Away Alone

It’s that time again, the time when they shut down half of the streets in Oakland while yellow laundry carts crisscross the campus, stuffed to the gills with lava lamps, microwaves, and refrigerators.

Mothers will weep as they say goodbye to their little birds leaving the nest.   Yet, Fathers will dispense words of wisdom to their sons about responsibility and adulthood, all while noticing the crop of young coed girls.   Moms will sigh, Dads will say, “Sick em, boy!”  And thus the cycle begins, again.  Those clean cut kids from suburbia will turn into tattoo getting, bong toking, mistake making animals, all the while surviving solely on Rum, Ramen, and Red Bull.

However, research says that the average college student isn’t having any more sex than the ones from 25 years ago.  Really?  Maybe not, unless they just aren’t admitting to it.  I’d venture to say they are, or at least they are redefining what the definition is and who it is with these days.  I'm sure patrols are still set up in the quad to take note of all those participating in the Walk of Shame 5K.

Now, before parents go completely bonkers over this kind of thing, you have to understand, college is uncharted territory.  Remember that scene in Home Alone?

That’s what it’s like.  You go from a sheltered environment to complete and utter freedom.  No one is there to make sure you get up, go to class, do your homework, or take care of yourself.   You step onto that campus and 7 years of suppressed primal freedom just explodes.  You lose your composure.  There’s vice everywhere and no authoritative body to say no, outside of campus police.  Kids are basically kicked out of the nest into the real world and expected to make the right decision.  And even if you are the best parent in the world, expect there to be some bad choices made.  And also realize, that it’s OK. 

Your kids will be fine.  They are going to have to go through this, eventually.  Would you rather them have that moment in the real world, when they are completely on their own, with no parachute, or benefits?

Even adults have these moments.  I was left alone to my devices last weekend and for two days, I managed to eat at Sheetz twice for lunch.  I did, however, do some work around the house, cut the grass, and kept the place from catching fire, so win!

History Incorporated

It’s no mystery that I am a purist.   I love my favorite shows and movies right where they were, in the past.   Remakes. Adaptations.  A purist craves not these things.  That’s how the blog started.   Someone in Hollywood was making a remake or something and I felt a great disturbance in the pop culture force.  I opened an email and began typing furiously to… no one.  Then, I joined blogger and shared all the crap that’s inside my head.  Now, five years later, you’re all worse people for enjoying it.  ;)

However, there are few times when something gets remade or rebooted and it is phenomenal.   It doesn’t happen very often.  It’s about as frequent as Haley’s comet around here.  But it happened recently and I cannot be happier with the results.

Let’s go back to the 60s. 

A little cartoon came along about a mystery solving gang and their beloved Great Dane.    Scooby-Doo Where Are You? debuted in 1969 and has run in some incarnation all the way through 2013.   That’s 44 years.    And while some instances weren’t all that great, *cough*Flim Flam*cough*Scrappy-Doo*cough* the show has managed to maintain a central theme since the original show.

It’s one of the few shows I have been able to enjoy all over again, thanks to my kid and DVD collections.  She loves the old episodes along with the Blue Falcon ones, as well.  But when Mystery, Incorporated came on Cartoon Network in 2010, I was skeptical.   It was the first time a Scooby-Doo show didn’t take place on Saturday Mornings.  Not only did it not serve as a continuation of the original series, more of a reboot, which angered me, but it also introduced elements of relationship drama that never existed before.   It used to always be the running gag that Fred would go off with Velma and Daphne, leaving Shaggy and Scooby to fend for themselves, cementing Fred’s pimp status.  And if he didn’t take Velma, it was a joke that she was a nerd and therefore, Fred wouldn’t be interested anyway.   However, in the new series, the relationship between Fred and Daphne is laid out, humorously at that and the real triangle occurs between Velma, Shaggy, and Scooby-Doo, oddly enough.  Nothing disgusting, more a “Bros before Hoes” mentality.

I gave it a shot, though.  My daughter and I would load up some OnDemand Doo and watch.  While she just enjoyed the show, I carefully scrutinized the plot and the connection to the canon of Scooby-Doo.

I.  Became.  Hooked.

Not only was this new incarnation smart and witty, but it dovetailed into the old series nicely and stood as a companion to the old episodes.   The only thing that changed was the timeframe for Mystery, Inc. coming together.  They made nods to every old “guy in a rubber suit” character and even self deprecated themselves by calling out how bad Scrappy-Doo and Flim Flam were perceived by fans.

The show also makes a lot of pop culture references to other movies and television shows that aren’t so blatant that you go “I see what you did there”.   It’s more like, “Oh, my God, I can’t believe they worked that into the plot.”  For example, a recent episode saw Scooby-Doo attending a side-kick competition with all of the other Hanna Barbera side-kicks like Jabber Jaw and Speed Buggy.  There are other cross-over episodes, just like the older series, but with a twist.  Instead of the usual Blue Falcon persona, we are given a somewhat bad ass  ex-security guard turned vigilante.  The real twist is that Dog Wonder’s cybernetic components are a product of Quest Laboratories.  He still retains the somewhat dim personality.    In the same episode Zin shows up. 

Even the voice casting is a reference in and of itself.   While Matthew Lillard reprises his Shaggy from the Live Action films, Casey Kasem plays his Dad.  Grey DeLisle reprises Daphne, and Mindy Cohn reprises her role as Velma, but Linda Cardellini, who played her in the movies, becomes the hilarious Marcy Fleach/Hot Dog Water.  Jeffry Combs from the Re-Animator shows up as H.P. Hatecraft.  Even Vincent Van Ghoul comes back, albeit voiced by cartoon everyman Maurice La Marche.

The show also introduces an arc, which crosses the complete series.  A mysterious artifact seems to be tied to the history of Crystal Cove as well as the emergence of mystery solving teens, complete with an animal companion, in various decades.   There is even an overall villain, the previous Mystery Solving Club’s anthropomorphic side-kick, Professor Pericles, played by scenery chewing Udo Kier.

In the end, though, the storyline comes to a close and manages to effectively tie in all the history surrounding the various incarnations of the show.   They’ve been here before.   In each generation, the mystery solving group has never been able to free the demonic entity controlling their fates.   Much like the ridiculous plot to LOST, the latest version of Mystery, Inc. serves to meet that end, and they do.  But they also defeat the demon and reboot their own history.   All of the bad things never happened.  All of the masked monsters never got caught because they were not brought together to solve mysteries.  They were just kids in a town that was no longer the Most Haunted Town in America.  Except that Harlan Ellison, playing himself noticed, as did they.   He said they changed something that affected them remembering the alternate timeline.   He asks them to come to… get ready for it… Miskatonic University.  So, in essence, they set out on the road, just like they did in every iteration of Scooby-Doo.   Sometimes they are with Fred and Velma… sometimes they are with Flim Flam or Scrappy-Doo.  Sometimes they are with guest stars.   In any case, the explanation for all the different versions of Scooby-Doo cartoons are contained in this one episode. 

Pure. Genius.

I usually hate this kind of thing.   You know.  The turtles are aliens.   Yeah, but it totally works in this fashion.  In fact another full length movie that came out recently was very well done.    Mask of the Blue Falcon went for that crossover feel once again, but sort of went meta on the fact that Blue Falcon was a television show in their world, but not an actual superhero that the gang interacted with, when in fact the first episode of Blue Falcon indeed had the gang helping Blue Falcon catch the same villain in this film, Mr. Hyde. 

Jeff Bennet provided the voice of an elderly Owen Garrison, a play on the name Gary Owens, the original voice of Blue Falcon.   His take sounded so much like Adam West, that I In fact thought it was Adam West.

The references to HB properties are a plenty as Frankenstein Jr. and the Herculoids make an appearance at a ComiCon style convention where Blue Falcon was featured, signing autographs and waxing nostalgic about the good old days.  The theme builds on the apathy towards remakes of old cartoons and comic books that I feel every day.

As much as I don’t like my childhood being rebooted and retconned.  I like the direction some of these folks are taking.   Perhaps one day, we can catch Hollywood in a complex trap and they can give up their crappy ways, while exclaiming they would have gotten away with it if it weren't for us pesky pop culture kids.

Breaking Bond: Part Two of the Skyfall Review

Continuing the review of Skyfall by discussing the evolution of Bond Baddies over the years. Spoilers ahead.

Bond villains are of a special breed. Most have some physical deformity, ranging from the slight to the ridiculous. Most are geniuses in their own right. All are certifiably wacko. Over the last 50 years the blueprint for a Bond villain has primarily stayed the same; crazy, smart, well funded, singled minded, and short sighted. However, the latest seems to have done a lot of homework on his predecessors and then built a better mouse.

It always made me laugh how inept the Bond villains were. First of all, you knew from the opening gun barrel that James Bond would always return. The villain would never win. Even in the case of Casino Royale, Bond catches up to Mr. White… who is immediately dispatched in the beginning of the next film. But, in every film, once Bond gets his orders, he usually encounters the big bad by the end of the first act.

He meets Bond, explains pleasantries and then immediately tries to kill him with an elaborate, yet easily escapable situation. There’s a reason Austin Powers called that out. It’s true. In fact, it’s not even like Bond disguises himself to the villain very well. Even with a fake name and back story, the villain knows it’s Bond. And yet, they do the dance of one-up-man-ship to prove who has the bigger Goldfinger… or is it Thunderballs?

Bond has faced many lethal and quite capable villains, yet none of them have ever done the simplest of tasks… kill Bond. In Skyfall, the closest he came to death was being shot by his own team. Most rely on their henchmen, physically over matched for 007, yet the Goliath to his David. Easily felled, usually by their own physical traits. Odd Job is killed by being electrocuted by his own hat, and Knick Knack gets trapped in a suitcase due to his size. Maybe that’s how he got to Fantasy Island. Mr. Rourke found him floating by in a suitcase.

But you can bet Scaramanga’s third nipple that the Bond villain is probably the best role any actor can land in terms of having fun on a Bond film. In fact, Bond films are probably the only place where the villain can be free to be as outlandish and scene gluttonous without fear of totally overshadowing the blunt instrument that is 007. I don’t think Roger Moore or Sean Connery felt like Michael Keaton did going up against Jack Nicholson’s grand larceny of scenes in Batman. Bond is never the comic relief, he’s the straight man anchoring the film while the villain is free to take a jet pack ride through the stratosphere of over the top performances in a Bond film. Skyfall’s Silva seems to borrow most of his crazy…and hair care tips from A View To a Kill’s Walken, while carving out his damaged psyche and motivation from the same cloth as Goldeneye’s Alec Trevelyan, and finally a referral from Jaws’ orthodontist. While Blofeld is probably Bond’s biggest nemesis, his kind of villain is probably never going to make an appearance in the 21st century world of Bond and QUANTUM.

With the Craig era of Bond villains, we get a more subdued and not quite so flamboyant performance and back story… That is until we reach Javier Bardem in Skyfall. Le Chiffre is hardly bombastic, with his plans. He hires a bomb maker to blow up the maiden flight of an airline in order to tank the stock… helping to fund terrorism. He intends to make up his losses to his war mongering clients by winning it all on cards. He’s sort of a down on his luck villain that cries blood. In Quantum of Solace, we have a somewhat green terrorist… get it, green? Well, at least he pretends to be trying to save the planet, but it’s all about money in the end. Dominic Greene isn’t even that much of a physical threat… sure, with a gun, he’s dangerous because he’s nuts, but he doesn’t even appear all that smart… just opportunistic. His death doesn’t even come at the hands of Bond, but played as a footnote, related to Bond by M. He was found with two slugs in the back of his head and a stomach full of motor oil. Now, why they bothered to do an autopsy with the apparent cause of death as lead poisoning and cranial ventilation, I don’t know.

When we get to Skyfall, the rules change, somewhat. As I said, Silva could be most closely compared to Alec Trevelyan in his back story; a field agent who ended up being a little more of a hacker than he should have been, traded for other agents, betrayed by M and MI6. He finds his place in the Pantheon of Bond Villains with the three basic traits: physical deformity – collapsed face and damaged vocal cords from a faulty cyanide pill, brilliant – cyber terrorist extraordinaire who outwits Ben Winshaw’s young and geeky Q, crazy as balls – bent on revenge against M and MI6. But where other Bond villains rely on sophisticated torture devices and henchmen to soften up Bond, Silva used a very simply tactic; sexual harassment. That scene was ridiculously uncomfortable yet ten times better than Le Chiffre “scratching” of Bond’s balls.

Ultimately, Silva suffers the same problem as most villains. He is too hell bent on his plan. He continues even when all is lost. While chaps like Blofeld try to escape in their subs, like in Diamonds Are Forever, Silva hunts M down like a dog, asking to end it all. Well, he got his wish… and I’ll say nothing more.

Coming up next… Bond Girl Interrupted.

Being Bond: Part One of the Skyfall Review

The character is so one dimensional that he could be nearly faceless. As it’s been said, he is just the guy pulling a trigger, a blunt instrument.  Ian Fleming himself sought to create a totally uninteresting character, devoid of personality where things just happened to him.  He even gave him, what he thought was a boring name, originating from an ornithologist. Yet, for all his base, the character has evolved with every film, in five decades.  He has never been boring or faceless on screen.  Here now, a look at the ongoing evolution of Bond, James Bond.  Be careful.  Spoilers ahead.

Sean Connery (Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice,  and Diamonds Are Forever.   Six films, not counting the Non-Eon Film: Never Say Never Again)
Connery was all gruff and misogynistic, a caveman of class, but it was enough to get the Bond girls out of their clothes. His physical style was more brute force, a blunt instrument like Fleming's description. He quipped and straightened a cuff link, but he was definitely not the most cerebral of the Bonds. He’d just assume slap a woman for being obstinate. In the 60s, the sexual revolution was still forming and for a while, Bond’s ways were tolerable, if not applauded.

George Lazenby (One film: On Her Majesty's Secret Service)
Lazenby didn’t have enough time to develop a character.  He won the part basically by punching out the stunt coordinator during the audition.  The producers wanted someone who put forth an air of sexual confidence and assurance, but his brief marriage and loss of his wife proved to be a more intriguing part of the Bond mythos.  After all, he showed up in a kilt and got married, something no Bond had probably ever done before or since.

Roger Moore (Live and Let Die, The Man With the Golden Gun, The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker, For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy,  and A View To a Kill.  Seven films total.)
Moore was more regal and suave, sexy through chivalry, in a way. His one dark turn, kicking a villain’s car off the side of a cliff, essentially killing him in cold blood was somewhat out of character but justified. Moore’s Bond would normally have played by the Queen’s rules, giving the villain a sporting chance.

Timothy Dalton (The Living Daylights and License To Kill. Two films.)
Dalton was somewhat human and softened in a way. Some will argue his Bond was more violent and action driven. They’ll say his Bond was darker than previous and that could be true, but it comes from a sense of character. His psyche was conflicted and it humanized him a bit. He was the more evolved and sensitive kind of Bond, in a way. He was probably the most realistic Bond to date. His bro-mance with Felix Leiter in License to Kill was apparent of this.

Pierce Brosnan (Goldeneye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough, Die Another Day. Four films total.) 
Brosnan was called a dinosaur in his first outing by a, now, female M. He was a relic of the Cold War which had ended since Dalton wore the tux. This was a more PC world in the 90s and was no more evident in the dynamic between Judi Dench’s M and Brosnan’s Bond discussing his masculinity and perhaps even safe sex in this time of love and AIDS. Brosnan’s physical presence was a combination of past Bonds. He was capable of the physical demands of the character, but gave the role a more debonair, analytical approach. He could kill you with a gun or fight you to the death, but he’d just assume beat you tactically with his brain. Usually, his good fortune was sprung from luck, the right gadget, or timing. He was cool, calm, and collective. Looking back on the first film, it still holds up well in terms of believability, however, as the the films went on, it became increasingly silly that he could outlive any scenario he was a part of, including the silly Die Another Day paragliding on a wave.  But beyond all that, he also looked to have the most fun playing Bond. I viewed Brosnan’s Bond as a kid getting to play the greatest character ever. It was Christmas for him.

Daniel Craig (Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, and Skyfall.  Three films so far. Reported that he signed on for two more.)
I admit it. When Brosnan left and Craig was named, I was skeptical. He’s blond, blue-eyed, and only 5’ 10”. The shortest Bond was Timothy Dalton at 6’0”. The Bonds have gotten successively shorter throughout the series. I wasn’t a fan of Dalton, even though I watched the films. I grew up on Roger Moore and only saw Connery in Never Say Never Again or repeats of the earlier films during the holiday showings of the 13 Days of Bond on TBS. So, I went into Casino Royale… part reboot, part adaptation, part sequel, with a lot of concerns.

Then the song came out. Grunge doing Bond? Soundgarden’s front man doing a Bond song? WTF?!?! We had Shirley Manson and that was near awful but appropriate voice and styling for a theme song. However, this? How could EON recast this Bond and hire this singer? This will be awful, I thought. Then, I listened to the song and watched the trailer. I was more psyched than ever. Then, I saw Casino Royale in the theater. I was blown away. Not only had CR erased the stain of Die Another Day, it gave the franchise a much needed shot in the arm… or jolt to the heart, as it were.

Then, Quantum of Solace got mired in the bureaucracy of a writers’ strike, as if SPECTRE held the world ransom, demanding payment or else the world would never see another Bond film. Even though it was a financial success, most agree it is the worst of the three Craig films and probably in the bottom five of all Bond films, alongside Die Another Day and Diamonds are Forever.

What we do get with each successive Craig outing is a very different, more updated Bond. Craig’s Bond is one that is overall more physical. We’ve come to the point in film technology where special effects and CGI can cover a lot more than it did when Connery would drive a car with a movie screen in the background showing a rear view scene. Sure there is plenty of double work, but Dalton, Brosnan, and Craig did do a lot of their own stunt work. I would venture to say, however, that Craig’s Bond is clearly in the best shape. He runs in nearly every film. Hell, he almost does friggin’ Parkour in Casino Royale’s chase through Madagascar. As far as Bonds go, he also gets the most bloody. His face takes most of the damage, it seems. A piece of trivia: Skyfall is only the second time Bond has sustained a gunshot wound since Thunderball.

Craig’s Bond is also the most damaged of them all. He is a Bond that, even though is new to being a 00 agent, seems to exhibit some form of PTSD. I’m not sure if it was already there or if the death of Vesper and the torture scene leads to it. He basically loses the taste for death, even though he is a harbinger of it in the form of dead female bodies along the way. While QoS was more about bringing down the SPECTRE and SMERSH like group called Quantum, but it’s more about Vesper. It’s vengeance. It’s retribution disguised as job task.
By Skyfall, he clearly lives for death, perhaps even his own, as is seen in the opening scene. Whether his wounds lead to his dependence on painkillers and alcohol, or his feelings of betrayal from M and MI6, Craig’s Bond looks more like a soldier, unable to reintegrate into society after combat.

When Bond does return, he is pretty messed up. He’s dependent on booze and pills, his skills are off and he’s still damaged. But he’s the best there is. He gets cleared for duty by M, who is the cause of all this mess. So, Bond it is.

Now, he has to save the one person who hung him out to dry, M. M is the one woman in his life, that is consistently around, since there’s no Moneypenny…. *cough* yet. M is the closest thing he has to a stable anchor in this world. The closest thing he has to a mother. That’s the new twist on Craig’s Bond, his childhood. We learn he was orphaned at a young age, recruited by MI6 due to his parental status. It’s not supposed that Dench’s M is the only M, since Ralph Fiennes takes over and we hear in Dench’s first turn mentions of previous Ms. However, this M’s portrayal is different than Dench’s M in the Brosnan era. Dench and Brosnan played it as an unwilling, yet necessary partnership between a successful and high ranking female in the 90s and a male subordinate, who is an HR nightmare, yet continues to be the best performer in the office. With Craig, the relationship transcends one of necessity and appears to be a grooming or a nurturing… I could envision Bond hanging out in M’s office during the day while all the other employees toil away at their desks, jealous of the preferential treatment. Yet, he still infuriates her. It’s almost become comical how he breaks into her home.

There is a devil behind blue eyes in Craig’s Bond. He is nothing, if not serious, but the comedy from Craig’s delivery comes from a more acerbic and sarcastic place. It’s very rooted in the humor landscape of the last 10 years. Connery’s humor was very simple, he was the straight man reacting to the funny things around him. There was a playfulness to it, but he wasn’t over the top in making quips. Most of the time he was reacting to Q’s idiosyncrasies or the names of his Bond girls. Moore was more of a English gentleman. There is double entendre or tongue in cheek humor to Moore’s humor. His facial expressions tell the joke, almost breaking fourth wall convention. Was Dalton funny? I kid. I really don’t pay a lot of tribute to Dalton who was probably the closest to Flemming’s description of James Bond. Brosnan was very jovial in his humor, very puckish. Craig is more devious and delinquent. Rascally in his mischief.

There you have it, my takes on each of the Bonds.  Coming up next time, a look at the evolution of the villain. 

Review of Skyfall, But First... Monologuing

I am a traditionalist. I like my adaptations played as close to the source material as possible. I like my sequels to be in the same vein as the originals or close to them. I don’t like reboots and I don’t like reinventing the wheel.

That being said, when you’ve been putting out movies in a franchise for fifty years, sometimes the old ways are the best ways. And… sometimes the material is better served being looked at from a different perspective while still maintaining that commonality of the franchise… Can anyone say “Crystal Skulls”?

Skyfall represents the latest in a series of films which franchise predates the death of JFK. And, frankly, Bond never looked better. But along the way, we need to look at the evolution of how we got from Connery to Craig and Dr. No to Skyfall.

I started to do just one post but as I ranted on for nearly three pages, I thought, “Might as well break this up into sections…” Call me Peter Jackson, bitch!

So, I’ll start off giving my thoughts on the Bond character as portrayed by the various actors. Next, I’ll go into the movie evolution. Lastly, Skyfall. If you don’t want to be spoiled, don’t read any further.

Dissecting Skyfall Trailer and Song

OK. Let me tell you. I am psyched for Skyfall’s release in November. When the trailer first came out, my 12 year old self squealed as if it were 1987 all over again and Roger Moore… or at least his stunt double… was dangling from the Golden Gate Bridge.

As more trailers came out and the Olympics showed us that skit with Bond and The Queen (Oh, the CORGIS!) I began to ramp up my excitement. November is now only a month away. And now, the announcement of Adele doing the theme has cemented that feeling.

I don’t want to get all gushy over Adele, because I have one friend that rags on her voice being auto tuned… but then again he’s a conspiracy nut who looks at 9/11 as an inside job…. Let’s not go there. Still, I can appreciate the lack of joy over a Top 40 performer being pegged to do an iconic turn as the Bond Theme Singer du jour. However, when you look on the names and talents associated with the honor, Adele fits right in with names like Shirley Bassey, Tom Jones, Nancy Sinatra, Carly Simon, and even Tina Turner. Don’t get me wrong, I love Duran Duran, Paul McCartney, and Chris Cornell’s themes, but there is something about a set of female pipes that just lends a smoky, sultry quality to the themes.

So, what about the trailer? (Spoilers ahead)

Well, from what I can gather, and I’ve not done a lot of reading, Bond dies. If this is intended, like all Bond movies, to give him an edge in his investigation I don’t know. After listening to the song, this is probably going to be the opening gambit, with Adele’s song coming on screen as Bond seemingly sinks to his doom after falling off the train, shot by Naomie Harris. The opening lyrics talk about holding your breath. Probably a good bet that this is how the movie opens. The second trailer goes more into detail about the opening scene, I think.

Now, I won’t make any judgments, yet. I won’t go and update my Best of Bond Themes until I’ve seen the film. I’m thinking that the new theme falls somewhere around 11. May need to reorganize that list. Until then, I will wait with baited breath until November 9th.

On another note, I want this. I usually hate buying collections because the newest movie isn’t even out yet. Though, this is the 50th anniversary. It might be a good idea. Of course, my only Blu-Ray player is my PS3. 

Pete's Possible Pencil Lead Explosives

Ah, the Fourth of July. A holiday marked with the cooking of flesh, both animal and man; the animals’ on the grill, and man’s from poorly supervised firework launching. Yes, nothing is as patriotic as celebrating the invention of America with an invention from China. All the while, displaying flags made in Taiwan.

I remember when the Fourth meant something. I remember a time in my youth where we travelled long hours to distant lands like West Virginia and Ohio to buy fireworks. This was a time after the guy at the little convenience store in Dunbar Twp. stopped selling “The Good Stuff”. You remember the place? It was right across the street from the Willow Inn. You used to walk in and see the smoke bombs and snaps and sparklers and a few tanks and boats. If you were lucky, they might even have Jumping Jacks. On a good day you would say, “Hey, Fred. Got any of the good stuff?” Fred would smile and disappear behind a curtain and you were walking home with illegal fireworks. That was when the Fourth meant something, when you could get bootleg fireworks from a guy in a gas station off of the main road.

I remember another guy, named Pete. He was a friend of a friend. He was the one guy who was 18 years old and just starting his senior year, again. He was the one who could “get stuff”. He had a tape to tape VCR set up and could get you porn, alcohol, and illegal fireworks; fireworks better than Fred could get.

I met Pete through a friend, as I said. It was right around the time we stopped being able to get the “good stuff” from Fred. This was also right around the time they took the video poker machines out of Fred’s. Which is also right around the time when Fred “went away” for awhile.

With Fred gone, we had mentioned the lack of quality fireworks being made available and my one friend said, “Hey, I know a guy. For $20 he can get you a quarter stick.” I was intrigued. I was also 15 and didn’t know any better. Still, this Pete was an unknown person. He’s probably shady. I was probably dealing with an element of organized crime and didn’t know it. This could be exciting. A man that could get me fireworks. He probably knows a lot of guys with nicknames like “Fingers” and “Boom Boom” He could be a cousin of Al Capone, thrice removed on his mother’s side.

We went to Pete’s house in his Custom Cruiser Deluxe station wagon, $20 in hand.  This car was hardly a ghetto hoop dee.  We called it the White Beast For Leprosy as it was losing paint everywhere.  I didn't care though, I was going to a deal. I felt like I had to hide the twenty somewhere in case we ran into the law. There was probably an undercover vice squad member watching Pete’s house from across the suburban street of the South Side of Connellsville. That was a shady area. It was home to the famous hacker, Billy Driscoll. He took down the Pentagon with a dial up modem and a Commodore 64. At least, that’s what we were all told as kids. He was like Matthew Broderick.

Pete’s house was typical. I think it used to be a dentist’s office when I was really young. It looked familiar but I couldn’t quite place it. He gave me quarter stick and it looked awesome. It was about the length of a toilet paper tube but made with a thicker cardboard, like a form. Both ends were sealed with paraffin and a huge wick stuck out of one. It’s bright red colored indicated doom as great plans were made. My friend Jim and I were going to have to plan the ultimate launch party. This was serious stuff. I wondered if black helicopters would descend upon us when the mushroom cloud dissipated.

We totally missed the Fourth of July that summer due to some unforeseen circumstances involving us taking our other friend’s VW Beetle nearly into the Loyalhanna River. This was the third incident that nearly killed the bug. The other being the great Summer/Winter Olympic run and the Lockout in East Pittsburgh. We made plans to reschedule the launch for another time. During those months we learned more about this guy Pete.

First off, he wasn’t that shady. I mean, to us out in the suprural area of Dunbar Township he was probably pretty nefarious; a world class gangster among us rubes. But, when you put him in a room with real hoods he looks like a pathetic dolt. One of the guys, who was five foot nothing and a hundred and nothing, was able to disarm and decimate another guy, twice his size, who came at him with a crow bar. Another made it an art to wear baggy clothes into a National Record Mart, in July, and get the five finger discount on Ice-T’s “Body Count” album. These were bad dudes.

The evidence mounted. We went out to a club in Latrobe with them and Pete, dressed in late 70s loud pinstriped pants and huge collar shirt, looked like he was Alexander Cabot III from the Josie and the Pussycats cartoon. Seeing how he interacted with others kind of put him in his place as the not-so-important, lesser, wannabe hood among the real hoods of South Greensburg. A few of them, “went away” or “went camping in Colorado” as they called it.

I soon began to wonder if my $20 quarter stick was really going to work. This guy wasn’t the notorious character he first appeared to be. He was actually kind of a dork. I mean I was a nerd but by the time I hit high school I kind of straddled that line between the nerds and the other kids. I could live in both worlds and adapt as needed. This guy was way out of his element among the others. So, it begged the question, “Did he sell me a fake?” Was this like that another hilarious fake deal I witnessed where one of the kids in my class sold an upperclassman a bag of grass clippings and claimed it was “good shit”?

Another year passed and we still had not carried out “Operation: Blow Shit Up”. The timing was never right. We didn’t want to end up in the ER with missing fingers but wanted to have the perfect location with the right environment. We could set it off at the beach but there was a possibility of too many witnesses, police presence, and lack of escape routes. We could set it off at the old ash dumps near my house, but it didn’t have a great location with maximum destructive properties. The only thing that would get destroyed was the ash and cinders. Who cares about that? It’s like a pyromaniac setting a waste basket on fire. Oooh, some paper got burned. No, the pyromaniac sets a fireworks factory on fire. That’s what it wants to see go up.

Eventually, I graduated high school and lived in a dorm on the Pitt campus. I didn’t dare bring the quarter stick to school. So, it sat in a box at the back of my bedroom closet. After college, I got my own place and was tasked with cleaning out my old bedroom. I thought about that closet, “I wonder if that old quarter stick is still in there?” I looked and looked and never found it. I even asked my mom if she ever saw it in there and threw it away. She said she didn’t. Then again, my mom probably wouldn’t know what a quarter stick looked like or what it could do. If she had, she would have thrown it out years ago. This is reminiscent of The Ballad of the Bud Under the Bed.

22 years have passed since I bought that $20 quarter stick that may or may not have possibly exploded when lit. To this day, as I set off crappy fireworks that are either PA legal or simply fountains from a road side stand on 158 in North Carolina I think about what that explosion would have been like.  I’d like to think it would have looked like that scene in Bridge on the River Kwai or Force 10 From Navarone.  I’d like to think that there would have been a hole in the world after that puppy blew up. Someday. Someday I may find that quarter stick and see the magic of a $20 piece of cardboard with a wick, paraffin enclosed ends and shaved pencil lead inside.

For more hilarious Fourth of July fun, check out Pittsburgh Dad. Those of us born in the 70s and in Southwestern PA will appreciate this.

Iconic

Twenty years ago, this Saturday, an album debuted that, for lack of a better term, turned the music industry on its ear. Nevermind, from Nirvana, was chronologically the second album but it was the first to gain the attention of a mainstream audience.

I was 16 when Nevermind hit the scene and, quite frankly, apart from thinking it was kind of catchy, I didn’t give it much more thought. I was more impressed with Weird Al Yankovic’s parody “Smells Like Nirvana” eight months later.

Two years after Weird Al parodied “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, the sorrowful, but perhaps inevitable happened. In the span of only three studio albums, Nirvana left an indelible mark on the recording industry, kicked off a new style of music and left fans befuddled and bewildered when the lead singer, Kurt Cobain, took a shotgun and ended his life.

I was a Freshman in college. I was struggling through my second semester in a new, urban school setting, and I was pissed off at the world. I wasn’t pissed that my favorite singer killed himself. I was pissed that the everyday, casual teenager felt the need to dress like a grunge groupie. For an alternative music genre, distinct in its desire to be different from everybody else, there was a lot of conformity. There were a lot of people wandering around the frozen quads of Pitt wearing flannel shirts tied around their waist. Even at the age of 19, I was developing that “Get off my lawn” mentality because where I was from, born in raised in Fayette Nam, PA, you wore your flannel for warmth and comfort, not for show. So, as everyone reminisces and waxes about the impact of Nevermind, I will remember how stupid people looked, trying to light a cigarette in 20 degree weather, shivering, while trying to look like they were Grunge.

Perhaps it was fate that Cobain killed himself.  Perhaps it was undeniable destiny that, for someone who redefined Generation X from the 80s and "I Want My MTV" eras to the "The world sucks and we're all not going to be your sheep." era, should not live long enough to be played out and bastardized in the pop culture media of the RIAA machine.  Nirvana could not be envisioned as the poster boy for the likes of TRL.  They would not be.  Cobain's resistance to fame was that more indicative of fame's desire to have him.  He was going to be a star in spite of himself and maybe that is what killed him more.  

Denis Leary joked that someone should have walked up to Elvis and shot him in the head at an early age instead of leaving us with the lasting vision of him dead and bloated on a toilet.    The Cobain legacy played out exactly as he would have hated it, in the courts fighting over who gets more ownership of his existence, Nirvana or Courtney Love.   His only way of existing was to cease to exist.  Could you imagine Cobain being relegated to countless greatest hits albums, selling out an image to maintain relevance? 

Spanning the last 50 years, look at those who died before their fame truly became bigger than the artist.  Jimmy Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, and the latest addition Amy Winehouse, though her inclusion is in question because of the freshness of her death.  Time will tell whether she becomes more famous, now.
On a similar yet different note, two months after Nevermind was released, the music industry lost an even more iconic symbol. On November 24, 1991, Freddie Mercury lost his battle with AIDS, dying from pneumonia.  Queen was/is a band who, as my co-worker put it, should be considered one of the greatest rock bands ever, that still perform, but never got their due.

Now, my generation is probably more closely related to Kurt’s impact rather than Freddie’s. However, I am prone to go beyond my generation’s predefined areas of influence and pop culture observance. Granted, I had never heard “Bohemian Rhapsody” until it appeared in Wayne’s World in 1992. And yes, I still bang my head at the appropriate time when it comes on in the car. But, I knew of Queen’s music before. I had seen Flash Gordon and heard some of News of the World and The Game, growing up.

To me, Freddie Mercury’s death was a greater loss to music. This is not to diminish Kurt Cobain in any way. Kurt’s impact was in the writing. Freddie’s was more overall based on his vocals and delivery. Mercury had such a stage presence and musicality. His looks were, in a way, unconventional, much like Cobain’s. And even though, they were vastly different in their styles and contributions, their influential paths were following the same direction.

Possessing over a four-octave vocal range and writing such iconic songs as “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “Somebody To Love”, “Killer Queen” and “We are the Champions”, Mercury brought a style of rock that had not been present in the 70s. There was a showmanship to his stage presence, flamboyant costumes, but those chops were unmistakable as Brian May’s Red Special guitar sound. They played operatic tunes, mixed with straight rock. They pulled influences from ragtime and blues. They had some disco and even gospel touches to their songs. Queen became a stadium rock staple culminating in one of the most memorable performances at Wembley Stadium’s Live Aid concert in 1985.

I still listen to Queen in my music shuffling. I assembled my own greatest hits compilation and from time to time, I’ll cue it up. It even includes Flash’s Theme. But I was reminded of how Mercury sounded and how much those vocals sent shivers down my spine when I saw a video of a Canadian Christian Rock singer band covering “Somebody to Love”.

Marc Martel has a bit of a resemblance to Freddie Mercury but his vocals are sometimes so close to Mercury’s that I had to really watch and see if this was lip synching or really his voice.  The main video of him singing, “Somebody to Love” could have been synced.  It could have been faked.  Just looking at t, who knows?  However, digging deeper, I found a live video of him singing “Bohemian Rhapsody” with a church group.  Amazing. 

How About This?

Parents who have even normal, everyday children will undeniably curse their offspring with the following hex, “I hope when you have kids, they grow up to be just like you!”

My parents never put this juju on me. For that, I thought I was a pretty upstanding child. I rarely got into trouble, and when I say that I mean I rarely took the blame. My one friend bore the brunt of explaining why we emptied out his parents’ garage with the grand idea that we were going to build a tree house with no prior architectural expertise or clearance to use sharp tools.  His Dad came home from work to find the yard littered with boards of varying sizes and shapes along with tools.   My friend had to clean it all up.  Me, I went home for dinner.

But I am here to tell you that regardless of how well you behaved as a little tyke, the curse is passed down whether your parents wish it or not. Take my kid, please. Kidding. But let’s take her, for example.

About two weeks ago she began asking for everything under the sun that she saw on television. My automatic and unwavering response to this was, “We’ll see.”  That usually stops the conversation right there. It’s like “We’ll see” is some magical phrase that pacifies the unending need to have whatever it is that she sees on that screen. Again and again she sees something else on TV that she wants and asks, to which I say, “We’ll see.”   She goes about her business and I go back to farming on my computer.  

And it’s not like it always about a toy. She saw some commercial for some kind of baking tool that makes cupcakes in the shape of lollipops that you can then put on a stick and decorate. Immediately, she bounded across the room and said, “Daddy, Daddy, I want that!”

“We’ll see.”

And it’s not like it’s always about what is on television.

This past week she’s been going on and on about wanting to go to Kennywood. For those of you not familiar with Pittsburgh, it’s our Disney World. It’s like Yinzer World. Since I wrenched my back a week ago, I haven’t able to move very fast, not like I ever did, but riding the Thunderbolt in my condition could have me in traction.

So, when she started asking about going to Kennywood, I said, “We’ll see.” I expected silence after this, but she came back with something.  Something that sent a shiver up my spine.

“How about this?” I stopped in my tracks as she said this. “If I’m a good girl, can I go to Kennywood?”

I was floored. My kid just tried to negotiate with me. As soon as those three words came out of her mouth I was transported through my entire life, all the way through high school. I was a negotiator.  I never remembered it, though, but it was true. My parents would tell me “Maybe” or “We’ll see” and I immediately shot back with, “How about this…” and then laid out my terms.

In high school, our senior class got to pick the song we would have played during the senior night halftime show for marching band. This was the song that the band would play while we walked up the field with our parents. There was an insane debate over two songs. Half of the seniors, me included, wanted, “You Could Be Mine” by Guns and Roses. The other half wanted, “It’s So Hard To Say Goodbye (To Yesterday)” by Boyz II Men. Remember, this was 1993 and we were still in the heyday of the Alex Vanderpool era.  It came down to a tie vote and the only person who had not voted was one of the drummers, who was one of the biggest proponents to disregarding authority. We thought we had it locked up. He surprised all of us by siding with the Boyz II Men voters. Not taking defeat likely, I went to our band director with the news. Then, I said, with sudden utter brilliance, “How about this?”

His eyebrows cocked to one side, “Go on.”

I spun this golden thread of bullshit about how we have to get onto the field before we do the senior night formation. Why not use that opportunity to show some flare and excitement. Then we bring it down for the actual calling out of names. He stroked his chin and nodded his head. “Fine.”

I had turned a loss into a tie and satisfied everyone’s wishes. We played both.

Snapping back to reality, I noticed my four year old standing there, wondering where I had gone. “I tell you what? You be a good girl and we’ll definitely put it on the list of things to do.”

Sensing that she had indeed met her equal, she said, “OK. If I’m a good girl, we’ll go soon.” And with that, she went on to bigger and better things involving her dinosaurs, a chair and the cat tree. I had dodged a huge bullet. I could tell that she knew I was against the ropes due to her sneak attack. I should think about sending her to Washington DC to settle the debt crisis. They wouldn’t stand a chance and we’d all be able to sleep at night thinking about our 401ks.

Till then, I am so screwed and it won’t be the government that has drained my savings. It will be my little negotiator with her insatiable need for all things  As Seen on TV.

I Want My 80s TV Back

Recently, VH1 Classic ran the first hour of MTV’s original broadcast for the 30th anniversary. Funny. Don’t you think MTV would want to celebrate their own milestone by rebroadcasting their first on air moments? Oh, that’s right. That would involve MTV actually playing music videos which they have said they don’t do anymore.

In fact, they even changed the logo, albeit they simply cropped the words MUSIC TELEVISION with the aid of something as simple as MS Paint. And how does last year’s decision bode for having the VMAs? Sort of like tits on a bull to show a Video Music Award show on a station that no longer shows music videos.

But this is nothing new, MTV… er, TV has been reduced to scripted reality shows for the last fifteen years. Such a far fall from television that used to premiere groundbreaking shows like 120 Minutes, Head Banger’s Ball, Unplugged, Liquid Television, and the self deprecating Beavis and Butthead which made fun of the same videos MTV played, and some it didn’t. In fact, MTV created its own demise with the debut of The Real World. How could we have known that one of the biggest trail blazers would be consumed by its own flame?

So, it shouldn’t be a surprise that MTV’s biggest competitor in terms of playing videos should get the spoils of playing its progenitor’s old home movies. After all, both networks are owned by Viacom.
Now, I was a wee Mongo, only six years old, when MTV first aired on August 1st, 1981. I never saw it. We didn’t have cable or that many channels in those days, except for stealing HBO. It wasn’t until MTV came to Armstrong Cable (South Western PA) that I got to watch and by then, MTV was huge. So, it was kind of like seeing it for the first time when it re-aired this past August 1st.

My initial thoughts were “What a waste of 10 minutes?” The first thing you see is the build up to the launch of Space Shuttle Columbia, which goes on forever. Finally, the shuttle launches and the screen transitions to the launch of Apollo 11, ending with Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon and the flag, emblazoned with the original MTV logo pronouncing that Rock and Roll television has arrived.

What a missed opportunity, in my opinion. For anyone not knowing what was to come, they might have switched off the television, thinking this was a joke or just a rebroadcast of the shuttle launch from four months earlier. In fact, I was thinking this was such a shame because it was the first hour of such a landmark event, and fifteen minutes of it was wasted on actual footage of a space launch from mission control and the launch pad. I DVR’ed the show because I had to be at work in less than six hours. I wasn’t about to stay up and watch what was possibly the first three hours because I didn’t know it was perhaps part one of three.

But there it was, the first breath ever in this world. From there, The Buggles and Pat Benatar carved the path for the fresh new faces of VJs to come on and take us by the hand into a brave new world. Mark Goodman, the first VJ we see, introduces himself along with Nina Blackwood, the late J.J. Jackson, Alan Hunter, and Martha Quinn, who still looks 21, today, ensuring us that this new experiment will change the world. And it did.

Sadly, we see this broadcast, on a sister station at a time when most kids don’t know that MTV actually play videos. Before YouTube or OnDemand, there was actually a network that played 24 hours of music videos. It’s like watching the early days of Elvis or Michael Jackson when all people today really see is them at their death, a shadow of what they used to be like in their prime. It’s almost a sad joke or a lie. It’s Toto pulling back the curtain to see that the Wizard is merely a humbug.

And, truthfully, do we really have music today that needs videos? The real pioneers and trailblazers are hard to find in the sea of crap. Maybe the 80s were like that as well. For every Peter Gabriel, Herbie Hancock, Madonna and Michael Jackson moments of genius, there were plenty of Gerardo, Right Said Fred and yes Michael Jackson moments to drown them out.

And even, even, Leonard Nimoy.

The One That Got Away

Way back before the Internet gave us the ability to make complete asses of ourselves, like I do on a regular basis, we had outdoor activities. We went camping. We did not have any televisions or game consoles or air conditioning to keep us indoors.

We roasted marshmallows and took walks in the woods. We swam in the lakes and played volleyball on the beach. We competed in camp races and other activities all summer long.

Now, most of those activities can be done on a Wii. That includes fishing.

Fishing is one of those activities that can be done while drinking which tells me it is not a sport. Professional fishermen should not be called athletes in the same manner that NASCAR drivers shouldn’t. Still, it takes a certain amount of skill and talent to be a Bass Master.

I am not one of these people; far from it, in fact. First of all, I don’t like killing things unless I have to. I’ll save a moth from being stuck in my garage as well as moving a caterpillar off the road for fear it will be squashed. But, as a child, I did go fishing with my father on our many camping trips to parks around Southwestern PA and I did bait my own hooks and clean my own fish.

But it took a while to get the hang of things like casting.  I had to have been about seven or eight when my father tried to teach me to cast my own line. Usually, he would cast for me and then hand me the pole. I would take it from there. There’s a ‘teach a man to fish’ joke in there somewhere, I’m sure of it. However, on this particular trip to Keystone State Park he decided I needed to learn how to cast myself. He explained it very clearly.

“Push in the button here. Hold the pole tightly. Raise your arm back and snap your wrist. Let go of the button and then wait.”

I got it. I was ready. I was about to cast my very first fishing line, all by myself. I went over the instructions again and again as I pantomimed the actions.

“Push button. Hold pole, tight. Laugh a little at that. Raise arm. Snap wrist. Let button go. Wait.”

OK, I’m ready. I baited my hook and made preparations to cast.

“Everyone, look out. I am about to cast my line!” My words echoed across the empty lake.

I held in the button. I gripped the pole, tightly, still giggling at that instruction. I raised my arm back. I snapped my wrist. SPLASH!

That splash I heard was my pole hitting the water after it jerked out of my hand. “Oh, no!” I cried. I just threw my fishing pole into the lake. It was gone.

There was a silver lining to all this, though. At some point, during the raising of my arm, the hook dug into the pocket on my dad’s shirt. I had forgotten that he was directly behind me as I casted. The tip of the pole grazed his chin and caused it to jerk out of my hand. So, even though the pole was gone, the worm and hook were still in the boat. That was the good news.

The bad news was that I had already pushed in the button, so the line was free to unspool and it did, as the pole sailed out into the water, away from our boat. My dad cursed every way he knew how as he pulled 300 yards of fishing line out of the lake, looking for the pole at the end.

I spent the rest of that afternoon winding the line, which was now piled up in a mess on the floor of the boat. I didn’t cast by myself the rest of that summer. I was merely given the pole which was already set.

I quit fishing a few years later as it was no longer any fun to gut and clean blue gills. That was the only thing I ever caught. I was the blue gill master with only a few perch in my list of accomplished catches. I never let go of a pole again, though.

Today I am surer of myself as I cast. Why?

Because, I am sure to tightly grip the Wiimote. Then, I giggle a bit and cast my virtual fishing line. No TVs have been harmed, as of yet.

What Is Left When There Is No LOST

The series finale of LOST took place one year ago, today. It seems a bit silly to eulogize a show, let alone one that has been off the air for a year, but it is important to note that there really hasn’t been a particular show to pick up the baton that LOST dangled out there.

Love it or hate it, the last episode of LOSTis one that stirred a lot of debate and conversation, some frustrating, some enlightening. An indelible impression was left when the passengers of Ajira 316 left the island, passing over a dying Jack Shephard. Left behind was a dead Locke/Smokey, a newly appointed island keeper in Hurley and a reformed right hand man in Benjamin Linus.

As the embers of those feelings about the show started to cool, LOST fans desperately searched for another show to fill the void. The hopes for another show, like LOST, seemed in peril. Some fled to the land of Fringe, some to V and little went to the Event.

Yet, I don’t think there has been another show out there that can compare with LOST. Now, I don’t think LOST was the greatest show ever but in terms of the mythology and intricate story lines of redemption and good vs. evil, I don’t think you can find another that was so good at it.

I still have a ton of questions about the show. Some that will never be answered. Maybe that’s the allure. Maybe that’s the hold the island has on its audience. Because we never really got closure, we’ll never really be free from wanting more of our fated castaways.

Among the big head scratchers for me, still, are the decision to kill off Jin and Sun after spending a huge portion of the preceding season keeping them apart with Sun desperately searching for her husband while trusting the Man in Black wearing a Locke suit. How about the Lighthouse? What the hell was the point of all that? Was it just some special contraption used to bring Jack’s belief to the island to join the rest of him? The others, the true Others claimed that it was there island. Yet, we knew that they were most likely brought there just like everyone else. Why kidnap the children, do experiments on Claire and Sun, hold Jack, Kate and Sawyer prisoner? Why did they spend so much time on Walt and why wasn’t he kept around? What the hell was the point of the blast door map or the lockdowns or any of it?

I could go on for days wondering, and sometimes remembering, about what made the show so damned interesting and head-into-the-desk slamming all at the same time. In the end, none of it mattered. It truly was, as they said, a giant Rube Goldberg device. It was a overly complex machine designed to perform a simple function, find a replacement for Jacob. Yet, throughout its six seasons the show created such an addiction among fans, they were willing to overlook a lot of the flaws in the execution of some of the seasons.

Looking over the sheet of new shows for Fall 2011, there is a noticeable lack of enthusiasm on my part, much to the relief of my DVR, I’m sure. There is a J.J. Abrams show with Jorge Garcia for those looking to recapture some of the nostalgia of Hurley being on an island. Of course, this time it’s Alcatraz. There are also a couple of other shows that piqued my interest, but nothing with the same caliber of LOST. Of course, I said the same thing about LOST when the previews for the pilot episode started airing.

Season One Summer Promo

Not much to make of what’s going to happen from that promo. We see a spectacular plane crash, a lot of Michael Bay explosions and chaos. Then we see a man shooting a big fluffy pillow as it hurtles itself towards him in the brush. We get the final question which defined the show to a ‘T’.

“Guys, where are we?”

It was a whim, an afterthought, a slip of scheduling that I actually saw the pilot episode of LOST and that was all it took. Like a junkie, looking for a new drug to take, I was hooked. I was searching through my couch cushions for change in order to score my next high. “The first one is free. After that, you gotta pay to play.” It was so simple a premise. Take 48 people, crash them on an island, add unknown scary monster sound, and leave on a low heat. After that, it became so much more complicated and erratic of storytelling to even try to explain to someone who had never sat down with it from the beginning. Fortunately, here is an excellent explanation in three minutes.

LOST in Three Minutes

So, as another season in television comes to a close and we see a bunch of new shows get plugged and a bunch of existing one get bled like a stuck pig. Remember, we’ll always be LOST, together.

My Memory Has Just Been Sold

There have been many times where I have been embarrassed. I’m sure there are many that I cannot remember or have suppressed. However, there are a few times you have that total brick in the pants experience that you will never, NEVER, forget no matter how many drugs or MIB memory wipe thingees you experience.

Entry number 413 in the “I’ve been embarrassed by…” logs show a quite memorable moment from my first freshman year of college. It was… yes I had two freshman years. Apparently, in 1994, unless you actually took the exact same classes that Pitt offered you could not transfer credits. I was reduced from 15 to seven and then let culture shock take care of the rest, dragging me into academic probation by the end of my first year.  Where was I? Oh, yes. It was the fall of 1993 and I had started attending Coastal Carolina University.  My one and only semester there led to the biggest embarrassment of my then 18 years.

Now, I apologize for rehashing this but the layout of the dorms went as this.   Four people lived in a dorm / apartment with a common area / kitchen.   A hallway led to the back where four bedrooms were located, a double vanity and then three additional doors contained a toilet, shower, and closet.    This meant that all four residents could be getting ready at the same time.  One could take a shower, one could shit, and two could shave.  The dorm / apartment units exited outside onto the floor and you could have neighbors of the opposite sex.  The apartment directly across from us held four girls.  It was our own version of friends.  We came and went into each other’s apartment, usually at will, usually with nefarious intentions.

One of those intentions was to recover an item of mail that we had deliberately delivered to them.   Since one of the girls had a first name that could be considered unisex, it was easy for my roommates to sign her up for a subscription to Playboy, asking to be billed later.  We simply went over to the apartment, stealthily grabbed the latest issue from their pile of mail and returned to our place.  To give you a frame of reference, one of the three issues we were able to get, before Playboy caught on to our ruse and canceled our subscription, contained a pre-implant version of Jenny McCarthy.   Personally, I think she looked better then.   This was before the Singled Out, belching, farting, and Jim Carrey days.

Anyway, eventually, one of my roommates would go through the magazine and pick out the better pictures to tack up to the inside of the bathroom door. Soon, the interior side of the bathroom door became a bulletin board of naked women. The regular light bulb was even replaced with a red one for added effect. My one roommate made mention that the next time he went home, he was going to get some more pictures from his personal collection and add them to the door.

Fast forward to Fall Break and I am spending some much needed time back home with my family. After wards, my parents drove me back 12 hours to my dorm.

I would just like to break up this statement by saying my parents are nuts and I love them. They drove nearly 24 hours straight, three separate times, to and from South Carolina; my first day, after Fall Break, and Christmas Break.  They were truly notappreciated by the asshole that was my 18 year old self.

Now, after driving 12 hours, the normal thing is to have to go to the bathroom. Once we arrived, I took a load of items up to my room along with my mother. She stayed behind while I went back to the car to retrieve more stuff. Upon returning to the apartment, I could not find her.  It’s not like the apartment was that big, so she couldn’t have gotten far.  I asked one of my roommates where she was and they said she needed to go to the bathroom.

My jaw immediately dropped to the floor.  ‘THE BATHROOM!’ The door, the red light, Oh My God, my Mother!?!?!

I raced into the back of the apartment where my mother was coming out of the bathroom. She had a look on her face that spoke volumes. Had I the opportunity to find out I would have removed the four pictures posted up inside the door or better yet, asked our female neighbors if she could use their bathroom, instead.

I felt that the damage was minimal, even though she had that look. As she got ready to leave for their 12 hour return trip, I made my own stop into the bathroom.  Apparently, my roommate was true to his word and had ‘added’ his own personal collection of magazine centerfolds.  The entire door was a lesson in female anatomy.

Now, Playboy pictures are somewhat demure when it comes to the portrayal of the human body. Those original four pictures were juxtaposed alongside the more graphic and shall we say, revealing pictures that were added. Whatever these girls had underneath their skirt was just too good to share with just their physician.

I, now, knew the extent of the damage that was dealt at the hands of my roommates. That look my mother had now spoke tomes. As I walked her back down to the car I apologized immensely, again and again, for what had happened. I can only imagine how the ride home was. Seeing as how my dad had a bladder of steel, he never got to see what she did. Oh, to be a fly on the windshield.

Oscars 2010

Outside the fact that Natalie Portman won for best actress and The King’s Speech surprised… no one by taking home the rest of the top tier awards from the 83rd Academy Awards, did anybody really care about the show?
Let me put it this way. From probably about 1990 through 2003, the Oscars were appointment television for me. Being who I am, it would not be a stretch to say that the Oscars were kind of like my Super Bowl or World Series. I loved the telecast and the ceremony because deep down, I wanted to eventually be up there on that stage, accepting an award.

Beyond 2003, I had pretty much accepted two things. I was never going to win an Oscar, let alone be nominated for one, and no one else in my household or immediate family actually cared enough about the awards to watch them with me. My wife placated me a few times but it’s a rather long and boring ceremony full of people getting up on stage and thanking a lot of people until they are forced to hurry up and talk over top of the orchestra.

Also, beyond 2003, I stopped going to the movies with any regularity that would indicate that I have any exposure to the movies that are being considered for nominations. The sad truth is that the last movie I saw in the theater was New Moon and I was dragged there by my wife out of spousal obligation and the contingency that she would go with me to a movie of my choice. That movie would have been Tron Legacy… and I still haven’t seen that and it’s March 2011.

Now, if I want to watch the Oscars, I record them on my DVR and I manage to strip away all the fluff and just get to the award presentations and a few select pieces of dialogue and other presentations. In fact, I managed to watch the entire telecast from Sunday night in an hour and a half. I could be called a poser for not taking in the entire experience, however I see myself as a pragmatist, sacrificing a little Hollywood magic for time sake. Let’s face it. The running gag is that ceremony takes too long.

I’ve gone on before about how to speed up the awards and drum up ratings.  This was two years ago. Since then, they went back to the format of having the opposite sex winner from the previous year give out the acting awards which is much nicer. The In Memoriam bit was nice, although Celine Dion causes involuntary convulsions and they still missed a bunch of people. (Peter Graves, Corey Haim, Gary Coleman, Maury Chakin, and others.) However, the new thing with having 10 films for best picture is still a crap shoot.

And speaking of crap, the hosting was off. I mean no disrespect. I give credit to Anne Hathaway for trying to hold it together but if felt like James Franco quit half way through and she sort of carried him the rest of the way. He seemed bored or tired or looking for an exit. I imagine that being first time hosts and not well known comedic talents, the writers did not give them a lot of material to riff on where hosts like Carson, Crystal, or Hope would have been quick to jump on something. For that matter, the only real huge thing of note was that Melissa Leo dropped the F bomb during her acceptance speech.

And for the love of God, I give the utmost respect to Kirk Douglas but he put the nail in the coffin on the timing during his bit. He was awesome but it’s like watching Dick Clark do the countdown. You respect him, you give him your attention, but you wish someone would have been nice enough to say, “Maybe you should sit this one out.”

I understand the whole point of getting a younger class of hosts. The whole point of having Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin hosting last year was to inject a younger demographic of viewer thanks to Baldwin’s 30 Rock street cred. And it worked. This year there was a lot of social media integration with twitter and other platforms in order to bridge the gap between those who sit and watch the show and those who sit and watch the show while surfing the web for Oscar updates.

It used to be a lot more important to me to watch the entire show. To me, the Oscars were part awards ceremony and part magical presentation. Think of whole backstage allure of the theater. What goes on in the wings and in the green room? I remember a few years ago there was a gauntlet the winners would run and there would be footage of them after their win talking about or adding additional footnotes to their speeches. With shows like 30 Rock and my guilty “gone too soon” pleasure of Studio 60, I am always interested in what makes a production run the way it does. Also, you need to have hosts that are comfortable making jokes, attract a built in audience as well as new ones, and have the ability to cause moments of sheer fun to occur.

Billy Crystal and Johnny Carson were great because they broke that fourth wall and told you things that were happening. After the Jack Palance push up bit, Billy would periodically come back and say, “Jack Palance just bungee jumped off the Hollywood sign.” We need that back.

In order to do that whole ‘capture the magic of Hollywood’ thing I propose a radical idea. I say the host of the 2011 Oscars should be…

Wait for it…

The Muppets

Ok, I must admit I have been knee deep in Muppetdom this past weekend. First of all, I’ve been trying to introduce my three year old to them outside of Sesame Street. Yes, those Muppets are educational and kid friendly but the other Muppets, from The Muppet Show and the films are where the real comedy gold lies.

Pepe the King Prawn on the Bonnie Hunt show from a few years back.

Here’s Pepe and Seymour the elephant telling a dumb joke with hysterical form.

Now, Pepe isn’t a best usage case because he’s one of the newest Muppets. But looking at the landscape of the Muppets I can see a huge area for win.

First of all, having Kermit host the awards gives you that gravitas of someone who can handle the duties of being host. The opening number could be the various Muppets dropped into the scenes of the movies adding hilarity, not to mention you could dust off the “Muppet Show Tonight” song. Who better to provide commentary on how well the show is going than Statler and Waldorf? Fozzie could be writing Kermit’s jokes and have some back stage moments with presenters. Scooter can handle the booth and call the show while Clifford could handle other duties with hosting and presenting. Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem could be the orchestra, in full tuxedos, with Animal being the exception having his sleeves ripped off.

Rizzo and Gonzo could have a myriad of responsibilities that would lead to hilarity backstage. Piggy could be reporting backstage with winners. Pepe. Oooh, Pepe would be hysterical but I don’t know what he would do.

Seeing as how ABC broadcasts the Oscars and along with The Muppets, are properties of Disney it’s an easy relationship to make this happen. With Jason Segel writing the new movie which will air this year, that brings you your point of relevance to what’s happening today as well as your younger generation demographic. November is just three months from February and with home sales probably kicking in about then you have that on the minds of people watching.

Besides, nothing makes me laugh more than having a Muppet either binge inappropriate, reacting to something for laughs… which then grow to swell, or be abused. Having the Muppets exist in a real time environment, riffing and improving would be nuts. It’s just one of those absurd images that spark a memorable moment.

I may be hoping against hopes because to pull off this production you would have had to start a year ago in order to plan the design. I mean we all know that the Muppets are just the tip of the iceberg. There is a performer underneath a table or a masking, doing all the work. But I would want to have the magic not be broken. I would want the stage designed to conceal the performers as best they could, feeding the illusion. You have to design specific set pieces that allow for them to move around unseen but you could tape segments ahead of time to allow for performers to move to a new scene or at least exit without breaking character. The magic of The Muppets is steeped in best practices and I could envision a lot of ways to hide the “hands.”

Still, it would be a trip to see them pull this off and could be just what the Academy Awards need to bounce back into the graces of so many of us who remember the grandeur of the Oscars.   I'm not alone.  There's even a facebook page that I stumbled upon after thinking of this myself.

Will they succeed?   Ellafino.