READ THIS FIRST - or you won't have a clue

First, some background. Our universe is just one of many parallel universes. Every single person, in all of the universes, is unique. So there is no parallel universe where you are the Queen of England. You are basically it, at least as far as you’re concerned.

But most universes (if not all) have television. Every time a person steps in front of a camera and pretends to be someone else, a character is created. That character has a soul … the same soul as a real, living human being somewhere in another universe. It happens on good TV shows, it happens on very bad TV shows, and it even happens on Law & Order spin-offs. That includes You. You are a character on a TV show in some other universe.

For some unknown reason, I can see TV programs in parallel universes. I can tell you who your character is. I can tell you what the TV show was about. Sometimes I can even tell you about the actor or actress that portrayed you on that TV show.

Honestly, this is not a very useful paranormal ability. But I'm game if you want to give it a try. Leave a comment on this blog, or send me an e-mail. Tell me something about yourself. You choose how much to tell me, truth or lies, it doesn't matter. I’ll find your character in the multiverse, and write down as many details as I can make out. If you leave an e-mail address, I will send the info to you. I will also post the details here if your character or series is at all interesting.

It may take me a while to respond. This is a personal reading, not the output of a Java script. So be patient.

Kenny "Rickets" the Orphan, Back East

The man known only as “DTravel” writes:

Hello JD. Interesting how you're posting from the future. Any rate, if you should happen to come across information about my TV character alter-ego I'd be interested in hearing about it please.

I'm a geek (or is it nerd this week?), heavy into science fiction, space and the usual stereotypes. But I'm also a bit of an information sponge with interests in nature/natural history, human history, social sciences and pretty much anything else that catches my interest. I've worked as a programmer on the Computer-Aided Dispatch systems used in 911 centers, conducted consumer opinion surveys, helped start a computer recycling non-profit and managed the operations of a small oil-exploration consulting company. I'm also a long time wargamer and face-to-face role-playing gamer. (The running joke is that all my characters are just avatars of a Multiversal Mercenary who's motto is "You name it, we kill it, any time, any reality." because of all the different backgrounds I've played in and I tend to be the only one who survives for any length of time.)

I’m not actually posting from the future – I just change the date of first post periodically so that it appears first in the list. There’s probably a better way to keep the post at the front of the blog, but I’m all about the path least resistance. Once again, I would like to emphasize that, to my knowledge, your TV character says nothing about you as a person.

Show: Back East, (1955-60)

Genre: Comedy

Your Character: Kenny (a.k.a. “Rickets”) the Orphan (last name unknown)

Actors(s): Daniel Edwards

Show Details: Back East was a family-oriented sit com, following the adventures of grade school student Andy Hansen and his family (older sister Alice, and parents Sally and Hugh). In the show’s pilot, the Hansen’s move to an unnamed East Coast city after living for ten years in California (where Andy was born). Culturally, Andy is the stranger in a strange land – a “beatnik” child in a conservative 50s setting. With his “long” hair and liberal west-coast attitudes, Andy quickly becomes a pariah in his elementary school. You play Kenny, a street urchin nick-named “Rickets.” (Your last name was never mentioned.) Fellow outcasts Andy and Kenny become fast friends – a sitcom Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn.

Rickets was played by Daniel Edwards, a youthful-looking 4’10” actor who was in his early 30s when the show began its run. Contrary to the urban legends, Edwards did not go on to star in niche porn films, serve as a narcotics officer for the LAPD, or die after injecting Hashish into Zotz candies. Instead, Edwards made a modest fortune from a string of Volkswagen dealerships in Illinois, where he lives with his wife to this day.

Back East in Pop Culture: In American slang, a “rickets” is anyone who is streetwise or who lives outside the law. As in, “Hey, this is great weed. Who’s your rickets?”

Nurse Joan McAfee, Carrier Group Police

An anonymous petitioner writes: "I would LOVE to know my character. I'm a 40-something gal who grew up in Ohio, spent some time in Georgia, and now live in Washington. I manage a bunch of engineering groups that design flying machines. Oh, and I was once in Arab, AL (I'm sure that figures into my personality somewhere)."

Nice use of geographical shout-outs. By why stop there? “I often change planes in St. Louis. My car was assembled in Canada from parts manufactured in Japan. I enjoy maple syrup from Vermont …”

Sorry, I’m in a bad mood. My visions are even more out of control than usual. Still, I shouldn’t take it out on you. Before I start on your reading, I want you to know that your parallel universe TV character does not necessarily say anything about you as a person. As I stated in an earlier post:

“Most TV characters are extras or walk-ons. You are probably the 'old army buddy' who dies before the first commercial break. You almost certainly aren’t the starship captain or even the tough-but-sexy emergency room nurse. That’s just how it is – nothing I can do about it.”

But oddly enough, you actually are a tough-but-sexy emergency room nurse.

Show: Carrier Group Police, (1950-1961)

Genre: Military drama

Your Character: Nurse Joan McAfee

Actors(s): Sorry, no information available.

Show Details: Carrier Group Police followed the adventures of Commander Tyree Lang, a “Navy Cop” serving in the Pacific during WWII. Every episode took place aboard the USS Forrest (an American aircraft carrier) and its various escort vessels. The show found a successful formula and stuck with it: 1) Crime discovered 2) Crime investigated 3) Bad guy shot, or falls over the side, or is shot and then falls over the side. By the end of the shows 11-year run, Lang killed more American sailors than Admiral Yamamoto.

Your character, Nurse Joan McAfee, kept her cool through every possible combination of gunfight, operation, typhoon, and Japanese attack. She saved lives, and could be compassionate when needed, but she didn’t exactly overflow with kind feelings. She habitually abused the doctors (who were mainly present as comedy relief). In Season 3, she slapped a sailor who was suffering from combat fatigue. While McAfee never actually told a patient to “shut up and die already” (anymore than Rick really said “Play it again, Sam”), the quote was attributed to her character anyway.

Of course, Lang and McAfee had an unrequited romance throughout the show’s run. But they could never be together. Joan was a Marine, and (in her words) Lang “was just a Navy man.”

Lt. Gallagher, Classy Danser

David S. of Alpharetta, GA, writes: "Oh great paranormal oracle, I am the father of four boys, bald, and tired. I eagerly await to know my parallel TV show character."

Day three of my new blog, and I'm already up to my butt in sarcasm. In any case, here's your profile.

Show(s): Classy Danser (1980-82), Detective Danser (1983)

Genre: Police procedural “with a twist”

Your Character: Lt. Gallagher (first name unknown)

Type: Series regular

Actor: Sorry, no information.

Show Details: Classy Danser chronicled the life and times of young police detective Christina “Classy” Danser. In addition to being named “Danser,” she was an actual dancer until she quit ballet to attend the police academy. In most of the episodes, Classy would defeat thugs with fighting moves inspired by classical dance.

Your character, Lt. Gallagher, was the crusty Irish precinct commander. Gallagher’s function on the show was to storm out of his office and shout, “Danser, get in here!!!” at least once in every episode. He would then berate Classy for disobeying an order or breaking a rule, thereby recapping the action that occurred prior to the commercial break.

Classy Danser was a surprise hit in the fall of 1980. The watered-down message of empowerment, along with Classy’s gruff-but-fatherly relationship with Lt. Gallagher, created an appeal that cut across demographic lines. Classy's habit of wearing a skirt on the job didn't hurt.

The actress who played Classy was cute and peppy, but not particularly athletic. Producers made generous use of stunt doubles and creative camera work to help Classy Danser seem more like a real dancer, a fact that was brutally lampooned in an infamous Saturday Night Live skit. But by the fall of 1982, no conceivable camera angle could hide the fact that Classy had put on some weight. Ratings dipped slightly, and the show’s producers panicked. They killed off Classy and relaunched the show in January 1983 under the name Detective Danser. Classy was replaced by her heretofore unmentioned sister, Frances “Fancy” Danser.

Fancy was played by a 5’10" former UCLA point guard who could dunk a regulation basketball through a regulation basketball hoop. The new Detective Danser wore pants, and when she kicked some punk in the face, by god he STAYED kicked - and every man in the audience cringed. 1980s America was not ready for this much empowerment. Ratings fell off a cliff, and rather than try again with yet another Danser sibling, the network killed the show for good in April of 1983.

My Story

Should I post every walk-on that I come across? I happen to be a minor character myself. Here are the details – judge for yourself:

Show: Law & Order: Domestic Disturbance (1992 – Present)

Genre: Police Procedural / Courtroom Drama

My Character: An unnamed hotdog vendor

Actors(s): Looked a little like character actor Jon Polito (but wasn't, obviously).

Show Detail: If you’ve ever seen an episode of any of the shows in the Law & Order franchise, there’s no need for details here.

The standard L&O duo (old cop, young cop) corner my character selling hotdogs two days after a shooting. My character refuses to talk. He “doesn’t want to get involved.” The old cop points out that the hotdog cart could have a lot of health code violations. In fact, they may have to come back with an inspector and impound the whole thing. So my character admits that some guy in a green sedan almost ran over him right before the shots were fired. Then the young cop buys a couple of red hots with kraut.

That’s it. Forty-five seconds from start to finish.

Disappointed? Me too. Through my mid-20s, I always wondered why I didn’t have a parallel TV character of my own. I thought that I might be special in some way. Perhaps my ability to see through the dimensions meant that I couldn’t be a character myself. Or maybe I would be a star. “Who knows?” I thought, “I might even be in a show about a young man who can see into parallel universes!” Then I find out that I’m a forgettable two-liner on one of the most generic cop show franchises in the multiverse.

You may be wondering why there are Law & Order spin-offs in other universes. (I often wonder why there are L&O spin-offs in this universe, ha ha.) Seriously – I don’t know. Back in ’92, I thought it was just a coincidence. There are thousands of shows with the same or very similar names. But L&O and L&O: DD had the same title card design, similar theme music, the same “duh-duh” sound between scenes, and even the same three plots. Over the next 18 years, our universe spawned L&O: SVU, L&O:CI, L&O:TBJ, L&O: London, and many others. Outside our universe, the number of franchised L&Os are beyond counting. There must be a hundred L&O: Sex Crimes alone.

In theory, this shouldn’t even be possible. Remember, every person in every universe is unique. There are no copies of Dick Wolfe running around in other universes. I can only speculate about how this could have happened.

Maybe there’s someone out there who can move between parallel universes – an ability on the same level of difficulty as reversing time or traveling faster than light. And maybe this incredibly powerful person (or group, or thing) really, really likes Law & Order.

Now that is a scary thought.

Nurse Blank’s Mom, Dr. Something

Mary Gold steps up to the plate for today's reading. She writes that she is near-sighted, shops at Wal-Mart, and prefers canned aerosol saline solution. Hmmmmm. Odd combination, that.

I had a hard time finding your character, Mary. Here’s why. When a network TV show is syndicated, it has to be made 1-3 minutes shorter to allow for more commercials. Today, networks use computers to speed the show up, so that it will fit in less time. But up until the 1980s, this wasn’t possible. Speeding up video without computer processing causes the characters to sound like Donald Duck. So networks cut the time out with scissors.

You’ve probably already guessed that your character was cut out of her show in the interests of time. That’s why it took me so long to find her. Seeing through space and dimension is no problem for a man of my abilities. Seeing through space, dimension, and time is harder. But I got it. I really am the best at what I do.

Show: It was something like Doctor Johnson or Doctor Jefferson It was Doctor-something, at any rate. (late 1960s)

Genre: Medical Drama

Your Character: “Mom”

Actor: Sorry, no information available

Details: The uncut version of your episode was shown exactly once, on October 17, 1968. You played the mother of Dr. Something’s unrequited love interest, Nurse Blank. Nurse Blank had been in a car accident (or was shot), and you sat by her bed looking very worried. Your line was, “Will she be okay, Doctor?”

I understand if you are disappointed. But you are not alone. Many people have had their roles crushed by expanding commercial breaks. Famous "breakers" include marshal artist & TV star Chuck Norris, Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.

Useless Paranormal Powers

In an earlier post, I complained that my ability was “not very useful.” That is not quite true. When my mind traverses parallel dimensions, the normal rules of time do not seem to apply. I can, for example, watch the entire run of L&O: DD or the horrible Dragon Man in a moment. To me, an hour of parallel universe TV feels like an hour (or a month, depending on how bad it is), but in the real world no time comes off the clock.

As a result, I’ve seen millions of TV shows. You may wonder how I’ve kept my sanity. (My friends and family are wondering if I HAVE kept my sanity.) I no longer ask that question. But I have asked, “What possible good is this?”

Well, I could have been a producer or a studio exec. Think about it. If you did nothing but watch TV 24 hours a day, it would take you two or three centuries to get through as much television as I saw just in my teens. I should have a good sense for what will and won’t make it, right? To test that theory, I started playing an online game called “Media Predict.” The idea is to guess which TV shows, books, and movies will be successful. The predictions take the form of online bets using fake money. If you are interested in Media Predict, click the logo in this entry. I played for a few months before I got too busy with other things. To see how I did, click the Top Traders link and scroll down to the "All Time Greats." It’s a pity that they didn't use real money.

My fortune could be waiting for me in Hollywood, but I won't go. Enough is enough. Time keeps on going, and I want to be able to look back on a life spent making something real.

But I could’ve been big in Burbank.