Boogers, er, bloopers
can be kind of fun

An odd trend has developed with the advent of movies released on DVDs. There's so much extra space on the disks that the producers feel like they need to fill it up with something; Make you feel like you're getting more for your money.

So some of what they fill it up with are outtakes and bloopers that occur during filming. I say this is odd because movie producers, directors and actors consider themselves artists. But what other artists would release their mistakes to the public? Do you think Leonardo Da Vinci would want people seeing the mistakes he made while painting "The Last Supper?" The one where Peter is holding a pet monkey and Paul has a lamp shade on his head? When Pachabel released "Cannon in D," do you think he also wanted people to hear Canon in "C-Minus?"

But new movies released on DVD include supposedly funny scenes where the actors screw up their lines or knock over scenery. I don't think a control-freak artist like Alfred Hitchcock would have allowed onto a DVD version of "Psycho" an outtake of Janet Leigh falling down laughing in the famous shower scene when a prop man accidentally poked her in the eye with a rubber knife.

But who knows? Maybe people today really are more interested in the mistakes that go into making art than the art itself. It may be hard to believe, but I've made a few amusing bloopers while writing this column, mistakes that never appeared in print because I'm such a professional. But if it's cool to show people how stupid you can be maybe I should share a few Honolulu Lite writing bloopers with you.

>> In 1994 I meant to write "Frank Fasi is a dynamic mayor unafraid to take on any issue." But the line initially came out "Frank Fasi is an angry, small-minded, cantankerous old cow and the quicker he's run to pasture, the better."

>> In 1997, I meant to write "With her trademark muumuu and plumeria blossoms, City Council member Rene Mansho exudes an aura of grace and beauty." But it first came out as "With something dark and sinister beating deep within her plumeria-covered chest, Rene Mansho exudes an aura of someone destined for prison. Or worse."

I suppose column outtakes are kind of funny. But as an artist, I would rather people see my finished product than the typos, mental burps and periodic psychotic Freudian slips are part of the writer's creative process. (Boy, you should have seen the FIRST version of that sentence. Very funny.)

Speaking of bloopers, a few actually got into print in Sunday's Honolulu Lite Extra about learning to drive a backhoe. My instructor, Jerry Small, hails from Colorado, not Oklahoma. I also said he has more than 800 hours experience on backhoes. It's actually more than 8,000. Or maybe even 80,000. He's been driving the monsters since he was a kid. Sorry, Jerry.