Civic Innovation in Los Angeles

Corruption is a cancer. Corruption is a poison to government.

Civic innovation is the cure, the anti-venom.

Corruption eviscerates value (i.e. property values), and pollutes the government, choking out the benefit to society, causing people to suffer.

Corruption is the waste of millions of dollars of public funds, taxes, without accountability and without benefit to the public.

Corruption is mob rule, mafia power-brokering in what is supposed to be democracy, fair open and honest “for the people” government.

Civic innovation — transparency and accountability — is the cure to corruption. Civic Innovation allows “the public” to identify corrupt people and corrupt practices using technology, data, metrics and open government initiatives. Civic innovation shines bright light into the darkness where corruption hides.

When you have public officials, those on the tax-payer doll, behaving badly, breaking laws, amassing excessive compensation, and seeing themselves as “above the law” — preventing themselves from being held accountable for their actions and choices, denying social justice and accountability — that is called corruption.

Welcome to Los Angeles…

When people who are paid tax dollars to uphold the law (think Politicians, Police, Judges, Sheriffs) are breaking the law, it destroys the public trust, undermines the legal/justice system and delegitimizes the entire government. When criminal activity in government is covered up and unpunished it can fester like a tumor, spread quickly and infect healthy parts of government until eventually the entire system begins to breakdown. When corruption takes hold, people get hurt, mobs and gangs form within government, good-people are silenced or squeezed out, and the people at the bottom are literally killed (more on people getting killed in a minute).

In Los Angeles if you bring up “corruption” the name “Robert Rizzo” — the poster child of Civic corruption will come to mind for many. Robert Rizzo was the city manager of a small city in LA County called Bell. He and his cohorts robbed from the low income residents of the city of Bell by taxing them excessively in order to pay themselves millions of dollars — they literally robbed from the poor to make themselves rich. It was shocking to most that the corruption was so vast, the damage so great. The people of Bell were screwed out of millions of dollars that they will never get back, and their city and taxes are still paying for it.

Some want to point to Rizzo and his trial and say: “See we rooted out the corruption!”

But the reality is that Los Angeles is Bell times a thousand. Los Angeles is “Bell” with a multi-billion dollar tax base. Los Angeles likely has thousands of “Rizzos” who are legally or illegally grossly enriching themselves on the back of the tax payers, manipulating the system to take as much from the public as they can while giving back little or nothing.

The future is thus being robbed blind by the greed of the past.

It’s disgusting. It’s wrong. It’s immoral. It is going to be stopped in 2014.

The awful truth is Robert Rizzo is just the tip of the iceberg. Rizzo is the low hanging mango of corruption; the easy picking. There are more Rizzos in LA County than anyone wants to admit, and many that are probably far, far worse than Rizzo in fact.

In Los Angeles millions of dollars of tax-payer money is hidden, and unaccounted for. Taxes are raised so that the city/union salaries can be raised or the excessive raises negotiated in public union collective bargaining can be paid for. It’s been going on for years. “The public” must be given clear insight into the opaque finances of Los Angeles and where the money is going.

Civic innovation will give the public a clear insight into LA’s finances, past, present, and future. Public funds will be subject to public oversight, and innovation for public good. The Government will then be realigned to invest in the public good, and become a partner to local businesses, to the benefit of all.

The best place to begin enacting programs of transparency and civic innovation are where it is being fought the most, generally the places with the most waste of public funds, and the least accountability to the public.

For many in Los Angeles “Stealing or maliciously using public funds to enrich themselves” will invoke The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power — the notorious LADWP. The LADWP has been syphoning off rate payer dollars “public funds” and hiding them in secret slush fund trusts for years. The LA Times uncovered that $41 million in public funds were hidden in “non-profit” trust funds, controlled by the top brass at the LADWP. These trust funds were hidden from auditors and kept secret, which is unacceptable corruption.

How many other secret trust funds are there?

There have yet to be legitimate records produced on these trust funds. It’s obvious these funds were not non-profits. Without records this is criminal. Without records the money is stolen, plain and simple. Without complete verifiable accounting of every dollar, criminal charges are justifiable to send a message that the public will not tolerate this type of corruption.

The public deserves an explanation.

“Skimming millions of the top” of public funds is corruption. Such practices will be exposed with tranparency and civic innovation. Such behavior must be removed like a tumor.

The LADWP is completely funded by the public and deals with nothing that falls anywhere close to “national security” and therefore they have ZERO right to privacy and ZERO right to withhold any document, metrics or records from anyone. Innovation in the Department of Water and Power is sorely needed, because the lack of vision and mismanagement has become dangerous. The LADWP will be made completely and totally transparent because that is the law. Transparency at the LADWP, a purging the public doll of greedy do-nothing criminals will breath new life into the city.

Civic innovation metrics will reveal that many executive positions at the LADWP can be eliminated and are long since negated by technology. Civic innovation will reveal that mismanagement is costing the city of Los Angeles millions. Rates/taxes are raised to pay inflated salaries, for executives who are wasting millions of dollars. Actual leadership and vision, Green-energy, collecting rain water, desalinization and efficiency initiatives could be lowering rates. But instead of lowering rates, and putting the city and the public first, the LADWP is raising rates, hiring (and making higher) criminals and enacting union rules “political contribution madates” for enriching its mafia-like organization.

The LADWP monopoly has been raising rates but giving the public less. For years they put off infrastructure work, waiting until pipes break in an emergency before anything is done, which cost far more than preventative maintenance. Broken mainlines flood streets, cause damage and lawsuits, and then rates are raised to pay for it… But the city “the public” pays this increase, and the people that created the problem get a raise — by skimming some more money off the rate increase.

During the 2008-2012 period, when the city of Los Angeles was closing libraries, furloughing people, cutting arts programs, school budgets and laying off city workers… during that time the LADWP was getting raises, taking no cuts, and hiding millions in tax dollars from auditors. During this time LADWP workers were caught drinking and going to strip clubs on the job, as uncovered by CBS2 in Los Angeles.

Was anyone fired for this? Nope.

I wish someone would tell me I’m wrong and that a union does not prevent you from being fired for being drunk and at a strip club while on the clock. Because if a union does this, that is corruption.

The reality is ALL of these drunk-on-the-job LADWP employees still have there +$100,000 year jobs, and were never so much as docked a dollar of pay. Welcome to Los Angeles and the LADWP!

The public funds syphoned off by the LADWP and hid in secret trust funds and labeled “non-profits” are all for the profit of the Union and their mob. The LADWP verifiably donates to politicians and has thus used “public money” to manipulate the politics of Los Angeles. By “buying” politicians and manipulating LA politics, they hide their corruption. The slush funds to keep the corruption — the fact that there are slush funds — in Los Angeles from being addressed, and the orgy of money, power and greed keeps going. The LADWP union is among (if not) the largest contributor to political campaigns of Los Angeles city politicians (past mayors and city council members)… and is perhaps the largest beneficiary of this corrupt system.

The Public Unions now control the Managment. This is why Los Angeles can’t even fire LADWP union workers who are drunk at a strip club while on the clock. It’s unbelievable. (It’s also the same reason the LA Sheriff can knowingly hire violent criminals, against the rules, and give them free reign to brutalize people. But we’ll get to Lee Baca and the LA Sheriff Dept. more in a minute.)

To sum it up, the LADWP is using public funds manipulate politicians to get them more public funds, and escape accountability and transparency in the process. They use public funds to influence politicians to pay them exorbitant salaries and pensions, and allow the creation of “non-profits” to buy themselves ever more power in the city, county and even state government. It’s a cycle of corruption that must be stopped. It has gotten out of control.

It’s an outrage. The LADWP is literally stealing from the public, taking money from the people and using it to enrich themselves and escape any and all accountability. I’m sure they have a staff of lawyers trying to explain a way this is all perfectly legal.

It’s immoral. It’s hurting the public.

Will Los Angeles County Prosecutors file any charges?

Will any of the millions of dollars in public funds ever be returned?

Will the robber Barons of Los Angeles ever be held accountable?

Criminal charges are certainly justified, but don’t be surprised if “criminal charges” makes some judges in the Los Angeles County Court system laugh out loud. Others might not think it’s funny, but are nervous, or unwilling to tackle deeply entrenched corruption because it might open a Pandora’s box.

It’s actually a very sad state of affairs.

I’m a very optimistic person by nature and even I think the chances of Los Angeles ever tackling deep seated corruption are “Slim to none.” That’s how rotten the tree is.

I see the situation as comparable to the Catholic Church and the child-molesting preists. They don’t want to deal with certain people or address the corruption issues because it makes the whole system look bad, which perhaps many see as worse than NOT dealing with the corrupt individuals. I sincerely hope I’m wrong. I hope there are enough noble public servants in Los Angeles who want to stop corruption and are willing to do the hard work of making things better.

Things will get better with Civic Innovation.

Los Angeles Public Unions use tax-dollars to buy politicians, who they negotiate with to give them ever more tax dollars, which increase their power to the point of being “above the law” and this lawlessness creates lawsuits and mismanagement of public funds, which eats away at the tax base so much that there is no longer money going to creating jobs, fixing decaying infrastructure, arts or public welfare. It creates a terrible cycle…

Until you get to where we are today: Total systemic corruption, zero accountability, inability or unwillingness to address the issues and a completely rotten “City Government” tree.

And then there’s the Police and the Sheriff…

The Police (the Police Union) are engaged in that buy-politicians-to-bargain-with system because they too have a great interest in manipulating the politicians who they will be at the negotiating table with, asking for a raise and excessive pension. The police and the LADWP are therefore friends, with similar methods and interest in Los Angeles politics. They are untouchable because they run in the circles of the court and the prosecutors. This fosters the “above the law” mentality, and leads to outrageous conduct. The decades of zero accountability and silencing of critics has become dangerous, violent and a threat to the very society and public it is supposed to serve.

The Rampart Scandal immediately comes to mind. This scandal of the Los Angeles Police Department is still a healing wound in the minds of some, and the LAPD only very recently released from Federal oversight.

For me this “danger” is personified and manifest in the #KellyThomas case. Kelly Thomas was a homeless man that was beaten to death by two Orange County (Fullerton, about 25 miles from Los Angeles) cops in 2011. One cop told Kelly they were going to “fuck him up” and they proceeded to smash his face in, and literally beat him to death for no reason. If it wasn’t for Kelly Thomas’ father, and PUBLIC OUTCRY no charges would have been filed and the two cops would have gotten away with it, as they (other cops and the LA Sheriffs) certainly have in the past. They simply write a police report that is full of lies and blame the victim. It’s perjury but is it ever punished? Almost never.

The lesson of the Kelly Thomas case is that people are killed when “above the law” behavior goes unpunished, hidden and never addressed or corrected. Corruption oozes down from the ivory towers of power into the front lines of law enforcement and people are brutalized. When corruption goes unpunished and swept under the rug, people are killed. The costs in civil lawsuits against police and the city soar, obviously — but that cost doesn’t come out of the budget of the police and the Sheriff, so they have no incentive to change or punish the offenders. They hide and protect them. The civil lawsuit legal costs — lawyers, fees, settlements — comes out of the general fund; out of the pockets of the tax-payers and away from beneficial programs or jobs. Basically libraries are closed and pot-holes aren’t filled and no young people can get a job working for the city, because they are the first to get laid off to pay these legal fees.

The Kelly Thomas case is the failure of the mental-health support-system, meeting the failure of the law enforcement system, getting lost in a disillusioning, painfully slow, court system. The lesson is that Police must be held to a very high standard, and bad cops must be purged from the system swiftly. Bad cops (like corrupt LADWP execs, Sheriffs, Judges, or Politicians) are a massive burden to the pubic and are costing the public millions — literally thousands of jobs — and they are killing people while doing it.

Police, Sheriff, and of course Judges must be model citizens and as they are charged with enforcing and upholding the law. You can’t uphold the law if you break it. Because they are to be held to the highest standards as a requirment of their job, tranparency should be easy for them. They should have nothing to hide, and should welcome transparency. By fighting transparency it sends the message that there are things they are trying to hide.

Law enforcement that break the law must be terminated quickly and efficiently. The expedience is necessary because the potential damage is so great and the potential harm, to the public and the public trust is so great.

The Kelly Thomas case is a total outrage to me. It exemplifies why “policing the police” is so important, and why civic innovation in law enforcement — like cameras on cars and on police themselves — and metrics on civil lawsuits and money flows will be very helpful in policing the police. It’s harder for Police to lie in their police report if there is video. Without video Kelly Thomas would have been swept under the rug and the cops that killed him would still be out on the streets “fucking people up.”

If the bad-cops are not swiftly identified and punished for outrageous behavior (“suspended with pay” is not a punishment BTW), people are literally killed and the public pays the price with cuts to city services.

The Kelly Thomas case, and the behavior of these cops is not unique, it’s echoed in the past, and of course currently in the LA Sheriff.

Google the LA Sheriff Dept. Scroll down past the desperate PR fluff stories to the part about the 18 Federal indictments and the “friends of the Sheriff” program. The LA Sheriff Dept are a scary bunch. Apparently they are brazen enough to cover up crimes, hide informants from the FBI, to threaten an FBI agent, and to go to LA Judges for warrants to arrest people like said FBI agent.

Are you kidding me?

The judge said no to the warrant. Can you imagine if the judge said yes? But just the fact that the Sheriff Dept would go to a judge and ask them to issue a warrant for the arrest of an FBI officer that was investigating them is beyond comprehension and corruption of the highest order. The fact that they would ask the judge makes me think they thought they might get it, as they surely have, perhaps via “rubber stamp” in the past. Once the Sheriff has a warrant for you, they own you, and you just might disappear into the abyss of cruel and unusual punishment that is the downtown LA Sheriff Dept…

It’s fucking scary.

It contradicts everything that America and the California Republic stands for.

And then there is Lee Baca. Lee Baca is so powerful, perhaps so well connected within the Los Angeles Court System, “above the law” and in with the politicians and puppet (money) masters — that give violent criminals jobs and badges, falsify records to cover crimes, battle the FBI, brutally and wrongfully detain foreign dignitaries (the Austrian Consulate) and beat prisoners into permanent disability and death — he was (is?) untouchable. Lee Baca claims he had no idea (some of) this was happening on his watch. But if that is true, he is unacceptably and dangerously oblivious. That is not leadership; either way. The LA Sheriff Dept, and Lee Baca have a day of reckoning coming (still), and are is desperate need of civic innovation.

(The LA Sheriff needs a true honorable noble Sheriff to come in and get that place in order. There is no honor to the badge if criminals wear it. There are still many criminals wearing it. The Sheriff union protects its criminal own to the detriment of the public good. This must change.)

It is also worth noting that the voters of LA County passed a ballot initiative for term limits for the LA Sheriff, but Lee Baca used his political clout and influence in the Los Angeles Court system to have the will of the voters overturned. The 2nd District Court of Appeals in Los Angeles overturned the will of the people. Sheriff Lee Baca spent millions of tax dollars to subvert the will of the people so he could stay in power and have no term limits. The courts helped him do it.

Lee Baca wants another term in 2014. (He did when I first wrote this, he has since stepped down)

With enough money he could probably win too. That’s how corrupt the system is.

Welcome to Los Angeles!

Many in Los Angeles Government don’t want to admit to the scale of the problem. Some are in glass houses and are not looking to throw stones. Los Angeles — and many other cities and states — will tell you that the grossly inflated pensions Public Unions and LADWP-types negotiated for themselves, with politicians they paid for with public funds, are fair. They paid for those inflated pensions with your money, fair and square. They say there is nothing that we can do about it.

Civic innovation can do something. The first step is transparency. Once we see how the money is being used it will be clear to all what is “fair”.

The corruption of Los Angeles has become so pervasive and so complete that it has taken control of the system itself. No politicians in Los Angeles or Sacramento can escape the power of the Public Unions (the Prison Guards, the Sheriff, the Police, the LADWP, etc.) and for most offices getting elected without their support, or at least without there opposition, is impossible.

So what can be done?

How can we make our state and local Government work as they are meant to?

How can we make Government be fair and honest, free of greed and a force for good, that creates jobs, value and prosperity?

How can we ensure the rule of law?

Civic Innovation!

In the old days, if you wanted to know what your neighbor paid for their house, you had to go down to your local records office and look it up. Now you can use a program Zillow. Civic innovation allows us to pool public information and use it to do new and interesting things, and to make things more open, honest and fair. Transparency keeps everyone honest. Civic innovation is the “Zillow” of Government data. Civic Innovation is going to shine a bright light on the shadowy inner workings of Government, where corruption is hiding. Civic innovation will bring a “cleaning out the closet” of corruption in government.

For all those honest, diligent, noble and hard-working public-servants — Police, Sheriff, Judges, Politicians — Civic innovation is your best friend and ally. Civic innovation will find you and reward you. Civic innovation will help those doing good rise up, and be given more resources, while conversely purging the Government of those behaving badly, wasting money, and/or breaking laws. An audit of the work done by LADWP unions will show why all the pipes are breaking. Audits of the police and pinning lawsuits to officers will show how much these officers are costing us. Audits of transportation funds will show us why the pot-holes aren’t being filled.

Only the corrupt fear Civic Innovation. Only the immoral fear the light of truth shining on them.

Civic innovation will create jobs by taking the millions being wasted in mismanagement and using it for “bottom up programs” and jobs for young people.

Civic innovation will find funding for “civic innovation startups” and the city will invest in them for huge returns.

Civic innovation will find waste and divert it creating value for the city, for arts programs in schools, music, media and technology tools, gardens etc.

Civic innovation will spur growth, jobs, and a new better more beneficial and helpful government. Better relations between business and government, with greater public benefit.

Technology allows us to get data, to audit agencies, to sort and extrapolate information from metadata, and to have a clear and profound understanding of where the money in the system is going and what we are getting for it. Once we know where the money is going, and what we are getting for it, it quickly becomes clear how to make improvements.

Civic innovation will allow us to “Follow the money” like never before.

Welcome to civic innovation!

Review: The Wolf of Wall Street

Opulent. Fast. Excessive. Indulgent. Outrageously/Poignantly funny.

I thought the film hit the mark perfectly.   Very well done and timed just right.  The performances were all excellent, and believable, which grounds the seemingly unbelievable story.

The film is fast paced, as is Wall Street.  Strap-in-and-go BOOM and you are on the roller coaster holding on thinking wholly shit is this actually happening…

Wall Street in the 1980’s and 1990’s was rather unbelievable to me.  Some of it is so “over the moon” insane, I was dumbfounded.  It felt like an indulgent wild ride, with crazy ups and downs, ridiculous  antics, arrogant and outrageous behavior, no moral grounding, little to insufficient punishment, but still a soft landing and essentially a happy ending.  

Classic Wall Street exit.   “Take what you can, give nothing back” it's not just the motto of pirates.

In the beginning I imagined major consequences for Jordan Belfort's (Leonardo Dicaprio’s character) bad behavior and extreme lack of respect for the law or decency.  I imagined wrong.  In the film we are mostly blinded from the dark-side and largely spared from any downside.  In the film, Belfort has drug blinders on himself, he can't even see (or remember) most of his own bad behavior.  The reality for most of those Wall Street types...  The film, as I said, hits the mark. 

The greed, gluttony and extreme behavior may upset people.  Because the truth hurts.  The world doesn’t work that way for most people, most people, would never get away with such hedonism in their professional lives, or anywhere and the thought that people did, or do, infuriates some people.

The irrational exuberance of Wall Street traders circa 1980's-1990's is a fascinating era in American history.  It was literally 'Mad Men on crack' and it was pretty spectacular.  We can all laugh and joke about it, because it’s mostly a bygone era, and because it was so epic.

The extreme wealth and power portrayed in the film still exists today.  This is no secret.  However, the “boiler rooms” and stock-trader stories as depicted are largely a thing of the past on Wall Street.  

Reform of Wall Street, bailouts and Government oversight, and technology (like Googling or buying stock online), has hollowed out the core of the stock-broker culture depicted in the film, which for me allows the feelings of nostalgia, for a bygone era, to be indulged in without guilt or outcry. 

There are a lot of parallels between Hollywood and Wall Street, and the way Matthew McConaughey’s character explains Wall Street in the film, for me, also accurately describes Hollywood.  It’s essentially about taking as much from people as possible while giving back as little as possible.  Sad but true.

Capitalism.  We all love to hate it.  Much like people love to hate Hollywood movie stars themselves...

I recommend the film because I found it highly entertaining and authentic.

Indiana Jones Five

An Indiana Jones 5 is a no brainer for Disney.

The obvious story is Egypt or another Egyptian artifact, in the model of the first film.  Any writer could run with that and Disney/Spielberg could commission several screenplays and choose the best one.  If paid, I could write a halfway decent Indiana Jones 5 screenplay in six months. There is no reason why Disney/Spielberg can't cut all the red tape and fast track the project and be filming in a year.  It would be a last hurrah of Harrison Ford as Indy.

It could be pretty good... It already has classic written all over it.

It was a dream come true for me to work on Indiana Jones Four.  Sometimes I can't believe I met Harrison Ford, Shia, Cate Blanchett and Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Kennedy/Marshall, Denis Stewart and many other truly amazing people -- some of the hardest working people in the movie business.  It was an experience I will always treasure.

"Dream big"

I truly love film production.  I get it.  I understand the moving parts, the diplomacy involved, how certain things work, and how to keep everything running like a well oiled machine.  I'm one of those rare ones that actually sees the numbers as well as the creative logistics of movie making.  The driving forces of the actors and the egos involved and how that affects the numbers... I know how to balance the business with the creative, which is how you create the most value.

What makes me a valuable part of any film production is my ability to bring out the best in people.  I demand the best from myself, and I have become highly skilled at finding the best in others...  But most importantly I know how to make production fun -- which is usually how to get the best out of people.  Getting the best out of people, the crew to the actors, means the audience will get the best experience in the theater.

I have been a major fan of Star Wars and the Indiana Jones (mainly the first one) since I was a child.  Few artists have developed their vision so completely as George Lucas has done with Star Wars.  Star Wars and Indiana Jones are iconic American popular culture, and will live on forever...  It's very inspiring and incredible to me.  Spielberg and Lucas (as well as everyone in their camps) have left an incredible legacy of films, many of which I truly adore and which inspired me as a child, and continue to inspire me in my film career today.

"When you wish upon a star"

Looking forward to seeing it in the theater!

Twitter

I have a lot of thoughts on the Twitter IPO today.  I'll share a few.

First: "Think long term."  

As I see it, investing in Twitter is investing in San Francisco and the tech scene in San Francisco.  It's a good investment if you ask me.  The SF burrow where Twitter is located, "Civic Center" is an area that itself is on the rise, growing and improving, its Art Deco and inspired buildings are ripe for revival.  In San Francisco there is an optimism and spirit of building something amazing, and something new and exciting.  Brilliant minds working on brilliant ideas and changing the world.  It's inspiring to me.  San Francisco will always have my heart, and lately has been on my mind a lot...

(Lately I'm also obsessed with "inspiration" and "value" and "postmodern economics")

Twitter is a game changer.  It's value comes from not just how much money it can make for itself, but also how much money it can make for others.  The Twitter IPO certainly created a lot of value for Wall Street today.  Am I right, or am I right?

Twitter helps Hollywood make money by giving it metrics (intelligence), conversation/discourse and by making media experiences more social and engaging, and thus more valuable.  

Twitter is part of many of the new business models that Hollywood, Advertisers, Silicon Beach and "The Valley" are creating.  Twitter can create value and (be used to create) demand for IP, as well as help media find its audience. 

Facebook, Google, Apple and thousands of startups all integrate with Twitter, and in every sense Twitter is well positioned.

Twitter is a company I could work for.  I feel like I understand what Twitter is trying to accomplish and I love the platform.  l have a lot of ideas about Twitter and could totally see myself working in San Francisco helping design strategy and new ways to create value and money for all involved.  

#HireMe

Just kidding. (But seriously, Twitter, make me an offer.  I have some ideas you'll love. #value)

Days like today I think about moving to San Francisco.   LA is the place for screenwriters.  No question.  But a writer can be a writer anywhere.  If I'm not going to be a screenwriter, I could live anywhere, and I have always wanted to live in San Francisco...

It would take the right job, but I could see myself being wooed up north and making a pivot in my career.  Not sure what 2014 will hold, but I'm excited.

Follow me on Twitter!

@JulianTyler

Inspiration and Ender's Game

The best stories always incorporate and use what came before them, they steal and borrow from other stories, media, texts, myths and legends to make something completely new and original.  Much like (other) products of Nature, a story is the product of pre-existing stories, materials and building blocks that came before them.  When joined in holy matrimony, they produce something new and original. 

In the DNA of every story (“the meaning”) is all that has come before it, just like in every person is the billions of years of evolution that came before them.   The right parent ideas put together can create something better than the original parts. 

 “Immature poets imitate, mature poets steal”  -- T. S. Eliot, 1920

“All good writing has stolen from writing which came before it.”  It’s an axiom that goes back to ancient times -- when people mostly copied books that came before them.  Shakespeare stole (perhaps everything), and people have been stealing from him ever since.  It extends back to Egypt and beyond…

The universal themes of love, death, life, and what it means to be human, what it means to know and understand.  What is God?  What is Love?

Why are we here?  What is the meaning of our life, and of life in general?

Legends always build upon prior legends.  The allegory and truth at the center of the legend makes it stand the test of time, and resonate with us.  What we like about stories, movies and ideas (what sells as those in Hollywood say), what makes them good is that we know them already, and yet by consuming them we get something we did not have before.  Ideally, an enjoyable experience, entertainment, but sometimes, when done just right and all the stars align, you get inspiration, people steal from you, and you join the pantheon of legends and stories.

“The story itself, the true story, is the one that the audience members create in their minds, guided and shaped by my text, but then transformed, elucidated, expanded, edited, and clarified by their own experience, their own desires, their own hopes and fears.”  (Ender’s Game)

In writing my first novel “Pharaoh”, I applied this principle, by building my Science Fiction story on top of the legend of Alexander the Great, and the Pharaoh legends he built his Hellenic empire upon (see #PharaohNovel).   Still in the thick of writing my first edition of ‘Pharaoh’, I tend to see everything through the prism of the story.   As a novelist I am always looking for good stories to draw inspiration from, and I am always interested in a good story.  And why it’s good, and why it resonates with me and others.

While watching “Ender’s Game” I thought:  This film is a great metaphor for many things, but the first thing that came to my mind was the character of Ender as ‘Alexander the Great’ and his meteoric rise to the top of the world, his genius of military power – he became a regent and military commander at the age of 16 -- but he also had a deep reverence for the cultures he conquered, Egypt and Persia.  Alexander the Great had conquered the known world before he was 25 years old.   Ender’s Game has many parallels to the legend of Alexander the Great, which for me made it that much more interesting and intriguing.

“At last he came to a door, with these words in glowing emeralds: The End of the World. He did not hesitate. He opened the door and stepped through.”

Going into watching Ender’s Game I purposefully didn’t know much about it.  I had seen commercials and billboards.  I knew that the movie was a based on a Sci-Fi novel written in 1985, and that Harrison Ford was in it.  I knew nothing about the author, or the details of the story – I went in fresh as I call it.  I had seen blips about the film on Twitter, but not enough to know what to expect.  I enjoyed the movie much more than I thought I would.  I thought it came together very well.  It certainly helps to have solid source material – a good story.

There are a lot of parallels between the movie “Ender’s Game” and the screenplay ‘Pharaoh’ that I wrote.  I think it’s because both stories tap some of the same source material and ideas; they seek to answer the same questions.  This is what drew me to it I think.

I ordered the novel this morning.  The movie made me want to read the book.

It’s my dream to write a novel that inspires me the way I have been inspired.

“You remember this little boy, they never tell you any more truth than they have to.”

Follow @PharaohNovel on Twitter!

#PharaohNovel

First edition coming in 2013!

Exceptionalism

Exceptionalism

I believe in exceptionalism.

I believe there are exceptional things, exceptional people, exceptional nature, exceptional times and exceptional needs.

America has exceptional power to help bring justice, peace and aid to the world.  I believe that it is in the world's best interest that conflicts be resolved, crimes punished and violence be contained – so that happiness is pursuable as best as is possible.  People are not happy when they live in terror and violence.

America has an exceptional capacity to build and create, just as it does to bomb and destroy.  I think we should move away from nihilism – destroying that which is deemed unusable – and instead consider stabilizing and building long term.  Syria, Egypt, Israel and Iraq have had a tumultuous past, and the last few years have brought increased instability and destruction, and seemingly endless violence across the region.  The world can do better for the Middle East, and the Middle East can and should do better for itself.  In my opinion it's time to build-to-last, and start thinking long term about the conflicts in that historic region.  We must think how best to mitigate and resolve the conflicts, end the senseless and preventable violence, and grow the world economy in the process.

Every country should look for its exceptional qualities and use them to the benefit of all.

Washington DC needs exceptional people, with exceptional political skills and legal minds, to solve it's exceptionally complex problems.

Silicon Valley is exceptional in that it is a world Mecca for technological entrepreneurs, a global hub and home to some the world’s most vibrant and flourishing startups and startup community.  Apple, Google, Facebook and Twitter are all exceptional startup companies by the numbers – and unique in the world in that the way that people use them opens up new platforms and more value. 

Wall Street is always looking for exceptional legal, money, finance, business and economics minds.  You have to be a rocket scientist these days to understand what the numbers are saying…  Most people don’t think in the trillions.  You need to have an exceptional grasp of economics, and real world (global)logistics, not just numbers anymore. 

America is exceptional in many ways – most notably our economic and military power.  But America is also exceptional in its idealistic foundation.  America is the grand experiment in Democracy, and The Republic.  The American Republic stands for freedom, liberty and justice for all.  The Republic is built on natural law and the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 

I find it exceptional and fascinating.

America is far from perfect and democracy has its flaws.  But I believe the ideals of the Constitution, and our foundation should guide the body politic.

America is a global stage, a country and population of people from all over the world.  Immigrants, drawn to the American dream, freedom, banded together and created an exceptional and incredible country – unique in the history of the world.

California is exceptional.  California is the most ethnically diverse and populous state, with an economy larger than most countries.  California is also exceptionally American in that it represents is essentially the edge of 'Western Civilization' and western push by the ‘Age of Enlightenment’ and revolutionary thinking of early Americans.   Explorers, adventurers, entrepreneurs, and artists from the east and west have come to California, and still do.  California is the end of the line on the famous coast to coast rail line trains from the East coast of America. 

Los Angeles is exceptional in many ways.  It’s an alpha city with a dynamic, topography, weather, culture, and history that is very unique in the world.  Los Angeles is the only major city in the world with a mountain range running through it, splitting its vastness virtually in half.  The American dreamers who came to California and Los Angeles, and continue to come, myself included, are an interesting, and I would say exceptional bunch.  I consider dreamers and builders to be exceptional, because they often value creativity the most.  Happiness is essential to creativity, and creativity can do the exceptional.  The vibrant and exceptional creative community in Los Angeles, from all corners of the world, have formed an exceptional art, media and innovation machine that has changed the world. And in my mind will continue to do so.  If you can change the world, you can make it better.  As an Artist, and creator of entertainment content, I think entertainment, and the (entertainment) arts have changed the world for the better.  Exceptional films and art require exceptional artists.

America’s history is exceptional as I see it.  From the early days of colonialism and revolution, to the Civil War, the Gold Rush, and the World Wars… From the 1950's suburban culture, wealth and abundance, to leisure and luxury exceeding anything in recorded history.  With great abundance generally comes great creativity and art.  It is easier to be creative if an artist isn’t concerned about food, shelter and other basics.  America, and especially California, freed up a level of creativity, innovation, imagination, arts and artists – allowing so many artist to pursue happiness through art, making their dreams come true – that the Hollywood dream became synonymous with the American dream.  Hollywood, like America itself, is where anyone can become a rich or famous global mega-star.  Hollywood is, for its global platform, always looking for exceptional talent, artists and entrepreneurs.

America is a popularity contest at its democratic core, and so is Hollywood.  It's so “high school”… and just like high school kids, you get older and they stay the same age.  Hollywood is exceptional in that, no matter who you are, what you look like, or what you believe, you can be made globally famous or infamous (famous against your will) by Hollywood, rich and famous beyond your wildest dreams.  It happens all the time.  Hollywood finds exceptional people and uses them to sell products; to make money.  It’s a thriving business model.  The truly exceptional people in Hollywood are those who thrive in its crazy business, and those who have exceptional talent, work ethic, beauty and/or brains.  To be exceptional in Hollywood, to be exceptionally talented, rich or famous, is to be exceptional on the world stage.

Hollywood is always looking for exceptional talent, and exceptional amounts of money to fund its films.  Hollywood has always been an exceptional industry, built by exceptional people, in exceptional times, in exceptional freedom, in an exceptional state and country…now with exceptional tools, strategies, and global markets unlike anything in history, or ever before in history.

Not all exceptionalism is equal, especially in a value driven market of commercialism capitalist meritocracy popularity contest media content.  Not all exceptionalism is measured and valued by the same scale.  And the definition of exceptional is essentially ever-changing, or continuously assessed… So it is easy to get exceptionally and detrimentally obsessed with being “exceptional” and losing sight of what is truly important in life:  Happiness.

Being able to pursue happiness is the key to unleashing the power of exceptionalism, as I see it.

Sometimes, exceptional people are not happy until they have done exceptional things.  Sometimes people are made exceptional because they are called upon or forced to do exceptional things.  Sometimes people find themselves in exceptional circumstance and events.

I believe that all people hold the capacity for world-changing greatness and exceptionalism.

Reaching for your dreams, striving for greatness, striving to change the world for the better, and wanting to be exceptional is a good thing.  It drives creativity, innovation, and civilization forward in meaningful and constructive ways.   Exceptionalism has a tremendous capacity for good.

I feel we live in exceptional times.  There are more people on the planet than ever, and we are off the charts and into uncharted territory that is, without exception, exceptional in history.  The events of the past century, decade and even the past year, are exceptional in world history.  The world is more connected and interconnected than ever before.  I see exceptional change continuing and happening faster.  The more happiness in the world, the more creativity and the more prosperity there will be.

Exceptional times call for exceptional people.

Exceptional people are needed more than ever, and exceptionalism should be encouraged.  Be exceptional.  Find your dream and run with it.  See your vision and create.  Develop your idea and build.  You can change the world for the better if you really want to.

If you think you can change the world for the better, you are exceptional. The world needs exceptional people to be aware of, and help solve, its exceptional problems.  

Be exceptional.

If you were drawn to read this, and read it in its entirety, then you are exceptional.