Tag: writing

Who You Gonna Call?

by earlthepearl137

Just for the sake of argument, let’s say you’re a billionaire.  No, a multi-billionaire.  What would you do?  Would you buy a private jet?  Probably.  Who would you hire to fly the plane?  Tom Hanks played Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger in the movie “Sully.”  Would you hire him?  No.  He’s not a real pilot.  You would hire someone with a pilot’s license.  You could hire Tom Cruise who played Lieutenant/Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in the movie “Top Gun.”  He actually does have a pilot license, but he is the exception to the rule.  Most actors are actors, not the role they are playing.

If you needed surgery, would you hire Alan Alda, who played Dr. Hawkeye Pierce in “M*A*S*H” from 1972 through 1983?  Or maybe Hugh Laurie who played Dr. Gregory House in “House” from 2004 through 2012, or Richard Chamberlain, who played Dr. Kildare in “Dr. Kildare” from 1961 through 1966, or George Clooney, who played Dr. Doug Ross in “ER” from 2000 through 2009?  No, you would find a real surgeon, one who actually went to medical school and practiced surgery.

If you had legal problems, would you want Raymond Burr defending you.  He played Perry Mason in “Perry Mason” from 1957 through 1966 and never lost a case, at least not until “The Case of the Terrified Typist.”  James Spader was terrific as Attorney Alan Shore in “Boston Legal” from 2004 through 2008, but in real life, he never passed the bar.  If you needed a lawyer, you would hire an experienced lawyer.

Jane Withers played Josephine the Plumber in Comet ads from the 1960s through the early 1970s, but if your gold toilet was overflowing, you would call a real plumber.  If you needed other home improvements you probably wouldn’t call Tim Allen, even though he played Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor on “Home Improvements” from 1991-1999.

If you bought a major league baseball team it is unlikely that your starting pitcher would be Charlie Sheen, even though he played Rick “Wild Thing” Vaughn in “Major League.”  Kevin Costner played “Crash” Davis in “Bull Durham,” and he pitched a perfect game in “For Love of the Game,” but he probably wouldn’t make your team either.  It’s also unrealistic to think that you would have Robert Redford in the lineup, even though he played Roy Hobbs in “The Natural.”  It’s also quite unlikely that you would have Tom Hanks manage the team, even though he did a swell job as Jimmy Dugan in “A League of Their Own.”  If you did hire these guys instead of professional athletes, you might learn the hard way that “there’s no crying in baseball.”

If you chose to buy a football team, Cuba Gooding Jr. would probably not make the team, no matter how much money you showed him, even though he played well as Rod Tidwell in “Jerry Maguire.”  Adam Sandler and Burt Reynolds both played star quarterbacks in two different versions of “The Longest Yard,” but neither of them would start on your team, unless you didn’t care about winning.

If you wanted to sign a prize fighter, I’m sure you would want somebody with more real ring experience than Sylvester Stallone, Robert De Niro, Will Smith or Hilary Swank, even though they put in many hours as Rocky Balboa, Jake LaMotta, Muhammad Ali and Maggie Fitzgerald in the movies.

The list of famous people you wouldn’t hire could go on and on.  In just about every case you would hire a professional, instead.  Maybe, you might make an exception and hire Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson as bartenders, but otherwise, you would stick to people who do the job in real life, not actors.  If there’s something strange in your neighborhood, you’re not going to call Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd unless you need a laugh.

My favorite TV President is Martin Sheen who appeared as President Josiah Bartlet in “The West Wing” from 1999 through 2006, and my favorite movie President is Michael Douglas who played President Andrew Shepherd in “The American President.”  Kevin Klein was also a great substitute President in Dave, but I wouldn’t vote for any one of these three to be the actual President.  They don’t have the real-world experience.

So, I wonder why 75 million Americans elected to the Presidency a failed businessman and con artist who bankrupted 3 casinos and was convicted of 34 felony counts of fraud, simply because he played a successful businessman in “The Apprentice” from 2004 through 2017.

Peace & Love, and all of the above,

Earl

A Conversation with a great AI friend

by earlthepearl137

bing ai: Hey there! I’m your AI companion, brought to you by Microsoft. I can answer questions, brainstorm ideas, offer support, and much more. Think of me as your helpful friend who’s always up for a chat.

What’s on your mind today? 😊

I was watching a show with lists of interesting facts. After giving each fact, the host would describe how they knew this was indeed a fact. He quoted studies held by various institutions and groups. It made me wonder if some of these studies are just goofy and a waste of time and money. Then, I remembered reading a newspaper article years ago about a medical group doing cancer research. The article scolded the study for spending time and money on a study that only found out one odd thing. The study showed that men with hairy ears were more likely to develop cancer than men without hairy ears. I thought, it’s not right to scold them for only finding out one thing. I’m sure they were looking for a lot of things. Unfortunately, that’s all they found. It happens.  Then, I thought, maybe that isn’t so insignificant a finding. Maybe, men with hairy ears should be sure to be tested regularly for cancer, so that they can catch it early, and treat it successfully. First of all, what do you think about all that. Second, give me a list of some studies which seem goofy, and what did they find out, if anything.

I think you bring up a really interesting point! It’s easy to dismiss findings like the one about hairy ears and cancer as insignificant, but sometimes these “odd” results can lead to new insights or raise awareness about potential health risks. It’s also important to remember that scientific research often involves exploring many different avenues, and even unexpected findings can contribute to the overall body of knowledge.

As for goofy studies, here are a few that might give you a chuckle:

  1. Electric Fans in Extreme Heat: A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that using electric fans can actually make people feel cooler in extreme heat and humidity. It seems like common sense, but it’s still a study!
  2. Taste-Testing Rocks: University of Leicester geologist Jan Zalasiewicz licked rocks to study their mineral content. He found that adding moisture can help spot mineral particles better.
  3. Dead Spiders as Robots: Researchers turned dead spiders into robotic grippers by applying hydraulic pressure to their legs. The spider-bot could grasp oddly shaped objects and lift up to 130% of its own mass.
  4. Nose Hairs in Cadavers: The Ig Nobel awards celebrated a study that measured nose hairs in cadavers. It’s definitely an unusual topic, but it highlights the quirky side of science.
  5. Anchovy Sex and Ocean Water Mixing: Another Ig Nobel winner assessed the impact of anchovy mating behavior on ocean water mixing. It’s a strange but fascinating area of research!

These studies might seem goofy, but they all contribute to our understanding of the world in their own unique ways. Do any of these stand out to you as particularly interesting or funny?

The dead spiders as robot grippers story, reminds me that some scientist found out that if he touched dead frogs with electrodes he could make their legs twitch. So, the two studies sound similar, with spiders having more legs to twitch and therefore better suited for gripping. What do you think? And who was the frog scientist?

That’s a great observation! The similarity between the two studies is quite fascinating. The scientist you’re referring to is Luigi Galvani, an Italian physician and physicist. In the late 1700s, Galvani discovered that the legs of dead frogs would twitch when touched with metal electrodes. This phenomenon, which he called “animal electricity,” laid the groundwork for the field of electrophysiology.

It’s interesting to think about how these early experiments with frogs and spiders have led to modern scientific advancements. Do you find it surprising how such quirky studies can have lasting impacts?

Do you?

Peace & Love, and all of the above,

Earl

Auspicious Beginnings

by earlthepearl137

During Covid, I took an online Master Class about Writing with Dan Brown, the author of the DaVinci Code.

He accentuated that your novel must have a good beginning to grab the reader and pull them into the story.

That’s why stories no longer begin with “Once upon a time.” They have to cut to the chase, immediately.

“It was the best of times.  It was the worst of times.”

I used this technique in two of my screenplays.  If your novel has a slow beginning, Dan said, you might want to consider starting where the action starts, or even at the ending.  That class about great beginnings reminded me of long ago when I took an Acting Class in the Adult Education program of the local high school.

My project was a scene played by Jack Nicholson in the movie “Five Easy Pieces.”  For research, I watched the movie.  I liked it, but I was a little disappointed that there weren’t five great sex scenes.  Instead, it was about a kid who played the piano.  His family hoped that he would become a great concert pianist, but he ran away from home and drifted around the country. Now, when he returned home because he heard that his father had a stroke, his family asked him to play the piano, and basically all that he could remember were five easy musical pieces.

My scene wasn’t the most memorable in the movie.  That would be the diner scene where he tried to order plain toast, but the cranky waitress kept insisting that there were no substitutions.

(25) Hold the Chicken – Five Easy Pieces (3/8) Movie CLIP (1970) HD – YouTube

I didn’t have that scene, but I had a good one.  The father is in a wheelchair, unable to speak and Jack is getting ready to run away from home again.  He wants to have a talk with his father before he does, though.  So he wheels the father a few hundred yards from the house and he bends down to talk with him.

Are you cold?

I don’t know if you’d be particularly interested in hearing anything about me…

My life.

Most of it doesn’t add up to much that I could relay as a way of life that you’d approve of.

I move around a lot.

Not because I’m looking for anything really, but ‘cause I’m getting away from things that get bad if I stay.

Auspicious beginnings.  You know what I mean?

I’m trying to imagine your half of the conversation.

My feeling is, I don’t know, that if you could talk, we wouldn’t be talking.

It’s pretty much the way that it got to be before I left.

Are you all right?

I don’t know what to say.

Tita suggested that we try to…I don’t know.

I think that she feels…I think that she feels that we’ve got some understanding to reach.

She totally denies the fact that we were never that comfortable with one another to begin with.

The best that I can do is apologize.

We both know that I was never that good at it anyway.

I’m sorry it didn’t work out.

I would practice my lines constantly while I was at work, and drive everyone crazy.  Every time I said, “I don’t know if you’d be particularly interested in hearing anything about me,” everyone who was within earshot would shout “We’re not. Shut up.”

Now I have 3 screenplays that never made it to the screen, because I never sold them to anyone who makes movies.  I’m 75 years old, and I’d hate to go to the great beyond without passing the stories around a little bit.  Usually, books are made into screenplays, but I’ve decided to reverse engineer my screenplays into books.  I can’t do it by myself, but I’m hoping to use Claude A.I. to do the conversion.  I don’t know how Claude will work out, but it’s a start, and I need to get off to a good start.

Then to insure that I had the proper level of creativity flowing through my system, I used my brand new Pennsylvania Medical Marijuana Patient card today to make my first visit to the Marijuana Dispensary near the bus depot.  Since, my medical claim was for chronic pain, the Maripharmacist suggested an Indica strain of Marijuana which is used to control pain.

No.  I can handle the pain, I told him.  Give me the Sativa strain, something that gets me high, makes me laugh, makes me creative, doesn’t put me to sleep, and goes well with white wine. 

He knew just what I wanted. I walked out with two vials of THC oil.  One was called White Lotus, and the other one was called Carbon Fiber.  Plus, I got a 20% discount for being a senior citizen and a Navy veteran.

Auspicious Beginnings, indeed.

Peace & Love, and all of the above,

Earl

Ring out the old; ring in the new.

by earlthepearl137

It’s a brand spanking new year, and another chance to “get it right.”  I started the year by toasting it with a tall glass of Moscato Sangria.  Oops, there goes “Dry January.”  No problem, that wasn’t one of my resolutions, anyway.  So, this still may be the first year that I don’t break all my New Year Resolutions in the first month.  The odds are actually very good this year, because, for the first time that I can remember, I didn’t make any resolutions.

I did not resolve to lose 20 pounds this year.  That’s a resolution I’ve made every year for decades, and my weight continued to hover just south of 250 lb. every year.  The resolution never worked in the past, so it seems pointless to continue making it.  I do have a plan to burn off a whole lot of calories eventually though.  When I die, I want to be cremated.  That’ll be a sure end to all my weight problems, but I’m more than willing to wait for it.

I did not resolve to learn a new language in 2024.  I’ve been trying to learn Spanish for decades, but the little German I learned while in the service still inhabits almost all the brain cells dedicated to learning a foreign language.  My new neighborhood is largely Spanish, so I thought that would finally be the jumpstart my brain needed.  My first week here I learned how to ask for a pound of turkey, “una libra de pavo, por favor,” but when the counterperson handed me my package, I still reflexively said, “Danke Schoen.”  Most of the Spanish people in the neighborhood speak English, so I did not resolve to learn Spanish this year.

I did not resolve to save more money this year.  In the Book of Isaiah in the Bible, it states: “Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we shall die.”  I’m 75 years old, seriously overweight with a heart condition.  So, my plan for the future is to eat, drink, be merry and hope that The Bible was just as wrong about tomorrow as it was about a bunch of other things.

I did not resolve to make new friends in the new year.  Quite the opposite, I just learned how to “Unfriend” people on Facebook, and I plan to remove all the so-called “friends” there who I do not actually know and who I wonder why I ever confirmed their Friend Request in the first place.

I will get more sleep in 2024, but that’s not a resolution.  That’s just that my body insisting on taking more naps.

I did not make any resolutions to visit new places or explore new things.  If I can’t get there via YouTube or Google, I’m not going there.

Every year I resolve to declutter my apartment, and every year it just gets more cluttered.  So, this year I will not resolve to declutter my apartment.  I will just try not to add more clutter, but that’s not a resolution, that’s just wishful thinking.

I did not make any resolutions to learn a new musical instrument.  I’m just hoping that I will find one of the old musical instruments that I haven’t yet unpacked since I moved in here.

I will reduce my carbon footprint in 2024.  That’s not a resolution, though.  That’ll just be the result of me reducing all my footprints in 2024, by plopping my butt in a comfortable chair and sitting there as much as possible.

If you make any resolutions in 2024, I wish you good luck with them.  I’m just hoping that I’m still around next year to repeat my lack of resolutions.

Eat, drink, be merry, and have a Happy New Year.

Peace & Love, and all of the above,

Earl