One of my early psychic bedrocks is the film "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure". As a completely obscure open-mic comic put it (I forgot his obscure name): "Pee-Wee was our JFK."
The premise of the film is this: Pee-Wee's beloved bike is stolen and he goes on a cross-country adventure to recover it. Along the way he meets hobos, thieves, cowboys, biker gangs, and ghostly truckers (who could ever forget the Large Marge scene? "Ten years ago... On a night just like tonight... It was the worst accident I'd ever seen..." The face she made gave me nightmares for weeks! "Tell 'em Large Marge sent ya!" To see the clip go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RryZV8NK9-Q) before stealing his bike back from a Hollywood film lot and saving animals from a pet store fire.
The quaint Americana of "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure" through Tim Burton's commercial-weirdo lens was the Americana I have always loved. Think South of the Border in Dillon, South Carolina: vending machines, animatronic gorillas, and concrete statues of giraffes and sausage dogs. Some would call it "tacky" - I call it Paradise on Earth: restaurants, fireworks stores, and motel rooms with heart-shaped vibrating beds and dirty movies. Why not call a place like S.O.B. (South of the Border) what it is: class. Who is to say that sophisticated New Yorkers are the only people with taste? The America of "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure" is the America that I love. I don't even know if South of the Border even exists anymore. Last time I went there it was sadly diminished. I guess S.O.B. is getting old - just like the rest of us.
As I reached puberty and my hormones kicked in another film imprinted itself on my soul: "Encino Man". "Encino Man" was one of the greatest films in the history of cinema. I'm not being ironic. If happiness is the ultimate aim of human life, then it holds true that "Encino Man" surpasses "Citizen Kane". What good cheer in "Encino Man"! The film's setting, Encino, California, was familiar to me: sterile McMansions, the televisions turned to Heavy Metal videos, the pools in the backyard, the hyperreal theme parks (ours was Great Adventure) and the suburban High School social structures. "Encino Man" captured my world. If only I had dug up a frozen caveman!
Pauly Shore and Sean Astin's characters were like my best friend Eric and I, respectively. Eric was most definitely "The Weasel", the laid-back Pauly Shore-esque (but huskier) dinner mooch and I was Sean Astin's David, the unpopular lovesick teen with a crush on the prettiest girl in school. In the end, not only does the "Encino Man" (Brendan Fraser's caveman character) find his long-lost cave girl, but Dave ends up with the prettiest girl in school. This never happens in real life, but who wants real life?
Reality struck when I first saw Metallica's "One" video. Metallica's song "One" was based on the film "Johnny Got His Gun", which was based on the novel of the same title. Metallica did a video for the song, one of the eeriest rolls of film I have ever seen in my entire media-saturated life. To this day I cannot watch that video.
For those of you who don't know, "Johnny Got His Gun" is the story of a WWI soldier, Joe Bonham. Joe Bonham steps on a landmine on the last day of WWI (what luck, huh?) and loses his arms, legs, and face. He is also deprived of the ability to see, hear, or speak. He is kept alive in this condition in an Army hospital.
What a contrast from "Encino Man"!
The video contains a lot of visual and audio from the grainy film. The inner whimpers and monologues of this stump of a man superimposed over Heavy Metal guitars makes for an eerie viewing experience indeed. Check it out for yourself on YouTube. Just type in "Metallica, "One" video".
But, still, there is something pubescent about this video too. It was something I wanted to share with the pretty girls in the class (my potential love interests) so we could both be made aware of our common human bond. Human beings sometimes end up as stumps!
Pornography links all three "bedrocks" together: "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure", "Encino Man", and Metallica's "One" video.
Pornography was the only constant. Pornography linked the three (one of many of my Holy Trinities) together in the following way: Paul Reubens, the man who played Pee-Wee, was arrested for lewd conduct (jerking off) in a porno theater; "Encino Man" was released on stolen Pay-Per-View (we also had the stolen Spice channel) around the time I had my first orgasm; and the "One" video reminded me that we are all human, even the beautiful naked porn star (her uncle could have been a stump person.)
So there you have it: three pieces of early psychic bedrock tied together with a rope of pornography.
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