Like Ross Geller, the fictional character David Schwimmer played on "Friends" (1994-2004), whose childhood fantasy was seeing Princess Leia in that skimpy gold bikini outfit collared to slug crime lord, Jabba the Hutt, in "Return of the Jedi" (1983), I too, like so many other young boys in eighth grade who were one year away from starting high school in 1983 and began to realize our male hormones were starting to kick into overtime when it came to our interest in girls looked to actress Carrie Fisher’s feisty rebellious heroine from that “galaxy far, far away” as an 80s sci-fi sex symbol.
Whereas we guys saw Princess Leia, as a result of that infamous costume became a pop-culture icon whose picture, some of us, ok, just me, would have posted up on the inside of my locker door in grade school, young girls looked to her as empowering, especially when she wrapped that steel chain around Jabba’s neck, in a shot according to IMDB.com, was inspired by the garroting scene of henchman, Luca Brasi, in "The Godfather" (1972).
Ironically despite the costume’s immense popularity with fanboys and “fangirls” who’ve walked the floors of yearly sci-fi conventions sporting the same slave girl outfit, Fisher was not crazy about the idea during Jedi’s filming in 1982.
When The Force Awakens premiered last December, she told co-star Daisy Ridley she should fight for her outfit. “Don’t be a slave like I was. You keep fighting for that slave outfit.”
For me and countless fans who grew up watching the Star Wars trilogy (1977-1983) and seeing Episode VII: The Force Awakens(2015) last year, December 27, 2016, was as comedienne Chelsea Handler tweeted a “Xanax day.” Fisher, who was seen as “Hollywood Royalty” born to parents - singer Eddie Fisher and screen legend Debbie Reynolds, and who was not just an actress but an author and screenwriter in her own right, died almost four days after suffering a massive heart attack during a flight from London to Los Angeles at age 60.
Actor Anthony Daniels who’s starred in all seven Star Wars films as golden droid C3P0 tweeted the same sentiment I, and millions of others who prayed for the actress’ immediate recovery.
“I thought I had got what I wanted under the tree. I didn’t. In spite of so many thoughts and prayers from so many.”
The most heartbreaking tweet from The Hollywood Reporter came from Fisher’s French therapy bulldog, Gary, which showed him looking out the window waiting for “mommy” to come home. “I’ll still be waiting for you…” the dog tweeted.
Seeing that dog with its pink tongue just sticking out as it sat alongside Fisher during a interview last December with Good Morning America’s Amy Robach, I couldn’t help but ask myself, “who would want a dog with its tongue sticking out all the time?”
Fisher, who always liked to invoke humor in her conversations off screen especially when poking fun at herself, told Robach, she brought the dog along with her to the interview because his tongue matched the color of her sweater. Up until the dog saw The Force Awakens, he never had his tongue sticking out which Fisher explained was her pet’s way of expressing how good the seventh installment was.
Like so many Hollywood actors and actresses who have a long list of movies they’ve done over their lifetime, it would always be that one role he/she does that fans would identify them most with. And in Fisher’s case it was Princess Leia and whereas some might hate being known for only just one role, she welcomed it.
“Look, I’ve been Princess Leia for 40 years,” Fisher told GMA’s Robach. “So what, I’m gonna stop now that it’s really ridiculous to be someone named Princess Leia or General Leia? It’s ridiculous. I mean ridiculous in a good way.”
It wasn’t just her role in the Star Wars franchise she was most known for. Since her 20s the actress had battled drug addiction and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Her book, "Postcards from the Edge," which she turned into a screenplay, was later made into a film in 1990 starring Oscar winners Meryl Streep and Shirley Maclaine dramatized her personal battles with family life, stardom and addiction. Yet through it all Fisher accepted her illness. Others who suffered from depression looked to Fisher as their spokesperson in a time where today, so-called “normal” people still put a stigma on those who suffer from mental illness.
“I am mentally ill. I can say that. I am not ashamed of that. I survived that. I’m still surviving it but bring it on. Better me than you.”
Writer Greame McMillan wrote in The Hollywood Reporter saying Fisher was “someone we’ve known and loved for most of our lives.”
That’s what makes her passing so devastating and unexpected. I never met Fisher and yet I feel like there was some closeness, a feeling so many fans have felt since 1977 when she graced the big screen at 19. It’s hard to believe she’s gone now. The only comfort is the words Yoda spoke in "Star Wars – Episode III: Revenge of the Sith" (2005) when it comes to mourning our loss and the losses of so much talent in 2016.
“Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force. Mourn them do not. Miss them do not.”
Carrie Fisher is now one with “the Force” somewhere in that other “galaxy far, far away,” alongside her mother, Debbie Reynolds, who passed away from complications of a stroke Dec. 28 the next day at 84. The screen legend was making funeral arrangements for her daughter at the time.
"She (Debbie Reynolds) missed her daughter (Carrie) and wanted to very much be with her," son Todd Fisher told Entertainment Tonight. "She had been very strong the last several days. [There was] enormous stress on her, obviously. And this morning she said those words to me and 15 minutes later she had a stroke and virtually left."
There’s a battle going on right now and it’s not the one coming this November when angry voters across the country cast their ballots to choose the next president of the United States.
This war is currently taking place in “Hollyweirdland” where in one corner, already considered a winner in terms box office revenue the past several years is Disney’s Marvel superhero franchises.
The same cannot be said for the Warner Brothers/DC Comics brand in the other corner, which has taken a beating this year. "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" (2016) fell short of the studio’s high expectations. Despite grossing $166 million opening weekend March 25, box office revenue quickly dwindled in the following weeks. The final U.S. gross came out to $330 million on a $250 million budget. Was it the supposed know-it-all movie critics, a majority of who reacted negatively to the film that kept audiences away?
"Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice" was not perfect, but it had everything I wanted in a good movie. The film had characters I cared about, humor, and made me shed a few tears at the end. When the end credits rolled, the audience, which was a full house, cheered.
I went into "Suicide Squad" (2016) hoping for the same reactions I got watching Batman V. Superman. The results were far from positive. There was some humor, most of it coming from the Joker’s psychotic love interest, Harley Quinn, played by Margot Robie. Brandishing a baseball bat as her weapon of choice and dressed in black fishnet stockings, skintight panties which allow her buttocks to stick out, white-lace-up heels and a shirt with the words, “Daddy’s little monster”, she had all the best lines (“I’m quite vexing”).
Alongside Harley Quinn was Jared Leto’s Joker who stole the show in what little scenes he was in, seven minutes worth if you believe the entertainment tabloids, though I didn’t check my cell phone to time the scenes.
Leto’s pale white nightmarish machine gun toting creation may be everything mass murderer James Holmes thought he was when he opened fire on moviegoers at "The Dark Knight Rises" (2012) screening opening night in July 2012 in Aurora, Colorado.
Much like previous Joker incarnations created by Jack Nicholson in "Batman" (1989) and the late Heath Ledger in "The Dark Knight" (2008), Leto made his clown faced villain his own sporting metallic teeth like as though he still has braces from when he was in high school, and a smile tattoo on his hand he uses to cover his mouth when he speaks.
Whereas Nicholson’s Joker was a homicidal artist and Ledger’s version promoted anarchy, Leto’s Joker had no real method to his madness, which is what made him so unpredictable. I couldn’t speak for anyone else but when Harley Quinn received the Joker’s text messages that he was coming for her, I couldn’t wait for his oh-so-brief appearance.
The film’s best moments occurred during the first hour as each member of the “Suicide Squad’s” personal lives were cleverly introduced through rock music hits of the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s, all of which fit each character’s personality. To put it simply though as I wrote in my review of the film last week, "Suicide Squad" had a great first act, but barely a second.
When the film arrives on disc early next year, it will be the first “bad” movie I have seen in over thirty years to add to my other list of bad movies I love to hate and don’t tire of watching or listening to while I am doing something else.
Therein lies the reason why despite the many misfires Warner Brothers has had when it comes to the Batman and Superman franchises I have always stood behind their many installments no matter how disappointing some of them were. To this day, I still watch all the good and bad sequels.
I don’t care if George Clooney’s performance as the Caped Crusader in "Batman & Robin" (1997) came equipped with leather nipples and codpieces. True, watching director Bryan Singer’s "Superman Returns"(2006) made me feel like I was watching a remake of "Superman: The Movie" (1978). I felt like I was pounded over the head in the way director Christopher Nolan incorporated post 9/11 storylines with Ledger’s Joker as an American version of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in white make-up in "The Dark Knight" and shades of the Occupy Wall Street movement in "The Dark Knight Rises." I was still entertained, nonetheless.
The one thing all of those sequels had, whether good and bad, is they all drew me in emotionally. As I wrote in my review, "Suicide Squad" is so bad it’s almost entertainingly bad. That’s more than what I can say about the Marvel/Disney superhero franchises.
The Marvel/Disney movies I have seen these past few years have not given me that. I won’t be shedding any tears if Captain America dies in some future Avengers installment. Truth is I am bored with the Marvel/Disney product. Call it “Marvel Fatigue.” Something I fear could happen with Disney’s other goldmine, the Star Wars franchise, given Mickey Mouse’s plans for sequels and standalone movies from that "galaxy far, far away" every year until 2020. It begs the question, “How much is too much?”
Every time I sit through a Marvel adaptation and a previous event is mentioned that happened in another superhero film, I almost expect the filmmakers to post a little title card at the bottom of the scene that says, “See "Avengers: Age of Ultron" (2015)” for reference. Something of which I have seen the publishers do with the monthly comics given most every title is tied to another as a means to get readers/fans to spend more money.
Ironically, the Marvel superhero adaptations I have embraced are those that have not fallen under the Disney logo…yet, that is, which included director Sam Raimi’s Spider-man trilogy (2002-2007) and The Amazing Spider-man 1 and 2 (2012-2014) from Sony, Universal’s "The Incredible Hulk" (2008) with Edward Norton, a few of the X-Men installments from Fox.
The idea of saying the upcoming DC comics superhero big screen productions are in development hell is the equivalent of the liberal drive by media calling the November presidential election in favor of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton over Republican candidate Donald Trump. The debates haven’t even occurred yet!
By comparison, much like that wise old Jedi Master, Yoda, from the Star Wars films, who said the future is always in motion and difficult to see, we will not know whether the "Wonder Woman" film starring Gal Gadot in the title role due out next June, and director Zack Snyder’s "Justice League" in November 2017 live up to the hype as seen by the trailers. Then there’s Ben Affleck’s standalone Batman film, which is also in the works.
With all this mass negativity I have been seeing on social media the past few months concerning "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" and "Suicide Squad", it makes me want to forget doing my daily doses of insulin that I’m required to do before every meal and start a mass production of “granny’s iced tea” in the bathroom every hour at night. I already got a growing list of who to send the jars to.
Seeing that I have my health to worry about, however, I’ll just subscribe to the “law of contrary public opinion” that Al Pacino’s Ricky Roma said in the foul-mouthed real estate robbery film, "Glengarry Glen Ross" (1992).
“If everyone thinks one thing, then I say, bet the other way.”
August 1, 2020. Assuming that is the right date, it will be a sad day for “Rush Babies” and a day of rejoicing for Democratic liberals across America.
The reason why this will be a day of celebration is, after 32 years on the air with a reported 13 million listeners, conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh (aka "The Mayor of Realville", "El Rushbo") will end his weekly radio show.
“I have, in the past six months, really been going back and forth on whether or not I wanted to keep doing this or move on to something else,” the 65-year-old Limbaugh told his listeners on August 2, the day after celebrating the show’s 28th year in broadcasting on the EIB network. “I don’t feel old. I don’t feel worn out. None of that. So, I decided to keep doing it because there’s nothing I love more, and there’s nothing that could replace it—even being on TV occasionally, which would not be a replacement or anything of the sort. So four more years is what it is.”
Before his radio show premiered in August 1988, I don’t recall there being such words as “drive-by” media and “info babe” as Limbaugh has called the press and any female news anchor wearing six or seven -inch-heels and over-the-knee skirts on CNN and Fox News. The word “liberal” didn’t sound like a cuss word as it does today, and there didn’t seem to be the “US versus Them” war that we see out of control in the halls of congress.
I laughed and despised the way, Tom Kelley, a friend of mine from high school, idolized “The Doctor of Democracy” back in 1993 as he bought two copies of Limbaugh’s book, "The Way Things Ought to Be." I enjoyed mocking him as he browsed the tie section at a department store one time because he was shopping for a “Rush Limbaugh” tie. Sitting next to those ties, however, were some clip-on ties so I told Tom he’d be much better off buying a couple clip-ons as Cheers’ (1982-1993) mailman Cliff Clavin swears by them.
When Limbaugh aired his TV show that ran from 1993-1994, another friend of mine and former newspaper editor, Glenn Fawcett, and I would die laughing at how everyone in the audience of his show were all impeccably dressed in suits and ties and women were dressed in their Sunday church best during the 93' spring semester in college. Today, if I were to pull up any of those shows on youtube.com, to see the camera pan in on the audience I just might see no minorities present, much the way liberals griped about that recent picture House Speaker Paul Ryan posed with a group of white interns thus continuing the notion that conservative Republicans really are a bunch of rich white racists who don’t hire minority interns in Congress.
As the years went by, however, my political affiliations changed. Perhaps it was the fact being raised by my grandparents on my dad's side who were staunch Republicans that maybe their conservatism got the better of me.
Maybe it was the fact, like George Clooney’s Democratic manager Ryan Gosling played in the "Ides of March" (2011) who realized there was no such thing as honesty, integrity and morality in presidential politicians, I stopped believing in everything the Democratic Party claimed to represent when it came to them fighting for minorities and low-income wage earners. In short, they are just as bad as the Republican Party and judging by who we got to vote for in this November's presidential election, far worse.
As I tuned into Limbaugh’s show over the years it was dawning on me that some of the things he's said actually makes sense. Just don’t take that to mean I am a die-hard fan who thinks everything he says is the word of God. Sure, I admit I have defended him over the past two decades with what he has said but it was with good reason.
When Limbaugh, for example in 2003, said that the only reason for Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb’s success on the "Sunday NFL Countdown" in September 2003, was because he was African American, I saw nothing racist in that comment. Maybe I am just color blind. As someone, however, who hates football and most all sports, I would have watched "Sunday NFL Countdown" every week that year just to hear what Limbaugh had to say about the sport had he not been let go by ESPN executives within days of making that McNabb comment. I would have done the same had he been chosen to co-anchor "Monday Night Football." Not to watch the games, mind you. But so, I can hear what he had to say about the plays being called.
Therein lies the difference between my listening to Rush and how others listen to him today. I listen to him because he is entertaining from those promotional radio phrases (“The man, a mission, a way of life”, “He didn’t start it, but he’ll be happy to finish it”) to those often times humorous song parodies from conservative political satirist Paul Shanklin that bash President Obama and liberalism that are often aired on the show.
When the "Limbaugh School for Advanced Conservative Studies" closes its doors four years from now, I won’t be mourning the end of hearing "America’s truth detector" four or five days a week. All good things come to an end.
What I will be mourning is how the end of Limbaugh’s radio show signifies yet another nail in that coffin called "Free Speech" as political correctness continues to reign across the country because liberals hate it when others “tell it like it is”, or maybe they don’t mind when conservatives are bashed so long as no one bashes them.
Every year around mid-July I get giddy. No, it’s not the same kind of giddiness I get on my last day of work every week before my two days off kicks in.
The reason for my excitement is because every July at this time is when the Comic-Con convention, now in its 48th year according to comic-con.org, in San Diego happens.
There, thousands of fans, young and old, from across California and the country, maybe even the world, arrive dressed in their Halloween’s best as their favorite characters from comic book, television and movie franchises. It doesn’t have to be the year’s current trend, which is Pokémon. Thankfully, the four-day event is not filled with fans dressed up as each year’s most popular character. I mean, what fun is there to see men and women dressed as either some sort of yellow retarded looking dog or whatever it is, while the other half are dressed as iPhones exhibiting a screenshot chasing down Pokémon?
That does not mean there won’t be a Pokémon or several Pokémon's walking down the halls of the convention center. The list of costumed characters is endless. Over the course of the four-day weekend it won’t be that unusual to see a swarm of comic book superheroes and villains, Jedi Knights along with several characters from that Star Wars "galaxy far, far away" as well as an assortment of Starfleet crew members, Klingons and aliens from the Star Trek universe. Perhaps there will not be one, but many women scantily dressed up in that famous Princess Leia slave girl outfit from "Return of the Jedi" (1983).
“SDCC”, as it is called in short, is a chance for those like me who don't want to grow up to see the latest offerings several toy companies will have on store shelves in the coming months and early next year. For years, as I browsed various websites that covered the conventions, I saw it as an opportunity to gaze at pictures of only the latest Star Wars toys. That has since changed to where my interests not only cover “The Force” but a little of anything I grew up on and am still interested in, or I just think the stuff looks cool.
This year's convention featured upcoming images of Hasbro’s continuing six-inch line of Star Wars figures. With the Star Trek franchise celebrating its 50th anniversary, two toy companies, Mezco Toyz and Quantum Mechanix, offered 12-inch figures of the original crew which included Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock where in the future I could take my pick as to which company to buy from. Unfortunately, the determining factor would be the price tags. Do I want to pay $180 bucks from Quantum Mechanix or $80 from Mezco Toys? Perhaps it will be a question of quality versus quantity.
While I am not a fan of the Hellraiser horror movie franchise, I got to say Sideshow Collectibles naughty black latex preview of their 22-inch female Hell Priestess pinhead suddenly made me forget about longing for the distributor’s 22-inch version of Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman from "Batman Returns" (1992). I was now at a loss as to which statue I wanted to have sitting on my desk at work. I longed to learn how long it’d take the powers that be to privately invite me for a personal chat in Human Resources to not only tell me that such things are not politically correct for the workplace but falsely accuse me of promoting the sadomasochistic Fifty Shades of Grey lifestyle with $500 plus movie statues.
My only disappointment at this year’s convention is that The Lego Group did not unveil the next ultimate collector set in the Star Wars line, the Death Star, due out this fall. The set is obviously meant to tie in with this December’s release of "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" (2016) given that the “ultimate power in the universe” will play a large role in that "galaxy far, far away.”
I sure hope the $500 plus set is not a dud like the company’s May release of the UCS Assault on Hoth playset which was just a compilation of previous Lego sets. Then again, as an unofficial AFOL (Adult Fan of Lego) member, the whole point behind Lego building is when they release a new set, albeit an exclusively expensive one, it’s their way of saying, “Here’s what we did. Now let’s see you top ours?" It’s all about imagination.
I don’t know if my interests in collecting toy related movie/TV merchandise will end as I get older, when I turn 50, or if I will still be interested in such things when I am in my 80s. I suspect Lego will be the last hobby of mine still standing when I reach my twilight years.
One thing I do know is how great it is for just one mid-July weekend every year to feel like a kid on Christmas morning seeing all the new products before reality kicks in the day after the Comic-Con convention is over and I start asking myself, “How the Hell am I going to pay for all this stuff?”
“I have fond memories of having my very first slow dance at my very first sock hop with a very cute boy to that awesome song. "Purple Rain" lasts like 7 minutes, so I got to be in his arms for a really long time. I didn't know him at all at the time, as I don't think our freshman year had barely started, but I was giddy that he picked me for the very last song of the dance. I remember him telling me I was a good dancer, and I was smiling on the inside but kept my cool, of course! I'm sure he remembers NOTHING of this, but it's always stuck with me, ever since then, which was August 1984.”
That was a memory friend, Anne Marie Ross Alegre, shared with me when social media learned of pop-star Prince’s death at the untimely age of 57 April 21.
I remember that night clearly as I was there (No, I am not the “cute boy” Miss Alegre danced with) over thirty years ago. It was an orientation dance for our entering Freshman class at Bishop Lynch High School and the cafeteria doubled as the dance floor, which was dimly lit when "Purple Rain" played on the speakers. If we had been allowed to have candles in the cafeteria, I wouldn’t have been surprised if classmates chose to light them up as the song played.
Her memory is one among a few examples that friends and former co-workers of mine shared on social media upon learning of the singer’s passing, whose death at this time is still being investigated. Some temporarily changed their profiles to the color purple while others got tattoos to honor the late artist.
Friend Angela Bardis took glee that she can still shock her young boys when she had Prince’s "Darling Nikki", from the "Purple Rain" soundtrack playing in the car. It was that song in which the sexual lyrics spoke of masturbation that led to the creation of the Parental Advisory label seen today on compact discs and the formation of the Parents Music Resource Center organized by Tipper Gore, wife of then Senator Al Gore according to an article in USA Today.
For me, I still remember seeing all the entertainment coverage of Prince’s first music film, "Purple Rain" (1984), on MTV during the summer of 1984. No, I was not a fan, but I did like the album, which I bought on compact disc for the first time the week he passed away and had it playing in my car over the past week.
Prince’s death was not the first time social media went into a grieving frenzy this year. The same happened with the deaths of British rock star/actor David Bowie and Eagles founder, Glenn Frey, in January as fans posted quotes from the singers’ lyrics and YouTube videos on their pages to express their grief.
When Prince died, fans it seemed had already been delivered so much of a crushing loss since January that memes were posted on social media with the words asking God, “If you give us back Prince and David Bowie, we promise to give you Kanye West, Lil Wayne and all the Kardashians.”
In the days before social media, fans expressed their grief gathering at a songwriter’s residence the way hundreds flocked to Graceland on Aug. 16, 1977, after learning of the death of Elvis Presley and at the Dakota in New York City where ex-Beatle John Lennon was killed outside the gates of his apartment on Dec. 8, 1980. Fans lit candles, brought flowers and gathered around to sing Give Peace A Chance.
Today, fans don’t just flock to a musician’s residence, grave site or their star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame to pay tribute as they have been doing since Prince’s death on April 21 outside his compound at Paisley Park in Chanhassen, Minn. social media is now another form for fans to express their grief.
Prince’s death is sadly another nail in that 1980’s coffin; a reminder that the things my generation grew up on are slowly disappearing.
Our loss is Heaven’s gain.
Somewhere in the afterlife, Prince is probably jamming alongside so many other singers who’ve gone before him. It reminds me of another song the Commodores did back in 1985 called "Nightshift," which was a tribute to R&B singers, Jackie Wilson and Marvin Gaye who died in 1984. The end lyrics to that song seem rather appropriate now with Prince.
"Gonna be some sweet sounds Coming down on the night shift. I bet you're singing proud. Oh I bet you'll pull a crowd.
Gonna be a long night. It's gonna be all right On the night shift. Oh you found another home. I know you're not alone On the nightshift."
Upon my seeing that I had no winning Powerball numbers when they were announced Jan. 13, I was both relieved and crushed I didn’t win.
I really wanted that money to build my own Death Star from “Star Wars” (1977). I am not talking about the LEGO one, though the LEGO group did build one for their theme park in California last year using 500,000 plastic bricks and coming in at 1,500 pounds.
I was going to have my Death Star built in space at a cost of $852,000,000,000,000,000, according to a 2012 article on Forbes website. Granted, while that $1.3 billion I hoped to win would not cover the cost to build my evil metal moon fully operational with the thirty annual installments I was going to get the next thirty years, at least I would have the circular frame the size of our moon with that turbo laser built before ceasing construction.
I was going to have a battle station or the next best thing, the Playboy Mansion for $200 million, where I could live with Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner. The odds of me and "Hef" running into each other are the same chances one has to win the Powerball; one in 202 billion.
Those dreams, however, came to an end minutes before 10 p.m. on Jan. 13 when the numbers were announced and I’m glad.
Having won, even if the amounts had been $1 or $2 million, would have been nothing but a pain. I don’t want to do interviews with the press showing off a big cardboard check I was going to receive from the lottery commission in Austin. The last thing I need is to have my picture plastered all over the Internet and being interviewed by the morning news shows giving more than enough people the chance to extort me for money.
It would have been bad enough had I won. The minute I’d log into Facebook, I’d see 500 to 1,000-plus friend requests from my high school classes from ’85, ’86, ’87 and ’88, a majority of whom would be people I either never knew or never said “boo” to when I was in high school.
There is nothing to be gained whether you win or lose. If you lose, you get aggravated as your dreams of what you were wanting to do with that money are immediately crushed. If you win, you have to put up with how you intend to spend and/or save that money, once you’ve paid off all your debts, assuming you even plan to do that. If you don’t know how to manage your money to begin with, and a majority of people don’t, winning that Powerball will do nothing except probably make you go broke and bankrupt.
Then, if you suddenly become rich, what would you plan to do the rest of your life? Do you still work your 40-hour-a-week? You would no longer be stressed knowing that monthly paycheck is nothing more than chump change compared to the yearly Powerball check you just got.
Still, it would have been a nice dream to get my own Death Star built or buy the Playboy Mansion.
In the meantime, I’ll just settle for that ultimate collector set of the Death Star that LEGO will release for sale this May. I don’t need $862,000,000,000,000,000 to build a planet killer. I just need $400 bucks.
That was the line from the 1975 ballad, "Young Americans," by British rock star, David Bowie.
On the morning of Jan. 11, any fan familiar with the rock legend decades long music career since the 1970s whose flamboyant theatrics expanded into fashion and movies was probably recalling that same line when social media learned the “Starman” had passed away the night before, surrounded by family, following an 18 month long battle with cancer.
Young Americans wasn’t the only song I had playing in my head that day and on YouTube. Under Pressure, the 1981 collaboration between Bowie and lead Queen singer Freddie Mercury was another I couldn’t shake from memory. If Bowie hadn’t passed away, the only reason I was singing that song to myself was because those two words, “Under pressure” had to do with what I was dealing with at work that day.
“Every one of his distinct eras has memorable songs,” said fan Grant Stewart on social media. “Right now, I have "Starman", "Queen Bitch", and "Blue Jean" running through my head.”
“As a total 80's child, David Bowie's "Modern Love" is my favorite song of his,” wrote Laura Silva Davis on social media. “A few years ago, we were in the Sony/Columbia building in New York and he walked down the hall. I only saw the back of his head but I couldn't tell enough people that day that I saw David Bowie!”
Bowie’s most memorable movie roles were anything but the norm that included playing an alien in "The Man Who Fell to Earth" (1975) a vampire in director Tony Scott’s horror film, "The Hunger" (1983) and a singing Goblin King in Jim Henson’s fantasy, "Labyrinth" (1986).
“I get offered so many bad movies,” the actor said in 1983 according to IMDB.com. “And they’re all raging queens or transvestites or Martians.”
His role as Pontius Pilate in "The Last Temptation of Christ" (1988), along with director Martin Scorsese’s odd choices in choosing Willem Dafoe to play Jesus and Harvey Keitel as Judas, made the casting far more interesting than the unnecessary controversy the movie spawned.
Like Ms. Davis, I, too, was an “80s child” who grew up listening to the singer’s music. Unless you have a way to sneak a webcam into my house, however, you’ll never be able to prove you saw me dancing like Bowie did with the Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger in their 1985 duet rendition of "Dancing in the Street" or with Tina Turner in that 1980’s commercial for Pepsi. You’ll never know if I own a pair of red dancing shoes to “dance the blues.” Just because I get to the “Church on time” does not keep me from leaving Sunday mass early during communion let alone “put my trust in God and man” as Bowie sang in the hits, "Let’s Dance" and "Modern Love." At least I still believe “we can be heroes, for just one day.”
“I once asked John Lennon what he thought of what I do,” Bowie once said decades ago. “He said, “It’s great, but it’s just rock and roll with lipstick on.”
Bowie, who was born David Jones, celebrated his 69th birthday Jan. 8 with the release of his final album, "Blackstar." For years the singer, like so many other celebrities, was the subject of Internet hoaxes claiming he had died. Sadly, on Jan. 10, to the shock of millions of fans, it became true. He leaves behind a second wife, supermodel Iman, daughter, Alexandria, from his second marriage, and son, Duncan, from his first.
We have no idea where “Major Tom” is today but I think it’s fair to assume he is amongst the stars tonight.
The one meme I saw on social media in the days since his death was a picture of him saying, “I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise it won’t be boring.”
Perhaps the “Starman” is checking out the red planet to find out if there really is “Life On Mars.” I know NASA is standing by waiting for the answer that will never come.
Seeing that dog with its pink tongue just sticking out as it sat alongside Fisher during a interview last December with Good Morning America’s Amy Robach, I couldn’t help but ask myself, “who would want a dog with its tongue sticking out all the time?”
