Indiana Jones Obsessed?

              Obsession is an interesting phenomena.  While normally partnered with its good friend Compulsive, obsession can create an interesting, if not ultimately harmful, range of actions.  Nowhere in modern cinematic history is there a case of obsession run amok than that of Indiana Jones and his obsession with now-deceased stuntman, Pat Roach.

              Sure, Fatal Attraction had Glenn Close going crazy and cooking a bunny rabbit in such a way that inspired most of the crazy food shows now on the Food Network, but it was only one movie. Indiana Jones, on the other hand, took obsession to a multi-movie pilgrimage for Pat Roach’s death. Not only would it not satisfy Jones to kill Roach once, rather Jones had to go after and kill him time after time and in increasingly grotesque manners.  

 

             It all started when Mr. Roach was having a few drinks with Marion Ravenwood in Nepal. He’s just hanging around drinking, maybe singing some Nepalese bar songs, when in the bar comes Indiana Jones. He starts shooting up the place, burns a little Nazi fella and gets Mr. Roach killed by gunfire.  Totally uncalled for.

              Next, Roach is out in the desert and is seen trying to get a tan while guarding a plane. Along comes Indy and not only gets the plan destroyed but chops Pat Roach into bits for good measure.  Now, his character’s dismemberment bothers Pat quite a bit, so he gets obsessed with righting this wrong, and why should he not be obsessed? Jones has interrupted his life twice already and in mean and deadly ways. 

              Skip forward to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Mr. Roach’s life had taken a negative turn.  Having confused the job application as being “Child Caretaker” rather than the actual position of “Child Torturer,” Roach is already regretting his lot in life.  Day after day, he must whip children into mining gems or gold or something.  He dreams of moving onto a better life, with a great deal less of child beating, when yep, you guessed it…here’s Indiana Jones.  He makes a heroic entrance into the mines, dates the director’s wife and gets into a fight with Pat Roach. Naturally, it doesn’t go well for Roach. He’s had no time to prepare and he’s tired from all the whipping he did that morning. Well, push comes to shove and there goes Indiana Jones, pushing Roach into the rock crusher and he dies a gruesome death…again.

              Finally, the one that killed him.  Broken-hearted and thrice killed, Roach took a job as a Blimp-inspector in Germany during the rise of the Nazi’s.  Pat Roach couldn’t get any real work as there aren’t many openings for a person who’s been killed several times, so he had no choice but to work for the Nazi’s, the most evil empire ever to be devised, outside of door to door solicitors. But there he is, using the toilet in the blimp when Indiana Jones opens the door and beats him up. For no reason? It wasn’t even filmed!  

              Ultimately, Pat Roach just gave up and eventually passed away.  Do we read of his exploits?  Do we sing songs of his accomplishments? No, all we hear about is Indiana Jones and all the expensive props he finds all over the world.  No one remembers Jones’ for his quest to destroy Roach’s life. Oh No! Not our beloved Indiana Jones.  The motto of this story boys and girls is life is not fair and if anyone ever approaches you with a bullwhip and a catchy theme song, run, do not walk, to the nearest exit and flee. Or at least you can try to…

Be Good or Be Good At It!

Dark Cloud’s Silver Line[ing]...Doesn’t Work!

Okay, this is exactly how stereotypes are born.  One thing starts to go wrong, and everyone just gives it a shrug. Two things happen and people chuckle.  Three things go terribly wrong and the ball starts to roll downhill toward Edsel-Town or Wii-U-ville.  Welcome to the Silver Line of the Washington DC area’s Metro.

              I’m going to start out here and say that I have a dog in this fight…on wait…too soon after Michael Vick…I have a horse in this race…yeah, that’s better. I live in Northern Virginia and ride the Metro to work every day.  And I can’t wait for this new Metro expansion, which will create a new line of the metro, subway, tube, whatever you wish to call it, which will have a station within a few miles of where I live.  It will cut a great deal of travel time to and from my job (I’m a sight-challenged gynecologist with shaky hands, a nervous tick and a tendency to lie about his occupation).

   

              Naturally I was elated when I found out a few years ago that this new Metro system was going to become a reality. The new line was even given a new name…the Silver Line!  Granted the other lines of the Metro have color names like Blue, Orange, Green, Yellow, even a Red line that occasionally goes from one station to another without breaking down...rarely but it does happen. But the Silver Line, well that sounds classy.  Sounds regal. Sounds…expensive.  Oh well, it will definitely be worth it. Grab a shovel, boys, it’s time to get this job done!

              Oh wait, to quote the immortal detective Columbo, “One more thing…” the Silver Line will go $150 million over budget and 8 months late, with now an indefinite delay on the project.  The executive director has resigned in disgrace and has moved to Abu Dhabi because he likes the sound of the place.  There are leaky roofs, cables that need to be replaced, speakers that don’t work (and I presume they mean electronic speakers and not just people who make a living talking), and a communication system that shuts down for no apparent reason. Now, I’m a man who believes there is way too much talking in the world to begin with but I do recognize that this communication system, which allows the trains to talk to the control center is at least mildly important.

              I referenced earlier my belief that it is in situations such as these that stereotypes form. All around the region, artists are preparing to draw the caricatures that will define our Northern Virginia area. Oh yes, we’ll be people with no opposable thumbs, only one butt cheek as we only do things in a half-a**ed way, our tendency to take ourselves way too seriously and when push comes to shove, we can’t actually complete anything.  Congratulations, Silver Line, you’ve made us a laughing-stock. How many Northern Virginian’s does it take to screw in a light bulb? There is no finish to that joke because we can’t pull it off with the people and equipment we have. Nice.

              Maybe we shouldn’t be allowed to have a completed Metro. I mean, perhaps this is God’s way of keeping us idiots away from the general population. Perhaps we just can’t be trusted enough to create a system of transportation that is on rails…that doesn’t vary…that goes from point A to point B. Yep, too complex a task it is. Speaking like Yoda I am. Do you see what you’ve done to me, Metro? Hmm, at you I’m pissed.  

              I jest, not joust as  I can’t because I’m still having trouble removing someone’s Burgonet and Voider from my Culet…long story, but do NOT get drunk at a Medieval Times (that joke’s for you, Jessica!), but really, what can we do to pull this off?  Does the stink and failure of politics in Washington drift downwind to the Old Dominion? Are we unable to make a choo-choo that goes from one destination to another because we lack the cranial matter to complete the task?  Do we engage in financial arrangement with contractors who stopped selling snake oil only as recently as this morning to build our transportation system?  There are a lot of people in our area with a lot of pieces of paper acknowledging their smartitude that they’ve purchased from knowledge peddlers in fancy buildings.  Could they not get together and build a trolley that goes from one place to another? Well, I guess even if we do finish building the Silver Line, we’ll come up with one heck of a conductor for it…

              So go ahead Canada, invade us. We’re ready.  I know you’ve been waiting for the time and place when we’d be at our intellectually worst.  Congrats, we’re here.  Just promise me one thing. If you’re going to come down and take us over, please at least…

Etre Bon Ou Etre Bon Dans Ce!

Force, please be with us!

              Well, here we are again…the eve of a new Star Wars movie.  We’ve got the rumor mills going and the cast has been confirmed. We’ve got a mix of brand new future Star Wars convention invitees and a collection of older, original stars that were conveniently loaned out to Disney Studios from the Shady Pines Retirement Home (homage to the Golden Girls!).  So far we’re batting .500 with three good movies (A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi) and three horrible movies (The Phantom Menace, The Search for More Merchandising, and Who Cares…You are Only Watching this Movie for the Last Part Where Anakin Becomes Darth Vader). In consideration of this monumental event, we are about to elect Jar Jar Binks (hero of Phantom Menace in its quest to be really, really bad) to the Jumping the Shark and Characters that Ruined Franchises Hall of Fame.

              Presiding over the ceremony is none other than Arthur Fonzarelli, or The Fonz as he was generally known, and is the current President of the Hall of Fame.  Famously known for his earning the meme “Jumping the Shark” when he did just that during the Los Angeles episode of Happy Days.  It was that event that ushered in the end of Happy Days and the beginning of recognizing when a TV show has ended its popularity and relies on cheap gimmicks to continue its existence. 

              Arthur scans the crowd and nods a welcoming greeting to Seven from Married With Children and Oliver from The Brady Bunch and holds his finger to his lips to bring about quiet.  “Ladies and Gentlemen…and weird characters like Snarf who may or may not be both sexes, I’d like to welcome you to the Welcoming Ceremony for our newest member of the JSCRF Hall of Fame, Jar Jar Binks!” Jar Jar stands up and claps his sorry hand-things together and yells “Oh, Meeso Happy, Meeso Happy.!”

              Fonzie raises his old and decrepit hands and waves them in an attempt to quiet everyone down. Failing miserably, much like the actor’s career after Fonzarelli, he looked around for some help.  Thankfully, The Great Gazoo was on hand to snap his fingers and bring everyone’s hands back to their sides and their mouths temporarily shut.  “Thank you, thank you, Mr. Gazoo,” exclaimed the beleaguered character, whose leather jacket was now showing a great deal of wear and tear, after many nights of being worn by Arthur, weeping on the floor and wondering what happened to his career. “Now, I’d like to welcome our friends from NFMF, or the Nuke the Fridge Movie Failures, the movie branch of JSCRF.”

              Standing, almost in unison, in a sickening display of solidarity among cinematic character catastrophes, were Keanu Reeves (Dracula), Sofia Coppola (Godfather III), and Shia LeBeouf (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) all clapping like toy monkeys with cymbals. Shia LeBeouf, who failed in fantastic fashion to attract a hand delivered audience of Indy fans, reads a prepared statement because creativity is something that is not his strong suit as much as saying “Would you like Fries With That?” is.  

              “Ladies and Gentlemen, on behalf of Harrison Ford, whose career is still showing something of a pulse, I would like to express our undying support for the horribly conceived and ill designed character of Jar Jar Binks.  His continued demonstration of effective methods of bringing about defecation by slobbering and repeating idiotic dialogue in an annoyingly shrill voice has given failed actors like my movie brethren and I the ability to look fondly at our failures and to be positive, even at our lowest personal worth assessment, that even at our worst we could not begin to approach the downright putrid existence of Jar Jar Binks.”  

              Meanwhile, Jar Jar Binks, having been given carte blanche over the open bar and has been drinking heavily since the evening began, starting picking his nose with a pencil and has found that the item had been rather painfully stuck in that particular orifice.  Desperate to remove the pencil, he shook his head in a violent motion and successfully knocked himself out with his ears. Fortunately, Peppermint Patty was on hand and gave the androgynous hunk of useless mass mouth to mouth to revive him/her.

              Drunk beyond all recognition at this point, Jar Jar lashed out and got into a fist fight with Scrappy Doo, resulting in both of them receiving mortal wounds.  Despondent and wrought with sadness, all those in attendance committed mass suicide…and an angel got its wings. 

So avoid being like Scrappy and Jar Jar and turn your life to...spit

Go out there and...

Be Good or Be Good At It!