(VIDEO) 'DON'T-THINK-ABOUT-IT' LIST

What don't YOU want to think about, or discuss?

That question gets husband John Cullum and wife Emily Frankel sharing what's on their minds. Listing the things NOT to think about turns into an amusing exchange of fears and confusions.

JOHN CULLUM IN "1776"

I love this photo of John Cullum, my husband.

He's in his Rutledge, Senator from South Carolina costume for "1776," the film Peter Hunt directed. He's listening to John Adams, (played by William Daniels) and thinking about voting aye or nay when it's time to vote.

I love the look on John's face -- so real -- actor Cullum as Rutledge was thinking, planning, contemplating the issue, and probably also thinking about the song he was about to sing.

John told me that this scene in the movie had been done as a "master" long shot -- cameras and lights repositioned for the medium shot and filmed again -- the set up was again changed for the closeups -- he'd already sung "Molasses to Rum" twice. He told director Peter, "Better get it this time, I've just got one more "G" in me."

(JC told me just now that if I listened to the film again, I'd hear how he "slipped into the high note, that "G." He's a Baritone -- a G can be tricky.)       

Wife, fan, lover of John Cullum, loves that photo of the man she fell in love with at first sight, the guy who had evolved from a very good-looking, handsome, leading man on a stage, a leading man who could rivet an audience -- into a man who could truly star in a show and draw thousands of theatergoers. I've probably seen the film more than a dozen times since it premiered in 1972.

Yes, wife Em WAS, IS always enthralled by this John in that moment, in that marvelous film, stunned by the power in him, artist, musician, singer, actor performer that he is, still is. Here he is, yesterday working on a video for a new project -- audio-videos we'll be publishing on our YouTube Channel & on Facebook. He studied the "take" he'd just finished. Even though I loved it, today he's re-doing it. 

Hey, why am I jabbering about private thoughts?

I'm doing it to remind you that people with whom you are intimately involved change, grow up as you change, and it's amazing and wonderful, the way viewing them freshly grows you up too.

ZUCKERBERG FOR PRESIDENT

Mark Zuckerberg's been visiting large and small towns. Dressed in a suit, shirt and tie -- not in the usual T-shirt and jeans -- Mark Zuckerberg has been talking about the future.

Buzzfeed.com says Zuckerberg is preaching "compassionate globalism" like he preached at Harvard's Commencement on May 25 -- it was "an unmistakable political platform, putting forth the idea that the U.S. explore a "universal basic income, a stipend distributed to all Americans that will provide a cushion against technological disruption." Though Facebook's CEO has said more than once that he is not running for president, Buzzfeed says: "If Candidate Zuckerberg ever happens, he will most certainly look like the 33-year-old man whom we just saw at Harvard."

Vanity Fair says, "If Mark Z doesn't want people to think he's running for president, he hasn't been all that convincing. A year ago he pressed the Facebook board to approve a clause that would allow him to retain control of the company if he took a leave of absence  to serve in the government." The magazine mentions that he hired David Plouffe, Obama's 2008 campaign manager, to help run the philanthropy he runs with his wife -- The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative -- and says the most obvious sign of his ambition is-- "during the past three months he's been rubbing shoulders with farmers, factory workers, Nascar drivers -- in Texas he planted a garden, in Wisconsin at a family farm, he fed a calf."

According to the New York Times -- "It's a stunt. Pit stops, like the Addiction Center in Ohio, have been meticulously documented on Zuckerberg's Facebook page. Zuckerberg himself says that his travels are a way to connect with Facebook users. Those who know him say he's serious about escaping the Silicon Valley bubble as his company grapples with questions about its responsibilities and its role in the lives of its users. The trips he's making, colleagues say, have "plunged him into self reflection."

Wired.com says, "If Mark Zuckerberg wants to make the world a better place, he should start closer to home," referring to the fact that fewer than 4 percent of his US employees are Hispanic, and just 2 percent are black," but even if Facebook's hiring practices might not seem world-changing, Mark Zuckerberg is the respected leader of one of the world's most powerful companies, and other firms will follow his lead. Wired.com quotes what Zuckerberg said in his recent speech at Harvard: "Changes start local. Even global changes start small with people like us. The CEO should take care not to skip over the simplest solution."

Are you thinking hmmm....?

I am sensing the father, husband is concerned with what his 15-month-old daughter, and the new baby (due in September) will inherit, and thinking what he could do if he were running our government, aware that he would be able to make life on the planet much better for millions of people if he were president.

President? Wow!

As as a Facebook user, frustrated often by its rules and regulations -- the fact that there is almost no way to contract a human on Facebook -- feeling serious concerns about my privacy and the ways in which Facebook is making millions of dollars, I do not like Facebook's boss -- I don't like "LIKE," the word that Facebook's creator has turned into a word that everyone uses for expressing important feelings. But this young leader's strong, clear sense of our thinking, his experience, his enormous success makes me feel that he could be a president contender in 2020, or the election after that.

Yes, maybe he should be thinking about running the world.

Here's a pared-down video of the Harvard speech. You can criticize the speech, the 33-year-old Zuckerberg smiling too much, his excessively sincere quality, but he's got powerfully important things to say.

NEW MEANINGFUL WORD

New words fascinate me. This one is in Merriam Webster so it's been officialized.

Wise people have said,

Willa Cather, recognized back in 1913 for her novels of frontier life on the Great Plains, said: "Give the people a new word and they think they have a new fact."



Boris Yeltsin, politician,first President of the Russian Federation said: It is especially important to encourage unorthodox thinking when the situation is critical: At such moments every new word and fresh thought is more precious than gold."

It is especially important to encourage unorthodox thinking when the situation is critical: At such moments every new word and fresh thought is more precious than gold. Indeed, people must not be deprived of the right to think their own thoughts. Boris Yeltsin
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/search_results.html?q=new+word

It is especially important to encourage unorthodox thinking when the situation is critical: At such moments every new word and fresh thought is more precious than gold. Indeed, people must not be deprived of the right to think their own thoughts. Boris Yeltsin
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/search_results.html?q=new+word

It is especially important to encourage unorthodox thinking when the situation is critical: At such moments every new word and fresh thought is more precious than gold. Indeed, people must not be deprived of the right to think their own thoughts.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/b/boris_yeltsin.html

It is especially important to encourage unorthodox thinking when the situation is critical: At such moments every new word and fresh thought is more precious than gold. Indeed, people must not be deprived of the right to think their own thoughts.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/b/boris_yeltsin.html

It is especially important to encourage unorthodox thinking when the situation is critical: At such moments every new word and fresh thought is more precious than gold. Indeed, people must not be deprived of the right to think their own thoughts.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/b/boris_yeltsin.html

It is especially important to encourage unorthodox thinking when the situation is critical: At such moments every new word and fresh thought is more precious than gold. Indeed, people must not be deprived of the right to think their own thoughts. Boris Yeltsin
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/search_results.html?q=new+word

Give the people a new word and they think they have a new fact. Willa Cather
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/w/willacathe156258.html

Give the people a new word and they think they have a new fact. Willa Cather
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/w/willacathe156258.html

Give the people a new word and they think they have a new fact. Willa Cather
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/w/willacathe156258.html

Perhaps what's most memorable, and important is what this wise man told us:

The New Meaningful Word is nice-sounding, not ugly, obscene, but practical. It's sensible. Yes, this new word could be a good word for the guy who agrees and  accept what the judge rules.

It's also a good word for these guys who, over the past six months have believed, supported, obeyed bull-baloney-blather, and daily phony-baloney pronouncements.

Yes, nowadays, a lot of people are evolving.

Yep. Yessire! They've evolved. They're now "sheeple." 

Am asking quietly -- are you one of them?