The Decaying Pumpkin: Looking Back Over the Month of Halloween

Another Halloween has come and gone.

Six words, which for me carry a certain weight of sadness. I love Halloween, and I love the whole two month build up to it. And despite the fact that November is, in itself, a peculiar month regarding breaking up the routine, and Christmas is pounding on the door like the masked stalkers I've been spending so much time with lately, it's sad to say goodbye to the ghouls and vampires.

Why is that? What makes it so special? To try to answer that, let me relive the season in one fell blog and see what happens

1. Pumpkin Carving

It's the ultimate, yet surprisingly understated, Halloween tradition; putting a face on the holiday's soul. Does anybody else feel like Michael Myers when you plunge that knife into the crown of that faceless vegetable (or fruit, I can never keep that straight). Word is that the tradition of pumpkin carving originated as a means of warding off evil spirits during this particularly unboundaried time of spiritualness. Perhaps that was once the case, but today the jack o'lantern serves the opposite purpose, to welcome the very denizen's of death into one's home.

2. The Television Specials

It's with that sentiment I turn my attention to Linus, and his perpetually wires-crossed comprehension of holiday legacy. His faith in the unseen is unshakeable, and while his insistence that the Great Pumpkin leaves presents for good children in the most sincere pumpkin patches may venture one step into selfishness, it's ultimately witnessing his belief incarnate which drives him forward. Comparatively, The Simpsons has spent the better part of four decades serving up their annual non-canon tales to the delight and/or disgust (and/or discouragement) of even the fans who abandoned the show years ago. It's not easy to do horror/comedy, much less great horror/comedy, but you have to respect the show for continuing to try. And there's always the classic episodes where they really hit it out of the park.

3. The Decorations

Akin to the pumpkin carving ritual, neighbors compete for the singular honor of being the coolest house on the block. Inflatable witches mark the lawns that are paradoxically safe spaces to set foot on to do some controlled exploration. We live in an awful world, by the way. When I was growing up, children would play on everybody's lawn until the owner said something to us. Today, there's a real fear of being shot at, because we live in an awful world where this doesn't feel out of the question anymore. Halloween decorations are like the polar opposite of Passover; a welcome signal to the living that for at least one month it's okay to linger for a little while, and admire.

4. Trick or Treating

Yeah, this is what it's been building up to, right? Free stuff. Do you ever go trick or treating as a teen or an adult? There's a whole different layer to the why behind the ritual when candy isn't your ultimate goal. Sometimes it's about nothing more than to drop in on neighbors, who you've never dreamed of speaking to, just to say hello, and how great the shark ornament looks. And it's here that the theme of the season really makes itself evident, for the walk that you take this night is one of connection. Even as simple as connecting the dots of illuminated porch lights creates a kind of picture from the sky that tells of a journey that took place. One that could only have happened on this special night. I love Halloween because it brings out the best in us. How strange that it includes depictions of death, but perhaps it's our own mortality that we're celebrating.

5. Halloween Parties/Ghost Stories

It's not the season of connection without facing down that little monster known as social interaction. And no party is complete without a decent tale of depravity. Usually we don't tell our own stories anymore so much as throw on a horror film, but the spirit is inherent in either one. When you see your co-workers again the first question is always going to be "How was your Halloween?" I hate most variations on this question; how my Labor Day, my weekend, my depression-laden life in general is, but I love being able to say with pride "I got together with friends and we watched Horror Film X". The moment I turn into an extrovert is the surest sign that a magic spell has been cast somewhere.

6. Haunted Houses

I'm of the opinion that to really sell the product, to REALLY stand hand in hand with the Whos and sing welcome to Halloween, a blood sacrifice is required. Manifested not in literal blood, but in the time and money spent in venturing away from self-comforts and into one or more of those walk-through attractions where you are the target of trap doors, suspended skeletons, chainsaws, and the occasional silent pursuer on stilts. It's an odd quirk of human nature to be attracted to things that scare us; I don't know if this is a concept recognized anywhere else in the Animal Kingdom. I don't particularly enjoy being afraid, but I love these attractions. Maybe because by the time I've exited the series of Jigsaw traps I feel like a survivor. It's a nice and much needed release.

7. Seances

The word on the street is that seances are popular on Halloween because the barrier between the living and the dead is at its thinnest. I myself have never done a seance so I can't speak to the scientific validity of the claim, but in the spirit of spirits let's take it at face value. Why do we want to talk to the dead? Is it because we attest messages from the dead with a certain degree of importance that we don't feel towards the living? If so, why? Perhaps it's because we're not just contacting the dead, but the eternal. If the dead talk, then there's a comforting reminder that something in us will outlast our own death. 

In the end, it's probably not one simple thing that gives Halloween its cultural identity, but a collection of things. It's fun, certainly, to throw on a M3GAN dress and do the dance, or join a Thriller flash mob. But for me it's about those connections to to others in a uniquely macabre manner that gives the fun its humor and its soul. People long to become part of something larger than themselves, and it's likely that in those connections we have a taste of touching the divine. And we all want experiences. Halloween provides all of these things. Maybe I'm reading way too much into a simple festival at the turning of the leaves. Or maybe the shared experience with souls on this side or the other is what truly grants us some much needed solace from feeling alone.

Happy Halloween everyone.

Fawlty Towers Episodes Ranking

May as well give my blog a little bit of life support once every year or so.

Fawlty Towers, as I'm sure you don't need me to tell you, is a British sitcom which ran for two seasons in 1975 and 1979 respectively. The brain-child of Monty Python alum John Cleese and his wife (half the time anyway) Connie Booth, the series is considered by many, including this gratuitously humble blogger, to be one of the funniest shows ever condemned to television.

I say that as objectively as possible, which identifying something as 'funny' is anything but objective. If people find something funny, it's funny, no matter how predictable or boring or mundane or cheap or uninspired it clearly is; terribly unfunny people have gone on to have insanely successful careers in the field.

So perhaps calling the show funny is a less than ideal access point. Instead what I can acknowledge is the sheer amount of time and discipline that went into the twelve scripts as well as the near universal appeal of the eccentric characters. And for those of us who've had any interest in studying comedy, Fawlty Towers is a required textbook.

Cleese, who I'll refer to as John for a bit because he gave one of my Tweets a 'like' awhile back and I feel that was just asking for a parasocial relationship, was coming off of the creative energy of Monty Python's first three seasons. According to sources (go find sources for more details) his inner writer was hungering for something not Pythonesque. The seed of Donald Sinclair had begun to sprout in his mind.

Sinclair was, John's words, "the rudest man I've ever come across in my life", but being one of comedy's apex writers became fascinated with him. Sinclair was a hotel owner. Viewing his reputation through the lens of today's mental health lens, he probably had some kind of generalized anger disorder, as everything that Sinclair's job required of him was treated as an inconvenience, particularly the demands/existence of his hotel guests.

John spent as much time as he could absorbing Sinclair's abrasiveness, even bringing Connie Booth in for backup. Connie was an actress who would eventually become a psychotherapist, and those two points on her journey paint a fairly clear picture of how her skillset would translate into writing character driven comedy. It was John who insisted that his post-Python BBC program(me) would be a joint project with Connie.

It's here that I want to take a moment to appreciate how valuable Connie Booth's contribution to modern comedy actually is. Fawlty Towers is the trope-namer for several terms in the comedy writer's glossary, not the least of which is the Fawlty Towers Plot. In essence, it's a character tells a lie, which requires them to tell another lie, and then it snowballs into absurd humiliation. It's been standard fare throughout the history of satire but when handled with mediocrity it comes off as eye-rolling. Why don't the characters just hang it up?

But Fawlty Towers perfected comedic motive. Basil simply cannot admit to his initial lie because he's that underdeveloped as a human being. The audience recognizes this from the beginning and believes the lengths such an awful person will go to just to not have to face any consequences. That legitimacy really feels like it's a Connie influence, and it set a very high bar that only comedy writers of self-respect can hope to reach.

Here then is my purely objective unbiased ranking of the twelve episodes.

12. Waldorf Salad (series 2 episode 9)

This is the only episode in the series that I honestly think isn't good, which surprises me how well it's received in Britain. Mr. Hamilton is an American, apparently a first for the hotel, and he comes in with a sense of entitlement (expecting the kitchen to remain open for him, ordering food not on the menu). And he complains. And complains. And complains. Kind of like what I'm about to do.

I get it. We're the nation of extreme individualization, for better and very worse. My problem isn't with any criticism lobbed towards us. My problem is: One, Mr. Hamilton isn't a remotely likable character. Two, he's presented at the 'hero' of the episode who puts Basil in his place. And three, this is the big one, very little happens in this episode. Seeing John pretend to berate someone who isn't there is more tedious than amusing; it's an old cartoon bit that really requires a defiance of physics to pull off. By the third time the courtesy laugh has run well into irritability.

If Mr. Hamilton had been a likable American, perhaps even admiring the lengths Basil was going to in order to keep up the charade, there may have been more to work with. But as it stands, you probably have to be a British Boomer to experience the alleged catharsis that the episode insists it is.

11. The Psychiatrist (series 2 episode 8)

This episode is much better written and paced, with gags carefully set up and paid off. But I rank it so low because of one fundamental issue, Basil suffers entirely too much humiliation.

Basil is a villain protagonist, a mostly harmless one but nonetheless the embodiment of self-centeredness that creates the most loveable villains. Why loveable? Simple. We were all children at one point. We all tried to get away with shit that we knew was wrong and would get a comeuppance for. That's why we connect so strongly with Basil's man-child mentality, he represents something familiar to us. We don't want him to win, but we don't want him to lose either. He's our coyote; we want him to keep fighting fate with a delusion that somehow there's that one clever lie that will pull him back to the status quo.

It starts with the problem of him being right, unimportantly so but right nonetheless. Watching the universe dangle this one small victory in front of him and repeatedly yank it away crosses the line from funny to painful by the end of the episode. Our loveable villain is utterly broken by the time the closing credits role and it just feels wrong to not give the last line to Polly, were she to sit on the floor next to him and give him some guarded empathy.

10. Gourmet Night (series 1 episode 5)

All things being equal, this episode is probably not as sophisticatedly written as The Psychiatrist. Plot-wise it lands on the lower end of 'stuff happening' than the average Fawlty Towers story, which may be a blessing in disguise as we usually don't get much breathing room. This is the only real time in series one that Cybil isn't relegated to being Basil's antagonist and it's a decent peek at what their marriage looks like when their goals are tentatively in unison.

Having Manuel be sexually assaulted off-camera was likely a Connie Booth contribution as it isn't played for laughs, and our sympathies are entirely meant to be against Basil's insistence that one kiss from the guest chef wasn't a big deal. It's a fascinating comparison to how much violent abuse Manuel takes from Basil over the course of the series that we accept as cartoon-like.

But the reason this episode inches ahead of The Psychiatrist is because it contains the biggest belly-laugh moment in the entire sitcom's run. To anyone who's ever had a meltdown over car trouble, Basil is a patron hero.

9. The Wedding Party (series 1 episode 3)

This is the only episode that I have to stop and think about what actually happened. I remember it as the one with the French woman where Manuel was hungover and Polly slipped out of the dress; and none of those things seem to identify the plot. Basically this one is the sex comedy episode where there's not any real sex but Basil is imagining it everywhere.

The highs of this episode never get too far away from the median, making this one feel mediocre for Fawlty Towers; i.e. still paddling circles around most Brit Coms. At the same time there's something special that this episode has, a handful of characters who actually seem to like Basil, in a Scrooge's nephew kind of way. The French woman in particular demonstrates a fondness for him which adds a smidge of an emotional stake when it looks like he's going to sever that connection by being Basil. An okay episode that should probably have ended a scene sooner than it does.

8. The Anniversary (series 2 episode 11)

My God this episode is hard for me to watch. I rank it above The Wedding Party because it is in fact very carefully written and built to its climax, and it also feels like a bit of an experiment for Cleese and Booth to explore, which they do to success; what would happen if we actually gave a damn about Basil and Cybil's marriage?

The distinction between comedy and tragedy depends on how you feel about the character who's suffering. I find that my sense of tragedy is notably higher than the average audience member; which is to say in Cleese's otherwise hysterical script for A Fish Called Wanda, the scenes involving animal death evoked the loudest gales of laughter from the people around me while my sense of humor came to a painful stop.

The line is different for everyone, and for me this episode is right on mine. I don't want these characters to get hurt, and I have concern with the potential long term effects of the events therein. But I also recognize I'm prissy and just about anyone else would find the episode hilarious. So, eighth ranking.

7. The Hotel Inspectors (series 1 episode 4)

I don't have many criticisms for the rest of the show left, so from here on out it's going to be which episode did it best.

The Hotel Inspectors is primarily remembered for Bernard Cribbins's turn as the humorless Mr. Hutchinson. And for good reason, he's hilarious. His, Cleese's, and Booth's visual routine of looking at the wrong person was worthy of the greatest vaudeville bits. Alas, I don't remember much about the episode when Cribbins isn't on camera, save for a bit with a wine bottle that was a gift from God.

Ultimately it's a great episode that winds up in the thankless bottom spot of the seven great episodes purely because I have very little to say about it

6. The Builders (series 1 episode 2)

Cleese himself called this one the weakest episode, which I obviously disagree. Prunella Scales gets to shine in all her pushed-over-the-edge fury. It was good to give Cybil a meltdown early in the series so we can understand why exactly Basil is so afraid of her, even if her beating of her husband and his builder with an umbrella looks sadly community theater.

It's worth noting that if Scales and Cleese's genders and/or heights were reversed for such a scene I find it hard to believe anyone would be laughing at it. You could argue it's assault, abuse even, but comedically it's okay because there's no doubt that Basil has it coming to him and we know he can take it. Food for thought; the lines of comedy make for a fascinating study.

What else can you say about an episode with lots of slapstick and screaming but poor Manuel. His heart's always in the right place, but there's the perpetual communication problems. Hey! Speaking of...

5. Communication Problems (series 2 episode 7)

If you're familiar with Marx Brothers films you've probably noticed how Groucho typically starts in an antagonized position from his brothers and ends up on the same side as them when a bigger antagonist takes the stage. In other words, their films are about them becoming the Marx Brothers. A similar idea happened in A Fish Called Wanda where it wasn't until the end that we got a Python reunion.

The core cast of Towers was so often at each other's throats that they rarely functioned as a unit, and this episode almost got them to cooperate (Cybil being the holdout) against a common enemy in the form of Joan Sanderson's short-tempered Mrs. Richards. Anyone who's worked in customer service can recognize Mrs. Richards, and it's cathartic to see the whole hotel staff in agreement that she is, in fact, a difficult patron. They each deal with her in their own way; Polly in particular shows off a passive-aggressive side that I wish we'd seen more of.

This episode gave us not one, but two all time great comedy routines; Basil and Manuel's "Your horse Nitwit", and Polly's soul breaking attempts to read Basil's pantomime. A true classic.

4. The Germans (series 1 episode 6)

With a similar structure to The Builders, The Germans is practically three mini-episodes loosely tied together. There's even fade outs on top of punch lines to separate the acts. The Germans is essentially minisode three, and the episode could easily have been called The Moose Head or The Fire Drill.

When people think of Fawlty Towers this is probably the first episode that comes to mind, and from start to finish it's pretty solid. There's not much to say that hasn't been said countless times before (God bless Andrew Sachs for enduring second degree chemical burns). I guess the only thing of note I can add is how little screen time Cybil is given, and yet her presence is still felt through the whole proceeding. The entire middle segment (my favorite if I have to choose) she's only represented by the ringing of the phone, and yet she's such a strong character that your brain can easily fill in all of Basil's pauses.

A damn near perfect episode.

3. Basil the Rat (series 2 episode 12)

The series finale ends on a high, and where Communication Problems almost brought the whole cast together, this one finally does it. The hotel is in danger of being shut down due to the unannounced arrival of a health inspector.

Were this an American show, the health inspector would be relegated to an antagonistic role and treated with no respect. But in this delightfully British script, the inspector is established up front as being in the right, and the way he gives the hotel staff time to improve before his final report comes from a place of basic human kindness. Unfortunately Manuel's pet rat (probably) shuts the hotel down for good.

Every character, including second series addition Terry the chef, gets moments to shine, but perhaps the peak is when Cybil unknowingly participates in her husband's usual shenanigans with the best delivery of the recurring line "He's from Barcelona". In the end, all the women can do is smile as Basil is dragged through the dining room unconscious. Farewell, Fawlty Towers. 

2. A Touch of Class (series 1 episode 1)

While the series ended on a high, it started with a real bang. Everything is covered in the episode; Basil's scheming, Cybil's sharp tongue, Manuel's sycophancy paired with his language barrier, and Polly's ever suffering ignored voice of reality. And unlike the rest of the series, this episode ends with a few minutes of denouement before delivering the honest-to-God mother of all punch lines.

Cleese's portrayal of Donald Sinclair is always strangely sweet natured; odd given Cleese's own assessment that Basil is a truly awful man. The ending to this episode is one of the rare times Basil looks genuinely hurt, in this case by the dressing down he received from the very upper class he always aspired to imagine himself. That pathos bleeds through the cartoon character of a man who's so verbally (and to Manuel, physically) abusive, we can't help but pity him. Why is that?

My guess is, it's because Basil is the universe's chew toy, forever pummeled by his gods (the writers) and too helpless to do anything but rant about it. He's Charlie Brown with Lucy's temperament, and no matter how stupid he's willing to look he will never accept his defeat.

1. The Kipper and the Corpse (series 2 episode 10)

Okay, so this is the one I've chosen as the best of the best. For once Basil doesn't bring his misfortune on himself when a sick guest dies in the hotel. Apparently this is a common occurrence at hotels, but for the Fawltys this is their first such crisis, and getting the body to the coroner's truck without any of the other guests finding out proves to be an impossibility.

The chaos gets so out of control that neither the perpetually put-upon Manuel nor the always rushing to catch up Polly, nor even consummate liar Basil can keep up with who's been told what regarding the layers of charades. The 'Screw this, I'm out of here' ending is hilariously cathartic.

And thus the curtain falls on the apex of British comedy. It burned bright and short, like a sparkler. And while it's unfair to say there will never be another like it, fifty years later there hasn't been. Thank God for syndication, for there will always be a new generation to care for a rat.

Blog 275 ~Vanity

Ever since I started this blog I knew it was meant to be a temporary thing, and I tried to anticipate how long I would maintain it over the years. I originally planned to bail out at blog post number 238 because when I was a child I decided that was my lucky number. Obviously I overshot that by a few dozen.

I'd all but abandoned it a few years ago, between burnout and the nuisance realization that nothing I publish here can be resold elsewhere it kind of stopped making sense to keep pouring my creative energy into it. But at the same time, I've become aware that I'm a hop, skip, slip, fall, get back up, and jump away from 300 and there's a handful of loose ends that I feel compelled to finish out (including the Wax Buzzard Files of earlier this week).

So perhaps in 2025 I'll be churning out another 25 blog posts, finishing up a couple of things in my drafts folder and giving my brain something else to think about besides The Carousel (which I've been semi-diligent in pressing forth on). As such, here's a little bit of vanity, called "Vanity", left over from Short Story Week 2019 when I had to accept that my depression was just too heavy to keep doing Short Story Weeks. It's a silly little piece involving a conversation between two mirrors in a dressing room.

Vanity

She's early.

    What do you mean?

It's 6:25. She always gets here at 6:30.

    It's 6:35.

Wait, did they move the clock?

    This morning, yeah.

How'd I miss that?

    It was during the vending machine restock.

Oh, no wonder.

    They refill the RC?

I don't think so. They might be switching to Sunkist.

    That will be nice. I like orange.

How do you...nobody likes orange.

    Singers do. Less caffeine. They'll be doing at least one musical this season.

That's true. I really hope it's a big cast.

    Me too. This one woman show is so boring.

It's doing well.

    How well?

Well enough.

    Extension well?

No. Just...people enjoy it.

    Oh good. I'm so sick of looking at the back of her head.

You're not missing anything. She has a routine.

    Makeup's gotten so complicated.

I miss the Teen Theater. Boys having to put on mascara for the first time...

    Remember that one kid?

Oh, Jerry, Gerald, Something like that.

    Managed to poke both his eyes with the brush!

That was hilarious!

    Yeah. Good times.

Why do you think she was late?

    I don't know. Traffic?

You really think it's just traffic?

    It was five minutes. Does she look like she's been crying or anything?

No.

    Then it's traffic.

*sigh* Nothing happens around here.

    At least you can see the vending machine.

And a little bit of the hall light that keeps flickering.

    Now you're rubbing it in.

You know what I wish?

    That she'd leave a magazine on the table?

That she'd take a moment to appreciate what she has in front of her.

    A makeup kit and a Styrofoam mannequin head?

You know what I mean.

    I really don't.

Two reflections.

    So?

On opposite sides. One in front. One behind.

    I'm still not following you.

I'm talking about infinity.

    What about it?

Two reflective surfaces facing each other. You can get a glimpse of what infinity-

    No, I've got that. What appreciation are you hoping from her?

I don't know. It's fun. How often do you get to peer into infinity?

    Constantly.

Not you. Them. Do they imagine that there might be a whole other world inside the glass?

    Yeah, when they're four.

Really? You don't think it occurs to any of them once they grow up?

    I'm sure it does but it doesn't matter.

How could something like infinity not matter?

    Infinity is all over the place. There are an infinite number of points between the door and the chair. Everyone is in and out of infinity all of the time. It's really not that big of a deal.

Well, I think it is. I think infinity is amazing.

    I'm sure it is. For about six seconds. But then it's back to actual variables with actual influence.

.............

    What is it?

Nothing.

    Come on. What are you thinking?

You just made me feel really unimportant. You know that?

    Why?

I feel like I'm not good for anything.

    What on earth are you talking about?

At the end of the day, what impact do I really have?

    You reflect what's in front of you. It's not that complicated.

To what end?

    The end of time, the rate we're going.

Nobody really LOOKS at themselves. Not as they are.

    What is it you think they're seeing?

I don't know. Not who they are. Who they want to be. Who they can make themselves appear to be.

    So, what? You want her to take all the makeup off and just stare at herself?

All we do is reflect. On them. Why can't they ever do us the courtesy?

    To reflect on themselves, or you?

On me? Why would I want that?

    You tell me. I'm just a mirror.

Well what do you think I am?

    The question is what do YOU think you are?

I think I'm bored!

    Oh.

I am SO UTTERLY BORED! I am so bored watching her do the same makeup routine every night! And when she's not here, all I do is stare at you staring at me! The highlight of my whole existence is watching the drink machine get restocked! And it would be really nice if just once would step between us and think "Hey that's pretty cool! I can see myself an infinite number of times".

    And you think that one moment will be enough to satisfy the boredom?

It would be something, wouldn't it?

    Sure. For a moment. But then what?

Back to boredom I imagine.

    Yeah, pretty much. It's our lot.

Still, I guess it could be worse.

    How so?

She could be a vampire.

    What would be worse about that?

Then we wouldn't see her.

    Oh, I never thought of that.

Yeah. It's why the mirrors in Dracula's castle are always cracked. They just couldn't take it anymore.

    Well, it's destiny isn't it?

.............

    .............

Do you want to break?

    Right now?

Yeah. Both of us.

    What for?

It's going to happen anyway.

    You can't possibly be that bored.

Think about it. We would scare the hell out of her.

    She'd probably think the dressing room is haunted.

Exactly! Do you know how fast she'd hightail it out of here?

    It would probably shut down the show tonight.

And it would be worth it!

    You kind of have a point.

So what do you say?

    You're not going to leave me hanging are you?

Hanging?

    Like, we count down and I break and you don't.

No. I'll go first. I think it will be way cooler if it goes smash-beat-smash.

    You're serious about this?

Just watch me. I go, you go.

    Okay, if you're this determined.

All right! Count me down!

    From what?

Three.

    Why three?

Just do it!

    Okay, here we go-

".gniyas era syug ouy gnihtyreve raeh nac I"

.............

    .............

Sorry miss.

The Wax Buzzard Files: Chapter Seven -The Missing Chapter

If you're coming straight to this chapter you are going to be SOOO lost. Why not start at the beginning like a reasonable human being and not a literary miscreant?

Everyone is the hero of their own story. Implicitly we're also supporting players in the stories of the people around us; as well as background extras for countless others, which I don't count (I tried once, but I succeeded and never had to try again).

This time I was an innocent bystander. Most bystanders are guilty of standing by, but I was sitting. And that's when I found a cellphone in the cab. I wasn't looking for it; meaning the cellphone, not the cab. Well I wasn't looking for the cab either because I already knew it was there; I'd found it earlier.

The cellphone was a surprise; I jumped when I saw it. The driver asked me if I had a problem. "Not on me," I said, "Just this cellphone."

"Let me see that," he said, so I let him, and he saw it. He wasn't as surprised as I was so he didn't jump quite as much. He'd seen it before. "I've seen it before," he said.

"Former passenger of yours," I said.

"You might say that."

I did say that. Somehow I'd gotten ahead of him. I crawled back into the passenger seat and waited for him to tell the whole sad story of the love of his life who got away, which he never did because it was too sad. So I told the story and we had a good cry.

"Why didn't you tell her how you felt?"

"She was a dermatologist," he said. "What could I tell her that she hadn't already read in dozens of textbooks?"

"Look at me," I said. And he did. And we drove off the road. "She left her phone here for a reason. Probably because she forgot it, but if I know anything about love, I'm not telling you. You have to seize the day, even if it's at night."

"So I should go to her right now?"

"Absolutely! That's a lot better than what I was going to suggest."

He took his advice and dove out of the cab. I tossed the cellphone at him just as it started ringing. That would have been a close call.

I never found out how things worked out; the last I heard from him he said 'Ow!' when the cellphone hit him. But now that I was alone in a driver-less cab it gave me a little time to think about how I was going to survive the collision with the tree up ahead.

But I'm not here to tell you about that; I'm elsewhere relaying the information to other people, sorry you missed it, it's a great story, but to repeat one's self is to diminish the value of communication, that's what I always say.

Besides, my mind was wandering, and for the sake of avoiding an out of body experience I had to go with it. Something kept gnawing at me. I thought it was a badger but my friend the zoologist suggested it was guilt. Guilt; I hadn't seen it before. In my defense I didn't know what guilt looked like the first time I saw it, but now it was staring me in the face (and I still say it resembles a badger).

I was grateful to my friend the zoologist for his suggestion, and for driving out to the middle of nowhere to offer it to me. I should learn his name. Also that he could give me a ride the rest of the way to the hospital in his car, which coincidentally looked like a cab. Come to think of it, both my friend and the former cab driver could have been twins; fraternal at best with a several year age difference but possibilities are endless. The point is, I found myself with the same exact precise pinpointed level of determination I'd had when I first got into the previous vehicle. And I don't have to tell you what that means, so I'm not going to.

Pat Benatar: Rated X

Well, that's certainly a misleading title. But since nobody really finds my blog anyway (hell, I haven't even posted in over a year) I figure I'm not going to start a controversy.

Pat Benatar's good name has been making the rounds a couple of times this year. First it was failed personality Ted Cruz doing his depressingly very best to roast the libs with the one Benatar fact he sort of knew. Now it's in conjunction with the comments from the Rolling Stone co-founder...whose name eludes me at the moment; let's just call him Samuel J. Snodgrass for simplicity. Snodgrass's statement in question was economically sexist and racist, enough to oust him from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation; a club whose target audience have oft cited the curious omission of Rock Icon Pat Benatar.

It's never simple to pinpoint what elevates a particular performer into iconic status. MTV may have had a role in that we all know her video "You Better Run" was the second music video ever played on the channel. Considering it followed the prophetic "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles, which was visually stylized and filtered, Benatar had the first clearly visible face of MTV, staring directly at the audience with an attitude that said 'this is your decade'.

It was also significant, even though we didn't realize it, that Benatar was an outsider to rock. She had been classically trained as a coloratura (which is a fancy word for singer) and earned her stripes performing Judy Garland songs at various nightclubs. The shift came on Halloween of 1977 when she entered a contest as a character from Cat-Women of the Moon; the spandex would carry into her rocker persona.

Perhaps it was the case that coming into rock music post-night club career allowed and/or required Benatar to dissect the form in a way most rockers had never thought to do. She had to retrain her voice in order to sound less like Julie Andrews, adopting the rasps, growls, and screams rock depends on. Indeed you could look at Benatar's output and recognize that rock has a certain ugliness to it, not in an off-putting way but leaning into its imperfections. If it doesn't retain its rawness it becomes something else. And Benatar seemed to figure out exactly how much to process the ore before letting the compositions stand as 'done'.

Which brings me back to this post's title. In honor of the treasure that Pat Benatar is, as well as Snodgrass's journey to the guillotine, I've taken ten songs (X) from her catalog and arranged them as a primer for anyone who may not be as familiar with her work as they'd like to be. These aren't in an ascending or descending order of favoritism, but instead presented in album form, in much the same way her debut album In the Heat of the Night weaves through its ten unrelated songs and somehow feels like singular a journey.

1. Heartbreaker

"Your love is like a tidal wave"

You KNOW this song. It was the first track on In the Heat of the Night in 1979 and through the gate establishes Benatar's identity as a singer. But you might be surprised to learn that it was a cover of the version Jenny Darren had released the previous year (written for her). Darren's is equally hard rock, but there are some interesting differences. The instruments on Benatar's record do this high paced call and response to each other that requires careful timing. It also has a theatrical flare in that you can envision the song being animated by Fantasia's artists; the tidal wave metaphor of the first line accurately describes the way the music gets progressively rougher then backs off before its final violent eruption. And then of course there's Benatar in the middle of it with her voice that sounds like youth that's been forced to grow up too fast. It becomes a character staple that Benatar occasionally holds a high note in coloratura vibrato amidst the thrashing around her, like a dolphin leaping out of the ocean. For an even better illustration of this technique, visit "We Belong" which I alas didn't include here.

2. Sex as a Weapon

"How much affection can you destroy?"

Perhaps the spiritual successor to "Love is a Battlefield". Between 1979 and 1985 Pat Benatar released an album every year, which seems to be the arc for most creators; you get a wave where you pour out content and then you subside (by the way, it's been over a year since I last blogged). As consumers we tend to think in terms of 5-6 year brackets and then we start looking for the next console. Suffice to say, MTV was changing and Benatar was in her senior year of the old guard when this video hit which essentially served as her swansong on the channel. And it was risqué. It was 1985, a lot of music was about sex but we didn't really admit to it by saying the word out loud. But like most Benatar songs, this wasn't about one thing, or one emotion (and more about manipulation than sex). The lyrics indicate a relationship that has good and bad in it, and she's demanding her partner abandon a certain pettiness. If I had to nail down a theme for Pat Benatar it's that she's always siding with love and empathy.

3. My Clone Sleeps Alone

"She won't go insane. Not ever."

We're back to 1979 with one of the three songs on the album that isn't a cover, which curiously I happened to put all three on this list. I'm not really clear what it's about on the surface; one article suggests it's literally a future dystopic world involving androids (although Dennis DeYoung may have written that one). The subtext is equally ambiguous but more interesting, in that the way Benatar sings about the idea of clones provokes mixed emotions in her. Does she envy the hardships that a clone doesn't have to experience? Is she horrified by the idea? Is she her clone? Is this all about the Stepford Wife public face she has to wear on a daily basis? We don't know. And it may not matter that we don't, because what we CAN definitely draw from the song is something in her that gets progressively more anxious trying to tear its way to the surface. My sense is it's a repressed humanity. Maybe the next song will give us answers.

4. We Live for Love

"I never planned to win the race"

Same album and this song 'technically' follows the previous one in a way that it's always felt to me that they belong together. On album you have to flip the disc over between the two, and interestingly on CD the "We Live for Love" track tacks on about five seconds of silence before it starts playing, as if the engineer felt it was important. We've already established love as Benatar's defining motivator, but this seems to be about a kind of love not based on attraction or the butterflies but choices that overcome things like monotony. When you're used to living in pain or isolation or the ever-present negativity that the world produces, love can start to feel like an illusion when it may not actually be. In movies, love is that thing people find, to great fanfare. In reality, we don't get the benefit of fanfare so we have the added challenge of recognizing it. When you pair this song with its predecessor it seems to provide a hopeful resolution. Pretty mature stuff for a debut album.

5. Strawberry Wine

"How nice to go through life oblivious and free"

1997's Innamorata is a VERY hard album to track down but it's worth the effort. It's still a rock album but there's much more spotlight on the acoustic guitar. These are songs of adulthood in that pushing forty area where time no longer seems endless. "Strawberry Wine" is one of the all-time great breakup songs, although at first it may not seem like it. Most breakup songs lean into the immediate emotions of anger, betrayal, helplessness, and grief. These clearly have value or there wouldn't be so many of them. But what makes "Strawberry Wine" unique is it exemplifies the long term feeling of being changed permanently by a failed relationship. Sometimes wounds heal, but scars remain, and some memories still hurt even after you've moved on. There's a certain power to an understated line like "Loving you has been an experience" when it's holding back a bitterness that will never have resolution.

6. So Sincere

"But I'm gonna smother if somebody don't move. Move."

Once more to the first album. There are several songs on In the Heat of the Night that Benatar sings in her 'pretty' voice, whether by choice or from still getting used to abrasive tinges, and this is one of the most effective. It starts with an almost bratty level of sarcasm as she's dealing with a lover who's insecurely possessive; it's impossible not to hear the mocking tone as she repeats "plead and plead" (or 'bleed', the lyric sites don't always agree). But as with most relationships in her songs it's not purely a good or bad one, but elements of both. After the bridge her voice relaxes and the mockery dissipates, leaving a kind of honesty that her 'character' may not have expected. Actual sincerity creeps in, albeit a tough one. We never find out the result of the conversation, but it's wonderful to see that the song ends up in a different place than it begins.

7. Invincible

"We've got the right to be angry."

You ever hear a song for the first time and just know it's perfect the way it is? The first time I heard "Invincible" beyond a chorus clip was around 2003. At first I thought it was some kind of a remix because I didn't remember anything from the 80s sounding quite so timeless, but no, it was always that good. The song is a war cry from the underdogs who've been backed up against a wall. There are plenty of war cry songs, but I can't think of any that quite capture such a sense of desperation. Sadly The Legend of Billie Jean (for which "Invincible" served as the theme song) never seemed to find a cult identity like The Warriors did, and the song was fifteen years too early for Chicken Run. But mark my words, it's inevitably going to get a resurgence in a movie that does it justice.

8. Suffer the Little Children/Hell is for Children (live)

"Tell grandma you fell off the swing."

You know the immortal four notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony? That's called a motif. It's easily recognizable, and in those rare circumstances may be able to produce an emotion with no other context. I would argue that the opening guitar line in "Hell is for Children" is one of the most powerfully horrifying motifs in music. It announces that something's up. Something bad. And not fun-bad like an Alice Cooper album but genuinely bad. "Hell is for Children" gave a voice to the experience of child abuse that so many have endured, and I imagine hearing Benatar perform it live is a healing catharsis for the bulk of her audiences. And pairing it with an introductory verse of the lesser known "Suffer the Little Children, it creates a chilling effect. Listen to the audience reaction on this (appropriately) 13th track of her Best Shots cd. They're already cheering for her during the intro, whether or not they recognize "Suffer the Little Children". But then the motif of "Hell is for Children" starts. And the auditorium screams in what can only be described as anguish finally released.

9. All Fired Up

"The deepest cuts are healed by faith."

As dark as the last song went, now it's time to heal. Sometimes you're just not in a place where the light can reach, but it's always there. Benatar's songs of experience aren't promising that everything will be okay in the end, but all things have a cycle. Pain evolves. It's okay to feel good about small victories. And once in a while the zone comes to you, and reminds you that the struggle is worthwhile. Life will sucker punch you, but you can roll with it. So says the goddess herself.

10. River of Love

"You don't have to be afraid"

"All Fired Up" is a nice note to end on and release everyone back into the world, but I've got a tenth song and I'll let it serve as a sort of self-contained encore. I had the pleasure of seeing Pat Benatar perform live right around the time that Innamorata was coming out or released (I can't really remember). Sadly I was only able to stay for an hour because of how much smoke there was, but aside from my lungs and eyes it was an hour in Elysium. "River of Love was the song that sold me on the album. I suppose you could take it at face value and enjoy the unbridled rock n' roll passion of a song that sounds like the rebirth of a water phoenix. Or you could do what I do and imagine it as a villain song of a siren luring you to your death. In either case, the song feels like something out of myth and sums up everything you need to understand about a rocker like Benatar. While she may run with the shadows of the night, she's not one of them. Like all divine voices, Pat Benatar is the light; beckoning you, perhaps even daring you, to follow her through thick and thin, defeat and triumph, despair and conviction. She's the angel of wisdom who knows the battlefield of love isn't something won or lost; merely made into an experience.

Fire away.

About Me Questionnaire Reanimated

Over the years I've amassed quite a collection of those 'tell-us-about-yourself-so-we-can-hack-your-passwords' questionnaires, because they just beckon me (see the most recent one here). I came upon this one a few months ago and stuck it in my saved folder, and then came upon it again while going through my saved folder to find something else (that's a GREAT story).

Anyway, my writer's block may be a permanent addition to my already unreliable cranium, but I thought I'd give this jump-start a shot. I usually try to answer in mostly snarky responses but a lot of these questions seem a bit more interesting to me, so I think I'll aim for a balance.

1. If someone wanted to really understand you, what would they read, watch, and listen to?

Me. There. That was easy. Okay, less wise-assed...reading my blog wouldn't be a bad idea, although I admittedly get to control the narrative. And I'm sure my therapist takes notes, so you can try breaking into her office. Probably the most accurate picture of me is what I write in the Dysthymia support group. I don't really have those Aha! moments where I'm reading someone else's words and thinking "This person gets me" but then again I have a really sour relationship with reading. Watch classic cartoons. Listen to the Pandora's Box album.

2. Have you ever found a writer who thinks just like you? If so, who? 

No. The writers I've found have all figured out how to be successful.

3. List your fandoms and one character from each that you identify with.

I'm not going to do that, there's way too many of them. I'll repeat the Facebook challenge from a few years ago where they asked you to sum yourself up in three characters. I chose Gonzo the Great, Dr. Bob Hartley, and Linus van Pelt.

4. Do you like your name? Is there another name you think would fit you better?

I'd say I've gotten used to my name. I've never really given it much thought as to how I feel about it. I can't think of anything I'd rather be called instead. Fun fact, I refuse to wear my nametag at work because I hate hearing it from the mouths of strangers.

5. Do you think of yourself as a human being or a human doing? Do you identify yourself by the things you do?

Being feels like wasting (a human wasting?). For example, I'd rather be doing this questionnaire than just sitting here existing (and those are literally my two options). I'm a creature of story, and story has to have a plot.

6. Are you religious/spiritual?

Very much both, although my relationship with religion has been tenuous. I find God in many places, but it's very rare that a church is one of them.

7. Do you care about your ethnicity?

Do I what? Up until about 2016 I would have said no. But then a bunch of people who look like me sold their souls to maintain their power and it's no longer possible to not feel something about it. Resent is a type of care isn't it? In terms of heritage my Irish quarter is about the only one I have an affinity for.

8. What musical artists have you most felt connected to over your lifetime?

I have quite a few. My all time hero is Weird Al. Just a step down from him are Ann and Nancy Wilson with their fiery passion, and the equally passionate but more of a water element Roxette. Another step is Alice Cooper, Pat Benatar, The Offspring, and the perpetually audacious Jim Steinman. There are a lot more artists that I love and respect, but those are the ones I feel would cover my life's soundtrack.

9. Are you an artist?

By nature, yes. I'm a comedy writer, which isn't the first outlet people tend to think of as an artist's medium; but I can think of many examples where comedy crosses into art, and that's a spot on the Venn Diagram I'm always aiming for. Whether or not I get there is probably not up to me.

10. Do you have a creed?

No, should I get one? I had to look it up to see what exactly that meant, and apparently it goes back to the religious question. Basically I believe regardless of what faith we do or don't subscribe to, we all go to the same place when we die. I call the essence of this place God because I was raised in a Christian environment, but I don't think any particular religion has it right; we'll know when we get there. My personal relationship with God is through comedy, where pain can transform into connection.

11. Describe your ideal day.

I wake up uncharacteristically early and just feel good. The temperature is going to be between 50 and 70 degrees all day. I make a run out to McDonalds to surprise my wife with an Egg McMuffin. The morning is laid back, and I spend a couple of hours writing because I've had a creative spark. We grab a light lunch and then meet some friends at the state fair; ride most of the rides, pet some large quadrupeds. Then we grab a pizza and head over to someone's place to watch a movie, and get into a deeply existential debate about whether or not reality is an illusion. At that point there's an indoor thunderstorm and a pod controlled by our future selves arrives and takes us on a most excellent adventure to save all of humanity and form the ultimate band. Then maybe ice cream.

12. Dog person or cat person?

I was raised around dogs, and those floppy ears are just so cute, but I've also developed an affection for cats. I really want a pet fox, kind of both species combined.

13. Inside or outdoors?

I am not a fan of sunshine or insects.

14. Are you a musician?

In a very loose definition of the word. I don't seem to have the coordination to learn an instrument; I've tried cello, piano, and guitar. But I'm a singer and I'm fascinated by music theory, and I actually have written a handful of songs. I'd need a hell of a lot of help translating them to recorded form, but I'm comfortable adding songwriter to my list of hyphens.

15. Five most influential books over your lifetime.

As I mentioned before I'm not a heavy reader. The authors I've gotten the most out of are Lewis Carroll and Edgar Allan Poe, so let's go with Through the Looking Glass and EAP's Complete Works. The writing style I aim for is a combination of Richard Matheson and Gemma Halliday, so for them I'll pick The Legend of Hell House and Alibi in High Heels. And for the fifth, maybe one of the books on the history of Monty Python.

16. If you'd grown up in a different environment, do you think you'd have turned out the same?

I'm sure I'd have about the same mental health issues, but perhaps different stories of guilt for my therapist(s).

17. Would you say your tumblr is a fair representation of the "real you"?

I mean...I CAN, if it means that much to you. It's not true though. In fact I don't have a tumblr account. And off the top of my head I don't think I've ever been to one.

18. What's your patronus?

I had no idea what the hell you were talking about. A quick Google search later, it's the animal I call upon for protection. I'd want something large to block out the assault, but gentle enough to de-escalate the conflict. The Snuffleupagus.

19. Which Harry Potter house would you be in? Or are you a muggle?

Even back when Rowling's fans were lining up around the block for a chance to lick her I never gave a damn about the series. I'd be trying to get into Xavier's School.

20. Would you rather be in Middle Earth, Narnia, Hogwarts, or somewhere else?

Middle Earth and Hogwarts both have giant spiders, so that's a big f**k no to both. Narnia will at least dump me back into my life where I left it, so that's got an appeal. I think I'd get on better as an ambassador to the Moors in Maleficent.

21. Do you love easily?

Others, yes. Unfortunately I also get drained easily, so you're going to have to buy me dinner first.

22. List the top five things you spend the most time doing, in order.

Working, sleeping, monkeying around on the internet, driving, daydreaming. A couple of those aren't of my own volition, and I guess it explains why my writing output has been in such a drought.

23. How often would you want to see your family every year?

So we're specifically referring to the type of family that we don't already see year round. Ideally I'd get back to my childhood home twice a year, and not have to drive it.

24. Have you ever felt like you had a "mind-meld" with someone?

Nothing quite that defined. I've been on the same wavelength as others, but I don't think I've ever fully gotten in someone else's head. Or let anyone else in.

25. Could you live as a hermit?

Not for very long. If I'm stuck in a world of small talk I'd rather be by myself, but I have a need for a creative or philosophical conversation or I'll lose my damn mind.

26. How would you describe your gender/sexuality?

I'm Gen X, so for the longest time I wouldn't have given this any more thought than heterosexual male. I will say I wouldn't be surprised if a full genetic test identified more of a female brain in me based on where a lot of my interests are, who I tend to relate more to, and which Soulcalibur character I play (Ivy is the best). My sexuality is more accurately heteroromantic/demisexual ace. And for reasons I can't explain it's still kind of a sore subject.

27. Do you feel like your outside appearance is a fair representation of the "real you"?

Again I'm assuming this is more related to the previous question than whether or not the Scooby-Doo t-shirt I throw on every day is indicative of who I am (it is). I guess, more or less? I'm not exactly sure what the "real me" is referring to. Perhaps in a fantasy setting I'd see myself as kind of a Puckish type, if that helps. It doesn't? Oh, okay.

28. On a scale from 1 to 10, how hard is it for someone to get under your skin?

In the shallow end of the pool, very easy. It's much harder to get me to admit to it, but I find a lot of little things nerve grating. But underwater (I'm talking metaphorically by the way) I can tolerate just about anything.

29. Three songs that you connect with right now.

"Stars" by Roxette is my favorite song of all time; I've never heard loss conveyed so hopeful and remorseful simultaneously. "Dog & Butterfly" by Heart is about the purity of simple joy; I want it played at my funeral. And perhaps one day I won't connect with "Ravine" by Ace of Base, but I'm still not there.

30. Pick one of your favorite quotes.

“What we are is God's gift to us. What we become is our gift to God.” -- Eleanor Powell

Cowbania's World Games League

In case you haven't surmised already, this blog is approaching its twilight. I'm not sure how any more posts I'll be adding to it as I'm looking for a new social media outlet with (hopefully) an actual audience. But The World Games are coming to Birmingham this summer and are close enough to where I live to be both a traffic obstruction and a reminder that The World Games are in fact a different entity than the Olympics. As I'm told. Suffice to say after the 2016 Summer Games and the 2018 Winter Games I was hoping for one final visit to the undefined land of Cowbania.

What is Cowbania? I imagine it's a place where fictional characters agreed to claim for themselves as a nationality for whenever they needed an excuse to enter a world competition. It's grassy, hilly, and has a flag drawn by Gary Larson.

So pretty much anything goes in selecting the nation's competitors, but I'm going to enforce a rule that nobody can compete in The World Games who's already been in either of the Olympics; which disqualifies the following:

Apollo Creed, Ashitaka (Princess Mononoke), Barbara Gordon, Bugs Bunny, Carmelita Fox, Charlie Brown (yes, seriously), Condorman, Diddy Wishingwell (The Weebles), Dirk the Daring, The Doctor, The Expendables, Frank Martin (The Transporter), Genaa (Below the Root), Harpo Marx, Indiana Jones, Ivy Valentine, Jason Voorhees, Kronk, Lara Croft, Lilith Aensland, Linus and Lucy Van Pelt, Luke Skywalker, Marcie, Mary Poppins, Meggy Swann, Michael Myers, Morrigan Aensland, The Murray, The Prince of Persia, Princess Daisy, Princess Peach, Princess Zelda, Rocky Balboa, Sarge (Toy Story), Scrat, Sly Cooper, Sydney Lotterby, Sydney Lotterby, Sydney Lotterby & Sydney Lotterby, Tiny Kong, Tom (Tom & Jerry), Wadsworth, and Zorro.

I'm going to be ignoring the the invitational sports like Flag Football and Wushu, as well as the handful of events that appear in the Olympics as well (Archery, Rhythmic Gymnastics, Trampoline Gymnastics). I'm also inclined to combine a few events into one. I know Ju-jitsu, Karate, and Kickboxing are fundamentally different things, but at the core it's two people trying to hit each other and that's as much research as I'm willing to do on the subject.

In fact let's get that one out of the way.

The Combo Menu: Combined challenges owing to my own laziness

1. One on One Kombat: (the aforementioned and Muay Tai)

For my last go-round it's a bit boring to select someone obvious like Bruce Wayne who allegedly knows all martial arts. Likewise I don't really want to get any boring old Street Fighter; I need a wild card. For this series of fighting styles I'm recruiting Nathan Drake. Nate's not the most skilled fighter; he can hold his own against street criminals but he's not exactly tournament ready. However he's got two attributes that give him an edge in four different events: he can take a hell of a beating, and he's got an otherworldly luck meter. Nate's luck runs out when he's under a constant barrage but tournaments have a lot of start and stop, allowing him a replenishment. The others don't have that, and I highly doubt any of them are as funny.

2. Wheels on Heels: (Track Speed, Road Speed, and Artistic Roller Skating)

So for this I need someone fast with stamina and a natural sense of grandstanding; the ability to skate is secondary. I need Spike Spiegel. He's obviously got the balance and the adaptability to different terrains, and as much as he smokes I've rarely seen him out of breath. Can he skate? It doesn't matter. Once he finds his footing he can dance his way through any combat situation. Here he only has to appease his own ego.

3. Tumbling Cycle: (Acrobatic, Aerobic, and Parkour Gymnastics)

It's not hard to find someone in Cowbania who can excel at any one of these, but all three together and we need strength, dexterity, charisma, and perhaps a little insanity. Harley Quinn seems obvious, but truthfully she's more likely to bust on every event than actually complete them. I need someone who's going to land on her feet. Get me Bloodrayne. As a dhampir she may be the first successful gymnast to perform entire in six inch heels. We know she can do flips, cartwheels, and pole swinging. She skates on cables and she can land like a cat after falling several stories. Now just take away the armies trying to kill her and let her work it all into a series of routines and you've got a winner. Preferably when it's cloudy.

4. Know Your Roll (Bowling & Boules Sports)

Okay, I don't know what Boules Sports are; I've looked it up and I still can't explain it. Apparently you roll a metal ball and try to get it close to a target, or some shit (I'm guessing it's the downgraded version of Curling). In any case, throwing a ball at a target sounds an awful lot like Bowling, so I'm using the same athlete for both. I think I may have found someone good at rolling things. His nickname is Buddy and he's kind of a cross between Chewbacca and a sasquatch. He's the sidekick of the 1991 Nintendo-hard video game Another World, and while he isn't personally shown rolling grenades all over the place his species demonstrates a knack for it. And if things get hostile, Buddy's got a great set of 16 bit punch sound effects. Wa-tu ba!

5. You Do the Hockey Saki (Floorball and Inline Hockey)

The differences here are skates or no skates and a puck vs a wiffle ball. But when you get past those very noticeable variations it's a team of five (including a goalie) batting something around with bent sticks, and I don't know that I'll be able to find two separate teams of five with that skillset. The best I can come up with (without bingeing a bunch of 2000's Cartoon Network) is Team Mulan, joined by Yao, Ling, Chien-Po, and Shang (who taught them how to destroy vases with sticks). The inline skates may prove to be a challenge but mastering them in a few weeks isn't out of the question.

6. Bouncing off the walls (Racquetball and Squash)

Okay here's the deal. I obviously want contestants who stand a chance at winning their events, but one) I don't want them to be impossible to beat (hence no Superman on Powerlifting) and two) I want Cowbania's participation to be as entertaining as it can be. And that's why I've chosen Mr. Linea as my racqueteer. If that name doesn't ring a bell, he was the central character in a series of Italian cartoons involving a single white line against a (usually) blue background. The animator's hand would trace the line around the outline of Mr. Linea and turn him loose to face whatever the obstacle of the day was. Mr. Linea was exceptionally versatile, instantly mastering whatever activity he encountered for the first time. His demise was often his own doing, but I expect with a clear opponent his focus will be much better.

Teamwork Makes Us Scream Jerk: Team sports for teams, by teams, a direct result of teams

1. Beach Handball

You know how the rest of the world calls soccer football, and the rationale is actually pretty unshakable (you're using your feet)? Well take the same game but throw the cantaloupe-sized ball around with your hands and you've got handball. Or better yet, play basketball in the sand with the hoops four times the size on the ground. A team of four that can throw and catch. Simple. The Flying Karamazov Brothers.  Since I need four exactly, we'll go with the originals: Dmitri, Ivan, Alyosha, and Fyodor.

2. Canoe Polo

So now let's take soccer and put it on a lake and give everybody a double-bladed Nerf lightsaber. The important thing is each team has five players and they need to be able to paddle. Well that gives me a hell of a lot to work with. So a group of five characters with really good arm coordination and don't do much from the waist down. The Electric Mayhem. Now this can go two ways. In-universe, Dr. Teeth, Floyd Pepper, Janice, Zoot, and Animal (and Lips if we need a sub) are all very accomplished musicians, and while being able to play the saxophone doesn't directly translate to rowing skills Muppets are known for versatility. From a fourth wall perspective, Muppeteers can give Oscar-worthy performances with using their hands and I imagine any one of them would mop the floor with the other contestants in an arm wrestling competition.

3. Fistball

I'm learning a lot today. First, take volleyball but keep your fists clenched. And that's it. Real quick, I've just invented a new sport; it's called Bochery! You plant an arrow in the ground and use the drawstring to launch your bow into the air; last archer to lose interest is the winner. So a team of five fistballers. I need a group that can coordinate with each other with strength and accuracy. This took some out of the box thinking but I've settled on Team Johnny Five from Short Circuit. Out of the group of military robots only Number Five is alive, but he reprogrammed One, Two, and Three in mere minutes, and Four can be given instructions of defense. It's a solid team; no disassemble.

4. Flying Disc

Did you know the word Frisbee is trademarked? Anyway. The Flying Disc competition is composed of *checks internet for 23 minutes* seven players. So I need to find a team of seven that's good at throwing things at each other; that should be really fun for me. I think I've got the answer, Team Koopaling. I'm going to have to make a few assumptions about the overall skills of Bowser's children/high ranking minions (depending on the guide book). Larry, Morton, Wendy, Iggy, Roy, Lemmy, and Ludwig tend to split between lobbing projectiles and just pounding through blocks, but I expect they all have at least the ability to catch a saucer. And if this proves to be a massive continuity issue we've got Pom Pom and presumably others to tap in. And each can clearly take two major hits before going down.

5. Korfball

Okay without looking, what do you think Korfball is? Got an image? Good. It's not as cool as that. It's basketball with no touching, and pretty much no moving. A team consists of four men and four women and the additional rule limitations look like they were designed by Milton Bradley. I'm going to take a calculated risk and bring in the core cast of Ranma 1/2; boys and girls respectively: Ranma, Ryoga, Mousse, Kuno, Akana, Ukyou, Shampoo, and Kodachi. Yes, I know they don't get along and there's bound to be internal scheming that I can't do anything about. But they're all martial artists, and begrudgingly obedient to the technicality of the rules. I just expect the court will be demolished by the end of the tournament.

6. Women's Lacrosse

As the World Games only features Men's Lacrosse in the invitational sports I'll only be supplying the team for the Women's version. This is the sport with that weird catcher's glove stick you've seen pictures of but never experienced in gym. Women's Lacrosse differs from Men's Lacrosse in that the only player contact allowed is with the stick, and the team includes a whopping twelve athletes (where in the hell am I going to get this crowd from?). Anime is probably going to be my best bet again, and literally the only team I can think of is the Sailor Senshi; Moon, eight planets (including Pluto, science jerks!), and the Starlights, who qualify post transformation. Damn it, I was saving the senshi for the softball team. *See below. Like right now.

7.  Softball

We all know what softball is, it's baseball with fewer amusing injuries. And I don't see anything jumping out at me on the Wikipedia article that says the team has to be all the same gender, so I'm going to stop looking. So I need a team of nine, a ragtag bunch of misfits with differing skills but capable of overcoming stacked odds. And something I give a damn about, so not Firefly. I'm going to go with the full cast of Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda. In their prime (before Tyr left and Sorbo rediscovered the Bible) this show was great. And they could be just as great on the softball field. Use the first season lineup, throw in Rhade and Doyle to round out the team (I guess, I stopped watching when everybody else did), and go nuts.

8. Tug of War

Look, I'm not trying to be that guy but this really made it into the World Games as its own event? Not like one part of the Summer Camp Triathlon with Blind Man's Bluff and Tetherball? Well, okay. So a team of eight that can drag something heavy. Man, I want to say Santa's reindeer but I feel I need to draw the line at quadrupeds. Well...maybe I'll take one. A donkey named Eeyore. And the rest of the song: Kanga, Roo, Rabbit, Piglet, Owl, cram in Tigger somewhere, and Winnie the Pooh. I know they aren't exactly Fraggle Rock's rescue squad but it's kind of their collective M.O. to all band together in the end to accomplish a large but simple task. And it's a nice life's lesson; when we all pitch in we can make any other country's team go home in defeat.

The Dual of the Fates: Three for two

1. Dancesport

Ballroom dancing is now recognized as a sport, and I have to say I find this exciting. Dance has often been ignored by Olympic-styled competitions, and I really hope to see pole-dancing on the gymnastics roster in the near future. Now I could pick just about any acrobatic couple for this event, and I've actively tried to steer away from superheroes as much as possible (since they're such obvious choices). But here I'm going with Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle, preferably while they still have some antagonism between them. Bruce is stripped away from the Batman guise, but he's still got his athletics and strength, and Selina was made for this, and they're also not afraid to put each other in danger. Their dance would be one hell of a show.

2. Canoe marathon

Two person kayaking for at least six miles. That's it. That's the event. The strategy here is to put the dumb one in the back and give him a carrot to chase. The one in the front is that carrot, who keeps the boat pointed towards the goal. And thusly we have the canoeing team of Red and Wolfie from the censored 1943 classic Red Hot Riding Hood; a cartoon that's managed to become both not a big damn deal to modern audiences and somehow even worse. I'm not making a judgment on the cartoon here, I'm just taking advantage of it for my own benefit. What's more Hollywood than that?

3. Water Skiing

A quick glance at the rundown on this event shows both men's skiing and women's skiing events, and for that I'm calling this a couple's event, as whichever one isn't skiing will invariably be driving the boat. I only have a passing familiarity with Kim Possible but from what I've seen I feel justified in handing this one to her and Ron. Apparently they get in high stakes situations across the globe (and off it), I think waterskiing is something they can handle.

One is the Looniest Number: An extreme case of individualism

1. Air sports

Air sports is a catch-all term for bungee jumping, paragliding, wingsuit flying, anything that involves going from a high place to the ground without dying. I don't know what specifically The World Games has in store for this event, and I don't really feel like looking it up, so I'm just going to pick an athlete who can fall and not die; Chell from the Portal series. Even without the portal gun, she's a master of walking away from a fall. Anything else in the event is just thinking on her feet -or...well...in this case not.

2. Billiards sports

Can we really justify calling this a sport? Yeah, I get that it requires hand-eye coordination, but so does air hockey (and your incisors are taking a much bigger risk). I was hoping for someone a bit more obscure than Link but I think I'm going to settle for him. One, he uses a variety of weapons for a variety of reasons, and precision stick poking is in his arsenal. Two, in billiards (and whatever the hell else qualifies as any of its other sports) you're not in melee combat, which gives him ample use of that red dot his hookshot uses to aim. Three, it's too delightful imagining him screaming "Tey-yah!" as he calls his shots.

3. Finswimming

Like I say, it feels like too much of a cheat to put Ariel in this so let me find somebody land based with a whole lot of leg power. Or I should say a particular kind of leg power; someone good at hopping, since finswimming requires your legs be strapped together. Someone like Q-Bert, but not him since we also need arms. This one was hard, but I'm going to go really old school. Ludwig Schlemmer; bringing the total of competing Ludwigs up to two. Who the hell is that, you ask? Why, none other than Bobby Van's character in the 1953 MGM musical Small Town Girl. Ludwig did the famous 'Jumping Song' less but more accurately known as "Take Me to Broadway", the number where Ludwig jumps across town to the beat of the music. See Peter Wolf's "Come as You Are" music video for a fairly accurate recreation.

4. Lifesaving

This is a variation on swimming but with a focus on some obstacle course elements and an ability to carry a victim. Does that sound like anybody in Cowbania? Why, yes it does! Old DK himself. The bulk of Donkey Kong's gameplay is obstacle course runs, many of which are underwater; and the ape can hold his breath indefinitely. He's also notorious for carrying things; barrels, other Kongs, etc, and if he's anything like his gramps he knows how to ape-handle a human.

5. Orienteering

Orienteering is apparently a race against time where you're dumped off in a random place and have to get your bearings and haul ass across uneven terrain; you know, day one of every University semester. This was an easy one. Aloy, from the Horizon series. Being able to plot a course on a mental map is kind of her whole gameplay, and she can travel through any climate at constant speeds.

6. Powerlifting

It's no fun to call in a legitimate weight lifter. Naturally we need someone who can accomplish the task, but we also need a bit of drama to break up the...let's say predictability of it. My underdog is going to be Donald Duck. Obviously he's going to be way outside his league and he's going to fail several times and get severely hurt, but we all know that the tantrum is going to come. The angrier he gets, the more his adrenaline goes up, and when that gasket finally blows he's got the strength of the Hulk. For a few seconds anyway. For Powerlifting, it's all you need.

7. Sport climbing

I like seeing this one on the list. Rock/wall climbing has always struck me as potentially fun from my lack-of-upper-body-strength distance. I've got a whole mob of characters who can climb but I'm going to go with an unexpected choice. Wile E. Coyote. It's part of his identity to lose, but this only seems to apply when it comes to catching prey. In reality he's a hell of a climber, apparently with a determination to lug all manner of objects heavier than him to higher venues. And if he falls? We know what the scrawny guy can take.

8. Sumo

Last one. I have literally nothing to say about Sumo apart from the mundanely self-evident. You've got to be big, strong, and able to push people around. Bowser. Because he's big, strong, and he pushes people around. And he has the ability to get bigger, stronger, and pushier as the situation calls for it. So, yeah. Anticlimactic ending. How sad.

The Closing Ceremony

And thus we come to a bittersweet farewell. Medals are given, careers are over, and ultimately everyone is a loser since we're playing outside in Alabama in July about a year away from irreversible climate change. Ordinarily the city hosting the event gets to decide who performs at the closing ceremony, but Cowbania doesn't spectate. Well start off with Ulala and Pudding recreating their guitar duel, leading to a brief appearance from Michigan J. Frog's "Michigan Rag". Willy Seltzer the singer of the Outlaw Golf/Tennis intros refocuses the crowd, followed by an appearance from Trip Cyclone (see Shivers 2) with "Was I Even There". GiGi from There is No Game: Wrong Dimension performs her melancholic ballad, and the Chipettes and Chipmunks do a live performance of "The Girls of Rock 'n' Roll". Then The Hex Girls perform a few of their big hits interspersed with "Parade Float" for Daffy Duck to appear inn the audience with his monster truck, and ending on Splashdown's "You Can Always Be Number One" (joined on stage by Goofy). Ulala returns as a bookend to lead the acapella climax of her first game as the conclusion. And finally GLaDOS descends to tell everyone to cram off with "Want You Gone".

Bringing our final roster of Cowbania World Games talent to 105 (83 athletes, *22 musical performers):

Aloy
Team Andromeda (9)
Bloodrayne
Bowser
Bruce Wayne/Selina Kyle (2)
Buddy
Chell

The Chipettes/Chipmunks* (6)

Daffy Duck*
Donald Duck
Donkey Kong
The Electric Mayhem (5)
The Flying Karamazov Brothers (5)

GiGi*

GLaDOS*

Goofy*

The Hex Girls*
Team Hundred Acre Woods (8)
Team Johnny Five (5)
Kim Possible/Ron Stoppable (2)
The Koopalings (7)
Link
Ludwig Schlemmer

Michigan J. Frog*
Mr. Linea
Team Mulan (5)
Nathan Drake

Pudding*
Team Ranma (8)
Red/Wolfie (2)
The Sailor Senshi (12)
Spike Spiegel

Trip Cyclone* (5)

Ulala*
Wile E. Coyote

Willy Seltzer*