Random Observations From A Random Saturday

On Saturday, April 13, 2013…

The Carwash

I took my sons with me to the carwash. This was pretty exciting for my boys since it is an occurrence that happens only slightly more frequently than a solar eclipse. (My gray Saturn tends to look much more brown than gray.)

My boys loved watching the cars go through the wash on the conveyor belt. They thought it would be fun to walk through the wash themselves. Luckily that idea never got past the theoretical stage.  Of course, had I let them go through we would have been able to skip baths later that night. Maybe next time.

While we were there I noticed a mom with three kids—two boys of about ten and six and a girl of about four. They were all sitting next to each other on a bench looking at electronic devices. The older boy had an i-Pad and the mom and two younger kids had phones.  They didn’t communicate with each other the entire time that we were there. They were just transfixed on their screens. I thought it was pretty sad. In the meantime, my boys (the same age as the younger kids on the bench) were looking at the cars, the plants, the concrete, and asking me tons of questions about all of them. I was very grateful at that moment that they have not been electronic-fied. At one point the four-year-old girl looked up from her phone at my two sons and I can only assume that when she saw that they were talking to me instead of looking at a screen, she thought that was pretty sad.

Wendy’s

At the carwash there was a woman eating Wendy’s french-fries .  I noticed their heavenly aroma about a nanosecond before my younger son said, “I want some french-fries.” Gee, I wonder what gave him that idea. The Wendy’s is adjacent to the carwash, so as soon as our car was ready we made the 50-yard drive over there.

This was the first time my boys ever set foot in a Wendy’s. As vegetarians we’re not exactly frequent flyers at fast food burger joints. The only one we go to with any kind of regularity is McDonalds, because of the play area. At Wendy’s we got french-fries and lemonade, and this is the conversation that ensued once we took our seats…

Older Son: (Looking all around.) Is this like McDonald’s?

Me: Yeah, sort of.

Older Son: Only it smells better.

Younger Son: And the food is yummier.

Older Son: And it looks cleaner.

Me: Yeah, that’s pretty much the difference.

Bowling

A few hours after Wendy’s the whole family went bowling. During the third frame our lane would not reset despite our frantic button pressing on the computerized control panel. This forced me to take the bold step of notifying one of the workers that we needed help. (Asking for help at a bowling alley is only one notch below having to ask for directions at a gas station in my book.) The worker I spoke to then called over a much larger worker and told him that lane 14 would not reset. The large man breathed an exasperated sigh then went to the far end of the lanes opened a door and went behind the lanes to reset our pins. I was stunned. All my life I thought that a family of elves lived behind each bowling alley and reset pins as needed. Yet here was a man of about 6’2” and 240-pounds resetting our pins. Hmmm…perhaps he was the elves’ evil overlord and his exasperated sigh was because they were slacking off. That must be the case.

Garlic Bread

We had pasta primavera and garlic bread for dinner. I think garlic bread may be the tastiest food on the planet. I really have nothing more to say about that.

 

Bring Back Batman and Save the World!

Batman has been around in one form or another since 1939, making the character older than the combined ages of everyone in the first row at the average Justin Bieber concert. But for all of the various Batman incarnations in comic books, movies, television, video games, and the occasional puppet show, the one that will always be the real Batman to me is the one portrayed by Adam West in the 1960s TV series.

I understand that hardcore comic book fans are probably throwing rotten fruit at their computer screens right now. They may think that the campy portrayal of Batman in the TV series was an abomination. But that was my first exposure to Batman, and to me that is what Batman is meant to be.

Growing up in the 1970s I watched the show in syndication on a daily basis and I adored it. It was fun, it was funny, it was colorful, and it was surprisingly educational. (In addition to being acrobatic fighters and snazzy dressers, both Batman and Robin seemed to have an encyclopedic knowledge of pretty much everything. It was through that show that I learned the word “diphthong.” Look it up.)

Even after the mega popularity of the various Batman movies beginning in 1989, and the recent evolution of the character into the wildly popular Dark Knight persona, I still only think of Adam West when I think of Batman. His slow, deliberate line reads and ethics that would make an Eagle Scout feel like a criminal are forever etched into my memory.

Unfortunately, for now my memory is about all I can ever have of that show. Due to some sort of legal brouhaha between 20^th Century Fox, which owns the rights to the television footage, and DC Comics, which owns the rights to the characters, none of the 120 episodes of the show have ever been put on DVD. Happily, Batman: The Movie, which included all of the same actors from the television show and was released in June 1966 between the show’s first and second seasons, is available on DVD (not clear why there was no brouhaha with that one) but that is merely a tease. It’s like being given one tiny forkful of tiramisu, when the entire cake is under glass and out of reach.

This inability to see the show depresses me for two reasons: 1) I want to hear Batman tell Robin once again that he could tell someone is from Philadelphia because he “dipped his diphthong,” and 2) I want to share this glorious bit of pop culture with my six and four-year-old sons. They’ve seen and loved Batman: The Movie (especially the opening scene when Batman is attacked by an obviously rubber shark and defeats it with the shark repellent spray that Robin hands him) but I want to show them more. The only villains in the movie are the Joker, Riddler, Penguin, and Catwoman. I don’t want my sons to be deprived of the wonders of Mr. Freeze, Egghead, Bookworm, King Tut, and the Mad Hatter.

Someone has to do something about this travesty! I searched online to see if there is any kind of movement of like-minded people who are trying to right this horrible wrong. I did manage to find a Facebook page called “Bring the 60’s Batman TV show to DVD/Blu-Ray” which is kind of a support group for others going through Adam West (and Burt Ward too, of course) withdrawal. I’ve joined the page, so at least I feel like I’m doing something, but I feel I need to do more.

Perhaps I’ll write to my local congressmen and senators. Lord knows they’re not accomplishing anything else in Washington these days; maybe this at least could garner bipartisan support. In fact, maybe if all the politicians rally around this cause it would give them some common ground to build upon. And maybe that would cause them to be congenial with each other and allow them to feel comfortable enough to finally engage in constructive conversations around the major issues of the day. And maybe things would finally start getting better in this country, and that would give confidence to other nations to work out their issues. And maybe this would lead to peace and prosperity on a global level!

Yup, Batman saves the world once again.

Beard-rise, Beard-set

The last time I had a full on beard was in May of 1998. It was a real doozy of a beard—black and bushy and wild—the kind of thing you could easily lose paperclips or dice in if you weren’t careful. I had begun growing it in November of 1997 and did not trim it once in the ensuing six months. My lack of attention to facial hair grooming was not due to a lost razor or minor psychosis, but was rather the byproduct of being in a local community theater production of “Fiddler on the Roof,” in which I played the rabbi’s son. The show’s run actually ended in April of that year, but I held on to my beard an extra month because I was cast as an old west mountain man in a recycling PSA. (Note: My understanding is that this commercial was only shown in Yuma, Arizona—likely at 3 A.M.—so the chances are overwhelming that you’re not one of the eight people who’ve seen it.)

As soon as I came home from the commercial shoot, the beard came off. Okay, okay—not as soon as I came home. The process, which involved a pair of scissors, a beard trimmer, a handheld razor, and enough shaving cream to bury a Honda Civic, took the better part of two hours. But once that thing came off my face I never grew a full beard again. (About three years later I briefly grew a goatee to prove to my wife—who did not know me during the aforementioned full beard period—that I was a real man since I was unable to prove it through car knowledge, athletic prowess, or the ability to grill a steak. P.S. - She was unimpressed with the goatee so I shaved it off and instead proved I was a real man by providing a doctor’s note.)

Cut to the present day. It has been well over a decade since the last time I dabbled in serious facial hair growth. My cheeks, chin, and the space between my upper lip and nose remain bald. On the weekends, however, I do often get lazy about shaving. I almost never shave on Saturday and sometimes, when I’m feeling particularly rebellious, I won’t shave on Sunday either. This past weekend was one such weekend. As I was putting my four-year-old down to bed on Sunday night he looked up at me, giggled, and said, “Dad, you have a beard.” I tried to explain the difference between stubble and a beard but this concept was a bit too nuanced for him, so I just gave him his stuffed bunny and tucked him in.

But after I left his room, his comment about my having a beard stuck with me, so I decided to take a closer look. In the back of my mind I thought that maybe I should grow a beard again just to shake things up a bit. I went to the bathroom and looked at my stubble closely in the mirror. Much more closely than I had looked at it in many years. And as I gazed upon the two day’s growth on my face, a startling realization suddenly came upon me. My glorious black beard of yesteryear was no more. If I were to grow a beard today it would be mostly white—I would guess on the order of 60%.

Why this should come as a shock to me I don’t know. My sideburns are completely white and they’re in pretty close proximity to my beard, so logic would dictate that the beard would follow suit. And yet I found this whole thing disturbing. It occurred to me that if I were to audition for “Fiddler on the Roof” today I would be much more likely to play the rabbi than his son.  And then I found myself becoming nostalgic about my own facial hair. I gazed into the mirror and began slowly singing:

Is this the little beard I blossomed?
Is this the little stache I grew?
I don’t remember growing older,
When did you?

Then I shaved…and will every day for the rest of my life.

Tell Us A Made Up Story

Almost every night, for about the past six months, as my sons are having their evening snack, my six-year-old says, “Dad, tell us a made up story.” At first I enjoyed the nightly request—even looked forward to it—but somewhere around month two it started to become increasingly difficult for me to come up with a new story every night. At this point, it’s darn near impossible.

One of the issues is that my kids are ridiculously attentive to my stories, so I can’t just recycle stories I’ve already told them, because they’ll call me out on it. If I swap out a bear for a lion and tell a similar story to one I came up with a month earlier they’ll stop me three sentences in and practically boo me out of the room.

They want something new every time so, in an effort to come up with spontaneously new material every night, my stories have become increasingly bizarre—squirrels playing miniature golf, grapes that want to leave the produce aisle behind and see what it’s like in the cereal aisle, a superhero whose only power is that he could literally eat anything (guns, cars, houses, etc.).

About a week ago they specifically requested a scary made up story. I started to tell them a story about an evil wizard. I wanted to make him sound ominous, so I called him “The Evil Wizard of the Manu Ginobili Forest.” Since they know nothing about basketball and had never heard of the longtime San Antonio Spurs player, his name struck fear in their hearts. Every time I mentioned it (and I mentioned it dozens of times, because let’s face it, it’s just fun to say “Manu Ginobilli”) they seemed to shudder. It clearly left an impression, because the following morning I observed my four-year-old playing with his action figures and saying, “Manu Ginobili” over and over again whenever referring to the bad guys.

Most of the stories I come up with are completely plotless. It’s just me free associating without any shred of a story arc. Eventually I peter out after five or ten minutes and say, “And everyone lived happily ever after. The end.”

Really, the stories are not very good at all and yet they keep on asking for them. In fact, they prefer to hear a ridiculous, rambling story from me than one of the hundreds of children’s books sitting on their shelves. (By the way, stealing the plot from one of their books doesn’t work either. They call me out on that as well. “Wait a second dad, that’s just Curious George with a kangaroo instead of a monkey!”)

Oftentimes I wish I had my own dad’s ability to spontaneously tell great stories. More than that, I wish he were still alive to tell stories to his grandkids, because he was truly a master storyteller. I can’t honestly say that I remember any of his stories since it has been decades since I heard one of them, but I do remember the joy I felt listening to him tell them. His stories never failed to make me laugh.

And as I write this it makes me wonder if he had the same thoughts back then as I do now. Maybe he also thought it was a chore to constantly come up with new stories at the spur of the moment. Maybe he also thought his stories weren’t very good. And maybe his stories were every bit as ridiculous and rambling as mine.

But maybe none of this really matters. Maybe all that matters is that kids simply like to hear their dad’s telling stories even if their dads aren’t Dr. Seuss. So I’ll keep on telling them, and I’ll comfort myself in the knowledge that one day, years from now, my sons will find themselves in the exact same predicament as me.

Dodging a Pizza Bullet

For the most part, I don’t think that I’m a jerk. Then again, most jerks probably don’t think they’re jerks, so who knows? Point is, in my everyday dealings with people I am generally congenial and polite and usually go out of my way not to be offensive. This is why on the rare occasion when I do act like a jerk, I catch myself off guard.

Today I took the day off from work and caught a movie. (“Argo.” Very good. See it.) Prior to the movie I was looking for something to eat when I spied a pizzeria a few doors down from the movie theater. Originating as I do from Bensonhurst, I’m generally skeptical of pizzerias in Arizona. In the 18 years that I’ve lived in the desert I’ve managed to find a couple of good ones and I generally stick to those. But today, I was nowhere near my regular pizzerias so I figured I’d roll the dice on the one in front of me.

I went in, strolled up to the counter, and took a gander at the various pies on display under the glass. Most of the pies looked like they had been sitting out for a while. I was about to leave when I noticed that at the end of the counter was a Sicilian pie that looked pretty fresh.

“How can I help you?” asked the man behind the counter, who had a good eight inches and 150 pounds on me.

“Let me get one of your squares,” said I.

“It’s called Sicilian pizza,” he said.

(At this point it’s very important for me to point out that the above statement was said in the friendliest, most polite tone imaginable. He was clearly saying this simply to inform, not to enrage. Somehow my brain didn’t catch that significant difference.)

“Yeah, I know that’s what it’s called,” I said, barely able to contain my snarkiness.The man looked at me, mildly bemused, and asked which piece I wanted. (Again, nothing but friendly on his part.)

“I’ll have a corner,” I said.

“Here, let me give you the biggest one,” he said, turning the tray to get to an iPad-sized piece.As he walked over to the oven to warm my slice, I stood by the counter and found myself getting more and more agitated that this guy thought I didn’t know what Sicilian pizza was. I could not let it go.

He came back to ring me up and suddenly I found myself talking.

“I’m from Brooklyn,” I tell this guy who looks like he receives a pension from the NFL. “I know what Sicilian pizza is. I only called it a square because out here I assume that most people on the other side of the counter don’t know what it’s called.”

It was toward the end of my statement that I had a minor out-of-body experience. It was as though I was looking at myself mouthing off to this man who could easily reach across the counter and pound me into pixie dust, and I was helpless to stop myself.

He smiled at me, and for a split second I thought to myself, “So I guess the end comes in a pizzeria. That seems fitting.”

“Would you like something to drink with that?” he asked, as pleasantly as one can imagine.

“Um…uh…I’ll have a small lemonade,” I stammered.

Then he gave me my drink, I paid, and I sat down to wait for my slice. He brought it out to me a few minutes later and I took a bite. To my utter delight it was absolutely delicious. One of the best Sicilian pizzas I’ve ever had. I was overjoyed. But the truth is I’ll never know if it really was that delicious, or if it simply seemed that delicious because everything tastes better after you’ve cheated death.

The Funniest Movie of Each Decade: Yeah, It's My Opinion

I haven’t blogged in a couple of weeks, because I just have not felt very funny. Not sure if it’s my diet or some sort of humor-suppressing virus I might have caught while standing in line at the post office, but the upshot is, whenever I sit down to write, I feel about as amusing as an in-grown toenail. So, rather than trying to be funny myself, I’m going to write about funny movies. Here now, for your perusal, is a list of what I consider to be the single funniest movie in each of the last ten decades.

But, wait—before I give you the list, a bit of clarification may be needed. The list that you are about to see is not what I consider to be the best comedy of each decade, but rather the funniest movie. I’m talking about laugh quotient here, not necessarily quality. This is why “The Graduate,” one of my favorite movies of all time, did not make the list. Very funny movie. Not the funniest movie of its decade, though. So now, really, here’s the list.

1920s

“The Gold Rush” (Directed by Charlie Chaplin) -1925: To be fair, I’ve only seen about half a dozen comedies from the 1920s, and all of them were actually pretty funny. I gave some consideration to Harold Lloyd’s “Safety Last!” and Buster Keaton’s “The General,” but in the end I had to go with Chaplin. The classic scene in which he’s eating the shoe remains hysterical to this day. It’s not so much that he’s eating a shoe that’s funny, but the expressions on his face while he’s doing it.

1930s

“Duck Soup” (Directed by Leo McCarey) -1933: This decade was a no-brainer for me. “Duck Soup” is the Marx Brothers at the height of their glorious zaniness. Groucho, as Rufus T. Firefly, ruler of the fictitious European nation Fredonia, reels off an endless array of one-liners (“I'm in a hurry! To the House of Representatives! Ride like fury! If you run out of gas, get ethyl. If Ethel runs out, get Mabel! Now step on it!”)while Harpo reels off an endless array of sight gags (cutting people’s jackets with a scissor when they’re not looking, making people inadvertently hold his leg, putting his feet in freshly squeezed lemonade, etc.)and Chico constantly gives them both fodder for their shtick. The movie also contains what I consider to be the funniest movie moment of all time…the mirror scene. If you’ve seen it, you know what I mean; if not, I won’t give it away.

1940s

“Arsenic and Old Lace” (Directed by Frank Capra) -1944: I thought a bit about Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator” here, but going by my own criteria of sheer amount of laughs, I have to go with Arsenic. This film, based on the play by Joseph Kesselring and penned for the screen by the Epstein brothers, who also happen to have written “Casablanca,” is comedy farce at its best. The plot, about two wealthy old sisters who live together and have made a hobby out of murdering men, is funny enough. But then bring Cary Grant into the picture as their nephew who just got married and is slowly figuring out that something is amiss in his aunts’ house and you have one hysterical flick. Watching Grant’s impeccable comic timing and perfectly executed double-takes leaves me giddy.

1950s

“Some Like It Hot” (Directed by Billy Wilder) -1959: I love “Harvey” and “Mister Roberts,” but no film from the 1950s is as funny as “Some Like It Hot.” You have Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in drag being chased by the mafia, you add Marilyn Monroe in what I consider to be far and away her best role, and then you put the whole project in the very capable hands of Billy Wilder, and really you just can’t go wrong. And while I mentioned how great Cary Grant’s double-takes were above, Jack Lemmon has the single best double-take in the history of film at the very end of this movie.

1960s

“Take the Money and Run” (Directed by Woody Allen) -1969: While it pained me not to be able to include Mel Brooks’ “The Producers” on this list, and while it is a better movie overall than the one I picked, when it comes to the raw amount of laughter a movie creates “Take the Money and Run” is second only to one film. (We’ll get to that in two decades.) Done as a fake documentary years before Christopher Guest popularized the genre, “Take the Money and Run” follows the life of inept criminal, Virgil Starkwell (Woody Allen), as he gets caught trying to escape prison when the fake gun he whittled out of soap turns to suds in a rainstorm, falls in love with a woman whose purse he tries to steal, and gets caught robbing a bank because he misspelled the note he gave to the teller. My wife’s favorite scene is a flashback to his younger years when he played cello in a marching band. As I write this, I realize I’m not doing it any justice. If you haven’t seen it, just do it.

1970s

“Monty Python and the Holy Grail” (Directed by Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones) – 1975: This decade was far and away the toughest for me to pick because the competition is so fierce. If I made a list of the funniest movies of all time, at least half of them would be from this decade, including “Play it Again, Sam,” “Young Frankenstein,” “Life of Brian,” “The Jerk,” and of course, the winner—Holy Grail. The movie is essentially a series of sketches about Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, with each scene funnier than the one before it. The Python crew pulled out all the stops for this one—killer rabbits, Roger the Shrubber, The Castle Anthrax—the list goes on and on. And it’s one of the most quotable comedies of all time: “Bring out your dead!” “I fart in your general direction!” “Let's not bicker and argue over who killed who.” “It’s only a flesh wound.” Classic!

1980s

“Airplane!” (Directed by Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker) – 1980: And then there was “Airplane!” Is it a great movie? No. Has any movie before or since been funnier? No. Zucker, Zucker, and Abrahams, co-writers and directors, managed to have a laugh in every moment of this movie for 88 straight minutes. Sometimes the laugh came from a deadpan pun: (“Surely you can’t be serious.” “I am serious, and don’t call me Shirley.”) Sometimes the laugh came from a visual gag: (The stewardess blowing up the automatic pilot.) Sometimes the laugh came from stereotypes: (“Would you like something to read?” “Do you have anything light?” “How about this leaflet—Famous Jewish Sports Legends?”) But always the laughs kept coming. Sorry Eddie Murphy. Sorry Steve Martin. Sorry Bill Murray. You all did some fine work in this decade, but somehow Robert Hays was the star of the funniest movie of all time.

1990s

“South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut” (Directed by Trey Parker) – 1999: With the rise in popularity of independent and art-house films in the 1990s, the knee-slapper kind of comedy gave way to more quirky fare. I love “Waiting for Guffman,” and “Being John Malkovich,” both funny in their own right, but neither are laugh-a-minute style movies. It wasn’t until the very end of the decade when “South Park” hit the big screen that I saw a movie that kept me laughing throughout. The whole arc of the movie, in which the boys discover cursing, which eventually triggers World War III and causes Satan (portrayed as an overly sensitive, neurotic gay man who just wants to be loved by Saddam Hussein) to bring his fury out to the surface is hysterical. The fact that it was done as a musical was simply inspired.

2000s

“Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” (Directed by Larry Charles) – 2006: I knew very little about Sacha Baron Cohen prior to seeing this film. When I walked out of the film he was my favorite comic actor of the decade. The balance that was struck in the movie between being so grossly over-the-top and yet so incredibly clever was amazing. The fact that the majority of the people in the movie had no idea they were the butt of a joke was funny in and of itself. But then, the jokes that they were the butt of were funny as well. I laughed so hard in this movie tears were constantly streaming down my face. One line in particular had me laughing for weeks afterward whenever I thought about it. I refuse to type the line here because of its overall crudeness, but the final three words are “sleeve of wizard.”

2010s

“Ted” (Directed by Seth MacFarlane) – 2012: Okay, we’re not quite three years into the decade, so there’s not much of a selection yet, but “Ted” was very funny. I mean, a boy’s teddy bear comes to life and it’s got Peter Griffin’s voice. You know there are going to be a lot of laughs. I especially like the scene when the parents first discover the bear can really talk and the mom pulls a kitchen knife on him. Funny stuff. Don’t know if it’s strong enough to still be on the list at the end of the decade, but for now it will do.

Oh, the Weather Outside is Frightful

A couple months back I blogged about how cold it was in Phoenix—the day that I wrote that the low was 42 degrees. (See, I was trying to be funny because I know that’s not that cold compared to other places. Ha, ha!) Well, clearly the weather gods decided to pull some sort of crazy prank on me because for the past four days the lows have been in the low 20s. Yesterday when the low was 21 here in Phoenix, the low in Anchorage was 35. And yes, I do mean Anchorage, Alaska, not the much lesser known Anchorage, Kenya.

When the temperatures stay this cold for this long in a place where a cardigan sweater usually passes for winter wear, strange things start to happen. This morning, while driving my 6-year-old son to school the following conversation ensued:

Son: Why are all those bushes covered with sheets?

Me: Because it's so cold out people are covering them to keep them warm so they don't freeze and die.

Son: Why don't they cover the trees?

Me: Because they probably don't have sheets big enough to cover the trees.

Son: But won't the trees die, too?

Me: I don't know.

Son: Didn't you go to high school and college?

Yes, it’s so cold out it’s causing my Kindergartner to question my educational attainment.

But that episode is just the tip of the iceberg. I’m pretty sure the other day a small section of my brain froze solid. When I left my house I meant to stop at the Starbucks around the corner to get a hot chocolate and I didn’t remember until I pulled into the parking lot of my office…20 miles later. The only explanation for that complete mental lapse is that the Arctic temperatures somehow shutdown my caffeine cortex.

And yet another bizarre effect of this bitterly cold weather is that it’s making me write shorter blog entries. In fact, this one just ended.