"Hey Hey Johnny," songs for dead celebs

An old friend of mine used to keep a list of people who should have been shot instead of John Lennon. It was a very long list and he tended it with a maniacal fervor.

Of course, there were men like Kim Jung Il, Idi Amin, the since decapitated Saddam Hussein and other tyrants bedeviling the planet about 25 years ago.

But there were also numerous garden variety miscreants who, I felt, certainly didn’t deserve ballistic ventilation. I remember his list included one wobbly NFL kicker for the Detroit Lions whose scattergun field goals had cost my friend a small fortune in ill-considered wagers.

It’s wrong, of course, to talk about the need for more gun violence on a day so marred by tragic gun violence, but I always think about him and his list on December 8.

I was too young to be moved by the grief tsunami that swept across the country 30 years ago this evening.

Of the Beatles, he’s probably only my third favorite behind Paul and George, which is like finishing last since who cares about Ringo (in fact, I think Ringo was on my friend’s list).

My favorite solo song of his is “Watching the Wheels,” but the rest move me very little. And I maintain all the best and most tuneful Beatle songs were Paul’s creations (“Hey Jude,” “Penny Lane,” “Yesterday,” “She’s Leaving Home,” “Eleanor Rigby”).

And then there’s the whole Yoko Ono thing. We have, as a nation, watched her for more than 40 years and no one has yet to figure out what he saw in her.

Lennon’s hailed for his devotional fatherhood to Sean, but no one ever mentions how he abandoned his first family and never paid a minute’s worth attention to his first son, Julian, who released a fine album I recall from about 1985, and seems to have grown up normal despite John’s cold absence. 

Still, I’m fascinated by Lennon and understand my friend’s list wholeheartedly.

Why him?

His contributions were incomplete. It was Lennon I thought of after Paul’s recent diss of George Bush. McCartney praised Obama and hinted it was great we had a president who knew how to read.

Conservatives howled because, well, that’s what conservatives do best.

My first thought was, “You guys ought to be glad some one shot John Lennon. I wish he’d been around as we were ramping up to fight this goddamn ridiculous Iraq war. Man, he’d have been raising holy hell.”

We lost so much when we lost him -- and the music wasn’t the half of it.

That’s what I lament about his death. We lost an agitating jester.

I never let this day pass without playing the two great songs written to commemorate his death and life. They are monumental works and I still struggle to get through them without wiping tears.

The first is “Empty Garden (Hey Hey Johnny),” written by Bernie Taupin and Elton John, who was one of Lennon’s best friends and with whom he made his last concert appearance.. 

It’s a fascinating friendship. Elton bet Lennon that if his version of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” went No. 1, Lennon would have to perform at Madison Square Garden with him. It did and their lively version of, ironically, Paul’s song, “I Saw Her Standing There” is Lennon’s last live performance.

Elton performed “Empty Garden” once and couldn’t make it through. Propelled by a heartbeat rhythm, the song is so plaintive, so heart wrenching, it combines rage and grief to create something beautiful. He’s never played it again.

The other is “All Those Years Ago” by George Harrison. It’s the flip side of the Elton song.

It’s a bouncy delight about the joy he knew by being friends with John when it was just the four of them bouncing around in the van as it rolls across the English countryside. It’s the side of John Lennon even Yoko never knew.

How he wrote a song this beautiful, this euphoric, about something that had to be so devastating to him leads me to believe angels exist and they love to dance.

Here’s a short list of other worthy songs inspired by dead celebrities:

• “Candle in the Wind,” Elton John, about Marilyn Monroe. It pained me when he and Taupin re-wrote the lyrics to commemorate the death of Princess Diana. Seemed kind of cheesy. Still does.

• “American Pie,” Don McLean, about Buddy Holly and, really, the death of era. Still one of the most compelling pop songs ever and the best to over-analyze in the company of good friends and a warm bong.

• “Song for Sonny Liston,” by Mark Knopfler, about the legendary boxer. Knopfler is one of the best storytelling songwriters. This 5:07 song makes me want to read books about Liston.

• “American Roulette,” by Robbie Robertson, about James Dean, Elvis, and Marilyn Monroe. Concussive beat, stinging guitars and urgent vocals make this feel like an ambulance ride to the ER after an OD.

• “The Three Great Alabama Icons,” by Drive-By Truckers, about Ronnie Van Zant, George Wallace and Bear Bryant.” Man do these guys cook. This starts at a simmer and burns to a boil. Every southern band is compared to Lynyrd Skynyrd.   It’s time to start comparing bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd to the Drive-By Truckers.

• “Alcohol and Pills,” by Todd Snider about Hank Williams Sr., Elvis, Janis Joplin, Gram Parsons and Jimi Hendrix. Another cautionary tale: “Alcohol and pills, it’s a cryin’ shame. You think that they’d have been happy with the glory and the fame. But fame don’t take away the pain. It just pays the bills. And you wind up on alcohol and pills.”

• “Family Tradition,” by Hank Williams Jr. about Hank Williams Sr. I don’t know if Hank III has updated this one, but I’d buy it. You can’t go wrong with any of the great Nashville Hanks. Dallas Wayne has a great song that describes the blueprint for a really great night. It’s meant for Senior, but could apply to any of the Williams boys: “Crack the Jack and Crank the Hank.”

Imagine the fun.

The lies we all long to hear

I had my stand-offish Sunday morning face on. I hadn’t showered and didn’t want any human interaction other than that six or so words I’d exchange with the clerk where I buy gas.

I finished pumping, crossed the parking lot and pulled open the door to the local Sheetz convenient mart.

It was like I walked into a one-man surprise party and I was the guest of honor.

“Bill! Hey, Bill! Man, is it good to see you!”

I looked around. I was all alone. I was Bill.

Now careful readers of this blog know I am not Bill and have never pretended to be Bill.

But the elderly stranger who thought I was Bill was thrilled to see someone he was convinced was Bill.

He was probably in his late 60s. He had a very kind face that was enlivened by seeing what he thought was an old friend. He had his fist salute extended and was waiting for me to bump knuckles.

I realized I was in a common social predicament. He’d confused me with a good friend.

He looked coherent, but who knows? Maybe he was one of our numerous village idiots. I’m friends with most of them, but they are accumulating like snow these days and it’s difficult to keep track of them all.

What was I to do?

I raised my fist, gave him my warmest buddy-buddy greeting and said, “Hey, how the hell you been! You look great!”

And he did. He looked like I look when I’m driving down the road and hear John Fogerty and Creedance singing, “Doo! Doo! Doo! Looking out my backdoor!”

He was delighted.

My still-slumbering mind was racing through dozens of calculations. What was the risk here? Should I let him down gently or play along? What if the real Bill walked in?

You can converse with a stranger for about 90 seconds of generic conversation involving some form of the question, how are you?

Then the gentleman upped the ante. He wanted to know how Bonnie was doing.

We’d reached a turning point. I was left with a choice of either backing down and, perhaps, ruining the splendid start to his day or pushing another stack of lies to the center of the table.

“She’s great! Just finished all her Christmas shopping. Her mom slipped on the snow last week, but she’ll be all right.”

He was sorry to hear that. He asked me how work was going, allowing me the opportunity to venture into a rare burst of honesty.

“It’s been slow, but things are turning around. I’m optimistic better days are on the way.”

The guy at the counter was buying lottery tickets and the other clerk was fetching change. My high-wire act couldn’t endure forever. C’mon, let’s get those registers ringing.

“And how about Mark? How’s he doing?”

He was a family guy so I figured Mark was my son. I know kids today have their problems, but it was the holidays. I wasn’t going to ruin his day by telling him Mark’s in rehab.

“He’s great. He’s up at Clarion University. He wants to be a veterinarian.”

This pleased him. He had fond memories of Mark.

The guy at the counter was putting his change in his wallet and I was hoping Bonnie and I didn’t have any more kids.

Finally, it was his turn to pay just as the other clerk stepped up. At just about the same time, we both realized our little holiday was over. We looked each other in the eye and put our right arms around the other’s left shoulders for brief man hugs.

It was a beautiful moment.

We wished each other a Merry Christmas and I told him I’d be sure to tell Bonnie he’d said hello.

It reminded me of the final scene of the great 1995 movie “Smoke,” in which the Harvey Keitel character tells the William Hurt character about an encounter he had with an elderly blind woman who thought he was her nephew. He wound up staying for dinner. Hurt thinks he made it all up, but as the credits role they show the scene he recalled as the Tom Waits’s song, “Innocent When You Dream” plays.

It’s magnificent.

I thought about the right and wrong of what I’d done as I drove home. I’d told a slew of lies to a kind-hearted gentleman who may one day wind up very confused next time he sees Bill or Bonnie out getting gas.

But I think my bigger sin was not the lies. It was the size of them.

They were all too small.

I should have told him our bowling team won the league championship, that Bonnie had a book of poems published, her mom had won the state lottery and that Mark was studying to be an astronaut.

I should have told him they’d discovered a cure for cancer, the wars were all over and they’d discovered a way to fax leftovers to the hungry.

I should have told him that this Christmas everything was going to be all right.

Because, really, that’s what he wanted Bill to tell him. It’s what we all want to hear.

I hope even a fraction of all that happens.

And I hope Bill, Bonnie and Mark have a wonderful Christmas and Mark doesn’t ruin the holiday by drinking too much.

Bah! Humbug! to bah humbug II

One of our most popular lies is, “I hate to say I told you so, but . . .”

Saying I told you so, is one of life’s great joys. It doesn’t matter whether it involves lost wagers, misguided presidential votes or failing marriages, telling a buddy you were right and they weren’t is a glorious moment.

I was thinking about that as I pondered the lie, “I hate to spring a blog rerun on my readers, but . . .”

Why would I feel bad about rerunning something seasonal from a year ago when my whole being is focused on dashing off to Happy Hour?

It’s not like someone’s going to call the blog police and have them revoke my license to blog. It couldn’t possibly lead a blog pay cut.

And does anyone even remember the original? Probably not. If they did, they might enjoy the reminder. I still watch the “Seinfeld” episode where Kramer and George set up a photo shoot to entice a comely blonde George met at the photo shop. I’ll always watch it.

Plus, I believe the following idea is akin to a public service announcement. It bears repeating several times each Christmas season until the misunderstanding if vanquished. In that regard, maybe I should rerun it two or three more times before Christmas.

Maybe I’ll do just that

So I guess I don’t feel bad about the rerun and I’d be lying if I said I did.

You want to know the truth?

I hope you have a great weekend!

On U2’s 1988 album, “Rattle and Hum,” singer Bono intros “Helter Skelter” by saying, “This is a song Charles Manson stole from the Beatles. We’re stealing it back.”

Well, in 1843 Charles Dickens stole the word “humbug” from proper usage.

I’m stealing it back.

Contrary to seasonal custom, humbug has more to do with WMD, the Salahis and Bernie Madoff than it has to do with a dyspeptic dislike for Christmas.

In today’s tabloid saturated age of cheating golfers, straying politicians and silicone saturated Botox Barbies draped like tawdry tinsel across every front page, true American humbug reigns all year long.

Let’s start with the American Heritage Dictionary which defines humbug as: “1. A hoax, fake; 2. an impostor or charlatan; 3. Nonsense, rubbish.”

Of course, our dictionaries are compiled by -- and I’m making what may be a wild and unfair assumption here -- pointy-headed dorks whose cloistered existences allow no popular culture references to illuminate the inner walls of their ivory towers.

And pop culture is from whence the power of the humbug misusage stems.

“Bah Humbug” is the pejorative phrase most associated with our most powerful story of Christmas redemption. It first appears on the third page of “A Christmas Carol.” Here’s the passage (and note the exclamatory punctuation that deliberately separates what’s morphed into a non-sensical run-on phrase):

“A merry Christmas, Uncle! God save you!” cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge’s nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his approach.

“Bah!” said Scrooge. “Humbug!”

He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge’s, that he was all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again.

“Christmas, a humbug, Uncle!” said Scrooge’s nephew. “You don’t mean that, I am sure?”

“I do,” said Scrooge. “Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You’re poor enough.”

“Come, then,” returned the nephew gaily. “What right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You’re rich enough.”

Scrooge, having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment said, “Bah!” again; and followed it up with “Humbug.”

Clearly, he’s referring in two distinct declarations that the idea of a happy holiday is an excessive hoax or fraud.

As the book progresses, each subsequent reference to humbuggery refers, not to seasonal Christmas elements, but to something that might be cooked up by the likes of  Penn & Teller.

When apparitions of old Marley’s head replace those of Biblical figures depicted on artistic fire place tiles, Scrooge exclaims, “Humbug!”

Inexplicable banging from down the stairs? “It’s humbug still! I won’t believe it.”

As Marley’s ghost begins to diminish into the ether, Dickens writes, “He tried to say ‘Humbug!’ but stopped at the first syllable.”

In fact, the misappropriation of the term must be infuriating to an egotistical Dickens contemporary who so reveled in the joy of artful humbug that he in his 1855 autobiography called himself “The Prince of the Humbugs.”

That would be P.T. Barnum.

The satirical fingerprints of America’s most authentic impresario are today on every reality TV program and tabloid news story.

Here’s some humbug, American-style.

Barnum enjoyed his first commercial success in 1835 by purchasing for $1,000 an elderly slave woman named Joice Heth, who he claimed to be the 161-year-old nurse to George Washington. Paying audiences sat in rapt attention as the blind, toothless and withered ancient spun religious and patriotic tales about being the de facto mother to the father of the country.

Days after her February 1836 demise, Barnum allowed newspaper skeptics to autopsy her brittle remains. Hired medical examiners cried fraud and said, humbug, she wasn’t a day over 80. Barnum then fueled the uproar by releasing a story to publisher James Gordon Bennett of the New York Herald that said the autopsy was a fake and that the real Heth, now pushing 162 years old, was alive and well (and still drawing huge crowds) in Connecticut.

He then offered a third “real” story: that he’d found Heth in Kentucky, yanked all her teeth, taught her baby Gen. Washington anecdotes and that he’d capriciously increased her age by 10 years along the tour until she’d finally hit 161.

Barnum scholar Terence Whalen writes: “Every true story is rendered false by a succeeding explanation, and ultimately the various explanatory links seem to merge into a great chain of humbug.”

Even the straw-noggined Scarecrow in “The Wizard of Oz” gets it right. When the Wizard is revealed to be a shameless charlatan, Dorothy’s outraged friend sputters the most contemptible insult he can muster.

“Why you! . . . You! . . . You humbug!”

If the most famously brainless character in pop history can get it right, how come the rest of us can not?

Today we are besieged by humbug and the moralists decry the decay is eating away at the soul of America’s character.

To that, I say, “Bah! Uh, hogwash!”

Roll the punches, America. The hyperbole is a uniquely American phenomenon. Sit back and savor all the silliness.

And may each of you enjoy a warm and Happy Humbug this Christmas and all year long.

Smart phones, stupid people

Napoleon made it a practice to open and read his mail just once a month, assured the leisurely passage of time would resolve the urgency of every issue.

I check my e-mail about once every 12 minutes.

In my life’s history of communication, not once have I received a note that could be considered Napoleonic. It’s grocery notes, jokes, spam or e-bills notifications.

Yet, I persist in checking it as if I expect some distant general to zip me an urgent e-mail asking me how he should defend Leipzig.

And, honest, I’m not that bad. I can unplug without trembling withdrawal. Our daughters enjoyed the Rapunzel-inspired “Tangled” so much with Mom last week they wanted to take me to see it. It was great, too.

Not great enough, apparently, to hold the attention of two adults I saw basking in the warm glow of smart phone activity.

This is bound to be another battle in the ceaseless civility wars. That’s twice I’ve been to movies recently and been distracted by the firefly-like activity of a smart phone bouncing about in the darkness as I’m trying to concentrate on the picture.

I guess when movies aren’t compelling enough, people are going to drift to their smart phones to play games, check e-mails and tweet scene-by-scene micro-reviews for morons.

Who knows? Maybe these people who sneak away to Disney matinees are really busy professionals who need to monitor office activities.

Someday, just of the fun of it, I’m going to stand on a busy street corner and shout into my cell phone, “No! No! No! The cranial incision needs to be made behind the left ear, you idiot! The left ear!”

But that’s a story for another day.

What’s amazing to me is with this constant whirlwind of e-mail activity, very few people on the planet take even a nano-second to respond to things that are important to me.

I’ve spent many years sending out various book proposals or story ideas to countless big shots in the hopes they’ll call me right back and inform me they want to enrich me with money and fame.

It’s never happened. That’s not surprising. Trying to get any book published these days without the benefit of being named Palin or Khardashian is a daunting task.

What is surprising is how few of these well-connected industry types ever bother to take the time to type even two letters -- NO -- to convey their disinterest. Two other letters -- FU -- would certainly get the message across.

As few of them bother to respond, I’ve taken to convincing myself they are too incapacitated by the exposure to my genius to be able to initiate simple motor skills like typing.

Try this defense mechanism yourself. I find it helps.

There’s a remote chance maybe they are like me and don’t have smart phones. Maybe that’s impeding my chances for success.

In fact, I have a very stupid phone. Ugly, too. It can’t text. It can’t take snapshots. God help me if I’m stuck in traffic and need to look at some pornography.

I was recently in New York and surrounded by pretty people with smart phones. Merge their genetics with their communication devices and it would have been a table full of really pretty Einsteins.

My 4-year-old Verizon flip phone is so ugly and awkward I didn’t dare take it out in front of New Yorkers.

As my fortunes seem to be on the uptick, the siren call of the smart phone beckons -- and there has to be a nifty siren app, too

I think I can justify it now, too. But do I really need it?

I already spend way too much time checking who’s reading the places that run my blog (thanks, my friends!), and reading re-runs of the news I’d read two hours previously. It’s just a big waste of time and who has time for that?

A smart phone or an iPad wouldn’t give me more time to do what I really want to do (read, enjoy the family, guzzle hootch). In fact, those devices would take away from those activities.

It’s something I need to think about -- but not now.

Right now I have to check my e-mail. It’s been about 16 minutes and I’m pretty sure something really, really important is starting to itch in my in-box.

It’s bound to happen one of these decades.

Black men can't kick

Of the 724 points scored in yesterday’s NFL games, 240 of them, more than 30 percent, were scored by a lilly white group of men who’ve always ruled a crucial facet of football the way Bull Connor used to rule Selma.

It’s a racial profiling so odd it practically defies belief, but anyone looking at the history of the NFL would conclude African Americans athletes are the victims of blatant discrimination.

Because on its pale face, it looks like the fair-skinned men who run the NFL don’t want black men kicking the football. They’d rather entrust the task to small white men named like they ought to be kicking in quaint wooden shoes.

While many of our best professional athletes are black, most of our best kickers seem to be, of all things, Scandinavian, a land known more for windmills and lutefisk than football.

Some of the greatest scoring machines in the NFL history are agile black men like Jim Brown, Jerry Rice, Barry Sanders and Walter Payton. Their explosive play will dominate highlight reels for as long as the game is played.

Yet in a sport where nearly 70 percent of the competitors are African American, some of the league’s best kickers have been named Jan Stenerud, Morten Andersen, and Gary Anderson (he’s a South African in the old school sense).

Yesterday’s game between the Pittsburgh Steelers featured a game-winning kick by a white man named Shaun Suisham, thus helping his team beat the Buffalo Bills and their kicker, Ryan Lindell.

Other kickers scoring points yesterday were white men named Nate Kaeding, Garrett Hartley, David Buehler, David Akers, Neil Rackers, Ron Bironas and Josh Scobee.

I haven’t the motivation to research all their lineages, but I can pretty much eliminate equatorial regions as their ancestral homelands.

In fact, in the past three years only one African American has been summoned to try his, er, hand at kicking. And he isn’t even a kicker.

He’s Detroit Lion defensive lineman Nadamukong Suh.

And he’s scored one point.

He was called in to make the extra point after the regular kicker suffered an injury.

The regular kicker’s name is Hanson, Jason.

In what for any blogger passes for actual research, I believe I found the best African American kicker in NFL history. He played for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers from 1985-89 and is the Nigerian-born Don Amechi Igwebuike.

Igwebuike’s kicking career ended when he was indicted for smuggling $1 million in heroin from Nigeria. He was acquitted of the crime in 1991.

Some sources say there have only been seven African Americans who earned their living kicking in the NFL, none of them for any duration longer than Igwebuike’s, and several of them were punters, most notably Miami Dolphin Reggie Roby.

By comparison there are currently seven African American head coaches in the NFL (and zero owners).

Yet, just seven kickers in the entire history of the NFL.

It’s extraordinary.

The only thing I can conclude is blatantly racist.

Blacks are just too cool to kick.

It has to be. The culture that gifted humanity with the Delta blues wants nothing to do with an essentially silly skill practiced by grade schoolers at recess and men who reside countries that insist on calling soccer futbol.

Every aspiring football player, black or white, probably first aspires to be a quarterback, then wide receiver, etc.

A good kicker is likely someone who’s failed at every other position.

But why it seems to draw men of Scandinavian/Northern European descent mystifies.

Perhaps the harsh conditions of their ancestral homelands make them immune to the inevitable criticism that comes with high stakes kicking. Because even skillful kickers are eventually hooted out of town for missed kicks or evident stupidity.

That’s what just happened here in Pittsburgh with Jeff Reed. He said some stupid things, missed some easy kicks and now we’re all in love with this Suisham guy.

At least until next Sunday.

In this regard, Reed followed in the cleated footsteps of the former Indianapolis Colts kicker named -- Hello, Holland! -- Jeff Vanderjagt.

During a drunken interview, he once told reporters Colts quarterback Peyton Manning and head coach Tony Dungy were chumps and would never win a championship.

Manning could have been disparaging the entire kicking community when he said, “What can I say? Our idiot kicker got liquored up and ran his mouth off. The sad thing is, he’s a good kicker. A good kicker, but an idiot.”

The next year Vanderjagt was gone. The year after that Manning and Dungy won the Super Bowl.

You’d think there’s bound to be some grant money out there for a guy like me to snag to study the whole thing. It’s fascinating.

Of course, if I was serious about money, I’d devote my time to learning how to boot a football through the uprights.

Really, it’s perfect for a white guy like me. I’m Swedish and certainly have a high tolerance for disparaging remarks about my shortcomings.

I could kick myself for not thinking of it sooner.

Some movies I might or might not see

With so many interesting movies by so many of our top stars either out or emerging, I think it’s time to take a look at what Hollywood’s offering during this busy season.

And with so many of these stars leading extravagant and intrusive off-screen lives, this will probably get snarky in a jiffy.

• “Unstoppable” -- I love trains, train movies and Denzel Washington so this one tops my must-see list. The reviews are great and it is one of three major releases filmed here in western Pennsylvania. Denzel brings no distracting baggage to his films. In fact, he’s becoming one of our coolest stars.

• “Fair Game” -- This is the story of the disgraceful Valerie Plame affair. Some of the pre-release events I’ve seen have shown Plame with Naomi Watts and, gee, Plame is far prettier than the starlet cast to play her. And she’s smart. The combination means I’d rather see the real Plame being interviewed about her life than the film version of events. Plus, this movie will remind of me of guys like Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby, and Robert Novak and that’s a dark part of history I just don’t care to revisit during the holiday season.

• “127 Hours” -- Gruesome tale of the man who had to cut his own arm off to survive a rock climbing accident. I can’t see mention of the movie without being reminded of a similar event from about 15 years ago when I was working for National Enquirer. A Pennsylvania woodsman was pinned by a tree he’d felled and had to sever his own leg to escape. It was one of the most amazing stories I’ve ever heard. It got such saturation coverage the Enquirer eventually passed allowing me to fabricate a better reason for when friends asked why there’d be no story from me. I told them it lacked enough compelling elements to warrant Enquirer interest. In order for it to a be an Enquirer story, I told them, the woodsman would have needed to have severed his own leg and then eaten it to survive. This looks really good but as sitters are hard to come by, it won’t make the, uh, cut.

• “Little Fockers” -- “Meet the Parents” was wonderful. But how this humble story inspired a three-movie franchise with a cast of A-listers is a disgrace. Everyone involved ought to be ashamed. Robert DeNiro? Again? This is the man who played Jake LaMotta in “Raging Bull?”  He ought to be ashamed of himself. Same with Ben Stiller. Every time I hear this crew’s going on another cheap money grab it makes me like the funny original less and less.

• “Tangled” -- This looks like a fun Disney movie. My wife’s taking our daughters to see it today and the girls seem a bit miffed the old man doesn’t want to tag along. Well, I predict by 2012, I’ll have seen “Tangled” about 150 times on the DVD we’re bound to own. Me watching college football with the boys in the bar seems like a more sensible option for a guy who gets bored with re-runs.

• “The Next Three Days” -- I’ve done a complete 180 on Russell Crowe. I used to hate him for his pretensions and public surliness. Then I loved him (and Denzel) in “American Gangster,” a movie that still freezes the remote whenever I stumble upon it. Then Crowe came to film this one here in Pittsburgh and I heard all kinds of stories about what a great guy he was while here in town. That means a lot to me. Maybe he just doesn’t like people in New York, L.A., or every other place he’s filmed on location. I heard one story that he was in a local guitar shop and overheard a couple saying a fine mandolin was just too expensive. The story, one I believe, says he paid for it and walked out without even waiting to be thanked. Makes me wish I’d been mandolin shopping that day. The movie trailers make the scenery look like a love letter to Pittsburgh. Very cool. Alas, it is being dogged by lukewarm reviews. I’ll wait for the DVD.

• “Love and Other Drugs” -- This is the third major release this month filmed in Pittsburgh. Take that L.A. If anyone surpassed Crowe in the good guy department it was Jake Gyllenhaal. The city fell in love with him. Me, I’m in love with his co-star Anne Hathaway. She’s had my heart ever since “Ella Enchanted.” If the term didn’t have such dog-like connotations I’d call her fetching. Plus, she’s nude in this and that still appeals to the eighth grader in me. The reviews aren’t great, but I haven’t read any reviews penned by eighth graders. It’s in play if Val’s eager to see it. Looks like it would be decent enough if all the actors remained fully clothed.

• “The Tourist” -- Johnny Depp is one of my favorite actors; Angelina Jolie/Brad Pitt one of my least. They make what ought to be one of the most fun things in the world -- being an adored celebrity -- seem as crushing a burden as driving the last bus bound for Surlytown. It would take a lot of nudity for me to want to see a Jolie in a movie.

• “True Grit” -- This is the most intriguing offering of the season. First of all, I loved the original and Jeff Bridges is becoming one of our most interesting actors, if not the best. We just loved him in “Crazy Heart.” But the Coen brothers have been infuriatingly uneven lately. After being golden with a run that included some of my favorite movies (“Raising Arizona,” “Fargo,” “The Big Lebowski”), they have lost their way. I hated “Burn After Reading” and “No Country for Old Men.” Their purest defenders say the latter was true to the original intent, but after 2 hours and 40 minutes I have a right to expect a conclusion. It was an infuriating afternoon at a movie I’ve heard some call “No Ending for Stupid Movie.” This “True Grit” looks great and the cast is outstanding. I’m eager to see the reviews. If they screw this up, may both Joel and Ethan Coen be horsewhipped by the ghost of John Wayne.

This list omits about 20 other new movies that are so obviously dreadful (“Yogi Bear,” “Faster,” Burlesque”) they deserve no consideration.

The best movie I’ve seen this year is by far “The Social Network.” And “Zombieland” is uproarious fun.

In short, Hollywood’s still capable of making some great entertainment, but its batting average is well below the Mendoza line.

If it were a ball player it would be utility infielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

What Pat Downs thinks about pat downs

Here’s a story that ran Tuesday on msnbc.com and, hey, they pay! I’d already scored a couple of holiday assignments from them, but this one is special to me because it's the first and it came straight from my blog.


I’d posted on Monday a blog bit about invasive airport pat downs titled “Keep me safe! Touch my junk!”

As usual, it meandered all over the place as I, uh, groped for a snappy conclusion. Out of nowhere, this popped into my head:

“I think I’m going to spend the day searching the internet for a Patrick or a Patricia Downs to ask them if they’re invasive by nature or upset that people are hating all these pat downs. I’ll let you know if anything comes of it.”

Well, this is what came of it. I pitched the idea to an editor there and she asked if I could have it to her in 24 hours. It was a cinch. There must be 10,000 people named Pat Downs on Facebook and five of them called right back.

So here you go. I wish you a truly Happy Thanksgiving and urge you all to download the 2006 Ray Davies song, “Thanksgiving Day,” and make it a tradition of playing it full blast first thing in the morning to get our best holiday off on the right foot.

Leave it to a Brit to write the song about the quintessential American holiday.

Read on . . .

It was bound to happen. A quiet backlash is brewing amongst the people who love pat downs, enjoy pat downs and, gadzooks, have even become parents because of loving encounters with pat downs.

Talk about invasive procedures.

“I absolutely adore my Pat Downs,” says Jim Downs, who in a 1972 act of holy matrimony turned his beloved fiancee into something an increasing number of fidgety travelers denounce with venom.

He turned a perfectly respectable Pat Reed into Pat Downs.

“I flipped on the news the other day and saw scrolling across the bottom, ‘People angry about pat downs at the airport,’ and I thought, ‘I don’t remember angering anyone at the airport,’” says Pat Downs, an Avenel, Maryland, secretary. 

News reports late Monday indicated the government intends to reduce the number of pat downs, something that ought to make a number of confused and frightened Pat Downs flee for the border.

Thanks to the TSA’s intimate security measures, pat downs have overnight become a national punching bag. They do pat down skits on SNL, cable news channels air experts debating the efficacy of pat downs at the airport and at coffee shops, taverns, and hair salons across the nation, the topic of pat downs has become a conversational lightning rod.

Well, let’s clear the air.

First of all, there are Pat Downs in nearly every town in America. Pat Downs delivers your mail in Toledo. She teaches piano in Spokane. You could be sitting right next to a genuine Pat Downs on a bus and never even know it.

They’re just like the rest of us.

“I put on my Facebook page the other night, ‘I am Pat Downs and I do not appreciate people not wanting me in their airports!’” says Pat Downs, a 48-year-old systems administrator for a Little Rock, Arkansas, general contractor.

She said the onslaught of news stories about Pat Downs has put a focus on a name that for years had been unburdened by any snickering notoriety. 

“A friend of mine, I’ve known him for years, never made any connection about my name until he saw ‘Pat Downs’ in a headline,” she says. “Now, he thinks it’s hilarious.”

Others, like 33-year-old Pat Downs of Toledo, Ohio, was so enamored with the name’s connotations he almost let it dictate his career.

“Honest, I almost went into law enforcement because I wanted to be known every where I went as Officer Pat Downs,” he says. “Instead I became a mailman for the U.S. Postal Service.”

Now he’s postman Pat Downs, something that goes far beyond the normal job description.

Whenever he wants to avoid hearing predictable jokes, he simply introduces himself as Patrick Downs so most people fail to making the obvious connection.

Of course, some of those who love their Pat Downs will hasten to inform others that they are getting their pat downs from the real thing.

“I’m a mechanic and I heard the guys talking about pat downs and I told them I know everything there is to know about Pat Downs,” says Jim Downs, 68. “She’s the mother of my two kids. I’ve loved her since the day we met. When people say they hate pat downs, I tell them they’ve never met my Pat Downs. I’m a lucky man to have Pat Downs in my life.”

As for the crux of the debate, Pat Downs it seems are, like the rest of us, divided on pat downs.

“I disagree with the procedure,” says the Toledo Pat Downs. “I know these guys have a job to do and are only getting paid about $12 an hour. I’m sure they’re not thrilled about it either. But I don’t think they should be able to use the front of their hands or come that close to the private parts. I wouldn’t want them doing that to my daughter.”

Little Rock Pat Downs, however, disagrees. “I don’t really see the problem,” she says. “It’s done in public and not in a private area behind closed doors. If it prevents anyone from getting on a plane with a bomb, then I’m for it. It makes me feel safer. We’ve already had one underwear bomber so it’s not like this is something someone just dreamed up.”

So let’s hope that clears up some misconceptions and restores some civility to a debate about what we have to expect from Pat Downs -- “a delicious barbecue chicken for one thing,” according to Jim Downs. “She’s a great cook, but that chicken’s outstanding.”

And then there’s this: Of all the Pat Downs surveyed for this story, Pat Downses from around the country, not a one of them confessed to an urge to spend a long day going from one garage sale to another to browse over tables of stuff you no longer want.

In short, Pat Downs don’t want anything to do with your junk.