LA:  So, I am calling you about Freeze Frame

BB:  Yeah.

LA:  You know, I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing you about different projects in the past but this one seemed to be different.  Your writing and your love telling a good story are pretty well known.  But your political views are normally kept very private.  But now, going by what I read in your blog, it seems like your reason for doing this project has little to do with politics and more to do with your concern about our vets.  Am I right?  

BB:  Well no, I don’t think that there’s anything inherently political in exploring a topic that has been examined and re-examined for centuries.  What you’re really talking about is the state of individuals who return from war.  And how they cope.  In my estimation it’s a human story.  Now is it timely?  Yeah, because we have a number of people overseas who, when they come back, they are suffering.  And experiencing what soldiers have from time immemorial.  And to remember the lessons of past wars.  I don’t know that there’s anything inherently political about it.  It’s neither a democratic nor republican issue.  It’s a human issue and it’s a national issue.  But I don’t think it falls down on either side of the political spectrum.  This is neither a pro or anti war statement.  George Washington coming out of the revolutionary war warned the country that the ability of the country to fight further wars will be directly affected by how they treat the veterans of the last war. 

LA:  Uh-huh.

BB:  And that’s not necessarily a pro-war statement.  It’s saying that war has its cost.  But if the nation is to be prepared to defend itself then you’d better make sure that you take care of your people. 

LA:  Take care of your vets.  I hear you. 

BB:  Take care of your vets!  So you know, I don’t think of it in political terms because I don’t know that either of our two major parties deals with it in a particularly good fashion at this point. 

LA:  I hear you.

BB:  The other thing is...  The timeliness of it is because the economy is where it is.  Because people have so much on their plates at home and so many worries of their own home.  It’s very easy to forget what’s going on with our vets.

LA:  Uh-huh

BB:  What’s going on with the people who have gone to war for us.  And it's not just easy to forget when they come home.  But we are forgetting them while they are over there.  There are a lot of families in this country that are dealing with the effects of this war. 

LA:  Which one?

BB:  Exactly.  And the people that make it home are just...    They should be first in line.  Shouldn't they?  

LA:  Yeah, I definitely agree with you on that.  I noticed that this seemed to be the way you were leaning when I read your blog.  Blogging is new for you!

BB:  Well it's not really my blog in that it’s "Ben Browder’s blog."  It’s basically blogging for Freeze Frame.  I wouldn’t say that Ben Browder has a blog. 

LA:  (laugh)  Oh really?!  When is a blog not a blog?  Even though it’s Ben Browder doing the thinking and the writing, and the uuum...

BB:  It’s not really what you call writing. Blogging seems somehow like something that someone else does.  I never think of myself that way.

LA: Uuuum, really?  (laughing)  Okay.

BB: (laughing) I've noticed that most bloggers are either basically examining their own thoughts in a public forum.  Or they have a particular issue.  

LA:  And you don’t?

BB:  Well I guess maybe Freeze Frame is an issue.

LA:  Yeah!  That is the way I read it. 

BB:  I guess I could look at it that way.

LA:  I think that's a good way to look at it.  What I read most definitely had a philosophical and poetic theme to your first post because it gives the reader some insight into what the project means to you. Are you planning to continue this theme in your posts?

BB:  Continue what?  Posting on the blog?

LA:  Well, continue the theme of being philosophical and the poetic way of writing your blog.  Even though it’s not really a blog, but it looks like blog, and it’s called a blog?

BB:  Yeah well, it looks like a blog, sounds like a blog, and it smells like a blog.  But it’s not a blog.

LA:  It’s not a blog.   Then what is it?  It's philosophical musings with random spurts of poetry...

BB:  Well look, you know, it’s really just the answer to a question.  Someone asked the question "Why are you doing this project?  Why are you doing this movie?"  And after a bit of pondering… There are a lot of reasons.  You could write reams and reams of numbers and facts and reasons for doing this.  And that was my condensed version of it.  My basic thoughts on why I think it’s important.  And part of it is, now that I think about it, I sort of can’t help myself.  I go to Rudyard Kipling land.  (laughing)  What do you want, you know?

LA:   (laughing) That’s a good place to go! 

BB:  I’m a big fan of Rudyard Kipling.  I completely re-worked Gunga Din for my daughter’s first birthday. 

LA:  You did what?

BB:  I re-worked Gunga Din. (laughing)

LA:  You’ve got that poetic spirit going really well, huh?  (laughing)  You just can’t help yourself, can ya?

BB:  Well, you know if it rhymes its usually better. It’s easier to remember when it rhymes. (laughing)

LA:  Kipling didn’t always rhyme if I remember correctly.  Did you make Gunga Din rhyme?

BB:  Gunga Din already rhymed.  (He recites a few lines)

LA:  And you did this for her ... 

BB:  One year birthday

LA:  And did you actually think she understood you?

BB:  Well hopefully she’s got a copy of it somewhere.

LA:  Yeah, right.  (laughing) More likely she’ll just start spouting poetry one day and won’t have a clue where it came from!

BB:  Maybe (laughing) It’s an occupational hazard because I went to drama school.

LA:  Uh-huh

BB:  Three years of drama school and we were required to recite poetry all the time. 

LA:  And you just can’t help yourself now.

BB:  That’s right.  I can’t help myself because I’ve been corrupted by the system.

LA:   Well at least that’s a good kind of corruption

BB:  I’m a victim of the system

LA:  A victim??? (laughing)

BB:  That’s right!  I’m a victim of the English drama school system.  Make that boy read poetry!  (laughing)

LA :  I don’t think that qualifies you as an actual “victim”.  So how often do you plan on sharing your philosophical and poetic musings? 

BB:  (laughing) I didn’t call them that!  You called them philosophical and poetic musings.  I called it just what was in my brain.

LA:   Fine, so how often do you plan on depositing what's in your brain on to a blog that’s not a blog.

BB:  When do I plan to empty my brain?

LA:  Yes!

BB:  Well, you know, I may get around to doing one fairly soon.  But, you know, I don’t really know...  It would be an occassional habit.   I’m not really a compulsive sharer. (laughing)

LA:  Really....   I'm shocked.  (Not)

BB:  I don’t know if you’ve noticed that.

LA:  I’ve noticed you’re not really into giving a straight answer.  But you’re really good at expressing your ideas.

BB:  I think it’s more that I’m trying to hide my ideas (laughing) and this is what comes out.

LA:  (laughing)

BB:  You don’t really want to hear what’s on his mind.

LA:  And why not?

BB:  He’s gonna talk about his cast iron skillet instead. 

LA:  Okay, I get it.  So you get into these long explanations about things you really don’t want bring up....

BB:  I do occasionally get philosophical.  I do occasionally get political.  But I think there’s a danger in looking at something like Freeze Frame and thinking that it’s a political statement. It’s not.  When you understand the genesis of it.  This comes from Jonas.  This is Jonas’ script and for Jonas it is personal.  That’s the genesis of it.  There may be elements to it that become political.  But what I saw on the paper, what I saw of the pages that Jonas handed me.  And from my conversations with Jonas, as much as I talked to him, I know how personal it is.  And from my perspective, I think that's the power.  I think that’s the power and the need of the story. It’s a personal story that comes from someone who is experienced in what we are talking about.  Experienced about this war.  The suffering and the trauma that comes from, not only from going to war, but coming home and dealing with all that they’ve seen and all that they’ve felt.  And so it’s a personal story.  But that’s the power of it.  Because it is personal people will relate to it.  Jonas and I exchanged a couple of emails about...  Have you seen Susan Boyle?

LA:  Yes!

BB:  I think there have been about ten million hits on You Tube or something like that.

LA:  Yeah, she’s pretty amazing. I was ashamed of myself when I got through crying in happiness for her.

BB:  The thing that people relate to, I think....  Jonas and I were exchanging ideas about it and, talking about the nature of the media.  But I think that most people saw Susan Boyle and I think that most people saw themselves. They see hope. They see a person who has a dream and when they step on the stage this person is rejected before they open their mouth. 

LA:  Exactly.

BB:  The audience and the judges rejected her before she even opened her mouth

LA:  Exactly.  The source of my shame.

BB:  Right?  And then she opened her mouth and it was a revelation.  And so what she did was, she sang beautifully and she shut them up and made people re-examine who they were.  But I think a lot of people saw themselves and could relate.  They could see their hopes and dreams.  Whether it be to sing.  Whether it be to run.  Or whether it be to write something. Whether it be to make a decent living.  Or to keep your family together, you know, in defiance of expectations.  There was a common…  People saw themselves and they saw people that they knew in Susan Boyle up on that stage.  And I think it’s a beautiful thing. 

LA:  Yeah, it was.

BB:  And in regards to Freeze Frame, the fact of the matter is that there are parts of this story which a great deal of America will relate to it because we have soldiers coming home from war.  A lot of people know someone who is being affected by it.  Whose entire family is affected by it.  Entire communities are being affected by it whether we recognize it or not.  And so we turn our eyes elsewhere because we have our own job worries.  The fact of the matter is what is affecting these soldiers affects us all.  

LA:  Yeah... 

BB:  And I think that, ultimately, that is what is at the core of this story.  But the fact of the matter is that what is affecting these veterans, these soldiers, affects us all.  And I think that, hopefully, that will be at the core of the story by the time we get thru telling it. 

LA:  Well, let’s talk about the story for a second.  The story is essentially about two vets.  You portray a guilt stricken Iraqi vet who tries “suicide by cop” and instead lands in prison for committing a robbery with an unloaded gun.  Then when he gets out, he starts to plot the death of a Vietnam vet who was successful in writing an award winning documentary. Is there something specific that you want to bring to life in that story?

BB:  No I think that at this point it’s really just too early to say.  You know, we’ll go back to me being closed mouthed about the thing that I’m working on. You sort of have to wait.  And to a certain degree I have to wait until we actually get into shooting it.  You know, until we actually get into shooting the likelihood of elements of the story changing or morphing...  You know, what is it that I want to say?  To be honest with you, I think the story needs to be told by Jonas and then we’ll see what comes out of it at the end of the day.  Any number of changes could be made to the script that's not part of the script yet.  

LA:  I like to say, from some friends of mine who are actors, that…   They’re always telling me that "artistic expression can create social change". That seems to be what I’m hearing from you.  That you’re hoping that this movie impacts people and creates some sort of social change. 

BB:  Well artistic expression is part of our public discussion.  It’s part of our examination of ourselves. 

LA:  Uh-huh

BB:  It’s a time honored tradition. The Greeks were doing it.  Theater has been with us since...   I was doing some research on my family out of west Tennessee.  A very poor rural west Tennessee.  And there was a small town, it no longer exists, called Purdy.   It was the county seat of Vetenary County back in the late 1800's and it only had 500 people. 

LA:  500?  A real metropolitan area, huh?

BB:  Five hundred people was the biggest town in the entire county.  And it had a theater.  And they were doing Shakespeare.  They were doing plays of the period.  And in this town of 500, where there were only about 2,000 to 3,000 people in the entire county, they had a theater.  And if you don’t have a theater you’ve got an oral tradition.  You have story tellers.  Does it affect social change?  I don’t know.  I hope so.  Maybe.  I don't know.  To be honest with you ... I don’t know.

LA:  Okay

BB:   I’m not a political actor.  I’m not trying to affect social change in performance.  What I'm trying to do is touch the audience. Communicate with the audience. To bring that off the page.  And that’s the thing that's scary about doing this script.  Because I told him, I did, I said Jonas I don’t think I can do this justice.  Because I knew where this was coming from.  I knew where the piece was coming from.  And he said "No you should do it."  But I just don't want to disappoint.  I wanted to do justice to this rather significant material.  

LA:  Well, at the risk of sounding like a fanjirl, I think I’ve seen a few of your rather intense scenes with Farscape, Stargate SG-1, A Killer Within, and even as far back as Innocent Victims.  You do intense, angst…  uuuum,  you’re able to bring to life....  I don’t know where you go to in some of those moments.  They must be pretty scary and incredibly painful places.  But you’re able to bring to life the pain that someone is going thru and I think that’s something that this part requires. 

BB:  Yeah, it does.  But still when you recognize what’s on the page you don’t feel that you have an equivalent of that suffering in your own life.  As an actor you gotta question.  “I don’t know if I can sufficiently go there” I haven’t been at this point in my life.  But I guess when you get to that point in your life you may not want to go back to it on the screen.  I don’t know, there are certain things where you sort of go "Well I can play the part of a football coach."  Ya know?

LA:  Yeah, you could.

BB:  I could play the part of the happy lucky guy, right?  (laughs)  I know that guy!

LA:  (laughs)

BB:  I know that guy that feels blessed when he wakes up in the morning, looks at the day, and says “Ah it’s going to be a good day” I know that guy!

LA:  Well, judging by specifically John Crichton, he went thru a lot and you didn’t seem to have a problem with bringing that character to life.  So I’m just saying, I think you’ll be okay.

BB:  Uuuu, that was John Crichton.  Different guy.

LA:  Oh, he’s an entirely different character, different place, different thing, but...

BB:  Different thing.  You know, really, at a certain point...   I’ve always said ‘fail gloriously’.  For at least fifteen years I’ve been saying well, if you’re going to do it fail gloriously. 

LA:  Uu-huh

BB:  And I repeat that phrase. Don’t shy away from something just because you’re not sure you can do it.

LA:  Right. Don’t be afraid to fail?

BB:  Well, you know it’s not like I was angsting over it.  I was just looking at it and thinking I'm sure you could find someone better.  (laughing)

LA:  You and that humble streak. (laughing)

BB:  No it’s not humble!  You know, I can look around and see other actors...

LA:   Yeah, okay.

BB:   No, it's not humble.  I can look around and see other actors and I'm sure they can do it.

LA:   Yeah, well, trust me.  You have a few fans who have every confidence in your ability to bring this character’s emotional turmoil to life.

BB:  Well, you know, thank you for that.  Ultimately it wouldn’t matter if I believed that I could do it or not.  I was going to try.  (laughing)

LA:  That’s good.  And we appreciate that, okay? (laughing)

BB:  It’s true though! I’d be looking at the chasm going  “I can do that.”    (laughing) Can he jump it?  I don’t know!  But I’m going to try anyway.  What’s that falling voice you hear?  That’s Ben, he tried it again.

LA:  Did he make it?

BB:  Nope.  But he’ll just have to pick himself up and try it again. 

LA:  Let me ask you about the website.  This is an interesting website that’s promoting this movie.  FreezeFrame4Vets.org.  It’s actually supposed to be part of a larger campaign to bring attention to veterans health issues, raise funds to make the movie, and a portion of the profits are going to veterans charities.  Anything else you want to share about it?

BB:  No, I think you just about covered all of it.  That all occurred outside of my fingertips or my voice.  Jonas was talking to them.  Jonas is an amazing guy. He's a guy who gets stuff done.

LA:   Yeah?

BB:  When I first met Jonas I read for “Class of 61” 

LA:  I remember that movie. 

BB:  Well Clive Owens ended up doing it.  It had an interesting and good cast.  Jonas rejected me for this one.  (Laughs)  Later our paths crossed and we got into a conversation.  And I have to tell you, we saw eye to eye on a lot of things. 

LA:  Cool.

BB:  You never know who you’re going to run across. 

LA:  Well they say that LA is a big city.  But anyone who’s been here long enough knows it’s really a small town.  You run into all kinds of people who know people, who know people, who know you.  At least that’s been my experience in LA.  (laughs)

BB:  (laughs) Well everybody knows you.

LA:  Not hardly. No no no no no …   And I’m not the only person who says that either!   Speaking of friends, I noticed that quite a few of your fans, who just happen to be friends of mine, are already pitching in to help promote this movie. 

BB:  See, the fact is that you know more about it than I do.  I discovered a long time ago that almost everything that I’m ever involved with, you know more than I do.   (laughing)

LA:  (laughs) You’re talking about the fans because we’re…

BB:  Yes, you know more than I do.  Someone asked if I was going to do the new Stargate movie. I don’t know!  Somebody out there probably knows more than I do! (laughing)

LA:  I was going to ask you about that (laughing) but I thought I’d finish with Freeze Frame first!  Because I do want to know if you’re going to be in that movie. 

BB:  The answer is that I was going to ask you!  I don’t know.  Am I?

LA:  Rumor has it.

BB:  Well okay, I guess that’s good enough for me. At least this way I know what I’m doing later in the year.  (laugh)

LA:  You know you’re supposed to be doing this movie later in the year!

BB:  Well, yeah, now I just gotta figure out how I’m supposed to juggle both of them.

LA:  And rumor has it that you’re supposed to be doing SG-1 later this year.  

BB:  Okay, great!  Have them call my people.

LA:  I’ll do that. (laugh)

BB:  Have them call my people so that I can clear my schedule. I haven’t really figured out whether or not I was going to be able to coach any football this year.  Which I don’t think is going to happen.

LA:  Well, if it does....  Didn’t you do some coaching while you were running back and forth?

BB:  Well I was helping out.  Although I did do more coaching last year, and I’m coaching right now.

LA:  Are you?!

BB:  Yeah, well I’m coaching high school pole vaulting.

LA:  Oh, back to pole vaulting? How’s that’s working out?

BB:  Yeah, well that’s sort of easier to work around.

LA:  I see, so you’ve coached one to a championship and you’ve been bitten by the bug.  You’ve just gotta do it again!

BB:  Well, you know, the thing is I coached a couple of years of high school pole vaulting when I left college. So I’ve got a group of guys that I taught how to vault years ago.  And I noticed that our high school needed a vault coach. So I volunteered to do it. You know, it’s great.  I go out in the afternoon and I have over a dozen kids that I’m teaching.

LA:  Cool!

BB:  And I’ve got a group of girls.  Which is new.

LA:  Yeah, but you had that last year.

BB:  Well Lauren is rather remarkable.  She’s gone on to college now and she holds the division 4 record by a foot.  After Lauren, we didn’t have any more vaulters to speak of.  So I love teach a new group and it gives me an excuse to be swinging on a pole.

LA:  (laughs)  You just like hurling yourself thru the air, okay?  You haven’t fooled anybody.

BB:  Well, yes, I don’t disagree with that. Although, one of the dads from the school came out.  He’s a stunt coordinator.  I thought I was crazy until I saw him!  This guy is 40 years old, and he just grabs hold of the end of a pole and the next thing I know he starts flying thru the air at 12 or 13 feet.  I'm like "Dude, you’re nuts!

LA:  Well then you’ve got company now.

BB:  No I’ll up the bar up to maybe ten feet and jump that.

LA:  Uu, huh.

BB:  I’m not going crazy!! (laughing)  He just grabbed the end of the pole and starts sprinting full tilt down the runway and I'm thinking...

LA:  Wait.  Are you saying you now have limitations to your craziness?!

BB:  No, (Iaughing) I’m saying there’s a certain mortality factor now.  There’s a distinct difference between me and a stuntman.  You have to remember that I, when I was on Farscape, if it required me landing on your head on concrete I would do it.  Then on Stargate when we had a stunt which required landing on my head on concrete, I thought “No, maybe I’ll let the stunt guys do that one.”   And he did it and three fillings came out of his mouth. And I’m thinking no, no, no, no, no, no….  I don’t think I want to do that anymore.  It’s not that I’m afraid of the concussion, but I hate going to the dentist. 

LA:  The dentist.  (laughing) It’s not the bruises.  It’s not the concussion.  It’s the dentist! Well as long as you have your limits.  That’s good.  I’m sure Fran would appreciate that.  

BB:  I'm trying to avoid fillings! 

LA:  Okay, I have just one more Freeze Frame question and then I have to ask my fanjirl question.

BB:  (laughing)  That's right, you use the word “jirl” instead of “girl”

LA:   (laughing)  It’s “jirl”.

BB:  “Jirl” not “girl”. 

LA:   Right!  J-I-R-L    It comes from when Aeryn was learning English and used the work “jirlpower”

BB:  Yeah, yeah, yeah I know what you mean.  I remember.

LA:  Jonas McCord, he’s the writer and producer of Freeze Frame.  He’s no lightweight. His resume is pretty intense.  In the past 20 years he’s won an Emmy, a Peabody, and an Academy Award.  What lessons do you hope to learn from working with him?

BB:  (laughing) Geez, I hadn’t really thought about it. How to take an ass whooping from an Emmy winner.  I got that one down!

LA  (laughing)  I was going to say, wait a minute, I think you’ve done that already.

BB:  Yeah, but it’s a lesson you gotta keep learning.  Uum, no you know, I haven’t really thought about it. I think Jonas is interesting. He’s smart and a driven individual.  And he impressed me.  Really impressed me.  So I’m just going to keep my eyes open.  I'll let you know afterwards what I might have learned.  You can ask me again later.

LA:  I will ask. I will definitely ask.

BB:  You know what?  (laughing)  I didn’t get the syllabus to know what I was going to learn.  Here’s your job and here’s the syllabus. You have to wait till afterwards.

LA:  Well, you know, when you meet certain people its like “Gosh, I really hope I learn this or that from this person.”  You know, especially when you come across someone who is really talented in certain respects and you think you might be able to learn certain things from them.

BB:  You know, I hadn’t really thought about it.  But there’s one thing about life and that is you’re constantly being schooled. Like, on the basketball court I got schooled.  You know, you’re constantly sort of learning something. I don’t really ever anticipate what it is I’m going to learn.  You can try to pretend that you thought you knew what you were going to learn when you went to college.  But I would be willing to bet that if I had written down what I thought I was going to learn versus what I actually learned in college …

LA:  True true.  In college you go off into so many new directions. But that’s the whole purpose of college.

BB:  What most people learned in college is not what their parents paid for!  (laughing)

LA:  (laughing)  I’m not touching that one!!

BB:  It's not!  In drama school I used to try and write this stuff down to formulate what it was that I was learning.  At the end of the day, all of those models that you thought would build and learn with didn’t work for me.  What I learned….  I don't know what I learned.    I thought when I went to drama school I was going to learn how to act. 

LA:  And instead you learned how to recite poetry! 

BB:  There’s ample evidence to prove that I didn’t learn that. So what did I learn?  I don’t know. I’ll have to reassess that one too.  I don’t know what to expect. I’ll just have to keep my eyes and ears open and see what happens.  

LA:  That’ll work. I will return to that question after the movie.  Okay, it’s time for my fanjirl question.  Fran (Ben's wife) has a cat and we know you have dogs.  What kind of dogs do you have? 

BB:  I don’t know if that's giving out too much information.  I have a cat too.   

LA:   YOU have a cat too? 

BB:   Yeah I have a cat.

LA:   Fran’s cat?

BB:  What?

LA:  Fran’s cat!

BB:  Well look, the cat disappears when she leaves and returns when she comes back. You can’t find the cat unless Francesca’s in the house.

LA:  (laughing)  Well that sounds like Fran’s cat to me.

BB:  Well, no, but WE have a cat.  I feed the cat. 

LA:  (Sill laughing)  Really.

BB:  Here’s what I discovered about the cat. 

LA:   What's that? 

BB:  The cat only likes me when I'm opening a can of tuna fish.   If Francesca wasn’t here I wouldn’t see the cat for days.  If I open a can of tuna fish…  Hello pussy cat!

LA:  (laughing)

BB:  I’m like, how did you know?  When I grab the can from the pantry that it was a can of tuna fish.  The cat is psychic.

LA:  Uh-huh, it sounds like Fran’s cat to me.

BB:  The cat must be reading my mind.  If I have a can of beans the cat’s not interested. The cat knows from the other room the cat knows if I’m opening a can of tuna fish.

LA:  And without the tuna fish you don't see the cat.  Ben.  That’s Fran’s cat.  I hate to be the one to tell you that.  But that’s Fran’s cat.  (laughing)

BB:  Maybe Francesca knows I’m opening the can of tuna fish and she’s telling the cat.  I don’t know.

LA:  Okay.  What kind of dogs do you have?

BB:  We have two labs.

LA:  Two labs?

BB:  Labs.  Two Labrador retrievers. 

LA:  Very cool.

BB:  We have one Australian Lab and one American Lab.  The Australian Lab absolutely kicks the ass of the American Lab.  The Australian Lab is the alpha dog. 

LA:  There can be only one, right?

BB:  But you’d think the Australian Lab, because it is shorter and kind of pudgy that it’s … When you look at the two dogs you’d think the American dog would be the one in charge.  But no the Australian dog is in charge. It’s like this dog was taking pointers from the Australian working dogs.  (with his Aussy accent) "This is how you control the sheep, alright mate?  You just give 'em a nip on the tail."

LA:  And now we know which one is the alpha dog in your house. 

BB:  And Francesca has the alpha cat.

LA:  That’s Fran’s cat.  You should just accept it Ben, that’s Fran’s cat.

BB:  Let me put it this way.  They are Francesca’s dogs. That’s Francesca’s cat.  Those are Francesca’s kids and I am Francesca’s husband.  There’s a reason why the crew on Farscape called Francesca the boss.

LA:  We like her for that! 

BB:  I know there’s some kind of public perception that she puts on that she’s kind of, you know, timid and shy.  Nope.

LA:   No? Thank you for clueing us in on that.

BB:  No.  If it wasn’t obvious before, because I don’t really know what’s obvious or not, but she’s in charge. 

LA:  Well I think we all knew that, but it’s different when we actually hear that directly from you.  She’s in charge.

BB:  I make no bones about it.  I never have.  I know she's in charge.  I don’t really make decisions. 

LA:  She's in charge.

BB:  I decide whether or not I’m going to open a can of tuna fish.  That’s about it.

LA:  And then you’ll see the cat.

BB:  That’s right.  Then the cat shows up and says “is that mine?”  "I guess it is pussy cat."

LA:  Fran’s cat.

BB:  Yeah, and I’m like, if Francesca says you can have the can of tuna fish then its okay.

LA:  YAAAAAAY!   Please tell Francesca that I said hello

BB:  I will.  Did you get anything usable?

LA:  There’s a lot!  Believe me, I’ve been giggling a lot but I’m letting the recorder get all the details for me.

BB:  Oh dear...   I want to revisit one topic before I let you go.

LA:  What’s that?

BB:  It surprises me that when you talk about veterans and the problems that they are having, that people immediately tend to politicize the subject.  It surprises me.

LA:  Well, I would think that because of the different ways that wars are started.  Particularly with the Iraq war and how we got into it.  And there are all these emotions that get tied into the subject that are very very political and painful.  Which have nothing to do with the vets.  Like in the case, at least in my opinion, of the Vietnam war where the vets were not given the respect that they deserved because of the politics of the war itself. The Iraqi vets don’t seem to be suffering that same injustice because they are shown appreciation when they come back home. But there are still all these politics that are involved with the war itself and it all tends to get mixed together.

BB:  I understand that.  And that’s the reason that I asked that question.  I just don’t understand why people see it as a political issue.  The experience of men and women in combat has not significantly changed in thousands of years. Thousands of years!  And as a nation, if you are sending your boys and girls to fight for your nation, it seems to me that it shouldn’t even be a political question. That when you send someone into that kind of situation that you should take care of them afterwards. I don’t care what the war is. World War II or the Civil War.  You know, vets in the Civil war had the same problems on both sides.  The veterans from WWII had many of the same problems. The veterans from the Trojan war had the same problems.  So when the nation decides to send it’s boys and girls, and men and women, off to fight I do not think there’s anything political about it.  It's a human issue.  What should we be doing?

LA:  Well I think this movie is going to address that specific concern. 

BB:  And I think the advantage, if you tell the story well, if you tell the story true, you’re calling attention to what people are suspecting is going on.  You know.  People come back and even if they don’t have the outward signs, we need to be looking for the inner signs for the damage that combat does.  And you take care of these people.

LA :  You kind of lost me.  What do you mean by what people suspect.  I didn’t understand that part.

BB:  When I say that people suspect, it’s that they aren’t consciously aware.  I think people in general, not everyone, but people shy away from people who are hurt or damaged.  They avert their eyes. They don’t really pay attention. When we see children who are autistic we have a tendency to not engage them because they are autistic.  When we see people who are damaged, even when the damage is not obvious, I think we suspect sometimes that maybe they are damaged.  There’s a likelihood that there is damage there.  And particularly the less obvious damage.  The vet that comes home who lost a leg or an arm.  People may avert their eyes but they cannot deny that it’s there. But the veteran who comes home dealing with psychological trauma of combat, we sort of know that something’s not right.  We need to address the fact that something’s not right and what can you to do help. 

LA:  I got cha.

BB:  So when I say “suspect” I mean the suspicion that’s lurking around the corner of our brains about the damage that the people are carrying with them. That's basically it.  It’s very difficult for me to be precise in my language in dealing with this issue.  I may be better with it by the time we end up shooting the movie.

LA:  Well maybe you can do that non-blogging blog of yours and that will help to clarify it for you.

BB:  (laugh)  I’ll do the best I can

LA:  And we’ll be looking forward to it.