Rain Before Rainbows

In honor of Dr. Seuss’s birthday, I am presenting another lost section of the book. This part got cut out because it was part of a compilation section with several authors.

Theodor Geisel was considering burning the book after it was rejected by over two dozen publishers. One rejection letter stated that the manuscript was simply “too different” to sell. Thankfully, Vanguard Press agreed to publish And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. It sold over six million copies. Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, has written and illustrated more than forty bestselling children’s book. Ironically, the name he has made famous through his rhymes is often mispronounced as though it would rhyme with juice. As Geisel once stated, the name Seuss should actually be pronounced as though it “rhymes with voice.”

These are two chapters of my book “The Secret of Success is Not a Secret” that didn’t make it to the print version. These got cut because my manuscript was way too long ( about 98,000 words when I submitted it) and the editor needed to cut it down so it would fit on 366 pages. Therefore, it was decided to focus only on individual stories and cut compilations. Here they are:

The Most Honors for Being Nominated (Sammy Cahn & Victor Young)

Sammy Cahn wrote his first hit song, “Rhythm Is Our Business,” in 1935. It was followed by three more in 1936. In 1940, he moved to Hollywood where he wrote songs for Warner Brothers, Republic Studios, and Columbia Pictures. However, it was not until 1943 that one of Cahn’s songs, “It seems I’ve heard that Song Before,” was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song. It did not win the Oscar. In 1944, his song “Follow the Boys” was nominated and lost. In 1946, he received two nominations for Best Song but they both lost. In all, Cahn was nominated ten times before he finally won the Oscar for Best Song in 1954. During his lifetime, Cahn received thirty nominations—more times than any other songwriter—and won four Oscars. The Songwriters’ Hall of Fame not only inducted Cahn but also named their Lifetime Achievement Award after him.

Although he does not have as many total nominations as Cahn, Victor Young has the dubious honor of receiving the most nominations before finally winning his first Oscar. Young was nominated twenty-one times for Scoring and Songwriting before he finally won in January 1957. Unfortunately, the award was awarded posthumously—Young died on November 10, 1956.

“Do something for the joy of doing it and pray you won’t be punished.”

Sammy Cahn

Academy Award Losers

Alfred Hitchcock and Robert Altman have the dubious honor of having been nominated five times for an Academy Award for Best Director without winning. Scorsese broke away from the other two, however, in 2007 when he won the coveted award for best director his sixth time around. Stanley Kubrick and Federico Fellini were nominated four times and Ingmar Bergman was been nominated three times without winning. George Lucas has been nominated for Best Director twice and never won. Nevertheless, they are still considered some of the greatest directors and several of them have been given the Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement. Both The Turning Point and The Color Purple were nominated for eleven Oscars and yet failed to win in any category. Likewise, Gangs of New York received ten nominations without a win. Richard Burton has seven Academy Award nominations and Peter O’Toole has received eight, but each time they walked away without an Oscar. Likewise, Deborah Kerr and Thelma Ritter received six nominations for their performances and never won an Oscar. Kevin O’Connell has been nominated nineteen times without a win as of 2007 for mixing sound in such movies as Top Gun, A Few Good Men, Terms of Endearment, and most recently, Apocalypto.

“There are worse things to be recognized for than having 18 Oscar nominations and not winning.”

There are days it does not pay to get up. Today was one of them. It was raining outside, I am sick, one of my dogs puked on the floor, I still haven’t unpacked from my move, etc. The more I tried to lighten my mood, the more things seemed to weigh it down. Turn on the news and my mood only got worse.

In these trying times, it can be difficult to stay upbeat and positive when everything is telling you to be negative. However, I refuse to change my thinking. Americans have survived tough times before. We will survive again. As Ford often said: “Whether or not you think you can or can’t, you’re right.” I will be the Little Engine that Could and Pollyanna as often as I can. To all the critics who think I’m got my head in the clouds, so be it. I’m looking for the rainbows and the clouds are the best place to start!! I’m not being unrealistic, I simply do not believe that we are sunk. If this is the Titanic, so be it. But not everybody died on the Titanic. I’d rather go down swimming than smiling smugly because I was right.

Darcy Andries

I’m not sure if you’ve heard about the tragic death of Abraham Briggs, so allow me to sumarize. Briggs, 19, posted a suicide note on a bodybuilding forum and invited people to watch via Justin.TV and his webcam. For over 12 hours, people went to the Justin.tv chat room but no one called the police. Because of this, people are viewing this as a sign that the Internet has desensitized people making them less caring and sensitive. I disagree.

I don’t believe people who did not act after seeing Briggs note or webcam broadcast (which appeared to most as someone sleeping with his back to the camera) were uncaring or heartless. Instead, they are people who have a firm hold on reality. They recognized that things on the Internet are rarely real and acted accordingly. The only thing people had become desensitized too was Briggs own actions since he reportedly had made similar threats in the past and not acted as them.

While I can enjoy a good lifecast, I leave my reality on trusted newsites and treat the rest of the Internet with a healthy dose of skeptisism. I don’t want people to panic and call 911 every time someone posts a suicide threat on the Internet.

Instead of becoming more concerned with the words on a computer screen, we need to become more concerned with the people close to us. Start asking your friends what chat rooms and bulletin boards they are members of. Become interested in your family’s Internet chats. If that had been done in Briggs case, someone may have intervened in time to save him.

However, the only person that can be blamed for Briggs death is Briggs himself. I know it is not PC to blame the “victim” so allow me to clarify that I speak from personal experience. I doubt Briggs expect to die and I’m sure he felt that someone would intervene in time. Except that he forgot that the Internet is not a clear window to reality. My deepest sympathies go out to Briggs’ friends and family.

It wasn’t that people didn’t care about him, people didn’t believe and the people who might have believed simply didn’t know. Of course, that is often the case in suicides. However, instead of trying to focus blame, we need to focus our attention at learning from this experience.

If you are feeling suicidal, please talk to someone. If you don’t have someone: The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available 24 hours a day: 1-800-273-TALK (8255). Talk to a real person, not an Internet facsimile. If nothing else, give it 24 hours. You’d be amazed at how things can change in such a short time.

You can’t turn on the news or the Internet these days without hearing about job cuts and layoffs. However, if you look hard enough, you can find job growth.

A Charelston, SC, project may create 6,000 jobs.

Columbus, OH, has seen a growth in jobs of nearly 7,000.

Rubbermaid adds 150 jobs.

160 new jobs in Carnondale, IL.

150 jobs coming to Lawerenceberg, TN.

And those are only stories that were posted on the Internet in the past 24 hours!!

I believe in looking at things realistically, but not fatalistically. We may be tettering on the economic edge, but I wish the media would stop telling us to jump.

In an effort to be a bit more cheerful in these trying times, I am determined to start updating my blog with good news.

Todays article involves Skeeter, a dog who has achieved a law degree. Now, before you start wondering if this is some type of a mistake, Skeeter has no intention of practicing law. In face, he already has a full-time job as the service dog for Amy Jones. Since Skeeter accompanied Jones to all her classes, California State University at Chico decide to award the dog with his own honorary degree.

Congratulations Amy Jones on achieving your law degree and for bouncing back after your accident in 2002.

If you’d like to read the full article, check out Dog awarded law degree on News9.com.

Like many people here in the United States and around the world, I was thrilled that Barack Obama won his bid for presidency. While so many are patting themselves on the back and see this as a sign that racism is finally over, I am not one of them. However, I do see this as a sign that we might finally get to the issue.

For so long, we have convinced ourselves that racism tends to be a white against black issue. It’s not.

1. CNN reported that 95% of black voters voted for Obama. While I get the significance of this issue, I still feel that it is a form of racism to vote for someone because of their color, even if it is the same as yours. Anyone who vote for McCain because he was white would have been accused of racism. Of course, I’m probably still a bit bitter about all the people who accused me of not being a feminist because I chose not to support Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin. I’m sorry, I didn’t think that either of them would have done our country any good. Of course, 88% of blacks also voted for Kerry when he was running for president. This means that only 13% possibly changed their vote, and I guess I can live with that.

2. With all the accusations of Obama being Muslim, no one responded by saying so? While I would agree that anyone who is hiding a major aspect of his or her life is someone not to be trusted, the rumors seemed more concerned that Obama may be Muslim than he may be hiding it. Yes, there are dangerous extremist Muslims out there. But there are dangerous extremist Christians too. Being a Muslim is no worse or better than any other religion. It’s how you act on your beliefs that defines you.

Yet, for the first time I actually feel like things might be better with the change in president. If for no other reason then for millions of children will suddenly realize that you do not have to be a white man to be president of the United States. I know that one day we will have a woman as president, too. As long as we don’t get stopped thing that everything is fixed, I’m not worried.

Darcy

I don’t know if any of you watched the Lifetime movie on Coco Chanel. I sort of fell into it. I was amazed at what an outstanding woman she was. I am not a fashionista by any sense of the word (unless jeans and a t-shirt are high fashion). My only regret is I didn’t come across her story before the book was published (I guess it goes into the sequal pile). Still, I’ll share some of the basic facts of her life here.

She grew up a ward of the state after her mother died and her father ran off. She learned to sew from the nuns at the convent where she was raised. She became the mistress of a wealthy French playboy Étienne Balsan. After the relationship ended, she moved to Paris to open her first shop. It went out of business and Chanel was forced to give up her possessions.

She eventually partnered with a friend of her former lover, Arthur “Boy” Capel, who financed a second shop. This shop was a success. Chanel is responsible for revolutionizing women’s fashion in the early 1900s. She was also named to Time’s list of the Most Important People of the Century.

Darcy

I’ve added what I consider a “Failure Moment” video onto YouTube. It can be found under my user name there, Dandries. I’ve also pasted it below. The first video is about Harrison Ford, one of the many people featured in my book The Secret to Success is Not a Secret.