Not on board with "Titanic" fever

The 100th anniversary of the Titanic disaster has come and gone, and I am not the least bit sorry I missed it much less cared.

I did not take the Titanic Memorial Cruise that 1,309 passengers did when the MS Balmoral set sail on April 8 from Southampton, England to retrace the original’s ill-fated voyage. Though I did wonder had the Balmoral hit an iceberg at exactly 11:40 p.m. on April 14, 2012, if the ocean liner had enough lifeboats for everyone aboard or did they really want to go all out and recreate the tragic mistakes of 100 years ago.

Unlike the first-class passengers aboard the Titanic who sat down for a 10-course meal that fateful night which included oysters, filet mignon, poached salmon, chicken Lyonnaise, foie gras, roasted pigeon, lamb with mint sauce, and Punch Romaine according to an article on npr.org which diners can purchase at Hong Kong’s Hullett House Hotel for $1390 (US dollars), my dinner stateside on April 14, 2012 consisted of a six-inch cold cut double meat sandwich from Subway on wheat with lettuce, tomatoes, olives, pickles and mustard, a large iced tea (unsweetened), a bag of whole grain chips and three chocolate chip cookies. All of which cost me a little over $10 bucks, which to me is rather expensive.

I have not seen ABC’s "Titanic", the four-hour mini-series that aired last weekend though I will likely see it upon its release on Blu-ray. If for no other reason just to say I saw it and add it to the other movie and made-for-tv reincarnations of the catastrophe I have seen that include "A Night to Remember" (1958), and the 53’, 79’ and 96’ versions that starred Clifton Webb, David Janssen, George C. Scott and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Let’s not forget "Raise the Titanic" (1980) which was a disaster in itself, both critical and box office wise that is.

I have not bought any of the newly released or re-released books published about the disaster I have seen sitting on tables and end caps at Barnes & Noble. Quite frankly, there are so many out there I wouldn’t even know which ones to get. I am willing to bet a lot of what’s in those books is information that’s already been regurgitated in several others written about the sinking the past ten decades. Other than the screenplay of James Cameron’s Oscar winning 1997 film, the only other books I have which I think cover everything I ever wanted to know about the ship “God himself couldn’t sink” is "Titanic: An Illustrated History", "Unsinkable" by Daniel Allen Butler, and of course, Walter Lord’s "A Night to Remember."

Unlike 101 year-old Rose Dewitt Bukater (Gloria Stewart) who journeys back to Titanic’s dark icy underwater ruins after a group of salvagers, led by Bill Paxton, find a nude drawing of her as a young woman wearing “the Heart of the Ocean” in Cameron’s blockbuster, I have not and will not make that return trip to the “ship of dreams” to see the film again, this time in the 3D and IMAX 3D formats, unless I am on a date and the woman I go out with wants to see it.

I won’t deny that 15 years ago I embraced Cameron’s disaster epic. I saw it at least five times, maybe more on the big screen back then. I am not going to tell you whether or not I shed any tears when the band played "Nearer, My God, to Thee" as passengers tried to save themselves and builder Thomas Andrews (Victor Garber) set his pocket watch for the end to come as he gazed at a painting believed to be artist Norman Wilkinson’s “The Approach to Plymouth Harbour” in the first class smoking room.

I am not like Joey Tribiani (Matt LeBlanc) in that "Friends" episode who when Chandler (Matthew Perry) mocks him about how he cries every time someone talks about Titanic, Joey chokes up and says, “Those two (Kate Winslet and Leonardo Dicaprio’s characters) only had each other.”

I won’t tell you if I cheered like a lot of movie goers did, which I am sure were all women, when the younger Rose (Kate Winslet) spat in villain and husband to be (Billy Zane) Cal Hockley’s face before running off to rescue lover Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio).

Although I don’t feel like throwing up the way star Kate Winslet does today every time she hears Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” from the film, my interest in the disaster is about as rusted out as the ship’s remains resting at the bottom of the Atlantic. As many times as I have seen Titanic, I don’t think I can sit and watch it again, not even when it comes to Blu-ray this September. Whenever I see it air on the cable networks now every few months, the only reason I have it on is just to have something to listen to while I am doing something else.

There is, however, an even deeper reason why I was not on board in commemorating the maritime disaster 100 years ago. Embarking on a “Titanic” cruise to take the same route the original ocean liner took where over 1500 people perished is about as macabre and unsettling as seeing the three-hour plus epic again on the big screen, even if it is a love story.

Maybe it’s me but I just wouldn’t feel right celebrating as James Cameron did upon winning the Best Picture Oscar in 1998 at the 70th Annual Academy Awards telling the audience to “Let’s go party until dawn” after asking for a brief moment of silence for the more than 1500 men, women and children who went down with the ship 100 years ago.

©4/18/12

If i had won that $640 million...

In case you are wondering, and I know not a single one of you who might be reading this column are not, I do not hold, nor am I one of the three people who possess that winning $640 million lottery ticket who won the jackpot March 30.

Like I really had a chance! Quite frankly, the odds are more in my favor of never, ever flying in, much less piloting a starship through an asteroid field as Han Solo (Harrison Ford) did defying the odds spoken by protocol droid, C3PO (3,720 to 1) in "The Empire Strikes Back" (1980) in my lifetime than I do winning a lottery worth more than $600 million.

That didn’t stop me, and countless others across the country from dreaming up lots of delusions of grandeur on what they would do with the money if they won as they purchased their lottery tickets last week.

Oh, the things I would spend that money on! Of course I’d take care of priorities first. I’d give my parents whatever they need to pay off the house, make repairs, then they can sell the place and get the hell out of the lousy town they live in now. I know that’s one of the first things I’d do, and I am not talking about leaving town. I am talking about leaving the state!

I’d move to some beach and buy myself a lighthouse that I can maintain myself. I read a few years back that the government is trying to sell the Penfield Lighthouse in Connecticut for just one dollar. It’s reportedly haunted but with all that money I’d win whether it’d be the lump sum for the next twenty plus years or the entire amount after taxes, that might be more than enough to hire a Medium to get rid of the ghost.

I’d also give my sister whatever money she needs to pay off her house and bills and start a college fund of $10,000 each for my two nephews, ok, maybe $100,000.

Then I’d focus on the real necessities – my needs - like getting a house built to my personal specifications that would have besides a pool, a movie theater with a big screen and a cold dark auditorium that is as large as the General Cinema Northpark I & II in Dallas that closed and was eventually torn down in 1998. Forget about those home theater centers and the 52 plus inch flat screens with the stereo surround sound systems. I’ll watch all my movies on Blu-ray on my own big screen with its own state of the art sound system and much more comfortable seats but yet still maintain that cold dark atmosphere real movie theaters of yesteryear had. Not the 20 plus screen megaplexes today where when kids are bored by the movies, they go play video games in the lobby.

That’s not to say my home won’t have a game room or a “man cave” as we guys call them with several arcade games like Space Invaders. The walls would be adorned with old classic movie posters that are currently going for more than $5000 like "The Yellow Submarine" (1968) according to Cinemasterpieces. Perhaps I’d get back to collecting those 12 - inch Star Wars figures from Sideshow Collectibles and Hot Toys that I no longer get thanks to their ridiculous $200 plus price tags.

As those $19 million checks came in for the next twenty years, I’d probably start getting into more extravagant expenses like complete some of the things on my bucket list and move to England, for example, and would not return to the states and until I got what I came there for. I am not telling you what that is except to know that that pipe dream will never happen now but if I had won, however, it would all be legal.

Perhaps I’d rent out an entire floor at an office building and start a movie production company and bring in all the people I know who dream of making and writing films they want to see made and not the predictable regurgitated unimaginative garbage “Hollyweird” churns out today.

Since I would be moving to England, I do need a private jet to get there. For me, one of those Airbus A380 superjumbo double decker planes will do. I wouldn’t care if one of the plane’s four Rolls Royce engines explodes during flight so long as I get to where I am going. When I need to, I’ll use my new Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Perhaps I’d buy one of those retired Concordes that’s now out of service and sit in aviation museums around the world. Not to fly it, mind you. I’d just want it to say I got one. I can always auction it off on eBay later and get my money back.

On the other hand, I could put all that remaining $200 million plus into getting NASA to build me a spaceship just like the Millennium Falcon that will take me to one of those possible habitable planets we are hearing about. Like the Man of Steel’s nemesis, Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) in "Superman: The Movie" (1978) and "Superman II" (1980) who has a love for real estate, especially beachfront property like owning all of California and Australia, I have always wanted a planet I can call my own.

If only I had won that $640 million.

©4/4/12