Chunk Knows

It's a cliche, but it's true.

Getting mail and messages and phone calls as such as a kid was a lot of fun. Each was an event tied with excitement and mystery.

Getting such things today:

Today's was from the insurance company. Keep bracing for a rate hike. But it was just the insurance card for our youngest's new truck. Expect the worst, hope for the best I guess.

Brainstorming vs. Writing in Chunks

NOTE: A post for my English 101 students. But I liked it so much I'm going to share it here too.

So this week we're using two terms that are often confused: Brainstorming and writing in chunks.

Most of us are probably more familiar with brainstorming: Sitting there quietly (or loudly, per your individual preference) coming up with quick bursts of ideas. Whether you type them out on a computer keyboard or scribble them on paper, your typical brainstorming session probably goes something like this, but maybe with less shouting and fewer sideburns:

Brainstorming is where you quickly throw out on paper or on your screen as many ideas as you can think of. They don't have to be fully developed, but they should be specific.

If I were brainstorming ideas for what I'd write my personal essay about, my brainstorming session might come up with the following ideas:

1. When I heard the spirit shout "stop" when I was in the crosswalk

2. What was going through my mind as I watched my first child be born

3. How I felt in those first few moments after my firs auto accident (I still remember that ugly, ugly shirt I was wearing)

4. That day I passed out in the temple parking lot

And so on. You can see I'm not really offering a lot of detail, but I am being as specific as I can. Why be specific? Because if I brainstormed like this:

1. A mission experience

2. My first year at the University of Idaho

3. Getting married

the topics I've picked are so general when I sit down to write the essay, I have no idea where to start, where to end, and will probably come up with a pretty watery essay at the end. The more specific you are, the easier this assignment will be.

Now, let's move on to writing in chunks. And who better to teach us what writing in chunks looks like than Chunk from "The Goonies"

Chunk starts out brainstorming, but brainstorming well. He lists off a rapid-fire list of things he's done (any of which might make a fun personal essay). But when he gets to that incident in the movie theater, he starts writing in chunks. He offers more detail on one idea. It's not a good idea, but he can see the guys are warming to it.

So if I were writing in chunks as I was working on ideas for my personal essay, it might look like this:

I was headed home from the LDS Institute on campus late one night and when I was in a crosswalk on campus, I heard a voice shout "stop!" I stopped and immediately felt something brush the front of my jacket -- it was a car that had been stopped on the side of the road as I entered the crosswalk, but was suddenly there, running the stop sign, as I crossed.

Or

When I got out of the car, I felt all the blood rushing from my head. I figured I'd be okay after a few steps, but blood pressure medicine works in mysterious ways. I took two steps, then told my son "get ready to catch." He didn't catch me.

As I write in chunks, I begin to flesh out ideas from that brainstorming session. As I write, I remember more details, and I jot them down.

Brainstorming is like the spark plug in your engine that gets things started.

Writing in chunks is like shifting through the gears, getting faster and faster as you accelerate up the freeway.

Please try both experiences this week. Brainstorming starts you on the road. Writing in chunks lets you see which of those brainstormed ideas has the most memories attached to it, the most vivid imagery, and helps you get down that road. Try them both and grow some ideas in the garden of your mind.

The Fratelli Chase

I just have to do this.

First, this Fratelli Chase

I understand that the official movie soundtrack was released this year to commemorate the 25th anniversary of "The Goonies," but at $32.00 a pop, I guess I'm not that excited to own one of the 5,000 copies. This will suffice. And it also solves a mystery, as I didn't realize until today the Dave Grusin, who wrote this piece, also wrote the score to "Bonfire of the Vanities," which used the Fratelli music in some promos, much to my chagrin.

Then this one:

Finally, this one:

Life gives us so much to look forward to.

Goonies Never Say Die

Most of the catchphrases I use come from two movies.

The first is Ghostbusters. The second, well, let’s see if you recognize them:

Something goes terribly wrong and I’ve discovered the evidence. I say: “It is Chester Copperpot.”

One of my kids has wandered off, but I can see a trail that might lead me to them: “Follow them Size Fives.”

A child o’ mine has to go to the bathroom in a place that’s less than sanitary: “This isn’t the kinda place you wanna go to the bathroom. Because there might be daddy longlegs . . . and DEAD THINGS, Mikey! KILLER dead things!”

Someone’s having trouble getting something, anything, to open: “Let go of the handle, Francis!”

Mom wants the kids to do something they’re reluctant to do: “Trust your Mother, boys! Throw ‘er into four-wheel drive!”

Any helpless, innocent person is instantly named Missus Rosalita.

Every time I encounter a dead bird in the yard or a dead mouse in a trap: “IT’S A STIFF!”

And, finally, I’m caught doing something stupid: “Oh shit, what?”

You Goonies understood. Immediately. Even before I mentioned Chester Copperpot. Because the best catchphrase is in the blog post title – which I use whenever I’m asked to do something difficult that I don’t want to do.

Last year, I got to go to Goonie Astoria (and nearby Cannon Beach) before the hysteria of the 25th anniversary of the film’s release hit the town this year and swelled its population far beyond its ordinary 10,000. I found Mikey’s house and saw where Chunk performed the Truffle Shuffle.

I saw Chunk’s bowling alley. I walked on the pier where Steph went bobbing for crabs. I saw Mikey’s Dad’s museum, the County Jail, and other Goonie landmarks as I took my family on our own Goonie adventure through northwest Oregon.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/06/AR2010060603590.html

The most heartbreaking thing I learned as I read about the film’s 25th anniversary: This from the Washington Post:

According to Sean Astin, who played Goonies leader "Mikey" Walsh, he was allowed to keep the treasure map used in the film. Several years later his mother discovered it, thought it was just a crinkled piece of paper, and threw it in the trash.

It hurts just thinking about that.

But I’ll tell you what doesn’t hurt: My wife’s a Goonie, though of the Andy variety (real Goonies will know what I mean). I’m so glad she is. My kids are Goonies, because, hey, what kid wouldn’t want to be?

I can easily see my kids doing this same thing. Riding off, getting into trouble, manufacturing and using fake puke, then expecting a Domino’s pizza after it’s all over. Especially my five-year-old. He’s dangerous.

I have my sister Chris to thank for turning me into a Goonie. She saw the film in the theater and insisted the rest of the family had to see it. We didn’t believe her. Later, when it was out on video, she rented it and made us watch it. Now, almost every time we see each other, well, you know:

You GOONIE!

Mikey's House!

What better way to spend the best part of a day touring northwestern Oregon than tooling around Astoria, Oregon, and taking in all the sights from The Goonies, one of the best cult films to come out of the 1980s? I can't think of anything better, so I wrote about my tour at Uncharted.net. Enjoy.

Goonies Astoria

I got to see Mikey's House.

And Data's. And the museum. And the county jail. Also saw Haystack Rock and the store where Chunk is eating his pizza as the police chase zooms through town. I saw Astoria High School and Andy's field. I also got to walk the same beaches where they had that really neat ORV rally. Didn't see any with bullet holes.

Yes, I did a Goonies Tour while in northwestern Oregon.

I've long been a fan of Chris Columbus/Stephen Spielberg's sleeper hit from the early 1980s. My sister Chris saw the movie at the theater, and introduced it to us not long after that newfangled thing called the VCR came to Idaho Falls. I watched the movie a lot, and empathized with Chunk, the fat kid who wants to be part of the group but is only marginally included because of the comic value. If I were part of the Goonies, a band of kids who decide to go after some "rich stuff" -- hidden pirate treasure -- I'd be the fat kid doing the Truffle Shuffle.

So when we went through Astoria, I made sure to make it a Goonies Day.

The kids were very excited when I told them we were going to see a house in a movie. They're not even Goonies fans yet. I've tried, but the film is just a bit too scary for them. They were disappointed we couldn't go into the house. That's just how it is, I said. But we took lots of pictures, none of which I have downloaded yet because that's how this weekend has gone.

I really wanted to go into the jail. Too bad it's closed to the public. I had no idea when the movie was filmed that the old jail wasn't being used any more. Just assumed it was. And it's a lot smaller than it looks in the movie.

Astoria wears its Goonie history proudly. The Goonie House appears on tourist maps. The jail itself bears a paper placard declaring its use in the film, and outlining other films made in the area. As if anyone cares about the others.

Astoria, by the way, is a fun town. We had lunch there at the Pig n Pancake, part of a local chain of eateries, right in the shadow of the bridge Chunk could see if he weren't busy watching the bullets fly. What fun that was.

Did not get into Ecola State Park. Really, really wanted to, but the rest of the family said they'd seen enough trees. But the whole way through Astoria, I kept on saying: "You said, you said when I got to the top of this big hill, you said you'd give me a Twinkie." I didn't get one either, Chunk.

I wonder if John Jacob Astor, the rich stuff financier for whom the town is named, likes the fact that for a small portion of the American population, his town has a more meaningful cultural connection to a bunch of kids, a guy named Sloth, the Fratellis and One-Eyed Willy than to him. I wonder if I really care all that much.