"There's a real danger in doing a sequel. There are some benefits, but that all hinges on how well you execute. Quite frankly, most sequels don't execute well."*

   I’ve been pretty bored this summer, because my friends all have jobs (and now I do, too! But more about that later), and a bunch of them also have children (so they want to hang out up to 7:30 p.m.) and a few of them have vacation money (so they’re gone) and so it leaves me with a lot of time to myself. I shouldn’t say that. I’m not really by myself, because my family is usually home. But after they go to bed around 8:15 p.m., I’m by myself. And there’s only so much Frasier you can watch on Netflix (263 episodes—seen all of them 5 or 6 times, so NO there is never so much Frasier, it would appear) or stats homework you can do in advance. (More on stats later, too. Actually, here’s all you need to know about stats: it’s terrible and I suck at it.)

   So, I’ve thought a lot of thoughts. And most of them aren’t too useful. But some of my more frequent thoughts have to do with ideas for sequels to movies. I’d like to share some with you now.

1.  Father of the Bride III: Who’s Baby is This? Okay, so remember how at the end of Father of the Bride II, Steve Martin and Diane Keaton have a baby (miraculously, it would seem, since they were both in their 50’s at the time) on the same night that their daughter has a baby? And then the daughter moves to another city? What if they accidentally switched babies? Okay, so I know that one was a boy, and one was a girl, but it would easily take a few hours to figure that out and lots of good movies happen in 3-hour time frames. It could combine the hijinks of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles with the hilarity of Look Who’s Talking. Granted, Look Who’s Talking blew (if I recall correctly, and I think I do), but this could be that extra element that makes it pop. And I don’t think I’d let the babies talk, because that’s creepy. I essentially want the feeling of Father of the Bride sandwiched into the plotline of Planes, Trains and Automobiles or basically any other road movie. Right?

Steve Martin in a new, hilarious comedy?

2.  Seventeen Candles. Okay, so now it’s a few minutes after Sam blows out the candles on her birthday cake and she and Jake Ryan have kissed. Then what? I’d really like to see them go to high school the next day and navigate the shit storm that is guaranteed to ensue when people find out Jake Ryan and Samantha Baker are dating. What? Okay and then, about 3 months later, he’ll go off to trade school and they’ll break up and she’ll be just another loser teen again. Unless she somehow manages to maintain some clout for having once dated a senior that no longer attends John Hughes High. (Hmmmm…this is mostly a curiosity of mine because I’m so super obsessed with 80’s movies and John Hughes’ movies in particular.)

3.  Harry Potter: The Sorcerer’s Stoned. What if, like 20 years later, Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger’s kids all turned up at Hogwarts and were total douche-bag stoners? I love that idea. You know how good behavior always skips a generation? So instead of trying to ward of the great evils of the world, they were just learning spells to keep them out of getting suspended for smoking weed and having sex? It’s a thought. Not a brilliant one, but a thought.

The child of Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger. Hogwarts Class of 2030.

4.  Greasier. And wouldn’t it be interesting if, in Grease, Rizzo really was pregnant with Kenickie’s baby? And then, after Sandy and Danny FLEW AWAY in what one can only guess was Kenickie’s car (untied plot line, for sure; if I were Kenickie, I’d be pissed.), they had to move in together and raise a family just like Ricky and Lucy Ricardo? Rizzo learning how to cook. Kenickie learning how to do anything. At all. Both of them singing about it until they got to their late 20’s, grew ugly and fat and just didn’t give a shit anymore. Okay, now I feel sad…

   I have other ideas. I always thought West Side Story should end with Maria committing suicide. It was based on Romeo and Juliet, so let’s keep it Shakespeare. And I was always confused about the ending of Annie. Did Daddy Warbucks adopt all the orphans, or just invite them over for that big party? Their lives after the fact were sure to be a big let-down. As was Miss Hannigan’s, despite her elephant ride and flirtation with Punjab. So maybe there could be a continuing story of Miss Hannigan?

   Most of the reason I wrote all of the above had to do with my general malaise and/or boredom over the last few weeks. Please don’t judge too harshly…I know it’s all crap. I have a job now, so maybe I can start writing about that soon. I can tell you about how I faced my ultimate nemesis (not a Shider, it would appear, SHOCKINGLY) and came out the other side. Or about what it means to live with your parents when you’re 30. There’s a whole lot of things I could share, but I have trouble finding writing spaces here in Omaha. A lame excuse, I know. BUT…

1. I have run a 14 minute mile on 2 occasions.

2. I have run for 34 minutes in a row.

AND

3. I have killed several terrifying insects, including several silverfish and the newly famous (to me) Nebraska Red Spider, which is HORRIFYING. (I made my dad clean them up post-smashing. Baby steps.)

Not sure if this heinous picture does this spider justice. It's terrible. And terrifying.

   I will write about the job in the next few days, if I can manage to find a tidy corner.

   Sweet dreams.

*Donnie Wahlberg. Of New Kids on the Block fame. Clearly, the man knows of which he speaks.

"Like the fool I am and I'll always be, I've got a dream. I've got a dream. I know I could share it if you want me too. If you're going my way, I'll go with you. Moving me down the highway, moving me down the highway. Moving ahead so life won't pass me by."*

   A week ago I saw Django Unchained with my buddy, Joslyn. 

   I wasn't expecting to like it. 

   Quentin Tarantino usually manages to annoy the shit out of me somewhere between minute 113 and minute 157 (why, why do his movies have to be so long?) or anytime he chooses to "act" in one of his films (which is ALL THE TIME). And it's a shame, too, because usually those first 106 minutes are EXCELLENT. I enjoy the shoot-outs, and I've come to expect the blood and guts so it's not really about violence at this point, it's more about getting to the gist, if you know what I mean. By minute 113, (I'm speaking for the world at large, now) we're all ready to leave the theatre (you hear me, Scorsese?) because our butts are achy and we just really don't know how to climb over 6 people elegantly in order to use the can and then repeat the action in 4 more minutes. And so it's hard to concentrate on the point the director seems to feel he or she still hasn't made. And if you can't make a point in 120 minutes, you're a fucking idiot. To filmmakers everywhere I say: keep it under 2 hours. For the love of god, keep it under two hours! 

   But this wasn't supposed to be what this post was about. So I'm guilty of Tarantino-ing this blog post and I apologize.

   Bang-bang (picture a huge spray of blood and guts all over the page). 

   I want to talk about Jim Croce.

   So, Django was a pretty fucking great movie, in my opinion (despite the scenes I would have cut out in the last half-hour). But the moment that really did it for me was somewhere in the first half-hour. 

   Without (I hope) giving anything away, let me say that there is one of the world's best montage sequences in this movie. And it's played out over the song "I Got a Name."

   I was so moved by this montage sequence (and I am a sucker for a montage--a theme that will most certainly come up in another blog post this week), that I immediately ran home to look up this song. I'd heard the song before but forgotten it somehow...I don't know. But when I went on iTunes to find it I realized that I LOVE JIM CROCE. I just didn't know it. "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown," "I'll Have to Say I Love You in a Song," "You Don't Mess Around with Jim"...this man has been the love of my life for years and I had no idea. I'm such a bone-head. 

   And he had one of the greatest mustaches of all time.

Jim Croce pictured with guitar and 'stache. (Photo.)

   
   So I've been playing "I Got a Name" pretty much incessantly as I drive, clean, think, stare...it's just so great.

   So, thank you Quentin Tarantino for putting random, anachronistic songs in your movies and, you know what else? Thank you for letting people laugh even while they're watching stuff from history that doesn't feel so good. I'd way rather watch your Holocaust movie 6 times in a row than ever see Schindler's List EVER AGAIN. Cuz, see, when it's funny, we don't feel like dying the whole time. And when we don't feel like dying, we can really pay attention. Brilliant, yes?

   And thank you Jim Croce for rocking so hard. I'm really sad that you died when you were 30**, since that seems INCREDIBLY YOUNG, but way to make it happen while you were with us. Well done, sir.

   "And I'm gonna go there free..."

*Jim Croce's "I Got a Name" written by Norman Gimbel and Charles Fox (1973).

**I just discovered via my usual source--and yours, too!-- the Interwebs, that Jim Croce died in a plane crash in 1973 alongside his songwriting partner Maury Muehleisen. Dang.

"Sometimes I think I'd like to boldly go where no man has gone before. But I'll probably just stay in Aurora."*

       I had it in my head to write THE BEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME. I worked it out and talked about it a lot (a sure sign you’re not writing anything is to talk about it a lot). It would be an action-adventure/sci-fi/romantic comedy (all my favorite genres in one, if you will) and it would by turns leave people writhing in fear, mind-boggled by scientific innovations the like of which they’d never seen and chuckling about how women and men just don’t GET each other.

        It was going to be called Shiders in Space and it was going to blow America’s mind. And then it would go on to blow all the minds in Europe and Asia. And then South America. Africa? Probably not. They have bigger fish to fry (pun intended, as you will soon see). And, oh shit, Australia. I didn't even think of them. Oh well, it probably doesn't matter.

        My movie was about a combination of my three biggest fears in life: sharks, spiders and space. The three “S's”, if you will.  (But if I were to describe my biggest fears in order from most fearsome to least it would be: sharks, space and then spiders. But it doesn’t sound as good written out that way.)

        So here’s the story: it’s NASA’s last space mission, the summer of 2011. A bunch of sexy, quirky, funny and lovably neurotic astronauts head into the Final Frontier to see if they can’t rehabilitate a space station built in the 60’s. Problem is, the space station is haunted. BY SHIDERS!!!!!!!!

        I drew a picture so you could see what a Shider looks like:

Okay, I'm not an artist, but you get the gist.

        It’s essentially a shark with spider legs and the spider legs ALSO have spider legs, so it’s extra gross. Aside from the spider’s nasty, bulbous backside, the most heinous thing about a spider is its eight hairy legs. And the way it just falls down from the ceiling when you’re trying to kill it.

        But here are the main reasons a Shider would be the worst nemesis of anyone on the face of Planet Earth, or in the Galaxy, for that matter.

1.     Shiders can live in the ocean, on land or IN SPACE. There’s nowhere you can go to be rid of them. Think about how "evolution" (still don't buy it, so let's just say, alternatively, GOD) has provided us with the Kangaroo, the Tasmanian Devil and the Lemur: all species that evolved (were created by our Lord) when left on islands and unable to reproduce with other, normal animals. But then multiply it by a trillion, add gills AND lungs AND space helmets. There’s no stopping these beasts!

2.     A shider has the skills of the spider and the bite of the shark. Maybe it’s fair to say that not everyone is afraid of spiders. But a lot of us are, and it’s not just because they look disgusting and bite you when you’re sleeping. A lot of it has to do with the way they seem to be able to leap from tall places and virtually disappear from view the second they see you coming with, ironically, your rolled up issue of The National Geographic. (Just because you read The National Geographic does not mean you want nature and anthropological specimens invading your home! And, if we're being super honest, we should probably admit that we only subscribe to The National Geographic to seem literate, but really we like it because usually there are chicks with weird piercings and bare breasts featured.)

            But then add the fact that even if you jumped in the  pool or THE OCEAN, a shider  would still be able to find you and it has horrendous, monster teeth and a (nearly) blind stare. It can smell your fear, it can out swim you, and it will eat your legs off while thinking about what to buy its wife for Valentine’s Day.
And even if you make it out of the water and onto the beach or poolside, etc, it can still follow you because it has LEGS! Anywhere from 8 to 64 of them! (Actually, I think it's 64 plus 8, because each leg has eight legs, but then you have to count the original legs...)

3.     Shiders also live in space. I don’t know how much you’ve thought about it, but space is terrible. There’s no oxygen, no gravity, and no one can hear you scream (mostly because there’s no oxygen or gravity). There are black holes all around and there’s a good chance that if you go up there, you won’t be coming back. Or if you do make it back, it will be one of the most heroic things you or I or the United States or the WORLD will have ever seen. But there still will have been that moment (or those days, weeks, months, years) when you were drinking Tang and peeing into a bag and you wondered what it was all about. Some people want to boldly go where no man has gone before, but I’m definitely not one of those people. (It also occurs to me that you might come back from space and it will be like The Flight of the Navigator: your parents will be old and totally freaked out that you’re still 10, and completely unwilling to accept the fact that you fell into a time warp. But hell, you can't control that kind of shit!)

4.     Shiders are clearly adaptable, and what does that say about our (human beings, that is) future as the self-appointed manipulators of the universe? If something can incorporate gills, eight legs (or in this case, 64 legs--maybe 72 legs?), and the ability to survive in space, we’re clearly doomed as a species. I don’t really want to think about the implications. I’m still crying about Joey in The Flight of the Navigator. That dude missed everything.

       Okay, that’s all I’m going to say for now about Shiders in Space. I thought it would make a great screenplay, but then I saw Sharktopus, Two-Headed Shark, and even Mega-Shark Vs. Giant Octopus (though I didn't watch the sequel, Mega Shark Vs. Crocosaurus because, seriously? I have a life, here.) and I think the genre of weird shark-hybrid is a little played-out.

       I still think my villain is the scariest, because it plays on all MY worst fears, but I have too much pride to sell it as a screenplay. But if I did ever make the movie, here are some potential taglines:

“Houston, we’ve got a shider.”

OR:

“In space, no one can hear you scream.”

And my favorite:

“Just when you thought it was safe to return to the abandoned space station...”

 *Quote from Wayne's World (Penelope Spheeris, 1992). Oh, man, I've never changed my title quote after publishing, but Emily reminded me that Wayne's World generally has the best quotes about everything. (For example, this.)