Seeing myself in cinema

My alter ego - found in film!



I've always loved "High Fidelity", and found myself identifying strongly with John Cusack's lead character:



Using his on-screen narration as a form of therapy and musical pop culture references as philosophy, Rob sulks around his cave-like pad full of second-hand furniture and concert posters, re-cataloging his endless LP collection and waxing huffy about his breakup to the audience. Then he has an epiphany: He'll track down those Top Five breakup girls and try to figure out what he keeps doing wrong...



But now, in the past few days, two of my best friends have independently come to the conclusion that I am NOT John Cusack. Rather, I am Jack Black:



Barry : How about the Jesus and Mary Chain?

Barry's Customer : They always seemed...

Barry : They always seemed what? They always seemed really great is what they always seemed. They picked up where your precious Echo left off, and you're sitting around complaining about no more Echo albums. I can't believe you don't own this fucking record. (tosses the record to the customer and walks away) That's insane. Jesus.



I will now go work on my Top Five Movie Characters list...



Barry's Customer : Hi, do you have the song "I Just Called To Say I Love You?" It's for my daughter's birthday.

Barry : Yea we have it.

Barry's Customer : Well, can I have it?

Barry : No, actually, you can't.

Barry's Customer : Why not?

Barry : God. Do you even know your daughter? There's no way she likes that song. Oops, is she in a coma?



There's a record store in Iowa City that reminds me a lot of Championship Vinyl (the store in the movie, if you haven't seen it - and if you haven't stop reading this and go rent it now). I sold a lot of the old vinyl there back when I lived in the one room apartment last spring. Sometimes I'm in there, think about buying something, and ask myself, "is this COOL ENOUGH to buy here, or should I slink into Best Buy instead?" Last thing I got there was the Sugar b-sides album and a couple Nirvana singles, hope that qualifies.



Special thoughts to an old friend today.