Viking Funeral

Attention NASCAR Fans

Two articles of interest:

     (1) Rebecca Gladden's "Love NASCAR, Don't Love NASCAR, Think For Yourself"

     (2) Tom Bowles' Inside Nascar column hints at a new crew chief for Dale Jr next year. Please God.

Why It Matters That Junior Can't Win

I have been thinking a lot this year about the role that sports (and fandom) plays in our lives. I think it is very telling that this years' baseball and NFL tv ratings are setting records. I think there is a direct correlation between those stats, and the "85% of Americans are angry" stat that came out this week. (For the record, I can't imagine who the other 15% is. They must all be on drugs.)

We are powerless in so many ways right now, but if our team can just win, we feel a lot better. Even though we don't do a thing to earn the victory, we still feel like it is ours. We put on our fan t-shirts and there's a spring in our step at the grocery store. The fans of gladiators probably felt the same way. (I wonder if they wore togas with their guy's picture on the front when they went to the market.)

Nascar fans are particularly depressed right now, because a great many of them are unemployed or underemployed and most of them are not liberal democrats. And I don't think it's irrelevant that Nascar's numbers are down. When the most popular driver in the sport has no hope for a top ten finish, the sport is going to suffer. Duh.

Over at the Junior Nation fanboard, we fans have been officially scolded for the fact that we all agree that Junior's crew chief is the problem. If you have been reading my blogs for any amount of time, you know that it's not a good idea to tell me what NOT to say. So here I am. But other than how much I don't like that, I also think it's a bad idea for the "team" to turn a deaf ear to the fans' complaints. I can only imagine the comments I'm going to get for saying this, but I have never met a dumb Junior fan. They tend to be both well-informed and intuitive, and unlike fans of the younger drivers, they know the history of the sport and they understand it from a big picture perspective. So when they universally agree on what the problem is, they just might be right.

Now, if you're not a Nascar fan, you're going to have to skip a couple of paragraphs or bear with me. (Stick around, you might find a metaphor.) As any 9 year old could tell you, Junior's problem right now is an inexperienced crew chief who doesn't know how to set up a car and makes one boneheaded call after another. I'll spare you the details of all the bad calls he made at the race I attended this weekend, but trust me. When he left Junior on the track with old tires so he could be on the leaderboard in first place for three minutes, 50,000 people knew it was a mistake. I was listening to the scanner, and so I know that Junior thought it was a mistake. Only one person out of the tens of thousands there did not think it was a mistake. And that was Lance McGrew, Junior's incompetent crew chief.

I have spent two seasons trying to keep my mouth shut about Lance McGrew, because I know from my own business how idiotic people look when they think they know how to fix something that they don't know anything about. But this weekend at the race, as I listened to the scanner and read the laptimes, I saw one of the fastest cars on the track become undriveable in under 15 seconds. That's not the fault of the guys who changed the tires.

Why does it matter? Because right now, Junior fans don't just want Junior to win a race. We need Junior to win a race. That's an unfair burden to place on any one person, or even any one team.

But it's not our fault.

It's primal.

 

Nascar, California Style

Caleb and I are in the lovely Inland Empire, where today we attended the Pepsi Max 400, along with 90,000 of our closest friends. It was at least 100 degrees, but by the grace of God, we had seats that were shaded by the sky boxes. They were also aisle seats. Ask a Nascar fan if you don't know why that's significant.

I rented a scanner, so I could listen to what Rick Hendrick (owner) has described as Dale Jr's "chemistry" with his crew chief, Lance McGrew. I don't know how he defines chemistry, but I had to ban the Junior channel for Caleb. Apparently their "chemistry" involves a lot of words (from Junior) that Caleb doesn't know yet.

It was Junior's birthday, but sadly, no one gave him a new crew chief. I gained a lot of insight as to what the problem is. For example, before the first caution, Junior had one of the fastest cars on the track. He must have been happy with it, because he didn't complain about anything. Then he went in for a green flag pit stop, what should have been tires and gas only, but Lance McGrew decided to make some adjustments. As soon as he was back on the track, Junior started complaining about the car: it was very loose and he couldn't do anything with it. There was a caution soon after that, and Junior wanted to come in and put the car back the way it had been when it was working. 

Lance McGrew: If you come in, we're gonna lose every bit of track position.

Junior: Okay then, I'll just stay and lose it out here.

That was pretty much how it went all day. Give or take some expletives.

There was a nice breeze blowing. That's the good news. The bad news is that the nice breeze was actually the Santa Ana winds, and Caleb (and his asthma) hadn't been exposed to those since he was three years old. He sneezed nonstop for about an hour, got a horrible headache, and had tears running down his cheek all day. We had to leave about halfway through the race because he was so miserable. We came back to the hotel and watched the race on television.

He apologized over and over, but it wasn't his fault. I hated leaving the race, and those great seats, but walking back to the car, carrying two spray bottles (misters) of water, a Pepsi, a bottle of drinking water, our rented scanners, his hat, my purse and about twelve other things that I've forgotten ... I felt very, very, very, very, very ...

Mom.

There's a photo album of great pictures from the race over at my Facebook page.

Will the Real Big Red Please Stand Up?

Caleb and I went to see Secretariat last night. We really enjoyed it. I love any movie about racing and/or horses, so a racehorse movie is my idea of a fun Friday night. Plus it was great to be able to take my son to a movie that didn't make me want to shoot myself in the head.

I remember watching Secretariat win the Triple Crown. I wasn't as thrilled as everyone else, because my heart belonged to Man O'War. Apparently it still does, because I took it personally that his name never even came up during the movie. His groom Will Harbut famously described him as "the mostest hoss that ever was." Secretariat reminds me a lot of Man O'War, but I agree with Harbut's assessment. Secretariat was a big puppy dog in the pasture, and Man O'War never forgave his owners for breaking him.

I was teary-eyed during the movie for personal reasons -- my own Big Red died two years ago, and the ripe old age of 33. (He beat Man O'War by three years.) When I bought him, it was in large part because he reminded me of Man O'War. Not in terms of land speed -- he couldn't have won a race with a rocket attached to his butt. He wasn't even a jumper. He was an equitation horse who could beat anybody in a hunter-hack class, and look like a work of art going over a 3 foot fence. But he  reminded me very much of Man O'War in attitude -- he was very proud and always concerned with his dignity. For instance, he would "kiss" me when we were alone, but never in front of the other horses. And if you got on him and he could tell you didn't know how to ride, he wouldn't budge. You might have been on top of him, but you were beneath him. Not worthy of your mount. I owned him for a year and a half before I could ride him, because he wouldn't move until I knew what I was doing. I had to learn to be a good rider on school horses, while Mars grazed in the pasture.

I named him Mars because he was a big red horse, and Mars was a big red planet. And it just seemed to fit. His nickname was "Mars Bars." I don't think he liked that very much, especially when people talked to him like he was a toddler.

I bought him, against my vet's advice, for $1000. He had seedy toe and I had to put him out to pasture for seven months before I could even think of riding him. He foundered and almost died, but he hung in there. We went on to win competitions all over California, often up against horses whose price tags were six figures! You do that with attitude. And heart.

Mars was the son of a 15.3 black and white apaloosa mother and a big chestnut somebody who snuck into her pasture. He had no papers and we really weren't sure what kind of horse he was. He was slow and lazy, and only at his best when it was 75% and sunny. Luckily, we lived in SoCal, so he had a lot of good days.

His show name was "Bound for Mars." Once, as I was riding him into the ring and he was announced, I heard a swanky horse show dad say, "Looks more like Bound for the Glue Factory." But it was 75% and sunny, and the fancy horses couldn't touch him. I always wondered what that guy was thinking when we won the blue ribbon and trophy. I know what I was thinking.

Someday I'm going to write a children's book about Mars.

Watching Secretariat last night, it struck me that someone should make a movie about Man O'War. The real Big Red.

Update, While We're At It

I am very happy to report that I am up to my gizzard in work. I am writing a pilot for Starz, co-writing another pilot for Lifetime, and pitching a third pilot to CBS tomorrow. Also, I am working on my second novel (yes, it did take me this long to come up with another idea) and I am waiting to hear from a you'd-be-impressed director who is shopping the screenplay that Mary Doria Russell and I wrote from her award-winning novel The Sparrow. And on top of all of that, I am writing another episode for The Good Wife this season.

And then there are the things that have been back-burnered.

Also, in case you haven't heard, my husband and I are now the proud owners of a bouncing baby bookstore: Black Bear Books in Boone, NC. We have been living in NC, but if my work continues its present pace, we'll be back in California before long.

Our three oldest kids are all allegedly adults now. Actually, they all turned out great, and we are very proud of them. Just wouldn't want to relive their high school year.

Caleb is 9 and is in the 4th grade. We occasionally catch glimpses of what his teenage years are going to be like. NOT a pretty picture.

Feel free to leave comments and questions.

And Another Blog is Born

Greetings!

Having lost interest in ranting (*with the exception of ranting about everything that might be causing Dale Junior's current slump), I decided to start a new blog that will reflect my new Zen-ish attitude. Which means it won't be about much, but that never stopped anyone from watching Jerry Seinfeld.

I'm done with ranting about politicians (they're all self-centered egomaniacs and I'm sick of every last one of them) and the current state of the Catholic Church (there's a way to waste your time), so I am going to rant about more important things, like "Why can't Junior find a decent crew chief?" and "How do we get all the New Yorkers who have moved to L.A. to realize that WE DON'T BEEP HERE?"

I have several projects in the TV pipeline right now, so there will be updates on those as well. And I have officially started a new novel, entitled Gone. Hope it takes a LOT less time than the last one did.

I don't know how often I'll be posting, because I'm swamped right now. If you want more regular updates, find me on Facebook, where I check in daily. But I don't rant there either. If you want to hear me rant, you're going to have to watch reruns. Or catch me on a Sunday afternoon when Junior has finished twelve laps down and right behind Dave Blaney.

Oh, and about the title. I "collect" lexicon from TV writers rooms. Viking funeral is one of my favorite. It works like this. Everyone has been pitching all morning and still the story hasn't been broken. The Executive Producer comes in to hear what you've got. Everything you pitch is going over like a lead ballooon. So you point at the guy next to you and say, "John had a good idea." It's a Viking Funeral because John has just been set on fire and pushed out to sea.

In my case, I typically set myself on fire and launch myself out to sea. As anyone who has worked with me can tell you. God gave my sister all the diplomacy skills. Me, I'm the person who will tell you the truth, whether you want to hear it or not.

A special note for any frustrated Junior fans who turn up here; WHAT is WRONG with the 88? And why would Nascar rather lose fans than fix it?Greetings!

Having lost interest in ranting (*with the exception of ranting about everything that might be causing Dale Junior's current slump), I decided to put Some Have Hats to bed and start 
 a new blog that will reflect my new Zen-ish attitude. Which means it won't be about much, but that never stopped anyone from watching Jerry Seinfeld.

I'm done with ranting about politicians (they're all self-centered egomaniacs and I'm sick of every last one of them) and the current state of the Catholic Church (there's a way to waste your time), so I am going to rant about more important things, like "Why can't Junior find a decent crew chief?" and "How do we get all the New Yorkers who have moved to L.A. to realize that WE DON'T BEEP HERE?"

I have several projects in the TV pipeline right now, so there will be updates on those as well. And I have officially started a new novel, entitled Gone. Hope it takes a LOT less time than the last one did.

I don't know how often I'll be posting, because I'm swamped right now. If you want more regular updates, find me on Facebook, where I check in daily. But I don't rant there either. If you want to hear me rant, you're going to have to watch reruns. Or catch me on a Sunday afternoon when Junior has finished twelve laps down and right behind Dave Blaney.

Oh, and about the title. I "collect" lexicon from TV writers rooms. Viking funeral is one of my favorite. It works like this. Everyone has been pitching all morning and still the story hasn't been broken. The Executive Producer comes in to hear what you've got. Everything you pitch is going over like a lead ballooon. So you point at the guy next to you and say, "John had a good idea." It's a Viking Funeral because John has just been set on fire and pushed out to sea.

In my case, I typically set myself on fire and launch myself out to sea. As anyone who has worked with me can tell you. God gave my sister all the diplomacy skills. Me, I'm the person who will tell you the truth, whether you want to hear it or not.

A special note for any frustrated Junior fans who turn up here; WHAT is WRONG with the 88? And why would Nascar rather lose fans than fix it?