Squeal Like a Fan: Teen Obsession and Growing Up In Pop Culture

I remember the biggest craze, growing up, was either the fist fights between moms at Christmas over cabbage patch dolls OR The New Kids On The Block.  I remember the way my pubescent female friends swooned over the boy band.   I remember the clothes, the albums, the Trapper Keepers, the branded textbook covers and even the brown paper bag ones, scribbled in pen, with the words, “Mrs. Jordan Knight” or “Mrs. Donnie Wahlberg” or “Mrs. Joey McIntyre” and maybe one or two, “Mrs. Other New Kid.” Nobody loved Jonathan. What was the other one named, Marlin? Merrill? Oh, well.

But then these girls grew up and stopped obsessing over these boys from Boston and went onto other interests, “Mrs. Dylan McKay-Walsh.” Um… Ew.

So, now that these same girls are moms and they are forced to reckon with their past obsessions being reborn in their children as they see their daughters drool and squeal over the latest of bubblegum trends and while their daughters are scribbling “Mrs. Justin Bieber” all over their facebook walls, the moms are scribbling all over their grocery lists, “Mrs. Cullen-Black.” Um…. Ew².

But there is the other side of the coin for teenage obsessions. Boys had their own likes in the world of pop culture. I whole heartedly remember having my own scribbles on my book covers, “Mr. Susanna Hoffs” and “Mr. Debbie Gibson.” Um… [facepalm].   I was also a huge fan of Erin Gray from Buck Rogers and Alyssa Milano, pre Phoebe Cates/Demi Moore short haircut. The walls in my bedroom were adorned with not one, but two posters of her; one wearing a big gray sweater and the other a New Jersey Devils sweater. Of course, I also had a door length poster of Samantha Fox in a swimsuit, too. Once I gave up the ghost of ever becoming the object of Samantha Micelli’s or Debbie Gibson’s affection, I moved on.  But I still kept the option open for Susanna Hoffs a little while longer.  Hey, it was the only reason for repeated watchings of The Allnighter.

Yet, like all childhood obsessions, we grow up and we grow out. I no longer scribble “Mr. So and So” and though I joke about all these things, like they actually happened, I still laugh at the mere thought of having such obsessions, even in smallest amounts. Of course, now, I’d be remiss if I didn’t admit my own squealing, today, over such goodies as Kristin Chenoweth and Giada De Laurentiis. Um… Yum. But it’s nothing compared to the pure hysteria seen today when Taylor Lautner appears before a crowd of pent up female wolf lovers at a showing of Eclipse in Pittsburgh. You can even see the blushing on the anchors of the local news team as they report footage of him leaving the theater, which was pretty much his hair and chin behind a bodyguard.  Sorry, no abs, ladies.

However, teens today perhaps or more savvy and learn to adjust quicker to memes and trends as seen in the lack of love ,these days, for Miley Cyrus. I’ve noticed in a few people that her choices in art and clothing has registered an out of tune note with some teens who actually “get it.” Just a couple of years ago, older teens were on the bandwagon with Paris Hilton’s and Britney Spears’ trashy lifestyle.  Even South Park made reference to it in the episode, “Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset.” Maybe we are seeing the pendulum of risk behavior begin to swing back the other way. One can only hope.

Now that Hannah Montana is scheduled to end we can be sure that there will still be “Miley Watch” as she most likely continues her musical and acting career. Except, now there will be no “Uncle Walt” telling her to go back upstairs and wipe that crap off her face. We’ve seen Britney hit rock bottom, maybe. We are now engrossed in the spectacle that is Lindsay heading to jail, a la Paris Hilton, which if she actually makes it to jail, she will most likely not serve the entire sentence. Frankly, it’s probably the best thing for her.

If Miley is smart she will recognize these examples of how not to conduct your privileged life, [begin rant] driving that post fame vehicle at high speeds, while under the influence, into a crosswalk full of nuns and then fleeing the scene as TMZ chases after you and Perez Hilton attempts to draw scribbles all over you.  [end rant] She still wants to focus on her career but needs to carry those tween fans that are starting to get older and smarter as well as attract new fans that can relate and identify with her music. She’s opted to not go to college which is probably dumb move number one. There are plenty of stars out there who balanced the best of both worlds, fame and a good education. She says she can always go back. I said the same thing when I graduated, with a theater degree, 12 years ago. I still have yet to finish an application.

I have another piece of advice for Miley. If you plan on focusing on your career then start networking with people, with proven track records, who can help you. And If you plan on continuing to act, I HIGHLY suggest doing some theater. Even if it’s Off-Off Broadway you cannot discount the experience as anything but helpful and enriching. The chance to collaborate with creative people in that kind of environment is one of the best resume and experience builders there is. Work on those acting chops and learn from those who know how to do it. Stay away from the Glitter and Crossroads type of films and pay your dues in grease paint and stage lights. You’ll be a better person for it. If you are worried that taking a break from the bubblegum pop set will hurt your career then you already realize that your fame is probably fleeting. Maybe college isn’t such a bad idea. I suggest business or media and communications in your case. You’ve got a brand to uphold. Don’t blow it.

There were a lot of fallen idols in my teenage years.   We just saw Corey Haim and Gary Coleman die this year.   Yet, the level of partying and addiction seems a lot less classy then it did in the 80s.  When I recently discussed the parallels of Lindsay Lohan's life with those of the 80s starlets I was reminded of a hysterical, yet sad but true, sketch from Saturday Night Live entitled "America's Most Wanted: Former Child Stars" which recounted The Barrymore Gang.  I wondered if SNL would try to dust off the sketch and update it to today's stars and fads with Lindsay, Britney, and Miley.  I was then told that even in her worst days, Drew Barrymore held more sense of class than Lindsay ever could.  This got me to thinking, "Maybe the drug scene was more chic and glamorized in the 80s than now."  Shows like Breaking Bad and Weeds portray the lives of drug dealers but it's not like Bright Lights Big City and Less Than Zero. It's more like, toothless, penniless, running around in your underwear with a .44 tucked into the waistband of your BVDs instead of the glitz and glamour or the neon party scene. Maybe it really was a downward spiral of seedy motels and bathrooms and we didn't have the paparazzi and bloggers to document the cracks in the painted facades. 

And on that downard note, I’ll get off my soapbox now and back to scribbling “Mr. …”  Hmm.

How is Markie Post looking these days?

LOST Thoughts For S6E17 The End May 23rd, 2010 Part One

Notice the title change? That’s because there’s no need to post theories or think about how things will play out because it’s over. Well, what did you think? Me? I loved the finale. I thought it was a beautiful tale of moving on and letting go. I got choked up more in those two and a half hours then I had the entire series. As far as Series Finales go that was one of the best. The only problem is that I have no idea what series it wrapped up.

I have so many thoughts in my head and I don’t want to sound pedantic but the episode did nothing for me in terms of wrapping anything up on the island. It was like watching the opening five minutes of Evil Dead II, which asked me to completely forget about what happened in the first movie since they rewrote it all in that span of time. Again, do not jump on the pitchfork and torch bandwagon yet. Let me reiterate, I LOVED WHAT I SAW, but I just don’t get why I saw it.

You know I am going to bore you to death with my ramblings.  I attempted to swallow the pregnant Metis, also known as my ability to go to Erie to tell a story, but couldn’t.   If I don't, the Athena-like rant shall spring forth from my head. So, I will break it all up into a couple of posts because, quite frankly, I’ve been mailing it in lately with reposting CarTalk puzzlers and I really don’t have the time to get all pop culture geeky on you with new stuff. So, let’s start off with this past Saturday’s repeat of the pilot episode, OK?

SHOW OF SCIENCE, SHOW OF FAITH

When LOST was first announced on the fall schedule I thought it was going to be utter crap. Why? Because I didn’t think a show about people shipwrecked on a island was going to be able to hold my attention. I made an attempt to watch Alias and after I missed two episodes I was completely… LOST.   My wife was also not interested in watching the show, which kind of made it easier for me to just let it slip into the pile of missed shows. Still, I was willing to give the show a chance with the pilot. Why? Because I hate to miss things.

That opening scene was quite simply one of the best things I had ever seen. And remember, this was a season that boasted Rescue Me, Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy, albeit in March, CSI: NY, Deadwood, Veronica Mars, Boston Legal, and House. Unfortunately it also had Joey and The Apprentice. So for me to put LOST’s premiere ahead of these other really decent shows gives me a newfound appreciation for appointment television. Until now, I had only done that with Buffy, Angel, West Wing, and The Oscars.

Here was a show that defied convention. It was a piece about characters and people and it just so happened that they were stuck on a tropical island. Had that been it, it may have lasted two seasons and I probably would have been happy with it. Then that pesky noise in the jungle came about and things took a turn. Still, even with that noise, that mechanical roar accompanied by the swaying and cracking of trees, the show stayed rooted in the focus of the people who survived. We had little snippets of back story concerning each castaway. There was a doctor, a con man, a rocker, a fugitive, a sad sack, a couple isolated by social mores and language, a father and son, a broken man, the pretty young over privileged rich girl and her infatuated step brother, and a torturer. Talk about The Real World. This was almost a slap in the face of reality shows that pit opposing personalities and backgrounds against each other to see if they can coexist in a confined space. Then Greg Grunberg got sucked out of the cockpit. After a bit, we saw how the passengers were flawed. We saw the post 9/11 fears play out as Sawyer attacks Sayid. We saw Jin tell Sun to stay covered and keep a low profile. We saw one of the most terrifyingly real depictions of a plane crash I’ve seen since Alive. We saw a spoiled brat refuse to help out and face the facts that no one is coming. We saw the first steps of a group of strangers working together towards becoming a community by looking for help. Then Sawyer shot a polar bear. “Guys, where are we?”

THE REST OF SEASON ONE

Those two hours held the world on edge for something different. It strayed into the bleeding edge of drama and hovered around science fiction but it stayed firmly rooted in its storytelling about people and their problems. How they were lost in life and how their time on the island might help them. From then on it became a finely tuned instrument that delved into the nature of what happened, happened. But I am referring to what happened off the island. Here it didn’t matter. Daddy issues, mental issues, abandonment issues, and Spanish Graphic Novel issues aside, everyone on the island was given a blank slate with the chance to redeem themselves. It only took four seasons to change all that.

It started with that damn hatch. That pill bottle lid that just stuck out like a piece of the alien ship in Tommyknockers. Once the characters began digging in the dirt looking for answers the show became more about science than faith. With the end of the first season we had found that somehow people and things on the island were connected off the island. Soon, the show became more about spotting the connections, the numbers, the crossed paths, and less about people’s atonement and relationships. Sure that was still there, but the questions and mysteries took over. Some of the highlights of that first season include some of the best music I’ve heard in a series. I can’t help but love Michael Giacchino as a composer. For me, he ranks up there with Christophe Beck and Snuffy Walden. I still get weepy when I think of that church scene from the finale with the “LOST theme” playing over it just like I used to when Beck’s theme for Season 2 of Buffy played as Angel got skewered into oblivion.

In fact there were so many great scenes from Season One that were punctuated with that damn heartstring tugging tune. Boone’s death while Aaron is born was one. The launching of the raft was another. I was immediately struck with the imagery of Tom Hanks leaving his island captivity on a raft outfitted with a port a john. The same kind of weepy music accompanied Hanks as he looked back on four years of his life as a different man, island man. As the rafties made their way out to sea to look for rescue I felt that same twinge of longing for a place that had become home for several months, even though it had been like two weeks for them.

But nothing could have prepared an audience, so willing to accept the small quirks of the island like evil others and a faceless monster, for what was about to happen. The other pillar of black smoke came and they hid, the raft encountered salvation only to find it was taking something away, and a cork was pulled out of the bottle that unleashed the island’s mysteries upon the castaways when that damn hatch lid blew. Season One was full of everything that made LOST so engaging and intriguing. It beguiled us and bugged as for the next five seasons until it had to come to an end.

Next up, Did Season 6 answer all those pesky questions?

2009 D-Bag Awards - Heat One: D-Bag Dogs

In the race to be the biggest D-bag of 2009, a few contenders thought it would be good to carry on affairs or be a bit of a dog, otherwise. In this heat we have four men who, throughout the course of the year, were caught with their pants down or wound up being exposed later on by no choice of their own.

• Tiger Woods (Pro Golfer)
• Charles Barkley (Former Pro Basketball Player and Talk Show Host)
• Steve Phillips (Former NY Mets Manager and ESPN Baseball Analyst)
• Dave Letterman (Late Show host and comedian)

At the starting gate, everything looks normal. Everyone is in their car and ready. Wait a minute, what’s this? David Letterman is motioning for an official to come over to his car and look inside. Someone has apparently left a note of some sort. He’s leaving the track and heading for the press box. Ladies and gentlemen, this is unprecedented. Dave Letterman is actually coming into the press box and admitting to an affair with a member of his staff. The other racers are just stunned by this turn of events.

Oh, there goes Barkley. He’s decided to just start driving erratically around the track with his female passenger. Apparently, he has somewhere to be in a hurry. Steve Phillips is sitting there checking his voice mail and, OH MY, Elin Nordegren is now on the track chasing down Tiger Woods’ in his Escalade with a golf club. She’s shouting something in Swedish about porn stars and pancakes. Tiger has attempted to elude his angered wife but has crashed into Charles Barkley. What’s Steve Phillips waiting for? Apparently, he is unable to go anywhere because a 22 year old production assistant is blocking the way. She’s literally laying down in front of his vehicle, preventing him from moving.

Meanwhile, Dave Letterman is apologizing and making jokes at his own expense. Tiger has crawled out of the wrecked Escalade, bruised and battered. Uh, Oh. The Escalade’s back door has opened up and as if this was some kind of circus clown car, 12 women climb out and scatter about the track looking for an open camera. Steve Phillips is still sitting there, now reading a pink slip from ESPN and his mistress is still laying in the middle of the track. She appears to be on her phone updating her myspace mood and Facebook status while playing Scrabble with Phillips son, online. Barkley is admonishing Tiger for not coming clean about the affairs and Dave Letterman is doing a Top Ten List.

It’s a hell of a day at the races.

Here’s how it all stacks up.

Dave Letterman came clean about the affair in front of a Live Studio Audience and even though he did have an extensive affair with one of his employees he pretty much disqualifies himself from contention after he admitted to everything and took it on the chin.

Charles Barkley had a moment of blood rushing to the wrong brain and ran a stop sign on his way to get some you know what from a female passenger. He was driving under the influence and was arrested. His endorsements dried up but came back after they realized that no one really saw the relevance of Barkley as a personality anymore.

Steve Phillips did a huge disservice to his family by picking a nut job for a mistress but furthermore he brought his work home with him since Hundley decided to friend his son, write his wife and show up on their lawn. He lost his wife and his job.

However, above all of this nothing can outshine the mess that was Tiger Woods’ affair(s). This whole business unraveled faster than Tiger’s game at the HSBC Champions match in November. The accident triggered the media frenzy speculating that his wife did not “rescue” him from his wrecked Cadillac but actually chased him after she found out he had an affair. Then Tiger started racking up more mistresses that almost rivaled his championship record. How he was able to keep this all going is still a mystery but I think we haven’t heard the last of this yet. More women, more secrets, more lost endorsements are in Tiger’s future and probably all before the Masters in 2010, if he even plays. Of these four dogs, Tiger is the biggest D-Bag of 2009. He moves onto the next round.

Today’s race has been brought to you by the new iPhone App Cheetah. Inspired by Tiger Woods’ intricately woven illusion of wholesome image and naughty night life, the Cheetah App allows you to plan, track, reschedule and juggle all your mistresses from your iPhone. You can set alerts and tasks to remind you of their names and what they like to do for fun. Hit the quick shot button and you’ll have an instant canned phrase that not only compliments your mistress on her looks but also serves to instill her with the confidence that she’s the only one for you. The Cheetah App also comes with a wife tracker. Constantly know where your wife is at all times with this GPS goodie that allows you to avoid capture while you are leaving voice mails for your vixens. The best feature of this app is that with the push of one button, all your indiscretions automatically switch off and are hidden from view. If your suspicious spouse gets a hold of your phone all she’ll find is a list of Christmas gifts you’ve been planning to buy her and a huge ass rock from the jeweler that you are eyeing up for her. The Cheetah app makes your smart pone smarter.

2009 D-Bag Awards

It’s getting close to the end of the year and here at M.A.M.S. we’d thought we’d look back at 2009 and see who was the biggest d-bag of all. When I say “we” I mean “me” and the voices in my head. 2009 was quite the year for d-baggery. Usually, in case like this, I would do a straightforward list. But I wanted to be a little different and thought it would be fun to pit these folks against each other for my amusement. The worst part about it is having to only choose 32 competitors. There were a lot more that I wanted to include but felt that the field would be too diluted.

The remaining few weeks of 2009 are filled with retrospective lists of pop culture goodness. Unfortunately, to compete with everyone else, the demand for supremacy ultimately causes some list makers to miss out on crucial proponents of their topic that occur after press time. I have been planning a list of the biggest d-bags of 2009 and had hoped to publish them before the end of the year but had I done so I would have missed out on one of the biggest stories of the year. So, I waited and tried to gather more research in order to bring you a more complete list. Unfortunately, this project comes right at the busiest time, the holidays.

I had such hopes to do something exciting and different with this post. I had it all planned out as a March Madness style tournament that would bring matchups between nominees based on their area of d-baggery using bracketology. I just don’t have the time to be that creative and the scope of this project is way beyond me, so let’s just do this as simple as possible. So, here are the list of nominations in their matches. We’ll go from there.

D-Bag Dogs

1. Tiger Woods
2. Charles Barkley
3. David Letterman
4. Steve Phillips

D-Bag Dads

1. Jon Gosselin
2. Richard Heene
3. John Phillips
4. Roman Polanski

Deadly D-Bags

1. H1N1
2. Salmonella
3. Death
4. Conrad Murray

Political D-Bags

1. Rod Blagojevich
2. Sarah Palin
3. Kim Jong Il
4. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
5. Mark Sanford
6. John Edwards

A to D List D-Bags

1. Lindsay Lohan
2. Megan Fox
3. Heidi and Spencer Pratt
4. Ryan Jenkins
5. Chris Brown
6. Kanye West
7. Chad Johnson
8. Manny Ramirez

Million Dollar D-Bags

1. Wall Street
2. Auto Industry
3. Fox
4. NBC
5. Raj Rajaratnam
6. Bernie Madoff

TWC Becomes MTV

On August 1st, 1981 television and music was changed forever. MTV debuted with The Buggles, Video Killed the Radio Star. That’s probably one of the most well known answers to a trivia question if not the most overly asked. You might as well say, “Who’s buried in Grant’s Tomb?” Since the dawn of music television network, viewers and musicians made the declaration “I Want My MTV!” Soon, they got their wish and soon after, that wish was destroyed.

Not wanting to sit on their laurels and wait for someone to move the cheese, MTV branched out into more original programming by adding shows to their schedule. One of which was a game show for the collegiate crowd called Remote Control, which as I write this I am just finding out that the host, Ken Ober has died at age 52. Remote Control was a pop culture trivia game show with a quirky sense of humor that featured a few now familiar faces in their pre-celebrity-due-paying years. Adam Sandler showed off his goofy pre SNL characters like The Stud Boy. Colin Quinn, also pre SNL was the sidekick and announcer and Kari Wurher was the Vanna White in Ken’s Mom’s basement.

Also, who could forget Downtown Julie Brown, wubba wubba, wubba, as the host of Club MTV? The dance show was styled after American Bandstand set to the hottest music of the moment. Often, a pubescent male viewer would hope for just the right shot from the sky cam or floor cam to show a glint of forbidden skin on the female dancers or at least I did, at that age.

And long before Jeff Probst held tribal councils, roommates were kicking each other out of the house on one of the first successful reality shows, The Real World. Forget Richard Hatch and Jeri Manthey, who could forget Puck and Eric Nies?

But somewhere around the new millennium, MTV started to develop more and more reality and other crap shows and played less and less music videos and great shows like 120 Minutes and Headbanger's Ball. By the year 2000 there was up to eight hours of music videos being played on the network whereas by 2008, an average of three hours of music videos were being shown, yet each year they showcased the best of the best with the Video Music Awards. You have to wonder if, somewhere, Adam Curry is chomping on his gums, muttering "Damn Kids" while adjusting his long blonde 80's hair toupee to keep the liver spots covered on his forehead?

The reason I bring all of this up is that MTV was a niche network, much like its sister channel VH1. However, they stopped being what they originally were and became something else. The trend isn’t lost on other networks. For instance, The Weather Channel (guess what they show) has always been a niche network.

I remember the early days where you really couldn’t do much more than give the forecast and the current conditions. And to that end, how much can the weather really change in the course of an hour? But still, over time, TWC began to expand its horizons and offer other programming like Storm Stories and Weather Center. But regardless of what the evening block held for prime time, you could always count on Local on the 8's. Sometimes, intentions aside, TWC can be the butt of jokes, as a sort of NPR of television almost taking itself too seriously.

I used to make such jokes at the expense of my wife who loved watching The Weather Channel. I would ask how she could be so addicted to a channel that pretty much repeats itself every ten minutes? Then I began watching like a weather zombie. Must see extended forecast. Every eight minutes we would be tuned in waiting for the trippy music as if we were watching a Joy of Painting marathon with the soporific tones of light jazz playing in the background. Although, I did get a kick out of hearing "Classical Gas" accompanying the Doppler Radar. When we would go on vacation you could tell how our week was going to go based on the availability and ease of locating The Weather Channel on the hotel room television. Sometimes we’d spend more time watching the weather on television instead of enjoying it up close and personal.

It would get so bad that we would become such idiots as to say, “What’s up with Jim Cantore’s hair? Is he going bald or just thinking that it’s a good look, regardless?” or “Mish Michaels is pretty sexy but that outfit isn’t good for her.” My personal favorite was Paul Kocin. My wife would always know when Winter was in full force because the Extreme Weather correspondent, Paul, was showing up in the rotation or meteorologists.

But like MTV, The Weather Channel kind of jumped the shark and started playing movies with a weather themed plot. The first one was The Perfect Storm. Now, you could not be more appropriate than kicking off your new direction with this film that is based in meteorological reality. However, one has to wonder how they are going to keep finding good movies to show which will keep in line with the topic of weather. Already announced are Twister (tornadoes), understandable, and March of the Penguins (snow), um OK. Then it kind of breaks down into a ridiculous mess with Deep Blue Sea and Misery. Misery has little to do with Snow as say maybe Avalanche does and Deep Blue Sea is not so much about tropical storms as it is psychopathic killer sharks eating Samuel Jackson and sparing L.L. Cool J. While I can see perhaps lining up Hard Rain for floods and even The River would be a good choice, I just hope they don’t decide to choose The Day After Tomorrow for a sense of reality surrounding global climate change. Of course, they probably will, though. In that case you might as well get ready for The Core to be shown as well.

To this end, I can see other niche networks deciding to play more movies that are themed in their offering. Perhaps HGTV will show The Money Pit or Mouse Hunt. G4 could actually get back to showing video game related content and put the Fred Savage classic, The Wizard on or even the technology reality based Hackers, because everyone knows that the hardest thing to hack is a Gibson. How about The Food Network showing Simply Irresistible or at least Ratatouille? That would be good. In a couple of years they could show Julie and Julia, although I would refrain from getting the rights to Titus based on Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, although one should really know what temperature you need to have your oven on in order to properly cook your enemies into a pie.

All kidding aside, I miss the good old days when television was a landscape of 57 channels and nothin’ on instead of today’s format of 900 channels and all the same thing is on. I yearn to escape the doldrums of regular broadcast television’s lame ass programming for a little bit of jazz and current conditions and possibly even a music video once in awhile, but alas, I find myself mired in Another Shot At Hepatitis C With Skanky Ho or Washed Up Music Artist or watching Batman and Robin because the character of Mr. Freeze represents the real possibility of global cooling. Where’s the remote? Let's see if the test pattern is still around.

Five Ways To Speed Up the Oscars

Got a chance to watch the 81st Annual Academy Awards last night and I must say that everything ran pretty smoothly and actually quickly for the most part. The first noticeable gaffe was a stage hand pulling the curtain in the wrong direction as the Best Supporting Actress montage played. Hugh Jackman infused a lot of energy into the telecast and he did play it pretty safe avoiding a lot of hot button jokes that someone like Whoopi Goldberg or Billy Crystal would have relished in making. He didn’t make a lot of jokes but held the broadcast together.

However, the old running gag about the length of the Oscars isn’t just a joke. These things go on way too long. Call it a product of an ADD addled audience in today’s society but they could have trimmed a good deal of time off the broadcast. As a long time Oscar watcher, here are some suggestions.

1. Either get rid of the “In Memoriam” tribute or include everyone who died.
   For those of us not watching a 60” HD television set, we missed half of the tributes because they chose to pan around the theater instead of having the entire clip be seen up close. So, there were a few I missed.
   
   Now, I understand you cannot include a tribute to every single person who passed away in the last year but if you just show the cool kids that died, then you are doing a disservice to the rest of the people that passed. Last year, one omission was Brad Renfro. The Academy’s official response was, "Unfortunately we cannot include everyone. Our goal is to honor individuals who worked in the many professions and trades of the motion picture industry, not just actors." If that’s the case, then kill (no pun intended) the segment altogether.
   
   There was no mention of the following people and it wasn’t because they didn’t have the prep time.
   Robert Prosky – Great character actor. One of those “Hey, it’s that guy!” kind of actors.
   George Carlin – True he was more of a comedian and better known for his television roles, but still, his death had a profound effect.
   Jerry Reed – The Snowman?!?!? Come on. Ok, so he wasn’t a huge actor but still memorable.
   Harvey Korman – This is a tremendous oversight. Harvey was a hell of a character actor and a brilliant funny man. If you can remember Vampira, you can remember Count de Monet and Hedley LaMarr.
   Don LaFontaine – While not technically an actor, without him you wouldn’t get half the viewership of the movies up for Academy Awards. This falls into that whole “many trades and professions” category.
   
   If you want to honor the big names like Paul Newman or Paul Scofield then take 10 seconds off the commercial broadcast and do a small tribute. Then at the normal time for the “In Memoriam” montage can run quicker and have a more completed list.
   
   
2. Go back to the old format of having the previous winner of the opposite gender present the acting awards.
   It was a little too “Vagina Monologues” for my taste and not everyone gets the love if one actor/actress sits there and gushes for five minutes on their selected nominee. Go back to the old format and give us a clip of the damn movie that these people did so well in that they deserved to get nominated. Perhaps a conspiracy is abound on why certain actors won over others….and better yet, why some weren’t nominated at all.
   
   
3. Kill the production numbers for “Best Song” or speed them up.
   Granted, we only had three nominations this year and WTF is up with that? Why was there only three and two of them were from Slumdog Millionaire? From what I’ve heard Bruce Springsteen was really snubbed in this category. Where was I? Oh yeah. The production numbers were a bit quicker than they had been but I think they still don’t add nearly enough value to be in the broadcast. If they want to showcase Best Song, find a way to fill time at commercial breaks or another spot and play them.
   
   
4. Hold applause.
   When you’re up there rattling off a bunch of nominees, some get an inordinate amount of applause. Why not hold all the applause until after the nominees are read. This gives enough time to actually hear the names and if there is an accompanying clip, hear the clip. It’s also polite.
   
   
5. Put the nominees closer to the stage.
   Yeah, so, Slumdog Millionaire was the big winner of the awards but we all had to wait an extra five minutes for the evening news because the entire population of Mumbai had to come up on stage from the back of the theater. I’m all for giving credit where credit is due, but put all the nominees or those who would be accepting for a nominee up in the front rows. I didn’t see Jack Nicholson, front and center, holding court, as usual, although an unwarranted spread eagle crotch shot of Sean Penn was held on far too long for my taste.

Final thoughts:
Best Line of the Night: “You look like you work at a Hasidic Meth Lab” Natalie Portman talking about Ben Stiller’s appearance in the vein of Joaquin Phoenix
Worst Line of the Night: Anything that came out of Bill Maher’s mouth.. although, “Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto” said by Kunio Kato after winning for La Maison En Petits Cubes runs a close second.

I Come in Pieces

With one year of fatherhood under my belt, my thoughts turn to the future. Specifically, how to stop it from happening. While I know that's impossible I do keep a thought in my head that keeps me up nights worrying. "I'm going to have to put a lot of things together over the next few years." That single idea of "some assembly required" is enough to rattle any one's cage. I don't care how skilled a craftsman you are.

I make jokes about it but the truth is I really hate putting things together. It's not that I have no skills in inserting tab A into slot B, it's just that I hate instructions. My last jigsaw puzzle contraption was a brand new grill that got tested out at my kid's first birthday. My previous one finally proved ineffective a couple of years ago and lack of money and space kept me from getting a new one. I resorted to charcoal grilling on a rinky dink grill that I can toss across the street and believe me there has been days. I'll say one thing about grilling and then back to the topic at hand. Never by cheap charcoal. If you are serious about grilling on charcoal then by quality, no fluid needed, briquettes. Also, a good rule of thumb is to have one of those chimneys around. Those are cool.

Ok, back to my cobbling prowess. Over the years of living on my own, I have had to assemble a lot of furniture. Once, I actually considered getting a job where all I would do is go to different stores and assemble display models. It was a whim when a coworker told me all about it. I could work my own hours, set my own pace, and pretty much just sit alone in a room with a bunch of pieces of veneered particle board and an allen wrench and make some magic. What is it with the allen wrench? Ready to assemble furniture relies on the hex bolt to hold everything together and now I've got fifteen allen keys sitting in my garage that I'll never use again.

My first project was an entertainment center in my first apartment. I had no money but wanted to build the perfect beast to house my television, DVD player, stereo and VCR. I ended up going to a local defunct chain called Ames. They were a casualty of the Wal-Mart takeover at the turn of the century. For $99.00 it was, in my mind, a great buy. It was walnut veneer with a huge opening for all my A/V equipment. It had those magnetic glass doors so you could see all of my DVDs and games. I was quite proud when I put it together. It even had the veneered cardboard with several perforated punch out areas depending on the size of my television and cabling structure. It was a monster. Then I moved and it had to come with me. I disassembled it and put into storage. Alas, it never held a good shape after that and I decided to get a new one. I gave it to a stoner neighbor and went off to Wal-Mart for a better one.

What I found was another good deal on my previous model's bigger brother. This one was nearly floor to ceiling with flanked shelving areas and cabinets underneath. It had molding around the top and bottom that made it appear more expensive. A night with an allen wrench and I had the Mt. Everest of Entertainment Centers ready for action. Then I moved and it had to come with me. Unfortunately, this model had a little more intricate design. Perhaps someone at the Sauder/O'Sullivan/Ovation factory took some designs from M.C. Escher and Frank Lloyd Wright because this thing didn't break down into modular pieces.

Once in my new residence I found that I did not have the space to erect the monstrosity. My wife, then girlfriend, could not fathom having furniture that went beyond the slanted opening of a stairwell. Neither my entertainment center, nor my couch, sit squarely in the middle of a wall without breaching into open space. Insistent that I would not get rid of what I now called the S.S. Enterprise, I moved it to a spare bedroom and it pretty much became nick knack storage. Again, I bought a new one. In a move I can only describe as getting away from an SUV in favor of a fuel efficient vehicle, I opted to buy a more compact and lightweight model considering my pattern of moving once I bought furniture. I went with a model that had side shelves and cabinet space beneath but allowed me some room to eventually expand my television screen towards 32". Something, I hoped to do once the price of Plasmas came down. Then I moved.

At this point the exercise in taking an older entertainment center with me became futile as I was more suited for building a ship in a bottle. I was going to have to call Maury Povich to bring a crew over to my house and take out a wall in order to get the Enterprise out of the spare bedroom. Instead of scrapping it, I offered it to the movers who helped me vacate my premises on the contingency that they were responsible for it.

In the house I have now, I still have the smaller entertainment center upstairs and a newer, even smaller model downstairs in my family room. Again, the space I had did not allow me to be too elaborate. I did however take advantage of the manual's policy of calling the manufacturer instead of the store for replacement of missing or broken items. These things are so cheap that they are willing to just ship you pieces of wood and hardware at no cost because they know how badly they are constructed and packaged. In fact, my old coworker, who nearly convinced me of a career in display construction, passed a manual around to family members who in turn rounded up enough pieces to construct two new stands.

Since then I've learned a few things about ready to assemble items.

1. The better the quality, the less there is to build.
2. Some idiot is in charge of writing the manuals because they make no sense and the diagrams are ridiculously horrible or do not match the model you have.
3. From now on, chose living accommodations based on current furniture ownership.
4. Hope and pray my daughter doesn't move as much as I did.
5. Find a purpose for three walnut shelves and a futon bolt.