Snake Plisken....I thought you were Dead!

Back in the 1981 John Carpenter flick 'Escape from New York' the anti-hero Snake Plisken (Kurt Russel), he of the pre-Billy Ray Cyrus mullet and snazzy eye patch, would constantly be confronted by characters who seem surprised to see him alive. 'Snake Plisken! Aren't you supposed to be dead?' they'd ask, to which he'd typically snarl- a Snake Pliskeney way of saying; 'The report of my death was an exaggeration'*. ( There then followed a sequel some years later, 'Escape from L.A.', which was made with a bigger budget but was, for all intents and purposes, the same film albeit a little more wimpy. For example the '...I thought you were dead' line was replaced by the pissier '...I thought you'd be taller'. A lesson to us all: Don't mess with brilliance.)

I love the 'I thought you were dead' line. Yes, it has come up in films/ plays/ books before and it surely will in the future but for me it has always been a Snake Plisken line. The lines I get are ;

'Fatman...are you still working at the Amethyst?'
-from people I haven't seen in a few years and have since graduated/ got married/ own houses/ have kids...who now drink at the Amethyst.

or

'Fatman...have you got more grey hairs?'
-I get this from practically everyone.

or

'Fatman...are you still single?'
-usually at those uncomfortable family gatherings.

Maybe if I change jobs, dye my hair and get a girlfriend people would have the decency to think that I was dead,
Fatman


*a famous Mark Twain (a.k.a. Samuel Clemmens) quote, New York Journal, June 2, 1897