R.I.P. Miyagi-san

A wonderful celebration of thanks was interrupted with some terrible news this weekend. Friday morning I woke up, and I can still hear the words as I heard them for the first time. Pat Morita died. The first thing that came to mind was obvious. I've got to call Leheney. You see, Leheney and I have watched all 3 of the Karate Kid movies (don't even think about thinking about that other movie which will not be named) together probably 100+ times each. On my own, I've probably seen the movies double that. I own a bunch of Karate Kid t-shirts and other associated trinkets and whatnot. I was The Karate Kid for halloween 2 years ago. In summary, I'm probably on the short list for World's Biggest Karate Kid Dork. I even take pride in that.

Anyway, I walked around the house for about 20 minutes. Leheney is the one person I know personally that would treat this news with at least a portion of the gravity I attached to it. At 9:50, I called him. Not so surprisingly, Leheney was still asleep. I wasn't surprised. Had the man been awake, he no doubt would have called me upon hearing this news.

After I got out the fact that Miyagi was gone, we went over the details a little bit and had a serious enough discussion about flying out to the funeral. It was in Vegas after all, so it's not that much of a stretch. Eventually, we decided against the trip for practical reasons but I plan on visiting the Palm Green Valley Mortuary and Cemetery on one of my future Vegas trips to pay my respects. No, I'm not joking.

I kept thinking about the man's passing all day long and what it meant to me. I was trying to conclude that it didn't much matter in my real life. I mean, Mr. Miyagi is just a character in a movie, right? He's probably 3rd on my list overall behind Michael and Vito Corleone, but still, just a character. It isn't as though there are more Karate Kid's that I want to see made. In fact, were Pat Morita to act again at all, it would have been an impossible situation for me. He can never measure up to the Miyagi character. Also, for me at this point, Pat Morita is Mr. Miyagi. When I see the man in anything else, part of me actually wonders why Mr. Miyagi got into acting and what happened to his bonsai store.

When trying to deal with his passing, I thought a lot about Karate Kid II. Miyagi's own father had passed in this film. He shed a few tears, moped around in a wife beater shirt for a while, got a pep talk and had a maybe too intimate moment with Daniel LaRusso on the beach in Okinawa. It took him a few days to get over it, but eventually he had to devote his attention to his former best friend who wanted to kill him for stealing his girl 40 years ago. I guess the world moves on without Mr. Miyagi, just as it did for Mr. Miyagi in the face of death. Writing this post is my equivalent of maybe a few tears on the beach.

Thankfully, the man left us an incredible legacy in film. He left me three of my all-time favorite movies. He left me lessons in life and love. He left me to speculate that if more people tried to live their life a little closer to the way Miyagi lived his, the world would be a better place. He left me hoping that somewhere a whole village is lighting candles and sending them out to see in some sort of Okinawan funeral ritual.

Pat Morita wasn't just a character in a movie to me, though that's how I knew him. His portrayal of a character in a movie might have been the best thing he ever did in his life, or it might just be one of a litany of great things. I'll probably never know for sure. I just know that Mr. Miyagi is more than "just a character" to me. For an actor, compliments probably don't get much better than that.

As Daniel once told Terry Silver, Mr. Miyagi's karate will live on.

*bows*

Being Thankful

I could do one of those posts where I say how thankful I am to have great friends, family, coworkers, etc. Isn't that what anyone would say though if you asked them what you were thankful for? I think so. Here's ten things I'm thankful for right now. They aren't necessarily the Top 10, but they are 10.

1. The book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman. This is one of the best things I've read in a while. Klosterman writes about love, tribute bands, Saved By the Bell, Kirk Cameron, and serial killers as only he can. I just discovered this guy and I'm psyched that I did. I'm going to be celebrating the guys entire catalog soon, I think.

2. Peppermint Mocha season at Starbucks. Again, I'm thankful. This greatly improves my mood.

3. The Internet. I was giving it some thought this morning, and I came to the conclusion that I spend a minimum of 70 hours/week on the internet. My job revolves around the internet. My favorite hobby (poker) revolves around the internet. Essentially, without the internet I might not have a job and I would have to drive to Indiana to play poker, which I probably wouldn't do. Sure I'd probably be a much more interesting and well-rounded person, but who would want that?

4. This Bears Team. It's unreal to me that we have the #1 defense in the league again. It's getting to the point where teams don't want to see the Bears on the schedule because they know it's going to take everything they've got to pull that game out. After the Jauron/Wannstedt era's, I was beginning to believe that this might never happen again.

5. Chris Moneymaker. I don't think much of him as a poker player, to be honest. He did somehow manage to score that Playboy endorsement deal, and I'm still trying to figure that one out. Anyway, his victory started this whole poker craze and at least indirectly inspired all kinds of people to put up cash and play on Party Poker and other sites. Many of these people don't put the time in to learning the game and overestimate their abilities tremendously. I'm thankful for all of these players and the whole phenomenon. Thanks again Chris.

6. Curb Your Enthusiasm. This is probably the best show on TV at the moment. I can't get enough. If you don't have HBO you should. That's something else I'm happy about. HBO.

7. The Packers Suck. While I hardly notice due to the Bears playing well, it's still good to see.

8. My iPod. I don't know how I managed to work all day before the iPod.

9. Chunky Peanut Butter. Remember when there was just Creamy? I can't even eat Creamy anymore. It just frustrates me that it isn't Chunky.

10. Blogs. My own definitely isn't great, but I read some really quality stuff elsewhere that I find highly entertaining. The web is much better as a result of the simple publishing afforded individuals as a result of blogs. Could this even be argued? I doubt it.

Tonight's Events

So after work, I ran out to the grocery store. This was due to the fact that the only food I had at my place was canned, frozen, or in a box. Not like that is so bad, but I like fresh stuff. While I was there, I decided to buy four bottles of wine. Why? I'm not sure. Maybe I need the alcohol to replace the Diet Coke.

Anyway, that's not what I'm here to write about. I get home with my groceries and I go to get my mail. By my mailboxes is a hand-written sign that says "VCR For Sale - $200 or best offer." There's a phone number to call. I'm fairly tempted to call and offer $250 sight unseen. Who is this fruitcake that thinks they are getting $200 for a used VCR? I have no idea, but they live in my building and that scares me more than a little bit.

Then, I get upstairs and sit down to play online poker. There's a guy at my $2/$4 limit hold 'em table sitting with $2987.35. The appropriate buy-in at this level is $100. Why do people do this? I have no idea. I hope they don't think it's intimidating. To me, it's just comical.

C. Rice and the Agreements

So, I see that we have another great "victory" in negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Now, I don't want to totally belittle this agreement but...well fuck it, here goes.

Occasionally, we get this news of a historic agreement in this conflict. This time, it's all about border crossings. So the Palestinians can now move things into the Gaza strip from Egypt with some minimal Israeli oversight, instead of having the total clamp down on them. In the past, crossings like these were used to bring in bombs and weaponry of all types, and all kinds of wonderful things like that. This time, it's supposed to make the area economically viable. That's fair. I can see both sides of this. Now since these border crossings previously existed though, right off the tip I have to question how this agreement is "historic". To me, something is "historic" mostly if it's never been done before, or if we all thought that it would never happen again, and it passes some minimal requirements for "important". This clearly isn't exactly brand new and I definitely didn't consider this to be impossible, so can we just get off the historical train right now? Are we going to remember this agreement in 50 years? Most of you probably didn't even notice, and if you did, you had forgotten already until I brought it up again. I won't even tackle the question of importance.

Now, let me tell you why I'm sick of this crap. You probably already see where I'm taking this. Any little move in this conflict is touted as historic. Really, none of it is. Nothing I've seen in my lifetime has come close to drawing an end to this situation. Nothing has stopped people from wandering into movie theaters with dynamite tied all around them and taking the whole place down. Nothing has stopped the military strikes in retaliation. Nothing has led to any semblance of harmony in the area, or anything close to a resolution. It will be "historic" when little kids in the holiest lands of the world to many, stop getting blown up in the name of one religion or the other. When that happens, put it on CNN and splash it in every newspaper. That will be a day to truly remember, should it ever arrive. Until everyone is chillin' and drinking latte's together at the local Caffeination Station though, spare me.

One other thing I don't get, is the suicide bomber. I mean, I get the concept. Wouldn't it make a lot more sense though to just be a bomber, minus the suicide? Is planning and orchestrating a bombing really so difficult that it's just a better idea to take yourself out, just to be sure the bomb goes off? To me, it seems like bad strategy. First, this means that you get a rookie bomber for every bombing. Second, if you are a suicide bomber, that only gives you one shot at bombing. If you mess it up, you probably still end up dead and for nothing. If you are just a bomber though, you can bomb many things over time and be a much more productive member of the the bombing community. I mean, maybe the perks for your family aren't quite as great as they would be if you were a suicide bomber, but I think there's upside for you. Why not hedge your bets on that whole 50 virgins in paradise thing and stick around a while? Better yet, why don't you just stay home and pray? I hear that deities look fondly on that.

Work, Weddings, and What not

Well, it was a long week last week. I was out in Salinas, CA from early Tuesday until about 8 pm on Friday. flight got delayed about 90 minutes on the way out there. Of course, we were already on the plane. I got to listen to the beautiful sound of drilling beneath the plane, while watching The Island. Because of the delay, I also ended up catching Must Love Dogs on the way out. John Cusack played himself again. On the way back, I caught A Lot Like Love with...yeah that's right....Ashton K. What can you do? I don't really recommend any of these.

Yesterday, I hit the Goldwin/Goldberg wedding out near O'Hare. It was a rockin' good time. Bob and Frannie are so truly kind people, and their families were bringing out the touching speeches all over the place. Many of them mentioned how great Frannie and Bob are (obviously) and how they both left corporate America behind and have jobs with meaning. This was universally regarded as wonderful by the speakers. I feel that. Me being a total corporate, capitalist bastard, this could have got me down. It might have led to some self-examination and the realization that I lead a hollow existance. It could have made me question what the hell I was doing with my life and what steps I could take to change. Thankfully, it did nothing of the sort. Maybe that's a good thing? Who knows?

My Bears have won 5 straight! It's insane. On top of that, I just found a Bishop Allen version of Psycho Killer on the web. It's Peppermint Mocha season at Starbucks. I kicked my Diet Coke habit again, for the 81st time. My poker bankroll is trending upward nicely. Outside of not starting my Christmas shopping at all, things couldn't be better.

Just got out of a meeting...

So I just went to this meeting with 30 or so of my co-workers. Lunch was served at the end. Our choices were Caesar Salad with Chicken OR Caesar Salad with Beef. I hope everyone likes Caesar Salad. Nice variety!

New to My Lexicon

I caught a little interview on The Score AM 670 this past Sunday with Takeo Spikes of the Buffalo Bills. I came away with much more from this than I was expecting. First of all, listening to Takeo Spikes is the highest of high comedy. There's no doubt about that. He left me with this phrase which I'll be working into my vocab - "I'm just keep it 100 with you guys. Takeo Spikes keeps it 100% real." From now on, I'll be doing my best to "keep it 100" as often as possible.

Later, Takeo was describing what he was doing at home on his couch. He was injured and home in Atlanta while his Buffalo Bills were on the field. He said he was eating donut holes from Krispy Kreme and he was talking about how great they were. When the interviewers questioned him about this, implying that the Buffalo fans might be concerned that he was sitting around putting on 20 lbs. while he was hurt. He reassured them saying the following:

"This is Takeo Spikes baby. My metabolism burns it all off during the commercial break."

I just thought I'd share this. Keep it 100.