
The inspiration for today's blog post comes hugely from the screening we're going to tonight.
"The Hooping Life takes the hula hoop from its origins as a child’s toy to its current status as club art form, teacher’s aid, and instrument of redemption. Filmed partly by the subjects themselves, and traveling from Burning Man to Time Square, from South Central to South Africa, the seven intimate portraits capture the birth and addictive growth of a new subculture."
My "re-introduction" to the hula hoop was at a home school park day gathering back in Los Angeles, several years ago. One of the moms had brought a bunch of hoops, some of them "adult size" so that I could actually get the thing going.
Hooping has been intertwining with our life in so many places and ways.
Crazy, wonderful, cool.
Below is an unedited clip from one of our first "hoop-cam" tests. The hooper is Katina who teaches hoop classes at Circus Arts Institute where we've been playing, hooping and flying since we dropped down in Atlanta.

This picture could have been taken in LA on any number of occasions, but it was taken here in Atlanta.
It's been amazing how many people from our past have dined and supped with us in Georgia since we arrived less than a year ago.

"We See the Coming War"
This is an amazing piece given to me as a "Going Away" present from the artist, who was on my set dressing crew on Legend of Zorro. We became good friends as often happens in the wacky world of film-making which has now been part of my life for longer than I can remember, from my teens.
The relevance of this piece right now has too many points to delve into, but mostly it reminds me of how wide and varied my life is due in large part to working in the film business.
The friendships and family from my "movie" world is so full of interconnections and histories and such a fabric of my being.

I would have never run to the top of Sears Tower had Cindy not been working on a movie in Chicago.
Doing these crazy races has also led to many amazing connections and stories.

I took up Brazilian Jiujitsu around 15 years ago, I think. Back in LA after seeing the first couple of UFC's.
I've since trained in the grappling arts around the world, in Majorca, St. Marteen, Montreal and all over the US.
I gave it up for a few years and started back up again, because a friend of mine had worked on Red Belt which starred John Machado, brother to Rigan and Roger Machad, who I had started training with in the beginning.
Years later I am training under Helio Soneca here in Atlanta. Helio practically grew up with the Machados in Brazil and now I'm taking classes from him at X-3 Sports.
Talk about a small world.

I started doing these "adventure" races several years ago, with different friends and family. I've done them with Skye and we've done them in several different cities.
I've race in San Francisco, Dallas, Las Vegas and of course several in Los Angeles.
That's a little of the back story of things going full circle.
When we took our little road trip down to the Keys over Christmas, on the way back I was able to reconnect with a friend from high school who I haven't seen in probably 25 years.
He wasn't just an acquaintance who happened to graduate the same year as I did. No he was part of a tight little pack of misfits I ran with back in the day. So it was pretty amazing and completely because of facebook that this epic reunion was able to take place.
So when he posted that he was about to run an Urban Dare with his wife, I jumped on the the phone and volunteered to be his "support team" manning the internet to help solve clues and such.
They totally rocked it and came in 3rd place out of 80+ teams.
I am almost daily amazed by the connectedness and intersections of the orbiting