Determined To Succeed

Hey, everybody. How’s it going on this Friday? Well, I hope. I wanted to share something with you guys that was inspired by a random visit to my local ACME grocery store on Ash Wednesday. I really do believe our loved ones are with us wherever we go and no matter whether your parents are with us or not that it helps trigger for you a wonderful, warm memory that takes you into the weekend and brings the sun out in your lives.

According to Wikipedia®, the song “If I Knew You Were Comin’ I’d've Baked a Cake” was a popular song written by Al Hoffman, Bob Merrill and Clem Watts published in 1950. As with many songs before and after, it was recorded many times in many countries by many artists over the years (even including a 1969 version sung by Ernie to Cookie Monster on the very first season of a little show you might have heard of called Sesame Street). The big hit version of the song was recorded by Eileen Barton in January 1950. The recording was released by National Records and when the song became too big a hit for National to handle, it arranged with Mercury Records to help with distribution. The record first reached the Billboard Magazine charts on March 3, 1950 and lasted 15 weeks on the chart, peaking at #1.

Why do I bring all this up? Why am I mentioning a song that hardly anyone remembers anymore and is sixty-one years old this year? Simple. On Ash Wednesday 2011, I just happened to be at my local grocery store and a woman who easily is in her mid-to-late sixties (at least) was bantering back-and-forth with her co-worker and she sang that song. As she sang the main part of the song she smiled widely and bopped side to side having fun the entire time. I could tell she was remembering how much fun she must have had as a child listening to that song on her record player and singing it with her friends, you know, like the kids do nowadays with their fancy-schmancie iPods.

“If I Knew You Were Comin’ I’d’ve Baked a Cake…”

Instantly, I felt a memory rush back to me that I had long forgotten. It was from my childhood. It was of my sweet mama, JoAnn, singing that song to me in our apartment in Hyde Park. I don’t remember what would have prompted her to sing the song (maybe it was one of our birthdays or somehow we got on the subject of cake) but I now remember vividly her singing the song to me. And it wasn’t the only time she sang it. We were at our local grocery store one day and she burst into song there, too.

“If I Knew You Were Comin’ I’d’ve Baked a Cake…”

I am ashamed to say I also remember how I felt at the time as she sang that song to me. I thought it was silly and thought my mom was a bit loony for doing it. I mean really, who comes up with lyrics like “If I Knew You Were Comin’ I’d’ve Baked a Cake” anyway? Moreover, when we were in public I felt embarrassed that my mom was singing out loud this silly, weird song and all I wanted to do was walk away until my mom stopped this wild, wacky behavior. However, in retrospect, she must have felt as the grocery clerk did on Ash Wednesday. My mom must have remembered how it felt to connect to a song when she was a child (she would have been eleven-years-old at that time) and how much fun she must have had listening to it on her fancy-schmancie contraptions of the time, most likely her radio. As the memories came back I pictured her as she sang to me, smiling widely, bopping back and forth, trying to get me to smile.

I came home and told my girlfriend, Laura, about what had happened and I almost cried. I told her about the woman in the store and how her singing that silly song brought up such a powerful memory of my mother and how I just miss the sound of my mom‘s voice. Sure, I miss everything else about my mom, too – her smile, her laugh, going to the movies or to the store – but most of all, I miss her sweet and tender voice because when that voice wasn‘t trying to reassure me that everything was going to be O.K. with the world it was trying to make me smile and laugh with silly, goofy and weird old songs sung out loud at home and at the store.

Well, Ma, the smiles were there, then and now.

Ever since that day in my local store I have thought about that song, singing the refrain in my own head. And thanks to computers and websites like YouTube® I can not only hear it but see Eileen Barton sing that song (well, at least see a photo of her as a recording plays over my speakers). Hell, I can even see Ernie sing the song to Cookie Monster and remember what it was like to be a child having fun and singing silly songs because that was our job at the time, to laugh, have fun and play. Moms know that. It’s part of what makes them moms. If it’s our jobs to have fun then it’s their jobs to keep that party going because, as all of us know, childhood ends too way too soon and memories like that give way to the pressures and thoughts of the real world, kind of like Neo being awakened by Morpheus in “The Matrix.” But for a short but magical time we are children and our moms are gods, leading the party of smiles and fun because no matter how much money you have (or how much money we didn’t have) mom have that special something that always make us smile and laugh. At least mine did.

So thank you, anonymous grocery store clerk. The next time I see you I swear I’m going to tell you all about how you brought up that memory of my sweet mama and her singing that song to a little boy in Chicago and making him feel loved beyond reason. And thank you, Mama, for being brave enough to sing to your little boy even if it did embarrass me in public. You always seemed (and still seem) to know when I need (ed) a smile (I know it was your spirit who guided me to hear that clerk sing it that so I could hear it and remember and connect with you). And to all you kids (and adults) out there who think it is or was stupid that your parents sang silly little songs to you to get you to smile, wise up. That is how parents become our Higher Powers, it is how they lead us, connect with us and protect us. Most of all, it is part of how they love us, and believe me when I tell you on this grey and gloomy overcast day in southern New Jersey…when the singing stops and you have to fight to remember the party of smiles you miss them more than words can ever express.

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It’s Sunday morning, it’s early, I’m groggy and I’m still trying to wrap my head around some of the movie logic in the movie I watched last night – “Hot Tub Time Machine.” Did you guys see that one? It’s the story of four guys who get transported back to 1986 thanks to a really nifty (and wet) time machine and the accidental spill of a modern-day energy drink.

Following me so far? The hi-jinks ensue when our band of best friends (well, three best friends and one kid who will ultimately find out his origins) realize they can’t screw with too much in the space-time continuum or else the future will altered BUT (and there wouldn’t be a movie without a but) they want some things to change because in the future none of their lives turn out the way they wanted them to.

If I could turn back time and go back to 1986, what would I change? I’d be in high school. Assuming it’s summer I’d be wrapping up my sophomore year. “Top Gun” was in theaters. I was only 15. I’d change my future by “inventing” lots of stuff. Laptops, iPods and Google chief among them. I’d also “create” such wonderful, high-grossing movies like “Die Hard,” “The Lion King,” “Forrest Gump,” “Titanic,” “The Matrix,” “True Lies,” “Predator” and so many more. I mean, who wouldn’t create a better life for themselves in the future by changing something critical in the past. Sure, it might mean the rest of the world is irrevocably changed (ala the Butterfly Effect) but who cares I’d be changed and for the better.

But this wouldn’t be Bill’s Weight Loss Blog if I also didn’t cop to the fact I’d change the physical me, too. I’d stop eating all the bad foods I ate back then. I’d start exercising regularly (doing 20 tummy crunches a day might have made me get a set of 6-pack abs of steel instead of my 24-case of flabs of steels). Of course I would do this, too, because I realize what 24 years of extra time would mean to my body. I would never have achieved 400 pounds. I would never have had high blood pressure. I would have been much healthier much sooner and able to enjoy every bit of those 24 extra years (especially thanking God for extra time with my mom, JoAnn – I love you, Ma) of healthier, stronger Bill.

Someone very wise once told me that, while you can reconcile and make peace with the past, it is just that – the past. The not-so-smart choices you made back then are done. All you can do now is make much smarter ones moving forward. That just happens to be the driving principle behind one of my cardinal rules of weight loss – forgiving yourself the weight you gained up to now and not letting that weigh you down as you begin a weight loss journey. Sure you are the weight you are, but instead of being sad about how that happened, concentrate on what you’re gonna do about it now and every day after today.

My friends, we may not be able to turn back time like they do in the movies but we don’t need a time machine to start altering our lives so that our future selves benefit from our actions today. In other words, do not lament 24 years ago, project 24 years into the future. For me, I’ll be 63 and a damn-sight healthier and stronger than I would have been had I not started this journey. Why? Because I am in this moment of time telling me to change what could possibly be my unhealthy, obese and self-destructive future. And what could have easily been a one-way ticket to an early death – 400 pounds ain’t healthy for no one – is now a great chance to create a better life for me in 2034 by changing that something critical in the past…today…in 2010.

So think about that stuff the next time you curl up with a movie on a Saturday night. Sure, the movie itself may be just O.K. (“Hot Tub Time Machine” did have its moments) but one of the true gifts of the movies is that they all make us think about possibility.

So now that you are here in the present, what are you going to do today? Me? I think I’ll start with 20 tricep dips and, hmmmmm, maybe 20 or so tummy crunches…

Oh and P.S. – Thanks to writing this blog today I now have Cher’s song “If I Could Turn Back Time” running through my head. Thanks a lot, me. I’ll be spending all day with a fork in my eyeball trying to get that song out of my head.

Today feels like a such Monday to me. I don’t know how that happens it just does. It could be the weather, a three-day weekend or the way we wake up in the morning. Some days just feel like other days of the week. Maybe it’s a glitch in The Matrix.

Perhaps it feels like a Monday because it also happens to be a first, June 1, and the beginning of the work week for most people (hence the feeling of it being Monday). Getting in your car, getting much-needed coffee before waiting in absolutely horrible traffic just to turn around at the end of the day to wait in even more traffic with even less coffee. For me, though, it symbolizes something else. It is June 1 and I am still twelve pounds above re-reaching my weight goal of 225 pounds.

Over the past few weeks my stress eating has been ramping up because in eight more days it will be the one-year anniversary of my mom, JoAnn’s, passing. What does that mean? I’ll tell you what it means. It means I am going to lose at least this two pounds I re-gained so I can get back to my “Battle of the Final Ten” before that anniversary.

I had so wanted to have this weight be done and gone by now. Ya know? A year is a long time, especially when it took me three-and-a-half years to lose 175 pounds in the first place. But because of the everyday things that happen in life, including many stupid food decisions, I still have twelve pounds to re-lose.  I know my pants still fit (thank God) and I know I am not that far from my goal but still…it gets under my skin.

So after writing this weight loss blog today I’m going to continue with my exercise (or as I put it rediscovering my inner sweaty, smelly and grunty child) to make sure these two pounds are gone by June 9. That’s my goal, a do-able and smart one, too. It’s also going to help me get my mind right as it gets closer and closer to the auditions for the “win your OWN show” contest for Oprah and her new network, OWN.

I am also going to think about my basic rules for losing weight:

TELL EVERYONE! (which I do every single day with you, my friends).

WHEN YOU CAN, PURGE YOUR “FAT CLOTHES.” With summer here I need to do that with the wardrobe I just pulled out of storage. This way I can give myself a nice little mental boost as I get back on track to re-losing this weight.

BE FORGIVING OF YOURSELF. In this newer more-Zen way of thinking I am trying my best not to do this.  Today is DAY ONE, at least that’s the way I am thinking about it. Beating yourself (or myself) up is negative energy you (we) don’t need. And o.k., so along my journey I re-gained twent after my mom’s death and I still need to re-lose twelve to get back to my ultimate goal of 225. THAT STILL MEANS I STILL LOST EIGHT OF THE TWENTY AND THAT’S GOOD!!!

USE WHAT YOU HAVE AVAILABLE TO YOU. With summer here it’s a great time to get out and walk, ride a bike, jog, walk the dog, something to get you outside and moving. And remember you (and I) can do sit-ups, push-ups and stairs in our own homes.

KNOW THIS WILL TAKE TIME: Weight loss and maintenance will be a part of my life for the rest of my life and I know this last ten or twelve will come off with time. I can be impatient sometimes but I will be more patient with me because…

YOU ARE WORTH IT SO MAKE THE TIME. …and I will, starting (or re-starting) right now.

Whew! See, I do take my own advice. I, too, need my pep-talks every now and then to keep me going, too. I am, after all, only human. And like everyone on a weight loss journey I especially need to keep these things in my mind during crazy weeks where you wake up on Tuesday but it feels like Monday (and you have to take the red pill – Matrix devotees know what that means). Have a great (and short) week, everyone.

P.S.: I will continue to keep you all posted on when I have to take a break from the blog to be all homeless and stuff waiting to audition for Oprah.

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Run For Your Life From “Daybreakers” – ½ Bucket of Popcorn out of Four

Oh man. I am shaking my head right now trying to figure out how to sink my teeth into this review of “Daybreakers.” I always jump at the chance to see vampire flicks but after seeing this one I ran from the theater like a bat out of hell.

In the year 2019, a plague has transformed almost every human into vampires with the remainders on the run from companies who harvest their blood to sell to the population.. Faced with a dwindling blood supply (you can only drain humans so much, after all), the fractured dominant race plots their very survival as those who go “blood deprived” start to devolve and attack their own mutating into horrible creatures known as “subsiders.”  Meanwhile, a researcher (played by Ethan Hawke – what the hell happened to him!) works with a covert band of vamps and humans to find a way to save human and vampire kind.

Where do I begin with this mess of a movie? I’d thought this movie would have some bite to it. I mean it’s got a decent cast (Dafoe, Hawke and Neill) and I totally eat up vampire flicks (except for the insipid tween-age “Twilight” movie series that is) but what in God’s name were they thinking with this script? This movie is the worst I’ve seen in a long time. Did the filmmakers think we’d all be drunk or something seeing this boring, vapid vampire flick? “How much better on paper this must have looked and sounded” is what I’m thinking. How else could they get those guys in the same movie that steals blatently from good movies like “The Matrix,” “I Am Legend,” “Zombieland” and more.

You really wanna know how bad this movie was? I almost walked out, and I never do that. Ever. There are two reasons I am giving it ½ star (or ¼ star per reason). 1) because of the “cure” they find. It worked enough for me when almost nothing else did. 2) because it is not the worst movie I’ve ever seen, or even saw last year. That honor goes to a very little known flick I purchased on DVD called “Immortal” – a part bad CGI, part live action all craptastic movie featuring the Egyptian god Horus, a Blade Runner rip-off society and Charlotte Rampling. It was a zero-bucket-of-popcorn flick.

As for “Daybreakers,” run back to your coffins and hide from this one. Even when it starts showing up for free on cable. I felt drained after watching this waste of an hour-and-a-half of my life.

And to the filmmakers – “fangs for nuthin’” guys. Your movie – wait for it – sucks.

Rated R for strong bloody violence, language and brief nudity

Runtime: 98 min

Ethan Hawke    …         Edward Dalton

Sam Neill          …         Charles Bromley

Willem Dafoe    …         Lionel ‘Elvis’ Cormac

Claudia Karvan …        Audrey Bennett