Happy 80th Birthday George Lucas!

 

It was on May 14th, 1944 that a little boy was born in Modesto, California.  Growing up he was a restless young man, with no clear idea of what he wanted to do with his life.  He finally settled on being a race car driver.  But a near-fatal car crash a few days before graduating high school put a damper on that idea.

Our hero eventually decided he wanted to go to college.  He enrolled in a junior college and studied everything from anthropology to sociology to literature.  While there he began experimenting with filmmaking.  He then ended up at University of Southern California, choosing to continue his studies in cinematography.  And he discovered that he enjoyed it, a lot.  A series of student films followed, and many of them gained notice for their groundbreaking and breathtaking visuals.

The young lad graduated from college and tried to enlist in the Air Force.  Unfortunately his many speeding tickets, of all things, disqualified him.  He was drafted to serve in the Vietnam War but was again disqualified from service, for medical reasons.

He then returned to University of Southern California as a graduate student.  After producing the short film Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB he came under the wing of Francis Ford Coppola.  It wasn't long after that when the young man was given the opportunity to make a full-length adaptation of his film, and in 1971 came the release of THX 1138.

It was not a box office success.

Undaunted, our hero decided he wanted to make a different film.  One drawing from his experiences coming of age in Modesto.  That became the genesis of 1973's American Graffiti: a film that has become as classic as any.

Then, around 1974, our young hero sat down with a pad of paper and began writing the first draft of what he roughly titled "The Star Wars".

And the rest, is history.

On this very special day, The Knight Shift and its eclectic proprietor wishes a Very Happy 80th Birthday to George Walton Lucas Jr.  A man who perhaps more than most in our lifetime has impacted the world in so many positive ways than can ever be counted.

And I like to think that he still isn't finished with his craft.

Someday, I hope George Lucas once again shows us something we haven't seen before.

Before I close out this post, I want to share one of my favorite photos of Lucas.  It's from the filming of American Graffiti.  Here is Lucas, sitting on the floor beneath the countertop at Mel's Drive-In, directing Ron Howard:

I just love the pose Lucas is in.  That, my friends, is directing with dedication.

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Ever wonder what BioShock's Big Daddy looks like without the helmet? Ehhhh...

I've been a massive fan of the BioShock games (admission: I've never played BioShock Infinite) almost since the beginning of the series.  From the first moments of the original BioShock I was swallowed whole by this tale of sub-Atlantic horror.  To me the story of the city of Rapture is a fable, a morality play.  It is about what mankind is reduced to after consciously and willfully choosing against having a belief in God and the restraining morality He provides.  Man without God is a terrible thing, is what I've found in the BioShock games.  It's a theme I'm looking forward to seeing touched upon more in future games from the franchise.

Anyway, if you've played the first two games you're familiar with the Big Daddies: those hulking brutes in diving suits that lumber around Rapture, usually accompanied by the Little Sisters who they are programmed to protect.  The Big Daddy is the most iconic element of the BioShock series, heck it's on the front cover of the games.  And as you play you come to discover more about the Big Daddies, including how they are made.  At one point in the first game you have to put on a Big Daddy getup.

But somehow none of the games have shown us what exactly is inside a Big Daddy.  We haven't seen what it looks like underneath.  All we know is that the poor sap to be converted into a Big Daddy is flayed, chemically treated and them grafted and steam-sealed into the suit.  Yucko.

Well, Kate Harrold over at Gaming Bible has a story up in the past few days about what BioShock's Big Daddy looks like sans helmet.  This is something that PC Gamer's Andy Kelly first found three years ago but it's brand new to me.  The art is attributed to Irrational/Take-Two artist Robb Waters, so it should be considered canon.

Are you ready?  There's no going back once you've scrolled down.

You really sure about this?

Last chance to back out.

All right, let it be on your own conscience.

And here it is: Big Daddy without the helmet...

Just plain disquieting.  Pretty nightmarish.  I don't know why it has a yellow glow deep within its cranium.  Some plasmid-altered remnant of a mind perhaps?  Those eyes, that translucent skin... eep.  I'll certainly never see those poor creatures the same way again.  For all the potential for brutality that the Big Daddies symbolize, they are very pitiable and tragic monsters who were once human.

And now I've just ruined your day.  Sorry about that.  Maybe.

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Boy Scouts of America: 1910 - 2024

 

Those are the words that I first spoke as an eleven-year-old in the fall of 1985.  And I have done my very best to live up to them, every day since.

That is how I choose to remember what it is to be a Boy Scout.  They are the words that I made a lifetime commitment to uphold.

As of today the Boy Scouts of America is no more.  It is now "Scouting America".  Supposedly something for everyone.

Which is something that it can not be if we're going to be realistic about it.

This isn't the popular thing to say, but here it is: boys and girls are different.  They always have been and they always will be.  They have DRASTICALLY different needs physically, mentally, and emotionally. 

At their best the individual Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts movements address those needs admirably (I'm not passing judgment on one or the other).  I can see adult women leaders being accepted into the Order of the Arrow, and taking traditional roles in Cub Scout leadership, but young boys and young girls are vastly different from one another.

And that must be acknowledged and respected.  No offense meant to those young women who have earned the Eagle Scout, but that is the highest honor for a program that from its inception by Lord Baden-Powell has guided young men to be their best.  Girls need that kind of virtuous guidance also  Yes the two programs are analogous but they are not compatible.

But I saw this coming over ten years ago.  The Boy Scouts of America turned away from its noble virtues when it began allowing homosexuals into the ranks.  Those practicing perversion had already corrupted the Girl Scouts of America.  But the real prize was the Boy Scouts.  And now at last as of today, their conquest is complete.

Liberalism destroys everything it touches.  I honestly thought the Boy Scouts would forever be above that kind of corruption.  But alas, it was not to be.

I am going to keep the shadowbox up on my wall containing my Eagle Scout medal, my Eagle card, and patch.  I earned those, more than thirty years ago.  Nothing can take that away from me.

But I lament for those who now earn something that has come to stand for much less than it used to.

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"Weird Al" Yankovic and me!

Earlier today I was going through a bunch of photos and came upon one showing me with "Weird Al" Yankovic: arguably the most successful recording artist in the history of pop culture.  I say that because not only has Al earned multiple gold albums and several Grammy awards for his work, he has also been part of many other endeavors throughout a career now going back more than forty years.  And awhile back  he said that he might still give us a song parody or two every year from now on (but I'm hoping he produces at least one more full album :-)

I could have met Weird Al in October of 1996.  My best friends in college were driving four hours each way between Elon College and Asheville to see a concert on the Bad Hair Tour.  Ed and Gary tried their best to get me to come with them.  But I stupidly stayed home because it was going to be very late when they came back from the concert and I just HAD to be up early the next day for history class.  That following morning I went by their dorm room.  And they told me that they had met Weird Al!  Ed's dad had called up a radio station doing promos for the concert and told them the hard-luck story about how his son was driving so far to see the show.  The station guys asked Ed's father how many backstage passes did he want.  And that's how they got to meet Al after the show.

I literally kicked myself in the @$$.  I've been a fan of "Weird Al" Yankovic since 1984, when I was nine years old.  And because of my pride I had missed the opportunity of meeting my musical hero.

I made a vow that someday I would make up for that, and meet Al in person.

Five years later, a week and a half before 9/11, I got to interview Weird Al via e-mail for TheForce.net.  That's how I already had his address.  In 2003 Al and the band were on the Touring With Scissors tour.  There was a performance scheduled for Charlotte, two and a half hours away.  I wrote to Al and told him about how I missed meeting him seven years earlier, and I humbly asked if there was a way I could make good on the promise I'd made to myself.

He wrote back a few hours later and asked how many passes did I need for after the show.

And that led to the very first time that I got to meet "Weird Al" Yankovic.  But it would not be the last!  So far I have gotten to meet he and his band four times.  I think it could be easily said that I've fulfilled my vow :-)

So I went looking for pics from the other times Al and I have met.  Unfortunately the photo of that first time is somewhere on another hard drive that I don't have convenient access to.  But I've got photo of the four other occasions.  I thought that it might be fun to put them together on one post.

This first pic is from 2010 when Al was in Knoxville,Tennessee.  And Al remembered me from seven years earlier!  Here we are together, with me wearing the shirt from our local theatre guild's production of The King and I.

The third time we met, it was 2011 in Charlotte during the Alpocalypse Tour  Here's Al and I and my girlfriend at the time:

A year after that Al and his troupe were in Raleigh, North Carolina.  Here is Al and my lifelong best friend Chad (the guy who introduced me to Al's music when we were in fourth grade) and me.  It has meant so much that Chad and I got our pic together with our favorite musical artist :-)

And finally, here's a pic from 2013, also in Raleigh.  Al had come to a bookstore there to promote his children's book.  Quite a few people came out to see him and have him sign their copies.  I had something for Weird Al to sign also: the vinyl Yoda puppet that I'd had since 1981.  Al always finishes his concerts with "Yoda", his parody of "Lola" by The Kinks, so I thought this would be a pretty neat thing to get his John Handcock on.  Al's eyes lit up when he saw the puppet!  He had one of these in his first special on MTV.  He was more than happy to sign it and he even put it on his hand to see if it would still fit (it did indeed):

Unfortunately I missed meeting him during the tour stemming from his Mandatory Fun album.  But Ed and me have seen Al perform twice since that last photo: during the Strings Attached Tour (which Al performed while backed up by a full orchestra) and then the second vanity tour in 2022.

You'll have to ask Ed how many times he's seen Weird Al in concert.  It's gotta be close to ten.

Who knows, maybe someday I'll get to meet Al again.  He has always been a super nice guy.  There needs to be more people like him in this world.

EDIT 5/17/2024: I finally found the very first pic of Al and me together!  From August 2003:

I'm wearing a "What Would Al Do?" shirt that I made myself.  He thought it was pretty funny :-)

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