Late one night I felt like watching a movie, and I only had two unopened DVDs to choose from: Memoirs of a Geisha and Brokeback Mountain. Where’s a brainless movie with flatulence and destruction—or both—when you need it?
Memoirs was my second choice because I’d read the book, but Brokeback Mountain… late at night… alone… on my sofa? It seemed a bit odd.
Then I thought, “Who cares?” I hadn’t seen the movie. So what if it had a couple of cowpokes light in the ropers. It won a few Oscars and I carried no phobias. Reason enough.
I unwrapped the DVD, plopped it into the tray, set the lights to an ember glow, and with a similar languidness in which Adam extended his hand toward God on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, I pointed the remote toward the television. Click.
Within minutes after the film began I recognized the countryside. It was my old stomping ground. Time had turned back. The Ranchers reminded me of many a Calgary Stampede. The mountains in the western horizon triggered a heartwarming sentiment.
When the two cowboy “friends” hopped onto their horses and headed into the mountains, my eyes widened. I realized they were riding in the exact area where I’d saddled up with my buddy Dale a few years prior. Even the characters’ campsite looked familiar.
I marveled at the film’s cinematography. The images closely conveyed what it was like being there in person. The stunning majesty of the Rockies, hypnotic streams, velvety sunsets casting mammoth shadows across breeze-filled valleys, a crackling fire launching sparks that faded into the starlit sky, beers until we yawned, scuttling into the tent and…
< Cue needle scratching off vinyl record. >
In no way, whatsoever, did the rest of the movie resemble what Dale and I experienced. Listen, the sound of Dale snoring is exactly like a revved-up chainsaw. One night he even sneezed a booger on my neck from clear across the other side of the tent. Romantic? I think not!
By the time the tent scene happened it was too late to call Dale and do that whole scream/whisper combo, “Have you seen Brokeback Mountain?”
It turned out he had. He was quick to add, “There’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you Vince.”
“What?”
“I can’t quit you.”
In the Age of Speed it’s easier and more common than ever to jump to conclusions. The lesson here? Be careful with the conclusions you jump to on an every day basis. How quickly have we arrived at a conclusion given limited information?
Consider:
Christine O'Donnell as a Witch.Lindsay Lohan's rehab problems.
Wall Street's bonuses.
Isn’t it obvious?
Wall Street executives were getting hammered while O'Donnell was giving Lohan a ride on her broom to a camping trip in Canada.
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