INSPIRATION: Flash Gordon

Flash Gordon, Leader of the Universe and Most Important Film in my Life

[intense_dropcap color=”primary”]T[/intense_dropcap]here was a period of time where cable was a luxury (not an option) and you had to choose between HBO and a company called WHT. Yes, this was long ago. Gratefully during this time, my parents were able to afford a wired remote control connected to our big TV that was encased in a wooden box and we had Home Box Office. Like ritual, I would park myself on the living room floor six feet away from this box and just watch glorious TV. The options were few, but when you had to watch TV on a 13″ black and white screen in the kitchen and use pliers to change the channels and were regulated to CBS, NBC, ABC, WWOR, WPIX, PBS, and whatever the hell FOX was before it became FOX, cable was a panacea. The options were many and glorious even if they really weren’t. My brother and I and the neighborhood kids who didn’t have cable who would always come by were ecstatic as a pack of latch key kids now had newfound options.

Despite having a lot of new new to choose from, HBO (HBO Entertainment back then) was clearly the shit to watch. Movies. Shows. Sex. Drugs. Nudity. It was fucking awesome. But you have to remember, this was in the early days of cable. There was only a handful of programs and movies the networks were able to run due to licensing and programming. Remember Netflix online when it first launched? Remember how much it sucked back then? Watching a bunch of A&E shows all day long… There was no chill with Netflix back then. Whelp… same shit back in the day. One film HBO seemingly had an endless license to air was the best in class of campy films – a movie about a former football player who travels into space and somehow saves the planet played by a former football player. That movie was Flash Gordon and HBO aired it four times a day – and it’s responsible for me being who I am.

Let me be very clear – Flash Gordon was and is an awful movie. Terrible. I haven’t watched this film since those original days. I shouldn’t have to. I’ve probably seen it more times than any other film I’ve ever seen including Scarface (who hasn’t seen Scarface at least 50x). The sad/funny/ironic thing is I can barely remember any scenes or details from the film. But it’s not about the plot, theme, character, character development, dialogue, production value, or any other cinematic element of Flash Gordon that has resonated with me some much.

Comic books were my world as a kid. It’s how I developed my advanced vocabulary; it was the key to me excelling early on in science; and it was the template for my artistic development as an illustrator (I no longer have the ability to draw. I can barely draw a circle now.). Flash Gordon was a comic book brought to life. It was alive. It was moving. And if comic books were life to me, Flash Gordon was terminal cancer. Again, let me reiterate how awful this thing was. And that’s what resonated with me. As an impressionable kid, all that ever motivated me was great shit. I aspired to be wonderful, to be wonderous. To be great like them. For hours and days on end, I would hypnotically watch this Flash Gordon fuckeration that broke my heart time and time again as it refused to get better upon further review, yet stayed on-air ad infinitum. And I couldn’t understand why. Why play this shit? It sucked. Full of youth, curiosity, and attitude, I told myself that I could do better. If HBO aired this shit, they would air what I would come up with, because there was no way in hell that I couldn’t do better. No way. So I would. It was that simple. I was going to better. It was at that moment I decided I was going to do better and make something better than Flash Gordon. Again, it was that simple. I got my black and white lined notebook and I started writing. I don’t recall what I wrote. It had to do with something comic booky. It was the first time I can remember being inspired, inspired to take action. I was moved. I had to act. I had to do something. It was my real introduction into the creative process – the beauty and the madness of creating something from nothing or transmuting an inspiration into a creation. My takeaway from all of this is a mantra that I adhere to to this day when it comes to work and things– I can do better, so I will.

Without hyperbole or bullshit, Flash Gordon changed my life. I never imagined I could have crafted a career out of being creative. I collect checks for putting my feet up and letting my mind drift and wander. I get paid to entertain the masses as I pluck thoughts and fancies from the air and turn them into words and visuals. Who knew? Certainly not Mike Hodges, the director. Sam J. Jones? Hell nah! Not Queen who provided that iconic theme song that has stuck in my head for over half of my life. But then again, isn’t that the underlying purpose of creating art in the first place. We give birth to a child, put it out in the universe and allow it to become what it will. Flash Gordon became a shitty movie that was on heavy rotation that inspired a little kid in New York who went on to write for every media format for the masses. Who knew? I know I didn’t.

If you’re wondering what happened to my first piece that I wrote once I decide to start writing, I have no clue. I know I never finished it. I’m sure it wasn’t good. I’m not even sure it was better than Flash Gordon like I originally intended it to be. But then again, that’s not the point.

[intense_button hover_color=”#ffffff” size=”medium” align=”left”]Sidebar: I will rewatch Flash Gordon for the first time in years and do a running commentary post on it in the near future. Word. [/intense_button]

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