Humans and Pets: The bittersweet bond

A great pet leaves a shoe that can’t be filled.

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All I wanted to do was hold my cat one more time. I was laying on the ground of the Webster Groves Veterinarian Office parking lot, crumbled into a ball.

I knew Jack was gone. When I picked his body up out of the backseat floor, it was limp and lifeless, like an old rolled up carpet. I hadn’t cried this much in years.

I didn’t cry like this when my grandmother, Nana, passed away last year.

I didn’t even cry this hard when my grandmother, Meme, passed away in 2011.

This was different. A new kind of pain. A blind side that came out of nowhere and slammed me to the surface. I was Joe Theismann on a football field without a care in the world for a guy named Lawrence Taylor.  Continue reading “Humans and Pets: The bittersweet bond”

The Dose Dispatch, Volume 2: In case you missed it

Dose loyalists,

I am back to deliver the goods. While I cook up another South City Confession-which I hope you are enjoying-it’s time to drop a load of reading material on your brain on a middle of the week grinder.

What’s new? Joe Williams wasn’t remembered on National Joe Day by the very paper he bled for over 15 years, so I did. I said the Cards should sign a closer and they did. I waxed poetically about the good graces of Matt Carpenter and Yadier Molina while providing game recaps for the first five Cardinals games. Each game tells a story after all, so I am trying to do “5 takeaways” for every single game.

Here are the links. Thank or hate me later. Continue reading “The Dose Dispatch, Volume 2: In case you missed it”

‘Ready Player One’ brings back the fun Spielberg touch

Wondrous and visually captivating, this film is a blast

James Halladay (Mark Rylance) didn’t get out much. An analog player in a digital world, James needed a place where he felt like he belonged and could escape to, so he created the Oasis, a virtual reality where regular people could become the extraordinary and escape their troubles. The device has created a dichotomy in the world, though, making reality a long-lost place where few wish to inhabit.

It is Halladay’s death that sparks Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One, which sets up in 2045 and follows the young Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) as he prepares to race for the three keys that Halladay left behind. Once a player finds all three keys and locates the Easter egg that the creator left behind, they are entitled to ownership of the Oasis and all its stock and revenue.

Watts is far from alone. There is his resourceful ally, Aech aka H (Lena Waithe), who will crush a fellow racer with his monster truck before fixing the bike of the lovely Art3mis (Olivia Cooke). The dynamic combo of Sho (Philip Zhao) and Daito (Win Morisaki) can slice and dice their opponents with their Japanese samurai abilities. These and millions of others have battled for years to find the keys, but these days, most are just content to escape their world for a few hours. Continue reading “‘Ready Player One’ brings back the fun Spielberg touch”

‘Isle of Dogs’: An animated film for adults

Wes Anderson’s latest soars on real humor and heart

Separating a boy and his dog is a dangerous idea, but always makes for good entertainment. Isle of Dogs is an animated film that is best suited for adults-and it’s a wonderful time at the movies. First, let me tell you a little bit about the movie.

Writer/director Wes Anderson’s latest explores the lengths at which a 12 year old boy named Atari (Koyu Rankin) will go in order to find the dog assigned to protect him, Spot ( voiced by Liev Schreiber), who was dumped on a island by his vicious uncle. Mayor Kobayashi (Kunichi Numora) fears that his city is becoming saturated with sick dogs (infected with a flu-type virus), so he signs an order that pulls every single dog out of their homes and assigns them to an abandoned island. Thus, the isle of dogs.

In a film stock full of political satire and inside jokes, it’s best to appreciate the little things, because this film has so many wonderful details. Continue reading “‘Isle of Dogs’: An animated film for adults”

‘7 Days in Entebbe’ makes a great story seem boring

In the summer of 1976, Israel put their foot down as an international power, and that didn’t sit well with Palestine. War broke out, murder was commonplace, and politicians merely tried to keep a resemblance of peace. Israel’s reputation as a country that didn’t negotiate was put to the test when a group of freedom fighters hijacked a plane containing Jewish passenger, landing in Entebbe, Uganda, demanding terrorists held in Israeli prisons to be released.

7 Days in Entebbe is inspired by this true story, but I wouldn’t call it an idea that was executed well. Jose Padilha directs the movie like a guy reading a recipe off the internet, injecting nothing unique or thought-provoking into the tale to give it any extra cinematic juice. He basically sat in a chair and said, “go ahead”.

The plot is divided between the airport in Uganda and the political war room back in Israel, where the conservative peace seeking Prime Minister (Lior Askenazi, Norman) butts heads with the military force hungry advisor, Shimon Peres (Eddie Marsan, Ray Donovan). The strategy of how to deal with a situation involving over 100 innocent passengers requires multiple trains of thought, but the movie doesn’t stick to either one, spending most of its time with the hijackers, which include Bose (Daniel Bruhl) and Bridgette (Rosamund Pike). Continue reading “‘7 Days in Entebbe’ makes a great story seem boring”

South City Confessions: I want no part of the single life

Confession: single people scare the shit out of me.

I’m not lying. When I drive drunk single souls home every weekend, I hear it all. A woman dressed to kill who can’t find the man she wants or berates the one sitting next to her. The guy in the super-tight polo shirt who clicks away on his phone at a woman while he taunts his buddies. “Hey bro, guess what she just said??”

Hey bro, I don’t give a shit. I couldn’t care less.

Let me explain. I’ve been married for 13 years and living with my wife for nearly 16 years. On May 6, we celebrate the 16th anniversary of our first date in Columbia, Missouri. I haven’t been single since May 5, 2002. If I was given a mulligan, a chance to do it all over again, I’d do the exact same thing. Continue reading “South City Confessions: I want no part of the single life”

South City Confessions: Ladies, if your heels hurt your feet, stop wearing them

You’re better than a fancy painful shoe

And with those ten words, man reconstructed the paths of time, helping ordinary women bring the feeling back to their toes.

Seriously, for fucks sake, women need to stop wearing high-heels if they hurt their feet i the process. Pleasing the freaky toe-licker crowd isn’t worth the hassle of your foot turning into the shape of a prune by the age of 25.

Since I drive for Uber every weekend, I get at least three women who climb into the car complaining about her feet hurting. This is what I’d like to turn around and tell her: Continue reading “South City Confessions: Ladies, if your heels hurt your feet, stop wearing them”