Break It Down!

Today while having lunch, I did something I vowed I would never do once my kids started school full-time (and NO! It is not get drunk on wine on a school day. Shame on you for dreaming of it, Laura.) I watched a kids show. On my own. When no kids were around. I know, right?

The show in question was, Yo Gabba Gabba, and here comes the worse part: I loved it, loved it, loved it!

After viewing, though, I have become convinced that it was conceived by an ambitious burner which is worth noting because they are a rare breed. A rare breed, indeed. Damn, now I'm rhyming things. Yo! Gabba, Gabba has all the things I enjoy: indie bands, fantastic dancing and songs about not biting your friends which, for my money, is the sort of lyric that has been a long time in coming. Also, the fashions are off the hook, they do the disco roll properly and they use the term "break it down" in the correct funky functional context. Nuff said.

More importantly, though, I think the lead and I look slightly alike.

I know that many of you frown on TV viewing during the day but my justification for it is that when I was younger, I used to watch The Price is Right with my babysitter, Louise Duguay. She was cool, made the best Kraft dinner of anyone before her or since and could guess the correct retail price of almost anything without going over. And we worshipped her because of it. How can you develop these traits if you don't watch a little useless boob tube mid-afternoon? Just sayin'.

Longing for Lines? I Think Not!

There was a fantastic article that appeared in yesterday's New York Times that lamented how there were so few memorable lines in movies nowadays. In it, the writer asked a few well-known film scribes to list a few from recent films, just off of the top of their heads. And - Gosh darn it!- if they weren't stumped! It made me wonder whether, at the end of the day, our fearless reporter had really sampled the correct group. Isn't this more of a movie fan type of question?

My suspicions were confirmed a few moments later when I noticed that the ol' comments section in the "paper of record" had started to heat up. When I checked back 3 hours later there were 203. And counting.

Listen, I would be the first to admit that there is a lot of movie dreck out there but are you trying to tell me that there have been no lines that haven't hit the zeitgeist? Pu-leeze!

Here are just a few:

Squirrel! (Up)

What's a liger ? (Napoleon Dynamite)

Those aren't pillows!!! (Planes, Trains and Automobiles)

I drink your milkshake! (There Will be Blood)

I'm not the guy you kill. I'm the guy you buy...(Michael Clayton)

Call it, Friendo. (No Country for Old Men)

Mmm Hmm. (Slingblade)

I'm the cautionary whale. (Juno)

Anything to add?

Yet Another One to Explain to the Kids...

It is almost impossible to sit still while listening to this song. My kids can't get enough of it and I can't help singing with the original lyrics.

They, however, know the song as, "Forget You". As Cee Lo, himself would say, "Ain't that some shit."

For my money, this song could not have happened to a more talented guy.

25 Films Your Kids Should See Before They Turn 25

A possum and a movie camera 1943
Originally uploaded by Australian War Memorial collection

A few years ago, I wrote a piece for a local newspaper that attempted to be a primer for establishing the love for good film in the lives of your kids. It was a inspired by the list that the American Film Institute had come out with in 2005 listing 100 of the best films for children. Though they claimed to be the "ultimate" list, some of the selections seemed to confuse children's films with films with children in them.

And so, I created a list of my own, which I have updated for you here. It reflects what I have come to love about movies and it was screen-tested by the toughest critics I know: my kids.

The criteria for the list was simple: each film had to be artful in some way, have a strong story to convey and be able to keep kids engaged for its entire length. No small feat. A few are box office hits, others may leave you scratching your head but all are worth watching. With your kids or without.

The Essentials

1) The Triplettes of Belleville (2003)
2) E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
3) Babe (2001)
4) Babies (2010)
5) Etre et Avoir (2002)
6) The Wizard of Oz (1939)
7) My Life as a Dog (1985)
8) Kirikou and the Sorceress (1998)
9) Lord of the Rings (2001)
10) Whale Rider (2002)
11) Toy Story (1995)
12) Spirited Away (2001)
13) Star Wars (1977)
14) The Black Stallion (1979)
15) Breaking Away (1979)
16) To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
17) Paper Moon (1974)
18) Edward Scissorhands (1990)
19) The Princess Bride (1987)
20) It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
21) Sounder (1972)
22) Kes (1969)
23) A Day at the Races (1937)
24) Raiders of the Lost Ark
25) The Incredibles

Did I miss anything?

Spaghetti Tacos...For Reals.

Would you eat this?

Apparently, across our fair and messed-up continent, children are requesting that their parents prepare this for their next meal. It started with an episode of the kids series, "iCarly", in which the lead's older brother, Spencer, makes dinner. He slapped red-sauce-coated pasta into a hard taco shell and Voila! A foodie phenomenon was born.

Spurred on by reruns, Internet traffic and good old-fashion word of mouth, spaghetti tacos are apparently all the rage (particularly if you're under five feet and still live with your parents). Cooking blogs and web-sites are filled with recipes, a Facebook page has sprung up with more than 1200 fans and several cooking shows on the Food Network are planning on working them into their show rotations.

What could be more unappealing?

Well, besides actually having to make them, you mean?

What gives, people?

Is this Festivus for the tween-set?

What's next, chocolate with peanut butter?

Let's stop the madness.

Death Trifecta

Tony Curtis
Originally uploaded by david haggard

I have mentioned it many times on this site and it bears repeating: famous people die in threes. Threes, people. It happened last year when Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett and Ed McMahon died within days of each other and it has happened again this week with the passing of Tony Curtis, Gloria Stuart and Greg Geraldi.

This year's death trifecta, though, gives us an interesting glimpse into Hollywood's many incarnations: the former golden boy, the comeback and the could-have been.

The first, Tony Curtis was a Hollywood fixture of the highest order. He starred in more than four dozen films, Some Like it Hot, most famously, bedded famous starlets and then callously wrote about them, sired famous children (Jamie Lee Curtis) and pretty much abandoned them and in his later years, managed to annoy most of Hollywood's new guard when he announced on Larry King Live that he, like many of his old Hollywood friends, would never dream of voting for Brokeback Mountain as Best Picture. Why you ask? Because the film was about homosexuals and quite frankly, that was something he just couldn't get behind. These were his words, by the way. Not mine. It was a full life.

Gloria Stuart, on the other hand, didn't get to taste Hollywood success until she was well into her eighties when she starred in Titanic as an older version of Rose (Kate Winslet played the younger version). She had spent her early years on contract to the studios and when she grew tired of playing the girlfriend ditched town to become a graphic designer. She hadn't ever intended on acting again until James Cameron came calling and invited to join the cast of Titanic. Now, everyone remembers her as the old version of the lady who got to pop Leonardo DiCaprio in the hold of a ship. You could do worse in this life, non?

Finally, Greg Giraldo, was a funny, funny, dude who could have been huge had he not gotten in his own way. A former lawyer who gave up a job at a law firm to pursue comedy, Giraldo became a wildly successful stand-up comic who specialized in dispensing his own brand of sharp and often brutal humor. Like Lewis Black, his routines tended to clever and exasperated rants. The best of which, to my mind, was one I caught last year on Comedy Central at roast in which he excoriated that douche, Larry the Cable Guy.

“Some people say Larry’s only successful because he’s pandering to the lowest common denominator,” Mr. Giraldo said. “Don’t listen to these people, Larry. They’re just bitter and jealous and right.”

Mr. Geraldi, I think I will miss you most of all.

Woman Pneumonia

For the past few weeks, I have been struggling mightily with what I believed to be an allergy-related cold and sinus infection. I tried everything - pills, change of diet, masssive doses of Vitamin, prayer - and yet nothing seemed to work. A few days ago, tired of my beleaguered state and needing some help getting ahead of the massive buckets of mucus, I went to the walk-in clinic and got a diagnosis that left me humbled and slightly shocked: pneumonia. Sweet Mother Of Jesus, I thought to myself as I left the office with my prescription (for a scorced earth-type of antibiotic AND a puffer...Damn!), if I didn't think I was old before, I sure as Hell know it now.

Before heading home to download Enya albums and episodes of Matlock, I told myself that I would do my best to stay off my feet and really give my body a chance to heal. No housework, I thought to myself. No yard work, no errands, no laundry. Just healing. And reading. And sleeping. And more healing. Serenity. Now. Now, dammit!

Guess how long this deal with the devil lasted?

I'm just gonna make dinner and then I'll sit. Wait no, after I make the kid's lunches, then....Shoot, I gotta get cat litter! I'll get it after I drive the kids to their after school activities. Might as well pick up some groceries while I'm there....Car needs gas, too, sooooo.....

The whole experience reminded me of an article I read last week about reading. The author was lamenting how he could never remember the plot of any of the books that he'd read. What's the point of reading at all, then, he surmised? Why not just watch golf? Same thing with pneumonia. Why even bother giving me a pneumonia diagnosis if you aren't going to send me home with a a giant mallet and lock for my bedroom door? Sheesh.