XII: Everything exists in relation to something else

So this evening I finally saw Superbad. I say "finally" because the story leading up to it is a long and tedious one with many tangents... which I will now spend the next hour or so typing up, for lack of anything better to do.

The coming of this film, Superbad, with its mid-August release, naturally heralded the last milestone of Summer, the last noteworthy event before we all must accept that the summer of 2007 will soon be in our rearview mirrors (wtf? when did I start talking like that?)

The plan, of course, was to see it on its night of release, the 17th, with the usual suspects. The Fergusons had been on their family trip to PEI, but I got a rather encouraging MSN message from Chris that it was my duty to see it without him (naturally did I later find out he had made plans to see it with his favourite Aunt anyhow. I've met the woman, she's a very nice lady.) So whatever trivialties occur put it off on Friday night. Truth be told, I don't even remember who was what and why, but eventually it came to, "I don't think we can tonight, how about tomorrow?" Granted.

Yesterday afternoon was spent in Palmerston. It was a pretty odd situation since our family doesn't usually gather on Saturdays, particularly not for no reason in the middle of summer. But dig the circumstances; cousin Kris had blown into town from his usual Windsor exile, so we had to take advantage. I ain't seen him since, I figure, November, and don't think I'll get an occasion to until, like November, since he's camped out in Windsor and kept busy with his job.

I don't know if it's like this for everyone, but I assume it is: you always feel the rift between yourself and out-of-town relatives. Palmerston is something of a nowheretown, one of those towns that literally consists of a mainstreet with its storefronts, a few housing neighbourhoods branching off, a gas station at one end, a Beer Store at the other, and scattered farmland all around. It used to have the railroad, but to see it it 'looks neglected for the better part of a century. so to grow up and live there is to be immersied in a culture very different from my own.

The bulk of the afternoon was spent catching up with Kris and attempting to reconcile the fact that while our lives have all changed in the last few years, we are all basically the same people we were in 2003 when he lived with us and went to Sheridan. We talk comics, wrestling, and whatever else. Milling around and distracting us from this legendary bliss are Mike, who probably misses his sparring rounds with Kris, and the kids, those that Kris inherited when he entered his present relationship, and to whom he essentially became "dad." I shudder.

I mentioned Mike. Mike is a cool guy, but like anyone, not without his quirks. He spent a great deal of his time, seemingly, goading Kris into fights over the years, and appears to miss that aspect as he came off a bit strong. I also tend to feel like I've lost my cool when he tries to get down to the nitty-gritty with me and my brothers, asking about girls and making jokes that I could enjoy if not told in front of my grandmother.

As for the kids. In a weird mathematical quirk, Kris became a parent of two, 10 and 8. The eight-year-old isn't worth mentioning and the 10-year-old was apparently pissed that I was, I don't know, hogging Kris. Nevermind that I grew up with him and now go most of a year without seeing him, she expressed her displeasure in a sarcastic way that 10-year-old girls have (in sitcoms more than in real life.) For my part, I just try to mess around with the kids by goofing on them in a way that I guess most adults wouldn't, or any mature person anyway. For most of my life when met with an unpleasant situation, my best defense has always been to joke my way out of it, to just blow the mind of the person I was dealing with. This is especially east to do with a 10-year-old and I took no sporting pleasure in it, but it's like a driveway pickup game. You don't play because it's difficult, you keep in practise.

Kris and I talked comics a good deal, although I lamented how out of them I'd been falling over the past years. Circle of life I suppose. I don't attribute it to "growing up," but would generally blame exhaustion at the marketplace's current obsession with overblown crossovers. We reminisced about how straight-talking I tend to be in my reviews, never afraid to let people know when a creator I like (Gail Simone, Peter David,) has let me down, whether they happen to be reading my words or not. Less occasion for that lately. Less of everything.

We also talked wrestling, and this was a big deal, as everybody with a radio or TV or a copy of the Toronto Sun knows what shit has gone down in the past few months in that sphere. He made a few uncomfortable remarks about Benoit. In a solitary moment between he and I, I related how terrible I felt that week, how betrayed I'd been and how I wanted to be able to put it from my brain. He generally agreed, making a rare cogent and eloquent point about how he'd let down every fan he ever had and the very business he'd claimed to love. My cousin has unjustly gotten a bad reputation as far as his thinking ability. The guy is very observant and on several occasions has expressed this with clarity that surpasses my own words.

We then played a round of Marvel Ultimate Alliance (I'd never played but it's not a hard game to get) and he lent me his Bone complete edition, as copies of the final installment are rare sumbitches and besides, Kershaw stole all my Bone comics years ago and I rarely entertain thoughts of getting them back.

I also spent a good deal of time talking to my aunts. They wanted to know about the cyst. I tried to play it off like no big deal but they were determined to know. Aunt Lori in particular wondered why I hadn't gone to the doctor sooner, and the truth is I had no good answer. Some naive part of me hoped it would be one of those things that goes away. Part of me hates making a fuss about things. Even in the doctor's office, I couldn't say, "Doctor, I appear to be suffering some peculiar growth on my spine and I fear it may be malignant. You would earn my undying gratitude if perchance you might allay my fears and set me on the course to proper health once more." Instead all I could do was hold the back of my shirt collar down and say, "Um, I got this thing." After three weeks of misery, this was.

There were also remarks and revelations made, none I was privy to but overheard later, that I could go into but would so completely derail this blog (if I was ever on track) that I can't even touch on them until tomorrow. I'll probably still be annoyed enough to remember.

After an early dinner, and the longest motherfucking goodbye in the history of human interaction, we set back off home and got home around 7ish. It then fell to me to try to get the evening on track. Expectedly for my propensity for getting people together, things fell apart from the get-go. It was the usual, "Such and such is working, so and so can't be found, and this other person doesn't have his car." So it was a rare trifecta of bummer, a rare cocktail to sink the ship of the evening. So I chilled with Eric watching DVD episodes of Freaks and Geeks, and then WWE's Saturday Night's Main Event.

With a very literal bitter taste in my mouth I crashed at 2 or whatever. Today I hit the bike circuit and happened upon a garage sale, a rarity in some respects. Most garage sales are on Saturday Mornings, but sunday ones are not unheard of. however, they also tend to get scuttled by the early afternoon, when the disgruntled sellers (having failed to unload a sufficient amount of their crap,) pack it in when I'm just getting up. This had those two factors going, plus the very special bonus that the bulk of the wares were action figures and other assorted junk that a mentally-adolescent lad like myself might be interested in buying. Most garage sales tend more toward knick-knacks, lousy outdated fashions, and vinyl records. Don't get me wrong, I like picking over people's old LPs. I don't have a turntable but it's fascinatingly telling abuot a person's history. But all too often, the toys at a garage sale are an afterthought. A few broken transformers, a paint-chipped bunch of ninja turtles... some happy meal toys, some G.I. Joes with a leg missing, Polly Pockets... whatever. This one was about right, with an impressive table lay out of many interesting and varied vintage figures. For $3.50, I walked away with a transforming Bebop (as in, "& Rocksteady," late of TMNT) and a really classic Green Goblin with pumpkin bomb tossing arm action.

Eventually, 5 or 6 rolls around and there's nothing in place. More work, more unavailable missing persons, et cetera and so forth. That shit was getting old. But by hook or by crook, I had vowed to Chrisbrown, (not in so many words,) Superbad was going to happen. One acquaintence was working and said that the 9:30 show even was not going to work. I learned this after leaving a potentially affrontive-sounding message on said person's machine. I hate leaving messages. Anyway; CB, having to go in to work at 4 tomorrow morning (?!!) for inventory, needed to catch the early show, so we rolled up to the encore a mere 8 minutes before the 7:00 showing.

And? Well it was awesome. What do you expect? My God. Hilarious. Essentially the perfect teen sex movie. All the setbacks were worth it, and despite my fears that my frustrated mood would put me out of the comedy state of mind, I was drawn back in by the time of the very first conversation in the movie.

Highly recommended. Interneta review probably tomorrow.

That brings a close to this lengthy and not particularly interesting roundabout recap of what my weekend was like and how I finally saw that movie. I've warned before that August is one of the worst months for the blog (I've knocked a mere 12 entries out in about 19 days. Lamesauce.) I have lived up to this warning.

Enjoy your remaining days, brothers and sisters.

Keep on rockin'
-Scott O'Williams