@Randem

Yeah… you read that right. Sure, there are some people who think Christmas is the evil, capitalist holiday, but those people haven’t really considered Valentine’s day.

Let’s compare: At Christmas, everyone gets to participate, even if they’re not married or romantically involved, whereas on Valentine’s day, only lovers get gifts. At Christmas, you get many gifts from many people and the good givers make up for the bad ones, whereas on Valentine’s day you get one gift from one person (if any at all) and if your lover is a lousy gift giver you’re stuck with it. At Christmas, the amount of thought that goes into a gift has meaning, whereas on Valentine’s Day it’s all about extravagance. It’s okay to return a Christmas gift for something in your size, whereas a Valentine’s Day gift in the wrong size has horrible implications. Do I need to go on?

What else? Valentine’s Day is cheesy and fake. Let’s take a moment to think about what actually happens on Valentine’s Day and how insulting it really is.

Flowers
Guys who never buy flowers for their lover will suddenly be rushing out en masse to buy red roses. Why? What about a red rose makes it good on Valentine’s Day? Hey fellas… did you know that most of your women don’t even like roses? Why not take a moment to learn what she actually likes, and give her that on Valentine’s Day? Maybe it’s carnations, maybe it’s irises… a good friend of mine goes ga-ga over gerbera daisies. Don’t give the same cheesy red rose that everyone else is giving.

Greeting Cards
Millions of men and women will flock to Hallmark stores and pay $5.95 for the right to sign their name to someone else’s declaration of love. Millions more will go to Walgreen’s because they’re too lazy to go to Hallmark, and millions more will go to Wal-Mart where the selection is lousy but the cards are cheap. For what? For someone else to do all the work of declaring their love, and writing it down on a card that you can then give away with your name on it. Seriously… if you love someone, you should be able to tell them so on your own, without the card.

Chocolate
This is the only Valentine’s Day gift that actually makes any sense to me. Why? Because chocolate contains phenylethylamine, which is the same chemical released by the brain when someone experiences feelings of love. Therefore chocolate is a very logical gift, because the chocolate can reliably produce the effect that you desire without you having to do any of the work! It’s brilliant! I mean, why go to the trouble of being charming and attractive when you can just feed a chemical to your loved one? Hmmm…. if only Pfizer or GlaxoSmithKline could come up with an over-the-counter phenylethylamine pill…

Dinner
It will be impossible to find an open table at a restaurant this Thursday, because all those same millions of people will have reservations days in advance, so that they can spend even more money trying to prove they love each other. But how does an expensive dinner prove anything? Paying someone else to do all the work is not romantic. You want to prove your love? Cook something yourself. Or, for a really top-notch Valentine’s Day dinner, cook it together. Bump into each other in the kitchen. Get in each other’s way. Have fun. And save the money, too.

Jewelry
This is, by far, the worst of all Valentine’s Day gifts. This is the uber-expensive gift that a man gives to his female lover to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that his love for her is directly proportionate to the size of his credit line. How do I love thee? Let me count the receipts.

Look, people. This day is all wrong. What you should be doing on Valentine’s Day is cooking dinner together, eating it with candles lit, and then snuggling up together on the couch to watch a sappy movie together. That’s it. Stop trying so hard to make it so big, because in doing so, you are taking all the actual meaning out of it and turning it into a show of extravagance.

Cards, flowers, and jewelry are all nice gifts, but all of them mean more when given on some other day. Why not give her a card because it’s the first Tuesday of the month? How about a diamond necklace as a Happy May 30th present? These gifts should NEVER be given on any holiday — and especially not on the Devil’s Holiday.

“It’s the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.” — Muhammad Ali

Coincidence — the noteworthy alignment of two or more events or circumstances without obvious causal connection, according to Wikipedia — is the theme of the day when considering one of my favorite films: 1999’s Magnolia. However, it is no coincidence that this film is the topic of today’s post, because I will be discussing how Magnolia was one of the vehicles through which Hollywood has made me a better person.

While the introduction — a nearly 30 minute story that seems almost fascinating as a movie by itself — sets us up for a story of coincidence, I have to be honest in saying that I really didn’t detect any coincidence whatsoever in the actual movie. The story was filled with noteworthy alignments of characters in the plot, but their connections were made obvious and far more than casual. In fact, I don’t think it’s about coincidence at all, so much as it is about the hidden truth underneath of coincidence: that sometimes things just happen, and there isn’t always a reason.

This happens. This is something that happens.
We pick up in the film with nine individual stories, each already a crisis in progress, and spend the course of the three-hour movie learning how each present-day crisis is the product of some unresolved issue from the past. This core theme is summed up in the quote, “we might be through with the past, but the past ain’t through with us.”

These nine interwoven stories start out tense, and the tension only builds and builds until we reach a breaking point, where the entire cast sings Wise Up by Aimee Mann. It’s at this point that the point of the story shifts, stopping the focus on who did who wrong, and starting the focus on the fact that they’re just details people hang on to.

In a deathbed rant, we have Jason Robards saying, “Don’t ever let anyone ever say to you, ‘You shouldn’t regret anything.’ Don’t do that, don’t! You regret what you fucking want! And use that, use that, use that regret for anything, any way you want. You can use it, okay?”

It’s dangerous to confuse children with angels
A major part of this theme is how children are so often the victims of the mistakes adults make. Though present with all the characters, this is echoed loudly in the correlation between the young quiz kid and the adult quiz kid. But nowhere is the theme spelled out better than in the womanizing workshop being put on by Frank T.J. Mackie (played by Tom Cruise).

Mackie, we learn, is the unlikely son of tv mogul Earl Partridge (Robards), and has grown up to be every bit of the misogynistic on-air persona as the father he hated for doing the exact same thing. It’s this overflowing source of wisdom who continues the theme with his quote, “the most useless thing in the world is that which is behind me.”

That, of course, pales in comparison to the far more realistic and useful — though certainly less hopeful — advice he gives in the line, “in this life, it’s not what you hope for, it’s not what you deserve — it’s what you take!” We’re getting from Mackie a glimpse of the cause of all that regret being spoken of by Partridge.

Can you learn from a womanizer?
It all reminds me of last week’s movie, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, where we learn about hanging on to pain and regret. Only this time we have a different, yet equally monumental, quote to live by for our response: “I will not apologize for who I am. I will not apologize for what I need. I will not apologize for what I *want*!”

Look. Throughout the film, it’s quite clear that Frank T. J. Mackie is a pig, not someone to be idolized. But I think it’s also clear that he’s a hypocrite, saying all the right things without actually believing them himself. When Mackie refuses to apologize for who he is, it’s rhetoric to get into women’s pants, but this line carries with it a beautiful irony in that it contains the answer to his problems, if he’d only take the time to believe in what he’s saying.

Frank Mackie, for all of his good advice, is faking it. He’s seeking validation through sexual experience in the same way that Earl Partridge seeks it through money, Linda Partridge (Julianne Moore) seeks it through martyrdom, Claudia (Melora Walters) seeks it through drugs, and Donnie Smith (William H. Macy) seeks it through answering trivia. But all of them could move forward from their past if they would just accept who they are. We should not apologize for who we are.

We met upon the level, and we’re parting on the square.
Words are nothing without meaning, and only one character in the film seems to have the authenticity of believing the things he says. It’s that authenticity that makes Officer Jim Kurring (John C. Riley) the character we attach to as the hope-bringer in the story. And it’s fitting, then, that the movie comes to an end on his words, “The law is the law, and heck if I’m gonna break it. But if you can forgive someone… Well, that’s the tough part. What can we forgive?”

It really comes down to that. So in summary… You may be done with the past, but the past ain’t done with you. You shouldn’t regret anything. I will not apologize for who I am. What can we forgive?

I’m glad someone finally put an end to that bullshit perfect season. Sorry, Pats fans, but cheaters don’t deserve names like “dynasty” or “best quarterback ever”.

Thank you, Eli Manning, Michael Strahan, and all the true champions of the New York Football Giants, for pissing all over the crybaby GQ QB’s corn flakes, and preventing the NFL from being tainted the way that some other sports have become.

Yeah, that’s right. Fuck Randy Moss. Fuck Tom Brady. Fuck the players who think they’re bigger than the game. Take a look at that enormous “in your face” act performed by Randy Moss after is Super Bowl touchdown, and you’ll see exactly why it’s TEAMS that win championships, not players.

Last time I counted, Randy Moss, Terrell Owens, and Ocho Cinco had a combined ZERO Super Bowl rings. The Giants won the Super Bowl with Jeremy Shockey on crutches on the sideline. I wonder if they’d have done so well with him on the field.