I was giving some thought to the youth of today, and I made the same mistake of every generation before me. I thought the world will be full of the dumbest assholes ever after I’m gone. I see our youth making idols out of Miley Cyrus, Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, and yet, they can’t tell you who the Vice President is. Then I caught myself, and said, “Didn’t my parents and their parents have that exact same opinion at one time?” The answer is an unequivocated “yes”. Just so you don’t think I’m farting and calling it a brainstorm, let me explain. Back in the late 70’s, Burt Reynolds made a movie called Smokey And The Bandit. When I was a kid, I not only saw it at the theater four or five times, I was also convinced it was the one of the best movie ever. Funny thing about movies you saw as a kid. Your memory of the film will remain intact, as long as you never see the movie as a middle-aged adult. HBO is running the original SATB, and, yearning for a bit of nostalgia, I watched it from start to finish. Jesus! The movie was horrible! Then I realized what I remembered from the movie

1. Sally Field had a great ass

2. A black Trans-Am was a $7000 pussy magnet.

3. Given enough room, the Trans-Am could jump a creek.

4. Never piss off a trucker if you’re riding a motorcycle.

And that’s it. Besides a few great lines from Jackie Gleason (“When I get home, I’m gonna punch your Momma right in the mouth”), there was little else of any substance. Yet, there it remained for almost thirty years, among my favorite movies. I dare not ever watch Caddyshack again. But my point is, despite my inability to tell a good movie from a bad one (from a writing standpoint), I turned out okay. As I got older I learned that a good movie isn’t filled with cops too stupid to avoid crashing into each other during a chase. And, while I’m at it, just to show you how fucked up the eighties were, Smokey And The Bandit spawned two sequels. SATB was about getting beer to Atlanta. SATB II was about transporting a pregnant elephant. SATB III was so bad that even Burt Reynolds had to say “enough”. How asinine a script was III, so that Burt Reynolds would turn it down? He acted in a movie with an elephant! But even without Reynolds, the producers sat in a room, and thought about how to make it work…

“Okay, so Reynolds won’t do III because he’s a fancy-pants star now, and he’s screwing Sally Field, so she’s out too. Bandit I and II made a shitload of money, so what can we do? We gotta have a III, but Jerry Reed can’t carry a movie all by himself. What if we have the dog drive the truck?” Then another guy jumps up and says, “Hey! How about if we make Buford T. Justice the guy that makes the run? We can call it, “Smokey IS The Bandit.” The first guy says, “Now Jim, that’s an idea with some legs. Let’s run with that. Good meeting fellas. Let’s go get some lunch.” And of course, SATB III made exactly $11.83 at the box office. And trust me, the dude that suggested SATB III was still somehow, promoted.

What I’m trying to say in a nutshell…midlife adults can relax. The world will be okay.

The Runaways, and Stewart/Fanning as Jett/Currie

Noooo! A movie I’ve been looking forward to for over a year, is getting pretty bad reviews from Sundance. The Runaways, the bio-pic of the first all-girl rock band by the same name, seems like it’s going to be a disappointment, mainly because of a weak script, and Director Floria Sigismondi’s inability to focus on anything more than bandmates Joan Jett and Cherie Currie being bad girls, character development be damned. Perhaps because this is Sigismondi’s film debut, and her main forte is short videos/photography. I imagine the film will be heavy on the concert footage/backstage tantrums, and short on what makes the central characters tick. This sucks, because I was a HUGE Joan Jett fan (I Love Rock And Roll, I Hate Myself For Loving

You), and through her I discovered The Runaways. I always thought Joan Jett was thebaddest bitch on the planet. If you doubt me, watch some of the videos widely available on You Tube. The Runaways were only together for four years, but goddamn, surely there must have been more of a story to tell. From pix I’ve seen, Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett, and Dakota Fanning as Cherie Currie are dead ringers for the rock stars. Stewart and Fanning should only hope that they age as well as those two because Jett and Currie (ages 51 and 50 respectively) look fucking amazing. I’ll probably still see the flick, though I have the feeling I’d be better served with a good, in-depth interview with the real people.

Stewart, Jett, Fanning, & Currie At The Sundance Premiere

In other news, Gary Coleman arrested in Santaquin, UT for assault. The victim reportedly had bruising on his shins and knees where Coleman had punched him.

Apparently LA/Orange County survived the raging storms that blew through here last week. Answer me this…Mandatory evacuations were ordered for certain areas in the hills. It was done because, obviously there was an imminent danger to the residents.

So, if the order to evacuate was mandatory, how come people still get to stay behind? Isn’t that what “mandatory” means? They should call it “suggested evacuation”. And, you always see some idiot who stayed behind, perched on his roof, awaiting the rescue from the helicopter. If it was a mandatory evacuation, and you ignored it because you’re smarter than the authorities, I think you should be left to your own devices to get out of the mess you’ve created. Why risk the lives of rescuers because you’re a fucking idiot? If your boss called a “mandatory” meeting, and you blew it off to go to a strip joint, would you expect to have a job the next day?

Congrats to the Colts and Saints for advancing to the Super Bowl. If the conference finals were any indication, it should be one helluva offensive show! There will be more scoring than Joe Francis in a bar with a handful of ruffies. And lastly, I’ve never been a Brett Favre fan, mainly because the douche regularly beat the Bears, but damn, after watching the physical beating he took Sunday in New Orleans, he’s one tough sumbitch. He had a target like he was Jay Leno, with O’Brian and Letterman as blitzing linebackers.

The lengths men go through to impress a girl are boundless. During my rapscallion days, there was no lie too big to tell someone to get into her knickers. I had learned early on that women have very few requirements for hopping into bed with a guy.

1. Is he employed?

2. How much does he make?

3. Is he willing to spend the majority of that money on ME?

4. In lieu of numbers 1-3, does he have power?

5. Lastly, is he good looking, and if so, is his brain not a solid slab of marble.

The funny thing about the money and/or power requirements, is that they don’t actually have to be proven. For instance, if you meet a girl in a bar and you tell her you’re a brain surgeon, and the chief of staff, normally you won’t have to open someone up to remove a tumor right on the bar. It does help to have a little bit of raw hamburger on your forearm, which you can casually flick off and explain away as brain matter.

The other part of money is the appearance. And appearance can be something as easy as driving a nice car. When I first had money, but before I could spend it on the Hummer I picked up later, I had a first date coming up with a gorgeous woman. I also had a friend who drove a nice BMW X5, compared to my sporty little three-year old convertible. The friend was going out of town for an extended period, so I asked if I could use her car, and she agreed. The plan was to impress the date initially with the car, then my devilishly sharp wit, then once she stopped holding her ribs with laughter and grasped the arm rests of rich Corinthian leather, and finally peered at my face, it would be too late. She’d be in my web of amor.

I picked her up, and as we were driving to a very nice restaurant, the girl remarked at how nice the ride was. But, like the pitcher who has a fastball getting banged all over the park, she was crafty enough to know when to throw a curve, and here it came. She didn’t care for the music that was playing on the radio, and asked me to change the station. Oh shit. I looked down at the dash, and to me, it resembled the controls on the Enterprise. There were buttons everywhere, and nothing said “on” or “off”. There were pictures, but they didn’t resemble a stereo. Keeping my wits about me, I reached down and just hit a button. The air conditioning revved up like a leaf blower. I hit another button, and the CD in the player popped out. I’m not exactly smart, but I am quick to recognize an opportunity. I told the girl to look through my CD’s and find something she liked. Whew! That was close!

We drove along a little further, listening to the Britney Spears CD she picked out, and all was well. That is, until the date pointed to a little ceramic elephant attached to the dash, and asked why I, a manly man, would have something so dainty in such an obvious place. I had narrowly escaped the first land mine, but foolishly thought that was all there was. This was now like when you’ve had some bad Thai food, and confidently exit the bathroom, then the “second wave” hits, and you make a mad dash back in.

Again, quick thinking was the rule of the day. Calmly, I explained that I had a dear, dear friend who had recently passed away from cancer. That cute little elephant was a gift she had bought me her last Christmas, so I wouldn’t forget her. I then explained that the friend was a little on the rotund side. I decided to go for the Best Horrible Person In A Dating Role award, and forced a single tear to roll down my cheek. A single tear! Do you know the discipline it takes to shed a single tear? The date teared up herself at my dedication to a beloved lost friend. She also appreciated that I was secure enough in my manhood to shed that lone drop of leftover saline from my contacts. And in case you were wondering, like the businessman in the massage parlor, holding a forty dollar tip, there was indeed, a happy ending.

It wasn’t long after though, that I did have to go out and buy the Hummer. I knew that the learning curve on foreign automobiles was too high, and it was just easier to have my own luxury penis with eighteen inch rims.