The Occasional Blog of Jonah Weiland

Pictures from Jacob’s 31st Birthday on Friday night are now posted in the Gallery section of this Web site. I’ll add a couple of videos from the night later. And I’ll post pics from Saturday night’s Nocturnal Wonderland excursion as well as a number of interesting movies on Monday.

Well, I made my very first ever political contribution today. Tomorrow night in Los Angeles Democratic Candidate for President and former Governor of Vermont Howard Dean will be holding a fund-raiser at Union Station. My donation gets me into that lil’ shin dig. I’ll be going there not only to see the Governor, but also in support of a friend who’s working on a project I can’t talk about yet.

I’ve read a lot about all 10 democratic candidates in the past six months and find Dean to be the most to my liking, possibly followed by Edwards with Clark being my third choice. Reading through Dean’s work in Vermont and his stance on a variety of issues it’s become clear that his background as a Doctor offers a unique perspective on the challenges faced by the office. That perspective is what has me excited about this guy and has me getting involved.

I’ll share pictures and thoughts from the event sometime on Wednesday.

Well, we all knew it would happy, as Arnold Schwarzenegger announced his candidacy for Governor of California, people started looking into his past. Much of it is on the record and The Smoking Gun Web site found a great one. In this article is reprinted an interview Arnold did in 1977 with Oui Magazine that has some really juicy stuff in it.

Everyone got all huffy about Bill Clinton’s ridiculous comments about Marijuana. Wait until you read this sucker! Arnold liked to partay!

Still haven’t decided who I’ll vote for. Arnold’s a possibility, as is Bustamante, Uberoth and even Larry Flynt.

If you like Eddie Izzard you need to listen to this interview with Izzard on Morning’s Become Eclectic on KCRW. I missed it this morning, but thankfully the great KCRW archives all their really good stuff, which this is. The music played during this particular program is nothing like you usually hear on Morning’s Become Eclectic seeing as how it was all picked by Izzard, but it’s still fun. If you’ve not seen Eddie’s “Dress To Kill,” you must. One of the best stand-up pieces ever. Seriously. I put it up there with the work of Richard Pryor. Very different, obviously, but just as genius. He’s got a new DVD called “Circle” I need to check out.

Have you ever had one of those days where it seems like shit storm after shit storm comes flying through your office? While at the same time a couple of good things happen as well, but the sheer number of shit storms overwhelms any positive feelings? I had one of those days today. It was actually an extraordinary day. I mean, how could so many things happen in one day? It derailed everything, all the other things I hope to get accomplished weren’t, but man.

Around 6:00 in the evening I started to consider whether or not I should go to Tae Kwon Do. I only had five hours sleep, I was tired and mentally exhausted. Would I be focused enough to do it? Nahhhh … then I forced myself. I told myself just go, try to focus and if you do horribly, bow out and go home. I hadn’t been outside the entire day, hadn’t done much of anything that took me away from my office loft here, so I did it.

For one hour during TKD I forgot everything else going on. I focused on only one thing, TKD. It felt fantastic.

Beau Smith, he of IDW Publishing, sent me this picture taken the Saturday night of Comic-Con International at the IDW Party last month. That’s Beau on the left, also known in comic circles as the Last Real Man, Augie De Blieck Jr. in the middle, and the guy with the “Holy shit, stop the bus from hitting me” look on the right is me. Click the picture to bigify.

As blatantly crazy as the California Governor Recall is, it’s certainly fascinating. As my friend Charles pointed out so deftly on the phone tonight, the phrase “May We Live In Interesting Times” applies perfectly.

One aspect those of you not in the California area aren’t seeing is our local media coverage. Yes, it’s very much true, local news in Los Angeles is car chase heaven. One car chase a week is not unusual. During the all important sweeps months it’s not unusual to see two a week. “If it bleeds, it leads” is standard operating procedure for most local news in Los Angeles. So, how do you deal with the fact now that the recall is the only thing anyone is talking about in California (this is VERY true) and now your lead story has to be politics? Toto, are you sho’ we still be in the Golden State?

This article in the New York Times paints a wonderful picture of how local news in California, specifically Los Angeles, is coming to grips with covering the recall. News directors are at a complete loss as to how to handle this. There are actually reporters who sound like they resent the fact that they have to cover this circus. Seems to me it has more to do with the fact they are now forced to think when reporting, than just reacting.

My favorite part of the story is about the 100-year old woman who’s running for Governor. The news team remark how incredibly lucid this woman is and joke about whether she is actually as old as she said she is. Know what? They’re doing one of their “Truth Squad” investigations into the woman to verify her age.

I think this quote from the article best brings together the entire story. “The laws of Los Angeles news media physics have come undone.” It’s a beautiful thing to watch.