Scotland's Hottest Actor...

... is rescued from the lonely isolation of fame by an unlikely fan living half a world away. Little does she know he will return the favor when her world is torn apart by tragedy.

****

What would you do if suddenly, unexpectedly, a man entered your world…testing your attitudes, challenging your integrity, dislodging your emotional equilibrium and haunting your dreams with his eyes--- Not just any man, but Hollywood’s hottest Scottish actor?

Glasgow’s rough streets and the celebrity of Hollywood may seem light years apart, but when it comes to deliverance from the isolation inherent in both it is the unexpected that brings salvation to superstar Erik Bartholomew. Born and raised in a Glasgow working class suburb, hard drinking drop out of elite university programme, latecomer to acting, Hollywood’s hottest actor is having second thoughts about the invasive spotlight of fame.

A Los Angeles kindergarten teacher has never had cause to interact with Hollywood’s elite, much less consider the implications of a brush with fame until her quiet life is turned upside down by one chance encounter. What is the mysterious draw between such disparate people that is powerful enough to overcome distance and time? It is as if she can read his very soul through his eyes.

Fascinated by her pointed questions and almost magical ability to see into the depths of him, Erik reaches out to Christine in curiosity and attraction.

Is the gap between ordinary and mega stardom insurmountable?

Become a part of their world

Soul In His Eyes

By Christine London

Available for pre-order in print soon,

Phaze Books at Phaze.com

Farewell Dad

What would you give for one more day with one your loved? Death is nearly always looked upon as cruel, yet when it comes to one who has lived a full rich life and struggled toward the end with a progressive degenerative disease, it is release. So came the passing of my father this morning. He had been fighting with the neurological thief of Parkinson’s for nearly a dozen years. The last two years since the passing of my mother and brother have been the most difficult for him.

Parkinson’s patients are afflicted in many different ways. His variety of the disease robbed him of mobility, but more onerous and painful-- the loss of speech. The ideas were there, the few words he was able to utter were testament to his ability to follow what went on around him. His empathy and love for others remained intact. As a great orator in his working life he had been able to convince people of the benefit of what his company offered as well as use the many years after retirement to grow volunteer programs for seniors interacting with school children, hospital education programs and the very personal volunteer work he did at the local emergency room comforting those loved ones of patients in some of their most frightening hours. It was not his infirmity that he mourned, but what he viewed as the added burden it put on those around him. There was always a smile, a squeeze of the hand for anyone who took the time to relate to him. He truly gave so much more than he took.

A Naval flight officer at the age of nineteen, he flew the photographic mission over Hiroshima and Nagasaki to document the effect of the bomb. So secret was the first, no one on this crew knew what they were photographing. First to fly the eye of a hurricane---another photographic documentary mission. In on the inception of the computer as a business tool, he kept a chip in his wallet to remind him of what used to take the space of an entire room. Oral presenter to both U.S and California Supreme courts of the marvelous computer full text retrieval tool of legal research and precedent, he convinced the justices of the power of the future. This was a man on the cutting edge of his time. He found himself in places and circumstances that could have been turned over to others to handle. Not Dad---he took the responsibility to see it through. He rode the wave of tomorrow with a passion for life---its tragedies and triumphs.

Goodnight sweet love. Well done. Rest.

Success??

Is there a reason to separate your creative endeavors into that which you control and that which you do not? Those of us who have discovered our job---our reason for being on the planet, as something requiring that ineffable stream of consciousness leading to creative product often doubt our ability to produce something others will view as worthwhile. If in one glorious moment of fate we do achieve, is all that comes after to be held to account? What of the young basketball player who scores more points in one game than any other? The musical artist that has a number one hit? The salesman that tops the corporate charts for the quarter? Are they washed up at twenty, thirty, forty? How do they proceed? What brings us back to the lions den of creative effort?

Perhaps even more a conundrum---those of us who have yet to be recognized as genius. Those who struggle and toil day in and out to produce whatever is their life's work, but have yet to have that glorious moment(s) of recognition. In the publishing world this would be the great unwashed masses of the unpublished. Even we who have made those first forays into the world of the published have a very long road ahead to gain recognition. Will we be a 'success' or will we merely enjoy the journey?

When it comes down to it, all creativity as viewed by others is subjective. What touches one and changes his life, may leave another cool to indifferent. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the realm of popular culture. Film actors work toward accolade and fame, musicians strive for chart placement and writers long to be numbered among the top New York or Amazon picks. But is this the real definition of success?

What of the young widow who writes the author to say her book about loss, grief and recovery has inspired her to move back into the world? The fan who sends a letter to the film actor who moved her to discovery of a talent within that is beyond her ken? The young college student who took that leap of faith to marry the man she loves in spite of the risk of life altering inheritance of a neurological malady that could devastate their progeny?

What greater success is there than to touch even one life?

If you are amongst the warriors, the everyday heroes that show up and ‘just do it’, you too must realize that the ultimate measure of your success is largely beyond your control. It is the persistent, the prepared, the experienced that access that mysterious link to the power of the universe to shine. Each of us is a conduit to the creative. We just do not know when or where we will plug in and go beyond what we every imagined.

It is in the process of possibility where the energy to continue lies.

If you have not seen this talk-- In the video below, Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, says that one of the best things we can do to cope with success is to separate achievement from the work of getting there. I would argue that this is the best way to deal with failure as well, and for the time before the "successful”. It is the journey to savor.

One Brief Moment

It’s so easy

To ignore

The dance of interlude

What happens in that brief moment

When pretense wears thin

And eyes meet

What happens in the midst of a crowd

In the center of ceremony

At the party of the year

Red carpets roll up

Camera’s flash fades

Worldly concerns vanish

For that one brief moment

There is connection

Realization

But then the drama

The allure of the spotlight

Yanks away what matters

And you return

To the present

And the demand of the night

In that one brief moment

More truth is spoken

Than all forty years before

In that one brief moment

There laid bare

The human heart

Tug of agent

Crash of industry

Intrusion of the ‘real’

And you are swept away

Into the needs of the many

But...In that one brief moment

Your heart won

After The Tsunami

The news may call it high wave action, but to locals it was beyond anything they'd ever seen. Tsunami warnings across the Pacific Basin sent thousands scrambling to higher ground. In Redondo Beach, California beach combers gaped at the action of the sea this bright Sunday morning.




At first take the uninitiated would think the paved bike trail ends here. No...this is what has yet to be cleared by beach crews. Waves washed sand and seaweed up to the ramps that lead to the street Saturday, covering the smooth concrete trail used daily by bikers and hikers.



A tenacious lot we Southern Californians, beach goers continued their Sunday rituals in spite of the challenge. Pedestrians stopped to wonder at the power of nature. A few documented the moment on film. Most went on with the things they love to do best...