Toys and Sexuality

It’s been quite a while since my last blog so forgive me if I've lost a step or two. Being a full-time parent and full-time employee certainly takes its toll as I find myself exchanging the written rants for the verbal ones. But today, I had a surprisingly profound conversation with my mother-in-law which may have actually changed the way I raise my daughter from here on out.

Now, anybody who knows me or has read my writings knows that I am a fairly strong conservative. I’m the kind of guy who, like Archie Bunker, longs for the days when “...girls were girls and men were men.” And once upon a time, not all that long ago, America was a very conservative country.

Pick up a history book or, for that matter, watch an old movie. From the first days of their lives, girls were raised to learn how to be ladies. They were taught to be well-mannered, submissive and, yes, feminine. Boys were brought up to be tough, strong and dry in the eyes at all times.

What happened next is a bit of a mystery.

Sure, I can point a few fingers at possible catalysts that served to wreak havoc on this male/female dynamic (i.e.: television and the liberal media), but I couldn’t say for sure how many things contributed to creating the ultra f**ked up society in which we currently live.

As I just mentioned, I think it all really started with television and, more specifically, with a certain feisty wife who dared to stand up to her obese, bus-driving husband. His “Pow, right in the kisser” threats fell upon apathetic ears and people laughed their asses off because it was so… well… different. Alice Kramden wasn't a submissive TV wife - not by a long shot. Her posture, language and attitude were gruff, as was the pitch of her voice. She barely even sounded feminine... and given Ralph's large frame, one might have wondered if Ralph could have even taken his own wife in a fight.

So, what’s my point in all of this? My point is that, for YEARS now, I’ve been telling people that sexuality (...like most everything in this world) is LEARNED and not something with which we’re born. Yes, we’re born with sex organs and, as we grow, our hormones run on auto pilot for a while, but we still need to learn what sex is all about, how it works, etc. If I was wrong on this, there wouldn’t be so much as one “how to” book or video on anything related to sex.

Yes, I’m a guy. Yes, I’m into chicks and yes, common sense drives the vast majority of us to ultimately seek out members of the opposite sex, but who’s to say how many of us straight guys wouldn’t be gay if raised in a completely different environment? If same sex relations were the norm and heterosexuality, the deviation from that norm, maybe the majority of people in the world would be gay.

Which brings me to my issue.

My daughter recently turned two years old and, from the time she was like seven months old, she would play with those wooden train sets every time we went to the Children’s Museum. Sure, she’d play in other areas as well, but the train table was never missed. At present, she’s a HUGE Thomas the Tank Engine fan and, yes, as a parent who wants to nurture her interests, I’ve done a few things to bring Thomas closer to home.

I downloaded a bunch of Thomas episodes, showed her a few of them and bought a few of the more popular trains (Thomas, Gordon, James, Percy, etc). Now, not a day goes by where she doesn’t literally drag me to the computer, ask me to sit down and say to me, “Daddy! Choo choo! Watch... choo choo!” to let me know that she’s yearning for her daily Thomas fix. And for her birthday, I gave her the wooden train set table that she runs to whenever we’re at that famous toy store with the giraffe who yearns to be a certain kind of kid.

My wife and mother keep telling me that these are toys that only boys should be playing with and I’ve been calmly waving them off in a “what harm could it do” kind of way. Well, here’s the harm. The harm is that the trains could very quickly turn to planes… or Transformers… or action figures… or Star Wars gear – toys that are traditionally crafted with boys in mind. The Thomas trains just might be her gateway toy to increasingly boyish toys.

With such toys comes the desire to play with like-minded children and before you know it, she's only gonna want to play with boys because she'll have so little in common with the girls. Yes, those girls... who are having invisible tea parties, playing with dolls, cooking pretend food in their "kitchens" and imagining themselves as the princesses they always see on their toys... won't want to have much to do with the girl who plays with boys' toys.

I happen to know of a couple of mothers who so adamantly refuse to conform to societal and gender norms that they go out of their way to dress their girls in anything but pink. They encourage these girls to play with whatever toys they want. One girl plays with toys from both gender categories, but the other girl is decidedly tomboyish and, lo and behold, she has zero female friends.

Zero.

Now, I’m not gonna sit here and tell you these girls are future lesbians, but it certainly wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility. I believe that a big reason why we are attracted to the opposite sex as adults is because we spent our entire childhoods in closest proximity to members of the same sex, building brotherhoods and sisterhoods with our friends and sharing common interests. If you’re reading this and you 100% disagree with me, that’s totally cool because I’ll be the first to admit that I have very little professional data to back up anything I’m saying here. For me, however, this is more than just a gut feeling.

When the opposite sex is different from you and your friends, they lend themselves to a degree of mystery and intrigue. The “Vive la differénce” spirit ignites as we boys catch our first quick glimpse at a girl's smooth, bare legs. As boys, me and my friends got curious about girls because they were absolutely nothing like us, yet they seemed to enjoy themselves just as much as we did. I mean, there’s a whole “sexuality” known as bi/curious for a reason. Everybody's curious about sex at some point in their lives, whether it be straight or gay.

For me, I just couldn't figure out how girls could have such a great time without so much as one Transformer in their hand. A life without Optimus Prime and Megatron was, for me, a life not worth living. I had my fellow dudes as friends, we did male things, played war games, superhero games and swapped action figures from He-Man to Star Wars to Transformers to G.I. Joe. It’s what boys of my generation did. Ask any thirty something straight guy if they played with any of the four groups of toys I just mentioned. I’d bet my house that 100% of the guys surveyed will have had experience playing with at least one of those four if not ALL of those four.

There wasn’t a miniature tea set, Barbie or Cabbage Patch Kid ANYWHERE in our vicinity and I’m reasonably sure that we’d have kicked the ever-loving sh*t out of any boy in our group if they DID have anything like that. Once in a while, in between trench battles and galactic Empire showdowns, we’d spy a group of girls playing with girly things, having girly conversations and bursting out in girly giggles. We swore them off and spoke of cooties, but honestly, we were all secretly intrigued.

By the time we hit Junior High, the toys started to disappear and we started looking at legs instead. A girl would walk up a row of stairs and if she was wearing even a moderately short skirt, you can bet that at least a few dudes were scoping out the goods. In my senior year of high school, a female friend once asked me about our fascination with boobs and legs. At seventeen, the best answers I could come up with were "They look great" and, in the case of boobs, "Because we don't have any."

At 34, I doubt my answers would be a whole hell of a lot more profound.

We boys weren’t at all confused about our sexualities because most of us were brought up in stable “one mom/one dad” households and were given a pretty clear path to how boys became men and how we should never, EVER hit girls no matter what. Nowadays, couples are splitting up at the first signs of trouble and leaving their children in broken homes. Kids are being brainwashed by their ultra-liberal parents to believe that conformity is a form of oppression and that hugging trees is more important than hugging your parents.

Some kids see their nannies more than they see their own parents and there are no strong role models for them to emulate. It comes as no surprise to me that some people's compasses are a bit off-North. For me, part of being a boy involved my dad taking me aside and telling me that sometimes a boy has to stand up for himself and kick a few asses. Sure, work to resolve the conflict amicably, but if it doesn’t work and you have to belt him, lay the bastard out. Then, Dad gave me some pointers and we bonded as males.

Nowadays, lawsuits appear shortly after a mild bitchslap and ultra-pacifist hippie, hummus-eating parents pussify their kids to the point that a slight frost in the morning will send them into a hissy fit of pansy-ass proportions.

So, I’ve switched gears a bit. Sure, my daughter gets to keep her Thomas trains, but her birthday gifts also included a Mommy & Me doll and a small baby stroller, complete with a pack of mini-diapers and mini baby bottle. And I’m happy to report that she loves this doll tremendously, changes her diaper often, remembers to feed her and even tucks her in to sleep – all with virtually no direction from us.

And yes, the vast majority of her clothing is either pink, red or lavender. We also just bought her another winter coat last week. It’s a very warm, magenta jacket that she loves about as much as we do. Our daughter often sees her mom and me together, giving each other loving attention, hugs, etc., and I really believe this will benefit her a great deal. Coming from a solid and loving home will teach and nurture her in ways that no amount of book-reading ever could.

Lastly, I'm aware that there are some “experts” in the field who believe that one can be born as a homosexual, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that “nurture” has a WHOLE LOT more to do with sexuality than “nature.” And I'll actually back up this claim, citing Volume 146, Issue 20, Page 95 of the November 13, 1995 issue of TIME in an article entitled “New Evidence of a ‘Gay Gene’” by Anastasia Toufexis.

An exerpt from the article reads:

“"Gay gene" researcher Dean Hamer was asked by Scientific American if homosexuality was rooted solely in biology. He replied: "Absolutely not. From twin studies, we already know that half or more of the variability in sexual orientation is not inherited. Our studies try to pinpoint the genetic factors...not negate the psychosocial factors."”

Homosexuals might not necessarily have chosen their sexual tendencies, but they did pick it up somewhere along the line after they left the womb – not while they were in it. Furthermore, they choose to ACT on those tendencies, so don't make it like someone's got a gun to their heads, making them have gay sex.

Anyway, upon finishing up this conversation with my mother-in-law, I resolved to give my daughter more pink clothes, tea sets, dolls and dresses..... not to mention a very loving and stable home.

People Who Need to Get Punched in the Head

I’m in a venting mood and I don’t care who I piss off today, so here’s a list of people who, at the very least, need to get punched in the head:

1.) The guy on the side of the road who waits until you’re almost on top of him before he starts crossing the street, thus forcing you to slam on your brakes. That lame brained move alone deserves a jab or two to the cranium. God help him if, after your brake pads are toast, he then decides he wants to move with the speed of a tortoise with a cement shell, all the while gawking at you as if your very existence is somehow shocking to him. At this point, you know he’s just trying to be an asshole, but he’s an asshole with a false sense of entitlement who may one day try that sh*t with someone who doesn’t give a rat’s ass if this clown makes it from Point A to B or if he becomes a f**king hood ornament.

2.) The woman who, as she is about to get into her car, clearly sees that you have your turn signal on and are waiting for that spot, yet still takes like 45 minutes to get her sh*t together before she can pull out of her parking space. With people like that, I just wanna open up her door, smack her upside the head, tell her to get her ass in gear and stop wasting minutes of my life while she tries shining sh*t by applying make-up to her horrendous face.

3.) I’d reserve my next skull punch for any parent who becomes indignant and outraged when a teacher tells him that his kid is less than a model student, instead of addressing the ever so slight possibility that this could be a parenting problem. I once read a story about a preschool kid who couldn’t get through the day without biting all of her fellow preschoolers. After several unsuccessful attempts by teachers to curb her behavior, the teachers decided to call the parents in. Upon hearing this news, not only did the parents pull their girl out of the school, they sued the preschool! Because clearly, their daughter’s Cujo-like behavior had to have been the teachers’ fault. Twenty bucks says that when this girl gets home from school, she’s probably thrown into a cage with one of those ball-bearing water dispenser thingies that hamsters lick when they’re thirsty. But nope! They sued the school. Alrighty then. Anything it takes to avoid coming to grips with the fact that they’re sh*tty parents, I suppose.

4.) The person (usually female) who rats out a minimum wage-earning schlub to his or her manager after receiving less than exemplary service needs to have a face-to-fist meeting with me immediately if not sooner. The poor bastard’s behind a register (or deli counter), or perhaps waiting tables in a greasy-spoon, making like four dollars an hour. Isn’t his existence sad enough without you making it worse? Did you ever think for one minute that maybe this is the best job he’s capable of attaining at this time in his life and that perhaps, his job ain’t all smiles and lollipops? If you have that much of a problem with the service, don’t go tattling to his manager! Apply for a job! His job! Work right alongside of him…. and show him what being employee of the month is all about. Otherwise, shut the f**k up.

5.) The host of pretty much every moderately upscale restaurant I’ve ever been to who always seems to be a guy and always seems to have a princess fairy lisp going on. If you insist on having your midnight romps with Cecil the Wonder Schlong plowing your ass like Interstate 95 after a blizzard, that’s your business. But when you’re speaking to regular ol’, “I don’t exist just to piss my parents off” people, leave the lisp on the night stand next to the body glitter and the KY. In other words, talk like a man.

6.) I’ve got a special edition uppercut reserved for this next group: The couple who just can’t figure out how to get to a movie or a sporting event on-time, so they arrive after the game has started and wind up walking all over you to get to their seats. If you’re like me, you do that “hover slightly over your seat” maneuver which gives these late arrivals all of about three centimeters more room so that when they still manage to step all over you and slam their asses in your face, you wind up just plopping back down on your seat in disgust. Plus, no matter how much room you try to give them, they still take like three minutes to get through, all the while blocking your view and pissing you off. This is usually the same group of ass-wads who either can’t get enough of the vendors’ fourteen dollar beers or did get enough and now need to use the bathroom every five minutes, which means playing the “grind up on my f**king knees” tango each and every damn time they have to leave or return to their seats.

7.) Next on my sh*t list, the driver who sees that my turn signal is on and that I’m trying to get into his lane, yet insists on driving just close enough so that if I tried to cut in, I’d get clipped. This is usually the same asshole who, when I finally do manage to squeeze in after I’ve had my turn signal on for an hour, is lightning quick to beep his horn. Too bad he wasn’t nearly as quick at being courteous. Prick. I think it’d take more than one punch in the head to even that score.

8.) Anybody who’s pulling disability because they’re “depressed” doesn’t only need a good punch in the head. They need an education on just what it means to have a depressing life. For example, if you find yourself alone in your car, crying into your hands, punching the steering wheel and screaming at the rain, you’re not depressed – you’re just stupid… and you’ve got nothing to be depressed about.

Why? Because you have a steering wheel to punch and rain to scream at.

Try spending some time in a country where tanks and guns take precedence over food and water and the natives’ idea of a refreshing drink is licking moderately moist sand because the climate’s too damn dry for rain to exist. While you’re at it, hang out with a few emaciated kids and fly-ridden goats as you hunt for scorpions to eat because that’s all there f**king is. Then return to your “depressing” life back home and voilà - you’re f**king cured! It’s a hell of a lot cheaper than pumping thousands of dollars’ worth of meds into you while a heavily overpaid psychiatrist lies your moronic ass on a couch to discuss your “feelings” and how much your parents messed you up.

Cry me a river, numbnuts!

Nobody who gets to collect monthly checks for doing nothing all day but sit at home, knocking back bon-bons and watching Jerry Springer qualifies as a candidate for depression as far as I’m concerned. So, get up off your ass and get a job. I’ll sleep better knowing that my tax dollars are being used to fix f**ked up roads as opposed to your scarred psyche.

9.) And speaking of permanently scarring your children, if you’re a grandmother and you’re still in your forties, you have absolutely no business giving me tips on how to be a mature, responsible parent. Because for you to have attained grandmother status in your forties, it either means that you got knocked up way too young or worse – you raised a f**ked kid who got knocked up or did the knocking up way too young. Either way, it doesn’t bode well for you, so keep your mouth shut if you’re not particularly fond of angry thumps to the skull. And do NOT tell me that you don’t have any control over what your children do unless you’re prepared to punctuate that sentence with “…because I suck as a parent and never bothered to even try and instill him/her with a moral compass when I had the chance.”

Good parenting is like building a house. If you build a shoddy foundation, the house has no chance of standing on its own. If you build a solid foundation, but don’t stick around to oversee construction of the house, odds are the house’ll get f**ked up along the way and you’ll wind up needing to flick a light switch if you wanna flush the toilet. A good parent is someone who works hard to build that solid foundation, then oversees construction of the house, giving advice when needed. My wife and I have every intention on raising our daughter in the word of God and making sure that, by the time she’s old enough to choose her own path in life, she’ll make the right choices. In the meantime, if you can boast of holding a grandchild before your child can boast of holding a high school diploma, keep your pearls of wisdom to yourself. Because going to you for parenting advice would be like something that sucks asking something else that sucks about how not to suck.

And since I’m not really pissed off at anybody else today, I’ll just reread my blog about The Quiet Car, think about Window Bitch and envision her on the business end of that tenth punch.

My Top 20 Favorite Movies

Not long ago, I gave myself what I thought was going to be a relatively easy challenge.

I said to myself, “Okay, you love movies. Lord knows you’ve seen a LOT of them. Now, make a list of your top five!”

So, I got to work and figured I’d start by compiling a list of the movies that I really love. From there, I’d shave off movies here and there until I was left with five. My list started with over forty movies and right away, shaving some of them off was like killing children. I had an immensely difficult time justifying the elimination of any of them! So, I made a deal with myself.

Pick your TEN favorite movies of all time.

Hmmm? Well, that certainly was better, but here again, there were just so many movies that I couldn’t imagine leaving out of such a prestigious list. So, here for your mild amusement…… are my top TWENTY movies. Even that was hard, but to make myself feel a little better, I tried to place the ten better ones above the other ten in this list, so know that numbers one through ten have, in my humble opinion, just a little something extra going for them.

Perhaps they’re the kind of movies I can watch over and over again even today. I don’t know. But in compiling this list, I noticed a couple of things. Quite a few of these movies remain my favorites today because of the profound impact they had on my when I was a kid. Also notice how many of my favorites spawned subsequent sequels.

Yes, some of my faves won’t surprise anybody, but I’ll bet a few of them might. I’m not gonna get too heavy into plot lines. Rather I’ll summarize or otherwise allude to them when I’m pointing something out. The reasons I give will be what make these movies MY favorites – not what makes them everybody else’s. If you disagree with my reasoning, well.... make your own list. Having written all of that, let’s begin:

1.) Superman: The Movie (1978): Ahhhh, yes! My all-time favorite movie about my all-time favorite comic strip character. The Man of Steel has been, for pretty much as long as I can remember, the one guy I’ve always wished I could be, but knew I never would be. Yet, that never discouraged me from thoroughly enjoying this movie. It literally has everything. It’s crazy, but it’s almost like you’re watching three distinct movies, all wrapped up into one.

You start off on the planet Krypton where everybody is highly civilized, technologically advanced, sophisticated and speaks as if they all had their doctorate degrees. The planet explodes and before you know it, you’re in Part II of the movie – something that looks like it’s coming straight out of Andrew Wyeth’s Christina’s World. We spend some time in the nothingness of Smallville at the Kent farm and before too long, BAM! – right into the heart of Metropolis where the fast-paced comic strip world begins and ushers in the third major part of the movie.

Now, the action begins and doesn’t let up until the closing credits. For those who expected to see camp, they didn’t get it, or at least not nearly as much as they might have expected. They saw moving, realistic performances and they witnessed a virtual nobody named Christopher Reeve become immortalized as the new Man of Steel. And if the great backdrops, top-notch script, innovative special effects and excellent cast weren’t enough, you have the essential topping on the cake – the music!

I really credit the movies of my youth like Superman, Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark for instilling me with the love of orchestral music that I have today. I mean, who in this country can hear the opening notes of the main title march and not immediately tell you that it’s from Superman? Literally every single piece from the Superman soundtrack is a recognizable, timeless masterpiece of symphonic harmony and grace. This was the movie that had me, at the age of like six, running around my neighborhood with arms outstretched in my blue thermals and my Superman Underoos, almost convinced that I could fly.

Couple that with my best friend’s mother who was handy enough with a needle, thread and Velcro to fashion us both with kid-sized Superman capes, and I was forever enchanted with this movie. Of all of the movies I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching in my 32 years of life, none thus far have quite managed to top this 1978 classic. So far, the movie has spawned four other sequels (…one that just came out in June, 2006), but you always remember your first. Superman II was almost as good as the first one and Superman Returns was, in my humble opinion, not too shabby, either (…I won’t even discuss the abysmal numbers III and IV). Even rip-off ideas such as “Super Fuzz” weren’t too terrible, but none came close to Superman.

2.) Back to the Future (1985): Great Scott! What an AMAZING movie to see on the big screen. The year was 1985 and my dad took me to this one. Why do I love this movie? Well, along with flying like Superman, my other biggest fantasy as a kid was to travel through time. Bill and Ted are good, but for my money, I gotta go with Doc Brown and Marty McFly. In an odd way, it’s actually a little like Superman. Marty’s in 1955 and quickly learns that, to blend in better, he must don the clothes of the average 50’s kid. He’s really a kid from the future, but nobody can know his secret. To reveal that he’s from the future would unravel the very fabric of the universe! Whoa, this is heavy!

Even his car – the DeLorean time machine – must be hidden at all costs. A few seemingly innocuous actions cause a disruption just big enough to endanger Marty’s very existence and it makes me wonder what kind of small ripple in history would have been necessary to prevent my own birth. I love movies that make you think and, for its time, this one was a thinker for sure. Knowing where a lightning bolt will strike is the key to getting Marty home, but here again, a great movie is likely to spawn a sequel… and this one spawned two of them. What’s strange is that, in my mind, both sequels are virtually as excellent as the original, which is extraordinarily rare when it comes to movie sequels.

3.) Star Wars (1977): I know what you’re thinking. Which one? There’ve been six Star Wars movies, after all. But for now, we’re just dealing with the one from 1976 - the one that got the ball rolling and helped make George Lucas the Godfather of special effects masturbation. Given how very limited George and company were in the seventies with regards to special effects, the original Star Wars is still the one to beat.

You gotta give it to the guy.

He had this really big idea for an epic sci-fi film, had tons of ideas as to what he wanted to see, didn’t have the technology to match… so he literally had to will into existence the various effects he needed to realize his vision. As for campiness, movies don’t have nearly as much of it these days as they once did, but Star Wars was different. Think of the old Batman television shows with Adam West and compare them to Batman Begins with Christian Bale. Batman went from ultra-campy to having a dark, haunted past, right? Well, Star Wars started with Han Solo bringing a realistic, yet cocky attitude that lent credibility to the movie and by the time the nineties rolled around, we got hit with Super-Camp Jar Jar Binks.

Proof positive that, just because you can do it, doesn't mean you should.

4.) The Matrix (1999): The second one was decent and the third one may have sucked, but the first one was, by far, the most impressive. It’s another thinker of a movie, which I like. Imagining that the world as you know it has all been digitally fabricated and that you’re nothing more than a glorified battery is a mind-blower for sure. Then, of course, we have our hero – Neo. Guess what he does by the end of the movie. That’s right. He flies! See? Everybody’s a Superman fan... and it’s a formula that always seems to work.

And, in the event that people needed more, they got Carrie-Anne Moss dressed in shiny black latex from head-to-high-heeled boot, kicking everybody’s ass. This, no doubt, made the “dominant woman in leather” fetishists happy. I think that this movie, along with introducing everybody to this new “digital world” concept, also appealed to the audience because they got to see Neo’s development from ignorant office slave to savior of Zion, endowed with amazing powers he never knew he could possess.

Again, it took that winning Superman formula and added some new flavors.

5.) Vanilla Sky (2001): Another movie along the lines of “the world you know is not real,” Vanilla Sky is one of the few movies I saw where, at the closing credits, everybody else around me in the theater was like, “I don’t get it.” I loved this movie because, well…. I did get it. In fact, I think this movie would have been a much bigger hit if the majority of people who went to see it got it the first time around.

One of my favorite scenes comes at the very end of the movie. Not only are the details of David Aames’s confusing world elucidated (the part of the movie that was supposed to help more people “get it”), but they’re done so while ascending in a glass elevator that just never seems to stop going up and up and up (…David is acrophobic). Getting him to conquer his last fear of heights by jumping off of this ridiculously tall New York skyscraper to make his choice was a stroke of genius and also allowed for an amazing visual.

It was also where an unknown Icelandic band known as Sigur Rós made their mark on mainstream America with an unintelligible yet fascinating song called Njósnavélin, otherwise known as “The Nothing Song.” It’s the song that starts shortly before David takes that final leap. Give it a listen if you can, though oddly enough, you won’t find it on the Vanilla Sky soundtrack. If you can't find it, let me know and I'll forward you the one I downloaded a while back.

6.) Rocky (1976): The quintessential million-to-one-underdog movie! So good was this movie that it spawned five sequels. From the streets of Philadelphia, a mediocre Italian boxer punches his way to earning a meager salary on fight nights, then works in a run down gym and does loan-sharking work to cover rent in his dingy rat’s hole of an apartment. Rocky’s life is basically going nowhere and nobody is more aware of it than he is. Meanwhile, the heavyweight champion of the boxing world is looking for a total unknown to trade jabs with him for the bicentennial event in Philly because his original opponent canceled on him.

So, the champ (…knowing that he’s gonna kick his opponent’s ass) worries more about publicizing the event than training for it and, not surprisingly, Rocky trains balls-to-the-wall. The end result? Rocky gives Apollo Creed a handful and nearly, nearly upsets him for the title. But, in a final attempt at realism, they award Creed the decision by virtue of him “outscoring” Rocky. Awesome, awesome movie and, as we all very well know, ripe for sequels.

7.) Nothing in Common (1986): Now, here’s a movie that I’m guessing many people have never even seen, though it starred five fairly well-known actors: Tom Hanks, Jackie Gleason, Eva Marie Saint, Sela Ward and Hector Elizondo.

This movie made it to my top ten primarily because it reminded me never to take my own father for granted, though it also happens to be a great story. Tom Hanks plays David Basner; a guy who has become so preoccupied with being a partner in the advertising firm for which he works that he’s pretty much forgotten his familial roots. He’s got a new girl in his bed every week, yet never stops yearning for his high school sweetheart.

Anyway, his parents suddenly give him a sobering reminder that they still exist…. by separating. He spends the next several weeks basically getting to know his mom and dad all over again. Before David realizes it, he’s become the parent and his folks have become a couple of old, but very needy “children.” Sometimes, his folks are petulant and stubborn and other times, they’re competing for his time and attention.

Along with a great story, this movie carries with it a brilliant and quick-witted performance by Tom Hanks and what I also believe was Jackie Gleason’s last movie before he passed away. It’s definitely worth watching and, in my mind, this is one of Tom’s best movies out there, along with the next movie on my list.

8.) Apollo 13 (1995): I’ve probably watched this movie at least fifteen times. I wouldn’t have been nearly as impressed with it if it hadn’t been based on a true story. In the spirit of those “thinker” movies, I was just floored with how intelligent those NASA guys had to be to put all of the little (...yet essential) pieces together to bring the Apollo 13 crew home. Excellent movie and excellent acting.

Most importantly, if you have the DVD and you’ve already seen the movie before, watch it again with Jim Lovell’s audio commentary. He assures the audience that, with the exception of a few liberties that the director took with minor details, the movie is an extremely accurate account of the entire odyssey from launch prep to landing.

9.) Training Day (2001): Yes, it’s good against evil, but where’s the line that separates the two? The reason why I think this movie is so great is because it challenges you to decide for yourself which path you’d take if you were in Jake’s shoes. How far would you bend the rules to catch the bad guys? Because, like Alonzo (…played to perfection by Denzel Washington), you could just as easily spend enough time in the gray to the point where you no longer know what’s black and white anymore.

Having been a criminal justice major in college, I did my fair share of studying about being an honest cop, an honest detective, an honest corrections officer, an honest judge, an honest prosecutor, etc. Along with that studying came the knowledge that, more oftentimes than not, the legal system favored the criminals because they could often find a minor loophole that could set them free. It was easy to see how tempting it would be to falsify evidence or otherwise buy justice, knowing full well that following the letter of the law was something akin to trying to do your job with both hands tied behind your back.

10.) The Karate Kid (1984): Campy music aside, this is a feel good movie with a climactic, albeit predictable, ending. The wimp wants the girl who happens to be dating the villain of the story. The wimp is getting his ass handed to him on a daily basis, so the geriatric neighbor downstairs (...who just happens to be a master of martial arts) tutors him on how to kick ass the old-fashioned way. The wimp overcomes all obstacles, beats the bully and gets the girl. The end. But still, it’s got that certain quality that allows you to watch it over and over again before you get tired of it.

11.) Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981): This movie gets props for originality, as well as for its stunt work. It has that weekly serial feel to it, complete with cliffhangers and aforementioned stunts, but it’s not exactly a story that’s been done too often, if at all. I mean, how many archaeologists do you know carry a bullwhip with them? This is another movie that not only spawned some excellent sequels, but also managed to burn itself into my memory with a fantastic soundtrack and excellent action sequences.

12.) Mr. Holland’s Opus (1995): This movie struck a chord with me (…no pun intended) primarily because suspending disbelief wasn’t at all difficult with Richard Dreyfuss. You could actually believe that you were looking at the same man aging over the span of thirty years. Plus, the ending of the film was tear-jerking greatness. In a very dramatic way, Mr. Holland sees just how many lives he's managed to touch over the course of his thirty year teaching career, proving once and for all that it was a life well-lived.

The lead character also deals with having to decide when the school comes first and when his deaf son does. As you can imagine, his own son resents the father for not spending more time with him, but as you’ll see near the end, he figures out a way to combine his school life with his son’s to finally reconcile the two.

13.) The American President (1995): Near as I can tell, this movie was directly responsible for the television series called “The West Wing.” I minored in Political Science and have always had a fascination with the American presidency, but I figured that this would be a boring movie and almost never gave it a chance.

Michael Douglas showed the kind of confidence, strength and charisma that we all wish our presidents could have and he almost single-handedly carried the movie from start to finish. The rapid-fire script keeps you interested in the goings-on within the confines of the White House and the story’s not too bad, either. As a bonus, here's my favorite line from the movie:

Robin: "Fellas, we haven't slept in three years. Can't we forget work for one night and take this moment to enjoy each other as friends? It's Christmas."

Lewis: "It's Christmas?"

Kodak: "Yeah. You didn't get the memo?"

14.) The Truman Show (1998): It’s literally a Sociologist’s dream scenario. Build a domed structure so big that it’s visible from the moon, build an entire world within that dome and throw thousands of cameras in there with thousands of actors and one adopted baby who unwittingly spends his entire life on film. The Truman Show is what you get.

The title character is completely unaware that the world in which he lives is fake and that millions of people watch him on their televisions every day. Think EdTV, but on a massive grand scale and without the awareness of his situation. It’s another thinker because they find cruel ways to keep him from wanting to explore beyond his picture-perfect town.

One particularly funny visual is when he goes into the travel agency (…fake, of course) and as he’s waiting for service, you see a poster in the background, showing an airplane with a lightning bolt going through one of the wings. The caption says something along the lines of, “It could happen to you” and you just have to laugh because they’ll obviously never sell airline tickets THAT way. They even have his TV father act out a scene where he drowns to give Truman the fear of water that, of course, petrifies him enough to stay on solid ground.

15.) Sin City (2005): In my opinion, this is the first movie based on a comic strip that actually plays like a comic strip. It’s mostly in black and white, but has color splashed in here and there, just like in the comic. It’s hard-hitting and not even remotely campy. The lighting of the characters really brought out the features in their faces and, with some digital assistance, even broke a few rules (i.e.: how the dark shadow on left side of Clive Owen’s face doesn’t prevent you from seeing the white of his eye).

In my opinion, the storyline involving Marv was the best of the bunch and it also managed to do something that I wouldn't have thought possible - portray Elijah Wood as somebody you could actually be fearful of. It's an awesome and visually stunning movie with a decent soundtrack.

16.) Saw (2004): This is one of those movies that, when it ends, the only words you can think of to say are, “That’s really f**ked up!” I never fully understood why the guy goes to such lengths to make people die in such elaborately f**ked up ways, but it’s a bone-chiller of a movie for sure. Just how much and to what extent would you maim yourself in order to save your own life? What's unique about the movie is that the guy responsible for the deaths of all of these people doesn't actually do the killing at all, leading one to wonder if he could be classified as a killer.

The other crazy "mess with your mind" part was at the very end of the movie, especially if you happened to catch Saw II. It’s obvious that the screaming dude at the end of the first movie never gets out of that room because you see his decaying remains in a scene from the second movie. It’s a messed up movie, but messed up in a good, freaky kind of way.

17.) Paycheck (2003): This one kinda plays to my love for anything to do with time travel and figuring sh*t out. The way the title character engineers his own survival plan (…by seeing into the future and equipping himself with seemingly innocuous tools to use at the right moment) was, in my opinion, really well thought out. It also reminded me that, while being able to see your own future would be cool, knowing how your life will go and how it will end would most definitely remove all hope from your existence. And, in doing so, would probably also remove your reason for living as well.

18.) Threesome (1994): It’s tough to say exactly why this movie appealed to me the way it did, especially with the whole “gay” element thrown in. I thought the movie was good because it gave you an interesting glimpse into a world of false reality.

Think about it.

When you’re a kid, your life is pretty much mapped out for you and is not fully yours to control. When you’re in the real world as an adult, working for a living and keeping up with the bills, you live an equally structured existence. College life seems to represent a gray area of your life when you have more control over your existence. The only caveat is that the world around you seems totally out of control.

Sure, you go where you want, eat what you want, live how you want, pick the courses you want, go to those classes when you want, pursue who you want, f**k who you want, yet in the grand scheme of things, you’re not entirely sure what you want out of life. It’s a crazy time and this movie shows just how crazy and random the life of a college kid can get.

It reminds me of my college days, only without the f**ked up roommate or the deviant sexcapades.

19.) Before Sunrise (1995): Speaking of college, I first saw this movie as an extra credit assignment for my Sociology course at Northeastern University. Our professor told us to meet him at a theater that NU owns to watch this movie. The plan was that, after watching it, we were gonna head over to a café or pizza shack nearby to “bullsh*t about the movie,” compare ideas and give insights. What was funny was that, when the movie ended, our professor was so disappointed in the movie that he told our class, “You guys can just take off. You’ll get full credit for showing up and sticking this movie out.”

Apparently, he found nothing remotely fulfilling about this movie to justify taking up anymore of his or our time. In an odd twist, I actually came away from the theater, thinking it was a pretty decent flick. A casual glance between two people on a train (...blasting through Europe) leads to an adventure that wasn’t even remotely planned by either person. They just interrupt their lives, like a fissure in the timeline, to disembark in Vienna and get to know each other, allowing for only that one night.

They spend that whole night and early morning just talking each other to death and sharing all kinds of hidden secrets with each other. I also liked it because the crap they talk about only really seems to matter to those f**king nouveau-riche, hummus-eating college students who read Nietzsche and think that their thoughts are so f**king deep. To the rest of the planet, it's just a lot of hot air.

On the plus side, this movie served as a sobering reminder of just how awkward it can be when a guy and a girl meet for the first time and try to find out if they click. It reminds you of how good that first spark feels and how nervous it makes you feel in the pit of your stomach when you actually think you've stumbled onto a new love connection.

20.) The Fighting Sullivans (1944): This is another movie that I saw as a kid and it just stuck with me. This film is based upon a true story of five brothers, brought up in a close-knit family in Iowa, during the days of the Great Depression. It's your typical, Irish-American, Catholic family in the 1930's. The boys are inseparable. They spend all of their time together, they do yard work together, they go fishing together and they get into trouble together. When one of the boys gets into a fight, the other four jump into the fray.

Fast-forward several years and now the boys are young men. Life seems to be going very well. Then, Pearl Harbor happens. The brothers decide that they just can't sit idly by as our country enters the war. They all enlist and against the recommendation of the Navy, they all get assigned to the same ship. The youngest brother by this time even has a wife and child, but that doesn’t deter him from staying right by the side of his four older brothers.

The actors who played the mother and father were awesome. The father busts his ass every day to feed his family, but like any human, he can sometimes let his emotions get the better of him. The mother is loving, but strict and seems to act as the glue that keeps everybody together. You gotta love how the father reacts whenever the boys do something wrong or, in one scene, damn near wreck the house. The movie ends sadly with all five brothers dying on the ship, but it strikes a very patriotic chord. As far as movies go, The Fighting Sullivans is about as apple pie as they come.

Okay, I'm officially burnt out. Maybe I should have just stuck to the top ten.

What's With the Lisp?

I’m probably setting myself up for a lot of hate mail with this next blog, but this is a question that’s literally been bugging me for years and I’d like to at least throw it out there.

Now, anybody who knows me well enough will tell you that I’m not much of a gay advocate.

Do I hate gays? No.
Am I homophobic? No.
Do I have an opinion about homosexuality? Definitely.

It will be all I can do to stop myself from listing all of the reasons I have for standing against gay marriage, but I really will try to refrain because that’s not the point of this blog. Invariably, some gay advocate will mock the sanctity of heterosexual marriage by invoking the Britney Spears example, so I’ll quickly say the following:

Every God-created thing that exists on this planet has the potential to be abused by stupid people. Whether it’s marriage, sex, food, water or whatever, humans have the potential to ruin good things if they’re not cautious. That’s life.... and that's another blog for another day.

For the past couple of years now, I’ve dared to ask the questions that the majority of Americans eschew when it comes to homosexuality. Let’s take my most recent adventure as an illustration.

Three guys are walking up Tremont Street in Boston, just past the Red Hat bar. I’m walking behind them en route to the Kinsale restaurant to meet my wife for dinner. These guys are just shootin’ the sh*t about their regular mundane jobs and all of a sudden, my gay-dar starts beeping. I don’t know these guys from a hole in the wall, so why do I get the strong suspicion that they’re gay?

Undaunted, I tapped one of them on the shoulder to get his attention. He turned to face me and here’s what I said:

“Excuse me. You don’t have to answer this question if you don’t want to, but I was wondering if you three guys are gay or straight?”

One of the guys giggled incredulously, one just kinda looked at me as if I’d just eaten a worm and the third guy said, “Well, not that it’s any of your business, but we’re all gay.”

I said, “Thanks. That’s all I needed to know.” and that was the end of the conversation.

So, how did I know they were gay? They weren’t dressed flamboyantly, yet clothing was a factor. They didn’t have hair down to their asses, yet hairstyle was a factor. And they weren’t discussing gay topics, yet their speech gave them away instantly.

Here’s how I figured the not-so-mysterious mystery out:

CLOTHING: No, they weren’t wearing long, glittery robes with neon lights flashing the words, "Mrs. Pitt" and no, they weren’t wearing ass-less chaps, high heels, tummy shirts or anything of that sort. In fact, they were dressed very well; as if they'd just walked out of the f**king Abercrombie & Fitch Fall catalog. Simply put, the Queer Eye dudes might be snappy dressers, but normal heterosexual guys tend to relax what little fashion sense they might have. They don’t care about matching shoe color with hair color or what color shirt goes well with their eyes. With some dudes, just getting them to wear clean underwear and socks is an accomplishment.

Point of Fact: We of the "woman-banging" variety don’t generally tuck in our shirts, wear stylish shoes or don suit jackets unless we’re waiting to get into a nightclub to go chick-hunting.

These three dudes were walking up Tremont Street with style and panache… on a Wednesday evening.

HAIR: This was another indicator. All three of these guys had slick hairdos, glistening with gel. Now, unless they were just coming from a Blaine Hair Salon photoshoot, there’d be no real reason to be looking like that. Most women seem to prefer a clean-cut guy with hair that isn’t sticky or crunchy, partly because they can run their fingers through the man’s hair and partly because it isn’t 1986.

VOICE: This is the part that bugs me the most. Why is it that so many gay men speak with a lisp? I used to think it was a stereotype against dudes who were a little light in the loafers, but as I’ve observed time and time and time again, the gay lisp isn’t a rare phenomenon. It’s hard to describe to someone who’s never heard it. I can’t really call it effeminate because even women don’t sound like this. I’d love to do a survey of 1,000 men who have these lisps and find out what percentage of these men suffer from a legitimate speech impediment and how many of them are just plain gay.

But aside from lisping, there’s a certain way that many gay men speak that’s, well…. just not very manly. I’m inclined to say that it takes a deliberate effort to speak in this fluffy way; almost as a verbal badge of honor for the ones who just accept their gayness and don’t make any apologies for it. Maybe I’m wrong and if I am, feel free to speak out, but I truly don’t believe that guys are born with this manner of speech. And before I get pelted with bitch slaps, let me just say that I’m perfectly aware that there are plenty of gay guys out there who look, act and sound just like regular guys. I’m not talking about these guys. I’m talking about the ones who sound like that gay Mexican dude from “The Birdcage.” I’m talking about those guys in the movie “The Rules of Attraction” who rush their gay friend to the ER. That whole limp-wristed, lispy sub-culture of guys who, through their speech, lets the world know that they’d rather get a lap dance from Jesse Metcalfe than Eva Longoria.

My point is that, if you believe you’re gay and there’s no other way for you, that’s one thing. Wear fashionable clothes if you want. Grease up your head to the point where you can slide it through a keyhole if it makes you happy. But for goodness sake, lose the f**king lisp, will ya? Yeah, it makes you sound gay, and that’s probably the whole point, but it also makes you sound really f**king stupid. So, butch it up a little, huh? Seriously.