My sincerest apologies for being away from the Blog for so long!

I've been enjoying the increased amount of decreased political outrage I've been feeling since Ol' GWB left D.C.

Ahhh.... Bliss!

Not that things are Perfect... I know.  But, they are Better.  Much better.

Here's something that I just finished writing and I thought that I'd share it with you.

It's my personal review of "The X-Files" tv series.  I originally wrote it for TV.com...
I was feeling great pressure to produce something there... as the Level that they had assigned to me was "Sweathog"... as in Vinnie Babarino (yes, Travolta)... and, well... I just couldn't leave it at that without taking steps to try to change it.

So, with that explanation, I present my latest work - Entitled:




"The X-Files"

The X-Files may have saved my Life.
In the inimitable words of Sarah Palin: "I kid you not.".
I owe Chris Carter, David Duchovny & Gillian Anderson a sincere debt of gratitude...

I'm always late. I was late to "The X-Files". I didn't have a television set (my own choice) until about the third year into the series. I finally gave in one day and acquired one of the evil little boxes. Shortly afterward, I unexpectedly stumbled upon the dynamic duo of Special Agent Fox Mulder and Special Agent Dana Scully... and after seeing a few episodes, I could have kicked myself for missing those first three years.

Luckily, I was able to catch up on those first three years of episodes, once the show was syndicated. But, even today, if I come across a DVD of The X-Files, I scan it carefully... looking for an episode title or storyline that I don't recognize, just in case I find that there was an episode that I had missed.

For me, "The X-Files" stands alone as a modern classic of science fiction. It is terrific storytelling.  It's folklore mixed with legend mixed with campfire stories mixed with ghost stories mixed with Ripley's... mixed with The Truth, here-and-there.  When it was scary, it was cover-your-eyes/"I can't watch" scary. Most episodes - and the ongoing storyline - were consistently written with wit and humor as well as thoughtful intelligence and hold-your-breath suspense.

The casting of Duchovny and Anderson was brilliant, as they shared great on-screen chemistry and displayed great acting chops. Agents Scully and Mulder - as characters - were beautifully written and were fleshed-out. They weren't made into pseudo-superheroes, they were both utterly human... each with their own positive and negative character traits and the frailties of two human beings.

I love "The X-Files" and I will always love "The X-Files". I'd highly recommend it to anyone with a brain... particularly if you have any interest in unusual phenomena/extraordinary experiences.  Or, even just to watch something several notches above (and much more interesting than) so-called "Reality" shows.

In my humble opinion, "The X-Files" is Extraordinary Television.

How did "The X-Files" save my life?
Well... It's kind of personal... you know... between Chris Carter and I.

O.K. ~  Let's just say that I shared a harrowing and horrifying experience with one of the characters in one episode. (I'll not be more specific than that.)

But, there were two distinct differences between his horrible experience and mine:

In the show, his experience only lasted about a month.
My real-life experience, unfortunately, went on for years.

The other difference?

He - the tormented character - eventually killed someone because of what he was experiencing.
I, on the other hand, refrained from spilling anyone's blood because of what I was experiencing.

Which made me feel so much better about the way I was dealing with certain events... 

"Hey, at least I haven't killed anyone."

To someone, like myself, who occasionally has extraordinary experiences, "The X-Files" was not just entertaining and thrilling...

But, it also helped me to feel better about my experiences - both because of how differently (and much better) I dealt with the inexplicable and often unsettling events in my life and also that it showed me - at a time that I felt alone in the universe - that someone else knew about things that I experienced... that I wasn't entirely alone.