William Petruzzo

I’m an uncle twice over. Once of a nine year old girl and once of a nine month old boy. I’m not a father, but my family is close and being an uncle gives me a small glimpse into what it must feel like to worry about a child.

Girls are becoming women faster. Boys are becoming men faster. Well, at least in terms of independence and sexuality. The culture seems to gear nearly everything toward sexual value. Girls are made valuable by being counted as sexually desirable, while boys are made so by being able to successfully solicit sex (see American Pie, Sex and the City, the 40 Year Old Virgin and just about anything on MTV).

This is unsettling, to say the very least.

A couple of years back I worked for a not-for-profit company as an entertainment analyst. My first assignment was to watch and document children’s television. I spent nearly eight hours every day for several months watching Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, the Disney Channel and others. What I learned was startling.

Children’s television was once a tool for teaching (see Sesame Street). Today it’s a babysitter, which the media is using very strategically. The goal, perhaps not directly, and I’m sure for many of the writers not intentionally, is to condition children. The earlier people think sexually, the earlier they are spending money on sexually minded or oriented products.

It sounds like a wild conspiracy theory. I thought so too before I got to see it first hand in a highly concentrated environment.

Consider this: Nickelodeon is owned by MTV. During afternoon programming (i.e., as kids are coming home from school) on Nickelodeon, it’s not at all uncommon to see advertisements for programming on the parent network MTV or MTV2 along side advertisements for toys and music. MTV’s afternoon programming includes some of the raunchiest entertainment on television (see the dating show Next on MTV; you’ll only need to watch about 2 minutes. Take note of how young the participants on this show are).

The Disney Channel, which in its basic programming appears harmless, doesn’t have the best track record for producing respectable men and women as roll models (see Brittany Spears and Justin Timberlake). The Disney Channel is a cycle. Yesterday I saw Hannah Montana on the cover of a tabloid.

Some days of the week the Cartoon Network has been known to play it’s night time adult programming during the day (see Aqua Teen Hunger Force).

Why do the Bratz dress like that? Why do Barbies have such huge breasts?

Here’s my problem. Here’s what I want to know: why must my nine year old niece wear a bikini? Why is she asking to shave her legs already? Why do her skirts keep getting shorter and shorter? Why do all her favorite songs (sold on kids CD’s) all seem to have sexual overtones? She doesn’t understand these things yet. But she will soon and someone stands to make a killing on her sexually dependant subconscious.

It kills me to think my niece might one day view her own value through her sex appeal. Consider Victoria’s Secret. Why make sexy ads for women, unless the ad is designed to stimulate a woman’s perceived value as seen sexually by men? It kills me to think one day my nephew may be a man helping to drive women in that direction through his own sexual perceptions and standards.

It isn’t about ruining children, it’s about making money and there’s tons of money in sex. So that’s the question. How do you protect a child from a system and industry that begins with Kidz Bop and ends with the Pussycat Dolls? That begins with the Disney Channel and ends with pornography? How do you protect children without sheltering them from the realities of the world? How do you help make them wise, discerning, self-respecting, God fearing?

I have no idea. I’m not sure anyone does.

Two years ago, my friend Dave moved into my parent’s house. Some complications with school and complications with home made moving in a pretty good idea. And, since my parent’s have always been generous and inviting folks, Dave stayed for free.

Several months ago, Dave joined the Navy. That means his stay is coming to an and and, for a while at least, we’ll have to say goodbye.

Dave is also an active member of a Trinity Community Church, which is not too far away. While he’s only been there a little under a year, he’s developed strong relationships, he’s a youth leader and it shows.

Which brings me to my point:

Tonight I was taken back by the response of his church at the opportunity to send Dave off. Nearly 40 people showed up, on last minute notice, from Dave’s church. Their affection and friendship, I feel, is a model of how the church ought to look. I was encouraged, and I think Dave was as well.

Without question, Dave will be dearly missed while he’s away.

This is a freebie for you youth leaders preparing this week’s youth group talk.

Tonight, I walked into my roommate’s room to find him taking a freshly purchased military cot out of a shipping box. He frequently has friend’s spend the night and the hardwood floors are less than inviting.

So, we unfolded the cot and stretched the canvas bed surface over to one end and snapped it on. Then, on the other end, the mat wrapped around a bar which was supposed to be snapped onto to the two end legs, causing the mat to pull taut. Unfortunately, it seemed that the mat was just too small for the cot and no matter what he did he couldn’t get the end bar to snap into place.

Well, being the son of a hyper-inquisitive engineer, I couldn’t keep myself away from the action.

We tried to double team the mechanism. No luck. We tried leverage. No luck. We tried one person pushing the base of the cot, while the other pulled the end bar. No luck. Finally, we got the bar into position on the end of the cot, but not snapped in. There was so much tension in the mat that almost any movement at all would cause the end bar to snap against the base like a mouse trap. In fact, it did. Twice. Both times only barely sparing my room mate’s fingers.

Well, after several dangerous attempts to force this stubborn mechanism into place we gave up and settled for sort of a makeshift solution.

“What! What is this!?” It was just then that my roommate picked up the carrying case for the cot. On it was picture of the cot. Several pictures actually. Namely one giving detailed note to the velcro mat adjuster we’d failed to notice. We adjusted the velcro and the mat slipped on no problem.

So, I said this was going to be a freebie for you youth leaders and I wasn’t being totally honest. It’s either a really crappy youth group talk, or else your going to have to figure out the spiritual application on your own. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go nurse my injured pride.

So, here’s a little bit of back story.

My folks have never been on the hard edge of technology. That’s not a shot at them, they’re just not early adopters. So, growing up we weren’t a family with camcorders and stuff. But regardless of that, my folks still did a good job of capturing some of the animation of me and my sister’s childhood.

One of those techniques was to take a little Radio Shack tape recorder and microphone and record us talking to each other, or talking to them. There are dozens of tapes in my father’s stash with little clips of our weird adolescent voices. Currently, he’s going through and digitizing all those tapes for easier reference.

Tonight, he dropped one such file on my desk and I couldn’t help but share.

This is about four minutes of a conversation from 1988 between me and my father about various things. Let me tell you though, for a three year old, I say “microphone” quite well.

Click here to listen!

My family is one of running jokes. We usually have inside jokes/jabs for pretty much every family affair. Most of these jokes were probably born on some level in my great grandfather, but they live on today in my father and undoubtedly, I’m doomed to carry them on myself. One of these jokes arises almost every time my father’s children want to watch a movie on his television. (In our family, he’s the one with the big tv).

Ordinarily, we’ll approach him and say something like, “Hey pop, do you mind if we watch a movie on your television?” His usual response is, “What’dya wanna watch?”, then we’ll almost always respond with something like, “[insert recent Hollywood blockbuster here]” and like clockwork, he’ll retort, “you mean you’re watching a talkie!?” or “agh, you know they haven’t made a good movie since 1951.” Then he’ll wear this subtle grin that us siblings have learned to detect, but would go undetected by the rest of the world. Then of course we’ll know his unspoken answer and we’ll go ahead with the entertainment.

So, being that me and my father rarely agree on what constitutes a “good” movie, I thought perhaps today would be a good day to hear  his top five favorite movies.

So here they are, my father’s top five favorite movies, in no particular order:

It’s a Wonderful Life (1947)

“Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings.” Learning what the world would be like if you’d never been born. Christmas movies at their best. For starters, the movie is in black and white, so it’s clearly got that going for it. In addition to that, it was released in 1947; it’s got all the makings of a great movie. Of course, in addition to that, it actually is a great movie.

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003)

My mother and father love situation comedies; especially romantic comedies. I imagine 30-some years of marriage leaves you with lots of memories with which to connect to character’s humorous circumstances. My dad is also one of the few guys who’s able to enjoy a movie regardless of its genre. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days for example, some might call a chick-flick. But my dad gets kudos for not caring but judging based on whether what he watched was entertaining. This one made the cut.

Chicago (2002)

I’m a sucker for musicals. I think on some level I wish that life really happened in musical format. Dilemma some how increases people’s song-writing copacity. In any case, it seems unlikely that my father shares the same enthusiasm for musicals, but he was a fan of the recent remake of Chicago. A decision I cannot argue too much with. While I wouldn’t put it in a top five list, it’s definitely in a top 50.

Select Dance Sequences from Fred Astaire (1933-1968)

Don’t know who Fred Astaire is? My father would probably cringe to know that. Well, to tell you the truth, I only barely know myself. So some research goes to show that he was a theater performer, dancer, actor, dancing actor, etc. back sometime around the stone ages. Just kidding. He was in musicals from 1933 to 1968 and is well known for his spectacular dancing. "He is generally acknowledged to have been the most influential dancer in the history of film and television musicals," according to Wikipedia and his long list of involvements adds credibility to the claim. If he is responsible for what I love today in film musicals, then thank you Mr. Astaire.

Top Gun (1986)

In my family, there’s been a long standing pursuit of more gratifying ways to watch the opening ten-minutes of Top Gun. My dad likes the jets and sequences of take-offs and landings to the song Danger Zone. Usually when the opportunity to watch it on a large screen, with a loud stereo arises, there’s little or no hesitation. Unfortunately, with a 50-some inch screen, it gets harder to impress the guy. I suppose that it’s time to move up to a 65-inch.

So there you have it. My father’s top-5 favorite movies. So I know my dad’s favorites. Do you know yours?

In anticipation of the upcoming Indiana Jones movie this May, my family decided to watch one movie of the trilogy each month, for the next three months, obviously coming to a climax in may with the fourth installment. So today, we ordered some pizza and sat down as a family to enjoy the first movie of the trilogy: Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark.

I won’t try to pull anything particularly spiritual out of the movie, although I’m sure that it could be found; I think I’d probably be forcing something. One little thing I would like to note about the movie is the obvious spiritual implications of archeologists finding the Ark of the Covenant. I haven’t seen the movie in about eight or nine years and this is definitely the first time having seen the movie as a Christian. And something I never noticed before was that, while it treated the Ark as something superstitious, in the end it ended up having an immense amount of power attached to it. The impression at the end is clearly something like, “don’t mess with God.”

Obviously “don’t mess with God” is a very incomplete picture but it is certainly a part of the picture and it’s rare to see that at all acknowledged in any kind of media.

I am also thankful to God for the chance to spend time as family. I am especially privileged to continue to do so as our family has grown older and we have all become adults.

            Don’t worry, I won’t bore you with twelve full posts about Christmas; in fact this is probably the last one for another 364-ish days.

            As I shared a few days ago, gift giving is not a huge deal in my family. We select names out of a hat and buy gifts only for the person whose name we drew. When buying for that person there is a fifty dollar limit that cannot be exceeded (at least not without getting a bunch of grief from the family). This year, I selected my mother and my father selected me. Here’s a run down, for all of your anxious to know what I got:

1.) Badly needed camera bag, large enough to hold my gear and comfortable enough to wear on my back for an extended period of time.

2.) Small square table to set next to my chair so that I can read and drink coffee/tea more comfortably.

(What can I say, I really like reading)

3.) Citrus zester; Santa overheard me complaining about using a cheese grater to zest a lemon the other day.

4.) A replacement lens cap for one of my poor lenses who’s UV filter is taking a heck of a beating.

            So this Christmas, I got pretty much everything I needed and asked for and abundantly more than I deserved when I consider the Life that we celebrate on this day.

Christmas Eve and Christmas are two dates out of the year where the Petruzzo family gets together for some serious tradition. Which frankly, is kind of weird. Most other times there’s really not too much tradition involved in my family. But tonight and tomorrow night are among the exceptions.

Tonight, Christmas Eve, we share a simple dinner passed down through my father’s family. It came from the tradition of meat abstinence before Christmas. Originally, my father’s family would have plain olive oil pasta and seven kinds of seafood (I can’t say for certain what they were, although I know eel was in there somewhere). After my oldest sister was born the meal became simpler; only green salad, olive oil and bread crumb pasta, and shrimp. Over the years the simple Christmas Eve meal elaborated itself in other ways. Today we usually share the meal with a small army of people who enjoy a few hours of each other’s company and the free beer.

Tomorrow will be a smaller affair, although no less tradition involved. Joining us will be our family’s closer friends. We’ll eat homemade cheese ravioli with my grandmother’s homemade meat sauce, escarole soup and a salad dressed with my father’s recipe. In our family, it is this meal that is the most coveted. We look foreword to eating the ravioli all year long and when it finally comes we usually stuff ourselves stupid.

Of course, in the end it’s always the conversations and the relationships that are remembered and it’s the tradition we hold that they ride in and out on every year. So, I guess tonight, more than anything, I would simply like to thank God for a season in the year that gives families reasons to gather around each other. Thank you Jesus.