I remember the first time I saw MST3K on what was then known as The Comedy Channel back in 1989.
Though I was initially puzzled, I soon found myself laughing and became a near-instant fan.
For all of the time I was in college I lived in an area that did not offer the fledgling Comedy Central on its cable line-up, so I only got to see MST3K on visits home.
I had a definite preference for Joel over Mike, though I never really had a problem with Mike. It’s just that Joel was somehow…better.
I very seldom watched the show after it made the move to Sci-Fi Channel.
So clearly I wasn’t what you would call a die-hard fan of the show, even though, for the most part, I liked it a lot.
In any case, it’s never been my nature, no matter how much I like something, to become actively involved in fandom. I’ve never been to a comic book convention, for example, even though my love of comics has been nearly lifelong.
Why is that? I suppose it’s because being active in fandom generally means engaging in group activities, and it’s just a function of my solitary nature that I have a strong resistance to becoming a “joiner.”
The point I’m trying to get at is that back MST3K had – and probably still has, to some extent – a very strong and loyal fanbase that, like the fans in any sort of fandom, got together for various events designed to allow them to spend time with like-minded people.
When I worked at a college years ago I knew someone who was actively involved in MST3K fandom.
She was an odd, but cute, but married, girl who had a tendency to just randomly spit out non sequiturs in a way that was both puzzling and charming.
Working in Public Relations, I had several strengths – my writing and design skills and my ability to work pretty quickly – and many more weaknesses, one of which was that I sucked ass at photography.
There came a day when the Admissions office had hired a new Admissions Counselor, a recent graduate from my alma mater, who, it so happened, numbered photography as one of her hobbies. My boss suggested that I might get to know her, as she could possibly provide some tips, and maybe in fill in for me in a pinch.
She also had a strong interest in graphic design and desktop publishing, and if I could teach her some of my skills in that area, it was possible that, again, in a pinch, she might be able to help out.
Considering that the entire PR staff consisted of me, myself, and I, with no budget for any other employees, having a sort of off the books assistant would have been extremely useful.
And who knows, maybe my boss was eyeing her as a potential replacement for me.
Anyway, one morning on which I was a little less hungover than usual – being a roaring drunk was, like sucking at photography, something that fell into the several weaknesses column – I walked over to the Admissions office to introduce myself.
I was pleased to find that she was cute – I already knew that she was young from her résumé, which I had used to write up a press release about her being hired on – and annoyed to find that she was married.
(That she was young was unusual. At the time, I was 26, which put me one year above the median age of employees there. At one point I was the youngest employee.)
Still, we seemed to hit it off pretty well, and there were a couple of times that we worked together, and a couple during which we encountered each other outside of work.
During those times I learned about her involvement in MST3K fandom, which included making regular trips to Minneapolis for tapings of the show.
The more I got to know her, the more I wished that she weren’t married, particularly given that I think she liked me. I mean, liked me liked me.
How could I tell? Well, normally I can’t, particularly because I’m usually certain that such a thing can’t happen.
But with her it was a lot of little things, like the fact that she would actually seek out my company. I mean, who does that? Some of my best friends in the world do their best to avoid me.
Then there was the fact that she was clearly flustered whenever she was in my presence. Whenever she saw me, initially, she would blush.
I remember one occasion in particular when she turned absolutely beet-red.
I was talking to my boss in his office, which was across the hall from mine. He had a meeting scheduled with the girl in question an another Admissions Counselor, and they were on their way in as I was on my way out.
I said hello to the one, while the other, the girl in question, whom we’ll call Amy, as that was her name, was busy slyly peering into my office. When she saw that I wasn’t in there, she turned to go to my boss’s office and nearly bumped right into me as I casually said, “Hello.”
If it had been in her power to do so, she would have turned invisible at that point.
I’ve never seen anyone turn so red so fast.
Sure, surprise might have had something to do with it, but I think that she was mostly embarrassed that I caught her trying to catch a secret glimpse of me.
I also think that it was this flustering effect that I had on her that led her to say the random crazy shit that she was so wont to say.
For example, one day while she was in my office helping me work on this publication I was putting together for Admissions, she suddenly blurted out, apropos of nothing, “If you’re looking for something to do on weekends you could volunteer to be a Big Brother.”
Though nonplussed by this out-of-nowhere suggestion as to what I should do with my drinking time, I acknowledged that, yes, it was true; I could do that.
However, I noted that I really wasn’t looking for anything to do on weekends (though I did not point out that we had not been talking about anything even remotely related to that), and if were to spend time with kids who aren’t mine – which are the only kind of kids there are in the world – I would probably do so with my nieces and nephew (neither Todd nor Jacob existed at this time).
Of course, it’s easily possible that I misread the whole thing and that she was just a scatter-brained ditz who would have seemed flustered regardless of my presence or lack thereof, but I like to think that there was some underlying attraction there.
I like to think that, but that does not, of course, mean it was true.
Anyway, to depart from this trip down memory lane, I present to you the latest installment in my continuing adventures to draw the random crazy shit that pops into my imagination. I blinked the other night while watching TV, and in the squiggly after-image of the television light, I saw something very much like this:
I call it “Summer’s Forgotten Promise.”
Make of it what you will.
Beyond working on this picture I didn’t do too much today, other than talking to my mother and meeting Scott at the comic shop. He manages to get off work at 3, so we’re planning on making it a regular feature to meet at the shop on new comics day.
I bought a couple of longboxes and some boards and bags. I think I’ll begin the daunting task of putting the boxes together. Pray for me.
(Seriously, it’s a major hassle)
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