These days, when you live in a suburban bedroom community like we do, the norm is to see one, if not both, vehicles parked in the driveway… not the garage.
Yes, that sort of defeats the purpose- why have a 2 car garage if you don’t use it to park your 2 cars in?
The answer becomes evident the moment you drive by these houses when their garage doors happen to be up.
You will see unpacked boxes, kids’ riding toys, and lawn care equipment; among other random items. I often see garages simply turned in to man caves.
It has become the cultural norm in neighborhoods like mine to use a 2 car garage for storing junk, in addition to items normally found in a garage.
My theory is that this is not happening simply because people have too much junk; though I definitely believe that’s a big part of it, as middle class Americans.
I would have to think the main reason is because garages in cookie cutter neighborhoods like mine are smaller than the garages our parents’ houses had in the 1980s and 1990s, where living in a bedroom community wasn’t necessary, as so many of us grew up in small towns where there were still jobs; before everything moved to China.
A 2 car garage is a selling point when showing a home to a commuter family like mine. We don’t care how big the garage actually is, as long as we can 2 cars in there if we wanted to.
But by the time the family moves in the house, it becomes more practical for them to store their junk in the garage than it is to figure out how to carefully park both vehicles in there each day.
As for me, though, my wife is the equivalent to the lovable Jewish character on Friends, Monica Geller.
There is no such thing as “junk” in our house. If it ever existed, it got thrown out long ago.
Every weekend we clean our entire house. No junk gets left behind, trust me.
Please note that on my own, I wouldn’t be this disciplined. But as part of a married couple, and as a family, we live a deliberate lifestyle in which park both cars in our garage every day.
By no means does that make us better than the majority; if anything, it makes us strange in the neighborhood.
Yesterday I drove home from work in the 2015 Lexus GX that our family will be reviewing this weekend.
As large as it is, I made it fit. I had to move the garbage can as well as my son’s wagon, but I made it work. Fortunately, the back door swings out, so I can still access the very back even with the garage door closed.
I just can’t bring myself to park a car in the driveway when I have a garage. Not to mention, I’m always paranoid someone will break into my car at night if I just leave it outside; despite the extremely low crime rate where I live- where the speed limit is 20, and there are cops proactively patrolling all the time. I even the lock the car doors after I’ve already shut the garage door.
Perhaps my inspiration is Phoebe Buffay of Friends when her song “Smelly Cat” was bought out by a major cat food brand.
In the age of YouTube, what can stop me from using my own time and talent to write and record jingles for free, and then promote them on my blog and YouTube channel?
Who knows, maybe I can eventually become a jingle writer full time? I’m making a habit of self-appointing myself as “jingle writer” for Toyota, as well as other brands.
I’ll show you what I mean…
Three weeks ago, our family was sent a 2015 Toyota Corolla to review here on Family Friendly Daddy Blog. One of the things I decided to do with it was to shoot a “homemade commercial”.
So I wrote “Down Low in a Corolla”:
Can’t ya see that we’re Corollin’?
Down low in a Corolla
Gotta keep that family flowin’
Down low in a Corolla
Can you keep up with us?
We’re no Kardashians
But we can lay it down if you can pick it up
Jammin’ to grooves of Walk the Moon
Kids’ car seat in the back
Before that, I recently wrote “Family in a Camry” while we reviewed the 2015 Toyota Camry:
I got my family in a Camry
And we’re happy campers trippin’ to your town
Here we go!
This same video also features the jingle I wrote for Monterey Bay Aquarium:
Hey, hey! It’s Monterey Bay Aquarium
Hey, hey! It’s an underwater adventure
I immediately afterwards wrote a jingle for the 2015 Toyota Avalon:
Come along, in an Avalon, we’re gonna make it great!
In July, Scion (which is part of the Toyota family) sent me to Grand Rapids, Michigan to check out their new Scion iM and IA. Here’s that jingle:
I’ve got my eye on Scion
Try on Scion
Experience what Millennials already know
The first Toyota jingle I wrote was back in May, when my son and I made a homemade commercial for the Toyota Sienna, which doubled as a trailer for our Jack-Man series.
Jack-Man rides in a Toyota Sienna minivan
His getaway car is driven by his dad
I also wrote a jingle for Philips Norelco:
In your face, 9700
In your face, you’ll be glad you found it
It cleans itself like a smart razor should
The percentage display shows the charge is still good
In your face, Philips Norelco
In your face!
We’ll see where this takes me. I enjoy writing and recording jingles for companies, for fun and for free.
You never know when it may get the right person’s attention.
A week from today will be your last day at your preschool, with the big move into our new house being next weekend.
At night during dinner, all this week, you’ve been working on a special Lego plane. You instructed me to build something too, so I did.
Well, this morning you asked me to find a bag to put your plane in: The time had finally come to reveal your new creation to your friends and teachers at school.
So I found a Kroger bag and placed your plane inside it; keeping it up front with me in the car for the drive.
Once we arrived in your class room, you whispered to me, “Daddy, the plane.”
So I pulled the plane out and handed it to you.
Immediately, your friends ran over, crowding around you. They were sincerely and thoroughly impressed with your work.
“Wow, Jack! Is that Michelangelo in there driving it?” your friend Joshua asked.
I struggled to snap a few pictures of the event today, as it was truly a challenge for me to get a shot of you holding the plane without one of your friends blocking my view.
In the midst of all the I wanna see!’s from your friends, I realized that most them are a year older than you. They are 5; you are 4.
Witnessing this today made me sort of feel like the dad of Doogie Howser or something.
Even now, I’m thinking, “Man, my son diligently worked on a Lego plane that impressed his older friends. He must be a Lego prodigy… That’s pretty cool!”
Ultimately, this is one of those “dad moments” for me. I am proud of you, Son.
I had always hoped that my 500th Dadabase post would be about something at least a little bit monumental.
The good news is that in this 500thDadabase article of mine, I do have a milestone to write about in my son Jack’s life so far.
The bad news is, that milestone is that my son’s best (and only) friend who is a boy is moving to Texas at the end of the month, just a few weeks before Jack’s 2nd birthday.
That’s right. Henry, as recently featured in my recent Mall Toddlers post with Jack and Sophie, is bound for the Lone Star State.
It’s a difficult concept to grasp that The Three Musketeers are being split up.
Even stranger is the fact that Jack doesn’t really have any friends that are boys that are his age. He is surrounded by girls!
I wonder if Jack will suffer the same fate as me: I have some of the best guy friends I could imagine. The problem is that most of them don’t even live in the same state as me.
Henry has been a part of Jack’s life since January, which is nearly half of Jack’s lifetime. Not to mention, it was Henry who introduced Jack to Thomas the Train, which Jack is currently consumed with.
Obviously, in the process of Jack and Henry becoming friends, their parents have by default become friends as well.
So this is a big deal; even if more so for me than for Jack.
Of course, knowing that my own memory didn’t start until my 2nd birthday, and many people say that was abnormally soon, I have to assume Jack may not have clear memories of his adventures with Henry.
What if Jack only learns about Henry by reading about him years from now?
In other words, how weird would it be that Jack and Henry’s friendship was not at all recorded in their own minds, but instead only preserved, and for their sake, only existing, because of how I recorded and presented it?
In essence, I become the storyteller, the narrator, and the griot of my son’s life; not simply just for outsiders, but most of all, for my son.
Seems like a strange pair, but we born-again Christians love our movies and TV just as much as everyone else. But where do we draw the line?
One of my favorite TV shows during 4th and 5th grade was surprisingly The Dick Van Dyke Show as it was featured in syndication on Nick at Nite. It was while watching that show (I was around 9 or 10) that it occurred to me, “Dick Van Dyke is kissing Mary Tyler Moore, but in real life, they may both be married to someone else who has to watch them kiss another person.” To me, that would just be too weird… and wrong. As much I fantasize about being an actor in a flash-sideways version of my life in some alternate path I could have chosen for myself a decade ago, I have to acknowledge that as a born-again Christian, there would be an exhaustive list of limitations for me as a legitimate actor. (Granted, Kirk Cameron got around the “have to kiss another woman” dilemma when he used his own wife as a stand-in at the end of the movie Fireproof.)
That’s not to say that there aren’t born-again Christians who act in mainstream media. For example, there’s the often-mistaken-as-a-Jew-but-actually-just-Welsh-American actor Zachary Levi, who is the protagonist of the hit show Chuck. He has been outspoken about his relationship with Jesus Christ. Click here to see what he said in one of his interviews with Relevant magazine. I am fascinated by his Hollywood success and his commitment to his faith. I would love to ask him about this very topic today; specifically this question, “As a Christian, what won’t you do in a role?” (Zachary Levi, if you’re reading this, feel free to comment and help me out. Thanks.)
Where does a Christian draw the line when it comes to acting? I would say kissing another person on stage is harmless except when either or both of them is married. And what about “love scenes” (scenes that involve sexual activity, with or without nudity)? What about profanity? Are there any words you just shouldn’t say? Personally, I could easily curse on camera before I could say, “oh my God”; because to use God’s name in vain is breaking one of the Ten Commandments, while cursing is simply a fading taboo of shifting rules set by the expectations of culture. To me, there are plenty far more destructive ways that words can be used that go against the Kingdom of God, like gossip, malicious sarcasm, and belittling.
Here’s where it gets really tricky. If you think it’s wrong to curse in a role or play a character who has premarital sex, how is that so different from playing a character who is a murderer? At least by playing a killer, you’re truly just pretending to play a character who is obviously in the wrong. But by being filmed semi-nude under covers in a bed, you’re sending a subconscious message that sex between two consenting adults doesn’t necessarily have any spiritual concerns attached to it.
So in theory, in 1983, as a born-again Christian, if given the opportunity to have Al Pacino’s lead role in Scarface, would I, should I, could I? For it’s time, the movie Scarface contained more profanity than any other film in history. It was originally rated NC-17 for its violent content. But in the end, (sorry if you haven’t seen the movie but you’ve had 28 years to see it so I feel okay about giving away the ending) all of Scarface’s sins find him out. It’s obvious that his life of violent crime led to his own demise and in the end, it wasn’t worth it. Does that mean that this movie teaches its viewers not to waste their lives in a mob, getting involved with violence and cocaine? In theory, yes. In theory, it has positive, redeeming value because in the end, crime doesn’t pay.
That’s something I’ve observed about Christian culture. It seems most Christians are okay with a character doing obviously un-Christian things if in the end they repent: Unlike the character of Stacy Hamilton, played by Jewish actress Jennifer Jason Leigh in the 1982 movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High, who decides to have an abortion and seemingly goes on to live a completely normal life, never regretting her decision. I contrast that to the song “Red Ragtop” by Tim McGraw, whether the 20 year-old protagonist gets his 18 year-old girlfriend pregnant and together they decide to have an abortion.
However, by the end of the song, though it’s not explicitly stated, the melancholy mood and subtle lyrics of the song itself convey the message “we can’t undo what we’ve done or beat ourselves up over it, but we do regret and it’s definitely a sad thing that happened”. Rightly assuming that Country music fans are mostly Christians (simple demographics), they helped the song rise to the #2 position on the Country charts.
Entertain this thought: Ask yourself privately, as a Christian, whether or not you would play the role of a character in a play, musical, TV show, or movie who would do any of the following things:
-use minor profanity
-use stronger profanity including racial or gender slurs, up to the “f-word”
-use God’s name in vain, whether it’s by saying “oh my God” or “G.D.”
-play a character who has premarital sex and never encounters any real negative consequences
-play a gay character who never actually kisses another actor
-play a gay character who does kiss another person of the same gender
-play a heterosexual character who jokingly kisses a person of the same gender on the lips, which happens quite often on Saturday Night Live
-play a serial killer and rapist, though no explicit violence is ever shown on screen and who never curses or participates in any pre-material sexual relationship
-play a serial killer and rapist, though no explicit violence is ever shown on screen and but does participate in some premarital sex and who does some cursing
-play a serial killer and rapist, though no explicit violence is ever shown on screen and but does participate in some premarital sex and who does some cursing, but at the end accepts Jesus Christ as their Savior and from that point on lives a life in accordance to the teachings of Jesus
How is it any more wrong to play a homosexual actor than it is to play heterosexual actor who has premarital sex? Though both situations are perceived much differently by the general population, when it comes to my understanding of the Bible’s teaching of righteousness, I don’t see how one is any different or worse than the other. The way I understand it, Jesus died for all sin. Sin is sin is sin. No matter what kind it is, it separates us from God and causes every single one of us to need His grace.
Where do you draw the line as a Christian actor? Obviously to be involved in straight-up porno-graphy is out of the question for any sincere Christian. But there are so many millionths of the scale to get to that extreme. On the much slighter end of the scale is a man with his shirt off showing off his six-pack while he rides a horse bareback. Further down the scale is that same man passionately kissing a woman while in a hot tub, both in their swimsuits. Next is the same man and woman acting out a love scene in bed and though they are actually naked, they aren’t acting having sex underneath the blankets which strategically cover up certain parts of their bodies.
I remind myself that outside the culture of conservative Christianity, in reality the rest of the world behaves its own way regardless of our censorship. To imagine a real life group of people who in their everyday lives never cursed or had premarital sex (outside of the conservative Christian world) is to me, simply unbelievable. Taking away the elements of entertainment that are unChristian-like either makes the TV show or movie either A) unrealistic or B) a Christian movie like Facing the Giants.
I also remind myself that the Bible itself is full of violence, premarital sex, rape, and murder. There is homosexuality. There are concubines. There are instances were people cursed (like when Peter denied Christ). The King James Version of the Bible even contains the words “piss” and “ass”. If the entire Bible were made into an epic movie, could born-again Christians play every role?
But some point, acting is no longer simply just acting. It’s doing. So here’s my final thought about all this. In some technical, annoying way, are we as conservative, born-again Christians actually hypocrites for being spectators of popular entertainment?
Imagine this: Instead of the majority of the cast of Friends and Seinfeld being Jewish, instead they were all born-again Christians. Because of their faith-based convictions, none of them were willing to use any profanity or be involved in any situations that involved premarital sex. I know how beloved these two sitcoms are among the majority of Christians I know. But imagine a world where Ross Geller saying “We were on a break!” meant nothing to us.
Two Questions for You about This Today:
A) As much as we Christians love our sitcoms and movies, would they truly exist if we didn’t support them with our viewership because we ourselves wouldn’t be willing to play those roles the same way?
B) Where would you personally draw the line in regards to what you would or would not do for an acting role, hypothetically speaking, if you were an actor?
I sincerely would love to hear feedback from you, the invisible reader, on either or both of these proposed questions, by leaving a comment below. You don’t have to leave your name; you can easily remain anonymous if you wish.
If you’re not a conservative, born-again Christian, still free to answer as well… and please know how aware I am that the content of this entire post probably seems a bit… out there. For all I know, you may find it either laughable or offensive that we believe premarital sex is wrong or that kissing someone’s spouse is both weird and taboo. But what good is a religion that has no backbone or reasonable standards, despite how counter-culture those limitations may be? Thanks for reading despite the culture shock of it.
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