Travolta and Me

There is a thing in the universe that some call Kismet or destiny. I tend to think of them as links in the chain of life. For life is not linear like a McDonald's french fry but rather like the waffle fries at Chic-Fil-A, one thing linking to another that leads off in new directions. Such it is between John Travolta and I.

I grew up in Pasadena TX. Pasadena TX's ONLY claim to fame besides smelling like the sulphur of hell is that the 1981 John Travolta epic Urban Cowboy was shot there. This classic piece of cinema is about young Travolta moving from a farm in East Texas to the big city of Pasadena to accept a job as an oil refinery worker. By day he works on the pipelines and climbs the rigs and by night he rides the electric bull and drinks much Lone Star Beer at Gilley's. This film defines Pasadena so perfectly that the image of Travolta beating Debra Winger should be on the Seal of the City of Pasadena.

Now I live in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Bay Ridge's main claim to international fame is that this is where the 1976 Travolta classic Saturday Night Fever takes place. In this film he plays a young gavone whose life has absolutely no meaning or direction except for going to the nightclubs and dancing disco. His friends also have no purpose to their lives and in the end...they still don't.

So where does that leave me? Is the rest of my life going to be dictated by movies by John Travolta? When I have kids is their internal monologue going to be voiced by Bruce Willis like in Look Who's talking? Will I one day have to stave off evil aliens from taking over the world and enslaving us all in some cosmic fucked-up badly acted Hubbardian future like in Battlefied Earth? I fucking hope not.

I'm just glad my life is fuller than either Tony Manero's or Bud's life. So now I'm going to go home and watch Full House with my cat.