might i suggest a bucket for that list?

Hollywood has much to answer for.  At least it does when you listen to people with an ideological bone to pick.

Fundamentalists attack what they see as a glorification of sex and loose morals.  Anti-consumerism advocates decry the proliferation of product placement.  And given the thin skins of virtually everyone these days, you can be assured that someone is going to be distressed by any film of any type, particularly if it spawns some type of cultural phenomena.

So now it's my turn.

I would like to take issue with the producers of the morgan freeman/jack nicholson movie "the bucket list".

Why?  Because on top of all the considerations that make the 50-ish single man "dateable", apparently you can now add sharing a long list of suitable and compatible "dream-do's" to that already, daunting menu.

Courtesy of that damn movie. 

Now you would think that a film centred on two old farts traipsing around the world filling what time they have left with adventures that complete their lives would ultimately be seen as a "buddy" flick...a predominantly male kind of thing.

But no, its success was based on a more universal appeal as goes the idea of seeing the world and living life well beyond the edge of mundane.

Which is why the film found an audience among people of all ages and particularly, if on-line dating profiles are any indication, among women.  The term "bucket list" literally leaped into the vernacular courtesy of that impact.

And to not have one?

Well that would be the very definition of the shallow and unconsidered life.

Now I was aware while still married that the bucket list phenomena had garnered serious traction, but I was not much bothered by my own failure to walk around with an inspiring pail full of my own must do's.  In fact most of my male friends of a certain age were also relatively bereft of a full load of aspirational check offs.

Which is not to say that when asked I could not come up with a couple of things I would like to do or places I would like to see.  But given that Pete Townsend was unlikely to ask me to sub in on bass on the next who tour and that I had already met Alice Cooper, it was a pretty mundane list.

"Hmm", I would say to the spouse emeritus when asked, "I suppose I would like to spend a few days in Vegas with the guys, or maybe visit Switzerland again".

"You do Vegas every few years...and you grew up in Switzerland" the lovely emeritus would say, "Isn't there something bigger you'd like to do?  Something you haven't done before?

"Well, I'd like to play the Air Canada Centre with my band."

"No..something that might actually happen".

"Go for szechuan on spadina tonight?"

"I give up".

Looking back, my failure to embrace the notion of the bucket list was probably one of the last of the many nails in the coffin as went our future viability as a couple.  And while I take full responsibility for hammering in most of them, I blame hollywood for that one in particular.

And the bucket list continues to niggle as I peruse profiles in anticipation of entering the dating world.  For a man whose last serious thought about fanciful things I must do before I die included "being a beatle or an astronaut" this is daunting stuff.

But apparently absolutely necessary.

Hmmm....I wonder if mentioning that I am currently "exploring what to put in my bucket  list" will do for now?