A Hard Lesson to Learn

Ever since I was a young child, a young lad, I was enrolled in school. There really never was a time that I can remember when I wasn't somehow attached to school. Summer vacations and other time off were just, "a break from school." My indentured servitude to the educational system meant that my whole schedule depended on whether I had school or not.
I remember specifically one day my mom woke me up and said that we were going to play "hooky" (Hook-Key) from school. At first I was bewildered. Not only was I trying to regroup myself after nearly 8 grueling hours of REM Sleep, but I was unfamiliar with what "hooky" was. I thought maybe this was a game that my mother used to play when she was younger. My mind leaped to thoughts of games such as kick the can or other Depression era "time fillers," which made the enthusiasm leave my body immediately. Yet, after more thought, I realized those thoughts didn't make sense chronologically since my mom would have to be near one hundred years old in order for her to be alive during the depression and I alas conceded to this so called "hooky."

It was a very pleasant day. We visited our local IN and Out Burger and spent time there for a couple of hours. After that, we went to the cinemas to lose our minds in some celluloid. I soon came to find out that "hooky" was just a day away from school. I really loved that my mom did that for me, but then I began to wonder what was happening at school without me. Due to the fact that I had always been in school and my life seemed to revolve around it like the earth to the sun, I was very concerned for my classmates. This coupled with a young, naive, and egocentric state of mind, meant that I couldn't conceive of what school was doing without me!

At first I just assumed that the teachers came to school and as they scanned through the role sheet, everything just stopped. Reid was not in attendance. Why go on? Disillusioned, they shuffled out the door and prayed that I would return safely the next day.

While I was flattered by the first thought, my mind began to jump to more terrifying scenarios. I imagined that because I was not at school people were freaking out to the point where the school just descended into chaos. Terrorists were claiming that they were going to execute people one by one if I did not return to hear my English teacher's preplanned lecture on, "Finnigan's Wake."

While you may think there is no way I would think this as a Jr. Higher, I assured you that thoughts like this did go through my mind. Although I didn't take them seriously enough to go looking up the number for the SWAT task force in the Yellow Pages, I did spend ample time thinking about this stuff. I attribute this to not only a wicked and subversive imagination, but the fact that the TNT station constantly showed the movie Delta Force starring Chuck Norris.

Needless to say, since I had never been away from school. I could not picture my life without it. Upon my return, I realized that everything that been ok. There was no serious threats on anyones lives and my teachers actually seemed ok with me not being there.

While this may seem like a good thing to a lot of people, I was kind of disheartened to learn that this world didn't revolve around me. As I am older now, I feel like I am learning that lesson over and over everyday. Although I am relieved that it doesn't revolve around me since I don't believe I would be a fantastic world leader, I do wish the nation would anxiously await my next blog post.

P.S - I do believe most of the world do in fact read my blog and eagerly await my every word.

To them I have to say:

Dear Obama, Bono, Carrot-Top, and others whom love my work:

Thank you for all your support over the year(s). You guys keep me going on. I appreciate your comments and understand your anonymity.

Love,
Reid

Loving Lit

I don't know if any of you have had the pleasure of seeing a man sporting a t-shirt that has the phrase, "so many books, so little time" on it. If you have you are probably aware how wonderful a moment such as this is. The sweatshirt is clearly the crux of the outfit while the rest of the ensemble is usually an afterthought. It is clear that as long as the sweatshirt is readable to the general public, then the person does not care about the rest.

If you happen to catch a man of this caliber walking around your neighborhood then you are aware of the impact he has on your life. If you are not a fan of books, then you most likely will scoff at the man's seemingly offbeat attire. For the record this is all speculation because I do not fall into that camp. I, and others who are a big fan of books, look at this man and understand his concern. We not only empathize, but we mentally applaud him for expressing himself. There is just so many books to read and so little time to read them.

I had a professor at UCSC whom wore that shirt constantly. I loved this man. He was not only an amazing history professor, but he had an uncanny resemblance to author David Sedaris.

Sedaris entered my life early in High School. My mother tried to get me to read a copy of his novel "Naked" many times. However, I didn't pick it up cause I was at the time too occupied with the Harry Potter series. Yet, it all worked out in the end because J.K Rowling took so long to come out with her fifth book that I forgot all that had happened in the series so far and thus decided to abandon Hogwarts altogether. After my bitter departure from that magical series, I drowned my sorrows in another book. Luckily, my rebound affair turned out to be Sedaris's, "Dress Your Family In Corduroy." I was just fascinated that someone could take the world around them and pick apart life's little idiosyncrasies in such a way where you cannot help but laugh. Although Sedaris was truly a gateway drug into my life of books, it wasn't until I picked up a copy of Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five" that I finally learned just how important literature is.

I had always heard the title "Slaughterhouse Five" growing up. Now that I think of it, it is funny that I had never picked up the book before being the horror movie fan that I am because nothing screams macabre more than, "Slaughterhouse Five." After I had read the first part of the book I knew that this guy had the same thing that Sedaris had, yet he had the gaul to deal with life. Don't get me wrong, I love stories of Sedaris's that deal with the unflushable turd that haunted him at a friend's dinner party, but using humor to explore the parts of life that normally scare us is absolutely brilliant. To me it seems there really is no other way to deal with the things that terrify us, because as Mr. Vonnegut said himself, "Humor is an almost physiological response to fear."

I could go on talking about this book all night. I could even talk about my "favorite parts" that really inspired me. Yet, the point of this blog was just to let you know how I was first introduced to one of my favorite authors in hopes to inspire you to pick up one of his novels.

I guess I could leave you with a couple of Vonnegut quotes.

"The feeling about a soldier is, when all is said and done, he wasn't really going to do very much with his life anyway. The example usually is: he wasn't going to compose Beethoven's Fifth."

"Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?"

"Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae."

"Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward."

"People have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order so they'll have good voice boxes in case there's ever anything really meaningful to say."

Movie Reviews!

I recently attended the midnight showing of X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

This film is a true representation of how you can strip away anything good of a franchise and replace it with explosions just so you can make more money. I get it, fire is super cool. The cavemen totally dug it because you know....it helped them sustain life. It is clearly really special because we don't really rely on fire that much anymore to sustain life, yet we keep it around just so people can have a focal point during their political discussions at your dinner parties that you host every couple of weeks to impress your friends and prove to them that you and your wife are not reclusive. (I know it was a major run on sentence, but i'm proving a point.)

Fire is neat. It is impressive and it's kind of fun to splurge and buy the Dura-Flame log that creates different color flames. However, I feel it should be used sparingly in a motion picture. You know...to create drama.

An explosion is the pinnacle of action. Tension is created by the threat of something going to explode. That is how MacGyver existed as a television series. Every episode dealt with him attempting to prevent explosion and that was it. He knew that if the bomb blew, that would be it.

Yet, the director of this film, Gavin Hood, apparently had never watched MacGuyver. Which is really weird considering that he had previously acted in episodes of Stargate SG-1 which starred Macgyver himself, Richard Dean Anderson.

Anyway, Mr. Hood decided to just fill the Wolverine film with tons of poorly executed explosions and awful dialogue. There was no tension building. There was no, "Holy Heck! That bomb is going to go off anytime soon! Let's get out of here or we'll all die!"

It was just boom. Boom. Boom.

I know that superhero films require a suspension of belief when you enter the cinema, but it is truly unbelievable that the director could make a movie with so much explosions and so little heart.

But, they already have my money. So I guess I'll be seeing all of you guys next year at the midnight showing of "Big Explosions: The Movie"