Soulful exercises in futility

Somebody, somewhere, said confession is good for the soul. I think that dude was kind of a jerk.

Just exactly what is it supposed to do for my soul that is so beneficial? I just don’t buy that it is the equivalent of eating some green vegetables every day. My soul doesn’t need an aerobic exercise for its benefit.  My personal experience is that confession is good for some public humiliation. Basically, you are saying “here is something embarrassing you did not realize about me. Feel free to judge!” to people of varying intimacy in your life. Then mockery ensues. (The mockery may be immediate, or it may be timed delayed, but make no mistake, it is coming. It can take many forms or tones, likely dependent on each individual. One thing I feel is certain, is the mocking involves a May Pole. Don’t look at me like that, I don’t make the rules. The very phrase May pole is bad in and of itself.) How exactly is that beneficial to my soul? I think a more accurate description would be confession is good for keeping your ego in check, or, as we say knee deep in the Ozark, good for making sure you are not too big for your britches. (The phrases that have been absorbed by my vocabulary due to growing up in southwest Missouri are quite a collection. Honestly, how else am I going to be familiar with the term britches? Another favorite: Your barn door is open, when you fly is unzipped. The connotations of this are staggering.)

 Having said that, I am open to trying new things. Let’s be honest, by soul could use some upkeep. Ok, it could use some bleaching, dry cleaning, and possibly sand blasting. After 41 years, it is looking a little rough around the edges. If I could just replace it, I would, but I have been told there is not much action in the soul market right now. If replacement is not an option, I am willing to give confession try. Cue the mood music:

 

Well, that was dramatic. None the less, my soul is wearing it leg warmers and ready for a work out! Let the confessing commence.

-I don’t think the original Star Wars movies are very good.

I just made age 30-45 men’s heads spin right off their shoulders. I get it, I worshipped at the altar of George Lucas for my entire childhood too, but let me ask you this: Have you actually watched these movies lately? Each one is the longest two hours of my life. Wooden acting, horrible dialogue, and the most ridiculous names you will ever hear aren’t even the biggest problems. That would be the enormous amount of boredom. Just like every other all-American boy of that time period, I bought in completely. Every penny I had, much to my father’s chagrin, went into all the toys and all of the other crap. But looking back, I think I enjoyed the toys much more than the movies. Which seems pretty reasonable for an 8 to 10 year old boy…which seems to be the exact audience these movies play too. Which is fine! Just take off your nostalgia colored glasses when you try to tell me they are the best movies ever made.

-For a portion of my adult life, I was a Kansas City Royals fan.

This is a tough one. I have mentioned before how late in life I arrived at baseball, and when I did, I was all in on the Royals. I had shirts, jersey, baseballs, and possibly a tattoo (By tattoo I mean a blue KC I drew on my calf in a fit of boredom). In my defense, the tickets for their games where much, much cheaper than the team on the east part of the state. I was also just coming out of my NBA induced coma and didn’t really get the history of the game. Another not small factor, everybody I knew was a Cardinal fan and I am by a natural contrarian. I feel so dirty. I am sure there are pictures of me out there sporting Royals merchandise; I would ask you to kindly destroy them.

-I once put 25 fireball jaw breakers in my mouth at once for $1.

The confession here isn’t so much the act itself as much as it is one of my most proud accomplishments. Here are some details you should know: 1-Fireball isn’t a clever name because they are red and round candy; these buggers are hot.  2-With 25 of these in my mouth I look remarkably like Dale the chipmunk from the Disney cartoons. 3-The most obvious side effect of this endeavor is pink tinted drool. A lot of it. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

-In a mock election in 4^th grade, I voted for Ronald Reagan.

This was the only time in my short life I have voted Republican on a presidential ticket. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I am pretty sure I thought this would lead to more pizza days in the cafeteria.

Those are the biggies. Both Usher and I feel much better. I will give my soul some cool down time, and then march it onto a scale and we will see just how good this was for it.

The Heart Wants What it Wants...

Let’s consider this an unofficial poll:

E.T. is pretty ugly right?

I mean, empirically, it is pretty tough to argue that he is not, right? Here are the three features that stick out to me: smashed face, creepy long neck, and dumpy body. That is the description of every terrifying lunch lady I ever had in elementary school. But in 1982ish, I bet every kid my age had that little bastard’s face adorned on something. My personal experience: A hard plastic action figure (as collectors of Star Wars and G.I. Joe merchandise everywhere will tell you, it is an action figure and not a doll. P.S.-they are totally dolls) that had a little button so you could extend his neck to full creepy length, along with a red splotch on his chest* and the tip of his finger to indicate his weird space alien powers. It doesn’t get any more made-in-China ugly than that.

*Does anyone remember the Neil Diamond song based on E.T.? “Turn on Your Heartlight.” This could be the most embarrassing song to come out of the 80s. Good God, the 80s were a creative wasteland. We had hit songs about E.T. and Pac Man. Anyyyywho, Neil Diamond. All I remember is him belting out the name of the song every chorus. It is as horribly glorious as it sounds. If you want to grind everything in a bar to a halt, find this on the juke box. You will get at least 25 “what the hell” looks immediately.

But here’s the deal-I still cry like a little girl every time when E.T. dies. Never fails. Plus, when he is levitating those bicycles, I could not love the little bugger more. He is a hideous looking little creature, but somehow he is more endearing to me than 90% of normal/handsome/beautiful movie characters I watch. For some reason, he got under my skin but good.

I was far from alone in this regard. That move made a gazillion dollars and was seen and universally loved by everyone. It is an easy one to understand. But I am sure there are some other things that are under most people’s radar that aren’t quite so easy to understand. This got me thinking some of the things I unconditionally love, no matter how goofy, ugly, or idiotic they seem to most people. So I have three examples, from three different forms of media. This stuff is not critically loved and almost universally ignored. But for some reason they struck a chord in me and I love them all dearly.

1-Terriors. This show ran of FX for about 33.5 seconds. Or 16 episodes, which is just about identical when we are talking running times. No, it is not a reality show about small dogs, but it obviously has the worst title ever. It is a private eye show about two guys who have a ton of baggage, self-loathing, and regret for two other shows. Did I mention it was really charming? I know that description would seem to indicate you would need to watch with the razor blades safely locked away, but you will just have to trust me. I love how irreverent it is and how the characters are fully shaded people making real decisions. Plus, it has Donal Logue who is just great in everything. Another thing he is in that you probably haven’t heard of is The Tao of Steve. Go check it out, it is pretty great as well.

2-Goon

I arrived to hockey pretty late in life. What can I say, there weren’t a lot of pick-up ice hockey games breaking out in southwest Missouri winters. The sport has grown on me a great deal, though I couldn’t tell you 85.6% of the rules. If you haven’t guessed this is a hockey movie, but you will not have to be a fan to enjoy it. Like all of the best sport movies, it is set in the minor leagues (very much like the best baseball move Bull Durham), and that rough around the edges feel really helps it. This is a completely profane and violent movie that wears its black and blue heart right out on its sleeve. Seann William Scott plays something other than Stiffler’s mom for once, Allison Pill (who is completely wasted on The News Room) is delightful. She plays the love interest as a damaged alcoholic girl who sleeps around too much and makes it work. And Live Schreiber is as good as he has ever been. Just go watch it already.

3-I Love You Beth Cooper-I am talking the book and not the horrid movie here*. The premise of both is the same, but execution is everything. A nerdy high school valedictorian decides to tell a girl he loves her during her commencement speech; hijinks ensue. Dennis, the main character has every possible form of physical abuse and humiliation done to him over the course of the book, but when things finally turn his way…the whole thing just makes me smile. I am pretty sure you can buy this book for about 25 cents now. If you think about this list, I have really provided you with a really cheap week or so of entertainment.

*Why do people let Chris Columbus direct anything? He has never met a kick-to-the-groin joke he doesn't like. So subtle, Mr. Columbus, so subtle.

As I look at that list I see a lot of things in common: Damaged characters, seeking and gaining redemption after some trials…maybe I need the number of a good therapist. Or maybe seeing the common thread is a good thing. I don't know. I am sure everybody has their weird things that they have an unreasonable blind spot for (and I would love to see other people's lists). They say a mother loves her ugly child the most.

It's a Mad House!

Is there a greater over the top performance than Charlton Heston in Planet of the Apes?

I realize I continue to make this timeliest blog you have ever read by referencing a move that was released 45 years ago, but bear with me. (Cut me some slack, the 206^th sequel ((all numbers, as always, are approximate)) is coming out this summer, so it still must be part of the cultural zeitgeist on some level. I am fairly confident I haven’t referenced a movie less than 30 years old at any point.) To be fair to Mr. Heston, the performance fits right in. After all, we are talking about a movie where apes have passed humans on the evolutionary ladder and taken over the world.* Overacting is not only accepted, it is encouraged.

*Let’s pause for one brief editorial comment. The special effects in this movie consist of people in monkey suits. In monkey suits! I know people under the age of 25 don’t remember when a computer didn’t just fill in the more fantastic elements of a movie, but I promise, it happened. Here is a little secret for free: The movie is a thousand times better for it. Don Draper’s kid sums up my feelings about the movie best: http://youtu.be/yy_U-PeRY1k. Indeed, Bobby Draper, indeed.)

Let’s move past the fact that Charlton spends the vast majority of the film in some kind of fur loin cloth engineered to make late 60’s ladies swoon. There are three or four moments in the film where his outrage, his complete disbelief of the situation boils over and Charlton, eyes bulging with outrage and shock, bellows out the most fantastic asides of all time. “A PLANET WHERE APES EVOLVE FROM MEN?”

“YOU BLEW IT UP, DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL”, and, my personal favorite, “IT’S A MADHOUSE, A MADHOUSE!” This happens approximately every 24 minutes and if fabulous every single time.* Charlie really sells it; he cannot believe the pile of crazy monkey dung he has found himself in.

*I cannot overstate how much fun it is to yell these lines out in wildly inappropriate situations. The next time you are out for a social function try it. It is crazy addictive. “GET YOUR PAWS OFF ME YOU DAMN DIRTY APE!

Lately I know exactly how he feels. (This your signal to buckle in for a rapid change in tone.)

The ball got rolling in the late afternoon of April 20, two-thousand-aught-fourteen, when my phone blew up with a CNN alert. It was something to the effect of “Shooting at Kansas City Jewish Center.” At this point, there weren’t a whole lot of details. Sadly, as far as shootings in the 21^st century go, it was fairly tame. Beyond that, unlike the multiple school shootings over the last few years, the motivation seemed obvious, as fucked up and evil as it was: A crazy person or persons decided to shoot some Jewish people.

The next domino fell on Monday. I received a text from a friend who was certain the shooter had spoken to her college class at Missouri State about a year or so earlier. He was there as a face of white supremacy and the talk went about how you would expect in a diverse higher education class room in 2014. At one point, my friend, to her courage and credit, confronted him on what he was saying about her people, her heritage. His reply was a racial slur. Bigots are really known for their elegancy. At the time it made for an interesting and disturbing story. Now that the speaker has killed a few people, it moved rapidly into horrifying. What do you do with the knowledge that you stood up to a guy capable of cutting you down and feel 100% justified due to some idiotic and paranoid beliefs? At the least, it is a “step back and reconsider things” moment.

News stories with more details came out around the same time. Three people were killed by this mad man and small details about them were starting to slip out, and our next step toward the mad house quickly followed. Two of the victims were a grandfather and his grandson who had been at the center for a singing competition….who were not even Jewish.

This guy had gotten himself worked up enough to drive three hours to shoot down his sworn enemies…and shot totally different people. Don’t get me wrong-this does not make it less or more tragic and does not take away from the fact that these people were murdered. I am just trying to point out what kind of asshole we are dealing with. A guy whose entire life was dedicated to hating people with no good reason other than his paranoid pea brain sized mind, and he mowed down people who just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. I hope he knows this and is tormented by it.

By now we are at midweek, and this story has already horrified me to the bone. Surely it can’t get any worse, right? Not so fast, my friend.

I was surfing around on a will-not-be-named news site (it rhymes with Kawker) had a story with a headline of “Missouri Mayor ‘Kind of Agrees’ With Alleged Kansas Shooter About Jews.”  My stomach dropped. Here is one thing in my 41 years that seems to happen more often the older I get and I understand less and less: No matter how horrible an act is, someone will show up to defend it within a matter of days.

Hey, I am not some sort of Pollyanna. I realize this is the world we live in, where we all have an uncensored outlet and the only way to raise above the din is to be outrageous one way or the other. This is the reality, but there is nothing that says I have to like it.

Let’s break this down: You are in an elected office, meaning you have to be able to court people to a certain degree. There is a tragedy that happened somewhere else in your state and you can’t wait to tell the first microphone that shows up in front of your moronic mouth how the killer was a pretty decent guy and was on the right track about a few things. This guy could not wait to line up with Team Crazy Town, also known as Team Hate Crime.

At this point, I was disgusted with people in general. I should have stopped at the headline.

Upon further reading, I discovered this is the mayor of Marionville, MO. The NEWLY ELECTED mayor of Marionville, MO. A town about 25 miles to southwest from me currently and maybe even less than that from where I grew up. In other words, pretty darn close.

Up to this point, and usually with these kind of stories, I can look through my telescope of rational thought to the far off places where these kind of things happen and take comfort in the distance between there and here, physically and culturally. Those places might as well have been Oz (the “Over the Rainbow” one, not the HBO scary prison one. I thought the clarification was necessary given the tone of this conversation.) to me. But this was something completely different.

Let me take this second to acknowledge the more serious, stare at my belly button, tone of this. I know usually I am busy flailing away at attempting to be funny, and I will get back that next time, for better or worse. Every development in this story has clicked closer and closer to my inner circle with this last one being the most disturbing. Marionville, MO, a town just “down the road” has elected, to their highest office, a man who feels it is prudent to identify with a racist, paranoid assassin. These are people who grew up in the same time frame I did, with the same kind of education influences, cultural influences, and religious influences I did. We all got tossed into the same juicer, so how did they come out as crazy sauce?

I don’t have any answers. The old man voice in my head just throws his hands up and says he doesn’t understand the world anymore. The younger, idealist in me argues that the ugliest things in the world, the bigotry, the hatred, and the violence, are insidious and they know how to make an entrance. They have to remain hiding in the shadows to survive. But events like this one make it a little harder to believe.

For one week, I am right there with Charlie Heston, fist clinched and raised yelling “It’s a madhouse!” I think he got off easy though; he only had to deal with some monkeys.

Big Events

My life currently is pretty devoid of big events.

Most of my friends who are ever going to get married are. No bellies are swelling with babies. Since leaving age 40 in my rearview, birthdays haven’t been packed with pizazz either. (Now every January 4 is just met with a sigh of relief that all my body parts are still in working order. For the most part.) This lack of big formal shindigs has forced me to put an inordinate amount of importance on some pretty mundane things.* Three of the biggies fall in this nether region of the calendar that is February through April. Sadly, all involve a lot of me staring at the television and experiencing a heap of vicarious experience. But on the positive side, none of them involve me having to wear a tie, match the color of socks to my belt, or any personal hygiene more intense than an every-other-day shave.

*I feel like there was a whole bunch of big events when I was younger. It always seemed like something was coming up, be it proms (voluntary formal wear), graduations (diplomas and gifts involving money), and weddings (my first open bars). I remember getting amped up for teacher meetings because of the days off from school. My standards may have been a bit low. The moral of the story is, nothing in life seems as cool once you lose summer vacation.)

For brevity’s sake, I am leaving out the extremely mundane things, movie premiers and TV show finales. (I can’t move forward without mentioning this: I am writing this a few hours after watching the How I Met Your Mother series finale. Yes, that sentence alone is worth every ounce of ridicule you have been storing up. Go ahead and let it out, I can wait. Finished? Anyway, I watched all one hour of it and it was horrible. Just…bad. I am running the finale of Breaking Bad in the background to the taste out of my mouth. So if things turn a little dark and methy, you know why.)

Let’s run it down chronologically-

February:

The Oscars. I wish I could tell you why I was addicted to this show, but it is just beyond me. There is no reason for a heterosexual man to be this interested in the movies’ dog and pony show each year. But I am there without fail, soaking in it like a sponge. I should probably find a support group to meet with.

I understand, there is plenty to hate about the broadcast. I loathe the rundown of who wore what and who looked best in it and blah blah blah my head just exploded. I can’t tell one designer from the next. Here is what the pre-show red carpet show looks like to me: ‘Look! A blonde, skinny 20 something actress in a fancy dress! Oh wait, there is a brunette 20 something in a fancy dress! Those girls look hungry, I wish someone would give them a sandwich.” Repeat for 30 minutes and you know what it is like in my head.

The other things that baffles me about the Oscars is how much crap people give the hosts. I don’t know why any quaso-comedian/personality/hose would ever agree to do it. The Monday morning* after the awards is a parade of columns about how horrible the host was for a multiple of reasons. They were in the wrong format/too stiff/not interesting/played it too safe/misogynistic. It is literally a no-win situation, unless you are Billy Crystal in the 80s or Johnny Carson for like 50 years before that. Please, Tina Fey and Amy Pohler, don’t’ ever do it; I can’t take the abuse you will undoubtedly get.

*Why are all award shows on Sunday? I feel like it is a subtle way to shove it normal peoples’ faces how rich and famous you are. “Oh it’s Sunday, I am so rich and famous I don’t’ have to worry about getting up and going to work and starting the work week.” Sorry I have a real job, various Academies.

 

I think there are two reasons I got so sucked into the Oscars. One, the many, many clips. At the ripe age young age of 13ish, there was no way I was seeing clips of critically acclaimed independent or foreign movies other than the Oscars*. I consider it educational programming, like Sesame Street.

*The Moxie is an independent theater currently in Springfield, MO. It specializes is showing independent films, foreign films, and documentaries. A teenage Michael Allhands with a Premiere Magazine subscription would have killed somebody for this kind of theater. Instead, I was stuck trying to rent the one copy of Do the Right Thing from the local video store.

Number two, there used to be a whole heck of a lot more surprise involved. In the pre-internet days, there could be a great deal of mystery about who won. Now, if you read any entertainment web site at all, you know exactly who will win.*

*12 Years a Slave won best picture this year. I have not seen it, so I suppose this means I am a racist. As for the nominated movies, I felt like Her and Gravity were the best. However, the Spectacular Now was the best movie I saw last year.

March:

The NCAA Tournament. The odd things is I am not particularly a big fan of college sports. I have never understood cheering for a school where I have never set foot on the campus, let alone attended for a second. Being a Missouri State alum, that means I have a rooting interest in tournament games about every 15 years. Yet every March I take the first Thursday and Friday of the tournament off, gorge myself for two solid days of basketball at a local establishment that has many televisions and adult beverages, and root like crazy for upsets.*

*A few years ago the first day fell on St. Patrick’s Day. I hope all evidence of my activity that day have been destroyed.

Some observations:

-Within the 48 hours, it becomes very hard not to hate the word “bracket.” I start to feel like I am stuck in The Manchurian Candidate and bracket is the work that triggers me to start assassinating people. At least that is what I am going to tell the authorities. In addition to people going on and on about how their brackets are doing, who do you have in your bracket, and I really need this team to win for my bracket there are about one million web sites who do their own “creative” pop culture brackets. I have seen things like brackets of Most Annoying People, to Best Characters in the Wire, to Worst Names of the Year. And yes, I read every single one. Stop the insanity!

-I see about the same five commercials over and over. The most annoying are promos for the 501^st version of CSI, ads for local attorneys (if I ever have to hire an attorney who is running ads on local TV, something has gone horribly wrong), and, new to this year, was Pringles. The Pringles ad slogan was “You don’t just eat ‘em!” Really, Pringles? Because I am pretty sure I just eat them. I am really not sure what else you want me to do with them. Build an addition to my home? Make very salty necklaces? I think I will stick with just eating them.

-Any year Duke is out in their first game is a success.

April:

Opening day of baseball season. Yes, I am one of those air bags who loves to wax poetic about the new baseball season every year. No one wants to spend a lot of time in conversation with “that guy.” So, I will try to spare you. Just go watch the James Earl Jones in Field of Dreams, I can’t put it any better than that. (Why are baseball movies by far the best sports movies? It has to have something to do with the pace of the game, right? It is really easy to insert witty or dramatic dialogue into a sport that require standing around for at least 80% of the actual game time.)

I am a walking cliché when it comes to baseball. My youth (which makes it sound much more important than it actually was) was spent bowing at the altar of the NBA. You can’t blame me; I was growing up when Magic and Bird were in their prime and Jordan had just arrived in the league. But as I have grown older, baseball appeals more and more to me. There is an intellect to the game that cannot be matched. We are getting really close to blow hard stage here, so I will cut it short.

So, that’s it, that’s the list of the big events in my adult life of big events. At least until I get invited to another prom.

The Hate List

Have you ever seen the Shining?

I realize this is widely considered the scariest move ever made now, according to those annoying critics list/polls that come out every Halloween.* My experience, however, is that very few actual living breathing human beings I know have seen movies that top any “Best Of” lists. Be honest, how many people do you know who have actually seen Citizen Kane? Vertigo? (Yes, I have seen these and I am a huuuuggggeeee snob about it.) By contrast, every pixel on my lap top screen claims to have seen everything ever made. So, going by my assumption that real carbon based life forms are reading this (and I realize, this is an enormous leap of faith on my part), what follows is a fairly big 34 year old SPOILER ALERT.

*I have always felt the Shining was a tad bit overrated. It is filled with a wonderful sense of dread and like all Kubrick films is stunning to look at, but I feel the whole thing doesn’t add up to what it could. I am a huge fan of the book, so maybe I am biased. The Exorcist and the vastly ignored Rosemary’s Baby will always be the scariest movies I have ever seen. (Brief plug: The scariest thing currently on TV is Hannibal. It looks, feels, and even sounds like nothing else I have ever seen. Please watch it, so I will continue to have something to do on Friday nights at 9.)

You probably know the movie is set in a hotel. In the basement of said hotel, is a rather large furnace that has seen better days. In fact, it is in such disrepair someone must periodically turn a valve to release the pressure that has built up, otherwise the whole thing will go ka-blooey.

Think of this as my release valve.

What follows is a list of things that at this specific moment of March, 2014, annoy me to no end. They range from the ridiculous to the slightly less ridiculous. All I ask is you take off your powder wigs, put down your gavels and refrain from passing too much judgment.

People who read the paper/headlines out loud to anyone who happens to be around:

-There is one of these jokers every place I have ever worked. There are 1,237 cable news channels (all numbers approximate) and everyone has constant access to the internet every second of every day. At this point we are one mother-may-I baby step from having the news of the day piped directly into our frontal lobe while we sleep.  So why do these people feel the break room is so desperate for a town crier? I am not sure what they think they are accomplishing or what the motivation is. The subtle brag that they can read at a fifth grade level? Listen bozo, yes, I have heard the top news stories of the day, and even if I haven’t, I am more than capable to pursue such information on my own. The level of hubris and narcissism is staggering-just because you have a paper in front of you doesn’t make you any more informed than the rest of us. Walter Cronkite you are not. Give it a rest. These people are directly related to….

People who won’t stop talking while I am trying to read: 

-Ways to tell I don’t want to have a conversation with you: 1) A complete refusal to make eye contact. Don’t mistake my complete my lack of interest of what you have to say for shyness. 2) My replies to all of your statements, no matter how outlandish, is a series of grunts. For example: “Have I shared my opinions about the current administration and how it is going to lead to the end times?” “Oh, yeah?” “Yep, I continue to work on my compound.” “Huh.” And so on and so forth. 3) There is a book open in front of me.

Why is that third one so difficult to understand? My only theory is that certain people can only associate reading with some form of punishment, like homework and whatnot. Well Mr. I-Have-Never-Read-a Book-Voluntarily, brace yourself for this truth-bomb- some people actually read for pleasure. Let that soak in for a second. Next time we are in a room or at adjacent tables in a fine eatery, don’t assume I am reading out of boredom or loneliness. Hold off on sharing your opinions of why the Chiefs are winning the Super Bowl or how many inches of snow you think we are getting because I am really invested in who wins the Quiddich match I am reading about. (Timely reference!)

Google Play commercials:

-These have been inescapable lately if you watch television at all. Someone is watching a recent movie on their tablet*, something recent like Dallas Buyers Club or Captain Phillips, and they suddenly pause the movie and unearth a bunch of information about one of the actors in the move. Who watches a movie this way? I am not writing a research paper about every movie I watch Google Play. Spare me your useless features.

* Item #538 of reasons I sound like a crazy old man: No matter how advance the technology gets, I am never going to get used to watching a movie on my phone or tablet screen. Remember when a really large TV was a sign of status? Please let me watch a movie designed for large projection on the smallest possible way to deliver it.

Boondock Saints:

I don’t get it. I have watched this movie twice and hated every second of it. Yet during any conversation I have about beloved movies this one invariably comes up, and it baffles me. I hate all the faux Boston/Irish ain’t we cool attitude, I loathe every single character, and I hate how it oozes with self-satisfaction and is just so damn in love with itself. Yes, I just went on a rant about a 15 year old movie. The next things on this list will be video rental rewind fees and how much New Coke sucks.

I have never met a woman who like this movie; every single fan is some lunk-head guy who just thinks it is the coolest thing ever. Blah. These are the same guys who…

People who make elaborate toasts:

I think it is the rhyming. The rhyming is annoying. Can we please take this drink without you living out your Dr. Seuss fantasy? Didn’t people used to just say “Cheers?” How about something subtle like clinking of glasses? If you really need to display your wit, here is a Sharpie, go write limericks on the men’s room wall.

Cinnamon flavored whiskey:

 So trendy! I feel like every few years some new flavor of drink comes out and is all the rage. A few years ago it was honey. Now I can’t go anywhere without people going crazy for cinnamon. I assume this is people who really like the flavor and consistency of cough syrup but feel weird buying Robitussin on a weekly basis. I get it, whiskey and bourbon taste, well, kind of bad. But I feel like this is the trade-off, a few seconds of making that “this tastes awful face” for the benefits of drinking. You know benefits like getting to make really bad rhyming toasts.

Adult men named Terry:

They are not to be trusted. I have zero evidence to support this. In fact, I don’t think I know a single man named Terry in real life. (Except for maybe Terry Bradshaw, via the TV, and I think we can all agree he is a certifiable odd ball.) This will not stop me from assuming they kick puppies, take your book mark so you lose your place, always want to split the check evenly at group dinners, and other general nefarious activity. But I am sure Terrys everywhere have nothing but good things to say about me.

That’s it, that’s the list. The furnace has returned to safe levels, the coals are cold, and we may now safely move forward. One quick disclaimer- I reserve the right to partake of any and all of these things at any given time. If you witness this, please do not hesitate to accuse me of hypocrisy. Especially if your name is Terry and you can do it with a rhyme.

I am Cliff Clavin

I have been watching a lot of Cheers lately.

Like everyone else, this means binging for a few hours at a time on Netflix*. I am old enough to remember when you were only able to watch a TV show once a week and cable was a novelty*. Sadly, this may be our greatest achievement of my life time (aside from erectile dysfunction medication, but, alas, that is a subject for another day): Instant gratification. Virtually anything you want is available in seconds; we are slowly eliminating patience as an actual characteristic. Yes, this paragraph reads older than anything other than the Bible.

*Speaking of Netflix, let me air one complaint. While their TV selection is fantastic (Mad Men, Breaking Bad, etc.) the movie selection is a smelly armpit. Here are two suggestions from me that you likely haven’t heard of and I cannot recommend high enough: Goon and Croupier. Just watch them. This is assuming they will still be streaming when you see this; what is available is less predictable than Bigfoot sightings.

*I also distinctly remember having three channels, four if you count PBS. Though if one of your family was willing to wrap themselves in tin foil with a coat hanger in one hand and the TV antennae in the other while thinking happy thoughts, you could sometimes pick up a fifth from Joplin, MO. This channel showed the exact same shows as another local channel, but it seemed more exotic somehow. This is the first time in history someone has called Joplin exotic.

Any-who, Cheers. For my money, this is the most underappreciated sitcom of all time. Everybody talks about Seinfeld, the Simpsons, and Friends, and somehow this gem gets lost in the shuffle. Hell, people talk more fondly about I Love Lucy and that show has to be 90 years old by now, give or take 50 years. This was a great character based show that managed to move from sublime to slapstick so deftly it has lead to it being so underrated. There is no Parks and Rec or the Office without it.

But I digress. What I really want to talk about are the characters, and one in particular. Cheers was made up of a group of people who spend most of their free time in a Boston bar. (Do not underestimate this show’s power: it actually made people from Boston seem likable.) If you have ever spent any regular time with a group of people in a bar, sooner or later you try to figure out which Cheers character you are. Many people want to be Sam, the lady killer bartender, or Diane the perky waitress. Most people had someone they could relate to, a character who was funny, charming, and relatable. But be sure of one thing: no one, and I mean no one, wanted to be Cliff.

People are fine with Norm, the fat lovable drunk. I even had a friend say they would be Paul, a wall flower who had maybe five lines in the entire 10 year series. No one wants to be Cliff, to put it simply, because he is a know it all. A blowhard. He was a fountain of useless, and often incorrect, knowledge that washes across the bar to indifferent and often annoyed ears. There was no subject too random, obscure, or pointless that Cliff would not offer some trivial fact.

No matter how much I try and deny it, this is me. Just slightly more subtle.

I mean, I am not wearing a full postal uniform into a bar, as entertaining as that sounds*.  Cliff’s modus operandi is to show up in his mail man uniform (short hand for someone who is maybe a little less important than he thinks he is) and loudly hold court about a whole lot of unverifiable stuff. The absence of uniform is not due to my own foresight. If not for technology I feel I would have been just as over the top as a character from an 80’s sitcom. And that technology is a simple blue box.

*The only uniform I have ever worn is a Cub Scout uniform, and I have the third grade photos to prove it. I am discounting football and band because you couldn’t show up for picture day in those uniforms and expect to get home with your humility intact. Plus, the Cub Scout uniform had a neckerchief. Come on, how often do you get to wear a neckerchief?!

I was first introduced to bar trivia about ten years ago.

I had just moved to St. Louis and my girlfriend/fiancé/future ex-wife/crazy lady who would later threaten to kill me really liked hanging out in bars. Like needs an intervention liked to hang out in bars. At the time, I was a very light drinker*, and the bar could get a bit tedious. And that is when I stumbled onto Buzztime.

*By light drinker, I mean I had never had a drink until age 31ish. I blame Jesus. My first drunk experience happened when I moved to St. Louis. Here is all you need to know about that experience: Grape martinis, passed out in a bathroom stall, and puking on a tree. I will let you fill in the blanks.

The little blue box that greatly resembles a Timex home computer from circa 1983. For anyone under the age of 30, or whose family could afford a real computer, picture a really big, basic calculator/adding machine encased in plastic. A Commodore 64 was the things dreams were made of in my family.  (Here is my only memory from computers at that time: Running that program that made the entire screen fill up with my name. State. Of. The. Art. Yet, according to the movies, people my age were hacking the missile defense system. I feel like you lied to me Wargames!!) It contains a full keyboard, which is never used. Essentially all you need are the 1-5 number keys to play the game. How it works: The typical game is 15 questions long, multiple choice with four choices. The longer it takes to get the answer, the less points you receive. That’s it, that’s the list. It is the same basic process of any game show, but with no spokesmodel or prizes. Except for “player plus points” which you accumulate every game and have no value or meaning at all, other than to show the rest of the world just how much time you spend in bars playing games.

Basically, you log on* and see just how much useless knowledge is crammed down into the dark recesses of your skull. It took me about 42 minutes to become absolutely and completely hooked. It started innocently enough: Something to do while my significant other got bombed on martinis. Win/win!

*Log in names, as you can imagine, are an interesting time. What is it about entering fake names into games that turns people into third graders? I am pretty sure there is a Pac Man game from 1983 out there somewhere with a top score by “BOOBS.” My extremely creative sign on name: Mike. I know, where do I come up with these things? There is little more humiliating than playing under your real name and losing to “Camltoh” and “Wang-ho”. It tends to keep the ego in check.

It was fun, for a while, basking in the glory of an extensive knowledge of 70’s Oscar winners, capitols of Pacific Islands, and bones of the inner ear. And by a while, I mean about 10 years. However, I should have been taking notes during Cheers. There are reasons Cliff is the most unpopular character. Among them:

-The isolation. It is a lonely world in the bar trivia universe. One man, one machine, and one beer (at a time). Hawthorne can keep his scarlet letter; that little blue box is much more of a pariah than some mild adultery. There are many options of what may keep people away: the fact I am hunched over what looks like a giant desk calculator, the fact I am staring at a TV screen like it is the last minutes of a ball game I have gambled every cent to my name on, or the constant muttering under my breath. (It is probably the muttering. The self-loathing after missing a question can be intense.) The one thing all of the reasons have in common is that they are self-generated. I have become an expert at generating a force field of “leave me alone” energy. The ways to communicate this are numerous; Batman’s utility belt has less options. Refusal to make eye contact with whomever is speaking is usually first off the deck, followed by grunting in response to any questions, and finally turning my body at a precise 34.5% angle away from the speaker/person sitting next to me/completely normal social person enjoying an adult beverage.* That tends to do the trick.

*This would be a good point to introduce this statistic: The number of girls met/won over while playing trivia is exactly 0.0. Here is what that pie chart looks like: 0.

-The disdain. I don’t know what it is about knowing stuff, but it sure tends to annoy people. People like to voice their judgments of you when you know ridiculous information about what state Mary Todd Lincoln was born in. There are lots of cat calls like “Who knows this stuff?” and “Someone needs to t a life.” Sadly, they are all accurate and true. The most typical reactions are: “There is something wrong with you for knowing this,” “you play so much you have these memorized,” and “I quit, I like talking to real people.”* The best way to avoid this is to sit at the very end of the bar, make minimal requests, and wear a hat. People tend to not notice you in hat. The good news is the end of the bar is near the servers’ station. They will be friendly to anyone. It has just dawned on me how many bar staff I have met playing trivia. Those people are the salt of the earth. Or really bored.

-The liver damage. Listen, you can’t just sit there and play sipping water. The beers tend to pile up after three to four hours staring at the TV and plumbing the depths of my brain. I can’t imagine my liver is a big fan of the game. Sadly, my scores seem to go up the more I imbibe. Did I mention meeting a lot of bar staff while playing this game?

There are certainly are more social hobbies. But if you watch your Cheers, Cliff managed to make at least 4-5 friends. Or at least people who would tolerate him. Trivia has led me to meet a handful of good people, a smattering of weirdos, and a large number of people I will likely never see or speak to again. This sounds remarkably similar to every other frivolous activity I have ever taken part in. At the very worst, it gives me a valid excuse to read at an unreasonable rate and in a random selection of topics.

Let me leave with this request: The next time you seem so odd looking dude sitting at the end of the bar, bent over a tiny game, and way into the random questions on the TV, take it easy on him. Don’t assume he has a social disorder or strange body odor. In fact, feel free to make some small talk or offer to buy him a beer. Just make sure it is between games.

...and Stay Off My Lawn!

One of my biggest fears is turning into a cranky old man.

Pre-middle age might be a tad early to worry about such things. I think in most areas I pass for my 30-something, advertising friendly self: My knuckles aren't gnarled and curled up like a tree trunk yet; I have full control of my bladder at least 99.4% of the time; the top of my pants still resides closer to my waist than my arm pits; I am still paying full price at my local eateries; and I haven't started mixing my adult beverages with Ensure yet. However, more and more often, I get little glimpses of the crotchety Mr. Hyde residing in my easy going Dr. Jekyll persona*. For example-
* Mr. Hyde was the bad one, right? I find it hilarious that after his transformation he was only Mr. rather than Dr. He must have been very serious about the six years he spent at mad scientist medical school. The fact that I am referencing a 125 year old novel is not helping my case much.

-A complete lack of interest in new technology. I don't have a burning desire to own an Ipad. Hell, I didn't have a smart phone until last year. I had to have special training to just post these little fevered explosions of my ego. If it took more than just clicking the "publish post" button, you would never hear from me again. Don't look so happy about that. In short, I am slowly turning into the guy who has to have someone set all his clocks because it is just too complicated for my addled brain.

-I have, on multiple occasions, eaten dinner before 5:30 p.m. This is "early bird special" territory, there is no getting around it. There used to be days I hadn't eaten breakfast before that time.

-I now factor things like parking, crowd size and what is on TV tonight into deciding my plans.

What's more troubling is a slight change in attitude that tends to waft in unexpectedly. Suddenly, little things just tend to make me cranky and light the fuse to a rant. I do a pretty good job of just rolling with it and not letting things get to me too much. But sometimes when you are confronted with the same inane things, over and over, you have to let somebody know about it. I feel like one of those cartoon characters with the steam blowing out of my ears and a spinning bow tie in those moments. My doctor tells me that smoking ears aren't a good sign, so for one day and one day only I have decided to embrace the grump within. I am going to unleash the rant and never speak of these things again. What follows is a list of the things I am inordinately sick of and annoyed by. There is little rhyme or reason behind these particular items; they are things just happily bouncing around my stream of consciousness.

1-Awards shows. This comes with the season; I can't turn on my TV this time of year without seeing someone get a shiny phallic award for something.  Is there anything more coma inducing than seeing a room of really rich and successful people congratulating each other on being so rich and successful?

Who is it deciding what is the best of everything anyway? I feel there is some shapeless cabal of mysterious old men, with long gray beards deciding these things. The whole thing seems a little arbitrary. Maybe I am too right brained, but I don't trust any results that don't require an equation, slide rule and graph paper. Awards should be approached like word problems: The Artist was the best movie of 2011? I am afraid I need you to show your work.

Truth be told, my biggest problem with award shows* is the constant reminder of how out of the loop I am. They nominated nine movies for "Best Picture" this year; I have seen exactly one of them. The Grammy's are even worse; it's a constant stream of bands and music I have barely heard of. It's like a virtual reality machine for Alzheimer's-a parade of people and sounds I don't recognize at all. I find myself thinking "Shouldn't Van Halen be nominated for something?" or "Would it kill you to give something to U2?" Evidently my musical biography stops in 1988.
*My second biggest problem is this cottage industry that has sprung up around these shows were we analyze what everyone wears. And by analyze I mean tear to shreds. I realize this is shocking, but fashion means less than nothing to me. I'm pretty sure these things exist so Joan Rivers can still draw a pay check.

2-Sports "holidays".  The most watched television program every year is the Super Bowl. Perhaps you have heard of it. Amidst the reams of paper* devoted to coverage of the big game every year, some sport journalist, being the original deep thinkers they are, always writes a column that campaigns to make the Monday after the game a national holiday.
*Seriously, reams. I am sure we have destroyed acres of forests to prospect of covering every minute detail of this game.

This is why the terrorists hate us.

Basically we are saying we are going to drink so much beer and eat so much chili, wings or anything else we can fit in a deep fryer that we should get a day off to recover. Here is the deal with being a sports fan: If you are going to get this serious about things this trivial, you have to pay the piper. And by pay the piper, I mean show up at work unshaven and miserable. For example, game six of the World Series was an epic event last year. It featured multiple come backs and drama, lasted for nearly five hours and ended in a remarkable fashion. The ending was so remarkable it called for, nay, required, celebratory beers and shots. Did I mention it was nearly midnight when it ended?

Yet at 8 a.m the next morning I stumbled into work. I smelled strange, there was something on my pants that could possibly have been vomit and I wanted to crawl under my desk and die, but I made it. The piper was paid. Getting to sleep in until noon the next day would have been cheating.

I noticed this same themed article recently in relation to the NCAA tournament. This guy argued we should actually get two days off work, the Thursday and Friday when the games start. Shut up and take sick days like the rest of us.

3-The smoking ban argument in Springfield, MO. Let me state this up front: I couldn't care less if smoking is allowed in public or not. It affects my life in no way. Last year, the voters decided that you could not smoke in any business and in fact could only smoke after descending through a man hole into the sewer system. Or something, I am a little foggy on the details.

It is now one year later and apparently the issue is going back to the ballot. Really? I have to endure all the posturing and rhetoric again? Fantastic. I have an idea, lets just vote on it every single year. We can make it a best out of 25 scenario. Even better, lets just make this a holiday. It can be like Groundhog Day. Every year we can randomly select someone and, I don't know, check them for a lung tumor. If we find one, 52 more weeks of smoking! Think of the t-shirts we could sell.

4-Election year politics. I don't care what party you belong to or your feelings about any candidate. I am not here to try and persuade you any point of view other than this one: I would rather get poked right in the eye than have to tolerate any more election politics this year.

It is a daily parade of inanity and ridiculousness and nobody is throwing candy, only rocks. We are deluged with a constant barrage of garbage about contraception, gas prices, health care, Iran, Rush Limbaugh*, electability....I think one of my blood vessels just ruptured. In my skull.
* Can we take a moment just to agree Rush is a horrible person and we should never be surprised when he says terrible things? I hate all the attention this guy has gotten solely because I am sure it means his ratings have never been higher. Bill Hicks, my favorite comic of all time, does a great bit on Rush; go find it on the internets.

Look, I have no idea who I'm voting for at this point. I have no prediction on how this all turns out* and I think you should vote for the person you think will do best. However, that's the problem: I haven't heard anyone speak about a candidate they are passionate about. All I hear is the venom about candidates people passionately hate. "The person I loathe least" seems to be an odd way to go about filling this position. Maybe that is because the quality of candidates is that bad, I don't know. Whatever the case, November is a long way away.
*I lied, one prediction: Newt's gigantic head will finally ascend from his body and float to the atmosphere like a weather balloon. Have you seen the size of that thing?

That's it, that's the list. I feel cleansed and optimistic. This will last at least 24 hours or until someone cuts me off in traffic on my way to the early bird special.