Scribes

Nine years ago I wrote "The Legend Of Story Cazaunoux" which is about the Voudou of South Louisiana. Story, the Voudou is the leader of a sect of voodooist in New Orleans. The main character, Story (who is my favorite character ever) was a lot of fun to develop and having the power to make a character what you want is great, but I quickly learned that editors want a "3 dimensional" character. Since I was discouraged from majoring in journalism I didn't know a LOT of terms, meanings and techniques necessary to write. Three dimensional is just what it sounds like. The character can't be a flat, told about person. It takes a while to make someone come alive on paper. And no matter how much the writer knows about the character, the readers will never know ALL there is to know about him. Though I am not as good as probably 95% of writers, the book did get published by a small publisher, and I made some money off of the sales. The best part of the whole process was seeing the book on shelves in New Orleans French Quarter shops. It was nice to see it in Books a Million and for a while it was sold on Amazon. Reading "Story" now makes me to re-write it. I see so much that I could have made much better. For several years I have been thinking of writing a second part to the 'Story'. Well, as the editors say you have to have a plot. I had about half of one. Then a few months ago I got an idea for the book. I wrote a bio on the character, a plot, a synopsis of it and sent it to my old editor. He said to write it and so I am working on it. This one will have all of the same characters, plus a few new ones, and will incorporate some historical events with total fiction. It is set in New Orleans and Manchac Swamp. I am enjoying writing it. Even if it isn't published for some reason it will still be created, and the characters will be brought to life. Once they are created you cannot stop then from taking on a life of their own even if only to you. And you cannot make them do things that are contrary to their personality. It simply will not work if you do.
Writing fiction is fun and mixing it with some history is fairly easy, but requires a lot of research. Rewrites are not fun. My editor taught me to show not tell, use a lot of dialogue, description, give protagonists and antagonist good and bad traits, have a decent plot and always have a lot of conflict. And to cut, cut , cut. He also said it your can't write a thirty word sentence you aren't worth a shit! He and I have clashed over re-writes. He is usually right. And I make the changes he wants. I learned by listening to Jeff Eastin not to use the words 'just' and 'besides'. He calls the use of either "lazy writing".
The second little book I wrote is called "The Magic Of Isha Swift" and it a kids book about a handicapped kid. It's a small book and I only had four areas that the editor wanted me to re-write.

The third book I wrote is called "Different Dancers" and it about a Native American boy who is a grass dancer and the son of white teachers who move to the reservation. The two become unlikely friends. The main character in "Dancer" is Harley White Eagle. I love that book and Harley. I mailed it out to publishers and as always waited for the rejections to come. (THEY ALWAYS DO!) I mailed it to a group called Council of Indian Education in Billings that I though sounded really promising. Nothing came from them. For two years. Then one day the phone rang and a man who identified himself as Hap Gilliand said he was the editor there and that they wanted to publish "Dancer". Being a big shot author (ha ha), I asked him what had taken so damn long. He said the manuscript had gotten lost in one of their 'preview readers' home for two years and when found he like it and wanted it. TWO YEARS!! The book had to pass inspection by a council of eight Native Americans writers from various tribes for authenticity and it did. I only had to make two changes in the book. One was the weight of a buffalo and the other was the menu for a Powwow. Not bad, I thought. That is one I've very proud of.
Well anyway, I'm writing again and even if it doesn't amount to anything I enjoy it. I have a friend that likes to write but refuses to send anything to any publications for fear of rejections. I understand that. It's scary to think that someone will think that your baby is ugly. But rejections make your skin tough and your writing better. And when it's finally published you laugh about them when you clean out your 'rejection drawer'. Your baby was pretty after all.

Heard that all senior citizens will recieve another stimulus package.
It will contain two watermelon seeds, cornbread mix, and 10 coupons to KFC.
The directions are in Spanish.

How to Feel Better!

I am passing this on to you because it definitely works, and we could all use a little more calmness in our lives. By following simple advice heard on the Dr. Phil show, you too can find inner peace. Dr Phil proclaimed, "The way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things you have started and have never finished."So, I looked around my house to see all the things I started and hadn't finished. Before leaving the house this morning, I finished off a bottle of White Zinfandel, a bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream, a package of Oreos, the remainder of my old Prozac prescription, the rest of the cheesecake, some Doritos, and a box of Valentine chocolates! You have no idea how freaking good I feel right now. :-)

But The Pulitzer????

First the Saints won the Super bowl and now the National Enquirer is in the running for a Pulitzer Prize. Looks like this is going to be one of those 'I'll be damned' years. My grandma loved the Enquirer and believed every word that was printed in it. She was on a fixed income and did not waste her small monthly check of anything. But she bought the Enquirer. And she pass it on to me when she finished with it. Most people think that real newspapers are sold on newsstands. The magazines you pick up at the supermarket checkout, alongside the chewing gum and all-capitals headlines and cheap paper that they're not to be taken seriously. You might learn, this week in the National Enquirer, for example, that Whitney Houston is "DYING!" — "SHE COLLAPSES after cocaine and booze binges" — but even if you buy it, you don't necessarily believe it. It's entertainment. Whether it's true or not is largely beside the point. It seems that is about to change. It might have come as a surprise last week to learn that the Pulitzer committee, bestowers of the world's most celebrated journalism awards, had stroked their chins, weighed the arguments, and concluded that the Enquirer will be eligible to be considered for their investigative reporting and national news reporting awards. The magazine's executive editor, Barry Levine, who just a few days previously had been telling Pulitzer committee-members that they needed "to get their heads out of the sand", was jubilant. "That persistence, that old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting that we exhibited on this story, (The John Edwards Scandal) at the end of the day, is what the Pulitzer committee recognised," he said, Maybe my grandma was on to something or maybe this is just an indication on how low the main stream media has gone with the slanted, bullshit they attempt to force feed their readers. Personally I hope the Enquirer wins.

Maybe He's Bored With Koreans Too?

Why does Apolo Anton Ohno yawn before his races?
By Martin Rogers

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Seconds before the biggest moment of his career, the excitement and adrenaline were finally too much for Apolo Anton Ohno. He couldn't hold it in any longer.
He yawned.
Television viewers were stunned by the American's apparently lackadaisical approach to the race, which would determine whether he would become the Winter Olympian with the most medals in U.S. history. (He did, with a bronze.)
British Open golf champion Stewart Cink even Tweeted that Ohno's action made him yawn, too, as he watched on TV.
Yet some sneaky investigation by Yahoo! Sports revealed there is madness behind Ohno's moribundity.
A friend of Ohno's – who asked not to be named because, er, "Apolo might not like it" – revealed that the yawning lets extra oxygen into his lungs in the seconds before bursting across the ice.
Ohno himself confirmed as much to Yahoo! Sports. "It makes me feel better," he said. "It gets the oxygen in and the nerves out."

Quotes I Like

"Here is a test to find out whether your mission in life is complete. If you're alive, it isn't.
Richard Bach

"Give me a break! You could sell light switches to the Amish." Peter Burke

"Human spirit to rise up again & again to challenge the obstacles, odds & unforseen challenges. Anything is possible-believe-want-do! "
Apolo Ohno



"I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn't work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness. " Stan Hall


"Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity." Dr. Matthew Links


"Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience." CJ Murray

"It's not stealing when rich men do it." Neal Caffery

"We all die of one disease . . . it's called time." Terrion Brossard

"All romance ends in disillusionment . . . or death." Lassiter from Psych

"You have a lot of rules for someone who doesn't play by them." Peter Burke

"If you lie down with dogs you get up with fleas." Mozzie

"Real life seems to have no plot." Ivy Burnett

"This shit ain't nothing but the thrill ride from hell." Lynn Sheffield (about life in general)

"Women need a reason to have sex, men just need a place." Billy Crystal

"Why does the Vatican have lightening rods?" Terrion Brossard

"There are a lot of waiting rooms in hell." Blant Belzac

Apolo Ohno

Apolo Ohno Breaks record for most metals in Winter Olympics.

Apolo Ohno is used to being at the head of the pack in short-track speedskating. The 27-year-old has no regrets about giving himself another shot at the Olympics. "I'm glad I made the right decision," he said. "And that I'm here."

To this day, a lot of people think he jumped the gun in his first race in 2006.
Of course they do, right? It's the Olympics and it's Apolo Anton Ohno, and the guy has high drama embedded in his DNA.
It was the last night of competition at the 2006 Turin Winter Games. The curtain closer on a couple of weeks in Italy that had not gone well for Ohno or, for that matter, America.
The 500-meter sprint. This race — one and a quarter times around a track inside a hockey rink — is all about the start. Blink, you lose. High stakes, fried nerves. Chances at redemption. Twice, skaters in the pack of five — coiled up like Lycra-clad snakes at the start line — jumped the starter's gun.
So Ohno, being Ohno, figured now would be a good moment to "time the start."
"You know what? This is it, man!" he told himself. "I'm going to try to time this bad boy."
That, he did. When the starter's pistol cracked the third time, Ohno already had a half-stride on the pack. Sprinting with the calm dignity of a cat being chased by Dobermans, Ohno led from start to finish, blasting across the finish line to claim gold.
The feat, if it didn't save the Olympics for America, at least avoided the indignity of losing in the medal count to the Canadians. It was vintage Ohno.
"Honestly? I think I just timed it perfectly," he says, four years later. "If you watch it in slow-mo, it looks like I jumped," he insists. "If you watch it in regular I timed the start."
He laughs again.
"They didn't call it back, so ... "

So it was written: Ohno's fourth Olympic medal. Later that night, he would claim a fifth, in the team relay, tying him with speedskating legend Eric Heiden for the most medals won by a U.S. male Winter Olympian.
I'm glad I made the right decision," he says. "And that I'm here."
From the time he was 14, Apolo Anton Ohno has been many things to many people, but boring has never been one of them. His first Olympic medal was won as he crawled across the finish line, blood trailing from one thigh, in Salt Lake City in 2002.
There's a reason Ohno is the first guy you see when NBC starts endlessly pitching the 2010 Vancouver Games to the public. Lots of them, actually.
Ohno has grown, before our eyes, from a precocious inline-skate punk from Federal Way into a literal Olympics ambassador.
Easily lost in the footlights of his fame is that Ohno, a master of a sport requiring an uncommon marriage of power, finesse, reflex and smarts, is one of the remarkable athletes of his generation.

"I'm leaner than I've ever been, lighter than I've ever been," says Ohno, who lives in Seattle. "The other thing is, I love what I'm doing, more than I ever have in the past. I really do. This sport has not gotten any easier for me. In fact, it's gotten harder. But I love it."

Sometimes, he admits, he has to talk himself into it. That first workout of the day is hard to start. The third one is tough to finish. In between, Ohno in the past several months has frequently taken to the blogosphere, posting multiple daily affirmations on Facebook, Twitter and his Web page.
"Tired, but still pushing on," he tweeted Jan. 29. "Many distractions right now — yet I'm staying on track."
"To be or not to be," he posted another time. "I'm about being better than yesterday. Post-2010, come train with me — I'll help you achieve your goals!"
Another day: "No distractions. Make a step in the rt direction 2day. Get in yr zone. Stay focused. Live now!"
It is manna to his many fans. But Ohno says all the sports-psych stuff is for his benefit, as well.
"It's almost like reiteration of what I want to feel like," he says. "It's almost like reminding myself, and motivating myself: 'Hey, look where you're at today. Look where you've got to go.' "

Ohno gets mail almost daily from fans who tell him he has, in some way, changed their lives. He thinks to himself: "All I've really ever done is skate."
He plans to offer payback via a post-Games nutritional-supplement business venture, the 8Zone, which will incorporate the decade of sport science Ohno has absorbed. If the business is profitable, he plans to plow money back into Olympic sports, through sponsorships.

In the short term, however, the ice at Vancouver's Pacific Coliseum is his sole focus.
"This is very special," he says of the Vancouver Games, the site of his first competitive races as a young teen. "It's special for my father, for me, for all my friends who are going to be there."
His course, near and far, is set. Unlike most Winter Olympians, Ohno has enough sponsorship money to keep him financially comfortable — and a career course is laid out before him. And he is savvy enough to relish every remaining step of what he always has referred to as a journey.
"When I'm done skating, I guarantee you that I will not look back and remember standing on the podium," he says, looking wistful. "I'm going to remember these days — being with the team. Training alone, in my basement. Training when everybody else is sleeping. Doing things that nobody else is doing. Digging down. Seeing what kind of character I truly have. I love that stuff."
.
"I've never prepared like this in my life — for anything," he says. "I want to leave nothing on the table."

Happy Mardi Gras!

The Tropical Isle, New Orleans

THE WORLDS BEST BAR

Still Lovin' White Collar

Well Yeah!! I am still really into the USA series White Collar!! I haven't had a show I liked this well since I was in love with Little Joe on Bonanza. I have watched the show all the way through from the pilot and it has gotten better and better. In fact the pilot was really good and there was none of the rough edges that usually drag down a first show. This show is intelligent, funny and there is no blood, guts and gore scattered all over the place. The interaction between the characters Neal and Peter is great. It also shows some great pictures of New York City. And I like all the actors. Tim Dekay makes a great FBI agent and what's not to like about Matt Bomer (the con man). God Bless Texas for giving the world this looker! I don't buy DVD's of series much but I am gonna rush out and get this one. I found this interview with Diahann Carrol and liked what she said about older women. Seems she realizes that just cause we are older doesn't mean we are dead and can't enjoy a good looking man.

Interviewer: If there was one thing you could tell your fans from White Collar about your character that they would find surprising, what would it be?

Diahann Carroll: I think the relationship with Matt is very interesting and it's something that I see in my life, constantly, and that is women who are no longer young seem to find young men interesting and amusing, whereas they were not as interesting and amusing when I was young, and I think that happens to most women. We can afford that kind of relationship at this age.

Interviewer: White Collar has become a real hit with fans. I just want to know, what is it about the show that you think draws in the viewers?

Diahann Carroll: Oh, so many things and not only is Matt beautiful, and his partner Tim, is a very handsome man also, the writing is outstanding, I think, and the look of it, it brings you into it immediately. You want to know what is going on in that set and you want to know who these people are, that operate in that-it's a very-it grabs you, as we say on the ... It's a grabber and, once again, I must make comment about the writing. It's really wonderful.

Interviewer:I also want to know, have you learned anything interesting about the FBI, or con men, since being on the show?

Diahann Carroll: No. I knew a great deal about that before, and in particular, con men.

Saints

Well hell has frozen over again. The Saints won the Superbowl Game. I could give a lesser damn. What I find amazing is all the fans they have when they have a winning season. These are the same people who have told all the Saints jokes for years. Now they are in the "I've been a Saint's fan for forty years" group. Pleeeze!! The poor Saints have had more jokes told about them than any team EVER. And the news reporters who insist that the Saints having a winning season is someway related to New Orleans making a come back from Hurricane Katrina are really stretching it. Come on! That was over four years ago. The Saints were playing for that $84000. they each got for that ONE game not for some sentimental love of New Orleans. Amazing all the poor people who are shelling out thirty-five dollars to by a Saint's shirt in Winn-Dixie. I had a Saints shirt once but I think I used it to paint in. And for heaven sakes!! Why would anyone want to be know as a part of something call the Who Dat nation. I have no problem with the Saints winning. It's the fans I can't stand. I'm glad the Superbowl is over. Now we can move on to something important . . . like Mardi Gras!

THE BLACK BRA

I had lunch with 2 of my unmarried friends. One is engaged, one is a mistress, and I have been married for 20+ years.

We were chatting about our relationships and decided to amaze our men by greeting them at the door wearing a black bra, stiletto heels and a mask over our eyes. We agreed to meet in a few days to exchange notes.

Here's how it all went.

My engaged friend:The other night when my boyfriend came over he found me with a black leather bodice, tall stilettos and a mask. He saw me and said, 'You are the woman of my dreams.I love you..' Then we made passionate love all night long.

The mistress: Me too! The other night I met my lover at his office and I was wearing a raincoat, under it only the black bra, heels and mask over my eyes. When I opened the raincoat he didn't say a word, but he started to tremble and we had wild sex all night.

Then I had to share my story: When my husband came home I was wearing the black bra,black stockings, stilettos and a mask over my eyes.When he came in the door and saw me he said,

"What's for dinner, Batman?

Why I Like Retirement

Question: How many days in a week?
Answer: 6 Saturdays, 1 Sunday

Question: When is a retiree's bedtime?
Answer: Three hours after he falls asleep on the couch.

Question: How many retirees to change a light bulb?
Answer: Only one, but it might take all day.

Question: What's the biggest gripe of retirees?
Answer: There is not enough time to get everything done.

Question: Why don't retirees mind being called Seniors?
Answer: The term comes with a 10% percent discount.

Question: Among retirees what is considered formal attire?
Answer: Tied shoes.

Question: Why do retirees count pennies?
Answer: They are the only ones who have the time.

Question: What is the common term for someone who continues to work and refuses to retire?
Answer: NUTS!

How Saints Fans Think

Peyton Manning, after living a full life, died and went to heaven. When he got to heaven, God was showing him around. They came to a modest little house with a Colts flag in the window.
"This house is yours for eternity, Peyton," said God. "This is very special; not everyone gets a house up here."
Peyton felt special, indeed, and walked up to his house. On his way up the porch, he noticed another house just around the corner. It was a 3-story mansion with a black and gold sidewalk, a 50-foot tall flagpole with an enormous Saints flag, and in every window, a New Orleans Saints towel.
Peyton looked at God and said "God, I'm not trying to be ungrateful, but I have a question. I was an all-pro QB, I hold many NFL records, and I even went to the Hall of Fame."
God said "So what's your point Peyton?"
"Well, why does Drew Brees get a better house than me?"
God chuckled, and said "Peyton, that's not Drew's house, it's mine."