That’s not a trick question. I’m not going to ask you if I need to walk by again.
Do people instantly connect and have metaphysical fireworks explode in their hearts, or does it take time for love to grow?
Personally, I feel like the older one gets, the harder it is to feel those instant fireworks. But what do I know?
Shakespeare believed in love at first sight. And since this is a series about how to get chicks using the bard’s most romantic passages – well, if you meet someone and feel that instant connection, maybe you can recite this to said individual:
No sooner met but they looked; No sooner looked but they loved; No sooner loved but they sighed; No sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason; No sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy; And in these degrees have they made a pair of stairs to marriage…
– William Shakespeare, As You Like It
Love at first sight or love that grows with time? Is one better than the other?
Dudes, you have no idea how lucky you are all to have me. I’m here. I’m taking time out of my busy schedule to inform you, the reading masses, how to use the writings of the most influential author of the English language, to score points with the ladies.
Bardin’ ‘Aint Easy
OK. Look at me. LOOK AT ME. Take one night out of your life and woo your woman. All to often men underestimate the power of woo.
What is woo? It’s not easy to explain. It’s the effort you put in to make your woman feel special and loved. Frankly, if you have to ask, some other dude has probably wooed your woman away by now anyway.
Don’t half-ass it like you do everything else. Your woman is not some rug that you can just sweep dirt under and then pretend like you actually cleaned the floor. Look at your woman and pitch ridiculous amounts of woo. Take all of your wooing skills and just send them straight into your woman’s general direction.
Shakespeare’s Henry VI dealt with all of the political power power plays and general nastiness that led to the War of the Roses. What was that war about? I don’t know. One side had some roses. The other side wanted roses. So they fought over the roses. What do I look like? A history scholar? We’re not here to talk about roses (although you should order your lady some in advance because they’ll be sold out by Valentine’s Day by dudes who thought of this stuff before you did).
We’re here to talk about this quote:
“She’s beautiful, and therefore to be wooed; She is woman, and therefore to be won”
– William Shakespeare, Henry VI
Take a knee, dudes. Listen – want a translation of what Bill just said? Here you go – you can’t phone this shit in. Your woman is beautiful and so you have to earn that right to be around all that beauty. Get her flowers. Sing to her. Read her poems and shit. Or if she’s not into all that, then do chores and crap without her complaining about it or acting like a martyr because you had to wash a dish. Make your woman happy!
Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, dudes. And even though I totally just reminded you, you’re going to wait until Feb. 14th at 6 pm to get some tired, left over card and a box of stale candy from the discount bin at the drug store because that’s all they will have left.
So, I’m here to help. Even if you screw up your gift giving responsibilities, you can still check my blog, and recite some love poetry with the help of my main man, Bill Shakespeare.
“To Mac, or Not to Mac? That is the Question.”
Shakespeare was the most romantic dude of his day, which, alright, was pretty easy, since he lived in an age where people thought bathing was optional.
Alright. SCENARIO – You get home on Valentine’s Day. Your lady love is all dressed up, waiting for you to get your romance on, and what do you do? You’ve got nothing. You’ve got one of those M and M Dispensers where the cartoon M and M men are doing something hilarious. But it’s not enough for this woman, because, I don’t know, what, does she think she’s the Queen of England or something? Why is your woman not cool enough that she can’t just appreciate a good M and M dispenser? Sheesh.
Alright, anyway, all you do is lay out the Romeo and Juliet action:
But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That her maid art far more fair than she:
– William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
I’m just going to say it. Women like drama. Ok some women do. Not all. Let’s not use sweeping generalizations. Some like to have all kinds of attention and have the focus be on them.
What was Bill saying in this scene? He’s having Romeo tell Juliet, “Hey, Juliet, you’re hot like the sun, and you’re such a hot sun that you’re hotter than the moon. The moon’s got nothing on you baby.”
You can just skip the poem altogether and just tell your lady, “You’re hotter than the moon.” Or, just pick a gal she hates. Her sister. Your next door neighbor. The dame she complains about from work. Just be all like, “Baby you are way hotter than Becky from Accounting.”
Actually, don’t do that. Then she’ll just accuse you of checking out Becky from Accounting.
The point is – Bill Shakespeare can get you chicks. So keep following and I’ll tell you how.
So for the past few weeks, I’ve been asking for your input as I build a world for a sci-fi novel that’s locked up in my brain. Naturally, I thought, why not help the process along by checking out a cult classic of Sci-Fi cinema, namely the 1982 Ridley Scott Directed film, Blade Runner, starring Harrison Ford.
(Forever Cinema Trailers)
THE PLOT
Ford stars as Richard Deckard, a Blade Runner, a special type of police officer assigned to hunt down and execute replicants on site.
Replicants are bioengineered humans. They’re built by the Tyrell Corporation to be stronger, faster, smarter, or as Tyrell puts it, “More Human than the Human.” (In case you were wondering where that White Zombie song came from).
Foreseeing the problem that replicants could use their superior abilities to take over, the government outlaws them on Earth, and only allows them to be used as slave labor on off world colonies. Further, Tyrell has put in a failsafe – replicants only live for four years, so none of them really have time to learn how to get too big for their britches.
THE WORLD
In the 1980’s, Japanese tech companies were booming, so naturally the creators of the film anticipated an Asianization of American culture. Although it takes place in a futuristic Los Angeles, open area Asian bazaar style shops and sidewalk noodle joints riddle the landscape. An enormous building size image of a geisha is prominently displayed.
Even though its in the future, everything looks old and worn out, suggesting that America may one day fight itself in abject poverty, everyone living in cramped, dirty spaces, tripping over one another just to get some room. (Sometimes when you look at today’s economy reports, it feels like we’re there).
THE CLOTHES
Oddly, even though it’s LA and the depletion of the ozone layer is only going to make it hotter, everyone in this film is bundled up like its Christmastime in Minnesota. This is where some science nerd will now explain to me that global warming can actually lead to global cooling. And you’re probably right, science nerd.
THE TIME
It takes place in 2019, so about four years from now, we’ll be subject to a number of “Where are the replicants?” stories like we did this year now that we’ve reached the age of Back to the Future II.
THE TECHNOLOGY
Much of the tech in the film, at least by today’s standards, looks like it was raided from the basement storage room of a high school AV Club. There’s a lot of tube based monitors and equipment that looks like it could display microfiche in your local library. But hey, it all probably seemed like top of the line stuff in 1982.
There are flying cars, but there are also regular land cars. Deckard has a land car. He does get a ride in Edward James Olmos’ flying car. And I was glad to see this flying car did have several instruments, computer monitors, controls, and Olmos even puts on a special flying hat. In other words, the people behind this film anticipated, like I do, that flying a frigging car will be serious business and not something you can allow just an y old jerk to do.
There are video pay phones. Video phones are here, but you know my feeling on the subject. Pay phones of any kind are long gone and I doubt they’ll make a comeback.
Also, nothing to do with tech, but people smoke like chimneys throughout the film. People don’t smoke as much today and when they do, rarely in public lest they be accused of a hate crime. Enter any dive bar and you’ll find people engaged in Russian roulette competitions, chainsaw juggling, wild and crazy orgies, but anyone who lights up a stogie will be asked to leave.
LEGACY OF THE FILM
It’s fun to make fun of, but in a time where Star Wars had put Hollywood on a “space opera” kick, the people behind this film did try to make something serious. It poses a lot of questions about bioengineering, and JF Sebastian’s creepy “toy shop” certainly leaves us wondering whether maybe we should let nature run its course with the human anatomy, rather than do our own tinkering.
There’s certainly a lot to discuss about life when it comes to film – the quality of life, how little time we have, how none of us want to die, even replicants.
Olmos’ character, Gaff, speaks in a foreign language of some kind through most of the film, only to clearly annunciate at the end, regarding Deckard’s replicant love interest Rachel:
“It’s too bad she won’t live! But then again, who does?”
In other words, Gaff uses his few precious words in the film to tell us that we all tend to walk around aimlessly, trying to get something out of life, but few of us ever get where we want or are satisfied if we ever do.
IS DECKARD A REPLICANT?
If I shake my magic 8 ball, it will read, “All signs point to yes.”
Deckard dreams of a unicorn. I don’t know if that’s really a sign, because frankly, I dream about unicorns all the time. I might be a replicant then. Replicants have implanted memories and since unicorns aren’t real, and yet Deckard has a vivid memory of seeing one, the suggestion is he was built in a lab where a scientist added a false memory of a unicorn. Replicants receive false memories, supposedly in an effort to make them happier and/or more human.
Also, Deckard has kind of an odd relationship with his boss, Bryant. At the start of the film, he tells Bryant that he’s out of the Blade Runner business and won’t help him. Bryant tells Deckard he doesn’t have a choice and so Deckard just complies and goes on a replicant hunt. Does that mean Deckard is a slave of some kind, beholden to Bryant’s will? Or is Deckard just like any other human who doesn’t want to piss off an overbearing boss?
ROY BATTY
The villain of the film is Roy Batty (isn’t batty another word for nuts?) aptly played by Rutger Hauer. He’s a replicant who roams LA, cutting a wide swath through various genetic scientists in the hopes he can torture one into coming up with a cure that will allow him and his friends to live longer. None of them are able to, which drives him, well, batty.
SPOILER ALERT (Although honestly, you’ve had like thirty plus years to watch this damn thing)
The surprise of the movie comes when Batty has Deckard right where he wants him. Dickard clings to a rooftop beam, about to fall at any second. Batty can easily step on the hands of the man who has been hunting him and be the victor. But instead, Batty uses his super strength to save Deckard and pull him to the rooftop.
Why? Could it be that Batty recognizes that Deckard is a fellow replicant and doesn’t want to kill one of his own? Or, does Batty just decide that killing Deckard won’t really accomplish anything, so why spill more blood?
In the end, Batty has this iconic “TEARS IN THE RAIN” speech:
I have… seen things you people wouldn’t believe… Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those… moments… will be lost in time, like (cough) tears… in… rain. Time… to die…
Out of the mouths of replicants. That’s pretty profound stuff, isn’t it? Forget about attack ships and glittering beams, just think about all you’ve done in your life. Long before I became Blade Runner fan, I would often get choked up just by thought that one day, I’ll kick the bucket and all the memories of all my accomplishments, including starting this blog that only three people read, will vaporize into nothingness. Who knew that I was just suffering from Roy Batty sadness the entire time.
And what is a tear in the rain? A tear is happening. A memory is happening. But a tear in the rain just becomes another drop of water. A life full of memories ends, just like so many others do every other day…well, I don’t want to say that life is meaningless or “a tale told by an idiot” as Shakespeare once said, but aren’t there times when we all feel a little bit like Roy Batty?
CONCLUSIONS
It’s worth a rental. And Hollywood hasn’t shown an interest in remaking it with a bunch of dopey starlets who would probably just screw it up…yet.
Yes, noble readers, while most of you think normal thoughts, like, “I think I’d like to put some grape jelly on my toast today,” I, Bookshelf Q. Battler, am cursed to consider more bizarre machinations, such as:
11) Is it racist that Webster called his adopted mother, “Ma’am?”
12) Was The Facts of Life a 1980’s version of Little Women that left Louisa May Alcott rolling in her grave?
I lie awake at night thinking about this stuff. I really do. Stuff like:
13) Who put the bomp in the bomp bah bomp bah bomp? And is whoever put the ram in the rama lama ding dong still at large?
:::pounds my fist on the interrogation table and shines the hot light on the suspect::: “TELL ME! TELL ME RIGHT NOW WHAT I NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE BOMP OR I’M GOING TO WALK TO THE NEXT ROOM AND MAKE A DEAL WITH YOUR BUDDY, THE DING DONG!””
14) Are timelines real? With every choice you make, no matter how big or small, do you make an infinite number of timelines, reflective of the outcomes of the various choices you could have made? If so, is there another me who actually puts book reviews on his book blog?
15) What is the meaning of life? Does it involve cheese?
16) In the highly-evolved world of Star Wars, why would anyone use a lightsaber, when laser pistols are so readily available? In our own less modern world, we stopped using swords once we developed bullets. In a world where laser guns are available, are people really going to use swords made out of light just because they look badass?
Yes. Yes they are.
17) Why don’t I sponsor one of those third world children they keep showing me on TV? They tell me I could change those kids’ lives for forty cents a day. I can spare forty cents a day. It’s not that I don’t have forty cents, it’s just that I’m too damn lazy to fill out the form, go to the website, make the call, or do whatever you have to do to sponsor one of these kids?
Sigh. Somewhere in a country ruled by a man with a tall hat and a uniform filled with self-awarded medals, there is a hungry kid whose malaria could be cured if I’d just get out of my own way long enough to figure out how to send it to him.
18) If I were to strap myself to a catapult, shoot myself through the stratosphere, into the cosmos, to the edge of the universe to the point where it all just loops around and I complete a perfect 360 degree journey back to where I started – would I be able to pick up right where I left off, or would there be another me there to contend with?
19) Why must we grow old? Why must we get ill and sick before we pass on? Why can’t we just stay youthful until we’re a hundred and then just fall asleep under a cherry tree?
20) A man begins a journey in Texas. He takes a plane to India, and said plane travels at a rate of 80 miles per hour. A woman begins her journey in Moscow, where she takes a train to Norway, said train traveling at a rate of 72 miles per hour. Given that the wind speed variables have been taken into consideration, that the Earth is in perfect alignment with Mars, and that neither party has a considerable advantage over the other…what will they eat for dinner?
Respect to you for doing this…I couldn’t write a short post if I tried (you’ve probably noticed) and trying one per day would probably give me an aneurysm. On that note, I reckon you’ll achieve the goal but I’m wondering how you’ll get past the day you get sick, as in the kind of sick where you’re bedridden and narcoleptic and running the kind of temperature the Sahara Dessert would be jealous of and thinking ‘Must…get…to….wordpress!’ and then your body knocks you out when you try. I read your random questions post tonight as well, so here’s a question: could you get past a day like that and still post?
– Tommy Muncie
ANSWER – I’ve been scheduling posts in advance, in the hopes of avoiding this very scenario. However, should I fall violently ill, I will use my last bit of energy to make a post. It won’t be anything fancy or spectacular, it will just be “post” or I’ll just bang on the keys and click “post” just to meet the once a day requirement.
Further, if, say, I am hit by a bus or otherwise left incapacitated, I have engaged a team of individuals to post in my stead, mimicking my subtle nuances and character, so that you will not even notice I am gone.
Actually, I haven’t done that, but now that I’m worried about illnesses and bus attacks on my person, I will have to do so.
Thanks a lot, Muncie!
Now that I’ve answered that question, here some others I anticipate you, my audience of three readers, may have:
QUESTION: Suppose you are cornered by a team of robot ninjas who stand between you and your computer, preventing you from making a post? Will you yield on your promise to us, the readers, to make one post a day?
ANSWER: Absolutely not. I scoff in the face of danger. Few are aware of this, but I was trained in the martial arts by Chuck Norris. I payed it forward by training Steven Seagal, teaching him all the moves he displayed in his movies from the 1980’s and 90’s, though I take no credit from his later films where he got fat and teamed up with Tom Arnold.
QUESTION: An asteroid is careening towards Earth. You have one minute to save the world and you have not yet posted on this particular day. What do you do?
ANSWER: I make a quick post, then I frighten the asteroid back into space with a glare so fearsome that it clearly communicates to the asteroid my disapproval of its tiresome behavior.
QUESTION: A grizzly bear demands to fist fight you in a steel cage UFC championship bout. The prize? Your computer. If you win, you get to post. If you loose, the bear eats your computer.
ANSWER: My post will be a selfie of me wearing the bear’s oily hide as a coat.
QUESTION: Aliens invade. They detonate an electromagnetic pulse that renders all electronic equipment useless.
ANSWER: It’s fine. I scheduled an advance post.
QUESTION: You didn’t. You were too busy watching Game of Thrones, that show that Tommy Muncie is not impressed with. Blasphemy, I say.
ANSWER: I did post.
QUESTION: You didn’t.
ANSWER: Well, if your computer is taken out too, then how can you be sure I didn’t?
QUESTION: Well played, sir. Well played.
QUESTION: You are kidnapped by Russians, who want your blog down because it is too awesome. They throw you, your computer, and a parachute out of a plane, but separately, not together.
ANSWER: I dive myself to the computer, post, then put on the parachute. Note that my first instinct was to post, not to save myself.
QUESTION: Katy Perry and Katee Sackhoff, two of your favorite Katies in the entire world, barge into your domicile, each wearing their customary garb. Perry is in her California Girls video costume, while Sackhoff is in her Battlestar Galactica pilot gear. They offer to have their way with you, but the price? You must not post for one day.
ANSWER: Define “have their way with me.” I understand the classical connotation, but it is an open ended term that can be taken a variety of ways. Thus far, in my experience, a woman “having her way with me” means she sucks up all my money, provides me with a longwinded speech about how we should just be friends, and then said friendship inevitably requires that I console her while she, with a cat in one hand and a pint of ice cream in the other, whines to me about how the men she wants to be more than friends with aren’t nice to her. I feel such a situation would not be worth sacrificing the respect of my three readers for.
QUESTION: The classical connotation.
ANSWER: Ah. Wow. That is a tough one. They won’t even allow me to post just so I can brag about it?
QUESTION: No.
ANSWER: Well, I made a promise to all three of my fans, so I would invite the Katies in for a rousing game of Parcheesi, perhaps build a few jigsaw puzzles with them, then send them on their way in time to make a post. That’s just what a selfless man who has made a commitment does.
QUESTION: Would you resent us forever for it?
ANSWER: Yes.
Do you have questions about what I would do in a potential scenario that would make it difficult for me to post? Ask away in the comments.
…that plague the mind of Bookshelf Q. Battler, in no particular order:
1) Why does Elsa view her magic freeze powers as a curse? Why does she not use them to control the world and rule her subjects with an icey fist?
2) Why do they put braille on restroom door signs? Do blind men rub their hands all over the walls of public buildings, find a braille door sign, go, “Whoops! That’s the ladies room!” and then feel their way around again to the men’s room? And would it matter if he went into the wrong room? Because, you know, he’s blind, so it’s not like he’s going to see anything.
Yes, noble readers, who have followed me on my year long quest to post once a day, these are the thoughts that fill the deep recesses of my mind. Trivial, absurd, ridiculous minutiae that few bother to even consider.
Thoughts like:
3) Why do aliens only abduct people from the South? And why do aliens abduct humans at all anymore? One would think at some point, their skilled alien scientists would reach a limit as to what can be learned from probe related experiments. I dare say, somewhere in outer space, an alien scientist has published an article entitled, “Stop Probing the Humans, We Figured Them All Out” and yet, it’s being ignored, because he only posted it on alien wordpress.
4) If a tree falls in the woods, and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Yes – KKKKKRRRRRRRRRACCCCCK BOOOOOOM!
5) Why does Hollywood ugly up good looking people so they can play ugly people? They did it to Charlize Theron in Monster and Christian Bale in American Hustle. Somewhere, there is an overweight man with a combover who would have been perfect to played the lead role in American Hustle. The poor guy probably ignored advice from countless friends and family members – “No! Don’t move to Hollywood and try to be an actor! There will never be a part for a fat man with a combover!” And finally, finally! There’s a part for a fat man with a combover and what do they do? They take a handsome man, stuff his shirt with a pillow, and give him a fake combover wig.
Damn you, beautiful people! Don’t you already have enough? Why must you steal parts from the ugly?
6) If you give a man a fish, he will eat for a day. If you teach a man to fish, he will eat for a lifetime. If you take a man to Crazy Larry’s All-You-Can-Eat Discount Fish Nugget Bar, he will get food poisoning.
7) How was it possible for the A-Team to evade justice for so many years? How was the government not able to find a team that included the handsomest man in the world, an old man who smoked a giant stogie everywhere he went, a lunatic who inevitably broke out into loud and boisterous songs, and an enormous bodybuilder who was dripping with solid gold chains?
8) Was Stonehenge an ancient druid singles bar?
9) Is the Yeti little more than Big Foot’s Arctic cousin?
10) When Santa delivers a kid an X-Box, does he have to pay Bill Gates a royalty?
Join me tomorrow, I was will bring you more…RANDOM THOUGHTS.
Bookshelf Battle 