Things That Do Not Suck: Late Twenties Edition

Good morning, Clint.

It probably is a good morning for you...given the absolute destruction of my Echo Base Tauntauns at the hands of your Dr. Kenneth Noisewater. This just about says it all...

Very sad.

And yet, it is a new day, a new week, and yes, for me, a new year. Which got me thinking about things that have not sucked my entire life (prepare yourself for an overly sentimental post). So here is my top five things that did not suck as I was growing up. Note: things that formerly did not suck...may in fact suck now. Consider yourself warned.

5. Cartoons

I spent a lot of time watching cartoons. Like...a LOT of time. They have informed basically everything about what I think is funny, impossible, and socially acceptable all at the same time. And surprisingly I find that I learned a lot of stuff from cartoons. For instance, opera. I had never even heard opera until the famous "kill da wabbit" routine and the literal adaptation of the "Barber of Seville". Thanks, Bugs. Then there's the literary stuff. Chuck Jones, my cartooning hero, made a couple of really cool adaptations of books & short stories into cartoons. He was the one that did The Phantom Tollbooth and also Rudyard Kipling's Riki Tiki Tavi. Cartoons about books made me want to read the books...which I often did. I also need to give Disney props for making movies that got me into history and legend. The Sword in the Stone is by far my favorite Disney movie...and probably cartoon...of all time. The story of an awkward orphan who becomes a king because he was always destined to be. As a teenager...I loved it. I went out and bought The Once and Future King the minute that I found out that's what it was based on. It's still one of my favorite stories ever. Also...I am fairly certain I understand what irony is because of Wile E. Coyote. SIDE NOTE: Isn't it awesome how youtube has all this stuff?

4. Buffalo Wings

Do I really need to explain that? Wait for it...

...there. Now I'm hungry.

3. Reading Books

Especially good ones. Reading is something that I never really thought I enjoyed any more than the average person...until I got beaten up in the 5th grade for reading something that was not assigned for class in addition to my already present dorkdom and unpopularity(true story).

Lifestyle choice.

However sad and depressing that sounds, it gave me the realization that I did, in fact, like to read. I think it starts with the books themselves. I often find myself in bookstores just kind of wandering around. The smell is the best part...and then I like the feel of pages being flipped through my fingers. Of course, the stuff inside isn't so bad either. What's that? You want to know which books changed my life? Sure, I'd be happy to share that with you.

1. My Name is Asher Lev - Chaim Potok

2. All the Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy

3. The Sun Also Rises -Ernest Hemmingway

4. Dead Certainties -Simon Schama

5. Gun, With Occasional Music - Jonathan Lethem

6. Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger (I mean what teenager wasn't changed by that book?)

7. Hatchet - Gary Paulsen

8. Redwall - Brian Jacques

9. Hamlet -William Shakespeare

10. Inferno - Dante Alighieri

I guess the last two are technically a play and poem respectively, but still. Books. YESSSSSS.

2. History (sorry, Clint...had to)

History is amazing. The reason it is amazing is because it is the record of what people can do. Great and terrible. Heroic and villainous. That is earth-shattering to me. Every time I learn something new about the amazing or horrifying things that people do my mind is blown. Now, this is the only way that history works for me. I think that it's the way it should be presented as well. I'm not a fan of those Civil War guys that only know about the "westward flanking move" that "lost the battle of who-gives-rats'-ass". But the story of the freed slaves of the USCT that earned the respect of their white officers and fellow soldiers through sheer bravery and fortitude at the Battle of Nashville...that, my friend, is totally worth hearing! I think that's why things like "Band of Brothers", "Rome", and "The Tudors" have become so popular. It makes history very personal. I think that's important. The thing that makes us who we are is entirely made up of where we've been. This also directs our future, but doesn't predict it. I absolutely hate it when people say that history repeats itself. Ugh. I heard a Kurt Vonnegut quote the other day that I liked: "History is merely a list of surprises. It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again." Because of the nature of people, we can never repeat the past...we change, society changes...we can do similar things...but the challenges that face us are different. To say that history repeats itself removes the special circumstances surrounding each event. It demeans the event to the point where it's only a date in a history book that can be referenced later for misuse in government policy (i.e. Vietnam on Iraq/Afghanistan)...but I digress...

1. PBS's Educational Programming

I'm fairly certain that PBS is responsible for the fact that I am not a complete moron. From the moment I began watching "Sesame Street" I was being bombarded with words, nouns, numbers, and everything that Preschool was supposed to teach me...but years before I got there. I learned about sweaters and break dancing (yes, break dancing) from Mr. Rogers. I just loved it. And as I got older I started watching things like "Bill Nye: The Science Guy" because science does, in fact, rule. So I guess that's the reason why I love that stuff so much...I mean it was TV that was smart and made you smarter. Why can't TV be like that anymore?

So that's that...enjoy this incredibly long and sentimental list of things that do not suck.

PS-Free buffalo wings on your birthday? That doesn't suck either.