An Oscar Intervention

I don’t know about you, but after watching the Oscars last night, all I could come up with was a big fat “meh.”


For years it’s seemed that the Oscar show, once the Golden Boy of the Hollywood calendar, has lost his shine. Like a washed up star, no longer exciting or relevant, there has been little reason to buy a ticket to this performance. Which is sad. I love the Oscars; the montages, the musical numbers—when they work—and the gowns. Yes, the gowns can almost be reason enough to watch.


The producers of the Oscars know they are in trouble. In a season that’s become bloated with a number of other award shows (Golden Globe, Grammys, Golden Collar, Peoples Choice & Spirit), they are no longer the only gig in town. And last night’s pandering to the experience of going to the movies didn’t call back the joys of the theatre so much as left a whole bunch of those under 30 wondering, huh? What’s a theatre? It’s sad. A show devoted to excellent stories that show, not tell, and they spent the entire night telling.

Here’s my quick and dirty list of 10 ideas for making the Oscars more entertaining, educational and more of an experience.
1-No Hosts: Unlike the Grammys, the demographic spreads far and wide for the Oscars. No host can do justice to every type of entertainment that must be done. And pandering to one extreme or the other (Anne Hathaway for the young, Billy Crystal for the old?) is lame! Why not kill the idea of a host and just have people come up doing what they do best. Want a splashy musical number at the front? Hire Hugh Jackman or Daniel Radcliff to tap their way across the stage. Want gravitas, add Morgan Freeman. Want to go balls out wild? Get Sacha Baron Cohen up there and find out who he channels: Borat, Bruno or the Dictator when it’s time to get the energy up.


2-Let the fans take part: Take a note from a great You Tubea great You Tube project where fans signed up to remake 15 seconds of Star Wars in any way they saw fit, whether animated, with sock puppets or with dogs wearing earmuffs and stitched it together to see the powers of the internet and technology blend together into a certain form of genius. Why not let people send in acceptance speeches for movies that didn’t get nominated or remake a Hollywood classic and see where it goes?

3-Go Global: I could see this great video montage where you see a dozen villagers in a small dusty town in India gathered around a worn out TV watching Titanic, then a young Japanese student on the bullet train watching Fargo on his phone and then a retired couple watching The Artist on a laptop on a boat, and finally a young teenage girl who lives in a trailer park in Oklahoma. She’s in front of a mirror in the bathroom, the Oscars are playing in the background and she’s practicing her Oscar speech and the she morphs into Hillary Swank, who presents an award. Not only do we see how movies are viewed today, but we get to see the dreams they inspire.

4-Educate: If you’re going to give awards for things that nobody understands (like sound mixing), then show us what a movie looks like without it. Oops, they’ve done that, and it only makes the show longer. Scratch that.

5-Create Two Best Categories: Since it looks like it is impossible that a comedy will ever win Best Picture, create a comedy category. Then pictures that people really liked and actually went to the theatres to see, like Bridesmaids, will get the recognition they deserve.

6-More dogs and puppets. The best moments of last night’s show were seeing Kermit and Miss Piggy and Uggie the dog from The Artist. Enough said.

7-Dead Man Watching: Seein the stars who've recently passed is always a bit poignant, a bit surprising (“really, he’s gone?”) and a weird popularity contest where the audience often starts off hard clapping or getting emotional about someone huge and then it tapers off after the first twenty or so. I’m just wondering how it is that Steve Jobs garnered a mention last night. Is he a member of the academy? Not  sure if this needs changed or just sped up.

8-Take a Commercial Break: Steal a trick from the Super Bowl and give us some commercials worth watching. For those who never get out to movies, give them a tasty 30 second moment to savor. Isn’t it ironic that a movie awards show has no great mini-movies to watch during the commercials? I thought of this last night when watching the commercial for the Nissan Leaf which was more compelling than most of the show.

9-Shorter, please. For God’s sake, can’t they make the show shorter? Just charge a lot more for the commercials, like they do for the Super Bowl and have fewer commercials.  Fewer commercials=shorter air time. 

10--Bring back Cher.

There were going to be all sorts of pictures and hyperlinks but blogger and my internet connection here in the Netherlands are in a pissing match for worst behaved, which is leaving my post to suffer. 

A Global Voice

And I-I-I-I-I will alwaaays love you!!

From the bowels of a shopping center in Bali to the soaring heights of...another shopping center in Chengdu China, we felt Whitney Houston's haunting presence as her iconic song from The Bodyguard played around the world in 2005, 2006 and 2008.  

Never mind that the song came out years earlier, it remained a hit in locales far and farther away.  I didn't realize that Whitney Houston was just three years older than us, which kind of makes her passing feel more tragic, she was just a kid.

Rest in Peace Whitney and know that no matter how huge the world is, it felt smaller when we heard a song from home.  That, I guess, is the endearing power of music.

The Scent of a Story

“I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” Lt. Col. Kilgore, Apocalypse Now.

I don’t know what napalm smells like and I’m pretty sure if I smelled it, I would run in the other direction, but there’s a reason this is a famous movie quote.  The sense of smell is not only one of the largest memory triggers, but a smell can transport you in a place faster than any airline flight. 

I’ve been writing a lot about travel lately, putting my characters in exotic locales: a thatched hut in Bali, a muddy river in Thailand, a sun-soaked piazza in Italy, and a dusty carnival midway in the American Southwest.  Images, dialogue, and description are all important, but I have a hard time remembering to insert smells into my scenes. Which is kind of weird, since there’s nothing I notice more than how something smells. 

In Asia it was the fumes from motor scooters, cigarette smoke, and the sweet aroma of plumeria that tells me I’m no longer home. In Los Angeles it’s the smell of the ocean mixed with smog and bougainvillea.  

Today is a tough day to write about scents because I have this nasty head cold, part 2 (it feels like a repeat of something that kicked my ass back in early January) and so as hard as I try to smell, nothing is coming through.  It makes me wonder if Wasabi, the best sniffer in the house, ever has this problem. 

Happy New Year!

Okay, maybe it's not New Year's Day for the Gregorian Calendar folks, but for the Chinese and Koreans today is the beginning of the new year.  I had a bunch of good intentions and resolutions on January 1st to post a blog entry, but ended up laid low by a nasty flu bug.  Other than school starting, a visitor from Japan, torrential rains, and a bit of snow there's not been much going on here since then.

I've been thinking of a lot of resolutions and goals I wish to accomplish this year.  One of them is blogging more frequently.  Let's hope I come up with something compelling to share or this will be a painful resolution for all of us.

In the meantime, I'll be writing more about writing, a bit about travel--we've got a few trips on the agenda for 2012--some about the home front and it's an election/Olympic year, so that might provide some fodder.  Oh, and I'm going to be embarking down the self-publishing road, but that's another story.

Here's to a powerful year of the Dragon, let's get this party started.  

My Own Private Nano

This month burst forth with such promise.

A vast open calendar with time to write during Nanowrimo.

I started with a bang, producing 6,000 words those first days.

Then I tripped, images stubbornly faded. words lost.

The universe threw one distraction after another.

For seven days Dylan had no school.

I heard a lot of “Mom can I get a ride to the mall?”

Mike and Phyllis were in town before their annual sojourn.

It was time to catch up with them while they visited.

I can’t say I didn’t welcome the distractions.

A weekend retreat at the beach got me on back on track.

I added another 10,000 words.

Scenes arrived in vivid hues, but the plot meandered.

Thanksgiving came—enough said.

And then my mom called the morning after Thanksgiving.

My dad was in terrible pain, an SOS from his gall bladder.

A trip to the ER, where he spent the night in the hospital.

He came home the next day and was doing better, then worse.

Back to the ER on Saturday morning.

Heart complications along with the gall bladder infection.

His heart rate was all over the place and his breathing labored.

Time for a ventilator.

Surgery was scheduled, then postponed. 

Still not out of the woods.

My brother Miles and I are flying to Colorado tonight.

We adult children need to gather.

Don’t know the ending to this story, hoping for the best.

In the meantime, Dylan tells me that she likes my novel.

That she wants me to finish it. She has nothing to read.

We stared at my charts, plotlines and character sketches.

I figure this has to be done on my time.

Three days left in this month; then no guilt if I don’t write.

I’m looking towards the new year where I can begin.

My own private Nano.

Fear and Fantasy

The other day I heard an interview on NPR about fear and fantasy, which the interviewee was saying were two of the strongest human emotions. Both are embraced in our home during Halloween, which is our favorite holiday. Even the dog is not spared and must wear a costume.

This weekend we shuffled our way to the Thrill the World Thriller dance, a Bollywood Dance party and a karaoke party. We were formally the 99% and 1%, but now roam the land as 100% zombie.

We also went to the zombie walk Sunday but couldn’t get our act together to dress up. We did love these two outfits.

I know the Johnny Depp, Sweeny Todd and Jack Sparrow aren’t zombies, but aren’t they cool?

Andy was kind of a mini celebrity Saturday night with people stopping him on the street asking to take a picture. It was like when we were in China and he was the only white guy in the village we visited.

Dylan took more of a flight of fantasy this year and made her costume out of a 100 feathers and 20 sticks of glue, using her handy dandy glue gun.

I realized that even dressed as a zombie I still look like a panda so I figure I might as well embrace my inner panda this Halloween.

Some of my favorite writers (Stephen King—in his early days, Neil Gaiman, Phillip Pullman) explore fear and fantasy, which is where I’m going to reside for the next month. November is National Novel Writing Month, (Nanowrimo) where thousands of writers try to write a 50,000 word novel (200 pages) in one month. I’ve done this twice before and wrote two novels, The Edge of Mediocrity and A Million Dead Writers. The results were not pretty, but they’re not supposed to be. The purpose of this event is to provide an opportunity for a giant brain dump (zombies would love that) and to get the essence of a story onto the page.

Ever since reading Stephen King’s, The Stand, when I was in 8^th grade, I’ve been fascinated with dystopian stories. So, I’m going to take a stab at writing one during this Nanowrimo. I’ve got a title, main characters, a theme and some subplots, but I’m still trying to figure out the main plot. Suffice it to say, the scary at our house will not end on Halloween.

What I did over my summer vacation

It's difficult to believe summer is over when the temperatures here in Portland hover in the mid-nineties, but with Dylan back at school and Halloween decorations up at Freds, the summer of 2011 has slipped from our tanned fingers.

Actually, I only made it to the beach twice this summer. The rest of the time I'm sad to report, was spent locked in my lonely garret while I finished my book. But, you may wonder, wasn't that finished in mid-July?

Well yes, a first draft was completed. Then I celebrated for moment before it was time to sit down and apply the edits that my friend Athena (who also completed her book) suggested. In early August I attended the Willamette Writers Conference and pitched my book to an agent who loved the idea and wanted to see the entire manuscript. Which was exciting and validating. I only had one problem, I pitched a different book than what I written. Instead of stories and essays, I pitched a collection consisting of just short stories. At least ten to be exact, maybe twelve.

So instead of hanging by the pool, pulling weeds in the garden or inviting friends over for frosty cocktails I spent hours rewriting four short essays into five long stories.

Not only was I writing new stories (one up until late last night) but I was editing and seriously rewriting the earlier stories, thanks to my erudite and patient friend Rhonda, who could seriously start another career as an editor.

Today I sent off the entire finished manuscript to the agent with a quick kiss and short prayer. I hesitate to say that the book is finished. There are two more stories I'd like to add, but I need a few weeks to complete them. I also need a break.

So while the sun shines, and the is weather warm, I'm going to see what I can do about expanding my summer just a wee bit longer. Maybe a road trip to the beach. And for my local friends, I'm now available for drinks!

A Birth Announcement

I am thrilled to announce the arrival/completion of my book, Dispatches From An Only Planet. After ten months of writing, critiquing, rewriting and editing, the first completed draft was finished at 11:58 pm, July 13, 2011. It came in at 46,044 words and weighing a hefty 172 pages.

Dispatches From an Only Planet is a collection of seven short stories and six essays, all revolving around the theme of travel. The stories feature:

A couple of uber travelers who pare down their baggage to the point that they find they can no longer carry a relationship.

A young girl who runs away from a life of diminished expectations only to discover her home during one terrifying moment on a carnival midway.

A grieving mother who magically finds she can speak every language in the world, only to realize she has to have the one conversation she's put off for a year.

The essays probe and explore questions like:

what happens when a psychic plans your route?

what is pigeon soccer, and

where do you go when you've fallen out of love in the City of Love?

Within the pages of Dispatches From an Only Planet you'll find a place where love, murder, hubris, passion and a bit of magic collide, because travel can do that to people.

So what next? I hand off the manuscript to a trusted friend or two for a complete edit. Then I pitch to agents at the Willamette Writer's conference in August, and with any luck this puppy will eventually be picked up by agents and a publishing house. If not, I may explore self-publishing options. Whatever the result, it will find it's way out into the world. In the meantime I'm going to take a well-deserved break (have been pushing this out since June 24th, working 10 hour days) and get back to work on my other project; a screenplay that will also be pitched to agents in August.

ps, unless you are an agent, I won't be sending any copies out until it is published. At that point I'll be pimping them out for everyone to buy a copy!

Paint by Numbers

48 hours: since I’d taken my last shower. In that time I had run through high grasses chasing a run away ATV, sat at a dusty rodeo and pow wow in Arlee Montana, jumped in a raging river, strummed my ukulele by a campfire, slept in a tent and drove 9 hours to Portland. I don’t think I’ve ever been dirtier.

5 chickens released at the rodeo. 60 kids chasing the chickens. If you caught one, it was yours. Bet mom loved that one.

22 years since I’d last been to a pow wow, and eaten an Indian taco. A zillion calories, but worth it!

32 years ago I dressed in cowboy duds and barrel raced. I remember like it was yesterday the time the horse I was riding decided to take a roll while I was still sitting on him. My mom ran from the stands, cleared a 10 foot fence and sprinted toward me, yelling “My saddle, my saddle!” To her credit, she spent a thousand or so hours digging worms to pay for the saddle.

20 years since I’d last lived in Missoula.

100’s of memories prompted by seeing the old dorm, climbing the M and eating where I used to work.

11 months since our dear friends moved from Portland to Missoula. Happy to report that they are thriving and doing great. Still sad they’re no longer three blocks away.

6 days till Dylan returns from a visit with her grandparents. They have a roster of activities planned including sewing lessons and road trips. I have that much time to finish the first full draft of my book. Earlier drafts have been completed but I now have a push date to get this whole puppy squeezed out.

Weekend Update

Imagine my confusion this morning when I was reading Salon and The Daily Beast, both which had articles about BBQ's, beaches, sunshine and things that sounded like summer. Hmmm, I'm wondering. Who wants to read about summer when it's still November? Barely 50 degrees, raining every week, and almost every day since February, the skies a funeral grey; it feels like winter in Portland and not Memorial Day Weekend. We've lived here for 18 years and each year the winters last longer. Or maybe it's just us getting old.

Lucky Dylan left this morning to go to Washington DC with her 8th grade class. This is her second trip without us, and first time without any family along. She joins 37 of her classmates while they take in Washington DC in a whirlwind of activity, starting at 7:30 each morning and ending at 9:00 each night. And she gets to do it in shorts; it's supposed to be in the 90's in DC!

As you know, Dylan's an old pro at flying and traveling. She was two months old when she took her first flight and we really couldn't count how many she's taken since that one. But she has at least one classmate--maybe more--for whom this is their first airplane flight. Imagine the excitement and thrill this trip will be for the kids who've never been on a plane, never been to the East Coast, never seen a building older than 100 years, or ridden a subway! Moments like these made me the traveler I am today. Maybe a few of these kids will come back wanting more--a lot more!

Andy and I celebrate a weekend sans kids (pup is going to have a daycare sleepover) while we revel in doing the really exciting things that we did before having a family. Napping, going to two or three movies in a row and eating out at ridiculously expensive restaurants. We have an excuse, it's our 18th wedding anniversary this weekend.