Conversational Threads

One evening at around 7.30 Fernando is doing all the things he generally does around that time, like updating the late list and cleaning. One of his regular customers comes in and rents a couple of movies. As she retrieves her money to pay, Fernando makes a comment about her money-holding-clam-female-wallet-thing. “Is...is that the Cheshire Cat from American McGee's Alice on there?”

“What?” she says. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, I got this for Valentine's Day.”

“Oh? Hot Topic?”

“Spencer's, actually. They actually have a lot of stuff like this.”

“Oh, yeah, sure. There's all kinds of stuff like that, or the...shit...I want to say Seth MacFarlane figurines but I know that's not right.”

“Todd McFarlane. Seth MacFarlane is kind of a little different.”

“Well, Todd has much better artistry in his projects. But it's all corporate moneymilking anyhow. It's like how Invader Zim stuff is plastered everywhere so Nickelodeon can get their royalties but the actual cartoon? Psh. Canceled after a year and a half because most of the viewers were college-aged people and Nick didn't like that fact.”

“You know about Invader Zim?”

“Know it? I own the DVDs and have been a fan ever since I accidentally stumbled across, by pure chance while channel flipping in the dorm room at college to procrastinate studying for some exam, the one time they aired the Christmas episode back in 2002.”

And from there Fernando and this customer discussed many topics under the sun and the moon. Roughly in order: Invader Zim, how Invader Zim will never be uncanceled, the uncancellation of Family Guy and how most of the newer episodes are crap, Adult Swim and its role in the uncancellation, how Adult Swim started sucking right around 2006 because every show became random-access stoner humor and all the good shows like Moral Orel or Korgoth of Barbaria were either ended or never allowed to blossom in the first place, how most TV shows that are genuinely good are canceled by networks that apparently hate viewers, Firefly, Fringe, Lost and how the series finale was “narrative blue balls,” American media consumption being driven by passivity on the part of the viewers instead of provoking an engagement in the narrative, Snakes on a Plane, movies that are so bad they embrace their badness and become awesome, how most modern horror movies go for shock value above ambiance, how Rosemary's Baby is probably the creepiest movie that either of us had ever seen, how the Nightmare on Elm Street series is not horror but actually very very very very very black comedy, Little Miss Sunshine, Stranger Than Fiction, how the aforementioned movie is in Fernando's opinion Will Ferrell's best, The Other Guys and how it breaks the Will Ferrell curse of bad movies, how weird it is that Fernando has been in a conversation for over an hour, how Fernando maintains a strict divide between his personal and his business life, agreement that Fernando keeping his “dorkiness” hidden from most customers is probably a good idea, how this customer has a “gorgeous” female acquaintance who exclusively dates geeks, Fernando wryly predicting that this acquaintance is by necessity not single and then being proven correct in that assumption, online dating, the confirmation biases inherent in people who utilize online dating, the silliness of people who proclaim “true love” after having dated for about six months, accidentally making babies, teenage pregnancy, people refusing to obtain some reliable means of birth control despite having just accidentally made a baby and then ending up with a litter of four or five of them, common sense, Fernando reminiscing about how he thought he was “hot shit” at milestones in his past but later learning he was just as ignorant as ever, kids these days and their iObjects, fourteen-year-olds who look and dress like they're in their twenties, Gumby, how most animation nowadays contains some sort of parental bonus or is geared to older viewers anyhow, Invader Zim.

By the time the circle had been closed, it was quarter after 9. Fernando usually closes at 8 on Wednesdays.

Fernando supposes time does fly when one is having fun. And Fernando watched The Other Guys that night once he got home and it was actually not bad at all.