The More Things Change...

A few posts ago, I mentioned that that I've been back in touch with friends from my high school days. Well, last week, we actually managed a major reunion. I can't even begin to say how much fun it was, seeing those guys again, a few of whom I hadn't seen for many moons. That's a pretty long time to you and me.

The memories came flooding back, and yes, I'm going to regale you with tales of my unbridled, uninhibited teen years. Actually, they weren't very unbridled, and other than the occasional bare ass moon out a car window, or heavy petting session on the bench seat of my dad's car, they weren't that uninhibited either. But, dammit, they were fun as hell.

We weren't much into drinking, getting drunk, smoking pot (until later, another post for another day), or anything like that. We were into girls. That was our reason for being, our sole mission in life. To meet girls, and get as far as you could with them. Hey, we knew what we were at the time. We were horny teenaged boys, succumbing to senseless hormones gone out of control. We were innocent victims of the savage rage of our own testicles. We armed ourselves with an arsenal of girl-trapping ammo, from our tight Gabardine slacks to our open shirts and gold chains, to our cologne that came in penis-shaped bottles.

We fought the good fight, learned the right dances, and said the right things. All to ensnare the unsuspecting female, with their big hair, gaucho pants, gold chains and perfume that came in vagina-shaped bottles. We would stand around at the dance, watch the groups of ladies congregate, and plan our attack. Rich would get the taller one, because he was tall. Louie would go for the second to tallest. Ant would go for the thinnest. I would go for the one with more curves. Matt would take the smallest, since he was a bit vertically challenged. And Angelo would just have his pick of the room, because he had the most hair on his chest, and enjoyed showing it off. And I usually struck out.

Mike supplied the music for our street corner serenades, "The Groove Line" being our adopted theme song, since it was first on the cassette tape, he liked that song and it was his boombox. That tape was in there for years, and had to be surgically removed. Mike would take out the tape and rewind it by hand, with a pencil in the spindle. It saved batteries, so we could listen to "The Groove Line" many more times while standing on the corner. And Jimmy would talk alot. Oh, yeah, alot.

Other friends joined the crew as we crept through our college years, and some guys slowly backed away, busy planning their brighter futures. Just as many crews of friends do.

But I'll never forget those days at the dances. Or the times we piled into Scott's little car, heading to the mall. The little auto suffocating with the stench of Pierre Cardin and farts. In the summer, we would head to Wildwood, New Jersey, to hang out at the beach, drinking pitchers of kamikazes and try to meet women, while also trying not to puke up warm kamikazes. Our arsenal changed somewhat, from tight slacks to tight jeans, from open collared shirts to pastel colored t-shirts under unconstructed linen jackets. But still the gold chains hung, with their Playboy bunny charms, gold horn, or dogtags. And I still usually struck out.

Then, some of us got girlfriends, a few of whom became wives. And we lost hair, put on weight, took off the gold chains. Okay, some still wear them. Me? I actually haven't had a piece of gold on me since the demise of my first marriage.

Anyway, it was really good seeing them all. The camaraderie was still there, with hugs and laughs, beers and Jimmy talking. A lot. Less hair on our heads, and more on our backs. Some are greying, some are putting kids through college. Some wear ties. Some will probably never get married. Some, okay, one, already did the marriage thing. Twice. But some things never change. Which is pretty damn comforting. And when we get together again in a few months, as promised, it will be like old times again. Hopefully, without the Pierre Cardin and farts.

Maybe I'll even dig out my gold chain with the Sagittarius charm. But definitely not the tight pants.

A Huggin' and A Chalkin' On The Disco Round.

There was a song called "A Huggin' and A Chalkin'" by Hoagy Carmichael, or it could have been Kay Keyser, that my dad used to listen to all the time when I was a kid. I remember him asking us to listen to it with him. It totally cracked him up. The song is about a guy who is in love with a woman who is so big and fat that he has to mark where he started hugging her with chalk so he'll know when he gets back to where he started. Seriously. Oh, and one day, he's a huggin' and a chalkin', and he meets a guy coming around the other way. Oh yeah. I'm really serious. That's the song. Of course, it came out at a time when the most famous black person was Stepin Fetchit, and women either were dames with nice gams or barefoot in the kitchen. But my dad liked it. So I liked it too.

That was my musical influence as a child.

The first album I ever bought was "The Sugar Bears." I swear. It was an album by the character from the Sugar Crisp cereal box. I saved up to buy it, so it wasn't some foolish impulse purchase. Oh no, I really wanted it. And listened to it. Over and over. I was 18.

Okay, kidding. I was a little younger than that. But again, my musical preference was a group of cartoon bears who peddled crispy sugar-coated sugar breakfast nuggets. By seventh grade or so, I was so into John Denver that I used to beg my mom to let me stay up late to watch his TV specials. I would sit in the basement listening to his records, singing them out loud. Come on, 'Annie's Song' is still one of the most romantic love songs ever. His music is still a guilty pleasure. But again, not the most popular choice.

So, it should come as no surprise that as a young teen, I was a disco fan. A big, dago-fro, gold chain wearing, double-knit Sans-A-Belt slacks disco boy. My friends and I saw Saturday Night Fever four or five times. And that's when there was no such thing as DVDs or even VHS. Remember those days? When you had to go to a theater to see a movie. We went to the theater four or five times to see it. Oh, we were only freshmen in high school, but we were living the Tony Manero life.

We went to teen dances on Friday nights, Saturday nights and sometimes even Saturday afternoons and Sunday nights. Okay, there was no alcohol served or anything, but to meet girls, you had to know how to dance. Girls liked guys who could dance. And when we went over to Jersey to a teen dance, the Jersey girls would get all flustered because the Italian guys from South Philly were there to show them a better time on the dance floor than their rock-loving Jersey boys. Of course, there were lots of fights. But I never fought. I was a lover, not a fighter. Actually, I was a pussy. But a pussy that could dance! The hustle, the line dancing, the rock. I had a chiana shirt, with the wide collar and a silkscreen of a couple on the beach on the front of the shirt. Oh, it was friggin' hot. And I would proudly wear that thing, because I bought it with money I earned working at the local corner grocery store, delivering milk and Nilla Wafers to moldy old greaseball ladies. Just like Tony Manero worked at the hardware store and earned enough dough to buy his white suit. We were living parallel lives, he and I.

And the music went along with the lifestyle. "I love the nightlife. I've got to boogie on the disco round..." I always wondered what a disco round was, but it didn't really matter. I did love the nightlife. Even if teen dances ended at 11:00. I had a plethora of 12" disco singles. One of my favorites was "Knock On Wood" by Ami Stewart. I could shake my groove thing to that.

My brother would taunt me with "Disco sucks!" Yeah, right. That's why I was out meeting girls at dances and he was at home diddling himself with Led Zeppelin albums playing in the background. I didn't even like Kiss until they came out with "I Was Made For Loving You" and Ace did "New York Groove." The Village People, another favorite. Were they gay? To us it didn't matter. To us, they were gay, when it means 'happy and fun'. But they were disco. We even assembled a Village People tribute act and performed as them. In front of people. Not just a few people. Auditoriums full of people. I was the "hot cop." Oh, yes I was. And I could thrust my pelvis like a stripper who's having an epileptic fit on her pole. My tight white cop pants hugged my butt as I lip-synched "YMCA" and "Macho Man." It was truly a thing of beauty. It was a far cry from the sugary pop goodness of The Sugar Bears, and miles from my current iTunes list of eclectic choices. From Cake to Amy Winehouse to Arctic Monkeys or Southern Culture on the Skids.

But I still have some Village People tunes there, nestled between The Velvet Underground and Weezer.

Am I proud of my disco days? Hey, we all have things in our past we're not completely proud of. But I can say this much, we had fun. Not 'gay' fun. But real, memorable fun. I can still dance, which makes me feel good when I see all those guys doing the white-man shuffle at weddings or clubs. And girls still like guys who can dance. As long as they're not wearing wide-collared chiana shirts.

So, I listen to my eclectic stuff, mixed in with my Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, or Tony Bennett or Sinatra. (Hey, I have to like Sinatra. I'm Italian from South Philly. If I don't like him, my kneecaps get broken.)

Oh, and I just downloaded "A Huggin' and A Chalkin'" from iTunes. It's an obnoxious song, but it makes me picture my dad laughing. And that's music to my ears.

Then and Now

I'm a child of the '60s (and '70s). Most of the people I work with are too young to remember the stuff I often reference. Many of them were sleeping in cribs around the time I was in college sleeping off hangovers. So things like H.R. Pufnstuf, 12" GI Joe figures (with Kung Fu Grip), Astro Boy, and Freakies Cereal are all completely foreign to these people. I try to introduce some of the things of my youth to my kids. Like Count Chocula (which isn't the same anymore) or The Monkees. I got my daughter the complete Archies cartoons DVD for Christmas. She loves the comics, and I fondly remember those toons from the late '60s. They had the same footage of The Archies band for every song they sang. The problem is, sometimes things that I remember being really cool and fun when I was a kid, just did not age well. (The Archies are still kinda cool though, in a cheesy way. Sort of like the comics. The jokes haven't changed in 40 years). So, what I wanted to do was put together a list of things I loved as a kid and try to find today's equivalent of it.

For example, The Monkees are basically The Naked Brothers Band and Hannah Montana, only funnier and with better music (c'mon, songs written by Boyce & Hart and Neil Diamond, shows directed by Bob Rafelson, of Five Easy Pieces!) Seriously, have you ever sat through an episode of Naked Brothers or Hannah Montana? I have. It was like a knitting needle being shoved into each ear and through my eyes, piercing my brain with a nasty 'pop'. Poor writing, painful acting, amateurish direction, and repetitive, pseudo-pop crap music. Were the Monkees much better? Well, no, but they're definitely a whole lot more watchable. Sheer silliness for the sake of being silly. No annoying wise-mouth kids, and you didn't bristle at the thought of Davy actually kissing a girl.

H.R. Pufnstuf was basically a Barney for older kids, without the annoying songs that make you want to scrub your brain with a metal brush, (okay, some of the songs were bad.) plus some Teletubbie type characters, a kid with an British accent and his magic, um, "flute." I believe the same amount of drugs went into each episode of H.R. Pufnstuf as an entire season of Power Rangers.

Speaking of Power Rangers, how about Ultra-Man? The ultimate import from Japan, it was a dose of giant monster every frigging day. The difference between Ultra-Man and Power Rangers is that you never wanted to see Ultra-Man die a horribly painful death like you do every single one of those Ranger teens. Plus, there was no licensing juggernaut making billions off cheesy toys. I used to use a fat magic marker as the Beta Capsule when I played Ultra-Man. Oh, yeah, and you can see zippers of the backs of the monsters in both shows. Oh, those Japanese. Some things never change.

G.I. Joe was THE real American hero. And I'm not talking about those crappy little 5-inch figures from the '80s. I'm talking about the big 12-inchers. Because when it comes to G.I. Joe, size certainly matters. I remember them when they had plastic hair, then moved to the fuzzy buzz cuts and beards. They were tough, they had tons of accessories that were big and rugged. Today's boys have action figures that fit on keychains. Basically, today's equivalent of GI Joe is, well, there's actually nothing like him on the market. All the pansy-ass liberals made sure that kids get positive role models, not war mongers. Like Jamie Lynn Spears. Yeah, there's a positive role model for kids.

Freakies Cereal was like eating a bowl full of sugar frosted sugar with sugar milk and sugar on top for good measure. And they had the coolest characters. These little monster things that lived in trees. And the prizes were cool. Freakies magnets, Freakies pencil toppers, Freakies cars that ran on the air from a little balloon you attached to it. Today, they're taking sugar out of cereals. Kids need to eat Life or Cheerios. There are no cool little monsters on the box. And no cool toys inside. Oh, my dentist loved us...

Board games were actually fun, interesting ways to pass the time with your friends. You actually had to interact in real life, rather than with characters on the screen. Life, Mouse Trap, Monopoly, Clue...all great games I grew up with. And then Pong came along and changed the game playing field forever. Not to say that video games don't help hand/eye coordination, but when I was younger, I found other things to do with my hand. Like roll dice, for crying out loud.

I know, I sound like an old fart complaining about the how things aren't as "special" as they were years ago. Soon, I'll be yelling at the kids playing ball in the street. As if they actually do that anymore...duh.

I'm going to put on The Archies, sing "Sugar, Sugar" with a nice big bowl of the Cap'n. If only you could still get Quisp...

Celluloid Heroes

The other night I saw Juno. It temporarily restored my belief that something good can come out of Hollywood. If you haven't seen it, you should. I like seeing films that are clever, well-written and just a bit quirky. I saw it a week after going to see Alien vs. Predator: Requiem. Need I say more? My son loved the chest-bursting, head-exploding action. And I've got to admit, it was cool. But it was hardly inventive or creative. Unless you call a cheerleader being mounted to a wall with a Predator spear through her chest creative. I mean, she wasn't even naked.

The thing is, I love movies. All kinds. Eclectic, foreign, classic, you name it. Even some mainstream stuff. Especially if it features a naked cheerleader shish-kabob.

So anyway, I believe you can tell a lot about a person by the movies they like. I don't know what my choices say about me. It's a little scary. Which brings me to the actual list. Listen, I don't know if anyone is interested in reading about the movies I consider to be my favorites. But, hey, I like to share. It's not one of those "best of" lists, because that's all bullshit. But, like I said, it's a good way to get to know me better, and it's all subjective and opinion. Just as is your reason for including Titanic on your list. Other than lack of taste. Again, subjective and opinion. These are in no particular order, by the way.

The Big Lebowski. Dude, this aggression will not stand. Some of the best, most quotable lines ever. Quirky? Oh, yeah, just how I like it. You really have to watch it several times to let it sink in. I'm a total achiever—what fans of the movie have taken as a name. If you've seen it, you understand the whole "achiever" thing. And proud we are of all of them. Oh, and "fuck" is used almost 300 times (281 to be fucking exact) which is pretty fucking awesome, man.

King Kong. The original, of course. Why would anyone remake such a classic? Peter Jackson said the original was his favorite movie, he even owns original props from it. So why would he remake it into such a bloated spectacle? The original though, featuring the stop-motion monsters with the creepy lifelike eyes...awesome! Kong even fingers Fay Wray. Talk about jungle fever.

Plan 9 From Outer Space. Okay, they just don't make bad movies this good anymore. Maybe the most enjoyably bad movie ever. Today's bad movies are just plain bad. This is so impeccably bad, it's awesome.

Moonstruck & Fatso. One won an Academy Award for Cher. The other stars Dom Deluise. Both remind me of my family and feature great eating scenes.

The Nightmare Before Christmas and all of Tim Burton's films (except Planet of the Apes and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). C'mon, Christmas meets Halloween, with a stop-motion skeleton in a tuxedo, and the best soundtrack Danny Elfman has ever done. Then there's Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Ed Wood, Edward Scissorhands, Mars Attacks! I love them for all their atmospheric, eclectic, skewed-world goopy goofiness.

The Seven Year Itch and Some Like It Hot. Marilyn at her hottest. Done.

Here's just a list of some of my other faves: Young Frankenstein, Annie Hall, The Godfather, The Godfather Part II (we never speak of Part III), Amelie, The Exorcist, American Movie (a really bizarre documentary about a redneck loser making a movie), The Iron Giant, and anything Chaplin ever did.

Okay, so now my geekiness has reared it's geeky head. Just wanted to get this off my chest. I could literally go on for pages, but I think I bored you all enough. Gotta go now. Showgirls is coming on Bravo.

Meaningless Q and A.

My good friend and eclectic music fan, Mr. Josh Pincus Is Crying, sent me this meaningless e-mail fluff Q & A. And while I usually make fun of these, this is one that poses some pretty good questions. So, I thought I'd post it along with my responses. Hope you enjoy, and feel free to send it to a friend...or not.


1. Voted Most Likely to:
Perform self-trepanation.

2. Regrets:
Filling this out and putting it on my blog.

3. It’s a Monday, you are tired and don’t feel like working, so you:
Spend all day at the office answering meaningless Q & A e-mails and posting them on my blog.

4. You would prefer to have dinner with:
Andre.

(oooh, art film reference...)

5. If you were going bald, you would:
I am going bald. Just not getting balled. (Ouch!)

6. You lay awake at night, pondering:
I ponder, "Why the hell am I "pondering" and not trying to get some sleep?"

7. If you were forced to share a cubicle, the most important thing you look for is:
Foods that give me the most vile gas.

8. What is most likely to be found in the trunk of your car:
That depends on how the hit goes. Sometimes I have to go get a big butcher's knife from my mother to take care of that "deer who's paw got stuck in the grill..." if you know what I mean. So get lost. It's none of your fuckin' business anyways...

9. Favorite Spinal tap movie moment:
"we had a dwarf knocking over the Stonehenge..." And the mime caterers at the release party, who called their business "Shut Up and Eat!"

10. Based on your work history, the job you SHOULD HAVE right now is:
Held by someone with less experience and less talent.

11. Your imaginary band name is:
Foreskin Matadors