Theatre Thursday: Face It

Last week's entry sparked a couple of e-mail and in-real-life conversations about one of the perils of Facebook events: the fact that anyone can make one.
Complaints range from: "they get the dates wrong" to "it's annoying to have multiple event pages for one event."
So, what do you do?

Well, I think the solution is to simply be proactive. Make the first event page yourself from your company's Facebook page. (You have your own Facebook page, right? Right?) Get the dates right. List the cast and crew. Add a link to your website. (To. Your. Website.)
This way, all that your cast and crew members have to do is share the already-created page with whomever they want. Now, you may have people who still want to create their own event pages. They like to do it. You have two options. The first is that you can forbid them from doing so.
I wouldn't.
I would instead take the proactive approach again, and say, "We have our own Facebook event page, but, if you want to make your own to send to your friends and family, that's cool. Please, we just ask that you double-check the dates, spell the name of the show correctly, and you can feel free to add a link to our website - in fact, we encourage it."
Odds are that the reason multiple event pages get made in the first place is that everyone thinks no one is going to do it. You've eliminated most of that problem by making the page first and announcing it to the cast and the crew. If other people still want to make an event page of their own, that's only more promotion for you. (You may want to monitor Facebook to make sure that the message isn't going out too skewed, but that's really probably not going to happen.) I also highly doubt that all fifteen members of your cast are going to make their own pages and deluge Facebook with the events. Even if they do, and I'm friends with all of them, I'm not going to be too hacked off about being invited fifteen times. I might even be flattered. Of course, that's just me.
Again, though, if you get in front of it and make your own page first, I really don't think you're going to have any of those problems.

Wildlife Wednesday: Northern Exposure

It's possible that his
mustache made it
all the way.

On this day in 1909, Robert Peary's expedition reached the North Pole, the first expedition to do so. The claim was disputed by another man named Cook who claimed to have reached the North Pole a year earlier. After some dispute, Congress formally recognized Peary's claim in 1911.
The thing is, they were both wrong. Peary was the closer of the two, but he was probably about 30 miles short. That's still pretty good considering that it was 1909.
It wasn't until 1952, that someone actually made it to the true North Pole, but that really doesn't diminish Peary's accomplishment in my opinion (especially since that guy, Fletcher, went there in a plane.)

I'd be willing to bet that Peary and his small expedition encountered a few of these little guys along their way. 

"I (I,I...) Don't wanna know your name. . . Cuz you don't look the same . . .
The way you did befo-o-o-o-o-re . . ."

This is the Arctic Fox (Vulpes lagopus), and the only place to see these hearty little animals in the wild is in the areas on this map marked in blue.

Oh, wait. Sorry. I think that's the coverage map for my cell phone plan.

The Arctic Fox's are built for frigid environments. Their legs and ears are shorter which means it requires less circulation to keep their extremities warm. They have a thick layer of body fat and this really interesting countercurrent heat exchange system in their paws that allows them to retain more of their body heat. Plus they are pretty wily - even for foxes. Sometimes survival in the North means you have to steal food from a Polar Bear. I found a pretty cool video on HowStuffWorks.com:

Gutsy little buggers, those Arctic Fox. I suppose you'd have to be to survive up in those blue areas, though.

"Zzz . . . you screamed and e-e-everybody comes a-running . . . zzz . . ."

Tuesday Tunes: Brothers

My kid brother:
better than me in
pretty much every
way, and I'm more
okay with that than
you might think. 

Awesome guy. Awesome.

The two most important birthdays occurring on April 5th for me belong to the two men whom I refer to as my brothers. One is my brother by birth, Damon Darnell, whom I have mentioned here before, and the other is my childhood friend Jeff Jefferson, Jr., who has always been and will always be simply "J.R." to me. (We even did one of those "blood brother ceremonies" that kids used to do.) J.R. and I were roommates in college as well, and I was the best man at his wedding. When I finally get around to getting married these two men will share the best man duties at mine. (Don't dust off your tuxes, yet, gentlemen, I'm still pretty unbearable.)
It is appropriate that today is Tuesday Tunes here in the Wolf Den as both of these guys have had a great deal of influence on my musical tastes.
J.R. always had a great fondness for film scores - not soundtracks, mind you, but the actual scores - and when I was staying over at his house and while we we were roommates, we would fall to sleep to compositions by James Horner, Trevor Jones, Randy Edelman, Danny Elfman, and others.

J.R. and I would sometimes go see two or three movies in one day when we were in college. J.R. is one of the few guys who really gets my sense of humor, and he has one of the best laughs ever, which always fed my ego. (I suspect that J.R. even laughed at some of my jokes that maybe weren't all that funny. He's that kind of guy.) One of my favorite things to do was sit and listen to J.R.'s copy of the 1978 concept album: Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of War of the Worlds featuring Sir Richard Burton, Julie Covington, and Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues.

My brother, Damon, is a real music aficionado, who was heavily into classic rock in high school. He could - and probably still can - answer just about any question you can think of about Led Zeppelin.

Damon's later interest turned to jazz, and he even named his St. Bernard, Coltrane - something of a legend around Durango, Colorado - after jazz great John Coltrane.

Damon is always pointing to me toward new and old music that he has found, and, considering that my brother does the great majority of his searching without benefit of the internet, I am generally astounded by what he finds. Last night he was telling me that I really needed to check out the old-time music group, Uncle Earl.

Happy Birthday, my brothers.

Monday Motivator: Maya Angelou

"I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself."


"All great achievements require time."


"I believe that every person is born with talent."


"I have found that, among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver."


"Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns all clean."

Happy Birthday, Maya Angelou.

Sunday Superhero: Use the Force

I don't think I'm stretching the defition of "superhero" too far by extending it to include a Jedi Master. (I did use it to describe a talking dune buggy, if you'll recall.)
Since yesterday was the birthday of Sir Alec Guiness - the first man to play Obi-Wan "Ben" Kenobi - I thought I'd share the memorable fight scene between the Guiness Obi-Wan and Darth Vader from the film that started it all, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.

Happy Birthday, Sir Alec!

Save the World Saturday: The Missing Piece

Right on the front page of the Autism Speaks website, the numbers are there:
AUTISM AFFECTS
1 IN 110 CHILDREN
1 IN 70 BOYS

That's an increase. Odds are that you know at least one family that has a child with autism. More and more children are affected by this mysterious affliction that has been described with the analogy of a missing puzzle piece.

The cause of autism is also a puzzle. There have been quite a few theories, many of which have been proven wrong, and researchers are still searching for an answer.
Now, I am aware that Autism Speaks has been the subject of some controversy for its ads and more. Well, autism is a hot-button issue, and one that is very close to home for many people. What I know is that Autism Speaks is one of the most powerful nonprofits in the field and spent over 30 million dollars on its programs in 2009.
Nevertheless, I will list a couple more NPOs with Autism research as part of their mission:
The Autism Research Institute
The Organization for Autism Research

As always, I recommend doing your own research on a charity before deciding to lend it your support. Not all charities are created equal. CharityNavigator.org is my favorite resource for this.
However, let's get back on topic. April is Autism Awareness Month, and I'm here to raise your awareness. What raised my own awareness first was this poignant short film, Autism Every Day:

What more could I possibly add to that? We've got to get to the bottom of this. We've got to find a cure.

Friday Film Buff: By the Book

I don't like to get too political on my blog, though I'm sure many of you have noticed my "Straight for Equality" badge over on the left side of this page. Truly, though, I don't see how wanting equality is really political so much as it is patriotic. Equality is written into the formation of this country, and, though it was really little more than a concept at the time, it was an ideal toward which we as Americans would strive. Equality is the mission of America, and, over the last two-and-a-quarter centuries, we have taken great strides toward achieving it.

Yesterday, here in Colorado, we took a step backward.
The civil union bill, which would have afforded gay couples many of the rights already enjoyed by straight married couples, was voted down 6 to 5. Now, in my opinion, the civil union bill wasn't equality, either, but it would have been a step toward it.
Freedom is a difficult prospect at times, I know. Where does one group's freedoms begin and another's end?
Well, I like to use an analogy that I borrow from Wayne Dyer: my right to walk down the street waving my arms around ends with your right to keep your nose shaped the way that it is.
People have a right to hold religious beliefs against homosexuality. (Kind of a sad way to worship, but, hey, your call.) What they do not have is the right to use those beliefs to infringe upon the freedoms of others.
I look at the issue from a different perspective. The civil union bill wasn't about giving rights to anyone. It was about no longer taking away rights that people should have had in the first place. Last night, our elected official in Colorado voted to continue to withhold rights . . . in America. And they did it based upon pressure from religious groups. I am embarrassed for my state today, and - to all those people in my state who are today still without the rights that they deserve to have by virtue of their American birth - I am sorry. I bear the burden with the rest of the people in Colorado for allowing this to happen.
Today's Friday Film Buff selection is a documentary from 2007 that, obviously, a few more of us in this state ought to have watched: For the Bible Tells Me So.

Oh, and here's some food for thought today:
Don't wear different kinds of fabrics together. That's Leviticus 19:19.
Don't cut the hair at your temples or trim your beard (which, I guess, means that you have to have one.) Leviticus 19:27.
Adultery is punishable by death - for both parties. Leviticus 20:10
Leviticus 20:9 says that if you curse your mother or father, you must be put to death.
All in favor of not basing 21st century law on the dictates of a 3000-year-old text that forbids grazing different types of cattle together, say "aye."