As far as I know, there’s no clear, defining, agreed-upon origin myth working here.
Ask ten people, and you’ll get ten different stories. Some share similar facts, some are slightly distorted in places, and others yet bear no resemblance to anything else. It’s a mystery wrapped inside an enigma placed into a soft-shell taco and served with fries and a Fresca.
Been doing a bit of research into the matter, very Gandalf in the more-than-vaguely-Coruscant-looking Minas Tirith during the “Fellowship of the Ring Goes Research on Yo’ Ass” sequence. (Even I can’t believe I just wrote that. Oh well.) Trying to get to the heart of the matter for this mystery man’s tale. Have to do it justice, man.
I got a bit confused pulling my notes together, so I hope this comes out right.
He was born under a full moon and a bad sign somewhere outside of Sacramento. Haley’s Comet was in plain sight to the naked eye. “Frampton Comes Alive” was dominating the airwaves. Cocaine, not pork, was what was for dinner.
He was raised by his birth mother, Sofia Loren, and a pack of garden gnomes. His childhood consisted of the usual: lute lessons, combat training, speed spelling. He was strictly forbidden from interaction with other children his age, who would only stunt his growth, potentially by punching him in the face. Those garden gnomes, oh, the lies they would tell him!
One day Lucky, the bearded gnome, tried to make the young lad prove he really existed. The lad then grabbed a bucket of forest green Benjamin Mooore paint, took the lid off, secured the can into the Loren Catapult, figured out the trigonometry of the flight pattern, and stood against the wall in their country villa. The paint was hurtled through the air, splashing our young hero and the wall behind him. He then proudly showed the painted outline of himself to Lucky. Lucky was not impressed. Lucky then got his own ride on the catapult, shot into the Patomic River.
Thus began his Artemis Fowl-like life of crime. Petty theft, horse smuggling, talent management…this boy did it all, and usually did it before breakfast. (“Muppet Babies” reruns came on at 9 pm, and all gnomes who did not wish Lucky’s fate knew better than to interrupt our protagonist when Nanny’s socks were on the 42’’ plasma-screen television. His only misstep occurred in the late 90’s, when he formed the XFL. Other than that one error, his life of crime was the envy of both the Cosa Nostra and Wall Street.
But he had never forgot those fateful words that Sofia had imparted on him when he was five. With a cigarette in one hand, a martini in another, and Pierce Brosnan in another, she leaned over to our hero and said, “Take out the garbage, sweetie; Mommie’s going to Happy Land.”
And those words haunted him for all his days. They drove him to the Himalayas, where he started the first and only all-Sherpa Aerosmith cover band. Next, he traveled to Delaware, for reasons to this day he will not discuss, but, according to one source, involved “botanicals, botox, and Bo Jackson.” From there, he ventured to British Columbia, making Sno-Cones out of existing igloos. Having depopulated entire indigenous tribes, he finally settled in Manhattan.
And there he sits, to this day. The man, the myth, the legend, and I don’t mean in a really bizarre, Tom Cruise in the 80’s, way. He’s been biding his time. Patiently waiting. Occasionally eating a burrito. But mostly, waiting.
And tonite, perhaps, finally tonite, all the demons will be put to rest. The failed marriages, the bouts with OxyContin, that dude he killed just because he didn’t like Kajagoogoo. Tonite.
Don’t hate him cuz he’s prettier than you are, and don’t hate him because the curtain bows on him tonite as he opens his runin the titular role in “Hamlet”.
Hate him cuz he’s the Commander, and he’s much cooler than you.
Break a leg, man.
