Joe M. O'Connell

Thursday, July 23, 2009

The not funny squad!

I may be the last person on the planet to see The Hangover. I liked it a lot--good script with an interesting nonlinear narrative and solid acting. The latter part got me to realizing that Saturday Night Live, in all of its lameness, is no longer the farm league for the big screen. Instead it's The Daily Show and the ancient Freaks & Geeks.

Why the change? Perhaps it's because two of my top three UNFUNNIEST PEOPLE are from SNL. My Not Funny Squad includes:

Amy Poehler. She is no Tina Fey. Thinks mugging for the camera is being funny.

Jimmy Fallon. He's also not Tina Fey. His talk show is too painful to watch.

and the most unfunny guy of all time:

Jim Carrey. Creepy, yes. Funny? NO!

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Vittles!

Vittles grown in our garden and converted into a salad. The cucumber is a foot and a half long (and please resist the comments you are thinking. Stop that!).

'The Deep End' poised to film in Dallas

Read my piece in today's Dallas Morning News about the impending Dallas-area filming of a new series, The Deep End, set in a law firm and starring Billy Zane. It's described as L.A. Law meets Gray's Anatomy. Looks like a big win for the Texas film industry.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Reading at Bookpeople from EVACUATION PLAN

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Volunteering at a writing conference

I'm the featured writer over at Straight From Hel this week talking about my experiences volunteering at the Writers' League of Texas agents conference, and how I used it to my advantage. The full post will appear on Thursday. Check it out.

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Making it through surgery

He was not happy to be wheeled away on the bed.

Bedside television helped post-op get off to a decent start.

Nicholas had a mostly minor surgery on Friday, but it marks the second time for him to go in the operating in his scant two years of life. He's spent the last 24+ hours on his back as the surgery was in the unmentionable zone (it was too big down there!). Many many many viewing of the films Cars and Curious George. He went to bed tonight feeling a lot better.

Friday, July 3, 2009

Happy Fourth of July? I thought you said PORK of July

What they're saying about EVACUATION PLAN

"Tales alternately gentle, dramatic, surrealistic, that collectively affirm the beauty of being alive, even as they acknowledge that all of us face the necessity of making our own 'evacuation plan.' "
-- Brad Buchholz, Austin American-Statesman

" The chapters about Matt and the short stories demonstrate O’Connell’s ability to develop sympathetic, true-to-life characters using intriguing details and compelling dialogue. The stories remind us of those times when a brief encounter with a stranger left us wondering about that person’s past. In Evacuation Plan, O’Connell satisfies that curiosity. "
-- The Texas Observer

"It was very hard for me to put this book down. It carries us through the deepest meaning in life and most painful, most hopeful memories for a wide range of fascinating characters. Based in a hospice, this book could have easily resorted to cheap sensationalism, or whacked us upside the head with stereotypic melodrama, but instead it was respectful, honest, and tender. The characters will stay with you - you may even recognize some of them within your own life. "
-- Award-winning author Carmen Tafolla

"An excellent, thought-provoking diversion from our own inevitable plummet toward the grave, and we highly recommend it to you, the living."
-- Wayne Alan Brenner, The Austin Chronicle

"O’Connell has drawn some colourful and believable characters. The material relating to the hospice and terminal care rings true, all the way to reconciliation and forgiving."
-- Dr. Roger Woodruff, International Association for Hospice & Palliative Care

"The tales are nicely written, and some are quite compelling; “The Male Nurse,” for one, is a dreamlike reverie."
-- Texas Monthly

“Evacuation Plan: A Novel From The Hospice by Joe M. O'Connell is nothing short of remarkable … a novel that walks hand-in-hand with death and yet, somehow, the reader finishes the book feeling inspired to live.”
– The Paisano

"A wonderful blend of lives ordinary but with sometimes extraordinary elements. We all share these stories of life in some way, despite moments of harshness or unforgiving pain. There is always a common thread of humanity and ultimately forgiveness to be found, even if it's in the last moment of life."
-- Elaine Williams, author of A Journey Well Taken

"Reading Evacuation Plan is akin to unwrapping a series of small perfectly-chosen presents. Both human and humane, The book resembles a modern Spoon River Anthology with its vivid, touching glimpses into the lives of those in and around a hospice."
-- Tim McCanlies, screenwriter The Iron Giant, writer/director Secondhand Lions

"In Evacuation Plan Joe O'Connell does for the process of dying what Sherwood Anderson did for middle America in Winesburg, Ohio--he shows us in brief flashes the aching beauty of the grotesque, and shows us how extraordinary small lives and quiet deaths can be."
--John Blair, Drue Heinz Literature Prize winning author of American Standard

"Here's a book so rich with stories of the living, so filled with people's bountiful problems, as well as incidents of wry forgiveness, one realizes over and over the circling forces of life's completeness. It's not a sad tale nor a needless feel-good account but a balanced, sometimes comic, affirmation of what is here and what we all know is waiting."
-- Carolyn Osborn, award-winning short story writer

"The broken, the hopeful, the frustrated, the clueless, and the forgiving touch one another with words, remembrances, and hands. Inevitably, readers will quietly wonder about their own evacuation plan."
-- Will's Texana Monthly

O'Connell's protagonist skillfully navigates under the guise of a writer seeking raw materials for his craft in the stories of the dying, but mines and refines instead the stuff we're all made of. In this finely crafted novel, we come away with much more than the astute observation that many of the best stories begin at the end. But, then again, that notion is also worth a lot.
--Jesse Sublett, cancer survivor, rocker and author of Never the Same Again

"Joe O'Connell's Evacuation Plan--this Decameron of the hospice--encompasses a paradox. Death comes for everyone, but death is the only human universal because everyone dies, and witnesses dying, with private, unspeakable shame. Yet there are a few minutes left to speak. As people die, they tell stories which spawn new stories, which remind us that death is agony, a violent struggle, but so is living."
-- Debra Monroe, Flannery O'Connor Award winning author of Newfangled and Shambles