Author

Robert Hyma

Just a writer doing writerly things.

| Weekly Post-Eds |

Weekly Post-Ed #43

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

BACK TO COLLEGE

I’ve made the decision to head back to college full time to finish my BA. This meant quitting my job as a preschool teacher and heading back to a university as a 33-year-old. Over the past few weeks, I’ve had many anxieties about what it means to be, on average, 12-years older than everyone else attending an university. So, as the first week of classes is nearly at an end, I thought I’d bring you through some of my adventures from the first week of the semester.

***

THE LAST TIME I WAS HERE…

            Having a decade between stints of attending college full-time, I’ve had a chance to reflect on how things went in my early twenties.

            In short: it wasn’t pretty. 

            I’m sure there were successful moments, but as I was lying awake in bed, waiting for the sun to rise on another stint as a full-time student, I could only recall the things that were of particular embarrassment. Here’s a few of them:

  • I once emailed my Astronomy 101 professor, someone whom I greatly admired, and asked why he wasn’t more famous in his field. I wrote to him, “You seem so capable. Why are you a professor at a community college instead of conducting research at an observatory, or at NASA?” 

            I meant this in earnest, but in hindsight I can see this translates to: “Why are you a loser in your field?” It never dawned on me that not everyone rises to the top of prominence because they want to. There is such a thing as luck and academic politics to consider, as well as geography (observatories aren’t nestled in the farmlands of West Michigan, typically). Never mind family responsibilities, his general expertise, or if he wanted any part of that burgeoning astronomer life (in which, I imagine, consists of a series of Friday nights staring at the stars and uncorking bottles of champagne as new coordinates are punched into the sensitive instrumentation of the observatory telescopes—a real party scene amongst scientists. This isn’t accurate in the slightest, but I can dream).

            The professor never responded to my email, which was gracious in hindsight.

Here’s another:

  •  I once woke up late for class and drove in a sleepy haze to campus, running to class only to find a classroom full of strangers there. The professor, whom I had also never seen before, said in all this confusion, “Can I help you?”

            “Sorry, I’m late,” I said, and proceeded to find an empty seat to sit down.

            “Uh, I think you’re in the wrong class,” said the professor.

            “No, I don’t think that’s right,” I said, still in a sleepy haze. “I think you all are.”

            Imagine: an entirely different group of classmates, an unknown professor, and YOU are the one telling the class THEY are in the wrong place. I was like a theater director telling the cast to stop the performance because they were performing the wrong play.

            Just imagine the confusion, which, was probably the same look as everyone else in the class who stared at me.

            Eventually, I emerged from sleepy usurping and realized how wrong I was. I stood up, probably bowed politely (as all the crazies ought to do when they politely leave) and sped out of the classroom. I looked to my watch and saw that it was exactly an hour before I was supposed to arrive for my first class.

            How could this mismatch have happened, then? It dawned on me:

            I hadn’t adjusted the clock in my car to Daylight Savings Time. In my sleepy stupor, I referenced this clock on the road, in which I thought I was slightly late for my class instead of an hour early.

            Oops.

            I later learned that the class I had interrupted was a Psychology 101 course. In hindsight, I figure I gave them a real-life case study.

            So, you’re welcome, Science.

            These and other memories came to mind, but I’ll spare the others for now. It was time to get out of bed and begin another stint of full-time university life at the age of 33.

            Little did I know, things hadn’t changed much.

 ***

‘RACE CAR’ SPELLED BACKWARDS IS ‘STUDENT PARKING’

            Ok, not really. “Race Car” spelled backwards is “Race Car” (as opposed to the old Bugs Bunny joke: “Mud spelt backwards is Dumb”). Strolling through the parking lot towards campus, I noticed cars lapping the already filled parking spaces. That’s because students arriving later in the day might as well have been driving race cars around an elliptical raceway. Most student commuters do laps around parking lots, waiting for a parking spot to open up. This could take hours, so if you’re observant enough to stop and watch the traffic, you could be treated to a miniature Indianapolis 500 in Lot B2. Most students want parking spots up front to limit walking (Hiss! The horror!), so the route most cars follows looked like this:

Student Parking Route

Many spots open up towards the back of the lot, which results in the route being changed to this over time:

Student Parking route over the course of many hours

            Needless to say, there were multitudes of classmates missing during my classes, most of them hemmed into bumper-to-bumper traffic, awaiting the rescue of pit crews to help change tires from the wear and tear of driving laps around the Lot B2 raceway.

***

CLASSROOM SEATING

            As I sat down for my first class, I recognized a distinct pattern in where everyone chose to sit. Most students clustered to seats along the exterior, lining the walls and keeping away from the middle aisle. Maybe it’s a social anxiety, but I like to think my classmates pick seats pretending there’s a massive canon pointed directly at them from the head of the classroom and they are taking cover.

            Most professors enter class right as the hour starts, so they wander through this patch of uninhabited seats, wondering why students avoid the middle of the classroom. Then, the professor takes attendance aloud (this is for the first few days until they are familiar with names, then this task is silently done). It is then obvious why there are vacant seats: 

            This is where the professor looks while lecturing. He’ll look to you for acknowledgement, to make sure ideas are setting in.

            It’s unwanted attention and no one wants to be looked at as though they are about to be called forth for jury duty.

            Everyone bows their head as though to say, “Just look somewhere else, please!”

            Well, most keep to the outer perimeter except for a few yuppie students sitting towards the front who adore the professor and want to impress the room with some witty banter.

            And after a few, “Hey, I’ve had you in one of my other classes, right?” and “You’re an English major? I’ll have to get you in touch with another professor I know. He’s into that obscure novel you’re reading, too, haha!”, one can’t but hope for a literal canon to blast the room to smithereens.

***

QUAKING QUAKERS

            The center of campus has an impressive clocktower in the middle of a circular walkway. The opening day of classes invites student groups to get a head start with recruitment, so many organizations set up tables to hand out fliers, hold sign-ups, and invite passersby to attend upcoming events. On my first day, I passed a set of photographers that offered to take a “First Day of School Photo”, which led to a five-minute pitch session on attending a prayer group held on Thursday nights.

            It’s a entrepreneur’s world on the first few days of class.

            Towards the afternoon of my first day, I passed by the clocktower where a pair of older, potbellied men offered pamphlets to join a Quaker campus group. To the discontent of one of the students passing by, he turned round and shouted at the Quakers, “You don’t know anything about Quakers! Quakers take a vow of silence on Sundays!”

            “Ok, do you want to talk about it?” asked the potbellied Quaker passing out the pamphlets, probably to calm the outburst. “Do you want to talk?”

            The disgruntled student turned around and shouted, “Yeah I want to talk! BECAUSE you don’t get it!”

            I stopped to listen into the oncoming argument.

            “Quakers QUAKE on Sundays!!!”

            I nodded, happy about the gift of a great soundbite, even if I had no clue what it meant. Quaker’s quake? Are they fearful on Sundays? Are they literally shaking wildly to appease their God? I couldn’t help but wonder.

            This led to a rabbit hole of other religious acts based on names.

            “If Quakers quake,” I thought, “do you think Christians christen?”

            I liked the idea of Christians gathering on the docks of Lake Michigan to formally bless the launching of boats. On Sundays, they would smash champagne bottles against the hulls of anyone renting at the marina.

            I decided I like being at college if I could hear more things like this.

***

IT’S BERT, NOT BERTIE

            By 3 PM on the first day of classes, I thought I made it through the first day without any major embarrassment. I hadn’t emailed a professor to ask why he wasn’t more successful in his field, nor did I enter another classroom to accuse everyone of being in the wrong place. As my last class started, I thought fortunes had changed for me; maybe I had ceased to do stupid things.

            Nopity. Nope. And nope.

            I have a professor twice in a single day—once in the morning and in the late afternoon. In the morning session, the professor called my name for attendance with little mind, “Robert Hyma?” and he marked me present as I raised my hand. In the second class, he called my name and stopped with recognition, “I have you in another class, right?”

            “Yes,” I said, hating every moment of conversations that happen in front of other people. I could feel all my classmates watching.

            “Robert, is it? Is that what you want to be called?”

            Blame it on the monotony of the question, or that I felt there was an audience, but I wanted to play with this notion. “I can change my name to anything?”

            “Sure,” he said.

            “My friends call me Bert,” I said, feeling brave.

            “Bertie? They call you Bertie?”

             “No, Bert,” I corrected. “Bert. Just call me Bert.”

            “Bertie?” He asked again. “Ok, I’ll call you Bertie if you want.”

            Bertie, which isn’t close to sounding like the name Bert, by the way, was the worst interpretation of my name I’ve ever heard. Luckily, another classmate, a girl I can’t remember, chimed in. “He’s saying Bert, like as in the second part of Ro-Bert.”

            “Oh,” said the professor. “I kept hearing Bertie for some reason.” He smiled through awkward laughs around the class. “Side note,” he continued, “the reason I kept hearing ‘Bertie’ is because I have a grandma named ‘Roberta’ and that’s what we call her: either ‘Bob’ or ‘Bertie’ for short.”

            “Oh,” I muttered. “I wish I would have known that two minutes ago.”

            “But alright, I’ll remember,” said the professor, and moved on to the next person with attendance.

            Thank God, I thought, reflecting on the lesson I just learned: next time, just say your normal goddam name.

            “Ok, I think that’s everyone,” said the professor, concluding attendance. “I’ll try not to babble this afternoon like I did in my morning class. I don’t know what it is about the first day, but I just can’t stop from gabbing at the start. Was anyone in my first class that saw me? Bertie! That’s right, you were there. I just couldn’t stop talking, could I Bertie?”

            Not even a hint of recognition from the guy. At first, I thought he was screwing with me, saying the absurd rendition of my name as a joke, but I was wrong. He was searching my face for recognition, to give credence to his anecdote about the morning class. “Sure,” I said, not knowing how to handle the fact that for the rest of the semester I might be called Bertie.

            “I promise I won’t do that this time,” said the professor, and then he went on to show us a documentary about American Whaling that showed in vivid detail how sperm whales were hunted, harpooned, stripped for parts, and the carcass thrown back to sea.

            I sat there watching the vivid description of whale murder and thought, “Motherf***er! Now I’m Bertie.”

            Oh well, beats my last name, which is often mispronounced. To my confusion growing up, teachers often called out Hyma (Hi-mah) but added an ‘N’ to the end for some reason, making my name ‘Hyman‘. This always drew laughs, and I didn’t realize why until high school when it was explained to me that a ‘hymen’ was a part of female genitalia. People like to laugh at the guy who had a last name that was associated with the vagina.

            At least my first name wasn’t “Dick”, which would have caused people’s heads to explode (I’m sure there’s a sexual innuendo joke in that sentence somewhere).

            So, since my first name has now mutated into Bertie, I suppose my faux full name is Bertie Hyman, which roughly translates to “A grandmother’s vaginal tissue”.

            Hard to live that one down, but it’s a long semester.

            More adventures will surely follow. 

            Stay tuned for more…

***

  1. “The Walk Home” by Young the Giant
  2. “Maybe You Saved Me” by Bad Suns & PVRIS
  3. “No Place I’d Rather Be” by The Wrecks

***

Wishing everyone as well as you can be. You’re not alone out there,

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| Weekly Post-Eds |

Weekly Post-Ed #42

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

42

How could you not write about the Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything in Weekly Post-Ed #42? 

            Perhaps some context:

            Long ago on the distant planet of Magrathea, the greatest computer ever built, Default, was tasked to find an answer to the ultimate question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. For millions of years Default calculated all that it knew about existence and millions of years later, it was finally ready to reveal the answer.

            “42,” said Default.

            It’s a wonderful piece of comedy that comes from Douglas Adam’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Over the weekend, I rewatched the 2005 movie adaptation starring Martin Freeman, Zoey Deschanel, Mos Def, and Sam Rockwell. From the opening musical number about dolphins leaving the planet earth from impending doom (the musical theater ballad, “So Long and Thanks for All the Fish”), I reverted back to being 14 again and why the movie meant so much.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy DVD Box Art, 2005

            Up until that first viewing, I had known about the comedy of Monty Python, Mel Brooks, the Marx Brothers and so many others, but The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy opened up the entire cosmos of what could be funny. Whereas a Mel Brooks film delved into the world of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (Young Frankenstein), or a saga of the wild west (Blazing Saddles), the jokes were related to the story’s characters, never central to moving the plot forward itself. Hitchhiker’s not only had outlandish comedy, but it was the reason the story existed at all.

  • Planet earth being demolished to make room for a hyperspace expressway? Yes, that’s the incident that begins the story!
  • A paperwork-obsessed, bureaucratic race of aliens with the stinginess of an elitist British Parliament? Why yes, they’re the villains of the movie!

            Anything was possible in the vast universe of Douglas Adam’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (which I soon discovered were also a series of novels). You could poke fun of a religion’s odd celebrations and rituals, answer philosophical questions in meaningful but obtuse ways (the answer of 42 for example), and show that planets are really manufactured like any other product bought at a department store. All of this was possible to cram into a single narrative.

            “You can write things like this?” I thought, and suddenly I felt like I had been given the freedom to make whatever I wanted.

            After watching the film again, I also recalled that it was the major reason why I wanted to write fiction in the first place. Suddenly, it made sense to write big ideas into a concise, comedic packaging. There was a wider universe out there and I couldn’t wait to write all about it. 

            And I would go on to keep writing forever after.

            (Psst: more on those stories in the future!)

***

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

            I find that as I grow older, I watch my favorite movies from a different perspective. Nowhere in my personal experience has this been more the case than rewatching old Looney Tunes shorts. Packed inside those ten-minute episodes were layers of adult humor amidst the antics of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck.

            Rewatching favorite movies and television shows after many years is like eating a favorite meal once in a while: you remember why it was so damn good to begin with.

            It must have been three or four years since I’ve seen 2005’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which meant another round of life experiences acting as the lens through which I watched it. The biggest change over the course of the past few years has been my going on numerous dates, which I suspect has changed how I’ve viewed romance in movies. 

            Certainly, I have a much more prevalent sense of skepticism when it comes to the romantic “Love at First Sight” motif.

            The romantic spine of the 2005 adaptation of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (the books are much different) follows Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman) regretting his missed opportunity to capture the heart of Trillion McMillan (Zoey Deschanel). At a costume party, they meet awkwardly, but sweetly, and soon get to chatting. Then, Trillion says, “We should go to Madagascar.” Arthur is confused and thinks this means a new swanky club, but Trillion means the country off the coast of Africa. Arthur realizes she is serious and says he can’t just go to Madagascar. Trillion is let down when he offers somewhere local instead. Then along comes a man with flowing blonde locks, a faux Elvis Presley accent, and futuristic wardrobe.

            “Is this man boring you?” he says. “I’m from a different planet. Want to see my spaceship?”

            Trillion goes with spaceman, leaving Arthur behind, and that’s the extent of their meeting.

            Before, I never blinked an eye at this initial meeting. It works in the movie and I get it: Arthur likes her, she likes him, but along the way came a more interesting and adventurous man that swept Trillion away. 

            Cool, right?

            Not really.

            When thinking about the logistics of meeting someone at a party, I assume Arthur and Trillion knew one another for about two or three hours in total. This means that Arthur is convinced Trillion is someone significant over that short time. So much so, in fact, that he comes to think of her as “The One That Got Away”.

            I’m amazed at the confidence required to make Arthur think so. Either Arthur doesn’t get out and date very much (which is likely), or there was something wonderful about Trillion that quietly disposed of any other potential love interests he had. Since Trillion up and leaves him at a party for another man, I can’t imagine she showed him the affection he was looking for. So, what was the appeal at the party?

            I’m skeptical a man would be love-drunk over a woman like this who has experienced more dates. It’s unclear the amount of time that passes between this first meeting at the party and when the earth is destroyed for a hyperspace expressway (spoilers), but I think most would have moved on from the girl at the party after a certain length of time. As someone who has gone on many dates and has been ghosted for less interesting reasons, it’s amazing to think Arthur would remain hung up on this girl when she leaves with another man from the same party.

            This is why I’m concerned about Arthur’s mental state during this viewing of the movie–he’s willing to endure the thought of a girl running off with another man as karma for his not jumping on a plane immediately to travel with her to Madagascar.

            It’s a little sad, honestly.

            Later, Trillion and Arthur are reunited on a spaceship that improbably passed by the exact coordinates he was thrown off another ship into the vacuum of space. Aboard the ship, Arthur comes across the spaceman from the party, who turned out to be President of the Galaxy Zaphod Beeblebrox. Arthur’s first actions upon being on a spaceship after surviving the ether of outer space? He immediately inquires what became of Trillion after the party.

            If I’m Trillion, I’d be on my guard with this guy. Perhaps it’s the improbability of the two of them meeting on the same spaceship, but Trillion doesn’t blink when this guy immediately starts demanding “why didn’t you fall in love with me instead?” 

            Uh, what?

            The correct response for Trillion should have been: “Hey, we hung out for a while at that party, which was really great, but I CLEARLY left with someone else, remember? You were really nice, Arthur, but it’s not going to work out. Sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”

            That’s it, problem solved!

            But that doesn’t happen. Instead, she hints that they shouldn’t talk about it in front of Zaphod Beeblebrox in order not to upset him.

            Not to be deterred, Arthur’s motive is to bring up their brief courtship whenever possible throughout the movie. He’s pleading his case that they were something special and should pick up where they left off.

            It’s downright creepy to assume that anything marginally approaching romance should exist between these two people. Couples who have sex have less incentive to think romance or a relationship is taking place! Why does Arthur’s reluctance to give up on Trillion mean that she’ll ever return his affections?

            I think the reason for their eventual romance is interwoven with the meaning of the film.

            Why Arthur loses out on Trillion at the party is because he refuses to give up his usual comforts and spontaneously travel with her across the world. He has a rational point—they’ve just met, he has a job to go to in the morning…it’s not realistic to do something so drastic. However, Trillion sees this as another sign of another disappointing man who isn’t adventurous and willing to see the wider world.

            What Trillion is asking of Arthur is if he’ll put in the effort for her. Yes, she wants the trip because she wants affirmation that the world has more to offer, but she’s also watching to see if he’s willing to fight for her.

            When Arthur joins Zaphod and Trillion aboard the ship to zip around the galaxy in search of the ultimate answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything, Trillion gets into all the danger. It’s up to Arthur to save her. Zaphod, the mysterious spaceman from the party, does not. While Zaphod Beeblebrox won Trillion over with a willingness to travel the universe on a whim, he also didn’t think of her anything more than collected cargo. Zaphod was only interested in fame, recognition, and Trillion was always an afterthought.

            Even when Trillion was imprisoned on another planet by the Vogons, he doesn’t think to go rescue her (although, his brain is technically being run on lemons at that point in the movie, so maybe a little leniency in his case). Couple along the reveal that Zaphod was the one who signed the order to demolish the earth in the first place, and Trillion really grew to dislike him.

            This left Trillion to ponder why the aimlessness of her life on earth has followed her through the cosmos. By going somewhere else, be it Madagascar or the vastness of space, she was seeking greater meaning.

            What she discovered is that there wasn’t an answer to her life, the universe, and everything (even if it ended up being 42). Bereft in space, she was without a home planet, without anyone. 

            She was done looking outward for answers and instead looked around. It’s then that she realizes she just wants to be loved by someone who wants her.

            Trillion now sees Arthur’s journey. He has learned how to fight for what he wants. His life is about embracing adventure so that he can be present for someone else.

            Now there may be romance between the two of them. He sees her, and she sees him.

            And they can roll around with their towels.

            But there’s one question that still bothers me: why her? With only a few hours of talking at a party, why did Arthur maintain that he missed out on Trillion this entire time?

            In my limited experience with truly remarkable women (since romance is the angle I’m writing this from), I can say there’s no logical reason. Once you see someone great, you just know it. It’s a recognition of something within them, perhaps something you can’t quite explain. And once recognized, there’s no going back to the way things were.

            Ironically, this is how I felt upon first watching The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I couldn’t tell you why it meant so much to see this movie, but it did.

            I’ll just call it Love at First Sight.

***

THAT MCTAVISH SAVE

            Usually, I’d stray away from posting a hockey highlight, but the final moments of Team Canada winning gold at the 2022 World Junior Hockey Championships was one of the greatest moments I’ve ever seen in hockey. I’ll include the highlights below but be sure to watch the goal-line save by Mason McTavish who literally kept his team alive in Overtime by an inch.

https://youtu.be/N1F_1IbJNxw

***

  1. “Sweet (Single Edit)” by Jon Batiste, Pentatonix & Diane Warren
  2. “BDSM” by corook
  3. “Up” by Cardi B

***

Wishing everyone as well as you can be. You’re not alone out there,

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| Weekly Post-Eds |

Weekly Post-Ed #41

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

LIVING THE DREAM

A few weeks after graduating from high school, I went up to my varsity goalie coach to talk about where I could play next season. He was standing by the glass at the ice rink, watching another up-and-coming goalie, a sophomore who could potentially make the varsity team next year. He saw me in the corner of his eye, and I awkwardly put my hands into my pocket and approached.

            “Hey coach,” I said. “Got a second?”

            “Sure,” he said, still watching the sophomore practice. “What’s on your mind?”

            “I was just wondering if…you know…you had any suggestions of where I could play next year?”

            My former goalie coach turned away from the glass and looked to see if I was kidding. Pitifully, he saw I wasn’t. “You can always try the community college team. I hear they’re bringing the program back around.”

            “I mean, I can go anywhere, right? What teams should I try out for?”

            He turned back to watching the sophomore. “You played four games last year, Robert. Not a lot of teams had a good look at you, or even know who you are. I’d say the beer leagues are a great place to start.”

            At the time, I thought that his answer was dismissive. However, from the vantage of my mid-thirties and looking back at my 18-year-old self that had just completed his first year of competitive hockey, this answer was gracious in hindsight. My former coach knew my story. He knew I started playing ice hockey three years before and started taking goalie lessons only a year after I had begun. He knew my knowledge about travel hockey was next to nil.

            It was a gracious answer because he didn’t tell me the truth—which was that I was a dreamer who had no idea what the road to pro hockey looked like.

            My former goalie coach was Carl Howell, a former pro goaltender who played minor league hockey. Carl played goalie in an era when wearing a thin layer of molded fiberglass over your face was the best protection available—you know, the “Jason” mask from the film Friday the 13th.

            His career ended when scrambling in his goal crease for a loose puck, and a stick struck him in the eye, plucking it out of the socket. This was also the era where dirty tactics were the norm. Many forwards pounded a nail into the top of the blade of their hockey sticks, which made it all the easier to hook a guy and cut him open in the process (because if you’re going to get a 2-minute penalty for hooking, you might as well cut an incision big enough for a surgeon on your way to the penalty box). 

            Scrambling in the crease, a nail stuck into his eye and pulled the eye clean out of his face.

            The eye was saved and reinserted into the socket, but my former coach lost most of his depth perception, which made stopping pucks nearly impossible, thereby ending his career. He might have played in the NHL full time had he had better fortune.

            “Ok,” I answered my goalie coach after he told me to play in the beer leagues. “Do you know which one I should join?”

            He smiled, a brimming, knowing smile full of hockey knowledge I could never know or understand. “They’ll find you if they want you. Keep your phone on.”            

            It took years to realize that, no, I wasn’t going to be scouted to play pro hockey. I had a dream when I started playing, and only years after that did the bigger picture of the pro hockey life start to dawn on me.

            All I had was a dream and I thought it was enough to make the NHL.

            I’ve always pondered the phrase “Living the Dream”. To me, the phrase meant to have the ideal life where one was doing the work they loved, the kind where real struggle and toil were nonexistent. While watching the 2022 World Junior Hockey Championship over the last week, I discovered a vastly different view form what it means to live the dream. 

            Many of the players participating in the 2022 World Junior Hockey Championship are living the dream. To be chosen to represent your country is indication that you are the best of your age group. You see the names that have made previous Canadian or US World Junior teams and many have become stars in the NHL. To assume these young players are on a path to greatness seems logical. Aren’t these players living the dream?

            Not exactly. 

            To have arrived at the World Junior stage, these players have grown up with a constant pressure to perform since they’ve put on a pair of skates and shown superior skills compared to everyone else their age. With these superior skills came a caravan of interested parties: parents, coaches, scouts, former pros, and everyone else who saw the potential of someone who, one day, could have his name on the back of a NHL jersey. All these young players had to leave their families to play in the top Junior Leagues in the country, living with host families in place of their own, devoting their whole life to playing the game they hope will lead to becoming a professional. 

            The 2022 World Junior Championship is just a steppingstone along the way to being a professional. It’s another measuring station to prove that these prospects are on task and exceeding even greater expectations. There’s no downtime. These players are still required to produce, to keep separating themselves from the competition, to put up the best numbers of their careers in their draft year just to move up a few spots into the coveted Top 5 of the NHL Draft.

            These players know the road to pro hockey by 17-years-old because it has been instilled into their belief system since they started. They are the future, and they play every shift like it, too.

            And after watching a few games of these future stars, I thought back to when I was 17-years-old with the dream of becoming one of them.

            I can laugh at how absurd that dream was.

            A year before talking with my varsity goalie coach, I was at my neighborhood park on a cement rink with a painted goalie crease and undersized net, donning plastic-shelled street hockey goalie gear. I spent nights duct-taping the goalie pads back together after they had disintegrated from the last time of sliding across the cement crease. A group of five of us played along with whichever neighborhood kids came around, ranging from elementary to high schoolers. Most everyone ran in tennis shoes or didn’t own a pair of rollerblades. Hardly any wore hockey gloves and had blisters on their hands after a few hours of shooting with old wooden hockey sticks.

            We played in 90-degree heat. All of us wearing a replica jersey of our favorite NHL teams we had bid on eBay for cheap. We were the neighborhood all-stars without a clue about what it meant to play the pro game, but it didn’t much matter.

            I was never going to play at a level remotely close to what the best players in the world could play at age 17. It still doesn’t much matter. I still play hockey even with a worsening arthritic wrist and pinched nerve near a hip flexor that feels like absolute agony after playing all these years. 

            I’ll keep playing because I’ve decided the dream is to keep it going for as long as possible.

            That’s what I share with those 2022 World Junior players—the will to keep living the dream.

            It’s not worth losing an eye over, maybe, but for a sore wrist and stiff hip?

            I’ll keep my phone on.

***

GOODY TWO-SHOES

            I struggle to write about movies because they inevitably morph into mini reviews. And truthfully, I don’t want to write reviews on this website. Reviews, and criticism for that matter, revolve around an air of expertise, that because a thing has flaws or was masterful in some way, it means that the reviewer had the pedigree to point out why. A good critic is a fine thing to have in the world (allegedly), but overall, I think an audience knows how they feel about entertainment without someone defining terms.

            In the world of entertainment, I’ve seldom found a review useful before experiencing something first. 

            So, if you haven’t seen Luck, don’t worry—I won’t be reviewing the movie. Instead, I’m interested in the ramifications of the hero of the movie, the aged-out orphan, Sam.

            Sam is fascinating because there isn’t much to her character other than the fact that she was an orphan with bad luck and was never adopted. She is good to a fault and wants nothing more than for others to succeed in life. Samrepresents the ideal kind and selfless person, someone willing to sacrifice her own wellbeing for the sake of others. Of course, this goodness leads to her saving the day and everyone lives happily ever after by the end.

            Hey, this is a kid’s movie after all—why would everything not work out?

            However, it’s the subject matter of the movie that further complicates the character of Sam. The movie is about “bad luck” and its value in the world. Can someone with bad luck still strive to be a good person despite how things have turned out? What would be different about our lives if we had had “good luck” instead of “bad luck”? 

            These are fun concepts to debate, but let’s think about it in terms of Sam’s character as the ideal selfless giver. 

            In Luck, the question the film wants us to ask of Sam is, “Will she ever get rid of her bad luck?”

            And this was my problem with Sam: I didn’t really care if she got rid of bad luck or not.

            Here’s the thing: I want to believe in the characters of the movie. I want to follow and cheer for them when they get what they need. With characters like Sam, however, I found myself rolling my eyes at her selfless acts and goodwill. She was SO GOOD that I began to see this as annoying. I started to feel the gimmick of bad luck following her around all the time was JUSTIFIED.

            There’s a name for this wanting someone to have misfortune. No, it’s not schadenfreude, which is pleasure we derive from others’ pain. No, this was more of a feeling of wanting bad things to happen to someone attempting to do “too much” good.

            We’ve heard the term before. We call these people who do good without reciprocity a Goody Two-Shoes.

            We want a Goody Two-Shoes to fail. They’re the ones who always raise their hand in class because they have the right answer, the ones who always have a compliment or positive thing to say about someone, the ones who pitch in and help clean up a mess they didn’t make. While these are all wonderful qualities, we want terrible things to befall this person.

            Why?

            Because none of it is justified without acknowledgment of a dark side. Goodness is impressive with 3-dimensional characters, not as a moral set of instructions.

            Sam is good for goodness sake (yes, like the Christmas song) and for no other reason that’s given. Perhaps there wasn’t time to further flesh out why she behaves this way, but I had a hard time empathizing with someone passed over for adoption, who certainly suffers from some history of childhood trauma or abandonment issues with no symptoms at age 18. This is someone I’m not rooting for because I don’t understand her.

            I’d argue this choice of character doesn’t work. I like goodness, but like love, I want to see it earned. In a romantic comedy, the audience knows the leading man and lady are going to end up together in the end…but the fun of the story is the style and stakes of the obstacles that prevent this.

            In Luck, without consequences to Sam’s “bad luck” other than the universe backfiring on her every waking move, there’s very little reason to care.

            (Unless you feel the idea of a “good person” is enough…in which case, good for you—two enthusiastic thumbs up.)

            Sam isn’t responsible for her misfortune; the universe is.

            In other words, Deus Ex Machina, which is why I think the story all falls apart.

            Something else influences Sam’s destiny, not her choices.

            It’s difficult to root for someone who isn’t in control of their destiny. With Sam, I felt neutral about her misfortunes coming to an end. I liked her, but what else was there?

            I wanted to know more about Sam.

            I just didn’t get it.

            Which is just my luck!

***

MY FIRST ESSAY IS OUT NOW!

            That’s right, my first full essay was posted last Sunday! It’s about EVO, the Evolution Championship Seriesor the premiere fighting game tournament held in Las Vegas every summer. The tournament has undergone quite a storied couple of years and I wanted to write about my history following the fighting game community during that time. I’m happy with how the essay turned out and will link it below.

            I plan on writing more essays like the EVO piece more often. I have a few in the pipeline but I haven’t much else to share right now, so to stay tuned!

            Please give EVO: Reunion a read! I’m always looking for feedback and would love to read your thoughts!

***

  1. “Wonderful Life” by Two Door Cinema Club
  2. “Breathe Me In” by Strabe
  3. “it’s ok!” by corook

***

Wishing everyone as well as you can be. You’re not alone out there,

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| Essays |

Reunion: EVO 2022

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

PRESS PLAY TO START

Eight years ago, I started watching a tournament called EVO, short for the Evolution Championship Series. It’s the world championships for fighting games held every summer in Las Vegas, Nevada. I didn’t know it then, but EVO 2014 was the return of the Super Smash Bros. series after a 5-year hiatus from the tournament. 

            I sat in the basement of my parent’s house, loosely aware of a website called Twitch and browsed the frontpage for something interesting to watch. I saw footage of two players sitting in front of an old CRT television on a stage with a crowd of spectators watching on from behind. The players were none other than Mango and Mew2King, two of the greatest Super Smash Bros. Melee players of all time. I thought I would return to playing whatever game on Xbox I had loaded up, but I couldn’t turn away from my laptop screen. Here was my favorite game being played at a level I never thought possible. If the automobile instantly made the horse drawn carriage obsolete so, too, did watching Mango and Mew2King play in a set.

Courtesy Evo2kVids

            I thought my Super Smash Bros. Melee skills were adequate, but I was clearly mistaken.

            For the next three days, my eyes were glued to every match being showcased. I saw the greatest Smash Bros. players from around the world wield the likes of Samus, Captain Falcon, Fox McCloud, Marth, Pikachu, and Jigglypuff, moving in ways that seemed impossible. I heard the commentators using foreign phrases like “Wavedashing” and “Edge-guarding” and “Footsies” for the first time, terms that would later become the bedrock of my future tactical approach to playing fighting games.

            What I remembered above all else, however, was that watching this level of play was exhilarating. It felt like watching the Olympics and the greatest athletes in the world were neck and neck in a race to win it all. Except, instead of physical feats, these players wielded handheld controllers from a bygone era, engaged in a mental battle of reading the other, a virtuoso digital chess match played at a millisecond-by-millisecond pace.

            EVO 2014 was something that changed how I saw the world, opening a portal to something so endearing and yet new. Not only was there Super Smash Bros. Melee, but the Marvel vs Capcom 3 Ultimate, Tekken Tag Tournament, and Super Street Fight IV tournaments were just as exhilarating.

            By 1 AM, late into Monday morning when EVO 2014 concluded, I was too awake to sleep. I had seen something euphoric, spellbinding. There was only one thing I could do and that was to tell someone.

            The next day I hung out with a friend that I’ve played Super Smash Bros. with since the original launched on the Nintendo 64 to explain everything I had seen. As we sat down to play, I told him about the Grand Finals set between Mango and Hungrybox, the famous Jigglypuff player who perfected the sleep setup—essentially a maneuver that could guarantee a KO on his opponent from near perfect health. The tension of will or won’t Hungrybox land the setup was enough to make the crowd leap out of their seats. I told my friend about all the hours and struggle these players put into playing, how it was heartbreaking that someone who fought so hard came up just short.

            My friend shrugged as we hit start to play a match and said, “But it kind of sucks. You put all that time into playing a game and what do you get for it? You lose and you’ve just wasted your life on video games.”

            Was that really all it amounted to? Had I just stayed up all night enamored with the excitement of competition? There wasn’t anything more than that?

            I decided not to tell another soul about EVO, about what I had stayed up for three days to watch.

            “…you’ve just wasted your life on video games,” he had said.

            Eight years later, on the eve of EVO 2022, the echo of those words came up again and again. 

**

OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW

            Since EVO 2014, I spent years of my life watching every tournament associated with fighting games. I devoted weekends to watching Defend the North, Community Effort Orlando, Combo Breaker, Canada Cup, even the weekly Next Level Battle Circuit tourneys held in NYC featuring Team Spooky on the mic, the most celebrated and historied streaming presence in the community.

            As the years passed on, I watched fewer tournaments, but was avidly interested in news from the scene. Prized players arrived and left, some tiring of endless competition, while others levied their reputation as content creators or jobs in the gaming space. This allowed room for new players to grow into their own, and a revolving door of new talent took to the stage. Eventually, the burgeoning of esports that had brought other gaming communities under the influence of corporate sponsorship took hold of the fighting game community. Players adorned in team jerseys and tagged with sponsorship logos represented every gaming peripheral imaginable (headsets, arcade sticks, even energy drinks). These players became the ultimate contenders as dream teams were assembled to win.

            One of the beautiful things about fighting game tournaments is that ANYONE can enter and compete against the world’s best. Often these dream teams didn’t win because of the ever-expanding scene bringing to light a new generation of players who could hold their own.

            Meanwhile, as home console supremacy took hold, arcades in malls and small establishments slowly went out of business. These training grounds for some of the best players in the world closed their doors for good, a relic from the past along with the video rental store.

            It was a tumultuous decade of “out with the old, in with the new”.

            By 2018, EVO had become the biggest fighting game tournament in the world. Each year, the convention center in Las Vegas grew larger and larger, with grand finals of five premier gaming titles reserved for Sunday at an arena nearby. Competitors met center stage to play in front of thousands of spectators, the roars of the crowd likened to the NBA Finals rather than a crowd of gamers gathered on a Sunday to cheer on a pair of players hitting buttons on a gamepad or arcade stick. 

            EVO had also become the premier event for big game announcements from prized publishers like Capcom, Bandai Namco, Arc System Works and more. After the conclusion of each game’s grand finals came a surprise visit from a game developer, usually the director of the series, to introduce the latest character or work-in-progress that would be added as downloadable content in the coming months.

            EVO had become an industry, a capital event. And there was no deterring its upward trajectory.

**

THE DARK BEFORE THE DAWN

            Stop me if you’ve ever heard this before: “Everything was going great…until March of 2020.”

            Due to concerns with the ongoing pandemic, EVO 2020 was slated to be “remote”, an online-only tournament, all to the chagrin of many top players. It was an official EVO, but online play was in a wretched state in 2020. A widely used Netcode architecture led to such random fluctuations in game performance that it was impossible for even top players to play consistent. Playing online wasn’t so much a show of skill but rather of luck—if the Netcode fluctuated during a pivotal moment in the match, anyone could take advantage of a player caught performing a move they didn’t intend. EVO would be a tournament of chance, which was no way to crown the top player in the world.

            Performance issues aside, a second blow finally canceled the tournament completely. One of the former founders of EVO and its then CEO was accused of hazing allegations that spanned over several years towards younger players. In the ensuing weeks, all game publishers had pulled their games from the tournament in protest for his removal.

            EVO 2020 was officially canceled.

            Many wondered if EVO would ever return. And in March of 2021, more doubt was cast on the storied tournament’s revival.

            An announcement that Sony Interactive Entertainment had bought all rights to the premier tournament shocked the fighting game community. Sony, the makers of PlayStation, was feared to have its own agenda when buying a tournament that saw games from a variety of rival publishers, including Microsoft and Nintendo. Would Sony admit Nintendo games into their tournament (Super Smash Bros. Ultimate being at the height of popularity at the time)? Would they admit Killer Instinct, a Microsoft-owned IP and console rival?

            EVO was beginning to feel like a shell of its former glory; a corporate-owned, commodity-run business spectacle.

            And the business side was only half the problem.

            Over the course of the pandemic, the fighting game community had splintered. With no choice but to forgo in-person events for nearly three straight years since the  beginning of the pandemic, the veil of social media anonymity brought out the worst in the community. Many stoked the flames of old arguments about which games were better than others. The rhetoric behind what constitutes healthy shit-talking and what crossed the line to outright harassment nearly brought the community into a civil war, of sorts. Even one of the most prominent streamers and production companies behind many fighting game tournaments, Team Spooky, left the tournament scene behind in NYC because of criticisms constantly levied towards him and his production staff.

            By August of 2022, after an entire year of bad publicity and toxic social discourse, I had long forgotten that EVOwas scheduled to begin in the coming days. When a notification popped up on my phone, I quickly dismissed it. I wasn’t interested. With everything considered, I thought of the words my friend said all those years ago.

            “You put all that time into playing a game and what do you get for it? You lose and you’ve just wasted your life on video games.”

            Maybe he was right. What was the point in spending all those weekends watching fighting game tournaments? I was ready to move on. Maybe I would catch some of EVO in passing, but I wasn’t going to stay and watch this time. 

            I was over it.

            I think many felt this way on the night before EVO 2022.

**

REUNION

            On August 5th, the convention doors opened at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, the warm rays of the desert sun shone on a new day for fighting game competition. A collective of players, fans, artists, vendors, video game developers, and volunteers showed up in droves, pouring in through the doors to find their weekend badges and settled in to compete in pools.

            Out of curiosity, I turned to the EVO main feed airing on Twitch.tv. I was shocked by the number of people there. 

            COVID safety protocols were in place, and everyone was mandated to wear a mask in the convention center. In the background of the video feed there were countless hugs being shared in the crowd, long lost friends reunited under one roof for the first time in three years. Accounts on social media shared group photos of old training partners, even those from old arcade venues long shut down during the pandemic. Some shed tears, absorbed into the N95 masks or into long embraces on shoulders. It was like watching family members reunited as though they had been separated by some great natural catastrophe. 

            In many ways, it was.

            I didn’t log off. I kept watching, and the familiar sensation of seeing the competition come from everywhere imaginable – France, UK, Pakistan, Japan, Thailand, Mexico, Chili, East Coast, West Coast, Canada…came back as it did before.

            I glanced at the numbers watching the stream. Some 50,000+ were watching in the first hour across the many EVO channels on Twitch.tv

            Exhilaration: it was still there! Quickly, I turned to one of the other channels hosting the start of the Street Fighter V tournament. And it all came rushing back; the familiar smile, rooting for the unknown player to make a splash, to see everyone come together and compete.

**

THE FINEST OF FIGHTERS

            If you’ve never witnessed the collective hype and excitement of a crowd attuned to the second-to-second decisions playing out on a screen between two fighting game characters, there’s nothing quite like it. EVO is famously encapsulated by a video deemed EVO Moment #37 wherein Daigo Umehara’s Ken parries a Super by Justin Wong’s Chun-Lee who is sure to win the match. The parry, even if done casually in Street Fighter III: Third Strike, was a risky maneuver that had to be timed perfectly. The skill and scope required to pull off such a parry during a semifinal set on the biggest tournament stage in the world was nothing short of miraculous at the time.

Courtesy evo2kvids

            So many storylines gave breadth and scope to EVO 2022, rekindling the hype and togetherness of bygone eras like the one shown in EVO Moment #37. From Mortal Kombat 11’s Top 8, which included the dethronement of perhaps the most dominant fighting game player of this generation, SonicFox, and saw the dominance of two Chilian brothers claim first and third place (with a dominant performance by T7G’s ScorpionProcs), to The King of Fighter’s XV Top 8 that included a truly inspiring win from Taiwan’s ZJZ—it was one of the finest 72-hours of fighting games ever seen.

            Most noteworthy was Street Fighter V’s Top 8.

            The bracket was filled with absolute legends of the game including Daigo Umehara, Tokido, MisterCrimson of the EU, gachikun, Justakid, Oil King, a young Japanese starlit named Kawano, and the NYC phenom iDom.

            To set the stage of this grand finals, EVO is an open-bracket, double-elimination tournament that takes place over three days, culminating in a journeyman’s effort to survive to Top 8 on Sunday. The tournament features a breakneck schedule of round robin play that sometimes sees pools played late into the night depending on delays, and the endurance to keep the mind and body healthy through 12+ hours of gaming in a single day. It is a testament to one of the most rigorous tournaments around.

            One of the hardest positions to be in with a double elimination bracket tournament is to be sent to Losers Side. To win the tournament, not only must you go without another loss, but you must win two complete sets in Grand Finals over the Winners Side contestant.

Courtesy Streetfighterleague.com

            iDom began in Losers Side on Sunday night at the Michelob Light Ultra Arena, first playing against another USA favorite, Justakid. iDom plays one character in Street Fighter V (as opposed to multiple players who use specific characters for specific matchups). He uses Laura, the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu fighter, and believes in sticking to the character that best represents you as a player. Laura is not the strongest character in the game, but iDom uses her in a way that befuddles his opponents. He’s outrageously aggressive, and his ability to make reads on his opponent all but leads to uncanny mistakes from them. It’s suffocating to watch his offensive play.

            No one was ready for the level of performance iDom was about to show the world on the final night of EVO 2022. 

            He first defeated Justakid, then went on to face Daigo Umehara, arguably the greatest fighting game player of all time. At 41, Daigo has been playing competitively for 20+ years, longer than the inception of the EVO tournament. His playstyle is unlike anyone else’s because of the knowledge and expertise that he wields. That iDom, a great player in his own right, had to face Daigo, win or go home, was nothing short of fantastic.

Courtesy evo2kvids

            iDom wins. It isn’t nearly over. He has to face Tokido in the next round of Losers Side, perhaps the second-finest player of his generation. At every turn, the audience is rooting for the US player who represents the home crowd to pull through, but the auditorium knows the odds. To beat Daigo is one thing, but then to match up with Tokido, one right after the other, and win? Unheard of. Yet, iDom prevails 3-0 against the storied Japanese player.

            Meanwhile, the 17-year-old starlit of the Street Fighter V scene in Japan hasn’t lost a game in the tournament. Kawano has just beat gachikun, the former Capcom Cup champion and sent him to Losers Side. He awaits the winner between iDom and gachikun. Somehow, iDom must defeat this next titan of the game as well.

            And iDom does defeat gachikun, perhaps in one of the greatest sets in Street Fighter V history.

Courtesy evo2kvids

            It’s Grand Finals, the final set of Top 8. By this point, iDom has captured the belief of everyone in the arena and watching at home. The way iDom was playing was like watching the greatest athlete of our age dominate in the playoffs. He was a modern-day Michael Jordan willing his team to victory, achieving the unbelievable along the way. And yet, the 17-year-old Kawano has also held his own against the world’s best. It truly was a test of the greatest players in the world that night. 

            At this point, not a soul watching disbelieves in iDom. He is Beowulf, Achilles, the greatest warrior in the world on this night. It was manifest destiny that iDom would win this tournament. 

            iDom won the first set, pushing Kawano to the brink with an easy reset of Grand Finals. There are only three games left to win and he’s crowned EVO champion.

            In the second set, the pace was frantic for both sides. Kawano continued to make small adjustments despite iDom’s brilliance, and he found ways to connect his bread-and-butter combos with Kolin, the icy Secret Society agent character of his choosing. Both kept to character loyalty, a battle of ability versus functionality; and each match was testament to read the other.

            As though following the greatest script ever written for this night, the tournament comes down to the final game, final set, and final match. iDom and Kawano have a quarter health bar each. One mistake means victory for the other. iDom sees his opening and commits to punish Kawano and take the tournament. Glory is his; we all expect it!

            Until iDom misses his opening.

            Kawano recovers and connects with a final bread-and-butter combo.

            iDom loses.

            Collectively, all our hearts broke. iDom’s heart the worst of all; he couldn’t lift himself up from his chair after congratulating Kawano. He had come too far, done the unfathomable, and when he was at the finish line a simple mistake in judgment led to his defeat.

            And the words of my friend echoed in my head as I watched iDom continue sitting there, defeated:

            “…You put all that time into playing a game and what do you get for it? You lose and you’ve just wasted your life on video games.”

**

AND THE WORLD WILL BE A BETTER PLACE

            The lights on the stage floor lit up as the Top 8 of Street Fighter V gathered on stage to be awarded their medals. Top three received gold, custom-painted arcade sticks, a nice touch by tournament organizers. And as each competitor on stage for Street Fighter V was announced, all eyes were on iDom. He wasn’t crying, that anyone could see because his mask was pulled up so tight to his eyeline. Kawano had won, and rightfully—it is never a fluke to win EVO, and props were given to Kawano as the only one capable of surviving the onslaught levied by the tenacious play of iDom.

            To think about all the hours spent training, not just for iDom but all 5045 entrants of EVO 2022 (according to the start.gg bracket stats), the countless matches played against training partners, all the videos watched dissecting matchups and playstyles, the travel to tournaments to train and prepare for the biggest stage in the world…and to come up short, whether in 2nd place or to go 0-2 in pools…

            In a world of thankless competition, was any of it worthwhile then?

            “And in second place,” said the announcer LIJoe, another favorite of the fighting game community, “give it up for iDom!”

            A standing ovation! The applause was deafening as all came to their feet. There is seldom standing ovation for runner-ups, but the play of iDom was that of a champion without the trophy. With a nod, iDom received his second-place medal, not the one he fought so hard for, but for the applause, the affirmation everyone showed that he had done something truly remarkable.

            At that moment, I knew why my friend was wrong all those years ago.

            To spend your life committed to something you truly believe in, no matter what the result, is never going to be a waste. Because it matters. It truly matters in ways that aren’t obviously understood.

            All those years ago, I watched players like Mango and Mew2King light the Super Smash Bros. Melee world on fire with their amazing play at EVO, and I’ve never forgotten how that felt. To think that somewhere out there, someone witnessed the way iDom and Kawano played on a Sunday night in Las Vegas has forever changed their life.

            It means everything.

            When I look back at EVO 2022 and what this past 72-hours meant to all who watched and participated, who showed up at the venue despite the rifts growing within the community; it’s clear that it meant everything to come together again. The hugs, the tears, the acknowledgment of the struggles we all faced during the (still ongoing) pandemic, the periods of isolation and anguish, the petty squabbles and inbred battles—none if it amounted to anything once the doors opened on August 5th.

            Playing games without the promise of success matters.

            Being together matters.

            You matter.

            I won’t be silent this time with regards to what I saw at EVO 2022. Time to spread the word.      

            EVO Tokyo was announced for March of 2023. I’ll be watching. Oh, and if you’re wondering when the next time the community will come back together between now and the next tournament, the answer is simple enough:

            We have always been together.

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| Weekly Post-Eds |

Weekly Post-Ed #40

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

CLUELESS ABOUT CLUELESS

            Apple Fitness has this masterful way of thematically curating music during workouts—and as it turns out a stint of Pilates (yup, not ashamed to admit it—Pilates kicks my ass) was rocking to the soundtrack greats from 90s romantic comedies, most notably 10 Things I Hate About You and Clueless. Since it has been a decade since I’ve seen the latter film, I loaded up my movie library Monday night and watched the cult comedy written and directed by Amy Heckerling.

            After the first ten minutes of the movie, I realized I had undergone a time warp. Watching Clueless today was nothing like when I first saw it at 10-years-old (yes, on television, those dark days before on-demand streaming services). What I was watching today was masterful moviemaking; but this wasn’t how I thought of Clueless as a kid. In fact, I don’t think I knew what to think of movies back then.

            At ten, I remember being aware of adult relationships but unsure of how they worked. Movies were the framework that I based my earliest experiences with girls on—a practice that landed me a 100% failure rate.

            When I first saw The American President starring Michael Douglas, for example, the first “flirtatious” move I learned was to compliment girls on their shoes—a famous Aaron Sorkin line from the film. This confused many girls who wore dated Nikes and grass-stained Adidas sneakers, as rightfully they should have been. The compliment was meant for dressing up at fancy State Dinners at the White House, not for footwear that befell the wear and tear of Michigan winters.

            I made a similar mistake after watching The Fast and the Furious when I thought a good move was to compliment a cute girl on her mother’s beat up red 1998 Grand Prix. “Your mom’s got a nice car,” I told her. She asked why I said this and I didn’t really know—I wanted to look knowledgeable about cars because that was impressive to girls in the movie.

            My rule was that if a movie said it, I should probably say it, too. Why else would these things be in movies if it wasn’t a cool thing to talk about?

            I don’t remember taking many social cues from Clueless, however. The relationships in the movie mystified me. For example, when Alicia Silverstone’s character, Cher, has a romantic fling with Christian, the new boy in school, I was COMPLETELY unaware of why the relationship didn’t work out and he abruptly left after their date. He seemed like everything she ever wanted, they seemed compatible…what more was there to it?

            I just assumed he was too cool for her…even though he didn’t compliment her shoes or her father’s make and model of car.

            Even after Donald Faison’s character, Murray, explains in the next scene during a disastrous car ride along a LA freeway, “He’s a cake eater!…He’s gay!” I still didn’t understand. I paused the movie trying to determine what “gay” meant at ten-years-old. I just knew people made fun of you for being it, but that wasn’t Christian in the movie. That guy was cool. He stood up for Brittany Murphy’s character, Tai, when she was held over the ledge of the upstairs railing at a mall. He gallantly pushed the two jerk guys who thought it funny. 

            If Christian was “gay”, gay seemed like the way to go.

            Coincidentally, a few years later, before the advent of my first girlfriend, there was a period of about two weeks when I seriously considered if I was gay or not. There was no evidence to speak of, but because I didn’t think all men looked yucky (think Brad Pitt or George Clooney at the time), I debated if other penises were in my romantic future. I guess I thought of being gay as a conscious commitment, like buying those orange/baggy cargo pants with a million little pockets down the sides. No one bought them unless they really wanted them.

            For the record, I wanted those orange/baggy cargo pants but never ended up purchasing them.

            I felt similarly about my choice with being gay—just didn’t make the purchase.

            (Go easy on me, I’m joking—I was 10-12 when I thought things worked this way.)

            Now, in the year 2022, I understand that Christian’s character from Clueless was a parody of 1950’s movie stars. He was a combination of members of the Rat Pack, with the wardrobe and slicked back hair donned by Marlon Brando. He even drove around in an old Nash Metropolitan, a car sold in 1953. All his lines are faux gangster, something that might have been said in the musical “Guys and Dolls“.

            I also understand now that Clueless is a sharp piece of satire and an homage to another literary work. The film is based on Emma, the famous Jane Austin novel about a young matchmaker proud of her ability to match up close friends and relatives with what she feels is best for them (except, she falls prey to the monsters she makes of them, leading to betrayals, etc). She must become humble, which mostly comes from the subtly flirtatious encounters of an older gentleman in her life (Paul Rudd’s character Josh in the Clueless) who wins her heart and ends her single-hood, as all romantic comedies must.

            The only thing that wasn’t lost on me at 10-years-old was that everyone in the movie didn’t look like sophomores in high school. They looked much older, much more mature than they ought to have been.

            Oh yeah! That, and the item donated to Cher during the canned good drive was pretty obvious. Some have said it was a bong, but I know that it was, in fact, a potato shredder (similar to a pencil sharpener, but for potatoes). They existed in the 90s (it did not) and were a dangerous kitchen utensil.

            Of that, I was correct at 10-years-old and still maintain that’s what the tinny device sorted as “Kitchen wear” was used for.

            Why else keep it in the kitchen?

***

EVO 2022

            I’ll be brief: this past weekend was EVO 2022, the premiere fighting game tournament held in Las Vegas, Nevada every year. It’s a storied tournament that was particularly eventful this year for several reasons, many of which deserve its own post on this website. So, this Saturday Sunday at 8 PM, I’ll be posting an essay of this year’s event and the storylines that unfolded.

            Look out for that Saturday Sunday @ 8PM EST (Sorry all, put the wrong day! Sunday instead of Saturday)

***

  1. “Tomorrow” by Young the Giant
  2. “Too Dramatic” by Ra Ra Riot
  3. “About Damn Time” by Lizzo

***

Wishing everyone as well as you can be. You’re not alone out there,

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| Weekly Post-Eds |

Weekly Post-Ed #39

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

ROCK GODS

            Why is music today so terrible? 

            It’s an argument I hear from anyone older (my generation included) who turns on any modern FM radio station: “Music isn’t like it used to be,” and “They aren’t even playing instruments now,” or, most frequently, “What do you call this crap, anyway?”

            And I tend to agree. My golden age of music was from a post-punk UK indie movement where Bloc Party, Foals, Interpol, Kaiser Chiefs and the like were my Rock Gods and wrote the anthems that defined my adolescent years. They ruled the stage, sold out arenas, and changed the music landscape with a sound and attitude that still resonates.

            My dad’s generation had The Beatles, Elton John, Chicago. The guys I play hockey with laud anything Rush, Led Zeplin, AC/DC, perhaps straying into the cheeseburger rock paradise of Jimmy Buffett. My generation likened teen angst to screamo ballads and frantic guitar strumming: Green Day, Foo Fighters, Paramore. 

            And on and on it goes, bygone eras where the music brought together droves of people and has lasted throughout our lives on Spotify playlists, blasting around campfires on JBL speakers the neighborhood over. 

            But not the music of today, it feels like. Why does it seem like today’s music lacks such defining bands and songs?

            Where have all the Rock Gods gone?

            That’s where it started for me this week. While at a friend’s house, I found an old instrument stashed away in a box in his basement. It wasn’t an old electric guitar, or the hard-shell case of an abandoned marching band instrument unused since graduation day. What I found was a miniaturized plastic guitar, shaped like a Fender Stratocaster, with six rectangular, rainbow-colored buttons assorted down the neck, one occupying each of the farthest frets. A large switch, maybe three inches long, clicked up and down, spring-loaded back into position where the strings would normally be strummed. 

            This was the controller of the game Guitar Hero and was instrument to some of the greatest Rock Gods that ever played.

            Oh, I can see the grin of skepticism on all your faces. Don’t worry, I used to laugh at them, too. Why would anyone put all their efforts into fake learning “Sweet Home Alabama?” or “Thunder”? If they were so good at the game, why didn’t they just learn a real instrument?

            And yet, everyone stopped to watch these Rock Gods play. The superhighway of colored rectangles flashed on the screen at breakneck speed, and these Rock Gods kept in rhythm with every chord progression, every solo riff, and we all watched in wonder while all the hits were played—Black Sabbath, Mötley Crüe, DragonForce. We couldn’t help ourselves. 

            We watched because music isn’t concerned about what is real or earned (like an actual guitar versus as a two-foot-long plastic one), it was all about being involved.

            It’s the same reason we love the Rock Gods that we do. They make us feel alive with their music, with their swagger, and we channel that into our lives. There’s nothing like seeing a live band perform the shit out of the songs they’ve made. Even cover bands qualify. The same goes for players of Guitar Hero and Rock Band who hit 100% accuracy after a session of “Through the Fire Flames” and “The Pretender”.

            “Hey, remember Guitar Hero?” I asked my friend after dusting off the old controller.

            “Yeah, I don’t play anymore,” he said.

            “No one does. We should play it, though.”

            So we did, pretending we were the same Rock Gods that hadn’t aged a day past 16-years-old. And the joy of playing those old tracks came flooding back, all from a guitar-shaped piece of plastic and six colorful buttons.

            “Music is anything but math,” Andrew Bird, perhaps on the greatest musicians of the last decade, once said.

            I believe that goes for why we love the music we do, even if it comes from the Guitar Hero catalogue, or from the auto-tuning synth-lords of this generation. 

            We all pay tribute to our own Rock Gods because they move us. They make our lives meaningful, perhaps in a way that only music ever could.

            And as long as there is music, even if we don’t like it, there will always be its Rock Gods.

            That’s what I thought about driving home from playing an hour of Guitar Hero. I turned off my Apple Music playlist in the car, switched to a non-static FM station, and listened to something from today.

            And immediately shut it off after a minute.

            I tried. These aren’t my Rock Gods; but I know now that they are somebody’s.

            Even those who listen to Jack Harlow.

***

I’M HALLUCINATING, YOU’RE HALLUCINATING…

            Here’s a thought to unsettle you for the rest of your life: everything you perceive, from sunshine beaming in through the window, to the sounds of people bustling around you, to the smell of the coffee steaming from the mug at your desk…all of it is made up in the mind as a glorious, biochemical hallucination.

            Yes, this is the Matrix.

            So, would you like the Red or Blue pill?

            I’m joking, of course, but the premise of being plugged into our senses strikes closer to home when it comes to understanding consciousness than previously thought.

            In Anil Seth’s TED Talk, he explains that what we perceive the world to be is really the body’s sensory system finely tuned over millions of years of evolution to calculate an accurate depiction of reality. We see color and shadow because it helps us identify contrast or danger (brightly colored berries, insects, reptiles usually signaled ‘danger’ in primitive man); we distinguish noises from loud to silent as we’re able to understand if danger is approaching. It became useful, through our evolution, to identify the world around us. Most humans interpret sensory signals in the same ways: grass is green, the sky is blue, a splash of water feels wet, etc, etc.

            But within the finer points of our sensory organs, we are making approximations based on our own experiences and personal abilities to understand what is real around us. Even though we understand that grass is green (well, maybe not in your neighbor’s yard), the eye cannot actually “see” anything; rather, it is a bodily organ that translates wavelength frequencies to the mind, and the occipital lobe “determines” what is being seen.

            And in some cases, the mind can be wrong about what it sees.

            Take this famous optical illusion shown below:

Edward H. Adelson

            The darkness of the checkered boxes outside of the pillar’s shadow seem to be darker in the checkered Box A than the checkered Box B, but this is only our mind’s approximation of what seems to be correct in terms of what we know of light and shadow. In reality, the two boxes are the same color:

            So, who is to say our senses are to be totally trusted?

            As Anil Seth says in his TED Talk: “Reality is the hallucination we all agree on.”

            It’s a wonderful notion, isn’t it? To think this is why animals see things differently, like how dogs can only perceive different color spectra. We all see things in our own way…so long as we all agree that Jack Harlow is just ok.

            I’m kidding. I have nothing against that guy, I just like his name as a punchline.

            All of this and more is covered in the Anil Seth’s TED Talk below. It’s a cathartic 20-minutes and worth the watch:

***

  1. “Hang Around” by Echosmith
  2. “Symphony” by Imagine Dragons
  3. “Weak Teeth” by gglum

***

Wishing everyone as well as you can be. You’re not alone out there,

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| Weekly Post-Eds |

Weekly Post-Ed #38

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

A MARVELOUS CULTURAL DISPLAY

After contemplating why I write semi/sort-of reviews of Marvel properties, I have to ask aloud: is it because I spent five hours making this week’s Weekly Post-Ed graphic in the style of the Disney+ show Ms. Marvel (you read that correctly, FIVE HOURS), does that mean I must write something even if I don’t have anything unique to say about the television series?

I think the answer is yes; I really enjoyed making the logo. Go ahead, scroll up and take another look, just for me. Yup, that’s five hours well spent, I’d say!

            My new favorite attraction to every Disney+ Marvel show is being taken on a personal tour of a given culture or people or idea. In Moon Knight, we were given a tour of Egyptian culture and gods, culminating in a final adventure that spanned across the sands of Egypt. In WandaVision, the grieving process was studied through a powerful witch who manipulated a small town into becoming different eras of television symbolizing the Five Stages of Grief. 

            And now, we have the MCU’s latest show, Ms. Marvel, which draws heavily from Muslim culture in America and what it means to retain heritage while forging one’s own identity in a new place. The show followed a similar structure as Moon Knight as we eventually traveled with Kamala to her grandmother’s home in Pakistan where she solved a family mystery as well as why her powers stem from the ancient bangle that acts as catalyst for her marvelous superpowers.

            Ms. Marvel is dense with Muslim culture, ranging from the graffiti art opening credits that also pay homage to the original comic illustrations, to the music that not only sets a tone for modern Muslim influences for the show but also ties into the theming of each episode. So much of the series took place in a modern Muslim household, not only acting as a window to a world that many of us have never considered, but showed, like any culture, how loving and connected family is to our own sense of identity, even while forging it in our tumultuous teenage years.

            Criticism of story and plot aside, I enjoyed each episode and gained a greater appreciation for the world that Kamala (Ms. Marvel) comes from.

            Ok, now for some criticism.

            Can we please stop making police and/or government officials idiots in television shows? Granted, it can be argued that real world government agents act no differently, but I like a formidable foe in my fiction. Since a government agency is the villain in this show (really, it is), they need to be better at being competent. Highlights of inept police work include: 

  • A car pulls up and helps the hero escape, driving off with squealing tires down an abandoned road—and no agents seem to notice.
  • Escaping through a loud, metal door when other characters are in the act of being arrested at gunpoint by the police—and no one notices the door closing with a loud thud as our heroes escape.
  • Missing every shot fired from advanced weapon systems as our heroes escape unscathed around corners, ducking underneath falling debris.

            I understand this is a relatively low stakes show in which teenagers are meant to win against the big/bad governmental agents abusing their power, but there must be a better way of showing this other than having the same police pratfalls as an episode of RENO 911. Not only do I roll my eyes at every stereotype reinforced by snobbish portrayals of governmental authority abusing power, but that the cops are not well-trained at catching the Scooby-Doo equivalent of “Those meddling kids!”, it only adds to the middle finger thrown to the audience in place of real conflict and tension in the show. 

            This is where Marvel Studios can do better. I’m still a believer in things taking time to get better (the first season of Parks and Recreation a prime example), and Marvel has yet to master a winning formula for their online shows. And perhaps six episodes just isn’t enough to put into place a structure that makes the audience care about the villains as much as the heroes. It was just revealed at San Diego Comic-Con that a new Daredevil series will be releasing in 2024 and has an 18-episode arc; maybe that’s something to consider in properly delivering a show that is as satisfying as the movies seem to be, budgets notwithstanding.

            But I found there’s more reasons to watch Ms. Marvel other than implications for future stories from the MCU. From Kamala’s parents and family to her friends and community, to the locales and music and wardrobe of the show, all of it was fascinating and worth sitting down for six episodes to enjoy something new and yet familiar.

            Just like Ms. Marvel herself.

***

THE SHAPE OF AN “L” ON HIS FOREHEAD

            

A Dreamcatcher

            Has anyone ever had a dreamcatcher on their wall as a kid, and still had a nightmare, and upon waking up from the nightmare with a cold sweat and a few lingering images from that horrifying experience say aloud,

            “Wow, I should have believed harder that my dreamcatcher actually works. If I believe hard enough, I wouldn’t get any nightmares.”

            If this kind of idiocy describes you, then let me introduce Clark Kegley, the only YouTube content creator I’ve lost respect for immediately after one video.

            If you’ve ever clicked on a Self-Help video on YouTube, you’ve just acquired a sort of algorithm herpes. One click on a self-help guru (even worse on mobile if you linger for too long over a thumbnail and the video auto-plays *cringe*) and you’re bound to get these videos popping up in your feed all the time. I call it a YouTube Outbreak; and the only cure is to ONLY watch things that you want popping up in your feed for a period of months before the outbreak can clear up.

            And I liked Clark Kegley. Initially. He seemed like a good dude even if he sported a greasy mustache, slicked hair combo…but I suppose he’s emphasizing that masculine look that many men look for in their “worldly” self-help gurus, so more power to him.

            The video I first saw of Kegley was about his quest to divulge the top three lessons he gleaned from reading over 300 self-help books. Sadly, the top advice was not, “Stop reading self-help books,” which, in my experience, would have been the most useful. Instead, Kegley spoke about waiting for permission and how we often seek exoneration (from work, from a needy spouse/family, time constraints and other responsibilities) before starting something, how we remain sentimental to the idea of change (understand it without true action—which requires sacrifice, something most of us are not willing to give), and forgiveness in terms of others and ourselves so that we can move on.

            It wasn’t groundbreaking (self-help videos never are) but I thought Kegley had some interesting ideas to share.

            Then, the algorithm herpes of Kegley videos and others like his kept surfacing.

            Soon, I was scrolling past swaths of celebrity commencement speeches, the everlasting advice of Steve Jobs, what Elon Musk’s diet was as a child that led to his founding SpaceX…just a constant stream of “I’ll help you improve your life if only you subscribe to my channel,” nonsense.

            Usually, I’m fine ignoring videos (especially the YouTube self-help guru crowd that lives entirely on saturation of their own videos – cranking out as many as possible – and growing their subscriber numbers—which seems counterintuitive; if your videos are helping people, shouldn’t your subscriber numbers decline since they no longer need your services? Just a thought), but eventually one of Kegley’s appeared that raised an eyebrow. It was titled:

            How to MANIFEST A Text INSTANTLY from a SPECIFIC Person.

            If you’re wondering why I’m not linking the video here, I refuse to give this man extra views after having watched it. If interested (and I know you are, you industrious internet connoisseur), you’ll find it on your own.

            Basically, the video says this:

            (Paraphrasing): “Here are the three steps to make anyone think of you and message you back. Anyone. No matter what your relationship is with them.

  1. Fill your head with positive thoughts, only good ones.
  2. Write the name of the person you want contacting you with your finger on the glass of your phone. Over and over and over again.
  3. Wait. Within three days, maybe four, you’ll get a message from them.”

            Kegley proudly summarizes, “I guarantee that this works, guys!”

            First, no it doesn’t. And I know it doesn’t because coincidences do not count as mysticality. There has been literally thousands of years of research and philosophy disseminating similar belief systems. If you’re not hearing back from your father, in Kegley’s case, because he “never” contacts you first and suddenly does…the event was still possible because there was still a basis to get ahold of you even without this so-called “Manifestation”. It may be unlikely that your father does text first, but it isn’t out of the realm of possibility since a.) he is your dad and is, therefore, invested in your existence, and b.) has the means of contacting you in the first place.

            If I am secretly in love with Emma Watson, the actress, it doesn’t mean that I can write her name on my phone and expect a text from her at some point in the future. The same goes for Anna Kendrick, Elizabeth Olson, and, to a lesser degree, Pedro Pascal (because let’s face it: he’s a lovely man and bends the curvature of heterosexuality in men if left stranded on a desert island, not ashamed to admit that) and anyone else I’m trying to think of that might have a phone I could develop a psychic connection with.

            And while this idea of writing someone’s name on a phone screen is objectively stupid, the part that drove me to write about this guy was the end of the video.

            Kegley says, (paraphrasing, because I refuse to rewatch the video to properly quote): “If it doesn’t work after three days, it means you just have to do it over. But guys, I’m telling you if you’re NOT BELIEVING HARD ENOUGH, it won’t work. You have to believe in this, 100%. And if you aren’t believing in this entirely, you won’t get results…”

            That’s why this guy deserves a shot taken at his content. It’s the old: “It’s not my fault my made-up thing is the dumbest idea and doesn’t work because I made it up, it’s because you just didn’t try hard enough!”

A KEKW laugh

            While it’s an old formula to gaslight a victim that it is their fault for why something isn’t working (I think religions of the world call the same process imbedding guilt, but that’s a different brand altogether), it should evoke a KEKW laugh from everyone who encounters it. Every time.

            But after some deliberation about posting this segment (because I don’t like tearing specific people apart on a personal website, not when I can be vague and clever about something and pass it off as fine writing), I have to admit that Kegley’s method of writing on the glass of a phone with a finger does work to some degree. For example, whenever I happen upon another of Kegley’s videos, I write the shape of an “L” on his forehead (yes, from the famous Smashmouth song), and it turns out to be true!

            And I can only surmise it’s because I BELIEVE hard enough that it is.

            In a way, Kegley’s videos really have helped move my life along. But now that they have, I can unsubscribe.

            The YouTube Outbreak is over, I can go back to living my life again.

            Speaking of, think Emma Watson will really message me if I keep writing her name with my finger on my phone screen?

            I guess there’s only one way to find out…

***

  1. “Paths in the Sky” by Metric
  2. “Brass Band” by Jukebox the Machine
  3. “W.I.F.I.” by Wildermiss

***

Wishing everyone as well as you can be. You’re not alone out there,

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| Weekly Post-Eds |

Weekly Post-Ed #37

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

A TALE OF MILWAUKEE

I took a two-day trip to Milwaukee for two reasons: to get away from West Michigan and experience someplace else for a short while, and to meet a girl. I did both. And while writing this Weekly Post-Ed and describing my experiences, I felt that what I wrote wasn’t quite as true as the journals I kept during my time there. I was writing in a way that portrayed Milwaukee as mundane or uninteresting, which was far from the truth. There were mundane aspects about the trip: the drive was fine, the hotel was fine, the girl was – to put it nicely – fine. So, what gives? I traveled to some place I’ve never seen before, enamored with its architecture and history, a culture that was bustling and interwoven between every race, class, shape, and construct, like a fine soup streaming through the busy sidewalks of the city.

            And yet, I was writing about these experiences with a certain expectation after the fact;

            I was hoping for something cathartic to happen to me while I was there.

            Maybe I was supposed to run into an interesting group of people who would invite me to a party and offset how I saw the world up until that point, or that I might bump into someone in a coffee shop that was intrigued by me. No such things happened, of course, and I’ve sat at my computer for the past few days pondering what exactly to make of my time in Milwaukee.

            But maybe this isn’t such a complicated problem. I journaled all of my experiences on the road. The problem is that the length of these writings, even cut and pasted together, is a bit long for a Weekly Post-Ed. So, I’m going to compile these entries into a travelogue about what happened in Milwaukee.

            If you can’t wait for the juicy details, here’s a rundown of what happened:

  1. Drove for 4.5 hours straight until arriving in Milwaukee.
  2. Checked into the Drury Plaza Hotel
  3. Walked the streets downtown, saw the river, saw Lake Michigan from the other side (looked similar, really).
  4. Had a date that evening with someone I’ve talked with sparsely from a dating app.
  5. Went to bed.
  6. Spent most of the following day in my hotel, exhausted from a variety of factors (the lingering fatigue of my previous bout with Covid as one of them).
  7. Walked the streets of Milwaukee on a Monday—fun fact, most everything is closed on Mondays in Milwaukee
  8. Had a second date with the same girl; regretted not kissing her when I should have.
  9. Slept early.
  10.  Had brunch with this same date. No kiss, again. Regretted it, again.
  11.  Drove 4.5 hours home.

            And somewhere in there was supposed to be this grand, ubiquitous breakthrough that would provide the foundation for a summer I’ve deemed as a fresh start, a way of cleansing the old for the new.

            What I found was that all of this did unfold on the trip, just not in the way I expected.

            In fact, I wrote it during my time in the hotel:

“I wouldn’t call it boredom, but there is a feeling of, “Is this all?” And, yes, I think that’s right. This is likely all, and the fun travelers have is the fun they make for themselves.”

            The Milwaukee 2022 Travelogue will be posted this weekend. Keep an eye out for that!

***

PHOTOBOMBING

            There was a social experiment done at the University of Florida with a photography class. The class was split into two groups: the first group was told they were to be graded on QUANTITY—meaning, they were to take as many photos as possible for the best grade. The second group was told their grade would be based on QUALITY—or deciding upon a select group of photos that best exhibited their skills.

            The results of the experiment showed two things: first, that the QUANTITY group not only produced more photos, but that the quality of their photos was better. This was because the pressure to produce a select number of photos to be excellent didn’t exist. The QUANTITY group could take as many photos as they liked and the freedom to experiment led to considerably better results.

            The QUALITY group, by contrast, produced a significantly smaller number of photographs. Since the grade was about excellence, the students in this group did not take excess photos that would, as a result, push the boundaries of what they knew currently about photography. In short, the QUALITY group played it safe in order to appease the professor, which led to a stunting of growth with their photography skills and the photographs suffered as a result.

            The lesson that has been derived from this social experiment is that with more QUANTITY, it follows there will also be more QUALITY.

            Now, I wrote all of that to say that my experiences with dating apps DOES NOT FOLLOW these findings whatsoever.

            I’ve been online dating for 13 months (on and off, of course). Over that period, I’ve been on dates with 22 different women. Before this era of dating, I went on a grand total of 3 dates as a teenager and into my early college years, two of these dates developed into serious, long-term relationships (one a brief marriage), and I thought I was doing fairly well in terms of finding romantic partners that connected and resonated with me.

            By contrast, the past year has introduced me to dates with such staggering backgrounds and belief systems that I’m often left speechless by stories that I could never fathom to make up as a writer (believe me, I have tried—these stories are much more complex and surprising).

            My ultimate goal with dating is to find a meaningful, long-term relationship. And after 13 months, I have to ask: what’s been going wrong over the past year? Why haven’t I found a serious connection?

            In short: I don’t know.

            And after reading books, articles, and constantly introspecting on the matter…I don’t think anyone does.

            It appears we’re living in an era where genuine connection is a trial in and of itself.

            But I’ve certainly had a QUANTITY of dates (22 women in just over 52 weeks is a potent sample size in the greater dating world). So why hasn’t this led to better QUALITY in dates?

            First, I think bad luck plays a bigger role in the dating world than it does with a skill that can be improved over time like, say, photography. Dating certainly depends on many elements not in your control: natural chemistry, a person’s background/belief system/social ability, which leads to how open and communicative they are as dates, as well as a willingness to keep curious and want to know more about another person. This listing doesn’t account for other social conventions such as access to to instant gratification that has become available – oh, I don’t know – EVERYWHERE in the modern age (streaming services, social media, the internet and the never-ending wealth of information available instantly and from wherever to name a few).

            Since all of these variables are ever-shifting, it makes the practice of dating something impossible to master since you aren’t playing with a full deck of cards most nights.

            To take the photography example from above a bit further: it’s the equivalent of snapping a photo, but the resulting image is either distorted or that objects shifted in the background without warning. Can you imagine? A tree branch moves in the way of a crimson sunset, a sandhill appears blurry – not because of the camera settings, but just – you know – because it can. 

            Essentially, everything in the image can “PhotoBomb”—the act of jumping in front, garnering attention, or taking away from the intended intention of the photo by some means.

            That about wraps up what online dating feels like—a giant Photobomb that gets in the way of a genuine connection. Oh, things might have gone well except for (and I’ve experienced all of these and more):

  • “I have a close relationship with my ex, I hope it’s not weird that I sometimes go to his house to spend the night when I need to get things off my chest. He’s such a great listener…”
  • “I’m sorry, but I’m looking for someone that is seeking a relationship with Jesus like I am. It doesn’t seem like you go to church three nights a week like I do…”
  • “I don’t trust men. I’ve had a string of bad relationships, the last guy cheated on me with three different girls, and I just don’t see the good in them anymore. Anyway, I’m glad we’re on this date; how was your day?”
  • And on and on and on it goes…

            How does it feel to be on the dating scene for just over a year without the ultimate goal of a serious relationship?

            Picture that scene from the original Jumanji when Robin William’s character emerges from the board game and looks like a wild man who has survived the wilderness of a jungle that should have killed him since he was a kid.

            Yeah, that’s the psyche of someone who has online dated for too long.

            That’s why I take breaks. If not for my own sanity, but to remind myself that the results do not necessarily reflect the person. Will more practice lead to better results? Not really, but I like to think I gain something else with the more dates I go on.

            I have Twenty-Two unique stories to tell, each one of them more unique than the last. Each felt promising but was inevitably photobombed by something unexpected. If you think about it, 22 dates without coming close to a functional fit is quite the streak to be on.

            I should put together a photo album someday of all these experiences. Then, after this journey is said and done, I’ll pull out the album show a friend who wonders why I would ever keep such old, ugly things.

            “Why would you keep any of this?” she would ask as I flipped the plastic pages to the next story.

            And I’d shrug.

            Because I didn’t know what else to do with them.

***

“Wonderful Life” by Two Door Cinema Club

“Ramona” by Jukebox the Ghost

“Out of Style” by The Wrecks

***

Wishing everyone as well as you can be. You’re not alone out there,

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| Playlists |

Q2 – 2022 Playlist

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

It’s that time! Another 3 months of new music and this is the compiled playlist of everything that was a step above the rest (according to DJ Robert Hyma…not a real DJ name, just trying to get the point across that I catered this list). In Q2 of 2022, lots of new releases came from seminal favorites like Arcade Fire, Foals, and even a new album from my favorite band Bloc Party.

There were some great new finds as well. Jalle and Saint Kochi were surprises and I found myself listening to them quite often. instant crush has a great range and angst behind their sound, as well as a much more jam-based, saxophone centric band Loose Fit.

Sure Sure, one of my favorite bands from the last two years, has new EP out that is absolutely worth the listen. New tracks by Max Frost and Pomplamoose rounded out the playlist into something exciting but familiar. And, of course, a new track sung by Lin-Manuel Miranda about mothers was the musical theater cherry on top.

There’s something in this playlist for everyone and I’m curious to hear what you’ve found as well!

Below is the track listing as well as links to Apple Music and Spotify playlists.

Enjoy!

  1. “Playlist” by Besphrenz
  2. “Picture” by dee holt & Chris James
  3. “Dreams” by MisterWives
  4. “All I need” by Sir Woman
  5. “Downers (feat. Issey Cross)” by Jalle
  6. “Almost Lost” by Saint Kochi
  7. “T” by 88rising, Hikaru Utada & Warren Hue
  8. “Nightmare” by instant crush
  9. “In Situ” by Bloc Party
  10. “This Time” by Sure Sure
  11. “CHAMPAGNE” by Valley
  12. “Honey” by Abhi The Nomad
  13. “Rain On Me” by Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande & Purple Disco Machine
  14. “Ringo Starr” by Max Frost
  15. “Disposable Friends” by AVIV
  16. “Meteorite” by Anna of the North & Gus Dapperton
  17. “Stupid Drama” by Loose Fit
  18. “Unconditional I (Lookout Kid)” by Arcade Fire
  19. “Break the Rules” by Charlie XCX
  20. “Then It All Goes Away” by Dayglow
  21. “Life Was Easier When I Only Cared About Me” by Bad Suns
  22. “As It Was (feat. Sarah Dugas)” by Pomplamoose
  23. “Always Got The Love” by Cub Sport
  24. “Muthers R Speshel (Wen Yer Sad)” by Lin-Manuel Miranda & Joe Iconis & Family
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| Weekly Post-Eds |

Weekly Post-Ed #36

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

LONELY ON THE FOURTH OF JULY

Writing about America today is much like trying to message an ex-girlfriend. And if you haven’t written an ex-girlfriend in a state of desperation, perhaps on the eve of a meaningful anniversary that provokes feelings of only the good times (*cough* July Fourth *cough*)—congratulations, you’ve saved yourself the trouble doing something incredibly stupid.

But upon reflecting on this year’s Fourth of July and the ambivalence the country feels towards celebrating its day of Independence, it feels like a tale of broken love. So, if you’re struggling with how to feel this Fourth of July, might I invite you to indulge in an episode of writing your ex a message.

Please enjoy:

**

            Yes, it’s tempting to send HER a message. You’ve spent draft after draft writing your heart into the text, explaining everything as you saw it. Now, all that’s left to do is send the message, digitally, in a world where there are no take backs (Ha ha!). After all, why shouldn’t you send it? You want to still like this person, even love them, but you also understand that with all your differences and the storied history of how it all went wrong between the two of you…there’s no healing those old wounds.

            Some things should be left to scab up and become ugly scar tissue as a reminder of why things go so horribly wrong to begin with.

            So, let’s take a moment and explore just why, on this Fourth of July, you are writing HER (America, if you haven’t caught on with the symbolism here yet).

            Well, isn’t it obvious? SHE’s still pretty hot, even after all these years. Plus, SHE’s single and, well, you’re single…so why can’t you two just, you know, work it out and relive some of those great years the two of you had together?

            Ok, not all the years were great. SHE did have a fling with that guy Terry when you thought SHE needed a break to sort herself out. Why did SHE ever go for a guy like Terry? Everyone knew he was loud and obnoxious. He told enormous lies about how great he was, lies about business ventures that were major successes (they were not), and how he was a savvy real-estate tycoon, which, sorry, has anyone ever bought a house from Terry? Would you buy a house from Terry? Because NO ONE buys a house from a guy like Terry.

            Ugh.

            But you’re understanding. You could still see the appeal of why SHE would go for a guy like that. He was the opposite of what you were: confident, brash, outspoken, and lots of people loved him…yes, so very annoyingly so. But eventually SHE saw Terry wasn’t the end-all-be-all. He was terrible boyfriend material and should have never been elected to boyfriend status. Four years later, SHE finally rounded the corner and dumped him. Thank God!

            (Well, Terry claims he dumped HER, but EVERYONE knows it was really the other way around. Sorry Terry, you’re not fooling anyone.)

            So here you are on the Fourth of July and things are better, right? SHE’s single, you’re new and improved, having grown so much since the old days. Just send HER the great message you wrote about how it can work out again. You just need HER to join you and work as a team. How could SHE say no to all of that?

            Then you remember: it isn’t just HER any longer. There’s also Todd, HER 2-year-old son.

            Yes, Terry’s son. Turns out, there were consequences with Terry being in the picture–you don’t just escape from Terrys of the world.

            SHE had Todd with Terry just after SHE was done with you. And even though you washed your hands of HER, you heard through the grapevine that SHE was pregnant. The betrayal! SHE said SHE would only have a kid with someone SHE truly loved! And SHE had a child with Terry of all people?!

            Terry???

            You’re double the man Terry ever was. Just about any man is double the man that Terry is.

            So, now you’re hesitating to send the heartfelt message that would win HER heart back. Maybe it isn’t worth reconciling with someone like that, the type of person to have a Todd with a Terry (the absolute worst).

            Yeah, that’s right! You remember it all, now! You remember the last fight and all the terrible things SHE said about you before she left.

            “I just feel like we’re going in different directions,” SHE had said that night. “I want to get things back on track, and the only way to do that is through my Supreme Court commandeering a constitutional agenda with zero oversight. It’s the only hope our relationship has, don’t you get it? We have to throw away our bipartisan objectivity and start ruling on legislative agendas that derail the entire democratic process if we’re ever going to get anywhere. We all want this.”

            “Where is this coming from? I thought we were happy,” you tell HER, with scoff followed by confused, hopeless scoff.

            SHE quickly dries a tear from HER eye, as though this speech is hurting HER more than it is hurting you. “I wish you would have just supported me when I needed it. If you had approved of the direction my court was taking us in supplanting its responsibilities and taking the reins of whatever jurisdiction is being awarded by a passive congress and picketing White House, we might had had a chance. But I have to do what’s right for me, and that’s supporting the RIGHT team so that they win. I’m sorry…if you’re not with me, you’re against me.”

            “What is this, 9/11? Like I haven’t heard that before!” You tell HER. But SHE’s already gone to the bedroom to pack up a suitcase.

            And you stood there. You stood there wondering how SHE could say such nonsense. Where did SHE learn any of this? From that one cable news network? Why is it shown in restaurants like that? Scaring kids and adults, and apparently ruining relationships!

            SHE couldn’t have been serious. What did courts have to do with your love? You were both BIGGER than any court in the land, right? Did SHE mean something else instead? No, no, SHE really did change. This isn’t the same person you fell in love with. Something happened to HER. SHE wasn’t always this excluding and cruel, conforming to the “right” team winning (who was SHE even referring to? Tell me it wasn’t TERRY!!).

            Now you’re riled up. You’re pacing the room. This is all HER fault!

            It’s clear what you have to do: delete the message. 

            There’s no reconciliation. There’s no “friends with benefits” between the two of you. SHE has clearly gone crazy! It’s not like you said anything hurtful.

            …well, that’s not entirely true. 

            You did get your say that night as you followed HER to the bedroom where SHE packed the suitcase. You stood in the doorway and said:

            “What kind of backwards and dystopian world being gerrymandered by troll-looking white men with no other currency than fat bank accounts, hedge funds, and insider trading for investments given to them by their rich Troll fathers are you talking about?” 

            You might have shouted this, doesn’t matter. SHE deserved to finally hear what’s been on your mind. 

            “What? You want us to be like all the other white elitists parading intellectually empty minds around like its a badge of honor, who claim religious superiority and values as a skimpy disguise for textbook patriarchy and a Machiavellian pursuit to rule everyone else for no other reason than to hide a crippling and intense sense of insecurity? Am I getting this right? You want us to flaunt that change is BAD and we will all rue the day when new policy helps evolve and leave the world a different place, which will upend the inevitable power struggle of – and I’ll say it again – FAT, PASTY white men who look EXACTLY like storybook TROLLS?? Seriously, who would ever fuck these guys?”

            SHE was oddly quiet when you said this. Little did you know that Terry was already back in the picture even before you two officially ended.

            “Since when did you become a parasitic, weak woman subservient to the patriarchal hierarchy, painted red, white, and blue with the period blood of your canceled reproductive rights, along with a laundry list of other liberties they will invariably take from you next!”

            “You just don’t get it,” SHE said. “You never have.”

            That’s when SHE walked out. Without the suitcase.

            SHE didn’t even have the decency to say it was over. And maybe that was a hip, Hollywood way of saying it was really over anyway, kind of like characters who don’t need to say obvious lines in a movie if there’s a better way of relaying the information through imagery or symbolism. But still! It was classless to just walk out.

            …and back into Terry’s arms. Probably. You haven’t checked HER Facebook photos recently…

            (You can’t state enough how much you hate Terry…)

            And now there’s little Todd, who might as well be the next Terry.

            You sit down, not knowing what to do.

            Is it worth messaging HER? Was any of this worth fussing over? Things were great, once, but can it ever be again with HER?

            That’s when it hits you:

            Maybe not this year.

            Save a draft of the message, stash it in a folder somewhere in the cloud, and reread it next year.

            Maybe it will make more sense later on. Give it some more time.

            Bang.

            Boom.

            Red, white, and blue in the windowpanes.

            Fireworks light up the treetops of the neighbor’s property. They’ve bought the good stuff again this year. At least there’s that.

            How pretty, you think.

            Kind of like how SHE used to be…

***

SO, I CURRENTLY HAVE COVID…

            As I write all this, I’m currently quarantined in a room recovering from Covid-19. It’s my first positive test, which is a strange feeling. To many of us, a Covid test is like a viral pregnancy test (which sounds like a pregnancy test that “everyone must see to believe!”, but that’s not what I mean—I mean “viral” as in “virus-based”. Duh). You swab your nose, put the swab in the tube, swish it around, put on the cap, pinch four drops onto the testing dial, and then wait twenty minutes for results.

            If there’s one line, it means negative.

            If two lines, IT MEANS YOU ARE GOING TO BE A NEW DAD!!

            **Stadium cheers**

            (I’m kidding. And the scope of that joke is even shallower than usual considering the abysmal decision of the Supreme Court’s re-ruling on Roe v. Wade—seriously, fuck that institution and it’s geriatric need to revert back to the “good ol’ days” of an imaginary “perfect” White, patriarchal America.)

            But much like any positive testing, there is a moment when you realize that your life was one way, and, after the test, it is now another. There was a conscious understanding of, “Oh, now I can’t go out and see people if I want to,” and “Oh, now I have to stay in a room for a week and keep to myself”.

            And if you’re a creative introvert (like me) who thrives with being alone and would have loved to take a week away from everyone and everything anyway…

I can happily report it was a much needed vacation!

            As I’m coming to the tail-end of my quarantine, the biggest thing I’ve learned about myself is how much shaving I should start doing on a regular basis. Honestly, a shave every 3-4 days just isn’t enough.

            And if this wasn’t the life lesson that a potentially debilitating virus was trying to teach me in my 33rd year of living, then I don’t know what is. Maybe I should have thought more about prioritizing my health and relationships, but that’s just not how it played out. I can’t help it, life isn’t pretty—and the lesson I gleaned from this time of solitude was PLEASE SHAVE MORE OFTEN.

            Thank you, Covid, I will follow thy sage lesson and remind myself to shave more.

            …and will totally forget to apply said lesson when life becomes busy again.

            Maybe on the next mutation I catch I will finally apply it.

            Speaking of, when’s that third booster coming out? Soonish?

***

OOO! THAT NEW BIOSHOCK INFINITE LOOK…

            Hey, the answer was in the section title: I’ve redesigned my website in the style of Bioshock Infinite. You guessed it, another one of my favorite video games. 

            I’ll save on the spoilers in case you haven’t seen/played/heard of Bioshock Infinite, but it is a game that I feel strongly encompasses the current mood of this American cultural climate. As such, it felt like the perfect design to accompany this website through the summer months of 2022 as we try – VERY HARD – to not devolve into a dystopian state.

            I’m mostly kidding. Dystopia is a strong word. But if I were currently playing America: The Game (set to release on PC in 2025), I’m not sure how I would avoid the word “Dystopia” in describing the game…see what I mean?

            Hmm, maybe I’m looking for a different “Dys” word, just a step before a Dystopia.

            Dysfunctional. Hey, that’s a better word!

            We’ll go with Dysfunctional.

            Anyway, attached below is the art I’ve made for the background and header. If you look closely behind the torn American flag of the background image, you might see the menacing copper eye of the Songbird.

            **Shivers**

            And serious question: is the Songbird a machine, a mutated man, or just a really big bird? There’s lore behind it, I’m sure, but I was always too terrified to check it out personally.

            But now that I’m nearly recovered from Covid, maybe I am now brave enough to look up the answer myself?

            Nah.

            Best not tempt Covid to overhear and come back even stronger. Some things are best kept secret.

            That’s right, easily-lookup-able-information, you win this round…

***

  1. “Meteorite” by Anna of the North & Gus Dapperton
  2. “Unconditional I (Lookout Kid)” by Arcade Fire
  3. “Break the Rules” by Charli XCX

***

Wishing everyone as well as they can be. You’re not alone out there,

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