From Stomach Punch to Smiling Fortune
How could it have possibly come to this? All these months…just wasted. Fucking NHL. I mean, seriously… How can two sides actually allow something like this to happen? A whole season, gone! No season, no playoffs, no Stanley Cup. What…the…fuck… This was just flat out a punch in the gut. I honestly thought the deal was gonna get done in the wee hours before the deadline. Once I heard the NHLPA caved in and accepted a salary cap, I just knew it was going to happen. So imagine my surprise to hear Gary Bettman be the coroner at his press conference. Outside of Canada and the US Original Six cities (New York, Boston, Detroit, Chicago), I’m probably one of the very few that even gives a shit. That’s the worst part of it all: the apathy of the fans. This is big for me. I mean, what the hell am I going to do with my spring now? For 12 years, it’s been spent watching Stanley Cup playoff hockey. Now all I get is baseball and the NBA? Fuck that. Fuck that with a flag pole. Baseball isn’t interesting until August. The NBA is never interesting. The only hockey I’ll get to watch this season is the tape I have of Game 7 of last year’s Stanley Cup finals. And I’ve already watched that tape once this year.
The only thing that would be worse, sports-wise obviously, would be if the World Cup somehow was canceled. But since that’s only once every four years, I’m tortured enough just getting to the next one. Ah, sports…the bringer of joy and pain.
Now Playing in Dave’s Mental Jukebox: “They” by Jem, “Futures” by Jimmy Eat World, and “Someone” by Earshot
For the longest time now, to watch a movie, any movie, the mood has had to strike me just right. Lately, that mood’s been firing on all cylinders, except that it’s to watch just one movie. Now, this isn’t the first time I’ve had to fight this urge. It has happened quite a few times in the past with movies like Ghost World and Primary Colors. I’ve watched neither movie in a very long time because of burnout. Primary Colors I once watched five times in a week. Probably twenty times in three months. That’ll burn a person out on something. Ghost World I watched probably eight times in two weeks back in college. I’ve probably watched it twice since then. And not at all in probably eighteen months. Lately, however, the movie of choice has been Hero, or Ying Xiong, as it is known in its native Chinese. The movie is simply breathtaking. Very beautiful movie. It’s a martial arts movie, but the fighting isn’t the driving force behind it. It’s the characters and the unfolding of the story. The use of flashbacks and colors is masterful. But I ain’t here to just completely gush about the movie. Obviously, I love it. Problem is, I’ve watched it probably ten times since I’ve had it. I’ve watched things with more frequency in the past, but when I watch this movie, it’s in spurts. Like, twice in three days. I’ve done that a few times. I don’t want to ruin this movie for myself the way I have with others. Why can’t more movies be like Ghostbusters and never get old?
Now for the “Fortune Smiles” part of this thing…
Wednesday night, I go into Best Buy to wander around. I end up getting the Donnie Darko Special Edition DVD, and everything is going fine. As I’m leaving, I reach for my keys in my left front pocket, where they always are. No keys. I check all my other pockets. No keys. At this point, I start cussing, because I know what’s coming. I get to my car and sure enough, there are my keys…sitting right in the passenger seat (the only way I can think of that they got there is if I laid them down as I put my cell phone into one of my pockets…not that I remember doing it). So I start cussing some more because, you know, it helps solve all problems. After pulling repeatedly on the driver’s side door to no avail. I start trying to think of what I can do. My old cars all had other ways in. The old red car had a hatchback you could keep unlocked…which came in handy a few times for this exact situation. So I checked the hatch on this one. No dice. Needed the key. My Tracker was a canvas top, so I could just unzip it and get in. Obviously not happening here. So, finally, out of desperation, I go to the passenger door. Knowing what’s coming, I yank on the handle. To my surprise (and near falling down), the door opens! “Holy shit,” I exclaimed, “Fortune smiles!”
How was it unlocked? Well, that goes back about a week. My dad’s car had a malfunctioning water pump, so he needed me to follow him to drop his car off to get it repaired. Obviously, the passenger door was unlocked for that. Otherwise, it’s never, ever unlocked. I pay so little attention to it, that I never even bothered to lock it back after that day. So, fast forwarding to Wednesday night, it’s still unlocked. If it hadn’t been, I was fucked, because there’s no spare key. It would’ve been off to find a locksmith. But…crisis averted. For once, fortune smiled on me.
Either that, or stupidity strikes again. Take your pick.
Sayonara.