As I type, a movie called The Last Dragon is showing on Turner South, one of the multitude of commercial cable movie channels available to me. The movie is about this black guy living in Harlem in the 80's trying to achieve physical and spiritual purity through the martial arts. Well, okay, it's about a bunch of 80's flashdancing kung fu club kid stereotypes chop-socking each other to the tune of DeBarge songs. To give you an idea, the hero is called "Bruce Leroy" and the villain, played with spittle-flinging panache by Tony Todd, is "Sho 'Nuff, the Shogun of Harlem."

There's a plot, but as in all such movies, it's just an excuse to get the fists flying fast and furious. It's a hilarious flick, even more so now due to its being so deeply and non-ironically mired in both the 80's and the kung fu movie conventions, and yet not taking itself seriously. At all.

I remember once in the late 80's, after the movie had made the transition to television, my dad wanted to see it. At the time, he had a job for which he worked odd hours and slept pretty much the rest of the time. He mentioned it to me, at least, on multiple occasions, making a point of checking the listings to see when it was starting. He then went to take a nap. I was not unaware that Dad wanted to catch the flick. However, I had also spent the last few years operating under the strict policy of, "If Dad's asleep, don't wake him up."

I was in a quandary. The movie started, and Dad was out cold. Should I follow standard operating procedure and let him get the rest he needed before going to work again, or should I wake him up to see the goofy disco karate movie? So, I did what would become a pattern for me: I pretended I forgot and hoped he wouldn't notice.

That worked about as well as it always does. Dad woke up about 45 minutes into the show, pissed off that we didn't wake him. Rightfully so. I don't know if he ever got to see the whole movie in one sitting.

It's funny, the things that make you think of stuff.