Happy Birthday to My Older "Brother"

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. 

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.  

www.fact.com

www.ideachampion.com

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).