Less Than Zero

Less Than Zero
By Peter John Gardner

I spent the more interesting half of my teenage years in a town called Vero Beach. Vero is a quiet little town on the east coast of Florida that mainly attracts retired folks. One doesn't move there looking for opportunity. It's a place that you go to when you want to settle down somewhere quiet. Due to the rampant elderly population in the town, city officials never really gave much thought to the younger people living there. If you're a teenager in Vero Beach, there was nothing to do but go to the mall, wreak havoc at Wal-Mart at night, and find places to skateboard that are just hidden enough so that you don't have to worry about a cop telling you to go skate somewhere else when there isn't anywhere else to skate. So what happens when you have a decent size youth demographic in a small town with nothing to do? Many (not all) turn to drugs. When you have nowhere to go on Friday night, having some friends over and getting high is a viable option.

Less Than Zero has sort of the same setting, but instead of a bunch of bored poor kids getting high, it's a bunch of bored rich kids getting high. This movie is sort of like a post-high school brat pack movie. These kids aren't dealing with petty high school problems anymore, they're all getting fucked up and having promiscuous sex with each other. The plot involves Clay, Andrew McCarthy, coming home from college during a winter break to find that his ex-girlfriend, Jami Gertz, and his best friend, RDJ with another bad haircut, both have nasty drug habits. Contrary to the book, Clay is portrayed here as a boy scout type that aims to rescue his friends.

What bothers me about drug use is not the user, but the way some non-users treat drug users. Friends shouldn't abandon each other simply because one doesn't know what to do with him/herself other than self destruct. I see drug use as a cry for help. Most drug users don't want to be users, but they self medicate because that's the only way they know how to deal with their pain. People think that drug users are doing it to themselves and that it is their own fault that they've fucked up their lives. That is true, but I think it is a friend's duty to try to help the user out of whatever is bothering them so much that they feel the need to escape reality and slowly self destruct. It's a tough thing to do, especially if the friend in need is addicted to something heavy like heroin, and it takes multiple tries to pull them out of their own abyss. Drug addiction is a choice, yes, but it's also a symptom of a deeper issue, and abandoning a friend that has gone down the road of self destruction is just pushing the problem away, just like how the user is trying to push their problems away.

The Pick Up Artist

The Pick Up Artist
By Peter John Gardner

You can probably guess the plot of this movie just by the title. Yes, Robert Downey Jr. plays a womanizer, and since this is the 80s, the plot is typical rom-com formula. Downey plays a guy named Jack Jericho, a name better suited for a superhero's pseudonym, who specializes in cheesy pick up lines that are so bad that the only way a woman would fall for them is if a movie script required them to. Of course, he eventually meets a woman he can't have, played here by Molly Ringwald, because she is the daughter of a mob boss...and who better to play a mob boss than Harvey Keitel! I wouldn't mess around with a girl if I knew that her father was Harvey Keitel.

Skip to the end, they face some complications but eventually end up together. Save your four dollars for a gallon of gas.

Downey's character in this film was hard for me to identify with, or even like for that matter. He plays the type of guy that gets all the women based solely on his looks. He could say anything to them, and it wouldn't matter because they'd fall for him anyway. Jack Jericho is the movie version of, "Why is she dating THAT douchebag?". That is a phrase that I say more than I'd like to.

The flip side of the coin isn't fun. I am in no way, shape, or form a good pick up artist. I have no game, and any girl that has taken any remote interest in me can attest to that. My relationships and sexual encounters with women are usually something that I passively fall into instead of aggressively pursue. I have to be beaten on the head with a club before I notice that I'm being noticed by the opposite sex.

There's a reason for that. Like I said, my game sucks. I always feel like I'm being creepy if I start making flirty remarks. There's always that lingering feeling in the back of my head of, "What if it's unwanted? Everything would be awkward from now on".

I prefer to be the pursuee rather than the pursuer because it lets me know that I'm wanted. I'm a very passive person, so it makes sense for me to be attracted more to aggressive women, a girl that's not afraid to go after the shy, quiet guy. Besides, I'm a horrible liar, and a woman would know that I'm full of shit when I make a fake compliment. "Gertrude? That's one of the most beautiful names I've ever heard!".

Still, it's a well known fact that girls like to be pursued too, and it's a fine line between being polite, coming on to her, and straight up sleaziness. One has to find that balance that says, "It's cool if we're friends, but I really, really like you". Sadly, this movie doesn't provide the answers. Instead, it told me that lines like, "Did anyone ever tell you that you have the face of a Botticelli and the body of a Degas?" are ok, and that Harvey Keitel can say the word "Hell" while his mouth is clearly saying "fuck". Clearly, he's a ventriloquist. Just one more reason to be afraid of that guy.