Category: Funny Business

When I was a little kid, I thought my parents were ancient.

My father was 43 and my mother, 34, when I was born, so once I was a teenager, Pop was already in his mid-50s and mom in her mid-40s.

I couldn’t imagine ever getting that “old.”

But guess what?

I’m 56, and on New Year’s Eve, I’ll be 57. If young people now look at me the way I once looked at people my age … well, they’re wrong.

The late, great Satchel Paige said, “Age is a case of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it don’t matter.” Forget for a moment that he’s dead, which negates the argument somewhat … that’s a really cool quote.

And now, it’s a rallying cry for me. Although I can’t stop you from thinking I’m old, I sure as hell can stop me from thinking I’m old.

Sadly, there are men my age who perpetuate the stereotype that makes us all look ancient and out of touch, and I’d like to address that if I may.

For starters, we should never wear “jorts” – at any time, under any circumstance.

Jorts, of course, are blue jean shorts. I’m pretty sure they were created as a joke, but enough jackasses took the joke seriously that jorts became a thing. I cringe every time I see some poor bastard running around in truncated denim.

You’re not Daisy Duke, buddy, so go home and change.

Then there are sandals (or mandals).

I, for one, never have and never will wear sandals. I think they look ridiculous on men. If you’re wandering around the Middle East healing people then I guess they’re OK, but otherwise nobody wants to see man toes.

And the whole socks worn with sandals thing is horrifying in its own way.

Mandals, I assume, exist to let the pigs breathe, so socks defeat the entire purpose.

Here’s a rule of thumb; if you wear socks with sandals, you’re going to look like a dumbass.

Remember the wisdom of Batman: “It’s not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me.” No one wants to be defined by wearing socks and sandals.

Also, don’t wear really bright white athletic shoes with really bright white socks, or dress shoes and dark socks with shorts.

The latter is more an issue with men in their late 60s and beyond, but I’ve noticed the former among my age group.

I can’t quite put my finger on what makes the bright white sock/shoe combo scream “old,” but it does.

On a related note, don’t call athletic shoes “sneakers” or “tennis shoes.” Both terms will result in getting at least one check on the old man box. In fact, just be aware of language in general any time you’re around millennials. For example, when they use the word “cornhole,” just know that it doesn’t mean what you think it means.

Music choices are also a sign of aging.

I’m proud to say I’m a fan of modern alternative music, and there is not a day that goes by when I don’t listen to the Ramones and AC/DC. So if you tend to skew towards 1970s “light rock” or “soft rock” or whatever they call that crap, we can never be friends.

Playing an Air Supply or Bread song calls for an ass-kicking … I’m just telling you.

And when you talk about the old days (mainly the 1970s and 1980s), do it either ironically or as a point of reference.

Don’t long for them.

When you say something like, “I remember back when there were only three TV channels and we didn’t have remote controls … we had to get up and change the channels manually,” no one cares.

There are also people who remember polio, Joseph McCarthy and a thin Orson Welles, but there’s no real point in bringing all that up now.

Look – I’m not running from my age. I get that I’m in the third quarter of the football game of my life. Still, I don’t feel old.

I’m in better physical shape now than I was 20 years ago.

My mind is still relatively sharp – I’ve yet to wander out onto the porch naked (unless it was planned), and I only forget to shower once or twice a year.

But more importantly, I don’t walk around in jorts and mandals, sing along with Neal Sedaka, or talk about how the 1970s were a simpler, better time.

I’ve gotten older, but I haven’t gotten old.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna crank up “Back In Black” as loud as it’ll go before watching “Matlock” and then taking a nap.

Funny how you can remember things that happened decades ago but can’t recall what you had for breakfast the day before.

This happens to me a lot, especially when my mind wanders back to grammar school.

I can still see Miss Baker’s hairspray-encrusted beehive – the light dancing off it as the sun beamed through the small window in the main door of my first grade classroom.

At that moment, she was the most beautiful woman in the world. Matronly, yes, but it worked for her.

Then there was the time I was with my mother at a department store. We saw a janitor walk into the main restroom and quickly scurry back out, shouting, “Who done this? Who done this thing?”

And yet what I remember more clearly than almost anything else is the story of the first Thanksgiving, which I heard from my Uncle Dwight. He was the “funny” uncle, the one that would often show up at our house wearing a muddy, orange jumpsuit with stenciled numbers on the back. Plus, he always drank sodas from a paper bag.

Whatever the case, in keeping with the season, I’d like to share the story with you today. It might not be exactly how I remember it, but it’s how I want to remember it.

THE FIRST THANKSGIVING

As you know, Native Americans were already living in what we now call the United States at the time of the first Thanksgiving. Back then, it was just called Native America.

This changed when the Pilgrims, who were tired of living under the tyrannical rule of King LeBron James and Marie Antoinette, decided to leave for the new world, so they loaded up on three ships – the Nina, Pinto and Santa Lucia, and made their way to Plymouth Rock. Once there, and with the help of the Mayflower moving company, they unloaded all their stuff.

The head Pilgrim was John Smith, a soldier, explorer, governor (and later kicker for the New England Patriots). At first he was disliked by some of the Native Americans, and at some point they wanted to kill him because he talked a lot and was boring as hell.

But just as one of the Native American leaders was about to hit him in the head with a lacrosse stick, Pocahontas intervened.

Pocahontas was later portrayed eloquently – and I’ll go so far as to say accurately – in that Disney movie where she hung out with a talking hummingbird and Mel Gibson, who we now know is an asshole.

Not sure what happened next, but the Pilgrims and Native Americans finally started getting along, so much so that Smith and Pocahontas even dated briefly. (Things never got serious, though, and they stayed friends right up until she got married to a guy who dealt in tobacco. His name was, I believe, R.J. Reynolds).

The Pilgrims and Native Americans decided to celebrate their newfound friendship with a feast, and figured they’d hold it on Thursday in late November to coincide with NFL games involving the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys.

The menu at the first Thanksgiving featured turkey, cornbread stuffing, sweet peas, squash casserole, green beans, mac and cheese, garlic mashed potatoes, tater tots, Vienna sausages, cranberry sauce (the good kind from the can), buttermilk biscuits, crescent rolls, Red Lobster-style cheddar biscuits, giblet gravy, sweet potato pie, pumpkin pie, Pringles and Easy Cheese.

Hot dogs were made available for the children.

(Vegetarians and vegans were out of luck because, in those days, neither the Pilgrims nor Native Americans went for that shit.)

Anyway, this was all held at the pavilion at the Plymouth Rock Community Center, and it was truly a special time for everyone involved. The kids jumped rope and played kickball together, while the adults decided that diversity would be their strength, even though the Native Americans were from Native America, and the Pilgrims were from Pilgrimia.

This ritual was held every year for decades, but lost some of its luster when Wal-Mart began having Black Friday sales on Thursday. And according to the literature, the town’s only Arby’s location was open half a day on Thanksgiving, so a lot of people ate there as a change of pace.

Needless to say, the holiday has changed much in the billions of years since the Pilgrims and Native Americans first broke bread.

But my hope to you and yours is that on this Thanksgiving if you break bread, someone is there to fix it.

Amen.

By Scott Adamson
Adamsonmedia.com

“Justice League,” which opened nationwide on Thursday, is first and foremost a study of justice.

And when justice is part of a league, there are bylaws and dues, as well as games against tough opponents.

This is the main plot of the major motion picture, but the men and woman who make up the organization have their own stories which you may or may not know.

Batman, of course, dresses like a bat because his parents were killed in an alley coming out the back of a theater. I think they were watching “Left Behind” starring Nicolas Cage, so they left early.

Their murderer, Joe Chill, hated the movie so much he acted out in a most unfortunate way.

This made Bruce Wayne, suddenly a rich orphan, sad and mad. So, instead of becoming an ass hat, like a lot of rich people do, he became a crime fighter. And also a bit of an ass hat, at least as played by Ben Affleck.

Wonder Woman is an Amazon, but since she’s the most powerful of her kind I would go so far as to say she is Amazon Prime. According to Wikipedia, Amazon Prime brought in $6.4 billion in earnings last year.

You go, girl!

Wonder Woman, by the way, is Gal Gadot, who you may remember from “Wonder Woman.”

Flash (played by that guy in Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them) is a very fast person who doesn’t have a lot of friends because he’s a goober. His dad (played by the big naked blue guy from “Watchman”) is in prison for killing his mother, even though “Fantastic Beasts” actor doesn’t think he did it.)

Aquaman lives in the water but, in this movie, does not ride a giant seahorse. That kinda pissed me off because I really wanted to see that.

I don’t think this role is played by an actor. Best I can tell, he really is Aquaman.

And Cyborg is a former football player who became basically just a head and some shoulders but was hooked up to a box that turned him into a machine.

Sounds a little far-fetched, but whatever.

Ray Fisher plays Cyborg. You don’t recall seeing him in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” because he lost out on the role that eventually went to John Boyega, who is also in “Pacific Rim: Uprising.”

I’m looking forward to that.

And finally there is Superman, who some people thought was dead at the end of “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” but actually just didn’t feel good and needed some extended bed rest.

Returning for his third appearance as the Man of Steel is the guy who used to date Penny from “The Big Bang Theory.”

They must fight Steppenwolf, who had eight gold albums and 12 Billboard Hot 100 singles before turning into an absolute dick. He is played by Computer Generated Imagery, one of the busiest actors in blockbusters, and controls an army of giant mosquito-looking things (also played by CGI).

Anyway, that’s basically the spoiler-free, opinion-free review. There is plenty of dialogue and scenes involving the characters, and if you like this sort of thing, you’ll enjoy it.

If you don’t, you probably won’t. I mean, don’t go in expecting Schindler’s List because Liam Neeson is nowhere to be found, although I did see him in a trailer for an upcoming movie where he’s talking to a bad guy on the phone.

But isn’t he always?

Also, since I could not obtain image rights to stills from the film, I have provided my own original artwork which is embedded in this review.