Still here in texas at my parents house, the day after Christmas. They went to see Charlie Wilsons War today. I stayed home to get some work done. Tonight, my dad is sitting in the easy chair watching TV and expresses this thought to me while I’m re-arranging a few logs in the fireplace…
Dad: You know where Malibu is, right?
Me: Cha (yes)
Dad: You remember where I told you where I wanna live?
Me: No
Dad: (indignant that I have no idea wtf he’s talking about) Ya. When you were little? We drove up the coast and I pointed to some of those houses and said I wanna live in any one of those?
Me: No. But okay. What about it.
Dad: I’m sittin there watchin Tom Hanks up on screen and I’m thinkin, “my son could do this“. He’s there, a multi-billionaire [sic]*, doin what he loves…. So why don’t you do that?
Me: That’s the plan
Dad: So [hand gesture] why don’t you go and do that and buy me one a them houses and I can sit and retire on the beach. and I’ll take mom with me.
Me: Well, you can’t have it both ways
Dad: Why not?
Me: (pretending he meant to say “what do you mean” instead of “why not”) Well, you can’t give the most minimal of support to my preference of that line of work AND still want to get all the benefits of its potential success.
Dad: …Wuh ya mean. I been supportin it for 20 years
Me: (re-iterating) I said “minimal” support, not “none”
Dad: So I support you for 20 years, you support me for 20 years
Me: Okay. But at a parallel level, right? So when I make it big I’ll say “I know you want THIS kind of house, but I think you should want this or this instead, and plus, I think it’s really stupid that you want a house. I’ll support ya, but only for these things that I think are a good idea and only at a minimal degree”.
Dad: (looks over and thinks for a second) Okay – make it for Mom, and then she can take care of me.
Ironically I didn’t go see the movie with them because I was working on getting the new Richardland TV section back up with new videos. My dad thinks both acting and “playing” on the internet are ridiculous time wasters that bring shame upon the family.
And he’s not even Jewish!
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*Tom Hanks is a multi-millionaire. Not billionaire.
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