Heros and Hovercrafts

I want someone to invent the personal hovercraft car, with an autopilot switch.

The thought hit me as I was driving up to the San Francisco Bay Area from Los Angeles recently, along that long straight stretch of boredom known as I-5.

The last time I took that route, which takes about 6 hours, I was in a car with no air conditioning, making the trip in August when it is about as hot as it gets in California. I was not at all appreciative of the dry, dusty scenery, as you can imagine. This time, though, the view was beautiful, after the recent rains. The air was fresh and clear, and as afternoon wore on, golden sunlight tangled with lengthening shadows on the rolling hills and farming fields. The sight of the mountains meeting the valley as I came down over the Grapevine was particularly picturesque--grey clouds with bright white lining, and long shafts of light slanting down into the valley.

All this beauty did not make the drive any less long, however, and I began to wish that I could just program my destination into a computer system that would take over the task of driving entirely, leaving me free to relax and possibly even sleep in the back seat. You know, something like the vehicles they have in the future as projected by the movie Demolition Man.

I kind of liked Demolition Man. Well, ok, the movie was dumb, but I liked Wesley Snipes, who played the bad guy. I am not as crazy about Sylvester Stallone, who was the good guy. But I like Sly better than some of the other brawn-over-brains actors out there; for example, Jean Claude Van Damme. Did anyone else think it was weird that in Kickboxer, Jean-Claude, bless his arrogant little heart, could barely string two words together in intelligible English and yet was supposedly the brother of a guy who spoke with the most stereotypical American accents you could possibly hope to find?

Bruce Willis is another typical action-hero guy, but I like him a lot. He's hilarious. He also experienced the joys of hovercrafting, as a taxi driver of the future, in Fifth Element. For some reason I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. I can't give any good reasons for this; it's just one of those things that simply IS.

And then there is Steven Segal. He is the one I really love to hate. I think he wants to be seen as the "sensitive" type of burly muscle-hero, but all I see is a guy who can't seem to stop squinting and who talks in a perpetual whisper. He also smirks alot in what I think he hopes is an all-wise, all-knowing fashion, but which comes across, to me at least, as all-annoying.

So who does that leave us? Oh yes, good ol' Arnie Schwarzenegger. I think the Terminator was without doubt the best possible role for him. He didn't have to talk much, and when he did, it was ok for him to sound weird, because after all he was a robot; it's acceptable for them to be unemotional and monosyllabic. Unfortunately, I don't think he got to drive any hovercrafts. (He did, however, look pretty good on a Harley.)

I know what you're thinking: what does all this have to do with anything? Well.. nothing at all, really. There, do you feel better now?