Sometimes It Is Just "Merry Christmas"

I was born Jewish and married a Catholic and if you asked me what my beliefs are I'd tell you I am agnostic.  The time between Thanksgiving and New Years was always difficult for me growing up because Hanukkah is the Mets and Christmas is the Yankees.  If you're not familiar with the baseball analogy basically Hanukkah sucks and Christmas is in the playoffs every year.

I wish I was relevant

This will be my eighth Christmas this year, which means I spent 21 years dealing with the jealousy and anger of watching what seemed like the entire world celebrate something I was excluded from.  I hated Christmas commercials, music, lights, trees, etc.  If I was honest with myself I would've admitted that I really didn't hate all that, I just wanted all that for myself.

Feel the excitement!

You'd think I'd be all for the "Happy Holiday" sentiment that all are forced to say instead of "Merry Christmas" and sometimes I am, but sometimes it makes no fraking sense.  You see a commercial; the scene is a family room decked with garland and a beautiful glittering Christmas tree.  Stockings are lined perfectly above the fire place and a plate of cookies with a glass of milk are waiting for you know who.  After Dad gives Mom earrings (he went to Jared!) the commercial ends with "Happy Holidays".

It doesn't make any sense and it's stupid.  At that point just say "Merry Christmas" and lets move on to the next commercial.  Congrats to all the over sensitive pricks who made that possible, to those that complained to the point where shit that is really straight forward doesn't make any sense. 

You're fucking Santa!  You're clearly all about Christmas!

"Happy Holidays" makes sense when you're shopping because unless you're purchasing a Santa suit you really could be celebrating anything really.  It is a nice way to make sure no one is left out around this time of year.  The problem is now it has become the de facto phrase even when logic would tell you otherwise.

We are politically correct in this country to the point of absurdity.  Sometimes the proper thing to say is "Merry Christmas" and we should leave it at that. 

Occupy Occupy Wall Street

What is the endgame people?  At what point do we pack up the bags and signs and call it a day?  It wasn't so long ago that I completely agreed with what this movement represented and now I'm not so sure.

I sit here and read about the celebrations regarding the two month anniversary of the protests and I'm at a loss to find one thing that has changed since this began.  What exactly was supposed to change?  If you ask 25 people what Occupy Wall Street is about I'm willing to bet you'd get a good number of different answers.  Shit I'm not 100% I know what they're trying to do.

There is a noticeable lack of direction, though you may disagree with me on that.  The Tea Party are a bunch of fucking maniacs who compare Obama to Adolf Hitler but at least they had some direction.  I'd like to kick Palin in her cooter too but I digress.  You do realize that by Occupying Wall Street you're fucking over hard working honest people who are part of the 99% you're trying to represent, right?

There are no demands, there is no endgame, there is no battle plan.  Your lack of direction lose you credibility and supporters.  How can you protest without a clear concise message and direction for change?

I'm part of the 99% that doesn't want the current 99% representing me. 

Gobble Gobble Motherfucker

I like Christmas as much as the next guy that married into the holiday only to realize that it was 100x better than what he had been celebrating previously.  With that being said, I hate the fact that every year the Christmas season seems to start earlier and earlier.  I hate it even more so because of my love of Thanksgiving which is completely overshadowed by mistletoe and midgets in pointy shoes (elves if you want to be PC).

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, a holiday of good food, family and football. The only way you could possible dislike this holiday is if your ancestors were systematically slaughtered and relegated to reservations, but even on the first Thanksgiving we all got along, right?  Sadly, Thanksgiving seems to have been relegated to the Phantom Menace to Christmas' Empire Strikes Back, a sad prequel to awesomeness. 

When I was a child Christmas didn't get into full swing until the fat man bringing up the rear at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade Ho Ho Ho'd.  Now I saw my first Christmas commercial November 1st.  It's too soon!  Every holiday must have its time in the sun.  How can we as a nation be so ready to overlook a holiday that encourages sitting on the couch with your pants undone, because you ate so much food, with a beer in your hand watching football? 

It is an outrage and I will not take this lying down.  It is time for us to reclaim the month of November in the name of Thanksgiving!  Who's with me?

Why Do I Watch Sports?

After I finished throwing a tantrum over the outcome of the Jets game and calmed down (with the help of Jack Daniels) I asked myself "why do I watch sports?".  It is a valid question considering the amount of anger, frustration, disappointment, loss, hurt, etc. sports in general have caused me throughout my 29 years of life (well not the full 29 considering I wasn't pulled from the womb in sports gear).

In order of insane fandom I follow the Jets, Yankees, Knicks & Rangers (the Knicks and Rangers are tied).  Out of those four teams I have have seen the Rangers win the cup once in '94 and the Yankees win 5 World Series titles.  The Jets have gotten to the AFC championship 3 times and 2 of those times have come in the last two years.  The Knicks last bit of prominence was in 2000 when they lost to the Spurs in the Finals, they have since gotten the excitement back in MSG since 'Melo and Stat joined the team this past season. 

All in all you can make the argument that the Yankees have more than made up for the ineptitude of the Jets and Knicks, and even lean years the Rangers had when they enjoyed signing over the hill big name players (I'm looking at you Lindros!).  However, one team cannot make up for the shortfalls of the others, so again I'm left with the question "why do I watch sports?".  Amazingly enough it didn't take my brain long to come up with an answer.

I watch for those magic moments...

I watch for Messier holding that cup after promising we'd beat the Devils and then finishing off the Canucks

I watch for the improbable way the ball bounced off the back of the rim and in

I watch for Jumbo Elliot capping off the Monday Night Miracle

I watch for The Captain and "The Flip"

So in the end, even though my sports teams have caused me grief, anguish and misery...they've also caused me joy.  I watch and we all watch, because at any moment we might see a moment.

90s Nostalgia with the X-Men

I recently decided to embark on a trip to memory lane courtesy of Netflix streaming.  I watched all 5 seasons (76 episodes) of the 90s X-Men cartoon.  The show aired from 1992 to 1997 and when it came out this 10 year old was glued to the TV.

I still remember when Night of the Sentinels first aired, Pizza Hut did a big promotion for the TV show and I made my parents take me to the only one near our house which was in Canarsie, NY (I lived in Brooklyn at the time the show came out).  I got a cup and a VHS tape out of that trip.  It was with that childlike enthusiasm that I sat down to watch the entirety of the X-Men series. 

 The series has aged, not terribly, but it has.  Everything is bright 90s blues, pinks and yellows.  The voice acting is shaky at times but not terrible and they didn't use the same cells for multiple scenes which the Spider-Man cartoon that aired at the same time did constantly.

When guys my age bring up the X-Men cartoon almostthirty they generally have one thing that drives them nuts.

Jubilee, with the power to shoot sparklers from her fingers!  Quake in fear Mister Sinister.  Shit your pants Juggernaut.  Fly into the sun Dark Phoenix.  As entirely unnecessary as she was, I honestly don't feel she was the worst part of the show.  A good portion of the action didn't even involve her because they left her whiny ass at home.  The character that really annoyed me might surprise you.

The character that really drove me nuts was Storm.  I know part of her character trait is that she at one time believed she was a Goddess which sort of explains the one thing about her that drove me nuts, but holy shit was it played up in this show.  Every single time she used her powers she had to explain to you what she was doing.  "Wind and rain heed my call!" "Arctic winds I command thee!" "Lightning come forth and strike this menace down!"  Holy shit enough already!

A few more quick observations:  I'm pretty sure Gambit was willing to die to get with Rogue just once, and with the way they drew her, I know every boy was right there with him (myself included).  Why did Gambit, Jean & Cyclops have that weird like hood type thing that covered the back of their head went around their forehead and left the top of their head and face open?  The voice of Wolverine will always be the voice I hear when I read a comic with him in it.  Morph was more of a waste then Jubilee.

With all that being said it was a damn fine cartoon and a wonderful trip down memory lane.  Sometimes when you decide to feed the nostalgia bug you're left disappointed, it is so hard for things to be as good as you remember them to be.

How Could I Forget? I Can't.

We are nearing the 10th anniversary of 9/11. The attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, as well as the sacrifice of those on Flight 93 won't soon be forgotten. Soon, if they haven't already, our TVs will be inundated with specials surrounding the tragedy of that day. We will be subjected to image after image of that day. A burning tower. People running. People screaming.

I wish that wasn't the case. I wish that we can take a step back and instead celebrate the Twin Towers with specials surrounding its construction. Perhaps a documentary about the heroes that risked life and limb to save strangers. Retrospectives on those that lost their lives that day and interviews with their families. I cannot be the only one that would prefer these specials over images of horror.  

"But how can we be sure that we will never forget unless we relive that day every single year on the anniversary?"

Who can forget that day? I don't think I've met anyone that cannot tell you where they were, what they were doing, or how they felt on that day. I still get a very visceral reaction whenever I see the images or videos of that day. I think that we need at some point to move beyond the reliving.

I'll never forget, but please don't make me relive it.

Up, Up and Get That Shit Away from Me

By now you may have heard that Zack Snyder (300, The Watchmen, Sucker Punch) is directing the new Superman movie titled Man of Steel. What you might not have seen yet is the new costume. A picture was released not that long ago, but it was a stylized and polished piece of PR. Recently, today, a few new pictures surfaced of the man of steel in action on the set of the new movie. The costume is...ummm...well see for yourself.

Awful ain't it? I'm trying very hard not to be one of those people who get all up in arms when a beloved piece of their childhood is remade and it doesn't look exactly how they remember it. These people get all up in arms and fill the blogosphere with inane ramblings about how Hollywood or Director X is raping their childhood. I want to believe I hate the costume because it is just ugly, but if I'm honest with myself I hate the costume because it isn't the Superman I grew up with.

Recently I had to stop myself from losing my mind over them changing Spider-Man's costume. I decided that even though I don't like what they did with it either that I would let it slide because they brought back the mechanical web shooters.

However, if I'm being honest with myself, I really fucking hate it because it isn't the Spider-Man I grew up with.

Which makes me wonder why these costumes had to be changed in the first place. I don't want to want to ask this question but I desperately want to ask this question. Why did they have to change something as iconic as the red and blue with Superman or the pattern of Spider-Man's costume? I understand they are rebooting franchises and trying to bring in younger viewers, but why do that at the risk of alienating those that have grown up with the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man and the man of steel? I realize that things weren't necessarily better when I was a kid, but we aren't talking about 20 year old properties here. Spider-Man's first appearance was in 1962 and Superman's was in 1938. Sometimes change is good, necessary even but don't change shit just for the sake of it. I'll reserve judgement of the movies until I see them, but I'm going to fucking hate those costumes until then.