My interest in "Star Wars" never really waned. I read the books, collected the toys, played the video games. I flipped out in '96 when the news about the SEs broke. I think the whole country did. That was the most fun I had my senior year of high school, seeing those movies on the big screen, finally, in packed auditoriums at the Saxon Boulevard UA Marketplace in Orange City, FL. I would have liked to have seen the SE of "Jedi" in the same theater where I saw the original; alas, that movie house (whose name escapes me at the moment) had become a night club called Tsunami Beach. I did see Nerf Herder there, so that kind of counts for something.
I sort of knew right off the bat that any "Star Wars" prequels would be really bad, so I didn't get very geeked out on "Phantom Menace" hype. I stayed home on opening day. All my friends thought I was crazy. Then word of mouth started getting around, and it was obvious I had dodged a bullet. It hurt hearing people say so many awful things about a "Star Wars" movie, but hey, it wasn't the end of the world.
Eventually I saw "Phantom Menace" and it almost stopped my heart. Glad I waited until it was on video. I saw "Clones" and "Sith" in the theater, hoping both times that they'd be better than the last one and somehow salvage the prequel trilogy. I left disappointed both times. There are a handful of really great, intense, special moments in those prequels. Unfortunately, those moments are surrounded by complete dogshit.
In 2005, I completed "Star Wars Ruined My Life," a book that's part reflection on, part critical analysis of "Star Wars" and the fan culture it created. I wrote it from a fan's perspective, and pitched it as such to numerous literary agents and publishing houses. I finally landed an agent about mid-year that year, but she had a lot of trouble getting publishers interested. Seems no one wanted it because I didn't have any "platform" (read: I'm not already famous for something). Talk about frustrating.
That's how I came to start the Great Star Wars Sychnronicity Project, the blog that's linked at the bottom of my posts. My agent suggested I enter the blogosphere and attempt to gain noteriety there, so I did. After I posted something about watching "Star Wars" while listening to a White Zombie album to see if anything matched up like "Dark Side of the Moon" and "Wizard of Oz," a friend suggested I dedicate the blog entirely to that kind of activity. So I did. And it became an obsession.
Now I spend every night of the week watching my favorite movie and sometimes its sequels while listening to different CDs, hoping to find the one special album that produces just as many moments of synchronicity as "Dark Side" and "Oz" (that's sixty, if you're wondering) that will, in turn, get me some "platform" so my book can hit the shelves and I can start my journey to becoming a well-respected figure in "Star Wars" historical circles. I currently don't have any literary representation, but I'm hopeful for the future that something will happen. Even if I die horribly and someone publishes the book out of pity. I'd take that.
I'm going to love "Star Wars" until my horrible death, even if the OUT never sees the light of day beyond shoddy bonus feature and George decides to remake it with dogs and cats in the primary roles. It's like that, and that's the way it is. Huh.