Our Lady of Perpetual Hell

Over at JABS this week, cy is doing a funnyslashbitter piece on the The 50 Worst Things to Happen to Sports–Part 1. So far, so good.

Update:
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

As I stood shivering–hands stuffed deep in jeans pockets–rink-side, and watched my buddy “Wader” (this isn’t his real name, but I am calling him this–and worse!–because he is wearing Wade Belak’s #3 this season)

use his stick to haul down the opposition player (right in front of the ref, no less) with about three minutes left in a tightly-contested tied game Sunday night, my eyes rolled heavenward à la Pat Quinn and I thought, “Oh boy. He’s gonna regret that one.” And, sure ’nuff, during the ensuing power play, the other team scored on a shot from the point that made it through a crowd in front of the net to the twine at the back of it.

And what did he say the next day when I asked if he’d taken his time in the box to sit quietly and think about what he’d done? This: ‘They called it a trip. Believe it or not, my stick did not touch him, I was flailing at the puck and he tripped on his own stick. I know from your angle, and the ref’s, it looked different…’ Unrepentant to the last.

So begins one of the things I looked forward to when I moved home: the start of the beer league hockey season. On most Sunday nights this winter, I will be stationed where I was this past Sunday night: shuffling from foot to foot in the bitterly cold Clearwater Arena (just a few blocks from home), watching Wader and his cronies play hockey. It’s not a fast game these mostly middle-aged guys play, but it’s a fun one to watch.

For me, a game is always more fun to watch when I know somebody out on the ice. I make more of an emotional investment in the game. Not that you can tell… I think that my southern friends and family might’ve expected more exuberance from me when we went to Grizzlies games, but I am actually very Torontonian in aspect as a spectator. You’d've had to have been standing very nearby last night to hear me swear under my breath when Wader hauled down excuse me–I mean when the other player stepped on his own stick and went down in front of Wader. I did whoop and clap when the Good Guys scored, but I mostly just stood and quietly watched the game unfold.

(No, it’s admittedly not like this when I’m at home, alone, watching the Leafs on tv. I tend to do a lot of hooting and clapping and yelling and (oh, the most astonishing!) swearing in that case. As I’m sure my (alarmed) former neighbours could attest.)

I missed being able to do this when I lived down south. I only ever met one person down there who played hockey–a coworker who was originally from L.A. and who was a massive Kings fan and had played hockey his whole life. I’d've been happy to go watch his games, but he quit playing shortly after I arrived because of an workbench run-in with a saw (yecch, don’t ask). That means I was left with the paltry number of games that I could catch while I was home for holidays. Which wasn’t much.

So I have been looking forward to the start of the season ever since I got home. There may not be a lotta finesse in the beer leagues, but there is heart. A bit more brain would be helpful, too, Wader.

The title of this film caught my eye because it is so similar to one of my favourite novels by one of my favourite writers: The Killer Inside Me, by Jim Thompson.

But Bob Bechtel is no Lou Ford. Aside from being a killer, that is.

Thompson’s Lou Ford is a brutal, unfeeling sumbitch who’d just as soon shoot you in the eye as pass you the salt and pepper. Bob Bechtel, contrariwise, is a schlubby-looking senior who happened to have shot a fellow college student at point-blank range while the latter was lying asleep in bed. Bechtel blamed his action on bullying he’d had to put up with throughout his life, up to and including alleged abuse by the boy he shot. (Incidentally, that claim is disputed by friends and fellow students from the time.) Bechtel was put away in a hospital for the criminally insane for 5 years and then released because the family of the boy he’d killed declined to press charges.

Fifty years later, filmmaker Macky Alston was there to chronicle the reactions of family, friends, employer, and students (Bechtel is a psychology professor (!) at the University of Arizona) when Bechtel finally came clean with them about his past. There is a certain conceit to the documentary, however… Supposedly, nobody but his wife knew about Bechtel’s past when the big revelation was made, but it was Bechtel’s daughter who invited Alston to do this film and throughout it, she comes off as a preening, self-absorbed twerp. I doubt she intended to make that impression…

Nevertheless, it is a little chilling to see how emotionally flat Bechtel is when speaking of his crime. And when he goes back to the scene of it–accompanied by his wife, his daughters, and Alston–he seems completely apathetic about the whole thing. Mebbe it’s just because he’d had 50 years to emotionally accustom himself to what he’d done. Or mebbe he should’ve stayed in the psychiatric hospital a little longer. (Dunno. I’m not a doctor; I just play one on tv.)

Is there a story here? Or was a story manufactured here? We don’t see too much of others’ responses to Bechtel’s revelations aside from his daughters. At the Q&A by Alston and the daughters after the screening, they told us that it was remarkable but their dad had not received any negative responses from family, friends, and others he’d told about his past.

I think there is a story here, but I don’t think it was told as well as it might’ve been. I think I’d've been a little tougher on my subject if I’d been the filmmaker. And I’ve certainly shunted the look-at-me daughter to the side. And delved a little deeper into the claims by the victim’s brother and others who were in college with them at the time that Bechtel’s allegations of bullying by his victim were specious. There’s more to this story than Alston gives us.

But it makes an interesting companion-piece to the other documentary I saw at the festival.

I learned a lesson on my recent trip to the Ex with Frank and Mike. Do not let them climb into the Polar Express car before you do. When the carny brought the safety bar down over us, I noticed the diagram on the car in front of us…

I was sitting in totally the wrong spot. Frank and Mike thought this was very funny, natch. I ended up bruised and squished literally breathless as that fugger whipped us around. Those bastards.

On a happier note, however, we pwned the Crazy Mouse ride. Rode it five times. For maximum spin effect, sit in the inside three seats. And scream your head off.

But it was better before we ate.
 
 
 
 
 

(Incidentally, did I tellya what Frank did to Mike? Frank is one of my oldest and dearest friends. Mike and I had never met before my trip to stay with Frank and him in Tronna. Frank was at work when I got to their place, so Mike was there alone to greet me. All I remember is that he said something like “Frank told me you were burned”, and I thought “Umm, WTF is he talking about? Did Frank tell him about the sunburn I had last time I was in town? Er, huh?” to myself and I have no idea what I might’ve said aloud in answer. Prolly something equally inscrutable. Anyhow, come to find out that Frank had told Mike that he should be careful with me–that he should be cautious about saying anything about the burn I have over 75% of my face. That I am very sensitive about it, don’tcha know. He told Mike this the day I was to arrive, just before Frank left for work. Mike freaked. All day, alone in the apartment, all that ran through his head was “Don’t mention the burn. Don’t mention the burn. Don’t. Mention. The. Burn.” Kinda like Basil Fawlty in “The Germans”. And, just like poor Basil, practically the first thing outta Mike’s mouth when I arrived was something about my (alleged) burn. He was just so relieved that there was no burn on my face, of course. But as soon as the words had come outta his mouth, he immediately thought “Oh shit, mebbe Frank said she was burned over 75% of her body–not her face–and her clothes are covering it and O!M!F!G! I just did exactly what he told me not to do!!!”

My friend Frank is a cruel genius

It did it again. I may scream.

Of Pan’s Labyrinth, Guillermo del Toro has said that this is the film where it’s as if his ‘balls dropped’. And I can see what he means. It is easily his most accomplished film so far.

It is both beautiful and brutal, mesmerizing from the opening shot to the closing one. I found myself in tears more than once–sometimes because of the beauty, sometimes because of the brutality.

The Captain is certainly the scariest monster he has ever created. And he’s human. That’s what makes him scary, I suppose… He makes the bugs and beasties of Mimic and Hellboy look like mere pushovers.

Plus, I got to meet GDT.

He kinda threw me for a loop, though… I had been discussing going to this screening with other folks at a discussion board that is part of a great fan-built website, and had described what I’d be wearing (my BPRD t-shirt) to another fan who was planning to go to it, too, so that we could recognize each other. GDT, himself, frequents our board and is really great about answering our questions and keeping us up-to-date on what he’s working on and how it’s going, making (and taking) recommendations of books, movies, art, etc. That man is wonderful with his fans. He treats us more like friends than fans, really. Anyhow, it seems GDT had been monitoring the discussion thread about the Toronto screening because when I introduced myself to him as “a regular at Parker’s discussion board”, he said “I know!”. Which rendered me rather non-plussed, as you might guess. I figured it out later… and I guess my BPRD t-shirt gave me away. (Incidentally, yeah, I met the other boarder, too. He was really nice!)

I also got to meet Ron Perlman. The man born to play my hero, HB.

And I even got an opportunity to tell David Cronenberg (another one of my favourite filmmakers, who was also in the audience and hadda huge smile on his face when the house lights came up after the screening) that I enjoyed the Warhol show he curated at the AGO. Whatta fuggin day, eh?

Oh, and I got in to see the last of the four films I was hoping for this weekend, too: The Killer Within.

But enuf of this for now. I’m in that internet cafe downtown and I wanna get back to my hotel in The Beach. And I haven’t had a single thing to eat all day, so I gotta do that too. (Yes, that is my stomach you hear rumbling.)