BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Once upon a time, many, many severals of bunches of years ago, when I was but a “baby author,” I had this bizarre experience. This is not to say that I don’t have bizarre experiences now, because I do. In fact, I have experiences these days that are even more bizarre than they were back then, but hey, we aren’t here to talk about today. We’re here to talk about yesterday. No, not the Beatles song… No, not the Tommy Shaw – Jack Blades song either.

Sheesh… And y’all claim that I’m the one who chases random chickens. Maybe you need to look in a mirror, ya’know?

Anywho, let’s get back to the story… Way back umpteen years ago, I was scheduled to appear at a local Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention. It was called, Name That Con. Yeah, a little weird, especially since folks would submit names for it and a winner would be selected, but they would still called it Name That Con. Not the winning name.  Not any other name. Just Name That Con. I kinda think maybe they should have just called it, This Is The Name Of This Con, or something of that sort… But I digress. Sort of…

You see, being a new kid on the block as authors go, exposure was the thing, and I was out to get myself a big ol’ slice. Unfortunately, I wasn’t doing a very good job of pacing myself. I would arrive early, stay late, and volunteer to fill in on panels wherever needed, all in the name of getting my… well… name, out there to folks. It’s what you’re supposed to do. But, as I said, I wasn’t really pacing myself. These days I’m a lot older, and slightly wiser – but only slightly. I pace myself quite a bit. In fact, when at a convention when I am not at a panel or autograph session where I am scheduled to be, I can usually be found in the hotel bar – Yes… Pacing myself.

So anyway, Saturday afternoon rolled around and there I was, sitting in the lobby next to the registration tables, signing books for all three or four of my adoring fans. Actually, there were a few more than that, but remember, I was new on the scene, so while LKH, who was immediately before me, had a line around the block, I had not quite as many. No worries. I’ve been working to change that, with a modicum of success.

But, anyway, there I was. I had already been going full tilt since Friday afternoon and I wasn’t done yet. As if that wasn’t enough, about an hour or so after my book signing was supposed to end, I was scheduled to be at Union Station downtown (the con was being held at a hotel out in the burbs) in order to be a guest on a paranormal radio show called, Shaowworlds. (Good show… Too bad it’s not around anymore. I was on there a few times actually, but this particular instance was the first.)

And so, the book signing ended, and I milled around the lobby of the hotel for a bit, chit chatting with my publicist/personal assistant Scott (aka Chunkee), who was ferrying me about and making sure I was where I needed to be, when I needed to be, and how I needed to be.

This is when things started to go South. By that I mean I was suddenly approached by Vampirella…

Now, given that this was a Sci-Fi/Fantasy Con, you would probably surmise that I am talking about a long-legged, buxom, raven haired beauty with crimson lips and sharp fangs, who is wearing a skimpy costume. After all, costuming and SF Cons go hand in hand. And, had this been the case, things probably wouldn’t have gone South [it would have (insert your own gratuitous erection inference here)], provided I kept in mind that I was a married man.

However, this was not the case. Not about the married man part.  I mean about the babe in a vampire costume part. You see, the Vampirella in question was none other than a lovely young lady who worked in some capacity or another for the Red Cross. It seems the convention was running a blood drive and they were behind in their goal of 12 Quadrazillion Pints of bodily fluid extraction.

And so, Vampirella cajoled and charmed me into surrendering a pint of the red stuff. I have to say, she was a hell of a salesperson, or, ummm, whatever-person I guess, because she wasn’t even a redhead, nor was she wearing leather and stilettos – therefore I really had no reason to fall for her pitch. However, being younger, less wise, and not pacing myself, I agreed to the exchange – blood for cookies and OJ (In retrospect, that must have been how she roped me into this whole thing.) So, off to the Blood Mobile I went, promising my publicist that I would most certainly be finished in time to make it to the radio station. Why would I make such a promise? Well, because Vampirella told me I would be.

After signing the paperwork, getting poked, prodded, stuck, interviewed, inspected, detected, and otherwise abused by Vampirella’s assistants in the traveling exsanguination chamber, I was directed over to a cot and told to lay down. Soon after that, Vampirella’s chief henchwoman, we’ll call her Hildegard Renfield for lack of a better name, wrapped a bungee cord around my arm fourteen times, slapped me repeatedly, then drove a hollow railroad spike into the same arm, and attached a garden hose to it. As the precious red fluid drained from my person, she began to serenade me with a litany of things I was not allowed to do for the next 12 to 24 hours. Honestly, had she been a redhead I would have thought it was just another day at home with The Evil One, but she wasn’t, so I didn’t.

Still with me on that one? Good, because I almost lost myself there in that last turn…

So anyway, as Hildegard Renfield neared the end of this list, she informed me that I was not to drink any alcohol for at least 12 hours. Now, this might not seem like a big deal to you, but I’m an author. Alcohol and coffee are pretty much what keep me going, and for very good reason. Therefore, I said to her, “Wait. What do you mean no alcohol?”

“No alcoholic beverages,” she replied.

Being the sarcastic ass that I am I said, “Honey. I’m a fiction author. I require alcohol in order to function.”

“Why?” she asked, obviously puzzled.

“To stop the voices in my head so I can get some sleep, that’s why,” I told her.

This didn’t seem to convince her. It didn’t seem to amuse her either. No big surprise, I don’t guess. After all, she’s like some kind of undead assistant to the undead or some such. Although, I don’t remember seeing her eat any bugs, so who knows…

So, I asked, “What’s the deal anyway? Wouldn’t I just get drunk quicker?”

“Yes. Exactly,” she replied.

“Well hell, that’s a good thing,” I announced so everyone could hear. “I can get trashed and it’ll only cost me half as much.”

“But, you can’t do that,” Hildegard replied.

“Why not?”

“You just can’t.”

“Whaddaya mean?” I pressed. “Are the blood police going to come and arrest me or something?”

The lady being exsanguinated across the aisle from me thought this was hilarious. Hildegard, not so much, nor did she have a reply.

Eventually, when I was officially a pint low (although, I still maintain that she took an entire quart), the railroad spike was removed from my arm, I was patched up with an Amazing Spiderman band-aid, and I got 1/16th of an ounce of orange juice along with some cookie crumbs as they booted me out the back door and right smack into my publicist who was standing at the bottom of the fold out  stairs…

Vampirella, however, was nowhere to be seen. Seems she had already crawled back into her coffin.

More to come…

Murv

To Be Continued With: Is This Thing On?

Let me tell you something, Buzz Lightyear ain’t got nothin’ on my childhood.

The year was 1967… The date, December 25th…

I was right at two months shy of being 6 years old and just as important – especially to a wide-eyed child who had a fascination with the space program – the United States was less than two years away from safely landing two men on the Moon then returning them safely to Earth.

Of course, prior to Science Fact establishing a foothold, Science Fiction is what will capture our attentions…

Lost in Space was keeping kids entertained, me included. I even had a puppy love crush on Angela Cartwright who played the part of Penny on the series. Much to my chagrin I suspect my Kindergarten teacher, (Miss Flynn was her name at the time), probably still has an audio recording (on reel-to-reel tape, originally) of me saying, “Penny on Lost in Space is my girlfriend.”

Yeah… for real… Of course, Ms. Cartwright was several years older than me, and had absolutely no clue that I even existed, but hey, that was a minor obstacle to a 5-going-on-6 year old. So there… I preemptively embarrassed myself. Therefore, if I ever run for public office and the tape surfaces, nobody can claim I was suppressing it.

Star Trek, in its original incarnation complete with an overacting William Shatner and stoic Leonard Nimoy, was keeping adult minds occupied with thoughts of space travel and life beyond our solar system. And, some of us kids followed it as well. Although, I will readily admit that I didn’t have a proper appreciation for the women’s Starfleet uniforms until I hit puberty, but we won’t go there…

Instead, let’s get back around to December 1967… Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in particular… You see, even back then the toy industry was on board with current events marketing and media tie-ins. While I often tell my daughter that when I was her age I received a stick, a rock, and a cardboard box for Christmas if I was lucky, the truth is there were a few plastic items under the tree – although, they didn’t begin to harbor the electronics and technology of today. Back then, if “Santa” left you something that ran on batteries, it was considered the high-ticket item of the holiday.

So, 1967… There I was, an almost 6 year old with a crush on a gorgeous older woman “space babe” who happened to be a TV star coupled with an intense fascination with the U. S. Space Program. “Santa” had it pretty easy that year…

The toy of choice for boys (yes, I realize that is sexist, but we are talking about 1967 here so please just suck it up and deal with the fact that our society hadn’t pulled its collective head out of its collective ass just yet… I was only 5. I had no influence on attitudes just yet, not that I do now either)… Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah… The toy of choice for boys that year was an astronaut action figure known as Major Matt Mason. (He was originally introduced in 1966 and gained steam by the following Christmas)… Yeah. WAYYY before Buzz Lightyear came onto the scene…

Click Here For 1966 Major Matt Mason TV Commercial

Major Matt Mason was cool. He was a military astronaut, he was bendable, had a removable helmet to go along with his molded on pressure suit, and he came with bitchin’ accessories like a Jet Pack and Space Sled. The Sled involved flying it around by hand while making your own whooshing noises, however the Jet Pack was another story. You hooked a string to a point above you such as a doorframe, then pulled the string on the bottom of the pack – a whirr of the flywheel gear would ensue, the spiraly decorated spindle in the back would turn, and Matt Mason would zoom upward. Of course, when you released the tension on the string he would plummet back to the ground, but that was just a minor technicality, because on the Moon there would be far less gravity to deal with. Besides, Major Matt Mason was a Major… And an Astronaut.  The perils of space were many, but he was tough and he could take it…

And, those were just the accessories that came with him on the blister card packaging – (therefore, you tended to collect extra Jet Packs and Sleds each time you bought a figure to replace the damaged Major. You see, the wires in his arms and legs didn’t hold up to the friction of bending and unbending for very long… The perils of space he could handle. The perils of being bent into a pretzel by little kids were a different story…) – But, back to other accessories. He even had himself an oddly barrel-shaped suit for excursions on the Moon’s surface, sold separately or even with a figure in the package (after all, those appendage wires would soon be breaking). The corrugated arms of the suit moved by the use of an ultra-high tech mechanism, that being an air bellows. Squeeze – the arms splayed open. Release – the arms folded back toward the shell. See, I told you we didn’t need no stinkin’ batteries…

Well, almost… The Major did have a few powered accessories – the most notable of these being the Space Crawler. A bizarre contraption with offset spoked legs that thumped and wobbled across the floor with him in the driver’s seat. Let me tell you, on hardwood you could definitely hear him coming… The round humps that have little, molded turbine-looking tops were where you put the two D-Cell batteries required to power the motor. One of the really cool things about the Space Crawler is that it was designed so that you could turn it on its side, attach it to the top of the multi-level moon station (something I received from the red-suited elf the following Christmas) and it would spin around like a big radar antenna.

In addition to receiving the Moon Base/Station, I also picked up a few of the Major’s crew, an alien or two, as well as the FireBolt Laser Cannon. After all, if you are the Earth’s first line of defense against alien invasions, you definitely need a Laser Cannon.

Alas, as with most childrens toys, the Major, his crew, and all of their accessories disappeared from my toy box as they broke, fell from favor, or just plain ended up lost. Unfortunate, because they were discontinued in the early 70’s and are now a toy collector’s dream, garnering some serious cash.

And so, what has made me relive this here for you now? Well, obviously Christmas Eve is tomorrow. I’m Forty-Odd years older than that kid who played with a bendy astronaut doll and had a crush on Angela Cartwright, but even after all this time I remember Major Matt Mason, and the fact that it was one of my favorite toys of all time.

I understand that Tom Hanks is currently developing a film based on the toy. Given how close he and I are in age, it wouldn’t surprise me if he had a Major Matt Mason too.

You know, of course, it will be a moral imperative that I go see this movie if it ever comes to fruition…

And, lest you think I only dreamed this childhood memory…

Christmas Eve… After the fat elf visited. I was down the hall in my room, of course, fast asleep…

A little closer look at what the dude in the red suit left under the tree…

Yes, that’s me on Christmas Morning…

No, I’m not pulling his head off. Just his helmet…

And what of my crush? What of Angela Cartwright / Penny Robinson and Lost in Space? Well, as you can see in the first Black & White picture, 1966 was a good year Space Toys. I was able to defend our home against alien invasion with an official Lost in Space laser rifle (that broke down into three laser pistols)… And, those spinning things it shot off the end? Hurt like hell. True story…

More to come…

Murv

(Color images of Major Matt Mason toys and accessories borrowed from various nostalgia and antique toy sites around the web. Black and white photos from the Sellars family photo archive.)