Lightning at Night Image

Christmas Dolphins

Gravity Talk

At the DGA watching Alfonso Cuarón, Emmanuel Lubezki, Andy Nicholson and Skip Lievsay talking about Gravity.

Paramount Lot Water Tower

Return to the Nazi Fortress in LA

The Backstory to the Mountain Compound:
In 1933, records show that mining fortune heiress Jessie Murphy bought 55-acres in Rustic Canyon from Will Rogers. But the name Jessie Murphy is fictitious, it appears no where else in any records that match up. The Stephens are the couple that actually owned the Murphy Ranch. A man known only as Herr Schmidt, possibly a German spy, convinced Norman and Winona Stephens to spend $4 million 1930s dollars (more than $65 million today) to build the Murphy ranch. It was to be Hitler and the Third Reich's headquarters in America.

The heavily guarded compound was designed to be self contained, said to include:

• a 375,000 gallon spring-fed water tank
• a 20,000 gallon diesel fuel tank
• a diesel power plant with twin electrical generators that could power a small town
• a vegetable garden
• hills terraced for as many as 3,000 nut, citrus, fruit and olive trees with built-in irrigation
• livestock stables
• dairy and butchering facilities
• a meat locker
• a four story mansion with 22 bedrooms (which may or may not have actually been built)
• an incinerator
• a bomb shelter
• an electrified fence encircling the complex
• a rumored radio system that could send and received coded messages
• and there are rumors of underground tunnels.

The group that built it were members of the Silver Legion of America and were known as Silver Shirts. They intended to later add a swimming pool, several dining rooms, a gymnasium and five libraries, all funded by Germany.

The Silver Shirts planned to seize control of the United States after Europe fell to the nazis; they imagined Europe's collapse would plunge the United States into chaos. In real history, the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor the FBI arrested the 40 to 50 Silver Shirts living at Murphy Ranch. With the exception of briefly being an artists colony, and even home to Henry Miller the novelist at one time, the compound has been abandoned ever since. In 2012 plans to bulldoze the ruins were made.

pictures from a trip there today
pictures from an earlier visit

David August Before a Performance

My Love

My Love
by David August

I'd say I love you more than plants the sun
or fish the sea and drowning men the land,
but desperate need like that I need not have:
I simply, clearly, truly, calmly love.

My passion doesn't need a lack or pain;
it's good and strong, dissolving every wrong.
Unflinching, never needs to wage a war,
unyielding, doesn't need to hesitate.

No matter how you try to make my love
a twisted wreck of studied loss, of waste,
of sad and squandered opportunity
it isn't yours to ruin. My love, for you.

Denying refuge in your heart will not
destroy my love, just make me wish it did.

originally written May 2010

Blocking Pencil

Sometimes I keep my pencil like this during blocking rehearsals. Leaves hands free.

Happiness is Love

Not at all surprising, but nice to have science confirm.

The seventy-five years and twenty million dollars expended on the Grant Study points to a straightforward five-word conclusion: Happiness is love. Full stop.

(from 75 Years In The Making: Harvard Just Released Its Epic Study On What Men Need To Live A Happy Life).

Ben Stiller Speaking About The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Watching @RedHourBen speaking about @WalterMitty at the Directors Guild of America theatre

Vista Through Trees

New Logo

I'm considering using for things, and stuff, and sundry.

David August - Sunday, October 27, 2013

Sunset Sky 🌅

Golden Dagger

Penn Station

Mobile Studio, sticks and playback

The Temptress' Chest: Isle of the Amazons reading

Happy to announce that my action/adventure pilot script "The Temptress' Chest: Isle of the Amazons" will be read at We Make Movies at 7:30pm Wednesday, October 16, 2013 in Hollywood at Theatre Asylum please come, it's free http://bit.ly/WMMoct16

Bioweapon Pathogen Canister Prop ☣

Good Labels Follow These Criteria

(from Four Dangerous Navigation Approaches that Can Increase Cognitive Strain).

Wherefore I Know Not

"What a piece of work is a man,
how noble in reason,
how infinite in faculties, in form and moving,
how express and admirable in action,
how like an angel in apprehension,
how like a god!"

Seeds of Revolution

If the Turks didn't take Chios (an island in the Aegean Sea) from Genoa in 1566, then later Genoa may not have given up Corsica to France in 1768. And the loss of Corsica to France weakened the Grafton Ministry, the British government in the 1770s. Since the Grafton Ministry had supported reconciling with the American Colonies (instead of coercing them) perhaps their falling out of power lead the way to the American Revolution. Historical hindsight, and reading Wikipedia randomly, is fun.

Past, Future and Present

The past and the future are a mismatched pair of what has been and what might be. Their friction is the present.

Muse

I long, no yearn, for more. Indeed there is
no more to have when she is far away.
I wish, I beg to have the grace she gives.
My selfish drive to be the best is foiled.

I'd like to say she's fickle and untrue.
I'd like to call her whore, or tramp, or slut.
But I do not. She's true to me it seems.
In fact, it's me who turns my back on her.

My empty words are mine because I blind
myself to her and try to write alone.
I pull away and close my mind to her
because I'm scared to write what she would give.

It's not of failure that I'm scared. Success
is what my heart can't seem to take...or give?
A million writers cannot write at all,
a million more can write, but never well.

But I'm not scared to be inside those groups;
I'm scared to stand alone. Alone and sad.
To write something that others cannot write,
to feel what others cannot feel.

And so I do not let her guide my pen,
and risk success, and risk the status quo.
The way things are right now is pretty good.
And so I hesitate, and hold her back.

I'm making sure her power never sees
the light of day through me, or through my work.
I stifle her, I violate her will,
I keep whatever gifts she has locked up.

And all because I'm scared to let them out.
Because if I release those gifts they'll shine,
they'll light the world and lead me toward my dreams.
My dreams will become real and I'll succeed.

So my success I can create or ruin.
That choice is mine to make, and mine alone.

- completed 5pm August 24th 2002 Chicago

Moon Launch Tonight in the Eastern US

Moon launch tonight, visible along the East Coast of the US, and as far West as Ohio #LookUp  http://bit.ly/1cQOVqD

Process Trailer

How car interiors get filmed, shot as if they're driving themselves.

You Are Patient Zero teaser trailer ☣

You Are Patient Zero teaser trailer:

more information at youarepatientzero.com

John Williams at the Hollywood Bowl

with Julie Andrews

A View from Set

Skylight Chandelier

Blue Head

Bird of Paradise

Sliver of Moon Through Palm Trees

Extreme Golf Treatment

Just finished writing a treatment for future Extreme Golf episodes for a pitch, let me know if you want to read it (it's 2 pages). Get more about Extreme Golf at http://davaug.com/xgolffest ⛳

Sailboat and Dinghy

in Santa Barbara Harbor

Nakatomi Plaza

Santa Barbara Pier 360 Panorama

Sailboat

Dog on a Boat

David August on Monday, July 22, 2013

Atlantic Ocean Road

I'd like to shoot something on this road/in this area. It is real, and cool-scary. Driving on it is an adventure.

Robert E. Lee and a Glimpse of History

Robert E. Lee, a general for the Confederacy in the US Civil War, was a great-grandson in-law of George Washington, the first US president. Lee ended up siding with the South because he felt more loyal to Virginia than the US. After the South lost, out of what kind of needs to be called spite, the North turned Lee's estate into Arlington National Cemetery. Oh the tricks of history: in hindsight they make sense, but as they happen, seeming chance and dumb luck surprise again and again. #SaturdayMorningMusing

Insights

source

On My Way to An Audition in February

Window Through Books

Cool Bookstore

Mountain and Sky

David August at the Newsroom Premiere

2 Roses

Gearheaded Gnarliness

David August being a little serious

David August on the Dependents Day Set Taken by Caro Sapina

At The Magic Castle

David August, Allyson Floyd and Aaron Kaiser at The Magic Castle last night.

Dark Rose

Throwback Thursday: Me at Dances with Films Film Festival

True Blood Premiere Party

Orange Flower

Technology and Privacy

Interesting how many people who use phones and computers regularly to connect to other people and share information, are surprised that doing so may connect and share information with law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Everything about phones and computers is designed to send and store information, from the casings all the way to the chips inside. Any attempt to keep them from sending or storing things is against their fundamental purpose. Regardless of whether they should be private or not, making them secure or private is always an uphill battle going against their reason to exist. Nor is snooping in our private stuff new; for as long as there has been postal mail, people have steamed open letters, read them, and resealed them. So now you know. And to our friends at the [choose your acronym law enforcement or intelligence agency] who have just started following my posts: hope I can entertain you and you're having a nice day in the surveillance van/listening post. #LongestSetUpEverForANotVeryFunnyBit #PrivacyIsStillAThingWeShouldHave

The Temptress' Chest: Isle of the Amazons copyrighted

My pilot "The Temptress' Chest: Isle of the Amazons" is official #PirateStoryCannotBePirated #TemptressChest #tv #script #screenplay

Validate Open Graph Code for Twitter, Facebook and Google+

Using these two validators will allow you to have a fairly good idea if sharing is going to be made more pretty on both Faceboook and Twitter:

• Twitter Card validator
• Facebook Open Graph validator
• Google Structured Data Testing Tool

Tree Trunk

Love Me Moon

Natural Beauty

Mountain Trail Panorama

Click it to enlarge.