Movieland Memories: And the winner is...

MY TURN column

The Courier-Post
February 19, 2009

by DOUG OTTO

The 81st Academy Awards are this Sunday, and I am running out of time. I have seen just three of this year's nominees for best picture: "Slumdog Millionaire," "Frost/Nixon," and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button."

My urgency was magnified the other night during a cell phone call from my son: "Well, have you made your picks yet, Dad?" he questioned. "Time's running short. I think this is my year."

Since he started middle school 14 years ago, Matt and I have challenged each other annually as to who can pick the most winners from the 24 major categories nominated by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Even during his college years in Boston, we kept up the tradition via e-mail and instant messaging.

We both carry a personal history steeped in the appreciation of film. I was weaned on 1950s and 1960s Walt Disney pictures such as "Davy Crocket - - King of the Wild Frontier," "Old Yeller" and "The Absent Minded Professor." In 1959, I saw "Ben Hur," winner of 11 Oscars, in its original CinemaScope release.

Shortly after moving to South Jersey in 1961, my father took my brothers and me to see "Babes in Toyland" in Philadelphia's classic Fox Theatre, where the single screen measured 54-feet wide by 23-feet high, and the great marble-decorated auditorium seated 2,423.

I fondly remember sitting in theater balconies, while uniformed ushers roved about with flashlights, checking to see that no foreign objects sailed over the railing toward the crowd below. My son smiles when I tell him about spending Saturday afternoons at the 50-cent "kiddie matinees" that included a stage act and a serial short film before the feature presentation. He silently wonders if all the movies' dinosaurs were as old as his father.

Even though Matt's filmography covers fewer years, he too, has logged numerous hours gazing at the silver screen. Any film emanating from the creative geniuses George Lucas, Tim Burton or Peter Jackson rank high with him. While he was in high school, Matt and his buddies formed a "first-nighters" movie club.

They scheduled months in advance to attend inaugural showings of the latest "Star Wars" or "Lord of the Rings" films. More than once, I found myself ducking out of work at lunchtime to stand in line at a local theater, so I could purchase a block of tickets to that evening's midnight show for the boys.

It was clearly understood that no school time was to be missed the next morning due to lack of sleep or bleary vision caused by the previous night's brush with movie magic. Days later, the guys were still buzzing about special effects, re-enacting key action scenes and reciting dramatic dialogue.

Posters of favorite movies always adorned Matt's bedroom wall, and he maintained a bucketful of ticket stubs bearing the names and dates of first-run movies he had seen. His secret wish was to work someday for Industrial Light and Magic, the special effects company founded by George Lucas.

My interactions with Hollywood have spanned everything from drive-in movies to theaters featuring stadium seating; from days when the sound was played through a little metal box attached to a rolled-down car window to ceiling-mounted speakers booming THX and Dolby Digital Sound.

Matt's experiences include using our great room television and surround sound system as a laboratory to test the urban myth that the 1939 movie "The Wizard of Oz" is synchronized with Pink Floyd's album, "The Dark Side of the Moon." I have to admit I was looking in on that one, as a dozen college kids watched and rocked in awe.

So, this Sunday, as the votes of the academy's roughly 6,000 members are revealed, and another parade of Oscar hopefuls walks the famed red carpet, my son and I will compare notes and tabulate our ballots, downloaded from www.oscars.org. We'll engage in another cinematic battle of wits, and won't need the auditing firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers to help with the tally.

Since Matt is now a theatrical sound designer, he tends to best me each year in the production and technical categories, such as sound editing, sound mixing, original score and song. My English degree usually gives me a leg-up with original screenplay, adapted screenplay and documentary.

We both realize that this contest is not about winning or losing; most years our results are folded-up and tucked into a desk drawer. But, like the ethereal feather that floats through "Forrest Gump," or the filial relationship woven into our favorite movie, "Big Fish," this game is a symbol of greater values.

It's a tradition. A special father-son connection. It's the type of storyline that Hollywood has been writing for generations.

Black History Month: Notable firsts

MY TURN column

The Courier-Post
February 19, 2009

by DOUG OTTO

The election of Barack Obama as the first African-American president has been heralded as a landmark achievement in American history. It is appropriate, especially during the month of February, to be mindful of the many other notable "firsts" achieved by Black Americans.

Since 1976, Black History Month has marked not only the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, (men who greatly influenced both black and white Americans), but also the accomplishments by other personalities who have assumed an honored place in the history of our nation.

Here then is a compilation of historic proportions:

Government

On Feb. 3, 1870, the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, and three weeks later, Hiram Revels became the first black U.S. senator from Mississippi. Joseph Rainey assumed the position of Congressman from South Carolina that same year, and was re-elected to the House of Representatives four more times.

The first black female U.S. Representative was New York's Shirley Chisholm (1969-1983), followed by the first female U.S. senator, Carol Mosely Braun, who served Illinois between 1992-1998.

In recent years, high government positions have been held by Gen. Colin Powell, the 65th U.S. secretary of state (2001-2004) and the first black chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (1989-1993). His successor as secretary of state was Dr. Condoleezza Rice (2005-2009), the first black woman to hold that cabinet office.

Carl Stokes was the first black American male to be elected mayor of a major U.S. city (Cleveland, 1967-1971), while Sharon Pratt Dixon Kelly became the first female mayor of Washington, DC (1991-1995). It wasn't until 1990 that Douglas Wilder of Virginia was elected the country's first black governor.

In 1967, President Lyndon Johnson appointed Thurgood Marshall a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, based largely on the more than 30 cases he successfully argued as a lawyer challenging racial segregation in higher education. Marshall's achieved his greatest impact with the landmark decision handed down in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954), and the "separate but equal" doctrine.

Andrew Young, a supporter and friend of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, became the first black U.S. Representative to the United Nations in 1977. Earlier this month, Washington lawyer Eric Holder became the nation's first African-American Attorney General.

Military

In both war and peace, black Americans have served the United States with distinction. For bravery exhibited during the Civil War, Sgt. William H. Carney was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1900. Gen. Benjamin O. Davis Sr. became the first African-American general in the U.S. Army in 1940. His son, Benjamin O. Davis Jr. was the first black general in the U.S. Air Force, after leading the famed Tuskegee Airmen during World War II.

Education

Distinguished scholars have left their mark in the black community as well. In 1837, James McCune Smith was the first male to earn an M.D. degree, followed by Rebecca Lee Crumpler, who became the first black woman to receive an M.D. degree as a graduate of the New England Female Medical College in 1864.

Born in Philadelphia, Alain Locke graduated from Harvard University in 1907 and became the first black Rhodes Scholar. Following study at Oxford, he went on to receive a Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard in 1918. Locke encouraged black artists and musicians in America to explore their African roots and he created the Harlem Renaissance movement.

The first black college president was Daniel A. Payne (Wilberforce University, Ohio, 1856), while the first president of an Ivy League University is Ruth Simmons, currently heading the ivy leagues's prestigious Brown University since 2001.

Literature

Ever since Phillis Wheatley became the first published American black poet in 1773, African-American writers have been capturing literary awards.

Gwendolyn Brooks' won the 1950 Pulitzer Prize for poetry, Charles Gordone was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Drama in 1970, and Princeton professor Toni Morrison brought home the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993.

Robert Hayden became the nation's first black Poet Laureate (1976-1978, and Rita Dove held the same honor for a woman between 1993-1995.

Popular culture

Many aspects of daily life have been touched by black pioneers. Thomas L. Jennings became the first African-American to hold a U.S. patent in 1821 for his invention of a dry-cleaning process. Sarah E. Goode, became the first African-American woman to receive a patent for her 1885 invention of a bed that folded up into a cabinet.

There is much speculation that the discovery of the North Pole in 1909 was actually accomplished by Matthew A. Henson, a black outdoorsman, who accompanied explorer Robert E. Peary, who was laying sick in an icy campsite. Another black American, George Gibbs, traveled with Richard Byrd when he claimed the South Pole for America on a trip from 1939-41.

For his work in mediating an Arab-Israeli truce, Ralph J. Bunche was the first African-American to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950. (The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. became the second in 1964.)

In 1983, Guion "Guy" Bluford Jr., a Philadelphian, became the first black astronaut to travel in space; Mae Jemison became the first black female astronaut in 1992. Frederick D. Gregory flew the space shuttle as its first African-American commander in 1998.

Miss America of 1984, Vanessa Williams, was the country's first black winner. When she was forced to resign, Suzette Charles of Mays Landing (the runner-up, and also an African-American) assumed the title.

The arts

Whether in the fine arts or Hollywood, black Americans have always excelled. Marian Anderson became the first black representative in the Metropolitan Opera Company in 1955, and Arthur Mitchell the first principal dancer in the New York City Ballet in 1959. Mitchell later developed the Dance Theatre of Harlem, the first African-American classical ballet company.

Both Count Basie and Ella Fitzgerald were the first black recipients of Grammy Awards in 1958, while Gordon Parks became the first black director for a major Hollywood studio in 1969.

Oscars were first given to black actors when Hattie McDaniels won the supporting actress award in 1940 for her role in "Gone with the Wind." In 1963, Sidney Poitier won best actor for "Lilies of the Field."

Television

Network television also proved to be a breakthrough arena. In 1956, singer Nat King Cole became the first black to become host of a weekly network television show. Oprah Winfrey became the first black woman television host in 1986.

Philadelphia comedian Bill Cosby was the first African-American star of a weekly television drama with 1965's "I Spy." The Cosby Show (1984-92), became the most popular program on American television during the late 1980s.

Sports

Black athletes have dominated the American sports scene for years. Everyone knows about Jackie Robinson's 1947 introduction into the National Baseball League with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Fewer may recall that New Jersey's Larry Doby was the first black player in the American League's Cleveland Indians three months later that same year. Both men are enshrined in baseball's Hall of Fame.

Management positions in baseball soon opened up. The first African-American manager in the major leagues was Frank Robinson with the Cleveland Indians (1975-1977). Robinson was named Manager of the Year in 1982 and 1989.

Former Philadelphia Phillies first baseman Bill White became the highest ranking black executive in sports from 1989-94 when he served as president of the National League.

The aptly named Willie Thrower was the first black NFL quarterback in 1953 for the Chicago Bears. The first black professional football coach was Fritz Pollard. He was also first black to play in the Rose Bowl.

Other well-known athletic firsts:

Marshall W. Taylor (1899 World Cycling Champion)

Jack Johnson (1908 Heavyweight Boxing Champion)

Earl Floyd (1950 National Basketball Association player, Washington Capitols)

Althea Gibson (1957, 1958 Wimbledon Tennis Champion)

Willie O'Ree (1958, National Hockey League player, Boston Bruins)

Arthur Ashe (1968 Wimbledon Champion)

Tiger Woods (1997 Masters Champion)

It's amazing to think that in 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt caused a national uproar when he invited educator Booker T. Washington to be a dinner guest at the White House. Today, the first African-American president and his entire family have moved into that very same residence.

Been there, done that: Recession advice

MY TURN column
The Courier-Post
January 15, 2009

by DOUG OTTO


As I wound my way between parties and family gatherings during the just-concluded holiday season, the topic of conversation invariably settled on the state of the economy. The tales of woe I overheard included home foreclosures, volatile oil prices, bailout loans to investment banks, falling stock prices and unemployment numbers.

By far, the most bewildered and forlorn looks came from the children of baby boomers, many of whom are still in college or have recently entered the job market. Even my 25-year-old son, who prides himself for having an independent streak, bent an ear toward his father's discussions.

For most of our children the current economic landscape is new territory. They do not know the word recession. This year, in their presence, I found myself offering an economic cautionary tale involving three generations: The Greatest, the Boomers and Generation X.

"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme," Mark Twain once said.

Boomers know the truth in this statement, because we have experienced seven economic downturns between 1953 and 1991. The bust of the dotcom bubble in the early 2000s might even count as another. Our children, on the other hand, have experienced the longest period of continuous prosperity since the 10 years of the Great Depression from 1929-1939. Former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan warned as early as 1996 about an economy filled with "irrational exuberance," but in many cases, American greed and excess rolled unchecked into the new millennium.

We are all guilty to some extent of living the good life without fully considering the consequences. Our parents, progeny of the Depression, taught us the values of hard work, saving for a rainy day and living within our means. Sage advice for us to pass along to the following generations.

Amid all the doom and gloom presented by the media, I remain optimistic about the country's future. Sure some belt tightening will be required, but this may be the perfect time to resurrect Teddy Roosevelt's spirit of rugged individualism before we totally surrender to the big-government style of Franklin Roosevelt.

A look at American history suggests we have the most resilient economy in the world. Sure we go through rough patches, but because we are flexible and adaptable, we find ways to get out of these messes. Remember how we rebounded from the national economic and spiritual malaise that followed 9/11? We have an abundance of untapped natural and human resources, an educated population inhabiting a free society, and a superior standard of living, the envy of European and Third World countries.

Here, then, are some generational tips for weathering the current storm:

• You can't spend what you don't have, so do what my parents suggested by putting a little away for a rainy day. You may have noticed it's drizzling outside.

• Give your credit cards a vacation. Try that green stuff called cash instead.

• Don't buy that new book or DVD, visit your local library and borrow one for free.

• Check out local colleges offering free lectures, concerts and art exhibits.

• Use the many free online courses and teach yourself something new.

• Visit area tourist sites or stroll through the neighborhood park for no-cost exercise.

• Save money by eating dinner at home and then go out for just coffee and dessert.

• If something breaks, try to fix it yourself to beat repair costs or purchasing new.

• Search online and in newspapers for coupons, which are plentiful now.

• Rediscover your local small town and give an economic boost to mom-and-pop businesses.

• Buy items that offer quality and a long lifespan rather than faddish style.

• Demonstrate your value at work -- arrive early, work late and become indispensable.

Maybe it's time to make conservation chic again. We need to re-order our priorities and get back in touch with realistic expectations. It is the boomers' duty to show future generations the same stability and leadership that our parents demonstrated upon emerging from the Great Depression.

I take heart in the upbeat message delivered by commentator Ben Stein on a recent CBS Sunday Morning program:

"The worst thing about recessions is what they do to people's minds, hearts and souls. The whole world is facing financial fear, me included. I offer two hopeful thoughts on this. No slowdown lasts forever. This one will end, too. A new team will take over in Washington, and they will almost surely avoid the mistakes of the old one.

"Already a faint, pink light is beginning to dawn at the end of the tunnel. Daybreak will come. But far more important, I beg you to know, you are not your balance sheet. You are not how big a home you have, or what kind of car you drive, or whether your kids go to a prestige school.

"You are a human being with a soul. You are how you behave, how you help those in need, how you act toward family, community and animals. You are not a bank; you are a living person. It is high time to judge yourself by the content of your character, not the color of your money."