Miller Time

UNITED STATES—It’s often easier to go unrecognized as a diet guru. And what happened after my daughter’s 8th grade graduation, has left me with a intricate desire to scream. I could scream. That’s right. After the blazing sunny ceremony, held on the lawn of Beverly Hills High School, a couple of parents, friends and children, now teen graduates clad in togas, adjourned...

UNITED STATES—A Nigerian gentleman in Mid-City once made the astute observation, “When people in America say they’re busy, it means they’re making money.” Take it up a notch. And you get crazy busy, it means you’re sold out to the holy hustle and your soul belongs to the top five bidders. And when you’re crazy busy like a fox, there’s...

UNITED STATES—A warm bath can be the most alluring thing in the world after a night’s filming in a makeshift football field, up in the mountains of the high desert, where the fierceness of the sun is matched only by the fierceness of the evening chill. A warm bath—that’s all I wanted. We worked from 7 a.m. to 7...

UNITED STATES—As a matter of courtesy and kindling goodwill in people who enjoy giving, I generally say yes to food gifts. It keeps the flow going. The urge to give is so heartfelt, nevermind that the gift is trans-fat loaded pastry with a mile-long list of toxic ingredients; it is something to cherish in people, the giving urge. I...

UNITED STATES—Dogs lower blood pressure. They can stand on their hind legs and make a goofy grin. I knew a screenwriter, oh so afflicted, whose life dramatically improved, where back surgery and acupuncture had failed, and then a dog came into it. The difference was huge—night and day—he radiated contentment and zest for life. You’d think with all the beneficial...

UNITED STATES—Simpler is better. I felt this strongly while watching “The Human Experiment,” an expose of the silent army of chemicals that pervades our clothing, cosmetics and even our houses. The motivation for this movie was a startling journalistic discovery that will pretty much blow your mind. Get this: the chemicals used in the manufacture products sold in the...

UNITED STATES—Hollywood is a story, it’s who you were, where you are, and what happened in between and who you met. Each journey is individual as thumbprints and DNA. I worked at Laemmle’s Sunset 5 Theater on Sunset Boulevard. Here I met one of my all-time Hollywood mentors. I shall always recall being in the ticket booth one Friday morning...

UNITED STATES—Get ready for another life-enhancer that will raise the quality of your existence and add grace and harmony to your days. Learn to proceed with the unshakable belief that there is always enough. This in the Hannukah effect, which takes it a notch further demonstrating there is more than enough. I took the name for this concept from the...

UNITED STATES—In the Google Café you can grab all you want, it’s free and there’s no cashier. Google found itself in the position of altruistic parent wanting to wean their employees away from grabbing all the candy bars and selecting more fruit and healthier fare. Google, being a wise parent, asked what they could do. After first taking down the...

UNITED STATES—Famously articulated by Alfred Hitchcock as the secret to constructing his movie stories, a MacGuffin is the object of overwhelming importance for the characters that drives a story forward while having little importance in overall plot. The briefcase of money and the Big W in It’s a Mad Mad World,” the uranium-filled wine bottles in Hitchcock’s “Notorious”—these are...