Five years ago I came to a really tough decision in my life.  I gave up on my dreams of becoming a professional screenwriter, packed my bags, and left LA.  I had just been laid off from my job.  There was no way my unemployment was going to get me through even one month in LA.  The decision was a hard one, one of the most difficult I have ever made.  It's not easy to give up on a dream, but the truth I just didn't have the right attitude for a Hollywood career.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a great screenwriter.  I've won multiple contests and was a Nicholl semi-finalist last year.  My problem is an inability to self-promote, and especially to ask for favors.  I would do all the right things, go to the right parties, talk to the right people.  I made loads of friends in the industry; producers, actors, directors, other screenwriters.  People who were successful and could have helped me, but I was never able to ask for help.  It just felt so wrong, dirty really, to use my friends like that.

Oh Where do I begin with this one? So... there is this boy in texas who is 5 years old and has never cut his hair. His father is native american and this is a cultural and religious tradition for them. When his parents went to enroll him in the local public school they were told by the principal that the dress code requires little boys to have hair cut above their ears. Reasons range from "it's always been like that" to "it will distract other children" (well maybe if long hair on boys was allowed to be more common it wouldn't BE a distraction!) to "boys are more likely to get dirty than girls" (though not said in so many words).

William "Bet A Million" Bennett would have us believe that Senator McCain is horribly injured. McCain did not invent this story.

"He can't raise his hands over his shoulders."

Maimed similar to Bob Dole.

Such is legacy. The Hero carries his wounds.  Ordinary folk are impressed by suffering. Then along comes this:

The Hero waving to a crowd AFTER VIETNAM. The local GOPpers-in-KOS-clothing are begging that its photoshopped....

William Bennett is a best selling writer on the subject of morals.  Conservative and corporate pundits support what he says.

Same for the Washington Post, Chicago Trib, New York Times, McCain's campaign, RNC. Honorable institutions. They say that aides comb The Hero's hair for him. But McCain's medical records do not support it.

Damn them lying eyes....

Or as Hillary must feel, damn that Bosnia videotape. Getting us to a nasty little thought: is McCain's arm-raising disability similar to Hillary's Bosnia trauma ?

Gee. What if two of the three finalists for the presidency share a problem ?

Sick of this nonsense?  I am.

I'm not watching it. I don't want to know what the running tally is.  I refuse to listen to the blowhards and gasbags on my TeeVee.

If you feel this way, follow me after the jump and we'll discuss anything you like.

If anyone brings up the Never-Ending-Race we'll HR their asses.

There is a prejudice in politics today, a prejudice that the middle-aged men who guard our national discourse are only too happy to perpetuate. Many people believe that this prejudice may prevent Mitt Romney from becoming president... but it also affects one of our own. In fact, it affects millions of good, decent, hardworking Americans, who have silently borne the scorn and stereotyping of neighbors, co-workers, and political pundits who, in many cases, may be wholly unaware of their own bigoted attitudes. It's a prejudice that affects me directly, in a very personal way.

For you see, I, like John Edwards and Mitt Romney and millions of other Americans, have great hair. We did not ask for it, but we do not apologize for it. And we will not put up with the stereotyping and discrimination any longer.

A lock of Che Guevara's hair was recently sold for $100,000. If Che were still alive, he'd probably start another guerilla warfare campaign over this.

Che would probably have cursed his own good looks for being a catalyst for capitalism. Honestly, why else would that picture of him (you know the one I'm talking about) be so famous if not for the fact that Che looks so dashing and rebellious in it?

People will pay good money (their own private money) to gaze upon beautiful people. That itself is capitalism. From the t-shirts, to the coffee mugs, to the locks of hair, the consequences of Che's cult of personality are clear. He has been whored out, in absentia, to the highest bidder.

"When the moon is in the seventh house," was Shockwave’s reply when I asked him when he was going to visit me. The reference was not lost on me... I was raised on Broadway musicals and I recognized the quote from the song "Aquarius" in the musical Hair. I thought he was just joking, but two days later he emailed me. "The moon IS in the seventh house," he said. The email contained an invitation to see Hair.

Hair, famous for its nude scene, was one of the very few musicals my parents did not take me to see as a kid. This particular performance was staged as a fundraiser for the Arlington West project, bringing speakers, soldiers, and DVDs of the documentary about Arlington West to the inner city schools targeted by military recruiters.

I’ll cut to the chase of this diary before going back to talk about Hair and its message a bit more: When we look back on the ‘60’s and Vietnam, we remember the hippies, the counterculture, and the protests. When we look back on today, will the pro-peace anti-American-empire segment our society even make it into the history books? Or will people just remember how Britney Spears doesn’t wear underwear? Will history record reality TV as a bigger cultural phenomenon than the anti-war movement?

Most Americans know the truth, but they are not particularly eager to reflect upon it.  There are far too many Americans living in poverty.  Far too many Americans are without hope, healthcare, or a home they can call their own.  Most Americans living in poverty are children, and for those children, the odds are not good.

Yesterday, John Edwards began a national effort, a national effort asking America to turn its attention away from business as usual for a week, and focus, instead, upon ending the destitution and poverty that imprisons millions of Americans.  

As part of the national effort, John Edwards will retrace, in part, the historic "poverty tour" that Robert Kennedy made through eastern Kentucky in February of 1968, when he was running for President.  That tour, begun as a modest idea to focus attention on poverty in America, became an historic, national media event that echoes to this very day in our national politics.

For anyone following this story, it just gets better and better. Watch this amazing Press Conference Peter Berdovsky, 27, and Sean Stevens, 28 give. Of coarse Fox noise breaks in to show their viewers this little treat.

Video below the fold.

     Not trying to steal Elizabeth D's thunder here, but she can do that diary with a similar name later on. --

     I don't fuss about too much, but my hair is so long that I usually comb through it 5 separate times in the morning, or more. (First with a big comb, then with a smaller one when the huge kinks are worked out.) A little fuss, but I live with it.

     What do you fuss about? Besides Eorgegay Ushbay, that is?? ?