Man-Child
I don’t like it when there is a long line to see my dealer. It gives me time to reflect, and that is something that I’d rather not have. Not when it comes to something as shameful as this. Ahead of me, a young couple is buying a new television. They seem happy. I hope they make it. Ahead of them are a couple of kids buying a new video game. I’m a tad jealous of their youthful dexterity, being able to manipulate the latest massively huge controllers with over fifteen buttons, but still, I respect the video game culture. Ahead of them is a student buying a new laptop for probably his first year of college. I’m sure it will be free of porn for the next 30 minutes or so.
What I am acquiring today, I don’t let the others see. I tuck my selections against my thigh, the labels facing inward, so nobody knows. Nobody will know. None of my other accomplices here in line will be able to judge me if they don’t know.
Unfortunately, there seems to be a hold up in line; looks like the credit card machine is down at the register and I begin to think of where this terrible addiction of mine started.
The catalyst, I would have to say, would be a brand new, top-of-the-line VCR that my parents bought in 1986. Four hundred dollars this VCR cost at the time. The Beta vs. Video Cassette War was over, and spending that much on a VCR was a safe purchase. It would not be replaced until the late 1990’s, when DVDs were invented. After receiving the VCR, my parents then proceeded to record nearly every show and movie that they had even the slightest interest in. A typical tape would hold approximately two movies or about six episodes of ALF. I don’t really know how long it took them, because I always remember the secretary desk in my living room being completely stockpiled with self-labeled cassettes. The best tape by far in the entire collection was the one that held both Jaws and Back to the Future. I cringe to think about how many times my brother Phil and I viewed that tape. Let me just say that we got 400 dollars worth of viewing pleasure just from that tape alone.
Jaws is the first movie I remember seeing in my life, and to this day I still consider it my favorite, no matter how many times I’ve seen it. My mother, being a good mom, nurtured Phil’s and my collected interest in the movie and also recorded Jaws 2 and Jaws 3-D. My brother liked Jaws 2 because of the shark’s fin in that movie. The fin was extremely large and it terrorized the islanders who went sailing. Jaws 3-D was nothing more than a cheap gimmick, especially for my brother and I, who did not see it in theaters and therefore did not see the movie in all of its 3-D glory. The shark effects on our 2-D screen made the whole movie a crapshoot. But Louis Gossett Junior was in it, so we had that going for us. When the shark attacked the underwater sea-lab though, it was merely a still shot of the shark, not moving, but still somehow floating toward the screen. I called shenanigans on it, but my mom said that if I saw it in theaters with my 3-D glasses, it would be much better.
I still somehow doubt that. Shenanigans, Mom.
When Phil and I heard that there was a fourth Jaws movie in the theater, our mother, being a good mom, took us to go see it. Phil and I only being seven and four years old, respectively, we basked in seeing a Jaws movie in the theater. It was called Jaws: The Revenge. Being only four years old, I wasn’t one for plot or character development, or plot holes or inconsistencies or improbability. When we exited the theater that day, we were all a little spellbound. Something had happened, yet we couldn’t place our finger on it. We didn’t talk much on the way home that day. We were just replaying the movie in our heads, trying to figure what had happened. It turns out that we had just watched what many people consider to be the worst movie of all time. Phil claimed to have ingested too much buttery popcorn and fell ill.
It wasn’t the popcorn, Phil. It wasn’t the popcorn.
Still, when the movie played on television the next year, it was recorded on the VCR. After watching all four of the Jaws films in succession I had my first idea of criticism and formulated a theory on sequels. They got progressively worse as they went on. I constantly thought about how to prove my theory, citing examples from the four movies, willing to discuss it at length with anyone who would listen. What devices are used to compensate for a shoddy plot, whether it be the length of the shark’s fin, a cheap ploy with blue and red glasses, or the idea that a shark can follow a woman thousands of miles to the Caribbean even though she took a plane, not a boat. I also found that the crappiness of the movies were in direct proportion to the shark’s size. With each movie the shark got bigger and bigger. It started at 25 feet, and by the time the fourth movie came around, the damn thing was 40 feet long.
Being able to think critically about sequels and follow a familiar plot line from movie to movie gave me immense joy. I was hooked. I was hooked on sequels.
Not only were sequels fun to mock and degrade, but they gave me closure. They followed a story or a character that I cared about and I got to see what became of them. For me, for my addictive personality, one was never enough. I was and still am a person of excess. I’d rather have too much than too little. Sequels, especially horror movie sequels, were my first introduction to overindulgence. The second thing I overindulged in was Bugles; at one point I ate two whole boxes worth in one afternoon. I got so terribly sick that even catching a slight whiff of a single Bugle 20 years later renders me immobile with nausea. But sometimes the overindulgence can be fun, like binging on Nightmare on Elm Street movies, watching that transition Freddy Kreuger makes from movie to movie. How he started off as something to dreadfully fear then quickly became a wise-cracking, bright-eyed slayer of teenagers. (In case you were wondering, the instant it happened occurred in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors where Freddy appeared on the television in the smoking lounge of the mental facility. The girl, Jennifer, had always wanted to be an actress. As Jennifer approached the television, Freddy’s head came out of the top of the screen and wiry arms extended out the sides. He picked Jennifer up and said, “This is it, Jennifer. Your big break on TV! Welcome to prime time, bitch!” Then he slammed her head through the screen, killing the aspiring actress instantly.)
However, there was a downside to the closure. Sequels are inherently bad, that much I knew. And it stung something awful when I saw a character I actually cared about get turned to shit for the sake of a quick buck. Robocop 3; worst case I’d ever seen. I was twelve years old when I rented it from the video store. As my mom was preparing dinner that evening, she heard strange rumblings and groans coming from my room. She went upstairs to investigate and saw me hunched over in the chair, my head in my hands. Soda cans were strewn about, potato chip bags angrily tossed on the floor. On the television screen, Robocop was strapping a jet pack on his back and soaring through Old Detroit in order to save the underground resistance.
“He’s flying,” I told her dejectedly. “Robocop is flying.” I nearly cried.
The credit card machine seems to be working again and I move up a step. The couple in front of me seems to begin to question and/or bicker about their choice of size for their soon-to-be acquired television. According to the man, Sunday’s football game could look a lot better if they went with his first choice. I look down past the items in my hand and at my shoes. Looking at how big they are, how adult they are. I hardly remember even growing out of my shoes as a kid. This line I’m standing in is really giving me too much time to think.
If it’s true that a child’s habits towards his toys give a glimpse of his true passion in life, then I should be arrested. If a future architect spends hours in his playroom fidgeting around and crafting towns and cities out of Legos, and a future soldier for the Army roams the neighborhood protecting the people with N.E.R.F. toys, then my childhood passions do not make me right for this world. At my current age, I should be a flesh-eating zombie. Or a human fly. Or a Cenobite from Hell. Or any other ghastly departure from the goodwill of man. Just lock me up. Throw away the key if you wish. It’s not like I am not socially awkward enough.
I don’t go to the movie theater much. Not as much as most people, anyhow. Most movies I ne
ed to see go straight to video. “Say, Mike,” a friend might begin. “Care to see the new M. Night Shyamalan movie Friday night?”
“No, thanks,” I’ll say, “But you’re more than welcome to come over to my place and watch Michael Gross (of Family Ties fame) reprise his role as Burt Grummer in Tremors 2: Aftershocks.”
Sha-na-na-na
I’m not exactly a hit at parties, either. The discussion of blockbuster movies and feature art films are dependable ice-breakers at social gatherings; they rank even as high as the latest celebrity scandal or different driving routes to get to work on the list of acceptable topics. If someone decides to discuss the latest Martin Scorcese movie, I have trouble keeping up.
“Mike, did you ever get around to seeing The Departed? Dicaprio was pretty damn good in it.”
“The Departed? Haven’t seen it yet,” I say, “But I did see another Dicaprio movie recently: a little gem of a film called Critters 3…”
I can see my friends’ eyes roll back into their heads and I try to turn the conversation back to what they originally intended. “Now, Critters 3 was a bit of a…departure for the Critters franchise in that the critters themselves were set in a solitary apartment complex in the city of L.A instead of the small rural town of Grover’s Bend…” before I even realize it’s happening, I’m speaking to an empty room.
Some people just can’t handle deep conversations, I guess. Next time, I’ll try to discuss something a little fluffier and less offensive, like politics or religion.
Back in line, the kids buying the new video game have become agitated and are beginning to bicker about who is going to play the game first, who’s spending the most money on the game, whose mom dropped them off at the store. The kids arguing remind me of Phil and me when we were that age. We used to argue quite vehemently as children and I frequently walked away with deep bruises on my person, the kind of bruises that when you press your finger on them it takes quite a few seconds for the bruise to return to its light green color. I can still recall the life-span of my bruises. They went from an instant light green to a red to purple to yellow to brown.
If I think about it, Phil and I haven’t argued in over a decade. The last hurtful physical contact we had took place over twelve years ago and it was I who was the perpetrator. We were at the high school football field, warming up with some friends for a two-hand touch game. Phil ran a slant pattern that took him across the middle of the field. He jumped in the air to catch the ball, and the split-second the football touched his hands, I completely decked him. As he lay on the ground writhing in pain, I stood over him and thumped my chest the way an ape might and roared. He did hold onto the football, though. I will give him that. Once I released my repressed anger I helped him up and our relationship has been nothing but handshakes, hugs, and pats on the back ever since. I wonder, what have we been doing these past ten years or so? How has our relationship changed? What do we even talk about? Movies come to mind.
The past ten years was quite a hectic decade for movies to say the least. There was a terrible rash of sequels, remakes, and cross-overs. I’ve been trying to cut back on my addiction because with a voracious personality like mine, there is never a leftover beer in the fridge and there is no place I won’t follow a money-grubbing Hollywood producer. Jason X, Alien vs. Predator, Creepshow 3, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Freddy vs. Jason, Halloween: Resurrection, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, Alien vs. Predator: Requiem, Rob Zombie’s Halloween and Halloween 2…I don’t want to see these movies. I have to see them. And as long as there are people like me who will pay good money to see them, they will keep making them. It’s a vicious cycle.
Thankfully, I am not alone. Phil joins me in these instantly regrettable trips to the movies. When one of us sees a preview for the latest rehashed old garbage, we give each other a call.
“Phil,” I remember exclaiming on the phone back in 2002. “Phil! Listen: Jason Vorhees is being jettisoned into outer space. That’s right. He’s going to be an astronaut. A murderous astronaut! We’re going on Friday. …Yeah, Melissa can come, I guess, but she better not ruin it for us!” Jason X strengthened my scientific theory that if you keep making sequels for any franchise, the characters and plot will inevitably end up in outer space. If there’s another Jaws movie, it’s going to be called Jaws 5: In Space. In my opinion, the screenplay writes itself.
The guy standing behind me in line is getting agitated at our slow pace. I can feel his frustration emanating off of him, like a bad smell. I think he saw me a few minutes earlier, in the movie aisle as I was quietly muttering and laughing hysterically.
What had happened was, well, to be honest, last night I was drinking a bit too much while I watched television. It’s not an uncommon occurrence, but usually my viewing pleasures are relegated to safe movies; movies I have already seen at least a dozen times, like Jeepers Creepers or Total Recall if I am feeling particularly frisky. But I came across the movie Leprechaun at around midnight. It starred Jennifer Aniston (of Friends fame) as the protagonist and Warwick Davis (of Willow fame) as the evil leprechaun who searches for and kills those who try to take his pot ‘o gold. The movie was an absolute joke. It tried to tap into our collective trust in the mythical leprechaun and reverse it so that the leprechaun is seen as an evil, warped little creature that rides a tricycle and kills people while jumping on a pogo stick. If I were a sober man, I would have avoided the whole mess of a film to begin with, but as an inebriated fellow sitting on his couch, covered in salted peanut shells, I watched the whole thing. I hardly blinked.
Warwick Davis was destroyed when a four-leaf clover was shot down his throat and he fell into a well. Then they poured gasoline down the well and lit a match. The last words said in the movie were that of the leprechaun saying in his “hauntingly” cutesy Irish accent, “I’ll not rest till I have me gold. Curse this well that me soul shall dwell. Till I find me magic that breaks me spell.”
I knew there were sequels to Leprechaun, which is why I had avoided the franchise in the first place. But because of my intoxicated viewing last night I was left vulnerable to the elements of bad taste. My sober side tried to talk me out of it, and at 2:00 a.m. I was having a vocal conversation with myself.
My common sense told me, “Now, Michael, listen: You’re not going to the store tomorrow. You don’t need Warwick Davis occupying your time and money. You’ve got better things to do.”
“Do I?” I asked myself back. “Do I really? Personally, I think I could use a wasteful Sunday with Warwick Davis; following him on his adventures for his pot ‘o gold.”
“Dammit, Michael!” I exclaimed back to myself. “You’re still recovering from the Wishmaster series you saw over a month ago!”
“I can handle it,” I said while opening another beer. “I can handle it!”
The voice of rationality was resolute, but with the help of more alcohol, I quieted him down to a whisper and eventually he became a white noise type of hum that I could easily ignore.
The angry man standing behind me scoffs as we take one step closer in line. I’m so paranoid that I think the scoff is directed at me, from when he saw me picking out the movies a few minutes ago. I came across the “L’s” in the Horror section (the Comedy Section did not contain Leprechaun, even though it should) and I was suitably horrified when I saw all the sequels and their terrible taglines. Leprechaun 2. This time luck has nothing to do with it. Leprechaun 3. Welcome to Vegas. The odds are you won’t leave alive. Leprechaun 4: In Space. (of course.) One small step for man, one giant leap of terror. Leprechaun in the Hood. Evil is in the house. Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood. Evil has a whole new rap!
My reluctance to pick out these movies was shown in physical and verbal form as I reached for each one, my hands quaking, muttering to myself, “Oh, god, what am I doing? This isn’t right. Stop it. Michael, please stop it.” But still, my left arm kept reaching for the next one and the next one and the next one and the next one a
nd the next one until I had all of the sequels in my hand and I laughed a desperate, mad-hatter type of laugh to myself as I held them all in my arms. That’s when the man standing behind me came around the corner. I acted casual.
I hate myself for this kind of behavior. I really do. I wish that I could just get Leprechaun: In Space, to see how they can take Warwick out among the stars. The screenwriters must be geniuses because it’s a scientific fact that there are no rainbows in space. But knowing that he ventures into the hood after he goes into outer space, well, I have to see that too. I have to see how he escaped from the well in which he dwells. I have to see how the leprechaun handles the glitz and glamour of Las Vegas. I have to see it all. And it’s not going to be pretty.
I’m going to try to put the movies face down onto the counter when I pay so that the barcode shows and the teller will not have any need to flip them over and see what dastardly deeds I am up to. Seeing all these sequentially awful movies warrants a sarcastic comment from the teller and I should brace myself for it. But once I get the items placed into a bag, then I will be free from judgment when I walk out those automatic doors. Hell, I could claim that I bought The Godfather I and II as well as The Shawshank Redemption. I could claim to be normal with good taste.
My neighbors might know something is up though. The walls in my apartment are incredibly thin, and although they don’t know specifically what I am doing, they hear my reactions to them. They’ve already heard such insightful shouts as, “Shenanigans,” “Bullshit,” as well as, “You’re…you’re bastardizing the origin,” and of course the all-encompassing, “NOOOOOOooooooooo!”
Tonight, when my neighbors are in bed they will awaken to a faint noise like the scratching of a paw against the door, and if they cock their heads the right way and listen hard enough, they will hear the desperate plea piercing through the cramped walls of apartment #3, “The horror…the horror…”
Contents
Overcome Awareness