THP's THPs ("Tips for Happy Parenting"), PART 3

Read PART 1 here, and/or PART 2 here.  Up to speed?  Great!  Pay it forward, and read on...

All caught up?  Great.  Read on...

GROUP C: Working & Learning
7. Song Lyric Packets. Everybody loves children's songs, especially when they are played over and over and over, and you happen driving in traffic or snow or both.  Strangely, there is actually another genre of music that I generally prefer over children's songs: grown up songs.

What I have discovered is that my children seem to enjoy grown up songs, too--perhaps even more than I enjoy children's songs.  My integration of grown up songs into their musical consciousness has been gradual and calculated.  I started off with songs that I was sure would be crowd pleasers, like "Pop Goes the World" by Men Without Hats and "MMMBop" by Hanson.  I also let them watch (carefully screened) music videos on Yahoo, so as to get them doubly excited about certain songs.

Later, I realized that having the lyrics would help the monkeys enjoy the songs even more AND help them with their reading skills.  The structure of the packet evolved, but this is the finished product:

There are two of them.  I let the monkeys choose the color of the paper.  I bought a $20 Scotch laminating machine at Walgreens, which was cheaper than having FedEx do it; the machine worked well.  Beth had a scrapbooking tool that rounded the corners so they weren't pokey.  Each page has 2 songs that begin with the same letter, so that the sheets can be organized alphabetically, even if the songs within each letter are not in order.  I copied lyrics from online into a Word document so I could format consistently and print them out all together.

So now on car trips longer than 15 minutes or so, we take turns picking songs from an itunes playlist of about 95 songs, about 25 of which have their lyrics printed out for the girls to sing along with.

Yes, Springsteen is represented on the list: "Long Walk Home" and "American Land" are their favorites.  There is also a good sampling of Christian music on both the playlist and lyric packet, which has prompted several good theological discussions with my girls (like when my younger one asked, "What does it mean to be 'sweetly broken'?").  My older one is currently most into "MMMBop" and "Rocky Mountain High," while my younger one has been interested in "Let My Love Open the Door" and "Song of Hope".  Oh, and I'm pretty sure that my 6-year-old has a crush on Rob Thomas.  Which, if I'm being perfectly honest, I can relate to.  There, I said it.

8. Plate Storage. When we moved into our new house, one of my first organizational tasks was finding homes for all of our dishes and utensils.  Without even giving it much thought, I put as many dishes and plates at a level where they could be accessed by my children.  Of course, if they were toddlers with grabby hands, things might have been different.  But my girls were just the right age take on jobs around the house like--oh, I don't know--unloading the dishwasher.

It just made sense.  We run a load of dishes every day or two, and unloading is pretty low on my list of favorite jobs around the house.  When one of my daughters asks if she can watch something or play Wii, my answer is almost always, "Unload the dishwasher first."  It's like having a robot, but one that won't go crazy and try to kill me.

9. Historical Action Figures.  The principle behind #7 above is that if the girls are going to enjoy music, they may as well enjoy music that is enjoyed by the entire family.  Similarly, the idea behind tip #9 is that if the girls are going to play with dolls, they may as well learn while doing it.  Hence, the introduction of historical action figures.

The long and the short of it is that there's a company out in Seattle that manufactured these, and I stumbled across one of them on Amazon--I think Ben Franklin was the first I saw.  The company that makes them is called "Accoutrements", and in addition to historical action figures, they make other awesome stuff like candy bacon jewelry and a sleep mask with zombie eyes printed on the outside.  I eventually purchased every figure I could find (I think I have every one that has been made except for Pope Innocent III).  They're action figures, but they are people from history.  Here are about a third of them.

back row: Mozart, Alexander the Great, Blackbeard, Anne Bonney, Van Gogh;  middle row: Moses, Wilde, Wagner; front row: Cleopatra, Marie Antoinette (w/ removable head), Annie Oakley, Austin, Houdini

Instead of just turning the kids loose on them, we spent some time putting together an informational chart that they can refer to while they're playing.  On the packaging is printed a short bio, often with a few interesting facts.  Here's an example:

Now, as awesome as these action figures are, there are several disclaimers that need to be mentioned:
-It appears that many of them are out of production.  I got most of them for less than $10 each, and some of them are still that cheap.  But some are clearly priced for collectors ($80 for an Edgar Allen Poe doll, anyone?).
-A lot of them contain small parts, like hats or guns or paintbrushes.  Make sure your kid knows not to eat them.
-Though they're called "action figures" they're kind of built more for "standing still."  About 3 of ours have limbs that have broken off.  Be warned.
-The company also makes action figures of professions and fictional characters.  I have limited our purchases to specific, historical figures.  Just my preference.


With that, we conclude our series of Tips for Happy Parenting, Hungry Preacher Style.  I hope they were at least enjoyable, and perhaps even helpful.  Until next time...

-THP

THP's THPs ("Tips for Happy Parenting"), PART 2

This series kicked off yesterday.  Read that post first or you will have no idea what this post is about (unless you read the self-explanatory title of this post).

All caught up?  Great.  Read on...

GROUP B: Matters of Food
4. Giant Chicken Nuggets. Sidestepping the issue of how bad McDonald's food is for ANYBODY, most parents find themselves treating--whether from generosity or necessity--their kids to McDonald's at least once in a while. A problem I discovered was that once the girls tasted Chicken McNuggets, said McNuggets were usually their entree of choice at the Golden Arches. Chicken nuggets, it so happens, are NOT an item on the dollar menu at McDonalds.

Now if I could sell the girls on, say, a McDouble, I could make it through McD's spending 2 dollars and some change on 2 burgers and 2 waters. But when the girls wanted chicken, it was hard to sell them on anything else. If they both wanted nuggets, this would add about $5 a trip.

This is when I discovered/invented the "Giant Chicken Nugget," AKA "a plain McChicken sandwich." If you're in the drive-thru, make sure to lean your head out the window as far as you can and order in a hushed voice, or risk being rebuked from the back seat with, "No, Daddy, I don't want a McChicken, I want a giant chicken nugget!"  When the food comes, quickly reach into the bag, and with your hand out of sight, slip your fingers inside the McChicken wrapper, and pull out the Giant Chicken Nugget. As an added bonus, after the little one has finished her nugget, I reach into the bag again and announce, "Hey, sweetie, it looks like they gave us a bun, too! Do you want that?" I come across as a hero AND pay $2 less than I would have for a small chicken nuggets.

The only drawback here is that a couple of years ago, McDonald's ditched their spicy McChicken and made the plain McChicken just a little bit spicy (why please half the people when you can please no one?). My younger daughter is very sensitive to any sort of spiciness, and has abandoned the giant chicken nugget in favor of the plain McDouble which, it turns out, wasn't so bad after all. As long as it's a dollar, it's all the same to me.

5. Candy Serving Sizes. Sidestepping the issue of how bad candy is for ANYBODY, most parents at least occasionally find themselves earning their children's love and respect by blessing their offspring with the sweetest of all blessings: candy.

We postponed our daughters' introduction to candy as long as possible.  I even remember going through a bank drive through and having the teller signal her willingness to include a sucker along with my cash withdrawal; through the glass window, I politely shook my head, and remember thinking, "I'm pretty sure my daughter doesn't even know what a sucker is.  Can't think of why I'd be the one to enlighten her on this matter."

Once the monkeys discovered candy--which, given their daddy's sweet tooth, was inevitable--the next best thing we could do was limit their intake.  Of course, you and I know that it takes 3 entire bags of "fun sized" candy to equal an actual "serving size" of the goods.  My daughters, however, are blissfully convinced that their daily candy ration can be filled with, for example: a single Pez, 10 Nerds, or one half of a Tootsie Roll.

It started with Starbursts, which I remember cutting into quarters with a steak knife.  Yes, a single Starburst could feed both of my children for 2 whole days.

Appropriately enough, as I was working on PART 1 of this post, my older daughter came up to me with a two-pack of Starbursts from Valentine's Day and asked if she could open up the pack and eat one of the Starbursts.  Not having a steak knife handy, I said she could. She disappeared for a moment and then came back with a single, wrapped Starburst and, perhaps wondering if she had misunderstood me, sought clarification, "So I can have this?  It's pretty small.  It's smaller than my finger."  I said, "Let me take a picture of you first."  She seemed to think that I needed to look at the picture to confirm the sub-finger-size of the candy, for after I snapped it and looked to make sure it turned out OK, she came beside me and said, "See?  My finger is bigger."  Indeed it was.  Enjoy your Starburst, sweetie.

Not pictured: Daddy scarfing down a king-sized pack of M&M's later that day

6. Condiments. I am a man who likes his ketchup. But I do not think that my love for ketchup makes me a happier person.  See, when I order fries, my love for ketchup guarantees that I will either consume scores of extra calories that are encased in the ketchup-y goodness, or that I will be sad and feel cheated if ketchup is unavailable.

So why would I offer ketchup to my daughters when they are just fine without it? Why would I give them reason NOT to take the raw hot dog I give them and gobble it up with not a drop of ketchup in sight? Surely they will grow up happier and healthier having acquired this taste.

This applies for any food typically enhanced with a sauce or topping (like hot dogs, chicken nuggets, or salad) and for any condiment (like ketchup, honey, or salt).  The cat has been let out of the bag with pasta: they almost always request Parmesan, Nature's Seasoning, or both.  But for other foods I serve them, I frequently have to stop myself from automatically including the condiment I would have with it.  Instead, I wait for them to ask.  As often as not, they don't.


I'll wrap up this series over the weekend with part 3, "Working and Learning."  See you then, and thanks for reading.

-THP

THP's THPs ("Tips for Happy Parenting"), PART 1

Being a preacher's kid (a "PK" in church lingo) can be tough; being The Hungry Preacher's Kid can have its challenges, too.  But what about being the parent of The Hungry Preacher's Kids?  Also challenging, but I've worked hard to make parenting as effortless and rewarding as possible for hungry preachers everywhere.  Well, mostly just for myself.
Until today.

With today's post, I stroke my proverbial long, white beard and pass on some of the wisdom I have bumped my head into in my almost 8 years of parenting.  Some of these are variants or applications of tips I have learned elsewhere.  All have been helpful to me.  None are guaranteed for you.  Some are aimed at parent well-being, some are aimed at child well-being (hopefully, neither to the neglect of the other!).  All may be shared or commented upon.

Without further ado, I present "The Hungry Preacher's Tips for Happy Parenting (that may or may not work for anyone else), PART 1."

GROUP A: Things I Say

1.  "Hands up!"  One of the most aggravating experiences of parenting multiple children is watching a battle of possession or position unfold before your very eyes, and being powerless to stop it.  Sometimes my hands are full, like with groceries and I'm walking in from the car.  Meanwhile, the monkeys are both grabbing the doorknob trying to turn it.  Other times, I may be playing with them, but even my presence doesn't subdue the grab-and-yank reflex when they both want the same toy.

Once, out of frustration, I yelled something like, "Let go!  Both of you!  Now!"  The directive was not concise and the letting go was not instantaneous, but it was a start.  Later, I revised to "Hands up!" and explained to my children, who were 5 and 4 at the time, that when I said "Hands up!" they each better let go of whatever she was grabbing and put her hands up like a common bank robber.

Just missing the cut were "Put your hands where I can see them!" and "Jazz hands!"

It only took a few times for them to get the hang of it. I established right away that anyone NOT letting go and putting their hands up would, minimally, lose claim to the disputed item. "Hands up!" meant, "Do this right at this moment, and daddy is not messing around."

Now, I almost blush seeing them react to "Hands up!"  Occasionally, I'll move into "sorting things out" mode, and realize about a minute later that they still have their hands straight up in the air.  Oops.  If you learn the "Hands up!" phrase, make sure you also learn the follow up phrase, "OK, you can put your hands down but don't touch anything."  Also, if you use this at the grocery store or in public, prepare to feel like people are thinking, "They totally must beat their children to get that sort of reaction."

2.  "I need to be a good daddy."  Every parent uses the "if/then" threat on their kid at some point (e.g., "If you don't finish dinner, then you won't get dessert," "If you don't stop crying, I'll give you something to cry about," etc.).  The hard part is following through.  Of course, you don't want to threaten things that are either ridiculously disproportional to the crime or far more burdensome to enforce than they are worth.  But what about when you said, "If you whine one more time, you are going to bed," and five minutes later, the kid whines?  And what if the kid starts crying and asking for one more chance?

If you choose to follow through (and you should, almost without exception) then one tack is to explain to your kid that THEY made the choice.  I have found this to be only moderately soothing in most cases.  My kids often respond with something like, "I would like to make a different choice now."  This is where I defer to the "Law of Good Daddyhood."  I explain, "Sweetie, I need to be a good daddy.  Part of that means telling you truth and not lying to you.  Now, I told you that if you whined again, you would need to go to bed.  If I let you think that it's OK to ignore what I say because I may not really mean it, I would not be being a good daddy."

I don't say this apologetically, but matter-of-factly.  This consequence HAS to happen, or I won't be being a very good daddy.  I've used this a few times, with generally effective results.  Without being happy about their situation, my girls do seem to recognize the dilemma and accept what must happen.

3.  "Do you want to help me clean, or do you want to keep playing nice?"  Preemptive troubleshooting.  If the girls are happily playing, and I'm happily focused on housekeeping or blogging or whatever, then this little gem is wonderfully appropriate, for lots of reasons.  Compare it to the more reactionary, "Stop fighting or you'll have to help me clean."  The preemptive phrase empowers them by giving them a choice.  It reminds them that continuing to play nice is an ongoing choice.  It presents consequences for fighting without my having to frame them negatively.

The best time to say this is when they've been playing nicely for about 45 minutes, which is to say they are due for a spat.  When I throw this out there, I estimate that it extends their patience with one another, on average, by about 30 minutes.

Check back tomorrow for part 2 of this series: "Matters of Food."  Until then...

-THP

"Why Don't You Clean Your Room?" (Spring '12 Edition)

Back in the fall, I reminisced about my youthful boredom, and shared with readers of WPFF that whenever I tried to open up about my boredness with my mom, she would reply with some variation of "Why don't you clean your room?"

Though I'm not currently bored, per se, I suggested that it may behoove me in my role of "male domestic goddess" to have certain tasks--e.g., cleaning my room--to work towards completing by a certain date.  You know, something like g- g- goals (sorry--that word is hard for me to type).

I laid out 6 quests upon which to embark, then recently reflected on my completion (or lack thereof) of said quests.  A couple of posts later, I reflected on my fantasy football draft.  Today, I transition from reflecting to preflecting, as I lay out my challenges for the spring semester of 2012 to you, my faithful accountability partners.

Of course, these are just the tasks I get credit for, for I have designated them "special".  There are plenty of pro bono jobs I do all the time, like make Kool-aid, update our "Now Playing" list on Tivo, and practice personal hygiene.

But the special tasks: To begin with, I get to copy and paste all 6 challenges from the fall.  The 4 challenges that I did pretty well on (1, 2, 4, 5) are ongoing, and the 2 that I didn't do so well on (3, 6) are the ones that, had I completed, could have been scratched off the list.  So here are those 6, amended as needed for the spring.


1.  Blog at least 2x a week.  Not getting off to a very good start here, as I've been at about 1x a week for the last 3 weeks or so.  This challenge is retroactive to January 1.  In other words, I'll need to average about 2.5 posts a week for the rest of the semester to meet this goal.  I know what you're thinking: "Do you think you'll be able to pull that off, Hungry Preacher?"  Yes I do.  "Really?  'Cause that seems like a lot."  I think I can.  "Might you just be kidding yourself?  You tend to overestimate how productive you can be, then get discouraged when you fail to meet your expectations."  Uh, good point.  But I'll go with what I've got, and brace myself for a "I told you so" if we get to that point.  Thanks for your insight, though.
2.  Finish landscaping and lawn-tending that needs to take place in the spring.  Spring lawncare includes seeding bald spots on the lawn, fluffing up the mulch, assessing/implementing further landscaping options, and not being the last person on the block to mow their lawn.
3.  Sort through the boxes of art that my children have created the last couple of years.  Yes, I need to finish this.
4.  Stay social, scheduling at least one lunch or coffee a week.  Off to a good start on this one, averaging about 1 meeting a week so far this year.
5.  Visit the girls' school at least 3x.  Another good start.  I'm actually the leader of the kindergarten-aged Lego Club at the girls school, with the first meeting being this afternoon.  I am SO going to show those kids my Lego building awesomeness, they won't know what hit them.
6.  Burn at least 3 DVD's of video from our computer so as to erase the data and free up disk space.  Plugging along.  Did some editing over the weekend.

In addition to these 6 golden rings, I add:
7.  Finish all filing.  I made a pretty large dent in this in the fall, but there are some lingering stacks that need to be put in their place.
8.  Install outdoor lights on our garage and fix the basement light sockets that need fixing (this needs to happen soon).  Beth bought the outdoor lights when we first moved to our new house, and they've been in their box in the basement ever since.  Meanwhile, a couple of the sockets in the basement have cracked or stopped working.  I have not been able to passively absorb the expertise needed to easily tackle this electrical project, so I'm going to have to get all active on this one.  Which means setting up a play date with my dad, who knows how to do this sort of stuff without getting anyone electrocuted.
9.  Write at least 1 significant email a week.  I'll know "significant" when I write it.  Doesn't have to be long.  But there are lots of people I've been meaning to say hi to via an email, and not everyone can meet for coffee or lunch.
10.  Clean my room.  Literally.  It needs to happen.

So we've gone from 6 target-tasks from the fall, to a baker's dozen minus 3 in the spring.  It's a big jump, but nothing that seems undoable.  Expect a full report in the summer.  For now, I've got a Lego club to prepare for.  15 kindergarteners.  1 Hungry Preacher.  Game on.

-THP

Commiserating with the Patriots

As a competitor and athlete, I can empathize with the pain that the New England Patriots are feeling right now.  My sport is not playing in the NFL--as far as that goes, I had to settle for performing in the halftime show.

That's me on the left

No, my sport is Fantasy Football, and this year hearts all across the country were broken as the Monkey Moos lost in the first round of the playoffs.  I've long thought of the Monkey Moos as "America's Team" in the sport of Fantasy Football, so the pain I felt was not so much for my team or my players, but for the country, especially the children.

What went wrong?  You can read my whole post-draft post here.  Careful, though: It's dripping with optimism, and that stuff doesn't just wash out.  In a nutshell, every choice I made that I thought was good ended up not being so good.  And everything that I thought was a mistake ended up not really being so bad.  No, really.  Everything.  I'm not exaggerating.  Here, I'll prove it.  Here's the team I drafted, followed by my post-draft analysis.  Italics are what I wrote at the time; regular font is what I'm writing now:

QB Tony Romo, $23
RB Ahmad Bradshaw, $25
RB Felix Jones, $19
WR Hakeem Nicks, $36
WR Calvin Johnson, $47
W/T Lee Evans, $2
TE Jimmy Graham, $16
K Adam Vinateri, $1
DEF Minnesota, $1

QB Kevin Kolb, $4
RB Tim Hightower, $8
RB Ben Tate, $7
RB James Harrison, $1
RB Mike Tolbert, $5
RB Delone Carter, $4
WR Anthony Armstrong, $1

HIGHS:

• I like to stock up on cheap running backs with upside, and I'm pretty pleased with my haul this year

I rolled the dice on injuries, banking that one of my cheap running backs with upside would be thrust into a season-long starting roll due to the guy ahead of him getting hurt.  If Arian Foster had reinjured his hammy, Tate would have been a steal.  If Ryan "Fragile" Matthews had gone on IR, Tolbert may have broken out.  These two guys took advantage of my hope, lighting up the scoreboard in the first few weeks (Tolbert had a 3 touchdown game; Tate rolled off several 100 yard games).  Then they settled in behind the starters on their respective teams, leaving me hurt and afraid of commitment.  Meanwhile, Delone Carter got chances, but appears to just not be very good.  Harrison went on IR with, of all things, a brain tumor.  The big in-season addition to my RB carousel was Jackie Battle, who may be the fourth best RB for one of the worst teams in the NFL.  So much for my "cheap running backs with upside."

• Felix Jones for $19. Could be the steal of the draft, especially since we get 1/2 per reception. I'm hoping that he turns into this year's Arian Foster (who I drafted last year for $15 or so).

Remind me never to call anyone I draft "the steal of the draft."  Jones was a nightmare, too talented and promising to cut, but never reliable enough to start (and win).  The worst thing was someone swooped in and grabbed his backup ahead of me once Jones went down for an extended stretch, so I had to watch Demarco Murray rack up dozens of points for another team while I stashed Jones on my bench waiting for him to get healthy.

• Lee Evans for $2. Could be that rare "veteran with upside." Even without exploding, he's probably a good 3rd WR, especially for $2.

Ah, Lee.  The thing that you DID catch in the AFC championship game was a snapshot of the frustration of your season.

• Kevin Kolb for $4. Some projections have him in the top 12. If I had known he'd fall, I may have gone after a pricier RB instead of bidding $23 on Romo.

I am very, very glad that I did NOT know that I could get Kolb for $4.  $23 for Romo turned out to be a pretty good bargain.  $4 for Kolb turned out to be a waste of $4.  That didn't keep me from starting Kolb a couple of times early in the year OVER Romo.


LOWS:

• $47 was probably too much for Calvin Johnson. Larry Fitzgerald went for $38, and he's frequently ranked higher than Johnson, especially with PPR. But I really wanted 2 elite WRs, and ended up mis-timing the buying window.

$47 turned out to be a pretty good price for Calvin Johnson.  If I had taken $40 of that money and invested it in Larry Fitzgerald, my team would have dropped from "OK" to "sucky".

• Having both Romo/Jones AND Bradshaw/Nicks may come back to bite me, both on bye weeks and because, in theory, there's only so many points to go around for each team, and my guys may end up stealing points from each other. I'm hoping for a lot of Romo-to-Jones TD passes. Would 3-4 trick plays with Bradshaw passing to Nicks (or vice versa) be too much to ask?

The problem wasn't not having enough offense to go around for the Giants and Cowboys.  The problem was Jones and Bradshaw getting hurt.  Also, I did not benefit from a single Romo-to-Jones TD pass.

• Graham may end up being worth $16, but it was more than I wanted to spend. Me and my brother bid-up each other at the end. We both seemed to be eyeing Graham as a late-round sleeper with lots of upside (maybe because our brother-in-law is a die hard Saints fan and swears that Graham is a beast ready to break out). If not for my brother, I probably could have gotten him for $7 or $8 (of course, my brother might be saying the same thing).

Graham was a steal, even at $16.  He was the second best TE in the NFL, putting up one of the best seasons EVER for a TE, and he carried my team (together with Calvin Johnson).

• Lack of true, stud RB. As I implied, I go for quantity over quality at RB, and hope that someone rises to elite or near-elite status as the season progresses. If, by week 9, I'm consistently losing to guys who get 35+ points from at least one of their RBs, then my plan is not working. :)

OK, so this was an actual problem that I may have gotten right.  But it's still hard to say if Jones and Bradshaw could have been "stud RBs".  They just kept getting hurt.  So the guys I drafted as my starting RBs (Jones and Bradshaw) got hurt, and the guys I drafted to "break out" generally stayed healthy--and on their teams' benches.

So yes, Patriots, I feel your pain.  We'll get them next year (by "them" I mean "a legitimate starting RB to go with our elite WR and TE").

-THP

Seen--and STILL Snubbed--By Oscar (Lead Performer Addition)

With the 2012 Oscar nominations being announced last week, the Hungry Preacher continues his long-running series on Oscar-worthy performances that were seen by the Academy (we know this, since they nominated other performer[s] from the same movie) and yet were still not nominated.  Read here for ground rules and such.

Briefly, these are genuine snubs--"Saw it, didn't like it"--and not just great performances that didn't happen to get seen by enough voters.

This series started with supporting actor snubs, but continues with lead performers of all genders.  Lead performers are less likely to get snubbed, if for no other reason than most movies have, at most, 2 lead performers but often upwards of 5 or 6 supporting performers with roles that could merit Oscar consideration.  Also, lead roles are more frequently given to big-name performers who can ride their fame alone to an Oscar nomination.

Without further ado, here are the biggest supporting actor snubs of the 2000’s from movies that received an acting nomination for someone else.  (All info is from imdb.com.)

What movie?  Moulin Rouge! (2001) [EDITOR'S NOTE: The exclamation point is part of the title!  Really!  The Hungry Preacher doesn't get that excited about ANY movie!]

Who got nominated?  Nicole Kidman

Who got snubbed?  Ewan McGregor

Did anyone else see what I saw (i.e., any awards or noms from anyone)?  Mostly in countries that speak English but sound funny doing it, like England and Australia.  He also got noticed by organizations that recognize "Musical or Comedy" performances as distinct from "Drama", and actually won the "Musical or Comedy" Satellite award.

What’s the big deal?  First, a question: What do William Hurt, Kevin Kline, Michael Douglas, Harrison Ford, Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Richard Dreyfuss, Gene Hackman, Robert Redford, and Warren Beatty all have in common?  Answer: They all turned down the role of Paul Sheldon in the film "Misery," the movie best known for winning Kathy Bates a best actress Oscar.  Paul Sheldon was a great role, and James Caan nailed it.  But the guys on the list above understood the rule: "The 'straight man' will not get noticed" ("straight" as in "not over-the-top").  Ewan McGregor seems to have missed that memo.  Since he gained prominence playing a heroin addict in 1996's "Trainspotting," Ewan has steadily played characters that are more normal than the characters around him, sometimes bizarrely so (think "The Men Who Stare at Goats," opposite a paranoid, goat-staring George Clooney; "Big Fish," opposite a steady flow of circus types; "Star Wars," opposite Jar Jar Binks; and don't forget this year's "Beginners," where he was the straight man times-two, opposite Christopher Plummer's just-come-out dying old widower).

A comparison of his roles shows that Ewan can play subdued characters with great distinctiveness and believability, and none was more impressive than his turn as Christian, opposite Nicole Kidman's Satine in "Moulin Rouge!"  In a surreal movie overflowing with larger-than-life characters, Ewan utterly convinces as the naive protagonist who believes in love, experiences firsthand all of the reasons to cynically abandon his belief, and resolutely decides to cling to his initial belief in spite of it all.  We see Christian not so much experience an awakening, but earn painful credibility to his already-awakened point of view.  At the beginning of the film, Christian believes in love, but has neither loved nor lost.  By the end, he has done both, and still believes.  And Ewan communicates this growth without without slipping into one-note cynicism or passing judgment on his old self.  Oh, and he sings.

What movie?  Lost in Translation (2003)

Who got nominated?  Bill Murray

Who got snubbed?  Scarlett Johansson

Did anyone else see what I saw (i.e., any awards or noms from anyone)?  Yes, quite a few folks did.  Most notably, she was nominated for a Golden Globe and won acting awards from Boston Film critics and even BAFTA, which doesn't distinguish between dramatic and comedic performances.

What’s the big deal?  This role is different from most, in that the "Oscar moment" for most characters takes place near the end of a film, leaving us with a lasting impression.  Charlotte, however, "breaks" during the opening scene--on the phone, no less--and spends the rest of the movie processing and burying.  It's an unconventional character arc, and perhaps one that damaged Scarlett's Oscar chances.  Watching characters explode is more memorable than watching them defuse bomb after emotional bomb right below the surface (or than watching them clean up the debris from ones they couldn't quite defuse--also just below the surface).  Of course, the eyes give her away.  Maybe Scarlett had an unfair advantage in playing this role; if the eyes are the window to the soul, who better to cast in this role?  If we're supposed to believe that Bill Murray's Bob can see past Charlotte's outward hiding and denying, past her facade of having it all together, and into her fear and loneliness--well, of COURSE an actress with huge, deep eyes should be cast as Charlotte.  All the better for US to see HER with, right?  Lots of people have big eyes, though, and Scarlett used hers to perfection in this movie, giving us a thousand different glimpses into Charlotte's wounded soul that she paradoxically guarded, yet yearned to have embraced.

What movie?  House of Sand and Fog (2003)

Who got nominated?  Ben Kingsley, Shohreh Aghdashloo

Who got snubbed?  Jennifer Connelly

Did anyone else see what I saw (i.e., any awards or noms from anyone)?  Not many.  She won the Kansas City Film Critics Award, and got a couple of other nominations, but got snubbed not just by the Academy, but by the Golden Globes and even the Independent Spirit awards, for which this film was eligible and had a much smaller field of competition.  This is a real head scratcher for me.  I was relatively unimpressed at Connelly's performance in "A Beautiful Mind" from two years earlier, which won her a slew of supporting actress awards.  It seemed that all the pieces were in place for this to be her big "lead actress" parade (at least as far as nominations go): she seemed to be an Academy darling (having just won 2 years prior); she was still young and beautiful and in the prime of her career; she proved she could lead and not just support; she took on an unglamorous and more explosive (i.e., Oscar friendly) role; and nominating her for "House of Sand and Fog" would have given the Academy a chance to validate their decision from 2 years prior.
[EDITOR'S NOTE:  Between writing this entry and publishing the post, I was flipping through a book, "The Ultimate Book of Top 10 Lists--a mind-boggling collection of fun, fascinating and bizarre facts on movies, music, sports, crime, celebrities, history, trivia and more."  I stumbled upon the list "Top 10 Films About Alcoholics."  Number 2?  "House of Sand and Fog."  The last sentence of the explanation reads, "This is one of my favorite plot-oriented films, and as Kathy, Jemnnifer Connelly delivers one of the finest performances I've ever seen."  Ahhhh, the sweet nectar of validation...]

What’s the big deal?  Remember what I said about how memorable it is watching characters explode?  Connelly's Kathy is a step away from pulling off the feat LITERALLY, as she haphazardly fills up a gas can while a cigarette hangs out of her mouth.  And the singleminded carelessness with which she was willing to abandon her humanity for the task was as memorable an image for me as Ben Kingsley running through the hospital, or even his final scene.  Every step Kathy takes down the spiral is convincing, owing to the believable desperateness established by Connelly from scene one.  We believe that Kathy has wholly "built her house on sand," and grabs hold of whatever she can to give herself the illusion of permanence and control: relationships, drugs, booze, justice, and even her life.  The anguish that Kathy feels at not being able to control the one literal, physical house in her life exposes how unstable ALL of her houses are and intensifies her desire to regain control by any means possible.  Connelly drives this progression so seamlessly that by the end of the movie I was asking myself, "How did she get from there to here in only two hours without my even noticing?"  How can the spiral of a character unraveling so extremely be portrayed so subtly?  Like I said: a real head scratcher.

What movie?  In America (2003)

Who got nominated?  Samantha Morton, Djimon Hounsou

Who got snubbed?  Paddy Considine

Did anyone else see what I saw (i.e., any awards or noms from anyone)?  Barely.  Remember what I said about a head scratcher?  Paddy got nominated for a Satellite award, and also for a British Independent Film award (if you narrow the focus enough, even YOU can get nominated).  Like Connelly, Paddy couldn't even make the cut for an Independent Spirit award.

What’s the big deal?  Heck, I would have nominated Considine based on how well his CHARACTER ("Johnny," an actor) acts within the movie!  Kidding aside, I truly don't remember a time when I was watching a movie and was so unable to resist being pulled in to the emotional journey of a character.  With help from the Bolger sisters, Considine pours out the soul of his character like the colors on a Jackson Pollack painting.  It was messy but mesmerizing.  Child-like, but tragically mature.  Solid and surprisingly coherent, but busy and unpredictable.  Unlike Pollack, with all the madness and sadness, Considine's work pours out a breathtaking streak of hope.  Of course, the thrill of the movie is watching Johnny discover for himself if the streak of white on the painting of his life actually leads anywhere, or was it just an accidental spill?  Until he discovers for certain, we watch him smile and laugh and lash out, like a character in his own life play.  He yearns for a script, but is forced to improvise.  His character is himself, yet even HE isn't sold on his performance--and he doesn't know why.  So he acts, and acts, and acts...  Until, suddenly, he doesn't.  He becomes the character that he has been striving to be.  And with him we weep for joy.

What movie?  Sideways (2004)

Who got nominated?  Thomas Haden Church, Virginia Madsen

Who got snubbed?  Paul Giamatti

Did anyone else see what I saw (i.e., any awards or noms from anyone)?  Yes.  Giamatti got lots of nominations, including SAG and Golden Globe, but only a few wins, thanks largely to some guy named Jamie Foxx playing some guy named Ray Charles the same year.  Amusingly enough, "Ray" and "Sideways" both fall into the "Musical or Comedy" genre (because they're such similar movies!), which means that in almost any other year, Giamatti would have run the table on awards that distinguish between genres.  This year, though, Giamatti was the just the bridesmaid, and not even that for the Oscars.

What’s the big deal?  I've got a soft spot for every-man characters, believing that they are often more difficult to play than Oscar's preferred "disabled, dying, or diabolical."  Giamatti's "Miles" is as "every" as they come.  He's a normal guy with normal habits and insecurities, successful enough by the world's standards.  But spending a week with his friend, Jack, opens Miles' eyes to an uncomfortable incongruency: though Miles thinks more deeply about things like friendship, love, faithfulness, and dreams, Jack is just as happy and successful as Miles is (it seems).  Miles' dissatisfaction swells up during their trip through wine country, and Giamitti lets it spill out like wine from a chalice.  With his expressive eyes and revealing inflections, Giamitti shows us the ultimate "good guy": he refuses to judge his friends' shallowness, and he refuses to partake in it.  But the respect he maintains for those in his immediate circle prevents him from scapegoating any of them for the injustice of his unfulfilled dreams.  He's left casting the blame at faceless publishers.  As this catharsis proves unsatisfying, Miles realizes that his noble striving for a lofty vision of life may actually be a tactic for avoiding the risks of embracing the beauty in life all around him.  Literally and figuratively, we watch as Miles learns when to let a wine age, and when it is time to take a drink.

What movie?  Cinderella Man (2005)

Who got nominated?  Paul Giamatti

Who got snubbed?  Russell Crowe

Did anyone else see what I saw (i.e., any awards or noms from anyone)?  Yes.  Several nominations, including Golden Globe and SAG.
What’s the big deal?  I admit there are a several reasons NOT to appreciate Crowe's performance.  The character wasn't the most nuanced.  Crowe has played a tough guy before.  For that matter, Crowe IS a tough guy, and this role could be dismissed as a typecast.  On the other hand, when I think about Crowe's character, Jim Braddock, I don't think of a tough guy.  It is after the fact that I remind myself that he was, indeed, a boxer.  Instead, I think of him as a sensitive family man unable to provide, humbly aware of his sorry state.  His boxing serves his character; it does not define his character.  Beyond this, I remember being struck by how totally enveloped by the character Crowe allowed himself to be.  It is rare that I watch a movie with a superstar lead and forget that I am watching a superstar pretend to be someone else.  Contrast Crowe's transformation into Braddock with, say, Tom Cruise playing the title character in "The Last Samurai," a movie released a couple years before this one.  In that, I was never NOT watching Tom Cruise playing someone else.  Crowe made me forget I was watching Crowe.  Ironically, easy-to-watch often translates into easy-to-overlook.

What movie?  Frost/Nixon (2008)

Who got nominated?  Frank Langella

Who got snubbed?  Michael Sheen

Did anyone else see what I saw (i.e., any awards or noms from anyone)?  At the risk of offending the Valenciennes International Festival of Action and Adventure Films who awarded their best actor prize jointly to Langella AND Sheen--no, not really.  (Did the international cut of this movie contain scenes of action OR adventure?)
What’s the big deal?  I almost chose Sheen's portrayal of Tony Blair in "The Queen," but one could argue that was a supporting role.  Fortunately, Sheen has been overlooked in all sorts of roles, including this one opposite Frank Langella.  Sheen is a true chameleon; everything I said above about Russell Crowe applies to Sheen in every role he's played.  In fact, despite having seen, liked, and appreciate Sheen's work in both "The Queen" and "Frost/Nixon," it wasn't until I examined his film credits that I realized he was in "Midnight in Paris," which I saw about a month ago.  It was one of those "Oh, yeah... that WAS him" moments, which is common with so-called character actors--not so much with leads.  The fact that I recognized his work as Oscar worthy in two prior films, then didn't even recognize HIM in another movie is a testament to his seamless portrayals.  As Frost, the presumably overmatched interviewer of former president Richard Nixon, Sheen shows us his character's gradual appreciation of the gravity of his assignment and how someone for whom things have always come easy can rise to the challenge when something becomes hard.  Which Sheen, of course, make look easy.


With that, we wrap up another addition of "Seen--and STILL Snubbed."  All performers included in this post are eligible for "A Golden Preacher" award, that I or one of my sculpting apprentices will personally construct (not out of real gold, of course) for any recipient who contacts me in person to claim their award.

To everyone else, thanks for reading.

-THP

Fifty Percent Is Half the Battle

Actually, most of the time, when I FEEL like I'm fifty percent done with something, I'm actually not quite fifty percent done, so maybe it's more accurate to say, "Fifty percent is about two-fifths of the battle."

I'm referring to tasks.  Or, in this case, goals.  Six of them that I shared with readers of WPFF a few months ago, written out on actual e-paper.  These were those goals:

1.  Blog at least 2x a week.
2.  Finish landscaping and lawn-tending that needs to take place in the fall.
3.  Sort through the boxes of art that my children have created the last couple of years.
4.  Become social again, scheduling at least one lunch or coffee a week.
5.  Visit the girls' school at least 3x.
6.  Burn at least 3 DVD's of video from our computer so as to erase the data and free up disk space.

Since a list of goals isn't any good if you don't go back and see where you came up short, let's review:

1.  Blog at least 2x a week.
I was probably about 2x a week until the Christmas holidays blindsided me--they should totally put those things on a calendar or something so people know when they're coming.  I ended up taking about 4 weeks between posts, but it was the worst kind of time off--the kind that you don't give yourself until afterwords, so instead of relaxing about taking a break, you stress about not being more diligent until you're finally like, "I guess I took a break."  I think the goal was good, and I think 2 posts a week is reasonable for the foreseeable future.  I THINK I'm learning how to do this better, though who can know these things for sure?
Level of Completion: Close

2.  Finish landscaping and lawn-tending that needs to take place in the fall.
There's one bag of mulch that I keep hoping that I have already spread around our lone, backyard tree, then forgot that I did it.  Unfortunately, my lack of any memory of doing this task has proven to be completely accurate.  Still, each morning I look out the back window and hope.

Aside from that, fall landscaping was very successful-ish.  I did some mulching, some spreading of grass seed, some fertilizing, and some mowing-in-lieu-of-raking.  I even remembered to completely drain our rain barrel so that it wouldn't crack from freezing water inside.
Level of Completion: Very close

3.  Sort through the boxes of art that my children have created the last couple of years.
My daughters are more prolific artists than I am a writer--or really than I am anything.  I made it through quite a bit of their art, and I've got a "keeper pile".  But they keep making more.  I can't stop them.

What I have learned with this goal (and number 6) is that it's pretty hard for me to make time to do projects that take a little bit time each day, with the fruit of any given daily efforts being virtually negligible.  I don't think I'm special in that way.  I just need to redouble my efforts; or, what's it called after you've already redoubled your efforts once, then need to redouble them again?  Is that retripling?  Or is it exponential, so as to become requadrupling?
Level of Completion: Not very close.

4.  Become social again, scheduling at least one lunch or coffee a week.
It probably helped that I had initially thought I had written down TWO lunches a week, so I got off a pretty fast start.  Even though I slowed down a little, I still ended the semester having averaged even more than 1 meeting a week.  Mission accomplished: I am fully social.
Level of Completion: Full

5.  Visit the girls' school at least 3x.
I adjusted "what counted" with this one, and included chaperoning field trips as well as being "the heavy" at the girls' after-school Lego club.  Plus I had one full-fledged, sit-in-on-the-classroom visit.  All told, there were about 6 experiences of participation with the girls' school.
Level of Completion: Full

6.  Burn at least 3 DVD's of video from our computer so as to erase the data and free up disk space.
As with number 3 above, this "little at a time" task proved difficult to make time for.  A couple of funny things about this goal, though:
-I actually enjoy doing it
-I don't think it's going to take THAT much time
I did an hour's worth of editing today, and made a decent dent.  I think doing 3 hours a week could put me on course to finish within a month or two at most.  It would be VERY nice to have all of our video edited and cataloged.  I just need to make it happen.
Level of Completion: Not very close, but maybe closer than I think

So, this concludes the looking back segment of my fall, 2011 goals, and the results are mixed.  Maybe I came in at a little over 50%, which amounts to half the battle (since finishing the battle always takes a little more time than I think it will).  Good for a batting average, not so good for an ACT score.  In a week or so, I'll look forward again and lay out a new set of spring semester goals (which will include some rehashed fall semester goals as well as some new ones).

Thanks for reading.

-THP