And Onion Rings to Rule Them All

The other night I had my nose buried in a book while my husband watched a sports program beside me.  I was only half paying attention when a commercial came on, but it was the words spoken at the end of the commercial that made my ears prick up.

“Come into Denny’s and try our ‘Hobbit’-inspired menu!”

I turned to my husband just in time to catch the horrified look on his face as he cried, “Nooooo!” 

You see there’s a fine line between selling and selling out.

We’re no strangers to sellouts, are we?  When we hear Led Zeppelin’s “Rock and Roll” playing in the background of a Cadillac commercial, or a family of four singing Ozzy Osborne’s “Crazy Train” in an ad for the Honda Pilot, we know that somewhere, someone we once respected and admired has decided that income has trumped integrity.

When we see manipulated footage of deceased film star Fred Astaire dancing on the ceiling pushing a vacuum, we realize that the Dirt Devil sucks on a whole new level.

And now J.R.R. Tolkien’s beloved story of Bilbo Baggins’ quest to defeat the dragon Smaug and collect a portion of Dwarf treasure has inspired such menu items as “Gandalf’s Gobble Melt”, “Shire Sausage Skillet” and “Make-Your-Own-Hobbit Slam”.  Do you hear that whirring sound?  That’s old J.R.R. Tolkien spinning in his grave every time someone orders “Radagast’s Red Velvet Pancake Puppies”.

Now I don’t have the same attachment to “The Hobbit” and the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy that my husband does.  As a teenager, I enjoyed Judy Blume while he immersed himself in the intricate mythology of Middle Earth.  Truth be told, the only reason I went with him to see the film version was because I spied Viggo Mortensen’s Aragorn in the trailer and decided there might just be something watchable in this fantasy film after all.  After seeing the films, I actually read “The Hobbit” but quickly lost interest in the extremely dense LOTR book series.  Still, I admire Tolkien’s brilliance in creating such a richly drawn world, his attention to detail so strong that he invented entire languages for his characters.  I guess I always associate Tolkien with a more highbrow style of writing, given that he was a Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford University, and counted C.S. Lewis and W.H. Auden as his friends.

Which just makes Denny’s “Lone-Lands Campfire Cookie Milkshake” all the more ridiculous.

Is this selling out?  Or is this just another example of extending brand recognition? The Lord of the Ring book series had millions of fans before the movies were produced.  How many millions more were added as a result of Peter Jackson’s films?  How many people would never have known the story of Frodo and Sam and their quest to destroy the one ring of power, had they not seen the film and bought their children the subsequent action figures, Lego sets and Happy Meal toys?  I still remember my son, much younger at the time, pressing his McDonald’s Gandalf figure over and over to hear the little tinny voice say,  “The ring must go to Frodo…the ring must go to Frodo” a zillion times.  And he was still years away from being old enough to handle the violence and intensity of the films.

If “Lord of the Rings” was marketed with costumes and posters and Monopoly games and McDonald’s Happy Meal toys, is it really any worse for “The Hobbit” to be promoted by Denny’s? 

For me the answer is “yes”.  It might be because menu items such as the “Ring Burger” weigh in at 1420 calories, 93 grams of fat and 2800 mg of sodium.  It might be because of the $54 million settlement Denny’s had to pay due to its racial discrimination practices in the 1990’s.  Or it might be because when Tolkien wrote his tale of Oin, Gloin, Fili and Kili, he never imagined that one day those characters would be served up on a warm plate with a healthy side of grease.  Perhaps all of these are why the selling out of “The Hobbit” leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

And that’s a taste that even “Bilbo’s Berry Smoothie” can’t wash away.

No Need To Repair This Relationship

This week we will all sit around tables laden with food and bow our head in thanks for the blessings that God has given us.  Among those blessings I include my family, my friends, my church, good health and my mechanic.

Wait…what?

You may laugh at the latter, and if you do then you are clearly not among the automotively challenged, like myself.  You are someone who knows the difference between a camshaft and a cylinder.  You change your own oil, rotate your own tires and change your own brake pads and spark plugs.  You do not tremble in fear each time the “check engine” light flickers on, and you are confident when you walk through the doors of AutoZone.

You are my polar opposite.

I purchased my first car in 1990 for $100 and I’ve been riding the repair rollercoaster ever since.  I’ve watched in horror as my dashboard lights slowly dimmed (alternator).  My ears prick up at the first sounds of high-pitched screeching (brakes, water pump, power steering).  I’ve driven like a bat out of hell to get to the dealership after being told, “Whatever you do, don’t turn your car off!” (head gasket). 

Over the years, I’ve taken my cars for repair at dealerships, private garages and franchise repair shops.  I quit going to the dealer because each time I brought my car in for service, I could swear the technician had little dollar signs where his pupils should have been.  The franchises were pleasant enough, but it always seemed like when I brought the car in for one repair, the technician would always find two more that were needed.

And then a few years ago, my friend Jessie referred me to Chuck Stymest at the Auto Hospital in Hanover. I took my car in for a few minor repairs and it was shortly after that I realized I had finally found that special someone every motorphobe dreams of: The Car Whisperer.

Again, with the laughing?  My husband and I don’t upgrade our car every few years.  Quite simply, we can’t afford to.  Instead, we drive our cars into the ground (and in my case, the curb).   Because of this, I’ve learned that an honest, trustworthy mechanic is just as important as a loyal babysitter, a knowledgeable physician and a savvy financial planner.  And sometimes, just as hard to find.

Our relationship began when I brought one of my cars to Chuck for a minor repair.  While I was there, I mentioned in passing that both the dealership and another car repair center told me that a major, expensive repair was coming up very soon.  Chuck responded by telling me that the repair wasn’t due for another 30,000 miles.  With that, Chuck became my new best friend.

There have been several instances over the years where I was positive that my car needed a pricey repair, only to be told by Chuck that the problem was a minor one:  I was pretty sure my car needed new brakes; it was a frozen pin.  My husband thought our van needed new shocks; there wasn’t enough air in the tires.  Granted, we’ve had our fair share of big-ticket repairs, as you’d expect with cars as old as ours.  I took my Saturn in for an oil change prior to a long car trip, only to discover that the car was unsafe to drive.  But because of the trust that’s been built, we know that when Chuck says, “This needs to be done,” it needs to be done.

I’m not the first to sing the praises of the folks at The Auto Hospital.  My predecessor, Cathy Harrington, wrote a column about them many years ago, which was how my friend Jessie heard about them, and then referred them to me.  When you find a good thing, you just want to pay it forward.

So I may be a complete ignoramus when it comes to cars, but that’s all right.  I’ve got Chuck in my corner.  And for that, I am truly thankful.

The last time I was "Shawshanked"...

The other night I fell asleep in bed watching the 11 o’clock news.  An hour later I woke to discover my husband still awake beside me.  “What are you watching?” I asked sleepily, to which he replied, “’Knight and Day’ with Tom Cruise.”  I closed my eyes and went back to sleep.

My husband had been “Shawshanked”.

I first heard this term at a party last summer. “I got ‘Shawshanked’ last night by ‘The Departed’,” a friend lamented.  Though I’d never heard the term before, I knew exactly what it meant even before looking it up on The Urban Dictionary website. “Shawshanked: the condition of having been sucked in by a highly watchable movie while channel surfing or walking past a TV. Originally derived from The Shawshank Redemption.”

Sound familiar? Who hasn’t been “Shawshanked” at one time or another?  You’re watching television while lying in bed, or folding laundry catching up on paperwork.  As you scan through your two or three hundred channels, you discover “Apollo 13” is on.  It doesn’t matter that you’ve seen the movie in its entirety umpteenth times, not counting all the snippets you’ve caught over the years.  You think to yourself, “I’ll just watch that amazing launch scene one more time…” and before you know it two hours have passed and you’re watching Tom Hank’s exhausted, smiling face as he waves from the safety of an aircraft carrier.

You just got “Shawshanked”.

“The Shawshank Redemption” has to be one of the most watchable films of all time, Nominated for seven Academy Awards, the film features inspired performances by Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins, and was also instrumental in launching the career of screenwriter and director Frank Darabont, who went on to make ‘The Green Mile” and “The Walking Dead.”  Aside from being a true classic, what is it about “Shawshank”, and films like it, that sucks us in time and time again?

Is it because channels like TNT and TBS and AMC rebroadcast these films over and over again, drilling them deep into our DNA?  American Movie Classics hosts “Can’t Get Enough…” marathons, showing five nights of the same movie back to back in primetime. “Can’t Get Enough” marathons have included films such as “The Matrix”, “Rocky” and, of course, “The Shawshank Redemption”.  Common sense dictates that this should have the opposite effect on viewers, turning them off because the movies have been broadcast ad nauseam.  Shouldn’t you be inclined to be “Shawshanked” by a more elusive film? Shouldn’t absence make the heart grow fonder? Apparently not.

My personal “Shawshank” list includes the aforementioned “Apollo 13” and, I’m embarrassed to admit, “The American President”.  There’s something about this film, which stars Michael Douglas and Annette Bening as a widowed U.S. president and a lobbyist who fall in love, that sucks me in every time.  Though it may not be a “classic”, the combination of Rob Reiner’s direction, Aaron Sorkin’s witty dialogue and the chemistry between the two romantic leads “Shawshanks” me every time.  Though the film has fallen off in popularity, there was a time when I just couldn’t get enough of “The American President”.   I can’t count the number of times my husband walked in the room, saw me watching it, rolled his eyes and walked out.

Now if you’re wondering just where the term “Shawshanked” originated, I’m happy to report that the brilliant creator resides right here on the south shore: Jerry Thornton.  Jerry is a hilarious writer and comedian, known to many (especially my husband) for his posts on Barstoolsports.com and his creation of the very entertaining and addictive site, Moviequoter.com.  I discovered this fact when a Google search turned up the Twitter page “#shawshanked”, a page created by Jerry.  I should have known, with his sharp sense of humor and his passion for film, that Jerry Thornton would be the one to introduce “Shawshanked” into our pop culture.

Regarding my husband, I discovered one more important thing about being “Shawshanked”: The movie doesn’t necessarily have to be good to suck you in. My husband admitted that “Knight and Day” wasn’t worth the sleep he lost watching it.  And yet, he still stayed up till 2am.

Shawshanked!

Election Season has been none too pleasin'

The phrase, “Out of the mouths of babes…” intimates that innocent children can often make some of the wisest observations.  I think I can speak for everyone when I say that little four-year-old Abigael Evans, star of her own viral video, is voicing a sentiment with which most of us would agree:

“I’m tired of Bronco Bamma and Mitt Romney.”

Yes Abigael, I too am tired of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.  I’m also tired of Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren.  When I sit down to watch “Modern Family” or “Survivor”, I don’t want to see six or eight political commercials back to back. I’d rather watch a stuffed fish sing, “Gimme back my filet-o-fish…” than hear people arguing about whether or not Elizabeth Warren fought for or against asbestos victims.  I’d rather see obnoxious ducks screaming “Aflac!” than listen to Laurie Myers’ drone on about Scott Brown’s support of women’s rights for the millionth time. 

I’m sick of all the backbiting and finger pointing and name-calling.  I’m exhausted from watching debates where the candidates can’t answer a simple question about where they stand on the environment, taxes or health care without using up most of their two minutes insulting the reputation of their opponents. 

My phone rings off the hook with recorded messages from candidates who don’t care whether they interrupt my dinner or my sleep.  The only call I actually listened to was from Matt Damon, who urged me to vote for his candidate and offered a lift to the polls if I needed one.  Great idea Matt, let’s pick up your buddy Ben Affleck and swing by The Fours for a couple of pops on our way to the polls!  

My mail has been flooded with postcards praising some candidates while demonizing others. Some days, I’d receive three or four mailers for the same candidate.  Just imagine if that money was actually spent on the issues these candidates support, rather than cluttering up my mailbox and my recycle bin.

The election is ending just in time.  Now I can focus on all the Christmas catalogs cluttering up my mailbox and recycle bin.

If possible, the Internet is even worse than the mail or the television.  The sidebar of my Facebook page carries all kinds of political endorsements.  Let’s face it; if I haven’t “liked” a candidate by now, I’m not going to.  My children, who enjoy watching stupid YouTube videos, are getting frustrated by all the political ads that have to run before they can watch Psy’s latest version of “Gangnam Style” or the newest installment of “How it Should Have Ended”.  My eleven year old summed it up perfectly: “Mom, people who want to look at cat videos on the Internet don’t really care about Elizabeth Warren or Scott Brown”.  Again, out of the mouths of babes…

My only consolation is that by the time this column goes to press, the elections will be over.  My mailbox will be clear, political spots will be replaced with holiday commercials and the only computers calling my house will be those asking me if I’d like to lower the interest rate on my credit cards.  Life as we know it will resume.

Unless, of course, something the election results are delayed.  After all, what will happen to those voters in the tri-state area who are still without power?  What if there are hanging chads again?  What if the election is so close there needs to be a recount?  What if…gulp…this election goes on for several more weeks?

If that happens, Abigael Evans better move over and share the spotlight with another crying baby.

Me.