It Doesn't Make Me Feel Old, Just Strange

At one point during the Apples to Apples game, a judge chose "Cary Grant" as the winning card for a particular round (I think the Green card said "Handsome", or "Attractive"). One of the other players bluntly asked 'Who's Cary Grant?' I was flabbergasted.

I'm not that old. I'm still in my 20s, and so is this guy, though he's a couple years younger. I'm no Cary Grant aficionado, but I know he was in North By Northwest, and that movie where he's a cat burglar, and if you say his name, I can picture him in my mind. So this guy having no idea who Cary Grant was, I was surprised. More than I should have been, as he wasn't alone. The two guys sitting on either side of him also had never heard of Cary Grant*.

I shouldn't have been surprised, since everyone has some gap when it comes to popular culture knowledge. I couldn't tell you anything about American Idol, any reality TV show, or really, most any show that's still going today, except Burn Notice, NCIS, and Pardon the Interruption. And I'm behind the curve on those nowadays. No doubt, there are people who would be stunned I don't know who {insert name of Idol or Survivor winner} is. So I should have restrained my incredulity.

That was one thing. Later, a couple of the same guys were talking about who the phrase 'I coulda been a contender' originated with. One of them said he thought it was Ali, or some boxer. I piped up that it was Brando is On the Waterfront. They sat there stunned, and one of them asked 'How do you know this stuff?' I shrugged and said something about taking film classes in college, which is true, but that's not how I know the quote is from that movie, or that it was Brando who said it.

What was I supposed to say? Even though I've never watched On the Waterfront, I know the quote's from there, somehow. It's just one of those things I picked up somewhere along the way. Maybe another movie directly referenced it. That's how I learned of the Walter Houston Dance years before I saw Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Billy Crystal did it (and explained what he was doing) in City Slickers 2. I guess people pick up random information all the time, without even realizing it. It does make me feel a little strange, though.

OK, maybe it makes me feel a bit old. I am a little older than these other fellows, after all.

* The three guys are from all across the country, and they'd never met prior to this month, so it isn't as if they were friends who grew up together, and had mostly shared experiences.