One of the projects my company is working on involves training 10 young people (ages 16 to 20) in writing, setting them up on a blog, and having them go out and report on city-funded cultural activities and social service programs in the city of Santa Monica. All this week I’ve been driving to Santa Monica to run workshops with these youths. I like this project immensely: it involves young people, and writing, and getting the word out about arts activities and about programs that help people who need a little help.

What I don’t like is the commute between Burbank and Santa Monica. The distance is about 25 miles, and no matter what time of day I’m going there or coming back, it takes about 25 years. Yesterday’s workshop was actually in Marina del Rey (about 4 miles further). It took me an hour and a half to get back to Burbank. Imagine driving for an hour and a half at 15 miles per hour. I would have pulled over to go see a movie — as I did on this infuriating day — except lately that makes no difference; if it’s daylight, traffic is impenetrable. Plus, I wanted to get home for my daughter’s 10th birthday party. I got home all right, finally, in a miserable mood for being boxed in on all sides by cars and crawling along for ever. This must be what trench warfare felt like. News reporting would have you believe that people are abandoning their cars for bicycles because of high gasoline prices; I haven’t seen that, but I’d like to.

What are elected leaders in California doing about the traffic situation, which is clogging our roadways and choking our economy? Little or nothing.

We also have a little deficit here in the Golden State. It doesn’t matter what the number is (it’s massive); by the time I type it in here, it will have metastasized further. At various times recently it’s been pegged at $8 billion (that’s “billion” with a “b,” please note) or $12 billion, or $16 billion, or any number between, or larger. Here’s your first indication that the people running the state aren’t doing a good job: They have no idea what the size of the budget deficit is. Without an understanding of the problem, how can they be expected to fix it? The deadline for a new budget — one theoretically in balance — was July 1st. They missed the deadline. So here’s what they did: They went on break. That’s right. They left Sacramento to return to their (other) homes. Anyone doing business with the state of California right now isn’t getting paid — except, I’m sure, for the people on the state payroll, i.e., those people who didn’t come up with a budget.

Someone up in Sacramento — not sure who; finger-pointing varies — is proposing raiding embargoed funds. These are the funds that a plurality of voters (not including me) voted as set-asides for specific projects. I almost always vote against these funds because they almost always get raided for something completely unrelated to the proposed project — and this is something I told one of the governor’s emissaries recently when I led a little charge against one of them. And now, here we go again. What are some of the funds being raided? You guessed it: highway funds, originally intended to ease traffic congestion.

Aren’t ironies wonderful?

I don’t think that all problems are easily or well solved. I do think, though, that everything is improvable. Will California, where in addition to other problems 25% of high schoolers are dropouts (while we have some of the nation’s best-funded school districts), ever again earn the sobriquet of “The Golden State”? Maybe, maybe not. I don’t expect a return to the past so many people who have lived here longer than I have are yearning for. But I do expect people who are public servants, and well-paid ones to boot, to do the job they were elected to do. And although I know several of these legislators personally and like them greatly, I’m of a mind right now that all of them across the board ought to be sent packing. And I’m starting to wonder if that isn’t just what voters might finally do.

The slideshow at the bottom of this post may be the single best Powerpoint presentation I’ve ever seen. And it’s on something I care deeply about: the space program. You can look at it now and then come back up here, or read through and then watch it, but please: Watch it.

For those of my generation (either late Baby Boom or early Gen X, depending upon whom you read; let’s just say I’m a fan of both Nirvana and Carl Reiner), the space program was an important part of our lives, something that holds deep meaning and provided enormous benefit to humankind. I remember as a boy in kindergarten being led down to the auditorium to watch the first moonwalk on either of two tiny TV sets hung in the corners of the room. Now, thanks to technology developed to support space exploration, kids would be watching that broadcast on a jumbo screen or, ironically, on a tiny screen held in their hand. The space program gave us LED, LCD, transistor technology, X-ray machines, teflon, smoke detectors, microwave ovens, cellphones, and a lot more. Those of us who were around as these things came online remember life before them. And even if we don’t think about that, we might think about the admonishment of “Star Trek” to “boldly go where no man has gone before.”

The people who came after us, Gen Y, born between 1977 and 2000, care about none of this. These devices already exist. And how did they come to be? They think they were invented by cool startup companies (rather than, believe it or not, a government program responsible for the greatest cycle of invention in history). (And, on a side note, I stopped talking about Kirk and Spock years ago because my students don’t know which is which.)

Evidence of this ignorance and what results from it is everywhere. Who runs for Congress on a platform of support for NASA? Precisely one person recently — a friend of mine in Pasadena — and he lost. What is the level of public support for NASA? About zilch. Even while as a nation we’re concerned that we’re losing our high-tech edge to Asian nations (which we are), and we’re upset about a sagging economy without enough good-paying clean jobs — situations that space exploration would help solve. As I wrote about here, under item #5, I recently got to speak with a couple dozen NASA people in one afternoon. When I shared my enthusiasm for the space program, every one of them treated me like a rarely seen relative from Brigadoon and bemoaned the lack of awareness and respect for space science.

So: Here’s what I love about the presentation below. In 90 slides so simple, direct, and evocative that even one of these easily confused and distracted Gen Y’ers could follow it, four of their own generation lay out for NASA how the new storytelling had better work if space exploration is going to gain new investors. Here are the key takeaways (and take note, because to me they seem useful across the board in dealing with 8-to-31-year-olds):

1. The traditional communications hierarchy is dead. Given the new technological platforms — blogs, YouTube, IM’s, Twitter, etc. etc. — no one awaits Zeus’s thunderbolts. Everyone is part of the static. Either you allow a conversation, or no one is going to listen. This may seem annoying — and on many levels, it is — but it’s factual. In the age of three broadcast networks, some people even watched the Indian test pattern after hours. With all the choices and all the types of choices, no one needs to do that any more.
2. Gen Y is impatient. Even more impatient than I usually am. Even more impatient than you think you are. If they’re reading this post, they’ve probably already stopped because it seems too long.
3. “39% believe that nothing worthwhile has come out of NASA.” Lest you get pissed at Gen Y for this, it’s more appropriate to blame the messenger who delivered no message. And given that the mainstream media is lazy and prone to parrot whatever news it gets, blame clearly lies with a government program that hasn’t put out a good story about itself and is utterly clueless how to do so.

This last point is what cheers me about this presentation, drafted by four of these darn kids working on their own time. They’ve identified the communications problem, they offer advice, and the very nature of their presentation shows the style and impact of doing it right.

Now NASA ought to hire them to do it. Because whatever else NASA has them doing (evidently, they’re young NASA employees), this is more important right now.

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As you’ve heard,  the Feds seized IndyMac Bank on Friday. (And here’s the latest on that, by the way.) It’s the second-largest U.S. bank default in history.

On Saturday, we got a letter from the bank, which holds our mortgage. I assumed it was news of the default, with information about the status of our mortgage.

No. Of course not. How silly of me. It was an offer of an additional $100,000 from the bank, if only we’d fill out the teeny form and return it.

If only the letter had arrived a day earlier! Because, as my wife said, it’s not like they’re going to be around to collect it.

Glad I went to see Ricky Gervais tonight at the Kodak. He was howlingly funny — and helped me forget that I live in a city where the major metropolitan daily newspaper is about to be one without an opinion section, a magazine, or a book section.

Apparently, the last standalone section of the Los Angeles Times Book Review appears this July 27th. (While I’ll be at Comic Con — a place where one can still find books, and hear them talked about.) The Book Review — or, as I’ve been calling it while it existed albeit in a diminished state, The Book Area — was the one section I read every Sunday when I was in town. I also wrote about 10 reviews for it when I was actively freelancing in the mid 1990’s.

Editorial is getting deep cuts. But chin up, says California Editor David Lauter. Here’s an excerpt from his email Friday to the editorial staff:

So, as we move into the weekend, please remember that we’re going to have fewer people, but we’re not going to have lowered standards or baser ambitions. Our readers demand first-rate journalism, our skill and dedication give us the tools to deliver it. And that’s what we’re going to do — now and in the future.

As ever,
David

I believe this is known as “whistling past the graveyard.” It’s beyond me how one doesn’t lower standards, or sacrifice “first-rate journalism” when one suddenly has 150 fewer editorial positions. Let alone no book section.

One could ask, “What should he say?” How about saying, “We can’t continue to operate this way. If they want to have any product at all, the publisher and the owner need to stabilize the newspaper, rather than cut it.” But I guess that’s further evidence of my quaint notion that journalism is about, hey, speaking truth to power. If you’re going down anyway, at least retain your pride.

Just so we don’t lose our humor in the face of the ongoing Bush disintegration (er, administration), as well as all the aiding and abeting our Democratic friends are doing, I share this brief video, which a friend sent me yesterday. Sometimes a little crude humor goes a long way.

A big thank-you to Isabel Storey for sending this in:

“Good news. Cleanup of the Bush legacy is on the way!

A San Francisco group has collected 12,000 signatures to name a sewage treatment plant after the outgoing president.”

According to the story, the White House “is not amused.”

Me neither, most days.

Well, no. I can’t do that.

But with your help, I can help to raise money that provides medical and dental care (and other services) for people suffering from the disease. I’m doing that by running in this year’s AIDS Marathon, and I’m asking you please to sponsor me.

Yes, I’m going to run 26.2 miles in October. (I’m already up to 8.)  But the sense of accomplishment in crossing the finish line will in no way compare with the feeling associated with knowing where the donations (mine included) will go:  to providing care for thousands of people with no health insurance and few alternatives.

Please click here to sponsor me in this marathon or to learn more.

Painter William Wray is opening his latest showing this Saturday night at a gallery in Monrovia, here in Southern California. Here’s information on the gallery and its friendly and knowledgeable owner, Laura Segil, and here’s info on the artist, and above is one of his paintings.

Some of us are more familiar with some other William Wray art. It’s the art he signs as Bill Wray, and includes animation and print work on Hellboy, Batman, and Ren & Stimpy. Here’s that Wray’s site, and here’s a representative illustration. (Although when he does, say, Bugs Bunny, it’s with a gentler touch.)

So I ask you: Which is the serious art?

The answer is: both.

I like that William Wray is both a fine-art painter and a commercial/comic illustrator. I like that my friend Gerald Locklin writes accessible poems that are also packed with meaning. I write marketing copy as well as plays, and I enjoy them both (although in different ways). Shakespeare wrote for the masses, but somehow wound up being artistic. Samuel Beckett, the doyen of litterateurs, loved detective thrillers (and I’m sure if he could have written one, would have).

We have this false notion that there is “low” art and “high” art. I don’t think so. I think there’s “good” art and “bad” art, and there’s art that’s more accessible (because the references are more easily understood by more people) and there’s art that’s less accessible. Moreover, I often wonder if the advocates of “high art” aren’t a little too interested in keeping more people from scaling their towers and gaining access.

Recently a colleague from USC came to see one of my plays and told me afterward how glad he was to see so many people laughing. (Intentionally: It’s a comedy.) For decades, he’s suffered the slings and arrows of a certain slice of the academy, where lighter material is frowned upon, and to be funny isn’t to be any good. (And we wonder what happened to the audience for poetry.)

So I celebrate William Wray and his alter ego Bill Wray. And early this Saturday evening I may drive out to Monrovia to meet them.

If Jesse Jackson wanted to do something nice for Barack Obama — which he didn’t — I can’t think of a nicer thing he could’ve done than this:  say on Fox’s “O’Reilly Factor” (of all places), with regard to Obama, “I wanna cut his nuts off.”

Now if only Osama bin Laden would endorse John McCain, the day would be complete.

Nothing has been left undamaged by presidency Bush.

Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Disastrous Presidency