Home Planet Movies

My cousin, Phyllis, sent me a holo-vid of a big Staad "family reunion" they held back on my home planet of Amadus! Naturally, I couldn't attend. I mean, I'm currently evading a U.P. law by posing as my own (fictional) twin brother, and I didn't want to have to explain that to about two hundred grumpy, hairy people. There's also the little matter of my hating the entire lot of them. So that's problematic.

I don't want to bore you by showing you the entire vid. And besides, your pathetic 21st-century eyeballs (and brains) wouldn't be able to perceive the holo-dimensions, anyway. But still, I thought I'd post some 2-D screengrabs. It'll give you a nice glimpse of what my people are wearing nowadays (1,000 years from now, in another dimension) and consequently, both why I became a fashion designer and moved the hell away from there.

This is my favorite sequence on the holo-vid, by the way. Because there's violence!

Storm Boy! Play something appropriately jolly on your electric sousasaxotimpanibone, will you? How's 'bout the "Amok Time" theme from "Star Trek"? ...No, screw you! And why are you pointing at me with your pinky finger?! You've been doing that a lot, lately. ...OH, FOR--!

...He says "Pointing at people with your pinky finger is the new pointing at people with your index finger." GAH. I think I liked him better as a miserable wreck. Okay, so not really. But this "sassy queen" routine of his is working my last nerve.

Where were we? Aw, yeah! The holo-vid!

I wish I could tell you those were "party hats." But no. The Staads just really like their "bling." (Actually, I think somebody did order one party hat. From Orando. They used it as the refreshment tent.) From left-to-right, those are my cousins Byll, Gyll, and Wyll. Their branch of the family doesn't get outside much, which explains the pasty complexions. Byll has a home business, selling homemade "steampunk" riding mowers (they're about as big as one of your SUV's) on the intergalactic intraweb. Gyll is a professional ghost writer for insult comics. And Wyll lost his eyebrows in a smelting accident, so he's on disability. He draws them on with a magic marker nowadays.

At this point in the holo-vid, there's been a dispute over who was supposed to bring the Jell-o salad, and Gyll is hurling professional-strength barbs at...

...my Uncle Dylbyrt, formerly a stuntman for the Bismollywood film industry and currently a raging alcoholic. (On the edge of the frame, my Aunt "Big" Ethyl struggles through her space-Valium haze to perceive what all the kerfuffle is about.)

And then Gyll says something about Dylbyrt's back hair (as in, he doesn't have enough of it) and then it's on.

MAN, THIS WAS SWEET--! A good ten-dozen Staads wound up getting drawn into that scrap. It was so cool! For realsies... think of the coolest "bar fight" sequence from your favorite Western or Lifetime Original Movie, marinate it overnight in pure testosterone, and multiply it by a trillion. That's what it was like. By the end of the donnybrook, everybody's noses and limbs are busted, and they're all laid out on the ground in an orderly pile, like in that scene from "Gone with the Wind."

And then my weird, body-waxing cousin Olyvyr shows up (late again!) and starts dancing.