Ass-backwards down the slippery slope

December 1999

My name is Gearbox, and I'm a media fan. I hate to admit this because I gave up television as an adolescent, I go see about four movies a year, and while most of my music collection is on vinyl, I don't own a turntable. Or a stereo that has any sort of radio reception. The speakers were pulled out of a dead car. The CD player is . . . haunted would be a good word to describe how it turns itself on in the middle of the day or night, except that even ghosts appear to be more consistent than this machine.

But anyway, I'm not plugged into pop culture very well at all. What I am plugged into is the Internet. Let this be a cautionary tale:

I realize I'm a media fan while I'm reading a book, Hard Core Roadshow; about the making of a movie, Hard Core Logo; that I heard about on an Internet mailing list about a tv series (due SOUTH) whose only connection to the movie is one actor in common. I got on the mailing list (Serge) because I corresponded with an author whose story I read, a short story that used the characters of the tv series (and used them well, and in ways that would never get shown on tv: gay sex and intelligent conversation). And I read the story because the author (Maxine Mayer) has also written stories based on another television show (Highlander). And I found her because one of the pre-eminent authors (Maygra) of fan-written stories about this other tv show recommended her. I found Maygra at the same time I found Highlander fanfiction because yet another fan (Wombat) wrote a story combining characters from Highlander with characters from The X-Files.

God only knows how I found X-Files fanfic. I don't recall. All I know is that I looked up one day and discovered I'd spent my entire work-week on the World Wide Waste-of-Time, reading stories in which Mulder gets the bad guys, or Mulder gets Scully, or Mulder gets Skinner. Not only had my boss not noticed, but he gave me a raise soon after.

You still with me? Anyway, I knew about X-Files; because my book pusher (of all people) dragged me into his room one day and made me watch an episode.

But, as I was reading this book today, I realized that the rest of the chain of events is fairly perverse. Through the insistence of friends with VCRs, I've seen some X-Files episodes. I've seen a grand total of four episodes of Highlander (the series); -- and that after I'd gotten involved in the fanfic. I've seen more episodes of due SOUTH, but I'm nowhere near having seen the whole oeuvre. I haven't seen Hard Core Logo. And while I admit that the actor in question (Callum Keith Rennie) can actually act, I'm not drooling in his direction, and I'm not actually a fan of his.

So why am I reading this book? Not because I'm a fan of Rennie, or Hard Core Logo, or even the author of the book. I'm reading it because I'm a media fan.

Because I talk to strangers on the Internet.