One for Every Home

Dorkus Erectus
Before I ever saw Wes Anderson's masterpiece Rushmore, I bought the soundtrack because the trailer had one of my alltime favorite Who songs ("A Quick One While He's Away") blaring over scenes of Max Fischer doing what he does best. I bought the soundtrack, saw the movie a while later, and realized (probably for the first time) that being a dork wasn't such a bad thing.

I didn't get any Max Fischer groupies banging down my door, but that was to be expected.

My point is, I'm a dork. Nerd. Spaz. Dweeb. You name it, I've heard it. My sexuality has been impugned (ironically by jocks who grapple one another around the testicles and call it "sports), my masculinity derided, my eyesight tested by lens that render me instantly uncool. There was a time when I worried so much about this that I chose to hide the fact that I wore glasses, occasionally slipping them on during class so I could read the far-away chalkboard (why I had to sit a football field's length away is beyond grown-up me, but fourteen-year-old me didn't question the logic) and then slipping them off into my bookbag so that when my peers turned around to leave class, I was spectacle-less (blind as a bat, but no four-eyes to weigh me down).

It took me years to embrace my dorkiness, and just when I start to think maybe I've outgrown said dorkiness, I do or say something in the vicinity of someone not dorky and reveal myself for what I am. It's like that part of any sci-fi "hidden identity" movie (my favorite: The Thing) where the kindly old man is revealed to be a demonic beast. Or, in my case, a hopeless spazz. Such is life, apparently; humiliation is my forte.

But I think it's safe to say that, with repeated viewings of Monty Python-related material and the support and love of fellow nerds and geeks out there (mostly on the internet...c'mon, it's not just about porn, people), I've become more accepting of my status. Doesn't mean I have to like it, nay, it doesn't even mean that I can't try to change it, if for the betterment of mankind. But at least I'm not a Jersey Shore cast member. Those people are ridiculous; if anyone remembers the Real World: San Francisco cast, it's like a houseful of Pucks are on TV now.

It's a bit like the climactic scene from Revenge of the Nerds, where a hirsute Anthony Edwards implores his fellow nerds and "anyone who's ever felt picked on" to come down from the stands and stand all against Ted McGinley and his asshole "beautiful people" friends. Come unto me, fellow rejects and spazzes, and let us not be ashamed that we know the "Star Wars Holiday Special" was the first appearance of Boba Fett or that the Korean War only lasted approximately three to four years while MASH lasted eleven seasons. Someday, the beautiful people will wish that they'd listened to us...or maybe not.

Only time can tell. Right, Stephen Hawking?