Monthly Archives: September 2014

Column: A Blarney Kiss

by Woody

A Blarney Kiss to Remember

This is the first in a four-column series on my recent travels to Ireland to explore my distant family roots and much more.

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            Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield in the 18th Century, famously observed: “Sex – the pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable.”

Kissing the Blarney Stone!

Kissing the Blarney Stone!

The Earl’s kiss-and-tell quote could well have been about the Blarney Stone.

To be sure, the expense of traveling from Ventura County to County Cork, Ireland, where Blarney Castle is located, was damnable.

As for the position required to plant my lips on the legendary Blarney Stone, it was ridiculous indeed. Here I was atop the five-story castle built in 1446, lying supine with my head and shoulders precariously extended over a two-foot gap between the battlement floor and the outside stone wall with a 90-foot straight drop to the ground below.

Fortunately, three steel rails have been installed to prevent a fatal fall – which happened on occasion in centuries past – but it is nonetheless unnerving to arch backwards over the parapet’s edge until one’s head is upside-down and facing out in order to kiss a germ-infested block of limestone imbedded in the opposite wall below floor level.

Spider-Man would feel a twinge of acrophobia.

Blarney Castle rises tall out of the bedrock.

Blarney Castle rises tall out of the bedrock.

While risk to life and limb has been eliminated, there remains danger of a bumped forehead or scraped nose during the contortions. I earned both red badges of courage.

The acrobatic challenge actually begins with a steep climb up a claustrophobically narrow and low-ceilinged spiral maze of a staircase to reach the castle’s summit.

Sir Winston Churchill is reported to have been tall to the challenge, kissing the Blarney Stone in 1912. Hollywood’s Oliver Hardy, who comically starred with Stan Laurel, is also among the long list of celebrities and dignitaries said to have accomplished the feat.

Both figures famously fortify the lore of the Blarney Stone’s magical power to endow the gift of eloquence to all who kiss it for

Hardy successfully made the transition from silent movies to talkies while Churchill simply became arguably the greatest orator of the 20th Century.

Even beyond its celebrated rock of ages, Blarney Castle is magnificent. However, on the drive back to the hotel our cab driver insisted my wife and I visit Bunratty Castle, located 100 kilometers north in Limerick, claiming it to be “one-hundred times more brilliant.”

This sounded like a bunch of blarney.

It proved true.

Bunratty Castle is breathtakingly impressive.

Bunratty Castle is breathtakingly impressive.

Bunratty Castle is monstrous outside and gorgeous within, an architectural masterpiece of stonework rising from a riverbank into the clouds. With a drawbridge at the front entrance and four imposing sentry towers at each corner it looks exactly as one thinks a medieval castle should.

Descending a twisting stairwell after enjoying a panoramic view from Bunratty’s crest, I encountered a woman in ascent.

“How much further up,” she asked, short of breath but full of excitement, “until we can kiss the Blarney Stone?”

Having bussed the Blarney Stone two days previous, I now possessed such gift of eloquence as to not laugh out loud at her muddle. Instead, I gently explained this was Bunratty Castle and unfortunately the Blarney Stone was in the Blarney Castle about 60 miles away in Cork townland.

The woman was visibly crestfallen. And embarrassed, for she shared she was a Limerick resident and had brought her visiting cousin here specifically to kiss the Blarney Stone.

It would be like my taking a visitor who dreams of riding Disneyland’s iconic Matterhorn instead to Magic Mountain and getting in line for Revolution.

For a different reason Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw did not kiss the Blarney Stone, passing on the opportunity because he said: “Eloquence I have enough and an overabundance.”

Unlike the great Mr. Shaw, an under-abundance have I. And so my hope is the legend is true and some eloquence rubbed off on my lips, and scraped nose, and can be transferred to my typing fingertips.

If so, the position will have been ridiculous and the expense damnable, but my pleasure from kissing the Blarney Stone far from momentary.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

Wooden&Me_cover_PRCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”

Column: Going Cell Phoneless

by Woody

Going Phoneless Takes ‘Bold’ Effort

Barbara Walters once famously asked Katharine Hepburn in a TV interview, “What kind of a tree are you?”

For the record, the legendary actress replied “oak.”

1-boldWere I similarly asked what animal my BlackBerry Bold cell phone was, the answer would be “cat” because it has had nine lives.

Alas, it grew so antiquated over the past seven years it became a dumbphone compared to state-of-the-art 3G, 4G and now 5G smartphones. With each new iPhone and Galaxy unveiling, I began to secretly hope my BlackBerry would finally croak so I could replace it without remorse.

But a funny thing happened – every time it appeared to die or was lost or stolen, I was crestfallen. I had fallen in love with the Bold’s miniaturized real QWERTY keyboard that made texting and emailing gunslinger quick.

I say my BlackBerry had nine lives, but that might be an understatement. When I forgetfully left it behind in restaurants it always wound up back in my hands like a well-thrown boomerang. Thrice stolen it was returned each time by good Samaritans who found it in trashcans while scavenging for aluminum cans. Another time it was left on a car roof and didn’t break – or get run over – when it fell off as I backed out. Two battery replacements provided successful CPR.

In the end, my BlackBerry’s Achille’s heel proved to be its keyboard that allowed a small splash of water to get through the cracks and fizzled its electronic circuitry.

My own inner circuitry fizzled a bit when I learned my family’s family plan was not eligible for a free upgrade/replacement for a full month. Waiting would save me $200 so I went on a 30-Day Cell Phone-Free Diet.

What promised to be a welcomed experiment in being unplugged started off disastrously. The first full day I was cell phoneless, I got a flat tire on the freeway driving home from the airport. What are the odds, Mr. Murphy?

Fortunately I was near enough an exit to get off the 101 and limped into a gas station. Which, of course, had no public payphone. Two separate customers I approached asking if I could borrow their phones reacted with wary disbelief that anyone in the 21st century didn’t have their own cell phone.

The clerk inside helpfully phoned AAA for me and a tow truck driver quickly arrived and even more quickly put on the spare tire as though his weekend job is with a NASCAR pit crew.

For the next 29 days I wondered how we used to get along without cell phones. Not just for big things like car trouble, but small things like calling your spouse because you forgot what you were supposed to pick up at grocery store or having your kids text you when they need a ride home from sports practice.

But I also saw the evils of being too tightly leashed to one’s cell phone. And never more dramatically than at the park one weekend afternoon when a father was throwing a football with his young son. The Norman Rockwell scene was splashed with graffiti, however, because after each catch the 10-year-old boy had to race to his dad and hand him the football instead of throwing it back. You see, the dad was holding a cell phone to his ear the whole time and couldn’t catch a return throw.

Also, sadly, in restaurants I witnessed couples on dates and family outings where everyone’s head is bowed with their attention focused on their cell phone screens instead of on enjoying each other’s company.

And on and on.

After the month passed I got a newfangled latest and greatest and fastest oversized smartphone which, to be honest, blows my old BlackBerry out of the water.

We’ll see how many extra lives it proves to have, but I’m determined not to let it steal too much of my attention away from my own life. Instead of looking down during a walk through the park, I want to look up and see the trees.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

Wooden&Me_cover_PRCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”

Column: Hollywood Tale

by Woody

Hollywood Tale Ends With Airtight Alibi

The other day a friend asked if I had ever considered writing a movie script. To my credit, I didn’t end our friendship on the spot.

Let me explain. I once gave it a whirl and like most screenwriters – wannabe greenhorns to green-lighted veterans alike – I ended up secretly wishing revenge on a movie producer who has lied through white-capped teeth.

1-hollywoodBinding the snake’s hands, putting a pillowcase over his head, cracking a rib and basically scaring the living daylights out of him during a nighttime home break-in admittedly might be a tad extreme.

Depending on your definition of “tad.”

My Hollywood tale began in Lana Turner-like fashion. Instead of being “discovered” on a stool at the soda fountain in Schwab’s Pharmacy on Sunset Boulevard, I was at my desk in The Star’s newsroom. A reader phoned, said he admired my columns, and asked if I would be interested in writing a screenplay for him.

I reacted the way my wife did one evening when Vin Scully returned my phone call at home: she thought it was a friend playing a practical joke and hung up. Like Mr. Golden Voice, Mr. Silver Screen Movie Producer called right back. He insisted he was serious. I insisted I was not interested. He persisted. I agreed to meet him.

Mr. Movie Producer’s home (pronounced “mansion”) at the top of a long, winding driveway took my breath away. When he opened the 10-foot-tall elaborately carved art piece of a front door he “had me at hello.”

By the time I said goodbye two hours later, Mr. Movie Producer had shown me a rough edit of a film he was wrapping up (I actually recognized a few of the actors) and we had hashed out some ideas for a “Remember The Titans”-like plot I would write. I should mention this was a few years before “Titans” became a blockbuster.

There were, however, a few buckles in the red carpet to trip over: I had never written a screenplay; never taken a screenwriting class; did not even know how to properly format the text of a script.

“No problem, no worries, no big deal! Writing a sports column is harder,” Mr. Movie Producer insisted.

“Introduce all the characters in the first five pages, give the plot a twist at page 30 and another at page 60,” he explained.

“Buy a screenwriting program and a new laptop and I’ll pay you back,” he promised.

I delivered a script that Mr. Movie Producer insisted he loved; he delivered excuses and delays, but never a nickel reimbursement for the screenwriting software much less a dime of the $5,000 writing fee he guaranteed.

In truth, I was not 10 percent so gullible as to think there wasn’t a 90 percent likelihood I would get stiffed; I saw it as motivation to write a screenplay and an excuse to get a new laptop.

Still, I would be lying if I did not admit to dreaming of movie success and becoming nicknamed Hollywoody. So when Mr. Movie Producer stopped phoning me and started ignoring my calls, I was a little angry.

While I gave up big-screen hopes for my “Blindsided” script, I held on to wishing I would one day come across it as a straight-to-DVD release and I could – in true Hollywood fashion – blindside Mr. Movie Producer with a lawsuit.

Fast forward a number of years when I read a newspaper story about a late-night home invasion by two masked gunmen. They reportedly tied up the homeowner, who had been watching TV, covered his head with a pillowcase, punched him in the face and broke one of his ribs before escaping with $2,000 and some computer equipment.

When I read the victim’s name I did a double take – it was Mr. Movie Producer! On the silver screen, I would have been an obvious suspect.

Indeed, I felt as lucky to have the airtight alibi – being seated in a press-box chair at a Lakers game the night it happened – as Lana Turner must have felt sitting on that famous stool at Schwab’s.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

Wooden-&-Me-cover-mock-upCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”

Column: Smiley’s “Death of a King”

by Woody | 1 Comment

‘Death of a King’ is Lively, Relevant Today

Pursuant of my goal of reading 50 books annually, I just finished “Death of a King: The Real Story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Final Year” by Tavis Smiley that will be released Tuesday (Sept. 9) but which I got my hands on early.MLK

It is not only the most remarkable of the 33 books I have read to date in 2014, it ranks among the best I have read in many years. It is so riveting and enlightening I read it twice in one week.

In truth, I feel I have “read” it three times because I had the great privilege of initially listening to an audio-book version, if you will, during a two-hour lunch with Smiley at a Caribbean café. It was like hearing a one-on-one lecture about Abraham Lincoln from Doris Kearns Goodwin, or David McCullough discussing the year 1776 over beers.

Smiley is a similar scholar of note on King. As he writes in the Introduction: “During the most difficult period of my childhood, a time when I had fallen into deep despair, (King’s) spirit entered my soul and excited my imagination. I recognized the rhythms of his rhetorical passion as more than hypnotic: I knew they were righteous. As a result of their disturbing truths, I became a lifelong student of his work as a minister, advocate, and writer. His call to radical democracy through redemptive love resonated with me on a profound level.”

In “Death of a King,” Smiley profoundly chronicles from April 4, 1967, when King delivers an impassioned speech opposing the Vietnam War, to his assassination on April 4, 1968. The tumult of these final 365 days is truly remarkable.

But what I found most remarkable is that 46 years later this story is eerily relevant with police shootings of African-American men, peaceful demonstrations and riots; poverty, racial inequalities in the justice system, and militarism dominating the headlines.

Here, in King’s own words from “Death of a King,” are some examples that ring loudly still:

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

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“You can’t blame nonviolent demonstrators who are demonstrating for their constitutional rights when violence erupts.”

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“In the final analysis a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear – it has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro has worsened over the last twenty years, that the promises of justice and equality have not been met, and that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.”

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“We must see now that the evils of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism are all tied together.”

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“I speak out against this war, not in anger, but with anxiety and sorrow in my heart, and, above all, with a passionate desire to see our beloved country stand as a moral example of the world.”

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“True compassion is not flipping a coin to a beggar. It comes to seeing that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”

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“The lives, the incomes, the well-being of poor people everywhere in America are plundered by our economic system.”

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“We must all learn to live together as brothers in this country or we’re going to perish together as fools.”

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“We may be able to emerge from the bleak and desolate midnight of man’s inhumanity to man, into bright and glittering daybreak of freedom and justice. I have not lost hope …”

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Tavis Smiley

Tavis Smiley

Smiley concluded our lunch the same way he does “Death of a King,” sharing the goose-bump-inducing eulogy King delivered in 1965 for Reverend James Joseph Reeb, a white man who joined the Civil Rights Movement and was then murdered because of it.

King’s words would prove prescient of his own death, as he asked about Reeb’s murder: “When we move from WHO to WHAT, the blame is wide and the responsibility grows.”

It is an evocation that remains relevant in American life today.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

Wooden-&-Me-cover-mock-upCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”