The cast of characters is already enough to send my brain spinning down the sitcom pilot hallway.  But alas, I’ve got too many projects started already.

I started a new job yesterday working for a book reseller. He has an awesome loft apartment in downtown LA; it’s starting to look good downtown, in a couple of years you’re gonna be surprised at what’s occurred there, where he has shelves upon shelves of books listed on Amazon. When you order used books from Amazon, do you envision some poor schlep of a guy in a giant warehouse in Idaho picking that obscure out of print book from a shelf atop a 4 story ladder? Well not quite. It’s not one warehouse, but hundreds. And the schlep is often a shrewd market trader with inventory built up over time. There are independent dealers across the country scouring the county flea markets, garage sales, thrift stores and other various used book locations to offer up as used items through Amazon. These dealers ship you the product directly and are responsible through their agreements with Amazon to provide you with awesome service.

The guy that I’m working for is a terrific guy who has been working this game for many years. At least 8 and he certainly is not a schlep.

It is a fun job with a sense of learning that comes with each day. I get to hang out at thrift stores and buy books for cheap. Right now my goal is to build up an inventory so that I can have more items selling more often. Some things sell quickly and some sit for awhile in inventory before they sell. It was  a good first day on the job and I collected several textbooks, which can fetch quite a good fair.

Who knew that there is so much opportunity right under your nose. This is what theRevolution is about. Discovering and  connecting with people that have the insight into how to make their lives better with what is given to them.  The essence of creation. People with a sense of purpose and vison beyond what most people would consider to be practical. My sense is that there is a growing business here and there are plans for this team of Revoutionaries to reach out to the community in unique and powerful ways. This is what theRevolution loves to see. People helping people through economic incentive, community hands-on involvement and grass root communication. theRevolution has found another Authentic in the mist of the Fugazi.

His name is Boober

I had some profound insight into just how powerful is this universal truth. I see the power of Life constantly force its way through the cracks on the planet. Life has no prejudice. The seasons are the same for the sinner and the saint.  The unfathomable God we keep trying to fathom has no choice but to love our planet. The sun rises and sets on the good and the evil. Sit with that for a few minutes. He is giving the same gifts to the scoundrels and the liars that he is giving to the saints. How dare He! Tomorrow I can be a saint and the next day I may be a scoundrel. Yet God’s gift is still the life pouring through the cracks in our hearts. I pretend to yield the best that I can. But, how do you yield to the eternal?  “Go ahead Sun, rise today.” What kind of arrogance is that? And naive too. Do we say to ourselves,”Oh, today I’m going to yield to gravity.” NO. Aren’t you either fighting it or working with it? I believe that this universal truth, and scriptural axiom, is telling us so much more than just about the setting of the planets around the Sun. It is about the setting of us upon the planet to live and love by the same moon, stars, sun, seas, and forests.  God makes no choice but to shine love upon us all. The Sun cannot judge where it will shine. This is the knowledge of the Kingdom of Heaven. The rains, the Forces of Nature, pour on the unjust as they do the just. Why argue over God’s love? It rises on the good and the evil. It is just awesome to me today, the power of this eternal grace that we are given.

How will you great your enemy when you see him in God’s Kingdom? As you do now? Will you be envious? Will you be like the servants that were hired early in the day and given the same as those who only worked at sundown? Or will you know that the Sun rises and sets on the good and the evil and let the Kingdom of Heaven fill your disagreements with silent reconciliation, knowing what you had done to one another?

Is God not capable of another Sunrise for everyone? Is there not more fruit we can bare tomorrow, brother?

Peace and grace to you.

Michael

theRevolution

So I found myself in the gutter again, and by gutter you might guess I mean craigslist. And guess who posted an ad? Media Mogul Eddie Kritzer!

I replied to the call for scripts to be purchased by an already “successful producer” looking for material first by asking him to send me a direct email contact, which he did. I’m glad he did cause it gave me a chance to see his website and then find this blog: http://leegoldberg.typepad.com/a_writers_life/2005/02/youd_think_anyb.html?cid=143909742#comments.

So I was already prepared to hear back from Eddie Kritzer. His resume looked impressive (eddiekritzer.com)  if you consider riding the coat-tails of one of America’s finest citizens and most influential of comedians Bill Cosby to be impressive. Once I provided him with my phone number to call I heard back from him in about 2 days, on New Years Day. He literally wasn’t on the phone with me 3 minutes yet when he explained his program to me as one in which I pay his 600 dollar commission in advance for the un-guaranteed selling of my script to his magical world of “contacts.” I got into a little bit of debate with him about the ethics of his business practice.

Times are tough.
True enough.
Without people like this
giving us guff.

Hope you see the light, good and faithful servant. Peace. M.

Live open hearted
Be inspired and moved by art
Be magnanimous of heart
Boundless in optimism
Search the depth for the verse, which expresses life’s tension. Life’s beginning. Life’s end.
Express life. Live art.

The Greatest Show You Didn’t Know

by Jeffrey Huit

Rarely in life do you truly discover something brilliant, promising and unique. Sure, you hope for it. You may even brag about that wonderful little play you saw, selling it to strangers as a slice of originality — but in a world of the ho-hum and trivial, it is so easy to dress it up, letting it masquerade as genuine. It is truly a pleasure, let me just say, to not have to do that now.

If I were to ask anyone (who knew anything about sketch comedy) where the best sketch comedy comes from, nine times out of ten I would hear “Chicago” or “New York”. What a true find it was, then, to stumble across a show called “Fries On The Side” here, in Los Angeles, California.

Imagine any sketch show on television. Now imagine the funniest sketch you have ever seen that show do. Now imagine a show that has, one after the other, sketches that equal or surpass the funniest sketch you have ever seen. That’s “Fries On The Side”. Am I overselling it? I don’t think so.

The show has been hosted by some of the funniest, free-spirited celebrities in Los Angeles, with bigger and brighter stars slated to visit in the coming SIXTH SEASON. Past favorites include Danny Woodburn (Mickey in “Seinfield”) Christopher Titus, Alan Ruck (Cameron from “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”), Tommy Davidson (from “In Living Color”) and Carlos Alazraqui (from “Reno 911″). And they come back to host, again and again. Why? Three reasons: the sketches are brilliant, the audience is on-board and loving it, and the talent in the show is some of the best you will ever come across.

So how do they do it? How does a little show, in little North Hollywood, manage to produce the kind of entertainment that blows away anything on television? Simple: only the truly great people survive.

That may sound harsh, but it’s true. “Fries On The Side” employs a philosophy that guarantees excellence. Besides engaging 8 or 9 staff writers who churn out nearly 20 sketches every week, they accept outside submissions. Frequently they wade through 40 to 60 submissions for a show that performs only 12 at the most. In an environment of competition, only the best survive.

Anyone can show up to act. Anyone — even you! Once cast, it is that actor’s job to be indespensable. Can you truly be great? Can you always be great? If the writers trust you, you stay. If they don’t, the casting won’t go your way, and the message becomes pretty clear. Currently, there is a main cast of 12 people who have done just that, with new hopefuls vying every week to be just as good or better. What does that mean? It means the show is better every year, consistently.

This all happens in a cozy theatre called The Sanford Meisner Center for the Performing Arts. Impressive name, camouflaging the funniest sketch comedy show in Los Angeles. While it is usually sold out, that only means 55 people are there with you. And you’re laughing so hard, you’re crying. Afterwards, the cast hangs out and enjoys a fine Coors Lite with you, and you’re happy they did. Rarely do you get to congratulate someone on a truly impressive show and mean it.

So here it comes: Season Six of “Fries On The Side”. Wow. A new show every week, a new host, and a cast of truly good-hearted people who rule at sketch comedy. Hopefully, The season is brought to you by this years sponsor – Snow Queen Vodka ™! First regular season show on Sat. May 10th! Wha hoo!
I guess L.A is finely catching on.

And thanks, “Fries”, for doing the impossible: making Saturday night in Los Angeles my favorite night of the week. Great job last night. Start writing… you’ve got a brand new show next week.

Very Best

Jeff

theRevolution

For more information, visit www.friesontheside.com

Also, this years performances will be stream-cast over the web by theRevolution in conjunction with comechill.com, the social networking home for people who hate the corporate pablum of those other dopie sites.

Well I am an artist in yet another medium, coffee. Coffee, Cafe Latte, Espresso, Cafe Americano – all terms with which I am now intimately familiar. I am having the time of my life working at Starbucks in Beverly Hills. In fact I just completed my first 4am “clock-in” – yes, our store on South Beverly is open at 4:30AM.

The coffee house is the perfect place for a writer and wannabe shaman to get his start. The culinary delight. The interaction of people engaged in their daily chemical warfare. After 10 years of footloose and fancy-free lounging about the tables and chairs of many Starbucks stores from N.Y. to London (my pen has inked millions of miles in the comfort of this much needed water siren ), I am stepping behind the bar to serve for awhile.

I have toured town-to-town as a stand-up comedian and spent every morning taking time over an espresso to sort out my material. I love the lifestyle that coffee houses create and foster. Not so much the consumption by itself, but the act of sharing a common culinary delight is more about taking time to share ideas and create memories that will engage your mind’s eye for ages. Spend time, it’s worth more.

I look forward to sharing from the other side of the bar.

theRevolution is fastidiously learning all that it can about about food, drink, medicine, diet and ecology. We encourage putting action to belief and we believe that there is no greater priority than the Earth-food-body connection.

To theRevolution’s way of thinking, our highest priority is reshaping our understanding of how we interact with our earth.

Starbucks carries with it several of the guiding principles theRevolution also holds dear. First on the list is, “Provide a great work environment and treat each other with respect and dignity.” After having gone through their training, I can agree with the thousands of other Partners who echo my sentiments when I say that the company truely lives up to this guideline. There is a great deal of care here for the people and their planet. Thanks Starbucks.

Peace,

Michael

theRevolution

Nacole and Lilith remind me of two sitcom heroines sitting behind their desks at the end of their group socialization/1-on-1 counseling rooms.

Each behind their anchor desks like a pair of sweet news anchors reporting on the day from a whole different point of view. I kind of expected Bob Newhart to come through the side door to the garden. They report to me how life really is in the mental health/senior health care field.

Nacole says these are the most rewarding moments of her life. “Nothing in school can prepare you for the real world experience of working with someone in the middle of a full blown hallucination. It certainly gives you reasons to appreciate your own life.” She is grading math problems that she had given to one of her patients who is learning to add. Lilith tells me, “It is the simplest things that make the difference, like listening to them – nobody ever listens to them.”

Behind them sat a vase of a half dozen roses, a gift from one of the seniors who was appreciative to have been taught how to pay her bills online, a serious step forward for persons of this age. These are the victories of life at the Olympic Adult Day Health Care center on La Cienega.

The most rewarding moments for them are the days when they help a patient solve a problem. The degree of appreciation is a lesson for me to take outside these doors.

There is an Eastern philosophy to life that is apt here. If someone gives you a dime, spend a nickel on bread and a nickel on flowers.

Peace.

Michael

Many health care centers provide care for one of the following 3 areas. Olympic provide all three types.

1. The traditional model with social services, activities, crafts and some individual attention from workers.

2. The medical model with services above but also skilled services from nurses, therapists, social workers, psychiatrists, geriatric physicians and others.

3. The Alzheimer’s model with services specifically designed to support and care for Alzheimer’s patients.

And FREE TRANPORTATION!

Medi CAL cover the costs if you qualify.

Contact Luba at 310.300.1111

Additional info at:

http://adult-day-care.org/
http://notesfromtherevolution.wordpress.com

It is odd that I am writing this review with my face planted in my iMac, when you consider that the philosophy behind Three Cheeky Monkeys is to provide top quality educational toys that don’t encourage the use of a computers or other digital types of interface. All of the toys in the store are specifically picked by Wallace Harvey, the young and playful owner, who is heading to the Nuremburg Toy Festival to shop for one of kind items that only his store will carry. His goal is to encourage tactile learning. Using real objects in space and time is the most effective learning that can be done.

He’s on the middle floor of the West Pavilion Mall. My sister and I found his store while we were shopping for some toys for her kids and the big name toy store elsewhere in the mall didn’t have the specialty item she wanted. They recommended we try Three Cheeky Monkeys. We do too!

10800 West Pavilion Blvd.

West Pavilion Mall 2nd Floor

Los Angeles, CA 90064

Call and talk to Wallace.

310-470-7060

by
Michael Yager
theRevolution

The mark of a truly advanced society is the legacy left behind of the way it cared for it’s elderly. Our parents and our grandparents.Not even so much as the amount of money we spend, but finding the right people with the heart and willingness to give the absolute best care is a rare prize. The state provides a beautiful structure upon which the joy of the caregiver can express itself. In most cases Medi-Cal covers all the costs of Adult Day Health Care, including free transportation.

This joy and delight of the caring heart is in full expression at the Olympic Adult Day Health Care facility in Los Angeles. Hattie Connerly is one of the most appreciative of the program participants. She is thankful to God to have this place and remembers just what her health and life was like previously.
“I used to sit around my daughter’s house getting weaker and weaker. Now I look forward to getting up in the mornings and coming here.” She shows it too. She dresses up for her time at the center and looks rather like she’s heading for Sunday Service once we conclude our talk. Moving slowly with her cane, she sat right next to me in the spotless therapy room with several other women as well.

Hattie has come a long way, not only physically and mentally, but geographically as well. She is a true survivor. A displaced resident of New Orleans, Hattie had to move in with her daughter in Los Angeles after Hurricane Katrina took everything she had.

You can still see the experience in her eyes when she speaks of it. It is still very vivid to her. I could almost see her actual belongings floating down the river as she talked. And for a moment it seemed as though she was standing alongside the banks once again, but this time watching the muddy waters from the banks of her new perspective. A touch of melancholy still colors her memory, but her expression settles on one of hope and rebuilding as she continues to praise the staff at Olympic.

God willing and with the help of the good people and friends she has at the Olympic ADHC, she will stay healthy enough to return to her own home one day. Until then, she’s happy and healthy here.

Olympic Adult Day Health Care
1221 S. La Cienega Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90035

310.300-1111. Ask for Luba.

http://www.adult-day-care.org/

by
Michael Yager
theRevolution

I started thinking about what it will take for me to be able to care for my parents once they get to the place of needing more attention during the day than I can provide. My career is very demanding; I travel a lot as a stand-up comedian and writer. Both parents are still very active and independent now, but even so, I accept that I am going to one day be caring for one or both of my parents. The likelihood that they will stay independent and more active longer is increased through programs like the one I found at Olympic Adult Day Health Care. I am the one charged with providing for their future, so I thought I’d take some time and visit Luba Anissinoza, Program Director at the Olympic Adult Day Health Care. Her passion for providing high quality care was obvious. I watched her as she worked with a program participant before we sat down. When she’s working with the people she’s in her element. She cares deeply for everyone, with a tender touch to each who greets her as she guides me on a tour.The place is impeccable. One of the cleanest facilities I have ever seen. And the people there are truly enjoying the facility. One of them stopped me in the hallway to tell me how much this place has meant to her. When people like their program enough to do that, I know there must be a special spirit afoot. I plan to talk in depth with some program participants next.

She also told me about the much need Medi-Cal assistance program that began paying for Adult Day Health Care about 7 years ago, and for the free transportation to the people in the program. It’s good to know there are healthy alternatives for my mother and father as they become more needy. There is also some great info about how ADHC centers work at this site.

http://www.longtermcarelink.net/eldercare/adult_day_care.htm

Olympic has all three of the model types of ADHC.

1. The traditional model with social services, activities, crafts and some individual attention from workers.

2. The medical model with services above but also skilled services from nurses, therapists, social workers, psychiatrists, geriatric physicians and others.

3. The Alzheimer’s model with services specifically designed to support and care for Alzheimer’s patients.

All Free Services include:

F R E E
Transportation pick up and home delivery,
Nurse check-ups and vital taken daily
Reports to family doctors,
Mental Therapies,
Physical Therapies,
Alzheimer’s Care,
Social workers,
Games and socializing,
Psychological Counseling,
Hot Breakfast,
Food Every Two Hours,
Stroke Recovery Care.

Stop by for a visit:
1227 La Cienega Ave.
Los Angeles, 90035

or call:
310-300-1111
Ask for Luba.

http://www.adult-day-care.org/

By
Michael Yager
theRevolution