Brothers.

It’s tougher to recognize my frat brothers these days, when they no longer reek of Axe body spray. 

But I still love hanging with them, and I did last night — a very snowy night in Bethesda. Getting together with them is the best – it’s like having 42 big brothers you want to follow around all night. 

Few things get me out of bed at 2:45 a.m., but catching a plane to see them did. An obscenely early wakeup time is henceforth the measure of happiness.

I’m Taking A Plane. Then A Train.

If you’d like to avoid getting invited to reunions, ask all your old friends for money.

Or attend the ones featuring successful dudes. I’m heading to DC today so I can attend a reunion dinner with my frat brothers. Then tomorrow, I’m going to visit my old campus at the University of Maryland, then hop on an Amtrak and go to New York for a couple days.

Seeing my frat brothers, the school I loved, and my mom are a few of my favorite things, but I’m really looking forward to the train ride. I always love reenacting the “Papers, Jew” scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Grumpy conductors forewarned.

#10yearchallenge

MY NEPHEW: Were scorpions around when there were dinosaurs?
ME: You mean like the band?

We’ve come a long way in ten years. In fact, ten years ago today, I found out the featurette I wrote, produced, and starred in, got into its fifth film festival. (You can read about it here.) Little did I know it would get into 40 more festivals, and the director, Ted Melfi, would go on to direct St. Vincent and Hidden Figures. It’s been a pretty nifty decade.

His First Credit.

I wonder if those people who stand outside “The Today Show” waving at themselves in the camera wave at themselves in their mirrors at home.

Or I could ask my nephew, who became one of those people during a Los Angeles Kings’ post-game broadcast.

I kid because he can take it. And he’s a photogenic young man.

I’d Like To Thank The Union.

I deserve an Academy Award for the way I searched the fridge yesterday with my nephew for his leftover quesadilla that I definitely ate.

That kinda qualifies me to vote for my fellow actors for the SAG Awards. It’s one of my favorite times of the year, and the screeners are arriving like crazy – including a beautifully-packaged season two of “The Handmaid’s Tale”.

Even better are the movies. The year always ends in a flurry of films, and there are several very good ones. When I get through them, I’ll compile a good list of the ones everyone must see. I’m a giver that way. Ask my nephew.

We All Wish We’d Invented This.

I like shirts with fancy cuffs (a horrendous Sir Mix-A-Lot song), but spend too much of my days tending to said cuffs, which get unruly.

The cumulative years I’ve spent pushing my sleeves up is sickening. Then my friend TJ was kind enough to turn me on (I believe the phrase was “You’re not getting a Christmas gift from me, but if you were…”) to CuffUps, a simple yet revolutionary contraption that help keep your sleeves turned up.

They took an elastic strap, put a button on one end and a button hole on the other, offer in over 20 different colors and stripes, and charge 20 bucks per pair. WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THIS FIRST.

And now I’m giving them a free plug. Eh, worth it. I love them.

Matt’s Book Club.

I’m only 30 pages into Sarah Silverman’s book, but with chapters like “Summer Camp: the Second Worst Kind of Camp for Jews”, it promises to be good.

I tend to choose books about show business, and I’ve read quite a few good ones lately. Here are some I highly recommend:

• A Life in Parts, Bryan Cranston’s autobiography 
• Nevertheless, Alec Baldwin’s autobiography 
• Tony and Me: A Story of Friends, by Jack Klugman 
• Stories I Only Tell My Friends, by Rob Lowe 
• The Third Door, by Alex Banayan – not a showbiz book per se, but super inspirational 
• Yes Please, by Amy Poehler. – one of my favorite books of all time. 

So have at it. It’s time we all read something longer than a two-sentence text. Meet back here to discuss.