My friend Courtney is a great appreciator of life and all its mysteries -- fitting that he has found a way to spread that interest to others by performing as a magician!

Courtney regularly astounds me with even his most simple tricks and sleights of hand. Do you remember when you saw your first magic trick? I remember an old man who pulled quarters from my ears when I worked as an extra on an unreleased Toshiro Mifune film when I was six or seven. I was so amazed!

BTW, I've been trying to track down anything about that film. If anyone knows about a film that was tentatively called Lost Horizon, about American internment camps for Japanese-Americans during WWII that was filmed in part on the railroad in Jamestown, CA, please give me a holler!

Anyway, I have to give props to Courtney. I can think of no one better than him to conjure up that childlike amazement and wonder inherent in magic. It's definitely a calling, and I'm glad he's putting himself out there to share his gifts.

Who doesn't love a magic show?

The day to honor the honorable but human has arrived at sine qua non. Check it, yo:

Saw The Bourne Ultimatum this weekend. Not the best of the three, but you gotta love the badass that is Jason Bourne, even though Matt Damon tends to give me a rash. Mmmmm...competent, honorable men who just happen to be trained killers.

Speaking of -- you must watch this, full screen, with your speakers on HIGH. This is why Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune are legends, and the music for victory is metal.



Okay, and while I was shopping today, I heard some lady at the grocery store call her kid Lando. You gots to respect!

And some kid with a mouthful of grill accidentally spit on my hoodie while I was riding my bike home. I stopped to ask him WTF? and I was thinking "aw shit, this is it, the time to use my U-Lock as a deadly weapon has arrived. I'm going to have to get in a frikken brawl with some scary-ass 16 year-old and I'm either going to jail or the hospital." But he totally apologized -- TWICE! -- in front of his friend and cleaned off my sweater with his sweater, and then gave me the friendliest smile ever. No joke, I was so shocked I thanked him for saying sorry.

I felt kind of bad that my first reaction was that it was brawling time. Just another sucker, I was. Honor abounds, in real life. Something to think about.