January 20, 2007

Quick, what’s the longest amount of time a man (or I suppose, theoretically, a woman) is allowed to serve as President of the United States? You said eight years, didn’t you? Jeez, don’t you ever get tired of being wrong? The answer is ten years. This allows a vice-president who succeeds a president who has already completed half his term to serve two full terms of his own.

When Richard Nixon was dragged out of the White House on August 9, 1974 he was a little more than a year and a half into his second term. Because Gerald Ford would serve the remaining two and a half years on Nixon’s term he was ineligible to serve two more full terms. This, of course, didn’t matter, as Ford was not brought in to be president but rather to pardon Nixon, which he did and then proceeded to get his ass kicked in his only presidential election, the stink of Watergate now all over him, too.

So. Let’s play. Imagine you’re Bush. Oh, stop screaming and just play along for a few minutes, can’t you? When Cheney resigns in a disgrace that will make Spiro Agnew look like Mother Teresa who do you pick to be VP? (Sure Cheney will say he is resigning for “health reasons.” Hell, there’s even a tiny chance that it might be true.) Do you reward someone from your loyal gang of goons? Ashcroft? Rice? Rumsfeld? (Ugh, I just got a chill down my spine.) Or do you pick a young moderate Republican with an eye on 2008, knowing that you may full well be choosing the next president?

If you’re Bush (Stop screaming, damnit!) and you still have even an ounce of party loyalty then it’s your job to do whatever you can to stay in office until you are at least halfway through your second term, which would be January 7, 2007. At this point if your VP has to take over for you he would be allowed to finish the term and then run twice more.

Wikipedia.com names three ways that a president can leave office before his term ends—impeachment, death or resignation. (I quote Wikipedia because I know that “they” are watching and I certainly don’t want Bush’s spy computers to scan “president” and “death” in the same sentence in one of my blogs.) A fourth possibility is by becoming mentally incapacitated, say by suffering a nervous breakdown. Frankly, if I were in Bush’s position I probably would have already had one by now. Maybe two. And he’s starting to look a little shaky himself.

You all know that if Bush doesn’t finish his second term I win a $200 bet, right? Now admittedly the odds at this point are against me. I feel somewhat like a football team that is losing early in the fourth quarter…time is starting to become a factor. And yet I still feel curiously optimistic. The gears are turning.

Yes, I still believe that Bush is slowly but inexorably proceeding towards the inevitable and early conclusion of his ignoble presidency and subsequent retirement in disgrace. (Although, admittedly, my ultimate dream of actually seeing him in handcuffs is starting to fade.) And further, I think it’s going to be fun! So pop some popcorn, pour yourself a cool drink and find a comfortable chair. We’re about to witness the true greatest show on Earth and I, for one, wouldn’t miss it for the world!

Who's On First?

So I watched another one of those dollar store DVD’s that I purchased yesterday. “What DVD’s?” you have the temerity to ask. You know, sometimes I suspect that you’re just not reading this column on a daily basis.

Actually I didn’t watch the entire DVD, which contained episodes of The Colgate Comedy Hour from the ‘50’s, but just the bits featuring Abbott and Costello. Oh, and by the way, the DVD advertised itself as containing four episodes of this classic television show. It took me about an hour to figure out that there were really only two one-hour episodes of the classic program, and that each had been divided in half. Yeah, I know I only paid a buck for the damn thing, but Jesus, is there absolutely no shame left in George Bush’s America?

But I digress. During the program Abbott and Costello performed their classic routine “Who’s On First?” Of course I had seen and/or heard the bit countless times, but never this version, and so I watched it again. This time the routine was made even funnier, if that’s possible, by Lou Costello breaking up in the middle of it because he had made a mistake. And it was also about this point that I once again wondered who wrote this legendary comedic gem.

Sure, I’ve wondered about this for years, but this time it was different. This time I had the Internet! And as I was fairly certain that it had not been written by either Mr. Abbott or Mr. Costello I got right to work. And now, as always, I share my findings with you, my fortunate readers.

The skit has its roots in turn-of-the-century Burlesque sketches, where people lived on Watt Street and men named Who constantly passed away. “Who died?” “Yes.” By the 1930’s comics across the country were doing a routine about baseball players with strange and confusing names. It was a short time after they teamed up that Abbott and Costello, with the help of a writer named Will Glickman, (Remember Kids, nobody remembers the writers!) sharpened the sketch into the form that it is most often remembered today. They were also wise enough to get it copyrighted.

It has been claimed that Abbott and Costello performed the routine over 15,000 times, and rarely the same way twice. A recording of one of these performances was given to the Baseball Hall of Fame museum in 1956, where it still continues to play non-stop. How’d you like to be the security guard who has to spend every day standing under that video screen?

In 1999 Time Magazine chose “Who’s on First?” as the Best Comedy Sketch of the 20th Century. Luckily for Abbott and Costello my Thanksgiving Day turkey piece wasn’t written until the 21st Century, and so they faced only the weakest competition. “What turkey piece?” you have the temerity to ask. You know, sometimes I suspect that you’re just not reading this column on a daily basis.

Hunky & Spunky

I know, that sounds like the name of a gay skin magazine. Well it’s not, you sick twist. Hunky and Spunky were actually two cartoon characters that apparently achieved at least some degree of popularity in the late 1930’s. In fact in 1939 one of their cartoons was nominated for an Academy Award.

You say you’ve never even heard of Hunky and Spunky? Well up until five hours ago neither had I. Rewind: Spike and I went to a Home and Garden show today. And by the way Gentlemen, when you find yourself being dragged to a Home and Garden show you will know that you have reached the next-to-last level of total domestication. (The last is that fateful day when you are sitting in a doctor’s office nervously waiting to undergo a wife-ordered vasectomy.) Nothing worth writing about happened at the show, but afterwards we walked across the street to rummage about in a small dollar store.

After choosing a pair of stylish $1 sunglasses that will most likely render me completely blind by the end of the year, I was delighted to find a shelf that was just bursting with DVD’s. Not willing to believe my good fortune, I turned and asked the clerk how much they were. And instead of saying, “You’re in a dollar store, Einstein, take a wild guess,” he politely informed me that they were indeed a dollar.

Well, of course in a collection like that you’re not going to find a lot of popular current movies, but there were some that grabbed my attention and for the price of one Starbuck’s coffee I took them all home. For example, I found a DVD that had four episodes of the Colgate Comedy Hour, including one starring Abbott and Costello. For a buck! How are you going to walk away from that? Another one was the classic film The 39 Steps, which I had always meant to see and now here was my chance. In addition there was another movie on the same DVD. Two Hitchcock films for fifty cents each? I must be dreaming, pinch me! Not there, pervert.

The third DVD I bought was a collection titled Classic Cartoons. And on this one, I discovered when I got home, was a cartoon starring two donkeys named, say it with me, Hunky and Spunky. (Did you see there how I took you w-a-a-a-y out there and then smoothly brought you back to the original subject? I’m really something, huh?)

In this one (and apparently there were quite a few H & S cartoons back in the day) Hunky and Spunky live in a barnyard with a bunch of other animals. I should point out that one of these donkeys is the mother and the other the child, and while it’s never made clear, let’s assume that Spunky is the child. And what a child he is! It turns out he’s a real brat.

When the story opens we see Spunky wandering around the barnyard causing trouble and basically busting balls. He pulls all the wool from a young lamb, and drinks all the water from a pond in which a family of ducks had been swimming. When the mother duck quacks her complaint, this little long-eared pain in the ass spits all the water at her. Finally Spunky sees four of five chicks (and for the first time in the history of this column I am actually using the word “chicks” to denote baby chickens) eating an ear of corn. He trots over, brays loudly to scare them all away and then proceeds to eat the corn himself.

All the while the other animal parents are complaining to Hunky (That’s the mother donkey—stay with me here, okay?) and suggesting in no uncertain terms how they would handle Spunky if he were their kid. And they weren’t talking about giving him a two-minute timeout either.

Finally all the animals get together and in a horrific scene that should not be viewed by any kid under the age of, say, 55 they stick the little jerk in a bucket and lower him up and down into a deep well. Meanwhile the pathetic Spunky is braying, “Mommy, Mommy,” in his squealing donkey voice. Suddenly a pig shows up with a huge tub of tomatoes and the entire barnyard population begins to pelt the sap, who is now sitting in the bucket hanging over the well bawling his eyes out.

Meanwhile, Hunky (The mother, you idiot!) hears the brat crying and charges toward the scene. She frantically begins to kick pieces of junk at the unruly mob and they scatter. She places her son on the ground and begins to lick him in what I can only assume was originally intended to be a non-sexual manner. But the kid is still throwing a fit, and twice he kicks his loving mom in the head!

Well that’s about all Hunky can stand. She lifts up the screaming monster and, as the handle on the well spins, places his fuzzy butt within its range and Spunky finally receives the spanking for which everybody had long been hoping.

Once the spanking ends the bigheaded dope looks up with tears in his eyes and brays, “Sorry, Mommy.” He then trots over to the crate where the corn is stored and pulls out four ears, loudly inviting all the animals to have a treat on his dime, as it were. And it was here that you would expect the cartoon to end—the naughty little donkey having learned to behave properly, after, of course, it was soundly beaten into him. Awww--what a heart-warming message on the effectiveness of child abuse to send home with a 1938 movie audience.

But wait, the cartoon didn’t end there! All the animals took the seemingly reformed Spunky up on his offer, and gathered by the crate of corn to enjoy the ears he had pulled out. And then, once the animals, the very same animals who insisted that our high-spirited hero receive a beating (and had actually participated in administering one themselves) gathered in a group to enjoy the ears of corn Spunky went to work.

Believe me I almost bust a gut when that little bastard went over to the crate and kicked out one of the slats, causing an avalanche of corn to come tumbling down and completely bury all the animals! The closing scene shows Spunky running around the barnyard being chased by his mother, who we assume intends to administer more discipline.

Whether she actually catches him or not we don’t know, but it doesn’t really matter. For we’ve already learned our lesson for the day. And Kiddies, that lesson is: You Don’t Fuck With Spunky.

Still Silly After All These Years

It’s the lament of old farts everywhere, and if you’re very still, Children, you can hear it faintly through the rustle of the reeds. “Nothing’s like it used to be! Wah!” There! Did you hear it?

And to prove this point I found myself purchasing an egg of that old classic Silly Putty that I had spotted while in the craft store this afternoon. The first question that probably came to your mind (after “What is this goof doing in a craft store on a weekday while I’m slaving away at my crappy job?”) is why would a grown AARP-eligible man want to spend two bucks on Silly Putty?

The short answer is “curiosity.” I remember my brothers and I loving this glop when we were kids, and I wanted to see how much it had changed in the last half-century. Also, thanks to this blog, I now am able to justify any idiotic or infantile thing I do with the excuse that, “Well, at least it will give me something to write about.”

The first thing I noticed about the Silly Putty was that the egg it comes in has gotten smaller. “Maybe your hands have gotten bigger, did you ever think about that?” says at least one of you annoying smart-asses out there. To which I respectfully reply “Screw you, it is so smaller.”

The most noticeable change in the Silly Putty, though, is the color. I think it comes in different colors now. In all honesty I don’t remember the color of the original stuff, a light gray perhaps, but the wad of putty that was in my egg is pink. Pink, for God’s sake. It sort of reminds me of something that I can’t quite identify; the closest comparison I can make is to the color of Bubblicious gum. If I think of that other thing I’ll let you know.

Even before I cracked open the egg, I knew what I was looking for. I wanted to experience that smell, that distinctive Silly Putty aroma that I still recall after all these decades. And now the big question: Is that distinctive odor still there? Well, yes and no. By giving the pink wad a good whiff (Does that sound obscene to anybody else?) I can recognize that familiar smell, but sadly it is so much weaker than I remember. “Maybe that’s because your aging olfactory sense has deteriorated over the years,” pipe in those same smart-asses. “Then screw you twice,” I wittily reply.

Oh, I suspect that the odor is greatly reduced in Silly Putty for the same reason that all the spray paint was behind lock and key in the craft store—we don’t want kids sniffing the stuff too eagerly, do we? I mean, we want them to have fun, but not that much fun.

I don’t have any of the packaging from the original Silly Putty, of course, but there are a few warnings that have been added since those carefree days of the 1950’s. First is the choking hazard warning. OK fine. I don’t know how many eggs of this stuff my brothers and I went through, but I do know we never actually ate any. There are other warnings on the back of the package, of course, my favorite being “Not intended for use as earplugs.” You know, I never would have thought of that. However I was planning on usingsome of my Silly Putty when I go swimming tomorrow. Do you happen to know if the warning also extends to noseplugs?

OK, enough of that nonsense—let’s take this stuff out for a test drive. Do you remember all the fun things you could do with Silly Putty? (“Yeah, like getting that Silly Pooty in my brand new carpeting,” says the ghost of my Grandma who forever banned the sticky stuff from her apartment immediately after the first time we brought it over.)

Besides the dire warnings, the back of the package has cartoon drawings depicting three activities with which to amuse yourself. First there’s the famous roll it into a ball and bounce it trick. OK, maybe it’s not such a big deal now, with kids slaying dragons and slaughtering cops on their video games and playing 10,000 songs on their iPods, but this trick was hot stuff back in the olden days. The cartoons also show that Silly Putty can both stretch like taffy and break into pieces. How is it the Defense Department never got hold of this stuff? Silly Putty connoisseurs know, of course, that it all comes down to how hard you pull on it. (There! That one sounded obscene too!) And then there is the Big One, the piece de resistance in the world of Silly Putty magic—the transfer of pictures!

But wait! Something here is horribly wrong! The third cartoon on the package claims that Silly Putty lifts off pencil marks. Pencil marks? What happened to making impressions from the funny pages and then stretching them into hilarious shapes? Why, if it doesn’t do that anymore I might as well return it to the craft store and get my money back. Or use it to caulk my windows. OK, wait here a minute--I’m going to check this out on a newspaper, if I can find one. (The only comics I read now are on the computer and I’ve already tried the Silly Putty comics transfer trick on the monitor screen. Doesn’t work. Be right back.

Whew! You can all sleep easy tonight—it still works! I have before me a clear and reversed picture of B.D. from Doonesbury on my Silly Putty that I just copied directly from the San Mateo Times. Ha! I can stretch him and make him rea-a-a-a-l fat. Whee! Look how long I can make his nose!

Uh, it’s getting late. Maybe that’s enough fun for tonight. I think I’ll put my new toy back in the egg for now. I can still hear my Mom saying, “Tomorrow’s another day to play.” And I can still hear my Grandma saying, “And keep that Silly Pooty out of my new carpets!”

Snow

I like snow. I’ve written before about the many disappointing mornings I experienced as a kid when I woke up and looked out on a wet, gray street after a major snowfall had been predicted the night before. And about the unbridled joy of that snowstorm that turned the world white on one magical Christmas Eve so long ago.

What is it I like about snow? Well, it’s certainly not shoveling it. I remember as a kid hearing stories about men of a certain age collapsing with heart attacks while shoveling the white stuff. And now I am that certain age. And I certainly don’t enjoy the cold that accompanies the snow. No, I think what I like most about snow is looking at it; especially watching it come down. Especially from inside the house.

And yet it’s been over thirty years since I’ve lived in a place where it snows. Or at least where it snows on a regular basis. Last week there were reports of the snow level falling to 1500 feet here in the Bay Area. There was even footage on TV of big white fluffy flakes coming down in the Santa Cruz Mountains and in Berkeley. I was hoping that it might even snow here in Half Moon Bay, but since the elevation is a non-lofty 70 feet above sea level it seemed unlikely.

Still, I felt like I wanted to see some snow come down, so I made the drive up the hill. To get from the coast, where I live, to the bay about twenty minutes away you have to drive over the mountain ridge that runs like a spine down the peninsula, a ridge that in spots is over the 1500-foot level. One night last week I saw people driving down from these mountains with their cars dusted with snow. So the next day when more snow was predicted I got in my car and headed for the short drive up the hill.

About half an hour later I was seeing little patches of white by the side of the road, leftovers from the previous day’s snow. Each patch contained just about enough snow for constructing one, possibly two good-sized snowballs. A few minutes later I rounded a turn and it was snowing! It wasn’t exactly a blizzard, the flakes were fat and soggy and surely melted the second they hit the ground if not before, but it was snowing! I pulled over to the side of the road, got out of the car, and walked for a while amidst the pine trees while bits of falling snow danced around me. Occasionally a car drove by and I suspect that when the people inside exclaimed, “Look, there’s another flake!” they weren’t talking about the snow.

Spike and I were watching the news last week when they predicted a major snowstorm for New York City. And as I do at so many things, I scoffed. “You just watch,” I said in my all-knowing yet seldom accurate way. “Tomorrow they’ll be talking about how the storm wasn’t nearly as big as expected and how New York had dodged a bullet.” I’ve had years of experience with that group—I know how they work.

When I was a kid in the New York area any snowfall of more than a foot was a major storm. So when they announced that New York City had received over two feet of snow, well, I knew that the “I told you so!” that I had prepared would remain firmly wedged in my throat, with no chance of ever seeing the light of day. And if I still harbored any thoughts that I had not been completely and colossally wrong in my prediction, the man on the TV set me straight by announcing that it was the biggest snowfall in New York City since before the Civil War. Ahem.

The previous record snowfall for New York City had also been over two feet, and had occurred in 1947. I was talking to my Mom on the phone when the subject of New York’s big snow came up. When I mentioned the 1947 storm she said she knew about it. In fact she remembered it.

She and my Dad, who wasn’t yet my Dad at the time, were actually just dating. The historic marriage that ended up bestowing me upon the world was still three years off. They had plans to go into the city to see a show or a movie. My Mom wasn’t quite sure which they did on that day. It was a different time then—those two folks who would become my parents frequently took the train into the city to see live shows, plays and movies. Sometimes they would see two in one day. People could afford that back then, as a live show and dinner for two would cost about eight cents. OK, I forget the actual price, but it was inexpensive.

So, whatever form of entertainment my future parents went to that day, when they emerged from the theater it was snowing. Hard. Just as it had been predicted, although predicted by what means I can’t imagine. Town crier? My Mom’s Mom, my wonderful Italian Grandma, long since gone, had warned her not to go out because a big storm was coming. My Mom, nineteen years old and apparently carrying the “stubborn asshole” gene that she would later pass on to her first born, had ignored the warning and would now pay the price.

It took the adventurous young couple hours and hours to get home. Even when they were finally able to catch a train that brought them to somewhere near their home (They lived in the same town, not the same house, you sickos. People didn’t do that in 1947. Not my parents, anyway.) they still faced a three or four mile walk once they left the warmth and safety of the train. And it was my Grandma who greeted my Mom at the door when she, cold and exhausted, finally made it home. “I told you so!” said Grandma, and believe me, that was one “I told you so!” that I bet didn’t stick in the throat.

And how does my Mom look at this near-disaster from the vantage point of sixty years later; a night when a young couple with their whole lives ahead of them huddled arm in arm and struggled home through the falling snow? “It’s a nice memory,” she said.

I like snow.

The Bright Red Spot Between My Eyebrows

It’s been three days now. I was watching TV on Sunday night when I felt something sticking out from the space between my eyebrows. I couldn’t tell what it was, but after a few minutes of fiddling and after several tries I finally got a good hold on it and yanked it out with my fingertips. I felt the space to make sure I had gotten it all and it was smooth. And so I went back to watching TV.

I still don’t know whether it was a loose piece of skin or an errant hair. It didn’t really feel like skin, but yet it also doesn’t seem likely that I could be dexterous enough to remove a single hair that quickly and that efficiently. There’s one thing I do know for sure: whatever it was that I yanked out of my head left a bright red spot right between my eyebrows, a spot that has been decorating my face ever since.

And I do mean right between my eyebrows. It looks almost like a third eye and is so perfectly centered that it seems to have been put there by some omnipotent Creator, some form of Intelligent Design rather than by an ill-conceived pull of a random hair. I couldn’t have centered the ugly thing any better if I had used a tape measure and Euclidian geometry. If I could I suppose the pictures in my house would be hanging a lot straighter.

On the first day I didn’t even pay attention to the angry red spot. I walked into the convenience store where I often get a morning cup of coffee (Twelve ounces, $1.29. You saps go pay four and a half bucks and wait half an hour at Starbucks.) I conducted my usual pathetic flirtation with the cute Mexican girl half my age, got into my car and caught a glimpse of myself in the rearview mirror. My God, I looked like a Hindu!

From that moment on I was constantly self-conscious of the blemish, or as I came to call it, The Mark of the Beast. I no longer felt confident in my interactions with other people. Whether I was talking to the checkout guy at the grocery store or the popcorn chick in the movies I felt that anybody who was brave enough to look directly at me saw nothing more than this huge, throbbing red protuberance. Luckily I didn’t have any important meetings scheduled for this week. “Yeah, Len, we’ve talked it over and decided that, all things being equal, we’d prefer not to hire a guy with a huge red spot on his head. But thank you for dropping by.”

At one point I thought I might be over-reacting, until a cashier gave me my change, not by handing it to me as every other cashier has done for the last forty years, but by putting it down on the counter in front of me. It was painfully obvious that this guy had seen the spot and, although he wasn’t sure exactly what it was, he was absolutely positive that he didn’t want to risk catching anything that might give him his very own bright red spot smack between his eyebrows.

Tonight I thought the spot might be fading a bit, but Spike said she didn’t think so. She then proceeded to mock me several times throughout the evening with what is perhaps the worst Indian accent ever attempted. The first try sounded like Spanish and the second like Russian. But who am I to laugh? After all, I’ve got this ridiculous red spot stuck between my eyebrows.

Oh cute. Spike just walked in and pressed the spot like a button and asked me if it turned me on or off. Guys, make sure you marry a funny chick. The time goes so-o-o much faster.

Guess Who #5

So here I am, stuck again. It’s getting late, The Daily Show is coming on soon, and I need to knock out a blog quickly. And so, as I have so many times is the past, I again resort to that tired old stand-by, The Guess Who Game! It’s fun, it’s challenging and it’s so easy to write.

As always I have a good excuse for beginning tonight’s writing later than usual. You see, today is my wife’s birthday, and so I spent a good part of the day occupied with the preparations for tonight’s celebration. What, you ask, has that got to do with writing a blog? Well, nothing really, since she rarely stays up later than 9:00 anyway. Yes, even on her birthday.

But the traditions are strong and must be observed, and so they were. I cooked dinner. (Why should tonight be any different?) It was quite good really, starting with some delicious clam chowder. (OK, so I just opened the can and put it in the microwave. It’s still effort, as Seinfeld said under similar circumstances.) Then I made some oven-fried eggplant (This didn’t come out too good, but certainly tasted better than Brussels sprouts. See appropriate blog.) and some yummy potato boats with sour cream and cheese. (Excuse me, I’m going to stop typing here until my squeezing chest pains diminish. Ah, there we are.)

And then there were the two boiled crabs. Boy, they turned out to be really tasty. Of course the half-gallon of melted butter that was dripping from them certainly helped. (Ow, there go those chest pains again.)

So, quite a nice meal, eh? And then there was the cake and candles thing, followed by the opening of birthday presents. So you can see how all this can be somewhat time consuming and cause me to be late to my nightly writing session. Still, wasn’t that nice of me to do all that? You must be thinking that my wife is some lucky woman to be blessed with a guy like me, right? Well someday I’ll tell you the other side of the story, or better yet I’ll have my wife do it. You’ll most likely end up running away screaming into the night, calling the authorities or frantically attempting to drive a stake through my evil heart. And trust me, nobody would fault you for any of these actions.

It suddenly occurs to me that I am approaching 400 words in this introduction explaining why I’m not writing an article tonight, but rather copping out with another lame Guess Who Game. Another hundred words or so and I’ll have the blog written, and won’t even have to do the research and write the stupid game. Then I could save it to bail me out another night. Like maybe tomorrow. But that would be wrong.

And so may I once again present The Guess Who Game? Below are some less well-known facts about a very well known person. Your job is to discover the identity of Mr. X. My job is to finish this nonsense, watch The Daily Show and sit in the hot tub with some leftover birthday cake and count stars as the crumbs float by.


Mr. X’s middle name is McLaurin.

Mr. X studied acting with Christopher Reeve, and they remained good friends until Reeve’s death.

Mr. X enjoys cycling and has trained with Lance Armstrong.

Mr. X hit #104 on the Billboard Singles Charts in 1980.

Mr. X was voted Least Likely to Succeed in high school.

Mr. X was overweight as a child and so had few friends. He started talking in different voices to amuse himself.

Mr. X is of Welsh and Scottish heritage.

Mr. X co-owns a restaurant with Robert De Niro and Francis Ford Coppola.

Mr. X is an only child.

Mr. X has said that cocaine is God’s way of telling you you are making too much money.

Mr. X has done the narration for several rides at Disney World.

Mr. X won a Grammy in 2003.

Mr. X wrote the forward to The Far Side: Gallery 4

Mr. X enjoys playing paintball.

Mr. X has been outspoken about his opposition to the war in Iraq, but has become the most consistent entertainer of U.S. troops.

Mr. X saw two of his films reach the $100 million mark during the same week in 1996.

The Green Flash

Have you ever heard of the Green Flash? No, it’s not the illegitimate baby that was conceived by The Flash and The Green Lantern one drunken night at that out-of-town Super Heroes seminar. No-no-no. The Green Flash is a very real atmospheric phenomenon, and aren’t you just dying to hear all about it?

It was a crystal clear day today, and around sunset I thought I might walk down to the ocean and once again attempt to see the Green Flash. For a long time I thought the Green Flash was just some goofy hippie urban legend, until that one magical evening about twenty-five years ago. I was sitting on a cushy patch of grass in San Diego as I watched the Sun descend into the ocean. (Actually it doesn’t go into the ocean, but just disappears below the horizon. Of course I know that you already knew that, but I just threw that in for the folks who got their schooling in California.)

I was staring intently into the setting Sun (something you should never do, Kids) and then I saw it—a flash of green that seemed to light up the entire horizon. So the legend was true! And from that day in 1981 until about fifteen minutes ago I believed that I had seen the legendary Green Flash. And then I did the research.

As you know I think the Internet is the greatest invention since chocolate-chip ice cream. Maybe it’s even greater. (Whoa, boy, let’s not go crazy here.) Just imagine, all of the world’s knowledge right at your fingertips! And yet sometimes the ‘net can be a bit of a spoilsport. For years the Green Flash was something of a myth or legend to me. Then I thought I saw it and it became a rare and wondrous thing of beauty. Now I can look it up on my computer, read exactly what the Green Flash is and what causes it, and even see photographs that are nowhere near as dramatic as what I saw on that long ago night and that lead to me believe I never saw the Green Flash in the first place!

None of the descriptions of the Green Flash mentioned anything about a light that shoots out in both directs across the horizon, green or otherwise. The pictures, too, show nothing of the sort. What they do show is a partially set Sun with a green (or blue) squiggle sitting atop it. The best way to describe it, and I’m not intentionally being indecorous here (but then again I’m making no effort to avoid it either) is to imagine the top half of the Sun sitting on the horizon as a breast. Got it? Of course you do, you sicko. OK, then on top of that is a bright green or blue nipple. (And if you’ve ever been to the San Francisco Pride Parade you should have little trouble conjuring up that image.) Apparently that green or blue protrusion on top of the Sun is the Green Flash.

That’s it? No vibrant green rays flashing across the sky? No mystical cosmic light show to rival the aurora borealis? Just a tiny green (or blue) nipple? So then what the hell did I see in San Diego all those years ago? Oh, never mind. Given the spectacular pharmacopoeia I was regularly ingesting back then it’s a minor miracle that a green flash was all I saw. Or that I'm still able to see at all, for that matter.

Living the Dream

“If you follow every dream you might get lost.” --Neil Young

It was actually the above song lyric off my pal Neil’s new CD that made me remember a women that I met in Cabo San Lucas about ten years ago. I was walking back to my hotel, thinking only of the blessed air-conditioning that would be my escape from the oppressive heat. It wasn’t just warm or hot, it was “why the hell did I pay good money to spend a week baking in this hellhole?” hot. Suddenly I realized that an attractive, beautifully dressed woman in her forties was walking along beside me. I decided to start up a conversation and turn on the old charm. After all, I was on vacation and it wasn’t that hot.

It turned out that the reason the woman was so nicely dressed was because she was working. She told me she sold time-shares for a living, and showed me some of the brochures she was carrying. To head off any future misunderstandings I immediately let her know that my interest in buying a time-share, or anything else that might increase the odds that I would one day return to this unlivable furnace, was less than zero percent, whether this was mathematically possible or not. That out of the way, she relaxed and began to tell me her story.

Much of which I’ve forgotten. I mean, it’s been a decade, so I don’t remember her name or her age, or even which state she was from. (I seem to recall that it may have been an “I” state. Indiana? Illinois? Iowa?) I do, however, remember the important parts. She was a recently divorced woman who had quit her job in Illinois (or wherever) and, against the advice of her well-meaning family and friends, had packed her bags to follow her dream: A new life in sunny Mexico.

I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt and was so hot that I felt as if I was about to die. I think I was actually hoping for it. This woman was in a full-length cotton dress, pantyhose, dress shoes and god knows how many layers of modesty-protecting underwear. When we arrived at the next bench on the path we sat down, she because she had to, I because she had. She was obviously exhausted.

Back in Illinois (or wherever) I’m sure that she was a bit of a local legend, and those family and friends often chatted away about this woman who had the nerve to pack up her life and pursue her dream. In their mind she was living the good life in a beautiful tropical paradise, and she deserved to because she had taken that chance. I, on the other hand, was now witnessing first-hand the back side of that dream, and it wasn’t pretty.

Since she was an older and obviously lonely woman and I in those days still maintained a few remnants of the boorish arrogance of youth, I invited her up to my hotel room. She wasn’t quite the pushover I had been hoping for, however, and she countered with an offer to go have a drink at the bar. Obviously I would have to spend a little time and money before that sweat-soaked dress would lie in a crumpled heap on the floor of my room. I thanked her but told her I wanted to get to my room, and we said our good-byes.

In my defense I think it’s entirely possible that at that point seducing an attractive woman in an exotic location was less important to me than was getting to the cool, air-conditioned atmosphere of my room. I know that doesn’t say much for me as a man, but there you have it.

I did return to that room, and after about ten minutes I was again cool and comfortable. It was then that my normal brain function returned and I began to think about what I had done. Oh my God, a very sexy and extremely available woman had asked me to have drinks and I had turned her down! Thirty seconds later I was out the door and heading down to the open-air bar. There were about four or five people scattered about in various stages of inebriation, but she was not among them. I mentally shrugged and headed back to the coolness of my hotel room.

I never saw this woman again. I hope that she eventually returned to Iowa (or wherever) and has a happy life. I like to imagine that on cold winter evenings she is surrounded by family and friends, who beg her to tell them again about her time living in Mexico. And as she does they’ll look at her with admiration, because here, right at their table, was a free spirit who had had the courage to follow her dreams. And I smile when I think that none of them will ever know the truth about her life south of the border. You see, there are only two people who know about it, and neither one of us is talking.

# 200

If you go back to early October and read the entry titled # 100 you’ll see that I began that one by congratulating myself. I was pretty impressed that I had been able to write six blogs a week for over four months, an effort that resulted in the creation of 100 articles. Well, since then I’ve doubled my total output and have written 6 blogs a week for nearly nine months. So of course I feel like I’m entitled to double the congratulations. So let’s hear it for me! Twice!

Shortly after I first started writing this damn thing I read an interview with a writer who said that doing a daily column is lots of fun…for about three months. At that point the bloom is off the rose and the river of ideas starts to run a little dry. And that’s why I was completely surprised when I blasted through that three-month barrier and found myself still coming up with ideas and still enjoying myself at the six months point and beyond.

Big whoop-de-doo. After all, there are writers out there who have been writing daily columns (although rarely six days a week!) for decades and are still going strong. What’s the secret to their longevity? Well, I think it’s two-fold: first they are extremely disciplined and second, they get paid.

And there it is, the old bug-a-boo about money. “Why don’t you write for your local newspaper?” I’ve been asked about a gazillion times. Well, partly because they want articles about flower shows and the Rotary and they won’t let me use the word “fuck.” And partly because nobody’s asked.

I look at writing like some people look at exercise. If you are a runner, then you should run. No excuses. “Just do it,” as the TV set nags you every frigging minute. (See, I don’t have to say “fucking” every time.) And if you’re going to call yourself a writer, well by golly you’d better write.

I wish I had five dollars for every person I’ve met who said they have such wonderful stories in their heads, but they just never have found the time to sit down and put them on paper. “I just know I have a book in me!” they whine. Yeah, right. Bend over, loser, and I’ll put a book in you.

Or worse, they have the great stories but need someone (and they’re always looking at me) to write them down. “I’ll even split the profits with you!” they generously offer. Great jumping Jesus, give me a break! That’s like me saying I have this great idea of me winning the Boston Marathon, but I haven’t found the time to actually do the running. Or, “Run it for me and I’ll split the prize money with you!”

I’ve heard it all my life, but only just realized the truth in it: Writing is hard work. It sucks. I hate doing it. But like working out you feel so good when it’s done. (At least that’s what people who actually do work out tell me.) That is a clumsy way of me saying what Dorothy Parker said so brilliantly and so succinctly all those years ago. I used the quote in # 100 and I’d like to drag it out again here in # 200. What Ms. Parker said was, “I hate writing but I love having written.” Eight words that say it all.

So if there are any young writers out there, here is some free advice that you didn’t ask for and probably won’t appreciate until you’re also AARP-eligible and finally understand what I’m talking about. And that is, don’t sit around and wait for inspiration to come around and smack you in the face like a wet fish. Don’t go to writers groups and sip lattes with other people who call themselves writers and pontificate about all the great things you’re going to write. Or I should say do that sort of thing if you like, but don’t let it be a replacement for the actual lonely grunt work of writing and then continue to call yourself a writer.

For some reason I also feel like pontificating tonight, so as long as I’m in the mood I’ll pass along another piece of advice that I only just recently read in a how-to writing book, but I suspect I probably knew all along. Don’t write for an audience…write for yourself. And I think that’s especially true if you’re attempting to write humor. Amuse yourself! Make yourself laugh!

If you think it’s sometimes funny to use the word “fuck” then do it. And if somebody disagrees with you, well fuck them! If somebody else also happens to think what you wrote is funny, well that’s a bonus. And if somebody one day tells you that your writing made them spit out their coffee or that they had tears rolling down their cheeks, well that feeling, my friend, is better than an orgasm.

Everything Costs Too Much! Waaaaah!

A series of events: A dinner out with friends. Shopping for a framed poster. Dessert at a local hotel. Another dinner out. Sending flowers on Valentine’s Day. At first glance these activities would seem completely unrelated. Could there conceivably be a common thread that runs through each?

Yes there could, and not one common thread but two. First, these are all events that I’ve experienced within the last two weeks. And second, each one was too expensive. Not a little too expensive. Not a tad or a bit too expensive. No, each event was w-a-a-a-y too expensive. Expensive to the point of approaching surreal.

OK, so we live in a time of expensive gasoline (except in the U.S. where it remains well below half the cost of many other countries) and movies that are $9.50. But is that really such an outrageous price, or simply a fair cost of admission based on what the market will bear? Supply and demand, and all that? No, the prices I’ve paid for certain things over the last few weeks have had little to do with supply and demand, and they’ve left me somewhat stunned.

And let me point out, before you do, that I am fully aware that in each of these circumstance I participated on my own free will. Nobody was standing thirty yards away from me in an orange quail-hunting vest threatening to shoot me in the face with a round of 20-gauge birdshot. For example. Nope, I voluntarily walked into those restaurants, shopped for that poster, ate those desserts and ordered those flowers. And I paid the price for doing so. Boy did I ever.

My little run of financial catastrophes began about two weeks ago when my wife, a friend and I went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. We all agreed that we would order the Dinner for Three. The total bill came to $48, which, for reasons that now seem foolish in the wake of more recent events, I thought was somewhat high. And it wasn’t so much the price. I mean any fool (including myself) living in the 21st Century knows that a dinner bill for three adults that comes to under fifty bucks is nothing to complain about. In fact, it’s a deal. Shut up, pay it and sneak out the back door before they realize they’ve made a mistake, right?

Except that when we were ordering my friend suggested that we also get an additional plate of something to share. “Are you kidding?” I asked. “Do you know how much food they give you with these things?” My friend agreed that I was right, and in doing so he was wrong. When the food arrived and we each had taken a sensible portion there was almost nothing left. I could already feel the tensions rising in anticipation of the ensuing battle to be fought over the two remaining shrimp. This was not how it was supposed to be at a Chinese restaurant.

Oh sure, we Americans eat like pigs, and there certainly was enough food there to pacify the hunger of three people. But when you go out for Chinese food you expect that there will be too much food. When I order a Chinese dinner I want seconds! And I want leftovers to take home and have for breakfast, dammit!

The next day Spike and I decided that our shiny white living room walls had been bare for long enough. Well, actually Spike decided. What the hell do I care? I’m just happy if the roof doesn’t leak and the cable works. So off we went to Prints Plus to check out a very nice poster we had seen. It is a picture of an open window with flapping curtains overlooking nothing but endless blue ocean. I’m actually the one who first found it, and although I considered the picture to be a tiny bit too gay for my taste, I admit it would have looked great in our house.

The only problem was the one we had seen on display was in an unpainted wood frame. It cost about $200, reduced because somebody had obviously ordered it, gone home, got drunk and realized there were better ways to spend $200. Still we liked it, but agreed we’d have to have it in a dark blue frame in order to match our carpets and drapes. As Leonardo da Vinci said, “Great art should always match the carpets and drapes.”

After waiting around for the clerk to finish assisting a woman who bought nothing (and who was really just there to be in my way) he finally gave his undivided attention. We explained that we wanted that gay ocean picture, but in a dark blue frame. He walked us over to a display of brightly colored frame corners and said, “With a picture like that I recommend a wider frame, something like this.” Well, a wider frame was just what I had had in mind, and I told him so. But does that color go with the gay ocean picture?

He walked over and placed the blue corner on the picture. “It’s beautiful!” he said. Well maybe it was and maybe it wasn’t, but it seemed to me I could have barfed on his counter and he would have said, “It’s beautiful!” if it meant I would then buy a frame to go around it. I asked him how much it would cost and he snapped into action.

Have you ever watched somebody entering more and more numbers into a calculator getting you a price and then been surprised by how low the price was? Of course you haven’t. Just about the time I was beginning to worry that he wouldn’t be done working that solar calculator before the sun went down he looked up and showed me the total cost. $478 ! Four hundred and seventy eight dollars for a poster in a frame. Not a painting by a famous artist. Not even a painting by an unknown artist. But for a fucking poster in a frame! I’ve paid less than that for a transmission! And then he looks up at me and asks in all seriousness, “Do you want to get it?” Though stunned I was able to answer, “Let me think about it,” and he might have actually bought that if I hadn’t preceded my statement by first laughing in his dopey face.

For florists Valentine’s Day is a license to steal. We all know and accept that going in. So when I went online and found that ProFlowers was willing to deliver a dozen roses to Spike at her job for $39.99 I thought it was a pretty good deal. Then I went on their website to order the flowers when suddenly additions, upgrades and extra charges came flying at me as if I was playing some 1980’s video game. Want to make those long-stem roses? Uh, sure. Ten bucks. Want a nice balloon with that? Duh, okay. Seven bucks. Want to pay tax on that? Not really. Tough shit--five bucks. And so by the time I was done my nice little $39.99 bill had grown into a hideous monster that was well over $75.00!

Again, nobody had put a gun to my head. Still there were a couple of charges that just seemed to be on the wrong side of fair play. First there was that stupid balloon. I assumed that it would be one of those big mylar balloons that float happily over the bouquet. Spike came home with the flowers and carrying a little thing on a stick that looked like a large lollypop. “What the hell is that?” I asked. “Oh it came with the flowers,” she said. Came with the flowers? That little ten-cent piece of crap cost me seven bucks!

But that wasn’t the worst of it. On my order I saw that the delivery charge was $9.99. But right below this was another $5.00 fee that was identified as a “Valentine’s Day charge.” What the hell is a Valentine’s Day charge? Well, it’s a way to suck even more money out of us on this insidious holiday, that’s what it is.

Same friend, a week later. The three of us again head out to go to dinner. This time we do the smart thing and head for Joe’s, a reasonably priced local restaurant with great food and with portions large enough to justify a doggie bag. We get to the place and of course they’re closed. More then closed, the joint is completely black. A chill runs up my spine. The only non-tourist trap restaurant in town and it looks like they’ve closed up shop. Probably went bankrupt giving away too much food for too cheap a price.

So we head into town and check out the menu that is posted out front of another popular Italian restaurant. The lighting on the street was a little tricky. You could make out the descriptions of the food ok, but the narrow column that featured the prices was in shadow and almost impossible to read. “Oh screw it,” I said with a bravado I didn’t really feel. “It’s just one meal, we’re not buying the damn place.”

Once inside we all realized we had made a horrible mistake. The prices were insane. For a second I thought I was back in Ensenada and looking at the cost in pesos. I don’t mind eating in tourists traps when I’m actually a tourist, but I feel like a Grade-A sap when I’m eating in one when I’m only four blocks from my home. I know we all felt the urge to suddenly run out the door, leaving our menus spinning in the air as if in some Bugs Bunny cartoon, but once again we sucked it up. Spike ordered the lasagna. I ordered the lasagna. My friend ordered a shrimp and pasta dish. The three of us shared an antipasto. And my friend had one glass of wine. The total bill came to over one hundred dollars. No dessert. No booze excepting the one glass of wine.

The lasagna were an incredibly eighteen dollars each. Was it good? Sure. At twice the price was it better than the lasagna at Joe’s? Nope. Was it better than my Mom’s? Don’t be absurd. My friend’s glass of wine, which actually looked more like half a glass of wine, was $8.50. I doubt that the restaurant had paid that much for the whole stinking bottle. We left that restaurant with our bellies half full and our wallets completely empty. I may return there someday but it will only be under one of two circumstances: Either somebody has invited me and is footing the bill, or I’m with some woman who I’m trying to seduce. Hopefully it will be both.

Did you think spending a measly $75 on Valentine’s Day was the end of it? How silly of you. I made the mistake of finding out that the local Ritz-Carlton puts on a Chocolate Buffet every Valentine’s Day. All I had to do was mention it to Spike and we were there as if we had been beamed over Star Trek style. The Ritz-Carlton is a beautiful place of course, and stocked with people who would be thrilled if their dinner bill came to only a hundred bucks. We walked into a candle-lit room filled with well-dressed folks and a snappy jazz band. And there it was—the chocolate buffet.

I love chocolate as much as the next guy. OK, I’m lying here. I actually love chocolate twice as much as the next guy, unless the next guy happens to be Louie Anderson. And yet I still came to the chocolate buffet with a vague wariness. Really, how much chocolate can you eat in one sitting? Sure, you laughingly answer “a lot!” but can you really? I don’t think so, and neither can I.

So Spike and I sat at one of the elegant tables, accepted our free glass of third-rate champagne and bellied up to the chocolate buffet table. There we found an assortment of candies, cakes, mousses and a few other tasty tidbits. We took a few things to sample and headed back to our table.

Everything of course was delicious. And why not, it was chocolate. Was anything particularly unique or something I absolutely must have again and I refuse to die until I do? Not really. We made a few more trips to the table and it wasn’t long before everything began to taste the same. I finished the last bit of my now-warm champagne and knew that I was done for the evening. When we had left home we had written off one of our favorite shows, House, for this particular Tuesday. After all, we can’t let that stupid box dictate our lives. (And besides I still don’t know how to program the nearly extinct VCR.) I soon realized that we would be arriving home a full hour before the show started. Like I said earlier, how much chocolate can you eat?

The bill was no surprise. I had told a friend earlier in the day that Spike and I were going to a chocolate buffet at the Ritz and that it cost $35 per person. “That’s a pretty good price for dinner at the Ritz,” she said. What she had failed to grasp was that it wasn’t dinner for $35 each, just dessert.

When the bill came Spike and I had a little disagreement about the tip. As a former employee of that fine hotel she knew that they absolutely expected a 20% tip. “That’s for dinner,” I argued. "That kid didn’t do anything except bring us a glass of cheap champagne and take away a few small plates." And smile a lot when it came close to tipping time. So I gave the punk ten bucks, which was around 15%. This brought the total bill for our few pieces of chocolate (I never even had any cake) to about $85.

Spike and I paid the bill for our chocolate “feast” in cash. I ‘d like to say I was gentleman enough to pay the whole bill myself, which was my original intention, but when Spike reached for her purse I was physically unable to stop her. Some mysterious force, possibly cheapness, held me back. I figured it was better that we both be mildly hurt by the massive bill than one of us (namely me) get slaughtered while the other skated off scot-free.

Don’t you youngsters just love it when old-timey baby-boomers such as myself tell you about how much better things were in the olden days? Sure you do. As I looked down upon the pile of fives, tens and twenties that we had assembled on the table, I reached down, picked up a five and held it in front of Spike’s face. “Do you know,” I began “that when I was a kid you could get one hundred chocolate bars for this?” I had to double-check the math a few times, because the claim seemed so outlandish, but I soon verified the statement.

It’s true. Candy bars, including Hershey chocolate bars, that’s full-sized Hershey’s chocolate bars, cost only a nickel when I was a lad, and that wasn’t even that long ago. OK, yes it was, but that’s still pretty amazing. And now here I was paying (well, co-paying) $85 for a few bits of chocolate at this fancy-pants restaurant. That would have been enough for me to buy 1700 chocolate bars back in my youth!

And so that brings me at long last to my point for this evening: Everything costs too much.

The 2005 Groovy Movie Awards (Part II)

And welcome back. I hope you all enjoyed the break. Ladies, again I apologize for the long lines in the restrooms, but really isn’t the problem more because of an anatomical limitation on your part rather than any building construction oversights? Waiting in line for hours just to pee seems like an awfully big price to pay in exchange for the ability to perform on the uneven parallel bars. Hello? Is this thing on?

Let’s move on to our next category, which is the Most Overlooked movie of 2005.

MOST OVERLOOKED: Did you see a movie last year that you just loved, but nobody else seemed to see it? Sure you did. And after you told your friends about it did they rush out to see it? Of course not. On your deathbed you’re going to wish you had those wasted breaths back again, believe me. Two For The Money was not the best movie made last year, but I really enjoyed it. I’ve already mentioned the fine performance by Al Pacino, but the story, a look into the exciting and sometimes dirty world of sports betting, was compelling too. Lord of War was another entry in the current movie trend that attempts to explain the workings of a particular business. What Traffic did for illegal drugs and what Syriana attempted to do for big oil Lord of War did for the arms trade. Perhaps it was a tad lighter than Traffic and leaned a bit towards the satire side, but it was both educational and entertaining. And, unlike Syriana, it made sense. Lord of War starred my new hero Nicholas Cage, who also starred in this year’s winner of the Groovy for Most Overlooked film. And that is, of course, The Weatherman. That’s two Groovies for this movie—why haven’t you rented it yet?

MOST PLEASANT SURPRISE: Proof turned out to be a much better movie than I had anticipated, and so for me was one of the year’s most pleasant surprises. The winner of the Groovy Movie Award for Most Pleasant Surprise, however, will probably be a surprise to you. I had few expectations for Fantastic Four. I never read the comic book, I didn’t know the story and the only reason I saw it was because I felt like sitting in the dark eating pretzel nuggets and this was the movie that was starting when I showed up at the theater. This movie had some real heart. Rather than just bombarding us with action sequence upon action sequence it also explored the feelings of the people who suddenly acquired super powers against their will. The reactions of the four varied from extreme jubilation to a weary reluctance. I don’t know much about Michael Chiklis except that he starred in some popular TV show that I’m too lazy to look up, and that this is the second time that he had delivered a warm and empathetic movie performance in a role that could easily have been dismissed as goofy camp. I still remember his heartbreaking scene as Curly of the Three Stooges in a film a few years ago when his brother Moe asked him, because he had suffered a stroke, to sign over the rights to his Three Stooges image. And again here in Fantastic Four Chiklis plays that big Hulk-like character (whose name I am also too lazy to look up) who sees his new powers as a curse that he will do nearly anything to get rid of. Hey, you most likely will never find Fantastic Four on AFI’s list of the 100 Greatest Movies, but it is equally unfair that several people had it on their Worst Movies of 2005 list. Like I said, it had heart.

GUILTY PLEASURE: The guilty pleasure is simply a movie that you are ashamed to admit you liked. That said, the Groovy winner for Guilty Pleasure doesn’t quite fit the definition, but it provided me with such a unique movie experience that I felt compelled to give it an award somewhere. So why not here? Regular moviegoers are familiar with this common occurrence: You’re watching a movie and at some point you realize you’re seeing something special. The movie keeps getting better and better. “Boy if only they’d come up with a great ending,” you think to yourself, “then this would be an excellent film, perhaps even a classic.” Well, sometimes they do come up with that ending, and more often they don’t. That’s why there are so few true classics. What was unique to Skeleton Key was that it was a horrible picture, sheer agony for well over an hour. And then, seemingly out of nowhere there appeared a glorious ending where all the pieces fell together. Perfectly. I don’t remember ever having this kind of movie experience before—a crappy picture with a socko ending. Have you? So now my plan is to rent Skeleton Key and watch it again. Maybe I missed something. Or maybe it is indeed a freak worthy of Barnum or akin to some bizarre creature out of Greek Mythology: The nearly unwatchable movie that somehow comes up with a great ending. I’ll let you know.

WORST MOVIE: Ah, everybody’s favorite category. Did you skip reading a bunch of the others to get to this one? That’s OK. There’s only one little problem. As I’ve mentioned before, the reason I am such a poor movie reviewer is that I tend to like, in varying degrees, nearly every movie I see. I’ve seen and graded thousands of flicks and don’t remember ever giving out an F. OK, maybe to Billy Madison, the only movie in my nearly half a century of movie-watching experience that I ever walked out on. And so the Groovy Award for Worst Movie of 2005 goes to a movie you’d probably hate but in which I found at least a couple of things that I enjoyed. Like that twisted clown character, for example. Hell, Rob Zombie and the folks who made The Devil’s Rejects knew they weren’t making high art here. They were making a twisted and offensive movie. And it probably was the worst movie to which I subjected myself last year. But I wasn’t bored by it and I didn’t run out of the theater.

BEST DIRECTOR: Can it really be nearly thirty years since Woody Allen won his Oscar for Best Director? It can. And wouldn’t it have been sweet to see him win one this year? Well, his directing skills may have been ignored by The Academy, but not by The Groovy Movie Awards. Sure the competition was tough this year, but no other director did what Woody did to me. He tricked me. He used me. To him I was just putty in his hand. He pulled on my strings like I was some dopey marionette. In Match Point Allen was a master at taking us exactly where he wanted us to go, and making us believe that we had the whole thing all figured out in our minds. And then he pulled the rug out from under us and wham! All we could do was sit on our ass with a dumb smirk on our face. You got us Woody. You got us good. Nice job.

BEST MOVIE: When I look at the list of movies that The Academy has nominated for Best Picture I notice something that I don’t believe I’ve ever seen before in my decades of following the Oscars. It’s not only that every film deserves to be on that list, which in itself is pretty darn amazing, but also each film is just about equally as good as the other four. There is no standout this year it’s true, but there is also no clunker. (The Academy saw to that by wisely ignoring the much-heralded and vastly overrated Syriana.) So no matter which movie wins, and it’s looking like Brokeback from where I sit, I’ll clap, nod my head and say, “Good choice.” I can’t believe that this situation has ever occurred before. This is truly a year when I don’t have to sit within reach of my stinky old sneakers, because no matter which movie wins Best Picture I won’t feel compelled to wing them at the TV screen. And so my nominations for Best Picture look pretty much like the Oscar list. Sure I could add Match Point in there, but I don’t see its absence as a grievous oversight. The winner of the 2005 Groovy Movie Award for Best Picture is Crash. In general I’ve found that great movies deal with universal themes. We are all told that racial prejudice is a bad thing, and we’ll swear to a man that we certainly don’t have a prejudiced bone in our body. But Crash takes us beneath the surface to show us how prejudice works its insidious evil; not in the loud protestations and proclamations of our innocence that we make, but in the subtle, nearly invisible acts that are perpetuated by men and women, black and white, thousands of times each day. Crash is gripping, entertaining and perhaps most importantly educational. It holds a mirror up to our society, and yet manages at the same time to take us deep beneath the surface of that mirror to show us how racial prejudice quietly and truly infects us all. And that makes it the Grooviest Movie of the Year.

The 2005 Groovy Movie Awards (Part I)

My goodness, has it been a year already? It has, and that can only mean that it’s time once again for (insert fanfare here) The Groovy Movie Awards, identifying for you the best and worst in movies for the year 2005.

Listen, you’re all busy guys and gals. You simply don’t have time to spend five hours watching a parade of over-dressed has-beens, wanna-be’s and flavors-of-the-month clumsily stumbling over pre-written lines just so you can find out who wins some lame awards. This year why not skip all that hooey? Everything you need to know about what went on in the movies last year can be found right here.

Yes, it’s the 2005 Groovy Movie Awards, as chosen by, well, me. So sit back and get ready to enjoy the one awards show that has no commercials, no lame musical numbers and no more qualifications to give out movie awards than a chimp has to fly a 747.

And now, without any further ado or some tired old Billy Crystal routine, live from my cramped office and way past my bedtime, it’s The 2005 Groovy Movie Awards!

BEST ACTOR: This is always a category that is just crammed with nominations. Why? Obviously it’s because of Hollywood’s subversive campaign to keep women actors, especially aging women actors, off the screens and in the hormone replacement centers where they belong. Sure, you can talk about your Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Heath Ledger and Russell Crowe, but this year there were a pair of performances by well-known actors in a couple of not-so-well known movies that stuck with me throughout the year. Did you see Pacino in Two for the Money? Brilliant! But he wasn’t gay, crippled, black or in the Holocaust, so see ya later, Serpico. And then there’s Nicholas Cage in The Weather Man. Cage plays a hugely successful man, financially speaking, who feels like a complete failure; a man with frailties and fears and a powerful desire to just do the right thing. I’ve only recently come to appreciate the talents of this great actor, and so for yet another remarkable performance and also by way of apologizing for discovering him just a tad late, I’m proud to award little Nicky Coppola with the 2005 Best Actor Groovy.

BEST ACTRESS: OK, this shouldn’t take too long. Jake Gyllenhaal, for his sensitive portrayal…ha, I’m just kidding. The Upside of Anger was a very good movie, and for anybody who scoffed at it because it stars Kevin Costner, well, you’re a big dope. And Joan Allen was terrific in it. As was Gweyenth Paltrow in Proof. Thank you ladies, and better luck next year. I’m afraid that the Groovy for Best Actress goes to Amy Adams in Junebug. Watching her stare in disbelief as she delivers the line, “You were not!” is worth the price of admission. (Unless, of course, you paid over four bucks.)

VIDEO DISCOVERY: This is the only category in which the winner does not have to be a movie that was made in 2005, but only discovered in 2005. By me, of course. OK, I didn’t really believe that a movie about dance lessons would appeal to a manly man such as moi, but Shall We Dance? genuinely surprised me. (And really, how manly can somebody be if he uses the word moi?) In 2005 I also finally saw What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? after about forty years of people telling me that I simply had to see it. Great flick. Years ago a co-worker came into work one Monday morning still furious from the movie she had seen the night before. “What a piece of garbage! she ranted. “What a waste of money! All they did was talk for two hours!” Well, I finally saw that same movie in 2005, Before Sunrise, and it wins the Groovy Movie Award for Video Discovery. And it’s a great date movie, too. (Although not for the chick above, obviously.) Guys, even if you are not a deep and sensitive soul like me, rent it anyway, watch it with a hotbabe and pretend you love it. Get a little misty-eyed if you can. I can’t imagine that it won’t pay off big time, if you know what I mean and I think you do.

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT: When choosing the winner in this category I always like to clarify that we are talking about my biggest disappointment in the movies, not in my life in general. If I started to write about all of those disappointments I’d end up typing more words than a phonebook transcriber. (There’s no such thing as a phone book transcriber, is there? And if there was wouldn’t she—or he!—be typing mostly numbers? Sorry Folks, but it’s much too late to come up with another, more clever comparison, so phone book transcriber it remains.) My biggest disappointment in the movies for 2005 was Syriana, not that it was a bad movie, but I went in with such high expectations. Here, I thought, would be the movie that would follow in the Traffic/Fahrenheit 911 tradition and blow the lid off the oil industry, which was obviously its intent. Well I’m not ashamed to admit that I didn’t understand it, the old folks seated behind me weren’t ashamed to admit (loudly) that they didn’t understand it and every movie critic (and I’m talking about the real critics here) that I read or saw also admitted that they didn’t understand it. And yet they all put it on their top-ten lists. Listen, if a few people don’t understand your movie, it may still be great. If everybody doesn’t understand it, that’s just plain old crappy movie making.

MOST OVERRATED: Did you see a movie last year that every insisted that you just had to see and you came out and went, “Huh?” Well that’s what this category is all about. The Groovy for the Most Overrated movie of 2005 goes to The 40-Year-Old Virgin. At best this movie was mildly amusing, relying too often on gross or easy humor, even during those occasional times when it was in danger of actually becoming poignant and sincere. And listen, I don’t want to sound like a cranky old fart here, but there’s something wrong with the state of movie humor in general when the comedy crown is worn by somebody like Will Ferrell, who has a consistent track record for making terribly unfunny films that is only rivaled by the previous wearer of the crown, Adam Sandler. Suddenly Jerry Lewis looks every bit the genius he always insisted he was. The best thing about The 40-Year-Old Virgin (besides the absence of Ferrell and Sandler) is the title, a title that I suspect was borrowed from an old and quite funny underground comic called The Forty Year Old Hippie.


TOMORROW: MOST OVERLOOKED, MOST PLEASANT SURPRISE, GUILTY PLEASURE, WORST MOVIE, BEST DIRECTOR AND BEST MOVIE!

On Turning Forty

With my extremely crude calculations I’ve deduced that there about two hundred thousand people turning forty today. Man, that’s a lot of old people. Oh relax, I’m just funnin’ with you. Still, forty is one of those landmark birthdays, possibly the most powerful landmark birthday until you turn seventy, at which point you are finally forced admit to yourself that, yes indeedy, you are old. “I’m over seventy and I’m not old!” at least one feisty old-timer will squawk, I’m sure. Well, it’s time to face the facts, Gramps. Mindless folkisms to the contrary, you’re only as old as you are. Now sit your wrinkled ass down before you break a hip.

Ah, but happily for you it’s a fairly long road from forty to seventy, is it not? I’ve written before about the trauma I faced when turning forty. I had pictures of John Lennon, Edgar Allan Poe, Jack London and Lenny Bruce hanging on my desk. All of these accomplished men died at the age of forty, and look at the wealth of work they left behind for future generations to enjoy! And here I was turning forty and what did I have to show for it? So far my crowning achievement had been serving as vice-president of the student council in fifth grade. And now I was forty and old. Wah, wah, wah.

Well, take heart all of you who are turning forty today. Remember that, while it’s true that you are not as young as you once were, you’re not nearly as old as you’re going to get. And today I bring you joyous news that is sure to ease your anguish. For I have learned of a method that will help you to recognize that your constant agonizing over turning forty is a waste of your precious time, if not downright silly. Yes, I discovered a way that let me know that forty years old is still a vibrant, youthful age that should cause no more anxiety than a passing burp.

And now, because I am nothing if not a generous and compassionate man, I will let you in on my wondrous secret, a secret that is guaranteed over time to stop you from fretting about your fortieth birthday and to help you to understand with absolute clarity that at forty you still bask in the glorious sunshine of youth. And what exactly did I do in order that I might come to this glorious revelation? It was surprisingly easy really. I simply turned fifty.

Turinalysis

Are you looking forward to watching the Olympics? I’m not really, although if I had to choose I’d prefer to watch the winter sports over the summer sports. In the past I’ve been known to watch some of the skiing and especially bobsledding events. In fact I’ll let you in on a little secret. About three Olympics back I watched almost all of the figure skating with my wife. (Well, more accurately my future wife--we were still living in sin at that point.) The real secret is that one night even though my wife wasn’t home I found myself tuning in to the figure skating to see how things were going. Figure skating—can you imagine? Luckily I’m much better now, thanks.

Last April Spike and I spent a week driving through France. Actually I spent a week driving and she spent a week sitting on her ass and watching the scenery go by from the passenger window. This was my first time driving in Europe and looking back I now realize that I overdid it a bit, covering 1700 miles in six days. (At about $6.50 a gallon, I might add.) It’s just that countries are a lot closer there, so it’s very exciting that you can easily drive from France to Monaco to Italy to Switzerland and back to France. In fact I calculated that at one point we had been in four countries in 25 hours. (And knowing me as you do, you know that I’m still pissed at myself for not driving just a wee bit faster in order to be able to claim “four countries in a day.”)

Robert Louis Stevenson defined sight seeing as “the art of disappointment” and I found this to be particularly true of Europe. Not that I didn’t have a wonderful and exciting time seeing all these places that I had only read about, but on the whole I found many places were, I don’t know, dumpier than I expected. And there was no place dumpier on our entire trip than the city of Torino, home of this year's Winter Olympics.

I’m not sure I knew at the time that Torino and Turin were the same place. I was having some trouble with the English and Italian names for some places. For example, I saw that we were passing near Genova, which I was fairly certain was the Italian name for Genoa. But I wasn’t sure and didn’t want to drive all those extra miles to find I had been mistaken. Besides, I couldn’t think of anything for which Genoa would be worth visiting. Vague images of Columbus and salami floated in my head, but that’s as specific at the ideas got, so I just kept driving.

I suspect that if I had made the connection between Torino and Turin I certainly would have wanted to learn more about visiting its well-known shroud, famous in Christian mythology, but I don’t recall wondering about it. Plus I’m pretty sure they keep the crumbly old rag tucked away from public view anyway.

No, all I remember about Torino was that it was a hellhole, and it took us about two hours of the most nerve-wracking driving to get out of the damn dirty place. It was a constant battle to follow the Italian language highway sign that would lead us out and it’s no small tribute to my superior driving skills and iron-like will that I only made one wrong turn during the entire tortuous gauntlet. I don’t ever remember being happier to leave a city in my entire life, and that includes Hayward.

That’s why I am amused and somewhat surprised when I catch some images on TV from Torino. It looks like a lovely place, with its charming plazas and snow-crowned mountain peaks. Well yeah, I’m sure if I had stopped to look around this pit I probably would have found many plazas scattered throughout the city, as they are in most any European city. And as for the scenic snowy mountains where many of the Olympic events are scheduled to take place, well don’t expect to see them when you’re in Torino. They’re actually in the Alps and are about 50 miles away from the city.

Many people will watch the Olympics and be inspired to plan a vacation to Torino because of what they’ve seen. They too will then have a better understanding of what Robert Louis Stevenson was trying to convey. As for me, the discrepancy between the Torino I am seeing on my TV and the one I saw last year with my own beady eyes has got me to thinking. Up until now, like everybody else I believed without hesitation everything I saw on television. Now I’m not so sure. I mean, I’m really starting to have some doubts.

Survivor Recap: Week 2

What do you do if one of the people with whom you have formed an alliance suddenly starts begging to be sent home? Do you accept that you formed a bad partnership, cut your losses and try to rebuild or do you attempt to prop the shlub up and hope he can last another week or two? This was at least the second time in the history of Survivor that someone has asked to be voted off and his wish was not granted by his tribe-mates. I’m not sure it’s the right decision. I wish Jeff Probst were here—he’d know what to do.

Let’s take a little detour from tonight’s Survivor action and talk a bit about host Jeff Probst. Sure, Probst is incredibly lucky to have been pulled from hosting Rock and Roll Jeopardy and given his lucrative gig on Survivor. But let’s remember that it was Probst who created the persona of the friendly yet serious host that we see each week. It’s true that Survivor is an often imitated show, but it is equally true that the character Probst has created to host the show is equally imitated.

Probst could have taken any of a number of different angles as host of the show. Since there was very little reality show hosting history from which to draw, he was on his own. I suspect most people would have immediately eased into the stereotypical game show host, with the fake laughter and the witty banter and the Richard Dawson kissing. (Hell, Dawson would have been slobbering all over these babes.) Jeff took it a little more seriously and the show is better for it.

Probst is also a student of the game. For the first couple of finales, when the winner is announced and all the contestants are brought back, the network chose to hire celebrities to host. If I remember correctly, Rosie O’Donnell even hosted one of these. Shudder. Finally the powers in charge got wise and brought Probst in to take his rightful place as host for these shows as well. And it was here, by grilling the contestants about their actions while playing the game, that he showed that he was not only the host but truly a fan of the game. And a fan who knew how the game should be played and was not shy about telling someone if they had not played it correctly.

Probst has said that before the beginning of each season he goes out and buys just three or four shirts to wear for the show. Careful viewers will soon realize that he is telling the truth. Probst can usually be seen wearing a dark blue shirt, a light blue shirt, or an off white shirt repeatedly throughout the season. The shirts have similar, and often identical, styles. Your first impression is, “Jesus, Jeff, with all the money you’re making you can at least afford to wear a different shirt in each episode. Or get a wardrobe written into your contract.” You then realize that he has created a sort of uniform for himself, much like a referee would wear in a basketball or football game. And that’s what Jeff is—the referee; sometimes friendly, sometimes stern, but always fair.

Tonight Jeff had on one of the blue shirts as we watched Shane begging to be voted off the island. Shane had whined throughout much of the program that signing up for Survivor had been a big mistake. He missed his son and simply wanted to go home. There certainly must have been some truth to his reason for wanting to quit. In his biography he stated that his biggest accomplishment is raising his son, and that he wanted to win on Survivor so that he could buy new equipment and even a field for his son’s football team. Yet we know there are other, darker reasons for Shane’s need to beat a hasty exit from the competition. Shane, it seems, has a three pack a day smoking habit. And while the producers of Survivor do provide the contestants with a few basic necessities, unfortunately for Shane ciggies aren’t on the list. And there’s no 7-Eleven nearby.

Shane’s wanting to beat feet comes as shockingly bad news to the three others who had the poor judgment to form an alliance with him. It is good news, however, for the two contestants who figure if Shane isn’t the next to leave, then it will surely be one of them. And they are correct in their figuring. These two are Cirie and Melinda.

Now I did spend a lot of ink, or whatever the hell computers use, writing about Cirie last week. She was almost gone, and I thought that would have been a shame since this wildly blessed woman was having a great deal of trouble keeping her glorious blessings tucked into her bathing suit top. Now I don’t know if it was her decision or if CBS received a call from the Grand Emperor of the Religious Right, but I’m sad to report that Cirie competed in both competitions tonight wearing a baggy t-shirt over her ample assets. No, the shirt didn’t say WWJD? or anything like that, but I still have my suspicions. (Sure I’m paranoid, and if you’re not then you’re really not paying attention in this ugly year of 2006. Or was it my imagination that The Book of Daniel was suddenly yanked off the air last month fifteen minutes after it premiered?)

Melinda was the other contestant who felt like she was in big trouble. This, of course, upset my wife as this was her favorite, and for no other reason than they share a first name. (Originally my wife thought that they shared a first name and an approximate age until I went on-line and found out that Survivor Melinda is actually a full decade younger than my gracefully aging wife. Well, that news sent a shockwave through the Stegmann household, let me tell you.

Speaking of age, I think my favorite is the oldest Survivor, Bruce. Tonight he faced the shame being the last one chosen while the others were picking members for their tribe. Because of this Bruce received a surprise immunity, but was also sent to spend three days alone on Exile Island. It was here that we discovered, as we watched Bruce go through some sort of “wax on, wax off” martial arts routine, that what had first appeared to be a fragile 58-year-old fossil is actually a fifth degree black belt karate instructor with a finely-tuned body and apparently a mind to match. I hate to put the whammy on him, knowing how my Survivor predictions usually go, but I think, while he most likely won’t win it, he’ll go pretty far in the game. Go Bruce! Give those punks a swift kick their firm young asses!

The Lying Game

Ta-daaa! Here finally is the first installment of the long-awaited The Lying Game. Now I know I promised this for last Sunday, but guess what? I lied. Actually I just thought that a review of the Super Bowl commercials was the more pressing topic. I hope you all enjoyed it. What, you didn’t even read it? Sigh. You know sometimes I thank God for giving me an undersized bladder so that I have at least one reason for getting out of bed in the morning.

And still I push on. Below you will find a short article about the Academy Awards. I have purposely included several false statements in the article. Originally I was going to include ten of these lies but I’ve since decided that I’m not even going to tell you how many bits of inaccurate info are in there. I leave that for you to figure out.

Now I’m going to ask you to fantasize a bit. Close your eyes and imagine that you are the fact-checker for a small publication. This article has to run tomorrow, so you must find all the bogus facts in a very short period of time. Which leads me to the obvious question: If you are taking the time to close your eyes and create a fantasy, why on Earth would you imagine yourself as a fact-checker for some third-rate rag? Is that the best you can do? Your ex was right--you really are an unimaginative dullard.

By the way, don’t go thinking too much in this game (not that that would ever be a problem for you.) I’m just looking for misinformation here, so if I write “It’s interesting to note…” don’t start arguing that it’s a lie because you think it’s really not interesting. Also, I’ve always hated quizzes which end with “Answers in next month’s issue” or “Visit our web site for the answers.” We don’t much go for that kind of crap around here. You’ll be happy to know that all the answers are below. You’re welcome.

Well, dullard or no, it’s time for you to get to work. Tell me how many inaccurate pieces of information I’ve included in the following story, and what are they. Good luck.


The Academy Awards

The Academy Award, arguably the most coveted prize in the entertainment industry, was first given out in 1928. The first movie to be honored as best picture was Wings, although the award was called Best Production at the time. Included in the cast of Wings, a silent film, were Gary Cooper and Fay Wray, the latter later achieving fame in the original King Kong.

There has been only one person who has won as many as four Oscars for acting, and that is Katherine Hepburn. Jack Nicholson and Walter Brennan are the only other people to win three Academy Awards for acting. There was talk of a plan to award Hepburn with a special Oscar at this year’s ceremony, but as the actress will turn 99 in May and is too frail to leave her home in Old Saybrook, Connecticut the plans have been scratched.

Gone With the Wind won twelve of the statuettes, more than any other film in history. Three movies have won eleven Oscars: Ben-Hur, Titanic and Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

Meryl Streep has received 13 acting nominations, more than anybody in history and has won but one award, for Sophie’s Choice. Bette Davis, Katherine Hepburn and Jack Nicholson have each received twelve nominations. Neither Richard Burton nor Peter O’Toole, despite receiving seven nominations each, has ever won an Academy Award. Elizabeth Taylor, Denzel Washington, Tom Hanks, Gene Hackman and Gary Cooper have each received five nominations and won two Oscars.

John Ford has won the most Oscars for directing, a total of four. He was nominated five times. Frank Capra received six nominations in his career and won three times. Woody Allen also has received six nominations, but has yet to win an Oscar for directing.

Jon Stewart will host the 2006 Academy Awards. He joins a long list of comedians who have hosted the ceremony, including Bob Hope, Johnny Carson, Jerry Lewis and Chevy Chase.

ANSWERS:

Wow, writing this thing gave me a headache. OK, let’s break this down by paragraphs. There are seven lies in the above article. If you found less than seven, keep looking. If you found more than seven it’s possible that you may have discovered two pieces of false info in one sentence and counted them as two instead of one. Well, aren’t you special? Please do keep it to yourself as I’m really not in the mood.

Everything about Wings is true, except for the part about Fay Wray. She was not in the film, although she was, of course, in the classic King Kong.

In addition to Jack Nicholson and Walter Brennan, Ingrid Bergman has also won three Academy Awards. There was no plan to present Katherine Hepburn with a special Oscar this year. She’s dead.

No film has even won twelve Academy Awards, although it’s true that the three films listed above actually did win eleven. Gone With the Wind won a measly nine awards.

Meryl Streep has indeed been nominated 13 times, more than anybody else in history, but has actually won twice. Only Katherine Hepburn and Jack Nicholson have twelve nominations, with the latter the more likely choice, in my estimation, to pick up number thirteen. Bette Davis had ten nominations and won twice.

All the information about the directors is true, except for the stuff about Woody. He did indeed win a directing Oscar for Annie Hall. Have you forgotten already? The film only came out, let’s see, thirty years ago. Thirty years!!??

Each of those funnymen has hosted the Academy Awards.

Make It Stop! I'll Talk!

Donald Rumsfeld took off his glasses, wiped them with his handkerchief and shot a quick look at Alberto Gonzales. A thin line of sweat had appeared on Rumsfeld’s upper lip, which was no surprise since he and Gonzales had been working on this prisoner under the hot lights for over ten hours. Beatings, water, electricity and various and creative combinations of all three had failed to get the prisoner to talk. And Rumsfeld was beginning to run out of ideas. The sweaty lip did not go unnoticed by the bloodied prisoner.

“Hey Rumsfeld,” he said in his surly Middle-Eastern way, “you should give up. You know you can’t break me.”

Rumsfeld could feel the white heat of the anger as it rose up in his spine. Yet outwardly he remained calm. This is what evil geniuses do. And he was an evil genius. Except for the genius part. Slowly Rumsfeld grabbed the videotape and put it in the VCR. A minute later the words “Starring Julia Stiles” appeared on the screen and two seconds after that the prisoner began to scream.

“Better get a pad and pencil, Alberto,” Rumsfeld said calmly.

This was pretty much the scene in our living room last night. I, of course, was the prisoner while the part of Donald Rumsfeld was ably played by my lovely wife. We didn’t have an Alberto Gonzales but if you’d like you can play the part next time you come over. Yes, once again my wife had condemned me to an evening of agony by popping a Julia Stiles romantic comedy into the VCR.

Ten minutes after the movie began I said, “OK, she’s going to meet a guy who will be rich, handsome and will sweep her off her feet. Then she will discover his fatal flaw, while at the same time realizing that her best friend, her male best friend, is the one she’s been waiting for all her life. And he’s been there the whole time right under her nose.” We then spent the next hour and a half watching the characters lurching and jerking their way though the scenario I had laid out. What a surprise. Listen, if they wanted to make this plot interesting all they had to do make Julia’s best friend-turned-lover a woman and they certainly would have had my attention. But they didn’t.

What is it with Julia Stiles? She’s a talented actress and in my opinion very attractive. In fact I like to think of her as kind of a female Helen Hunt. Then why is it that every time I see her it’s in some sappy romantic comedy or an Oprah movie? Yeah, that’s her niche I suppose, but it’s time for this chick to play something a little darker. Look at Reese Witherspoon. She’s wonderful in romantic comedies, but she can also play the bitch. In fact that’s where she shines brightest.

Ah, what am I talking about? Julia Stiles is 25 years old, beautiful and talented, and has already co-starred with the likes of Harrison Ford, Matt Damon and Shirley MacLaine. There may be a few things that she needs to boost her career right now, but advice from a bitter old blogger is most certainly not one of them. I guess I just want you all to take notice of this girl so that when she finally does break out, and she will, and stands on the stage holding that golden statue I can smugly write a blog entitled I Told You So. Yes, even if the unthinkable happens and she forgets to thank me in her acceptance speech.

Report Card: The Commercials of Super Bowl Extra Large!

Well I just finished watching my second football game of the season. Yeah, I watched another game when I was visiting my parents in Tampa. The once proud Forty Niners gave the too cocky Bucs an unexpected whupping, which sure was fun to watch. Still, it was one of only four wins the Niners managed to scrape together this season, so really, how much taunting could I do?

How come I haven’t heard anybody call today’s game Super Bowl Extra Large? I knew it was painfully obvious and an easy target ever since I saw Super Bowl XL in print. And since pointing out the obvious and attacking easy targets is what this space is all about, well there’s my title. Still I thought I would have heard it elsewhere.

I can hear you all now. “Where have you been Leonard? That’s all they’ve been calling it on TV, radio and in the papers.” Really? Or maybe, “The reason you haven’t heard it anywhere except in your own dopey mind, Leonard, is because it doesn’t make any sense.” Oh. And stop calling me Leonard.

Anyway, I did watch the Super Bowl today, enjoyed it actually. So much in fact that I think I’ll watch another game next season, probably the Super Bowl again. Those of you who know me know that I am not one who is content to simply live a life of wanton luxury off the unimaginable wealth that flows to me from this blog. Oh no, not I. I do have a day job, and that job is creating TV commercials. And doesn’t that experience make me eminently more qualified to judge today’s commercials than, say, a loveable but woefully inadequate slob such as yourself? Not really. But it’s my blog so I get to write what I want. So may I present a report card for the commercials of Super Bowl Extra Large!

P.S. CLEANER: The sight of people walking around in biohazard suits to stay clean is not particularly funny at any time. In this age of chemical weapons and pending environmental catastrophe it’s downright insensitive, and creepy to boot. Still, the unintentional irony was not lost on me when this spot came up right after an ad from those sleaze-balls at Hummer. Grade: C

BUD LIGHT: A guy hides bottles of Bud Light around the office to raise morale. When he returns to work he finds that his co-workers are tearing the shit out of the place trying to find the stuff. Not a classic, or particularly clever, but the Bud Light folks understand that base humor and overkill are what’s needed in commercials that are, after all, attempts to get a bunch of drunk guys drunker. Grade: B-

FED-EX: Cavemen are funny. You know it. I know it. And the people at Fed-Ex know it. But this commercial is more than just a cheap laugh at the expense of our knuckle-dragging ancestors. When the hapless “everyman” caveman patiently tries to explain to his boss that he didn’t ship the package by Federal Express because it hasn’t been invented yet, the boss replies in caveman talk “That’s not my problem.” Anyone who has ever banged his head against the wall of inanities of an incompetent superior can relate to this one. Plus I got my only lol of the day when the frustrated guy comes out of the cave and boots a tiny dinosaur that happened to be passing by. Grade: A

ALLEVE: OK, we’re all sick to death of Star Trek, especially those relics who are still left over from its first incarnation. Still, Leonard Nimoy always seemed like an amiable chap and when we see that he now has to take a pain medication at a Star Trek convention so that he can make that stupid “Live long and prosper” sign, well it’s funny. He’s both making fun of his aging self and the goofballs who go to those things. We need more of that. Grade B+

AMERIQUEST: Spike didn’t like this one, and I expect a lot of you didn’t. There are some people who are immediately turned off by any humor that is of a slightly dark nature. These people are called weenies. Still, I can’t praise this one too much. Two doctors standing over a patient with those (what are they called, somebody help me here) electric paddles used to jump-start a heart. A fly buzzes by and one doctor zaps it while the other says, “That killed him.” Just as the patient’s wife and kid walk in. Not a high grade for this one—not because it’s dark but because it’s not very funny. Grade C+

BUDWEISER: The first time I saw those live-action horses playing football out in a field I thought it was clever and technically striking. So did a lot of people. So Budweiser, who apparently have no problem beating a dead…well you know the expression, gave us a variation this year. This time there are a bunch of woodland and farm animals watching the game when suddenly a shaved sheep runs onto the field. “Streaker,” says a cowboy, explaining the obvious in case a particularly slow viewer doesn’t quite get it. It’s nice that this beer company was considerate enough to try to include the slow children as well as our president. Grade B

NFL PROMO: These were a bunch of black and white photographs of NFL players holding the Vince Lombardi Trophy as they spoke about why it was so important to them. Nice photography: simple, clean and classy. Sure it’s just a game, but ultimately isn’t everything? Grade: B+

OVERSTOCK.COM: I love this “It’s all about the O” babe, like we aren’t supposed to know what the “O” really stands for. Did you notice they tried to replace her a while back with some hairy-armpitted Guatemalan chick who attempted to guilt us into buying their crap by showing us the poverty-drenched third-worlders who make the junk? “No way, Sister, bring back the “O” babe!” I yelled. And they heard me. Grade: B

BUD LIGHT: Football players on the field are distracted by the fans, who are creating images by holding up those colored cards. They’re pretty good—they create a bottle of Bud Light and then have it poured into a glass and even drunk. Thing is, when you know all this is done by some underpaid geek working 6,000 hours on a computer it takes away a good part of the magic. Grade B-

SPRINT: Two rich white guys in the locker room of their country club (and it is obvious that it’s a country club) are debating one of the most pressing issues of our day: Whose cell phone has the best features. One WASP brags that his has a crime deterrent, and then wings his phone into his friend’s head to prove his point. This spot does have a certain humorous surprise factor, but Spike hated it and she’s usually right about these things. Still, I think I laughed. Grade B-

UNITED AIRLINES: Didn’t United do that commercial with the piano music and a series of drawings showing a guy going through life and then retiring? He’s looking all lonely until he looks up and sees a plane flying overhead and realizes he’s now free to travel? I liked that spot. Today’s used a nice cutout animation (Think South Park but so much better.) about a guy going on a business trip. Why he’s suddenly in the forest with a bunch of knights fighting a dragon is anybody’s guess. Is this how these business assholes really see themselves? Still, United has to kiss their butts to sell tickets and this commercial looks pretty cool. Grade: B

DIET PEPSI: Was it really just a few years ago that I had trouble telling the difference between Owen Wilson and Jay Mohr? Well not anymore, babe. Owen Wilson has become one of our biggest movie stars and Jay Mohr, well, he’s in commercials like this. Hasn’t the idea that a can (or a bottle or a dog) becoming a big star surrounded by incredible wealth and adoring women been played to death? There were two of these tiresome things: In one a headphone-wearing Pepsi can becomes a famous hip-hop artist working for P. Diddy, (or whatever the hell he’s calling himself this week) and in the other—I don’t remember but I think it had something to do with Jackie Chan. Lamer than your tired old granny. Grade: D

BUDWEISER: You think I’m a real prick, don’t you? You think I have no heart and am completely made of stone? Well, how did you feel about that baby Clydesdale trying to pull the famous Budweiser beer wagon? Well I loved it, so there. Now excuse me, I have to go iron a skirt for tomorrow. Grade: A

NATIONWIDE: Another winner. In this one we see pretty-boy Fabio rowing a gondola in Venice. I’m already thinking that he’s starting to look a little ragged around the edges when, as if to make my point, he emerges from under one of the bridges and is made up to look like a ninety-year old. The message: Life comes quickly. (Insert dirty joke here.) Here’s another famous guy poking fun at himself. I liked it. Grade B+

HONDA: OK, this spot brings to life the shiny chick with the great bod that you see on all the truck mud-flaps. It’s sexist and demeaning to women, but that’s not the only reason I liked it. At the end she gets into a car that is driven by Yosemite Sam. It took me a beat or two to make the connection (which means Bush is still working on it) but eventually I realized that Yosemite Sam too is a common character on mud-flaps. Sure it’s got a shiny naked chick and a cartoon character, but it still made me think. Grade B

FIDELTY: The latest count showed that Paul McCartney has a net worth somewhere in the two billion dollar range, give or take a few hundred million. So why is he allowing Fidelity to use his image in TV commercials? So they can sell investments to fat-assed baby-boomers like you, of course. Still, it’s always nice to see Paul. Grade: B-

SPRINT: This was the take-off on Benny Hill, with four people chasing each other around an apartment. I’ll tell you how this came about. Some advertising guy who is a big fan of Benny Hill came up with this one. Hell, I myself once did a commercial that was a take-off on Mystery Science Theater. Why? Because I like the show. I was mildly amused by this one, that is until I remembered how Hill died a lonely man watching TV in his apartment. Grade B-

HUMMER: We open with a monster who looks even cheesier than the ones in the 1950’s Japanese movies (“It was supposed to, dummy!” lisps the art director.) destroying a downtown when he meets a giant robot doing the same. They fall in love and give birth to a little Hummer. The point? The new Hummer is a monster. Yeah I bet it is, at the gas pump. No, no, whine the idiots still defending this company. The H3 gets much better mileage than the original Humvees! Yeah, well so does a 747. I’m eagerly awaiting the headline that announces that AM General, the maker of these dinosaurs, has filed for bankruptcy. With the looming prospect of Venezuela and Iran turning off the spouts I’m hoping for later this year. Keep your fingers crossed. Oh, the commercial? So-so. Grade B-

BURGER KING: I really would have liked to be a fly on the wall for this creative meeting. OK everyone, what do drunken, overfed, belching guys watching a football game most want to see? A musical! Listen, the production values, with showgirls dancing around with slices of tomatoes and onions one their heads, were first rate. But a musical? Hey, I sat through Brokeback Mountain but this time you’re really asking for too much. Grade: C

SIERRA MIST: On occasion Kathy Griffin has made me laugh (she was on Seinfeld, after all) but some people seem to think she invokes laughter just by showing up. Not so. Like most anybody else, she needs a script. This security airport skit fell flat. In it I think they were giving someone a hard time (one of those guys from Stella) just to get his soda. Nah. Grade: C

TOYOTA: OK, we’ve got this guy speaking to his son in an obviously Spanish accent. There is some babbling about putting two things together or something. The gist is he learned English for the same reason that Toyota is making a hybrid. For the future. At worst this commercial is racist, though it’s far too confusing for anyone to ever figure out why. At best it’s a sappy appeal for illegal immigrants to buy a Camry. Either way I felt like taking a shower each time it came on. Stick with the baby Clydesdale. Grade: D

BUD LIGHT: All the “men” are sitting on the roof drinking beer, maybe having a bar-b-que. They exchange the clever things they told their wives so they could get away with such an ingenious scheme, ie. sitting on the roof. One came up to fix the roof, another to adjust his antenna. (Adjust an antenna? Who wrote this—some guy in his 70’s?) Don’t you love when they portray husbands as completely spineless and pussy-whipped? Listen Chumps, if you have to climb up on your roof in order to have a beer and get away from that evil harpy for a few minutes, maybe it’s time to stop drinking and begin saving up for a divorce lawyer. Grade: C

DOVE: This one was more of a PSA (Public Service Announcement. Oh, you did not already know that.) It’s for a charity started by the soap people to help young girls. Apparently the Dove company is feeling guilty for selling something as frivolous as a beauty product (they should talk to the tobacco people—they’d feel a lot better about themselves) so they’ve started some bullshit thing called the Dove Self Esteem Fund. They showed pictures of young girls with a drippy voice-over saying things like, “This girl thinks she is ugly. This girl thinks she is fat.” Well, I got some bad news ladies. She is and she is. Now I’m going to take a few minutes to decide to whom I should give my next charitable contribution: The American Cancer Society or the Dove Self Esteem Fund. Grade: C

FORD: When in doubt, hire Kermit. Who would have thought that the lovable frog would outlive his creator by so many years? Anyway, apparently everybody is pushing hybrids these days. You know we’ve definitely turned a corner when Ford, the American auto manufacturer who couldn’t see a gas shortage coming if it smacked them in the face like a cold fish, wants you to buy theirs. Kermit sings, “It’s not easy being green,” with “green” now representing environmental awareness, of course. Ford may be run by a bunch of greedy dopes, but you can’t blame ol’ Kermit for trying to keep his career going. And he hasn’t aged a bit. Grade: B-

GILETTE: Many years ago, Kiddies, right after the first double-edged disposable razors came out, there was a very funny parody on Saturday Night Live. It was a commercial that introduced a razor with three blades. There was even animation to show why three blades were better than two, and it ended with the tag line, “Three blades—because you’ll believe anything.” And of course the events of the last five years have proven that you will indeed. So here’s Gillette coming out with their new razor The Fusion, which has five blades! Along with animation that proves that five blades are better. Great production values for a product made for idiots. Grade: C

Lies

Everybody lies. If you just said, “I don’t!” well then, you’re a liar. And, as Shakespeare said, deceit truly is a tangled web we weave. Most of the time people don’t even realize when they’re being lied to. For example, did you question me at all when I attributed the famous “tangled web” quote to Shakespeare? You should have. It was Sir Walter Scott who wrote that famous line, and I knew it the whole time. Ha!

There are, of course, degrees of lying. Hence, the little white lie. “It’s still a lie!” scream the strict interpretists. “I just didn’t want to hurt her feelings!” whine the backbone-less weenies. Presidents lie. Yeah, and the sky is blue. Tell us something we don’t know. One president lied about getting a blowjob. I couldn’t have cared less, nor did any man who was honest with himself. What was he supposed to do, admit it in front of the whole country, and worse, his wife? Nah, as Lenny Bruce or Dennis Rodman or possibly both said, even if your wife walks in on you in bed with another woman, you deny it. We all know that.

And don’t start screaming that it’s only because it was Clinton that I feel this way. True, I admire the man’s intellect (It was nice having a smart president for a while, wasn’t it?) but I would have felt exactly the same way if Bush had lied about getting a blowjob. Which of course he never would. Not because he’s more honest, but I just don’t think he’d ever actually get a blowjob. Not since he stopped snorting coke, anyway. No, Bush’s lie was the type that got 100,000 innocent people killed. And that one does bother me, and yet there are millions of your fellow countrymen who don’t see the difference. But relax. I’m not going down that road. I no longer see any point in it.

This was the part where I was going to point out that lying isn’t even prohibited by the Ten Commandments, but it turns out that’s kind of a sticky area. The whole spiel about using the God’s name in vain deals with giving false statements in his name. This would seem to be referring mostly to legal oaths, but a broader interpretation could mean that it prohibits lying in general. My take on it, and aren’t you just dying to know, is God is saying, “OK, if you feel that you absolutely must lie, then go ahead. Just leave me the hell out of it.”

I gotta tell you those wacky nuns of my childhood had a strange interpretation of this commandment, not to mention a few others. (“Adultery” was defined as looking at dirty pictures. Well…yeah, OK.) The reason we shouldn’t use God’s name in vain, the wise sisters told us, is that every time you do God has to stop what he’s doing and come down to, or at least direct his attention to, Earth to see what you’re yammering about. He’s a busy man, well god actually, and your incessant sniveling is fucking with his schedule. It never ceases to amaze me what grown people are willing to believe.

OK, back to lying. Yes we all do it, but unlike killing or stealing or committing adultery we rarely do it for fun. (Oh some do, to be sure. I dated a bunch of those psycho-chicks.) Well I’ve decided to put the fun back in fibbing with that brand new feature The Lying Game! No, it’s different from our wildly popular Three Card Monte game. For one thing, this game has a lot more lies! Your job—find them!

And that’s all I have to say for tonight. Stay tuned and look for The Lying Game in Sunday night’s blog. God, this is so exciting I don’t know how you’re even going to sleep this weekend! (No, God, don’t come down—I wasn’t talking to you. Sorry to bother you.)

Survivor Recap: Week 1

Years ago when Survivor was new I discovered a cyber-columnist who wrote a recap on each week’s episode. It was fun to read, but I always thought it would be more fun to write. And now I can!

I’ve been a fan of this reality show since it first aired. In truth I think I was a fan before it aired. I remember reading an article about a new show that would leave people stranded on an island. Originally I thought the show would be more brutal, a real struggle to survive. As it turned out it is closer to a game show, but that doesn’t mean the people who play aren’t subjected to incredible hardships.

Before he died, Johnny Carson said (Why do I need to point out that he said it “before he died”? I would think that would be fairly obvious.) that he thought that what the contestants on Survivor went through was no big deal. He pooh-poohed the notion that the people on the show faced any real hardships at all. I loved Carson, but in this case he was wrong. Regular viewers of the show know that the Survivors face cold, hunger, dehydration, insect bites, vicious storms and much more.

And you can certainly count me in as one of those regular viewers. In, fact I like to think that I’m a step above being a regular viewer. I watched the very first Survivor and did not miss an episode for the first ten seasons. I don’t mean I watched most of them. I repeat: I didn’t miss a single one. Hell, if my employment attendance record had been comparable I’d probably still have a job. Last season, the eleventh, my Cal Ripkin-like streak finally came to an end after about 150 episodes. I forget the circumstances that forced me to miss the show, but I do know it was accompanied by an odd sense of relief. The pressure was finally off. And so the next week I returned to my regular viewing of Survivor.

And by the way, I don’t watch Survivor because I like reality shows. In fact I don’t watch any other reality show on a regular basis. I watch Survivor because it’s a great television program that also happens to be a reality show. It’s an extremely well thought out contest with all the drama, humor and spectacular photography you could want. And with enough new twists and changes to make each season seem nearly as fresh as the first.

Tonight marked the start of Survivor’s twelfth season. Now before you start going on about how time flies and I can’t believe it’s been that many years already and my, it seems like Jeff Probst hasn’t changed at all let me suggest that you calm your silly ass down. Survivor premiered on May 31, 2000, so it has been around less than six years and has therefore averaged about two seasons a year.

The current Survivor again takes place in Central America, this time on islands off the coast of Panama. I suspect that Central America’s repeated use by the producers is due to its warm, tropical weather and relatively stable political climate. I mean, Fallujah is warm too, but I don’t think we’ll be seeing any upcoming Survivor seasons from there. And the necessity for the warm weather is obvious. I’m not sure but I suspect that a season of Survivor from Reykjavik, with all the young babes huddling around a fire wrapped in heavy winter coats instead of frolicking on the beach in bikinis, might just be a bit of a drag on the ratings.

Whoa, I’m 600 words in and I haven’t even begun the recap of tonight’s show. Actually, I hate writing recaps, but here goes. The show is back to using 16 contestants. For the first time they have been divided into not two, not three, but four tribes (Thus the need for 16 rather than 18. We can’t be cutting people in half, no matter how big a boost it might give to the ratings.) The tribal lines have also been drawn by age and by sex. And by sex I mean gender, so don’t go getting yourself all worked up on me here.

There is one tribe of young women, one of older women, one of young men, and one of older men. And won’t it be a great day when we no longer have to refer to, say, a 98-year-old as an “older” adult? I mean, nobody can say for sure when “old” begins, but if you’re 98 years old you can rest assured that you are there.

The big twist this season is a tiny, sparse island dubbed Exile Island. Each week or so one lucky Survivor will be forced to spend a night here, all alone and with no food and possibly, as in tonight’s episode, no water. The good part is that somewhere on the island is a hidden Immunity Island, which belongs to the lucky Survivor who can find it. And it dawns on me that if you are not a viewer of the show you have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about. Tough toenails, you should have been be watching.

Fast forward. It turns out the older women lose the immunity challenge and must therefore choose one of their group to be the first person voted off the show. They also must send one of their people to spend the night on Exile Island. I could be wrong, but I think this unlucky soul’s name was Misty. (Despite being a huge fan, I usually am unable to reliably match names to faces until the show is down to its final three. Or two. Pitiful, I know.) Misty seemed to spend a good deal of time searching for the idol and though apparently she was unsuccessful in her search she decided that it would be a great strategy to give the impression that she had found it. I don’t know what this chick does in real life and I’m too lazy to check the CBS website that is right in front of me, but I tell you one thing: she sure ain’t no actress. With an eye-rolling display worthy of Jerry Colonna (Too obscure? Yeah, I thought so.) she informs Jeff that her stay on Exile Island had been “worth it.” Ooooooh!

If you continue to follow my coverage of Survivor this season you’ll discover that I will be making a lot of predictions about the show. You will also find that I am wrong a lot of the time, actually an incredibly high percentage of the time. But I haven’t let it stop me in the past and I’m not about to now. So tonight it seemed painfully obvious to me that Cirie would be wise to pack her bags.

Did I believe that she would be sent home because she was the only black in the group of four women? Hell, yeah. Are you kidding me? Is there anybody out there who has lived in this country for more than a day and a half and hasn’t picked up on the fact that we have a bit of a race problem? But there were other, less ugly, reasons for getting rid of Cirie. She is, self-admittedly, the least athletic of the four. She also said that she had never even camped out before and was afraid of the leaves on the ground. And not because of the leaves themselves, but rather what might be slithering under them. Before you scoff please remember that this is, after all, Central America and therefore it seems to me that Cirie is not such a fool.

It was for these very reasons that I did not want to see Cirie exit the show this early. Oh sure, we already know at this early point that her stay in Panama will be short. (First prediction! Now you should probably bet on Cirie to win it all!) But I needed her to stay for entertainment value. I can’t wait for the reaction the first time she encounters a snake or a lizard or a squirrel. It’s going to be awesome!

Also, did I mention that Cirie is the proud owner of a pair of incredibly large breasts? Watching her bounce around during the challenges, and I’m speaking from a strictly scientific point of view mind you, was truly a sight to behold. I’m sure that they manufacture bathing suits that are specifically designed to hold in a bounty of this size but it’s obvious that Cirie doesn’t know where to purchase one. At one point I was even worried that the editors were using so much pixilation to cover her constantly escaping breasts that they wouldn’t have enough left for the rest of the season.

OK, let’s cut to the chase. At Tribal Council the women in fact did not vote out Cirie. No, they committed a major Survivor error and voted out their strength too early in the game. In this case, way too early. They voted out the athletic and efficient Tina, a sports logger who refers to herself as a Lumberjill. (Get it? See, she’s not a Lumberjack, because she’s a woman. So she’s a Lumberjill. Christ, isn’t the 21st Century over yet?) Well, even Jeff, perhaps the most astute observer of the game on the planet, called them out on their decision.

So now we must wait until next week to see if the women suffer any repercussions from their choice. I do know one thing: There may not be any immediate impact but if Cirie wears that same bathing suit during the challenges there will most definitely be some fallout.

The Academy Gets It Right!

The Oscar (little R in a little circle) nominations for 2005’s Best Picture form an intriguing list for several reasons. First off, it’s the first time in years (I think I heard since 1981, but I’m too lazy to look it up. Was 1981 really that long ago? Whew. You know, when I was a kid they told us that by 1981 Man would have already been on Mars for a year. And I believed them. What a sap.) that the five directors of the Best Picture nominees are also nominated.

I have a movie buff friend who insists that if a movie is the best of the year then the director must without question also be the best. I personally don’t subscribe to that theory. After all, in my real life I’ve been directing TV commercials for 14 years now and I can remember more than many occasions when a superior commercial was produced with my name on it, and my feeble efforts had little, if anything, to do with the success. (And if any of my clients are reading this, that last sentence is all made up. I’m just doing jokes here. Heh-heh.) Sure, a movie is usually the director’s vision come to life, but there might be times when a brilliant script (on the level of, say, these blogs) or a remarkable acting performance is what elevates the film to greatness.

Another unique trait of this year’s nominated pictures is that I’ve seen them all. OK, I don’t really feel like doing it, but in the spirit of trying to keep your interest for at least another paragraph I’ll list the nominated flicks for you. You’re welcome. They are: Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Crash, Good Night and Good Luck and Munich. Whew, I’m exhausted.

And not only have I seen all five of these flicks, but I liked them all, very much and nearly equally! How rare is that? I think this illustrates that 2005 was a good year for good movies, but not for great ones. Is there a movie on that list that you would classify as a classic? A masterpiece? I don’t think so. In a different year one Godfather or Casablanca would have blown this whole pack away like Sonny at a tollbooth. Yet they are all good films, damn good really.

What I find strange is that often you will see three or maybe four good or even great films on the list of nominees, but then there always seems to be that clunker. “How did that thing get nominated?” I will ask, usually aloud and with poorly disguised disgust. Well there was a potential clunker this year too, to be sure, but due to the wisdom of the Academy voters who bravely flew in the face of most critics, Syriana was not nominated.

Syriana was a major disappointment for me. From the time I saw the poster I had high hopes for it. I was sure it would do for the oil industry what Traffic had done for the drug industry: And that is to explain it. Five seconds after Syriana ended a row of seniors sitting behind me (We tend to flock together, you know.) started yammering things like, “What was that all about?” and “OK , Mildred, next time you get to choose the movie.”

The odd thing was every movie critic I listened to or read seemed to absolutely love this movie. And even more oddly they almost universally agreed that they really didn’t understand it all that well, but somehow they were sure it was great. Huh? Here’s a head-ups, Chumps. If you make a movie that a few people don’t understand it still may be brilliant. If you make a movie that nobody understands, that’s just crappy movie making. How the hell do you come out of a movie confused and give it an A? And yes, I’m talking to you, Mr. Ebert. And to your little friend sitting next to you there. And so by Syriana not getting nominated for Best Picture I feel somehow vindicated, at least in my own petty and vindictive mind.

There are probably several other films that were not nominated but could have been. I hear that Walk the Line is a very good movie and perhaps it is. I haven’t seen it. Frankly I heard enough of that drug-addled hillbilly’s music since my Dad played it incessantly when I was growing up. And now that my head has finally cleared I’m not about to pay $9.50 to re-awaken that particular torture. I also thought that Match Point was a wonderful movie, and could have held its own against any of the five nominees. Ah well, Woody will once again have to be content with his nomination for Best Screenplay. Did you know he holds the record for nominated screenplays? You did not.

What’s that, what’s my pick for Best Picture? I can’t tell you. At least not yet. See, it’s all because of that dopey public access movie review show I do. My co-host and I aren’t scheduled to announce our awards to our clamoring public until next week, and since my co-host is probably reading this, well trust me, there will be hell to pay if I blab too early. (I have to be very careful, you know--there might be an overlap between the six people who read this blog and the eleven people who watch the show.) Tell you what, I’ll just give you a hint: I chose my best picture before the nominations came out, and it is mentioned in this article. I’ll even give you a second hint: It’s not Syriana.