Death on Two Legs
The movie They Live could, conceivably, be the most brilliant movie ever made. It's not just Roddy Piper and the black guy brawling in an alley for forty-five minutes or the other parts of the movie I've forgotten; the film contains Roddy Piper donning magical sunglasses and seeing all the subliminals around him stripped bare: billboards proclaim "BREED", the television blares "CONSUME" and I'm sure there's something about "IGNORE JOHN CARPENTER'S PREVIOUS AND FUTURE FAILURES." It's one of those moments that makes you sit up, take notice and then drink a Diet Coke. They only have zero calories and poison!
Sometimes, I feel like Roddy Piper, but not when the Rowdy One was at the apex of his career blowing up alien satellites. I'm more akin to the Roddy Piper that visited Tulsa and signed his book in a Borders, all the while fondly remembering his days in the limelight with thousands of screaming fans clamoring for him to get punched in the eye. At the Borders that day, nobody wanted to hurt Roddy. He seemed kind of small and grandfatherly and I wanted to bring him some tea and then maybe adjust the blankets on him so he could take a comfortable nap. "Oh gran-dah," I would say, "you lovable old rapscallion. I'll finish that Diet Coke you've been nursing during all of Quantum Leap."
I never liked Quantum Leap. The only memories I have about the show are bad ones, which is weird because apparently every single hostile conversation I had with my folks somehow managed to fall during this program. Sam would leap into some schmuck, learn about his new predicatement (he's a long distance runner with a false foot and the clip broke! He's strapped to two tons of dynamite! In this very special episode, he has a mental handicap!) and we'd both say "Oh boy," although in my case it was because some new horrible thing had happened to ruin Quantum Leap. It's possible that every single bad thing that's ever happened to me has coincided with an episode playing since it's now in syndication, but I lack the patience to prove that.
Every time I turn around, this dude that's been following me around tells me that television is the best it's ever been, but I just don't feel it. Maybe it's because I don't care about how a detective finds a murderer with a reindeer hoof and a broken toboggan (and I don't see how a different city changes anything. "Oh man, those palm trees are going to have a minor but discrete influence on how she analyzes that hair sample!") or the travails of the modern suburbanite. Of course, I used to watch X-Files and keep track of all the hints about the crazy alien conspiracy so my tastes probably run counter to what any advertiser would want anyway. I'd like to revive X-Files: now they're searching for Don Henley, who's driving across the country in a VW van, and Cigarette-Smoking Man has changed his habits and become Diet Coke-Drinking Man.
OH YEAH.
Sometimes, I feel like Roddy Piper, but not when the Rowdy One was at the apex of his career blowing up alien satellites. I'm more akin to the Roddy Piper that visited Tulsa and signed his book in a Borders, all the while fondly remembering his days in the limelight with thousands of screaming fans clamoring for him to get punched in the eye. At the Borders that day, nobody wanted to hurt Roddy. He seemed kind of small and grandfatherly and I wanted to bring him some tea and then maybe adjust the blankets on him so he could take a comfortable nap. "Oh gran-dah," I would say, "you lovable old rapscallion. I'll finish that Diet Coke you've been nursing during all of Quantum Leap."
I never liked Quantum Leap. The only memories I have about the show are bad ones, which is weird because apparently every single hostile conversation I had with my folks somehow managed to fall during this program. Sam would leap into some schmuck, learn about his new predicatement (he's a long distance runner with a false foot and the clip broke! He's strapped to two tons of dynamite! In this very special episode, he has a mental handicap!) and we'd both say "Oh boy," although in my case it was because some new horrible thing had happened to ruin Quantum Leap. It's possible that every single bad thing that's ever happened to me has coincided with an episode playing since it's now in syndication, but I lack the patience to prove that.
Every time I turn around, this dude that's been following me around tells me that television is the best it's ever been, but I just don't feel it. Maybe it's because I don't care about how a detective finds a murderer with a reindeer hoof and a broken toboggan (and I don't see how a different city changes anything. "Oh man, those palm trees are going to have a minor but discrete influence on how she analyzes that hair sample!") or the travails of the modern suburbanite. Of course, I used to watch X-Files and keep track of all the hints about the crazy alien conspiracy so my tastes probably run counter to what any advertiser would want anyway. I'd like to revive X-Files: now they're searching for Don Henley, who's driving across the country in a VW van, and Cigarette-Smoking Man has changed his habits and become Diet Coke-Drinking Man.
OH YEAH.