Today on “House Hunters International,” a family of four from near-Toledo were seeking a vacation home in St. Croix. They were a nice family: he an ER doc. She a nurse (now SAHM of a 9 and 14 y.o). They needed an escape from their designer, 5400 sq ft. home in the most wealthy (ish) nation in the world.

What does America Want?

Less.

It doesn’t actually know this.

It doesn’t actually believe this when told.

But it is true. America wants less.

It Desires More. 

But that Desire for “something more” is a bottomless pit of dissatisfaction.

Less.

Less: work, stuff, noise.

(The family from Ohio wants that too. They have everything in the U.S. they could dream of, but now that they’ve fulfilled their desires, they still hear the siren call of less: to something quieter. Simpler. Where they can hear the waves, they can walk to the market, and where their sons can share a room. And with a few less throw pillows.)

Question: What would you like less of?

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This post is From September’s BIG QUESTION series, asking: “What does America want?” Please feel free to answer at will, here, there and anywhere!

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I’ll be the first to say that I love James Franco. His mute performances on SNL skit “What Up With That?” always tickle me.

But let’s be real. He wasn’t the REAL star of the Oscar duo last night.

There’s going to be all sorts of mumbling and grumbling about the Oscar hosting duo in the news today. The producers want to keep the prestige of the penultimate awards show, but the keep glancing over at all the fun everyone is having at the Golden Globes and think: I want to be the funny guy!

They tried too hard this year, trying to bow to Oscar greats like Kirk Douglas while roping in the youth. Big surprise. The split personality didn’t work.

What did work?

Anne Hathaway.

Although it was hard to tell because of the many flubs and blunders of the producers who were  very busy trying to make everyone — including themselves — the star of the show. (Did you you see one of those producers? That weird little guy that ABC’s anchor Robin Roberts interviewed right before the beginning of the show? Spielberg mopped his brow. That should have been cut.)

Rule of writing: write for your audience. Which I suppose is a tough one, when your audience is, well 1 billion people worldwide.

Except that this audience does have something in common. The audience of the Oscars is people of ALL ages who love Hollywood.

They love the established stars, and they love the glamour, and they love to see the up-and-comers getting their foot in the game.

They loved it when Cuba Gooding Jr went madly insane and won his place in the establishment, they love it when perennial nominee Randy Newman sings — again — and when old standbys like Jeff Bridges make career comebacks.

They love that Justin Timberlake made his move to the screen and that there always seems to be one young ingenue amazing us every year.  In 1999 is was Natalie Portman… look where she is now! We can hardly wait to follow the careers of Jennifer Lawrence and Hallie Steinfeld.

They love Hollywood so much, they sat through YEARS of Debbie Allen’s choreography without a mutiny.

Why is it so hard for the producers to write a beautiful, fun evening with this in mind?

The evening would have worked better if they didn’t try so hard to “appeal” to people, because that never works. Anyone who has every TRIED to impress a girl or boy they like knows just who well that works. (Hollywood should know that too since it’s the plot of several trillion romance and teen films).

It’s the Host, Stupid

The reason Ricky Gervais works, the reason that Billy Crystal worked (and Steve Martin too, though in a different way) and Bob Hope in his time, is they are truly great at what they do. Funny people who took their job — to entertain for the evening– seriously, and who contributed to writing an evening that isn’t about apps and Twitter, but about great showmanship.

Get a performer — young or old — who connects with the audience through humor and a flaying love of film and Hollywood– and you  have your host.

Why were they flying the obviously pre-occupied Yale phD student James Franco across the country when Anne Hathway, clearly, had the job covered?

On stage by herself, she looked comfortable, she ad-libbed with finesse, and she had the beauty and the charm of Gracie Allen. Next to James Franco, the chemistry we expected (of Burns and Allen) was empty and absent.

Anne Hathaway filled the spotlight just fine. Next year, the Academy should do what they should have this year: give her a solo gig and leave the lame iPhone app jokes out. But they probably won’t, which will be their loss.

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TiVo and I watched “Glee” this morning at 5:15 a.m. Red rubber unitards and sex riots at 6 a.m. is enough to puncture anyone’s psyche.

I am listening to something a lot less harmonic than Britney Spears while I drive these days. I am listening to Jim Fay’s contributions to the social parenting handbook and remembering again why self-help products are so addictive.

I have my ideals, and then I have my reality. Finding how I get from “Brittany” to “Britney” (or the icon she represented, in this “Glee” case) is the ultimately question of life. Unlike “TV reality,” I know I won’t have my life changing revelations after a quick hit of nitrous oxide during a cavity filling.

Revelations are just the subconscious popping up to remind us that high school kids dancing madly is the way we all used to see ourselves. Unfettered and free.

Jim Fay says some people are “Winners” and some are “losers”– not by definition, but by the way they conceive themselves. Everyone comes up against obstacles on their way to becoming.

The winners, he says, believe they can. The losers don’t. Knowing where you fall on the spectrum is as simple as subtracting the number of times you say “I can’t” from the number of times you know you can. If your number is a positive one, you tend to be a winner. If you think “I can’t” more often than not, you land on the other end of the spectrum. Those people call themselves “unmotivated” or “procrastinators.” But what they really are is people who don’t believe in themselves.

I’ve been thinking about this as I develop myself creatively. It isn’t as simple as it sounds. I walk the line in my belief that I can be the person I see in my ideals. Fortunately, my confidence unwavers in many other things I do. I can ride my bike really well! I can teach you to write better. I can sing the heck out of that Nanci Griffith song. I will make your life better for knowing me. Winners give themselves credit, too, for all the parts of their lives where they fly free.

Maybe you and I will stand in our own ways occasionally. But I notice that more often, when I GO in my own way, the ride seems comfortable and happy. And the successes I have along the way — whatever they may be — start to appear like building stones in my own Emerald City.

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Today I was talking to some friends whom I haven’t seen much of over the summer. I shared with them a bit of the details of the roller coaster of our last few weeks.

You know, just your average roller coaster of life.

When I finished rolling out the 4-11, the friend circle was just quiet and looking at me. Nobody said anything, so I just kinda chuckled and shrugged it off with a laugh and a “well, five years ago when I was sitting at the pub drinking beers and having the easy life, I’d never had believed someone if they told me this is where I’d be five years, heh heh.”

And the crickets continued to chirp their response.

Relationships are a trick of the mind. Everyday we get up alone and spend the entire course of the day, alone, inside our singular minds. It takes a cold-mirror moment like the one I had today to remind me that what we need and get from other people is valuable and limited. And yet that which we mine from ourselves is skewed and often without perspective.

I am pretty sure that in the last 18 months or so, in the process of building one part of my life, I haven’t been as capable or as good at making my friends happy, answering calls for help, or greasing the wheels of relationships in life that make spontaneous conversation meaning-full.

The ground I walk on is unfamiliar and I feel cast away on an island of ill-terrain, where the natives aren’t unfriendly– they just aren’t that interested. So, in the midst of carrying the weight of life, I have mostly put aside trying to integrate.

I go the well myself. It’s a well I dug myself. I sit at the well alone and sing about tin roofs, Roman ghosts and the battlement of my fears.

I sleep heavy in sweat and dream of a well gone dry.

In my “Fantasy Island,” de plane carries me away to the mainland… whatever that may be.

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The truth is, we all need someone like Howlin’ Mad Murdock to swing in, now and then, in his robe and fluffy slippers to cause an awesome distraction while we eat the rest of the brownies.

Or maybe someone like Face, to charm the pants off of manager in the grocery store. She won’t be able to RESIST him, and will open another check out, just for us.

Somedays, it’s B.A. Baracus we need to step in. He’s gonna the pity the fool who doesn’t use their turn signal in front of you, or slows down so much you miss that light. (Isn’t it fun to watch when he presses his gold chains against their driver’s side window?).

But most of all, we all need at little Hannibal in our life, to chew confidently on his cigar, pull on those leather gloves and put his brilliant plan in action.

Face: [the team's plane is starting to malfunction] Uh, Murdock, what’s going to happen?
Murdock: Looks like we’re going to crash.
Face: No, what’s *really* going to happen?
Murdock: Looks like we’re going to crash and die.

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