Brendan Fraser Needs a New Agent …

Like his acting career, Tarzan is barely hanging on …

While I was taking a stroll during my lunch break, I saw a Brendan Fraser billboard here in Chelsea promoting the already-released Journey to the Center of the Earth. It got me thinking about his new movie that’s coming out tomorrow called, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. I haven’t seen either of those films, so my thoughts are completely unsubstantiated, but then again, these two movies probably don’t require that objective of a mind to guess its main intention: try to make some money off of a very loose storyline.

Here’s a few things I don’t get about the movies themselves, and specifically speaking, Brendan Fraser.

First, the movies. If the producers and the distribution company really wanted to make some money off of a questionable storyline, why Brendan Fraser? I know he’s got a nice jaw and he’s shown glimpses of his acting range in such classics as Encino Man and that Tarzan flick, but really? He’s a cash cow? Not only that, but their marketing stinks. The Mummy can market itself because it’s the third installment, but there’s been nothing presented to make me wonder why this movie is worth $10. Sure they have Jet Li, but he was a hot commodity about seven years ago. And Journey to the Center of the Earth—no compelling emotion comes out, not even if it’s 3-D.

Not his proudest moment …

Now, to Brendan Fraser. Why would a guy who has actually does have some acting chops (School Ties, With Honors, Crash) continue to roll out films that require nothing but a marketable face and broad shoulders? Not only that, but why be part of two movies back-to-back that seem to have the same character as the protagonist? I’m starting to wonder who his agent is. His agent must’ve called him up one day and said something along these lines:

“Hey Brendan, I’ve got a great proposition. Why not make tons of money by simply playing the same exact character for two films in a row? This might mean you might lose some acting cred and probably a good screenplay won’t come your way this year, but think about it, just a few months of screaming, punching and jumping into sand pits and voila, two fat paycheck.”

Apparently, this was an attractive offer, and who can blame Fraser … I mean, would you pass up the chance to be in a 3-D movie?

One potentially positive note is that Fraser is currently in pre-production to play Gung-Ho for a highly anticipated G.I. Joe film (caveat, same director did Mummy). If this movie’s good, all sins are forgiven… except for that Tarzan movie.

You Should Be On Facebook

***a blog I wrote for SavvyDaddy

Trust me, this article isn’t some kind of grassroots promotion to get our readers on our Facebook page or to help Facebook attain more traffic (I think they’re doing fine without our help). If anything, I’m using the whole idea of Facebook to drive a point. I could have just as easily used other examples such as Myspace, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter or whatever social network du jour that exists out there to convey this simple message: Get familiar with social networking on the Web, because if you’re lagging behind now, well, your kids are going to blow you out of the water.

Our generation was born into the inception and the growing concept of the Internet. By simple process of deduction, that would make our children the first generation to grow up completely immersed in what we know as the golden age of the Internet. If you were born circa 60’s, 70’s and early 80’s, you didn’t touch a computer until early teens, and you weren’t embracing the Internet until late teens or your twenties. We grew up looking at the computer as a pragmatic machine used for data storage, compiling file documents and processing information. Our kids are growing up looking at the computer as an outlet to their social life. We are modern, they are postmodern. In other words, we are cavemen of the Internet times.

… to continue click here

Judd Apatow on Asian Gangs … (and other non sequiturs)

Not sure why, but while reading the recent GQ article about Seth Rogen and his new flick, Pineapple Express, this quote from producer/director extraordinaire, Judd Apatow, made me laugh out loud.

Seth Rogen

“That’s the debate that Seth and I have been having for the last six years,” says Apatow, who does not dispute Rogen’s characterization of him as an ‘anti-pot person.’ “He thinks we’re making a pot movie, and I think we’re making an anti-pot movie. In my head, [Pineapple] is clearly a story of how pot leads to Asian gangs trying to murder you.”

Apparently a very scary Asian gang

Other stuff that’s kind of funny:

- My buddy KW was twittering, and this is what was tweeted: “Also, if someone has acne on their chest, is it called ‘chest-ne’?? And what if the person’s name is Kenny?”

Kenny Chesney

- Then I brought KW’s observation to a colleague of mine, PS, and this was his response: “At the risk of being slightly too literal … acne on the face is called acne, not facene.  Acne on the neck is called acne, not neckne. So my answer to your question about acne on the chest is: no, it’s not OK. It’s an abomination.”

- Lastly, this article on Slate is written by a guy who is obviously bitter against Michael Chang’s tennis career. Still, it’s a funny take on how Chang’s rise to tennis stardom stunted his own dreams.

The legendary Michael Chang

Does the “Pregnant Man” Redefine Dads?

Something’s not quite right …

I discuss this in detail on the www.savvydaddy.com site (or access the direct story link here). In any case, let me give you a teaser:

I’m sure I just opened up a can of worms, but with the recent publicity surrounding the photos of the infant daughter of the “pregnant man,” I couldn’t pass this up. Not only is this story so multi-faceted in regards to specific hot button issues, but it also made me think about my defined perception of fatherhood.

Thomas Beatie, 34, is a transgender male who first entered the world as a female named Tracy Langondino. Beatie, who once competed in a Miss Teen USA Pageant while he was a woman, made the decision as an adult to legally become a man. After taking testosterone treatments and surgically removing his breasts, Beatie began life as a man. However, the complexity of this whole story leans on the fact that Beatie decided to retain his female sexual reproductive organs. Later on in his new life as a transgender male, Beatie met his wife Nancy, 46, who already had two daughters from a previous relationship.

Although they wanted children together, Nancy already had a hysterectomy done before they had met. So, in a surprise twist, Beatie underwent artificial insemination, which led to the birth of their daughter in late June. With his appearance on Oprah while pregnant, the news of the baby’s birth, and now the release of his photos to People magazine, the publicity storm has become a full-fledged hurricane.

As a dad in the traditional sense of the word, what does this story mean to me? I’ll be honest, at first I thought the story was a complete gaffe and a plagiarism of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s forgettable movie, Junior. Part of me wondered if a journalist in Oregon got duped and was reporting on a guy who just wanted to get his five minutes of fame. Well, not only did Beatie get his five minutes of fame, but he also kicked the doors of convention.

Beatie wrote an essay a few months back for The Advocate, a gay and lesbian magazine, stating, “Our situation ultimately will ask everyone to embrace the gamut of human possibility and to define for themselves what is normal.” He also added that “Wanting to have a biological child is neither a male nor female desire, but a human desire.”

I agree that I’ve always wanted kids, but never did I ever want to actually birth a child. I also had a desire to be a dad, but was under the idea that the difference between being a dad and a mom was based firmly on the fact that both have unique and distinguishable roles. Sure, you can blur the lines of who reads the bedtime stories, carries out the discipline or gives the bird and the bees talk. But can you blur the lines of who actually does the child birthing—which, last time I checked is the natural role of the mother? Or, how do you blur the lines of what differentiates a mother and a father in its most primitive form, when that which needs to be blurred defines who you are as a male and a female?

For the rest of the article, go visit SavvyDaddy.

Christian Bale in Jail?

Christian Bale’s recent arrest for assault will undoubtedly bring countless papers to use headlines that will be full of intentional puns and other obvious assertions. Here are some I could envision (starting with the most rudimentary):

“The Dark Knight”

“The Dark Night”

“Christian Bale Goes Psycho”

“London Psycho”

“Battery Man”

“Bruce Wane”

“Christian Bail”

“3:10 to Prison”

“The Misogynist”

“Christian Bale Wails”

The Dark Knight grounded …

**note: the sad thing is, I wouldn’t be surprised if Fox (or another Murdoch entity) or the tabloids use these types of headlines. I don’t want credit.

Gary Busey and Astro Boy (Need I Say More …)

The videos on this site are hilarious. Basically, it’s Gary Busey giving entrepreneurial insights. Here’s a tiny url of the site: http://tinyurl.com/63gbjr. Portfolio wrote an article about this viral campaign for GotvMail. The founder of the company and conceiver of the idea had a couple great quotes that sum up the video campaign:

“One finance guy told me, ‘this is the greatest marketing campaign I’ve seen since Priceline used William Shatner.’”

“I still don’t think he (Busey) knows what he did. His agent was the one who was involved, who could focus him a little bit. He’s an interesting character. And he knows nothing about business.”

This just made my launch into the weekend that much more enjoyable.

By the way, I bit the bullet and I’m officially a Twitter(er) at http://twitter.com/wonki78. My buddy KW designed the profile pic which I think makes me look like Astro Boy. Compare below:

The All Important Bucket List

This is where I would keep my list

Every person should create a bucket list (things one should do or accomplish before their impending demise). I’m starting to create one, which indicates two things:

- I’m getting old(er)

- I’m a nerd

I don’t know if anyone has ever written guidelines about how to create a bucket list, but that would be a helpful thing. For instance, a bucket list should never be too long. If you have a list of more than 500 things to accomplish before you die, well, it’s not only difficult, but you’ll be so busy trying to check off every activity that you may not enjoy the ho-hum of life. My theory is that everyone needs a little monotony and stagnancy, which makes those special moments even that much more enjoyable.

Also, you should create a list that’s realistic. For instance, “travel to the moon” might be realistic to a billionaire or Lance Bass, but to most people it’s a crazy stretch of the imagination. However, who am I to say you shouldn’t dream big, but a bucket list should be reasonable to some degree.

I can’t reveal my whole bucket list yet (because I’ve only just begun), but here are some starters:

- Eat the best burgers that NYC can provide (here’s an article that gives me a great start, which my buddy DP mentions in his blog as well)

- Go on a cross-country excursion in an RV

- See U2 in concert

- Shake Albert Pujols hand and if possible try to get an artifact used by him (batting gloves, cap, wristband, jockstrap…)

- Travel to Ireland and have a real authentic Guinness from a local pub

Here are some recent pics of EJ. I have to admit, this kid is so cuddly and adorable that I can’t get enough of his cooing.

The Never-Ending Story (that was the All-Star game)

I went to sleep at 2 a.m. because I watched the longest baseball game ever. By the 11^th inning, the novelty of the All-Star game being played in the last year in the House that Ruth built kind of dissipated. However, a few storylines kept me engaged, thus the reason why I stayed up and watched until the 15th inning … in no particular order:

- I wanted to see how many errors Dan Uggla could accumulate in an All-Star game. He ended up with three, but was very close to four.

- I wanted to see how many times a Major Leaguer can come up to bat with a man on third and less than two outs and still fail to drive in a run.

- I wanted to see what Terry Francona would do after Kazmir (his last pitcher) could no longer throw. Apparently, JD Drew would have been the next-in-line to pitch. Now that would have been worth watching.

- I wanted to see how much irrational banter Tim McCarver and Joe Buck could have as the clock neared morning.

In any case, it was an enjoyable All-Star game, although I’m feeling the pain of its long duration. Here were the highlights of the game worth mentioning:

- Pujols had two nice hits, but got a taste of the Ichiro cannon arm

- Mariano looked very much the invincible closer he has been for a decade

- Russell Martin made a few unbelievable plays at home plate

- JD Drew lived up to his potential … finally

Again, A-Rod disappointed in the limelight, and although the game was riveting, it was kind of anti-climactic to see the last 7 innings played by names that aren’t a household name. As much as I like the play of Nate McClouth, Ryan Ludwick and Carlos Quentin, they just didn’t raise my blood temperature at one in the morning. Oh well, at least it was a game that everyone played to win.

Seeing Weekend Light at the End of a Work Tunnel (and other proverbial musings) …

I think this guy was trying to do a shoddy rendition of the NBA’s “There Can Only Be One” campaign where they merged two NBA players’ faces onto one screen. Safe to say, this guy probably isn’t entering a film contest any time soon … still, it’s worth a chuckle.

Interesting take on the movie WALL-E … basically it contends that the Pixar film too simply associates the earth’s ecological decline with the obesity of humanity. My theory is that Andrew Stanton wanted to use his interpretation of the future as a caricature of what can happen if we become inconsolable over-consumers. Basically, he was aggrandizing that point by creating a dismal canvas of the earth and an amplified view of the human state. Actually, the previous observations are just the smaller narratives underneath the meta-narrative of how we all need relationships to truly feel alive.

My little guy* is traveling to St. Louis with his aunt and not coming back until Monday night. Am I going to miss him? Absolutely. Am I going to catch up on some sleep, sneak away on some matinees with wifey and eat deplorable food? Most definitely.

My little guy with a big smile …

I know eating at trendy restaurants is so … not trendy, but I bit the bullet and had a nice lunch with HK at Elmo’s this week. The Elmo burger and fries are okay, but HK’s cobb salad was envied. It was a good meal, but nothing to write home about, thus I’m just writing about it on a blog.

Last night I stuffed a Choco Pie into my bag to surprise myself with a snack today. I left the bag at home and all I can think about is that poor Choco Pie, melting in my bag in all of its crème-filled chocolate goodness.

Mm, choco goodness.

What would you rate as the most disturbing thing that occurs in an office atmosphere (from the following)?

- Clipping nails
- Constant gabbing by somebody on a personal call
- Getting invited to be a LinkedIn or Facebook friend by a colleague you don’t know
- Awkward elevator banter

Be thankful this guy isn’t your cubicle-mate.

Unlikely Homerun Champs, Revised Look on Heaven and Food for Thought …

Homerun chatter …

Chase Utley doesn’t have the prototypical soma-type to be a homerun champ, but somehow he’s doing it. Here’s my list of the top three most unlikely guys who would be surprising homerun champs, but not completely unbelievable:

1. Ichiro Suzuki—He’s a skinny leadoff slap hitter, but by his own admittance, Suzuki says he could be a homerun machine if he wasn’t more concentrated on getting hits. Some managers who’ve seen him hit during batting practice state that Suzuki could become whatever hitter he wants. Even if he couldn’t hit the ball out of the park with the frequency of today’s big hitters, he does have one homerun that’ll be remembered for a long time (remember his inside the park home run in last year’s all star game?).
2. Rick Ankiel—He used to be a pitcher best known for his inability to find the catcher’s mitt. Miraculously, he’s resurrected his baseball career as an outfielder with an above-average arm and a sweet left-handed swing. He’s on pace to hit nearly 40 homeruns in what is his second year in the league as a non-pitcher. Hitting behind the most-feared hitter in baseball probably doesn’t hurt his chances.
3. Josh Hamilton—a former substance abuser winning the HR crown, wait… by substance we mean non-steroid-type drugs, such as heroin. In any case, Hamilton is a feel-good story of a player who got a second chance after literally falling off the face of the earth, and is making most of this opportunity.

Ankiel watching another baseball take flight, while thinking, “It’s good to hit after Pujols!”

Just Like Heaven …

Good interview and articulation of the “old” view that Christians have on heaven. N.T. Wright is a brilliant theologian, and it is statements like the one below that should really challenge the Christian worldview when it comes to the “afterlife.” In other words, we need to deconstruct our passed-down way of thinking and truly look at Scriptures through fresh eyes. It’s truly startling to see how much of our Christian worldview has been influenced by Greek culture and of course the Enlightenment period. The conversation picks up after TIME asks Wright, why do we have the current view of heaven?

Wright: It has, originally, to do with the translation of Jewish ideas into Greek. The New Testament is deeply, deeply Jewish, and the Jews had for some time been intuiting a final, physical resurrection. They believed that the world of space and time and matter is messed up, but remains basically good, and God will eventually sort it out and put it right again. Belief in that goodness is absolutely essential to Christianity, both theologically and morally. But Greek-speaking Christians influenced by Plato saw our cosmos as shabby and misshapen and full of lies, and the idea was not to make it right, but to escape it and leave behind our material bodies. The church at its best has always come back toward the Hebrew view, but there have been times when the Greek view was very influential.

TIME: Can you give some historical examples?

Wright: Two obvious ones are Dante’s great poetry, which sets up a Heaven, Purgatory and Hell immediately after death, and Michelangelo’s Last Judgment in the Sistine chapel, which portrays heaven and hell as equal and opposite last destinations. Both had enormous influence on Western culture, so much so that many Christians think that is Christianity.

Food for thought …

What foods trigger the most creativity? I’m sure there’s a study that I can google, but it’ll probably spit out a list of foods that I’m not too fond of. Speaking about non-fondness, if some food scientist ever proves that Durian can increase brain activity by 300%, I would still abstain from that food. It’s got spikes—that’s God’s way of saying please do not consume. Currently, my favorite go-to food is cereal. I’ve been rotating from yogurt-flavored Cheerios to Puffins to Raisin Bran (not particularly my fave) to Honey Bunches of Oats.

The spikes are a not-so-subtle hint …

Once you get past the spikes, it’s still not an attractive treat …

My sentiments exactly