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Alan Alda Fans

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About Me

This is not Alan Alda. This is a fan who made this site for Alan and his fans. My myspace can be seen here.
A Lesson in Change that Changed My Life
I was in an ambulance, bumping down a mountain road for an hour and a half. Someone on a gurney was moaning at the top of his voice. It was me.
I was gripped by something that comes upon us from time to time, whether we like it or not: change. It wasn't something I felt I really needed.
I was aware of being tripped up by change for the first time when I was seven years old. One day I was playing with my friends and the next I was in bed with a case of polio. I got over that, but a year later, my dog died from eating leftover Chinese food and I got introduced to the biggest change there is. I suddenly realized that death is permanent. It won't go away; nothing you do can bring your dog back.
Then in my teens, I chose a profession that has change at its very core; I became an actor. People in other lines of work sometimes don't change jobs until years have gone by. Actors change them every few weeks. M*A*S*H, of course, went on for eleven years, but that was an oasis that only made a desert of change seem even hotter. Every new job is another set of challenges, with new skills to master, or fail at in a public way. And every few years the kind of part you were once right for is only right for the generation behind you.
You'd think after forty years or so of a life like this that I'd be used to change. But it still could surprise me when it made its blunt and unforgiving entrance. I suddenly had to leave the familiar place I was in and go into the unknown. I did know that if I didn't accept change I couldn't grow, I couldn't learn. I couldn't make progress at anything unless I was willing to go through this dark tunnel of uncertainty. So I went through it, but usually I went through it warily, sometimes even a little suspiciously.
It took a lesson on top of a mountain in Chile to make me accept change in a way I never had before. I think I even began to like it.
I was in an observatory, in in a remote part of Chile, interviewing astronomers for a science program called Scientific American Frontiers. The show often called for me to do dangerous things in far-off places, and I was always a reluctant adventurer because I'm a cautious person. This wasn't dangerous; it was just talk, but suddenly something inside me literally started to die. My intestine had become crimped and its blood supply was choked off. Every few minutes more and more of it was going bad, and within a few hours, so would the rest of me.
The astronomers brought me down the mountain and hustled me to the closest town; not a very big one, but amazingly, there was a surgeon there who was expert in intestinal surgery. I had only a few hours. There was no chance to fly to a larger city.
It's not just that I'm cautious; I usually practice a form of caution almost indistinguishable from cowardice. And yet I wasn't frightened. It happened too quickly for fear to set in. Knowing I might not wake up from the surgery, I dictated a few words to my wife and children and grandchildren. And then I went under.
I woke up a few hours later with a deep understanding that this surgeon had given me my life. I was grateful to him in a way I had never been grateful to anyone before; I was grateful to the nurses and to the painkillers; I was grateful to the soft Chilean cheese they gave me to break my fast. The first bite of that bland cheese, because it was the first taste of food I had in my new life, was gloriously complex and delicious. Everything about life tasted good to me now. Everything was new and bright and shining.
I hadn't asked for this change and I certainly wouldn't have picked it if I had a choice, but it actually transformed and excited me.
When I got home, I saw that I was paying more attention to things. The way the cheese tasted when they finally let me eat again became the taste of life for me. And I began doing more of the things I care about and caring more about whatever things I did. It didn't matter if what I was doing was an official, important enterprise -- or a game on a computer screen. I gave it my attention. My sense of taste for everything had been heightened.
It's only been two years since that night in Chile. Maybe this will all go away, and maybe I'll take life more for granted again. But I hope not. I like the way it tastes.

My Interests

Comedy, improv, liberal causes, acting, computers, friends and family.

I'd like to meet:

My fans.

Music:

Classical, and some good ol' Rock N Roll.

Movies:

Favorite movie I've made: "The Four Seasons"

Television:

Cartoons (yeah, I might be old, but I still love the cartoons!)
New York Yankees

Books:

Never Have Your Dog Stuffed in book stores now.
Things I Overheard While Talking To Myself in stores now!

Heroes:

My father Robert Alda, Ossie Davis, and my wife Arlene.

My Blog

Two new movies

Alan Alda has been filming two new movies due out in Fall of 2008: Nothing But The Truth and Flash Of Genius. More information to come.-AAF Moderator
Posted by Alan Alda Fans on Fri, 11 Apr 2008 08:10:00 PST

Fast Chat: Alan Alda

Fast Chat: Alan AldaBy Frank Lovece | Special to NewsdayIt's hard to imagine, given how current the 1970s TV dramedy "M*A*S*H" remains, but Alan Alda has been a popular and respected actor for ...
Posted by Alan Alda Fans on Fri, 17 Aug 2007 09:53:00 PST

New Book Tour

September 5, 2007 - 7:00PM Barnes & Noble, Union Square 33 East 17th Street New York, NY September 6...
Posted by Alan Alda Fans on Mon, 23 Jul 2007 10:17:00 PST

Tell us your Alan Alda experience

For those who have been lucky enough to have met Alan Alda, tell us about it.I met him for the first time on September 22nd, 2005 in Chicago. Here is my blog entry about my experience: Click!-AAF Mod...
Posted by Alan Alda Fans on Tue, 01 May 2007 10:35:00 PST

Broderick, Alda filled to 'Capacity'

Matthew Broderick, Virginia Madsen and Alan Alda have signed on to star in "Diminished Capacity," a comedy about family and memory loss produced by Gotham-based Plum Pictures.Terry Kinney, who starred...
Posted by Alan Alda Fans on Tue, 10 Apr 2007 12:17:00 PST

www.alanaldafan.com

Ok, aside from running this site, I have a seperate site that I've been running for a few years now. My renewal is coming up and I don't have the money to keep it up. Unless I can ask one of my friend...
Posted by Alan Alda Fans on Thu, 08 Feb 2007 02:24:00 PST

Top 24

So, I'm going to be putting up a top 24, but I want you to tell me who should be up on the top 24 and why. The top 8 will stay the same. Let me know why you should be on the top 24.- AA Fans Moderator...
Posted by Alan Alda Fans on Thu, 08 Feb 2007 11:50:00 PST

RIP Robert Altman

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Robert Altman, the caustic and irreverent satirist behind "M-A-S-H," "Nashville" and "The Player" who made a career out of bucking Hollywood management and story conven...
Posted by Alan Alda Fans on Thu, 23 Nov 2006 05:32:00 PST

Resurrecting The Champ

Alan's new movie "Resurrecting The Champ" is premiering in January 2007 at the Sundance Film Festival.-Caitlin
Posted by Alan Alda Fans on Sun, 19 Nov 2006 10:32:00 PST

Because I'm getting so many of the same message....

If you see on the profile, I put in big, bold letters that this is not Alan Alda and its the truth! This is not Alan Alda. He has nothing to do with this site. It is maintained by a fan: me! I do not ...
Posted by Alan Alda Fans on Sat, 14 Oct 2006 08:55:00 PST