Well nothing much at all happened today. I had plans to see the Skatalites who were on the bill at Summerstage with Taj Mahal and Los Pinguos. I know who Taj Mahal is but I’ve never heard of Los Pinguos before, and it doesn’t seem likely that I will be seeing them today either.

Thunderstorms blocked my path today. No bike ride like yesterday, no bus ride into the city either. That was the plan, ride into the city and walk up and see what was going on.

Now I’ve been inside all day watching Shark Week on the Discovery channel. I’ve never watched it before and I’ve just been listening to it rather than watching it. Sure a good scream will get my attention, but more often than not my eyes are occupied with something.

I only really think about sharks when I’m at the beach in the ocean. I could be floating there trying to relax and suddenly the thought of a shark will pop into my head, courtesy of Senor Spielbergo. I saw Jaws in 1975 like everyone else.

I believe I went with my brother Brian on a Friday night that summer at the Hi Way Theater in Fair Lawn. The line was around the block and this was when theaters were mainly one big auditorium rather than it is now, several closets in one theater showing on a much smaller screen.

The movie scared the shit out of 12 year old me. Even the music was terrifying. It was Jaws everywhere that summer, on the radio with the novelty hit Mr. Jaws by Dickie Goodman, the book was on the top of the best seller charts, it was on the covers of magazines and the phenomenon was written up in all the papers.

With the kids in my neighborhood, with the ones that had pools where we would play ‘Jaws’ in the pool, thrashing about as if being attacked by a Great White Shark. Who gets to attack the raft first and who gets to be the shark, or worse yet, sharks?

Jaws was I guess the first blockbuster paving the way for the multi-million spectacles that people line up to see today. After Jaws came Star Wars, which I saw six times in the Stanley Warner Theater on Route 4 in Paramus.

I also saw Jaws 2 and maybe even Jaws 3-D. That was enough for me. By the time of Jaws 2, I knew how dumb things were getting by the time the shark ate the helicopter. Yeah, we knew it was dumb with the late Roy Schneider taunting ‘C’mon you bastard!’ towards the Great White to come at him while holding a insulated cable wide enough for the shark to electrocute itself.

With a flash of fire and sparks it was over for me and the movie. The 3-D gimmick is what got me in the final time. That fall coming back to school, I remember talking to my friends in the schoolyard, and saying that I thought Jaws was really scary. My friends called me a pussy for being scared and I never brought it up again until now.