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Sunday, November 30, 2008

Hands Held High.....




Turn my mike up louder I got to say something
Light weights step to the side when we come in

Feel it in your chest the syllables get pumping
People on the street they panic and start running

Words on loose leaf sheet complete coming
I jump in my mind and summon the rhyme, I'm dumping

Healing the blind I promise to let the sun in
Sick of the dark ways we march to the drum and

Jump when they tell us that they wanna see jumping
Fuck that I wanna see some fists pumping

Risk something, take back what's yours
Say something that you know they might attack you for

Cause I'm sick of being treated like I have before
Like it's stupid standing for what I'm standing for

Like this war's really just a different brand of war
Like it doesn't cater the rich and abandon poor

Like they understand you in the back of the jet
When you can't put gas in your tank

These fuckers are laughing their way to the bank and cashing the cheque
Asking you to have compassion and have some respect

For a leader so nervous in an obvious way
Stuttering and mumbling for nightly news to replay

And the rest of the world watching at the end of the day
In their living room laughing like "what did he say?"


Amen
Amen
Amen
Amen
Amen

In my living room watching but I am not laughing
Cause when it gets tense I know what might happen

World is cold the bold men take action
Have to react or get blown into fractions

Ten years old it's something to see
Another kid my age drugged under a jeep

Taken and bound and found later under a tree
I wonder if he had thought the next one could be me

Do you see the soldiers they're out today
They brush the dust from bullet proof vests away

It's ironic at times like this you pray
But a bomb blew the mosque up yesterday

There's bombs in the buses, bikes, roads
Inside your market, your shops, your clothes

My dad he's got a lot of fear I know
But enough pride inside not to let that show

My brother had a book he would hold with pride
A little red cover with a broken spine

On the back, he hand-wrote a quote inside
When the rich wage war it's the poor who die

Meanwhile, the leader just talks away
Stuttering and mumbling for nightly news to replay

And the rest of the world watching at the end of the day
both scared and angry like "what did he say?"

Amen
Amen
Amen
Amen
Amen
Amen

With hands held high into the sky so blue,
As the ocean opens up to swallow you.

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Adieu Michael.....We will miss a visionary......

Michael Crichton, who died in Los Angeles on November 4, 2008, was a writer and filmmaker, best known as the author of Jurassic Park and the creator of ER. His most recent novel, Next, about genetics and law, was published in December 2006. 

Crichton graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College, received his MD from Harvard Medical School, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, researching public policy with Jacob Bronowski. He taught courses in anthropology at Cambridge University and writing at MIT. Crichton's 2004 bestseller, State of Fear, acknowledged the world was growing warmer, but challenged extreme anthropogenic warming scenarios. He predicted future warming at 0.8 degrees C. (His conclusions have been widely misstated.) 

Crichton's interest in computer modeling went back forty years. His multiple-discriminant analysis of Egyptian crania, carried out on an IBM 7090 computer at Harvard, was published in the Papers of the Peabody Museum in 1966. His technical publications included a study of host factors in pituitary chromophobe adenoma, in Metabolism, and an essay on medical obfuscation in the New England Journal of Medicine. 

Crichton's first bestseller, The Andromeda Strain, was published while he was still a medical student. He later worked full time on film and writing. One of the most popular writers in the world, his books have been translated into thirty-six languages, and thirteen have been made into films. 

He had a lifelong interest in computers. His feature film Westworld was the first to employ computer-generated special effects back in 1973. Crichton's pioneering use of computer programs for film production earned him a Technical Achievement Academy Award in 1995. 

Crichton won an Emmy, a Peabody, and a Writer's Guild of America Award for ER. In 2002, a newly discovered ankylosaur was named for him: Crichtonsaurus bohlini. He had a daughter, Taylor, and lived in Los Angeles. Crichton remarried in 2005. 

CRICHTON, (John) Michael. American. Born in Chicago, Illinois, October 23, 1942. Died in Los Angeles, November 4, 2008. Educated at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, A.B. (summa cum laude) 1964 (Phi Beta Kappa). Henry Russell Shaw Travelling Fellow, 1964-65. Visiting Lecturer in Anthropology at Cambridge University, England, 1965. Graduated Harvard Medical School, M.D. 1969; post-doctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences, La Jolla, California 1969-1970. Visiting Writer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1988. 

Awards: Recipient of Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Allan Poe Award, 1968 ("A Case of Need", written under pseudonym Jeffery Hudson); and 1980 ("The Great Train Robbery"). Association of American Medical Writers Award, 1970 ("Five Patients"); Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Technical Achievement Award, 1995 ("for pioneering computerized motion picture budgeting and scheduling"); George Foster Peabody Award (for "ER"); Writer's Guild of America Award, Best Long Form Television Script of 1995 (for "ER") Emmy, Best Dramatic Series, 1996 (for "ER"). Ankylosaur named Crichtonsaurus bohlini, 2002. 

Associations: Member of Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Author's Guild, Writers Guild of America, Directors Guild of America, P.E.N. America Center, Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Phi Beta Kappa. Board of Directors, International Design Conference at Aspen, 1985-91; Board of Trustees, Western Behavioral Sciences Institute, La Jolla, 1986-91. Board of Overseers, Harvard University, 1990-96. Board of Directors, Drug Strategies, 1994-, Author's Guild Council, 1995-, Board of Directors, Gorilla Foundation, 2002-, Board of Trustees, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2006- 

References: Contemporary Authors, 1971-; Who's Who in America, 1974-; Current Biography, April 1976; Film Encyclopedia, 1979-; International Motion Picture Almanac, 1996; International Television & Video Almanac, 1996. 



Novels
THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN, Knopf, 1969
THE TERMINAL MAN, Knopf, 1972
THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY, Knopf, 1975
EATERS OF THE DEAD, Knopf, 1976
CONGO, Knopf, 1980
SPHERE, Knopf, 1987
JURASSIC PARK, Knopf, 1990
RISING SUN, Knopf, 1992
DISCLOSURE, Knopf, 1994
THE LOST WORLD, Knopf, 1995
AIRFRAME, Knopf, 1996
TIMELINE, Knopf, 1999
PREY, Harper Collins, 2002
STATE OF FEAR, Harper Collins, 2004
NEXT, Harper Collins, 2006

Non-Fiction
FIVE PATIENTS: The Hospital Explained, Knopf, 1970
JASPER JOHNS, Abrams, 1977
ELECTRONIC LIFE, Knopf, 1983
TRAVELS, Knopf, 1988
JASPER JOHNS (revised edition), Abrams, 1994

Published Screenplays
WESTWORLD, Bantam Books, 1975
TWISTER (with Anne-Marie Martin), Ballantine Books, 1996

Films
PURSUIT, ABC Movie of the Week, 1972. (Director)
WESTWORLD, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1973. (Writer/Director)
COMA, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1978. (Writer/Director)
THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY, United Artists, 1979. (Writer/Director)
LOOKER, The Ladd Company, 1981. (Writer/Director)
RUNAWAY, Tri-Star Pictures, 1984. (Writer/Director)
PHYSICAL EVIDENCE, Columbia Pictures, 1989. (Director)
JURASSIC PARK, Universal, 1993 (Co-writer)
RISING SUN, Twentieth Century Fox, 1993 (Co-writer)
DISCLOSURE, Warner Brothers, 1994 (Co-producer)
TWISTER, Warner Brothers/Universal, 1996 (Co-writer, Co-producer)
SPHERE, Warner Brothers, 1998 (Co-producer)
13TH WARRIOR, Touchstone, 1999 (Co-producer)

Other Films From Crichton's Books
THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN, Universal, 1971
THE CAREY TREATMENT, MGM, 1972
DEALING: OR THE BERKLEY TO BOST0N FORTY-BRICK LOST BAG BLUES, Warner Bros, 1972
THE TERMINAL MAN, Warner Bros, 1974
CONGO, Paramount, 1995
LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK II, Universal, 1997
TIMELINE, Paramount, 2003

Television
ER, NBC, 1994 Creator, (co-exec. producer)

Computer Games
AMAZON, Tellarium, 1982
TIMELINE, Eidos, 2000 

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