The Voices in Frank's Head

Ah, Christmas! That special, magical holiday! For me it meant a chance to spend some quality time with one of the adorable 3-year olds on the planet: my niece Giovanna. I didn't do much on Christmas itself, but I was at my brother Mike's for Christmas eve. (He is Giovanna's Dad). I still can't believe that I managed to get her to hold still long enough for a photo with her parents. Danielle (my sister-in-law), Giovanna and Mike. The photographer in me wishes that I closed the blinds behind them in that shot because the extra light from behind kind of washed them out. Oh, well - live and learn. Of course, after a snapped a couple of candid shots of the family - Giovanna actually grabbed my camera from me. She's only 3, but she managed to take this shot of my other brother, Mark. Not bad for a 3-year old. Talent clearly runs deep in the Nemecek clan.

Today is the Winter Soltice. The official beginning of winter. I spent at least some of it, walking around town and checking out some of the Christmas lights. It seemed like the most appropriate use of the longest night of the year.

U.S. District Judge John E. Jones ruled today that the requirement to teach intelligent design in high school biology classes in Dover, Pennsylvania was unconstitutional. Intelligent design, he said, was nothing more than theology and the Dover school board had lied about their intentions in order to get support for it. Frankly, I have to agree with him. The whole concept of science is based on a process. One starts with a hypothesis and then tests it through experimentation to either prove or disprove it. None of that has ever happened with intelligent design. The only thing that was really suprising was that it took the judge 139 pages to write his opinion .

Ever since the show came on the air in 1999, The West Wing has been my favorite TV show. It's insightful and provocative; at times funny and always a joy to watch. Late last week, I learned that John Spencer (who played White House chief of staff/vice-presidental candidate Leo McGarry) died from a heart attack. I don't know how the show will continue, but I do know that John Spencer will be missed.

I went down to the Detroit Beer Company to watch the last Lion's home game for the season with a couple of friends. It was astonishing how many people were there to protest Matt Millen. I wish I had broght my camera with me to grab some shots of all the folks with their signs and stuff. Alas, I left it at home. Anyway, the Lion's lost and lost badly. If I were Matt Millen, I'd be very, very nervous right about now.

U.S. Representative John D. Dingell read the following poem on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. It's truly priceless. Twas the week before Christmas and all through the House No bills were passed ‘bout which Fox News could grouse; Tax cuts for the wealthy were passed with great cheer, So vacations in St. Barts soon would be near; Katrina kids were nestled all snug in motel beds, While visions of school and home danced in their heads; In Iraq our soldiers needed supplies and a plan, Plus nuclear weapons were being built in Iran; Gas prices shot up, consumer confidence fell; Americans feared we were on a fast track to…well… Wait--- we need a distraction--- something divisive and wily; A fabrication straight from the mouth of O’Reilly We can pretend that Christmas is under attack Hold a vote to save it--- then pat ourselves on the back; Silent Night, First Noel, Away in the Manger Wake up Congress, they’re in no danger! This...

Oh my God! If I hadn't seen this with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it. There is a a new tiolet seat in Japan that actually plays MP3s. I am actually afraid of what they'll think of next. http://blogs.indiewire.com/dmw/archive/006535.html

A friend of mine and his wife were driving through Roseville one evening when they saw this sign. http://www.flickr.com/photos/galfridus73/71247357/?#comment19814379 If STD Rooms are $45 then I can't imagine how much non-STD rooms must be.

Shop Detroit was this past Saturday. It was a cool event to promote the whole concept of people doing their holiday shopping in dowtown Detroit. (Yes - there actually are places to shop that aren't pawn shops or liquor stores). About 300 or so people came down for the day. We even had one family drive all the way from south of Toledo to see what all of the buzz was about. After that - I hit Noel Night in midtown for a little bit before going to the Opening Reception for the Inn at 97 Winder. The Inn was a super cool place - they did an amazing job rehabbing the property. My only regret is that I left my camera in the car. Oh, well - there are some good photos on their web site: http://www.theinnat97winder.com/

One of my brothers, Mark, had an entry in this year's Graphic Design Expo - which was presented by Create Detroit. The expo itself was this past Friday (eeck! it's taken me a full week to write a blog entry about it). One of the things that I really liked about my brother's poster (above) is that it was the only one to incorporate Detroit's riverfront into the design. The river is, after all, one of Detroit's greatest assets. As far as the expo itself goes, 50 different graphic designers from around town were challenged to create a piece of positive propaganda for Detroit in advance of Super Bowl XL. Some of their work was truly amazing - funny and really positive. There were also a couple just made me go, "huh?" - but that's cool. I think you need a broad spectrum of work in order to make for a sucessful event. It was held in lobby of the Fisher Building - one of the coolest buildings around, in my opinion. The event was so incredibly cool - with so ...

Bill Maher came up with a stand-up routine for the Global Warming Comedy Special. It's too dang funny for words, in my opinion. Check it out: http://www.devilducky.com/media/38795/

In my last post, I talked about anxiety. That wonderful feeling I had after Variety.com published a partial list of the feature films accepted for the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. Anyway, I didn't actually head out drinking - at least not right away. Instead, I just spent a half hour or so wandering around my bedroom and kitchen. There's not a lot of room in either place, so I guess technically it was more along the lines of pacing that it was wandering. I found myself making toast at around 12:30 a.m. Don't ask me why - it made perfect sense at the time. I mean, if you're nervous and feeling nauseous - doesn't everyone make toast? Okay - maybe not. Anyway, like I said it made sense at the time. I left my computer on during all of this. Eventually, my nervous pacing brought close enough it to notice that I had an email waiting for me. I noticed that it was from the Sundance people. I had to read it. From: programming@sundance.org To: Me Sent: ...

The folks at Sundance are scheduled to announce which films are in for their 2006 film festival this coming Thursday. However - and you know there had to be a "however" in this one - the folks at Variety.com just posted an article with the list. There was no mention of my film at all. However - yes, there's more than one "however" in this story - according to the same article there are about 120 feature films included in this year's festival. Their list only cites 64 of them. Obviously, the Variety.com list isn't a complete one. Urgh! Hearing this news has me so nervous all of a sudden that I think I'm going to be sick. Or get really, really drunk. And then get sick because I got really, really drunk. Double urgh! I swear, I feel like making my documentary and pouring everything I had into it was the easy part. The hard part is waiting for someone that I've never met to make a decision about whether or not my best is good enough. Anyway, th...

I just did another television interview. This time it was with Charles Pugh of Fox 2 where we talked about Shop Detroit. After he asked me a couple of questions, he moved onto my partners in the project: Amanda Dunham and Tanya Stevenson. I couldn't help but snap a couple of photos of them getting interviewed.

Okay - I'm not going to try condensing everything that happened to me in the past two weeks for this blog. However, there is one more photograph that I would be totally remissed if I didn't share with everyone. I went to a friend's wedding a week ago (the same one whose bachelor party was the week prior). Their reception was at the Detroit Yacht Club on Belle Isle. The legendary Girl in the D was there and she snapped this photo of me simultaneously flirting with every one of the bridesmaids. I feel like such a stud muffin after looking at that picture.

There is an ad on-line for TheWorldIsComing.com. It's part of a PR campaign that the convention bureau is sponsoring in advance of Super Bowl XL in Detroit. The current commercial is an okay one, in my opinion, but it doesn't really capture the look and feel of Detroit. A friend of mine encouraged me to make my own one and, well, doing that was also one of the things that's kept me away from blogging for these past few days. There are some behind the scenes photos on-line in my Yahoo photo albumn . The commercial itself is on-line as an MPEG video . Real Media Player 10.5 seems to work the best for playing it, but Windows Media can do the trick as well. So darn cool! Brooks and I just finished editing it on Friday evening. I'm still playing it over and over just because I'm excited to have this to my credit.

Well, as I continue to catch everyone up on the goings on in my life, I should mention that a little over a week ago (Friday, November 18 to be precise) I was out to see them light the Christmas tree in Campus Martius Park and to pass out some Shop Detroit flyers for Detroit Synergy . The tree lighting itself was cool. My only gripe is was that they configured everything about the park's layout that evening to essentially herd visitors to one specific area - making the place look even more full than it actually was for the TV cameras. This made for some great television, but it also made it harder for folks to get around. In spite of that, it was a great evening and the tree looks really cool. After the tree was lit and the flyers distribured, a few of us headed over to Edgewise for wine, food, art and cool company. The whole evening was a photo show dedicated to the people who helped to make The Passenger . I snapped this photo and I think it's so darn cool. It shows (from t...

I went to the Governor's Awards for Arts & Culture on the 15th of this month. It was so many amazing people in one place at one time - it was totally cool. The photo above is a bit on the blurry side because the Detroit Opera House (where it was held) doesn't have the brightest of lights in its lobby. I had to adjust the shutter on my camera so it stayed open longer to let in more light. Of course, that meant that anyone who moved even the tiniest bit came out blurry. Oh, well - my blurry photo still gives you an idea what the evening was like. Anyway, this was the evening when Detroit-native Jerry Bruckheimer got an award from Governor Jennifer M. Granholm for his work on the CSI shows and the umpteen other things that he's done in his career. Personally, I think this was actually part of her ploy to get him to launch a CSI: Michigan but hey - whatever get it to happen. Jerry Bruckheimer actually gave a really good speech, too. He talked about growing up on Detroit...

I can't believe it's been a little more than 2 weeks since I've posted here. No wonder I've been feeling a bit off - I must be suffering from blog-withdrawls. Oh, well I suppose that just means that I need to do a marathon blogging session; recapping the stuff that's kept me from blogging. Two weeks ago yesterday was my friends bachelor party. I can't write much about that, it would break the code, you see. Regardless, a good time was had by all. No was hospitalized or jailed. Truly a successful bachelor party, in my opinion. On to my next post.

The weirdest stuff shows up in my email in-box. This little ditty made its appearance this morning and is actually kind of funny. I'll have to remember them for the next time I get pulled over, which hopefully won't be for awhile. Bizarre Traffic Ticket Excuses Come on officer, I was going downhill. I think that counts for something. If you give me a ticket, I'll be forced to tell your wife about us! I'm in a hurry - I'm late for traffic court. Oh, come on! If I get another ticket, my insurance company will drop me. I thought if I had my hazards on I could speed. Oh, so that's where the speedometer is... Sorry officer, I thought my radar detector was plugged in. I was just checking to see if your radar gun was working properly.