“About time…about —damn time.”
That was my reaction when I read the clickbait article today confirming that Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure 3 was REALLY, TRULY HAPPENING. Sure, we have to wait over a year before it actually comes out, but we’ve waited 28 years thus far, so who can complain?
I was 8 or 9 when I first experienced Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, and I was in love–hello, Joan of Arc! Hello, Bill’s stepmom! Seriously, though, how can one not be ape-shit over a cinematic masterpiece that features none other than George Carlin as Rufus? I wanted to name my hypothetical son “Rufus” because of him, for god’s sake!1I just realized…this whole time I had thought Rufus Wainwright was the inspiration for my Rufus predilection. This makes way more sense now. I don’t think I’ve experienced any of Mr. Wainwright’s catalog… Both Keanu’s and Alex’s acting careers where ripe and in season, good to the last juicy surfer/dumbass drop. Truly, it was a bygone golden age to which Keanu has yet to return. *Sigh* But! There is hope at last…I mean, Alex (aka Bill S. Preston, Esquire) came out of 25 years of acting retirement for this. This calls for a celebration…with a tangentially relevant tale, perhaps?
I wish I could lie and say that I was a true fanboy who has watched it over a 100 times, but hey, let’s be real. This was back when my family had to rent the VCR before we could argue about which movie to rent. So I saw it twice, maybe thrice, tops. Nonetheless, I still think it would be most righteous to count me as a fan. However…
However, I have to confess that I never saw the sequel. Some fan I am, right? Well, that just didn’t happen in a vacuum. You see, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey came out late in the summer before I started fifth grade at Christian Schools of Springfield in Springfield (duh), Missouri. Now during the summers, my brother One Skinny J (aka 1SJ) and I would live with my “easy-going” dad on his farm in Kansas…pretty much the exact opposite of “Christian”, “Schools”, and “Springfield”.
The inferred point being, if we were going to see it, it would be with him. By my estimate, we would have had a 2-3 week window to make it happen. It’s no surprise that we never made it to the theater, with the farm and all…and also because I’m pretty sure that’s about the time we got grounded for stealing $20 out of our step-brother’s wallet. Which, by the way, was complete bullshit, because I was an unwitting accomplice, having been told that it had been miraculously “found under the couch” before I had agreed to help spend it at our local Corner Stop. Injustice, I say! But I digress…
Though I didn’t see the movie then, I, as a fan of modest proportions and an avid reader of the regional newspaper, had at some point picked up this little nugget of trivia: the original title was “Bill & Ted Go to Hell” (a fact true to this day–see Figure 1).
Fast-forward slightly to Mrs. Greene’s 5th grade class a few months later. We had a fun class project where we split up into pairs and each group would write a chapter of a book, and then we would come back together to combine them into a single class story. My guess is that it was a joint English/history project, because the theme was time travel to the past. I was paired up with my best friend-girl, Katie, and we tore that shit up, traipsing all over the old west in our made-up adventure. It was good times.
Then it came time to name our book. Since it was time-travel themed, it reminded me of Bill & Ted, and I casually mentioned Bogus Journey’s original title. The Student Teacher, who was in charge of the project, gave me a slightly stern look, but my comments otherwise went ignored. Name after name after yet another contrived and uncreative name, I grew restless with the democratic process. I decided to finally connect the dots for them. Thinking myself rather clever, I raised my hand and proudly proffered “How about: ‘Mrs. Greene’s Fifth Grade Class…Goes to Hell’? Yeah, pretty good, huh?”
No. It was the opposite of good times.
Now forgive me for thinking that Ms. Student Teacher had plenty of context to understand what I meant: basically, our class <==> time-travel <==> Bill & Ted <==> “go to hell” (used in a semi-literal sense), therefore: our class <==> “goes to hell”. All the pieces were right there. Despite a logical and well-rounded defense on my part, I got my ass sent to the principal’s office and was lucky I didn’t get suspended. Once again, though, I gotta say it was complete and utter bullshit. Injustice, I say.
Anyways, the point of the story is: that’s when I realized that I could never be with someone who has no sense of humor. Cuz I sure the ----- didn’t have a crush on the Student Teacher after that.
On a side note, often I kill two birds with one stone and use my 6 y.o. daughter’s request for a bedtime story as an opportunity to workshop some of my narratives. For example, I was feeling pretty good when Lawnmower Man totally killed it with her a few nights ago.
Well, earlier this evening I decided to run this one by her. When I got to the part where I first mentioned “go to hell”, she asked what hell was. I was actually a bit surprised she hadn’t already been scared shitless by the idea of it a la one of her grandmothers. So I told her it was the “opposite of heaven”–nothing about eternal suffering, gnashing of teeth, lakes of fire, Satanic pitchfork sodomy, etc.–just the “opposite of heaven”. That was it.
It didn’t go over well. She kept plugging her ears, making it difficult for her to hear me trying to share yet another layer of context on top of what you’ve already read here. Needless to say, I bombed.
On top of that, she apparently ratted me out. Later in the evening the Boss Lady2aka my wife chided me, noting that she heard from a little birdie that “Daddy told me a very scary word tonight”.
Oh, for fuck’s sake people…CONTEXT!
Nonetheless, I would say that overall it was a pretty good day. After all this time, the Wyld Stallyns shall finally ride again.
I do declare, I must be in the opposite of Hell…
Content created on: 3 July 2019 (Wednesday)
Footnotes & References:
Well with using God’s name in vain in the Title, I’m not even reading this one. And as I scrolled down to the comment section, my eye was blistered with words that I accidentally saw.
Hello, mother.
Cussing in the comment section? The ----- you say? YOU ARE the comment section, at least at the time you left this comment. Not sure what it is that’s blistering your eyeballs…
Also, I was confused because you referred to the opening line as the “Title”. The title is “A Most Excellent Life Lesson”–very G-rated…or should I say rated “G” for ----- ? LOL, I sure hope blog censor is doing its job…
I think this is the first time I heard about your trip to the principal. And it is an amusing story, I was able to block out some of your choice words & was laughing. But then the part about telling ----- , I about fell off the couch laughing. Which isnt too hard since the couch is slippery.
You forgot that in the place you [mentioned th] ere are also worms crawling all over you & in your ears too. Just so you know.
Someone needs to show me how to edit these comments so I can correct mistakes.
That is supposed to be “…in the place you mentioned there are also….”
Hello, Mother.
Apparently at least I can edit it, so I took care of it for you.
Hello, Mother.
I didn’t realize that you hadn’t heard this story before. I, in turn, about fell off the toilet reading about your reaction to this post. That’s the reaction I hope to illicit in random people all over the God’ Green Earth…is that dreaming big enough? I haven’t decided yet…
Also, I added you-know-who’s name to the censored list. Partly out of child privacy, at least until I figure out what the appropriate level is.
But mainly because–and I shit you not–when I told her that while she is one of like three people in the US (and maybe the world) with her name, that once people read about her on my blog or saw her on her [hypothetical] YouTube channel, that expectant parents nationwide would see that name and realize how ----- awesome it is, and how like in 7 years kindergartens are going to be overflowing with ----- ‘s (not sure how to properly pluralize her name). She was like “NOOOO. Can you put up a sign telling them they can’t use my name?” And she said something that wasn’t the exact term “Trademark”, but she pretty much nailed the legal definition of it. So, basically, she is She Who Shall Not Be Named…per her own request, lol.
Also, fun fact: it is nearly impossible to censor out black-listed words that are immediately followed by a comma. I promise that I will eventually make my own ----- censor plug-in for WordPress that will be waaaaaay better than what I’m using now.