윤

I’m not sure why, but my memory of this movie is hazy; I swore I first saw it on Channel 6 in Providence, which we could not tune in color, but when I checked its theatrical release, a broadcast premiere within a year of leaving the Northeast seems unlikely. Could be the B&W TV I had afterwards and afforded me many an hour of Atari 2600 and equally hallucinogenic late-night programming. It certainly must’ve been long enough ago for me to have excused the period music. But you tell me what else predates this sword & sorcery onscreen epic. I liked the four-letter names (but maybe not enough to use them for Ultima III—my team was from the Hitchhiker’s Guide, IIRC), Seven Samurai-ish bad-ass Crow, especially. Though his voice is a lot whinier than I remember.

Young Caine: What is the greatest obligation we have?
Master Po: To live, Grasshopper. To live!

With each lap around the track I still look up at the sky hoping it isn’t hypoxia and that cloud really is one of their ships. But maybe I’m too old now, got too much at stake, etc., to join the resistance and make a difference. Though the concept, as far as I’m concerned, cannot be exploited enough: I always thought an alien invasion would make a great better backdrop for a Street Fighter sequel, and am up for a remake that makes me question my loyalties.

We were driving back from lunch the other day and noticing gas prices on the rise again, I made the suggestion that the oil companies bail out everyone else, and not the taxpayers. Capitalism wouldn’t have any such thing, of course, because lopsidedness is in its very nature, but I’m reminded of the wisdom from a long-forgotten episode of Barbara Eden’s show where Major Nelson gets her powers but is warned against using them: “Well, your world is very complicated,” she explains. “If you stop one war, you’re liable to start ten others. If you flood the Sahara, you may empty an ocean.” See, even a bimbo can learn. Just takes 2,000 years of immortality.

Yesterday Chris and I got into this chat about old Japanese cartoons (hence the Orion Quest), and while I was unsuccessful locating the morose ending credit sequence of Spaceketeers for him on YouTube, I’m grateful to someone for posting the US opening of Honey Honey, which at least has the same theme song that used to mesmerize me Sunday mornings on CBN. I used to love that synthesized harp—what am I saying, I still do—and there was an innocence to the show that appealed to me, even back then, while everyone else was being seduced by うろつき童子 and 魔界都市新宿. All that tentacle sex ever did was produce a generation of closeted masturbators; Josie & the Pussycats made me want to get out and see the world!

Remember when Bobby Jindal took a swipe at government spending on volcano monitoring? Tell that to all the castaways on this island. GOP thought as much about terrorist threats before 9/11 (and after). How they stay around beats me. Spectacular pictures of that eruption brought back a memory of the showdown with the main villain from Grandizer on Force Five. I know, something always reminds me of childhood cartoons.

I’d like to think I won’t beat cancer one day, then realize life’s got no more feeling. If I do, then I can only hope to pick up where I left off in my most detailed and fulfilling dream world. I’ve actually managed that, on more than one occasion, but I could never create mysteries I hadn’t already solved myself. Setting the Ashes to Ashes sequel in the Eighties makes it sound right up my alley (as often as I listened to my Scary Monsters record), but I’ll wait, seeing as how critics were harsh and the Amazon UK price has yet to dip below £10.

I’m still feverish from a bug I caught on my way back from Europe, although I no longer attribute my dream-a-thons solely to my temperature. (Funny but I don’t remember any over there, which suggests it’s more to do with how much activity I see during the day.) If I’m not hobnobbing with celebrities or exercising superpowers, there are secret worlds to be discovered, this morning when I noticed that my unattended bicycle was being stripped between each inspection. No one was around, but nearby was a hole in the dirt, no deeper than a burial plot, through which we could see couples in 50’s-era clothes dancing. Peering even longer, and a whole Eighties video production was going on in this subterranean complex. The point of view shifted to the ground floor and I looked up and saw my large head spying below at this hidden kingdom of lost cultures.

I thought Kirby’s Captain America collection might be my first-ever trade paperback, but it’s never returned to its low on Amazon after I wishlisted it—surely a subject of future discussion, once I’ve worked out the mechanics—so I impulse-bought the Eternals instead. The King was frighteningly prolific, and without his readers having to accuse him of being on acid. These days, of course, over-achievement mandates drug tests. Chris and I had between us at least issues #1 and #8, the latter featuring the character of the “reject” (the original artist’s depiction here), whose self-loathing super-deviant origin was, it now occurs to me, totally ripped off by Joss Whedon for his Groosalugg in Angel.

I guess it’s like getting old itself: I don’t remember when exactly it happened, but it’s been some time now since I began feeling I’ve outgrown them. Then came telecommuting and the House charity shirts. And however disappointed I may be that those schizophrenic Republicans are allowed to stymie economic recovery (much less live), how can I resist this blast from with the past, although I would’ve preferred one of those Wu-Tang name ones with
Mark&
Jerry&
Bob 1&
Bob 2&
Alan.
on it instead.

Update: Or better yet,
Golden Arm&
Silver Spear&
Iron Robe&
Brass Head.