Those Oscar Blues

So American Hustle didn't win. So Gravity didn't win. So Matthew McHero  is himself in ten years. So Ellen DeGeneres gave movie stars pizza. So Jim Carey was really funny. So we saw U2 being the last Great Rock band again. So we saw lighting and set design people accept Oscars for things we never knew existed. So it seemed everyone died last year. So Robert Deniro said writers are twisted and neurotic...at least someone got something right. It still was the top of the mountain for just about anyone on the planet. At least for a night.

And then we watched a  movie from a book written by a slave a hundred years ago win Best Picture and beat out 2001 A Space Oddity. And maybe Matthew McHero should have said something about AIDS instead of rambling about himself. Maybe we just all want to live where it is warm now and look like a million bucks in a dress or a tux. And what are those after the Awards parties like? Does Bono ever take off his glasses? Does the Edge take off his hat? Probably not.

And how did Pink become everywhere. And wasn't there someone else who could have sung Somewhere over the Rainbow than the bionic woman who is so blond she looks like a Goddess from the planet Teutonic. But she does spin very nicely at the Grammys and so it was different to see her with her clothes on . And so we are left with that funny feeling again that Mickey Rourke cited in the movie Diner while staring at a rich woman riding a horse..."did you ever wonder that there is something going we  know nothing about?"

Absolutely.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
The PItcher...Sometimes a dream is all you have

Why Watching the Oscars Is Hard

Watching the Oscars is hard. Take Chris Rock. He had to let everyone know that he got a million bucks for just doing his lines in an animated movie. Must be rough. At a time when most writers are eating beans or not eating at all the Oscars is a night of those at the very tippy top of the very tippy top. They are people who through luck, talent, ingenuity, the fates, have hit the mother lode and we can all watch them accept these awards thanking everyone from God to mom.

And you have to wonder if there is a chance to hit that mountain through hard work. Maybe so. Maybe hard work and talent could put you there. Maybe it is something else, something people don't like to think about and that is the odds. Lets take a hundred thousand writers. Fifty thousand of them are good. Twenty five thousand are very good. Five thousand are extraordinary. One thousand are genius level. One hundred of those one thousand produce screenplays or novels.  Ten of those left over get a movie made. One gets to the Oscars.

Now take that pool and double it. Now you are talking about a group of people who are good  but there are only so many slots. So now you roll the dice. Luck. You need luck. Maybe luck is not yours to be had no matter how many times you try. It is just not your lot. The cards didn't fall your way and that's even worse than not having the talent to be up there.

So you watch the Oscars. You watch the people who have passed. You are on a clock that will only run so long. You watch those people thank everyone they know. Hell yes. Wouldn't you?

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/

Frustrated Writers and Cynical Kid Cartoons

Take a writer who is not getting out his steam into the proper forum and you have cynical kid cartoons. My daughters watch cartoons that are more nihilistic than Sartre. I listened to Fairly Odd Parents the other day and the slash and burn dialogue was blowing way over my seven year olds head. It was just scatological crappy attacks on everything and while I appreciate good satire as much as the next person I would say to those writers: go start writing your fiction or non fiction or whatever it is you choose and forget about cartoons. Your message is falling on deaf ears.

The deaf ears of children who do not get half of what is going on in Sponge Bob. I like Sponge Bob. It is hilarious but my kids just stare while I crack up. Most of the humor is directed at adults yet Sponge Bob is for kids at it's base level. Not that there isn't precedent here. The old Warner Brothers Looney Tune cartoons were aimed at kids and adults. You can still watch these cartoons and get a good chuckle at the literary allusions or the references to film. But there is a difference here.

The tired cynicism of todays cartoons is not there. The cartoons of today lack the uplifting wit and fall back on just straight out attack on everything. Boring. And here is the thing guys. You are writing for kids. No one is hearing your rants. So what I would do is go into work and quit your job and start writing fiction. At least you'll get an adult audience. If that's what you want.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/

Bookscent

I was doing a book signing the other day and suddenly I looked around and had a very strange feeling--I felt I was looking at history. All those books in their pulpy pages on all those shelves. History. We will not see it again. Books will go away. The kindle and the IPOD and the downloaded book are here to stay. Technological revolution is that way. Imagine the uproar when the first printing press started cranking out hundreds of papers. Scribes must have thrown up their pens like Scrooge in the last scene of A Christmas Carol. Books are a good thing to have and I prefer them, but they are on paper and paper is a vanishing commodity. If a person can download hundreds of books and their newspapers all before their morning coffee, then yes, something has changed. How fast will it come? In a nanosecond. It is already here. The big publishers are in a tailspin, trying to figure out the new model. How do you replace all that revenue when one guy can download a book and zap it out to ten of his friends? Sounds like the Knapster mess all over again. Borders is teetering, publishers are not acquiring. Hmmm. Sounds like the automakers. Too much stock, not enough readers. But the plain fact is that a digital file is stored easily, does not require a publisher to print a bunch of copies he might not sell, and allows the reader the ease of carrying multiple works and reading literally anywhere. This means authors and publishers will have to embrace a new model. If the end result is the dissemination of the work, then it is a good thing. More people can get their hands on your book. As a writer I like that, but I cant' help but feel a little sad that the warm pulpy smell of a bookstore will be replaced by the clean ascetic smell of plastic. Maybe they will come up with a spray: Bookscent.