Obama….McCain

I was at a karaoke night at a bar last night where I was recruited by a guy named John, I believe to help with a song. I was unfortunately sitting the closest to John when he started the song “Rolling Down the River”. At least that’s what i think the song is called. That’s all I remember about the song when it was over with. John had warned me in the opening of the music that he may ask me to help him if he “ran out of gas”. I haven’t heard my voice through a microphone at a bar in over 6 years. I also have no idea who John  is

Sure enough 3/4 of the way through the song, you could hear John sputtering, knocking, wheezing as he approached the hill to the gas station. The man was totalling gracing us with his artistic rendition of Elvis in the later years. If you closed your eyes for a moment and listened to him…you would swear…that he was never going to stop, but removing the visual from the live voice that was only 5 feet away from as he gyrated and disco’d his way to Planet John Stardom seemed to be a little more tolerable. John seemed to have fun, and that’s all that really matters. I can’t criticize too much, as I didn’t get up and sing at all.

I have sang karaoke. When I am in regular practice of it, I have been told that I can do a pretty good job with some of the country artists like Chris Cagle, Gary Allen, Garth Brooks, Kenny Chesney.

Since Omaha has switched to a smoke free city (no smoking in any establishment – at all) I went outside to light one up. While out there, I had walked into the middle of a discussion between an intoxicated girl and her husband (I believe) regarding the current Presidential campaign. She was absolutely against Obama winning, but yet she didn’t seem to care much for McCain either. The discussion geared towards what would happen first…first black President, or first female President. I think we could solve this debate really fast if we could get a qualified black female President.

Seriously folks. Who cares?

Who cares if the next President is black, white, green, purple male, female, gay, bi, straight, religious, agnostic, atheist, blind, deaf, handicapped or not?

Who cares what state they are from, what church they attended, how many people they slept with in high school, whether they did drugs, whether they have a college degree or not?

The position of President of the United States should be won by the person that is most qualified to do the job. Regardless of what may come with that package.

I think of how many good candidates there probably are out there that decided not to try to run because maybe their past is a little questionable. So be it. Honestly, over the last 40 years, what President has not had something controversial come up while in office? These are the same people that while running for office maybe had slightly tinged career history, maybe immaculate reputations, but did it matter? Not really in the end. Maybe we should consider letting someone into office that has a questionable past more than what has been in there so far. Someone that has had a chance to get all of the crap out of their system..

My Sergeant Major in my unit Fort Riley, KS once told me “There isn’t a great Sergent Major in the Army that i know of that hasn’t had a few Article 15’s in their career.” I loved that he said that because it made sense. (If you aren’t familiar with this, and Article 15 is a form military code enforecement that can lead to dock in pay, extra duty, loss of rank, etc depending on the severity of what the reprimand was for.)

I heard this girl at the bar make a comment regarding how she isn’t registered to vote, never has voted, but freely admits she has opinions about the government. This I disagree with. If you do not vote, you have no right to complain about the government. The only exception to this would be students under 18 years old because they can’t vote.

This goes inline with my belief that if you have a complaint about something, that is fine. Until you can find a sensible way to solve that problem that you have the complaint with, then keep it to yourself. I have been doing this at work for a few years, and it works wonders when it comes to getting stuff accomplished. That is another reason I have this blog…it’s a place to bounce some of those ideas around. You should try it…

I’m Going to be in a Film

I made my film debut last night. A friend of mine, Jimmie, has been working for weeks on an independent film for a film competition. He called me up last week and asked if I had any black clothes…jeans, shirt, the works. I used to work security, so naturally I do. He asked if I would help with one of their scenes, except I would also be wearing a gas mask. He asked if I had one of those. Couldn’t say that I did. I had no idea I had left such crucial information off of my resume, I wondered how many other film roles I may have missed out on…

Anyways, he located the gas mask, which after several years in the Army, I was completely at ease wearing, however there was still a hint of tear gas residue left in it. I knew where the mask came from on loan, so it really didn’t surprise me.

Luckily, I also spent many hours in the military running the tear gas chambers for training. I eventually could go in without a mask and just a short sleeve shirt instead of the full chemical gear. Yes it burned my skin and my nose would run, back of my throat would feel like melting sand paper with a touch of black pepper, but I eventually figured out out how to breathe in it. Let me tell you, if you are the type that needs coffee by the gallon in the morning to wake up…I have found that a good 8 am cloud of tear gas in unventilated room can work wonders for alertness.

My part was small, but it turned out to be crucial. If I wasn’t there to hand the key to the main character….well, let me just say, they would have probably found someone else to do it.

We shot the 10 second scene probably 15 times from different angles and points of view, then I was able to be graced with watching them film the final scene of the whole film. It was really a neat process and the first time I have ever been on a “set” (trails in the woods at a state park) before. I would love to do it again. I asked Jimmie if I now qualified to be a member of Screen Actors Guild. He laughed, said he believed so and that he would sign whatever validation papers I would need…

I’m extrememly happy that my friend recognized that only I with my extensive background in the industry (of wearing black clothes and able to have a gas mask on my head for an hour) qualified me as THE perfect candidate for this important segment of the film.

…I asked that if I got a credit in the film, I wanted to be known as “Guy With 12 Hairs”…maybe they will let me Host an awards show now…