Staying Alive, or, Vinnie Barbarino In Leg Warmers

I've made the following statement before, but because I really don't think this sentiment of mine can be adequately driven home by anything less than regular, dedicated haranguing, I'll say it again:

"JOHN TRAVOLTA" is the most badass name anyone, anywhere has ever had the honor of writing on a "Hello, My Name Is" sticker. Yes, I've said this before, yes, I will probably say it again, yes, you may disagree, yes, I find that odd, but the name simply sounds like a black 1976 Corvette with a crimson lightning bolt painted on the hood. Real Badass.

But the Cosmos simply aren't satisfied with John Travolta existing as a real person with a real badass name. The Cosmos take it further, out of reality, out of the confines of Mother Earth and Brother Sky and Father Time and Third Cousin Space-Age Polymer straight to the Schermo D'argento, gifting J.T. with the role of a movie character whose name also happens to sound like pure midnight electric turbocharging.

Tony Manero. 

Believe you me, "Tony Manero" sounds exactly like the name of a man who would strut down the street in a white, three-piece dancin' tux and woo you with his perfect pomp, his flashing eyes, and dynamite smile. Oh, and his moves. What moves! Mr. Manero, hardware store employee, son, brother, lover, friend, had it all. He slinked, he slunk, he pulsed and swayed. He turned the noun "hips" into some other part of speech we pundits of linguistics have yet to define! And he did it all with lungs swelled by cigarette smoke, veins coursing with strong cocktails, and a bellyfull of spaghetti. Man-o-man.

But let us not forget the Tony Manero of five years later... The Tony Manero who danced his way out of the mean streets of Brooklyn and into the emotional war zone of Manhattan... The Tony Manero who had once been carefree, egotistical, living-for-the-glowing-squares-of-colored-discofloor ecstasy and who had learned to care (in all fairness, the old Tony cared about nice old ladies buying paint), left a bit of the ego behind, and began to live for the colorless and oftentimes lonely floor of the Broadway audition stage.

The Tony Manero of Staying Alive.

Look in his eyes. Feel his pain. Feel his longing. Feel his bone structure. It's five years later, the dancing has morphed into something beyond classification, he was Danny Zuko, Vinnie Barbarino (another badass name), and some fake cowboy named Bud in some parallel world, and Tony Manero has emerged a man. A man torn between the woman who loves him and the bitchy, quasi-british chick who gets the lead dance parts, a man who tortures himself in search of the true dancer inside, a man whose goal in life is to impress Red from That 70's Show, who apparently was a dance instructor in another life. Oh, and a cop killer.

But don't let Kurtwood Smith's beautiful face make you forget about the names. The names that were forged by Vulcan in the fires below Mount Etna, pounded out of the metals of ancient mines formed by the cleaving of rock by thunderbolt, hardened in the cold waters of the Atlantic and embraced by Lady Liberty as she welcomed these names to the New World: Manero, Barbarino, Zuko...

TRAVOLTA.

All heralded unto our shores by the angelic choir of these dudes:

DYNAMITE.

Hey, Rocky! In Staying Alive! In a fur cape! Pure TNT!