Reflection on the Last Few Days (Part II)

All false male bravura aside, the ride home from work today SUCKED!!! I can't emphasize this point nearly enough. You could underline that word about 4 more times and the point still wouldn't quite be made. I think visibility at times was a negative number. My sister asked me how many cars were in the ditch. The honest response to this question is that I don't know. I couldn't see the ditch.

So we are to Sunday. Church services were canceled. I can not ever remember a time when my church canceled services. So I sat on the couch being bored most of the day. I called Jen and Derrick to see if the Oscar party was still a go. I was concerned because I had an appointment with Kelly to get my hair cut and dyed black. This was a fairly radical move for somebody like me. I have never dyed my hair before. Dyeing your hair is one of those things on my checklist of things that "real" men don't do. I have white hairs in my goatee and I accept that. I won't dye my hair to get rid of them. I have earned every last one of those white hairs and I'm not about to cover that fact up. However, with the Oscar Party coming I held a meeting with myself about what in fact real men do. A motion was put forth and passed. An addendum has been placed on my list. Instead of reading that real men don't dye their hair it reads that real men don't highlight their hair. I was going to dye my hair.

This is a slight aside. I honestly don't have a real strong list of things that real men do and don't do. This led me into the following conversation with a co-worker.

"Hey man. You see Durant last night. He went off for like 37 points."

"I didn't see any basketball last night."

"What did you do?"

"I went to see a movie."

"Oh yeah, what flick?"

At this point it would have been helpful if I would have went to see some mindless blow 'em up. I could have lied, but I told the truth.

"The Queen."

"Haven't heard of it, but it sounds pretty gay."

"Well if I explain it, it is going to sound pretty gay."

"What's it about?"

"It is about the royal family's reaction to Princess Di's death."

"Yep. Pretty gay."

OR

There are also times that I like to wear a pink Iowa State hat. When you buy this hat a portion of the money goes to aid research on the prevention of breast cancer. My sister gave me the hat for Christmas. I wear it because I'm proud to have contributed in some small form to preventing this disease. Jessica, one of the people that worked with Olivia, is a breast cancer survivor. (I heard great news about Jessica this weekend that makes me very happy, but I can't share it at this time.) A lady from Teresa's office is currently going for treatment for breast cancer. I don't think it is an emasculating thing to show support for this cause. In fact my friend Jay, who is a boob man from way back, would argue that it is a very masculine thing to show your support for breasts in any way, shape, form or manner.

The problem isn't usually the cause. The problem is the color. I don't have a favorite color. I also don't have a least favorite color. If you think about it, color does not really exist. It is an illusion of light and it is silly to have a favorite illusion. If I am forced to pick a favorite illusion, I pick social mobility.

I don't see colors as being masculine or feminine. I see that certain colors have certain purposes. Those purposes are usually to conflict or accent another color. So one of the reasons I can feel no guilt about wearing such a hat is that it goes with a few of the shirts I own.

I'm not what you would call a particularly superstitious person. I can see how you can make the case that luck is the residue of design. However, the statement that you "make your own luck" is absurd outside of whatever residuals you get from your design. I understand that there are an infinite amount of factors that determine the outcome of every single incident. Anybody that believes that they can control an infinite amount of factors to make their own luck is not only deluding them self, they are encroaching on God Complex territory. I advise such a person to study a little bit of string theory for god's sake. I mean for their sake, not for the real God.

I bring this up simply because Iowa State is currently undefeated when I wear this hat to Hilton Coliseum to see their forays into basketball. The men are 3-0. The women are 1-0. Do I believe that my choice of cap has any effect on the outcome of these games? I know that it doesn't. Yet in the back of my head, I know that there are an infinite amount of variables deciding the outcome of everything. So what do I truly believe? See what hat I'm wearing this Saturday when Steve Alford's dad comes to Hilton.

The point of this whole pink hat interlude is also that I had the following interaction with a co-worker.

"What's the deal with the hat?"

"It covers my head."

"It looks pretty gay."

"It looks pretty."

"GAY!!"

"What's your problem with my hat? I don't bust your chops whenever you come in here dressed like a lumberjack to answer the phone."

"Actually you do. (truth be known I do) Why are you wearing that hat?"

"I swear we just went over this, to cover my head."

"Why that hat?"

"They give it to you when you donate money for breast cancer prevention."

"It's pink."

"Pink is the breast cancer awareness color."

"Why are you wearing it?"

"This is a cause I'm proud to support."

"I think it is pretty gay."

"Do you root for cancer? Most people root for the person. You must be the one person that roots for the cancer."

"Let's get lunch."

It is because of this type of mentality that I do have a few things that I think that real men do and don't do. I'll keep that list to myself for the time being, except to say that real men don't highlight their hair. Also real men don't eat boneless wings.

Before I got slightly askew of the point, I was pointing out that if there was no Oscar Party, I sure as heck wasn't getting an unnecessary haircut and my hair dyed. Even with everything potentially on hold, the dyeing of my hair had raised a few questions. Not really a few questions. One question.

Why?

The answer is simply, I felt like it. It was a one time thing. I wanted to try it while I still have money on the table. That window of opportunity isn't going to be around for much longer.

So I initially talked to Derrick. He didn't know. I told him that I had a haircut at 3 pm and if it was canceled before 3 pm to let me know before I went through with this whole hair management debacle.

Then I sat and I waited. At about 2:30 my phone rang. Party canceled. I called Kelly and canceled. 35 minutes later the phone rang. The party is back on. Now I'm in a pickle with my hair. I give Kelly a call back. She doesn't know if she can do it now. There is a childcare issue. She'll call me back.

Then I sat and waited.

The phone rings again. We're back on. I meet her up at Salon 908. Now if you don't know where Salon 908 is, it is around the corner from Belluci's, the second greatest pizza joint to ever grace these United States of America. I know some of my most loyal subscribers have not had the good fortune to reside in the confines of Boone, Iowa. I know some of you have escaped to your greener pastures.

Let me tell you about the Boone Snow Removal Crew. They don't play with a full deck. If it is a full deck then it is a pinochle deck and the game is Parcheesi. That's card talk, which I honestly don't know if it makes any sense. Let me put it this way. They only have one oar in the water.

What they like to do is take all of the snow and put it in the middle of the road. You might be saying, "so what?" The problem is that they do this in the intersections as well. Which means that quite frequently you come to an intersection that you can't cross because there is a pile of snow about 7 feet tall looking you straight in your mug and laughing at you. You have to make turns you don't want to make while you are looking for the exit to this labyrinth. I swear to God that out of the corner of my eye I saw Jack Nicholson holding an ax frozen to death at the corner of 7^th and Story.

I did finally make it to the salon and the rest is history. There was a moment in the treatment where we realized that we forgot to dye my eyebrows. Good thing Kelly caught that or I might look more sideshow freak than swashbuckling debonair.

This would be a good point to thank the people that agreed to donate money to the American Cancer Society though me via this event. Thank you very much to Jesse and Stephanie. It was very much appreciated.

When I finally got to Jen and Derrick's street it looked like a war zone. There were trees down everywhere. It was by the worst looking street I've seen through this most recent set of storms. There is an old lady that lives in the corner house next to theirs. I would use the term elderly, but the term ancient seems more apropos. This lady loves to snow blow. Earlier that day one of their neighbors witnessed her snow blowing. A branch above her cracked and came screaming down towards the Earth. It landed not much more than six feet behind the old lady. She never heard it. She never noticed it. She just kept on blowing snow.

I had learned via e-mail that Jen was planning as going to the party as Audrey Hepburn's character Holly Golightly from the movie "Breakfast at Tiffany's". I had learned from Shannon on Saturday that on Friday night Jen and Derrick had an Audrey Hepburn marathon. I also learned that absent from the movies they had chosen were "Roman Holiday", "My Fair Lady", and "Sabrina". I was going to let these glaring omissions slide, but I got there and my mouth ran away with me.

"No Roman Holiday. Come ON!!!"

In the back of my head I heard a conglomeration of many of the "real men" I've known over the years point out that what I had just uttered was "pretty gay".

I shot back, "No! What is pretty gay is eating boneless wings!"

Jen had managed to pretty much nail Holly Golightly. I would offer photographic evidence of this and my black do and Derrick's own debonair style, but I didn't bring a camera to this event. Maybe some day I'll get some of their pictures and post them. Maybe someday Willy and Jesse will actually square off in a real peanut butter cup eating free-for-all. Maybe some day somebody will defeat the longest reigning Log Champion of the World in human history.

I don't want to overanalyze the party. I mean, what kind of guy analyzes a party. It is either off the hook or it isn't. That is all you need to know. If you would have called this party all you would have heard is: "The party you are trying to reach is busy. For 95 cents you can hang up and we will call you when your party is available."

Something that just popped into my head, I have problems remember which side of the number the cents symbol is supposed to go on. I used to work with this German girl named Tabea. Every time I would ask that question she would roll her eyes and denigrate the American educational system. I always got her back by slamming David Hasselhoff though. U.S.A! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

What I do care to analyze is the Oscars themselves. Yet, I will not broach the subject of "An Inconvenient Truth" winning for Best Documentary. Okay, I will broach it, but I will not dwell on it very long.

I knew this movie was going to win. This is a category that has pretty much gone downhill since Michael Moore started passing propaganda off as documentary. I was only able to see two of the nominees this year. The other one being "Jesus Camp" which is a merciless hack job on Evangelical Christians. That is fine. I think that they probably deserve it. It certainly isn't my brand of Christianity. These are people that are teaching their children that there is no such thing as Global Warming. They are teaching their kids Creation Science. They are teaching their kids that the world is only 13,000 years old. They are teaching their children hatred for homosexuals, nonchristians, and Christians that practice differently than they do. These people substitute ignorance for faith and try to claim that it is the same thing. It isn't. Hiding from science and history doesn't make your faith stronger. It makes your faith a sham. It deserves to be shown up. These people deserve to be exposed. However, to do so isn't a documentary. It is propaganda.

If you want to see a great documentary I would strongly recommend "March of Penguins". However, my first and strongest love would be "Born into Brothels". It is an absolutely amazing movie. It is my top ten favorite movies of all time. It is a shining example of what a documentary can and should be. If you haven't seen this movie I recommend you check it out. If you are the type of person that I have access to and you are interested in seeing it, I will loan it to you. I like it that much. It is simply one of the most hauntingly beautiful movies that I have ever seen.

I wasn't born yesterday. I understand that all documentaries are told from a perspective, but movies like the work of Michael Moore where they just flat out lie or "Jesus Camp" where they use music so perfectly to make you understand that what is going on is just wrong, moves past a perspective and into the realm of propaganda.

By the way, if you are interested in seeing "Jesus Camp" I can hook you up on that one as well.

As far as I can tell "An Inconvenient Truth" deserved to win Best Documentary. It is certainly better than "Jesus Camp". It isn't over the top in the propaganda department. In fact, the propaganda has really nothing to do with the Global Warming part of the movie. The propaganda is in how the filmmakers try to sell you on the greatness of Al Gore. Ironically, that part of the movie is going to hurt getting the message of the movie out. However, I'll talk about that in an entire blog dedicated to my lunch with my Personal Climatologist at an undetermined point in the future.

My major complaint is that Melissa Etheridge won an Oscar for her song from "An Inconvenient Truth". Whether or not the song is a piece of garbage I won't debate. Personally I think the song is kind of catchy. My problem is that this song is really only used in the credits. I am a firm believer that the song that wins the Oscar should be important in developing the story line as well as being a great song.

Now if I was just going to pick my favorite song it would have been "Patience" from "Dreamgirls". Although it is my favorite song it isn't instrumental in the movie. That song would be "Listen", also from "Dreamgirls". It is a great song and it comes at the climax of the movie, when Dina is finally able to summon enough personal strength to leave her husband.

I would just take a little bit of time to point out that there is one thing that I have to take exception with in the movie "Dreamgirls". Jamie Foxx's character is based on Berry Gordy. The movie intimates that Berry Gordy had no taste in making movies. Berry Gordy no taste in making movies? Are you kidding me?

We're talking about the man that would produce the 1980s martial arts epic "Berry Gordy's The Last Dragon". I will refresh your memory if you have forgotten this classic of the American cinema.

The movie focused on a young martial artist living in Harlem by the name of Bruce Leroy. His adversary is the Shogun of Harlem, Sho' Nuff. Right there, that is all you need to know about the greatness of this movie.

But back to other categories that annoyed me. Quite frankly there weren't that many. One that stands out is "The Danish Poet" winning for best animated short. I sat through this 15 minute cure for insomnia. Trust me, I can take a slow moving movie. You are reading the writings of the largest Stanley Kubrick fan you probably know. "The Danish Poet" is only 15 minutes long!! It feels like 90. At the end, the payoff is nothing special.

I personally would have chosen "The Maestro". I'll grant you that the ending is somewhat predictable, but I'm impressed with their dedication to their theme. Moving the camera angle every second to be consistent with the gears of clock was rather ingenious in my mind.

"Pan's Labyrinth" didn't win for Best Foreign Language Picture. This was the biggest joke of the night. Not only should it have won for Best Foreign Language Picture, it should have won for Best Picture. The fact that it wasn't nominated for Best Picture is the fault of the film's makers. They didn't put it up for Best Picture.

I can't really dispute any of the winners in the 6 major categories.

Best Supporting Actress – Jennifer Hudson from "Dreamgirls"

This is who I wanted to win. This is shocking because the only thing that I knew about her going into the theater that night was that she was from American Idol. I have a little math equation I do in my head that helps me when confronted with situations that involve American Idol. It goes something like this:

American Idol = Garbage

Jennifer Hudson is the first time that my little cognitive shortcut has failed me. Jennifer Hudson blew me away. She is undoubtedly the first decent thing to come from that entertainment wasteland. I'll give some props to it spawning "Cyclone Idol" where Stephanie has been robbed people who were looking for "mass appeal and quality".

Best Supporting Actor – Alan Arkin from "Little Miss Sunshine"

I was okay with this choice. His character is complicated and entertaining. He gives the most important speech in the movie when he is in the hotel room with Olive and he tells her what a real loser is. Plus an underrated sequence in that movie is the sequence where he tells his son that he is proud of him. Underplayed beautifully.

My first choice would have been Djimon Honsou for "Blood Diamond". His portrayal of a father searching a civil war torn country for his son that has been turned into a soldier is a great.

I also would have been pleased with Eddie Murphy winning for "Dreamgirls".

Best Actress – Helen Mirren for "The Queen"

This category is almost an afterthought. That is how good she is in this movie.

Best Actor – Forest Whitaker for "The Last King of Scotland"

This category is also almost an afterthought. Forest Whitaker is amazing as the charismatic, sociopath Idi Amin. There was some belief that Peter O'Toole might win this category. If he would have, it would have been more of a lifetime achievement award than anything else. Kind of like . . .

Best Director – Martin Scorsese for "The Departed"

I can't really argue with this choice. "The Departed" is a pretty good movie. It isn't one of Scorsese's best movies. Not by a long shot. I know there was a big groundswell of support to finally get him an Oscar. To be honest there are worse things in the world than not winning an Oscar. The two greatest directors in history (Kubrick and Hitchcock) have zero Oscars between them. The problem is that the Academy made huge mistakes in at least 3 other years. If they need to get an Oscar for Scorsese so bad, they should call up John G. Avildsen up and ask him to return his Oscar for "Rocky". "Rocky" is a great movie, but that year Scorsese should have went home with the Oscar for "Taxi Driver". Then call up Robert Redford and ask him to bring in his Oscar for "Ordinary People". Once again, "Ordinary People" is a great movie, but that year Scorsese release "Raging Bull" which is hands down the best movie in a decade that was fairly devoid of great movies. "Berry Gordy's That Last Dragon" is an obvious exception. Finally, they should call up Kevin Costner and ask him to return his Oscar for "Dances with Wolves". Undoubtedly "Dances with Wolves" is one of the worst movies to ever win for Best Picture (right next to "Annie Hall"). Scorsese also deserved the win that year for "Goodfellas". That is a movie that changed the way I hear "Layla" forever.

In the end history will record that Scorsese won an Oscar for Best Director. However, when movie critics survey his body of work, the movie he won for won't be near the top. It will be an interesting story. What did Scorsese have to do to win an Oscar? Remake a Japanese movie and set it in Boston. That is the ultimate irony. A man who will always be affiliated with New York City finally won the big prize by taking a movie to Boston.

Scorsese was a good choice, but I would have preferred Clint Eastwood. What he did by telling both sides of the battle of Iwo Jima was much more ambitious than taking a Japanese movie and throwing Boston accents and swear words on it. I know though that there is no way that Eastwood would win a third Oscar while Scorsese has zero.

Best Picture – The Departed

Honestly I wasn't that crazy about this year's crop of nominees. I would rank them in the following order bottom to top.

Babel – Interesting, but not great. I think the core message about this movie is that if you are an American, everything will turn out just fine and dandy for you. But if you are from the developing world, you are screwed. I do like the concept of following a story of how one event can affect the lives of so many people around the world. It is that string theory that I love so much.

The Queen – Entertaining. It managed to make me feel sympathy for people that I hold in complete disdain. I went to see this movie with Derrick and Jen. Derrick came out of the movie thinking that royalty was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Although I felt bad for they went through, it reinforced to me how British royalty is a completely archaic institution and the sooner it is ended, the better. If you have an opinion on this let me know. I am interested in other's peoples opinions on how this movie made them feel about the British royals.

Letters from Iwo Jima – As a companion to "Flags of Our Fathers" this movie wasn't I was expecting. I left "Flags of Our Fathers" with lots of respect for the Japanese on Iwo Jima. "Letters from Iwo Jima" kind of destroyed that respect for me on some level. They were completely unorganized. Nobody followed orders. At the first sign of trouble everybody wanted to commit suicide.

The Departed – Funny and entertaining. Very well acted. A bit gratuitous in the language and violence at times, but it is a gangster movie. To expect anything else would be lying to yourself.

Little Miss Sunshine – The first words that came out of my mouth when I left the theater after seeing this movie was "best road trip movie ever made." I stand by that now. You all know that I'm a big fan of the road trip. I'm also a huge fan of road trip movies, with the obvious exception of "Roadtrip" which sucks. The only road trip movies I would put it up against are "Sullivan's Travels" and "It Happened One Night". Plus this movie had my favorite scene of the year. The scene where the pageant lady asks Greg Kinnear what his daughter is doing on stage.

He turns to her and says: "Kicking ass. That is what she is doing." Kicking ass is also what this movie does.

I won't complain about "The Departed" winning. Comedies don't win very often.

There were a couple of events that actually transpired that I would like to share. First and foremost, Jen won the prize for being the Best Dressed Female".

Secondly, we decided to have "A Clockwork Orange" Party. I shouldn't say party. I will say "A Clockwork Orange" Night. The gleaming centerpiece of the evening will be a viewing of the Stanley Kubrick classic "A Clockwork Orange". This is going to transpire because Derrick made the bold proclamation that "Dr. Strangelove" is the greatest Stanley Kubrick movie. I will not dispute the fact that it is probably the best comedy ever made. But for sure I would have to rank "A Clockwork Orange" as the better Kubrick movie. I'm also going to rank "Paths of Glory" above it. I would have to give considerable thought to where "The Shining", "Full Metal Jacket", and "2001: A Space Odyssey" rank. I'm not disputing the greatness of "Dr. Strangelove", just its place in the Kubrick pantheon. This dispute led to this Night of A Clockwork Orange, but you just can't watch a movie. You have to have themed food. So if anybody out there has a great "orange" based recipe and would be willing to part with it, throw it my way. It would be much appreciated.

I feel that you might think that Derrick and I just aren't compatible. He is always running off his mouth and I always have to regulate him. It isn't just Derrick, though. While we were discussing Melissa Etheridge Derrick asked the no-brainer question of the year. If Crosby, Stills, and Nash were giving a concert right next to Neil Young and Crazy Horse and you could only go to one, which one would you go to? What is the speed of light? Faster than that, that is how long it would take me to go see Neil Young. Jen is a hard case though. She actually stuck up for Crosby, Stills, and Nash. What are you going to do?

The third thing that transpired at the Oscar Party was yet another debate between Derrick and me. I won't disclose who had what opinion, because I would like to get some feedback from other people. This debate is centered on the movie "Blood Diamond".

The thing to remember about diamonds is that they aren't rare. Not even a little bit. They have no real intrinsic value. Their value is artificially inflated by a company that owns almost all the diamonds in the world. This company buys up all the diamonds and puts most of them in a vault so that they can artificially raise their value.

Many diamonds come from countries like Sierra Leone where people are enslaved and murdered so these specks of carbon can be sold in malls all over these great United States. Allegedly this company does not buy diamonds from countries that are involved in war. However, the organization that oversees the diamond industry was founded by this very same company that owns almost all the world's diamonds.

Here is the question I would like you to answer:

In the movie "Blood Diamond" people are murdered and enslaved in pursuit of one particularly large diamond. What do you think would make a more tragic ending?

The diamond ends up in a vault and never sees the market.

OR

The diamond ends up in an American jewelry shop where some spoiled American purchases it because of the way it looks and never realizes how many people suffered and died so they could wear that sparkly piece of carbon around.

If you are interested in seeing "Blood Diamond" before weighing in on this question, I can hook you up as well.

Well, I better call it a night, but this story will continue. I need to discuss a stained glass stepping stone, my lunch with Bill, bowling, and my lunch with my personal climatologist still.