CHARLOTTE W'S CAMERA

Picture us -- balmy day, we're burrowed in our offices. I'm writing; JC's deeply immersed in reading the booklets on how to use a digital camera (the one Paramount Studios gave him).

It sat inside a professionally wrapped gift box, blue linen paper with a fat blue satin bow. It had arrived in a crate containing a star's folding wooden chair with a canvas back that has his name and "Charlotte's Web" stenciled on it.

Crate arrived at Christmas, months after JC shot the film in Sidney, Australia. A year later, Xmas, we opened it -- a deluxe color printer. (We rarely use it. JC occasionally prints a script, highlighting his speeches with yellow toner, but it's easier to do this with a highlighter pen.)

(The movie, filmed in 2004, premiered in 2006. JC didn't attend the gala opening. His part, a small nice role, which was supposed to be played by Paul Newman, ended up on the cutting-room floor.)

Inside the printer box was second box -- fancy blue paper, blue satin bow. We figured it was a camera, but didn't open it till yesterday, when I mentioned to JC that Fran who was proofing "Painting Cities" (posted on my blog on the 20th) said it would be great if we had photos of my hallway gallery.

JC, a guy who fixes toilets, furnace, hot water heaters, and electrical circuits, who is a "dunce" on a computer (yep, I said that -- see my "New Stuff" May 13th post), unwrapped the little box and lo and behold: A digital camera.

The "dunce" took 2 pictures (one of me shaking my head in surprise), and went back to his office; read three booklets and called me in. Lo and behold, he installed it -- digital camera and its complicated editing/publishing software program on his computer.

With JC patiently instructing me, and me, agog, following orders, our "behind the times" family is now in tune with the times, where just about everyone takes photos with cell phones and cameras, and makes home movies.

Yippee!

You guys who read this blog (and have iPhones, Blackberry's and other gizmos), must be shaking your heads -- what's so yippee about that?

What's great is that JC, who never visits John Cullum, actor, his own website, was saying, "Hey, I'm going take some pictures, post them for the fans who've been asking for them ." And me, flabbergasted by the fun I'm having planning a post I'll write as soon as adapter arrives. (Just ordered it!)

We won't have to feed the camera batteries while we're shooting pictures of upstairs, downstairs, PR portraits, posters, scrounged stuff, hallway gallery, green room ...

Yippee! Hurray !

DRUNK ON THE "IDOL"

It was uncomfortably suspenseful, watching the final show of the season the other night. I hadn't been following this year's American Idol auditions, and didn't know the who's who. I hadn't planned to see it, but having written a post that ordered me to "Drink In the Kids," I had to watch the show.

One look, even before I heard them, I knew the competitors, Adam and Kris, were miles, worlds apart. You can't compare an Elvis Presley to a ... a Pete Seeger? A Crosby?

(Can't come up a right name -- I'm no longer hung-over from two hours of drinking in the kids as I was the other night, but thinking about it puts in a haze, gives me a mild case of celebrity-itis.)

The "Stars" who performed with the contestants, except for Steve Martin, were barely known by me. And Martin, his genius reaching for a new kind of fame in the idolizing Idol generation, behaved so modestly, so shyly that he almost disappeared.

The choreography, pacing, programming were utterly expert. Something about being so, so utterly bothered me. It isn't hard to create easy, interesting steps for non-dancers, who are willing to work their asses off. And all the show's contestants, Adam and Kris, plus those who'd been eliminated, were hot and ready to do anything. (As they're weeded out in the previous shows, you get the feeling they'd jump through fiery hoops, die, kill for a win!)

The "Star Power," the "names" who were invited to perform with the contestants -- it worked for the Idol audience, but I didn't really know who they were. So, even as I was waiting, a little bored and restlessly wondering who was going to win, producer-Em peeked at the clock, which tells you how many minutes till the winner will be announced.

Okay, time to get to what I felt about what's been all over the news since the show aired.

The girl in the bikini singing with Kara the judge, who shocked, surprised, and delighted everyone with -- zip -- just one gesture on the last note of their duet, and Kara's bikini underwear was in front of our eyes.

Will we ever forget Janet Jackson's accident during the super bowl -- zip -- one gesture -- J.J's nipple? (Yoo hoo, folks -- any seamstress can tell you that one gesture takes careful placement and just the right kind of stitches on the Velcro.)

I was embarrassed for Kara being so utterly yucky proud of herself. As for the other judges -- Paula Abdul, always in the groove, was groovishly approving. Simon just blinked . It wasn't his night, though he's good fun, blunt and truthful as the main man in other Idols I've watched.

I was riveted throughout the duet between Allison and Cyndi Lauper in white tights, legs apart like a guy -- riveted on Cyndi's white-covered crotch below the keyboard that lay across her lap.

I looked at ... how many reviews, commentaries, comments? Easily two dozen! No one mentioned that crotch view of Cyndi. (Did I get the name wrong? No. I checked it thoroughly -- don't want to appear fixated on wrong views of private parts.)

Real opinion: I found the show exhaustively over-produced. But skillful, an absorbing two hour extravaganza. Whenever I've tuned in American Idol auditions -- the achingly needy candidates with whom I identify -- their wanting, needing, practicing, praying, slaving away -- all that to be famous, all those heartbreaking rejections -- it's always fascinating, absorbing.

Why did the country boy Kris win? He has a pleasant powerful voice, good diction, believable dramatic intensity, but no hugely impressive or unusual songster's talents. Why did the powerful performer, startlingly great-looking Adam lose? Get less votes, despite all of his abilities, which were much stronger than the country boy Kris'?

Was it that America is in the mood for someone less slick?

Adam is slick. Could it be the homosexual feeling that flickered, briefly when Adam was off-guard, caught in a couple of candid shots? Maybe. But I, as hirer, an employer who's seen lots of handsome guys with this AC-DC flicker ... I don't think so.

I hope it's that our country is in the mood for someone less slick. Kris is slightly boring. The polished bravura of Adam is more of what we expect in a super star. He can sing, dance, sell anything.

My bet: We're going to hear and see more of Adam Lambert.

DRINKING IN THE KIDS

Got to watch the younger generation, observe the trends, listen to them, hold off thinking No ! They're wrong!

When my Mom started disappearing from her friends, I knew it. She had good reasons ... Marion G was constantly asking Mom how old she was, zooming in closer and closer, and Mom didn't want M.G or any of her friends to know her age.

Then, it was what Mom read and didn't read. She'd never been been much of a newspaper reader. But Time Magazines piled up, unread. She didn't know the names of the newest latest appliances, cars, movie stars, or sports heroes.

She thought all popular music was noise, but Blues, Boogie, Rock and Roll meant nothing to her, when they had so much meaning to me.

Mom tuned out. Finally, in the last years of her life, she didn't answer the phone, or bother with the People Magazine, which I was sure would interest her. The embroidery things I brought her just sat on the table by her bed.

Hey Em, this is something to pay attention to. Never forget. Hand on to JD and anyone else you meet in the younger, (always younger) generations. Don't tune out.

Hear what they're listening to. Make an effort to catch onto the slang. Don't cringe at the verbal shortcuts -- you don't have to use them, but you need to hear and feel where they're heading. Pay attention to their latest style. (Do styles really change? It seems to me they just ebb and flow, return like waves from a thousand miles, a thousand days ago.)

I see myself disappearing like Mom did. Turning off from things that seem, at first ridiculous, later, ludicrous, later nonsensical, stupid, repulsive. Stop it! Turn back on! Reappear! Laugh at their ridiculous vulgarnesses ... (Is that a word? Hey, Em, you your made up words are ridiculous to them.

Grab onto history: Cars and planes were unimaginable. Trips to the moon are real. Clothes that seemed like SciFi, may be the clothes you'd see, if you came back for a visit, after your life was over.

Can't you think your negatives privately? Don't burden the kids with your older generational icks, yikes. Feel what you feel but say it here -- find a remedy while you're expressing yourself in your blog.

Don't disapprove.

Find beauty in what's awkward or ugly. Try on their "wrong" clothes and see yourself freer, nicer, more interesting to them. Let yourself imagine your way into the nightmarish, congested, deafening partying,

Disappearing is WRONG. It's slowly, but surely hurrying you to the end of your life, a time when you have no choices.

SIGHT'S ON NANCY

Why is the periscope on Nancy?
Torpedoes pointing at her?
Why is Nancy P the target today ?

Pelosi's been graceful, calm, gracious, kind, unemotional, a woman in power who doesn't use her femininity to achieve anything, gain ground, win points, put down men -- does nothing except give us a sense of the woman-wife-mother, and leader.

Yow! I'm not a follower, just one me traipsing down my own road but ... RAT TAT TAT, bullets are flying -- can't I duck, run for cover?

No! I can't! Keep hearing/seeing over and over the punish Pelosi stuff about stuff that happened years ago. It's demoralizing me, wasting my time, her time, House of Reps time -- putting off meetings, implementing the bills we are waiting for, while our O, the omniscient, omnipotent guy is barging forward, not back, but way beyond what was said and done about torture.

Thank you Media. H1N1's got us hand-washing, staying home, and "Flip-flopping." All of us flip-flopping, slipping in the slush, losing momentum, except O who's pulling-pushing a ton of remedies despite the tornados, the heat crises here, there, everywhere.

While Nancy's trying to stay on her feet.

N.P's graciously, gracefully trying to find dates, reports on old conversations in order to extricate herself and the huge organization she represents, from blame. For what? Blame for knowing WHEN she was told WHAT, or IF she was told something, even though her knowing or not knowing wouldn't have affected the outcome.

Help! It's Alice in Wonderland stuff: Repubs want a new name for Dems with "socialist" in it? Vanity Fair exposing Rumsfield's sins? Romney's handsome face back in the news huckstering 2012 ?

Ulp, gulp. It's not mother' milk. It's un-swallowable. 100 proof pure Jabberwocky