You Can't Make Great Wine with Sour Grapes aka My Look Back at 2012

You can't make great wine with sour grapes.

Well, maybe you can, I don't know as I'm not an oenophile...but I know one thing's for certain: If you lie on your back long enough "woe-is-me-ing" the day away, not much gets accomplished.

I was going to write a catchy little end-of-year blog...a summation of what I experienced in the past year. I was going to do it really interestingly like my friend, Meleah, did with hers...but as I laid there, on my bed, woe-is-me-ing" away...I realized, "By God! I don't have anything really worthy to say!"

Oh, sure, I participated in Ziva's month-long "30 Days of Photographs" non-contest in April...and I enjoyed he heck outta that one, but, other than that...what could I say?

In September my daughter accomplished being named "National Merit Scholarship Semi-Finalist". Yep...it's all MY fault right there.

October brought Hurricane Sandy ashore to mess up parts of New York, New England, and my beloved New Jersey. Even with the devastation, I longed to be back there. Geez, I miss Jersey.

Then in July and December I cried a lot - I don't like mass shootings...so shoot me. Yeah, not so funny, anymore, is it?

I also had plans of talking about a wonderful person, a stranger really...who wanted to remain anonymous and be given absolutely no thanks whatsoever. This person showed up out of Internetland...and made my daughter and I cry again...but this time it was with tears of joy and love. I won't go into details as that is what they wished...but what transpired showed me that there truly are wonderful people out there. The only thing this person requested...was that one day...I should do a like kindness. Perhaps not the same kindness...but a kindness...a kindness which I can do in some way. I will, one day, honour that request.

I had all those plans...but there I was, still lying around like a dead carp -- and still thinking about how pathetic my little life was and how I was rather looking forward to the demise of the world, Mayan-style, on the 21st of December. It would have solved a lot of the world's problems, mine included, but then I got some much-needed sense knocked into me.

I started thinking about the ills of mankind throughout the ages...and what "age" I rather would have been born. I thought about this thoroughly. I went through all the countries, too. France, England, the US...and all the others I had some vague historical knowledge about...and thought where I would have been happy...and most importantly, when.

This progressed to visions of political imprisonment -- thrown in and left to rot...just for voicing that you were against...and then, later, were for...Napoleon (or any of a myriad of tyrannical leaders). I thought about the strife of coming over to a new land, kicking people off theirs, and claiming it as your own. I thought of poor little Dickensian orphans, working their fingers to the bone in the dead of Victorian winter like so many Hans Christian Andersen "Little Match Girl" characters.

I thought of so many wars throughout the world...throughout history...and throughout my lifetime. Where would I feel safe? Where could I go? When would I pick? When are things in MY life going to get better?

Then I thought how I probably would have died from Black Plague in the 1600s, succumbed to Tuberculosis in the 1800s, been a statistic in the 1918 pandemic, or just even one of the unremembered thousands upon thousands who died during childbirth. More realistically, I would have been dead at 41 because of my lung...had I had my lung problem prior to the mid-to-late 1900s. And -- I would surely have died living in the brutally cold and hostile environment of the Russian Ural Mountains since I can't even tolerate the temperature in my house getting down to a "frigid" 69.8.

Lastly, I will stop "woe-is-me-ing" (or at least greatly curtail) every single time I read about the fortuitous happenings regarding a viral blog writer, or a blog writer turned book writer, or a book writer turned blog writer, or anything with the word "writer" in it...because it's only my own damned fault I'm not famous because apparently I'm not sticking these things, called words, in the correct order.

Plus, first and foremost...I'm just not sticking to it.

But...I'm going to really try this year...basically because I'm just so tired of swallowing that bitter whine of mine...and there's no better vintage than now to get started.

Bulging at the Seams With That "Can-Do" Christmas Spirit

'Tis the season of giving...where we open our hearts to share our good fortune...and our cupboards to share our bounty...with those less fortunate than ourselves...

...or so the old heartfelt sentiments they've instilled in us would have you believe.

Okay...back to that thought in a minute...I just wanted to say I was in a slump the last month and didn't write a blog. One could say I was tired of making the rounds to countless doctors' offices and, coupled with reading endless dismal news items centering on people killing children...or more precisely, their own children (or in their blood-line somehow) - like the one yesterday about a grandmother nonchalantly tossing their grandchild off the third floor Fairfax County, Virginia, mall's balcony to her death...well, I was figuring life itself doesn't hold enough jubilation for me to write about...lately.

That was...until today.

Today I went to yet another doctor's office and spied a ginormous sparkly wrapping-papered box sitting next to the television cabinet in the waiting room.

I, of course, went to peer inside as I am the curious sort.

Inside were a few cans. Oh, isn't that nice - a box set out for people to give to others who can't afford their deductible or health insurance to start with. Nice sentiment and all, right?

Guess again.

Out of the (maybe) nine cans inside...seven were dented. And not dented a little. Not like the ones that used to be in the mark-down aisle in any supermarket when I was a kid -- the ones we'd routinely consume because the difference between 35 cents and 29 cents was a large enough amount of money to risk your family's health because you were too strapped for cash to pony out the extra six cents. We're talking majorly mangled...bordering on seepage and explosion upon contact. I didn't look closely enough to see if the expiration dates were from the 1990's. Something held me back in the hope that human kindness wouldn't allow such a thing.



But then again...human "kindness" decided to go foraging for cans of stuff they bought ages ago (think "ghost of Christmases past" impulse buys like decadent French chestnuts or Dickensian English plum pudding)...or accidentally dropped from off the top shelf whilst looking for more "normal" things to eat. Then think of someone actually starting up their $48,000+ automobile and driving all the way to the doctor's office to gingerly insert them in a bedazzled box destined for people less fortunate than themselves to consume. Keep in mind these are the very same people who wouldn't think twice about tossing out a can of Fancy Feast cat food if it had so much as a friggen ripped label.

So, it's okay to give sub-par food to someone you don't have any ties to...it's okay...because, as they say: "It's the thought that counts."

Ugh.

(Written "the other day"...but not posted until today.)

Shakespeare, Dickens and Me?

I hit a milestone of sorts the other day: I posted my 250th blog.

Now, that might not seem that monumental in the grander schemes of accomplishments mankind has made, but my blogs aren't all about my cat, or what I made for dinner last night, and none of them ever just had the "I feel :( today" comment.

Oh, trust me on that last one, there are people out there who do only that as a blog. What's worse -- there are people out there who "FOLLOW" those people's blogs.

Since I've written about so many different things...I wonder if there's a point where I have done -- or at least touched on, everything that's out there.

This recurring thought of mine has crept into my mind many times. And it's got to have come into the minds of people who are songwriters or writers of books.

Stay with me here on this one...

Beethoven had it easy.

So did Shakespeare.

The writers for "I Love Lucy"? Sheesh...all those episodes were a walk in the park compared to what today's writers have to deal with.

Back in the "olden days" - there were like, what? Five people writing songs? ANY tune you came up with was new. NOTHING sounded like anything else because 30 songs, tops, were written. How easy did those music "geniuses" have it? ANYTHING they wrote was new and innovative.

Seriously, is there any tune left that doesn't sound remotely like something else someone came out with? You might not even know the sound sounds the same - and you might not have even heard of it...totally innocent and all...but it sounds like some obscure polka ska band from Lichtenstein - and all of a sudden someone points it out via YouTube. You are now "BUSTED". Katy Perry move over.

And writers back then. Sure, there were people writing back then - but there were only like seven famous ones. Coming up with any book idea must have been - well, a writer's dream. I know for a fact, if I would have been an author in 1884, I would have been on several dreaded Victorian "summer reading lists" in schools.

"Please, sir, can I read some more?"

While I can bask in the heady thought that I probably would have been famous back then...I'd also certainly be dead by now...so it's pretty much a moot point and does me absolutely no good pondering the prodigiousness of my proposed pious past.

Alas.

So while people like Stephen King gobble up the last remaining 17 ideas which haven't been done yet...and you are on page 221 of some 93rd remake of some re-vamped vampire book from some 24-year-old author who undoubtedly has a relative working at HarperCollins, remember that I'm continually slaving away trying to think of original blogs to entertain you people.

And all for free...dammit.

:)

(Okay, I hit my 250th blog about 16 blogs ago...I'm just late getting around to writing this. I also never claimed I was good at alliteration.)

Things Are Going From Bad to Worst...

Well, it's been a very bad couple weeks in the entertainment industry...Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, and now Billy Mays. Very sad indeed.

So, I thought a little levity might be in order. But, be forewarned...these are really bad. In fact, they are amongst the worst out there...and therein lies the rub: they are SUPPOSED to be.

Imagine sitting at your desk in school when you were young...and the teacher just told you to write a story about summer vacation. If you were like me...it was an exercise in futility, imagination, and worst of all...getting it all started. The dreaded opening sentence. It all hinged on that. Once you got your story started...it usually came easier after. But...oh...that "starting off" point.

There's a myriad of ways to start off any story. Now, granted, first grade English class compositions probably weren't exactly going to garner you any movie deals. The number of screenwriters who struck it big at seven...well, you can probably count them on any cartoon character's hand (bear in mind...cartoon characters typically only have four fingers...or, three fingers and a thumb, if you prefer). In other words...there probably aren't many. But even at the tender age of seven...you came to realize just how detrimental the wording of that opening line is...and how hard it is to just...well...start...period.

And the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest capitalizes on just that. Period. Yes, up until that dreaded period...you can string words together any way you like...all forms of time-honoured punctuation is accepted...except the period. Once you place that dot at the end. That's it. That's all folks...that's all you get...that's all she (or he) wrote.

So, Professor of English, Scott Rice, started this contest way back in 1982 - as a lesson of sorts I figure...highlighting the pros and cons of opening sentence structure. It goes something like this:

Good: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." -- Opening line to A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.

Bad: "Me and Mommy and Daddy went to Disneyworld and we rode the rides and then we got popcorn and then my brother, Timmy, threw up, and the lady had to clean it, and then we went back to our room." -- Opening line reminiscent of countless children's' essays (around the world) the first day of school.

Worst: "It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness." -- Opening line by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford.

Do you see where this is headed?

Well, perhaps Professor Rice didn't either...but from a small beginning with, I believe, three whole entries...from his English class the first year...to what it has become: A literary legend. To win this prize is [almost] akin to the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer AND the Oscar...rolled into one. It has ballooned into the juggernaut that it is now.

And how do I know this?

I won it back in 2003...but you can read all about that in a blog I wrote back in 2006.

But back to the winner at hand, David McKenzie, of Federal Way, Washington, who won with this flowing refuse of writing:

"Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is blowin' off Nantucket Sound from the nor' east and the dogs are howlin' for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the "Ellie May," a sturdy whaler Captained by John McTavish; for it was on just such a night when the rum was flowin' and, Davey Jones be damned, big John brought his men on deck for the first of several screaming contests."

Bravo, David. Bravo, everyone else who won sub-categories and got mentioned...but most of all, bravo, Professor Scott Rice...for your monumental contribution to [would-be] writers everywhere.