Bowl Championship Series

The bowl season is now well under way. Today and tomorrow you can overdose on college football if you want. There are so many bowls I wonder why there isn't Campbell's Soup Bowl. A Kellogg's Cereal Bowl. Or a Charmin Toilet Bowl.

There will never be a true National Championship. There's too much money in the system the way it is. So long as there isn't a true championship playoff series, teams and alumni of different schools can claim they were better but didn't get a chance.

--30--

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Renewing the faith

Here's a sweet story about generosity and kindness and how a benefactor learned it really is better to give than to receive.

--30--

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The world has changed...

The Edmund Gwenn version

AMC is running Miracle on 34th Street every night. As I watched I thought of a couple things. If it were made today, the movie looks like a 96 minute paid product placement for Macy's Department Stores.

But I also thought — and this is sad — about how the world has changed. In the first act, Cleo (Theresa Harris, the housekeeper, lets Phillip Gailey (John Payne), a single man with no children of his own who Mrs. Walker (Maureen O'Hara) has never met, take little Susan Walker (Natalie Wood) into his apartment to watch the Thanksgiving Parade.

Neither the housekeeper or Mrs. Walker is the least bit concerned.

The world has changed, and not for the better.

--30--

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The Power of Ritual

About 40 years ago I was playing a lot of chess. I was nothing special, but I could beat just about anyone who didn’t play in tournaments. Bobby Fischer had just become World Champion, and chess was booming in the United States. The Bay Area was a thriving greenhouse of chess talent, perhaps second only to New York City, because of its proximity to the University of California in Berkeley, and Cal’s arch-nemesis, Stanford, on the other side of the Bay.

One Spring, I went to a master chess tournament in a bar on College Avenue called “The Loft.” I recognized a few familiar faces, but no one I had met. I watched a few games. To someone who has never played tournament chess before, watching a chess game must seem duller than watching Jello coagulate, but to someone who plays, it's a mind-boggling torrent of combat.

I don’t remember exactly how I introduced myself to Dennis Fritzinger, but I do remember that afternoon, I got him to sign a tournament book of games, a tournament in which he had scored respectably. Dennis was the first chess master I’d met who was more than polite to me. He answered my questions about his game that day, and when I saw him at another tournament, he remembered me, and said hello first.

We all need our cookies

Recently I joined the East Bay PEN, the Professional Experience Network, an organization composed of professionals who help other professionals. Couple of weeks ago, I attended my first General Meeting. Although I'm a new member and I haven't yet completed my training, my résumé coach, Mr. Ben English, looked me square in the eyes and said, "You're going to attend this meeting."

We'd only just met, but I knew this much: if Mr. Ben English says I'm attending a meeting, if I know what's good for myself, I'm gonna attend that meeting.

I sat quietly, trying to get the lay of the land. Because I was the FNG, I didn't feel it was my place to say anything. (Vietnam vet slang for "Freaking New Guy." Except they used another word instead of "Freaking." You never wanted to go out on patrol with the FNG because he's green and he's gonna get you killed.) Much of the meeting concerned attendance. Why were members dropping out after a few weeks? What could the organization do to serve them better (and reduce the rate of attrition)?

No Miracle on 34th Street (Updated ending)

Alistair Sim as Ebenezer Scrooge

Before we've had a chance to finish our seconds on Thanksgiving, independent television stations and cable channels dust off (metaphorically, as they're no longer kept on film or videotape) the classic Christmas movies.

Had he lived today, Charles Dickens would be amazed at the myriad versions of his A Christmas Carol. Dozens of actors have breathed life into Ebenezer Scrooge, from the iconic Alistair Sim to Bill Murray. Scrooge even appeared in other movies (in different incarnations) as the animated Dr. Seuss's Grinch and Lionel Barrymore's Mr. Potter in It's a Wonderful Life.

Happy 90th Birthday, Mr. Dave Brubeck!

On Monday, one of America's true innovators, Dave Brubeck turns 90 years old.


Brubeck did some amazing things with tempo. He took chances, he went way out there on the high wire, but took us with him on the way. He challenged us to come along, but he always made us feel safe.

The other great thing about him is he was very secure. If you listen to "Take Five," all the flourishes are given to Joe Morello, on drums, who taps the cymbals with such a light touch it sounds like he was playing them with his fingernails and Paul Desmond. ("Take Five" made a star out of Desmond, and Brubeck said he intended the piece for Morello to get a great solo.) Brubeck is content to provide the dance floor, and let his compadres dance.

Just because a dog can talk, doesn't mean you should listen

In Sunday's New York Times Op-Ed pages (yes, pages, even though no trees were sacrificed for my convenience), comedian/actor/musician/author Steve Martin wrote about an unpleasant experience he had at the 92nd Street Y as part of their speakers series. Mr. Martin is currently on a book tour promoting his new novel, An Object of Beauty, about the world of art, a subject Mr. Martin, a serious collector of modern art, knows well. The promoters of the Speakers series knew he was on a book tour promoting this novel, and they knew the subject of it.

This fact is undeniable: the promoters at the 92nd Street Y knew the reason Mr. Martin would be in town and what he was promoting. They asked Mr. Martin to select his interviewer; he chose an old friend, Debra Solomon, an art scholar and contributor to the New York Times. They were informed of his choice of interviewer and in the course of due dilligence, were provided with a bio of Ms. Solomon, which was used in the marketing of their appearance. (Mr. Martin and Ms. Solomon had engaged in a public conversation before an audience some years ago in Washington, D.C. and remembered it was rewarding, so they were looking forward to yet another.)

To be clear: The 92nd Street Y knew Mr. Martin was promoting a novel about the world of art. They knew that he had asked an art critic to participate in the conversation. They included this information in their advertising and press releases about the appearance. Mr. Martin and Ms. Solomon knew they had signed a contract to appear on a certain day and time and have a conversation between each other. Ticket buyers were informed of these facts as well in the advertising and promotional material.

stranded on the dessert island

Guest post from my friend Dennis Fritzinger, aka "Dennis the Poet" (dennisDOTfritzingerAThaasDOTberkeleyDOTedu).

stranded

nothing to eat but cake and pie;
cookies drop out of the sky
like coconuts--i wonder why.
i'm stranded on a dessert island.

nothing to drink but soda pop
and kool-aid, drop by drop by drop;
doesn't look like my sugar rush will stop--
i'm stranded on a dessert island.

frozen yogurt and ice cream,
kool-whip piled high as a dream
of clouds above a lemonade stream--
i'm stranded on a dessert island.

brownies, Christmas candy, fudge;
i've a layer of fat that just won't budge;
against that shipwreck i've a grudge--
i'm stranded on a dessert island.

"NY-LON" (review)

Stephen Moyer and Rashida Jones

NY-LON is about Edie Miller (Rashida Jones), a New Yorker who lives and works in a record store on the Lower East Side and Michael Antonioni (Stephen Moyer), a London banker. It’s a seven episode series shot on location in 2004 on two continents first shown on Channel 4 in Britain; now free to us on Hulu.

Nearly all love stories are a variation on Romeo and Juliet, bridging wide social and sometimes economic gulfs. This one has a twist: it’s not just a gulf, it's the Atlantic Ocean. Edie’s in London with her roommate Astrid, on holiday visiting a friend, a getaway she can barely afford on her income from the record store and the adult literacy class she teaches in Brooklyn. Her handbag is stolen as she walks along the Thames. She’s lost everything; not just her money but her cell phone as well. Taking refuge in a loud and busy pub, she borrows Michael’s to call her friends and ask for help. They have one of the best “meet-cutes” I’ve ever seen. Watch the clip:



At the beginning, Michael doesn’t care much for Edie. He doesn’t think she's anything special. With his income and rugged good looks, he could open his mobile and call a dozen just like her. Although she’s given up smoking, Edie’s stressed out and craves a cigarette. (Apparently in 2004 England, one could still permitted to smoke in bars.) So she tries to bum a smoke from him. Since he’s got a drink or three in him, Michael decides he’ll have a little sport with her. He says he won't give her one, but he’ll sell it to her. After she disgustedly gives him 53 pence for the one cigarette, all the money she’s got, she then has to borrow money from him for a cab.

Rashida Jones

A bit of reasonably plausible deus ex machina follows, and the meet-cute is set in motion. Eventually, we discover (before they do) that despite all their differences (which of course translates into “opposites attract”) they both have a shared love and responsibility for their respective families. Edie seems to have no immediate family, so she’s the earth mother to her friends. She’s the one they go to for advice and support. Michael is the eldest in his family, the provider; looking after his younger sister’s (paying her college tuition), a worthless brother, a nephew - Angelo - his brother fathered, and Angelo’s mother, who’s unrelated by law or blood, but who depends on Michael for Angelo’s private school fees.

Stephen Moyer

They’re drawn to each other, separated not only by the Atlantic Ocean, but also by their love and ferocious loyalty to their familes.

Roger Leatherwood, my smarter and better former writing partner, taught me you never want the viewer to say “HUH?” With one line of dialogue (Michael saying he hates email), the producers force the two to use transatlantic calls mobile to mobile, which costs a fortune. (They don’t even bother with prepaid calling cards.) Michael can afford that but Edie can’t. Even though it was a successful device in that shameless two-hour AOL product placement You’ve Got Mail, no doubt the producers felt they couldn't portray email with the same urgency as a phone call. In 2004 I can’t believe two twenty-something literate and non-destitute people don’t use email. I found it hard to believe Michael or his housemate Raph don’t have a laptop at home but I did believe Edie and her roommate Astrid don’t have a computer in their apartment. And of course, she works in a record shop. A record shop that doesn’t check prices or sell on eBay. So in a way, she’s as much an anachronism as the records she sells. Aside from this speed bump, NY-LON works.

Rachel Miner

The producers employed a device in NY-LON which is not novel but gives it a fresh look. It’s shot in high-definition wide screen, with an aspect ratio of 1.78/1. This presents the director a much larger palette on which to compose his storytelling. He creates a collage of two, three, or four shots together, showing different events occurring simultaneously. Superimposed is a graphic showing the time in “NY” and “LON” (using a 24-hour clock rather than AM or PM). NY is always on the left and LON is always on the right, as a visual underscoring of the transatlantic divide. It’s a very clever bit of storytelling.

Navin Chowdhry

NY-LON has some nice parallel construction, interweaving three additional relationship arcs in various stages of blossoming or withering. When parallel construction is done well, each arc echoes aspects of the other arcs, and to continue the metaphor, together, they reinforce the general theme. NY-LON does it well. The supporting cast was well-chosen, with Navin Chowdhry as Raph, Michael's housemate, and Rachel Miner as Astrid, Edie's promiscuous roommate.

Channel Four in England only made the one series of seven episodes. Running time is about 45 mins. with a few brief (one minute or less) commercials inserted by Hulu. Casual sex, some brief nudity, and frequent profanity make this unsuitable for adolescents or younger. (One personal note: I was jarred to see so many of the characters smoking.)

--30--

The meeting

"Hello, my name is Kenn Fong, and I'm a writer."

"[many voices as one] Hello, Kenn."

"It's been two years since I've been to a meeting."

"[muffled] that's okay, we're all friends here."

"I can't help it... I booted up..., I thought I was okay, that I could do it myself"

"We all need help once in a while."

"I opened Word... and.... [choking....]

"I-I-I saw the empty window... [sobs]

"And I just... I just had to fill it with words... [he breaks down..]"

"That's okay, Kenn. We all have. What's important is now you're here. You're with friends."

--30--

Jimmie Johnson can't get any love

[If you are not interested in NASCAR just skip this one.]

If you follow NASCAR, you probably know Jimmie Johnson drove the #48 Lowe's Hardware Chevrolet to win the NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship again for the 5th consecutive time. This is an incredible feat because the competition is so strong. (Just a few years ago, there were some races in which the winner was the only car on the lead lap!)

All the same, this news has been greeted by horror from many of the fans,, including me. Some of the fans are so disgusted with the result that they're swearing off NASCAR.

47 years ago today

47 years ago today, President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. I wonder what he would have thought about the world we live in today.

We've conquered one of his goals: putting a man on the moon, and we got a lot of benefits from the technology used to get there. I'm alive because of the space race. During my cardiac surgery, vital signs were monitored and I was kept alive using machines which evolved from the instruments developed for the space race.

We have the Internet and cable and satellite TV which President Kennedy never envisioned. The Internet has given a forum for every crackpot who couldn't accept the simple fact that a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone to murder our young, vital president.

We went through Vietnam, a war which he may have avoided. We fought that war supposedly to stem the tide of communism from the Domino Effect. The left scoffed at the idea but after Reagan and Gorbachev shook hands and thawed the Cold War, most of the old Soviet satellite states fell one by one.

I'm a grumpy old man because...

I can't understand why people ask what a word means or who a person is when they're already on the damned Internet and can look it up themselves. It's a sign of disrespect to me that they are so freakin' lazy and think that my time is worth so much less than theirs.

I can't understand why airport security treats everyone the same: poorly. Terrorist hijackers all come from one demographic. You don't see 80-year-old Chinese-American grandmothers carrying shoe bombs. Sure, run the wand over every single person and have the sniffer dogs pass by their carry-ons. It seems to me that we've so damned politically correct that we willfully fail to concentrate on proven demographic information in the name of being fair. Life ain't fair, folks.

I can't understand why people in Oakland want another stadium for the Oakland Athletics when they still have $10 million in annual debt payments through 2025 for the Oakland Coliseum. Having a big-league team doesn't make you big league. Having good schools, safe streets, and honest politicians makes you big league. There ought to be a way to make everyone who votes in favor of a new sports stadium pay triple sales tax while those of us with some fiscal common sense pay less.

I can't understand why Mike Singletary, a fundamentally decent man but overmatched as the 49ers Head Coach, still has a job.

I can't understand why the New York Yankees are dragging their heels re-signing Derek Jeter. For his whole career, he's been the heart and soul of that team. Sure, he's lost a step, but he's a quiet leader who is respected by everyone, including Red Sox fans. (I are one.)

I can't understand why the bus system gives its board of directors cars. They should ride the buses like the rest of us and maybe they'd figure out what needs to be fixed.

more grumpiness to come...

He was a working man

He got on the bus in grimy coveralls carrying an old-fashioned lunch box, the kind that looks like a barn with a rounded top made for the Thermos flask inside. Like me, he went straight for the back. Once you get there, you can settle in and release the day slowly, so when you get home, the worst is over.

He was average looking in every way, the kind of guy spy agencies recruit because he can move around and no one remembers he was there. I heard him sigh loudly, so I asked him, "Rough day?"

"Yeah. I'm sorry. Didn't mean to bother you."

Although I was wearing dress casual with a soft briefcase, I said, "don't worry. Workin' men got to stay together."

5 Things That Make Me Happy Today

1) Sweet Potatoes
My whole life I've been eating yams. Yams in Chinese food in the form of Yams & Broccoli at Chef Jia's place, yams as a side dish at Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner, yams & tofu at home. But I'd never eaten an actual sweet potato. Tonight I had my second meal with sweet potatoes, a quick stir-fry with broccoli stalks and lots of sliced garlic and a splash of soy sauce. (Broccoli stalks because I like to eat the florets either raw or steamed by themselves. I have been cutting the stalks and peeling them and cooking them as a regular vegetable. Sometimes with carrots.)

2) Meds
My prescriptions arrived and they didn't cost as much as I had thought they would. My co-pay is usually ten bucks each but now that my doctor has changed a couple of them, I'm getting twice as many as before and I thought the co-pay would have gone up more. But it didn't.

3) Jewel the Cat's litter box
I hate changing it, but I also don't want her to be unhappy. So I changed it today and when she's happy, I'm happy.

4) Networking
I found a new contact who seems to be very cooperative and friendly and halfway promised to help me network to a new job.

5) Frank
I heard my friend Frank's voice on the radio today. He's morbidly obese and I thought he might not be alive anymore. We'd lost touch about five or six years ago. Now I gotta remember his last name so I can track him down.

--30--

If I were in charge

As I was saying...

If I were in charge, all library branches would be open on holidays and weekends, and open until 9 two days a week (if safe).

If I were in charge, I'd use surveillance cameras to catch graffiti vandals and force them to do community service cleaning up buses and bus stops.

If I were in charge, cigarettes would be a controlled substance, and smoking in any public place, even outdoors, would be forbidden. To those who say this is unreasonable, I hope you never get trapped in a bus shelter on a rainy day with a smoker.

If I were in charge, people on public assistance would not be able to buy snack foods, soft drinks, and prepackaged crap such as Lunchables. Don't use my tax money on that.

If I were in charge, I'd find some way to make voters who approve sports facilities pay triple taxes to pay it off.

If I was in charge, if you're from another country and you want us to change our laws to "respect" your culture, I'd send you the hell back home.

If I was in charge, you couldn't graduate from high school unless you knew how to sew on a button, fix a flat tire, re-wire a table lamp, cook a meal from scratch, and balance a checkbook.

If I was in charge, Election Day would be a public holiday. When you vote, you have to answer 10 civic questions. Miss three of them and your vote doesn't count.

If I was in charge, school teachers would earn as much as bus drivers.

If I was in charge, military service would be mandatory for both sexes. Conscientious Objectors and the disabled could serve in hospitals or non-combat positions.