My Life In Casablanca "what's your favorite flick?"

Let’s just have some childish fun today, tell each other a few truths as Shouting in Silence (my Nom De Plume) is something I intended to be a sanctuary for the outspoken, a place to be when you feel like being heard without constraints of sounding clever or cool. Save that noise for first dates (if you must) or that one person in your life you always find yourself breaking out your verbal “good China” for. No one to try to impress here, I’m easy, most people I know do at least something that impresses me to no end. Be it they never drink too much, quit smoking in one day, their house is always clean, their hair always looks good, they never bad-mouth anyone, they work out 5 days a week for longer that 2 months and a hundred other qualities I wish I possessed. Now I don’t happen to drink, I think Reagan was in office the last time I did, but it’s because in the end, I got arrested every time I looked at a liquor bottle, so that “quality” doesn’t count. I don’t drink because I didn’t enjoy jail and not some great merit on my part.
In these early entries, it isn’t my intention to bowl you over with my gift for gab, my hope is that we’ll find common threads I believe all good-hearted people share. Perhaps you’ll get to know me a bit and we’ll find some things worth thinking about, worth talking about and as days pass, I’ll keep peddling until I take off the training wheels. Baring your soul takes work, even for a guy like me who’s always worn his heart on his sleeve. Only children can do this without summoning great courage as they’re still pure enough to know they have nothing to hide. I watch my 4 year old son do this daily and it’s a thing of radiance to behold.
The topic of the day is movies, we Americans certainly do love a good film, heck, we love even more bad ones. To be fair to us, there’s a lot more of the bad ones than good. Many of us were raised in a time when “good” meant which film company spent the most on advertising dollars and star power, and not a great script with a talented director and leading actors with tactile chemistry. There are actors in film today that wouldn’t be allowed on a set as an extra in the finer days of the Silver Screen, Paris Hilton was in a movie I think (and you have no idea how painful it was for me to type that name). I view such people the same way Major League Baseball handles it when a drunk runs out onto the field, they turn the camera away so as not to encourage other morons to follow suit. If we turn the camera away often enough, maybe they will just go away. It’s my prayer anyway.
So, let’s get to it… What are your favorite movies, and why? Be honest, after all, we aren’t dating (you can do better, I talk too much!) No French Film Noir’s here, no Jean De Florette, I did say “fun”. I know picking one will be a tall order, but my only rules were honesty and fun so if you have a bunch, knock yourself out. My #1 is Casablanca, hands down. The photo you see here sits just above eye level behind my monitor, a framed 8 by 10. I have about 50 reasons why it's my #1, but don’t worry, I’m not that talkative! You have Humphrey Bogart as the sharp dressed, brooding, emotionally scarred, unassailably cool “Rick”, Ingrid Berman as “Ilsa”, the love interest, classically beautiful, elegant girl you just want to protect, Dooley Wilson, Ricks piano player “Sam”, and maybe the first popular feature film where a black man and a white man are best friends, Claude Rains, the shifty,incorrigible, but loveable chief of police (one of my buddies legally changed his name to Rains for the character “Louis” when I was a younger man). This film had it all, good versus evil, a love story for the ages, characters to cheer for and despise, patriotism, a great twist, everything, the best American movie ever made, though some say Citizen Cane (pretetious film students, cough).
Modern films I’ll be honest and tell you “When Harry Met Sally”. It’s riotously funny, one of the best real world love stories ever, perfectly cast, a ton of great catch phrases to quote and the happy ending we all wish for. I know there’s a lot to be said for the modern day blockbusters, watching things blow up on a 75 foot wide screen in surround sound can be pretty entertaining, but this was my list and #1, both modern and in days gone by will always be the one thing we all wish for, a memorable story, one great love and a happy ending. It can happen, I’ve seen it at least twice. Gotta go now, I was watching Casablanca in the background on my laptop while I wrote this and Rick is about to say “we’ll always have Paris”, Amen.
If you were mildly amused or angered, if you're blatantly opinionated or nocturnal and slightly bored, if you're anything but shy (I don't trust quiet people) please make some noise, come back again soon 'cause you're my brand of Vodka and I'd love to hear you rant.
Shouting in Silence

WOMEN, STOP DATING ON THE INTERNET, IT'S DANGEROUS!

Good evening and welcome to my first official blog. I am Shouting in Silence @ifiwerewise.blogspot.com
I've been blogging for some time now, but solely on other bloggers sites about a wide array of topics of interest to me, and some, not quite so. I simply enjoy flexing my mind and sharing some of my own rather worldly experiences with others. I say this with no vanity, empirically speaking, it's just a fact. I've lived in about 10 states, and probably 30+ cities in my younger days. I was a professional model (oxymoron...cough!), a nightclub bartender in some of the hottest joints in the country, in NYC, LA, Miami, Ft Lauderdale and more. I was in the US Air Force, had my own little construction biz, managed some very busy restaurant/bars and many other pursuits. You may call me a wannabe writer as well. Now that I've "qualified" myself, my topic-dujour...I wanted the first thing I penned here to be something uplifting, I'm a pretty jovial guy by nature, so a feel-good "fluff piece" would suit my persona. There are times in life when my other side takes precedence, as follows: I read an article tonight about a young English woman was savagely attacked by a man set upon her by someone she was dating that she met on Facebook. His cohort walked up to her outside an internet cafe and threw a coffee mug full of sulphuric acid in her lovely face, one of the most heinous crimes you'll ever read about. She tells of a time he beat and raped her at a hotel, but she decided not to report it to the police as she felt her life was in danger. I'm not sure I understand her mind set here, but I'm not a woman who was beaten and raped, so I won't dare second guess her, neither should you unless you've walked in her shoes. No man has, therefore in my opinion, we have no right to suggest we'd have reacted differently. For that matter, even women who've never experienced such fear ought to judge her either. It continues that he coerced her into going to a cafe of his choosing to receive a message from him via the internet, where his "would-be assassin" (she could easily have died having swallowed some of the acid) was waiting. Today, less than two years later and some 40 surgeries, she is speaking out about her experience.
This was my infuriated, yet heartfelt post to the article:
As a father and a man assigned to protect women (this is every man's duty the way my Mom raised me) I'm enraged beyond comprehension. If it were my daughter, there'd be two trials and two men in prison, I'd be the other for attacking the man who threw the acid. Am I condoning a vigilante approach? No, but if you were the father, and you told me this story, I'd put my hand on your shoulder and nod.
First, God Bless you young lady. I admire your courage more than I can say, next, WOMEN, STOP DATING MEN ON THE INTERNET, PERIOD! This takes the natural progression dating was meant to be out of the mix. That includes meeting people in their element, whether it's a bar, church or work, whatever! You hone your instincts this way, read their behaviors, see the people they associate with, how they spend their time, what kind of temperament they have and just plain old-fashioned women's intuition. You could be conversing with a serial killer, or in this case, a rapist and woman beater, but you wouldn't know that would you? You're forming a relationship with a friggin' PC monitor! How many more must be hurt to make women aware? (I ran out of characters allowed at this point) What I wanted to continue with was "how many more women must be hurt or killed to make women aware of how inherently dangerous this is?" My best friend of nearly 20 years (a woman) lost her niece this way. Her brother's daughter was murdered by a man she "networked" with, she was led into a lascivious lifestyle I won't detail out of respect and I don't think it's necessary, and she paid for it with her life. She wasn't 20, a teenager. Understand, I'm not blaming or knocking FB or any similar site, I'm a member myself, but only because I'm sentimental and a tad lazy at keeping up with a lifetime of friends and acquaintances, never to date. I'm a married man and father, but I'd feel the same either way.
As I'll always say, I could go on ad-infinitum about topics like this that I'm passionate about, but I'm not here tonight to second-guess the choices women make about their social calendar, then again, maybe I am! Please, consider alternatives to finding your soul mate that don't involve the internet. I know how compressed our lives can become and for some, it's just hard to find the time or a more viable locale to meet a nice, decent guy. Bars aren't exactly teeming with a plethora of "Mr Rights". Church? Right place if you go, but pretty tough to chat, Laundromat? He might live in a cardboard box out back! Supermarket? We're married, the few who aren't are either out of toothpaste or gay, we only cook when we want to impress you, in which case, we already have a date that night. The single ones who don't fit neatly into my previous categories eat takeout. The ones that don't, they're liars, move on. If they can cook, they're married or they were (how do you spell Samsonite?)
All kidding aside, ladies, find another way to meet guys in person, when you find out they wear Aqua Velva because you can buy it at 7-11, you can dump them by simply never calling then again. It happens to normal guys all the time, we'll just keep looking until we find a woman who likes Aqua Velva, I wear something that costs as much as my phone bill, my father-in-law wears Aqua Velva and I think he's terrific. If he was single, I'd give you his number. See, I almost found you a great guy! True, you met me on the web, but I already told you neither of us are available, and creepy guys don't do that. Pen pals are just what they say, pen pals, last time I checked, dating was a contact sport (talk about your fringe benefits!)
Be safe ladies.
If you were mildly amused or angered, if you're blatantly opinionated or nocturnal and slightly bored, if you're anything but shy (I don't trust quiet people) please make some noise, come back again soon 'cause you're my brand of Vodka and I'd love to hear you shout.
Shouting in Silence