Where Are The Young Princes?

Try this experiment: go to Google and type in "girls who want to be princesses." Wait, I'll do it for you. Notice the plethora of links devoted to princess culture among the young ladies.

Now, try this search: "boys who want to be princes."

I'll pause while you either lament the dearth of relevant links or pick your jaw up off the floor. Near the top of the search results is a site called "My Princess Boy," run by a Seattle family whose 5-year-old son likes to dress up in frilly pink outfits and bling.

I hoped to see a few pictures of little boys dressed up like Prince William, Prince Charles, or at least Prince Charming. I didn't even get Prince Valiant. I'm glad I didn't see any dressed up as just Prince.

Parents of America, we have a serious problem. We have neglected to nurture the male equivalent in the royal hierarchy to the point where some young boys would rather wear dresses to get in on the culture of royal beauty and pampering. Don't blame it on Disney -- the studio has given us plenty of princes, including The Prince Of Egypt, Moses.

I've heard the explanation that young boys are more interested in superheroes than sword-carrying nobility. Perhaps, but it leaves few options for the young aspiring gent. Last Halloween, how many princess dresses did you see at the local costume place compared to tunics and wooden shields? We can't honestly make the comparison if we're not putting forth effort to give kids a choice.

I did another search: "boys who want to be knights." Again, disappointment. I found links related to the psychology of saving modern-day damsels in distress, but nothing to encourage the youth. The irony is that knights began their training at age 7, learning both chivalry and swordsmanship under the tutoring of a lord or knight. I found online classes for how to be a princess. Zilch for being a prince.

As a historical re-enactor who loves to dress up in knee breeches, stockings and a tricorn hat, I fully realize I am speaking to you from a biased perspective. I know my love of historical dress and manners are outside the norm. But that doesn't make it any less unfair for young boys who don't see themselves as Superman, Batman or Spider-Man.

I have this sinking gut feeling we don't see our media pushing a male equivalent to princess culture because it's too sissy. Take a look at so-called "meterosexuals," those men who take on characteristics that make people think they're gay when they're not. The way our culture is trending, it's acceptable to be perceived as gay. But woe to those seen as straight and sissy.

I'm not letting young princesses off the hook either. So much of the culture is material and self-serving. One mother told me about how she and others work to educate their daughters about the differences between Disney princesses and GOD's princesses -- GOD's princesses work to serve THEIR KING.

The homeschooling and historical groups I've been blessed to participate in are breaking this stereotype with a vengeance. They are fostering the development of young ladies and gentlemen without giving a toss about what the world thinks. The parents who make up these groups have instilled within their children that manners, kindness and respect are not archaic or sissy, they're what GOD asks of us.

I did one more Google search: "manners classes for kids." At last, sweet chivalry.

But I still want to see more kids in prince costumes.

"Wanna Go Looking For Cigarette Butts?"

I have some advice for new parents. If you one day catch your child smoking a cigarette, force them to roll their own using discarded butts left on the ground. It will quickly break the developing habit.

I speak with confidence after an experience from my scoundrel youth. One of my best friends in the fourth grade -- whom I am calling "Leon" -- and I were at his house, fooling around on a summer day while his parents were at work. His older sister entered the room.

"Leon, you wanna go looking for cigarette butts?"

They had developed this new ritual to obtain a forbidden smoke, but they needed to do some footwork. I followed them as they walked up the street, looking for every butt they could find with any tobacco left in it.

"Get those Marlboros," his sister directed. "Those are supposed to be the good ones."

In reality, the brand didn't matter. Kool, True, Maraboro, More, Carlton -- they'd all do. Leon and his sister picked up about two dozen spent smokes and headed back home to harvest the tobacco.

They carefully unwrapped the butts and squeezed out the tobacco one a piece of notepad, which they proceeded to roll up. Outside, Leon and his sister -- fourth grader and high schooler -- passed it back and forth. They offered me a drag; I passed. The putrid blue smoke coming out the other end turned me off. The potent smell made it into their basement, and Leon's sister tried covering it up with air freshener. I don't know what they did about their breaths. As far as I know, they never got caught.

Unfortunately, that experience wasn't enough to keep me away from a couple of drags later on, after I got out of college. When cigars became fashionable among the younger set, someone kindly donated a Baccarat stogie to me at a club while I was enjoying a beer. Alcohol and tobacco combined to leave me half-delirious on the dance floor. I don't remember how I made it home sober. That ended the cigar experiment.

Several years later, I experimented with a few Camels. I marveled at how I could get so much smoke out of one small puff without inhaling or coughing to death. At a friend's party, I stole off into a corner of the yard to work a cig all the way down to the tip before somebody called me back to the frivolity.

Picture this: a silhouetted lone figure emerges from a cloud of grey smoke, illuminated from behind by a floodlight. His hair is frizzy and sticking out all over the place, not from the cigarette, but it really doesn't matter. Another light eventually illuminates his face, revealing a grin of satisfaction, something those long-banned tobacco ads might have deemed "pure smoking satisfaction."

I can count the number of smokes I've taken on one hand, meaning I didn't develop a habit. Some people have told me they are "social smokers," meaning they only light up when they're at a party or some gathering where they would feel naked without a cancer stick. I don't understand how people think it calms the nerves. If anything, I would be afraid of hacking smoke all over the place.

Smoking killed Johnny Carson, Peter Jennings, Morton Downey Jr., Edward R. Murrow, Ed Sullivan and Arthur Godfrey. So I marvel at how many of my broadcast TV colleagues continue to smoke, even if it's a quick puff or two in the parking lot every so often. I've seen people who didn't smoke get started, presumably to help them calm their nerves. I've seen news anchors and reporters smoke at parties, inevitably thinking they won't end up sounding like Marge Simpson in a few years.

A year ago, a new anti-smoking TV ad emerged starring a haggard woman with a hole in her throat to enable her to speak. If that doesn't gross you out, then go smoke up the entire tobacco stock of your nearest mini-mart and talk to me later -- if you can.

Night Rider

I used to call it "The Drive at Five." When driving to visit my parents in Upland, California, I'd get up before the crack of dawn to get on the road by 5am, rolling into the Inland Empire around 10am, depending on traffic and time changes. The journey works pretty well, and I have it down to a two-tank trip.

Then my work hours changed to dayside, and I started making those getaways right after I got done with the 5:00 news. It's the same game, just played a little different.

5:45 Hopefully be out the door. Hopefully not have a grumbling tummy, but that can be appeased with a quick run through the drive-through window. Otherwise, dinner is three hours off, at least.

7:15 If rush hour traffic is done, and some fool hasn't jack-knifed his semi along I-10, I'm rolling into Phoenix. To give you an idea of the size of this metro area, one of the biggest in the nation, realize that it takes at least one hour to drive from one edge of the area to the other.

8:00 Be out of Phoenix, driving into the West Valley, and my first large stretch of darkness. In the summer, the sun is setting. In the winter, the sun was down hours ago.

8:45 Debate whether to get gas at the Zip station 20 miles east of Quartzite or keep rolling. Given my new car's fuel efficiency, I prefer to keep going.

9:00 Debate whether to gas up at the Pilot in Quartzite and grab something from the Golden Arches right next door. If this were daytime, I might also sniff around at one of the swap meets in town. (Here's where I pause so you can make your "Sid" jokes.) Depending on my timing, I might catch the news on the radio from KJMB, one of the few family-owned FM radio stations still running network news at the top of the hour.

9:15 If passing on both above options, gas up at the Flying J on top of the hill in Ehrenberg. It's still my favorite truck stop on the Arizona-California line: clean restrooms, large drink selection, and a Wendy's. Grab grub after a 10-100 and roll on.

9:30 Roll into California and pass through the U.S.D.A. checkpoint. They're looking for fruit flies. They always wave me through. They wave everybody in a car through. Why even stop sedans?

9:35 Out of Blythe and into another dark stretch. It's spooky. It's late. I have a big soda.

10:30 Signs of life reappear around Twenty-Nine Palms. The town glistens along with the lights of the Spotlight 29 Casino. No time to stop and play.

11:00 More spookiness. Dozens of red lights flash in the distance atop the numerous wind turbines. It looks like a UFO invasion. This is the time to keep my head. In the past, I've had visions of people darting across the road. Or maybe those weren't visions. No, the soda isn't spiked.

11:45 In the home stretch. Upland is about half an hour away. The lights of L.A. are on the horizon.

12:30am Hopefully we're home now. Kiss the Queen Mother and Royal Father. Gawk a little about the trip. Collapse into bed.

You gotta have a system...

Yes, You Have The Right Number -- No, You Have The Wrong Person

I recall changing my phone number only half a dozen times in my life. Yet only in the last decade or so has that number been subjected to what I call "phone spam:" those automatic recorded calls that occupy space on my answering machine because I'm not going to pick up to listen to them. Thank goodness for Caller ID. If I don't know the number on the display, the call goes to the machine, and the other end hears this:

"You have reached [redacted]. For quality assurance purposes, this call may be monitored before it is answered. Otherwise, please leave your name and number after the beep."

That "quality assurance" bit usually dissuades a lot of sales calls. But it's those robo-calls that irk me. The "Do Not Call" list does nothing to stop campaign calls. I'll let you guess who put that exception in. Next campaign season, I'm thinking of changing the message:

"You have reached [redacted]. For quality assurance purposes, all political campaigns that automatically call this number with voice spam will be disqualified from my vote, with all potential votes going automatically to the Libertarian party, which doesn't waste people's time..."

My favorites are the bill collectors. They're not looking for me; they're looking for somebody else who had my phone number five, ten, or maybe fifteen years ago. These people also have a love for the magic machine, as I find out when I play back one of their messages:

"This calls is for [redacted]. If you are not [redacted], please hang up now." (Which can't happen if a machine is talking to a machine.) "This is an attempt to collect a debt. Please call as soon as possible to speak with a customer service representative at..." (After this, the machine usually clicks off -- mine, not theirs.)

I let companies like this call maybe ten or twenty times before they finally figure they're not going to get the person, or their money.

Once in a while, I get a live debt collector on the line. I once ended up in a conversation with one who was trying to stick me with somebody else's bill.

"Don't you think you should settle this account?"

"I'm sorry, I don't have an account with you."

"Is your Social Security number [redacted]?"

"No, that's not my number. You're two digits off."

He looked it up again.

"Oh, sorry."

"Why didn't you double check the name and the number before you called?"

"Uh, well, these things happen."

And they happen to me. One lady called, looking for a certain other lady with a lingering debt.

"Is [redacted] here?"

"No, she doesn't live at this number. She hasn't lived here for at least five years."

"And you don't know her?"

"No, I don't."

"And she doesn't live with you?"

"No."

A few seconds of silence cross the wires.

"Are you sure you don't know her?"

It took all of my stamina to avoid launching into a Judge Judy impression, in which I would have bellowed into the receiver: "Madam, WHAT DID I JUST SAY? REPEAT TO ME WHAT I JUST SAID!" She would've wished she'd gotten the machine.

To be fair, the errant bill collectors who leave messages usually get the point after I call them back and correct them. That makes me wonder if the right person could lie through their teeth and achieve the same result with one call-back. In that case, they'd probably send Rocko to pay a house call. In that case, I'd be searching for my front incisors by the time he figures it out.

Toby, What Are You Eating?

As I have told you here previously, dogs can eat death like it's a Milk-Bone. While I consider my grandparents' Dalmatian Sparky as the all-time champ, my Dad's dog Toby comes in a close second.

From nearly the time we brought him home, the Springer Spaniel puppy showed he would eat any unsecured article, starting with my shoelaces. On his first morning after his first night, I heard growing and knocking in the kitchen all the way into my upstairs bedroom.

"That was the dog throwing things around," Mom explained, probably because Toby couldn't eat what he was throwing.

A few mornings later, floating up to the sanctity of my bed...

"Get back, getback, GETBACK, GET BACK!!!"

That would be the dog trying to lick the kitchenware as Mom opened the dishwasher -- not the second rinse she had in mind.

A few days later, a neighbor came to the door.

"You know your dog's eating your tree?"

"Huh?"

"Yeah, he was shaking it pretty hard!"

The young tree had already lost one of two thin branches to Toby's appetite. I reluctantly told Mom, and she grumbled something about killing "that dog," as she headed down to the basement. She brought up a tree pruner, and I figured I better follow along to prevent a possible dogicide.

"The vet says Toby's his favorite Springer," Dad gushed. "He says the other ones bite."

"So does Toby!" I corrected.

"Well, he's just cutting teeth."

Boy, did those teeth get cut. When he wasn't howling in the dark of the basement, he was going to work on the clutter. His preferred meal: my dad's magazine collection, something Mom had been politely nagging him to do something about -- "I can't believe your father is a magazine saver!" Toby shredded whatever he got his paws on, and chewed the rest. For dessert, he ate one of Dad's golf shoes. We should've just let him have the other.

"Toby, if you eat that wasp, you're going to be in a world of hurt," Mom chided as the puppy eyed a flying insect that had just crawled into a crack in our deck. He didn't care. He would snap at moths fluttering around his nose, thinking he could catch one. I think he did, once.

The dog's appetite subsided as he grew up, but he still had a penchant for teething. We got him a large, supposedly indestructible bone for Christmas, and he took to it after shaking all over the front room.

"I tell you, those bones are too big for him," I said.

"No, he just likes to play with his food," Mom observed.

When my brother Michael got a pet rabbit, I feared hasenpfeffer might be on the menu. When we let the bunny out of his cage to hop around, Toby chased after it like he was on the hunt. Then the bunny would growl at him -- yes, I said GROWL -- and Toby would turn and run until he worked up the nerve to corner the rabbit again, and the cycle continued. Toby went gourmet in his twilight years, feasting on boiled beef and rice to ease his stomach. He would whine as the dish sat in the oven, not waiting for it to cool down. More than once, Mother just let him eat it steaming hot.

Out of all of this, we never had to take him to the vet for something he ate. The dog had a cast-iron stomach like so many others. I can't explain why dogs have such a high tolerance for junk diets. Just put everything out of reach. And if you have a cat in the house... well, let's not go there.

The State Of Boys -- Part III: Command Performances

My June 1989 week of Missouri Boys' State is winding down. Content to spend my days in the TV studio, learning everything I can about TV news production, I find I can also pull a fast one...

C.A., mayor of Coontz City, sits in the most enviable position of Boys' State -- on television, surrounded by a gaggle of shapely girls wearing tight Boys' State t-shirts as he plugs our city trying to pick up awards points. The diminutive young mayor projects both humility and sex appeal onto the screen under a pork-pie hat.

Towards the end of Boys' State week, the commercials on the TV newscasts go from talking heads to pep rallies featuring many of those young college ladies serving us three meals a day.

"I can find you some girls," says James as we kick around ideas for a commercial.

"Good looking girls?" someone asks.

"Yeah, great looking."

The cafeteria ladies pick up on the raving testosterone. "They're supposed to be learning about government," one of them tells a Boys' State newspaper reporter, "not picking up girls." But many of them happily play along, starring in our spots and stoking our hormones.

I watch in the VTR room as Matthew cues the crew to roll tape for the Coontz spot. Mayor C.A. and his harem fade onto the screen, and he gives his pitch for the town. Then a young curvy brunette with long hair steps into the frame.

"Coontz does it better," she says with a sultry pout.

Matthew nearly leaps out of his chair. "That [expletive] [expletive] has been in every commercial on this station." he mumbled.

He turns on his intercom button. "That [expletive] [expletive] has been in every commercial on this station!" he growls into the mic.

As hot as it was, it doesn't get Coontz into the winners' circle. That honor goes to another town that devises its own scat-chant, led by the mayor and repeated by the citizenry:

"Ex-a-meenie, eenie-meeny, oo-bop-a-beasta!" "Ex-a-meenie, eenie-meeny, oo-bop-a-beasta!"
"Oh, no, no, no, not the neesta!" "Oh, no, no, no, not the neesta!"
"Boo-bop, biddy-bop, boo-bappa beasta!" "Boo-bop, biddy-bop, boo-bappa beasta!"
"A whop-bop, biddy-bop, boo-bap, boo bah!" "A whop-bop, biddy-bop, boo-bap, boo bah!"
"Shhhh!" "Shhhh!"

They call it "Elvis." (I recently googled the lyrics and found out it's a variation on an old Boy Scout song called "Flea.")

Victory is theirs, but we have pizza for our final night of the session.

"Just think of what you did," James reminds us as we bite into the slices and sip cans of soda taken from a dorm bathtub converted into a cooler. "You built a city government, a county government and a state government in a week."

He digs up a boom box and a covert cassette. "These are actual phone pranks!" he says as he pushes the play button.

We revel in the glory and the fun. Some of the guys are going on to Boys' Nation as delegates, where they will do it all over again on a bigger scale. The rest of us are going back to our homes and the rest of summer.

I went back for seconds and thirds and fourths of pizza. "You wouldn't think a little guy could eat so much!" James observes.

And yet I do, slinking down into a chair and kicking back. Somebody thinks I looked sick... and I hatch a prank of my own. Recognizing most of my fellow citizens had seen me lunging into a trash barrel on Sunday, I decide the time is right for an encore.

I prop myself up and drag myself over to the big grey bin, perching at the rim. Heads turn as boys steel themselves for what is about to happen.

"Are you sick?" somebody asks.

I say nothing but let my face droop into the barrel. Almost instantly, boys with the weaker constitutions flee the room in fright, leaving a few to gather next to me as I play up the moment.

"You all right?" Matthew asks. I wink at him.

"Was that a wink?" he asks.

I let my head drop all the way into the barrel before I snap it back up.

"PSYCH!" The smile on my face is as wide as the Missouri River.

The acting job draws applause and cheers from my peers, and a trophy.

"That was worthy of an Oscar," another boy says, "and on behalf of the Academy I would like to present this to Chris!" He hands me a fresh can of Mountain Dew. I lifted up in toast and victory.

We end it all in the same gym where I'd said goodbye to the outside world a week before. The floor is filled with exhibits from our exercises in democracy like a science fair. Parents wander around, geeking out at our accomplishments. Mom and Dad catch up to me and we head home.

Mother can't take her eyes off of me. I'd been gone before, out of her eyesight for a week at a time, but this time dug deeper. I'd had absolutely no contact with her or Dad. She was waking up to the realization her first-born is going off to college in about a year or so.

I come home to find problems with the summer job I had lined up, but Mom doesn't want to hear me griping about it. "The important thing is that you're home and you're here."

About a month or so later, the Raytown Rotary Club asks me to speak about my experience at one of their luncheons, and I do. I encourage them to keep sponsoring students, playing up the benefits. I don't talk about my lack of a clear focus on what I want, or my lack of legislative role. I made TV, while other boys made laws. I had my role as they had theirs.

The teenage years are supposed to be a defining period, but some people take longer. In June of 1999, I was in a transition phase, about to move from the Kansas City area to St. Louis and change my career focus from computer science to journalism. So much ahead was uncertain, undefined and scary. I didn't feel completely assured of my change in direction, and the ambiguity bled over into what should have been a molding and shaping experience.

It probably was, in ways I don't understand. But if I had the chance to go back and catch up to myself in that gym, on that first hot Saturday, I would've told myself to forget about journalism school. "You are a patriot in training," I would've said. "Trust me. You have more in common with Patrick Henry than Walter Cronkite. I want you to put it on the line. Speak from your heart what you believe about leadership. Run for office. Go be a lawmaker. Maybe you won't win, but don't stop running. Help others where you can. Build the foundation. Your tricorn hat awaits you. Put it on, and go forth into this world!"

The State Of Boys -- Part II: "You're Trying Your Best"

I'm sharing my experiences of attending the 1989 Missouri Boys' State session. Our last episode found me playing cub reporter to cub lawmakers. Detached from the action, and still trying to figure out how to be a journalist while learning how to be a citizen, I badly need to land somewhere...

Gradually the pieces of the mock state come together in meetings as the week rolls on. The parties pick their county leaders and hold a state convention. With the pols in place, the nominations and appointments follow for the legislature, as well as the Mayor, City Manager, Councilmembers, City Attorney, Police Chief, Fire Chief, Health Commissioner, Treasurers, Sheriff, and Municipal Judge, working our way up to the state offices including the Governor's post.

The parties develop platforms, sometimes out of nothing more than competitive advantage. "The other party says they're for abortion. Well, we're going to be against it!"

My roommate Paul, with his quiet charisma, winds up as the chief justice of the Boys' State Supreme Court. He even reminds me of Thurgood Marshall, then heading into his twilight years on the bench. (Clarence Thomas is still two years away from picking up a Supreme Court nomination.)

All of this should be nice fodder for a few insider political stories, but I don't have my news sense yet, and my reservedness holds me back. The citizenship manual doesn't do much to encourage me:

"Writing interesting stories about events that have occurred at Missouri Boys' State probably is more difficult than anywhere else, because the writer's audience usually had attended the event on which he is reporting. Therefore, for a reporter simply to write what happened at the event is not 'news.'"

Neither is dishy political gossip. We are Missouri's best young leaders, not backstabbing, power-hungry pols in training. What in the heck am I supposed to write about?

Perhaps I should try the sports beat, volunteering to observe and report. Surely I can write about the games better than I can play them. My baseball skills have me hitting nothing but air and catching nothing but sunshine. But I can't opt out; everybody is expected to play, scrub or not.

Coming up to the plate, I know I'm doomed as that white ball zings past me. Oh for YMCA tee-ball, where you could just smack it and run.

"It's all right," a fellow citizen reassures. "You're trying your best."

Several tell me that, and I am blessed to be surrounded by young leaders who knew some boys don't fit into the athlete mold. Many of us are tomorrow's geeks, on our way to owning half the world at a time when nerds represent the heights of uncoolness.

I fill the days out serving on mock juries in the court system, watching mock judges and mock lawyers adjudicate mock criminal cases as the student lawmakers wheel and deal and pass bills. After lunch, I headed over to TV station to help Matthew and the crew produce news and commercials as an ad-hoc crew member.

The commercials keep us busy. Everyone in Boys' State earns "Boys State Bucks," a token economy to be spent for campaigning and adverts in the newspaper, radio and TV outlets. Cities pool their dough to buy rah-rah spots, a constant headache to Caleb, our news director, who's trying to get the rest of the content taped before dinner.

"After this, no more commercials!" he grumbles one day, walking out of the control room. He takes on some of the qualities of his real-life broadcast counterparts, griping at the staff because the scripts aren't in-depth enough. He snipes at a few city leaders who turn a news interview into a plug.

Matthew and I sit on the stairs outside the VTR suite and sort through all the money dumped into our laps for ad time. "Man, you can be my accountant!" he proclaims.

A few KMOS staffers hastily edit what we crank out, and we see the results after dinner, before the evening's speaker as part of "KMBS News." With no field video cameras, we are constrained to a series of talking heads against a blue backdrop, except for the Boys' State sports reports. They featured honest-to-goodness full-screen scoreboards from that nifty Dubner, which draws an audible gasp from the audience as the text rolls and twirls.

Then we hear from the night's speaker, usually a high-ranking lawmaker at the state and federal level or a retired pol, at least one of whome is not too far from the scandal sheet. He -- and occasionally a she -- speaks to us about the joys and challenges of service, after which the floor opens for questions.

"All the tension between Republicans and Democrats," I query one legislator from my young, idealistic mind. "Is it really necessary?"

He replies that both sides are trying to serve the public, but that the Dems "want to make all the rules." Cheers burst out from the Republicans in the crowd, amazingly evenly divided between real-world party loyalties.

Candidates for Boys' State Governor come to the stage and give us their best campaign speeches. One of them, "Famous Amos," becomes the stand-out hit for the way he turns around a snarky question from the audience.

"Sir, I believe that is uncalled for!"

He gets a rousing cheer, and the snarker later buys a TV ad to apologize. While it runs during the newscast, various boys in the crowd smack their lips, the adopted symbol for "kissing up."

Some presentations during the daytime have us talking at the dinner table. "Goober" shows us how not to make a campaign speech. I also hear about a certain "Pastor Fuzz" who is part of a demonstration for the mock lawmen detailing arrest procedure. "Big 'ol Budweiser suspenders," one boy says, recounting either the suspect or the session leader. "He held up this porno mag he found."

It's not supposed to be offensive; it's supposed to be a goad to us, our counselors explain. If we are offended, it's time to debate the matter and write bills and discuss the Constitution, just like the real-life lawmakers are doing. If an adult leader takes a libelous shot at another city, we can sue them, and we do. In both challenge and jest, one leader openly snarks a city government, and we haul him into court. He almost doesn't show up for his trial date.

"What are you doing?" a counselor asks as we sit around the courtroom, telling mildly dirty jokes.

"We're waiting," the Boys' State judge explains, briefly outlining the case.

"These guys go into a bar..." the counselor chimes in, helping us kill time.

We have issues. We have principles. We have challenges. We have a process. We have this newly-minted government created from nothing but an outline. Now we can make the process work, and under a disturbing shadow. Just days earlier, the Chinese government had swept Tiananmen Square of pro-democracy protests in a massacre that shocked the world and gave us the iconic image of a lone man standing in front of a line of tanks. We are enjoying a blessing of liberty people died for halfway around the world.

As their first order of business, the Boys' State Legislature unanimously passes a resolution supporting the protesters.

NEXT: The fruits of our labor, beautiful girls, and how I cleaned out a room in 5 seconds flat!

It's All Done With Mirrors And Lights

Reel To Reel: Now You See Me

Going Rate: Worth matinee price
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco, Mélanie Laurent, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine
Rated: PG-13
Red Flags: Language, moderate violence, one brief sexually suggestive scene

Now You See Me is Ocean's Eleven mashed up with The Prestige, using superstar magicians to pull off huge robberies. However, the film plays like one gigantic illusion because it keeps its most compelling characters and story elements hidden behind the curtain.

The opening minutes show promise as we are introduced to street magician J. Daniel Atlas (Eisenberg), hustler mentalist Merritt McKinney (Harrelson), pickpocket illusionist Jack Wilder (Franco), and escape artist Henley Reeves (Fisher). We learn their craft and their quirks more efficiently than Danny Ocean can put together the big con. But after this, the picture starts yanking our chains. All four illusionists are summoned to meet at a dingy New York City apartment rigged up to be the magical equivalent of Indiana Jones' opening quest for a golden idol. Here they discover a blueprint for -- ta-da! -- "a show!"

The film jumps to their first performance as "The Four Horsemen," a magical supergroup who pulls off a real show-stopper: robbing a bank live on a Vegas stage. Only they don't actually rob it, they teleport a Frenchman into the vault of a bank in his home country to do it for them in an impossible fashion, but it's magic, and it works. Euros rain down upon a stunned audience while befuddled bankers wonder how all that money got away from under their noses.

Now the film jumps again, away from the illusionists and into a cops-and-robbers chase. FBI agent Dylan Rhodes (Ruffalo) is your standard-issue no-nonsense cop straight from Central Casting paired with an appropriately sexy French Interpol agent, Alma Dray (Laurent). He can't get anything out of the four in the interrogation room, so he is resigned to tailing them as they move on to other shows -- and other heists -- in New Orleans and the Big Apple.

Giving him some pointers and mocking reality checks, is ex-magician Thaddeus Bradley (Freeman), who now works as a professional skeptic. He exposes tricks for a living and he knows all the secrets. We're not sure who he's really serving, which becomes clearer as he spars with Arthur Tressler (Caine), a financial mogul who's bankrolling the Four's shows.

Ocean's Eleven works because you're in both on the con and the con men. Ditto for The Prestige and its stronger companion film, The Illusionist. They let their stars breathe and develop some chemistry. Now You See Me goes through a few token scenes of interaction, but we still don't care enough about the principals. It's as if the writers threw the four magicians together, wrote a few script pages, and then realized they couldn't make it work from their perspective -- even with Atlas and Reeves sharing an on-stage history. So they punted the film into an action procedural with a lot of special effects and illusion. The film also makes the oh-too-obvious ploy of throwing a romantic curve into Rhodes' and Dray's working relationship.

I wanted to see more inside the plotting and scheming, not giving it all away, but just enough to make us think we're seeing it all, not something loosely recycled from TV cop shows. Even so, it still builds interest if only to figure out how the film will try to top one impossible heist after the next. Director Louis Leterrier made The Transporter a slick, smart, action thriller. Here he trades off some of the smart for more slickness, and while it doesn't always work, it works just enough.

The State Of Boys -- Part I: We Built This City

Welcome to another month of the "30/30 Challenge," or just "30/30." The goal is the same: 30 original stories in 30 days. Some will be memoirs, some commentary, some satiric, some dramatic. But for starters, I delve into memories I have not shared for more than two decades.

American Legion Missouri Boys' State is a hybrid of Scout camp, leadership retreat, civics class and Spring Break. It takes promising young men and tells them they can help plot the course of this nation.

"The Missouri Boys State Program has trained Missouri's finest youth leaders for over 50 years," touts the Citizens' Manual. "Your response to the challenge before you will prove that our founders were correct in giving to people the power to determine their own destiny. Take the torch which is being passed to you and run with it to the best of your ability."

I attended in June of 1988, accepting a sponsorship from the Raytown Rotary Club. I made the short list of people with high GPA's, bolstered by some moderate success on the speech and debate team. The experience didn't change my life, but it did give me a taste of college one year before I headed for the University of Missouri.

Mom and Dad dropped me off with my bags and said their goodbyes on a Saturday afternoon, and a bus trucked me to the Garrison Gym at Central Missouri State University in Warrensburg.

From my journal, June 17, 1988:

Already I estimate that I've hauled my luggage around at least 4 times -- and I don't know yet where I'm going to be staying. Everything's so quiet here ... I'm hot and sweaty. I bet my suit's all wrinkled up because of all that hauling. I can see my suitcase from here in the bleachers -- just a little speck in the sea of luggage.

First thing that happened to us in the gym was that they made us take a survey -- mostly geography and (ugh) distance estimation. Guess they're trying to find out how many geographic illiterates they have here. I will close -- something's gonna happen.

With that part done, we begin our journeys into young congressmen, lawyers, lawmen, judges and journalists.

Taking over an unused dorm in the building heat of June, I meet my roommate, "Paul" (so named because I can't remember his actual name). He's here from Steele, Missouri, a small town in the Missouri bootheel. Paul has his sites set on the legal track. I'm just trying to figure out what track I want. Becoming part of the government beast isn't on my list of career possibilities, leaving me defaulting to still-evolving journalism aspirations.

"Stand up," says James, our City Counselor in our first meeting. "Raise your hands."

We reach for the sky.

"Now stand on your chairs."

Fumble. Climb. Stand.

"Here's where you are right now. You are about to build a party structure, a city, a county, and a state government in a week. You're going to be blowing the roof off by the end."

Out of place as I feel, and still the shy one, I manage to hit it off with a few people besides Paul. Matthew is also on the J-track, and we will later end up as part of the Boys' State television operations. I also gravitate to the characters of the floor, one whose last name is Moran, but who affectionately takes on the name "Moron." We are a frat, but we don't start turning into one until we pick up on the name of our mock city: Coontz.

The name pays tribute to notable Missourian and Navy Admiral Robert Coontz, but in the hands of hormonally-charged teenagers, it takes on a sub-definition that hits below the belt. "Coontz! Coontz! Coontz!" the guys would chant as a rallying cry at various assemblies, forming a gesture with their hands to reinforce the subtext. We get a few mild warnings about it from the leadership, but what do we care? Girls aren't around.

Except during meals. A staff of young college ladies in blue kerchiefs, white blouses and dark skirts bring us our food and drink like peasant women imported from Minsk.

"I know that girl looked at me!" one of the guys at my table pants during our first meal. "You see that wink?" I don't see anything but testosterone. "I'm gonna leave her my room number!" He writes it on the tablecloth.

When party elections come around that evening, I stayed out. I'm not a partisan (and I'm still not), and the conflict-of-interest would be a screaming problem for somebody in the journalism school. Moron instantly stands out as somebody with enough goofy charm to be a likable leader, and he wins the ward committeeman nod. We pick a few other nuts-and-bolts jobs for the Nationalists and Federalists, our mock two-party system which wasn't supposed to have anything to do with the real-world Republicans and Democrats. I end up with the job of elections clerk, where I can be useful without setting off tripwires.

I take it seriously. Way too seriously. A group of guys back in Raytown is footing the bill for a week, for something I know wasn't right for me. I didn't dare turn down the opportunity; it's a point of honor. When somebody spends a lot of money to develop me, and I feel clueless as to what I'm doing, surrounded by the best and brightest strangers, it weighs me down like a boat anchor. After breakfast, on the way to Sunday church service, my head ends up inside a trash barrel -- sick, homesick or some combination of the two.

I make it through church. I make it through lunch. I make it to Boys' State Journalism school, where we get a crash course in the basics we didn't know and a trip to KMOS-TV, the CMSU station graciously donating studio time and space for our Boys' State TV newscasts -- to be shown at the evening assemblies along with commercials touting one city or another.

"These are $150,000 cameras," a production head softly pleads with us. "Please don't get wide with the shots and burn the tubes."

They let us try out the production switcher and Betacam SP tape machines. I drool over the Dubner CG and the way it can make text flip around and fly off in every direction. We appoint a news director and get two anchors. We pass them some scripts and tape our first newscasts. They come complete with public service announcements, as we dump a few blades of turf onto a table next to a chair, cheekily urging the guys to "Keep Off The Grass."

If only my reporting skills match my enthusiasm. Shy people make poor journalists because they can't pry information out of people. They're not dogged enough. I learn how much I lack when I file a story about a Sunday evening power blip that knocks out the lights to half the Coontz dorm. I have the basics with a lot of unknowns. Others fill in the gaps, but how? Where are they getting this information alongside all the meetings and meals and assemblies?

My governmental-track peers have their own hefty workload. The would-be attorneys, prosecutors and judges are cramming for Monday's bar exam, staying up past curfew with the counselors' blessing. Prospective legislators are already schmoozing alliances.

Still we find time to have fun. Moron and some of the guys hatch an idea to turn Sunday dinner into a toga party as a show of city unity. It would score points for us as cities competed for end-of-week bragging rights alongside the softball games. All of us march in wearing bed sheets around our t-shirts and shorts with pillowcase headwraps and sunglasses making us look like Roman Sheiks.

"Coontz! Coontz! Coontz!"

TOMORROW: How I find my way, and "kissing up" in politics!

The Wrath Of Khan Goes On

Reel To Reel: Star Trek Into Darkness

Going Rate: Worth full price admission
Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana (and yes, Leonard Nimoy!)
Rated: PG-13
Red Flags: Action violence, phaser shooting, one very brief sexually suggestive scene involving aliens

I liked what director J.J. Abrams did with the first Star Trek reboot. With the second, he is walking a fine line between reboot and remix, as he walks that other fine line of staying true to the vision Trek fans love while bringing in the next generation. Star Trek Into Darkness borrows a little too liberally from 1982's Star Trek II, but at least it cribs lovingly.

The film opens with Capt. James T. Kirk (Pine) and Spock (Quinto) cribbing from another 1980's film as they run from an indigenous tribe in an alien jungle. I'll pause here while you film geeks make a few guesses. In the process of escaping the planet and trying to save it, Kirk violates a list of Starfleet regulations. He loses command of the Enterprise, which we're amazed to find also works as an amphibious vehicle.

Just as Kirk is contemplating life out of the command chair, a terrorist threat hits Starfleet in the form of one man with explosives and a portable transporter beam. He takes out part of headquarters and Kirk's mentor, leading to the former captain getting a new mission: find this guy and take him out, even if it takes him into Klingon territory.

And who should this guy be but -- cue the drum roll -- Khan! Only it's not Ricardo Montalban's Khan, with that chest too buff to be real and flanked by Chippendale's dancers. It's Benedict Cumberbatch (of Sherlock fame) with a voice that oozes sinister the first time you hear it. The new Khan doesn't need alien baby armadillos to invade people's ears and do his bidding. He's a master manipulator, playing everyone's brain like a piano. Can he work on Spock? Or is he locked into that infamous two-dimensional thinking?

The crew's all here, faithful to their classic counterparts: Uhura (Saldana), Sulu (John Cho), Chekov (Anton Yelchin), Bones (Urban, comfortably hilarious in the role), and Scotty (Simon Pegg in full Scot mode). I admire Abrams' and the writers' campy cool, especially Spock, although Quinto's version suggests the First Officer may be illogically taking a few uppers. Leonard Nimoy's Spock had a restrained rationality. New Spock has a mind running at warp speed, and it makes me wonder how he can remember to be half-human.

One of the most rewarding parts of this re-imagining is how it leaves overdone ethical dramas behind, if you don't count Spock's motor-mouth morality -- and just about everybody else does. Gene Roddenberry would have hated this amped-up version of his space saga, devoid of some blindingly obvious takeaway. Into Darkness plays more like Star Wars in some portions. But can you imagine Han Solo having to tolerate Spock? "Watch your mouth, kid, or it's gonna be a long walk back to Vulcan."

Have You Seen Any Of Those Talking Pictures, Old Sport?

Reel To Reel: The Great Gatsby

Going Rate: Worth full price admission (in 3D)
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan, Joel Edgerton
Rated: PG-13
Red Flags: Brief Violence, A Few Curse Words, Two Sexually Suggestive Scenes (Notice I didn't add "Smoking" like the MPAA did. I refuse to lump cigarettes into a new category of film obscenity, something that comes more from the health police than the moral police.)

F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece has made it into countless high-school literature courses, except for the ones I took. So I will not try to tell you whether or not it lives up to the novel. Honestly, asking any movie based on a classic novel to achieve the same level of prestige ignores the fact we are dealing with two different mediums: one speaks to our imaginations, the other to our senses. Expecting full faithfulness of a film adaptation is not setting the bar too high -- it's moving the bar to a different room.

In the broad outlines of plot, The Great Gatsby sticks to the source material. But director Baz Luhrmann's film is focused on what Fitzgerald was trying to do in words: capture the flavor and decadence of the Roaring Twenties. By that measure, he succeeds glamorously. The movie bathes us in lavish sets and stylish wardrobes. Computer-generated imagery transforms New York City into its Jazz Age self. We jump headfirst into over-the-top parties drowning in glittering girls, gangsters, bootlegged booze, dapperness, and debauchery. They're circuses without animals. The film is tailored nicely to 3D, with confetti and streamers flying in our faces. At times the dialogue explodes into brisk binges, as if the characters are reciting blank verse in a musicless musical. Some of it seems there only for rhythm. Every scene feels choreographed rather than directed. You may have already heard tsk-tsking about Luhrmann substituting hip-hop music for 20's jazz in some sequences. His rationalization: jazz was the hip-hop of its day. It's supposed to make us connect more closely with the film, but I didn't buy into that. Luhrmann does such a fine job recreating the past, so why not go all in?

I won't try to rehash a plot many of you know except to say it revolves around mysterious tycoon Jay Gatsby (DiCaprio) who is trying to woo his one true love, Daisy (Mulligan). She's in a loveless marriage to Tom (Edgerton), living in a mansion across a Long Island bay from Gatsby's monstrous estate, site of his wild parties. Nick Carraway (Maguire) lives in a rustic cottage next door. He is a relative of Daisy's and narrator of both the novel and movie. However, the film adds the unnecessary device of placing Carraway in therapy, asked to write out his thoughts as a means of getting more of Fitzgerald's prose on screen. Luhrmann adds special effects to some of that text, making words float around the frame or allowing letters to drop like snowflakes.

In the book, Carraway is drawn into a fascination with Gatsby and becomes one of his few true friends. But Maguire's interpretation has him mostly along for the ride, alternating between innocent and awkward. The part doesn't seem right for him. As for DiCaprio, he could play Gatsby in his sleep. The heartthrob the girls gushed over in Titanic has perfected roles featuring mannered men of stature who've worked their way up. Mulligan and Edgerton do just fine.

I like this movie, even though I know people will consider it literary sacrilege. Four versions have been filmed, one featuring Robert Redford, but none seeming to nail it for the cultural elite. They are not going to like this one either because of its style over substance -- ironically, one of Fitzgerald's themes. They'll be disappointed the film doesn't weigh the novel's moral warnings heavily enough. They'll demand a Great American Film from a Great American Novel. It's an admirable goal, but... where did that bar go again, Old Sport?

He Who Fights Evil With The Coolest Toys Wins

Reel To Reel: Iron Man 3

Going Rate: Worth full price admission
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Ben Kingsley
Rated: PG-13
Red Flags: Action violence, several references to sex, mild language

I wonder how Sigmund Freud would've analyzed Tony Stark. He could spend hours delving into the clash between Stark's id and super-ego, and how his psyche is constantly trying to mediate between the two. My unprofessional diagnosis finds hims to be a walking think-tank, an arrogant supercomputer with ADD that processes information at the highest possible data rate. He designs amazingly smart gadgets, but he's always smarter than any of them, which means Iron Man 3 isn't about the suit, it's about the man who wears it.

But we knew that. We knew it from the original, which turned out to be a bigger hit than people expected, largely because Robert Downey Jr.'s character is so compelling to watch. Iron Man 2 pushed Stark's quirks, which became too much of a distraction. Then came The Avengers, which should've been renamed Iron Man 2.5 for the way he stole the show. Now comes the official third chapter, one that's human and interestingly low-tech in many places.

Stark is constantly working to improve his Iron Man suits, and we see him working on a feature probably inspired from a Harry Potter summoning charm. Or maybe it was Luke Skywalker's light-saber procuring trick. Work seems to be helping him deal with anxiety issues he developed during The Avengers, and he has several shiny new prototypes ready to go.

It looks like he'll need them all. A maniac terrorist named The Mandarin (Kingsley) is breaking into television broadcasts and blowing things up. He's supposed to remind us of Osama Bin Laden, but he sounds more like Dr. Evil after walking onto the set of Kung Fu. What's more, tracking him is frustrating authorities because his handiwork doesn't leave the kind of shrapnel one expects from IED's. (The timing of this film had to cause concerns for Marvel and Paramount Pictures, coming less than a month after the Boston Marathon bombings. No doubt some of the images will be especially disturbing for people.)

Pepper Potts (Paltrow) is back as Tony's girlfriend and personal assistant, but she's getting tired of Tony's suit collection and work habits. She's running Tony's company by proxy when a suitor walks in. Aldrich Killian (Pearce) has a miracle treatment to regenerate lost limbs, only they run a little hot in the process. We learn this is the same guy Tony brushed off years ago during a 1999 New Years' Eve party, which means he must be evil under Hollywood's laws for movie villains. Also returning is Stark's buddy, Col. James "Rhodey" Rhodes (Cheadle) in a cheesy "Iron Patriot" clone.

Iron Man 3 finds the right dosage of Stark's character while giving him more vulnerability. At times he is forced to go old-school, playing more the detective than the mad scientist. He befriends a child (Ty Simpkins) as he tries to get his suit fixed. Their relationship is not an emotional tack-on designed to milk our emotion, but a working partnership that advances the story. Oh yeah, there's action, too. We have huge, over-the-top armor battles where Tony gets to surprise us over and over with his Iron Man gizmos, bugs and all.

I still think the first installment of the series is the best of the lot, but the third ranks a close second, with The Avengers a close third. A sequel to that picture is now in the works, and now the question is, how much has Tony Stark got left in his mind?

The Most Unkindest Sack Of All

New York Jets backup quarterback Tim Tebow is off the team after a stint as a highly-paid charismatic bench warmer. It's disgusting. It's insulting. It defies logic.

"Unfortunately," coach Rex Ryan said in the official press release, "things did not work out the way we all had hoped." Here's where I pause to inhale vapors from a simmering stew of irony, denial, and cluelessness.

The Jets paid $4 million in salary and contract buyout to acquire Tebow from the Denver Broncos. Breaking down his stats with the green and white, that works out to $500,000 per pass attempt, $666,667 per completion, $125,000 per rush, $39,216 per rushing yard -- with no touchdowns. Any GM looking at these numbers would declare Tebow wasn't working out. But the key word here is "work."

Tebow spent more time on the bench than the field this past season. When Ryan sent starting quarterback Mark Sanchez to the sidelines, he skipped over Tebow for third-string Greg McElroy. I have heard various riffs on a universal excuse: Tebow just doesn't have the skillset needed for NFL-level football. So why did the Jets pay out the nose for him in the first place? The team had to be thinking of Tebow's fan base -- all those Christian evangelicals and others he would bring in, because they sure as heck weren't thinking about actually playing him.

ESPN columnist Rich Cimini writes:

Tebow doesn't get away unscathed here. He failed to capitalize on his few opportunities, looking nothing like the player who ran through the Jets in 2011. He put on weight, at the team's request, making him slower.

He threw the ball so poorly in training camp, making the same mistakes over and over, that coaches began to question the trade.

Others say Tebow refused to consider playing other positions. The reported fit he threw after the Sanchez-McElroy slight hurt his chances. But distilling out the drama and speculations, I arrive at two indisputable conclusions: 1) Tebow was hired to be a quarterback, and 2) the Jets never allowed him to be one.

Some players don't rise to the occasion until they are put to the test. The Jets never gave Tebow the chance to perform under pressure, in a critical game, in front of his millions of fans. They never gave him a shot at repeating the playoff miracle he worked for the Denver Broncos. They never let him use what was in his toolbox. You can argue football is a high-stakes business, not a motivational seminar. But the Jets never even tried to force their $4 million investment to pay a dividend. If Tebow had blown a big game, gotten sacked or intercepted too many times, we would understand. Now the best the team can do is say "things did not work out" with wimpy credibility, giving an equivalent of "John Doe is leaving to spend more time with family."

As I go to press, Tebow does not have any other NFL offers. Perhaps that will change as his fan base rallies around him, and he still has his foundation to keep him occupied. On Twitter, he offers Scripture as a window into his feelings right now: "Proverbs 3:5-6: Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding... in all your ways acknowledge HIM, and HE will make your paths straight."

If I had to pick a proverb for the Jets, Proverbs 3:27 seems to fit: "Do not withhold good from those who deserve it when it's in your power to help them."

Ohhhhh, That's Gotta Hurt

Reel To Reel: Pain And Gain

Going Rate: Skip it
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, Ed Harris, Tony Shalhoub
Rated: R
Red Flags: Graphic violence, including running people over and cutting them up, graphic sexuality and sex acts, nudity, language

Director Michael Bay says he made Pain And Gain as a break from his stream of bloated multi-million dollar blockbusters, notably the Transformers series. So he picked a darkly comic true-crime tale from 1990's Miami, got Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson to star, held the budget to $22 million... and still ended up making a bloated picture. It's also gross, vulgar, and definitely not the crime comedy he thought he was making.

Pain And Gain recounts Miami's notorious Sun Gym gang, a crew of muscleheads which went down for two murders, one attempted murder, kidnapping, extortion, torture, theft and a rap sheet of other offenses. The gang is led by Daniel Lugo (Wahlberg), a buffed-up ex-con and con man who talks his way into pumping up business at a flailing gym. Lugo is unable to translate his business success into a bigger paycheck, leaving him to live check-to-check in a run-down apartment and drive a car that could've been rejected from a Miami Vice re-run. He's personal trainer to Victor Kershaw (Shalhoub), a swaggering accountant and entrepreneur with a touch of Leona Helmsley: "You know who invented salad? Poor people."

I would think class envy would be enough of a motivator for a disgruntled working man unable to capture the American Dream, but no, the movie introduces us to the first of many bits of bloat. Enter Johnny Wu (Ken Jeong), a throwaway motivational speaker injected into the picture to give Lugo more drive. Wu spits and spouts about "doers and don'ters," and Lugo takes it as gospel. He formulates a plan to kidnap Kershaw, take him for all his money, and kill him. Lugo recruits gym buddy Adrian Dorbal (Anthony Mackie), a steroid-injecting bodybuilder who is having -- and I say this politely -- virility problems and needs cash for treatment. The duo also pull in Paul Doyle (Johnson), a purported born-again Christian who's trying to stay off drugs and keep from returning to prison but somehow can't read his moral compass.

Lugo's gang cons its way into getting the tools they need for the job, but they don't pump up their smarts. Grabbing Kershaw happens only after several bungled attempts ("Mission Abort!") in crazy costumes. They bind and torture their mark and get him to sign his life away, but they fail to kill him, even after staging a car explosion and running him over twice. When a battered Kershaw fails to get the police to take his wild story seriously, he turns to aging private investigator Ed Du Bois (Harris). While Du Bois checks out the story with more than a healthy bit of skepticism -- Kershaw's ordeal sounds suspiciously like a drug-related crime -- the Sun Gym gang plows through their mark's plundered wealth, helping themselves to his cars, home and credit cards. Soon they realize they need more loot, and they plot another job that spirals out of control.

None of the film's characters, save for maybe Harris' and Johnson's, are likable. The picture enjoys submerging us in as much of Miami's sleaziness and sultriness as we can handle, as if the torture and kidnapping weren't enough. Miami's Chamber of Commerce should wince. The film paints the town as a haven for crooks, incompetents, derelicts, perverts, and every sort of human trash.

But Pain And Gain's biggest crime is injecting steroids into an already lurid and fascinating true-crime story. Right after seeing the film, I looked up Pete Collins' Miami New Times articles that inspired the screenplay. Collins' reporting contains enough character and plot twists for a solid script without the need for fabricated plot devices, fabricated characters (including the aforementioned motivational speaker), composite characters, throwaway sex scenes, and slowed-down shots of people getting hit by cars or blood dripping from a power saw. What's more, the film wants to be another GoodFellas or Casino with its frenetic edits and multiple narrative tracks -- good influence, poor execution.

Michael Bay is an action director and not a comedy director, and yet he tries to have it both ways, failing on both attempts. This film could be a straight actioner or a dopey gross-out laffer like The Hangover series. Like Lugo's schemes, it wants everything and ultimately gains nothing -- except for the box office money, of course.

How Not To Behave

Some of you have read the crazy email floating around the 'net from a University of Maryland sorority chair decrying her crew's "weird" and "awkward" moments during a Greek Week matchup with a fraternity. I am intentionally not linking to it, choosing to spare you from the possibility of an accidental click which will end up aging you five years prematurely.

I read the profanity-laced, rant-infused, venom-spewing epistle in its hyperactive entirety. "Shocking" fails to describe it. "Insane" comes closer. I'm wondering why I volunteered my eyes to ingest this steaming cesspool of hate after I got a tip-off about it. Now I have a theory: negative reinforcement.

Sometimes the best primers on how to behave come from the reverse psychology of witnessing how not to conduct ourselves. The Crazy Sorority Girl email tops the list. Without sourcing the letter for examples (and trust me, you don't want to read them anyway), here's what I took away:

• Incessant complaining about others' failure to follow makes me wonder if there's a failure to lead. Or to put it bluntly, the fish stinks from the head. I don't find a lick of proactivity in this email.
• Mocking, insulting and inferring your sorority sisters are brain damaged for not showing the desired level of enthusiasm and hospitality will only guarantee more awkward moments.
• Using the f-bomb at a pace exceeding that found in the movie Casino does nothing to endear you to prospective pledges, well-adjusted frat brothers, or the general public.
• Sororities and their male counterparts already have a bad reputation. This deranged email just wiped out months, if not years, of any goodwill generated by community service projects -- which college Greek organizations do but are never remembered for.

In full disclosure, I never belonged to a fraternity in college. I didn't have to. The 7th floor of Hatch Hall at the University of Missouri had enough antics to qualify without anybody pledging. I also knew I wasn't fraternity material, being more worker bee than social butterfly.

I will advise this to the future freshman lords and ladies: think carefully about the Greek organizations you rush. Don't be conned by fears of dorm life. If you are doubtful in the least about the social dynamic you are injecting yourself into, turn on your heels. Great people come out of great sororities and fraternities, and the prospective organization must exist as a vehicle for developing yourself beyond a token service requirement. The brotherhood and sisterhoood must function like a family, not Mama's Family.

The sorority's national office is quickly distancing itself and investigating. A head may roll, or it may not. National offices deal with these issues and are done with them. No broad cultural shift is attempted or expected. We've come to accept Greek-letter organizations as Animal House. And if that's good enough for the rest of us, it's good enough for them.

Fair Ball, Foul Game

Reel To Reel:  42

Going Rate:  Worth full price admission
Starring:  Chadwick Boseman, Harrison Ford, Nicole Beharie, Christopher Meloni
Rated:  PG-13
Red Flags:  Adult language, racism, copious uses of the n-word (but not as much as in Django Unchained)

Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color line years before the peak of the civil rights movement. But he couldn't have done it without the backing and vision of Brooklyn Dodgers General Manager Branch Rickey, who recruited and nurtured Robinson, clearing his path from minor-league ball into the majors. If Robinson is the hero on the field, Rickey is the hero in the front office, and 42 gives both due credit.

Rickey is played with a lovable grizzled saintliness by Harrison Ford, proving the aging Han Solo has a few memorable roles left in him. He makes the decision to bring Robinson (Boseman) out of the Negro leagues with ambiguous motives; at first we're not really sure whether Rickey is making a political statement or a business decision. It becomes clear in their first meeting as he lectures Robinson on what he will face and what will be expected. "Your enemy will be out in force," Rickey says. "But you cannot meet him on his own low ground."

Robinson seems to be okay with that, preferring to prove himself as a heavy hitter and base stealer, cheered and booed respectively by black and white fans sitting in separate sections. Robinson has little dialogue compared to his on-field performance, or maybe it just seems that way. We also see the bitter racism of the south and its muted-but-active northern version. A film like 42 could easily degrade into a preachy spectacle, but not here. His teammates, resistant to integrate, slowly come around when they find Robinson, jersey number 42, will get them to a pennant.

Little of Robinson's life outside of baseball makes the screen aside from his relationship with his wife Rachel (Beharie), number one fan and quiet source of strength. We also have a black sportswriter, Wendell Smith (Andre Holland), who serves mainly to help tie together narrative loose ends as he types out details of Robinson's career from the bleachers. Hollywood's minor leagues fills out the most of the roster, which keeps the film from striking out due to egos. According to IMDB.com, producers Howard and Karen Baldwin developed this film after their previous project Ray became a hit. Just like that picture, they ran into difficulty getting this one off the ground, which either tells you something about Hollywood executives or Hollywood's racial philosophies, or both.

42 works because it is content to be a good baseball movie and not an epic biography of Jackie Robinson. Although it has a few compulsory motivational speech scenes inherent to sports flicks, those scenes are handled with economy. I read where Spike Lee was once working on a Robinson picture with Denzel Washington as lead. I thought of how much more charisma Washington could've have brought to the role, but this film isn't about charisma -- it's about baseball.

We're Sorry, Louis Taylor (Even If Barbara LaWall Isn't)

The case against Louis Taylor was filled with problems. A team of lawyers proved it. The Pima County Attorney's office knew it. And still, in freeing the man convicted of Tucson's 1970 Pioneer Hotel fire, which killed 29 people, the best Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall could do for him was a slimy no-contest deal. It got Taylor out of prison right away in exchange for the equivalent of a guilty plea, when he's maintained his innocence all along.

I can't blame Taylor for taking the deal, flawed as it was. Fighting for total exoneration would've taken at least a couple more years. Worse, Taylor's defense lawyer says the County Attorney's office vowed to fight it all the way. After 43 years behind bars on flimsy evidence, he didn't deserve to spend another day incarcerated. But what's puzzling is why the Pima County Attorney's office feels such a strong need to cover for a prosecution team that isn't around anymore. Furthermore, the lead fire investigator on the case is standing by his investigation, never mind that arson CSI has come a long way in four decades.

"We cannot forget the victims," LaWall said. "This was not an exoneration."

She was right on that one, but not like she meant. We're still left with the stench of a flawed investigation, likely tainted by racism. It took two stories on "60 Minutes" before prosecutors decided they needed to do some damage control. Note that Taylor got out only two days after the news magazine blew the whistle again. If Taylor isn't exonerated in LaWall's view, neither are those who handled the original case in 1970. Yes, we cannot forget the victims. But the victims, if they were somehow able to speak to us, would tell us to convict the right person, not the most convenient one.

As a bonus for the prosecutor's office, the deal limits Taylor's ability to sue the county for wrongful imprisonment. It's troubling that a roomful of lawyers couldn't work out a plan to fairly compensate him for the time he can't get back. Watching Taylor speak, I don't see it in his nature to take Pima County taxpayers for every last dime. He just wants to get on with the rest of his life. But he's going to need help putting that life back together, and yes, that means paying him some money.

Taylor says the Pima County Attorney's office could have done the honorable thing. Instead, it did the easy thing. The CA's handling of the case reminds me of why people make crude jokes about lawyers. Fortunately, knowing the nature of Tucsonans, they are more than willing to apologize for the misdeeds of public officials who act in their name. I'm sure they'll help Louis Taylor begin a new chapter of his life.

If It May Please The Court, Or More Specifically, My MAKER...

My views on gay marriage don't fit neatly into a Facebook post, much less an icon, and they definitely won't make it onto a bumper sticker. I will confess to you they have "evolved," as President Obama might say. In 2004, before I got right with GOD, I wrote, "Your Gay Marriage Doesn't Threaten My Straight One." That was before I knew GOD's Truth. My stand reads more like a court brief, so I submit this filing.

Let me start with my personal beliefs. First, I believe homosexuality is a sin because that's what the Bible tells us clearly. The Bible references homosexuality nine times. Four of those times are in the Old Testament (all verses NIV):

• Genesis 19:1-25, which is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Genesis 19:5 says, "They called to Lot, 'Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.'"
• Judges 19:22-30, a similar incident. Genesis 19:22: "While they were enjoying themselves, some of the wicked men of the city surrounded the house. Pounding on the door, they shouted to the old man who owned the house, 'Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex with him.'"
• Leviticus 18:22: "Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable."
• Leviticus 20:13: "If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads."

The other five mentions, in the New Testament:

• Romans 1:24-28: "Therefore GOD gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about GOD for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, GOD gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of GOD, so GOD gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done."
• 1 Corinthians 9-10: "Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of GOD? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of GOD."
• 1 Timothy 1:8-11: "We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed GOD, which he entrusted to me."
• 2 Peter 2:6-10 "if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)— if this is so, then the LORD knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment. This is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the flesh and despise authority."
• Jude 1:7: "In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire."

Homosexuality is directly mentioned in five of these verses. The others reference it from the broader topic of sexual immorality. But either way, it's clear GOD tells us homosexuality is a sin. Let me deal with two common arguments used by those who claim homosexuality isn't sinful.

1) JESUS never talked about homosexuality. True. But HE never talked about a lot of things in the Old Testament either, because HE didn't need to. The Jewish nation had GOD's law already. Also, JESUS talks about a proper marriage in Matthew 19:4-5: "'Haven’t you read,' HE replied, 'that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?" So JESUS is on the record for the definition of marriage as a man and a woman.  Also, we don't know for sure HE never brought up the subject, as John 21:25 tells us:  "JESUS did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written."

2) The Old Testament has lots of stuff considered sins like eating red meat and pork that Christians do without raising a fuss! Again, true, but that was the Old Covenant with GOD. Under JESUS, we have a new covenant, one that specifically tosses the dietary laws. JESUS says in Matthew 15:11: "What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them." Romans 14:17 says "For the kingdom of GOD is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit."

(FaithFacts offers some more analysis.)

Now let me take on another argument made by gay-rights supporters: "Why is it so wrong for two men or two women to love each other?"

The answer is, there's absolutely nothing wrong with it, as long as we're talking about love outside an erotic context. Many favoring gay rights point to 1 Samuel 18:1 for support: "After David had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself." However, the Bible is talking about brotherly love, not erotic love. Reading on through verse 4, we see: "from that day Saul kept David with him and did not let him return home to his family. And Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself. Jonathan took off the robe he was wearing and gave it to David, along with his tunic, and even his sword, his bow and his belt."

We have more than one type of love: platonic, which is a friendship sort of love; erotic, which extends into the romantic and sexual; and agape, which is an all-encompassing "higher love" -- an affection for people in general and a desire to sacrifice for them. You can argue Jonathan's love for David as the agape type.

Coming back to what I believe, as someone who loves (agape) and wants to serve GOD, I cannot see gay marriage -- including the sexual component -- as something other than sinful, and I speak as someone who has homosexual friends and colleagues. You think I like taking this position? JESUS told us living for HIM wasn't going to be easy in John 15:18-21: "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated ME first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted ME, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed MY teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of MY name, for they do not know the one who sent ME." Living for GOD requires sacrifice, and that includes sacrificing the easy or popular mindset of the time if it doesn't square with GOD's commandments.

Let me tell you what I do NOT believe:

• I do NOT believe the Bible tells us to act violently towards homosexuals, regardless of that verse in Leviticus. JESUS taught us to love sinners, in the agape way. As for that Leviticus verse, the context of that was GOD's commands to Israel in that time to purify itself and rid itself of sinful practices found in pagan nations surrounding them. If Israel was going to be GOD's chosen people, it had to walk the walk, even in the extreme sense. GOD also had another motive with the Old Testament laws: to show us how it was impossible to live perfectly within HIS will. Boy, did we ever need JESUS!
• I do NOT support that crazy cult church in Kansas that demonstrates at military funerals saying soldiers die because of homosexuality in America. JESUS says in Matthew 7:15-17: "Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit." You can certainly see from the actions of this so-called church, it's not bearing good fruit.
• I WILL NOT refuse to work alongside people who are gay, nor will I openly condemn my gay friends, nor will I name and shame them publicly by stepping onto some moral high horse for all to witness. I consider that acting like a Pharisee. The Bible says in Romans 3:23: "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of GOD." I don't play the game of "this sin is worse than that sin." A sin is a sin is a sin, and as Romans 6:23 says, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of GOD is eternal life in CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD."

I also have to remember this: not everyone who is gay has gotten right with GOD in the first place, or even believes in GOD to begin with. What good does it do me to argue GOD's Truth to people who aren't of a mind to accept it? This goes for a multitude of sins, not just homosexuality. In Matthew 7:6, JESUS tells us not to waste time trying to hammer GOD's truth into people when they're not ready: "Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces." Don't get bent out of shape over the use of "pigs" and "dogs" in this verse. JESUS is talking metaphorically, not pejoratively.  It's like this modern-day saying: "Never teach a pig to sing. It doesn't work and it annoys the pig."

So now I come to the question, should government recognize same-sex marriage? The Bible tells us governments are an authority recognized by GOD in Romans 13:1-2: "Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which GOD has established. The authorities that exist have been established by GOD. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what GOD has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves."

So clearly governments have a responsibility to act within GOD's will.  What happens when they stray outside that will? You can look through the Old Testament and see numerous examples of Israel suffering under the rule of evil kings and leaders who strayed from GOD's law.

What about separation of church and state? Let's be clear about what it means. Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802: "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man and his GOD, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church and State." He was talking about keeping government from messing around with churches, not keeping GOD's principles out of government.

Here's where it gets complicated: clearly, government is within bounds to prohibit gay marriage. But technically, it's also within bounds to declare homosexuality in general illegal, which has been done in the past, but is now largely a relic of our past. Our authorities don't go around rounding up homosexuals -- something Hitler's gestapo did. I don't want that. Most Christians, save for those radical fringes, don't want that. GOD doesn't want that -- in truth, HE'S within rights to round ALL of us up for our sins!

So how can government justify banning gay marriage when it doesn't ban gays? It doesn't have to condone the decisions for same-sex couples to marry. It doesn't have to make gay marriage equal with straight marriage. If a same-sex couple wants to live together, I'm not going to call for government to break them up. But just as our governments don't give marriage benefits to straight couples living together out of marriage, I say they shouldn't feel obligated to do the same with gay couples. I don't consider that to be discrimination; I see it as acting in accordance with what GOD is asking governments to do.

Again, I'm not saying I LIKE THIS. GOD's principles are not there for our enjoyment. I know some of my friends are going to disagree with me adamantly about this, and that's fine. I don't hate you. I don't want to. I am not on a mission to preach and rail against homosexuality, and if you know me, you know that. But when the question is put to me, and I have to answer it and take a position, I'm going to take GOD's position, because I love GOD and want to serve HIM, even if that makes me unpopular with my friends or with the world. That's life. That's Christian life.

Yes, I've changed my beliefs since I wrote that 2004 post. But one thing remains unchanged. In 2004, I wrote:

If you think about it, we don't even need gay marriages to degrade straight ones. We've done that already. We've done it through a 50 percent divorce rate. We've done it through "triple-a:" adultery, abuse, abandonment. We've gotten into commitments we weren't ready for, and we refused to let somebody talk us out of them because nobody else is allowed to be judgmental when we're in love.

So we've all got work to do. Just like the Bible says, "For all have sinned..."

Goodbye, Randy

Randy Garsee (Source: KOLD)

Like many of you, I was shocked to hear the sudden death of former KOLD news anchor Randy Garsee. I hadn't spoken to him on a regular basis since he left the station in 2006, but I knew he was pursuing journalism on his own terms, just the way he wanted it.

Randy arrived at KOLD in 1997, shortly after his longtime partner Kris Pickel and about three years before I stepped into the newsroom. His corner cubicle was adorned with dragons -- his favorite mythical creature -- and a millennium coffee-mug he'd doctored to read "01-01-01" instead of "00" at the end. Randy and the station shared the philosophy that the real turn of the millennium would come a year after the monstrous hype over all things Y2K. He reported and edited a weekly feature, "Beyond The Millennium," which spotlighted futuristic, cutting-edge subjects with a Tucson connection. One story had him checking out paranormal research at the University of Arizona and raising the question of whether mediums might one day testify in court on behalf of the dead.

One story he pursued relentlessly was the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, that polygamous breakaway sect of the Mormon church led by shadowy self-proclaimed prophet Warren Jeffs. Randy journeyed to the Utah-Arizona border and a remote ranch in West Texas as he tracked it.

He once tried to get an interview with Jeffs as members revealed what was happening in the FLDS-controlled enclave of Colorado City, Arizona. A camera rolled while he made a call from a pay phone in the town:

RANDY: "Hello, Brother Nephi?"

ISSAC: "This is Isaac."

RANDY: "Hi there, Brother Issac, I was wondering if I could talk to the Prophet today."

ISAAC: "Who is this?"

RANDY: "My name is Randy Garsee. I'm with KOLD-TV in Tucson. Would he be available for an interview today?"

ISAAC: "Negative, he would not."

RANDY: "Does he ever talk to the media?"

ISAAC: "We have no comment."

In the end, it didn't matter. Jeffs went to the slammer for hooking up underage girls with FLDS members. Garsee moved on to the next story.

With his Navy background, he proved to be an invaluable resource for military perspective and technical rib-poking. In 2003, He went to Kuwait when the U.S. tangled with Saddam Hussein again, hoping to get the inside story on Davis-Monthan Air Force Base personnel overseas. But due to a mess-up in the commanding ranks, neither the access nor the lodging he had been promised materialized. He nearly ended up stuck in the Middle East as the nation went to war. "I think I just got somebody fired," Randy said after he complained to the officers.

Randy with then-KOLD photographer Carl Lemon,
taking on "Anchorman."  (Source: Facebook)

In 2001, he came up with a new idea for a movie review feature: have people who share an occupation with characters in the film offer their take on how Hollywood portrays their job. I suggested the name: "Reel Life Movie Reviews." We debuted it with the film Pearl Harbor using three military service members who narrated their thoughts intercut with movie clips. For Spider-Man we turned to a local comic store owner and a spider specialist from the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. A Tucson magician offered his opinions on Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. When The Passion Of The Christ came out, Reel Life was a natural fit to let members of Tucson's religious community offer their views.  Randy got to see movies on Friday and get paid for it.

But most of Randy's viewers remember his knife-edged wit. He often injected micro-commentary into news items, especially when the station's aging tape decks started breaking up video on the air. "Can we get a working tape recorder around here?" he once blurted out from the anchor desk. In other famous on-air moments, he teased former reporter Kaushal Patel about her wardrobe choice and asked J.D. Wallace why there was barbed wire up at Pima County Democratic Headquarters. I gather he had the Howard Cosell effect: viewers who loved him watched because they wanted to see what he'd say next, and those who hated him watched to see what he'd say next.

In a 2006 interview with Tucson Weekly, he said:

"I always feel like people are inviting you into your living room. This is a job. People know it's a job; it's a career, but everybody likes to have a little fun on the job. Everybody does. That's something I took from the newsroom to the anchor desk. I try not to be too flip or too obnoxious, but my philosophy is to watch the newscast with the viewer, and if things go wrong, or if I do something stupid, which happens all the time, comment about it. Say something about it. I get more e-mail about those kinds of remarks--about referencing video, the jokes at the end of the show--more comments on that from viewers than anything else."

Your humble servant shouldered some of Randy's one-liners. When I took poetic liberties with some news copy, he quipped: "Our producer, Chris Francis Shakespeare wrote that." In the newsroom, when I heard crackling over the scanner about a body being found and noted it was right down the street from my home, he cried out: "Dammit, Francis, I told you to bury those bodies further away!"



Randy was also an aspiring novelist. He'd completed two books in his stint with KOLD, but he was having trouble getting them published, even with help from an agent. I revealed to him I had been working on a novel myself, and he graciously asked to see the first chapter or so. Within days he returned with his verdict.

"You need to seriously pursue this," he said, not cracking any jokes this time. "For somebody to turn around a novel this fast shows ability." Actually, I had been working on it for about 10 years in various forms, including a screenplay, but I had never finished it until months before. He encouraged me to spend the money on a writers' workshop in Tucson, where I could start courting potential publishers and agents while learning the business.

I did so in 2003, doing an interview and sending out some query letters and manuscript samples, but the book went nowhere. I knew I would have to send out oodles more to have a decent shot, but ultimately, I decided the text could be better and focused my attention on my day job. Randy eventually turned to e-publishing to get in print. One day, I might head that route.

Randy's passions for reporting and writing were only matched by the passion of his demeanor. He didn't suffer fools gladly, and I saw him light into more than one person. He believed in fighting for his stories, almost to blows in some cases. Randy also refused to practice office diplomacy, which did him in when he thought his contributions were being marginalized.

Source: Blogspot

It didn't take him long to find his next gig. He went to a smaller station in Ada, Oklahoma, and then moved back to a military job, providing video from U.S. operations overseas. Randy was working as a communications and public affairs adviser for the Center for Naval Analyses and Institute for Public Research when he passed away in his sleep on Sunday. He was only 50, a mere nine years older than me, but with enough experience for two lives.

Randy had a wife and two daughters. One of the girls loved to run up and hug me every time she visited the newsroom.

"Oh, thank you," I said to her. "You know the producer doesn't get a whole lot of hugs."

"I'll hug ya," Randy deadpanned.