I've Seen The Top Chill, It Was Great . . .

On my quest to plug the gaps in my pop-culture erudition, I tried to watch Top Gun, but I only made it half-way through-- I reached my high-five limit-- and I was worried that I would never know why Maverick's dad died, but Wikipedia has an excellent and precise plot summary that is far more entertaining than the movie . . . and so now I have to decide--much like my students with every book I've ever assigned-- if I should actually watch The Big Chill or if I should just read the synopsis and fake it?

Atonement: Cure for Happiness

If you've got some spring in your step, if you see the glass as half full, if you've been whistling away and looking on the bright side of life, and you want to curtail your absurdly optimistic outlook, then watch Atonement.

Are "The Hold Steady" Sincere . . . or Sincerely Ironic?

I'm not sure if The Hold Steady is sincere or not, but they seem like a Spinal Tap version of Bruce Springsteen, updated for the times, and that's not knocking them-- they're very entertaining.

Secret Park

I thought I knew my way around Highland Park (it's only a mile square) but-- based on some information from one of the elementary school teachers-- we found a new park (new to us); it's right behind the White Rose System and it has an old school merry-go-round and a cool rock wall for the kids to climb and some kind of fenced in court and it's shaded by huge trees and it was full of Asian grandmothers watching their grandchildren.

Face of a Pug, Heart of a Wolf

The lone timber wolf and the Bassett hound in the pink doggy-sweater both howl at the same moon.

The End . . . Not Really All That Nigh

There has been a grave miscalculation: the end is not nigh-- in fact, judging by what cosmologists predict from radio telescope data, the end is the opposite of nigh.

Range Life

Sometimes, when the kids are occupied elsewhere, I sneak into the kitchen, turn the range on low, and roast a marshmallow.

Dave Takes an Aesthetic Stand

Although it is certainly a shortcoming in my aesthetic sensibility, there is one thing for certain that I will never have any use for: the Dorian mode.

Reflecting on the Inflection

The problem with cell-phones is their immediacy-- there is no time for detachment from the narrative, no time for revision, hyperbole, and editing-- everything is in real time, without reflection . . . kind of like this blog.

Eight Year Olds Dude, Eight Year Olds . . .

At the beach today, a fairly innocuous looking guy who claimed to be a journalism teacher at a high school in Pennsylvania asked if he could take a picture of Alex and Ian-- they were wearing their sun hats and playing on a large pile of sand-- but I told him I thought that was kind of weird, and that I would rather he didn't; I would never ask anyone if I could take a picture of their kids, so that's how I made my decision, but it also may have been influenced by the fact that earlier in the day the lifeguards pulled everyone out of the water for a few minutes because of a reputed shark sighting.

Youth Sports: They Build Character?

While walking home from my pick-up soccer game, I saw a great moment in youth sports: a shaggy haired kid who couldn't have been more than eight was standing on the tennis court, sandwiched by his parents, who were tag-teaming him with a vicious coaching diatribe because of his lame strokes and lamer attitude-- the mom, who was wearing a Rutgers shirt and looked athletic in a stocky way, was lambasting him with lines like this: "If you don't lift your arm, I'll lift you! Don't tell me it's hot, it was hotter than this at camp! Did they have air-conditioning on the courts at camp? I don't think so! If you don't bend your knees, I'll bend you!" and then the dad, who was tossing this youngster balls to whack, told her to stop and "watch Momma, don't watch the ball, watch Momma" and he would toss her one and "Momma" would whip a crisp top-spin forehand down the line, and then Dad would go back to tossing to his kid, who could barely bop the thing over the net, and the berating would begin all over again.

Lying . . . It's What Civilized People Do

It's all how you phrase it: when I suggested (to save some money) that I could do some of the painting for our kitchen addition, my wife gave me an absolute vote of no confidence, and banned me from doing ANY painting in her new kitchen, which offended me, of course-- I told her she had to give me some sort of hope that I could possibly do it, if I was very careful and uncharacteristically neat, even if she didn't believe this and wasn't even planning on letting me even stir the paint can-- just to show faith that her husband has the ability to improve himself, just to see optimism and potential in the universe-- and she said to me, "What do you want me to do? Lie?" and I said, "Yes! That's what people do!" and she said I was too sensitive, but my friend Eric didn't see what the problem was, he just said, "This is great-- now you don't have to paint."

Tombstone . . . What the Fuck?

I just watched Tombstone, one of the movies all my friends had seen but me (now only Top Gun and The Big Chill remain) and it's like everyone is acting in a different genre of film: Kurt Russell and Dana Delany are in a cheesy 80's romantic comedy (and they don't even attempt to alter their diction); Sam Elliott is in a bona fide Western; Bill Paxton and Jason Priestly are in a made for TV movie; Powers Boothe is in a B grade slasher flick; Val Kilmer steals the show as Doc Holiday-- and he's in a super-freaky Tarantino-esque meta-Western; Charlton Heston is in The Ten Commandments; and the director had the audacity to start and end the film like a documentary, with some black and white footage and a voice-over, but he couples this with maudlin music, romanticized shots of thundering hoof-beats, Schwarzenegger-esque dialogue (Johnny Ringo says "Let's do this" and Kurt Russell replies, "See you in Hell") and there's also some of the most absurd gunfighting in cinema history-- what were George P. Cosmatos and the gang thinking?

Close Call

Close call in Princeton: after eating a giant meal at Tortuga's Mexican Village ( I ordered three items instead of two, I couldn't pass up an extra tamale smothered with chicken and mole sauce) we took the kids to the art and archaeology museum, where the rule is that you must hold hands with your children so they do not destroy the artifacts, and while staring at a Buddha, my button popped off my shorts and Catherine did not have a bobby pin on her (in fact, she thought my request was ludicrous) and, most importantly, I had been at the gym earlier and didn't bring an extra pair of boxers so I was commando under there . . . there was nothing but one layer of unsupported fabric between me and the art-- and some of those statues are naked . . . but I got out without flashing any Princetonites and from now on I will stick to two items when I eat at Tortuga's (but I can't make any promises about the underwear).

My Wife Berates Me About a Fictitious Insect

When I notice someone has the hiccups, I pretend there is a bug in their hair-- this usually gets people flustered, anxious and concerned . . . they pick through their hair, look for a mirror, shake their heads, etcetera . . . and, during the fretfulness, the reverse peristalsis usually rights itself, plus-- as a bonus-- the bystanders get a laugh-- but I tried this on Catherine yesterday and it didn't work; she said, "Well, get it out" and when I pretended to be squeamish about grabbing the bug she called me a "pussy"-- actually she spelled out the word "pussy," because the kids were sitting there, but still.

R.I.P. A Bunch of People

In the locker-room after successful swim with my new Otterbox (a contraption which makes an Ipod submersible) I heard one old guy ask another how he was doing-- and the other guy's reply was truly inspirational, one of the sunniest things I've ever heard, in fact, a whole new way of looking at the world; he said: "Doing good, doing good . . . a lot of people didn't wake up this morning."

Post-Judgement Judgy Stuff

On the way home from the beach yesterday (and there's no better way to decompress from a long weekend at the beach than by going to the beach-- except when Ian dropped a load in his bathing suit) we were listening to the radio and there was a reference to the "More Cowbell" SNL sketch and my wife revealed that she had never seen it, which kind of astounded me, but then I realized because of the massive variety of media choices that we have now, that we have gotten into the habit of understanding people simply by what they have seen and not their thoughts on what they have seen-- because of the lack of a common denominator (You hate Silver Spoons? Me too!) we simply count someone's choice in media as enough to signify taste, critical thought and intelligence (you watch The Wire? Me too! Awesome!) and not knowing about the existence of certain media is a serious character indicator (you've never heard of Radiohead? Very, very weird . . . there must be something wrong here . . . where did you grow up?) and this is probably not the best way to judge people.

The Tell-Tale Goggles

I might have had a better chance convincing the life guard who called me out of the ocean (which was clearly marked "No Swimming") that I was just "relaying a message to my friend on the kayak"-- if I hadn't been wearing my swim goggles.

Outer Banks Fishing Trip XV

Here are some things that happened during The Fifteenth Annual Outer Banks Fishing Trip that didn't happen during the other years:

 

1) stand-up paddle boarding;

2) no swimming flag for three days;

3) Lacey, the bartender at Tortuga's, joined in movie game II and sat down and had a beer with us AND texted Jeremy twice to see if we would meet her out, despite the fact that she was married . . .  apparently, to a good-looking but humorless guy;

4) Whitney invented the movie sound track game and scrolled from A to Z on his infinite Ipod; 

5) Cliff demonstrated his knowledge of Mary Poppins and Grease;

6) Rodell demonstrated his musical knowledge of Singles and Fast Times at Ridgemont High;

7) Squirrel demonstrated his musical knowledge of The Big Chill;

8) we learned that I have never seen Top Gun (but I have seen The Big Lewbowski and can identify the Cheers theme song in one note) and that Lacy has never seen Vacation 

9) Frisbeer is all about defense;

10) Kenny Bloom and Fish were in spitting distance but decided not to show;

this is all I can think of for now, remind me of anything else I forgot-- it's too bad no one has been jotting down what happened at OBFT for the first fourteen years-- or perhaps that's a good thing.

Perhaps None of Them

Which is a better metaphor for life-- baseball, soccer, or Dig-Dug?