Pops’ Movie Club

Hobbies, Creative Pursuits and Worthwhile Causes: First Installment. (For some background, read the previous post, Exploring The Deeper Places.)

So the exploration has begun. The quest: to identify pursuits for us Men-Of-A-Certain-Age; things other than watching the 24-hour news channels and becoming even grumpier old men.

Let me go ahead and offer a few disclaimers: I admit some personal bias here. The first ideas that come to mind for me are those things I find interesting, so canning jelly and jam won’t be on the list unless you love it and want to write a guest post about, which would be awesome. Nothing against jelly, but canning it is not compelling for me.

Of course we need to keep our pursuits within the law, relatively speaking. Since About Pops doesn’t dwell in Colorado, marijuana-growing won’t be on the list. Also we need to have some limits set by reasonablenss and good judgement. So hang-gliding, cliff-diving, self-tattooing, and fire-eating probably won’t be on the list. And while it sounds so manly to include hobbies like cigar smoking or chicked-fried-steak eating, if my cardiologist found out I was experimenting in these realms, he would have a heart attack.

You know what your problem is, it’s that you haven’t seen enough movies - all of life’s riddles are answered in the movies. —Steve Martin

Pursuit #1: Start/Join A Movie Club

This idea is compelling and daunting for me. While I love movies and would welcome the opportunity to watch and discuss with a few close friends, I’m way too introverted to actually join a club. So maybe from time to time I could post a movie suggestion, or you could send me some ideas. Then could watch them individually in the privacy of our own homes.

Everybody has something that chews them up and, for me, that thing was always loneliness. The cinema has the power to make you not feel lonely, even when you are. —Tom Hanks

Selecting a movie or movies seems to be very important, but tricky. Tastes in movies varies wildly, and judgements are made. For example if I suggested our club start with the movies of Nora Ephron, you might suggest that what I need is a cigar and a chicken-fried-steak, or you might assume I had been smoking the favorite crop of Coloradians.

So how about the movies of John Hughes (the good ones)? Or Wes Anderson? Or Woody Allen. I know, let’s compromise and go with Alfred Hitchcock. We’ll start with Rear Window.

A good film is when the price of the dinner, the theatre admission and the babysitter were worth it. —Alfred Hitchcock

Maybe we could leave the movies up to a film expert like Robert Osborne. You know, the guy that picks the films for “The Esstentials” on TCM.

Read this from the TCM website:
“Watch the Essentials every Saturday at 7PM CT. Since its inception on TCM in 2001, The Essentials has become the ultimate series for movie lovers to expand their knowledge of must-see cinema and revisit landmark films that have had a lasting impact on audiences everywhere.  Each season a co-host joins Robert Osborne for a special introduction and post-movie discussion about the enduring qualities of a particular film.”

If tonight’s selection is any indication, I feel like we can trust Robert. So let’s start tonight:

EAST OF EDEN
1955 118 Mins TV- PG Drama

It’s a great film and released just as us Baby Boomers were toddling around the house. Here’s a description from the website:

James Dean starred in three films before his tragic death in an automobile accident on September 30, 1955 and the first of these, East of Eden (1955), was the only one released during his short lifetime. An adaptation of the 1952 novel by John Steinbeck, East of Eden was director Elia Kazan’s follow-up to On the Waterfront (1954) and marked his first use of both Technicolor and Cinemascope. The technological upgrade worked wonders for the story’s verdant Salinas Valley setting, where brothers Cal (Dean) and Aron (Richard Davalos) Trask compete for the affections of their taciturn farmer father (Raymond Massey) and the love of a local girl (Julie Harris) in the last innocent months before the start of the First World War. Adapted by playwright turned screenwriter Paul Osborn, East of Eden took as its inspiration the Biblical tale of Cain and Abel, a take torqued even further by Dean’s unorthodox performance (which made him a teen sensation and the industry’s hottest commodity). Dean plumbed deep within his psyche to play the troubled Cal Trask and his unconventional approach to his craft frustrated and angered costar Massey, resulting in a palpable onscreen tension that helped define the fractured relationship of their characters. Toploaded with talent, East of Eden scored its only Academy Award for sixth-billed Jo Van Fleet, in the small but unforgettable role of Cal Trask’s wayward mother. Dean skipped out on the film’s March 1955 New York City premiere and his subsequent Oscar nomination for Best Performance in a Leading Role was bestowed posthumously, an Academy first.

Start the popcorn, dim the lights…

Exploring The Deeper Places

Beethoven was only 56 when he died, but the last decade of his life may have been his most prolific as a composer. Here’s the amazing part to me: he was DEAF during this time. How do you write music you can’t hear?! It must come from a deeper place.

Woody Allen; (put aside for a second any judgements on his relationship proclivities) the man is a comic genius. He has written, directed, and/or starred in like 40 movies. He’s 79 and still at it. He has a movie in theatres now.

In a recent interview, Allen was asked how he manages to make so many movies. “I’m an imperfectionist,” he said. When asked about his being so prolific at this stage of his life: “Well, I am 80 in a few months. Who knows what I can count on? My parents lived long, but that’s not a guarantee of anything. It’s too late to really reinvent oneself. All I can do is try to do good work so that people can say, ‘In his later years, in his last years, he did some of his best work.' Great.’”

Doug Manning is my mentor/therapist/friend. Doug wrote his latest book in his 80s. It’s called, The Back Nine: Life Beyond Retirement. My favorite line from the book, “Aging is inevitable. Getting old is a choice.” 

Wooden Boat Shop in Seattle (photo by Dave Fuller)

Doug speaks of the importance of having a hobby before you retire. As it turns out, it is also important to have a creative pursuit. Maybe they're one in the same. People who do pursue creativity, science now affirms, are happier and healthier. 

I asked Doug why this is so important. He explained that as we age and maybe retire, our world gets smaller. Our network of friends and family usually dwindles. “Without a hobby, or creative outlet or a cause you can give yourself to, your world continues to shrink.”

So if it’s so important that we have a hobby or creative pursuit, how do we make that happen. It seems like most people don’t consider themselves “creative”. I disagree. I believe we all are creative or have the capacity to be. Maybe it’s that our culture steals it from us.

Maybe you’ve heard this old anecdote: The young child of an art teacher asks, “Mom, what do you do?” The mom wanting to keep the answer basic replies, “I teach people how to draw.” The child replies, “Did they forget how?”

I’ve heard that if you were to ask a kindergarten class, “How many of you are artists?” every kid in the class will raise their hand. As you ask that question in each grade in ascending order, the percentage will go down. By the time you reach the senior class, only a few, if any, will raise their hand. You could deduce then that one of the effects of education is teaching people that they are not creative, or at least not artistic.

Billy Collins, former U.S. poet laureate, and my favorite poet, says it seems to be the objective of every junior high English teacher to make kids hate poetry.

So maybe the reason that taking up a creative endeavor like poetry or painting, or writing, or dancing, or photography is so daunting is because we’ve been lead to believe we’re not adequate to the task.

In Four Quartets, T. S. Eliot declaims, “Old men should be explorers.”

I’m going to take Eliot’s advice and explore the possibilities of hobbies and creative pursuits for us men-of-a-certain-age. Because there's apparently more to it than meets the eye or ear.

I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas. What are you doing in this area? What did your father or grandfather do?

To be continued...

Fashion For Old Guys

SOMETIMES I HAVE A PROBLEM WITH AGE-APPROPRIATENESS. I HAVE A GOOD EXCUSE.

It’s hard being age-appropriate, you know? It’s a moving target. It’s hard in every area of life. But, it’s easy when you’re young. As a kid you go to an amusement park, there’s no wondering if a roller-coaster is age appropriate, there’s a cartoon character sign with his hand raised saying, “You must be this tall to ride this ride!” Everything from toys, to puzzles, to Pampers, to food is labeled for age-appropriateness.

Even the movies tell you if you need “PG” Parental-Guidance, or whether it is “R” rated, which basically means, “If your parents are too stupid to tell you you can’t see this movie, we will.” It may be time for a reworking of the movie rating system. I’m recommending a couple of new ratings: SA and CCR, which means if you’re a Senior Adult or a Conservative Christian Republican, you might want to pass on this one. Even for me, sometimes, today’s movies shock my sensibilities, and my standards are pretty low. I’m not a fan of graphic violence, super-hero-special-effects, and casual f-bombing for f-bombing’s sake, or movies starring Matthew McConaughey (It’s not personal, Matt).

For today’s post, I want to focus on one area of tricky age-appropriateness: How To Dress.

I believe I mentioned that I have a good excuse for struggling in this area; besides the fact that I’m an aging, softish, white guy, and we all struggle with this (or we just don’t care anymore). While I was still in my own adolescence/teen years/first coming-of-age, I started working with teens, first, at a junior high school in a counseling program as practicum for a college course. From there, I started in “youth ministry”—working with teens in a church setting. I continued that into my 50s and my second-coming-of-age.

So if we were to meet, and if I were to do something age-inappropriate, keep in mind, it’s not that I’m necessarily emotionally immature, just generationally confused. To this day I am much more comfortable hanging out with young people than I am with people my own age. I’m sure retired high school teachers and coaches can relate (unless you hated kids, which seems to be the case for a few teachers and coaches).

All of this contemplating age-appropriateness started when a sweetheart of a girl from the old youth group days sent me a link to an article about a reinvention of the famous and enduring Chuck Taylor Converse All-Star sneakers. She said something to the effect of: “I could see you wearing these.” I replied something like: “Heck yes! I need a pair.”

But then it dawned on me, should I be wearing Chucks, or is it time for the Rockports and Hush Puppies?

And, not just shoes. What about sock color, or socks at all? Should any man past puberty wear a tank top in public or anywhere other than a basketball court, regardless of physique, or one’s personal, unrealistic view of one’s own?

At this point in my life, only a couple of wardrobe issues are settled for me: boxers over briefs, and this: I just don’t feel comfortable in polo shirts. I do have one. I wear it to this place where I play my semi-annual golf game. They require it. That’s a problem because a lot of the old guys I know that look pretty dapper most of the time seem to do the polo shirt thing so well, most of the year. Somehow when I put on a polo and khakis, I feel like I should be selling TVs at Best Buy.

For many years I have been at my most comfortable in blue jeans, a long-sleeved shirt (sleeves rolled up) and loafers (no socks) in spring, summer and early-autumn. Once the frost is on the pumpkin, the sleeves roll down or I pull over a sweater and switch to socks and chuka boots. Why I’m worrying about clothes choice is beyond me. Why our obsessions?

I guess I still care to the point that I don’t want to look like an old-guy cliche. You know; hawaiian shirt, cargo shorts, sandals with socks. Here’s the thing, a lot of guys pull that off very well. It’s like they are so comfortable in their own skin that whatever they wear on that skin seems very authentic.

I also don’t want to appear to be struggling to hang on to some desperate sense of youthfullness. It’s not my fault that chuka boots have come back in to style (I think). I’m not some metrosexual wannabe.

Mostly though, I don’t want to embarrass my grand-girls. When I get home from a fun day out with them, and I look in the mirror and see that on my t-shirt that reads: “Medicare: Bring It On”, is a stain from the yogurt we had at Orange Leaf, and a smudge of grease from the pizza we had at Chuck E. Cheese, will I be embarrassed or will all that just be reminders of a wonder-full day?

At least my feet won’t hurt, because the new Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars I’ve been wearing have extra cusioning and arch  support. Thank you Paula Moore Gresham for the tip and for believing I can pull it off.

So, to all you grandkids and wives out there: any advice for us old guys? Keep this in mind: one thing I know for sure, I don’t want to look like one of those guys whose wife laid his clothes out for him.

Espresso, Oyster or Salsa

IN A FEW WEEKS, it will be two years since I went public here at About Pops with our dream to take to the open road in a shiny Airstream travel trailer. The potential of being judged as “impulsive” is eliminated.

Over the past two years, we’ve been to RV shows, visited dealerships, called on classified listings and even visited an Airstream rally. We’ve read blogs and forums and interviewed Airstream owners. Choosing the best model and size has been fun and formidable.

I’ve fretted over the wisdom of the expense at this stage of life, and have been haunted by the excess of it, making it a moral dilemma. Do I really have to justify everything?

Finally, for better or worse, we’ve made the decision. We’re gettin’ hitched (as in trailer to pickup). We have a couple of dealers offering us special deals on new trailers that are the model we’ve chosen. That’s the good news.

The other news is that we now face another big decision. We don’t want this one to take two years, so we are asking for your vote. That’s right. Here’s your chance to share your opinion, to help design the interior of a new Airstream. Normally, I wouldn’t throw an important matter like this onto the table of public opinion, but we are very lucky to have a lot of friends who are artists, designers, who have good taste and who know us well enough to help us with this decision.

As you ponder your vote, keep in mind that we really like modern design aesthetic, otherwise we wouldn’t be considering this Airstream model. Oh, and don’t forget this important factor: we have three Grand-Girls, ages 1, 3 and 6, who will be traveling with us from time to time.

There are three choices. Espresso, Oyster, and Salsa.

Espresso

Oyster

Salsa

Here’s how you can vote: You can leave a comment here in the comments section at About Pops. You can also leave your vote as a comment on the post on the About Pops Facebook page. Or you can tweet your vote on Twitter @AboutPops.

Please vote. And, when the Airstream finally arrives, maybe we’ll come stay in your driveway for a week or two.