I sit here on a Saturday morning, consuming my requisite Saturday morning breakfast consisting of an Everything Bagel lovingly slathered with whipped cream cheese and chased by a coffee flavored energy drink. Whereas Faith the TharpSter Treadmill would normally be here at my left clearing her throat and nosing my leg in order to remind me that such sustenance serves as her Saturday morning breakfast as well, she’s skipped such activity in favor of sleeping off the sedative and the bop on the head I gave her last night so that the thunderstorm wouldn’t drive her (and me by extension) up the wall.
As I ponder what content I will use to Blog America Great today, the rotating background on my secondary monitor displays a corrected picture of the black hole that made everyone go a little post-coital a month or so back, right around the time the Mueller Report deemed approximately two years of hard news to be bullshit.
When I refer to the picture as being corrected, I refer to the fact that the original picture was subjected to a variety of additional photo development processes and software-born modifications in order to include the Death Star and the Millennium Falcon.
Just as a reminder, the Millennium Falcon is my favorite Star Wars character. It achieved that status during The Empire Strikes Back when it did some amazing things against the big government social programs the Empire was trying to implement. Now certainly, Han Solo was the captain of the ship, but I always viewed the acrobatic stylings of the Falcon to be the result of the Kashyyykian in the co-pilot’s seat.
I’m talking about Chewbacca, y’all.
Chewie was an instrumental cog in the entire saga. Unlike Jar-Jar, the Ewoks, C-3P0, and Rose, there’s never been a time where I didn’t appreciate his presence in the story line.
That of course, brings us to the uncomfortable subject around the Star Wars Holiday Special which aired in 1978. This musical science fiction television film is basically the story about Chewie trying to get home to celebrate Life Day. It features unused movie footage, Bea Arthur, and Chewie’s Uncle Larry (I don’t know his name or relationship, and I ain’t gonna look that one up) getting some Wookie wood over Diahann Carrol.
When this one originally aired, I had every intention of watching it. I had packed up my sleeping bag and gone to a friend’s house to spend the night when it was scheduled to air. Little was I aware at the time that said friend’s family was only using rabbit ears to pick up local stations on the tube. The network (either ABC or NBC) that broadcast the special wasn’t fully available in the Wyoming town in which I lived at the time. There was one station in town that split it’s time between the two networks, and that night they ran the network that wasn’t showing the special.
Certainly, 10 year old me was pretty pissed off back then.
Forty years later, I look back on that evening as a bullet well dodged. I’ve never watched the entire special, and the parts I’ve seen make various body parts spasm and pucker.
As such, the Star Wars Holiday Special is not in my cannon of Star Wars reality.
So I’ve told you that story so that I can say this.
Today is May 4th, and as such we’ll see all types of tribute to Star Wars today along the lines of “May the fourth be with you.”
In years past, I’ve taken the occasion to mark the occasion with various status updates on my Facebook page and that’s about it. I haven’t even done anything here on TharpSter.org about the day when the opportunity has presented itself many a time.
Today is a little different.
Earlier this week, Peter Mayhew, the actor who portrayed Chewie became one with the Force. I felt the same loss when Kenny Baker (R2-D2) and Carrie Fisher (my favorite Disney princess) passed as well.
So today, ladies and gentlemen, I’ve donned my ‘Expressions of a Wookie’ t-shirt and penned a tribute to the one person who did with the Millennium Falcon what Robert Johnson could do with a guitar.
Thank you Peter. You will be missed.
