CHARLEY BRADY
Throughout the `70s, `80, and `90s I was too much concerned with that small detail called Living to bother much with what was on television. And as a result, I missed out pretty completely on a cult show called… The X-Files. However, now that the Colour Grey has begun an all-out assault on my beard and… what was that, can you shout into the ear trumpet, son, I’m a mite dee-eef? – I treated myself to nine seasons plus the feature films recently. And I’m addicted.
Not only does it share my distrust of governments but I’ve begun to affectionately think of Cancer Man as a sort of anti-Forrest Gump. Get a load of this guy at the end of a REALLY bad day:
“Life is like a box of chocolates. A cheap, thoughtless, perfunctory gift that nobody ever asks for. Unreturnable because all you get back is another box of chocolates. So you’re stuck with this undefinable whipped mint crap that you mindlessly wolf down when there’s nothing left to eat. Sure, once in a while there’s a peanut butter cup or an English toffee. But they’re gone too fast and the taste is… fleeting. So you end up with nothing but broken bits filled with hardened jelly and teeth-shattering nuts. And if you’re desperate enough to eat those, all you got left is an empty box filled with useless brown paper wrappers.”
Yep. As a metaphor for Life, I do believe that the Cigarette-Smoking Man has been reading my diaries.
But poking your nose into Mulder and Scully’s I-want-to-believe Files can make you damned happy also – like the time they called an episode after a semi-forgotten Silent Era great, one considered by some to be ‘a key figure in the history of American screen comedy’.
That figure was Clyde Bruckman. And in the best tradition of The X-Files, this is…
TO BE CONTINUED
charleybrady@gmail.com