It can be said that the five greatest influences on who I am as a person are my mother, my father, my sister, Gene Siskel, and Roger Ebert.

I discovered Siskel and Ebert as a kid, growing up in Chicago, from their television show, which at that time was still called “Sneak Previews”, if memory serves. Since at that point I really had no idea what life was about and where I was going to end up, I just took them as most people did – the fat guy and the old guy who reviewed movies on TV. I didn't know they were from Chicago (like me), that Roger went to the University of Illinois (like I would), or that one day I would grow to love movies as much as they did. At that point, I just liked listening to them talk, as much as I liked listening to my father talk, and as much as I love listening to smart people talk to this day. I didn't know that the vast majority of the American public don't like listening to smart people talk, or smart people in general, and that one day they would dislike me for being smart and talkative too. I just knew that he and Gene Siskel talked about movies on TV.

But I kept watching. Off and on at first, but by the time I was a teenager, I knew exactly when it was on (Sundays at 6:30p on ABC), and listening to those two smart guys talk taught me two things: 1) that I really loved the movies, and that 2) I wanted to move to California to make movies that they might talk about.

Now obviously, I never achieved the second one, though I write this from California now, in a room full of my crap that's being put in storage so I can return to Chicago briefly and then work my butt off to get back here. But the first one never went away, and I've been talking about movies ever since. And as soon as the Internet gave me the ability to, I started reviewing them as well (just like he did). Nobody paid me to, but then, nobody paid me to write anything until I was much older. And while I never reached the heights that Roger Ebert did, I found that by emulating him, and writing about the movies that I saw, I began to enjoy them more and more. And I understood why he did what he did.

See, anybody can like anything. I had a discussion with one of my best friends about music a week ago, in which he declared that most people just like the songs they like or listen to the albums they listen to just because. That there's no explanation, and they're not looking for one either. I can't say there's anything wrong with that. But once I started writing about the movies I saw, first as a student at Roger Ebert's University of Illinois at Urbana-Champain, and then later in my own movie blog, I found that by having to articulate /why/ I liked something, I got much more out of it. I really saw how all of the pieces worked together. I better appreciated how much hard work the people making movies put into them – as much work as I put into writing anything, as much as Michael Jordan put into becoming the greatest basketball player ever; as much as Michael Jackson (another hero of mine) put into being the biggest pop star of all time. Making movies, like doing any creative endeavor, is really hard work, but if you take the time to understand and appreciate that work, and try to figure out where it came from, you get so much more out of it. And if you're lucky, you can do it too.

I would never have won a trip to Washington DC for writing an essay when I was a teenager if I didn't listen to Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel talk about stuff. Never. Why? Because I wouldn't have believed that my opinion counted for anything. I never would have gotten letters printed in comic books, sold a comic book story that got published, written articles for magazines, worked for, or even knew or cared who Jim Cameron was if not for Roger Ebert. I wouldn't have a credit on a television show. I wouldn't have graduated with honors from Undergrad. None of the achievements that I am proudest of would have happened if Roger Ebert hadn't taught me that you can have an opinion on something, express it well, and people will care. Do they always? No. Count how many people hated Siskel and Ebert. But enough of them do to make those of us who learn the lesson feel good enough about ourselves to try to express how we feel about the things we care about. And sometimes, it even has a good result.

And it's not just me that Roger affected. My sister is a killer critic too, and a much better writer than I am. She is very successful at her job that has allowed her to travel the world on the government's dime, and make a lot of money. She got there because her first job was writing grant proposals for a not-for- profit, or as she put it, “writing a letter so well that people will just give you money.” Would she have done any of that if she and I weren't constantly talking about things the way Siskel a Ebert talked about them? And would we have talked about them at all without Roger Ebert?

To say I will miss Roger Ebert doesn't even begin to define it. I was constantly pushing him on Twitter to find a way to bring his last show (“Ebert Presents At The Movies” on PBS) back, giving him suggestions on ways he could get it done, feeling confident that he might listen because he taught me that my opinion, or the opinion of any smart person, mattered. Fuck the haters. If you feel strongly about something, say it. Because the more you do, the more people might listen. It takes discretion, it takes practice, but at the end of the day, it matters because you do. And it might change people's minds eventually too.

Good-bye Roger. You affected more people in more ways than you can possibly ever know. I will never forget you.