Thursday

The Science of Fun - June 2010

By Tommy Rosen

[Tommy is co-producer of Eco Gift Expo, Santa Monica, among myriad other awesome things...]

Tommy at Blue Spirit






A little over a year ago, my uncle was diagnosed with a dangerous form of Cancer known as Mantle Cell Lymphoma.  Over the next 12 months our family bore witness as he underwent a difficult and complex chemotherapy regimen, which would take him to the brink of death before rebuilding his system through the injection of his own stem cells.

(above: Tommy Rosen Zip-Lining to Lunch on Necker Island)

My uncle's great attitude never wavered through the process.  He got out of the hospital in record time and over the following 3 months worked hard to regain his full strength.  There is no more cancer in his body.

He called me on the phone shortly after his "re-birth" to let me know he had done something "out of character."  "Cool,"  I said, "What did you do?"  He stated plainly, "I have rented Richard Branson's private island for our whole family and we're going there at the end of April.  Can you make it?"  "Uhhh, let me think for a minute on that one...Yep, I can make it."

Sir Richard Branson has mastered the financial side of being Human.  With all of his success, he can manifest just about anything he wants.  On Necker Island, he has manifested an homage to the Science of Fun.  He has truly created a place devoted to the development of a light-heart. Everyone of us had the single best vacation of our lives.  It was special on every level.  We felt uplifted, inspired, relaxed and my goodness did we have fun together.

Perhaps the most surprising part of our trip was to be joined at dinner by Sir Richard himself.  After spending time with such an affable and gracious man and experiencing firsthand the island he chooses to call home, I was filled with gratitude that someone with his consciousness has been so successful.

The magical experience we had on Necker Island is the topic of a much bigger essay, but the takeaway is this:  Have fun, live fun and help others so that they can have fun, too.

(below: Aunt Barbara and Uncle Tom Israel on Necker Island
celebrating his clean bill of health and 40 years together
)

Tom Barb 40thHave a Rocking Summer!

In Love and Gratitude,
Tommy Rosen

 

 

 

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Wednesday

Sophie B. Hawkins Song Benefits Waterkeepers on The Gulf

Sophie B. Hawkins Announces  Song to Benefit Waterkeeper Alliance

Proceeds from “The Land, the Sea & the Sky”

to Benefit Clean Up Efforts in the Gulf of Mexico

“I am proud to be joining forces with Waterkeeper Alliance and to help them in their efforts to protect the coastline, the wildlife and the thousands of people who depend upon the Gulf for their livelihood,” says Sophie B. Hawkins.  “I truly believe we need to live in harmony with nature and that it is incumbent on all of us to try help with the clean-up efforts in any way we can.”

New York, NY  Grammy nominated and platinum selling artist Sophie B. Hawkins, best known for having the longest running hit single on the Billboard Chart --  As I Lay Me Down ( 67 weeks) – and the pop hit Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover, will be donating 100% of the net proceeds from her new single “The Land, the Sea and the Sky” to benefit Waterkeeper Alliance, an organization of on-the-water advocates who patrol and protect more than 100,000 miles of rivers, streams and coastlines in North and South America, Europe, Australia, Asia and Africa.   The song, which will be the first song released from her long awaited upcoming new album due this fall -- Dream Street & Chance – will be available exclusively for download on Sophie B. Hawkins website – www.sophiebhawkins.com and on  ITUNES this June.  The song will be available for $1.29 and benefit the Waterkeeper Alliance’s work in the Gulf of Mexico.  To learn more about clean up efforts citizens can visit www.saveourgulf.org.

Sophie wrote the new single “The Land, the Sea and the Sky” about the human need to connect with nature and when she saw the disaster unfolding in the Gulf immediately knew that she wanted to try help with the clean up. 

"We are grateful to Sophie B. Hawkins and her entire team at Trumpet Swan Music for their generosity, and the gift of Sophie’s time and talent during the BP oil disaster,” said Waterkeeper Deputy Director Marc Yaggi.  “These much needed contributions will directly support those Waterkeepers on the front lines in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and Texas, funding the equipment and supplies our Waterkeepers need to protect and advocate for their waterways, coasts and communities.”

Waterkeeper Alliance has established a website – SAVEOURGULF.ORG -- to help coordinate the efforts of Gulf Waterkeepers, who are fighting to protect the Gulf Coast.  Visitors can go to the website to learn more about how they can help.  The Gulf Waterkeepers on scene are FL: Apalachicola Riverkeeper and Emerald Coastkeeper. AL: Mobile Baykeeper, LA: Louisiana Bayoukeeper and Lower Mississippi Riverkeeper, and TX: Galveston Baykeeper. Also working to clean up the ocean waters and beaches are volunteers, marine biologists, environmental advocates, and members of each of the coastal communities which have been affected. Urgent help is needed for the recovery; our coastal ecosystems in the Gulf of Mexico are in grave danger from the catastrophic explosion and ongoing oil spill.

To see what Gulf Coast Waterkeepers are doing to fight the disaster and to find out how you can help, visit www.saveourgulf.org a project of Waterkeeper Alliance that supports the efforts of Lower Mississippi Riverkeeper and Louisiana Bayoukeeper in Louisiana, Mobile Baykeeper in Alabama, Emerald Coastkeeper and Apalachicola Riverkeeper in Florida, and Galveston Baykeeper in Texas, who are facing what may be the largest environmental and economic disaster in U.S. history. Waterkeeper Alliance is a global environmental organization uniting more than 190 Waterkeeper programs around the world and focusing citizen advocacy on the issues that affect our waterways, from pollution to climate change. More information can be found at www.Waterkeeper.org or www.saveourgulf.org.


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Tuesday

Producers Guild Of America Sees Green - 2nd Year And Growing

In Tinseltown, Green is the New Black 

Environmentally-Aware Producers Make an Impact

Featured speakers include, film producers: Mark Cuban, Bruce Cohen, Lee Daniels, Gary Goetzman, Jeff Gomez, Mark Gordon, Marshall Herskovitz, Grant Heslov, Gale Anne Hurd, Hawk Koch, Jon Landau, Gary Lucchesi, David V. Picker, Charles Roven, Jane Rosenthal, Ridley Scott, Paula Wagner, Richard D. Zanuck, Laura Ziskin; and television producers: Mark Gordon, James L. Brooks, Al Jean and Matt Selman; John Ziffren; Nan Bernstein, Tim Gibbons; Jeffrey Morton, Jon Pare, Matthew Weiner; Tim Kring, Shawn Ryan, Don Mischer, Mara Brock Akil, Ted Turne

LOS ANGELES, June 1, 2010 — Hollywood is not only famous for making movies, but also for initiating movements. Environmentally-concerned industry leaders and stars have united to bring awareness to this issue, declaring the goal of carbon-neutrality for the filmmaking process.  Green is the new black! 
  
Within the industry, a concerted effort is being made to reduce negative effects on the environment. The Producers Guild of America’s PGA Green Committee was established in 2008 as a response to this, demonstrating the PGA’s commitment to actively encourage and support sustainability in the entertainment industry.    
  
“As Producers it is up to us to lead the charge by educating and encouraging cast and crew to be mindful of our impact on this planet.  The PGA Green Initiative is a perfect format for this, utilizing the PGA’s wide reach and its dedicated members to spread this vital message,” said Kathleen Courtney, Chair of PGA Green Committee West. 
 
The second annual 2010 Produced By Conference will be held June 5 and 6 at 20th Century Fox Studios. More than 1,200 film, television and new media producers, as well as entertainment industry members are expected to attend extraordinary panel sessions, unique mentoring roundtables, special workshops and exhibits, and incomparable networking opportunities designed to provide the producing community with valuable tools and insights relevant in today’s competitive marketplace. The conference is “Going Green,” showcasing seminars with knowledgeable panelists and utilizing earth-friendly vendors spotlighting the latest green technology. 
  
“We want to bring solutions for environmental issues to Film, TV and New Media Producers worldwide,” added Fred Baron, Chair of PGA Green Committee West 
  
The 2010 Produced By Conference is the ideal forum for highlighting the PGA Green Initiative and its commitment to the education of the industry.  Efforts to spotlight sustainability at the Conference include:

  • Providing reusable stainless steel water bottles to all conference attendees and speakers – no plastic water bottles will be present at the conference
  • Eco-friendly reusable goodie bags handed out to all attendees
  • Attendees’ agendas printed on the registration name tags, eliminating most paper tickets
  • Caterers using primarily paper, glass and other sustainable options
  • Carpool/ride-sharing information posted on Produced By Conference website
  • Event signage provided by sustainable vendors.
  • All printing materials, such as maps and programs, utilizing Forest Stewardship Council-certified materials and vendors, including vegetable-based inks and a water-based coating for all printing materials
In addition to the Greening of the 2010 Produced By Conference, PGA Green has created and administers the industry's foremost reference website for greening productions,  www.pgagreen.org <http://www.pgagreen.org/>  as well as the Facebook group: Producers Guild of America Green, which offers an excellent opportunity for all members of the entertainment industry to share their struggles, tips and triumphs.  
PBC is an annual event sponsored, produced and managed by the PGA. All profits from PBC are reinvested into industry member services, including education, industry promotion, production standards development, market research and legislative advocacy. More information is available at producedbyconference.
  
About the Producers Guild of America

The Producers Guild of America is the non-profit trade group that represents, protects and promotes the interests of all members of the producing team in film, television and new media. The PGA represents over 4,200 members who work together to protect and improve their careers, the industry and community by providing members health benefits, enforcing workplace labor laws, maintaining fair and impartial standards for the awarding of producing credits, as well as other education and advocacy efforts. The PGA hosts important industry events including the annual Producers Guild Awards and the Produced By Conference. For more information, visit www.producersguild.org

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Heal the Bay's Bring Back The Beach 25th Anniversary Gala

      WHAT: Southern California’s leading environmental group celebrated 25 years of healing the bay with a gala under the stars on Santa Monica Beach. Nearly 1,000 guests dug their toes in the sand and enjoyed open-air mingling, sustainable fine dining and a special performance by singer-songwriter Jakob Dylan.

WHERE: The Jonathan Club

WHEN:  It took place on Thursday, May 20th. The following pictures are courtesy of Heal The Bay.

      WHO: Among the notables attending the beach-chic party: Heal the Bay board members and actresses Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Amy Smart; TV personalities Chad Lowe, Dule Hill, Hall Sparks, Donna Mills, Shay Mitchell, Kali Hawk and Lindsay Wagner; trailblazing surf legend PT Townend; state legislators Fran Pavley and Julia Brownley; former California Speaker of the House Willie Brown and philanthropists Tom Unterman, Mark Attanasio and Kelly Meyer.

      This year’s “Bring Back the Beach” honorees included actor-director Nicolas Cage, a key supporter of Heal the Bay; corporate partner The Walt Disney Co., and longtime board members Luann Laval Williams and Jack Baylis

      MORE:  Heal the Bay is a Santa Monica-based environmental group dedicated to making Southern California coastal waters safe, clean and healthy for people and marine life.


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Monday

My Greatest Hope...

By Leilani Munter

[Leilani, "Carbon Free Girl," is a Race Car Driver who competes at NASCAR]

After spending a week in Venice, Louisiana getting an up close view of the
BP gulf coast oil spill disaster, talking with locals whose livelihoods
are over, and seeing dead wildlife, I am trying my best to look at the
positive side. Keep in mind that I just got off the phone with one of my
boat captains in Louisiana and he told me he saw six dead dolphins and ten
dead turtles in the past few days. So the idea of looking on "the bright
side" is nearly impossible, and most days I fail, but I think it is human
nature to try to find something positive in the face of a catastrophe. The
only positive thing that can possibly come from this -- the largest
environmental disaster in American history -- is if it causes us to change
the way we are living on this Earth.

When Dale Earnhardt Sr. died on the last lap of the Daytona 500 in 2001,
it devastated NASCAR. He was their biggest star and a hero to most of
their audience. The one positive thing that came from his death is that
racing took a good hard look at safety and they made some really big
changes. After his death, all drivers were required to wear full face
helmets (Earnhardt wore an open face helmet) as well as a HANS device, a
head and neck restraint system. SAFER barriers, or soft walls, were
installed in the speedways so that when we crashed, the racetrack wall
would help absorb some of the impact. It cost millions of dollars, but it
has also likely saved many lives. I have since had wrecks at nearly 200
mph (one impact was so intense it put a crack through my motor) and I have
walked away with nothing but bruises and a sore back. I don't know for
sure that I would have walked away from those crashes if many years
earlier, Earnhardt hadn't passed away and changed the safety rules of
racing. His death marked a permanent change to the way motor sports safety
was conducted, NASCAR drew a line in the sand and never looked back. That
fateful moment made racing safer for all drivers that have strapped
themselves into a race car since, including myself.

Perhaps one day we will look back at this oil spill and think "If the Gulf
Coast oil spill hadn't happened, we wouldn't have kick started our clean
energy economy back in 2010. We wouldn't have made such great strides with
solar pv and thermal technology, geothermal energy, wind and tidal
turbines, green buildings, hydrogen fuel cell and electric cars,
alternative fuels like cellulosic ethanol and algae based biodiesel, and
we might not have passed the American Power Act." Perhaps we would look
back and incredulously say "Imagine if the gulf coast oil spill hadn't
happened, we might actually still be running our country on dirty fossil
fuels and spending billions of dollars buying oil from foreign countries!
Wouldn't that be awful?!"

Charles Darwin once said, "It is not the strongest of the species that
survives. Nor is it the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that
is most adaptable to change."

And so our time has come -- this is the 11th hour. We either change the
way we are living on the planet or relegate ourselves to eventually having
our planet covered with oily water, polluted air, dead coral reefs, and
cattle pastures where there were once rain forests. I hope that this
disaster will wake us up and make those in charge realize that now is the
time for us to turn over a new leaf. To check ourselves into rehab to get
off our addiction to fossil fuels and start a new sober life with clean,
renewable energy.

I am a race car driver; my career is currently based around an internal
combustion engine
, and yet even I can see the importance of energy
independence
and the move towards the use of clean, renewable energy. We
are at a crossroads and I hope we take the right turn -- or maybe it's a
left? Let's take a step -- or even better, a leap -- in the right
direction. Let's pass the American Power Act and start putting a real
effort into capturing clean energy from the wind, the sun, and the ocean.
Let's put Americans to work building our new green energy economy. We've
been talking about it for years, the technology is already here -- all we
have to do now is to make it happen.

What in the world are we waiting for? Millions of gallons of oil to spill
into the Gulf of Mexico?

My greatest hope in the wake of this ongoing tragedy is that this is our
clean energy wake up call. My biggest fear? That we won't answer.

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Sunday

Sex And The City 2 Turns Up The Fun, but it's a green "miss"

By Ann Murray

[Ann is a Hollywood entertainment reporter who currently works in-house at a Major Movie Studio]

The Sexy and successful green ladies of Los Angeles were out in full force on Friday night to celebrate the opening of ‘Sex and the City 2’ at the beautiful Shangri-la hotel in Santa Monica, sponsored by The Party Goddess.


Sexy In Abu Dhabi, Sex And The City 2

The event began with a pool-side rendezvous, where ladies mingled and took in drinks poured out of special edition SATC SKYY Vodka bottles, snapped fun pics at the SATC photo booth, were pampered with massages and gift bags, and signed up for a raffle to win signed Christian Louboutins to benefit the Multiple Sclerosis Society.

Los Angeles Louboutin Shoe Raffle, Sex And The City 2 Charity Benefit, Photo courtesy Ann Murray

The night was followed by a special screening of the film at the Laemmle 5 theater.

While everyone was excited that carrie bradshaw was back in business and in a beautiful and exotic Abu Abu Dhabi, not everyone at the party agreed that the film was very environmentally friendly.

Natasha told us that she wasn’t so sure Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte needed so many cars during their desert vacation.

In one scene, the ladies are picked up by four – count em’ – four private cars to take them from the airport to their luxurious hotel. “They should have only used one car,” told us Natasha at the afterparty. “I’m not sure that was as efficient or green as it should have been. All four ladies would have fit comfortably in just one car.”

Read MORE on The Green Blog Network "Masdar City - Abu Dhabi - Models A Sustainable Globe"

 

Sex And The City at The Shangri-La Hotel, Los Angeles. Photo Courtesy Ann Murray.

Natasha’s friend Yarad suggested that the amount of food during their Abu Dhabi feast was a bit too out of touch  - particularly during  a scene when the  four ladies sit around a table with enough food fit for fifteen people. “All that food that they had, it was too much for just four women. What about the starving people around the world? or even Down the street from their hotel?” she said, adding “I would feel overwhelmed and maybe embarrassed to have all that food around.”

Was it really that necessary to drive “8 time zones” across the world – as Carrie said - to take in a little luxury? Other guests suggested Carrie and the gang should have stayed at a location closer to home and opted against carbon footprint-heavy jets, like beautiful main or New Hampshire, or even a short romp to Miami.

Sex And The City 2 shot in Abu Dhabi. Photo courtesy Ann Murray.

But there are a few things that save the film’s carbon footprint. In a key scene from the film, Carrie tells a shoe salesman that she doesn’t need a plastic bag for her new pair of incredibly inexpensive shoes, as she stuffs them in her purse.

At the afterparty, Jennifer agreed with this. “That was a great tiny step that Carrie did that makes a huge difference, because plastic bags are incredibly wasteful and take hundreds of years to break down,” she said.

Sex And The City pics. Photo courtesy Ann Murray.

And in the last few scenes of the film – scenes we don’t want to spoil  for you – Carrie and her best girlfriends show that they maybe didn’t need all of that waste after all, because all they ever really needed was back home with their friends and families.

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