I Won't Do That

Part of the Turning 30 series.

"Look at all the tiny people!" exclaimed a puffy-faced girl who became, as soon her pimple-rimmed lips finished 'tiny', someone I would hate for the rest of my life(I never saw her again).

The 'tiny people' were filling the hallways after their first class of their first day at Laurel High School, and I - a pasty bug-eyed ghost of a kid - was among them. I scurried from class to class, my middle-school honed nerd-survival techniques urging me to lay low and keep quiet. Scan the classroom, look for signs of possible allies: Metallica sticker on a notebook, comic doodling(the Marvel kind, not the newspaper kind), a copy of Dungeons and Dragons hanging out of backpack; any marker that might lead me to another teenage misfit.

Eventually, I found a set of friends - two, actually. Set one were three friends from my neighborhood who were all a year ahead of me. Theoretically, having three established sophomores as friends should have been an advantage, but they were all geeks like me(well, to be fair Joel wasn't really that geeky, just all of his friends were - which is basically the same thing). It was like knowing the prison bitches before you get off the county van; it only helps in as much you know how badly you are going to get fucked.

My other set of friends were a couple of guys that I'll refer to as SuperFresh. One half of SuperFresh was like me(all nerd), but the other was an anomaly. He was in incredible shape from karate, wrestling, and gymnastics. He earned straight As, he was a member of TV Production, and was generally well liked by everyone. Yet, he doesn't remember being popular. I'm convinced this is because he was best friends with me and the other half of SuperFresh. Our geek-worldview rubbed off on him. If it wasn't for us, he'd probably have dated cheerleaders and scored at Prom(sorry dude).

Unlike Superfresh, my other set of friends were a little sinister. Hanging out with them, I'd have my first taste of alcohol, porn, satanic metal, drugs and LARPing¹(the worst of all). I'll call them the Axis of Evil.

The Axis of Evil had Joel, Larry and Robert. Joel I've already discussed.

Larry was a chubby devil's child. He was smart - too smart for high school. His parents were Wiccans. His older brother was banging the cashier at the local record store. We would have amazingly deep conversations about life, science, and philosophy on the bus ride home(at least I remember them being very deep, but my teenage perspective might have warped what I considered 'deep').

Robert was tall. Really tall. He was an only child, and routinely tried to break into his friend's houses, just for practice(I think he thought of himself as a fantasy-like thief).

Together, we would spend our high-school years playing video games, D&D, looking at porn-mags, watching Headbanger's Ball and Beavis & Butthead. A typical mid-nineties, white teenage existence. Often we'd do this in someones' basement(shit, I didn't realize how much of this was so fucking cliched), but almost never mine. My parent's were still pretty strict then, and would make us go to bed eventually. At certain friend's houses, this policy was very relaxed(eventually my house became the spot for friends to congregate thanks to 'chill' parents, but that wasn't until it was my younger brothers and their friends doing the chilling²).

Even with friends, though, high school was rough. Dating was out of the question. I tried to fit in by being a kind of class clown, channeling my beloved George Carlin albums. This worked with some people, but blatantly ripping Carlin off never gained me wide-spread acceptance. Despite being a nerd, my grades were never that great, at least during freshman and sophomore years. Depressed, I didn't see the point in some of the work. Not being one of the beautiful people can hurt.

I listened to a lot of Metallica. I didn't have a lot of money for CDs, so I taped songs off the radio. I preferred dark, brooding songs, so naturally I listened to the local alternative station, 99.1 WHFS³. Late at night, long after I was supposed to have gone to bed(just like I was supposed to have studied), I'd lie in bed with my headphones on and listen - it was a gateway to another world, though it only offered a fleeting glimpse of the rooms, basements and parking lots where the cool "alternative" kids listened to the same music. I was still too nerdy, even for them.

I remember one kid who sat in front of me in freshman English. He tormented me in middle school, and over the summer he had obviously become a huge fan of Grunge: flannel shirt, longer(and greasier) hair, and an anarchy symbol sketched in black marker on his backpack. This kid, the same kid who once tortured for me wearing high-watered pants one day(hey, it was fucking seventh grade for Christ's sake) and loved making fun of me on the bus ride home, this kid had written something else besides his pseudo-approval of an anarchist society on his backpack: 'Mean People Suck'.

Mean people suck? Well, kiss my nerdy-white ass.

When I wasn't listening to the radio, there was one album I was constantly listening to, and believe me I sometimes I wish it was something really cool like Let It Be by The Replacements(who I wouldn't discover for almost a decade), Jeff Buckley's Grace or even Stone Temple Pilot's Purple. No, instead I would stare bleary-eyed at the red digits of the alarm clock listening and re-listening to Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell by Meatloaf.

Just like you don't get to choose your family, sometimes you don't get to choose the music that ends up meaning something to you. An awkward teenager looking for something, anything, that helps you make sense of the world doesn't have the benefit of wondering if what they like will be "important" when they are exiting their twenties. And even though in some circles Bat II is considered a great rock-opera album, it's hard to find another Meatloaf fan when you play "I'll Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)" on the bar jukebox. Especially if that bar is in Brooklyn.

But you fucking love that song, don't you? Don't deny it - it's "Bohemian Rhapsody" epic mixed with high-drama, gloriously long and overblown as only Jim Steinman can do it. Fierce electric guitars and beautiful piano licks crash , and not just Meatloaf wailing as only Meatloaf can, but after nine minutes we get another vocalist, the mysterious woman who is the object of Meatloaf's affection. It's a mini-movie⁴; Beauty and The Beast condensed into 12 minutes(six for the radio version).

To me, it was unrequited love; the only kind of love nerds get to know in high school. I'm a beast, I love you and I'll do anything for you - but none of it will matter. Plus, the beast is mysterious, gothic and reclusive, but in a cool way. When you're getting called a dork on a daily basis, you may have some aura of mystery about you, but it definitely isn't the cool kind of mystery. No, it's mysterious like a two-headed kitten or unidentified meat; you'd rather just not know.



I loved the angst of the album, and being so over-the-top in it's production and homage to rock-opera, it really stood out from my Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Alice In Chains records. I still listened to them plenty too, but Bat II will always have a special place in my heart.

Today, if I had to pick one song to perfectly sum up my high school experience, it would be this one(even if it was released almost a decade after I graduated).

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¹LARPing, or 'Live-Action Role Playing', is highly advanced geekery - not for the faint of heart, or anyone wishing to engage in regular sex.

²Lotta fucking good that did me(I'm not bitter).

³Sadly, WHFS no longer exists. It's format was abruptly changed to Tropical Latin music in 2005.

⁴Although I've listened to the song plenty, I hadn't watched the video for it in years until I wrote this post. Looking at it now, some things are just bizarre: It starts with Meatloaf/the Beast inadvertently killing a cop with his motorcycle. Why the cops are chasing the LoafBeast is never explained(but as in most music videos, it's heavily implied it's because cops are inherently evil), but they are bringing everything, cars, helicopters, to get him. The LoafBeast flees in the woods(away from his safe haven mansion?) and discovers a beautiful woman washing by a fountain, the way nobody does. She follows him back to his mansion, through the previously mentioned woods, where there is in an incredibly hot, almost softcore scene between her and what I guess are the LoafBeast's sexy muses. How could have I forgotten that?

Shallow and Pedantic

There is something that I hate that I often do. I hate being the person who, when conversing or arguing, can only repeat what he's read. Whether it's from a book, a newspaper, or an online article, all of it is just a prop, filling in for true insight and understanding.

Worse, if you can fool people well enough, it's a crutch. Why bother digging deeper and learning if you can convince people you are a knowledgeable, well-informed person anyway? Besides, if your really good at faking it, you get to have sex¹. But, props only hold for so long; eventually, someone will know you're just reading the Times to them. Worst of all, they won't call you out for it -- rather, they'll just file you away in a folder marked "Uninteresting, Unoriginal, But Still Attractive Individuals".

To wrap this up in the most unoriginal way possible, here is a video that clearly state my point:



¹It should be noted, that after talking to my girlfriend and learning the actual reasons I and other men get to have sex, I feel like one of Pavlov's dogs.

Music & Movies

I think "Ms. Robinson" is the best example, that I can think of right now, of a song so intimately connected to a movie that you can't hear it and not think of a certain scene. Or at least it was. We are generations past "The Graduate", and I'll bet a fair number of people -- all younger than me, thank you -- associate the song with Stifler's mom and "American Pie". Some probably just think "Simon and Garfunkel sure were great", or possibly "My high school algebra teacher sure taught me a lot about...the quadratic equation".

Anyway, here are some more songs that, to me(and that part is important, because I'm sure some of these will make you question my taste and memory), can never be separated from their celluloid companions.

"What A Wonderful World", Louis Armstrong, from Good Morning Vietnam. DJ Adrian Cronauer, played perfectly by Robin Williams(perfectly meaning absolutely nothing like the actual Cronauer), dedicates this song to a bunch of GIs that inspire him to get back on the air after a bureaucratic shit-storm. It plays over scenes of a chaotic, war-torn country -- rice fields being napalmed, suspected VCs being rounded up and executed -- and ends with Williams echoing Armstrong's wonderful "ohhhhhh yeahhhhhhh...". Other memorable songs from Vietnam in include "Sugar and Spice" by the Searchers and "I Got You (I Feel Good)" by James Brown(the first song Williams plays).

"Something In The Air", Thunderclap Newman - from Kingpin. This song plays during the bowling competition in Reno. Woody Harrelson, in possibly his best performance ever(and I'm being serious), plays Roy Munson, a down on his luck, one-handed bowler. He gradually gets his stride back to a song that most people as old as my parents probably remember from "Easy Rider". Before the final match, Urge Overkill does a great rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner". Other good songs from this movie include "A Beautiful Morning" by The Young Rascals and "The Sound Of Silence", played after Harrelson succumbs to a really indecent proposal from his landlady, played by Lin Shaye("What is it about great sex that always make me have to take a crap. You really jarred something loose there tiger!"). And of course, who could forget the final duel between Munson and Ernie 'Big Ern' McCracken (Bill Murray), set to ELO's "Showdown":



"You Can't Always Get What You Want", The Rolling stones, from The Big Chill. You knew this was coming. Even though it was immediately disqualified from the Top 5 Songs About Death in High Fidelity for it's association with this movie, "You Can't Always Get What You Want" is still great, in my opinion. Another song that the crew from Championship Vinyl may disregard in future discussions is "Ain't Too Proud To Beg" by The Temptations, for its use in the whitest dance scene in music history.

"One More Night", Phil Collins, from The Color Of Money. This can only be me. I was am a pool nut, so of course I watched The Hustler and it's sequel obsessively as a teenager. Paul Newman, in his thanks-for-everything-here's-an-Oscar reprisal as "Fast" Eddie Feslon, first notices Vincent(in, and I'm serious, Tom Cruise's finest performance) as Collins softly plays from the bar jukebox. The other winner is, of course, Warren Zevon's "Werewolves Of London", the soundtrack to Vincent's manic, cue-as-a-sword escapades, complete with Karate yells. Also memorable is "It's In The Way That You Use It", by Eric Clapton.



"Where Is My Mind", The Pixies, from Fight Club. The never-named narrator tells Marla "Trust me, everythings gonna be fine. You've met me at a very strange time in my life", the explosives go off, the buildings come down, and in comes the unforgettable screeching guitar notes that start this song. Perfect.



"Rebel-'Rouse", Duane Eddy, from Forrest Gump. There are lot of songs from this nugget of Americana -- "Everybody's Talking At Me", "Blowing In The Wind" (performed by the luscious Bobbi Dylan), "Fortunate Sun"(playing alongside the chop-chop-chop of an army helicopter), "All Along The Watchtower", "For What It's Worth (Stop, Hey What's That Sound)", "Break On Through (To The Other Side)", "Volunteers", "Love Her Madly", "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head", "Free Bird"(played during Jenny's almost-suicide) -- but it's the lonely twang that begins "Rebel-'Rouse" and the speedy, energetic instrumental that follows that gets us and Gump's football career started.

"New Slang", The Shins, from Garden State. Zach Braff really, really owes Natalie Portman for this one(and The Shins too, for that matter). Face it, even the most ironic hipster melted in his vintage t-shirt and Chuck all-stars when Portman flashes that incredible smile as this song comes in strong("Gold teeth and a curse for this town/ were all in my mouth/ Only, i don't know how they got out, dear.").



"Good Enough", Cyndi Lauper, The Goonies. This video for this song, as seen in the film, plays right before Sean Astin and company tie Astin's older brother to a chair with his own exercise band. In the real video, producer Steven Spielberg makes a cameo. God bless DVD extras. And God bless the Truffle Shuffle:



"Cruel Summer", Bananarama, from The Karate Kid. A perfect fit for Daniel LaRusso's first day of school in sunny California, exiled from his native New Jersey. And of course, who could forget the classic fighting montage song, "You're The Best (Around!)" by Joe Esposito. A true 80s piece of art.



"Mandy", by Barry Manilow, from Can't Hardly Wait. For most people Can't Hardly Wait is a very forgettable late 90s teen-comedy, but it met me at the perfect time: heartbroken and barely out of high school. My heart was broken by a girl named Amanda, the same name of Jennifer Love Hewitt's character, who pulls Ethan Embry's heart strings. It doesn't hurt that it's named after a Replacements song either(which of course appears on the soundtrack as well). But it's this Barry Manilow song, that convinces Embry that destiny is going to bring him and Amanda(Mandy) together, that stands out. His best friend dissuades him, telling him it's about Manilow's dog. Later, crestfallen about his failure to win Amanda, Embry wonders: "Wasn't that song Mandy a sign? What if it was about a dog...was I supposed to buy a dog? No, no, it had to be a sign! How often do you hear Mandy on the radio? I haven't heard that song in years!" before learning it's Manilow's birthday and the radio station is playing "Mandy" every hour on the hour. Another interesting thing about this movie, besides a pre-fame appearance by Seth Green, is how many people from it went on to star in the series "Six Feet Under": Lauren Ambrose, Peter Facinelli, Freddy Rodriguez, and Eric Balfour.

The best part, though, was the impromptu performance of "Paradise City" by Hook's Charlie Korsmo(an MIT alumni):



"Dry The Rain", The Beta Band, from High Fidelity. Rob Gordon(John Cusack) plays this song at his record store after boasting "I will now sell five copies of the The Three EPs by The Beta Band". Sure enough, it gets his weekend crowd hooked. A patron asks who it is, then tells Rob that the song is good. And Rob replies with every music snob's favorite line: "I know,".



"Bad Days", The Flaming Lips, from Batman Forever. Sure, there's "Kiss From A Rose" and the U2 song "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me", but this song became seared into my brain when I heard the lyrics "And you hate your boss at your job/Well in your dreams you can blow his head off/in your dreams/show no mercy". A perfect introduction to the just fired, about to become the Riddler Edward Nygma, played by Jim Carrey.

"Summer In The City", The Lovin' Spoonful, from Die Hard 3. As it stands, I think me, my brother, and my father are the only people who believe the third Die Hard movie is brilliant. Maybe this is because we first watched it at four in the morning. Either way, this song opens the movie, and "Die" and "Hard" come together right in sync with the opening drum line and keyboards, as does the subtitle "With A Vengeance". I just really like that, because I'm a dork.

SPECIAL QUENTIN TARANTINO SECTION

"Stuck In The Middle With You", by Stealer's Wheel, from Reservoir Dogs.



"Let's Stay Together", Al Green, "Son Of A Preacher Man", Dusty Springfield, "You Never Can Tell", Chuck Berry, "Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon", Neil Diamond(performed by Urge Overkill), and of course "Misirlou" by Dick Dale and his Deftones(it's the surf-sounding title theme).



"I'm Shipping Up To Boston", the Dropkick Murphys, from The Departed. This is my new Irish Pride song. A great song to get pumped up for a night of drinking. Which is really what an Irish Pride song should be.



"It's The End Of The World A We Know It (And I Feel Fine)", by REM, from Tommy Boy. Face it, you can't sing along any better than David Spade and Chris Farely could.