All my life I've been trying to get on TV, but why? Is it just the very human desire for attention, to show the world how great I am, because getting on TV somehow represents that "I made it" in the world, so I can share on my Facebook and broadcast that I will be appearing on a game show and to see how well I do!!! ( I personally feel like people secretly hate this, even if it's their friends, because we're all jealous of other people's successes, so we have to show up to support them but quietly seethe with rage). Yes, I do have some impulses like these, but recently I've theorized that it's a lot like the song "Cool Kids" by Echosmith, a great song that sums up essentially my whole life up to college and even now applies: "I wish that I could be like the cool kids, 'cause all the cool kids they seem to fit in...." this refrain repeats like 10 times in that song which usually is the sure sign of an earworm, but for me it fits, the song came out in a really formative time for me (2013), maybe because it's not that often played, every time I hear it resonates. I've always wanted to be cool but never got to experience it. I've always walked around with my head down (mainly cuz I was ashamed of my acne as a kid), not walking straight, always just sticking out. Always last to get the new games, the new technology, know the latest gossip, never wearing the right fashion......and it's carried over to adult life. In adult society I'm a nobody, just a passenger on the train, a number on a screen, a customer in line to check out. Nobody cares what I do, no one wants to "fit in" with me. Maybe, just maybe, if I do something cool, people will admire me and I get to be the cool kid for once. I think that's what motivated me as a camp counselor way back in the day; the kids looked up to me because they didn't know better, they're kids and any person older than them seemed cool. But I was cool to them; when I said something they paid attention, actually wanted to hear. I "fit in."
Is the 1986 movie "Stand By Me" one of the best movies ever? Jeopardy sure incorporates it as a clue often enough, mainly because it's also the name of a song by Ben E. King, which also is played in the movie, but it's also basically an autobiography of Stephen King's younger years, apparently King got emotional after watching Rob Reiner's rendition of King's story "The Body" because it was so real. The movie's only 85 movies long, which is a good start because I just can't sit through Oppenheimer's 3 hours again no matter how good it is, it's got a young kids cast who later went on to bigger things (Wil Wheaton, Jerry O'Connell who does NOT look handsome as he does in Jerry Maguire, and sadly River Phoenix) and nothing really happens plot wise.....it's a very basic "4 buddies go on an adventure" plot line that is probably as old as stories, (The whole Hangover and Harold & Kumar movie franchises are based on it, just to name a couple), and no big plot twists, no CGI, no love stories....just spending 85 minutes with representations of your 12-year-old buddies again, which some argue is the most valuable thing to have, and the most wonderful time of life: young, free, naive, your whole world in front of you, everything is new about the world, and time doesn't move so gosh darn fast). It's set in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Oregon, but it might as well be generic Smallville, USA, or suburb like I grew up in, Darien, IL, or anywhere boys grow up.....we all go through that period of growth and making friends and sharing bonds. Not all of us have to outrun a train on a bridge or find a dead body to accomplish that bonding, but we've all experienced what it's like to be 12 years old. "I never had any friends like I did when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?" That is the iconic line of the movie, and should be one of the top movie quotes ever, replacing such drivel as "You had me at hello" or "Say hello to my little friend." I get it, the quote's a little long, but the idea is gold: I've had many friendships come and go over my adult life, and I don't even talk to some of my close friends when I was 12 years old anymore (much like the movie), but those memories are the best. Back then I didn't need me to be a cool kid or fit in.... I just needed my friends. Timeless movie.
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