Amazing where just three miles will take you.

In the spirit of “who would have expected THAT could happen?” I give you the following observation, that occurred to me, as most interesting ideas do, while I was logging in my 3 miles this morning on the treadmill.

The always watchable Groundhog Day was on a channel that appears to be the "All Groundhog Day Almost All of the Time Channel" and I stopped on it for a while. It was the party scene, where Phil Conners bestows a wedding gift on the newlyweds, Fred and Debbie Kaiser: tickets to Wrestlemania. They are overjoyed and thank Phil for keeping them together even though Debbie had expressed some doubts about the wedding.

As I hit the 1.2 mile mark and flipped though channels, I skipped the MAX channels since we don’t subscribe to that service. I noticed the always compelling Revolutionary Road was playing at some point today, and thought about one of the most interesting characters in it: John Givings. That guy was crazier than a fruit bat (thank you, Urban Dictionary) but you couldn't take your eyes off him during his brief, memorable scenes.

Which started me thinking about Boardwalk Empire, the biggest series HBO has introduced in years. Packed with characters we can’t decide whether we love or despise, Federal Agent Nelson Van Alden may well be crazier than a fish with t--s. (I LOVE U.D.!) He’s disturbing in so many ways and yet you have to feel compassion for him. At least I do.

Anyway, getting back to the subject at hand: who would have expected that Fred Kaiser would one day become Nelson Van Alden? Michael Shannon, playing a very minor role in 1993 in Groundhog Day, built a career, as many actors do, year after year, in theater after theater, in film after film, and nearly twenty years after his first Internet Movie Database credit, stars in one of cable television’s marquee shows of the season.

2. something miles ....

Which brings me to this, really. It’s a new year. Every January I kind of get into this “measurement” frame of mind and wonder if I’ve reached the place I imagined I would a year earlier; how many opportunities I may have missed over the past twelve months. How many I took that came my way. What brought me some joy; what didn't. As my lovely, brilliant friend Cindy asks: what to take with me and what to leave behind?

I used to take comfort in the fact that my zodiac sign indicated that I would achieve success “later in life” – but I’m getting there so hurry up already! - although now I can’t even count on that anymore since apparently I have a new sign. For God’s sake: if you can’t count on your astrological sign to help frame your life, what can you count on??! [Kidding – I have no interest in nor do I follow astrology.]

From there, I leap to a “what is success?” question and try to remind myself that in so many ways my life is blessed. So many ways.

So okay – I don’t have a syndication deal. I have – on a very good day – about one thousand people reading this blog and a bunch of people sharing columns through Facebook or email. I'm sincerely and deeply grateful for every bit of it and encouraged to continue doing whatever this is. Many of the people who contact me are lovely folks who take a moment to write to tell me how ill-informed, miserable and misogynistic I am. I prefer to think of myself as incrankulous (feeling incredulity and cranky simultaneously.)

Others are much more straightforward: "You're an idiot." Still others are kind and help me believe I’m not the last person on earth who looks askance at the world around us and wonders what the ---- happened.

The instant gratification that’s now standard has killed the work ethic - and the excellence - that used to be required for success. It takes a You Tube moment to get you a voice over deal for your golden voice. It apparently takes a national campaign for the second highest political office on this country to get your own travel show on a cable channel. It takes an MTV show about young people living at the shore to get you a book deal and allow you to create your “brand.” It takes a Twitter feed to share your father’s ideas on a regular basis to publish a book of them and develop a television show.

Here’s the thing. I’m not saying these people shouldn’t have “worked it” and come out of their fifteen minutes with the deals they have. I don’t support them but others do and whatever. I won’t buy Snookie’s book but she’ll sell plenty without my twenty bucks. I don’t watch Sarah Palin’s Alaska but plenty of people do. God bless.

But I am troubled by this: work hard, do it by the rules, try your best, strive for excellence, keep honing your skills, put yourself out there regularly in front of the right people, make connections, keep building your portfolio – that’s all so retro, isn’t it? So pointless. I have a feeling every single one of these ideas is going to make its way out of our lexicon.

I think about the voiceover / broadcasting professional who didn’t get the job because Ted Williams did. ( I appreciate that Williams turned his life around and respect that enormously. Achieving sobriety is awe-inspiring to me. I'm just wondering why, in his 2 + years of sobriety - he wasn't applying for jobs, and possibly working at a small station to start to rebuild his career. Why stand at the roadside hoping for a break? I guess that's another way to go with the job search.)

I think about the travel journalists who have educated themselves about the wilderness but don't even get an interview when Discovery produces a show about Alaska and needs a host.

I despair for the writer who has a fabulous manuscript languishing in an editor’s office because she doesn’t have a national cable show to back it up. For the hilarious writer who can’t get an appointment with an agent because he has only 10,000 Twitter followers.

And then there is someone like Susan Boyle. Like the others, she came out of nowhere and is now an international sensation but I give her this: at least she pursued her dream, albeit through a television talent show. The truth is, she knew she would never achieve success taking a conventional route. She was too old, too fat and too dowdy. She took a chance, and put herself out there in front of one of the more ruthless judges on the planet, and that’s what sets her apart for me.

But if You Tube, unsuccessful political campaigns, Twitter feeds and cable television are singularly shaping our national conversation and serving as the threshold for our culture, for our entertainment, and for our enlightenment, we’ve set the bar very low indeed. I get it: The people who produce the books and shows and commercials want success - NOW - and they're going to make the deals that get them headlines and money or, ideally, both. Calling them "risk averse" is putting it too mildly.

Honestly, is it me this time? Am I the only one who feels this way???

God knows. But all this to say: I salute Michael Shannon on his career and the long build that has resulted in his "overnight" success. I thank him for reminding me that hard work, tenacity, and talent sometimes – just sometimes – trump hype and headlines.

And that’ll do it. 3.1 miles.

"The way people speak and write nowadays makes my head hurt." Act 1, Cyrano deBergerac

I have no idea how to get an “official” day declared but I’d like to figure it out and suggest one. It will be called: “In Honor of ‘With’” Day. With? With whom you would rightly ask? In this case, the day will be set aside to thank and celebrate the talents and collaboration of the “With” who sits solidly, quietly and barely noticed beneath the “By” name on book covers these days.

Like most blog posts and columns I write, several stars (AKA stories and headlines) collided and I started to think about the underappreciated, workhorse writers whose words make certain books come to life. Don’t misunderstand me: I’m not sure many of these books should ever come in contact with a printing press or see the light of a Kindle, but I don’t make that decision. What’s done is done, and in cases like this, done in large part due to the skilled writers who tell the story of the celebrity “author” on the cover.

First, the good news. According to the New York Post, no publishers appear to be interested in publishing the memoirs of Nadya Suleman, the Octomom. She’s been shopping a book around but so far, no takers. I’m positive that’s not due to a wave of rational thinking crashing onto the shores of Manhattan; more like overexposure for a woman who doesn’t have a story that hasn’t already been told on the pages of People or Us magazines. Nonetheless, I guarantee you Suleman’s book would have carried a “with” credit.

Now the bad news: Nicole Polizzi is publishing her first book. A novel, for God’s sake. From the mind of Snookie. It’s due in January and titled something like “A Shore Thing.” Some kind of ‘falling in love at the shore’ epic, no doubt. The book’s online listing doesn’t list her “With,” and I can certainly understand that. The “With” in this case will probably use a pen name to ensure that he or she will continue to work in the publishing industry. And I don’t blame the writer for one second. Getting paid to write anything these days is something of a miracle. So go with God, “With,” whoever you are.

Although it occurs to me that there could be a reason to buy “A Shore Thing.” You know those books and websites that suggest surprising uses for everyday objects? I could buy this book, cut out the middle of all the pages (leaving the perimeter of each intact) and use it to hide my good jewelry in plain sight. Well, if I owned enough good jewelry to warrant that, I would. Let’s face it: once this book is on a shelf, no one would ever pull off again, right? That thing would sit there for years, untouched, and my jewelry would remain safe.

Snookie’s as yet unnamed collaborator notwithstanding - who may turn out to be quite a story-teller, who knows - the list of “With” ’s is long and distinguished. They’ve assisted all kinds of authors telling all kinds of stories: from Lee Iaccoca to Howard Stern; from Patti LuPone to Laura Bush. They listen. They take notes and tape hours of interviews. The best of them smooth out the details and evoke a “voice” we’ll all recognize on the page, while suppressing their own. They watch “their” book climb the bestseller list, and congratulate the author.

Sure, they’ll cash a check for their work. But I’d like to see them take a bow of their own. So who’s with me? I’m proposing April 1, birth date of Edmond Rostand, the French dramatist who wrote the play, Cyrano de Bergerac. If anyone knows the story of supplying someone else with words and taking no credit, Rostand’s character does.

So there it is: Let’s set aside April 1, as our official “In Honor of ‘With’” Day, celebrated the world over by everyone who loves a good read.