Just Like Lindsay
On the way home from work last night, I found myself thinking about the latest self-inflicted travails of actress Lindsay Lohan. Now, even if you don’t pay much attention to the latest pop culture chatter about celebs’ dirty laundry, it’s been almost impossible of late to avoid hearing about what’s happening with this troubled 24-year-old […]
Guilt and Forgiveness at the VMAs … or Not
If there was a pop-culture-specific dictionary, and you looked up the word infamous, the entry would say, “See MTV Video Music Awards.” For a couple of decades now, the cable channel formerly known as Music Television has excelled at putting on an annual award show that’s become less about the musicians being honored and more […]
The Trouble With Statistics
I have a confession to make, and it’s a bit of an odd one: I love statistics. It’s odd since I’m a word guy with a phobia of numbers that goes back to being put in pre-algebra instead of algebra in 8th grade (but that’s another story for another time). Nevertheless I love stats, especially […]
Jumping the Shark … Literally
I’d like to begin today with a simple confession: My wife and I have always liked Shark Week. Ever since we met in 2003, Discovery Channel’s end-of-summer celebration of all things shark has been must-see TV for us. Just as Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom once captivated our imaginations as kids, so this cable channel’s […]
Movie Monday: Inception Reloaded
Christopher Nolan’s mind-bending, genre-blending, sci-fi-heist thriller Inception ruled the weekend box office for a second week in a row, taking in another $43.5 million and holding off Angelina Jolie’s Salt, which nabbed $36.5 million. In its third week of release, Despicable Me clocked in at $24.1 million. All in all, it was a rare summer […]
The End of the Best Friend?
I wasn’t a very happy kid. I was intense. Moody. Liked things my way. Got mad—really mad—when things didn’t go my way. God must have known I needed some help, because in 5th grade I met Joe. Joe was pretty much my polar opposite. He was even-keeled when I boiled over. He would look at […]
Simple Pleasures Revisited
I wonder, sometimes, what the future holds for non-digital entertainment. And an unlikely event raised that question for me earlier this week. My parents moved to town last weekend, bringing with them several boxes of miscellaneous flotsam and jetsam that every move inevitably stirs up. I thought I’d gotten everything they had for me—you know, […]
The Water We Swim In
Culture, it’s said, is like an ocean. And we are the fish swimming there. For the most part, we’re not really aware of the water around us. It’s just there … always there. It’s where we swim and live. That comparison is helpful, I think, because it reminds us that our culture—that vast vortex of […]
Movie Monday: Don’t Mess With the Karate Kid
Every week, Hollywood industry insiders speculate on how well new movies will do at the box office. Most weeks, these wizened mavens are pretty accurate. Every now and then, however, there’s a big surprise. That’s what happened last weekend, as two rebooted relics from the 1980s squared off at the multiplex: The Karate Kid and […]
The Trojan Happy Meal
So I’m in the checkout line at Safeway the other day with my almost 4-year-old son. This is always a touchy moment, because he’s usually ready to be anywhere else by the time we get done grocery shopping. This particular day, however, something caught his attention. “Daddy, it’s Jake!” he chirped. Looking around, I took […]