The Descendants

Maybe it’s because we look so much alike, but I’ve always been a fan of George Clooney.

Both Michael Clayton and Up In The Air have joined The Godfather(s) as films that, when stumbled upon, must be watched to the end to pick up some line read, nuance or expression I didn’t catch the first twenty-five times I saw them.

I just finished seeing his most recent film, The Descendants. Can you guess what I thought of it? Of course you can.

I’m not going to say much because far be it from me to spoil anything. But I will say a couple things.

It was directed by Alexander Payne, who also did Sideways (merlot anyone?). It has several great moments in it, like the one where your perception of one of the characters does a complete 180 in the time it takes that character to deliver one line.

Several moments take you straight to tears, do not pass go, do not collect Kleenex. There is also one spectacular moment that reaches out of the screen, grabs your heart and squeezes as hard as it can.

For that moment alone, for me, The Descendants is worth seeing.

It’s also worth seeing for Shailene Woodley, who steals the film with her frighteningly real and effortless performance as Clooney’s older daughter.

If you have a couple hours to spare this Thanksgiving weekend, this would be a fine way to spend them.

Besides, if you're looking for a way to wash away the taste of homemade turkey, nothing does the job like a movie hot dog and a 64 oz Coke.

I'm thankful someone else wrote it

It's the same challenge every year. How to kill the turkey without traumatizing the little girl for life. Wait, that's not it.

No, the challenge is writing a heartfelt holiday message that expresses just how thankful I really am for all the good things I have.

This year, you can read my heartfelt sentiments on my friend's blog since he's expressed exactly what I would've had I written it myself. Which I didn't.

And if you've read my other posts here, maybe that's one more thing to be thankful for.

Brain freeze

They look so nice don't they? Like big, chilly robots lined up just waiting to be filled with boxes of frozen food from Trader Joe's.

Our thirteen year old Frigidaire refrigerator is on its last legs (last rollers?). While it still keeps things cold, you can feel a nice chill standing in front of it because the seal on the door isn't nearly as tight as it used to be.

But then whose is?

There's also a handle missing, no doubt from years of the kids hanging from it. It's a lot noisier than it used to be (aren't we all). And because it's so old, it's whatever the opposite of energy efficient is. Whenever its motor kicks on, the lights dim throughout the house and we can actually hear the electric bill going up.

So this past weekend, since it was raining anyway, the family and I had a fun-filled afternoon walking around Howard's looking for a new fridge.

On the logo it says "Nobody Beats Howard's." I'm not sure if that means price. Or selection. Or service. Or just confusing the crap out of someone who hasn't had to think about it in years. If it means that last one, then it's definitely truth in advertising.

When we bought our current fridge thirteen years ago, it was around $800. Needless to say I was in for a little sticker shock. Apparently the cost of materials, design, new refrigerator technology and all those white plastic vegetable drawers has skyrocketed.

After opening and closing more doors and drawers than I could count, the one we zeroed in on came in at $2299 after the energy rebate. (I was going to make a joke about Doors & Drawers being a washed up country music group. But actually it's a company that makes, well, guess. Though I'm not sure they get much business with a website that looks like this).

But I digress.

I have to admit I was intrigued by the French Door model with the extra crisper drawer. Four handles, four things to open and four things to break for those of you keeping count.

The crisper drawer between the fridge on top and the freezer on the bottom doesn't actually give us any more room than the two drawers that do the same job in our fridge now.

But it looks way bitchin'. And it had a decal that said, "Fresh Food on a whole new level."

Copywriters.

And it was a Maytag. Which as you can see by the sticker in the upper right corner is made with "American Pride."

Howard's has been selling appliances for a very long time. In fact we bought our current fridge, washer, dryer and dishwasher there. They're local, knowledgeable and can usually deliver and install on the same day.

So far be it from me to tell them how to do their job. Obviously they know the best way to display refrigerators on the showroom floor.

Apparently, tons of blinding neon lights reflecting off a roomful of white and stainless steel refrigerators are an essential part of the purchase decision-making process.

We wound up not buying a fridge that day. Instead, we came home and spent some quality time with our failing fridge. We discussed how if you take an extra minute to press the door closed tight, it actually sealed okay. And that despite being down a handle, we really didn't have any trouble opening it. There was no getting around the fact it wastes a lot of electricity. But we own a Land Cruiser. Wasteful is something we're used to.

Then we looked at pictures of all the refrigerators we'd just seen, and spent some time talking about what would look best inside our house.

We decided it was the $2299.

Point of no return

I have a few pet peeves (if you hadn't noticed). But one of the biggest ones of all is not having calls returned. I use the picture of an older rotary-dial phone, because apparently the idea of returning calls in a timely fashion, or at all, is a notion from the past.

I understand we all have busy lives, but I'm just not buying that everyone is so busy they can't return a call. When Sherry Lansing was head of Paramount Pictures, she had every call returned the same day by someone in her office. It wasn't just PR. I know this from personal experience.

By the way, still waiting for my three picture deal.

I supposed there are better and more significant ways to take stock of a person, but for me, returning calls is high on the list. When I held associate creative director and cd positions, I always set aside time at the end of the day to return calls to reps, job seekers, friends and students.

I never forgot what it was like trying to get a call back from someone at an agency. I still haven't.

Some of the people I'm most loyal to in the business, and who I have the highest regard for are people who got back to me when they didn't have to. I know it seems like such an old school idea. But it's a simple gesture. And it speaks volumes about the person making it.

Friends are sometimes bad at calling back. There's a certain take-it-for-grantedness that comes with friendships or relationships of any length of time. For some reason, we're willing to let the unreturned call from a friend slide more often.

Although I find less so as I get older. Tick tock Clarice.

And in case you were wondering, I consider returning a call with an email the coward's way out. But only because it is.

Anyway, if you have any thoughts about this just leave a comment.

I'll get back to you.

Around the block

It's not hard to tell I'm not the world's most prolific writer/blogger. I'm also not the world's thinnest, but hey, who the f#&@ asked you?

I'd like to blame it on writer's block, but that would be too easy an out. Let's just call it for what it is: I've been a slug for the last couple of weeks.

In the time since I last posted, my friend Rich posted eight times to his blog. I'm constantly amazed at not just the quantity, but the quality of his posts. A prolific, thoughtful, humorous writer saying the many things that need to be said. That or a desperate cry for attention. You make the call.

Whichever, I should probably take a page from his book (I'd have to take a page from his book cause obviously I'm not writing any books of my own). I need to post more regularly.

I think if you start a blog, there's a responsibility to keep it fresh and interesting. Give the readers something new almost every time they visit. Of course, that pre-supposes I have readers. And now that I think about it, no one but me seems particularly upset there hasn't been a post in two weeks. Crap. That's motivating.

And the pisser is it's not like there aren't things to talk about. Penn State. Ashton and Demi. Iranian nuclear facilities that Israel is going to take out. Herman "No that's not a cigar, I am happy to see you" Cain. iPad 3. iPhone 5. Chinese spacecraft (launch one capsule and in a half hour you want to launch another one). The reopened Natalie Wood death investigation. That guy who took a shot at the White House. Justin Bieber.

Okay. Maybe not Justin Bieber.

Anyway, even if it's just for my own well-being, even if supply exceeds demand, I'm going to post more often.

It's like Lawrence Kasdan said, "Being a writer is like having homework every night for the rest of your life."

I was never very good at homework either.

I'll have what he's having

Apparently there's saving face, then there's saving your face. That's what I learned last week from my dinner at Circo.

The occasion was my annual pilgrimage to the SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association) automotive convention with my friend Pete (which I've written about here). It'd be safe to say we probably look forward to our dinner at Circo as much if not more than the actual convention. That was especially true this year since my good friend Kathryn, who works for Kia and was also there for SEMA, made the excellent decision to join us for dinner.

We didn't know it at the time, but come to find out she couldn't have picked a more perfect year to do it.

For those who haven't been, Circo is an Italian restaurant located lakeside at the Bellagio. Our table had a spectacular view of the dancing waters in front of the hotel. It always reminds me of the end of Ocean's Eleven, where George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and the rest of the gang are watching the fountains shoot 240 ft. into the air.

You know what else reminds me Ocean's Eleven? Every time I look in the mirror. If I had a dollar for every time I get mistaken for Clooney, I'd have - well, never mind.

The other thing we had a ringside view of were the two tables behind us.

Seated at them was a rather large Chinese contingent. That was the first thing we noticed. The second was the fact the drinks were flowing non-stop to their tables. Each person was standing behind their chair, not so much talking as screaming towards each other. The drunker they got, the more they'd bump into our chairs and the more they'd apologize for it.

At one point the decibel level and chair bumps got to be too much, so Pete turned around and let them know it. When he was done reminding them they weren't the only ones out to enjoy a nice meal that night, a gentleman in their party who was apparently working on his Foster Brooks impression staggered up to us and apologized profusely. He told us that the Chinese were a very loud culture. Loud and drinking (his words, not mine). He apologized again, we thanked him for his understanding and we raised our glasses and told him to enjoy his evening. Frankly it didn't seem like advice he needed.

Eventually the gentleman in their party pictured above had enough to drink. We could tell because he went face first into the table, and remained that way until the rest of his party had finished (apologizing) eating their meals and decided to leave.

Luckily he managed to save his face by not landing on any silverware (fork tines make such uneven piercings).

Just as two of his friends started to prop him up under each arm to drag him out, I quickly paid our bill and we started to walk out. My thinking was I wanted to get us out of there before he passed by our table. I was worried that just as he was being carried next to us, it would suddenly turn into the scene from Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life.

On our way out, the maitré d' apologized for the noise and the inconvenience. While he was genuinely sorry, apparently he wasn't sorry enough to make it right by taking something off the bill. I guess he figured if he did it for us, he'd have to do it for every table in the room that was being bothered by the group.

Which would've been all of them.

Afterwards the three of us agreed it had been a great night. Plus we got to do what a lot of people come to Vegas for.

Dinner. And a show.

The Wind

A few times on here, I've compared and contrasted different artists doing the same song. I did it for Secret Heart, Stand By Me and not that long ago, Tracks Of My Tears.

But I don't think I've ever contrasted an artist against himself (On Tracks Of My Tears, I counted the Smokey Robinson & The Miracles performance as a separate entity from Smokey Robinson singing solo).

As you could have guessed from my post about break-ups, I'm a Cat Stevens fan. I am now, and I was back then.

It's interesting to me that for so long, his religious conversion overshadowed his music. I guess it was to be expected given the political climate, and the fact that he walked away from his former success for so long. But somewhere along the way, he decided to come back to music and performing.

It's a very good thing.

And while age has slowed the songs down a bit, it's done nothing to make them any less heartfelt.

It's also interesting to note that while he's gotten visibly older over the years, I haven't changed at all. At least that's what I like to tell myself (Note to self: get rid of all the mirrors).

So, please to enjoy The Wind as sung by Cat Stevens then. And Yusuf Islam now.