The Jinx of the Truly Dreadful Movie

There are really bad movies, and then there are really bad Kevin Costner movies. My brother-in-law has a graphic visual expression to explain the sensation of being trapped. "I was ready to gnaw off my left arm." A long-winded Sunday sermon can bring on a beartrap moment. So can a high school commencement in the sweltering climate of the Dallas Cowboy's Texas Stadium.

Kevin Costner provoked an epidemic of left arm gnawing a dozen years ago. Any viewer who survived 1994's "Wyatt Earp" without a sympathetic laudanum overdose drowned during 1995's "Waterworld".

The Jinx of the Truly Dreadful Movie began in the winter of 1969. Mom dropped the three of us at the Cooper Lincoln theater on "O" Street on one of those Nebraska winter days when the excrutiating glare off the snow compounded by bickering kids trapped in the house can give anyone a headache ranking 7.8 on the Richter Scale. My brother was anxious to see "Krakatoa, East of Java". I won't expound on that day's bad movie jinx, except to say that it involved Dr. Pepper. The movie was memorable for its bathtub tsunami special effects. The Dr. Pepper became woven into family lore and legend along with the movie's geographically incorrect title.

Krakatoa is still a fascinating subject. Simon Winchester wrote a fascinating book about the 1883 explosion of Krakatoa a few years back. The Twenty-One Balloons is a favorite read-aloud memory from sixth grade. Tomorrow the Discovery Channel will air a Krakatoa docudrama, but I won't be watching. I can't risk it.

I popped a cassette of The 21 Balloons in the tape player for my students yesterday. The tape dis-enwrapped and re-entangled all over the place. The jinx is alive and well, serving up disaster specials on blue plate tectonics.


"Krakatoa, East of Java" may not be the worst movie I've ever seen. That title could belong to the 1990 kid movie, "Shipwrecked". I took my three little boys to see "Shipwrecked" at a downtown Midland theater where we were the entire audience. This hokey movie involved a gorilla on a South Seas island. And that gorilla's zipper was very visable. Within hours my youngest had broken his arm, but I'm not sure if Dr. Pepper was on the scene.



I sent another son to the store for shredded cheddar (not Dr. Pepper) just before we were going to watch a VHS tape of "Krakatoa, East of Java" that I located online for five bucks. I'd been wondering for decades if the movie was as bad as it had become in the family legend. My son ripped the side mirror off the car returning from the store. The jinx continues!

Younger than springtime by geologic standards

The Buick is a mess. My car hasn't looked this bad since Mt. St. Helens erupted awhile back. Windblown dirt last week coated it, and was followed by sprinkles of rain. This created grubby leopard spots, reminiscent of the flocked foil wallpaper popular in the 1970's. No time to wash or wax, as I'm still trying to find the sweet spot in the wiring for the driver's side rear turn signal.

Huh? What's that you're saying?

The big Mt. St. Helens eruption that dusted vehicles in Nebraska with volcanic ash was twenty-five years ago???? Half my life ago!? Are you sure?

KENNETH CHANG wrote about Mt. St. Helens in the New York Times of November 29th. I'd kind of forgotten that Mt. St. Helens has been erupting in a fairly low-key way for a couple years now. Geologists are surprised that this slow-mo eruption has occurred so soon after the 1980 biggie.

What is twenty-five years in the geologic time scheme? A blink of an eye or less. What forces are at work? Those way beyond our ken, to use a crossword puzzle word. We are each just a sniffle or an itch on the Major Cosmic Time Line. If you feel really self-important, maybe you rate a wink. Mt. St. Helens, Pompeii, and Krakatoa are just the self-conscious zit-fussing of Geologic Adolescents.

The forces moving continental plates, whether designed or impressively self-motivated, grind along steadily, unenthused by our ridiculous religious squabbles.

Small self-serving minds do not wish to consider such large time-frames. Ethics, responsibility, conservatorship, and stargazing wonder are so totally out of style in the Era of Dubya. Perhaps the current powers that be will be surprised when swallowed in a tar pit of their own deceits, asphyxiated in an ashfall of their own rhetoric, or swept away by the melting glacier of their arrogance.

Igneous MagmaMama suggests we ought not sit here sedimentarily while layers of wisdom are buried under the silt of lies mixed with aggregates of excuses and broken promises. It's time to apply heat and pressure to cause transformation. You may be whichever Metamorphic Power Ranger you prefer!



Younger than springtime, are you
Softer than starlight, are you,
Warmer than winds of June,
Are the gentle lips you gave me.
Gayer than laughter, are you,
Sweeter than music, are you,
Angel and lover, heaven and earth,
Are you to me.

Come Fly With Me: Reserve Your Armchair Now

Sinatra and Smetana color my mental travel brochures. Captain Kangaroo used to run a video of river photos with Smetana's "The Moldau" that made me proud to be of Bohemian ancestry. Another video with Grofe's "Grand Canyon Suite" might have ignited my interest in the American Southwest.

Fly me to the moon
Let me play among the stars
Let me see what spring is like
On a-Jupiter and Mars

Where would I travel if money was no object? An interesting evening's pondering, and well within my entertainment budget!


Not having been much of anywhere, this is where I would go if money and time were irrelevant:

Ashfall State Park in Nebraska

The whooping crane migration along the Platte River in Nebraska

The cliff dwelling sites of the Four Corners region. Got hooked on the Anasazi reading National Geographic story about Weatherill Mesa in 1966.

On a riverboat cruise up the Mississippi

New York City to see the art, theatre, dance, and opera, and look for sites in Donald Westlake’s Dortmunder books.

Crete and Santorini—I have wanted to visit the island ever since reading a juvenile nonfiction book from my local library in about 1966. Knossos, Minotaur, frescoes

Michoacan, Mexico to see where Monarch butterflies spend the winter.

Valley of the Kings in Egypt. Tut, Tut. My third grade teacher, Mrs. Alhschwede, was reading aloud to the class about Howard Carter when JFK was assassinated.

Botswana because of Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency books

A trip through the Ukraine, the Balkans, and Eastern Europe, especially Prague, Split, and Kiev

Krakatoa and Java because of The Twenty-One Balloons and one of the worst movies ever made

Australia, thanks to Bill Bryson

Boston because of Make Way For Ducklings

James Herriott’s England

At Least He Admits It

"I dont no Waer WE OR"
The kindergarten male has captured the trouble facing pirates since days of yore. I hope he will stop and ask directions!


Clay island glued on a corrugated cardboard circle, painted with liquid watercolors. The volcano is about to erupt.