craschworks

[Brilliant!]

http://www.freestarmedia.com/hotellostliberty2.html

Press Release

For Release Monday, June 27 to New Hampshire media
For Release Tuesday, June 28 to all other media

Weare, New Hampshire (PRWEB) Could a hotel be built on the land owned by Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter? A new ruling by the Supreme Court which was supported by Justice Souter himself itself might allow it. A private developer is seeking to use this very law to build a hotel on Souter's land.

Justice Souter's vote in the “Kelo vs. City of New London” decision allows city governments to take land from one private owner and give it to another if the government will generate greater tax revenue or other economic benefits when the land is developed by the new owner.

On Monday June 27, Logan Darrow Clements, faxed a request to Chip Meany the code enforcement officer of the Towne of Weare, New Hampshire seeking to start the application process to build a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road. This is the present location of Mr. Souter's home.

Clements, CEO of Freestar Media, LLC, points out that the City of Weare will certainly gain greater tax revenue and economic benefits with a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road than allowing Mr. Souter to own the land.

The proposed development, called “The Lost Liberty Hotel” will feature the “Just Desserts Café” and include a museum, open to the public, featuring a permanent exhibit on the loss of freedom in America. Instead of a Gideon's Bible each guest will receive a free copy of Ayn Rand's novel “Atlas Shrugged.”

Clements indicated that the hotel must be built on this particular piece of land because it is a unique site being the home of someone largely responsible for destroying property rights for all Americans.

“This is not a prank” said Clements, “The Towne of Weare has five people on the Board of Selectmen. If three of them vote to use the power of eminent domain to take this land from Mr. Souter we can begin our hotel development.”

Clements' plan is to raise investment capital from wealthy pro-liberty investors and draw up architectural plans. These plans would then be used to raise investment capital for the project. Clements hopes that regular customers of the hotel might include supporters of the Institute For Justice and participants in the Free State Project among others.

# # #

Logan Darrow Clements
Freestar Media, LLC

Phone 310-593-4843
[email protected]

http://www.freestarmedia.com

http://blog.stayfreemagazine.org/2005/06/mad_hot_ballroo.html

How did Mad Hot Ballroom survive the copyright cartel?
Madhotronnie2

When Agrelo and Sewell were filming boys playing foosball after school, Ronnie (right) at one point shouted, “Everybody dance now!”, a line from a C+C Music Factory hit. Incredibly, the filmmakers' lawyer said the line had to be cleared with the song's publisher, Warner Chappell. The price? $5,000.

Answer: by limiting music that played in classrooms, haggling over clearance fees, and cutting out a scene.

Okay, some background: I saw Mad Hot Ballroom a few weeks ago with a couple of friends and we all fell in love with it. The documentary, directed by Park Sloper Marilyn Agrelo, follows New York public school kids in a citywide a ballroom dancing competition. If you haven't yet seen it, you should run out and do so.

One of the things that amazed me about the movie was how the filmmakers were able to clear so much music on an indie budget. Those of you who follow this blog or who read the Untold Stories report know what I'm talking about: clearing song rights for films has become close to impossible for small documentary films, thanks to the exorbitant rates copyright holders demand.

To find out how the makers of Mad Hot Ballroom dealt with copyright clearances, I talked to producer/writer Amy Sewell by phone last month.

* * * *

Stay Free!: There's so much music in your movie, I'm wondering: did you think about copyright before you decided to do this film?
Madhotstill1

VIEW CLIP #1
Due to the high costs of music clearances, some songs — such as Peggy Lee's “Fever” — were used repeatedly.

Madhotstill2

VIEW CLIP #2
This second clip is gratuitous. I'm including it 'cos Wilson and Elsymia are so damn cute.

Amy Sewell: No, and naïveté worked well for me! If I had known all that I had to go through, I'm not sure I would have done it. I read a book about clearances and started clearing the music by myself, but ended up bringing in Mark Reynolds to help. We cleared almost 50 songs before we started filming. American Ballroom Theater, which sponsors the courses and competitions, had a list of songs they use so we took that list and saw what we could clear and for what price. We narrowed that down and went back to American Ballroom Theater and asked them to use only these songs, because source background music can't be edited out easily or cheaply. If a song we couldn't clear — like “Hit the Road Jack” — was playing on a boom box, we would have had to cut the scene.

Stay Free!: Did you license the songs for a particular time period, or did you get them for perpetuity?

Sewell: We first cleared music for two years for festival use, and then went back and negotiated for worldwide commercial use in all media, for perpetuity. It was extremely expensive. For most films, music licensing is 1 to 10 percent of the production budget; ours came in at 45 percent: $140,000.

The biggest problem was granting Most Favored Nation status. [Granting a rights holder Most Favored Nation status requires giving them the highest fee you pay for a comparable song. For example, if Warner Chappell asks $10,000 for a clip but you have to license a Sony clip for $12,000, you'd have to also give Warner Chappell $12,000 if it has MFN status. - ed.] I would only agree to that for the classics. Things like Frank Sinatra hits.

I wasn't going to edit or cut any music, so I would continue to negotiate everything down until we could afford it. I'm sure I annoyed people in the music industry. But the industry should have a different set of standard for documentary films. We're not Applebee's.

Stay Free!: When you explain that this is for a low-budget documentary, does that matter to rights people?

Sewell: They do have discounts but the costs are still heavy. As a businesswoman, I don't blame them for making money. I just think the prices should be fair.

Stay Free!: There's a scene where a woman's cell phone rings and she has the “Rocky” theme ring tone. I noticed that you even cleared that! I would have thought that could be an example of fair use.

Sewell: I thought so too. It's only six seconds! But our lawyer said we needed to clear it. So I called Sprint, which owns the ring tone master rights, and they gave it to me for free because they saw it as product placement. But then I called EMI, which owns the publishing rights and they asked for $10,000. I said no way–even the classics weren't getting that much. Luckily, we were able to get it for less.

Stay Free!: How much did it cost for the average song?

Sewell: It depends on how many entities are attached to it. Our typical total cost for a classic was about $15,000-20,000, split between publisher and master rights. With the Rocky theme, the publishers didn't want to overexpose the song. That was the issue with Ray Charles' “Hit the Road Jack” as well.

Stay Free!: He should have thought of that before he did all those lousy Pepsi commercials.

Sewell: But “Hit the Road Jack” was special for him. His lawyer said, “I don't care if you were the president and had half a million dollars, you're not going to get this song.” There are two songs Ray Charles seldom granted rights to, “Hit the Road, Jack” and “God Bless America.” I love that: “Hit the Road” is right there with “God Bless America.”

Stay Free!: There was also a scene with a TV on, and a commercial was on the TV. Did you clear that?

Sewell: That was unidentifiable, so we had to run it by another lawyer for our errors and omissions insurance. (You have to buy insurance to cover all the things in the movie that might be subject to legal questions.) Our lawyers and the insurance agent agreed that it was fair use, though, because it was unidentifiable and on the screen for less than 10 seconds.

Stay Free!: Were there any other inconvenient clearances you had to deal with?

Sewell: Well, we had to watch out for billboards and Frito-Lay trucks all the time. But I usually didn't care, we would just shoot. The biggest danger with clearances is when they interfere with documenting real life. Something spontaneous like a cell phone ringing is different than a planned event. If filmmakers have to worry about these things, documentaries will cease to be documentaries! What happens when the girls go shopping and there's music playing in the stores? We were lucky because in our movie the music wasn't identifiable, but otherwise what are we supposed to do: walk up to the store manager and say, “Excuse me but can you turn off your radio?”

Stay Free!: What about that scene where the teachers start dancing after their meeting? And the one were the kids went up on the rock and danced. Those seemed like they might have been staged.

Sewell: No, we didn't tell anyone what to do. The kids went up there on their own. And after the meeting, somebody put on a disco song and the teachers broke out in dance. We thought it was funny.

Stay Free!: Were there any scenes you had to cut out of the film because of copyright?

Sewell: When we were down shooting the boys playing foosball, Ronnie yelled out, “Everybody dance now!” Just when I think we've finished the film, someone points out that we have to clear that because it's a “visual vocal cue.” So I went back to the publishers, and the first publisher, Spirit, says they'll throw it in with the other things we've cleared if Warner Chappell throws it in. But Warner Chappell said, “Look, we've cut you some nice deals, we can't give this to you.” They said this three-second bit would cost $5,000. And since they had Most Favored Nation status it would have raised the cost on similar uses, like the Rocky ring-tone. So I went back to lawyer and said we should keep it in because this should be a poster child for fair use. But he didn't recommend taking on the music industry. Those corporations have too much money for us to play Norma Rae our first time out.

Stay Free!: You guys should have done it and then gone to the EFF if Warner Chappell threatened you. For a clear fair use like this, lawyers are often willing to work pro bono. And the negative publicity would have scared Warner Chappell off.

Sewell: Yeah, I know, but more than anything else, it's the fear factor. That's what's discouraging.

http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles/marketing-from-your-conscience.htm

[Check out the rest of his website -- lot's of good stuff.]

Marketing From Your Conscience

(by Steve Pavlina)

Years ago I learned a simple yet powerful marketing secret: You must become so convinced of the benefits of your product or service that you feel you'd be unjustly depriving people by not doing everything in your power to get the word out.

I was infected by this attitude from Jay Abraham. Jay has an absolutely brilliant way of thinking about marketing. For example, if you're an accountant, and you're skilled at saving people money on their taxes, Jay might ask how much you save your average client. Say it's $500 per year. And then Jay would ask how much you charge. Say it's $200. Then Jay might take you through a conversation like this:

Jay: So it's costing people a net $300 per year not to do business with you.

You: Yes, that's fair to say.

Jay: How long does your typical client stay with you?

You: About three years.

Jay: So that's a total of $900 then. People are effectively being charged $900 not to work with you, $900 they would have otherwise been able to keep.

You: Alright.

Jay: So if you meet someone and don't tell them about your service, you've just cost them $900.

You: Hmmm…

Jay: You have a duty then to share this knowledge; to do otherwise would be irresponsible.

You: That's a strange way to think about it.

Jay: What's strange about it? If you have the ability to save people $900, then you're costing everyone $900 they could have saved whenever you don't tell someone about your service. Don't you have a moral obligation to save people this $900 if you can do it? Wouldn't it be unethical not to do it?

You: How is it unethical?

Jay: You're cheating people out of $900 you could have saved them. All you had to do was speak up – or at least try. What might that $900 mean to certain people? You'd be costing people a great deal of additional enjoyment, education, retirement income, vacations, etc. I consider that kind of negligent behavior unethical. Don't you?

You: I just never thought about it that way before.

Jay: Start thinking about it that way then.

In other words, if the product or service you provide is truly of benefit to others, then marketing becomes a duty. Not spreading the word is irresponsible and unethical.

Of course, the opposite is also true. If you have a product or service with no real benefit, then to actively market it would be irresponsible as well. If deep down you have doubts as to whether what you're providing is of real value, you'll probably sabotage yourself in your marketing efforts. I see this all the time among small business owners — they often don't believe enough in their products to aggressively market them. So they hold back and fill their days with non-marketing activities instead. Doing too much marketing makes them feel uncomfortable.

I'm not advocating trying to fool yourself into believing in your product/service when you don't. I'm suggesting you consult your conscience to see what you already believe. If you run your own business and don't market it very well (a common situation), is it possible you don't really believe in the benefits you provide? Or if you feel you're ready for a better job but don't go out and apply for one, could it be that you secretly feel the potential employer would be better off hiring someone else?

How well do you market yourself in other areas? Do you hold back from pursuing new friendships or relationships because you don't believe enough in the benefits that others would experience from your companionship? What would happen if you truly believed in the benefits you can provide?

When you find your conscience is holding you back from effective marketing, don't try to squash that inner voice. Listen to it. Hear what it has to say. Are your products just wasting people's time? Are your services pointless? Would an employer be better off hiring someone other than you? Would a friend be better off without you in their life?

Your conscience can point you in the direction of greater internal congruence, allowing you to market yourself very naturally and eagerly. Sometimes this involves recognizing the genuine benefit that's already there, such as with the accountant example at the beginning of this article. But other times it requires changing the offering to create a new benefit that really matters to you.

When I started StevePavlina.com, I had to remember this powerful lesson: marketing must align with conscience. I can tell I'm congruent in this area when I'm eager to do marketing work instead of wanting to put it off. If I feel a desire to procrastinate on marketing, I know something is wrong. So I run through one of those imaginary Jay Abraham conversations in my mind to see where I stand. What is the real benefit I'm providing? How can I quantify it? What will I be costing people if I don't market to them? Why do I have an ethical duty to market this information?

Be careful not to confuse this with vanity, which is self-directed. This type of motivation is directed outward. It's not about telling yourself how great you are. It's recognizing what you can do for others that really, truly benefits them. If I think about myself being a great writer or speaker, that isn't going to help my marketing. In fact, it will likely hurt me by injecting too much ego into the message. But if I think about what real benefit I can offer someone, that is very motivating. My understanding of this benefit must be rooted in the facts, not on a fictionalized exaggeration. Recognize and acknowledge the real, down-to-earth benefits and what they can actually do for people. And if the benefits are too weak to give you the feeling that marketing is an ethical duty, then stop your practice of junk marketing, and listen to what your conscience has been trying to tell you all along.

What kind of product or service do you feel you really should be marketing and selling? What skills do you need to develop that would make you an intelligent choice for your preferred employer to hire? What do you need to change in yourself to make it genuinely beneficial for others to befriend you?

By creating and acknowledging the real benefit that you actually believe in, you accomplish two things. First, your feeling of certainty will move you to action. You'll become driven to market yourself, your product, or your service because that's the right thing to do. Secondly, you'll actually be providing something of value that genuinely helps others. And together these two results will create a positive feedback loop where the more aggressively you market and sell, the more people you help, and the more certain you become that you're doing the right thing.

Acknowledge the real benefit you provide. Don't fall into the ego trap by exaggerating your impact, but don't minimize or deny the positive benefits either. Find the truth of the situation. Is your conscience congruently committed to the belief that you're marketing something of real value, or have you been lying to yourself? And if it's the latter, how can you correct it?

When your marketing message is congruent with your conscience, your motivation for promotion won't be restrained by hesitation. When you believe that marketing is simply the right thing to do, you'll do it eagerly, not for your own gratification but because you know you're genuinely helping people.

Steve Pavlina is the creator of StevePavlina.com and writes and speaks on personal development topics. This article is Copyright © 2005 by Steve Pavlina. To send feedback or request reprint permission (usually granted free of charge), please contact Steve.

Via :

I'm sorry I haven't posted more recently–I'm trying to limit my internet surfing time. As a result, my journal has become little more than a Firefly fanboy site as of late.

Talked to my parents on the phone. My Dad manages Sun Valley Aviation, an FBO in, you guessed it, Sun Valley, Idaho. They just had the grand opening of their new facility. Apparently, it went well–over 300 people attended.

My Dad and Mom visited my sister Heather and her husband Jay in Boise, ID. Jay recently had surgery to correct inguinal hernias. Hailey, my niece, is old enough now (2.5 years old) that she can talk well enough that someone other than her parents can understand her. She likes to chat with me on the phone.

Talked to LG, a friend of mine from LA. She and her partner Peter live in Playa del Rey. She was recently laid off from her job at a construction company. She's looking for work as a CFO or accounting manager for a biotech firm.

Helped my coworker Mitch wire his new house. It's huge. 6000+ square feet of finished space, 7000+ total. His wife will have her own dance studio. I don't know how much it will cost, but I would guess it's somewhere between $500 and $700 K. We laid out 2000 ft. of Cat-6 and dual coaxial cable.

Read “How to Make a Journal of Your Life” and “Moonlight Chronicles” by D.Price. They're like collection of livejournal entries interspersed with cartoon drawings. I like the drawing style, but found the text narcissistic and boring. Which is fine for an LJ, but not for a book you expect someone to buy. It did, however, cause me to start jones'n to draw again.

This Thursday, I will be driving to Charlotte with three of my friends to see Serenity. I'm looking forward to it, though I'm a little worried, since it airs on a Thursday night. However, I generally do well the day after I stay up all night. It's the next day that I crash. Maybe I should take up methamphetamine.

My roommate Ian will be moving out at the end of August. I need to decide by the end of June if I want to renew my lease. I'm thinking about selling most of my possessions, and living out of my vehicle. I'd like to get my lifestyle to the point that I could live on $500.00/month. Then if I wish, I could live anywhere in the U.S., and only work for pay for two days a week. Doesn't work so well with most babes though. “Hey baby, wanna come over to my Honda Civic?” Also, if I got another roommate, rental cost would not be so much more than the cost of storage unit rental, rented mailbox, and gym fee.

I'm also thinking about buying a 3500 SHC Dodge/Freightliner Sprinter (158″ wheelbase, 73″ interior) plus a two-way Datastorm satellite dish. The sprinter would probably be about $40 K new, the Datastorm would be about $5 K. Sigh. Hmm…I wonder if the datastorm would fit on top of a Civic…

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html

Stanford Report, June 14, 2005
'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: “We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?” They said: “Of course.” My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky – I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation – the Macintosh – a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down – that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me – I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

If you would like tickets to Serenity, please let me know by noon on Wednesday, so that I can offer the extras to others.

I have ten tickets to the 10 p.m. showing of Serenity in Charlotte, NC on Thursday, June 23:

Regal Stonecrest At Piper Glen 22
7824 Rea Road
Charlotte, NC 28277
Phone: 704-540-7558

I plan to get there by 8:30 p.m. It takes about 3.5 hours to drive there from Raleigh, so I plan to leave by 5:00 p.m. I plan to drive back the same night, immediately after the showing. Five of the tickets are spoken for, but five are still remaining. If you would like to go with me, please let me know.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/06/08/DDGQJD4D2O1.DTL&type=printable

When Fox canceled 'Firefly,' it ignited an Internet fan base whose burning desire for more led to 'Serenity'
- Neva Chonin, Chronicle Critic at Large
Wednesday, June 8, 2005

It's a foggy Thursday night in late May, and the upper lobby of San Francisco's Van Ness 1000 theater is teeming with a rowdy assortment of revolutionaries, renegades, and women in Wild West garb and Chinese pajamas squaring off against black-suited men wearing blue surgical gloves.

It could be the usual summer tourist throng, but it's not. These are fans of a long-canceled television show called “Firefly,” and they've been waiting in line all afternoon to preview an unfinished cut of “Serenity,” the big- screen spin-off of their lost series. After the screening sold out, some fans bought scalped tickets for more than $100 on eBay; others camped out in the lobby and hoped for a miracle.

Joey Saade, 19, was among the first to score tickets (“I kept calling the theater”), and traveled from San Jose to see the movie with his brother and three blue-gloved friends. They share the front of the line with San Leandro native Arielle Kesweder, 23, and her own “Serenity” posse. Decked out in 19th century garb as “Firefly” character Kaylee (in one of Kaylee's flouncier moments), Kesweder says she heard about the screening from an e-mail and “immediately maxed out” her credit card getting as many tickets as she could for her friends.

Some people might question these fans' devotion to a series that ran a total of 13 episodes (of which only 11 aired). Some people have never been in love. Written and directed by TV auteur Joss Whedon (creator of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Angel”), “Firefly” was a polarizing phenomenon from its first episode in 2002. Its wildly inventive premise and pithy dialogue earned it critical praise, but good reviews couldn't save it: Fox showed episodes out of sequence, frequently pre-empted the show and finally canned it mid-season.

Granted, the premise was a hard sell for commercial TV. “Firefly” is a space Western set 500 years in the future, in the aftermath of a civil war between rebels known as Independents (or Browncoats) and a tyrannical conglomerate called the Alliance. The Independents lose the war, and under Alliance control, corporations rule openly; Anglo and Asian influences merge into a eccentric polyglot culture; men in black (with blue hands) carry out sinister covert operations; and astonishingly ugly cannibals called Reavers plunder at will. On the outskirts of this universe, the crew of the Serenity (part of a class of ships called Firefly), led by a former Browncoat, survive by pulling off heists and outsmarting the authorities.

When “Firefly” was canceled, fans — dubbed Browncoats in honor of the doomed-but-noble Independents — campaigned to have it moved to another network. True to Browncoat tradition, they failed — but their efforts convinced Fox to release the show as a DVD set that included three unaired episodes and behind-the-scenes extras. The DVD quickly sold more than 200,000 copies. Impressed, Universal Pictures climbed onboard, enabling Whedon to make “Serenity” (due out Sept. 30), which picks up where the series left off.

“Serenity's” existence is a testimonial to the tenacity of fans and the power of the Internet, where Browncoats have spent the past three years inspiring converts, drafting petitions and even kibitzing with the “Firefly” cast on bulletin boards. Whedon and Universal are now stoking enthusiasm with their own “Serenity” Web sites, asking Browncoat communities across the United States, Australia and Europe to spread the word as they count down to the movie's release. Whedon knows “Serenity” will have to move beyond its “Firefly” base to succeed commercially, and he's actively recruiting Browncoats as guerrilla publicists.

“It's a viral thing, encouraging them to encourage other people to see it, ” he explains over the phone while stuck in a Los Angeles traffic jam, where he's en route to an editing session. ” 'Serenity' doesn't have Tom Cruise or 'I can't believe I'm in the body of a third-grader' slapped over the title, or any of the other things marketing people latch onto. What it does have is our belief in the film.”

With the “Star Wars” and “Star Trek” franchises finally ending, hopes are high that homeless science-fiction buffs will find their way to the “Firefly” universe — nudged, perhaps, by some online fan-to-fan marketing. Whedon, at least, is cautiously optimistic about the future of his feisty Western in space. “The opinions of a thousand fans still won't carry the weight of a thousand execs, but I've never seen a studio operate the way Universal has in regards to my little movie. They've been enthusiastic, intelligent — yes, I'm using the word 'intelligent' about a movie studio — and supportive every step of the way.”

Glenn Yeffeth, editor of the anthology “Finding Serenity: Anti-Heroes, Lost Shepherds and Space Hookers in Joss Whedon's 'Firefly' ” (BenBella Books; $17.95; 240 pages), thinks 'Serenity' has a good shot at becoming a crossover hit, even sans Tom Cruise. “No question 'Firefly' was quirky, combining science fiction with a Western,” he says. “But it's really about the search for meaning in a meaningless universe, and it's a notch above the very best writing of other television series out there.”

San Francisco Browncoats organizer Renee Balmert, 32, is happy to fight the good fight for her show, regardless of the outcome. “You either love Whedon or you don't,” she says. “His series are hard to pin down, which is why they're hard to promote. But Joss is great at gathering people around him who have the same vision. There's a wonderful rapport between him and the fans, and between fans and the actors in the show.”

Whedon admits “there is a bit of a cult” around his work — and him. “I have exactly one reaction to that: Whoo-hoo! It puts a little pressure on me, but at the same time it makes me proud and excited. Every artist wants to reach people on a primal level. Part of that is a pathetic need, or maybe a less pathetic desire, to connect and talk about the important things in our lives while entertaining the s — out of everyone.

“Some fans are, shall I say, idiosyncratic,” he adds. “But those are the people I'm writing for; those are the people I'm writing about. By and large they're extremely cheerful, amiable, witty bunch. They're passionate and sometimes unhappy. I have the utmost respect for that. I write the work like a fan. So if a fan is crying about something I wrote, there's a good chance I cried while I wrote it.”

When they're not talking up the movie, the SF Browncoats will be organizing a “Firefly” raffle during the Comic-Con convention in San Diego next month, with proceeds benefiting the women's support organization Equality Now, a favorite Whedon cause. Other summer distractions will help fill time until September: More guerrilla screenings are planned, and a three-part “Firefly” comic series arrives in July.

If “Serenity” flies at the box office, will there be more “Firefly” films, even a trilogy? “Hell, yes,” says Whedon. “Hell, yes, there will be more.” And if it crashes? Whedon's stoic shrug is almost audible. “I've gotten a certain amount of closure that I didn't have when the series was canceled. The movie delivers what I want to deliver the way I want to deliver it — with action, violence, humor and fun. I'll feel we told the story we wanted to tell. “

Like “Firefly's” Independents, he will keep flying. “But in my secret, greasy heart,” he confesses, “I really do want to come back to this universe. I can't help it. I'm a fan.”
Meet The “Serenity” Crew: Capt. Malcolm “Mal” Reynolds (a.k.a. Capt. Tightpants, played by Nathan Fillion) is a world-weary ex-Browncoat whose crew acts as his dysfunctional, post-apocalyptic family. They are: First mate and former soldier Zoe (Gina Torres) and her pilot-comic relief husband, Wash (Alan Tudyk); cheery ship's mechanic Kaylee (Jewel Staite) and hunky mercenary Jayne (Adam Baldwin); hooker-in-space Inara (Morena Baccarin) and galactic preacher Shepherd Book (Ron Glass); the distractingly handsome doctor, Simon (Sean Maher), and his troublesomely telepathic sister, River (Summer Glau).

“Firefly” And “Serenity” Online:

– Serenitymovie.com: The official film site.

– Cantstopthesignal.com: Whedon's site, which carries news about sneak screenings.

– Fireflyfans.net: An online watering hole for the devoted.

– Bigdamnboard.com: A database for all things “Firefly.”

– Whedonesque.com: The ultimate resource for all things Joss.

– Hellmouthcentral.com: More Joss worship.

– Forums.prospero.com/foxfirefly: The biggest and best of the Firefly bulletins boards. Series actors have been known to post here.

– Browncoats.com is international Browncoat central. Sfbrowncoats.com is home of the San Francisco Browncoats. Their mailing list can be found at groups.yahoo.com/group/sfbrowncoats. The Silicon Gulch (San Jose) Browncoats' mailing list is at groups.yahoo.com/group/SiliconGulchBrowncoats. Sacramento Browncoats hang their hats at groups.yahoo.com/group/SacramentoBrowncoats.

E-mail Neva Chonin at [email protected].

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URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/06/08/DDGQJD4D2O1.DTL

Tampa http://www.movietickets.com/house_detail.asp?house_id=6346
Chicago http://www.movietickets.com/house_detail.asp?house_id=8267
Cincinnati http://www.movietickets.com/house_detail.asp?house_id=7961
Columbus http://www.movietickets.com/house_detail.asp?house_id=3341
Dallas http://www.movietickets.com/house_detail.asp?house_id=8721
Denver http://www.movietickets.com/house_detail.asp?house_id=4162
Hartford http://www.movietickets.com/house_detail.asp?house_id=4667
Kansas City http://www.movietickets.com/house_detail.asp?house_id=4170
Miami http://www.movietickets.com/house_detail.asp?house_id=4981
Minneapolis http://www.movietickets.com/house_detail.asp?house_id=8060
Philadelphia http://www.movietickets.com/house_detail.asp?house_id=5165
Phoenix http://www.movietickets.com/house_detail.asp?house_id=4523
Providence http://www.movietickets.com/house_detail.asp?house_id=8641
San Francisco http://www.movietickets.com/house_detail.asp?house_id=4857
St. Louis http://www.movietickets.com/house_detail.asp?house_id=6664
Tampa http://www.movietickets.com/house_detail.asp?house_id=6346

The fandango theaters are easier since this link takes you directly to June 23rd and you don't have to go through the whole date selection. As of a few minutes ago, only Houston was on sale.

*(still not sure if these are all correct, so don't hold my feet to the fire for inaccuracies ).

Atlanta http://www.fandango.com/TheaterPage.aspx?date=6/23/2005&tid=AANAZ
Austin http://www.fandango.com/TheaterPage.aspx?date=6/23/2005&tid=AAEBG
Boston http://www.fandango.com/TheaterPage.aspx?date=6/23/2005&tid=AAPNV
Houston http://www.fandango.com/TheaterPage.aspx?date=6/23/2005&tid=AANZG
Las Vegas http://www.fandango.com/TheaterPage.aspx?date=6/23/2005&tid=AAQEG
Norfolk http://www.fandango.com/TheaterPage.aspx?date=6/23/2005&tid=AAMDK
Portland (getting an error page for the theater – it should be the following link) http://www.fandango.com/TheaterPage.aspx?date=6/23/3005&tid=AAJMZ
Sacramento http://www.fandango.com/TheaterPage.aspx?date=6/23/2005&tid=AAGBA
Seattle http://www.fandango.com/TheaterPage.aspx?date=6/23/2005&tid=AABFY
Washington, DC http://www.fandango.com/TheaterPage.aspx?date=6/23/2005&tid=AAQPV