Eric Robert Nolan graduated from Mary Washington College in 1994 with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology. He spent several years a news reporter and editorial writer for the Culpeper Star Exponent in Culpeper, Virginia. His work has also appeared on the front pages of numerous newspapers in Virginia, including The Free Lance – Star and The Daily Progress. Eric entered the field of philanthropy in 1996, as a grant writer for nonprofit healthcare organizations.
Eric’s poetry has been featured by Dead Beats Literary Blog, Dagda Publishing, The International War Veterans’ Poetry Archive, and elsewhere. His poetry will also be published by Illumen Magazine in its Spring 2014 issue.
This is just NUTS. No, I am not quite old enough to remember this late-1960’s advertisement for “Erik” cigars — I happened along a few years later. But I was named for it.
My father told me when I was growing up that he named me after hearing the name “Eric” in a cigar commercial … I guess I was just never 100 percent sure if he was kidding or not. (My parents also came very close to naming me “Christian.”) Just a few days ago, through the magic of the Internet, I finally discovered the ad itself. (Thanks to Youtube user “blegume” for uploading the vintage commercial and solving this longstanding personal mystery.)
The ad itself is actually kind of funny. It makes smoking look entirely slick and telegenic and badass, and it underscores the point metaphorically with footage of a goddam viking ship sailing around Manhattan. (That’s the Brooklyn Bridge you see in the background.)
And, in this politically correct age, the ad manages to be at least mildly offensive to two groups: women and … Scandinavians. (Its product, it boasts, is “the most interesting idea from Scandinavia since the blonde.”)
My self-esteem would be incredibly high if people started proudly proclaiming “ERIK” in the same manner as the robust male narrator. I might try to create a wav. file of that and program my laptop to belt that out randomly like twice a day. Besides, I figure it could be worse — my father could have named me “Newport Menthols” or something. (Maybe it would be fitting; I’m slim and smooth, yet ultimately hazardous to your health.)
The Kirk Douglas lookalike you see in square-jawed profile is actually a Scandinavian named “Erik,” the video’s comments section informs me. He is none other than Norwegian Erik Silju, and his credits include episodes of both “Route 66” and “Murder, She Wrote.”
Here’s the kicker, though — I found four other guys, in the first page of the comments section alone, who were also named “Erik” after their parents saw this ad. That’s gotta be some kind of record.
‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What’s Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
— Juliet, in William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”
They had 20 years to develop a sequel for “Independence Day: Resurgence” (2016) — 20 years after the original “Independence Day” exploded into theaters, defining the 1990’s summer blockbuster. You figure that’d be enough time to come up with a really cool script.
Maybe there was one — maybe they had a really great screenplay that was thrown out for some reason at the very last minute. (Political correctness? Copyright issues? Internal studio politics?) Then this by-the-numbers, live-action “G.I. Joe” cartoon was hastily thrust in front of the cameras. What we’ve got here is really just a lot of common tropes strung together by a thin story, performed by cliche stock characters. The charm, surprises, humor and impact of the (admittedly silly) original film are entirely absent here.
Don’t get me wrong. “Independence Day: Resurgence” isn’t quite as bad as some other reviewers might make it seem. There’s some fun to be had, especially if the kid in you still gets a kick out of gooey aliens. (The ending sequence was enjoyable.)
It’s just disappointing because it’s quite average. I’d give it a 6 out of 10, and I’d caution you to wait until you pay a dollar for it at Redbox.
Postscript: given what the movie reveals as their goal, why don’t the aliens just nuke us from orbit? Ellen Ripley is smarter than an entire alien race.
Everything you’ve heard about “Train to Busan” (2016) is indeed correct; it’s a first-rate South Korean zombie film that fans of the genre won’t want to miss. I’d give it a 9 out of 10.
It’s maybe a little campier than I expected, with some over-the-top zombies that feel more reminiscent of the “Evil Dead” films than George A. Romero’s movies or Robert Kirkman’s work. It’s also a bit long at nearly two hours — if I were editing it, I would have swapped out some of the time devoted to car-to-car melees with additional scenes showing what’s transpired beyond the train. Imagine how a skilled screenwriter could further expand on the (really cool) train station plot points we already see … what if the train was forced to stop at every station? What if it couldn’t stop? What if its passengers were turned away at safe areas? What if desperate stragglers tried to board the train?
I posted it on my Facebook with the disclaimer that I knew it wasn’t a very good photo. I saw an Osprey V-22 military aircraft flying past the moon over my neighborhood the other day, and I thought it would make an amazing shot. But I still need to learn to work the damn zoom function on my camera phone. And, as you, can see it didn’t turn out so hot.
For those of you unfamiliar with the Osprey aircraft, it is a kick-ass, high-tech aircraft that is sort of a hybrid between a plane and a backwards helicopter. It can point its immense rotary blades forward or upward, like a wicked 1980’s G.I. Joe toy, or a goddamn genuine-real-life Transformer.
So a couple of my friends keep “liking” it on Facebook, or commenting that they like my photos, but I’m pretty sure they’re doing so ironically by now.
Bear in mind, some of these people are British. They have a dry sense of humor, and some of them are inscrutable. You can hardly tell when these people are making fun of you. They’re as dryly witty as goddam Benjamin Disraeli, and I’m usually on Facebook before I’ve finished my first cup of coffee.
There is one erudite lass in particular about whom I have grown paranoid. I just picture her snickering at me while doing British things, like sipping tea and eating crumpets/crickets/rickets/trumpets/whatever while enjoying “Benny Hill” and socialized healthcare and sending telegrams to Churchill about the Blitz. Seriously.
This is Matt Wagner’s cover for the Dark Horse Comics re-release of the series in 2001 — not its first publication by Comico in 1987.
I know this is a silly observation (and almost certainly unintended by Wagner), but this absolutely reminds me of the Green Lantern Corps comics. (Consider the color scheme combined with the placement of the circles, and even Christine Spar’s pose.)
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 