In A Just World I Would Be Able To Buy And Sell All Of You

I got some interesting information about my paternal great grandfather today. His name was Joseph Brophy, and I already knew that he was the son of an Irish immigrant and served as the mayor of Elizabeth, NJ in the early 1900s. Today, however, I read an email from my aunt that included a blurb about great grandpa Joe from a book called Prominent Families of New Jersey (hurry up and get to Amazon before it's sold out). In this blurb, I found out that on top of his duties as mayor, Joe served as the Secretary of State for New Jersey, fought in France during the first World War, and he also took over the family coal business.

If you look at the 3rd man from the left in the second row, you'll find that my great grandfather is nowhere to be found in the picture I found on Google.

This information, while incredibly interesting, pains me on two levels. Firstly, it seems that I'm going to have to live to be about 300 years old it I'm going to achieve half of what my ancestor pulled off. I mean, I'm pretty happy with what I've accomplished in my first quarter of a century, but someone with much of the same DNA as me managed to achieve positions of heroism, prestige, and wealth during an era of American history when being an Irish immigrant was about as pleasant as having potatoes and shamrocks shoved up your ass.

And, speaking of positions of wealth, why the hell do I not own most of the state of New Jersey? My great granddad was a politically connected coal monger for Christ's sake. I should be living in Tony Soprano's house, hanging out with John Gotti's kids and getting hit on by Snookie. OK, in reality none of that sounds any good at all. But I should be rich right? If things were as they should be then I would

Okay, this is Ms.Grump interjecting here with my own ancestor story which is much more engaging than this whole "coal miner" thing. I'll keep it short and sweet. Grandfather on mom's side: IRA member. Yup. Great grandparents on my dad's side had to flee Mexico in the early 1900's. From what exactly changes every time you ask my Nana about it but still MUCH more interesting right?

Hey, screw you lady get your own blog. And he wasn't just a coal miner. He owned a frigging coal company. His dad's name was the name of the company! And it's true, not the just the ramblings of a crazy old lady!

Right. They're "true". Like those stories your Dad tells you about his adventures in Florida back in the 70's?

What does my dad have to do with anything? And yes, the stories are true. Why would he make up a story about jumping a pool on his motorcycle?

Or the one where he may have run drugs on a fishing boat. Or the one where he ate a plastic plant. OR the one where he showed up at his old house after your grandma had moved like months ago? Oh, and by the way Snookie? Really? I am not one of your 3 readers, I know when you're trying to boost your hits. I'll help you out: Justin Beiber, Brittany Spears, Glee, boobies.

Heheh......boobies.

Happy Friday The 13th!

Hey everybody, I almost didn't realize it's one of my favorite holidays, Friday the 13th! Ok, so it's not a national day off or anything, but it does give me an excuse to watch one of my favorite trash horror franchises of all time. After making the lady pick a number from 1-9, it looks like we'll be watching part 7 this evening, making me one happy....camper. Get it? Cuz campers get brutally killed in Friday the 13th movies.

Top 7 Scenes That Made The Movie

Yay! I finally got around to doing a list! I hope you're as excited as I am. For my first ever list, I wanted to explore movie scenes that makes a bad movie good, or even a good movie great. These were just the seven that Mrs. Grump to Be and I could think of in one afternoon, so feel free to mention any of the scores of others that I'm sure we missed. Oh, and these are in absolutely no order what so ever.


Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome--"Two men enter! One man leaves!"

This scene, quite frankly, marks the final good scene in this movie. If they would have just ended the movie here and skipped the following hour or so of Mel Gibson talking to a rabble of really annoying orphans, I'd be perfectly happy. I know the movie would only be around 40 minutes long, but it would be a worth-while 40 minutes, with some great back and forth between Mel and Tina Turner leading up to the epic battle below. They could even change the title to simply Mad Max: Thunderdome.



A Life Less Ordinary--"Shoot him in the back of the head."

This entire movie is actually pretty good, but this is the only scene that pops into my head when I think of it. Between Holly Hunter's disgusting bounty hunter/angel (I don't feel like explaining that just watch the movie), a really great R.E.M. song called "leave", and Ewen McGregor's classic reaction to having a body fall on him (2:35 mark), I could watch this 5 minutes of a movie over and over again with a big smile on my face.



The Dark Knight--"Excuse me, I want to drive."

OK, now before you start shouting (or typing in all caps) that The Dark Knight is too complete a movie to be made by just one scene, let me say that I thought the same thing when Mrs. Grump to Be suggested the below scene for the list. Yes, the entire movie is a fucking masterpiece. But think back to when you first saw it in the movie theater, as after watching one of the most epic chase sequences in cinematic history you take in the climax: a full-sized tractor trailer does a somersault and lands upside down. Batman, instead of just hitting the breaks and turning around, decides he's so badass that he's going to turn around by having his Batpod climb up and down a fucking wall and slam down on the pavement. And scene.....how's your mind? Blown? So yes, this scene pushed the movie from great to all-time great.



Role Models--"It's a crown!"

OK, I've been trying to find the right way to describe this scene with no success, and the trailer below using the scene to spoof Lord of the Rings is of little use. So I'm just going to tell you why this scene is so awesome: during the final "battle," Bobb'e J. Thompson, a 10 year old black kid dressed like Gene Simmons, cheers on friend Christopher Mintz-Plasse's character with an inspiring cry of "Fuck his shit up, Augie!"



Mother--"Hello?" "It's still me, Mother."

I actually tried to watch this movie recently because I remember really liking it. But about 30 minutes in I realized I was getting pretty bored so I gave up on it. What never gets old, however, is the sequence featured at the end of the trailer where Debbie Reynolds tries to use her call waiting (2:15 mark).




Manhunter--"Stop it!"

This scene is actually what inspired me to write this list. This whole movie is great, but this scene is what makes it a classic for me. William Peterson crashes through a window kamakazi-style into the waiting arms of mutant-looking serial killer Tom Noonan, all to the soundtrack of Iron Butterfly's "In A Gadda Da Vida." Try finding that in the weak remake with Edward Norton. You will not find it, and that is why it's crap.

Wyclef Jean Has No Business Running For President, Sean Penn Has No Business Giving His Opinion On Absolutely Everything

I don't really know why Wyclef Jean has decided to run for the president of Haiti. It's pretty ridiculous, but honestly I can't get too high and mighty on the subject. I don't think someone from the country that spawned the political careers of Jesse Ventura, Sonny Bono, and Conan the Barbarian really has the right to look down their nose at, well...anyone, really.

But I really have had it with Sean Penn. I have yet to meet anyone who seems genuinely interested in what this self-important schmuck thinks, yet he's got to shove his rather sizable nose into anything to do with foreign relations. Yes, we get it Sean, you've been to Haiti. And when you're done there you'll go back to the expensive house where you probably cheated on your ex-wife, repeatedly and vigorously. Shut the fuck up, Spicoli.

The Grumpy Movie Review: The Other Guys

I'd been waiting all summer for this movie to come out. It all started when I first went online and saw the new "motion poster" that was going to be featured in London subways. I'm pretty sure I watched that thing 5 or 6 six times and I couldn't stop laughing. The previews were also promising, featuring Mark Wahlberg's overzealous police detective trying to drag partner Will Ferrell from their roles as "B Squad" cops into the limelight.

Unfortunately, the movie wasn't quite able to live up to the expectations I'd set by the poster and previews. The main problem comes from today's trend of comedies where the script tends to give way to endless improvisation. Now, I'm all for improvisation, if for nothing else than getting to watch the endless variations on a scene when the DVD comes out. The problem, however, is that when you make a movie based on doing take after take of various improvisations and then pick the funniest one, the movie starts to lose its rhythm.

Plus, there are so many different jokes being thrown at you that attempts to return to recurring jokes don't have the same resonance. One bit, for example, features a couple of minutes about Mark Wahlberg explaining how he learned ballet in order to make fun of feminine guys in his neighborhood. Towards the end of the movie, after another hour or so of filling all empty space with jokes, some of which worked and others that didn't, they came back to the theme of Wahlberg learning something feminine in order to make fun of feminine guys. And honestly, I can't even remember what the hell the actual joke was.

Now, even though I was let down a bit doesn't mean the movie wasn't funny. I had quite a few laughs from Wahlberg and Ferrell, although you could tell Wahlberg was trying just a little too hard to be funny. Michael Keaton has some great lines as the put upon captain, and hopefully this is another step towards the comeback that I was pushing for back in my review for Toy Story 3. Samuel Jackson and The Rock were great in their 5-10 minutes onscreen as the hotshot cops that Wahlberg aspires to, and without giving too much away their exit was a great take on the stupid risks that most action heroes take without giving a second's thought to the consequences.

So the movie wasn't quite what I was hoping for, but I think part of the problem is for some reason that motion poster had me expecting more than I should have. The movie was good, although nothing about it requires you see it in the theaters so I'd say feel free to wait for it to come out on DVD. That way you'll get to watch what I'm sure will amount to another movie's worth of outtakes.

Grade: B-

Like Father Like Son...Ah Shit, Really?

I know this is a cliche topic, but fuck it I'm writing on a blog called "Grumpy Old Man" so I think the originality ship sailed a long time ago. Anyway, have you ever had that moment as an adult where you realize just how much of an impact your parents have had on the person you've become. I mean, I've always known that my dad (Master Grump? El Grump Grande?) had a lot to do with shaping my point of view, but I think I forget the scope of that effect until I spend time with him.

Take today. I got off work early and my dad, a truck driver by trade, happened to be in the area. So we decided to meet for lunch. Being the sophisticated fellows that we are, we decided to really live it up and eat in the parking lot of a nearby Wawa, which is basically 7-11 on steroids for those of you unfamiliar with the chain. And without the presence of either of our significant others to keep us in check, it wasn't long until we began doing all of the things that we love yet seems to annoy the living shit out of everyone else.

A good 50% of our conversation, for example, dealt with observing the driving habits of other people in the parking lot. Actually it was more like shitting on the driving habits of other people in the parking lot. Because according to my dad and I, no one else on the planet is any good at driving. At all. And it's not enough for us to simply know that. We need to reinforce it whenever we get a chance by complaining aloud whenever someone else on the road does something that displeases us, even if that means we're talking to ourselves. But when we have each other as an audience, things get ten times worse. Once we get rolling who knows when our pompous bitching will end?

Usually, the only thing to break our concentration is when one of us lets loose a good fart. Because farts are hilarious.

Plus, farts are the perfect segue into our other favorite activity: retelling stories that we've already told everyone about three thousand times, including each other. Today's classic tale was from when we went to eat at a respected buffet in Lancaster County with less than subtle religious undertones, and Dad farted in the gift shop. And we laughed a lot. That's the whole story. I've heard/told it more times than I can count, but I'll be damned if I didn't get a good five minute laugh from telling it again. Hell, I'm actually laughing to myself now. I mean, come on. He farted! Right in the gift shop where everyone could hear it! Ah, what do you know from funny.

So I know that it's no grand revelation that we have a tendency to wind up having traits in common with people that we've spent most of our formidable years with, but next time your with your parents take note of the similarities that you might not have even noticed before. Even if you'd like to think that you're the exact opposite of your parents, I guarantee there are at least one or two things that cross over between you. Heheh.....farts.

Think Philly Sports Fans Are No Good? You've Obviously Never Had The Pleasure Of Having One Regurgitate On You

People living in Philadelphia likely already know about this, but if you haven't then you're probably not from around here and it's vital that you learn about local treasure Matthew Clemmens, a 21-year-old from New Jersey who was sentenced today to 30-90 days in jail.

Ladies, you may want to start writing him while he's still in prison because obviously he won't be single very long once he gets out.

But why, you may ask, would anyone incarcerate this delightful cherub? Well, it's because at the Phillies' home opener a couple of months ago, Matthew here disagreed with fellow fan and off-duty cop Michael Vangelo's decision to have security eject his friend from the stadium. Actually, "disagreed" might not be the right language here. I think "stuck his finger down his throat to make himself vomit on Vangelo and his two young daughters" would paint a more accurate picture. Honestly, folks, if you're rage is so uncontrollable that you have to literally spew it out on to pair of 15-and11-year-old girls, you might have an issue that requires some attention.

Don't worry, though. The judge really stuck it to Clemmens with the zinger of the year when he sentenced him: "You have invaded the opportunity to enjoy the American pastime of baseball. You struck out." Gee, guy, you really let him have it there. Nothing stings in the courtroom quite like an analogy that seems likely to have been written on the back of your hand while taking a shit a few minutes before court was in session. God...leave it to my town to produce a textbook lowlife like Clemmens and then follow him up with an authority figure so lame that he actually manages to kill the joy of seeing Clemmens get his comeuppance.