It’s crazy when you think about how much the world has changed in such a short time. When I was born, way back in 1976, there were barely even home computers. There were no mobile phones. Now we carry phones in our pockets with more processing power than the supercomputers of the ’70s.
Louis C.K. says it best:
Thirty-four years ago today, I was born. Today, I thought it might be fun if we talked about things that shaped us. Movies, books, music… It’s all fair game. I’ll start:
Sherlock Holmes
I learned to read on classics. Treasure Island, Oliver Twist, Robinson Crusoe, etc. But none of them grabbed me like Doyle’s stories of Sherlock Holmes.
Brains over brawn appealed heavily to me, since I was tiny and easily bullied. I mean really, I was tiny. I wore a size 2-toddler shirt until 8th grade. But beyond Holmes’ combustible wit and deductive skills, he could hold his own if things came down to a fight. My parents were judo instructors and, thanks to my size, I was a perfect fulcrum. Things rarely got that far, but when they did, I usually got out of it pretty clean.
I had a friend, named Kevin, who was also a huge fan of Holmes. He was a husky boy, muscular in the vague way school bullies generally are. But he was my friend, not a bully. Of course, he fancied himself Holmes, and me Watson, but whatever.
We used to watch Mystery! on PBS every week, he in his room, me in mine, tethered together by the telephone line. Of course, we’d both read all the stories, but Jeremy Brett’s Holmes was perfection. We talked about the changes we noticed between the story and the show. Kevin wasn’t my only friend. He wasn’t even my best friend. But he was the only one I could share Sherlock Holmes with.
I even wrote horrible stories about Holmes’ descendent and his assistant, Chip Watson. I’ll get back to him, but it’s my birthday, so I’m going to cut this short.
What about you? What shaped you?