Are you there god? It's Me, Bobby

On the weekend that the blockbuster movie "Superman" (by James Gunn) came out that promises to be one of the "hit movies of the summer," I watched a less heralded movie called "Are You there god, it's me, Margaret, based on the novel Judy Blume. Sometimes the movie business gets so caught up in the marketing and the pushing of blockbuster films that the really good movies get lost in the shuffle, the ones that everyone really should be seeing that reflect the cultural zeitgeist and just make us feel good about ourselves but also have cultural relevancy and a deeply compelling story, back to feeling like we did when we were younger. In 2022 I remember that movie being "CODA," the story about a young girl being the daughter of deaf adults, a movie I had no problem sitting through and hanging onto every scene, and laughing the whole way through. "Are You There God" is very much the same and it definitely earned its 99% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, just the soundtrack itself is full of bangers and Jeopardy worthy material like Dusty Springfield "Son of a preacher Man," The Guess Who's "These Eyes," and "Signed Sealed Delivered" by Stevie Wonder. So why didn't I hear about this movie in 2023 when it first came out? The release date serves as a clue: April 28, 2023, just weeks before the summer movie phenomenon known as "Barbenheimer," when both Barbie and Oppenheimer were released within weeks of each other and everyone had to go see one or the other, leaving no time or attention for movies like "Are You There God." I really appreciate a movie about girls growing up, because as a boy I watched plenty of boys movies like Sandlot, Mighty Ducks movies, Free Willy, etc., that focused on the adolescence and growing-up on boys, so much so I never considered how girls grew up, like it's a totally different world as in Men are from Mars, Girls are from Venus. It's a whole different world of worrying about bra sizes, having crushes on boys, secret societies, making friendships as a girl, what to wear at all times.......all topics brilliantly depicted by the movie and through Margaret's life, portrayed by Abby Ryder Fortson. I specifically remember when I also asked my own conception of "God" similar questions, like helping me through a test, winning my next game of chess, hoping I would get into my dream school. I sympathesized with Abby who struggles with her religious identity of being in a family with a Christian mom and Jewish dad; I never really got into religion at all but had seen so many depictions of God through media and heard good reviews about him, yet I had no relationship with God or any way to contact God, so I came up with my own inner God to guide me. To this day, I still have inner thoughts to a very non-specific "God" (not really thinking about a white guy with a huge beard), more of an amorphous being that transcends the world we live in, maybe more of like karma or some other cosmic force, to just consider blowing the winds of fortune my way, which they already have in many ways throughout my life, but maybe just a little more with some upcoming events in my life. I only wish I could be as pure of thougth as Margaret in the movie wishing for selfless things for her family and for other people, than for myself. Watch the movie! Currently streaming on Peacock, where Poker Face Season 2 is also streaming, and 300+ old episodes of the Weakest Link! I swear the trivia shows of America all use some of the same material, a lot of the questions I see on Jeopardy come up in various forms on other shows like Weakest Link too.

Golf Cart (高尔夫球车, ゴルフカート, 골프 카트)

Using a golf cart on a hot summer day has to be one of the most indulging experiences in the world. Instead of carrying your own clubs around for 18 holes, up and down, under the sun, over rivers, uphill and downhill, through the fairways and onto the greens, you just use modern technology to get to to the next hole. It's one of the reasons I and others view golf as one of the more high-brow sports out there: guys walking around swinging pieces of steel or lumber and trying to get a little ball into a hole hundreds of yards away. Definitely not a sport I grew up with, and I remember getting bored in gym class when we went outside to swing golf clubs for half an hour. Where was the running? The jumping? The touching of a ball and making it go far? Golf seemed like it was just a mechanical process, not much resistance or dynamic play to it: just aiming your ball to a certain area. The other great thing about a golf cart is you can keep water and other essentials in the cart within arm's reach, which is great for cold drinks, snacks, and.......yes, I realize many golf courses are doing this now, alcoholic drinks that they have a nice lady come with a mobile bar to sell you. Now in my late-30s, though, I definitely realize the appeal of golf, at least the golf cart/ fancy golf course part of it. I'm still not very much into staying in one place and hitting balls, but getting out on the golf course and enjoying the great outdoors? That is something I can get behind. Americans reserve some of the best land for this recreational sport of golf for some reason, with tiny creeks and trimmed lawns just waiting for you to walk through. This weekend, my grade school buddies enjoyed a whole weekedn of golf (and even Mario Golf the N64 video game). They enjoyed it a little more than I did because they actually knew what they were doing having practiced their shots plenty of times before, but the few times I could actually hit the ball generally in the direction I wanted to? Great feeling walking with my chest puffed out feeling like a hundred bucks. It's weird, golf: such a sense of accomplishment for just the simple action of swinging a club on a ball that's not even moving....baseball players might say this is like hitting a sitting duck; a lot of moving parts go into hitting the perfect golf shot: your legs have to be in the right position, you have to swing your hips, rotate your arms, follow through, keep your head level, keep your eyes on the ball: I kept reminding myself all these things before every shot but even then I still messed something up at least half the time: it's one thing to know what to do, another thing to actually do it. In some ways, golf is kind of like trivia: it takes a LOT a LOT of reps before getting good at golf and being ready to get to the best golf courses: my buddy took me to the open-to-the-public clubhouse of Whistling Straits, one of the fancier courses in all of Wisconsin, home to a few PGA championship events over the years. There's no way I'm ever playing there at anywhere near a competent level, unless I work on it for years and years. Yes I could pay the $700 to get on a wait list or something to play, but I wouldn't be able to do well, wouldn't understand the intricacies of the game well enough to even enjoy the game, and I'd look pretty foolish for even trying. Getting good at trivia takes a LOT of reps. It's not hard to take practice and shoot a few shots, but really getting good at both golf and trivia? A lot of dedication is involved, but like the Malcolm Gladwell concept of 10,000 hours, if you dedicate yourself for 10,000 hours to the game, you will get good at it, because you just drill yourself with enough questions to know what to expect, condition yourself to know the answers, and to answer quickly. 5 years ago when I first started watching Jeopardy, I would NOT have been good at the game, and getting onto the stage would have made me look silly, and I wouldn't even know how much I still needed to know to get good. Now, almost 5 years later, I do realize how much I know and how far I've come, but it's like a neverending tunnel: the more I know, the more I understand how much I DON'T know.