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| Weekly Post-Eds |

Weekly Post-Ed #42

by Robert Hyma August 24, 2022

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

***

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

August 24, 2022 0 comments

| Weekly Post-Eds |

Weekly Post-Ed #41

by Robert Hyma August 17, 2022

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 13^th.

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!

***

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

August 17, 2022 0 comments

| Weekly Post-Eds |

Weekly Post-Ed #31

by Robert Hyma April 20, 2022

written by Robert Hyma

SEEING ‘TURNING RED’

Only the foulest and most detestable of preschool teachers sets up a computer monitor and shows a movie to a classroom of kids at the end of a long week. Of course, I would never subject my kids to such “low education”. Any teacher that does should feel ashamed of themselves. Because when you have kids that are bored with the monotony of everyday life in a classroom, who just want nothing more than to get outside and play (but can’t because of this laughably unending Michigan winter season), and are still force-fed curriculum, indoors, and that, at this time of year, consists of dull and droning material such as, “Hey, did you know this type of plant grows, too???”

*Insert facepalm GIF of your choice*

…you feel tempted to shuck away all modes of teaching and just park the kids down with a snack and a movie and call it a day.

Teaching, in actual practice (it should be noted) is oftentimes a war of attrition.

So, supposing I were one of these lowly teachers that brought in a computer monitor just to show his kids the Pixar film Turning Red on a Friday afternoon, it might go something like this:

It’s becoming a trend for me to say, “Yeah, so I just saw this movie that’s been out for, like, 3 MONTHS, and here’s what I thought of it…”

How I see new movies is like my seeing a post on Twitter about the latest Wordle: I know vaguely of it, but I couldn’t exactly explain it or just when I’ll get around to learning about what it even is.

Anyway, more on Wordle in my next Weekly Post-Ed…

But why stop at simply seeing a new movie? Why not subject yourself to watching it with a bunch of 5-year-olds in a classroom—which is the audience you should see a highly anticipated movie with. Not only have all my students seen the movie before, they just want the highlights—mostly the 4*Town songs written by Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell. The rest of the movie is red fluff for them, which doesn’t bode well for a semi-professional writer who cannot help but get absorbed in the story and underlying themes of a movie. Not only that, but the film was a surprisingly dense and unique way of investigating teenage womanhood and the act of breaking free of parental norms to embrace individuality.

So: let’s press PLAY and see how far we get.

–TWENTY MINUTES LATER–

“Mr. Robert, is the movie almost done?” asks the little girl closest to me. She’s tossed her teddy bear across her cot like a tumbleweed by this point, the stuffing frayed from blunt-force trauma.

“No, it isn’t,” I tell her calmly, with a warm smile. After all, I’m enjoying the movie and am entranced with what’s going on and assume everyone else should be.

The astounding thing about Pixar is how purposeful everything is in their movies. For example, a seemingly dull Father acts timid around an ultra-protective, oftentimes judgmental Wife/Mother? Sure, let’s have that in the movie.

But wait! It pays off. You see, the Father is this way because, as it turns out, HE was the object of—

“Is the movie almost done now?” wines a little boy next to the little girl who asked the first time. The blunt-force trauma of the teddy bear tossed between the two of them has me wondering if we should be teaching stuffed animal civil rights.

“No,” I say, with a bit more growl, but still smiling. “It’ll be over soon.”

“Ok,” they say, and I gesture to keep the teddy bear still for fear that it will end up in teddy bear E.R. with any more blows to the head.

Where was I? Oh! So, the Father is the crucial element that helps Mei Lee, the hero, realize that the Red Panda transformation, which – and I skipped over this – acts as the magical embodiment for young womanhood that I spoke about before. And it’s such a great symbol! That’s because whenever Mei Lee turns into a Red Panda, it’s her true feelings that come out, thereby confronting her obligation to “honor” her Mother and remain a child—a necessary rite of passage. When the Red Panda comes out, it is a wild, freeing form of expression, and it is precisely what—

“Mr. Robert?”

It’s the first little girl again. I turn to her with what can only be described as Academy Award Winning patience and resolve. “Yes?” I smile, all my facial muscles wanting to succumb to irritation instead. “What is it now?”

“Is the movie almost over yet?”

I sigh. “It’s been three minutes since you last asked me,” I say to the little girl who seems to have the attention span of a goldish. I’m also wondering how this girl “claims” to have seen Turning Red if she interrupts every umpteen minutes to ask if it is almost over. IF YOU SAW THE MOVIE, YOU WOULD KNOW! *Counts to four, five, six, seven…*

“No,” I say with a smile, “we just started the movie 25 minutes ago,” and you can tell I’m addled; I quantified time in front a preschooler, which is pointless—5 minutes might as well be 5 hours to a kid that can’t tell time. “I’ll let you know when the movie is close to being over.”

Which is a lie, but I mean no harm–I haven’t seen this movie and want to experience this great thing playing on a 27’’ computer monitor sitting atop a 2-foot tall Lego table at the front of the classroom.

All is quiet again. I sink back into my chair and watch.

Have I mentioned the role Mei Lee’s three friends play in aiding a journey into independent womanhood? I mean, wow! As a male, I have zero idea how the journey into womanhood works, and I was mystified (yes, MYSTIFIED) by the importance of community and embracing friendship as a means of overcoming the stresses and sheer terror of stepping out of that comfort zone of what we know as our honoring our parents.

“Mr. Robert?”

Same little girl.

“Yes?” I ask, noticing my teeth turn into Red Panda-like fangs.

“Is the movie almost—”

“No,” I growl, red panda ears sprouting from my head. I also bounce up another foot in my chair when my Red Panda tail blooms underneath me. “The movie is not done. Not ten seconds ago when you last asked, and not ten minutes from now when the movie will still be going on! Does it look like we’ve arrived at the Act II climax? I didn’t think so!”

“Uh…”

(If you thought introducing quantifiable time was a problem for preschoolers, now I’ve just hoisted the notion of plot elements only writers care about as though it were something kids ought to know alongside colors, numbers, and letters of the alphabet.)

I calm down and summarize to the little girl with a candid smile, “Just be quiet and enjoy the movie.”

Anyway, as I was saying: Yes! The Mother in the movie is losing control just as her daughter is, representing the symmetry of BOTH mother and daughter having to let go of previous notions of who the other previously was! The mother is a Red Panda, but massive, her insecurities and fears of what will become this new daughter, this new identity, and she becomes a Godzilla-esque kaiju monster as a result! She’s about to storm the concert venue that Mei Lee has escaped to with her friends and—

“Mr. Robert?”

I don’t even let her finish. I grow ten-feet tall, my rabid Red Panda snout towering over this little girl who was given the option of sleeping during rest time or enjoying a movie, only to keep annoyingly asking (the audacity, right?) if we are done with the movie.

Luckily, before I can claw her to bits, the Red Panda taking over my entire persona (as all teachers have their own Red Panda and have known this LONG before Turning Red was ever released), the credits roll.

Oh no, I think, sitting down in my chair, I’ve missed the finale. I’m defeated. I was deeply enjoying the movie, but instead I had to hear the constant inerruptions of:

“Mr. Robert?” asks the little girl, again…

I smile back at her, meakly. I shrink back to normal size, the Red Panda gone. I feel a slight welling in the back of my throat. It was a wonderful movie, from what I saw of it. I look around at the dozen or so kids that were watching; they seem mildly pleased and are getting up off their cots. Most are interested in finding something else to play with in the room.

“Yes, the movie is done now,” I say to her before she can even ask.

“Can I have a hug now?”

I open my arms, half annoyed, but mostly grateful to be able to give a kid a hug.

That’s the other side of teaching: that if you can endure all the hair-ripping frustrations of it, you can still give a kid something they really need (connection, fun, or, most times, a simple hug), and it feels pretty dang good.

“Did you like the movie?” I ask the little girl, expecting her to say she didn’t even watch it, blah blah blah.

Instead, she says, “Yeah. It’s my favorite movie. I’m going to watch it at home.”

It then dawns on me that I, too, can go home and watch the movie. And I can watch it in private, reverse-engineering how it was all put together to my heart’s content. It also occurs to me how stupid I was for getting irritated.

“Can we watch another movie?” asks the little girl.

I look to the other kids. Most come back to their cots, each with an idea of what we should watch next. I look to the clock, that mystifying circular object on the wall, and see there’s an hour and a half left of school.

“Sure,” I say, “we have a few more minutes. Why not?”

This is all fictional, of course. A teacher would never show a movie when there is important curriculum to be taught instead.

I mean it; cross my Red Panda paws and hope to die.

***

POLIWHIRL IN THE RAIN

In my quest to get better at digital illustration and draw every Pokémon card I own, I often get bored with the mundanity of some of the earliest cards (their poses, backgrounds, etc) and so choose to experiment with concepts of my own. I’m not sure why but when I think of Poliwhirl, I always think of a Broadway Musical Actor ready to break into singsong and choreographed dance numbers (maybe it’s those big, white gloves that would suit any tuxedo?). So, I’ve illustrated Poliwhirl in the pose of the great Gene Kelly from the movie poster of “Singin’ In The Rain”.

Good idea or not, this illustration makes me laugh. I hope you all find some joy in it, too!

***

***

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

April 20, 2022 0 comments

| Weekly Post-Eds |

Weekly Post-Ed #30

by Robert Hyma April 12, 2022

written by Robert Hyma

ROBERT HYMA, FORMER SEVENTH GRADE PIRATE

There are times in my adult life when I think all my ideas are great ideas because – and I think we all feel this way – they come from me. There’s a system of checks and balances in place, certainly, but upon first stumbling upon an idea or loosely assembled philosophy I assume my ideas are justified mostly because I thought of them.

During these times, there’s a specific set of memories I replay from my childhood that remind me of other “great ideas” I’ve had and how – get this – it turns out they WEREN’T great ideas. At all.

So, I thought I’d share one of the memories from my childhood I reference for a reality check from time to time.

**

When I was in seventh grade, I pretended I was a pirate for three entire months.

Maybe some context:

I didn’t quite understand how to be true to myself when I was thirteen. What I liked, back then, were characters in movies I had seen at the time because they were cool, capable, and unabashedly themselves—a complete mystery to my 13-year-old self. So: imagine a quiet, unintrusive middle schooler without a whole lot going for him other than being (I assume) not so annoying and fairly decent with grades.

And then: Pirates of the Caribbean came out, and I soaked up that movie for an entire summer. Johnny Depp’s portrayal of Jack Sparrow was the coolest thing I had ever seen to that point: funny, charming, always had a plan, talked in an interesting way, his look was unique, and above else:

He was cool—everything I wasn’t.

(To illustrate how warped my tastes were as a teenager: I LOVED Dragonball Z, but I felt “Meh,” when I first saw Star Wars—so, just an objective critic in the making.)

And at some point near the beginning of the school year, I assumed the Jack Sparrow identity. I don’t know when, but I imagine there was a penultimate scene right before I made the decision. At 13-years-old, I was scrawny, pasty, with a hairstyle that said, “Gel, what’s that?” as it fell frumpily over my expressive forehead. I must have looked myself in the bathroom mirror with a belated sigh and said, “Ok, this isn’t working.”

And I started talking, acting, and otherwise BEING Jack Sparrow everywhere I went.

No, I didn’t dress like a pirate. I’d like to state that. But this likely made it all the stranger my mannerisms and gesticulations, my complete change of diction and talking style, and just what the hell that thing I wore on my ring and pinky finger was. I had found an old necklace that was torn and weathered, so I wrapped it in loops and tied knots to wear around my fingers because I thought it looked “pirate-y”. No one asked what it was or where it came from, and I think that speaks to the capacity human beings have for accepting others (yes, that’s the interpretation I’m sticking to).

The other remarkable coincidence from this era, and because I had an absence of close friendships at the time (“I wonder why,” he said, rolling his eyes), was that I sat at a table of what can only be described as “popular girls”. I had unofficially joined a group of seventh grade boys in somehow attaining a girlfriend, which, at the time, was a little like ordering a meal from a restaurant (“Yes, I’ll take one girlfriend and I’d like it on the side with fries, thank you.”). And with a girlfriend came an unofficial credential to sit at this so-called “popular table”.

But then the fad of “having girlfriends” faded early in the year and there were mass breakups from all of us puppy-love boys (including me, which ended in a similar restaurant-fashion: “Yes, could you send this back to the chef? No, I didn’t like it and would like to try being a single teenager again. No, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. What do you mean you have to ‘call’ her?”)

Unbeknownst to me, all the boys left the “popular table” and I stayed.

Because I didn’t understand what was happening, I just kept sitting with the girls, not knowing any better, having nothing much to say to them, and they never said anything about it in all that time I sat awkwardly (which, in hindsight, was very kind of them).

And then I became Jack Sparrow.

“Hi, Robert,” said one of the popular girls (I’ll call her Jen) at the table upon my arrival in the cafeteria.

“I’d say hello, but you already knew I was going to say that.” I said, twisting my face like Johnny Depp might in the movie.

Jen said nothing back, quickly turning to a lifeline next to her, and I sat down in a very pirate-y way.

“What’s on your hand?” asked another popular girl (Maggie).

“This?” I said, twirling my hand like it had a mystical power. “Some say it’s good luck.”

“So, what is it?” she asked again, after a beat.

“Save-ee, just a trinket I found.”

“What does SAVE-EE mean?”

“I think he means SAVVY,” said Jen, keeping a straight face while the table laughed.

“Drink up Me-hearties,” I said—I should note I seldom ate, so there was no tray or drink in front of me, which confused everyone.

Three girls lifted their Dasani waters. “Yo-ho.”

And from that I thought I was massive success. After all, I was barely speaking to anyone before becoming a pirate. This character brought on confidence, and I was speaking to pretty girls—I mean, it worked for Johnny Depp in the movies, why couldn’t I have that in my life?

So I kept it up, purposely becoming a pirate every time someone spoke to me.

“Could you be a dear lass and pass the ketchup?” I’d say to my sister at the dinner table. Several weeks into this character and no one asked questions. I was readily ignored, which seemed normal for my sister at the time anyway. No alarms there.

One day I had to get a physical with my family physician. My dad went along, silently watching as I fingered the bracelet that I twirled through my fingertips in the waiting room. This was before smartphones, so no distracting himself from the character being portrayed by his burgeoning son. He watched on, ignoring the magazine periodicals he might have sifted through on another occasion.

“Mr. Hyma?” called the nurse.

The nurse took my preliminary assessment, asking me questions about drugs, pains, how much soda I was drinking. I answered, “Aye,” every time when I might have said, “Yes.”

“The doctor will be right in,” said the nurse, happy to scamper out of the room and away from this odd teenager.

Our family physician had a beard that made his smile friendlier, somehow. He was always calculating and reassuring, chalking up most medical problems like he was helping a recently married couple pick the right coat of paint at a hardware store. “A sore shoulder, huh? Ok, let’s rotate it this way. How does it feel? Does it hurt when you bend it like this? Hmm, sounds like a sore rotator cuff. Try not sleeping on that side at night for a week, that should help. I’ll prescribe some pain relievers, too. Give me a call in two weeks and we’ll do something else about it if it still bothers you. Have you considered dressing your bedroom in Cerulean instead of Lapis blue?”

Quick and easy and our family was always out the family med-center without problems.

The doctor came in with that familiar bearded smile. “Hello, Robert! How are things? How do you feel?”

“A mighty fine day, even better to sail the seas, if it weren’t December, I’d say.”

The doctor looked to my father, who shrugged.

The doctor smiled again. “Ok, and how are you feeling health-wise? Anything bothering you?”

“A clicking in my ankle, nothing serious. Perhaps scurvy.”

“Scurvy?” repeated the doctor.

“He doesn’t know what that is,” said my dad.

“Ah,” said the doctor. “Steve,” that’s my dad, “can we chat for a minute while Robert gets out his clothes in the other room? I’ll be in with you in a moment for your physical. I just have to ask your dad a few things.”

Behind closed doors, changing into that napkin-like skirt that ties in the back, I overheard them. “Why is he talking like that?”

My dad sighed, the kind of sigh that was pent up for three straight months of enduring his son talk like Johnny Depp—which was longer than Pirates of the Caribbean was relevant at the Box Office. In fact, this resulted in a second sigh just to emphasize the first. “He thinks he’s a pirate.”

It all made sense to the doctor. “I see, now. Well, it was a good movie, but he’ll grow out of it.”

“That’s what we thought would happen by now.”

“I can give him scurvy,” suggested the doctor. “Maybe then being a pirate won’t be as fun.”

The doctor laughed. My dad laughed. The popular girls at the lunch table laughed (maybe not about this, but I’m sure they were—that’s what they did most of the time).

And as the doctor came into the adjacent room and placed an ice-cold stethoscope on my back, I reevaluated my life decision to be a pirate.

“Cough please,” said the doctor.

Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to become Jack Sparrow.

“Cough again,” said the doctor.

Maybe being Jack Sparrow is only cool if you’re an actor cast in a movie about pirates and someone writes you all the best lines.

“One more time,” said the doctor.

“Ok, I get it already,” I told him.

“What was that?” asked the doctor.

“Sorry, I’m in the middle of this essay and it’s getting a little testy.”

The doctor shrugged. “Right. Speaking of, drop your underpants for me, would you?”

After my physical, I dropped being a pirate forever. I put away the old bracelet I used as pirate-y rings around my fingers in a desk drawer. I still have it and took it out the other day, prompting a memory that led to this Weekly Post-Ed. It actually looks movie-authentic; I had a talent for wardrobe, anyway.

“Hey Robert,” said Jen, one of the popular girls at lunchtime the following Monday. I still didn’t have the sense to sit elsewhere, even after sobering to a world in which I was acting like a pirate for the past three months.

“Hi,” I said normally, deflated.

The girls looked to one another. Maggie asked, “Are you ok?”

“Oh, just Save-ee,” I said, with a meager smile, making fun of myself.

They laughed, I tried to. And they hit my arm, playfully, because they liked me this way better, the kind of person who could make fun of himself.

Except, I didn’t know that.

I just wanted to be cool.

That next week I had watched A Beautiful Mind about a dozen times. I thought, “John Nash – you know, besides the schizophrenia and government paranoia – seems to be charming and funny to all the girls in that movie. I bet I could act like that…”

***

PPF MUSIC

I’ll share this because his videos mystify me with how complex and brilliant they are. YouTuber PPF makes wonderful scores of old video game soundtracks with his own collection of instruments and assembles them into excellent videos that are released twice a year. This most recent cover was “Fear Factory” from Donkey Kong Country, one of my favorite games of all time. All of his videos are phenomenal – including all the renditions of songs from Chrono Trigger – and I hope you check him out!

***

***

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

April 12, 2022 0 comments

| Weekly Post-Eds |

Weekly Post-Ed #7

by Robert Hyma April 13, 2021

written by Robert Hyma

New Kombat Koming Soon

Hey, guess what!

There’s a new Mortal Kombat movie coming out in a few weeks.

Did you know?

Did you??

Did you??!

Well, did you?

So, as a celebration of the new movie and the series as a whole, everything is Mortal Kombat themed for a little while.

When anyone thinks of Mortal Kombat, they think gratuitous violence. Fatalities, Brutalities, blood splatting across the screen with limbs in tow like confetti. I think this, too, but there’s this strange double standard that exists within this kind of gore and killing:

I have no problem watching it.

Horror movies and displays of violence on television and movies? I hate it. I cringe and have to turn away because I hate seeing it. When it comes to violent video games, I’ve never had a problem. Maybe it was because my first introduction to overly violent video games (the first MK from 1992, and certainly MK 3 Ultimate) had graphics too displaced from reality, almost cartoony, and the violence didn’t seem real (like watching the manic violence of an old Tom and Jerry short and laughing instead of being horrified). This was fine, but watching an actor gored or dismembered with a host of special effects in movies or television felt FAR MORE real. I’m an adult in my 30s and still struggle with watching stuff like that, but my excuse is that I never know it’s coming.

With Mortal Kombat, one expects the over-the-top violence. It’s the sole attraction of the game (other than the bevy of ninjas, superhero-like powers, and scattered lore). And with every new iteration of the game, I’m searching for compilation videos of all the new Fatalities and Brutalities.

The new movie is bound to be just as violent and crazy, but I’m expecting that. So, for once, I won’t hide away when Fatalities smear blood across the screen. I’ll invite it.

As contradictory as that sounds.

And here’s the new website logo if you haven’t seen it (which, how did you get this far without noticing?):

***

“Cairo” by San Fermin

I don’t like country music. It isn’t a debate. Sometimes when I tell people that I don’t like country music, they tell me, “Well, you just haven’t heard the good stuff yet.”

Which, to me, is like saying, “Well, you just haven’t had a good STD yet.”

“Cairo” by San Fermin is as close to country music as it gets for me. If it was a country song, I might have been a convert, but it isn’t one, so that settles that. The singer has that deep country voice and rhythm, but it isn’t country. It even sounds like country music, but it isn’t.

How do I know that?

Because I don’t like country music, but I like this song.

Sound logic, I know.

Anyway, it was a close call for actually liking country music. I like this song, though. Have a listen, it’s a good one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2BgX-gaD_w

***

An Awful Joke

I don’t have much to write about this week (obviously). So, to finish things off, here’s a terrible joke I heard.

“To the person who stole my anti-depressants, I hope you’re happy.”

Hoping everyone is doing as well as they can be. You’re not alone out there,

April 13, 2021 0 comments