Christmas Photos

I posted our family Christmas pictures on my flickr site now, so feel free to stop in and see the melee firsthand. Yes, that is the sweater that Kimberly knitted for me, with her own two hands, over a 12 year period. As you can see, its delightful. She missed her true calling in life by being an award-winning journalist. Piecework at home...that's the ticket. I also notice from the pictures for the first time that for some reason, I appear to be noticeably taller than Dad. And its not due to my gravity-defying preacher hair (like usual). This is somewhat surprising. Something tells me I'm not getting taller, so.... Hey, I've been dreaming a lot lately that my teeth are falling out or crumbling, so apparently I've got bigger problems to chew on than that (pun intended).

Ok, this post was sort of weird, so I'll stop here.

Next-either a scathing indictment of the BCS, or my end-of-the-year message.

Merry, Merry Christmas

Just want to wish everyone a really great Christmas. Like Charlie Brown, I lament the commercialization of Christmas. It should be a time for enjoying reunion with family and friends, relaxing, and exchanging gifts not just because its what you're supposed to do, but to demonstrate love and affection. I hope you're all able to enjoy a Christmas like that. For Christians, of course, its primarily to celebrate Jesus' birth. Its not to get buried in presents and consume half your body weight in food. Unless its etouffee or gumbo, of course.

So I hope everyone has a Merry, Merry Christmas. Just like Pee Wee.

Let's Have a Party

But now I know why I have always lost women to guys like you. It's not just the uniform. It's the stories that you tell. So much fun and imagination.

Lee Harvey...you are a madman. When you stole that cow...and your friends tried to make it with the cow.

I want to party with you, cowboy.

The two of us together, forget it.

---Bill Murray, Stripes

Daily Affirmations wants to party with you too this holiday season. I know that most of the society balls and parties have already concluded, but the New Year's party season is staring us down, and frankly, some of you men out there really could use some help. And since your wives or girlfriends either won't tell you this or you won't listen to her, once again its up to me.

Let's start with your appearance. There's a number of disturbing trends that have no place in polite society, much less at a nice New Year's party.

The "faux hawk," and all other "Horton Hears a Who" hair styles, have got to go. Basically the faux hawk is like wearing a Cadillac tail fin or a land shark costume, making you look like Ed Grimley without the triangle. Hairscaping went out with M.C. Hammer; have someone other than Edward Scissorhands cut your hair.

Would you please shave? If you're not a Formula One race car driver, Brett Favre, or in an Apollo space capsule on the way to the moon, you need to shave. Nothing screams out "Lorenzo Lamas" faster than some insurance salesman wearing a fake silk shirt and not shaving for three days to impress the ladies. Throw in some hair gel and Axe body spray and you're ready to hit the Rockin' Rodeo Club in Pasadena, Texas.

Stick with the classic tuxedo. Leave the Al's Formal Wear high school prom version alone. Let me see if I can't put this simply. No one cares what you look like, or how snappy a dresser you are. Your whole function at a party is so that your date can attend as part of a couple, and the only thing you have to do is not embarrass her by dressing like Mario Lopez (you will of course recall that Mario Dopez is on the DA hate list for mistreating Cajun Queen and the woman who should have had my three ungrateful and ADD-riddled children, Ali Landry). Everyone wants to see what she's wearing; no one cares about you. You're just a mancessory. So don't go calling attention to yourself by wearing some "Puff Daddy at the MTV Music Awards" tux. Besides, women compete at these things by how they're dressed, but men compete on who has the most money, coolest job, or hottest date. No guy ever went to one of these parties and remarked "I can't believe that other guy is wearing my outfit." Well, except maybe at an Oscars party.

Shine your shoes too. Clothes may make the man, but shoes make the clothes (I thought up that one). Nothing takes the class out of a nice suit or tux faster than scuffed up, dull or otherwise shoddy looking dress shoes. Little kids can wear scuffed shoes, but you're a big boy, so break out the polish and have at it. Or in the immortal words of Crash Davis, "Your shower shoes have fungus on 'em. You'll never get to the Bigs with fungus on your shower shoes. Think classy and you'll be classy. If you win 20 in the Show you can let the fungus grow back on your shower shoes and the press'll think you're colorful. Until you win twenty in the Show, it means you're a slob." And wear black shoes to formal occasions. Brown shoes don't make it.

Leave the bling at home. I don't just mean obvious bling, I mean everything except a tasteful watch, simple cuff links, and a wedding or class ring. Once again, no one cares about you. While people hopefully will ooh and aah over your date's necklace, no one's going to fawn over your turquoise man-ring or your gold necklace that you got from Zales the same day you bought your used 'Vette. John Wayne and Clint Eastwood never wore pimp rings. Unless you want to come off as Flavor Flav, neither should you.

Cologne should only be discernible to someone in your personal space, not from across the room and down the hall. I know Sex Panther may work every time 60% of the time, but for every totally hot chick its impressing, its giving 10 of the rest of us either a headache or an upset stomach. Leave the Aramis and the Hai Karate in your medicine cabinet, and see if you can't get by on just soap and water. If you must, apply one or two drops to your neck, and leave it at that.

Finally, for God's sake, tuck that shirt in. Are we done with the untucked shirt epidemic yet? This is really a public menace. If you're 30 pounds overweight, let me suggest buying Spam Light as an alternative to buying the XXXL size shirt and leaving it untucked to cover that 40 acre spread you've got working.

For women, there's really just one cardinal rule: avoid at all costs looking like a hooker. At a minimum this calls for not wearing anything bearing any risk of exposing yourself. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but the current generation's role models are famed for flashing their privates every time they sit down, so it has literally come to that.

Let's also deal with some basic etiquette.

Do not arrive before the time on the invitation (called "dork early" on a Gilmore Girls episode), but don't arrive three hours late either. The idea to a party is to have a certain mix of people through the balance of the night. Showing extremely late works against having that mix.

Don't be the last one at a party. Chances are if you're the last one there, its because everyone else has decided that enough is enough, so you're the odd man out. If you look up and notice you're the last guest at a party, leave immediately, unless the host is Diane Lane and she asks you to come upstairs because she "needs your help with something."

Bring something with you too. What you bring is of course totally dependent on the type of party and level of formality. If its a keg party, bring your favorite brewskies. If its catered, a small but tasteful gift for the host's home will do.

No cornering any guests. As noted earlier, the point of a party is for disparate friends to meet new friends, which is accomplished by the awkward "mingling" process. Kind of hard to meet new people if you're trapped talking to Bitter Married Guy, or Just Got Out of Rehab Guy, or Laid Off Guy, or Just Got a New Boat Guy, or anyone else of that ilk. Introduce yourself, talk about the things you have in common, offer to introduce your date or other friends with you, then excuse yourself by kindly offering to get anyone another banana daiquiri, and move on. Typically I look for that glazed "I gave up a night of TV for this?" look in the eye of someone I'm visiting with as the sign that I've worn out my welcome. Sort of like the scenes in Airplane where the passengers commit suicide to avoid further boredom listening to Ted Stryker moan about his past.

Don't overdrink. Hey Drinky McDrinksalot, after high school, its no longer considered cool to get ripped and then break stuff or yak at someone else's house. Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life. Holiday cheer is one thing, making yourself a nuisance when others are trying to have a nice time is completely different. It makes the host worry about you potentially driving away, or taking care of you to prevent you hurting yourself or someone else or their house. Do what everyone else does-drink to excess at your own home.

RSVP. Nothing makes it harder for a host to plan a party than not knowing how many people are going to attend. Well, that and not being able to smuggle in enough absinthe. The host has extended you an honor, a small one, but an honor nonetheless, by inviting you to their home, enjoy their hospitality and meet their other friends. The least you can do is let them know whether you intend to show.

Its not your house. I am constantly amazed at parties of all types at guests who seem to have absolutely no qualms whatsoever about literally making themselves at home. By that I mean going to rooms where the party plainly is not taking place, moving items from their intended location, even rummaging through drawers or cabinets. When you're a party guest, you are a guest. Its a party, not an open house. If you don't own it, leave it alone. If you want to see other parts of the house, ask the owner for a tour. Otherwise, keep your hands off and stay out.

Finally, please have the common courtesy to save the intra-couple drama for after you leave and when you arrive at Denny's. Nothing's a bigger buzzkill than a couple doing their George and Martha impression in public. Maybe the cops arriving is worse, but a domestic scene runs a close second.

So, there's my advice on a successful party strategy. Now get out there and have some good clean fun!!!

These Are a Few of My Favorite Scenes-Comedy

Changing the blog formatting because the edge of the sweet videos I'd been posting was being cut off. This new format will also be a breath of fresh air for 2009, sort of my own version of "change."

Here's the finale in the four-part series on my favorite scenes. Although if I find that I have too much time during the holidays there may be an "honorable mention" posting. But there's already more than a few comedies here.

We conclude with comedies. I love movies, but seldom go to serious ones. As I've told many of you, if I want serious, I'll stay at work and save the money. Life is serious enough-I need to laugh. And not the pathetic mocking laughter I have for most of the lawyers and regulators I have to deal with every day, but the joyful laughter that doctors say improves your health. The funny thing (no pun intended) is that although I see myself as an intelligent, sophisticated, man about town, this posting proves that basically I like stupid stuff. Not exactly Farrelly Brothers stupid though. I mean, come on. I can read, after all.

So, silliness notwithstanding, I hope you enjoy. And, special thanks to my cousin Tom for helping me avoid copyright laws, err, upload sweet videos to YouTube.

One, Two, Three. We start with something obscure. This is one of Billy Wilder's best movies, and no one's ever seen it. It stars James Cagney as a Coca-Cola executive in 1961 Berlin, anxious to climb the corporate ladder hoping to impress his Atlanta-based boss by taking extra good care of the boss' visiting teenage daughter. Who just happens to get married to an East Berlin communist. Hilarity ensues when a frantic Cagney tries to fix all this before the boss arrives to visit. This is the "everything goes crazy" scene (at least, the first five minutes or so is). Jack Lemmon said in an interview that he was on the set the day this scene was filmed, and Cagney had all kinds of trouble with the speech at the very beginning. Hard to believe there was anything Cagney had trouble doing.



Stripes. Lighten up Francis. I dropped this exact line on a girlfriend once during a fight. It didn't work so well, but I was highly amused, so in the end that was worth it.



Anchorman. Sex Panther. Sixty percent of the time, it works every time.



Napoleon Dynamite. People either love this movie (if they have good taste) or hate it (if they don't). Either way, there's nothing better than taking sweet jumps on a Sledgehammer.



A Night at the Opera. The second most famous Marx Brothers routine, but the funniest. And three hard boiled eggs.



Superbad. Gangstas, what's up? Chicka, chicka, yeah!



The Producers. Springtime for Hitler. The first time I saw this was at the Paramount Theatre, and its probably the hardest I've ever laughed. "Don't be stupid be a smarty, come and join the Nazi Party!"



Blazing Saddles. Not that scene, but the other one. "To tell a family secret, my grandmother was Dutch."



Blazing Saddles. This is the funniest line in any movie that no one ever laughs at, probably because they don't get it by the time the next line comes along. "They said you was hung!"



High Fidelity. You tell me right now what's wrong with the Righteous Brothers! Sadly, its getting harder to remember that Jack Black can actually be funny.



Young Frankenstein. Do NOT open this door!



Airplane. "Joey, have you ever seen a grown man naked?"



Airplane (again). "Col' got to be!...Chump don' want no help, chump don' get no help!"



Bananas. Especially for you young folk, this is exactly how Howard Cosell was; hard to believe a guy like this was at one time the pre-eminent American sports reporter, and could actually transcend the events he called. But its completely true. I also dig the opening title music. The whole thing reminds me of my trip to Buenos Aires.



Pee Wee's Big Adventure. "Did anybody tell you that this is the private club of the Satan's Helpers?" Another former girlfriend told me she assumed I was gay because I still own the talking Pee Wee Herman doll my brother Steve gave me for Christmas one year when I was in college. I've never taken it out of its original box, and that thing is probably worth at least $200 today.



Rushmore. The very definition of "wistful." "These are OR scrubs." "Oh, are they?"



Caddyshack. "Former greenskeeper, about to become, Masters Champion" According to the director Harold Ramis, Murray improvised this entire scene and it was shot in one take.



Caddyshack. At Carl's place. This has two lines I use constantly and you should too: "People don't say that about you as far as you know" and "We have a pool and a pond...a pond would be good for you"



Animal House. "The time has come for someone to put his foot down. And that foot is me!" The main reason this movie is so funny is that the bad guys aren't cariacatures, but seem to believe they aren't really bad guys.



And, finally, we end this overly long post with one of the greatest comedy scenes ever. From Animal House. "Her name was Fawn Leibowitz, and she was from Fort Wayne, Indiana." The funniest line in this movie is in this scene, and it always goes practically unnoticed. "She was going to make a pot for me!"



Next up-the "faux hawk" and other fashion criticism to help you dress for success during the holidays.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Interrupting the My Favorite Scenes series to wish everyone a great holiday, with minimal family recriminations and gunplay. I know I have so much to be thankful for; I imagine you do too.

Here is a great article on things people are thankful for: http://lifestyle.msn.com/your-life/just-dreaming/article.aspx?cp-documentid=14070198>1=32001

And I give you the greatest Thanksgiving scene of all time, from WKRP In Cincinnati.

WKRP in Cincinnati: Thanksgiving Turkey Bomb! @ Yahoo! Video

These Are a Few of My Favorite Scenes-Romance

Tonight, love is in the air, and we focus on great romantic scenes. No I didn't include Dirty Dancing. As you will see, romance to me typically involves impossible or failing relationships. What, is that weird? Anyway, I had trouble finding the particular scenes I wanted, so this involves some substitutes. Note how, by and large, the effect of supreme romance and passion is achieved in these clips without graphic sex and/or violence, or shirts off homoerotic volleyball scenes. Nobody puts Baby in a corner!

Its A Wonderful Life. Hee haw! Not typically thought of as a romantic movie, the almost slipped in phone scene is priceless. Giving up all your hopes and dreams to be with someone-that's love.



Witness. Impossible love. A great song. Dancing. Your sister's beat up Volvo station wagon in the barn. Being a widow and still getting busted by your dad. Kelly McGillis no doubt was thrilled to trade in Maverick and Jodie Foster for Han Solo.



To Catch A Thief. Sometimes you just have to get out of your own way and let things happen. Scroll past the first 45 seconds or so, for some fireworks.



The Way We Were. Painfully unwatchable endings, part I. In the best love stories, the lovers don't wind up with each other. They played this song at my cousin Debbie's funeral; this was her favorite movie.



Body Heat. Apparently in Hollywood the line between "extremely hot" and "assault" can be somewhat ill-defined.



Picnic. Repressed sexual tension. Older loser guy/younger semi-innocent local babe. Moonlight. Dancing. Tea lights? Even an otherwise lame movie deserves one truly standout scene.



Pride and Prejudice. Apparently in Hollywood (and in Jane Austen), "no" sometimes means "oh yeah!" Politeness was never so passionate.



The Thomas Crown Affair. Faye Dunaway stars as the greatest chess-playing fembot ever. Dig the groovy music. But Steve McQueen was totally cool here.



Rear Window. Nothing beats a great wake-up call.



Roman Holiday. Unwatchable endings, Part II. I never understood why the Princess couldn't marry Gregory Peck. Some sort of anti-Americanism no doubt.



Breakfast At Tiffany's. This isn't usually how relationships with "maybe I love you but I'm too special and weird to ever show it" chicks end. Usually, it starts with texting you to break dates. Then you notice that your phone calls start to get returned less quickly or not at all. Then she casually mentions happy hours and parties she's recently attended to which she did not invite you. Before you know it, she's not even sending you a Christmas card. I've heard.



Sixteen Candles. I know, I know, this movie is lame. Ha, ha, very funny. But the ending was nice. I hope they use a tablecloth the next time they serve dinner at that table though. "Hey Howard, there's your chinaman!"



North By Northwest. That makes three from Hitchcock. Go figure. I have a suit just like the one Cary Grant wears in this scene (actually its two scenes), but it hasn't done anything like this for me. Guess I need a new tailor. This is a bit lengthy, but overall excellent.



Next-we end with comedy scenes. Expect Fawn Leibowitz to make an appearance.

These Are a Few of My Favorite Scenes-Musicals

People quickly agree with my comment that I have the movie taste of a 50 year old woman when they see my DVD collection. The thing that probably stands out most is the number of musicals. I like musicals, at least old ones. There, I said it. Now beat it! Everyone was usually happy (except those nimrod faux gang members in West Side Story-the average 5th grade girls PE class could take down the Jets and the Sharks combined). The music often was excellent. I admire the athletic and body control skill of the great dancers like Kelly, Astaire, Charisse, and Ann Miller. Most of all they were generally light-hearted, and if I'm going to devote two hours of my time to watching a movie, I don't want to wind up with a worse outlook than when I started. Put another way, if I want to get anxious and upset, I'll just go to work.

So here's some of my favorite musical scenes. Remember, if I can bring a little joy into your humdrum lives, then my work ain't been in vain for nothing. Bless you all!

Singin in the Rain. Obviously. Adolph Green, one of the writers, watched the movie years later with Leonard Bernstein, who had never seen it (which seems implausible since he wrote both On the Town and West Side Story). Bernstein called this scene "a reaffirmation of life." Pretty heady for a musical.



An American in Paris (Our Love is Here to Stay). I basically hate the actual movie part of this movie; the ballet of course was transcendent. Gene Kelly plays a starving artist, stalking this obnoxious French perfume selling babe. In the process, he two times some American heiress who's lifting him out of his glorious obscurity and giving him a chance, while Leslie Caron betrays the rather delicate Frenchie cabaret singer who saved her life during the war. Gross. Oscar Levant was kind of cool though. This movie has some powerful scenes. This one is time capsule worthy, and features the very last song that George and Ira Gerswhin wrote together-Our Love is Here to Stay. Ira wrote the lyrics several weeks after his brother died, and unquestionably the lyrics were about him. But I digress... This clip has Stairway to Paradise on it at the end; couldn't find one limited to Our Love is Here to Stay.



An American in Paris (I Got Rhythm). If Kelly hadn't done Singin' in the Rain, this is the scene that he'd have been remembered for. Notice how there's almost no cuts in the take, even after "AEROPLANE." What an athlete. Bob Fosse said of Gene Kelly, "he looked like a guy on your bowling team, only classier." This clip is subtitled in French, ironically.



Top Hat (Isn't It a Lovely Day). There's nothing on the surface particularly remarkable about this scene. Its not Astaire and Rogers' greatest dancing, but this is one of the rare scenes where they're not in evening wear, or in a ballroom, and it shows Astaire wooing the girl. For a lightweight, foppish, delicate kind of guy (translation-got the crap kicked out of him in 3rd grade recess), Astaire in the movies had some serious game when it came to the ladies. This scene shows it.



Shall We Dance (Slap That Bass). Gershwin and Astaire again. I guess this scene is what 1937 calls "integration." Good to know the fellas down in the engine room have plenty of time to choreograph numbers and rehearse. I guess the Titanic must not have been as good a gig.



Easter Parade (Drum Crazy). I wanted to put Shine On Your Shoes from the Bandwagon but couldn't find it. But this is similar. Astaire just had a way of showing a feeling through dance and song. And impressing random 10 year old boys with their stuffed pink elephants in music stores (that was a little weird). In real life, Astaire was an accomplished pianist and drummer.



Saturday Night Fever (More Than a Woman). I always scoffed at this movie-the absurd out of nowhere trendsetting low budget flick that foisted Vinny Barbarino on us and in the process rescusitated disco and was responsible for three talking baby movies. Til I saw it for the first time about three years ago. And loved it. The story of a loser trying to make good, who really only finds any modicum of success on the dance floor, is very compelling. In the beginning Travolta is your standard Atlantic City/Jersey douche worried about his hair and scoring over the weekend. But somehow, like the proverbial salamander that crawled out of the sea onto dry land, he manages to see his life for what it really is and resolves to change it. This scene, I think, is where he finally realizes he can be more than a paint-selling guido club skeeze the rest of his life. (He can join Scientology, marry Kelly Preston, and give speeches about Royales with Cheese).



The Sound of Music (The Lendler). With all that prancing around and making play clothes out of drapes and hating on the evil Baroness (when Liesl has to give her a kiss once she learns that's her new stepmother, that's about the most gag inducing attempt at affection since the Gores threw down on stage at the 2000 Democratic convention), people seem to forget this scene, which is where the Captain fell in love with Maria (I guess its where he realized she wasn't a Home Depot shopping flannel wearer after all). I have to say, the Captain was totally cool- ripping apart the Nazi flag with his bare hands and talking Rolf the Nazi Boy Wonder out of shooting them in the graveyard was definitely gangsta. Wearing white gloves in this scene-not so much.



Victor/Victoria (Crazy World). Sometimes just standing there and singing works perfectly well.



Beauty and the Beast. I hate that I love this scene. Basically, I view Disney as being on par with flesh-eating bacteria and cannibalism. So to overcome that attitude and think so highly of this scene, that pretty much says it all.



Young Frankenstein (Puttin on the Ritz). Not technically a musical, but a great way to end this post. Put the candle BACK!!!!



Next-romance. How sweet.