I managed to make it through the entire summer without going out more than 2 or 3 times. It’s liberating to stay home I tell you. These days, if something doesn’t involve making money then chances are I’m not interested. I’ve learned enough from past experience to know that every time I get on the track toward major success, I end up getting romantically distracted by a female..BUT no more. If I can manage to avoid all non business related human contact, I will be okay until I die my premature death from some inevitable illness which symptoms of I am mistaking for my own hypochondria. As I was walking down Sunset with an old friend, on our way to peep the scene at H&M in the course of a recent trip to Los Angeles, we waxed nostalgic about our endless struggles with hypochondria. He summed up my thoughts nicely with the statement, “I no longer worry about being cut down in prime…cause I’m already past it.”

So much solitary confinement has led me to a lifestyle that, upon reflection, would be incompatible with the desires and needs of any known or imagined female. I am currently watching Big Trouble in Little China for the 25th time in only 10 days. It brings back great memories of the summer of 1987, when the movie was always playing on HBO, a carefree childhood Phoenician summer, filled with epic Uzi squirt gun battles and forts made out of couch cushions. Those were the days! Will I ever get them back?

I watch the same movies over and over again and never get sick of them. I laugh at the same jokes, look forward to the same scenes and root for things to happen and alternate outcomes which I should by now know are not to be!

Prior to my recent Big Trouble in Little China movie marathon, I watch Vegas Vacation every night for about 6 weeks, alternated with the original National Lampoon’s Vacation. I’ve always enjoyed Vegas Vacation even though it is widely regarded to be one of the worst of the series. Not for me though. It is an inspiring film which features one of my favorite cities, Las Vegas, in all it’s magically tacky glory. It also came out in 1997, which was a prime year for me in which I lived more in the present than almost any other time in my young adult life. Actor Ethan Embry and I are almost exactly the same age. He was born about two weeks before me. Watching the character he portrays in Vegas Vacation is like watching a younger version of myself. He dresses and acts the same as I did in those days and shares many of the same awkward mannerisms. Some have even said he even kinda looks the way I looked at that age(no offense to him.) He and Marisol Nichols in their own way represent what was our time. The film has aged well by the fact that it now appears dated to those of us whom now live in a world which is seemingly unrecognizable. Ethan Embry’s performance in Vegas Vacation offers awkward, savvy, yet underachieving indie teenagers of the 1990’s the opportunity of taking pride in our newly identifiable generation. Nick Papagiorgio for the win.

Now, if any remarkable “youngish” ladies are interested I’m getting ready to embark on a 10-15 day, nightly screening of  “Curse of the Pink Panther,”(which doesn’t even have the late great Peter Sellers in it.) Do I have any takers? Ha! You know the idea appeals to you! Going once…going twice….

*Cue the sounds of crickets chirping*

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Filed under: Uncategorized - @ September 2, 2012 7:37 pm

Tags: 1987, 1997, big trouble in little china, couch cushion forts, ethan embry, h&m, marisol nichols, nick papagiorgio, summer of 1987, summer of 1997, uzi squirt guns, vegas vacation