Can You Dig It?

One of my favorite films and a cult classic: The Warriors (Paramount Pictures)

In 1979, a film based on a 1965 Sol Yurick novel was released that had a huge impact on me and many others: The Warriors. The film starred Michael Beck and followed a Coney Island gang of the same name who were framed for the murder of a gang leader and had to fight their way back to their turf while being pursued by every gang in New York City. It received mostly negative reviews at the time, but has since become a cult classic.

I, for one, have both VHS and DVD copies of the film, which I watch every couple of years mostly for nostalgia, but also for a glimpse of how NYC used to be. And I am never disappointed, despite some of the characters’ expressions being somewhat dated and cheesy.

Can you dig it? I know that I can.

Earlier this month—as I recently learned—a number of the original Warriors from the film reunited 37 years later to recreate their final subway ride from the film. Those in attendance included Michael Beck (Swan), David Harris (Cochise), Terry Michos (Vermin), Dorsey Wright (Cleon) and Thomas G. Waites (Fox).

You can check out clips of their final ride courtesy of Rolling Stone by going HERE.

Joining the actors were attendees dressed as gang members from the film, as well as a new generation of Warriors from the area. “Basically, this is a social club for Coney Island,” one new Warrior said. “We started it for the youth though, because of all the gang violence that was happening in our town and what not. We tried to get all the youth to join us instead of joining real gangs.”

It was an incredible event and one that I regret being unable to attend personally. Sadly, I couldn’t “come out to play” since I just heard about it!

Do Your Thing

As part of our extended orientation program for freshmen, the college brought in a speaker to talk to them about success in both higher education and life. It wasn’t until I entered the dark auditorium—a few minutes after the show started—that I realized the speaker was actually a comedian. A funny and sometimes vulgar comedian, but he was definitely the right person to connect with young students. Most of the ones I know seem to enjoy profanity and adult humor, perhaps a little too much.

The comedian, David-something, spent quite a bit of time doing material that didn’t seem to mention college success—or even college at all—and he drew some suspicion from our Dean of Students. Fortunately, he quickly moved past his “warm up” and jumped right into the tips and advice. David even made things interactive by asking questions of the young and sometimes unruly audience, but this was soon interrupted by an insulting student remark.

It was during a stint on “work” and David had just asked a young woman about her worst job ever. Before she could respond, some jackass chimed in with “she was a whore” or something to that effect. The auditorium immediately went silent—David included—and a swarm of student orientation leaders descended on the section of seats where the comment originated. Moments later, the offending student was escorted out by the dean and orientation leaders stationed themselves up and down the aisles. Finally, the show could resume.

David started things up again, but the mood in the place was much more restrained for a while. Students finally loosened up and I could tell David was hitting his stride. All of his “advice” was good—consider the future, get involved, go to class—and he punctuated it with hilarious personal experiences. My favorite involved his first-year advisor, who scared the crap out of him by yelling questions at him the first day they met in his office—“Whose education is this? Whose future is this? Whose life is this?”  Incidentally, the expected response to each question was “mine” or even “mine, damn it.”

His advisor sounded like quite a character. In fact, I believe his name was Dr. Yoder. David made a few jokes about him being Yoda, but the “Star Wars” reference went over most students’ heads, much to my chagrin (I love Star Wars). At any rate, Dr. Yoder must have made an impression on David, who used the same exchange of questions with our students several times, even at the end of his presentation.

Of course, David also told us what his advisor said moments later, once they both sat down to chat. He asked David about his dream career, his passion, and David told him it was to make people laugh. That’s when Dr. Yoder dropped three little words on him that changed his life: do your thing.

I know it sounds like some catch phrase or song lyric from the 1970s—“It’s your thang! Do what you wanna do!”—but this is great and powerful advice.

DO YOUR THING

David talked about the decisions he made that inevitably led to him standing on the stage before us. He used college to sharpen his skills, choosing to major in theater and English, and to get some experience, acting in plays and doing stand-up during open mike nights. He followed his dreams and now does something that he loves for a living.

To illustrate this last point, David shared a story about famed inventor Thomas Edison. In his later life, Edison was to be honored with a lifetime achievement award for his work. He attended the ceremony and when the appropriate time came, refused to accept the award. “I never did a day’s work in my life,” he said. “It was all fun.”

Personally, I thought this was some of the best advice college students—especially college freshmen—could receive: do your thing, follow your passion and work won’t even seem like work. It can be fun and also successful, even financially successful. A little earlier in his bit, David mentioned how Bill Gates’ one regret was never finishing college. And this is a guy who makes millions of dollars each minute!

I hope our students learned something valuable from David and take his advice to heart. I know he made me think about whether or not I truly followed my passion. Don’t get me wrong. I love what I do, but am I really doing my thing? Better yet, are any of us?

It makes you wonder…

Loving those lunch boxes

As a kid growing up and going to school in the 1970s and 80s, nothing was more important to me than my lunchbox. Aside from being a necessary transport for the lunches my mother packed for me, my lunchbox was also an unfettered expression of my personality. And the same can be said for my friends. Every day, we would meet during lunch to eat and would admire the lunch boxes everyone brought. If one caught our eye, then our parents would hear about it later that night.

Correction: Our parents would hear about it a lot that night. And eventually, we would wear them down so much that we soon became the proud owners of the lunch boxes we admired most.

It was quite a racket.

Earlier today, I was trying to remember some of my favorite lunch boxes from the past. Anything with Star Wars was great, but I fondly recall the Six Million Dollar Man, the Justice League and a host of others. I had some great ones, but there were even more that I didn’t have. Thanks to the internet, I have managed to find some of my favorites and hope you enjoy this quick trip down Memory Lane.

The A-Team

Disco. What’s she doing down there?

Dynomutt

Six Million Dollar Man

Batman and Robin

The Dukes of Hazzard

The Fonz 1976

Mork and Mindy

Robin Gibb from The Bee Gees

KISS

Pac-Man

Battlestar Galactica

Star Wars

Knight Rider

Jaws 1978

Marvel Super Heroes

Captain America

Kung Fu

The Fantastic Four

The Space Shuttle

Evel Knievel 1974

The Incredible Hulk 1978

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century

Welcome Back Kotter 1976

Free Love

free love (Photo credit: london_ally)

Although this isn’t a full post, I did complete a short movie trailer that I felt like sharing. My hope is that it draws some useful feedback, suggestions or criticism, so please feel free to comment. Your opinion is very important to me and I would certainly appreciate it.

This brief, five-page trailer is entitled Free Love and follows four teenagers coming of age in the 1970s. Think of it as American Pie meets That 70s Show.

I warn you, though, the subject matter is rather mature and could be offensive to some. If you’re very young or cannot tolerate crude, sexual humor, then please check out one of my more tame posts.

The link to a PDF version can be found here:

Free Love 2012

I hope you enjoy it!