Hero Worship

When I was a boy I invented a superhero alter ego for myself: Paul Instructon.

No, not instruction. Instructon.

I don't think the fact that 'instructon' isn't a word was any kind of barrier to me. I think it might have been related to ideas of being indestructible. In fact, I have just remembered there was a film with Scott Bakula in it that might have influenced me.

I just checked the internet to find it, but I can't. I must have imagined it had Bakula in it. I thought it was called Invincible Man or Indestructible Man. I have no idea what it was. Maybe I can search it out.

Anyway, Paul Instructon wore a green costume and had a ridiculous array of powers. I could do things that even Superman would be envious of. One of the things Instructon could do was shoot water out of my hands and crocodiles out of my fingers, trapping my enemy.

Looking back, this was an unwieldy power. Firstly, because it assumes my enemy is in a water-tight area where they could be submerged, and at the mercy of my amphibious killer minions. And secondly, crocodiles don't really need water to live. I could just shoot the crocodiles out on dry land. I'm sure they'd still do their jobs. Maybe I wanted them to feel moist and comfortable.

The necessity of water might have worked if I'd been shooting out sharks from my fingers, but this would require a solution to problem presented by my first objection.

Also shooting sharks from ones fingers is a little too far-fetched, don't you think?

Paul Instructon was never destined to be a huge commercial success. But I think he won every battle and always fought the good fight. We may never see his like again.

***

Here is the second and final installment of our Facebook conversation highlights. I might trawl other areas of my correspondence to unearth some gems.

On Life:

Lucy:
I'm living the British Dream (if you weel), and it is as impractical as living a dream implies. I'm just basically a sleep-walker, who keeps narrowly avoiding cliff-tops.


On Boredom:

Paul:
I'm so bored!! Bored with a capital 'BORE'.

I would very much like to go to sleep. But that's socially unacceptable. Whenever I try, they get me to put my trousers back on.

Borded. Bourd. Bordh. Bawd.

Boherd. I'm boherd.

(You might think I'd be so bored that I'd come up with something interesting to say. But I'm so bored that my imagination has broken. I'm boring myself right now.)

Lucy:
I've been at that level of boredom before! That's one behind the stage where you try shifting your focus and blurring your eyes for fun. And then, the next stage is where you fight the big boss at the end of the level, but the trick is to hit his fireballs back at him with your sword. And then, if you beat him, you get to the bonus boredom levels, and they are another state of consciousness entirely. You get to play as other characters, for one. Yes, if you battle through boredom, you come out in a world where things are very interesting indeed!

---

Paul:
I'm Joeseph W. Bored.

I'm sure you're somewhere else, but I could do with some entertainment. Maybe you could tell me a story about a Leopard?

Lucy:
Here it is:
Once upon a time, there was leopard called Claude, who ruled the Savannah.
One fine morning, Claude was chomping on a Wildebeast, when he decided that there had to be more to life than this.
He went to the city, developed a crack habit and fathered many bastards upon unsuspecting women standing at bus stops.
And they all lived happily ever after (except for the half-leopard kids, who had to be put down)
The end.


On Escaping The House:

Paul:
If you want to get out, you could stick bread and cheese on your fingernails. stick your hands into the fireplace (if it's turned off), and lure seagulls down the chimney. Then you could let them pull you towards sunlight and freedom.


On Pringles:

Paul:
They should do a fork-shaped variety called Prongles.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

AHA.

Yes!


On Christmas Cheer:
Lucy:
You could use the opportunity to send free, easy and obscene Christmas cards, by writing 'Merry fucking Christmas, you retards' on everybody's wall (retards plural, so that you don't leave anybody out - some people may have little babies, or cats, that cannot be represented on Facebook).


On Current Events:
Paul:
I've just had my second smoothie. Expensive? Yes.

Tasty? Yes.

Boring? Yes.

Rhetorical?

Yes.

***

I've just found the Scott Bakula film! It was him! Although, it seems the title is I-Man.

I think it was called Indestrucible Man when I saw it on video. A failed pilot for a TV series, apparently.

I-Man is almost as terrible a name as Paul Instructon. Do you think they thought the US audience wouldn't be able to hande a five-syllable word in the title?

If I thought the hero was called I-Man, I'd probably expect him to have amazing visual powers. Maybe a giant eye, or he could be composed entirely of eyes.

Either that or I-Man could be some courtroom drama about Tarzan's struggle to prove his humanity. I'd watch that, my friend. Fuck Grisham.

Ooh, you can get it on DVD! £4.99? Hmm. Probably not worth it.

The other good thing about this is on the IMDB page linked above, the plot keywords (for searching purposes, I suppose) are:

Gas / Immortality / Kids and Family
If that's not a winning combination, I don't know what is.

The annoying thing is, when I pitched my film idea to Dreamworks about a man who ingests children's farts in an attempt to live forever, I got some funny looks.

And a threat of police action.

And an erection.

...

Goodnight, everybody!