Sadly, My Tolerance Never Really Got Much Better

Zak has one of his little friends over for a sleepover tonight. The basic agenda doesn't seem to have changed much from when I was a kid -- eat, play, eat, play, turn a movie on, eat, talk about how you're going to stay up all night, then promptly fall asleep.

I remember my last sleepover. It was sophomore year of high school, February break, Kevin Alvaro's house. We were probably too old for sleepovers in the same way we were too old for trick-or-treating, but that didn't stop us from ending up with bags full of candy on Halloween. Simpler times.

I had volleyball practice early the next morning but my dad agreed to pick me up and take me on his way to work, so I was in. It was the same quartet of us that had been hanging out together since third grade -- me, Kevin, Tommy Sand (of monster ball fame) and Jim Bourdeau.

We spent the night down in Kevin's basement, like we had for years. But this time there was one extra ingredient -- some of Kevin's dad's beer.

Yep, we were pretty cool. I think I polished off an entire half a can all by myself before passing out deciding to go to sleep.

When I woke up the next morning for practice I was NOT feeling well at ll. I somehow managed to get myself together, gave Kevin's mom a mumbled decline on breakfast and made it to my dad's car when he arrived.

He must have noticed the lovely shade of green I was wearing, because he asked if I was all right. I assured him I was fine -- just a little tired. He didn't press the issue, and we drove the remaining few minutes to the high school in silence. He had a pretty big grin on his face when I got out of the car, though.

I practically sprinted to the locker room, threw open the door to one of the stalls and emptied the contents of my stomach into the toilet. As I knelt there clutching the bowl our coach came in. He put a hand on my shoulder and simply said, "Sucks, doesn't it?"

I spent the entire practice just lying on one of the locker room benches. I was supposed to see some movie called The Breakfast Club with a few friends after practice, but that was definitely out. So one of the other players gave me a ride home. But not before insisting I roll my window down and stick my head outside the whole way.

And thus ended my sleepover career, in less than glorious fashion. That was one of the last things the four of us did together, too. As we got older we made new friends, developed new interests and so on. But we had more than our share of good times before we drifted apart.

Zak may only be seven, but I still make sure he sleeps in the family room for these events. And I don't keep my beer in the basement, either.

I wonder if that Breakfast Club movie was any good...

I Don't Think Any Of These Would Even Get Me On "Stupid Human Tricks"

Being in the throes of a job search, I've spent a lot of time focusing on what my "marketable skills" are. Things that use impressive-sounding words like "communication campaign management" and "brand marketing." Things that look good on resumes and sound good in interviews, but are ultimately meaningless without some real roll-up-your-sleeves, get-your-hands-dirty abilities to go along with them.

Danelle and I don't talk about our marketable skills with each other much. They're typically not very romantic, fun or all that interesting outside of professional settings. We enjoy our UNMARKETABLE skills much more. The things you can't really quantify, transfer or develop. The things they don't teach in business school. The things nobody will ever pay you to do, but that you're darn glad you can.

Danelle has a terrific one -- she gets good parking spaces. No matter how crowded the lot, something desirable is conveniently available when she drives by. The skill fades a little when she's a passenger, but doesn't dissipate completely. We've gotten to the point that we just call unexpectedly good parking spots "Danelle spots" and accept that that's what they are.

I've got three that I can think of, one being the ability to order something good in a restaurant I've never been to before. Not just in a self-fulfilling, I-have-to-eat-it-so-I-might-as-well-act-like-I-like-it way. My prowess is generally validated by my dining companions' vocal approval of my selections. Danelle, alas, is not blessed with this gift and generally ends up bemoaning the fact that she didn't order whatever I did. She used to just eat off my plate, but we've matured beyond that. Now she waits for me to offer.

I used to be pretty OCD about ordering in restaurants, to the point of having to order last because I'd get upset if someone else ordered the same item I did. I finally had to get over it after going out to enough meals with my old friend and co-worker Lynn Rosen because she was my polar opposite. She could never decide what to order, and needed to hear what everyone else was having before choosing something. At least our idiosyncracies complemented each other.

Another is that I can tell you the co-stars and usually a few of the supporting cast from a ton of movies I've never seen. It's not something I research or study -- I don't know if I pick it up from commercials or what. And I don't know why it stays in my head when I can't even remember to tell Danelle when her best friend calls. But for whatever reason it does.

"Do you remember French Kiss?"

"Um...Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline, right?"

"Right. Did you like it?"

"Dunno. Never saw it."

My final such skill is really more of a blessing -- I can sleep. Anywhere, anytime, I can just sleep. I've slept in moving cars during hurricanes. I sleep regularly on airplanes. I can fall asleep when Danelle has the light, television and her laptop all on in the bedroom at night.

If I'm not asleep within 10 minutes of going to bed, I get frustrated and complain about how much trouble I'm having getting to sleep. This infuriates Danelle (and probably many of you) to no end, since she typically plans on being in bed for well over an hour before drifting off if she's lucky. Frankly, I have no idea how she can function on how little sleep she gets. If I go more than a few nights without my standard seven hours, it's not going to end well.

None of these things will likely come up in my next interview, but I'll probably get more out of that last one in particular over the course of my life than my expertise in "promotion and media placement." No matter what my LinkedIn profile says.

Nobody Gets Hungry in Louisville After 10 P.M.

I went to see my buddy Rick Fisher play with his band Panhandle Daddyz last night. They performed at a place called the Waterloo Icehouse in Louisville, which touts "Real Food - Real Music - Real Friends" on its home page. I checked out the menu and saw that they had chicken and apple sausages with beer cheese sauce, which sounded like a step up from normal bar fare. So I was looking forward to both some good music and some good food.

I got there about 9:15, got a beer and chatted with Rick and some of his other buddies before they went on about 9:45. A couple of songs into their set I decided it was time for the sausages so I tried to get the waitress' attention, which ended up taking about 10 minutes before I succeeded. I wasn't in any particular hurry, though,

I told her I'd like to try the sausages and she gave me a sympathetic little pout, "Sorry, hon. The kitchen closes at 10:00." I quickly checked the time on my cell phone -- it was 10:03. "I can get you some chips and salsa, though."

I was too taken aback to respond intelligently, so I just politely declined. But I felt a little like Michael Douglas' character in Falling Down when he got to Whammy Burger at 11:34 and was told he couldn't order breakfast because they didn't serve it after 11:30. Without the psychotic rage and automatic weapons, of course.

The Daddyz ended up playing two sets and I didn't leave until about 12:45, and I finally did break down and grudgingly order some chips and salsa. Waterloo Icehouse certainly isn't the only restaurant/bar to close their kitchen early. But the whole thing got me wondering if this practice really makes sense.

Could it have to do with paying the kitchen staff for those extra two or three hours? You've got be operating on a razor-thin margin if that's the case. A lot of McDonald's franchises are able to serve food 24 hours a day charging two bucks for a burger, and the Icehouse charges $10 for theirs. It doesn't seem like you would need too many food orders during those final few hours to cover your expenses.

Is the profit on alcohol sales so much greater that there's a concern about cannibalizing those revenues with lower-margin items like food? Frankly, I'm likely to drink MORE when I'm eating than when I'm not. Besides, can you imagine The Gap cutting off sales of jeans two hours before they close because they make more money on belts?

Couldn't there at least be more of an effort made to set appropriate expectations? There's some small text on the bottom of the Waterloo Icehouse home page that says "kitchen closes after dinner," but I didn't see any similar notice in the actual establishment (never mind that "dinner" isn't an actual time). The waitress never said anything, either. If I'd known, I would have just ordered the sausages earlier.

I'm not a restaurateur or a bar owner, and those who are must have a reason for this. But I am a customer, and I'm pretty sure whatever that reason is it doesn't have much to do with me.

Ah, well. At least the Icehouse lived up to its music and friends billing, so Meat Loaf would have been satisfied.

Maybe John Hughes Should Have Been a Stripper for a Year

Let me try to pre-empt the inevitable backlash this post is likely to create by saying I LIKED Juno. I thought it was cute, clever and entertaining. But I've never understood the amount of critical acclaim it's gotten.

I heard rave reviews for the film from two fairly opposing ends of the taste spectrum -- Oprah Winfrey and the guy who performs in a horse costume as Miles, the Denver Broncos mascot. With that sort of support, I figured it was something I needed to see. But for the first half an hour or so I was really struggling to figure out what exactly I was watching. Maybe I was too caught up in the overall social and pop culture context, but the movie I was seeing wasn't the one I had expected.

Then it hit me. I was watching Pretty in Pink. And once I realized and accepted that I was able to really enjoy the rest of the movie.

Hear me out a minute -- that comparison is in no way intended as a slight. John Hughes wrote the script for how many of us growing up in the '80s either thought or wished our lives were, or both. It just took him a bunch of films to cover it all. Maybe the Academy was rewarding Diablo Cody's ability to squeeze all the good stuff into one story when it gave her the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. That presumes that her version of Some Kind of Wonderful doesn't come out next year.

Whatever the case, here are six comparisons between the two films that I hope help illustrate my point:

1. Just when you want to willingly suspend your disbelief and think you're watching real people dealing with real problems, the dialogue gets a little TOO snappy and you're jarringly reminded that somebody wrote this.

At the risk of sounding too disconnected from modern youth, I'm willing to bet that most conversations haven't evolved beyond the, "What do you want to do? I don't know -- what do you want to do?" level of the discourse I had with my friends. As much as we may have wished we could address the question of what we wanted to drink with something as glib as Duckie's, "Oh you know, beer, scotch, juice box... whatever," response, we didn't really. Nor do I guess there are many (any) current teenagers who, when their friends ask if it's them on the phone, reply, "No, it's Morgan Freeman. Do you have any bones that need collecting?"

2. High school kids are the most advanced beings in both universes. Fathers have three functions -- generate revenue (however meager), provide transportation and dispense salt-of-the-earth, blue-collar wisdom. Other adults are mostly shallow and flawed, or appear for the sole purpose of uttering pithy lines like, "That ain't no Etch-A-Sketch. This is one doodle that can't be un-did, Homeskillet," or "If you give off signals that you don't want to belong, people will make sure that you don't." Cinematic equivalents of those flies that have a 24-hour life span, they live briefly on the screen, shine brightly and then are gone.

The teen protagonists, on the other hand, are generally grounded and perceptive -- aware of their own shortcomings and willing to accept or overlook those of others. It's often said that teenagers think they know everything, so I suppose if you want to appeal to that demographic you have to pander to it to some degree.

3. Both soundtracks are comprised almost exclusively of "alternative" music. Pretty In Pink delivers a Who's Who? of '80s new wave with artists like Echo & the Bunnymen, New Order, The Smiths and The Pyschedelic Furs. Juno features minimalist indie pop from Belle and Sebastian, Cat Power and three different flavors of Kimya Dawson, solo and with her bands Antsy Pants and The Moldy Peaches.

In both cases not the music most of the films' targets audiences actually listened to, or else the soundtracks wouldn't have far outsold anything the individual artists put out. But the choice was critical to each film's credibility. Andie and Juno wouldn't be believable as outsiders if they listened to Madonna or, well, Madonna.

For the life of me, though, I have no idea why Pretty in Pink went with a cover of Nik Kershaw's Wouldn't It Be Good by someone called the Danny Hutton Hitters instead of the original. Neither does Kershaw, apparently.

4. Jason Bateman's Mark Loring character has some striking parallels to Annie Potts' Iona. Bateman, like Potts, is stuck in his past and struggling to move forward with the next phase of his life. Both characters are the adults that the main characters feel most comfortable relating to, finding common ground around music. Both also use their teen friends as catalysts to break out of their unhappy relationship status, although Bateman's feels much more like selfish regression than Potts'. Those transformations then serve to inspire both Juno and Andie to make their own "big decisions," though giving up your baby is inarguably a little weightier than going solo to your prom.

5. Speaking of prom, that cherished high school event brings the romantic issues of both films to their respective heads. Juno gets upset when she finds out Paulie asked another girl, while Andie is hurt when Blane uses that as an excuse to back out of taking her. Both lead to confrontations that pave the way for true love to win out in the end. Wow, I can't believe I just typed that with a straight face.

6. Both Juno and Andie are "have nots" who help the "haves" -- Jennifer Garner's Vanessa and Andrew McCarthy's Blane -- discover what truly matters in life. Substance over style, inner beauty over outer, etc. The tried and true message that money isn't the measure of a person. All right, that's two straight maudlin platitudes, which is two more than this blog should ever have. Time to wrap this puppy up.

There are other similarities that are more cosmetic, like the absence of both main characters' birth mothers, Paulie and Duckie both using bicycles as their main mode of transportation and so on. As comparable as these two movies seem to me, I can't figure out for the life of me why Juno has been made out to be so much more.

It reminds me of the huge groundswell of support Babe got back in 1995 when it, too, was nominated for a bunch of Academy Awards, including Best Picture. At the end of day, it was a cute movie about a talking pig. Ellen Page is no pig, but for whatever reason her nice little picture was able to strike a similar chord in people.

Tough luck, Molly Ringwald. Only time will tell if that Page kid is able to follow this up with something as powerful as The Pick-up Artist, though. I wonder whatever happened to your co-star in that epic...

Pandas and Puking Aren't Necessarily a Bad Combination

We decided to go out to dinner and a movie as a family tonight. The plan was to pick up tickets to Kung Fu Panda, go to the Outback Steakhouse next to the theater for dinner then catch the film.

Zak unfortunately changed the plan by getting sick during dinner. Literally sick -- he threw up half a cheesburger, a couple of bites of mashed potatoes and two cups of milk right back onto his plate. So we made profuse apologies, left a hefty tip and hustled him back home.

Danelle stayed with him while Taryn and I hurried back to the theater. We figured that she might as well still get to go, and Danelle could take Zak some other time. And it would give Taryn and I the chance to do something with just the two of us.

Zak and I seem to naturally end up doing things together -- soccer practices, playing Guitar Hero, going to games. With Taryn it's been a little harder so far, and sometimes she seems to feel left out. It's probably partly her age, partly her gender, partly that she's the second child. Whatever the reason, I know it's something that I need to be aware of and not let become a problem.

I took her out of preschool one day just so she and I could have a special day at the zoo. I'm going to go with her on another trip to the zoo in a couple of weeks with her preschool class, at her request. And tonight was another unexpected opportunity so I couldn't pass it up.

Let me pause here to give special props to the good people at AMC Theatres. We went to the customer service counter when we got there and I explained the situation, and they gave me two passes good for any film at any time without any hassle. I guess it shouldn't be surprising or noteworthy when a company treats customers fairly, but I appreciated it nonetheless.

We were able to get in just before the previews started and still get my favorite seats -- right smack in the exact middle. And Taryn was a little doll throughout. Sitting on my lap for most of it, hiding her face during the "scary parts," scolding me for laughing too loud.

When we got back Zak was already in bed but not yet asleep, so Taryn was kind enough to give him this review.

***WARNING: SPOILERS***

"There was a little bit of fighting. (To which Zak responded, "I kind of figured that, since it's called Kung Fu Panda." Sharp as a tack, that one.)

"The panda didn't know how to do kung fu. Then the squirrel teached him how to do kung fu. Then he knowed how to do kung fu.

The panda was super, duper duper hungry."

I keep reminding myself that one day, sooner than I think, neither of my kids will want to do stuff with me. It just won't be cool. So I should not only enjoy these moments but do everything I can to create as many of them as possible.

Hopefully I can find more ways to find time for Taryn that don't involve Zak getting violently ill. But for one night, I was kind of glad he did.

Exploring Strange New Worlds

I saw a trailer recently for a new Star Trek film that's scheduled to come out in 2009. I was always more into Star Wars as a kid, but I do have a special memory of the second Star Trek movie, The Wrath of Khan.

I was 12 when the movie came out in the summer of 1982, and my buddies and I REALLY wanted to see it. So on a rainy Saturday somebody's mom dropped four of us off at the Cine 1-2-3-4-5-6 (yes, that's really what it said on the sign outside) behind Northway Mall to do just that.

We weren't the only ones who thought going to the movies was a good idea that day. There was a long line that stretched all the way outside the theater. But we didn't mind waiting in the rain for a while; getting to see a movie by ourselves was kind of a big deal at that age.

Eventually we got to the ticket window, visions of starships and phasers dancing in our heads. Velcro wallets were ripped open and allowance money was pulled out when suddenly tragedy struck.

That's right -- the movie was sold out.

We had to make a decision and make it fast. Finding a pay phone and calling someone to come pick us up wasn't an option. We came to see a movie, and that's what we were going to do. Quickly we scanned the other shows that were playing and made our choice.

Victor/Victoria.

I really have no idea what inspired us to pick that. Maybe it was the only thing that was starting soon. What I DO remember is four fairly traumatized 12-year-old boys walking out a couple of hours later, really not entirely sure what they'd just seen.

We eventually did get to see Khan, and it was everything we'd hoped it would be. But I don't think any of us were ever able to look at Julie Andrews the same way again.