Tuesday, April 19, 2005

'Retrospective' The Very Best Of Buffalo Springfield

Imagine my surprise when my Mother handed me ‘Jaws’ on DVD and told me that it was Preston’s.

Preston is my 4 and a half-year old nephew who only knows sharks from cartoons like ‘Jabberjaws’.

Keep in mind that I’m fairly progressive and I’ve already shown him ‘Jurassic Park III’.

He did have a few problems with ‘JPIII’, but I backed up and showed him the making of features from the DVD. Once he saw that it was computer animated and some of the dinosaurs were actually puppets, he got on board.

Preston saw what acting was about. He found out that a lot of things that he watches aren’t real and he starting enjoying the “dino-mayhem”. He would cackle as people on screen were choked down the gullet of the T. Rex or they were picked up by the flying variety of flesh eating reptiles.

I remember back around 1974 or ’75 when I was around eight or nine years old, I liked to watch professional wrestling on television. I liked the characters, the storylines, and I liked the blood and violence. I watched as much of it as I could and heels were my favorites. Because, as most of you know, the bad guys are always more interesting than the good guys.

My Mother didn’t exactly approve of me watching pro-wrestling. She would tell me that it wasn’t real and that all the wrestlers were friends off camera. After hearing it for a while, I finally told Mom that I knew it was fake.

She asked me why I felt that way.

I just simply told her that it was on television.

Superman wasn’t real. Genie and Samantha weren’t real. ‘Kolchak The Night Stalker’ wasn’t real. And, I had seen the Ol’ Rebel (an old Greensboro kiddie show on WFMY Channel 2) running around town without his trademark hat, glasses, and red vest. I knew that he wasn’t real and I had been on the show and watched how it was put together before my young eyes.

So, in my mind, very few things on television were real.

I can’t remember how she reacted, but I was never really hassled about my pro-wrestling habit again.

The only thing that concerns me about ‘Jaws’ is the language. I don’t really have a problem with the young girl running down the beach with her bare ass for all to see. Nudity and the human body isn’t inherently bad, it’s just how it’s presented.

So, I don’t have a problem with Preston getting an eyeful of ass. I just have a problem with a phrase like S.O.B. and all the other curse words used in the film. He may just pick it up for use in his own vocabulary.

Preston likes cartoons and he and I would watch ‘Futurama’ every now and again. He liked it, especially the character named Bender. Bender is a foul mouth robot that smokes cigars and drinks lots of alcohol. He’s the “automatic” character on the show.

I told my nephew that he could watch ‘Futurama’ with me with only one rule. If I ever heard him say any of the “bad” words that Bender uses or, his mother tells me that he’s been using those “bad” words, he wouldn’t be able to watch the show again.

I haven’t heard him use any of those words or phrases and I haven’t heard from his mom either. So who knows? Maybe there’s smooth sailing with ‘Jaws’.

5 comments:

  1. Anonymous1:36 AM

    Samantha isn't real??

    Thanks, Eugene. Thanks for ruining my last hope for happiness. Oh sweet nothing.

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  2. Oh... and Brad... Serena wasn't actually her twin either.

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  3. Anonymous10:19 PM

    WHAT??!!??!!??

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  4. Anonymous5:17 PM

    And, I had seen the Ol’ Rebel (an old Greensboro kiddie show on WFMY Channel 2) running around town without his trademark hat, glasses, and red vest. I knew that he wasn’t real and I had been on the show and watched how it was put together before my young eyes.

    Ol' Rebel. Heh. I haven't thought about that show in years. Now, I have an anecdote for you. My second cousin worked for the unemployment office in Greensboro many, many years ago. She once recalled the day when they got a phone call from the Ol' Rebel. Seems that his show was cancelled, he was laid off, and he called to see about collecting unemployment. That little story bothered me for days.

    I was browsing around on the Rock 92 site to see if there were pictures posted from the Parkway Ford remote last week (were you there?) and found the link to your blog. I used to work with your Mom a loooooooooooong time ago (at Farr), and always wondered if the "Eugene" DJ was you (you're the only Eugene that I knew that was close to my age). And now I know. I'm enjoying your blog. :)

    So anyway, "hello". I'll probably bookmark your blog and read it occasionally, so you may be seeing more comments from me in the future.

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  5. Yes Bebo... I know who you are. You should have emailed me too. eugene@rock92.com

    I was at the remote with Deidre last Friday. I was the guy taking the pictures. We may have missed each other. So sorry.

    Give me a holler.

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