Good day to YOU, faithful reader! This month’s writings and musings will focus on me. I know that this will be quite self-centered, but I need to refocus and reframe my mind to heal my mental health. This month I will be discussing some of the topics that I love. This month it is all about Godzilla, Star Wars and LEGOs!
GODZILLA:
My love of Godzilla started when I was young, so young in fact, that I cannot remember how old I was when I first laid eyes on the big green lizard. I do remember seeing a portion of the original black and white Godzilla in his first appearance on an old black and white TV late at night on a Saturday. It was some kind of creature feature or something and it was Godzilla laying waste to Tokyo. I was hooked. I took to building cities out of LEGOs and knocking them down by walking through them, pretending to be Godzilla.
As I got older, 7 or 8, I was able to watch several other Godzilla movies, but my love for him had dwindled. Until one day, my mother had taken me to the local library, and I found a book called Godzilla, from Crestwood House and it was part of a collection called the Movie Monster Series. I borrowed it and read it cover to cover, it was after all only about 50 pages. But it showed me some of the other monsters, known as Kaiju, that Godzilla fought. My love for him was rekindled and reborn! I vowed to watch every Godzilla movie that there was! But alas it was the 1980’s and the internet hadn’t been born yet!
Flash forward to 1986, my parents let me rent Godzilla 1984 from the local Blockbuster. It is a reboot, of sorts before they did that kind of thing, and Godzilla is not fighting any other kaiju. He is again a force of nature that cannot be controlled and by the end of the movie I was in tears. The sound of my hero falling into the volcano and screaming, still gets me to this day.
Flash forward to 1995. I’m now a teenager and graduated from high school. My friends and I stumble into a music and movie store, and I spot a 5-volume collection of Godzilla movies in VHS! I couldn’t buy it fast enough! I then spent the next few years trying to track down them all. But alas, again, I need to wait. Patiently. Darn it!
Flash forward to 2004, I’m married and have an infant son. The internet is in full swing, and I am able to track down many of the obscure movies, but a few still elude me. Then DVDs come out and now I am doubling down on my obsession. I track them down. ALL OF THEM. I sat and watched them, sometimes in order, sometimes just the ones that have the best kaiju. My son watches with me and becomes intrigued. I have passed the Godzilla gene on to him! Many video games and figures are released as he has become a global icon and I have to decide if I am to collect those as well. I chose to get the video games and my love for him has never diminished.
I have said all of that and yet I did not say why I love Godzilla. I guess, as I mentioned before, its because he is a force of nature. He cannot be stopped or controlled, but he has the best interests of the world at heart. He is a protector. He stands up to the bullies. I like that.
You can see how much I love Godzilla by checking out the webpage that I put together for him!
STAR WARS:
Whoo, where to begin. I am a child of the 80’s and I grew up with Star Wars. From the action figures to the cereal. I loved Star Wars. I had many of the action figures, some I inherited as hand-me-downs from my older cousins, and a few of the ships. I loved Darth Vader, still do! He was such an evil villain, but he redeemed himself in the end of Return of the Jedi. I identified with Luke Skywalker, an orphan left to navigate the galaxy with no family, other than is sister and friends. I am adopted and don’t know my birth family. It’s a stretch but just go with me here. I ate up the books, figures, video games, board games, and even the costumes of Star Wars. Then the prequels came. I was ecstatic and super excited, then Jar Jar Binks came onto the big screen and my inner child screamed in anguish. But wait, he’s just comic relief, let’s see Anakin Skywalker, aka Darth Vader, what a minute, he’s a kid!! WTF!?!? Yeah, it didn’t get better from there.
As time went on, my love for Star Wars has waxed and waned but my love of Darth Vader has remained strong. As I have gotten older, I kinda understand where he was coming from.
LEGOs!
I LOVE LEGOs! My first set was a mixed box of blocks from my cousins, as most of my childhood toys were. My first really complete and brand-new set was the Alien Stalker! I remember getting it for Christmas one year and I played with that thing all year! I still have it to this day albeit with some replacement parts, but it is complete.
As I grew older, my love never waned. I purchased many sets over the years and I still am. I guess one of the main reasons I like building LEGO’s is the feeling of discovery and the feeling of making something. I tell people that look at me weird when I bring up LEGO, “It’s like building a model that you can build and then take apart and enjoy building again and again and again.”
I have always been a maker. Whether it is making plans, trains, and automobiles out of LEGO or curio cabinets and bookshelves out of wood or computer programs and games to enjoy or even dreaming up worlds to write about, I love making.
TTFN!