I would like to state, for the record, that I am completely terrified of the X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie that comes out this weekend at midnight.
Frightened beyond belief, actually.
You can fuck up when you’re making a movie about an entire super group. (And trust me, they have.) You can play around a little, fudge a storyline, miss a detail and get away with it. When a story is based around only one character though–a character with such a ridiculously detailed, yet confusingly mysterious background, no less–there’s not all that much room to take “creative liberties” with the plot. You kinda have to nail that bitch.
I’ve always liked that Wolverine’s back story was so shrouded in mystery. It was a story within a story, but your mind was the one deciding where it went. Now, I feel like I’m about to be force-fed all the things I didn’t want to know.
Of course, I’ll still go to see it on opening night. And I’ll probably be entertained, if only because I’ve been waiting to see how they portray Gambit for 3 movies already. But I can’t help but think that when the initial buzz wears off, I’ll feel like my childhood had been tied up and sodomized by an adamantium claw.
You’d think I’d learn my lesson after X-Men 3: The Last Stand.
I haven’t.
SNKKKKT!
For anyone who questions a man’s emotional attachment to sports, imagine this:
A 14-year old boy sits at home on a Wednesday night waiting for a hockey game to start. Twenty minutes before the puck drops, he’s setting up a shrine in front of the television. Pucks, hats, jerseys, action figures, keychains, trading cards and an oversized blanket, all with the team logo, cover the entire living room floor. There’s nowhere to walk. There’s no need to. He’ll be spending the next 3.5 hours on the couch, nervously biting his nails while he sits at the edge of the seat cushion, in a jersey that means more to him than any girl he’s ever had a crush on.
Like Snoop says, he is I and I am him.
It was hard, growing up in Miami when my favorite hockey team played in Chicago. The games were never on TV, so the only way I knew what the hell was going on, was through the sports section of the newspaper. That’s like not being able to watch your favorite TV show, but keeping up with it by reading the three-sentence blurb DirecTV gives you when you press the info button. You can understand then, why I would try and make the most of it when they were on television.
Hence, my shrine.
But, it didn’t just stop at the festive decorating of my parent’s living room. No, there was a specific way to sit on the couch, depending on the period and score. There was a certain voodoo doll for a certain player that a certain mother helped me sew. And I definitely wouldn’t speak to anybody while the game was on. Not in person, not on the phone, not even in grunts and heavy breathing. Complete silence. There were times my best friend–and current girlfriend–would call, and I’d just hold the phone to my ear while I watched the game. I didn’t speak. She didn’t speak. (And she never hung up, either. That, my friends, is a keeper.)
It’s been 13 years since I was that fanatical about the Blackhawks; mostly because that’s the last time they were really any good. Being irrelevant for such a long period of time kinda makes you forget how amazing fandom is, at points.
On Monday night, for the first time in over a decade, the Hawks won a playoff series. And, though there weren’t a million trinkets lining the living room floor of my apartment, I sat on the couch, in the same odd, superstitious manner I used to when the calendar read 1996, and I became an awestruck 14-year old boy again.
No matter how difficult a man’s life has become, he can always go back to his happy place through the magic of sports. Never question that.
But if that does fail, there’s always porn.
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If you’ve been checking this page since last week, waiting for something new to pop up, I apologize. (I also wonder what kind of life you lead that this is amongst your daily list of things to do.)
But, even though you may not have a life, your patience will be rewarded. I’m sick. But I promise some quality posting in the next few days. Just hang in there while I fight this off…
…or else I’ll cough on you and give you the swine flu. Or something.
This weekend was the first time in a very long time that I had been to Disney’s Magic Kingdom. The girlfriend and I got there at nine in the morning and didn’t leave the park until somewhere around midnight. By the time we were on the ferry, taking us back to the parking lot, my knees were ready to give and I wanted nothing more than to go to sleep in a comfortable bed. Or an uncomfortable one. Or a couch. Or a slab of dirty pavement. Honestly, I was way too exhausted to start being picky.
The next day, we went to City Walk, got some lunch and did a little shopping. A fairly entertaining two-day trip, if you ask me.
What follows is a pretty thorough list of the good, the bad and the completely moronic events from this weekend. Enjoy:
The Good
It’s a Small World I don’t care how annoying the song is, a trip to Disney hasn’t officially started until you’ve witnessed this animatronically-challenged display of redundancy. Loved every second of it.
Mickey Mouse Ice Cream Bars It’s just vanilla ice cream protected by a thin chocolate shell, but holy fuck, it’s addicting.
Cinderella’s Castle Supposedly, there’s a lot of stuff going on inside. The fuck if I know what any of it is, though. I just know it’s a constant reminder that you’re in Disney World and not at your shitty job.
Main Street Confectionery Fourteen different flavors of fudge. It’s worth the $75 ticket price just to sniff some of them.
Kids on leashes Parenting at its laziest. And funniest.
“SpectroMagic” Parade Loved the over-the-top creativity in the light show, but man, I’d hate to see Disney’s electric bill.
Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. I swear, I’ll start eating healthier by Wednesday.
The Bad
Pirates of the Caribbean Listen, Disney. Changing the song and adding a Johnny Depp robot into random sections of the original ride is not a remodel. It’s a half-assed attempt at marketing.
Stitch’s Great Escape I liked this attraction better when it was a little creepy and made kids cry. Though two kids ran out in tears, so I suppose it still maintained some redeeming qualities.
Enchanted Tiki Room Go in there and don’t punch a parrot in the face. I fucking dare you.
The Completely Moronic
The woman at the hotel desk You work for a hotel located a few short miles from one of the largest tourist attractions in the world. If there were only one aspect of your job that you could do correctly, it should be to give accurate directions from Walt Disney World to your establishment, and vice versa. You sent us in the wrong fucking direction.You essentially told us to go home. And, just to be clear, “Take the closest road.” meant absolutely dick when you had no idea what road we were even on. I hate you. I hope the next guest that tries their luck at your mind-boggling directions gets frustrated enough, that when they finally arrive, they choose to shit in the safe.
Disney World is the happiest place on Earth.
That’s what they have been telling me since I was 7-years old. I don’t know who they are or why they insist on deciding what makes me happy, but I gotta tell ya, I think they might be on to something.
Some of my most vivd memories are from one Walt Disney World theme park or another. Maybe it helps that I’ve spent my entire life just three short hours from the entrance to Magic Kingdom, and I was a visitor almost every single year. Whatever. I had some crazy times there.
I’m also not letting Disney off that easy, though, because I definitely know about its evil, dark side.
As a camp counselor, I graced Orlando with my presence twice every summer… for ten summers. And when you spend enough time in a place, you start to see some shit.
See, Disney World is like a friend turned roommate. When you see that person just once in a while, you really only get to see his/her awesome side. Then, after you’ve spent the better portion of a year waking up in the morning to find your friend asleep on the living room couch, drooling on the throw pillows, you start to realize that he/she is not as awesome as you once thought.
Disney World is my roommate.
Spend enough time in a Walt Disney theme park and the inane tunes of absolute positivity will have your ears begging for some death metal. Pastel colors, fake smiles and talking animals are all scattered throughout the 25,000 acres of land, to remind you of one simple–yet factually inaccurate–piece of information…
You’re happy.
You may be in a world of debt and totally incapable of forming an erection, but Mickey Mouse doesn’t give a shit. When you’re in his theme park, you are one happy mother fucker. Nevermind that your house is in foreclosure or that your wife ran away with your best friend, because there’s a four-fingered mouse standing next to a dog who talks with the same inflection as a drunken homeless man I once met on the street.
You’re happy, dammit.
What’s funny, though, is that in some strange, twisted way, you are. Once you’re inside those gates, nothing can bring you down. You have gaint turkey legs and candy apples to line your stomach and toys that light up and sing to keep your kids smiling. You really are happy… dammit.
Of course, all of this was just a long way of telling you that I’m going to Disney World for the weekend.
Enjoy the next few days. But especially enjoy this story of Dennis Bunnicelli meeting one of his fans…
