BREAKING NEWS: Everybody Poops. Don’t believe me, here is the documentation.

I stumbled upon this nugget of information in Borders today. That is some pretty serious news that I somehow missed as a kid. I feel my perspective on life changing…

Again, I exaggerate. I actually figured this factoid out sophomore year of college when my then held belief that only guys, not girls, poop was shattered by an unfortunately unlocked bathroom door, a rather foul but distinctive odor, and a female coed the culprit.

What I am getting at is that I had no idea this book existed, and I know there are many others that were surely staples of most people’s childhoods that I somehow missed out on.

I hadn’t read “The Giving Tree” until the summer before I left for college. That book broke my heart, but it also taught a valuable lesson, that I had I known earlier, probably would have affected my charitable contributions to the world.

I saw “The Karate Kid” for the first time in my life this past weekend. Sure, I pretended to get “wax on, wax off” jokes when people quoted them, and I eventually figured it out, but never from the source.

“Top Gun” was the same way. Saw that freshmen year of college for the first time.

I purport to have an extensive knowledge of popular culture and all things media oriented, and this is probably true of everything post-1994. But that leaves the first 10 years of my life as missed experiences that seem so vital to people our age.

Somebody in some magazine hinted at this, when they commented that so much humor these days is derived from popular culture and pop culture references, and that if you aren’t aware of them, you are going to miss out on a lot of humor and casual conversation in the coming years. Like the author of that article, most “Harry Potter” jokes go over my head, as I never jumped on that bandwagon of nerdiness.

There are other gaps in my childhood experience that are probably not typical of people my age.

These are the ones I could rattle off the top of my head:

1. GI Joe (besides the “Knowing is half the battle” goodness, never saw the show, never had action figures.)
2. Professional Wrestling
3. Comic books (I actually tried this, and my mom bought me a mega pack of second rate titles from Costco when I was trying to get into them, but it never caught on with me).
4. Most Roald Dahl books never made it on my book list.
5. Judy Bloom and “Where the Wild Things Are” failed to do anything for me.
6. “Love you, forever” was never a message I was told.
7. Boxcar Children (more ignored due to perceived lameness than anything else)

I am sure there are loads more.

What was I into… these are the things I can remember:

1. Saved by the Bell
2. Wayside School is Falling Down
3. Sports galore (I was trying to figure out what kept me busy, and I spent probably 80% of my waking hours following or playing sports).
4. American Gladiators and GUTS (Nitro was crazy, but they all used to be crazy and not give a shit. Didn’t the first episodes, the judges wore executioner hoods? Way better than this latest version)
5. Brown Bear, Brown Bear: What Do You See? (This was like little kid hip hop, if read correctly)
6. TGIF (and all the shows it encompassed…even Perfect Stangers, Going Places and Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper…don’t forget the theme song to TGIF…”It’s Friday night, and the moon is right, come have some fun, show you how it’s done, T.G.I.F)..

This will blow your mind…

7. Baseball card (prized card, my 1989 Ken Griffey Jr. Upper Deck rookie card.)
8. Cookie Crisp (the commercials were awesome, the cereal even better)
9. Kid Cuisine frozen dinners.
10. Cartoon Express on USA Network. (Only caught the end of this, hence the “knowing is half the battle” knowledge, as it came on right before American Gladiators)

I am sure there is more here, too…but I will let you expand.

What do you remember from your childhood? What did you find in later years, you completly missed out on that everyone else feels is quintessential?

In case you weren’t aware, we’re official. Read it and weep. With joy.

I’m now 23 years old, and I’ve just recently joined that magical world where everybody has a first name.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, ask any child his best friend’s dad’s name. It’s not “David,” it’s “Mr. Hasselhoff.” (Yes, that’s right, this particular hypothetical child is best friends with David Hasselhoff’s son.) But not me. When I call someone on the phone, I boldly ask “May I speak with Steve, please?” And I don’t even get a strange reply, just a prompt “Sure, one moment please.”

I work with all sorts of people of all ages and backgrounds, and am on a first name basis with all of them. I supervise many people old enough to be my parents, and some even old enough to be my grandparents, but when I walk the halls, I suavely call out “Hey Janie,” “How’s everything Tim,” “Looking good there, Ron.” I am the guy that, as a child, I never thought I’d grow up to be.

The funny thing is, there are some exceptions. My third grade teacher is still “Mrs. Wilder;” in fact I don’t even know her first name, and I wouldn’t dare call her it if I did. My childhood friend’s dad is still “Dr. Adamson;” the closest I’ve come to calling him by his first name is letting “Doc” slip once, and I felt ashamed for three days afterwards. It’s like when a professor tells you to call him “Chuck” after you just finished a semester of calling him “Mr. Norris.” (Yes, this hypothetical professor is none other than Chuck Norris, who, even in my fantasy world, no matter how many times he told me to call him Chuck, I would never drop the “Mr. Norris.” Here’s some reasons why.)

There’s something inherently difficult about going from one level to the next. It’s a graduation from authority figure to friend status, and it’s also a lingering mental block from the days of Lincoln Logs and action figures and Sega Genesis when the Mrs. Jones’s and Mr. Smith’s were the voices of reason, telling us “No roughhousing” or “Don’t throw water balloons in the house.”

I’d like to think I’ll get past this mental block, but truthfully, I don’t think it will happen. Even as the world changes and kids these days get less respectful of their elders, I don’t see my language changing. Heck, my parents still call some people older by their proper “Mr. Copper,” “Mrs. Zinc” names.

I guess what I’m saying is whether I’m 23 or 53, my world ain’t getting any more magical than this.

What sort of name hangups do you have?

I really enjoy the television show “The Moment of Truth” (I hope I didn’t just lose readers by admitting this). I am not trying to give it credit for more than what it is. It’s trashy. I wouldn’t define it as good, but it is attention diverting (as I work on blog posts…).

For those who have not seen it, the show puts contestants through a lie detector test where they are asked a number of questions, probably based on a background story or history they provide to the show, the response and the lie detector results are recorded, and then on live television and in front of family and fronts, the person is asked some of the same questions. They answer the questions on the air, if their answer is confirm by the lie detector test taken earlier (which they don’t the results of), the contestant gets money. The more questions they answer truthfully, the more money the get, but also the more revealing/shocking/intimate the questions get.

Intrigued, you can watch the full episodes here.

Besides the exploitation (which is super interesting!), the show touches upon a lot of human traits that are also interesting. Obviously, there is the idea of skeletons in one’s closet. That is sort of what the show banks on for its contestants. I admire the people, though, because they bring them to the forefront. In a way, in just as much as it is invasive, it must also be very liberating. I know I have skeletons that I don’t admit, too, and I don’t know what it would take to get me to.

Which leads to the other neat human trait the show plays on, greed. Like most game shows, this is what drives the contestants motivations. Reality shows, if nothing else, are great at exposing what people, rather the right kind of person, will do for some amount of money. The same is true here.

What value do you put on your personal secrets? What price tag would it take to reveal them?

In a perfect world, this show would just be giving money away. These things are the truth, one way or another. They are who you are, they are what you have done, why shouldn’t they be known.

But, society doesn’t work like that. We don’t work like that. Relationships are maintained because of things that aren’t known. I love a quote from the underrated Nicolas Cage movie, Lord of War, that goes “Some of the most successful relationships are based on lies and deceit. Since that’s where they usually end up anyway, it’s a logical place to start.” I am not sure if that is totally applicable here, but it gives me a chance, if nothing else, to plug a movie that I don’t think enough people have seen.

Regardless of the show’s merit, its entertainment value, its sleeze factor, it did get me thinking. Which is a lot more than a lot of stuff on TV, so the whole thing can’t be bad…

I have a secret crush.

My downstairs neighbor plays the best music at such late hours of the night! He cranks it up at 2am and through my carpeted floor I hear The Arcade Fire, Bright Eyes, Broken Social Scene and sometimes Death Cab for Cutie pounding away as I sleep.

To be sure it was my downstairs suitor and I was not being misled by some kind of illusional acoustic reverberation coming from the punks down the hall, I got out of bed and held my ear to the floor. This is what I heard:

“You may feel alone when you’re falling asleep, and every time tears roll down your cheeks, but I know your heart belongs to someone you’ve yet to meet, someday you will be loved.”

I blushed. He totally has a crush on me! I have the sneaking suspicion that this has something to do with my tap dancing/accordion playing. He may just be my Lloyd Dobler.

So this Valentine’s Day, if you by chance get a bag of candy taped to your door with a note proclaiming my love for your love of music, it may just be from your friendly upstairs neighbor.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

That might be an exaggeration, but not by much. I’ll be the first to admit that inside of a car, I do some pretty ridiculous stuff. I dig in my nose (and dispense the remnants underneath my seat…which reminds me, is anyone in the market for a slightly used 2006 Nissan Sentra…I promise to vacuum prior to the final sale transaction…only kidding), I change clothes on occasion, I sing like the world has gone silent and all of civilization depends on my voice as the last remaining sound messiah (which is not to say that I am any good, most who have shared a karaoke room/bar with me would beg the opposite). Let’s not even get into the more explicit activities that can be undertook…

Inside of my car, I feel invincible, or is it invisible, maybe it’s both. My 35%-visibility tinted windows (the most allowed on small sedans in the good state of Hawaii) only add to the illusion. But, that is all it is, an illusion. I forget this, often, only to be reminded by the big Samoan guys sitting in the back of a pick-up truck staring at me in bumper-to-bumper traffic as a jam to “Bubbly” by Colbie Caillate. (It starts in my toes, makes me crinkle my nose… I love that. Really.) I quickly pretend that I was talking on the phone.

I suppose since I continue to do the things that I do in my car I don’t really care. I mean, you don’t know the people in traffic around you, nor will you likely see them again. What’s the harm…

The past few days, though, I have been spotting various coworkers in their cars at various points of my trip. It is only a matter of time before one of them spots me.

What do you do in your car that you probably would be ashamed of if people you knew saw you doing it?