Now You Stick to That, and Everything Else is Cream Cheese

When you’re awaiting the arrival of your first child, you’ll inevitably find yourself taking inventory of the world as it currently exists and comparing it to the one you knew as a kid. Many from my generation use this comparison, and their interpretation of the result, as justification for not starting a family. “Why would I want to bring a child into this sick, twisted, post-9/11 world?” they’ll ask.

While I see their point, I have to….wait, scratch that. I don’t see their point. Sure the modern world finds itself on shaky ground with the recent rise of global warming, religious extremism, and Jimmy Fallon, but last time I checked the shelves at 7-11 were stocked, oxygen was plentiful, and I hadn’t missed a meal in 34 years. So things ain’t that bad.

But that’s not to say things are perfect. Not by a long shot. And I have a genuine concern that the world’s current imperfections may prevent my son from having the same magical childhood I experienced in the early 1980’s.

My biggest fear isn’t that he’ll fall victim to some widespread pandemic or biological warfare, however, but rather that the world he’s entering doesn’t offer the same endless string of entertainment options I had at my disposal as a kid.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that in Hollywood, there is nothing new under the sun. Whatever can conceivably be done as a form of entertainment on TV or the big screen has been done. A dog that leads a youth soccer team to an unlikely championship while simultaneously teaching the coach how to love again? Been done. Killer clowns from outer space that encapsulate their victims in cotton candy shot from a ray gun? Been done. Ben Stiller as an overly-intense caricature of whatever career/hobby/sport that particular movie showcases? Been done...and done...and done...and done.

With all that being said, it’s easy to see why the entertainment industry has turned to the Holy Trilogy of lazy writing: reality TV, sequels, and remakes. Why tax your brain searching for inspiration when it’s infinitely easier to follow talentless, self-entitled rich kids around with a camera or roll out a big screen adaptation of an old sitcom. (Opening June 27th in theaters everywhere: “What’s Happening!!” starring Dave Chapelle as Rog!)

The problem, as is typically the case, isn’t in the idea, but rather in its execution. If studios want to piss away $200 million recycling a movie, that’s fine, but why not choose a bit more wisely? Was anyone really clamoring for a modern interpretation of “The Day the Earth Stood Still?” Was “Planet of the Apes” in any way an improvement upon the legendary original?

If my son has any chance to grow up with the same love for movies that has forged me into a quoting machine incapable of original thought, it’s vital that Hollywood start remaking kick-ass films from my youth where the technological advances of the special effects industry can best be utilized.

Movies like these...

3. Clash of the Titans

Name another movie chock-full of sword fights, poisonous scorpions and deadly sea monsters that also throws in enough Greek mythology to make any kid the curve-buster of his sixth grade class?

In all seriousness, there are few better candidates to benefit from modern technology than this tale of Perseus and his quest to save the comely Princess Andromeda from the Kraken. From the winged stallion Pegasus to Bubo the mechanical owl to Cerberus the three-headed dog of the underworld, Clash of the Titans is rife with opportunity to add some of that bad-ass CGI stuff and turn it into a special effects thrill-ride that would make "Jurassic Park" look like "Howard the Duck."

Think about it. Is there any possible way the upcoming “Land of the Lost” remake could provide 1/100th the enjoyment of a modern-day remake of Clash of the Titans? Unless Will Ferrell goes all Jackie Chan on some Sleestacks, the answer is hell and no.

Casting possibilities: Teen Beat cover boy Zac Effron as the hero Perseus.





Throw a little make-up on Sarah Jessica Parker and you’ve got yourself a perfect Medusa!

2. Gremlins

People of my generation often make the mistake of misremembering (Roger Clemens word of the day calendar!) this flick as a light, slightly goofy movie along the lines of "Goonies" or "E.T." They forget that Gremlins was, in fact, freaking terrifying. Once those cuddly Gizmo dopplegangers ate after midnight, they emerged from their cocoons to unleash upon the small town of Kingston Falls a genocide it won’t soon forget.

Did you realize they used puppets for the Gremlins in that movie? Puppets! Imagine what they could do now, what with all their fancy computers and RAM and Ebays and such. The possibilities are endless.

It’s imperative my son get to experience a beefed-up version of this childhood classic, if for no other reason than to instill in him a lesson I’ve carried with me all these years: Take responsibility for your pets, or else they're likely to metamorphosize into destructive monsters and kill the majority of your neighbors in horrible, horrible ways.

Casting ideas: Shia Lebouf is a reach as the likeable yet naïve Billy.

A must: Samuel L. Jackson as the school's science teacher Roy Hanson, just so he can adapt his now-famous line from "Snakes on a Plane" shortly before his demise: “THAT’S IT! I’M TIRED OF THESE MOTHERF**ING GREMLINS IN THIS MOTHERF**ING SCHOOL!”

1. Teen Wolf

I know, I know, there’s not much you can do to improve upon this timeless treasure, but my son deserves to see it modernized.

True story: two days after I found out I had a brain aneurysm, Lauren and I went to Denver to meet with a neurosurgeon, hoping he would look at the films and tell us it was all a big mistake. He didn’t of course, and Lauren and I returned to our hotel room devastated and prepared to talk about the next step: a step that would be vital in keeping me alive. As we settled in to our bed and readied ourselves for the most difficult conversation we would ever have, Teen Wolf came on the hotel TV. We didn’t say another word about the aneurysm for two full hours, until Scott Howard had led the Beavers to a last second victory over the hated arch-rival Dragons by draining two free throws he had to jump to shoot for some unknown reason.

Why wouldn’t I want my son to have the privilege of seeing a movie so genius, it can distract you from life’s worst moments?

While I concede that the only real room for improvement is to add some effects to the Wolf – and maybe finding an actor who can dribble with his left hand and pull off a passable jump shot wouldn’t hurt either -- why not change the movie a bit by giving it more of an edgy, raunchy American Pie-type feel? And at this moment, nobody is doing that better than the “Superbad” crew. So here’s my idea:

Michael Cera as the insecure, still-trying-to-find-himself Scott Howard

Christopher Mintz-Plasse as the loveable and entrepreneurial best friend Rupert “Stiles” Stalinsky.

Jonah Hill as fat but funny teammate Chubby.


And last but not least, Bill Hader as the sagacious, if slightly apathetic, Coach Finstock.

Are you telling me those guys couldn’t add a few laughs to an already air-tight story? Throw in some gratuitous f-bombs, adult-themed hijinks, and maybe a musical montage where the Wolf tries on a bunch of suits before the prom and you've got perfection. At the end of the day, of course, the important thing is that they leave the moral of the story the same: It’s vital to be yourself, unless of course you can be a slam-dunking, crowd-pleasing werewolf and sleep with the hottest girl in school. But that’s just common sense.

With Hollywood going the direction it is, it’s only a matter of when, not if, we’ll see these ideas come to fruition. And when it happens, I can promise you I’ll be in the front of the line on opening night with my son, ready to plunk down $35 bucks for two hours of life lessons and goooood watchin’.

See you there.

Beach Days in Aspen

You thought I was finished with the skiing posts, didn't you?

Well, with no beach for 2,000 miles and our barbecue grill on the fritz, the traditional Memorial Day weekend festivities were off the table for the Nitti family.

Fortunately, in Aspen the start of the holiday weekend also signifies the opening of Independence Pass, a local highway that climbs up and over the Continental Divide at 12,1000 feet.

The Pass -- which is closed throughout the winter and early spring to protect motorists from relentless snowfall and migrating Sasquatch -- offers access to unlimited skiing above timberline once opened.

Joining me today in search of some late-May turns was none other than Lou Dawson: ski-mountaineering pioneer, acclaimed author, and avid Civil War recreationist.*

Lou was the first man to climb and ski from the summit of all 54 of Colorado's 14,000ft peaks, an accomplishment made even more remarkable by the fact that he did so on gear that would be considered negligent by today's standards, and without the benefit of the excruciatingly detailed guide books he would go on to author. To put it in perspective, he finished skiing the peaks -- some with "no fall" slope angles of 60 degrees -- in 1991. Nobody duplicated the feat, despite the tremendous advances in technology and access, until 2007. He's also the man behind Wildsnow.com, a skiing blog frequented by pretty much every avid backcountry user in America. And in case you're wondering, yes, Superman wears Lou Dawson pajamas.

(Editors note: I just made my daily stop at Wildsnow and found that Lou was kind enough to write about our trip.)

Lou is a household name in the mountain towns of the Rockies, and every ski-mountaineer that's followed owes him a debt of gratitude for the doors he's opened on peaks once perceived as un-skiable. So for a guy like me, it's not hyperbole to say that spending a day on a peak with Lou is akin to playing 18 holes with Tiger, only without the senseless profanities and free Gatorade.

Our goal today was Twining Peak, a 13,700 foot summit accessed from one of the last switchbacks before the top of the Pass. Upon parking, we were greeted by a light snow and relatively sparse coverage for this time of year. Undeterred, we pressed on.

As we worked our way up the valley towards the summit of Twining, the cloud level began to drop, shrouding our goal in a rather discouraging canopy of white.

At 13,000 feet, the clouds lower in the valley burned off, allowing us this view back towards the highway and Aspen.

Roughly 100 vertical feet from the summit, the clouds became so thick that visibility was down to five feet in every direction. While this may not pose an immediate threat if you're driving through the Kansas plains, in a situation like this it's possible you may mistakenly walk off a cliff, which is, in mountaineering parlance, "a bad thing."

That being the case, we decided to stop our ascent, prepare to ski, and hope for a window of visibility in which to descend. As you can see by this next image, that didn't happen.

No, this isn't a picture of the 2008 Republican National Convention. This particular patch of overwhelming whiteness is the view from nearly 14,000 feet when you find yourself, as Lou aptly put it, "skiing inside an egg." Everything looks the same in every direction, with no idea which way is which.

This is where having Lou, whose guide book included several routes up and down the very peak we were stuck on, comes in awfully handy. I followed him down several hundred vertical feet as he carefully picked his way one turn at a time; taking great care not to inadvertently ski over the cornice lurking somewhere to our left.

After several minutes, we skied out of the clouds and were greeted with some great views of the Pass. Here's Lou, enjoying the down.

Meanwhile, back at the house Lauren spent the morning delivering a healthy 6 pound boy with the aid of nothing but salad tongs and a dustbuster. The new Mom, who had tried fruitlessly to reach me via cellphone when her contractions began, was resting comfortably when I stopped home for a few minutes to get cleaned up before happy hour. I did take a few moments to meet my son, who seems like a pretty cool kid. But man is he needy. **

*Third trait may have been fabricated

**Did not actually happen. No baby yet.

What's Another Word for Thesaurus?

Who built the Egyptian pyramids?

Are we alone in the universe?

Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that even He couldn't eat it?

Until recently, I'd long considered these to be the most unanswerable questions facing mankind. Then my wife got pregnant. Now, after five months and four hundred and seventeen iterations of "So, are you ready for the baby?" I'm changing my tune.

Forgive my frankness as well as my French, but how the f#@k * should I know if I'm ready for this baby? If by "ready" you mean that I've purchased a crib and I'm not running a meth lab out of my basement, then yes, by all means, I'm ready.

But if by "ready" you mean I'm prepared for the myriad of lifestyle changes and overwhelming increase in responsibility the birth of my son is sure to bring, then, well, there's just no answer for that one. After all, this is going to be a rather big shock to my system.

Baby's have never really been my thing. The next diaper I change will be my first. To the best of my knowledge, I've never even held a child under the age of two. And I'm pretty sure a few of my cousins were in high school before I realized they had joined the family. Does this make me a bad guy? Well, probably. But does it make me any less "ready" for my baby than the next guy? N....yeah, you're right, it probably does that too.

But so what? I've got to believe you will never be less prepared for anything in your life -- save for perhaps your first prostate exam -- then the birth of your first child. What can I possibly use to gauge my likelihood of success? The only thing I've ever been responsible for is my dog Maci, and she's best known around these parts for having consumed an entire carbon fluorescent light bulb I inadvertently locked in her crate with her. Whoops. That resulted in one of the three emergency room visits she's had in her two years under my watch. I realize these are not good omens.

But that is the most beautiful -- and terrifying -- fact about procreation: there are no minimum skills requirements. You've got to muster a GED before you can be trusted with the deep fryer, but any asshole can make babies. As a result, people far dumber and more irresponsible than me have been pumping out kids for centuries, and the human race has still managed to evolve to the point where the global economy is thriving, modern medicine has made pandemics a thing of the past, and technology has become so advanced, with the click of a mouse I could tell you what Ashton Kutcher is doing RIGHT NOW.** So most people must be getting this child rearing thing right, right? And since most people shouldn't be trusted with anything more complex than a ball of string, how hard can raising a kid be?

Here's the basic blueprint as I see it. As infants you feed them, clean up after their messes, and slowly indoctrinate them into hating the things you hate. As they grow older you nurture their inquisitive side, encourage them, and force them to walk home from the Little League field if they don't get three hits. And finally, as they mature into adults, you love them unconditionally, support their dreams, and if all goes well, they'll repay you by shattering your heart and moving 2,000 miles away. Then you're done. That doesn't sound that bad, does it?

Look at it this way. Lauren's been preparing for this her entire life. From her role as babysitter to kindergarten teacher to my wife, she's garnered more experience dealing with infantile behavior than most. And SHE'S freaking terrified of what's to come. That shouldn't make me feel better, but it does.

So to answer every one's question, no, we're probably not ready. But we'll be OK. Sure I've almost killed my dog on several occasions, but I also love her to an unhealthy degree. And I'm confident Lauren and I will love our son exponentially more, provided of course he takes to playing fetch as quickly as Maci did. That should keep him sleeping through the night.

And if nothing else, having a son will provide years of material for writing annoying songs on my guitar. I just finished one for Lauren titled "I Like the Way Your Feet Taste in the Morning," but apparently it infringed on an earlier copyright.

Butch Walker’s Five Minute Songwriting Challenge - More amazing videos are a click away

*F#@k not actually of French origin

**first two evolutionary accomplishments may not have happened