Recently I found myself walking amongst a large group of total strangers. As I walked around I naturally overheard brief snippets of various conversations. Some things I heard really made me shake my head and wonder if these people had been smoking poppies or something.
There were two young ladies admiring a sword at one vendors booth. One turned to the other and said something along the lines of, "Show me how much you love me by buying me this $250 sword." To which the other one replied, "I don’t love you that much." I can only imagine the devastation the first young lady must have felt. It was such a simple request to have someone demonstrate her love by purchasing a material object. Many are the occasions that I have wanted to fix an exact dollar figure to the amount of love that my friends and family have for me; alas I am too afraid of rejection to ever put my feelings on the line like that.
Later on in the day there were two small boys (about 12ish). The first one exclaimed, "I bought a wooden sword, so now I’m a ninja!" I had to turn away so he didn’t see me laughing at him. I suppose when I was that age I probably felt the pretty much the same. As long as you have a wooden replica of a ninja weapon you have no need for any sort of actual study of or training in the art of Ninjutsu. Although you do have to watch a few movies on the subject. Nowadays I suppose the biggest star in that genre is Jet Li. When I was that age I really admired Sho Kosugi, especially in the movie, "Ninja III: The Domination". I also read a few ninja magazines and I bought a book called "Secrets of Ninja Mind Control". So at that time I definitely felt that I was well on the way to becoming a true ninja warrior. Now that I am all grown up, I look back and laugh at my own foolishness. I realize that in order to be a ninja I have to buy a real metal sword.
Then I heard a guy talking (I never actually saw him) and I swear to you he sounded a lot like Comic Book Guy from "The Simpsons". He said, "Mr. Park, since you played a Sith Lord, could you talk about the seven forms of light sabre combat?" I could only speculate that if this guy thinks that actors are actually one and the same as the characters that they play, then he probably believes that Tim and I just sit around drinking Blue Beaver Beer and roasting hot dogs with a tiger torch all the time.
Can you pass the marshmallows, Ernie? I think I’ve had enough hotdogs.