Hopes for 2010

Here are some things I hope for 2010.

I hope that giant baby in the picture above doesn’t eat the earth. At least until 2012.

I hope that Lil Wayne doesn’t lose his edge now that he is in fact the greatest rapper alive.  There are already signs that point to complacency.

I hope that we can wake up to the undeniable human tragedies happening around the world – can we continue to ignore things just because they’re not in our back yard?

I hope my team figures out how to make low-interest loans to people with high risk profiles in a sustainable way (i.e. we don’t lose our shirt so we can make a lot of loans in 2011 and beyond).

I hope I can fully abstain from cursing before Ava asks me what a shit is.

A List of Lists of the Decade

The decade isn’t over.  If you are a numbers purist, you know it won’t be over for another year.*  How-ev-ah, I don’t math, and most of you don’t math, either.  Or grammar.  So let’s do some “Best of Decade” lists!  This is inspired by my fraternity brother Bill S. Liston, Esq. 

Most Underrated TV Shows of the Decade

5. West Wing. How can a commercial and critical success be underrated?  Not only was the show a great poly sci lesson (and not nearly as liberal as it is remembered), but it was incredibly prescient.  The Josh Lyman / Rahm Emanuel similarities alone are amazing – former White House understudy takes unknown minority congressman and turns him into presidential material and then President.  I actually thought about doing advocacy for a career, and it started with West Wing.

4. Glee. You say sarcastically – great list, Reynolds – everyone knows of #5 and #4 is not only a smash hit, it has already led to its own Idol-esque reality competition.  The reason Glee is underrated is not enough guys get past their macho predilections to give this show a fighting chance.  And it is worth it.  The music has already revitalized the concept of Glee Club across America. Jane Lynch plays the role of Sue Sylvester so masterfully that she deserves to be damed (sp?) like Judy Dench.  I don’t LOL much at TV, but “Sue C’s it” is the best Alpha Female antihero we’ve seen in a long time, and her understated dialogue is truly laugh out loud. 

3. Rome. Out of this world acting, scripting, choreography, etc… If you netflix (yes, I just used it as a verb), netflix Rome and watch it after you put the kids to bed.  Talk about an emotional investment in characters.

2. Deadwood. Poor HBO shows.  Deadwood is hard to watch, unless you love the grimy moral turpitude that defines the wild west.  I want to say that Deadwood is authentic as it gets, although not being 250 years old I have no frame of reference.  Best dialogue ever – beautiful prose, sometimes in old english, interspersed with enough f-bombs to make a frat boy blush.  Which I am, and did, on many occasion.  Al Swearengen is my favorite character of any medium ever. Note – the show is the single most NSFW or most other places of anything on this list.

1. The Wire. Maybe the finest show ever made. Problem was, the creators went out of their way to give it as little mass appeal as possible.  The story revolved around the city, not archetypal characters.  The actors were unknown brits, aussies, and african-americans, none of which sell well to the flyover states.  The dialogue was so authentic, it was hard to follow.  And they killed off everyone’s favorite characters, seemingly on principle.  But believe me when I say – it is the best show ever, and if you can make it until the end of the first season, you’ll be an acolyte, too.

This I Believe

I was lucky enough (and self-promoting enough, I guess) to do This I Believe on Houston Public Radio (HPR) a few months ago. It’s all sorts of Social Work-ey. Here is the link (click on the little play button under the picture):

This I Believe

I got to go up to the station and hang out with Paul Pendergraft and get a tour of the place. KUHF-HPR is a gem and it also happens to reside on the best campus in the country. Contrary to popular belief, it isn’t too cool for school. Get it? Eh? Never mind…

Anyway, people say the University of Houston is the Harvard of the South. It’s not. Harvard is the University of Houston of the North. Word to your mother on that.

Even though I read the essay like a nervous 3rd grader, Paul asked me back for My Source for the fall campaign.  Brandon Wheeler, a colleague who nerds out on HPR, and I went and chatted about why we value public radio. Here is that link, and scroll down a bit:

My Source

We might have been higher if we wore bow ties.

(Home for the day today with baby duty, but baby went sleepy.  Is this post too self-aggrandizing?  I thought about adding a poll with that question but don’t really want to know the answer.)

Old People Need Facebook Rules

(Pic from here)

I’m sorry, but it’s true.  I’m including myself on that category.  This “FaceSpace Interwebs” thing is so convoluted with its shifting social norms and unwritten rules that I’m never sure if I’m doing it right, or if all the 23 year olds are laughing at me.  You’re either laughing or nodding your head, and if it is the latter, then listen closely – it’s not your fault.  Look at me, old person.  It’s not your fault.  It’s not your fault.  (Language on the youtube clip = NSFW, and that means “not safe for work”, you old person.)

It isn’t our fault.  The ground is shifting and we’re just trying to keep up and maybe see what people from our high school look like now.  Admit it.

Here is a series of questions you should consider asking yourself.  I don’t know the answers.  Maybe one of the 20-somethings can answer them in the comments section below?  Come on, whippersnappers!  We old people need Facebook Rules.  Would it be cooler if we called them Fac3buk Rulez? (No.)

I Heart the 80s

Of all the trends in recent memory, this 1980s cultural renaissance has to be the most fun.  The music, the movies, the hair, the tights.  This column could just be a bulleted list of great stuff from the 80s, but here is something even more interesting: while many things contributed to this trend, I think there were a few “tipping points”, and those tipping points may have been Maddox Pitt Jolie and Natalie Portman.

By the way, calling the 80s a “cultural renaissance” probably has Leonardo DaVinci and the rest of the Mutant Ninja Turtles rolling over in their graves.  See?  Even 80s jokes are more fun!

We’ll get to Maddox and Natalie.  But first, have you noticed that there are three distinct age cohorts celebrating the 80s revival?  People who are now around 40 were the 80s.  A People who are now around 30 witnessed the tail end of the 80s.  I’m a smidgen over 30, so in 1989 I was 11.  People who are around 20 have no personal knowledge of the 80s.  They’ve created an understanding of the 80s, but it is based on other peoples’ memories and relics of popular culture.

The Ava Paradox

Our little Ava learned a word yesterday!  That word is “hot”, and she knows it means to not touch something.  She deploys it for a number of uses, but as a loving and vicarious-living parent, I’d like to believe she knows precisely what it means and just likes the sound of it.  How cool is that?  Let’s go to the video evidence:

This is where you say – this is a trap.  Josh can’t do anything without being preachy and morally superior about his social work values, and the name of the post has “paradox” in it.  He’s going to rant about the disparities in early childhood development between socio-economic classes and he’s using his super-cute baby like a trojan horse to draw me in for some condescending lecture.  You’re darn right I am.

This post might be considered “Emo-Gladwellian-Banduran”.  While Malcom Gladwell (“Malc” to us in the biz, and I may or may not just have made that up) approaches context and timing of personal development with wonder and awe, someone who is more emo might flip the script and talk about the inherent social injustice in early childhood development and the corresponding probable life trajectory.  (Definition of emo here, if needed.) That person might do so while listening to My Chemical Romance.  That person might keep referring back to Albert Bandura. So Emo-Gladwellian-Banduran it is, and no more highfalutin words.  Not many, anyway.  Allow myself to explain…myself.

Sports Faux Pas(es)

Be a real man, man.

Alexander Manly. Truly a Man's Man.

There are certain immutable rules of true manly behaviour. Every lad should be taught these rules as, well, a lad. There is something wrong with sports, and the world, that there are so many flagrant violations of man decorum.  Let us proceed.

The eyes of Texas are upon you.

Violation 1: Being a fan of a school you didn’t go to. This in my mind is perhaps the worst sports faux pas a person can make. You have absolutely no right to adopt a school for sports purposes. This applies to  83% of Texas Longhorn fans. I joke, I joke! Not really. Be a real man and stick to your Coogs. It matters not if your parents or your cousin or someone you knew from 3rd grade who has accepted your Facebook friend request (what we in the biz call a “pity acceptance”) went to said school. It doesn’t matter if the team is great in EA Sports games or if their unis are “off the chain” or if your favorite pro came from that school. Unless you’ve given a school money (and money for beer from the concession stand does not count ), you cannot in good conscious claim the school. This leads to the one natural exception – if you sent your kid to the school, you can claim it. Otherwise, you’re in violation.

I must protect this office building!

Violation 2: Wearing Under Armour if you’re over 12. File this under the “it might have been permissible 4 years ago” category. The violation might also be called “Wearing Under Armour While Caucasian”. Let’s set the record straight – you do not Protect This House. You bench 165. You are not a finely sculpted machine. You probably wear a loose-fitting t-shirt over your compression shirt to hid the spare tire. Stick to the Russell dry-fit shits from Target. Here is some insider information that might be of benefit: the guys that look chiseled with Under Armour on? They look chiseled no matter what. It’s like the hip hugger jeans craze that all girls bought into 8 years ago. Several models started wearing hip huggers and then everyone else did without realizing that if one isn’t ridiculously skinny then one ends up looking like this.  That’s how most of us normal folk look in tight-fitting gear. If you’re under 12, live the dream and wear you some Under Armour. The rest of you – don’t be that guy. Please note that Tapout and Affliction gear is entering this dangerous territory and might be even mo’ worser.

World’s Best Name, World’s Best Man.

Julius Andreas Gimli Arn MacGyver Chewbacka Highlander Elessar-Jankov.

Heck to the yes. Andreas Jankov apparently wasn’t awesome enough so this dude went and got his name legally changed. He’s also a bus driver, which is to say a driver of dozens of school-aged children. Sadly, he couldn’t use “Highlander” in his passport because they ran out of possible characters. I didn’t make that up.

I’m just worried that the authorities accidentally confuse him with known terror suspect Julius Andreas Gimli Arn MacGyver Chewbacka Elessar-Jankov.  The “Highlander” would have made all the difference.  Stupid Sweedish character limits.

Here is a name breakdown, from the Huffington Report:

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