Happy Thanksgiving

Well, the time is upon us once again.

So many choices to make. Bake it? Barbeque it? Fry it? Ah, turkey. Lovely, delicious, moist, plump, juicy turkey. Were I a vegetarian, I'd kill myself around Thanksgiving without being able to sink my teeth into a 18 pound bird. Mashed taters, gravy, stuffing, veggies, pies... This is the day that I literally burst at the seams.

And I genuinely wonder sometimes why I've put on 150lbs since high school?

Of course, this is also the time of year for the annual viewing of one of my favorite films of all time, "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles". I'm not going to go into a full blown review of the flick, but there's something very sweet about this film that brings home all of the good feelings that Thanksgiving should be all about. By the end of the picture, Dell Griffith is in the home of a man he only met two days before. He's the epitome of being less than wealthy, but he's got something even better to be thankful for: to spend Thanksgiving in a loving home with friends. So on this Thanksgiving Day I'm thankful not for my possessions or wealth but instead that I will be surrounded by family and friends.

Corny? Sure. But what the hell, it's Thanksgiving! I've got 364 other days of the year to be a cynic. :)

A Tale of Three Rivers

Last night my past came rushing back to me in ways that made me blush.

No, this isn’t a story about some past crush or how I tried to convince the girl (yes, GIRL) of my dreams in elementary school that we were meant for each other. I’ll save all that for some other time.

Well, a little background is necessary. For the first two years after high school I was residing in Longview, WA. I ended up getting a job at the local multiplex and stayed on there for almost 2 ½ years. I had the best boss in the world and, more importantly, made some very good friends that I have the pleasure of talking to maybe once every year or so. It’s at this theater that my story takes place…

As everyone knows who dwells outside of caves, the latest Harry Potter flick opened. My friend Pjaye and I decided to go against all reason and attend a special 12:01AM premiere last night. We walked into the theater, and immediately I thought to look for my old boss, Jim, who works at one of the multiplexes here in Vancouver. Sure enough, there was Jim in his business suit talking to one of his assistants. I walked right up to him and he recognized me immediately. First words out of his mouth:

“Greg! I was thinking about you the other day.”

Ok, now I never know how to take that. Is this a good thing? While I thoroughly enjoyed my time at the theater, I did make some really stupid mistakes. Was this a “Greg, I saw a Mariners game the other day and thought of how you drove my wife to Seattle to watch a game, only to almost fall asleep on the drive home” story? Was this a “Greg, I remember the time when you answered the phone at work ‘Three Rivers Cinemas, and you can go to hell!’ and I almost fired your ass” story? Oh no. This was much worse.

I’m standing with Pjaye next to me and Jim says, “I was reading the paper and it said that Doogan’s ashes were going to be flown into space.”

Okay, so I know what he’s talking about. ‘Doogan’ was actually James Doohan, the actor who played Scotty on the original (and best) Star Trek series. Jim continued to talk about how I was trying my damnedest to bring Scotty to little ol Longview, Washington for a Star Trek premiere and how I ‘went all the way to the top.’ Well, allow me to elaborate.

Picture it! Longview, Washington. 1994… Star Trek: Generations is coming out. We were going to get the picture and it was going to show in our largest auditorium. I was a geek and this was going to be awesome. So, I had a brilliant idea to make it better. Knowing that James Doohan lived in Renton, I thought ‘wouldn’t it be neat if we could get him down here for a premiere?! How cool would that be?’ Being a naïve 19 year old, I proposed the idea to my boss. I gotta give him credit for not breaking out in laughter at the idea. Instead, he told me to look into it. So, I did.

I called a local video store that had paid to have James Doohan sign autographs one day. They proceeded to tell me that it was a waste of money and that he was drunk the entire time. Unphased by the drinking habits of Jimmy (hey, just look at the above picture and tell me that YOU never knew that man could hold his liquor!) I asked them how they went about doing it and they directed me to his agent, Steve something or other. I got the number that would connect me to James Doohan.

I was so excited. Here I was about to talk to the agent of Mr. Scott. I gathered up my composure and dialed the number. I was directed to Agent Steve and he told me he was delighted to hear from me. I told him that what we were interested in and he said it’d be great, and that Jimmy loves these sorts of things. He’d come down to Longview, stay at a hotel, ride in a limo to our theater, speak to a couple of crowds, sign some autographs, and head back north. How cool would that be?! And then he dropped the bombshell in the form of a $25,000 price tag. He could tell that he was now talking to an all but deflated fan boy from Longview, Washington who just had his dream of meeting Scotty dashed. However, there was hope! Agent Steve gave me a phone number for someone at Paramount. All I needed to do was call Paramount Pictures and have them finance the visit. Since it was their picture, they’d be willing to do it. With this great news, I gave Agent Steve my many thanks and hung up the phone. I picked it back up and quickly dialed Paramount.

The lady on the other end of the phone burst out in laughter. “You want us to pay for what?! Longview where?! Where the hell is that?” Yep, that’s how the conversation went. In the few seconds it took for those words to be said and transmitted to my phone, my dreams of bringing a celebrity to our theater died. I had failed.

So, this was the story that Jim decided to bring up. Well, I gotta give my 19 year-old self credit for trying. Even Jim said, with a smile, how I “went all the way to the top!” In the end, it’s a good story worth laughing about. Or, once hearing it you can sit back and respond the way Pjaye did: “uh-huh.”
Of course, it should be noted that I did get to meet Jimmy Doohan at a Star Trek convention. So, while my mission to bring a celebrity to Longview, Washington failed, my mission to meet one of my childhood heroes was a success. But that’s a different story.

Damned if we do, damned if we don't.

I hate this fucking war.

The American people were sold a bag of spoiled goods. As far as I’m concerned, there’s enough evidence to prove that W and Dick warped and exaggerated bad intelligence to get the American people fired up in believing that invading Iraq was in our best interests. We went into Iraq for a whole laundry list of reasons provided by W and Dick and now we’re paying a terrible price. Over 2,000 American troops are dead. Countless Iraqi civilians are dead. Now Democratic Representative John Murtha is calling for an immediate pullout, something that I readily admit I would love to do myself.

So, we shouldn’t have gone there in the first place. Here’s the problem, though: we did go into Iraq. We went in and rid the Iraqis of a monster. However, to quote a favorite show of mine, in our stumbling around, we have woken up a terrible giant. Whereas before the invasion Iraq was a nation that was fenced in and kept at bay, now it is a breeding ground for terrorists. Its also a breeding ground for anti-American sentiments. Where 9/11 was the American rallying cry for war, Iraq has become the rallying cry for al Queda recruits. There are far too few American troops in Iraq to secure the nation, and those who are there are being killed by rather simple car bombs. Our troops are dying and we shouldn’t be there. It's easy to say we should drop it all, pack up, and go home. But we can’t.

Iraq is now an American problem. Whether or not you or I supported the war (obviously, I’m very opposed to it) it is still our problem. We are all united under one flag and one nation. We’re a country of different opinions, beliefs, and convictions. Yet, we are still one nation. This nation, ultimately, made the choice to go into Iraq. The reasons are debatable, the support is mixed, but this nation still went. And this nation must stay. To paraphrase Colin Powell, if we break it, we buy it. Well, Iraq is broken and we must fix it. To pull out of Iraq would be disastrous. The reputation of America as a country that marches into Middle Eastern countries to stir up a hornets nest would be hard to deny if we tucked tail and cleared out. Leaving millions of innocent Iraqi civilians alone to rebuild their nation would be inviting a dictatorship to replace the one we replaced. And if we leave Iraq, you can be rest assured that it will grow into a haven for terrorists who want nothing more than to kill the Western way of life. We broke it, we bought it, and now the responsibility is all of ours to fix it.

Again, I hate this war. We took it upon ourselves to rid Iraq of a dictator. Now, we must accept the responsibility to secure and rebuild the nation, no matter the cost. I don’t like it, but it is a necessary evil.

Maybe the next time some pompous jackass from Texas sells the American people a bag of goods, those of us too smart to buy it will cast aside apathy and speak up.