Movies, Super Powers, and Red Towels

Every year at this time, this same cycle begins anew. My inner geek begins to arise. It's not my fault that it begins. It's simply because of the yearly cycle that begins about the 1st week of May through the end of summer. It's the summer movie season. I'll end up seeing one or two movies a week.

This in of itself is not a bad thing. The problem is that my taste in movies gets so twisted up. For instance, I will decry the travesty that is From Justin To Kelly or Gigli, yet I was there for the opening weekend of Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle. Aside from the stoner comedies, the movies that inevitably get me geeked up are the comic book movies. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm one of those guys. I don't collect comics anymore, but I do love the movies and the artwork. I still go to my local bookstores and peruse the graphic novels and comics. Batman and the X-Men are still my faves, but I still love all comics pretty much. I even considered going to art school for a while after I got out of the Army so that one day I might be able to draw the X-Men in the way I thought they should be drawn.

As a kid, I wanted to be a superhero more than anything in the world. I would pray every night that God might give me some sort of superpowers with which I could defend the world and be a hero to all. I would pray so hard, I'd swear that I was being endowed with those powers. I'd tell my mom things like "I could fly if you'd make me a cape" or "I can see that (insert random object here) with my super vision" (of course, I was probably making up something, but I'm sure at the time I was convinced). God bless mom because she never dissuaded me. However, I kept bugging her and one day in a last bid attempt to finish laundry, she took a long red bath towel, wrapped it around my neck secured with a safety pin. Voila ... instant cape. Evil doers beware!!!!!

Now mind you, I was about 4 or 5 at this time and I just knew I could fly. After all, I had prayed enough and didn't God give you what you prayed for? So I knew my praying wouldn't be in vain. So I start running around the house with my arms outstretched in front of me. Strange ... I haven't come up off the ground yet. Maybe I'm not running fast enough? So I doubled my speed and yet nothing. Now I was completely floored. So I decide "Well, maybe I just need a nudge to get started." So I go into the bathroom and decide that I'll stand on the toilet, jump off, and I'll have to start flying. After all, the toilet is as good a place as any to embark on my crime fighting career and I've got a red cape/towel. How could I fail??? So I launch myself and well, you know .... gravity is a bitch. I ended catching my forehead on the corner edge of the bathroom counter across from the toilet. Mom hears a thud and I imagine I was screaming bloody murder. However, my super power of selective memory has since blocked out that memory, although the scar over my left eyebrow tells me differently.

So I learned a lesson from that: the red towel wasn't working. I remember that I thought that the towel mom gave me was a bit too worn out or something and of course, that is why I didn't fly. Naturally, experience sets in and you figure things out. But for a moment there, no matter how fleeting that moment was, I was flying. Damnit, I really was. And I've got the scar to prove it!!