Treehouse Hostage

I'd say it's time for another one of these. And nah, I'm not even gonna try to frame a "social critique" excuse to write about this movie. In a world gone crazy, sometimes it's good to just kick back and huff some paint... and by that I mean watch 1999's Treehouse Hostage, not only because that's clearly what everyone involved with it was doing, but also (probably) what everyone who watched it immediately went and did afterwards. (Come on, I can't be the only one...) Abandon hope all ye who enter here.

In any case, the core message of this live-action South Park may be more relevant than ever in its depiction of an age-old and undeniable truth: that the incomparable idiocy of male youth is truly without limit. It's a warning about why they shouldn't be given sole reign over a society when they grow up. Yikes. And try as you might to cry "sexism" on that, you will still have to explain this movie's existence, it's production, the bags of day-old Testosterone it's made for, and why this one too thought it was damn "hill-aaaaaarius" back in the day. Seriously, this thing is a checklist for every "boy comedy" trope possible... slapstick, wedgies, fart and pee jokes, Porky's stuff, peeping Tom stuff with "hot moms," dressing in drag, gross concoctions, "girls are evil"... it's all here, for the lowest of low common denominator markets. Two decades before the likes of Seth Rogen's much better movie Good Boys, the very existence of this thing proves the point: yes, "boys will be... idiots"... and will also have a lot of ill-advised fun while doing it. "But hey man, it'll make a great story someday..." And I'll be damned if I say it's not... well... "funny"?

This every-boy's tale of the "Three F's of Boyhood" (fighting, flunking, and farting) begins where that lifestyle usually ends: with a prison break. A lone prison inmate named Carl is scaling a wall to make a break for it. It's hard to tell in the dark, but then it hits you, this guy is Earnest P. Worrell himself, Jim Varney... (knowwhadimean?) who actually turns in a more subdued and even sometimes funny performance in this movie (which sadly turned out to be one of his last). Surprisingly he doesn't rely on his Earnest character schtick too much but just goes classic Jim Varney, and is easily the funniest thing in the movie for real. His "captive observer" antics are almost meta with the audience also watching these inexplicably silly shenanigans unfold... and his straight-man reactions to it all often make this movie even legitly funny at times. His prison break isn't explained though as the movie keeps the action going, by... bringing us back to elementary school! 

There we meet young Timmy Taylor (presumably no relation to the Tool Man) playing video games on his 90s chunky laptop during class with a built-in joystick. He's one dog-eaten, BBQ'ed "Current Event report" away from flunking out and ending up in the dreaded summer school. (Talk about stakes!) "Sorry about BUMMER school. I'll be thinking of you when I'm water skiing at Camp Grenada!" chimes "Buddy," a blonde mushroom-cut flannel jerk sitting next to him. To which Timmy eloquently retorts: "Shut. Up. Bazooka butt!" (Oh snap!) "Don't call me that!" Buddy replies. (Why kid? That is the most "duuuude..." superpower I ever heard!) Timmy then shows off his "late 90s lEeT mAtRiX haXXoR sKillZ" using his laptop and joystick to drive a camcorder taped to an RC car through the hallways of the school. And just to show you how profoundly "compromised" this particular goon squad is, he doesn't even do anything cool with it like... uh... No. He just uses it to torture his principal, Mr. Ott, (named just so they can say "Ott the snot!") with an elaborate prank requiring Joker-level insight and coincidence to drop paint on the man's head... and also hacking the bell to make the school day end sooner.

But while Timmy is busy beginning his delinquent career, Jim Varney (Carl the prison breaker) is at the other end of his... on the lam, and with the "cops" on his trail. And by that I mean the dirtiest, shadiest, most Boss Hogg-type cops this side of the Appalachians. They corner him robbing what I think is literally the Haunted Mansion, an old busted-up house, but he gets away from these generic bad-guy movie cops by... uh... outrunning the police car? Anywho... during his getaway, he crosses paths with guess who! It's Timmy and his Baseball-obsessed dad, known so far for making sure he hears the game's final call on the radio before his own son is even allowed to speak to him. (All dads were like this... right?) Anyway, after Dad hears that "the Commies lose again!" (Soviet baseball in '99?), he starts grilling Timmy about the missing homework, to which Dad replies: "Timmy, you got to stop blaming the dog..." (Seriously kid, get a new alibi for your farts... cuz that's weeeeeak.) But then Dad continues to put forth sage fatherly advice: “Excuses are like armpits, everybody’s got em, and they all stink.” (Once again, this guy is EveryDad... although mine used a different body part.) So, moral of the story? Kid, you need you some Axe... badly. Even your DAD is dropping the hints. (And that never happens!)

So, Carl ends up running away to Timmy’s house, and after being attacked in the backyard by a particularly grumpy Wishbone (Timmy's dog... named "Potato" I think?), he inexplicably ends up bumbling into the pulley system of this kid's sub-Home Alone-level contraption that also knocks him unconscious (I guess?) and suspends him in the tree, right outside the kid's treehouse. Timmy and Dad get back, and apparently his "babe" of a hot mom doesn’t care for Dad's "armpit advice" either. Kid hears about the escaped convict on the news and the 50,000 dollar reward for any tips.... but let's forget that for now because the other dork kid from school, Stevie (Todd Bosley, who also played the dork in Jack and Little Giants, and even appeared in Seinfeld... a very "memorable" face...) shows up with a plan to go blast the "rich girls" next door with super soakers at their girly hide out. Claaaaassssiiiic! 

And yeah, they go all “Red Leader! Come in Red Leader, do you copy?” wearing battle fatigues, helmets, binoculars, and carrying huge super soakers like something out of Predator (or at least how every 90s kid played Predator in the backyard). They sneak up on the girls' pristine little pink playhouse, but then just abandon the stealth and go open season on the front of it for no reason, only to get ambushed by the girls with a garden hose from behind a side table! Take that BOYS! Get rekt! "Retreat men!"

Coming back from the water-soaked ambush defeated BY GIRLS! ... mushroom-cut Buddy shows up (that's his name) and establishes that he's into recording things on camcorders and makes fun of them with "haha... you're wet..." like he's Butthead Himself. The three of them head up to their treehouse "clubhouse" in Timmy's backyard, which of course looks like any kid's sweet-ass bedroom and even has computers in it all hooked up. Now dried off, Stevie reads the "minutes" of last week's meeting while HUFFING helium, and it's here we learn what important things actually go on in these "all-boy secret clubs." Let me huff some helium myself and quote: "Last week, we talked about summer camp, Timmy bought Root Beer, Stevie... that's me... paid a 10 cent fine for leaving the clubhouse door wide open... and of course, we instituted rule 409... no ice cream in the clubhouse, due to Buddy's... delicate condition..." (Ahh! So THAT's why he's called "Bazooka butt!"... In case you were dying to know.)

Then they decide to "go cellular." Timmy whips out the most "Cellular Telephone" thing I've ever seen, a total brick, and he extends the antenna and the whole works... and at first you think they're gonna try to claim the 50-G's for having seen Jim Varney in the wild (Timmy even morphs his voice with a “Talkboy-like thing for it)... but no. They just crank call this fat cop at the police station and the guy swears his vengeance. Apparently they've done this before. Sadly, this is when they discover Mr. 50-G's (Carl), the prison escapee himself, hanging in their apparatus-thingy out the window, passed out, and quickly reel him inside. They determine he's alive but unconscious. Timmy suggests Buddy give him "mouth to mouth"... but Buddy's got a better idea. Naturally, the kid cops a squat over the dude's face and rips three overly-loud stock-sound farts right in his face! The boys reel in disgust. "UghGhughgh! That STINKS! What do you got, a demon in there??" Stevie shouts. (Ah, the old "out demon spirit!" joke stolen from Jack, which also had that same kid in a different fart-filled treehouse). Surprised as you may be, farting on the guy doesn’t work. (Oh well... they tried their best.) So they film him on their camcorder as evidence, and then decide to go get Dad, but they do manage to at least tie the guy down so he doesn’t escape (okay, that's smart). For good measure, they even stuff one of their socks in his mouth as a gag, making sure it’s an extra smelly one... by sniffing it. (Oooooooooooookay.) 

But then the movie turns into Porky's for a second when the boys run inside and immediately burst in on Tim’s “babe” of a hot mom coming out of the shower in a towel... after inexplicably barging into... the bathroom?? (Guess they just assumed Dad was on the good ole' "Dad Throne"). "Dude, your mom's a babe..." Buddy goes. (Durrrrr!) They find Dad exercising and bring him back to the treehouse to see who they caught, but in the meantime, their captive fugitive has already woken up and somehow manages to stumble back into the pulley thing to get suspended out the window all over again, concealing him from view and knocking him out again(?), just in time for Dad to show up! Dad sees nothing there and gets annoyed. "Show him the tape!" YEAH! Finally a real flash of intelligence! .... Uh.... ... There's nothing on that damn tape but a Peeping Tom shot of another neighborhood mom working out in spandex through a window. "Uh... I guess I didn't hit record." Buddy says. (Durrrrr!)

“Dad come back!” Timmy yells. Dad replies: “EHHKCH!”

So the boys call fat cop back to report their captured fugitive, but fat cop tells them, in no uncertain terms, precisely what they can sit on and how fast they should indeed spin on it. So, calling it quits on that idea, Timmy figures he can at least get something out of this by maybe blackmailing this fugitive guy into being his "Current Event report" (about him turning the guy in), and then collect the reward money afterwards of course! Aid and abed the guy why don'tcha! Carl wakes up (from concussion again?) to find himself in a Misery situation too twisted even for Stephen King. He’s tied up, Timmy is force-feeding him sandwiches and telling him to "be a nice Current Events report for me, or I'll turn you in!" The kid then threatens that his tiny "vicious" Wishbone out there named "Potato?" will rip him to pieces if he tries to escape. Kid tucks his tied-up prisoner in though at the end of the night, so it's "awwww??" He steals these counterfeiting money pressing plates off of him while he's asleep, then goes off to his own bed in his own house.

“Mom you don’t think I’m crazy do you?” he asks his mom as she's tucking him in under a horrific poster in his room displaying a tabloid cover of "World’s Biggest Baby." Yeeek.... maybe you are kid! You're definitely not normal!

Then we learn that those crooked cops who were chasing Carl were trying to get those very same counterfeiting money pressing “plates," and now the two of them, along with a shadowy "boss" figure, are going full-Darth Vader mode to find Carl and "those plates!"  

Morning comes, and Carl’s being held in a stockade under slingshot. They have a stupid "court hearing" in the treehouse with stupid Perry Mason talk, spraying their captive with squirt guns and giving him Chair Wedgies in his stockade if he refuses to answer questions like “what did you have for dinner on the night of the 4th??” They get him on the “pizza defense” though, insisting that he was "temporally dumb by the pizza affecting his brain!” (Alright, this movie has officially gone off the rails...) 

Despite all this stupidity, they learn about the counterfeiting plot the guy was just trying to stall, and how he's being used as the scapegoat by his old "crooked cop" bosses. So... while Buddy tickle tortures ole' Earnest in a... very unpleasant scene ... the other two goofballs for some reason go to the Haunted Mansion where they had just learned Carl had stolen the money pressing plates from (and almost get busted by the thugs in the process). Meanwhile Buddy’s gone full Misery on this poor felon, trying to get Carl to piss himself by pouring water into a jug repeatedly and regaling the mofo with “Tales from the Urinal... By I. P. Standing!" 

This is when Carl busts out of his stockade and gives Buddy a good ole' Atomic Wedgie for revenge... the waist band ALL the way over the head!! Then he picks the kid up and hangs him on the wall by his pants (Owwwee! An Atomic Wedgie with a Dangling Wedgie mixed in... nice technique... this guy could be a contender in the Wedgie Olympics).

 

I'll give that wedgie a 9.5... nice form, fluid motion, and sticks the landing!

So, this supreme Atomic Dangling Wedgie torture forces Buddy to reveal that the "plates" Carl is looking for are in Timmy's room. Carl distracts the dog with hot dogs and makes it into the house… to take a leak (poor guy)... destroys Timmy’s room looking for the plates... and then.... I don't know... chases off this military-like lawn care guy by... dressing in drag?? (Honestly, it's a scene too dumb for words...)

The two goon squad dipshits come back to the treehouse to discover Buddy strung up by his underwear and learn that Carl escaped and is trapped up in Timmy's Bedroom (now that his parents are home). So the boys put their heads together and stage an oil leak on the car to get Dad out, and then Timmy gets to cop a feel on his hot mom by hugging her so that Carl can escape out the back behind her (dressed in drag of course). It's "hide-the-thing-from-the-parents" shenanigans!! For some reason he ends up back up in the treehouse and back in the stockade.

But don’t think about that, because the girls are back!! And they're ready to besiege the boys' treehouse with water balloons!! So the boys devise a plot to create this spit/booger/condiment/poop sludge concoction (also ripping off Jack), set to a dumb rock montage from out of nowhere that sounds like the Might Be Giants or something... and then float the stuff in a basket out over the girls with helium balloons. They shoot it with a sling shot, which "makes it rain" its nasty contents down upon them. Nailed! Take that GIRLS! Then they victory dance in the treehouse and eat ice cream, forgetting rule 409… which means Buddy's butt immediately explodes into a puff of farts. Everyone rolls back aghast at the... gas... waves of pure fart filling out the treehouse... (once again...) and (once again) we get an "Oh that's NASTY!" and an"Ughghg! Gonna die!" as they're all gagging... and of course it's hilarious once again. Luckily they have gas masks on hand this time, so... YAY! "Ice-cream-and-fart" ON!

Okay, so NOW this movie is so far off the rails it's an airplane... And yet we plow on... After the sludge-making montage and the (second) fart joke, now's a great time to immediately shift tone to one of those slow "emotional" scenes with the sad music as Carl tells a sad story of why he quit being a "hero fireman" when it got too hard for him to handle, eventually finding his way into counterfeiting with these crooked cops, a hustle so sweet, let me tell ya boys... "the women are so big..." He says he was eventually busted by his crooked cop friends (big brain guy here, right?), so he broke out of jail to steal back the counterfeiting plates and try to end their whole illegal operation for good, which is why they're out for him. So yeah, ole' Carl's actually a good guy at heart and he was framed! Where have we seen this before, Bushwhacked? So now that they've all bonded over dumping snot upon girls and farting, they all vow to help Carl defeat these “bad guys" and help clear his name... but more awesomely... they suit up in their spy gear cut with a fun 90s "cool" montage!

They get to the Haunted Mansion place and Buddy records Carl splainin’ his whole story on his camcorder, but then guess who shows up? WHAT A TWIST! It's their principal, Mr. Ott! It turns out HE'S the one masterminding the whole counterfeiting operation! He explains his entire evil plan not knowing the camcorder to recording in the background, and an altercation ensues that the kids manage to escape from but have to leave the camera behind while Carl gets captured by the bad guys. Principal Ott then calls Timmy on his Cellular Telephone and says he’s got "more than homework assignments to worry about now!" (heyyy-ooh!) and orders the kid to meet him at a golf course to trade "the plates" for for "their friend" Carl… but they decide to do one better. They're gonna screw with the plates to make them unable to print money with. But for some reason they need some help doing it... from an unlikely source.... Hmmm.

Timmy has a hilarious nightmare that night about being old in jail and, finding his teeth have fallen out in the slop bucket, unleashes a truly blood-curdling scream under his Santa beard (it's legit hilarious out of context, trust me). That morning, he decides they need to go "grovel with the girls" if they're going to get this plan into action to rescue Carl and stop all the counterfeitin'!... because the girls have "software" or something. So the girls, being evil little bitches (as ALL girls are, amirite?), draw up a thousand-page contact as a set of conditions to helping the boys out, including a clause about giving up their treehouse on Friday nights so the girls can use it (why they'd want that fartitorium, I don't know). There is one other stipulation whispered in Timmy's ear, which causes him to exclaim, "What? In front of the whole school??" But because they're dumb boys being outsmarted by the girls and their evil minds, they sign it and the girls rubber stamp it. So the girls help them with some computer skills to cause the plates to print obviously non-passable money. How, I'm not quite sure, but whatever. Before the plan can be put into action, it turns out Timmy’s got to go to his aunt’s "5th or 6th wedding"...? but luckily it's right next door to the golf course where they’re making the exchange! ("Lucky coincidence!" -Wilford the Dog) He gets there, but escapes the ceremony using a bathroom break excuse and switches with Buddy at the wedding. Not even his own dad notices he's gone.

Timmy goes to give back the plates to Team Evil, who have shown up at the golf course, and they make their trade and release Carl to them, only to find out that the plates were tampered with and now print nothing but the face of principal Ott! Team Evil gives chase through the mini golf course, and Stevie takes shots at them with his golf swings! And now these kids have embraced their Three Stooges idiocy in full. Woop-woop-woop! Of course Carl sacrifices himself by getting the bad guys to run after him so the kids can escape... and they do run... right into the wedding cake! Woompf! Annnnnd.... Down Goes the Bride! Woop-woop-woop! The cops show up to arrest the counterfeiters only to find out these guys are crooked cops, and Carl gets busted with them. Principal Ott speeds off. Fat cop releases Carl from the jail later that night because of the camcorder footage of him the police found at the Haunted Mansion, and offers him a plea bargain to testify against his former dirty-cop bosses.

The next day at school, it's the day of the big report presentations. Stevie is in the middle of giving his presentation of having tried to "clone sheep in the bathtub" ... to which he adds, "And I don’t recommend it because cloning sheep can be kind of stinky... and messy" (pointing to some very disturbing-looking fluid in a test tube.) We don't see Buddy's "current event" presentation but knowing the depth of his characterization, he probably just farts or something. So okay, now it’s Timmy’s turn to do his, and uh… well, he explains what happened and the teacher basically gives the entire plot of the movie an F (seems about right). This ensures summer school awaits our poor, idiotic protagonist… but then! The cops bring Carl to his school so Carl can be his “Current Event” report! YAY!!! Principal Ott tries to escape when he sees this but gets captured and put in handcuffs just as the whole school gathers outside to celebrate his incarceration. The cops give Timmy the reward money for bringing in Carl (50 G's!!!), even though Carl is technically a free man now… and the girl finally gets her part of the deal… coming up and kissing Timmy on the cheek in front of the whole school... (The horror!!!). Apparently she wanted that? Now I have second thoughts about her intelligence! All is well and good, but alas, it's revealed that night that "Potato" takes the 50,000 dollar check and buries it in the backyard... Oh well. The End.

So what can we take away from all this? Did this movie prove that what passes as moth-brained idiocy can actually in the end really be taken as innocently heartfelt and ... (pun-intended) ..."earnest?" Maybe that empathy for people as individuals (and not mere collections of stereotypes) can bridge any divide between people? Maybe that all humans need are second chances? That perhaps... the outward appearances, behaviors, and even mistakes that people make in the immaturity of their lives aren't what we should be judging their worth on as people? That we shouldn't be so quick to just write people off just because they do dumb stuff? That people can grow and mature? That human beings... of all stripes... can still have a heart of gold down below even the most crude, mean, silly, or goofball antics? That people are all complex and can always surprise us? Perhaps...

But then again, if this was made just to make what could actually be the ultimate "boy movie"...and it actually worked, then... never mind.

Milk Money

The biggest part of growing up is learning how not to be a perv. Now I can't speak for women, but I can speak for all males of the species (because none would disagree with me), and say that without a basic lesson in not being a perv, we'd all totally become pervs (and heck, some of us even do regardless). Sure, we may have the higher national averages when it comes to doing pull ups for gym class (although I certainly didn't make 'em), but we are all straight-up pipsqueaks when it comes to... certain other physical feats. But whether or not boys of the 90s ever did learn not to be pervs (or me for that matter), this movie certainly had nothing to do with it either way... (Spoiler warning!).

Too saucy to teach a lesson on pervertry and too cringey to say "the hell with it" and just confirm us in our path down the dark side like we wanted, Milk Money was a 1994 (kids?) movie, hyped up as this "past yer bedtime" risque comedy, but actually a head-scratching oddball of a movie that defies any attempt to market it. As a kid, it's a "whoa, how do the grups know about boners?" revelation, and as an adult, it's a straight-up cringefest, both in its accuracy (if you, like me, had the privilege of growing up male) and in its grossness (if you didn't). Either way, I bet it was an uncomfortable time at the movies for kids and parents alike (I don't know, my parents certainly didn't take me to see it!). This is like, if Good Boys was meant for kids, without the subtlety or gags, but with a heaping pile of 90s schmaltz.

What's not controversial about a group of boys going to solicit a prostitute only to wind up keeping her in their treehouse? Well, mainly, the three boys in question. We open up on one of their late night slumber party treehouse meetings, where in rapid secession beneath the covers they go from the opening line of the movie, "You ever fart and sneeze at the same time?" to "You ever barf up something you know you didn't eat?" to describing their best barf stories, and then to the finer qualities of spitting loogies for distance, including an anecdote about a life-ending collision of a loogie off the Empire State Building! (We 90s boys were true philosophers.) They also have some kind of "sacred" box where they put things they don't understand, which for them this night includes an object they either describe as a rubber bathtub drain plug, a drinking cup, or a device that, in their words, "prevents the passage of sperm into the uterus in girls." (One of them was right.) Another one, our main protag Frankie, puts in a photo of his dead mother, saying he'd like to know what having a mom is like. Whoa! Okaaaay... so... yeah... um.... ... ... Anyways, "Have you ever noticed that girls don't fart??" (FACT) and, hey! The flashlight's glow circle on the ceiling "totally looks like a boob!" (Also FACT)

So yeah, pretty accurate to guys, I'd say.

Oh and by the way, these kids are like, 11 years old, at least, so we're in "charming" Goonies territory, not in raunchy "Bill and Ted" territory, but even more amped up, because while those movies were about other things with a sprinkling of wink-wink-nudge-nudge naughty sex for laughs, this movie's whole plot is the naughty bits! So get ready, because you're in for a ride down the hormone roller coaster for this one, but it's everydude's hormone roller coaster, so it's gonna make you laugh, not cry, because boners are funny. It's like a bowl of Lucky Charms that's just the Lucky Charms... all sex all the time.

The movie mainly follows this kid Frank, who suffers from "90s dead mom" disease and reads Cosmo at the breakfast table to get info on women for his Sex Ed class, and his aloof dad who suffers from "needs to get laid because he's interested in swamps" (because "Hey Butthead, wetlands!" "Heheh you said "wet."). He asks his dad if his mom was a virgin when he married her, to which his dad replies, "what, are you studying religion?" (Genuine lol!) So yeah, we get the idea here that this kid is reeeeeeeeeally missing his mom. Not even Littlefoot was getting into gynecology to assuage his dead mom bereavement (just crawling into her womb-like footprints). This kid is all kindsa messed up to say the least, since he conflates "knowing more about his mom" with studying the mysteries of the fabled G-spot in girls (not even joking, this is in the movie). Freud would have a field day on this kid. But his dad is also kinda messed up, because the man retorts with, "in my experience, there is no such spot."

(Well, okay, maybe dad here and I agree on something...)

Anyways, after that totally normal father and son breakfast, the movie then follows the quest of our three "charming" young would-be johns watching porn on their Zenith TV-set and hatching a plan to make some quick cash so they can go to "a place where the girls are naked all the time, where guys can see naked girls all they want, all hours of the day, for anyone with guts and a hundred bucks." You guessed it... "the city!" They do this via a "milk money" scheme at their school, and thus the movie's namesake is revealed. It's also revealed that our little goon squad here is not so smooth with girls their own age at their school for being dorkii maximii to the extreme (like we didn't already figure that). (See, Frankie wants the stereotypical blonde "bitchy" girl at school, and so ignores the advances of the more dorky girl who may actually like him but clings to the bitchy blonde girl out of instinct). In any case, before I could even figure out what they were actually doing to make their "milk money," they're off to "the city" on their two-speed bikes (flags and cards in the spokes 'n all) with a bag of nickels to go find the hallowed thing known as "the hooker." They get there and discover that just waltzing up to random women on the street and soliciting for prostitution gets them only a slap in the face (in a scene I WISH I had a GIF for!). This normally would've been the end of most young boys' journeys into true manhood at that time, but it turns out these three are in luck!

While all this was going on, wouldnchaknowit, a smokin' hot prostitute who only goes by the name V ("heart of gold" included) is getting screwed over by her latest john in a mafia shootout that lands her in trouble with both her pimp and this cartel being run by Malcolm McDowell. Long story short, she crosses paths with our young champions of masculinity in training, and decides to take them under her wing (after all, they WERE paying her a bag of nickels). She decides to give them a little "peepshow" for their money's worth and takes them up to her flat. And after some haggling around, she actually does end up lying down on the bed and showing off "the goods" to our three intrepid little goons. Well, unfortunately for him, our hero Frankie suddenly decides he wants to be a "gentleman" and covers his eyes at the moment of truth (no Frankie, whaddayadoin!). She takes their bag of nickels and runs back to her pimp with it right afterwards to try to pay him, to which he replies, "What am I, a Laundromat?" and throws it against the wall. (Once again, genuine lol!)

Long story short, she ends up running into the goon squad again after she steals the car of her pimp. She realizes she has to take these kids back to their own neighborhood to presumably masturbate the rest of the day away, not knowing that there is a large sum of money hidden in the gas tank (of all places!), which was going to be used to pay off Malcolm McDowell. He then becomes obsessed with finding her and retrieving his money from the car (so much so he murders her pimp). The car promptly poops the bed outside the house for reasons our heroes don't know yet (money in the gas tank will do that) and now she needs a place to stay. So the plot of the movie sets in. V is on the run and hiding in this kid's treehouse as his dimwit dad mistakes her to be his son's math tutor (she can multiply my hypotenuse... crap, never mind). His dad tries for a few days to fix the car and offers her a place to stay as they engage in a slew of double-entendres that he fails to get. Heck, the audience of 10-year-olds watching this could get that she's not talking about "starting his engines" literally, or whatever, but wow... how did this guy ever reproduce? (The role of the dad probably should've been played by Robin Williams, or someone who has a little more natural charm than the dry board that this guy was here, but Williams obviously didn't need this at the time.)

Okay... now in most movies of this type, this would set the stage for a typical hijinks-filled romp plot about thirsty teen guys willing to do anything for roll in the sheets, but this movie for some reason had to be a kids movie, so it had to ruin all this "sexy" setup by getting schmaltzy around this point. What ensues is mostly a more by-the-numbers series of "bonding" moments where she becomes more like a mom to this kid and more like a girlfriend to his dad, and also more and more enamored with this slice of domestic bliss she's never been able to experience... yadda yadda. If anything, the movie starts to serve the purpose of taking the boyhood joy of "bringin' yer old man a cold one!" to its furthest extent, as in, "bringin' yer old man a HOT one!" The moral being, kids... get your dad laid. Your life will be so much better for it! (It's a sentiment that probably landed very well with the test audiences.)

It's amazing what a hooker will do for your life in middle school. The confidence boost that Frankie gets from having a "mom" figure in his life seems to do the trick, especially when he starts telling the girls at his school that she's his "aunt" (making her his dad's "sister"... and then leading to that girl's utter confusion at a restaurant when she sees his dad and V making out on a date!) (Mom to brother and sister: "You kids should be more affectionate with each other, like them!" *Kissing* Brother: "I am NOT doing that!"). This leads to the funniest line of the movie where dorky girl realizes the obvious: "Mom she's not his aunt... she's a hooker." (LOL!) The rest of the film plays out much as you'd expect, except for one gut-bustingly hijinky scene where little Frankie boy brings his "aunt" into his Sex Ed class to use as a living demonstration of the female anatomy in front of the whole class... giving him instant LEGENDARY status with everyone and probably an expulsion in the mail. But it does help his chances with the girls he was trying to get with at the beginning, and suddenly he's turning down the advances of the stuck up bitchy blonde girl to get with the dorky girl at the school dance, right in front of her face! Ohhhhh snap! Maybe Frankie's actually doing something right for a change and getting with girls who are more in his league, (or at least in his age group), or at least who maybe have a soul.

In any case, dad finally fixes the car and... you know where this is going. The mobster guy Malcolm McDowell tracks them down and they're off in a high speed chase that ends with all the money going up in flames and Malcolm McDowell certain she went up in the blaze with it, or just not caring either way. But he actually gets away in the end, which is... pretty bold for a movie like this. Now free from being hunted, V is also free to settle down into what we would assume would be that "domestic bliss" happy schmaltzy ending... but not so fast! We learn that V had confiscated at least some large portion of the mobster's money before the car wreck, AND that she's bought the wetlands from being turned into parking lots (making dad really aroused!), AND we learn that she's also bought the ice cream parlor in town... so now she's an independent business woman who donneed-no-man! Whhhhhaaat? But... why don't you guys come down for a scoop some time? Aw shucks! And so in the end, we learn that the only thing better than not being a prostitute is being free to have your ice cream and eat it too.

So all's well that ends well. Frankie gets a girl his own age and a "mom" figure in his life. Dad gets his wetlands (and maybe a friend with benefits). V get's a million smackers rather than a million smacks and operates her own small business. And Frankie's friends... well, at least they don't turn out to be pervert pimps (we assume). Oh yeah, and we all learn that there IS a spot on a girl you can touch that will drive her crazy... (A: "it's her heart.") It was her "heart" all along! Go figure!

Oh the feels... (in the heart that is.)

Actually, trying to figure out how Milk Money even got made is half the fun of watching the movie. As you're sitting there as a kid watching it with your parents, you get the sneaking suspicion that they're in on your secret, porn-mag-under-the-mattress world. As a parent, you're wondering why they didn't just make this either some heartfelt kids' movie or some American Pie raunchy adult comedy. It's a weird one... (if that wasn't obvious to you), but one thing is certain. All's well that ends well, and for once it was all because "boys will be boys!"

For once!

The Great Webelo Day Camp Event

Proud Webelo!

Sometime during the wet season back yonder in my lore, my entire Cub Scout council was invited to go on this "day camp experience." It was going to be a whole day of fun activities in the great outdoors, and we'd be the proud owners of a pretty big badge if we went, so naturally I went (for the badge mostly). I also wanted to get my feet wet in the whole "camp experience" thing since I dreaded going on an "overnight" (there were some things I just didn't want to see go down in a tent). So my dad and I set off in the wee hours of the morning to get hammered by the uber-scouting pack leader (who scared me on a daily basis a la Bushwhacked) for being "out of uniform" without my neckerchief.

So, once again, my dad and I set off in the later wee hours of the morning after the uniform dysfunction (which didn't even matter because nobody could see it under the coat anyways), and a couple hours later we finally arrived at the destination way, way, waaay the hell out in the sticks. Even just the bungly road out to the camp was designed to really give off that whole "rustic" experience, being about three miles of twisty, turny, bouncy dirt, rocks, and general woodsy "initiation turbulence" through the middle of the forest. At a speed limit of 2 miles per hour, no drink in any cup-holder was safe, and we both emerged in a state of involuntary spasm. Welcome to "Camp Norse"... a camp hardcore enough for the Norsemen, as I understood it. It's not anywhere near where I live (or anyone else for that matter) so don't even try to track me down.

The actual cabin.

From there on the trip quickly went downhill. First of all, of all the scouts in the entire council  only like four or five of us showed up to "represent," which means we were severely, severely outmatched by the other councils who had upwards of tens and twenties of scouts. Secondly, we learned that we were going to be lugging around a giant sled like a pack of Iditarod dog teams, in what was supposed to have been the fluffy snow which turned out to be mush and pine needles. Thirdly, it was damp, muddy, and damn cold. 

So here we were, all four of us sturdy-bodied ten-year-olds, dragging this giant heavy-ass snow sled with all our equipment on it from activity station to activity station, across wet pine needles, rocks, and downed tree branches which had to be frequently moved, falling down on our faces in the cold hard mud, as the other councils zipped around with twenty or so older and stronger guys in tow. We quickly became known by all the other competing councils as "the losers." One team even had wheels on their sled! All the while our drill sergeant pack leader would crack his metaphorical whip, shouting at us to "pick up the pace" and to "put our [you-know-whats] into it" (whatever that meant), but taking time to assure us that if there had been snow, that team with the wheels would've been screwed. I suppose that made me stop and ignore the pain in my shoulders, the humiliation of being in last place, and the cold mud on my drenched pants for a half-second. 

So the activities included things like climbing trees, building a fire, walking a tight-rope, archery, javelin throw, and our personal worst, tying knots. By the time we made it to any of the activity areas though, we were so grateful just to have made it that we didn't really care about doing what was set out at these stops, so we basically failed at everything. That's not even some cynical joke either, we really did fail at everything, but damn it, we were getting our badge!

But for what exactly? Well, certainly not for lame stuff like selling cookies and threading colored yarn and the sissy stuff the "girl scouts" do, or whatever. No. We were doing real Scout stuff. Boy stuff! Stuff like swearing, talking blood and guts, and joking about Your Mom... And penises and boners and poop... amid the near-constant chorus of burping and farting, and peeing, and farting and burping, and penises, and peeing and farting, and boners and farting, and peeing, and penises and farting and...  Merit badge please! (Like I said.... boy stuff!)

All joking aside though... even regardless of what horror stories and stereotypes you've heard about Boy Scouts... seriously, you'd still be surprised at how correct they all are and at how many bathroom stops boys need in a ten hour period of strenuous labor in the woods, for which we literally had the trees. It's like, you put us together in the woods, and our cycles align. Really, bodily functions and Your Mom jokes are about 80% of what Boy Scouts do on these trips. It's real. And it's a problem. 

"No pain, no gain," our pack leader said.

Picture Credit: Scouting Magazine

But through it all, at least we got outside, got to stretch our legs (and then some!), and got enough combined "pull my finger" and "number one, number two? Go find a tree!" jokes out of our systems to satiate our humor palettes for at least a couple days. And we got serious, serious props at the next council meeting for at least showing up and braving the wilds, the battles, and each other, to represent the council. And each of us came home with a sweet, well-deserved badge commemorating the valiant "effort," which we could lord over all the "no-show wusses." 

Still a proud Webelo...at heart! (Not in reality, because that would be weird).

Marching Webelos

The best thing about being in the Cub Scouts was getting recognized for being in the Cub Scouts. You flash a badge, you wear a neckerchief, and not only are you in the club, but you're in everyone else's club too. I'd wear that uniform to school for picture day and suddenly transform that "humdrum smile against the paper background" into a proud military portrait in full regalia... a full smile, a missing tooth, and a badass bunch of badges. Two words: aw yeah. 

It was the grade school equivalent of stuffing your crotch in high school to look bigger... all the show off pride, and none of the actual self respect. Well nothing was more stupidly honorary for the average 8-year-old snotty booger pee-pants goof ball boner gas dork (that I was) than marching in the Memorial Day parade. And that we did as Cub Scout Troop [whatever]. In fact, we had more honor than we knew what to do with. (If that's what you wanna call it.)

Struggling to
avoid molestation
jokes in this post. 

"Remember, your behavior reflects on the whole troop," they said, as we all sat there on the grass adjusting ourselves beneath our shorts and staring at the Hot Rods. The parents had to preempt our fighting and make sure each of us got a shot at carrying the banner with our troop insignia, which was a matter we took very seriously. Some of us could've died that day and it would have been worth it for a shot at carrying the banner! 

So we stood shoulder to shoulder in one long single-file line holding this thing up and stepping on each other's feet for a mile and a half. We began the journey at the "secret parade people's meeting area" in the field where the Scotsmen were tuning their sheep bladders and the Hot Rods and Harleys were idling and revving up for no reason, and waited there for the eternity it took the thing to get started. We baked, and sweat, and got on each other's nerves under the hot sun, we told "Your Mom" jokes and probably something having to do with the male genitalia a half dozen times amid the chorus of animal noises ans bodily functions, and then finally found ourselves lining up to be smack dab between the fire engine and that high school drum ensemble. Let's just say, the novelty of marching wore off pretty fast... 

That fire engine was a tough act to follow. It tossed out the most candy, and like hell if we listened to the pack leader about staying in formation once there was candy in the area. If the banner almost dropped a few times and caused an embarrassment for the whole council, it was because we were stuffing our pockets before those leeches on the street corners got theirs. Nobody expects a Cub Scout to be a "giver" and a "sharer" anyways... unless we're talking about farts.

As far as where we were headed, "who the heck knows... just keep following the fire truck!" So we just kept walking and walking under the hot sun, slowly losing our hearing, slowly losing our shirts, and getting on each other's nerves (that would've happened anywhere). When we finally made it to the end, we sat in the grass at the grave site and ate our candy and rang the sweat out of our neckerchiefs until our parents caught up with us. There was some memorial ceremony going on there, but what did we care? We had three things on our minds: shade, silence, and water!

That's what Cub Scouting is all about, teaching you what's important.

Grand Theft Lunchbox

I was not one of those kids who did the school lunch deal, which is probably why I've lasted this long. Thinking back, my heart goes out to all those kids forced to eat that stale cheese (with pizza built somewhere into it), meat nuggets of mystery, and the ever-nefarious "brownie" that all seemed to invariably land wrapped in Styrofoam. In many ways though, being a lunchbox kid was worse socially than it was gastro-intestinally. On the mean streets of the lunch room, a war was brewing between the trayers and the baggers, and you did not want to be on the wrong side of that table.

In my day, we didn't have no fancy Vitamin Water to take to school, we had a juice box, and if we didn't have a box, we had a a device known as a thermos that took up all the room in your bag and crushed your sandwich. Opening this juice box was a piece of work, and involved a process similar to poking a baseball bat through a sheet of Saran Wrap. If you poked too soft, it'd never go through. If you poked too hard, you'd have a geyser of punch in your face. With a Thermos though, once you dropped the straw inside, that was it for your ability to extract liquid unless you took the top off and guzzled it like a loser... (guilty as charged). I had a traumatic experience asking a teacher to get my straw out of a thermos... I don't want to talk about it.

I also don't want to talk about the traumatic time I learned what a boy is not allowed to bring to school plastered all over his lunchbox and thermos. See, I was not all that bright, and my mom used to send me to school with this... I don't know... Snoopy or Sesame Street thermos or whatnot... (I know right?). Well I wasn't really aware that such a thing was frowned upon in them thar parts... by the other boys. (I know... I'm sorry, ignorance is no excuse, I should've known better...). Well, you can be sure they LET ME KNOW... and it was... well, let's just say, therapy has been good for me. I BEGGED my mom for something... ANYTHING "cooler" than Big Bird... and holy shit! She got me this red plastic lunchbox that came with F'KIN AWESOME futuristic car stickers you could plaster all over it! It even had a helicopter for good measure! I was set for life. 

Well almost, because you see, you pull up with your new, shiny, badass, cool kid lunchbox and rev its engine in the wrong parts of the cafeteria, and you find out you suddenly have all new problems on your hands. Suddenly they're all asking about it. And then the only thing you got to worry about is, the thing getting STOLEN. (Which luckily never happened to me, but I swear... they asked... and they tried... but I was vigilant.) I had to watch it like a hawk! But that didn't mean I still didn't get jacked. 

Food was another story, because if you came in with something good, all the trayers wanted a piece of it. I swear, opening that lunchbox on any given day was like driving a Viper through a real seedy part of town. If you got up to get a napkin, you could only expect that someone has jacked your chunky peanut butter sandwich. And you know that if they went for the sandwich, it was only because someone else had already taken the DUNKAROOS! I'm telling ya, it was a tough boy-eat-banana-world, devoid of mercy or respect, but to us elementary schoolers, it was a place we called the cafeteria.

Of all the years I spent fighting in the war, only one battle turned out me: 1, bully: 0. Every day I came in, this other kid would take my lunch. If I came in with any sort of candy, it was his. If I came in with a granola bar, it was his. If I came in with nothing but a sandwich, he'd take it and pull out the meat. Every day I had to surrender something. So one day, I decided to get even. My mom (bless her heart) gave me confectioner's chocolate to bring in... the real nasty 90% pure ground cocoa kind. Sure enough, the moment he saw chocolate he snatched it up and took a bite. This kid practically puked! His face went sour and he spit it out in a napkin. "Sick! What kind of chocolate you eating man?" I don't ever remember him stealing my lunch again.

I love you mom. 

You Got a Butt For a Face!

The second grade was full of confused anatomical insults and other factually inaccurate taunts. It's the best you can do when you're eight. But the best thing about being a boy is that if the other guys are putting you down one year, they're probably going to be your friends sooner or later, especially if you can too can dish out whatever they're serving. The fact is, we boys just don't take things all that seriously because with insults like "Oh yeah? Well you got a BUTT for a FACE!" how can you take that seriously? At least when girls insulted you, they'd just say things like "you're ugly" or "you smell" or "boys are dumb." You know, things that are true. We say things like "hey buttface!" And it's seriously a case of, yeah, that's the best we've got. Psh! No big deal. "You're a buttface times infinity!" And there you go, friends for life. I rest my case.

I knew me my share of buttfaces in my day, because most kids in the 90s were butts... hot shot little shits always trying to prove something. That's all we were. Advertising was very good at turning us against each other in the competition of coolness, but there really wasn't any difference between any of us back then. In any case, if you were cool, then anyone else who wasn't you was a dork, a little above the worm in the hierarchy of life. If you were a dork though, like me, then all those "cool kids" were nothing but buttfaces. I don't know why "butts" were our metaphor of choice to describe "the other," but maybe because it was more ad-friendly than calling each other assholes.

In any case, the buttfaces I knew in the 2nd grade happened to consist of that same "flannel gang" of "cool kids" that I described in detail earlier on, and before I made my epic journey to become cool in their eyes, I was assuredly a dork. Once in gym class, we were doing one of those 90's New Age type "exercises" (they just couldn't let us play something that involved winning and losing or else we'd cry) when this battle of wits played out almost poetically. We were split into groups of three, and one had to be the leader and the other two had to mimic his every move. I happened to be the leader that time, and I thought it was kind of cool, being paired with two of the flannel jerks and being "in charge" of them. It was a pure "mwahaha!" moment.

But I quickly undid whatever was cool about it.  In my quest to make them look like idiots, I way overshot the runway. I started out doing these Russian-type kicks on the gym floor, and then got the wise idea to go down flat and do a "snake-like" slither. It was in the middle of my slither that I realized both my little minions were following my lead exactly, hurling light Russian-style kicks at my face! It was a reminder of just what I was up against.

The teasing became more verbal after that, with both of them finding ways to poke fun at my so-called puke-pooling ugliness. It was a time in life where one could get away hurling insults like the old "stare and avert your eyes" jab. One of them, who I naturally ended up becoming friends with a year later, even said after looking at my face for a second, and I quote, "Ah! I'm being blinded by the evil thing!" This happened quite a few times, but I was quite sharp, and retorted the same jab back. It wasn't so much an insult to me as it was just a funny thing to hear and say--that and the old, "Oh my God!" (mouth-dropped, eyes bugged)... which might have prompted me to go "what?" in all seriousness, and to which the reply invariably was, "You got a butt for a face!" How do you respond to a claim like that? You can't. Even if you say "no I don't!" you still look like a real "heinous anus" for even just debating the subject of your butt face.
 
I could be the acid tongue myself though. A kid came to class with a prescription bottle once and had it propped on the desk in front of him. Someone else asked, "what are those pills for?"  It was the age of Ritalin back then, so just picture three different prescription bottles instead of one for the modern equivalent. He got angry at this and huffed, "They're pills you put in your head to make you stupid!" Now I have to admit, he walked himself right into this one, and I couldn't resist taking him the rest of the way: "Oh? Then you must take a lot of those!"

So I did my share of serving and being served. For example, who could forget the classic bus-ride questionnaires.. "So, have you been PT?" "What's PT?" "Yes or no, have you ever been it?" You'd be tempted to say no, as I was, because it didn't sound good if you were to say yes, but then you'd be mistaken. "No," I said. To which he shot back, "Ew! You've never been potty trained?" You just never knew whether to say yes or no to those things. And who could forget the grand old "open your mouth and close your eyes and I'll give you a big surprise!" Or the "do you know what I think about that?" Prompting a "what?" followed by a rectal explosion of some kind and a smell so bad it could peal the paint off the walls! "Ah... that's what!" he'd say.

Surprisingly enough, afterwards this kid became my best friend in the 3rd grade, and I guess you could say we both became "puke-pooling butt-faced booger-brained fart smellers with flies on the side" for a while. It tends to rub off on others.

Paranormal Alien Junkies

By the time third grade rolled around, my friend Nick and I were a couple of paranormal junkies. I suppose "junkies" is the right term, as it's fitting of what that stuff really is (plus we definitely were paranormal). But don't tell me that aliens were junk back then. Those were the days when we didn't have the History Channel to give us our UFO fix. We had to rely on the infrequent sightings on the Discovery Channel (back then it was the "smart people" channel). I was hooked on all those weekend paranormal Lifetime Channel Unsolved Mysteries marathons. "Television for women" my ass! More like "television for 9-year-olds who love freaky alien paranormal shit"!

My friend Nick was pretty smart. In fact, we used to call him "smarter than the average kid" (in the Yogi Bear sense), or at least, that's what he called himself. He knew all the times tables. Quick... what's 5x7?? Too late! Nick's already answered. Oh yeah. He could tell you all about military missions, airplanes, explosives, and brain eating amoebas in your favorite waterparks. He also could burp on command like a champ, really loud and beastly, and even taught me some of his burping wisdom. So as far as I was concerned, he really was smarter than the average kid. He did sneak nunchucks into school on many occasions, so yeah, of course we were friends. Checks out. And so... anything he said was pretty much gospel. Nick was convinced they were holding aliens in Area 51 and doing autopsies, and I agreed, adding, "who do you think works there?" He suggested that people don't work there like a normal job, they are born, raised, work, and die there and never see the outside world. Yes, for us, Independence Day was a documentary. That's an 'unsolved mystery' our old Lifetime channel friend Robert Stack took to his grave.

Was Independence Day not a documentary? Wasn't that really area 51? I don't know. Nick did. His parents let him watch ALL the Alien movies, and he said they were all pretty badass, so ... he knows what he's talking about. And you know what else? He had some pretty sweet nunchucks.

This is all heavily ironic, for nothing terrified me more as a kid (and even now as I think about it), than being abducted by aliens... that and ghosts... and girls. I knew there was no monster under the bed, but aliens? I wasn't so sure. You could say this fear was also ironic because if you talked to my brother, he would've told you nothing would've pleased him more than seeing me get "taken." He would have held the door for them. Indeed, it might have explained a few things. The feeling was mutual. It didn't help that a new "aliens destroy humanity" movie came out every year in the 90's, and of course, my parents kept renting them... even the horribly terrifying Mars Attacks, which haunted my dreams for weeks. Those eyes, those brains, those ray guns turning people into skeletons, the totally wasted all-star cast, the death of Danny Devito! ("Look, don't shoot me, I'm a lawyer. If you wanna take over the world... you're gonna need a lawyer!") It was a horrible movie (and that's coming from a guy who likes Tim Burton).

Robert Stack probably was an alien, but I had my doubts about some kids at school. Humans? Or aliens wearing human skin? How could you tell? Well, it turned out that Nick seemed to know exactly how to spot an alien (because yeah, the kid knew everything). He told me, and this is 100% true, that if they tell you they're a pack of aliens living out behind the school eating "shiny paper foods" (the place was littered with potato chip bags)... it probably makes sense to play it safe and take their word for it. "Your brain could be next." But then I started having my suspicions about Nick... he seemed to know too much...

How else could you explain his advanced mathematics computer brain unless it wasn't some kind of... advanced alien brain or techno-implant? Wait... wasn't that him eating potato chips at lunch? Look at the inside of his chip bag! "Shiny paper food!" Wasn't that him wiping his boogers on the window? Hmmm... that specimen seemed a bit too green if you asked me. And all the ear-spliting burping on command? Sorry but I know the sound of a Xenomorph when I hear one! And the smell of his breath... whoo! Like sauerkraut and crusty gym sock! Yeah... definitely not human.

That did it. The kid was definitely an alien.

But I could never be sure, and I didn't want him knowing I might've been on to him. He never invited me over, despite telling me he wanted to many times. Seems suspicious, right? At some point in the 4th grade I remember we had some kind of falling out... probably because I was too close to uncovering the SECRET. I remember he threatened to use his nunchucks on me once, and I told the teacher he had brought them to school. After that, I was sure he was gonna come to school and pound me, or do worse, and I actually remember dreading going to school for a few days. But weirdly enough, he didn't show up. Day by day went by, and he was absent. And then for some reason I never fully knew, I never saw him again. Well, it was close to the end of the school year anyway... or maybe he just jumped back in his craft and went back to his planet. Either way, I want to believe.

Or as Home Improvement once put it, parodying the X-Files:

"The truth is out there..." -- Tim Taylor
"No Taylor, you're the one who's out there." --Jill Taylor

Pretty Sneaky Sis...

Let me drop some knowledge on you. I'll be honest (that's what this blog is all about after all), I'm an attention hog and always have been. Anything that could get me some attention, good or bad, I was down for. Whether I ended up everyone's hero (like the time in gym class I was a goalie and stopped a hockey puck with my CROTCH!), or was heralded as the best kid picked to lead the class in the "pledge of allegiance" ever (yes, I said "one naked, undergarment, in-the-visible" ...),  I was desperate to prove myself worthy of the stuff of legends. And of course, legends are usually built on fibs. So like most kids, I was very good at fibbing, and at being stupid... and for having a groin of steel. It came easy to me, and now it's no surprise to me why I never knew why.

All kids are pretty dumb... (heck, so is everyone...) and I don't think I'll find much argument there. Another statement I'm probably not gonna receive any argument about? The fact that, even among kids, girls are (and always were) little EINSTEINS ... compared to the average boy.

Yes, growing up male makes you dumber. That's science talking. I don't make the rules, I'm just a hapless crotch-scratching victim of them. We can be genius level IQ and still be pretty darn limp-brained where it counts. If we're not dumb in the classroom, we're dumb when it comes to relating to "fellow humans." If we're not dumb when it comes to book-reading, we forget to bathe, but if we remember to bathe, we don't know how to tell if we're using too much cologne. It's always something! We either struggle to read a book, or we read a book and struggle to remember our names when a pretty girl asks us. We can either recite the periodic table, or all original 150 Pokemon. We can either put our pants on the right way and flunk math, or we can ace math and forget how to zip up. We simply can not do both. And this is one area where I can say I don't just speak for myself. This was settled a long time ago. Girls can be mean or conniving or bitchy, sure... and sometimes not... but they're definitely not as dumb as the average boy. 

And not only is this not a problem, it's actually the best part of being a dude. We get to say that the opposite sex is smarter than us! It's the only thing we can do that girls can't. Can girls say that? Nope! Like being called a "moron" or a "dumbass," and a whole slew of other words for "idiot" (you never hear these things said for chicks)... it's the ultimate "boys only" thing! But forget what science says about how "girls mature faster" and "get better grades in school" (and other things that are actually true), because as many a dude has said before me: I got one better than science. I got 90s movies to be my guide in this. 

Now, any casual viewing of the medium will probably confirm this thesis easily, and the only thing you might have to say about any of what I've said is "well, yeah." As in, the "the sky is blue," "grass is green," "boys are idiots"... so what of it? However, some dudes out there might hop off their seats exclaiming "nuh-uh, that McCaulay Culkin kid from My Girl was pretty smart!" And you'd be right, when it came to school there's no doubt he had book smarts. The glasses tell you that. The hole in the theory? He died! Here he was actually getting a girl to like him, and I mean, really like him... and then he decides to just go and die one day. Not too bright if you ask me. And then he was too dumb to even keep his glasses on at the wake! I mean, come on. He can't see without his glasses! 

No. For this battle of wits, I realized I'm going to have to pull out the big guns, the two most intelligent movie kids from the 90s: Kevin McCallister from Home Alone, representing all boys, and Matilda Wormwood from Matilda, representing girls. Now, granted on the surface they are both "smarter than average." Kevin is practically a small adult who can manipulate anyone, not to mention rig a whole string of houses with traps to thwart bad guys across multiple movies. His drawback (besides, you know, not being psychokinetic... we'll get to her) is that he's very good at luring particularly indestructible bad guys into his traps! No matter how many electrocutions, sticky floorboards, paint tins, or toilets filled with explosives he hucks at them, there's always going to be a point where he's out of traps and the bad guys are still coming. And who's fault is that? Besides, how smart could he be if he's constantly getting left behind by his family?

Matilda Wormwood on the other hand is a math and reading savant who doesn't even need school to function in the genius level, and she can even move shit with her friggin' mind! Now that's "GIRL POWER" for you! Both Kevin and Matilda are very capable of taking care of themselves, as Matilda is basically self-taught in everything and Kevin does all his own chores and shopping. BUTT... Matilda also reads profusely, everything from classic literature to tax law, and absorbs everything, so she can figure out more "mature" and "grown up" ways to bust an opponent than silly little dumb boyish Matchbox cars on the stairs. And what about Kevin? He reads Playboy and watches gangster movies. Matilda's downside though is that she needs to get emotional before she can use her powers to their fullest extent, and it takes quite a torrent of Danny Davito parental abuse to charge up that battery!

So basically, you know where this is going...  In a battle royale between Kevin and Matilda, I'm still going to have to give it to the Matil-dog. She could easily out-maneuver all of the Kevlar's ingenious and psychopathic traps with just her mind, and also chuck heavy objects at him as well, without any preparation, so it's no contest. Girls rule. Boys drool. Case closed.

(And don't even get me started on Minkus vs. Harriet the Spy... She is a spy after all, she can sneak up on that obnoxious dork! Case closed.)

But fear not, being dumber is not necessarily a bad thing guys! All those nutshot challenges and off-the-roof trampoline jumps may look dumb, but it just means we take more risks. For some, it means you go off and build the first airplane or invent the first jetpack. For most, it means you get your head stuck in a chair in the 1st grade. All those idiot jokes we make? That just means we aren't so self-inhibited. For some, that means we're unafraid about what people think of us. For most though, it means that when you raise your hand in class and get called on, you will then proceed to let out a looooooong burp... loudly. Maybe we need all that brazen, reckless, death-defying, annoying stupidity so that eventually nature will randomly produce the one (and only) male Einstein. 

Me. Jr. Executive.

Don't worry though. I hold myself out as the archetypal example for the entire thesis about why's it's actually rad to be part of the dumber half of the populace. At school, the 8-year-old me had this "class clown meets Jr. Mr. Executive" thing going on, which is like, the epitome of showing off. Around the boys I wanted to be cool with, I was a rebel, a kid who'd eat the classroom fish food if it would cause a couple laughs (I don't know how fish eat that stuff). Around boys who already thought I was cool, I'd suddenly become more mysterious and entertain them with tales of the Cub Scouts I'd never witnessed (I made it sound like recruit training... like any of those all-time great war movies like Full Metal Jacket, swearing included!). I once wore an elastic band around my leg and claimed it was to show where "I'd lost a limb" in the "war games." Lies! The closest to war I'd ever come was to sit through all 90 minutes of Major Payne. ... (8yo me loved it, by the way.)

And no, it's no excuse for douchebaggery, I know. Around girls at school I liked, I basically just answered all their "what is your favorite animal"-type questions and watched them swoon whenever I randomly interjected "dolphins" (all the girls back then wanted to be marine biologists after Free Willy). What did us boys get out of it? "Haha... "free the willy!!!"... HAHA!... But that's no reason to be a douchebag, obviously. The point is, I had some sensitive sides... but I assure you, all my girl cousins got to see was the Ace Ventura part of me whenever my brother and I were around regardless. And, try as I might, I just never understood why girls weren't as impressed as I was about how I could make zany animal noises, stick things in my nose, crack good ole' penis jokes, and bend over and "talk" with my buttcheeks... 

Oh well. Their loss.

Around girls at school I didn't like, I was still eating the fish food, but for the opposite reason (although the little marine biologists among them might have dug my "sensitivity" for the fish). I guess the girls liked them because dolphins, like girls, are also animals that are "smarter than boys." And they are probably right... 

But what would I know?