Watching the political campaign over the past few months, I’ve been disappointed to see Barack Obama occasionally falter in his effort to elevate this year’s political campaigning.  As he put it, “You get elbowed enough, eventually you start throwing some back.”

I can’t help comparing Barack’s struggle to that of Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars trilogy.  Among the things George Lucas got right in creating his masterwork was a cogent examination of how much more difficult it can be to take the high road.  As the Pennsylvania primary unfolded, I realized that the Obama campaign needs no strategy more complicated than resisting the dark side of the force.

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For the next few days you can hear an online preview of the new R.E.M. album at iLike. They’ve been my favorite band for a very long time, and yet it’s been hard to say that lately. But this new stuff is good! They emerged at the end of the experimentation tunnel with a few new tricks, but they’ve married it to their old sound, and the synergy is quality. Plus, it sounds like recent politics have Michael Stipe pissed off enough to be writing sharper lyrics. ScreenwriterGuy will be listening to this continuously from now till Thursday.

Drive, vote, graduate, drink, graduate some more, rent a car without an extra fee.  After that, there’s marriage, kids, retirement, but the milestones are more individualized and less age-related.

Today, however, I hit one that is definitely age-related.  This morning I found my first grey hair.  It was in my beard, extra long, and while a case might have been made for it just being very blond, the realist must insist on grey.

No problem.  I am ready to stop being confused for someone in his twenties.  Having started to lose my hair when I was 18, I’ve (had to) become very calm about aging.  So it’s not a milestone that stresses me out the way it would other people.  Of course, I’ll certainly hide it from any producers potentially interested in hiring me as a comedy writer.  Among that particular group, I’m happy to be confused for someone in his twenties.

Now I’ll just wait for the next milestone.  Like my hip shattering or something.

I’ve been feeling this weird sensation in my lower left abdomen lately. Always happy to substitute a web site for consultation with a trained professional, I described my symptoms to WebMD. The closest match seems to be “Irritable Bowel Syndrome.” While I’m not impressed by the lack of details of why or what the condition actually is, I suppose it was comforting at least to know that someone (drug companies, I suspect?) has given my mild discomfort a name. And at last I can stop fearing I have tapeworms.

Unfortunately, there is not much listed in the way of treatment for IBS, and the only real suggestions were to reduce stress and avoid caffeine. So it’s sad to hear there’s nothing I can do about it. Believe me, if I could just make stress go away, I would. All this evening I had a strange sensation in my forehead where all the muscles were sore from a combination of tension and lack of sleep. I’ve ground away one side of rear left molars. I’ve tried using a mouth guard, but that just gives me something to chomp down on, and I’ve nearly chewed through it after a week.

All of which is strange, because I’m remarkably unstressed. Though it hasn’t launched yet, BrevityTV is humming along, starting to resemble the idea I had in my head when I started it. And when you get pretty shots like the one below from our shoot this morning, what’s to stress about?

Gary Gygax, father of the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, died today.

I have always made fun of people like myself who  grew up geeking out in the basement talking about armor class, saving throws and hit points.  (And I always will.)   Still, the honest truth is that I owe a lot to that game.  Time spent as a dungeon master helped hone skills in acting, organization, management, and most of all storytelling.  I still remember a lesson learned at age 11 when my fellow players told me how much they enjoyed an adventure I’d written in which, while solving their main quest, they were chased by hooded assassins.  Conflict drives the audience’s engagement in a story, and subplot can control pacing.  Thanks, Gary.

I suggest we all observe a moment of silence.  Lasting 3d20 seconds.