Holiday Movie Marathon: Hobbit 3

The Staples Family is trying to catch up on their movie watching during the usually lazy second week of Winter Break.  These aren't holiday movies.  They are just movies that came out during the holiday season.  Today's Offering is Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies.  Only three of the Staples were able to attend this PG-13 flick.  

I know I risk losing my geek card with the following comment: I have never read any of The Lord of the Rings books.  I have tried.  Believe me.  I own them all.  I've sat down multiple times to try to read them.  But, for some reason, I have not been been able to accomplish that mission.  So I have the unique ability to judge the LOTR franchise of movies as a sci-fi/fantasy movie fan bue without the (sometimes) annoying habit of holding the movies up to the impossible-to-reach standards of the books.  I knew next-to-nothing about the series when I went to see the first movie.  I just knew that people who like the same things I like really liked the books and couldn't wait for the movies.  I still remember when I went to see the first LOTR movie with my father-in-law.  I believe we both had worked all day and were already tired.  We decided to go watch a three-hour movie.  Not a great game plan.  When we walked out, we were silent through most of the parking lot.  Finally I looked at him and asked, "What the heck did we just see?"  "I'm not quite sure."

That is the feeling a lot of people would have about this franchise.  There are bizarre names and places.  There are different kinds of creatures that all look vaguely human.  And there are a lot of crazy plot elements that are essential to grasp, but hard to do so.  For a good stretch of time I thought Saruman and Sauron were the same person because I didn't catch that their names were different.  I was confused by a lot of stuff, especially late at night after a full day of selling furniture.

Fortunately, I didn't give up on the series.  I rewatched the first movie before the second one came out.  I absolutely loved The Two Towers.  I still feel it is the movie of the entire franchise.  The Return of the King won a covered wagon full of Oscars, mostly as a reward for the entire series.  And it had two hundred endings.  I kept thinking it was over and then here came another piece of closure for some third tier character.  I did really enjoy the movies, once I got a handle on everything.  I've seen them on television since then and they hold up well.  They are not my favorite franchise or in my top five - probably not in my top ten, depending on if your count all the Avengers character movies as one franchise or separate ones.

When The Hobbit trilogy came out, my oldest son was really excited to go.  He had started reading the book and his uncles all were big fans of the series.  So the crew of us went and caught the first installment.  I was a little disappointed by much of the movie.  It was a lot of "been there, done that" to the movie.  The landscape and massive scope were not as exciting.  They weren't things we had never experienced before.  And the movie itself took a long time to get going.  There seemed to be a lot of narrative and not a lot of action.  My son, on the other hand, loved it.  He couldn't wait until the second movie came out.  But we, for some reason or another, didn't get to see it.  We bought it on BluRay, but didn't watch it right away.  With PG-13 movies, we have to find times where the younger two kids aren't around.  By the time we finally sat down to watch it, we got a third of the way through and got interrupted.  And then my daughter asked if she could see it.  So we went back and watched the first movie (much better the second time through) and the second movie.  Many people had told me that Desolation of Smaug was better than the first movie.  They were right.  It was more action packed and exciting.  The characters seemed richer.  Although it didn't carry some of the emotional weight of the first movie (I still love the scenes with Bilbo and Thorin at the end of the movie), it was a good quality entry.  None of the Hobbit films come close to the LOTR trilogy, but they are good in their own right.

Now it is time to close the franchise.  The three of us traipsed off to the theater to take in the epic conclusion.  There were some interesting takeaways from the film.  Naturally, be warned about spoilers.  This is not just a generic review as much as a more detailed examination.

1. I think Martin Freeman is brilliant.  I love him in Sherlock.  I think he is an inspired Dr. Watson and a brilliant counterpart to Cumberbatch's Holmes.  I also think was an incredible Bilbo Baggins.  He could communicate more in a frown of his mouth than many actors could with a soliloquy.  I thought Elijah Wood was good as Frodo in the LOTR trilogy, but I much preferred Freeman as Bilbo.  There were so many characters in this third movie that it felt like Bilbo got pushed out of the center too much.  I missed him.  
2. My biggest gripe was that there was a lack of closure in this film.  I know, that sounds ridiculous when Return of the King was blasted for TOO MUCH closure.  But no one left that movie and asked, "What happened to...?"  But when I was talking to a friend yesterday about the movie, my first question was "What happened to the Arkenstone?"  It never showed what happened to this majorly important element! The last person holding it was Bard the Bowman, head of the people from Laketown.  But we never really saw what happened to them either.  They were kind of winning their battle against the Orcs, but we didn't see where they went from there.  We also never really found out what happened to the dwarves.  Did they take over the city in the mountain?  Who is their ruler, since Thorin and his cousins got offed?  Strange.
3. Speaking of Thorin and his bloodline getting sacked, I really liked this outcome.  No, I wasn't rooting for those characters to get whacked.  But we have seen so many movies where the heroes get killed, only to have them reappear in a different form or to come back to life (every Disney movie, X-Men, Avengers).  It was actually a relief to see a movie where the good guys didn't come back.  There was pain in losing those characters, but it didn't feel like a cheap manipulative tactic.  Kudos to Peter Jackson for sticking with that outcome.
4. My favorite scene in the whole franchise had to be when the gigantic eagles came flying in and started wrecking havoc on the Orc armies.  One eagle came in carrying the Skinchanger and launched him into the fray.  He transformed into a gigantic bear and starting going crazy, destroying Orcs.  I could have walked out right there happy.  Let me again explain in all caps.  A FREAKING GIGANTIC EAGLE TOSSED A MASSIVE BEAR INTO A BATTLE WHERE THE BEAR STARTED GOING CRAZY!!!  If that is not the most awesome scene ever put on film, I don't know what is.  I still get chills thinking about it.
5. Did anyone out-turd-blossom Lee Pace this year?  First, he was Ronin the Accuser in Guardians of the Galaxy, complete with his weird black oozy mouth and his refusal to participate in dance-offs.  Then he was the arrogant punk woodland elf king Thrandruil in The Hobbit.  He does a great job being a jerk.  Don't know if that is what he is going for, but he is quite successful at it.
6. I know that Tauriel, played by Lost's Evangeline Lilly, was not in the book.  But I honestly thought her character was one of the best things about the trilogy.  I really liked just about every scene she was in.  Remember, I didn't read the book so I was okay with creative license.  
7. Who exactly were the five armies?  We were trying to figure this out last night.  There were the woodland elves, the dwarves, the humans, the orcs.  Was the fifth army the other orc army?  Or was it the eagles?  I never was completely sure who it was supposed to be.
8. For six movies we were tantalized with how awesome Galadriel (Cate Blanchett) is.  She is this massively powerful elf thingee.  But, unless I'm missing something, the movies never really showed that.  Well we finally saw her unleash her fury.  It reminded me of some sort of 1970s drug induced movie scene.  But there was little doubt she was an extreme bad butt.

Overall, I liked the third Hobbit.  It brought things full circle to the start of LOTR.  There were some very exciting scenes and a lot of emotional heft.  There was a lot of violence, even for a LOTR movie.  As usual, the blood was kept to a minimum, which is how they retained their PG-13 rating.  That and the fact there is so little offensive content in the other categories (language, adult situations, sexual situations).  I actually look forward to having the kids watch the original trilogy now that they have seen this trilogy.  I will say this for Peter Jackson - he managed to do what few people have been able to do.  He crafted a six-part movie franchise and didn't have as stinker in the bunch.  If you ranked the entire series, whatever you had as the worst movie would still be a really good movie.  Star Wars couldn't pull that off (Episode II).  James Bond couldn't do it.  I would even argue that a consistent series like Harry Potter didn't pull this off.  Its worst movie (Half Blood Prince, for me) was a bigger drop from its best movie than the LOTR series.  And it never reached the heights of Jackson's series.  Remember, all three of the first movies were nominated for best picture, with the third one winning.  Even though The Hobbit didn't get nominated like that, it still was a very good series.  That is truly an amazing feat for the creative team.  

It is always hard to say goodbye to a really good movie series.  I have felt that pain when Harry Potter ended, when Christopher Nolan said goodbye to Gotham, when Oceans Eleven quit robbing people.  And there is a loss knowing there will not be another entry in this franchise.  It can kind of be summed up in a conversation between the elves Tauriel and Thrandruil in The Five Armies.  For most of the movie, he sees her as a problem.  But here she is desperately hurting after losing someone she loves and he stands there watching her.  "If this is love, I don't want it.  Why does it hurt so bad?"  In a rare moment of civility, he responds, "It's because it was real."  Real love leads to real pain when it ends.  And there are millions of people who loved the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit franchises.  Seeing them end is going to be hard for them.  I count myself as one of those people.  Well done, one and all.

Holiday Movie Marathon: Annie

Winter Break can be fun.  The kids are out long enough for travel.  There are some BIG events to celebrate - for us the includes two birthdays, Christmas, and New Year's Eve/Day.  But it also can be trying for parents as they deal with the roller coaster of emotions from their kids.  There is the massive high of Christmas, followed by the doldrums of the week after Christmas, followed by the excitement of staying up late on New Year's Eve, followed by the crabbiness from staying up late.  That all culminates with the depressing realization that school is about to start.  I find it humorous that this actually worked its way into a traditional Christmas song.  "And mom and dad can't hardly wait for school to start again," snuck into It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas. 

To combat that second week complaining and boredom, I decided to take the kids to catch up on all the movies we have not been able to go to this Fall.  There was a glut of family-friendly films that were released in November and December.  We just haven't found the time or resources to attend.  So this week is our Holiday Movie Marathon.  It doesn't have to be a "holiday movie."  It just needs to be a movie that came out over the holiday season.  The tentative lineup is as follows: Annie, Hobbit 3, Big Hero 6, Penguins of Madagascar, and Night at the Museum 3.  If I can find a way for Heather and I to see Mockingjay, that would be great.  Since I have been a horrible slacker at my writing, I figured I could use this marathon to force myself to post.  So we'll kick things off with Annie.

I used to say I hated musicals.  But that isn't really true.  I don't mind good musicals.  I know some people gripe about the unrealistic elements of this genre: people busting out in song everywhere, everyone knowing the dance moves, stuff like that.  Basically all of the stuff Patrick Dempsey's character said in Enchanted.  The way I figure, my favorite movies are usually superhero or sci-fi films.  Am I really someone to complain about realism?  My shelf of movies include talking raccoons, guys in iron suits, a billionaire dressed like a bat, and multiple science-ignoring spacecrafts.  I think I waved bye bye to realistic a long time ago.  I love Les Mis and Phantom of the Opera.  I have enjoyed Frozen, Chicago, Enchanted, The Muppets.  So we will get that out of the way.  I think some older musicals are just stupid.  It isn't because they are musicals, per se.  It is because they try to find ways to shoehorn weird musical pieces into films where they don't belong.  Take the entire NYC scene from Singin' In The Rain - one of the weirdest scenes in all of moviedom.  Another example would be from White Christmas, where they are rehearsing in Vermont and they do the double shot of the Minstrel Show and the weird dance number.  It was like they said, "Hey there is this cool song, but it doesn't make any sense.  Any way we can come up with a dream sequence or a hallucination scene?"  (Kind of like Glee, when they had Mr Schu with a high fever.)

I have seen the "original" Annie, with Albert Finney and Carol Burnett.  It was good.  I'm not super attached to it or to the story itself.  There are some very recognizable songs that are pretty cool.  And It's a Hard Knock Life made it possible for both the Jay-Z rap AND the Dr Evil/Mini Me version of that rap. So you've got that going for the movie.  My kids like the older version, which they saw after they saw the previews of this new version.  But I wasn't going to be offended that this new movie came out.  It was a movie that could be remade without too much discomfort.

I really liked the new Annie.  It was a fun movie.  You know how some movies are exciting and some are intense and some are thought-provoking?  This movie was fun.  I felt good watching it.  I like movies like that once in a while.  Sure, I also like the darker middle child of trilogies, where hope is lost and the movie ends with great gravitas.  But I appreciate a good fun movie.  This is probably why I am such a big fan of the Oceans Eleven series.  They are enjoyable to experience.  Annie was similar.  I know that some people have jumped onto the portrayal of foster families and how we see orphans in today's society.  But I will let people better versed in those topics debate.  For me, I know that not all foster kids go through the pain that Annie experienced.  But I'm sure there are also some who have it much worse.  However, the movie was not a dramatic examination of the foster system.  Annie's situation was bad enough to make her move to the upper crust sufficiently inspiring.  But it wasn't traumatic.

The two things I most appreciated about the movie were the cleverness and the music.  I really like a clever movie - one that rewards the viewer for paying attention to little details.  This can be through running gags or hidden visual gems or throwaway lines.  Annie was well stocked with these elements.  There were references to the older movie, to the silliness of musicals in general, to our society's infatuation with technology and social media, and even to the behind the scenes people (Will Smith and Jay-Z produced the movie - remember that when Jamie Foxx's Will Stacks is giving a speech early on in the film).  And there was a running gag about how Cameron Diaz's foster parent used to be in C+C Music Factory - you have to keep your eyes peeled for just how many nods to that concept were made.  The kids didn't pick up on all of these things, but Heather and I did.  It is kind of like how Pixar and Dreamworks will sneak in adult jokes for the parents.  They were significant enough that it amplified the enjoyment factor.

The music was the other main attraction.  They kept the original songs, but revised them to a modern audience.  I really like the new adaptations.  But there also were several new songs that really fit into the culture of the movie.  I actually had a hard time remembering which songs were pre-existing and which were new.  I'm sure Jay-Z being involved in the film didn't hurt.  But the biggest star of the film had to be Sia Furler.  She goes by Sia as a musician and her song Chandelier was one of the biggest pop hits of 2014.  One thing I can say with confidence is that she is a very talented musician.  Her voice is fantastic and powerful, and she does contribute it to several pieces.  But her ability to modernize the music, but also to bring the nostalgia to the newer songs impressed me.

Great music wouldn't be anything without great performances.  I wasn't that impressed with Rose Byrne's voice.  And Cameron Diaz was comically over-the-top most of time (I hope that was intentional).  For the first hour of the movie, I was afraid that Annie would make the same mistake with Jamie Foxx that Enchanted did with Idina Menzel.  (I am still bitter that Idina never sang in that film.  Why?  WHY!?!)  But then Foxx got his chance.  It really isn't surprising that he did a stellar job.  I mean, he played Ray Charles and has had a very respectable music career.  I was impressed by the emotion he conveyed as well.  Every time he sang was a treat.  But the overwhelming star of the movie was Quvenzhane Wallis as Annie.  This little girl is someone to keep your eyes on.  She already has an Oscar nomination under her belt for Beast of the Southern Wild - a movie I am now ten times more likely to watch on Netflix thanks to Annie.  Wallis is such a mature actress for someone so young.  She brings such amazing emotion to her performance.  And she is a dang good singer.  For a movie like this to work, the child actor has to be something truly special.  Wallis certainly fits that bill.  I really hope she is able to translate this to a successful career and is able to avoid the trap so many child actors fall into.

As far as appropriateness for kids, I was very pleased at how Annie was able to pull off its PG rating. There was one character that drank a lot.  The cursing was very minimal.  There was not a lot of sexual content.  There was hardly anything remotely violent.  And one thing I really appreciated was that Annie herself was not snotty and disrespectful to adults.  There was some of that behavior, but it was so mild compared to television shows like Jessie.  Annie's attitude towards life was so positive that it was enough to convey any "superiority" to adults without an overdose of snark and sarcasm.  Overall, I felt Annie was a real success.  It was a good remake and a positive, enjoyable movie.  I have no problem recommending it, purchasing it, or buying the soundtrack.  And I look forward to seeing where its star goes in her career.

Too Big To Fail?

Americans are comfortable with a little bit of corruption.  It almost is like we have grown to accept that it is just going to happen and we just need to deal with it.  We have lived through so many different scandals that we have developed a very cynical nature.  There have been so many movies based on government conspiracies that I would wager most Americans believe that there is always some level of conspiracy going on.  It's just how it is.

There are two instances where Americans will no longer deal silently with corruption.  The first is when it starts to affect our life - especially our wallet.  As long as it is someone else's problem, it isn't a problem.  But when it becomes my problem, then we have a problem.  We had an animal living in the pond behind our house.  Well, we have a lot of animals living out there: turtles, fish, ducks, Canadian geese.  But we had this weird animal out there.  I would see it swimming along from time to time.  It looked like a beaver.  I would see it slithering through and diving under the lily pads.  I found out from some of my outdoorsy friends that it was a nutria - basically a giant river rat.  I liked watching it.  Well, one of my neighbors didn't think it was such a cute animal.  Apparently its activities were infringing on my neighbor's happiness.  The rat would come up into the lady's yard and eat her plants.  It would gnaw on the wooden wall constructed to keep water out of the yard.  And the leftovers from its snacks was clogging up our spillway, causing flooding in that yard.  To me, it wasn't an issue.  My yard has a very steep incline, so flooding is not a problem.  I have a fence around my yard, so the rat wasn't going to come up on my property.  But this lady starting making a stink.  She had a few other homeowners on her side due to garden and flooding damage.  She brought it before the HOA Board (which we both are on) and wanted us to pay to have the eradication done.  On top of it all, she was all weird about the animal being killed - which we all knew would be the outcome.  It was going to cost $800 to clear the pond.  I asked how much it cost for a box of bullets.  She didn't appreciate that suggestion.  Now it became my problem.  I didn't want the HOA to spend hundreds of dollars to pull this animal out.  It wasn't bothering me, personally.  I didn't even realize it was a problem at all.   (Things have a funny way of working themselves out.  The rat got run over by a car a couple of weeks later ... before we paid to clear the pond.  I had nothing to do with it.  Promise.)

This is kind of how we approach corruption in the US.  It isn't my problem.  It isn't hurting me.  Don't rock the boat.  But if it encroaches on my comfort, all heck breaks loose.  Look at the investment banking scandal of a few years ago.  Or the Enron/big business scandal.  Or the subprime mortgage collapse.  Or the automaker fiasco.  Those issues had been bubbling for years.  Was anyone surprised that financial advisors were cheating?  I doubt that.  What year did Wall Street come out?  We had been through all of this before, just with different financial elements.  Instead of junk bonds it was Ponzi schemes.  Was the subprime mortgage problem a shock?  How could it be?  How long could banks hand out mortgages to people who couldn't afford to pay for them before the process collapsed?  We know in the back of our minds that things are not always above board with companies, governments, industries, celebrities.  But we turn a blind eye and convince ourselves things may be different this time.  Until it interferes with our life.

The other instance were corruption gets us riled up is when it become blatant.  This is kind of a corollary of the first instance.  Instead of it interfering with our wallets or our lives, it interferes with our comfort.  It makes us feel embarrassed and awkward.   How could we have let this go on?  It makes us look bad.  We frequently see this with celebrities.  We cut actors, musicians, "reality" stars a lot of slack in our country.  It is like we know that they are going to make questionable choices and we are fine with that, as long as it is kept quiet.  If they want to smoke weed, that's fine.  Just don't do it in a park.  If they want to do lines of coke in the bathroom at the Chateau Marmont, that's fine.  Just don't film it and post it on Twitter.  If they want to run a dog fighting ring, so be it.  Just don't advertise the fights.  When those private foibles become public scandals, we throw our hands up in mock indignation.  "How could they do this?!?"  What we are really asking is "how could they be so blatant in their stupidity?"

If you don't think this is accurate, I want you to think back a few years to the Michael Vick dog-fighting scandal.  Vick was going along as a maddeningly erratic and fragile quarterback when we all started to hear about his involvement in a dog-fighting ring.  There were the usual denials, followed by proof of the existence of the ring.  Vick got arrested, tried, and imprisoned for his role in the whole thing.  During the whole process, we heard about how this is a cultural issue.  In the culture that Vick grew up, dog fighting was an acceptable practice.  Vick didn't know that it was a problem.  But it went public and we all went crazy.  Now, think about this.  In the years since Vick's dog fighting ring went public, how many dog fighting rings have you heard about being broken up by the cops?  With the amount of public outrage over Vick's crimes, you would think dog fighting is completely detestable in our country.  And in the dialogue, we kept hearing about how this was cultural - meaning that there are more of these rings going on right now.  Thinking back to how people wanted Vick banned for life from the NFL and imprisoned for a hundred years, shouldn't we have formed some kind of task force to uncover and shut down these dog fighting rings?  We know they are out there, right?  Why aren't there federal agents played by a young Kevin Costner busting into warehouses and backyards across the country, leading dozens of people into paddy wagons?  It isn't happening because it isn't blatantly in our face any more.  It slinked back into the shadows and we left it alone.  As long as Amanda Bynes isn't hurling phones and bongs out of hotel windows, Charlie Sheen isn't showing up drunk for interviews, Justin Bieber isn't racing his silver rocket car through rush hour traffic, these people can be crazy all they want.  Just don't embarrass us with your crazy.  Don't get your crazy on me.  As long as your favorite NCAA team keeps its player payments, arrests, and false test scores quiet, it is fine.  But if it becomes blatant, the team gets blistered.

All of this has come to mind as I observe the NFL.  The National Football League is a mammoth industry that generates gobs of money.  Its influence is not just felt in cities with teams, although those cities certainly do benefit a great deal.  Its presence on television brings huge ratings and advertising dollars to those channels.  Hundreds of companies are intertwined with the NFL: restaurants (McDonald's), soda companies (Pepsi), shoe companies (Nike), computer companies (Lenovo, Microsoft), pizza companies (Papa John's).  It goes on and on.  The NFL took in $1.07 billion from sponsorships last year.  The last television contract was for $8 billion.  That included CBS paying $275 million for the rights to simulcast Thursday night NFL games along with the NFL Network.  They don't have any exclusive rights.  Think about this - CBS is the number one network on television.  On Thursday night they already had the number one comedy show on television.  But they were willing to juggle their entire schedule for the right to run games that were already being shown on another network.  The NFL is enormous.

The spillover effect of the NFL leaves its mark on college and high school athletics.  As technological, medical, and pharmaceutical breakthroughs find success in the NFL, they work their way down the chain.  The same goes for game planning.  And for coaching techniques.  And for desired athlete qualities.  Yes, some things work their way back up the chain like the Nike and Under Armor uniforms from Oregon and Maryland or the wildcat formation.  But for every one innovation that swims upstream, a hundred flow back down.  As the offensive linemen in the NFL got larger and faster, that desirability moved down through the ranks.  As quarterbacks needed to become more mobile, that quality was harvested from below.  In addition to qualities trickling down, so did behavior.  The NFL players make a lot of high risk, high reward plays.  Defensive backs would launch themselves at wide receivers.  Kick coverage teams fly around with reckless abandon.  Running backs put their heads down and bull forward.  Soon college and then high school players began to play the same way.

Through all of this, doctors were concerned about the overall health of younger football players.  Only 6 percent of high school senior players will play in college.  Only 1.7 percent of college seniors will get drafted by the NFL.  That means 0.08% of high school players will ever make it to the NFL.  Out of every 1,000 high school players, not even one will make it to the NFL.  But that allure keeps players striving and aiming to be that one in a thousand.  So, even though there are numerous health risks, players keep going.  Offensive lineman pack on weight to reach the right size, even though they don't do it the right way and are really just massively obese.  Young teens start weight training before doctors would advise that practice.  These students tear up their knees, ankles, backs and doom themselves to a lifetime of pain.  They sow the seeds of drug addictions by using painkillers at a disturbing rate - in addition to other pills like amphetamines and steroids.

Then there is the risk of concussions.  Actually, it shouldn't even be called a risk anymore.  It has basically crossed the line to an occupational hazard.  The numbers are horrifying.  I've talked about concussions before on this blog and there is a ton of research out there telling the truth about concussion dangers.  Players get into dozens of collisions every game that are equivalent to a car crash.  Some players estimate that they get into two to three plays per game that ring their bells and possibly give them a minor concussion.  More and more players are talking about how they already have memory loss.  Bret Favre, who has only been out of the game for a couple years, said he routinely forgets where he is or why he went there.  Former players are committing suicide at an alarming rate.  There are massive health repercussions from ALS to depression to Alzheimer's.

Now we are facing the specter of domestic violence as well.  Ray Rice punches his fiancee out in an elevator and gets suspended for two games.  The NFL reconsidered its punishment after the country lost its collective mind once the video footage hit the airwaves.  Rice's lawyer has complained this is the NFL equivalent of double jeopardy, being tried for the same crime twice.  They actually have some valid arguments there.  There is just too much evidence that the Baltimore Ravens and the NFL knew the extent of Rice's actions and covered it up.  So because they got busted and went into damage control mode, Rice got his contract terminated and his ability to play in the NFL revoked.  Adrian Peterson, one of the biggest stars in the league, beat his four year old son so savagely that he had a dozen open lacerations on his body.  I won't say he disciplined his son because this goes far beyond discipline.  I have kids and understand the concept of punishment.  I also have seen discipline that crossed the line when I was a child.  Peterson was not just punishing his son; he was taking out his anger and frustration on him.  He obviously was not in control in that moment.  And it makes me wonder how many other times that had happened.

At the same moment all of this was happening, several other players were being charged with domestic violence crimes.  The owner of the Dallas Cowboys was being investigated for sexual impropriety - which was largely brushed off because the statute of limitations had expired.  As I watched the reactions of America, it was like it couldn't decide what to do.  This level of corruption and horrific behavior usually would have triggered our offense mechanisms.  But something stopped that.  It was like the fact that it was football and we all love football halted us from going further.  We got angry about Ray Rice and he was punished.  But it stopped there.  Some people were angry about Peterson, but others defended him because it fell under "corporal punishment" and no one wants to step on that issue.  He was deactivated for one game while the investigation started.  But the Vikings actually reinstated him for the next week before a bunch of people lost their minds and the team reconsidered.  In the midst of all of this, the commissioner understandably came under fire for his gross ineptitude.  He scrambled and danced in his press conference and managed to deflect the anger.

To be completely honest, I am fed up with all of it.  I am angry.  I have loved football as long as I have known about sports.  I have great memories watching football: Sunday afternoons with my dad, Super Bowl parties, UCF games, Jaguar games.  But I have reached a breaking point.  This year, I have watched very little football.  I have opportunities.  Last night I was sitting on the couch watching TV and flipping over to the game never entered my mind.  I shuttered my fantasy football league this year that I had run for over a decade.  This isn't just a busy dad finding other things to do.  This year should be the year I want to see the NFL the most.  My favorite team (the Jaguars) drafted a UCF player (Blake Bortles) who is now their starting quarterback.  I know his mom.  She taught both of my sons in preschool.  I remember him as a middle schooler.  I should be glued to the tv during the season.  But I just can't.

I'm not the only one that feels this way.  My favorite sportswriter is Bill Simmons.  I have read his stuff since he first got signed by ESPN.  I love his writing style and his passion for sports.  But I also love the fact that he is a fan first.  He is irate over all of this.  He has been attacking commissioner Goodell for his role in these scandals.  Finally Simmons snapped on a podcast and went off on the commissioner.  He called him a liar - something that the media almost universally has agreed upon.  The end result?  ESPN suspended Simmons for three full weeks without pay.  What!?!  A media member has been questioning the NFL for weeks and finally says what many fans are thinking.  And he gets suspended?  For three weeks!!!  To recap, Ray Rice was originally suspended for two weeks for punching his fiancee so hard she fell backwards and got knocked unconscious.  Then he dragged her out of the elevator like a sack of flour.  Two weeks.  Stephen A Smith, another ESPN personality who is a complete idiot, got suspended for one week for basically saying not to judge Ray Rice too quickly and that the fiancee "may have had it coming."  One week.  Adrian Peterson was originally suspended for one week for savagely beating his four year old.  The other domestic cases originally had no suspensions.  Mike Tirico, another ESPN turd, has been accused of several instances sexual impropriety with no suspensions.  Jerry Jones, owner of the Cowboys, was accused of sexual impropriety with no suspension.  Bill Simmons, tired of all of this bull, went off and was suspended for three weeks.  Why?  Because ESPN is the biggest partner of the NFL and pays $1.7 billion a year to show Monday Night Football.  The NFL told ESPN to get Simmons under control.  You don't believe that happened?  There is precedent.  Years ago, ESPN ran an original series entitled Playmakers that was supposedly based on the NFL.  There was drug use, rape, racism, homophobia.  The NFL threatened to pull out of their relationship with ESPN if the show wasn't cancelled.  Boom.  The show is gone.

I don't get it.  The NFL makes a giant deal about women's issues in October for breast cancer awareness month.  It is the only time players can wear non-uniform elements, as long as they are pink.  But there are players beating up their girlfriends, fiancees, and wives and the NFL does nothing.  And we, as viewers, seem shocked.  Why?  These guys are hopped up on so many supplements and chemicals.  They are in a culture where rage and lack of control is encouraged on the playing field.  How long did we think it would take before that spilled over into their homes?  Didn't professional wrestling teach us anything?  Look at the number of former wrestlers who have died early, committed suicide, attacked their significant others.  One of the saddest stories was Chris Benoit.  He was considered a good guy.  Then he killed his wife, his son, and himself.  Why?  Depression, concussion damage, steroid damage.  "Well that's an extreme case!"  Really?

December 2012.  Kansas City, Missouri.  Twenty-two year old Kansas City Chief player, Javon Belcher, drives to the Chief's facilities.  He shoots himself in front of the head coach and general manager.  It turns out he had murdered his girlfriend earlier.  His body was exhumed last year and last week we found out that his brain showed evidence of CTE - the damage caused by concussions that causes people to lose their memories and control of themselves.  He was 22.  Look at the erratic behavior exhibited by NFL players.  Donte Stallworth is speeding and strikes and kills a man in Miami.  Ray Lewis (doesn't) stab a man to death in a parking lot.  Plaxico Burress shoots himself in the leg.  Josh Gordon keeps failing drug tests.  Jonathan Martin and Richie Icognito have the most unhealthy and bizarre friendship ever, complete with accusations of bullying and racism.  Jadaveon Clowney gets busted for driving over 100 mph down Interstate 77 twice in a week.  There is a laundry list of this stuff.  How long until this boils over?  How long until the corruption is actually bad enough to make us do something?  It is already blatant.  It is already out of control.  But I guess it hasn't affected us personally enough yet.

In 1991 there was a movie that came out called The Last Boy Scout.  It starred Damon Wayans, Bruce Willis, and Halle Berry.  It wasn't a very good movie.  It took place in the world of professional football with Wayans as a pro player and Willis as a detective or something.  There were tons of scenes that hinted at the excesses in the NFL: drugs, sex, money, ignoring injuries.  But one scene has always stuck with me.  It was one of the opening scenes.  A player was taking back a kickoff and pulled out a gun and started shooting the would-be tacklers until he scored and then shot himself.  It came out that this player was in deep with gambling debts and he felt he had to score to keep his family safe.  I thought that was ridiculous.  What player would shoot other players on the field like that?  Less than 25 years later, would you honestly be that shocked if something like that actually happened?  Chances are, it would be stunning.  But not shocking.  That should show you there is a problem.  If a sport actually has fostered an environment where a murder on the field would not be spin-your-head crazy, that sport is out of control.  My question is if that possible tragedy would even be enough to take down the NFL.

Thirteen Things I Love About My Son

Today, my oldest offspring exits childhood and enters adolescence.  That’s right: I am the father of a teenager.  To be perfectly honest, this terrifies me.  It is like the opening scene of a horror movie.  At least I would assume it is like the opening scene of a horror movie, not ever watching horror movies or ever having a teenager before.  I just know that the teen years are often characterized by people as very combative.  There is a lot of arguing, repeating yourself, wondering where your child’s brain went, arguing, teaching, praying, worrying, arguing, and arguing.  I’m not looking forward to that.  We have always said that Josiah has a lot of similar characteristics to me.  And I was a relatively easy teenager to deal with (compared to the stereotypical nightmare).  So maybe we will be fortunate.  Maybe all of that dread will end up being for naught.  

Either way, to mark the exit of my dear Josiah from child to teenager, here are the thirteen things I absolutely love about my son. 

1. He is unbelievably artistic.

Josiah has always had artistic ability.  Those people who have known him for a long time have marveled at his talents since he was a little guy.  And these have certainly never diminished.  He is an incredible artist.  There are certain styles he likes (Wimpy Kid, Lego, Mincecraft) and he can turn anything into those styles.  It is quite cool to see.  But he also can come up with his own stuff.  I wrote a children’s book and I needed it illustrated.  On a whim, sitting in carline one day, I asked him if he could draw me his version of the character.  Two minutes later, he shows me a picture and asks, “How’s that?”  It was perfect.  It was better than I had imagined it, but exactly how I had imagined it.  So he’s illustrating my book.  I am constantly amazed at his art skills.

2. More than just artistic, he is unbelievably creative.

There is a difference between artistic and creative.  One of the things I have always loved about Josiah is how he can create entire story lines and worlds out of nothing.  He got a stuffed dog for his birthday years and years ago.  Over the years, that dog has expanded to a whole group of stuffed dogs.  Natalie and Gabe also have a large collection of dogs.  Josiah came up with “Puppy World” for these dogs.  It changes and grows.  I will sit downstairs and listen to them playing the latest iteration of it and smile, impressed at how intricate everything is.  Josiah does origami, writes, sculpts, draws, and creates games.  I told him years ago that he has the creativity and brain power to create something on the level of Star Wars or Harry Potter.  I think he could end up like George Lucas, JK Rowling, or James Cameron - crafting a massive universe out of just his own creative mind.

3. His sense of humor

For a long time, I bemoaned that my son had no sense of humor.  I am generally considered a humorous guy.  So it vexed me a great deal that Josiah didn’t get my jokes.  And when he did joke, it wasn’t funny and was often inappropriate (not dirty, just not appropriate for the situation or conversation).  But, as he has gotten older, he has become extremely witty and funny.  Example - I recently purchased a waterproof bluetooth speaker for in the shower because, you know, dancing on a wet surface is a great plan.  I told the kids that it also could do phone calls.  Josiah chirped in, “And it can Face Time.  ‘Hey, AHH! Why am I talking to you in the shower?’”  

4. How he plays with Gabe

There is six years between Gabe and Josiah.  That is a pretty big gap.  My brother and I were five years apart, so I know that there can be difficulties between brothers with that kind of difference.  But Josiah and Gabe play together a LOT.  It may not always be smooth sailing, but it is really neat to see how they play together.  Minecraft, Angry Birds, MarioKart, Puppy World.  There are some days where they play all day together.  Of course, there are some days where they fight seemingly non-stop.  But we’ll focus on the good stuff for today.

5. His sweet heart

Josiah undeniably has a very sweet heart.  He deeply loves the people in his world.  Actually, that love also extends to animals, too.  We have been boarding a dog for on of Heather’s cousins.  The dog had been with us for four months.  He got picked up last weekend by his family so he could be closer to them down in Florida.  Josiah cried for two hours after Jaskee left.  He has that level of affection for things.  I remember when we would go and visit my mom or Heather’s parents.  When we left, Josiah would be despondent.  He missed them so badly.  He knows that Natalie has a hard time sleeping, so he will let her sleep in the top bunk of his room whenever she needs to.  I love the fact that he loves so deeply.  It will make him a great husband and father.

6. He puts up with me

Years ago, my kids came up with the word “funnoying” to describe me.  I was fun and annoying.  Josiah knows this better than most.  I mess with him a lot.  It isn’t a mean thing.  I think it is my way to connect with him and keep a level of closeness without the overt affection that a teenaged boy isn’t fond of from his dad.  Josiah puts up with me and, being honest, I think likes knowing that I care enough about him to be silly with him.  We actually have a very good time together in our silliness.

7. He is (mostly) patient with my ignorance

Josiah is our first child.  So that means he was our first toddler, our first kindergartener, our first teenager… I don’t know what to do in each of these seasons of life.  I try my best, but I am still learning on the job.  I make mistakes.  Josiah seems to understand that, which is awesome.  When I mess up, I apologize and we talk about it.  He knows that I am doing my best.  I know that he is doing his best.  That doesn’t make everything easy, but it means we still love each other through it all.  

8. He’s my movie buddy

Every dad needs a movie buddy.  Josiah is more than happy to go with me.  We have very similar movie tastes, so we look forward to the same films.  Marvel, Hobbit, Pixar.  My brother was my dad’s movie buddy.  I remember how much I wanted to be able to go with them.  It was the coolest thing when I was old enough to finally go and see Hunt for Red October and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.  As a dad, I couldn’t wait until he was old enough to go with me.  

9. He is a great kid

There are times I wonder where Josiah’s brain went.  I mean, he is a teenager.  But the fact is that Josiah is a GREAT kid.  The stuff that we wrestle with is so minor compare to so many kids.  He wants to do the right things.  He doesn’t rebel or openly defy us (most of the time).  He stays out of trouble at school.  He doesn’t like it when the kids at school are acting up.  That is a priceless quality to have.  

10. His compassion

Going beyond his sweet heart, Josiah also has great compassion for others.  If he knows someone is hurting, it hurts him.  He empathizes so deeply with them, it makes it hard for him to stay calm.  There have been times where Natalie or Gabe have gotten hurt and Josiah has completely broken down.  Sure, in the moment it makes it much harder to deal with two people in distress than just one.  But I certainly would not want him to lose that compassion.  On those instances where I have hurt myself or have had my RA flare up, he wants to make sure that I get taken care of too.  This will pay off buckets when I am old and need a kid to feed me.  :)

11. His candy hoard

Josiah doesn’t eat his candy.  He hoards it.  Easter, Christmas, Halloween, Valentine’s Day, End of the Year.  When we moved from Orlando and packed up the boys’ room, there were buckets and bags of candy stashed different places.  What is so great about that?  Well, if I am having a hankering for Skittles, I know right where to go.  And, since he doesn’t have any clue how much candy he has, he never knows I just pilfered his stash.  Now that I think about it, that’s a pretty selfish reason.  I’ll try again.

11. His saving nature

Josiah doesn’t like to burn through things.  He hangs onto stuff, like candy or money.  He has saved up money on two different occasions to purchase something he wanted, putting off his immediate desires to get something better later on.  First, he saved up a bunch of money to buy the Lego Death Star.  But he instead used it to help buy our dog, Katie.  Then he saved up enough money again to but the Lego Death Star.  $400.  He gave up birthday and Christmas presents to get enough money saved.  Most kids that age won’t be that willing to save.  This could bode well for his financial future.

12. He is his own person

Josiah doesn’t try to be someone else.  He has his own personality and is content to be himself.  There are times as a parent I am trying to show him how he should change something - comb his hair, wear nicer outfits when going places.  But he is perfectly content to be himself.  He doesn’t like sports.  He knows I like sports.  He wants to be with me, but he just doesn’t like sports.  He likes t-shirts and shorts and tennis shoes.  He doesn’t like my music and doesn’t feel like he has to.  He is comfortable in his own skin.  How valuable of a quality is that?

13. He brings me joy and always has

I’ve told this story before, so I won’t elaborate.  One of the darkest days in US history was September 11, 2001.  The world seemingly fell apart before our eyes.  It was in that swirl of fear and uncertainty that Josiah was born.  As terrified as we all felt, I had this beautiful baby boy that had become part of my life.  It softened the pain and brought joy when there should have been none.  There have been many times where I have found joy in my kids when things were tough.  There are moments now when I am exhausted from work and weary in my body where I will sit on the couch and just watch the boys playing or look at some of Josiah’s artwork and smile.  It is like an external battery charge.  I love that I get to spend time alone with Josiah every afternoon as we wait in the carline for the elementary school to let out.  I love talking to him.  I have no doubt that God has big plans for him.  He is going to have a big impact on the people around him.  I can’t wait to see the man he becomes.  I am honored to be his dad.  Happy birthday, Josiah.  

I'm Retiring

At church today, the Pastor started a new series on the book of John.  Being a big fan of the Gospels, I appreciate that book.  However, I can honestly say that I have never done an in depth study on John.  I know that it is the "weirdest" of the Gospel books.  The first three are very straightforward narratives; John is more of a poetic emotional journey.  Pastor James pointed out some of the curious differences between John and the other Gospels: John has no exorcism stories, John has no parables, John never mentions the Apostle John by name.  This last point is one of the more interesting elements of the book.  Whenever it comes to a point in the story where John should appear, the author instead mentions "the Disciple who Jesus loved."

I have always found that strange.  Not strange like inappropriate or anything.  Just strange.  We know from the other Gospels that John was one of the closest circle of Jesus' Disciples.  There were several instances where Jesus took just Peter, James, and John with Him.  Jesus entrusted His mother to John at the crucifixion.  So John was closer to Jesus than most people, even more than the average Disciple.  But, still, it seemed like a weird way to identify yourself.  If John didn't want to call himself John, why didn't he say "me" or "I" instead.  (I doubt it was because he wasn't sure which pronoun case to use.  He did, after all, get the tricky who/whom thing figured out.)  Why go with a phrase like "the Disciple who Jesus loved?"  And wasn't that insulting to the other Disciples?  I mean, if I was Bartholomew, wouldn't it get tiresome to be constantly reminded that John was more special than me?  And don't give me that whole line of reasoning that these guys were the Disciples and they didn't have immature thoughts like that.  I think there are more than enough stories in the Gospels that refute that.  They get busted for arguing over who will be the greatest in Heaven.  James and John had their mom go and ask Jesus to put them in a special place in Heaven.  They chase kids away from spending time with Jesus.  They don't believe Jesus rose again.  They make a ton of boneheaded decisions.

So Pastor James addressed that very issue today.  And his explanation (cobbled together from his own thoughts and other sources I don't remember) follows thusly.  When we look in the other Gospels, we see John identified with a different nickname.  He and his brother, James, were tagged with "Sons of Thunder."  Now, if you were a wrestling tag team, that may not be so bad.  But if you are supposed to be a follower of a rabbi who is claiming to be the Messiah, that probably isn't the cred you hoped to attain.  What do you think of if someone is called a "Son of Thunder?"  What comes to my mind first of all is Thor, naturally.  At least in his early incarnations, Thor is brash and loud and impetuous and arrogant.  In the movie, he gets thrown down to Earth because of his hardheadedness.  He can be fun and he certainly is loyal.  But he doesn't think before he acts.  We see this even in the new line of comic books by Marvel where Thor gets stripped of his title and is basically left as some big dude wandering the Earth, trying to figure out what to do now.

So that's John.  Loud, temperamental, arrogant.  Is that an uncomfortable picture to paint of good ole St. John?  I mean, he's the guy lounging next to Jesus in The Last Supper.  He is all sissified and emasculated.  Hardly the kind of guy who would be labelled a troublemaker.  Again, how quickly we forget.  This is the same guy who wanted to rain down fire on an unbelieving community.  He wanted to get the choicest spot in Heaven so badly he had his mom ask Jesus for it.  And, later on in church history, he gets imprisoned, beaten up, and exiled to a deserted island.  (If you want to believe extra-biblical history, he may also have been burned with boiling oil.)  He may not have always been a boisterous talker.  Maybe he was quiet a lot, but when he got pushed to the limits he exploded like thunder.  Either way, his reputation was that he was not someone to be trifled with.

So, how did this person become the same guy who wrote John and the beautiful passages about love in 1 John?  That's exactly the reason that John chooses to identify himself the way he does in his book.  It is like he is constantly amazed at the transformation he underwent.  Instead of being known as a "son of thunder," he was now known as "the Disciple who Jesus loved."  He retired the former name and took on the new one.  He wanted everyone to understand that he was no longer the man he used to be.  That brash, explosive, angry young man was now completely changed by the love of Jesus.  When you look at it that way, it is not nearly so weird.  It isn't bragging.  It isn't boasting.  John was relating a similar opinion to that of Paul.  "If someone like this can change, then anyone can change."

All of this hit me in a profound way this morning because of a conversation I was having with my wife last night.  Heather had two days off back to back.  This rarely happens, mind you.  Rather than lounging around all day and taking a break, she spent most of the day organizing and purging our kitchen pantry.  When 10:30pm rolled around, she didn't feel like doing anything else and was sitting on the couch.  But she was still feeling a bit guilty about being lazy.  I disagreed with her assessment.  I said to her, "As a lazy person, I can definitely tell you that you are not lazy."  But then I took a pause.

For much of my life, I have been saddled with the label "lazy."  Sometimes other people would say it.  Many times I would say it.  I can honestly say that I have battled a lazy streak for much of my life.  I saw it manifest itself in my academics, where I did the least amount of work possible to get the grade I wanted.  It surfaced in my piano playing, where I played as long as it was easy and quit when it got hard.  I've seen it in jobs, in house upkeep, in tasks, in relationships, in diet.  Laziness has been a major struggle for me.  In much the same way, I have been labelled an "angry" person for much of my life.  Again, others would say this of me.  And I would say it of myself.  Another label I got tagged with was negative.  I was a human Eeyore.  I had several people (including a youth pastor) tell me I was the most negative person they had ever known.  All of those things were so accurate, I felt, that I pretty much saw myself that way.  I was an angry, lazy, negative person.  Those were not the only words I attributed to my life, but they certainly were ones that stood out the most.

I have spent a lot of time working on these things.  I know for a fact that for two years now, I have been making a concentrated effort on all of those struggles.  When we still lived in Orlando, I went to counseling with a wonderful man named Cary who helped me a great deal with those issues.  I remember talking to him one day and sharing a story.  In the middle of the story I said something like, "I'm an angry guy."  He stopped me right there and said, "Wait.  I want to dealt with what you just said."  He went on to say that he had counseled a lot of angry men.  And he never once thought of me as an angry man.  He said I was a guy that when I was pushed to my limits or was backed into a corner, I would explode to try to gain control of the situation.  (Sounds like the Sons of Thunder.)  But I was hardly an "angry man."  He pointed out that in all of our sessions, I had never raised my voice to him - even when I was upset with him.  He said that he actually thought of me as kind of quiet.  I had never heard anyone say that to me.

So, last night, I caught myself calling myself lazy.  Then I thought about it for a minute.  Let me share a series of numbers with you.  36.25, 36, 74.75, 71.50, 21, 50, 45.  Those are the hours I have worked over the last seven weeks at my "part time" job with Kaplan.  That doesn't count all of the hours I have to drive to get to tutoring clients.  It averages out to 47.7 hours a week.  That isn't lazy.  I am doing that while also trying to be the at-home parent, keep up with laundry, clean the house, cook dinner for my family and any other people who wander into our house.  I am training through three different curricula for Kaplan.  I have six tutoring clients.  At one point I had 46 classroom students between two classes.  That isn't lazy.  I barely watch television any more.  I have video games that haven't been touched in months.  I read books, but mostly while I am proctoring tests or waiting to pick up the kids.  That isn't lazy.

Lazy had become such a familiar label that I didn't even think about the fact it didn't even apply any more.  Then I looked at "angry."  Cary already had put a giant crack in that belief.  But assessing myself now, I know that I have largely shook that label.  I may still get upset or heated up at things.  But I don't explode anymore.  I don't yell.  In fact, today my daughter actually accused me of whispering to her during a disciplinary moment.  She was getting louder and louder.  I told her to stop yelling and she said, "I'm not going to whisper like you're doing."  Are you kidding me?  As this argument revved up, my kid actually thought I was being TOO QUIET.  That's not angry.

How about negative?  I am a melancholy personality.  I'm never going to be a super-outgoing guy.  But I know for a fact that I have a pretty positive outlook on life.  I don't look for the worst.  I don't expect the other shoe to drop all the time.  In fact, I try to encourage others as best I can.  My students have pointed this out time and again.  They are worried about their eventual test score and I keep on trying to lift them up. My evaluations reflect this.  The classes think I'm funny and fun.  That's not negative.  My wife gave me a super cool anniversary present.  She had fourteen individually wrapped presents (one for each year).  They each had a card saying why I got that item.  Several of them talked about how hard I worked (not lazy), how I made everyone laugh (not negative), how I encouraged her (not negative), and how I kept everyone's stress low (not angry, not negative).

Basically, between all of that stuff and the sermon today, I realized that I needed to retire some things.  Like the Apostle John, I need to hang up those terms that used to define me.  Through the transforming restorative power of Jesus Christ, I am not those things any more.  I am no longer Lazy.  I am no longer Angry.  I am no longer Negative.  I will not refer to myself that way.  And I will not accept it if anyone chooses to lay those charges on me.  I am a different man now.  I work hard, serve my family, love the people around me, and try each day to do better than the day before.  Those names are no longer accurate.  I am now "the man who Jesus loves."  And that is a name I will forever cherish.