At my very first convention, I was coming out of an elevator as a fan was entering. She glanced at me, gasped and said, “My God, what happened to you?” It took me a couple minutes to understand her statement. What she was gasping about and referring to was the all too visual fact that I no longer looked the same. I had changed! AGED! She found this fact surprising. Stunning, perhaps, from the size of her gasp. This gave me pause.

This experience would be followed, innumerable times, with similar reactions. These people had not seen me since both “The A Team” and “Battlestar Galactica” were cancelled, neither in person nor on the glowing screen in their living rooms – and they were completely taken aback that I no longer looked the same as I did three decades earlier. That Mother Nature or Father Time or both in cahoots, had had their way with me. I found this profoundly sad. Not that I had changed, but that they were surprised that I had. It made me think, as I am wont to do, while chopping firewood in my Montana hideaway. It goes like this.

During the past one hundred years, mankind has split the atom; walked on the moon; invented the radio, the telephone; discovered penicillin; made advances that stagger the imagination in every arena of human endeavor. But none of the men and women responsible for any of these incredible achievements can compare with Mickey Mouse when it comes to being a Celebrity. Mickey Mouse is the most famous image of the past century.

There isn’t a celebrity anywhere, be it President, Movie Star, Rapper, TV Star, or Talk Show hostess, that doesn’t have Mickey to thank for showing the way. In 1928, Mickey made his first film “Steamboat Willie,” and quickly became the most famous individual in the world, and still is according to most polls. Truly, the star of all stars. And while he has yet to buy a second home in Montana (or the South of France) or run for President, there are plenty of those who live vicariously off his fame that have.

It’s all Mickey’s fault. He has shown us all the power that comes from releasing “image” from the prison of reality. Unlike lesser stars, he is free from needing plastic surgeons, private trainers, PR spin doctors. He, that is, his image, will live forever, effortlessly conquering reality with each new generation of fans. Long after Madonna has given up her steel tits for a platinum coffin, Mickey will be packing them in. He is a marketing marvel and the envy of all those whose dream is immortality through celebrity. We idolize Mickey because we know he, and he alone, has defeated death. And our specific fear of death is nothing more than the ultimate expression of our general fear of the aging process … growing old.

We live by our image and we die by our image. And when that image no longer reflects back on us in the same way that brought us our celebrity, to whatever degree, we “fix” it with the surgeon’s knife. But in the end, there is no surgeon that can save us from the truth. To be alive is to change. To change is to let go. Continually. Of all things, not just youth and beauty, but of old age and, finally (horrors) life.

If it weren’t for Mickey, we wouldn’t have to have the mortality of our selves and our stardom continually rubbed in our surgically enhanced faces as we tenaciously hang on to youth, fame and fortune. Mickey needs no rejuvenation. He is, after all, the perfect star and therefore pure image and not really human at all.

Mickey is God.

The old God is dead. Long live Mickey. He is the essence of our own divine image, of our celebrated selves, as we struggle for rejuvenation ad infinitum. We have created a new God and he is Us. We idolize our Selves. We are the viewer and we are the viewed. We keep our despair buried beneath our material possessions and eternal youth and two week vacations as we gaze constantly upon our own Perfect Image until the fatuity of this viciously spiritless cycle dawns on us and we do, finally and against our will, change, grow old and, alas, die. And in that same instant recognize that God is NOT dead. That Mickey is a lie. A hoax. Mirage. Nothing but pure image and personality, void of spirit.

Surgical rejuvenation is violence committed against ourselves as some misguided but socially acceptable, socially required notion of it as an expression of individuality. And control. Perceived as a means of empowering the individual, it is precisely the opposite. An admission of powerlessness and fear. Plastic surgery is a member of the same family as acts of suicide. The surgeon’s knife, as it alters our face or changes our sex or tucks our tummy, is different only as a matter of degree from the suicide bullet or slashed wrists whose goal it is to alter completely our state of being.

Both are acts of terrorism committed against one’s self as an expression of one’s individuality. Suicide is the last desperate cry of the individual as he struggles to control his fate. It is the ultimate (final) face lift and full body tuck, taken in anger and borne out of fear that there is a Higher Power to which he or she will finally and forever have to answer.

Fear, in other words, that it is not God, but Mickey Mouse who is dead, who has always been dead. Not in image, but in spirit. Spirit-less. A poseur. Not even a real rodent (they too are mortal) but the mere image of one, mass marketed by the same propagandists and sellers of false dreams that sold us our own image of ourselves. And if Mickey, our hero, our God, our star of stars, is dead … then what chance have we?

Choose your poison. More surgery? More toys? More fame? More fortune? More…? All suicide. All attempts to avoid the Hemingwayesque death of the individual too long in idolatrous worship at the altar of his own image. Our options dwindle as our desperation grows. Less surgery? Fewer toys? Smaller fortunes? Less fame? But like the alcoholic, one drink is not enough, two drinks are too many.

Were we to let go of our false images; peel the onion layer by layer; take the mirror off the wall and let go until finally we found our real uniqueness buried at the bottom of all the imagery … on the other side of the looking glass, what would we discover? That it is not just “us” at all but rather …what?

God? Spirit? And then what…?

And then nothing.

Then we must take the blind leap of faith into the web of life. Into the spirituality of our existence, so that we may then begin to enjoy the process of our life experience. Wherein lies real celebrity and celebration. Real love and strength and beauty and individuality. Real life and immortality.

The rest is all Mickey Mouse.

Unless, of course, they do finally re-imagine ”The A-Team” as a feature film, and then I take it all back.

Fortunately, I was young, my imagination fertile and adrenal glands strong, because bringing Starbuck to life was over the dead imaginations of a lot of Network Executives. Every character trait I struggled to give him was met with vigorous resistance. A charming womanizer? The “Suits” (Network Executives) hated it. A cigar (fumerello) smoker? The Suits hated it. A reluctant hero who found humor in the bleakest of situations? The Suits hated it. All this negative feedback convinced me I was on the right track.

Starbuck was meant to be a lovable rogue. It was best for the show, best for the character and the best that I could do. The Suits didn’t think so. “One more cigar and he’s fired,” they told Glen Larson, the creator of the show. “We want Starbuck to appeal to the female audience for crying out loud.” You see, the Suits knew women were turned off by men who smoked cigars, especially young men. How they “knew” this was never revealed. And they didn’t stop there. “If Dirk doesn’t quit playing every scene with a girl like he wants to get her in bed, he’s fired.” This was, well, it was blatant heterosexuality, treating women like “sex objects.” I thought it was flirting. Never mind, they wouldn’t have it. I wouldn’t have it any other way, or rather Starbuck wouldn’t. So we persevered, Starbuck and I. The show, as the saying goes, went on and the rest is history for, lo and behold, women from all over the world sent me boxes of cigars, phone numbers, dinner requests, and marriage proposals.

The Suits were not impressed. They would have their way, which is what Suits do best, and after one season of puffing and flirting and gambling, Starbuck, that loveable scoundrel, was indeed fired. Which is to say, “Battlestar Galactica” was cancelled. Starbuck, however, would not stay cancelled, but simply morphed into another flirting, cigar smoking, blatant heterosexual called Faceman. Another show, another set of Suits, and of course, if The “A-Team” movie rumors prove correct, another remake.

There was a time, I know I was there, when men were men, women were women and sometimes a cigar was just a good smoke. But 40 years of feminism have taken their toll. The war against masculinity has been won. Everything has turned into its opposite, so that what was once flirting and smoking is now sexual harassment and criminal. And everyone is more lonely and miserable as a result.

Witness the “re-imagined” “Battlestar Galactica,” bleak, miserable, despairing, angry and confused. Which is to say, it reflects in microcosm the complete change in the politics and morality of today’s world, as opposed to the world of yesterday. The world of Lorne Greene (Adama), Fred Astaire (Starbuck’s Poppa) and Dirk Benedict (Starbuck). I would guess Lorne is glad he’s in that Big Bonanza in the sky and well out of it. Starbuck, alas, has not been so lucky. He’s not been left to pass quietly into that trivial world of cancelled TV characters.

“Re-imagining”, they call it. “Un-imagining” is more accurate. To take what once was and twist it into what never was intended. So that a television show based on hope, spiritual faith and family is un-imagined and regurgitated as a show of despair, sexual violence and family dysfunction. To better reflect the times of ambiguous morality in which we live, one would assume. A show in which the aliens (Cylons) are justified in their desire to destroy human civilization, one would assume. Indeed, let us not say who the good guys are and who the bad are. That is being “judgmental,” taking sides, and that kind of (simplistic) thinking went out with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan and Kathryn Hepburn and John Wayne and, well, the original “Battlestar Galactica.”

In the bleak and miserable “re-imagined” world of “Battlestar Galactica,” things are never that simple. Maybe the Cylons are not evil and alien but in fact enlightened and evolved? Let us not judge them so harshly. Maybe it is they who deserve to live and Adama and his human ilk who deserve to die? And what a way to go! For the re-imagined terrorists (Cylons) are not mechanical robots void of soul, of sexuality, but rather humanoid six foot tall former lingerie models who f**k you to death. (Poor old Starbuck, you were imagined too early. Think of the fun you could have had ‘fighting’ with these thong-clad aliens!) In the spirit of such soft-core, sci-fi porn I think a more re-imaginative title would have been “F**cked by A Cylon.” (Apologies to “Touched by an Angel.”)

One thing is certain. In the new un-imagined, re-imagined world of “Battlestar Galactica” everything is female driven. The male characters, from Adama on down, are confused, weak and wracked with indecision, while the female characters are decisive, bold, angry as hell, puffing cigars (gasp!) and not about to take it any more.

One can quickly surmise what a problem the original Starbuck created for the re-imaginators. Starbuck was all charm and humor and flirting without an angry bone in his womanizing body. Yes, he was definitely “female driven,” but not in the politically correct ways of Re-imagined Television. What to do, wondered the Re-imaginators? Keep him as he was, with a twinkle in his eye, a stogie in his mouth and a girl in every galaxy? This could not be. He would stick out like, well, like a jock strap in a drawer of thongs. Starbuck refused to be re-imagined. It became the Great Dilemma. How to have your Starbuck and delete him too?

The best minds in the world of un-imagination doubled their intake of Double Soy Latte’s as they gathered in their smoke-free offices to curse the day that this chauvinistic Viper Pilot was allowed to be. But never under-estimate the power of the un-imaginative mind when it encounters an obstacle (character) it subconsciously loathes. ”Re-inspiration” struck. Starbuck would go the way of most men in today’s society. Starbuck would become “Stardoe.” What the Suits of yesteryear had been incapable of doing to Starbuck 25 years ago was accomplished quicker than you can say orchiectomy. Much quicker, as in, “Frak! Gonads Gone!”

And the word went out to all the Suits in all the smoke-free offices throughout the land of Un-imagination, “Starbuck is dead. Long live Stardoe!”

I’m not sure if a cigar in the mouth of Stardoe resonates in the same way it did in the mouth of Starbuck. Perhaps. Perhaps it “resonates” more. Perhaps that’s the point. I’m not sure. What I am sure of is this…

Women are from Venus. Men are from Mars. Hamlet does not scan as Hamletta. Nor does Hans Solo as Hans Sally. Faceman is not the same as Facewoman. Nor does a Stardoe a Starbuck make. Men hand out cigars. Women “hand out” babies. And thus the world for thousands of years has gone’ round.

I am also sure that Show Business has been morphing for many decades now and has finally become Biz Business. The creative artists have lost and the Suits have won. Suits. Administrators. Technocrats. Metro-sexual money-men (and women), who create ever more efficient formulas to guarantee profit margins. Because movies and television shows are not made to enlighten or even entertain, but simply to make money. They will tell you it is (still) about story and character, but all it is really about is efficiency. About the Formula. Because Harvard Business School Technocrats run Hollywood and what Technocrats know is what must be removed from all business is Risk. And I tell you, life, real life, is all about risk. I tell you that without risk you have no creativity, no art. I tell you that without risk you have Remakes. You have, “Charlie’s Angels,” “The Saint,” “Mission Impossible,” “The A Team” (coming soon), and “Battlestar Galactica.”

All risk-free brand names, franchises.

For you see, TV shows (and movies) are made and sold according to the same business formula as hamburger franchises. So that it matters not if it is the “best” hamburger, what matters is that you “think” it is the best. And you do “think” it is the best, because you have been told to; because all of your favorite celebrities are seen munching it on TV. The big money is not spent on making the hamburger or the television show, but on the marketing of the hamburger/show. (One 60 second commercial can cost more than it does to film a one-hour episode.) It matters not to Suits if it is Starbuck or Stardoe, if the Cylons are robots or lingerie models, if the show is full of optimism and morality or pessimism and amorality. What matters is that it is marketed well, so that all you people out there in TV land know that you must see this show. And after you see it, you are told that you should like it. That it is new and bold and sleek and sexy and best of all … it is Re-imagined!

So grab a Coke from the fridge (not the Classic Coke, but the re-imagined kind with fewer calories) and send out for a McDonald’s hamburger (the re-imagined one with fewer carbs), and tune in to Stardoe and Cylon #6 (or was it #69?) and Enjoy the Show.

And if you don’t enjoy the show, or the hamburger and coke, it’s not the fault of those re-imaginative technocrats that brought them to you. It is your fault. You and your individual instincts, tastes and judgment — your refusal to let go of the memory of the show that once was. You just don’t know what is good for you. But stay tuned. After another 13 episodes (and millions of dollars of marketing), you will see the light. You, your instincts, your judgment, are wrong. McDonald’s is the best hamburger on the planet, Coca-Cola the best drink, and Stardoe is the best Viper Pilot in the Galaxy.

And “Battlestar Galactica,” contrary to what your memory tells you, never existed before the Re-imagination of 2004.

I disagree. But perhaps, you had to be there.