Darkness Rising

At three-something-o’clock in the morning a week ago Friday, my son and I were among the absurd crowd of sleep-deprived (depraved?) people at the Arclight Theater in Old Town Pasadena. We were there to see the premier of The Dark Knight Rises; the third and final installment of the Batman movie trilogy.

I’ll leave a complete review of the movie to others. But briefly, at nearly two hours and forty-five minutes, it’s a lo-o-o-ng movie. The operative word in the title is “dark.” It’s depressing. It’s gloomy. It’s punishing for the characters on the screen and for the audience watching. It’s the Occupy movement on violent warp drive. It has bleeding edge special effects and a face-stretching, decibels-of-death soundtrack. And I loved every one of its 165 minutes running time. (Though I still say Anne Hathaway was miscast as Catwoman.)

As we walked into the theater lobby shortly after 3 a.m., I already knew I would be writing this week about how crazy it was to be up at that time in the pre-dawn hours just to see a loud, hyperactive, ultra-violent movie about a cartoon character. We had just walked from the subterranean parking garage all the way up to the movie theater lobby and felt like salmon swimming upstream. There were hundreds of people heading to their cars who had already seen one of dozens of showings of the film prior to ours. Like I said, crazy.

I would soon be reminded, however, what crazy really is.

As we left the theater at 6:45 – with the sun quickly rising over Pasadena – I called home to my wife, who for some strange reason had passed up the opportunity to lose sleep over the movie premier. Upon hearing my voice, she immediately relayed the breaking news about the killer who hours earlier had burst into an Aurora, Colorado theater showing the very movie my son and I had just seen. This deranged psychopath had killed twelve people and wounded 58 others – at least a dozen of whom remain critically injured as of this writing.

There but for the grace of God and geography – it could easily have been my son and me and the others who chose a particular theater at a particular time to see the new Batman film. To say the least, the horrific news of that early Friday morning certainly squelched any excitement my son and I were experiencing after seeing the film. As I looked around at others leaving the theater while checking text messages or retrieving voicemails, it was obvious that everyone else was getting news of the Colorado massacre, too.

You could hear a definitive change in the demeanor of theatergoers the further they walked from the theater itself to the lobby and to the Paseo patio outside. Sounds of laughter and joy turned to shock and disbelief, and finally to sadness and stunned silence.

In the days since, both the mainstream and social media have been flooded with commentary and discussion about how and why such a thing could happen – again – so close to, and so soon after, where the nearby Columbine High School massacre had occurred in 1999.

Once again the hue and cry for tougher, more restrictive gun control laws has dominated the discussion, understandably so. I won’t open up that can of controversy here

.

I’ll simply acknowledge the unchangeable reality that we live in a fallen world, with many normal-looking, yet frightfully disturbed people who walk amongst us – and who sometimes do horrendous things and commit heinous, unfathomable acts of evil.

I find it horribly ironic that generations of people have used the darkness and distractions of a movie theater to escape many of life’s harsh realities.

Sadly, last Friday morning in Aurora, reality burst in through an emergency exit and forever tarnished even that refuge of escape.

I’ll see you ‘round town.  

This Game's In The Bag

Not that I’m turning this into a regular column about alternative-sports, but in addition to my newfound interest in disc golf which I wrote about last week, also I find myself involved in yet another new (at least to me) game this summer.  Here’s how it happened:

I was more than a little surprised a while back when my wife asked me – completely out of the blue – whether I thought it would be fun to play cornhole together.

Um, say what?

After I coughed up the bite of toast that had suddenly become lodged in my windpipe, I ask her to please repeat herself. Yep, she definitely said “cornhole.”

As nonchalantly as I could, I asked my dear wife what in the Sam-hill-heavens she was asking. I mean, we’ve been married over 26 years and all. You’d think nothing would shock me at this point. Granted, I haven’t read the wildly popular Fifty Shades of Grey and quite honestly don’t intend to. But, come on. I was a child of the 60s and 70s. A free-spirited, are-you-going-to-San-Francisco, drummer in a rock n’ roll band kind of guy. You dig? It takes a lot to shock me. I thought I’d seen it all and done most of it. Apparently not.

Noticing my dropped jaw and Little Orphan Annie eyeballs, my wife calmly explained herself. It turns out the cornhole is NOT a game prison inmates play. Whew.

It seems that cornhole is a sort of lawn game in the tradition of bean bag toss, lawn darts, croquet – that sort of thing. Oh. Of course it is. I knew that.

Doing further research, I discovered that the traditional game of cornhole (is there a non-traditional version?) is played with two, 2x4-foot boards separated about 27-feet from each other. The top of each board is raised up off the ground and has a six-inch round hole in it. Each player or two-person team has four bags filled with dried corn and takes turns trying to toss a bag into the hole on the board that’s across the yard. A bag-in-the-hole counts three points. Landing on the board itself scores one point. That’s the game in a nutshell – or corncob, if you will.

Legend has it (okay, Wikipedia has it) that the game of cornhole was first played by 14^th century Germans and then made wildly popular hundreds of years ago by the Blackhawk tribe of native Americans in what is now Illinois. Apparently the Blackhawks threw pig bladders filled with dried corn. Let me tell you – that informational tidbit alone was enough to make me want to play, so I rushed out, bought some plywood and paint and made our very own set of brand spanking new cornhole boards.

The fact that we were fresh out of pig bladders at our house didn’t stop my wife from sewing cornhole bags using denim from her stash of old jeans. That woman has a serious ability to zig when others zag. I love that about her.

Speaking of zigging, we couldn’t find a local source for dried corn anywhere. So we filled our bags with pinto beans. Technically, I guess that means we’re playing “bean hole,” but that just doesn’t sound kosher on so many levels. So, cornhole it is.

Cornhole even has its own vernacular. For example, the name for a bag that ends up on top of the cornhole board is called either a “woody” (stop it!), “boarder” or my favorite, “cow pie.”  “Corn on the cob” or “double deuce” is yelled when a player lands all four bags on the board, or “Holy Moly Triple Cornholy!” is shouted when three bags go into the hole. It’s pure “cornfusion” (hey, it’s a big game in the Midwest, okay?) when players lose track of the score, and any bag that falls short of the board and lands on the ground is labeled a “Sally.” Finally, “nothin’ but corn” is triumphantly called out when a bag is tossed through the hole without touching the board at all.

This amateur cornholer is already dreaming of making such shots. I’ll see you ‘round town.

Note: This is a version of my column first published yesterday, 7.19.12, in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper.

My New Summer Fling

Okay, so who knew there was an exciting, fun, challenging and stupidly inexpensive sport with tens-of-thousands of devotees being played every day of the week around the world, across the country and even at two venues right here where I live in the Crescenta Valley?

For my birthday last month, my youngest son took me out to breakfast. (Yes, he paid! Another amazing benefit of having a summer job and ever-increasing-independence.) When we were finished eating, he also gave me a present to open. It was a “disc golf” starter set. Disc golf? Now, somewhere back in the trippy-hippy-dippy-long-hair-and-tie-died days of my long-ago youth, I admit to being deep into the Frisbee^® phenomenon. But that always seemed to be more about having something to do at the beach and picking up girls than about playing a competitive sport.

By contrast, the sport of disc golf is serious stuff – in a totally fun and light hearted way, of course. Quickly, the rules for disc golf are similar to what is now called “round ball” golf, the game made famous by big-dollar, celebrity players like Tiger Woods, Arnold Palmer and others.

You play nine or eighteen “holes” on a course. However, instead of rolling a little white ball into small round hole in the ground, you flip a disc into a “basket” mounted on a metal pole. The distance from tee to hole varies and each hole has a regulation “par.”

The similarities don’t end there. Just like round ball golfers, disc golfers play with a bag of equipment including so-called “driver” discs, mid-range discs and putter discs. What’s the difference? Good question. As a rank newbie to the sport, I’m still trying to figure that out. Let’s just say my technical disc-launching skills are not even close to being able to effectively use the many types of discs. Frankly, I may as well be throwing a dog food dish or trash can lid out there. It’s pretty embarrassing. But then, that’s one of the big differences I’ve noticed between round ball and disc golf. Unless you’re in a tournament, nobody seems to care how well you play. They’re out there simply to have fun and enjoy being outdoors.

Now, I’ve played round ball golf since high school. I can tell you that the experience is often anything but relaxing and fun. I’ve got bent clubs to prove it. Maybe it’s because a single round can easily cost up to and over $100 for just eighteen holes.

Contrast that with what it costs to play the world’s very first disc golf course at the Hahamongna Watershed across the street from La Canada High School: nothing. As in free. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zippo. Bupkiss.  Granted, for all its historical significance, the La Canada course is dry, dusty and not always easy to find figure where the next hole might be. (I suggest you carry a map and compass, emergency rations and also leave a trail of bread crumbs to help find your way back to the parking lot.)

On the opposite end of the Crescenta Valley, for a measly $5, you can now play a round of disc golf at the Verdugo Hills course which added disc baskets alongside the round ball course last year. The course is green, shaded and very welcoming to both round ball players (“bolfers”) and disc golfers alike. I’ve been told that the added revenue from the rapidly growing number of disc golfers may even help save the embattled course from the developer’s bulldozers. That would be a good thing.

Another big difference is in the dress codes associated with each type of golf game. Many traditional round ball courses won’t let you play if you’re wearing jeans or a shirt that doesn’t have a collar. Well, ex-c-u-u-u-s-e me. On the other hand, I’ve seen many disc golfers playing without wearing any shirt at all. Vive la différence! And pass the sunscreen.

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Note: This is a version of my column first published yesterday, 7.12.12, in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper.

A Wonder-full Summer

The smoke may have cleared from this week's fireworks extravaganza in the skies above the bucolic suburban valley where I live, but now it’s time to fire off a barrage of mental-mortar rounds from my own smoke-filled mind. Wonder along with me, if you will:   

I wonder … why they give names to hurricanes (alphabetically as the season progresses) but not to tornadoes? Is it because hurricanes go on for many days and a tornado lasts only minutes or hours at most? Come to think of it, why not name earthquakes? That might make them even more memorable. Instead of having survived the Northridge earthquake of ‘94, you could say, “Son, I lived through Earthquake Edna. Now, THAT was a tooth rattler!”

I wonder … how I can score an on-air job at NBC television, then get fired shortly after signing my contract and paid a boatload of cash just to go away? Last week’s news (fantastically welcome, I might add) that Today Show co-anchor, Ann Curry has accepted a $10 million buyout of her three year contract signed only a year ago to leave the show comes after the same network paid former late night host, Conan O’Brien a reported $45 million when it fired him in 2010. Hope the peacock network keeps its checkbook open, ‘cuz my resume’s on the way.

I wonder … how the U.S. has become so morally bankrupt that there are several noisy movements to ban all military recruiters from high schools, but it’s hunky dory for Planned Parenthood to open up branch locations on campus (Roosevelt High in Los Angeles for example) to provide abortion services to minors. Apparently, killing unborn babies is more politically correct than training soldiers to protect our freedoms and vanishing liberties. Here’s a thought: why not train abortionists to infiltrate al Qaeda?

I wonder … with all the bleeding edge, ultra-tech equipment and über-sophisticated methods required to train the world’s best Olympic athletes, why are competitors’ names/numbers still attached to jerseys with safety pins – old world technology first patented in 1849? I mean, can’t somebody design a better attachment device out of carbon fiber, or titanium or even the ubiquitous Velcro? There’s a fortune just waiting to be made, inventors.

I wonder … how New York Nanny … oops, I mean, Mayor Bloomberg thinks he’s going to save his loyal subjects from self-inflicted obesity by banning large-sized soft drinks? So, now New Yorkers will be able walk into any Burger King this summer and order the new bacon-vanilla-caramel-and-fudge sundae (yes, you read that correctly – bacon), but it’s okay, because at least they can only get a small soft drink to go with that artery-clogging combo. And don’t worry that New Yorkers will no longer having anything to put in their vehicles’ cup holders. No siree, Bob. Because even now McDonalds, Popeye’s and others are developing menu items featuring battered and flavored chicken parts with dipping sauces that come in containers designed to fit cup holders for more convenient calorie intake while texting and driving. There’s gonna have to be a new law against driving while bloated.

I wonder … did I hear correctly? After the baby chimpanzee at the L.A. Zoo last week was killed by an older alpha-chimpanzee, grief counselors were provided for zoo patrons who witnessed the display of nature in its often violent reality. Grief counselors? I’ll say it again … grief counselors? Life in the animal kingdom ain’t pretty, folks. They don’t say “it’s a jungle out there” for nothing.

I wonder … if anyone else but me ever worries that their relatives might somehow be featured on a “reality” show on TLC, A&E or the History Channel.  Like Deadliest Ax-Wielding Ice Road Swamp People Cupcake Wars. Or something like that. Even so, I’m sure I’d watch.  

And there you have it – a smattering of post-Fourth pyrotechnic ponderings. Hope there weren’t too many duds in the bunch and that no innocents were harmed. 

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Note: This is a version of my column first published yesterday, 7.5.12, in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper.

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