Xtina Dodd asks WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?Have you ever watched the funniest sit-com on television and thought, “Huh?” Me, too — but I’m talking about Seinfeld. Which one are you talking about? Have you ever quoted one of your favorite movies and had the person you’re with stare at you like you’ve spouted horns? “WHAT is your favorite color?” isn’t funny unless you’ve seen the film. You know how couples have one movie that mean a lot to them? Something romantic? Something meaningful? Something which colors the whole relationship forever? For my husband and I, it’s BLAZING SADDLES, the sublimely stupid, slightly incoherent classic cowboy movie spoof. Hey, it’s a ground-breaking movie! Okay, it’s a ground-breaking movie because it contains the first fart heard in cinema (“The Fart Heard ‘Round the World”), but what can I say? We think it’s funny. We think Mel Brooks is funny. Not always — he’s done some wretched movies, but YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN and THE PRODUCERS (the original movie made in 1968 and the recent musical) are sublime. We have friends who think Mel Brooks is so stupid, they went to see BLAZING SADDLES twice — once on their own and once, forgetting they’d seen it, on our recommendation. They, um, thought the movie was crude. And they think Mel Brooks is insulting. To, um, black people and white people and brown people and old women and cowboys and the Irish and Nazis and Jews and women with large breasts and men with large penises and the KKK and gays and bad musicals and — Methodists! That’s sort of the point, and they knew that, but they were offended anyway — because his movies don’t make them laugh. Okay. Then there’s MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL, which we adore. (“WHAT is your favorite color?”) In my family, cutting yourself with a kitchen knife involves saying, “It’s only a flesh wound,” right before crumpling to the floor in a dead faint. But I do know there are people who don’t think see the humor in the knights who only pretend to be riding while their squire runs behind them making the hoof noises with coconut shells. What doesn’t make us laugh? My husband and I rented RAISING ARIZONA and watched about half of it in profound silence before turning to each other and saying, “This isn’t funny. These are our relatives.” I told that to another friend who said, “They’re my relatives, too. That’s why it’s so funny!” We were uncomfortable. She was laughing. She thinks the Coen Brothers are wonderful. A fight between two knights where one gets his arms and legs chopped off with cheesy special effects makes me laugh. Someone putting a body through a log chipper does not. Humor is not universal. There’s no explaining what works for one person and what doesn’t for another. There’s no changing it. If you don’t like the “right” kind of comedy, people with high opinions of themselves will try to tell you you’re wrong. If you laugh at fart jokes, people will make fun of you. If you think black comedies are depressing, people will try to educate you as to why you should think they’re funny. I know. It’s happened to me. And I insist on enjoying the movies I think are funny, and I’m not going to defend myself for laughing at that scene in THE NAKED GUN where Frank sings the national anthem before a baseball game, and he’s off-tune and forgets the words. Oo, and remember the scene where the bad guy gets knocked off the bleachers, flattened by a steam roller, and the high school band marches over him playing, “Louie, Louie?” Hysterical! Come to think of it, watching comedy like reading romances or eating Campbell’s Cream of Tomato soup. You’ve got two choices — you can defend your choices, or you can ignore the bastards and enjoy yourself. So what makes you laugh? What doesn’t? What’s your favorite funny movie? Which one did you just not get? And please, everyone, don’t try to explain why Seinfeld is funny — I’ve heard it all before. Posted: 09/01/2008
Christina Dodd talks about THE WORST WEDDINGS SHE HAS WITNESSEDIt’s like Funniest Home Videos, only you’re there in the church surrounded by the groom’s friends and the bride’s relatives, and you can’t laugh out loud. You’re not even sure you want to, because this is the wedding of someone you know, and the minister is wearing a suit that looks like he slept in it, the best man is chewing gum, and the pianist didn’t practice the wedding music. In fact, if she can play music at all, she hides the fact pretty well. You turn to the groom’s mother and try to lift her spirits with a jocular comment — “Maybe the pianist at least practiced the wedding march.” She turns and offers a frosty glare. “That’s my sister playing.” Yeah, like that never happened to you. When Scott’s cousin got married (the first time), the ring bearer was about three. The little guy carried the beautifully decorated pillow with the wedding rings tied to it with ribbons all the way down the aisle without mishap. Yay, ring bearer! Then the minister, a grown man, tried to get the rings loose, couldn’t untie the knots, and with an audible ripping sound, tore them off the pillow and blessed them while they were dangling from the ribbons. The sight of those gold circles swinging back and forth is still burned into my brain. One time I saw the groom place the ring on the bride’s hand — the wrong hand. During the rest of the ceremony, the congregation watched, fascinated, as the bride struggled to get it off her right hand and onto her left hand. So much for keeping the ring on forever as the symbol of their love. I went to one wedding for friends in college — I’ll call them Sam and Anne. Anne was a sweet, kind, lovely flake of a girl. Sam was a great guy, the salt of the earth, but he was the wrong religion for Anne’s folks. So when I walked into the church, Anne’s side of the church was completely empty. Completely empty. Intimidated, I scurried over to Sam's side and sat down. Sam came out and waited at the front of the church. The wedding march began. And Anne didn’t come out. And she didn’t come out. And she didn’t come out. Sam was clearly panicked. His family, who obviously wasn’t any too happy about Anne, started muttering, and in disgust, Sam's mother proclaimed, loud enough for everyone to hear, “She’s changed her mind.” But finally Anne came down the aisle, she and Sam were married, and they were very happy. I’ll bet you’ve witnessed, or been involved in, weddings that included those awful, embarrassing, horrifying moments … that make weddings so memorable. Pull up a folding chair, have a cup of punch, balance a plate of wedding cake on your knees, and tell me all about it. Posted: 09/08/2008
Christina’s Conference ConfessionsIn the last months, some people who shall remain unnamed actually suggested that I whined — a lot — about giving the luncheon speech at the Romance Writers’ conference to 2200 published and unpublished writers. But this is, of course, nonsense. I do not whine. I express my concern. I was just REALLY concerned. The first conference I went to, in Dallas in 1987, the speaker was Mary Higgins Clark. If you ever get the chance to hear her, run, do not walk, to the nearest chair, park yourself and listen hard, because she’s the best speaker I’ve ever heard, and I’ve heard some good ones. She told the story of her life — married young, five children, widowed, writing in between life experiences (“Grist for the mill,” she called it), finally getting published at the age of (if I remember correctly) fifty and of course going on to be a #1 New York Times Bestseller. She made me realize that most people don’t get their first book published, that writing takes training, work and dedication, and that maybe I’d never be a #1 New York Times bestseller — maybe I’d never get published — but if I loved the craft, I had to try. She inspired me and I’ve never forgotten that seminal moment. Consequently, I’ve realized how important the job of speaker at the RWA conference is — the speaker can literally change a writer’s attitude and life. So when I got the call to speak at RWA — put yourself in my shoes. Imagine how flattered I was. Imagine how terrified I was, because I’m really a frightened public speaker. And no matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t say no — being invited to speak at RWA is a huge honor. So I spent six months being REALLY concerned, writing the speech, practicing the speech, polishing the speech, trying to find a desert island with no phone or internet … you know what helped me most? My friends. They let me whine — er, be really concerned — they told me over and over I would do a great job, they scarcely suggested I was being incredibly self-absorbed (well, maybe they did, but I was too self-absorbed to notice), and at the conference, one of our dear Squawkers, J.Perry, gave me one of the most touching tributes I’ve ever had. She said, “I love your work so much you could burp the whole speech and I’d still enjoy it.” She brought a tear to my eye. Okay, it was a tear of laughter, but I do treasure the compliment. So thanks to everyone who encouraged me and thanks to everyone who heard me and praised me so kindly afterward. Posted: 09/15/2008
CHRISTINA DODD PUTS ON HER OLDEST BROWN SWEAT SUIT, GOES SHOPPING, AND RUNS INTO EVERY PERSON SHE’S EVER METC’mon, you know you’ve done it. You wake up with PMS and figure you’ll make an emergency run to the grocery store for chocolate, even though you look like hell — but who cares, you never see anyone there who knows you? And you meet your minister, your fifth grade teacher, the guy you’re secretly in love with and you’ve dreamed about for years, and a TV news anchor there to report on overweight American adults and for some reason, he films you, clutching your one-pound Hershey bar and snarling. Not that this has ever happened to me. Yeah, right. So the other day Scott and I went to Cosco to get a corporate card. We spend a lot of money there (“Can you help us carry that twenty-gallon jar of dill pickles out to the car? Put it right next seventy-five roll package of toilet paper.”) and figured the corporate card, which refunds some tiny part of your purchases, would pay for itself. The trick is, I’m the corporate entity and Scott wanted me there in case they questioned it. And he assured me my whole job would be to stand there while he filled out the form and coughed up the fee. Now let me stop for a minute and point out that being an author provides a fair amount of anonymity. People sometimes know your name (“I think my mom has read you.”), but they never know your face. So I went schlepping into Cosco with no cosmetics and, well, I’d been working in the yard so I hadn’t had a shower and I was wearing this grubby shirt and jeans with dirt on the knees and a gimme hat to cover my weird hair. Are you getting the idea? So Scott fills out the form and the girl who’s putting it into the computer says, “Christina Dodd? I’ve read Christina Dodd.” She looks at me and says, “Are you Christina Dodd?” My first thought is to duck below the counter, sit on the floor and hug my knees. But I’m an adult. I should act like an adult. My mom said so. So I say, “Yes, I’m Christina Dodd.” That starts quite the kerfuffle. The girl introduces me to everyone behind the desk, and they all act delighted and say stuff like, “Do we have any of your books here?” (They actually did, but I didn’t realize it at the time.) I give out pens (Christina Dodd, Cool Suspense, Hot Romance, www.christinadodd.com) and sign autographs. And I know as soon as they have a minute away from the service desk, they’ll race to my website, look at my photo and say, “Hey, that woman today wasn’t Christina Dodd. Christina Dodd wears make-up and has hair that doesn’t stick straight out around her ears.” While I was at Cosco, I did the only thing I could do — I acted with dignity and grace. In the car, I did what any woman would do — I blamed my husband. (“Stand there while you fill out the form because NOBODY WILL KNOW?! Are you CRAZY?! What color is the sky IN YOUR WORLD?!”) So share all the lovely moments when you got caught looking less like your usual gracious self and more like your psycho twin sister, and how you responded. Did you chat and pretend nothing was wrong? Did you apologize for the way you looked? Or did you move away, never to return? Let’s chat while I pack up my house and call the moving van. Posted: 09/22/2008
CHRISTINA’S FIRST AUTOGRAPHINGWhen a writer gets that wonderful call and finds out her first book is going to be published, one thought springs to the forefront of her mind — how can I use my talent to improve the world for all mankind? AHAHAHAHAHA! Sorry, that’s absolutely absurd. Or at least it was in my case. I thought — what if no one comes to my first autographing? But then, I’m shallow. To me, an autographing seemed like the ultimate high school popularity contest, and please note — people who were popular in high school are too well-adjusted to be writers. (The lone exception to this is author Susan Kay Law, who was an honest-to-Pete perky, blonde cheerleader, but I don’t hold it against her in any way. Really. Not at all. The skinny little blonde snot.) Of course, even then I knew equating autographing success with popularity was nonsense. I worked part time in an independent bookstore for about five years before I was published, and saw some of the biggest authors in the business come to the store to autograph. Most of the time, we had a great turnout, but sometimes, for no apparent reason, none of our customers would show. Autographings are a random, odd experience for everyone — but, gee, I didn’t want to be random and odd. I had been that in high school. I wanted to be huge. I wanted to be successful. I wanted everyone to know I’d published my first book, CANDLE IN THE WINDOW! So I did the right thing — I begged my boss at the bookstore to give me my first autographing. Ninety books sold! Seventy people — the people who had been my customers! Flowers! A cake frosted like my cover!… I probably forgot thirty names while I was signing, and learned an author always asks every person how to spell her name (Gan — who knew her name was Georgeann?) It was wonderful!!!! Since then I have driven three hours across Texas with Barbara Dawson Smith to speak to a readers’ group at a bookstore only to discover the readers’ group was a figment of the bookstore owner’s imagination and the bookstore only sold used books, and we couldn’t even sell a single used copy. I have signed at Wal-mart when it was a hundred and fourteen degrees outside and the only thing any customer wanted was to tell me her kid barfed back by mens’ underwear. Since my first book was published, it’s been sixteen years and thirty-two books, and I’ve never had as good a booksigning — or a moment as gratifying and as empowering — as the moment I experienced at Carol’s Book Corner in Houston in 1991. That autographing is one of the coolest, most gratifying moments of my life. So what moments do you remember that marked a turning point in your life? Your graduation? Your wedding? The moment you squeezed that kid out of your loins and held her/him for the first time? Or that private, special moment that no one else has experienced but proved to be a turning point in your life? Posted: 09/29/2008 Back to Previous Page | Back to Blog Home |
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