Yesterday’s blurb dealt with Vanilla Sky, a movie directed by Cameron Crowe. Today, as I’m getting ready to take The Roommate home for the holidays (technically, I suppose we’re taking each other home) I’m thrown back many years. I’m out of practice introducing significant others to the family. So. There is the nervous talking thing. Which is taken directly from Lili Taylor’s speech about John Cusack’s character, Lloyd Dobler in another Cameron Crowe movie, Say Anything. In the months following the release of Say Anything, I was compared about 90% of the time to Lloyd Dobler:
- Drove 70s model GM car. Lloyd’s was a Malibu, mine a 1972 Buick LeSabre.
- Tape player in said car functioned best with matchbook wedged underneath cassette.
- Volume on tape player was usually set at maximum level.
- Same music in tape player.
- Green overcoat, influenced by mod subculture and ska/two-tone late-80s/early-90s revival.
- hair.
- Same height, fashion (easy there, bub) and gestural makeup.
- The Nervous Talking Thing. When put in certain situations, natural endorphins flood the brain area and cause a certain amount of verbosity. It can be off-putting to parental types and familial types. It can also cause undue stress in significant others when talking about family members, particularly one’s mother, largely due to the first season of The Sopranos, where Tony Soprano’s mom is completely out of control.
Chanting various mantras to self now. Will be calm. Will say no more about family. Swear. To. God.
