Only In The Movies

Back when I was an impressionable pre-teen, my mother foolishly took my sister and me to see this brand-new movie that everyone was talking about.

I vividly remember that magical afternoon as Star Wars unfolded on the big screen, and my eyes were suddenly opened up to the wonderful possibilities of movie-making.

From that moment on, I wanted to be George Lucas.

Well, at least for a few months, until I saw Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and then I just knew I wanted to be Steven Spielberg.

That actually lasted a couple of years, until my mother took us to see the Los Angeles opening of Beatlemania in 1979, and then I wanted to be John Lennon. But that's another story.

During that last part of the 70's, I was enamored with films and Hollywood and directing.

The first Christmas after the epiphany of Star Wars, I only wanted one thing: a Super 8 movie camera. Once in hand, I was free to create my masterful visions, which I was sure would attract the attentions of Lucas and Spielberg, to be followed by studio bidding wars for my talents.

Only, I discovered I wasn't so free. A 3-minute reel of Super 8 film was expensive. And then you had to pay even more to develop the thing!

Not to mention, editing those tiny little strips of celluloid was tedious and frustrating. One wrong move with the slicer, and that was that.

You young people with your fancy Flip video cameras and computer editing software have no idea how good you have it.

Another problem was finding talent. I had to do some real sweet-talking to get people to appear in my movies. It became easier to make a star out of the cat, or some inanimate object.

Most of my little movies never quite got off the ground, and I ended up with a collection of bits and pieces. Ideas that went nowhere.

However, I did manage to make one decent little film with a couple of friends. It has a plot and everything! And it even won an award at a junior high film festival. I still have the trophy to prove it. Second place in the Comedy category. Never mind that there were only two entrants... I'm an award-winning filmmaker!

Here, after 31 years stored away in a box, is the world premiere of my epic saga about one man's courageous journey to hell and back.

Or something like that.

Go easy on me. I was 14 years old, and everything was filmed in one take to save on costs. The music was added recently, as the original was silent. Titles and credits are also new additions.

Enjoy:

Guns N Kids

When my son was born, both my wife and I agreed that we would discourage him from playing with toy guns. We simply wouldn't have them in the house.

I'm not talking about hunting. No, I mean games of "cops and robbers" or "cowboys and indians." We were nervous about the effects of that kind of imaginary violence on our child.

In other words, we were new parents who were totally clueless.

Because since then we have realized two things. First, there is not one darn thing you can do to prevent a boy from playing shoot-em-up games. From almost the time he learned to walk, my son was running around saying "Bang Bang" with a spoon or Lego or some other object in his hand.

I have no idea where he learned it. Maybe it's genetic. Maybe prehistoric toddlers ran around their caves with a stick in their hand yelling "Bonk Bonk!"

Even when we took away the toys, he found other things to turn into guns. He would even roll his napkin up into a tube and use that to shoot bad guys.

That leads me to the second thing we realized. Playing with toy guns is not going to warp our kids' minds. I believe it does just the opposite, as a fertile imagination can only be beneficial to a child. Shooting outlaws and monsters is not going to turn them into homicidal psychopaths or make them indifferent to human life.

I should've just remembered my own childhood. Yup, that's a 7-year-old me in that photo. I turned out okay. Right?

A Spot For Thot

A good rule of thumb on photography -- For every 100 pictures you take, you get about 10 good ones. I took 700 at Disneyland and, sure enough, I ended up with about 70 that turned out really well. This one is from Critter Country, near the new Winnie the Pooh ride.

Disney Magic

There's something magical that happens to kids while they're at Disneyland. Suddenly they stop bickering, they become the best of friends, and they walk hand in hand with mouths agape at the visual thrills around every corner of the Magic Kingdom.

They also start minding their parents, like little Stepford Kids... "Yes, Daddy, I will do what you say, just let me ride Big Thunder Mountain one more time." For five whole days I had these two bright and eager children who never complained or whined or said a cross word to anyone.

I wondered if Disney put something in the water.

But wait, there are exceptions. Many of them. And thank God my kids were not one of them. See the photo above? Look past my two temporarily sweet children at the little family in the background.

You see the mother beating her kid? We saw a lot of that. Huge meltdowns, on the part of both kids and parents. My kids couldn't understand why anyone would come to Disneyland to scream and cry. It's supposed to be the Happiest Place On Earth, don't they know?!

There's something about Disneyland that can bring out either your best or your worst. I guess some people just can't handle spending a day in a fantasy world. Or maybe they're stressed out because they've mortgaged their house to pay for the park food. And to some kids I suppose pirates and ghosts and a gigantic talking mouse can be the stuff of nightmares.

Speaking of nightmares, it almost seems like the best rides at Disneyland are based on the most horrible things. I'll write about that tomorrow.

Don't Embarrass Me

It doesn't take much for my son to say "Don't embarrass me, daddy!" when we're out in public. If I softly hum a tune at the grocery store, he'll pull on my shirt and plead for me to stop. God forbid I should sing, or even talk loudly, or draw any kind of attention to myself while he is within ten feet of me.

He's very self-conscious about people looking at him. And if he thinks I'm the cause of it, then he gets quite irate.

I don't do these things to embarrass my son. Sometimes I just have a little tune in my head which pops out while I'm studying soup labels. Or I feel like skipping from the milk case to the cat food aisle. Or I like to drum out a beat on the 2x4s at Home Depot.

But my son thinks it's all a conspiracy to make him die of shame. Maybe I should just tell him he's right, that parents are constantly thinking up new ways to cause their kids to cringe.

I'm tempted to take lessons from the guy in this video. The one wearing the orange shirt. Then I could really put on a show for my son, performing the Robot Dance for him and all his buddies at the next Cub Scout meeting!