Think About It!

People don’t think anymore. I’m not talking about stupid people, although the 21^st century seems to have an extra ration of them. Nor am I talking about daydreaming, the gentle art of thinking about everything and nothing, all at the same time. I’m talking about the act of thinking. The activity whose only purpose is to produce thoughts (random and otherwise.) Basically, we’re so damn busy doing stuff that we never actually think. Our multitasking universe just doesn’t allow for it. It’s considered lazy. So we fill our random time with “busy” that looks and feels like we’re doing something. The problem is it’s mostly crap like playing with our phones or watching TV. But we believe action (even something as passive as surfing YouTube) is better than just staring off into space, thinking about it. Horse feathers!

Take a look at Newton. The reason Sir Isaac figured out gravity was he was sitting under the apple tree in the first place — doing nothing. (BTW, I know the story’s a myth but …) My point is, instead of texting his BFF John Locke a picture of an apple, Newton took the time to contemplate why the apple fell to the ground instead of just floating in the air. Voila! Gravity!

I realize we’re not all scientific geniuses like Newton and for the most part ordinary thoughts are — well — ordinary, but so what? The purpose of thinking is to give the mind something to do.

Look at the person running on a treadmill. They’re not fleeing for their lives; they’re not chasing anything; they’re not even going anywhere. Actually, it’s a useless activity except common wisdom dictates people who don’t exercise end up sloppy, fat bastards, lying on a sofa, eating Doritos and watching old Michael Bay movies for the storyline. Eeeww!

The mind works the same way. If we don’t exercise it, our decision making, problem-solving and critical analysis become flabby. A meme is easier to read than an essay, a soundbyte easier to analyze than a debate, and simple problems become overwhelming. It’s a dangerous road we’re travelling, and if we’re not careful, we could end up in a society wallowing in celebrity worship, entirely dominated by Kim Kardashian’s bum, Donald Trump’s hairstyle and … Hey! Wait a minute … I think I’m going to go find a tree and just sit there for awhile.

Is NOTHING Sacred?

I didn’t bitch when you turned the Green Hornet into a lard-ass slacker. I didn’t complain when you made the Lone Ranger and Tonto look like a couple of transcendental boobs. Hell, I even bit my tongue over the Ben Affleck Batman affair. There’ve been so many Batmans (Batmen?) anyway that nobody cares anymore. (Actually, a lot of people think that Cate Blanchett should take a crack at the cowl.0 But there is a point when every person has to cowboy-up and finally say WTF? I’m talkin’ to you, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. What, by all that’s holy, gave you the idea you could remake The Magnificent Seven? THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN? Arguably the best Western ever made (sorry, High Noon) and you think you can just casually redo it? For shame! Five shame!

Here’s the deal. If — maybe — perhaps — you got Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Charlize Theron, Russell Crowe, Jason Statham, Idris Elba and if Steve McQueen came back from the dead to play Vin, then I might consider it. Otherwise, you’re sucking pond water. In fact, you’re just cashing in on a famous name, you insatiable whores!

And it’s not as if Hollywood has any kind of a track record for treating the classics with any class. Look at these less than honourable money grabs:

Star Trek – In an alternative reality (shoot me in the head, right here!) Kirk is an overgrown juvenile delinquent, Old Spock wanders around looking miserable, young Spock has a temper tantrum (and, oddly enough, a girlfriend) Sulu looks as if he’s lost without Kumar, and the one requirement to command a Starship is you show up on a motorcycle and eat apples!

King Kong – What Peter Jackson did to that monkey oughta be illegal. Where the hell is PETA when you need them?

The Ladykillers – Every once in a while, the Coen bros go nuts and think they’re cinematic gods. This movie proves them wrong. Tom Hanks should have run screaming from the studio when he read the script. Unfortunately, he didn’t. Now, he wakes up every morning and begs the ghost of Alec Guinness for forgiveness.

Around the World in Eighty Days – Turning a 50s epic into a Jackie Chan kungfu movie is bad enough. However, trying to shoehorn homage to Michael Todd with cameos by Schwarzenegger, Cleese. Johnny Depp and the brothers Wilson is just insulting the guy’s memory.

Planet of the Apes – Mark Wahlberg spends most of the movie looking surprised that he’s even in this movie, Charlton Heston plays an ape, Paul Giamatti is an unusually short orangutan and Helena Bonham Carter plays a chimp (with mixed results.) The plot is based on coincidence, the climax is like five seconds long, the ending is stupid and when Wahlberg and Bonham Carter get all inter-species, the whole thing just gets icky.

The Wicker Man – Nicholas Cage deserves the bees.

Alice in Wonderland – Every stoner east of Malibu Bay is saying “Whoa! Alice gets a sword! Cool!” The Mad Hatter is a demented revolutionary. They stole the White Queen from the Wizard of OZ and Helena Bonham Carter plays herself (with mixed results.) And the frightening thing is Disney did it to themselves.

I’m not even going to get into Psycho, Swept Away, Godzilla or The Pink Panther.

Hollywood needs to just stop. The Magnificent Seven? My God! What next? Gone with the Wind? Casablanca? Leonardo diCaprio as the Little Tramp?

I’ve had enough. If there are no original ideas left south of the San Fernando Valley, so be it, but quit carving up other people’s masterpieces!

Family Reunion — 2015

Families are like belly buttons: everybody’s got one. I’m one of those lucky people who has two — families — not belly buttons (that would be weird.) I have a perfectly good DNA family, stocked with sisters, nieces and nephews. I’m the off-the-wall uncle, and we bash along functioning as dysfunctionally as all families do. However, when I was young, I “adopted” another family: one of those wild, extended ones with rambunctious cousins, several generations of sons and wise, comical old aunties — all sprawled across half a continent. I grew up with this family just as much as I did with my own. It was fun.

Last week, after several years, I went to a Family Reunion of my adopted family (that’s me in the back.)

I spent the weekend playing “Remember When,” trying to figure out who was related to who, which generation was which, and how did my generation get so damned old, so damned fast. And it all reminded me why I “adopted” these Vandales in the first place.

Vandales are a unique bunch of folks. At a Vandale table, there’s always room for another plate and nobody goes hungry, although, on occasion, the soup might be a little thin. There’s always another chair, a place to sleep, somebody to talk to and room in their heart for another child or somebody’s girlfriend. Everyone’s welcome. If you’re there, you belong.

When Vandales get together, there are stories — some of them printable, all of them funny. There’s music: old songs, new songs and

“I didn’t knew you played 12 string guitar!”
“Neither did I!”

Children play. Everybody talks. In the general confusion, nobody can ever find Auntie Barb. We all sing. And there’s enough food for the 108th Airborne Division. Vandales are a family who genuinely like each other — faults, fights, warts and all. And now that the kids I grew up with have become the comical old uncles and aunties, it’s nice to see that — in 5 generations — nothing has changed. The newest generation of Vandales are just like we were — all those years ago.

Most of us take our families for granted — they’re either too close for comfort or too far away to do us any good — but we need to remember our families are actually our first BFFs. Yeah, they know what buttons to push to drive us crazy, and they don’t always forgive the way they’re supposed to — but so what? These are the people you’re in it for life with. So we should all take a page out of the Vandale book: lighten up and enjoy the ride.

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