Well, it’s all over, including the shouting. For the second year in a row, I put my sanity and brain health on the line to coach a fistful of ADD All Stars in the Odyssey of the Mind competition. After months of hard work and hair pulling (well, I would have been pulling hair [...]]]> by Richard

Well, it’s all over, including the shouting. For the second year in a row, I put my sanity and brain health on the line to coach a fistful of ADD All Stars in the Odyssey of the Mind competition. After months of hard work and hair pulling (well, I would have been pulling hair if I still had any), the big day arrived Saturday, March 6.

Speed Racer and his six compatriots were pumped for the big competition. They’d been working hard for the last couple of weeks, mostly the last week. My co-coach, The Sainted Lady Of The Odyssey, and I had been working them hard to learn their lines and actually move like they’d already blocked out on the play. We were more than a little concerned, right up until Thursday night on the eighth of eight run throughs.

Finally. Finally. Finally, they put it all together. Not only that, but they actually put in a couple of ad libs that had The Sainted Lady Of The Odyssey and I in stitches. Well, not literally, but I — at least — was rolling on the floor with laughter. It might have been pent-up frustration letting loose in laughter, but I really, really thought it was hilarious.

Here’s the deal. Over the course of far too many and far too few months, the seven kids have to create, write, costume, set design, set build and block out an eight-minute play that hits a number of compulsory items. Rather like ice dancing, only without the flowing gowns and the goofy smiles. And that’s on the judges. Ba-dump-bump.

So, there at the end, they finally came together. They were following each other’s lines, speaking so people could actually hear and, wonder of wonders, acting. Their problem was to have one food accuse another food of being unhealthy or bad for people. The accused had to defend itself. Each character had to be dressed as a food item and actually look like that food item. It was supposed to be some sort of trial. Our brilliant little dudes and dudettes threw out the whole courtroom scene that a lot of the kids kept. Our team decided on trial by combat. All of which means that the accused’s defense was basically: *slap* *slap* *slap*

It went over great.

They also did great in the spontaneous problems, in which they had to answer a question from the judge with as many different and creative answers as possible. Overall, they scored 271 points out of 350, good enough for sixth place out of 13 competitors.

To say my co-coach and I were thrilled would be an understatement. They worked hard and had their best performance of the year on the day they most needed it.

I don’t care what the score actually was. In my eyes, those seven little dudes and dudettes are winners on a bigger scale than anyone could imagine.

I’m going to miss the group. I will not, however, miss the growing crop of aneurysms I’m naming after each one of them.

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Here’s another of the unexpected joys of having a child in a private school (and I’m not even talking about the wallet-emptying, money sucking void the tuition turned out to be): Every other year, the private school in which Zippy the Monkey Boy is enrolled has the same spring break as do other private [...]]]> by Richard

Here’s another of the unexpected joys of having a child in a private school (and I’m not even talking about the wallet-emptying, money sucking void the tuition turned out to be): Every other year, the private school in which Zippy the Monkey Boy is enrolled has the same spring break as do other private schools and, on the alternating years, it has the spring break that public schools have.

George of the Jungle and Speed Racer are in public schools. Which means that Zippy has spring break starting on Friday, while George of the Jungle and Speed Racer don’t have their spring break until April. Because we’re nice, wonderful people (and because I don’t want a bored, cranky Zippy the Monkey Boy underfoot for nine days) we decided to give the little dude a little spring break of his own.

Road trip!

Zippy the Monkey Boy and I are going down to Atlanta for about five days to give him some time away from video games and sleeping so late he gets up when his brothers come home from school. Believe me, that gets really annoying. He gets up, yawns and ambles down to make fun of his school-bound brothers. Sure, it will be reversed when George of the Jungle and Speed Racer have their spring break, but, for now, it’s all about annoying them.

So we decided to get him out of town for a while. Zippy the Monkey Boy being Zippy the Monkey Boy, we thought we’d spend time hanging upside down, falling from great heights and gawking at other animals. Yeah, we’re planning on hitting Six Flags over Georgia, the Georgia Aquarium, the zoo down there and anything else interesting that I can think of.

What he doesn’t know is that I’m also going to be making a little time to drop in on Georgia Tech, to give him an idea of what an urban university looks like. Consider it a preview of the college death march we’re going to be taking together come summer. We’ve already started talking about it and he’s told me he wants to visit schools in Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.

Yeah, right.

Anyway, we’re planning on having a little fun and adventure this time around.

So, when you hear a distant scream, like a little girl about to be covered in daddy long legs, waft in on the wind from somewhere far away, think of me as I whip around the Six Flags park, praying for death and wondering what’s taking so long.

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For some reason, my youngest little dude, Speed Racer, has become heavily into James Bond. He’s never seen one of the movies, nor has he read any of the original books. But he says he loves the character and wants more. So I gave it to him.

Big mistake.

I ordered Live and Let Die, starring [...]]]> by Richard

For some reason, my youngest little dude, Speed Racer, has become heavily into James Bond. He’s never seen one of the movies, nor has he read any of the original books. But he says he loves the character and wants more. So I gave it to him.

Big mistake.

I ordered Live and Let Die, starring the Roger Moore version of Bond, from Netflix and sat down with Speed Racer, Zippy the Monkey Boy and my wife, known to me as She Who Must Be Nigh Perfect, and watched a James Bond movie that I remember absolutely loving when I was little.

At about 30 minutes into the movie, I remembered that I also used to love eating dog biscuits when I was a little dude. (long story and not something I need to go into here. Especially because it’s pretty embarrassing.)

This movie was terrible. Released in 1973, Bond, as is his wont, tried to tie into the zeitgeist of the late hippie time and early libertine 1970s with success ranging from horribly inappropriate to just plain awful. And it was quite possibly one of the most racist movies I’ve seen in a long, long time.

I won’t comment on the clothing as movies tend to reflect what’s going on in the fashion world around them and, let’s face it, the early 1970s were no fashion nirvana and that’s only looking at the ties they wear. I mean, those things were so wide Lindsey Vonn could have skied on them. (Hey, look! A topical reference! Well, only a couple of weeks out of date so not all that bad.)

No, the problem I had with the movie were the appalling stereotypes filling out the ranks of the secondary characters. First off, there’s the so-dumb-it’s-a-wonder-he-remembers-to-breathe Southern sheriff with a cornpone accent so thick you can barely make out the words between dribbles of tobacco spit.

Then there’s Solitaire, played by Jane Seymour in her first major role. A typically ineffective woman who sticks around so James has someone to rescue and to look at him admiringly. Rosie, played by Gloria Hendry, is supposed to be a secret agent and a double agent, but comes off as a horribly clichéd scardey woman, who can’t help but get freaked out by a dead snake and a hat with a chicken feather on it. Good thing James Bond is there to comfort her.

Finally, there’s the movie’s portrayal of blacks. It’s so appallingly horrible I was cringing most of the way through the movie. On the small Caribbean island, blacks are hootin’ and hollerin’ voodoo followers, all wide eyes and open mouths (I could swear I saw Amos and Andy in there somewhere) and just plain dialogue. In America, black people are depicted as the worst kind of stereotyped pimps, with feathered hats and huge, decked out cars that a real person wouldn’t have been caught dead in. I really felt sorry for the actors who thought they were getting a big break by playing in a James Bond movie.

Seriously, do not rent this movie. If I could give negative numbers I would. As is, I’m giving it 1 dude out of five, if only because I could actually follow the razor-thin plot, not that I wanted to. It also gave me a good incentive to take a nice long shower after, although it didn’t make me feel clean.

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