A.G.E's Joint

 "Daddy?" "Yes, Sweetheart." "Is there life on Mars?" "I don't know." "How about Venus: "Not a clue." "What about The Big Dipper?" "I have no idea, but I hear Mom calling curfew." "I don't wanna!" "I'll tell her that." "Oh, O.K."

I have to admit it. I like bad movies. I mean REALLY bad movies. The kind they show on Elvira and Mystery Science Theater 3000. Movies with plots so ridiculous and with cheesy, bad effects you can only laugh out loud at their absurdity.    I was cruising around YouTube looking at clips about living off the grid and in converted vans when a movie came up: I clicked on it, thinking it was the normal 1 to 5 minute clip, and realized it was a full 100 minute movie. I didn’t have anything better to do, so, I watched.   A quick synopsis: a ship (looking suspiciously like the SS Enterprise) with a crew of three scantily clad, incompetent women is lost in space and chooses to land for repairs in a remote corner of an English park. The landing is witnessed by an uptight Couple (Oliver and Prudence), a Swinging Single (Cliff) and a Wimpy Nerd (Willy), who go to investigate. They are lured on board and the fun and games begin.   The movie is from 1979 and...

It was an unusually warm Christmas Eve at my Uncle Archie's house.  My family had driven to Savannah from Orlando with a car load of "Santa" gifts. I was 10, and had pretty much figured Santa for a ruse, but I really didn't want to let go of the fantasy.  It took away from my parents fighting again and my Dad had lost his job.  There wasn't a partridge in the pear tree for us, just ravens in the live oaks along the dock. The launch of Apollo 8 was on the morning we left, so we delayed our start to see it. The cartoons that touted and mocked the inventions of the future were about to come true.  All the scoffing about lunar travel and it’s impossibility silenced for all time.   Our house was 40 miles west of the launch pad and the schoolyard at the end of the street made viewing launches easy. We could see the glint off the fantastical machine as the craft vectored away from shore.  When the dot made 15 degrees over t...