My Parents were Philistines

and still are to this day.

So don't blame me when I can't recite Bukowski or quote Hemingway of by heart or know Francis Ford Coppola's body of work. It's not my fault.

Believe me I tried to consume the arts in my childhood.


Every Friday night when I was a kid my Dad and my brother would bond in the living room while watching the Friday night football game and I'd be by myself in the back room re-watching Mission Impossible for the 20th time in a row (easily De Palma's best).

I remember my Dad coming home drunk after a stadium football game, bursting into my room and tearing the movie posters from my wall.

'This ain't real life kid! It's all make believe and the sooner you learn that the better!'

I dropped to my knees hugging the shreds with tears in my eyes.

'No! Daddy, it is real. One day Tom Cruise is going to repel down from the roof and take me away from this dreaded house and you'll all miss me, I swear it.'

'There ain't no such thing as Tom Cruise kid! There's no such thing!'

'Yes there is Daddy, you just have to close your eyes your real tight and wish with all you might and you look up and he's there!'

'Your a fool, kid! A damn fool to believe those things. How many times do I have to tell you? There is no such thing as Tom Cruise!'

And he was right.

Tom Cruise doesn't exist, and he never came and took me away.

I had to re-watch films like Mission Impossible, Dumb and Dumber, Terminator 2 over and over again each week. My hobby was never nurtured by my parents, who never introduced me unknown pieces of art like Mission Impossible II, Dumber and Dumber-er, or Terminator 3.


The best thing my parents did do was not pressure me into doing things I didn't want to do. Which ended up being, Rugby league, little athletics, basketball, swimming, scouts, and basically any other physical activity that required me to get up early on the weekends.