Sense of Adventure

Almost everybody I’ve ever encountered who hasn’t run away fast enough has heard this tale. But these are the Interwebs (which, wise men tell us, are a series of tubes), and they open a whole world of people to me I’ve never met in person. Try to run away faster than light. Hah! Hah!

So now you’re stuck reading it. My friend, can your heart stand the shocking facts of how my career began?

When I was a lad there was a TV show called Mannix, which starred Mike Connors, mainly because the network suits thought no one would watch a series starring some Armenian guy named Krekor Ohanian. Imdb (“I am Vic M., and I admit that I have no power over the Internet Movie Database”) calls it, “One of the most violent detective series in TV history.” Wow. I don’t remember it being that cool.

But there must’ve been some reason I kept watching it. And it sure wasn’t the smart, well-crafted action writing. Because each and every week, at least once, we would see our hero, on foot, pursued by bad guys in a car through a parking garage or lot. And he would run right down the middle of the open lanes.

Every frickin’ week. It was even in the opening credits, if I recall correctly.

Leave aside the question of why the car didn’t go faster than he did - granted, this was the heyday of heavy Detroit iron, but it was also the heyday of great big studly six and eight-cylinder engines that sucked gas like an elephant at a Sahara stock tank (yes, if the Sahara had stock tanks. And elephants. And if they drank gasoline. It’s a metaphor, dammit!) I always reckoned, stripling though I was, that what I would do if I found myself in that position was, like, hide behind something heavy.

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(First in an undoubtedly unending series.)

And, mirabile dictu, it doesn’t even involve guns!

First, mea maxima culpa for going dark here for so long. (Nothing like tossing in gratuitous Latin phrases to make you look smarter than you are. And if anybody’s smarter than I am, it sure isn’t me!) Things got on top of me. I’ll try not to let it happen again.

Anyway, one thing that bugs me in movies is when the elevator cable breaks, and the cage falls like an anvil toward Certain Doom. Oh, if only anyone had ever thought to invent an automatic safety brake!

Someone did. Elisha Otis. In 1853.

It’s a fairly simple system, which causes the rollers to lock up if the thing goes too fast. Because it’s mechanically simple it’s highly reliable. It’s not perfect, but what is?

Of course some people, even certain good friends of mine (who, granted, probably never read this blog) will rush in and say, Well, it’s for dramatic effect! Duh! Sorry, enablers; it’s sloppy writing. You can always bother to do it right. If by nothing more than a three-second scene of the rollers catching - and then failing. Even mysteriously. Oh my! Suspense! And without imbecility!

Perhaps oddly, one flick I know that got it right was Speed. Now, I like Speed. (Okay, I know that’s a risky statement to make in our happy police state. To belabor what’s obvious to all but informers and ambitious prosecutors, I mean the movie. As far as stimulants go, caffeine is just all right with me. And then some.)

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