if you didn't see gremlins in the theater, please don't wear the t-shirt...
(is there any room left on the bandwagon?)


i get it. i am the same way. i like my pop-culture and it's phenomenons just as much as the next guy. i would wager that 25% (maybe more...maybe a lot more. hell, i don't know.) of the stuff that i get into, entertainment-wise, comes from someone else's suggestion or hype. lost falls into that number. i didn't get into it from the word go. hell, i probably avoided it last year because my stubborn side wasn't going to let anyone tell me what "the next big thing" was. not again. i had fallen for that before. of course, i was wrong. i have spent my last week and a half or so watching 24 episodes of lost, then watched a synopsis show and a new episode wednesday. last night was the first night in two weeks that i didn't have it to look forward to and i was, well, lost. it's hard to not feel like kind of a heel when you jump on someone else's bandwagon. like you don't belong. like you're late to a party that you weren't invited to. but that's ok. i'll take my licks and just ask if i can sit on the back of the lost bus. i am hooked now.

now, i have "my" shows, as i've talked about before. i think you can count yourself a bandwagon founder if you were there for something's "birth". the first episode. the first record. the first night the movie comes out. no matter the reviews. no matter how you got there. you were there first. arrested development, the office, my name is earl, twin peaks, x-files, trainspotting, bleach (nirvana), ten, princess bride, espn 2, and yes, gremlins. i was eight. eight years old when gremlins hit the theater. i went with my mom. yesterday, a kid came into the store with a gremlins t-shirt on. the kid might have been 13, maybe 14. it made me laugh and sick to my stomach at the same time.

shows like i love the 80's, 90's, 70's are cool and a cancer at the same time. why did i love the 80's? because i grew up in the freakin' 80's!!! if you were born in 1988, that doesn't count. why was this kid wearing that shirt? because it was in the retro store at the mall? because his way older brother wanted to buy him something cool? i don't know, but i don't remember him asking my permission to get on the gremlins bus with me. i am only being silly...

kind of...

"i guess this is kind of an immature prayer for people trying to find their own way." -pain...that sounds about right. we are all trying to find our own way. you are going to drive bandwagons and you are going to ride on them. i hope for your sake, that you drive more often than not. at least then you're trying. at least then you aren't waiting for someone to tell you what's what. at least then you are thinking for yourself. and if you're jumping on a bandwagon, great. just own up to it. don't tell me that gremlins is your favorite movie because there was a special gremlins-thon on tnt this weekend.

"hannah, daddy's being silly."

"silly daddy."