Games

A friend of mine recently asked me what my favorite sports movies were. So I decided to include them here.

As a matter of preface, I generally don't like sports movies. To much inspiration.

I refuse to sacrifice a good story to see the team win in the end. (i.e. Remember the titans, Radio etc.) Conveniently enough, most of the time they do. Except for Rocky. Sorry if I spoiled it for anyone, however if you haven't seen Rocky, you're are seriously missing out. So my goal here is to show the movies that are great stories that happen to have sports elements to them.

This is also the order I would watch them in:

1.Rocky

2.Field of Dreams

3. Raging Bull

4. The Pride of the Yankees

5. Million Dollar Baby

6. A League of their Own

7. The Natural

8. Chariots of Fire

9. Eight men out

10.The Hurricane

** Rudy gets an honorable mention, because let's face it, it's Rudy. When he walks on that field at the end and his dad cries...Oh boy, I'm crying. My keyboard is all wet. This is embarrassing.

On on they send, on without end, their joyful tone to every home.

I don't know what's happening. I'm sorry. I seem to be in some strange sort of mood. I'm sorry - it's very rude of me. I seem to be unravelling.

Clarissa Vaughan, played by Meryl Streep, in The Hours (2002).

The first thing I think of when I think of Christmas is ‘X-mas’. I’m reassured by the fact that ‘X’ is a symbol for Christ. The next thing I think of is ‘Happy Holidays’, the politically correct substitute for ‘Merry Christmas’. Then I think of how I think of Santa before Christ. I think of presents. Saying that giving is better than receiving is not necessarily true. Sometimes I enjoy one more than the other and the other way around. I remember being a child on the lap of a mall-Santa pulling a fake beard away from a middle-aged and startled face. I remember being dismayed, but thinking, not that there was no Santa, but that this impostor wasn’t the right Santa. I remember the wonder I felt when I tugged on a real beard. This is him. The real deal.

I remember waking up as a child and seeing that the cookies really were eaten! It’s true! He exists! And I know my parents were sleeping; I saw them go to bed! Then, poof! Presents. There’s a Santa. I loved the smells. That Christmas tree smell. It seemed to pervade my house. I remember how my mom made me read either the Luke or the Matthew passage and faking that I was interested because all I wanted to do is tear open my presents with all the frenzy of a crazed maniac. I remember not being able to sleep the night before. It was so magical. I remember trying to stay awake so I could hear the reindeer hooves hit the roof. I’d run to my window to catch one quick glimpse. Maybe I could sneak outside and get a sneak peak of his back, or hear snorting. I’d run back to my bed under my covers. I couldn’t be caught; that would mean ‘no presents’, I’d reason. Why couldn’t I ever hear the presents being wrapped?



I remember the cold. It was a poignant frost. Filled with bitter-sweetness. I remember really getting angry at my classmates who said they swore Santa didn’t exist. They’d insist they caught their parents in the act. So what?, I’d think. That proves what exactly? Maybe you were bad and you’re parents were making up for it. Maybe you caught your parents wrapping only a certain portion of the presents you got. I remember when my mom sat me down to tell me the news. I feigned indifference. But even as I type this, I remember feeling a level of despair I hadn’t known up to that point. I remember my dad not wanting the news to be broken to me this way. My feelings of romanticism had been abruptly snuffed. But then the years went by.

I remember being a little more mature and stumbling across the story of St. Nick, a Greek bishop, with a reputation for secret gift-giving. I always remember The Christmas Carol, The Grinch, Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, The Christmas Story, Scrooged, and let’s not forget Die Hard. I remember all these memories with a melancholy I haven’t truly felt until now. I miss my childhood very much. I miss the mystery and the innocence, when you really discover things for the first time. This next Christmas is really reminding me that I need to cherish all the blessings God has given me, and do it now in the present, and stop being so self-absorbed and worrying about tomorrow. I remember a time when I was more myself, before I wasn't diluted with all these other invading personalities that morphed my true self whichever way they did. That’s the word. I feel diluted. A child is so its true self because it doesn’t know enough to deceive itself. Once you start growing up, you start wanting to be other things besides what God made you to be, and you actually start changing yourself, bit by bit, little by little.

As another Christmas begins to go by, like a caboose on a train, I’m reminded of my mortality, but I’m also reminded that I need to not take anything God puts into my life for granted, to love my family and friends while they’re still here, while I’m still here. I need Christ so bad. So very bad. I can’t say it enough. We’re all Scrooges and we all need those ghosts sometimes to remind us of what was really important. No movie does this better than It’s a Wonderful Life. I watch it every Christmas. On that note, each one of us is George Bailey, settling for a life we didn’t plan for, sorting out our own despair, dealing with our own demons, our Mr. Potters, and hoping for that time when God sends some angel (whatever form that’ll take) to give us some deep insight into what’s really meaningful in life, and we come full circle to realize that we’re NOT islands.

We are members of a community. We need to help each other, since we’re all one in Him.

Taking the Long Way

Every once in awhile an album comes out that aligns perfectly with the moon and the stars, the sun and the Venus. An album that brings kings to their knees and oceans to a boil. A collection of songs that shakes the very ground we walk on. This type of occurrence is rare, but does happen. Such examples are limited but include the following: Ratt, 'Out of the Cellar', Lynyrd Skynyrd, 'Gimme Back My Bullets', Marilyn Manson 'The Golden Age of Grotesque' and Dixie Chicks, 'Taking the Long Way.'

'Taking the Long Way' is, as of 2010, the Dixie Chicks most recent studio release. After a four year break from 2002's 'Home' and a four year constant bombardment of harassments, death threats and over all media damnation the Dixie Chicks broke the silence with 'Taking the Long Way' in 2006.

Now for those of you that weren't alive or consciously aware of the turmoil and heartache that took place in the lives of these sweet southern girls in the post 9/11 world, let me refresh you...
In March of 2003 at a concert in London, Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks said, and I quote; "We do not want this war, this violence, and we’re ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas."
Not a huge deal right, I mean who really likes war? Just making a statement whilst having a microphone in front of you at a country music concert shouldn't be that big of a deal. right?

WRONG.

After this remark the Dixie Chicks were virtually blacklisted from everything and made out to be communist Nazis worthy of being stoned to death on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. I'm not making this up people, you can research if you want or just think back to just a few short years ago when Dixie Chicks albums were being burned in church parking lots. (I guess there was a shortage on Beatles Memorabilia at that time.)

If this seems ridiculous it's because it is. I think Dave Chappelle summed it up best when he said, "Why would anyone care about what the Dixie Chicks have to say about politics? They're just three bitches that can sing good." Exactly. Why does anyone care about musicians and movie stars stand points on religion or politics or anything? They're entertainers not life coaches! Their views on anything, whether you agree or disagree shouldn't interfere with your opinions or how you judge their art!

I'm getting side tracked..

Never the less the Dixie Chicks were able to rise out of this sea of ignorance and deliver, in all seriousness, one of the best albums I've ever heard. Maybe the main reason why they haven't released anything since 'Taking the Long Way' is because they know it would be a ridiculously hard act to follow...? It's a possibility. In the career of musicians there are albums that define you, and then there are albums that RE-define you. Redefining albums take the best qualities of what you became known for in the first place and then add to that a new and invigorating sense of style, determination, quality and in this case, sassyness.

If the Dixie Chicks were renaissance painters 'Taking the long way' would be their Sistine Chapel. Put it on heavy rotation.