Maaah Guuuuuuuy Verrrrrrrr The Sequel

My disdain for remakes and updates are pretty well known here.  I cannot stand how Hollywood decides to just throw away any attempt at original thought and just reboot something that was popular once.   Case in point, Michael Bay and… well, Michael Bay.   It’s like someone is holding a doll with the head of Jason Voorhees, the razor gloved hand of Freddy Krueger, the other hand holding Leather Face’s chainsaw, the shell of a ninja turtle, and the legs of Optimus Prime.  Then the therapist asks me where on the doll did Michael Bay inappropriately touch my childhood.

However, looking at the small screen, I could see a reason to update one of my favorite shows.  Actually, it was all because of this 10 minute long advert for a Mercedes-Benz Citan.

MacGyver and the New Mercedes-Benz Citan

Yes, that’s Richard Dean Anderson, aka MacGyver.  He’s strapped on the Swiss Army Knife one more time in an advert for a handyman vehicle from Mercedes-Benz.  And who else could play the ultimate handyman but Mac?

OK, the production value is pretty much on par with a movie on SyFy starring half the cast from Stargate SG-1 and half from the guest stars list of Supernatural, but the spirit is still there.   The mullet is missing but the wit and style that made MacGyver the biological father of Burn Notice is there.   There’s even Mac’s voice over narration which, to be honest, shows signs of RDAs 63 years.   

I’ll admit, it’s sad to see your heroes get older.  Your father is mortal, Han Solo is now a septuagenarian, and MacGyver, while still able to deactivate a murderous robot and thwart knock out gas with a garbage bag, probably can’t find the TV remote or grasp the concept of a DVR these days.  But, how cool would it be to see Mac back at the Phoenix foundation, taking on bad guys with really bad wigs, accents, and aim… and that’s just his arch nemesis Murdoc.  It could work. 

Hollywood would need to check their egos at the door, though.  They tried to pull a James Bond Jr. with Jared Padalecki playing Young MacGyver, Mac’s nephew, in 2003.   It was a pilot which, thankfully, never got picked up.    They just don’t get it, do they?

But in my world, the one where Jar Jar Binks never existed, Indiana Jones is still riding out of the desert with his father, and Optimus Prime and G.I. Joe were only ever in the theater as cartoons, Macgyver in 201X could exist.  RDA would have to be back on board and in the field, even though he is in his 60s.     Yes, he’d be older than Dana Elcar was at the beginning of his run as Pete Thornton, but RDA could still do it, if he can get into serious shape.  I don’t know about bringing on a child element in that the kid would be barely out of high school.    The doomed continuation starred Jarred Padalecki as his nephew.    However, a younger, more hot headed agent might have a good foil in the pacifist Mac showing them to use their brains instead of a gun.

Of course, the problem these days is the climate for such topics.   Towards the end of MacGyver’s run the episodes began to take on an “Environmental Cause Of the Week” feel, having Mac try and save the world from ourselves instead of Latin American dictators or crazed megalomaniacs with daddy issues.   How do you reintroduce a hero that hates guns and abhors unnecessary violence in the post 9/11, gun control debate American landscape?   And how does he take on international issues where there is much more scrutiny and the world is under a 24/7 news media cycle microscope?   Can that much suspension of disbelief exist?

The easy part is the MacGyverisms.  Those are universal, though I would suggest hiring the guys from Mythbusters to test out the tricks to see if they can work.   Today’s audience is much smarter than it was 20 years ago, before Google existed.

Still, a show on USA or TBS could work given the right ingredients, maybe some duct tape, a paper clip, and a Swiss Army Knife.  No mullet Required.

Chekov's Garage

My wife hates my inability to throw away seemingly useless items. My garage is filled with these things. There’s a 4x8 piece of cardboard that covered our patio table while it was in the box. There are various curtain rods that serve no purpose. From the standpoint of an outside observer, these items are clutter, junk, refuse, or signs that I may be a hoarder. All of these are true but, though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.

Now, I am a product of my upbringing. My father is famous for repurposing useless items into ‘wonderful things’. He built an entire charcoal grill out of an old lawnmower, 55 gallon drum, swing set, and countertops. To that point, he also built a forge out of an old charcoal grill and a ShopVac.  I may have mentioned it before.

Additionally, I spent a great deal of my childhood playing old school text adventure games where you would acquire items, that held no obvious value, only to use them later on in a crucial part of a quest. A more up to date example would be the envelope of items that Ben Affleck receives in the movie Paycheck.

Still, regardless of the value of an item, I can eventually find a use for it. It may not be pretty or ideal, but it does the trick. I often find myself wishing I had something that I had already thrown away whenever I’m trying to patch something in the house. “If we only had a wheelbarrow, that would be something.”

And so the torch gets passed to another generation, as I found my three year old doing some decorating for Easter. She felt the need to hang her own decorations, such as hanging a triangle (musical instrument) on the handles of our hutch and a square of toilet paper (unused, thankfully) on a nail in our living room wall.

But what impressed me most was an empty Rogurt box hanging from another nail. It was slated to be put into the trash, once I actually replaced the full trash bag with an empty one, that is. But, sitting on the counter, she eyed it and saw a purpose for it. Unfortunately, it had no way of being hung on the nail, so she found a way to make it work. She took a Silly Bandz, wrapped it around the cardboard lid flap and then hung the entire box on the nail, using the Silly Bandz to hang it on the nail.

My wife was prepared to throw it away until she noticed how my daughter had managed to hang it. She neither intervened nor helped out daughter figure out how to solve the hanging problem.

Simply left to her own devices, a three year old solved a design problem. She’s either destined to pursue a career in engineering or be a useful hoarder like her father and grandfather.

How to pack a life in a car

It seems rather premature to discuss vacations and road trips when outside my window I still see salt covered cars and ice dunes in the parking lot. However, let us turn our thoughts towards warmer weather and packing the car for trips. You don't have any choice, so just sit down and stop bugging your sister or I'll turn this blog around so, help me, I swear.

As I look at what it takes to go anywhere with my eight month old, I'm reminded that this is payback for my parents. They, of course, packed all of us kids into a truck or a station wagon for long trips to the beach and to college. I considered my Father a master packer, being able to utilize every available space in the vehicle for storage of our stuff. I took that same approach when purchasing a replacement vehicle for limping 97' Chevy Cavalier three years ago. While my younger, less experienced packer of a wife, wanted a car with a good sound system. She even went as far as to suggest the ability to install extra speakers. That way, we could blast our greatest hits of Snoop Dogg and Maroon 5. After patting her on her head and chuckling at her naivety, I reminded her that, even though this would eventually become her car after we have a child, she would need the extra space for a car seat and everything the child owns.

Back to my Father. The man drove a Chevy Custom Deluxe Truck with a cap on the back. This truck had seen it all. When we went camping, it was able to tow a camper that contained all of our stuff, yet the cab of the truck could not contain all of their kids. My Dad became the inventor of the wonderful thing, which I thought was me, until the age of ten. The wonderful thing is simply a metaphor for something that previously existed in nature as some other sort of object or objects which have been disassembled and rebuilt into another functional object for which it was not originally designed for. One example of the wonderful thing was a charcoal grill built entirely out of a 55 gallon drum, lawnmower wheels, my childhood swing set, and counter top remnants. This fully functioning grill gave my Dad backyard supremacy in the realm of burger and hot dog grilling, allowing him to simultaneously cook for an entire graduation party without having to reload the grill. Another example of a wonderful thing was a homemade forge constructed out of a kettle grill and a shop vac that he used to build other wonderful things.

The most wonderful thing my Father built was an insert for that Custom Deluxe. The components for the insert have been regarded as a trade secret but I can tell you that part of it was fashioned from an old table top. The insert mirrored the functionality of the eating table in the camper. By day, the table and its bench seats served as a place to eat breakfast and play Pit and UNO. By night, it transformed and became a bed for my sister. Just like the camper, the insert slash wonderful thing was more than meets the eye. It also consisted of two bench seats that could be opened up for storage and a table post affixed to a base that slid into the bed of the truck. On long trips it served as a place to store three adolescent kids, playing Trouble. You could only play Trouble in the back of the truck, because all the pieces fit securely into holes on the board and the die was encased in the "Pop-O-Matic" container. We tried playing Trivial Pursuit once but some dumbass cut my Dad off on I-95 and cards flew everywhere. We no longer can finish the game as the pink game piece, nor will we ever find out how many cherubs are located on the game board. (In case you wondered, there's actually 19. Two on either side of every "wedge" square, six around the hub in the middle, and one in a pink category square somewhere on the board. But, I digress. ) By night, the post could be removed and the table top positioned in between the bench seats. All four cushions came together to form the mattress. This is where my brother slept. Where did I sleep? There was a bunk right above the couch in the camper that I wedged myself into for about 4 years until I kept banging my head on the ceiling getting in and out.

The 1980 Chevy Custom Deluxe

Alas, the insert was laid to rest along with the truck when my father had replaced the Custom Deluxe with a Dodge Ram in the early 90's. The Dodge also got some packing use out of it when I started college. For some unknown reason, I felt the need to move all my Earthly possessions with me to South Carolina where I was enrolled at Coastal Carolina University. Hey, you never know when you might need something and being 12 hours away didn't help. My father managed to pack everything I owned including another wonderful thing in the form of a headboard with shelves. This technically wasn't a wonderful thing, but considering that it used to be a tree, let's not split hairs. The cushions from the old insert survived the transition from Chevy to Dodge and I rode the entire 12 hours on them in the back of the truck in a space that reminded me of the bunk from the camper. Funny thing about traveling south in the back of a truck. If you leave home wearing shorts, you arrive wearing shorts. I transferred to the University of Pittsburgh in January of 1994, and found myself wearing shorts when we left Mytle Beach, and then having to put on more layers somewhere around Virginia after dark.

A 1984 Pontiac Firebird similar to mine

College moves and desertion of an apartment in under three hours aside, my father was able to pack a car or a truck to the hilt, never necessitating the need for more than one trip. This is something I have studied and tried to hone as a marketable skill. My first car, a 1984 Pontiac Firebird didn't really allow for a lot of trunk space, but the "Plugger" in me decided that I would not be deterred by such obstacles. In 1994, I packed enough stuff for myself and my girlfriend to take a vacation to Ocean City, Maryland. For anyone who has ever owned a 80's model Firebird knows it has a shallow trunk with a big hump between it and the back seat. Without sacrificing visibility out of the rear window, I managed to pack for a week long trip. My second car was, of course, my Chevy Cavalier. I loved this car for two reasons. Aside from some starter problems, it never let me down in getting from Point A to Point B. I drove that car everywhere. Staring from my home in Southwestern Pennsylvania, it went to Ohio, New York, West Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Canada. Secondly, it had a fold down bench seat in the back which allowed for great packing possibilities. Again, I managed to pack enough stuff for a week's vacation without sacrificing needed visibility. When I bought my first Christmas tree (It was artificial as I am allergic) the box, containing the seven foot spruce, slid smoothly into the trunk and onto the folded down back seat. When I bought my first 32 inch television, it fit in between the back seat and trunk laying face down on a blanket to guard the screen. Unfortunately, I had to remove the set from the packing box as it did not fit in the car whole. Still, I managed to do it.

1997 Chevy Cavalier

In 2005, after nearly 150 thousand miles and a blown head gasket, I sadly said goodbye to my Cavalier in favor of my new car, a Malibu Maxx. This five door sweetie allows me hatch functionality with 60/40 split fold down bench seats in the back and a fold down passenger seat for hauling long items. I've yet to max out the storage space even with the little one.

2005 Chevy Malibu Maxx

While, I revel in my accomplishment of being a master packer, I take no credit as I was taught by the best. However, I'm sure I'll be faced with challenges in packing strategy in the future as I will have to now pack for three people to go to the beach, losing a portion of my coveted backseat to a car seat. Not to mention having to eventually pack the entire life of my kids when they go to college. By then, I will have moved on to another vehicle, but will always keep an eye on how much storage space comes with my purchase. Perhaps I will echo my Father's creative side and construct some sort of enhancement for maximization of minimal space. After all, I want to make sure I have lots of space to move my wonderful things from point A to point B.