Deep Throat

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Always Connect

Always connect...

Ishmael Merchant died this week. He was 68. They say he died from a 'burst ulcer' - didn't know that you could die from that. They packed him up in a box and flew him back to Mumbai, where he was from. They said his box went to the house of a friend. Well, Ishmael was gay - I hope it went to the house of his best friend or lover, or whatever. But of course that's not in the article. Not that it should be - just noting the non mention - and that whenever you read the paper, if you read between the lines, you always get a bit closer to the truth. Truth is I met him once - at a dinner in Cannes, one of those fabulous affairs, where everyone is dressed to the nines and a waiter walks around with free champagne and cocktail treats until they seat you at a big table. Somehow I was at his table - he was wearing a big white caftan kind of thing - well there's an Indian name for it - maybe it was a white sari - and he was sitting next to some princess type - older woman, royalty blah blah blah. And I started chatting with him, not about movies, but about how unusual the Cannes experience is - because of time and place you wind up meeting people you never thought you'd meet, having conversations you never thought you'd have.. And he looked over at me, smiled and said "Always connect." I've thought about that since then - when I"m tired, trapped in some airport somewhere, waiting for my starbucks - impatient, in a bad mood, cranky, ready to take someone's head off for an incompetent move that cannot be tolerated at any.. and I stop and hear his voice and say outloud; 'How ya doin'? ' Of course since I'm from chicago, i can be forgiven for doing what all chicagoans do everywhere on the planet - 'how ya doin' is a universal greeting in chicago, usually followed by 'what high school did you go to?' friendliness for the sake of a laugh - finding some way to break the ice that surrounds us every day when we're out in the world. Or "what's up on your side of the counter today?" and you hear all kinds of tales.. I love to collect stories from people, they go into my work sometimes, and other times, I can see people lighten up physically just because I've taken the time to ask how they're doing. Or phone operators, who are bored out their minds - i'll ask "so where are you located now?" sometimes it's in colorado - atlanta, canada, even india... but just by taking that extra time to connect - 9 out of 10 times the transaction goes that much quicker, the outcome is that much more favorable, and the memory is that much happier. So, I salute you Mr. Merchant, and in your next life whatever it may be; may you always connect.

The Pope et al

Hmmm. Cardinal Ratzinger. Well, not that I was partial to my cousin, Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, but I was a bit put off by this choice. A bit? Let me put it more succinctly - he's not longer the Panzer Cardinal; he's "The Panzer Pope." This is a guy who served in the Nazi Hitler Youth. Oh, there were extenuating circumstances I know - but has anyone bothered to read what his excuse was about serving in the Army? "I had an infected finger, so I never fired my rifle." Oh my. So one finger goes, the rest are not of any use? Anyone notice that he served some of his time in the army protected the BMW plant, working alongside prisoners from Dachau? Cheese Louise. Okay, forget for a minute that every one of his public stances lines up with the Nazi party - so he doesn't want women as priests, he doesn't want homosexuals in the church, he doesn't want married priests in his church.. hmm.. what's left? Gypsies? Forget for a second that he came out and said that Turks were not Christian enough to be considered part of Europe - shall we burn some of their books as well? Am I just missing the point? Didn't John Paul II spend time making Opus Dei one of his pet projects, and wasn't Ratzinger the choice of the OD fellas? I'm not paranoid. But I'm going to think twice about baptizing my next kid into this place - he actually said that the scandal of sex abuse in the church was 'limited to one percent of the priests' and that he felt the US media - anti Christian in its bent - was out to destroy the Church. Can anyone see the words anti-Christian media and not think of what's going on up in Capitol hill? So - here I am ranting from the relative anonymity of my blog. But the Pope should have known better - JPII that is - let's not forget the stories behind what happaned to JPI (check out the book at amazon.com - In God's Name - published in England) - which happened to be the subject of Coppola's film: "Godfather III" - somehow all the critics, bent on critiqueing his daughter's performance, missed the point that FFC nailed the Church for it's complicity in the murder of JPI - basically following the facts outlined in the above mentioned book. There's some solace in the fact that an Italian professor once told me; "All American Catholics are Protestants.. they choose which dogma to believe and which to leave behind, which in essence, is Protestantism." Maybe he's right. I'm subscribing to Rantism.

What's up with moi

Okay, it's the middle of April. Taxes are upon us again. I'm sitting in an edit bay with the amazing Josh, who is cutting our Tibetan documentary.. a trip around Mt. Kailash with Buddha Bob. If you know who the Bob is, then you'll know what i'm talking about. It'll be finished in a week or so, touched up over the next month and hopefully released in the fall. Four weeks in Tibet - don't know what I'm going to call it yet, but soon.

Olivia is 19 months now, and little Romeo is due in August. Actually we haven't agreed upon a name yet, but since dad passed away this past year, and he was Romeo Charles, it sorta makes sense. Although I'm partial to Rich - since then he won't have to build a new blog. I can just will him the passwork, you know? Somehow I don't think he's going to care about blogs by the time he's 25.

Got to find a way to leave information for my kids - Just turned 50, when they're in their twenties, I'll be in my 70's, by the time they get to this amount of useless information in their brains, i'll be gone and won't be able to pass along any of my sageness.. or what the hell i've learned in this lifetime. and if you can't pass along some of that, what the heck are we doing here anyways? If we all lived a bit more along the lines of 'what am i going to leave for my kids, or my kids kids,' the world might be a different place. Might be.

So this is a place for musing, for bashing the current administration whomever it is, and generally for having some random thoughts. I'll try to keep up the good work as they say. Hello to all my pals who've found this blog.

xo

R

Mt. Kailash, western Tibet 

Blog number one

Okay, Martini Man was taken. Martinia Mania taken. The Martini Shot was taken. Hmm.. maybe not. we'll have to check that one as well. if there's no more blogs from me, it's cause i went to the martini shot. be right back