Week 19: The Goonies

Dear Avid Reader,

Life's pretty awesome when you're blogging about movies. So maybe everyone should blog about movies with me.

Or they should start paying me and then they can feel like they're a part of mine.

First You Gotta Do The Truffle Shuffle

Folks my age have searched in abandoned school rooms, attics, basements, wooded areas near their childhood home, and a bunch of other places. All of them looking for one thing...treasure. The Goonies is to blame for that. I even recently spoke with a friend about how we both looked all over our house hoping to find some long forgotten "rich stuff". Yes, adult men, with mortgages, looking for buried treasure.

But rather than shake our angry fist at The Goonies for brainwashing us, we spent the afternoon throwing ninja stars at a tree in my front yard. No seriously.

Give Me A Nice Wet Lickery Kiss

Then I realized something, if my 13 year-old-self (m13yos) could see me now, he'd would freaking flip out. I live with my wife, at a house that we own, where we share adult relations. This alone would cause m13yos to determine he would become a successful adult. But wait, my inner child, there is more.

I can listen to whatever album I want because of Rhapsody and the same for films/TV with Netflix. I carry the most advanced technology in human history in my pocket via the iPhone. I own a bunch of sweet vynil records. I drive where ever I want. I have two cool pet cats at the house. I can play the guitar a little. I still play video games, and on a wireless controller no less. Throwing ninja stars in the front yard this weekend only tops things off. And I was getting pretty good at it when it started getting dark. No, I was getting REALLY good.

M13yos's reaction to my current life has cause me to have a realization, I have become a personal success. M13yos would have totally been high-fiving m31yos this weekend. And that's when I decided that I was going to be happy for the rest of my life.

Pinchers of Peril, Saved By My Pinchers Of Peril

Now the scenario that I am going through is starting to sound like a different movie. Specifically, the Bruce Willis joint The Kid. Only now do I realize how genius that movie is. Because for a while there, I started trying to set my bar for success by some crazy adult standard. What the heck was I thinking? Why not look back to what I wanted when I first conceived of a future for myself? Using that first ruler, I have achieved everything. So I'm gonna go with the m13yos ruler rather than some other society generated one. Screw your ruler society!

This seems like too much of an upper compared to my bummer posts, but what the heck. Use a different ruler! Quit trying to be the ruler of my ruler. I'm gonna stop saying "ruler"....now.

Down Here, It's Our Time, It's Our Time Down Here

I wonder if as I age I will grow to appreciate awesome-ness less and less. Is being really awesome only for the young? I don't think so. I think that the understanding of awesome-ness we enjoy is only a recent phenomenon. Technology is helping man unlock the potential that awesome-ness has in store for mankind. And breakthroughs are happening all the time.

But the final achievement will be allowing all people and all nations to be cool. I think the problem is cool is an expensive thing. Can the cash-strapped afford coolness? I think not. And to those that would try and point out how some poor folks are cool, I say to them that the poor of America are considered rich in the rest of the world. I'm talking the "only a handful of rice a week" poor. I hope those people who questioned me feel terrible right now.

Follow Them Size Fives

Once we can have hipster subsets in the population of Somalia, there will be no more pirate attacks. Teaching the people of Myanmar how to strike a match with one hand will bring peace to the region. I dream of a day when the children of New Guinea can recite the code for infinite lives in Contra while they wear snarky t-shirts featuring lolcats. No babies will die on that day.

And the reason we need to work for global coolness (which has nothing to do with climate change...maybe) is that it means everyone has their needs met. Frivolous culture that is endlessly dissected can only happen when you don't have to worry about food and shelter. There's no way I know all the words to Antoine Dodson's Bed Intruder if I had to actually think about where my next meal was coming from.

This Was My Dream, My Wish, And It Didn't Come True

So I pray that everyone joins me in this fight against worldwide lameness/poverty. Not sure how this turned into a cause, but I'm sure I will flake out and not do anything real to help anything.

I mean, that's what m13yos would do. He's kind of an a-hole that way.

Until Next I Blog,

James