eight things

If there’s one thing that I do well, it’s grumble that no one ever tags me for a blog meme. I don’t grumble about it online, because then people will tag me for a blog meme, and if there’s one thing I hate, it’s blog memes. So I keep it to myself. But a couple of days ago, both Ozma of Blog and Knuckletoes tagged me for the same dance. I felt like a debutante with two handsome heirs fighting over me. They were wanting to know eight facts and/or habits about me. The truth is that I have no habits, and all facts about me have turned out to be lies, which have turned out to be lines of dialogue from early drafts of the script for Krull. Weird, I know – but true! But not true!

1. I often imagine the future as a gigantic iron gate with a huge padlock holding it shut and a sign that looks like an enormous post-it note saying 'Under Renovations - The future is CLOSED until further notice – Come back soon!' Of course, everyone knows that ‘under renovations’ is a euphemism for 'out of business'.



2. I love films, but my opinion of an entire two hour’s worth of movie can turn on a single exchange or ridiculous detail. There’s a moment in The Matrix, for example, that completely ruins the movie for me. It’s not Keanu Reeve’s posing, or the weird deification of hackers, or the lazy gloss over the basic premise of the film (human beings + ‘a form of fusion’ = efficient energy source?) but the following exchange:
   
   Neo: What are they?
   Trinity: Squiddies.
   Cypher: Armed sentinels designed for one thing.
   Dozer: Search and destroy.
   
   That’s two things. Matrix, I hate you.



3. Based on an old comic book I read as a kid, I used to sleep with a pillowcase or T-shirt laid over my head in case some tentacled monster came in the night to steal my brain. Apparently the monster had the moxie to get in my bedroom, but lacked the tenacity to defeat the Pillowcase Barrier. I quit the habit by the time I was 25 or so. Even though I hadn’t believed in the brain-stealing monster since I was eight, it was really hard to get to sleep at first.



4. In the real universe where we deserve to live, heat is not result of entropy but a prize given away on a popular game show. Everyone there is extremely cold and the ultimate prize on the show is to be toasty warm for an entire year. Most prize recipients are dismayed when they realize that they have to pay applicable taxes. Some have died from being mobbed for their heat.



5. What I’m thinking? Is that ‘gravity’ is a satanic pact between secular humanists and homosexuals to keep god-fearing folks from flying, as per the Lord’s intentions. Think about it this way – if we were not meant to fly, then why do we eat so many birds?



6. After the end of my last world tour, in which countless thousands of screaming fans offered me their bodies and their savings accounts, I looked in the mirror and discovered that I was Scott Stapp. It was the most devastating moment of my life. I scrubbed and scrubbed but couldn't get the Stapp off me.



7. My greatest fear is that I will turn into a conservative curmudgeon as I get older and that I will be unable to distinguish between the left-wing principles I hold dear and the overprivileged twits that espouse them.



8. Last night I joined forces with Torquil and Ynyr the Seer to find The Black Fortress and rescue my beloved Lyssa from the clutches of The Beast. Armed with my awesome weapon “The Glave,” I will free my home planet of Krull from The Beast and his army of Slayers and open up a Pontiac dealership* where the Black Fortress now stands.

I tag everyone who reads this and their grandchildren.


*The Pontiac dealership subplot of Krull, in which Prince Corwyn strives to find his identity through auto sales despite the wishes of his father King Turlord, did not make it to the screen. Critics have lamented this cut, calling Krull “the greatest auto dealership film never made”. In the first draft of Krull, which went by the working title “On The Lot,” The Black Fortress is already a Pontiac Dealership, and character of The Beast is Hal Snavely, a slick gladhanding salesman bent on ruining life for the good folks of Krulltown. Prince Corwyn is an employee named Jim Buick who foils Snavely's plans and gets the girl. For some reason there's still a King Turlord.