From the mind of Paul Jones

Ok, this is one of those blogs that is just going to be a personal rant; hopefully, with something of value included. In case you have been under a rock, are reeling from hurricane damage or only listen to your radio in the car you have no gas for, a very scary thing is happening on Capital Hill. It looks like the taxpayers are about to be a part of the biggest corporate bailout ever, to the tune of $700,000,000,000… yes, 700 billion dollars.

I think we are all aware of the skid that are economy in the US is on. There are many out of work and foreclosures left and right and the cost of living is on the rise. No doubt many Americans are feeling the pinch on their wallets and the politicrats in Washington are coming up on an election year– this is a very dangerous situation.

Seven years ago, I bought my first house in Phoenix, AZ and at the time, mortgage lenders were throwing around money. Not only were there $0 down loans, but lenders were allowing second mortgages on homes in excess of 110% of the properties estimated value. When I started looking for a home, I consulted with a friend who was a mortgage broker and he said I could probably get a loan for up to $300,000. I could not imagine that could be the case, but he assured me that with my job history and my stellar credit (something like 770 at the time) I could do just about anything.

Alarms went off in my head, something had to be wrong, but he assured me that there were people making less that I did with credit in the toilet being cleared for $250,000. Being the pragmatic person that I am, I went out and bought a home for $115,00… just about the cheapest quality home I could find in the area I wanted to live. At the time, man of my friends told me I was crazy to live in an area the had higher crime and “lesser quality” neighbors. The wanted me to live twenty miles away in their gated communities as they we certain that the value of their new homes would rise faster than my 1970s ranch home just outside of the city.

I was certain that I didn’t want to live in a new home. I had heard too many horror stories about community regulations and fines… nothing I had any desire to deal with. While I didn’t put anything down on the home, I did pay for all of the costs of the sale and I was off running the race of a homeowner.

During the next five years I knew man people that bought and sold. In Phoenix, the real-estate market began to take off and people were buying and selling with reckless abandon. They would move from one home and upgrade to something new, trading in equity for marble countertops and stainless steel appliances. Who wouldn’t? The mortgage lenders made it easy, making “creative” loans that made mortgage payments for expensive homes easier to manage.

I talked with a few friends that helped me understand their logic. Hey, get an interest only lone for five years, live in the house for two years (just long enough to avoid taxes on the profit) and upgrade again. The thought was that they could just live in the cycle forever getting increasingly more and more spectacular houses. I didn’t buy it. The market was growing across the board and if their $200,000 was worth $300,000 in two or three years, certainly the grander house was increasing value at the same rate, thus negating all the expected profit on the increase in value.

When we debated it, I explained that based on my understanding, the only way to profit in this way would be to:

1. buy only fixer-uppers so that sweat equity can be factored in… or
2. sell your house in the growing Phoenix market and buy your next house in market with less growth, say, somewhere in Idaho.

Friends swore up and down I was wrong and told me I was foolish for not “moving up” to something bigger and better. But I was fine where I lived. It was a blue collar neighborhood with no community regulations and only a mile from my office. Sure there was crime where I lived, my house was broken into once and so was my brand new truck just a few days from the dealer lot. But crime happened to other people in wealthier areas, but with the addition of a burglar alarm on my house and truck, I figured the benefits of owning a home where I lived was better than risking a dodgy housing market that was willing to loan money to people two years out of bankruptcy.

I knew someone who bought a $300,000+ home and they were one of the worst credit risks I knew– I wouldn’t lend them $100 if they asked. I guess in some way I was a little jealous, here I was someone who worked hard and earned good money who lives in a less desirable location than someone who shouldn’t even own a house, somehow that seemed wrong.

Add to my experience, that I had several friends who were mortgage brokers who work primarily in high-risk loans. They told me often about how they are constantly lending to people who they know will loose their house in a year or so. Just talking with them, they could tell how bad a risk they were, but they found people to loan them money. Mostly on ARMs and interest only loans that they knew they couldn’t afford once the balloon payment came.

I figured that there were plenty of balloon payments coming due in five years, and I didn’t want to be a part of that. Yes, it was tempting when banks would offer me $10-15,000 in equity loans… yes, borrow over 110% of your houses value… I almost rationalized taking out such a loan to pay off debt and upgrade my home… but I am glad I didn’t.

Eventually, the heyday was over. Investors had flooded Phoenix and driven home values up so high, that most people couldn’t resist taking out a second mortgage to play with the free money. I watched it happen and everything in my gut knew something bad was going to happen, things like that just don’t go on forever. Eventually, the bubble burst.

Phoenix was one of the overheated markets that preceded the housing market crash. There was once a time in Phoenix, when there were no more that 300 homes available to purchase, within one year that list was 13,000. Suddenly, all of those people who used those great loans to by an investment, needed to sell their homes, and there weren’t enough buyers in the market to buy them. Housing values tumbled, beginning with the most expensive homes, and people began to panic.

Soon, people began to learn that housing values had fallen. That $250,000 fix-up home with $30,000 worth of improvements is only worth $250,000 and that $30,000 investment has been eaten up by the loss in value. People began to default on their loans. All those investment properties hit the market, because rental values began to tank as well. It was just after the bubble burst that I sold my home in Phoenix. Because I had purchased at the lower end of the market and I had held equity more valuable than dreams, I was able to undercut the market and sell my home within 3 days of listing it. Houses in my area were so over inflated that I had 10 solid offers, 3 of which were asking price plus.

I ended up escaping the Phoenix bubble. As fate would have it, the person that owns my house now, can’t sell it for what I sold it for, they are trapped in it until they can pay some equity into it or housing values climb again. I ended up moving to Nashville, where the market was healthy and the value of the dollar goes further. When I first moved, I almost bought a house that was worth more than the house I owned in Phoenix… I say almost because I didn’t buy that house. I bought something much cheaper.

I looked at my money and my future, and realized that I didn’t want to be a person that spent my life servicing debts, so I paid off my debts, did some charitable giving, helped some that needed helping and bought the cheapest house that I could find.

Today, I am happy. I am not caught in that mortgage debacle. I invested in something I could afford and valued equity over any other possessions I could acquire. But I, unfortunately, was in the minority. Many people in America overbought. I have had several friends in crisis, some of which ended up in foreclosure. This makes me sad– they bought the hype. Instead of looking at the facts they trusted the marketing and some are paying dearly for it.

This brings me to the subject of this blog. Our government is watching the tanking mortgage market, stock market and the struggling economy and trying to figure out what to do. Recently, the government had to reach in with the FDIC and protect some banks that were bankrupt. As defaults on bad mortgages rise, and the bank’s assurity in steady housing values fail to provide insurance, financial institutions are reaching crisis mode.

Today, not only defaults on loans growing, but banks are wary of lending money that has any sort of risk attached. Housing is more affordable than it has been in years, but people can’t get loans to get into those homes. Enter the Federal Government. Seeing how much wealth was gained in those overheated years, they can’t help but see how much the collapse of that business has harmed the economy and they think they have a fix for the problem. Bailout all some of those companies that made bad loans.

What? Why would the government make a move to ensure that businesses that can’t compete in this market are still players? Sure, these foreclosures hurt, but many of those foreclosures are occurring on loans that should never have been made in the first place. Is it the fault of the home-buyer that they bought more house then they could afford? Yes. Even if it was because the believed the hype? Yes. If a bank has defaults and it closes, who’s fault is that? The bank. Why does the government need to prevent a normal market shakeout?

Sure it is painful, and yes, if I was in foreclosure, I would be happy that someone else was able to bail me out of a bad decision, but that doesn’t make it right. In my opinion, this move is really, really bad. All it does is prevent people who have made a bad business decision from experiencing the results of the bad business. In my opinion, it is like the US Government standing outside of a casino rebating people the money that they lost inside. Losing is part of what makes businesses better or at least allows those who do things better to win.

This reminds me of all of the insurance bailouts that happen after every major catastrophe. A hurricane his a major city and billions of damage occurs. Suddenly, a company who has taken people’s money for years says it cant afford to pay the losses. The government steps in a lets that company survive. Let the company survive, because what would we do without them? We would adapt and overcome like we always do.

Let Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae crash and burn and let the economy reel and let millions of people hurt. After such a bad experience, it wouldn’t be too soon that they would let that happen again. Sure, we as a nation would feel much better and still be drugged by the thought that we don’t need to look out for ourselves because Uncle Sam is doing it for us. Let the chips fall where they may. If a company makes a bad decision and crashes and burns for it, let it happen. Sure there will be residual fallout and collateral damage, but that is the circle of life.

In America, we used to tout the idea of free enterprise. The more our Government intrudes into that, the more mucked up it gets. Free enterprise has its own checks and balances, if someone isn’t doing something right or is missing something that people need, then someone else will come along and do it, that is what makes a fee market work.

Today, the government is looking to step in and help prop up a company that contributed to decisions that created this problem in the first place. This is not small action, $700 billion dollars is $2,333 from every American, or between $5,000 - $7,000 from every tax paying American! Does this sound right? Who is this helping? This is way too much money to treat lightly. If you oppose the waste of money in Iraq, you can’t possibly support this bailout. If you believe in fiscal responsibility you can’t support it. If you believe in the principles of the free market you can’t support it.

I say let it all burn. Let this house of cards fall, then maybe Americans will wake up and decide to take their futures into their own hands and not let it be dictated by phony marketing and politicrats. Wake up America, call your legislators and demand the rationalization behind such a reckless unamerican act!

UPDATE 9/26

I just learned that many banks were forced by government policy to provide sub-prime (risky) loans. While I don’t endorse to political slant of the following, it includes a great deal of important information about the mortgage “crisis”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5tZc8oH–o

At the moment that I am writing this, I am sitting on a front porch looking eastward at the waves of the Atlantic as they crash the beaches of Garden City, SC. Bodies are playing in the surf as families enjoy the last gasp of the summer season, and children try to forget that school is eminent. I am sitting alone on this porch, nursing a sunburn I obtained yesterday in my attempts to erase my beautiful Nashville farmer’s tan. The nursing of this sunburn is not so much to care for the pain, as much as it is a procedure involving gels and creams that reduce the strong possibility that any color I may have obtained will soon disappear in a disappointing flurry of peeling skin.

I have only recently regained an appreciation for the beach vacation. For many years, I disliked the beach– well, not the beach per se, but the “beach experience” that involves being half naked and exposed for long periods of time to the sun. I am not sure if my dislike began as a result of the many childhood sunburn miseries or because of the fact that, half naked, I look like the Pillsbury dough boy in swim trunks… perhaps a combination of the two. Maybe it began sometime about fourth grade, when I began to wear t-shirts swimming… partially because of sunburn prevention and partially to conceal my growing pasty white belly.

Regardless of how and why, I mostly resisted going to the beach until two years ago, when I returned to Phoenix in order to drive my VW bug to Nashville, and had a nearly religious experience. Early on my last morning in Phoenix, I got up and decided to jump into my fiend’s pool for an early morning swim. The water was cool and refreshing and the sun was just beginning to peak above the rooftops. I moved to the edge of the pool and pulled myself half way out of the water directly into the suns rays. For nearly twenty minutes, I rested there reclined as the sun rose and began to warm me. For the first time in my memory I enjoyed the combination of water and sun in a truly thankful way.

At that moment, my mood was even worshipful, as I appreciated God’s love for me in the warming rays. Now when I think of that moment, a verse from the Old Testament (Malachi 4:2) comes to mind. “… the sun of righteousness will arise, with healing in his wings.” In those few moments I experienced some healing, and afterward, I began to think much more enjoyably about the sun and surf; so, when I am tired and burned out, I often find myself having a longing for that special kind of healing.

For the last 3 months, I have been working on the television show Nashville Star, which, with its 12 hour work days, really beat me up. Add to that beating the fact that my girlfriend Kim and I were working opposite schedules that didn’t allow us to see each other very often, compounded even further by the fact that she was losing her apartment of 15 years and had to sell, chuck, move or give away a large volume of belongings, and (the worst part… for me) the need to actually move things from the 5th floor apartment during the hottest and most humid part of the summer, at the same time we are being needed for in the Nashville Star finale.

By the time Kim was moved and the show ended, we were both severely beat up physically and emotionally and in need of a vacation. Lucky for both of us, Kim’s family holds its annual beach reunion every year in August. This year, it landed perfectly at the end of Nashville Star. A month or so ago, I got the invitation to be included in the family event, an opportunity to meet Kim’s family was something I was ready for, especially if it meant a week-long vacation at the beach.

So, here I sit on day 3, a nice breeze is blowing, the sky is a bit hazy, but the weather is excellent. Humidity is low, the temperature is warm and the pool is cool. Between the beach, the pool, the seafood buffets and an enjoyable family dynamic, I am in hog heaven. The only bummer, it the intermittent Internet signal I can pirate from the condos next door. But ultimately, who cares about the Interwebs or the Olympics when you have the sun of righteousness arising with healing in his wings, just waiting with open arms to calm, warm and revive you.

What I hope follows this entry, is a series of blogs that offers a day-by-day summary of the healing.

I am sitting here wracking my brain, trying to think of some fun, witty or deep to write about, but my mind is tossed by a constant tempest and any safe harbor my mind finds, is quickly stirred again into frenzied sea. I can’t count how often I have an idea for a blog that never sees the light of day or is begun only to be bogged down by an excessive inclusion of detail and back-story. Often it is just an idea for a blog title that gets my mind thinking about writing, but lately… nothing has solidified into anything resembling a cohesive blog.

In some way, I think I need to exercise the demons of these ideas, so, they don’t continue to plague me. So, here will be my attempt at some micro-blogging– a blog title and a single paragraph of bloggering:

 I Enjoy Being Missed…

Occasionally, my world is viewed from a very negative perspective, and often I see the things around me as a litany of things that can, and possibly will, go wrong. Today is not one of those days. Everyday, when I leave my job, I have to take a short walk through a nature path to get to the parking lot where my truck is parked. I often enjoy this walk, as the path is lined with trees and a manicured garden which often causes me to walk a little slower than normal in order to take in the beauty of the man-polished nature. On this particular day, I was walking and noticed a couple walking toward me, so, I shifted to my right in order to allow them to pass comfortably. This was a very lucky happenstance, for as fate would have it, just as I shifted to my right, I heard a series of large splashes to my immediate left. I turned quickly to witness the source of the splashes, as a very large bird-turd splattered the sidewalk beside me creating a fourth splash. As I considered how my day may have begun, had I been the target of those droppings, I couldn’t help but think, how much I enjoyed being missed.

Ok, that wasn’t that bad, it may not have been a true “micro-blog” but, for someone like myself, who is usually prone to writing epic blogs, that was pretty micro.

It’s been more than six months since I’ve posted anything online. It is difficult to believe that, in the swirling changes happening over the last few months, I haven’t found at least a few moments to do a brain dump. I think I began a few blogs, but they were mostly based in some deep, theological wrestling and tended to be something that I couldn’t just bang out in 20 minutes.

At the moment, I am sitting in a room at the end of a long hallway of a large Hotel, keeping an eye on the cast of this next season of Nashville Star. They are all asleep, and I am killing time listening to a preview copy of my brother’s new record, Swallow the Sea, and feeling a need to create something. Over the last few years, my creative energy seems to direct out of writing, and what easier way to write than to dump something into the blogosphere.

The last six months have seen many changes in my life… like my attempt at a serious relationship, running out of money, learning to trust in God for my living, working in television production, making new friends, becoming an uncle again, witnessing suffering, attempting to experience and build community with my neighbors, watching God work in other’s lives around me, abandoning old personal issues and concepts… did I already mention learning to trust God, yeah, that has been a big one.

For someone who wants to know the details, learning to live life one day at a time has been a real challenge. But luckily, I haven’t had to do it on my own. Having my girlfriend, Kim, in my life has helped me take a new perspective on many things that I thought had been set in stone. In a way, she has helped me tap into the Paul of my youth, the one with dreams and a spirit of adventure… the one that loved laughing and found energy by being with other people. Helping me also to rediscover a God who is living and operative… who loves me and desires good things for me– a concept that experientially died in me long ago, when I chose to embrace theology and doctrine over a life of faith in love.

Right now, I am sitting in a chair, staring down a long hallway, waiting for signs of life. A housekeeper is making her rounds, and the cast is beginning to stir. I don’t know what the day holds for me, perhaps some adventure, perhaps just some rest. I need to return to my job, so I’ll close my brain dump for now. Hopefully, I have arced the last six months and future bloggings will come with more regularity.

Here’s to hoping

November has been a very strange time for me over the last few years, it wasn’t until just now, that I realized how many major events occurred in the month of November over that last five years. I hope this year, it holds something good.

Maybe this November will simply be the first November in a long while that nothing significant happens– after the last five years, even that would be a welcomed change. Perhaps this is the month where all the lessons I have learned over the last five years helps me set sail on a new adventure. If so, I am looking forward to that… four sheets to the wind!

Last night, I raced out at the last minute to catch the final screening of the movie ‘Once’ at our local art house theater here in Nashville–the Belcourt. Man, some movies are just dripping with inspiration, this movie was the kind of film that causes me to leave the theater with the passion to get out there and tell stories. A short while before the film started, I bumped into my friend Stephen Lamb, who was at the same screening, and he mentioned he planned on going to see Katie Herzig with Steven Delopoulos, Sandra McCracken at the Basement. Several days before, I had placed a mental note in my head that Katie was playing that night, but like most things in my brain, the memory faded long before its usefulness had expired. Taking the reminder as a divine suggestion, I set my mind on enjoying a great evening of music.

Katie was headlining the night and went on sometime around 11PM. About three quarters of the way through her set, she announced that she was going to play her song Fools Gold, a tune from her album that will be featured next week on an episode of Grey’s Anatomy. After the introduction, she explained that she had written the song with two other talented Nashville musicians, Kate York and Jeremy Lister and that Kate had planned to be at the show that night to sing the song with her, but that she stayed at home because of local tornado warnings.

It wasn’t but moments after this announcement that a slamming of a side door at the club announced to those nearby the onset of a storm. Soon, people began to peek outside as torrents of rain sprayed like heavy ocean waves crashing head first into the bow of a ship. Joining the waves were angry swirls of wind that tossed the tops of large trees in circular motions. I’m sure that there were some folks at the show who, after seeing the odd weather, began to think that Kate had made the correct choice by staying home. This notion would have been strengthened if, like me, they had been spying the small television on the opposite side of the club, near the bar, that displayed the scrolling weather alert and had a local weather guy pointing out flashing red areas on the radar heading directly toward Nashville. Some folks bailed from the show and other stepped out on the patio to observe Mother Nature and discuss random stories of tornadoes. I, on the other hand, returned my attention to Katie and enjoyed the rest of her set–after all the club was named The Basement, and isn’t the basement the safest place to be in a tornado?

The storm never produced a tornado in Nashville, and like the Big Bad Wolf at the door a brick constructed domicile, it turned out to be just a whole lot of huffing and puffing. One of those huffs of puffs happened to blow a chair off my front porch into my yard, upset some trash cans and littered the streets with leaves and branches. I returned home to a dog who was a little edgy, but otherwise in good spirits, despite her dislike for strange noises and cracks of thunder. I sat down on the couch and watched a show on the History Channel about some pending planetary doom via stored methane in the oceans and I faded off to sleep in an upright position. Sometime during the night, I awoke with a crick in my neck and shuffled off to bed.

I woke this morning with the expectation of cooler weather–it seems that storms often precede a cold front and I have been eagerly awaiting the final arrival of Fall weather. I popped out of bed fairly early this morning and after checking emails and reading some Myspace messages, clipped my dog to her leash and headed out for our morning ritual. The storm had brought everything I had hoped. The air was fresh and clean and the sun had begun to shine as it climbed higher into the bight blue sky. The air was crisp and cool, just the way I love it.

After walking back into the house, I quickly realized how stale and stuffy it was inside, in comparison with the fresh air outside. That was a situation that needed to be rectified–so, for the first time since I have owned my house, I moved from room to room lifting the blinds, throwing the open the latches and raising the windows. As I type, my house is wide open, the sunlight is pouring in and a fresh cool breeze is displacing the stale air. This is good stuff.

I don’t understand why I don’t do this more often… but I have a clue. As I started the process of opening my windows, I began to feel some anxiety. There is something about opening the blinds and giving the world a view into your life that makes someone, like myself, uneasy. Being open in this way causes me to lose some control. As people walk past my home, they might look in at me sitting on my couch typing on my computer. Even worse, the men working next door might hear me having conversations with my dog, as I expound on the reasons why she should not be barking at the small birds in the bushes or my neighbor Napoleon, across the street, as he heads out for his morning walk in the neighborhood to pick up trash.

It seems so much easier to keep the windows and the blinds closed–to keep the world at arms length and to control what others see and hear. Perhaps by hiding from them, I grant myself permission to ignore my problems and indulge my eccentricities. But certainly, it is much better to throw open the windows and displace the stale air. Open windows not only bring the newness in, but can remind you that there is a world out there that isn’t defined by four walls, a world of new experiences that is expansive and yearning to be explored. As I sit here this morning, I can’t help but feel a calling to escape what is familiar and set out on a journey of adventure and discovery, something I can’t have, tethered to this couch, to this computer, to this house–stepping out into a world that is beyond my control, where I am vulnerable and at risk in the hands of uncertainty.

There is something almost Abrahamic about the feeling I have at this moment–called by Jehovah into a life of uncertainly, resting only in one fact, that Jehovah is the I AM. Leaving the comfort of the land of my birth, being called into a new lands full of unknown enemies and unimagined dangers, a place where I cannot rely on myself and cannot control my circumstances. I can’t predict how long this feeling will last or how long it will be before I button myself back into my four walls and breathe stale air again, but for this moment, I stand wide open.

I consider myself fairly astute politically. I have voted since the age of 18 and I have been a part of two political campaigns in my lifetime–but today, politics is just plain crazy. Before I was old enough to vote, back in high school, I considered myself a Democrat. By the time I registered to vote, at the age of 18, I had swung back to my family tradition as a Republican. I think I did that mostly because I consider myself patriotic, and Democrats seemed very unpatriotic to me. There were several years in high school, when I was the only student who was standing for the daily pledge of allegiance. I think it was my sense of patriotism, that caused me, at the age of 18, to join the Army. Only a month after graduation, I shipped off to Fort Sill, Oklahoma to learn how to become a soldier. Much of my sense of patriotism was inspired by Ronald Reagan — yup, I am a Reagan Youth.

It was barely a year after I joined the military, that I was headed to Saudi Arabia for the very beginning of Desert Storm– nine months later, and a firsthand participant in the horrors of war, I returned home a very different person, with some very different takes on politics and government. My time overseas caused me to hate bureaucracy, something I saw our government rife with. When I had finished my enlistment in 1992, I left the Army and returned to civilian life. By 1992, the country had seemingly swung liberal as Clinton had already begun what would become an eight year reign. After witnessing firsthand the impacts of bureaucracy in and on the U.S. military, I had a great deal of distaste for politics in general– but that was before I discovered Rush Limbaugh. Under the tutelage of Limbaugh’s three hour daily show, I began to understand the mechanics of politics and it suddenly became more interesting to me.  Eager to understand politics more thoroughly, I became a Political Science major in college.

In the early to mid 90’s, I was coming on board to conservative politics at a very exciting time, the apex of Newt Gingrich’s ‘Contract With America’ which resulted in the sweeping of both houses of congress and becoming the majority party in the House of Representatives for the first time in over forty years. At the time, there was such hope for change. Finally, a conservative voice in America; certainly, I thought, there will now be sweeping change. What history ended up showing us, was that Republicans are no better at wielding power than were their colleagues on the other side of the aisle. In-party fighting, political corruption and abuse of power seemed to be everywhere. Eventually, Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, lost control of power and retired his seat in congress rather than be demoted and probably fired from leadership. What happened to the promise of change? The changes of the Contract with America seemed somehow a pale glow to

Since the revolution in 1994, the government has become more bloated, intrusive and ineffectual as ever before in our country’s history. After eight years of Clinton politics and nearly as many of Bush warmongering, I think people are tired of business-as-usual politics and really desire some change. I think, for many Americans, that change might be manifested in nominating the first female or black candidate. At this point, some people are so burnt out on government that they just want anything but more Bush and I am with them on that.

Some years back, probably sometime after 9/11 I reconsidered my political position. What do I really believe about the role of Government? What kind of person do I want representing our nation. While the names may have changed over the years, my philosophy hasn’t I want a principled person in the White House, someone who believes something, someone who has something governing them, someone with integrity. I am not an issue-based voter. I don’t care what someone believes about this-or-that so much as I want to know what motivates them. Are they Clintonesque, in that they put there finger in the air before issuing policy decisions or do they stand firmly on some foundational principles. If those principles are solid and reasonable, I might find a reason to support them. It is for these reasons that I have sometimes supported fringe candidates like Perot and Forbes for President. It is also why I campaigned for Dole and initially supported W.

One thing I have learned about my philosophy, is that the principles that someone stands on need to be looked at carefully. While W. is a very principled person, he seems to follow principle over reason. Our quagmire in Iraq is mostly due to his pig-headed principles. At some point you have to be able to look at something objectively and leave room to change your mind– not because it is politically expedient, but because it is the right thing to do. W. should have realized that invading Iraq was the wrong thing to do, and instead of “staying the course,” he should have been working on a plan to extricate America from Iraq. Yes, we would have to deal with the fall-out, but I think having a divided Iraq and causing civil wars will eventually play it self out, it would also force the rest of the world to be involved. But that doesn’t protect of energy interest in the region does it? Should have thought about that before invading shouldn’t you have?

Anyway, that is not my point. Sometime before the last election I began to realign myself politically. I found that I am rather a purist when it comes to government and that I believe in less government and greater personal freedom. Eventually, I found that my personal beliefs aligned much more closely with the Libertarian movement and not the neoconservative Republican one. While my card still says Republican, I am still a Libertarian at heart… and the last six years of voting history supports that. But, while I consider myself a Libertarian philosophically, I really have a problem with the party… mostly because it is filled with pot-heads and conspiracy theorists that serve to erode the credibility of the party. For this reason, I don’t think that the Party will ever field a reasonable presidential candidate.

So, I tell you all of that, so I can say this: the 2008 presidential race is a mess. I don’t think I have ever been so tossed about by candidates. I think that my mind is in the same place as most Americans when it comes to what I want in a presidential candidate and a government in general… CHANGE. I want someone who is going to change things, to work on righting the wrongs and making our government more fiscally responsible. I want someone who is going to keep our noses out of other countries businesses and halt our attempts at nation-building. I want someone who will work across the aisle to do what is best for our country and not what is politically expedient. I thought I had that candidate of John McCain.

Being a former Arizonan, I am aware of McCain’s cowboy mentality. He seems to be a man determined to do what is right, not what is political. He bucks the system and works bipartisanly to pass bills that help America. I think he understands the need for a strong and well-equipped military, but would not be the kind of leader that wields military power recklessly. As soon as McCain announced, I joined his campaign. What followed was a big disappointment. Instead of emails that detailed issues and solutions, I started receiving regular pep-rally emails that simply begged for money. I wanted substance and all I got was politics. I fear now that McCain is going the way of Bob Dole– over handled and way too “on message” to be to separate himself from the host of other Republicans doing the same thing.

Disconcerted with the direction of the McCain campaign, I sought out to search for someone who was really looking at radical changes to government. As I dove into the major candidates, I found very little in fresh new ideas for change and that bothered me. I then stumbled on Newt Gingrich’s blog and started reading about his ideas in Transformational Government. His ideas peeked my interest and I checked to see if he had any aspirations at a bid for 2008. It seems that he was carefully considering it, but was waiting until after Labor Day to decide. Ultimately, he said it would depend heavily on whether of not Fred Thomson threw his hat into the ring– which he has.

At some point in the middle of this, I was talking to my brother and he asked me if I had heard about this guy who really seemed to have some grassroots support. He couldn’t remember his name… Ron something or something Ron… a guy with two first names. A quick search on the Internet introduced me to Ron Paul, a congressman from Texas, doctor by trade and former Libertarian presidential candidate (1988). I read his profile on Wikipedia and said hmmm. Then I promptly forgot about him and went back to reading Newt’s book ‘The Art of Transformation’ and sending email questions to John McCain. Becoming quickly dissatisfied with McCain, I was also looking at Fred Thompson.

Everything changed for me two weeks ago when I stumbled on the documentary ‘America: Freedom to Fascism,’ which made me start thinking fundamentally about our government and it’s intrusion into our lives. I had never given the Federal Reserve or its control over our economy any thought. This thought caused me to dig a little deeper and do some more research. This research lead me directly into the Ron Paul camp. I spent quite a few hours watching Ron Paul coverage at FreeMe.tv and my mind is spinning, there are tons of reasons why I am ready to jump feet first into the Ron Paul campaign, but there are many reservations.

The first major issue, is that no one over the age of 25 seems to know who Ron Paul is. His movement is significantly Internet based and encompasses not only children below the voting age, but people from other countries. I watched a funny Ron Paul supporter video that ended with the declaration that they supported Ron Paul and they weren’t even American–how crazy is that? Sadly, it isn’t the candidate that I have problems with, it is his supporters. The majority of his public supporters are “issue-based voters”… something I really detest.

I am not an issue supporter. I will not vote for a candidate because of a position on any specific issue, something that I am afraid that Paul will get labeled with. People will frame him as an extremist candidate who wants to overturn Roe vs. Wade and eliminate the Federal Reserve, IRS, Board of Education and pull us out of the control of the UN. These are things that are part of his expressed desire, but there is a reason for it, that go far beyond the issues themselves. Ron Paul is a strict constitutionalist, and all of his ideas stem from the overreach of government beyond their constitutional limits. I am definitely in line with his ideas, but I think that the grassroots nature of his campaign prevents his image from being managed. I think there is almost no way to prevent him from being portrayed as a cracked pot.

Ron Paul is for overturning Roe vs. Wade, something that can be twisted and turned to opponents favor, but while he advocates the overturn, he doesn’t stand for the elimination of abortion, he believes that is a State’s right to decide if it supports or not… what he is against is the Federal support of abortions. As a man who personally delivered over 4,000 babies, he is an advocate for the unborn. I am all for a federal repeal of Roe vs. Wade as long as people have the right to decide for themselves by influencing their state governments to reflect the will of the people or that of Sate law. Decoupling us from the federal teat and allowing us to govern ourselves more locally.

It is so easy for us to simply go for what is popular or trendy, I think that the democrats will probably choose their candidate based on what is trendy… probably going for Hillary of Barack because of their gender or skin color. What candidate is a candidate of change? Everyone is talking about change, but who actually has radical ideas that will move our country forward, improve our liberties and allow us the greatest opportunity for personal advancement. Many of the democratic candidates have ideas about reform that require more government. Health care and retirement… increasing the entitlements of our country and leading us into deeper and deeper debt.

If you have no idea who Ron Paul is, I encourage you to Google him and research his ideas for yourself. I think he is the most reasonable and practical candidate out there. Sure there are plenty of good men and women out there who are seeking to lead our country, but how deep are their fundamentals? How much new government would their policies create? How much do you know about these people really? It is way to easy to rest on celebrity, to go for a candidate that makes us feel good about ourselves, but will choices based on that rationality move us forward? I can’t say I have come to a conclusion yet, the good thing is that I have some time to research the issues more. My question to you is, is your candidate causing you to explore issues, or does their rhetoric simply lull you to sleep, convincing you that everything will be OK when they get to office. I personally lean toward the candidates that cause me to ask the most serious questions and lead me to understand the depth of my ignorance.

It was recently, in a conversation with my brother, that my ears laid hold of something profound. We were knee deep in a conversation about living life when he mentioned a friend and something that he found incredibly frustrating about him. The conversation had steered curiously to the way the some people live, or rather, don’t live life. In the midst of his descriptions of his friends activities and inactivities he uttered a phrase that landed smack dab in the middle of my psyche like a pallet of bricks. “He lives his life in his mind; he doesn’t actually do anything, he just sits around thinking about doing things.” His statement crashed heavily, as the pallet of bricks broke the bands that held their form and spilled out awkwardly in a pile. “Ouch!,” I thought, “This is going to take some time to clean up.

Over the few weeks since that conversation I have returned to my pile of bricks and attempted to sort them out. Having crashed so heavily, it was clear to me that my brother’s statement resonated in a very personal way with me; I found myself clearly reflected in his observation of a friend. A great deal of my time is spent thinking about life, and very little time actually living it in any real substantive way; this was flushed out a further this week when my brother directly challenged my manor of living. During our six and a half hour drive from Nashville to Dothan, AL to surprise our mom for her birthday, Matthew turned to me and said, “you think that you are a filmmaker, but you are really just some guy sitting alone on your couch in your living room, surfing on your computer and watching TV.” My psyche flinched, awaiting the crash of whatever heavy object this realization was determined to embody.

However, despite my expectation of some kind of weighty crash, this statement seems to have taken a different form–no longer something chaotic and obstructive, this realization seems to have taken the form of a spade, or possibly a plow head. I think that this has become a true epiphany and could possibly be resulting in a paradigm shift. For years I have bemoaned my state of existence, blaming it on other people or some sort of cosmic joke. Lately, I have been undergoing some major personal evaluations which have resulted in a series of life changing realizations and it is entirely possible that this one will join those ranks.

I never seemed to put together such a simple thought. For many years, I have sat around expecting things to happen in my life and it seems that nothing ever seems to happen; however, this is not entirely true. Things happen all the time, but rarely do those things live up to my imagination of them. Perhaps, this is one of the reasons that I have been so bad a having a relationship with someone… too much thinking. In nothing is my pattern of “too much thinking, not enough doing” more obvious that with filmmaking. I know a lot about filmmaking, I have loads of gear and have read plenty of books. I’ve studied it and spent countless hours thinking about it. However, thinking about things like that rarely result in anything. The most vivacious people are those who are out there doing stuff, not those inside thinking about doing stuff.

I have been looking at my recent past under this new lens and finding some really destructive patterns. I don’t think this is any more evident that in a recent interaction with my relatively new friend Kim. It is odd that our initial connection happened because she had read some of my blogs and thought that we were so incredible similar. In retrospect, that thought seems so incredibly odd since, in many ways, we are polar opposites in terms of our personality. Regardless of personality, we do share a bunch of things in common, one of which is filmmaking.

Kim and I have had many conversations about my desire to become a filmmaker, and it was almost two weeks ago that I was set up for one of my clearest examples of how I practice that art of “thinking, rather than doing.” In light of our many conversations about making films and telling stories, and fresh off our participating in Nashville’s 48 Hour Film Project (www.48.tv), Kim posed an opportunity to shoot a small documentary about an interesting local character that she knew. Over the duration of our conversation, I spent the whole time talking around the project. I explained all the things that we needed to and should do, I passed off the initial work and directed her to find a way to get the project rolling without me. At the moment, I thought I was being pragmatic, but in hindsight I realize that I was possibly blowing off a project because it didn’t fit my minds model of a documentary I would do.

No wonder it seems that things don’t seem to happen in my life; because when things do happen, I am quick to dismiss them if they don’t meet up to the standard that I have formulated in my imagination. The funny thing is, that I know that I am creatively at the best when I am working in collaboration with someone and an opportunity to do that was in my face and I baulked. While Kim is a dreamer, she is also a doer… I, on the other hand, am just purely a dreamer. How is it that I, with the desire and capability to become a filmmaker, seem to find my way out of work? It seems so simple, so I can’t help but wonder where I got this self-defeating mentality? Some period of life must have instilled me with it, but at the moment, I haven’t discovered it.

The more I think about this… thing, the more I see how pervasive it is in my so-called life. Way too many areas of my life are infected with it. I fail to build relationships because of it, and I am pretty sure that I can’t seem to find a direction in life because of it. I think that spade of this new epiphany has broken the dry and impacted soil in my mind and seems to be tilling up a whole bunch of things that I have been completely ignorant of. I certainly don’t want my legacy to be that of someone who never lived up to their potential or left behind a life unlived. I deeply desire to awaken to the light of a day when I spend less time thinking about things and more time actually doing them.

I have always prided myself on the products of my mind, but it is becoming more and more clear that I spend way too much time there. I believe I really do live some sort of imaginary life in my head–a life where I am much more exciting that I presently am, at least in practice. So, this week I got of my ass and got out there. I finished a few projects and joined a film crew for the last five days of their shoot. I need to change the way in which I think about things and begin to spend more time doing things. I am not quite sure I know how to do that yet, but one thing that I am sure of is that I no longer want to live the most colorful parts of my life in my mind. In essence, that IS filmmaking, taking the figments of someone’s imagination and making them visible to others. If I hope to do that with someone else’s imagination someday, why can’t I do it with my own imagination now–only for real?

It just hit me as I began to think back on my life. I started chasing back my history in association with film, trying to figure out what path lead me to where I am today–considering a life in filmmaking. It all started, in full, during the summer of 1982 when my family passed through Atlanta, GA on summer vacation. My aunt and uncle live in Atlanta and we stayed with them a few days, before continuing our annual trek to my Grandmother’s house in southern Alabama. In 1982, I was 12 years old, and near my peak as a dreamer, perfectly prepared to be bitten by the bug.

In order for you to understand just what the gravity of that summer involved, you need to know a little about my history, because there is probably much about it that few people can connect with today. I grew up in a strict Christian household. For most of my childhood my parents were members of a Fundamental Baptist church. Unless you have some connection with this particular breed of Christendom, you would have no reason to understand just how strict my household was, and by strict, I mean religious. My particular church was pretty extreme when it came to religious rules. Women did not wear pants, men wore suits and ties to church and nearly all worldly pleasures were anathema.

It seems that the Fundamental Baptists were really concerned with worldly living, and had hosts of rules for members that were sanctionable, meaning, if you were too worldly, you could lose your membership and be excommunicated. Granted, I never new anyone who was excommunicated for worldly living, but the fact that fire and brimstone was awaiting such a person, it wasn’t really an issue–at least not that people would make public. Part of this hyper-legalistic religion’s job was to make up rules about what was off limits, and I my parents took great effort to ensure our compliance. Among the prohibitions was nearly anything that the average person took pleasure in. Not only were we prohibited from the normal vices like smoking, drinking and gambling, but we could not listen to rock music, dance… or go to movies.

So, until the summer of 1982, I had never been to a movie theater… that was until our visit to my aunt and uncle’s in Atlanta. For those of you who where not around in 1982, there was a great deal of buzz about Steven Speilberg’s latest movie. My aunt and uncle were former Christian missionaries for a more liberal wing of the Baptist Church… Southern Baptist. It seems that the Southern Baptist had no problem with going to the movies and this somehow allowed them to prevail on my parents to allow us to go to see E. T. the Extra Terrestrial.

Sitting that summer in front of the big screen, eating popcorn and watching kids fly on bikes–I was mesmerized. The magic of the movies fit so well with my youthful imagination and I felt like I had been missing something all my life. It was at that theater in 1982 that I was bitten by the movie bug, something that has taken many forms throughout my life. Upon our return home my mom suffered some criticisim when my youngest brother leaked our movie going experience to others in the church, something we were warned not to do by my parents.

By the end of 1982, my parents began visiting other churches and by 1983 lifted the embargo on movies on their children once they turned 13– convenient, because I just happened to turn 13 that May… just in time for the release of Return of the Jedi which my dad took me to for my birthday. Actually, the bug bit me earlier in my life when I watched a TV show in the making of the Empire Strikes Back. I remember that, because I made my own stop-action animated movie at home sometime around 1980.

Since that time, I have seen many hundreds of movies in the theater and it has even been during several depressed periods of my life that I sought mental and emotional refuge in the theater. Many summer Saturdays spent hopping from screen to screen during all day movie fests. I’ve even been through dry periods, most notable in the early 2000’s when the magic of movies eluded me and studios produced some of the worst schlock since the 1970’s. For nearly 4 years I didn’t enter a theater and had no real desire to.
My history with film has been a rocky path filled with many twists and turns, but in 1998 I worked on my first film shoot in Atlanta and after learning the jobs of a dolly grip and jib arm operator, my love for filmmaking took on a whole new persona. Today I wrestle with how to pursue my passion and where to draw my boundaries. I want to tell stories for a living, but I have no idea how to go about that the right way.

As I laid sleeplessly in my bed early this morning, I chased the dream back in time. This is a dream that has haunted me for over 25 years. When I juxtapose the life of a filmmaker on that of a Christian, I still wrestle with some of the residue of my youth. Can such a worldly profession be something pleasing to God? I have spent years fighting it, wondering where God wants me in life. I worry that somehow I will choose a path in life that is not according to God’s good pleasure.

As these thoughts spun in my head, a verse from the Bible bubbled up from the midst of my confusion. Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths.” Such a verse is both comforting and confusing to me. At the moment, I can only trust that the verse was God’s speaking to me in the midst of my current wrestling. It reminds me that He has the ability to direct my path. If I trust in Him, I also trust in his leading. If God allows my path to head down a road that leads to a film career, I shouldn’t question and doubt it, I should just trust in Him.

If I trust in God and in His leading, I have no other choice than to believe that 25 years ago, while sitting in that theater under the glow of the big screen, that somehow God was directing my path. Whether that path leads to or away from a career in film, I do not know; what I do know, is that I trust not in my own understanding, but trust in the greatest Director of all, the One who is capable of directing my path.

Ok, I have been reading the Potter series to get ready for the last book. I had not seen anything but the first movie when I started. By the time I finished the second book, I made several predictions about how I thought the last book would end. The author said that two main characters will die and I have my idea who they are. Since the book goes on sale at midnight tonight, I wanted to get my predictions down before anyone reads the last book… just in case, I can say I told you so So, here are my predictions–nearly all of them I suspected since reading the second book.

• It turns out that Dumbledore is actually evil and Harry has been his puppet, but in a twist of fate at the end… he is actually good. (I originally thought that he would be one of the two that dies, but that is because I didn’t know he had already died in the sixth book).
• Snape saves Harry’s life and dies saving him - I think that there is some major plot twist hidden behind his relationship with Harry.
• Harry saves Malfoy’s life, and rescues him from his evil heritage
• Harry brings his parents and Serrius back from the dead
• The Invisibility Cloak somehow plays an important role in the story
• awkward Neville becomes a hero (think Hobbits)

So who do I think are the two main characters that die?

• Voldemort (don’t know if he counts)
• Snape
• Haggrid

Does Harry die? Yes, but in some magical twist of fate is resurrected from the dead (think Neo in the Matrx)

Let’s see if I had any clue what so ever… the fact that Dumbledore died in the sixth book totally caught be by surprise, but I still think that he was up to something and I think that we will find out what. Like, somehow he had to befriend Voldermort in order to defeat him or something.

I think that the book will end on central Christian themes like “love conquers all” or “no greater love is there than one that lays down his life for his friend”.