Tom Bartlett, 72 years of life, attempting TODAY to become the oldest man in the record books to have crossed Lake Ontario - by swim, yeah! Man - 72... that is, almost, Aquaman's true age right there! (Never mind the other guy... Y'know; born in Maine, fearful of lawsuits, misbegotten mutations galore? Never mind... But, hey - today's swimmer's name is Tom: just like Aquaman's dad, the lighthouse keeper, played by... well, the same actor who was Boba Fett's dad, Jango. Whatsisname again? He who once was a warrior - and wife beater. Ugh. Never mind!!!)
Tom (Bartlett now) swam into those waters starting with Niagara By The Lake early in the morning, and if all goes as planned, should have his name in the record books by the end of the day! If he succeeds, he becomes grander than make-believe aquaficionados, de facto; and automatically surpasses even my aqua hero in real life... Diana! Remember her?
Come on now! You must have heard of her!
Diana Nyad!
We certainly made mention of her often enough...
... here - on aqua musings!
Truth be told...
DC's NAIAD never came close to her greatness -
(though she must certainly inspired her creation!)
and that's a FACT... Jack!
That isn't quite ''Naiad', though - this is DC's character:
...in context, now;
and my luminous version of that:
She was pretty darn close to achieving
true blue Luminous Aquaficionada status, though -
luminous truth be told!
But then DC decided to dump her -
in favor of a reworking of the fabled
Lady Of The Lake...!
(circa 2003)
(... needless to say... that didn't last!)
And then there's homegrown talent such as...
Dolphin.
Hmm... is that Dolphin? Probably not - this is Dolphin:
And then it was back to the drawing board -
and
Queen of the Seven Seas
and true Aquaficionada Supreme
- revamped and reworked for the Notties!
But that is another story...!!!
Back to TOM now!
UNFORTUNATELY, we have to report that
things did not go exactly as planned by or for
Tom Bartlett and his swim across Lake Ontario...
(And we do mean Tom Bartlett, swimmer of 72 years of age
not Tom Bartlett guitars...
or Tom Bartlett of American Tower...!
(Google that - and you'll see!)
He gave it a good shot - tremendous shot, really:
he was at it for over twenty (20) hours
and had crossed forty-one (41) kilometers worth of it -
at which point he had to put a stop to his attempt
There was a time, believe it or not, when only one wordsmith dared to make such a simplistic pun in order to create a funny cartoon character... That wordsmith wasn`t me, no - but it was a favorite of mine, back in the day: Roy Thomas. (I`ll credit him though equal credit, at least, could go to one Scott Shaw.. perhaps? I am not 100% sure though... It is probably so, however, and in being so it mimics perfectly the genesis of the very character they were spoofing in the whole process - Aquaman! Who else... Mort Weisinger and Paul Norris shared the credit of coming up with an ``Aquaman`` in 1941 - many decades later, it stands to reason that another scribe -Thomas- and another artist -Shaw- would combine their efforts to come up with... Aquaduck!)
An aqueduct... And a cartoony duck. What could be more sublime? And simple! When it came time to turn the entire roster of the fabled Justice League into cartoon anthropomorphs, it was the obvious choice indeed: and little luminous me had no reason to ever believe that there would be another ``Aquaduck`` out there... ever! Boy was I ever wrong there...
Just as there came a plethora of other Aquamen, in time, for every reason under the sun...
There came to be a hell of a lot of good reasons for there to arise more Aquaducks as well - money being the chief one indeed! Disney could have never let that elude them... of course not!
The name ''Aquaduck'' had to be used (and profited from) by the foremost duck in all the land (and sea, maybe) - and that is Donald Duck. (Sorry, Scrooge - you stole your schtick from Dickens anyway!)
For me though, there was... there could only be... one Aquaduck - this one:
~My Mer-name is Glaucus Bioluminescence. Wow ~ even the Mer~folk agree that I am luminous! ~They identify me with a minor sea~deity though: Glaukos has nothing to do with glaucoma, at least ~~~ (thank God! The REAL GOD!) ~~~~ Oh... no; Glaukos gave its color to glaucoma... :( ~~ well, says they! ~~~~~~~~ Aegir, Poseidon, Triton and scores of others are more powerful than him, anyway... so there! Everything will be fine! The Aquaficionadas are on my side! :) ~ Take The Merfolk Name Generator Test anyway! ~ Created with Rum and Monkey's Name Generator.
... An LP Anthem to the end of a childhood dream...? By LP...
... and assorted aquatic tunes for your listening pleasure... (l.p.)...!
But now, for your reading pleasure... ISSUU - brought to you by... an Aquaficionada!
Look, below, on this luminous aqua-map: PROOF that the Earth is indeed 70% SEA WATER! Weep, batty ones! ;)