Pacific Northwedding

Wow! I haven't blogged in some time!

It's been a busy little while. Over the past week I've ...

Flown to Seattle
Rehearsed for my brother's wedding
Explored Seattle
Attended a Mariner's game
Been best man at my brother's wedding
celebrated my OWN anniversary
Flown back to LA
Done some semi-secret playwrighting stuff which I will happily tell you about if you email me
celebrated my birthday at Disneyland

So, yeah, it's been a big week.

Of course the really, REALLY big thing was Abe's wedding. Normally I post photos of me and Amanda on our anniversary (July 12) but I think this year we should honor Abe and Jocelyn.

(Oh, and if you want photos of me and Amanda's wedding, I just put up a bunch on Facebook)

These photos were all taken by Amanda and my cousin Ben. This means that the two of them are underrepresented. Sorry about that.

We got into town on Thursday and ... wow ... Seattle is every bit as cool as I assumed it was when I was 15 in 1991-1992. Seriously, what a hip, comfortable city. And very possible the most beautiful in the US. I can't think of another city that more perfectly blends its natural features and its man-made additions. I'm sure there are ugly, impoverished, or just plain boring parts of Seattle. But I sure didn't see them.

We also had beautiful weather. When we went to the Space Needle with my uncle Brian and cousin Griffin on Friday morning (no photos here, sorry) they told us that Mount Baker was visible that day, and that only happens about fifty days of the year. We did finally get a little rain on Sunday, which was good -- get a glimpse of the real Seattle, you know. It's still beautiful in the rain, of course.

No pics from the rehearsal, either, sadly. But Ben got some nice ones at the game. Jocelyn's mother scored a platoon of tickets for us all. Safeco is a great modern park and the game was quite good, even though the Mariners lost. Also, DELICIOUS garlic fries.




My cousin Jane with her son, Phineas. He is not quite two and does a GREAT Obama routine. Explaining it here wouldn't do it justice.


We got Abe that shirt in Japan. Ohbiki is the shortstop for the Oryx Buffaloes. Amanda and I have shirts of him, too. No, we didn't see any Buffaloes games, but it seemed like a cool souvenir.








The happy couple with Abe's and my former roomate, Dorien.




My cousin Jess and her fiance, Shane. They are the next family wedding, coming in October.

Then came the day itself.

Saturday was a beautiful day. Just a little cloud cover to keep us from cooking. The wedding was at a rose garden outside the city zoo. And yes, we did do a lot of strolling through the zoo in full regalia for pictures. We got a lot of attention from zoogoers. Abe always told them we were going bowling.

And, when you get married at the zoo, your "backstage" area tends to have a bear skeleton ...






Okay, now here's the ceremony ...

The wedding was perfect for Abe and Jocelyn. Beautiful, musical, peculiar, and slightly silly. The flower girl and ring bearer entered to "I've Got a Brand New Pair of Rollerskates" and the wedding part to "Lithium" by Nirvana, during which we stopped processing during the chorus to dance wildly. The ceremony was performed by a cowboy blacksmith who works on a ranch Jocelyn's family owns (or has some connection to ... I can't recall) in Montana. A group of friends sang "In My Life" by the Beatles, with Jocelyn's father on guitar. The couple wrote their own vows, with Jocelyn's going into great depth on bacon sandwiches. And Abe did crush a wineglass at the end, as the crowd shouted "Mazeltov!"

But all these disparate elements were perfect together. Everything came back to love and specifically to the love Abe and Jocelyn share. It was truly one of the most beautiful weddings I have ever attended.


And, of course, if you have your wedding near the zoo, you have to have champagne and appetizers in front of the jaguar cage.

The jaguar seemed pretty mellow, though I think he though Phineas looked delicious.

I missed much of this sing-along because I and the Man of Honor were setting up my cousins Joe, David, and Griff to decorate the van I would be driving Abe and Jocelyn away from the ceremony in.

They did a great job with that, of course. I especially liked the one window on which they wrote ABE AND JOCELYN! LOVE ROCKS! because at first I didn't notice that first exclamation point and I thought the van looked like it belonged to some very enthusiastic geologists.

On to the reception where, after a delicious dinner we started some speechin'

I'm happy to say mine was well-received. I quoted the Beatles, talked about a game Abe and I played as children that involved me hitting him on the head, and used the word "bullshit" only once.

And I think the rest of the evenign is best told in pictures ...

I promise you! AMANDA WAS THERE AND SHE LOOKED GORGEOUS! I'm sure there are, at least, SOME photos to prove this. Working on it.

After the reception we started to walk back to the van. I was eager to see Abe and Jocelyn's reaction to the decoration. But then they got into a cab! Those bastards!

In truth, they were going to get everyone a late night snack from Dick's a local hamburger stand (which I would rank above In-N-Out, btw). I called them and told them to send the cab away, we were coming to pick them up.

And when we did, this is what we saw:

Sorry, no good pics of the decorated van. But, um ... it was cool.

The next day we did a nice brunch at Jocelyn's parents' house where my cousin Aaron made a point of posing with Abe's celebrity friends

Yes, that's Sam Levin from "Freaks and Geeks"

And comedian Kyle Cease. Abe has cool friends.

Well, that's the story. Pretty awesome.

Abe and Jocelyn are in Spain now, so I certainly hope they aren't wasting time reading this. But let me say again what a wonderful weekend it was and what an honor it was to be a part of this event.

I love you guys and I am very, very happy that your anniversay will, forever after, be one day before mine and Amanda's. It's nice to share.

More archived tweets

Dinner at a pho place with "Expose Yourself to Art" (trenchcoat guy flashing a statue) poster in men's room. That joke works in Vietnamese?
9:54 PM Jun 16th from web

El Pollo Loco #fastfoodrestaurantsthatsoundlikesexacts
1:56 PM Jun 18th from web

Lost dinosaur valley in IceAge3? Fine. But how do the characters know what dinos ARE? A lot of wooly mammoth paleontologists in the Ice Age?
6:42 PM Jun 18th from web

I think my a-ha moment came when I was trapped in a black and white cartoon world full of 80s Norweigan pop and had to body-slam my way out.
8:54 AM Jun 19th from web

"Steve Jobs had liver" is a Trending Topic? Why not "Bill Gates had some fettuccine"? What ... oh, he had liver SURGERY? Never mind.
10:25 PM Jun 19th from web

Had a dream about The Order of the Stick, now off to Disneyland. Nice start to a weekend. (Childish, but nice)
5:49 AM Jun 20th from web

New pet peeve -- People who say Standard Time when they mean Daylight Time.
12:05 PM Jun 21st from web

Damn you, popular culture for making me care a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny bit about Jon and Kate's announcement tonight.
9:04 AM Jun 22nd from web

Jib-Jab: Because if you have cool animation, no one will notice you're not funny and your lyrics don't rhyme! http://tinyurl.com/lsxwho
11:36 AM Jun 22nd from web

Was there just one comedian in the 80s who noticed all porn soundtracks went “bow-chicka-bow-bow” or was it one of those bits everybody did?
8:48 AM Jun 23rd from web

Just learned yesterday that Joanna Gleason A) went to Occidental and B) is Monty Halls’ daughter. Huh.
3:48 PM Jun 23rd from web

Would the opposite of "relentless" be "relentful"?
8:10 AM Jun 24th from web

So now we know why he didn't want the Federal money. Mark Sanford had his own stimulus package going on. http://tinyurl.com/ny5pe2
11:51 AM Jun 24th from web

Amanda’s relative in the military was moved from Hawaii to Kansas. Facebook friend called it “bittersweet.” Pretty sure it’s just bitter.
3:30 PM Jun 24th from web


Cali legislature requires "supermajorities" and "laws scribed in runes on scrolls" and such. Constitution written by stoned Dungeon Master.
8:17 AM Jun 25th from web

While Sanford was apologizing to his wife, Jenny, was anyone else waiting for him to say, "I'm not a smart man, but I know what love is?"
9:01 AM Jun 25th from web

Btw, sorry Iran, but you're last week's news. Now we have a governor emailing about tan lines and boobies! Get in the back with Jon & Kate.
9:51 AM Jun 25th from web

My friend Max said:
Max Silvestri: Susie Essman is standing across from me,
also staring at her phone. Does she know about MJ? Should I tell her?4:13 PM Jun 25th from Tweetie

@maxsilvestri No, you fat fuck! ( <-- Susie Essman voice ) 4:14 PM Jun 25th from web in reply to maxsilvestri

Some loved him; some hated him, but nobody was HAPPY to hear reports of Michael Jackson's death all over the news. Well, maybe Mark Sanford.

A sad day. To add to the sadness, enough people don't know how to spell to
make "RIP Micheal Jackson" a Trending Topic 4:15 PM Jun 25th from web

(and, yes, I realize I just made it worse) MichAEl! MichAEl! MichAEl! 4:16
PM Jun 25th from web

6:28 PM Jun 25th from web Poor Ed McMahon. Even in death, he starts the show, then has to slide down the couch to give bigger stars the spotlight. 7:59 AM Jun 26th from web

Michael Jackson is dead, the President is competent ... it's a tough time to be a comedy writer. 12:16 PM Jun 26th from web

My friend Alison said:

Alisongreenwill: maybe instead of piling clothes on top of the cedar chest, I
should actually store the knitwear *in* it.12:59 PM Jun
26th from TweetDeck

@alisongreenwill Brilliant! Now you know how the Earl of Sandwich felt:
"Eureka! I'll put the meat BETWEEN the bread!" (smiley face)
1:02 PM Jun
26th from web in reply to alisongreenwill

9/20/08 SNL jokes about Todd Palin having sex with his daughters. 10/18/08 Sarah Palin appears on SNL, unoutraged. I'm just sayin'.
12:38 AM Jun 28th from web

My friend Andy said:

Warrhodes: should I be doing more with me days off?
2:15 PM Jun 26th from
web
@warhodes no, just keep on working on that Popeye impression
2:23 PM
Jun 26th from web in reply to warhodes

I apologize ahead of time for the time-sensitive, but otherwise highly
insensitive joke I am about to tweet.
11:10 AM Jun 28th from web

Normally celebrity deaths come in threes, but if we act now, Billy Mays
will throw in a fourth for free!
11:11 AM Jun 28th from web

Seen on street: car with broken window. Cardboard covering it reads "NO AXE SPRAY INSIDE SO FUCK OFF"
2:12 PM Jun 28th from web

I was about 35 minutes into "Away We Go" before I realized it wasn't, as I thought, a Jackie Gleason biopic.
about 23 hours ago from web

Celeb sighting: Robert Forster at Trader Joe's in Studio City. Cool guy. I can't even blame him for being on that crappy season of "Heroes."
about 20 hours ago from web

I'm happy about Madoff getting 150 years, but the judge referred to his crimes
as "evil." Sorry, but what's the legal definition of "evil"?
about 6 hours
ago from web

Where did you study law, your honor? Hogwarts? Let's keep
abstract fantasy-fiction concepts out of a courtroom, okay?
about 6 hours
ago from web

Spangled Socks at Half Mast

So, interesting day yesterday.

I think I’ve said before that I don’t really get death. I’ve lost loved ones and family members and it’s been sad and strange and all of that. But there are also people in my life who I was friendly with at one time but, because of circumstance, I will probably never see again (Facebook mitigates this a little). From a logical perspective, aren’t those people as good as dead, as far as I’m concerned?

I’m well aware this seems cold and callous. I don’t want to be. I imagine this will change if and when I have children myself. But I’m just trying to put things in context of how I approached yesterday’s news about Michael Jackson’s death.

For that odd period when half the news sources were saying he was dead and half had him in a coma or in surgery, I was rooting for him to make it. This is was partly because I never actually root for someone to die, but in particular I wanted TMZ to be wrong, lose credibility and get a much deserved smackdown.

Then, once it was clear that this was no rumor and he was gone, came the flood. I check Twitter and Facebook far more often than a person should and EVERY post was about Jackson. There were a few jokes, but mostly it was heartfelt memories of a lost artist.

But here’s where my callous logical side kicked in. For one, the man was probably a child molestor. I am a believer in “innocent until proven guilty” and he was never proven guilty. But, well, Peter Sagal (from NPR’s “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me”) put it very well on his blog:

“I do believe he was a pedophile and a child molester, because people who are
innocent of child molestation do
not pay 20 million dollars to people who accuse them of molesting their
child (nor should people demand such a payment in return for such a crime, but
that’s another issue)” – Peter Sagal

That said, I am a firm believer in loving the art and hating the artist. I can enjoy Wagner without agreeing with his anti-Semitism. But, logically again, Michael Jackson had not recorded a memorable song in more than 15 years, nothing truly good in more than 20 years, and nothing genuinely brilliant and classic in over 25 years. If we are addressing him purely as an artist, and not as the man unworthy of our respect, what is the difference between him dying now and if he had died in 1992? So I was a little offended when I heard him compared to Joplin, Hendrix, Buddy Holly or any other great young artist who died while at the peak of their creativity. Jackson was decidedly in 1970s Elvis territory and had been there for some time.

I didn’t say anything myself. Clearly many people were going through grief and I had no desire to mock them. I even deleted a tweet I wrote when I thought this was just a minor heart attack. Highlight to read it: #tackymichaeljacksonheartattackjoke Q: What did Michael Jackson's cardiologist say to his heart? A: Beat it!

Then I got into the car to drive home and, of course, every station was playing his music. At one point one station finished “Thriller” and I pressed my next preset just in time to catch the beginning of “Thriller” once again. And, y’know what … those were damn good songs. Michael Jackson was truly a great artist for the first thirty years of his life and that is always worth remembering.

After all, when Jimmy Stewart, probably my favorite movie star, died, I certainly didn’t complain that he hadn’t made a classic movie in thirty years or more. But, on the other hand, Jimmy Stewart hadn’t died at fifty and spent the second half of his life desperately trying to reclaim the glory of his youth.

I do still think that, amidst our fond memories of The Jackson Five and his first two solo albums, we can’t forget the way it all ended. Jackson serves as a cautionary tale of an abused child who went on to abuse others, of a man deprived of a childhood who went to absurd extremes to give himself one in adulthood. And, yes, of talent hurt by fame and personal failings. I know we should not speak ill of the dead, but we also should not ignore reality. Love his music, sure, but don’t let that cloud your good judgement.

For someone my age, Michael Jackson was possibly the first celebrity we were aware off. We knew Big Bird, E.T., and Superman, and we were somewhat aware that the same actor played Han Solo and Indiana Jones. We knew Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan were important people and we knew who Charles and Diana were. And I, myself, was aware of the music my parents liked, so I had some understanding of who the Beatles and the Stones were. But if you were five or six when Thriller came out, as I was, Michael Jackson was the first celebrity who entered our lives in the way celebrities do, as artists, as phenomena, as people real and unreal at the same time. Thriller was the first album I ever owned. “Weird Al”’s “Eat It” was perhaps my first introduction to the idea of parody, as light and non-critical a parody as it is.

And watching Jackson turn from genius to has been to freakshow and now to memory has been a key pop-culture ride for us. We weren’t really there from the beginning, but we saw it through to the end.

So, if you’re sensing some conflictedness in how I’m responding to all this, you’re right. As a pop-culture person, I’ve just lost perhaps the most prominent pop-culture touchstone, for good and bad, of my lifetime.

And I must admit that I owe something to the man. That first attempt I made at writing jokes featured a big batch of Jackson jokes. I look back at those now and they seem amateurish and unfunny, but they helped get me the SNL gig and that helped in other ways. So, yes, I personally benefitted much more from Jackson the freak than from Jackson the genius.

The good news – I can buy Thriller on iTunes and feel good that the money will go to his deeply in-debt estate and not to the man himself.

Rest in peace, Michael Jackson. For good or bad, you were always THERE and the world will be a markedly different place without you.

58 ... He's finally one better than Heinz

Today is my father's birthday and I like to honor him here by linking to some of his writing to be found online.

Dad has had quite a bit of luck with contests run by the British Spectator magazine. Here are a few of his recent triumphs. Oh, and for those who might not know or had forgotten, Dad's name is Chris O'Carroll:

Write a poem containing the first or last line ‘Whenever you see a rhinoceros’.

Provide a pithy definition of hell

I was moved by Dad's rhino rhyme to try one myself. Yes, I know this is supposed to be about my father, but it's my blog, dammit!:

Old bride, horny as a rhinoceros
For her gifts said, “Don’t cup-and-saucer us!
Lingerie is much smarter”
But friends bought her no garter
At the wedding she just had to toss her truss.

The first line's a bit wonky but I'm rather proud of those rhymes.

Happy birthday, Dad!

Great, so now Elizabeth Taylor will have TEN titles to pronounce wrong

So I’m intrigued by this announcement that the Academy Awards will nominate 10 films for Best Picture next year rather than the standard five they’ve nominated since 1943 or so.

Well, my gut instinct is that this is a bad idea and will make a nomination seem less special. But it will probably help smaller films. Many people have suggested it will help out genre pictures, too, rather than just the standard assortment of five dramas or four dramas and one small, quirky comedy.

Perhaps a bigger question is – will there be 10 films worthy of nominations next year. Let’s apply this retroactively to the past two years

Nominess for the 2009 Awards
Slumdog Millionaire
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Reader

Other Films Nominated in Other Major Categories
Changeling
The Dark Knight
Defiance
Doubt
Frozen River
Grand Torino (not nominated, but probably on the cusp for a few categories)
Happy-Go-Lucky
In Bruges
Rachel Getting Married
Revolutionary Road
Tropic Thunder
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
The Visitor
WALL-E
The Wrestler

I think it’s safe to assume the additional five nominees would have come from that list. My guess:

The Dark Knight
Doubt
Rachel Getting Married
WALL-E
The Wrestler


That’s a decent group of movies and would certainly be a more diverse nomination pool.

But what about the year before:

Nominees for the 2008 Awards
No Country for Old Men
Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
There Will Be Blood

Other Films Nominated in Other Major Categories
American Gangster
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Atonement
Away from Her
Charlie Wilson's War
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Eastern Promises
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Enchanted
Gone Baby Gone
I'm Not There
In the Valley of Elah
Into the Wild
The Kite Runner
La Vie en Rose
Lars and the Real Girl
Once
Persepolis
Ratatouille
The Savages
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
3:10 to Yuma

Huh … from this list what do we add?

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Once
Ratatouille

and, um …

La Vie En Rose

and, let’s see, maybe …

The Savages? Atonement? Sweeney Todd? Kinda hard to find that tenth nominee.

So … I don’t know how I feel about this new plan. Seems like some years it’ll be great. Others, there’s gonna be some headscratchers.

A Decade

It was ten years ago today that Amanda and I got together. We had known each other for a few weeks and there had been some flirtation and other cluings-in of interest in one another, but it was June 22, 1999 that we actually left that bar together.

Okay, that doesn’t sound quite right out of context. I told the whole story here on the occasion of our fifth anniversary. Five years seems remarkably puny now, but ten years seems completely impossible. How did ten years go by without either of us turning 30? Ahem.

In these ten years we have …

… gotten married

… both received Masters Degrees (and Amanda got her BA, too)

… moved at least ten times and lived in five states

… visited 21 foreign countries and made a complete circumnavigation of the globe

… adopted three pets

… voted in three presidential elections (once for a winner)

… worked at nine colleges (combined, with a few that we both worked at)

… been to seven major-league ballparks

… attended eight weddings and two funerals together

… kept the same car for almost the whole time (just traded in our 1995 Saturn last month)

… made roughly 4,000 visits to Disneyland and never once been on Autopia

… spent roughly six weeks, combined, inside Ikeas

… eaten gallons upon gallons of Tom Yum Noodle Soup

… watched every damn episode of Lost

… laughed and cried, gained and lost weight, jobs, and friends. With a few exceptions, it has been a pretty typical journey. But I cannot imagine making it with a better partner.

I love you, Amanda, and I plan to for many, many decades more.

There's no way to portmanteau "Tweets" and "THOTS" without sounding dirty

Hey all, so as I said before, and as my new sidebar attests, I'm on Twitter. It's like a neverending THOTS entry. Yeah, I know I haven't done a THOTS entry in a year and probably never will again, but I think I will occasionally archive some of my more interesting Tweets here. And, yes, I'm egotistical enough to think my Tweets are interesting. Why do you think I have a blog in the first place?

Okay, gotta think of a clever first Tweet ... okay, okay, I can do this ... something pithy and smart ... gotta watch that 140-character li
9:22 AM Jun 9th from web

guy in the next office is playing "The William Tell Overture" and, yes, it is making me work faster
3:08 PM Jun 9th from web

Oh, so that was a half-TABLEspoon I was using, not a half teaspoon. No wonder last night's fish was so over-seasoned.
8:07 AM Jun 10th from web

I have no problem with Newsweek's new format, but the new covers are unspeakably awful. Logo=70s Photos=bad freshman photography experiment
12:31 PM Jun 10th from web

Ah, Los Angeles, where it's sunny all winter and people only get Seasonal Affective Disorder during "June Gloom."
3:26 PM Jun 10th from web

Fingers crossed for ongoing Sox domination of the Yankees tonight.
3:24 PM Jun 11th from web

Hee hee ... poor Yankee fans and their teeny tiny mustaches.
7:57 PM Jun 11th from web

I wasn't hating on the Lakers this year until I saw the massive Hummer with a giant Lakers cover on the spare tire. Now I want them dead.
9:16 PM Jun 11th from web

spatch: Were we ever told just what exactly a real estate novelist was? I can't remember. 3 days ago from web

• smithnoah: The Interest Rate Also Rises -The Fall of the House of Usher's Resale Value -Escrow of Eden -Huckleberry Finance @spatch #realestatenovels
• jrnafziger: Prime and Prejudice, The Scarlet Lender, A Tale of Two PITIs, To Kill a Mortgagor @smithnoah @spatch #realestatenovels
• spatch: The Sound Investment and the Fury, Paradise Foreclosed, Fannie Mae and Zooey, The World According to APR @smithnoah #realestatenovels
• I know I'm supposed to find Megan Fox attractive, but all I can think when I see her is "I bet she doesn't smell very good."
  9:46 AM Jun 15th from web
  

Kent Jones actually said something funny on Rachel Maddow last week. My universe is shaken.
about 24 hours ago from web

In the reality of a musical, are all plays and movies musicals? Like, if a character from RENT watched Taxi Driver, would Travis be singing?
about 2 hours ago from web

• briangrosz: @smithnoah Somehow, I can picture Travis Bickle singin "working long hours 4 a long hustle" - & somehow, i might wind up writing it today..
• smithnoah: @briangrosz if you're offering to collaborate on a Taxi Driver rock opera, I'm %100 down with that
• briangrosz: @smithnoah i'll add it to my to do list. right after the Book of Revelations Song Cycle and my collection of dirty songs for children.

Bloomsday! When we celebrate Joyce's "Ulysses" with beer, gorgonzola sadwiches, and promises to get around to reading the book someday.
about 1 hour ago from web

Reading old Letterman jokes to find one I can pretend to think is about me. Then I'll complain loudly to see if he'll apologize.
less than 5 seconds ago from web