Won't you tell me what you're thinking of? Would you be an outlaw for my love? If it's so, well let me know. If it's no, well I can go. I won't make you.
- Alex Chilton, "Thirteen"

"Bursting the Bubble"
I'm pretty sure Bubble Boy came out freshman year. I remember seeing commercials for it when Justin was in the room and saying "Oh my god, that movie looks stupid."

I wasn't lying. Bubble Boy had all the makings of a dumb, dumb movie... but even then, I had some strange longing to see it. The only thing that stopped me was my own pretentions. I was somehow under the impression that I was meant to be sophisticated and urbane. I was above Bubble Boy... even if I was reading Superboy religiously. Besides, I had been mocking Kate Jeffries for actually paying to see Dude, Where's My Car? for a couple of months at that point. I couldn't afford to lose ground in that battle.

I didn't see Bubble Boy until a year later, when me, Brent, and out weird friend Andy rented that and Zoolander one summer night. We started off with Ben Stiller's opus, and I fell asleep shortly after the hilarious yet tragic gasoline fight and didn't wake up until Will Ferrell shrieked "I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!" -- which I repeated for six months straight, much to My Crazed Former Roommate's chagrin.

I was drowsy and tired and miffed as all hell that I'd left another dream about Kate Hudson in a rain slicker -- remember, this was pre-10 Days -- and then Brent popped in Bubble Boy and I was electrofied.

I tell you, friend... if the mind-boggling story of Jimmy Livingston's 2,755.8 mile trek from Palmdale, California to Niagra Falls was produced for one person to enjoy, that person is me. This ninety-minute fantasy has everything I look for in a movie. We're talking about a cast of dozens, including crazy Christians, circus freaks, the Asian-American proprietor of a mud-wrestling arena, two sets of septagenarian twins locked in a love triangle, a Mexican biker gang out for blood, a Hindi ice cream/curry truck driver, and a cult lead by Fabio. I love how no matter where Jimmy is in America, be it a podunk Nebraska town with a ninety-foot replica of the Eiffel Tower made with matchsticks, or a liquor store in upstate New York, it all looks like Southern California. I'm stoked that Jimmy's dad is one of those characters who doesn't say a word until the end of the movie, making whatever they say seems so much more wise and important than it really is. Marley Shelton brings such a sense of tenderness to the role of Chloe, the girl next door who yearns for the plastic pariah it almost made me cry. And it's strangely wonderful that after a rough and tumble cross-country trip in which he's been batted around like the human beach ball he is, Jimmy sheds his thin plastic skin -- which you swear must be indestructible -- with ease.

All that, and he beats up a midget without really trying.

I'm not stupid. No self-respecting self-proclaimed film buff can possible watch Bubble Boy and tell all their film buff friends they loved it. But you know what this movie helped me realize? No self-respecting self-proclaimed film buff has any friends to tell this to anyway, because nobody likes the asshole who keeps telling them that their favorite movie sucks. If you've somehow convinced yourself that yours is a life that can only make room for high ideals, and whatever you want to consider "genuine art," -- as I once was -- then you're living in a bubble that's tinier and less pregnable than Jimmy Livingston's and I pity you, because you're missing out.

Early on in Bubble Boy, one of the bit players delivers a line that sent a thrill through me akin to thrill Anders felt hearing "they is" in Tobias Wolfe's "Bullet in the Brain": I hear the only thing he can drink is his own urine.

It's the way he emphasizes the "is" in "is his own urine" that makes it art.

"And Speaking of Clark's Strange Taste in Film..."
Fooly Cooly has returned to Adult Swim. Shove a tie-dyed egg up your ass and let's call it Easter!

If I'd still been blogging in August instead of dreaming up The Secret Origin of Clark, you would have heard about Fooly Cooly. It's the six-episode anime that blew my mind in the best way possible. It's the story of a 12-year-old boy and the women who love him... one of which is a homeless wackjob girl who was dating his brother, the other's an evil alien.

Yes, yes, I know. You hate anime. Me too. But this one's got a flying Vespa, a shifting artistic syle that includes the cut-and-paste simplicity of South Park, a kick-ass soundtrack, and this hilarious tendency to end frenetic action sequences with someone getting hit in the head with a guitar like El KaBong.

As far as this little black duck's concerned, it's too weird not to like.

"I Love a Parade"
I always prided myself on being a guy who hates musicals. It spared me the indignity of gabbing about Moulin Rouge or Chicago at great lengths.

After seeing Parade, I've lost this simple pleasure.

Thanks, Becca. Why'd you have to be so freakin' fabulous?

"Sic Transit Gloria"
I spent the weekend searching for Alexis Bledel in the background of Rushmore. I found her toward the end, in the audience of Max Fischer's Vietnam drama "Heaven and Hell", and afterward at the reception.

Time well spent.

"Alma Mater"
I don't talk about my mother much, but I don't talk about the sun either. Doesn't mean it's not there, and it doesn't mean all life on earth wouldn't come to an end without it.

My mom's an amazing woman who's done amazing things. I didn't really understand that until the last time when I was a senior and we moved across town. Packing up all my crap and hauling it six miles seemed exhausting. Then I realized that my mom had moved all of us across state lines at least three times all by herself back when Ja'nelle and I were too young and stupid to help her.

My mom walked a beat in Garden City, Kansas. She lept out of a flaming Ford Bronco II on I-70 while pregnant. She taught me how to read.

Any defiencies in my character come not from a lack of a strong female role-model... so don't bother mothering me. Trust me. You can't beat the competition.

"My Handicap"
I did not get into the Science Fiction capstone seminar.

You know what that means? Any dream of doing my senior project by doing a concentrated analysis of Spider-Man has gone out the window.

I'm doing Irish Writers instead, and somehow I doubt that I can make a strong enough case for Garth Ennis' literary merits, nor will I convince anyone to let me do a paper of the Complete Works of Joe Kelly. (He's Irish-American, right?)

Actually, there may be an upside to all this. After all, I'm not really in any rush to graduate. There's nothing waiting for me out in the world. I can't even get a part time job for petesake.

If she's not hopeless, why do I have to be?