Category Archives: The Basics

Last Sunday, I was going through some stuff in my office and came across the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly.  I turned to Ray and told him next time it came to subscribe, he could just throw away the notice.  Since we don’t watch TV anymore and most all movies that come out today suck, we have no connection to who’s who in EW.  Later that night, I remembered the ACADEMY AWARDS® were on and for the first time ever in my life…I didn’t watch them.  I didn’t care.

I have watched the OSCARS® all my life and dreamed of someday winning for best actor, director, screenplay and at one point–best special effects.  Over time–after more than a decade in the business–I grew weary of the whole OSCAR® thing.  It’s a shitty industry with shitty fucked up people–and probably why my language is unappologetically peppered with vulgarities.  The more famous someone is, the more they are in need of Thorazine.  I have been back stabbed, screamed at and mentally manipulated by messed up insecure people (and I use the term people loosely).  Some of my industry friends thought I was crazy to leave LA.  Hell, all of them did.  It wasn’t until a few years of living in Chicago–a real city–until I realized how messed up LA really was.  Chicago is great but cold and when Ray’s bank offered a move back to LA or a layoff package deal, we settled on the latter and decided to move to Bisbee, Arizona which is about as close to Lost Angeles as we wanted to be.

When we first moved here to Bisbee, a film company came into town to film Stephen King’s Desperation.  I was filling up my car at the gas station when I recognized a guy I had worked with many years before.  I said hi and he looked at me for a second, his face searching for some connection as to why he recognized me and then he said, “Bob! (my first name)  Oh my god!  It’s been years.  Hey, are you here on the production?” and I said, “No! I live here and work for the county!”

The look on his face was priceless.

He was…cordial to say the least.  I’m sure he was laughing inside, but when I think of how I no longer live out of a hotel room for months or have 15 hour days or deal with headcase movie people and stress levels like you’ve never felt before–I was the one laughing.   Yeah, I’m the loser who’s no longer in the Business.  I now have a steady creative/technical job I love in my chosen field.  I share a beautiful custom home with a pool on 16 acres and 360 degree views with an amazingly handsome man that I’m madly in love with.  I get off work every day at 5:30 and have every other Friday off (and I’m allowed to telecommute from home on occasion).  Did I mention that I look better than ever, have great sex on a regular basis and have enough free time to work on my own personal creative projects?  Oh yeah…it sucks not being a part of the Business anymore.  What misery…not.

I didn’t feel weird about not watching the ACADEMY AWARDS® this year, I felt weird because I just didn’t care.  Actually, I just didn’t feel anything.  There was no love lost.  The only thing in the movies this past year that had my interest was…

Daniel Day-Lewis with a stache!

And he won!  Of course he won.  He puts the ME in method actor.  I know because I worked on the film The Crucible.  Daniel doesn’t know it but, he’s in love with me. 

There were three highlights to working on The Crucible. 

1. Finding out that Winona Ryder is a total FREAK.
2. Meeting playwright extraordinaire Arthur Miller (His son Bob produced the film and Mr. Miller wrote the screenplay adaptation).
3. Meeting Daniel Day-Lewis and seeing him every day (BTW, he’s one of the very few I have worked with who’s actually quite nice).  Sigh…

I had a very bad experience working on that film.  It was to be my last film before I moved to Chicago to be with Ray.  They hired me on a “Five or six day workweek” contract but because the stupid producers made a huge scheduling mistake, I ended up working seven days a week with no compensation for the seventh day.  I quit the show two weeks before we wrapped and they gave my replacement, “Brian Albushies” full credit as the payroll accountant but that’s OK, the film tanked at the box office and Winona Ryder got busted shoplifting which ruined what was left of her career.  Can we say, “Schadenfreude”?

You never quit a show in Hollywood.  That’s bad mojo.  Years later, after the dot com bust, I went back to work in film production.  I was working on The Weather Man.  Long, freak-show story short, my boss Ramona <<insert whatever her current last name is based on her marital status>>, the complete C. U. Next. Tuesday production accountant who was a vampire–she fell and sliced her arm open and it didn’t bleed–was a horrible manipulative bitch and it just so happened that our house sold and we could move to paradise in Arizona whenever we wanted.  So I quit.  I quit a show twice.  He he he…

Goodbye OSCAR® and fuck you Hollywood.  Fuck. You.

This is me.  Aged 19 (around 1986).  Still had the blond hair.  Note my Dumbo left ear–had it tucked back about ten years ago.  It hurt like a mother but was worth it.  I’m not smiling either.  I hated to smile.  I could have still been wearing braces, I don’t remember.  I was a moody fellow back then.  Very moody.  The whole world sucked and nothing ever went my way. 

I hated myself, hated my ear, hated my pouty face and most of all, I hated that I looked like a little boy (not a hair on my chest).  Rich fat ugly sugar daddy types loved that about me and I had several repeated offers to get whatever I wanted as long as I–yuck, I can’t even think about it.  All the guys that I thought were hot were not into me at all–so I drank copious amounts of alcohol, did lots of drugs and engaged in risky sex.  I’m lucky to be alive.

My childhood and young adult years sucked big time.  You can see the way I look in the photo that there was way too much going on in my head for a young naive guy like me.  I was very lonely.  I love the way I look and feel now.  Nothing sucks and everything goes my way! 

I have no idea why I posted this photo.  I just happened upon it the other day and had a laugh.  Just a reminder of how things can change drastically if you set your mind to it (like, take a look at the “Your Host” photo on the right of this page)

Ray got home last night at around midnight.  Poor guy is out of it.  I’m not even making coffee as not to disturb him. 

I have the software technician here for two more days and my temp is in and I have rehearsal tonight for the play.  I just want to crawl back in bed. 

Hey!  I want to give Brian a special thanks for donating to the Mule Mountian Relay For Life.  Thanks Brian.  You’re the best and a hell of a designer too!

I was supposed to go to Chicago this past weekend.  The whole family was going to rummage through Leona’s stuff before the house get’s put up for sale.  Ray called at the last minute and suggested I stay home because there was some bad weather expected for my Monday return date and I absolutely had to be at work for the week to work with the consultant coming from our CMS software company.  He didn’t want me to get stuck in Chicago.

He had been there since Thursday and by Sunday it seems everyone had come down with the flu.

I’m sorry I missed that.

I would have been traveling with the flu and had to deal with a big project all week–and I would have been totally infectious.  Typhoid Cobban!

I felt so bad for Ray.  He sounded terrible.  He had the whole, “My skin hurts.” kind of flu where you can’t get out of bed.  He seems to be on the mend and will be coming home tonight.  Poor boo-boo.

This week, we have the software consultant here to assist in the set up of our web software.  Ohhhh…wish me luck.  This is the part where I need to make sure I have set everything up correctly.  At least I have this Friday off!

4:15…at least I made it past the 2:00 AM point so I won’t be quite so tired all day.  Even though my boss reassures that he’s got my back, even though everything is going well, even though we hired a temp for the project, even though the company we bought our web CMS software is coming next week to assist in the server configuration…

I still can’t sleep.

Who can really?  Redoing the web site for my County is a huge task.  My mind is going a million miles an hour.  The most unfortunate part is the fact that I agreed to perform in this play which has its five shows the week of going live with the site.  My brain has no room for script memorization. 

I know in the long run, the web site will be a hit and I shouldn’t get too wound up, but at the core of my being is a person who wants to do his best and doing his best means fixating on all the little details and that means getting all nutted up over everything.  It’s so funny…actually, it’s not funny, its kind of fucked up that every night when I’m going to bed, I’m so tired I decide not to take a Valium because I know I’m going to sleep like a baby.  Then I wake up at 2:30.

Usually, a project like a web redesign for an organization with a thousand-plus employees requires a team of people–at least that’s how it was when I worked for an Internet consulting company.  There was a project manager, designer, front & back end developers, etc.  I am wearing many hats on this one.  I just wish I had a head for each one of them.  It’s not that I can’t handle it and even though I’m tired and cranky, I’m not complaining.  So far, everything is going right on schedule.  I’m just frazzled.

I have to train an employee from each department to use the software and they are responsible for transferring their own content from the old site.  Yesterday I held classes for sixteen people and today I have a class for eight.  I still have some stragglers to train but we’ll get there.  Since my deadline is a bit tight (who am I kidding, it’s insane), we all have to learn as we go and hope for the best.  I am fortunate to have people who are committed to doing a good job and I think my hyper-enthusiasm is infectious. 

Whenever I do get kind of stressed about the whole thing, I shut my eyes and fantasize about how awesome the final product is going to be.  It really does kick some major ass if I do say so myself.  Besides, our current site is so monumentally bad, anything is going to be a marked improvement. 

Uh oh…it’s time to wake up and get to work. 

(Eyes closed) “You can do this Cobban.  You are doing it.  It’s already done and it kicks ass.”

UNRELATED NOTE: I am completely humbled by the kind words, emails and donations to the Mule Mountain Relay For Life for my friend David and the other people I have lost to cancer.  ThankYouThankYouThankYouThankYou!!

Our friend David used to be Ray’s boss back in Chicago.  We both like him a lot.  He’s a wonderful guy who’s got a beautiful wife and an adorable young daughter.  He’s also got a cancerous brain tumor that has been carved out of his head more times than I can count. 

David went in for surgery and found out just six weeks after virtually all of the tumor was removed, it had grown back and is now approximately 2” x 4”, occupying significant parts of both his right frontal and temporal lobes.  Without some way of stopping that growth, the doctor thinks he may have a couple of months left to live.

I can’t handle this on my own anymore.  After losing so many people to cancer and seeing friends and family fight against this disease,  I just can’t muster up the strength to send positive vibes out to them. 

Will you help me?

Whoever is reading this…can you just for a second, shut your eyes and visualize yourself as a beacon, a radio transmitter, broadcasting a signal of hope and reassurance for David?  Send it out to everyone you know who’s in need of help. 

I believe in the power of collective positive thought.  Some people may call it prayer and others may call it hogwash.  Whatever you call it, I don’t care, just please say a little prayer for my friend David and his family.  Maybe if we all concentrate on emitting a positive vibe we can change the world. 

I will forever be unapologetically disgustingly optimistic.

Since I am on the subject of favors, I’m going to ask another one.  Last year Bisbee held its first annual Mule Mountain Relay for life.  The Relay For Life is an event to help the American Cancer Society raise money to fight cancer.  We had a goal to raise 20K for our first try.  We raised 33K instead.  This year I am the Online Chairperson (I maintain the website) and I’m walking the Relay on a team.  Please consider donating to our cause or find a Relay for Life in your area and get involved.  If you feel so inclined to support our local effort, you may donate directly to a participant, team or the event itself.  Go to Mule Mountain Relay For Life for more information. 

The theme this year is Making Cancer History.  Each Team is picking a historical event.  Our team is Woodstock Revisited.  As a participant, I’m listed as Cobban Barnett.  I don’t get any money, prizes or accolades for raising cash.  I just get the satisfaction of feeling like I’m actually doing something when deep inside I feel so helpless watching the people I love wither away and dissolve into my past. 

I’m asking people I don’t know to donate money for a cause I believe in.  I understand it may sound tacky and I apologise for that.  If you do not feel like donating money to our event, please find a Relay For Life in your area.  Find anything and donate time or money or old clothes. 

My cousin Margaret was 41.  My friend Steven was 39.  David is not even 50 and has a little kid.  All three of them in good health with a promising life ahead.  It’s just not fair.

This was featured on Yahoo news today:

“Surprise in diabetes study
People with heart disease and diabetes may need to alter their habits.”

No shit!

Warning–I’m about to rant.  I may not be 100 percent accurate in my medical information but I’m a six foot two, forty two year old man , weighing in at 175lbs in perfect health (good blood pressure–great cholesterol levels), I must be doing something right to be able to go off on this subject.

People with heart disease and diabetes may need to alter their habits
This is news?  We cut school funding, take away recess and gym, put in vending machines and serve over-processed crap to our kids and wonder why they are fat and diabetic.  Am I missing something?  If you don’t move around physically, you get fat.  If you eat crap, you develop health problems.  Almost everything that comes in a can or a bag that you heat and serve is crap.  It’s full of salt, sugar and partially hydrogenated oil. 

Partially Hydrogenated Oil 
Partially Hydrogenated <<insert type of oil here>> = Trans Fat.

The Twinkie won’t say trans fat in the ingredients.  It’ll say partially hydrogenated oil.  If it’s creamy and “fresh” after being on the shelf for several months, it’s full of trans fat and that’s icky.  Don’t put that in your body.

There are good fats and bad fats but trans fat is by far, the worst fat there is.  Put down the trans fat!  Now step away slowly! 

Sugar Free
If you drink diet soda in place of water or eat “sugar free” things with NutraSweet®, you’re still freaking out your pancreas thus making your glucose levels fly off the charts.  Drink water or in my case, plain unsweetened iced tea.

UPDATE From Time.com: Can Sugar Substitutes Make You Fat?

Carbs
A carbohydrate is a major source of fuel for your metabolism.  No carb diets are, um, stupid.  That’s expecting you car to run on an empty tank of gas.  White flour, white bread, white anything for that matter is gross.  This whitening process (for lack of a better term) is really, really bad because it strips away of every bit of fiber and nutrients leaving a white goo that metabolises into sugar in your system and clumps up in your digestive tract.  Goo sticking in your digestive tract…that can’t be good for you.  That’s why you need fiber–lots of it.  Fiber is literally like eating an SOS pad that scrapes the sticky shit out of you.  You exfoliate your face–exfoliate your colon!

There are several types of carbs so I’m just going to simplify:

1. Refined Carbs (White Rice, White Bread)
2. Unrefined Carbs (Brown Rice, Wheat Bread)

Fire
Refined carbs are like lighting a piece of paper.  They flare up, burn bright and go out in an instant.  Unrefined carbs are like a lump of coal.  They ignite, burn evenly and taper off slowly until they go out.  It’s better to fuel yourself with slow burning coal.  More efficient.

Sugar is one of the most refined carbs you can find.  Eat something sugary and your blood sugar spikes way up and then way down making you feel hungrier than you really are.  Throw in a diet rich in refined carbs (which also spikes your blood sugar) and you’re in insulin shock.  Wash that down with diet coke while you’re glued to the TV set and you’re morbidly obese.  The medical insurance system goes out of whack and I have to pay for it. 

It’s easy to eat right
Eat fruit – not fruit rollups
Eat veggies – not frozen peeled bagged stuff
Eat meat (if you want) – just not every single day. 
Drink water

It’s easy to be active
Park across the parking lot
Take the friggin’ stairs if it’s just one or two (or three) floors
Take an occasional walk – you’ll be glad you did
Turn. Off. The. TV.

Most importantly (in my humble opinion) it’s better to go natural with all foods, even the bad ones.  Eat butter on your toast –not margarine(which is FULL of trans fat). Pour half and half in your coffee not non-dairy creamer (which is also FULL of trans fat).  Eat or drink something with sugar as long as it’s in small doses and not every day.  You have to have some fun.

One more thing:
When I first started changing my diet, I felt that the raw veggies and low salt foods were bland.  They’re not.  I was just so used to eating that other crap.  On the rare occasion I do eat something out of a bag or at a—dare I say it–Olive Garden, it tastes like a salt lick dipped in sugar.  Eat the good foods, you get used to it. 

More tips:
Hummus can double as a sandwhich spread.
Bake a sweet potato.  They actaully taste good plain.
Try lemon or cucumber in your water
Plain unsweetened herbal iced teas are yummy
Try quinua