One sure sign I’m slowing down is my growing reluctance to speak up, to shout out a wisecrack every chance I get. I’m not myself these days. What’s wrong with me?
I first noticed this last year when our middle granddaughter, Daniella, was chosen to say The Pledge of Allegiance on the school intercom. Before her big day, she practiced in front of both sets of grandparents, and we all agreed she did fine - she just needed to slow down a bit and speak a little louder. It wasn’t until we got home that I realized I had missed a terrific opportunity. The old Larry would have told Daniella that after she recited the Pledge over the intercom, she should say, in a very clear voice, “School is now dismissed.”
It happened again – this pathetic bashfulness – at the movies a few days ago. Irene and I had gone to see “The Artist,” a dreary film in my view that goes on and on, silently and pointlessly. I know, I know - the critics loved it, but if your job is to go to the movies eight times a week you don’t know anything about life because you don’t have one so let’s move on. At one point in the movie, the lead character takes a revolver and puts it in his mouth. I wanted to, but didn’t, stand up and scream, “Do it! Do it! So we all can get the hell out of here and go home.” I am truly saddened by my wussiness on this occasion.
When the movie ended, I said, “Wow” and Irene agreed. It wasn’t a wow as in that was wonderful, sensational, moving, well-done. It was a wow as in we’ve been snookered. Is that all? What did I just see and why did I sit through it?
A day later “The Artist” won three Golden Globe Awards, including one for best “motion picture, comedy or musical.” It is not a comedy in my book. In Indiana. where I grew up, a comedy is something where the laughs are frequent and loud. There were a couple of people who laughed weakly two or three times during “The Artist.” Irene thinks they were laughing because the movie does have a perky, cute dog. As far as I know the dog did not win a Golden Globe. Maybe it should have. The two people who laughed during the film were probably the same two who applauded when it was over. I felt like applauding too but for different reasons.
“The Artist” ends with the hero and heroine singing and dancing. One song and dance number at the end of the movie doesn’t make it a musical, does it? If so, since when?
A couple of days later we were back at the movies with our two youngest granddaughters to see “Beauty and The Beast” in 3D. There is lots of singing in this one. That’s a musical. There was also generous applause at the end, a clue that I interpreted as meaning people enjoyed the film and understood it.
At no time during “Beauty And The Beast” did I feel the urge to yell to express my opinion that I was being taken for a ride. Or even the need to whisper to Irene that now that there has been a whole bunch of cinematic foreplay I wish the story would begin. “Beauty And The Beast” is not a film classic and is very, very predictable, but the girls got out of the house, they seemed to enjoy it and they got some popcorn. Or at least one of them, Cristiana, did. When quizzed about who was her favorite in the movie, Cristiana immediately said, “Belle,” the beauty. When this four-year-old was asked a follow up question, “You do not share your popcorn at the movies, do you?” her response was even quicker, “No!”
The two granddaughters spent Martin Luther King Jr. Day with us because both mommy and daddy were out of town working. Irene and I took them to school the next day. When I went to pick up Cristiana, there was a sign outside her class room addressed to “FOUR YEAR OLD PARENTS.” Milquetoast that I am these days, I didn’t say a word to her teachers. I know I should keep up more with scientific and technological advances, but there really aren’t four year olds now who have kids of their own, are there?
Perhaps I’ve just been in a long slump, something similar to what the New York Knicks have been going through the last two years. The other morning in the gym locker room there was a glimmer of the old me. The attendant was talking about a trip he had made by plane and said he ran into a problem when he couldn’t get a seat next to his mother-in-law. The old Larry spoke up right away: “Count your blessings, Man. End of story.”
Atta boy, Larry.
(Posted January 23, 2012)
