My favorite movies, I won't pick just one, are Pulp Fiction, Shawshank Redemption, Apocalypse Now, the Player and the Usual Suspects.
I pretty much can't bring myself to read fiction. Try as I will, I just can't get into it. I'm too concerned with reality. This isn't to say Shakespeare et al aren't great, they are and I love movies, live acting and plays, but I just can't get into reading fiction whatsoever. This is reason A I need to stop being an English teacher and switch to social studies, as is the plan. My lit selection is very real. I'm not exactly proud of this, but I am honest. I also don't think this is such a bad thing, though the intellectual establishment would make you think it is.
I picked my college location when I was in eighth grade, the University of South Carolina. I kissed my first girl, a Southern belle, in Hilton Head on a family vacation, was sold on the Southern belles at that point, and decided I'd be back. I was. I also picked my major, journalism, as a senior in high school, and never wavered on that, either. I was a bit too intense for the belles, though. I also pretty much decided I'd marry a Filipina after my first trip to the Philippines. There was something beguiling about them that I loved, and it wasn't just the normal good fortune young, single, white Americans in the PI are prone to encounter. I was right on that idea, too.
I'm both a dog and a cat person. I had a cat for 18 years and a dog for 11. Both have their virtues and vices. I'd probably stick with dogs, though.
When I first got interested in politics at 17, I was a rabid Republican who subscribed to Bruce Bateman/Ayn Rand/uber laissez faire capitalism. I was pretty much everything I despise now politically. I even took a pilgrimage to Ayn Rand's grave site in Valhalla, NY. I also walked about 8 miles, and took a day off from school, to attend a Bush 41 rally when he was VP. It didn't take much longer to see the light. I excuse myself with the fact that I was 17.
I emotionally divested myself of my Catholic upbringing when my CCD teacher, at age 10 or so, told me my cat couldn't go to heaven with me. I went through the motions to the limited extent my parents' forced me, but I haven't been back to Church since I was forced to go to confirmation circa 1986. I suspect I would have been a heathen anyway, but why would an old woman tell a little kid attached to his pet that his cat wasn't allowed in heaven. Would there have been any harm in saying yes? It's not like she knew for sure anyway. I don't believe in forcing religion down my kids' throat, either. If that is what they choose down the line, good for them, but I'm not going to allow it to be pushed on them now before they are prepared to think about it critically and make their own choice.
I can't bring myself to drink beer. Nothing moral here, I just think it tastes wretched. Always have and I suspect always will feel this way. I'm astonished by beer's popularity. I'm a mojito/margarita/sangria kind of guy.
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In an interesting twist of irony, Jeff, I, when 17, was a hair-out-to-here idealist who stood for the downfall of everything that stood up. Peace, love, dove, champion of the downtrodden imagined or real, and whether they deserved it or not, especially if they didn't. Chemical experimentation, save a whale at the expense of a human. Free everything for everybody etc. Luckily I grew out of it. I look back at those years and rationalize....well, Bruce, you were young and stupid.
Now that I am older and stupid I have 180'ed. Coincidentally, it was exposure to Ayn Rand in the literary/intellectual world and functioning entrepreneurs in the real world that triggered the shift.
We are like figure skaters doing compulsory figure 8s, Jeff. You going in one direction and I in the other. It seems to work for us both. Different strokes.
Interesting.
Hope you get back to your family soon, Jeff.
Cheers,
BB
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