Black & White

Life is simple when you’re thirteen: There are good guys in the world, and bad guys. The good guys wear white, the bad guys wear black, and the difference between them is clear.
I was thirteen years old in 1977, and I remember seeing Star Wars for the first time the day after school let out for the summer. I saw it again that night, and the following day, and it least once a week for the rest of the summer.
Star Wars reinforced my ideas of good and evil, right down to the costumes worn by the main characters. Luke Skywalker was my hero. Blond, blue-eyed, and dressed in white, with the light side of the Force on his side, and with a princess to save, there was never any doubt in my mind – He was destined to succeed.
Darth Vader, on the other hand; now there was evil. Garbed completely in black, with his face hidden as though he were ashamed to show it, that guy was bad news, and I could never understand why some of my friends liked him better than Luke. He was the player on the other side, and when he struck down Obi-Wan Kenobi, I wanted to scream just like Luke did.
But Obi-Wan wasn’t really dead, and Luke destroyed the Death Star, and Darth Vader was vanquished, and I could walk out of the theatre that summer secure in the notion that even though the world around me was changing, I was still the same, and Good would always triumph over Evil, and Light would always vanquish Darkness.
But time passed, and 1980 rolled around, and when I was sixteen, me and the six or seven pimples I always seemed to have saw The Empire Strikes Back. And we were blown away. Not only did Good not triumph over Evil, Good got its butt kicked. And I noticed that no one in the movie wore white anymore, except the ghost of Obi-Wan. Luke wore grey, which is halfway between black and white, and I spent the whole movie and the next three years wondering which way he’d go.
But that was ok, because at sixteen, I was feeling a little darkness inside myself, and I kind of wondered which way I might go.
By the time I saw Return of the Jedi, I had answered those questions about myself, but I was still curious about Luke. The previews I saw in the months before the movie led me to believe that Luke had gone over to the Dark side: He wore black, and in one scene he even stood next to Darth Vader. I told myself there was no way Luke would turn to the Dark side, even if Darth Vader was his father, and I wasn’t even convinced of that. Still though, he was wearing black, and in the Star Wars universe, black meant bad….
And I couldn’t have been more wrong. Not only was Luke still good, he somehow found the power to help his father recognize his own goodness, and in doing so, Darth Vader found redemption and the strength to turn away from the Dark side.
Life has grown more complicated over the last twenty-five years, and one thing I’ve learned as I’ve grown up is that the good guys don’t always wear white. The lesson Star Wars teaches remains the same, however, and as corny as it sounds, I believe it as much today, as I did when I was thirteen: there is a difference between darkness and light, and if you believe, and if you fight hard enough, in the end Good will always triumph over Evil.
End of sermon.

The Mississippi Mud

In 1987, I lived in San Diego and was a manager at a movie theatre in the Fashion Valley mall. It was an AMC theatre, and while I love movies and loved working at theatres (My first real job was as a doorman at a movie theatre, and I liked working there so much I probably would've done it for free - Actually, looking back on it now, I almost did do it for free; I got paid $2.64 an hour.) I didn't like working for AMC, though. My boss, the theatre's general manager, told me that I while I might have other people fooled, it was clear to her that I "wasn't a company man." My hair was too long, for one thing - It nearly covered the back of my collar. (it was pretty short everywhere else, though - After all, this was 1987.) So, while she worked hard at verifying her suspicions about the suitability of employment, I thought about beginning to think about finding another job.
When I met the new guy, who I assumed was my replacement, it seemed instantly clear to me that the G.M. had found the company man she'd been looking for. It was like meeting Parker Stevenson, except smaller. Or maybe Peter Scolari, except not quite as effeminate. Even this guy's name was corporate: David Wells. When he pulled up to work that first night in his gold Cavalier, it occurred to me that perhaps I should take the next step in my job search and maybe look at the classifieds or something.
So anyway, (and I think we'll switch tense here) the first night I work with Mr. Wells, I ask him to go up to the booth and start The Allnighter, or Leonard Part VI, or Three Men and a Baby, or whatever, and as he's about to walk away, I say, "...but first, a number." And he says, (and five points if you get this, although you should, because the title of this post gives it away) "You know, a musical number..," immediately picking up on my M*A*S*H* reference and supplying the next line of dialogue. So my respect for him rises.
And then I find out he likes Jimmy Buffett, and it goes up another notch.
Does he like Duran Duran?
Nope. Down a notch.
Turns out Dave wants to be a screenwriter, loves Pop Culture as much as I do, and is also every bit as irreverent. He's not a company man either, even though he looks just like one.
I didn't stick around the Fashion Valley 4 much longer after Dave started, but we became friends and stayed in touch. Like me, he eventually moved back home, and he's in Michigan now, still writing screenplays and still quoting dialogue, and we talk nearly every week. He actually only recently got rid of the gold Cavalier, which he said served him well, even after he wrecked it rear-ending me at a traffic light in 1988. (He was concerned that I had had too much to drink that night, and was following me to make sure I got home safely....)
Ah, good times...

The First

As I write this, in a hotel room in St. Joseph, Missouri, I've got Matchgame 70 something on the television, and I'm watching Gary Burghoff (who is 63 years old, according to wikipedia) sort of uncomfortably hide his hand as he displays his card - Five points if you know why.
I loved Matchgame when I was a kid, even though most of the humor was over my head. I also loved Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Battle of the Network Stars, The Incredible Hulk, and a ton of other shows that were on only in my memory for the last 20 years.
Now I've got cable, and there's dvd boxed sets, and just about everything I saw when I was a kid is available on demand. I even saw Pink Lady on tv recently which was originally on the air for about five minutes. I'm not even sure how I remember that show except for the fact that I had a crush on on of the ladys - Nemoto, according to the research I did 5 minutes ago.
And if the shows aren't still on tv or available on dvd, there's always the internet. Everything's on the internet.
It makes me wonder if, in the future, we'll still have nostalgia, because I gotta tell ya - Buck Rogersjust ain't that good, and seeing it again is almost a little painful (except for that Erin Gray. Yikes, did I dig her...). Anyway, if nothing in pop-culture ever fades from view, will we ever have anything to remember, or will the present just get more and more crowded?