What I Need is a Wormhole

I'm sure there are many hot, young, smart, ambitious and talented gay guys in New York City who get together with the same group of friends every Friday night. There just aren't very many of them who end up fully clothed in front of a 54-inch television in Harlem watching Stargate SG-1.

A couple of years ago, through random twists of fate and online flirting, I ended up becoming friends with an extraordinary group. What we shared was a fondness for vodka and a talent for viciously bitchy (but loving) insults. The standard routine was a Friday night happy hour (Therapy was the principal location, but we could also be found at XL, XES, Suite, Vlada or G) and then a schlepp up to a beautiful Harlem townhouse, where at the top of a narrow stairwell adorned with a portrait of an Afro-Jesus, one entered through a magical doorway into a comfortably suburban living room like one might find in Omaha, a genuine rip in the time/space continuum if ever there was one. There we would either watch a couple of movies or, if they were in season, set down to watch the SciFi channel's Friday line-up: Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis and Battlestar Galactica.

Before I met them, I'd never even heard of Stargate. I had little initial interest in it, but I enjoyed hanging out with them, and so over time I learned all about the Jaffa and the Goa'uld and eventually got suckered in by the show's charming self-deprecation. Despite its corniness, there was also something intriguing about the epic sprawl of a decade-long space saga that somehow made up for the nearly invariable formula of the episodes: off-world civilization threatens Earth with annihilation; Stargate team comes up with longshot plan "that just might work"; plan doesn't work; then in the last seven minutes, Captain Carter or Daniel Jackson would figure out some way to use alien technology to thwart the plot, and the extinction of mankind would be delayed for another week.

Even here in my new home 3,000 miles away, I've been maintaining the tradition as a kind of sentimental link to my old friends. Last night was the SG-1 series finale.

[SPOILER ALERT] I had expected a two-hour cataclysmic extravaganza, featuring a grand alliance of earthlings, Jaffa and other alien beings to decisively destroy the Ori and declare the universe safe once and for all (except from the Wraith, who we need to have around in order to keep the Atlantis spin-off alive), or at the very least, a special guest appearance by Richard Dean Anderson. Instead, with a show appropriately titled "Unending," Stargate left the airwaves with a completely typical episode that had zero sense of finality. Indeed, the credits rolled as the SG-1 team headed once again through the Stargate to a new adventure, one we'll never get to see.

And so even though I was never really a big fan, I couldn't help feeling that my link to my friends just got a little bit weaker. I found myself missing them a lot, and wishing I could go back in time and watch this episode with them. I think I've found a way to do it.

Using technology gleaned from the Ancients, I've found a way to use parts of my microwave, dishwasher and vacuum cleaner to create a rough approximation of a zero point module, and then using a really long extension cord, I should be able to supercharge my '93 Mercury Sable to the point where it can propel me not just 3,000 miles eastward, but 24 hours back in time using a program I got from the Asgard which I've uploaded onto my iPod, which I can play through the tape deck. With any luck, in just about 18 minutes I'll find myself yesterday in Manhattan. I haven't quite figured out how to reverse the process so that I'm back in Portland in time for my temp job on Monday, especially since if I get the calculations wrong I could end up in a permanent time anomaly, like Indiana.