Category: Movies

  • ODDS and ENDS: Start of the Season, Growing Up, and Getting Older

    (It’s always some other guy…)

    Yup, Saturday is the start of Tottenham Hotspur’s 2025/26 Season! Am I excited? Yes! Will they do well? I doubt it. Will I watch every match. You bet! Seriously, what’s the point of being a supporter of a team if you don’t support the team all the time! I don’t know much about the team for this season other than new manager (Thomas Frank,) Son isn’t with the team (moved on to LAFC where I hope he kills it,) and that the team will play in the Champions League this year. I feel ignorance might be bliss going into Saturday and hope to be pleasantly surprised. Let’s see what happens.

    Can’t stop the kid from growing up and I don’t want to, either. Just a week into middle school and I can already feel the change in her. There’s a bit of more confidence, but I am seeing the first specks of anxiety. I’m happy about the first, and feel bad for the second. But as she gets older I can see now that I will be taking on a more supportive role, and not leading anymore. I’m trying not to mourn what is in the past, but celebrate the possibilities of her future. I can feel a wild ride is coming.

    Which means I’m getting older. And I know that I am old because my daughter did the math, and figured out, that if you use The Simpson’s pilot date of 12/17/1989, then Bart was born in 1979, and Lisa was born in 1981. “They’re Gen-X, just like you!” she yelled at me.

  • Earworm Wednesday: This Song was Dangerous When I was in 7th Grade

    It’s the drums and Tone Loc’s voice that get stuck in my head. Just on repeat for days.

    But it doesn’t happen when I hear this song while watching Uncle Buck.

    Go figure…

  • Middle School (Unedited)

    The kid started middle school. There has been a great deal of upheaval and change in our little apartment, not to mention the world. I am happy that the kid is growing up, and she is very excited about staring middle school, and leaving elementary behind. For her, she likes a challenge, and going new places and meeting new people, and middle school is that. Her only complaint has been that she wants to get at the learning and new classes, and the first day is just dull; learning the rules, and where things are.

    I will tip my cap to my kid; she is so much braver that I was at her age.

    I was terrified to go to middle school. Everything that everyone had told me was that the 9th graders ate the seventh graders alive. There was nothing in middle school I was looking forward to. It was all awkward and mean and rough, and embarrassing, and every school nightmare I ever had wrapped up into one.

    The funny thing was that the night before middle school started, my kid had trouble sleeping. She had butterflies in her stomach. Though she was excited about starting middle school, there was still a little nervousness to it. As I was talking to her, trying to help her relax and sleep, she asked me if middle school will be the worst time of her life, because me and her mother had told her some stories of how difficult it was. That and she’s seen enough tween TV and movies that have also painted middle school as a grinder box crucible of adolescence.

    I was prepared to attempt to paint the rosiest of pictures for her that it was this fun place, and only a few bad things happened to me, but that would have been a lie. And then it struck me; there was a silver lining. I told her that middle school was where I discovered theatre and performing. It was the place that where I first started reading great books, books that open your mind, and help you start to see the world in new and fresh ways. But most importantly, middle school was where I made some of the first truly great friends of my life. People I bonded with over books and movies and music. People I that are still in my life today, who I can’t fathom not being intertwined with to this day. I told her that middle school was the start of the process that made me the adult who I am today. The person I am proud to be.

    Don’t know if it did the trick, but she eventually got to sleep.

    And maybe I’m getting old and looking for silver linings in awful memories, or maybe those sharp edges and rounding off as the years go by.

    Nope. Middle school was the worst. I just had the best friends imaginable, which is how I survived.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Make It Stop, Three Weeks, and Relax

    ODDS and ENDS: Make It Stop, Three Weeks, and Relax

    (Mama, I know we broke the rules…)

    I know the urban legend is that celebrities die in threes, but man, this week is really pushing the barrier on that old adage. It started with Malcolm-Jamal Warner, and then this week went wild; Ozzy, Hulk Hogan, Chuck Mangione, Connie Francis, and I will also throw in the tragic news that Anne Burrell’s death was caused by suicide. And there is part of me that feels like I am leaving a person or two off this list, but this is just who is popping into my head as I write this. Just kind’a a sad week, as it seems like God is making it pour…

    Hey! Premier League starts up in three weeks! And I am ready because Tottenham had just about the worst season a club could have without being relegated and still winning a tournament. But outside of that, 2024/25 was a trash-ass dumpster fire of a season, and we can only go up from here! The first bit of good news was the hiring of Thomas Frank as the teams new manager. They nicked Frank off of Brentford, which was another club that I like and followed slightly. Frank did an impressive job getting Brentford promoted from the Championship League to the Premier, and then keeping the club competitive ever since. I have high hopes for Frank’s tenure as Spurs manager. And I’m looking forward to the Fall and winter mornings, donning my Tottenham scarf, sitting in bed with my iPad, watching a match, and falling asleep by halftime.

    I need to work on relaxing. I’m not good at it. If I’m not doing something then I think I am falling behind and failing. Gotta work on that. But first I need to go and paint one of the alcoves in the living room…

  • ODDS and ENDS (Early Edition): What I Will Eat on The 4th, What My Dog Thinks on The 4th, and This is What I will Watch on The 4th

    ODDS and ENDS (Early Edition): What I Will Eat on The 4th, What My Dog Thinks on The 4th, and This is What I will Watch on The 4th

    (This land is your land, this land is my land…)

    Yes! The 4th of July is here tomorrow, and me and the family will be hanging out with friends. We’ll eat all the holiday staples; chips, dip, burgers and hotdogs. But this year, I’m telling you, we need to add an item to the Independence Day menu. And that my friends, is a Chopped Cheese sandwich. A New York deli staple since I’ve been here, and if you don’t know what it is, you need to know.

    And when it comes to the 4th of July, my dog thinks that this is the day that the world is coming to an end.

    It’s JAWS and it will always be JAWS.