And now, a series of creaks...

A friend of mine sent me a link to a site where you can listen, in MP3 format, to the spooky sounds of a Halloween album made by Disney in 1964. Apparently everyone, including me, had this album as a kid. I've heard that smell is the most powerful sense memory, able to take you back to a time and place so completely that you feel like you are transported - which explains the popularity of popcorn at the theater and hot dogs at the ball game - but sound is a close second. Hearing these sounds now takes me back to Halloween as a kid when my brother and I listened to this album in the dark.


But I can't help but wonder what it was for? Not yet in the age of digital editing or even DJ's mixing records, what were kids supposed to do with an album of sound effects? I mean, why not just make an hour of spooky sounds all mixed together, like a journey to a haunted house through the forest? Something with more of a narrative. Isn't it kind of bizarre to have just cat screeches and creaky doors, one after another in total isolation? What did Walt have in mind when he greenlit this project?

According to a review on Amazon, Disney put out a much scarier version in 1979 with a woman being stalked by a killer with a knife (that's nice, ugh), grave robbers and something about a dungeon. This version sounds like it at least had more story in each terrifying segment, but I still wonder what the marketing pitch was. People like to be scared in five to ten minute increments? This one was put out long after Disney died but he must have been involved in the original 1964 version. Was the scary album his idea? Maybe he envisioned as an early "behind the scenes" kind of thing.

Regardless, it's a well-loved album. The MP3 site is jammed (try after Halloween) and someone carefully re-rendered the cover art making it better than new (scroll all the way to the bottom!)

San Francisco is more humane!

I am proud to say that I am living in the most humane city in America. No wonder I love this place! The Humane Society of the United States ranked 25 cities by a dozen different criteria of how the population treats animals - number of vegetarian restaurants (good), doggies in the windows of pet stores (bad), fur for sale and on display (also bad), and state representatives who vote compassionately in the case of animals (very good), being some of the criteria - and found the most humane cities on the west coast. They're all my favorites too: 1) San Francisco, 2) Seattle and 3) Portland.

I am constantly in discussion with myself about my relationship to animals. Tonight I heard a dog get hit by a car, I didn't see it because I averted my eyes but it might be worse to hear something like that without a visual. Apparently he bounced off and went running off with his owner chasing after him. I was on a street corner and two people with dogs on leashes were holding them and their dogs were wrestling. Then they stopped and for some reason the owner of the larger dog let go of the leash. He was all riled up from the wrestling and hopping around on the sidewalk while the owner tried to get the leash.

I watched while waiting for the light to change, talking to a friend that was walking with me from the bus stop. It honestly didn't occur to me to try to get the leash but all of a sudden the dog started running toward the street, his owner trailing behind. I thought about lunging for the dog or the leash but I didn't move and before I knew it he was in the street, loping along like he was drunk, running right into oncoming traffic. People screamed and gasped, I turned around to avoid seeing it and BAM, I heard the whack. It was awful, really awful, and I found myself saying "a city is no place for an animal."

This weekend, I was putting around my apartment drinking coffee and I heard a little mewing sound. I love kitties and eagerly looked out the window hoping a kitty had come from somewhere to pay me a visit. What I found though was a mother cat and three fluffy kittens. They were hobbling around like they were just learning to walk. When I came down they scattered into a thicket of bamboo growing in the back. The mom jumped over the fence and watched me warily from the other side. She must have given birth to them here but they only just now came out. I immediately went out to get some cat food at the corner store and put it out. Momma cat ate it and then nursed her babies.

Then I started to wonder what my civic duty is to these animals. Clearly this cat needs to be neutered. And these babies need to be adopted or the city will have three more cats out there procreating in someone's back yard. After some calls, though, it's not as easy as just picking up the phone. This is where my love for animals is seriously tested. Am I willing to go to a store and rent a humane trap and maybe spend a week training the cat so that it will go into the trap? Then take it to the SPCA to be neutered and bring it back? In addition to capturing all the babies (they need to be delivered in separate humane cages) and delivering them to be adopted? I don't really have the time, but what choice do I have? I have to do my part to maintain the most humane city in America!

I'm back (sort of)

Another month is about to pass with an abysmal number of entries. I know I shouldn't feel this guilty, it's just a blog, but it feels like giving up and maybe I've just given up on too many things lately. I see my friends on TV, they're creating TV shows and acting in big feature films and I wonder if I've made the right decision.

I started exercising again which always seems to be the first commitment. A person who can commit to exercise, it seems, can commit to anything. Maybe it's because our everything in our culture is created to allow us the luxury of not exercising. We are encouraged to use our brains, not our bodies for work. We drive, instead of walking or biking, to that job. At jobs like mine, a big beautiful cafeteria full of good - and healthy and cheap! - food is at my doorstep so again, I can return more quickly to sit at my desk. Once I get home, I've already spent the last ten hours training my body to sit, it takes a mentally strong person to say "now, I'm going to move only for the sake of moving."

I finally got an Internet connection this week (like getting a membership to the gym) thought that would instantly restore my blogging activity. Blogging, it seems, is like exercise - once out of shape, it's harder to do. But there are other barriers. I found myself one day feeling a little overexposed after someone I met found my blog. I've always thought of this project as my secret identity. A place where I can talk about things without worrying about people getting bored and without being judged. Once my identity is discovered, I don't feel safe anymore. I can't write about trouble at work if I think my co-workers are reading. I can't write about sex if someone I might want to date is reading.

So today, I Googled myself to see just how exposed I am and discovered the root of the anxiety. A number of sites that I have information on, or buy from, have chosen to use my name, my location, my interests and my purchases for marketing. It seems that someone might want to buy a book from Amazon because I bought it, or join a Meetup because I'm in it, or put their resume on LinkedIn so they can link to me. It's funny because my name has been on the Internet for a long time associated with acting jobs but that never felt invasive I guess because I was playing a character. But having my personal habits show up online as a piece of advertising feels like too much. And why can they do that without asking?

The privacy settings for these sites are buried and took a while to find. On LinkedIn, I couldn't hide some of the information, I had to hide all of it. I ended up deleting my Meetup profile because they didn't offer privacy settings at all, but Amazon, surprisingly, was the most difficult. A Google search revealed friends names, items on my wishlist, and items recently purchased! What if I was buying something to help with an embarrassing condition? (I'm NOT but what if I was?!) Privacy restored, for the time being, I feel a little more able to blog. I have lots of notes, things I've wanted to write but haven't yet, and I find it very comforting that Malcolm Gladwell hasn't updated his blog since January (of course he's probably writing a book, darn!)

Innovation starts on the inside

Wired and National Geographic’s cover stories this month are about biofuel. For every unit of energy used to produce ethanol from corn, it yields 1.3 units. Ethanol made from sugar cane in Brazil and other South American countries, by contrast, yields 8 units. We can’t grow sugar cane in the Midwest, though, we grow corn. Corn and soy (used to make biodiesel - yielding 2.5 units) are now our two biggest crops.

The downside: It’s not cost efficient, it uses oil to produce and it gets fewer miles to the gallon than gasoline. The government has to subside it and we need to get clever about how to reduce the harmful emissions producing it creates. On the up side, it’s a step towards reducing our dependence on oil, it’s a boon for farmers and an even bigger boon for big companies that have invested in this technology.

But it only makes a dent in our energy production, like every other alternative source, and it’s a food product. We won’t be feeding it to cows or using it to make human food, it’s going to run our cars. People are starting to get worried that we’ll be using all our farmland to make fuel. What happens then? What happens when China and India do the same thing? China is already planning to pave over a lot of their farmland to accommodate their growing hunger for cars.

Is it possible to be so ignorant that we could literally starve ourselves by driving our food instead of eating it? Another article in National Geographic about emissions get nitty gritty about what we need to change and how fast it needs to change. The article ends with a note of hope but the rest of it is pretty grim. It says we need to change almost everything about our lifestyle, our economy, our government, and we'll have to do it practically overnight, to survive. When in the history of humankind have we ever witnessed that much change? Never, really, and that’s the real gist of the article. It’s possible but not likely.

I suggested to some friends that in the future I could see the west going to war with the east over resources, after we've made all these changes and they haven’t (I say we because I hope – ha ha ha – that the US will adopt the changes Europe has been making). Our water, air and food will be at stake and we might have to fight for it, not that it will make a difference. They thought it was a grim idea and didn’t like me for saying it so I’ll defer to the "optimistic" end of the National Geographic article:

In the end, global warming presents the greatest test we humans have yet faced. Are we ready to change, in dramatic and prolonged ways, in order to offer a workable future to subsequent generations and diverse forms of live? If we are, new technologies and new habits offer some promise. But only if we move quickly and decisively – and with a maturity we’ve rarely shown as a society or a species. It’s our coming-of-age moment, and there are no certainties or guarantees. Only a window of possibility, closing fast but still ajar enough to let in some hope.

Wired tends to be more optimistic, believing that technology will save us! (I love the description of Wired on Treehugger). Their article pins our hope on cellulose technology that (if we can develop it) will tap our energy from the tiny little plants that started this whole wonderful world. An enormous amount of money is being spent on developing those solutions - ones that don't require that we change our lifestyle. But I think in this case, it's not technology but our ability to innovate and change ourselves, that will save us.

A place in the world

Something happened today. I’m not sure what it was but today I felt like I finally engaged in the rest of my life. The last couple of weeks I’ve had this odd sensation of time passing but not really knowing what day it is, what month or even, sometimes, what year. I’ve been feeling dislodged from life, just not sure where I am, where I’m going and often, where I’ve been. Living in Seattle seems like a distant memory, the person I was is someone I wouldn’t recognize on the street. Los Angeles feels very far away, much farther than it actually is and I’ve never felt more distant from the people I love.

I miss being able to jump in the car and drive to my mom’s house. The same-old-same-old of her quiet suburban backyard, sitting with her drinking tea and talking about nothing, these things make my heart ache. I don’t call my friends as much, I think because I know I can’t make plans to meet them for dinner or drinks or lunch or shopping or yoga or a movie or a walk. I don’t want to be reminded of how far away they are. This is my third major move as an adult, my third time starting over with home, work, friends. I understand now why some people never do it. It’s one of those “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” type things, which is not to say that I’m not deeply aware that in the grand scheme of things, it’s nothing.

My co-worker’s dad has prostate cancer. He’s youngish and being treated so he’ll probably be alright but it’s been hard on her to see her dad weakened, to see a proud and able man diminished by age and disease. Another co-worker just lost his mom. My boss' uncle tried to kill himself with pills. Life is cruel and eventually we all meet that fate so I thank my lucky stars that my life is so interesting, dynamic and fruitful.

Today I went for a run. I don’t like to run especially but I find myself wanting to do it when I feel alive, when I have energy that needs to be spent, and when I want to clear my head. I now feel able to do that instead of lingering in a hazy fog hoping sleep will wipe it away. That’s how I’ve been for the last couple of weeks. Tired, foggy, and while happy for the most part, confused. Today I didn’t feel that way. Maybe it’s because we were putting our presentation at work together, the “here’s what we need to do our project” presentation to the big boss. If we get it, I still have a job, and maybe even more of the job I want. If we don’t get it (the millions of dollars), I’m not sure what happens. I stay here, find a job in the city, I don’t know.

I miss acting, ironically, I miss making movies, but I don’t miss Hollywood. This weekend I fly to the east coast to see one of my dearest girlfriends get married. She used to live here and it makes me sad that we missed each other, here, but nothing could make me happier than seeing her marry someone she loves. Maybe that’s part of what happened today. I realized that moving changes things – where I shop, what I do on the weekends, how I exercise, how I get to work – but the important things, it doesn’t change. My important people, my passions and interests, my sense of self and feeling of place in the world, these things I take with me. These things live inside me.

My ass in exchange for the Internet

I finally ordered the Internet! I signed up for a two-year deal with Verizon for broadband. I put a little card in my computer (I don’t have it yet) and I get a connection via satellite the same way phones do. When I called this weekend, I had to give them my social security number as part of the application process. I played my little argument against it, “do you know it’s illegal to require it?” I asked? "Wow, really? But seriously, if you want service, you have to give it." They literally won’t process you without it.

They have to run a credit check, see, and they say it’s to protect me – so thieves can’t add lines of service and run up my bill – but it’s really to protect them from thieves adding lines of service and running up my bill. So I offered to pay a deposit. It’s what I do with my utilities and other services that want to run a credit check. I paid PG&E $115 to get my gas and electricity turned on. When I move out, they give it back. It covers me in case I don’t pay a bill because, in the case of energy, they have to actually send someone out to shut it off.

No can do, the rep said. If my credit isn't any good, I'll have to pay a deposit but I can't pay one to BYPASS the credit check. How does phone service get to be so difficult to acquire? I’m going to pay for the equipment up front, immediately, with a credit card and it’s non-refundable. I’m going to pay in advance for every month of service AND if I don’t pay, they can turn off my service (at the push of a button) I mean, maybe there’s a chance that they can’t with this card thingy but lord, a credit check? It just seems excessively invasive (welcome to the new America!)

But wait, there’s MORE! They get a credit guy on the phone to now verify some details from my report that only I would know – to make sure it’s actually me calling – and this is after I’ve given every vital piece of data on myself to a 22-year old in Cleveland (what kind of credit does he have I wonder?) “Where were you issued your social security card?” they ask? And where did I live prior to my current address? What outstanding debt do I have? What state did I first pay taxes in? Finally I pass the screening test and I’m allowed to purchase the equipment and commit to two-years of service. Seriously, could they cover their own asses any more on my dime? I don’t think so.

Impossible to disengage

If nothing else, I have learned some truly invaluable lessons working in the corporate environment. I hadn’t realized the extent to which the agency environment is utterly free. Even though you work for a client and you could lose the work and lose your job, while you’re working you know it’s a job. You know it’s a job because you’re working for a company that's working for someone at another company. It’s twice removed from you. The people judging you, your bosses, etc, are judging you through the lens of another company. They give you a lot of leeway – the client is a pain in the ass, the schedule sucks, the budget blows, and we can’t do the kind of creative we want so god bless you for sticking around.

In addition, one project really doesn’t affect another that much. Two teams can work on huge projects side by side and don’t have to know what the other is doing. Sure, they have to share resources and sometimes that gets a little annoying but it’s not like a change on my project changes everyone else’s project in the entire company.

But that’s exactly what it’s like working in a corporation. My group launched a microsite. Another group was running print ads to coincide with the launch, another is planning a viral seeding campaign, another a huge buy with You Tube and a partnership with My Space. Then there’s the whole internal team with their own marketing schedule, restrictions and requirements for banner ads, interstitials, emails. One thing changes, like the schedule, the URL, or the creative, and everything has to change. And those things are all connected to other things.

The onsite marketing is scheduled in among a dozen or more groups with their own needs and demands and changing parameters. The media buy is fixed and can’t change. The print ads are already on the press, can’t change them now. And that’s all before I even get to what my boss is telling his boss and so on and so forth. Just hope and pray that by the time the CEO sees it, it’s up, it’s running and it’s exactly what she heard it was going to be. In an organization like this, every little thing affects a dozen groups and potentially thirty or more other people. There are people I don’t even know, haven’t even met, emailing me saying they didn’t know I was doing x, y, and z and can they know more because something in their group depends on this information. How is that possible?

The biggest result of this kind of environment is that it’s impossible to disengage. At the agency level, I’m running the project and the client is somewhere else. In another building, another city, sometimes another state or country! If I feel like taking a 15-20 minute break to write a blog entry, I can. I know I’ve got a few moments, I know exactly what’s going on and I know the client won't barge in on me. Not so in the corporate environment. There’s no hiding from someone who wants or needs something from you, there’s no unplugging for 15-20 minutes and frankly, I don’t completely know what’s going on at any given moment.

I feel sometimes like I’m keeping a power plant from having a meltdown. Keeping small problems from getting bigger, creating solutions to potential problems and all the while trying to keep an eye on the future, well at least tomorrow. One of my friends at an agency we work with put in an interesting way. He said in the agency world, the enemy is the project itself. Getting it done in time, on budget, and with the best creative. Everyone in the company and the client is moving and working towards a common goal. In the corporate world, the enemy is right next to you. Whether you want it or not, you're all working towards the goal of being your boss. So four people are jockeying to fit into one slot - and that's only after the one that's already there has left. It is definitely a much more complicated organism, one that I feel is much more intelligent than I am. I'll keep you posted.

Getting wired on cocktails

This weekend, I went for drinks one night and dinner another night with a co-worker and some of her friends. In an unprecedented series of moments, I got to reference my beloved Wired magazine with two people, actually involved in the issues, not just watching from the sidelines like me. The first was an attractive guy who had just returned from China. I had literally just told a friend of mine that it was unlikely that I would meet the kind of guy that would interest me, in a bar. He blew that theory out of the water in the first 15 seconds. “Why were you in China?” I ask, to make the kind of small talk that I know I’m supposed to make, not thinking it would lead to actual conversation. I don’t remember exactly what he said, something about going to scope out a project he might be working on, something to do with the environment. Oh, I say excitedly, “China is building a green city, on a wetlands” and I go on to describe in as much detail as I can recall, an article in Wired that I blogged about. Yeah, he says, that’s the company I’m hoping to work for, on that project specifically. So I get to hear about it, from someone who actually knows!

The next night, we met up again and this time my co-worker had brought another couple of friends, married to each other, both doctors. They were beautiful and nice and smart - the kind of people you fall in love with immediately. He’s a neurologist, she’s a dermatologist, but not the kind that gives fat injections and acid peels, unless you’re a burn victim or someone in an equally dire situation. She works in a hospital, helping people who really need it. I get to talking with the neurologist and I get to ask about all kinds of things I’m super excited about: Jared Diamond (who teaches at UCLA where my new friend went to medical school), Oliver Sacks (he worked with him at Columbia) and of course, Wired magazine! I mentioned an article I’d read about these electrodes that are surgically implanted in the brain to stimulate tiny nerves. They’re used to treat Parkinson’s and other diseases where drugs have been ineffective. I learned much more from the doctor, however, and it was more fascinating that you can imagine. He described himself as a mechanic, if the brain was the engine of a car, and said his job was to diagnose the problem and get the thing running again or running properly. He’s a technical person, not prone to the kind of work that involves a lot of guesswork or lack of precision. When I asked him how he chose neurology, he said it was the most intellectual of the medical sciences and he’s a thinker. A thinker working on brains, how apropos! So these little nodes attach to a nerve and are triggered, electronically, to stimulate on a regular pulse. They’re powered by a battery, which is connected by a wire. The wire runs down the inside of the neck, from the brain, to a place in the chest where this small battery that lasts about 12 years in implanted. In the chest!

I never imagined that reading Wired would make such interesting cocktail conversation. Either I’m moving in smarter circles or I’ve moved to San Francisco (or they're the same thing).

Letting go or playing God?

I chatted with a guy at the airport who was flying to put down his dog down (the dog was living with the guy’s ex-girlfriend). He was pretty bummed out about it and was having a bad day and a hard time at the airport to boot – about to miss his third flight that day. He said making the decision to end his dog’s life was really difficult and he was having trouble reconciling it even though the poor guy is old and suffering.

Walking quickly with him towards his gate, I tried to console him by telling him a theory that I heard – that pets live longer, despite failing health, because they’re loyal to us. They love us and know we need them so they stick around, out of loyalty. In nature, animals that are old, sick or dying, just lie down and die, or get eaten or run across the road and get hit by a car. The theory goes that they’re not attached to their bodies the way we are because life and death are natural.

He was not consoled so I continued to explain that it was actually his duty as the human guardian of his dog, to allow him to move on. I said he should just tell him, “it’s okay dude, I’ll be alright, you can go.” He chuckled at my use of the word dude, thanked me, and rushed to board his plane. After the conversation, though, I keep coming back to the same question. Why is it so easy for people to eat meat but so difficult to end the life of their pet?

While in LA, I mentioned at lunch that I was a vegetarian and someone questioned the fact that I still wear leather shoes. Even when I was veg the first time, for over five years, I wore leather shoes. I’ve been in need, for several years now, of a good pair of tall boots and now that I’m in the Bay Area, more than ever. As I shop, however, I find myself grappling with the idea that I can’t continue to be the animal lover that I want to be and still wear them on my feet. Can I? I don’t consider myself a fashionista but a well-made pair of Italian knee-high boots seem like something I can’t happily live without!

I just think it's ironic that we struggle so much with the morality of euthanasia, in animals and humans. Why does it seem like we have an easier time killing for food (or fashion) or for punishment (the death penalty) than we do with relieving a person or animal of pain?

The wonderful world of Wired

Do you ever get the feeling that despite ALL the time you already spend on the web that there's a million, even a gazillion, totally cool things happening that you aren't experiencing? I have come to realize that I'm a creature in conflict. I dream of living a simple life and resist technology in so many small ways (like insisting that I don't need the Internet on my phone when I find myself MANY times a day wishing that I did), and at the same time curse that I'm missing all this cool stuff on the Internet.

I spent the day browsing eBay, bidding on items and putting on up for sale, and was led into a rabbit-holes looking for veg shoes which led me to etsy. I ended up creating an account to buy some super cute t-shirts and then subsequently found another site where a woman makes clothes from old clothes, which are so interesting but most is sold out. My coworker wanted music and I started a radio station with CocoRosie on Pandora, which I visited once a year ago but didn't come back for some reason, and have since been listening to the COOLEST f'ing music that I've never heard of!

I've also been online researching video sites and found that Wired partnered with PBS to create a science show. Wired magazine has been some of the best reading since Chris Anderson took over as editor-in-chief and now this is just so fantastic. You can watch videos and see demonstrations of the weird and wild stuff Wired reports on. Science hasn't been this cool since the turn of (last) century. And they were smart enough to cast a cute host...hey, I know this guy! Our short films played at a screening together in Hollywood. Ah, Hollywood, I miss ye.

I'm a real phony

I got scolded by my boss yesterday and scolded last week by the agency I'm working with. I've felt like a jerk in this job ever since I started and am starting to have an eerie feeling that I'm going to get fired. I shouldn't even say it out loud, I just signed a year lease for an apartment with outrageous rent. Long story short, I still don't have internet access and have lots of scribbles but no time to really write.

But while I was perusing an old email account, I found an excerpt from "Breakfast at Tiffany's" that made me laugh and seemed just silly enough to post for no reason at all, except now that I read it I realize I've been feeling like a phoney. I can't remember who I was going to send it to, but I never did, and it has lingered in my drafts for years. If you don't know the scene, you'll just have to rent the movie to see and hear how hilarious Martin Balsam is as O.J. Berman, the most loveable jerk of a Hollywood agent you've ever met.


BERMAN
SO LISTEN, FRED, BABY, WHAT ARE--

PAUL
NO, IT'S PAUL, BABY.

BERMAN
IT IS? I THOUGHT IT WAS FRED, BABY. ANSWER THE QUESTION. IS SHE OR ISN'T SHE?

PAUL
WHAT?

BERMAN
A PHONY.

PAUL
I DON'T KNOW. I DON'T THINK SO.

BERMAN
YOU DON'T, HUH? WELL, YOU'RE WRONG. SHE IS. BUT ON THE OTHER HAND, YOU'RE RIGHT, BECAUSE SHE'S A REAL PHONY. SHE HONESTLY BELIEVES ALL THIS PHONY JUNK. NOW, I SINCERELY LIKE THE KID. I DO. I'M SENSITIVE, THAT'S WHY. YOU GOT TO BE SENSITIVE TO LIKE THE KID. IT'S A STREAK OF THE POET.

PAUL
YOU KNOWN HER LONG?

BERMAN
I DISCOVERED HER. I'M O.J. BERMAN. SHE WAS JUST A KID--LOT OF STYLE AND CLASS...

PAUL
LOT OF WHAT?

BERMAN
CLASS.

PAUL
BUT YOU DIDN'T KNOW WHAT SHE WAS TALKING ABOUT--WHETHER SHE WAS A HILLBILLY OR AN OKIE. KNOW HOW LONG IT TOOK ME TO SMOOTH THAT ACCENT? ONE YEAR. KNOW HOW? WE GAVE HER FRENCH LESSONS. FIGURED ONCE SHE COULD IMITATE FRENCH, SHE COULD IMITATE ENGLISH.

FINALLY, I ARRANGED FOR A LITTLE SCREEN TEST. THE NIGHT BEFORE, THE PHONE RINGS. I SAID, "O.J. SPEAKING." SHE SAYS, "THIS IS HOLLY." I SAYS, "YOU SOUND SO FAR AWAY." SHE SAYS, "I'M IN NEW YORK." I SAID, "GET YOURSELF BACK HERE." SHE SAYS, "I DON'T WANT TO." "WHAT DO YOU MEAN? WHAT DO YOU WANT?" SHE SAYS, "WHEN I FIND OUT, I'LL LET YOU KNOW."

SO, LOOK, FRED, BABY--

PAUL
IT'S PAUL, BABY.

BERMAN
SURE. DON'T TELL ME SHE ISN'T A PHONY.