Up Above It All

The year was 1977. There were still plenty of polyester shirts going to discos. The Sex Pistols were taking their country by storm, with an eye toward conquering the U.S. Elvis Presley died. And George Willig was climbing the World Trade Center. Many of you may remember those polyester shirts, and some of you may still have your 45s of Silver Convention performing Fly Robin Fly tucked away in a box, awaiting the Disco Renaissance. And while you may have missed the reunion tour the Pistols pulled together, you can still catch their doppelgangers in a pub near you. Elvis? He's still everywhere, but mostly dead.
And what about George "The Human Fly" Willig? Once he got finished paying off the one hundred ten dollar fine, one cent for each floor he climbed, He signed his name on a metal plate on the observation deck, where it remained until the towers came tumbling down in 2001. He went on the Merv Griffin Show. He got jobs as a stuntman. He wrote a book. He easily consumed his fifteen minutes of fame and maybe just a touch of someone else's. He waited until after the Mother Ship landed at Devil's Tower, Wyoming before he tried climbing that. Later, he went to work remodeling homes in the San Fernando Valley.
You thought he was gone.
But he wasn't.
Just like Johnny Rotten, it's better to burn out than to fade away, but a young Virginia man decided to take up the Human Fly's mantle and began scaling the Trump Tower this past week. Stephen Rogata had arrived in New York City with the intent of meeting everyone's favorite Starburst Flavored Republican. How better to make an impression than to use giant suction cups to dangle precariously over the Big Apple's streets? Mister Rogata never made it to the top. He has yet to make good on his attempt to meet the man for whom the tower was named, but given the way Mister Truhhhmpah makes his choices for cabinet posts, why wouldn't a good conservative boy like Stephen get a shot? And yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's 1977 all over again. Has anyone seen my bell bottoms?