I don’t have a brother. I have two older sisters. But today is the birthday of two guys I consider to be unofficial brothers, my cousin Terry and my oldest friend in the world, Joe. www.ideachampion.com Today, I want to highlight Terry: the older brother I never had. I’m not sure why but when we were kids, Terry took me under his wing and made it a point of exposing me to all kinds of things regarding life and the movies. On his bedroom walls he had a King Kong poster that used to scared me at night when the lights were off, a Humphrey Bogart poster from Casablanca and a W.C. Fields poster with the quote: “Reminds me of my safari in Africa. Somebody forgot the corkscrew and for several days we had to live on nothing but food and water.” When we visited his house, Terry used to grab me and sit me down and say things like, “You need to watch this movie.” “You need to read this book.” When he started acting in community theater, he took me along and I used to hang out doing minor things with the crew while they rehearsed. He exposed me to sophistication and bawdy humor, to classic movies and European cool. Terry single-handedly turned me on to: Acquire (board game) Around the World In 80 Days Barry Lyndon Beer Casablanca Clue (board game) Community Theater Cruising with the top down Dashiell Hammett Dr. Strangelove Drive In Movies Edgar Allan Poe F Troop Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers Gene Kelly Gilligan’s Island Going to the Beach Grand Prix racing Hello, Dolly! Herbie Goes Bananas Hogan’s Heroes Humphrey Bogart I Love Lucy Ian Fleming It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World James Bond John Sturges John Wayne Jules Verne King Kong Laurel & Hardy Masterpiece (board game) Matchbox cars Mille Bornes (card game) Mouse Trap Mr. President (board game) My Fair Lady Oliver! Playboy 1776 (the movie, not the year) Stanley Kubrick Steve McQueen Sunset Blvd (the street, not the movie) The Addams Family The Adventures of Superman The Bozo Show The Bride of Frankenstein The Dick Van Dyke Show The Fantasticks The Great Escape The Guns of Navarone The Maltese Falcon The Man From U.N.C.L.E. The Marx Brothers The Mickey Mouse Club The Wild Wild West Venice Beach Vincent Price W.C. Fields War and Peace (the Russian movie) World War II You Bet Your Life I am sure I am missing a few but you get the idea. I remember seeing him play a perfect Charlie Brown in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. He made a funny Barnaby in The Matchmaker. He wrote the funniest spec screenplay I’ve ever read, Joseph the Carpenter. Because he wanted to be a writer, I wanted to be a writer. I would definitely not be the man I am today if not for him. And my life would be a lot sadder if I’d never been exposed to the things he shared. So thank you, Terry. And Happy Birthday, cousin! FAVORITE MOVIE MOMENT Rick (Humphrey Bogart) and Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) meet again in Casablanca (1943) WHY THIS SONG OF THE DAY?
You Belong To Me by Jason Wade Because it reminds me of Casablanca and far off places. Bogart, Bacall, and the 1940s. Because I love this version from Shrek (2001).
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