Ethnic Avenue – The Street That Crosses All the Others

Posts Tagged ‘Sci-fi’

I’m not a big sci-fi fan, but there’s a famous episode of the original Star Trek series from the 60s called “The Man Trap” that speaks to me. In it, the members of the crew land on a desolate planet and encounter a beautiful woman living there alone. Strangely, she looks different to each of the male characters. To Captain Kirk, the creature’s a young blond girl. To another guy: an older, sophisticated brunette. But in reality, the beautiful woman is nothing more than a “Salt Vampire,” a shape-changing creature that tricks men so it can extract the salt out of their bodies–its principal source of nourishment.

How do I look?

At some point or another, everybody has known a Salt Monster–a girl who, despite not outwardly displaying a single one of the traditional indicators of beauty, still got treated as if she was a hot ticket. Overweight, uninteresting, no charm, bad skin, mangled teeth, unfunny, manly back, grating voice, no ass, no tits, generally stupid, annoying laugh, bitchy attitude, manly haircut. Whatever. It didn’t matter. This girl got the attention of both genders, to the befuddlement of a lot of people like me, who were left to wonder if we were seeing the same thing as everybody else. And, to make things worse, all of that undeserved validation inevitably went to her head.

Recently, I’ve been starting to feel like one of the most important females in my life is a little like this: Josephine, my car.

About a dozen times over the past few weeks, I’ve gone out to my (skillfully) street-parked car to find a note on the windshield that looks like this:

Now, to be fair, Josephine doesn’t really deserve to be called a Salt Monster. For one, she’s a beautiful shade of mid-90s teal. She’s charming, well-built, and aging gracefully. Sure, she has some dings and rust, but that’s not surprising at her age (a teenager). She’s loyal and always comes through when I need her. She doesn’t complain, only whining when I turn her steering wheel a little too hard when her belts are cold.

But, all this attention seems a bit excessive for a lady like her. She’s not a classic. She’s not scarce. And she’s definitely not in exceptional condition. She’s blue-collar and functional.

So what’s with all of the unsolicited offers on my car? As an urban, ethnic guy I’m suspicious of all questions and compliments. Is this some sort of car scam I’ve never heard of, or does Josephine have a little Salt Monster in her?

Whatever the case–and for the record–my car is not for sale. The sign goes up tomorrow.

Maybe I copied this idea from somewhere else–I don’t know–but this is the premier, collectors’ edition issue of Ethnic Avenue’s series R.I.P. Creativity: A Slow, Public Death. If you’re a nerd, put it in a cellophane sleeve and find a safe place for it in your mom’s house—you may be able to pocket a nice profit on eBay in a few years.

It’s hardly a secret anymore that creativity, by any objective measure, has gone completely to shit in recent years. If you haven’t taken the time to notice—between watching (the sometimes multiple) remakes of Transformers, the Hulk, King Kong, GI Joe, Knight Rider, Battlestar Gallactica, and countless others—you’re part of the problem. But, there’s so much biting going on these days, that no one single person could possibly catalog it. Even Wyclef Jean, the former emperor of stealing other people’s good ideas, is floating face-down in the sea of cheap imitations.

What do you mean you remember us from the 80s? We just landed.

The latest nail in the creative coffin is the remake of V, a science-fiction mini-series that, from my foggy recollection of the re-runs, was alright at best. Sometimes I wonder if some studio exec woke up Rip-Van-Winkle-style, after 25 years, with an issue of TV Guide from the 80s resting on his chest. Thinking it was some revelation from above; he merely took all of the descriptions to work and started making them again.

That’s the only reasonable explanation.