I took a walk earlier, from my office over to my credit union, and along the way, I happened to spot a handbill pasted to a lamppost. It was typical for this sort of thing: a homemade, Xerox’d advertisement for a band I’ve never heard of, scheduled to play at a club I’d never set foot in, the sort of ad I see a dozen times a week and never pay any mind to. This one, however, caught my attention because I recognized the photo the band had used, no doubt with a great deal of irony and private amusement on their part. It was, in fact, this photo here:

This is a publicity still from a short-lived TV series called The Powers of Matthew Star, circa 1982 or thereabouts, about an alien prince from a besieged world, hiding out here on Earth in the guise of a typical teenage boy. Who just happens to have telekinetic superpowers with which he helps out the people around him, of course. I suspect that 99.99999% of the rest of the world has completely forgotten this show, if in fact anyone ever knew about it to begin with. Probably Louis Gossett, Jr., doesn’t even remember this show, and he was in the damn thing. But I remember it. Because I’m me.
This is my gift. And my curse.

Incidentally, I ganked that image up there from this site, a pretty nifty project in which somebody is scanning and commenting on old issues of Starlog magazine. I always loved Starlog, the best source of sci-fi and fantasy news for decades before this whole InterWeb thing came along. I still have quite a few back issues down in the archives. Including the one with the article about The Powers of Matthew Star.

It’s okay, I’m frightened, too…