Back from a great trip….

Back from a great trip through the Midwest, including home state Iowa.  Saw lot’s of old friends and family. Ashley was kind enough to meet me in Des Moines (no offense but Iowa in January is a tough sell as a vacation spot:)  So grateful all the shows sold out and all the kindness and stories the folks shared after each show.  Visited the abused children’s center at St. Luke’s in Cedar Rapids. The finest facility I’ve ever seen. A safe, homey place for the kids and still equipped with high tech medical and evidence gathering facilities. The combination of an excellent staff and smart, caring police made me wish we’d had a place like this when I was young. They also have a great community outreach program, education parents and schools but the most inspiring moment was when a mother and father slid a picture of their beautiful little daughter to me and told me her story. They were as smart and brave as the little one and with the help of St Luke’s, took one pedophile out of the child care system.  The last time a parent slid me a picture of their 9 year old boy and his horse, he’d already hung himself.  The shame of rape too much for that little angel. Nothing I could say or do would ever make things right but I will keep trying as will the thousands of others around the country who donate their time and money to place’s like St.Luke’s. I know it happen’s to a lot of us but if we didn’t know enough to speak up back then, we can do something about the little one’s now and stand up for the little one inside of all of us who didn’t know what to do.  We can move on. They hurt us when we were little but we can’t allow them to have any power now and helping others is always the best way to eliminate that shame.  Back to fun stuff.  Sundance was great. Continued my bromance with my buddy Shanks. Loved “The Runaways”, Dax’s “The Freebie”, Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s “Jack Goes Boating” and John Well’s “The Company Men”. Thanks to The Sundance Channel folks. Great hosts.  Also learned a valuable lesson, a buddy invented those Flip camera’s, which have changed things for the better, even for the paparazzi, so watch what you share with old friends, stupidly assuming that since there aren’t any big camera’s present you’re having a private-public convo. My Bad. I did break the tip record as a waiter at The My Space Cafe (for Haiti) which somehow meant more to me than just about anything.  Arnold made me come to the premiere of “The Tipping Point” a very good documentary about nuclear proliferation and a plan former Secretaries of State, Republican and Democrat have for the total elimination of these weapons from the planet.  Scary but I like a plan (also, it made comedy night at The Laugh Factory a little hard to get started:).  This is my only weekend off until summer so we’re laying around (or maybe it’s just me:) Off to the Super Bowl for Direct TV next week. Like Sundance, the Super Bowl is most fun for catching up with friends you don’t see very often.  Finally, Go Hawks!  Very proud of our Orange Bowl win (if you lived in Iowa you’d understand:)  L,Tom