New Element Found in Sri Lanka

This is very important to man this new element and worth knowing about and passing the information on to others on your vast mailing lists.

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New Element Discovered in Sri Lanka to Be Included on the Periodic Table:

The Nuclear Physics Department of the University of Colombo in Sri Lanka has discovered the heaviest element yet known to science. The new element, Governmentium (Gv), has one neutron, 155 assistant neutrons (aka ministrons), 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 442.

These 442 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert; however, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A tiny amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction that would normally take less than a second, to take from 4 days to 4 years to complete.

Governmentium has a normal half-life of 2 - 6 years. It does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each re-organization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes. This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration.

This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical morass.

When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium, an element that absorbs just as much energy as Governmentium since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons.
[26/03/10 9:21:44 PM] john board: wonderful.  I will post it on my blog.  My face Book page has gone wonky and I don't get my home as it used to be but just all the info on the left side of a page.  Do you know how to change that?

Evolution

The Evolution of ideas and how we got here is only significant to understand where we are. To alter the course is also part of an ongoing evolution. We are past the crossroads of man's dominance on earth and we will adjust downwards as we are able to alter the evolution of ideas that have brought us here. If we do not share appropriately with the earth then it will devour us and starve us to death.

Words of Lincolm worth thinking about

I am lucky to read this and think about it for it gives me resolve in what I am doing with my life. In reading these passages it also brought to mind how far below his dreams we have become. Stopping to think what we have become as people and how we are being led is truely sad for it seems we have lost our way and have all our priorities wrong. Read on and make up your own mind.

Below this article is a URL that will lead you to a startling history of Homeopathy, Lincoln and the criminal acts to mankind the newly formed AMA as they witch hunted the successful Homeopaths as they do today.

In the end I know why I am militant. The world is being cheated; its health and its wealth in the biggest scam in history modern medicine as a first defense to treat people. This is not to say medicine does not have a place in our health treatment but its place is not as arbiter of our fate.



Lincoln The Great Communicator
By Steve Hayes, Novus Medical Detox Center Director

Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, in Kentucky in a one room log cabin. From an early age he did manual labor and was only in school for a brief time. His education came from reading the few books he could find. He became a successful lawyer but attracted the attention of the nation when he became one of the chief members of the new Republican Party.

In 1860, Lincoln won the election for the presidency--even though he was not even on the ballot in a number of states in the South that promptly seceded after Lincoln's election. Lincoln wanted to save the Union and bring the southern states back. The resulting civil war was both bloody and very unpopular. He hated slavery, but many in the North were opposed to fighting to free the slaves and only wanted to make the southern states return to the Union. Lincoln saw his job as protecting the Union and was willing to allow slavery to continue--if he had do it. Criticized by people perhaps more than any president in our history, Lincoln persisted.

However, it was not through the power of his army but the ability of his words to communicate, not with the fears of the people but with their hopes and dreams, that not only saved the Union but also freed the slaves. Lincoln's success is also a reminder to all of us that it is not luck or the accident of birth that determines success, but the content of a person's character and ability to persist until a goal is reached. More has been written about Lincoln than any other American. We wanted to share with you some of wisdom of this self-taught man.

If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what's said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan - to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

Whenever I hear any one arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.

The probability that we may fall in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just; it shall not deter me.

I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts, that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours, to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom.

I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.

The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.

Things may come to those who wait...but only the things left by those who hustle.

If you look for the bad in people expecting to find it, you surely will.

To stand in silence when they should be protesting makes cowards out of men.

Most folks are about as happy as they make their minds up to be.

I walk slowly, but I never walk backward.

I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends.

I know not how to aid you, save in the assurance of one of mature age, and much severe experience, that you can not fail, if you resolutely determine, that you will not.

I believe it is an established maxim in morals that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false, is guilty of falsehood; and the accidental truth of the assertion, does not justify or excuse him.

Lincoln and Homeopathy What happened.
http://www.NaturalNews.com/025615_homeopathic_homeopathy_medicine.html

The 4th World War-The Corporations versus Mankind

This morning I read in the New York TImes and it is news everywhere that the Supreme Court of the United States has overturned the law restricting Corporation spending: that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections. Citing the First Amendment as support for this action it places a corporation in the same category as an individual. America the bastion of freedom and equality has lost a major battle for now Corporations is equated with an individual and can freely wield its money to the side that supports them.

It is a terrible loss for now what has been going on behind our backs but with at least some recourse in law will be openly done with no recourse. This, in the clear evidence that Corporations are not people but businesses with the sole first purpose of earning profit for its owners. How many cases against Corporations are in the courts that are challenging the destruction of the world we live in and the people who live in it?

Starting with the Banks and its rape of ordinary citizens, the Chemical companies that are destroying the earth , the Pharmaceutical that are poisoning the people of the earth, we and the earth are at war to survive. It is not global warming or cooling that is the enemy of our survival but Greed. This began centuries ago, since man has been able to write history we know this, and it is now coming to fruition. Like all religions we are being eaten from inside by Greed for both wealth and power over man.

Greed causes destruction and is firmly set throgh the porfit motive in the Corporation and the Executives who run them; innocent patsies beholden to pieces of paper that they willingly obey: Poisoning the world, themselves and their own children's minds and bodies to satisfy the Corporate weal. The war is in full swing around the world.

We, each and every one of us are the enemy of the corporation and we are being chopped down to manageable no different than the forest in Brazil by unbridled Greed. We are brainwashed to accept our fate as what must be.

We are losing the war right now for even though there are pockets of resistance we are yet to take our destinies back from our enemy the Corporation with its unending money to have its bidding done. So far the Corporation has won every battle by every group to bring sanity back to our lives. The Corporation is amoral and in that it is immoral. It does not judge itself except by its monitary growth and all others measures are of no real interest save to support their prime directive.

It is not enough for individuals to rail, for small groups to rail or even for governments to rail unless we all rail together and deny the Corporation its current place of power by taking away its profits. Margaret Mead said, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful people can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

We have a small group and it is called Mankind and we have a way of talking to each other and joining forces to battle and that is the Internet. We have to be openly subversive until as a mass we crush our enemy. It is a final passive resistance that is the only way to win.

We have to put down our own personal greed and turn a deaf ear to the brainwashing of the Corporations. We have to put down our fears and embrace modesty as a proper way of being and know that sharing will bring us back to family, friends and community. In respecting all we respect ourselves.

Do we have the strength left to fight this final battle? We cannot know unless we gird our loins and take up the cry. The world is one and devided we die.

The Swine Flu vaccine is perhaps the first time people have wond a battle. We have seen massive scare tactics by the Governments, WHO and the Pharmas FAIL because we refused the brainwashing. Many countries, no matter how the "Pandemic" was hyped, found its citizens and its own medical fraternity opting out of what was a planned media campaign. Nature itself was our ally.

We have a chance if we all come together. We can win the 4th World War.

Act Modest, think Bold, do your part help the world come together.

Northern Ireland Integrated Medicine Pilot Programme 2007-2008

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/memo/homeopathy/ucm0902.htm

Please read this report. It is a Government initiative. The findings bear out what the alternative forms of healing including have been saying Acupuncture and Homeopathy.

It is so heartening to find good positive movement toward helping people toward better health in simpler safer ways.

Homeopathy - Healing in the present.

By continually working in present problems presented whether a sprained ankle or a hang over headache or an upset stomach I have learned one valuable thing. If you can deal with the present problem safely then go for it. I can do not harm with Homeopathic remedies as they have no side effects. Homeopathy is a great ally for individuals, families and larger groups of people. It can respond quickly effectively to any size of epidemic. In everyday use it is for Sleeplessness, sprains, depression, overwork, stress; all handled with a few remedies. The 5 remedies in my Pocket Pack can do all those things and much more. Have a look at my site www.hollywoodsurvivalkit.com My pocket pack at $29.95 plus tax and shipping is a fabulous gift at this time of year and will be remembered over and over again thankfully. Have a look. It is pretty special. A great gift.

Have fun watching my two rap videos. Not bad for an old man.

Be well.

Think good thoughts.

John

Sir Wiliam Osler to the rescue.

I was in a heated debate with an eminent doctor about Homeopathy and I sent him a quote by Sir William Osler. Here it is.

THE GREATER THE IGNORANCE THE GREATER THE DOGMATISM.
DR. WILLIAM OSLER, CHAUVINISM IN MEDICINE 1902

The doctor's answer was as follows.
"Funny you should quote Osler to me. He was one of Medicine's first scientifically oriented clinicians basing his ideas on observation research and the brilliant pathological studies of Rudolph Virkow.
He knew that homeopathy was bunk and said so along with comments about phrenology etc. ..."

I looked up Sue Young's site http://homeopathy.wildfalcon.com/ The site has histories of all the famous men who used Homeopathy or said something about it. It is surprising the famous people who used and spoke well of Homeopathy. Press search and enjoy... Below is what I found for William Osler to refute the eminent doctor's prejudicial and blind response to my first quote from Osler's book Chauvenism and Medicine 1909

William Osler 1849 – 1919

William Osler, Time Online - “Founder Hahnemann was given his historic due by no less a personage than Sir William Osler. “No individual,” said Dr. Osler, “has done more good to the medical profession than Samuel Hahnemann.”

Harvey Cushing The Life of William Osler P. 171

“His belief that over-treatment with drugs was one of the medical errors of the day has been hinted at, and it was always one of his favorite axioms that no one individual had done more good to the medical profession than Hahnemann, whose therapeutic methods had demonstrated that the natural tendency of diseases was toward recovery, provided that the patient was decently cared for, properly nurses, and not over-dosed.”

Hans J Eysenck on William Osler

“It is more important to know what kind of person has a disease than what kind of disease a person has”

William Osler A Concise History of Medicine

“One notable example is typhoid fever. At the outset of the nineteenth century it was treated with ‘remedies’ of the extremest violence–bleeding and blistering, vomiting and purging, and the administration of antimony and mercury, and plenty of other heroic remedies.

“Now the patient is bathed and nursed and carefully tended, but rarely given medicine. This is the result partly of the remarkable experiments of the Paris and Vienna schools in the action of drugs, which have shaken the stoutest faiths; and partly of the constant and reproachful object lesson of homeopathy.

“No regular physician would ever admit that the homeopathic preparations, ‘infinitesimals,’ could do any good as direct curative agents; and yet it was perfectly certain that homeopaths lost no more of their patients than others. There was but one conclusion to draw– that most drugs had no effect whatever on the diseases for which they were administered.”

William Osler

“It is not as if our homeopathic brothers are asleep; far from it, they are awake (many of them at any rate) to the importance of the scientific study of disease.

“It is distressing that so many good men live isolated in a measure from the great body of the profession. The grievous mistake was ours: to quarrel with our brothers over infinitesimals was a most unwise and stupid thing to do.” and “Our homeopathic brothers pursue very seriously the scientific study of disease.”

William Osler

“Variability is the law of life, and as no two faces are the same, so no two bodies are alike, and no two individuals react alike and behave alike under the abnormal conditions which we know as disease.”�

William Osler

“The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism.”

William Osler

“All scientific truth is conditioned by the state of knowledge at the time of its announcement.”

William Osler

“I fear that we may return to the state of polypharmacy, the emancipation from which has been the sole gift of Hahnemann and his followers….”

William Osler

“But, fortunately for medicine, some hundred and fifty years ago Hahnemann appeared…”

Dr. Osler not only recognized Homeopathy and Hahneman, he recognized the hate that ignorance could generate. I find that this kind of blind hate is still alive; this inordinate resistance to honest investigation.

I also find that there is a growing community who are using and examining Homeopathy and it includes many doctors, scientists, artist and everyday folk. Homeopathy is the medicine of the 21st Century.

Now have to band together to stop Pharmaceuticals from weakening our immune systems and harming our emotions and minds with the medicines they sell that have debilitating side effects.

A Natural Miracle

The miracle of Homeopathy


We all take for granted that great advances have been made in medicine. While this is true in some areas, it hardly is in all. As a first response, its handling of acute situations is not as good as Homeopathy. My personal experiences have told me this time and again.

Generally speaking Homeopathy and the Bach Flower Remedies are a better and safer first response. They are effective; they are inexpensive; and are one hundred % safe: no side effects. It cannot be stated any more clearly.

I have added this summary rationale to my blog so everyone who has read my thoughts can decide what they think and how they will treat themselves.

Finally, I want to add that Homeopathic treatment of chronic sicknesses deserves to be looked at for long term care. It is safe over time. The body does not react negatively to the help offered as it moves back to better health.

Every pharmaceutical side effect is your body revolting to what you are ingesting.

Listen to your body. Homeopathy does, and resonates with the bodies healing energies, mobilizing them to defend you properly.

Homeopathy strengthens the body to protect itself.

I rest my case.

HOW TO DIE?

Every 15 years the New York Times columnist THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN tell us that “we will add 1 billion people to the earth.” Who is kidding whom?

Will we die along with the depleted land from the chemicals used to make enough corn, wheat, rice and soy beans to sustain us? Will we die of the toxic chemicals put into our bodies at the control of the world pharmaceutical companies? The United States soon make rotovirus and influenza vaccinations mandatory. They already do with many of the infant and childhood vaccines. We have a right to ask our governments to rethink their actions. We have a responsibility to question the direction our world is taking.

The immune system that is a central part of all of us is the master guardian of the entity human. The immune system is being breached and weakened with every Pharmaceutical that enters it. Think about this for a second. Every vaccine you have taken has breached your core system and taken away some of the immune system's choices thereby limiting future possibilities of core actions to keep your entire system in balance. [use scientific terms and data like platelet count, T-cells, etc. How do we understand the immune system?]

Using Agent Orange, Roundup or future chemicals intended to annihilate insects and weeds create succeeding generations of those pests with genetic modifications to resist the insecticides. Unintended death to needed vegetation and reproductive flowers occur at a massive level. Pesticides have no brain, they kill everything in its path. It will kill us too. If you watch the news you will know it is killing the bee population of the world, a key partner to our own survival because bees pollinate our plants.

Fertilizers devastate our crops and supporting soil and deplete the nutrients held within the soil. Genetically modified [GM] crop lands can change the make-up of the diversity of our natural vegetation and create sterilization of seeds.

We are being hurled like a rush of lemmings over the cliff of extinction.

Most people, especially younger people, laugh and say you only live once when asked to think about MAN as going the way of the dodo. They shield themselves in a protective place called denial, where logical realization and its consequences become overwhelming. Taking a close look at actual repercussions of our past actions tell the story. The flu vaccine promoted by the US Government in the 1976 Swine Flu season resulted in a woman who needed leg braces to walk and neurological damage. The forced vaccination of babies and kids will suffer untold damage and destroy family lives. We take our chances that our own damage will be minimal and some of us will get through life without a problem and for more and more there are real palpable negative results.

Forced vaccination damages human life in unseen ways. Antibiotics take away parts of our immune systems. We are all compromised internally by this.


The rest of the Pharmaceutical Pandora's box of anti-depressants, sleeping pills, arthritis medications etc. play an ongoing role in our demise. The problem of addiction to some medicines is just the most overt fallout of the side effects created and newsworthy. Lack of focus and negative emotional states can strike even the modest users and are endured as the price of relief.

So to all of us alive now, we have to ask, how can we stay alive and protect our immune systems so we will be healthy till we die? Good health is a matter of personal choice and appropriate action. I hope enough of us speak out loud enough to force governments to turn around and create laws that will benefit the health and wellbeing of it’s citizens. It is a necessary and important step in protecting ourselves. Speak out with your pen and your voice!


reference Mike Wallace on Swine Flu Vaccination 1976 | Propaganda | Vaccine Video http://bit.ly/14e6t6

About bees and ants sortta

I was thinking about bees and ants that live in huge colonies of thousands of members. Each member knowing and doing its duty unfailingly to render a perfect home for all. I was realizing that our bodies are in some ways like hives only the residents are so small we cannot even understand if they are just energy or have mass. I mean tiny. I know that I have arthritis all over my wonderful body and I can feel it activating at times. I can feel it encroaching on territory. An army moving quickly if I bang myself and slowly if I don't eat right and I do not eat right dumb as I am. So we have tiny negative and positive things that keep us in stasis. I know too that the little pill I take right now is a perfect messenger to the positive side that must do its work to keep the negative under control: to keep the balance. I am able to run and jump too. When I did that Rap I ran and fell and was totally active for over 8 hours and I am 72. I think we fool ourselves if we take medicines that will either mask the negatives or anhialate the negatives and positives at that level of activity through anti-biotics. They leave around all sorts of undesirable effects which we call side effects. It is a drag but true. We all know this. That is one of the main reasons I got into Homeopathy and Flower remedies. They do not have side effects. That is a major reason I tried but I was and am still amazed at how effective they are. I must be well of a couple of thousand experiences that I have seen with my own eyes of people being helped quickly. I myself can tell you I must take a pill or one sort or another maybe 25 times a year for everything from a cold coming on to a hangover in the morning or an upsetting situation where I feel I have to calm down. The odd bang. Wow when I fell into the flowers on the rap I really hurt the arm I thrust out to break the fall. I winced with pain. I think the bone between my elbow and shoulder twisted for I had no damage at all at the shoulder or elbow. I immediately called for Arnica and cream was husstled out and pills as well and I was pain free in under 5 minutes. My son Simon who is also a 1st AD asked me if I had pads down and a stunt coordinator with me. I said no and his look told me he thought I was nuts. I tell you I was half way to the ground when I started to think about landing. I was nuts not to have a pad down. Never trust an actor and that is what I had turned into that day. Mind you not a great actor but the idea of actor. I will one day put together the out takes and you will marvel at how often I had to say each line to get it right. Unbelievable how stupid my mind is when it comes to repeating even one sentence. Arnica is fabulous as a remedy. It is for any physical trauma.

Despair!!!

An awesome word. I suffer from it and I suspect most people do from time to time. I had been flown into Atlantic City to take over the job as 1st Assistant Director for Louis Malle. They were three days into the shoot and the person doing the job was not working out. I arrived about noon and after a quick stop to drop my luggage at the motel was driven to the set. It was a restaurant and I hardly sat down to read the script when Vincent Malle came to me and said I would have to read later as he was too busy to run the set. I met Andy who was the focus puller earlier this week when I went to a set to sell some Pocket Packs. He is an operator now and loves it. Well I met Louis Malle and Bert Lancaster, Susan Sarandon and Wally Shaun who was playing the waiter. He told me he was going to do a film with Louis. Fat chance I thought looking at this small round funny little man going bald. Little did I know that he was talking about "My Dinner With André."
The third day there we were to do shots in a parking garage where the cars were driven onto a platform which was on a revolving chain so the cars moved up until there was a circle of 8 cars. Robert Joy was to be killed as he tried to escape on the revolving platforms. The sun was not bright enough and so we had to go to cover as they say in films. Cover in this case was Burt Lancaster walking along the boardwalk and meeting someone in front of the shop. I had two policemen and 4 Production Assistants who knew very little about film making. Louis and I walked the half block to the boardwalk and I asked him what he wanted to see. He said the whole boardwalk in both directions. Impossible I said for I did not have the people to expedite the pedestrian control. Louis went away and I looked at it all to see what I could do. I realized I could give him enough boardwalk on either side of the store front so he could bring Burt in and out of the scene with the feeling of seeing lots of the wooden walkway but still be under my control. When I turned to suggest this I could see Louis sitting on the street curb with his head in his hands in despair. I could feel his energy all gone. It is a horrible feeling to sense your leader is in a hopeless state for it is like looking at a dead person: no evergy is coming off. I went over and in the a gentle but positive way asked him to come with me for I thought maybe we could do something that would satisfy him. Reluctantly he got up and went up onto the boardwalk again. I showed him my plan and he said that is what we would do. Despair comes to us all at times and along with it comes angels who want to help move you away from the feeling of hopelessness that surrounds despair.
The cold has come with the beginning of winter and Christmas is looming and I must now use all my energy to sell my Pocket Pack which is a perfect Christmas gift. I have used incredible energy up getting it to the market in the 8 weeks that it took me to design and create all the written material and make all the deals with the suppliers and measure my paltry bank account so everyone got some little bit of money for what they did to make it all possible. But this morning I despair of my task and so in writing this blog I gain some energy to realize that even great artists can despair and I can be a good angel not only to him but to myself as I coax myself back to action.

Getting older and wiser!!!

Yesterday it got cold and I in the late afternoon I went to a set to visit with some of my friends. It was out at the Brick Works in the Don Valley that cuts through the center of Toronto. Once a real open pit with kilns, it is now mostly abandoned although it is turning into a mid-city art installation. Now, before all the factory space is altered film crews go there to get seedy wrecked buildings to film in. Well, it was cold and my hands quickly felt the chill. The rewards of years of smoking have taken the toll of my circulation system and the chill sets in fast and deep. Undaunted I chatted with friends and sold my little Pocket Pack to those who know my Hollywood Survival Kit and could recognize the value of the good things in the Pocket Pack. Nothing against cold alas but lots against the sprained ankles that the slippery muddy half frozen ground would bring in the darkness.
I think often about age for I belie my years and can still hotfoot it around a set with the best of them. I look at those younger who do not move as well as I do and feel sad for them. I also look at those my age and older for role models as the years mount. Eli Wallach has to rate as an all time role model. I worked with him only once. In Halifax on a film called The Book Fair Murders. It was about a man who had stolen millions in paintings from a Jewish family in the second world war and at last was being caught for his crimes although they seemed somewhat justified. Eli Wallach was to play the old man. He was born in 1915 and we were going to film with him in 2000. He was 85. It was hard to arrange for him to come to us from New York as he was rehearsing a new play and his day off was Monday so we could fly him up on Sunday, film with him on Monday and he would fly home on Tuesday early in the morning so he could be at rehearsals that day. He did not miss work for any reason it would seem. He had two scenes to play supposedly by the sea where he had a sumptuous house. Robert Joy who I first worked with on Atlantic City was to play opposite him in both scenes. They were pivotal to the plot for Roberts character was the man who discovered the theft and one scene was an interview and the other reminiscences of his life as a young man in the employment of the rich and kind Jewish mogul. Both scenes were long and had very long speeches in them. I mean more that one page of Eli just talking about his past. He was arriving at 9 on Sunday evening and he asked that the final script be left at his hotel so he could check it against the script he was given to make sure he had the changes if there were any. He also asked to have a limo take him to set the next morning for he would polish his lines during the drive.
So this 85 year old man was going to fly to us on Sunday evening, although in the midst of play rehearsals which are not easy for there is script to learn and changes to be made in words and feelings and new people to deal with: a full time job and difficult time for any actor.
We were lucky for Monday was a sunny day although the temperature was around freezing. We had decided to go to Peggy's Cove, the famous tourist attraction that is on a rocky point that juts into the Atlantic ocean. With clever placement of the camera we could see just the roof and chimneys of the large pavilion there and it played as the rich man's house. We laid a dolly track in front of the bench where the two men were going to be seated. Wolfgang Panzer who was our director and a wonderful man as well as a great director could shoot the whole scene just moving up and down the track. A dolly back and forth while the scene played and then close ups. Wolfgang started with the close up of Ely's whole speech. We are talking about three minutes of straight monologue with the odd question thrown in. We had everything set up and lots of blankets and hot shots to keep Ely as warm as possible. He strode out and only his carefulness about where he was walking told us of his age. He was chipper, happy, friendly and met everyone with a handshake. He sat down with Robert and first discussed a couple of the changes that had been made in the script with Wolfgang. This only took a few minutes and all was ready. He rehearsed once with the camera so we could get our moves. He never missed a line or word in any of the speech. It was awesome as we went through shot after shot in one or two takes and always with excellent results. After we finished with Robert Joy's close up which was our last shot of the scene Eli called me over. He leaned forward and whispered to me. "Do you think we could do another take of my close up. I think I can do it better." I was awestruck that after three hours of sitting in the cold repeating this speech over and over he knew the nuances so well and remembered how he had delivered his first attempts in such detail that he could know this and that he wasn't tired or bored with it all. I went to Wolfgang who immediately said yes and we did one more take of the close up.
It was worth the effort. We did the next scene in the afternoon and finished the day with flying colours.
That evening Eli Wallach took the director, the actors the producder and me too out to dinner at a fine restaurant; about a dozen people. He regaled us with stories and talked quite a bit to Samantha Bond one of the more memorable Miss Moneypennys from the James Bond films. Eli I think had worked with her father who was a well known British actor. He could recall events clearly. He was a wonderful host and it was an honour to be at his table and to meet and be with such a gracious young old man. To this day no one of his age has matched him in my eyes. A very special person to me and a role model in every way.
By the way he made two films this year that are now in post production. Lets see now, he is 92 and I am sure still all here.

Halloween a time for fun

Halloween is gone and the goons and goblins put away in cardboard cartons to await another airing. I love the idea of dressing up and having a different face. It has always been my fun to do so and often on set I dress to my own dress code. I suppose that the strangest incident that brought out this idiosyncrasy was in China when I was there filming MButterfly. It was totally an awesome trip with Jeremy Irons and Jon Lon and of course David Cronenberg and many of our Canadian crew. We even filmed on the great wall. I remember my first visit to the wall when we climbed the steps to the tower we were going to film from. Every step was a different hight and a different depth so you had to look down or you would trip. I could not believe what seemed to me to be very bad workmanship until I realized if I was an enemy I would have to look down on every step to see where I was going and at night it would be impossible to go up without tripping. I guess the Chinese defenders were trained to go up and down blindfolded both forwards and backwards giving them a tremendous advantage in defending the wall. On the day that we filmed we saw about a mile away at the next tower a bright reflecting light. We investigated as it was spoiling the picture. It was a film crew just like ourselves filming a fashion show. Can you imagine the laughter that in the thousands of miles of wall two film crews would be so close to one another. Luckily they were gone in an hour and out scene was as it should be. In Beijing we shot streets and comings and goings which would be used in the film. We did most of our interiors for China in Toronto. That was odd to in that the studio we filmed in used to be Toronto Iron Works and in 1960 one of my last jobs before I went into show biz was as an xray technician at Toronto Iron Works and I worked in the same huge building back then xraying large boilers to make sure their welds were perfect. Shooting MButterfly was the next time I ever went there so it had a certain special meaning for me.
In Beijing we did the play in a local play house. It was down an alley and on first look hard to imagine that a 400 or so seat theatre could be anywhere nearby but then that is the surprises found in the city. So Jon Lon was going to sing with the Opera group and we loaded in and prepared for our first day. We had about 300 extras and the scene was the first time Jeremy sees Jon and is infatuated by him. One major problem we had was that it took Jon about 3 hours to do his makeup. He was trained in classical opera and rehearsed himself tirelessly to bring back the skills he had learned as a teenager and young man so that in the end he could once again perform his own singing. He did not take kindly to the heat and because alll the make up was pancake make up we had to worry about him sweating. After much fuss we were able to get two air conditioners put in the room he was to use as a dressing room. I planned the day to use 4 hours of insert shooting of the other singers and the players to give Jon time to do his makeup without rushing. Everything was going along swimmingly until one of my assistants came to me and said that a spot of white had flaked off Jons cheek and he said he would have to begin again as there was no way to repair it.
I thought for a moment and told my assistant to tell Jon that I would only do wide shots and a small blemish would not be noticed. It was disaster to the day if I could not film him for it would have meant turning all the lights in the other direction to do the audience and Jeremy's side of the scene. My assistant came rushing back and said it was too late and Jon had already begun to strip off his white face. I was distraught to say the least. Not my fault but now my problem to reorganize the shooting to satisfy the bad situation. We all discussed what to do and the orders were given and in a moment of I frustration I ran behind the stage to the large room that the other singers and performers were using as a dressing room. I said I had two minutes to spare and I wanted them to make up my face. It would make me feel better. And they did. Two of the singers came over and after a quick exchange decided on what character they would make me up as. It did only take a couple of minutes to do and for the rest of the day I ran the set looking an odd mixture of things. The Chinese audience laughed when they first saw me but took my orders to watch and clap and enjoy so we accomplished Jeremy's entrance and all his close ups and the day was saved. When I was doing The Bay of Love and Sorrows in New Brunswick it was Halloween and there were some lovely make ups done and the make up lady there did my Chinese face once again for me to enjoy.

Robert Goulet has passed away

This morning I opened up my New York Times and read that Robert Goulet has passed away. It made me think of Atlantic City and the day in Montreal where he came and worked with us as a lounge singer. I was very nervous about it all as the script certainly indicated that the singer was a send up of a lounge singer and my first thoughts were that this famous guy, Robert Goulet would have too much ego to send himself up. I wondered if Louis Malle had actually told him what the part was really all about. You know in life you often have impressions from past suppositions that just are not real. This was one of them. He came, he was gracious, friendly, did great work, wasted no time, understood exactly what Louis wanted and made us all have a great day of shooting. I was so pleased to be there and to hear him for he had a wonderful voice and a great presentation as well. He entertained us. It was easy to see how he captured hearts with his role of Lancelot in Camelot and how he became so popular and one of the Canadian icons of his time. I am sorry that he is gone now but I know he will be remembered by millions of people which he richly deserves.

I remember being at a yoga session and having a Guru say "Life Begins with the first breath in and ends with the last breath out." Simple statement and yet in its own way it led me to understand that, watching my breath seems to ground me. I read in a yoga book about meditation that "Watch your breath and see your life change." Again a simple statement but I can remember once when I was thankful to remember both the statements.

I was working in Halifax on a little TV series called, "Local Heroes". It was about people who were for the most part unsung except for their 15 minutes of local newspaper fame. Some were quite heroic and others just seemed to happen by chance and really be about being someplace at the right moment. Well we were at the end of a small river leading into the Atlantic ocean and the story involved a daughter in her twenties out for a row with her father when the boat capsized. A man on the beach swam out and saved them. Easy to see in one's mind but not so easy to capture in the fall of the year in the Atlantic ocean with tides to deal with and on top of that weather that could be good or just awful. A low budget was also a great impeding factor at times. So we got the two zodiacs (inflated rubber boats) for filming, and found a river that ran into the ocean with a sand beach that went out about 150 feet before it was over your head. Good to do most of the work in shallow water and not drown anyone. Drowning has a lot to do with the last breath out.
What happened in the story was that when the row boat capsized the daughter and her father clasped hands over the keel and yelled and yelled. The man heard them from shore and swam out. We put the upside down boat across a 14 foot zodiac and towed it with our bigger zodiac. Video cables were run from the bigger zodiac to the smaller one where the camera was locked down. The trick was to keep the locked camera with the two people hanging on to the keel in the foreground and the hero swimming toward them in the background. Sounds easy but with the outbound current from the river and the ocean current moving inward it was dicey. I was wearing a dry suit as I had been standing in the water where it was shallow. It was not done up and sealed. We rolled camera and I could see we would not get the shot, the man was not in the right alignment. This meant steering the camera boat a little this way or that to keep him in frame. I knew if we stopped and lined it up again the whole resetting would take 15 minutes or more so I jumped off the stern of the larger boat and got between the two zodiacs. Perhaps a dumb move but I had quickly sensed I could not be hurt by the rubber sides of these two craft squeezing me and I knew exactly what I had to do to keep the boat facing the right way. Perhaps not the job of a 1st Assistant Director which is what I was at the time and still am. But with a tight schedule and no money for overtime, every second saved to spend wisely later is worth it. That is the job to make the seconds count. Tough job.
So I jumped in and grabbed the ropes joining the crafts and delicately steered the smaller zodiac to keep the people in the shot. We got the shot in one take which was great. We broke off the cables and one cable they gave to me to swim the few feet to the large Zodiac that held a dozen people and was very fast and powerful with its engines and propeller well under the keel. It slowly started to pull away and remembering the fun of being towed by a rope in the water I lay on my back about 30 feet behind the craft and enjoyed the trip. In a sense it was a small reward for getting the shot and I knew I had a few minutes to kill before everyone was on shore and we could set up the next shot. I knew the water was shallow and I could stand whenever I let go of the rope so I just was having fun. The zodiac driver was not aware I was a freeloader enjoying the fun of it all. I let go and sank not to my shoulders as I expected but down, down, down about 8 feet. I jumped up off the bottom and popped to the surface and I could not kick with my feet in the dry suit all filled now with water. I was worried and I realized I did not know how to signal that I was in distress. I sank again and this time when I came up I raised one arm which seemed a logical sort of signal for attention. Nothing. I raised both arms nothing. I sank and jumped up once more now panicking that I was going to drown. I for some reason remembered that I should watch my breath and try to get under control. I do not know exactly why this came to mind but it relates directly to those two statements at the start of this story . Well when I watched my breath and I was immediately reminded of laboratory mice used for feeding boa constrictors hyperventilating when they were being squeezed. I was terrified that I would not get my breathing slow enough to really get any air. I was beside myself with fear and panic. There is no other feeling so profoundly debilitating. My arms started to paddle frantically underwater as they did when I was probably 5 or 6 when I was learning how to float on my back and this tiny action kept my head a bit above water and I slowly my breathing slowed down and I regained some control of things. I steered myself toward shore and people came and helped me out. They turned me upside down in my dry suit and I must have had 20 gallons of water in it which made me realize that the joy ride on my back had filled the dry suit with water from the neck down. Everyone laughed as I was deluged with water. I was happy to be alive. It was a lesson and I think the only time I have come close to death and had time to think about it over a minute or so. Fear led me to tense actions and in the end panic. I have experienced accidents but they happen in a trice and you either make the right move or bite the bullet. I have so far made the right moves and each motorcycle and bicycle accident I can remember in minute detail although none took more than 10 or 15 seconds to materialize and come to a conclusion. Each is a miracle of luck for other than a couple of cracked ribs I have never been hurt. Each seemed to go on a long time with many decisions being made mid air or in the moments leading up to the actual contact of the crash. It is amazing how fast the mind really is and how it remembers vividly what takes place in milliseconds. I do not think computers are faster. They just can keep the pace up for a longer time in a narrow simple task.

Life is revelation. Each moment is new and here are some of mine. You will find me in these blogs. My revelations.

I am a survivor. In fact you all are, or at least all of you who are reading the beginning of my blog. It is something I am joyful for as it allows me to experience my life. Somewhere in the early 60s I decided I did not want to Work as a Sales Rep. for Office Overload which was a temporary help agency. I know it was heavy on my mind for several months but I had no skills really and was coping at best. Not everyone knew that for at heart you can tell my mood in a millisecond, but you cannot tell my inner feelings of confidence or the lack of it, even if I claim to be one way or the other. I am a convincing liar to get my own way. I would not consider it malicious lying but just 'staying alive' lying. Since I was 4 I have been considered headstrong. I consider myself curious and just wanting to do what I want to do. After 73 years around here on earth I have to say yes, headstrong is an honest evaluation. It was spring and and sunny warm. I was driving to an appointment in my bosses Lincoln town car which was mine to use when he was not in town. On the radio, CBC was talking about the new Television station that was being built called CFTO, the new television channel is the core of the CTV national network in Canada. They were designing and building all the flats and sets for their regular programs out at some studios in Kleinburg just north west of downtown Toronto on Highway 27. It stuck so in my mind that I got a road map out of the glove compartment and found out were Kleinburg was. I drove there in by business suit, which was standard wear for me. Remember the image of the IBM executive and you pretty well sum up how I looked. I now have suits for weddings and funerals. Well, I went up to Kleinberg and talked to several departments who would only take experienced people but the man in charge of the Art and Paint Department said he would hire me to wash out paint brushes for 50 dollars a week. I said I really, really, wanted the job but I could not pay my bills earning so little. I followed that with "I can manage at 60". He gave me the job and the money I asked for. I remember when I walked out I was excited that not only did I have a new life ahead of me I had also proved myself as a salesman.



As I am writing this in my third floor attic office, I looked up on the wall. I have a framed picture of John Ritter. The caption is "Hey John - Have I told you how I got started in Show Business? Well... It all began as a kid with a dream" He would say that very slowly like the beginning of a long, long story and laugh and then get up; kidding me because he knew I wanted him on set. We worked on a TV movie called Lethal Vows. It was the only time. He was such a nice and thoughtful, happy, person. His vibrations just joined with my own and I am sure with other peoples in a most harmonious way. The whole experience of that movie is etched in my mind and milestones in my life happened during the shoot. It lead me to try a flower remedy for lack of confidence which can overtake anyone, and did me for about a week before I took the flower remedy, called Larch, prescribed for exactly that feeling. I was fine in less than 3 days and aced the picture. I fasted for 12 days during the shoot. Green grapes and water and towards the end of the 12 days some hot water with lemon and unpasturized honey in the evening. We were doing 12 hour days. Solid director, Producer and script with a great cast and an excellent crew. Smooth sailing. The producer Robert Phillips, I have lost touch with was an awesome producer on our project. Such a gentle man who knew his stuff and could and did exert his judgement when necessary. We would drive at night after the days shoot through different parts of Toronto and I would point out the highlights of buildings and houses and parks. It was summer and wonderful to do. I looked forward to them as the perfect way to come down from all the adrenelin use during the day. We talked about politics and life freely together. Very special.