I will admit, this made me like Steve Martin a little more.
So...St. Patty's Day is upon us again. I HATE that "holiday" and I never have and NEVER will celebrate it. My Granny is from Scotland and has taught me from a young age to be fully insulted by anyone who thinks I'm Irish. I never wore green on that day, I was told to wear orange and I never got pinched because I was a giant and no one would mess with me. Her sister on the other hand taught me to hate, well, everyone, especially Pakistanis, but that's another story. (As you might guess, we got along very well!)
To me Cinco de Mayo and St. Patrick's Day are interchangeable. Two days for people who 363 out of the year don't give a crap about their culture and when they do it's to get wasted and eat foods that make you fart like crazy. Yes I know, the Scots have haggis, but we also have Ross's Edinburgh Castle Rock Candy.
Eat that you flithy Mick!
This candy was always brought over by visiting family members where it would get riped out of their hands and eaten like the sugar-crack addict I was/am.
Other than being better than Ireland in the confectionery sense, the next time you flush the toilet after puking all your nasty green beer up, you're welcome. Signed, Alexander Cummings, inventor of the flush toilet, Beee-yaatch! I could list even more awesome Scotch inventions (refrigerator, telephone, lawnmower, insulin, the movies, hypodermic syringe, EKG, cloning) but I'll take the high road and you... can be Irish.
Plus, I Love Lucy never went to Ireland.
*I couldn't find a clip from the SNL skit 'All Things Scottish" with Mike Myers, but that is what my blog title comes from, his store's slogan.
So... I started my comedy writing class in Hollywood on Monday. I got there way too early so I walked the couple of blocks down to Hollywood and Highland to see what hell the Oscars left behind in it's wrath from the night before. That was as close to that mess as I wanted to get...plus there were WAY too many creepy homeless dudes yelling things at me so I hid in a Starbucks for an hour.
The class I am in is very small, like 11 people and our professor looks like if Peter Boyle and older Orson Welles had a baby. Before he could get a word in we all had to go mix with the improv students...not what I really wanted to do. I like the writers because they aren't so, smiley. I work at Disneyland so I know fake smiles and these improv students have some of oddest smiles...as if they are on some kind of extreme uppers! We had to do some activity where we got into 4 groups and made the letters of the alphabet without talking to one another. I was never more glad to be done with an activity.
We finally got to go in and do the what's your name, where are you from and who do you like in comedy game. 75% of the class' main goal is to be a head writer on SNL. We finally got to our teacher, Ira Miller. He's from Chicago and was on the main stage of Second City in 1969-1973(I think) along with Peter Boyle and John Belushi. Yea, already, this guy is legit in my book. He goes on to tell us that one of his teachers had him audition when he was about 21 for Mel Brooks and has worked with Mel Brooks for over 30 years. WHOA. Clearly I will listen to this guy.
He had us do an activity called a Blackout, which was hard for me because it's very corny. (I wish my Grampa had written down all of his corny jokes because I would have it easy right now!!) We all went around and read the few we had written, I got laughs with mine and some guys wrote a few about Nazis and Jews. Really guys? You're going to write a Nazis/Jew joke for the guy who worked with Mel Brooks, the King of that genre?? Come on. By the way I have to write 10 black outs by Monday, I have 4 and I'm not even sure about those. Blergh.
The next thing we talked about was what I am very interested in, creating a comic character. He said the character has to be exaggerated, have a comic take on life, flaws and a humanity point where the audience can reconnect with the character and so they can still be like-able.
I'm using my Grandma M.
A very good portrayal of my Grandma. (Circa the late 1960's, early 70's)
There are so, so, very many gems to choose from for me to write about, it's like1849 all over again and I struck gold! Our other assignment for next week is to write a monologue with this character that conveys their comic perspective, flaws, exaggerations(there will not need to be many) and humanity all in the dialogue. I gave a brief description of her to the class and I got some laughs, good, and Ira asked me, "What is her humanity?" I told him that she's an old grandma, so people have sympathy for old people, unlucky in relationships and people LOVE when old folks say dirty things. It's hilarious.
I called Grandma the next day and knew I was NOT going to tell her about this. I did tell her about the class and she said,
"Writing class, ugghhh. You should really be doing modeling school, brat."
"Jesus, Grandma! If I did that I would come out of there with a cocaine habit and an eating disorder, both of which I do NOT need."
See, not the typical sweet Grandma in a rocking chair.
While I think about what to use from my Grandma here's a clip of Cherri Oterri as Debbie Reynolds, who my Mom thinks my Grandma is like. Enjoy.
So...The Oscars are this Sunday and guess who not going to be at work that day? This moi! I have always enjoyed watching the awards but this time it's different, this time it's 4 hours of Alec Baldwin(and Steve Martin)!!! I know, I know, Steve's done it before but come on, look at the ad, who's going to give you a better time? Not Steve.
Most people watch the awards now to see who's wearing what. Fashions have certainly changed in the 82 years. Here's a little tasty taste of how things have gone down hill and crashed into a manure truck. (Yes I just made a Biff reference in my Oscar blog!)
1930's:
Mary Pickford with her fur draped in the background.
1940's
Loretta Young and her HUGE dress
1950's
I see crazy people. At least Bette Davis wore a neat little bejeweled cap to cover her bald head (shaved for a role) and look how classy Grace Kelly looks with her gloves(too bad she was a skank. It's true Mom.) and how unfat Marlon Brando was. Ahhh, those were the days!
1960's
Audry Hepburn and Julia Andrews playing it safe
1970's
And here we go, overly tanned, sweaty but HUGE diamonds make up for everything.
Let's take a closer look
OK, that makes up for how crappy the 70's were. Thank you Liz Taylor.
1980's
Could you imagine having to sit behind that head dress? You might as well have stayed home because the view would be better on TV.
1990's
No.
2000's
Uh oh, someone was drunk when they got dressed. Well, at least you know she's havin' a goooood time!
Some people actually watch the show to see if their favorite movie will win any awards. This year they have 10 movies nominated in the Best Film category instead of 5. They made more nominees because there are just TOO many good movies out now a days. Really? There are more good movies made now than in 1939? Here are some theatrical masterpieces from 2009: Paul Blart Mall Cop, Ace Ventura 3, Fired Up, Lesbian Vampire Killers,GI Joe, All About Steve, and Jennifer's Body. All modern day classics I'm sure.
The only movies nominated for the big one that I've seen are Up and Inglorious Bastards. Now, you really can't go wrong with killin' Nazis but Up was really, really good. I don't think it will win Best Picture but will for sure win Best Animated Film.
Below is a list of all the Best Picture Winners, if I've seen them and if I thought they were any good. (And that's right, I didn't like Casablanca!) That's one thing I like about the movies, people get very heated about their favorite films and why they love them and why your favorites suck.
Anyway, see how many you've seen.
YEAR/ MOVIE TITLE SEEN Any Good?
1928 (1st) Wings, Sunrise
1929 (2nd) The Broadway Melody
1930 (3rd) All Quiet on the Western Front
1931 (4th) Grand Hotel, Cimarron
1932 (5th) Grand Hotel
1933 (6th) Cavalcade
1934 (7th) It Happened One Night X X
1935 (8th) Mutiny on the Bounty
1936 (9th) The Great Ziegfeld
1937 (10th) The Life of Émile Zola
1938 (11th) You Can't Take It With You
1939 (12th) Gone with the Wind X MY FAVORITE
1940 (13th) Rebecca
1941 (14th) How Green Was My Valley
1942 (15th) Mrs. Miniver X OK
1943 (16th) Casablanca X
1944 (17th) Going My Way
1945 (18th) The Lost Weekend
1946 (19th) The Best Years of Our Lives X OK
1947 (20th) Gentleman's Agreement
1948 (21st) Hamlet
1949 (22nd) All the King's Men
1950 (23rd) All about Eve X X
1951 (24th) An American in Paris X OK
1952 (25th) The Greatest Show on Earth
1953 (26th) From Here to Eternity X
1954 (27th) On the Waterfront
1955 (28th) Marty
1956 (29th) Around the World in 80 Days
1957 (30th) The Bridge on the River Kwai X OK
1958 (31st) Gigi X X
1959 (32nd) Ben-Hur
1960 (33rd) The Apartment
1961 (34th) West Side Story X
1962 (35th) Lawrence of Arabia X
1963 (36th) Tom Jones
1964 (37th) My Fair Lady X X
1965 (38th) The Sound of Music X X
1966 (39th) A Man for All Seasons
1967 (40th) In the Heat of the Night
1968 (41st) Oliver!
1969 (42nd) Midnight Cowboy
1970 (43rd) Patton
1971 (44th) The French Connection
1972 (45th) The Godfather X X
1973 (46th) The Sting
1974 (47th) The Godfather Part II X X
1975 (48th) One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest X
1976 (49th) Rocky X
1977 (50th) Annie Hall
1978 (51st) The Deer Hunter
1979 (52nd) Kramer vs. Kramer X X
1980 (53rd) Ordinary People
1981 (54th) Chariots of Fire
1982 (55th) Gandhi
1983 (56th) Terms of Endearment
1984 (57th) Amadeus
1985 (58th) Out of Africa X X
1986 (59th) Platoon
1987 (60th) The Last Emperor
1988 (61st) Rain Man X DEFINATELY 21
1989 (62nd) Driving Miss Daisy X X
1990 (63rd) Dances With Wolves
1991 (64th) The Silence of the Lambs
1992 (65th) Unforgiven X X
1993 (66th) Schindler's List
1994 (67th) Forrest Gump X X
1995 (68th) Braveheart X X
1996 (69th) The English Patient
1997 (70th) Titanic X X
1998 (71st) Shakespeare in Love X X
1999 (72nd) American Beauty X X
2000 (73rd) Gladiator X X
2001 (74th) A Beautiful Mind
2002 (75th) Chicago X
2003 (76th) The Lord of The Rings: The Return of The King X
2004 (77th) Million Dollar Baby
2005 (78th) Crash
2006 (79th) The Departed X X
2007 (80th) No Country for Old Men
2008 (81th) Slumdog Millionaire
To futher get you in the mood here is some music from the Golden Age of Hollywood (when they actually made good films) on an organ, similar to one that would have played in an old movie house.
That old timer playing the organ is pretty bad ass....I think I'm the only person that thinks organ playing is bad ass.
I will admit, this made me like Steve Martin a little more.
So...St. Patty's Day is upon us again. I HATE that "holiday" and I never have and NEVER will celebrate it. My Granny is from Scotland and has taught me from a young age to be fully insulted by anyone who thinks I'm Irish. I never wore green on that day, I was told to wear orange and I never got pinched because I was a giant and no one would mess with me. Her sister on the other hand taught me to hate, well, everyone, especially Pakistanis, but that's another story. (As you might guess, we got along very well!)
To me Cinco de Mayo and St. Patrick's Day are interchangeable. Two days for people who 363 out of the year don't give a crap about their culture and when they do it's to get wasted and eat foods that make you fart like crazy. Yes I know, the Scots have haggis, but we also have Ross's Edinburgh Castle Rock Candy.
Eat that you flithy Mick!
This candy was always brought over by visiting family members where it would get riped out of their hands and eaten like the sugar-crack addict I was/am.
Other than being better than Ireland in the confectionery sense, the next time you flush the toilet after puking all your nasty green beer up, you're welcome. Signed, Alexander Cummings, inventor of the flush toilet, Beee-yaatch! I could list even more awesome Scotch inventions (refrigerator, telephone, lawnmower, insulin, the movies, hypodermic syringe, EKG, cloning) but I'll take the high road and you... can be Irish.
Plus, I Love Lucy never went to Ireland.
*I couldn't find a clip from the SNL skit 'All Things Scottish" with Mike Myers, but that is what my blog title comes from, his store's slogan.
So... I started my comedy writing class in Hollywood on Monday. I got there way too early so I walked the couple of blocks down to Hollywood and Highland to see what hell the Oscars left behind in it's wrath from the night before. That was as close to that mess as I wanted to get...plus there were WAY too many creepy homeless dudes yelling things at me so I hid in a Starbucks for an hour.
The class I am in is very small, like 11 people and our professor looks like if Peter Boyle and older Orson Welles had a baby. Before he could get a word in we all had to go mix with the improv students...not what I really wanted to do. I like the writers because they aren't so, smiley. I work at Disneyland so I know fake smiles and these improv students have some of oddest smiles...as if they are on some kind of extreme uppers! We had to do some activity where we got into 4 groups and made the letters of the alphabet without talking to one another. I was never more glad to be done with an activity.
We finally got to go in and do the what's your name, where are you from and who do you like in comedy game. 75% of the class' main goal is to be a head writer on SNL. We finally got to our teacher, Ira Miller. He's from Chicago and was on the main stage of Second City in 1969-1973(I think) along with Peter Boyle and John Belushi. Yea, already, this guy is legit in my book. He goes on to tell us that one of his teachers had him audition when he was about 21 for Mel Brooks and has worked with Mel Brooks for over 30 years. WHOA. Clearly I will listen to this guy.
He had us do an activity called a Blackout, which was hard for me because it's very corny. (I wish my Grampa had written down all of his corny jokes because I would have it easy right now!!) We all went around and read the few we had written, I got laughs with mine and some guys wrote a few about Nazis and Jews. Really guys? You're going to write a Nazis/Jew joke for the guy who worked with Mel Brooks, the King of that genre?? Come on. By the way I have to write 10 black outs by Monday, I have 4 and I'm not even sure about those. Blergh.
The next thing we talked about was what I am very interested in, creating a comic character. He said the character has to be exaggerated, have a comic take on life, flaws and a humanity point where the audience can reconnect with the character and so they can still be like-able.
I'm using my Grandma M.
A very good portrayal of my Grandma. (Circa the late 1960's, early 70's)
There are so, so, very many gems to choose from for me to write about, it's like1849 all over again and I struck gold! Our other assignment for next week is to write a monologue with this character that conveys their comic perspective, flaws, exaggerations(there will not need to be many) and humanity all in the dialogue. I gave a brief description of her to the class and I got some laughs, good, and Ira asked me, "What is her humanity?" I told him that she's an old grandma, so people have sympathy for old people, unlucky in relationships and people LOVE when old folks say dirty things. It's hilarious.
I called Grandma the next day and knew I was NOT going to tell her about this. I did tell her about the class and she said,
"Writing class, ugghhh. You should really be doing modeling school, brat."
"Jesus, Grandma! If I did that I would come out of there with a cocaine habit and an eating disorder, both of which I do NOT need."
See, not the typical sweet Grandma in a rocking chair.
While I think about what to use from my Grandma here's a clip of Cherri Oterri as Debbie Reynolds, who my Mom thinks my Grandma is like. Enjoy.
So...The Oscars are this Sunday and guess who not going to be at work that day? This moi! I have always enjoyed watching the awards but this time it's different, this time it's 4 hours of Alec Baldwin(and Steve Martin)!!! I know, I know, Steve's done it before but come on, look at the ad, who's going to give you a better time? Not Steve.
Most people watch the awards now to see who's wearing what. Fashions have certainly changed in the 82 years. Here's a little tasty taste of how things have gone down hill and crashed into a manure truck. (Yes I just made a Biff reference in my Oscar blog!)
1930's:
Mary Pickford with her fur draped in the background.
1940's
Loretta Young and her HUGE dress
1950's
I see crazy people. At least Bette Davis wore a neat little bejeweled cap to cover her bald head (shaved for a role) and look how classy Grace Kelly looks with her gloves(too bad she was a skank. It's true Mom.) and how unfat Marlon Brando was. Ahhh, those were the days!
1960's
Audry Hepburn and Julia Andrews playing it safe
1970's
And here we go, overly tanned, sweaty but HUGE diamonds make up for everything.
Let's take a closer look
OK, that makes up for how crappy the 70's were. Thank you Liz Taylor.
1980's
Could you imagine having to sit behind that head dress? You might as well have stayed home because the view would be better on TV.
1990's
No.
2000's
Uh oh, someone was drunk when they got dressed. Well, at least you know she's havin' a goooood time!
Some people actually watch the show to see if their favorite movie will win any awards. This year they have 10 movies nominated in the Best Film category instead of 5. They made more nominees because there are just TOO many good movies out now a days. Really? There are more good movies made now than in 1939? Here are some theatrical masterpieces from 2009: Paul Blart Mall Cop, Ace Ventura 3, Fired Up, Lesbian Vampire Killers,GI Joe, All About Steve, and Jennifer's Body. All modern day classics I'm sure.
The only movies nominated for the big one that I've seen are Up and Inglorious Bastards. Now, you really can't go wrong with killin' Nazis but Up was really, really good. I don't think it will win Best Picture but will for sure win Best Animated Film.
Below is a list of all the Best Picture Winners, if I've seen them and if I thought they were any good. (And that's right, I didn't like Casablanca!) That's one thing I like about the movies, people get very heated about their favorite films and why they love them and why your favorites suck.
Anyway, see how many you've seen.
YEAR/ MOVIE TITLE SEEN Any Good?
1928 (1st) Wings, Sunrise
1929 (2nd) The Broadway Melody
1930 (3rd) All Quiet on the Western Front
1931 (4th) Grand Hotel, Cimarron
1932 (5th) Grand Hotel
1933 (6th) Cavalcade
1934 (7th) It Happened One Night X X
1935 (8th) Mutiny on the Bounty
1936 (9th) The Great Ziegfeld
1937 (10th) The Life of Émile Zola
1938 (11th) You Can't Take It With You
1939 (12th) Gone with the Wind X MY FAVORITE
1940 (13th) Rebecca
1941 (14th) How Green Was My Valley
1942 (15th) Mrs. Miniver X OK
1943 (16th) Casablanca X
1944 (17th) Going My Way
1945 (18th) The Lost Weekend
1946 (19th) The Best Years of Our Lives X OK
1947 (20th) Gentleman's Agreement
1948 (21st) Hamlet
1949 (22nd) All the King's Men
1950 (23rd) All about Eve X X
1951 (24th) An American in Paris X OK
1952 (25th) The Greatest Show on Earth
1953 (26th) From Here to Eternity X
1954 (27th) On the Waterfront
1955 (28th) Marty
1956 (29th) Around the World in 80 Days
1957 (30th) The Bridge on the River Kwai X OK
1958 (31st) Gigi X X
1959 (32nd) Ben-Hur
1960 (33rd) The Apartment
1961 (34th) West Side Story X
1962 (35th) Lawrence of Arabia X
1963 (36th) Tom Jones
1964 (37th) My Fair Lady X X
1965 (38th) The Sound of Music X X
1966 (39th) A Man for All Seasons
1967 (40th) In the Heat of the Night
1968 (41st) Oliver!
1969 (42nd) Midnight Cowboy
1970 (43rd) Patton
1971 (44th) The French Connection
1972 (45th) The Godfather X X
1973 (46th) The Sting
1974 (47th) The Godfather Part II X X
1975 (48th) One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest X
1976 (49th) Rocky X
1977 (50th) Annie Hall
1978 (51st) The Deer Hunter
1979 (52nd) Kramer vs. Kramer X X
1980 (53rd) Ordinary People
1981 (54th) Chariots of Fire
1982 (55th) Gandhi
1983 (56th) Terms of Endearment
1984 (57th) Amadeus
1985 (58th) Out of Africa X X
1986 (59th) Platoon
1987 (60th) The Last Emperor
1988 (61st) Rain Man X DEFINATELY 21
1989 (62nd) Driving Miss Daisy X X
1990 (63rd) Dances With Wolves
1991 (64th) The Silence of the Lambs
1992 (65th) Unforgiven X X
1993 (66th) Schindler's List
1994 (67th) Forrest Gump X X
1995 (68th) Braveheart X X
1996 (69th) The English Patient
1997 (70th) Titanic X X
1998 (71st) Shakespeare in Love X X
1999 (72nd) American Beauty X X
2000 (73rd) Gladiator X X
2001 (74th) A Beautiful Mind
2002 (75th) Chicago X
2003 (76th) The Lord of The Rings: The Return of The King X
2004 (77th) Million Dollar Baby
2005 (78th) Crash
2006 (79th) The Departed X X
2007 (80th) No Country for Old Men
2008 (81th) Slumdog Millionaire
To futher get you in the mood here is some music from the Golden Age of Hollywood (when they actually made good films) on an organ, similar to one that would have played in an old movie house.
That old timer playing the organ is pretty bad ass....I think I'm the only person that thinks organ playing is bad ass.
I have no gaydar, I have a cat named Mr.Bojangles, who is probably gay come to think of it, and I'm surrounded by stupid turds. So...like a big breasted Liz Lemon.
