1983 was 25 years ago and by that I mean 2008 represents the 25th anniversary of Return of the Jedi. I find this rather frightening since it feels like just yesterday that my dad and I waited on a line wound round the block to finally see the infamous Jabba the Hutt. It seems like just yesterday I traded Return of the Jedi cards with my friends at Rolling Hills Day Camp (I remember my favorite card was the one featuring Max Rebo aka the blue elephant-like dude who played the piano in Jabba's bar band). It seems like just yesterday that George Lucas foreshadowed the abomination known as Jar Jar Binks by introducing the kid-centric ewoks and changing the original title from the ultra-cool Revenge to the more innocuous Return.
Now, to put this in perspective, back in '83 people were marveling over the 25th anniversary of Vertigo, The Bridge on the River Kwai and Old Yeller. That's right...the same amount of time has passed since Boba Fett, everyone's favorite bounty hunter, was beaten by a blind Han Solo that had passed since a boy heard his beloved dog take a slug in the skull. This is how fast time is going. Before you know it, Titanic will be 10 years old. Wait...Titanic IS 10 years old! Make it stop!
Other things celebrating their 25th anniversaries in 2008:
The final episode of M*A*S*H airs
The Cabbage Patch Kids cause mass murders amongst desperate parents
People begin to "Just Say No" to drugs (though they won't realize their drug-addled brains are equivalent to frying eggs until 4 years later)
Sally Ride becomes the first woman in space
The Police ironically advocate stalking in "Every Breath You Take"
The Baltimore Orioles win their last WS
Monday, January 28, 2008
Sunday, January 27, 2008
American
American: A person able to recite the entire cast of "Just the 10 of Us" despite not seeing the show for more than a decade, but unable to calculate a tip without using a cell phone
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Friday, January 25, 2008
Endless
Endless: a word used in endless articles (scholarly and journalistic), short stories, novels, opinion pieces, essays, memoirs, blog posts, classics, grant proposals, Pulitzer Prize winners, Nobel Prize winners, Newberry Prize Winners, advertisements, cookie fortunes, horoscopes, reviews, Dear John letters, instruction manuals, theses, dissertations, term papers, speeches, press releases, and an endless array of other written materials...
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Who hates ya, baby?
Facebook is weird, wild stuff. According to my Heroes Ability application, I can paint the future. According to my TV trivia box, I'm a virtuoso. According to my Superpoke application, I've been "trout slapped" (whatever that means) by my sister. And according to my entourage, I have over 90 friends.
The friend section of facebook is pretty cool. It's helped me reconnect with people I haven't seen, spoken to, or even thought of in 5, 10, 15, 20, sometimes 25 years. I've reconnected with friends who now go by different names, friends who I never thought would remember me, friends from Australia and Canada and all across the USA. I've even reconnected with Richard Capatosto, a friend I haven't seen since JHS whose legendary 7th or 8th grade haiku has been quoted and re-quoted amongst my close friends for almost 20 years:
I see a kitten
I see a lead pipe
Everything is red
I'm finding it pretty exciting when I find someone I haven't seen since before Mr. Belvedere was even a twinkle in some hard-up TV writer's mind or someone sends me a friend request with a note asking what I've been doing since that time I wet my pants in kindergarten, but yesterday I received a friend request that actually gave me a little jolt. It was a request from a girl I knew in elementary school more than 20 years ago. The problem is, I HATED her with a passion on a rope on a stick. This girl made my 4th or 5th or 6th (can't remember exactly which) grade a living hell. You see, this girl was one of those people who found joy in the torturing and tormenting of nice, shy young boys. She made up a nickname for me, one that really didn't have any meaning, but one that stuck and burned nonetheless. By the time most of her friends had taken to calling me this name as if chanting a mantra, I was spending most of my nights crying myself to sleep. Eventually, I fought back. I'd call her a my own made-up meaningless name in retaliation and soon enough, the barbs stopped. But it took me a long time to get over the hurt.
Now this girl who 20+ years ago made me scared to go to school thanks to her arbitrary, yet venomous name-calling, wants to be my friend. She even attached a nice message asking how I've been and extending her well wishes. Hell, by now, she's probably a loving wife and mother and all-around nice person. I honestly didn't know what to do. She probably doesn't even remember what she did and actually, I hadn't thought about it or her in a looooooooooooooong time, but just seeing her name made my stomach twitch anxiously.
In the end, I accepted her friend request. Maybe, as another friend suggested, she's working through a 10-step and needs to make amends. Maybe she just wants to make amends. Maybe she's blocked the events of that grade school year out of her mind or simply, just forgotten them. More likely, she's actually a mature 33-yr-old woman who's genuinely excited to hear from someone she knew as a kid.
Regardless, the important thing and the reason why I accepted her facebookian request for friendship is: I'm no longer that shy, scared little boy. :)
The friend section of facebook is pretty cool. It's helped me reconnect with people I haven't seen, spoken to, or even thought of in 5, 10, 15, 20, sometimes 25 years. I've reconnected with friends who now go by different names, friends who I never thought would remember me, friends from Australia and Canada and all across the USA. I've even reconnected with Richard Capatosto, a friend I haven't seen since JHS whose legendary 7th or 8th grade haiku has been quoted and re-quoted amongst my close friends for almost 20 years:
I see a kitten
I see a lead pipe
Everything is red
I'm finding it pretty exciting when I find someone I haven't seen since before Mr. Belvedere was even a twinkle in some hard-up TV writer's mind or someone sends me a friend request with a note asking what I've been doing since that time I wet my pants in kindergarten, but yesterday I received a friend request that actually gave me a little jolt. It was a request from a girl I knew in elementary school more than 20 years ago. The problem is, I HATED her with a passion on a rope on a stick. This girl made my 4th or 5th or 6th (can't remember exactly which) grade a living hell. You see, this girl was one of those people who found joy in the torturing and tormenting of nice, shy young boys. She made up a nickname for me, one that really didn't have any meaning, but one that stuck and burned nonetheless. By the time most of her friends had taken to calling me this name as if chanting a mantra, I was spending most of my nights crying myself to sleep. Eventually, I fought back. I'd call her a my own made-up meaningless name in retaliation and soon enough, the barbs stopped. But it took me a long time to get over the hurt.
Now this girl who 20+ years ago made me scared to go to school thanks to her arbitrary, yet venomous name-calling, wants to be my friend. She even attached a nice message asking how I've been and extending her well wishes. Hell, by now, she's probably a loving wife and mother and all-around nice person. I honestly didn't know what to do. She probably doesn't even remember what she did and actually, I hadn't thought about it or her in a looooooooooooooong time, but just seeing her name made my stomach twitch anxiously.
In the end, I accepted her friend request. Maybe, as another friend suggested, she's working through a 10-step and needs to make amends. Maybe she just wants to make amends. Maybe she's blocked the events of that grade school year out of her mind or simply, just forgotten them. More likely, she's actually a mature 33-yr-old woman who's genuinely excited to hear from someone she knew as a kid.
Regardless, the important thing and the reason why I accepted her facebookian request for friendship is: I'm no longer that shy, scared little boy. :)
Racists like Starbucks too!
When you think of Starbucks, you generally think of overpriced coffee and forced hipness, not Klan members sans bed sheets. But just the other day I learned that the KKK is alive and well in America's favorite coffee house. I very rarely go into Starby's since I'm not a coffee drinker, but every once in awhile I'm willing to pony up a week's pay for a hot chocolate or strawberries & cream frappaccino. This past Tuesday, the day after MLK day as it turns out, was one of those days.
I stopped in the 3rd Ave and 23rd St 'Bucks, one of the 3 located on 23rd St between 3rd & 6th Aves in Manhattan. This one is rather small...only about 5 tables or so. I ordered a HC and moved to the designated spot to await my drink. Behind me, at a small table by the front window, a man and woman, both white, both probably in their late 30s to mid-40s are sitting and conversing just as a zillion men & women are sitting and conversing in Starbucks across the world. They're both dressed fairly well...the man in a nice button down shirt and slacks, the woman in a black suit and a faux fur hat. Neither person's head is shaved and there are no visible white supremacy tattoos. Of course, I just glimpsed in their direction...I didn't actually investigate.
Not exactly sure what they were talking about, but I overhead the guy saying "....that f**king jew c**t at the DA's office."
Now, of course, my ears prick up at this little burst of racial bias laced with profanity...not because I'm Jewish, but because I'm standing in a cozy Starbucks on a nice, sunny, Tuesday morning awaiting a cup of HC.
The guy asks the woman, "You got any jews at the office?"
"No Jews, just n*****s and sp*cs," she says nonchalantly.
This is one of the most bizarre things I've ever encountered. Not that I don't know there's blatant racism out there each and every day, it was just the context of the situation that floored me...that these two people, both seemingly "ordinary" if there is such a thing, are sitting there having a "normal" conversation on a Tuesday morning in a fairly small downtown Manhattan coffee shop filled with Asians and blacks and latinos and myself, a Jew married to a latino, mere footsteps away.
All I could do was get my HC and shake my head. Sure Starbucks is trendy, but since when did racial slurring over morning coffee become the hip thing to do?
I stopped in the 3rd Ave and 23rd St 'Bucks, one of the 3 located on 23rd St between 3rd & 6th Aves in Manhattan. This one is rather small...only about 5 tables or so. I ordered a HC and moved to the designated spot to await my drink. Behind me, at a small table by the front window, a man and woman, both white, both probably in their late 30s to mid-40s are sitting and conversing just as a zillion men & women are sitting and conversing in Starbucks across the world. They're both dressed fairly well...the man in a nice button down shirt and slacks, the woman in a black suit and a faux fur hat. Neither person's head is shaved and there are no visible white supremacy tattoos. Of course, I just glimpsed in their direction...I didn't actually investigate.
Not exactly sure what they were talking about, but I overhead the guy saying "....that f**king jew c**t at the DA's office."
Now, of course, my ears prick up at this little burst of racial bias laced with profanity...not because I'm Jewish, but because I'm standing in a cozy Starbucks on a nice, sunny, Tuesday morning awaiting a cup of HC.
The guy asks the woman, "You got any jews at the office?"
"No Jews, just n*****s and sp*cs," she says nonchalantly.
This is one of the most bizarre things I've ever encountered. Not that I don't know there's blatant racism out there each and every day, it was just the context of the situation that floored me...that these two people, both seemingly "ordinary" if there is such a thing, are sitting there having a "normal" conversation on a Tuesday morning in a fairly small downtown Manhattan coffee shop filled with Asians and blacks and latinos and myself, a Jew married to a latino, mere footsteps away.
All I could do was get my HC and shake my head. Sure Starbucks is trendy, but since when did racial slurring over morning coffee become the hip thing to do?
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