Still In the Garage

Reading...

The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible As Literally As Possible by A.J. Jacobs

My review

The Bible is weird.


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I was listening to Weezer today, and the song "In the Garage" came up on my sad, pathetic ipod (but I bet Rivers would appreciate it.) I always thought this song was kind of funny, mostly because it mentions "Kitty Pryde... and Nightcrawler, too." Obviously, two of the X-men. I never gave much thought to what the song meant. I just thought it was kind of neat that I recognized most of the references (a 12-sided die, etc.) The song says that the narrator feels safe in his garage with all of his stuff, because no one cares about his ways, which to me, implies his nerdly ways. He was probably made fun of for liking KISS and playing Dungeons and Dragons, but he could always retret to his sanctuary and be himself and not be concerned with the cares of the world. So, he was a geek.

Thing is, Weezer's Blue Album had a release date of May 10, 1994. I'm sure we all remember the "Buddy Holly" video (directed by Spike Jonze) taking MTV by storm, winning prizes for Breakthrough Video and Best Alternative Video. It was hilarious and ground-breaking, with all the "Happy Days" footage spliced in, making it seem like the band was there performing and Fonzie was dancing to them. And a couple months later, Forrest Gump would be released and win Best Picture for the same thing. Personally, I was amazed. At the Weezer video, I mean. Forrest sucked.

Fast-forward a decade (or less). Those teenagers that Weezer was singing about hiding in their garage to jam are all grown up. And thanks to the interweb being everywhere, they don't have to hide anymore. It turns out there were millions of them, and now they can all get togetehr and hang in chatrooms instead of garages. But that's not all, they can show themselves in public, and be who they are. The irony is this was partly inspired by "Buddy Holly," and the very same teens that Weezer was singing about in "In the Garage" came out of the garage because they were so jazzed by Buddy Holly video.

The point is, suddenly geek-chic is the thing, and I'm not sure how it happened, but these things don't have to be hidden in the garage anymore. In fact, it's almost cooler that they aren't. And I'm not sure how I feel about it all. I mean, I was as big a geek as anyone (probably still am), but even I knew that some things are better left unsaid. And do you know why I don't want to have children? because I'm still in the garage, where I belong, only it's my apartment now. I'm still just a big kid who doesn't want to be bothered by the rest of the world. I just want to sit here and do my thing and be left alone.

And it's Weezer's fault.