Wormhole Writer (5): 80’S Cult Classic Clash of Two Titans
In the annals of 1985 Cold War Theatre, Mad Max gave the era’s apocalyptic adolescents a front-row seat to a Thunderdome wherein “Two men enter, one man leaves.” Albert Einstein may have discovered the spacetime tunnel, but this here 80’s kid is hacking into the wormhole rules to visit a clash between two Blockbuster cultural titans. My wormhole isn’t made of mythology, it has the precision of an Atari joystick, stitched into the denim soul of my “Decade of Decadence”.
Open Sesame Quantum Gateway
This porthole unfolds like an origami swan in the face of a blinking neon “Closed” sign outside a San Francisco Chinatown dive bar. Inside, it’s not freak-haired Tina Turner judging the battle. It’s the ghost of Bruce Lee bartending. The music gods are stuck in a loop of Everybody Wang Chung Tonight. Welcome to cinematic gladiation sporting pointed shoulder pads.
A rainbow of pagoda lanterns gleam like a celestial jukebox above a Buddha the size of pink elephants. The wormhole nested me on a red vinyl bar stool. What fool wouldn’t have ordered a Pisco Sour for this showdown? “A good cocktail flows like kung fu,” Bruce serves-up wisdom too.
This should be a fair fight. The bouncer is a great bald man in a pin-striped suit, weighing probably three hundred pounds. He had dreadful close-set eyes that gleamed from beneath his shaggy brow. He bared his gold teeth and squinted at me. His posture screamed ,“I’m the line. Don’t cross me.”
I gift him a crisp Jefferson in a low handshake that says,”Name’s Grease. Came here to lubricate the hinges of ‘The Rules’” because tonight is the spectacle that defies sobriety. He hurried me to the edge of the wormhole’s headliner fight “Throat Rips & Reflexes”.
THE CONTENDERS
Dalton (aka: Cooler. Patrick Swayze, Roadhouse)
• Missouri’s bounciest philosopher.
• Zen master in tight jeans.
• Can rip out a throat while reflecting on Kierkegaard.
• Signature quote: “Pain don’t hurt.”
Jack Burton (Kurt Russell, Big Trouble in Little China)
- Truck-driving windbag with more swagger than strategy.
• Talks like Elvis, fights like he’s allergic to accuracy.
• Possesses exactly zero self-awareness.
• Signature quote: “It’s all in the reflexes.”
The Ringwalk
The bar quakes from wormhole fervor amplified by Longneck beer and high-stakes bravado. Somewhere in the madness, a shirtless man shouts, “Fifty bucks on the Cooler!” Crumpled bills slap palms as bets shift. This is a metaphysical head-on collision of Zen, and swagger.
A Freightliner engine prowls through the back alley. Jack Burton’s “Pork Chop Express” plows straight through the strung red lanterns and screeches to a stop with a blast of the airbrakes. The door flies open. Jack stumbles out and declares, “Like I told my last wife, I said, ‘Honey, I never drive faster than I can see.’” He bends down and adjusts the dagger in his boot. He throws his mullet into the wind. “Let me tell you something, folks! It’s all in the reflexes!” Burton shadowboxes like he’s trying to punch his way out of sleep paralysis.
The lights dim. Silence. Cowboy steel rises from the giant golden Buddha behind the bar. Dalton is barefoot and brooding. He Dirty Dances to the ring. His jeans are tighter than Jack’s boot knife to sock. He nods solemnly. “Pain don’t hurt,” he whispers into my soul.
Dalton steps over the ropes, one toe at a time, pausing mid-air to consider whether conflict is simply a mirror of unresolved trauma. Jack tries to high-five him. Dalton sidesteps, letting the moment flow as if wind passing a bald eagle doing tai chi.
“Ding, ding”, the bell rings for Round One. Jack proclaims, “You know what ol’ Jack Burton always says at a time like this? ‘What the hell,” then throws a haymaker. It connects with Dalton’s serenity.
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The crowd gasps. Dalton responds with a philosophical hook. His open palm sweeps space like it’s dusting off Plato’s couch. Jack hits the mat with a confused grin. Dalton spins into a blur of denim, and holier-than-thou. He dirty-dance dodges Burton’s fist of fury.
Jack, arms still semi-poised from his failed elbow strike, mutters, “That wasn’t even my final elbow.”
From behind the bar, Bruce Lee, casually slicing limes with impossible grace, leans into the moment. “Jack fights like a man trying to arm-wrestle his own shadow. Dalton wins this round… for knowing where his limbs are.”
Final Two Rounds…
The moment restarts. Jack staggers into his fighting stance. This time, it’s less about striking and more about him asking, “What’s arm wrestling his own shadow mean, anyway?”
Dalton leans into stillness, as if time took a smoke break. Every eye watches, waiting for his limbs to question reality again. Then Dalton raises one foot with the grace of testing pool water.
Jack lands a punch, not on Dolton, but against a neon sign that reads “Ponderosa Thursdays.” Sparks fly. The sign flickers, then permanently changes to “Ponder.”
Bruce Lee pauses mid-pour. He leans into the crowd and says,“That was either a very brave decision… or Jack just elbowed a metaphor. Dalton wins.”
Lights dim for Round Three. Not because someone adjusted them, but because the wormhole leaned in to watch.
Dalton, the shirtless guru, recites the Code of the Dojo. “All you have to do, Jack, is follow three simple rules. One, never underestimate your opponent. Expect the unexpected. Two, take it outside. Never start anything inside the bar unless it’s absolutely necessary. And three, be nice.”
To quote Jack Burton,“I’m a reasonable guy. But I’ve just experienced some very unreasonable things.”
The air thickens like the wormhole’s been holding its breath. The paper lantern flickers to life with the glow of ancestral approval. Jack steps forward, not to fight but to reconcile. His hands rise again, and this time it’s not a weapon. It’s an offering. “Just remember what ol’ Jack Burton does when the earth quakes, and the poison arrows fall from the sky… he looks that big old storm right in the eye and says, ‘Give me your best shot. I can take it.’”
Dalton is serene as a forgotten shrine.
Bruce Lee slides out from behind the counter and bows to the swirling wormhole. He sets down a fortune cookie and says:
“Inside this cookie: the winner’s name. Outside? Everything else.”
Dalton, the shirtless hurricane, cracks it open. The slip reads:
“You win. Not for the strike, but for the philosophical pummel.”
Jack claps ,“May the wings of liberty never lose a feather.” Dalton bows. Bruce Lee beats me into the collapsing wormhole.
Strap on your Walkman and join me, Mark R. Clifford, for more wormhole plunges into the golden era of decadence!
