My opinion on: public transportation.

Anyone who has had a job is probably familiar with the feeling after a long and somewhat difficult day at work. At least one or more parts of your body are aching, you're stressed and you want nothing more than to throw a blanket over your tired body and watch reruns.
This was the feeling I experienced when I got off of work one night. Unfortunately, I had taken the bus there, so I needed to take the bus back and I didn't know where my bus picked up. So I went ahead and began my twenty minute trek to the place I guessed a bus stop was. Luckily, it was there.
I wearily sat down on the bench next to an old man and waited, on the verge of tears due to mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion.
Shortly after I sat down, the bus arrived...and kept driving. The old man jumped up (as fast as an old man with a cane can) and flagged down the bus, wheezing out a muted "Hey!" at the bus.
Fortunately, the bus driver saw us, pulled over and opened the door. As I was about to climb on, I realized with a sinking feeling that I hadn't bothered to check to see if I had enough change.
This was just the greatest topping to a terrible day. My hands shook as I dug through my wallet, realizing I probably don't have enough.
"I-I don't think I have enough," I muttered to the bus driver. "I'll catch the next bus."
The bus driver just looked at me and said, "Go ahead and sit down, just pay me later."
"Thank you," I replied and breathed a small sigh of exhaustion as I sat down and brought out my wallet again. The panic began to well up once more as I thought, Wait, what am I going to do when he reaches my stop?
As I began to frantically sift through my nickels and dimes, a small woman in her fifties across the aisle spoke.
"I just might have a little extra change," she said. "Let me check."
She reached down and placed her purse on top of her large suitcase and began rummaging.
"I think I just might have spent the last of it buying coffee at the airport, but let me see..."
She smiled as she pulled out a one dollar bill and handed it to me. "There you go."
I returned a genuine, tired smile. "Thank you so much," I told her.
The man behind her who I hadn't even noticed until then leaned into the aisle and extended his hand, in which two shining quarters lay.
"Here's fifty cents."
My smile grew even bigger.
"Thank you so much," I repeated.
As I sat back in my seat and shifted these strangers' gifts in my hands, I felt as if I were about to cry. However, it was for an entirely different reason. Seeing this small act of random kindness had completely filled the total emptiness that encompassed me only minutes before.
Nothing like a bus ride to remind one of the humanity of people, I thought.

This is why I support public transportation.

I had taken bus rides before then and I have taken plenty of bus rides since. I've ridden trains and planes. Each experience is new, each individual around me intriguing in some sense.
I'm trying my best to stay away from cliches, but I can't help that whenever on a bus or a train, I notice the intricate differences that separate each passenger and simultaneously feel connected with all of them.
Have you noticed it's hard to walk away from a plane, a bus, or a train without some sort of story, large or small?
Isn't it a great feeling? It's just a little thing that makes you go, "Oh. That was interesting." Then you catch yourself smiling and feel slightly ridiculous.
But still just a little bit better than before.

I'm not going to sit here and lecture you on the benefits of public transportation. It's common sense and most people know them anyway. Yes, taking your own car can prove more convenient most of the time. I myself am a fan of driving.
Rather, let me make a suggestion.
If you're planning on going somewhere and you have a little bit of time to spare, take a bus. It may be a pleasant experience or it may be an unpleasant experience, but either way, it is experience. It is interaction you miss when isolated in your car. It is experiencing the community on a simple level.

It can be fun.

I dare you.

Try it.

And let me know.

My opinion on: Sex in comedic movies.

Originally written August 27, 2007

Sex sells, America, and sadly, we are buying.

It is rare to go to a movie these days that does not contain a sex scene, a sexual joke, a sexual innuendo, or a sexual reference. Sometimes they can be found in children's movies as well, as an attempt to reach out to the "older crowd".
Well in my opinion, that does not reach out to me. That makes me very disappointed. Kid's movies are for kids. What an amazing concept. If you're going to slip in a few references that only the older generation would know, please, just try something a little more sophisticated. For instance, a social or political or cultural reference. Do they really think the only reference we would understand is a sexual one?
To answer my own question, no. It's because apparently, we find sex and the sexual organs hilarious.

Here's my question.

What is so funny?

For example, I just watched the movie "Superbad" last night. I thought it was pretty good, I enjoyed it. In it, there was one scene where one of the main characters was describing a problem he had as a ten-year-old. He would draw penises all the time, in all different poses and shapes. Ok, yes, there is the initial giggle, "haha, he's not gay but he used to draw penises, ten-year-olds don't do that, haha". But seriously, a theater full of roaring laughter? For the next ten minutes as they proceeded to show a montage of him drawing penises?
What is so funny? It's a penis! Who cares! It is a part on the male body. Perhaps it is so funny because we as a culture have built up the penis and the vagina on a hilarity pedestal when all they really are are just parts on the body.
To me, the whole scene was lame. Why? Because in my opinion, too much sexual humor is a cop-out.

Don't get me wrong, I like any other person occasionally appreciate the well-placed sexual joke every now and then. With comedy, as people know, it's all about the timing.
However, it's common sense to realize that a joke used too many times is not funny anymore. Watching a movie where you are watching sexual joke after sexual joke after sexual joke to me seems lame and boring. I think, "these producers and writers and directors really couldn't think up anything else?"
Sexual jokes are an easy laugh, just as jump moments in scary movies are an easy scare. The people who make these films feel as though they don't need to try as hard to make people laugh because they have a whole subject that America just loves and in the right context, finds hilarious: sex.
Come on, people, try harder! These people are given millions of dollars to make a movie, and they turn out these films with repetitive, over-used, not funny sex jokes, because sadly, it sells!

I am certainly not judging anyone who enjoys these movies. Go for it, if that's your thing. Personally, it is not mine, but I do not have the power or the right to judge those who enjoy them.

I am just frustrated with the fact that these movies keep being made and they're essentially all the same. Why? Because they have the same basis of comedy.
In my opinion, quality, laugh-out-loud comedies should have a good mixture of all kinds of jokes, clever ones.
I love a stupid spoof movie every now and then. I find them hilarious. They're taking a reference that most of us know and creating jokes from it that are unique and new.

Anyone can make a joke about a penis, a vagina, or the interaction between the two and possibly and outside source. I wish that Hollywood would just realize that the comedies like this are so low quality. In my opinion, they are quite lame.

And yet, I still attend these movies and by doing so ultimately support those who are creating them. Maybe I'm just hoping that it will be different. But more often than not, I'm sadly disappointed.

If you enjoy rampant sexual humor, have at it, watch away.
For everyone else (I know very few people agree with me on this subject), please, let's realize what we're watching.