Tough Sh*t: Life Advice From a Fat, Lazy Slob Who Did Good by Kevin Smith Page A

his scrappy team of hall-of-famers-in-training became Christ and his apostles to me. Like arecent Alcoholics Anonymous member going whole-hog, I’d whip around chapter and verse from the Book of Gretzky in nearly all conversations, making the hockey legend a philosopher demigod of sorts whose father’s advice against puck-chasing was now my mantra.
    A few emo-bitches tried to take the wind out of my sails by pointing out that, ultimately, Wayne Gretzky—the greatest hockey player who ever lived—was no more than an entertainer. When you remove poetic metaphors, hockey
is
just a kids’ game. Some could even argue that being excellent at playing hockey is about as useful and important in the grand scheme of things as being excellent at playing Monopoly. If civilization collapses, the skills of any entertainer mean fuck-all.
    But while the center still holds, we love our entertainers—particularly the ones who ply their craft with absolute passion. Wayne Gretzky did that: Number 99 played the game like he was saving mankind from destruction. He was Hockey Jesus. At thirty-eight, I discovered an artist of another sort who did something so utterly useless so incredibly well, and with such vigor and conviction, that you believed the game he was playing actually
mattered
somehow. Suddenly, the Stanley Cup went from being a simple challenge trophy to Christ’s own Grail, where your name could be stamped into immortality.
    What I do for a living (much like what Wayne Gretzky did for a living) is ultimately unimportant. It will not save lives. It will not stop the planet-killing asteroids, should their time come. It will not change how we survive as a species.
    But so long as I pour everything into it as if it
does
matter? So long as I empty the tank and play the game with pure passion? Then even the mundane elements of a life that will likely end badly can be elevated, elaborated, and celebrated.
    I think I encountered Gretzky at the right time—when film suddenly failed to capture my imagination the way it did when I was in my early twenties. In my Gretzky studies, one of the most important aspects of his career biography is the end, when he hung up the skates for good. Here was a man whose every thought for most of his life was hockey oriented. Here was a man known the world over for being synonymous with hockey—whose very name had become interchangeable with the game he played.
    And even
he
stopped playing hockey eventually—gracefully, and without much fuss. Wayne Gretzky decided to end his career on his terms, well before his body could ever say, “Fuck you, Gretz,” and quit on him. He’d chased his passion and won his dream job, getting paid handsomely to do something he’d have done anyway for free, something he
loved
. And after that was done, he hung up his skates and did something else entirely.
    The tough shit we learn from the culture of hockey is that everything ends—even the good shit.
Especially
the good shit. You never know how long you’re gonna be on the ice, so it’s important to suck the marrow out of every moment in life—because before you know it, the moments become memories, and the to-do remains undone. Nothing gold can stay, Ponyboy—and even the greatest hockey player in the world has to walk away from the game he loves sooner or later. Or, rather, skate away.
    But before I skated away from
my
game, I was gonna give ’em a strong third period. I wasn’t interested in where the puck was anymore; now I wanted to know where it was
gonna
be.
    Wayne Gretzky said, “You miss a hundred percent of the shots you never take.” I realized I was just being cute with my puck. It was time to start firing that shit top-shelf.

 

CHAPTER EIGHT
     

___________________

When the Shit Hit the Fan:

Red State
, Part I
     
                              
     
    S ome filmmakers are talented enough to let their work simply speak for itself.
    I’m the other guy.
    I’ve always been