The Promise of the Future on my 39th Birthday

Today is my birthday. I’m not saying that to squeeze a “Happy Birthday” from you. I don’t send birthday greetings on Facebook. I don’t know why. I’m definitely not anti-birthday, and I’m suspect of people who are, as I wrote a couple of years ago.I turn 39 today, and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about that this past week. I don’t obsess about my age, and I’ll never refuse to tell people how old I am, as if being alive for a long time is something to be ashamed of or coy about.We celebrate the wisdom of older people, but as I get older it occurs to me that wisdom from age comes as much from realizing what we don’t know, as it does from what we do know. We generalize when we say that teenagers think they know everything, but they can’t possibly think they know everything without failing to realize what they don’t know.I hope to live until 90, so I’m approaching mid-life. But if I live to 117 like the lady who died the other day, then I’m exactly one-third of the way there. And, God forbid, there’s a chance that I’m 99% of the way done. I don’t want to think like that though, so instead I’m thinking of 39 as the last year of Youngishness.My thinking on Youngishness goes like this: 39 is still in the 30s. And 30 is attached to 29, which is in the 20s, which everyone agrees is young. (Except for teenagers and younger kids, but we’ve already established that they don’t know what they don’t know.) So anyone in their 30s is youngish.But next year, 40. Shit. Are you kidding me? 40? Twelve years ago a neighbor celebrated his 40th birthday with a party at his house. My daughter and his daughter were friends, so I walked over to drop her off and I thought, “These people all look so old and uncool.” I was 27. Somehow I’m now old and uncool.Well, I’m almost old and uncool. I’ve got one year left. A year of Youngishness.There’s a reason that “Best Under 40” lists are a thing. Impressive accomplishments before 40 have some added value because they’re achieved by a young person. Implied in these lists is that we shouldn’t expect greatness from people under 40. Why? Because they’re young. They’re learning. They’re just getting started.Also implied is that by the time you’re 40, you need to have your shit together.So while I will enjoy the last year of Youngishness, I plan to attack 39. Plan. Work. Achieve. That’s what I’ll do this year, more than any other year. It promises to be a watershed year, and instead of mourning the last year of Youngishness, I’ll prepare for the decades of post-Youngishness to follow.Julia Child was 49 when her first cookbook was published. Rodney Dangerfield was 45 before his career took off. Vera Wang didn’t become a designer until she turned 40. Colonel Sanders didn’t even start cooking chicken until he was 40. Ronald Reagan didn’t become a Republican until his 40s, and a politician until his 50s.There is work to be done. There are adventures to be had. There is life to be lived.It’s easy to think that our lives will always be like this. For good or bad. But one thing that we learn as we grow older is that everything changes. Nothing stays the same. Sometimes that’s sad and traumatic. Sometimes that’s refreshing and hopeful.Certain things will change regardless of what we do. But other things are entirely within our control. We can do better. We can be better. We can work harder. We can think smarter. We can stop wasting time.I’ve finished the first 39. I’ve lived intense happiness and devastating sadness. I’ve progressed and I’ve regressed. I’ve been proud and I’ve been ashamed. And even though this is the final year of Youngishness, it’s not the first year of Oldishness.Old is the opposite of young, but it’s also the opposite of new.I can’t avoid Oldishness with Youngishness forever. But I can avoid Oldishness with Newness.Every day is a new opportunity to do better, be better, work harder, think smarter, stop wasting time.I’ll do that from now until April 20, 2018.Check back then to see how it went.Wasn't that well-written and fun to read? You should subscribe to my blog and we'll send you an e-mail every time I write a new one. Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. My list is completely spam free, and you can opt out at any time.

IF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: My Summer of Ice Cream ConesPREVIOUS POST: How My Son Learned That Being a Sports Fan Usually Ends in Disappointment

A Letter of Gratitude to the Person Who Invented Ice Cream

Dear Person Who Invented Ice Cream:I don’t know who you are, and Wikipedia refuses to give me a clear cut answer. But at some point in history someone figured out how to make ice cream, and you’re that person. So I’d like to personally thank you for your creativity, your fantastic palate, and your generous spirit, which permitted you to share this wonderful creation with the worldI just returned from a late-evening ice cream run with my oldest daughter. I ordered a chocolate and vanilla twist cone dipped in butterscotch. It made me happy. Tuesday night, nine o’clock, and we need a sweet treat and your incredible invention delivered, as always.I like being an adult. Sure it’s sometimes difficult and responsibility sucks, but it has its perks, too. And without a doubt, right near the top of the list of reasons it’s great to be an adult is that we get to have ice cream whenever we want. I eat it a lot. Summer’s coming, which is prime ice cream eating time for me, so I viewed tonight’s ice cream run as training to get in shape for ice cream season.Today is the beginning of ice cream season. (I just decided that.) So from now until Labor Day I’m going to keep track of how many times I eat ice cream. If it’s fewer than 100 I’m going to be disappointed. Someone reading this might be surprised that one person could eat so much ice cream, but I’m an adult damnit. I’m surprised I don’t eat more ice cream.Should I have ice cream at every meal? That’s what six-year-old Brett would do, and when it comes to ice cream I don’t think I’ve progressed beyond that age. As a kid I remember eating ice cream on pancakes. Why the hell aren’t I doing that anymore?Oh, Wise Old Ice Cream Inventor, I’m sorry that I don’t have something more impressive to show my appreciation. Is there some sort of sacrificial ceremony I can perform in your honor? A blog post seems rather insufficient to show my gratitude for what you’ve done.Actually, before I go any further, let me be clear that I’m talking about ice cream. Just ice cream. Wikipedia mentions Persians who made chilled food from rose water and vermicelli, and Nero had ice brought from mountains and topped it with cold fruit.Unimpressed.That’s not ice cream. Snowcones are great, but they’re not ice cream. Icees/slushies are great, but they’re not ice cream. Sometimes when I’m at Wrigley Field I’ll see some kid eating one of those frozen lemon ice chills that come in a plastic cup, and I think, “Oh, poor kid, they didn’t have the chocolate malt cups.” I can’t comprehend the idea that someone would choose the lemon ice chill when they could have the chocolate malt.No one has late night cravings for shaved ice. We crave ice cream.I act on my late night ice cream cravings much more than I act on any other late night food cravings. Sometimes I’ll go get some beer late at night, but I can usually talk myself out of that. But when I want ice cream, I’m getting some damn ice cream!I’ve gone out late at night to satisfy cravings for onion rings, a French dip sandwich, and an omelet, but each of those only once. I’ve gone out for late night ice cream cravings more times than I can count.The great thing about ice cream is that there are entire stores devoted to it. Our local store, Dairy Belle, is closed in the winter, which only makes it even more enticing in the months that it’s open.What other foods serve variations of only one item?Burger places always have fries. Chicken places serve sides. Even Subway now has pizzas. Every restaurant tries to come up with side items to complement the star of the show. Ice cream needs no help. It is the star of the show. The only question is how to eat it.(I just realized tonight that the Dairy Belle location I visited serves hot dogs and polish sausage, among other items. Dairy Queen tried to pull that crap, too. Let me just say that anyone who goes to an ice cream store and orders food should have their ice cream eating privileges revoked for life. Communists.)So, Ice Cream Inventor, thanks for your hard work, and the most ingenious idea ever. You’re responsible for making billions of people happy, which can be said about very few other people who ever lived.If only you’d forgotten to add the calories.Sincerely,Your #1 FanWasn't that well-written and fun to read? You should subscribe to my blog and we'll send you an e-mail every time I write a new one. Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. My list is completely spam free, and you can opt out at any time.

IF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: My Summer of Ice Cream ConesPREVIOUS POST: How My Son Learned That Being a Sports Fan Usually Ends in Disappointment

How My Son Learned That Being a Sports Fan Usually Ends in Disappointment

I spent last evening at Buffalo Wild Wings with my two sons—ages 10 and 12—watching the NCAA basketball championship game. The game was just a reason to spend some time with them. I couldn’t have cared less who won.(Although, just for the record, I did pick North Carolina to win at the beginning of the tournament. I really went out on a limb, didn’t I?)My ten-year-old son is a sports fan. He plays baseball and basketball, and pays attention to sports in general. It’s been fun to watch his love for sports develop over the past couple of years. The Cubs World Series run helped intensify that, as did his discovery of basketball and the Golden State Warriors.My twelve-year-old son is just here for the nachos. He played baseball when he was five, six and seven-years-old. His last game he let his younger brother wear his uniform and play for him. That sums up the difference in my boys.The three of us sat in a booth and ate burgers or wings, and fries, and chocolate shakes or beer. We shared nachos and drank countless Diet Cokes and root beers for which our waitress forgot to charge us. We played a game called Green Glass Door, mocked the ridiculousness of the mixed martial arts matches showing on another screen, and speculated about the mysterious puddle on the men’s room floor.I may or may not have yelled when my son spilled his Diet Coke, soaking the table and his own lap.And we watched the game.As I said before, I didn’t really care who won the game. I barely paid attention to college basketball this year, and the only person on either team I recognized was Roy Williams, who’s been a college coach for as long as I’ve been alive.But the boys and I agreed that we’d rather Gonzaga win. North Carolina wins often, so we cheered for the Zags.Before the game began I told the boys, “I’ll give you fifty bucks if you can tell me what state Gonzaga is in.” They answered together, right away, “Washington.” I told them I was just kidding, and then asked how they knew that. Their teachers had been talking about March Madness since it began, they said. I’m sending the invoice for fifty bucks to each of their teachers.So we cheered and booed with the sort of passive interest that only exists while watching a big game in which one has no emotional stake. Gonzaga hung in there throughout, but in the end North Carolina prevailed.My ten-year-old son didn’t hide his disappointment. My twelve-year-old son said, “I was just rooting for Gonzaga because it’s a fun word to say.” We joked as we left the restaurant, but my ten-year-old son remained somewhat upset.“More often than not, your team isn’t going to win the championship,” I explained to him. Of course this provided no comfort. Either did pointing out that until recently he didn’t even care about Gonzaga and their basketball team.I tried to provide context for him.I’ve been a sports fan since 1985, roughly. I remember the Royals and Cardinals in the World Series that year, and the Bears in the Super Bowl the following January. So that’s 33 seasons of baseball, NFL football, NBA basketball, and college basketball, the four sports that I’ve followed most closely at various points in my life.And in 132 seasons my favorite team has won the championship exactly twice: the 1985 Bears and the 2016 Cubs. I rooted against the Bulls in the 1990s. I don’t care at all about hockey. And I’ve never been a bandwagon fan. So I’m left with two championships in 132 seasons.That leaves 130 seasons of disappointment.Being a sports fan is almost guaranteed to end in disappointment. If you’re lucky, that disappointment manifests in a defeat in the championship game. But more likely it’s a slow unraveling of hope. A loss here. Another loss there. Wins by other teams. A sometimes-excruciating process. Death by a thousand cuts.The season’s over, and your team didn’t win the championship.Yet we remain fans. And we do so because, if you’re lucky, every once in a while your team will have a season like the 2016 season for the Chicago Cubs.And if you’re even luckier, the company you’re with will be so good that the game won’t even matter.Wasn't that well-written and fun to read? You should subscribe to my blog and we'll send you an e-mail every time I write a new one. Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. My list is completely spam free, and you can opt out at any time.

IF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: Tips to Make Your Sledding Experience More FunPREVIOUS POST: How to Visit 30 Major League Baseball Parks in 30 days in 2017

How to Visit 30 Major League Baseball Parks in 30 days in 2017

I don’t know which I loved first, baseball or traveling. I discovered both in the mid-80s, when I was six or seven years old. And at that time attending a baseball game required travel. I recall making the 90-mile trip to St. Louis from our home in Springfield a few times before driving three hours up to Chicago for my first Cubs game at Wrigley Field in 1986.(We also went to Springfield Cardinals games, which was the Class A affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals. Minor league games can be so much fun!)And almost as long as I’ve loved baseball and traveling, my dad and I have thought about a road trip in which we would visit a different major league park each day. When we first considered the idea there were 26 teams. Now there are 30.It’s easy to understand why we never followed through on our 30 parks in 30 days idea. Life responsibilities. Work. Lack of vacation time. Money. There are numerous obstacles to completing such an adventure.I like planning to travel almost as much as actually traveling, so a number of times over the years I’ve attempted to plan an itinerary for 30 parks in 30 days, even though we had no plans to act on it.In planning this awesomeness, I had to come up with a few ground rules.1. All travel is done by car. This is a road trip. 30 parks in 30 days. Flying is cheating. Part of the challenge and the fun is getting to every park in 30 days.2. You must stay at the game for nine innings, or four hours, whichever is longer. If, after four hours, it’s tied in the thirteenth inning, you can leave and still count the game.3. Watch a game in a different stadium each day. No repeats. No skipping days.But even if you come up with an itinerary and follow the rules, there’s no way to ensure success. It’s baseball and traveling…anything can happen.Any game that’s canceled or postponed ruins the trip and means that you can’t complete it. I’d continue the trip if that happened—because why not?—but it wouldn’t count for 30 parks in 30 days.So now that we have rules, we need to start building an itinerary. How the heck are we going to get to 30 parks in 28 cities in 30 days? There are numerous things to consider when planning the trip.First, it has to either begin or end in Seattle. The next-closest city to Seattle is 800 miles away. If you don’t begin in Seattle that means you’ll have to drive 800 miles on consecutive days. That can wear out a traveler, and a baseball fan.Second, the rest of the west is spread out, too. The two baseball cities closest to Denver are 600 and 800 miles away. Phoenix is somewhat close to San Diego and L.A., but it’s 750 miles away from San Francisco. L.A. and San Francisco aren’t very close to each other. (Chicago and Cleveland are closer to each other.)Third, what to do about Florida? Atlanta’s somewhat close, so that helps. But assuming you go from Atlanta, all the way down to Miami, and then back up to Tampa, where the hell do you go after that?Fourth, games aren’t scheduled with your trip in mind. You haven’t experienced frustration until you’ve planned 25 days of the trip, and then discover there are only five games on day 26, and three of them are in cities you’ve already been to, and the other two are a thousand miles away. Start over.With patience, persistence, and planning, it’s usually possible to find an itinerary that works. I’ve done it a few times And this year might be the best one yet.Take a look.Are you up to it?Before you decide, let me point out a few things.The first couple of weeks aren’t bad. Detroit to New York is a long day. But then there’s two days in New York. Boston to Toronto to Chicago are the toughest back-to-back days in the first half.But things get real tough after the game in Philadelphia. It’s a 6:05 game, followed by an 11.6-hour drive to Atlanta, where there’s a 12:35 game the next day, only 15 hours after the likely ending time of the previous game. And then it’s a 10-hour drive to Miami.A short drive to Tampa for a 6:10 pm game, followed by a horrendous 14.6-hour drive to Houston, and a game that starts at 1:10, only 16 hours after the previous game likely ended! Thankfully, that’s followed by a short 4-hour drive to Arlington for a game the following day.After the Rangers game three long days take you to Kansas City, Denver and Phoenix, before heading to California for a few days, and then finishing with a long drive up to Seattle.The itinerary isn’t perfect. It goes midwest-east-midwest-east-south-west. It would have been nice to fit Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia in the initial eastern swing, along with Chicago, St. Louis and Cincinnati in the initial midwest swing, but the schedule wouldn’t allow it.So there you have it. One way to do 30 parks in 30 days during the 2017 Major League Baseball season. I won’t do it this year, but if you do it, drop me a line and let me know how my plan worked!Wasn't that well-written and fun to read? You should subscribe to my blog and we'll send you an e-mail every time I write a new one. Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. My list is completely spam free, and you can opt out at any time.

IF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: What I Believe, Crash Davis StylePREVIOUS POST: Imagining Theo Epstein as President of the United States

Imagining Theo Epstein as President of the United States

In what’s perhaps most likely just an attempt to spur a conversation and sell some magazines, Forbes named Theo Epstein the World’s Greatest Leader. Epstein ranked higher than some of the other wannabe leaders (losers, the current president of the United States might call them) on the list like Angela Merkel, Pope Francis, and Joe Biden.And really, who can argue? He’s the only man alive to build a Cubs World Series Championship team. Do you know how many living German Chancellors and U.S. Vice Presidents there are? There’s even a living former pope!But there’s only one Theo.So, if he’s the World’s Greatest Leader, then we should just go ahead and make him the world’s most powerful man. Put him in the Oval Office. Wouldn’t we rather have the World’s Greatest Leader running things than a thin-skinned, second-rate reality star with a Twitter addiction?And if we pull some examples from Theo’s career with the Cubs and the Red Sox, we might just get some clues about life in Theo’s America.--We would take climate change seriously. Part of Theo’s success from the beginning has been his heavy reliance on data-driven analysis. He finds ways to measure things and then he uses that data to quantify the value of certain things. So instead of listening to climate change deniers driven by political agendas and the endless pursuit of wealth, Theo would follow the data and implement rigid environmental policies designed to protect the environment and limit the impact of climate change.--We’d have a leaner, more versatile, modern military. Theo became general manager of the Red Sox when he was 28 years old. Then he implemented an approach that moved away from the tired, traditional ways of player evaluation. And it’s no secret that he likes players who can play more than one position.Do we really need 3,476 tactical aircraft? How about 2,831 tanks or 450 intercontinental ballistic missile launchers? I don’t know. But those all sound like ways to win wars we’ve already fought, not wars that we’ll face in the future. No doubt Theo will find weapons that can do more than one thing well, and lock them in at a bargain price, and then cut them loose when they get too old and offer diminishing returns.--He’ll have a competent cabinet. Sorry, Betsy DeVos, Rick Perry, and countless others. In Theo’s administration people running the various government agencies will have a wealth of knowledge about the agency they’re running. And if a better option comes along, Theo’s not afraid to make a change. Just ask Rick Renteria.--He’ll invest heavily in preschool education. Numerous studies have found that the best way to improve education in America is to invest heavily in universal preschool. Start educating when kids are young so they have something to build off of. Just like Theo did with the Cubs minor league system. Kris Bryant, Javy Baez, Kyle Schwarber. They’re all products of the Cubs minor league system version of Head Start.--He’ll put a premium on high-character people. One of the first things he did when he came to the Cubs was to dig into a player’s makeup by talking to just about anyone who knew the player. He wanted to know how he faced adversity, how he acted when no one was looking, and how he treats people who he doesn’t have to treat well. Character is important. Sorry Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, and Steve Bannon. No room for you in Theo’s White House.--He will repair the country’s crumbling infrastructure. When Theo came to town the Cubs had just put up nets to catch crumbling concrete at Wrigley Field. Half-a-billion dollars later the park has been remade, the players have a new state-of-the-art locker room, there are all sorts of new luxuries around the park. It’ll probably be a good time to be a civil engineer.--He’ll restore hope in America. President Obama came to office on a wave of hope. That seems long gone now, and the current president came into office because so many people lack hope. But who has restored more hope in recent years than Theo Epstein? From losing 101 games in 2012, to winning the World Series in 2016, Theo turned things around, in what just happens to be the length of a presidential term.In Tom Verducci’s book, The Cubs Way, Theo says, “When people do things they weren’t even capable of, I think it comes back to connection .… I think it’s a human need—the need to feel connected. We don’t live in isolation.”What could be more beneficial than restoring the feeling that we’re all in this together, and that we can do things we didn’t think we were capable of?Perhaps Forbes is right.Theo 2020.Wasn't that well-written and fun to read? You should subscribe to my blog and we'll send you an e-mail every time I write a new one. Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. My list is completely spam free, and you can opt out at any time.

IF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: I Won't Cry if the Cubs Lose, But if They Win...PREVIOUS POST: I Can't Help Wasting Time Before Writing

I Can't Help Wasting Time Before Writing

Do you have any idea how unlikely it was that you would read this? Let’s ignore the random sequence of events that led you to this blog. (Except for those of you wise enough to subscribe. Let’s not ignore you because you get an e-mail every time I write something. Isn’t that awesome?)I’m talking about something more specific and something much more unlikely than you finding this particular page among the billions of pages on the internet: the fact that I wrote this post at all.I wrote this post. Can you believe it? I can’t. And the reason I can’t believe it is because this post is the ever-so-rare example of something about which I did not procrastinate.That could be due to the constraints of the exercise. This post is part of ChicagoNow’s monthly community writing exercise in which we’re given a topic and then challenged to publish a post on that topic in one hour. Procrastination impossible.This month’s topic: “Write about what, why and how you procrastinate.”Usually when I do these exercises I don’t end up writing the first thing that pops into my head. Sometimes that first thought is too corny, too dumb, too shallow, too hurtful, or too something else. After a few minutes I think of a better topic and get to work.But this time I knew right away that I wanted to write about writing because there’s nothing on which I procrastinate more than writing.I like to write. Sometimes I’m good at it. You might think that since I like it and since I’m sometimes good at it that I wouldn’t put it off. But, you’d be wrong. I put it off every single day. It’s quite shocking to me that I write anything, to be honest.And if you’re one of those wonderful e-mail subscribers who I mentioned before, and you like to read what I write, I should let you watch me procrastinate sometime. That’s the real art!So here’s a brief description of how a typical day of writing procrastination might go.Wake up and think, “I’m going to write.”Pickup my phone and check the time. “Oh, I better check Facebook.” Fiddle with my phone. “Shit, I hate using Facebook on my phone.” Login on the laptop. Scroll through Facebook. Silently curse people for posting. Silently curse people for not posting. Refresh. Scroll through again just to be sure I didn’t miss anything.Brush my teeth. “The kids are up. I should get breakfast for them.” Get cereal, pour milk. “I’m hungry, too.” Toast. Eat. “I should go write.” Login to the laptop again. “I forgot to check my e-mail.” Delete junk e-mail. “Shit, the news!” Scroll through CNN. The New York Times. Chicago Tribune. “I need to write.” Open Word. Read what I wrote last time. Write a few sentences. “I forgot to see how many readers I had yesterday.” Login to ChicagoNow. Check for new subscribers. Read other people’s posts. “Focus.” Write a few more sentences. “I’m thirsty.” Get some tea.And so it goes. Me trying to write is rather like a four-year-old going to bed at night. I can find a million reasons why I shouldn’t do it, despite it being the right thing to do.Writing isn’t terribly hard. There are good days and bad days. Some days I can knock out a 700 word blog post in 45 minutes. Or I can write 4,000 words of fiction in three or four hours. And then there are days I’ll sit in front of the computer for two hours, and every letter is a struggle. At some point I’ll think I’m almost done, and then discover that I’ve only written 450 words.Ugh.I saw a quote recently from George R.R. Martin, who is rather prolific and responsible for Game of Thrones, and it describes some of my days perfectly: “Some writers enjoy writing, I am told. Not me. I enjoy having written.”I enjoy having written. That’s it exactly. I enjoy the writing being done. The finished product.I don’t know how I ever wrote the first thing, not knowing that I’d enjoy having it done. I’m glad I did though.But I’m even gladder now, because this is done.Wasn't that well-written and fun to read? You should subscribe to my blog and we'll send you an e-mail every time I write a new one. Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. My list is completely spam free, and you can opt out at any time.

IF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: Writer's Block Doesn't ExistPREVIOUS POST: Jimmy Breslin and My Grandpa Could Have Been Friends

Jimmy Breslin and My Grandpa Could Have Been Friends

Jimmy Breslin died today. He spent years writing for various newspapers in New York, and his name is one of the first that comes to mind when I think of quintessential New Yorkers.My mom was born and raised in New York City, so I had the good fortune to return with her throughout my childhood to visit my grandparents. I always looked forward to these trips, and I came to love New York before I’d even visited Chicago, despite living a few hours away in Peoria, and then Springfield.During one visit late in the 1980s, when I was ten or eleven years old, my grandpa mentioned the name Jimmy Breslin. I’d never heard the name before and didn’t know who he was, but I could tell right away that my grandpa liked him.I don’t remember what he said, or why Breslin’s name came up. I just remember that when my grandpa said his name, he said it with a bit of nostalgia, or maybe even reverence. Something like, “Old Jimmy Breslin,” as if he were an old friend he hadn’t talked to in many years.That’s not too surprising though. Readers identified with Breslin because of his writing style and his affinity for telling stories of ordinary people. After JFK’s assassination he wrote a piece about Clifton Pollard, the Arlington National Cemetery employee who dug the president’s grave.(Coincidental that I watched the film Jackie last night, and was struck by the scene in which she’s walking through a chilly, foggy Arlington searching for a proper burial site for her husband.)When I think of Jimmy Breslin I think of my grandpa, and I think of New York. But it’s not the same way that I think of today’s New York. Jimmy Breslin and my grandpa aren’t gentrification, mortgage-backed securities, and a $2 billion Yankee Stadium.They’re not Bill de Blasio. They’re more Ed Koch. They’re the gritty and graffiti New York. Subways and buses, not Uber and Lyft.At least that’s how they are in my mind.Jimmy Breslin almost landed a part as one of the most quintessential fictional New York characters to ever hit the big screen, Popeye Doyle. (Fictional, but based on a real NYC detective, Eddie Egan.)On an episode of the WTF podcast last year, William Friedkin, who directed The French Connection, explained that he wanted Breslin to play Doyle, the lead role in the film.They had a small budget for the film, and the studio thought that instead of having a movie star play the lead, they could just find the right actor. Friedkin suggested that the role was so unique that a non-actor might be able to play it. He knew Jimmy Breslin, so he asked Breslin to come rehearse with the film’s co-star, Roy Scheider.The first day went great, as Breslin and Scheider improvised and created scenes. But on the second day, Breslin forgot what he did on the first day, and couldn’t recreate it. On the third day, he showed up drunk. He didn’t show up at all on the fourth day. So Friedkin knew he had to fire him.They were friends though, so Friedkin didn’t know quite how to fire him. On the fifth day, Breslin showed up, contrite, but he knew the score. He asked Friedkin, “Isn’t there a car chase in this movie?” Friedkin said there was. Then Breslin says, “I promised my mother on her death bed that I would never drive a car. So I don’t know how to drive.”Friedkin fired him on the spot, much to Breslin’s relief.Breslin was nine years younger than my grandpa, but they’re of the same time and place. My grandpa was an ironworker (he helped build Kennedy airport and the remodeled Yankee Stadium), not a writer. I suspect that he never showed up to work drunk. And as far as I know he never got beat up by a mobster.But Jimmy Breslin and my grandpa could have been friends. And I would have loved to have read what Breslin would have written about that.Wasn't that well-written and fun to read? You should subscribe to my blog and we'll send you an e-mail every time I write a new one. Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. My list is completely spam free, and you can opt out at any time.

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Sharing a Night of Film Noir With My Ten-Year-Old Son

When I suggested to my ten-year-old son that we go to an art museum to see an old black-and-white movie, I suspected he’d be up for it. He’s an adventurer, and will usually say yes to anything that gets him out of the house. But I had no idea whether he’d be happy he went by the end of the night.The Brauer Museum of Art at Valparaiso University has a film noir night every third Thursday of the month for the first four months of the year. We planned to go last month, but due to poor planning on my part we didn’t arrive in time. But this time I thought things through a little better and we made it in plenty of time.My friend Gregg Hertzlieb, who’s the director/curator at Brauer, greeted us as we walked into the gallery where he’d taken down a large piece of art so that the night’s selection—The Big Heat (1953)—could be projected onto the wall. After the film, Indiana University Northwest Performing Arts faculty member Peter Aglinskas led a scholarly discussion of the film.As soon as we walked into the gallery, the art on the walls caught my son’s attention. He approached one painting and reached out to touch it, but I caught him in time and told him he couldn’t touch anything there. It’s serious art, and he shouldn’t even pretend to mess with it. But I don’t think he believed me until he saw a painting done in the 1940s by an artist born in the 1800s. The age of the painting gave it, and I think the museum itself, legitimacy in his view.We spent a few more minutes looking around, and then sat down. I had a small bag of popcorn and he wandered off to look at more paintings and returned a couple of minutes later to summon me to see a painting of two people in a canoe. When he looked at the water and the lily pads he thought it was a photograph, but when he saw the two people’s faces he realized it was a painting.His enthusiasm for the art wasn’t the last time he impressed me.The film began and we were both engrossed. Glenn Ford plays a police sergeant, Dave Bannion, who’s investigating the death of a fellow officer, which appears to be a suicide. But when the cop’s mistress, Lucy Chapman (Dorothy Green) contacts him and claims that he was murdered, Bannion begins to have doubts.For the rest of the film Bannion investigates various members of the organized crime outfit that runs the city and has many of the politicians in its back pocket. One of the mobsters is Vince Stone, who’s played by a young, menacing Lee Marvin. I’m always surprised when I see the young version of an actor who I always associate with being old. I reacted the same way to young Lee Marvin as I did to young Shirley MacLaine in The Apartment, and young Martin Landau in North by Northwest. As if these people were born old.I thoroughly enjoyed the film, and maybe I’ll write a full review of it in another blog post, but I enjoyed the experience of watching the film with my son even more.He’s the biggest movie fan among my kids, and he’ll watch just about anything. He watched Shane with me a few years ago, so I shouldn’t be surprised that he liked an old film. Although Shane is in color and this is black-and-white. But not only did he like the film, but he had a few interesting points that he mentioned as we talked about it afterward.No one cussed in the film. One character made reference to having heard four-letter words, but no one actually said any word that I wouldn’t let my six-year-old say. Yet a couple of the dudes in the film seemed every bit as tough as anyone in recent films.He also noticed that the death scenes were rather tame. Four or five people are killed, yet no a drop of blood is shed. He called them “clean kills”, which somewhat unnerved me, and is probably something he learned from a video game. And he didn’t mention the clean kills as a slight against the film, but rather just a difference from how deaths are filmed today.And he also mentioned that everyone in the film was white. He guessed that might be because it was made before segregation ended, and that seems right on track to me.So not only did he enjoy the film, but he thought about it as he was watching it, and he even followed a couple of points that I thought might be somewhat ambiguous to him. And since he wants to watch more film noir, then the evening was a success. Helping him enhance and develop his natural appreciation for movies is part of the reason that I wanted to bring him to the film.But even more than that, we got to enjoy another shared experience. And that’s the best part of all.Wasn't that well-written and fun to read? You should subscribe to my blog and we'll send you an e-mail every time I write a new one. Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. My list is completely spam free, and you can opt out at any time.

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