian and evangelist."
"What does that mean to your identity to say that your father is an evangelical?" she asks. "This would make a really interesting play."
"Could you elucidate?" he asks.
"No," she says. "What are your questions? We have two strong figures with built-in drama. Love, religion, acceptance, judgment. You're a preacher's kid. I'd love to hear what you remember from sitting there listening. What do these men say to each other in their heads?"
A class member asks: "When you sat in church as a kid, did you sit there hating it? Did you just go along with it? Did you ever feel like you didn't want to practice any religion?"
"Yeah," he says. "I had a few years where I was an atheistic communist. I am an extremist."
"You've been Orthodox for how long?" he's asked.
"Ten years," he says.
"Your whole demeanor changed," says the teacher. "The anger, the physicality. You started saying my father, my father, my father, and punching your hand. If you were an actor, that would be a great acting choice. Psychological changes."
"Your whole face changed," says a class member. "Everything changed. You turned red."

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Luke Ford Drives Through Santa Barbara III

http://lukeford.net/blog/?p=12639 Luke Ford left home at 4:30 am with his friend, heading for Big Sur, Morrow Bay, Monterey and high adventure and hiking and deep conversation and lunch and fun sun

Luke Ford Drives Through Santa Barbara II

http://lukeford.net/blog/?p=12639 Luke Ford left home at 4:30 am with his friend, heading for Big Sur, Morrow Bay, Monterey and high adventure and hiking and deep conversation and lunch and fun sun

Luke Ford Drives Through Santa Barbara IV

http://lukeford.net/blog/?p=12639 Luke Ford left home at 4:30 am with his friend, heading for Big Sur, Morrow Bay, Monterey and high adventure and hiking and deep conversation and lunch and fun sun

Luke Ford Drives Through Santa Barbara

http://lukeford.net/blog/?p=12639 Luke Ford left home at 4:30 am with his friend, heading for Big Sur, Morrow Bay, Monterey and high adventure and hiking and deep conversation and lunch and fun sun

Walking Through Monterey Before Sunset

http://lukeford.net/blog/?p=12639 Luke Ford talks about his childhood while walking through Monterey. He remembers his father's talks here in 1980.

Hiking Through Big Sur National Park

http://lukeford.net/blog/?p=12639 Luke Ford wants to push on to Monterey before sunset. He remembers his father's talks here in 1980.

Walking Through Monterey Before Sunset II

http://lukeford.net/blog/?p=12639 Luke Ford talks about his childhood while walking through Monterey. He remembers his father's talks here in 1980.

Monterey - A Clean Contrast To Israel

http://lukeford.net/blog/?p=12639 Luke Ford talks about his childhood while driving through Big Sur, Nov. 9, 2009 with a friend. Luke is accused of bad driving, immaturity, recklessness.

Effortless Mastery by Kenny Werner

http://lukeford.net/blog/?p=12639 Luke Ford talks about his childhood while driving through Big Sur, Nov. 9, 2009 with a friend. Luke is accused of bad driving, immaturity, recklessness.

Elephant Seals - Driving Through Big Sur To Monterey III

http://lukeford.net/blog/?p=12639 Luke Ford talks about his childhood while driving through Big Sur, Nov. 9, 2009 with a friend. Luke is accused of bad driving, immaturity, recklessness.

Elephant Seals - Driving Through Big Sur To Monterey

http://lukeford.net/blog/?p=12639 Luke Ford talks about his childhood while driving through Big Sur, Nov. 9, 2009 with a friend. Luke is accused of bad driving, immaturity, recklessness.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Driving Through Big Sur To Monterey II

http://lukeford.net/blog/?p=12639 Luke Ford talks about his childhood while driving through Big Sur, Nov. 9, 2009 with a friend. Luke talks about his SDA childhood, psychology, Alexander Technique.

Driving Through Big Sur To Monterey

http://lukeford.net/blog/?p=12639 Luke Ford talks about his childhood while driving through Big Sur, Nov. 9, 2009 with a friend. Luke is accused of bad driving, immaturity, recklessness.

Driving Through Big Sur II

http://lukeford.net/blog/?p=12639 Luke Ford talks about his childhood while driving through Big Sur, Nov. 9, 2009 with a friend. Luke is into the power of now, thinking of writing a book.

On The Way To Monterey

Josh emails: I woke Elise* at 4 am. I turned on the light. I said, "Let's get up. We're going."
"You're crazy if you think can get me out of bed at this time," she said.
I took a cold shower, brushed my teeth, took my vitamins, munched some greens, swallowed some energy chews. I pushed her into the shower.
We hit the road at 4:30 am. I needed her guidance on the road. I was taking the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) and somehow we ended up on the 118 East. Not helpful.
She got me back on the right track. Lost 20 minutes.
She may have saved my life. I passed someone driving north on the PCH. With traffic coming right for me, I did not realize I was in the wrong lane. She pushed me back to the right one. Thank you!
After Santa Barbara, she picked up the video camera when I asked and interviewed me for my blog.
We had our only tiff in Morrow Bay. She wanted to walk around the town. She'd stayed here several times. I wanted to push on for Big Sur.
I eventually went along with what she wanted when she made clear that it was looking like we couldn't travel together.
She thought I was crazy wanting to get to Big Sur but I insisted.
We hit it 30 minutes after Morrow Bar. What a gorgeous drive.
We drove to a secluded spot. We parked. We walked through the trees to the cliff. We look out at the ocean and up at the sky and we felt very close.
We took pictures.
She told me a story about me brutally seducing an Orthodox virgin in a long dress. She has such an imagination. She knows how to excite me.
Her openness and her words and her sighs and her expressions and her intense emotions and passionate presentness drive me wild. She is the greatest girl.
We drove on and had lunch on another cliff.
We drove on to Big Sur National Park. She had never been this far north. I made her scream my name.
We hiked for an hour.
Then I insisted we head for Monterey.
She had never been to Monterey. I wanted her to experience some first. I wanted to show her how exciting and creative I am.
We arrived at 4pm. I had coffee, my first coffee in about a year. I needed the pep for the long drive home.
We had an hour of daylight to show her my old stomping grounds. We walked past the Monterey Convention Center, the site of my father's evangelical swings in 1980 and 1981.
We walked past Fisherman's Wharf to Cannery Row. We paused for rest beside an expensive wedding and looked out at the ocean in the dying sun.
By 6pm, we were 340 miles north of Los Angeles. We were finally heading south on the 101.
We could breathe.
Elisa checked her cell phone.
"I got a text from Vikki*," she says.
The name sends shivers up my spine. She's left me twice to hook up with Nikki. It's the keenest pain.
"She wants to know if I want to play this week," she says.
"Do you?" I ask.
She's silent.
"I repeat my question."
"I'm with you now," she says. "I won't play with her this week."
Five minutes later, she says, "I'm sorry. As soon as I mentioned Nikki's text, I felt in my chest that what I was doing was wrong."
I couldn't fight back. I had 340 miles to cover. The 101 South at night was a difficult drive. I fought the road, enlivened by the exciting Dallas-Philadelphia game on the radio.
We'd had our greatest day ever and yet she remained contemptuous.
I stayed poised. I know there's a girl out there for me.
Nov. 10. My six-day driving gig has ended. That postpones my financial demise for two weeks. I'm glad to be making and posting videos again. I have such a full life. I have a Netflix subscription, Judaism, Alexander Technique teacher training, dating, blogging, therapy, Dennis Prager's radio show, a social life, reading, the attractions of California, yoga, meditation. I am opening up my heart. I am connecting more.
Read On