If I Had a Time Machine, It Would Not Involve a Hot Tub

So yesterday, I went to see Hot Tub Time Machine with a bud. I have a weakness for time travel stories. If I had to pick a favorite time travel movie, it’d be Back to the Future, naturally…love that shit. But I also have a fondness for Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Time Cop, and the Butterfly Effect.

Hot Tub? Was so-so. It brought some laughs, many of them were gross-out laughs involving bodily fluids, but whatever. Not Hangover funny, but not a total loss. It’s just that, well, when you have a movie called Hot Tub Time Machine, can you be all that shocked at what kind of a movie it is? It’s a hot tub with a built-in time machine; there’s really not a lot of plot going on.

I’m an 80’s kid…graduated in 1984, so this was prime pickings for me. I LIVED in the time of jeri-curls and Miami Vice. Hell, I wore a linen jacket myself with pastel-colored t-shirts.

Bottom line: worth a rental, perhaps a matinee. Definitely NOT worth full night-time prices at the movies.

The premise that always interests me with time-travel tales is changing the future. If I went back in time, and I had my 2010 brain in my teenage body, what would I do? First off, I’d be getting laid like there was no tomorrow. I know stuff now that I didn’t know then. How to kiss a girl, for instance. Better yet, I know where the G-spot is. I’d be the most popular guy in school! My street cred would zoom through the roof!

Things I’d Do If I Went Back in Time

1. I’d totally make it with Janeen Heaney in 9th grade. James Bonner may have gotten the girl back then, but he didn’t know what the fuck he was doing. I’d say screw the anonymous love letters I left in Janeen’s locker for two years. I’d go right to her face, bring her flowers, whisper sweet nothings in her ear, and make her cum so hard her toes would curl…maybe even pop off. She’d tell her girlfriends and pretty soon every girl in school would want to fuck me. Karl 2.0, yeah, baby.
2. Buy stock in Apple. In the 80’s. I had an Apple IIc back then. Perhaps now I’d easily afford a new MacBook.
3. Punch Kevin Ferrick in the mouth. 8th grade. Schoolmate and next-door neighbor. Him and the *other* Kevin (Downs) were merciless. I wouldn’t save their asses if I had another shot.
4. I’d preinvent the fucking Snuggie. I hate them, but I’m not an idiot. If morons are willing to buy tons of backwards robes, I’ll be happy to sell them.
5. I’d stop Michael Hutchence from killing himself. Love INXS and miss him a lot. The new singer, J.D. Fortune, just ain’t doing it for me.
6. I’d actually get fashionable haircuts. And clothes.
7. I would start going to therapy right after my folks got divorced. Who KNOWS where I’d be now if I had been enlightened decades ago?
8. I’d totally ace school, be friends with the geeks, the jocks, and the outcasts alike. The teachers would all love me, so would the girls. And the guys would all want to be me.
9. I’d steal all of our stuff out of storage when we moved from New York to New Mexico. Lost virtually everything we had when I was 15…heirlooms, photos, games. All of it.
10. I’d totally sleep with my first girlfriend. I was inexperienced and a goody-goody. Fuck that.
11. Stop Coca Cola from making the dreadful New Coke in the 80’s. ‘Nuff said.
12. Prevent Poison from ever becoming a band. I know, the history books would thank me forever. Oddly, the stupid band is in the Hot Tub movie.

I’d still prefer the Delorean vs. the Hot Tub Time Machine, don’t get me wrong. But I’d make it work however I had to.

Now, a little meme, courtesy of Dave2.

1. Go to your first photo file and pick the 10th photo in it.
2. Tell the story behind the photo.
3. Tag 5 other people to do likewise.

My first photo file is random Karl photos from the past. And here’s #10:

That’s me, circa February, 1987. Air Force Basic Training, Lackland AFB, Texas. Silly photo booth shot that I took for  my (then) wife. Let me tell you, when you’re away from the woman you’re madly in love with for MONTHS, you LIVE for mail call every day.

I remember that my ex told me she didn’t recognize the guy in that photo until her mom pointed out that it was me. Then, she cried. “What have they done to him?”

What, indeed.

I don’t tag people, but feel free to try this yourself.