Tim Eyman as Darth Vader
“JAWS was never my thing and I don’t like Star Wars.”
At a certain point, my indifference to the whole ouvre of Star Wars becomes something that I proudly tuck into as part of my identity. I fear that if I take a good look at the three movies that are now determined to be the good set from the series — “A New Hope”, the other movie from the original trilogy that didn’t employ Ewoks, and “Revenge of the Sith”, I will probably enjoy these films on some level and lose this identifier. I know I’ve seen the first movie a few times through the process of Osmosis as much as antything else somewhere in my childhood, but for the life of me I do not know if I ever saw the Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi. I own two pieces of Star Wars memorabilia– two Chewbacca figures — a small one from somewhere in the 80s and a large one that I may just well have left at my sister’s place — absent-mindedly, I swear! — when my nephews/niece gave it to me as a Christmas gift alongside a Sonic the Hedgehog figure of the same variety — two toys which, by the clamour of the kids, looked suspiciously like gifts for themselves.
As it turns out, Tim Eyman — Washington State’s version of that strangest of creatures, the Right-wing Initiative Whore, is, as it turns out, a Star Wars fan.
Though I suspect Darth Vader’s entourage are not as fat as Tim Eyman’s. These are not terribly imposing figures, though I wonder if a typical comic book / science fiction / geek whatnot convention you’ll probably get the same effect. Beyond which, quite frankly, I would be unimpressed if I saw someone like Eyman waving that orange contraption in the air — a poor excuse for a light saber.
This was part of Eyman’s last ditch effort for a “final push” to get the needed signatures for a ballot measure for a referendum on the state’s gay anti-discrimination law. While it’s nice to know that a man associated with anti-tax crusades branched out to the other part of the conservative sphere to the religious-right cause of homophobia and reached out to Star Wars fans to get the deed done, it’s better to know that he failed in his efforts.
FREAK!