Observations from a Middle School Volleyball Season

This fall and last fall, the Cheese Fry has spent a number of Thursday evenings sitting on hard plastic bleachers in half-full middle school gymnasiums cheering on the 13-year-old Lil Fry.  Hers is a better-than-average team.  Last season, they got the top seed in the post-season tournament, but then were inexplicably eliminated after failing to close out (they only needed to score one more point!) what seemed to be an easy win.  The outcome of the current season remains unknown - the team may be a little better than they were as a 7th grade team, but so are the other district teams.

Forthwith, some observations made during our trip along the middle school volleyball circuit...

* Some of these gyms look like an NBA stadium what with all of their championship banners hanging from the rafters.

* While we can appreciate the attempt to create excitement and energy by blasting music during timeouts, these schools seem to all use some sort of school athletics streaming services that's supported by ads.  And so during a timeout, rather than get some amped-up top-40 song, you often get the end of a Kroger commercial.  Let's go, team!  Produce is always fresh and always affordable!

* We've gotten to see a number of gymnasium wall murals (some pretty good, others... less so) depicting school mascots, usually "breaking" through the gym's wall and looking extremely angry and fierce.  A photo compilation of these murals is desperately needed.

* Paper tickets are oh, so 20th century.  Now it's all about buying tickets online and showing your phone app at the door to a disinterested mom and/or student.

* There's always a bored police officer lingering by the gym door.

* We'd love to know why kids going to buy concessions prefer to sprint full speed from their seat to the exit doors.  It's not just little kids - a lot of the middle schoolers do it too.  Is it to avoid blocking everyone's view?  Is it to hear the loud clomps of their sneakers on the hardwood?

* Theater students have nothing on the over-the-top antics the two student line judges - with their big orange flags - perform to keep themselves entertained.

* One mental game we like to play is trying to figure out which parents belong to which player on the court.  It's always a small victory when we piece it together through subtle clues (i.e. seeing an adult hug a player offers no challenge - that's too easy and obvious).  We're like Columbo secretly eyeing the people around us, looking for little gestures and phrases.  But there remain many open cases: some adults we see at every game we cannot pair up with any of the players.

* It's always a thrill when we get to throw a ball back in.  Like we're briefly part of the action.

* A good drinking game would be to do a shot whenever someone who's not paying attention gets accidentally boinked in the head by a ball during the pre-game warmups.

* Between the shrill voices of 13-year-old girls and the terrible, echoing acoustics of gyms, it's not always easy to understand sideline cheers.  Of those we can understand, this one is the best: when the opponent hits the ball out of bounds, Lil Fry's team shouts "O! U! T! Out! See ya!"  With a little snarky goodbye salute on the last two words.  Teenaged genius.

* The most common phrase you'll hear in the stands - asked by children to their parents, of course - is "You have any money?"  Middle school athletic concessions stands have more variety than your local movie theater.

* Unofficial tally - the most popular concession items are ballpark nachos with the hot cheese sauce, popcorn (just the Orville Redenbacher microwave bags), and ring pops that turn your lips and tongue blue.

* You'll note there's always one girl way better than everyone else on a team.  Good things happen around her.  Likewise, there's one girl on every team who clearly is in over her head.  You cringe when the ball comes her way.

* Promoting sportsmanship is a good thing, of course, but the traditional line of girls at the net slapping five after the game with a monotone "Good game... Good game... Good game..." reminds us of the David Spade flight attendant sketch on Saturday Night Live where the phony cheer of "Buh bye!" really meant "Get lost."

* If you get through an evening without the scoreboard operator making an error, it was a good day.

* What's true for your college and professional sports fandom is also true for middle school: few things are more frustrating than watching "your" team lose through self-inflicted mistakes and unforced errors.  It's understandable when the other team is better.  That you can accept.  But when it's clear the teams are more or less evenly matched and your team is floundering hopelessly, that is infuriating.

One last observation - every middle school volleyball game will attract at least one spectator from these nine categories:

1. The mom who shouts and cheers at an inappropriately loud volume ("Get your ball back!")

2. While Loud Mom is trying to help in her own way, the dad counterpart who shouts and cheers at an inappropriately loud volume has more of an impatient edge ("Get your head in the game!")

3. A variation of Loud Dad is the obnoxious dad who likes to whistle really loud - this guy is usually sitting near you for maximum audio impact

4. The mom who offer encouragements by name to every single player who touches the ball like she's calling the game for Fox ("Good serve, Emma!" "Nice set, Olivia!" "What a hit, Lucy!")

5. The stoic, Vulcan-like dad who just sits there, facing forward like a wooden carving no matter what happens

6.  The dad secretly watching an ESPN game on his iPhone

7. The two moms who know all of the good gossip about the school team, the school team players, the school coaches, the last practice, and also (bonus!) what's going with the school players' individual club teams - and rest assured that each will also happily address for each other any knowledge gaps so they each end the conversation armed with new juicy intel

8. Bored younger siblings who are either running wild (sprinting to the concession stand, as mentioned) or slumped in the stands playing on a device in a far dark corner of the bleachers

9. The spectators who sit behind you and deliver an unending, podcast-style conversation and commentary about anything and everything other than the actual game everyone's paid good money to watch

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Knee-jerk review: "Bullet Train"

1. A lot more complicated and layered than we were expecting.
2. The TV spots suggested a over-the-top action comedy.  But the movie is more of a puzzle plot crime caper with a strong Tarantino vibe.  Lots of colorful criminal characters and double-crosses and flashbacks and narrative sidebars and incongruous soundtrack pop songs and interlocking plot threads that don't necessarily all make sense until the very end.
3. If we tried to explain the story, you'd never get it.  It's dense.
4. For the most part, we're suckers for neon-lit, urban-jungle, samurai-culture Japanese settings.  Love it.
5. Brad Pitt is predictably engaging, but the real revelation here is Brian Tyree Henry.  He steals the movie.
6. Even though it's a late night train, the lack of other passengers - and train staff - is sometimes a little hard to buy.  Two characters fist fight in the empty(!) bar lounge and no one really seems to notice.
7. We think we're more jaded than the average moviegoer, so it's hard to surprise us.  And yet, we were surprised a couple of times here.
8. Do these trains really only stop for 60 seconds before the doors slam closed again?
9. "I'm not Carver."
10. Not understanding at all the many Thomas the Tank Engine references made us feel very old.
11. Hiroyuki Sanada is way cooler than most people.
12. It's not particularly original, but the assassin-in-therapy bit is a lot of fun.
13. There were some pretty interesting themes in here about luck and fate - one character claims to have nothing but bad luck, while another brags about limitless good luck.  Can we escape our fate or do we make our luck?  All of that could have used some sharpening.  It's gets lost in the noise.
14. The ending - where all of these crazy plot turns and characters finally come together - gets a little... much.  In fact, it almost sort of spoiled the movie.  For 100 minutes. it's a delight, cruising on style and plot twists and wacky characters... then in the climax things go a little haywire with overwrought mayhem and unwelcome melodrama once the big villain finally shows up.
15. It's the kind of movie where people are poisoned and blood gushes from their eyes.

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