Monthly Archives: January 2014

Column: No More Mr. Nice Guy

by Woody

No More Mr. Nice Guy Today

 

If you were expecting 700 words of nice this morning, read no further because I’m in a Stuck-In-Gridlock-On-The-George-Washington-Bridge kind of mood and I don’t care who is responsible for the closed lanes or why. Honk! Honkkkk!

 

You want nice? Watch an old Tom Hanks movie. Speaking of which, I’m steamed that Hanks was not nominated for an Oscar for either his lead role in “Captain Phillips” or his supporting performance in “Saving Mr. Banks.”Beiber

 

It has now been 13 years since “Cast Away” when Hanks – a back-to-back Academy Award winner in 1994 and 1995 for “Philadelphia” and “Forrest Gump” – was last nominated for the gold statue.

 

Suddenly Hollywood’s Nice Guy seems like an Oscar castoff.

*

            You want nice? Curl up with a warm chocolate chip cookie. I’m as steamed as a chef who has just cracked a rotten egg into the soufflé batter.

 

            Speaking of rotten eggs, do we really need to spend valuable Los Angeles County sheriff resources sending deputies with a felony search warrant to raid Bieber’s mansion and seize his cell phone and home security camera system looking for clues about who egged the next-door house (albeit causing an estimated $20,000 in damage)?

 

            How about this for quick justice: let the neighbor throw eggs until his arm grows tired at Bieber’s home.

 

            And speaking of swift justice and throwing, how about if a judge finally throws the book at Bieber after Miami police charged the 19-year-old foul-mouthed pop star with drunken driving, resisting arrest and driving without a valid license at 4 a.m. Thursday morning?

*

            You want nice? Put on a Bieber love song. I’m in a Bieber-cursing-out-the-police kind of rage.

 

            The L.A. Dodgers just signed pitcher Clayton Kershaw to a $215 million, seven-year contract, which works out to $30.7 million per season or roughly $1 million per game he pitches (if he remains healthy); or about $1.5 million per victory in a 20-win season; or $1.9 million if he wins 16 games as he did last season.

 

             But what has me Dodger Blue-in-the-face mad is that on top of an annual salary of about 90 teachers combined, Kershaw will receive a $1 million bonus for winning the Cy Young Award and $500,000 for any second- or third-place finish.

 

            For $30 million annually, shouldn’t he have to GIVE BACK $1 million if he doesn’t win the Cy Young Award?

*

            Speaking of wasted money, I am HOT under the collar about the Ventura County Transportation Commission recently approving the expenditure of $111,000 to hire a consultant to do a feasibility study for adding 31 miles of HOT – High Occupancy Toll – lanes in both directions on Highway 101 from the Los Angeles County line to Highway 33 in Ventura.

 

            Kudos, and good rush-hour karma, to Linda Parks who was the only commissioner to see the value in putting $111,000 to better use.

*

            You want nice? Go watch a Southern California sunset.

 

            Which is another thing I am ticked off about – locals posting photographs of our spectacular Gold Coast beach sunsets on Facebook and Instagram for everyone in the country suffering through the Arctic vortex to see and get jealous and angry at us about.

 

            Heck, Monet would have gazed at our recent evening skies and set down his paintbrush in resignation, knowing full well he could not do the scene justice.

 

            I am reminded of a winter trip we took with my wife’s family to a beautiful resort in Mexico. Each evening at Happy Hour everyone would sit on the beach and marvel as the sun gently dipped into the ocean’s horizon.

 

            “Ooooh!” and “aaaah!” the others said, while my much-better-half and I had a reaction of “ho-hum.” There were no clouds to become ablaze; no distant islands to frame the vision.

 

            We felt like Norma Desmond, the faded silent movie star in “Sunset Boulevard” who dreams of making a triumphant return to the screen, when she says: “We didn’t need dialogue. We had faces. There just aren’t any faces like that anymore.”

 

            There just aren’t sunsets anywhere like here. Suddenly, I’m in a nice mood again.

*

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. His new memoir WOODEN & ME is available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com and Amazon.com.

 

Column: Let Service Ring

by Woody | 1 Comment

Let Service Ring on MLK Day

 

            A number of years ago, a wise newspaperman – no, that is too limiting; a wise man – shared with me a recent scene that had made him smile and feel more hopeful about the world.

 

            What he saw was this: a young white boy and his African-American friend riding double on a bike.

 

            MLKWhat he said next was this: “It was wonderful, but then I realized what would be even more wonderful was if I had simply seen two boys riding double.”

 

            Those words come to my mind each year on Martin Luther King Jr. Day –

 

which is this Monday – because they so vividly echo this line from Dr. King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech: “I have a dream that one day little black boys and girls will be holding hands with little white boys and girls.”

 

MLK Day is unique among federal holidays because in 1994 Congress designated it a national day of service – “a day on, not a day off” – when Americans are encouraged to participate in volunteer projects. (To find local MLK Day of Service events go to http://mlkday.gov/serve/find.php)

 

Congress gets so many things wrong, but honoring Dr. King with a day of service seems right on. As King said: “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’ ”

 

            In this same light, he noted: “Everybody can be great, because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”
            And this: “Not everybody can be famous but everybody can be great, because greatness is determined by service.”

 

            As a service in giving me the rest of the day off, I will let Dr. King’s words finish this column.

*

“Faith is taking the first step even when you can’t see the whole staircase.”

*

“Only in the darkness can you see the stars.”

*

“I have decided to stick to love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

*

“The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ But the good Samaritan reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?’ ”

*

“The time is always right to do the right thing.”

*

“Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.”

*

“Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.”

*

“We have flown the air like birds and swum the sea like fishes, but have yet to learn the simple act of walking the earth like brothers.”

*

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”

*

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

*

“If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all.”

*

 “Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.”

*

“No work is insignificant. All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.”

*

“If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.”

*

“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.’ ”

*

“It is cheerful to God when you rejoice or laugh from the bottom of your heart.”

*

“Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it, because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others.”

*

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. His new memoir WOODEN & ME is available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com and Amazon.com.

 

 

Column: Board Game Fun has Risk

by Woody

Board game fun comes with a Risk!

 

            In the back of my son’s bedroom closet is a family heirloom of sorts that has not been removed from its tattered cardboard box in decades. It is kept on the top shelf, out of reach of young hands, for safety’s sake.1Risk

 

            Inside the rectangular flat box is a very early edition (circa 1963 according to the faded Rules For Play booklet within) of Risk, the Parker Brothers board game of world domination – and sibling warfare. I can tell you firsthand that Risk! can turn brothers into Cain and Abel.

 

            Screeds have been written about the evils of video games so I will mention just one statistic here: according to the website education.com “a nationally representative study found that the average American 8-to-18 years old plays video games for 13.2 hours per week.”

 

            In other words, about the same amount of time it takes to complete one game of Risk! or two playings of Monopoly.

 

            I imagine one of the positive things about the arctic blast that has swept across the United States like troops of Risk armies across colored continents is that bored snowbound families have dusted off board games and enjoyed some spirited battery-free fun.

 

            Instead of arctic air, the storm that put The Big Chill on my family’s winter break was my son celebrating his 24th birthday with the unwanted gift of mononucleosis hepatitis. Too tired to read, and never much of a TV watcher, he pulled out the old board games.

 

            Who knew a time machine came in a long, flat box? With a roll of the dice, my son and 26-year-old daughter became 8 and 10 again. So did my wife (I’m too wise to share her pre-time machine age) and I.

 

            I vetoed us playing Risk due to lingering PTSD from battles with my two older brothers. While our boyhood Monopoly wars were fierce and usually included accusations of cheating, and counter accusations – some true – it was a marathon Risk showdown (God probably could not complete a game of Risk in six days) that saw our Cold War go nuclear.

 

Risk “battles” are decided by dice, and a hot streak by one brother would inevitably result in a demand by the opposing brother to switch dice. If this change of dice did not change the losing warrior’s luck, he would often throw a tantrum – and the dice. It’s remarkable no one lost an eye.

 

            Still, this was mild compared to what happened during one especially contentious game in the late 1960s that see-sawed on the caprice of the dice snowy day after snowy day.

 

The specifics of what transpired next depend on whom you ask. Jim and I contend under oath to this day that Doug ran into a record-breaking streak of bad luck with the dice at the same time Jim and I each got hotter than James Bond at a craps table. The result was Doug crapped out: his stockpiled armies were decimated by both Jim’s and my own smaller forces.

 

            Doug cried foul, claiming that Jim and I forged an illegal alliance that defied the United Nations, Geneva Convention and Risk’s official Rules of Play. There is no way, Doug still insists four decades later, that we could not have possibly anticipated his genius strategy that was more remarkable than the D-Day invasion and the battle of Gettysburg combined.

 

            As an exclamation mark to his accusation of our cheating, General Doug launched the entire Risk playing board across the family room as small red and black and green and blue and yellow wooden armies shot airborne like a rainbow of shrapnel from a hand grenade.

 

            And that is how The Last Game of Risk We Ever Played ended.

 

            By these standards, my family’s recent Sorry! battle was mild despite spousal attacks followed by sarcastic “I’m soooo Sorrrrry!” apologies and various alliances that proved more fickle than the social status of teenage girls in middle school.

 

In the end, The Kid With Mono snuck from dead-last to first.

 

He celebrated with a victory nap.

 

*

 

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. His new memoir WOODEN & ME is available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com and Amazon.com.

 

Column: 2014 Crystal Ball

by Woody

A Crystal (Ball) Clear Look at 2014

 

            With apologies to the Ventura County Star’s resident sports seer, Loren “The Lock” Ledin, the only psychics I have ever known who could predict the future with eerie accuracy were Jim “Swami” Parker and Derry “Swami II” aka “The Deuce” Eads.CrysstalBall

 

Unfortunately, Swami and Deuce have retired their Mattel Magic 8 Crystal Balls, leaving the prediction science open to mystic charlatans and wannabes such as the Denver Psychic Development group that predicts 2014 will see Earthquakes in the Midwest that cause the Mississippi River to change course; an earthquake registering almost 8 on the Richter Scale hitting Northern California between May 12 and May 16; and NASA revealing that its data shows there is currently life on Mars.

 

Meanwhile, psychic Sydney Friedman’s predictions include: Edward Snowden will return to the United States and will NOT face trial; snow falls in Southern Florida; and strange, eerie rumbling sounds are heard in the Midwest –

 

perhaps around 8 p.m. Thanksgiving?

 

And from Nikki, Psychic to the Stars, comes this dark handful: The pyramids in Egypt will sink; a worldwide power blackout; the Empire State Building will tip, and a shark will kill somebody at Coney Island.

 

Well, I have a few predictions of my own, as well as some wishes, for the coming year.

 

Prediction: Nikki will be wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

 

Wish: That Nikki is about as accurate as my NCAA Basketball Tournament pool picks.

 

Prediction: The telemarketing industry finally realizes it makes zero sales at the dinner hour and stops calling everyone then.

 

Wish: The Do Not Call Registry worked.

 

Prediction: A CHP officer pulls over Justin Bieber on suspicion the pop star’s car is stolen because it is not being driven recklessly.

 

Wish: Instead of hounding the rich and famous, the paparazzi would flat-out ignore them until they suffered Spotlight Withdrawal Syndrome and begged for the chance to pose for magazine and tabloid photos.

 

Prediction: NBC restructures Monday Night Football analyst Cris Collinsworth’s multi-million-dollar contract with a disincentive clause deducting $1,000 per word he says on air.

 

Wish: The “Silence is Golden” clause becomes the industry norm – except for Vin Scully’s contract which shall award a bonus per word spoken.

 

Prediction: The First Family of Tennis – Wayne, Kathy, Mike and Bob Bryan – will be inducted into the Ventura County Sports Hall of Fame.

 

Wish: Same as above.

 

Prediction: UCLA hires Fox News personality Megyn Kelly as a professor in Afro-American Studies.

 

Wish: Fox & Friends hires a UCLA Afro-American Studies professor.

 

Prediction: The Cleveland Browns get truly serious about raising breast cancer awareness by changing their team name to the Pinks and wearing uniforms to match all season, not just in October.

 

Wish: The American Cancer Society’s Relays For Life had no reason to exist.

 

Prediction: The U.S. Supreme Court will rule in Humpty Dumpty v. Alice which centers on this argument: “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.” . . . “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” In a rare 9-0 decision, the High Court rules it can make the Constitution mean so many different things.

 

Wish: That 5-4 decisions were not so common.

 

Prediction: An American 10-year-old boy wins the gold medal in the luge while sledding on a store-bought Flexible Flyer at the Sochi Winter Olympic Games.

 

Wish: Every athlete who makes it to the medals podium in Sochi bows his or her head while raising a fist of protest – a la Tommie Smith and John Carlos in the 1968 Summer Olympics – inside a rainbow-colored mitten.

 

Prediction: Tina Fey wins an Emmy, Oscar, Tony, and Golden Globe in 2014 while hosting each awards show.

 

Wish: Tina Fey finally breaks through Hollywood’s glass ceiling.

 

Prediction: A great white shark, launched airborne by a giant tsunami caused by an 8.0 earthquake, will land on the Ventura Pier and eat a tourist’s fish taco.

 

Wish: A fish taco right now.

*

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. His new memoir WOODEN & ME is available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com and Amazon.com.