On Losing Things. On Finding Things.

Sometimes you lose stuff. You just do. Nobody's fault. Shit happens. A cuff link rolls off your dresser and gets sucked up by the vacuum. A ten dollar bill sails into the wind as you're pulling out your car keys. The world is cruel sometimes. Your Star Trek NCC-1701 Enterprise Pizza Cutter gets accidentally thrown away with the last pizza box. Good thing it was a gift or you'd be pissed off.  It was pretty cool, though. (Stop laughing. Have you ever SEEN one of those? They are COOL.)

Sometimes other people lose stuff and you find it. That's exciting. Occasionally, a little uncomfortable. I found a $100 bill once. I felt guilty for a month afterwards.  The poor sod probably needed that C-note for something important.


However frustrating losing something may be, when you find it again, the joy is immeasurable. Especially if you find it on accident. The tale of loss and recovery becomes epic. A party story told over and over again to rapt throngs. The cuff link winds up in the cat's litter box. (Yeah, don't ask. It's a mystery.) The ten-spot ends up blowing against a rose bush getting stuck on a thorn for a week and returned to you by your gardener. (Who clearly could use the money more than you). The pizza cutter mysteriously appears years later on the same day the new Star Trek movie opens. (Kismet.)

Sometimes, just sometimes, you will find something without having lost it at all. A relationship, a love, a friend, a memory. One of my very best friends from high school reconnected with me via a phone call out of the blue. I had forgotten how much that person meant to me and, strangely, still does. While I didn't actually lose him as a friend, I found the importance of him again. As a result, that simple little action of a phone call, we have gotten back in touch, have spoken many times and actually took the time to meet after a million years and visit for a while face-to-face.  So fun and heartwarming, really.

For those who read my posts or follow me on Facebook, you will know I "found" a daughter I didn't know I had. More accurately, she found me. While I didn't officially "lose" her, the change in our lives once we found each other was profound. I would daresay miraculous even.

Just last year, I had the pleasure of finding some "junk boxes" my mother had kept over the years. She kept Mother's Day cards from the 90s, birthday cards from the 80s, newspaper clippings from the 70s. Letters from her children. Not junk at all. At least not to her. What I really found was what my mom had held dear throughout her entire life. Memories.

It's not that I really needed that Star Trek pizza cutter. I mean, really, it's a pretty limited utensil. It was just awesome to look at, to hold, to have. It was fun. Naturally, I was able to cut pizza after it went missing. I bought a new pizza cutter at Ralph's. It worked. Cut pizza. I forgot about the lost item pretty quickly, to be honest. Until one day, you move something or clean out a drawer or rearrange a cupboard. Hum. What's...that? Hey, it's my  Star Trek NCC-1701 Enterprise Pizza Cutter! Then you cradle it like a long lost love. The memory of losing now itself a memory. So glad I got a couple DiGiornos in the freezer.  Now, where'd I put that corkscrew?

I'm Not a Writer. But, I Write.

Nobody writes anymore. We tap out 140 characters on Twitter. We post funny sayings and scatter birthday wishes around Facebook.  We scratch out a few lines in a thank you card or a text message. We don't really write, though.

Which is kind of odd when when you think about it. I don't know about you, but when I get an actual letter in the mail, I am as "giddy as a drunken man" to quote Mr. Dickens. I reschedule whatever I may have planned in order to locate a letter opener (yes, I still have one). If I can't find it immediately, any knife, pair of scissors or fingernail file will do. Carefully I'll slice open the envelope; gently remove the precious paper cargo as if it were a page from the Books of Kells; gingerly unfold the stationery with baited breath ready to absorb the contents. The subject matter is less important that the fact that this person just took valuable time out of their day to think about me and put words on paper.

I'm not talking about business letters, here. You get that, right? I talking writing of a personal nature. To family and friends and people you care about. I'm talking big sentiments with nouns and verbs and adjectives (no abbreviations allowed) that reach into the other person's mind if not their very soul. These kinds of letters don't have to be novels or even short stories. They can be a paragraph or a few pages. They should, however, be considered and contemplated. They should take some effort. It's okay to re-write a few bits here and there. If fact, consider that prerequisite to a good letter.

A long time ago I used to write letters. Lots of them if memory serves. Then I stopped. Don't know why. Inspiration got overshadowed by something less thrilling, perhaps. Time spent scribbling got shifted to time spent rehearsing. Not that either of those things are acceptable excuses, but whatever the reason(s) my letter writing became more, shall we say, sporadic. I only started writing letters again a few years ago. I picked up the keyboard to write letters to my daughter. [My previous posts address that little miracle.] My thinking was that if I could write her a letter on a special occasion here and there I would be able to subtlety sneak in some information about myself that she might find interesting. Maybe even useful. Or at least, she might get to know me better through my written words and not just my spoken ones. Honestly, I sometimes talk way to much and writing is a good filter. With any luck, I hope she has had a laugh or two while reading my little missives. She certainly has discovered that I have absolutely no regard for grammar or punctuation.

Should you choose to begin your letter writing adventure, start with letters to friends. Those are easy. Just start writing to a buddy to see how their doing. Crack a few jokes. Ask a few personal questions. Give them a couple of updates about your own life. I guarantee you will get an immediate response and, hopefully, a letter in return. Now, I am fully aware that some of you kinda do this already. At Christmastime. You know who you are. Imma let you slide even though you are cheating a Little bit.

The most elegant form of letter writing is, of course, the love letter. One needn't be a poet to write a good love letter. If the meaning is truthful and heartfelt, the person you are writing to will think it poetry. If sincere, the words will come. Just throw in a couple complements and some flower references and you are golden! (Spray a little perfume with some rose top notes on the envelope for good measure. Rose lingers. Viola!)

If you are not going to heed my advice and start writing letters, then at the very least -- start a blog.  Write something. Even if no one ever reads it. Write. Not all the time, just once in a while. Give yourself the  chance, even the permission, to be vulnerable, to spout off, to express yourself.

Here's the thing (pardon me while I step up on this soapbox for a minute), as I see it, our  society has developed a terrible avoidance to speaking from the heart. Oh, we can rattle off an uneducated or ignorant opinion faster that you say "Donald Trump's a racist asshole." But to share a real piece of our heart is much harder. We have come to think of anything even close to sentimentality as bad, uncool, silly, unbelievable. From movies to personal relationships, we shun the sentimental in favor of "being honest." Plain, blunt, often coarse talk has smothered our ability to cry at movies, our longing to sigh at songs, or our need to whisper in our lover's ear. But in order for a love letter (any letter, really) to be truly effective, the writer must let down their own guard. They must be emotionally available. A person who writes, must openly make themselves vulnerable to the person to whom they are writing. You must risk something of yourself to make the connection. No one can do that in a tweet a post or a meme.

There is also a very personal je ne sais quoi about signing your name to something. Especially, something other than a tax return or a credit card receipt in a restaurant. Even when I print out a letter written in Word, I will sign my name. With an actual pen. Your signature on a letter is the equivalent of a politician endorsing a commercial. It's you saying, "Yup, I wrote this and mean every word." This flies directly in the face of most social media that is hidden behind bogus screen names and false identities. There we hide our meanness behind anonymity. With letter writing we wave our heart around like a white flag hoping the person reading it will take up the order to parley.

I know a few people are real writers. I mean, pros. For reals. Gifted, creative friends who can expertly craft a movie script, weave together a story for book or magazine, invent a beautiful poem. I'm not suggesting that we all suddenly add another hyphen to our credentials and I would never insult my highly talented friends by comparing my own work to theirs. However, I do think there is value in the process of writing. You don't have to be a writer to write a letter. You just have to have something important or nice to say - to someone else.

Secret Stashes of Circus Peanuts

On July 13, 2015 my mother passed away. Now, don't worry, this isn't going to be one of those kind of posts. Yes, it was hard. Excruciating. Fortunately for me, I really had no unfinished business with my mom. We were good. But the grieving process got me thinking about a whole raft of things. Some linked to her directly and others just far away thoughts that would come rushing into the vacuum created by the loss. Some I had predicted would show up, others were little surprises. Still others -- earthquakes.

But life is like that, right? Sometimes in the middle of a perfectly perfect Southern California day there's an earthquake followed by some aftershocks. Then, all better, back to perfectly perfect.

After my mom's death, my brothers and I set about "getting her affairs in order." And while I remember little about what transpired over the course of those few days, I do remember one thing in particular -- and vividly. In what my mom referred to as her "computer room" was a desk. It had four drawers. As I opened the bottom most of those drawers I was shocked to discover...her secret candy stash. My 87 year old mom had candy hidden away. My audible laughter turned into sobbing. So much so that one of my brothers came rushing in to check on my state of being. This drawer contained two boxes of Dots, a bag of Cinnamon Bears, and two large unopened bags of possibly one of the most inexplicable candies in the world of confections -- Circus Peanuts. The fact that she squirreled them away like a teenager's porn collection just struck me as profound.

I cannot for the life of me figure these things out. They look like peanuts, but are made of some kind of strange marshmallow only not really marshmallow. And, if we are to believe Wikipedia, they are banana flavored. Right. Okay. Who thought that shit up?  Who makes a banana flavored marshmallow peanut? That's craaaazeeee! I love 'em!

Forrest Gump was wrong. Life is nothing like a box of chocolates. Life is like a bag of Circus Peanuts. Looks like one thing, tastes like another and is made out of something not quite what it should be. Our stroll through this life is littered with these bizarre little candies. People and events that make no sense in any way except the one way that matters most. The heart way.

We all have certain friends that continually disappoint or drive us insane. Family that embarrasses us or angers us with their small mindedness or opinions. But if we ever really needed someone to help us fix a flat in the middle of the Mojave Desert, they'd drive half way across the country with a brand new jack and a spare tire. We may hide them from the world like my mom's candy bags, but they'll always be right there if we need them.

Long lost friends, forgotten lovers, distant relatives, former classmates. People passing through your life that you may not have heard from in years. Memories that have been effectively sunken at the bottom of our muddy brain seem to bubble up out of nowhere (how they find our cell number is still a mystery) and we laugh through the whole hour long catch-up session like we had never been apart. Opening yet another bag of familiar sweetness and pushing the silly thing into our mouth like an orca eating a seal.

Every once in awhile, on an inexplicable whim, I'll buy a bag of Circus Peanuts. (They're only a couple bucks at Target.) Not because they are delicious. Not because of the health benefits of Yellow 5 and Red 40. Certainly not because they are gluten free. (Which they are, BTW.) My motivation for supporting this ridiculous treat is purely because that first bite releases a flood of memories. All of them good. It's hard to remember sad things when you're eating a Circus Peanut.

No one should live in the past. But it's totally okay, to taste it now and again. If for no other reason than to remember how delicious things can be if you only open the bag. Thanks, Mom.

"To Kill A Mockingbird" & Me

Last week, Harper Lee died. She was 89. I have been pondering her much this last week. (Maybe more so even than the passing of David Bowie and Glenn Frey though equal to my musings on my friend, Natalie Cole.) Until 2015, Lee had published only one book. One. One of the very few Great American Novels.

After my stint studying to be an actor at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, I was hungry, no, starving, to continue gobbling up every bit of great acting wherever I could find it. I sought out every important movie I could find (VHS days), every play I could afford (waiter's salary), and listened to the spoken word recordings of the likes of Richard Burton and John Gielgud (perfect for LA traffic). Many of my contemporaries were dressing like Dustin Hoffman and combing their hair like Al Pacino. They were delving deep into the psycho babble of Strasberg. Making meals of cigarettes, cheap bourbon, and Cup Noodle. I was being drawn to a different kind of actor and, ultimately for me, a different kind of career. I found myself gravitating to the class and style of William Powell and William Warren. I still love the Pre-Code films of the early '30s and the deftly acted and directed screwball comedies of the 30s and 40s. I will stop whatever I am doing to dance with Fred & Ginger, light up a smoke with Bogart & Bacall, or muscle my way through a Gene Kelly number. (So, yes, I'm a fan of TCM.) I didn't want the mumbling anti-hero of James Dean. I didn't care all that much about the frantic intensity of the constantly-New-York-accented Pacino. I was looking for quiet power. Controlled technique. Acting choices based on writer's words not just personal reactions to internal, lizard brain desires.

Then I saw Gregory Peck in "To Kill A Mockingbird."

Everything changed. My search was over.

The story itself is a roller coaster of humor and drama, innocence and racism. Peck's portrayal of Atticus Finch won him an Oscar - as it certainly should have done. He is, simply put, perfect in the role. To this day, this is mandatory viewing for my acting students.

The character of Atticus is a towering figure. From height to humility, he is the very definition of a hero. But he is also a father of deep compassion and strength. A lawyer of thoughtful consideration and weighted intelligence. In 2003, AFI named Atticus Finch the greatest movie hero of the 20th century. Not Rocky Balboa or Iron Man. Not Indiana Jones or James Bond. Atticus Finch. A small town lawyer in Alabama. A widower with two kids.

I left the theatre that day wanting to live my life like Atticus Finch, the character. Of course, that didn't last long. Youth and Hollywood soon dashed all hopes of me ever having that kind of courage or conviction -- or morality. But what did last, was my great desire to try to be as accomplished an actor as Gregory Peck. And if not as talented or skillful as he, then certainly as utterly believable as he was in that one role at least once in my fledgling career. Gregory Peck in "To Kill A Mockingbird" was my benchmark for acting perfection.

For some reason, my teachers always picked other things to make us write term papers on, so I didn't read Harper Lee's book in school. In watching this film for the first time, I had no frame of reference. Just the movie. It wasn't until years later when I finally got around to reading the novel, that I realized how gracefully Horton Foote's screenplay captured the book and, indeed, the character of Atticus Finch. But even Foote's tremendously gentle screenplay would have been empty without Peck's Atticus. Maybe not empty, but certainly, less perfect.

As I have gotten older I have gotten noticeably more liberal about my intake of art. (I'll even enjoy me some Pacino and Brando now! (Except "Scarface." Still, no. It's the accent.)  I am much more accepting of imperfection in films and plays. A musician blows a sour note - what of it? A painting may not speak to me, but I'm sure there will be someone who appreciates it. Don't get me wrong, I still point out errors and poor execution. I still cringe at poor diction during a Shakespearean monologue and I have little patience for over-gesticulation buy a fresh-faced leading man. My wife and I still make good sport about how we could have fixed a certain line reading. But "To Kill a Mocking Bird" may just be the perfect film. I honestly cannot find a single thing that I would change. Boo Radley, Dill Harris, Bob Ewell. Wouldn't alter a line or gesture. Tom Robinson, Calpurnia, Judge Taylor. Wouldn't vary an expression or camera angle.

Similarly, I can say the same thing about the book. Scout, Jem, Atticus. Wouldn't replace a single verb or tweek one little noun. Harper Lee's long life yet all-too-short career left us with so much heart and wisdom, it's no wonder that we feel that we actually knew her. We certainly knew and loved her characters. Certainly, the impact that one book and that one  movie had on one young actor, changed him for the better -- and forever. Thank you, Harper Lee. Thank you, Gregory Peck. Thanks, Atticus.

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”-- Atticus Finch

On Ian McKellen and Acting.

In an age of meaningless Kim Kardashian celebrity and Charlie Sheen media antics; in a Hollywood littered with the inexplicable behavior (intentional or other otherwise) of the Shia LaBeoufs, Mel Gibsons, and Amanda Bynes of the world; in a era fraught with fractious politics and insane ideologies; indeed, in a world of continuing violence and endless bigotry, it is nice to occasionally find refuge in...something. Something sane. Something hopeful. Something inspiring.

For me that refuge has always been the arts. Primarily the performing ones. Mostly with actors. I love being with actors. Working with them. Talking to them. Hearing them discuss their craft. War stories and backstage dalliances. Flubs and faux pas. Victories and conquests. Shakespeare, Shaw, Henley, Mamet, Simon, Wasserstein.

I get energized by the way actors analyze characters and peel back the emotional layers of humanity. I wonder with them as they dissect the world. I like the jokes many of them make at their own expense and the honesty with which most of them approach their very lives.

Recently, I was fortunate enough (along with a small crowd of others at a very exclusive little event) to find such refuge in the company of one of the world's finest (dare I say greatest) actors, Sir Ian McKellen. He is at once serious yet very approachable. He is funny and thoughtful. He is wise and witty and knowledgeable and well-read and deep of thought and emotion. To wit, he is an actor's actor. I would say the very definition.

I was first exposed to Ian McKellen when he was 44 year old. He was touring his one man show, "Acting Shakespeare." A couple actor friends and I pooled our bartender and waiter tips and cobbled together the cash to sit in the Westwood Playhouse (now the Geffen Playhouse) and watch a relatively unknown British actor (at least to Americans) perform scenes and monologues from Shakespeare. Dressed in a light blue, long sleeved shirt and what I remember to be grey trousers, he began, "All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players."

I was 25 and fresh out of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. I had entered drama school after college in hopes of becoming a movie star or, at the very least, a regular on a TV show. That night, McKellen, alone on stage with no props or costumes, made me want to become an actor instead. Within about an hour and a half I had seen what an actor really is. What an actor really does. What an actor is capable of doing to an audience. I was changed.

There is an interesting thing that happens when you are in the company of real actors. "Real actors" as opposed to "movie stars." I make this distinction with all due respect to movie stars. They work hard in a difficult profession. I love Tom Hanks. He is a very good actor as far as movie stars go. I've never been disappointed with a Tom Hanks movie. But Hanks (and Clooney and others in the rarefied air of movie-stardom) will never play the massive variety of roles afforded to actors like Sir Ian. Sir Ian. Sir John. Sir Alec. Sir Ralph.

In listening to Sir Ian talk quite candidly about his actor life was personally reassuring and artistically comforting. There are no rules, he can give no advice, he has no process, hard work is important once you have the job, and luck ultimately gets you the job. Even for the most successful actors in the world, it is a hard career that must be tempered and nurtured daily. No, it is not fair. Yes, you are probably better than the people you see on TV and in the movies. Stick to your guns, remain committed, be fearless, work hard, study other actors, live in the world. Have a career not just a job. Love what you do. Be an Ian, not a Kim.

Here's the interview.

What You Don't Know About Actors - But Should.

Now that Halloween is over, I can safely wade back into this topic without be called a curmudgeon -- or an asshole. But right now I'm going to lay a little truth smackdown on you.

Every year for the past...well, let's say since college, I have been asked what I'm "going as" for Halloween. "You're an actor, you must LOVE Halloween!" Obviously, everyone thinks that actors must just LOVE Halloween because of the dressing up. Not so, Grasshopper. Not all actors like to play dress up for this night of spooky shenanigans. Some do, yes. I know some of these people and they are nice humans and good actors and I like them. They usually do an amazing job of building costumes, too. They have fun doing it. Great. But for some of us, the idea of putting on a costume when NOT in show of some kind makes our skin crawl. I am one of those. I have nothing against All Hallows Eve or those who like to squeeze into a Naughty Viking Girl outfit or smear bloody zombie goo all over their Walking Dead ensemble. Fine. Just not for me. I can't tell you how many parties we have passed on because they were "costume required" affairs. Please understand, this is nothing personal. We do like parties and we love to have fun with our friends. But, no thank you under these conditions.

Do we decorate our house? Yes. Do we have the best candy in the neighborhood? Uhm, yeah. We also make sure to compliment (sometimes by acting terrified) of each and every little kiddo that comes trick or treating. I like Halloween. I'm just not dressing up.

Does this surprise you? Probably. Here are some other surprising things you may not know about us actors.

• Not every actor was "the class clown." No knock on class clowns out there, past or present. Many class clowns are very bright and often downright gifted verbally and socially, but that doesn't necessarily make for a good actors nor does it indicate the class clown will become an actor. There is a difference between an extrovert and a class clown. Actors have a tendency to be extroverted, but even that is a bit of a stereotype. Lots of very fine actors are contemplative, thoughtful, and quiet -- until they step on the stage where they turn it on.

• No, we cannot do impersonations. Some of us can, most of us can't. Nor do we care to. That is a very specialized skill reserved for ventriloquists, voice over artists, and celebrity impersonators. Oh, and my pal Chuck Sigars who is both a gifted actor and a very fine mimic. But this is rare. Don't push it with the rest of us.

• Not all of us have been on TV. So, when you ask us, "What have I seen you in?" the answer may be, "Well, were you at the Shaw Festival last year? I played Major Petkoff in "Arms and the Man." Some of us choose (that's right, I said choose) to do theatre instead of TV or film. Not because we don't want fame and stardom, but rather because so few of us actually get hired for those jobs, the theater provides us more opportunities and creative freedom.

• We do not want to be the master of ceremonies at the PTA mixer. We do not want to volunteer to lead the company retreat. We do not want to do the recordings for the company voice mail. And we do not want to do accents just for your enjoyment whenever you think it would be fun to hear us talk like Bert from Mary Poppins.

• No, we have never met Brad Pitt or Leonardo DiCaprio. Maybe we had an "under five" on "Leverage" with Timothy Hutton or did a guest starring role on "Grey's Anatomy," but, no to Brad and Leo.

• Not all high school and college actors are gay. Not all gay students are in "drama club." Not all female stage managers are lesbians and not all lesbians in the theatre are techies. This is the 21st century, please grow up about these things. 

• And finally, no, we do not have closets full of costumes from all our years of making theatre. So, the the answer is, no, you cannot borrow my ears and tail from my national tour of "Cats." (Besides, I think my granddaughter is gonna want to be a ballerina kitty again next year and you never returned the drum major costume from when I was in "The Music Man.")

Stereotypes. I hate 'em.

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." -- Inigo Montoya

I gotta get better at creating headlines. This one seems a little long. As an entrepreneur, I've gotta get out of my comfort zone and find a mentor or a marketing pundit to help me solidify my personal brand and really get more concise.

Sometimes I get tired. Words, phrases, terms, vocabulary, jargon, slang. Sheesh. It's just too much. I used to get a little peeved. Okay, pissed. I had a high school teacher, Mr. Cooke, who was a stickler for this stuff. That's when it started. We had to stand in front of the class and conjugate verbs and do diction exercises.  I've never thought about it this way before, but he had a pencil thin mustache and wore bow ties. I also have similar facial hair and often sport a dicky bow. Hum, maybe more influence on me than I had originally thought. Anyway, he was the epitome of class. Always dressed to the nines, deep baritone voice and perfect diction. I do not recall him EVER dangling a single participle or misplacing a single eensy, weensy modifier. He also knew what words meant and how to use them.

Now, I'm nowhere near the master of wordplay that was my dear Cookie, but I do, on occasion, loose my shit. Usually, it's over stuff that just kinda gets my goat. Through no fault of the words themselves, we often take perfectly good ones and make them into things they are not. Worse, we make them meaningless. Here are a few examples of humans doing bad things to perfectly good words. Well, at least these are the ones that are pissing me off at the moment.

Entrepreneur. 

My Grandpa Atkin, if he were alive today, would probably call himself an entrepreneur. If you believe my mom, he'd also probably be in jail. He was a gold prospector, a cowboy,  an inventor, a peddler of snake oil and sewing machines. He was either stone broke or peeling off hundies to help a neighbor fix their Buick. It was a different world in the 40s and 50s of the Greatest Generation. People had to do a lot of different jobs in their life. That didn't make them entrepreneurial, it just made them work hard.

Apparently, everyone is a freaking entrepreneur these days. If you are between jobs, looking for a new job, in business for yourself, or just a perpetually under-employed actor in Hollywood, you probably call yourself an entrepreneur. You're not. You might be a businessperson. You're probably a hustler. That's cool. By calling yourself an "entrepreneur" you are implying that you possess qualities of leadership, true innovation, and risk-oriented initiative. If you have to call yourself that, you're probably not.  You also think too highly of yourself. Just get to work. Doing something.

Serial Entrepreneur.

No, really, that's a thing. Back in my grand-dad's day this guy would be called a "huckster." They'd be quacks, charlatans, swindlers, mountebanks. (Mountebank? Too much? Yeah, okay.) Unless your name is Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin, or Richard Branson you are probably not working hard enough to be even remotely referred to as a serial entrepreneur. You'd also have so much money you would need to worry about what people called you. When you finally can pry yourself away from your own genius, read Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis. Or, if you are too busy re-inventing the banana slicer, just watch the movie version with Burt Lancaster. Now shut up and get over yourself.

Mentor. 

You know the etymology of the word, right? No? Okay, it goes like this: In Greek mythology, Mentor is a friend of Odysseus and a tutor of Telemachus. On several occasions in Homer's Odyssey, Athena assumes Mentor's form to give advice to Telemachus or Odysseus. See that part? Athena assumes Mentor's identity. She disguises herself as Mentor. Telemachus and Odysseus don't know that the person giving them advice is really Athena and NOT their mentor Mentor. They don't know. It is hidden from them. Disguised. See where I'm going here?Athena didn't want them to know that she was the one helping them.

Please don't call yourself mentor. It's supposed to be kind of a secret. You are supposed to teach people because it will help them. Let other people decide if you are their mentor. Believe me, it'll be better for you, too. Hearing someone refer to you as their mentor is way more meaningful than just crowning yourself one.

Pundit. 

A pundit used to be someone who was an expert in something. It hails from the Sankrit term "pandit," meaning "knowledge owner." An actual expert. With knowledge of and mastery in a particular subject. Nowadays anyone who speaks into a microphone is called a pundit. No one is required to have any real knowledge, they just have to have an opinion. There's a big difference. No, really, there is. Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, O'Reilly. Really want to be up there with those guys? Didn't think so.

Product.

Everything is a product. A football game is a product. A credit card is a product. A restaurant is a product. Yeah, okay, maybe marketers smarter than me can make a case for the use of the word in these contexts but it just sounds ridiculous. Maybe I'm just jealous I wasn't the first guy to think of this. Face it, though, it's kinda pretentious. No one would say the Chicago Cubs are a terrible product. But they are a shitty team.

Personal Brand.

I hate this one. I understand, the world is changing and society is more dynamic and social media has changed the way we blahdy, blahdy, blah. I am not a brand. I'm a person. You are not a brand, either. No. You're not. You may have a reputation or you may have a certain style.  You may be known for a particular talent or expertise. You may even have a blog or some YouTube videos. You are a person and that is way more complicated than a brand.

Out of My Comfort Zone.

Here's the thing: Shouldn't we always try to do this? Shouldn't we always be pushing ourselves to experience, to grow, to explore, to discover? Those are big and challenging things. But for most people "being out of my comfort zone" has been reduced to trying a new vegetable or wearing sneakers with a tux. That's not right. That's not a big deal.

Transparency.

Okay, last one I promise. This one started out good and just went south fast. We all know what transparency means in a literal sense. Something transparent is something that is clear. We can see through it. What it has come to mean, thanks is large part to Wall Street, is "honesty." Whenever people start talking transparency in an office, for example, what they are really saying is "we want everyone to be honest and we are gonna make sure we are all up in your grill so we KNOW you are honest.

I'm done. Rant over.  Now, to write a better headline for my next post.