Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lO_5HvnFEv0

Join us on Facebook:  www.Facebook.com/CoffeeParty

That seems to be the claim made by pundits and journalists who either don't want to raise the ire of Tea Party activists and their Republican supporters in the media, or they really do want to convince the public that the Tea Party is "real America" and the rest of us are somehow not-so-real.   Meet Salim, and Arab American who politely takes exception to the narrative the media is currently selling. 

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm0tX7tqncM

Recently on Facebook, my partner Annabel Park touched off what is becoming a national groundswell of anger toward "Tea Party" activists called "The Coffee Party Movement."

Among other things, we are meeting at coffee shops around the country, mapping out netroots and grassroots strategies, and offering Americans an alternative to the "Tea Party" that takes a positive, reality-based, and solutions-oriented approach to civic participation. We hope to have rallies around the country on July 4th, and emerge in the mainstream media narrative as strong counter to the "Tea Party" movement.  After all, coffee is the American drink, and has been ever since we rejected taxation without representation via the Stamp Act.  Did frontiersmen and cowboys drink tea?  Nope, coffee! 

www.Twitter.com/CoffeePartyUSA

Facebook

www.CoffeePartyUSA.com (website under construction)

I'm really proud of this video from my new YouTube channel with Annabel Park, exploring the U.S. military base controversy in Okinawa, Japan. 

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xr0nAm3pNMk

Recently retired U.S. State Department official William Brooks explains what former Administrative Defense Vice Minister Moriya recently revealed about the current agreement between the United States and Japan to relocate the Futenma Marine Corps Air Station to Henoko Bay. Local construction companies in Okinawa wanted to build the elaborate air base in the bay to maximize profit on the relocation.

I had heart surgery when I was 25.  

It cost me only $15 because I had great health insurance through the LA Times, and because California has strong health care regulations. The surgery cured me of a sports-induced arrhythmia that had haunted me since I was a boy.  It freed me of a tremendous physical and psychological burden.  It may have saved my life. 

A few months later, I left the LA Times and decided to let my health insurance lapse because I didn't want to make the COBRA payments.  In my early 30's, I was covered thanks to the Directors Guild, but I let my insurance lapse when I moved to Virginia and stopped making DGA films.  Again, I didn't want to pay for COBRA. 

When young healthy people do as I did -- stay out of the system unless and until we need it -- we drive up costs for everyone else. I paid $15 for heart surgery.  The rest of the tab was picked up by people who didn't have the option of gambling with their health, and were forced to pay rising premiums.  By spending most of the last 12 years uninsured, I have saved money, but it has cost me in other ways.  For instance, I fractured my wrist playing baseball and didn't see a doctor.  It never quite healed correctly.  I've also had to worry about the consequences for me and my family if I was in an accident, or if learned I had cancer but it was too late to treat it.

When I buy health insurance in 2010, I will be paying into a system that has already greatly improved my life.  If a few years pass before I need to go to the hospital again, my monthly payments will not have been wasted.  I will have had a sense of security knowing I don't actually have cancer, and I have coverage if I'm in an accident.  And, I will have paid my share toward the collective good, making health coverage more affordable for others. 

I hope the emerging paradigm shift in Washington will spread to all Americans, in particular to young people who think they don't need insurance, and may resent the choice between getting insurance and paying a fine.  To them I would say the gamble isn't worth it: buying into the new health insurance exchanges will be in the interest of your individual security, your family's security, and the nation's.

This was my first feature film as writer/director.  I shot it in 2001 and finished it in 2002.  In 2003 it came out in theaters and was nominated for two Independent Spirit Awards. 
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Syesvh_jUVQ

www.CharlotteSometimesTheMovie.com

"...UNCANNILY REALISTIC, MYSTERIOUS and EROTIC!
This is a relationship picture that plays like
an emotional thriller." --Roger Ebert, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES

"...GORGEOUS!...A smartly made, hedonistic
spectacle of alluring, nubile characters, sun-warmed narcissism
and breathtaking color that approaches the exoticism
of Vietnamese filmmaker Anh Hung Tran
("The Scent of Green Papaya" and "Cyclo")." --Desson Thomson, THE WASHINGTON POST

"A WORK OF THE UTMOST SUBTLETY AND PERCEPTION!
The outstanding feature debut of writer-director
Eric Byler, who understands the power of the implicit
and the virtues of simplicity and economy. ...Every image is
charged with wit, significance and emotion. Would that all
love stories were as sophisticated and amusing as
the satisfying "Charlotte Sometimes." --Kevin Thomas, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES

"...NOTABLY CINEMATIC STORYTELLING! The deft shading Byler elicits from his thesps is of a piece with his dramatics and his understated, artful approach to compositions and movement.."
--Robert Koehler, VARIETY

"...Writer-director Eric Byler demonstrates a refreshing trust in his material and his audience, crafting a compact, intriguing drama from understated performances and a subtle visual sensibility."
--Sheri Linden, THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

" A SEXY, SURPRISING ROMANCE!
Idemoto and Kim make a gorgeous pair... their scenes brim with
sexual possibility and emotional danger." --Carla Meyer, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE