What About Jonny?

A lot of people, or a few, may read this blog and say, where's the personal stuff? But the truth is, I don't want to write too much in here that I wouldn't say in person. Can I say that I know my readers, honestly? I don't know. Once in a while, I'll get a comment from a friend who refers to something he or she read in my blog. What I don't get are many online comments posted at the end of my entries.

My friend Craig from Emerson has a blog and recently wrote an entry in which he said, "Blogs are mostly for friends anyway, even if they are viewable by the masses." He later wrote, "And let's be honest: Blogs are 90% crap." Crap? Is that what I'm writing? I don't think what I need to do is write entry after entry talking about blogs. It's a kind of journal, of course, but different that one I would keep privately. When a person writes a blog, he or she knows that just about anybody with internet access can somehow view that blog. Truth is, someone's mom could be viewing it, even if there's a lot of profane statements. Geez, maybe that's why I don't swear on my blog.

Well, to change the subject and refer to the title of this entry, I recently watched a lot of the movie "What About Bob?" a humorous take on a patient who follows his psychologist to his vacation home. The patient, played by the generally humorous (think "Saturday Night Live" and "Caddyshack") Billy Murray, appears to have no idea that he's totally violating the doctor-patient relationship and getting on his doctor's nerves. Playing the part of the psychologist is Richard Dreyffus, who seems to have a knack for playing angry men, but can also be a funny fellow. Check the movie out if you haven't.

Now I'm about to get some sleep. My, it's been getting hot up in Boston. Cheers.

Superheroes are Cool

I think it's time I write about all the superhero movies coming out recently. Let's see, in the past couple years there's been "Batman Begins," "Fantastic Four," "Spiderman 2," "Daredevil," "Sin City," and I know "X-Men 3" and "Spiderman 3" are in the works, as well as several others. What's the phenomenon?

Well, as youths, from about the time I was nine years old, my brother Jeffrey and I were avid comic book collectors. We still read them occasionally, and to see some of the characters we read about come to life on the big screen is very refreshing.

I was pretty fond of the new Batman movie. With a clever plot, a story that I've read widely has stayed true to the original comic book, it was very intriguing. Plus the cast was excellent, with supporting characters to Christian Bales' Batman played by the likes of Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Katie Holmes, Liam Neeson and Gary Oldman. And so what if it's the fifth Batman movie that's been made since the late 1980s/early 1990s? At least it's a good one, in my opinion, and my opinion counts for something.

I actually have a lot of different topics I could blog about, so maybe I'll try another one, a bit sooner than 10 days from now. Right now it's early Sunday morning and I'm going to get some sleep while I can in the dark of night. (Dark Knight=Batman--aha.) Goodnight.

All This Activity and a Wedding

This summer's been happening for me, no doubt, and not just in Boston--in North Carolina, too, or at least it will be. I'm going to a wedding of two of my college friends this weekend and should be reunited with many more. There will be a lot of new faces too, I imagine, because the bride and groom have extended family and other friends that I haven't met.

How do I know this couple? They were both very active in the University of Virginia Hillel when I was an undergraduate there, and when I started coming more often to events my second year, the three of us got to know each other and became friends. Ariella, the bride, used to call me "First-year Jonny," at first because I used to get rides to events with the first-year students. (UVA has this tradition where freshman are called first-years, sophomores second-years, and so forth.) Both she and Lior, the groom, lived on the Lawn their final year in college, and a few times I came up to visit and went to basketball or football games with them, I having graduated a year before them. We celebrated Lior's 21st birthday after one of the basketball games. The two lived in Israel at the same time and traveled around together, visiting my six-week resident town of Toledo, Spain, though I wasn't there at the time. I got a postcard from somewhere they traveled to.

So you see, we have a history. And on Sunday, probably at least a couple hundred people will gather to watch these two wed, break the glass and dance the night away.

I leave Boston in a few hours for this journey.