The Movie Star...and the rest

People like Jimmy Buffett and Billy Ray Valentine consider the tropics to be a good place to retire. Some of my best friends also rave about the appeal of beach life...but I've never really had much desire to live with sand between my toes.

But I gotta say it sounds pretty good to me right now. The stinging pain in my upper back is not going away -- despite massage, inversion, and various supposedly therapeutic contortions and manipulations. I suspect that lying on my back under the sun for about a week while doing nothing but listening to surf sounds would work curative wonders beyond anything the medical community can provide.

Unfortunately, that's not gonna happen. But I am planning to take a vacation to the Pacific Northwest. Driving across Idaho probably doesn't provide the same level of relaxation as lounging on the beach, but at least I'll be away from a computer screen for a while. I think that's the real problem with my neck and back -- too much desk work.

I can't go quite yet, though. I have a couple more proposal submissions to knock out before I can take off. But soon.

In the meantime, I'd like to take a moment to point out something blatantly obvious: "Gilligan's Island" might be the worst TV show ever made. It's certainly the worst show that made it into eternal syndication. But even though I was well aware of this indisputable fact, I was still curious enough to watch the first episode when MeTV aired it on Labor Day.

Roger Ebert used the term "idiot plot" to describe movies where the central crisis could be immediately resolved if there was one character who was not a complete idiot. (The standard example is when all the kids know there's a chainsaw maniac lurking in the dark...and they all go outside to look for him.) I use the term "Gilligan Situation" to describe a plot in which you could easily get off the island if you just killed Gilligan.

I suppose you could also call it the "Dr. Smith Situation." Even the most committed opponent of capital punishment should instantly realize that feeding "Little Buddy" to the sharks (or tossing Dr. Smith out the airlock) would be the morally correct thing to do. As Confucius once said, if you want to get out of a hole, you must first stop digging.

Anyway, the first episode was as uniformly stupid and unwatchable as all the rest of them. It was interesting in that they did announce the characters' real names though a stunningly clever "missing boat report newscast" artificial plot device -- but otherwise, it was the same dreck that went on throughout the series.

I did wonder about one thing: after emerging from being trapped in a cave-in (caused by, well...you know), Ginger commented that her evening gown was ruined, and that it was the only one she had. And yet, years later, the gown appears to remain in good condition. Hmm.

Can you think of other shows with the Gilligan Situation? "Perfect Strangers" seems to fit the mold, and I believe the argument could be made for "Laverne and Shirley" as well.

Come to think of it, pretty much every sitcom features an irredeemable idiot. But most of them do not consistently endanger the lives of everyone else. Ted Baxter is a moron, but the WJM newsroom continues to function. Potsie Weber is a pinhead of epic magnitude, but his deficiencies don't stop Fonzie from dating the Polaskey Twins. It could even be argued that Pavel Chekov's contributions to the Enterprise tally up squarely in the negative column, but somebody has to inquire about nookleer wessels, right?

You could even argue that Jethro Bodine (despite his impressive education credentials) is more of a liability than an asset to the Clampett clan. But Jed's wisdom and leadership mitigate the situation in a way that is far beyond the meager capabilities of the Minnow's Skipper.

By the way, why is a boat's captain called a Skipper, anyway? When they present him with his promotion to command rank, does the admiral say, "Here's your boat...now go skip it!" I don't think so.

Anyway, I thought I had a point to make, but obviously didn't get there. I guess I'll wait to see if anyone has other suggestions for the Gilligan List, and if so, I'll discuss them in the future. Darren Stevens? Major Anthony Nelson? Lois Lane?

(Not that this has anything to do with anything, but I find it interesting that as I get older, I have begun to think that Mrs. Bellows was substantially more attractive than Jeannie. I wouldn't go so far as to say that Daisy Moses was more attractive than Elly May...but I bet she'd be a lot more fun to talk to on a date.)

In summary, I hope you spent your Labor Day doing something more productive that watching retarded sitcoms. This week contains proposal due dates, so any blogging I might do will probably reflect the resultant brain damage. Sorry about that. But I'm pretty fired up about it being September, and about my coming vacation. I'm thinking it's going to be an excellent autumn. My one piece of advice would be this: If you're going on a boat ride, you should do a careful assessment of the first mate before climbing aboard.

Have a great day!