[McNairMail] McNAIR MAIL v4.9 / TEXT ONLY - - for the PC crowd

[McNair]

October 19th is National "Talk Like a Pirate Day"- - Har!



McNAIR MAIL  €  Vol.3 / No.9  €  From the Ministry of Imagination


³It is plenty difficult to wait for Halloween when the tedious
month of September is still ahead of you²

- - The Reptile Room


McNair Mail No. 4.9 (yr/mon) This be a new document that be not typed on
Microsoft Word or any of them olde time IBM typewriter machines. (No
superscript herein lie.) The Bay of Saint Francis shimmers at sundown as day
workers slog home and the creatives come alive to hoist the flag of
late-night dining, dreaming, and doodling. These be the thoughts, news, and
imaginings of C. McNair Wilson. All are meant to goad, cajole and inspire
the passersby. If it please you reprint any of this, ask fer permission from
the Captain. But for company newsletters (in-house) and church or school
gazzetters, it be granted if you'll be makin' proper attribution: ³McNair
Mail" www.McNairWilson.com. Available subscription-FREE and voluntary.
Subscribe/unsubscribe at the web cave: www.McNairWilson.com. It all be
self-service, thar be no mamas onboard help you. Welcome aboard. Harrrr!

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In This Issue
€ Learning To Act - getting up from falling down
€ Rough Crowd - TV's wittiest yackfest
€ Donkey & Elephant - a tale for our times
€ McMedia II - second star to the right...
€ Body Worlds - a look inside...us
€ Cavalia - not your grampa's horse show
€ Where's McNair - or pharmaceuticals and rabbis

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LEARNING TO ACT (Reaction for a friend)

Following a  seventy minute performance of my one-man play, The Fifth
Gospel, I was engaged in a lively Q&A with the audience of more than 1500
students and campus visitors at a college in the Minneapolis area. The usual
"how do you remember all those lines?" and "did you writer this yourself?"
Having been dispatched, we moved to deeper waters of thought.
      Audiences always wonder how a guy who spent his entire life "in the
church" could come up with wacky ideas like my now-legendary scene of Jesus
and the disciples having a mud and water fight on a hot day. I tell them
know I was musing--in my late teens--about God "come among us" and what
parts of being human did Jesus really take on. And what human stuff did he
opt out of. "He couldn't opt." I remind them he was "completely God and
completely human." 
      Now I know I'm completely human. I remind myself of this everyday,
without prompting or premeditation. I do something stupid, usually early in
the day to get it out of the way. But I also get dumb later on, just to keep
the human touch in my life.
      Being God, or more aptly put, being like my Creator is a bit more
work. But a bit more everyday I notice glimpses of the Eternal spark in me.
Often it delights me and quite often it scares me. "I can't do that!" At the
same moment I realize, "I must do that. It's who I am!"
      Charles Schulz--creator of the resilient Peanuts comic strip once
explained, "Poets write, compose make music, I draw. It's who I am."
       Indeed!
      "How did you learn to act and do all those characters?" A college
student high up in the bleachers inquires.
      "Well," I begin a bit shy. "I was about five years old and I was
misbehaving at the dinner table. When I would not settle down, my dad
grabbed my drumsticks (knife and fork) and said, firmly, 'Go to your room
'till you learn how to act!' So, I did."
      Learning how to act is what we all spend years doing. Here I do not
mean "put on an act" by pretending happiness when we're actually ticked off.
I mean we are learning a little more each day about who we actually are
inside. What are the built-in passions and dreams that our Creator is
whispering into our lives as directions.
      "Turn left at teaching, head straight for creative writing, stop
briefly at the science building and get a small box of astronomy (for
later.)" I know you've heard the voice, felt the passion, frustrated over
the unpursued dream.
      I've been reading a lot in the ever-expanding world of internet web
logs--a.k.a. "blogs." Both the daily musing of political junkies and
friends. One very poetic and prolific new friend of mine on the East Coast
writes about here three remarkable sons and how to encourage and cheer them
on and when to corral there youthful energies. She closes a recent blog
about her guys' latest exploits with this simple line: "And I long to act
instead of react!"
      Every move we make is a choice. If we pay attention, even a little, we
can learn from the slips and goofs as much as from the successes.
      When we were creating the "Indian Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular" for
the Disney-MGM Studios at Walt Disney World I called an old friend, Bob
Yerkes. He is the father of modern movie stunt work. He invented the giant
air bag for high falls (and safe landings.) After casting dozens of athletic
young men and women (most with little or no acting experience), Bob began by
teaching them all how to fall to the ground while running. They fell for
days, on a wrestling mat. Then Bob laid on the mat while they learned to
fall from a ten foot platform--over and over and over. Next a twenty foot
platform and then a thirty foot platform. I recall laying next to Bob on the
"director's mat" and asking about all the falling--weeks of falling.
      "You've got to learn how to fall, so it really looks like a fall." Bob
said. Bob has fallen through a glass ceiling in the capsized ship of THE
POSEIDON ADVENTURE and from high buildings in EARTHQUAKE scores of other
films you've seen. Bob Yerkes knows falling.
      My sociologist friends tell me that the average child falls down 300
times before they learn to walk!
      One father, in the midst of my "Recapturing Your Family's Creativity"
took an afternoon to teach his eight year old daughter to ice skate. (The
conference was in the Colorado Rockies.)
      "Daddy" she complained, "I keep falling down!" Nearly in tears.
      Just that morning I had reminded the parents, during free time today,
look for the miracle in your kids today. If you look for them to mess up,
they will. That wise father said to his frustrated little girl, "I see you
as someone who keeps getting back up"
      Today, when you are being human, learning how to act and not always
getting it right, don't forget to keep getting back up. That's who you are,
someone who stands for something.

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ROUGH CROWD (Check your local listings)

This may not be everyones cup of gruel, but one of my current must-see TV
offerings is a late night giggle and shout fest on the Comedy Channel. If
you are a fan of their "The Daily Show" with its tongue in cheek and thumb
in your ear spoof of all things current events, you may have caught the
mirthful mayhem that follows The Daily Show-- TOUGH CROWD. I have gone back
and forth on recommending this show in McNair Mail as it often lives up to
its moniker, "tough." This is the show Bill Maher always imagined he was
doing when he hosted "Politically Incorrect", or as I came to call it,
"Let's Beat up the Only Conservative on the Panel."
      Tough Crowd, on the other hand usually strikes an odd balance on the
issues. Different from "PI", Tough Crowd is all comics--men, women, gays,
straights, all races. One show focused on the Middle East and had two Jews
and two Arabs going at in a comic and passionate free for all.
      This show can get loud, and sound quite nasty and mean, but it is not.
(Hey, it's not "Tough Sunday School".) These are professional comedians who
"get" that their task is to find humor in EVERYTHING. Though they get the
topics in advance it is a free flowing give and take and give. They bash the
Left and the Right. They also praise both sides. (Who knew there were so
many Conservative comedians.)
  Tough Crowd ain't for everyone. Try to sit through it two of three times
before you decide to hate it. And don't hate me for liking it. They do cross
the line, but I like that they take the risk. In the end its all in good fun
and I find it a welcome relief to the enormously unfunny political discourse
this season. They try to break up the yackfest with a nightly sketch which I
find the weakest part of the proceedings. Just talk and yell and be
hilarious. Tough Crowd, hosted by Saturday Night Live veteran Colin Quinn is
a cup of tea I enjoy--piping hot and straight up! If you hate, go to bed
early and don't complain to me.

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DONKEY OR ELEPHANT (What's the difference)

A Republican and a Democrat were walking down the street when they came upon
a homeless person. The Republican gave the homeless person his business card
and told him to come to his business the next morning for a job. He then
took twenty dollars out of his pocket and gave it to the homeless person to
make sure he had food and shelter for the night.
  The Democrat was very impressed, and when they came to another homeless
person, he decided to help. He walked over to the homeless person and gave
him directions to the welfare office. He then reached into the Republican's
pocket and got out twenty dollars. He kept $15 for administrative fees and
gave the homeless person $5.
  Thirty minutes later they came upon the second homeless person again.
Discovering that he still had the $5, the Democrat took $2 as a tax on the
homeless man's savings.

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I WONT GROW UP!  (McMedia Recommendations Part II)

One of the great surprises of the last movie season is now on DVD/video. The
big screen Australian production of PETER PAN. At the cent of this dazzling
production is a gravely-voice boy--a real boy, not Mary Martin of Cathy
Rigby, an actual male human. He is not so much clever as he is a mischievous
individual who won't grow up.
      The other casting triumph in this big-budget, big-hearted  film is
casting Jason Isaacs in the duel role of Captain Hook and Mr. Darling. You
will remember him from Harry Potter, The West Wing and as the British rogue
officer and antagonist to Mel Gibson in THE PATRIOT (another recent
favorite.) Even on DVD and my not-so-huge television, this PETER PAN is a
magical adventure with a few plot twists on the way to Neverland, "second
star to the right and straight on till morning."
      See it soon as preparation for the highly anticipated film biography
of James Barrie (Peter Pan's creator) starring Johnny Depp--"FINDING
NEVERLAND" in theatres this November. More info at www.miramax.com/ and
click on "upcoming films. While you're there take a look at THE AVIATOR, the
biopic on Howard Hughes (Leonardo DiCaprio)

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BODY WORLD'S OF WONDER  ( In amuseum near you, if you live in So. Cal.)

There is an exhibit, Body Worlds, (through 23 January) now on view at the
California Science Center in Los Angeles (next to the L.A. Coliseum) that
you MUST not miss. A German scientist has developed a method for preserving
human bodies for long term examination and display. My friends Jerry and
Dallas and I spent a couple of hours of amazement looking at actual human
bodies that have been freeze dried and treated in a clear resin then
adjusted into basketball player, man on a horse (real horse, of course). It
sounds ghastly and it would be were it not so stunning and remarkable. You
see the complete body--sans skin--skeleton, musculature, organs, eyes,
teeth--it is quite amazing. Take a look: www.casciencectr.org. It looks
erie, but it is amazing!
      After the initial visual shock I was drawn from one body to the next
and I'm glad I went. There are many varieties to how they show you the human
body and there are mostly NOT behind glass cases. You can get within
inches--no, within an inch--of these real human bodies. Do see the entire
exhibit, especially the room near the end of the development of the human
fetus all the way to. . .well, you just will not believe what they have.
SHocking? Sure. But also: Breathtaking, moving, educational (there were lots
of families there), exciting, mysterious, and even a bit funny.
      The museum folks require reservations, thankfully, so Body Worlds is
never too crowded. You can buy tickets online and print out a bar code (your
ticket). Load up the van, tell your schools, DO NOT MISS THIS! If you live
in, or will be visiting, Southern California, SEE IT! Every-BODY!

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CAVALIA (This ain't your grampa's horse show)

While in So. Cal. consider seeing one of the most satisfying entertainments
I have experienced in years. From the folks who brought you Cirque du
Soleil, comes  CAVALIA. This is a visual, musical, and not a little mystical
treat. You have NEVER seen or even imagined horse and human interacting so
splendidly. If the animal world had ballet, this is it. The joy you will
experience is akin--if not beyond--the sight of your first jumping dolphins.
CAVALA is NOT a circus act--not even close. the behaviors they have these
magnificent creatures "performing" are exhilarating to experience.
      It is not a cheap ticket, but it is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
They are now in San DIego at Del Mar Fairgrounds under the white tent.
(www.Cavalia.net) and then on tom other cities. Check the website and check
your limited expectations at the door.

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Idle Hands, Dept.

WHERE ARE McNAIR

Thanks to those who called about inviting me to perform one of my three
one-man shows. We have also added a few Imaginuity events to the calendar
(updated on www.McNairWilson.com). This weekend I am doing two days of
Imaginuity with a pharmaceutical company in the Nashville area. Mid October
I will be a part of the faculty for another edition of Ken Davis's Dynamic
Communicators Workshop--this tiome in Columbus, Ohio. From there, it's on to
Colorado Springs for an individual coaching weekend with an author/speaker.
      My dance card and speaking/performance schedule is, none the less,
uncharacteristically NOT FULL in the coming weeks and months. Call my buddy
Tim Grable and discover just how easy (and reasonable) it can be to partner
in the McMagic.
    I love the variety of groups and places I work with and visit along the
Imaginuity trail.  
    In January I will be in Palm Springs, Ca., talking Imaginuity and
recapturing their creative spirit at a conference of Reform Rabbis. Really!
It just keeps getting better and now its time for you to invite me or have
me back! (Remember, you said you would when I was there last? Get on it.)
Corporate brainstorming, church and college performances, conference
keynotes and workshops, strip mall demolition parties, banquet and
convention MC extraordinaire.


    ----> Call Tim, NOW in Nashville: 866-333-8663 <----


C. McNair Wilson
Imaginuity Unlimited
110 Pacific Ave./No. 155
San Francisco CA  94111

Booking Info (TIm Grable)

1-866-333-8663


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    Quantum Victus

     [coming soon]


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