The graham cracker incident

It was the best of Oscar telecasts, it was the worst of Oscar telecasts.

People will be looking for ways to stream "GI Jane" and in my opinion, the scene where Demi Moore shaves her head(because she's a Navy Seal) is not as memorable as shouting to those who doubted her ability to face challenges to "suck my dick!"

Oh my..this was the greatest shock since Faye Dunaway showed her inability to read the line, "Actress in a Leading Role."

I thought social media would be abuzz with Amy Schumer's brilliance, and how broken-hearted movies fans are about Liza Minnelli, (and the injustice of her co-presenter's Oscar shutout) but now it seems like, when there's a WILL, there's a WHACK.

The Oscars weren't JUST  about shock and disbelief..I was insanely happy that "Coda" won.

Being Oscar weekend, movies were on my mind a lot, especially on Saturday afternoon, where I blew the chance to provide the coveted gold(medal, not statue) to my "Wheel of Fortune" teammates over a ..MOVIE title! 

I "see" "Quick Fixes" with just the "e" and "s"..but I'm a frozen mess with "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid?"

Don't ever let me brag about my wheel prowess again.

As a movie buff, I often think of those powerful clips where the hero or even the anti-hero riles up the crowd.  Think Sally Field as Norma Rae. Kirk Douglas in "Spartacus."  Al Pacino in "Dog Day Afternoon." Or even the hilarious John Belushi in "Animal House"

Think about the latter, because I'm now going to describe how I experienced a real life(not a reel-life) version of "Toga! Toga! Toga!" and it happened yesterday as we played our last competitive game at Woodloch before departure.

We were playing "Survey Says" and doing fairly well, until the category was "Kinds of Crackers."

Woodloch doesn't do their version of "Family Feud" anymore, as much fun as it was to hear the recognizable hoe-down music and  see the iconic scoreboard.  There was too much down time in that game, as long tables of teams got a little stir crazy waiting for the next turn.

No, this version works with multiple screens and a clock that makes you write your answers at a break-neck speed. You're given the first letter of the answer, but then you have to combine your collective brain power  and shout out  suggestions to the captain as he or she furiously tries to write the possibilities on the dry/erase board.

There were probably a dozen teams attending this event, and every team wrote the same answer for the letter "g"..and that answer was "graham" cracker.

We groaned in unison when we realized we would not get that coveted 100-point bonus, because the correct answer was ..."Goldfish"..not "graham."

The game was about to proceed as it normally does, until my future nephew Todd decided to take matters into his own hands.

His protest was visceral: the staff member running the event was as bewildered as everyone in the room, but there was Todd, with his big presence matched only by his bigger voice, rallying everyone to shout out "Graham! Graham! Graham!!" just like Al Pacino did with his angry  choruses of "Attica!"

It was freaking hilarious to see him visiting every table, working the crowd into a frenzy.  I'm surprised that tables weren't upturned or that the emcee wasn't pummeled with graham crackers.  I pitied anyone who was innocently passing through, who were unfamiliar with Todd and his hilarity, but I've never seen a reaction like this. 

The winning team commiserated with him, the losing teams made him into a hero.  The entire resort was talking about "graham crackers" as 'though it was a code word for something much more ominous.

I'm hoping this schtick doesn't get us banned from the resort for life, but it was a sight to behold.  Words will never be enough to describe what  he and his filter-less mind accomplished yesterday.

He became our dry-eraser board writer for the game that followed, "Cash Cab", and we were so close to winning the coveted gold medal, except I insisted that there were many less "seeds on a strawberry" than the rest of the team thought there WERE, and none of us could guess how many" teeth an alpaca has."

(I never said these games were easy)

I still came home with two well-earned medals--one for the Movie Game and one for being runner up at "Wheel of Fortune" but I don't think I ever laughed this hard at anything ever said or done  at this beloved resort.

I was in shock for the entire ride home, all two and a half hours.

I looked forward to the Oscar telecast to help me unwind...so glad it was such a calming, uneventful show..

Woodloch island

Gotta bring Probst my torch..I've been snuffed.  And I don't care, because it was a weekend filled with a lifetime of memories.

I finally calmed down enough to sleep!  

In the coziest bed I've ever been in! 

C'mon, hot young guy, see if you can get "Butch Cassidy" before me TODAY, with this fully rested brain of mine.  

C'mon..I DOUBLE DARE ya!

(Pun is deliberate..when we return in June, "DOUBLE DARE" is one of the most popular activities)

My brain betrays me when it's tired, and I'm talking way beyond clerical errors.

I got up in the middle of the night the day we arrived, groping in the dark so I wouldn't wake Jim, wondering why I couldn't find the toilet or sink, wondering why the towel rack was crammed with fluffy bathrobes and my dress pants, until I realized I was in the closet. 

 Not making that mistake again!

We had a simply scrumptious dinner served by a simply scrumptious server.  I think Jim (and Todd and Marissa) had full blown food-gasms over the "best eggplant ever consumed" served by the handsome and charming and extremely competent Nico.

The theme show returned, and it was worth the two year wait.  This year was "A Salute to Islands" which only played in January and February, 2020, but returned with tweaks and sensations and pulsations.

It went way beyond your typical salute to reggae and ska and "Moana" and Bob Marley, although if the show had been that alone it would have been amazing!

Nope..they used the word "island" quite literally, with a Billy Joel salute(he hails from Long Island) and some spectacular Elton John numbers that had Jim swaying and singing on his feet ..Although what Sir Elton has to do with an island is beyond me)

They even cheated a tad with their Broadway salute, but that was legit, because Manhattan is a real island, and the shows they chose to highlight were fantastic--"The Cher Show" and best of all, "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" and my dead brain was awakened and it was dancing and it was very happy!

A very clever comic, Billy Garan, followed the revue and had us roaring with his "Casablanca" wheel that allowed  for him to do spot on impressions of every character/actor with areas cut out to show his face in the wheel.

Ugh..I mentioned the word wheel..reminding me that I was a runner-up in a game that is in my...

Wheel house..

We're going to play an always hilarious game of "Family Feud" and then we'll hit the road..satisfied, gratified, and full  of bliss and egglant(for some of us) and wonderful memories.

The winner..of "Survivor Weekend", season one, episode one, is....

(Cue parchment paper)

ALL of us!

Every single freaking one of us!

See you in June, my beloved Woodloch!

Woodloch of fortune.

Mud or no mud..Woodloch is better than ever.  

Especially their mud pie.

What a grand day this was!  

Evan, Jim, Todd, and Phebe braved the elements and went to the Survivor-themed Olympics.  It was exhausting and exhilarating, and from the looks on Jim's cold, wind-blown face when we met up afterward, it was  an authentic experience that only the actual show itself could duplicate.  Results are pending, but all power to them..my tribe has spoken! My tribe has shivered. My tribe outwitted, outplayed, and outlasted.

Marissa and I took the easy way out, opting for the Movie Game in the  toasty North Lodge. There was a young husband and wife, Charlie and Alexis, and their precocious middle schooler Matthew, and as we sat down and joined this small team they named "Jurassic Park" we knew down to our very bones that we were not going to win.

Except..we did!!

We got the gold, with tough challenges like ordering Nicole Kidman movies based on ten second clips and naming  generic sound tracks that could have been in any movie .  It was..scrumptious.

After movie game, we signed up for the beloved Scavenger Hunt which sadly is still run like  a post Covid event. There's no excitement in the room, awaiting live results to see who gets the bronze, silver, or gold.  You just send a team member to a designated place at a designated time to pick up a package. Results are pending but the team feels they did fairly well.  I contributed what I could..matching game show hosts to the shows they emcee and solving a Sporcle-like challenge by thinking of a movie title after getting clever hints and removing a single letter . For instance, you'd read about "Harry Potter during the Civil War "and you'd come up with "Gone With the Wand" if you are a word geek who, for once, did not make a typographical error.

.And speaking of word geeks, what do I brag about the most in my insanely braggy blogs?  My "blags" is you will?

 It's not about my brilliant son or my hilariois poodle..it's about my "Wheel of Fortune" prowess..I brag that I am a savant with that wheel.

"Wheel of Fortune" Woodloch-style was one of the most exciting games I've ever played in the thirty-two visits we've had here, and I was lucky enough to join a team with Alexis and Chalie and Matt, and my new friend Liz and her husband Jason and  their children.

Liz is a whiz!

I bragged about my ability to solve "Quick Fixes" with just the "e" and "s"..how I solved "a bowl of gazpacho soup" with just the "l" and "a". Liz sees things too.

Unlike the real show, if you guess incorrectly, you are out of the round, and even 'though I "saw" _  _ _ _  _ _ ___ _ _ _ _ with just the "food and drink" category and the "d" and "e" in the right place, I guessed "a box of fudge" instead of a "pan of fudge."

We thought we blew it..until the emceee told us there were two teams that would face off in the finals, and we were one of them.

My teammates urged me to go up there.  This was the chance of a lifetime to put my money--or my medal--where my mouth is.

And I was a nervous wreck, worrying about my sleep depravation and my inability to perform under pressure.

My opponent was a young hip guy with the perfect fist bump, and everyone is cheering, and my heart is about to burst out of its cavity. 

 It's a pop up puzzle, and we're told the cfategory is "occupation" and after a handful of letters pop up, I "see" the covoluted "new editor at a fashion magazine" and win the first round.

I breathe a sigh of relief..the second round could give me the coveted gold and the category was "movies."

It's Oscar night tomorrow!  I know Nicole Kidman movies in order! I could remember that "I Finally Found Someone" was "From the Mirror Has Two Faces."

Yep..I could do movies..

Especially easy movies..

Especially when I had ninety percent of the letters on the screen when I..froze.

The movie wasn't "Frozen" which would have been appropriate.

It was "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and I just..could not..say it.  It's like I was possessed! It was more than raindrops falling on my head, it was freaking brain freeze!

Todd is videotaping and cheering wildly, and I'm about to pass out, like Charlie Brown at a spelling bee. 

The letters for the THIRD and final round pop up and the category is "books."

I see it.  I see the answer.  I buzz in right away.

The book is obscure..it is "Websters THIRD  New International Dictionary" and I see every word, instantly,  except..except..I cannot see that second word.  

Third. 

Third is my undoing, because my opponent was allowed to wait  until all the letters appeared on the screen, until "third" was clear as day.

He won the gold and I came in second, still earning a silver medal for my very charitable and forgiving  teammates.

It was exciting and it was terrifying, and I can't wait to do it again when we're here in June.

I want to audition one day, I do..but I'm afraid I'd have to make fire or build a bamboo shelter..or find that big personality.

I proudly wore my silver and gold medals for the remainder of the day, removing them only to go to the indoor pool and hot tub, where I sat next to a woman who looked..exactly..like me.  Marissa has a hard time containing herself.

Wonder if my doppelganger would have seen "Butch Cassidy" or "third?"

Another great day at Woodloch.  I feel like we've been here a week!

Tonight offers a Vegas caliber theme show and a hilarious stand up comic.

Oh, I could get used to this.

There is joy in Mudville

Outeat.. Outsleep.. OutKaren..

I'm outwitting! I'm outplaying! I'm outlasting!

I am exaggerating..I'm sleep deprived and barely functional, but  I'm so glad to be back at Woodloch with Jim and Evan and Phebe, and my niece Marissa and her finace Todd.

We have a gorgeous house that could probably sleep twenty and is comfortably fitting the six of us. 

This event was originally scheduled for March 2020, when longtime guest Tommy Sheehan would appear with fellow castmates after just claiming the ultimate prize a few months earlier.

That event, like everything else I eagerly anticipated in 2020, was scrapped as the resort had to close, but all good things come to those who wait, and this was worth waiting for.

March is a fickle month, but I knew that when I booked in March.  It's muddy, but that's nobody's fault but Mother Nature's.

Woodloch, as usual, is mastering every other non-weather related offering like the pros they are.

There are real die hard fans here--people wearing buffs and "Survivior" shirts..the kind of people who know every detail about every season, and can even recall the complicated tribal names that I can't even remember when I'm watching a current season.  Their enthusiasm is contagious--super fans practically wept when they got to meet Tommy and Janet and Jamal from Season 39--two more castaways are due today.  They'll be refereeing Olympics(which I'll skip as I go to the movie game, where I'm going to fail miserably without Jim) and they're as fun as you'd imagine them to be.

Phebe, Todd, and Marissa never watched the show, but we've been watching since the beginning, in the days when we'd host "Survivor" parties, where I'd draw lamely drawn caricatures of contestants that I'd plaster the wall with.  I'd make rice.  I'd assign a castaway to each guest, giving myself "Sue Hawk" because she was loud and obnoxious and relatable.  I encouraged my guests to bring one luxury item as 'though they were on the actual show.  (And OF COURSE my item was exactly what you'd imagine it was..let's move on) 

Those were fun times, and although our collective fanaticism  has waned, it was fun to meet and grill the castaways.  I asked Tommy who his favorite past player was, and he didn't hesitate when he answered "Jeremy" and then "Tony."  

They spilled, they gossiped, they gave a lot of inside scoop, all which led us to believe that you don't  have to know how to make fire or live on a diet of earthworms to pass the audition.  You have to make good TV.   You have to have a presence.  

I may have that, but I'd last about three minutes on the actual show.  I'd be snuffing out my own torch.

We started the day with a very challenging "Linkee" game..we didn't win a medal, but we were certainly presetable.  Evan and Jim showed off their sports knowledge with a very difficult trivia game during "Happy Hour" and after a scrumptious dinner served by a man who could model Calvin Kleins, we were off for an unforgettable night of fun.

I met my on-line friend, Liz, after she sent me a friend-request and told me where she and her family were seated...There was a new spin on Woodloch's traditional "That's Entertainment!" game.  Not only did we have to name twelve TV shows and twelve movies after seeing a less than 20 second clip, (much harder than it sounds..I couldn't think of the name of the movie where Blake Lively got into a fist fight with a shark!) but we had to identify twelve objects that appeared on the big screens, and describe their purpose on a survival or camping trip.

I barely can figure out how to use my cell phone, I'm not going to know the ins and outs of a swiss army knife.

The North Lodge was packed, and Todd took their collective breath away, right in the middle of the game, when he bellowed in that Todd-way of his, "St. Peter's beat Purdue! They're in the final eight!"

I never followed March Madness, but the room was aroar..I'd say close to ninety percent of guests here this weekend live on Long Island, but they showed a lot of enthusiasm for the NJ neighbor, a beloved underdog that apparently busted a lot of brackets.

On tap today:  Jeopardy! Scavenger Hunt! Wheel of Fotune! Movie Game! Olympics(for the athletes in our group!)

Mud be damned..it's gonna be a bright, bright, bright..sunshiny day, like it always is as Woodloch!!

A spinach dip into the 17th century

yesterday was a great day to be a pop culture fan--so much so that like a kid who spent the day at Disney, I just wanted to crawl into bed from exhaustion..or throw up, but that Spinach Dip we shared at the Greek place was so freaking delicious that I'd only allow it to leave my body through a surgical procedure.

We watched all but one of the documentary shorts at home yesterday, and all but one fell a little..short.  

We are both enamored with the Live Action Shorts that we saw last week, and we usually LOVE the documentary offers, but this particular crop was nothing special, with the exception of "The Queen of Basketball" which we loved and are hoping it wins, even 'though the announcement of the shorts winners won't be televised. We'll catch the last one when it's released after the Oscars have already aired.

We then ventured off to an almost empty movie theater to see "Cyrano", which I had been putting off for awhile, because I have the attention span of a flea when it comes to long, draggy period pieces, which "Cyrano" certainly..was not.

It was a terrific movie, evoking the emotions I felt watching "Titanic" or "Les Miserables" or even "Beauty and the Beast."

I read the novel in high school, like everyone else, and I was always curious as to why he never got rhinoplasty, and then I realized the story took place in the 17th century.

But I always thought:  Would a large nose really deter a beautiful woman from accepting the undying love of a magical poet?  Especially since long noses could indicate long...

Okay, I DIDN'T think that in HS--or ever--but it was clever  for this film's creators to make the physical challenges center around his height and not his honker.

 Peter Dinklage is hot..really hot.  One look at him waving that sword while spouting pearls of wisdom like a walking thesaurus made me really..really..interested in him.

Plus..I don't know why I didn't realize in advance that this was a MUSICAL, and the music and lyrics were terrific, an observation I made in my head long before I realized the actress who played Roxanne dazzled us a 

decade  earlier in "Music and Lyrics."

And then my imagination went a little wild--I hadn't had the spinach dip yet--as I wondered what it would be like to have a female Cyrano, the plain or chunky looking poet who'd win the hearts and souls of men anonymously by feeding the cheerleader witty dialogue, until I realized I WAS that Cyrano--(Cyrana?  Cyranina??) every time I double dated with the petite fashionistas, and both of our dates loved my humor but only wanted to be with the knockout at the end of the night.

Also, Jim reminded me that Cyrano really needs to be a male, even one with a physical imperfection, even 'though males NEVER get rejected because of that. Big noses give them character: big guts make them cuddly bears.

Rant over..I'm thinking of the spinach dip again...

We ended the pop culture happy day with a visit with Mrs. Maisel, and while we both agreed the episodes are improving weekly, it's still a little contrived and  cartoonish.  

The most cartoonish character  of all being Susie Meyers -Griffin, (and yes, I did that on purpose.)

We should have quit while we were ahead but we tuned into SNL(up to the newscast) and regretted it immediately.

From last week's gift, courtesy of John Mulaney, Oscar Isaac gives us talking skin tags that morphed into meatballs.

OK..maybe he didn't personally write that awful sketch..but I'm still mad at him for the way he treated Jessica Chastain in "Scenes From a Marriage."

I hope she ignores this Oscar when she wins that other Oscar in three weeks..although he wouldn't be in an acceptance speech anyway.

If she mentioned him, it would only be part of a smear campaign by her character, Tammy Faye..

OK..I'm annoying myself now.

Time to catch up on life in the real world.  

The reel world can wait...