MISSING THE BOAT

If the sea gives up its dead anytime soon, then we might see a heavy reckoning visited upon James Cameron. After all, its sad enough to have died on the Titanic; dying in "Titanic" unjustifiably adds to the tragedy.

"Titanic," which has been playing a lot on HBO lately, is a movie that just flat-out gets on my nerves, partly because it beat out the far more deserving and far cooler "L.A. Confidential" for Best Picture. But the biggest reason "Titanic" annoys me is because it gave birth to one of the most insipid screen romance ever. As a couple, Jack and Rose gave love a bland name; one could find greater passion between Pepe Le Pew and that cat that kept getting that white stripe down its back. Yet this was supposed to be the disaster movie's human element, its claim on our sympathy that would help us "feel" the full weight of the tragedy.

As such, it was about as effective as a stubbed toe.

My biggest gripe with RoseJack is that so much of it is schoolgirl mirage. It just didn't seem to echo anything of real teen love. For instance, though it's entirely plausible that they had sex in the backseat of a car, it's utterly preposterous to believe that he would pay any attention to her afterward. Likewise, though it's easy to see how a rich girl would fall into a shipboard fling with a poor boy, it beggars belief to imagine that she was also a crypto-progressive who was ready to walk away from a life of unrestricted shopping so she could eat rats in some SoHo slum with her soulful artist.

To see how things could have been better, let's go the the end -- you know, the part where she lets him die (which is entirely believable) and then makes a maudlin speech about how she will "never let go." It would have been better and much truer to real life had it been something like this:

"Look, Jack! There's a boat! Jack ... Jack... huh, well look at you -- dead as a mackerel. Wow, this is a real setback in our relationship, and it comes so soon! And on top of me dumping my fabulously wealthy fiance. Some thanks I get for that! Oh, I know this looks bad for you, too, but think about it -- you were probably going to go nowhere as an artist. I mean, that idea of dogs playing poker was just silly. And you would have just turned into a frustrated old hack with few marketable skills. This way you will live in my heart forever -- or at least until I reach New York (sooo many good-looking guys there!), and my heart will go on. It's a shame we won't get to do the sex thing again, but as Mom says, there are plenty of fish in the sea. Ooops. That was a little insensitive, given your situation. Sorry. But anyway, it's time to go, so farewell, my darling Joe -- I mean Jack -- I will always think of you when I board a doomed ocean liner."

Or the movie could have focused more on Jack's thoughts as the fatal chill crept over him. The film probably would have shown him having his doubts about dying for the sake of a fling, but it might have shown something else. Since Jack and Rose had all that time to talk to one another, it's quite likely that she began to talk about "where their relationship was heading" and her plans for "their future." Most likely, she blathered on about how she looked forward to him getting a steady job (selling insurance or encyclopedias, I'll bet) that could support a brood of Jacks and Roses, and how she was so sure he would be happy giving up his vagabond life -- and the poker games and drinking and womanizing that it encompassed -- for a life with her. And maybe, just maybe, with such a life staring him in the face, Jack would realize he was better off in the deadly water.

Though intentionally fanciful, the ending of "Titanic" could also have been made a little more realistic. The movie implies that Rose -- after a long and happy life that produced children and grandchildren and probably a husband whose last words were "What the hell did she mean when she kept saying, 'Yeah, that was great, honey, but you're no Jack Dawson'? Who the hell is Jack Dawson? Was he the golf pro at the club?" -- is reunited in the afterlife with Jack at the clock amid an adoring throng of Titanic victims. That's sweet, but it's probably a few decks away from where Jack wanted to reunite. So to be fair to Jack, who really got the shaft in this flick, their reunion should have happened in the ship's hold. Jack should have been waiting for her in the back seat of that car, leering and ready to get back to what he thought was the best part of their time together.

Now that's what I call keeping it real.

CHRISTMAS LESSONS

It's during the Christmas season that we most remember the children we used to be. We remember the way we would check our behavior to stay in Santa's good graces, the agonizingly slow run-up to Christmas Eve, the superhuman effort it took to go to sleep that night, and we remember the joy we felt Christmas morning when we fell upon our gifts like wolves going after a lame caribou.

My sister and I couldn't get enough of that Christmas morning joy. So we decided to take it from others, namely the kids next door. We would sneak into their house while everbody was still asleep, then bind and gag the kids and throw them into the closet. We would then disguise ourselves to look like them (that was pretty tough when the Korean family was next door), wake up their parents and race downstairs to open presents. Usually the neighbors were so sleep-fogged that they didn't discover our ruse until we had safely made it out the door with the loot. Ah, those were good times.

Unfortunately, our parents eventually got word of our scam and decided to put an end to it. Such behavior, they told my sister and me, was beneath a Parnell -- especially if the take was less than $10,000. We had lost sight of the true meaning of Christmas, but we were going to get that back, by any means necessary.

True to their word, Mom and Dad made the next Christmas different. On Christmas Eve, they gave my sister and me "magic necklaces." My sister and I tumbled out of bed the next morning and dashed for the presents -- a sprint that came to a sudden halt inches from our objective when we both received an incapacitating jolt of electricity. It seems that the "magic necklaces" were actually Invisible Fence collars. Christmas, our parents told us, was not about presents. Yet we were game little creatures, not to be deterred by hundreds of volts of searing pain or moral lessons. Again and again we lunged for our presents until we at last broke through the barrier. Our greed had outlasted the collars' batteries. Our parents were disappointed but did admit that our perseverance showed grit.

The next year brought a new strategem: Mom and Dad decided to discredit the source of presents, Santa. On Christmas Eve after we were in bed and asleep, my sister and I woke up to a terrible argument in the living room. We ran out to discover our father pointing a pistol at Santa, who we found out years later was one of Dad's portly friends done up in red and ermine and carrying a bag over his shoulder. Dad was shouting at him saying, "So what are you trying to do, fat boy?! You're trying to get to my wife?! Is that it, honey?! How long have you been seeing this piece of @#$%?!" And my sister and I were wailing, "Please don't kill Santa Claus, Daddy! Please don't kill Santa!" But Dad was unmoved by our pleas and told us that Santa was a sleaze trying to break up our happy family, then turned and fired two shots at Santa (blanks, of course). My sister and I were momentarily stunned and horrified, but as soon as Santa had hit the floor, my sister looked at me and said, "You check the bag, and I'll get the toys from the sleigh." Then it was my parents turn to be stunned and horrified.

Eventually, my parents turned to drastic steps, strapping my sister and me into chairs and forcing us to watch "Waltons" reruns for 96 hours straight. Though that failed to completely cure us -- we became greedy for grimey overalls and stick-and-ball toys -- our parents began to see hope. By the next Christmas, we were able to say that maybe -- MAYBE -- Christmas wasn't all about presents.

Our parents, though, had learned a valuable lesson about holidays, the mysterious beings they bring along and their customs. Easter, they decided, would not be like Christmas. And so throughout our childhood every Saturday before Easter, my sister and I were served the same meal: rabbit stew.