1 MORE DAY TILL TOWEL DAY!!!

No, this isn't another self-proclaimed holiday (in honor of the fact that I have my own blog and am the god of my own virtual universe... such as it is) but an INTERNATIONAL HOLIDAY!!!

Don't believe me? Read about Towel Day on the Official Website!!!

You can also read about it on Wikipedia.org! (And you know me: If it's on Wikipedia.org, it's legit, lol!)

I've already emailed all my friends about it, but I wanted to give YOU fair warning, too! Friday, May 25th, I encourage you to carry your favorite, most froody towel with you all day long in celebration of the comedic -- and humanitarian -- genius that is Douglas Noel Adams!!!

If you're not familiar with Douglas Adams, here's what he means to me:

Around 11 years old I was making the transition from Thick-Headed "That's Not What My Dad Says" Twat to Enlightened & Individual Spirit. It was a rough road... I grew up in Odessa, Texas. (If you don't know Odessa, you know some place like it: Boneheads are rewarded with laughter and acceptance while the cleverer folk are rewarded with regular beatings with sticks and rocks and mud.) I wasn't quite able to grasp the utter surrealism of Monte Python yet -- Benny Hill was more my speed -- but The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy opened up new worlds to me!

Not "worlds" in the literal sense, as in Magrathea and Jaglan Beta and Santraginus V and the multitude of other worlds created by this amazing imagination, but possibilities and perceptions Adams' keen observational humor evoked!

Between 11 and 17 Adams would guide me through the entire Hitchhiker's series, and introduce me to Dirk Gently's universe, as well. And I must note that the Gently-verse open my imagination once again, in a way that it was not prepared to be opened otherwise.

In my early 20s, however, (1990, to be specific) I was unable to spend the several weeks it would take me (I'm a slooooow reader) to join Adams on a journey to see a bunch of species on the brink of extinction.

I mean, how much of a DOWNER would THAT be?!!

But then in my mid-20s it happened...

I had read the entire Hitchiker's Guide and Dirk Gently series more times than could be possibly useful, so I committed myself to Last Chance To See. And I discovered that a person (well... not just any person) could write about fairly bleak subject matter with the same wit and charm and playful humor that one writes complete fiction with!!!

Last Chance To See (his only non-fiction book) has subsequently become my favorite Douglas Adams book, and my view of everything Life (the Universe and Everything) has to offer has been permanently and dramatically and WONDERFULLY altered for the rest of my life!!!

To date, I have read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish, Long, Dark tea-Time of the Soul, Last Chance To See, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and Restaurant at the End of the Universe more times than I can possibly count (possibly more times than there are rocks in Wails) and I have listened to the Hitchhiker's radio series -- both the original Primary & Secondary Phases, followed by the Tertiary, Quandary & Quintessential Phases -- just about half as many times! I converted several books-on-audio cassette to mp3s just as the tapes they were on were about to give-out permanently just so I can continue listening to Douglas reading his amazing books to me! (This, I should note, is a process that takes as long as it takes to listen to the tapes themselves... longer, actually.) Not so I can sell them on eBay (which I have not done) but just so I can continue listening to Douglas reading Douglas's work.


When I see an interview with Chuck Jones or Steven Spielberg or Jim Henson or George Lucas I think "That man helped create my imagination!" But these cats -- masters, though they are -- can't hold a candle to the hemisphere of my gray matter that was unlocked and developed by Douglas Noel Adams.

So if you know his work, go treat yourself to one of your favorites, and try to remember what you felt and thought when you first read it. And if you're not familiar with his work, go to your nearest used book store and grab something -- anything -- and introduce yourself to a man who will make you laugh out loud!!! Or go to BBC Radio 4's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Future site and allow Douglas, himself, to take you on a tour of the progression of technology -- some of which has already come to pass since the 4-part audio series was recorded in 2001!

But anyway you do it, get to know the man that has inspired so many people around the globe to take their towels with them everywhere they go for an entire day, in memory and celebration of who he was/is/will always be.

PEACE!!!

And... (yeah, you saw this coming...)

DON'T PANIC!

:D