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Night Gallery: "Brenda"

You never forget your first love, do you? Especially if it's a summer love like Brenda Alden's. And especially if it's not human. But wait. I'm guessing that last part never happened to you.

The funny thing is that Brenda started out this episode seeming just like a normal girl. She chased a butterfly but did not catch it. She knocked down a sandcastle but rather than taking the blame like a normal kid -- Who am I kidding? The way Brenda Alden justified the wrecked sandcastle as an apt response for its builder's failure to talk to her on a previous day was totally the response one could expect from all too many "normal" kids (at least the ones I know). So was her attempt to patch things over and make friends with Frances Anne Emsden, the builder of said sandcastle. She had no real reason to expect Frances Anne to have warmed up to her since the last time they met; if anything, she had just assured that Frances Anne would hate her twice as much in the future. Still Brenda had the chutzpah to at least try to make friends with Frances Anne and as you might guess, she got turned down. Indeed, it was quickly pointed out by Frances Ann that none of the kids on the island were interested in being Brenda's friend. And given Brenda's odd idea of fun, who could blame them?

Then she met a creepy monster that seemed to be passing by from a nearby Theodore Sturgeon story. Brenda Alden tricked the monster into falling into a nearby pit but then she stuck around and talked to the thing. Eventually the thing got out of the pit and started wreaking havoc on Brenda's neighbors. So Brenda naturally decided to respond by leaving the front door of her parents' vacation home open one night. And then, of course, the monster came...

Unlike most conventional monster stories, Brenda Alden never got a comeuppance for any of her more dubious actions in this episode. But I was left with the impression that she was terribly lonely. True, it might be argued that Brenda's loneliness was really Brenda's own fault but Brenda obviously did not see it that way.

And in the end, Brenda had this very creepy monologue where she professed love for the monster even though it had been covered with rocks and placed in a pit by her father and her neighbors, even going so far as to declare the monster to be the only thing that she ever truly loved. (Interesting to know that she did not bother to mention her parents in that speech.) Brenda's monologue was made even creepier by the fact that it took place one year after Brenda and her family left the island where she first found the monster.

We viewers were never told exactly how the monster got there and what it would have done had it not run across Brenda. It was noted, however, that Brenda was twelve when she first found the monster and one year later when she said she loved it, she was thirteen. Coincidence?

Should we consider Brenda's situation to be a metaphor for puberty? Unwed motherhood? Or something else?

Anyway, narrator Rod Serling told us viewers at the beginning of the episode that he hoped that we would never end up being as lonely as Brenda. He had a point. It was hard for me to watch that last monologue and not think, "God, I hope I never get that lonely." And this despite the fact that -- as I've noted above -- Brenda Alden was not a very likable person.

Iconos de Televisión (Summer I)

Summer Books

Summer Movies

Random Thoughts

What does it say about the average non-Catholic's powers of observation that you routinely see Communion wafers described on the Internet as crackers, magic bread, and cookies but never as actual wafers? If these wafers were part of a secret ceremony that is rarely glimpsed by the public, I could understand this type of error. But when you consider how easy it is to attend a Catholic Mass, you have to wonder.

Money comes in like molasses in January and goes out like water in July.

You know it is really hot outside when you find yourself actually looking forward to a cold shower.

The last time I had to pick up a package from the U.S. Post Office, it took me about twenty minutes and I was able to pick up the package at a location about two freeway exits away from my home. The last time I had to pick up a package from one of the U.S. Post Office's competitors, I had to drive halfway across town, wait several hours and consider myself lucky that I was able to pick it up that night and did not have to come back the next morning like I did the last time I picked up a package at that location. So naturally it is the U.S. Post Office that is supposed to be going away in a few years and its competitors which are likely to stick around for a long time to come...

Lending money is like gambling: do not use money that you can not afford to do without for a long while. Because a long while is usually how long you will have to wait for repayment -- and that is a best-case scenario.

If art is a conversation, why do so many of my experiences with it tend to end in arguments?

For the first half of my life, I used to worry that I was too much like my mother and not enough like my father. Now I worry that I am too much like my father and not enough like my mother.

Movie Song of the Week: "In Summer"

This dude really needs to stop using my current novia's name in this song.

Pop Song of the Week: "Summer in the City"

But at night, it's a different world...

Random Thoughts

It's official. Summer is my favorite season and lemons are my favorite fruit.

You know it's been a hot summer in Texas when you start thinking of 81 degrees as "cool."

Twenty years later and "It's the economy, stupid" is still a valid political slogan.

Believe it or not, many Mexican-Americans born in this country don't really care that much about immigration but that does not mean that continually bashing Mexican illegals is the way to win our hearts. Nor is continually equating mojado culture with Chicano culture. Or for that matter, with Mexican-American culture.

Just once I would like to see Ann Coulter write a book that doesn't look like it should be printed in an all caps format.

Anyone else suspect that many of the same people bashing actor Clint Eastwood for his speech at the 2012 GOP convention were the same people arguing a few months ago that Eastwood should be nominated for president just because he did a really cool voiceover for a car commercial?

I See the Girls Walk by Dressed in Their Summer Clothes...

And yet it's only April.

Moreover, if you can see such women at the local library, just imagine what the women at the local public park are wearing...

Trailer of the Week: Beach Blanket Bingo (1965)

They don't make summer movies like this anymore -- and that's a good thing, right?

Pop Song of the Week: "Summertime Blues"

Yes, it seems like a mere cover version of the classic Eddie Cochran song but some of those visuals literally made my mouth drop open. Who knew Ms. Harry was making videos like this in the 1990s?

Pop Song of the Week: "Cruel Summer"

Just some good ol' gals. Never meaning no harm...

Song Quote of the Week

On a hot summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?
--Jim Steinman, “You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night)”

Pop Song of the Week: “Summer Wine”

Yet another reason to be careful what you drink and with whom you drink it.

Movie Song of the Week: “Summer Nights”

And now a happy song from one of my sister's favorite movies. It's tempting to call this my generation's version of “I Remember It Well” for reasons that should become obvious after you all have viewed the videos. But it works just as well without the Gigi references.

First, a version for my sister and my various English-speaking relatives and acquaintances:



And now, a version for my bilingual relatives:

TV Quote of the Week

I've got to get a girlfriend, just for the summer, until this wears off. She'll be a summery girl. She'll have hair. She'll have summery friends who know how to be outside. She'll play tennis and wear dresses and have bare feet, and in the autumn, I'll ditch her, because she's my summer girl!
--Dylan Moran, Black Books, “Fever”

Movie Quote I Identify With Far More Than I'd Normally Admit

Oh, I fiddled with the idea one summer but it was over by fall.
--Elizabeth Patterson, Remember the Night (1940)

Pop Song of the Week: “The Boys of Summer”

Oh, geez. August is more than halfway over and the anniversary of what would have been my first wedding occurred last weekend. So something tells me it's not a good time to post another Abba song. So from 1984, it's Don Henley's ballad of long-lost love.

Ironically, the first thing I heard this song, I was in love with yet another woman apart from my former bride-to-be. And that “relationship” ended horribly as well. (For what it's worth, my love was unrequited.)

On the other hand, I rarely think of that girl nowadays so maybe I'm doing something right for a change.

Maybe.

I hope you all enjoy the song:

Pop Song of the Week: “Echo Beach”

It's summertime and thus time for summer songs. But, being the contrarian that I am, I can't resist posting the one summer song that never seems to get played on the radio except on very obscure stations: Martha and the Muffins' 1980 tune “Echo Beach.”

I liked this song so much that it was on one of the first CDs I ever bought. It's an odd song yet I like to think its message of furtive escapism is one that everyone can identify with. Even those of us who aren't office clerks.

It's a shame the song isn't more well known, but then I do tend to like most the songs that are rarely played on the radio.

I hope you enjoy it: