Arm Side fun

Big doings here at Arm Side Fun! Not only is this the launch date for ArmSideFun.com, it’s also my two-year sobriety anniversary. That’s right, for 731 days now I’ve abstained from ingesting alcohol and drugs that aren’t prescribed to me. What’s the best way to celebrate that? Strippers and speed balls, duh. But I’m not about that life anymore, so what’s the next best way to celebrate my recovery? A playlist, bruv. 

If today is your first toe dip into the waters of Arm Side Fun, here’s a few things you can expect: 1) Way too much DFW sports stuff, especially Cowboys, Rangers, and Mavs; 2) A bunch of masturbation/dick jokes;  3) Flowery and repeated homages to 1980s pop culture. Today's playlist is all about kickass tunes from the most kickass flick from America's favorite decade.

(Bop Bop) On the Beach (The Flirts & Jan & Dean)-This song plays when Daniel and Ali meet on the beach.  Ali, played by the absolutely stunning and 20-years-old at the time Elisabeth Shue, is just killing it in her purple- and white-striped one piece, and for some reason becomes smitten with a 97-pound uber virgin from New Jersey. When your arms are skinnier than Pixy-Stix straws and you’re wearing an overly stained shirt, I guess the world’s your oyster. Your “Get the shit beat out of you every other day for being a jackass” oyster.

 (It Takes) Two to Tango (Paul Davis)- This song plays during the campfire scene on the beach. The fellas are roasting hot dogs, the girls are sitting around the fire debating whether Daniel has started puberty, Freddie rightfully calls Daniel a giant pussy for not rizzin’ up Ali, then Daniel performs the time-honored SoCal-by-way-of-New Jersey pre-mating ritual of shittily bouncing a soccer ball on his knee a couple times. In real life, there’s no way this dude is pulling a dime whose family has money. Zero chance.

The Ride (Matches)-This song is not on the soundtrack, but it is featured in the pivotal scene when Johnny and the rest of Cobra Kai pull up to the beach on their motorcycles. After the Cobras make a spectacularly baller entrance, Johnny decides he’d like to have a civil conversation with his ex-girlfriend, Ali. She, very rudely, won’t turn her stereo down, which as you might imagine upsets a genteel and caring young man like Johnny. Thus, in a rare display of anger and aggression, Johnny throws Ali’s stereo onto the ground, possibly damaging it, at which point Daniel decides to put his horseshit east Jersey YMCA "karate" skills to the test. They fail him miserably, Johnny beats the breaks off Daniel without even taking off his Cobra Kai-branded red leather jacket, then Johnny and Ali go fuck in the ocean for 45 minutes. I’m sorry, my bad, that’s what would have happened in real life. In the movie, Daniel feels sorry for himself and tells Ali to leave him alone half a dozen times, even though she’s BY FAR the hottest girl to ever talk to him when and all she was trying to do was see if he was okay.

Cruel Summer (Bananarama)-Another song not on the official soundtrack, this song plays during the first day of school. Daniel rides his bike to school, stares longingly at Johnny and the Cobras looking all kickass with their motorcycles, trots out some awful game when he sees Ali, and gets kicked out of soccer tryouts for fighting Bobby. Next time you watch, pay close attention to the atrocious Herkie that Ali does during cheerleading practice. I do have to give Lis Shue credit for making mid ‘80s PE gear look sexy, though.  

No Shelter (Broken Edge)-This is the tune that starts to play while Daniel is in the bathroom cleaning his hair at the Halloween Dance after the guy in the chicken suit eggs him. While in the bathroom, Daniel notices that Johnny is rolling a joint–rather shoddily, if we’re being honest, one of the rare demonstrations of Mr. Lawrence’s ineptitude–and decides to take a measure of revenge via…water hose? Yep, that’s what happened. Daniel rigged up a hose over Johnny’s head, turned it on, got like three or four drops of water on Johnny, and then tore ass out of there like the punk bitch that he is. Couple things here. First off, have you ever seen a fucking water hose in a bathroom? Like, ever? And second, dude, just go get a teacher or school administrator and narc Johnny out! Even in 1980s southern California, Johnny’s getting suspended from school for at least a few days for having weed on campus. This is absolutely the play he should have made, because not only does it take Johnny out of commission for a few days, it would have also spared Daniel an epic ass whippin’ that night. But he chooses the water hose, runs away like a coward, and gets the shit beat out of him. Again. 

Feel the Night (Baxter Robinson)-This song, my second-favorite from the movie, plays during Ali and Daniel’s date to Golf-N-Stuff. A few things here: 

1) If Ali’s dad isn’t involved in some shady business to finance his swanky lifestyle, then I don’t know shit about shit. Drugs, guns, money laundering, Ponzi scheme, music industry executive…something. You don’t have that kind of house in the hills and wear track suits on Saturday nights if you’re not taint deep in multiple felonies. 

2) I promise you that Ali’s parents aren’t letting their daughter into the car of a commoner. I don’t care how nice Daniel and his mom seemed, or how progressive Mr. and Mrs. Mills tried to be, these are wealthy, upper class folks we’re talking about. The second they see a fucking Chevelle pull up to the curb being driven by a woman wearing clothes off the rack, they’re shutting that shit down on the spot. Some things are undefeated, and classism is one of them.

3) When Ali and Daniel are leaving Golf-N-Stuff, a dude named Eddie pulls up in a white Corvette. We don’t get a direct look at Eddie’s face, but he clearly appears to be a few years older than Ali. You can also tell from his and Ali’s interaction that they know each other. I wanna know what the deal is here. Did they date when he was a senior in high school and she was a freshman, or something? Or does 23-year-old Eddie frequent local mini-golf joints, trolling for barely-of-age trim? I know the main characters here are supposed to be seniors in high school and ostensibly adults in the legal sense, but there’s something very unsavory about Eddie and his intentions. There’s no doubt his Me Too stuff was extensive and gross.

4) As Eddie drives off, Johnny, Dutch, and Tommy pull up with Ali’s friends in Johnny's brand new, $40,000 Avanti convertible. This is a car so sophisticated, classy, and powerful that, had Daniel tried to get in it, would have rejected him like he was a mismatched kidney. Regardless, Johnny tries to be the bigger man here, and offers both Ali and Daniel a ride to the hills to hang out. He even asks Ms. LaRusso’s permission for Daniel to come with them. Johnny is a goddamn gentleman, folks, and the true hero of this story.

Fish and Train (from the score of “The Karate Kid”) (Bill Conti)-The legendary composer and conductor Bill Conti, who scored the early ‘80s James Bond flick “For Your Eyes Only” and five of the “Rocky” films, saved some of his finest work for “The Karate Kid.” The main theme of the movie is well-known, and rightfully so as it’s spectacular.  But there are other scenes with their own scores that are outstanding, such as this one when Miyagi and Daniel are training at the beach (it’s when Daniel first sees Mr. Miyagi perform a Crane Kick). What really stands out about this scene in 2024, though, is the blatant racism directed at Mr. Miyagi by the two drunk idiots. It’s easy to forget that World War II took place just over 40 years before “The Karate Kid” came out, and it was obvious someone with some stroke as far as the script went was still harboring some strong anti-Japanese sentiments. It’s jarring to watch today.

Young Hearts (Commuter)-My favorite song from this movie, and one of my ten favorite songs ever, “Young Hearts” plays right after Mr. Miyagi gifts Daniel with the yellow convertible, which he promptly drives straight to Golf-N-Stuff for the express purpose of harassing and stalking Ali. Daniel checks all the stalker boxes here, as he: lecherously stares at his target from the parking lot; can’t take multiple hints that Ali and her friends don’t want him around; accuses Ali of being inconsiderate when she doesn’t immediately accept his half-assed apology for the incident at the country club; accuses her of buying into stereotypes, when in reality it’s him that’s doing that; and grossly forces his tongue down her throat after calling her “slugger.” Daniel LaRusso is a gaslighting predator, folks, there’s no two ways about it.

You’re the Best (Joe “Bean” Esposito)-By far the most well-known song from “The Karate Kid” soundtrack, this is the song that plays during most of the All Valley Tournament scenes. This is my favorite movie ever, but the way this tournament plays out bugs the shit out of me. Quick aside: This movie came out in 1984. Do you know some other movies that came out in 1984? “Ghostbusters,” “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” and “Red Dawn.” Movies that featured, respectively, a giant marshmallow King Kong rampaging New York City, a dude pulling other dude’s hearts out of their chests with his bare hands, and the Soviets deciding to break the seal on World War III by attacking a high school in rural Colorado. And despite these moments, and similarly inconceivable ones from movies like “Gremlins,” “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock,” and “The Terminator,” do you know what the most implausible, most difficult to suspend disbelief, most “There’s no fucking way that happened” story beat from a movie in 1984 is? It’s Daniel LaRusso winning the All Valley Under-18 Karate Tournament by beating five members of the Cobra Kai. 

Daniel beats two Cobras at most. I can see him beating Jimmy, ‘cause Jimmy sucks. I can MAYBE even see Daniel beating Tommy ‘cause Tommy is such a hot head that Daniel might have been able to piss him off enough to make a mistake. But Dutch? No fucking way. Dutch would literally murder Daniel in less than 12 seconds, take a shit on his corpse, then rail a few lines of cocaine off Ms. LaRusso’s stomach. Bobby? No fucking way. That’s why Bobby was so incensed when Kreese asked him to put Daniel out of commission, ‘cause Bobby knows he'll bury Daniel. He’s infinitely more athletic than Daniel, has a transcendent head of ‘80s hair, and has actually seen a live female breast before; way too many disadvantages for Daniel to overcome. And Johnny in the finals? In what’s like Daniel’s seventh fight of the tournament and takes place AFTER Bobby blows up his knee? NO. FUCKING. WAY. Johnny wins that match against a hobbled Daniel 102 times out of 100, regardless of how good a massage job Mr. Miyagi gives. But I guess the public at large wasn't ready for a super handsome, blond-haired badass to be a hero in 1984, so we get Daniel landing the most improbable horseshit kick of all time, and John Lawrence, the true champion of this film, settling for silver. It's a goddamn travesty, but at least the “Cobra Kai” series has tried to right this wrong.

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Normally at Arm Side Fun, at least a cursory attempt at humor is efforted. I don’t always get there, but that’s usually the goal. Not for this next part, though. This is real life, folks, and sometimes that shit’s hard and messy.

I decided to launch this site at 9:15 AM on April 22nd, 2024, because an inflection point of my life happened at approximately 9:15 AM on April 22nd, 2022. I was a teacher and baseball coach at the high school I graduated from, in my fourth year in the district. I was also in my 16th year as an active opiate addict, and in year 13 in terms of daily opiate use. One of my co-workers, the head baseball coach, was prescribed opium tincture (essentially liquid morphine) for some stomach issues he’s had most of his life, and I was stealing it from him, every chance I got. I did this for almost four straight years, and it finally caught up to me on 4/22/22. 

It was a Friday. I tried to hoard as many drugs as I could for Fridays, ‘cause in Texas you play high school baseball on Tuesdays and Fridays. I was successful in that endeavor on 4/22/22, and was higher than shit when the bell rang for my 2nd period class to start at 9:14 AM. Immediately after the bell rang, our librarian came into my classroom and said they needed me in the conference room. This wasn’t necessarily out of the ordinary, but something about it seemed off. My classroom was next door to the conference room, so I had about a 15 second walk to get there, and I had a feeling that this was it; they know. Sure enough, I open the door to the conference room and our building principal, our athletic director, our assistant superintendent, and the head of HR are sitting around a table. Any doubts that I had about this being anything other than almost two decades of addiction and poor decision making coming to a head were dispelled as soon as I saw the gathered crowd.

What do you think you would have felt at that moment? You’ve been an active addict for almost two decades. You’ve been stealing a Schedule I narcotic from the guy you spend the most time with at your job, a guy that was a pretty good friend, too. You’ve been doing this for multiple years, and every time you’ve done it you say to yourself, “You know this only ends one way, right?” You knew this day would come, and it’s finally here. You’re confronted with video evidence of you stealing and ingesting drugs, and a bunch of people that you’ve known for a long time that care about you deeply are asking you to explain yourself. What do you think you would have felt at that moment?

For me, it was relief. Nothing but relief. I can finally stop worrying about when the other shoe will drop, ‘cause it’s dropping right now. I knew this was going to be a shitty day, especially the next several hours, but I also knew this was a fantastic opportunity for me. I confessed, explained to everyone that I was an addict, met with our superintendent, briefly met with the coach I’d been stealing from, went to a medical clinic down the road to take a drug test that I failed miserably, resigned in lieu of being terminated, and told my wife that I had lost the best job I’d ever had. I also told her that I needed to go to rehab. Today. Like, as soon as possible. I don’t care what it costs, I’ve GOT to go to rehab. She agreed, and I went home to find a rehab facility. 

I found one fairly close to my home, told my kids that I was going away for a while (hardest part of the day, without question), and went to rehab. I was there for 31 days, and I’ve been sober ever since. It’s harder than shit some days to not drink and drug, but I’m at two years. It’s quite literally something I thought was impossible for me, and I’m glad everything happened the way it did; I’m not sure I’d change a thing. Yes, I disappointed a lot of people, caused a ton of heartbreak and despair for the people that love me, and almost lost my teaching certificate (it was eventually suspended for a year), but today, on April 22nd, 2024, my life, health, and relationship with my wife and kids are in an infinitely better place than they were two years ago. 

It wasn’t the path that most would have chosen, but I’ve rarely done shit in any kind of way that can be described as typical. The bottom line is that I got here, and I have a chance to stay here; that’s a win, no question, and as a coach I've learned to take wins any way I can get them.

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I try not to veer too far into real life here, but sometimes it's unavoidable. A more typical post will be made this Friday (brief teaser: Brad Davis's scrotum), so come check it out if you liked anything you read today.

If you want to get in touch with me, you can do at armsidefun@gmail.com. Thanks for reading, say no to drugs, and don't be an asshole.