Plan 8 From Outer Space

(to the tune of Rodgers & Hammerstein's "My Favorite Things")

Spaceships in orbit and saucers a flyin’
Soon Solarnite will your planet be fryin’
Fantastic inventions beyond mortal ken
Little green women and little green men

Jeff acted crazy and Kelton was quirky
How ‘bout we ball it up in Albuquerque?
Criswell’s narration and Harper’s big gun
If we don’t stop you you’ll explode the sun

Angora sweaters and black and white movies
Low cut black dresses and Vampira’s boobies
Bela Lugosi and Tor’s big bald head
Electrode ray guns to bring back the dead

All except Eros: When this plan fails
Eros: If this plan fails!
All: We’ll just move ahead
We’ll shoot our electrode rays into your brains
And then we will raise the dead

All: If this plan fails
When this plan fails!
We’ll just move ahead
We’ll shoot our electrode rays into your brains
And then we will raise the dead!

A Simple Sample Suicide Note (for the poetically uninspired)*

Hang it all!
                  No!
Fuck it all!
Fuckin'
            Fuckin'
                         Fuckin'
                                     Fuckin'
Fuck it all!



*With special thanks to Robert Frost and Edward Arlington Robinson

LINES of little import composed on a typewriter

To fly

            free of all, like a bird

                                                I'd love

I love to fly

                       

I saw a girl, I heard a song and I saw

another girl where she had been

Was it the song or the girl or me that changed?

I heard a new song and saw a new girl

the old girl unchanged, but yet

Was it the song or the girl or me that unchanged?

She is what she was and I am

The same is gone and yet stays

Was it the song or the girl or me that sang?

                       

I write a new song I joy to hear

I'm still uncertain

Was it the song or the girl or me that's changed? 

TOP BANE QUOTES FROM THE NEW POLITICALLY MOTIVATED BATMAN MOVIE

“Gotham is mine! I will cleanse her streets, plunder her resources, and ship her jobs overseas!”

“I am Gotham’s reckoning, come to lower her top income tax brackets and eradicate her social programs.”

“I will break you, Batman! Just as I have broken your city! I will snap your spine and use your spinal fluid to slick back my preternaturally coiffed hair!”

“I think there are very real questions about whether Batman was born in Gotham City.”

“Hear me Gotham! I am your new master. I will eradicate the scum from your streets and lower the tax rate on your job creators!”

“Underworld criminal organizations are people, my friend.”

“The Joker is a fine businessman. We don’t agree on every policy point, but I welcome his support.”

 “What we did with BaneCare is totally different than what we have now. Why should I pay for someone else’s Venom prescription?”

“Why should I release my tax returns? I’m trying to lay siege to a city, not run for president or anything.”

“Of course the media are going to be on Batman’s side. We realize that. But we’ve gotten some very good support from Fox News.”

“We’re accused of being the party of ruthless dictators, which is untrue. We’re the party of people who want to BE ruthless dictators”

“I wish Batman would learn to be an American.” - Bane surrogate Louie the Lilac to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer

“I like being able to kill henchmen who provide services to me.”

I believe in a Gotham where Gothamites believe in a Gotham that's the Gotham Gothamites believe in. That's the Gotham I love”

“Batman and I have very different philosophies. He believes in killing jobs. I prefer killing people. It’s that simple.” 

The Age of Disillusion: Chapter 1, In Which Han Shoots First

Feeling more than a little like Robert Langdon, I waited patiently for the library doors to open.

Inside lay the Holy Grail, I’d convinced myself. The definitive article. The original document. Biblical in scope, full of war, sacrifice and incestuous undertones.

Finally, the doors opened and the crowd filed in. I trudged up the stairs and found the object of my desire.

A book is a dangerous thing, someone once said. Once you pick it up, your life may be forever changed. This weighed on my mind as I searched the stacks. In moments I would know. I would know if my memory was correct, if what I believed was true all these many years would be proven true. At the same time, I knew that if my beliefs were proven correct, that would mean that the creator had gone mad, that he no longer spoke the truth. What horrors the world may hold when God lies.

I found the small, weathered tome, tucked in next to some giant Ludlums, and quickly scanned the pages, searching for the relevant passage.

Oh, what book, you ask? None other than…

STAR WARS: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker by George Lucas, Ballantine Book Club Edition, December 1976.

This was it! This was like the Dead Sea Scrolls. A contemporary account of the beginning of a worldwide phenomenon, not just inspired by, but written by the creator himself. (Well, I’m pretty sure Alan Dean Foster actually wrote it, but it bears Lucas’ name, and, one would assume, his blessing).

The yellowing pages still felt crisp to the touch, and there she lay, the White Whale, on page 87 (reprinted below):

“Something that might have been a laugh came from the

creature’s translator. “They’d hardly notice. Get up, Solo. I’ve

been looking forward to this for a long time. You’ve embarrassed

me in front of Jabba with your pious excuses for the last time.”

“I think you’re right.”

Light and noise filled the little corner of the cantina, and

when it had faded, all that remained of the unctuous alien was a

smoking, slimy spot on the stone floor.

Solo brought his hand and the smoking weapon it held

out from beneath the table, drawing bemused stares from several

of the cantina’s patrons and clucking sounds from its more

knowledgeable ones. They had known the creature had committed

its fatal mistake in allowing Solo the chance to get his hands

under cover.”¹

Han didn’t only shoot first. Han just plain shot.

I’d never understood why George never blamed the controversy on the editing. It would have been simple to claim that his intent was mangled in the editing room. His ex-wife edited the film, for Yoda’s sake! If you can’t blame something like that on your ex-wife, what can you do?

Of course, now I know the truth. It’s all been revisionist history. I’m sure it comes from a good place, the same place Steven Spielberg was operating from when he changed the guns to walkie-talkies and flashlights in E.T. And if he’d just admit that fact, things would be settled. But he won’t, and now we know.

If you haven’t read the book, or haven’t in awhile, I recommend it. Be ready for some stomach-churning glances between brother Luke and sister Leia, though.

Well, that’s it for this post. Now I’m on to my next adventure. Apparently, Mark Evanier has some startling claims about Stan Lee’s role in the early age of Marvel Comics.

1. George Lucas, STAR WARS: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker (New York: Ballantine Books, 1976), 87.

My Graphic Review of Star Wars on Blu Ray

Rainy Days and Eulogies Always Get Me Down

When I hear a eulogy, or read a remembrance, I’m often reminded of a memorial service I once attended, at which Del Close stood up and announced, “I notice no one’s talking about the coke or the hookers.”

Now, don’t worry. I’m not here to talk about coke or hookers. I just want to establish that I’m aware of the hagiography that occurs in these instances. It’s as if you’re viewing this person’s life through the gauzy lens of a Barbara Walters special. No wrinkles, no warts, just a memory, preserved in amber, of the subject’s most perfect self.

I’m also often struck by the selfishness inherent in these tributes: “He was MY best friend.” “She was MY favorite aunt.” “He meant so much to ME.” Why is someone important simply because they were important to you? By the communicative property, aren’t you really saying that you’re the important one and they’re the wind beneath your wings or something? I don’t know. My mind wanders during these things and these thoughts come unbidden through the ether.

That said:

I remember my uncle Glenn, and he was very important to me.

He had two nicknames that I remember. One was Frog, pronounced “Frawg” in our little neck of the North Carolina woods. From what I can recall the name derived from his ability to mimic a bullfrog. His other nickname was Cat-killer. I’m unsure of the provenance of that one, and never asked for fear of learning an inconvenient truth.

My uncle moved around a lot in his youth. He joined the Air Force after high school. Then moved up to my neck of the woods to Hammond, Indiana, where my aunt Geraldine was living at the time. He remembered his time in the area and Hammond’s “hootchie-cootchie bars” fondly. He became a DJ and would later regale his nephews with stories of walking through Memphis with Elvis, and hanging out with Johnny Cash and George “No Show” Jones.

It must have been the summer of 1975, the summer before I entered kindergarten. I say “must have been” because, as with most things in early childhood, events in time seem to run together. Also, I’ve been too lazy to ask. But Charlie Rich had a big hit that year with “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World,” Jim Stafford’s “Spiders and Snakes” was still getting significant airplay, and Loudon Wainwright III’s “Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road” was not an uncommon find on AM radio, so I’m placing this at 1975. Now, if you’re curious why I’m using radio airplay as a gauge of time and place, well, it should be obvious that this is the story of a road trip.

My uncle Jack lived in Mineral Wells, Texas, and we drove out there pretty much every summer while I was growing up. I remember that I was both excited that Uncle Glenn was coming along with us and sad that he was staying behind in Texas.

It was during this trip that he coined the nickname he’d call me for the rest of my life. I loved Hong Kong Phooey and would jump around acting out all the action from my favorite episodes. So, he called me Hong Kong Shooey. (“Sh” for Sean, get it?)

There in Texas he again found work on the radio, and, of course, the love of his life Louise, who had her own bar there in Mineral Wells.

Later, he’d go to work at the regional airport there in Mineral Wells, and called me one day in the 90’s to tell me that he’d beaten me to the silver screen. Yes, Chuck Norris filmed a scene from one of his television movies at the airport, and Uncle Glenn was to appear in the film opening the airplane door for Chuck. He was very excited, but went out of his way before the end of the call to encourage me to keep on acting, and that he was sure I’d “get there.” I don’t know if I ever told him how much I appreciated that.

A few years later, he was, shall we say, in his cups, and called me and told me he loved me and he was proud of me. Several times. Over and over. It was probably the best drunk dial I’ve ever received. I told my brother about it, and, sibling rivalry being what it is, he said, “Huh! Well, Uncle Glenn never told me he loved me!” I’m telling you, Tommy Smothers has nothing on my brother. At any rate, I relayed this to my father, who relayed it to Glenn, who left the following message on Lee’s machine: “Hey Lee, this is your Uncle Glenn. I just want you to know…I love ya and I’m proud of ya.” It was priceless.

In the later years, Louise took ill and he spent more and more time with her and their little Shih Tzu Chancey King as her caretaker. He worked as long as he could and even began driving for Meals on Wheels, but finally retired to care for her full-time. After she passed away, he and Chancey moved home to North Carolina. He passed many good hours reunited with his sisters and playing golf and Wii with my father and my cousin Butch and his sons.

I went to see him on my last visit home, as it turns out I saw him the night before his final trip to the hospital. My father and I went to visit him at the nursing home he was staying in and we played Wii for about an hour. I of course stood and put my whole body into it. He just sat on the edge of the bed and used a flick of the wrist to beat the pants off both of us.

When it came time to go, I hugged him goodbye. He told me he loved me and I told him I loved him.

And those were the last words we said.

I miss him, and I’m sad, but I couldn’t have asked for a better goodbye.

He was my uncle. And I love him. And I’m proud of him.