I often tell people that The Academy Awards (Oscars) are my Superbowl. I like sports, and follow them as closely as I can, but what I mean by this statement is that as most people give a damn about which NFL teams are playing in the Superbowl, I give a damn about about which films are nominated for Best Picture.

The comparison doesn’t really hold water on all levels, though. Mostly because the two teams in the Superbowl typically are the best teams in the league that year. The Oscars, on the other hand, are much more political. Many of the best films, filmmakers and actors are overlooked because they didn’t have the resources or political clout needed to fit the bill.

Which is why I consider it somewhat ironic that I care so much about the Oscars. In some ways, they represent everything I hope for and dream about professionally. In others, they represent everything I hate about Hollywood.

Love/hate…yet I can’t look away.

So know that tonight, as I’m watching The Oscars, I’m both elated and tortured. Frustrated and fulfilled.

And a little hungry. I’m always hungry.

That being said, I’ll admit it. I’ve cried in movies. And here are a few that did it to me:

Where The Red Fern Grows
Little Ann starved herself to death because she lost Old Dan. They made me watch this emotional torture flick in second grade. Seriously?

Old Yeller
Just like Where The Red Fern Grows, except Travis shoots him in the face. Another great one for the kids.

E.T.
Four little words: “I’ll be right here.” Whoa…woop…yep, a little tear just slipped out.

Dead Poets Society
Yeah, I memorized O Captain! My Captain! after seeing that movie. Once I stopped bawling, that is.

Million Dollar Baby
In addition to crying, I also threw objects at the screen whenever Maggie’s family was around.

The Notebook
Admitting that I’ve even seen this is difficult, People. So try this on for size: I own it. And it’s the last movie I remember actually sobbing in. Their love is forever. It’s forever.

What about you? Any movies make you cry?

Now, before you say anything, I know there is some crossover here and some parallels between the two. But I’ll bet my bottom dollar that if you identify more with the column on the right, you should probably be a long-distance runner.

Any other differences? Or am I wrong?

The holidays weren’t kind to me. Or rather, I wasn’t kind to myself during the holidays. I think my weekly mileage reduced to somewhere in the 0 – 3 range, and other fitness activities were even less frequent. I don’t feel guilty – just a little silly. I need to keep up my mileage. But the holidays and some injuries got the best of me.

However, I didn’t really fall behind. Just today, I ran my long run right on track with my 50K training program. Even though admittedly, today might have felt better had I been keeping up with my training over the last 8 weeks, it was a relief to fall right back in stride. Pardon the pun.

If you’ve been following my running or know me personally, you may know that over the last year or so, I’ve been suffering from some chronic injuries. Plantar Fasciitis, a pretty rare form of tendonitis called Peroneal Tendonitis (which won’t seem to go away), and most recently, a somewhat severe case of ITBS in both knees. Owee.

Traditional recommendation is to “rest, rest, rest”, and I’m gonna say right now: that’s my recommendation to you if you suffer from this stuff, or any injury, really. Rest is important and not resting can result in longer-term problems.

That being said, I’m not handling my injuries that way anymore. I wrote about this earlier, but I’m choosing to go against most advice and practice the “Tough It Out” method.

Now, before my other fitness and running buddies get up in arms, you should know that resting is part of my training regimen, and I’m stretching, performing as much PT as makes sense, etc. I’m not being stupid. But I’m also not staying off of my feet just because I’m having some issues with pain.

See, I’m stuck in a conundrum. I’m carrying a little more weight than I should be, and my muscles, though getting much better, are weaker than they should be, which forces my joints, tendons, and ligaments to bear more of the trauma than they should be. Yet to lose weight, improve form and muscle tone, and overall joint toughness, I gotta run.

Sure, I could swim or bike, and I’m doing those things. But I’m a runner. With some lofty running goals. I need to run.

Funny thing is, it’s working. I’ve been using regular short walking breaks during my long runs and keeping my runs during the week relatively short. As I said earlier, I’ve been taking stretching and other forms of exercise a lot more seriously. Though I’m still dealing with some pain some of the time, it’s not nearly as severe as it used to be and it seems to be getting better all the time.

If you’re injured, again, I HIGHLY recommend that you rest. See a medical professional. Pursue treatment programs. And read this Runner’s World Article: The Big Hurt. Though not really about toughing it out, it does provide a different perspective on what might be causing your injury and thus a different perspective on recovery.

Many contend that limitations actually improve creativity, but limitations and inhibitions are different. A limitation might be that you have to record your entire song using only a guitar. An inhibition would be assuming that you can’t do so because you’re a terrible guitar player.

I’ve been studying art and artists of various types my entire life. Whether it’s painting, music, books or film, I believe that one thing actually dictates whether the art or artist is any good. And it’s not talent or skill, even though both of those things are also important. No, the thing that I believe makes an artist or his art successful isn’t something the artist has, but rather something she doesn’t have. That is the verything I’m writing about: inhibitions.

Of course, it’s fair to say that most of these artists probably have them. So maybe it’s the ability to ignore them.

A conservative may argue that inhibitions are important. That a truly uninhibited person is a hedonist or a Bohemian and a threat to the moral fabric of society. Perhaps. But I bet the stuff these people create is awesome.

Then again, I’m not talking about a person lacking inhibition in his or her own life. I’m talking specifically about the creation of art. Honest art, as I’ve put it so many times before. An extreme example of this would be a horror writer. This person is likely not psychotic nor condoning the type of behaviour he or she is writing about. Nevertheless, the horror wouldn’t be all that great if the writer didn’t set aside moral boundaries for the characters in the story.

As a writer, I write characters who behave differently than I do or even approve of…but I still write them. If I allow my own inhibitions to dictate the actions of these characters, they will be flat, uninteresting versions of some ideal I’ve projected onto them. They will essentially all be the same character, molded into different boring shapes.

Musicians do this with their music. Photographers with their pictures. All artists are subject to this pitfall. And I’m as guilty as the next. In fact, I’m probably more guilty of it than most.

Currently, I’m producing my first feature film. It’s an exhilerating and frightening process. Thankfully, I’ve already assembled a crack team of fellow producers to help bear the weight of it all.

The problem I’m facing is that I’m also the Writer and Director, making me the lead creative. And right now, I’m afraid that my own inhibitions are limiting the creative integrity of our project.

My hope, of course, is that I can identify and eliminate these inhibitions before they ruin the picture completely.

Mostly, I see these being related to my Christian upbringing and the cultural issues that raises. Many of my friends and family would view the insertion of profanity, drug use, or sex into a story as a sign of the complete breakdown of my morality. Also, the lack of political or religious messaging may be viewed as the watering down of my voice when projected from such a public platform.

The fact of the mater is, I just want to tell interesting stories with honest characters. I don’t have a religious or political agenda, and I don’t want to apply the same limits to my characters that I apply to myself. Yet I find myself doing that. My screenplay, which I love, by the way, is rife with my own inhibitions.

So my next rewrite, which will be done with collaborators who hopefully do not share my inhibitions, will be more raw. Less safe. And hopefully, more original and interesting as a result.

What do you think? Should an artist function inhibited? Or should we be allowed to created freely, without inhibition?

A quick Google search will reveal thousands of words written about the correct way to make a resolution and even more words encouraging you to not make them at all. Of course, this site isn’t really about making recommendations for anyone else. It’s more about…me. So, since I’m making some resolutions this year, I’m going to share them. Entirely up to you whether you’ll do the same.

Slow down.
I’ve got a lot going on this year. It’s going to be pretty easy to let the year just zoom past. So, I’m going to make a concerted effort to just…live. I want to enjoy every moment this year.
Simplify.
Because I’ve got a lot going on, I need there to be less, um, going on. So, I’m cutting some stuff out of my life to make room for the new.
Stay the course.
This is the only “grit your teeth” resolution on my list. Again related to the magnitude and volume of goals I have for 2010, simply slowing down and simplifying will not accomplish these goals. It’s going to take some work.

That’s it. Those three. I have some specific ways I’m going to live these resolutions, but that really would be boring (and probably overkill). What are some of your resolutions for the new year?

Wow.

The first REAL Oscar contender this year, in my book. This remake of a Danish film of the same name is fantastic. Everything about it is good. And seriously, if Tobey Maguire doesn’t win an Oscar for this role…

Like (hopefully) most of my reviews, I’m going to make this short and sweet. This film is emotionally moving and contains arguably the three best actors of this generation in Jake, Tobey, and Natalie. I was blown away by the movie, frankly. Emotionally, it kind of ripped my heart out.

Go see it.

Do the wave.

The web is rife with reviews about, guides for, and attempts to figure out Google’s newest and kewlest free toy du jour, the open source Wave platform. A quick search on your favorite search engine will yield plenty of info about what it is and how it will change the way you communicate, make you dinner, and shine your shoes. It’s that good, supposedly. So search away and read up if you want, but if you want to know what I think, you can only get that here. And I know you want to know what I think. Cause my opinion is the most awesome…ever.

Thanks to a friend of mine in Oklahoma, I got my invite to try Google’s prerelease implementation of the Wave platform, Google wave. For any of you who aren’t geeky enough to give a crap about what Wave is, you should know that those of us who are geeky enough to give a crap, still have a difficult time wrapping our heads around it. Now that I’ve used it, I think maybe I can sum this up for you: Wave is something completely new. You’ll have a difficult time wrapping your head around it too, because you don’t really have anything else to compare it to. It’s kinda email, but it’s not. It’s kinda IM, but it’s not. It’s kinda wiki-like, but it’s not. It’s kinda a shared document editor (a la Google Docs), but it’s not. It’s something completely different, and completely familiar. It’s all of the above and none of them.

Does that clear it up for you? Google wave is a new communication platform, period. Like email. Or IM. Or wikis. Or Twitter. Wave is like that, but different.

Something that is actually easy to explain is the concept. Google wanted to create a new communication protocol, and I think they accomplished that. Just like email is simply a…thing…and you use other people’s implementations of that, um, thing, so is Wave. Nobody owns what a “document” is, nobody “owns” email…it just is. In 10 years, Wave will exist in the same way. At least in Google’s wildest dreams.

Currently, the open Wave technology hasn’t been released into the wild. It only lives, in infancy stage, in the land of Google. To make another comparison to email, imagine if Google had invented email, and the first version of email was Gmail, before becoming widely available to everyone else to use. So, Google wave is really just the first implementation of the open Wave protocol.

Whew. So far, for an opinion piece, I’ve shared very few opinions. Here’s my take, having messed around with it a bit:

• Umm, c’mon Google…let’s get some more of my peeps on there. Or give me some invites to hand out so that I can actually use it.
• It’s still too early to know if this will be a game changer.
• I’m not necessarily too keen on the “everybody can edit everything” thing. In other words, imagine if you could go through and change an email you sent a couple of weeks ago…but then again, any of your friends could do it too.
• Kinda hard to figure out at first, but then, it gets to be pretty cool and easy to use.
• As the rest of the features begin to roll out, and more and more people start using it, and more and more extensions become available, this thing will probably become pretty powerful.
• Public waves…heck, the public wave directory…a little difficult to follow.
• Unfortunately, Wave may be a little bit too devoid of structure. Then again, it may be too early to tell.
• If Wave turns out to be a game-changer, it’s not going to change any games for years and years.

So that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Anyone else on Wave? Ping me! I’d also love to hear any of your opinions in the comments. Or questions. Cause I have Wave, and I’m cool.

Run while you work, work while you run.

In this second installment in my series about my quest to becoming an ultra-distance runner, I’m gonna talk about something that I’ve been doing for a while to build up my base miles a bit. Commuting to work on foot.

Oh, and if you want to read a good article on the topic, check out what Runner’s World says about it. If you’re okay with a mediocre article on the topic, carry on here.

To be completely honest, my decision to start running to and from work wasn’t only motivated by my need to add miles to my running regimen. All the reasons above contributed to the decision as well. Here’s why I do it:

• Yes, the numero uno reason is to add miles to my training. It’s either 3.25 or 5.6 miles each way, depending on my route. That’s up to 45 miles a week, just in commuting.
• Here’s an unexpected benefit: I arrive at work feeling great. I arrive home feeling refreshed and rejuvenated.
• Yep, that’s 45 miles not driven in my car, saving me money, the planet some of it’s ever-decreasing fossil fuel supply, and the atmosphere some pretty bad emissions. Oh, and that’s up to 2,300 miles a year of wear and tear not being put on my car, too.
• It actually gives me an hour or two of “alone time” every day where I can just listen to podcasts, think…whatever. Then again, I suppose I could get that on a run anytime, but the reason I list it here is that I don’t treat my commute as a training run. I just run at a comfortable pace and enjoy myself. Very different than tempo, speed, or hill training.

In fact, the only downside is that my commute is just a teensy bit longer, but I avoid rush hour traffic, so it’s not that much longer. Plus, I need to run the miles anyway for training purposes, so in a way, I’m actually saving myself time by avoiding the hours per week I would have spent in my car.

So that’s the “why”, but if you’re wondering about the “how”, here it is:

• On Sunday, I pack up clothes, food, and various supplies for the week. Boom.
• Then, Monday, I drive two work, taking all that stuff to my office.
• Monday night, I run home. Then, the rest of the week, I run to and from work. Because I don’t run hard, I don’t really get all icky on the way to work, so I kind of sponge bath it up in the bathroom (no showers there), and then at night, well, I’m home, so who needs to shower? Okay, I shower when I get home.
• Friday, I drive all my crap home and the process starts anew.

Now, obviously, not all of you can do this. Some of you live too far away, and I know that for girls, this becomes a little less feasible by nature of the fact that getting ready for work can be a little more involved than for a guy like me. I have a friend who lives in south Colorado Springs but works in Pueblo, which is a good 30 miles or more away, so running 60 miles a day just isn’t realistic. But I would move that even if you work 10 miles away from home, this is still realistic for you (if you’re serious about distance, that is).

So this is partly an update on my running stuff, but if you’ve never considered commuting on foot…give it a try.

Baby Ironman

My semi-recent, healthy obsession with ultra running, or running in general, has been only further encouraged by the fact that cardio is the number one rule for surviving in a post-apocalyptic, zombie-infested world. Whoa, I used a LOT of hyphenated words in that sentence/paragraph. I’m a big fan of overusing punctuation. You should see what I do with ellipses.

I posted a couple of months back to my Super Secret Personal Blog® about some of my running goals, but now I think I’m gonna do that here. Why not share with my public? Ahh, the fame that comes with having tens of fans.

My general goals are easy:

• Run the Pikes Peak Ascent and eventually, the Pikes Peak Marathon.
• Run a 50 mile ultra-marathon. Then, someday, the Leadville Trail 100.
• Complete a full Ironman triathlon.

I’m sure that as I progress down this road (pardon all the running and distance metaphors), my goals will become more specific and numerous. Complete this in under this time. Finish that race in the top ten. Win this. Eat that. Okay, not the “eat” one. I’m hungry, so it kinda slipped in there.

So anyway, here on NotBadButGood, I’m going to kind of document my running journey as a sort of series or something like that. It fits with the theme of the site, I suppose.

To kick off the series, I figure I’ll give you all a little glimpse into my specific goals for the upcoming year. My baby steps toward meeting some of my goals above.

1. 50 Miles Per Week: before I can run the big distances, I gotta run the big distances. It’s how running works. Yeah, confusing, I know.
2. Greenland Trail 50K: It’s an, ahem, ultra marathon. Okay, it’s only 30 miles, but it’s a start.
3. BolderBOULDER: Cause everyone in Colorado runs this race.
4. Garden of the Gods Ten Mile Run®: Think of it as a fun run on my way to the Ascent.
5. Summer Roundup Trail Run 12K: This is me tapering for the Ascent.
6. Pikes Peak Ascent®: I get so excited about running this race, I almost pee myself.
7. 50 Mile Grand Poobah: I’m actually looking at one in upstate New York. I’m a little skeered.

As far as I can tell, those are my races for the upcoming year. Add to that the fact that I’m making a movie, and hopefully, making a baby, and I’m thinking 2010 might be a pretty nice little year. A pretty nice little year indeed.

So, yeah, keep coming back. I’ll keep you apprised of my progress with running, and maybe even the baby thing. Oh, and if you want to track the movie, you can check out my film site: RedhouseProd.com.