Geek Fu: Watching Star Wars with a Pro

Somehow I got it stuck in my craw that I needed to see the original Star Wars, cuz I had not watched the whole thing since I was a kid. When it finally showed up from Netflix, I knew exactly who I had to call. The Star Wars Junkie, the Man Who Knows His [Star Wars] Shit, my Local Font of Star Wars Goodness, The Geek Who Owns Star Wars Monopoly: Lawr-, er, I mean, Darth Law. Yeah Darth Law. That’s it. Darth showed up at my house with proof of his Geek Fu; he had a pristine in-the-box Princess Leia doll with the slave girl costume. Yeah, baby! We were off to a good start. I resisted the urge to take her out of the box and see what her punani looked like under the skimpy costume. Prolly nothing there, like with other dollies. Disturbing, really. I used to make GI Joe hump my Princess Leia doll. Really, I did. He had a Kung Fu Grip that she was rather fond of. Allrighty then, moving on.

Watching a movie with a complete freak of a fan is a great thing, cuz you get all the cool behind-the-scenes crap without having to endure the entire director commentary version of the DVD. I learned a lot from the Master (Darth Law, not Lucas). But little did I know that I did NOT get the original Star Wars movie from Netflix, but I got the Lucasified original, with all sorts of animated creatures added and a couple new scenes. Bastard. Why? Why? It was like a bad mash-up, where the DJ just does not get it right, and the result is painful and slightly retarded. The high-end digital effects and new creature skin textures were all wrong when they appeared so close to the deliciously hokey bar scene. Bad Lucas! No touchy! No more yanky my wanky!

Okay, so anyway. Watching continued, with occasional pauses and explanations. I had forgotten just how handy R2D2 was. Talk about the right tool for the right job! After he put out a fire with a hidden fire extinguisher, I was like, “Dang, R2D2 got everything. He got a flame thrower in there too?” And Darth Law is all, “Well, whatever you need, R2’s got it. He’s got the George Foreman grill in there, and he makes a mean funnel cake.” I almost pissed myself I was laughing so hard. I mean, funnel cake? Oh, and I bet there is a Hello Kitty vibrator hidden under there for Leia’s personal use. Every girl needs a working droid! Oh, good times.

Just like the first time I saw it, I got all amped up during the flight scenes where the X-wings go into the Death Star to knock that shit out. That kind of stuff gets me going. The Pod race in Episode One almost gave me an aneurism it was so exciting in that driver’s seat kind of way. It’s that frustrated part of me that never got to fly helicopters or jets.

My second kvetch: in the big final scene I felt cheated when Princess Leia placed the medals around the necks of Luke and Han Solo. Just as she was getting to the nice cleavage-reveal spot of the lean forward, her bosom dipped down below camera level. Blast! (Ohmigod, did anyone else used to watch the old Captain and Mrs. Muir TV show???) So unfair. Lucas cheated us out of the cleavage reveal. I remember how after that movie came out, lots of chicks were wearing those big chunky necklaces made of metal, like a bunch of pieces strung together. And dare I say that Leia’s big metal hip belt, worn low, was perhaps the start of the 80s low/big belt craze? Just a thought, but I may be talking out my arse, which happens a lot.

Okay, so anyway, Darth Law makes one fatal error that night. He tells me about a site that has all sorts of Star Wars film shorts that are hella good. The next day I started watching films and suddenly I was all geeked up. Bad. I still am. If I weren’t so excited about it I would be mightily embarrassed. This site, Atom Films, has all of the SW fan films, and they have a competition every year that Lucas gets involved in. Some of these films are so impressive. People went to some trouble, and it shows. So now I share my list of faves thus far, and hope that you will partake of the goodness that is STAR WARS!

Star Wars Gangsta Rap is top of the list for making people laugh hella loud. “It’s not the North or the South Side…It’s the DARK SIDE!” And “Why you gotta be a Vader Hater???”

Do you love Napoleon Dynamite as much as I do? Then please to be watching Anikin Dynamite. Anikin has skills: light saber skills, levitation skills… He spent three hours doing the shading on Padma’s upper lip, but she is not impressed. I will admit to having watched this five times now.

Anyone ever watched The Crocodile Hunter? Then you gotta see Boba Fett as The Jedi Hunter. Crikey, that Jedi is a feisty fella! Two of this film’s best bits are great cross-over moments, with a line of my fave Princess Bride dialogue.

Remember the annoying little blue guy who hovered in the air and worked young Anikin half to death in SW Episode One? Yeah, Wattoo. If you knew that, then YOUR Geek Fu is stronger than mine, Grasshopper. Well, it’s not surprising that Wattoo has his own commercial, with all the used car tackiness one would expect; selling used speeders, aircraft from discontinued sci-fi series, and whatnot. Crazy Wattoo will not be undersold!

Next up is the Sith Apprentice. You think Trump is tough? Imagine sitting across the table from the scary-ass Emperor. This one starts out a bit slow, but Jar Jar gets killed pretty quickly, which made my day (Jar Jar? WTF was Lucas thinking?), and then it has some hilarious cross-reference dialogue that Vader does not really appreciate.

Now for you creative types, please to be looking at Bamboo Bush, which is exceptionally wonderful and hard to explain. Imagine Japanese wood block designs of bamboo, flowers, etc. Okay, now shape them into Star Wars ships and stuff, and animate them as moving 3D objects to great music. Keep it black and white. Act out some of the best scenes in the original Star Wars, and impress all your friends. I know it sounds boring, but really, this is the shit.

Oh man, the fun never ends. There are so many SW films, that you could easily waste a month on them. Then there are all of the non-SW films on that site! Another two months maybe. But will some of you please watch these SW films so you will understand all of my new jokes? Please? I’ll give you a dollar! Now if you will excuse me, I gotta go watch the SW Gangsta Rap again.

P.S. For those of you who loved the Princess Bride, word on boing boing is that a musical is in the works. I’m not a big fan of musicals, because dang, they’re hella gay. But I bet it would translate well. There is a long tradition of sword fighting on stage, no?

The Date From Hell

The worst date on record. Blind date at that. This was many, many years ago, but it seems like it was yesterday cuz it was so bloody awful. I recount it now for your amusement because I love you so, sweet reader. Enough time has passed that I can now see the humor, but telling it still sends a shudder through me.

I know dude is tall and plays basketball. That’s about it. Okay, great. I’m 6’2” so it’s rare to be the actual shorty in the room. The shortest shorty, if you will. Well, he walks into the place and has to duck to get in the door. He is 7’ tall. 10” above me. Holy fucking crap. Now if he were Shaq, that 10” difference would not have been so shocking, but he was more in the Larry Bird category. You know, those tall-ass dudes that look like someone stretched their bodies on a rack till they got thinner and longer and thinner and longer. Standing up, their shoulders are so damn high up its painful to even think about it. Altitude changes for feck’s sake. I am not really sure how I could even put my arms around his neck, to be honest. Nothing fit together in the proper places, if you see what I mean.

And horror of horrors he has a stuffed animal in his hand. Oh god, I wanna bolt from the room. Somehow that powerful Mother-instilled training keeps my big white ass cemented in the chair with a painfully polite smile plastered to my face. He is giving me the little teddy bear. Oh. My. God. He collapses his crazy tall praying mantis body down into the chair, and happily tells me that he wrote a poem for me. Oh. My. God. People, my absolute worstest idea of a man is one who gives a girl cute little stuffed animals and bad poems. Mother’s training vs. an urge to hurl. He read me his poem. It was long. Somehow I was present enuf to gather that he thought we were gonna be hella special, really meaningful-like, and that he couldn’t wait to get on with the future with me. Geez, talk about a boner kill. Although there was no boner present, at least not on my end. Oh! But wait! It gets better! Truly!

Next came the interview. He basically interviewed me for the wifey position. Swear to fucking god. His primary concern was whether or not I could cook really well. The question was, could I throw down?! For real do.’ Oh, gentle reader, I was in such hell. He kept asking me these inappropriate questions, then staring at me keenly with an expectant look on his face. What the fuck? This was new territory. Aside from achieving the surprising feat of remaining in my seat (thank you for that, Mother), I had no idea how to react. My only true response was to bolt, or to at least duck, cover, and hold, and preferably duck into a bar at the other end of the street. But there I was, making nice with Mister-Stretch-Soon-To-Be-Husband-Stuffed-Animal-Bad- Poetry-Man. And, oh yes, there was something making it worse. I knew the bartender and he was watching this heinous scenario play out. How great to have him act as witness! All we needed was a Justice of the Peace, for feck’s sake. Jeez, I think I was even wearing a creamy white kind of sweatery thing, so at least I was dressed appropriately. Again, probably my Mother’s influence at a subconscious level. At this stage there was a loud buzzing in my head, so I am not totally sure of all that he said. I think he asked how often I cleaned house. Yeah, I know.

THEN… yes there’s more. I had to suffer through it in person, so the least you can do is grin and bear it. Stay with me here. Next dude is telling me the saddest thing ever: all of his immediate family had died in a car crash a few years prior. I have no idea how to respond to this. Holy crap, what can you say when you hear something like that, a thing which requires great compassion and understanding, but you are in a state of shock from teddy bear fluff and bad poetry foof and cooking question crap? And remember, there was that loud buzzing in my head, so clarity was not really an option. I am sure that I murmured something fairly understanding and articulate because, as we know, my Mother raised me right. Now, in retrospect, I understand that I was actually being interviewed for the position of HIS Mother. Although I doubt he was very clear about that fact. Oh man, it makes my stomach hurt just thinking about it.

So I can’t even feel bad date contempt for him because…well…he suffered this horrible tragic loss and was obviously emotionally scarred at a very deep level and needed saving and help and surely I was the woman with solid child-bearing hips and great cooking skills who loved fluff-n-puff little bears and sweet little icky poems about ever-lasting love and togetherness and of course I was that one who could pull him from the wreckage that was his life and make him feel better and erase all those years of pain and loss. Apparently, I was his savior. Finally, my life purpose had been revealed to me.

But I was having none of it. Bless him in his quest, but I was scared out of my mind and officially feeling panicky as I tried to figure out how to escape. The truth is that I have no idea how I made my exit. Next thing I know, I am in my car, breathing heavily cuz I ran, and I have the little bear and poem in my hand. Oh god, does it never end, I thought to myself and I shifted into gear and got the hell out of Dodge. Of course now, I wished I had saved that awful poem, just as a relic of my almost-savior status.

Dreadful. Truly. And that is the story of my worst date ever. But I will see you and raise you the worst-ever sex story because it is just too deliciously awful not to mention. And it is real. This one isn’t mine though, it’s Johnny Boy’s. You may remember Johnny, sweet Johnny, the baddest lesbian boi on the planet. JB, as we’ll call her, was fucking this chick for the first time. We’ll call this chick TA, for reasons which will soon because quite apparent. Okay, so fucking is happening in that hottie girl-on-girl action kind of way, cuz everyone knows JB got some skills. JB begins fisting this girl. Well. You know how most people moan, or do a sexy whimper, or call your name when they get going? This TA chick starts singing Tori Amos. Swear to fucking god. Now that is one hell of a boner kill, ladies and gentleman. I don’t care if you are a butch daddy or the straightest hetero bloke around; a Tori Amos song trumpeted during the hottest part of sex will knock any thrill to the ground and pound it into the carpet till it disappears into a pitiful little puff of smoke. Tori Amos song. I kid you not. I could not even make this up! And now let me tell you why I love Johnny Boy. What does s/he do when bitch starts singing that crap? Stops dead in her tracks, yanks her fist out of that girly’s nether regions, and leaves. Yes, leaves. She just kissed TA on the cheek and walked out. Without a word. Now that is one smart kid there, folks. Because where can it go from there? Will she move on to Indigo Girls when you strap one on and fuck her in the ass? Tracy Chapman while you spank her? Oh, it’s all bad. Johnny Boy did the right thing by just bolting with her hand still wet. Exit, stage left!

See? I told you it was good. I have made Johnny tell me that story a few times, cuz it makes me just chortle with glee, especially since there are very explicit hand gestures that accompany the telling. Truth is always stranger than fiction, right? Right.

I am gonna start collecting these kind of stories. Delicious, every one. Painful, but delicious.

Fall Back

It happened about ten days ago. Maybe two weeks. The feel of the air shifted, the breeze changed its personality, and I stopped walking and breathed deep. Fall is here. How is it so distinct? East Coast people laugh at the West Coast folks when they discuss the seasons. Rarely obvious to the extremists, California weather can be soft around the edges. Here it is all about subtleties. But it is so distinct when you pay attention. And that same day I stopped in my tracks as I walked down the street, realizing Fall had arrived, Miss M called me and said New York had gone cold. That the wind had picked up and everything felt like Fall. Same day, different coasts. Subtle. Funny.

It makes me realize that Fall is where most of my heart lives, as far as seasons go. There is a soft longing that accompanies the season. A longing that is so hard to identify, so hard to place. But it is always present, and the deeper into Fall we go, the stronger it gets. It’s that sweet melancholy that only creative people understand fully. Its part of the artistic temperament and non-creative folks will never grasp how deep it goes. They think they do, but then will say things like, “well, just snap out of it,” or “think about something else and you will feel better.” Yes, certainly. Thank you for playing.

Fall is when Nature understands me best, when we are in sync with each other.

The melancholia can be so nurturing to the creative impulse; becoming the dark and lovely fertile place where the ideas filter up from. Or it can just as easily shut you down a little at a time till you realize you are thinking too much, that you may be leaning to the depressive end of the scale, making nice with your bed and pillows a few too many hours of the day.

Fall is when I question myself more, but it is also when more of my puzzle pieces fit into place. It’s when I listen to The Shins or Turin Brakes, and it fits. Fall is right now, and the introspection is tenfold. You may have already noticed. But I am on Day Four of being stuck in my apartment cuz of a sprained knee. Before then, work was too busy, I was tired of it, and wished things would slow down for a minute so I just THINK for a damn minute. Well. Are we capable of manufacturing our circumstances so quickly and distinctly? I wonder. I had been thinking more of a little getaway. Some quiet moment in a place where the ocean meets the land and there is a whole lot of sky. But instead I am here, gimping about on the same little circuit, scared of the four flights of stairs that must be dealt with to exit the building.

Me and this knee go way back. We started our distrusting relationship one afternoon when forced to play a rather vicious game of co-ed football for PE. Dreaded PE. The bane of the bookworm’s existence. Being tackled by two big guys, one of whom pushes your knee backwards, is not the way to develop a loving relationship with a knee. I hadn’t realized that you could be young and strong and be injured so quickly and badly. So I deal with the consequences now and then, in the here and now. I am the only thirty-something I know who has had an orthopedist seriously talk to them about knee replacement. I ignore him. I try not to feel older than I am. Sometimes it works. Fucking mandatory PE and goddamn stupid-ass football.

Breathe.

So although I am indoors, Fall seems more intimate because me and these introspective Fall-ish thoughts keep bumping up against each other in this one-bedroom apartment, usually as we both round the corner at the same time. He and I keep the same hours. He is partial to the Persian tea with cardamom that I so treasure. He nods knowingly when I bathe just before going to bed, knowing how it makes one sleep more deeply. Fall is a quiet fellow; the sort that puts a heavy throw blanket over his legs while he reads, even though he is not an old man. (He just likes the cozy feel of it.) He keeps an eye on me as a trusted therapist might: quiet but observant, giving warm smiles at opportune moments. He is smart and quirky in that academic way that makes discussions deep and long lasting.

We get along, me and Fall. We go way back. I always know when he comes to town, and he is always happy to see me. I pick him up at the airport, give him a cup of Persian tea, and ask him how his time away was. He inquires as to my thoughts, asks if I have been lost in those thoughts since his plane touched down. I smile knowingly at him over the rim of my glass. Me and Fall, we understand each other. We get along just fine.