I'm back

Wow. it's been over a decade since my last post, Can I summon the will and commitment to continue? There are things I would like to share and writing regularly will certainly help me improve my online skills. Here is my first babystep in returning to keeping a blog.

I'm back

Almost TWO YEARS between entries. So this is like starting fresh again. Hoping I will find it in me to update often. What inspired me back? The box in my LinkedIn profile where you can link to your blog. Now lets see what else I can do.

Rolling with Reagan

I posted this clip of President Ronald Reagan's hearse on YouTube and wanted to experiment embeding the code on the blog.  Instead, I'm using a feature of blogspot. Also thought it would be good to open the blog again

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I shot these images with my wee Sony Cybershot 1.3mpx camera

Paleyfest 2008

The first night of PaleyFest the annual television festival in Los Angeles with a screening of Elvis Presley's  '68 Comeback Special.  In attendance were both the King's wife Priscilla and daughter Lisa Marie.  I shot b-roll with an awesome Panasonic handheld high def camera.  I also met Rodney Bingenheimer, The Mayor of Sunset Strip.  

A good night for hosts and guests alike.

Back in the saddle

Wow.  It's been over a year since I posted anything here at Doqublog, as I lost my longtime mdq@comcast/attbi/mediaone email account.  Now that I'm back, I really want to start using this blog for productive purposes.  I still love the title of "Doqublog" since it is what I call a " Google oh," however now I guess I can call it a "Google one."  Let's see if this post now appears in a place where the whole world can see it.  If it does, I can check off a goal on the list I no longer keep.  This is Mark DeCew, Mark DQ, mdq, The Admiralllll, and of course my official B-Squad nickname "cube."

2006 Grammy Awards preshow

doqublog is not very interested in who wins a Grammy Award. We will never forget in 1989 when the Hard Rock category was added, Jethro Tull beat out AC/DC and Metallica. Watching the legendary Elvis Costello perform in an all-star tribute also brought me back to 1979 when he was nominated in the "Best New Artist" category along with The Cars and Tom Petty and the winner was A Taste of Honey (remember "Boogie Oogie Oogie?) MSN has a good account of the sorid history of the Grammys.

doqublog is instead interested in the people and performances appearing on the telecast. We love rock concerts here, and it always fun to spark memories of past live shows upon spotting familiar musicians in the crowd: "Look, Joe Perry and Steven Tyler! The first time I saw Aerosmith was 1978 at the Syracuse War Memorial!" Since moving to Hollywood, personal experiences with famous personalities have been plentiful, primarily while working as a sound recordist for E! Entertainment. The major Awards shows are big events for the little basic cable network that made its name with live coverage of red carpet arrivals, so I always try and catch some of their broadcast to see how they pull it off. Props to the extremely talented Guiliana DePandi. I worked with her on her first shoot at E! covering a benefit for some environmental cause and was instantly impressed with her journalistic professionalism, energetic interview technique, and all around spunk.

I often tell the story of how she asked every celebrity arrival what they personally did to help the environment, aside from pay for tickets to Hollywood parties. Aside from Ed Begley Jr. who drove his own electric car there, the single answer given by all other was "I recycle." Not a mention of the other two 'R's, 'reduce' and 'reuse': no, the most these self-rightous media personalities could claim was following a weekly municipality mandated program household waste separation protocol. In LA, the city provides all addresses on their pick-up route with a plastic yellow bin to collect any garbage you feel guilty throwing in the same can as the take-out leftovers. The list of 'recycleables' including glass, plastic, cardboard, and paper is printed on inside lid of a special 'blue' trash can where the maid dumps the contents of the yellow feel-good bin, leaving other environmentally unfriendly waste products for the tabloid investigators in the 'brown' can' for pre-ranking refuse. No one is going to catch this celebrity mixing Crystal bottles with the poodle poo! Incidently, poo products go in the 'green' can with other organic debris from the mansion yard. The property owner and domestic servants never open the 'green' can, as it is only used by the gardeners to gather the flotsam of the mower and leaf blowers. The grass cutters are good hombres and can be counted on to roll all the green, brown, and ego-boosting blue cans to the curb to be emptied into one of those noisy trucks that wake me up in the morning. I mean, we already put or garbage in seperate bins, do they have to use so many garbage trucks? Why not dump all the cans in the same truck - just convince me I'm still 'recycling.'

The city answers the question what is recycylable and what isn't and why with a list that would challenge the waste management skills of an Earth First! tree house. And don't think lax compliance to the standards have no downside, the city offers us this:

Question:		Why doesn’t the City collect some items that are recyclable, and even have the recycling emblem stamped on the bottom?
Answer:		Although many materials are indeed recyclable, City recycling centers cannot accept some of these materials because they have no current market value. So, if recycling centers can’t find a place to sell the materials, they will end up taking the materials to the landfill at an additional cost, which is passed on to the City

Cinema Paradsiso

doqublog placed a call to the Hugh Hewitt today to comment on the Italian film Cinema Paradiso. The movie is not a documentary, but highly relevant to the the life story of the docublogger: My grandparents Carmello and Angelina Marcuccio were both Sicilian immigrants born and raised in villages like the setting of the story; I have worked in movie theaters since high school; and proudly fill in the 'OCCUPATION' blank on forms with 'Projectionist.'