I've been thinking a lot about my brother Chris since he just celebrated his birthday a few days ago, he's 1 year my junior. He has always been such an amazing person. He was always so confident, never seemed to have any insecurities and was just a natural leader. He was by far the funniest person I ever knew for the longest time. Witty, silly (Jim Carey silly) and just plain hilarious. He lead a band of us followers on Laguna Beach capers where we wreaked havoc on that quiet little town. If there was anything for free in that town (mints, toothpicks, lolli-pops, coffee and cookies, free samples or tastes, etc.) he knew about it and we raided it. Nobody ever threw us out (we were way too fast) even though we frequented businesses like our favorite bank daily to partake of coffee and cookies, after all, we were patrons.One day Chris discovered a new supplier to add to our rounds, the Cellar restaurant on Ocean or Forest Ave, in the basement of a building. They kept a jar of mints on the counter near the register. The place was pretty dead during the day and so nobody tended the counter and Chris ran down and disappeared into the dark lobby and quickly emerged with a handful of mints. I was afraid to go down there uncertain of what I might encounter, until I saw his loot and nobody running after him. So I got up the nerves to go down and get my share, after all, I was a patron. I descended into the darkness with my heart pounding with anticipation of my intents being discovered when I spotted them on the counter. Just as I was reaching for the delicacies, Chris shrilled in his loudest voice from atop that dark stairwell, "GET AWAY FROM THOSE MINTS". My heart now relocated to my throat caused me to bolt back up from whence I came in a panic without even a single morsel to tantalize my pallet. That was only one of a thousand such stories. Just picture a little Jim Carey running amok making all sorts of embarrassing noises in otherwise reverent settings like grocery stores, drug stores, hardware stores, art stores, jewelry stores, banks, etc. and me and others laughing hysterically in pursuit and you'll have a glimmer of my brother Chris.
Chris was always extremely competitive and unbeknownst to me at the time, Chris was extremely intelligent (that's a heck of a combination). I knew he had a great memory and a knack for trivia but he went on to use his gifts to pursue a bachelor's at UCLA, a Law degree from BYU and then on to Film school at USC. He hobnobs with the rich and famous and has become quite successful himself. He helped me out of a big jam with a large loan when I was laid off, no hesitations and no questions asked, something I'll always be grateful to him for. He owns the
rights to many films and is currently producing the sequel to "Point Break" which featured Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves early in their careers. Chris is the Chief Operating Officer and owns the rights to this Point Break 2 (Indo), which is slated to hit the big screen later this year. I am pulling for his great success, I know he has stressed a lot and has put a great deal of time, effort and risk into this big project but he believes in it and has the passion to make it a success.I'm including a link to an article where Writer and Director Peter Iliff of Point Break Indo blogs a rebuttal to someone who is accusing him of plagiarism (see his blog to the accompanying article, which has lot's of neat info about the Point Break Indo story). This blog post is a tribute to my brother Chris, in recognition of his birthday. Someone with whom I am happy to have shared many childhood memories and with whom I am very proud of.
