When Scotty Makes You Think About Midlife

"He would rather have flown when he was alive, of course," said Wende Doohan, widow of James Doohan, who played the part of Scotty on the original Star Trek.

This is a quote that I found wildly funny yesterday. You see, Scotty has passed away and his widow was commenting about his ashes being sent into space on Space-X's rocket a few days ago. So, the addition of "of course" to the statement that Scotty would rather have been alive for the voyage into space really tickled my funny bone. But, after a night's sleep thinking about this, I realized that, for me, this quote is kind of profound.

This is a guy who was all about space exploration and was teleporting tribbles through space before my family had a color television. Though he may have acted in other shows, we really only knew him as Scotty, who kept telling Kirk that "she's giving it all she's got" when he'd phone down to the engine room and tell Scotty that if the Enterprise didn't go a little bit faster they'd end up being lunch to some very aggravated aliens. What a shame that his first actual trip into space was after he was dead.

So, in my midlife crisisness state of mind, I've started thinking that I don't want to end up like Scotty with my wife saying, "He would have really enjoyed doing that when he was still alive." Who would have thought Scotty would reach out from the grave to teach me a lesson about life? Not me. I'm actually more of a Next Generation kind of a Trekkie.

Now, I'm not talking about a bucket list. That's a few decades off for me. Still, it's time to think about things I'd like to do before my wife sends my ashes into space. Do I want to go into space? Not really. Pretty much the best ride into space is going to be with Sir Richard Branson and, while I think it would be fun to have champagne with him during the flight, let's face it that this guy doesn't have a great track record of landing balloons on Earth let alone returning to Earth from space. I think I'll give Virgin Galactic a few years to work out the kinks.

I really don't have anything so dramatic in mind. I think it would be fun to bike up the California coast, or at least part of it, someday. I could see myself picking up the saxophone again and playing the occassional gig someday. I'd like to eat pho in Vietnam instead of the San Francisco Financial District someday. Other than that, I think my voyage to space is more about just trying to enjoy where I'm at and who I'm with. Thankfully, I'm surrounded by awesome and supportive family and friends on a daily basis, so this isn't a hard thing to do.

I guess Scotty's advice to us, other than "Don't get typecast as a Scottish guy who runs the engine room on spaceships" (Not a lot of parts available other than Scotty. I'm just sayin'.), is to do what you want to in life...now. It doesn't have to be big. You don't have to jump out of a plane, unless that's your thing. But, make sure you do that thing that you've always wanted to try before your wife is telling CNN, "He would have rather flown when he was alive, of course."

Of course.

Space-X, Make Us Cool Again!

I turned 46 last week and that had me thinking about what I would have expected life to be like when I was younger. When I was 16, I could not have imagined I'd someday think 50 was right around the corner. Yet, here it is creeping up on me. I guess my biggest question to the powers that be is, "Where is all the cool stuff?"

Retired with No Upgrade!

When I was 16, people would fly between New York and London at supersonic speedy luxury on The Concorde. The graceful looking plane had such a sleek, long nose that they would have to lower it when they were landing so the pilots could see the runway below out their windows. Champagne at more than 1,000 miles an hour. What's not to like about that?

So, now that I'm 30 years older, imagine my dismay that not only did they retire the Concorde, which apparently still required tubes like old-timey televisions used to use. But, they haven't replaced it with anything. In 30 years, air travel has gotten slower, not faster. What's up with that?

Retired with No Upgrade!

What else was around when I was 16? We could go to space and back with The Space Shuttle! Wow, if we can send a plane/rocket into space and bring it back and land it on a runway in 1982 then by 2012 we'll probably be close to building the first version of the Enterprise to go explore new planets, right? Well, unfortunately not. Now if we want to go to the International Space Station we built, we have to hitch a ride with the Russians and hope they still feel like providing taxi service to us as Cranky Putin Pants takes over.

So, no pressure guys, but Space-X, our only hope of regaining coolness is pretty much you guys. If you aren't familiar with Space-X, this is a private company that has built a space launch system and even has a price list on their website to take things up into space. It's sort of like the Mayflower Moving of space, but more expensive. Well, if Mayflower built their own carbon fiber super high-tech trucks and launched them into space. If you have $10.9 million around and a desire to get something into space, all you have to do is visit http://www.spacex.com/. At 12:44 a.m. PST Tuesday, they are going to launch a test capsule and attempt to reach the International Space Station and dock it. They were orginally going to launch last Saturday, but a computer ended the launch one second before liftoff. Better to find out there is a problem one second before instead of one second after liftoff. If they are able to launch it tomorrow morning, we're back! If not, we'd better send Putin a case of Florida oranges, because that's the only thing lifting off from Florida for a while.

And Don't Even Get Me Started About Not Having a Flying Car Yet!

When Food Freaks Out (And No, This is not a new show on TLC)

I came home from work and there it was on the front cover of our town's weekly paper. It's front page news and sure to alarm home owners all over town. Is it a tornado? Is there a tsunami danger? Are there fires raging in the nearby hills? No, it's worse than that.

WILD TURKEY SMASHES NOVATO HOME'S WINDOW

That's the real live headline on the front page of our town paper this week. According to the Novato Advance, a 15-pound wild turkey crashed through a second-story window and damaged a Novato home. I can just picture the family, who has asked that their name not be released to the press, sitting in the family room watching television when the music from "Jaws" starts with the barely audible "gobble gobble" of a turkey call heard in the background. Then, suddenly, a Ballistic Butterball comes flying through the window.

Now, the fact that this is front page news says a lot about the town I live in, but not quite as much as the second part of the headline. You see, in Marin, we aren't all in agreement in terms of the difference between food and pets. Here's the second part of the headline:

Bird Remains in Critical Condition at Wildcare, a San Rafael Animal Shelter and Hospital

"He was incredibly stressed and scared," said the director for animal care at WildCare. "Right now, he's having a hard time breathing but we're trying to keep his wounds sterile. Right now, he's on supportive care until we can get him stable enough to do some X-rays."

She's not talking about the person who suffered the Turkey Home Invasion as being "stressed and scared." She's talking about the turkey. The turkey is being treated for physical and mental wounds. It's all hands on deck, STAT, so we can save this out of control Butterball so it can live another day. They are going to X-ray the turkey? The article even goes on to say that the owners of the house are visiting the turkey in the animal hospital to make sure it's okay.

I grew up in farm country and I can tell you in farm country when a wild turkey crashes into your home or gets caught in the overly elaborate chrome guard on the front of the ranch truck, it does not get rushed into therapy. It's wounds are not cleaned. It's dinner. Wild turkey is served with Wild Turkey and it's dinner.You don't visit the turkey to check on its mental health. You visit it every hour or so to baste it! Thank goodness a Turducken didn't come through the window or they'd be trying to save three birds.

So, to the volunteers at WildCare and the homeowners caring for this turkey, I give you credit for being better people than me. Because in my world, sometimes food is just food. 

Of Flash Mob Men and Goldfish

Was it Novato's version of a flash mob? It might have been.

Last night me and five other guys from the neighborhood decided to go get pizza at our local "fusion fern pizzaria," Boca Pizza. I call it "fusion fern," because normal pizzarias don't have octopus salads on the menu nor cook eggs on top of pizza, which is actually quite tasty. Still, for Marin County, this is our version of the manly pizza joint hangout.

We were outside at a patio table with a stunning view of the parking lot as chardonnay was being poured. (As I said, this is a Marin County pizzaria. There isn't a lot of Pabst Blue Ribbon being served with the pies.) I was sipping on my Anchor Steam when a man emerged from the bar at about 9:30 p.m. and decided to stop on the sidewalk and belt out Journey's "Don't Stop Believing!" Now, I don't know if it was the wine we drank before going to get pizza or the beer I drank there, but I thought he did a pretty good job. When a server came from the restaurant to guide our singer back into the restaurant for another stop at the bar, we asked our server if he wasn't available to do another set as we had some other Journey songs in mind that we'd like to hear. This was met with skepticism from our waiter, who was clearly less enthusiastic about having "Dads Gone Wild" at his egg-on-top-pizzaria than we were.

Anyhow, to Mr. Journey of Novato, nicely done. You can have your own little flash mob at our humble shopping center anytime you want to. Just remember that "When the Lights Go Out in the City" is also big with us North Bay Dads.

Dead Fish Walking

I received a text from my daughter yesterday and it read, "I won a fish!" Now, I know this sounds like good news, but this house has a track record with fish. Despite our nicest intentions, we have continually reaffirmed the Darwin Theory when it comes to fish. I'm sure when the fish understood who had won him at my daughter's school's fun day that the other fish were like, "Wow, bummer, dude. That's a rough house for fish."

Perhaps the incident that best describes our fish-tending skills is the time I took our kids to Petco to get some more fish several years ago. I asked the young guy working in the fish section if the different fish we were looking at actually get along in the same tank. He assured me they did so we took the fish home and placed them in the same tank together on our kitchen counter. Well, as a day or two went buy, we started noticing that there were fewer fish in the tank and that the remaining fish looked pretty darn beat up. It turns out we had actually brought home fish that feed on each other and put them in the same tank to see who survived. It was our accidental version of Fish Thunderdome.

So, out in our kitchen right now, little "Turtle" the goldfish swims around in circles in his vase of a home hoping we have gotten better at tending to fish than we have been in the past. Turtle, bro, I do too.

Apocalypse How?

Poor Francis Ford Coppola.

Sure, he directed The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, movies that received a small audience in limited release, and, sure, he also has that winery to relax and sip his way through life. But now, he's got a real crisis...at least according to his attorney.

A small Italian restaurant right here in Novato has dared to name itself "Tavola," which is Italian for "table." You'd think it would be a harmless play on words. It would be like if I opened up a soup restaurant in Italy and decided to name it "Bowl." Well, it turns out that Mr. "Loves the Smell of Napalm in the Morning" believes he owns the Italian word for table, Tavola, according to a recent article in our local paper you can find by clicking here.

Coppola is suing the family-owned restaurant for trademark infringement claiming he owns "A Tavola" due to his restaurants' style of serving in which "servers come to each table offering an assortment of family-style dishes," according to the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. Um, do you think we should tell him that there are other restaurants out there in which servers "come to each table offering an assortment of family style dishes"...? He might be crushed to hear how the Grand Slam works at Denny's. ("You mean they come to your table and offer you breakfast and then they come back and bring it to you?!?!? Sue them!!! Sue them, too!!!")

So what is Mr. "Take the Gun and Leave the Cannoli" so worried about? "Customers and prospective customers of your restaurant are likely to be misled into believing that your goods and services originate from, are sponsored by, or are associated with Francis Ford Coppola Winery or even Francis Ford Coppola himself, when, indeed, they are not," said Coppola attorney Giselle Galper in the article.

(A Stunning Image from a Coppola Movie would have gone right here to make this blog entry pop, but I didn't want to get sued too. So, instead, enjoy this picture of pasta. Disclaimer: This pasta is in no way connected to or cooked by Francis Ford Coppola and was definitely not served family style at a table A Tavola style.)

The Pirraglia family, which owns the Novato restaurent with the horse's head on its pillow (Seriously, have you not seen the Godfather? These are golden references here!), declined to comment for the article. I suppose that's wise when a mega movie mogul and restauranteur with unlimited resources decides to sue you. Had they been able to comment, I wonder if they wouldn't have said something along the lines of, "Dude, we serve Italian food on tables, so we used the Italian word for table." Maybe I'm oversimplifying. But, I really find it hard to believe that this is all about the Pirraglia family's master plan to leverage the Coppola style of serving food (servers bring it to your table) to dominate the Italian scene in Novato.

I hadn't planned to eat at this restaurant as I usually cook my own Italian, but now I surely will. If my $6.95 for pasta will help them fight off a lawsuit from a big bully, I'll happily give it to them. I hope the Pirraglias are able to weather their way through this. They just better make sure they check behind the toilet in their restaurant before agreeing to meet with Coppola's attorneys. (Seriously, you haven't seen the movie?! That was a huge scene!)

A Tiburomoronic Crisis: Occupy CVS Tiburon

It's time to put it all in perspective. Whereever you live in the world, your community may be suffering from things like a bad economy, drought, an oppressive government, or even trying to recover from one of history's largest earthquakes and a tsumani a year ago. Still, your troubles pale when compared to the crisis currently being endured by the Marin County town of Tiburon.

It's not just a sign. It's a red sign. And, it's not just a store. It's a CVS store that does things like have sales on items like bathroom tissues. (They don't say "toilet paper" in Tiburon. Too pedestrian.) I kid you not. For weeks the town has been in a hubabaloo about whether or not the new CVS store could have a red sign out front, which would be consistent with its branding. Don't believe me? Here's the article in today's Marin Independent Journal.

"I'm just astonished that corporate America is throwing its weight around like this in a small town," said severely traumatized resident Steve Bendinelli, one of 50 residents who attended a Tiburon Town Council meeting to protest the sign. This is after 260 residents signed a petition against the sign.

So, this is about "The Man" forcing Tiburon's scrappy residents, who are in no way corporate CEOs or bankers themselves, to put up a red sign? Well, if that's the case, you know what you Tiburonites have to do. It's time to Occupy CVS Tiburon, brothers! That's right! Get out of those bay-viewing mansions, grab a tent at REI in neighboring Corte Madera and set up a camp right in the parking lot of the CVS in Tiburon. Don't worry about the kids, your domestic staff can watch them and make sure they make it to private school while you are occupado. This issue is more important than shelter! You need to take a stand, get out there and camp outdoors in a parking lot for at least a month to show "The Man" that he can't put a red sign in your town.

By the way, please let me know when you set up Occupy CVS Tiburon so I can set up a stand on the sidewalk that sells $12 glasses of chardonnay in the evenings and $6 lattes in the morning. You'll Occupy my kids all the way to college.

So, the next time you hit a rough patch in the road, just keep in mind that at least you don't have to deal with the problems that the residents of Tiburon, California face.

Party Like a Pope!

Tonight is the night! It's my daughter's first high school Turnabout. If you are unfamiliar with the term, as I was, it is the rebranded Sadie Hawkins Dance. Apparently, today's youth aren't familiar with that term.

The dance is being held in the Pope John Paul Student Center, so you know it's going to be awesome. Nothing says "party" more than having a pope's name in the venue. Thankfully, the Virgin Mary Dance Arena was already booked by the Shriners.

My daughter is wisely going with friends, rather than asking out a boy to the dance. Dances are already terrifying enough for most boys without being asked out. The night already presents many challenges for high school boys. First of all, it requires bathing and wearing shirts that have buttons. A hair brush may also be involved. This requires a lot more preparation time than most high school boys are used to.

Then there's the actual dance. Initially, there are the girls out dancing with each other while the boys are huddled against the wall attempting to appear like they are enjoying idle chit chat while actually cowering like a herd of wilderbeests in view of tigers. They are all having the same thought, "What if a girl actually walks over here and askes me out. Then what do I do?!"

If they notice a girl walking over, then the left brain and the right brain start arguing. The girl starts walking in slow motion while the boy's brain goes into full-on debate mode.

Left brain (consumed by puberty): "Hey, this could be fun. She smells nice. Maybe they'll play a slow song and I get to touch her shoulders. Could be awesome!"

Right brain (still able to think logically): "Dude! YOU CAN'T DANCE! You are going to look like a penguin being electricuted if you go out there. What if they play Lady Gaga and all the girls start dancing with each other and you are left alone doing the "Flaying Penguin" in the middle of the dance floor? Run, dude, run!"

For me, in high school the right brain typically won the arguement. To say I was mostly terrified of girls in high school would be an understatement. There were a couple dances that I "went to" that I actually couldn't get myself to go inside. I don't know if that made me shy, wimpy, terrified or just some combination of the three. Thankfully, in college, the left brain took over and I actually had a lot of fun at dances. Thanks left brain! More Prince, More Rick James, More Billy Idol! Bring it on!

So, to my daughter and her friends, I say,  "Have a great time. Enjoy the music and the dancing!" To the boys, all I can say is, "It gets better...really."