Emerging from guy-dom

I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that.

There aren't many advantages to being in your late 30's nowadays. Sometimes I feel like I am staring at a map at an amusement park — YOU ARE HERE — while many of my peers are in vastly different places. Some have kids who are nearly grown, some are just now starting families, some are successful, some are not, and some, like myself, are in a state of limbo. It's as if we didn't get the memo that the race was starting.

When you're an adult, you make do on your own. There is no "No Child Left Behind" because we are no longer children. In high school, we all rounded the racetrack together. Sure, there were competitions. Some excelled in class, some took part in clubs and activities, some just got by. But we all moved on together, and we all graduated together. Then the gun sounded, and everyone took off on their own.

So forgive me if I look back fondly at those days. For those of us who grew up during that time, we were lucky to have at least one man in our corner ... John Hughes. A kid of the suburbs, Hughes was the first to give voice to our generation in a way that no other filmmaker had before or since. I was 14 when "Sixteen Candles" came out. A year later came "The Breakfast Club" and "Weird Science." After that was "Pretty In Pink" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." By the time I was in college, Hughes had moved on to "Home Alone" territory. It's as if he wrote high school movies just for me and my friends.

John Hughes films were great because they were a combination of the school life we were experiencing and a dream of what school life could be. A child of the suburbs, he realized that teenagers are smarter than anyone gives them credit to be, and no one had given them a voice before. And every voice was represented. Sure, the nerds were a little too nerdy, and the jocks were a little too dumb. At a time when we were trying to figure out who we were and where we fit in, it was nice to know that our hopes and dreams were visualized with such sincere laughter and tears as they were in a Hughes film.

It doesn't even matter that "Sixteen Candles" or "Pretty In Pink" are essentially chick flicks. It doesn't make a difference that no matter how much you tried, you could never actually create a woman using a Commodore 64. And although we all skipped class, we wish we could have done it with the panache of a Ferris Bueller. The one 2-hour stint I spent in detention (for not being able to skip class like Ferris) was nothing like "The Breakfast Club." I will admit that repeated viewings of "Ferris Bueller" helped me remember what the Laffer Curve was in a college economics class. Anyone? Anyone?

The wonderful thing about these films (and the awesome, one-hit wonderness of their new wave soundtracks, available only at White Dog Music or Hot Dog at Indian Mall ... am I right?) is that despite the fact that they are creeping toward being 30 years old, I am fairly certain that today's teenagers can still relate. I don't think any of my generation can sit and watch "Blackboard Jungle" or even "Rebel Without A Cause" and think that those films spoke for us. Hughes movies are very much of their time and timeless all at once.

I was lucky enough to have great upbringing, and it may be my one quibble with Hughes' teen angst movies. At times, adults are seen as the enemy. The principal in "Ferris Bueller" is a buffoon while the parents are clueless. In "Sixteen Candles" they are self-absorbed. In "The Breakfast Club" they are cruel. In "Pretty In Pink" they are irresponsible. But maybe that's the way a lot of kids felt. Putting the teens at the center of these films showed that they had legitimate feelings and thoughts. Making them the heroes was only natural. Adults had their own movies.

Hughes spawned a number of copycat films with varying degrees of success. "Can't Buy Me Love" introduced us to some guy that my "Grey's Anatomy" friends refer to as McDreamy. It also perfected the use of the slow clap building to universal cheers. I've tried it several times to no avail. "Risky Business" was just a tease, giving high school boys the fantasy that they could run a brothel out of their parents' house and use the business model to get into an Ivy League school. Trust me, that doesn't work. "The Outsiders" made us secretly wish to be poor. "Heathers" fulfilled our killing-people-we-hate fantasies. "Footloose" made us appreciate those Methodist Church dances.

And yet, even as these films helped to define us as a generation and make us look a little cooler than we actually were, it wasn't any film by John Hughes that stuck with me over the past 20 years the way another teen film did.

"Say Anything ..." was written and directed by Cameron Crowe. It was his only real foray into the high school experience, even though the first scene takes place at graduation. It bypassed the cuteness and stereotypes that Hughes leaned on and created several real characters as well as unconventional families with real problems. The unobtainable Dianne Court was not the most popular girl in school. Her father was a bit controlling but had genuine love and respect for his daughter. Lloyd Dobler was smart and funny ... and he had no clue what to do when that racing gun finally went off.

Sure, it has that stalker-ific scene when Lloyd blasts "In Your Eyes" outside Dianne's window. I am not sure how many copycats got themselves arrested by angry parents after that. But there was a sincerity there. Lloyd wasn't exactly a slacker. He was just unapologetically unsure of the future. For those of us in his shoes, it was a relief.

Two decades later, some people have it figured out (or so we think). Many of us are still in our Dobler moment. Some of us have been up the hill and been knocked back down in the valley. We are having to start the race again, whether it be in out professional or personal lives. But it doesn't matter what age you are, the lessons of Lloyd still linger.

The world is full of guys. Be a man.

With everything I learned from John Hughes and his legion of Shermer, Illinois brat packers, It was that one line from Crowe that I recite every morning now. Do I wish I could go back and try to run the race again? Sometimes. But that's what a guy would want. Not a man.

Be a man.