5 things I know: Preaching patience, rooting for Mike Shildt, and an underrated Tom Hanks movie
Let’s get into it on a beautiful Wednesday.
Welcome to my favorite time of the year. A time when mosquitoes start dying, the heat decimates, the morning breeze gets cooler, and the idea of wearing two shirts on a work shift becomes unlikely. I love it. Being an 1982 blizzard baby, things getting cold doesn’t bother me like my summer-loving friends who don’t mind sweating everywhere.
Early October doesn’t mean a warm day is out of the question, but it confirms that the crazy hot days are over. What isn’t over, and will never be over, is my will to dispense opinions and inform. Here’s a few things on my mind.
1) Go Shildt, go!
The San Diego Padres took Game 3 over the Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday to take a 2-1 lead in the NLDS. They’re a win away from an NLCS appearance, which would make Mike Shildt’s second chance to grab a pennant series win since 2019 when the Cardinals fell to the Nationals.
I’m rooting for Shildt to win it all, and not just for the home city of Ron Burgundy and America’s first ever panda watch. It’s not just because it’s the exact place where Veronica Corningstone added diversity to a news station. If Shildt can bring home the biggest trophy in the game to a place that has been referred to as a whale’s vagina, it would make St. Louis looks that much dumber for firing him. The thing that climbs over philosophical differences is winning a World Series with the team that hired you after the previous team screwed up. Man, I hope the Padres do it.
The truth is he’s a good dude and longtime lover of the game, and spent over a decade with the Cardinals building up their farm system and pulling them out of the Mike Matheny ditch. And then they canned him. Go Mike, go. Having big sluggers like Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis Jr. (who helped win Game 3) sure does help. The angst of proving your previous employer wrong has to live in there too.
2) St. Louis Blues fans need to chill
It wasn’t even 20 minutes into the first game of the 2024-25 season, and fans were losing their shit. The team, which boasts many players I’ve never heard of, didn’t come racing out of the gate kicking ass and taking names. It took a couple periods for them to settle in, and find their mojo to win 3-2 after being down 2-0 to the Seattle Kraken.
Fans were already calling for Jordan Binnington’s head after he allowed two goals in an opener on the road. They must forget that he was a big reason the team finished with 93 points a year ago. He played well overall. Fans don’t care. They just want something to bitch about, complain, and get riled up about so the heat is taken off the rest of their supposedly miserable lives.
Here’s an idea. Get a grip, watch a few games, and breathe. You’re not playing the games. Why so serious? It’s an 82 game season, and this is hockey after all. After playing zero meaningful games in six months, you’re getting on the ice with lucky bounces and every other kind of fluky occurrence working against you most nights. Just breathe.
An outsider would think the fans were getting a discount on their mortgage for how many good starts their favorite hockey team had by the reactions. Social media was both a gift and a curse to sports.
3) Adversity comes in all shapes and sizes
When people have an open will to assume you do everything or most things wrong even if the facts say otherwise, that’s adversity screwing with you. This happens in all places and parts of your life, and doing anything about it isn’t always the right call. It’s like a small wall being built between you and a rather pleasant day, all due to someone or a couple people having a grudge against you the size of the Mississippi River. It’s nerve-racking and normal all at once, compelling you to do the best one can.
Most of the time, it’s coming from a place that has nothing to do with you, which can be doubly frustrating due to the fact that you can’t possibly fix it. Some people wake up like half the block pissed in their Cheerios, and are attracted to flames. Staring down a fire can be strenuous though. I know it’s not something that just affects me; the walls of this world are lined with several unfortunate people who happen to be in the line of fire.
Adversity can mean so many things, but it’s really the reinterpretation of bad luck hitting anyone in its proximity. All one can do is put their head down, understand what the task is, and knock it out every shift. Tomorrow waits for no one, but you have to get there first. Climbing off my soapbox now to continue on about good movies that go under-appreciated.
4) The Hanks/Spielberg Terminal
Streaming on Netflix for only a short amount of time, The Terminal tells a vital story of connection and immigrant adversity in a quaint package. It is 20 years old this fall/winter movie season. Tom Hanks is a regular fella from a foreign country whose homeland comes under siege while he is in the air on a personal trip to New York City. Once there, he is basically trapped due to a loophole that doesn’t allow foreigners to enter the city or be deported back home.
The great Stanley Tucci is the airport international regulator who gives Hanks’ refugee a hard time, trapping him in his airport and keeping tabs on him when the man gets comfortable. What builds out from there is one man having an extraordinary effect on a group of people who never even knew he existed. Spielberg’s film told a tale about the immediate prejudice towards immigrants, and how being from different countries doesn’t stop different people from becoming friends.
The cast is stellar. Zoe Saldana, Diego Luna, Chi McBride, and Barry Shabaka Henley to name a few. Everybody works with a person like Kumar Pallana’s strict janitor. It’s a nice film that doesn’t get enough appreciation. Tune in at least for a scene where Hanks’ handyman is fixing parts of the airport in a tank top while listening to jazz and dancing. It’s jazz that brought his character to the Big Apple, and that gives the film even more heart.
5) The scooter hate and collision fears are real
They may not be cool enough for Tom Cruise to race around a European city on, but scooters are cheap ass transportation devices. Every week or so, I put around $3 into my gas tank. That buys me at least 5-6 trips between Princeton Heights and University City, and possibly a ride out to my parents in Richmond Heights. My Yamaha can cruise around easily, building to 35-40 mph quickly and able to take unusual paths home.
I only wish other drivers were kinder to us. Yeah, we’re not sinking $30-50 into our gas tank like you are, but choices are choices. The person in front of me purposely rides slower while the one behind me speeds up intentionally. Meanwhile, a car in the lane next to me constantly tries to take me out. If your head can’t be on swivel at all times, driving a scooter may not be for you.
Until a second car is acquired, the CARDINAL red Yamaha is my means of transportation, and it’ll be fine. The morning ride to work features three upper layers and jeans with insulated gloves more meant for yard work. The ride home is in shorts and a t-shirt, weather shifts fitting for a fall season in St. Louis.
Just be kinder out there on the roads to the narrow riders. We’re trying to get home too.