Into the Wild, Out of Reality

Just saw the movie Into the Wild Saturday night. I’m going to warn you right now that I’m going to talk about the whole movie, so if you haven’t seen it, or want to see it, stop reading. I’d hate to spoil it for you the way the lady at Hollywood Video ruined it for me.


We good? Everyone? Ok, moving on.

What a strange movie. It was long, it was boring, but still interesting. While I have great respect for people who are internally motivated and independant and all that, I don’t understand some people’s intense desire to be on their own. This guy in the movie, he goes to college and gets a degree for no apparent reason. I didn’t really understand why he finished school. It seemed to be a favor to his parents, yet it was evident from very early on in the movie that he despised them. He then sets out on this journey across the country without any sort of ID (he either cuts up or burns all his identification) and renames himself Alexander Supertramp. He does some cool stuff, meets some new people and seems to be having a good time. I mean, he became a combine driver, hung out with some pretty cool farmer types in South Dakota, hangs out with some hippies on the pacific coast, and learns how to work leather with a very nice old dude in Arizona. He kayaks down the Colorado River into Mexico, meeting some crazy Norwegians. All pretty cool stuff. Yet in between these good times, he just goes into these modes of complete isolation. I thought it was blatantly obvious that the happiest time in his life were when he was with friends. I’m sure that was the intent of the filmmakers, but you don’t have to look real hard to see this. Seems everyone knew it but Captain Supertramp.

This is where I have a complete disagreement with Mr. Supertramp. It seems that he’s trying to be this totally individual person, not influenced by anyone. Yet he’s constantly reading books for inspiration. He then gets this brilliant idea to move to Alaska and live off the land. Sounds like a good idea, if you’ve got a companion. Why anyone would want to live in complete isolation is beyond me. THAT IS WHAT WE DO TO THE WORST CRIMINALS IN PRISON!!!! This guy does it willingly? Whatever. He seems to be trying to prove something to himself, but really he’s doing it for the approval of others. He wants people to think he’s cool, to admire him. That’s why everyone who does these isolation things always keeps a journal. So they can tell people about it later. Here’s an idea....take them along with you, and then you don’t have to spend the time writing. Of course, the guy is woefully under educated in living off the land and runs into all sorts of trouble. At one point, he seems to finally grasp that not having human interaction or relationships is not fun and decides to head home. Of course, the way he came is blocked by a raging river, and he is forced back into isolation until the river dries up a little bit. Well, he ends up not making it because he can’t find enough to eat, then eats a poisonous plant and dies. Before he dies, he writes "happiness only real if shared." That’s my whole freaking point! What good is it to do things if you have nobody to share them with? I mean, I’m proud of the guy for figuring it out on his own, but I didn’t need to live in an abandoned bus in the middle of the Yukon Territory to figure it out. Also, before he dies, he writes a goodbye note and signs it with his real name. Funny how you remember what’s really important (family) only when faced with death.

I did a little research on this guy, and it turns out that if he’d only taken a map, he would’ve realized that there was a way to cross the river only a quarter of a mile upstream. If he’d learned how to preserve meat properly, he probably wouldn’t have had to eat the poisonous plants. And most importantly, if he’d taken somebody with him, my guess is that the other person would’ve talked some sense into him long before the situation became dire.

So yeah, it was an interesting movie, but now I’m worried that a whole new generation of young people are going to think that doing stuff like this and dying in the outback. I heard that the place he died in Alaska is a tourist attraction. Glad we can all marvel at this guy’s stupidity.

Speaking of stupidity, when I pulled the movie off the shelf, there was a couple of women walking the other way. I had the movie in my hand and hadn’t taken more than two steps when one of these women points to the movie on the shelf and says "you know, I thought that was a good movie, but it just ruined the whole thing when he died at the end." Thanks lady.

Babies: It's not a competition

No matter what, you always think your baby is the cutest baby in the world. People warned me that I’d think my baby was cuter than any other child. I figured that I’d be objective, and after all the kid’s got my genes so really, how cute could he be? And then he was born and I was like "Jesus, he’s gorgeous!" It’s inevitable. This continues until you meet up with other parents with similarly aged children. Then everything turns into a competition. You can’t help it. You’re constantly sizing up your kid against theirs. One parent will say "oh, he started on solid foods this week," knowing full well that their baby is ahead of schedule on that. The other parents, who are not to the solid food stage, will counter with "yeah, we’re not quite there yet, but little Timmy can roll over from his back to his stomach!" This of course results in a tie score of 1-1, and you then move on to round 2.


Rachel and I have always had a trump card. No matter what other parents said, we could always resort to "Jonah’s been sleeping through the night since he was 3 weeks old." No other parent that I’ve met to date has been so lucky. I thought we were like the best parents in the world. Actually I should say that I thought Rachel was the best mother in the world, and I had somehow not figured out a way to screw it up yet.

Then daylight savings time hit. I have no idea if his circadian rhythms are screwed up or what, but since then we’ve had a hell of a time getting him to sleep. He’ll be sleeping soundly in our laps, but once we move to the crib, he just freaks out. Like uncontrollably. You know how they tell you to let your baby cry itself to sleep, so it learns that you won’t be there every time? You try letting your son cry so hard tears are coming out of his eyes, snots flying out of his nose and he’s screaming so hard he’s forgetting to breathe. Just try it and see how long it takes you to respond. So we have to pick him up and rock him. He usually falls asleep again in a few minutes, so we go back to the crib and here come the water works again. He’s been spending the last few nights attached to Rachel’s boob all night. Great for him, not so great for us. Not much sleep for us. Tonight was a little bit better, he only cried and flipped out for about 45 minutes, but he’s sleeping soundly now.

So yeah, we’ve lost our trump card. But he’s still our little boy and we love him!

Been Slackin'

So the Snacks blog has been on hiatus for a while. No particular reason, just haven't really had anything interesting to talk about. I'm trying hard not to make this a "Jonah did this, Jonah did that, Jonah's the BEST BABY YOU'VE EVER FREAKING SEEN" blog that so many other parents do. We all love our own kids, everyone knows that, we don't need to brag about how they start rolling over or how they smile everytime we imitate Foghorn Leghorn. Besides, I think the 6000 pictures Rachel and I have posted of him are enough to prove we think the world of the little tyke. Besides, Jonah had a Dr.'s appointment yesterday. He was in the 50th percentile in every category they measured him in. He's the most average baby ever. I don't really have anything to brag about.


A few other things I've been marinating on lately:

- Last weekend I went to the OSU baseball game at PGE Park. I saw a few people I went to high school with at West Linn. One of the girls I had a crush on. She was drunk and had to hold onto the guy she's with to stay up. This other guy had his hat on backwards and his pants were about 8 sizes too big for him and he was jumping around like he was still in high school. THESE WERE THE COOL KIDS!!! What the hell happened? How did these people not grow up? It also made me realize how lucky I was that I was socially inept until about the time I was 23 and met Rachel. Can you imagine if I'd ended up with a girl who still pre-func'ed baseball games at 29 years of age? Wow.

- I saw a guy yesterday driving a convertible with the top down. If there's one thing that should be banned in Oregon, it's convertibles. I know that yesterday was a nice day....almost sixty degrees. I don't think I'd have a problem with him driving around a convertible then....but I saw this individual at 7:15 in the morning. It was 37 degrees at that time and this guy had all his windows rolled up (if it's too cold to have the window down, don't you think it's too cold to have no roof?). To make matters worse, HE WAS WEARING EARMUFFS!! Stupid Oregonians. If you're so in love with the sun that you have to do things of this nature, please move out of Oregon immediately. Gjurg told me there's plenty of convertible weather in Florida. Try there.

- Yesterday one of my co-workers was incredibly efficient. I guess I should say that she was incredibly efficient relative to her normal work output. I was thinking "well, this is kinda nice." Then she promptly took the afternoon off because she wasn't feeling well. I have no idea if her efficiency can be linked to the fact that she wanted to go home early, but it sure was suspect to me. I'm predicting she doesn't show up on time today, if at all.

- I'm so glad that basketball season is almost over for OSU. The games are getting more and more depressing. I've never seen a more poorly coached team. I've never seen a team show so little pride out on the court. And I've seen more fans at OSU volleyball matches. It's getting out of hand. I think that everyone is just playing out the string until a new coach is hired and they can start fresh. However, I'm beginning to have my doubts that these guys will play harder for any coach when they don't seem able to play hard for themselves. Sad, sad situation, especially since I had faith in a lot of these guys.

- Major League Baseball is now requiring base coaches to wear helmets. Another example of overreaction. A minor league coach was hit and killed last year. However, if I remember correctly he was hit in the neck area, where a helmet isn't really going to provide all that much protection. Unfortunately, freak accidents happen. Trying to prevent every single one of them is unreasonable. If this carried over from the sports world to real life, all our tables and chairs would come equipped with foam padding around the edges and cars would be limited to 25 MPH. The first thing that you learn in any sport is to KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE BALL. What happens when a guy takes a line drive off the chest and dies? Are we going to require everyone to wear chest protectors?