Sunday, November 22, 2009

Time's a-wastin', Loweezy!


Watching "The Bucket List" was not one of the items on my own bucket list, but it's what I found myself doing the other night.

While pawing through the massive inventory of used DVDs at Amoeba on Thursday evening, I spotted Rob Reiner's 2007 film in a bin of blowout DVDs. I passed up on seeing "The Bucket List" when it played in theaters because the trailers made the film look pretty schmaltzy. I prefer movies to go easy on schmaltz; for that reason I rank "Death to Smoochy" higher in Robin Williams' canon than "Dead Poet's Society."

But the subject matter of "The Bucket List" made the film more relevant to me now than it was two years ago. Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson, both cancer patients sharing a room in a hospital owned by Nicholson, both get news from their doctors that they have six months to a year to live. So they compose a list of things that they want to do before they kick the bucket and then spend the rest of the movie doing those things.

Having heard similarly crummy news from my doctor on Wednesday, I wasn't so sure it was a good idea to bring "The Bucket List" home and make it the centerpiece of an evening of entertainment.

In my first attempt to view the film, I didn't get very far. I bailed after Morgan Freeman hears his doctor tell him he has six months to live. I yanked the disc out of the player and medicated on "Everybody Loves Raymond" till I fell asleep on the sofa.

But on Friday, I gave "The Bucket List" another shot.

It does get pretty silly and is completely predictable.

But it got me thinking about coming up with a bucket list of my own. I have no desire to drive a Mustang around a race track, jump out of an airplane at 20,000 feet or see the pyramids, but there are some things I'd like to do before kicking my own personal bucket.

I'm getting a late start, and I don't have a billionaire underwriting my expenses, but that's no reason to not come up with my own list.

And at the top would be "Prolong the amount of time I have before it's time to kick the bucket."

2 comments:

  1. That is my wish also for you. And with all of us pulling together ... we can make it happen. Although I am not a big Journey fan (unless you are talking their first album), Steve Perry sings ... "Don't stop believing". We have to believe and continue to pray that this is a really bad dream and the medication will take care of the cancer in your body!!!

    Be strong ... you are a SERCHIA!

    Love,

    Mike (the brother)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I am so sorry you are going through this. When you are making your bucket list of things you want to do, be sure to make a 2nd list of things you have done throughout your life already that have made such a huge impact on so many others…the AIDS lifecycle events, the Race for the Cure , your dedication to your friends, this blog…this list goes on and on. And so will you. Life needs you. Keep fighting. -Vicki Taravella Mettlach

    ReplyDelete