What He Hasn't Ruined Yet

A few months ago, I made a solemn vow that I would not discuss Star Wars here on the ISB. It's something that I felt I needed to move past in my life, like a girlfriend who cheats on you with with someone who keeps screaming "UNLIMITED POWER!" But like Spider-Man says in his classic 1975 album Rock Reflections of a Super-Hero, I'm going to let time show me the way.

George Lucas has pretty much midichlorianed his way into Byrne-like levels of psychotic senility, but I'll give him credit for one thing: He hasn't quite managed to ruin every character yet.

Han Solo and Lando Calrissian are still the coolest guys in the galaxy. And he will never, ever be able to destroy my love for The Lobot.



You have no idea how embarassing it is to work for an hour to make a joke five years out of date. Unless of course you work for Fox 102.3, Columbia's Home for Classic Rock, in which case, thanks for reading, Weirdbeard!

Seriously, though. MG3 gave me the NPR productions of Star Wars and the Empire Strikes Back on cassette tape a few months ago, and the single best moment of the entire 12 hours of radio was hearing Billy Dee Williams say "I've sent a message... to the Lobot."

He's awesome. I mean, think about it. Who do you think was really running Cloud City? Lando? That guy was busy trying on blue velvet capes and being the second coolest guy in the galaxy. You wanted gas mined on Bespin, you went to the Capital Ell Oh Bee Oh Tee, you see.

And when the Empire shows up, he was Lando's ace in the hole. When they changed the deal, my man calmly assessed the situation and dropped the hammer on Darth Vader's personal guard. That's how the Lobot rolls, yo.

I couldn't stop thinking about how awesome he is on my drive home tonight.

As you can tell, it's been a very boring day.