Glenn Vance – On Your Left

On almost every single episode of Blue’s Clues the human character (either Joe or Steve, or in the UK, Kevin) and the dog Blue “skidoo” somewhere, which is an amazingly simple form of teleporting (transporting oneself from one place to another instantly), whether onto the surface of a globe or into the image on a picture or a computer game or into a diorama, but it always involves our human protagonist and Blue being transported to somewhere else that moments ago they weren’t. It seems that other characters on the show can also skidoo, like Mr. Salt when he needs to go to the grocery store.

And skidooing is an important plot point to the show, because while on their skidoo adventures the characters learn things and get to play and also may find a Blue’s Clue, which is  great and all, but you wanna know who else could really use skidooing, especially in these trying economic times?

The military. Could totally help them out.

On top of all of the budget cutting that could be done, getting rid of transport planes/ships that are no longer required, there’s the instantaneous benefits of such a power. Does the president need to insert a highly skilled team of Navy SEALs into Tehran RIGHT NOW to take out Mahmoud Ahmadinejad before he does something else crazy? Done! Does South Korea want to finally finish the Korean War once and for all and skidoo into Pyongyang and take on the entire populace of North Korea before they can completely mobilize? It’s doable. Anything could be doable, as long as we have a picture of where we need to put our military and our boys could remember those easy to recite words – “Blue skidoo, we can to.” Maybe end it with a “Sir, yes sir,” too.

If Robert Oppenheimer had been working on a secret skidoo project instead of the Manhattan Project our boys could have ended WWII early and gotten to Berlin even before the Russian army was thinking about moving westward from Stalingrad and we never would have had to invade North Africa or Italy or obliterate the Atlantic Wall. And LBJ could have won the Vietnam War, probably, if we’d been able to skidoo into Hanoi and convince Ho Chi Minh that we really did want him to be in favor of democracy. He (LBJ)  might even have decided to run for reelection and change the course of history.

The major drawback is that our people need a picture on the other end of the skidoo to return the same way. If they lose that picture…well, Mr. Secretary of Defense, order a new transport, since we got rid of them after the budget cuts allowed through skidooing. Enjoy hitchhiking home, soldiers!

But we could get rid of Air Force One, also, just keep that little blue dog with the President whenever he goes on the road.

I think Blue would have to remain non-partisan though. Can’t be favoring one political party over another. He’d also have to have a code name.

Anyway, just an idea. A completely cool idea, but just an idea.

I love ‘Lost’. This cur­rent sea­son is so great I would marry it if I wasn’t already married.

But I’ve noticed that ‘Lost’, which is prob­a­bly one of the best shows cur­rently on tele­vi­sion, keeps doing this stu­pid stu­pid dia­logue con­ven­tion over and over and over until you could make a drink­ing game out of it. Maybe you haven’t noticed it, but that’s my job, to notice the mun­dane and pointless.

It goes like this — two peo­ple are going some­where on the island, doesn’t mat­ter where, but they are alone, walk­ing, or eat­ing some­thing, or lis­ten­ing to a record, and one of them will sud­denly say a seem­ing non sequitor, the other will be con­fused, reply, “What?” or some­thing like that, and the other per­son will explain. In an episode a cou­ple of weeks ago they did it not once but three times in one episode. Like I said, you could have a drink­ing game.

So this is the way I would write it if I were writ­ing the show –

Locke and Sawyer are trudg­ing through the jun­gle, not a care in the world about Oth­ers or Smokey or Chris­t­ian pop­ping out or any­thing, just trudg­ing through the jun­gle. They haven’t spo­ken in some time.

LOCKE — “Five.“
SAWYER — Looks around con­fused, focus­ing on LOCKE. “What’d you say?“
LOCKE — “Five. I said five, James.“
SAWYER — Still con­fused. “…Five what?“
LOCKE — Now con­fused too. “…Uh…you know, about what you said ear­lier. There are five. Five.“
SAWYER — Now look­ing peeved. “I have no idea what you’re talk­ing about.“
LOCKE — Spread­ing his hands, ever the teacher. “About…2 hours ago we were talk­ing about…you know, that thing we were talking…about.“
SAWYER — “John, I have no idea what you’re talk­ing about. I don’t know what “five” means.“
LOCKE — Now very con­fused. “You don’t?“
SAWYER — “…No.“
There is a long silence as Locke looks at Sawyer. He is very con­fused now, to say the least, and try­ing to fig­ure out what “five” refers to.
LOCKE — “Hmm…I don’t know what “five” means either.“
Sawyer smirks. “Nice one.” He begins trudg­ing again.
Locke stands in the jun­gle, then fol­lows Sawyer. “I’ll think of what it means in a minute!“
SAWYER — “Sure you will, Sherlock.”

He heads off into the jun­gle. Locke quizzi­cally follows.

It would be funny. And then maybe the ‘Lost’ writ­ers wouldn’t do it anymore.

My old­est son loves him some Curi­ous George. The books, the show (on PBS) and even the toys, but he wouldn’t buy one of those toys because it’s not a super­hero or a Planet Hero, but if those didn’t exist he prob­a­bly would buy some Curi­ous George toys.

He and I read Curi­ous George books prob­a­bly twice a week thanks to the library. Curi­ous George Goes to a Restau­rant. Curi­ous George Plays Base­ball. Curi­ous George Flies a Kite. Curi­ous George is Bored. Things like that. You know the drill.

And no one in this coun­try or world would know about Curi­ous George if it wasn’t for his ubiq­ui­tous friend, the Man With the Yel­low Hat (MYWH for those in the know). He has no name, no his­tory, he just exists as the Man With the Yel­low Hat. We do know a few things about him though. He is an explorer, as we know from the first Curi­ous George book. He also appears to be wealthy, hav­ing an apart­ment in “the city” and a house in “the coun­try” and because if this he is a man of leisure. There are no real world loca­tions in Curi­ous George, but one can assume that given the his­tory of his cre­ators, the hus­band and wife team of H.A. and Mar­gret Rey, who fled Nazi Ger­many to even­tu­ally live in New York City, that New York is “the city”, but I’m com­pletely and totally get­ting off topic.

The Man With the Yel­low Hat is ALWAYS wear­ing yel­low. He never wears blue. He never wears red. He never wears black. Only yel­low. And it can only be yel­low or else part of his per­sona and psy­che is gone, like a war vet­eran who lost a limb that can still feel it itch­ing when he gets back to “the world”. This weird char­ac­ter trait would make it dif­fi­cult for a nor­mal per­son to shop for clothes, but he does live in “the city”, so he prob­a­bly gets his clothes tailor-made at some hab­er­dasher, being a wealthy gen­tle­men and all.

And for the love of all that is holy, don’t lose his hat. Few things are worse than this sce­nario. As he said in one of the episodes of the Curi­ous George show, which I watch with my old­est, “With­out my hat, I’m just not…me.” No kid­ding, Man With the Yel­low Hat. Then you’re just “The Man”. A generic plot point in a children’s book. He. Is. Nothing.

The Man With the Yel­low Hat also seems strange just for the fact that he’s a strap­ping young guy in a city full of avail­able ogling females who lives with a mon­key. Not that there’s any­thing wrong with that! And he’s always leav­ing George by him­self, say­ing things like, “Now I’ve got to con­ve­niently go over here. Don’t get into trou­ble!” What does this moron think is going to hap­pen, George is going to just sit there? Every­body in the books calls the mon­key CURIOUS George. There is no “Mild-Mannered George” or “Dullard George”.

But all in all the Man With the Yel­low Hat seems to live a pretty cool life. He’s an explorer, he dri­ves a con­vert­ible, he flies a plane, he has a pet mon­key. My old­est would kill for that life.

Dear Colonel Tigh,
Saul, we’ve known each other a long time at this point, you and I. I’ve been watch­ing you intently for three and a half years as you’ve wres­tled with the Ambrosia-drinkin’ and put-a-gun-to-your-head demons in your mind and you’ve failed more often than I know you’ve wanted to, but I’ll come right out and say it, Saul — you’ve always been my favorite on “Bat­tlestar Galac­tica”. Oth­ers may think that Adama is king or Star­buck is the coolest or Lee is too pretty for words and he gets all the lucky breaks, but for me it’s you, Saul. It’s your craggy ways, your hard livin’, hard drinkin’, always ready for a fight lifestyle, your eye patch, your abil­ity to sum up every sit­u­a­tion by curs­ing. For frak’s sake, you killed your own wife for col­lab­o­rat­ing with the enemy! You loved her and you poi­soned her and held her while she died! Yes, you did cry after­ward rather than drink and curse, but you killed some­one you loved! Do you think Roslin would, could ever do that? No. It’s one of the things that I love about you that just makes you, you.

After that first Cylon war years ago you were drift­ing, floun­der­ing here and there, drink­ing, get­ting into fights, until that one bar where you met Bill Adama and the two of you pledged to each other that no mat­ter what hap­pened the two of you were going to get back into the fleet. And you did. That took guts and guts you have, my brother.

You were crafted by war, Saul, and war needed you. When the Galac­tica had been hit by nuclear mis­siles dur­ing the ini­tial vol­leys of the Cylon War II, you had the hulls sealed off and then the air­locks opened to put out a fire that was threat­en­ing to take out the entire ship. In the process you shot many liv­ing peo­ple into space, but you saved the ship. You killed your crew­men but you did it for the greater good and it was a shin­ing moment in your dented and scarred career. Who else would have had the stones to do that? Few men, I tell you.

And when the war came again you found your place. You hated Cylons with a white-hot Tilium-burning pas­sion and that hate has got­ten you this far, but now you’ve come to a HUGE cross­road, my friend — you’ve dis­cov­ered, along with three other peo­ple on board the Galac­tica, that you’re Cylons. You’re part of the fabled Final Five which makes you spe­cial, very spe­cial. Sud­denly your life has tremen­dous mean­ing — you’re now more than just a man, you’re a sym­bol to some, a god to oth­ers. You’ve been killing Cylons for fifty years, from the first rebel­lion to the holo­caust of the human race to New Caprica, and now you find out you’re a Cylon? You your­self are one of the enemy? Well, that’s almost too much for an ordi­nary man to bear.

But damnit Saul, you’re no ordi­nary man! You’re Saul Tigh, the most rip-snortin’, butt-kickin’ Colonel, XO and one-time dic­ta­tor in the entire human race! Man up, son! Get your­self together!

Oh sure, it was soul cleans­ing when you told Adama that you were a Cylon. But what did you think he was going to do, kill you? Would that have made every­thing bet­ter? That would be too good, too easy for you. He handed you over to his son who almost killed you, but Bill never could kill his best friend. You think The Old Man could really have done that to some­one he loves almost as much as his own son? Never. I even had in my mind the way I thought you would go on the show but as the mid­point of sea­son four showed us it won’t hap­pen. Here it is though for you –

Adama knows you’re a Cylon. He’s in a rage, hold­ing you up against the bulk­head and has a gun to your chest.

ADAMA : You want abso­lu­tion, Saul?! What the frak did you think I was going to do? Kill you so you wouldn’t have to?

TIGH : No Bill. I couldn’t let you do that. It wouldn’t be right.

And then you shoot your­self in the head and as your body falls to the floor of the air­lock Bill bursts into tears as his best friend dies in his arms and he weeps over you because he knows that part of his soul is now gone and can never come back no mat­ter how many model ships or mir­rors he destroys.

It would have been an amaz­ing way for you to go and it would have sucker punched me in the stom­ach to watch you die. But you’re not dead yet, Saul. You have to keep going. The race isn’t over yet, brother. You said it your­self : you’re Saul Tigh, XO of the Bat­tlestar Galac­tica, and what­ever you were then, that’s the way you’re going to be until the day you die. That’s quite a mantra to live by Saul, given what’s hap­pened to you.

Toughen up, Saul. The worst may be yet to come. Good luck and gods’ speed, friend.