LONGWALKABOUT

It’s almost eighty degrees here today.  That’s still a bit nippy if you ask me, but since it’s only March, I’ll take it.  It is now warm enough for me to tell a story about the cold.

When I was in high school, I went camping with my friends a lot.  We had a small camp in the hills behind my house, with a fire ring and a couple of lean-to’s.  It didn’t matter what season it was, when we got a little bit restless, we’d grab some  gear and head up into the woods.

During the winter of my sophomore year of high school, we decided that we needed to do some snow camping.  We picked a Saturday night after a snowstorm and agreed to meet at my house.  My parents told us to be careful because the temperatures were going to be close to zero that night.  We weren’t worried.  You really shouldn’t take that into account, though.  Teenage boys don’t worry about much of anything.  I took two sleeping bags and figured I’d be fine.

The four of us took off into the woods with our backpacks and a borrowed toboggan.  We set up our sleeping bags, cooked dinner and talked about the stuff boys like to talk about.  Girls, music, school, movies, and girls.  You really don’t ever have better friends than you did in high school.  The rest of your life you have to deal with people who have gotten very good at hiding their ulterior motives.  When you’re young, everyones motives are fairly clear, even if they’re ulterior.

The night was beautiful.  It was clear and bright.  The moonlight was magnified by the snow, so visibility was very good.  When it was almost time to bunk down I threw a rock into the fire and let it sit for twenty minutes or so.  Then I wrapped it in an old dish towel and threw it into the bottom of my two sleeping bags.  I could feel the temperature dropping.  We all hunkered down.  I had to repeat the rock trick a few more times, but all in all, it wasn’t too bad of a night.  In the morning I crawled out of my bedding to a wicked cold.  I looked at the thermometer on my pack.  -12 degrees.   I love breakfast.  But when it’s that cold, no one feels like cooking breakfast.  All of us but one were awake and moving around now.  I started to get worried, so I did the teenage boy thing and asked one of my friends to kick the one guy still in his sleeping bag to see if he had frozen to death or not.  Before anyone kicked, I heard a muffled, “I’m awake.”

I couldn’t feel my face. I couldn’t feel my fingers.  I couldn’t feel my toes.  It was time to go home.  We started walking with our packs and the toboggan.  When we reached a significant downhill section of the woods, three of us decided to put the toboggan to good use.  We hopped on, built up some speed,,,,,,, and ran straight into a tree.  It was totaled.  The front end was completely smashed.  Luckily, no one was hurt.  As far as I know, that thing is still there in the woods exactly where we left it.

We stumbled out of the woods twenty minutes later.  Turns out my parents were worried about us, but that didn’t stop them from locking me out of the house.

This will be my only story about camping in below zero temperatures.  If it ever happens again, it will be because my plane has crashed in the Andes.

 

Ever have one of those weeks?  Let me tell you about mine.

• It started with a dream.  Sunday morning: There are people in my house.  People who don’t belong there.  Dangerous people.  I decide to do a room to room search for these nefarious people.  I look everywhere and finally come to the garage.  I slowly open the garage door,,,,,,,, and see two people leaving the garage through another door.  And I start yelling.  It turns out that I was actually yelling with my mouth closed.  I woke myself up.  My wife was laughing at me.  She said, “You know how the dog barks when he’s dreaming?  That’s what you just did.”  It was an omen.
• My youngest son came down with a fever on Sunday evening.  He ended up being out of school for FOUR days.  On the bright side, we did get lollipops at the doctor’s office.  I kind of resent their one lollipop per patient policy, which is why I told them that my particular HMO required a minimum of five Dum Dums per visit.
• Then my wife got sick.  Our house was starting to look like a Civil War field hospital.  People were moaning and asking for water.  There were cots in the hallway.  Tents were set up in the yard.  Amputations were being performed in the shed.  I am only exaggerating slightly.  I did some internet research and was able to diagnose both of them.  I was 95% sure that my youngest had yellow fever.  I was 85% sure that my wife had a common cold, but was acting like she had the measles.  I treated them aggressively with chicken noodle soup and then put on headphones to block out the continued moaning.
• And then,,, it snowed again.  Granted, it wasn’t much snow.  An inch or maybe a little more.  It was enough to be depressing.
• By the time Saturday came, we were all ready for some down time.  We went to visit family to relax and make each other laugh.  It was after eleven when we got back home.  Both kids were asleep in the backseat.  I woke up the little guy and opened the door for my oldest.  After unlocking the house, I returned to the car to witness an event of extreme awkwardness.   My wife was standing by the rear door of the car while my ten year old struggled with his seatbelt like it was a giant anaconda intent on suffocating him.  He was only half awake and he couldn’t figure out why it was so difficult to get out of the car.  My wife- “Undo the buckle.”  My son- “WHAT BUCKLE?”  Me- HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA   Eventually he woke up enough to figure out why the seat belt was attacking him.  He defeated it and and we all went inside.  It was the perfect ending to this week.

Onward.  IT’S GOING TO BE SEVENTY ON WEDNESDAY.  My prayers are being heard.

LINKS

• A scuba diver who was looking for lobster got sucked into a cooling pipe for a nuclear reactor.
• A high school basketball player hit a full court shot at the end of the game to force overtime.
• A skyscraper in LA is putting in a glass slide on the 70th floor.
• I just finished watching the Tsunami Caught on Camera series of videos on Youtube.  It is heartbreaking and breathtaking at the same time.  So, the trailer for The Wave really caught my interest.

To commemorate the most pretentious night in entertainment, I have poured through many documents and historical accounts to come up with a mostly accurate history of the Academy Awards.  Enjoy.

In 1926/27 Louis Mayer and some of his friends formed the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.  It appears as though the “Arts and Sciences” were thrown into the title as a way to make everything sound really legit.  Kind of like how garbagemen started calling themselves “sanitation engineers.”  Originally it was a way to keep the actors, writers, and directors from unionizing.  As an anti-union tool, the Academy was an absolute failure, because in the early 1930’s the unions and guilds formed anyway.

The very first Academy Awards were given out in 1929.  The very first best actor winner was actually Rin Tin Tin.  Yes.  The dog.  Before the awards were handed out, the Academy decided that it would be weird to give the first statue to a dog.  So, they held another vote, this time excluding animal actors no matter how great their emotional range.  A guy named Emil Jannings ended up winning best actor.  He then promptly went back to Germany to help make propaganda films for that exciting political movement known as the National Socialist German Worker’s Party.  Yeah, the Nazis.  These two events gave rise the two most popular hashtags of the year.  #Oscarsohuman and #Oscarsofascist.

The original Oscar statues were bronze coated with gold.  In the 30’s the Academy realized it would be much more cost effective to coat a tin alloy with gold, so that is what they did.  Credit for the design of the statue goes to Cedric Gibbons, who was famous for his art-deco set designs.  It was not designed after any particular person.  The name Oscar seems to have come from Margaret Herrick, who worked at the Academy.  Legend has it that she saw the statue and said, “Hey that looks like my uncle Oscar.”  Oscar Mayer, of hot dog and Wienermobile fame, appears to have no ties to the statue.

Over the years, almost three thousand Academy Awards have been handed out, and personally, I’m still unclear what the definition of a “supporting actor” is.  As far as I can tell, it is an award for the man or woman who should have been the main star of the film.  They started televising the awards in 1953.  The actors and actresses loved this because their favorite thing in the world was to be on screen anyways.  Now they could be on screen getting awards for being on screen.

Famous Hollywood people who have never won an Oscar include-

• Leonardo DiCaprio  (Although that will probably change this year.)
• Glenn Close
• Edward Norton
• Viola Davis
• Tom Cruise
• Samuel L. Jackson
• Robert Altman
• Stanley Kubrick
• Alfred Hitchcock
• Orson Welles
• Deborah Kerr
• Albert Finney
• Tom Green
• Me
• Rin Tin Tin  (Who was robbed on a technicality, as we’ve already discussed.)

As you can see, it’s a pretty exclusive club.

This year’s ceremony is at the Dolby Theatre.  (Doesn’t it bother you just a little bit that they spell it with an RE?)  The “red carpet” will be close to 500 feet long and 33 feet wide.  That seems really big, but in reality Quentin Tarantino and his ego take up most of that space.

Hopefully this has prepared you for small talk at any Oscar get togethers you are going to tonight.  All that is left is to sit back and enjoy the show.  Or, to sit back and wish that Seth McFarlane was hosting again.  It was such a gloriously uncomfortable affair that year.

And The Oscar Goes To……………..

Being on Facebook is like having a schizophrenic life coach.  The life lesson memes are never ending.

• “Live IN THE MOMENT”.
• “Work hard for your goals.  Like right now.  Stop living in the moment and make some money.”
• “STOP!!!! Now go smell the roses.”
• “Make every moment count.”

Great.  Thanks.

It seems to me that all of this advice is way too broad.  For those of us who like to deal in specifics, I am sharing five valuable life lessons you probably haven’t seen in your news feed.

1. Don’t underestimate oven mitts.  They’re great for more than removing delicious baked goods from the oven.  Do you have any pots with metal handles?  Have you ever tried to remove those things from the stove right after you turn off the gas?  Oven mitts my friends.  Also.  If you are ever in an argument with your lovely wife, and you feel like you’re close to making the awful mistake of pointing at her while you are emphatically making your point,,,,,,,,,,  oven mitts my friend.  You will be unable to point and you will look totally ridiculous arguing while wearing mitts on your hands, bringing needed levity to the situation.
2. Always get a lollipop when you go to the bank.  When the teller at the drive thru asks if you need anything else, always say, “Yes, a lollipop.”  Even if your kids aren’t with you.  It’s not like you’re getting much from the bank anyways.  In fact they’re probably nickel and diming you for tons of stuff.  Might as well take their candy.  Life is better with a lollipop.
3. Beware of buffets.  I ate at a buffet on the boardwalk in Atlantic City one time, and I’m still not sure if the ingredients in that food were actually meant for human consumption.  Personally, I am against any buffet that isn’t preceded by the word breakfast.  If a restaurant advertises 80 different varieties of food, odds are they don’t make any of them well.  Go to places that only do one thing and do it well.   You will be happier in the long run,,,,,,,, and you will avoid the runs.
4. It is important to like the smell of your dryer sheets.  If you end up buying a box of dryer sheets with an unsatisfactory smell it can ruin approximately one half of every day.  Yes.  One half.  That’s about how long it will take for your clothes to lose the scent.  Assuming that you wear clean clothes every day.  I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt.  If we’re being honest, you and I both know you’re not going to throw out a whole box of dryer sheets.  You’ll suffer through for months just like I would, because we’re cheap.
5. Don’t skimp on flip flops.  I love flip flops.  You don’t have to tie them.  In fact, they are completely hands free.  They are the ultimate footwear for someone determined to “make every moment count.”  Take my advice and get yourself at least one really nice pair.  I actually have multiple pairs.  I have a casual pair for working around the house.  I have a pair for every day use.  And I also have a leather pair for those situations that require something more formal.  What better way to send a signal that says, “I am fully relaxed, but I also understand the importance of this situation.”  Yes, flip flops make life better.

(For any life advice that is actually important, I refer you to the Golden Rule and the Ten Commandments.)

 

So much of life is timing.  Opportunities missed by minutes, connections made because you were in the exact place that you were supposed to be at the exact right time.  In this timing, there is design.  It’s rarely visible in the present, usually only in retrospect.  But when you do look back, it’s kind of cool.

In high school and college I worked as a landscaper at a retirement community.  What does a retirement community have plenty of?  Yes,,,, elderly people who are near the end of their driving careers.  These folks tend to drive humongous automobiles because it makes them feel safe.  Meanwhile, the rest of us are surrounded by 4,500 lb. chunks of metal piloted by people who could fall asleep at any moment.  This place had one main drive that wrapped around and through the whole community.  My friends and I would walk up and down this road behind commercial mowers, wearing ear protectors.  One day I walked up the road with my mower, past the main building toward my next mowing project.  Minutes after I passed, one of the residents put her car in drive instead of reverse and drove through some shrubs, off a three foot high retaining wall, and across the road that I had just been walking on.  I picture this happening in glorious high speed like the movies.  In reality it was probably a slow moving train wreck of an event.  Either way, I would have never heard her coming.  For me, perfect timing.

I skipped third grade.  Why?  Because I’m a genius.  No.  Because I was older than most of the other third graders, and my teacher thought that I would be fine moving on to the next grade.  Some years later that same teacher moved on to another school.  At this next school, she decided that one of the girls was more advanced than the other seventh graders, and decided to skip her into the eighth grade.  Thanks to this teacher skipping us at different times and places, we ended up in the same high school, at the same time, and in the same grade.  It worked out well because luckily she agreed to date me, and then later, to marry me.  Perfect timing.

The other day I was jonesing for a desert.  Something chocolatey, but not too sweet.  I rummaged around.  The only things left over from the Halloween candy were several Three Musketeers.  Let’s be honest.  There’s a reason why those things are around long after Halloween.  They’re nobody’s favorite.  They’re an “okay, if that’s all you’ve got” kind of candy.  I ended up sitting on the couch with a small bowl of chocolate chips.  It didn’t really cut it.  A day later we stopped at the store on the way home from the park.  Who was there?  The Girl Scouts and their Thin Mints.  (Which are more addictive than nicotine) Perfect timing.

LINKS

• Apparently the astronauts on Apollo 10 heard strange music when they were on the dark side of the moon.
• These horror movies were based on real events.
• How much would you pay for some of John Lennon’s hair?  Probably not this much.
• For what it’s worth.  A psychologist has listed 6 things that are the “keys to happiness and success.”

 

 

I like the news.  If you look at it from the right perspective, it’s all comedy.  My wife has no time to keep up with the news, so I have become her news aggregator.  I collect all the important headlines of the day and summarize them for her.  Sample: “Hi honey. Here’s what you missed today.  One of the presidential candidates started barking like a dog at a campaign rally, and three more Hoverboards caught fire.  How was your day?”  I am prepared to do the same for everyone else.  Here are my favorite headlines from the past week.

• Government of Jamaica Fights Zika With Dancehall Reggae Anthem.  I don’t want anyone to think that I am mocking this.  In fact, I think that we would all be better off if all public service announcements were made in the form of dancehall anthems.  (Don’t drink and drive- needs a dancehall anthem.  Don’t text and drive- needs a dancehall anthem.  Stop smoking- needs a dancehall anthem.)  Or, in the case of Scandinavia, death metal anthems.
• Furious George:  Monkey in Brazil Drinks Rum and Chases Bar Patrons With Knife.  Between the Zika and the drunken knife wielding monkeys, it seems like a great place to hold the Olympics.  What could go wrong?  Maybe the government of Brazil could make a Zika public service announcement with the armed monkey performing a dancehall anthem.  You’d never forget to put on your mosquito repellent.
• Did Aliens Leave Behind This 2,800 Year Old Nokia?   I refuse to believe that a long time ago in a galaxy far far away anyone was using a Nokia.  It would totally ruin my picture of aliens.  When E.T. phoned home, he didn’t build a Nokia.  If this does happen to be an alien phone though, I would like to know who their cell provider is.  Because right now, I’m having trouble with dropped calls in my own kitchen.  On a side note.  Do you think Apple will help the government crack the security on the alien phone?
• Robotic Limb Turns Drummer Into Three-Armed Musical Cyborg.  This is all well and good until the robotic arm attacks him with a drumstick.  I swear that real life resembles the plot from Terminator more every single day.  Don’t say that James Cameron and I didn’t warn you.  Before he went all Avatar crazy, he was a brilliant filmmaker.
• Teenage Boy ‘Poses as Doctor’ In Hospital Gynecology Department For A Month.  This will be the last entry for today because, as headlines go, I’m not going to be able to top it.  A whole month.

My wife and I don’t really celebrate Valentine’s day.  Why?  Because we refuse to be owned by Big Greeting Card and Big Candy.  Also, we are so romantic during the rest of the year, that by the time this day rolls around, we are exhausted.  However, I would just like to say that we are not above buying the candy when it is marked down 50% tomorrow.  Without further ado, longwalkabout presents:

AN ABRIDGED AND SLIGHTLY INACCURATE HISTORY OF VALENTINE’S DAY

Valentine’s Day is named after Saint Valentine of the early Christian church.  There were actually multiple Saint Valentines.  Two of them came to be honored on the 14th of February.  Valentine of Rome and Valentine of Terni.  Although they lived two hundred years apart, they had a few things in common.  The Roman’s whacked both of them.  This made them both martyrs.  Seeing the obvious tourist value of martyr body parts, the early church saved what they could.  Valentine of Rome’s skull is on display in Rome.  If you’d like to take a romantic trip to Terni, you can view the entire remains of Valentine of Terni.  Keeping score?  That would be Romans 2 – Valentines 0.

Valentine’s Day didn’t become associated with romance until the late 1300’s.  Whose fault was it?  By all accounts, it was the poet Chaucer, who wrote this fantastic ditty.

“For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.”

This poem was written to celebrate King Richard the 2nd and Queen Anne’s first anniversary.  It also appears to have been written when Chaucer was on a bender.   Who do you think noticed this “love poem” and ran with it?  That’s right, the French, who basically own love.  Their national motto is “Get Busy Lovin’ Or Get Some Cheese.  On Second Thought, You Can Do Both At The Same Time.  Now Have Some Cake.”  I know.  I thought their motto would be more poetic too.  Maybe something gets lost in translation.

Fast forward to the late 1700’s.  The printing press is now in use.  This is the beginning of what I like to call the “Greeting Card Industrial Complex”, which as far as I can tell, has always been run by a James Bond villain.  The printed valentines and the post office make it possible for people to send cards to each other anonymously, thus giving rise to the naughty Valentines card industry as well.  By 1835, the number of Valentine cards mailed yearly in the U.K. reaches 60,000.

Today in the U.K. 1.3 BILLION pounds are spent every year on greeting cards and other assorted Valentine’s day stuff.  The US Greeting Card Association, otherwise known as “The Shoebox Mafia”, reports that if you include all of the cards that our kids are extorted into making or buying for their classes at school, 1 billion Valentine’s Day cards are exchanged each year in America.  In 2013, people spent an average of $131 on Valentine’s gifts.  This is why Hallmark employees exchange “poor hopeless sucker” cards every year on February 15th.

As Paul Harvey used to say.  “Now you know some partially accurate information about the rest of the story.”

Happy Valentine’s Day!

My youngest son can be a fiery little guy.   It’s part of his personality, and for the most part we just roll with it.  I compare him to college kids who go around protesting things.  They’re both mad about something, but they don’t really know what it is.  I remember sending him up to his room when he was three or four. He sat at the top of the steps and yelled down, “I hate your life.”  I guess he was semi-satisfied with his own life, but my life was making him particularly angry at that moment.  To be fair.  As he’s gotten older, he has learned to control his feelings more.  Kind of like Luke Skywalker did when he became a Jedi.

When he was two, we went on a family vacation to Puerto Rico.  I’m just going to say that he was less than thrilled with the temperature during our visit.  To me it felt great.  I have often told my wife that I don’t totally thaw out from winter until sometime in early July.  My guy spent the entire vacation making a face that was designed to let us know that he was hot.  This has affectionately become known as “hot face.”  It is in every picture we took while on that trip.

We spent the last two days of this trip on the small island of Culebra.  It was sunny and beautiful and there were plenty of opportunities for my youngest to make “hot face.”  On the morning of our last day we returned our rental car and, while we waited for the ferry back to the main island, took a walk around Dewey (the main town on the island).   We ducked in and out of some shops and bought some chachkies that I’m sure were a complete waste of money.  Nothing better to remind you of a fantastic Puerto Rican vacation than a plastic sea turtle made in Vietnam.  Having seen enough of the shops, we started walking toward the southern side of the small town.  At this point our little guy decided that it was time to let us know that he was unhappy.  Now, I can’t remember what set him off.  The heat?  Maybe.  Being carried?  Possibly.  Having to wear a hat?  Again, possibly.  Or maybe he just remembered that he hated my life and he wanted to express that.  At the peak of his rampage, my wife was carrying him and we were walking on a little bridge that crossed a small waterway.  In a fit of protest, my dude ripped the sunhat off of his head and hurled it into the water.  NOOOOOOoooooo.  We loved that hat.  His brother had worn it when he was little.  It had survived many adventures.  One of the selling features of this particular hat was that it floated.  If you were wearing it on the water and you dropped it, you didn’t have to worry about it sinking.  We all stood there on the bridge, and watched as the hat proudly floated past thick mangroves toward the ferry dock and the open sea.  Even my youngest took a break from his tantrum to admire the seaworthiness of his headgear.  Twenty minutes later, we boarded the ferry, minus one hat.

When I think of this, I like to imagine that the hat is still floating through the Caribbean, having adventures.  Then, one day, when my son is older, and on a vacation with his family.  His youngest son will be throwing a fit on a beach somewhere in Barbados, and that hat will wash up next to him………  And he’ll pick it up and angrily throw it back into the sea.

 

The Superbowl is over.  I missed most of the third quarter because my wife wanted to watch Downton Abbey.  I know, you’re like, “Wait, couldn’t you just watch it on another tv?”  No. No I couldn’t.  We only have one tv in our house because we are better people than you.  I’m kidding, we’re just cheap.  Anyway, when I tuned back in to the game, I realized that Downton Abbey had been way more exciting.  On another subject, I think the Coldplay halftime show would have been better suited for the synchronized swimming world championships.  If you saw it, you know what I mean.

Last night I started feeling a little under the weather.  When I woke up this morning, I crawled out of bed and climbed right back into bed.  I spent most of the morning feeling achey and binge watching Fear The Walking Dead.  I never get to watch those shows when my wife is around.  If I am in the middle of an episode and she walks into the room, she immediately starts to make faces like she just swallowed a bug.  At this point, I know that if I don’t switch to another show, she will tell me everything she doesn’t like about my choice of entertainment.  It’s a long list, and I don’t have that kind of time.

Back to this morning.  I enjoy the zombie shows, but it bums me out that most of the people left alive are really not people you’d want to hang out with.  Never in these shows does anyone with a sense of humor survive.  They’re all super serious.  It might be just me, but the zombie apocalypse seems like it has a lot of unmined comedic material. If I was present for the zombification of the world, I’d probably prefer to be a hermit.  I wouldn’t want to hang out with all those buzzkills.  I’d just fortify the library and live there by myself.  All the scary books would have to go though.

Thinking about being a hermit reminded me of an actual hermit.  When I was in college, my future wife and I went to Vermont to be in our friend’s wedding.  They lived out in the mountains.  It was snowy and beautiful and cold.  One day before the wedding, our group of friends were throwing snowballs at each other.  We were on a mountain road, near a clearing that had a bunch of abandoned vehicles in it.  I made some snowballs and looked around to find a target.  I saw someone disappearing behind one of the cars and launched a volley of well aimed snowballs in that direction.  Then I turned and saw everyone from our group.  “Who was I just throwing snowballs at?”  I asked.  One of the local guys proceeded to inform me that a hermit lived in one of the abandoned buses.  He didn’t like people much.  This I understood.  “Especially women.”  This I could not grasp at all.  I guess there won’t be any baby hermits running around.  So, the only actual hermit that I’ve ever come close to meeting, I possibly hit with a barrage of snowballs, which in his mind probably affirmed his choice of lifestyle.  He didn’t come out to have a conversation with us or tell us that we shouldn’t be throwing stuff at him because,,,,,, you know,,,,,,,,, he was a hermit.

Because this was a really round about way to get to that story, I feel like I need to summarize.

• Superbowl – boring
• Me – sick
• Zombie shows – humorless
• Hermits – Would consider being one, and also threw snowballs at one

LINKS

• A town in New York has been overcome with a cat urine odor.  This seems like an X-Files case to me.
• Meanwhile in Alabama.  A guy in a clown suit was arrested for DUI.  My favorite quote from the story- he “gave no explanation for his odd attire.”
• Chipotle wants you back.  They’re offering free burritos.
• Would anyone like to adopt a giant rabbit?

The other day I was sitting on the couch with my wife watching the A-Team.  How many of you can use that sentence?  If you can’t, I submit that you aren’t very cultured.  Anyway,,,,,,  It was the end of the episode, and there was a huge gun battle going down.  I looked at my wife and said, “No one will be killed, and two bad guys are going to hop in that car, try to get away, flip the car, and then crawl out the windows to show that they’re alright.”  She said, “Have you seen this episode before?”  I told her, “No.  Every episode ends like that.”

Watching the A-Team that day got me thinking about other action/adventure shows I watched as a kid.  Here is my definitive top five.

5.  Knight Rider-  The show ran from 1982-1986 on NBC.   I can’t believe that David Hasslehoff had two hit television shows.  The real star of Knight Rider was the car.  Kitt was awesome.  Who can forget the K.I.T.T. vs. evil K.A.R.R. episodes?  Truly gripping stuff.

This may be a little off subject, but my wife and I were watching Baywatch the other day.  Again, we are very cultured.  She pointed out that David Hasslehoff has chicken legs.  It’s true.  I can’t believe the producers of that show didn’t say, “Hey Dave, I know you’re a big music star in Germany and you’re a proven tv star, but you need to hit the gym and work on those twigs or you’ll be wearing pants on the beach.”

4.  The A-Team-  Between 1983 and 1987 on NBC, the guys from the A-Team fired roughly a gazillion bullets.  Not one of those bullets resulted in a death to any bad guy.  In fact, there was only one on screen death during the entire run of the show.  If you take that into account, then you have to question whether they really were a “crack commando unit.”

3.  Quantum Leap-  This one was barely eligible because it started it’s five year run in 1989 on NBC.  Where the A-Team was just about the same every week, Quantum Leap’s premise allowed for interesting plots in varied times and places.  Scott Bakula leaping into the body of Bobo the monkey is a great example of this.  I propose a mash-up of the A-Team and Quantum Leap.  A “crack commando unit” leaping through time.  Sold.

2.  Magnum, P.I.-  It ran from 1980-1988 on CBS.  I would love to move to Hawaii, become a private investigator, drive someone else’s car, and live in someone else’s house.  Sounds ideal.  Fun Fact:  At some time during the run of the show, Magnum is punched by every one of his friends.  He never punches them, though.  He was too busy being awesome.

1.  MacGyver-  You know him by one name.  Just like Madonna, Prince, and Sting (the wrestler and the musician).  But he had more useful skills than all of those people combined.  And he was way less pretentious.  On ABC from 1985-1992, he used household items and questionable science to defeat many many bad guys.  MacGyver was not a government employee.   Instead he worked for the “Phoenix Foundation”.  Proving once again that our best and brightest gravitate towards the private sector.

Honorable Mention:  The Dukes Of Hazzard,  Miami Vice