You are currently browsing
  • Home
  • » From the Gut

SAF Seeking… The ability to turn back time (2 of 3)

  • April 7, 2013 8:32 am

Nuff said.

The funny thing about death is it makes you look over the last few hours you spent with the person before he/she left this earth as we know it.

And truthfully, it was an odd and normal 24 hours prior to the death.

On Monday, I was frantically filling out job applications and those take long hours of cutting and pasting your resume into field boxes and of writing long essays justifying why you are worth their precious time. I had taken a break and gone grumpily into the garden to water the tomato garden we had just planted the day before. He came home shortly before 4pm, proudly carrying 2 more new cherry tomato plant seedlings.  Read more...

Mahalo, Mr. Ebert

  • April 4, 2013 1:43 pm

I would always call him Mr Ebert. Before when he could speak (he had lost his voice after removing part of his jaw and vocal chords because of cancer), he would just say, “please, call me Roger.”

Today, we lost a champion of cinema and an intellectual who brought film appreciation to the masses. Mr Ebert lost his decades long bout with cancer and passed away at the still young age of 70. Read the Chicago Sun Times obit here. Mr Ebert was the paper’s chief film critic for over 40 years.  Read more...

SAF Seeking… The Importance Beyond Money

  • February 4, 2013 12:28 am

A-ha!!!!

“You’re not answering my questions! I need to know what to tell these parents!” My teacher was frustrated and her voice shook on the other side of my business land line.

In my corporate job, I handle a small staff of teachers, a mini-army of well-intentioned nurturers out to make the world a better place to live. Teachers by nature are nurturers; they provide, they protect, they console, they aid, they do everything in their power to make sure their wards are growing under their care. That’s why I hire them, to care as deeply as they do.  Read more...

SAF Seeking… What It’s Like To Quit Acting or Seeking That Third Act

  • January 20, 2013 10:42 am

Martha Graham quote: “There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost.

I have not been in the YOMYOMF scene for a while. I quietly tiptoed away, even unplugging my computer for a few weeks (except to watch reruns of “Say Yes to the Dress” on Netflix)…. until I saw fellow Offender Jerome’s blog “Around the Horn: Life’s Second Act Breaks”. (A positively MUST READ. Advice from some of the most honest and hard-working people I know. A feel-gooder!) That blog brought me back to life!

You see, December was the anniversary of “The Day I Stopped Acting”. It was two years ago since I last called myself a working actor. As a former-actor, I didn’t realize that THAT was the day I would stop. It just kinda snuck up on me as a job opportunity that offered full-time work with a growing company and lots of travel across the nation.  Read more...

Happy Birthday, Bruce Lee!

  • November 27, 2012 10:59 am

Happy birthday to the man and legend who would’ve been 72-years-old today!

And if you don’t know why we would pay tribute to Bruce Lee on this blog, then you’re clearly in the wrong place. YOMYOMF a.k.a. You Offend Me You Offend My Family would not exist without the legacy Lee left behind.

And stay tuned because we’re currently working with Lee’s daughter Shannon and the Bruce Lee Enterprises to develop a very special webseries you’ll be able to catch next year on the YOMYOMF Network. But for now, Let’s wish a happy 72nd to a man without whom, YOMYOMF wouldn’t be here today.  Read more...

Navy Stories: Random Steak House

  • November 12, 2012 4:37 pm

Back around 2001, our ship was stopped over in an undisclosed location loading up tomahawk missiles. We were about a month or two away from deploying to the Persian Gulf. This would be my second time going. By that point, life sucked ass. I was almost 21 and my innocent childhood was long gone. My motivation for the military and my constant thought of regret weighed heavy on my heart while my buddies who went to college were out partying with cute girls every night. Even the week prior, there were protesters outside our base that bombed my truck with tomatoes as I drove into duty. Sorry people, I don’t really make decisions about war. But the thought of leaving for another six months had me at an all time low. This wasn’t summer camp. We finished loading up the tomahawks and I had the night off so a few buddies and I decided to say, fuck ship food and grabbed a taxi.
 Read more...

DADDY FAN – Three…

  • November 9, 2012 7:22 am

2 hours before Halloween, I got a trick, a treat, and a 3rd baby in my candy bag.  Yes, I am now a daddy of not one, not two, but three.  Three girls to be precise.  Which is cool because with the help of my sexy Korean wife, I can now field a co-ed, NBA basketball team.  Not just yet, however, since some of my players can’t even walk let alone lift a basketball.  I’m not sure if they’ll be good or sucky basketball players, but there is one absolute certainty that gives me solace – they’ll be smokin’ hot (thanks to the genes of my better half).

So I must wait – 20 years at least to introduce my Korea/China-uniting basketball juggernaut eventually to be known as “The FAN-tasticly Fast Five”.  20 long years…

da booty of my #3  Read more...

SAF Seeking… meaning of life?

  • October 29, 2012 9:34 am

It's a way of life.

“Your Uncle Ferdie is dead,” my dad stated simply on the phone.

This was supposed to be a perfunctory phonecall: mom and I were supposed to talk about wedding blah blah blah hurts-my-head-too blah blah blah wedding blah. But Dad pushed my mom aside to land the news onto my nose.

It made me pause. Life is so fleeting. I had just read Roger’s brush with the possibility of death (see this week’s AROUND THE HORN) and was marveling at the idea that someone I used to drink with might someday possibly be.. gone… and so Uncle Ferdie’s death was a reality check.  Read more...

Boy Scouts, that’s not right.

  • October 7, 2012 7:49 am

This is far from honorable.

Change is so slow. The world is changing for the better, I hope. Composting is now second nature to most people. Some people always remembers their bags when they go to the grocery store. And girls these days don’t remember a time when growing up to be an airline pilot was something they couldn’t do.

But ah, these little slaps in the face that remind us that some things are slower to change. Take the Boy Scouts for example. This week they denied a teen named Ryan Andersen from attaining Eagle Scout (a prestigious honor that only 3% of all Boy Scouts can ever attain since it’s so darn hard) even though he had completed EVERYTHING needed to attain that rank… because he had come out as GAY.  Read more...

SAF Seeking… An open letter to a God or someone to thank.

  • August 19, 2012 1:33 pm

Maybe the answers are in the clouds.


I don’t know about you, but for about 40-60% of my breathing time, I’m wondering what I’m supposed to be doing with this life. I think it’s a first world problem. If we are middle class and therefore above the poverty level, we might be well-fed, have a room over our heads, and have some kind of access to making money and friends. Basic needs more or less covered. (I’m not talking about the poor so bear with me here. I know they exist.) I think a lot of us americans walk around thinking, “What can I do to make the world a better place?”

Sometimes we don’t know what our purpose is. (I sure as hell don’t know mine.)  Read more...

What do gun control, gay marriage, national health care have in common?

  • July 25, 2012 1:09 am

First, I’d like to express my deepest condolences to those who died or lost their loved ones in the Colorado theater shooting. Seconding Mr. Nolan, as a filmmaker, I am furious that Mr. Holmes might have forever ruined one of America’s favorite past time—going to the cinema and exploring our darkest and deepest fears in safety and pleasure. Mr. Holmes, you’re not the joker. You’re a terrorist just like those responsible for 9/11 who have curtailed our freedom in this country.

I can still remember the days when I met my family, friends and loved ones at the airport gates. It was one of my favorite things about this country when I could go all the way to the gate to see my loved ones off or receive them.

Now I may be looking forward to metal detectors and getting frisked at the movie theater, a place where I have spent so much of my life. Thinking deeper leads me to wonder what gun control, gay marriage and national heath care have in common?  Read more...

SAF Seeking… Clarity from Senselessness

  • July 22, 2012 9:02 am

Rest in peace, little one.

I’m a weepy willow.

I’m ironically sitting in the Denver International Airport, reading about the recent shooting massacre at the movie theatre just 17 miles southwest of me. I know I know, everything’s been said, everything’s been reported, everyone knows, blah blah blah blah old news, let’s move on. (Such is the attention of our internet generation.)

But today I’m reading about the lives of the 12 victims, and I know I look a fool here sitting at the recharge station with my stupid watery eyes and tight mouth trying not to make any sounds.  Read more...