i was looking through a drawer
a draw-er, that is to say; a thing that you draw towards you, so to speak. anyway, in said thing was some stuff from long enough ago that i got all ben kenobi for a minute. “now that’s not a name that i’ve heard in a long time. a long time.” by the way, why did ben kenobi age approximately 52 years in the time it took luke to hit 20? han solo called him a fossil, after he shot greedo in the nuts. first. he went from strapping jedi battle stud to a guy who looks like he’s been reading racing forms in florida since the nixon years, and all before luke hit late adolescency and started whining about how bitchin it would be if his adoptive parents were just brutally murdered and out of the fucking way already. “christ, again with the converters? the droids can’t…? oh, all right, but i HATE YOU and my REAL DAD LOVES ME!” ahahahahaha!
anyway, here’s why: ben kenobi: hillbilly meth lab “old wizard” extraordinaire. it all makes sense, doesn’t it? the sand people are obviously speed freak customers, wondering what the FUCK is the holdup already and can i just get my FUCKING SHIT man? ben, all holed up in a cave in the middle of the desert - or, what we like to call “anyplace in california farther than 20 minutes from downtown” - rambling incoherently and dealing in clearly stolen appliances while his place is surrounded by screeching, spastic, hideous, threatening, yet ultimately retarded shitheads… this seems obvious to me. then he lies to the cops about being some kind of fence for illegal electronics, walks into a bar, starts talking to a huge hippie about smuggling stolen goods, and then suddenly freaks out and cuts the arm off the first guy he sees . c’mon.
any. way. i was looking through this drawer, and i found a bunch of old role playing character sheets and maps (hand-drawn, of course) and various other semi-humiliating paraphernalia: crude sketches, incoherent (and illegible) story ideas and character studies, that kind of thing. but it’s where i found that stuff that caught my attention; it was in a folder i’d titled, pompously enough, “idea incubator,” which i certainly stole from someone. the folder itself is a “pee-chee all season portfolio”, one of those yellow-orangy things with the various sporting activities portrayed on the covers that were ubiquitous back when i was in high school, all of 23 years ago. man. anyway, i was struck that even in the mid-80s, it was surprising that every single athelete portrayed in every single sport was white. white in that 50’s white kind of way, too. and then, i remembered the 80’s. the backlash over political correctness, which boiled down to “what do you mean i can’t be a rascist misanthropic asshole out loud anymore?” hell, the entire idea that the only reason someone wouldn’t say degenerate things in public was purely for appearances sake, and not because, you know, saying things like that indicates a probably toxic level of moronicosity, is pretty apalling when you think about it.
so don’t. trust me on this. just pretend it was all thriller and synchronicity, leg warmers and baggy neon pullovers. it’s better for everyone that way.