"When the going gets
weird,
the weird turn pro."
-- Hunter S. Thompson
Don't tell me ... I missed a week didn't I? Damn! I realize that I'd prepared everyone for a day off but didn't intend it to use it up so quick. I hope everyone made it through the week without the help of the always "uplifting" vibe via the "Monday Mud." Here's what happened ...
I'd been camping for several days outside the Showplace 16 in Coon Rapids and I was assured by some people at The Rough Fish World Empire that a substitute would be sent out to hold my place in line while I ran back to the office to write the Mud.
My suggestion was that they provide me with a laptop computer with a modem and cell phone so that I could simply write and upload the necessary files from a remote location. The response to that simple request was the typical corporate response about how expensive that would be and even though there were $30 million in sales last year they still lost money, blah, blah blah.
They told me that they would just send that Grimstone guy out to hold my place in line to see Episode 1, The Phantom Menace but guess what? He never showed. At one point I thought he was on his way when I heard the rumbling sound of a large V-8 engine and tires squealing, it sounded like the usual urgency associated with a Mud deadline but it just turned out to be some nut in a rusty El Camino terrorizing the crowd.
As he was squealing around the parking lot doing doughnuts and powerslides with Nugent's "Snakeskin Cowboys" cranking he was shouting things out the window like,
"Get a frick'n life you geeks!"
"Move outta your frick'n parents' basement and go boink a girl you frick'n dorks!"
Then, perhaps by design of a most sinister mind, perhaps by sheer accident, the El Camino went completely out of control and smashed into the line of people (many of whom were in costume) and into the glassed entryway to the theater.
It was an ugly sight, I saw at least 7 Yodas somersaulting into the surrounding shrubbery, a half-dozen C-3P0s turned into scrap, the mauling of a Darth Maul and a few airborne Wookies looking a bit like Underdog with their arms held in front of them in glorious flight.
The silence probably only lasted a few seconds but it felt like an eternity, the smell of fossil fuel hung in the air as a panic-stricken Jar Jar Binks took a dramatic slo-mo leap toward us screaming,
"Zhah dehr uhmph duh gehrt deh EMPHAHTUOOOOOOOOO!
The crowd was dumbfounded and we were all scratching our heads asking,
"What the **** you say Jar Jar?"
A bespectacled nerd lay on the gasoline soaked asphalt next to me crying,
"Why didn't I bring my Galactic Translator Palmtop®, why, oh why?"
Luckily, there was one shaken C-3P0 stirring who was still able to translate,
"She's gonna ******* blow man!"
A flock of Battle Droids scattered to the outer edge of the 1,600 acre parking lot, a lone Watto screamed in terror in fear that he lost his tickets, I snuggled in close with 3 Queen Amidalas and a couple "gold-bikini" Princess Leias praying to God that none of them had Adam's apples and with a mighty roar, the El Camino exploded with an intensity not unlike the explosion of the Death Star (more similar to the original Death Star from Episode IV, Star Wars A New Hope than the explosion of the Death Star, still under construction, from that lame episode with the fuzzy Care-Bear Ewoks ... yet ... not the digitally improved explosion from 4 or 5 years ago but the original 1977 Death Star explosion, the one that, technically, bugged Lucas for so many years that he was forced to digitally enhance, and rerelease the trilogy which was cool because there must have been 3 or 4 minutes of new scenes added).
A ring of heat passed over the crowd and continued on to the surrounding areas of Anoka, Spring Lake Park & perhaps as far as Soderville. We watched in silence as the El Camino burned, listening to the soothing crackles of one Detroit's most unusual vehicles (is it a car, or is it a pickup? I don't know but the Hot Wheels® version I had as a kid ran always kicked ass on those orange loop-the-loop tracks) when lo-and-behold .... !
The driver's door was being kicked open from the inside, 1, 2 ........ 3!!!!!!!!!! There was a collective gasp as a hulking figure, charred black from hard-hat to toe came stumbling out of the vehicle.
A Mace Windu, taking the Samuel L. Jackson thing a bit to the extreme went into a high-pitched, profanity-filled rant,
"It's ******* Darth Vadar, that mother****** comin' this way! Somebody better ******* do something quick, I'm gettin' the **** outta here is what I'm ******* doin'! I ain't gonna be no bitch for no mother****** Darth Vadar, GOD DAMN IT MAN! I hate this hacker shit!!!!!!!
A 15 year old nerd with a "Frodo Lives" sweatshirt adjusted his glasses and said,
"Excuse me Mr. Windu, but you're throwing in Jurassic Park dialogue that has nothing to do with the current situation.
I was freaked, but quite excited to see a walking hologram of the comic-book store guy from The Simpsons step forth and say,
"Excuse me Mr. "Frodo Lives" but while we are on the subject of proper context may I remind you, Sir, that we are at a George Lucas related event and there is no reason for you to be sporting your pretentious Tolkein referential sweat .... shirt."
The nerd hung his head low and said,
"I'm sorry, it was just a last minute reaction against the overmarketing of our scared religion of "The Force". It just seems that the media has turned our humble little form of worship into some kind of freak show, I know that what I have done may seem wrong, but in the true form of the rebellious nature of the Jedi, I felt that a statement against the dark forces of Wall Street was in order."
The comic book store guy, for the first time in his life, appeared to be shedding a tear.
"Oh my little nerd, my sweet little nerd, your words have been well chosen. You have melted my holographic heart and with that I must go ...."
With sounds associated with the infamous Jacob's Ladder (a product by Sparkomatic®) from Dr. Frankenstein's lab, the hologram fizzled out and disappeared leaving us with a moment of silence.
"GOD DAMMIT! Vadar's coming this mother******* way!" screamed Windu.
The evil figure was walking toward us and stopped to pick up a glowing-red tail pipe, still heated from the massive explosion. You could hear the flesh of his palms sizzle and smell the aroma similar to Sizzlelean® as he picked the piping hot pipe up off the ground and began marching in my direction.
You could barely hear him mutter,
"Frick'n-A, that is one hot frick'n pipe!"
I looked around to see if there were any Luke Skywalkers present but saw none, apparently Mark Hamill's dismal post-Star Wars career has had an impact on the popularity of the Luke character.
Unfortunately I was dressed as Qui-Gon Jinn, the Jedi master, since all I really had to do to prepare was not shave and stay in my robe all day, which is my weekend routine anyway.
For people who know me, it wasn't much of a surprise that I would be the chosen one. It's not unusual that, even in a crowd situation, I just seem to have a built-in magnet that attracts evil. I've been trying to figure it out for years but can't seem to do anything about it. I just try not to go out as much as I used to.
He stopped 20 paces before me and said,
"So at last, we meet."
The only thing I've learned from these situations over the years is to not go with my first response, which I've been told, can sometimes be a little "lippy". So my confrontations in recent years usually contain long pauses as I rewrite my first response in my head by deleting any sarcastic overtones.
"Uh yeah ... yer .... (oh I wanna say "ass") ... holiness. I believe you may have me confused with another Knight of the Jedi, young Luke Skywalker from Episode IV who you are more likely to find down at a video store this week."
"I thought this was frick'n episode IV"
"No, this is Episode I."
"How the frick'n hell can it be Episode I? There's already been 3 of these frick'n pieces of crap movies!"
Hundreds of people choked on their own spittle at once. A young nerd whispered to me,
"He called these movies crap! Kill him!"
I tried to remain calm because, it didn't happen often, but I was going to have to explain the whole prequel thing to this evil villain and I knew I couldn't do it without resorting to one of the Dark Sides of the Force that you don't hear as much about ....wise-ass sarcasm.
"Ok, here's the deal, Lucas claims he wrote 9 episodes of the Star Wars Saga which is then broken down into 3 trilogies. He did the middle 3 first, and now he's doing the first 3, which, of course, take place before the middle 3, it's really pretty simple, are you gettin' this?"
"Why the frick'n hell didn't he start with the first one then?"
"Because, he thought the middle 3 had the most commercial potential and never imagined that he'd ever get to do all of them .... are you gettin this?"
"Not frick'n really."
"Let me ask you a couple questions before I spend more time on this, do you know how to program a VCR or retrieve messages from your answering machine from a remote site?"
"Fer Chris-frick'n-sakes no!"
"I thought not, okay Bud ... whatever ... this is Episode IV, I'm Luke ******* Skywalker, let's just get it over with."
"It ain't Skywalker I want, it's you .... Swanson."
A hush went over the crowd, I could hear people murmuring "Swanson, who's he? Must be from Episode 7"
"Who, who are you?"
"Let's just say I ain't a big fan of the Monday Mud the way it is!"
He started swinging the red-hot tail pipe in my direction, I looked around for a weapon and noticed a group of Jawas smoking from a 4-foot bong that cast a green glowing light (if I can explain why it was glowing, I will before I post this story but I can't think of any reason off-hand). I grabbed it from them and started swinging back.
I felt the heat and the singe of flesh as the tail-pipe made contact with my wrist but luckily, it didn't cut my hand off because the technology on prosthetic hands isn't quite to the Star Wars level yet and, well, it just really would have sucked if I lost a hand writing the Monday Mud. Losing sleep is enough for me.
In a surprise move, the villain threw down his weapon and pulled out a pretty nice Nikon camera,
"Okay Swanson, now the world, or at least your 35 readers will know your true identity."
In slo-mo, he put the viewfinder to his eye and just as the shutter was clicking I pulled a CJ and flung the water from the bong into his face.
His scream filled the night,
"NOOOOOOOOO NOT THE BONGWATER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
And in the strangest turn of events, he started melting into the asphalt.
A group of flying monkeys, who I hadn't seen before crowded around, and one of asked me,
"Do you know if the Wizard of Oz is playing here tonight?"
"What?"
The Wizard of Oz/Pink Floyd laser light show, is it playing here tonight?"
"Oh, no, no they're playing the Phantom Menace at Midnight on all 16 screens."
The flying monkey turned to the other ones and said,
"You stupid *****, I told you it's playing down at the Heights, now we gotta bust monkey butt."
As they flew off into the moonlit sky, the crowd, somewhat quietly shuffled into the Showplace 16 to find the best seats.
I found a perfect seat about 15 rows back and settled in, unfortunately, somebody dressed in a full-size Jabba the Hut costume sat in the ******* seat right in front of me. Fortunately, the seating is pretty good at the theater so I could see okay if I craned my neck a little bit.
The silence was deafening as we heard the projector's motors kick in but nothing could prepare us for for the horror that lay before us.
The studio had, by mistake sent the theater 16 prints of the kid's classic "The Phantom Toll Booth" starring Butch Patrick (TV's Eddie Munster).
Considering all the trouble that had occurred to get this far, I was able to look on the bright side of the Force. I was reminded of a situation in college when I saved my pennies to buy a fresh copy of John Prine's "Sweet Revenge" on Atlantic Records. When I cracked the shrink wrap and pulled out the fresh vinyl I was horrified to see that it was Led Zeppelin II, (the Brown Bomber).
It took a while to recover but sometimes you just have to say,
"Screw it, let's rock!"
See you on a future Monday!
Hey! Now We Have Archives!
02/15/99 Orientation
02/22/99 Smoke on the Water, Billy Ocean &
EBay
03/01/99 Dream Weavin', Sgt Snorkel's Secret
Code, Ruby Tuesday's
03/08/99 Styrofoam Circles, Exchanging Coffee
At Lunds, Somewhere on the East Coast
03/15/99 The Never Ending Story Part 1, Corrections
and Influences
03/22/99 The Never Ending Story "Part
Deux"
03/29/99 Summer Movie Preview Contest
04/05/99 "Hey, It's a Cult!", Amateur
Theology, An Unused Cartoon From the Early 80's, Contest Answer
04/12/99 Reverting to Old Ways, Going Off on
Commercials, The Masters Tournament
04/19/99 Special Piece of Crap Issue: Life
During Wartime, It's a Gas! Dock-umentary Preview
04/26/99 Previous Issue Apology, No More Horny
Hillbillies for Prez, Aging Rock Stars, MP3 Files
05/03/99 Guest Writer Gus Grimstone Simplifies
the Mysteries of the Universe With A Gut Punch
05/10/99 Writer's Block, Television vs TV,
Stamping Out Crime with Sporks & Scotch Tape
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