I was without power for many an hour recently, as a high-gust wind-storm decimated trees and power lines in my region. I didn't have TeeVee, video games, computer, lights, or even heat for a while.... which really reminds you how addicted to these things we are.
Suddenly, I remembered a Skeletor radio from 1986, that still works. It's a small transistor radio, with Skeletor's face on it... and his eyes are speakers that can output various AM and FM stations if you tune the orange wheel to recieve the signal.
You've gotten me through some tough times, Skeletor. You've gotten me through some tough times, Skeletor.
It's hard to sit at night in the dark... with candles and stuff. Your world can quickly become more Edgar Allan Poe-esque or Vincent Pricey than you would ever want it to be. Darkness looming like a wave of human malfeasance all around you. The phantasms and ghastly forms of the next world begin calling out to you... as you are imprisoned in darkness. For all you know, the 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo, are just waiting behind the bathroom door to steal your soul and cast you from the Land of the Living forever and for always.
I ran frantically about the darkness, of my soul and of the house, trying desperately to escape the madness of night. Lo, what is before me? Surely not a Skeletor Radio? It is! Please Skeletor! Tune in to an AM talk radio station and through the speakers in your eyeless eyes deliver me from the darkness of my mind!
AAAAAAAAEEEEEEEEIIIIIIIEEEEEE!
I struggled to find a huge square shaped battery that this 1986 Skeletor Radio required, thankfully there was one. As I turned it on, the voices of talk radio show host Elias Makos brought me back to reality as his voice slowly emerged above the darkness through the eyes of Skeletor. Skeletor's eyeless eyes pierced the darkness and acted as a portal to a world of Light.... where people had power and were calling the Hydro people and asking them when people trapped in the darkness would regain their Light and be delivered from a world of fright.
So thanks you to Skeletor, Elias Makos and the rest of the CJAD talk radio gang, for helping me make it through a rough time where I couldn't watch TV or play video games for a little while.
That Skeletor radio unlocked some memories inside of me as well.... and if you want to follow me into the next section you will enter into the world of 1998... a world of natural disaster and movie theaters.....
Ice Storm 1998
That Skeletor radio reminded me of the last time his services were needed, back in 1998, during the Ice Storm of '98... which was not a joke, at all.
The Ice Storm of '98 was as if Hell literally Froze Over... and it sucked, big time. We woke up one morning to find a city entombed in a prison of Ice. Whole-ass trees....FROZEN. Whole-ass houses.... FROZEN. Whole entire cars.... just FROZEN in ice. Power lines? Forget it.... they froze and broke into millions of pieces like a sub-zero jigsaw puzzle.
It was a legitimate natural disaster, I'm not exaggerating. If you're from the North-East of North America... you probably understand that some winter weather related events can be classified as Natural Disasters.... and Ice Storm '98 was one of those.
According to this source, almost two million people were without power for extended periods of time and 600,000 people left their homes during that time.... mostly to go stay at someone's place who had power... or maybe a shelter.
It was not as bad as say an earthquake or a typhoon... or a more well-known Natural Disaster... but it was in its own way a total Naturally Occurring Disaster.
It was during this time, once again, that Skeletor acted as a portal to the outside world for a small family with no power. The youngest memeber of that family, me, being unable to go to school (YES!) but in an ironic twist.... not being able to watch TV or play video games whilst home from school. At that point, if you don't have to go to school, but cannot play ten hours of straight video games... then what is the point of not going to school, you know?
It was cold too. We had to make fires and pet our pets (Astro the Cat, and Cubby the Dog) to stay warm. My mom even used her super cool looking Fish Candle to get more light. This was the coolest candle I had ever seen and had been in our house for as long as I could remember. It was a burgundy, orange, red, yellow Fish of multi-colored layered wax....that looked cooler than you can picture in your mind right now. It was the coolest fish-candle I'd ever seen.... and we used it to make more light. I miss you, Fish Candle. Wherever you are, I hope you are burning brightly.
We had two transistor radios back then, a cool looking old-school grey one that looked like it fit the part of being an old radio.... and one that didn't fit the image of what an old transistor radio should look like....a radio, you guessed it, that was Skeletor's head and who's eyeless eyes acted as speakers.
Do you know what was on the other side of my Skeletor radio? You'll never guess. You won't. Do you really want to know? Okay, I will tell you.... it was ....
HE-MAN
Yes, the other side of the radio was another head, that of HE-MAN, which is really cool. Yes, the Skeletor (or HE-MAN radio if you prefer to call it), tuned us in to CJAD where Mark Rennie helped many get through the Ice Storm of '98. After looking up this broadcaster it seems he passed in 2006... he was a great man who thanks to Skeletor's eyes helped me through those lonely powerless days. Wherever you are Mark Rennie, I hope you are burning brightly.
Eventually, we gave in and went to my uncle and aunt's house who had power and chilled there with my cousins for a hot minute or two. My dog wasn't used to being in a new environment and I think he peed on their kitchen floor.
Yet, one thing we could not shake from our minds, was my paternal Grandfather, who went by the self-titled moniker of Paw Jack. He was a stubborn old man who didn't want to leave his powerless apartment. So, to get him out of there for a while we told him we'd take him to see a movie and then go eat something. He agreed.
There was a movie theater with power... so we checked the listing in the newspaper... it was January 1998, and the movie we went to I believe had Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt, Greg Kinnear, and Cuba Gooding Jr. in it.... according to research this film was called... "As Good as it Gets."
I want to warn Mr. Nicholson, Mz. Hunt, Mr. Kinnear, and Mr. Gooding Jr.... that the following paragraph(s) of what my Grandfather thought of your film are not kind. He hated your movie so much. He thought it was the worst movie he ever saw.
I think because it was a Natural Disaster, that people in the theater weren't in full-society mode... and because of that the ensuing tirades my Grandfather hurled at the film were taken more leniently. I guess you get a free pass to be grumpy when a Natural Disaster is going on.... but... man, my Grandfather hated this movie soooo much. It was a memory I will never forget.
In 1998, I was probably like what? Like, 15, I guess, 15 years old. I was a shy kid, if you were to ask many people who knew teenage Me.... there's probably many students at my high school who spent five years with me who never heard me talk.... like, teenage Me was shy, and introverted... BIG TIME. What ensued in public, in a movie theater, by a person in my party of people in the theater ... .was something so foreign to me.... so unusual.... like.... the stuff he was saying... and how loud he was saying it.... it was just jaw-droppingly an event I had never seen before.
The things he was saying were so Unique though too.... I still remember some of his lines to this day... one of them was....
"A BABY COULD'VE WROTE A BETTER MOVIE THAN THIS WITH ITS LEFT HAND!"
-Paw Jack
Who says something like that in a movie theater? IMDB says James L. Brooks from the Simpsons wrote this film.... well, James L., I'm sorry to inform you that my Grandfather believed a BABY with its LEFT HAND could write a better screenplay than you did.
Another doozy that he laid on this film... for the whole theater to hear.... was this unique doozy,
Another doozy that he laid on this film... for the whole theater to hear.... was this unique doozy,
"IF I HAD A VIDEO LIBRARY AT MY HOME... I WOULD NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS INCLUDE THIS IN MY VIDEO LIBRARY!!"
-Paw Jack
This is my favorite line, ever. He felt the need to assure you that he's not some geek who has a video library in his home (i.e. walls of VHS tapes)... but in the event that he did have a video library in his home.... he would not let a horrible movie like this be allowed in his collection... because this movie is that Bad.
So, to all involved in the making of "As Good as it Gets" ... I don't necessarily agree with him... but just to have some record of my late Grandfather's opinion of your film as recounted to me in a pretty full movie theater during a Natural Disaster.... for posterity .... so, to all involved in that film, in the case that my Grandfather owned a video library (which he did not).... your film does not meet the criterion to have been included in his non-existent video library.
Oh man, I miss that guy. I'm gonna jot down one more Bonus Paw Jack story which is of a similar vein while we're on this topic....
I went with him to a movie again a few years later... it was the year the first Harry Potter movie was out. Research says this film was out in 2001... so this story takes place in 2001.
My grandfather took me to Harry Potter 1, Harry Potter and the Gimmick of Eastwick, or whatever. Now get this, I didn't want to go.... I didn't know what a Harry Potter was. I was like already 18 in 2001... that's older than the age range for H. Potter....it was Him who wanted to see it very badly.
At first I didn't know why, I thought maybe he read it and liked the book or something.... but on the way there he told me why he wanted to see it. He told me that he read a newspaper article that said the Harry Potter series was getting kids to read books again... and he wanted to see what this gem was that was finally getting kids to open books up again. That was the reason. He had no idea, like me, what the books were about or anything.....and guess what?
....HE HATED IT!
When we got out of the theater he summed up the first Harry Potter film as so....
"WHY WOULD ANY KID WANNA READ THAT GARBAGE FOR!?!?!?!"
-Paw Jack
I don't necessarily agree with him... but for the record... if anyone involved in the making of Harry Potter is interested in knowing my Grandfather's opinion of your literature and films....
Mz. Rowling.... a BABY could probably write a better book with their LEFT HAND! As for the films, if my Grandfather had a video library (which he did not)... he would never put such a sub-par film series as the Harry Potter films in his non-existent video library. That's what my Grandfather thought about the Harry Potter books and films... not that I agree or anything... but it's just nice to have it recorded for posterity.
My Grandfather was from an older time, he was in World War II, and got a grenade exploded near him and shrapnel caught in his gut.... so he had a reason to be a grouchy man. I think these memories are dear to me just because of the sheer unique element of the statements. I've never heard any film critic describe film in such terms. The line about his non-existent video library is to-this-day one of my favorite lines I've ever heard anybody say.
Conclusion
Thank you Skeletor (or HE-MAN depending on what side your facing) for getting me through the Wind Storm of '19 and reminding me about the Ice Storm of '98.
