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"  Thirteen is a terrific age. Whatever you love, you have all day to obsess over. Whatever it is, it takes on great importance. In May of 1984, the best news I&amp;#039;d ever heard in my 13 year-old life broke out: There was a sequel to V. V was a mini-series that rocked my world a year earlier, because it had an alien guy dislocate his jaw like a snake and eat a live rat. And now, apparently, there was a Part Two. Somebody pinch me, I&amp;#039;m dreaming. It was called V: The Final Battle and I was determined, at thirteen, to make sure everyone in my hometown of Margate, Florida knew about it. If I didn&amp;#039;t, I&amp;#039;d have failed as a dutiful science fiction/horror fan (which I remain to this day). I&amp;#039;d stigmatize myself as a terrible ambassador. The fact was: This was the greatest thing NBC ever decided to produce, and I&amp;#039;m going to just sit on my lazy ass and enjoy it? No. Margate must know. Being thirteen in 1984, resources are limited. You&amp;#039;ve got junior high with all its zits and training bras, and your parents. That&amp;#039;s about it. No cells, no internet. If you&amp;#039;re barely a teen and need wide media access in 1984, unless you&amp;#039;re hanging out with Michael in Neverland, you&amp;#039;re not getting it. You might as well hang up the parachute pants. But I draw, I&amp;#039;m good with illustrations, so I knew what to do. I had to make a flyer. Of course! The idea was brilliant, a total coup. I&amp;#039;d do this the old-fashioned way. Pen and paper. Our country was built on pamphlets and newsletters and decrees. These efforts launched our nation. Surely, I could use similar methods to boost Nielsen&amp;#039;s for a show about lizardpeople. Yes, yes: I may&amp;#039;ve been a boy who preferred Atari 5200 over Colecovision, but this was no game to me. Future episodes of 80s actors wearing red jumpsuits and yellow reptilian contacts depended on it. I had a mission, a calling, a fate in my hands. I wanted more shows like this, and these means were the only way I knew how to go about getting them. Yet, I also genuinely thought an epic battle between (literally) two-faced aliens and the human race was really cool. I was certain \u2014 with the right leaflet \u2014 that most people would agree. How could they not entertain this dreadful scenario around water coolers, or to be timely, over wine coolers? I might even be able to shift Reagan-era worldviews, I thought. Point our attention to the real threat. The Russkies? Please. Faux humans might be out there among us eating rodents, and we&amp;#039;re next, assholes. Welcome to Thirteen Years-Old, Circa 1984. The flyer was to be nothing fancy. Just the what, when, and where: V: The Final Battle. May 6, 1984. 8PM. NBC. So that&amp;#039;s what I drew, right under a drippy &amp;#039;V&amp;#039; in my own &amp;quot;spray-paint font.&amp;quot; God, it was perfect. I even awarded myself a figurative pat on the back for using the negative space well. So: Now what? Am I going door-to-door? Do I canvas on the corner next to Taco Bell? Then, it comes\u2026 Parking lot. Of course! In 1984 in South Florida, Publix supermarkets were like the Studio 54 of grocery stores. Always crowded, but it was where you went. Sure, there was less glitter spandex, rarely any condoms on the bathroom floor, and mostly infested with octogenarians, but other than that, exactly the same. So I had my target area, and target demographic: The Publix parking lot, and aging Jews who don&amp;#039;t watch alien shows. And now, I had forty copies of the most game-changing flyer on earth burning a hole in my Members Only jacket. That&amp;#039;s right, all you skeptics out there that think one boy can&amp;#039;t make a difference: Forty Copies. Four. Zero. Would the city be able to handle this scale of propaganda? Who&amp;#039;d pay for the clean up? Who cares? Not my problem. I&amp;#039;ve got bigger fish to beam up. These goddamn fliers are getting under those windshield wipers, and I don&amp;#039;t care if it takes fifteen minutes. This is a matter of life and death, that of a slightly above-average TV miniseries. So as I marched with purpose down only one aisle of cars, grinning as I slipped my last Xeroxed elixir underneath the wipers, one final thought permeated my brain: Where was Mom picking me up again? "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/a9651/paul-aliens-jo-lo-truglio-5449778/>