OMG! JFK RIP in DAL-TX!

The other night, while flipping through the tv, I got sucked into watching a movie I hadn’t seen in ages: Oliver Stone’s JFK. I remember seeing the film in the theater with my dad when it first came out; and then, like any other obsessive-compulsive history buff, I had watched it a few times here or there over the years. Until the other night, though, I hadn’t seen it in possibly more than ten years… which got me thinking: could it happen today?

Could the assassination of a U.S. President possibly go unsolved in the year 2011?*

So I started visualizing the Kennedy assassination as if it occurred today – with hundreds of iPhone videos and thousands of digital photos. Had somebody seen something in the grassy knoll, they would have tweeted about it or texted a friend. Had people really seen a guy in the 6^th floor of the Texas Schoolbook Depository, it almost certainly would have landed on Facebook. And if it was, in fact, a conspiracy – if multiple groups of people really did plot to kill the President – the cover-up would have been impossible… information moves just too damn fast.

Almost everyone nowadays is a conduit of information; almost everyone acts like an amateur journalist. In the last year alone, not one but two – TWO – U.S. Congressmen resigned over digital photos leaked to the media… so I find it very had to believe that even the most sophisticated of villains could murder a chief executive (in broad daylight, no less) and manage to get away with it.

Every President is most certainly mortal, and as Michael Corleone so eloquently reminds us: “If history has taught us anything, it’s that you can kill anybody.” But thanks to modern technology and the vigilance of its users, even in our darkest of hours we should never again have to endure such a decades-long mystery as the one that still surrounds the death of President Kennedy.

*Yes, I know: according to Trivial Pursuit, Jeopardy and just about every American History textbook in the world, Lee Harvey Oswald killed John F. Kennedy… but I’ve never believed it was that simple. Oswald almost certainly was involved at some level; and though I do think Oliver Stone’s mass-conspiracy theories went a little too far, I’m 100% with him on the suggestion that there were in fact multiple shooters.)

10 Movies I Can't Believe I Paid Money To See In The Theater

10. Striptease (1996) – Even 90-minutes of watching Demi Moore’s boobs flop around didn’t save it.  

9. Dangerous Minds (1995) – I was more ghetto than the kids in that movie.

8. Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde (2003) – Not my fault… my wife was 38-weeks pregnant with twins, it was 150-degrees outside and we didn’t have central air.

7. Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle (2003) – See #8 above

6. Hulk (2003) – See #s 7 & 8 above

5. The Crow (1994) – If you offered $1 Million, I couldn’t tell you what it’s about. All I remember is the girl I was there with jostling me awake at the end.

4. The Object of My Affection (1998) – The female lead was played by Jennifer Aniston… ‘nuff said.

3. Bride of Chucky (1998) – My wife and I had been dating for about a year when I chose this debacle. It was the only time I ever thought we’d break-up.

2. Take Me Home Tonight (2011) – She wanted to see The King’s Speech; I wanted to see the movie with the Eddie Money song in the title. Unfortunately, I won.

1. The Real Cancun (2003) – I can’t bear to explain it… you’ll have to look it up yourself: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0360916/

Reviewing this list, I would be remiss to omit the fact that my amazing wife was present for seven – yes, seven – of these indisputable clunkers; and although I hold no doubt she will use this list as evidence of my less than stellar taste in movies, I need only remind her of one simple yet poignant fact:

SHE was the one who saw From Justin to Kelly… not me.

I'm Not Superman?

There comes a time in every boy’s life when he discovers that his beloved father is, in fact, NOT the flawlessly omnipotent end-all-be-all of creation. Unfortunately, there also comes a time at which every father realizes that his beloved son has made such a discovery… and man, oh man, does it hurt.

For the past twelve years (pre-marriage, pre-kids), I’ve been playing Fantasy Baseball with my college buddies; and during those twelve years, I have made the playoffs an astonishing nine times!

NINE!

None of my friends have even come close to that number (a fact I remind them of often). Yet in spite of those nine chances, I have never once managed to actually win the league championship (a fact they remind me of even more often).

Enter Alex: my 7-almost-8-year-old son who already knows enough about baseball to win any handful of sports bar trivia contests. These past two years he’s helped me manage my Fantasy team. He drafts players, makes roster moves and gives me a daily update as to how we’re doing. (We’re currently in 10^th Place out of 16 teams… an off year, to say the least.)

A few weeks ago I noticed that little Alex had proposed trading away Albert Pujols (i.e. the best consensus player in baseball) in exchange for Mark Texeira. I immediately canceled the trade and taught Alex an important life lesson: patience. “Pujols is off to a slow start,” I said. “But baseball is a lonnnng season.” So he shot me that “Father Knows Best” look I oh-so-treasure, and he went on his way.

Sunday morning – Father’s Day, no less - Alex brought me the sports page of our local paper and said: “Dad, we have a problem.” I went on to read how a ball nailed Albert Pujols on the wrist, causing damage severe enough to knock him out of commission for at least eight weeks - maybe more.

My heart sank.

“Maybe we should have traded him,” I mumbled half to myself, half to Alex… and that’s when he said it:

“Geez Dad - now I know why you’ve never won a championship.”

My wife laughed. So did Alex. And so did I… because, after all, it was funny. Not mean, not insulting – but funny. So much so that I even shared it with my Fantasy Baseball guys, who will assuredly relish in using my own son’s words against me for years to come.

Now I wholly admit that in the great scheme of life, these silly little fantasy sports games are not that big of a deal (as evidenced by my ability to still walk, talk and breathe despite my zero championships). But my take-away from this particular exchange managed to run quite deep. It was the first of many many many occasions my son will see me as imperfectly mortal; a truth that I know from my own experience as a son, will only get tougher and tougher to face as time goes on.

In the meantime, though, I still have four other kids who totally think I’m from Krypton… 

Beginnings

About ten years ago, before I had any children, I developed what could only be described as a most unusual obsession: locating, obtaining and - ultimately - watching the first-ever episode of Sesame Street.

Of course it goes without saying that like every other American born in the 1970’s, I loved Sesame Street. Bert and Ernie, Kermit the Frog, that mean bastard Oscar… they were all just as much a part of my family as my parents, my brother and my fish (named Sugar, who suffered quite the untimely demise at the hands of my brother’s Fisher Price baby vacuum cleaner - but that’s a story for another time). Yet in all my years and through all the hours of quality Sesame time I had amassed, I had never once seen how it all began.

Maybe Big Bird hatched from an egg or Super Grover used his magic powers to make the street appear; or maybe even Mr. Hooper fell asleep next to Suzanne Pleshette and dreamt the whole thing up. Either way, I wanted to see it - I had to know; so I scoured the Internet, looking for clues until finally I found someone on eBay selling a VHS cassette version of exactly what I was looking for.

The tape cost about $60, and when it finally arrived in the mail, I was like a kid on Christmas - tearing open the package, rushing into the living room, impatiently waiting for the cassette to play. And when it finally did I was crushed.

No bird’s egg.

No Super Grover.

No Suzanne Pleshette.

Oscar was orange and Big Bird was sort of goofy looking; but otherwise, the on-screen commencement of the single most identifiable children’s show on the planet was nothing special. I stopped the tape about five minutes in and realized: I wasn’t obsessed with Sesame Street… I was obsessed with beginnings.

Nice beginnings.

Clean beginnings.

Affixed, finite, “yes – this is where we’re starting from” beginnings - like Peter Parker getting bit by a radioactive spider, or Diane Chambers wandering into Cheers, or God creating the Heaven and Earth… or the unambiguous, unwavering declaration that Marley is, in fact, dead to begin with.

Which brings us to the present… in which I’ve begun writing a blog and you’ve (presumably) begun reading it; and to the extent that I will continue to write (which I will) and that you will continue to read (which I hope you will), I’d like to begin appropriately, with a clean beginning:

• I’m 33-years-old.
• I’m married (sorry ladies).
• My wife and I have five young children.
• We live in suburban Connecticut.
• I’m a writer.

And above all else: I’m a dork… because if searching for an obscure episode of a PBS children’s show doesn’t define dork-dom, writing a blog most certainly does.

Happy Beginning!