Yearly Archives: 2013

Foul number twenty-one

I just got back from my basketball game. I play in a men’s league with my dad, my brothers, and some of my brother’s friends. We won, barely, but I left the gym unsatisfied with how I played. Some games are better than others. Once in a while I’ll have a game where I’m just on, everything’s hitting, all of my shots, my blocks. It’s a rare feeling, like I’m possessed by the spirit of basketball.

But the flip side to that coin is games where I’m unable even to catch a pass. The ball hits me in the hand, and I just kind of fumble around until it’s either out of bounds or picked up by a player on the opposing team. Tonight wasn’t my worst game, I got a few solid blocks, I scored a basket, but I definitely didn’t feel on. Everything was happening like one or two seconds beyond my reaction time.

One negative highlight that stands out took place toward the end of the second half. Like I said, it was a pretty close game. We actually only wound up winning by two points. Throughout that second half, our team had a very slight lead, like it was close enough that the other side could have easily made a few three pointers to take the win.

They were desperate to catch up, and they started fouling us whenever we had possession. The idea here is that the fouls would stop our momentum, ultimately forcing us to shoot free throws. If we miss the free throws, they could gain back possession of the ball, potentially setting themselves up to even things out.

Standing under our hoop after one of my teammates missed his shot, I jumped for the rebound and went to put it right back up. Anticipating a foul, I pushed the ball toward the basket, and sure enough I immediately felt a few arms on my back, my side. The ref blew the whistle and everyone lined up so I could shoot my foul shots.

Foul shots are tough. I’m not playing toward my height advantage at the free throw line. I’m standing at an exact distance from the hoop and I have to try to make the shot while everyone else stands there and watches.

Again, my game is totally hit or miss. Some days I’m on, I’m hitting my shots, I’m sinking my free throws. Other days … well, like tonight I went for my first foul shot and it hit the rim, bounced around and then dropped to the side. One more try. Maybe this time I could give it a little more arc, a little more height.

“Guys!” it was the point guard on the other team, “He’s got a high shot so look for a crazy rebound!” OK, that’s fine, he was trying to win too. But now he was in my head. I needed to shake his commentary. I needed to envision the ball leaving my hand, my wrist flicking perfectly at the last second.

But that one missed also. “Guys!” it was the same guy, “If we have to foul, make sure it’s number twenty-one!” The message was loud and clear: this guy can’t shoot the ball, so let’s look to foul him without worrying about anything going in.

His team followed the advice. I found myself under the hoop again, my hands on the ball after securing a rebound. I could feel two guys ready to crash down on me. One of them wrapped an arm around my waist, the other just kind of jumped on top of me. Still, I made the effort to get the ball up, and the ref blew his whistle sending me right back to that line for two more foul shots.

Now I was feeling a little more confident. I’m not a great shooter, like I’m not that consistent of a shooter, but my shot isn’t awful. I know how to shoot a free throw. Whether or not it goes in, I mean, whatever, I haven’t figured out exactly how that works, or how it’s supposed to work every time. I wrote before, I’m off sometimes. I can feel the ball leaving my hands and my arm twists just slightly, or I don’t give it enough gas to make it to the basket, or I give it way too much juice and it bricks against the backboard.

But statistically speaking, I should be able to get at least one of these in. One for four, right? That’s got to happen. But it didn’t. I missed both and hustled back to defense. The whole time that I was lined up for those shots, all I was thinking about was how I’d maintain my cool confidence after I had made those shots. I wouldn’t look at the point guard, not right at him, but I’d have a look on my face, I’d be saying without saying it, hey man, you see those shots? Looks like you shouldn’t have told everyone to foul me.

And I was still thinking about that the third time I got sent to the line. This time my optimism turned into a kind of desperation. Please God, I can’t miss six shots in a row. There’s no defending my shooting skills after missing six in a row. The point guard kept coaching from the line, “Come on guys! Big rebound here!”

A lot of times when I’m shooting free throws I try to get out of my head, to not think about it. I’m relying on a muscle memory that doesn’t really exist. But if I’m having an on game, a strategy like that might actually work. I won’t think about anything, I’ll line up for a shot, and I’ll sink them both in. But not right now, this time I was focusing very hard on making at least one of those shots. Come on Rob, wrists straight, imagine the arc, envision the ball making almost no contact with the rim or the net as it sails perfectly through.

But it didn’t happen. However close my shots got, no matter how badly I wanted them to bounce a little bit this way or that, I choked. I totally botched six foul shots in a row. After the game, after we shook hands and packed up to leave, one of the refs came up to me and even said, “Better work on those free throws.” And so whatever, it’s just basketball. I’m not a pro, I’m just looking to play for enjoyment. But I can say whatever I want about being this or that, about my shooting being off or on. Tonight the point guard was right. Foul number twenty-one, because he can’t shoot.

Steve Jobs: The blog post

You loved Steve Jobs, the book. What a page-turner. You bought one copy as an actual book copy, and then you bought another book as an iBook copy. And then you read one page from the book and the next page on your iPad. But something happened with the synching, like the pages weren’t exactly the same numbers, and so you wound up reading certain paragraphs over and over again.

But that’s OK, because those paragraphs were awesome. You loved that book, Steve Jobs. And then you got really pumped for the Jobs movie. Finally. It’s bad enough that you had to wait all of those months after he died to read an official autobiography. But now it’s been almost two years since Steve Jobs died, and we’re only just this summer being given a proper motion picture treatment of his life, his work, his beard.

You drank the Steve Jobs soda. Crisp, refreshing, exactly the flavor of soda that you didn’t even know you were thirsty for until you saw it in the refrigerator at Seven-Eleven. That sleek white can, it just said, “Jobs,” and that’s how you knew it was the official Steve Jobs soda, not those unlicensed, “Steve Jobs: the soda,” cans that came out two weeks ago, some opportunist trying to make a quick buck with an unofficial soft drink. Pathetic.

You always go for the official Jobs brand, like those official Steve Jobs windshield wipers. You’ve changed the wipers on your 2009 Ford Taurus two, three times. And each time, yes, they worked reasonably well after installation. But six months in, that squeaking sound. The last time you replaced them, they faced a different angle, claimed to wipe a bigger percentage of the windshield. But the Jobs wipers wiped an even bigger percentage. A much, much larger surface area. Still not a hundred percent, that would be impossible, you know, barring one, giant, horizontal wiper that wiped top to bottom, over and over again, but that’s a little unrealistic.

And it wouldn’t be that cool white, like your iPod, like the Steve Jobs official backpack. Although that one came in a really cool black also, but not a regular black, it was a matte black. You still bought the white though, a Jobs traditionalist, the only kind of tradition that really defies convention. Officially.

Like that official Steve Jobs haiku released last week:

Steve Jobs was so great

I wish he were still alive

I loved him so, so much

Did you see that extra syllable at the end? Classic Jobs, ever the innovator. I wasn’t supposed to post that here, so if you just read it, you really should go to the iPoetry store and buy your own copy. And then you can read it as many times as you like. While you’re there, you should check out Steve Jobs, the sonnet, the limerick, and the acrostic. Each one of them, truly, inspirational, a real game changer, to the world of poetry, to the English language. Even this blog post, even though it’s an unofficial Steve Jobs blog post, it’s talking about Steve Jobs, I’m writing down the name Steve Jobs.

And so you get it. Steve Jobs was our generation’s Thomas Edison. Right? Only, when you think about it, all Edison did was invent a light bulb. Well, and other stuff, the record player, something with magnets. I don’t know. Maybe that was cutting edge a hundred years ago, but come on. You take all of Edison’s greatest inventions and they don’t even compare to Jobs’s worst invention. And yeah, that’s kind of a moot point, because Jobs didn’t have any worst inventions, or innovations, or whatever. I’m just saying, light bulb, iPad, I’ll stick with the iPad thanks. I can always just download a light bulb app. And then I’ll never use it, because there’s no need to, my bedroom is already plenty illuminated by me reading Steve Jobs again, the white background is brighter than any stupid bulb.

Can anybody lend me a few thousand dollars? I really want to buy up every seat for the Jobs midnight showing tonight, so I can watch it by myself, in a big theater, and then I can walk out and see everybody else lined up for the next showing, and I’ll just look at them and say stuff like, “I’m not going to say anything, just … just … wow. Just wow. Just really, you guys are in for a treat, you guys are just … wow … you guys are just, really, really … holy shit man … wow.”

Movie Review: Kick-Ass 2

Life isn’t a comic book. That’s the story behind Kick-Ass 2, the sequel to a movie based on a comic book about people who dress up as superheroes, but not like in comic books, because this takes place in real life, with real people, who get in costumes and fight crime. It’s a not-a-comic comic book movie.

I’m making fun, but it’s a novel premise. What if you or I decided to create a superhero alter ego and took to the streets to fight the good fight? The first Kick-Ass, and the comic book that it was based off of, answered that question in the character of Dave Lizewski, a high school nerd who dons a scuba suit and calls himself Kick-Ass.

Kick-Ass gets his ass kicked, but a cell phone video of his existence goes viral and spawns a whole trend of regular people playing dress up. Unfortunately, Nicholas Cage and his preteen daughter actually are superheroes, waging a very real battle against New York’s criminal underworld. Kick-Ass gets involved, Nicholas Cage dies, and that’s where we left off at the end of the first film.

Kick-Ass 2 is basically more of the same, but because the concept is still somewhat original, the movie is entertaining. We have the preteen daughter, Hit Girl, struggling to fit in as a high school freshman. McLovin is back as the would-be heir to his deceased dad’s criminal empire. He’s looking to show the world he’s not a joke while at the same time exacting revenge on our protagonist. And then there’s Kick-Ass, trying to take his heroics to the next level, getting in shape, learning how to fight, and finding some like-minded partners to form a real-world Justice League.

So while the plot of Kick-Ass 2 isn’t really that different from the first, the team dynamic introduces an expanded group of characters. Jim Carrey plays an ex-mafia turned Captain America wannabe, Captain Stars and Stripes, or Colonel Stars and Stripes, something like that. His performance was good enough to make me forget that it was Jim Carrey under the mask. That is, until he made a wacky Jim Carrey face, and then I was like, yup, classic Jim Carrey, always making crazy faces.

Speaking of out of the woodwork, John Leguizamo has a role as McLovin’s bodyguard. That’s all there’s to say about that, really. The whole time he was on screen I just kept thinking to myself, man, that’s John Leguizamo. He looks old. Much older than he did when he played Luigi in Super Mario Brothers. And I don’t want to knock him, like I’m glad he’s doing movies and stuff, but he didn’t add anything to the film or the story. They could have probably gotten away with a few carefully placed John Leguizamo posters on the wall.

Oh yeah, and it’s a pretty violent movie, very graphic. I kept trying to justify the violence by telling myself, well, the real world is a violent place. This is probably a pretty good depiction of what would happen if a guy in a costume got beat up on the streets by four robbers. But it was just too much sometimes, running lawnmowers used as projectile weapons, multiple close-ups of broken arms and necks. Crack!

In trying to be real, or in trying to imagine how this story could take place in real life, the movie went beyond anything I’ve seen in this world. Like a barbecue propane tank being ignited and thrown through the windshield of a cop car. I’m sure that it could happen, but it doesn’t really strike me as anything I’d label realistic.

It’s like, in trying to point out or make fun of the ridiculousness of comic books, Kick-Ass 2 winds up shoving our faces in it. And then after the message has been rammed down our throats, the principle characters wind up just as guilty as everything they claim to rebuke. For example, one of the super-group members is gay. He doesn’t wear a mask because it reminds him of the closet. Similarly, Hit Girl early in the film chastised some street punks for throwing around the homophobic f-bomb. That sounds pretty progressive, right? Cut to somewhere toward the end, she’s fighting a group of thugs at high-speed traffic, calling them “cocksuckers” before casually throwing them out of a moving vehicle. What’s the message, that some slurs are more acceptable than others? Or that only the good guys are allowed to throw around epithets?

Like I said, it’s an entertaining movie, sure, but I’m not sure it was really a good movie. I wasn’t bored, but it would be hard to get lost in a daydream in a movie stuffed with so much visual, violent stimuli. I remember liking the comics when I read Mark Millar’s series years ago, but I don’t know, something about that story was easy to read and something about this film made it difficult for me not to look away. It’s a comic book made through a real life filter, thrown back through the comic book filter, and then adapted for a movie. I guess it’s not that far from what you’d expect.

Lack of sunlight and its effects on the skin

When I don’t go outside for a while, like if I don’t make an effort to get out of the house and stand in the sunlight, I get really pale. I work in a restaurant, it’s in a basement, it’s so dark inside that after a really long shift I don’t leave until the sun has gone down, which, especially in these summer months, that feels like a long time, a really long shift.

One time I had this friend, he put this whole thing of tape around his forearm. I was like, “Man, what are you doing?” he was like, “I’m just trying to see if I keep this tape on my arm for a while, like maybe it’s going to get really pale,” he’s a construction worker, always outside, he’s got that golden coat of tan, you know, like you see on the well-to-do, always golfing. But my friend’s not golfing, he’s hanging shingles or something, I don’t know, not shingles, whatever, I just made something up, but he’s outside, like installing windows or something, something outside.

I was like, “Why do you want to do that?” he’s like, “I don’t know, why not?” so I said, “Are you sure that’s a good idea? Doesn’t your skin need to breathe?” and he got defensive, he shot back, “All right man, you know, maybe that’s a risk I’m willing to take, and maybe you should just stop asking so many questions.”

And so I did, I stopped asking questions. But maybe I should have asked a few more, like aren’t you worried about keeping the skin clean under there? Or, aren’t you afraid that it’s going to hurt really badly when you try to just rip that tape off? Because he did keep it on there too long and, I’m sure something happened with the pigmentation, but nobody was ever able to tell, because he got a rash, and he kept itching it, probably in his sleep, because people would ask him, “Hey dude, you should get that checked out. Are you itching it?” and again, he’d just kind of turn his body, like protecting his taped up arm, “Leave me alone, all right? I’m not itching it.”

Why would he lie about itching it? Like I said, itching it in his sleep, whatever, just a theory, but there was a definitely a rash, an aggravation, and it must have gotten infected, and there was an extended stay in the hospital. It turned out to be one of those antibiotic resistant bacteria, and we were all really scared, I thought that was it, for his arm anyway, I was like, if he’s making it out of there alive, it’s going to be with one less arm. And for what? Why did he put the tape on in the first place?

I don’t know, the doctors handled it. They got some sort of different antibiotics or something, I have no idea. But it made me think about my job, my lack of sunlight, our differences in tan, my lack of any color. One time I went to the beach and made a little design out of sunscreen on my chest. Sure enough, I went home, took a shower, and there it was. I should have maybe thought out the design a little better, it was crooked, my applying of the sunscreen was definitely inconsistent.

I kept my shirt on for a while, not that I really have any reason to take my shirt off, still, I’d look at myself in the mirror and think, why did I do that? What was the point? Maybe it was the same thing with my friend, with the tape. Maybe he was really just very bored, maybe he wanted to see a really crazy precise white stripe across his arm. Why? Why not?

Back to my job, back to the basement. I get worried that my skin is going to get so pale that I’m going to get that same resistant bacteria covering my whole body, they’re going to have to put me under a giant human-sized heat lamp, just like a tanning bed, but red and yellow instead of ultraviolet blue, they’ll be like, “Sorry Rob, even the antibiotic-resistant-resistant antibiotics couldn’t knock this thing out of your system. We’re hoping that these big lights here might cook it out of you. Yes, it’s going to be painful. All movement is going to be very unpleasant. But when it’s all said and done, we’re thinking you might walk out of here with a pretty sharp looking tan. And that’s something to look forward to, right? In this time of year, right? That’ll be pretty cool, don’t you think so?”

Castaway is easily the worst movie of all time

Remember the part in that movie Castaway where it takes Tom Hanks something like five days to get that fire going? Talk about baloney. You give me two sticks and twenty minutes and I’ll give you a roaring fire in just five minutes. And then I’ll use those other fifteen minutes to really start enjoying myself. So by the time you come up to me when those twenty minutes are over, you’ll see the fire, you’ll see me fully relaxed, and you’ll be like, “Rob, how long did it take you to get this fire going? Because it looks like you’ve been relaxing for at least fifteen minutes.”

Or that part where he catches the crab and kills it, and then he just cracks it open, uncooked, and lets all of that raw crab stuff ooze all out of the shell? I’m calling hogwash on that also. First of all, everybody knows that you have to cook crab. And didn’t he already have the fire going at this point? How hard would it have been to at least heat it up a little? Secondly, it took that guy way too long to catch one crab. And what does he do as soon as he catches it? He destroys it. Me, I would have captured it, made a little crab house, lured in another crab of the opposite sex, and I would’ve started a little crab farm. It’s something about giving a man a crab for a day or teaching him how to eat crabs for a lifetime. Jesus used to say stuff like that all the time.

You know what else bugged me about Castaway? His beard should have been much longer. If you told me not to shave for four years, I’d be more facial hair than man after just two. But Tom Hanks’s mustache wasn’t even really in the way of his upper lip. Not much. One time I tried to grow a beard and that’s exactly the type of unexpected growth I wasn’t prepared for, the upper lip. It was getting in the way of my eating, always picking up a little mayonnaise from every bite of sandwich, stuff like that.

And the volleyball, come on. I would have been playing with that volleyball, not turning it into an imaginary best friend. Think of how boring every day must have been. I would have found some wall and tried to see how many times I could bounce it off the wall without it hitting the ground. But Hanks didn’t do anything. Oh yeah, I guess he learned how to paint, like he cave painted that painting of Helen Hunt on the wall of his bedroom. Or bedcave. Caveroom, whatever. But again, that’s probably a little unrealistic also. Where were all of his practice paintings? There’s no way you go from being an illustration novice to all of the sudden busting out photorealistic Helen Hunts. It’s just not plausible. Maybe they could have added some obvious flaws, just for narrative’s sake.

Four years sounds like a long time, but Helen Hunt seemed to have moved on pretty quickly. I get it, you’re lonely, you don’t want to wallow in your own misery for forever, but let’s just assume four months maybe hoping they’d find something. Another two months coming to terms with the likelihood that he died, people saying, “Helen, you have to move on. You’ve got to meet someone else.” Best case scenario, you go on a few blind dates, set some stuff up on an Internet site, you meet someone, there’s an awkward adult going-out phase, dating, moving in together. And then an engagement, a marriage. What I’m getting at here is, by the time Tom Hanks comes back, Helen Hunt already has a new husband and like two kids. It just seems very rushed, like she would had to have hit the ground running maybe two weeks after the plane went down.

Finally, I’m calling bullshit on Tom Hanks not opening up that final package. The man figured out how to make a boat out of a port-a-potty door. You’re telling me he never figured out how to open and then reseal a stupid box? This man worked for FedEx. He could have probably set those boxes up in his sleep. Look, I understand, something to live for, that one delivery. But I would have been thinking, antibiotics? Maybe something potentially lifesaving? Maybe a zippo lighter? Of course he opened that box up. It probably turned out to be nothing, like a decorative scarf, something useless. And then he’s dropping it off at the end, like, here you go miss. Again, bullshit.

In conclusion, I hate to say that Castaway just isn’t very realistic. And I haven’t even gotten into how unlikely it would have been for him to survive that plane crash in the first place. I’m totally not buying it.