My Escape from the Oscars

Last night's Oscar show has received such a universal panning that my saying, I told you so, seems more than a little redundant. I did sneak a peek and suffered through about 35 minutes of it. That was more than enough to convince me that someone should be brought up on charges for hiring James Franco and Anne Hathaway as hosts. Talk about deer caught in the headlights. In the 35 minutes I wasted on this train wreck, I saw two people I've never heard of before kill two minutes talking about the Oscar show continuing on ABC through 2020. Oh, Goody.

I saw the Oscars presented for Best Musical Score, Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Effects Editing. The last two are some of the awards they should pass out at a rubber-chicken lunch the day before. I also had to endure the award for Best Makeup and a long-boring-monotone-read-off-a-card acceptance speech for Best Costume Design. Some people, including Kevin Spacey, sang. And then several more minutes were wasted passing out more Oscars that no one cares about like Best Documentary Short. Ugh.

Obviously the show's producers saved money on writers this year. I didn't hear one funny line during the half hour plus that I watched.

I tuned in about 9:40 and tuned out around 10:15. Thirty minutes of my life I'll never get back.

In the spirit of movies, though, I thought I'd share my views of one of the movies I watched last night while not watching the Oscars: Ticking Clock.

A serial-killer whodunit starring Cuba Gooding Jr. It's actually not a whodunit because you see whodunit right from the get-go. It's actually a clever plot line that suffers from a half-assed script and lackluster direction. For the buck I spent on it at Red Box, it was a deal. It's not all bad.

Gooding plays a crime reporter with an assistant district attorney girl friend -- who is only his girlfriend in this movie so that Gooding has a reason to go to her home and find her murdered. They interact for all of 30 seconds before she storms away and he is left to go visit her at her home. He is separated from a wife, who also serves no real purpose other than to try to flesh-out Gooding's character. She also is only on camera for a couple of minutes.

Because this is a movie, Gooding decides to single-handed catch his girlfriend's killer, who is also suspected of killing a few other people. The killer keeps a journal in which he not only chronicles his various murders, but also lists the names of his future victims and the dates on which he will kill them. Luckily for Gooding's character, he finds the journal. Now the race is on to prevent the future killings and nab the murderer.

To keep from revealing a plot twist, I won't expose any more of the story. With a tighter script, this movie could have been quite good. A few aspects are a little farfetched, such as Gooding's character going after this guy alone when he has a good buddy in the police department. The director, Ernie Barbarash, whoever he is, seemed content to just get the film made and into the can. Doesn't appear he put in any late nights trying to add some suspense or coax a little more out of his actors.

I suspect The King's Speech was about as suspenseful.

Is it worth seeing? For a buck, sure. It beat watching the Oscars.

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Oscar Night: You're Kidding; the Winner is Who?

It's Oscar day! I struggle to contain myself. Producing all of the suspense of bread rising, Hollywood's annual salute to itself is one of those events that is difficult, at least for me, to even bother turning on the TV for. A bunch of movies I haven't seen, starring a gaggle of actors I usually either don't know or else don't like, awards for categories I don't care about all wrapped up in an overproduced extravaganza of over-hyped glitz. Yawn.

Of the nominees for Best Picture, I've seen Winter's Bone and Inception -- both Red Box rentals. Winter's Bone was made with a budget of, perhaps as much as, $300. Its plot has neither a beginning nor end. It's 90 minutes of nothing much happening and then it's over. It must be art because it certainly isn't entertainment. If you want my opinion of Inception, scroll back through my January blogs and look for one titled The Movie, Inception: Who's on First? By the time I finished watching this movie my head ached and my eyes were swimming in my head. In other words, I don't give a damn what movie wins Best Picture.

Now if it were the Red Box awards, at least I'd have a prayer of seeing more than one or two of the nominees, and might even have a favorite or two to root for. My senior year in college, the group of fraternity brothers I roomed with had our own academy awards. It was late in spring during our last term. We had been watching a bunch of B movies throughout the year because, well, that's what you do when you are in college with nothing to do and no money to do it with. We were able to pool our fiscal resources and come up with a fifth of Jack Daniels to pass around as we watched, but that was the extent of our bankroll.

I think we called our awards The Masterpiece Theater Awards. I remember when it came to the awards night, we basically had two films under consideration -- both gawd-awful turkeys that were so bad, they were funny. The first was 1968's The Swimmer starring Burt Lancaster. In a nutshell the plot followed some sap (Burt's character) as he swam across some suburb of NYC from backyard swimming pool to backyard swimming pool. He would interact with the people whose pools he was swimming across. Wow, it was riveting.

The second nominee for our Masterpiece Theater Awards was The Last Rebel, starring Broadway Joe Namath. It was a spaghetti western made in 1971. In this epic, Namath's character is a Confederate soldier who either doesn't know that Lee surrendered or doesn't care. In any event, he continues fighting. All I can remember about it is that the dialogue (It was made in Europe, remember.) was dreadful and the acting even worse. No doubt there were film schools pumping out student's films with bigger budgets and better production quality. It made For a Few Dollars More look like Citizen Cane.

In the spirit of unmotivated slackers everywhere, I think we voted them a tie.

At least in those days the real Academy Awards usually featured movies people had seen and were willing to stay up until midnight to root for. For the most part today's nominees seem to be tomorrow's best hope for, well, the Masterpiece Theater Awards.

I'll be turning in early.

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Oh, Charlie, We Thought We Knew Ya

I'm a guy, so I give a little leeway to Charlie Sheen. Let's face it, brothers, if we are truthful with ourselves, we are all a little envious -- at least a little. Sheen has pulled in around $20 million this year just for his work on Two and a Half Men. Granted he probably spent most of it on drugs, booze and chicks, and the rest he wasted. (Sorry, that's paraphrasing someone else's quote, but I just couldn't pass it up.); but at least he had it to spend.

For the women out there reading this, screaming at their monitor that Sheen is a pig and needs to grow up, I want to assure you that we are on the same side of that issue. I don't contend that he is either a class act or mature. I'm just saying that he is having more than his share of fun.

If the news reports are to be believed, he interrupted a four-way-adult frolic in the Bahamas, where he had jetted on a private plane, to blast his Two and a Half Men boss. A melt down that apparently cost him (and everyone else connected to the show) his cushy TV gig. Let me be clear, I don't envy his intelligence, or lack thereof. He is obviously an idiot. Do you remember when he sent Obama a letter asking him to begin an investigation into 9/11 because he is convinced George W. Bush ordered the World Trade Center attack? I submit exhibit No. 2 for your consideration: Who in his right mind walks away from three women stacked up in his bed to rip his boss via long distance for a radio show? Yes, he is quite the genius.

Let's see, where were we? Oh, yeah, he's on a foursome! This is where some of the envy should be kicking in, boys. Let's identify the players; shall we. There's Charlie, of course; Ummm, the obligatory porn starlet, his kids former babysitter and an ex-wife -- not Denise Richards, that would be just too good to be true.

The guy is 45 years old. At 45, I was reminiscing about my "good ol' days" and wondering what the hell happened to my mojo; Sheen is still waist deep in his good ol' days and showing no signs of slowing down. Generating $20 million a year, of course, does a lot to grease the good-time wheels -- evidently even post age 45. Perhaps had I invested in gold....

So here is Sheen, in the sunny Bahamas, with a who's who of men's fantasies: a porn star and his kids babysitter. Moreover, he must be such a good time that even an ex-wife tags along. For a guy's ego, he hit the trifecta.

Yes, yes, I get that Sheen needs some help. I'm not disputing that. I'm just saying that he is currently on an adventure most guys would love to be on. When he finally sobers up -- if that ever happens, he is probably going to have some buyer's remorse over blowing the highest paying acting job on TV. That may take a while to set in, however, because rumor has it that he is writing a tell-all book about his time on Two and a Half Men that he expects an advance on of at least $10 million. Good work if you can get it. I see another Bahamas junket in his future.

Obviously one needn't be smart to make obscene amounts of money. 

The fantasy lives on.

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Greenville, SC, Where Life's Pace Is Slow and the Traffic Even Slower

Generally I am very happy with my life in Greenville. Having escaped the rude, obnoxious jerks who are overrepresented among the South Florida population, I am embracing the kinder-gentler folks inhabiting South Carolina's Upstate.

Living is less rushed, less desperate here than in Palm Beach County. I could spend an afternoon sitting on a bench along Main Street, where traffic flows with the alacrity of tree sap, and never hear the bleating of a horn, or a motorist screaming an invective at another. You could fall asleep at a red light without being awakened by an impatient driver behind you when the light turns green, then red, then green again. It's civility almost to the point of silliness. I love it.

A down side, however, is that this civility translates into a palpable lack of urgency on every street and freeway. Prozac appears to be the drug of choice among a large set of drivers who can't seem to get out of their own way. For these under-motivated motorists, posted speed limits are something to shoot for, but never quite attain. And this is the prevailing attitude in an area where the speed limits are universally ridiculously low. I-85 is a posted 60 miles per hour and I-385 a ludicrous 55 mph -- both are six-lane expressways! Surface streets are no better.

Typically the three lanes of I-85 are flowing something like this: The far-right lane is moving along about 5 mph below the speed limit; the middle lane at about at the speed limit; and the far-left lane at 2 or 3 mph above the speed limit. It's maddening. After spending nearly 25 years racing up and down I-95 between Miami and West Palm Beach, in Greenville I feel like I'm in a slow-motion replay of the 5 PM traffic report. If you are traveling slower than 75 mph on I-95, you are going to get knocked into the median by a school bus or a street sweeper. It's Mr. Toad's Wild Ride 24/7.

Surface streets are even worse. No one driving a surface street even pretends to have anywhere to go. Sometimes following these people plodding along I worry that if I go any slower, I am going to go back in time. Here's how you make a right turn. Approach the street or parking lot entrance, come to a complete stop, flip on your right turn signal, carefully turn the steering wheel to the right, step on the accelerator and ease into the turn. "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, GET OUT OF THE EFFING WAY!"

Yes, generally I am very happy with my life in Greenville. I just have to learn that anywhere worth getting to will still be there tomorrow and the day after.

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My Brush with Higher Education

I have a friend who is working on her PhD in education. Among the requirements for her course in curriculum philosophy she has a weekly chat-room discussion with her professor and classmates. It takes place in the early evening. I have been monitoring this chat room with her. To keep up with the discussions, I have also been reading the assigned material.

I was never aware there are so many formal approaches to education. Our public schools basically employ a philosophy called Essentialism. This approach recognizes the need for providing knowledge in certain basic subjects -- reading, writing, math, civics, history, science and so forth -- and rating a student's grasp of the material as the basis for moving that student on to the next grade level. The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) program tests to this approach.

Essentialism is about the only way to educate masses of kids -- some who clearly don't want to be in a classroom or don't have any real aptitude to learn -- and provide them with the bare minimum with which to either move on to college or into the work force. It's a common-denominator approach that drags down more gifted students in the hope of not losing slower or less motivated students in the process. Consequently, many college freshmen spend the first year in remedial courses teaching them what should have been learned in high school. If this were a scholarly paper, I would research some numbers on this statement to present here. The information is readily available. But I am just blogging here; I'll leave it to you to do the research, if you are interested.

Virtually every other recognized, formal approach to education is aimed at more motivated students, in smaller classrooms with more specialized educators. Progressivism is an educational philosophy that rather than teaching basic subjects, concentrates on capitalizing on a student's individual interests, to present learning material. It relies much more on elective courses in place of the basics.

Perennialism focuses on truths passed on from the classic education of the Greeks and Romans. Truth is truth, knowledge is knowledge, and neither ever really changes. Yawn.

Somewhat conservative in my thinking, I got a charge out of Multiculturalism and Social Reconstructionism. These two approaches basically view traditional educational philosophy as being the product of white, homophobic, misogynist men. As such, it ignores our role as global citizens and views gays, lesbians, minorities, women and the disabled as second-class participants in the world order. Teaching traditional history, for instance, does nothing but reinforce negative views the aforementioned groups have about themselves: yea, white men; boo, everyone else. I guess that's one way to look at it.

My point in sharing all of this is that in monitoring this chat room that is populated with public school educators, I am filled with dread. That some of them don't seem overly bright is just one concern. That many of them would love to kick Essentialism aside for a more Multiculturalism approach is a huge concern. These are the very people who will be running our public education in 10 or 20 years. As a group, they are quite bitter about NCLB and how it forces them to teach certain material like, ummm, English. "What about students who don't speak English?" they would probably ask.

Because from their comments I can deduce that many of these chat-room participants are politically somewhat left of center -- as is the professor, I'd like to be able to point out to them that if it weren't for the federal government taking our tax dollars, laundering them through Washington and then giving them back to us as federal aid to schools, the feds couldn't attach any strings to local education. It's "Big" government at work. But I can't comment in this chat room, nor would I have the time to explain basic 8th-grade civics to people who don't believe civics a worthy subject for schools.

The lunatics are in charge of the asylum, or soon will be. This has been a real education for me.

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Ah, the Joys of Home Ownership

Well, my one-day "Gone Fishin'" blog break turned into three. With the temperature in the 70s again on Saturday and nothing but blue sky as far as the eye could see, I decided to embark on a couple of projects around the outside of the house that I thought were going to have to wait another six or eight weeks.

The steps that lead from my carport down to the backyard have wood railings on both sides. One of those railings had been in need of replacing for at least two years. I can pinpoint the time because my sister and her husband were here for a visit and I mentioned it to him. Ultimately my goal was to try to nudge him into fixing it during their 8-day visit. He is a master carpenter (From back in the day when there was such a thing.) and he could have made short work of it. I didn't come right out and ask him. That would have been impolite and ungracious -- certainly not character traits of mine. No, I attempted to finesse him. I phrased it as a request for advice: "Do you think that just the railing can be replaced or am I going to have to replace both the upper and lower railings and all the supporting spindles?"

Five years ago, that simple question would have been sufficient to motivate him to leap into action. He always found a project or two to accomplish during his visits. Some jobs were as minor as cleaning out a flower bed of weeds and dead plants at a condo I was renting in West Palm Beach, to enlarging the master bedroom closet in my home in Boynton Beach. Over the years he replaced a window in the master bath with a door that opened out to the pool deck. He dry-walled over an extra doorway from the living room to the hall. I guesstimate that he was responsible for adding about $15,000 to the equity of my home in Boynton. He was always busy, busy, busy when visiting. Ah, the good old days.

This last trip, however, he wasn't having any of it. He was on vacation and that was that. He glanced toward the damaged railing, replied, "You can replace just the top railing," and kept on walking. I had obviously lost my mojo.

I looked at this rotting railing for the next two years. It was so bad, it was actually crumbling in places. Time to fix it. Buying the materials and doing the actual work occupied my Saturday afternoon. In fact, because more of the structure was rotted than I first believed, an extra trip to Home Depot was required to buy more wood. The job dragged on.

Although the sky was overcast and the temperature about 20 degrees cooler Sunday than Saturday, I was committed to getting the job finished. I had to paint the new sections and old sections as well. Then it was on to project No. 2.

One reason this railing was uber weathered is because rain runs off the roof right on to it. The spot on the railing where the trouble began is immediately below where water cascades off the roof. Some guttering was in order to prevent the same thing happening again.

Long story, short: After three more Home Depot runs (Does anyone get everything needed for any home project during the initial trip to the home improvement store?), and four hours of working and cussing, That job was completed as well.

After all of that, I just didn't feel like blogging. I figured you could wait another few hours to learn how I spent my weekend.

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Gone Fishin'

Basically you should consider this my "Gone Fishin'" sign. Of course, I don't fish. Wouldn't if I could. I already have a million and one ways to waste time. I sure don't need to do something that involves handling bait. "Gone Fishin'" is just my way of saying, I'm taking the afternoon off. Today's weather is way too good to waste inside writing a damn blog that almost no one sees. The sun is shining; the temperature is 74 degrees; I can't sit inside any longer.

My plan is to head downtown, sit in front of the Blueridge Brewery, and quaff a couple of Brown Bag Porters out of my "Ugly" mug. Certainly this doesn't show much in the way of ambition, but it's Friday and I'm ready for a break.

Spring may not yet be here, but I'm going to make the most of this welcomed preview.

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