A Helpful Manipulation

Have you ever wanted to manipulate me?

Don't answer that.

But please...do it.

No doubt, many of you are familiar with IMDB or the professional subscription version, IMDB PRO. The latter is what I use for vast amounts of pertinent information - Business news, development news, learning the fact that Beverly Hills Chihuahua reigned supreme at the Box Office this weekend, as well as on Monday and Tuesday...seriously, folks, I can kind of understand why anyone might vote for either presidential candidate, but really...? 30-plus million over three days for that steaming pile left by CG-FX Chihuahua's? I digress.

I need you all to manipulate me via IMDB by taking your little cursor hand, rubbing my name below and giving it a click.

James Sheldon

Oh wow. That felt nice. Thank you. I had a little kink in my spine, but now I'm slouching over the computer much straighter. I'll be adding some new pictures in the near future, but for the time being I can't get the old one down without paying more.

So. Why do this?

There is a scale system within the professional version of the site that is known as the StarMeter. The star meter is based on page hits. For example, as you can see below, Paul Newman passed away recently, so last week he was #1 on the StarMeter. Ryan Reynolds and Scarlett Johannson were also way up there because they got hitched, and the news broke. Making sense?

I once peaked at 35,xxx. Considering the millions of people in the database, that's almost satisfying as an "undiscovered." So, why manipulate it? I'm about to start submitting for agency and management meetings, because I've recently parted ways with my representation, and I'm on the hunt for some new people. Those people will undoubtedly look to see where I'm floating on the StarMeter - dumbest, most illogical thing ever, but such is the business. We all understand this because Beverly Hills Chihuahua was #1 at the Box Office.

And I won't hate you for sending the link to friends, or checking it out daily for the next month or so...even multiple times daily. To repay you, I promise that anything you ever see me in, I won't suck. If you didn't see my tour de force in LARVA, it can be rented at Blockbuster. Though most of my scenes were cut before we shot them, I still open the sucker and die while making out in the backseat of a car. Cool, huh?

Hoppin'

I'll be all over during the summer, and thought a little update would be appropriate.

That being said, I'm gonna pause and share a little somethin' - somethin' that I read earlier today:

I woke up this morning to watch Empire of the Sun for the first time. Being a HUGE Spielberg fan (please don't bring up the latest Indy installment, I'm still in mourning...) as well as a MONSTER Christian Bale fan, I can't believe I hadn't seen this film before today. Regardless, I caught it on HDNet, bumped from its life in 35mm to HiDef, and it was absolutely gorgeous for a film that is 21 years old. Knowing it was Christian Bale's first leading role I was reading up a bit on America's favorite British superhero. (He's Batman, if you were unaware.) I was informed by the age-old eye to word combination that Mr. Bale was in deep financial duress a few short years ago - even amidst a film career that had blossomed for over a decade. Why bring this up? The last few months have been a wonderful financial struggle...which I pray is coming to an end. Regardless, reading of the struggles of a contemporary that I truly admire, the light at the end of the tunnel seemed more apparent.

SO.

The next few months...I'll be picking up where I left off last year in San Francisco at the Major League Baseball FanFest. Due to the popularity of the game, and the growing popularity of MLB's RBI Initiative (Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities), KPMG, the corporate sponsor, has been booking me right and left to work my hosting mojo - I love them for it. I'll even get to team up with good ole Nicholas Coleman in NYC for the 2008 All-Star Break and MLB FanFest.

If you find me somewhere in transit, I'm always game to connect.

I'll be in Atlanta on Wednesday 11 - Friday 13 of this week. NYC July 10-18, and Phoenix at some point in August for a couple of days. There are dates out here, and stuff may be added after they get a dose of my 2008 awesomeness. In between all these dates, I'll be finishing up Wid Winner and the Slipstream, which I'm more excited about now than when the project began. Got some re-writes from Alex "Sascha" Gaynor this morning, and I got a little excited while reading them. I still owe some video evidence of this project, don't I? As my mom used to say, "Hold your horses."

Holy Holbrook...Thar's Wigwam's in Them Thar Hills

Have you seen the movie CARS?

(I'm all out of order, so bear with as I confuse the days and speak of them in retrograde fashion.)

I was working in the desert this week, and I kept thinking of Lightning McQueen, but more specifically of Doc Hudson (aka Paul Newman).

If you haven't checked out this animated gem, I highly recommend it. I've yet to see a Pixar flic that I didn't enjoy, and because of my sweet spot for motorheads, I really, really loved cars. In fact, the film was about three of my favorite things: Cars, the western American desert and getting off the beaten path.

It's crazy to see and experience the world that existed before Interstate 40 dominated eastern and western travel through the Wild West. Much of what once existed is now found in piles of rubble or as ruins of rock and grout. However, the small Arizona town of Holbrook offers one of the coolest Old Route 66 sites you'll ever see, and when you DO see it, you know immediately how those Pixar dudes scored their motivation to hammer out this, James Sheldon's favorite, Pixar effort. (Maybe if I keep writing Pixar, people will find my blog about Pixar as opposed to the official Pixar site! That would be Pixariffic!)

So, we picked up some montage stuff on Sunday at the Wigwam Motel, and got a little bit closer to becoming a full piece of fabric on Wid Winner and The Slipstream. After Alex (who I'm now calling Sascha) got what he wanted (and you can always tell that he got what he wanted, because he smiles real big and bats his irresistible lashes), we travelled back east toward the world's cultural epicenter, LA. Did I say epicenter? I meant blackhole...

On our way back, I know Sascha Gaynor was hoping for a few more slices of incomparability, and the "betchas" (I betcha) were swirling through the production vehicles as we approached the famous Ghost Town of Two Guns, Arizona. The stop here would become an epic journey across (we didn't know at the time that it was) an old, abandoned portion of Route 66, the historic Route 66 Bridge over Canyon Diablo, as well as include some stellar shots at the old Two Guns Zoo, where I got to do what all actors live for...throw rocks and get sunburned while being photographed...if that sounds sarcastic, let me reitterate...that, to me, is about as close to perfect as a day can get.

So...what about Saturday? Saturday was THIS. Two fellas in the middle of the desert, talking about Tang, Freeze-dried Ice Cream and surrounded by petrified wood, erotic mannequins and horny ostriches. If you were excited about the prospects of a movie about a homemade time machine, it only gets better when you think about this guy:

Don't ya just wanna take a sword and whack his head off?

Top 5 Funks

Aight.

I said "What Was I Thinking?" was next, but there has been a change in plans. I thought it enjoyable to reminisce about all those times in my life that I've really felt like crap...in doing so, I realize how blessed I am. On average, I only deal with something about once or twice a year.

On top of that, people often ask what I do for a living. Well, I don't know if it's a living, but I get paid for it...I write a lot of articles that often have a "Top 10" or "Top 5" in the title. So. Here they are (and if you feel you remember a time when I was worse than one of these, please remind me). James and His Top 5 Funks.

#5 - Right Now.

February 25th, 2008 - February ??, 200? Let's get this one over with shall we? It started with the son getting the flu last week. We all avoided it. During the Oscar's, however, 75% of our household got nailed with the hackiest cough and cold/flu I have ever experienced. I RARELY get a fever, and last night, I turned our bed into a water bed when that sucker broke at 2:45 a.m. According to my sweet wife, I sat up in my sleep and said, "That's awesome! That's just awesome!" When asked what I was dreaming about, I replied, "A chocolate race car!" That's what you get for watching Chocolat while entering the 5th stage of delirium. (Great flic by the way.) So, for everything this funk has done to our household, the fact that we're now at 100%, a perfect 4 for 4, and especially the fact that it's February 27th, and 83 degrees outside, this unnamed funk takes the honor of #5.

#4 - Young James Lives in an Oxygen Tent

I don't really remember this one. Well, I don't remember the sickness...the oxygen tent, however, is one of my earliest memories. I didn't breathe well as a young'n, and due to some bronchial asthma, my parents took me to the hospital claiming that I wasn't breathing well. A nurse, clearly over-qualified to deal with such nonsense, sent my parents home. I guess it wasn't much later that I began to resemble a blueberry. The folks took me back to the hospital, the doctor was called in, and from what I've been told, ripped the nurse a new one!! Seriously! Don't you KNOW who I am? (If you all could hit that page at least once a day, that'd be awesome for me...) Digressing, I lived in a tent, just like John Travolta in The Boy in The Plastic Bubble.

#3 - Cough = Crap

Worst flu I ever had. I can't recall my age, but I had to be between 7 - 10 years old. Everytime I coughed...I crapped. Simple as that. Yeah, think about that one for a second, and you'll thank your heavenly Father the next time you cough and nothing comes out.

#2 - August Non-Survivor 1994

In the midst of our August 2-a days, aka football practice, I contracted a little something funky. You never want to miss a practice, and especially during August. If you do, then you're not a true "August Survivor." No sport ever thrashed my fitness level, and I was ALWAYS up for the challenge...especially the summer before my senior year. However, one night after practice, with maybe 4 days left in the 2-a day schedule...and about a pound of shared M&Ms and "too much" Fruit Punch Gatorade later...I was owned by viral attack... ...my yack smelled like chocolate and strawberries. Needless to say, no August surviving for me.

#1 - Spring 1995 - The Perfect (Puke) Storm

My folks blew town for a few days, and I remember my brother going with them...we had Friday and Monday off from school. I stuck around for a track meet being hosted that Friday afternoon in Bolivar, Missouri, and my track team was dominant, so there was no way I was missing a meet. My Dad left a note with instructions about a guy coming to fix (or replace) our hot water heater, and that if I needed water, there were several jugs in the refrigerator...if there was an emergency, or I had to turn the water on, the main valve was out in the yard.

Friday afternoon I could tell that I wasn't feeling it during the meet. I attributed my woes to fatigue or a poor performance day, yet didn't realize that my weekend was soon to become the weekend from hell. I dined on corn-dogs after my events (you can see where this is going), and proceeded to plan my stellar weekend with the boys...in fact, I didn't plan on setting foot in our household after grabbing a few clean clothes that night after the meet. By the time I got home, I felt like the walking dead. I remember rolling up the driveway in my 1987 Ford Escort GT, thinking, "I don't feel so great." I called a couple friends to let them know that I was feeling funky, but would come over around midnight after I had time to chill and watch some TV. I dozed off in my parents bedroom watching the tube, and just as planned, popped up right around midnight. No, I wasn't ready to go play...I knew that feeling...welling in my stomach...dashing across their bedroom and into the bathroom for a LAUNCH that would make the space program jealous! I made it to the toilet. Whew. When I came up for a breath, the second wave was waiting for me unexpectedly, and I yacked across the vanity mirror, counter and maybe even got a little into the sink. In fact, there's a good chance that my spew got more distance than I did earlier that day in the Long Jump.

I immediately felt better, although too weak to do anything but lie on the bathroom floor and moan..."Uhhhh. Uhhhhh. Uhhhhh this sucks I'm never eating corn dogs again...Uhhhh." About 15 minutes later, I got up in an effort to clean off the sink and mirror. Have you ever seen a chunk of hot dog stuck to a mirror? Such a thing cannot wait 'til morning. So, I turn on the faucet to get two little shots of water and air. "Please, God, no." All I could think of were my friends having the greatest of times less than a 5 minute drive away...and I'm staring at puke on my parent's mirror with no tangible way out of my predicament. I knew the toilet was good for one flush, so I took a moral victory in that and moved on to a new plan.

I picked up the phone, and called to the party..."Can someone come help me?" Fortunately, Chris Garner (aka G-Funk, and a forever friend), said he would come over to do the things that great friends do...sacrifice. By the time he made it over, I had used the jugs of water to clean the sink and mirror....even busting out the Windex at 1:00 a.m. So, I handed him a pair of pliers and asked him to go outside and turn the water back on (after all, this WAS an emergency), and he attempted to do so with no reluctance. Someone else was there helping Chris, but I can't remember who it was...maybe Tony Lounsberry (another forever friend)...and then things got really strange. After a few minutes, G-Funk comes back in, telling me, "There's a dead body down there." I was so delirious, I didn't even argue. "Ok, I'll check it out tomorrow." Chris hung out for awhile...at least until I felt better...although his view of the murderous Sheldon family had probably changed drastically. Flash forward to the next afternoon, and I found the dead body...some might have called it insulation packed into a 30 gallon trash bag, but "dead body," certainly sounded a whole lot cooler.

Oh Thunder...

Oh, Thunder, please bring me, please bring me some Thunder...(sung to Barry Manilow's Mandy).

I have a niece that turned 18 today. That's scary. Happy birthday, Kass...if you happen to read this. When nieces and nephews hit that age, you know you're well on your way to Old Fartville. And when your kids hit that age, well, "Welcome to Old Fartville."

Like I said, our softball team got into the W column this weekend, with a rousing 10-4 win. And I had a softball first...I struck out LOOKING, in my first plate appearance. Seriously, I just stood in the box and stared at the ball until I saw something I liked. I think I may do it consistently, because I rarely get anything that I enjoy swinging at. It turned out that making the fella throw strikes early meant that he threw me strikes for every subsequent at bat. At that point, I could pretty much put the ball wherever. All of us for that matter, were putting the ball wherever. We played better in the field, and ran worse on the base paths, but bottom line...we won. You can all breathe now, as I know life couldn't have gone on had we lost another.

The skies are only partly cloudy today, so not a lot of thunder. As a matter of fact, I've been uninspired to write as of late. I used to rip one humorous piece o' prose after another, but it seems all my goods are going to "the man." It's not easy to write for hours a day, and then switch vehicles to write something that everyone would want to read...like a George W. Bush speechification. I just finished writing about Eco Friendliness, and now I've gotta write about vacationing in Savannah, Georgia...and "the man," in this case AOL Travel, has rules for writing...so I can't write, "When you get to Savannah, be sure to look up my friend Jennifer." However, I was once writing about vacationing in Thailand, and I wrote a sentence that went something like, "Awaken every morning to the tranquil sights and sounds of the Wang - it will wash your cares away." Because we all know that the Wang is a river in northern Thailand...

I wrote a new song earlier today, despite my lack of inspiration. Right now it's entitled, "Why Don't You Want Me Mr. Spielberg?" I think I may debut it on Oscar Night, or perhaps at the next Grace Cafe, but it's a gem, fo' sho'.

I'm gonna get back to work, so I can get out for a hike later! 70 degrees and sunny here in SoCal...top that, people in Missouri that own houses!

It's Time...

To get the ball rollin', I'm goin' short and sweet. Great things are happening, and you'll get an update just around the corner! I will keep this sucka up to date, and I will do as the title of my little blog suggests. I hope you'll do the same! (That's 'Bring The Thunder' for those of you that are a little slow)

Now. Back to work with ice on my knee, my foot on my phone (I was wondering what that sound was...?), and then to TRANSFORMERS at 10:25 P.M. You can expect the report, and the life happenings to hit early tomorrow or late late tonight!