TOO BUSY . It's been crazy in my life these few months that have passed. I took on this publishing venture against my better judgment. I've been banging out Reality TV shows faster than dweebs get voted off Survivor. Then there are the folks paying the bills around here. We love them, but they do demand their pound of flesh.

Did I mention those 32 blood suckers in my "Big Idea" class at Cal State. They have become addicted to late night e-mail marathons. Certainly one of my favorite things to do when the sun goes down.

VOLUME
TWENTYFIVE
WEDNESDAY
FEBRUARY 23,
2005

Then there's my three year old. We went to Disneyland this past weekend. That's right. Disneyland in the rain. It has been raining here in Southern California for the past 40 days and 40 nights. Well maybe it hasn't been that long, But if it's more than a couple of days, we transplanted New Yorkers start grumbling about wanting our money back. But rain does tend to make one reflect. ( Nice play on words, aye?) The thing that made me reflect was a wish my daughter made after tossing a few of my hard-earned pennies in the California fountain at D-LAND. And I quote, "I wish daddy had the time to give me more hugs." How's that for peeling the paint off your heart?

You probably get this all the time, but I think you have outlived your usefulness and you really should take all you're "old school" crappy ideas and find a nice little bungalow somewhere in Florida to paper with them. -Dale S. NYC

As long as it's not next door to you, I'm game-HW

Well since I usually work during the weekend, spending Saturday and Sunday in kiddie Hell with my daughter and her two little Couzzies was not really a reprieve. Especially when I started noticing that said midnight e-mails were making reference to our class on Monday. Presidents Day? Three day weekend? Not at Cal State.

Now I was really screwed. You see, I decided to take this Film Course that runs on Monday afternoon, right before my class. I'm always looking to pick up on new technologies and this was to be my chance to sharpen my digital editing and filmaking skills. But the instructor loves to load up the home work and sure enough, the one minute film I was counting on being due next week. You got it. This week. So now I got multiple time conflicts going. Add to this nightmare, a promise to help out my friend Kristin, a hot young Casting Producer on "Apprentice" with a new show she's doing, and that's me you see sinking into a puddle of my own ooze.

Never one to be defeated by something as witless as time management, I power through the storm until I get to Tuesday afternoon and realize, Opps. I still got that one minute film hanging over my head. And of course it's pouring outside and my proposed one minute opus is all exteriors. Time for a drink and a quick decision. I'm doing my film in the rain. So I take my trusty DV out to the porch and start shooting the brand new waterfall the week's worth of downpour has blessed us with. Then I'm shooting puddles. Then leaves. All the while, the light is going down and I don't have a clue as to what this film is going to be about.

While I'm shooting I start humming "Oh how I wish that it would rain." in my best under the breath David Ruffin, whisky tenor. If you remember the Temptations hit, it's about a guy who is so torn up about losing his lady that he can't stop crying. So he's wishing for it to rain, so he can leave the house and not be embarrassed by his crying jag. Nobody writes great songs like that for Nine Inch Nails. Anyway, I'm singing and I say, "That would be a great piece of music for my film. Now I've got rainshots, music and no idea. Then it hits me like a wet brick. Ten years ago my dearest friend, Melvin Franklin, the Temptations bass singer passed away. It had been months since I had made the time to go over the hill to Forest Lawn to pay my respects. So I grab my camera and off I go. Funny thing happened when I got to the great Mausoleum that is the final resting place for "The World's Greatest Bass Singer." All the wonderful times we had spent together came rushing back.

Now if you ever spent any time in a Cemetery in the rain, you know it can be a pretty sobering experience. I passed Danny Cracchiolo's final pad on the way to Melvin. And Billy Davis who gave us "Like to Buy The World A Coke." By the time I got out of the car, I was a basket case. Funny thing, I was the embodiment of the song as "the raindrops hide my tearstained face." I was crying because it was Melvin Franklin who told me at 19 after being at Motown for 6 months, to go back to Washington D.C. and marry the High School sweetheart I had left "in a family way" after a wild New Years Eve Celebration.

It was Melvin Franklin who left the Temptations Show in Vegas to fly to Newark, New Jersey to help my mother and I bury my father. Yes that same Melvin Franklin less than one year later had limo'd down my mother and her card playing cronies to the Temptations Show at Atlantic City. That night, Melvin put a chair up on the stage and sat my mother in it while the Temps performed their entire show directly to her. That was the kind of man he was. It was Melvin, who insisted that I say Grace at each and every meal, even though a less pious individual than myself would be hard to imagine. But that's not what broke me down to bawling like a two year old. It was the memory as I stood standing in front of his marble and brass edifice, that on the day he died, I was too busy dealing with taxes and accountants to take his phone call. The last phone call he would ever make on this Earth. Three hours later, David Melvin Franklin English was gone.

After I pulled myself together, I had a theme and a purpose for my one minute film as well as for this week's column.

Don't find your self being "too busy" for the things that matter most in your life. Your family. Your health. The people who love you and care for you, need you to give them the time they deserve. Hug you babies more. Listen to your wife or your husband more. No ad on this planet is worth more than your child's birthday, or graduation. Those things you think will hold until manana. "Tell Melvin I'll get back to him tomorrow." Those were my final words to the one who was the brother I never had. Don't be too busy to miss-out on those moments you can never bring back again.

Stay Tuned.