Thirty years ago "nerd" "jock" "prep" or "rebel" could probably summarize just about everyone in western culture. For better or for worse it was a system that worked. People understood each other. Our economy was booming, national lampoon was making a killing. The movie industry was exploding. Then the damn internet happened. For all its benefits to business and "democratization of information blah blah" what nobody counted on was it destroying the fabric of society. Yes there were the star wars kids and the trekkies before, but shit just got crazy: you could be interested in anything you wanted now! With the exponential increase in possible choices and the lack of power that major content providers had over what you could be interested in; culture fragmented. first it was emo kids, then scenesters, then sub categories like anime-emos, steampunkers, mathrockers, photomanipulators, furries, people that only listened to archived NASA space transmissions. It was a nightmare: complete breakdown of established stereotypes. No one could relate to each other anymore.
I met Clark in grade 8. By that point homie had already read Lord Of The Rings 9 times and was well on his way to teaching himself elvish. Pitiful I know, it goes downhill from here: I had only read it a measly three times. Grade 8 is that first terrifying year of high school where you are forced to share close quarters with men who can drive cars and have hair in all sorts of exotic places you didn't even know about. Lost amidst a sea of g-strings, deodorant, facial hair, gangster rap and fear you wildly cling with a death grip to the first thing that has any semblance of familiarity. Like 5-year olds that don't know how to swim: those first friends you meet in high school you hold on to out of desperation. Luckily for me and Clark, we both had a far greater than average love of all things Lord Of The Rings. Clark and I met in the second week of high school at a school-sponsored lunchtime mingler for anyone interested in LOTR or fantasy in general. It was so pathetic I just wanted to cry. Clark was a scrawny little nothing with an uncanny resemblance to a mouse, because he was so fidgety, like bro needed to perpetually take a leak or something. But common: who wasn't a scrawny little nothing in grade 8? So there we were in Mr. Auckwald's classroom, the desks pushed to the corners and the buzzing of neon lights permeating the room. Us and 11 other kids all petrified of social settings but desperate enough for contact with other human beings our same age that we were willing to scrape the bottom of the social and relational barrel. "Alright kids well let's get to know each other hmm? We'll go in a circle, when it comes to you; tell everyone your name and your favorite LOTR moment" this was so lame, but what options did we have? Walk down the halls of the school at lunchtime? Alone? Like some mindless zombie in a classic horror film? Feet-a-shuffle, head drooping, mumbling incoherently. Not like those new zombies, all fast and whatnot. Gimme the old zombies I say. None of this "they can run faster than you and are still really smart." That's just bull. They are dead. Anyways back to the circle:
"my names Chris and I like the part when Merry and Pippin are smoking their pipes after Isengard gets flooded" - for sure is a stoner
"I'm James and I just looove the part where Sam almost drowns trying to follow Frodo on the canoe!"
- gay. I'm calling it right now. Gay.
"hi…I'm Clark. I think the most awesome part of Lord Of The Rings is when Gimli and Legolas have the contest to see how many orcs they can kill!" - alright, this kid knows where it's at.
Listen: How are you gonna define who you are when you have no idea what box to put other people in? Depression soared, teen suicide rates through the roof: the line "no one understands me" being found in 90% of all suicide notes. Before you could just look at someone and say "nerd" or "jock" the hell you gonna do now? Nobody could relate to each other anymore. My god we were all individuals! The horror. The horror. MTV had a heart attack, record labels tanked. Movie industry died while the indie music and indie movie scene exploded… but failed to generate revenue. Google and social networking sites tried their hardest to categorize things again. Track your purchases, tailor website to your tastes. Etc. etc. facebook started offering ways to group your friends, soon there were more groups than friends. Shit hit the fan. Divorce rates went through the roof. It used to be that people had similar interests, like football. Or top 40 music. Then they got married and had kids. What now? you had to compromise:
"My wife is into naruto and Japanese power pop, I'm into Swedish death metal and WOW. But we are gonna try and make it work" - nope not gonna happen. Make a relationship work on compromise and self sacrifice? Jigga, please. Economy slumped. You couldn't bank on big-name movies or music anymore. Or hell; any entertainment for that matter. The top 40 died. The long tail became the long plain. It was the goddamn apocalypse of the information age.
The next half an hour of lunch was me and Clark having a bromance over how AWESOME it would be if we could have a contest over our orc-slaying skills. Eyes wide and arms a-flaying we salivated over the chance to fight for our lives in an epic battle against evil. And then bag a super hot maiden. Naturally. And that was it. Me and Clark were tight for the rest of high school. Unified through our love of all things Orc and dragon. We were effin Gimli and Legolas, Harry and Ron, Han and Luke, Kaneda and Tetsuo, Ryu and Ken, Batman and Robin (except no homosexual undertones), Goku and Vegeta! This also meant we got absolutely zero action. Sorry, correction: Clark got zero action. By grade 11 I had wised up, played my mega nerdcore obsession on the DL. DL meaning people know what genre I'm into, but don't see me engaging in hour long debates over whether Tolkien contributed more to fantasy than Rowling (he did). Those really are the years when you compromise your inner, unattractive obsessions and get serious about the business of getting serious with females. You gotta if you want to, you know, talk to the opposite sex and not come across as the worst possible candidate for procreation in the multiverse.
So to start I decided to buy some clothes that didn't have Legend of Zelda sprites that said "know your roots" on the front. Clark? No way. Kid was into the fantasy HARD. I remember how in grade 8 he was learning elvish. hell in grade 10 he could speak it fluently. Even tried to get a second language credit. no dice. sign on the door to his room? "speak friend, and enter". Jigga, please. Oh sure he had friends who were girls: other ones who loved fantasy, that had legolas and Aragorn posters up in their rooms, that had LOTR movie marathons every weekend. Listen: did Clark ever get close to any of the girls during those "marathons"? Did he ever just go for it? Like Eowyn for Aragorn? Did she ever take her top off? Did he bury his sting in her shelob? No. no. he didn't. Bro never got a break. He resembled Gollum more than Legolas and Aragorn. No girl has a Gollum poster on her wall. Not one.
I however was slaying more girls than Gimli was slaying Orcs. The LOTR group at our school was huge. Ripe. Ripe for the picking. The star wars freaks were not bad either. Come off as a Han solo character: who can resist? No girl. That's for sure. I was scoring girls like boba fett at a comicon convention. Besides, we were still in high school, the whole genre thing wasn't strictly enforced until you graduated! We even dabbled in some of the other genres: the anime freaks, the trekkies, the Marvel kids. But man you can't remove Clark from his fantasy. Buddy ate it up. But as any true-blue socially awkward kid will tell you: just because there was no female in his life doesn't mean he didn't want one. Badly. What does every hero in every story ever get? A woman. (Luke Skywalker being the only exception). Thanks to the genres, he was an even smaller minority than before. I have to hand it to whoever thought up the whole plan for designated interests. It saved a LOT of people a lot of trouble. Gave some direction for all of us. But the genres can only help so much, yes it saved the marriage rate and fixed the economy, but it doesn't work for everyone! Some guys… some guys need a straight up miracle to meet a girl.
Listen: We had to do something. Anything. So about ten years ago the government along with the biggest names in entertainment: EMI, Warner, Microsoft, Google formed their own justice league: they were going to save the economy. This wasn't no economic stimulus package… this was the economic stimulus death star, one ring, kryptonite, whatever: on birth you were randomly designated an all-encompassing passion. By passion I mean, money-sucking obsession. Starting in kindergarten you were encouraged to play only with other kids designated in your genre group. In high school you were "strongly encouraged" to attend all genre meetings and clubs that your school offered. After graduation a sizeable percentage of your paycheck had to go to your designated genre. Failure to do so was punished as seriously as fraud. The biggest most bankable genres were picked and expanded upon: Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, Naruto, Avatar just squeaked in, Steampunk, Harry Potter, Marvel Comics, The legend of Zelda, DC comics, Dune, the dark tower just made it: Every medium was wholesale transformed to produce movies, music, videogames, toys, art prints, social networking, pubs, bars, clothing; damn near everything, the new genres defined it. The sub-genres? Cut out. Banned or absorbed. James Cameron was hired to redo star wars, avatar style. Quentin Tarantino was persuaded into making a batman trilogy. Peter Jackson did a dark tower septology, social networking sites sprang up everywhere: elfbook, dunespace, trekker, hogwartsopia.
So graduation: we go our separate ways. Clark to fulfill his dream of video game designer for a studio that exclusively makes role playing games set in middle earth, obviously. me? Investment banker. Its not glamorous but the money is good. I like money. Yes I wear power suites all day and I am well groomed. You wanna fight about it? I'm so badass I make the balrog of Moria look like a barrow-wight. Me and Clark, we hit the bar once a week or so. Shoot the shit so to say. His favorite pub: "the green dragon". Get the reference? It's done up all authentic-like too. Wood burning fireplaces, oak tables, big steins of beer. He loves his job. Affords him the things he values most in life: video games, fantasy and text-based communication with other humans. Alas: no women. It "vexes" him. He's always going off on these self depreciating tangents: "I am like frodo! Doomed to bear the curse of the ring, I shall depart one day for valinor: leaving behind no loved ones!" dude: shut the hell up. You listen to yourself lately? You need to get out-siide. Look I love the genres. But you need to explore a bit man, you need to broaden your horizons. You've been workin on computer for what? Its been 3 years since graduation.
"I don't understand you man"
"you are Link, you have spent your whole life in kokiri forst. Bro its time to explore hyrule kingdom!"
"…I understand completely"
"If you want it though, you need to work for it man! You need to waaant it, you have to be willing to make some sacrifices…"
"like what"
"for starters you are to take that full size bust of Aragorn and hide it in the basement. And then all those miniatures you paint, they go too…"
"but they are so VALUABLE! You know how much they will be worth someday!?"
"look. You want this or not? What is more important to you: your hoard of collectable nerd shit or a hot girl who is actually willing to spend time with you?
Operation make Clark not a pathetic looser is a go.
There are at least 9 very respectable nightclubs for our genre designation bud, and I KNOW you haven't stepped foot in any of them. Now the "Mines of Moria" is where you want to go for some real kinky shit, but I don't even think you could handle that, so we should go to something a bit more casual. "Elronds house" or "Minis Tirith" are both more than good for what we want. And I swear to God you have to stop wearing those inside-joke video game shirts. Buy some good brands. Look: Mythril and Durin are both really nice genre brands… What the hell do you spend your percentage ON!? "well… I'm trying to make a 1:20 scale model replica of the battle of helms deep… its taking a while."
Dude. What. The. Fuck. Ok new priorities:
1. New clothes
2. Get rid of the miniatures, get some good art prints. Plains or rohan or something yo.
3. No more compendiums. Read the newspaper. And some of the magazines for gods sake. Like I said. The genres helped out most people. But it just doesn't work for anyone.
Listen: The genres cut across age groups and races. Everyone was categorized by genre. Bars and clubs were next. Whole districts in large cities appeared to support the exploding industry. The famous "shire" in new York, Diagon Alley in London, the fortress of solitude in Montreal… think Disneyland except more booze and spandex. The amazing thing was: it worked. The 5 years following the "genrefication" were some of the most prosperous years in anyone's lifetime. The film industry enjoyed a return to the golden age of cinema; the videogame industry tripled its revenues. Thanks to the Zelda, Mario and pokemon franchises; Nintendo rivaled Apple and Google in net profits annually. Yes sir. Things were looking up. I can't complain, and most can't either. People need a passion to invest time, emotion and money into and before the government stepped in, no one had any direction. It was paralysis through choice. Thanks to genrefication, things are better than they have ever been. Nobody objected when laws were passed to ensure the continuation of the genres. Laws making it illegal to switch genres, laws making it a crime to marry outside of your genre… who was there to complain? No one, everyone was already so absorbed in their obsessions that it was all just fine print. A brave new world indeed! Touché Mr. Huxley, Touché. We had a love affair with escapism and we were paying for it with our rights.
Of course buddy Clark still can't get laid.
Club Night: "are you sure about this?" he says, fidgeting in his social attire. Social being a replica "sting" in its sheath, a genuine hobbit cloak and some vintage adventure gear. Me? I'm going elf tonight. No lady can resist the elf. (On a side note: Orlando Bloom is the only human being permitted to jump between genres thanks to his film work. He was just too valuable, execs realized, to pigeonhole him into just one.) We are outside "Smaug's den" a great little place that is rising in popularity just off the main strip.
"listen man, its time to get out, time to explore the world!"
Inside its all flashing lights, smoke machines, loud music, a giant mechanical dragon that sometimes breathes fire, expensive alcohol and pricey decorations including a "gold horde" underneath the glass dance floor. Oh and costumes. Think Halloween costume party meets dungeons and dragons. Nobody parties like the Ringers (LOTR fans). Orcs, trolls, elves, shieldmaidens. Prior to genrefication this place was probably some legion of adolescents' sick twisted fantasy. To get Clark to actually be social; Alcohol is needed.
Watch: an hour later and what appears to be a hobbit is making his rounds through smaug's den like never before. "man you were right! This is was a great idea! I can't believe I've never gone before!" brother is like some sort of demented Halfling, flitting around the place faster than the speed of light; talking to anyone with a face, generally being annoying as hell. Chatting up some elves here, some dwarves there… pissing off the orcs. I'm fine by the way. Hey hows it goin. No I don't want any lembas, done with that shit. hey ladies. let me buy you a drink. Me? Oh I guess you could say legolas. You think I look just like the real legolas? Well you look like a real elf, hey how abou-
"Bro! meet Natalia! I juzt met herr!" Natalia being this am-maze-ing dark haired elf that Clark must have conned into going to the bar with. "let me buy you a drrink Natalia!" As suspected: it looks like the last place she wants to be is anywhere within 100 miles of Clark. "actually… it was really nice meeting you but, I have to be going. My uh, friends are calling me." And that would have been it. She would have left and Clark would have gone home alone that night. And I would have talked to him next week and he would have started up on his miniatures again. And he would continue to pine over his awkward social skills. And I would have had to listen to that shit for the rest of my life... And he would still be working at that damn video game company... And I would still have my job… And things would have at least been somewhat predictable. Instead by some cosmic trick, by some insane twist of fate or destiny or curse or design or chance everything went to shit. For real: Star Trek showed up.
Just because social planning kicked into warp-five doesn't mean it solved the issue of gang violence or organized crime. It just means everyone had cooler costumes to kick each others' faces in. The same establishments that people get into brawls over back then, are the same today. So in pours what appears to be the entire crew of the enterprise. and begin tearing the hell out of the place. Yes they are wearing those form-fitting red/blue/tan shirts. "fantasy's over you frodos!" (Frodo being a derogatory term: www.urbandictionary.com) "shit! Shit! What do we do!?" Clark is panicking, he has no experience with this. No one here does. People dash to the exits, tan shirts grabbing elves by their cloaks, swinging them to the floor. Feet connecting with head. The music mercifully cuts and all that is left in the air is the smell of smoke machines and screams. An Orc getting bottled at the bar, two dwarves smashing a chair into what appears to be Captain Pickard. Some ringers are making a stand but it is foolish: the trekkers came for a fight and they are organized. We hit the deck.
Chairs flying, people sobbing, screaming. Near the mechanical dragon: two klingons taking turns pummeling gandalf into oblivion. "back exit!, back exit!" we make a dash along the bar towards the emergency exit, jumping over tables and flying past trolls and vulcans alike. Almost made it, almost made it. In another time and place it might have looked really funny to see the crew of the enterprise and middle-earth engaged in a battle royale. Listen: its not funny right now. "not so fast lego-fucking-las!" enter stage right; Captain Kirk on a b-line for me. I see it too late. Fist. Stars. Ringing. I'm on the floor, fumbling. My ears have exploded. I swear he hit me so hard my mother's eyes bled. He's on top of me. Again, eyes ricocheting against the back of my skull, blood fertilizing the floor. White light everywhere. My head rolls back, inverted I see: Clark in disbelief. Natalia still sobbing on the floor. Do something Clark. Do something. This isn't his game; he's a video game designer for God's sakes. In the end, after an eternity; He does something. He could have grabbed a chair. A bottle, a pool cue, but no; Clark grabs the only thing within reach. sting. His trusty costume sword. It's not a real sword. But jesus; its solid steel.
Watch: Clark swinging sting baseball style with all his might, Captain Kirk looking up to see cold death about to make sweet, sweet love with his facial regions.
Listen: to the sound of two eggs being cracked simultaneously into a jar down-mixed with audio of a meat tenderizer connecting with a lean piece of beef
Feel: what happens when a safe is dropped onto a hardwood floored house with a lot of fine china in the general vicinity.
And I'm up. One arm over Clarks shoulder, the other over Natalia's (she's still with us!?). the exit. cold air rushing to kiss my face. We are in the alley. "come on guys, I parked near the exit in case this happened!" …Hold up, you expected this?
"well it was a new thing for me so I wanted to have a quick exit in case I needed it!" you are a piece of work, you know that? In the car. Laying in the back seat. Red maple syrup tapped from the tree that is my face is staining the seats. "get us out of here!" We pull away just as the genre enforcement police roll in. whatever beatdown was going on inside smaug's den at this point; is about to get much, much worse.
Consciousness rolls in and out. Street lights pass across my closed eyes like a sun-powered strobe light. The ride is silent. Sometimes it occurs that, even if the radio had God's own playlist on that night, it still wouldn't be enough. Natalia and Clark are talking, good for him. Am I going to live? Yes thanks. Quit bugging me. "is this what you had in mind for me experiencing things more!?" hah, jigga please. Out again. My house. Clark helps me to my front door.
"how do I look man?"
"like shit, you'll be fine though."
"what about the girl?"
"we talked when you were unconscious and ruining my seats, I'll drive her home tomorrow"
"alright see you… wait what?"
The bastard just gives me that look: previously only used for when he has a new collectors figurine before anyone else.
Listen: to the rubber-covered clips of his shoes as he walks back to the car
Watch: Natalia looking at him through the ghosted window like he just killed Magneto AND blew up the death star.
Listen: to the hollow echo of exhaust down the dead streets
Watch: once, just once one of those crazy adolescent fantasies about fighting evil and saving someone actually happen. Kinda.
