Sunday, November 30, 2008

Gray Flannel Suits

So I'm doing research for a new play, and I thought I'd throw out a request for connections: that is, I'm looking to chat with someone who worked for Associated Press, UPI, or Reuters in the 1950s or early 60s, prefereably in San Francisco, or even someone who just lived in San Francisco during that time (particularly in North Beach). Just want to ask some general questions, and phone or e-mail works for me. So if you know a retiree, man or woman, who might be willing to share a few stories, please let me know, either here or via e-mail at: splatterson@mindspring.com

Thanks,

Steve

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone

...a word from the wiseguy. And pass the stuffing.

[Video courtesy of Gus Van Sant via The Wonkette]

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Friday, November 21, 2008

Coda

One more note about the Oregon Book Awards, and then I'll shut up and try to move on.

The night of the awards, my wife Deborah and I were sitting in the second row, a little to the right of the presenter, and next to Deborah sat a very charming older lady who was graciously excited about the evening, and who seemed to be pleased to know I'd been nominated. In front of me sat two of the other finalists--both good friends who I was very happy for--along with some other writer friends I hadn't seen in some time--Jan Baross and Sharon Whitney. It all felt cozy and festive...and I was nervous as hell and completely convinced there was no way I was ever going to win.

So then Keith came out with a guitar, started doing my lines, and I became totally calm. I looked over at Deb and saw the comprehension wash over her. And what I thought was going to be terribly difficult--going up and speaking--wasn't bad at all. (They had good monitors, and I felt my old radio voice coming back to me, which was kind of amusing since the play's main character was a DJ and some of the background drew on my radio days. And I don't know if it was the hall or they'd thrown a little reverb on the mike, but I got just enough slapback from where I was standing that I could hear a vague echo of what I was saying. Felt like I should have started singing "Mystery Train.")

Afterwards, the older lady reached across Deb, took my hand, squeezed it, and gave me a megawatt smile. It was one of the nicest moments of a beautiful evening.

Later at the reception, I learned she was Dorothy Stafford, wife of the late poet William Stafford, whose work I dearly love and who took time to chat with me a reading in Northwest Portland years ago, when I'd first moved back to the Pacific Northwest after living in New York and New Orleans. It moves me now just to think of it. Mr. Stafford was Oregon class: real, sensitive, giving, and a writer who could crush and salve you with just a few lines. I remember coming away from that evening, some 18 years ago, and thinking: you know, it is kind of nice to be back--maybe this will work out.

Thanks for reminding me, Dorothy, of an Oregon we should never take for granted.

Douglas...Fir!

Nevermind.

It's Friday, it's been a long, goddamned week; so why not check in with...David Lynch? He has a camera that comes down from the ceiling from which he gives weather reports on the Internet, he's building a sphere around an old clock, he says watching "2001" on a laptop is stupid, and he digs Norman Rockwell.

What's not to like?

His Davidness

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Liberation? Really?

So...do you ever feel like it's Paris, 1944, and you're listening to the Allied advance on the secret wireless radio behind the wall in the wine cellar of the Ritz Hotel? And all you (and the economy) have to do is stay alive...until January 20th?

And they thought there'd be dancing in the streets of Baghdad. Just wait.

Monday, November 17, 2008

A Wavelength

All writers have special moments in their plays or books. Often they're the same as that of the audience--the big turnaround, the climax, the descriptive passage that nails a moment. But sometimes, they're just something that resonates with us and which comes to us with no warning, simply out of the dark.

Lost Wavelengths, as you've probably heard me say, won the Oregon Book Award a week or so ago, an event which still kind of feels unreal. The OBA people asked me to send a sample that a presenter could read, in case I was lucky enough to be chosen, an I sent them kind of a funny passage of two characters starting to get to know each other. Then it turned out that only one person was reading--the marvelous Keith Scales--and he and the OBA people found probably the only monologue in the entire play.

It was grand, and people seemed to enjoy it (Keith did an outstanding performance), but it wasn't my favorite moment in the piece. My favorite moment comes after two of the characters--Murray, a public radio DJ who travels around the country taping "outsider" musicians (musicians without any formal training or even musical knowledge but who are drawn to create...the musical equivalent of Grandma Moses or the Rev. Howard Finster), and Claudia, a radio reporter who's doing a story on Murray--have spent an evening getting to know each other better than most subject/reporter relationships. They're having a couple drinks, hanging out in a motel in Kansas, and the following, odd little exchange happens. I don't know why I like it, but it was one of those moments when I was both inside the character, and the character went and surprised me. And, somehow, it seems to take on a ever slightly bigger meaning to me after the election.

MURRAY
Well, if they think of me at all back at the station, they’re not thinking this.

CLAUDIA
Not cutting an erotic swath through the Midwest?

MURRAY
Dorothy smoking a cigarette? (With post-coital languor) “Oh, Toto, Toto. It really is Kansas.”

CLAUDIA
It is.

MURRAY
Kansas is underrated.

CLAUDIA
It’s pretty much like everywhere else now. McJob, McHouse, McFamily. I ought to know: I’m from Nebraska. You either get absorbed or go crazy.

MURRAY
There! That’s why!

CLAUDIA
People flee, screaming, to New York?

MURRAY
No, no. That sameness. That Wal-mart, strip mall world. A bottomless cornucopia of market-researched tapioca. And still there’s people driven to make something new. Because they’re gifted or clueless or…possessed by Satan. Still there’s this voice under the surface, smothered but struggling. Gives me hope.

CLAUDIA
Of what?

MURRAY
They can’t own everything.

Solace

So, being dutifully brought up on Sean Connery's Bond (along with trout fishing and science fiction, something I shared early with my journalist father), it's been gratifying to see Daniel Craig bring the cool back to the James Bond films, which it lost when Mr. Connery hung up his dinner jacket and toupee. Craig's Bond is more Steve McQueen than Connery, but, what the hell, if you like Connery, you're bound to like McQueen because, well, he was if anything, cooler than Bond. (Some could make the case that Steve McQueen was as cool as one can possibly get, without being John Coltrane, but arguing about such things is rather, uh, less than cool.)


To cut to the chase scene: Quantum of Solace has many of them, and they're extraordinarily good, and Craig is great, his Bond is the smartest guy in the room, and the quips are spare and droll, a welcome antidote to the jokey Bond films of the 70s. The story's not quite as rich as Casino Royale, but the film's still among the best in the series. Which is saying something out of 22 films, six of which were made by actor who owned the role like a king.

In short, it's a great ride, you completely forget whatever's bothering you for a few hours, and, afterwards, there's a little snap in your stride, and your eyes feel ever-so-slightly hooded as you fire up the car.

But don't peel out. You don't need to. Consequently, it would be uncool. Wouldn't it?

Friday, November 14, 2008

Thursday, November 13, 2008

But then again....

The media's working through all the election post-mortems...Obama ran a brilliant campaign...McCain never broke free of the conservative wing of his party...no Republican could have won with George W. Bush in office...blah blah blah....

What if, well, it just turns out John McCain wasn't a very good pilot?I'm just sayin'....

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

How Bizarre

At 3:00 AM this morning, they found Mitch Mitchell, drummer for the Jimi Hendrix Experience, dead in Portland's Benson Hotel. That's about a block away from where I work. Apparently natural causes. Sixty-one.

Jimi Hendrix's drummer, Mitch Mitchell, found dead at Portland hotel


Strange. I guess when you go, you go...but who would have thought Mitch Mitchell would cash his check in Portland? (And Jimi being from Seattle.)

Well...rest in peace, sir.

Monday, November 10, 2008

Yes....

...the rumors are true: last night I won Oregon Book Award for my play "Lost Wavelengths":

Oregon Book Awards

I think it's going to take a bit of coffee to get off the blocks this morning. Understandably, I was up for awhile last night.

Steve

Thursday, November 6, 2008

And by their pets ye shall know them....

Barney bit a reporter today. Kind of sums it up.

Your Lengthy Guide To The Insane McCain-Palin Cold War

Who is this guy?

I like Barack. I've liked him all year and have been crossing my fingers for him. Naturally, I'm beyond delighted. But I've been sort of going: who is this guy? Beyond the obvious, oh, he's a Democrat and liberal and an African-American and an Harvard law professor and a dude who smoked dope in Hawaii (because...you live in Hawaii, for God's sake...why wouldn't you)....

No. I mean: who he is. And I think I have it. I mean, W. was a rock--not in sense of strength and stability but like the guy who stakes his position and just holds it no matter what, convinced he'll ride it out and be vindicated, which is why he has no plan when shit blows up around him. Clinton was a surfer; he'd catch one wave after another--the whole idea was stay on the board. The elder Bush was a little like his son, except smarter and more flexible--he was more tree than rock but still of the ride-it-out old money school (and with that Bush mean streak...never forget he was CIA director once). Reagan was all stagecraft--they built the set around wherever he went. And so on...I'm not going to work all the way to George Washington.

Obama? He's the chess player six moves ahead of you.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

One Voice...Change the World

Because I'm a sucker for a good story....

Monday, November 3, 2008

Crunch Time...

...it's up to you.

Four years of this?


Or four years of this?


Whichever you choose, please vote tomorrow if you haven't already.

P.S.: My heartfelt condolences to Senator Obama and his family for the loss of his grandmother.