Yesterday, fellow Xangan and comic book letterer extraordinaire, CJ, competed at the Discovery Science Center’s Rubik’s Cube speedcubing competition.  He won 4th place in the blindfolded competition, and achieved a 10 second solve during a practice round!  More importantly, he spent some time with my cousin Tommy, teaching him the basics of cubing.  CJ and Tommy first met two years ago, when Tommy proclaimed he was “the luckiest kid in the world”.  It was meeting my friend Tyson, and CJ at that competition that first got Tommy interested in solving the Rubik’s Cube.  Later that year he was present for the Guinness World Record for the most people solving a Rubik’s Cube in one place.  Yesterday, Tommy’s mom, Lisa, also paid attention, and with CJ’s help and some additional instructions he provided from www.youcandothecube.com, Lisa solved her cube 5 times today!  Congratulations to Lisa and thank you to CJ for being so patient and kind.

Andy had a good time too, exploring the exhibits at the museum:

What follows, are two completely unrelated stories that are ultimately about hope and inspiration:

I would like everyone to grab a box of tissues and read this story.  I want you to think about it the next time you get angry while driving.  I know I will.  I’m an admittedly terrible driver, and have been guilty of road rage many times.  I’ve been working on driving more calmly for several years, but living in Los Angeles, relapses are easy.  I hope that the memory of what happened to this family and their little boy will forever stay with me when I’m behind the wheel. Life is indeed too short.

When a porn star and a college student driving through the San Fernando Valley fell into conflict, a Bangladeshi American family suffered the consequences

Los Angeles magazine, February 2010

On the Internet you can watch a four-minute video clip of Ayman Arif dancing. The venue is a bedroom in his Northridge home; his stage, a comforter patterned with sunflowers. Taking his cues from a Bollywood spectacular playing on the television, the four-year-old Bangladeshi American boy wriggles, twirls, and bounds. On his bare chest he wears the pink string sash of the Brahman jester he is pretending to be. His mop of brown hair gives way to a wide forehead, and his dark brown eyes are bright with fire as he sings along to the Bengali-language soundtrack. One moment he’s wagging a stern finger, the next he’s clasping his hands to his heart or pumping an outstretched palm toward the heavens.  

On Tuesday, October 9, 2007, some ten months after her son’s impromptu performance made it onto YouTube, Syeda Arif was readying her family for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr—three days of gift giving, party hopping,overeating, and prayer to conclude the fast of Ramadan. At 30, Syeda was petite, with almond-shaped eyes and a husky laugh. She and her husband, Amir, lived in a Bangladeshi enclave in the northwest San Fernando Valley. Her father had been twice nominated to the Bangladeshi parliament, and Amir liked to say that she made friends with the ease of a born politician.

Around noon in the gathering heat of the day, Syeda buckled her two-month-old daughter, Ikra, into the car seat in her Honda Civic and drove to the home of Romey Islam, one of her best friends. The Islams lived in a modest gray ranch house on Sherman Way near Van Nuys Airport. Its soundproof front windows looked out onto a six-lane river of crosstown traffic that, like the row of palm trees lining the sidewalk, continued as far as the eye could follow. Read more…

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And keeping in the vain of “life’s too short”, here’s another article I highly recommend taking the time to read.  It’s an inspiring look at Roger Ebert, perhaps the best known film critic in America.  Those of you in other countries have probably never heard of him, but I’ve always had a special affinity for Mr. Ebert.  He was a fixture in Chicago where I grew up, and his movie reviews with Gene Siskel and patented “thumbs up or down” are legendary.  Five years ago, when the movie “Rent” came out, I was very excited.  Any regular reader of this space knows that seeing the musical “Rent” in 1996 was a seminal event in my life.  I went on to see the show 15 times in 15 different countries!  While I was a bit underwhelmed by the transition from stage to screen; subsequent viewings of the movie made me appreciate it more.  Upon realizing this, I wrote to Mr. Ebert to take issue with a few of the comments he made in his review of the film.  Imagine my surprise the next day, when I got a personal response from Roger Ebert from his personal email address; and he actually agreed with me!  I thought that was a very classy thing for him to do.  At the time, I had no idea of the huge medical ordeals he was facing.  I read this article last night and it brought tears to my eyes. Roger Ebert is a class act. This is the story of a life well lived and it’s worth your time. 

February 16, 2010, 7:01 AM

Roger Ebert: The Essential Man

It has been nearly four years since Roger Ebert lost his lower jaw and his ability to speak. Now television’s most famous movie critic is rarely seen and never heard, but his words have never stopped.  Read more…

PLUS: Have You Seen All of the Essential Movies?

By Chris Jones

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It was a very busy weekend at The Hotel Careyfornia, filled with many of my blog’s namesakes, primarily dogs (4), kids (3), and sunsets (2).  Thankfully, there was little mention of Sarah Palin and her redneck teleprompter!  Friday, Seth and Hannah came by with Garbo & Ruby.  On Saturday, David & Rebecca came with the two girls and Chanel the dog (just like last Valentine’s Day, when I went to Gay Traffic School!).  Despite snow in 49 of the 50 United States, it was 75° (24° C) in L.A. and we hiked up to the “new” Hollywood sign.  It’s been covered by conservationists temporarily to prevent land development at one of the last untouched parts of Los Angeles. After a quick trip to Millions of Milkshakes, we headed to The Getty Center for sunset (it’s free after 5:00 on Saturdays!).   We capped the night off celebrating the Lunar New Year with delicious Thai food.  Sunday, Claudio, Ryan, Omar & Chazz came to dance the Valentine’s night away at Avalon.  Tonight, Tyson (who took time out of his busy TV appearance schedule), met me and Chazz for dinner at Hollywood & Highland.  I’m exhausted.  Is it the weekend yet??

To commemorate the 30th Anniversary of the Rubik’s Cube, my friend Tyson was on the Today Show this morning and the hosts, Hoda Kotb and Dan Abrams proved to be huge douchebags!!  I sent Tyson a text telling him that, and his reply was simply, “They always are…”  (Even Anderson Copper was a little douchey but not as bad as these clowns:)

Tyson was my inspiration for starting this blog over 3 years ago.  After he competed on the TV show Beauty and the Geek we became friends and I was always inspired by his Xanga and how he kept it up.  Tyson and his brother taught Will Smith how to solve the Rubik’s Cube for the movie The Pursuit of Happyness.  He lives in NYC now, but still comes to LA for shows at The Magic Castle and various Rubik’s Cube events, and we always try to get together.

We went to the free Depeche Mode concert on Hollywood & Vine last night.  The last time I saw them in concert was twenty years ago in 1989 with Daniel!  It was a last minute thought, and we actually walked there from Mike’s house as Hollywood Blvd. was closed.  They were appearing on the Jimmy Kimmel show and promoting their new album Sounds of the Universe.  There were over 12,000 people on Hollywood Blvd.  They performed some new songs and some old classics for about an hour. Here are two of my favorites:  Enjoy the Silence and Personal Jesus:

Yesterday, Joel and I took the boys to the Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana.  They were celebrating their 10th anniversary.  There was cake and punch, and hundreds of Rubik’s Cube enthusiasts (including my friend Tyson), trying to break the Guinness World Record for the most people solving the Rubik’s Cube at one time.  The last time I took Tommy to a speedcubing event at the DSC back in April, he proclaimed he was the “luckiest kid in the world” for having met Tyson, who is admittedly a celebrity in the cubing world, having starred on the hit reality show, Beauty & the Geek.  (He also  taught Will Smith how to solve the cube for The Pursuit of Happyness.)

Ever since then, Tommy has been playing with the cube, but hasn’t mastered it yet.  I think it was good for him to see kids younger than him, who could solve it with ease.  He brought his own cube along and I was careful not to let him ask anyone to solve it for him early on, as I knew that once his cube was solved, he would quit trying, because he didn’t want to “mess it up”. 

At one point though, Tyson was being interviewed by a TV station that sounded Chinese.  He didn’t have a cube in his hand, and since Tommy was shadowing him, Tyson asked Tommy to borrow his cube and to hold some papers for him.  Tommy was elated.  As Tyson proceeded to work his magic fingers, Tommy watched in awe.  I told him he’d probably be on TV in China, seen by a billion people, and needless to say, he thought that was pretty cool!    Of course, now he wouldn’t touch his cube anymore, because Tyson had solved it.  Here’s the video:

After that, I gave in and bought Tommy another mini Rubik’s Cube on a keychain.  When we were watching the speedsolving competition in the theater, Tommy asked the kid sitting next to him if he would solve his mini cube.  The kid, Justin, a former speedcuber told Tommy that he had been “clean and sober” from the cube for a year.  He said that even touching a cube made him want to do it obsessively, and that he had already been down that road of addiction.  I was watching him though, and he was really tempted to take that little cube from Tommy.  It might as well have been a bag of heroin!  Apparently, speed solving can become quite addictive!  Of course, wouldn’t you know it, a few minutes later some girl came up to Tommy and asked him if she could solve his mini cube.  As he watched her, I could see hearts in his eyes! 

And even though he was featured as one of the “geeks” on the hit TV show “Beauty and the Geek”, he’s definitely not your typical geek.  Tyson has a unique ability to explain complex things in layman’s terms.  In other words, he’s the geek that all the cool kids look up too.  He transcends geek barriers and is equally comfortable talking to Jay Leno or Martha Stewart or Anderson Cooper (he’s appeared on all of their shows), as he is to his fellow astrophysicists from CalTech.  He can also solve the Rubik’s Cube anywhere!  Whether in front of 60,000 screaming fans while singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” at a Giant’s game or in my living room or on Space Mountain at Disneyland.  Oh, and one more thing, he can do it blindfolded. 

Click below to play the video and be amazed!  If it’s not working, click here. 

Through Tyson, I’ve been lucky enough to meet a lot of great people in the Cubing community.  None are more talented however, than Macky.  We’ve been trying to get together for some time now, and he was nice enough to head out to the Hotel Careyfornia today before leaving for Math Camp for the summer, and then off to Princeton in the fall.  (He turned down Cambridge and Harvard!)  Over dinner we discussed everything from Game Theory to Phonetics.  You might think that would make for dry dinner conversation, but quite the contrary.  Macky has a unique way of making even the most black and white subjects explode with color.  He makes you think about things in ways you never have.  I always feel so energized after spending time with young people with such drive and intellect.  It give me a hope for a better tomorrow in this country.  Thanks Macky!  I’m looking forward to watching the next few years unfold. 

Lisa, Joel, Tommy & Andy met me at the Discovery Science Center today, which was hosting the World Cube Association 2008 competition.  Since Tyson is moving to New York next week, this was my last chance to see him for a while.  He competed in the blindfold solve (see video below) and did great as usual.  Tommy really took a liking to the whole “cubefreak” phenomenon.  When asked if he would rather go to the dinosaur exhibit or go meet Tyson, he opted for meeting Tyson.  At one point afterwards, he said to me, “I’m the luckiest kid in the world.  I just got to meet Carey’s famous friend.”  (I had explained to Tommy that Tyson was on Beauty and the Geek and had taught Will Smith how to solve the cube for The Pursuit of Happyness.  That really impressed him!)  After they got home, apparently Tommy donned a blindfold and gave it a try.  LOL.  He was also infatuated by the video of Macky I had on my iPod where he solves the cube with one hand, while juggling 2 cubes with the other.  See for yourself:

Tyson and I had dinner at the beach in Santa Monica tonight.  He may be moving to another state soon, which would would be a bummer for me, but I hope he gets the job he wants.  It’s funny, but had I never met Tyson, I wouldn’t have started my Xanga.  The only reason I opened an account here was to comment on his blog.  And had I not first seen Tyson on the reality show Beauty & The Geek, a few years ago, I wouldn’t have ever gotten to know him.  (LOL, I just found out that he was the “Geek of the Week” on this website, geeksugar.com last year.  What a hoot:)


Now that Tyson’s moving away, I guess I need a new reality show friend.  Who should it be?  Danny Noriega or Christian Siriano??  As Jad so artfully illustrates here, they’re both bottoms…which is more than I can say for Tyson.  LOL