Riding in Cars with Death

I had a great idea for a post a short while back-- let's take a look at the contents of my car's glove compartment!

That sounds terrible, I know, but trust me when I say that there are no gloves inside. There are no travel-packs of Kleenex or half a tube of Lifesavers or anything boring like that. Nope, no sir. You best believe that I only keep the coolest of items on-hand and available when I go out driving. The necessities of life for a self-proclaimed, pop-cultural anthropologist or The Clown Prince of Pop Culture.

Those are both stupid things that I referred to myself as during high school, which is one of the many, many reasons I didn't have any friends in high school. Why I've never had any friends ever.

Another reason is pictured directly below.

Yes, those are the contents of my glove compartment. It probably reminds you of the type of stuff a young kid would be keeping in a shoe-box or maybe tucked away in one of the drawers of their desk. Actually, are desks like a normal thing that kids have in their bedrooms growing up? I had one when I was younger, and I kept all sorts of different things in each drawer; one held trading cards, another was filled with small, plastic mini-figures of all varieties. I even recall sticking some Super Mario and TMNT stickers on yet another and using it to store all my NES games.

Anyway, let's make like Degeneration X and break it down.

It being my glove compartment, because that's what this post is about?

Bob-omb is quite possibly my favorite video game "character" of all-time. That sounds like a bold statement, and it is, but I am an absolute sucker for anything related to Super Mario Bros. 2, and he's one of the few elements from that game that has carried forward into nearly all the subsequent Super Mario titles. Otherwise, I'd go with Mouser as my favorite, because he's a villainous rodent who wears sunglasses. He deserves more respect, mostly because he can hurl bombs at you, but also because he's comfortable enough with his masculinity to wear both pink gloves -and- sneakers.

Mouser is better than you.

Getting back on track, I should mention that this particular representation of Bob-omb once housed a powdery candy not entirely unlike Pixy Stix. I can't swear that the taste is reminiscent of, since I never tried it. Bob-omb only interested me in that he was a toy and not the sweets that hid within his explosive and adorable frame.

You blockhead..!

Yeah, here's Blockhead "G" on the lookout for either his better half, Blockhead "J", or his nemesis, Gumby. This little guy spent years hiding in my friend's basement, causing all sorts of mischief, I'm sure, but found himself an occupant of my infamous glove compartment a few years back. He's been hanging out there ever since, always keeping his eyes peeled for that green clump of clay that he calls "enemy".

There's not much to say here. They're sporks. I keep a couple dozen sporks in my car for reasons I'm not entirely sure of. If I really had to think about it, it probably stems from a dumb inside-joke that I had with a few of those non-existent friends in high school. These particular ones came from a Taco Bell, which means they've been sitting in my car for probably something like eight years, because I don't remember the last time I had Taco Bell.

I have no plans to rectify that. I'd apologize to the "Yo quiero Taco Bell" chihuahua, but I'm sure he's been dead since 2002.

No, sorry, Wikipedia claims that the dog was actually a girl and that she was euthanized in 2009. And she played "Bruiser's mom" in Legally Blonde 2 (2003), which my sister was watching yesterday when I got home from work.

God, I hate my life.

Klatuu barada nikto.

This is one of the few vintage Star Wars action figures that I own. Nikto is his alien-race, not his name, and I picked him up as part of an old Jabba's Dungeon play-set. I honestly don't recall how he ended up in my car, while his two play-set playmates, Klaatu and 8D8, didn't. He's probably the luckiest of the trio, though, because he's the only one still in my possession.

Or does that make him the unluckiest?

I made the joke before that this is the closest I will ever get to looking like Chris Evans, but man, it's just so very true. The Captain America finger puppet came from a vending machine, and probably cost me fifty-cents. The Chris Evans jab was technically free, but sorta' cost me all my dignity and any self-esteem I had left.

 
Ah, the real reason this post exists staring you right in the face. Death is always staring us right in the face, but this little guy is not meant as a constant reminder to me. I don't need a physical representation to let me know about my own mortality; I spent way too much of my teens thinking about death and other sad stuff. The grim reaper rides with me in my Toyota Corolla as something of a charm.

I am not particularly superstitious. I don't believe in much. Sure, occasionally I'll wonder if there's an afterlife or a ghost hovering behind me in a dark, unfamiliar room. I'll pretend that a penny from 1987 will be luckier for me than one from 1976, because I wasn't alive for the latter and the former was a good year for me as a kid. Really, though, I have a severe lack of faith. Darth Vader would be most disturbed.

This wind-up Death was an impulse buy from a party supply store several Halloweens back. That's all that he was meant to be. When I got home and started to get out of my vehicle, I realized I didn't feel comfortable taking him inside with me. He had to stay in my car. There was absolutely no rational explanation to why I felt this way. It was just this sudden idea that I'd be safer with Death riding with me all the time. Taking him out would be jinxing myself. Without him there, I'd end up getting into an accident, right?

I never intend to find out.

Death will stay in my car until I get the next one and the next one and the next one. He will ride shotgun forever and ever and ever.

A few months back, I even bought him a friend.

Death and Comic Books: What If... #25 (May, 1991)

I've owned this comic longer than most others in my collection and I honestly can't recall how it came into my possession. It's not one that I picked up off the rack, so I can only assume that it was acquired through a trade with one of my childhood friends. And unlike a majority of my comic collection, this particular issue has seen a lot of wear and tear. The spine is noticeably cracked. The pages yellowed and torn from being handled over and over again. I must have read and reread this single issue dozens of times and despite having not looked at it in years, I remember so many moments from it vividly.

Of course, it was probably all the carnage and death and destruction that traumatized me as a kid.

Those unfamiliar with Marvel's What If... series can probably grasp the core concept just by looking at the covers. Each issue took a key moment in the history of the Marvel Universe and re-imagined it occurring with different results. What if the Uncle Ben hadn't been murdered? What if Captain America had never joined the Avengers? These alternate tales featured major characters changed in some way, sometimes drastically and sometimes not, and almost always ended badly. Issue number 25, which rewrites the crossover event, Atlantis Attacks, ends very badly for the entire cast of Marvel characters.

Let's take a look at some of the more gruesome and dramatic demises and please remember that I first read this when I was nine-years old.

Magic Ticket My Ass, McBain: Some Quick Thoughts on Last Action Hero (1993)

I haven't seen Last Action Hero since it was first released on VHS back in the early '90s. I was about 11 or 12 years old at the time and I absolutely loved it. Of course, having just finished watching it for the second time in my life [and again on VHS, thanks to a 99-cent purchase at my local thrift shop], I realize that I loved it for all the wrong reasons.

There is so much insanity on the screen[s] and so many references and obscure links to mention, I'm not entirely sure how to handle the different threads plucking away in my head. I'm just gonna dive in and you're all gonna have to bare with me, because this is gonna get messy.

-- The cast is absolutely overwhelming in how many character actors and genre-favorites make appearances. I'm not talking about the main cast, although there are quite a few odd inclusions there, like Art Carney and Anthony Quinn. I mean the random cameos like Tina Turner as the Mayor in the fictional film, Jack Slater III, or Angie Everhart as the too-attractive video store clerk. An uncredited Al Leong [god, yes, Al Leong] getting killed by a stray ice cream cone. Rick Ducommun, who I love best in The 'Burbs and his brief appearances in both Groundhog Day and Gremlins II, as Tom Noonan's agent.

Tom Noonan!

You have Danny DeVito as the voice of Whiskers the Cartoon Cat, very quick cameos by Chevy Chase and Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Robert Patrick reprising his role as the T-1000 yet again.

There is so much that I missed or just didn't understand when I was a kid; especially Sir Ian McKellan appearing as Death. He didn't just show up as a generic representation of the grim reaper, but specifically as the personification from Ingmar Bergman's classic, The Seventh Seal. Some might mislead you and mention this particular role in passing, but make no mistake, Death plays a pivotal role in the closing scenes of Last Action Hero.

-- I honestly forgot about the entire final act of the film. Yes, it's been nearly twenty years since I saw it last, but I remember the first hour or so vividly, and it's surprising that I had forgotten pretty much everything leading into the end credits. I vaguely recalled a rooftop showdown with Benedict [played so perfectly evil by Charles Dance], the specific mention of both King Kong and Freddy Krueger, but not the entire plot of entering the real world and attempting to kill Arnold Schwarzenegger to prevent any future installments of the Jack Slater series. I definitely don't remember Jack meeting the man who portrayed him and telling him that he doesn't really like him and that he's brought him nothing but pain, which is now one of my favorite small moments in the movie.

-- The scenes when Jack and his nemesis Benedict first enter Danny's world, the "real" world compared to their fictitious existences, are easily my favorites. Jack Slater being forced to realize that he's just a man, not impervious to pain and no longer infallible, hearing classical music for the first time and enjoying it. And his arch-enemy suddenly in a world where "the bad guys can win". They can't, of course, because it's a movie outside of a movie, and while the fictional baddie thinks that he's escaped, well, he really hasn't. It's an absolutely bizarre, sorta' heady concept that I didn't quite pick up on as a pre-teen, but wish I had.

-- Last Action Hero is far from a great film, but it's certainly enjoyable and has a few brilliant moments to its credit. This is hardly surprising considering it was written [sorta'] by Shane Black, who also wrote Lethal Weapon, The Monster Squad [more Tom Noonan!], and most recently, directed Iron Man 3. Plus, director John McTiernan kinda' made a name for himself in the same action genre he was satirizing with this movie, having brought Die Hard and Predator to the silver-screen in the decade prior.