I met a young lady the other day who has the word 'Cadillac' tattooed on her right wrist. It turns out that it is the middle name of her eight month old son. She named him after an Amurrican Feetball player who had 'Cadillac' as his nickname. She really had no idea what or who Cadillac was. She knew it had something to do with a car, but she didn't know anything about the car or why it was named that.

She also had no idea how serendipitious it was that she had named her child that, as I had been making a joke for decades about the idiots in this part of the world naming their kids after automobiles they couldn't afford, like 'Porsha' (I kid you not!), Catalina, Minnie, Intrigue, Mercedes (which carries a double-whammy, if you think about it), Chimera, Royce, and Corolla.

Most of the 'mysteries' that do truly exist do so because of a lack of evidence that would make them, um, 'unmysterious'. The other 'mysteries' the popular kind, only exist because people don't bother to engage their critical faculties. In fact, they seem to resist using their critical faculties because, well, it seems to hurt them.

Archeology has it's origins with people who had more money than sense and wanted to prove that certain ancient texts of dubious authenticity were 'true'. This is a common problem with people who are obsessed with the written or the printed page. Libraries and houses and shops are filled with books and they can't all be true.

Yet, there are those who seek unseen secrets to ponder, who skip past all the obvious 'truths' and regular 'mysteries' to wander through the mindscapes of people just as disturbed or bored as they are. As if your average tax document is not disturbing or boring enough or produced by as enigmatic a set of odd characters as one would wish. The ingredient label on a box of Christmas Crackers holds more genuine intrigue than the unseen secrets that your average seeker finally manages to uncover in the mouldering pages of an antique copy of the Fortean Times.

There are so many 'things' and 'facts' that people assume are known that a decent Gurgle search or a trip to the local library to peruse a reasonably decent encyclopaedia would dispel. They just can't be bothered, because it would be 'uppity' to actually use their brains. And they don't want to be accused of thinking beyond their station, no matter how unhappy they are in it.

The whole thing reaches teetering heights of absurdity when the ignorant and stupid have the power of the word processor and the dip pen in their tight little grimy fists. Robert E. Howard evoked an insane, stupid and powerful world in his stories, but he was an intelligent and troubled man who was much better educated than many of his fans and readers. His words and images have been reprinted and restolen and refilmed a thousand times over. Many of his archetypes were not originally imagined by him and he never claimed to be their creator. Many of his stereotypes were common to his time and culture, and he played upon them to make his daily bread. Yet, a thousand times over, he has been plagiarized and cover-your-eyesed by people who assume that his 'world' is in the common domain by virtue of it's very 'ancientness' and ubiquity. Yeah, well, a lot of people assumed the same thing about the 'Happy Birthday' song and they was proved wrong!

To watch movies and read books and look at comix that rob the very same tiny grave over and over again is to lament the inability of the modern publisher and producer to pull their heads out of their horses and realize that 'variations on a theme' or 'homage to a classic' are poor excuses for a lack of imagination that is highlighted by the power and the success of 'The Simpsons' alone.

All one has to do is watch one episode each of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer', 'Charmed', and 'Highlander' to realise just how little writing actually went on in those series. And how much typing was involved. 'Firefly' is justly celebrated because even Joss Whedon understood what a waste of film 'Angel' was and tried to do SOMETHING DIFFERENT. And he did it in such a way that no one could accuse him of not doing his research. Because there was no research to be done.
Smart boy.