One Thing I Know: Forget About the Pern Girls

During my twenties, there were two things I did a lot of: selling books and chasing girls.

I was very good at the former and really, really bad at the latter. But that's another story for another time.

From around age 19 until I hit 30, I spent a lot of time in bookstores. During this period, I watched a lot of people, and learned a lot about different "types."

The most confounding type to me was the somewhat good looking chick who would walk into the bookstore and throw off a major gay vibe right before heading toward the sci-fi/fantasy section of the store.

When this happened, the gay vibe disappeared and she suddenly seemed, if not scruffy-looking, then a little less attractive in some way which I was (and still am) powerless to name.

This is because I suddenly knew two things about her: 1.) she was straight, and 2.) she was weird.

And the straightest, weirdest girls had one standby as far as their go-to reading material: Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series. The weird, straight girls didn't always like Anime (though a lot of them did), and they weren't all crazy about Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series (though some of them were).

But they always, always bought goddamn Anne McCaffrey.

I was only reminded of these dark moments of my earlier life when I read that they're making a movie - probably a series of movies - from the Pern source material.

The Bloke with the ££ in His Eyes

I stumbled across an old article on the Mirror's website about Kate Bush's first boyfriend, Steve Blacknell, who revealed in 2010 a "secret" about Bush:

"I've been told by those around her that I was indeed 'The Man With The Child In His Eyes' and I know that those words were given to me by someone very special. I'm proud to have known and loved her."

I believe him. Otherwise, I would never understand how he "put the hand-written lyrics [to 'The Man with the Child in His Eyes'] up for sale at £10,000."

That's almost $17,000!

Honestly, though, 40,000 Steve Blacknells could not love Kate Bush as much as John Lydon loves her....

A Beastly Realization

You know what I just thought about the whole 50 Shades of Grey series of books and the forthcoming movie release?

It's kind of like that 80s TV show "Beauty and the Beast" for the current generation of sexually dissatisfied straight women, isn't it?

Except, you know, all the women who read that trilogy of books and watched "Beauty and the Beast" back in the 80s because they were sexually dissatisfied? They probably never did meet the right beast; if they did, those guys probably left them during midlife crises.

I am serious. What is wrong with this world?