Billy Mays (1958-2009): Rot in Hell, You Son of a Bitch

The other night I watched an old movie called “I Bury the Living.” Like all B-movies from the 1950s, the film itself barely lived up to the promise of its title, poster, and tag line. The story revolved around the owner of a cemetery who discovers he controls the power of life and death through his paperwork. If he lists a living person as dead, they die.

This comes to mind because of the recent holocaust of has-been celebrities. David Caradine, Michael Jackson, and many others have met their slightly-overdue end lately, but this never really struck me personally. And then Billy Mays died. This is noteworthy because he is one of the few people I have ever actively wanted to die.

Billy Mays, the commercial pitchman, caught on like the bubonic plague, slowly spreading across the airwaves. Back in high school he was an unfortunate occurrence, popping up during sitcom intermissions to attack my eardrums. That’s when I started cursing his name in a variety of creative ways. Slightly later, I began pressing the mute button before the commercial break even started, but cursing nonetheless. By then it was too late. He had been spreading for years, endorsing more shoddily-made products for lazy idiots and yelling the rest of us into submission. Billy Mays’ voice haunts me like a concentration camp loudspeaker. It was impossibly loud, booming through static and across living rooms. It was condescending, accusatory, and just a little bit whiny. This was not a naturally occurring sound. Billy Mays must have stared into the mirror for hours, daring his beard to grow thicker and blacker, yelling at himself until he achieved the perfect voice to best gain attention. Selling things was secondary to being heard.

In my life, I’ve been around for more than a few celebrity deaths. Family members have died on me. Pets. Even a friend or two. But Billy Mays changes everything. This has taught me to control myself and this ungodly power I wield. The next time someone cuts me off on the freeway, or the next time I see an interview with Zak Penn or Michael Bay, I’ll know to relax before I do something I might regret. Even though it will probably make the world a better place.

Another way to waste everyone's time

Once again I have proved to myself what I have proved to every school teacher, Catholic abstinence pledge, and weight lifting partner I’ve ever had – I possess absolutely no willpower. ‘What is it this time?’ you ask. ‘Too many Bagel Bites? $50 bar tabs? Fancy salads you’ll never eat?’ All of this and more, my good friend. I joined Twitter.

In my need to express myself without any actual effort (for further examples, see this very blog), I opened the account over the weekend and managed to do… very little with it. Twittering is harder than I expected, if for no reason other than I am attempting to operate my account with common decency and my ever present sense of shame. Before each post, while spell-checking, I ask myself how necessary what I am about to say is. It is a wonder I’ve written anything.

Twitter is not a site for necessity. It’s not even a site for vanity. Twitter exists to celebrate the everyday minutia I generally prefer to ignore. If I’m going to the store, I can talk about it. Cooking dinner? I can write about it. Blogging? You get the idea.

This is not to say it is completely useless. People like Jon Faveau and Chuck Klosterman are actually trying to do something interesting with their ‘microblogs’, and that’s what gives me hope. Maybe, if I keep at it, I can find my niche, my voice, my clever little excuse to force my life on the barely-interested. How hard could it be to live an internet life full of dignity?

And now, to completely fail myself once again, I’m going to Twitter about this blog about Twittering. Don’t judge me.

Spin-off 2: The Beginning

God damn George Lucas.

I’m fairly certain that the word “prequel” didn’t exist before 1999 birthed the monstrosity known as The Phantom Menace. That weekend, collective filmgoers groaned so loudly that I’m fairly certain the noise is still echoing throughout the galaxy. The movie did, however, make a ridiculous amount of money. Hollywood, being what it is, latched onto the idea so completely that we have had dozens of prequels in the past decade.

They’re still not doing it right.

A prequel is intended to be the first chapter of a film series, introducing the viewers to characters or showing events that were alluded to or implied in the earlier films (which were set afterwards). It is supposed to be the beginning. The Phantom Menace is supposed to come before A New Hope. You’re supposed to watch Wolverine before you watch X-Men. Tremors 4 happens before Tremors 1-3. This, in theory, sounds interesting and not at all frustrating for the viewer. However, as I just said, they’re not doing it right.

As far as Hollywood is concerned, “prequel” means “spin-off without the burden of continuity”. Viewers are expected to walk in with complete knowledge of the other parts of the story, which pretty much destroys the idea of making it a “first chapter”. I have genuine pity for someone who attempts to watch Star Wars for the first time from Episode I to Episode VI. Lucas’s prequel trilogy doesn’t even attempt to explain the universe, or who people are, or why anything happens. You’d be about eight hours into the series before someone on screen finally tells you what the hell a Jedi is. X-Men Origins: Wolverine does not utter the word “mutant” until over an hour into the movie. These sorts of things are kind of important to the plot.

J.J. Abram’s Star Trek (that’s Star Trek XI, for those of you keeping track) still breaks the prequel rule while, at the same time, it doesn’t. Utilizing time travel in a way that doesn’t involve whales, the movie is simultaneously a prequel, and a sequel. Despite the whole “parallel universe” thing, the movie takes place before the Original Series, which makes it a prequel. This gives the movie an opportunity to expand on the origins of James T. Kirk and Mister Spock, something fans have always wanted to see in canon. While Star Trek reintroduces these characters, some important tropes (such as phasers, tri-corders, and the Vulcan Nerve Pinch) are never explained. But that’s okay. It’s also a sequel.

More analogies to sex

Upon first glance, the waiting room made me feel like I had just entered a gentleman’s club. And not the kind where everyone wears silly hats and does community service. The kind of club where everything is so fancy to divert attention from the fact that something illegal is happening. Let me start over. Upon first glance, the waiting room made me feel like I had just entered a bordello.

I had been driving for a while Sunday morning looking for a barber shop. Every one I happened across was closed for at least several more hours. All the way across town, I finally found a Weldon’s barber shop. Needless to say, it was not what I expected.

To me, barber shops have always been a necessary inconvenience, in the fact I have to trust myself instead to a group of irritating girls who claim hairstyling is just for paying their way through college. A traditional barber shop, or something cheap like Super Cuts, is much more like a strip club. It’s not the best by far, but least they’re getting the job done.

I must’ve looked nervous as the woman led me into the back.

“I’ve never been in a place like this before,” I stammered. She nodded, understanding.

“Do you have a wife?” she asked as she sat me down and prepared her tools. “Girlfriend? Kids?”

“Please,” I said. “I don’t want to talk about that. I’m just here for my haircut.”

“So how do you want to do this?” she asked.

“Um, well, I’m not sure. Do what you think would work. You’re the professional.”

She leaned me back and got to work. I can’t lie; it was amazing. I never knew a haircut could be like that. I was never comfortable, however. I could never relax. With every hot towel, with every scalp massage, I sat tense, trying to calculate how much more each perk would cost.

I, Disgruntled

Word is spreading that once again, a comic book that has yet to see print has been optioned for a big-budget movie. Every movie is based on a book, or comic, or another movie, or video game. Everything is based on something. I’ve decided to let this sort of thing bother me less and less, after realizing that all of the best movies are based on books, whether we are aware of it or not.

“I, Frankenstein,” as the comic/movie will be called whenever it comes out, has a completely bitchin’ name. I can’t argue with that. The premise, however, gives me pause. It attempts to set the classic Universal Monsters in a classic noir story. Frankenstein’s monster is a hard-boiled detective, Dracula is a mob boss, etc, etc. My problem with stories like this is the laziness that comes attached with it. If you write any kind of story, you have to work to make the reader interested, to like or dislike the characters, and give them a hook to keep their attention. “I, Frankenstein” comes with all of these things built-in. By letting well-known (and public domain) characters do all of the heavy lifting, you simply have to fill in the blanks with clichés from a Chandler novel to wrap up a narrative. But that’s not story-telling. That’s a mad-lib.

Even in the far-flung year of 2009, it is not impossible to write an original story. It’s not even impossible to write an original monster movie. I mean, at least “Van Helsing” bothered to reinterpret the monsters a little.

…

It has just occurred to me that I have defended “Van Helsing”. I'd better stop writing.

Drabbletastic

This following story wasn't good enough for the Drabblecast. Sure, I could probably send it somewhere else, but what's the fun in that? This is a drabble, which means it is exactly one hundred words.

"Night Terrors"

It is after 3 a.m. when Liz jumps out of bed, her eyes wide, her finger pointing at the darkened corner of our bedroom. “There’s a giant spider over there!” she hisses.

“No,” I say. “Those don’t exist, sweetheart. There’s no such thing.”

She is unsure for a moment, but reluctantly climbs back in bed. She trusts me.

I’ve been staring at that corner since before Liz woke up. A thousand tiny eyes gleam in the darkness, and I can almost make out its eight thick, furry legs. I can only pray that I’m right, that we’re both just dreaming.

Unconventional

“Wonder Woman doesn’t wear a cape,” I would utter over the dull roar of the line every time the girls came close. The line into the Emerald City Comic Con snaked back and forth so we passed the same people over and over before we were allowed past the man in the Wookie costume to enter the Con floor. First we would pass the man far too old to be dressed as Ash from Pokemon. Then we would pass the woman who appeared to be grimacing at everything, though her face may have been rendered that way through a terrible accident. And then, again and again, we would shuffle past the three girls in the costumes.

People dressing in costumes at a comic book convention are nothing rare, but these girls stood out. That was kind of the point. They appeared to be part-time models or low-grade porn stars, just three college-age girls dressed as DC superheroines. But not quite. At first glance, the differences were not noticeable, but these girls were not here to not get seconds glances. No, these three had grabbed cheap, plasticky Halloween costumes off the rack at a K-Mart and paraded into the convention, trying not to look down their noses at the roomful of people who could spot the sort of lazy inconsistencies.

“Wonder Woman doesn’t wear a cape,” I repeated as we slowly moved by them again.

“I think she needs the cape to hold up that sign,” Tori offered. She pointed at the plain printer paper taped to the fabric, which proclaimed something along the lines of “Get in line to take pictures with real women, you hopeless nerds! Only $10!”

I read their signs. And then I got madder.

* * *

Hours and autographs later, we all sat in the little food court between the Magic: The Gathering tournament and the group of Stormtroopers. I had been enjoying myself. Things were going well. Then we spotted them.

From that distance, I could admit that the Supergirl looked decent enough. For a brunette. It was the costume from the 80s, but that was probably more recognizable. Wonder Woman still wore a cape and, I could now see, a skirt. With them stood… I guess that was supposed to be Batgirl, but it didn’t look like any costume Barbara Gordon or Cassandra Cain would ever wear.

More distressing, however, was their company. A small gaggle of boys and men had been lured away from the half-priced graphic novels to stand around them, each waiting their turn to stand close to them (but not with them), or have them pretend to kiss their cheek (but not get too close). I watched them all dig for their wallets.

It was depressing as hell. A comic book convention is a place for like-minded people who respect each others’ interests to gather and share their loves. I had assumed the righteous indignation I felt at the money-lenders in my temple was shared by everyone else there. But it wasn’t.

Beautiful, unattainable women transcend every boundary.