Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road

The Friday High 5

Photo by Akshay Nanavati on Unsplash

Every Friday I share 5 things I enjoyed this week. Also, high fives are inherently cool, and I think we can all agree Friday is the bestest day. Hence the Friday High 5. 🙏🏻

Today is my daughter’s 18th birthday. Lot of feelings.

In a way, it’s fitting that her birthday is in October. Just like autumn ushering out the bright days of summer, today marks the end of her childhood. I was tempted to get all poetic and call it “the end of her innocence,” but I was 17 going on 18 once, and I was anything but innocent. And, too, she’s grown up in a world much darker than that of my own long-gone childhood, one shadowed by school shootings, climate armageddon, and that harbinger of doom, Kidz Bop.¹

As any parent knows, there is no sudden change to coincide with a specific day on the calendar. Kids are growing and changing all the time. Sometimes parents are the last to notice, and then it all comes in a sudden horrible rush: a mix of nostalgia, regret, longing, love, and mortality. It’s more bitter than sweet.

I won’t come with the cliches because you already know them, but they’re all true. I’ll just say this: If time travel is ever invented, I’d go back to a random Tuesday when my kids were young and just observe. It’d be like in Scrooged when Bill Murray accompanies the Ghost of Christmas Past and relives moments he’d partly forgotten.

I think about that all the time.

It’s weird being the father of 2 adult children. Can I still call them children? I guess that’s right. But they haven’t been children in an awfully long time.

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‘Salem’s Lot (the novel)

I’m not much of a horror fan. And since I’ve been told I’m much too old for trick-or-treating, Halloween has largely lost its allure. I typically don’t do anything seasonal in October, apart from partaking in apple cider and donuts. And dealing with leaves. Oh, the leaves. The true price of buying a house in a nicely-treed area.

This year I was struck by the desire to revisit one of my favorite Stephen King novels.² Partly because there’s a new film adaptation (which I’ve heard is super not good but I’ll probably watch anyway) and partly to participate in a writing prompt at Fanfare. But mostly because I wanted to do something fall-ish and the only other option was pumpkin spice lattes.³

One of the scariest parts of reading this book in 2024 is it models how quickly a lethal virus could utterly decimate a small town, which is far more terrifying than vampirism because it’s actually real.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle

Sony Pictures

I’m working on some thoughts related to the Rock, which may end up becoming a piece, one I’m tempted to call “The Unified Theory of Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, Hollywood’s Silliest Actor.” I’m increasingly of the opinion that Jumanji is the Rock’s best movie—by a wide margin—because it actively makes fun of him.

I think there’s a lot to say about celebrity and brand, and when the lines blur because he keeps hawking sports drinks and tequilas and itty-bitty muscle tank tops. There’s a human in there, somewhere, I think, but mostly I get Billy Mays vibes. The Rock’s life is one big commercial. He’s always closing. Alec Baldwin would be proud.

There’s just something goofy about his whole deal. He’s famously an enormous man. That’s what he’s most known for. The size of his muscles. And though his acting has come a long way since the days of The Mummy Returns, I just can’t take him seriously.

He’s great in Jumanji though, a movie in which a teenager pilots his body like an avatar. It’s his best performance because it plays into his own fantasy of being the world’s biggest bad ass.

What does it say then that Jack Black completely steals this movie? He plays a teenage girl more convincingly than many actresses. It’s hilarious and also strangely affecting.

Also: I don’t know why avatars would need to pee in a video game, but I’m very glad they did. Funniest scene in any 2017 movie.

Mafia: Definitive Edition

Image: 2K

I somehow slept on this game when it originally released over 20 years ago. I have no good reason for this. It was during my game-playing peak. I didn’t even have any kids in 2002. I was a kid in 2002.

Like a lot of guys, probably, I’ve always been fascinated by the mafia. Blame Goodfellas and The Godfather and Weekend at Bernie's.⁴ Mafia allows you to directly participate in this world of “gentlemanly” crime during what’s probably its heyday—the 1930s. Prohibition is in, every girl’s a dame, and zoot suits are considered leisure wear. The game does a great job of tapping into the vibe of that era, to the point that I wanted to grab some pomade to slick back the hair I don’t have.

How’s this for immersive: Like Grand Theft Auto, you can drive around in era-appropriate cars, listening to the radio. There are only 2 stations, which alternate between jazz and the news.

The best thing about this game is the story, which unfolds in cinema-worthy cutscenes that setup or payoff the on-screen action. You play the role of Thomas “Tommy” Angelo, an Italian-American (of course) taxi driver who gets mixed up with the mob, and gradually pulled in deeper. You go from driving cars for the Don to whacking guys for the Don, and though you know it’s bad juju, the game does such a great job of selling it, of getting you on the side of these gangsters, that you’re mostly okay with it.

As Dominic Toretto famously and repeatedly says: It’s all about family.

Gatorade, Luden’s, and a Giant Blanket

I came down with a cold this week. Actually, that’s not true.

Here’s how it was: My wife brought a foul strain into our home she’d picked up while out doing things. After a short but spirited fight worthy of cinematic reprisal, my body succumbed.

It isn’t the worst cold I’ve ever had. It falls in that wide middle ground between being totally healthy and feverishly wondering about your Will. Which meant I felt okay enough to work, but basically too exhausted to do anything after.

I’m on the mend. In the meantime, I’ve taken to carrying a blanket around the house like Linus, only mine is big enough to completely cover my tall frame and leave some extra. It’s like dragging a Queen-sized comforter from room to room. It only feels a little bit ridiculous.

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That’s it for this edition of the High 5. What are you digging at the moment? Drop a comment and let me know!

1. If you ever want to forever ruin a beloved song, find the Kidz Bop rendition. Your child will play it so much, you’ll completely forget how the original song went. If they have music in hell, it will be Kidz Bop.

2. What are my favorite King novels? So glad you asked. Here’s a quick list off the top of my head: ‘Salem’s Lot, The Shining, The Stand, The Gunslinger, and The Wind Through the Keyhole. I love most of The Dark Tower series, but all the middle books are a bit jumbled in my head so I can’t name specifics; I hated when King inserted himself in the narrative, so whatever book that was has got to go. I’ve yet to read a bad King novel though.

3. I drove the girls to a Biggby to get coffee a few weeks ago. We went through drive-thru, which meant I had to place the order. This was my penance for seizing the wheel, even though nobody else wanted it.

Being that I’m not a coffee drinker, ordering a speciality coffee is like speaking a vaguely English-adjacent language, especially since both girls modify the drink in numerous ways. Actually, it’s more like being a translator, as I have to pause frequently to get the next instruction from the car, because nobody can keep all those words in their head at once.

Since it’s October and by law everything must involve pumpkins, my daughter wanted something called a Chumpkin. But apparently when I ordered it, I kept saying Chompkin. “Can I get Chompkin latte, extra Chomp, easy on the kin… And sprinkles with only the brown and orange ones… And skim milk but extra whip… Oh, and let’s make that a 24 oz Chompkin ‘cause daddy’s buying, apparently… That should be a hot Chompkin btw… is the heat free or is it extra? Chomp chomp chomp.”

I couldn’t understand why the girls were laughing until after the business had been concluded, and the person taking the order was given to know I was an idiot.

4. That’s right—I bet you forgot that Bernie from Weekend at Bernie's was mixed up with the mob. Everyone remembers the corpse antics, few recall how he actually became one.