New Napkin

Last day of the year, so time to make new resolutions. I'm not even going to write down the ongoing ones from years past--that'll have to be understood. My refrigerator is wallpapered with lists written on napkins. I still want to get to the Blue Lagoon, learn Italian, reupholster the Mercedes, and so on and on. The following are my brand-new goals:

1) Get in the movies. Providence, Rhode Island is becoming the new Hollywood. I know people who have had bit parts in movies and know the drill. I think it would be fun, not only to be in a movie, but to have the experience of being on a set. I don't want to try to develop skill as an actor, just be an extra in a crowd scene. Or have my house used as a movie set. Or have my dog or car filmed. Or write a screenplay.

2) Publish a wine article. I've decided on the subject and the outlet; now I just have to do it.

3) Jazz--listen to more of it; collect some of it. I like jazz, but I like so many other kinds of music, too. This is going to be the year of jazz.

4) Finish novel. I started it in Iowa; Gordon Mennenga (ghostwriter for Garrison Keillor) and Phil Hey (fiction editor of the Briar Cliff Review) thought it had legs. What is my problem?

5) Publish book. Book is already written. Just needs to be shopped.

6) Lew Hunter workshop. Lew Hunter taught screenwriting at UCLA for decades; he's also taught at the Sorbonne and pretty much all over the world. He runs the kind of workshops that people like Steven Spielberg drop in on. His Nebraska workshop should be like the Iowa Summer Writing Festival, only for movies. The Big League, in other words. All I need is $2500 and part of a script.

7) Europe. Poland, anyone? Or the Couleur Café festival "dedicated to all currents of urban music across the world" in Thurn & Taxis? The Ice Hotel in Lapland next fall? Another press trip to whereever? I'm leaving it open.