To be consistent, however, we have to let her triumph, for all the loves in the strip are unrequited; all the baseball games are lost; all the test grades are D-minuses; the Great Pumpkin never comes and the football is always pulled away.
- Charles M. Schulz You Don't Look 35, Charlie Brown!
"Numero Uno"
Last night was family game night at Casa de Clark. This is not a regular occurrence. And lest you think that before my sister and I went off to college, every Wednesday night we were all gathered around a table screaming "Yahtzee!" or vying for control of Africa in a heated round of Risk, let me assure you, this has never been a regular occurrence.
Honestly, it was a little freaky. But it was also a lot of fun.
We didn't start until about 9pm, because I didn't get back from watching the Smallville season finale with Jones until about then. (Jones is convinced that in order to save everyone imperiled in the last few minutes of last night's episode, Kal-El's going to end up travelling back in time a few minutes, a la the 1979 Richard Donner Superman flick, which I think is too lame even for Smallville standards, but I digress.) Despite the fact that it was way past Chelsey's bed time, we let her play a hand, which took a while because she's, like, five. What just about killed me, however, is that despite the fact that it took her three minutes to put a card down everytime her turn came around, she still won. What had the entire family in hysterics, though, is that upon winning, and realizing that this meant she'd have to go to bed, she burst into tears and cried "I hate winning!"
Too precious to believe.
Which is why I've decided to hang around the old homestead for a while so we can all play again. Then I'm going back to Columbia. I swear.
"Little Brown Boy Blues"
I've made no secret of the fact that I hate Charles Schulz and his wretched comic strip. It's long been my opinion that as "Peanuts" drew its 200-year run to a close, it drifted from sugar-coated sickness to downright lunacy. It'd be three panels of Linus clutching his blanket and leaning against a stone wall, ruminating about clouds, and then Snoopy'd trot by in that stupid attorney get-up of his, and we were all supposed to chuckle or something?
Stupid.
I woke up on the couch this morning, and couldn't get the image of Charlie Brown trying to kick a football and falling on his ass out of my head. That whole strange dynamic between Our Man Brown and the utterly mystifying Lucy Van Pelt. You know what I'm talking about: Chuck would just be walking along when he'd run across Lucy holding a football. She'd tell him to go ahead and run up and kick it, and he'd say "What am I stupid?" and then she'd somehow talk him into showing that this was, in fact, true.
(Actually, I did a little research and found out that during one particularly trying episode in the lives of the Peanuts gang, Chuck was presumably dying in a hospital and Lucy swore that if he got better, she'd never pull the football away again, and shortly after he recovered, they went out into the field and he ran up to kick the football, and she didn't pull it away, and instead he missed and kicked her in the arm, breaking it. But, uh, that's neither here nor there...)
I mean, the obvious question in all this is "Why?" Why didn't Charlie Brown ever learn his lesson? Why was Lucy compelled to taunt and tempt him over and over? Why bother doing this to each other again and again and again? Why were they so flawed?
Well, I've given it a lot of thought -- in case you can't tell, there's absolutely nothing to do in this town -- and my best guess is that Miss Van Pelt never really set out to trick the dumb schmuck. It just sort of happened. Maybe even she thought it'd be different each time. And as for poor, stupid, gullible Mr. Brown, I think he was charged by this belief that even he deserved the simple pleasure of kicking a football on a nice afternoon. I think he said to himself that it's such a tiny little thing to ask of the world and that it really shouldn't be as complicated as it ended up being for him throughout his life.
And I think perhaps he really wanted to punt the old pigskin off into the sky... just once... just to see if it'd be everything he'd dreamt it'd be. Because you'll notice, no matter how many times he fell for Lucy's old yankaway, he always came at that ball with everything he had.
And that's why when he fell, he fell so damn hard. That's what made him a little better -- though a lot stupider -- than the rest of us, who did eventually learn our lessons, and started to guard our hearts and keep our hopes and dreams secret. No matter what disappointments he faced in life, he never let them stop him from shooting for the moon.
You were a good man, Charlie Brown... but seriously, get the hell out of the funny papers already.
All righty then. I'm ready to come home now.
- Charles M. Schulz You Don't Look 35, Charlie Brown!
"Numero Uno"
Last night was family game night at Casa de Clark. This is not a regular occurrence. And lest you think that before my sister and I went off to college, every Wednesday night we were all gathered around a table screaming "Yahtzee!" or vying for control of Africa in a heated round of Risk, let me assure you, this has never been a regular occurrence.
Honestly, it was a little freaky. But it was also a lot of fun.
We didn't start until about 9pm, because I didn't get back from watching the Smallville season finale with Jones until about then. (Jones is convinced that in order to save everyone imperiled in the last few minutes of last night's episode, Kal-El's going to end up travelling back in time a few minutes, a la the 1979 Richard Donner Superman flick, which I think is too lame even for Smallville standards, but I digress.) Despite the fact that it was way past Chelsey's bed time, we let her play a hand, which took a while because she's, like, five. What just about killed me, however, is that despite the fact that it took her three minutes to put a card down everytime her turn came around, she still won. What had the entire family in hysterics, though, is that upon winning, and realizing that this meant she'd have to go to bed, she burst into tears and cried "I hate winning!"
Too precious to believe.
Which is why I've decided to hang around the old homestead for a while so we can all play again. Then I'm going back to Columbia. I swear.
"Little Brown Boy Blues"
I've made no secret of the fact that I hate Charles Schulz and his wretched comic strip. It's long been my opinion that as "Peanuts" drew its 200-year run to a close, it drifted from sugar-coated sickness to downright lunacy. It'd be three panels of Linus clutching his blanket and leaning against a stone wall, ruminating about clouds, and then Snoopy'd trot by in that stupid attorney get-up of his, and we were all supposed to chuckle or something?
Stupid.
I woke up on the couch this morning, and couldn't get the image of Charlie Brown trying to kick a football and falling on his ass out of my head. That whole strange dynamic between Our Man Brown and the utterly mystifying Lucy Van Pelt. You know what I'm talking about: Chuck would just be walking along when he'd run across Lucy holding a football. She'd tell him to go ahead and run up and kick it, and he'd say "What am I stupid?" and then she'd somehow talk him into showing that this was, in fact, true.
(Actually, I did a little research and found out that during one particularly trying episode in the lives of the Peanuts gang, Chuck was presumably dying in a hospital and Lucy swore that if he got better, she'd never pull the football away again, and shortly after he recovered, they went out into the field and he ran up to kick the football, and she didn't pull it away, and instead he missed and kicked her in the arm, breaking it. But, uh, that's neither here nor there...)
I mean, the obvious question in all this is "Why?" Why didn't Charlie Brown ever learn his lesson? Why was Lucy compelled to taunt and tempt him over and over? Why bother doing this to each other again and again and again? Why were they so flawed?
Well, I've given it a lot of thought -- in case you can't tell, there's absolutely nothing to do in this town -- and my best guess is that Miss Van Pelt never really set out to trick the dumb schmuck. It just sort of happened. Maybe even she thought it'd be different each time. And as for poor, stupid, gullible Mr. Brown, I think he was charged by this belief that even he deserved the simple pleasure of kicking a football on a nice afternoon. I think he said to himself that it's such a tiny little thing to ask of the world and that it really shouldn't be as complicated as it ended up being for him throughout his life.
And I think perhaps he really wanted to punt the old pigskin off into the sky... just once... just to see if it'd be everything he'd dreamt it'd be. Because you'll notice, no matter how many times he fell for Lucy's old yankaway, he always came at that ball with everything he had.
And that's why when he fell, he fell so damn hard. That's what made him a little better -- though a lot stupider -- than the rest of us, who did eventually learn our lessons, and started to guard our hearts and keep our hopes and dreams secret. No matter what disappointments he faced in life, he never let them stop him from shooting for the moon.
You were a good man, Charlie Brown... but seriously, get the hell out of the funny papers already.
All righty then. I'm ready to come home now.
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