Casting the Defenders Through Science and Definitive Brooklyn: The Long Commute

I recently stumbled across this facial recognition site where you upload a photo and they tell you what celebrity you look like. I’m always skeptical about these things so I uploaded Jack Nicholson and got:


That’s good enough for me. My second choice for an upload was She-Ra’s Bow since he’s my favorite character to make fun of:


Still looking good. I then decided to put this highly accurate site to good use and cast The Defenders’ movie which will unfortunately never be made. What you are about to witness is the greatest casting in the history of the world because it’s done with science. Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you, THE DEFENDERS!

First off you need to start with their fearless leader, Dr. Strange:


Put him through the ‘ole facial recognition program and we find out that Dr. Strange will be played by:


Beyonce Knowles. Perfect choice. I always found the Sorcerer Supreme to be quite booty-licious myself. Up next is the Silver Surfer, wielder of the power cosmic, ex-herald of Galactus:


A character that requires inner strength and goodness while wielding god-like powers. Who, you ask, can play such a character?


The late River Phoenix. Alas, the perfect actor to play the Silver Surfer died over ten years ago from drug-related heart failure. But what about the mighty Hulk!


The green goliath himself, immortalized already in glorious CGI – who would play him if the Defenders’ movie went the way of Ferrigno?


Mystery writer P.D. James, of course. It’s an obvious casting choice; I can’t believe I didn’t see it myself. And finally we have Prince Namor:


One of Marvel’s original characters. Arrogant. Righteous. Kingly. Who has the chops to fill this roll?



German defector and songstress Marlene Dietrich, that’s who. I wonder if they matched these two by their eyebrows or by the fact that they both spent the forties fighting Nazis. Either way it’s a great pick, I must say.

And on that note, it’s story time…

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Brooklyn is a massive borough. I lived there for the first 18 years of my life, I still visit there four times a year or more and the enormity of that borough still amazes me. To put it into perspective, the five most populated cities in America are: New York, LA, Chicago, Houston and Philly. If Brooklyn were to drop out of NYC and become its own city, the five most populated cities would become: New York, LA, Chicago, Brooklyn, Houston. Brooklyn is the largest of the five boroughs by both population and land mass.

Because of the size of the borough, we rely heavily on the train and bus system and we learn to use it at a very early age. I first started taking the bus by myself in Junior High School, seventh grade – which makes me around twelve – and it would have been earlier if I ever had a need to leave the neighborhood. In JHS I got accepted to this Forensic Science program at John Jay High School in Park Slope. I don’t know how John Jay is now but in the early 90s John Jay was a nightmare – everyone was afraid to end up there. I’m sure it wasn’t as bad as the stories we’ve heard – it was probably just as bad as our Junior High was – but the rumors were enough to scare the shit out of us non-thugs. I’m talking stories involving meat hooks – just fucked up shit kids spread. Either way me and a couple of friends braved the rough territory and rode the B75 (I believe) from Court Street to John Jay once a week.

(Going off topic – that forensic class rocked because we actually got to use the real equipment. We were doing fingerprint analysis, fiber analysis, hand writing analysis – they had this mock crime scene set-up that we had to analyze. For a twelve year old kid it’s the best friggin class imaginable.)

There were close calls on the bus in Junior High – they get so crowded and if you find yourself in the back you’re basically cut off from any help from the bus driver, assuming he’d want to even get involved. I never got mugged on a bus but I’ve witnessed it. One of the funniest ones I ever seen is this kid ripping a Jansport off of someone’s back. The kid that got jacked screams out for help and the bus driver stands up and asks what’s going on. The kid that stole the Jansport kicks the kid he mugged in the crotch (which in and of itself is fucking hysterical) opens up the emergency exit latch on the bus window and jumps out of the bus onto the middle of the street and makes a break for it.

By the time High School came around the transit system became our best friend. A couple of kids in my neighborhood got accepted into Midwood, the most coveted public high school in the city that wasn’t Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Tech or Bronx Science (but, for the record, I got accepted into Brooklyn Tech and Bronx Science but opted for Midwood instead).

Midwood was about an hour away by bus and train (it was around a 25 minute drive – and that’s on a highway for a good chunk of it). It was still in Brooklyn; it wasn’t even the furthest you can go from my neighborhood and still be in Brooklyn – not even close, actually. Since we were so far away we were eligible for both a bus and a train pass which means we wouldn’t have to pay the fare on either the bus or the train. But since we could have gotten to school by just taking the bus (it would have taken at least an hour and a half), they only granted us a half-fare bus pass. Even though we had half-fares doesn’t mean we always paid – you always try to sneak on the bus first, either through the back door or by flashing your half-fare and hoping the bus-driver doesn’t notice.

High School also brought the need to go out at night. Our friends lived in neighborhoods like Rockaway, Sheapshead Bay and Bay Ridge – you don’t want to take the bus home from there at night, it would easily take a couple of hours. There weren’t a lot of cabs around back then either, you had to make your way to a major street and wait for a while to get one. They’re more frequent now but back then, especially where my friends lived, it was damn near impossible.

That’s where the car service comes in to play. People who owned car services in Brooklyn must have been the richest fuckers in the world. Fleets of cars available at a moment’s notice, several car services available in each neighborhood, all taking drunken teenagers home at midnight.

Best car I’ve ever ridden in was from Montague street and it took my and my lady at the time from Patsy’s Pizza under the Brooklyn bridge (now called Grimaldi’s) out to Bay Ridge. The plan was to stay in my neighborhood for the evening but we’ve received information that led us to believe her parents might not be home so we called the car service and where on our way to Bay Ridge within minutes.

The driver was this Latino guy and his car was totally tricked out. A Cadillac with a great sound system, this swanky red velvety interior – fucking dice in the mirror and on the door locks – the car was bad-ass. The guy gets on the BQE and he starts fucking flying – he’s going like 80/90 in this fucking pimp-mobile. My lady and I are already worked up over the potential lack of parents and the cool car with the boriqua music zipping down the BQE is getting us all hot so we start making-out like mad in the back seat. Touching each other up, kissing heavy – you don’t get rides like that in an ordinary ‘ole yellow-cab.

By the time Junior year rolls around a couple of my friends start driving, some of them even get piece of shit cars. Not me, though – I got my license three years after I graduated.

College.

But, whatever, you spend your whole like taking trains, buses, car service and cabs who the hell wants to drive?

Not getting a license until your mid-twenties or later – that, my friends, is definitive Brooklyn.

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