The Wonder Years: Our Struggle with Hormones and Puberty

January 31, 1988, was a very important day in the history of our nation. First and foremost, it will go down in the annals of the Google search engine as the day that the Washington Redskins embarrassed the Denver Bronco's in Superbowl XXII. Second and fivemost, it was the day that millions of teenagers tuned in to watch Winnie Cooper and Kevin Arnold begin a sordid Shakespearean affair with a single kiss. From 1988 until 1994, The Wonder Years captivated me. In my opinion, the best show of the 80's decade and arguably the greatest comedy/drama series of all time.

The Wonder Years was remarkable television...for many reasons, not the least of which was the narration of Daniel Stern. (Yep that's the clumsy bad guy from Home Alone.) The nasally, reminiscent voice-over of Kevin's adult self reminded us that it's all in the past, that high school is over, and that the worst and possibly the best years are gone.
"Thirteen is a crazy age.
You're too young to vote and to old not to be in love.
You live in a house someone else owns...
[Camera shows WINNIE's house through KEVIN's window]
but your dreams are already somewhere else." (episode #46)

We followed Kevin Arnold through his teenage years while he navigated through the battlefield of adolescence to claim the rewards on the other side of puberty. A television show about puberty. That word still makes me shiver. It was punishing, and it left us helpless in the combat zone of junior high school. However, the hormones had a blast, running to and fro through the amusement park of our little bodies, riding blood vessels like roller coasters. We were enamored with Kevin Arnold, his trusty sidekick, Paul Pfeiffer, and the innocent, emotional, and enigmatic Winnie Cooper, as they all fought valiantly against the onslaught of those hormones. We were fighting with them, growing up with them, living and dying with them, every Sunday night, for six seasons.

Like battle weary soldiers standing on the edge of sanity we stood with Kevin, Paul, and Winnie. Our heroes on Sunday evening helped us stake flags in every corner of our endocrine system, claiming victory over every gland. We will not be governed by an ocean of hormones that don't care whether we live or die. We will make decisions based on logic, instead of irrational exuberance. We will ignore the acne and the cracking voices. We will use razors and buy deodorants. We will not drool over the opposite sex... in public. We will keep our pants on and our eyes up. We will... or we will at least try... most of the time...some of the time...

The Wonder Years, took us from 7th grade to graduation day. And somewhere in the midst of all those English tests, chemistry labs and sibling rivalries, one of those rewards I was referring to earlier, began to emerge. I call it LOVE now, but back then it was "LIKE."

Kevin and Winnie, an epic "like" story. 

KEVIN: Winnie, you know I don't get you!! One minute you like me, the next you don't. You've been doing this all year. First you kiss me, then you act like you don't like me. If you like me, fine, if you don't, quit acting like it!!
KEVIN: I just have to know if you like me or not. And don't give any of that "like me" like me stuff.
NARRATOR: Well, that was it: a straightforward, face-to-face, yes-or-no question. And I was going to stand there until I got my answer.
WINNIE: I don't know.
KEVIN: "I don't know"! What do you mean you don't know?
WINNIE: I mean I don't know. I really don't know. [On the verge of tears] I wish everyone would just leave me alone. I don't know what I'm doing.
NARRATOR: This was something new. I mean, I always figured girls knew exactly what they wanted. They knew; they had a plan. Or maybe they didn't.
NARRATOR: Maybe they were just as confused as we were. Isn't that great?
NARRATOR: It--it's horrible. They don't know either. That means nobody knows.
KEVIN: You mean you really don't know?
WINNIE: No.
KEVIN: Oh.
KEVIN: Well, I'm sorry.
WINNIE: What for?
KEVIN: I don't know.
NARRATOR: As I stood there that cold night, I realized for the first time in a long time that Winnie and I were feeling the same thing.

Love in the hearts and hands of teenagers is like Icy Hot in the underarms and undershorts of Ronald McDonald. But what can we do? You just got to ride it out. Let it wash over you. Let the pain make you feel alive and believe as Shakespeare did, "It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."

Almost two decades have gone by since the last season of The Wonder Years aired, and I've figured out a couple things. The fact is, each one of us is still a walking hormone. The hormones won. We didn't defeat them. We keep them at bay, with things like political discussions, and careers, and long division, but we all know that hormones are just beyond that tiny ridge bouncing around like paranoid junkies, countless in number, waiting for the right girl to walk by, or the right guy to whistle at us. Then we have to corral them back in with a show on the Discovery Channel or a walk through the forest.

Looking back, I realize that the reason The Wonder Years was such a great show was because it was a revealing documentation of the most transformative, dramatic and hilarious stage of human development.

The Awkward Stage. 

Happy Mother's Day, Mom - Here's a Sneak Peek

There's a reason I waited until Mother's Day to post this blog.  Last year for my Mom's Birthday I gave her a couple of websites, one of which was Kenhornby.com. This was in celebration of the the wonderful man who is my late father and her late husband. 

It's just a simple site right now, but I'm working on something that will be much more involved. Here's a sneak peak, Mom. 

Happy Mother's Day

The Polar Bear's Rules for Movie Goers

1. Go online and find out if there is a "Secret Scene"
Once in a while, theater goers who dwell in their positions during the epic credit roll will be rewarded with a "Secret Scene". It's quite thrilling, like seeing a narwhal off the coast of Greenland. It can tie a movie together or blow your mind with a cliff-hanging promise of a sequel. This doesn't happen all the time, not even most of the time or some of the time, actually...hardly ever, but that one time you do get the chance you want to be there. You don't want to find out from Howard Johnson over in retail that you missed seeing the narwhal. The realization that you missed part of the movie will haunt you and you will never be satisfied. Movie ruined.

2. Get there early.
The early bird catches the proverbial worm and lands the best possible viewing angle, audio vortex, and power position. Every theater and or living room has a sweet spot. Find it. Put a stake in it. Claim your reward. Getting there late means you get to sit in the bottom left side of the auditorium, two feet from the fire exit, craning your neck, getting your ears drums blown to shreds, next to the guy who is constantly wiggling and throwing popcorn because he is 2-years-old. Movie Ruined.

3. Don't get popcorn.
It's tempting because it's so full of salty, buttery goodness, and it seems to fit so well with movie culture. Let's face it, you'll be finished with it by the time the previews are half over, and somewhere during the first scene you'll realize you have that infernal kernel that's stuck between the right incisor and your outer gum agitating you during the entire movie. You'll be finding it for an hour with your tongue, then letting your tongue lead your finger like the blind leading the blind until you start to taste blood. Movie Ruined.

4. Go to the bathroom before the opening scene.
It doesn't matter if you have to go or not, just do it. This might mean missing a couple previews, but that's okay. You can go home and watch them on YouTube because some 8-bit, pizza roll eatin', blog jammer posted it yesterday. Don't get stuck some where in the middle of the movie trying to figure out which is the least important 45.8 second section of the film. Make that, 57.9 seconds if it's number two. When you sit back down every one is sobbing and you realize it was the most important 57.9 seconds thus far in the entire. Movie Ruined.

5. Don't fast forward or turn away during the love scenes.
Key contextual elements might be missing from the end of the movie. You'll be asking yourself "Why is it so significant that everything in the movie is black and white except for that orange umbrella in the final scene." It's because you missed the sex scene. It's like your standing at a locked door and you don't have the key. The key is back in that love scene you wouldn't watch. Movie ruined!

Nostalgic Feeling needs Creative Healing

You know that feeling you get when you smell that Croatian girl in front of you at Burlington Coat Factory, and it reminds you of a steak you had in an airport during a layover in Vienna, Austria. Then you grunt slightly thinking of that steak and the roasted red potatoes that you almost didn't get because the mixed vegetable medley sounded better. Then the final synaptic memory breaks free, and the entire trip comes flooding back into recollection, the people, the places, the time. Despite that epic sneer from the Croatian girl you just offended by grunting and smiling at her backside, your feeling pretty good, waxing reminiscent on "The Good Ole Days."  What happened there? Nostalgia happened, in the form of an olfactory evoked recall, and it is very powerful, almost as powerful as pure instinct. Just ask advertising agencies around the world.
Here's the order: Fear, Sex, and then Nostalgia. An elite assembly evoking strong emotions, intended primarily for the survival and continuation of the human race. Over the years, our mothers, our husbands, our girlfriends, our teachers, our bosses, and even our children have learned that these things can be used to motivate even manipulate each and every one of us. Fear-mongering has gotten a bad wrap ever since our mothers told us that if we kept making that ugly face it would freeze that way. But despite it's overwhelming negativity, it sells the most product. And the term "sex sells" has been a staple of good salesmanship ever since Eve stood there all sexy and nude and whatnot holding that cursed piece of fruit in front of Adam. Who hasn't jumped on that bandwagon? Everyone talks about fear and sex, but for the lionhearted and chaste among us, I'm going to delve into this phenomenon of nostalgia. To start I would like to provide a list of things that give me nostalgic feelings and see if you don't agree.
1. Corn dogs dripping with grease

2. 8-bit arcade games in an actual arcade

3. Comic books

4. Matchbox cars in the sandbox

5. Saturday morning cartoons

6. Riding bikes until you pee in your pants.

7. Old playgrounds

8. Box Turtles

9. Disney princesses

10. Icy pops on a Friday afternoon.

And one last thing, any webpage beginning with: You know your a child of the 80's if...
Most feelings of nostalgia induce positive vibes, unless of course you are getting re-acquainted with a favorite song that suddenly reminds you of why you had to find that happy place under the stairwell in junior high school. That would be considered a totally freakin' nostalgia backfire. However, nostalgia has been a golden goose for the Hollywood box office, automobile companies and toy manufacturers. As a father I'm enjoying seeing these flashbacks of my childhood, as a consumer I'm a sucker for those advertisements, but as an artist I'm disgusted.
Where did all the creativity go? In the interest of going green creative minds everywhere have entered the Age of Recycled Ideas. Ford Mustangs that harken back to the glory days of the 60's, Cabbage Patch dolls on the shelves in Wal-mart 15 years after they were cool, and a blockbuster movie based on the most boring adventure game ever, Battleship. "C-4" "Awww... you sunk my battleship." I can still see the faces of those kids on the front of the box, having the best time. Sorry, Hasbro, I never had any fun playing that game. Maybe if I had used real C-4...

Creativity is a last resort now-a-days. Why? Because it's cheaper. The price to earnings ratio is much more acceptable in such a questionable economy. Who wants to go out on a limb for a new idea, when there are so many old ones that work so well. Why not play the nostalgia card? It's working because we are all suckers for it. We don't realize that it will soon come back and bite us. The world needs creativity, it needs artists to create something out of nothing. Who knows, if we keep going down this path of least resistance we'll be making remakes of remakes of remakes, and theaters will vomit digital video out of their projection booths because we have become lukewarm.
Don't get me wrong, the creativity is there it just needs space. It needs money. it needs recognition. Don't let your weakness for nostalgia push the creative genius's further out into the starving artist sea. Support the arts. The reason the remakes are good is because they are resting on the shoulders of the greats, the originals.
It all started somewhere.
...and don't even get me started on Reality TV as my wife makes me watch American Idol.

Cheapskates Get Bad Haircuts

"Ouch." A hair is yanked from its dream follicle on the side of my head by a 30-year-old barbershop buzzer. My Bigdaddy smirks and teases me about taking it like a man, and I grow an inch taller on that butt-punishing, iron stool placed perfectly just outside the garage. It happens again, but this time I just wince.  I'm 7, and this isn't the first haircut Bigdaddy has given. He'd been doing it for years, but that razor was on it's last leg. He must have seen me wince, because he mumbles something about oiling the blades.

I was at his mercy, much like the thousands in his unit who needed buzz cuts during the war. I would sit on that old black stool for thirty minutes, staring at the cars whizzing by on Atlee Road while he buzzed and clipped away at my aching scalp. Haircut Day never failed to be the most gorgeous day of the week to sit motionless on a device intended for torture while your brains constantly vibrated under a tool that can only be described as a jackhammer with scissors. Tiny fibers of distressed proteins rained down past my shoulders and landed in piles on the driveway. 

I couldn't wait to feel that soft brush on my neck that signaled the end of my misery. The existence of those remaining prickly hairs on the back of my neck would drive me to madness every time. As soon as he would unfasten that white cape, I would make for the swimming pool faster than a subatomic particle. It was always emotionally and physically painful and I winced constantly, but I didn't let anyone else touch my hair with a razor until I turned 16.

Although my mother would argue with this, I think I gave up those haircuts way to easily. No one could ever give me a haircut like Bigdaddy... because his were free.

As I grew older, It was a surprise to learn that people would pay money to experience this misery.

$12 for a haircut plus tip.

$23 for a shampoo and a haircut plus tip. 

$18 for a hot towel $10 for a shampoo and $11 for a haircut PLUS tip.

$40 for consultation, head massage and a haircut... PLUS TIP!

Call me frugal or Mr. Scrooge, but I hated paying any amount of money for this tribulation, much less, a tip.

Hair stylist: "Excuse me sir, may I crucify you on this stool and let you watch in this beautiful mirror. In the mean time, I won't bring you any drinks or onion rings to make this any easier on you, so you must give me a tip when I'm done."

Me: "Okay, and while you're at it, can you dangle loose hairs in and around my eyes in an attempt to blind me? Thanks."
No. Not anymore I won't stand for it. So I went looking for a way out.

Coupons gave me some relief, but one afternoon on my way to a raw bar with some friends I found it. The Virginia Beach Beauty and Barber Academy. "$2 a haircut. No tips." I couldn't contain my excitement. Finally, an answer to my faithless prayers. I wrote down the number and made an appointment for that evening.

Work ended anticlimactically, and I hustled over to that Academy like a school boy going to his first coed sleepover. Jittery with excitement, I grabbed a couple of quarters from my ash tray to complete the total required for my haircut. I sauntered toward my destination thankful that I thought to make an appointment, because looking through the tinted windows from outside, I realized I wasn't the only one that had found this "Secret Garden." 

INT. CROWDED BARBERSHOP - LATE EVENING

The door opens and a tall, handsome, debonair, young gentleman walks in with a grand smile. He walks up to the front desk.

 SHAGGY YET HANDSOME MAN 

         My name is, Ben Hornby, I have an appointment for 5:30. 

As his name and appointment time is confirmed he lifts his head to take in his surroundings... 

CUT TO:

EXT. CROWDED BARBERSHOP - STRIP MALL - LATE EVENING - CONTINUOUS

Someone screams, "Noooooo!" from inside the barbershop.  

I freak out. A mob of small Asian men all dressed in white smocks with black pants are staring directly at me. I'm the only Caucasian, so I'm a head taller than anyone else in the room. An unusual murmur ripples through their ranks as they glance back and forth at each other and at me. This goes on for a couple of minutes until the voice of the attendant behind me cuts through the air and states, "They want you to pick." 

"Pick what?"

"Who cuts your hair."

Suddenly overcome by a desire to flee, I point and say, "Eenie, meanie, miney, moe...; ...catch a tiger by his toe?" My awkward smile turns to a nervous smile as I realize my sense of humor was my last hope. Defeated, I say, "I don't care."

It is then that I notice, how many empty chairs there are to chose from, 30. This barbershop school, the venue I have chosen for the demise of my head of hair, is larger than the largest hair salon/barbershop/killing floor I have ever been in.

Thirty Asian men and ME. You have failed, Grasshopper, only your own ambition. More murmurs. Then silence. All eyes center on me again. The sea of identical bodies begins to part and one emerges taller and more confident than the others. "I will do it," he spoke in broken Engrish. 

He took my hand, and I was a lamb, a tiny little lamb being led to the slaughter. The mob follows, closely behind me, as I land in a cushy chrome chair. I sit and look at my face in the mirror. Every last pore has opened and sweat erupts from me. I am glistening. They turn me towards the student gawkers and then the torment begins. 

However, not the torment I'm used to, an excruciating torment that reminds me of the fourth level of Hell. The last thing I see before shutting my eyes and splintering off into a thousand personalities as a coping mechanism, is one man standing before me with a pair of scissors in one hand and a razor in the other hand visibly shaking because I must be his very first paying customer ever.

I kid you not, two hours later, (yes, two hours later) smiles begin to emerge on the faces of the onlookers. The sculpture is beginning to take shape and I'm beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. My phone is now buzzing every 5 minutes because I forgot to tell my wife I had stumbled into a Hunter S. Thompson nightmare. 

The smiles ripple through the audience and just before a round of applause arrives, I am spun around to observe the masterpiece in the mirror. Everyone takes a deep breath. Something is weird. All the faces stare back at me through the mirror waiting for me to rejoice, then I look into my own eyes. I don't recognize myself. And then the horror of it sinks in to my numb skull. I look like... them, like the Asians. With my white cape, my black pants and now my Asian haircut, I look like them. I am now an American-Asian.

I want to be clear here. I love the Asian people, Asian food, and Asian culture but I don't want to be Asian. So naturally, I begin to feel a little ridiculous. I smiled, then hummed and hawed, admiring the absurdity of it all, then I asked him to take a little more off the top, because that's what customers sometimes do. He does, and I nod, and accept his mild offering. Another awkwardness ensues as I wait for him to take my white smock/cape off and finalize the deal. After waiting long enough I reach for the snap myself and hop out of that chair. 

They all bow and nod and thank me for coming in as they escort me to the front desk. I continue smiling and reach in my pocket for the two dollars. I pull it out. And then God Almighty slaps me in the face. There in my hand is four quarters and a receipt for a Pepsi that I got at 7-11 during lunch. AUGHHHH! I apologize profusely, run as fast as I can over to the ATM across the street, withdraw twenty dollars, walk back in, hand him the twenty dollars, then wait for my change.

No change. I. am. the. only. paying. customer. 

I turn and walk out the door leaving Alexander Hamilton laying face up on the counter in front of thirty Asian men who are no doubt bouncing off of the walls. Then I call Jenny and tell her I am going to Hair Cuttery down the street to pay $20 dollars for someone to fix my fool-headed fool head.

---------------------

I tell this story because you may be like me, a curmudgeon. Stop it. Don't let it ruin your life. Someone once said, "You get what you pay for." I would like to amend this by saying, "You get what you pay for, unless, you try to get something that you didn't pay for then you end up paying for it twenty times over."

Yes, I still pinch pennies, but not as many as I used to.

*This may or may not have been what I looked like.

Your Digital Estate

Log In information. Usernames and Passwords. Trillions of them flooding cyberspace on a daily basis. We all have them. I almost have too many to remember now. Financial accounts, social media accounts, business accounts, hobbyist accounts, online retailer accounts, email accounts, smartphone accounts, and the list goes on.

I can't tell you how many times I've been locked out of one of my accounts because I can't get the right username and password combination. It's almost like trying to crack a safe that's sitting at the bottom of the ocean guarded by a troll-like mermaid firing phosphorus flames from her flippers.
Accessing a piece of my digital life shouldn't be that cumbersome. But it is, and it doesn't help that my online footprint is everywhere, from Facebook and GoDaddy to the DMV and the NRA. And once in a while I have to go on that epic online journey in search of the ever elusive "Contact Us" link to get a hold of someone that knows who I am, because I haven't got a clue.
 
There it is! "Contact Us" buried in the smallest font imaginable under the "play video games for life" ad. I luck out. This actually has an 800 number and not some obscure texting rigmarole.
"Beep Boop Beep Beep Boop Boop Beep Beep Boop Boop."
"Ringtone...Ringtone...Ringtone...Ringto..."
"Halo, This is Raji, from tech support for Hot Pink Pajamas dot com, can I help you?"
"Umm...I can't seem to remember my password?"
"What eese your username, sir."
"Umm...I can't remember."
Stupified by my stupidity, Raji says, "Ummmm...," which completely unmasks his ethnicity, because on the other end of the phone line I picture him cross-legged with his eyes closed transcending time and space. "Let me transfer you to phone call purgatory and see what they can do for you."
"Thank you, but no. Is there anyway YOU can help me?"
"What eese your social security number?"
"Nice try, Bucko. Go chase yourself."
"Very well, if dere's nothing else I can help you with, have a nice day." *Click*
AUGHHHHH!
Other than a feeling of ineptitude, a slight twinge of rage, a pinch of vulnerability and a tablespoon of shame, my personhood is intact.

Believe it or not, this happens more than you might think. Keeping your cyber life organized is only about as difficult as balancing a checkbook or slaying a mammoth, depending on how you look at it. Here are a few ways you can turn this veritable bucket of chum into a well crafted German automobile.
Option One: Put together a list or spreadsheet with five headings: Company, Username, Password, Secret Question, Secret Answer, then fill in the blanks for all your digital accounts. You can do this on a Word Document, Legal Pad, or piece of papyrus. Then store said information in a safe place. However, not so safe you yourself will forget where it is, Mr. Griswold.
Option Two: Make all usernames match. Make all passwords match. Make all secret answers match, no matter what the secret question is. Don't make it to easy, you wanna make it easy on yourself, but as difficult as possible for identity thieves.
and finally,
Option Three: Send me all your usernames, passwords, secret questions and answers. I'll organize them, make a photocopy and give them back. End of story.

Each option has it pros and cons, which you have to measure carefully. Whatever you end up doing the goal is to inevitably make you easier to be around, because if you are constantly talking to tech support or reading emails about how to reset passwords and usernames then you are probably not the epitome of frivolity and pleasure.
The second reason you need to do this if for your loved ones. In the unlikely event of your untimely death or relocation as a result of the witness protection program, your loved ones will need an easy way to successfully secure your digital estate. (Yep, that's right I'm makin' it super real up in heya!)
While your making your way to the pearly gates, your friends and family are trying to figure out how to stop that weekly subscription to Fancy Cats or those automatic location updates to your social media profile.
"5 minutes ago at the Hospital." / "10 minutes ago at the City Morgue." / "6 minutes ago at Finnigan's Bar." Whoops!
Fun Bobby "likes" this.

It's tough enough in this world when someone passes; why not try to make it a little easier on everybody. Organize your digital estate and make it manageable. Tell someone you love and trust where all your information is, so some unsuspecting family member doesn't get a call from the Jane Fonda Fan Club trying to find out why you haven't been attending the online meetings.

In death and in life, your property is your property. Whether virtual or actual, you own it, and you decide who gets it when you're gone. And although Raji may seem like he's happy to hear from us, he's not, which might have something to do with that clandestine "Contact Us" button he doesn't want us to find. If we have that much trouble trying to get our own log in information, imagine getting it for someone else. Raji doesn't want to hear from us because he knows he'll just make us angry. He'd rather just play solitaire. I'd rather just blog about it.

For more information about what Digital Estates click on the following links:
http://cupofjoepowell.blogspot.com/2011/01/your-digital-afterlife.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_estate
http://www.cnbc.com/id/46750736/Facebook_May_Become_Part_of_Your_Digital_Estate
(This is a crazy story about a woman's son who died and Facebook wouldn't allow her to access his Facebook profile)
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2017171847_pfdigitalestates08.html

 _______________________________________________________________


***This blog post is dedicated to my friend and fellow artist Andrew Todd, who passed away last week. He showed me how to pursue my dreams by pursuing his at all costs. He helped get me my first job in media and mentored me through the mine field of mass communications. I will forever be grateful for his kindness and friendship. Here's to you Andy.***

Top 15 Things I Learned from Reading The Hunger Games

1. I can read books without pictures very fast.

2. My son does not like being neglected.

3. Suzanne Collins hates coal dust.

4. Child violence is way more exciting than spell casting or Vampire hunting.

5. I can literally weep over the death of a fictional character.

6. Distopian societies are the pits especially for those on the fringe.

7. Any simile involving a dead slug is a great simile.

8. Cake decorators are naturals at the art of camouflage.

9. One-eyed squirrels have more meat on them, than squirrels with both eyes intact.

10. You can sleep much better strapping yourself into a tree during the first night of the Hunger Games than you can on a comfortable bed the day before the Hunger Games begin.

 11. Bowhunting and snare rigging sound much cooler when girls do it.

12. Iodine is still the most archaic way to purify water for drinking.

13. Tracker Jackers probably have a love/hate relationship with smoke.

14. Never put your explosives and your survival supplies in the same vicinity.

15. Cornucopias can and do incite dread. Thanksgiving will never be the same again.