December « 2009 « Wild River Review @ Large

December 21, 2009

Bah, Humbug! Oh, What the Hell…

Filed under: WRR@LARGE — Tags: Charlie Brown, Desk Jockey, Facebook, New York, New Yorker, Rockefeller Center, Wild River Review, wildriverreview.com, WRR@Large — joystocke @ 10:09 am

Bag, Humbug! Oh, What the Hell…

by Desk Jockey

A New Yorker’s grouchy take on the annual rite popularly known as Christmas

With nearly 1,000 friends on Facebook, Desk Jockey marvels at the number of status updates people start posting about Christmas—in October.

“Today, Heather baked chocolate pumpkin surprise cakes!” crows one proud mom. “We got out the snow blower and made snow angels all morning!” boasts another.

Like Charlie Brown (his mentor whom he discovered over 40 years ago), Desk Jockey has found that Christmas is not really about anything as sacred as the birth of Jesus. It really is about puppies and cupcakes and children—three things that are as incomprehensible to Desk Jockey as Dari, the language spoken in Afghanistan.

Even more regrettable, in New York, Christmas isn’t just confined to a manger, or a blue spruce, or Rockefeller Center. It’s everywhere.

Lots of decoration. Lots of jingle.

If there were no such thing as the North Pole, New York would be declared the capital of Christmas.

Besides “the tree” at Rockefeller Center—whose delivery and lighting are treated second only in importance to the birth of the Christ child—there are Christmas tree stands on every corner beginning in late November, stocked with trees of every size, costing hundreds of dollars or more. Ka-CHING!

Special “farmer’s market” mini-malls are set up at strategic points around the city like Columbus Circle and Union Square. Besides young couples holding hands, they are filled with the most god-awful art and trinkets that you wouldn’t buy if they were reduced 90 percent and endorsed by Doctor Oz.

The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, as the entire country knows by now, isn’t really about Thanksgiving. It’s an excuse to sell tickets to Broadway musicals during the Christmas season—besides being an excuse to jack everyone up for door-busters on Black Friday, and three days later on Cyber Monday.

That question, again.

Worst of all, Christmas is the time of year when that most irritating question of all is used as a conversational ice-breaker, “So…what are you doing for the holidays?”

Most New Yorkers are smart enough to think of a stock response weeks ahead of time. “I’ll be in the country,” they say loftily, which could mean anything from Chappaqua to East Hampton to Wisconsin.

Some New Yorkers are really, really enterprising, in that they actually make plans to go away—as in several continents away—for Christmas. Not for them, the plumpish, badly dressed suburbanite hausfraus crowding their sidewalks, accompanied by squealing children wearing New York Giants jackets. No, the smart set are rubbing their well-toned elbows and flashing their heart-monitored pectorals with the hedge-fund crowd in Anguilla and Gustavia, Saint Barths.

Partying hearty, New York-style.

For most New Yorkers, the greatest reason to have a Christmas holiday at all is to have an unlicensed right to drink, drink, and drink some more.

Witness the parties that start soon after Thanksgiving. (Desk Jockey himself throws one, his major nod to the holidays.) Menus are devised as early as October, guest lists are composed, discussed ad infinitum, written, thrown out, then written again. Invites are emailed with the precision of a wedding planner—“first wave” responses, followed by “second waves” should the first waves bail, and even third-wave responses if you’re really afraid of no one showing. Cater waiters are engaged, and bartenders—only the best-looking of course!—are hired.

New Yorkers never tire of bragging about how many Christmas parties they’ve attended, or how tired they are, never for a moment connecting the dots. They are wont to brag about meeting Sean “Puffy” Combs at one party, or Apple’s ex-co-founder Steve Wozniak at another, and then mentioning it ever so casually on Facebook for their 980 friends to see (okay, Desk Jockey has done that, too.)

Doorman tips: give plenty of $$. Not food.

Christmas is also the time when those of us crammed into our 780-square-foot cubicles (a.k.a. apartments) are treated with a level of respect afforded only the Sultan of Brunei or the late Michael Jackson. Doormen are basically all over you, beginning right after Thanksgiving. They buzz the elevator door open when your hands are empty; laugh more heartily at your dumbest comments, and are especially quick to change the light fixture that’s been out for weeks.

Desk Jockey knows that these men and women are not masters of the universe; in fact, they typically earn a salary he earned 35 years ago. His sympathy for them, coupled with his bleeding-heart Manhattan liberalism, induces him to tip all eight members of his staff far more than he knows his rich banker neighbors are giving.

This does not go unnoticed by the staff. One summer, the superintendent asked Desk Jockey, “Why are you different from every one else here?” Feeling sure he was referring to his generosity at Christmas, Desk Jockey answered, “Because they’re richer than me.”

Time to take a break? Really?

As faithful readers may have gleaned by now, Desk Jockey, like many other blasé New Yorkers, regards Christmas as just another day. Gifts? Desk Jockey can buy anything he wants for himself (save an $11,000 bicycle) any day of the year. Kindness to others? Desk Jockey observes this policy every day of the year (admittedly, in New York City, it can be difficult.)

To Desk Jockey, Christmas is an opportunity for the higher-ups at his widget firm to relax and shut off their PDAs—but not before they email their junk to his desktop, tell him the due date is January 3, and turn on their automated “Out-of-Office” Response before he can ask any questions.

Desk Jockey cannot remember a single Christmas season that he did not work every day of the Christmas “break.” He does remember being buzzed on a cell phone as he walked into Midnight Mass one year, asking him to make a change to paragraph 3 on page 16. On the day after Christmas, he remembers driving his broken-down Honda through a blizzard, then digging a path through three-foot-high snowdrifts blocking the door of his Connecticut office, just to finish a project that was due January 2.

He also famously remembers daring to turn off his PDA on New Year’s Day one Christmas to go to the movies. On January 2, he turned it back on, only to get an all-caps, nasty-gram email which read, “WHERE WERE YOU YESTERDAY?”

The project’s decision date was January 5, and to this higher-up, our winning the work would save the entire empire from certain destruction.

Turns out, the decision wasn’t made until eight months later.

If you can’t beat ‘em, celebrate ‘em.

As the saying goes, laugh and the world laughs with you; cry, and you cry alone. Desk Jockey, who would positively perish if he did not have his 980 FB friends and their status updates, wants to assure his faithful Wild River Review readers that certain things about Christmas do make him very happy.

1. His annual holiday party. This always takes place the first Friday in December, so that Desk Jockey can have the rest of the month to pursue other activities, such riding his bicycle in the freezing cold.

2. The Christmas windows at Barney’s. Imaginative and witty, they are the brainchild of Simon Doonan, the decorator and columnist for the New York Observer, whose attitude toward life is as snarky and unforgiving as Desk Jockey’s.

3. His favorite new book about Christmas. It’s You Better Not Cry by Augusten Burroughs, whose opening essay on a child confusing Santa Claus with Jesus Christ is classic.

4. The fact that Desk Jockey has over 10 extra vacation days he cannot carry over to 2010. He especially relishes telling his slave-driving boss this fact, and hopes she will not turn her oblivious ear to him, as usual, and give him a new assignment due January 2.

And finally, there are those Christmas “moments.”

When Desk Jockey thinks he cannot take another sidewalk Santa, or hellacious day at work, he will walk by some store window decorated for Christmas, and hear Leroy Anderson’s “Sleigh Ride.”

Hardened, seen-it-all, cynic that he is, Desk Jockey just melts.

Desk Jockey is a regular columnist for Wild River Review. He has worked for major advertising firms for more than 25 years. He is now an account executive for a widget manufacturer. Desk Jockey is an avid cyclist, logging hours in cities and countrysides around the world. To read his latest column, click here: Duathalon Man

Comments (2)

December 10, 2009

Life’s a Mystery. By Joseph Glantz

Filed under: WRR@LARGE — Tags: America, Bostwana, Detectives, Joseph Glantz, London, Monk, Mystery, Rockford — joystocke @ 11:06 am

For many the evolution of man/woman can be seen in poetry, fiction or non-fiction. In politics and art. Going to the theater. My adult introduction runs differently. From the time I was given a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories for my bar-mitzvah I’ve always been fascinated at how we can learn so much from the modern detective story. Aside from the sophistication of the crimes and the cleverness of the telling of the clues, the essence of any detective story is the actual detective. They’re human in ways that always amaze.

While other British detectives relied on emotion Holmes set himself apart in stories because he super-reasoned the clues that escaped others. Soon after – I learned that the detective story wasn’t confined to just writing. Wayne and Schuster, two Canadian comedians, did a wonderful take on detectives in the age of Julius Caesar. Who really did have motive to kill Caesar and the means? Dragnet’s Joe Friday asked his television witnesses for “Just the facts, ma’am.”

Other detective stories added additional character traits. Detective Columbo had just that one more question that got under people’s skins. Jim Rockford was the practical detective. He didn’t use a gun, though he kept one in his cookie-jar just in case. My favorite episode was the one titled “Rose N. Krantz and Gilda Stern are dead.” Richie Brockleman got people to talk because he was “nice.” Lance White, portrayed by Tom Selleck, was the detective who played by the rules. Rockford thought Lance was a sucker. Selleck later made sleuthing “cool” in his Hawaiian Magnum series.”

Angela Lansberry’s Jessica Fletcher and and Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple showed that women could be just as good at solving mysteries. Bill Cosby’s I-Spy showed that blacks could be crime-busters too

Along the way these detectives have had different professions which have given them that unique edge. Ms. Fletcher was a writer. Lisa Scottoline and William Lashenr write from the vantage point of ex-lawyers. Prime Suspect’s frayed and sometimes fried Jane Tennison, played beautifully by Helen Mirren, was a police detective. Mystery on British PBS seems to have a special fascination for police sleuths with a fascination for events surrounding World War II. Martina Navrotilova’s detective was a former tennis player. Maybe modeled after Alice Marble, a real tennis player was also a real spy. In Arturo Perez-Reverte’s mysteries artists and fencing masters are the sleuths.

David Liss’s detective in the Conspiracy of Paper was a Jewish boxer when the stock markets were beginning in London. Jill Scott, as an African native in the … Ladies’ Detective stories, lets me know about Africa (Botswana). Others use time travel to solve the case.

In movies, detectives like those played by Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone, are larger than life figures who rely on their brawn. Though Willis made his fame pairing with a woman, Cybil Shepherd, which was noteworthy for the gender pairing and the notion that detectives could have a sense of humor. Sam Spade as Raymond Carver literature was great. Sam Spade as played by Humphrey Bogart, even better.

The most recently retired detective was Adrian Monk, who suffered by Obsessive Compulsive Disorder but was a savant in spite of or perhaps because of his disorder. From the opening show where he had to use wipes to climb a ladder to the last where those same wipes contained the poisonous residue that put his life in danger helped to save his life (because the chemicals could be extracted), the compulsiveness was character building. Monk made all the people around a little more human in dealing with his disorder. I loved that the show ended with happy endings for all. A compulsively neat solution.

In this age of the computer there’s sure to be a detective who uses Twitter and Facebook. Shouldn’t there be a series where a reformed cook the books accountant stars. There’s bound to be a mystery version of the Martian Chronicles, a geriatric problem-solver and well, I have to stop writing. There’s a new Sherlock Holmes movie coming out. A dark Mr. Holmes – Oh My! Sue Grafton’s alphabet mysteries are down to the letter U. Will she stop at Z? Garrison Keillor’s Guy Noir just landed in a new city. Maybe yours?

Life and death stories. Oh sure somebody always dies, but they’d eventually die anyway and the best part about mysteries is that the good guys solve the case and the bad guys go away. And Oh Sure, there’s the opera, the theater and the ballet – but come to think of didn’t the Fat Lady just sing her last aria (I suspect Jake and the Fat Man), didn’t that actor enter stage-left when he should have entered stage right (hmmm?) and really, how do those Nutcracker characters come to life ?

Mystery. When one door closes a life a window into the human condition opens. Here’s what happens…

Comments Off

December 3, 2009

Producing Peltier: Walking the Red Road to the Red Carpet (Part One)

Filed under: WRR@LARGE — Tags: Arvol Looking Horse, Kevin Costner, Lakota, Paul Soderman, Producing Peltier, Warner Brothers, Wild River Review, wildriverreview.com, WRR@Large — joystocke @ 5:19 pm

Producing Peltier:

Walking the Red Road to the Red Carpet (Part One)

by Paul Soderman

…Let it be known that Leonard Peltier is a spiritual warrior who shares the heart of our ancestors who fought for the rights of our people, such as Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull. As a Sun Dancer, he has sacrificed his life to the People, so they may have happiness and peace once again. I pray that his words become etched in the minds and hearts of all people and that the wounds on his soul heal. And I ask those who continue to inflict such pain and suffering on him to see the error of their ways. Let us all work together to restore justice so that the hoops of Our Nations can mend and our children may see better days…From Introduction by Arvol Looking Horse - Leonard Peltier, Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sun Dance

Mr. Arvol Looking Horse, 19^th Generation Keeper of the White Buffalo Calf Pipe

Here at Warrior Artists, as Cathie and I enter into pre-production work on the Leonard Peltier movie, we are reminded of the last decade, how mysteriously connected events and circumstances have lead us here.

I remember Los Angeles fondly, the 18-hour production days I worked as I reluctantly accrued “permit” days as a Union Grip. I earned my hours mainly from accepting numerous 3 a.m. calls from Sony Studios, usually to rebuild the backdrop set of the television game show, Wheel of Fortune. While crawling under that infamous wheel with a ratchet, I had a fortunate moment of clarity. I suddenly realized that I had no desire to become a Union Grip.

Meanwhile, Cathie landed a coveted Executive Assistant position on the Warner Brothers lot for a very benevolent, old school Director. He was the quintessential Hollywood ‘Mensch’ and the daily office parade of the wildly famous, soon-to-be-famous and used-to-be-famous, along with their attending sycophant media peddlers, made for entertaining coffee shop talk among the envious and unemployed actors we hung out with.

While I drove truckloads of scenery flats all over town, Cathie scored a Production Assistant (PA) spot on Lethal Weapon 4. PAs are the worker bees of the movie world with absolutely no rights… As the less than cordial “boss” sent Cathie on wild goose chases to secure the “right” donuts each a.m., I swear I saw her Ivy League, MFA Degree cringing on the wall.

While printing “call sheets” for hours for LW4 Cathie camped out by the back door of the office, which opened to an empty alley. Every day, Kevin Costner walked right by her, but in Hollywood part of the unspoken ethic when working on a studio lot is, “when encountering an actual Movie Star, be cool and always act as though it’s no big deal.” She did her PA job humbly and so they never spoke.

Shortly after their ‘close encounters’, while at a stoplight, again in front of Warner Studios, Mr. Costner walked right in front of my grip truck. I’d seen a few movie stars by now, but somehow that guy’s physical presence could stop time…But hey, no big deal.

Lethal Weapon 4 wrapped and Cathie and I took our meager Christmas paychecks straight to the computer chop shop to bring home our very first PC. By now we knew exactly who had the coolest job in Hollywood. Writers rule. We spent the entire holiday hiatus, 10 days straight, co-writing our first Original Screenplay, Fallen Warriors. The entire story had descended upon me while waitig at that same exact stoplight in front of Warner Brothers Studios while listening to sports talk radio in my scenery truck.

Warner Brothers Studios Gate 8 (Power Spot) (Photo Joe Kolias)

At Reservation ceremonies we attended, we had met a few of the Native American actors from Dances With Wolves (which starred Kevin Costner) and had written a principle part for the young Lakota who had played “Smiles-A-Lot” in the film. When he read the screenplay he was very moved and invited us to visit him and his family in Rapid City, South Dakota. Cathie and I hit the road as my pager went off summoning me back to what we now called Wheel of Torture. I tossed that pager into the back seat and never went back.

Eventually we returned to settle in our beloved Boulder, Colorado. One day, our friends from South Dakota called saying they needed us back. Their old friend Kevin Costner was calling for a meeting with them. It seemed he wanted ”permission” to install a massive sculpture of Buffalo on his land in the Black Hills, and set up a Lakota Cultural Center called, ‘Tatanka, Story of the Bison.” I was impressed with his effort at respecting the protocol of ‘asking before doing’ in Indian Country.

Our Lakota friends had instructed Kevin to seek the counsel and blessing of Arvol Looking Horse, the 19^th Generation Keeper of the Original White Buffalo Calf Pip – the most Sacred object of the Lakota people. They said, “Paul & Cathie, you should come with us. That way Kevin won’t be the only Washichu (white guy) up there.”

We bravely accepted our role as “Cross Cultural Tour guides” and prepared for the pilgrimage to the Holy Place of Green Grass, SD.

We watched Costner’s sleek Gulf Stream jet, featuring the Warner Brothers logo on its tail, taxi into the private terminal of Rapid City Airport. Kevin disembarked alone with an overnight bag and a very old Pendleton Blanket folded under one arm.

“I feel like I’ve come back home,” he cheerfully offered. He extended warm handshakes all around and gave Cathie a hug and kiss on the cheek. Now that she had been properly introduced, her mind suddenly traveled 2000 winding miles, to that back alley of Warner Bros. Studio. As she thought: “But, you can’t get here from there,” I was thinking, “We may not know where we’re going,but we sure ain’t lost.’

Cathie and Paul Soderman w/ Kevin Costner (Photo J. Chasing Horse)

Next: Roaming the Black Hills with Mr. Costner…

Paul Soderman was born in NYC and raised in Princeton. After an inauspicious start to young adulthood, Paul survived a cataclysmic conversion experience and subsequently focused his energies in helping youth, working as a drug and alcoholism counselor for the NJ Dept. of Corrections. Wanderlust drove Paul from NJ, and while traveling throughout the American West, he simultaneously discovered an intense interest in Native American culture and a genuine talent to sing the Blues. He spent the next 15 years as a fulltime musical performer and frequent visitor to numerous Indian Reservations. After meeting his future wife Cathie in Telluride, Co., a Theater Director from New York , he became fascinated with Film. Combining an interest in all things Native American and Artistic, the Soderman’s started their Production Company, Warrior Artists producing numerous projects. With their partners at Elevate Films, they have been given the honorable opportunity and responsibility to produce the feature film PELTIER based on the book by Native American Federal prisoner, Leonard Peltier, Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sun Dance. Paul currently resides in the foothills outside of Boulder , Colorado with his Wife Cathie and their beloved Golden Retriever, Auggie.